I observe two or three Scotch lords pro- ter be trusted. Have rather an interest in test. Many more voted against the repeal. suppressing smugglers. Nature of smugColonies settled before the union. Query; gling. It is picking of pockets. All oppres If the Parliament had a jurisdiction over the sions take their rise from some plea of utility; colonies by the first settlement, had they a often in appearance only. right to introduce new legislators? Could they sell or commute the right with other nations? Can they introduce the peers of Ireland and Commons, and the States of Holland, and make them legislators of the colonies? How could Scotland acquire a right to legislation over English colonies, but by consent of the colonies themselves?

I am a subject of the crown of Great Britain, have ever been a loyal one,-have partaken of its favours. I write here with freedom, relying on the magnanimity of Parliament. I say nothing to your lordships, that I have not been indulged to say to the Commons. Your lordships' names are to your Protest, therefore I think I ought to put mine to the answer.-Desire what I have said may not be imputed to the colonies. I am a private person, and do not write by their direction. I am over here to solicit, in behalf of my colony, a closer communication with the crown.

SECOND PROTEST.

TALK with Bollan on this head. Query; Courts of common law? Particular colonies drained, all drained, as it would all come home. Those, that would pay most of the tax, would have least of it spent at home. It must go to the conquered colonies. The view of maps deceives.

All breach of the constitution. Juries bet

The clamour of multitudes. It is good to attend to it. It is wiser to foresee and avoid it. It is wise, when neither foreseen nor avoided, to correct the measures that give occasion to it. Glad the majority have that wisdom.

Wish your lordships had attended to that other great article of the palladium; "Taxes shall not be laid but by common consent in Parliament." We Americans were not here to give our consent.

My duty to the king, and justice to my country, will, I hope, justify me, if I likewise protest, which I now do with all hu mility in behalf of myself and of every American, and of our posterity, against your Declaratory Bill, that the Parliament of Great Britain has not, never had, and of right never can have, without consent, given either before or after, power to make laws of suffi cient force to bind the subjects in America in any case whatever, and particularly in

taxation.

I can only judge of others by myself. I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling; and, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man, who can bait a hook, or pull a trigger.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

PASSAGES IN A PAMPHLET ENTITLED "GOOD HUMOUR, OR A WAY WITH THE COLONIES.-LONDON 1766."*

"THE reply of the Governor of Massachu-ward's turned out, their enemy and calumsetts to the assembly's answer is in the same niator in private letters to government here. consistent style; and affords still a stronger proof, as well as of his own ingenuity, honour, and integrity, as of the furious and enthusiastic spirit of the province."

They knew the governor to be, as it after

*The passages included within quotation marks are extracts from the pamphlet, and the sentence fol lowing each contains Dr. Franklin's observations.

"It had been more becoming the state of the colonies, always dear to Britain, and ever che rished and defended by it, to have remonstrated in terms of filial duty and obedience."

How ignorant is this writer of facts! How many of their remonstrances were rejected! They must give us leave in our turn to ex

66

There never was any occasion of legal exemption from what they never had been subject to.

cept against their demonstration of legal exemp-| terest, one of them may endeavour to impose tion." on the other, may cheat him in the accounts, may draw to himself more than his share of the profits, may put upon the other more than an equal share of the expense and burden. Their having a common interest is no security against such injustice. The landholders of Great Britain have a common interest, and yet they injure one another in the inequality of the land tax. The majority in Parliament, being favoured in the proportions, will never consent to do justice to the minority by a more equal assessment.

"But then it is to be further observed, that this same method of arguing is equally favourable to governors as governed, and to the mother

country as the colonies."

Here is the old mistake of all these writers. The people of the mother country are subjects, not governors. The king only is sovereign in both countries.

"The colonies will no longer think it equitable to insist upon immunities which the people of Great Britain do not enjoy."

Why not, if they have a right to them? "To claim a right of being taxed by their assemblies only, appears to have too much the air of independence; and though they are not represented here, would give them an immunity beyond the inhabitants of this island."

"But what reasonable ground of apprehension can there be, that the British Parliament should be ignorant of so plain a matter, as that the interests of Britain and the colonies are the same ?"

If the Parliament is so knowing and so just, how comes it to restrain Ireland in its manufactures, America in its trade? Why may not an Irishman or an American make the same manufactures, and carry them to the same ports as an Englishman? In many instances Britain shows a selfish regard to her own interest, in prejudice of the colonies. America therefore has no confidence in her equity.

"But I can conceive no earthly security better, none indeed so good, as that which depends upon the wisdom and integrity of a British king and Parliament."

It is a right, however; what signifies what air it has? The inhabitants being freeholders ought to have the same. If they have it not, they are injured. Then rectify what is amiss among yourselves; and do not make it a justification of more wrong. "Or could they hope to procure any advantages from one hundred representatives? Common sense answers all this in the negative." Why not, as well as Scotland from forty-hereditary, as those of the House of Lords; Suppose seats in your House of Commons five, or rather sixty-one? Common sense, or suppose the Commons to be nominated by on the contrary, says, that a body of one hun- the king, or chosen by the lords; could dred votes in Parliament will always be worth the attention of any ministry; and the you then rely upon them? If your members fear of offending them will make every min- were to be chosen by the people of Ireland, could you then rely upon them? Could you ister cautious of injuring the rights of their depend upon their wisdom and integrity, as country, lest they join with his opposers in a security, the best possible, for your rights? Parliament. And wherein is our case different, if the peo"Therefore the interest of Great Britain and ple of England choose legislators for the that of the colonies is the same." people of America?

All this argument of the interest of Britain and the colonies being the same is fallacious and unsatisfactory. Partners in trade have a common interest, which is the same, the flourishing of the partnership business; but they may, moreover, have each a separate interest, and, in pursuit of that separate in

"If they have a spark of virtue left, they will blush to be found in a posture of hostility against Great Britain."

There was no posture of hostility in America, but Britain put herself in a posture of hostility against America. Witness the landing of the troops in Boston, 1768.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

PASSAGES IN "A LETTER FROM A MERCHANT IN LONDON TO HIS NEPHEW IN NORTH AMERICA.-LONDON, 1766."

"THE honest indignation you express against those artifices and frauds, those robberies and insults, which lost us the hearts and affections of the Indians, is particularly to be commended; for these were the things, as you justly observed, which involved us in the most bloody and expensive war that ever was known."

This is wickedly intended by the author, Dean Tucker, to represent the North Americans as the cause of the war. Whereas, it was in fact begun by the French, who seized the goods and persons of the English traders on the Ohio, who encroached on the king's land in Nova Scotia, and took a fort from the Ohio Company by force of arms, which induced England to make reprisals at sea, and to send Braddock to recover the fort on the Ohio, whence came on the war.

ever an Englishman resides, that country is England. While an Englishman resides in England, he is undoubtedly subject to its laws. If he goes into a foreign country, he is subject to the laws and government he finds there. If he finds no government or laws there, he is subject there to none, till he and his companions, if he has any, make laws for themselves; and this was the case of the first settlers in America. Otherwise, and if they carried the English laws and power of Parliament with them, what advantage could the Puritans propose to themselves by going, since they would have been as subject to bishops, spiritual courts, tythes, and statutes relating to the church, in America, as in England? Can the dean, on his principles, tell how it happens that those laws, the game acts, the statutes for labourers, and an infinity of others, made before and since the emigration, are not in force in

By the spirit of Magna Charta all taxes laid on by Parliament are constitutional, legal taxes." There is no doubt but taxes laid by Parliament, where the Parliament has jurisdic-force in America, nor ever were? tion, are legal taxes; but does it follow, that taxes laid by the Parliament of England on Scotland before the union, on Guernsey, Jersey, Ireland, Hanover, or any other dominions of the crown, not within the realm, are therefore legal? These writers against the colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the colonies within the realm, which is not the case, nor ever was. This then is the spirit of the constitution, that taxes shall not be laid without the consent of those to be taxed. The colonies were not then in being, and therefore nothing relating to them could be literally expressed. As the Americans are now without the realm, and not of the jurisdiction of Parliament, the spirit of the British constitution dictates, that they should be taxed only by their own representatives, as the English are by theirs.

"Now, upon the first settling of an English colony, and before ever you Americans could have chosen any representatives, and therefore before any assembly of such representatives could have possibly met,-to whose laws and to what legislative power were you then subject! To the English, most undoubtedly; for you could have been subject to no other.”

"Now the first emigrants, who settled in America, were certainly English subjects, subject to the laws and jurisdiction of Parliament, and consequently to parliamentary taxes, before the emigration, and therefore subject afterwards, unless some legal constitutional exemption can be produced."

The author here appears quite ignorant of the fact. The colonies carried no law with them; they carried only a power of making lish law or any other law, as they should laws, or adopting such parts of the Eng think suitable to their circumstances. The first settlers of Connecticut, for instance, at their first meeting in that country, finding themselves out of all jurisdiction of other governments, resolved and enacted, that, till a code of laws should be prepared and agreed to, they would be governed by the law of Moses, as contained in the Old Testament.

If the first settlers had no right to expect a better constitution than the English, what fools were they for going over, to encounter all the hardships and perils of new settlements in a wilderness! For these were so This position supposes, that Englishmen many additions to what they suffered at can never be out of the jurisdiction of Parlia- home from tyrannical and oppressive instiment. It may as well be said, that wher-tutions in church and state; with a subtrac

tion of all their old enjoyments of the conveniences and comforts of an old settled country, friends, neighbours, relations, and homes.

"Suppose, therefore, that the crown had been so ill advised as to have granted a charter to any city or county here in England, pretending to exempt them from the power and jurisdiction of an British Parliament. Is it possible for you to believe an absurdity so gross and glaring?"

The American settlers needed no exemption from the power of Parliament; they were necessarily exempted, as soon as they landed out of its jurisdiction. Therefore, all this rhetorical paragraph is founded on a mistake of the author, and the absurdity he talks of is of his own making.

Suppositions and implications will not weigh in these important cases. No law or constitution forbade the king's doing what he did in granting those charters.

"Confuted, most undoubtedly, you are beyond the possibility of a reply, as far as the law and constitution of the realm are concerned in this question."

This is hallooing before you are out of the wood.

"Strange, that though the British Parliament has been, from the beginning, thus unreasonable, thus unjust and cruel towards you, by levying taxes on many commodities outwards and inwards”—

False! Never before the restoration. The

Parliament, it is acknowledged, have made many oppressive laws relating to America, “Good heavens! what a sudden alteration which have passed without opposition, partly is this! An American pleading for the exten- through the weakness of the colonies, partly sion of the prerogative of the crown! Yes, if through their inattention to the full extent it could make for his cause; and for extending of their rights, while employed in labour to it, too, beyond all the bounds of the law, of rea-procure the necessaries of life. But that is

son, and of common sense!"

What stuff! Why may not an American plead for the just prerogatives of the crown? And is it not a just prerogative of the crown to give the subjects leave to settle in a foreign country, if they think it necessary to ask such leave? Was the Parliament at all considered, or consulted, in making those first settlements? Or did any lawyer then think it necessary?

"Now this clause, which is nothing more than the renunciation of absolute prerogative, is quoted in our newspapers, as if it was a renunciation of the rights of Parliament to raise taxes."

a wicked guardian, and a shameless one, who first takes advantage of the weakness incident to minority, cheats and imposes on his pupil, and when the pupil comes of age, urges those very impositions as precedents to justify continuing them and adding others.

"But surely you will not dare to say, that we refuse your votes when you come hither to offer them, and choose to poll. You cannot have the face to assert that on an election-day any difference is put between the vote of a man born in America, and of one born here in England."

This is all banter and insult, when you It was not a renunciation of the rights of know the impossibility of a million of freeParliament. There was no need of such a holders coming over sea to vote here. If renunciation, for Parliament had not even their freeholds in America are within the pretended to such a right. But, since the realm, why have they not, in virtue of these royal faith was pledged by the king for freeholds, a right to vote in your elections, as himself and his successors, how can any suc-well as an English freeholder? Sometimes ceeding king, without violating that faith, ever give his assent to an act of Parliament for such taxation.

43

we are told, that our estates are by our charters all in the manor of East Greenwich, and therefore all in England; and yet have we any right to vote among the voters of East Greenwich? Can we trade to the same ports? In this very paragraph, you suppose that we cannot vote in England, if we come hither, till we have by purchase acquired a right; therefore neither we nor our estates are represented in England.

"The cause of your complaint is this; that you live at too great a distance from the mother country to be present at our English elections; and that, in consequence of this distance, the freedom of our towns, or the freeholds in our counties, as far as voting is concerned, are not It may be so; but pray worth attending to. consider, if you yourselves choose to make it inconvenient for you to come and vote, by re

tiring into distant countries,-what is that to jects are, therefore, not properly vested with us?" rights relating to government.

This is all beside the mark. The Ame"Yet we raise no commotions; we ricans are by their constitutions provided neither ring the alarm-bell, nor sound the trumwith a representation, and therefore neither pet, and submit to be taxed without being repreneed nor desire any in the British Parlia-sented; and taxed, let me tell you, for your ment. They have never asked any such sakes. All was granted when you cried for thing. They only say, Since we have a help.” right to grant our own money to the king, since we have assemblies where we are represented for such purposes, why will you meddle, out of your sphere, take the money that is ours, and give us yours, without our

consent?

'Yes, it is, and you demand it too with a loud voice, full of anger, of defiance, and denunciation."

An absolute falsehood! We never demanded in any manner, much less in the manner you mention, that the mother country should change her constitution.

"In the great metropolis, and in many other cities, landed property itself hath no representative in Parliament. Copy-holds and lease-holds of various kinds have none likewise, though of ever so great a value."

Copy-holds and lease-holds are supposed to be represented in the original landlord of whom they are held. Thus all the land in England is in fact represented, notwithstanding what he here says.

As to those who have no landed property in a county, the allowing them to vote for legislators is an impropriety. They are transient inhabitants, and not so connected with the welfare of the state, which they may quit when they please, as to qualify them properly for such privilege.

"And, besides all this, it is well known that the East India Company, which have such vast settlements, and which dispose of the fate of kings and kingdoms abroad, have not so much as a single member, or even a single vote, quatenus a company, to watch over their interests at home. And may not their property, perhaps a little short of one hundred millions sterling, as much deserve to be represented in Parliament, as the scattered townships or straggling houses of some of your provinces in America ??

This is wickedly false. While the colonies were weak and poor, not a penny or a single soldier was ever spared by Britain for their defence. But as soon as the trade with them became an object, and a fear arose that the French would seize that trade and deprive her of it, she sent troops to America unasked. And she now brings this account of the expense against us, which should be rather carried to her own merchants and manufacturers. We joined our troops and treasure with hers to help her in this war. Of this no notice is taken. To refuse to pay a just debt is knavish; not to return an obligation is ingratitude; but to demand payment of a debt where none has been contracted, to forge a bond or an obligation in order to demand what was never due, is villany. Every year both king and Parliament, during the war, acknowledged that we had done more than our part, and made us some return, which is equivalent to a receipt in full, and entirely sets aside this monstrous claim.

tion

If you are not just to your own people, how By all means redress your own grievances. can we trust you? We ask no representaamong you; but if you have any thing wrong among yourselves, rectify it, and do not make one injustice a precedent and plea for doing another. That would be increasing evil in the world instead of diminishing it.

You need not be concerned about the number to be added from America. We do not desire to come among you; but you tional members, by removing those that are may make some room for your own addisent by the rotten boroughs.

"I must now tell you, that every member of Parliament represents you, and me, and our interests in all essential points, just as much as if we had voted for him. For although one place or one set of men may elect and send him up to Parliament, yet, when once he becomes a member, he is the equal guardian of all.”

In the same manner, Mr. Dean, are the pope and cardinals representatives of the whole Christian church. Why don't you obey them?

By this argument it may be proved, that no man in England has a vote. The clergy have none as clergymen; the lawyers, none as lawyers; the physicians, none as physicians; and so on. But if they have votes as freeholders, that is sufficient; and that no freeholder in America has for a representative in the British Parliament. The stockholders are many of them foreigners, "This, then, being the case, it therefore foland all may be so when they please, as no- lows, that our Birminghams, Manchesters, thing is more easy than the transferring of Leeds, Halifaxes, &c. and your Bostons, New stock and conveying property beyond sea Yorks, and Philadelphias, are as really, though by bills of exchange. Such uncertain sub-not so nominally, represented, as any part what