assist in the payment of a debt which had been incurred, as was alleged, in a great measure for their protection against a powerful enemy, who was now no longer an object of their dread.

Soon after George Grenville became Prime Minister, the project of imposing internal taxes in America was carried into effect. In the winter of 1764 that minister called together the agents of the colonies, and gave them notice of his intention of drawing a revenue from the colonies, saying that for this purpose he should in the ensuing session of Parliament propose a duty on stamps.

Soon after this, resolutions were passed in the House of Commons continuing and making perpetual the duties on sugar, molasses, and some other articles imported into the colonies, with additions and amendments.

MEMORIALS OF THE COLONIES

These ministerial and parliamentary proceedings were soon communicated to the colonies by their agents. The colonists at once took the alarm, particularly at the contemplated stamp duty; and, instead of yielding to it, or providing an equivalent according to the suggestion of the minister, they reiterated, though in a more full and ample manner, the declarations so often made by their ancestors, that they could be taxed only in their colonial legislatures, where, and where alone, they were represented. The people of Boston, at their meeting in May, 1764, instructed their representatives to the general court on this important subject. In these instructions (which were drawn by Samuel Adams, one of the committee appointed for that purpose), after commenting on the sugar and molasses act, they proceed to ob

serve:

But our greatest apprehension is that these proceedings may be preparatory to new taxes; for, if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands? Why not the products of our lands and every thing we possess or use? This, we conceive, annihilates our charter rights to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited, we

hold in common with our fellow subjects who are natives of Britain. If taxes are laid upon us, in any shape, without our having a legal representation where they are laid, we are reduced from the character of free subjects to the state of tributary slaves.

We, therefore, earnestly recommend it to you to use your utmost endeavors to obtain from the general court all necessary advice and instruction to our agent at this most critical juncture. We also desire you to use your endeavors that the other colonies, having the same interests and rights with us, may add their weight to that of this province; that by united application of all who are aggrieved all may obtain redress.

This was the first public act in the colonies in opposition to the ministerial plans of drawing a revenue directly from America; and it contained the first suggestion of the propriety of that mutual understanding and correspondence among the colonies which laid the foundation of their future confederacy.

The House of Representatives of Massachusetts, in June following, declared:

That the sole right of giving and granting the money of the people of that province was vested in them, or their representatives; and that the imposition of duties and taxes by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people not represented in the House of Commons is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights. That no man can justly take the property of another without his consent; upon which original principles the power of making laws for levying taxes, one of the main pillars of the British constitution, is evidently founded.

The same

sentiments

sentiments are expressed, though in stronger language, in their letter of instructions to their agent:

If the colonists are to be taxed at pleasure without any representatives in Parliament, what will there be to distinguish them, in point of liberty, from the subjects of the most absolute prince? If we are to be taxed, at pleasure, without our consent, will it be any consolation to us that we are to be assessed by an hundred instead of one? If we are not represented we are slaves.

The House at the same time appointed a committee to sit in the recess of the court, to write to the other colonies requesting them to join in applying for a repeal of the sugar act, and in preventing the passage of the act laying stamp duties, or any other taxes, on the American provinces.

In the course of the year 1764 petitions to the King and both houses of Parliament were prepared in many of the colonies, and sent to their agents.

The petitions of the Assembly of New York were drawn with great ability, and breathed a spirit more bold and decided than those from any other colony.

An exemption from the burden of ungranted and involuntary taxes must be the grand principle of every free state. Without such a right vested in themselves, exclusive of all others, there can be no liberty, no happiness, no security; it is inseparable from the very idea of property; for who can call that his own which may be taken away at the pleasure of another? and so evidently does this appear to be the natural right of mankind, that even conquered tributary states, though subject to the payment of a fixed periodical tribute, never were reduced to so absolute and forlorn a condition as to yield to all the burdens which their conquerors might, at any future time, think fit to impose. The tribute paid, the debt was discharged; and the remainder they would call their own.

And if conquered vassals, upon the principle of mutual justice, may claim a freedom from assessments, unbounded and unassented to, without which they would suffer the loss of everything, and life itself become intolerable, with how much propriety and boldness may we proceed to inform the Commons of Great Britain, who to their distinguished honor in all ages asserted the liberties of mankind, that the people of this colony nobly disdain the thought of claiming that exemption as a privilege. They found it on a basis more honorable, solid, and stable; they challenge it and glory in it, as their right. That right their ancestors enjoyed in Great Britain and Ireland, their descendants returning to these kingdoms enjoy it again, and that it may be exercised by his Majesty's subjects at home, and justly denied to those who submitted to poverty, barbarian wars, loss of blood, loss of money, personal fatigues and ten thousand unutterable hardships, to enlarge the trade, wealth and dominion of the nation; or, to speak with the most incontestable modesty,

that when, as subjects, all have equal merits, a fatal, nay the most odious, discrimination should nevertheless be made between them, no sophistry can recommend to the sober impartial decision of common sense.

While the Assembly of New York acknowledged that Parliament had a right to regulate the trade of the colonies, they declared that, in doing this, they had not the right of imposing duties for the purpose of revenue.

On this subject, they say to the House of Commons with equal boldness:

But a freedom to drive all kinds of traffic, in subordination to, and not inconsistent with, the British trade, and an exemption from all duties in such a course of commerce, is humbly claimed by the colonies as the most essential of all the rights to which they are entitled as colonists and connected in the common bond of liberty with the free sons of Great Britain. For, with submission, since all impositions, whether they be internal taxes, or duties paid for what we consume, equally diminish the estates upon which they are charged, what avails it to any people by which of them they are impoverished?

Everything will be given to preserve life; and, though there is a diversity in the means, yet the whole wealth of a country may be as effectually drawn off by the exaction of duties as by any other tax upon their estates.

In conclusion the Assembly declare:

They have no desire to derogate from the power of the Parliament of Great Britain; but they cannot avoid deprecating the loss of such rights as they have hitherto enjoyed, rights established in the first dawn of our constitution, founded upon the most substantial reasons, confirmed by invariable usage, conducive to the best ends; never abused to bad purposes, and with the loss of which, liberty, property, and all the benefits of life tumble into insecurity and ruin; rights, the deprivation of which will dispirit the people, abate their industry, discourage trade, introduce discord, poverty and slavery; or, by depopulating the colonies, turn a vast, fertile, prosperous region into a dreary wilderness, impoverish Great Britain, and shake the power and ir pendence of the most opulent and flourishing empire in the Vorld.

While the colonists in their various petitions denied the right of Parliament to tax them without their consent, they expressed their willingness to grant aids to the Crown according to their abilities through their own legislatures, whenever such aids should be required in the usual constitutional mode. As all aids granted to the Crown, agreeably to the British constitution, were the free gifts of the people, the colonists claimed the right of judging as to the amount and manner of these gifts; and were, therefore, unwilling indirectly to acknowledge or countenance the right of Parliament to tax them, by proposing any substitute for the stamp duty, which substitute Parliament might accept or reject at pleasure.

In the winter of 1764-1765 Dr. Benjamin Franklin and other agents of the colonies had a conference with Mr. Grenville on the subject of the stamp duty. They informed the minister of the great opposition to the proposed tax in America, and most earnestly entreated him that, if money must be drawn from the colonies by taxes, to leave it with the colonists to raise it among themselves in such manner as they should think proper and best adapted to their circumstances and abilities.

DEBATE BETWEEN TOWNSHEND AND BARRÉ

When the bill for laying the contemplated duties was brought before the House of Commons, it met with strong opposition. Though Mr. Pitt was absent on this occasion, confined to his bed by sickness, and General Conway and Alderman Beckford were the only persons in the House who opposed the bill on the ground that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies, Col. Isaac Barré, Mr. Jackson, Sir William Meredith, and others were against it on the ground of expediency, alleging generally that it was to the last degree impolitic, as well as unjust, for Great Britain to impose direct taxes upon the colonists while she retained the monopoly of their commerce. Sir George Grenville and Sir Charles Townshend were the principal supporters of the ban

Mr. Townshend, in the conclusion of a speech