best and most proper means, their common rights and liberties.

Resolved, That this Colony ought not to trade with any Colony which shall refuse to join in any union and association that shall be agreed upon, by the greater part of the other Colonies upon this Continent, for preserving their common rights and liberties.

Resolved, That the Clerk of this meeting transmit to the Printers of both Gazettes copies of these resolutions, with the earnest request of this county that the other counties and corporations within the Colony will appoint Deputies to meet at the time and place, and for the purposes aforesaid.

THEODORICK BLAND,

Clerk of the Meeting,

THE BRITISH AMERICAN, NO. V.

Williamsburg, Virginia, June 30, 1774.

Friends, Fellow-citizens, and Countrymen:

It is not my intention to inflame your minds by pointing out the many privileges you have already lost, but to rouse you to a steady opposition to the measures now pursuing to deprive you of what few still remain. I shall, therefore, instead of entering minutely into every branch of the old English Constitution, whose sole object is, or rather was, political liberty, confine myself to that part of it which relates to legislation and taxation only. But in order to be thoroughly understood, it will be necessary to premise, that in ancient times, besides the palaces for the residence, there were particular funds and lands set apart, whose yearly profits supplied the domestic expenses and supported the splendour of the Kings of England. These were called the ancient demesne of the Crown, and were not only abundantly sufficient to answer those purposes, but sometimes enabled our Monarchs to repel, at their own private expense, any sudden or unforeseen hostile attacks upon the Kingdom. Thus the great Queen Elizabeth, (under whose reign our ancestors first emigrated,) instead of asking money of her Parliament, generally demanded reimbursement only for what she had actually advanced for the general good. And even these she often generously remitted to her subjects.

The Legislature of England consisted of three distinct branches. The first was the Monarch, whose ample hereditary revenues, enabling him to support the dignity of his rank, removed all temptation to oppress either of the other two, because, nobly provided for himself, he was under no necessity of asking any supplies from his Parliament but such as were necessary for the general good of the whole community. Independent of any power on earth for the support of himself and family, he was equally above the temptation of being corrupted himself, or of endeavouring to corrupt the Parliament.

The second consisted of the House of Lords, a body of men who, on account of their great wealth or merit, and generally both, were ennobled by the Monarch, and their titles and power, when once created, were hereditary, they were not only independent but were equally interested in preserving the legal prerogatives of the Crown, and the just privileges of the People: the prerogatives of the Crown, because as they derived their very existence from the Monarch, if his legal power was annihilated, theirs must necessarily be extinguished with it, as the stream will cease to flow when the fountain from whence it sprung is dried up. As hereditary guardians of the Realm it was equally their interest to preserve the privileges of the people, because however distinguished by rank or title, they themselves, as part of the community, must finally feel any oppression exercised by the Sovereign over their fellow-subjects.

The third branch of the Legislature consisted of the People at large, in which every native had a right to vote, for in those days it was thought unreasonable that the life, liberty, or property of a freeman should be affected by any law which he did not consent to, or at least which he had not a right to oppose.

But these tumultuous assemblies of the People being found from experience not only inconvenient but absolutely impracticable, as a majority of the whole Kingdom could never meet at any one place to deliberate upon the affairs of the Kingdom, it became customary for the inhabitants of different counties and large cities and towns to delegate the wisest of their neighbours to represent them in the Legislature, and to speak the sentiments of their electors on the general concerns of the Kingdom. These formed the House of Commons. In process of time this right of delegation was confined to those who had a freehold in lands, of a particular value, because, as I have observed in a former letter, the owners of the soil were not only supposed to be the best judges of what was for the benefit of the Kingdom, but because they were less liable to be corrupted to prejudice a country in which they themselves were permanently interested.

Happy had it been for England that this wise regulation had never been altered; and happier still if the right for voting for Representatives had been confined to freeholders of counties only, and not extended to towns and corporations, which, however populous and opulent formerly, are now scarce the shadow of what they were. But to return to my subject.

The Monarch was vested with the power of convening the other two bodies of the Legislature, of laying before them the state of the Kingdom with respect to foreign alliances, and of recommending to their consideration all things which he judged for the benefit of the Nation; and after having done this he retired and left them to deliberate and to form what resolutions they pleased, either upon the plans thus recommended or upon any others which they thought proper; and so far as related to legislation only, the Lords and Commons had an equal right of proposing and of altering and amending resolutions proposed by each other. The King had no power of altering and amending, but, by withholding his assent, might reject any resolution of the other two branches altogether.

To have invested him with a power of altering would have been dangerous to liberty; because, of all laws respecting the subject, the Lords, who were the representatives of the higher, and the Commons, who represented the lower ranks of the people, were the most proper judges, because they would share in the advantages and disadvantages of those laws. But as the King might receive the emoluments, but could not share in the inconveniences, if he had been allowed to have interfered in altering and amending such, the Nation might have been cruelly oppressed, for as all honours flowed from the Crown, a desire of acquiring those honours might have induced the Commons. Hope of enlarging those already conferred might have influenced the Lords to have shown such complaisance to the alterations of the Crown as would have been consistent with the good of the community. Wisdom, as well as delicacy, therefore, excluded the temptation. The King's right of rejecting altogether was a sufficient barrier against all encroachments on the rights of the Sovereign, since no resolutions had the force of laws till they received the concurrence of a majority of the Lords and Commons, and were approved of, and assented to, by the King.

Taxation was fixed upon a very different foundation. The House of Commons claimed and exercised the sole right of proposing taxes, of pointing out the ways and means, of levying supplies, and of framing the bills by the authority of which they were to be collected; and so extremely jealous were they of this privilege that they never would suffer either of the other branches of the Legislature to make the smallest alteration, either in the form or substance of a Supply Bill.

This exclusive privilege was founded upon very just grounds. The reasons I have already given in treating of legislation, are doubly cogent to restrain the King (who was to apply, or rather expend, the money raised,) from exercising any other power over a Money Bill than that of rejecting; to which may be added another, that the Representatives of a people must ever be more capable than their Prince of judging of the abilities of their constituents, and of knowing how much, and what species of their property they can spare to preserve the remainder. Nor are there wanting many and just reasons to exclude the Lords from interfering with this right exercised by the Commons. In the first place, the whole wealth of a Nation arises from the farmer, the grazier, the mechanick, and the trader; and as they are the very creators of money they ought to have the publick disposition of it, because they know its value, and have experienced the difficulty with which it is acquired.