sinking the debt did not prove quite so ample as both the colonies and he expected. The calculation was too sanguine: the reduction was not completed till some years after, and at different times in different colonies. However, the taxes after the war continued too great to bear any addition, with prudence or propriety; and when the burdens imposed in consequence of former requisitions were discharged, our tone became too high to resort again to requisition. No colony, since that time, ever has had any requisition whatsoever made to it. We see the sense of the crown, and the sense of Parliament, on the productive nature of a _revenue by grant_. Now search the same journals for the produce of the _revenue by imposition_. Where is it?--let us know the volume and the page. What is the gross, what is the net produce? To what service is it applied? How have you appropriated its surplus?--What! can none of the many skilful index-makers that we are now employing find any trace of it?--Well, let them and that rest together.--But are the journals, which say nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent?--Oh, no! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burden and blot of every page. I think, then, I am, from those journals, justified in the sixth and last resolution, which is,--"That it hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies." This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion is irresistible. You cannot say that you were driven by any necessity to an exercise of the utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert that you took on yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, from the want of another legal body that is competent to the purpose of supplying the exigencies of the state without wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither is it true, that the body so qualified, and having that competence, had neglected the duty. The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is,--Whether you will choose to abide by a profitable experience or a mischievous theory? whether you choose to build on imagination or fact? whether you prefer enjoyment or hope? satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent?