The Petition to the House of Lords against the Massachusetts
Government and Administration of Justice Bills
Summary of DS: House of Lords Library
[Before May 11, 1774]
<The petitioners, native Americans, complain of two bills
which, if enacted, will be fatal to the rights, liberties, and peace
of all America. Legislation has already been passed that violates the
law and the first principles of justice. Now a bill is brought in,
ostensibly for regulating the government of Massachusetts, that will
deprive the province of rights guaranteed it by its charter, which
was a compact between crown and people; no charter has hitherto been
altered without a full and fair hearing, and this unconstitutional
bill threatens every such compact in Britain and the colonies. The
governor’s control of judges, furthermore, gives him power over the
property, liberty, and life of the subject, and establishes a
judicial tyranny of which Britain had rid itself. The bill that
purports to secure a more impartial administration of justice
empowers the governor to exempt soldiers from prosecution within the
colony for murder, and therefore from control by the civil power, at
a time when the troops have been taught that the populace deserves
insult and abuse, which no free people can long endure. The result
will be outrages and civil commotion. The charge that Americans are
disaffected and rebellious is wholly undeserved. For a century they
have shared the glory and prosperity of England and the expense of
every war, and have stretched themselves to the limit to provide
support. Recent disturbances, in a people hitherto so loyal, have
demonstrated a general sense of oppression. Although the mother
country restrains trade and manufacture, property acquired under
those restraints has hitherto been secure; now it is at the disposal
of a legislature in which the colonists have no voice or influence or
champion, and for them this is slavery. Their right of consent in
parting with their property is the last bulwark of liberty, and for
support of their position they appeal to British statutes, to all
authorities on the constitution, and to long practice in Ireland and
America. These bills reduce Americans to the alternatives of being
totally enslaved, or contesting with a parent state that they have
loved and venerated. The petitioners conjure the House not to pass
legislation that will inflame the colonists’ passions, flout the
principles of liberty that they have inherited from England, and
“drive them to the last Resources of Despair.”>
Stepn Sayre |
John F: Grimké |
Edm: Jenings |
William Lee |
Jacob Read |
Edwd. Bancroft |
Arthur Lee |
Thos Ruston |
John Alleyne |
B Franklin |
Phi: Neyle |
Thos Bromfield |
Ralph Izard |
Ed: Fenwick Sr. |
John Boylston |
William Hasell Gibbes |
Edw: Fenwick Junr. |
J: Williams |
William Blake |
John Perroneaux |
John Ellis |
Isaac Motte |
Wm. Middleton |
Jos Johnson |
Henry Laurens |
William Middleton |
D. Bowly |
Thomas Pinckney |
Junr |
Willm: Heyward |
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