These are--to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the
causes; to prosecute it as criminal; or to comply with it as necessary. I would
not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three.
Another has indeed been started,--that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so
slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while
upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the forwardness of
peevish children who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to
take nothing.
The first of these plans--to change the spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the
causes--I think is the most like a systematic proceeding. It is radical in its
principle; but it is attended with great difficulties, some of them little
short, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examining into the
plans which have been proposed.
As the growing population in the Colonies is evidently one cause of their
resistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men of weight, and
received not without applause, that in order to check this evil it would be
proper for the Crown to make no further grants of land.
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