provided Parliament be in other points also reformed on the above principles.--3dly, It is clear, that they do not found their claims to this alteration of the British Constitution (for their plan amounts to no less) on the moderate plea of expediency; but demand it as a matter of legal or constitutional right. The withholding it is, in the case of taxation, (as it is stated in these resolutions,)" an open violation of the fundamental right of property."----Lastly, they describe the Commons in Parliament assembled, as the mere "nominee" of an "odious oligarchy."

I repeat what I have before said, that I have never yet read any resolutions, which would have such an extensive effect on our Constitution, that an examination, turn out so totally unsupported by fact or argu

ment.

They are, I think, almost without a parallel in the history of discontent, recorded even in the proceedings of the Constitutional and Corresponding Societies.

I know not what the fact is: but it would give mê some small gratification, if it should hereafter appear, that these resolutions were imported from another place, and were not articles of Cornish manufacture. I shall now conclude the subject. What I have here submitted to the public, is little more than a summary, with some additions, of what I have before written in various letters. I have indeed omitted the discussion of some points altogether, as being comparatively unimportant, and made some additional observations which have occurred to me from the perusal of new authorities.

Trewarthenick, 1812.

NOTES..

NOTE 1.-See an admirable letter of Junius on this subject. He says, "In the first place, I question the power de jure' of the "Legislature to disfranchise a number of Boroughs, upon the "general ground of improving the Constitution.-There cannot be a doctrine more fatal to the liberty and property we are contending for, than that which confounds the idea of a supreme " and arbitrary Legislature.—I need not point out to you the "fatal purposes to which it has been, or may be, applied. If we

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are sincere in the political creed we profess, there are many "things which we ought to affirm cannot be done by King, Lords, "and Commons; among these, I reckon disfranchising Boroughs “with a general view of improvement. I consider it as equiva"lent to robbing the parties concerned, of their freehold, of their "birth-right. I say, that though this birth-right may be forfeited, "or the exercise of it suspended in particular cases, it cannot be "taken away by a general law for any real or pretended purpose "of improving the Constitution."-If this be true, even in the case of Boroughs, and no truth is, I think, more evident; with what irresistable force does the same reasoning apply against a plan, which cannot be carried into execution without destroying by one general sweep, all rights of election derived from freehold, from charter, or prescription !

NOTE 2.-Subsidies, tenths, and fifteenths, extended to every species of personal property, and of course all persons within a county were taxed, whether they possessed a freehold, and were individually represented, or not.-The writs of taxation incontrovertibly establish this fact, as well as the acts imposing taxes.

NOTE 3.-The writ, issued in conformity with the Stat. 7. H. IV. " directs the elections of the knights of shires to be held at

the next county court." It is well known that the "Freeholders" were the only persons who attended the county courts.

NOTE 4.-Lord Camden's authority has been most strangely quoted to support this new doctrine of individual representation. I have already more than once proved, that this opinion of Lord Camden went no further, than to affirm, that according to his view of the British Constitution, a whole country, America, for instance, could not be legally taxed, except that country sent her representatives to the British Parliament. The whole scope and view of this speech prove this--when he says, "in England not a blade of grass is unrepresented." It is certainly true; for every county sends her representatives to the British Parliament. But there is not one word or sentence in Lord Camden's speech, which can be construed to describe or point out any new form of representation, as the only one by which taxation will be legal. There is not the smallest pretence for drawing any such conclusion from his speech.

But even suppose he had done this; his authority would fail to establish this doctrine; for it was opposed by equal authority, at the time in Parliament, even as to the legal right of taxing America, though wholly unrepresented. Nay, there is an Act of Parliament (6 Geo. III. c. 12.) which expressly declaros the existence of this right. It is true, that a subsequent Statute 18, Geo. III. c. 12. abandons the exercise of this right on grounds of expediency, but the former Act remained unrepealed.

A striking extract from a speech of the celebrated Mr. Fox, who embarked in the same cause with Lord Camden, and who may be fairly considered as holding the same sentiments on the American question, with his party, sets the point at issue in a very strong light. And be it remembered, that Mr. Fox was in some respects a friend to Parliamentary Reform.

"As to what the Hon. Gentleman (Sir P. Francis) had said "on the subject of representation, no one had said that the repre "sentation of the country was inadequate, except perhaps a few “excentric men who had denied that the people owed obedience to "that house as their representatives. The very phrase "inade quate' representation, proved that the friends of reform conceived "that the people were represented: that the virtual representation "indeed, was not complete, and that it ought to approach more

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“to what was real. Every person, with whom he had been con"nected, disclaimed the idea of universal suffrage. But he did "not know on what the constitution depended, if the people were "not considered as virtually represented in Parliament. It was "because America was neither virtually nor really represented in “Parliament, and that the Americans had no complete com "munion of interests with this country, that our right to tax "America was denied."

NOTE 5.-Sir Ed. Coke may be quoted, as conclusive authority on all questions connected with the Petition of Right, for it will appear from Rushworth's Collection, Vol. 1. that he was princi pally concerned in all the questions connected with the framing and passing this celebrated Statute, which recites in its Preamble all the existing law on the subject of the legal mode of imposing Taxes, including the Statute de Tallagio non Concedendo, 34 Ed. I. It must be remarked particularly (and I therefore repeat the fact) that the Bodmin Resolutions only quote the "PREAMBLE” to the Petition of Right, and omit the " enacting clause," which contains the true and precise description of the legal authority, under which Taxes can be levied by the Constitution of Great Rritain. I do not think this proceeding exactly correct, for if the enacting clause had been produced, I should think no man would have attempted to give a doubtful, or a new, construction to words, which are as plain in their meaning as language can be; and which have always been interpreted in the same manner by all persons in all times. It is as follows: " that no man hereafter be "compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of "Parliament."

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I must remark, that the words," by Act of Parliament," have not only been omitted in the Resolutions, but I never, as I recollect, have seen them in any one paper, that has been written in their defence. The preamble alone is still quoted.—It is true that I have never seen all these papers. I do not make these remarks, because there is a single doubtful word in the preamble. Certainly not. But the attempt at misconstruction is not so manifest and palpable, as when the enacting clause is quoted. appears there on the first view of the words.

It

NOTE 6.-I have before stated in the text, that the first writ of election extant, is dated in the 23d Ed. I. (1295) and that the persons named therein to represent the " Commonalty" were knights, citizens, and burgesses.

The Stat. de Tallagio non Concedendo passed only eleven years afterwards; of course the words "liberi communes" can only apply to knights, citizens or burgesses. All the "Commonalty" were not then, (as they now are, under the present constitution) free. The words "Commons assembled in Parliament," now in use, mean all the Commons, or Commonalty. The words "Free Commonalty," in Ed. 1st's time, meant only a limited part of them. There were others, "not free." It is most strange that our reformers should seek for precedents for adoption in these days, derived from periods, when the words "Free Commonalty" did not mean every man in the kingdom not a noble. The words Communa and Communitas, were never used to describe all the inhabitants of a county, city or borough ;-and certainly did not distinguish particularly those who paid taxes, from other persons; the "communitas" of a County, mean the "Freeholders" of a county. See Sir Edw. Coke, 2d Inst. p. 559, and also Brady's Introduct. to Hist. and Tyrrel's Bibl. Pol.

In Maddox's "Firma Burgi," it will clearly appear that the communa, or communitas, of city or town corporate, did not mean all the inhabitants, or specially the "taxed inhabitants," but those only who are included in the form of its charter, and was one of the names by which they could sue and be sued. Thus the corporations of the cities af London and Gloucester and Grimsby, are described as "Major et Communitas Londoniæ, and Ballui, &c. et Communitas Glocesteriæ and "Communitas de Grimesby, &c. Other terms are also used in these descriptions, all having the same meaning.

NOTE 7.-National Convention, 3d Sept. 1791. The qualification of a voter in what are called primary assemblies, is," to pay "in any part of the kingdom a direct contribution at least to the "value of three days labour, and to produce an acquittance for the "same." The king was deposed by the electoral mob of France, August 1792, and imprisoned in the Temple. He was murdered by form of law, Jan. 1793.