XVI. 1768. BOOK Combinations, they now began to indulge a boundless and dangerous licence of speculative discussion on the nature and extent of parliamentary power. Till this period they had, with a cheerfulness which precluded any deep or accurate investigation of right, admitted the exercise of a discretionary legislative authority in the parliament of Great Britain. They had admitted the distinction between raising money as the mere incidental produce of regulating duties, and for the direct purpose of revenue; but now they argued more boldly, and as speculatists more consistently, in saying, If the parliament of Great Britain has no right to tax us internally, they have none to tax us externally; and if they have no right to tar us without our consent, they can have none to govern or to legislate for us without our consent. These reasonings, so natural and obvious in present circumstances, when the power of the mother country was, in the apprehension of every American, employed to the purposes of oppression, prove in a striking manner the unexampled folly of Great Britain, in risquing the discussion of a right so problematic and precarious. The only just and solid basis of the authority of Great Britain over the colonies was that of common utility sanctioned by long prescription and universal acquiescence. But when the authority of Great XVL 1768. Britain was exerted for her own separate ad- BOOK vantage, in a manner unauthorized by custom, and unacknowledged by those over whom it was exercised by mere dint of superior force, it could in nothing be distinguished from tyranny, to which resistance and revolt only can be properly opposed. To attempt to govern a whole nation in a mode abhorrent from their feelings, principles, and prejudices, is a complication of folly and wickedness; and the councils of Great Britain at this period were governed by a spirit of infatuation, which it is difficult to analyse into any of the common principles of human action, and which excites our astonishment at least as strongly as our indignation or regret. In January, 1768, the assembly of Massachu sett's Bay transmitted, by their speaker, a circular letter to the different colonies, in which they recommend to the respective colonial legislatures to take into joint consideration the measures it may be proper to adopt for the redress of their common grievances, particularly specifying the late acts imposing duties and taxes on America, and expressing their firm confidence in the king, their common head and father, that the united and dutiful supplications of his distressed American subjects will meet with his royal and favorable acceptance. No sooner was this known in England, than Lord Hillsborough BOOK transmitted instructions to governor Bernard, in XVI. his majesty's name, so soon as the general court 1768. is again assembled, to require of the house of representatives "to RESCIND the resolution which gave birth to the circular letter from the speaker, and to declare their disapprobation of, and dissent from, that rash and hasty proceeding at the same time strangely affirming the resolution in question to be unfair, contrary to the real sense of the assembly, and procured by surprise;" although it in fact passed almost unanimously in a very full house, after the most ample and deliberate discussion. In case of the refusal of the house to comply with this requisition, the governor was commanded immediately to dissolve the assembly, and to transmit to his lordship an account of their transactions. This imperious demand was conceived precisely in the spirit of a mandate of the French king to his parliaments, but fortunately it could not be enforced by lettres de cachet. If French parliaments have been known resolutely to resist the will of the despot with the terrors of imprisonment, exile, and death before their eyes, it will easily be supposed that an assembly of men boasting their descent from ancestors whose garments were stained in the blood of tyrants were little likely to yield this abject submission. A committee of the house reported a letter to lord XVI. 1768. Hillsborough, in which the egregious misappre- BOOK hension of his lordship, with regard to the mode in which the resolution had passed the house, was corrected; and the house then agreed on a message to the governor, in which they said"It is to us incomprehensible that we should be required, on the peril of a dissolution of the general court, to rescind a resolution of a former house, when it is evident that that resolution has no existence but as a mere historical fact. Your excellency must know that the resolution is, to speak the language of the common law, not now executory, but to all intents and purposes executed. If, as is most probable, by the word rescinding is intended the passing a vote in direct and express disapprobation of the measure of the former house, we must take the liberty to testify,' and publicly to declare, that we take it to be the native, inherent, and indefeasible right of the subject jointly or severally to petition the king for the redress of grievances. If the votes of the house are to be controlled by the directions of a minister, we have left us but a vain semblance of liberty. We have now only to inform you, that this house have voted NOT to RESCIND; and that, on the division on the question, there were ninety-two yeas, and seventeen nays." The next day the governor dissolved the assembly. In the course of the debate which 1768. BOOK preceded this resolution, a member of the asXVI. sembly said, "When lord Hillsborough knows that we will not rescind our acts, he should apply to parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britain rescind her measures, or she will lose America for ever." At the same time that lord Hillsborough transmitted his majesty's high commands to sir Francis Bernard, he wrote a circular letter to the governors of the different provinces, in which, referring to the letter of the Massachusetts' assembly, his lordship said, "It is his majesty's PLEASURE that you should, immediately on the receipt hereof, exert your utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace, by prevailing upon the assembly of the province to take no notice of it; which will be treating it with the contempt it deserves." The contempt of the Americans was reserved however for the letter of his lordship; the assemblies throughout the continent highly applauding the conduct of the Massachusetts, and almost unanimously passing votes and resolves according with the spirit of the letter received. from Boston. The assembly of New York in particular, whose principles were supposed most favorable to loyalty, answered it in the most respectful terms, and appointed a committee of correspondence to consult with the other colonies |