the Parliament, as the supreme power of the nation, was vested with a constitutional authority to impose taxes on every part of the empire. The Parliament unanimously adopted the opinion, and, in March 1764, resolved that it had a right to tax the colonies. prelude to the memorable STAMP-ACT, the House of Commons also voted, "That towards further defraying the necessary expenses of protecting the colonies, IT MAY BE NECESSARY TO CHARGE CERTAIN STAMP DUTIES upon them." To these resolutions succeeded what has commonly been called, the SUGARACT, passed April 5th, the preamble to which ran in this alarming style: "Whereas it is just and necessary, that a revenue be raised in America, for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same, We the commons, &c. towards raising the same, give and grant unto your majesty, after the 29th of September, 1764, upon clayed sugar, indigo and coffee of foreign produce, [and on many other articles] the sum of," &c. Until this inauspicious hour no act of Parliament had been passed avowedly for the purpose of raising a revenue in the colonies. This act was fraught with ingre dients highly disgustful and alarming. It not only declared the necessity, but JUSTICE of taxing the colonists for the avowed purpose of a parliamentary revenue, but the very wording of it excited, in the colonists, shrewd apprehensions that the Parliament would proceed to tax them to such a degree and for such a time, as they pleased, for the support of a military force to dragoon them into its unconstitutional measures. They imagined that they were able to defend themselves, and were averse from paying their money to purchase their own chains, and to bind themselves and their descendants in perpetual servitude.

The act was grievous and disgusting, as it required the monies to be raised by it to paid in specie, at the same time that regulations were adopted to obstruct the acquiring of gold and silver, and to

revolution. The minister, having known something of this matter, smiled at the proposal, but told him that he should be glad to see the cause of that revolution, and to take a walk with his friend West any where. The next morning he called according to agreement, and took Mr. Adams into Hyde Park, to a spot near the Serpentine River, where he gave him the following narrative. The king came to the throne a young man, surrounded by flattering courtiers; one of whose frequent topics it was, to declaim against the meanness of his palace, which was wholly unworthy a monarch of such a country as England. They said that there was not a sovereign in Europe who was lodged so poorly; that his sorry, dingy, old, brick palace of St. James, looked like a stable, and that he ought to build a palace suitable to his kingdom. The king was fond of architecture, and would therefore more readily listen to suggestions, which were in fact all true. This spot that you see here, was selected for the site, between this and this point, which were marked out. The king applied to his ministers on the subject; they inquired what sum would be wanted by his majesty, who said that he would begin with a million they stated the expenses of the war, and the poverty of the treasury but that his majesty's wishes should be taken into full consideration. Some time afterwards the king was informed, that the wants of the treasury were too urgent to admit of a supply from their present means, but that a revenue might be raised in America to supply all the king's wishes. This suggestion was followed up, and the king was in this way first led to consider, and then to consent, to the scheme for taxing the colonies."

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interdict the use of the colonial paper currency. The regulations, taken together, were calculated at once to deprive the colonies of the means of trade, and to injure the commerce of both countries.

The principal source of acquiring gold and silver, and of making remittances to Great Britain, was the trade which the colonies carried on with the French and Spanish West Indies. To these they carried timber, boards, and materials of almost every kind for building, staves and hoops for casks, horses, cattle, and all kinds of provisions. In return, they brought back indigo, cotton, sugar, cocoa, molasses, bills of exchange, and such sums in specie as they chose. The whole profit of this trade centred in Great Britain. The bills of exchange, and all other articles not wanted in the colonies, either for their own consumption or as means of trade, were sent to the mother country in exchange for her various manufactures. The foreign trade of the colonies was really her trade. If this trade was prohibited by the letter of the navigation laws of the empire, it was not inconsistent with the spirit of them. The advantages of it to the colonies, and especially to Great Britain, were very great. For this reason it had been winked at by those in power. But soon after the peace such regulations were adopted, as nearly annihilated this lucrative trade. The British men of war received a general order to prevent all smuggling, or as the ministerial phrase was, to "crush the monster." Not only the men of war made prizes of French, Spanish, and English vessels employed in this trade, but armed cutters were fitted out for the same purpose, and to suppress every breach of the very letter of the laws of navigation. The commanders of these were obliged to take the usual custom-house oaths, and to act in the capacity of revenue officers. The sudden stoppage of a trade, which, like the vital fluid in the human body, gave life to business of every description, in the northern colonies, was productive of a general torpor in their commerce, and gave them a distressing blow. This general distress of the mercantile interest, and the heavy losses to which many of the colonists were subjected, soured their minds, created jealousies, and produced sentiments and designs altogether unfavourable to the mother country. These were further excited and inflamed by the arbitrary, unconstitutional, and cruel methods adopted for securing the collection of the duties imposed for the purpose of raising a revenue. It was enacted by the Parliament, that whenever offences should be committed against the acts, which imposed them, the prosecutor might bring his action for the penalty, in the courts of admiralty, by which means the defendant was deprived of the privilege of a trial by a jury of the vicinage, and was subjected to a decision of his case by a single man, a creature of the crown, whose salary was to be paid out of those very forfeitures adjudged by himself. What rendered the case of the defendant still harder, was, that he was subjected to a course of law, by which the prosecutor was exempted from the trouble of proving his accusation, and he was obliged, either to prove his innocence or

to suffer. By these regulations, the colonists, when charged with violating the laws for raising a revenue in America, were deprived of every constitutional security of their property. All the guards which the constitution, and their ancestors of both countries had placed on property with respect to them, were utterly demolished. Beside, the naval officers employed in the execution of the orders of government, partly from ignorance, and partly from rapacity, were guilty of many acts of violence and injustice. These all united their influence to inflame the passions of the colonists and to alienate them from the parent country. That she should infringe her own constitution, and counteract her own commercial interests, to cramp the trade and check the growing propensity of her colonies, was a subject of general admiration and complaint. The Americans imagined that it was to be accounted for upon this supposition only, That the British ministry were jealous of their enterprising commercial spirit, increas ing numbers and opulence, and were resolved on the means of obstructing them. They began to view Great Britain, not as they had formerly done, in the light of an affectionate mother, but of an illiberal, imperious and cruel step-dame.

The trade indeed, between the British, and the French and Spanish colonies, on the 29th of September, 1764, was in a certain degree legalized; but it was loaded with such enormous duties as amounted to a prohibition, and gave no relief to the colonists. In these circumstances, though their sufferings were great, yet their fears were greater. It is not strange, therefore, that they viewed and represented their mother country, in a very unfavourable point of light. It was designed that the stamp-act should succeed the acts which had already been so alarming, disgustful and distressing. The ministry waited only to be more particularly informed of the writs, deeds, licences and other instruments of that kind, used in the colonies, on which a duty might be charged; to know what the objections of the colonists would be against the duties in contemplation; and whether the Americans would not choose to tax themselves to such an amount, or, in some other way, make such permanent provision, for the augmentation of the national revenue, as might be equivalent to that, which was contemplated by the stampact. The governors of the several colonies, in obedience to the requisition of his Britannic Majesty, at an early period, transmitted to the ministry, for their assistance, in framing the said act, the forms of writs, deeds and the like, used in America, how opposite soever they were to the tax it was designed to impose. The Americans were well apprized of the designs of the British ministry, and big with the most anxious expectation.

While the ministry paid an eager attention to the reception given to the regulations which they had already made respecting America, and were anxiously seeking every possible information from the most enlightened characters in the several colonies, that they might the more effectually carry their designs into execution, the alarm,

among the colonists, became greater and greater, and spread wider and wider. The best heads and pens among them were employed against the regulations which had been adopted and the act which was in contemplation. Eloquence and the press every where aided the opposition. The more the people thought and reasoned, the more they were awakened to a sense of their danger; in proportion to their time and opportunities they increased their union, and roused each other to oppose the regulations already made and the act which was pending. They viewed the parliamentary resolutions as the sad preface to a system of American revenue, which would divest them of the rights of English subjects, not only enslave but empov./ ish themselves and their posterity, and prove a melancholy introduction to a complication of evils of the greatest magnitude. They imagined they saw before them a prospect of oppression, unlimited in its extent and endless in its duration.

Several of the colonies petitioned and remonstrated against the acts; and committees were generally appointed by the respective assemblies to represent their objections against a parliamentary taxation of the colonies, and particularly against the Stamp-Act.

In Virginia, the Council and House of Burgesses petitioned his majesty, presented a memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the House of Commons.

Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, Connecticut, and New-York preferred petitions."

We here insert as a fair specimen of these petitions,

"The Memorial of the Council and Burgesses of Virginia, now met in General Assembly,"-to the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament,

66 HUMBLY REPRESENTS,

"That your memorialists hope an application to your lordships, the fixed and hereditary guardians of British liberty, will not be thought improper at this time, when measures are proposed, subversive, as they conceive, of that freedom, which all men, especially those who derive their constitution from Britain, have a right to enjoy; and they flatter themselves that your lordships will not look upon them as objects so unworthy your attention, as to regard any impropriety in the form or manner of their application, for your lordships' protection, of their just and undoubted rights as Britons.

"It cannot be presumption in your memorialists to call themselves by this distinguished name, since they are descended from Britons, who left their native country to extend its territory and dominion, and who, happily for Britain, and as your memorialists once thought, for themselves too, effected this purpose. As our ancestors brought with them every right and privilege they could with justice claim in their mother kingdom, their descendants may conclude, they cannot be deprived of those rights without injustice.

"Your memorialists conceive it to be a fundamental principle of the British constitution, without which freedom can no where exist, that the people are not subject to any taxes but such as are laid on them by their own consent, or by those who are legally appointed to represent them : property must become too precarious for the genius of a free people, which can be taken from them at the will of others, who cannot know what taxes such people can bear, or the easiest mode of raising them; and who are not under that restraint, which

is the greatest security against a burthensome taxation, when the representa tives themselves must be affected by every tax imposed on the people.

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"Your memorialists are therefore led into an humble confidence, that your lordships will not think any reason sufficient to support such a power, in the British Parliament, where the colonies cannot be represented a power never before constitutionally assumed, and which if they have a right to exercise on any occasion, must necessarily establish this melancholy truth, that the inhabitants of the colonies are the slaves of Britons, from whom they are descended and from whom they might expect every indulgence that the obligations of interest and affection can entitle them to.

"Your memorialists have been invested with the right of taxing their own people from the first establishment of a regular government in the colony, and requisitions have been constantly made to them by their sovereigns, on all occasions when the assistance of the colony was thought necessary to preserve the British interest in America; from whence they must conclude, they cannot now be deprived of a right they have so long enjoyed, and which they have never forfeited.

"The expenses incurred during the last war, in compliance with the demands on this colony by our late and present most gracious sovereigns, have involved us in a debt of near half a million, a debt not likely to decrease under the continued expense we are at, in providing for the security of the people against the incursions of our savage neighbours; at a time when the low state of our staple commodity, the total want of specie, and the late restrictions upon the trade of the colonies, render the circumstances of the people extremely distressful; and which, if taxes are accumulated upon them by the British Parliament, will make them truly deplorable.

"Your memorialists cannot suggest to themselves any reason why they should not still be trusted with the property of their people, with whose abilities, and the least burthensome mode of taxing, (with great deference to the superior wisdom of Parliament,) they must be best acquainted.

"Your memorialists hope they shall not be suspected of being actuated, on this occasion, by any principles but those of the purest loyalty and affection, as they always endeavoured by their conduct to demonstrate, that they consider their connexion with Great Britain, the seat of liberty, as their greatest happiness.

"The duty they owe to themselves and their posterity, lays your memorialists under the necessity of endeavouring to establish their constitution upon its proper foundation ; and they do most humbly pray your lordships to take this subject into your consideration, with the attention that is due to the wellbeing of the colonies, on which the prosperity of Great Britain does, in a great measure, depend.'

Pamphlets were also published, containing the reasons and pleas of the colonies against the acts. These were sent over to their agents and put into the hands of the ministry. In these, it was pleaded, That by the constitution and common law of England, the English were a free people; that their freedom consisted in this general privilege, that no laws could be made or abrogated without their consent, by their representatives in Parliament: That no privilege, included in the general rights of the free subjects of Great Britain, was more essential to their freedom, more approved and fixed than this, that no tax, loan, or benevolence can be imposed on them but by their consent, by their representatives in Parliament : That this was a privilege of ancient date, and that there was none of which they had been more jealous; none which they had more expressly claimed, or for which they had more vigorously contended,