Riots and weak publications, by a small number of individuals, are sufficient reasons with Parliament to ruin many thousand inhabitants of a truly respectable town, to dissolve charters, to abolish the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus,* and extirpate American liberty—for the principle reaches all. But in England the Press groans with publications, seditious, treasonable, and even blasphemous. The discontented swarm over the Kingdom proclaiming their resentments. Many enormous riots have disturbed the public peace. The Sovereign has been insulted in passing from his Palace to the Parliament House, on the business of the Nation. Is it to be concluded from the facts, that the body of the people is seditious and traitorous? Can his Majesty believe that he is thought by his English subjects in general to be such a Prince as some of them have represented him? Will the two Houses of Parliament acknowledge what has been spoken and written and acted against them in England, expresses the sentiments of the Kingdom? Or will they say the people of England have forfeited their liberty, because some of them have run into licentiousness? Let a judgment be formed in both cases by the same rule. Let them condemn those or acquit us.

Pretences and reasons are totally different. The provocation said to be given by our sister Colony, are but the pretences for the exorbitant severity exercised against her. The reasons are these—the policy, despicable and detestable as it is, of suppressing the freedom of America, by a military force, to be supported by money taken out of our own pockets, and the supposed conveniency of opportunity for attaining this end. These reasons are evident from the Minister's speech. The system is formed with art, but the art is discoverable. Indeed, I do not believe it was expected we should have such early and exact intelligence of the schemes agitated against us as we have received. Any person who examines the multitude of invectives published in pamphlets and newspapers in Great Britain, or the speeches made in either House of Parliament, will find them directed against the Colonies in general. The people in that Kingdom have been, with great cunning and labour,† inflamed against the Colonies in general. They are deluded into a belief that we are in a state of rebellion, and aiming directly at a state of independency; though the first is a noxious weed that never grew in our climates, and the latter is universally regarded with the deepest execrations by us—a poison we never can be compelled to touch, but as an antidote to a worse, if a worse can be—a curse that if any Colony on this Continent should be so mad as to aim at reaching, the rest of the body would have virtue and wisdom enough to draw their swords, and hew the traitors into submission, if not into loyalty. It would be our interest and our duty thus to guarantee the public peace. The Minister, addressing the House of Commons, uses several expressions relating to all the Colonies, and calls the stoppage of the port of Boston "a punishment inflicted on those who have disobeyed your authority."

Is it not extremely remarkable, after such a variety of charges affecting all the Colonies, that the statute of vengeance should be levelled against a single Colony? New-York, Philadelphia, and Charlestown have denied freedom of trade to ships sailing under the protection of Acts of Parliament. Will not the House of Commons think the inhabitants of these places "have disobeyed their authority," and that a punishment should be inflicted on them?" Why do we not hear of some measure pursued against those cities? Are they immaculate in the eyes of Administration and Parliament? Has not each of these places done real damage to the East India Company? Has there been even a requisition of compensation for that damage from any of them? Why is there such a profound silence observed with respect to them? Because they are judged by Administration and Parliament more innocent than the Colony of Massachusetts Bay? No. Because Administration and Parliament do us Americans the honour to think we are such idiots that we shall not believe ourselves interested in the fate of Boston, but that one Colony may be attacked and humbled after another, without showing the sense or spirit of beasts themselves, many of which unite against common danger.

Why were the states of Greece broken down into the tamest submission, by Philip of Macedon, and afterwards by the Romans? Because they contended for freedom separately. Why were the States of Spain subdued by the Carthagenians, and afterwards by the Romans? Because they contended for freedom separately. Why were the ancient inhabitants of the Kingdom, that now harasses us, conquered by their invaders? Tacitus will inform us. "Nec atiud adversus validissimas gentes pro nobis utilius, quam quod in commune non consultunt. Rarus ad propulsandum commune periculum conventus. Ita dum singuli pugnant omnes vincuntur."*

Why did the little Swiss Cantons and seven small Provinces of the Low Countries so successfully oppose the tyrants, that, not contented with an Empire, founded in humanity and mutual advantages, unnecessarily and arrogantly strove to "lay" the faithful and affectionate wretches "at their feet?" Because they wisely regarded the interest of each as the interest of all.

Our own experience furnishes a mournful additional proof of an observation made by a great and good man, Lord President Forbes. "It is a certain truth," says he, "that all States and Kingdoms, in proportion as they grow great, wealthy, and powerful, grow wanton, wicked, and oppressive; and the history of all ages give evidence of the fatal catastrophe of all such States and Kingdoms, when the cup of their iniquity is full" Another "truth," as "certain," is, that such "States and Kingdoms" never have been, and never will be, checked in the career of their "wantonness, wickedness, and oppression," by a people in any way dependent upon them, but by the prudent, virtuous, and steady unanimity of that people. To employ more words to elucidate a point so manifest, would be the idle attempt of gilding gold.

Surely you cannot doubt at tills time, my countrymen, but that the people of Massachusetts Bay are suffering in a cause† common to us all; and, therefore, that we ought immediately to concert the most prudent measures for their relief and our own safety.

Our interest depending on the present controversy is unspeakably valuable. We have not the least prospect of human assistance. The passion of despotism, raging like a plague for about seven years past, has spread with unusual malignity through Europe; Corsica, Poland, and Sweden, have sunk beneath it. The remaining spirit of freedom that lingered and languished in the Parliament of France, has lately expired.‡ What Kingdom or State interposed for the relief of their distressed fellow-creatures? The contagion has at length reached Great Britain. Her statesmen emulate the Nimrods of the Earth,

* Both Houses of Parliament resolved two or three years ago, that persons might be sent for from any of the Colonies for acts done there and tried in England, under the old statute of Henry the Eighth, made before the Colonies existed. The late Court at Rhode-Island was established on that principle. The intention of Parliament in passing the Bill above mentioned is chiefly to screen persons acting in support of their unconstitutional claims. They have declared they have no doubt but that the thirty-fifth of Henry has established a just and legal mode of cutting American throats.

"I can live, although another, who has no right, be put to live with me; nay, I can live, although I pay excises and impositions more than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my life, taken from me by power, and to have my body pent up in a jail," (thon thrown into a ship of war, transported three thousand miles across the Ocean, to a land of bitter, selfish, furious, and revengeful enemies, there thrust into the jaws of dungeons,) "without remedy by law, and to be adjudged: O improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! to be so curious in providing for the quiet possession of our laws, and the liberties of Parliament, and to neglect our persons and bodies, and let them lie in prison, and that durante bene placito, remediless! "If this be law why do we talk of liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may any min call his own if not the liberty of his parson? I am weary of treading these ways."—Speech of ROBERT PHILIPS, a member of the wise and moderate Parliament that met in the year 1627.

† Private letters give a further proof of this fact.

* Nor was any thing more advantageous to us against very powerful nations, than their imprudence in not consulting together for the intererst of the whole Conventions for repelling a common danger were rare. Thus, while each State resisted singly, all were subdued.—TACITUS, in vit. Agric.

† The Act for shutting up the port of Boston orders, "that it shall not be opened until peace and obedience to the laws shall be so far restored in the said town of Boston, that the trade of Great Britain, may safely be carried on there, and his Majesty's duties duly collected," &c. Thus, it appears, if the inhabitants renounce the common cause of the Colonies, the port may be opened—if they adhere to that cause it will remain shut.

‡ By the new modeling their Parliaments.