It has grown with the growth of
the people in your Colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth; a
spirit that unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England which,
however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with
theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us.
I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess, or the moral causes
which produce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in
them would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired
more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might
wish the Colonists to be persuaded that their liberty is more secure when held
in trust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual minority, than
with any part of it in their own hands. The question is, not whether their
spirit deserves praise or blame, but--what, in the name of God, shall we do with
it? You have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, with
all its imperfections [Footnote: 29] on its head. You see the magnitude, the
importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders.
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