This is mild; that harsh. This is found by
experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This is
universal; the other calculated for certain Colonies only. This is immediate in
its conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine
is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people--gratuitous, unconditional, and
not held out as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing
it to you. I have indeed tired you by a long discourse; but this is the
misfortune of those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must
win every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me with goodness. May
you decide with wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind greatly disburthened by what
I have done to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying your patience,
because on this subject I mean to spare it altogether in future. I have this
comfort, that in every stage of the American affairs I have steadily opposed the
measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of
this Empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own.
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