relation, will alleviate his distresses or minister to his necessities, and where no witness can be found to testify his innocence, shunned by the reputable and honest, and consigned to the society and converse of the wretched and the abandoned, he can only pray that he may soon end his misery with his life.

Truly alarmed at the fatal tendency of these pernicious counsels, and with hearts filled with anguish by such dangerous invasions of our dearest privileges, we presume to prostrate ourselves at the foot of your royal throne, beseeching your majesty, as our king and father, to avert from your faithful and loyal subjects of America these miseries which must necessarily be the consequence of such measures.

After expressing our firm confidence in your royal wisdom and goodness, permit us to assure your majesty that the most fervent prayers of your people of this colony are daily addressed to the Almighty, that your majesty's reign may be long and prosperous over Great Britain and all your dominions; and that after death your majesty may taste the fullest fruition of eternal bliss, and that a descendant of your illustrious house may reign over the extended British empire until time shall be no more.

The following order follows the address.

Ordered, That Mr. Speaker do transmit the said address to the agent for this colony, with directions to cause the same to be presented to his most excellent Majesty, and afterwards to be printed and published in the English papers.

APP. N.

N. Page 234.

Message to Governor Bernard from the Assembly, on their privileges, and praying the removal of the troops. May 31, 1769.

May it please your Excellency,

THE great and general court of assembly of this province, being once more convened by virtue of the authority vested in you by his majesty, and according to the royal charter, the house of representatives think it their indispensable duty, under the present aspect of affairs in the province, on their part to claim that constitutional freedom which is the right of this assembly, and is of equal importance with its existence.

We take this opportunity to assure your excellency, that it is the firm resolution of this house to promote to the utmost of their power, the welfare of the subject, and to support his majesty's government within this jurisdiction; to make a thorough inquiry into the grievances of the people, and have them redressed; to amend, strengthen, and preserve the laws of the land; to reform illegal proceedings in administration, and support the publick liberty. These are the great ends for which this court is assembled.

A resolution so important demands a parliamentary freedom in the debates of this assembly: we are therefore constrained, thus early to demonstrate to your excellency, that an armament by sea and land investing this metropolis, and a military guard with cannon pointed at the very door of the state-house, where this assembly is held, is inconsistent with that dignity, as well as that freedom with which we have a right to deliberate, consult, and determine.

The experience of ages is sufficient to convince, that the military power is ever dangerous, and subversive of a free constitution. The history of our own nation affords instances of parliaments which have been led into mean and destructive compliances, even to the surrendering their share in the supreme legislative power, through the awe of standing armies.

His majesty's council of the province have publickly declared, that the military aid is unnecessary for the support of civil authority in the colony; nor can we conceive that his majesty's service

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requires

requires a fleet and army here, in this time of the most profound peace.

We have a right to expect that your excellency will, as his majesty's representative, give the necessary and effectual orders for the removal of the abovementioned forces, by sea and land, out of this port, and the gate of the city, during the session of the said assembly.

O.-Page 242.

Resolves of the Assembly, that no laws imposing taxes, and made by any authority in which the people had not their representatives, could be obligatory, &c. &c. 1 July 8, 1769.

THE general assembly of this his majesty's province of Massachusetts Bay, convened by his majesty's authority, and by virtue of his writ issued by his excellency the governor, under the great seal of the province, thinking it their duty at all times to testify their loyalty to his majesty, as well as their inviolable regard to their own and their constituents' rights, liberties, and privileges, do pass the following Resolutions to be entered on their journal.

Resolved, That this house do, and ever will, bear the firmest allegiance to our rightful sovereign king George the third, and are ever ready with their lives and fortunes to defend his majesty's person, family, crown, and dignity.

Resolved, as the opinion of this house, That the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this his majesty's colony of the Massachusetts Bay, is now and ever hath been legally and constitutionally vested in the house of representatives, lawfully convened according to the ancient and established practice, with the consent of the council, and of his majesty the king of Great Britain, or his governor for the time being.

Resolved, as the opinion of this house,-That it is the indubitable right of the subject in general, and consequently of the colonists, jointly, or severally, to petition the king for redress of grievances, and that it is lawful, whenever they think it expedient, to confer with each other, in order to procure a joint concurrence in dutiful addresses for relief from common burthens.

Resolved, That governor Bernard, by a wanton and precipitate dissolution of the last year's assembly, and refusing to

call

call another, though repeatedly requested by the people, acted against the spirit of a free constitution; and if such procedure be lawful, it may be in his power, whenever he pleases, to render himself absolute.

Resolved, That a general discontent on account of the revenue acts, an expectation of the sudden arrival of military power to enforce the execution of those acts, an apprehension of the troops being quartered upon the inhabitants, when our petitions were not permitted to reach the royal ear, the general court at such a juncture dissolved, the governor refusing to call a new one, and the people reduced almost to a state of despair, rendered it highly expedient and necessary for the people to convene by their committees, associate, consult, and advise the best means to promote peace and good order, to present their united complaints to the throne, and jointly to pray for the royal interposition in favour of their violated rights; nor can this procedure possibly be illegal, as they expressly disclaimed all governmental

acts.

Resolved, as the opinion of this house,--That governor Bernard in his letters to Lord Hillsborough, his majesty's secretary of state, has given a false and highly injurious representation of the conduct of his majesty's truly loyal and faithful council of this colony, and of the magistrates, overseers of the poor, and inhabitants of the town of Boston, tending to bring on those respectable bodies of men, particularly on some individuals, the unmerited displeasure of our gracious sovereign, to introduce a military government, and to mislead both houses of parliament into such severe resolutions, as a true, just, and candid state of facts must have prevented.

Resolved,-That governor Bernard, in the letters before mentoned, by falsely representing that it was become " necessary the king should have the council-chamber in his own hands, and should be enabled by parliament to supersede, by order in his privy council, commissions granted in his name and under his seal, throughout the colonies," has discovered his enmity to the true spirit of the British constitution, to the liberties of the colonies; and has struck at the root of some of the most invaluable constitutional and charter rights of this province: the perfidy of which, at the very time he professed himself a warm friend to the charter, is altogether unparalleled by any in his station, and ought never to be forgotten.

Resolved, That the establishment of a standing army in this colony, in a time of peace, without the consent of the general assembly of the same, is an invasion of the natural rights of the people, as well as of those which they claim as free-born Englishmen, confirmed by Magna Charta, the Bill of rights as settled at the revolution, and by the Charter of this province. Resolved,―That a standing army is not known as a part of

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the

the British constitution in any of the king's dominions; and every attempt to establish it has been esteemed a dangerous innovation, manifestly tending to enslave the people.

Resolved, -That the sending an armed force into this colony, under a pretence of aiding and assisting the civil authority, is an attempt to establish a standing army here without our consent-is highly dangerous to this people-is unprecedented, and unconstitutional.

Resolved, That whoever has represented to his majesty's ministers, that the people of this colony in general, or the town of Boston in particular, were in such a state of disobedience and disorder, as to require a fleet and army to be sent here, to aid the civil magistrate, is an avowed enemy to this colony, and to the nation in general-and has by such misrepresentations endeavoured to destroy the liberty of the subject here, and that mutual union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, so necessary for the welfare of both.

Resolved, as the opinion of this house,-That the misrepresentations of the state of this colony, transmitted by governor Bernard to his majesty's ministers, have been the means of procuring the military force now quartered in the town of Boston.

Resolved, That whoever gave order for quartering even common soldiers and camp-women in the court house in Boston, and in the representatives' chamber, where some of the principal archives of the government had been usually deposited, making a barrack of the same, placing a main guard with cannon pointed near the said house, and sentinels at the door, designed a high insult, and a triumphant indication that the military power was master of the whole legislative.

Whereas his excellency general Gage, in his letter to lord Hillsborough of October the 31st, amongst other exceptionable things, expressed himself in the following words: "From what has been said, your lordship will conclude, that there is no government in Boston: in truth there is very little at present, and the constitution of this province leans so much to the side of democracy, that the governor has not the power to remedy the disorders that happen in it."

Resolved, as the opinion of this house,-That his excellency general Gage, in this and other assertions, has rashly and impertinently intermeddled with the civil affairs of this province, which are altogether out of his department, and of the internal police, of which, by his letter, if not altogether his own, he has yet betrayed a degree of ignorance equal to the malice of the

author.

With respect to the nature of our government, this house is of opinion, that the wisdom of that great prince, William the third, who gave the charter, aided by an able ministry, and men thoroughly versed in the English constitution and law, and the happy

effects