COLONIAL RESISTANCE DEFENDED. 7 to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. With the enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous, an unjust advantage. I am no courtier of America-I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain that the parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be so, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less, but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the gentleman does not understand the difference between internal and external taxes, I can not help it; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation of trade, for the accommodation of the subject, although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter. The gentleman asks, when were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know when they were made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the honor of serving his majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office; I speak, therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good: I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them, and I will be bold to affirm, that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. This is the price that America pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, that he can fetch a pepper-corn into the exchequer, to the loss of millions to the nation! I dare not say how much carried out, never to return, his constant theme was the injustice offered to the American Colonies, the folly of attempting to coerce them, and the certain loss of them which would ensue to the Crown if their reasonable demands were not met. But the monarch whose interest he wished to serve, was blind and deaf to every thing save his own passions and prejudices; and Chatham's subsequent prediction that the Stamp Act would be repealed, was fulfilled only to have the obnoxious measure replaced by others equally odious to the country, whose allegiance, instead of being strengthened by such means, was soon to be cast off altogether. higher these profits might be augmented. I am convinced that the whole commercial system might be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged; and you have encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. Much is wrong, much may be amended for the general good of the whole. A great deal has been said without doors, of the power, of the strength, of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your troops, I know the skill of your officers. But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause, even your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the constitution along with her. Is this your boasted peace? Not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the hearts of your countrymen? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole House of Bourbon is united against you? True, the Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. They have been wronged, they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned ? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them: "Be to her faults a little blind, Upon the whole, I will tell the House what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. A PLEA FOR REPRESENTATION. 9 Ex. VI-A PLEA FOR REPRESENTATION. Speech in Parliament, 1766. LORD CAMDEN.* MY LORDS:-When I spoke last on this subject, I was indeed replied to, but not answered. In the mean time, I took the strictest review of my arguments; I re-examined all my authorities; fully determined, if I found myself mistaken, publicly to own my mistake, and give up my opinion; but my researches have more and more convinced me, that the British Parliament have no right to tax the Americans. My position is this-I repeat it, I will maintain it to my last hour-taxation and representation are inseparable; this position is founded on the laws of nature; it is more-it is itself an eternal law of nature; for whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; no man hath a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or representative; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury; whoever does it, commits a robbery; he throws down and destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery. Taxation and representation are coeval with, and essential to, this constitution. There is not a blade of grass growing in the most obscure corner of this kingdom which is not, which was not ever represented since the constitution began; there is not a blade of grass which, when taxed, was not taxed with the consent of the proprietor. Much stress has been laid upon the taxation of Wales, before it was united as it now is, as if the King, standing in the place of the former princes of that country, raised money by his own authority, but the real fact is otherwise; for I find that long before Wales was subdued, the northern part of that principality had representatives, and a parliament, or assembly. As to Ireland, my lords, before that kingdom had a parliament, as it now has, when a tax was to be laid on that country, the Irish sent over here representatives, as your lordships will find if you will examine the old records. For these reasons, my lords, * Lord Camden was only one out of many among British statesmen who maintained, warmly though unsuccessfully, the cause of liberty in our own country, and earned, by their opposition to the ill-judged policy of the Crown, a title to our national gratitude. As there would be little to interest us in the history of most of these defenders, except their attachment to our cause, only those of them who are especially distinguished will hereafter be noticed separately. I can never give my assent to any bill taxing the American colonies, while they remain unrepresented; for as to the distinction of a virtual representation, it is so absurd as not to deserve an answer; I therefore pass it over with contempt. The forefathers of the Americans did not leave their native country, and subject themselves to every danger and distress, to be reduced to a state of slavery; they did not give up their rights; they looked for protection, and not for chains, from their mother country; by her they expected to be defended in the possession of their property, and not to be deprived of it; for, should the present power continue, there is nothing which they can call their own; or, to use the words of Mr. Locke: "What property have they in that which another may, by right, take, when he pleases, to himself?" Ex. VII.-THE GLORY OF LIBERTY. From a Sermon delivered at Boston, May 23, 1766. JONATHAN MAYHEW.* WE have before this seen times of great adversity. We have known seasons of drought, death, and spreading mortal diseases; the pestilence walking in darkness, and destruction wasting at noon-day. We have seen wide devastations by fire, and amazing tempests; the heaven on flames, the winds and waves roaring. We have known repeated earthquakes, threatening us with destruction. We have been under great apprehensions by reason of formidable fleets of an enemy on our coasts, menacing fire and sword to all our maritime towns. We have known times when the French and savage armies made terrible havoc on our frontiers, carrying all before them; when we have not been without fear, that some capital towns in the colonies would fall into their merciless hands. Such times as these we have known; at some of which almost every face "gathered paleness," and the knees of all but the good and brave waxed feeble. But never have we * Dr. Mayhew was a clergyman of Boston, highly distinguished for his eloquence, learning and patriotism. He preached a sermon against the Stamp Act from the text, "I would they were even cut off that trouble you!" but disclaimed any sympathy with the rioters who were at the same time engaged in pillaging and destroying houses belonging to officers of the Crown. THE GLORY OF LIBERTY. 11 known a season of such universal consternation and anxiety, among people of all ranks and ages in these colonies, as was occasioned by that parliamentary procedure which threatened us and our posterity with perpetual bondage and slavery. For what is there in this world more wretched, than for those who were born free, and have a right to continue so, to be made slaves themselves, and to think of leaving a race of slaves behind them; even though it be to masters confessedly the most generous and humane in the world? Or what wonder is it, if, after groaning with a low voice for a while, to no purpose, we have at length groaned so loudly as to be heard more than three thousand miles; and to be pitied throughout Europe, wherever it is not hazardous to mention even the name of liberty, unless it be to reproach it, as only another word for sedition, faction and rebellion? For myself, having from my childhood up, by the kind providence of my God, and the tender care of a good parent now at rest with him, been educated to the love of liberty, though not of licentiousness, which pure and virtuous passion was still increased in me as I advanced into manhood; I would not, I can not now, though past middle age, relinquish the fair object of my youthful affections, LIBERTY; whose charms, instead of decaying with time in my eyes, have daily captivated me more and more. Once more hail, then, celestial maid! Welcome to these shores again-welcome to every expanding heart! Long mayst thou reside among us, the delight of the wise, good and brave; the protectress of innocence from wrong and oppression; the patroness of learning, art, eloquence, virtue, rational loyalty, religion! And if any miserable people on the Continent or isles of Europe, after having been weakened by luxury, debauchery, venality, intestine quarrels, or other vices, should, in rude collisions, or now uncertain revolutions of kingdoms, be driven in their extremity to seek a safe retreat from slavery in some distant clime; let them findoh, let them find one in America, under thy brooding, sacred wings; where our oppressed fathers once found it, and we now enjoy it, by the favor of him whose service is the most glorious freedom! Never, oh never, may he permit thee to forsake us, for our unworthiness to enjoy thy enlivening presence. By his high permission, mayst thou attend us through life and death, to the regions of the blessed, thy original abode, there to enjoy forever "the glorious liberty of the sons of God." |