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

[352] tea must be retained as a mark of the Supremacy of

Chap. XLIV.} 1770. March

Parliament and the efficient declaration of its right to govern the Colonies.¹

I saw nothing unjust, uncommercial or unreasonable in the Stamp Act; nothing but what Great Britain might fairly demand of her Colonies; America took flame and united against it. If there had been a permanence of Ministers, if there had been a union of Englishmen in the cause of England, that Act would at this moment have been subsisting.

I was much inclined to yield to the wishes of many, who desire that the duty upon tea should be repealed. But tea is not a manufacture of Great Britain. Of all commodities it is the properest for taxation. The duty is an external tax such as the Americans had admitted the right of Parliament to impose. It is one of the best of all the port duties. When the revenue is well established, it will go a great way towards giving additional support to our Government and judicatures in America. If we are to run after America in search of reconciliation, I do not know a single Act of Parliament, that will remain. Are we to make concessions to these people, because they have the hardihood to set us at defiance? No authority was ever confirmed by the concession of any point of honor or of right. Shall I give up my right? No, not in the first step. I will strengthen my waterguard: I will do any thing before I will buy off contraband trade. New-York has kept strictly to its agreements; but the infractions of them by the people of Boston, show that they will soon come to nothing. The necessities of the Colonies and their want of union