But the privileges of an American scorn the limits of place; they are part of himself, and cannot be loft by departure from his country; they float in the air, or glide under the ocean.

DORIS amara fuam non intermisceat undam.

A planter, wherever he fettles, is not only a freeman, but a legiflator, ubi imperator, ibi Roma. As the English Colonists are not represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclufive power of legislation in their feveral legislatures, in all cafes of taxation and internal polity, fubject only to the negative of the fovereign, in fuch manner as has been heretofore ufed and accustomed. We cheerfully confent to the operation of fuch acts of the British parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce-excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the fubjects of America without their confent.

Their reafon for this claim is, That the foundation of English liberty, and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council.

They inherit, they fay, from their ancestors, the right which their ancestors poffeffed, of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen. That they inherit the right of their ancestors is allowed; but they can inherit no more. Their ancestors left a country where the reprefentatives of the people were elected by men particularly qualified, and where thofe who wanted qualifications, or who did not use them, were bound by the decifions of men, whom they had not deputed.

VOL. VIII.

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The Colonists are the defcendants of men, who either had no vote in elections, or who voluntarily refigned them for fomething, in their opinion, of more estimation; they have therefore exactly what their ancestors left them, not a vote in making laws, or in conftituting legiflators, but the happiness of being protected by law, and the duty of obeying it.

What their ancestors did not carry with them, neither they nor their defcendants have fince acquired. They have not, by abandoning their part in one legiflature, obtained the power of conftituting another, exclufive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate parliament for themselves.

Men are wrong for want of fenfe, but they are wrong by halves for want of fpirit. Since the Ameri cans have discovered that they can make a parliament, whence comes it that they do not think themfelves equally empowered to make a king? If they are fubjects, whofe government is conftituted by a charter, they can form no body of independent legiflature. If their rights are inherent and underived, they may by their own fuffrages encircle with a diadem the brows of Mr. Cushing.

It is farther declared by the Congrefs of Philadelphia, That his Majesty's Colonies are entitled to all the privileges and immunities granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or fecured to them by their several codes of provincial laws.

The first clause of this refolution is easily understood, and will be readily admitted. To all the

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privileges which a charter can convey, they are by a royal charter evidently entitled. The fecond claufe is of greater difficulty; for how can a provincial law fecure privileges or immunities to a province? Provincial laws may grant to certain individuals of the province the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a conceit of the other hemifphere, that men have a right to all which they have given to themselves.

A corporation is confidered in law as an individual, and can no more extend its own immunities, than a man can by his own choice affume dignities or titles.

The legislature of a Colony, let not the comparifon be too much difdained, is only the veftry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the general law, and whatever may be its internal expences, is ftill liable to taxes laid by fuperior authority.

The charters given to different provinces are different, and no general right can be extracted from them. The charter of Pennfylvania, where this Congrefs of anarchy has been impudently held, contains a claufe admitting in exprefs terms taxation by the parliament. If in the other charters no fuch reserve is made, it must have been omitted as not neceffary, because it is implied in the nature of fubordinate

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fubordinate government. They who are fubject to laws, are liable to taxes. If any fuch immunity had been granted, it is ftill revocable by the legiflature, and ought to be revoked, as contrary to the publick good, which is in every charter ultimately intended.

Suppose it true, that any fuch exemption is contained in the charter of Maryland, it can be pleaded only by the Marylanders. It is of no use for any other province; and with regard even to them, must have been confidered as one of the grants in which the king has been deceived, and annulled as mifchievous to the Publick, by facrificing to one little fettlement the general intereft of the empire; as infringing the fyftem of dominion, and violating the compact of government. But Dr. Tucker has fhewn, that even this charter promifes no exemption from parliamentary taxes.

In the controverfy agitated about the beginning of this century, whether the English laws could bind Ireland, Davenant, who defended against Molyneux the claims of England, confidered it as neceffary to prove nothing more, than that the prefent Irish muft be deemed a Colony.

The neceffary connexion of representatives with taxes, feems to have funk deep into many of thofe minds, that admit founds without their meaning.

Our nation is reprefented in parliament by an affembly as numerous as can well confift with order and dispatch, chofen by perfons fo differently qualified in different places, that the mode of choice feems to be, for the most part, formed by chance, and fettled by cuftom.

custom. Of individuals far the greater part have no vote, and of the voters few have any perfonal knowledge of him to whom they intrust their liberty and fortune.

Yet this representation has the whole effect expected or defired; that of fpreading fo wide the care of general interest, and the participation of publick counfels, that the advantage or corruption of particular men can feldom operate with much injury to the Publick,

For this reafon many populous and opulent towns neither enjoy nor defire particular reprefentatives; they are included in the general scheme of publick administration, and cannot fuffer but with the rest of the empire.

It is urged that the Americans have not the fame fecurity, and that a British legiflator may wanton with their property; yet if it be true, that their wealth is our wealth, and that their ruin will be our ruin, the parliament has the fame intereft in attending to them, as to any other part of the nation. The reason why we place any confidence in our reprefentatives is, that they must share in the good or evil which their counfels shall produce. Their fhare is indeed commonly confequential and remote; but it is not often poffible that any immediate advantage can be extended to fuch numbers as may prevail againft it. We are therefore as fecure against intentional depravations of go, vernment as human wisdom can make us, and upon this fecurity the Americans may venture to repofe.

It is faid by the Old Member who has written an Appeal against the tax, that as the produce of American labour is spent in British manufactures, the balance

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