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

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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.

"Good heavens! what a sudden alteration is this! An American pleading for the extension of the prerogative of the crown! Yes, if it could make for his cause; and for extending it, too, beyond all the bounds of the law, of reason, 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."

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"

Parliament, it is acknowledged, have made which have passed without opposition, partly many oppressive laws relating to America, through the weakness of the colonies, partly through their inattention to the full extent of their rights, while employed in labour to procure the necessaries of life. But that is 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.

False! Never before the restoration. The

"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."

"Nay, many of your colony charters assert quite the contrary, by containing the express reservations of parliamentary rights, particularly that great one of levying taxes."

A fib, Mr. Dean. In one charter only, and that a late one, is the Parliament mentioned; and the right reserved is only that of laying duties on commodities imported into England from the colony or exported to it.

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.

Vor. II.

us ?"

This is all beside the mark. The Americans are by their constitutions provided with a representation, and therefore neither need nor desire any in the British Parliament. They have never asked any such thing. They only say, Since we have a 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?

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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?'

"Yet we raise no commotions; we neither ring the alarm-bell, nor sound the trumpet, and submit to be taxed without being represented; and taxed, let me tell you, for your sakes. All was granted when you cried for help.”

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 may make some room for your own additional members, by removing those that are sent 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 member, he is the equal guardian of all.” up to Parliament, yet, when once he becomes a

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

Hammer and Slit-Iron Act, and numberless others restraining our trade, obstructing our manufactures, and forbidding us the use of the gifts of God and nature. Hopeful guardians, truly! Can it be imagined, that, if we had a reasonable share in electing them, from time to time, they would thus have used us!

"And must have seen abundant reason before this time to have altered your former hasty and rash opinion."

We see in you abundance of self-conceit, but no convincing argument.

"Have you no concerts or assemblies, no play-houses or gaming-houses, now subsisting? Have you put down your horse-races and other such like sports and diversions? And is the luxury of your tables, and the variety and profusion of your wines and liquors, quite banished from among you?"

This should be a caution to Americans, how they indulge for the future in British luxuries. See here British generosity! The people, who have made you poor by their worthless, I mean useless, commodities, would now make you poorer by taxing you; and from the very inability you have brought on yourselves, by a partiality for their fashions and modes of living, of which they have had the whole profit, would now urge your ability to pay the taxes they are pleased to impose. Reject, then, their commerce as well as their pretended power of taxing. Be frugal and industrious, and you will be free. The luxury of your tables, which could be known to the English only by your hospitably entertaining them, is by these grateful guests now made a charge against you, and given as a reason for taxing you.

"Be it also allowed, as it is commonly asserted, that the public debt of the several provinces amounts to eight hundred thousand pounds sterling."

I have heard, Mr. Dean, that you have studied political arithmetic more than divinity, but, by this sample of it, I fear to very little purpose. If personal service were the matter in question, out of so many millions of souls, so many men might be expected, whether here or in America. But when raising money is the question, it is not the number of souls, but the wealth in possession, that shows the ability. If we were twice as numerous as the people of England, it would not follow that we are half as able. There are numbers of single estates in England, each worth a hundred of the best of ours in North America. The city of London alone is worth all the provinces of North America.

"When each of us pays, one with another, twenty shillings per head, we expect that each

of you should pay the sum of one shilling! Blush, blush, for shame at your perverse and scandalous behaviour!"

Blush for shame at your own ignorance, Mr. Dean, who do not know, that the colonies have taxes, and heavy ones of their own to pay, to support their own civil and military establishments; and that the shillings should not be reckoned upon heads, but upon pounds. There never was a sillier argument.

"Witness our county taxes, militia taxes, poor taxes, vagrant taxes, bridge taxes, high-road and turnpike taxes, watch taxes, lamp and scavenger taxes, &c. &c. &c."

And have we not all these taxes too, as well as you, and our provincial or public taxes besides? And over and above, have we not new roads to make, new bridges to build, churches and colleges to found, and a number of other things to do, that your inherit from them, but which we are obliged fathers have done for you, and which you to pay for out of our present labour?

"We require of you to contribute only one shilling to every twenty from each of us. Yes, and this shilling too to be spent in your own country, for the support of your own civil and military establishments."

How fond he is of this one shilling and twenty. Who has desired this of you, and who can trust you to lay it out? If you are thus to provide for our civil and military establishments, what use will there afterwards be for our assemblies?

"And yet, small and inconsiderable as this share is, you will not pay it. No, you will not! and it is at our peril if we demand it!

No! we will pay nothing on compul

sion.

had not been subdued, no opposition would have been made to the Stamp Act. A very groundless notion. On the contrary, had the French power continued, to which the Americans might have had recourse in the case of oppression from Parliament, Parliament would not have dared to oppose them. It was the employment of fifty thousand men by land and a fleet on the coast, for five years, to subdue the French only. Half the land army were provincials. Suppose the British twenty-five thousand had acted by themselves, with all the colonies against them; what time would it have taken to subdue the whole?

"Or shall we give you entirely up, unless you will submit to be governed by the same laws as we are, and pay something towards maintaining yourselves?"

The impudence of this language to colonies, who have ever maintained themselves, is astonishing! Except the late attempted colonies of Nova Scotia and Georgia, no colony ever received maintenance in any shape from Britain; and the grants to those colonies were mere jobs for the benefit of ministerial favourites, English or Scotchmen. "Whether we are to give you entirely up, and, after having obliged you to pay your debts,

whether we are to have no further connexion with you as a dependent state or colony❞—

Throughout all America English debts are more easily recovered than in England, the process being shorter and less expensive, and land subject to execution for the payment of debts. Evidence, taken ex parte in England, to prove a debt, is allowed in their courts, and during the whole dispute there was not one single instance of any English merchant's meeting with the least obstruction in any process or suit commenced there for that purpose.

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Externally, by being severed from the British empire, you will be excluded from cutting logwood in the bays of Campeachy and Honduras, from fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, on the coast of Labrador, or in the bay of St. Lawrence, &c."

We have no use for logwood, but to remit it for your fineries. We joined in conquering the Bay of St. Lawrence and its dependencies. As to the Sugar Islands, if you won't allow us to trade with them, perhaps you will allow them to trade with us; or do you intend to starve them? Pray keep your bounties, and let us hear no more of them; and your troops, who never protected us against the savages, nor are fit for such a service;-and the three hundred

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"And after all, and in spite of any thing you can do, we in Britain shall still retain the greatest part of your European trade, because we shall give a better price for many of your commodities, than you can have any where else, and we shall sell to you several of our manufactures, especially in the woollen-stuff and metal way, on cheaper terms."

Oho! Then you will still trade with us! But can that be without our trading with you? And how can you buy our oil, if we catch no whales?

"The leaders of your parties will then be setting all their engines to work, to make fools become the dupes of fools."

Just as they do in England.

"And instead of having troops to defend them, and those troops paid by Great Britain, they must defend themselves, and pay them

selves."

To defend them!-To oppress, insult, and murder them, as at Boston!

"Not to mention that the expenses of your civil governments will be necessarily increased; and that a fleet more or less must belong to each province for guarding their coasts, insuring the payment of duties, and the like."

These evils are all imaginations of the author. The same were predicted to the Netherlands, but have never yet happened. But suppose all of them together, and many more, it would be better to bear them than submit to parliamentary taxation. We might still have something we could call our own. But, under the power claimed by Parlia ment, we have not a single sixpence.

The author of this pamphlet, Dean Tucker, has always been haunted with the fear of the seat of government being soon to be removed to America. He has, in his Tracts on Commerce, some just notions in matters of trade and police, mixed with many wild and chimerical fancies totally impracticable. He once proposed, as a defence of the colonies, to clear the woods for the width of a mile all along behind them, that the Indians might not be able to cross the cleared part without being seen; forgetting that there is a night in every twenty-four hours.