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CHATHAM
 

a judge, nor would this gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has not learned himself. That I may return in some degree the favor which he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter to express himself on the subject of order, but whenever he feels inclined to speak on such occasions to remember how he has now succeeded and condemn in silence what his censures will never reform.

II

ON THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA[1]

(1766)

It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken in this House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to be carried in my bed—so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences—I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on

  1. ↑ Delivered in the House of Commons, January 14, 1766, and reported by Sir Robert Dean and Lord Charlemond. Here slightly abridged. Pitt, partially recovered from his illness, had then just returned from Bath. Altho in sympathy with the Rockingham ministry, he had refused to become a member of it. In August of this year he was made a peer.

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