' This
was an animated speech from a man in his sixty-ninth year.
Had I been as attentive not to displease him as I ought to have been,
I know not but this vigil might have been fulfilled; but I unluckily
entered upon the controversy concerning the right of Great-Britain to
tax America, and attempted to argue in favour of our fellow-subjects on
the other side of the Atlantick. I insisted that America might be very
well governed, and made to yield sufficient revenue by the means of
INFLUENCE, as exemplified in Ireland, while the people might be pleased
with the imagination of their participating of the British constitution,
by having a body of representatives, without whose consent money could
not be exacted from them. Johnson could not bear my thus opposing his
avowed opinion, which he had exerted himself with an extreme degree of
heat to enforce; and the violent agitation into which he was thrown,
while answering, or rather reprimanding me, alarmed me so, that I
heartily repented of my having unthinkingly introduced the subject.
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