The dispute with the colonies has gone beyond the point where charters and statutes are the relevant issues; the question now is what policy ought to underlie legislation. Although we live in a scientific age, “where our interest is concerned, we meet with such a narrowness both of thinking and acting upon every occasion, as is far from distinguishing us from the most barbarous period of antiquity. ...” Otherwise Britain would behave quite differently, and her colonies would be “more obliging and dutiful.”

This essay will pursue three lines of inquiry: Should the colonies have the same political advantages and privileges as the mother country? Does the British constitution make this possible? If it does not, should it be changed?

We are inclined to view colonies as existing for our wealth and aggrandisement, but this view is mistaken. The existence of an empire increases the power of the whole, not of one part at the expense of others. If the parts are governed, “from no reasonable, or...from the most unjust motives, with a partiality,...divisions and murmurings,if not actual rebellions, are evidently unavoidable.” The larger such an empire is, the weaker it is.

Hence all parts demand equal attention, or, if anything, the most distant demand the most. Abuses creep into all government, and flourish best in the remote provinces, which are always first to revolt against ill usage.

It is “wholly the effect of the illiberal notions, and partial views of government,...that the trade and manufactures of different provinces are laid under the restraints we often see them. And, in short, from the same unhappy source, spring most of the inequitable laws and inhibitions, to which colonies and the more remote parts of an empire are frequently subjected.” Sound policy dictates the minimum of regulation; trade and commerce should be permitted to thrive wherever they can most advantageously. Britain rejects this argument, and commits “the folly and injustice of not treating all the parts and provinces of an empire, with the exactest impartiality.”

Does the British constitution permit impartiality? Among classical empires Rome was the most liberal, but the inhabitants of its provinces did not and could not enjoy all the privileges of Roman citizenship; if they had the state would have been reduced to anarchy. “Supreme power must not, cannot reside equally every where throughout an empire.” This is true despite the fact that authority in a free state derives from and resides in the people.

The laws by which they are governed derive from them through their representatives, and are as binding upon the executive as upon them. A free government extends throughout the whole empire, but out of its many parts “one only supreme assembly of representatives, for making laws, can regularly be formed.” If there are many assemblies, one is supreme and the powers of the rest abridged; otherwise there would be “many different governments perfectly independent of one another.” These truths are self-evident.

  Because Britain has “exactly the kind of government I have been here speaking of,” the American assemblies cannot have an authority equal to that of Parliament “without actually dismembering the British empire”; for government implies subordination as well as union. All its constituent parts, however, have a right to participate in regulating the affairs of the whole.

Hence,although the British Parliament may legislate for Britain, “it cannot with the same propriety exercise the like power with respect to America, while those parts of our dominions are not fairly represented in it.” Neither can the colonies legislate independently without “declaring themselves independent states”; their legislation must be subject to amendment or reversal by “the parliament of Great Britain.”While their power is thus limited by an authority in which they have no part, however, they are not a free people. They are subject to regulation outside their control, “which is the very definition of slavery”; their rights and liberties therefore remain precarious.

The freer a constitution is in its nature, the less widely it applies. “Where divers remote and distant countries are united under one government, an equal and fair representation becomes almost impracticable, or, at best, extremely inconvenient.”

The difficulty is compounded when the parts of a state are divided by the ocean. Convening a parliament from provinces widely separated by land would be much more feasible than convening one from Britain and America. Yet such an Anglo-American parliament is the only way to make government equal for all: our system requires general and impartial representation, and America has none. This fact reveals “the stubbornness and inflexibility...of the genius of our constitution,” which in itself is the best in the world. The next question is whether, if the nature of the constitution precludes giving the Americans their full privileges as Englishmen, “they should not be allowed such a form of government, as will best secure them their just rights and natural liberties?”

This question may strike many as absurd. “Yet I cannot help thinking it much more absurd, to hold that the British parliament, as it now stands, hath an undeniable right to make laws for North-America.” Few of us openly assert that it is just “for one half of a kingdom, to hold the other half in chains,” and those who do would change their tune if the situation were reversed; “justice requires that we should do by others, as we would...be done by ourselves.” Is it not folly to condemn the Stuarts for governing without Parliament, when most of us would govern America on equally unjustifiable principles?

The question should be how high we can raise the colonies without making them independent and thereby abrogating “our rights of sovereignty over them.” This is at once the liberal and the politic approach, “for the most lasting empires are always founded in principles the most agreeable to justice.” A thoughtful man would never wish, even if it were possible, “to make slaves of the Americans”; for they would then be dangerous to Britain. “A people...in whom the love of liberty as well as all sense of the just value of it, was extinguished, would certainly be the most proper instruments to reduce others to the like condition.” Although in some things we are wildly apprehensive of our liberty, in the altercation with the colonies our apprehension is dormant, and that is the measure of our folly.

The true basis of the Americans’ grievance is wider than their complaints indicate. The right of taxation touches on two of “the three principal objects of government,” which are securing the citizen’s person, property, and religion: disposing of his property without his consent threatens his person with starvation. “Hence then it appears what alarming consequences a right of imposing taxes involves in it. Can it therefore surprise any one that the colonies should be jealous of this right? or rather would it not be much more surprising, were they not jealous of it?

“However, a right of legislation in general over them, they certainly may with equal justice and propriety dispute, so long as they continue unrepresented in our parliament, or some other way are not admitted to a due share of power, in making those laws to which they are subject.” At present they complain only of taxation, and to this point I shall confine myself. If it can be settled, other arguments about legislation will doubtless prove negotiable.

 “That England has an undeniable right to consider America as part of her dominions, is a fact, I presume, which can never be questioned.” Few empires can produce as good a claim to their provinces as England to hers. It was England, in some sense, which at first gave them being...and ever since has defended them with her arms, and governed them with her laws. It is therefore but just and equitable that they should, in return, contribute a reasonable proportion for the support of that government, by which they are protected. This they have not as yet had the effrontery openly to deny.”

The question at issue is how they should contribute. Four ways are possible. One is by requisition from the King in council “of a certain sum by them fixed, to be raised in each province, in such manner as their own assemblies shall think fit.” The second is a similar requisition from Parliament and raised in the same way. The third is taxation by Parliament as it is now constituted. The fourth is taxation by a Parliament in which the Americans are represented.

 The first of these ways, “however acquiesced in on the part of the colonies,” is the most exceptionable, because it enables the ministry to set the amount. If such a requisition “is to be indispensibly complied with,” the Americans will be subject to ministerial government and therefore to ministerial tyranny. Yet it is obvious that the requisition, if made, “should without reserve be complied with,” for otherwise the Americans will have discretionary power and “the sovereignty of England” will be nominal: if they are free to decide how much to raise as well as how to raise it, “It is scarcely to be doubted but their allowance will be found extremely short.” “They may, upon this footing, absolutely refuse to pay any taxes at all.” If so, England would be better advised to break connection with them than to continue her protection of them at her own expense.

The second method, a requisition by Parliament, is preferable because “in so large a body of men, both justice and the true interest of the empire are more likely to be duly regarded”; Americans may therefore “reasonably expect the burden will be more equitably laid upon them.” Proceedings in Parliament are less rapid than in the Privy Council, so that if need be the Americans “will have more time to petition or make remonstrances. For this privilege, the least which a subject can enjoy, is not to be denied them, however an ultimate compliance may be insisted on as indispensable.” The Americans’ financial position, furthermore, will probably be better understood in Parliament than in the ministry and “their petitions and remonstrances more solemnly can-vassed.”

The impropriety of the third method, taxation by Parliament as presently constituted, has been demonstrated by the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Americans argued that the act was an unlawful exercise of authority; the justice of this argument the legislature, by repealing the act, “notwithstanding all their declarations and resolutions to the contrary, seem tacitly to have acknowledged.”

The question with me touches the rights of mankind, one of which is to the greatest degree of liberty that government can secure. No people is free when it is without a voice in making its laws, and to say that the Americans have any such voice in Parliament is irrational. Those who insist on “our right of legislation over them” have a point; the right is essential. “But...this perhaps may be otherwise effected, than at the expence of the just birth-right of our fellow-creatures; yet were it only to be accomplished by such a violation, I am perfectly at a loss how to demonstrate the equity of such a procedure, unless it can be fully proved that the safety of the state can be secured by no other means. For nothing less can justify it.” But we are not yet at the extreme of securing “our sovereignty over them” at the expense of their natural rights. “To claim and exercise an authority we have naturally no right to, is an action in itself as wrong as any, I think, that we can put in supposition. ... Our right of legislation over the Americans, unrepresented as they are, is the point in question. This right is asserted by most, doubted of by some, and wholly disclaimed by a few. But to put the matter in a stronger light, the question, I think, should be, Whether we have a general right of making slaves, or not?”

Imperfect governments administer justice and preserve order, or there would be little of either in the world. Parliament may be as equable and tender toward the colonies as their own assemblies are; this is “possible, although perhaps not very probable,” if only because our distance from them makes us poor judges of their grievances and what they can afford in taxes.

An empire will not necessarily dissolve when “some parts thereof are possessed of a power, by no means consistent with that unity of government I have been speaking of. Nay it is possible that such a power may never be found productive of any great inconvenience.” The Irish parliament, for instance, may throw out money bills: here “is a great defect in point of theory; and yet the incon-veniences arising therefrom, in practice, have been hitherto by no means considerable.... The truth of the matter is, it is not so much the best form of government, as the most exact and regular administration of justice, that most effectually fastens together the different parts of an empire, whereon the stability and duration of it must ever necessarily depend.” The people abuse such power as they have only after they receive “very heavy provocations to enrage them, from the excesses of their governors.” We should not think ill of the Americans for considering our mode of taxation provocative.

 I wish that the “fourth and last” method of taxation were as feasible as it is just. “To the equity of this measure the Americans themselves, I presume, could have nothing fairly to object.” Apportioning members among them would be a transient difficulty; a more lasting one would be the distance involved, particularly when a new Parliament is to be elected. If Parliaments were annual, as they should be, the difficulty would be heightened, and could scarcely be overcome when only a few weeks elapse between the dissolution and the election. Another problem would be contested elections, which would have to be decided on a different basis in America and in England. But removing these difficulties is not my purpose, because “it is not...probable, that an American representation will ever be convened in England.” Other and greater difficulties stand in the way: If the Americans wanted Parliament to intervene in a particular colonial affair, distance would preclude action; if they wanted the benefit of private Parliamentary acts, the expense of time and money would preclude it, yet they might often have to apply for such acts. There would be many other matters, such as the cost of highways, rivers, and canals, where Parliament would have to be consulted but the colonists would bear the charges. How could witnesses be brought across the ocean? The Americans have a right to representation if they want it; but it is a last resort, and cannot be realized “without immense trouble.”

All four methods of raising money are full of difficulties; what then should be done? This is as important a question as the British government has ever faced. “If they should be divided in their sentiments upon it, and uncertain what measures to adopt and follow, it cannot be matter of just wonder or censure.”

The best guide to policy is the disposition of those we deal with, but “the truest policy...is ever founded in the soundest morality.” The Americans, if unrepresented in Parliament, have a right to any other form of government that is consistent with “the sovereignty of England over them.” England has only the right to have them “continue in subjection to her, and form a part of her dominions....The one I think she has a right to command; and the other they have a right to claim.” Any concessions she makes are by favor; if the Americans gained the same taxing power as the Irish, for instance, “it should be deemed only as matter of grace, to be resumed at pleasure. And custom, of however long a standing, can never convert it into matter of undeniable claim.” If, on the other hand, the Americans agreed to be taxed by the present British Parliament, they could not equitably be held to that agreement; for they would not thereby lose their right to be represented in the House of Commons.

These are the limits of right and equity on both sides. “To be placed upon a level with the rest of the subjects of the British crown, is the utmost the colonies can challenge.” To refuse them this, on any ground except an immediate danger to England, would be dishonesty. We may not abridge the liberty of a country “merely because we cannot otherwise maintain our sovereignty over it, unless our safety were actually at stake, and absolutely required it.”

The case may be altered when the country in question has been founded “at our own expence.” The first settlers presumably “well knew...they were still to continue the subjects of the same government.” Although their charters were less explicit than they should have been, the Americans “knew they were not to be independant.” Any powers the charters seemed to give them that were inconsistent with British sovereignty might be removed; “no government can be supposed to alienate prerogatives necessary to its safe existence.” By the same token we in turn should remove any unnecessary limitations on colonial liberties.

 But “a right of sovereignty in this case, we may undeniably claim and vindicate: and though we may safely grant them absolute independency, yet whatever generosity might suggest, justice does not seem to require it....

“Now, our title and pretensions to all our American provinces are of that sort that seem fairly to justify our asserting and preserving our sovereignty over them, although at the expence of some portion of their natural prerogatives.” The colonies partly consist of our own plantations, and partly of the conquests we have made from France. In both cases we have the right to keep them on a footing that will support our government. If we declared them independent they would fall to France, help to give her mastery of the seas, and endanger the liberties of Europe; our existence as a free people, therefore, depends on retaining the colonies. So does their existence as a free people. “They are now treated as children; their complaints are heard, and grievances redressed; but then they would be treated rather as slaves, having the swords of their masters perpetually held at their throats, if they should presume to offer half the indignities to the officers of the French crown, which they have often, with impunity, done to those of the British.”

At present they enjoy the full benefit of English citizenship, and have their own assemblies to redress their grievances. The power of these assemblies is little inferior to that of Parliament, and threatens to equal it. In that case “what marks of sovereignty will they allow us to enjoy? What sort of claim will they indulge us with? Only, I suppose, a mere titular one.” Then why should we continue to defend them, or do they expect to defend themselves? “This they certainly at present are not able to do, if they were not sheltered by the wings of Great Britain.”

We only ask them to contribute within reason to their own defense. They may say they are willing to do so, if it is on their own initiative; and this is the alternative to their receiving Parliamentary representation. If they do receive it, the number of their members should be “properly limited,” as Scottish members were in the Act of Union.

 Americans and Englishmen must contribute their due proportions to the support of government. But it is almost impossible to estimate, for the colonies, “what expense their protection stands in to Great Britain. Besides, we can certainly afford to protect them at less expence than they could afford to protect themselves, were they either so many independent states, or only one general community.” For the forces we must keep in being for our own protection will largely guard them as well. Such addition as we must make for them they ought to pay for. If they remonstrate that this additional strength, and the cost of maintaining it, can be safely reduced, this is little to the purpose. Although their remonstrances “should be candidly heard, and duly regarded,” England must remain the judge; if they dictate to her, “it is no longer England, but her colonies, that govern.” The Americans are also chargeable with part of the civil list, but how this is managed is not my business to inquire. “The pomp of government” always requires such expenses, and they are considerable. It is only fair that the colonies should bear their share, and I see no reason why they should complain at being obliged to do so.

An Englishman pays heavier taxes than an American can. But if one contributes a day’s pay a week, the other might afford a day’s pay a fortnight. Americans have great expenses of converting a wilderness into habitable land; but the cost varies in different parts of the colonies, and some parts are as well off as the mother country. We should not be over-rigorous, nevertheless, in taxing the colonies, for we thereby depress them and discourage improvement. In a northern province of Denmark, it is said, the lands were so heavily taxed that the peasants petitioned the King to take their farms into his own hands; this he did not want to do, knowing that they would be useless to him unless cultivated. Excessive taxation may have the same effect in any country.

Whether the Stamp Act would have been that kind of taxation I cannot say. The English may be considered incompetent judges, but the Americans are equally so because the matter so closely concerns their own interests. “Yet it must be granted, that they know best the state of their finances, and what taxes they can afford to pay.” The difference in the value of their money suggests that the troops there might be paid less, but this would be imprudent even if it were limited to the provincials.

Whatever lenience the colonies may deserve from England, “it is very certain that England is entitled to a great deal of gratitude from her colonies.” They must realize that without British help they would have been swallowed up by the French. “That the late war was chiefly kindled, and carried on upon their account, can scarcely be denied,” and Britain’s loss of money and lives was heavy. She admittedly furthered her own interests thereby, but the Americans endorsed those interests by joining with her; why do they now jeopardize them by trying, it seems, to shake off sovereignty? If they succeed, our peace and safety will become more precarious then ever, and they will immediately become dependent upon France.

Even if they could be actually independent, we do not know whose friends they would become or what factors, if any, might dispose them toward us rather than toward the French. This uncertainty alone is a good reason for us to guard our “sovereignty.”

Whatever benefit Britain derived from the late war, the colonies were the principal gainers. “Now they enjoy a peace and tranquility, which they scarcely ever knew before.” Their chief re-maining danger is from the Indians, whom they themselves have provoked; and the diligence with which our government has defended them from this and every other danger deserves some gratitude. But if their claims are just, wherein are they blameworthy? Not for claiming their rights and liberties, but for their riotous and seditious way of asserting them. England has much to justify her conduct. “She is conscious she has a right of sovereignty over them, which perhaps may not be quite so easy to maintain, when the point in dispute is given up. And this sovereignty she knows to be a matter of the last consequence for her to support.” For the Americans it is of equal consequence: in the recent peace treaty Britain sacrificed every other object to “procuring them a safe establishment.” In return she might expect a dutiful instead of an outrageous demeanor; firmness would have been more becoming for an American, and would have gained him more from Parliament. “It seldom happens that one fares the better for his insolence.”

If the Americans choose to defy us, to gain some points that England might prefer to surrender than contest, it is an imprudent course. For their insolence may increase with our concessions until nothing will content them but independence, and we may be forced into other measures which they will be the first to repent. In an extreme crisis with the colonies “England may yet produce both a ministry and a parliament that would rather share them once more with the French, than totally relinquish her present pretensions, from a very just conviction that such a step would be much more politic than to suffer them to throw themselves wholly into the arms of that nation; and such a measure ... would be abundantly defensible, however awkward it may be found at the first mention.” Though I hope they will never compel us to take that step, if they do they will find themselves involved in the same bloodshed out of which they have recently emerged. This prospect may dispose them to some moderation, which otherwise we cannot expect.

It may be asked what is the limit of their demands, because hitherto they do not seem to have known where to stop. But I return to my underlying premises. The first is that the Americans have as much right as the English to be represented in the legislature that taxes them and passes the laws by which they are governed. The second is that imperial authority must center in one supreme assembly. The third, which follows from the first two, is that the Americans should be represented in Parliament if they so desire. The fourth is that, if the third is not practicable, they should be allowed “such an establishment, in subordination to the sovereignty of England, as should appear most favourable to their rights and liberties.”

The discussion would be greatly furthered if some fixed principles were accepted on all sides. For in the heat of argument “what is granted at one time, is totally disavowed or denied at another.” This seems to be the case, in particular, of the New Englanders.

Whatever opinion I have of their rights is more favorable than my opinion of their conduct, which is “neither consistent nor prudent. If they are willing We should exercise any acts of sovereignty among them at all, the imposition they have so riotously resisted, might...have been allowed better quarter; for it could have occasioned no further hardship than was voluntary, they having it always wholly left to their own choice to buy the commodities so charged, or not.” If they had submitted to this demand, they might never have been sorry. In any case I am convinced that “the resistance they have made to it was absolutely inconsistent with the demeanor usually expected from subjects towards their governors. Less tumultuous proceedings would...have been deemed much more becoming: and our government, I should humbly hope, would have paid full as favourable an attention to their just remonstrances.”

The reciprocal rights and claims of both sides must be defined and adjusted before grievances can be redressed and harmony return. Once the adjustment is made, we may hope that the colonies will no longer complain of encroachment on their liberties, or the mother country “complain of the unequal payment of taxes on the part of the colonies; both being obliged equally to do justice by each other....Nor should any mere custom, nor any charter or law in being, be allowed any great weight in the decision on this point.... The Americans may insist upon the same rights, privileges, and exemptions as are allowed the Irish, because of the similarity, if not identity, of their connections with us.” But the situations of the two are in some respects different, and, if any distinction is to be made between them, “most certainly...the Americans are least entitled to any lenity on that score; and yet...they have been hitherto, by far, the most favoured.”

The terms England may think safe to grant the Irish she may consider “dangerous and imprudent to grant the Americans: for...they may have it much more in their power to create disturbances with impunity; because, long before we could send among them any considerable number of forces, they might do a great deal of mischief, if not actually overturn all order and government.” Hence it would not be convenient to use the same coercive meas-ures against America as against Ireland.

If the Americans “would...contribute their quota of taxes,” I should rather leave their present constitution undisturbed, however imperfect it may be, than try innovations that threaten an open rupture. For when we insist that they support the expense of government, they may justly insist upon enjoying the full benefit of it.

 [The last two pages of the pamphlet are missing.]