and a quantity of Powder had been taken out of a Fort there by an armed mob. Besides, the vicinity of that Province to Massachusetts Bay was such, that if it were not added, the purpose of the Act would be defeated. Rhode-Island he stated not to be in a much better situation than Massachusetts Bay; that several pieces of Cannon had been taken there, and carried up into the country; and that they were arraying their Militia, in order to march into any other Colony, in case it should be attacked; and this could, in the present circumstances, be for no good purpose. That from Connecticut had marched a large body of men into the Massachusetts, on a report that the Soldiery had killed some people in Boston; and though this body had returned, on finding the falsity of that report, an ill disposition had been shewn; and that this Colony was in a state of great disorder and confusion. To this he added, that the River Connecticut afforded the inhabitants of that Colony an opportunity of carrying on the Fishery. The same might be said of Rhode-Island; and as the same argument of vicinity might be applied to both the Provinces as Well as to New-Hampshire, in order to prevent the defeating of the Act, they also ought to be included in the prohibition to Fish and to Trade.

His Lordship added, that he was not averse to admitting such alleviations of the Act as would not prove destructive of its great object. 1st. Therefore, he would move it only as temporary, to the end of the year, or to the end of the next session of Parliament. 2dly. He would permit particular persons to be excepted, on certificates from the Governour, of their good behaviour; or upon their taking a test of acknowledgment of the rights of Parliament.

Mr. Dunning thought the Americans had a right of fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. He said there was no rebellion in Massachusetts Bay; nothing that could be construed into treason; even if there was a rebellion in some parts, why was the whole to be punished? Why New-Hampshire? Why Rhode-Island? Why Connecticut? If the fact was true, that General Gage had attacked, was sacking and burning the Town of Boston, and the Connecticut people resisting, the latter were not in rebellion. He said the Ministers were the best authors of a receipt to mate a rebellion.

Mr. Attorney General Thurlow said, that no Resolutions, though of both Houses, can make a fact, or decide the law. He had given his opinion upon Papers laid before him, that there was a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay. He defended his opinion, by an explanation of the facts upon which he gave it; first as to treason, next as to rebellion.

Mr. Dunning to explain. Rebellion is that state between Government and its subjects, which, between two hostile states, would be war.

Mr. Solicitor General Wedderburn rose to prove a rebellion in America, from the honourable gentleman's definition.

Mr. Speaker Norton gave his opinion on the point of law, divested of the facts, and left the Committee to apply the facts, and the opinion. The law does not know the word "rebellion." Levying war against the King, is treason; so is endeavouring to wrest the sword out of the hands of the Executive power.

Governour Johnstone said that the proposition was absurd and cruel; absurd, because it took away trade from our own Colonies, which, those who understood that trade, must know we should not be able to transfer to ourselves when it was taken from them; that God and nature had given that Fishery to New and not to Old England; that when it was once destroyed, we should not be able to restore it to those from whom it was thus violently taken, because the little capital, vessels, and implements of fishermen (many of them poor,) were only kept up by constant returns of profit; when the profits failed, the capital and implements would not be restored. That France, who was sufficiently alert at taking advantages, would come in for a part, at least, of the benefits of which we thus thought proper to deprive our own people. It was cruel, he said, in the highest degree, and beyond the example of hostile rigour; that a maritime people always drew a considerable part of their immediate sustenance from the Sea. This Bill, therefore, would be inhumanly to starve a whole people, except such as a Governour should think it proper to favour; that this partial permission must give rise to unjust preference, monopoly, and all sorts of jobs. He said he had served in the Navy the whole of the last war; he had in his eye several Captains, who had cruized off the enemy's coasts during the whole war and he appealed to them for the truth of what he asserted, that it was a constant rule in the service to spare the fishing craft, thinking it savage and barbarous to deprive poor wretches of their little means of livelihood, and the miserable village inhabitants of a sea-coast of their daily food.

Mr. T. Townshend urged strongly the contradiction which prevailed in the principles of the proposed Bill; for, if the other Provinces were in rebellion, as well as the Massachusetts, why were they not declared so? If not, why were they included in the very same punishment?

Sir George Savile rallied with pleasantry some arguments of the lawyers about treasons, and exposed the idea of depriving a whole Province of its subsistence, because a rebellion, we know not where, nor by whom, is lurking in it; and then punishing a second Province, because it is next door to rebellion; a third, because it would be doing nothing if you let them escape; and a fourth, because otherwise Ministry could not square their plan. He then took it up in a serious light, and said that he had heard with pleasure many young Members speak with much ability on this occasion. They all had apologized for their want of experience in this session; that he was obliged to consider and apologize for himself as a very young Member of Parliament. This will appear, said he, very strange to those who know that I have sat a great many years in this House. It is true, I have carried through many Turnpike Bills, several Draining Bills, a multitude of Navigations, and inclosures without number; but I am now come quite a novice to the ways and means for the ruin of Trade and Commerce, and the dismemberment of a great Empire. He then entered into the general argument concerning the justice of making all parts of a state contributary to the support of the whole, and that those who receive protection ought to submit to taxation. He admitted the general maxim to be true; but observed, that this was only in cases where all the parts received the same protection in equal benefits and equal privileges; otherwise equal payment for unequal protection would be injustice itself. That people by compact might give up a part of this right; but then this compact ought to be proved, and it ought to be proved also that an adequate compensation was given for it, else the bargain would not be fair. And this brought him to the doctrine of resistance, which had been handled as best suited the purposes of those who used it. That if rebellion was resistance to Government, he could not consider all rebellions to be alike—there must be such a thing as justifiable rebellion—and submitted to the House whether a people taxed without their consent, and their Petitions against such taxation rejected, their Charters taken away without hearing, and an Army let loose upon them without a possibility of obtaining justice—whether a people under such circumstances could not be said to be in justifiable rebellion?

Sir W. Meredith expressed great sorrow and surprise that the honourable gentleman should call the rebellion in America a justifiable rebellion, since it was the laws which they resisted; and he (Sir George) had consented to the Declaratory Act, which asserted a right in Parliament to make laws to bind America in all cases whatsoever. The power of God himself was bounded within the limits of strict justice; a power to bind, in all cases whatsoever, had never been claimed by the greatest tyrant upon earth, nor by any earthly power, before the Declaratory Act. He thought, therefore, the honourable gentleman should move a repeal of the Declaratory Act, and of every Act that he thought injurious to the freedom of America, before he exhorted the Americans to bring on themselves, their families, and their country, all the horrid consequences of rebellion. He had opposed, and ever would do, the principle of laying internal taxes on America; but it was not taxation, but the trade of Great Britain which the Americans now opposed. The Tea Duty is the only tax that remains; a tax, which the Americans first resisted, had afterwards complied with, and paid regularly; but when the East India Company sent the Tea to be sold at a lower price than the smuggler of Dutch and Swedish Teas could afford, then they began to resist the law; then they de-