America the Act of Navigation neither is or never was obeyed. But if you
take the colonies through, I affirm that its authority never was
disputed,--that it was nowhere disputed for any length of time,--and, on
the whole, that it was well observed. Wherever the act pressed hard,
many individuals, indeed, evaded it. This is nothing. These scattered
individuals never denied the law, and never obeyed it. Just as it
happens, whenever the laws of trade, whenever the laws of revenue, press
hard upon the people in England: in that case all your shores are full
of contraband. Your right to give a monopoly to the East India Company,
your right to lay immense duties on French brandy, are not disputed in
England. You do not make this charge on any man. But you know that
there is not a creek from Pentland Frith to the Isle of Wight in which
they do not smuggle immense quantities of teas, East India goods, and
brandies. I take it for granted that the authority of Governor Bernard
in this point is indisputable. Speaking of these laws, as they regarded
that part of America now in so unhappy a condition, he says, "I believe
they are nowhere better supported than in this province: I do not
pretend that it is entirely free from a breach of these laws, but that
such a breach, if discovered, is justly punished." What more can you say
of the obedience to any laws in any country? An obedience to these laws
formed the acknowledgment, instituted by yourselves, for your
superiority, and was the payment you originally imposed for your
protection.

Whether you were right or wrong in establishing the colonies on the
principles of commercial monopoly, rather than on that of revenue, is at
this day a problem of mere speculation. You cannot have both by the same
authority. To join together the restraints of an universal internal and
external monopoly with an universal internal and external taxation is an
unnatural union,--perfect, uncompensated slavery. You have long since