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For authorities in support of the doctrines I have thus laid down, I refer my reader to 10 Co. Rep. 76 and 77; 1 Salk. 201. 2 Mod. 30, 196; Rolls. Abr. Tit. Escape, 809. pl. 45; Cro. James 314, Cro. Car. 395; 2 Sid. 125;1 Lev. 95; Hob. 267; Holt, Rep. 186; 1 Hawk, pl. cr. chap. 28, sec. 5 and 6. chap. 29, sec. 8. chap. 31, sec. 46. chap. 32, sec. 54, 57, 58, 59, and 60; 2 Hawk. pl. cr. chap. 50, sec. 3, 4; Inst. 87, 97, 98, 121, 134, to 142, 213, and 248; and a great multitude of precedents in those books referred to. From these doctrines and authorities I draw the following inferences:
First, That the jurisdiction exercised by the Courts of Admiralty in the bays and rivers in America being given, the very offences of which they take cognizance being created, and the modes of trial being altered from the common law, since the settlement of the Colonies by the British Parliament, in which the inhabitants of the Colonies are not represented, the judgments given by those Courts are absolutely void; that the persons injured by them have a right to recover double damages of, and to indict the persons who enforce them, and to resist them with force, and if in such resistance the trespassers are killed, it will not be murder; but on the other hand, if the persons resisting are killed, all actually present in countenancing and enforcing such judgments will be guilty of murder.
Secondly, That as Acts of the British Parliament made since the settlement of America, (in which the inhabitants of America neither are or can be represented) cannot be binding upon the Americans, who have no share in framing them, the subject matter of such Acts of Parliament can never come within the jurisdiction of any Court of Judicature in America, and consequently any judgment given by an American Court of Judicature, to enforce such Acts of Parliament, are absolutely void, and may be legally resisted.
Thus, my countrymen, the dispute finally terminates in this single question: whether the British Parliament, in which you are not represented, have a right to make laws to bind you or not? If they have, all opposition is illegal; but if they have not, you may, without infringing the laws of your country, declare that you will not submit to any Act of Parliament made since your ancestors, with the leave of their Sovereign, settled in America, and determine to punish any Judge who shall dare to enforce such; for the man who as a Judge usurps a jurisdiction he has no right to, and under colour of a law, no way obligatory on you, attempts to wrest your property from you, is to be considered, as a plunderer and robber, and you have as good a right to repel by force the execution of his judgments, as you have to resist the highwayman who attacks you in the main road; the thief who breaks into your house; the bailiff who, by virtue of an execution against your estate, attempts to imprison your person, or the Gascon Who would enforce an edict of the French Parliament A just apprehension of personal danger, and the dread of immediate punishment, acts so powerfully upon the human mind, that I can readily imagine a regard for their personal safety would induce, and a dread of danger would intimidate, all the Judges in the Colonies from enforcing Acts of Parliament of which they can have no legal jurisdiction. Thus your very Resolutions would, in many of the Colonies, end the dispute; for Acts of Parliament, which no Judge would dare to enforce obedience to could never injure you. But if, contrary to expectation, the Judges should still presume to proceed, I would not advise you to confine yourselves to resolutions only, or even to a bare resistance of the execution of their judgments, but by pursuing active measures, convince them you are in earnest, and make examples of the offending Judges.
Be not alarmed, my countrymen, it is not my intention to advise you to proceed to extremities, and hang up these Judges at once; for if the laws of your country can be duly enforced, the authorities I have cited prove that private actions brought by the parties injured, the presentment of Grand, and the verdicts of. Petit Juries, will be amply sufficient to enable you to punish legally any Judge, who by arrogating to himself an illegal jurisdiction, shall presume to invade himself, or instigate others to invade, the property, restrain the liberty, or destroy the lives of his fellow-subjects. It is objected, that Administration will exert its influence over all your Courts of justice to stifle such suits and prosecutions, or, at least, to prevent them from being carried into execution; to this I answer, that when violent and unconstitutional measures are taken to overturn the laws of, or to impede the course of justice in, any country, the first law of nature gives the people a right of preserving the one, and of enforcing the other; therefore, if your natural and political liberty should be thus trampled on, and your property should be thus illegally invaded, you will be strictly justifiable in recurring to force, and in proceeding to the last extreme; and to sacrifice to your just resentment three or four, or even three or four dozen unconstitutional and corrupt Judges in each Colony, will be a more moderate measure than that of entering into associations to starve twenty thousand of your innocent manufacturing fellow-subjects in Britain, or that of breaking off all connections with the mother country, and by that means reducing yourselves to the necessity of slaughtering some thousands of the British soldiers, or of exposing the lives of all America in a bad cause; for such it would be esteemed if you act dishonourably in withholding their debts from your creditors. Upon the whole, my advice to you, my countrymen, is, that you send Deputies from every Colony in America to form a general Congress.* Let them be instructed to enter into the firmest resolutions of not submitting to any Acts of the British Parliament, made since the fourth of James the First (when your ancestors, with the leave of their Sovereign, made the first effectual settlement in America, and by doing so, could be no longer subject to the legislation of a British Parliament, in which they could not be represented,) and of punishing any person who shall presume for the future to enforce such Acts of Parliament in America. Let them draw up, and transmit to England, an address to your gracious Sovereign, expressive of the most affectionate loyalty to his person, of their readiness to grant him supplies for the benefit of the whole Empire, to the utmost of their abilities, whenever be shall request it of his respective American Assemblies; but assuring him of their determined resolution to sacrifice their lives, and every thing that is valuable to them, rather than submit to the legislation of a British Parliament; and that as no evil can be so dreadful to them as a humiliating subjection to their fellow-subjects, the Lords and Commons of England, that if his Majesty, deaf to these their reiterated complaints, should persist in permitting such Acts of Parliament to be enforced in America, his subjects of that great Continent, though struck with horrour at the idea of disloyalty to his sacred person, are, though reluctantly, firmly determined to break off all connections with Great Britain, and trust to that God who bath told them that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, to support their endeavours in preserving that liberty they received from their British ancestors. It is objected, that though this plan may be of service to the other Colonies, it will administer no relief to the town of Boston, who is now suffering in the common cause: to this. I answer, that a particular emergency requires a special remedy. So far as relates to the removal of the seat of Government, I think resistance would be illegal, it being the undoubted prerogative of the Grown to fix, or to remove the seat of Government of any particular Colony, to whatever place the King pleases within that Colony; and though this prerogative may be exercised oppressively, still the subject must submit. He may petition, but Majesty only can redress the grievance.
But the stopping up the port of Boston, and prohibiting the owners from using their own wharves, under colour of Acts of Parliament, which the inhabitants, or their Representatives, had no share in framing, is such an illegal stretch of power, such a despotick invasion of property, that may be legally resisted, and ought not to be submitted to; indeed, I look upon it as little less than a declaration of war, which would justify all America in running immediately to arms, to repel so hostile an attack upon their
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