The History of England: From the Accession to the Decease of King George the Third, Volume 1

Front Cover
author, and published, 1840
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 205 - Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation, the three estates of the realm are alike concerned ; but the concurrence of the Peers and the Crown to a tax, is only necessary to close with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the Commons alone.
Page 212 - Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example.
Page 209 - They have spoken their sentiments with freedom, against this unhappy act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House, imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited.
Page 203 - I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast, that I was the first minister who looked for it, and found it, in the mountains of the North.
Page 206 - It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated. The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of a man. It does not deserve a serious refutation.
Page 206 - The Commons of America represented in their several assemblies, have ever been in possession of the exercise of this, their constitutional right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it...
Page 209 - I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the cause of liberty: if I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham.
Page 48 - I am sorry for it, since otherwise he would have certainly compelled us to leave him [Has ruled us, may not I say, with a rod of iron !] But if he be resolved to assume the office of exclusively advising his Majesty and directing the operations of the War, to what purpose are we called to this Council ? When he talks of being responsible to the People, he talks the language of the House of Commons; forgets that, at this Board, he is only responsible to the King.
Page 392 - ... that the subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium of any one man, or body of men (less than the whole legislature), but by certain laws, to which he has virtually given his consent, which are open to him to examine, and not beyond his ability to understand.
Page 205 - Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty — what? Our own property? No! We give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms.

Bibliographic information