Trade, but not for the purpose of raising a Revenue. That is, the Parliament had good right and lawful authority to lay the former duty of a shilling on the pound, but had none to lay the present duty of three pence.” If our writer seriously believes this to be a fair representation of the matter, he is certainly to be pitied, instead of being reasoned with. The distinction set up is important, it is substantial, it is this, that the British Parliament may have good right and lawful authority to make a law to operate in England within the jurisdiction of Parliament, where the people are represented, for to lay a duty of one shilling, or nineteen shillings, if you please, on the pound, for the purpose of raising a revenue; and yet have no authority or right to make a law to operate within the Colonies beyond the jurisdiction of Parliament, where the people are not represented, for to lay a duty of three pence, or even the infinitissimum of a farthing, for the same purpose. Admitting that some of the Whigs set up different though consistent distinctions at different times, or rather, expressed the same distinction by different words, does it affect the merits of the controversy? Does it not rather prove that the Stamp Act, which ushered in the present ruinous system of politicks, was such a novelty in Colony administration, and the principle it dragged after it such a monster in an English Constitution, as to render a description of it difficult by terms and distinctions?

Had we time for amusement, and to trace the Tories in the route they have taken, we could give such a curious history of their distinctions, contradictions, explanations, and declarations, in nurturing of this despicable brat of ministerial influence, if not in the unnatural part they acted as midwives, to give it birth, as would grace the Memoirs of Don Quixotte, or the most fantastick Knighterrant that ever lived. When the Tea Act, with others, passed, no American was found hardy enough openly to assert a right in Parliament to tax the unrepresented inhabitants of the Colonies; this was reserved as an exploit for our undaunted writer. At that time the Tories, or rather the friends to Government, as they call themselves, to save appearance, conjured up from their own noddles the ideas of a virtual representation; we heard much about the Americans being virtually represented in the British Parliament. This for awhile was trumpeted forth by every creature, or spawn of a creature, in the toryistical choir. They hugged the unmeaning invention until, by its becoming familiar, it grew contemptible; at last with shame they gave it up. However, it was succeeded by another distinction from the same fountain (a Tory’s fertile brain) equally ridiculous. The duty upon Tea was no tax. It was for the purpose of regulating trade. Nothing was a tax that could possibly be eluded, as this might by not consuming the dutied article. This was not long matter of dispute. The Ministry had christened their own bantling, they called it a tax; its sponsors, or God-fathers in America, rather than quarrel with their best friends, consented, at length, to call it by its proper name. The curtain is still kept drawn; and the farce continues. It is next admitted to be a tax, and that Parliament had no right to impose it. But yet it was our duty to submit to it cheerfully, acknowledge the right of laying it, and in that way get it removed. Having worried through all this series of contradictions, with much more equally curious, to no purpose; being chagrined with disappointment, and provoked at their own folly and stupidity, their last resort is to speak out, and declare us slaves. This Massachusettensis was most heroically resolved upon. He accordingly asserts that Parliament has a right to tax us; a right to make laws binding upon us in all cases whatsoever; and that opposition to such laws would be treason and rebellion. Such has been the vile employment, the sordid drudgery of those engaged in support of Court measures, though no person has reason to grudge them their places and pensions, either in enjoyment or expectancy, as compensations for their service. Certainly those inferiour animals that are scattered up and down through the Country, those jackals, which, like so many satellites, have been revolving round some military Officer or new made Justice, in expectation of titles, of feathers, are much to be pitied. Poor things! could their leaders once get seated securely in the chair of greatness and absolute power, this insignificant tribe of fawners, seekers, and expectants, would be forever dismissed from their service; and their greatest misfortune, perhaps, would be, that they were once acquainted. To such, it is the advice of a friend immediately to throw off the infatuation, put on the man, and show the world they are not to be duped.

“It is of the last importance,” says Massachusettensis, “to settle this point, that is, the right of Parliament; it will (continues he) serve as a true test, certain criterion, and invariable standard, to distinguish the friends from the enemies of our Country, patriotism from sedition, loyalty from rebellion.” I heartily subscribe to the justice of this observation, but commisserate the unhappy situation of its author, if the friends and enemies of our Country should be distinguished by this standard of his own erecting, which, to do him justice, is the standard of truth. Weighed in such an equitable and discriminating balance, we should find all those fair pages of calumny which our author has published to the world respecting the conduct of the Whigs, converted into the sweetest encomiums; and Massachusettensis would be but another name for treason; the friends to Government, order, and the laws, in the modern prostituted application of the words, and the advocates for injustice, oppression, tyranny, and rebellion, would become synonymous terms.

After making some observations, which are nothing to the purpose, unless the Colonies are annexed to the Realm, which is not the case, nor ever will be; and if they were, it would not follow, if Guernsey and Jersey are enslaved, that the Americans must be so too; a clause from our first Charter, too long to be repeated, respecting incorporation, is recited by our author, upon which he gravely asks this simple question, “Whether it looks like a distinct or independent State?” We may fully answer him by another question equally simple, viz: Is there a single word in it that looks like uniting us to the British Empire, or subjecting us to the authority of Parliament? If it has not this look, it does not look to the point; for it is demonstration, as there was a time when the Colonies were disunited from the Realm and the supreme authority of the Parent State, that they are so now, unless there is evidence of a subsequent connexion. It is to be wished that those who keep eternally harping upon our being annexed to the British Realm, would point out the process that united us. There is none in nature. I challenge them to produce any.

The two next adduced paragraphs from our first Charter, we have examined in our third and fourth numbers, and have shown the first exactly to correspond with the rights we contend for, and the latter to be absolutely inconsistent with, and repugnant to, every principle and idea of our being a part of the British Empire, and subject to its Sovereign power. It is therefore unnecessary to take them up in this place.

The last-recited clause from this Charter we have also considered; the substance of which is, that all and every of the subjects of the King of England, his heirs and successors, who should go to and inhabit in the Massachusetts Colony, and all their children born in the said Colony, or on the Seas, should have and enjoy all the liberties and immunities of free and natural born subjects within any of the Dominions of the King, his heirs and successors, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, as if they were, and every of them, born within the Realm.

“It is upon this clause, or a similar one in the Charter of William and Mary, that our patriots have built up the stupendous fabrick of American independence.” Be it so: the foundation, were there no other, would sustain the building; it is impossible to undermine it or explain it away.

“I have already,” says our writer, “shewn that the supposition of our being exempted from the authority of Parliament, is pregnant with the grossest absurdities.” No mortal, excepting himself, has ever been able to see those absurdities. We have seen what such empty pretensions amounted to in a past paper, and to whom the absurdities were imputable. “Let us now,” says he, “consider this clause in connexion with other parts of the Charter.” Here we are led to expect some important reasoning; however, a recital of his argument is its best confutation. “If,” says he, “we suppose this clause to exempt us from the authority of Parliament, we must throw away all the rest of the Charter, for every other part indicates the contrary,

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