question, supposing America in the situation of a wife: they are these, where he says-- “‘Be to her faults a little blind, Be to her virtues very kind, And clap the padlock on her mind.’ “I don’t know how it is,” continued he, “when I had something to do in advising, there were always three hundred gentlemen ready to be of my opinion--I don’t know how it came about--perhaps it was their modesty--I wish they would not be quite so modest. Indeed there was one person who is now gone to the House of Lords, and sits there by an old barony,[222] who was honest enough to disagree with me, and called it _my_ German war: I have loved him ever since for being so honest to speak his mind; I see his employment is taken from him; had I been employed, he is one of the first persons I should have endeavoured to keep in, for no other reason but because he had differed with me. When I was in power, I do not doubt but I had friends who would have advised me to burn my fingers, and would have recommended such a tax as this. Look at past Ministers, and see what they thought of it. Lord Halifax,[223] educated in this House, Lord Oxford,[224] Lord Orford,[225] a great revenue minister, never thought of THIS. If you had the right, it would be a fatal policy; for will not that people, if they share your taxes, claim the right of manufactures, of free trade, of every other privilege of the mother-country? An honourable gentleman talked of a barleycorn; I say this tax is but a barleycorn--fifty thousand pounds are but a barleycorn. Will you have your Treasury look big at the expense of two millions? My ideas and knowledge of America have been chiefly learnt from gentlemen of the army. There is not the captain of a company of foot that is not fit to be a Governor of North America. How can you depend upon Spain after the treatment she has shown to that brave and gallant officer,[226] who has suffered for his lenity towards them at the Manillas, and now feels their perfidy? It were to be wished that the heart of every grandee in Spain beat as high as his! In the situation things are, nobody can trade in North America but a lawyer. I hate distinctions; I do not consider the soil or the cradle where a man is nursed; I look for sense and wisdom, if he has it. I have done all in my power to show I hate distinctions. Before this war it was a measure not to trust the sword in the hands of the northern part of his Majesty’s subjects; but the late war convinced everybody what just praise they deserved for their conduct.” Here he was called to order by Mr. Grenville, who said, “This is not the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time that the honourable gentleman has mistaken or misrepresented. I have also been misrepresented upon other subjects, particularly with regard to the Spanish trade. I call upon gentlemen now in power to prove I gave any orders to prevent that trade, or any other, but at the request of the merchants themselves.” Here Mr.