Note 94 — PART II. CONTAINING Remarks on some Particulars in a Speech at opening the Budget in April 1776.

“There is something (says a great writer) so unnatural in supposing a large society, sufficient for all the good purposes of an independent political union, remaining subject to the direction and government of a distant body of men who know not sufficiently the circumstances and exigencies of this society; or in supposing this society obliged to be governed solely for the benefit of a distant country; that it is not easy to imagine there can be any foundation for it in justice or equity. The insisting on old claims and tacit conventions, to extend civil power over distant nations, and form grand unwieldy empires, without regard to the obvious maxims of humanity, has been one great source of human misery.” System of Moral Philosophy, by Dr. Hutcheson, vol. ii. p. 309. In the section from whence this quotation is taken, Dr. Hutcheson discusses the question, “When colonies have a right to be released from the dominion of the parent state?” And his general sentiment seems to be, that they acquire such a right, “Whenever they are so increased in numbers and strength, as to be sufficient by themselves for all the good ends of a political union.”—Such a decision given by a wise man, long before we had any disputes with the colonies, deserves, I think, particular notice.