I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my misfortune to continue a
difference with the majority of this House; but as the reasons for that
difference are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a
very few words. I shall compress them into as small a body as I possibly can,
having already debated that matter at large when the question was before the
Committee.
First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom [Footnote: 66] by
auction; because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, unheard of; supported
by no experience; justified by no analogy; without example of our ancestors, or
root in the Constitution. It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation, nor
Colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili [Footnote: 67] is a good rule, which
will ever make me adverse to any trial of experiments on what is certainly the
most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this Empire.
Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the end to our
Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for taxing the Colonies in the ante-
chamber of the noble lord and his successors? To settle the quotas and
proportions in this House is clearly impossible.
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