Virginia; and excepting whatever hath been paid out of the said extraordinaries, specified in General Carleton's correspondence, for 100 crosses, and five grose of scalping knives, the said expenditure being disgraceful to religion and humanity.” He said, that his reason for doing so was, that he hoped an English House of Commons would never consent to pay this sum, which had been advanced to purchase hatchets, tomahawks, scalping-knives, razors, spurs, &c. for the savages of America to butcher, torture, scalp, and massacre old men, women, children, and infants at the breast.

The House divided on the amendment: Yeas 21: Noes 56. So it passed in the negative.

PRIVATE AIDS TO THE Crown.

April 2.

MR R. WILKES having this day moved, "That leave be given to bring in a bill more effectually to prevent the dangerous and unconstitutional practice of giving, or granting, money to the crown, as a private aid, loan, benevolence, or subscription, for public purposes, without the consent of parliament,"

Mr. BURKE took occasion to say, that British liberty would be but a mere shadow, if the king on the throne could legally or constitutionally raise troops without the consent of parliament. There were cases of emergency, when the safety of the state depended upon a timely and constitutional exercise of the prerogative; such as in the case of invasion, dearth, &c. but pending the sitting of parliament, he held any attempt to raise troops, without a consent direct or implied, no better than a royal usurpation of parliamentary rights. He said, a supineness, a

most cruel, oppressive, and unnatural restriction. Deprived of every incentive to industry, and shut out from every passage to wealth, she had inwardly lamented, but she had never complained of her condition. She had gone the most forward lengths in serving the interests, and in defending the rights of Great Britain. She had assisted in conquests, from which she was to gain no advantage, and emptied her treasury and desolated her land, to prove her attachment and loyalty to the government of this country. Such had been her conduct, and her reward had been restriction and bondage of the most cruel nature. He did not mean, he said, by describing her situation, to engage the humanity of the House in her favour. He knew very well they were but poor resources. The people of Ireland would not accept of favours flowing from the humanity of the House. They called for justice, not for pity. They requested Britain to be wise, not to be generous; to provide for her own good, and secure her own interest sensible that wisdom and prudence would dictate, that to accomplish these, a contrary conduct towards them was necessary.

3

The honourable gentlemen who opposed the bill had drawn into collection the arguments and reasons they maintained to exist against all the bills, meaning, no doubt, thereby to prejudice the House the more by their aggregate effect. Though he detested this inequitable mode of proceeding, he would not evade the combat even on that ground, nor wish to engage the House in favour of the bills, if he could not, in the fullest manner, answer every objection they had brought to every part. The honourable gentleman who had moved the amendment wished to reconcile the people of Ireland to delay, by pledging the honour of parliament, that something effectual should be done in their favour next session. He knew the temper of the Irish too well, to believe that they would sit down satisfied with such an assertion. They would conclude within themselves, depending on experience for their guide, that the promise of something to be done next session,

would alone produce the repetition of a promise, for the session following; and promise, repetition, and promise, from session to session, would be the only benefit they would receive. He did not conclude, that the denial of what even justice demanded of us in their favour, would produce disturbance and rebellion in that country; their loyalty and zeal was superior to complaint; they might despair, but they would not resist. Other places, experienced in rebellion, had resolved, it seemed, to enter or not to enter into it, according as these bills were determined; but Ireland regarded more the welfare of the empire at large than the interest of herself in particular. They were patient and loyal, and therefore, he supposed, they were crushed; for it was the policy of the present day to forego the excellent and noble maxim of the Romans, parcere subjectis et debellare superbos," for the infamous proverb of British growth, "Proud to the humble, and humble to the proud."

66

Mr. Burke then went into a particular detail of the arguments of the honourable gentleman relating to commercial advantage. The annual revenue of the two kingdoms, he said, had been exultingly, but most inequitably, drawn into comparison, to prove that Ireland paid no proportion of tax. It was not the number of inhabitants that constituted the specific difference in the article of taxation between two countries; but the distinction of internal opulence and external advantage. Compare the two countries by that line, and it will be found that Ireland is taxed in a quadruple proportion more than England. The internal wealth, and the external advantage of trade and commerce are forty times greater in England than in Ireland. There is, therefore, no ratio of proportion in the mode of taxing the latter. She is taxed without enjoying the means of payment. There are several excises which England is subject to, and which she is not. Suppose them laid: they must be laid for the sake of oppression, not production; and for the benefit of the officers, not of the revenue: Leather is taxed in England- but what would be the

produce of such a tax, where such innumerable multitudes of the people never wear shoes? You tax candles in England. But there are two hundred thousand houses in Ireland, in which probably a candle, such as you tax, was never lighted. The taxes must follow wealth, and not precede it. If any attempt against this rule is made, there will neither be wealth nor taxes. This, he said, was the order of nature; which must be followed. And as to the judgment of the proportion, it must be left to themselves, or they are not free; and surely the fault of the parliament of Ireland has never been illiberality in its grants. Restricted from trading, she enjoys no opportunity of acquiring wealth to defray and discharge the taxes imposed upon her. Enlarge her means of payment, and, in proportion to her ability, she will enlarge her taxes. An equality of commercial advantage could not be established between the two countries. The opulence of the one is a great obstacle to the other. The great disproportion of capital effectually destroys the possibility of an equality. And as the ability of proceeding will increase in the same proportion, in the progress of the one and of the other, the same proportion of advantage will still remain. The Irish will be able to follow the English at an equal distance in every stage, both in the outset and in the continuance; but they will never be able to accelerate their motion so as to overtake them.

He said, the supposed operation of the cheapness of labour with respect to manufactures was totally unfounded, and the arguments founded thereon nugatory; and that until the instant that the price of labour was equal in both countries, the superiority of manufacture would remain with the English. That the price of labour rises with the growth of manufacture, and is highest when the manufacture is best. And that the experience of every day tells us, that where the price of labour is highest, the manufacturer is able to sell his commodity at the lowest price. He observed, that the difference of duty on some of the enumerated imported articles, was so abundantly