establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to be found to support so great a burden. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and resisters of standing armies, would not have entered with so much alacrity into a vote for so large and expensive an army, if they had been sure, that they were to continue to pay for it. But hopes of another kind, were held out to them; and in particular, I well remember, that Mr. Townsend, in a brilliant harangue on this subject, did dazzle them by laying before their eyes the image of a revenue to be raised in America. Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new colony system. 7 The same great statesman thus exhibits the development of the principle assumed by the ministry, and so blindly followed by the Parliament of Great Britain, "that the mother country had a right to tax America, without her consent." "But the grand manoeuvre in that business of new regulating the colonies, was the fifteenth act of the fourth of George the Third, which, besides containing several of the matters to which I alluded, opened a new principle; and here properly began the second period of the policy of this country with regard to the colonies, by which a scheme of regular plantation parliamentary revenue, was adopted in theory, and settled in practice. This act, sir, had for the first time, the title of 'giving and granting duties in the colonies and plantations in America; and for the first time, it was asserted in the preamble, that it was just and necessary, that a revenue should be raised there.' Then come the technical words of giving and granting,' and thus a complete American revenue act was made, in all the forms, and with a full avowal of the equity, policy, and even the necessity of taxing the colonies, without any formal consent of theirs. There were contained also in the preamble to that act, these very remarkable words, the Commons being desirous to make some provision towards raising the said revenue.' By these words, it appeared to the colonies, that this act was only VOL. I.-D the beginning of sorrows, &c. This ill prospect appeared boundless in extent and endless in duration." The 15th act of 4 Geo. III.,, of which Mr. Burke speaks, was the act which announced the determination of Parliament to tax America, and preceded the famous stamp act, the principle of which the colonies denied, and the practical operation of which they finally resisted. In March, 1764, as every reader remembers, the principle, asserted by Parliament, was carried out into an act, on motion of Mr. Grenville, the first commissioner of the treasury, in which it was declared "to be proper to impose certain stamp duties in the colonies, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, payable into the British exchequer." 1 Mr. Lee quickly perceived the unconstitutionality and danger of the principle asserted in this act. He saw clearly, not only its fallacy, but the extent to which it would reach, and the duration of the oppression, to which it would lead, and immediately denounced it, in letters to his friends in England, and in his conversations with his fellow-citizens. It was not his nature, to be silent, or passive when the slightest violence to right was done. When he perceived one of the dearest rights of his country was denied or infringed, he became active and intrepid. He wrote (in letters to his friends and in the paper of the colony) and spoke against the measure just now mentioned, using every argument to rouse his countrymen to a sense of the dangers about to surround them. In March, 1764, Mr. Grenville's declaratory act passed; and in May following, Mr. Lee wrote to a gentleman in London, who was a public character, expressing his opinion of the measure, and proving the incompatibility of the act with the constitution of Great Britain, and with the rights of his countrymen; also strongly and eloquently stating their claims to the gratitude of the mother country. It has been recorded of a celebrated patriot of the revolution, that in expressing his views. * P. Henry. " confidentially, to a private company of his friends, in the year 1773, of the probable consequences of resistance to Great Britain, he foretold, that when Louis XVI. was convinced, by our opposition and declaration of independence, that the colonies would not submit, he would join us. This is certainly an instance of great sagacity; for not even then, as it was supposed, had any person ever before suggested the probability of such measures, as those of resistance and independence. No one can fail to be struck, then, with that foresight and sagacity which, in 1764, when as yet only the Declaratory Act had passed, suggested the probability that the measures it contemplated, "though intended to oppress and keep us low, in order to secure our dependence, might be subversive of that end," "and may produce a fatal resentment of parental care, being converted into tyrannical usurpation." In the letter from which these quotations are made, glows the spirit of an early American patriot. CHANTILLY, VA. MAY 31, 1764. "MY DEAR SIR-At a time when universal selfishness prevails, and when (did not a very few instances evince the contrary) one would be apt to conclude that friendship, with Astrea, had fled this degenerate world, how greatly happy must be the man who can boast of having a friend. That this happiness is mine, the whole tenor of my life's correspondence with you proves most clearly. side "Many late determinations of the great, on your of the water, seem to prove a resolution, to oppress North America with the iron hand of power, unrestrained by any sentiment, drawn from reason, the liberty of mankind, or the genius of their own government. Tis said the House of Commons readily resolved, that it had 'a right to tax the subject here, without the consent of his representative;' and that, in consequence of this, they had proceeded to levy on us a considerable annual sum, for the support of a body of troops to be kept up in this quarter. Can it be supposed that those brave adventurous Britons, who originally conquered and settled these countries, through great dangers to themselves and benefit to the mother country, meant thereby to deprive themselves of the blessings of that free government of which they were members, and to which they had an unquestionable right? or can it be imagined that those they left behind them in Britain, regarded those worthy adventurers, by whose distress and enterprise they saw their country so much enlarged in territory, and increased in wealth, as aliens to their society, and meriting to be enslaved by their superior power? No, my dear sir, neither one nor the other of these can be true, because reason, justice, and the particular nature of the British constitution, nay, of all government, cry out against such opinions! Surely no reasonable being would, at the apparent hazard of his life, quit liberty for slavery; nor could it be just in the benefited, to repay their benefactors with chains instead of the most grateful acknowledgments. And as certain it is, that the free possession of property, the right to be governed by laws made by our representatives, and the illegality of taxation without consent,' are such essential principles of the British constitution, that it is a matter of wonder how men, who have almost imbibed them in their mother's milk, whose very atmosphere is charged with them, should be of opinion that the people of America were to be taxed without consulting their representatives! It will not avail to say that these restrictions on the right of taxation, are meant to restrain only the sovereign, and not Parliament. The intention of the constitution is apparent, to prevent unreasonable impositions on the people; and no method is so likely to do that, as making their own consent necessary, for the establishment of such impositions. But if no such consent is allowed in our case, it will still be an aggravation of our misfortune to be the slaves of five hundred masters instead of one. It would seem, indeed, to be unquestionably true, that before a part of any community can be justly deprived of the rights and privi leges, to which they are entitled by the constitution and laws, there must have been some great and palpable injury offered by them to the society of which they are a part. But did this happen in the case of the first settlers of America? or did they, by any treasonable combination against, or by any violation offered to, the laws of their country, make it proper, in their country, to deprive them of their birth right? It remains, therefore, that we cannot be deprived of English liberty, though it may appear expedient that we should be despoiled of it. But after all, my dear friend, the ways of Heaven are inscrutable; and frequently, the most unlooked-for events have arisen from seemingly the most inadequate causes. Possibly this step of the mother country, though intended to oppress and keep us low, in order to secure our dependence, may be subversive of this end. Poverty and oppression, among those whose minds are filled with ideas of British liberty, may introduce a virtuous industry, with a train of generous and manly sentiments, which, when in future they become supported by numbers, may produce a fatal resentment of parental care being converted into tyrannical usurpation. I hope you will pardon so much on this subject. My mind has been warmed, and I hardly know where to stop," &c. Mr. Lee was again elected in the spring of 1764, to the House of Burgesses; and being determined to make an effort to induce the house to express its opinion of the declaratory act, by some solemn and efficient measure, he brought forward the subject soon after the meeting of the Assembly. The passage of the act had been made known to the House of Burgesses, by the colonial agent, Mr. Arthur Lee, a brother of R. H. Lee. After great deliberation, a special committee was appointed to draught an address to the king, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the House of Commons. Mr. Lee was placed on this committee, and selected to prepare the address to the king, and the memorial to the lords; and these are the first public productions from his pen, so far as it can be ascertained. The author has |