to restore us to peace, quietness, and order; an Act winch provides an impartial trial for men who shall laudably venture to enforce a due obedience to the laws and constitutional authority of the Parent State.

But the fatal mischief which the quick-sighted Congress have discovered, in this Act, that “hereby such offenders may escape legal punishment,” at once excites our pity for their weakness, and resentment for their dishonesty. Surely their complaisance to this Province arose to an unbounded height, thus to compliment us, not only at the expense of all the other Colonies upon the Continent, but even of Great Britain. I am act to suspect they undertook the description of this Act immediately after the adoption of the Suffolk Resolves; in these two instances their conduct seems to be uniform and consistent. And is there not, then, to be found in the Kingdom of Great Britain, nor in all the Colonies; an uncorrupted Court and twelve impartial Jurors, who will act agreeable to law and justice, save in the renowned Province of the Massachusetts-Bay? Cannot a fair and legal trial be had in any other part of the Dominions? Or, what I was not aware of before, did the Congress think there could not be found elsewhere a Court and Jury so intoxicated with popular rage and delusion, as to condemn men, as guilty of murder, who had only discharged their duty in the due execution of the laws? And, therefore, in their great humanity complain that they should have any chance for an acquittal! I am at a loss on which of these principles to account for the conduct of the Congress. But it is so ridiculous to pretend that a fair trial cannot be had out of this Province, when every circumstance favours a contrary supposition, that it hardly deserves a serious answer. Thus, my dear friends and fellow-countrymen, have the Congress left that path which their duty and our interest pointed out, and followed the lead of a few men, who, had they been influenced by any laudable or virtuous considerations, we should have been saved from the calamities that now awaits us.

As this publication is so lengthy, I must defer the remaining part of the article for a future paper.

PHILEIRENE.

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS-BAY. NO. IX.

Boston, April 13, 1775.

My Friends and Fellow-Countrymen:

It is not to be wondered at that disappointed men, grown wanton by peculation, whose ambition suggested to them the hope of overturning a Constitution which themselves, their ancestors, and the community had enjoyed, and the British Nation acceded to for near a century and a half, should endeavour to convince their fellow-countrymen of the rectitude and fitness of their exertions; when suspected, if not convicted, at the bar of the impartial publick of a series of treasonable acts and perfidious plots, by which their Country and millions of their fellow-mortals are plunged into a choice of the greatest calamities, that they should call opposition to their measures by lying names, treason, and rebellion; that they should attempt to fix the imputation of their own crimes upon those who have, in some degree, detected and baffled their oppressive schemes; that they should struggle to carry their points, by imposing upon the understandings of some, and practising on the hopes and fears of others, is no way astonishing. Such men blush at nothing; ever restless and craving, over-heated in the pursuits of honour and profit, they yield themselves up to the dominion of principles as unworthy the man as ever the wretched animals of unbounded ambition were under the influence of, or the willing tools of despotick power advocates for.*

Massachusettensis, in his publication of January 23d, after giving us some historical facts, and his observations upon them, which go to the right of Parliament, bursts forth into the most virulent invectives against those gentlemen who have been deputed, by the free and unsolicited suffrages of the people, to watch the encroachments of power, and to concert means to withstand the efforts of tyranny, which, like an inundation, was breaking in upon us, sweeping away all our social blessings. The application of his facts, and the pertinency of his observations, goes wholly upon the presumption that the Colonies were parts of the British Empire, even from their first discovery, or, for aught appears, from the creation of the world, and as such subject to the British Parliament in all cases. Therefore, as there is nothing new in this part of his paper, the answers which we have repeatedly made to such presumptions, void of proof, will, upon recollection, apply, and be a sufficient confutation. For this reason I will not take up your time with unnecessary observations upon his first paragraphs on this subject.

Our writer tells us the novelty of our being exempted from the authority of Parliament will appear, by an extract from a pamphlet published in 1764, by a gentleman who was then an oracle of the Whigs, and whose profound knowledge in the Law and Constitution is equalled but by few. This extract asserts that all the Colonies are subject to, and dependant on Great Britain, and that the. Parliament has authority to make laws binding upon them for their general good, &c. This gentleman, who has been one of the greatest ornaments of his profession as a lawyer, has made all America his debtors for his agonizing struggles in opposition to usurpation and tyranny by British powers. He has more than once nobly stood forth to stem the torrent. His publick life has been a political conflict with principalities and powers, with men whom, from a just of power, have been plotting the ruin of this ill-fated Province, together with this great patriot.

The Whigs call no man master under Heaven, however great; their appeal is to the law and to the testimony, to the Constitution of their Country, and the eternal principles of nature. The position laid down by the gentleman alluded to, as it stands unsupported by argument or reason, whatever might induce to it in his mind, is but the opinion of one individual of the community. Admitting that it was his opinion that the right of Parliament was as extensive as her present claims, which was not the case, it would only prove a diversity of opinion in different men, which is sometimes the case in the same man at different times. This is incident to humanity, especially before a thorough examination of the subject. We might apply to if an observation of his own upon a similar occasion, “that when great men miss it, they miss it most egregiously.” They, as has been remarked on this very pamphlet, sometimes see men as trees walking. However, Massachusettensis, ever consistent with himself, fully answers this, his own argument, in his paper of March 16th. “Messieurs Otis, Cushing, Hancock, and Adams,” says he, “were confidential friends, and made common cause. May we thence infer, that the three latter held that the Parliament had a just and equitable right to impose taxes on the Colonies, &c., because the first did.” He adds, “such principles and inferences are unlucky,” that is, nothing can be inferred from them. If so, can we infer the sentiments of the publick from the opinion of one gentleman? How, then, does the above extract, which has been published and republished, cited and recited by our writer, prove, upon his own principles, that the denial of the authority of Parliament over the Colonies is a novelty?

We are next presented with an extract from the Farmer’s Letters, who, we are told, took the lead in explaining away the right of Parliament to raise a revenue in America, where, speaking of the regulation of Trade, tells us, “he who considers these Provinces as States distinct from the British Empire, has very slender notions of justice, or of their interest. We are but parts of a whole, and therefore there must exist a power, somewhere to preside and preserve the connection in due order. This power is lodged in Parliament, and we are as much dependant on Great Britain as a perfectly free people can be on another.” This elegant writer and firm asserter of his Country’s rights, who took the lead, still holds a conspicuous place among the American worthies, the guardians of our liberties. His sentiment respecting the rights of Parliament is sufficiently evident from the result of the Congress, of which he was a member, as well as from the whole tenour of those Letters, which have been translated and admired by different Nations in Europe. It is admitted

* It gives me no pleasure to write; it must give pain, to a good mind to read a character which wounds his species (his countrymen) with disgrace and infamy. I am sorry to say there are some on both sides the Atlantick, to whom it but too well applies. Charity hopes all things, and may plead for tenderness and indulgence. But the first obligations upon a writer are to truth and justice, offend whom it may.