They
complain that they are taxed without their consent, you answer, that you will
fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the very
grievance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will leave the mode to
themselves. I really beg pardon--it gives me pain to mention it--but you must be
sensible that you will not perform this part of the compact. For, suppose the
Colonies were to lay the duties, which furnished their contingent, upon the
importation of your manufactures, you know you would never suffer such a tax to
be laid. You know, too, that you would not suffer many other modes of taxation,
so that, when you come to explain yourself, it will be found that you will
neither leave to themselves the quantum nor the mode, nor indeed anything. The
whole is delusion from one end to the other.
Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be universally accepted,
will plunge you into great and inextricable difficulties. In what year of our
Lord are the proportions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of the
impossibility that Colony agents should have general powers of taxing the
Colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore you, that the communication by
special messages and orders between these agents and their constituents, on each
variation of the case, when the parties come to contend together and to dispute
on their relative proportions, will be a matter of delay, perplexity, and
confusion that never can have an end.
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