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feel it my duty to espouse. I cannot but be heard with candor and con.
side ration by Englishmen, when what I offer is dictated by a hive for my
country.
I am far from approving all the proceedings in America. Many of their measures have been a discredit to their cause. Their rights might have been asserted without violence, and their claims stated with temper as well as firmness. But permit me to say, sir, that if they have erred, it must be considered asthe failing of human nature. A people animated with the loveof liberty, and alarmed with the apprehension of its being in danger, will unavoidably runinto excesses. The history of mankind declares it in every page, and Briton: ought to view with an eye of tenderness, acts of imprudence to which their fellow-citizens in America may have been hurried; not, as has been unkindly said, by a mere rebellious spirit, but by that generous spirit of freedom which has often led their own ancestors into indiscretions. But, sir, you may be assured that acts of severity will be fhr from having a tendency to eradicate jealousy and discontent; on the contrary, they must producelnew fears and new com. plaints, and endanger that attachment and obedience which kindness and gentleness might have insured.
No country has ever been more happy in her colonies than Great Britain 5 cemented by mutual interests, (until the era of the fatal Stamp Act) they flourished in an intercourse of amity, protection and obedience, supporting and supported by each other. Before that hated period, you met with no instances of disobedience to your laws—no denial of' the jurisdiction of Parliament-no mark of jealousy-no murmurs of discontent. But our Colonists ever loved liberty. Their zeal for it is coeval with their first emigration to America. They were persecuted for it in this country, and they sought a sanctuary in the unexplored regions of the west. They cleared their inhospitable wilds, cultivated their lands, and poured the wealth which they derived from agriculture and commere into the bosom of their mother country.
You protected them in their infant state, and they returned the ohh. gation by confining to you the beneéta of their trade. You regulated their commerce for the advantage of this country, and they never evinced the slightest opposition either to the authority or the exercise of this power. Were these evidences of a spirit of disatiection toward Great Britain, or ingratitude for her protection? ' Wore they not, on the contrary, proofs that if the same course ot' mild and lenient government had been pursued, the same cordiality, attachment and submission would have been continued.
"Every American who loves his country must wish the prosperity of Great Britain, must desire that their union may ever subsist in lminter. rupted harmony. If the parental trunk be injured, the branches must suti
