Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government; [Footnote:  7] nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly separated from the execution.  But when I saw that anger and violence prevailed every day more and more, and that things were hastening towards an incurable alienation of our Colonies, I confess my caution gave way.  I felt this as one of those few moments in which decorum yields to a higher duty.  Public calamity is a mighty leveller; and there are occasions when any, even the slightest, chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even by the most inconsiderable person.

To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding.  Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm.  I derived, at length, some confidence from what in other circumstances usually produces timidity.  I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance.  For, judging of what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason to recommend it.  On the other hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure that, if my proposition were futile or dangerous—­if it were weakly conceived, or improperly timed—­there was nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you.  You will see it just as it is; and you will treat it just as it deserves.

The proposition is peace.  Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the Empire, not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government.  It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts.  It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific.  I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the Colonies in the Mother Country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people; and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to British government.