true, that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, and with the
ordinary title and recital taken together, is found in the statute-book
until the year I have mentioned: that is, the year 1764. All before this
period stood on commercial regulation and restraint. The scheme of a
colony revenue by British authority appeared, therefore, to the
Americans in the light of a great innovation. The words of Governor
Bernard's ninth letter, written in November, 1765, state this idea very
strongly. "It must," says he, "have been supposed _such an innovation as
a Parliamentary taxation_ would cause a great _alarm_, and meet with
much _opposition_ in most parts of America; it was _quite new_ to the
people, and had no _visible bounds_ set to it." After stating the
weakness of government there, he says, "Was this a time to introduce _so
great a novelty_ as a Parliamentary inland taxation in America?"
Whatever the right might have been, this mode of using it was absolutely
new in policy and practice.

Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American revenue say, that
the commercial restraint is full as hard a law for America to live
under. I think so, too. I think it, if uncompensated, to be a condition
of as rigorous servitude as men can be subject to. But America bore it
from the fundamental Act of Navigation until 1764. Why? Because men do
bear the inevitable constitution of their original nature with all its
infirmities. The Act of Navigation attended the colonies from their
infancy, grow with their growth, and strengthened with their strength
They were confirmed in obedience to it even more by usage than by law.
They scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to such
restraint. Besides, they were indemnified for it by a pecuniary
compensation. Their monopolist happened to be one of the richest men in
the world. By his immense capital (primarily employed, not for their
benefit, but his own) they were enabled to proceed with their fisheries,