[209] promised by an increase of the revenue are all
fallacious and delusive. You will lose more than you gain. Britain already reaps the profit of all their trade, and of the increase of their substance. By cherishing their present turn of mind, you will serve your interest more than by your present schemes.
chap X.} 1764. July.
Abridged from Hutchinson's draft.
The remonstrance of Hutchinson reflected the opinion of all candid royalists in the colonies; but the pusillanimous man entreated his correspondent to conceal his confession from those whom it would displease. Yet to his friends in America, he used to say, that there was no ground for the distinction between the duties on trade and internal taxes; that if the Parliament intended to go on, there would be a necessity to dispute the distinction; ‘for,’ said he, ‘they may find duties on trade enough to drain us thoroughly.’1 And it is affirmed, that to members of the legislature of Massachusetts, from whom he had ends to gain, Hutchinson denied utterly the right of parliament to tax America.2
The appeals of the Colonies were made in the spirit of loyalty. The wilderness was still ringing with the war-whoop of the savage;3 and the frontiers were red with blood; while the colonies themselves, at the solicitations of Amherst and of Gage, his successor, were lavishing their treasure to secure the west to Great Britain. In July, the little army of eleven hundred men, composed chiefly of provincial battalions from New Jersey, New-York, and Connecticut, that of
