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HE right hon. gentleman, to whom has been attributed the framing of all the regulations and laws relating to the British colonies, which we treated of in our fifth and fixth chapters,though not aware it seems of any injury, with which they could be attended to the mother country, in point of honour, fafety, or fubfiftence, contrived, however, that all further proceedings upon the resolution of laft feffion, for adding a ftamp duty to them, fhould be poftponed to the prefent, in order that the colonies might have time to offer a compenfation for the revenue fuch a tax might produce. Accordingly, when the agents of thefe colonies waited upon him to thank him for this mark of his confideration, he told them, that he was ready to receive proposals from the colonies for any other tax, that might be equivalent in its produce to the ftamp tax, hinting withal, that their principals would now bave it in their power, by agreeing to this tax, to establish a precedent for their being confulted (by the miniftry, we fuppofe) before any tax was imposed on them by parJiament.

Many perfons at this fide of the
VOL, VIII.

water, and perhaps the agents themfelves, looked upon this as a generous and humane proceeding. But the colonies feemed to confider it as an affront rather than a compliment.. No doubt, they viewed the minifter in the light rather of a fervant than a protector. At leaft, not one of them authorised its agent to confent to a stamp duty, or to offer any compenfation for it, and fome of them went fo far as to fend over petitions, to be prefented to the king, lords, and commons, pofitively and directly queftioning the authority and jurifdiction of parliament over their properties. Two of the agents, indeed, anfwered for the colonies they ferved bearing their propor tion of the stamp duty by methods of their own; but, when queftioned, confeffed that they had no authority to undertake for any particular fum.

tification of feeing her laws publicly defpifed, and even her right to make them flatly contradicted, by thofe, whom the world had hitherto confidered as her moft dutiful fubjects.

It must be owned however, to the honour of parliament, that, however fmoothly the vote concerning the propriety of laying a ftamp duty on the colonies might have paffed the lower houfe in the preceding feffion, the final laying it on in the present was attended with no fmall debates, both as to the British legislature's right to tax the colonies without their concurrence, and the expediency of exercifing that right, if any, for the prefent purpofe; though the petitions queftioning the jurifdiction of parliament were not fuffered to be read in the house, and the agents for the colonies refufed to concur in another petition, which might have eftablished a precedent for their being heard in behalf of their respective colonies against the tax. Poffibly, thefe gentlemen imagined that-the petitioning for a fufpenfion of the vote, as a favour, might be deemed an acknowledgment, that their principals had no right to oppofe the execution of it when pailed into a law; or a furrender of that right, allowing they ever had any.

It was urged in favour of the colonies, that thofe who firft planted them were not only driven out of the mother country by perfecution, but had left it at their own risk and expence; that being thus forfaken, or rather worfe treated, by her, all ties, except thofe common to mankind, were diffolved between them: they abfolved from all duty of obedience to her,

as the difpenfed herself from all duty of protection to them; that, if they accepted of any royal charters on the occafion, it was done through mere neceffity; and that, as this neceffity was not of their own making, thefe charters could not be binding upon them; that even allowing thefe charters to be binding, they were only bound thereby to that allegiance, which the fupreme head of the realm might claim indifcriminately from all its fubjects,

That it was extremely abfurd, that they should be ftill thought to owe any fubmiffion to the legiflative power of Great Britain, which had not authority enough to fhield them against the violences of the executive; and more abfurd ftill that the people of Great Britain should pretend to exercise over them rights, which that very people affirm they might justly oppofe, if claimed over themselves by others.

That it cannot be imagined, that, when the fame people of Great Britain contended with the crown, it could be with a view of gaining thefe rights, which the crown might have ufurped over others, and not merely recovering thofe, which the fame crown arbitrarily claimed over themselves; that, therefore, allowing their original charters to be binding, as they had been deprived of them in an arbitrary and tyrannical manner, fuch as the people of Great Britain would not now by any means fuffer, they should be confidered as ftill entitled to the full benefit of them; that their being bound by these charters to make no laws, but fuch as, allowing for the difference of circumstances,

brought as a precedent against them, than against the English themselves their tameness under the dictates of an Henry, or the rod of a star-chamber; the tyranny of many being as grievous to human nature as that of a few, and the tyranny of a few as grievous as that of a fingle perfon.

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That, if liberty was the due of those who had fenfe enough to know the value of it, and courage enough to expofe themselves to every danger and fatigue to acquire it, they were better entitled to it than even their brethren of Great Britain, fince, befides facing, in the wilds of America, much more dreadful enemies, than the friends of liberty they left behind them could expect to meet in the fields of Great Britain, they had renounced not only their native foil, the love of which is fo congenial with the human mind, and all thofe tender charities infeparable from it, but expofed them felves to all the risks and hardships unavoidable in a long voyage; and, after efcaping the danger of being fwallowed up by the waves, to the till more cruel danger of perifh`ing afhore by a flow famine.

That, if in the first years of their existence one of them was guilty of fome intemperate fallies, and all exposed to enemies which required the interpofition and affiftance of an English parliament, they were now mot of them arrived at fuch a degree of maturity in point of policy and ftrength, as in a great measure took away the neceflity of fuch interpofition and affittance for the future. At least, that interpofition and affiftance would not be the less effectual for the colonies

being reprefented in the British parliament, which was all the indulgence thofe colonies contended for.

That, allowing the British parliament's right to make laws for the colonies, and even tax them without their concurrence, there lay many objections against all the duties lately impofed on the colonies, and more ftill and weightier against that of the ftamps now propofed to be laid upon them; that whereas thofe ftamp-duties were laid gradually on the people of Great Britain, they were to be faddled all at once, with all their increased weight, on thofe of the colonies; that, if those duties were thought fo grievous in England, on account of the great variety of occafions in which they were payable, and the great number of heavy penalties to which the beft meaning perfons were liable for not paying them, or not ftri&ly conforming to all the numerous penal claufes in them, they muft be to the laft degree oppreffive in the colonies, where the people in general could not be fuppofed fo converfant in matters of this kind, and numbers did not underftand even the language of thefe intricate laws, fo much out of the courfe of what common fenfe alone might fuggeft to them as their duty, and common honefty engage them to practife, the almoft only rule of action, and motive to it, compatible with that encouragement, which it is proper to give every new fettler in every country, especially foreigners, in fuch a country as America.

Such were the principal arguments now urged in Great Britain, most of them within doors, againft

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the juftice of laying any tax at all, and the inconveniency of laying the ftamp-tax in particular, upon the British colonies in America. And they must be owned, to carry great weight with them. Atleaft, little or nothing worth notice, except what we have added to every argument, and the abfurdity of their pretending to be exempt from the taxation of parliament, because authorized by charter to tax themselves, fince at that rate, all the corporations of Great Britain might claim the fame exemption, was faid, as far as we have been able to learn, to invalidate them; unless we are to admit claims for titles, affertions for proofs, fictions in law for fubftantial arguments, the ftatutes of England for the dictates of nature, and the private opinions of the gentlemen of Weft mintter hall for the general fenfe of mankind; and even allow conveniency to be the only measure of right and wrong; a doctrine, which the inhabitants of Great Britain fhould of all people be the laft to to adopt, fince of all people they are those who would fuffer moft by its being enforced against themselves. Nay, conveniency itself feemed to dictate other meafures, as muft appear but too obvious from what we have already faid ourfelves upon the fubject; and which the enemies to this measure did not fail to urge against it.

When we say, that we have not heard of any thing material being brought to invalidate the argu menis alledged against the British parliament's right to tax the Britifh colonies without their concurrence, we are very far from meaning, that nothing was or could be brought to invalidate thefe argu

ments. We are ftill further from admitting the claim of the British colonies to be reprefented in the British parliament, at least as fully as the people of Great Britain are. Common fenfe, nay felf-prefervation, feem to forbid, that those who allow themselves an unlimited right over the liberties and lives of others, fhould have any fhare in making laws for those who have long renounced fuch unjuft and cruel diftinctions. It is impoffible that fuch men should have the proper feelings for fuch a tafk. But then we could with, that fince it was refolved to make the colonies contribute to their defence by taxes impofed on them without their concurrence, instead of abiding by the good old methods heretofore purfued for that purpose, these difqualifications in them to be fully reprefented in a British parliament had been affigned as the reafon for the mother country's taxing them unreprefented. Then her doing fo, instead of carrying an appearance of arbitrariness, confidering her own claims to liberty, would manifeft her best title to that invaluable bleffing, and even of abfolute empire over her colonies. For, though a ftri&t regard to private independence may not be fuch a title to political dominion, as to juftify an attempt to acquire that dominion by force, it muficertainly be allowed a fufficient reason for the holding of it when of long standing, and never controverted. like ours over our colonies, coeval with their existence, and never before difputed by them.

But though nothing of this kind was, we believe, faid to forward the bill, it made its was through both houfes, with the fame difagreeable [D] 3

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