sure touchstone of reason and the constitution, whether there be
any act or acts, on the part of the king or parliament, that will
justify the whigs even in _foro conscientiæ_, in thus forcibly
opposing their government. Will the alteration of the mode of
appointing one branch of our provincial legislature furnish so much
as an excuse for it, considering that our politicians, by their
intrigues and machinations, had rendered the assembly incapable
of answering the purpose of government, which is protection, and
our charter was become as inefficacious as an old ballad? Or can
a plea of justification be founded on the parliament's giving us
an exact transcript of English laws for returning jurors, when
our own were insufficient to afford compensation to the injured,
to suppress seditions, or even to restrain rebellion? It has been
heretofore observed, that each member of the community is entitled
to protection; for this he pays taxes, for this he relinquishes
his natural right of revenging injuries and redressing wrongs,
and for this the sword of justice is placed in the hands of the
magistrate. It is notorious that the whigs had usurped the power
of the province in a great measure, and exercised it by revenging
themselves on their opponents, or in compelling them to enlist
under their banners. Recollect the frequency of mobs and riots, the
invasions and demolitions of dwelling houses and other property,
the personal abuse, and frequent necessity of persons abandoning
their habitations, the taking sanctuary on board men of war, or at
the castle, previous to the regulating bill. Consider that these
sufferers were loyal subjects, violators of no law, that many of
them were crown officers, and were thus persecuted for no other
offence, than that of executing the king's law. Consider further,
that if any of the sufferers sought redress in a court of law, he had
the whole whig interest to combat; they gathered like a cloud and
hovered like harpies round the seat of justice, until the suitor was
either condemned to pay cost to his antagonist, or recovered so small
damages, as that they were swallowed up in his own. Consider further,
that these riots were not the accidental or spontaneous risings of
the populace, but the result of the deliberations and mature councils
of the whigs, and were sometimes headed and led to action by their
principals. Consider further, that the general assembly lent no aid
to the executive power. Weigh these things, my friends, and doubt
if you can, whether the act for regulating our government did not
flow from the parental tenderness of the British councils, to enable
us to recover from anarchy, without Britain being driven to the
necessity of inflicting punishment, which is her strange work. Having
taken this cursory view of the convulsed state of the province, let
us advert to our charter form of government, and we shall find its
distributions of power to have been so preposterous, as to render it
next to impossible for the province to recover by its own strength.
The council was elective annually by the house, liable to the
negative of the chair, and the chair restrained from acting, even in
the executive department, without the concurrence of the board. The
political struggle is often between the governor and the house, and
it is a maxim with politicians, that he that is not for us is against
us. Accordingly, when party run high, if a counsellor adhered to the
governor, the house refused to elect him the next year; if he adhered
to the house, the governor negatived him; if he trimmed his bark so
as to steer a middle course between Scylla and Charybdis, he was in
danger of suffering more by the neglect of both parties, than of
being wrecked but on one.
In moderate times, this province has been happy under our charter
form of government; but when the political storm arose, its original
defect became apparent. We have sometimes seen half a dozen sail of
tory navigation unable, on an election day, to pass the bar formed by
the flux and reflux of the tides at the entrance of the harbour, and
as many whiggish ones stranded the next morning on Governor's Island.
The whigs took the lead in this game, and therefore I think the blame
ought to rest upon them, though the tables were turned upon them in
the sequel. A slender acquaintance with human nature will inform,
experience has evinced, that a body of men thus constituted, are
not to be depended upon to act that vigorous, intrepid and decisive
part, which the emergency of the late times required, and which
might have proved the salvation of the province. In short, the board
which was intended to moderate between the governor and the house, or
perhaps rather to support the former, was incapable of doing either
by its original constitution. By the regulating act, the members
of the board are appointed by the king in the council, and are not
liable even to the suspension of the governor; their commissions are
_durante bene placito_, and they are therefore far from independence.
The infant state of the colonies does not admit of a peerage, nor
perhaps of any third branch of legislature wholly independent. In
most of the colonies, the council is appointed by mandamus, and the
members are moreover liable to be suspended by the governor, by
which means they are more dependant, than those appointed according
to the regulating act; but no inconvenience arises from that mode
of appointment. Long experience has evinced its utility. By this
statute, extraordinary powers are devolved upon the chair, to enable
the governor to maintain his authority, and to oppose with vigor
the daring spirit of independance, so manifest in the whigs. Town
meetings are restrained to prevent their passing traitorous resolves.
Had these and many other innovations contained in this act, been made
in moderate times, when due reverence was yielded to the magistrate,
and obedience to the law, they might have been called grievances; but
we have no reason to think, that had the situation of the province
been such that this statute would ever have had an existence--nor
have we any reason to doubt, but that it will be repealed, in whole
or part, should our present form of government be found by experience
to be productive of rapine or oppression. It is impossible that the
king, lords or commons could have any sinister views in regulating
the government of this province. Sometimes we are told that charters
are sacred. However sacred, they are forfeited through negligence or
_abuse_ of their franchises, in which cases the law judges that the
body politic has broken the condition, upon which it was incorporated.
There are many instances of the negligence and abuse, that work the
forfeiture of charters, delineated in law books. They also tell
us, that all charters may be vacated by act of parliament. Had
the form of our provincial legislature been established by act of
parliament, that act might have been constitutionally and equitably
repealed, when it was found to be incapable of answering the end
of its institution. Stronger still is the present case, where the
form of government was established by one branch of the legislature
only, viz. the king, and all three join in the revocation. This act
was however a fatal stroke to the ambitious views of our republican
patriots. The monarchial part of the constitution was so guarded by
it, as to be no longer vulnerable by their shafts, and all their
fancied greatness vanished, like the baseless fabric of a vision.
Many that had been long striving to attain a seat at the board,
with their faces thitherward, beheld, with infinite regret, their
competitors advanced to the honors they aspired to themselves.
These disappointed, ambitious, and envious men, instil the poison
of disaffection into the minds of the lower classes, and as soon
as they are properly impregnated, exclaim, _the people_ never will
submit to it. They now would urge them into certain ruin, to prevent
the execution of an act of parliament, designed and calculated to
restore peace and harmony to the province, and to recal that happy
state, when year rolled round on year, in a continual increase of our
felicity.
The Quebec bill is another capital grievance, because the Canadians
are tolerated in the enjoyment of their religion, which they were
entitled to, by an article of capitulation, when they submitted
to the British arms. This toleration is not an exclusion of the
protestant religion, which is established in every part of the
empire, as firmly as civil polity can establish it. It is a strange
kind of reasoning to argue, from the French inhabitants of the
conquered province of Quebec being tolerated, in the enjoyment of the
Roman Catholic religion, in which they were educated, and in which
alone they repose their hope of eternal salvation; that therefore
government intends to deprive us of the enjoyment of the protestant
religion, in which alone we believe, especially as the political
interests of Britain depend upon protestant connexions, and the
king's being a protestant himself is an indispensable condition of
his wearing the crown. This circumstance however served admirably
for a fresh stimulus, and was eagerly grasped by the disaffected
of all orders. It added pathos to pulpit oratory. We often see
resolves and seditious letters interspersed with _popery_ here
and there in Italics. If any of the clergy have endeavoured, from
this circumstance, to alarm their too credulous audiences, with an
apprehension that their religious privileges were in danger, thereby
to excite them to take up arms, we must lament the depravity of the
best of men; but human nature stands apalled when we reflect upon the
aggravated guilt of prostituting our holy religion to the accursed
purposes of treason and rebellion. As to our lay politicians, I
have long since ceased to wonder at any thing in them; but it
may be observed that there is no surer mark of a bad cause, than
for its advocates to recur to such pitiful shifts to support it.
This instance plainly indicates that their sole dependance is in
preventing the passions subsiding, and cool reason resuming its seat.
It is a mark of their shrewdness however, for whenever reason shall
resume its seat, the political cheat will be detected, stand confest
in its native turpitude, and the political knave be branded with
marks of infamy, adequate, if possible, to the enormity of his crimes.
MASSACHUSETTENSIS.
ADDRESSED
_To the Inhabitants of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_,
February 20, 1775.
MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,
It would be an endless task to remark minutely upon each of the
fancied grievances, that swarm and cluster, fill and deform the
American chronicles. An adeptness at discovering grievances has
lately been one of the principal recommendations to public notice and
popular applause. We have had geniuses selected for that purpose,
called committees upon grievances; a sagacious set they were, and
discovered a multitude before it was known, that they themselves were
the greatest grievances that the country was infested with. The case
is shortly this; the whigs suppose the colonies to be separate or
distinct states: having fixed this opinion in their minds, they are
at no loss for grievances. Could I agree with them in their first
principle, I should acquiesce in many of their deductions; for in
that case every act of parliament, extending to the colonies, and
every movement of the crown to carry them into execution, would
be really grievances, however wise and salutary they might be in
themselves, as they would be exertions of a power that we were not
constitutionally subject to, and would deserve the name of usurpation
and tyranny; but deprived of this their corner stone, the terrible
fabric of grievances vanishes, like castles raised by enchantment,
and leaves the wondering spectator amazed and confounded at the
deception. He suspects himself to have but just awoke from sleep, or
recovered from a trance, and that the formidable spectre, that had
froze him with horror, was no more than the creature of a vision, or
the delusion of a dream.
Upon this point, whether the colonies are distinct states or not,
our patriots have rashly tendered Great Britain an issue, against
every principle of law and constitution, against reason and common
prudence. There is no arbiter between us but the sword; and that
the decision of that tribunal will be against us, reason foresees,
as plainly as it can discover any event that lies in the womb of
futurity. No person, unless actuated by ambition, pride, malice,
envy, or a malignant combination of the whole, that verges towards
madness, and hurries the man away from himself, would wage war upon
such unequal terms. No honest man would engage himself, much less
plunge his country into the calamities of a war upon equal terms,
without first settling with his conscience, in the retired moments
of reflection, the important question respecting the justice of
his cause. To do this, we must hear and weigh every thing that is
fairly adduced, on either side of the question, with equal attention
and care. A disposition to drink in with avidity, what favours our
hypothesis, and to reject with disgust whatever contravenes it, is
an infallible mark of a narrow, selfish mind. In matters of small
moment, such obstinacy is weakness and folly, in important ones,
fatal madness. There are many among us, that have devoted themselves
to the slavish dominion of prejudice; indeed the more liberal have
seldom had an opportunity of bringing the question to a fair examen.
The eloquence of the bar, the desk and the senate, the charms of
poetry, the expressions of painting, sculpture and statuary have
conspired to fix and rivet ideas of independance upon the mind of the
colonists. The overwhelming torrent, supplied from so many fountains,
rolled on with increasing rapidity and violence, till it became
superior to all restraint. It was the reign of passion; the small,
still voice of reason was refused audience. I have observed that the
press was heretofore open to but one side of the question, which
has given offence to a writer in Edes and Gill's paper, under the
signature of Novanglus, to whom I have many things to say. I would at
present ask him, if the convention of committees for the county of
Worcester, in recommending to the inhabitants of that county not to
take newspapers, published by two of the printers in this town, and
two at New York, have not affected to be licensers of the press? And
whether, by proscribing these printers, and endeavouring to deprive
them of a livelihood, they have not manifested an illiberal, bigoted,
arbitrary, malevolent disposition? And whether, by thus attempting
to destroy the liberty of the press, they have not betrayed a
consciousness of the badness of their cause?
Our warriors tell us, that the parliament shall be permitted to
legislate for the purposes of regulating trade, but the parliament
hath most unrighteously asserted, that it "had, hath, and of right
ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes
of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies in all
cases whatever," that this claim is without any qualification or
restriction, is an innovation, and inconsistent with liberty. Let
us candidly inquire into these three observations, upon the statute
declaratory of the authority of parliament. As to its universality,
it is true there are no exceptions expressed, but there is no general
rule without exceptions, expressed or implied.
The implied ones in this case are obvious. It is evident that
the intent and meaning of this act, was to assert the supremacy
of parliament in the colonies, that is, that its constitutional
authority to make laws and statutes binding upon the colonies, is,
and ever had been as ample, as it is to make laws binding upon the
realm. No one that reads the declaratory statute, not even prejudice
itself, can suppose that the parliament meant to assert thereby a
right or power to deprive the colonists of their lives, to enslave
them, or to make any law respecting the colonies, that would not be
constitutional, were it made respecting Great Britain. By an act
of parliament passed in the year 1650, it was declared concerning
the colonies and plantations in America, that they had "ever since
the planting thereof been and ought to be subject to such laws,
orders and regulations, as are or shall be made by the parliament of
England." This declaration though differing in expression, is the
same in substance with the other. Our house of representatives, in
their dispute with governor Hutchinson, concerning the supremacy of
parliament, say, "It is difficult, if possible, to draw a line of
distinction between the universal authority of parliament over the
colonies, and no authority at all."
The declaratory statute was intended more especially to assert the
right of parliament, to make laws and statutes for raising a revenue
in America, lest the repeal of the stamp act might be urged as a
disclaimer of the right. Let us now inquire whether a power to raise
a revenue be not the inherent, unalienable right of the supreme
legislative of every well regulated state, where the hereditary
revenues of the crown, or established revenues of the state are
insufficient of themselves; and whether that power be not necessarily
coextensive with the power of legislation, or rather necessarily
implied in it.
The end or design of government, as has been already observed, is
the security of the people from internal violence and rapacity, and
from foreign invasion. The supreme power of a state must necessarily
be so extensive and ample as to answer those purposes, otherwise it
is constituted in vain and degenerates into empty parade and mere
ostentatious pageantry. These purposes cannot be answered without
a power to raise a revenue; for without it neither the laws can be
executed, nor the state defended. This revenue ought, in national
concerns, to be apportioned throughout the whole empire according
to the abilities of the several parts, as the claim of each to
protection, is equal; a refusal to yield the former is as unjust as
the withholding of the latter. Were any part of an empire exempt from
contributing their proportionable part of the revenue, necessary for
the whole, such exemption would be manifest injustice to the rest
of the empire; as it must of course bear more than its proportion
of the public burden, and it would amount to an additional tax. If
the proportion of each part was to be determined only by itself in a
separate legislature, it would not only involve in it the absurdity
of _imperium in imperio_, but the perpetual contention arising
from the predominant principle of self-interest in each, without
having any common arbiter between them, would render the disjointed,
discordant, torn, and dismembered state incapable of collecting or
conducting its force and energy for the preservation of the whole,
as emergencies might require. A government thus constituted, would
contain the seeds of dissolution in its first principles, and must
soon destroy itself.
I have already shewn, that by your first charter, this province was
to be subject to taxation, after the lapse of twenty-one years, and
that the authority of parliament to impose such taxes, was claimed so
early as the year 1642.
In the patent for Pennsylvania, which is now in force, there is this
clause, "And further our pleasure is, and by these presents, for us,
&c. we do covenant and grant to, and with the said William Penn,
&c. that we, &c. shall at no time hereafter set or make, or cause
to be set, any imposition, custom, or other taxation, or rate or
contribution whatsoever, in and upon the dwellers, and inhabitants of
the aforesaid province, for their lands, tenements, goods or chattels
within the said province, or in and upon any goods or merchandise
within the said province, to be laden or unladen within the ports or
harbours of the said province, unless the same be with the consent of
the proprietors, chief governor, or assembly, or _act of parliament_."
These are stubborn facts; they are incapable of being winked out of
existence, how much soever, we may be disposed to shut our eyes upon
them. They prove, that the claim of a right to raise a revenue in the
colonies, exclusive of the grants of their own assemblies, is coeval
with the colonies themselves. I shall next shew, that there has been
an actual, uninterrupted exercise of that right, by the parliament
time immemorial.
MASSACHUSETTENSIS.
ADDRESSED
_To the Inhabitants of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_,
February 27, 1775.
MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,
By an act of parliament made in the twenty-fifth year of the reign
of Charles 2d. duties are laid upon goods and merchandise of various
kinds, exported from the colonies to foreign countries, or carried
from one colony to another, payable on exportation. I will recite
a part of it, viz: "For so much of the said commodities as shall
be laden and put on board such ship or vessel; that is to say, for
sugar, white, the hundred weight, five shillings; and brown and
Muscovados, the hundred weight, one shilling and six pence; tobacco,
the pound, one penny; cotton wool, the pound, one half-penny; for
indigo, two-pence; ginger, the hundred weight, one shilling; logwood,
the hundred weight, five pounds; fustic, and all other dying wood,
the hundred weight, six-pence; cocoa, the pound, one-penny, to be
_levied, collected, and paid_, at such places, and to such collectors
and other officers, as shall be appointed in the respective
plantations, to collect, levy, and receive the same, before the
landing thereof, and under such penalties, both to the officers,
and upon the goods, as for non-payment of, or _defrauding his
majesty of his customs in England_. And for the better _collecting
of the several rates and duties imposed by this act_, be it enacted
that this whole business shall be ordered and managed, and the
several duties hereby imposed shall be caused _to be levied by the
commissioners of the customs in England_, by and under the authority
of the lord treasurer of England, or commissioners of the treasury."
It is apparent, from the reasoning of this statute, that these duties
were imposed for the sole purpose of revenue. There has lately
been a most ingenious play upon the words and expressions _tax_,
_revenue_, _purpose of raising a revenue_, _sole purpose of raising
a revenue_, _express purpose of raising a revenue_, as though their
being inserted in, or left out of a statute, would make any essential
difference in the statute. This is mere playing with words; for if,
from the whole tenor of the act, it is evident, that the intent of
the legislature was to tax, rather than to regulate the trade, by
imposing duties on goods and merchandise, it is to all intents and
purposes, an instance of taxation, be the form of words, in which
the statute is conceived, what it will. That such was the intent of
the legislature, in this instance, any one that will take the pains
to read it, will be convinced. There have been divers alterations
made in this by subsequent statutes, but some of the above taxes
remain, and are collected and paid in the colonies to this day. By an
act of the 7th. and 8th. of William and Mary, it is enacted, "that
every seaman, whatsoever, that shall serve his majesty, or any other
person whatever in any of his majesty's ships or vessels, whatsoever,
belonging, or to belong to any subjects of England, or any other his
majesty's dominions, shall allow, and there shall be paid out of
the wages of every such seaman, to grow due for such his service,
six-pence per annum for the better support of the said hospital, and
to augment the _revenue_ thereof." This tax was imposed in the reign
of king William 3d. of blessed memory, and is still levied in the
colonies. It would require a volume to recite, or minutely to remark
upon all the revenue acts that relate to America. We find them in
many reigns, imposing new duties, taking off, or reducing old ones,
and making provision for their collection, or new appropriations
of them. By an act of the 7th. and 8th. of William and Mary,
entitled, "an act for preventing frauds and regulating abuses in the
plantations." All former acts respecting the plantations are renewed,
and all ships and vessels coming into any port here, are liable to
the same regulations and restrictions, as ships in the ports in
England are liable to; and enacts, "_That the officers for collecting
and managing his majesty's revenue, and inspecting the plantation
trade in many of the said plantations_, shall have the same powers
and authority for visiting and searching of ships, and taking their
entries, and for seizing, or securing, or bringing on shore any of
the goods prohibited to be imported or exported into or out of any
of the said colonies and plantations, _or for which any duties are
payable, or ought to be paid by any of the before mentioned acts, as
are provided for the officers of the customs in England_."