been able to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe. He coincided in it from the first dawn of the question, What was the political relation between us and England? Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas and Pendleton, stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson, who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce and to lay duties on it for the purpose of regulation, but not of raising revenue. But for this ground there was no foundation in compact in any acknowledged principles of colonization, nor in reason: expatriation being a national right, and acted on as such by all nations, in all ages."

.

This pamphlet is addressed to the king, as the chief officer of the people, appointed indeed by the laws, but circumscribed by definitive power, to carry into effect that institution of government erected by themselves for their use and benefit, and consequently subject to their superintendence. He reminded him that our ancestors had been British freemen; that they had acquired their settlements here at their own expense and blood; that it was for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered; and for themselves alone they had a right to hold. That they had indeed thought proper to adopt the same system of laws under which they had hitherto lived, and to unite themselves under a common sovereign; but that no act of theirs had ever given a title to that authority, which the British parliament arrogated; that the crown had unjustly commenced its encroachments, by distributing the settlements among its favourites, and the followers of its fortunes; that it then proceeded to abridge the free trade which the colonies possessed as of natural right with all

parts of the world; and that afterwards offices were established of little use but to accommodate the ministers and sycophants of the crown. That during the reign of the sovereign whom he immediately addressed, the violation of rights had increased in rapid and bold succession; being no longer single acts of tyranny, that might be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions pursued so unalterably through every change of ministers, as to prove too plainly a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing the colonies to slavery. He next proceeds, in a style of the boldest invective, to point out the several acts by which this plan has been enforced, and enters against them a solemn and determined protest. He then considers the conduct of the king as holding an executive authority in the colonies, and points out, without hesitation, his deviation from the line of duty; he asserts that by the unjust exercise of his negative power, he had rejected laws of the most salutary tendency; that he had defeated repeated attempts to stop the slave trade and abolish tyranny; thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs, to the lasting interests of America, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. That, inattentive to the necessities of his people, he had neglected for years the laws which were sent for his inspection; and that, assuming a power, for advising the exercise of which, the English judges, in a former reign, had suffered death as traitors to their country, he had dissolved the representative assemblies, and refused to call others. That to enforce these, and other arbitrary measures, he had from time to time sent over large

bodies of armed men, not made up of the people here, nor raised by the authority of their laws. That to render these proceedings still more criminal, instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, he had expressly made the latter subordinate to the former. That these grievances were thus laid before their sovereign, with that freedom of language and sentiment which became a free people, whom flattery would ill beseem, when asserting the rights of human nature.

In all this we perceive the germe of that national declaration, which so shortly succeeded it; many of the same bold truths, and in the same bold language.

In these sentiments, however, bold as they were, his political associates joined with him; they considered those acts of oppression directed against the colonies of New England, acts in which all were concerned, and an attack on the liberties and immunities of every other province. They accordingly resolved, that the first day of June, the day on which the Boston Port Bill was to go into operation, should be set apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, "devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamities which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of a civil war; and to give them one heart and one mind, to oppose by all just and proper means every injury to American rights."

Lord Dunmore, the royal Governour of the province, could not be otherwise than highly exasperated at such proceedings. Mr. Jefferson, who had boldly avowed himself the author of the obnoxious pamphlet, was threatened with a prosecution by him for high treason;

and the House of Burgesses was immediately dissolved after their daring publication. Notwithstanding these measures, the members met in their private capacities, and mutually signed a spirited publication, setting forth the unjust conduct of the Governour, who had left them this, their only method, to point out to their countrymen the measures they deemed the best calculated to secure their liberties from destruction by the arbitrary hand of power. They told them that they could no longer resist the conviction, that a determined system had been, formed to reduce the inhabitants of British America to slavery, by subjecting them to taxation without their consent, by closing the port of Boston, and raising a revenue on tea. They therefore strongly recommended a closer alliance with the sister colonies, the formation of committees of correspondence, and the annual meeting of a General Congress; and earnestly hoping that a persistance in these principles would not compel them to adopt measures of a more decisive character.

The pamphlet having found its way to England, it was taken up by the opposition, and, with a few interpolations by the celebrated Edmund Burke, passed through several editions. It procured for its author considerable reputation, and likewise the dangerous honour of having his name placed on a list of proscriptions in a bill of attainder, which was commenced in one of the houses of parliament, but was speedily suppressed. In the same bill the names of Hancock, the two Adamses, Peyton Randolph, and Patrick Henry, were inserted.

We are now rapidly approaching the most important

event in the life of Mr. Jefferson, and in the history of

his country.

The year 1775 opened, in England, with strenuous attempts by the friends, and apparent ones by the enemies of the colonies, to effect a reconciliation. The certain intelligence which had been received of the transactions of Congress, and the astonishing concord which prevailed in America, made the ministers loath to embrace extreme counsels, and inclined to relax somewhat of their rigour, and to leave an opening for accommodation. Lord North even intimated to the American merchants then in London, that if they presented petitions, they should meet attention. But in the midst of these glimmerings of peace, the news arrived of the schism of New York; an event of great moment in itself, and promising consequences still more important. The minister felt his pride revive: he would no longer hear of petitions or accommodation. Things turned anew to civil war and strife. All the papers relating to the affairs of America, were laid before the two houses. The great Chatham, perceiving the obstinacy of the ministers in their resolution to persist in the course of measures they had adopted, and fearing that it might result in the most disastrous ef fects, pronounced a long and most extremely eloquent discourse in favour of the colonies, and was heard with solemn and rapt attention.

After having repulsed with a sort of disdain the petitions of the colonies, and those presented in their favour by the islands of the West Indies, and even by England herself; and after having rejected all the counsels of the party in opposition, the ministers unveiled