cumstances, should not clash with thofe of England, no more fubjected them to the parliament de of England, than their having been laid under the fame restraint with regard to the laws of Scotland or any other country, would have fubjected them to the parliament of Scotland, or the fupreme authority of any other country; that, by these charters, they had a right to tax themfelves for their own fupport and defence.

That it was their birth-right, even as the defcendents of Englishmen, not to be taxed by any but their own reprefentatives; that, fo far from being actually reprefented in the parliament of Great Britain, they were not even virtually reprefented there, as the meaneft inhabitants of Great Britain are, in confequence of their intimate connection with those who are actually represented; that, if laws made by the British parliament to bind all except its own members, or even all except fuch members and those actually reprefented by them, would be deemed, as moft certainly they would, to the higheft degree oppreffive and unconftitutional, and refifted accordingly, by the rest of the inhabitants, though virtually reprefented; how much more oppreffive and unconftitutional, muft not fuch laws appear to thofe, who could not be faid to be either actually or virtually reprefented?

That the people of Ireland were much more virtually reprefented in the parliament of Great Britain, than it was even pretended the people of the colonies could be, in confequence of the great number of Englishmen poffeffed of eftates and places of trust and profit in

Ireland, and their immediate defcendents fettled in that country, and of the great number of Irish noblemen and gentlemen in both houfes of the British parliament, and the greater number ftill conftantly refiding in Great Britain; and that, notwithstanding, the British parliament never claimed any right to tax the people of Ireland, in virtue of their being thus virtually reprefented amongst them.

That, whatever affiftance the people of Great Britain might have given to the people of the colonies, it muft have been given either from motives of humanity and fraternal affection, or with a view of being one day repaid for it, and not as the price of their liberty and independence; at least the colonies could never be prefumed to have accepted it in that light; that, if given from motives of humanity and fraternal affection, as the people of the colonies had never given the mother country any room to complain of their want of gratitude, fo they never should; if given with a view of being one day repaid for it, they were willing to come to a fair account, which, allowing for the affiftance they themselves had often given the mother country, for what they must have loft, and the mother country muft have got, by. preventing their felling to others at higher prices than they could fell to her, and their buying from others at lower prices than they could buy from her, would, they apprehended, not turn out to her advantage fo muc has the imagined.

That their having heretofore fubmitted to laws made by the British parliament, for their internal government, could no more be [1] 2 brought

brought as a precedent against them, than against the English themselves their tamenefs 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.

That, if liberty was the due of thofe 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 themfelves to all the rifks and hardlips unavoidable in a long voyage; and, after escaping the danger of being fwallowed up by the waves, to the ftill more cruel danger of perithing 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 expofed to enemies which required the interpofition and affiftance of an English parliament, they were now moft of them arrived at fuch a degree of maturity in point of policy and frength, as in a great meafure took away the neceffity of fuch interpofition and affiftance 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 imposed on the colo nies, and more fill 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 those of the colonies; that, if thofe 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 ftrictly conforming to all the numerous penal claufes in them, they must be to the laft degree oppreflive 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 these 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, efpecially foreigners, in fuch a country as America.

Such were the principal arguments now urged in Great Britain, moft of them within doors, against

the

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, = becaufe 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 minfter hall for the general fenfe of mankind; and even allow conveniency to be the only meafure 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 againft themselves. Nay, conveniency itfelf 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 ments alledged against the British parliament's right to tax the British colonies without their concurrence, we are very far from meaning, that nothing was or could be brought to invalidate thefe argu

ments. We are still further from admitting the claim of the British colonies to be reprefented in the Britifh parliament, at leaft as fully as the people of Great Britain are. Common fenfe, nay self-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 thofe who have long renounced fuch unjust and cruel diftinétions. It is impoffible that fuch men thould have the proper feelings for such a task. 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, inftead 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, inftead of carrying an appearance of arbitrariness, confidering her own claims to liberty, would manifeft her beft title to that invaluable bleffing, and even of abfolute empire over her colonies. For, though a strict regard to private independence may not be fuch a title to political dominion, as to justify an attempt to acquire that dominion by force, it must certainly be allowed a fufficient reafon for the holding of it when of long ftanding, 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

in

injunction for having the money arifing from it paid into the British exchequer; and, at last, his majefty being indifpofed, received the royal affent by commiffion on the 22d of March 1765.

Befides this bill's enacting, that the money arifing from the duties impofed by it, fhould be referved for defraying the charge of protecting the colonies, there paffed another to encourage the importation of all kinds of timber from them; which, confidering how plentiful that article is in moft parts of North America and the little time neceffary to cut down trees, to what is requifite to raise flax and hemp, might in fome places compenfate the operation of the ftamp-duty, at leaft much more readily than the douceurs allowed in the preceding feffion could counteract the effects of the import and export duties laid on at

the fame time. But it seems the colonies were by this time too much foured for the most powerful fweeteners to have any falutary effects upon them. Interefting however as the confequences have been, it would be unpardonable in us, after mentioning the king's illness, not to lay a fide the thoughts of them and every thing elfe, till we have confidered thofe of an event, which, independent of that gratitude to which his majesty's conftant attention to the happinefs of his people fo juftly entitles him, could not but fill their breafts with the greatest anxiety for their own welfare, confidering the infancy of his majefty's children, and the tempeft expected in North America, the weathering of which might require that dif patch and vigour incompatible with a divided or delegated command.

A

NXIOUS as the people might be for his majefty's health and life from principles of gratitude and intereft, he appears to have been equally fo for their fafety and welfare, from motives of princely duty and parental atfection, joined to that tender concern for his children and family, which, notwithstanding the rants of fome writers who would have

a king to be deftinte of all domeftic feelings, no fober man would feriously with to see a king want, fince it is by what a monarch feels in his own breast he can alone form any judgment of what his fubjects muft feel in theirs; and, therefore, did he wish them ever so well, might, without fuch feelings, often mistake the means of making them happy.

Till the reign of his late majefty, it had been usual with the kings of England to appoint, by their own mere motion and authority, regents to their dominions, and guardians to their heirs, in cafe of their fucceeding to the crown at an age too feeble to bear the weight of it. But trufts of this kind had been so often altered by parliament, or abufed by the truftees to the difadvantage of their pupils and the people, for want of a legal check upon them, that it now appeared high time to purfue fome middle course, in which whatever fhare of choice the king might part with fhould be made up to him by the ftability of what he retained; and the fubjects, at the fame time, indulged with fuch a participation of a truft fo highly concerning them, as might feem their due, in virtue of the late alterations made in the conftitution for their benefit.

This important end, it is plain, could only be obtained by an act of the legislature, in which the parliament thould confirm the king's nomination of a regent and guardian, or approve of a certain num. ber of perfons for his majefty to chufe fome one or other of them, whom he might think propereft to truft with fo momentous a charge. And, as his making known his nomination of any one fingle perfon, and ftill more that nomination being confirmed by parliament, might create expectations of the prefent king's death injurious to his life, the latter method was thought the most eligible; and it was, accordingly, that purfued on the death of the prince of Wales, father to his present Majesty.

It could not be expected, that

the late king fhould be more anxious for the fafety and welfare of his grandchildren, and of fubjects amongst whom he was not born, than the prefent, for that of his immediate iffue, and of a people whom he is pleafed to glory in calling his countrymen, and to whom he had given fo many proofs of his really confidering them as fuch.

The measures, therefore, fo wifely pursued in the late reign, could not fail of being adopted in this. Accordingly, as foon as his majefty's health P. 24th would permit him to ap- 1765. pear abroad, he repaired to parlia ment, and after mentioning his illness, and the thoughts, with which, though not attended with danger, it had affected him touching the welfare of his children and his people, propofed to their confideration, whether, under the prefent circumftances, it might not be expedient to veft in him the power of appointing, from time to time, by inftruments in writing under his fign manual, the queen or fome other perfon of his royal family ufually refiding in Great Britain, to be the guardian of any of his children, that might fucceed to the throne before the age of eighteen, and the regent of his kingdoms, until his fucceffor fhould attain that age, fubject to the restrictions and regulations specified in the act made on occafion of his father's death; the regent so appointed to be affifted by a council, compofed of the feveral perfons, who, by reafon of their dignities and offices, were confiituted members of the council eftablished by that act, together with those whom they might think proper to leave to his majesty's nomination.

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