mere found of freedom can operate thus powerfully, let no man hereafter doubt the story of the Pied Piper. The removal of the people of Boflon into the country feems even to the Congrefs not only difficult in its execution, but important in its confequences. The difficulty of execution is best known to the Boftonians themselves; the confequence, alas! will only be, that they will leave good houfes to wiser

men.

Yet before they quit the comfort of a warm home for the founding fomething which they think better, he cannot be thought their enemy who advises them to confider well whether they fhall find it. By turning fishermen or hunters, wood-men or thepherds, they may become wild, but it is not fo eafy to conceive them free: for who can be more a flave than he that is driven by force from the comfort of life, is compelled to leave his house to a cafual comer, and whatever he does, or wherever he wanders, finds every moment fome new teftimony of his own fubjection: If the choice of evil is freedom; the felon in the gallies has his option of labour or of itripes. The Boltonian may quit his house to ftarve in the fields; his dog may refufe to fet, and smart under the laf, and they may then congratulate each other upon the fmiles of liberty, profufe with blifs, and pregnant with delight.

To treat fuch defigns as ferious, would be to think too contemptuously of Boftonian understandings. The artifice in deed is not new; the blufterer who threatened in vain to deftroy his opponent, has fometimes obtained his end, by making it believed that he would hang him

felf.

But terrors and pity are not the only means by which the taxation of the Americans is opposed. There are thofe who profefs to use them only as auxiliaries to reafon and juftice, who tell us that to tax the colonies is ufurpation and oppreffion, an invafion of natural and legal rights, and a violation of thofe principles which support the conftitution of Englith government.

This question is of great importance. That the Americans are able to bear taxation is indubitable; and that their refufal may be over-ruled is highly probable: but power is no fufficient evidence of truth. Let us examine our own claim, and the objections of the recufants, with caution proportioned to the event of the decifion, which must convict one part of robbery, or the other of rebellion.

A tax is a payment exacted by, autho

rity from part of the community for the benefit of the whole. From whom, and in what proportion such payment shall be required, and to what use it shall be applied, thofe only are to judge to whom government is intrufted. In the British dominion taxes are apportioned, levied, and appropriated by the states affembled in parliament.

Of every empire all the fubordinate communities are liable to taxation, becaufe they all fhare the benefit of government, and therefore ought all to furnifh their proportion of the expence.

This the Americans have never openly denied. That it is their duty to pay the cost of their own fafety they feem to admit; nor do they refuse their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of the British empire; but they make this participation of the public burden of duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation; a duty tempo¬ rary, occafional and elective, of which they referve to themselves the right of fettling the degree, the time, and the duration, of judging when it may be required, and when it has been performed.

They allow to the fupreme power nothing more than the liberty of notifying to them its demands or its neceffities. Of this notification they profefs to think for themselves, how far it fhall influence their counfels, and of the neceffities alledged, how far they fhall endeavour to relieve them. They affume the exclufive power of fettling not only the mode, but the quantity of this payment. They are ready to co-operate with all the other dominions of the King; but they will co-operate by no means which they do not like, and at no greater charge than they are willing to hear.

This claim, wild as it may feem, this claim, which fuppofes dominion without authority, and fubjects without fubordination, has found among the libertines of policy many clamorous and hardy vindicators. The laws of nature, the rights of humanity, the faith of charters, the danger of liberty, the encroachments of ufurpation, have been thundered in our ears, fometimes by interested faction, and fometimes by honeft stupi'dity.

It is faid by Fontenelle, that if twenty philofophers fhall refolutely deny that the prefence of the fun makes the day, he will not despair but whole nations may adopt the opinion. So many political dogmatifts have denied to the mother country the power of taxing the colonies, and have enforced their denial

E e 2

with

with fo much violence of outcry, that their fect is already very numerous, and the public voice fufpends its decifion.

In moral and political questions the contest between intereft and juftice have been often tedious and often fierce, but perhaps it never happened before that juftice found much oppofition with intereft on her fide.

For the fatisfaction of this enquiry, it is neceffary to confider how a colony is conftituted, what are the terms of migration as dictated by nature, or fettled by compact, and what focial or political rights the man lofes, or acquires, that leaves his country to establish himself in a diftant plantation.

Of two modes of migration the history of mankind informs us, and, fo far as I can yet difcover, of two only.

In countries where life was yet unadjufted, and policy unformed, it fometimes happened that, by the diffenfions of heads of families, by the ambition of daring adventurers, by fome accidental preflure of diftress, or by the mere discontent of idleness, one part of the community broke off from the reft, and numbers, greater or smaller, forfook their habitations, put themselves under the command of fome favourite of fortune, and with or without the confent of their countrymen or governors, went out to fee what better regions they could occupy, and in what place, by conqueft or by treaty, they could gain an habitation.

Sons of enterprife like thefe, who com mitted to their own fwords their hopes and their lives, when they left their country, became another nation, with defigns, and profpects, and interefts, of their own. They looked back no more to their former home; they expected no help from those whom they had left behind; if they conquered, they conquered for themfelves; if they were deftroyed, they were not by any other power either lamented or revenged.

Of this kind feem to have been all the migrations of the old world, whether historical or fabulous, and of this kind were the eruptions of thofe nations which from the north invaded the Roman empire, and filled Europe with new fovereignties.

But when, by the gradual admiffion of wifer laws and gentler manners, fociety became more compacted and better regulated, it was found that the power of every people confifted in union, produced by one common intereft, and operating in joint efforts and confiftent counfeis.

From this time independence perceptibly wafted away. No part of the nation was permitted to act for itfelf. All now had the fame enemies and the fame friends; the government protected individuals, and individuals were required to refer their defigns to the prosperity of the government.

By this principle it is, that states are formed and confolidated. Every man is taught to confider his own happiness as combined with the public profperity, and to think himself great and powerful, in proportion to the greatnefs and power of his governors.

Had the Western continent been difcovered between the fourth and tenth century, when all the Northern world was in motion; and had navigation been at that time fufficiently advanced to make fo long a paffage easily practicable, there is little reafon for doubting but the intumefcence of nations would have found its vent, like all other expanfive violence, where there was leaft refiftance; and that Huns and Vandals, inftead of fighting their way to the South of Europe, would have gone by thoufands and by myriads under their feveral chiefs to take poffeffion of regions fmiling with pleafure and waving with fertility, from which the naked inhabitants were unable to repel them.

Every expedition would in those days of laxity have produced a diftinct and independent ftate. The Scandinavian heroes might have divided the country among them, and have fpread the feudal subdivision of regality from Hudfon's Bay to the Pacifick Occean.

But Columbus came five or fix hundred years too late for the candidates of fovereignty. When he formed his project of difcovery, the fluctuations of military turbulence had fubfided, and Europe began to regain a fettled form, by eftablished government and regular fubordination. No man could any longer erect himself into a chieftain, and lead out his fellow-fubjects by his own authority to plunder or to war. He that committed any act of hoftility by land or fea, without the commiffion of fome acknowledged fovereign, was confidered by all mankind as a robber or a pirate, names which were now of little credit, and of which therefore no man was ambitious.

Columbus in a remoter time would have found his way to fome discontented Lord, or fome younger brother of a petty Sovereign, who would have taken fire at his propofals, and bave quickly

kindled

kindled with equal heat a troop of followers; they would have built thips, or have feized them, and have wandered with him at all adventures as far as they could keep Hope in their company. But the age being now past, of vagrant excurfion and fortuitous hoftility, he was under the neceffity of travelling from court to court, fcorned and repulfed as a wild projector, an idle promifer of kingdoms in the clouds; nor has any part of the world yet had reafon to rejoice that he found at last reception and employment. In the fame year, in the year hitherto difaftrous to mankind, by the Portuguese was discovered the pallage of the Indies, and by the Spaniards the coast of America. The nations of Europe were fired with boundless expectations, and the difcoverers, purfuing their enterprise, made conquefts in both hemifpheres of wide exteat. But the adventurers were contented with plunder; though they took gold and filver to themfelves, they feized iflands and kingdoms in the name of their Sovereigns. When a new region was gained, a governor was appointed by that power which had given the commifLon to the conqueror; nor have I met with any European but Stukely of Lon don, that formed a defign of exalting himfelf in the newly found countries to independent dominion.

To fecure a conqueft, it was always necellary to plant a colony, and territories thus occupied and settled were rightly confidered as mere extenfions or procelles of empire; as ramifications through which the circulation of one public intereft communicated with the original fource of dominion, and which were kept flourifhing and fpreading by the radical vigour of the mother-country.

The colonies of England differ no otherwife from thofe of other nations, than as the English conftitution differs from theirs. All government is ultimately and effentially abfolute, but fubordinate focieties may have more immunities, or individuals greater liberty, as the ope. rations of government are differently conducted. An Englishman in the common courfe of life and action feels no restraint. An English colony has very liberal powers of regulating its own manners, and adjusting its own affairs. But an English individual may by the fupreme authority be deprived of liberty, and a colony divefted of its powers, for reafons of which that authority is the only judge.

In fovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty, there

may be limited confulfhip; but there can be no limited government. There must in every fociety be fome power or other from which there is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole mafs of the community, regulates and adjusts all fubordination, enacts laws or repeals, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts privileges, exempt itfelf from queftion or control, and bounded only by phyfical neceffity.

By this power, wherever it fubfifts, all legiflation and jurifdiction is animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations, which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irrefiftible, for it can be refifted only by rebellion, by an a& which makes it queftionable what fhall be thence-forward the fupreme power.

An English colony is a number of perfon, to whom the king grants a charter, permitting them to fettle in fome distant country, and enabling them to conflitute a corporation, enjoy fuch powers as the charter grants, to be adminiftered in fuch forms as the charter prefcribes. As a corporation they make laws for themfelves, but as a corporation fubfifting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that authority they continue fubject.

As men are placed at a great distance from the fupreme council of the kingdom, they must be intrusted with ampler liberty of regulating their conduct by their own wildom. As they are more fecluded from easy recourse to national judicature, they must be more extensively commiffioned to pafs judgment on each other.

For this reafon our more important and opulent colonies fee the appearance and feel the effect of a regular legiflature, which in fome places has acted fo long with unqueitioned authority, that it has been forgotten whence that authority was originally derived..

To their charters the colonies owe, like other corporations, their political exiftence. The folemnities of legiflation, the adminiftration of justice, the fecurity of property, are all beftowed upon them by the royal grant. Without their charter there would be no power among them, by which any law could be made, or duties enjoined, any debt recovered, or criminal punished.

A charter is a grant of certain powers of privileges given to a part of a community for the advantage of the whole, and is therefore liable by its nature to change or to revocation. Every

act of government aims at public good. A charter, which experience has fhown to be detrimental to the nation, is to be repealed; because general profperity must always be preferred to particular intereft. If a charter be used to evil purpofes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is injuriously employ ed.

The charter therefore, by which provincial governments are conftituted, may be always legally, and where it is either inconvenient in its nature, or mifapplied in its ufe, may be equitably repealed, and by fuch repeal the whole fabrick of fubordination is immediately deftroyed, the conflitution funk at once into a chaos; the fociety is diffolved into a tumult of individuals, without authority to command, or obligation to obey; without any punishment of wrongs but by perfonal refentment, or any protection of right but by the hand of the poffeffor.

A colony is to the mother-country as a member is to the body, deriving its action and its ftrength from the general principle of vitality; receiving from the body, and communicating to it, all the benefits and evils of health and difeafe; liable in dangerous maladies to tharp applications, of which the body, however muft partake the pain; and expofed, if incurably tainted, to amputation, by which the body likewise will be mutilated.

The mother-country always confiders the colonies thus connected, as parts of itfelf; the profperity or unhappinefs of either is the profperity or unhappiness of both; nor perhaps of both in the fame degree, for the body may fubfift, though lefs commodioufly, without a limb, but the limb muft perish if it be parted from the body.

Our colonies therefore, however diftant, have been hitherto treated as conftituent parts of the British empire. The inhabitants, incorporated by English charters, are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated by English counfels, and protected by English arms; and it feems to follow by confequence not eafily avoided, that they are fubjects to English government, and chargeable by English

taxation.

To him that confiders the nature, the original, the progrefs, and the conftitution of the colonies, who remembers that the difcoverers had commiffions from the crown, that the first fettlers owe to a charter their civil forms and regular magistra

cy, and that all perfonal immunities and perfonal fecurities, by which the conditon of the subjects has been from time to time improved, have been extended to the colonifts, it will not be doubted but the parliament of England have a right to bind them by flatutes, and to bind them in all cafes whatsoever, and has therefore a legal and conftitutional power of laying upon them any tax or impoft, whether external or internal, upon the product of land, or the manufactures of induftry, in the exigencies of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America, for the purpose of raifing a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to the empire.

There are fome, and thofe not inconfiderable for number, nor contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the general dominion of parliament, and hold that whatever degrees of obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in other acts of government, there is fill reverence to be paid to money, and that legiflation paffes its limits when it violates the purse.

Of this exception, which by a head not fully impregnated with politicks is not eafily comprehended, it is alleged as an unanswerable reafon, that the colonies fend no reprefentatives to the house of

commons.

It is, fay the American advocates, the natural diftinction of a freeman, and the legal privilege of an Englishman, that he is able to call his poffeffions his own, that he can fit fecure in the enjoyment of inheritance or acquifition, that his houfe is fortified by the law, and that nothing can be taken from him but by his own confent. This confent is given for every man by his representative in parliament, The American unreprefented cannot confent to English taxations, as a corporation, and they will not confent as individuals.

Of this argument, it has been obferved by more than one, that its force extends equally to all other laws, that a freeman is not to be expofed to punishment, or be called to any onerous fervice but by his own confent. The congrefs has extracted a pofition from the fanciful Montesquieu, that in a free flate every man being a free agent ought to be concerned in his own government. Whatever is true of taxation is true of every other law, that he who is bound by it, without his confent, is not free, for he is not concerned in his own government.

He that denies the English parliament

the

the right of taxation, denies it likewife the right of making any other laws civil or criminal, yet this power over the colonies was never yet difputed by themfelves. They have always admitted ftatutes for the punishment of offences, and for the redrefs or prevention of inconveniencies: and the reception of any law draws after it, by a chain which cannot be broken, the unwelcome neceffity of fubmitting to taxation.

That a free man is governed by himfelf, or by laws to which he has confented, is a pofition of mighty found; but every man that utters it, with whatever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever acquiefcence, if confent be fuppofed to imply the power of refufal, feels it to be falfe. We virtually and implicitly allow the inftitutions of any government of which we enjoy the benefit, and licit the protection. In wide extended dominions, though power has been diffufed with the moft even hand, yet a very finall part of the people are either primarily or fecondarily confulted in legiflation. The bufinefs of the publick muft be done by delegation. The choice of delegates is made by a select number, and those who are not electors ftand idle and helpless fpectators of the common-weal, wholly unconcerned with the government of themselves.

Of electors the hap is but little better. They are often far from unanimity in their choice, and where the numbers approach to equality, almost half must be governed not only without, but against their choice.

How any man can have confented to inftitutions eftablished in diftant ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the moft favourite refidence of liberty, the confent of individuals is merely paffive, a tacit admiffion in every community of the terms which that community grants and requires. As all are born the fubjects of fome ftate or other, we may be faid to have been all born confenting to fome fyftem of government. Other confent than this the condition of civil life does not allow. It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the delirious dream of republican fanaticism.

But hear, ye fons and daughters of liberty, the founds which the winds are wafting from the Western Continent, The Americans are telling one another, what, if we may judge from their noify triumph, they have but lately difcovered, and what yet is a very important truth. That they are entitled to Life, Liberty, and Property, and that they have never

ceded to any fovereign power whatever a right to difpfe of either without their confent.

While this refolution stands alone, the Americans are free from fingularity of opinion; their wit has not yet betrayed them to herefy. While they fpake as the naked fons of Nature, they claim but what is claimed by other men, and have withheld nothing but what all withhold. They are here upon firm ground, behind entrenchments which never can be forced.

Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this refemblance to Europeans, that they do not always know when they are well. They foon quit the fortrefs that could neither have been mined by fophiftry, nor battered by declamation. Their next refolution declares, that their ancestors, who first fettled the Colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the Mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural born fubjects within the realms of England.

This likewife is true; but when this is granted, their boast of original rights is at an end; they are no longer in a State of Nature. Thefe lords of themfelves, thefe kings of me, thefe demigods of independence, fink down to coIonifts, governed by a charter. If their ancestors were fubjects, they acknowledged a fovereign; if they had a right to English privileges, they were accountable to English laws, and what muft grieve the Lover of Liberty to discover,. had ceded to the King and Parliament, whether the right or not, at least the power, of difpofing, without their conjent, of their lives, liberties, and proper-. ties. It therefore is required of them to prove, that the parliament ever ceded to them a difpenfation from that obedience, which they owe as natural born subjects, or any degree of independence or immunity not enjoyed by other Englithmen.

They fay, That by fuch emigration they by no means forfeited, furrendered, or loft any of thofe rights; but that they were, and their defcendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all fuch of them as their local and other circumfiances enable them to exercife and enjoy.

That they who form a fettlement by a lawful charter, having committed no crime, forfeit no privileges, will be readily confeffed; but what they do not forfeit by any judicial fentence, they may lofe by natural effects. As man can be but in one place at once, he cannot have the advantages of multiplied refidence.

He