justly with respect to the emigrants; for they gave up every thing here for what they obtained in America. What follows? That you cannot take that away from them without restoring, at least, what they gave up for it. Now what is that? All that they and their descendants might have acquired by remaining in Great Britain ever since, all which they have lost, and which is probably much more than they have gained. Now this I believe you would find it hard to calculate, and as hard perhaps to pay. To return. Who were the parties to this compact? the Colonists and the Crown, not the Parliament. Now, if in such a transaction the Parliaments is not included, it is final against the Parliament. If, on the other hand, it is included, and that the Crown is to be considered as acting for the Parliament, I say that its act must be binding on both sides, or on neither; that is to say, that Parliament must be bound on one side, or the Colonist is not bound on the other; and this with good reason: first, because it is the nature of compact to be mutual or null; and next, because if the terms were disagreeable to Parliament, Parliament had an opportunity of immediately undeceiving the Colonists, and declaring their dissent, which, if they did not, they are bound. Now did they make any such declaration? Nothing like it. I say then that the faith of Legislature is as much pledged by this subsequent and implied assent as by an antecedent participation.

I have proved that taxation by an assembly, not constituted by the property which it taxes, is an idea repugnant to our Constitution. Such a power, therefore, to exist at all, must be reserved in the most express terms. Now it is confessed that taxation is reserved only in one Charter, that of Pennsylvania. By every other, therefore, it is excluded, I say, and that not only by constitutional inference, but by the co-operation of Parliament itself, in the assent which it has given to these Charters, as above explained. And to this natural construction of the Charters as they stand expressed, I. add the contemporary and continual construction which they have received from the conduct of Parliament, which best knew its own intentions, and which did not tax them; insomuch that the non-user may be better argued to be a tacit renunciation of taxation as to Pennsylvania, where the power was reserved, than as leaving a doubt but that there is no such right where it was not reserved. And shall any man say that such rights, purchased originally by what was relinquished here—purchased since by labour and service in America, and ratified by time, the arbiter of Governments—shall any man say that such rights are to be blown away by the breath of the first idle disputant? Or that they are alterable or revocable every hour of the day, with this absurdity added to injustice, that they are alterable and revocable only on one side; that is to the injury of the Colonist for ever, and at no period of time to his benefit? And this without considering that by your own doctrine these Charters, instead of being annulled as the ground of their independence, ought to be held sacred and immutable as the source of your authority?

But not content with innovating Charters, you advise that the Americans universally should be subjugated by stricter laws and stronger obligations. You exhort that national vengeance may be poured on the contrivers of mischief, and that no mistakes of clemency should prevent abundant forfeitures. Lest this should not be sufficiently harsh and humiliating, you suggest that their slaves may be taken from them, though by your laws their property, and settled, with arms for their defence, in some simple, that is, arbitrary form of Government. Thus you would establish a Saturnalia of cruelty, and expose these devoted men to the brutality of their own slaves, inflamed and irritated to retaliate tradionary wrongs, and to wreak a barbarous vengeance on their degraded masters. Lest even the common Soldier should have too; much tenderness for them, you are careful to represent them under every odious and disparaging image. You say that we ought to resent our situation as the Scythians did of old when they found themselves excluded by their own slaves. You slander the very bounties of nature in them; and, as far us you can, degrade them below the rank of humanity.

Is this the language of a sober inquirer? As a philosopher, as a moralist, as a man, you ought to have cried out to the contending Nations, "Infatuated as you are, whither do you rush? Though you may hare some cause for difference with each other, you have much more still for concord." But you have scattered firebrands between them. You have endeavoured to ripen tumult to anarchy, and dissatisfaction to rebellion, and to transform punishment into waste and extirpation.

The tumour of your style, the insolence of your manners, your rawness in the great principles of the subject which you treat, and your universal inaccuracy or unfairness in arguing, are inferiour considerations and faults that may be forgiven. But let it be remembered, at all events, that with respect to this point, you confess that if the Americans are right, it is robbery in us, not rebellion in them. Now I ask any man, whether on this state it is so clear that America is wrong, and that it is not robbery in us, as that We should lightly run the risk of becoming murderers also, and murderers of our fellow-subjects into the bargain? Every lover of truth and liberty, every honest and conscientious man will feel this question. The Soldier will feel it; the Sailor will feel it; the free Subject will feel it; the King and his Ministers will feel it.

PROCEEDINGS, PAPERS, AND DEBATES OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON MEASURES RELATING TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES, DURING THE FIRST SESSION OF THE FOURTEENTH PARLIAMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN

HOUSE OF LORDS.

TUESDAY, November, 29, 1774.

This day the Parliament met at Westminster.*

His Majesty being seated on the Throne, adorned with his crown and regal ornaments, and attended by his Officers of State, (the Lords being in their robes,) commanded the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to let the Commons know, "It is his Majesty's pleasure that they attend him immediately in this House:"

Who being come, the Lord Chancellor said:

"My Lords and Gentlemen:

His Majesty has been pleased to command me to acquaint you that he will defer declaring the causes of calling this Parliament till there shall be a Speaker of the House of Commons; and therefore it is Majesty's pleasure that you, gentlemen of the House of Commons, do immediately repair to the place where the Commons usually sit, and there choose a fit person to be your

*Whilst matters of this great magnitude were transacting in America, an unexampled supineness with regard to publick affairs, prevailed among the great body of the people at home. The English Nation, which used to feel so tremblingly alive upon every contest that arose between the remotest Powers in Europe, and to interest itself so much in the issue as scarcely to be withheld from becoming a party whereever justice or friendship pointed out the way, by a strange reverse of temper, seemed, at this time, much more indifferent to matters in which were involved its own immediate and dearest interests. Even the great commercial and manufacturing bodies, who must be the first to feel, and the last to lament any sinister events in the Colonies, and who are generally remarkable for a quick foresight and provident sagacity in whatever regards their interest, seemed now to be sunk in the game carelessness and in attention with the rest of the people.

Several causes concurred to produce this apparent indifference. The Colony contests were no longer new. From the year 1765 they had, with but few, and those short intermissions, engaged the attention of Parliament. Most of the topicks on the subject were exhausted, and the vehement passions which accompanied them had subsided. The Non-Importation Agreement (by divisions within the Colonies, which, if not caused, were much forwarded by the concessions with regard to several of the taxes laid in 1767) had broken up before it had produced any serious consequences. Most people, therefore, flattered themselves that as things had appeared so very frequently at the verge of a rupture, without actually arriving at it, that now, as formerly, some means would be found for accommodating this dispute. At worst, it was conceived that the Americans would themselves grow tired. And as an opinion was circulated, with some industry and success, that a coun-