George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[521] itself might have listened, for it contained a

Chap. LII.} 1774. April.

sanction of all established power. It might at once have been received by the New Tory party, the conservative party of England. They must soon make it their own, and one day must accept its author as their champion against revolution and reform. But at the moment his heart gained a partial victory over his theories.

During the long debate the young and fiery Lord Carmarthen had repeated what so many had said before him. ‘The Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent? If they are not free in their present state, England is not free; because Manchester, and other considerable places, are not represented.’—‘So then,’ retorted Burke, ‘because some towns in England are not represented, America is to have no Representative at all. They are “our children;” but when children ask bread, we are not to give a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things and the various mutations of time hinders our Government, or any scheme of Government, from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore that the Colonies are to recede from it infinitely? When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, are we to give them our weakness for their strength? our opprobrium for their glory? and the slough of slavery which we are not able to work of, to serve them for their freedom?’ The words fell from him as burning oracles. It appeared as if he was lifted upward to gaze into futurity, and while he spoke for the rights of America, he seemed to prepare the way for renovating the Constitution of England. Yet it was not so. Though more than half a century had