unprosperous, nor will I owe my coming thither to any Court cabal or ministerial connection. The King's pleasure and gracious commands alone shall be a call to me; I am deaf to every other thing. I will not say more, for I feel I should say too much. The sum of things is that I am fitter for a lonely hill in Somersetshire than for the affairs of State. I will at present add no more to your troubles than to say that I think I perceive your Lordship's sense of this very ministerial discourse without your directly expressing it. A thousand warm thanks for your kind attention to my gout: my foot is more uneasy to-day, but no other part attacked. I am, with truest esteem and respect, your Lordship's
Most faithful servant,
William Pitt.
In order to understand not merely the events just related but those which followed, it is necessary to bear in mind the substantial difference of opinion on the question of American taxation which existed among the members of the Whig party, a difference which soon shewed itself on other questions as well, and together with various extraneous circumstances rendered common action more and more difficult between them.
To decide on the relative merits of the arguments advanced on either side is difficult. The description of the general power of Parliament, including that of taxation, as given by Burke himself in subsequent years, sounds so harmless, and yet might be so dangerous if reduced to practice, that few will wonder at the opposition it excited; for it implied that in a war possibly forced on the unwilling colonies by the policy of the mother-country, the former might be deprived of that very right of refusing supplies, which is the only real means possessed by Parliament itself in the mother-country for regulating the policy of the State.[1]
- ↑ Speech on American taxation, 1774. It must, however, be remembered that the contention of the advocates of American taxation by the British Parliament was that the war of 1755 had been undertaken for the benefit of the colonies, and that it was legitimate to ask them to contribute to the expenses.
