to poverty, aggravated with the corroding reflections on the enjoyments you once possessed. You therefore endeavour to dissuade every struggle for liberty, and if you cannot accomplish this, you sagely determine, by observing a strict neutrality, to avoid giving the slightest ground of offence to either party; and this you think a prudent method of preserving the blessings you at present enjoy.

When Cœsar, Pompey, and Crassus, (says a celebrated writer) were making large strides towards overturning the Constitution of Rome, the people were divided into two factions; the middle ranks, who are always the most wise and virtuous people in a state, opposed; the populace supported them; whilst the wealthy, who if they had thrown their weight into the scale, might have restrained the errours of the populace, and checked the ruinous designs of the triumvirate, observed a strict neutrality; foolishly imagining by doing so that their houses, their fish-pounds, their parks, their villas, and their gardens, would remain untouched when the laws of their country were abolished; instead of which, those safest fences of every man's property were no sooner broke down, by overturning the Constitution, than in the second triumvirate of Augustus, Anthony, and Lepidus, they found themselves foremost in the list of proscriptions, and a confiscation of that wealth (which they vainly imagined would have secured to them all the enjoyments of life) marked them for destruction, and deprived them of life itself; leaving to those of their rank in succeeding Empires this useful lesson, that the surest means of securing wealth in every country is to unite firmly in opposing every attempt to overturn the laws, and that the greater opulence they possess the more they are interested in preserving the liberty of the state they belong to; because upon all occasions of this kind the old maxim, That he that is not for us is against us, prevails so far as to subject the wealthy neutrals to the confiscations of which ever party gains the superiority.

Can you suppose you sordid sons of Avarice, that three millions of people will surrender their liberties without a single struggle? Or if they should, when the British aristocracy have beat down every barrier of property in America, do you really imagine that your fertile fields will escape their rapacious hands? Or that they will not find or make some pretext for sacrificing the present owner, to gratify their interested views, by dividing his spoils amongst them? If these are your sentiments, pursue the delusion, and experience the consequence. But if, on the other hand, my countrymen, all ranks of you are convinced that it is not only dangerous but absurd to subject yourselves to a double taxation, and to two supreme Legislatures; if you think that your Sovereign ought to be considered as supreme Ruler of the whole Empire, providing for the welfare of his subjects within the Realm, at the head of his British Parliament, and of those without, at the head of his American Assemblies, by laws adapted to the local situation, and suited to the emergencies of each, and by that negative with which he is invested by the Constitution, restrain the different states of his extensive Dominions from enacting laws to destroy the freedom or to prejudice the interest of each other; if you are satisfied that the independence of America upon the British Parliament is essentially necessary to check the growing power of aristocracy in Great Britain, and to restore your Sovereign to that weight in the National Councils which he ought to possess; if you still retain a just sense of your best birth-right, that of being governed only by such laws as you or your ancestors have or had a share in framing; if you deem it incompatible with every idea of liberty to trust the legislative power with men you have not chosen, and who, from their situation, will reap the advantages, but cannot share in the inconveniences of the laws they make to oppress you; if you look upon slavery as the greatest evil that can possibly befall you in this world; and if reposing your trust in the Supreme Being, to assist a just cause, you are determined to unite firmly in asserting your native rights, coolly consider the second question: "What mode of proceeding will you adopt as the most rational and effectual to shake off the jurisdiction usurped over you?"

Three plans have been proposed to you:

1st Plan. That all the Colonies in America, except New England, shall agree to pay for the tea destroyed by the people of Boston upon the repeal of the duty imposed upon that article to be paid in America, and upon the repeal of the Act for shutting up the port of Boston.

2d Plan. That you should immediately stop all exports and imports to and from Great Britain and the Islands, till the Tea and Boston Acts are repealed.

3d Plan. That you shall absolutely determine, at once, that you will not in future submit to any Act of the British Parliament, made to be executed in the Colonies since the fourth of James the First; that if any Judge of any Court whatsoever, shall presume to pronounce any judgment to enforce such Acts of Parliament, he shall incur the resentment of an injured people, and be treated as an enemy to America; that the judgment so pronounced by him shall be absolutely void; that the person injured by such judgment shall by force repel the execution of such judgment, and that you will, at the risk of your lives and fortunes, support him in repelling such execution.

A moments reflection will convince you, that to pursue the first plan proposed may be productive of evil, but cannot possibly be attended with any good consequences. Is it reasonable to imagine that the East India Company intended to erect a number of booths or little grocers' shops in America, for the convenience of retailing their tea by the ounce? For if they only intended to deal in the wholesale way, by supplying the different stores in America, that they not only might, but actually have done, for many years from their warehouses in Great Britain; it is therefore generally supposed that the project of the East India Company's sending ship loads of tea to America was concerted between the Minister and them, to establish a glaring precedent of your having submitted to an internal tax, imposed upon you by the British Parliament, for the sole purpose of raising a revenue, or, in case of resistance, to furnish a plausible pretext for dragooning you into obedience. If this was really the case, that Company (as tools of arbitrary power) have suffered no more than they deserved, and to indemnify their losses would only be to invite fresh injuries of the same kind. Again, as their consignees had trifled with the people of Boston till they became liable for the duty, they would add that duty to the price of their tea; and if the Minister can extract the duty, and the East India Company receive the price, whether the tea is destroyed by the populace of one Colony, and paid for by the Assemblies of the others, or whether it is purchased and consumed in the regular course of business, will be a matter of no greater concern, either to the Minister or to the Company, than that, in the first case, it will, by becoming the avowed act of different Assemblies, be a more dangerous precedent than that of private consumption, which might be supposed to proceed from the want of virtue in a few individuals. But even supposing that the East India Company were in no combination with the Minister to enslave you, and that, convinced of the danger of sporting with the liberties of their fellow-subjects, they are determined to relinquish their project of sending tea to America, still the plan proposed cannot be attended with any good consequences.

The British aristocracy have already proceeded to great lengths in endeavouring to enforce implicit obedience from the Colonies to be diverted from their despotick views, with any trifling concessions you can make, or any timid measures you can pursue. The language they now use is, that the honour of Parliament is at stake, and nothing but an implicit submission to its authority, and an absolute surrender of your liberties, will preserve that honour, or, in the words of their insolent demagogue, America is not even to be heard till she prostrates herself at their feet; and the two Acts of Parliament, altering the Charter of New England, abrogating the rights solemnly granted by it, and instituting new modes of trial to encourage the British soldiers to murther the inhabitants of America in general, leave you no room to doubt of their hostile intentions.

Timid or temporizing measures will answer no other end than to swell their pride, heighten their arrogance, and increase their contempt of you. The first plan proposed cannot, therefore, be effectual to relieve us.

In my next I shall consider whether the second can be adopted with greater propriety.