British Parliament views its peculiar privilege of raifing money, inde-
pendent of the crown. The Parent State appeared to the Colonists to
ftand in the fame relation to their local legislatures, as the monarch of
Great Britain to the British Parliament. His prerogative is limited by
that palladium of the people's liberty, the exclufive privilege of granting
their own money. While this right refts in the hands of the people
their liberties are fecured. In the fame manner reafoned the Colonists,
"in order to be ftiled freemen, our local affemblies, elected by ourselves,
muft enjoy the exclufive privilege of impofing taxes upon us." They
contended, that men fettled in foreign parts to better their condition,
and not to fubmit their liberties-to continue the equals, not to become
the flaves of their lefs-adventurous fellow-citizens, and that by the novel
doctrine of parliamentary power, they were degraded from being the
fubjects of a king, to the low condition of being fubjects of fubjects.
They argued, that it was effentially involved in the idea of property,
that the poffeffor had fuch a right therein, that it was a contradiction
to fuppofe any other man, or body of men, poffeffed a right to take it
from him without his confent. Precedents, in the Hiftory of England,
juftified this mode of reafoning. The love of property ftrengthened it,
and it had a peculiar force on the minds of Colonifts, three thoufand
miles removed from the feat of government, and growing up to matu-
rity, in a new world, where, from the extent of country, and the ftate
of society, even the neceffary restraints of civil government were im
patiently borne. On the other hand, the people of Great-Britain re-
volted against the claims of the Colonists. Educated in habits of fub-
miffion to parliamentary taxation, they conceived it to be the height of
contumacy for their Colonists to refuse obedience to the power, which
they had been taught to revere. Not adverting to the common interest
which exifted between the people of Great-Britain and their reprefen→
tatives, they believed, that the fame right existed, although the same
community of interefts was wanting. The pride of an opulent, con
quering nation, aided this mode of reafoning. "What," said they,
"shall we, who have so lately humbled France and Spain, be dictated
to by our Colonists? Shall our fubjects, educated by car care, and de-
fended by our arms, prefume to question the rights of Parliament, to
which we are obliged to submit?" Reflections of this kind, congenial
to the natural vanity of the human heart, operated fo extenfively, that
the people of Great Britain spoke of their Colonies and of their Colonists,
as a kind of poffeffion annexed to their perfons. The love of
power and
of
property on the one fide of the Atlantic were opposed by the fame
powerful paffions on the other.

The difpofition to tax the Colonies was also strengthened by exagge rated accounts of their wealth. It was faid, "that the American planters lived in affluence, and with inconfiderable taxes, while the inhabitants of Great Britain were borne down by fuch oppreffive burdens as to make a bare fubfiftence a matter of extreme difficulty." The officers who had ferved in America, during the late war, contributed to this delufion. Their obfervations were founded on what they had seen in cities, and at a time, when large fums were spent by government, in fupport of fleets and armies, and when American commodities were in great demand.

To treat with attention thofe who came to fight for them, and also to gratify their own pride, the Colonists had made a parade of their riches, by frequently and fumptuously entertaining the gentlemen of the British army. Thefe, judging from what they saw, without confidering the general state of the country, concurred in reprefenting the Colonists as very able to contribute largely towards defraying the common expences of the empire.

The charters, which were fuppofed to contain the principles on which the Colonies were founded, became the fubject of ferious inveftigation on both fides. One claufe was found to run through the whole of them, except that which had been granted to Mr. Penn; this was a declaration, "that the emigrants to America fhould enjoy the fame privileges, as if they had remained, or had been born within the realm;" but fuch was the fubtilty of difputants, that both parties conftrued this general principle fo as to favour their respective opinions. The American patriots contended, that as English freeholders could not be taxed but by reprefentatives, in chufing whom they had a vote, neither could the Colonists: but it was replied; that if the Colonists had remained in England, they must have been bound to pay the taxes impofed by Parliament. It was therefore inferred, that though taxed by that authority, they loft none of the rights of native Englishmen refiding at home. The partifans of the Mother Country could fee nothing in charters, but fecurity against taxes by royal authority. The Americans, adhering to the spirit more than to the letter, viewed their charters as a shield against all taxes, not impofed by reprefentatives of their own choice. This construction they contended to be exprefsly recognized by the charter of Maryland. In that, King Charles bound both himself and his fucceffors, not to affent to any bill, fubjecting the inhabitants to internal taxation by external legislation.

The nature and extent of the connection between Great Britain and America was a great conftitutional question, involving many interefts, and the general principles of civil liberty. To decide this, recourfe was

in

in vain had to parchment authorities, made at a diftant time, when neither the grantors nor grantees of American territory had in contemplation any thing like the prefent ftate of the two countries.

Great and flourishing Colonies, daily increafing in numbers, and already grown to the magnitude of a nation, planted at an immenfe distance, and governed by conftitutions refembling that of the country from which they fprung, were novelties in the hiftory of the world. To combine Colonies, fo circumftanced, in one uniform fyftem of government with the Parent State, required a great knowledge of mankind, and an extensive comprehenfion of things. It was an arduous business, far beyond the grasp of ordinary statesmen, whofe minds were narrowed by the formalities of laws, or the trammels of office. An original genius, unfettered with precedents, and exalted with juft ideas of the rights of human nature, and the obligations of univerfal benevolence, might have ftruck out a middle line, which would have fecured as much liberty to the Colonies, and as great a degree of fupremacy to the Parent State, as their common good required: But the helin of Great Britain was not in fuch hands. The fpirit of the British conftitution on the one hand revolted at the idea, that the British Parliament fhould exercise the fame unlimited authority over the unreprefented Colonies, which it exercifed over the inhabitants of Great Britain. The Colonifts on the other hand did not claim a total exemption from its authority They in general allowed the Mother Country a certain undefined prerogative over them, and acquiefced in the right of Parliament to make many acts, binding them in many fubjects of internal policy, and regulating their trade. Where parliamentary fupremacy ended, and at what point colonial independency began, was not afcertained. Happy would it have been had the queftion never been agitated, but much more fo, had it been compromised by an amicable compact, without the horrors of a civil war.

The English Colonies were originally established, not for the fake of revenue, but on the principles of a commercial monopoly. While England purfued trade and forgot revenue, her commerce increased at leaft fourfold. The Colonies took off the manufactures of Great Britain, and paid for them with provifions or raw materials. They united their arms in war, their commerce and their councils in peace, without nicely investigating the terms on which the connection of the two countries depended.

A perfect calm in the political world is not long to be expeed. The reciprocal happiness, both of Great Britain and of the Colonies, was too great to be of long duration, The calamities of the war of 1755 had

fcarcely ended, when the germ of another war was planted, which foon grew up and produced deadly fruit.

At that time (1764) fundry refolutions paffed the British Parliament relative to the impofition of a stamp duty in America, which gave a general alarm. By them the right, the equity, the policy, and even the neceffity of taxing the Colonies was formally avowed. Thefe refolutions being confidered as the preface of a system of American revenue, were deemed an introduction to evils of much greater magnitude. They opened a profpect of oppreffion, boundless in extent, and endless in duration. They were nevertheless not immediately followed by any legislative act. Time and an invitation were given to the Americans to fuggeft any other mode of taxation that might be equivalent in its produce to the stamp act: but they objected, not only to the mode, but the principle, and feveral of their affemblies, though in vain, petitioned against it. An American revenue was in England a very popular meafure. The cry in favour of it was fo ftrong, as to confound and filence the voice of petitions to the contrary. The equity of compelling the Americans to contribute to the common expences of the empire fatisfied many, who, without enquiring into the policy or justice of taxing their unreprefented fellow-fubjects, readily affented to the measures adopted by the Parliament for this purpofe. The profpect of eating their own bur. dens, at the expence of the Colonists, dazzled the eyes of gentlemen of landed interest, so as to keep out of their view the probable confequences of the innovation.

The omnipotence of Parliament was fo familiar a phrafe on both fides of the Atlantic, that few in America, and still fewer in Great Britain, were impreffed in the first inftance, with any idea of the illegality of taxing the Colonies.

The illumination on that fubject was gradual. The refolutions in favour of an American ftamp act, which paffed in March 1764, met with no oppofition. In the courfe of the year which intervened be tween these refolutions, and the paffing of a law grounded upon them, the subject was better understood, and conftitutional objections against the measure were urged by feveral both in Great Britain and America, This aftonished and chagrined the British miniftry; but as the principle of taxing America had been for fome time determined upon, they were unwilling to give it up. Impelled by a partiality for a long cherished idea, Mr. Grenville brought into the House of Commons his long expected bill, for laying a ftamp duty in America. March, 1765. By this, after paffing through the ufual forms, it was enacted, that the in ftruments of writing which are in daily use among a commercial people,

fhould

should be null and void, unless they were executed on ftamped paper or parchment, charged with a duty impofed by the British Parliament.

When the bill was brought in, Mr. Charles Townfend concluded a fpeech in its favour, with words to the following effect, "And now will thefe Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, till they are grown to a degree of ftrength and opulence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under ?" To which Colonel Barré replied, "They planted by your care? No, your oppreffions planted them in America. They fled from tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they expofed themfelves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and, among others, to the cruelty of a favage foe the moft fubtle, and I will take upon me to fay, the most formidable of any people upon the face of the earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure compared with thofe they fuffered in their own country, from the hands of those that should have been their friends-They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew up by your neglect of them. As foon as you began to care about them, that care was exercifed in fending perfons to rule them in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to fome members of this Houfe, fent to fpy out their liberties, to mifreprefent their actions, and to prey upon them.-Men whose behaviour on many occafions, has caufed the blood of thefe fons of liberty to recoil within them. Men promoted to the highest feats of justice, fome, who to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.-They protected by your arms; They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted a valour, amidst their conftant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whofe frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And believe me, remember I this day told you fo, that fame fpirit of freedom which actuated that people at firft will accompany them ftill: but prudence forbids me to explain myfelf farther. God knows, I do not at this time speak from any motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine fentiments of my heart. However fuperior to me in general knowledge and experience the refpectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having feen and been converfant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly

loyal