for Americans, the arguments of the illustrious patriots of those times, to whose virtues their descendants owe every blessing they now enjoy, apply with inexpressible force and appositeness, in maintenance of our cause, and in refutation of the pretensions set up by their too forgetful posterity, over their unhappy Colonists. Confiding in the undeniable truth of this single position, that, "to live by one men's* will, became the cause of all men's misery, they generously suffered. And the worthy Bishop before mentioned, who, for strenuously asserting the principles of the Revolution, received the unusual honour of being recommended by a House of Commons to the Sovereign for preferment, has justly observed, that "misery is the same whether it comes from the hands of many or of one."

"It could not appear tolerable to him (meaning Mr. Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Policy) to lodge in the Governours of any Society an unlimited authority, to annul and alter the Constitution of the Government, as they should see fit, and to leave to the governed the privilege only of absolute subjection in all such alterations;" † or, to use the Parliamentary phrase, "in all cases whatsoever."

From what source can Great Britain derive a single reason to support her claim to such an enormous power? That it is consistent with the laws of nature, no reasonable man will pretend. That it contradicts the precepts of Christianity, is evident. For she strives to force upon us

accused in their own country, where their friends and witnesses might attend them; where the pains of death itself might be mitigated, by seeing with their dying eyes, that they expired beloved and lamented. Here, the disciples exceed their tutor. This is too great a consolation to be indulged to a Colonist. He must be carried three thousand miles across the ocean—that he may not only die, but be insulted in his last moments, with the mockery of a trial, where the clearest innocence stands no chance of acquittal, and with the formality of a sentence founded on a statute past before the Colonies existed. On the approach of the army, the Prince of Orange and other Lords fled; and being summoned to appear before the Council, in default thereof, were condemned, and their estates confiscated, Alva treated all, the innocent and guilty, with such rigour, that it gave rise to the following saying of a Spanish officer—"HÆretici fraxerunt templa; boni nihil faxerunt contra; ergo omnes debent patibulari."—PUFFENDORF'S Introduction— Art. "SPAIN" and "the UNITED PROVINCES."

Sir William Temple's account of the disturbances in the Low Countries agrees exactly with the foregoing extracted out of Puffendorf, by which it will appear with what a surprising exactness of resemblance the affairs of the Colonies have been carried on by Administration.

"The war with France being concluded, it was resolved to keep up the troops in these Provinces, and that the states should support them, which by a long course of war, was grown customary. When Philip would have put Spanish garrisons into some of their towns, and for the sake of their admitting them quietly, gave the command to the Prince of Orange and Court Egmont, they told him plainly, that all the brave stands they had made against the power of France, availed them but little, if they must at last be enslaved by another foreign Power."—Puffendorf.

"The hatred of the people, the insolence of the troops, with the charge of their support, made them looked upon by the inhabitants in general, as the instruments of their oppression and slavery, and not of their defence, when a general peace had left them no enemies: And therefore the states began here their complaints, with a general consent and passion of all the nobles, as well as towns and country. And upon the delays that were contrived, or fell in, the states first refused to raise any more moneys, either for the Spaniards' pay, or their own standing troops; and the people ran into so great despair, that in Zealand they absolutely gave over the working at their dikes, suffering the sea to gain every tide upon the country, and resolving, as they said, rather to be devoured by that element than by the Spanish soldiers; so that at last the King consented to their removal. Another grievance was the appointment of new judges* and those absolutely depending on the King, &c."

"Granville strained up to the highest his master's authority and the execution of his commands, while the Provinces were resolute to protect the liberties of their country, against the admission of this new and arbitrary judicature, unknown to all ancient laws and customs of their country. The King at last consented to Granville's recess. Then all noise of discontent and tumult was appeased. But quickly after the same Councils were resumed. The disturbances then grew greater than before. But by the prudence and moderation of the Duchess of Parma, the Governess, the whole estate of the Provinces was restored to its former peace. This Duchess, and the Duke of Feria, one of the chief Ministers in Spain, thought and advised, that the then present peace of the Provinces ought not to be invaded by new occasions, nor the royal authority lessened, by the King being made a party in a war upon his subjects. But the King was immoveable; he despatched Alva into the Low Country at the head of ten thousand veteran Spanish and Italian troops, under the command of the best officers, which the wars of Charles the Fifth, or Philip the Second, had bred up in Europe; which, with two thousand more in the Provinces, under the command of so old and renowned a General as the Duke of Alwa, made up a force, which nothing in the Low Countries could look in the face with other eyes than of astonishment, submission, or despair. This power was for the assistance of the Governess, the execution of the laws, the suppressing and punishing all who had been authors or fomentors of the late disturbances † On his arrival the Governess having obtained leave of the King, retired out of the Province. The Duke of Alva was invested in the Government with powers never before given to any Governour. A Council, called the Council of Blood.‡ was erected for the trial of all crimes committed against the King's authority. The towns stomached the breach of their Charters, the people of their liberties, the knights of the golden fleece the Charters of their order, by these new and odious courts of judicature; all complain of the disuse of the states,|| of the introduction of armies, but all in vain. The King was constant to what he had determined. Alva was in his nature cruel and inexorable. The new army was fierce and brave, and desirous of nothing so much as a rebellion in the country. The people were enraged, but awed and unheaded. All was seizure and process;—confiscation and imprisonment;—blood and horrour;—insolence and dejection;—punishments executed, and meditated revenge. The smaller branches were lopt off apace; the great ones were longer a hewing down. Counts Egmont and Horn lasted Beveral months; but at length, in spite of all their services to Charles the Fifth and to Philip, as well as of their new merits in quieting of the Provinces, and of so great supplications and intercessions as were made in their favour, both in Spain and Flanders, they were publickly beheaded at Brussels, which seemed to break all patience in the people; and by their end to give those commotions a beginning, which cost Europe so much blood, and Spain a great part of the Low Country Provinces. The war begun, Alva had at first great success. Moved with no rumours, terrified with no threats from a broken and unarmed people, and thinking no measures or forms were any more necessary to be observed in the Provinces, he pretends greater sums are necessary for the pay and reward of his victorious troops than were annually granted upon the King's request by the states of the Provinces: (Note. Here our Ministers have again improved upon Philip's; for they have taxed us, without making requests.)* And therefore demands a general tax of the hundreth part of every man's estate, to be raised at once: and for the future, the twentieth of all immoveable, and the eighteenth of all that was sold. The states with much reluctancy consent to the first, as a thing that ended at once. They petition the King, but without redress; draw out the year in contests, sometimes stomachful, sometimes humble with the Governour: till the Duke, impatient of delay, causes the edict without consent of the states, to be published. The people refuse to pay; the soldiers begin to levy by force; the townsmen all shut up their shops; the people in the country forbear the market; so as not so much as bread and meat is to be bought in the town, The Duke is enraged; calls the soldiers to arms; and commands several of the inhabitants, who refused the payments, to be hanged that very night upon their sign posts; which moves not the obstinacy of the people. And now the officers and the guards are ready to begin the executions, when news comes to town of the taking of the Briel, by the Gueses,† and of the expectation that had given of a sudden revolt in the Province of Holland.

"This unexpected blow struck the Duke of Alva, and foreseeing the consequences of it, because he knew the stubble was dry, and now he found the fire was fallen in, he thought it ail ill time to make an end of the tragedy in Brabant, whilst a new scene was opened in Holland; and so giving over for the present his taxes and executions, applies his thoughts to the suppression of this new enemy that broke in upon him from the sea. And now began that great commotion in the Low Countries, which never ended but in the loss of those Provinces, when the death of the Royal Government gave life to a new Commonwealth."—Observat. upon the United Provinces of the NETHERLANDS, by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Philip and his junto of Cabinet Ministers thought themselves no doubt very wise, and politick as so many Machiavels. But what says, and will say mankind as long as the memory of those events is preserved? That their counsels were despicable, their motives detestable, and their minds like those described by the Bishop of Lerida, that exactly resembled the horns of the cows in his country—little, "hard and crooked."

* Hooker. "For a man to be tenant at will of his liberty. I can never agree to it. It is a tenaure not to be found in all Littleton."—Speech of Sir EDWARD COKE.

"Etiam si dominus non sit molestus, tamen miserimum est, posse si velit."—CICERO.

—————"The free

Know no gentle tyranny."—ROWE.

† Hoadly's Discourse on Government.

* Admiralty Courts. Rhode-Island Court, for enforcing the statute of thirty-fifth Henry the Eighth. Act for regulating; the Government of Massachusetts Bay. Act for Administration of Justice, &c.

† See Speeches in Parliament, and Preambles to the late Acts. ‡See note in Page 75.

|| Frequent dissolution of Assemblies—and their total uselessness, if Parliament taxes

* Another advantage the British Ministers have over the Spanish in depth of policy, is very remarkable. Spain was a great Empire. The Low Countries a mere speck, compared with it. Spain was not a maritime state that depended upon them for the supply of her revenue. Had they been sunk in the sea, she would scarcely have felt the loss. Her prospect of success was almost certain. France, her then inveterate enemy, exhausted y a civil war and divided into two powerful parties. Every circumstance is directly the reverse to Great Britain in her present contest with the Colonies. "Siquidem verissimum est, ignem tectis injicere, et injecto spatium modumque statuere, non esse in ejusdem manu."—Strada, lib. 7.

† Beggars.—They were called so in contempt, when they petitioned. The people thereupon assumed that name, perhaps to keep up the memory of an insult occasioned by their loyalty.

The whole country of the seven United Provinces is not as large as one half of Pennsylvania; and when they began their contest with Philip the Second, for their liberty, contained about as many inhabitants as are now in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Philip's Empire then comprehended in Europe, all Spain and Portugal, the two Sicilies, and such Provinces of the Low Countries as adhered to him—many Islands of importance in the Mediterranean-the Milanese and many other very valuable territories in Italy and elsewhere-In Africa and Asia, all the Dominions belonging to Spain and Portugal-in America the immense countries subject to those two Kingdoms, with all their treasures and yet unexhausted mines, and the Spanish West Indies. His armies were numerous and veteran, excellently officered, and commanded by the most renowned Generals. So great was their force, that during the wars in the Low Countries, his Commander-in-chief, the Prince of Parma, marched twice into France, and obliged that great General and glorious King, Henry the Fourth, to raise at one time the siege at Paris, and at another, that of Roan. So considerable was the naval power of Philip, that in the midst of the same wars, he fitted out his dreadful Armada to invade England. Yet seven little Provinces, or countries, as we should call them, inspired by one generous resolution "To die free, rather than to live slaves," not only baffled, but brought down into the dust, that enormous power, that had contended for universal Empire, and for half a century was the terrour of the world. Such an amazing change indeed took place, that those Provinces afterwards actually protected Spain against the power of France.