It will show you
that it is not to be considered as one of those minima which are out of the eye
and consideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean
dependent, who may be neglected with little damage and provoked with little
danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the
handling such an object; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle
with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the human race. You could
at no time do so without guilt; and be assured you will not be able to do it
long with impunity.
But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a
very important consideration, will lose much of its weight if not combined with
other circumstances. The commerce of your Colonies is out of all proportion
beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has been
trod some days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished person at your
bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years--it is so long since he first
appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain--has come
again before you to plead the same cause, without any other effect of time, than
that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition which even then marked
him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a
consummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a long
course of enlightened and discriminating experience.
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