Note 51 — Chapter IV

Those of my readers who are curious to study the laws whereby we hoped to bring the “rebellious colonies to order,”—vain hope!—or who may desire to know how the parent treated its own offspring when the children felt themselves strong enough to do for themselves, may read, as I have done, though perhaps not to much advantage, 14 Geo. III., cap. 19; 15 Geo. III., cap. 18; and 16 Geo. III., cap. 5: all passed in rapid succession under the melancholy delusion that they would have the effect of a Pope’s Bull!—and that, too, on an enlightened but oppressed people, who had resolved to govern themselves! My readers may then turn to 23 Geo. III., cap. 26, and 23 Geo. III., cap. 39, where an attempt was made to mend matters by some sort of regulation of trade between the two countries, whereby Great Britain resolved to have the lion’s share; and then to 25 Geo. III., cap. 1; 27 Geo. III., cap. 7; and 28 Geo. III., cap. 6, where certain modifications were made, or rather could be made by “Order in Council,” and where “thirty enumerated articles” the “growth, produce, or manufactures of the States,” might be “carried into the British West Indies from the United States,” but then “only by British subjects in British ships”! If my readers are disposed to go further—though I cannot recommend the research—into this wretched system of legislation, they may refer to 31 Geo. III. cap. 38, where the Governors of the West India Islands were allowed to relax certain prohibitions “in case of public emergency;” and to 51 Geo. III., cap. 47, sect. 6, and 58 Geo. III., cap. 27, where we seem to have gained a little more wisdom by extending certain “privileges”!—rights (?)—to an independent and industrious people.