We the Deputies of the People of the Delaware State, in Convention met, having taken into our serious consideration the Federal Constitution proposed and agreed upon by the Deputies of the United States in a General Convention held at the City of Philadelphia on the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, Have approved, assented to, ratified, and confirmed, and by these Presents, Do, in virtue of the Power and Authority to us given for that purpose, for and in behalf of ourselves and our Constituents, fully, freely, and entirely approve of, assent to, ratify, and confirm the said Constitution. Done in Convention at Dover this seventh day of December in the year aforesaid, and in the year of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In Testimony whereof we have hereunto subscribed our Names- Sussex County JOHN INGRAM JOHN JONES WILLIAM MOORE WILLIAM HALL THOMAS LAWS ISAAC COOPER WOODMAN STORKLY JOHN LAWS THOMAS EVANS ISRAEL HOLLAND Kent County NICHOLAS RIDGELEY RICHARD SMITH GEORGE TRUITT RICHARD BASSETT JAMES SYKES ALLEN MCLANE DANIEL CUMMINS senr JOSEPH BARKER EDWARD WHITE GEORGE MANLOVE New Castle County JAs LATIMER, President JAMES BLACK JNo JAMES GUNNING BEDFORD senr KENSEY JOHNS THOMAS WATSON SOLOMON MAXWELL NICHOLAS WAY THOMAS DUFF GUNNG BEDFORD Junr To all whom these Presents shall come Greeting, I Thomas Collins President of the Delaware State do hereby certify, that the above instrument of writing is a true copy of the original ratification of the Federal Constitution by the Convention of the Delaware State, which original ratification is now in my possession. In Testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the Delaware State to be hereunto an'exed. THOs COLLINS Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ratde.asp

Monday May 14th 1787 was the day fixed for the meeting of the deputies in Convention for revising the federal system of Government. On that day a small number only had assembled. Seven States were not convened till, Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp

Great Britain : Parliament - The Stamp Act, March 22, 1765 An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, towards further defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the same; and for amending such parts of the several acts of parliament relating to the trade and revenues of the said colonies and plantations, as direct the manner of determining and recovering the penalties and forfeitures therein mentioned. WHEREAS by an act made in the last session of parliament, several duties were granted, continued, and appropriated, towards defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing, the British colonies and plantations in America: and whereas it is just and necessary, that provision be made for raising a further revenue within your MajestyÂ’s dominions in America, towards defraying the said expences: we, your MajestyÂ’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of Great Britain in parliament assembled, have therefore resolved to give and grant unto your Majesty the several rates and duties herein after mentioned; and do most humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the KingÂ’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid unto his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, throughout the colonies and plantations in America which now are, or hereafter may be, under the dominion of his Majesty, his heirs and successors, For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any declaration, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading, or any copy thereof, in any court of law within the British colonies and plantations in America, a stamp duty of three pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any special bail and appearance upon such bail in any such court, a stamp duty of two shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any petition, bill, answer, claim, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading in any court of chancery or equity within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any copy of any petition, bill, answer, claim, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading in any such court, a stamp duty of three pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any monition, libel, answer, allegation, inventory, or renunciation in ecclesiastical matters in any court of probate, court of the ordinary, or other court exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any copy of any will (other than the probate thereof) monition, libel, answer, allegation, inventory, or renunciation in ecclesiastical matters in any such court, a stamp duty of six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any donation, presentation, collation, or institution of or to any benefice, or any writ or instrument for the like purpose, or any register, entry, testimonial, or certificate of any degree taken in any university, academy, college, or seminary of learning, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any monition, libel, claim, answer, allegation, information, letter of request, execution, renunciation, inventory, or other pleading, in any admiralty court within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which any copy of such monition, libel, claim, answer, allegation, information, letter of request, execution, renunciation, inventory, or other pleading shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, a stamp duty of six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any appeal, writ of error, writ of dower, Ad quod damnum, certiorari, statute merchant, statute staple, attestation, or certificate, by any officer, or exemplification of any record or proceeding in any court whatsoever within the said colonies and plantations (except appeals, writs of error, certiorari, attestations, certificates, and exemplifications, for or relating to the removal of any proceedings from before a single justice of the peace) a stamp duty of ten shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any writ of covenant for levying of fines, writ of entry for suffering a common recovery, or attachment issuing out of, or returnable into, any court within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of five shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any judgment, decree, sentence, or dismission, or any record of Nisi Prius or Postea, in any court within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of four shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall ingrossed, written, or printed, any affidavit, common bail or appearance, interrogatory deposition, rule, order, or warrant of any court, or any Dedimus Potestatem, Capias, Subpoena, summons, compulsory citation, commission, recognizance, or any other writ, process, or mandate, issuing out of, or returnable into, any court, or any office belonging thereto, or any other proceeding therein whatsoever, or any copy thereof, or of any record not herein before charged, within the said colonies and plantations (except warrants relating to criminal matters, and proceedings thereon or relating thereto) a stamp duty of one shilling. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any licence, appointment, or admission of any counsellor, solicitor, attorney, advocate, or proctor, to practice in any court, or of any notary within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of ten pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any note or bill of lading, which shall be signed for any kind of goods, wares, or merchandize, to be exported from, or any cocket or clearance granted within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of four pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, letters of mart, or commission for private ships of war, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of twenty shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any grant, appointment, or admission of or to any publick beneficial office or employment, for the space of one year, or any lesser time, of or above the value of twenty pounds per annum sterling money, in salary, fees, and perquisites, within the said colonies and plantations, (except commissions and appointments of officers of the army, navy, ordnance, or militia, of judges, and of justices of the peace) a stamp duty of ten shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which any grant of any liberty, privilege, or franchise, under the seal of any of the said colonies or plantations, or under the seal or sign manual of any governor, proprietor, or publick officer alone, or in conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any council, or any council and assembly, or any exemplification of the same, shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of six pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any licence for retailing of spirituous liquors, to be granted to any person who shall take out the same, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of twenty shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, of sheet of piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed any licence for retailing wine, to be granted to any person who shall not take out a licence for retailing of spirituous liquors, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of four pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any licence for retailing of wine, to be granted to any person who shall take out a licence for retailing of spirituous liquors, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of three pounds, For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, of sheet of piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any probate of a will, letters of administration, or of guardianship for any estate above the value of twenty pounds sterling money; within the British colonies and plantations upon the continent of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the Bermuda and Bahama islands, a stamp duty of five shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any such probate, letters of administration or of guardianship within all other parts of the British dominions in America, a stamp duty of ten shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed , any bond for securing the payment of any sum of money, not exceeding the sum of ten pounds sterling money, within the British colonies and plantations upon the continent of America, the islands belonging there to, and the Bermuda and Bahama islands, a stamp duty of six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any bond for securing the payment of any sum of money above ten pounds, and not exceeding the sum of twenty pounds sterling money, within such colonies, plantations, and islands, a stamp duty of one shilling. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any bond for securing the payment of any sum of money above twenty pounds, and not exceeding forty pounds of sterling money, within such colonies, plantations, and islands, a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any order or warrant for surveying or setting out any quantity of land, not exceeding one hundred acres, issued by any governor, proprietor, or any publick officer alone, or in conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any council, or any council and assembly, within the British colonies and plantations in America, a stamp duty of six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such order or warrant for surveying or setting out any quantity of land above one hundred, and not exceeding two hundred acres, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling, For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such order or warrant for surveying or setting out any quantity of land above two hundred, and not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres, and in proportion for every such order or warrant for surveying or setting out every other three hundred and twenty acres, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any original grant, or any deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any quantity of land not exceeding one hundred acres shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within the British colonies and plantations upon the continent of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the Bermuda and Bahama islands (except leases for any term not exceeding the term of twenty one years) a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever by which any quantity of land above one hundred, and not exceeding two hundred acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within such colonies, plantations, and islands, a stamp duty of two shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any quantity of land above two hundred, and not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres, shall be granted, conveying, or assigned and in proportions for every such grant, deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument, granting, conveying, or assigning, every other three hundred and twenty acres, within such colonies, plantations, and islands, a stamp duty of two shillings and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any quantity of land not exceeding one hundred acres shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within all other parts of the British dominions in America, a stamp duty of three shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any quantity of land above one hundred, and not exceeding two hundred acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within the same parts of the said dominions, a stamp duty of four shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, whereby any quantity of land above two hundred, and not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, and in proportion for every such grant, deed, mesne conveyance, or other instrument, granting, conveying, or assigning, every other three hundred and twenty acres, within the same parts of the said dominions, a stamp duty of five shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, of sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any grant, appointment, or admission, of or to any publick beneficial office or employment, not herein before charged, above the value of twenty pounds per annum sterling money in salary, fees, and perquisites, or any exemplification of the same, within the British colonies and plantations upon the continent of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the Bermuda and Bahama islands (except commissions of officers of the army, navy, ordnance, or militia, and of justices of the peace) a stamp duty of four pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such grant, appointment, or admissions, of or to any such publick beneficial office or employment, or any exemplification of the same, within all other parts of the British dominions in America, a stamp duty of six pounds. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any indenture, lease, conveyance, contract, stipulation, bill of sale, charter party, protest, articles of apprenticeship, or covenant (except for the hire of servants not apprentices, and also except such other matters as are herein before charged) within the British colonies and plantations in America, a stamp duty of two shillings and six pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which any warrant or order for auditing any publick accounts, beneficial warrant, order, grant, or certificate, under any publick seal, or under the seal of sign manual of any governor, proprietor, or publick officer alone, or in conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any council, or any council and assembly, not herein before charge, or any passport, or let-pass, surrender of officer, or policy of assurance, shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, within the said colonies and plantations (except warrants or orders for the service of the navy, army, ordnance, or militia, and grants of offices under twenty pounds per annum in salary, fees, and perquisites) a stamp duty of five shillings. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any notarial act, bond, deed, letter, of attorney, procuration, mortgage, release, or other obligatory instrument, not herein before charged, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two shillings and three pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written or printed, any register, entry, or inrollment of any grant, deed, or other instrument whatsoever herein before charged, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of three pence. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, any register, entry, or inrollement of any grant, deed, or other instrument whatsoever not herein before charged, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two shillings. And for and upon every pack of playing cards, and all dice, which shall be sold or used within the said colonies and plantations, the several stamp duties following (that is to say) For every pack of such cards, the sum of one shilling. And for every pair of such dice, the sum of ten shillings. And for and upon every paper, commonly called a pamphlet, and upon every news paper, containing publick news, intelligence, or occurrences, which shall be printed, dispersed, and made publick, within any of the said colonies and plantations, and for and upon such advertisements as are herein after mentioned, the respective duties following (that is to say) For every such pamphlet and paper contained in half a sheet, or and lesser piece of paper, which shall be so printed, a stamp duty of one halfpenny, for every printed copy thereof. For every such pamphlet and paper (being larger than half a sheet, and not exceeding one whole sheet) which shall be so printed, a stamp duty of one penny, for every printed copy thereof. For every pamphlet and paper being larger than one whole sheet, and not exceeding six sheets in octavo, or in a lesser page, or not exceeding twelve sheets in quarto, or twenty sheets in folio, which shall be so printed, a duty after the rate of one shilling for every sheet of any kind of paper which shall be contained in one printed copy thereof. For every advertisement to be contained in any gazette, news paper, or other paper, or any pamphlet which shall be so printed, a duty of two shillings. For every almanack or calendar, for any one particular year, or for any time less than a year, which shall be written or printed on one side only of any one sheet, skin, or piece of paper parchment, or vellum, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two pence. For every other almanack or calendar for any one particular year, which shall be written or printed within the said colonies or plantations, a stamp duty of four pence. And for every almanack or calendar written or printed within the said colonies and plantations, to serve for several years, duties to the same amount respectively shall be paid for every such year. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which any instrument, proceeding, or other matter or thing aforesaid, shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, within the said colonies and plantations, in any other than the English language, a stamp duty of double the amount of the respective duties being charged thereon. And there shall be also paid in the said colonies and plantations, a duty of six pence for every twenty shillings, in any sum not exceeding fifty pounds sterling money, which shall be given, paid, contracted, or agreed for, with or in relation to any clerk or apprentice, which shall be put or placed to or with any master or mistress to learn any profession, trade, or employment. II. And also a duty of one shilling for every twenty shillings, in any sum exceeding fifty pounds, which shall be given, paid, contracted, or agreed, for, with or in relation to any such clerk, or apprentice. III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every deed, instrument, note, memorandum, letter, or other instrument or writing, for or relating to the payment of any sum of money, or for making any valuable consideration for or upon the loss of any ship, vessel, goods, wages, money, effects, or upon any loss by fire, or for any other loss whatsoever, or for or upon any life or lives, shall be construed, deemed, and adjudged to be policies of assurance, within the meaning of this act: and if any such deed, instrument, note, memorandum, letter, or other minument or writing, for insuring, or tending to insure, any more than one ship or vessel for more than any one voyage, or any goods, wages, money, effects, or other matter or thing whatsoever, for more than one voyage, or in more than one ship or vessel, or being the property of, or belonging to, any more than one person, or any more than one body politick or corporate, or for more than one risk; then, in every such case, the money insured thereon, or the valuable consideration thereby agreed to be made, shall become the absolute property of the insured, and the insurer shall also forfeit the premium given for such insurance, together with the sum of one hundred pounds. IV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every deed, instrument, note, memorandum, letter, or other minument or writing, between the captain or master or owner of any ship or vessel, and any merchant, trader, or other person, in respect to the freight or conveyance of any money, goods, wares, merchandizes, or effects, laden or to be laden on board of any such ship or vessel, shall be deemed and adjudged to be a charter party within the meaning of this act. V. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all books and pamphlets serving chiefly for the purpose of an almanack, by whatsoever name or names intituled or described, are and shall be charged with the duty imposed by this act on almanacks, but not with any of the duties charged by this act on pamphlets, or other printed papers; anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding. VI. Provided always, That this act shall not extend to charge any bill of exchange, accompts, bills of parcels, bills of fees, or any bills or notes not sealed for payment of money at sight, or upon demand, or at the end of certain days of payment. VII. Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall extend to charge the probate of any will, or letters of administration to the effects of any common seaman or soldier, who shall die in his MajestyÂ’s service; a certificate being produced from the commanding officer of the ship or vessel, or troop or company in which such seaman or soldier served at the time of his death, and oath, or if by a quaker a solemn affirmation, made of the truth thereof, before the proper judge or officer by whom such probate or administration ought to be granted; which oath or affirmation such judge or officer is hereby authorized and required to administer, and for which no fee or rewards shall be taken. VIII. Provided always, and be it enacted, That until after the expiration of five years from the commencement of the said duties, no skin, or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, on which any instrument, proceeding, or other matter or thing shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, within the colonies of Quebec or Granada, in any other than the English language, shall be liable to be charged with any higher stamp duty than if the same had been ingrossed, written, or printed in the English language. IX. Provided always, That nothing in this act contained shall extend to charge with any duty, any deed, or other instrument, which shall be made between any Indian nation and the governor, proprietor of any colony, lieutenant governor, or commander in chief alone, or in conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any council, or any council and assembly of any of the said colonies or plantations, for or relating to the granting, surrendering, or conveying, any lands belonging to such nation, to, for, or on behalf of his Majesty, or any such proprietor, or to any colony or plantation. X. Provided always, That this act shall not extend to charge any proclamation, forms of prayer and thanksgiving, or any printed votes of any house of assembly in any of the said colonies and plantations, with any of the said duties on pamphlets or news papers; or to charge any books commonly used in any of the schools within the said colonies and plantations, or any books containing only matters of devotion or piety; or to charge any single advertisement printed by itself, or the daily accounts or bills of goods imported and exported, so as such accounts or bills do contain no other matters than what have been usually comprized therein; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding. XI. Provided always, That nothing in this act contained shall extend to charge with any of the said duties, any vellum, parchment, or paper, on which shall only be ingrossed, written, or printed, any certificate that shall be necessary to intitle any person to receive a bounty granted by act of parliament. XII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the said several duties shall be under the management of the commissioners, for the time being, of the duties charged on stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, in Great Britain: and the same commissioners are hereby impowered and required to employ such officers under them, for that purpose, as they shall think proper; and to use such stamps and marks, to denote the stamp duties hereby charged, as they shall think fit; and to repair, renew, or alter the same, from time to time, as there shall be occasion; and to do all other acts, matters, and things, necessary to be done, for putting this act in execution with relation to the duties hereby charged. XIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the commissioners for managing the said duties, for the time being, shall and may appoint a fit person or persons to attend in every court of publick office within the said colonies and plantations, to take notice of the vellum, parchment, or paper, upon which any of the matter or things hereby charged with a duty shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, and of the stamps or marks thereupon, and of all other matters and things tending to secure the said duties; and that the judges in the several courts, and all other persons to whom it may appertain, shall, at the request of any such officer, make such orders, and do such other matters and things, for the better securing of the said duties, as shall be lawfully or reasonably desired in that behalf: and every commissioner and other officer, before he proceeds to the execution of any part of this act, shall take an oath in the words, or to the effect following (that is to say) I A. B. do swear, That I will faithfully execute the trust reposed in me, pursuant to an act of parliament made in the fifth year of the reign of his majesty King George the Third, for granting certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, without fraud or concealment; and will from time to time true account make of my doing therein, and deliver the same to such person or persons as his Majesty, his heirs, or successors, shall appoint to receive such account; and will take no fee, reward, or profit for the execution or performance of the said trust, or the business relating thereto, from any person or persons, other than such as shall be allowed by his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, or by some other person or persons under him or them to that purpose authorized. Or if any such officer shall be of the people commonly called Quakers, he shall take a solemn affirmation to the effect of the said oath; which oath or affirmation shall and may be administered to any such commissioner or commissioners by any two or more of the same commissioners, whether they have or have not previously taken the same: and any of the said commissioners, or any justice of the peace, within the kingdom of Great Britain, or any governor, lieutenant governor, judge, or other magistrate, within the said colonies or plantations, shall and may administer such oath or affirmation to any subordinate officer. XIV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the said commissioners, and all officers to be employed or entrusted by or under them as aforesaid, shall, from time to time, in and for the better execution of their several places and trusts, observe such rules, methods, and orders, as they respectively shall, from time to time, receive from the high treasurer of Great Britain, or the commissioners of the treasury, or any three or more of such commissioners for the time being; and that the said commissioners for managing the stamp duties shall take especial care, that the several parts of the said colonies and plantations shall, from time to time, be sufficiently furnished with vellum, parchment, and paper, stamped or marked with the said respective duties. XV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons shall sign, ingross, write, print, or sell, or expose to sale, or cause to be signed, ingrossed, written, printed or sold, or expose to sale, in any of the said colonies or plantations, or in any other part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, any matter or thing, for which the vellum, parchment, or paper, is hereby charged to pay any duty, before the same shall be marked or stamped with the marks or stamps to be provided as aforesaid, or upon which there shall not be some stamp or mark resembling the same; or shall sign, ingross, write, print, or sell, or expose to sale, or cause to be signed, ingrossed, written, printed, or sold, or exposed to sale, any matter or thing upon any vellum, parchment, or paper, that shall be marked or stamped for any lower duty than the duty by this act made payable in respect thereof; every such person so offending shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of ten pounds. XVI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no matter or thing whatsoever, by this act charged with the payment of a duty, shall be pleaded or given in evidence, or admitted in any court within the said colonies or plantations, to be good, useful, or available in law or equity, unless the same shall be marked or stamped, in pursuance of this act, with the respective duty hereby charged thereon, or with an higher duty. XVII. Provided nevertheless, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any vellum, parchment, or paper, containing any deed, instrument, or other matter or thing, shall not be duly stamped in pursuance of this act, at the time of the signing, sealing, or other execution, or the entry or inrollment thereof, any person interested therein, or any person on his or her behalf, upon producing the same to any one of the chief distributors of stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, and paying to him the sum of ten pounds for every such deed, instrument, matter, or thing, and also double the amount of the duties payable in respect thereof, shall be intitled to receive from such distributor, vellum, parchment, or paper, stamped pursuant to this act, to the amount of the money so paid; a certificate being first written upon every such piece of vellum, parchment, or paper, expressing the name and place of abode of the person by or on whose behalf such payment in made, the general purport of such deed, instrument, matter, or thing, the names of the parties therein, and of the witnesses (if any) thereto, and the date thereof, which certificate shall be signed by the said distributor; and the vellum, parchment, or paper, shall be then annexed to such deed, instrument, matter, or thing, by or in the presence of such distributor, who shall impress a seal upon wax, to be affixed on the part where such annexation shall be made, in the presence of a magistrate, who shall attest such signatures and sealing; and the deed, instrument, or other matter or thing, from thenceforth shall and may, with the vellum, parchment, or paper, so annexed, be admitted and allowed in evidence in any court whatsoever, and shall be as valid and effectual as if the proper stamps had been impressed thereon at the time of the signing, sealing, or other execution, or entry or inrollment thereof: and the said distributor shall, once in every six months, or oftener if required by the commissioners for managing the stamp duties, send to such commissioners true copies of all such certificates, and an account of the number of pieces of vellum, parchment, and paper, so annexed, and of the respective duties impressed upon every such piece. XVIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person shall forge, counterfeit, erase, or alter, any such certificate, ever such person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and shall suffer death as in cases of felony without the benefit of clergy. XIX. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons shall, in the said colonies or plantations, or in any other part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, counterfeit or forge any seal, stamp, mark type, device, or label, to resemble any seal, stamp, mark, type, device, or label, which shall be provided or made in pursuance of this act; or shall counterfeit or resemble the impressions of the same upon any vellum, parchment, paper, cards, dice, or other matter or thing, thereby to evade the payment of any duty hereby granted; or shall make, sign, print, utter, vend, or sell, any vellum, parchment, or paper, or other matter or thing with such counterfeit mark or impression thereon, knowing such mark or impression to be counterfeited; then every person so offending shall be adjudged a felon, and shall suffer death as in cases of felony without the benefit of clergy. XX. And it is hereby declared, That upon any prosecution of prosecutions for such felony, the dye, tool, or other instrument made use of in counterfeiting or forging any such seal, stamp, mark, type, device, or label, together with the vellum, parchment, paper, cards, dice, or other matter, or thing having such counterfeit impression, shall, immediately after trial or conviction of the party or parties accused, be broke, defaced, or destroyed, in open court. XXI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any register, publick officer, clerk, or other person in any court, registry, or office within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall, at any time after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, enter, register, or inroll, any matter or thing hereby charged with a stamp duty, unless the same shall appear to be duly stamped; in every such case such register, publick officer, clerk, or other person, shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds. XXII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, if any counsellor, clerk, officer, attorney, or other person, to whom this shall appertain, or who shall be employed or intrusted, in the said colonies or plantations, to enter or file any matter or thing in respect whereof a duty shall be payable by virtue of this act, shall neglect to enter, file, or record the same, as by law the same ought to be entered, filed, or recorded, within the space of four months after he shall have received any money for or in respect of the same, or shall have promised or undertaken so to do; or shall neglect to enter, file, or record, any such matter or thing, before any subsequent, further or other proceeding, matter, or thing, in the same suit, shall be had, entered, filed, or recorded; that then every such counsellor, clerk, officer, attorney, or other person so neglecting or offending, in each of the cases aforesaid, shall forfeit the sum of fifty pounds for every such offence. XXIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons, at any time after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, shall write, ingross, or print, or cause to be written, ingrossed, or printed, in the said colonies or plantations, or any other part of his said MajestyÂ’s dominions, either the whole or any part of any matter or thing whatsoever in respect whereof any duty is payable by this act, upon any part of any piece of vellum, parchment, or paper, whereon there shall have been before written any other matter or thing in respect whereof any duty was payable by this act; or shall fraudulently erase, or cause to be erased, the name or names of any person or persons, or any sum, date, or other thing, ingrossed, written, or printed, in such matter or thing as aforesaid; or fraudulently cut, tear, or get off, any mark or stamp from any piece of vellum, parchment, or paper, or any part thereof, with intent to use such stamp or mark for any other matter or thing in respect whereof any duty shall be payable by virtue of this act; that then, and so often and in every such case, every person so offending shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of fifty pounds. XXIV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every matter and thing, in respect whereof any duty shall be payable in pursuance of this act, shall be ingrossed, written, or printed, in such manner, that some part thereof shall be either upon, or as near and conveniently may be, to the stamps or marks denoting the duty; upon pain that the person who shall ingross, write, or print, or cause to be ingrossed, written, or printed, any such matter or thing in any other manner, shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of five pounds. XXV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every officer of each court, and every justice of the peace or other person within the said colonies and plantations, who shall issue any writ or process upon which a duty is by this act payable, shall, at the issuing thereof, set down upon such writ or process the day and year of his issuing the same, which shall be entered upon a remembrance, or in a book to be kept for that purpose, setting forth the abstract of such writ or process; upon pain to forfeit the sum of ten pounds for every such offence. XXVI. And, for the better collecting and securing the duties hereby charged on pamphlets containing more than one sheet of paper as aforesaid, be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, one printed copy of every pamphlet which shall be printed or published within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall within the space of fourteen days after the printing thereof, be brought to the chief distributor in the colony or plantations where such pamphlet shall be printed, and the title thereof, with the number of the sheets contained therein, and the duty hereby charged thereon, shall be registered or entered in a book to be there kept for that purpose; which duty shall be thereupon paid to the proper officer or officers appointed to receive the same, or his or their deputy or clerk, who shall thereupon forthwith give a receipt for the same on such printed copy, to denote the payment of the duty hereby charged on such pamphlet; and if any such pamphlet shall be printed or published , and the duty hereby charged thereon shall not be duly paid, and the title and number or sheets shall not be registered, and a receipt for such duty given on one copy, where required so to be, within the time herein before for that purpose limited; that then the author, printer, and publisher, and all other persons concerned in or about the printing or publishing of such pamphlet, shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of ten pounds, and shall lose all property therein, and in every other copy thereof, so as any person may freely print and publish the same, paying the duty payable in respect thereof by virtue of this act, without being liable to any action, prosecution, or penalty for so doing. XXVII. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no person whatsoever shall sell or expose to sale any such pamphlet, or any news paper, without the true respective name or names, and place or places of abode, of some known person or persons by or for whom the same was really and truly printed or published, shall be written or printed thereon; upon pain that every person offending therein shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds. XXVIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no officer appointed for distributing stamped vellum, parchment, or paper, in the said colonies or plantations, shall sell or deliver any stamped paper for printing any pamphlet, or any publick news, intelligence, or occurrences, to be contained in one sheet, or any lesser piece of paper, unless such person shall give security to the said officer, for the payment of the duties for the advertisements which shall be printed therein or thereupon. XXIX. And whereas it may be uncertain how many printed copies of the said printed news papers or pamphlets, to be contained in one sheet or in a lesser piece of paper, may be sold; and to the intent the duties hereby granted thereupon may not be lessened by printing a less number than may be sold, out of a fear of a loss thereby in printing more such copies than will be sold; it is hereby provided, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the proper officer or officers appointed for managing the said stamp duties, shall and may cancel, or cause to be cancelled, all the stamps upon the copies of any impression of any news paper or pamphlet contained in one sheet, or any lesser piece of paper, which shall really and truly remain unsold, and of which no profit or advantage has been made; and upon oath, or if by a quaker, upon solemn affirmation, made before a justice of the peace, or other proper magistrate, that all such copies, containing the stamps so tendered to be cancelled, are really and truly remaining unsold, and that none of the said copies have been fraudulently returned or rebought, or any profit or advantage made thereof; which oath or affirmation such magistrate is hereby authorized to administer, and to examine upon oath or affirmation into all circumstances relating to the selling or disposing of such printed copies, shall and may deliver, or cause to be delivered, the like number of other sheets, half sheets, or less pieces of paper, properly stamped with the same respective stamps, upon payment made for such paper, but no duty shall be taken for the stamps thereon; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding: and the said commissioners for managing the stamp duties for the time being are hereby empowered, from time to time, to make such rules and orders for regulating the methods, and limiting the times, for such cancelling and allowances as aforesaid, with respect to such news papers and pamphlets, as they shall, upon experience and consideration of the several circumstances, find necessary or convenient, for the effectual securing the duties thereon, and doing justice to the persons concerned in the printing and publishing thereof. XXX. Provided always, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That any officer or officers employed by the said commissioners for managing the stamp duties, shall and may deliver to any person, by or for whom any almanack or almanacks shall have been printed, paper marked or stamped according to the true intent and meaning hereof, for the printing such almanack or almanacks, upon his or her giving sufficient security to pay the amount of the duty hereby charged thereon, within the space of three months after such delivery; and that the said officer or officers, upon bringing to him or them any number of the copies of such almanacks, within the space of three months from the said delivery and request to him or them in that behalf made, shall cancel all the stamps upon such copies, and abate to every such person so much of the money due upon such security as such cancelled stamps shall amount to. XXXI. Provided always, That where any almanack shall contain more than one sheet of paper, it shall be sufficient to stamp only one of the sheets or pieces of paper upon which such almanack shall be printed, and to pay the duty accordingly. XXXII. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, in case any person or persons, within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall sell, hawk, carry about, utter, or expose to sale, any almanacks, or calendar, or any news paper, or any book, pamphlet, or paper, deemed or construed to be, or serving the purpose of, an almanack or news paper, within the intention and meaning of this act, not being stamped or marked as by this act is directed; every such person, shall for every such offence, forfeit the sum of forty shillings. XXXIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, the full sum or sums of money, or other valuable consideration received, or in any wise directly or indirectly given, paid, agreed, or contracted, for, with, or in relation to any clerk or apprentice, within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall be truly inserted, or written in words at length, in some indenture or other writing which shall contain the covenants, articles, contracts, or agreements, relating to the service of such clerk or apprentice; and shall bear date upon the day of signing, sealing, or other execution of the same, upon pain that every master or mistress to or with whom, or to whose use, any sum of money, or other valuable consideration whatsoever, shall be given, paid, secured, or contracted, for or in respect of any such clerk or apprentice, which shall not be truly and fully so inserted and specified in some such indenture, or other writing, shall, for every such offence, forfeit double the sum, or double the amount of any valuable consideration so given, paid, agreed, secured, or contracted for; to be sued for and recovered at any time, during the term specified in the indenture or writing for the service of such clerk or apprentice, or within one year after the determination thereof; and that all such indentures, or other writings, shall be brought, within the space of three months, to the proper officer or officers, appointed by the said commissioners for collecting the said duties within the respective colony or plantation; and the duty hereby charged for the sums, or other valuable consideration inserted therein, shall be paid by the master or mistress of such clerk or apprentice to the said officer or officers, who shall give receipts for such duty on the back of such indentures or other writings; and in case the duty shall not be paid within the time before limited, such master or mistress shall forfeit double the amount of such duty. XXXIV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all indentures or writings within the said colonies or plantations, relating to the service of clerks or apprentices, wherein shall not be truly inserted or written the full sum or sums of money, or other valuable consideration, received, or in any wise directly or indirectly given, paid, agree, secured, or contracted for, with, or in relation to any such clerk or apprentice, and a receipt given for the same by the officer or officers aforesaid, or whereupon the duties payable by this act shall not be duly paid or lawfully tendered, according to the tenor and true meaning of this act, within the time herein for that purpose limited, shall be void and not available in any court or place, or to any purpose whatsoever. XXXV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any master or mistress of any clerk or apprentice shall neglect to pay the said duty, within the time herein before limited, and any such clerk or apprentice shall in that case pay, or cause to be paid, to the amount of double the said duty, either during the term of such clerkship or apprenticeship, or within one year after the determination thereof, such master or mistress not having then paid the said double duty although required by such clerk or apprentice so to do; then, and in such case, it shall and may be lawful to and for any such clerk or apprentice, within three months after such payment of the said double duty, to demand of such master or mistress, or his or her executors or administrators, such sums or sums of money, or valuable consideration, as was or were paid to such master or mistress, for or in respect of such clerkship or apprenticeship; and in case such sum or sums of money, or valuable consideration, shall not be paid within three months after such demand there made, it shall and may be lawful to and for any such clerk or apprentice, or any other person or persons on his or her behalf, to sue for and recover the same, in such manner as any penalty hereby inflicted may be sued for and recovered; and such clerks or apprentices shall, immediately after payment of such double duty, be and are hereby discharged from their clerkships or apprenticeships, and from all actions, penalties, forfeitures, and damages, for not serving the time for which they were respectively bound, contracted for, or agreed to serve, and shall have such and the same benefit and advantage of the time they shall respectively have continued with and served such masters or mistress; as they would have been entitled to in case such duty had been paid by such master or mistress, within the time herein before limited for that purpose. XXXVI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all printed indentures, or contracts for binding clerks or apprentices, after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, within the said colonies and plantations, shall have the following notice or memorandum printed under the same, or added thereto, videlicet, THE indenture must bear date the day it is executed, and the money or other thing, given or contracted for with the clerk or apprentice, must be inserted in words at length, and the duty paid, and a receipt given on the back of the indenture, by the distributor of stamps, or his substitute, within three months after the execution of such indenture, under the penalties inflicted by law. And if any printer, stationer, or other person or persons, within any of the said colonies or plantations, or any other part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, shall sell, or cause to be sold, any such indenture or contract, without such notice or memorandum being printed under the same, or added thereto; then, and in every such case, such printer, stationer, or other person or persons, shall for every such offence, forfeit the sum of ten pounds. XXXVII. And, for the better securing the said duty on playing cards and dice; be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, no playing cards or dice shall be sold, exposed to sale, or used in play, within the said colonies or plantations, unless the paper and thread inclosing, or which shall have inclosed, the same, shall be or shall be also marked or stamped on the spotted or painted side thereof with such mark or marks as shall have been provided in pursuance of this act, upon pain that every person who shall sell, or expose to sale, any such cards or dice which shall not have been so respectively sealed, marked, or stamped, as hereby is respectively required, shall forfeit for every pack or parcel of cards, and every one of such dice so sold or exposed to sale, the sum of ten pounds. XXXVIII. And it is hereby enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person within the said colonies or plantations, or any other part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, shall sell or buy any cover or label which has been made use of for the inclosing any pack or parcel of cards; every person so offending shall, for every such offence, forfeit twenty pounds. XXXIX. Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if either the buyer or seller of any such cover or label shall inform against the other party concerned in buying or selling such cover or label, the party so informing shall be admitted to give evidence against the party informed against, and shall be indemnified against the said penalties. XL. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons shall fraudulently inclose any parcel or pack of playing cards in any outside paper so sealed and stamped as aforesaid, the same having been made use of for the purpose aforesaid; then, so often, and in every such case, every person so offending in any of the particulars before-mentioned, shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds. XLI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, every clerk, officer, and other person employed or concerned in granting, making out, or delivering licences for retailing spirituous liquors or wine within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall, and he is hereby required and directed, within two months after delivering any such licences, to transmit, to the chief distributor of stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, a true and exact list or account of the number of licences so delivered, in which shall be inserted the names of the persons licensed, and the places where they respectively reside; and if any such clerk, officer, or other person shall refuse or neglect to transmit any such list or account to such distributor, or shall transmit a false or untrue one, then, and in every such case, such clerk, officer, or other person, shall, for every such offence, forfeit fifty pounds. XLII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That licences for selling or uttering by retail spirituous liquors or wine within any of the said colonies and plantations, shall be in force and serve for no longer than one year from the date of each licence respectively. XLIII. Provided nevertheless, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person licenced to sell spirituous liquors or wines, shall die or remove from the house or place wherein such spirituous liquors or wine shall, by virtue of such licence, be sold, it shall and may be lawful for the executors, administrators, or assigns of such person so dying or removing, who shall be possessed of such house or place, or for any occupier of such house of place, to sell spirituous liquors or wine therein during the residue of the term for which such licence shall have been granted, without any new licence to be had or obtained in that behalf; any thing to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding. XLIV. And it is hereby enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person or persons shall sell or utter by retail, that is to say, in any less quantity than one gallon at any one time, any kind of wine, or any liquor called or reputed wine, or any kind of spirituous liquors, in the said colonies or plantations without taking out such licence yearly and every year, he, she, or they so offending shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds.. XLV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every person who shall retail spirituous liquors or wine in any prison or house of correction, or any workhouse appointed or to be appointed for the reception of poor persons within any of the said colonies or plantations, shall be deemed a retailer of spirituous liquors or wine within this act. XLVI. Provided always, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if at any time after the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, there shall not be any provision made for licensing the retailers of wine or spirituous liquors, within any of the said colonies or plantations; then, and in every such case, and during such time as no provision shall be made, such licences shall and may be granted for the space of one year, and renewed from time to time by the governor or commander in chief of every such respective colony or plantation. XLVII. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every person who shall at any one time buy of any chief distributor within any of the said colonies or plantations, vellum, parchment, or paper, the duties whereof shall amount to five pounds sterling money of Great Britain, or upwards shall be allowed after the rate of four pounds per centum, upon the prompt payment of the said duties to such chief distributor. XLVIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all publick clerks or officers within the said colonies or plantations, who shall from time to time have in their custody any publick books, or other matters or things hereby charged with a stamp duty, shall at any seasonable time or times, permit any officer or officers thereunto authorized by the said commissioners for managing the stamp duties, to inspect and view all such publick books, matters, and things, and to take thereout such notes and memorandums as shall be necessary for the purpose of ascertaining or securing the said duties, without fee or reward; upon pain that every such clerk or other officer who shall refuse or neglect so to do, upon reasonable request in that behalf made, shall, for every such refusal or neglect, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds. XLIX. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the high treasurer of Great Britain, or the commissioners of his MajestyÂ’s treasury, or any three or more of such commissioners, for the time being, shall once in every year at least, set the prices at which all sorts of stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, shall be sold by the said commissioners for managing the stamp duties, and their officers; and that the said commissioners for the said duties shall cause such prices to be marked upon every such skin and piece of vellum and parchment, and sheet and piece paper: and if any officer or distributor to be appointed by virtue of this act, shall sell, or cause to be sold, any vellum, parchment, or paper, for a greater or higher price or sum, than the price or sum so set or affixed thereon; every such officer or distributor shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of twenty pounds. L. And be it also enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the several officers who shall be respectively employed in the raising, receiving, collecting, or paying, the several duties hereby charged, within the said colonies and plantations, shall every twelve months, or oftener, if thereunto required by the said commissioners for managing the said duties, exhibit his and their respective account and accounts of the said several duties upon oath, or if a quaker upon affirmation, in the presence of the governor, or commander in chief, or principal judge of the colony or plantation where such officer shall be respectively resident, in such manner as the high treasurer, or the commissioners of the treasury, or any three or more of such commissioners for the time being, shall, from time to time, direct and appoint, in order that the same may be immediately afterwards transmitted by the said officer or officers to the commissioners for managing the said duties, to be comptrolled and audited according to the usual course and form of comptrolling and auditing the accounts of the stamp duties arising within this kingdom: and if any of the said officers shall neglect or refuse to exhibit any such account, or to verify the same upon oath or affirmation, or to transmit any such account so verified to the commissioner for managing the said duties, in such manner and within such time, as shall be so appointed or directed; or shall neglect or refuse to pay, or cause to be paid, into the hands of the receiver general of the stamp duties in Great Britain, or to such other person or persons as the high treasurer, or commissioners of the treasury, or any three or more of such commissioners for the time being, shall, from time to time, nominate or appoint, the monies respectively raised, levied, and received, by such officers under the authority of this act, at such times, and in such manner, as they shall be respectively required by the said high treasurer, or commissioners of the treasurer; or if any such officers shall divert, detain, or misapply, all or any part of the said monies so by them respectively raised, levied, and received, or shall knowingly return any person or persons insuper for any monies or other things duly answered, paid, or accounted for, by such person or persons, whereby he or they shall sustain any damage or prejudice; in every such case, every such officer shall be liable to pay trebled the value of all and every sum and sums of money so diverted or misapplied; and shall also be liable to pay treble damages to the party grieved, by returning him insuper. LI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the commissioners, receiver or receivers general, or other person or persons, who shall be respectively employed in Great Britain, in the directing, receiving, or paying, the monies arising by the duties hereby granted, shall, and are hereby required, between the tenth day of October and the fifth day of January following, and so from year to year, at those times, to exhibit their respective accounts thereof to his MajestyÂ’s auditors of the imprest in England for the time being, or one of them, to be declared before the high treasurer, or commissioners of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer for the time being, according to the course of the exchequer. LII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if the same commissioners for managing the said duties, or the said receiver or receivers general, shall neglect or refuse to pay into the exchequer all or any of the said monies, in such manner as they are required by this act to pay the same, or shall divert or misapply any part thereof; then they, and every of them so offending, shall be liable to pay double the value of all and every sum and sums of money so diverted or misapplied. LIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the comptroller or comptrollers for the time being of the duties hereby imposed, shall keep perfect and distinct accounts in books fairly written of all the monies arising by the said duties; and if any such comptroller or comptrollers shall neglect his or their duty therein, then he or they, for every such offence, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds. LIV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all the monies which shall arise by the several rates and duties hereby granted (except the necessary charges of raising, collecting, recovering, answering, paying, and accounting for the same, and the necessary charges from time to time incurred in relation to this act, and the execution thereof) shall be paid into the receipt of his MajestyÂ’s exchequer, and shall be entered separate and apart from all other monies, and shall be there reserved to be from time to time disposed of by parliament, towards further defraying the necessary expences of defending, protecting, and securing, the said colonies and plantations. LV. And whereas, it is proper that some provision should be made for payment of the necessary expences which have been, and shall be incurred in relation to this act, and the execution thereof; and of the orders and rules to be established under the authority of the same, before the said duties shall take effect, or the monies arising thereby shall be sufficient to discharge such expences; be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That his Majesty may, and he is hereby impowered by any warrant or warrants under his royal sign manual, at any time or times before the twentieth day of April, one thousand seven hundred and sixty six, to cause to be issued and paid out of any of the surplusses, excesses, overplus monies, and other revenues composing the fund commonly called The sinking fund (except such monies of the said sinking fund as are appropriated to any particular use or uses, by any former act or acts of parliament in that behalf) such sum and sums of money as shall be necessary to defray the said expences; and the monies so issued, shall be reimbursed, by payment into the exchequer of the like sum or sums out of the first monies which shall arise by virtue of this act; which monies, upon the payment thereof into the exchequer, shall be carried to the account, and made part of the said fund. LVI. And it is hereby further enacted and declared, That all the powers and authorities by the act granted to the commissioners for managing the duties upon stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, shall and may be fully and effectually carried into execution by any three or more of the said commissioners; any thing herein before contained to the contrary notwithstanding. LVII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all forfeitures and penalties incurred after the twenty ninth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, for offences committed against an act passed in the fourth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America; for continuing, amending, and making perpetual, an act passed in the sixth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, intituled, An act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his MajestyÂ’s sugar colonies in America; for applying the produce of such duties, and of the duties to arise by virtue of the said act, towards defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations; for explaining an act made in twenty fifth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, intituled, An act for the encouragement of the Greenland and Eastland trades, and for the better securing the plantation trade; and for altering and disallowing several drawbacks on exports from this kingdom, and more effectually preventing the clandestine conveyance of goods to and from the said colonies and plantations, and improving and securing the trade between the same and Great Britain, and for offences committed against any other act or acts of parliament relating to the trade or revenues of the said colonies or plantations; shall and may be prosecuted, sued for, and recovered, in any court of record, or in any court of admiralty, in the respective colony or plantation where the offence shall be committed, or in any court of vice admiralty appointed or to be appointed, and which shall have jurisdiction within such colony, plantation, or place, (which courts of admiralty or vice admiralty are hereby respectively authorized and required to proceed, hear, and determine the same) at the election of the informer or prosecutor. LVIII. And it is hereby further enacted and declared by the authority aforesaid, That all sums of money granted and imposed by this act as rates or duties, and also all sums of money imposed as forfeitures or penalties, and all sums of money required to be paid, and all other monies herein mentioned, shall be deemed and taken to be sterling money of Great Britain, and shall be collected, recovered, and paid, to the amount of the value which such nominal sums bear in Great Britain; and that such monies shall and may be received and taken, according to the proportion and value of five shillings and six pence the ounce in silver; and that all the forfeitures and penalties hereby inflicted, and which shall be incurred, in the said colonies and plantations, shall and may be prosecuted, sued for, and recovered, in any court of record, or in any court of admiralty, in the respective colony or plantation where the offence shall be committed, or in any court of vice admiralty appointed or to be appointed, and which shall have jurisdiction within such colony, plantation, or place, (which courts of admiralty or vice admiralty are hereby respectively authorized and required to proceed, hear, and determine the same,) at the election of the informer or prosecutor; and that from and after the twenty ninth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, in all cases, where any suit or prosecution shall be commenced and determined for any penalty or forfeiture inflicted by this act, or by the same act made in the fourth year of his present MajestyÂ’s reign, or by any other act of parliament relating to the trade or revenues of the said colonies or plantations, in any court of admiralty in the respective colony or plantation where the offence shall be committed, either party, who shall think himself aggrieved by such determination, may appeal from such determination to any court of vice admiralty appointed or to be appointed, and which shall have jurisdiction within such colony, plantation, or place, (which court of vice admiralty is hereby authorized and required to proceed, hear, and determine such appeal) any law, custom, or usage, to the contrary notwithstanding; and the forfeitures and penalties hereby inflicted, which shall be incurred in any other part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, shall and may be prosecuted, sued for and recovered, with full costs of suit, in any court of record within the kingdom, territory, or place, where the offence shall be committed, in such and the same manner as any debt or damage, to the amount of such forfeiture or penalty, can or may be sued for and recovered. LIX. And it is hereby further enacted, That all the forfeitures and penalties hereby inflicted shall be divided, paid, and applied, as follows; (that is to say) one third part of all such forfeitures and penalties recovered in the said colonies and plantations, shall be paid into the hands of one of the chief distributors of stamped vellum, parchment, and paper, residing in the colony or plantation wherein the offender shall be convicted, for the use of his Majesty, his heirs, and successors; one third part of the penalties and forfeitures, so recovered, to the governor or commander in chief of such colony or plantation; and the other third part therefore, to the person who shall inform or sue for the same; and that one moiety of all such penalties and forfeitures recovered in any other parts of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, shall be to the use of his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, and the other moiety thereof, to the person who shall inform or sue for the same. LX. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all the offences which are by this act made felony, and shall be committed within any part of his MajestyÂ’s dominions, shall and may be heard, tried, and determined, before any court of law within the respective kingdom, territory, colony, or plantation, where the offence shall be committed, in such and the same manner as all other felonies can or may be heard, tried, and determined, in such court. LXI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all the present governors or commanders in chief of any British colony or plantation, shall, before the said first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, and all who hereafter shall be made governors or commanders in chief of the said colonies or plantations, or any of them, before their entrance into their government, shall take a solemn oath to do their utmost, that all and every clauses contained in this present act be punctually and bona fide observed, according to the true intent and meaning thereof, so far as appertains unto the said governors or commanders in chief respectively, under the like penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities, either for neglecting to take the said oath, or for wittingly neglecting to do their duty accordingly, as are mentioned and expressed in an act made in the seventh and eighth year of the reign of King William the Third, intituled, An act for preventing frauds, and regulating abuses, in the plantation trade; and the said oath hereby required to be taken, shall be administered by such person or persons as hath or have been, or shall be, appointed to administer the oath required to be taken by the said act made in the seventh and eighth year of the reign of King William the Third. LXII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all records, writs, pleadings, and other proceedings in all courts whatsoever, and all deeds, instruments, and writings whatsoever, hereby charged, shall be ingrossed and written in such manner as they have been usually accustomed to be ingrossed and written, or are now ingrossed and written within the said colonies and plantations. LXIII. And it is hereby further enacted, That if any person or persons shall be sued or prosecuted, either in Great Britain or America, for any thing done in pursuance of this act, such person and persons shall and may plead the general issue, and give this act and the special matter in evidence; and if it shall appear so to have been done, the jury shall find for the defendant or defendants: and if the plaintiff or plaintiffs shall become nonsuited, or discontinue his or their action after the defendant or defendants shall have appeared, or if judgement shall be given upon any verdict or demurrer against the plaintiff or plaintiffs, the defendant or defendants shall recover treble costs and have the like remedy for the same, as defendants have in other cases by law. Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/stamp_act_1765.asp

Jermain Loguen’s Speech Against the Fugitive Slave Act October 4, 1850 I WAS A SLAVE; I knew the dangers I was exposed to. I had made up my mind as to the course I was to take. On that score I needed no counsel, nor did the colored citizens generally. They had taken their stand—they would not be taken back to slavery. If to shoot down their assailants should forfeit their lives, such result was the least of the evil. They will have their liberties or die in their defense. What is life to me if I am to be a slave in Tennessee? My neighbors! I have lived with you many years, and you know me. My home is here, and my children were born here. I am bound to Syracuse by pecuniary interests, and social and family bonds. And do you think I can be taken away from you and from my wife and children, and be a slave in Tennessee? Has the President and his Secretary sent this enactment up here, to you, Mr. Chairman, to enforce on me in Syracuse?—and will you obey him? Did I think so meanly of you—did I suppose the people of Syracuse, strong as they are in numbers and love of liberty—or did I believe their love of liberty was so selfish, unmanly and unchristian—did I believe them so sunken and servile and degraded as to remain at their homes and labors, or, with none of that spirit which smites a tyrant down, to surround a United States Marshal to see me torn from my home and family, and hurled back to bondage—I say did I think so meanly of you, I could never come to live with you. Nor should I have stopped, on my return from Troy, twenty-four hours since, but to take my family and movables to a neighborhood which would take fire, and arms, too, to resist the least attempt to execute this diabolical law among them. Some kind and good friends advise me to quit my country, and stay in Canada, until this tempest is passed. I doubt not the sincerity of such counsellors. But my conviction is strong, that their advice comes from a lack of knowledge of themselves and the case in hand. I believe that their own bosoms are charged to the brim with qualities that will smite to the earth the villains who may interfere to enslave any man in Syracuse. I apprehend the advice is suggested by the perturbation of the moment, and not by the tranquil spirit that rules above the storm, in the eternal home of truth and wisdom. Therefore I have hesitated to adopt this advice, at least until I have the opinion of this meeting. Those friends have not canvassed this subject. I have. They are called suddenly to look at it. I have looked at it steadily, calmly, resolutely, and at length defiantly, for a long time. I tell you the people of Syracuse and of the whole North must meet this tyranny and crush it by force, or be crushed by it. This hellish enactment has precipitated the conclusion that white men must live in dishonorable submission, and colored men be slaves, or they must give their physical as well as intellectual powers to the defense of human rights. The time has come to change the tones of submission into tones of defiance,—and to tell Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster, if they propose to execute this measure upon us, to send on their bloodhounds. Mr. President, long ago I was beset by over-prudent and good men and women to purchase my freedom. Nay, I was frequently importuned to consent that they purchase it, and present it as evidence of their partiality to my person and character. Generous and kind as those friends were, my heart recoiled from the proposal. I owe my freedom to the God who made me, and who stirred me to claim it against all other beings in God’s universe. I will not, nor will I consent, that anybody else shall countenance the claims of a vulgar despot to my soul and body. Were I in chains, and did these kind people come to buy me out of prison, I would acknowledge the boon with inexpressible thankfulness. But I feel no chains, and am in no prison. I received my freedom from Heaven, and with it came the command to defend my title to it. I have long since resolved to do nothing and suffer nothing that can, in any way, imply that I am indebted to any power but the Almighty for my manhood and personality. Now, you are assembled here, the strength of this city is here to express their sense of this fugitive act, and to proclaim to the despots at Washington whether it shall be enforced here—whether you will permit the government to return me and other fugitives who have sought asylum among you, to the Hell of slavery. The question is with you. If you will give us up, say so, and we will shake the dust from our feet and leave you. But we believe better things. We know you are taken by surprise. The immensity of this meeting testifies to the general consternation that has brought it together, necessarily, precipitately, to decide the most stirring question that can be presented, to wit, whether, the government having transgressed Constitutional and natural limits, you will bravely resist its aggressions, and tell its soulless agents that no slaveholder shall make your city and county a hunting field for slaves. Whatever may be your decision, my ground is taken. I have declared it everywhere. It is known over the state and out of the state—over the line in the North, and over the line in the South. I don’t respect this law—I don’t fear it—I won’t obey it! It outlaws me, and I outlaw it, and the men who attempt to enforce it on me. I place the governmental officials on the ground that they place me. I will not live a slave, and if force is employed to reenslave me, I shall make preparations to meet the crisis as becomes a man. If you will stand by me—and I believe you will do it, for your freedom and honor are involved as well as mine—it requires no microscope to see that—I say if you will stand with us in resistance to this measure, you will be the saviors of your country. Your decision to-night in favor of resistance will give vent to the spirit of liberty, and it will break the bands of party, and shout for joy all over the North. Your example only is needed to be the type of popular action in Auburn, and Rochester, and Utica, and Buffalo, and all the West, and eventually in the Atlantic cities. Heaven knows that this act of noble daring will break out somewhere—and may God grant that Syracuse be the honored spot, whence it shall send an earthquake voice through the land! Source: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1850-rev-jermain-wesley-loguen-i-wont-obey-fugitive-slave-law/

The President's pardon is a political tool the chief executive has in their arsenal which allows them to check the power of the judiciary. If an innocent defendant goes through the judicial system and is convicted anyway then the President may issue out a pardon to exonerate them. This is the ideal use of the pardon, but in reality it is used to benefit the lackeys of the President or the governors who can issue out pardons on the state level. Because the de facto use is not consistent with reason or civil governance, given its arbitraity, I believe there needs to be more restrictions on that particular power. In the theory of checks and balances, one branch can check the power of another, however, there is another theory which is separation of power meaning that one branch cannot obstruct the power of the others. This sounds contradictory but it is not. For a check to not be an obstruction the check needs to be a negative on a power and that negative can only be an active reaction. There are several checks which violate this rule, one being the power of the President's veto. The veto does not have to be an active check on the legislature since a bill from Congress needs to be signed by the President in order to be enacted. This means that the President can passively do nothing and still check the power of the legislature. There is a specific circumstance where if Congress is in session when the time frame to sign it ends then the bill will become law even without the President's signature, but that isn't all the time. To follow the two theories correctly, all bills will be able to become law without the President's signature but if the President objects to a bill then he can veto. This will force the President to be more active when checking the power of Congress. Likewise, a pardon is just the veto against the judiciary. The judicial branch exercises its power to convict a defendant and the President may intervene to nullify that conviction. The pardon is an active check, which is consistent with the theory, however the timing of the pardon is not so. Just as a bill needs to complete its course through the legislative branch before the President may veto it, so to must a conviction pass through the entire judiciary before the President may pardon it. This means that a defendant must make an appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court before a Pardon may be applicable. The pardon should have no affect with the decision of the court, only to exonerate the individual defendant. This way the theories of separation of power and system of checks & balances is better defined and implemented with reason and the power of the executive to be used inappropriately, that means arbitrarily, is restricted.

When the delegates at the Philadelphia Convention designed the Constitution they debated the structure of government and how to best implement a proper separation of power and system of checks and balances. When discussing Article II there were concerns about the office of the Presidency and its relationship with the executive council. By this point most states had an executive council also known as the privy council or the governor's council. There were various ways to structure the council. You can have the executive council be appointed entirely by the legislature without the chief executive's approval, the council could be made up of members of the legislature, the chief executive could appoint advisors by themselves, the chief executive could nominate advisors who would need approval from the legislature, etc. The delegates decided on the last option but the relationship was still not clearly enumerated and the first few presidential administrations consisted of debates between the two branches over the Cabinet. The Presidents and the Senate wanted as much control and oversight as possible. I do not believe that the current structure of the President's Cabinet is well designed and so here is my proposed amendment. Each department will be headed by two Consuls, one styled as a Secretary and the other a Chief. The Secretary is nominated by the Speaker of the House and approved by the Senate. They can only be removed by impeachment/conviction or by a joint resolution. The President cannot reject or remove a Secretary but could appeal to either house with a removal request. The Secretary will advise the President and must be in the same room whenever the President and the department's Chief are meeting. The Secretary can be called by the Congress to give a report on the activities of the department and Congress can request or pass a bill to change specific department's policies. The second Consul is the Chief of the department. They will run the operations and management of the department and subsidiary agencies in a more executive manner. They will enforce the policies determined by the President and Secretary while also gathering data about its department's operations to be relayed to the President and Secretary. The President will have full discretion in appointing the Chiefs and do not require Congress' approval. The President may remove, replace, or add Chiefs at will. Congress cannot. Congress can impeach a Chief via House and conviction via Senate for committing high crimes, treason, or indecent misdemeanors unbecoming of an advisor to the President.

November 3, 1764 The petition of the Council and House of Representatives of his Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay, Most humbly showeth: That the Act passed in the last session of Parliament, entitled " An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America," etc., must necessarily bring many burdens upon the inhabitants of these colonies and plantations, which your petitioners conceive would not have been imposed if a full representation of the state of the colonies had been made to your honourable House. That the duties laid upon foreign sugars and molasses by a former Act of Parliament entitled " an Act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his Majesty's sugar colonies in America," if the Act had been executed with rigour, must have had the effect of an absolute prohibition. That the duties laid on those articles by the present Act still remain so great that, however otherwise intended, they must undoubtedly have the same effect. That the importation of foreign molasses into this province in particular is of the greatest importance, and a prohibition will be prejudicial to many branches of its trade and will lessen the consumption of the manufactures of Great Britain. That this importance does not arise merely, nor principally, from the necessity of foreign molasses in order to its being consumed or distilled within the province. That if the trade for many years carried on for foreign molasses can be no longer continued, a vent cannot be found for more than one half the fish of inferior quality which are caught and cured by the inhabitants of the province, the French not permitting fish to be carried by foreigners to any of their islands, unless it be bartered or exchanged for molasses. That if there be no sale of fish of inferior quality it will be impossible to continue the fishery, the fish usually sent to Europe will then cost so dear that the French will be able to undersell the English at all the European markets; and by this means one of the most valuable returns to Great Britain will be utterly lost, and that great nursery of seamen destroyed. That the restraints laid upon the exportation of timber, boards, staves, and other lumber from the colonies to Ireland and other parts of Europe, except Great Britain, must greatly affect the trade of this province and discourage the clearing and improving of the lands which are yet uncultivated. That the powers given by the late Act to the court of vice-admiralty, instituted over all America, are so expressed as to leave it doubtful, whether goods seized for illicit importation in any one of the colonies may not be removed, in order to trial, to any other colony where the judge may reside, although at many hundred miles distance from the place of seizure. That if this construction should be admitted, many persons, however legally they goods may have been imported, must lose their property, merely from an inability of following after it, and making that defence which they might do if the trial had been in the colony where the goods were seized. That this construction would be so much the more grievous, seeing that in America the officers by this Act are indemnified in case of seizure whenever the judge of admiralty shall certify y that there was probable camise; and the claimant can neither have costs nor maintain an action against the person seizing, how much soever he may have expended in defence of his property. That the extension of the powers of courts of vice-admiralty has, so far as the jurisdiction of the said courts hath been extended, deprived the colonies of one of the' most valuable of English liberties, trials by juries. That every Act of Parliament, which in this respect distinguishes his Majesty's subjects in the colonies from their fellow subjects in Great Britain, must create a very sensible concern and grief. That there have been communicated to your petitioners sundry resolutions of the House of Commons in their last session for imposing stamp duties or taxes upon the inhabitants of the colonies, the consideration whereof was referred to the next session. That your petitioners acknowledge with all gratitude the tenderness of the legislature of Great Britain of the liberties of the subjects in the colonies, who have always judged by their representatives both of the way and manner in which internal taxes should bc raised within their respective governments, and of the ability of the inhabitants to pay them. That they humbly hope the colonies in general have so demeaned themselves, more especially during the late war, as still to deserve the continuance of all those liberties which they have hitherto enjoyed. That although during the war the taxes upon the colonies were greater than they have been since the conclusion of it, yet the sources by which the inhabitants were enabled to pay their taxes having ceased, and their trade being decayed, they are not so able to pay the taxes they are subjected to in time of peace as they were the greater taxes in time of war. That one principal difficulty which has ever attended the trade of the colonies, proceeds from the scarcity of money, which scarcity is caused by the balance of trade with Great Britain, which has been continually against the colonies. That the drawing sums of money from the colonies from time to time must distress the trade to that degree that eventually Great Britain may lose more by the diminution of the consumption of her manufactures than all the sums which it is possible for the colonies thus to pay can countervail. That they humbly conceive if the taxes which the inhabitants of this province are obliged annually to pay towards the support of the internal government, the restraint they are under in their trade for the benefit of Great Britain, and the consumption thereby occasioned of British manufactures, be all considered and have their due weight it must appear that the subjects of this province are as fully burdened as their fellow subjects in Britain, and that they are, whilst in America, more beneficial to the nation than they would be if they should be removed to Britain and there held to a full proportion of the national taxes and duties of every kind. Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly pray that they may be relieved from the burdens which, they have humbly represented to have been brought upon them by the late Act of Parliament, as to the wisdom of the honourable House shall seem meet, that the privileges of the colonies relative to their internal taxes which they have so longed enjoyed, may still be referred, until your petitioners, in conjunction with the other governments, can have opportunity to make a more full representation of the state and the condition of the colonies and the interest of Great Britain with regard to them. In Council Octr. 31 1764. Read & sent down In the House of Represent [Oct] Nov 1764 Read and ^accepted with the Amendments^ Ordered that the foregoing Petition be sent to the Agent by both Houses to be presented to the Honble. House of Commons accordingly. Sent up for concurrence, S. White Spkr In Council 2 Nov. 1764— Read and Concurred with the Amendments of the House at A & B unanimously; their Amendment at C being unanimously nonconcurred. And the Secretary is directed to sign the same in the name of the Board. Sent down for Concurrence, A Oliver Secr [This petition was altered several times, after it was first read and adopted in the House of Representatives. The Council objected to two or three sentences, some of which were omitted. There was finally a committee of conference of the House of Representatives and of the Council ; and the result was "to retain the words "rights" and '• liberties" in several places,instead of" privileges," which had been substituted by the Council. The committee were J. Otis, jr. 0. Thacher, and Col. Clap, of the House; T. Hutchinson, J. Otis, and E. Trowbridge, of the Council.] Sources: 1. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/petition_mass_1764.asp 2. https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/2530

A Brief State of the Claim of the Colonies and the Interest of the Nation with Respect to Them By Thomas Hutchinson [11–23 July 1764] Sir, The Oftner I read your remarks upon the rights of the Colonists & the late proceedings in parliament with respect to them the more I am pleased with your Candor as well as good Sense and if I carry some points a little further in their favour than you do perhaps it is owing to an insensible bias which I am under from being a Colonist myself. Before I enter upon the Subject give me leave to observe to you that the Colonists like all the rest of his Majesties subjects ^the human race^ are of different Spirits & dispositions some more calm & moderate others more violent & extravagant, and if now & then some rude & indecent things are thrown out in print in one place & another I hope such things will not be considered as coming from the Colonists in general but from particular persons warmed by the ^intemperate^ zeal shall I say of Englishmen in support of what upon a sudden appears to them to be their rights. I intirely agree with you & I think the body of the people in the several Colonies do so likewise. That it is reasonable British Colonies should ever remain subject to the controul of Britain & consequently must be bound by the determinations of the supreme authority there the British parliament. You allow that it is possible for such a parliament to pass Acts which may abridge British Subjects of what are generally called natural rights and I am willing to go farther & will suppose that in some cases it is reasonable & necessary even though such rights should have been strengthned & confirmed by the most solemn Sanctions & engagements. The rights of parts & individuals must be given up when the safety of the whole ^shall^ depen[d upon] it. If the Kentish privileges of Gavelkind shall be found prejudicial to th[e pub]lick the parliament may very justly take them away and shall I go too far [if I all]ow that even the Charter of London may be vacated or which is ^supposed to be^ still far[ther] that any Article of the union with Scotland may be repealed not for sm[all re]asons but for the sake of the publick safety. On the other hand such is the [wis]dom & justice of a British Parliament that in all Acts a tender rega[rd w]ill be had to all rights natural & acquired of every Subject. Now I sub[mit i]t to your Consideration whether the Case of the Colonists is not somewh[at sim]ilar to that of the Inhabitants of Scotland. The Scotch would not agr[ee to] the Union without certain Stipulations one of which was that they [shou]ld be taxed ever after in such manner & such proportion as was agree[d and n]o other; the Colonists would not leave their native Country unt[il it] was stipulated & agreed either by Charter or Commissions for I consi[der] them both as a perpetual rule of Government for the respective Colo[nie]s that they should have Assemblies of their own chusing to ma[ke] laws for their government to raise monies by taxes &c besides this [gen]eral Clause in all Charters &Commissions that the Inhabitants should enjoy all the privileges ^&^ immunities of free & natural Subjects. I do not say that the proportion of Taxes which Scotland shall pay shall never be altered, nor that the parliament shall never tax the ^Inhabitants of the^ Colonies but I think they never will do the one or the other without some manifest special Reason which did not subsist nor was foreseen at the time of the respective Stipulations. If it should occurr to you that the agreement with Scotland was by the parliament that with the Colonists by the prince only I have no idea of an Act of parliament which it will not be in the power of a subsequent parliament to alter or repeal & if the agreement made by the prince was no more than what he had a right to make the parliament will always be equally tender of violating such agreement as they would the Acts of any former parliaments. Now I conceive these engagements made by the Prince were no more than what by his prerogative as it was then understood he had good right to make & that the Subject has just the same security from it as he would have from an Act of parlt. The right to new acquired Countreys according to the Constitution of England two hundred years ago for the Constitution alters, ^I take it^ was allowed to be in the Crown, & how far can that proof be ^If it should be said that this^ is a Subject perhaps ^which^ has never been fully discussed & I am not anxious ^do not know^ that it ever should be ^has been however^ it seems enough for my purpose that the Crown from time to time disposed of these Countries not only to their own Subjects but to foreign princes particularly Acadie & Nova Scotia began to be settled by British Subjects were ceded to France although France had no better claim to them than to New England, & Surinam was sold to or exchanged with the Dutch. The agreements made with the Subjects who went into the Colonies were known to all the world, the parliament from time to time instead of discouraging have shewn all countenance to the proceeding & at the Revolution the House of Commons resolved that the prosecution of quo warrantos against the Colonies & the surrender of their Charters to the violation of their ancient Rights & Privileges grievances. Will it not be then accounted an unfair proceeding with the Colonists after above an hundred years more than tacit approbation of such Contracts to call in question the right of the Crown to make itself a party to them—Let us then consider what this Privilege is which the Colonists claim & how far it is reasonable it should be continued to them. They claim a power of making Law & a privilege of exemption from taxes except by their own Representatives. This power & privilege they say is granted in express Terms in the Commissions & Charters & it is implied in the general term the privileges of natural born English Subjects. Here I readily acknowledge that in the very nature of a Colony they are ^it is^ to remain the Appendage of the Mother State, any Laws therefore of the Colonies that should ^may^ have a tendency to break off this Connection it cannot be supposed should have any force, but it is highly reasonable that by the Laws of the mother Country a restraint should be laid as from time to time shall be necessary, nor it cannot besupposed that a Colony should be tolerated either in any branch of Trade or in any other matter or thing which shall cause advantage to a foreign State & prejudice to the mother Country & although this restraint deprives them of privileges which their fellow Subjects in the mother Country enjoy yet as you very justly observe it is no more than is reasonable to part with in return for the protection received against foreign Enemies. I am therefore far from imagining the Colonists to be independent of the parliament but I consider the parliament as suspending the exercise of certain powers over the Colonists which would ha[ve] been in constant exercise if they had remained in the mother Count[ry.] I am mistaken if Rome did not treat her Colonies in this manner. You know the Territories dependent on ancient Rome were distinguished by Provinciæ Municipiæ & Coloniæ. The first being conquered Countries were subject to such Magistrates & such Regulations as the Senate thought fit to appoint & determine. Such were Sicily Sardinia &c. From these whilst the Lands were suffered to remain to the Conquered arose the vestigalia the Genus of which there were many Species as Stipendium Tribatum Decuma, Scriptura Portorium &c. The Municipiæ are said to be Cities not originally part of the Roman State but such as had voluntarily or otherwise been annexed to it & were allowed to use their old form of Magistracy & to be governed by their own Laws unless the Inhabitants were admitted to a Suffrage at Rome & then they were obliged wholly to submit to Roman Laws & renounce their own. The Coloniæ which are to my purpose were formed out of Roman Citizens or inhabitants of Latium & led forth to take possession of & inhabit Countries acquired by the Roman People & one reason given for settling Colonies was to increase the Roman [blank space in MS]. Those that were not too remote from the City retained the Privileges of Citizens to all intents & purposes. Cicero was a native of Appinium & that part of Gaul had a voice in Elections appears from one of his Epistles to Atticus Quoniam videtur in Suffragiis multum posse Gallia. The distant Colonies could not exercise the Privileges of Citizens in Rome. They were therefore allowed them within themselves, they retained the same form of Government a Colony was called the Effigies Parva of the mother State. The Duumviratus was a magistracy with much the same power as that of the Consuls or perhaps with both Consular & prætorian power for it is said Prætors are not mentioned by ancient Authors among Colony Officers. The Decuriones were the Senators & every Colony had an Assembly of the people. They had Censors Ædiles & Questors of their own electing. Indeed When Cæsar deprived Rome itself of her Liberties no wonder he did her Colonies also. I remember mention of his appointing an Officer in one of the Colonies, somewhere in Ciceros Epistles. Not only the Coloniæ when first planted but also the provinciæ when changed into Coloniæ as was sometimes the case were freed from the vestigal of every sort. The Campanian fields paid large tribute to Rome and Rullus attempted a popular measure to turn them into a Colony but was prevented by Cicero. A passage in his Oration against Rullus setts this matter in aclear light. I know Plutarch says that before the time of the Grachi the Colonies contributed to the support of the State & that Livius Drusus a Tribune of the people decreed the planting twelve Colonies to consist of 3000 ^men^ to be free from all payments, & that this was contrary to what before had been the practice, and this seems to have been reasonable in the early days of Rome when the inhabitants of the Colonies retained all the Privileges of Citizens not being remote from the City. By the removal of their Persons & Estates there was a deficiency in the census & yet they received protection in common with the Inhabitants of Rome. The deficiency therefore was made good by a pension from the Colony to which they removed; but all Authors agree that in after times when Colonies were sent to a greater distance and supported a magistracy & government within themselves they were free from every kind of tribute. It can be to no purpose to mention the modern Colonies. The French Spaniards & Danes are content with their Chains they use to wear them at home & are not intitled to greater privileges abroad. The Dutch & Genoese some may say are free States & yet they govern their Colonies as arbitrarily as the French or Spaniards. The Subjects of the States in Europe under the name of a Commonwealth & of Genoa under that of an Aristocracy are perhaps as great Slaves as those of France or Spain. If I must have an absolute master I had rather have but one especially if he be a wise one than a great number. A Dutchman therefore is as content to have his Life & Liberty at the mercy of a Governor at Surinam or Curasoe as of Deputies & Burg[o]masters in Holland for he has no more concern in the Election or rem[ova]l of one than of the other. The Inhabitants of Britain only are free in Europe & the Inhabitants of Bri[tish] Colonies only feel the loss of freedom, they feel it the more sensibly because they never expected it they thought it doubly secured as their natural rights & by virtue of the most solemn engagements. I will only add that it does not seem to be an unreasonable proposition, that the inhabitants of Colony are intitled to all the privileges they enjoyed in their mother Country which will consist with their dependance upon it. I expect you are ready to ask me what I am afraid of. The Parliament you will say as I acknowledge have a right to regulate & restrain the trade of the Colonies & even absolutely to prohibit certain branches by laing Duties then surely you have less reason to complain than if you were altogether restrained from trading in such Articles upon which the Duties are laid. When the Parliament touches your interior parts by excises Stamp Duties poll taxes & it may be quitrents you will have some reason to complain. I cannot help wondering at this distinction which I have often heard made by men every way superior to myself. Is it for the sake of regulating trade or to raise money from the Colonies that the Duties are laid by the late Act of Parliament? If the former why should not the money arising by such duties be paid into the Treasuries of the Colonies respectively where it is raised rather than into the Exchequer besides what need was there of any Regulation of the Trade to Madera or the Western Islands? It must therefore be for the sake of the money arising from the Duties &if so how are the privileges of the people less affected than by an internal tax. Is it any difference to me whether I pay three pounds ten shillings duty for a pipe of wine to an officer of Impost or whether I pay the same Sum by an excise of ninepence per Gall to an excise Officer or would an old Roman have thought his Privileges less affected by the Portorium than by the Stipendium or Decumæ. However if there appears to the parliament to be an esssential difference & it be a favour to us that we have no interior taxes laid I acquiesce & if I can not have all I would am willing to obtain as much of it as may be. ^But are we sure of Retaining even this.^ You have sufficiently answered the objection made to our claim of freedom from taxes unless represented in parliament vizt. that the people of England cannot be said one tenth part of them to be represented as no greater proportion have a Voice in Elections & therefore the Colonies can have no claim to it, but besides your observation that every man of property in England has his influence in Elections & may have his voice if he will. I begg leave to add that Acts of Parliament do not generally respect individuals. I am ^either^ a landed man in trade of this or that part of the Kingdom, whatever my interest is it is represented & the concern of particular Members or set of Members in Parliament but what Member can be said to be the representative of the Colonies more than all the rest. Are not the Colonies considered as detached & having a distinct interest from the Interest of the Nation. Is not the Parliament Party & Judge. Is it not a general question what can be done to make the Colonies further beneficial to the Nation? Nobody adds consistent with their Rights. In short do you not consider us as your property to improve in the best way you can for your Advantage. One of my Neighbours a poor man in the Country has ten or twelve Sons, as soon as they came to be capable of Labour he seemed to have less Affection for them than he had for his Cattle, some he sent upon Wages to Sea some he sold as Soldiers to relieve men who had been impressed. I asked him how he could be so unnatural to his own flesh & Blood he replied the boys had been a Charge to him until they were eight or ten years Old & he thought it reasonable they should reimburse what they had cost him. I could not help thinking of the Nation & her Colonies & they were in danger of being treated in the same manner but without the same reason most of them having been settled without any expence to the Mother Country. [I h]ave not forgot the Concession I made that whatever opinion we have of our Rights the parliament must be the final Judges & it is possible that it may be determined that the natural right of a Colonist is not the same with the natural right of an Inhabitant of Britain & that the Colonists have no sufficient Plea from their Charters or Commissions for exemption from parliamentary taxes &c the Authority of Parliament not being liable to controul from such Charters or Commissions. I would humbly hope notwithstanding that we shall be considered in equity & if we have not ^strictly^ a claim of right we have of favour. I know of none of the Colonies except the two last settled Georgia & Halifax which occasioned any Charge to the Crown or Kingdom in the Settlement of them. Virginia indeed was along time burdensome to particular undertakers & great Sums of money were expended for there was no Spirit for Colonizing, everybody who could do it chose to stay at home. Sir Ferdinando Gorges who was a principal adventurer in settling Colonies in the beginning of the last Century says in a History of some of the Colonies published by his grandson after his death that he could not get people for money to reside there. A new Cause arose or else you would have had no Colonies at this day. Arbitrary measures in the reigns of King James & King Charles drove such as were & who expected an entire change of the Constitution in England to seek an Asylum in America. The people of the Massachusetts were the first who fled for the sake of civil & Religious Liberty, from them all the other Colonies in New England Sprang. This was about the year 1630 & between that & 1640 multides left England & flocked over to America but with this expectation & assur^depend^ance that what^ever^ changes ^should^ come upon England their Liberties should be safe. After 1640 we hear of no great Embarkations from England for America. The bare charge of transporting themselves Families Stock of Cattle & necessary houshold stuff amounted to Two hundred thousand pounds Sterling. They had most of them Estates in England which they Sold & laid out the produce of them in improving the Lands in America which were of no value without, & they & their posterity for 130 years together have been continually spending their strength & their Acquisitions of every sort in rendering the Country more & more valuable. They have enjoyed their civil & Religious ^Liberties^ to their content which has caused them with greater chearfulness to endure all the hardships of settling new Countries. No ill use has been made of these privileges unless now & then a mistaken apprehension of their Rights soon corrected may be called such. Some of the Colonies have been engaged in wars for their defence against the natives & the neighbouring French in which for an hundred years together they received no Assistance from England. The New England Colonies unhappily undertook an expedition against Cape Breton & succeeded & you know of what importance it was at the peace of Aix la Chapelle, but still I say unhappily for the Colonies because it made them the object of French resentment and caused a great national Expence in the last war which is now given as a reason for new measures with respect to them. Give me leave to ask whether it is not equitable when such an amazing addition is made to the Dominion & wealth of Britain that the persons who procured & have been the Instruments of it & their posterity should continue in the enjoyment of as great Liberties & privileges as if they had continued themselves in Britain? As great I say but still with this reserve as far as will consist with their dependance upon Britain and we desire no greater. Give us an equivalent for all this Labour & expence & remove us where our Ancestors came from & we shall think ourselves very happy. Settle such Inhabitants in America & under such Government as you think proper. Surely the Services we have rendered the Nation have not subjected us to any forfeitures. If it should be said the Lands we are upon belonged to the Crown or ifyou will to the Nation, I answer the Crown had granted them to particular Subjects of whom the Colonists many of them at least purchased before they left England & afterwards purchased them again of the Indian princes who had the best if not the sole right to them besides it is well known American Lands in their natural State are of no value there is not any Colony which has not cost more to make it capable of rendering profit than it is now worth. If America was now a wilderness & an offer was to be made of the best tracts of Lands we would stay at home & it might remain a wilderness forever. I know it is said the Colonies are a charge to the Nation & it is reasonable they should contribute to their own defence & protection. It must be allowed that great part of the Charge of the last war was for the defence of the Colonies & a dispute about boundaries was the Occasion of the war. But it must be remembred that during the war the Colonies annually contributed to the charge of it & some of them so largely that the parliament was convinced that the burden would be insupportable & from year to year made them compensations notwithstanding which they shall remain in Debt & must continue so some of them many years. It is certain several of the Colonies raised a greater number of men for several years together in proportion to their Inhabitants then were in the pay of the Nation in proportion to its Inhabitants although Land & Sea Service both be considered as well in Europe as in America. In the trading Towns in some of the Colonies one fourth part of the profit of the trade was annually paid to the support of the War & other publick charges. In the Country Towns a farm which would not Rent for twenty pounds a year paid ten pounds taxes. I must observe to you that but few farms in the Colonies are in the hands of Tenants & the owner being the occupier by estimating the whole produce of the farm or what you call the three Rents in England pleases himself that he pays only between three & four shillings in the pound when you would call it ten. If we add the impost & excises so large a proportion of the Estates of the Inhabitants of some of the Colonies has been annually paid during the war that if the Inhabitants of Britain had paid in the same proportion there would have been no great increase of the national Debt. But let me ask whether it was from a parental Affection to the Colonists & to save them from french Vassalage that Britain was at this Expence or was it from fear of losing that advantageous trade she had so long carried on with her Colonies? And pray will the Nation or will the Colonies reap the benefit of the successes obtained by this expence. I know of no advantage which can arise to the northern Colonies. If you should tell me their fishery will be increased I am not sure of that but I am sure if it should Britain will reap the benefit & any extraordinary profit will center there for an extraordinary purchase of her Manufactures & I may say the same of any other extraordinary profit in trade if any such should be. An additional Country has been acquired and our Inhabitants among others are permitted to settle there. Why this will damage to us that remain & in fact the improved Lands of most of the Colonies have sunk 25 per Ct. in their from the advance upon Labour whereas every newfarm makes a new demand for British Manufactures. But a further charge will be necessary for our protection & it will be reasonable we should contribute to that. I am very sensible that if in any future wars any Nation in Europe should make the Colonies their object a British Navy must protect or they will become a prey and in case of such a war I cannot doubt the Colonies would contribute as liberally to their own protection as they have done in the last. But when there is peace in Europe what occasion is there for any national expence in America. For one hundred years together the New England Colonies were from time to time engaged in war with the Indians encouraged & assisted by the French & yet received no aid f[rom] Britain nor from the neighbouring Colonies. New York, Pensilvania, Maryland Virginia and the Carolinas are as able to defend their respect[tive] frontiers as the New England Colonies were to defend theirs & if they [had] no aid from the Crown, they would do it. The Indians may har[rass] them for a Short time but as soon as the Inhabitants have learned to [hunt] the Indians as the New England Men did in their own territories [and] lay waste their Corn fields & break up their Settlements they will grow tired & sue for peace. And as the Governments who have been molested heretofore have born the charge of their own defence it seems reasonable that those Governments who are now molested should bear their Charges and no doubt they had rather do the whole of it by a tax of their own raising than pay their proportion in any other way. If a Garrison is necessary to keep the new acquired Subjects of Canada to their duty they are a Conquered people & cannot complain of the charge if it is laid upon them. If a cover be necessary for new Settlers in the new Countries moderate quitrents will bear the expence of it. It may after all be the determination of Parliament that the Colonists have neither a legal nor equitable claim to exemption from parliamentary Taxes but if it should they have another Argument in their favour vizt. that it cannot be good policy & must be prejudicial to the national interest to impose such taxes. The Advantages proposed by an increase of the revenue are fallacious & delusive you will lose more than you will gain. And here I shall observe what I might have done with propriety when I was considering the equity of claim made by the Colonists, vizt. that Britain reaps the profit of all their Trade and of the increase of their Substance for they are enabled thereby to take off so much more of British manufactures. And experience must have shewn to the nation that in proportion to the increase of the numbers & Estates of the Colonists in like proportion the exports from Britian have continually increased. How have your own writers boasted & with how much reason of the amazing wealth arising from the trade with the Colonies? Every trading Colonist is perpetually contriving to make every branch of his trade produce him Silver & Gold or some commodity that will serve for returns to discharge the debt always due to Britain. Is this the Case with most other Branches of your trade? Is not the balance of ^with^ most other Countries against you? and the Specie you receive from your Colonies going from you to discharge it? Are not the other commercialStates able to afford their manufactures cheaper than you can? Does not France every day pour in their woollen goods among the Spaniards your old Customers & do not your Supplies decrease in proportion. The prospect is that in a short time you will have only your Colonies with whom you can carry on any advantageous commerce. That indeed will be enough if you encourage them to increase the consumption of your manufactures for fifty years to come as they have done for fifty years past and with no more than reasonable encouragement they infallibly will do it & in much greater proportion. For your own sake therefore as well as out of regard to the Colonists let me give you a little Sketch of their present turn of mind & leave you to judge whether it is a wise measure to check or change it & whether by humouring & cherishing it you will not serve your own interest to a much greater degree than by your present Schemes. In all the Colonies upon the Continent but the northermost more especially the Inhabitants are generally freeholders where there is one farm in the hands of a Tenant. I suppose there are fifty occupied by him who has the fee of it. [Th]is is the ruling passion to be a Freeholder. Most men as soon as their [Sons] grow up endeavour to procure tracts in some new Townships where [all e]xcept the eldest go out one after another with a wife a yoke of Oxen [a ho]rse a Cow or two & maybe a few Goats & husbandry Tools [a sm]all hut is built the man & his family fare hard for a few AC (Massachusetts Archives, SC1/series 45X, 26:90–96); in EH’s hand with some corrections in TH’s hand; untitled; the MS has deteriorated badly over the years, and on one page a strip of paper approximately an inch wide and five inches long has been lost; before this large tear occurred, Bernhard Knollenberg secured a photocopy of the MS, although it was not found in his papers at Yale University; Malcolm Freiberg had a photocopy of the partially torn MS, presumably made shortly after Knollenberg’s; Edmund S. Morgan’s work on the essay apparently relied on a slightly later photocopy of the document, made after the MS had been torn, a rendition of which he published in NEQ 21 (December 1948): 480–92; Knollenberg made a few corrections to Morgan’s work in the following issue, NEQ 22 (March 1949): 98. To produce the current text, the editors relied on Freiberg’s photocopy, compared it to Morgan’s published essay (which is substantially the same, barring some differences in punctuation, capitalization, and editorial style), and accepted Knollenberg’s corrections, the latter of which have been indicated by footnotes if the editors could not confirm them in a review of the now-incomplete MS in the Massachusetts Archives. Source: https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/2529#chsect1404

THE COLONEL DISMOUNTED: OR THE RECTOR VINDICATED. IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO HIS REVERENCE: CONTAINING A DISSERTATION UPON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COLONY. BY COMMON SENSE. QUODCUNQUE OSTENDIS MIHI SIC, INCREDULUS ODI. Hor. WILLIAMSBURG: PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROYLE, MDCCLXIV. I think it necessary to advertise the readers that this letter was drawn up above eight months ago, purely for amusement. But from a motive which has prevailed with me, I now make it public. To distinguish His Reverence’s elegant and polite language, the quotations from his inimitable works are printed in italic characters. To the Reverend John Camm, Rector of York-Hampton It must be confessed, may it please Your Reverence, that you have erected two noble works, outlasting monumental brass, in honor of your victory over the patrons of ignorance and irreligion. The dignity of sentiment that shines with so peculiar a luster in your Single and Distinct View and in your Observations, the elegant language devoid of sophistry and diversified with the most agreeable tropes that give ornament and strength to those excellent performances, must excite the admiration of the present age and transmit your name, with distinguished éclat, to posterity. Wonderful genius! who with infinite wit and humor can transform the unripe crab, the mouth-distorting persimmon, the most arrant trash into delicious fruit, nay wring-jaw cider into palatable liquor. Presumptuous tithe-pig Colonel! Infatuated syllogistical Colonel! What humiliating disgrace have they brought upon themselves! But they deserve it. Why did they inflame your resentment? Did they not know Your Reverence has honesty to represent facts truly, learning to write accurately, and wit to make your lampoons, though loaded with rancor and abuse, agreeable and entertaining? Did they not know that besides these excellent accomplishments you possess in an eminent degree that cardinal virtue† with whose assistance very moderate abilities are capable of making a great figure? What arrogance was it then, even in the boreas of the Northern Neck, in the violentus auster,2 to enter the lists against such a gladiatorian penman? Could these pygmies expect to triumph over such a redoubted colossus? And in defense too of a cause that was not defensible? In defense of some particular Assemblies that had been impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors before the Lords of Trade and Plantations, when Your Reverence was agent for the WHOLE body of the Virginia clergy in England? These high crimes and misdemeanors, it is certain, are accumulated in the impeachment to a surprising degree; but what then? The impeachment may be true, notwithstanding; nay, it is true: Your Reverence has said it is true and that is enough. Indeed the colonels with their hurly-burly vociferous verbosity dispute your veracity and pretend that in your representation of the General Assembly’s conduct you indulge a language injurious to the truth, that you encourage party contentions, that you break in upon the respect owing to the legislature of the colony, that you construe the worthiest and best intentions into criminal designs against the royal authority, that you prefer the support of your own cause before the truth and the service of the public, and that by a low kind of wit and satire you expect to prevail against reason and argument. But they, you know, deal in false facts, ill-adapted maxims, confident assertions, imaginary impossible cases, inconsistent notions, sneaking chicanery, and voluminous nonsense, and therefore are not worthy of credit. May it please Your Reverence, I was pronouncing the other day a sublime miscellaneous oration before a numerous audience, and proving that Your Reverence does not deserve these reflections. But before I proceed I must explain what I mean by a miscellaneous oration, not that I intend this explanation for Your Reverence’s information; this would be presumption, since you have proved indisputably, by your own incomparable writings, that you are a perfect master of the miscellaneous manner. But as this letter may fall into the hands of readers less learned than Your Reverence, I think it necessary for their information. A miscellaneous oration then is exactly like that kind of miscellaneous writing in which, according to a noble author, the most confused head, if fraught with a little commonplace book learning, may exert itself to as much advantage as the most orderly and settled judgment. An orator in this way draws together shreds of learning and fragments of wit, and tacks them in any fantastic form he thinks proper; but connection, coherence, design, and meaning are against his purpose, and destroy the very spirit and genius of his oration. In short, may it please Your Reverence, it is just like the miscellaneous remarks in your Single and Distinct View. I say, may it please Your Reverence, I was holding forth to a numerous audience in support of your charge against the General Assembly, when the hot and violent demagogue, rushing through the crowd in an attitude that would have frightened the renowned knight of La Manca himself, advanced upon me with hasty strides and brawled out, Thou dealer in general topics, thou confounder of justice with injustice, I will prove this charge to be contrary to the truth in every instance. I had given half a crown, may it please Your Reverence, for your Single and Distinct View; and as a subscriber to the Virginia Gazette I became possessed of your Observations, and another witty paper remarkable for an elegant and polite description of a certain odoriferous knight who has the honor of being distinguished by one of the titles properly belonging to Your Reverence. But Ned the barber, a shrewd inquisitive fellow, while shaving me the other day, cast his eye upon that facetious paper, which I held in my hand, and asked me whether the progenitors of the sweet-scented knight received the honor of knighthood from the monarch who advanced the loin of beef to that dignity or not. I told him I believed this honor must have been conferred by the British Solomon, because as history tells us he was very intimate with His Reverence’s ancestors, making them the constant companions of his sports and divertisements; and it was probable he created them baronets when he instituted that order, but of this I could not be positive. Well then, said Ned, pray Sir ask the Rector of York-Hampton; he knows all things, all secrets, no prattling gossip, Who with an hundred pair of wings News from the furthest quarters brings, Sees, hears, and tells, untold before, All that she knows, and ten times more, knows so much as this Reverend Rector does; and as nothing can be hid from him, no person is so capable of resolving this question. To oblige Ned the barber, this digression has obtruded itself; and he waits with impatience for your determination. May it please Your Reverence, as you had declared the hectoring bullies were more considerable for fierce language than true spirit, I was under no difficulty about the manner of my defense; for, thought I, if Your Reverence obliged two bullies to part with their strongholds, surely the same weapons, though perhaps not managed when in my hands with the same dexterity as when under Your Reverence’s conduct, will dispel the fog which one Cromwellian preacher endeavors to diffuse over the face of truth. Then by a motion of my left hand, which I was obliged to use upon this occasion, similar to that of a soldier when he is commanded to handle his cartridge, I drew your Single and Distinct View from my right pocket, and opposing it to the enemy I found myself more invincible than if armed with Mambrino’s celebrated helmet, or the more celebrated shield, forged with Vulcanian art for the son of Thetis. It was, may it please Your Reverence, altogether impenetrable to the enemy’s great guns; and as for his small arms, they made not the least impression upon it. Having this advantage, I advanced, in my turn, upon my antagonist, drove him off the field, and took possession of several posts the strength of which he had magnified, until they fell into my hands. He then shifted his ground, and by a sudden maneuver which I really did not expect, entrenched himself in new entrenchments. These I instantly stormed; but as I could not carry them I was at a loss how to conduct my attack until reflecting on the astonishing virtues of your Single and Distinct View, I resolved to try if trumpeting it out would not have the effect upon these entrenchments as the sound of the ram’s horn had upon the walls of Jericho; and I assure you I had great expectations at first, for the entrenchments were shocked several times, especially upon the repetition of your fine criticisms, and I verily thought they would have been leveled with the ground by the sound of the words justice, learning, religion, liberty, property, public good, which compose part of your character, in the panegyric Your Reverence so justly bestows upon yourself. But as the severest shocks from this tremendous battery did not destroy the entrenchments, though they were frequently severe enough to shock my senses, I applied to your Observations, and thundering out with a vociferous contempt these words of your other encomium upon yourself, I write for liberty and property, for the rights of commerce, for an established church, for the validity of the King’s authority, pro aris et focis,3 immediately the enemy beat the chamade and demanded a conference, which I granted him. As this conference relates to Your Reverence, I think it proper to transmit you a particular detail of it, which I choose to do through Mr. Royle’s press, that I may be certain of its coming safe to hand. The Colonel opened the conference as followeth: I make no doubt, Sir, said he, but that you have entered into this controversy from an opinion that everything the Rector has advanced with respect to the General Assemblies, and those whom he distinguishes by the name of his adversaries, is true. I replied, My motive for espousing His Reverence proceeds from my opinion of his veracity. Then, Sir, said the Colonel, I will convince you that the Rector has neither truth or ingenuity. Neither truth or ingenuity in His Reverence’s works! replied I, hastily. What do you mean, Colonel? Have you not experienced the wonderful effects of his Single and Distinct View? And would you not have felt, perhaps, more fatal effects from his Observations had you not implored this conference? I acknowledge, said the Colonel, the Rector’s works, like those deep-throated engines Milton makes the apostate angels oppose to the celestial army, . . . belched out smoke, And with outrageous noise the air And all her entrails tore; disgorging foul Their devilish glut . . . but smoke and noise are not evidences of truth. Colonel, said I, interrupting him, I expect you will not treat His Reverence with scurrility. I will endeavor to avoid it, answered the Colonel, for I am by no means fond of copying the Rector’s style or saintlike phrases; it is by reason and argument, not by blows and insults, that I expect to convince you of the truth. The Colonel went on: I had determined not to give myself any further trouble about the Rector of York-Hampton. I know it was a Sisyphean labor to engage in a dispute with this man, for, as Pope says, Destroy his fib, or sophistry, in vain, The creature’s at his dirty work again. I thought too I should be very indifferently employed to reply in form, as Lord Shaftesbury calls it, to his Single and Distinct View, which in my opinion carries with it its own ridicule; neither could I be persuaded that so sorry a performance, which perverts the meaning of my most simple expressions, mutilates sentences, and makes me speak words I never uttered would be looked upon by men of sense as a refutation of my Letter to the Clergy. And as for his tinsel wit, if it can be worthy of such an epithet, I despised it. But that I may convince you of this writer’s sophistry, of his misrepresentation of the plainest facts, and of the constitutional proceedings of the General Assembly, I will examine his legerdemain performances; and I hope irksome as the talk is I shall have the strength to go through with it. In the apology this Rector makes for his impudence or rudeness (these are his own words) he says that in this war which his adversaries began, the manner of his defense has been directed by the conduct of the attack, for he found it too great a difficulty for him to let the merit of their example be entirely thrown away; so that lex talionis is the rule of retribution with this peacemaking Rector. However, let that be as it will, let us see whether this eminent divine is a man of truth and ingenuity. My adversaries began the war, says this faithful recorder of events. But is he sure of this? Or is it a false fact, a confident assertion invented to persuade men out of their senses, according to his own elegant expressions? I affirm it is a false fact, a confident assertion, which, if I prove, will, I presume, make the scourge he intended for others reverberate with double force upon himself. At the September session of Assembly in the year 1758, the people represented to the House of Burgesses that “by reason of the short crops of tobacco made that year it would be impossible for them to discharge their public dues and taxes that were payable in tobacco, which would expose them to the vexatious and oppressive exactions of the public collectors; and they prayed that an act might pass for paying all public, county, and parish levies, and officers’ fees in money at such price as by the House should be thought reasonable.” The short crops made that year, and the impossibility of paying their public tobacco dues as the laws then stood, were the reasons given by the people for desiring, and by the General Assembly, in consequence of this representation, for passing the Two-Penny Act. But though the relief of the people from the general distress of that year could be the only possible motive with the General Assembly for passing that act, yet this discerner of spirits, this man who knows everybody’s thoughts, discovered other reasons for their conduct. Suffer me to recite them in brief from the impeachment brought against the legislative body of the colony before the Lords of Trade and Plantations in the time of the Rector’s agency in England. In that impeachment they are accused with exercising acts of supremacy inconsistent with the dignity of the Church of England and manifestly tending to draw the people of the plantations from their allegiance, with assuming to themselves a power to bind the King’s hands, with having nothing more at heart than to lessen the influence of the crown and the maintenance of the clergy, with attacking the rights of the crown and of the clergy, with depriving the King of his royal authority over the clergy, putting them under the power of the vestries and making them subject to the humors of the people, with never intending any good to the clergy, with taking possession of the patronages and wanting to be absolute masters of the maintenance of the clergy, with passing acts of Assembly on pretense that only small quantities of tobacco were made in some years that they might render the condition of the clergy most distressful, various, and uncertain after a painful and laborious performance of their functions. In short, and to sum up the whole in one word, with being traitors in the legal sense of the word. This charge, so heavy and so injurious, occasioned my Letter to the Clergy; and I will submit it to your determination whether I had not a right, as a friend to truth, as a member of that body so grossly abused, to obviate the acrimonious invectives contained in this charge. If I had no right, then I am the aggressor; but if I had, then the Rector’s want of truth and ingenuity in a plain matter of fact is evident, as he must be the author of this controversy. To this I replied, You certainly have a right, Colonel, by all legal methods, to vindicate the conduct of the General Assembly not only as a member of it, but as an honest man, against every unjust accusation; and as this impeachment was brought in a public manner before the Lords of Trade in England, who have the direction and superintendency of the plantation affairs, I must own that your publishing your defense here does not make you the author of this war. The promoter of this impeachment is, without question, the person who BEGAN it. Well then, Sir, said the Colonel, the Rector BEGAN the war. I replied, Be not so hasty, Colonel; His Reverence is innocent. A man of his integrity, of his truth and uprightness of heart, could not invent such a malevolent groundless charge; and as you accuse a clergyman remarkable for his humility and meekness of temper as a promoter of dissension between the legislature and clergy of the colony, you deserve the censure His Reverence has thought proper to pass upon you. Why Sir, asked the Colonel, seemingly astonished, was not the Rector the author of this impeachment? If he was not the clerk that drew it, still he was the instrument; or, that I may express myself in less ambiguous terms, the informer upon whose evidence it was drawn up. Nay, does not the paper presented by him to the Lords of Trade as The Humble Representation of the Clergy of the Church of England in His Majesty’s Colony and Dominion of Virginia, which in fact composes part of this invidious libel, prove that he was the author of it? And is not this more than thinking, according to the pretty proverb so wittily applied in his Observations? Is it not good authority for charging him with being the author, the forger of the impeachment? Besides, does he not justify it in his Observations? Does he not, by a most unfair and disingenuous comment upon four acts passed by the General Assembly attempt to prove that they all agree in these peccant circumstances? Why really, Colonel, said I, how can you justify three of those acts? For by your present plan of defense, you only endeavor to prove that the General Assembly were not guilty of the crimes laid to their charge by passing one act; their passing three others, then, of the same pernicious tendency, is altogether unjustifiable. I was, may it please Your Reverence, a little graveled here, and under some apprehension of tripping if I had attempted a further justification of your truth and ingenuity. I was therefore desirous to divert the Colonel from pursuing his proofs against you as the author of the war by putting him upon his defense of the other three peccant acts. The Colonel replied, I perceive, Sir, by your attempting to divert me from the point I was upon, you are convinced the Rector BEGAN the war. The Colonel stopped. I was silent. For, may it please Your Reverence, what could I say in your vindication until I had it from yourself that you was not the informer upon whose evidence this impeachment was drawn up; but if you deny that you was the informer, and will let me know who was, I am resolved to have another bout with the Colonel. I must therefore beseech you to be very explicit in this particular when you favor the public with your next production. It would be disgustful, even to you, Sir, his friend, resumed the Colonel, was I to take notice of all the fustian contained in his panegyrics upon his own and his brethren’s loyalty. Don’t think, gentlemen of the clergy, said the Colonel, breaking out into a rhapsody upon repeating the word brethren, don’t think that you all have the honor of being brethren to this ever-to-be-reverenced Rector. No, gentlemen, the word brethren, like the word many,† is capable of being taken by two handles. Do not, therefore, flatter yourselves that the Rector of York-Hampton takes it by the same handle he takes the word all* (by which single word all has produced one of the finest pieces of true genuine original criticism that ever was invented by the wit of man). I say, gentlemen, the word brethren is not, like the word all, to be taken by the big handle, but like the word many is to be taken by the little handle; so that the Rector’s brethren are but few comparatively with the whole body of the Virginia clergy, perhaps only a quindecemvirate5 of them, of which he is the chief, who in a general convention of twenty-five carried the vote for appointing him their agent to impeach the General Assembly of their country of treason. But now I am addressing myself to the clergy, give me leave to propose a question or two to those fifty-five (for it seems there are at least eighty parochial clergymen in the colony)† who did not think proper to attend the regular summons of the bishop’s commissary. Did you, gentlemen, when you sent excuses for want of your appearance send also your concurrence in the measures that were proposed in the convention? Were you acquainted with these measures before they were proposed? If you were, who made you acquainted with them? Not your late commissary. He was one of the traitors; he was not under the influence of the clergy or in their true interest, and therefore cannot be supposed to have given you the information, though he was the only person who ought to have done it; perhaps he was not let into the secret designs of the Rector and his brethren. And if you were not informed, could you send your concurrence to measures you knew nothing of? I am persuaded you could not, but that you would have attended the regular summons of the bishop’s commissary on purpose to have opposed the measures that were carried by the quindecemvirate had you been acquainted with them before the meeting of the convention. The respect I bear you, the high sentiments I entertain of your truth and ingenuity (these, gentlemen, are favorite words with the Rector), the piety, candor, and integrity so conspicuous in the lives of most of you, make me sure you would have attended on purpose to oppose measures so contrary to your real interest, so repugnant to truth, and which could only serve to destroy the harmony and concord it is your inclination as well as duty to cultivate and maintain between the legislature and the reverend body of the clergy. The Colonel resumed his defense: Was I to trace out ALL the Rector’s boasts of his and his brethren’s adhering to and preserving the old constitution, which some particular Assemblies were endeavoring to destroy, of their sheltering themselves under the authority of the British oak, under the wings of the prerogative, under the protection of a most gracious and religious monarch, from whose allegiance the General Assemblies were attempting to draw the people of the plantations, it would carry me further than there is any need to go on this occasion. ALL his ostentatious flourishes are to be seen at large in his masterly works, which I suppose are by this time transmitted to Graham Franks, now in England, to be laid before the Board of Trade or perhaps a more honorable board, that his unparalleled loyalty may be manifested when his cause against the collector of his parish levy is carried before that high tribunal. But lest the word ALL, which I have taken occasion to use twice in this part of my defense, to wit, once when I spoke of the Rector’s boasts, and again when I spoke of his ostentatious flourishes, should fling him into labor with another criticism and make him bring forth, like the mountain in the fable, I must inform you which handle you are to take it by in these two places. Know then, Sir, that you are to take this word ALL by the big handle, and not by the little handle, which last mentioned handle I took it by when in my Letter to the Clergy I explained my sense of it as it stood in the impeachment by making it include the greater part of the members of the General Assembly; which I said must be the import of the word in that part of the impeachment I was then considering. But this explanation I suppose the Rector passed over, that he might demonstrate to the world his profundity in critical knowledge. I will now examine the three acts the Rector cites as further instances of the General Assembly’s disloyalty. In the year 1738 two new counties and parishes were erected upon the frontiers of the colony, far distant from navigation. That these counties might be settled and a good barrier be thereby made against the French,* several encouragements were granted to the inhabitants; one of these was that they might pay all levies and officers’ fees in money for tobacco, at the rate of three farthings per pound. Under this regulation the salary of the ministers in each of the new parishes was only £152, when the salary of the other parochial ministers was 16,640 pounds of tobacco, as settled by the act of 1727, which was then in force. The ministers of these new parishes continued to receive this salary of £152 until the year 1753, when one of them petitioned the Council for an augmentation of his salary; this petition was sent by the Council to the House of Burgesses, who immediately passed the act for the frontier parishes, as the Rector calls it, whereby the minister’s salary in each of these parishes was settled at £100 a year, according to the desire of the minister petitioning. This act, passed upon this consideration, and which was so advantageous to the ministers of these parishes, was one article in the impeachment of high crimes against the majesty of our sovereign and the dignity of the Church of England; and as the colony had no agent at that time in England to represent a true state of the case, was, from the misrepresentation of the agent appointed by fifteen of the Virginia clergy without the participation of the two ministers concerned, repealed by the royal proclamation. For this repeal the ministers of those two parishes returned the Rector their humble and hearty acknowledgments by their petition to the General Assembly for a renewal of the repealed act, without which they must starve; which petition had such an effect upon the humanity of this traitorous Assembly, who had nothing more at heart than to lessen the maintenance of the clergy and to render their condition most distressful, various, and uncertain, that regardless of the Rector’s resentment they complied with the ministers’ request. As to the Norfolk and Princess Anne Act, I presume I need not repeat what I have said upon it in my Letter to the Clergy, where I have given a candid and honest account of the reasons which prevailed with the General Assembly to pass it; to which I can add nothing, except that the petition from the people which gave rise to it was presented to the House of Burgesses at their October session, 1754, and being referred to the next session, did not come under the consideration of the House until the 7th day of May, 1755; so that full time was given for any person to represent against it if it had not been agreeable to him. From this account of the Frontier and Norfolk acts the Rector’s want of truth and ingenuity, of decency and good manners in his remarks upon the General Assembly for passing these acts, is sufficiently evident. For him to charge the legislature with attempting to lessen the influence of the crown and the maintenance of the clergy because they gave to the ministers of the frontier parishes an increase of salary, without which they must have lived in the greatest indigence, and because they gave relief to the people in one part of the colony from laws which under their particular circumstances were extremely oppressive to them, I say for him to charge the legislature with such attempts is an instance of want of truth and an indecency of behavior which no man could be guilty of but one who was resolved to trudge, with might and main, through dirt and mire to gain his ends. And now, Sir, may I not say with great justice of this Rector, in his own words, that he has shown more judgment in suppressing part of the Apostle’s account of charity than in giving us what he had quoted; for had he given the Apostle’s account unmutilated, the reader must have seen that charity doth not behave itself unseemly, that it rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. But as the proverbial account of truth, that it is not to be spoken at all times, seemed to be more for the Rector’s purpose, he has preferred it in his articles of impeachment. The general act of 1755 was passed when, I confess, there was not such a pressing necessity for it as there was afterwards, in the year 1758; but their passing this act when perhaps there was no great necessity for it does not make the General Assembly guilty of the crimes contained in the Rector’s impeachment. The legislature of this as of all other countries are fallible men, and as such may enact laws which they may think necessary and for the public good but which from experience may be found unnecessary and even destructive of that good they were intended to promote. But is this fallibility to be imputed to them as a crime? Or is their enacting a law to enable the inhabitants of the colony to discharge their tobacco debts in money, in a year, as they thought, of general dearth and scarcity, an evidence of their attempting to restrain the power of their sovereign and to destroy the dignity of the established church? And yet in such a point of view does this Rector place their conduct. Is such a representation honest? Is it such a one as ought to have come from a man who so confidently charges others with a want of truth and ingenuity? And is it decent for a clergyman to treat members of the General Assembly for offering a just defense against so aggravated a charge with a language not to be found but amongst those who have prostituted themselves to the lowest dregs and sediments of scurrility? Here I stopped the Colonel and said with some warmth, You forget your promise, Colonel, not to treat His Reverence with hard names. His scurrility, indeed, is provoked defensive scurrility; which consideration will have its due effect with the readers of every degree, who are the judge and jury and everything with His Reverence. But you, Colonel, have, unprovoked, abused His Reverence in your first defense, and in your letter to him published in a public newspaper you have charged him with a neglect of duty in his parish, which is one of the most palpable, barefaced, and impudent falsehoods that ever was invented. I thought, Sir, replied the Colonel, I had convinced you that the Rector was the aggressor, and that his abusive and unjust charge against the General Assembly had occasioned the controversy between us. As to my abuse of him in my Letter to the Clergy, you must be convinced of the contrary if you will read that letter with attention; for though the manner in which he has detached my words which seem to have any severity of expression in them from their proper places, collected them into one view, and taken them to himself, may show how easy it is for a caviler to give a new sense, or a new nonsense, to anything, yet as they are applied by me in the several parts of my Letter to the Clergy in which they stand they will appear to be nothing more than proper and just expressions relative to the treatment the General Assemblies have received from the Rector and his accomplices. It is true, in one place of my letter I have disputed the Rector’s superiority in point of learning above other men, which I acknowledge is great sauciness in me, since he has demonstrated by his fine writings that he is as excellent a critic and as learned a divine as he is a good Christian; but as I did not know so much at that time, I hope I shall be forgiven. If I have accused him with a neglect of duty in his parish, and can be convinced that this accusation is unjust, in that case I have done him an injury, and will not only ask his forgiveness of my offense, but make an atonement for it by publicly acknowledging that I have aspersed the character of a diligent pastor, attentive to and perpetually careful of the spiritual concerns of all the flock committed to his charge. But then, as I may differ from him about the precise meaning of the word duty, I must, to prevent mistakes, have the meaning of it fixed and determined; for perhaps I may understand it in a more extensive sense than the Rector doth. It is, you know Sir, according to his own definition of it, a complex term, and consequently must include something more than an excursion out of the parish where he resides to his church in York-Hampton on a Sunday when he is not confined at home by pain and sickness. I suppose the Rector calls himself a minister, a laborer, a watchman, a pastor, a steward, an ambassador, in sacred things. These different characters, then, must have different heads of duty belonging to them. I cannot therefore agree that he discharges all these duties by only attending his parish church on a Sunday; and if he does nothing more, he may be likened to a servant who having six talents committed to his management wraps five of them up in a napkin and only trades with one, or rather a small part of one of them. Whether such a servant acts justly or not is not for me to determine. But Colonel, said I, I have studied to find out what connection there could be between His Reverence’s neglect of duty in his parish and the dispute between you and him about the Two-Penny Act. Exactly as much, Sir, replied the Colonel, as there is between my officiating as a clergyman in the churches of the parish where I live and a dispute relating to the power of the General Assembly to enact laws; which is all the reply I shall make to his windmill and giant and his other quixotisms. Why Colonel, said I, do you really officiate as a clergyman in the churches of the parish where you live? I do not, answered the Colonel; but I officiate sometimes as reader in the church which I frequent in the absence of the minister, being thereto appointed by the vestry. My motive for accepting this appointment, I presume, the Rector has no right to inquire into, since it was not from a pecuniary consideration. Well Colonel, said I, as to that matter, whether right or wrong, I have no business with it; but your resentment against His Reverence for making use of the happy privilege which every British subject enjoys, of approaching the throne in an humble petition, is not to be defended. Did I express any resentment against the Rector, replied the Colonel, for making use of this happy privilege, I should be blameable because I value it as much as the Rector can, notwithstanding his pompous encomiums upon his own loyalty. But I shall always consider it as an affront to the throne, which under our present illustrious race of kings has been eminently distinguished for truth and justice, to approach it with a petition loaded with calumny and abuse against the King’s substitute and every other part of the legislature of the colony. If the Rector thought himself injured by any act of the General Assembly, he had a right to approach the throne with an humble petition against it; but then he should have approached it with truth: he should have represented facts with candor and integrity, and not have imputed such act to causes which could not possibly exist; and if he had done so, I assure you, Sir, he and I should have had no dispute. But Colonel, said I, in your account of the famous petition you have reflected with great severity upon the clergy, when I own I can see no mighty harm in that petition, provided it might stand alone, without your comment. Besides, it was the petition of one clergyman only, who did not prefer it from any imagination that there was room to expect success in it, but to evince the contrary by experiment. Your reflections therefore were very disingenuous; and though the design of the petition is a piece of secret history, a stratagem, a machination, which it seems you, with all your sagacity and insight into everybody’s affairs, have not been able to penetrate, yet your inference drawn from it that if the provision for the clergy was made better by an act they would make no complaint concerning encroachments on the authority of the King is no less ungenerous, since to make this inference good it should have appeared in the petition that the clergy wanted a better provision by an act without a suspending clause. But there is no such thing in the petition; and I believe it would be a difficult matter to prove that the clergy, though willing enough to have a better provision, would accept of it by means of an act without a suspending clause. My account of the famous petition, as the Rector calls it, replied the Colonel, is taken from the Burgesses’ Journals, where it stands as the petition of the clergy, and not as the petition of one of them. However, let it be for the present that it was owned by one clergyman only. The Rector says this clergyman designed well; and that one other clergyman was privy to the petition, who, from what he says about the secret history of it, I conclude must be himself. Now this petition declares that many clergymen who are a disgrace to the ministry find opportunities to fill the parishes; and can any expression be found in my Letter to the Clergy, torture it how you will, that reflects with such severity upon them as this declaration doth, which was made in the most public manner by one of their own body abetted by one other, and he no less a person than the pious Rector of York-Hampton? And if our parishes are filled with so many clergymen who are a disgrace to the ministry, may it not be suspected that such men would accept of a better provision by an act without a suspending clause? And that they would not be very nice in examining whether such act was worded exactly conformable to a royal instruction to the governor for his own particular conduct, especially when they were not answerable for a transgression of it? The Rector, in zeal for the royal authority, might, for aught I know, be willing to refuse a better provision under such an act; but as he has not as yet attained to that degree of supremacy as to decree by his own authority that his brethren should refuse it, it would be necessary to determine this matter in a convention. And if the clergymen, distinguished with such excellent characters by the author of the petition, who are so many, should prevail against the self-denying Rector of York-Hampton upon a question in which their temporal interest might outweigh the royal authority as in all probability they would, the Rector, by an established rule of the convention, must submit, and perhaps rather than be the occasion of a schism, would subscribe to the vote of the majority. But as his conduct in such a case cannot be known, it must remain a matter of opinion whether he would accept of a better provision or not under such an act. But notwithstanding the changes the Rector is perpetually ringing upon an act with, and an act without a suspending clause, his loyalty will not shine forth with a meridian brightness unless he refuses to accept of a better provision under an act with a suspending clause; for the governor is not to give his assent to any act with a suspending clause that alters or repeals an act which has received the royal approbation, without first obtaining the King’s permission. So that before the Rector ought to accept of a better provision under any act of the General Assembly, the clergy should appoint him their agent a second time to approach the throne with an humble petition for the royal permission to the governor to give his assent to such act; which appointment, if I dare venture a conjecture, would be extremely pleasing to him, as he would thereby have an opportunity of soliciting a place for himself of the first ecclesiastical dignity in the colony, which I believe is at this time vacant. And let it not be thought that a convention cannot be held during the vacancy of the commissaryship for appointing him agent; for if an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, signed by him and two or three others, was of sufficient authority, in the late commissary’s time, to convene the clergy, certainly now there is no commissary he may by his own power call a convention upon a matter of such importance to himself. But let all this happen as it may, it is extremely obvious that the Rector’s temper inclines him to inflame his own resentment into a fixed contempt of the General Assembly; otherwise he could not have approved of the conduct of the author of this petition, if what he says of him is true, that he did not prefer the petition from any imagination that there was room to expect success in it, but to evince the contrary by experiment: so that the General Assembly may be used by designing men as instruments to carry on their deep-laid stratagems and machinations on purpose to afford matter of pleasantry to the Rector. But it may be that the Rector has tripped in his history of this clergyman’s conduct, who, I have heard, gave the gentleman on whom he prevailed to present the petition to the House of Burgesses a quite different account of his design; and that gentleman was insulted by a great intimate of the Rector’s for presenting it; which insult, I suppose, would not have been given if the author of the petition had expected no other effects from it than what the Rector says he did. Colonel, said I, your remarks are of a sour and aggravating cast. His Reverence’s temper does not incline him to inflame his own resentment; he has suffered persecution; he has missed the president’s place at the college; he has been forbid, with others, the late governor’s house under the title of disturbers of his government; he has been recommended by the late governor in conjunction with others to the correction of the Grand Jury for being so audacious as to publish under their names an invitation to as many of their brethren as were willing to attend, for them to meet at a brother’s house before he left the country. He has been forbid the present governor’s palace, when he waited on him with the royal disallowance to several acts of Assembly. He has, I say, suffered all these persecutions, cum multis aliis quae nunc prescribere longum est; and certainly His Reverence, who has suffered so much for adhering to reason and justice, and the principles of true patriotism, is excusable for the freedoms he has used. The Rector, replied the Colonel, gives colorings to his imagery as best suit his purpose; but remove the false appearances and his representations will not exhibit so amiable a character. The brother at whose house this meeting was appointed was not a person of that distinction or moral accomplishments as to make it necessary for the clergy to pay their compliments to him in a body upon his leaving the country. The late governor knew, the late commissary knew, as did many other gentlemen, that he was one of the cabal; and they all believed, and, if it was proper to dwell any longer on this circumstance, a very good account might be given for their belief, that this meeting was on purpose to raise disturbances in the government, to form stratagems and machinations against the administration and the legislature of the colony, which this brother was to solicit in England. And as Mr. Dinwiddie, the late governor, thought it an affront to his authority as well as to the bishop’s commissary for three or four clergymen to assume to themselves a power to call a meeting of the clergy, he resented the insult in a manner becoming his character as the King’s substitute. As to the prohibition the Rector received from appearing at the present governor’s palace, his affrontive and disrespectful behavior was the occasion of it; for, as I have been informed that contrary to his duty and the respect due to the King’s representative, he did not wait on the governor with the royal disallowance to several acts of Assembly, with which he was charged by the Lords of Trade, until several weeks after his arrival in the country, though he was in the place of the governor’s residence; and when he did wait on him he delivered the dispatch opened after he had communicated it to such of his brethren as he thought proper. So that his own modesty, if he has any, and a consideration of his own character, should, methinks, have prevented his complaining of this prohibition. And as to his missing the president’s place at the college, his contumacious treatment of the Visitors’ authority, which is so publicly known, could not entitle him to their favors, even admitting that he was qualified in other respects. Colonel, said I, this is all prejudice. You suffer your passion to make a fool of you. His Reverence has given the strongest proofs of true patriotism; he has delivered the constitution from the basest attempts to destroy it; he faces every attack, encounters every danger, despises every obloquy; in short, he may say, with old Siffredi in the play, . . . I have preferred my duty, The good and safety of my fellow subjects, To all those views that fire the selfish race Of men . . . since he has with boldness, and, as he says, with truth justified his impeachment against the General Assemblies who were attempting to overturn the constitution and to restrain the royal prerogative by passing acts which interfered with acts confirmed by His Majesty, without a suspending clause. Now, Colonel, how can you exculpate the General Assemblies from this atrocious crime? The Rector’s patriotism, answered the Colonel, is as conspicuous as his modesty and politeness; but it is really matter of pleasantry, as this Thersites said of the famous petition, to hear him haranguing about the constitution, which if he knows anything of, he does not care to make it public. The constitution cannot be destroyed, nor the royal prerogative restrained by any act of the General Assembly. The King as sovereign possesses an inherent power in the legislature of the colony and can give his allowance or disallowance to any act passed by them; but as the Rector boasts that I am not able to answer his arguments upon this head of accusation, that I am graveled, that he hath caught my gentleman tripping lightly over marshy ground, you must give me leave to examine into the power of the General Assembly to enact laws, which I believe will put an end to the Rector’s exultations and convince you it was the contemptibleness and not the weight of his arguments that prevented my answering them in the letter I thought proper to address to him. I do not suppose, Sir, that you look upon the present inhabitants of Virginia as a people conquered by the British arms. If indeed we are to be considered only as the savage aborigines of this part of America, we cannot pretend to the rights of English subjects; but if we are the descendants of Englishmen, who by their own consent and at the expense of their own blood and treasure undertook to settle this new region for the benefit and aggrandizement of the parent kingdom, the native privileges our progenitors enjoyed must be derived to us from them, as they could not be forfeited by their migration to America. One of the greatest lawyers and the greatest philosopher of his age* tells us, “A country gained by conquest hath no right to be governed by the English laws.” And another no less eminent lawyer† says, “Where the country of a pagan or infidel is conquered, there, ipso facto, the laws of such country are abrogated.” And from hence I suppose it was that a learned and upright judge‡ gave it as his opinion, “That Virginia is to be governed by such laws as the King pleases.” But certainly this great judge was not acquainted with Virginia; if he was he never would have given an opinion which with respect either to the original or present inhabitants of this country must be erroneous. It must be erroneous with respect to the original inhabitants because they were never fully conquered, but submitted to the English government upon terms of peace and friendship fixed and settled by treaties; and they now possess their native laws and customs, savage as they are, in as full an extent as they did before the English settled upon this continent. It must be erroneous with respect to the present inhabitants because upon a supposition that their ancestors were conquerors of this country, they could not lose their native privileges by their conquests. They were as much freemen, and had as good a right to the liberties of Englishmen after their conquest as they had before; if they had not, few of them, I believe, would have been induced by so inadequate a reward to endeavor an extension of the English dominions, and by making conquests to become slaves. Under an English government all men are born free, are only subject to laws made with their own consent, and cannot be deprived of the benefit of these laws without a transgression of them. To assert this is sufficient; to demonstrate it to an Englishman is useless. He not only knows, but, if I may use the expression, feels it as a vital principle in the constitution, which places him in a situation without the reach of the highest executive power in the state, if he lives in an obedience to its laws. If then the people of this colony are freeborn and have a right to the liberties and privileges of English subjects, they must necessarily have a legal constitution, that is, a legislature composed in part of the representatives of the people who may enact laws for the internal government of the colony and suitable to its various circumstances and occasions; and without such a representative, I am bold enough to say, no law can be made. By the term internal government it may be easily perceived that I exclude from the legislature of the colony all power derogatory to their dependence upon the mother kingdom; for as we cannot lose the rights of Englishmen by our removal to this continent, so neither can we withdraw our dependence without destroying the constitution. In every instance, therefore, of our external government we are and must be subject to the authority of the British Parliament, but in no others; for if the Parliament should impose laws upon us merely relative to our internal government, it deprives us, as far as those laws extend, of the most valuable part of our birthright as Englishmen, of being governed by laws made with our own consent. As all power, therefore, is excluded from the colony of withdrawing its dependence from the mother kingdom, so is all power over the colony excluded from the mother kingdom but such as respects its external government. I do not deny but that the Parliament, as the stronger power, can force any laws it shall think fit upon us; but the inquiry is not what it can do, but what constitutional right it has to do so. And if it has not any constitutional right, then any tax respecting our internal polity which may hereafter be imposed on us by act of Parliament is arbitrary, as depriving us of our rights, and may be opposed. But we have nothing of this sort to fear from those guardians of the rights and liberties of mankind. But it may be objected that this general position excludes all the laws of England, so as that none of them are obligatory upon us in our internal government. The answer to this objection is obvious: the common law, being the common consent of the people from time immemorial, and the “birthright of every Englishman, does follow him wherever he goes,” and consequently must be the general law by which the colony is to be governed. So also the statutes of England in force at the time of our separation, having every essential in their institution to make them obligatory upon our ancestors, that is, their consent by their representatives, and having the same sanction with the common law, must have the same extensive force, and bind us in the same manner the common law does; if it was otherwise it would involve this contradiction, that of two laws made by the same power, one is coercive upon us when the other is not so, which is plainly absurd. From these principles, which I take to be incontrovertible, as they are deduced from the nature of the English constitution, it is evident that the legislature of the colony have a right to enact ANY law they shall think necessary for their internal government. But lest these principles, plain and evident as they are, should be controverted by the Rector or some other of Sir Robert Filmer’s disciples, who perhaps may assert that the King by his prerogative can establish any form of government he pleases in the colony, I will examine the power the General Assembly derives from grants from the crown, abstracted from the original rights of the people. King James I by his charter, under the great seal of England, granted the dominion of Virginia to the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers, and gave them full power and authority to constitute a form of government in the colony as near as might be agreeable to the government and policy of England. Pursuant to this power, the Treasurer and Company by their charter established the legislature in the governor, Council, and representatives of the people, to be called the General Assembly, with “free power to treat, consult, and conclude as well of all emergent occasions concerning the public weal of the colony and every part thereof, as also to make, ordain, and enact such general laws and orders for the behoof of the colony and the good government thereof as shall from time to time appear necessary or requisite.” The General Assemblies have continued to exercise this legislative power from that time. King James left them in full possession of this power upon his dissolving the company; and King Charles I in the year 1634 by order in his Privy Council declared that “interests which the colony enjoyed while they were a corporation should not be impeached, but that they should enjoy the same privileges they did before the recalling the company’s patent.” And in the year 1642 under his sign manual and royal signet he “confirmed the form of government, declared that they should ever remain under the King’s immediate protection, and that the form of government should not be changed.” After the Restoration, in the year 1675, the General Assembly sent three agents to England to solicit a new charter from King Charles II. Their petition upon this occasion was referred by the King’s order in his Privy Council the 23rd of June to his attorney and solicitor general, who reported their opinion to the Lords of the Committee for Foreign Plantations, “That it would be for His Majesty’s service and for the increase of the trade and growth of the plantation of Virginia if His Majesty shall be graciously pleased to grant and confirm, under his great seal, unto his subjects in Virginia the particulars following.” And then they recite the several heads of the General Assembly’s petition, one of which was “That the power and authority of the General Assembly, consisting of the governor, Council, and Burgesses, may be by His Majesty ratified and confirmed”; but with this proviso, “That His Majesty may, at his pleasure, revoke any law made by them; and that no law so revoked shall, AFTER such revocation and intimation thereof from hence (i.e., from England), be further used or observed.” The Lords of the Committee for Foreign Plantations presented this report to His Majesty in his Privy Council at Whitehall on the 19th of November 1675; which His Majesty approved and confirmed, and ordered a bill to be prepared by the attorney and solicitor general for his signature in order to the passing letters patent “for the settlement and confirmation of all things according to the said report.” A complete charter was accordingly prepared, and received the King’s signature; but before it came to the great seal stopped in the hanaper office upon receiving an account of Bacon’s insurrection. But though the charter did not pass the great seal, King Charles II from that time, and his successors ever since, have inserted the several clauses of it relative to the power of the General Assembly in their commissions to their governors, who have “full power and authority, by and with the advice of the Council to call General Assemblies, and by and with the advice and consent of the Council and Assembly or the major part of them respectively, to make, constitute, and ordain laws, statutes, and ordinances for the public peace, welfare, and good government of the colony, and the people and inhabitants thereof.” “Which laws, statutes, and ordinances, of what nature or duration soever, are to be within three months or sooner after the making of them transmitted unto the King under the public seal of the colony for the royal approbation or disallowance. And in case all or any of them shall at any time be disallowed and not approved and so signified by the King under his sign manual or by the Privy Council unto the governor or commander-in-chief of the colony for the time being, then such and so many as shall be disallowed and not approved shall from thenceforth cease and determine and be utterly void and of no effect.” From this short review of our constitution it may be observed that the people have an original right to a legal government, that this right has been confirmed to them by charter, which establishes the General Assembly with a general power “to make, ordain, and constitute laws, statutes, and ordinances for the public peace, welfare, and good government of the colony.” Which power, by a constant and uninterrupted usage and custom, they have continued to exercise for more than 140 years. And if what Lord Coke says in Calvin’s Case is true, that “where the King by charter or letters patent grants to a country the laws of England or a power to make laws for themselves, he nor his successors can alter or abrogate the same,” we cannot be deprived of this right, even upon the Rector’s principles of passive obedience. But it may be asked if the King’s assent is not necessary to give sanction to the acts of the General Assembly. I answer, it is necessary. As sovereign, no law can be made without his assent, but then it is not necessary that he should be present in his royal person to give his assent; this is plainly impossible. He therefore gives power by commission under his great seal to his governor to give his assent, which, to speak in the language of the law, is in this case a teste meipso and gives life and being to the laws in the same manner as if he was present in his royal person. The King frequently gives his assent to acts of Parliament by commission to persons appointed for that purpose; he does the same thing by his commission to the governor, who thereby becomes the King’s representative in his legislative character, so that the governor’s assent to laws here is in effect the King’s assent. But as the King cannot be informed of the nature of the laws passed by his commissioner while under the consideration of the General Assembly, he reserves to himself a power of abrogating them, notwithstanding his commissioner’s assent; and from the time of such abrogation, and not before, they are to cease and determine. But Colonel, said I, notwithstanding you have deduced your history of the constitution from the royal grants and the established principles of the English government, His Reverence is in the right. He relies upon the King’s instructions to the governor, which ought not to be infringed, but must have the force and obligation of laws upon us. I have, replied the Colonel, a high reverence for the majesty of the King’s authority, and shall upon every occasion yield a due obedience to all its just powers and prerogatives; but submission, even to the supreme magistrate, is not the whole duty of a citizen, especially such a submission as he himself does not require. Something is likewise due to the rights of our country and to the liberties of mankind. To say that a royal instruction to a governor, for his own particular conduct, is to have the force and validity of a law, and must be obeyed without reserve, is at once to strip us of all the rights and privileges of British subjects, and to put us under the despotic power of a French or Turkish government. For what is the real difference between a French edict and an English instruction if they are both equally absolute? The royal instructions are nothing more than rules and orders laid down as guides and directions for the conduct of governors. These may and certainly ought to be laws to them, but never can be thought, consistently with the principles of the British constitution, to have the force and power of laws upon the people. Which is evident from this plain reason: promulgation is essential to the nature of laws, so that no law can bind any people before it is declared and published to them; but the King’s instructions are to be kept secret and not published to us, no not even to the Council, unless the governor thinks it for the King’s service. “You are to communicate,” says one of these instructions to the governor, “unto our Council of Virginia from time to time, such and so many of our instructions as you shall find convenient for our service.” So that from the instructions themselves it is evident the King does not intend them as laws to his people. Besides, the royal instructions are drawn up in England by ministers who from their distant situation from us cannot have so full and perfect a view of affairs in the colony as is necessary for those who are to be legislators and supreme directors of them. Sudden emergencies will arise; present occasions will be lost; and such quick and unexpected turns are perpetually happening in all sublunary affairs as require the utmost vigilance and celerity, and can never stay for such a distant guidance and command. The ministers in England see nothing with their own eyes that is passing amongst us and know nothing upon their own knowledge, and therefore are very improper legislators to give laws to the colony. The King’s instructions, then, being only intended as guides and directions to governors, and not being obligatory upon the people, the governors are only answerable for a breach of them, and not the General Assembly; and if they are answerable only, they have the only right of determining whether their passing acts upon particular emergent occasions is contrary to the spirit and true meaning of their instructions or not. In short, Sir, the Council and House of Burgesses have a right to present any act relative to the internal government of the colony to the governor for his assent without violating any instruction; and the governor has a right, as the King’s commissioner representing the royal person, to give or refuse his assent to such act as he may think it agreeable or contrary to his instructions directing his conduct in this particular. This I say, Sir, the Council and House of Burgesses may do, from the general powers with which they are invested by the constitution, without being guilty of attempts to restrain the power of the royal prerogative; which being committed to the governor, he is to determine how he is to exercise it and no other person has anything to do with it in this case. From hence then it is evident that the General Assembly may pass an act which alters or repeals an act that has received the royal approbation without destroying the old constitution or attempting to bind the King’s hands; and if such act is passed, it must have the force and obligation of a law until the King declares his royal disallowance of it. But since the royal instructions are so much insisted on by the Rector, I will examine whether the same doctrine I have endeavored to establish may not be deduced from them. I have no copy of the instructions relating to this question, nor have I been able to procure one; but as I have formerly read them, I believe I can recite them tolerably exact. By these instructions the governor is “not to give his assent to any act that alters or repeals any other act without a suspending clause, although the act to be altered or repealed has not had the royal approbation, unless in cases of great emergency; nor is he to give his assent to any act that alters or repeals any other act which has had the royal approbation without first obtaining the King’s permission, under the penalty of being removed from his government and incurring the King’s highest displeasure.” Now I infer from these instructions that, admitting the governor should pass an act contrary to them, he subjects himself to the penalties inflicted on him for a breach of his instructions, but the act so passed by him has the obligation of a law until the King’s disallowance of it; for if such act is void, ab initio, the instructions would be absurd, because to restrain the governor from passing an act which when passed is as absolutely void as if it had never existed, is absurd and useless. Our sovereign, therefore, knowing that from the fundamental principles of the constitution such act must have the force of a law when passed by the governor, has restrained him from giving his assent in such a case under particular personal penalties, but has left the act to its course until he thinks proper to repeal it by his disapprobation. But this is not all; for as the governor may pass an act in a case of great emergency though contrary to the general tenor of the instructions, it would involve a greater absurdity, if possible, should an act be void ab initio which he passes by virtue of the general powers given him by his commission under the King’s great seal, and another act passed by him under the same authority have the force of a law because the governor is of opinion that the exigencies of the colony make such act necessary. Under such a construction the case is plainly this: the governor passes an act in a case of great exigency contrary to the strict letter of his instructions, which act shall have the force of a law because he thinks the circumstances of the colony require it; but if he passes such an act when he thinks the circumstances of the colony do not require it, such act shall be void ab initio. This is like the absolution in the Romish Church, which is of no effect, though proclaimed with a loud voice, unless the intention of the priest accompanies, and is too absurd to deserve any further consideration. And yet into such an absurdity must you fall, Sir, when you contend that such an act is void ab initio, from a construction of the royal instructions to the governor. Neither will the Rector’s hearsay account* of one of the revised laws make any alteration in the case, for the land law that was altered by this revised law never received the royal assent; but the reason why this revised law laid some time dormant and unobserved was that as it affected the King’s grants of his lands, a suspending clause was added to it so that it could have no operation until the royal approbation of it was obtained. And though this approbation was obtained, it was not known to us until several years after, when Mr. Montague, our present agent, by direction from the committee of correspondence, inquiring after it found it in the Council office in England and transmitted it to us, from which time it became in force here. But Colonel, said I, though all this may be true I am at a loss to know what good reason can be given for an order of the late Assembly to support the vestries against the appeals of the clergy, and not an order for supporting private contractors against the merchants. When, Sir, answered the Colonel, you can produce an instance of a merchant or any other person except the Rector and two or three of his brethren bringing suits to try the validity of an act of the legislature, I will give you a reason why the merchants were not included in the order of the late Assembly. I suppose from what you say you would insinuate as if the Assembly pointed the clergy out as the particular objects of their resentment; but in this you are mistaken. An action was brought in the General Court by the Rector against the collector of his parish levy on purpose to controvert the power of the General Assembly in making laws, or rather to render their power a mere cipher. It behoved them then to support their own authority and the validity of their own acts against every attempt to destroy it; and from hence it was that by an order of the late Assembly the collector of York-Hampton parish levy was to be defended in the Rector’s suit against him at the public expense. Thus, Sir, I have endeavored to obviate the Rector’s arguments and to convince you that the General Assemblies were not setting up the standard of rebellion against the King’s authority when they passed the acts which have given this patriot Rector such great offense. The insults offered by him to the legislative body of the colony and to private characters are certainly carried to a great height; but whether this is owing to the panic he is thrown into lest the old constitution should be destroyed or to satisfy a malevolent and turbulent temper, is not worth my time to inquire. I have avoided repeating what I said formerly in my letters upon this subject, so must desire you to consider those letters as part of my present defense, since I cannot think that the Rector has given any answer to them. I know that the plainest demonstration is lost upon men who are under the influence of prejudice or an obstinate disposition of mind. Such men will never want ground for wrangling, especially if they have any by-purposes to serve. But notwithstanding the artful endeavors and invidious representations of such men, I make no doubt that you will, from a sincere desire of promoting truth and the public good, give an impartial decision in this dispute, which I shall submit to you after observing that whoever throws out reflections on the acts of the legislature as plainly tend to weaken their authority, let his profession of patriotism be otherwise ever so specious, is so far an enemy to his country. Colonel, said I, I have not sufficiently considered this matter to form a just opinion of it; but as His Reverence is a great master of reason and acquainted with the nature and principles of government, I will communicate this conference to him, which, as soon as he has reconnoitered, I doubt not will receive a proper reply. And thus, may it please Your Reverence, the conference broke up of which I have given you this faithful account. I shall be extremely rejoiced if you can find leisure from the laborious and painful duties of your pastoral office to send forth a reply to the Colonel’s arguments; but Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus, . . . moribus ornes, Legibus emendes; in publica commoda peccem, Si longo sermone morer tua tempora . . . I am, may it please Your Reverence, with the utmost deference and esteem, Your most obedient servant, COMMON SENSE. Source: https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/exploring-the-bounds-of-liberty-political-writings-of-colonial-british-america-from-the-glorious-revolution-to-the-american-revolution-vol-3-1755-1774#lf1670-03_label_142

The Sentiments of a British American by Oxenbridge Thacher from “Pamphlets of the American Revolution,” ed. by Bernard Bailyn I — SENTIMENTS of a British American IT WELL becomes the wisdom of a great nation, having been highly successful in their foreign wars and added a large extent of country to their dominions, to consider with a critical attention their internal state lest their prosperity should destroy them. Great Britain at this day is arrived to an heighth of glory and wealth which no European nation hath ever reached since the decline of the Roman Empire. Everybody knows that it is not indebted to itself alone for this envied power: that its colonies, placed in a distant quarter of the earth, have had their share of efficiency in its late successes, as indeed they have also contributed to the advancing and increasing its grandeur from their very first beginnings. In the forming and settling, therefore, the internal polity of the kingdom, these have reason to expect that their interest should be considered and attended to, that their rights, if they have any, should be preserved to them, and that they should have no reason to complain that they have been lavish of their blood and treasure in the late war only to bind the shackles of slavery on themselves and their children. No people have been more wisely jealous of their liberties and privileges than the British nation. It is observed by Vattel that “their present happy condition hath cost them seas of blood; but they have not purchased it too dear.” The colonies, making a part of this great empire, having the same British rights inherent in them as the inhabitants of the island itself, they cannot be disfranchised or wounded in their privileges but the whole body politic must in the end feel with them. The writer of this, being a native of an English colony, will take it for granted that the colonies are not the mere property of the mother state; that they have the same rights as other British subjects. He will also suppose that no design is formed to enslave them, and that the justice of the British Parliament will finally do right to every part of their dominions. These things presupposed, he intends to consider the late act made in the fourth year of his present Majesty entitled An Act for Granting Certain Duties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America, etc., to show the real subjects of grievance therein to the colonists, and that the interest of Great Britain itself may finally be greatly affected thereby. There is the more reason that this freedom should be indulged after the act is passed inasmuch as the colonies, though greatly interested therein, had no opportunity of being heard while it was pending. [1.] The first objection is that a tax is thereby laid on several commodities, to be raised and levied in the plantations, and to be remitted home to England. This is esteemed a grievance inasmuch as the same are laid without the consent of the representatives of the colonists. It is esteemed an essential British right that no person shall be subject to any tax but what in person or by his representative he hath a voice in laying. The British Parliament have many times vindicated this right against the attempts of Kings to invade it. And though perhaps it may be said that the House of Commons, in a large sense, are the representatives of the colonies as well as of the people of Great Britain, yet it is certain that these have no voice in their election. Nor can it be any alleviation of their unhappiness that if this right is taken from them, it is taken by that body who have been the great patrons and defenders of it in the people of Great Britain. Besides, the colonies have ever supported a subordinate government among themselves. Being placed at such a distance from the capital, it is absolutely impossible they should continue a part of the kingdom in the same sense as the corporations there are. For this reason, from their beginning there hath been a subordinate legislature among them subject to the control of the mother state; and from the necessity of the case there must have been such, their circumstances and situation being in many respects so different from that of the parent state they could not have subsisted without this. Now the colonies have always been taxed by their own representatives and in their respective legislatures, and have supported an entire domestic government among themselves. Is it just, then, they should be doubly taxed? That they should be obliged to bear the whole charges of their domestic government, and should be as subject to the taxes of the British Parliament as those who have no domestic government to support ? The reason given for this extraordinary taxation? namely, that this war was undertaken for the security of the colonies, and that they ought therefore to be taxed to pay the charge thereby incurred, it is humbly apprehended is without foundation. For (I) It was of no less consequence to Great Britain than it was to the colonies that these should not be overrun and conquered by the French. Suppose they had prevailed and gotten all the English colonies into their possession: how long would Great Britain have survived their fate! Put the case that the town of Portsmouth or any other seaport had been besieged and the like sums expended in its defense, could any have thought that town ought to be charged with the expense? (2) The colonies contributed their full proportion to those conquests which adorn and dignify the late and present reign. One of them in particular raised in one year seven thousand men to be commanded by His Majesty's general, besides maintaining many guards and garrisons on their own frontiers. All of them by their expenses and exertions in the late war have incurred heavy debts, which it will take them many years to pay. (3) The colonies are no particular gainers by these acquisitions. None of the conquered territory is annexed to them. All are acquisitions accruing to the crown. On account of their commerce, they are no gainers: the northern colonies are even sufferers by these cessions. [I desire this may not be misunderstood. In this view I suppose them sufferers, namely that as the West Indies were not large enough to take off the produce the northern colonies could export to them before the conquest of Canada, now [that] that country is added it makes the disproportional much greate]. It is true they have more security from having their throats cut by the French while the peace lasts; but so have also all His Majesty's subjects. (4) Great Britain gaineth immensely by these acquisitions. The command of the whole American fur trade and the increased demand for their woolen manufactures from their numerous new subjects in a country too cold to keep sheep: these are such immense gains as in a commercial light would refund the kingdom, if every farthing of the expense of reducing Canada were paid out of the exchequer. But to say the truth, it is not only by the taxation itself that the colonists deem themselves aggrieved by the act we are considering. For— II. The power therein given to courts of admiralty alarms them greatly. The common law is the birthright of every subject, and trial by jury a most de planted. Many struggles had they with courts of admiralty, which, like the element they take theirarling privilege. So deemed our ancestors in ancient times, long before the colonies were begun to be planted . Many struggles had they with their copurts of admiralty, which, like the element they take their name from, have divers times attempted to innundate the land. Hence the statutes of Richard II, of Henry IV, and divers other public acts. Hence the watchful eye the reverend sages of the common law have kept over these courts. —Now by the act we are considering, the colonists are deprived of these privileges: of the common law, for these judges are supposed to be connusant only of the civil law; of juries, for all here is put in the breast of one man. He judges both law and fact, and his decree is final; at least it cannot be reversed on this side the Atlantic. In this particular the colonists are put under a quite different law from all the rest of the King's subjects: jurisdiction is nowhere else given to courts of admiralty of matters so foreign from their connusance. In some things the colonists have been long subject to this cruel yoke, and have indeed fully experienced its galling nature. Loud complaints have been long made by them of the oppressions of these courts, their exhorbitant fees, and the little justice the subject may expect from them in cases of seizures. Let me mention one thing that is notorious: these courts have assumed (I know not by what law) a commission of five per cent to the judge on all seizures condemned. What chance does the subject stand for his right upon the best claim when the judge, condemning, is to have an hundred or perhaps five hundred pounds, and acquitting, less than twenty shillings? If the colonists should be thought partial witnesses in this case, let those of the inhabitants of Great Britain who have had the misfortune to be suitors or to have any business in these dreadful courts be inquired of. There have been times when the legislature of Great Britain appeared to be as sensible of the bad conduct of these courts as we are now. I Mean when the statute of 6 Anne c. 37 and some later ones to the same purpose were made, wherein the remedy they have given is as extraordinary as the power given those courts. For in those statutes the judge of admiralty is subjected to a penalty of five hundred pounds, to be recovered by the aggrieved suitor at common law. These only refer to cases of prizes, and give no remedy in cases of seizures, where their power is not only decisive but in many respects uncontrollable. Meantime, can the colonists help wondering and grieving that the British legislature should vest with such high powers over them courts in whom they appear to have so little confidence? But in the act we are considering, the power of these courts is even much enlarged and made still more grievous. For it is thereby enacted that the seizor may inform in any court of admiralty for the particular colony, or in any court of admiralty to be appointed over all America, at his pleasure. Thus a malicious seizor may take the goods of any man, ever so lawfully and duly imported, and carry the trial of the cause to a thousand miles distance, where for mere want of ability to follow, the claimer shall be incapable of defending his right. At the same time an hardship is laid upon the claimer; his claim is not to be admitted] or heard until he find sureties to prosecute, who are to be of known ability in the place where security is given. And he, being unknown in a place so distance from home, whatever be his estate, shall be incapable of producing such sureties. III. The empowering commanders of the King's ships to seize and implead, as is done in this act and a former act and by special commission from the commissioners of the customs, is another great hardship on the colonies. The knowledge of all the statutes relating to the customs, of all the prohibitions on exports and imports, and of various intricate cases arising on them, requires a good lawyer. How can this science ever be expected from men educated in a totally different way, brought up upon the boisterous element and knowing no law aboard their ships but their own will? Here perhaps it will be said, this is not peculiar to the colonies. The power to these commanders is given in all parts of the dominions as well as in the colonies: why should they complain of being under the same law as the other subject.? I answer, There is this great essential difference between the cases: in Great Britain no jurisdiction is given to any other than the common law courts; there too the subjects are near the throne, where, when they are oppressed, their complaints may soon be heard and redressed; but with respect to the colonies, far different is the case! Here it is their own courts that try the cause! Here the subject is far distant from the throne! His complaints cannot soon be heard and redressed. The boisterous commander may take for his motto, Procul a Jove, a fulmine procul. The present decree, however unjust, deprives him even of the means of seeking redress. The judge with his troop and the proud captain have divided his wealth; and he hath nothing to do but to hang himself or to go a-begging in a country of beggars. There is yet another very great objection the colonists make to this act, of no less weight than the other three. It is this: IV. Whereas it is good law that all officers seizing goods seize at their peril, and if the goods they seize are not liable to forfeiture they must pay the claimant his cost, and are liable to his action besides, which two things have been looked upon as proper checks of exorbitant wanton power in the officer: both these checks are taken off. They, the officers, may charge the revenue with the cost, with the consent of four of the commissioners of the customs. And if the judge of admiralty will certify that there was probable cause of seizure, no action shall be maintained by the claimant though his goods on trial appear to be ever so duly imported and liable to no sort of forfeiture, and he hath been forced to expend ever so much in the defense of them. This last regulation is in the act peculiarly confined to America. Much more might be said on these subjects, but I aim at brevity. Let it now be observed that the interest of Great Britain is finally greatly affected by these new regulations. We will not here insist on the parental tenderness due from Great Britain to us and suggest she must suffer from sympathy with her children, who have been guilty of no undutiful behavior towards her but on the contrary have greatly increased her wealth and grandeur and in the last war have impoverished themselves in fighting her battles. We will suppose her for this little moment to have forgot the bowels of a mother. Neither will we dwell long on the importance of the precedent. The consideration of a million and half of British subjects disfranchised or put under regulations alien from our happy constitution: what pretense it may afford to after ministers to treat the inhabitants of the island itself after the same manner. We will suppose for the present that at a thousand leagues distance, across the water, the inhabitants of the capital will not be endangered by a conflagration of all the colonies. Nor will we mention any possible danger from the alienation of the affections of the colonies from their mother country in case of a new war. We will suppose them to have that reverence for the English name they are allowed to retain that they will be as lavish of what blood and treasure remains to them now they are cut off from all these privileges as when they could please themselves with the surest hope of holding them inviolable. What we are now considering is how the mere present self-interest of Great Britain is affected by these new regulations. Now everybody knows that the greatest part of the trade of Great Britain is with her colonies. This she enjoyeth, exclusive of any other European country, and hath entirely at her own command. Further, it may be made out that the greatest part of the profits of the trade of the colonies, at least on the continent, centers in Great Britain. The colonists, settled in a wide and sparse manner, are perpetually demanding the linen, woolen and other manufactures of Great Britain. They are not yet settled in so contiguous a manner as to be able to manufacture sufficient for their own supplies. And while they can pay for those of Great Britain with any proper remittances, their demands will be perpetually increasing. Great Britain, besides, is the mart which supplieth the colonies with all the produce of the other countries in Europe which the colonies use. Considering the vast numbers supported by these manufactures vended in the colonies, and by the articles of foreign trade brought into the kingdom and thence exported and consumed in the plantations, doubtless even the luxury of the colonists is the gain of Great Britain. So thought wise ministers in the late reign: on which ground they repealed two or three sumptuary laws made in the colonies for restraining that luxury. Now as the colonies have no gold or silver mines in them, it is certain that all their remittances they make must be from their trade. And it is obvious that when the sources of their remittances are cut off, the demands for these goods, by which so many thousands are supported, must cease. And whoever considereth with any degree of attention the new regulations and is acquainted with the state of the colonies must see that the evident tendency of them is to cut off all these sources and to destroy altogether the trade of the colonists. One grand source of these remittances is the fishery, which by the duty of three pence a gallon on molasses must entirely be at an end. That branch can never bear the high duties imposed, nor subsist with- out the molasses which the trade to the foreign islands furnisheth. Not only by their connection with this but by the mere effect of the new regulations, all the other trade of the colonists must be at an end. These regulations must break and subdue the hearts of the traders here. TRADE is a nice and delicate lady; she must be courted and won by soft and fair addresses. She will not bear the rude hand of a ravisher. Penalties increased, heavy taxes laid on, the checks of oppression and violence removed; these things must drive her from her present abode. Hence, one or other of these consequences will follow: either (1) the colonies will universally go into such manufactures as they are capable of doing within themselves, or (2) they will do without them, and being reduced to mere necessaries, will be clothed like their predecessors the Indians with the skins of beasts, and sink into like barbarism. They must then adopt Jack Straw's verses. When Adam delved, and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? [I imagine many sanguine readers on the British side the water will think this is all exaggeration. Such may be informed that even now these things begin to appear. For two or three years past, exchange from the Massachusetts to England has been above par, and bills earnestly bought up. Now the bills the government have to dispose of, though set at a less exchange than the last year and though certain advice is received that the money is in the bank, cannot vend.] Now, either of these events taking place, how will it affect the island of Great Britain? The answer is obvious. The exports to the colonies wholly stopped or greatly diminished, the demands for those manufactures in Great Britain must be in proportion lessened. The substance of those manufacturers, merchants, and traders whom this demand supports is then gone. They who live from supplying these manufacturers, etc., must decay and die with them. Lastly, as trade may be compared to a grand chain made up of innumerable links, it is doubtful whether the British trade, great as it is, can bear the striking out so many without greatly endangering the whole. What now is the equivalent for all this to the nation? A tenth part of one year's tax, at the extent two years' tax upon the colonies (for after that time all their money will be gone) to be lodged in the exchequer and thence issued as the Parliament shall direct. Doth not this resemble the conduct of the good wife in the fable who killed her hen that every day laid her a golden egg? THESE are the sentiments of a British American, which he ventures to expose to the public with an honest well meant freedom. Born in one of the colonies and descended from ancestors who were among the first planters of that colony, he is not ashamed to avow a love to the country that gave him birth; yet he hath ever exulted in the name of Briton. He hath ever thought all the inhabitants in the remotest dominions of Great Britain interested in the wealth, the prosperity, and the glory of the capital. And he desireth ever to retain these filial sentiments. If the objections he proposeth are of any weight, he trusts the meanness and distance of the proposer shall not diminish that weight that those great minds who can comprehend the whole vast machine in one view will not deem it below them to inspect a single small wheel that is out of order. He concludes all with his most ardent wishes that the happy island of Great Britain may grow in wealth, in power, and glory to yet greater degrees; that the conquests it makes over foreign enemies may serve the more to protect the internal liberties of its subjects; that her colonies now happily extended may grow in filial affection and dutiful submission to her their mother; and that she in return may never forget her parental affections. That the whole English empire, united by the strongest bands of love and interest, formidable to the tyrants and oppressors of the earth, may retain its own virtue, and happily possess immortality. Source: https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12024/3133

The three strikes policy is a form of double jeopardy which violates the fifth amendment. If you commit two crimes and serve the sentences for both and then commit a third crime, no matter how benign, you will receive a harsher sentence for that third crime than you would had that third crime been your first. This means that the two previous crimes, which you already served, are being used a second time to punish you. Remember that double jeopardy is being convicted twice for the same offense. Under the three strike policy, you are being convicted using two offenses which you were previously convicted of.

On June 19, 1775, George Washington, the Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress, is granted a commission to be the Command in Chief of the Continental Army. Source: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr00.html#obj10