involves not in it the idea of Supreme Legislature over us. The first is a power of a preserving "protecting" nature. The last, as applied to America, is such a power as Mr. Justice Blackstone describes in these words: "whose enormous weight spreads horrour and destruction on all inferiour movements." The first is a power subject to a constitutional check. Great Britain cannot injure us by-taking away our commerce without hurting herself immediately. The last is a power without check or limit. She might ruin us by it. The injury thereby to herself might be remote as to be despised by her.

The power of regulation was the only band that could have held us together, formed on one of these "original contracts" which only can be a foundation of just authority. Without such a band, our general commerce with foreign Nations, might have been injurious and destructive to her. Reason and duty reject such a license. This our duty resembles that of children to a parent. The parent has a power over them; but they have rights that the parent cannot take away. Heaven grant that our mother country may regard us as her children, that if, by the dispensation of Providence, the time shall come when her power increases the memory of former kindnesses, may supply its decays, and her Colonies, like dutiful children, may serve and guard their aged parent, forever revering the arms that held them in their infancy, and the breasts that supported their lives while they were little ones.

It seems as if the power of regulation might not inaptly be compared to the prerogative of making peace, war, treaties, or alliances, whereby "the whole* Nation are bound against their consent;" and yet the prerogative by no means implies a Supreme Legislature. The language held in "the Commentaries" on this point, is very remarkable. "With regard to foreign concerns, the King is the Delegate or Representative of the people; and in him, as in a centre, all the rays of his people are united;† and the sovereign power, quoad hoc, is vested in his person."‡ Will any Englishman say these expressions are descriptive of the King's authority within the Realm? "Is the sovereign power within that vested in his person? He is styled "Sovereign" indeed; "his Realm is declared by many Acts of Parliament an Empire, and his Crown Imperial." But do these splendid appellations, the highest known in Europe, signify that "sovereign power is vested in, his person within the Realm?" We have a full answer in the Commentaries. "The meaning of the Legislature, when it uses these terms of Empire and Imperial, and applies them to the Realm and Crown of England, is only to assert that our King is equally sovereign and independent within these his Dominions; and owes no kind of subjection to any Potentate upon earth." Thus we maintain, that with regard to foreign affairs, the parent original state "is the Delegate or Representative" of the entire Dominions, "the sovereign power, quoad hoc, is vested" in her. Her acts under this power "irrevocably bind the whole Nation." But yet this power by no means implies a Supreme Legislature.

The exercise of this power, by statutes, was absolutely necessary; because it was, and could only be lodged, as the laws of the parent state stand in the Supreme Legislature of that state, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons; and statutes are the modes by which these united sentiments and resolutions are expressed. It is universally acknowledged in Great Britain, that it infers no power of taxation in King and Lords, that their limited authority is used in cloathing gifts and grants of the Commons with the forms of law nor does it infer Supreme Legislature over us, that the limited authority of King, Lords, and Commons, is used in cloathing regulations of trade with the form of law. The Commons joining in the law is not material. The difference is only in the mode of assent. Theirs is express, ours is implied, as the assent of the "whole Nation" is in the preceding instances.

This power of regulation appears to us to have been pure in its principle, simple in its operation, and salutary in its effects. But for some time past, we have observed, with pain, that it hath been turned to other purposes than it was originally designed for, and retaining its title, hath become an engine of intolerable oppressions and grievous taxations. The argument of an eminent Judge states the point in a similar case, strongly for us, in these words: "Though it be granted that the King hath the custody of the havens and ports of this Island, being the very gates of this Kingdom, and is trusted with the keys of these gates; yet, the inference and argument thereupon made, I utterly deny. For in it there is mutatio hypothesis, and a transition from a thing of one nature to another; as the premises are of a power only fiduciary, and in point of trust and government, and the conclusion infers a right of interest and gain. Admit the King has custodiam portuum, yet he hath but the custody, which is a

ence is entertained for his memory, yet it can never be acknowledged, that an "obiter dictum" of his, or of any other man, is a rule of law. In Calvin's case, the Chief Justice reciting the foregoing case, says: "HIBERNIA habet Parliamentum, et faciunt legis, et nostra statuta non legant eos, quia non mittunt milites ad Parliamentum" (which, "adds he," is to be understood, unless they be especially named.) And does the "especially naming them" give them a representation, or remove the injustice of binding them without it? This observation in plain English would run thus: "Our statutes do not bind the people of Ireland, when we do not intend to bind them, because they are not represented in our Parliament; but our statutes bind them when we intend to bind them." What is this but saying—" that to speak of their not being represented, is a mere jargon; and the sole point is, whether it Is our will to bind them"—or in other words—" that our statutes do not bind them, for a reason as strong as man can give, and so acknowledged by us to be, which yet is no reason at all: for, where there is no occasion for its operation it applies not; and where there is occasion it is of no force." His Lordship had just be fore taken notice that "a writ of errour did lie in the King's Bench of England of erroneous judgment in the King's Bonch of Ireland;" and perhaps that led him in the course of his argument to imagine, there might be a like pre-eminence of the Parliament of England over that of Ireland. That this was his reason seems certain, because, at a meeting of Commissioners to consider of a projected union between England and Scotland, at which the Chief Justice was present—Moor 790, it is said, "that Parliament has power over Ireland, as is proved by that a writ of errour may be brought of a judgment in the King's bench of Ireland." In the 4th Inst., he also says, the people of Guernsey, Jersey, and Man, are not bound by the statutes of England, unless they are specially named. Yet whoever examines the statutes relating to Ireland, Guernsey/, Jersey, and Man, will have very little cause to believe, that it has been thought in England, that statutes would generally bind the people of those countries, notwithstanding the subjection of Ireland, and the other Islands, the many distresses of the former, and the weakness of the latter, have afforded opportunities of extending such a power over them. With respect to all these places scarce a statute can be found of any period, but for the regulation of their trade. The same observation may be made as to Gascoigny, Guienne, and Calais. Justice Wylde, in S Vent 5, said: "he had seen a charter whereby these places were recited to be united to England by mutual pact. And writs of errour run those." "Wales was a conquered country, and the people submitted to Edward the First, de alto et basso."

Whatever pretence the Chief Justice's opinion was founded on, it has been carefully repeated in many law books since. Whether his Lordship meant that statutes of England could bind the people of Ireland, in taking away trials by jury—taxing them, and "in all cases whatsoever," or only in preserving their subordination, as by regulating their trade, which was the case referred to in his comment, does not appear. The Parliament, in declaring the dependence of Ireland, did not venture to claim a power of binding the people of that Kingdom "in all cases whatsoever."* With respect to all these declarations, however, as they are made to refer to us, we may answer as the lion did to the man in the fable.

Much the same arbitrary construction has been made on the question, whether a man could be tried in England, on a charge of committing treason in Ireland. In Queen Elizabeth's reign, "Gerrade, Chancellor of Ireland, moved that question to the counsel of the Queen, and it was held by Wray, Dier, and Gerrarde, Attorney General, he could not, because he was a subject of Ireland and not of England; and if tried in England, he could not be tried by his peers."—Dier, 360. Afterwards, to gratify the Queen's resentment against some rebels, they were tried in England; and thus passion and complaisance made very good law against reason and justice.

Having mentioned Calvins case, it may not be improper to observe, that if the author of "The Controversy" had taken the trouble of reading it, he might have found his perplexities removed on the question that has given him so much anxiety, and brought such a load of reproaches on the Colonies. He is provoked at our insolence, for pre-tending to be any thing more than aliens in England, while we deny the power of Parliament to bind us "in all cases whatsoever." In that case, the gentleman would have discovered, that the Judges of England held, that a man born in Scotland, under the allegiance of James the First, after his accession to the Throne of England, was entitled to all the rights of a subject born in England; though the objection, that statutes of England could not bind Scotland, or a man residing there, who held lands in England, was mentioned in the course of the argument. The great difficulty being got over, if the gentleman will go a step farther, and perceive some little distinction between Colonies proceeding out of the loins of England, and the "conquered" countries of Ireland and Wales—the countries of Gascoigny, Guienne, and Calais, "united by mutual pact to England," and the Islands of Guernsey, &c, "lying within the four seas, whose Sovereigns annexed them to England;" and will only allow the Colonists a little more regard than is professed in law books for those countries, and about as much as has been actually observed towards them by Parliament, ho will have no further occasion to say severe things of those who are willing to esteem him; and then, if he can persuade his worthy countrymen to adopt his sentiments, their anger will no longer give pain to those who almost adore them.

* Nor, to this day, does Parliament tax them, &c.; and, therefore, the inference is ust, that neither they nor the Chief Justice meant such a power.

* 1 Blackst, 252, 257.

† Fol. 252.

‡ Fol. 257.