your readers if you give them the following short historical state of facts.

From the time that the colonies were first considered as capable of granting aids to the crown, down to the end of the last war, it is said that the constant mode of obtaining those aids was by requisition made from the crown, through its governors, to the several Assemblies, in circular letters from the Secretary of State, in his Majesty's name, setting forth the occasion, requiring them to take the matter into consideration, and expressing a reliance on their prudence, duty, and affection to his Majesty's government, that they would grant such sums, or raise such numbers of men, as were suitable to their respective circumstances.

The colonies, being accustomed to this method, have from time to time granted money to the crown, or raised troops for its service, in proportion to their abilities; and during all the last war beyond their abilities, so that considerable sums were returned them yearly by Parliament, as they had exceeded their proportion.

Had this happy method of requisition been continued (a method that left the King's subjects in those remote countries the pleasure of showing their zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recommended themselves to their sovereign by the liberality of their voluntary grants), there is no doubt but all the money that could reasonably be expected to be raised from them in any manner might have been obtained without the least heart-burning, offence, or breach of the harmony of affections and interests that so long subsisted between the two countries.

It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising sovereignty over different kinds of people, to have some regard to prevailing and established opinions among the people to be governed, wherever such opinions might, in their effects, obstruct or promote public measures. If they tend to obstruct public service they are to be changed, if possible, before we attempt to act against them; and they can be changed only by reason and persuasion. But, if public business can be carried on without thwarting those opinions, if they can be, on the contrary, made subservient to it, they are not unnecessarily to be thwarted, however absurd such popular opinions may be in their

nature.

This had been the wisdom of our government with respect to raising money in the colonies. It was well known that the colonists universally were of opinion that no money could be levied from English subjects but by their own consent, given by themselves or their chosen representatives; that, therefore, whatever money was to be raised from the people in the colonies must first be granted by their Assemblies, as the money raised in Britain is first to be granted by the House of Commons; that this right of granting their own money was essential to English liberty; and that, if any man, or body of men,

in which they had no representative of their choosing, could tax them at pleasure, they could not be said to have any property, anything they could call their own. But, as these opinions did not hinder their granting money voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown by its servants came into their Assemblies (as it does into its Parliaments of Britain and Ireland), and demanded aids, therefore that method was chosen, rather than the hateful one of arbitrary taxes.

I do not undertake here to support these opinions of the Americans; they have been refuted by a late act of Parliament, declaring its own power; which very Parliament, however, showed wisely so much tender regard to those inveterate prejudices as to repeal a tax that had militated against them. And those prejudices are still so fixed and rooted in the Americans, that it has been supposed not a single man among them has been convinced of his error, even by that act of Parliament.

The person, then, who first projected to lay aside the accustomed method of requisition, and to raise money in America by stamps, seems not to have acted wisely in deviating from that method (which the colonists looked upon as constitutional), and thwarting unnecessarily the fixed prejudices of so great a number of the King's subjects. It was not, however, for want of knowledge that what he was about to do would give them offence; he appears to have been very sensible of this, and apprehensive that it might occasion some disorders; to prevent or suppress which he projected another bill, that was brought in the same session with the Stamp Act, whereby it was to be made lawful for military officers in the colonies to quarter their soldiers in private

houses.

This seemed intended to awe the people into a compliance with the other act. Great opposition, however, being raised here against the bill by the agents from the colonies and the merchants trading hither, (the colonists declaring, that, under such a power in the army no one could look on his house as his own, or think he had a home. when soldiers might be thrust into it and mixed with his family at the pleasure of an officer), that part of the bill was dropped; but there still remained a clause, when it passed into a law, to oblige the several Assemblies to provide quarters for the soldiers, furnishing them with firing, bedding, candles, small beer or rum, and sundry other articles, at the expense of the several provinces. And this act continued in force when the Stamp Act was repealed; though, if obligatory on the Assemblies, it equally militated against the American principle above mentioned, that money is not to be raised on English subjects without their consent.

The colonies nevertheless, being put into high good-humor by the repeal of the Stamp Act chose to avoid a fresh dispute upon the other, it being temporary and soon to expire, never, as they hoped, to revive again, and in the meantime they, by various ways in

different colonies, provided for the quartering of the troops; either by acts of their own Assemblies, without taking notice of the act of Parliament, or by some variety or small diminution, as of salt and vinegar, in the supplies required by the act; that what they did might appear a voluntary act of their own, and not done in due obedience to an act of Parliament, which, according to their ideas of their rights, they thought hard to obey.

It might have been well if the matter had then passed without notice; but, a governor having written home an angry and aggravating letter upon this conduct in the Assembly of his province, the outed proposer of the Stamp Act and his adherents, then in the opposition, raised such a clamor against America as being in rebellion, and against those who had been for the repeal of the Stamp Act as having thereby been encouragers of this supposed rebellion, that it was thought necessary to enforce the quartering act by another act of Parliament, taking away from the province of New York, which had been the most explicit in its refusal, ail the powers of legislation, till it should have complied with that act. The news of which greatly alarmed the people everywhere in America, as (it had been said) the language of such an act seemed to them to be: Obey implicitly laws made by the Parliament of Great Britain to raise money on you without your consent, or you shall enjoy no rights or privileges at all.

At the same time a person lately in high office projected the levying more money from America, by new duties on various articles of our own manufacture, as glass, paper, painters' colors, etc., appointing a new Board of Customs, and sending over a set of commissioners, with large salaries, to be established at Boston, who were to have the care of collecting those duties, which were by the act expressly mentioned to be intended for the payment of the salaries of governors, judges, and other officers of the Crown in America, it being a pretty general opinion here that those officers ought not to depend on the people there for any part of their support.

It is not my intention to combat this opinion. But perhaps it may be some satisfaction to your readers to know what ideas the Americans have on the subject. They say then, as to governors, that they are not like princes, whose posterity have an inheritance in the government of the nation and therefore an interest in its prosperity. They are generally strangers to the provinces they are sent to govern They have no estate, natural connection, or relation there to give them an affection for the country; that they come only to make money as fast as they can; are sometimes men of vicious character and broken fortunes, sent by a minister merely to get them out of the way; that as they intend staying in the country no longer than their government continues, and purpose to leave no family behind them, they are apt to be regardless of the good will of the people, and care not what is said or thought of them after they are gone.

Their situation, at the same time, gives them many opportunities of being vexatious, and they are often so, notwithstanding their dependence on the Assemblies for all that part of their support that does not arise from fees established by law, but would probably be much more so if they were to be supported by money drawn from the people without their consent 'or good will, which is the professed design of the new act. That if by means of these forced duties government is to be supported in America without the intervention of the Assemblies, their Assemblies will soon be looked upon as useless, and a governor will not call them, as having nothing to hope from their meeting and perhaps something to fear from their inquiries into and remonstrances against his maladministration. That thus the people will be deprived of their most essential rights. That it being, as at present, a governor's interest to cultivate the good will by promoting the welfare of the people he governs, can be attended with no prejudice to the mother country, since all the laws he may be prevailed on to give his assent to are subject to revision here, and if reported against by the Board of Trade are immediately repealed by the Crown; nor dare he pass any law contrary to his instructions, as he holds his office during the pleasure of the Crown, and his securities are liable for the penalties of their bonds if he contravenes those instructions. This is what they say as to governors.

As to judges, they allege that, being appointed from this country, and holding their commissions not during good behavior, as in Britain, but during pleasure, all the weight of interest or influence would be thrown into one of the scales (which ought to be held even), if the salaries are also to be paid out of duties raised upon the people without their consent, and independent of their Assemblies' approbation or disapprobation of the judge's behavior. That it is true judges should be free from all influence; and, therefore, whenever government here will grant commissions to able and honest judges during good behavior, the Assemblies will settle permanent and ample salaries on them during their commissions; but at present they have no other means of getting rid of an ignorant or unjust judge (and some of scandalous characters have, they say, been sometimes sent them) left but by starving them out.

I do not suppose these reasonings of theirs will appear here to have much weight I do not produce them with an expectation of convincing your readers. I relate them merely in pursuance of the task I have imposed on myself—to be an impartial historian of American facts and opinions

The colonists being thus greatly alarmed, as I said before, by the news of the act for abolishing the Legislature of New York and the imposition of these new duties, professedly for such disagreeable purposes (accompanied by a new set of revenue officers with large appointments, which gave strong suspicions that more business of the

same kind was soon to be provided for them, that they might earn their salaries), began seriously to consider their situation, and to revolve afresh in their minds grievances which from their respect and love for this country they had long borne, and seemed almost willing to forget. They reflected how lightly the interest of all America had been estimated here, when the interests of a few of the inhabitants of Great Britain happened to have the smallest competition with it. That the whole American people was forbidden the advantage of a direct importation of wine, oil and fruit from Portugal, but must take them loaded with all the expense of a voyage one thousand leagues round about, being to be landed first in England, to be reshipped for America, expenses amounting, in war time at least, to thirty pounds per cent more than otherwise they would have been charged with; and all this merely that a few Portugal merchants in London may gain a commission on those goods passing through their hands (Portugal merchants, by the by, that can complain loudly of the smallest hardships laid on their trade by foreigners, and yet even in the last year could oppose with all their influence the giving ease to their fellowsubjects laboring under so heavy an oppression!) That on a slight complaint of a few Virginia merchants nine colonies had been restrained from making paper money, become absolutely necessary to their internal commerce, from the constant remittance of their gold and silver to Britain.

But not only the interest of a particular body of merchants, but the interest of any small body of British tradesmen or artificers, has been found, they say, to outweigh that of all the King's subjects in the Colonies. There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands, provided he does not thereby hurt the State in general. Iron is to be found everywhere in America, and the beaver furs are the natural produce of that country. Hats and nails and steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare of the empire whether a subject of the King's obtains his living by making hats on this or that side of the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favor, restraining that manufacture in America, in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and purchase back the hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation.

In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and a still smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there are not a half a dozen of these in England), prevailed totally to forbid by an act of Parliament the erecting of slitting-mills, or steel furnaces, in America; that the Americans may be obliged to take all their nails for their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these artificers, under the same disadvantages.

Added to these, the Americans remembered the act authorizing the most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered to one people by