If, when
you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan
what you had taken in imposition, what can you expect from North America? For
certainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India;
or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the East India Company.
America has none of these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable objects on
which you lay your duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a
foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these objects which you tax
at home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. But with regard to
her own internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in
moderation. I say in moderation, for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust
herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the
enemies [Footnote: 71] that we are most likely to have, must be considerable in
her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you essentially.
For that service--for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire--my
trust is in her interest in the British Constitution.
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