The doctrine of the Colonifts not only dictates to, but ftrikes at the very root and effence of the conftitution; and indeed the example might be of the moft calamitous confequence to the ftate, if Englishmen were, at this time of day, to be instructed in their privileges or duty. And by whom are our understandings to be now illuminated, and this new, unheard of code of rights explained ?-By a fet of individuals who, before they withdrew themselves into the Colonies, having no right of reprefenting in, nor, (moft probably) of electing others to, the British parliament; would now delude us into the belief of their having, ipfo facto, obtained, in a newly acquired territory, that, which they had not arrived at the poffeffion of, when in their own: if, by their charters, they are impowered to elect members to the British parliament from amongst themselves, fuch provincial reprefentatives may join, and will be admitted into, this great council; but if their charters are filent in this refpect, they then certainly ftand upon their original footing, and their right of reprefentation is reduced to the fame merits, and is to be adjudged by the fame known fettled rules and qualifications which established that of the whole body of the Kingdom. Colonists are bound to an obedience of every act of the parliament of Great Britain, wherein they are exprefly named; I have fubmitted my notions of it's omnipotence, as being, upon the principles of the revolution, the only natural conftitutional feat of compleat jurisection in the. kingdom; I have confidered the extent and diffufiveness of it's authority over all our dominions, upon the practice of our own, and from that chain of connexion and dependance, which has ever subsisted between the mother-countries and colonies of ancient and modern times; and I have, for argument's fake, examined into the plausibility of their plea of non-reprefentation: from all which, I think, may be very fairly deduced, that the Britifh legiflature hath done nothing but what it had full and conftitutional power to do; and that the Colonists, by having denied and relifted this power, have been unfor tunately hurried into a conduct, tinctu red with an offence, bordering too nearly upon the worft fpecies of treason Treafon against the state. How far indeed it may be a flap of policy to lay a tax upon the Colonies, appears to me to require a difcretion of a nuch deeper reach, than the ordinary bufinefs of administration in raising Supplies amongst ourselves: with us, the national ability to pay, and the general bent of men's difpofitions towards a new tax, To fuppofe, therefore, but for a moare commonly well understood before it ment, that this claim of the Colonifts is receives the fanction of a law; the legiimpregnated with the leaft particle of rea- flature having ample opportunity of infon or juftice, muft neceffarily involve the forming themfelves of the practicability of whole legiflature of this country in the the former, and of reconciling the minds guilt of the moft grofs injuftice and oppref- of the diffatisfied, to the craving neceffition: To admit their exceptions to the le- ties of the state; but I fear the prefent gality of the late ftamp act, wou'd, in caufe of difquietude hath proceeded from effect, be releasing millions of fubjects an unpardonable ignorance, and too great from their allegiance to the laws, and, at one blow, demolishing every act of parliaa contempt and difregard of both. ment that was ever hitherto made: they have been accustomed to the found, hath can have no pretence to this exemption, now loft much of it's harmony, and that will not hold good and be transferred ought but very fparingly to invade thofe to above feven-eights of the fubjects of delicate organs; and altho' the Americans, this ifland; for certainly those who are from the protection afforded them in the neither freeholders in counties, nor burges- lalt war, have contributed to the neceflity jes in part of the nation, in the fenfe of the Coloifts), will be entitled to the benefit of the fare plea, whenever they thall be an act of parliament. dipofed to difpute The word Tax, even to our ears that well as ourfelves; yet to foften, and familiarize to them it's harthnefs, it will behove administration to proceed with the utmost circumfpection and addrefs, left by the falfe policy of a temporary relief only, we hazard the accomplishment of our our views, and the reimbursement of our whole trouble and expenfes incurred up. on their account. How uninformed, precipitate and illjudged, therefore, muft have been thofe councils that advised a measure, which, in it's execution, hath proved fo grievously burthenfome, and expofed the honour of the British legislature? in this, however, the late miniftry have but made a fatal addition to the blunders of their inglorious prodeceffors the peacemakers.-Who but a fet of men utterly unacquainted with, or enemies to, the real and intrinfic interefts of this nation, would have given up folid, immediate and permament advantages, for the ipeculative, exhaufting and precarious acquisition of fo extenfive a continental territory, the ordinary provifion for whofe government must be fo incumbring, and the cultivation of which every day more and more endanger our poffeffion and dominion over it? Whereas, if the rage for an encrease of Colony was, at all adventures, to be fed; why was not the attention of thefe our notable negotiators directed to the already fettled, and more abundantby profitable, iflands in the French and Spanish Weft Indies; where property and loyalty must have gone hand in hand together, and the private riches and profperity of individuals promoted and fecured, only by their reliance upon, and the protection of, Great Britain.-But this is a digreffion. Sanguine as I am in the caufe of the English conftitution and, of course, zeaJous for the honour and power of the parliament, I should be very forry to lie under the imputation of acrimony or malevolence towards my fellow fubjects of America, or to be fufpected of harbouring any fentiments derogatory to the common rights and freedom of mankind in general; the importance of the question, which as I have difcuffed by the best light of my understanding, fo did I wish to treat it with temper and candour; and altho' the legal confideration of it hath unavoidably led me to pass a very heavy cenfure upon the Colonists; yet, as a friend to impartiality and the interest of my country, I cannot quit this fubject without animadverting, till further, upon thofe measures of the late miniftry, which, in my opinion, have folely given birth to this complicated tumult of public difcontent and dilobedience: the latter of thefe evils is moft commonly the confequence of, and engendered by, the former; are not They therefore to the laft degree culpable, who, by a wanton, ill digefted, ill confiftent proceeding adminifter even the poflibility of an existence to either? Allowing the Colonists to have been moft juftily reprehenfibie, yet juftice and a political regard to fo numerous a fet of fubjects, fhould and I dare fay will, difpole the prefent adminiftration to a patient and favourable difquifition of their remonftrances; and notwithstanding, in a national confideration, no perfonal hardhips can ever operate as a Juftification of an oppofition to the legal acts of government, yet I am inclined to think, that, upon a candid dispassionate review of the feveral regulations and restrictions, laid upon them by the late miniftry, we may trace the Source of this (almoft univerfal) defection, and be conftrained into an acknowledgment of the reasonableness of what they alledge, in Extenuation of the heat and outrage, into which they have been perfecuted. The little knowledge in the English hiftory that I am furnished with, doth not prefent fo flagrant an inftance of incapacity (to fay no worse of it) as the late conduct of thofe minifters, that hath thus improvidently started a question which the wifdom of government ought, most cautioufly, to have prevented being ever the fubject of public difcuffion: an injudicious unfeaíonable exercife of authority, will, but at beft, extort a forced and temporary obedience to it, but when the requifition of a fervice, comes accompained by an ademption of the very inftruments, by which alone that service is to be performed; what symptoms of indignation will not, immediately, break out upon the abfurdity (not to fay latent mifchief) of the thought that plan of policy which aims at the attainment of an End, at the fame time that it profcribes the Means, will be under the neceffity of recurring to more than human demonftration, to convince the world it hath any thing, at least any good seriously in view: Nay, it is fuch a contradiction in nature, that it can only either be productive of abortion, or the most monftrous, preternatural fuperfætation. The neceffity of fome tax upon the Colonies may, I readily grant, appear from the alarming fituation to which the pub : lic finances of this kingdom have been reduced; but the very oppreffive and repugnant manner in which this hath been propofed to be levied, fhews how fatally the Juftice of parliament may be impofed upon, by a furreptitious acquifition of it's fanc. tion to the views of an ignorant, or infidious miniftry can it be fuppofed that a bill of this nature would ever have paffed into a law, if the legislature had not been kept from a knowledge of thofe fecret machinations, which were to counteract and defeat the purposes of it? No; the parliament could never have join'd in the mockery of fuch a tranfaction, had they furmifed the miniftry already had, and at that time were, induftriously devifing every poffible method, for the prohibition and extermination of a commerce fo highly beneficial to this country, and from whence alone could be derived to the Colonifts the means of affording us that fupply demanded of them: It is injurious to the honeur of this illuftrious body, to conceive that they could ever have united in fo ignominous a confpiracy, or that they would have countenanced the exaction of a Payment in money, when the most effectual minifterial ftratagems had been purfued, how to incapacitate the Colonists from get ting any. But, as it were, the more efficaciously to bring his majesty's government into disrepute with thefe people, and to infure that alienation from it, which feems to have been the only hellish purpose of thefe treacherous fervants of the public; a jurifdiction is vefted in the admiralty courts to proceed, in a fummary way, in all matters relative to the collection of this revenue; whereby the properties of the Colonifts, instead of being protected by the constitutional right of a trial by a jury, are thus left to the capricious mercy of an arbitrary determination. From all thefe circumstances of repugnancy and perfecution, I wou'd afk any unprejudiced perfon, what was reafon ably to be expected but that universal clamour and confufion, which they have been actually productive of? The event kath fhewn, that the wisdom and authority of parliament, instead of having been applied to the furtherance of the falutary purposes of government, hath been wick edly beguiled into the completion of a scheme, formed, not only to bring their owa equity and humanity into contempt, but pregnant alfo with the most destructive confequences to the peace and intereft of thefe kingdoms. Awaken'd to a just conception of this truly momentous and national concern, and animated by the moft lively and difinterefted attention to the real welfare and happiness of these realms, the prefent ad-· miniftration will, I am purfuaded, apply themlelves diligently to the investigation. and removal of thefe our inteftine troubles and perplexities: and however arduous and difcouraging their prodeceffors in office may have contrived to render this du ty, yet they will enter upon this great work, affured of the hearty concurrence and co-operation of all good men. alarm is now become general, and the moft generous emulation will difcover it. felf, amongst all ranks, who fhall exprefs the greatest abhorrence and deteitation of fchemes, teeming with nothing lefs than the propagation of civil difcord, and the final ruin of our happy establishment. The Let them but revoke thofe commiflions, which have degraded the British navy, in to fmuggling cutters and pirates upon our own commerce; leave but the Colonists to the enjoyment and profecution of a trade, not only lucrative to themselves, but, in which the whole traffic of this kingdom is so deeply and effentially interwoven ; and we hall then, let us hope, experience that chearful afliftance from the Colonists, which their behaviour, upon former occafions, hath testified their readiness to contribute, whenever it hath been requested of them, in the proportion and within the compaís of their abilities. By an adoption of fuch an expedient and emollient meafures, will they restore una nimity to a divided people, and vindicate the moderation and honour of his majefty's government; from hence likewife will they procure to themfelves the heartfelt fatisfaction of an unfeigned, national praife for having delivered thefe kingdoms from the infernal defigns of parricides: nor will the glorious work of reformation and redrefs reft with them alone; the parliament, justly indignant at the perfidy with which their confidence hath been abufed will refent the practices that have been, thus artfully played off upon them; and by totally disclaiming thofe violent and pernicious councils, which their au thority hath been betrayed into the protection of, will proclaim to the world this moft T HIS able writer, after establishing, as he apprehends, indifputably, the right of the British parliament to tax the colonies takes upon him, "to inform (thefe are his words, p. 24.) thefe ufur pers, these afpirers to a co-jurifdiction with that body (meaning the British parliament) which is able, at any time, to crush their existence AS A PUBLIC, That the ftatutes of Great-Britain may, by fpecial words, bind even the people of Ireland to an obedience of them; notwithstanding, as to its private internal policy, it is a diftinct kingdom of itself, and hath a parliament of its own, whofe regulations and ordinances, however, like thofe of the colonies, grow up into laws but at the difcretion of the king and his council."How far the former part of this writer's information may be relied upon, that it is in the power of the British parliament to cruth the existence of the Colonies and of Ireland, as a public, (for both the one and the other have been thought, on account of their private internal policy, to exift upon the fame principles as diftinct jurifdictions) we never with to fee decided; but as to the latter part of his information, that their regulations and ordinances grow up into laws but at the difcretion of the king and his council, it might have been fpared; for the regulations and ordinances of the British parliament grow up into laws by no other authority. This gentleman, who decides very peremptorily on this important queftion, and ftigmatizes the act of remonstrance in the coloniits, with the opprobrious epithet of joining in one common act of rebellion, seems not to have fufficiently confidered the diftinctions that conftitute an effential difference between the power of parliament with regard to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, and the power of the fame parliament, with reipect to the inhabitants of the American colonies: As to the former, the upper houfe of parliament is the fupreme court of judicature, to which the British people make their final appeal in all decitions of property. With refpect to the colonies, the appeal, in matters of property, is otherwife; it is to the king and his council, by which it should feem that the royal prerogative referved the equitable decifions of property in its newly-acquired territories, folely to itself, and that the colonies are, to all intents and purposes whatfoever respecting property, extra-parliamentary; for there does not appear in the fettlement of the internal policy of any of the colonies, the leaft parliamentary intervention whatsoever, but that the eltablishment of every one of them, in every respect, is the sole act of the king. This writer feems to carry the point by much too far, when he fays, the wisdom of our ancestors intrufted a fupreme and abfolute jurifdiction with the parliament (p. 25.) The parliament has no abfolute ju rifdiction over the king's prerogative, tho' a parliament, with a ftanding army to back it, affumed a jurifdiction over the life of a king; and, very foon after, an ufurper, with a like army, pluck'd the members of a parliament from their feats. This point is, therefore, not fo clear as to ground upon it fo heavy a charge as that of open rebellion and treason against fo well affected a body of men as the colonists are known to be, merely upon an opinion too haftily formed, and by no means proper to be propagated at a crifis fo tender and delicate as the prefent. The question does not feem to be, whether the parliament has the power of taxing the colonies, but whether the kings, the predeceffors of his prefent most gracious majefty, had a right, by virtue of their royal prerogative, to grant the colonifts exclufive privileges. The colonifts plea of non-representation in parlia ment, is poorly, very poorly indeed, anfwered, by putting the inhabitants of thirteen refpectable provinces in America, upon a footing with the rabble of GreatBritain. Every man of property in these kingdoms is reprefented in parliament, and therefore virtually taxed by his own confent : If he has no vote for a reprefentative in the diftrict where he refides, he has for a reprefentative in the county, where where his property lies. Are the colonifts fo reprefented? But waving this writer's zeal for the omnipotence of parliament, his arguments for the inexpediency of the exertion of its power, on the present occafion, are of the greatest weight. "The neceffity of fome tax upon the colonies, may, fays he, appear from the alarming fituation to which the public finances of this kingdom have been reduced; &c." p. 30. A Vindication of the Miniftry's Acceptance of the Adminiftration; with an ExpoJition of the real Motives of a noble Lord's declining it. In Anfwer to a Letter from a Son of Candor, to the Public Advertiser, (fee p. 641.) With a Propofal to establish the public Tranquil lity to the Satisfaction of all Parties. In a Letter from a Citizen to his Friend in the Country. THE most material parts of the pam phlet to which the writer confines his ftrictures, are comprised under four heads. ift, An accufation of the prefent miniftry's coming in and acting under the influence of the Favourite. 2dly. Of railly accepting the administration, notwithftanding their incapacity. 3d. An attempt to exculpate Mr. G. from having taken part in those measures of the late miniftry and lord B. which have given fo much diffatisfaction to the nation; and, 4th, To infinuate that the true and just motives of lord T.'s late behaviour in preventing Mr. P. from coming into the adminiftration, were founded on a certainty of the Favourite's continuing to act behind the curtain. As to the first charge, the miniftry deny it, and it has been so often already proved, unlikely to be true, that it is needless to say any thing farther on the fubject, but that it is "known to be false by thofe who most affect to believe it to be true." The next charge is that of incapacity, which this fon of candor lays to the prefent ministers, and afferts that they have avowed and acknowledged it themselves; but their diffidence, furely, can be no reproach; and whatever reluctance they may have fhewn to take upon them the adminiftration, yet fince they have been in, they have fhewn by their spirit and good January 1766. conduct they are not fo unequal to the tafk as they modeftly imagined, having in that short time effected more than lord B. or the late miniftry could do, fince the conclufion of their glorious peace, the articles of which, at that time they had power and fecurity enough in their own hands to have ofered the fine qua· non of laying down our arms. To the third head, "That the late mi- . "niftry defended themselves by protesting "that they abjured lord B. and had itiK.'s councils, but even from his refi"pulated his removal not only from the «dence," unless the writer could prove by facts, that they had refifted to the utmost of their power, the measures that were pursued during their own adminiftrahimself minifter," was at the head of the tion, or while the man who thought influence of the Favourite," who will betreasury, and was "over-powered by the lieve their affertions? In the fon of can dour's defiance, " to specify an overt act "of them (the miniftry) that could be fo "much as infinuated to be a ground for 66 a change of flying in the face of the "K. till the regency bill came in hand," does he not demonftrate to conviction from their own acknowledgment, that they had all along, till the regency bill, been the tools of the Favourite, and had fubmitted to execute and carry through, what they had neither advised nor projected, nay, even had not fo much confidence put in them as to have "measures communicated to them till called upon to execute them," till AT LAST they grew refractory: If this is not proof of their abject submission to the Favourite, there is no fuch thing as mathematical demonstration ! The laft article is to develope the myftery of lord T.'s refufal, and affign the real motives of his not agreeing to the terms which Mr. P. thought admiffible; and this the writer does, by quoting fome passages from the Son of Candor, in which the duke of Cumberland is named as one "whom it may not be the lefs neceffary, that it is the more incommodious to oppose;" from which he concludes, that lord T.'s dislike was to the D. of C. The following detail of what has hap pened fince his My's acceffion to the throne, will fet the whole of this difpute in a clear light. It is evident, fays the writer, that the E K. |