upon Wales, by act of Parliament. From that moment, as by a charm, the tumults subsided; obedience was restored; peace, order, and civilization, followed in the train of liberty-When the day-star of the English constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and without

Simul alba nautis

Stella refulsit,

Defluit saxis agitatus humor;

Concidunt venti, fugiúntque nubes,
Et minax (quòd sic voluere) ponto
Unda recumbit.

The very same year the county palatine of Chester received the same relief from its oppressions, and the same remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others; and from thence Richard II. drew the standing army of archers, with which for a time he oppressed England. The people of Chester applied to parliament in a petition penned as I shall read to you:

"To the king our sovereign lord, in most "humble wise shewn unto your excellent majesty, "the inhabitants of your grace's county palatine "of Chester; That where the said county pala"tine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto

H

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exempt, excluded and separated out and from your high court of parliament, to have any knights and burgesses within the said court; by reason whereof the said inhabitants have hither"to sustained manifold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politick go"vernance and maintenance of the commonwealth "of their said country: (2.) And forasmuch as "the said inhabitants have always hitherto been "bound by the acts and statutes made and or"dained by your said highness, and your most "noble progenitors, by authority of the said court,

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as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs "have been, that have had their knights and bur66 gesses within your said court of parliament, and

yet have had neither knight ne burgess there for "the said county palatine; the said inhabitants, "for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched " and grieved with acts and statutes made within "the said court, as well derogatory unto the most "ancient jurisdictions, liberties and privileges of 66 your said county palatine, as prejudicial unto "the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace "of your grace's most bounden subjects inhabiting within the same."

What did parliament with this audacious address?-Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation

from

from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged of the original bitterness and indignation of complaint; they made it the very preamble to their act of redress; and consecrated its principle to all ages in the sanctuary of legislation.

Here is my third example. It was attended with the success of the two former. Chester, civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated that freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern of Chester was followed in the reign of Charles II. with regard to the county palatine of Durham, which is my fourth example. This county had long lain out of the pale of free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of Chester followed, that the style of the preamble is nearly the same with that of the Chester act; and, without affecting the abstract extent of the authority of parliament, it recognizes the equity of not suffering any considerable district, in which the British subjects may act as a body, to be taxed without their own voice in the grant.

Now if the doctrines of policy contained in these preambles,

preambles, and the force of these examples in the acts of parliaments, avail any thing, what can be said against applying them with regard to America? Are not the people of America as much Englishmen as the Welsh? The preamble of the act of Henry VIII. says, the Welsh speak a language no way resembling that of his majesty's English subjects. Are the Americans not as numerous ? If we may trust the learned and accurate Judge Barrington's account of North Wales, and take that as a standard to measure the rest, there is no comparison. The people cannot amount to above 200,000; not a tenth part of the number in the colonies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was hardly ever free from it. Have you attempted to govern America by penal statutes? You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative authority is perfect with regard to America; was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham? But America is virtually represented. What! does the electrick force of virtual representation more easily pass over the Atlantick, than pervade Wales, which lies in your neighbourhood; or than Chester and Durham, surrounded by abundance of representation that is actual and palpable? But, Sir, your ancestors thought this sort of virtual representation, however ample, to be totally insufficient for the freedom of the inhabitants of territories that are so near,

and

and comparatively so inconsiderable. How then can I think it sufficient for those which are infinitely greater, and infinitely more remote?

You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine, that I am on the point of proposing to you a scheme for a representation of the colonies in parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to entertain some such thought; but a great flood stops me in my course. Opposuit natura-I cannot remove the eternal barriers of the creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As I meddle with no theory, I do not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a representation. But I do not see my way to it; and those who have been more confident have not been more successful. However, the arm of publick benevolence is not shortened; and there are often several means to the same end. What nature has disjoined in one way, wisdom may unite in another. When we cannot give the benefit as we would wish, let us not refuse it altogether. If we cannot give the principal, let us find a substitute. But how? Where? What substitute?

Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways and means of this substitute to tax my own unproductive invention. I am not even obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile framers of imaginary commonwealths; not to the Republick of Plato, not to the Utopia of More; not to the Oceana of

Harrington.