ground, whereon to maintain the dependance of those countries, without destroying their utility as colonies.

The constitutions of these communities, founded in wise policy, and in the laws of the British constitution, are established by their several charters, or by the King's commission to his governors. . . . It [the commission] becomes the known, established constitution of that province which hath been established on it, and whose laws, courts and whole frame of legislature and judicature, are founded on it. It is the charter of that province; It is the indefeasible and unalterable right of those people; . . . It cannot, in its essential parts, be altered or destroyed by any royal instructions or proclamation; or by letters from secretaries of state: It cannot be superseded, or in part annulled, by the issuing out of any other commissions not known to this constitution.

Somewhat more foreboding for the colonies was the language of another royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, who remained on the field of dispute longer than Pownall, and was himself the victim, in the destruction of his furniture and library, of the riots attending the attempts to enforce the Stamp Act. In letters written to England in 1768 and 1769, at the height of the agitation over the Townshend Acts, the Circular Letter of Massachusetts, and the landing of the king's troops at Boston, Hutchinson says:

August 10 [1768]. Yesterday at a meeting of the merchants it was agreed by all present to give no more orders for goods from England, nor receive any on commission until the late acts are repealed. And it is said that all except sixteen in the town have subscribed an engagement of that tenor.

October 4 [1768]. ... Principles of government absurd enough spread thro' all the colonies; but I cannot think that in any colony, people of any consideration have ever been so mad as to think of a revolt. Many of the common people have been in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their

liberties, and have spoke and printed what is highly criminal, and too many of rank above the vulgar, and some in public posts have countenanced and encouraged them until they increased so much in their numbers and in their opinion of their importance as to submit to government no more than they thought proper.

January 20 [1769]. .

...

This is most certainly a crisis. I really wish that there may not have been the least degree of severity beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain the dependance which a colony ought to have upon the parent state; but if no measures shall have been taken to secure this dependance, or nothing more than some declaratory acts or resolves, it is all over with us. The friends of government will be utterly disheartened, and the friends of anarchy will be afraid of nothing be it ever so extravagant. . .

...

I never think of the measures necessary for the peace and good order of the colonies without pain. There must be an abridgment of what are called English liberties. I relieve myself by considering that in a remove from the state of nature to the most perfect state of government there must be a great restraint of natural liberty. I doubt whether it is possible to project a system of government in which a colony 3000 miles distant from the parent state shall enjoy all the liberty of the parent state. I am certain I have never yet seen the projection. I wish the good of the colony when I wish to see some further restraint of liberty rather than the connexion with the parent state should be broken; for I am sure such a breach must prove the ruin of the colony.

We may add to these opinions of the royal governors a brief extract from an address of a popularly elected governor, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, entitled "The Rights of Colonies Examined" (1764). Hopkins, who later was an influential member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was an ardent advocate of American equality with Great Britain. After showing how "colonies in general, both

ancient and modern, have always enjoyed as much freedom as the mother state from which they went out," Hopkins continues :

From what hath been shown, it will appear beyond a doubt, that the British subjects in America, have equal rights with those in Britain; that they do not hold those rights as a privilege granted them, nor enjoy them as a grace and favor bestowed; but possess them as an inherent indefeasible right; as they, and their ancestors, were free-born subjects, justly and naturally entitled to all the rights and advantages of the British constitution.

And the British legislative and executive powers have considered the colonies as possessed of these rights, and have always heretofore, in the most tender and parental manner, treated them as their dependent, though free, condition required. The protection promised on the part of the crown, with cheerfulness and great gratitude we acknowledge, hath at all times been given to the colonies. The dependence of the colonies to [on] Great Britain, hath been fully testified by a constant and ready obedience to all the commands of His present Majesty, and his royal predecessors; both men and money having been raised in them at all times when called for, with as much alacrity and in as large proportions as hath been done in Great Britain, the ability of each considered.

It must also be confessed with thankfulness, that the first adventurers and their successors, for one hundred and thirty years, have fully enjoyed all the freedoms and immunities. promised on their first removal from England. But here the scene seems to be unhappily changing.

The British ministry, whether induced by a jealousy of the colonies, by false informations, or by some alteration in the system of political government, we have no information; whatever hath been the motive, this we are sure of, the Parliament in their last session, passed an act, limiting, restricting, and burdening the trade of these colonies, much more than had ever been done before; as also for greatly enlarging the power and jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty in the colonies; and also came to a resolution, that it might be necessary to establish stamp

duties, and other internal taxes, to be collected within them.1 This act and this resolution, have caused great uneasiness and consternation among the British subjects on the continent of America. . . .

These resolutions, carried into execution, the colonies cannot but help consider as a manifest violation of their just and long enjoyed rights. For it must be confessed by all men, that they who are taxed at pleasure by others, cannot possibly have any property, can have nothing to be called their own. They who have no property, can have no freedom, but are indeed reduced to the most abject slavery. . . .

If we are told that those who lay these taxes upon the colonies, are men of the highest character for their wisdom, justice, and integrity, and therefore cannot be supposed to deal hardly, unjustly or unequally by any . . . it will make no alteration in the nature of the case; for one who is bound to obey the will of another, is as really a slave, though he may have a good master, as if he had a bad one. . . . And although they may have a very good master at one time, they may have a very bad one at another. And, indeed, if the people in America are to be taxed by the representatives of the people in Britain, their malady is an increasing evil, that must always grow greater by time....

But it will be said, that the monies drawn from the colonies by duties, and by taxes, will be laid up and set apart to be used for their future defence. This will not at all alleviate the hardship, but serves only more strongly to mark the servile state of the people. Free people have ever thought, and always will think, that the money necessary for their defence, lies safest in their own hands. . . .

We are not insensible, that when liberty is in danger, the liberty of complaining is dangerous; yet a man on a wreck was never denied the liberty of roaring as loud as he could, says Dean Swift. And we believe no good reason can be given, why the colonies should not modestly and soberly inquire, what right the Parliament of Great Britain have to tax them.

1 These acts are published in Macdonald, Select Charters . . . 16061775, PP. 272-305.

31. The

truth about

the Stamp

Act

[113]

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

Thirteen years after the passage of the Stamp Act, Benjamin Franklin, Commissioner of the United States at Paris, wrote the following letter to a friend, to clear away any misapprehension as to Grenville's motive in the proposal of that momentous measure. The letter was written about a month after Franklin, with his associates Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had brought to a successful close his negotiations for a treaty of alliance between France and the United States.

Dear Sir:

Passy, March 12, 1778

In the pamphlets you were so kind as to lend me, there is one important fact misstated, apparently from the writer's not having been furnished with good information. It is the transaction between Mr. Grenville and the colonies, wherein he understands that Mr. Grenville demanded of them a specific sum, that they refused to grant anything, and that it was on their refusal only that he made the motion for the Stamp Act. No one of these particulars was true. The fact was this:

Some time in the winter of 1763-4 Mr. Grenville called together the agents of the several colonies, and told them that he purposed to draw a revenue from America; and to that end his intention was to levy a stamp duty on the colonies by act of Parliament in the ensuing session, of which he thought it fit that they should be immediately acquainted, that they might have time to consider; and if any other duty equally productive would be more agreeable to them, they might let him know it. The agents were therefore directed to write this to their respective Assemblies, and communicate to him the answers they should receive; the agents wrote accordingly.

I was a member in the Assembly of Pennsylvania when this notification came to hand. The observations there made upon it were, that the ancient, established, and regular method of drawing aid from the colonies was this: The occasion was