HKB
and still less of those gentlemen's hearts. It was at this very time that the salary was given to the governor, and an order soliciting for that to the judges.
Then we are entertained with a great deal of ingenious talk about whigs and tories, and at last are told that some of the whigs owed all their importance to popularity. And what then? Did not as many of the tories owe their importance to popularity?--And did not many more owe all their importance to unpopularity? If it had not been for their taking an active part on the side of the ministry, would not some of the most conspicuous and eminent of them have been unimportant enough? Indeed, through the two last administrations to despise and hate the people, and to be despised and hated by them were the principal recommendations to the favours of government, and all the qualification that was required.
The tories, says he, were for closing the controversy. That is, they were for contending no more, and it was equally true that they never were for contending at all, but lying at mercy. It was the very end they had aimed at from the beginning. They had now got the governor's salary out of the revenue--a number of pensions and places, and they knew they could at any time get the judges' salaries from the same fountain, and they wanted to get the people reconciled and familiarised to this, before they went upon any new projects.
The whigs were averse to restoring government, they even refused to revive a temporary riot act, which expired about this time. Government had as much vigour then as ever, excepting only in those cases which affected this dispute. The riot act expired in 1770, immediately after the massacre in King Street. It was not revived and never will be in this Colony, nor will any one ever be made in any other, while a standing army is illegally posted here, to butcher the people, whenever a governor, or a magistrate, who may be a tool, shall order it. "Perhaps the whigs thought that mobs were a necessary ingredient in their system of opposition." Whether they did or no, it is certain that mobs have been thought a necessary ingredient by the tories in their system of administration, mobs of the worst sort with red coats, fuzees and bayonets, and the lives and limbs of the whigs have been in greater danger from these, than ever the tories were from others.
"The scheme of the whigs flattered the people with the idea of independence; the tories' plan supposed a degree of subordination." This is artful enough, as usual not to say jesuitical. The word independence is one of those, which this writer uses, as he does treason and rebellion, to impose upon the undistinguishing on both sides of the Atlantic. But let us take him to pieces. What does he mean by independence? Does he mean independent of the crown of Great Britain, and an independent republic in America, or a confederation of independent republics? No doubt he intended the undistinguishing should understand him so. If he did; nothing can be more wicked, or a greater slander on the whigs; because he knows there is not a man in the province, among the whigs, nor ever was, who harbours a wish of that sort. Does he mean that the people were flattered with the idea of total independence on parliament? If he does, this is equally malicious and injurious; because he knows that the equity and necessity of parliament's regulating trade has always been acknowledged, our determination to consent and submit to such regulations constantly expressed, and all the acts of trade in fact, to this very day, much more submitted to and strictly executed in this province, than any other in America.