"
I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because--independently of the
dangerous precedent of suspending the rights of the subject during the King's
pleasure--it was passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity and on more
partial principles than it ought. The corporation of Boston was not heard before
it was condemned. Other towns, full as guilty as she was, have not had their
ports blocked up. Even the Restraining Bill of the present session does not go
to the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of prudence which induced
you not to extend equal punishment to equal guilt, even when you were punishing,
induced me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied with the
punishment already partially inflicted.
Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances prevent you from taking
away the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you have taken away that
of Massachusetts Bay, though the Crown has far less power in the two former
provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and though the abuses have been full as
great, and as flagrant, in the exempted as in the punished.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135