upon for about a century and a half, excepting in a very few instances of singular obliquity, by Kings, Lords, and Commons, by Governours, Counsellors, and Representatives—Parliaments, and Assemblies—Britons and Americans.—So confirmed as to have in its favour a whole torrent of histories, records, motives, principles, and proceedings, and, wha is more, common sense and fixed habits, so importantly sacred, that no bold venal Parliament—no daring mercenary intriguing Minister, excepting as above, have ever ventured directly to encounter it. Ambition, avarice, venality, corruption, faction, and tyranny have all covered it.—Policy, law ingenuity, and equity have found it unwieldy, and joined in ample subscriptions to its truth and justice.—How clear, how plain, must a right be, attended with such circumstances? —How cogent, how convincing the reasons which produced them? —It has passed through, almost unsuspected and unobscured, the storms of tyranny and the fogs of faction, from James the First to a recent date—to the fertile exertions of some modern geniuses, who, by an archangel acuteness, have attempted to reverse the tables of eternal truth, to confound the established course of nature, and, by the awful splendour of an omnipotent Court, to extinguish the candle of human intelligence. Oh unheard of lust of power! Quid non mortalia pectora cogis auri sacra fames?

We have considered the principles, and weighed the motives that possessed the breasts of our British ancestors, and induced to their emigration hence. We have followed them down through their material walks, until their reception of Letters Patent, forming them into a particular corporate body. We have examined the evidence on the face of those Letters, in favour of a Parliamentary independence. It remains that we inquire whether the same sentiment prevailed under the enjoyment of those Letters Patent, or Charters, that preceded, and was concomitant with their reception.

King Charles the First was the ever memorable Prince from whom we received our first Charter. Soon after the restoration of his very pitiful son, Charles the Second, the history of the Massachusetts-Bay informs us—That the conduct of our Government respecting its rights, in an instance then under consideration, as well as in the then some former instances, might be well accounted for, upon the sentiments of some persons of influence then amongst them. The sentiments which this historian says our Assemblies then adopted, and were governed by in a number of instances, were the following, viz: That birth is no necessary cause of subjection;—that the subjects of any Prince or State had a natural right to remove to any other quarter of the world, and that upon their removal, their subjection determined and ceased:—that the Country to which they themselves had removed, was claimed and possessed by independent Princes, whose right to the sovereignty and lordship thereof had been acknowledged by the Kings of England; that they therefore had actually purchased, for valuable consideration, not only the soil, but the dominion, the lordship and sovereignty, of those Princes; and that they had also received a Charter of incorporation from the King, containing a mutual compact, from whence arose a new kind of subjection, to which they were held, and from which they would never depart; that this was what was called a voluntary civil subjection, arising merely from compact; and from thence it followed that whatsoever could be brought into question relative to their subjection, must be determined by their Charter. And that they were to be governed by Laws made by themselves, and by Officers elected by themselves, &c. These were the practical political principles of our Government in an instance of public conduct, about five and thirty years after the granting of our first Charter, when the Patentees themselves were mostly upon the stage, and must be supposed to understand its tenour and meaning. There were instances of an earlier date, says the same historian, where these principles were practised upon by Government. A very ample testimony of the sense of our ancestors: and which shows that the present system of popular politicks is not the creature of a modern patriot brain, that it was embraced from the beginning, and is as old as the Constitution—that it grew up with it, and has been its constant companion.

In the same arbitrary reign, several Acts of Trade and Navigation respecting the Colonies passed the British Parliament, and the above historian informs us, that our Assembly had a difficulty in conforming to them, the reason for which, assigned in a Letter to their Agents then in England, was, that “they apprehend them to be an invasion of the rights, liberties, and properties of the subjects of his Majesty in the Colony, they not being represented in Parliament, and according to the usual sayings of the learned in the Law, the Laws of England were bounded within the four Seas, and did not reach America. “And in fact, as they were not then in a capacity to dispute the point, and vindicate their injured rights by opposing their operation, they made provision by a Law of their own, that they should be observed, and operate by force derived from their own acts, which would have been absurd had they admitted the supreme authority of Parliament.

Edward Randolph, who was a busy instrument in the hands of Government, and deeply interested in Colony affairs, in 1676, represents to the Lords of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, appointed a Committee for Trade and Plantations—“That no Law is in force or esteem here, but such as are made by the General Court, and therefore it is accounted a breach of their privileges, and a betraying of the liberties of their Commonwealth, to urge the observations of the Laws of England.”

And further, that “there was no notice taken of the Act of Navigation, Plantation, or any other Laws made in England for the regulation of Trade;” that—“the Government would make the world believe they are a free State, and do act in all matters accordingly; that the Magistrates ever reserve to themselves a power to alter any Law not agreeing with the absolute authority of their Government, acknowledging no superiour;” and that “the Governour had declared to him, that the Laws of Parliament obligeth them in nothing but what consists with the interests of the Colony, and that the Legislative power and authority is and abides with the Colony solely.” This same Randolph, in a Letter to the Bishop of London, wherein he urges for a quo warranto against their Charter, says, that “independence in Government is claimed and daily practised.” Vide The publication of Papers by the late Governour Hutchinson. We have adduced a continued series of facts from an indisputable authority in this case, which proves beyond a doubt the sense that one of the parties had of our first Charter, almost from its first commencement to its final dissolution. Instances might be multiplied, but they are unnecessary to those who have not their minds steeled against the impressions of truth.—There are some, like the adder, whose deaf ear the thunder from Sinai would not penetrate—these must abide the consequences of their obstinacy, and grope in the dark at noon-day, until their feet stumble on the black mountains, clanking with chains and with fetters.

The Agents who were unsuccessfully employed by this Province to solicit at the Court of King William the restoration of our first Charter, and who, it must be presumed, well understood the second, being present and consulted upon framing of it upon its tenor and operation, gave as a reason for their acceptance:—“Our General Courts having, with the King’s approbation, as much power in New-England as the King and Parliament have in England; they have all English privileges, and can be touched by no law, and by no tax, but of their own making.”— Vide History of New-England.

Upon the arrival of our present Charter, in 1692, as appears by the History of this Government, “The first Act of our Assembly was a sort of Magna Charta, asserting and setting forth as a general privilege, ‘That no aid, tax, tallage, assessment, custom, loan, benevolence, or imposition whatever, shall be laid, imposed, or levied on any of their Majesties’ subjects, or their estates, on any pretence whatever, but by the Act and consent of the Governor, Council, and Representatives of the people assembled in General Court.’” The above are a few, out of the many instances that might be adduced, where the sense of our ancestors, in a continued and uniform succession of events, is clear, full, and to the point. Could these, and similar instances, have escaped the extensive reading of the fair, of the impartial, and modest Massachusettensis? Especially as they are related by his favourite author, “his setting Sun?” Could he have read them, and yet, consistent