Marginalia in a pamphlet by Josiah Tucker
MS notations in the margins of a copy in the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania of [Josiah Tucker], A Letter from a Merchant in
London to His Nephew in North America (London, 1766).
The letter deals with the colonists’ position, discusses the
supposed violation of their charters and other grievances, and
explains the consequences if they attempt to gain independence.
There follows a quotation from 7-8 Wm. III, c. 22, asserting the
supremacy of parliamentary statutes over all colonial usages or
legislation.
This is quoted upon the Supposition that the Point disputed is
indisputable, viz. The Power of Parliament to make Laws binding in
America, and to repeal Laws of the Colonies after they have had the
Royal Assent. This Clause is void in itself, being contrary to the
original Compact contained in the Colony Charters.
“Your Letters gave me formerly no small
Pleasure, because they seem to have proceeded from a good Heart,
guided by an Understanding more enlightened than is usually found
among young Men.” The indignation you express against the frauds,
robberies, and insults that lost us the affections of the Indians
is particularly commendable, for those acts involved us in the
bloodiest and most expensive war ever known and, if repeated, will
drive the savages to seek revenge. You were therefore right in
expressing your detestation of such practices.
This is wickedly intended by the Author (Dean Tucker) to represent
the E[nglish] North Americans as the Cause of the War, Whereas it
was in fact begun by the French, who seized the Goods and Persons
of the English Traders on the Ohio: encroached on the King’s Lands
in Nova Scotia and took a Fort from the Ohio Company by force of
Arms; which induc’d England to make Reprisals at Sea, and to send
Braddock to recover the Fort on the Ohio, whence came on the War.
But recently your tone has changed. Your mind
seems agitated, and your reasoning incoherent and contradictory.
Perhaps you want changes in your government, or perhaps you have
the mistaken notion that we are making changes. Why do you keep
harping on the spirit of the constitution? It does not help your
cause. “Magna Charta, for Example, is...the Basis of the English
Constitution. But, by the Spirit of Magna Charta, all Taxes laid
on by Parliament are constitutional legal Taxes; and
Taxes raised by the Prerogative of the Crown, without the Consent
of Parliament are illegal. Now remember, young Man, That the late
Tax or Duties upon Stamps was laid on by Parliament; and therefore,
according to your own Way of reasoning, must have been a regular,
constitutional, legal Tax. Nay more, the principal End and
Intention of Magna Charta, as far as Taxation is concerned, was to
assert the Authority and Jurisdiction of the three Estates of the
Kingdom, in Opposition to the sole Prerogative of the King: so that
if you will now plead the Spirit of Magna Charta against the
Jurisdiction of Parliament, you will plead Magna Charta against
itself.”
There is no doubt but Taxes laid in Parliament where the Parliament
hath Jurisdiction, are legal Taxes; but doth it follow that Taxes
laid by the Parliament of England on Scotland before the Union, on
Guernsey, Jersey, Ireland, Hanover, or any other Dominions of the
Crown not within the Realm, are therefore legal.
These Writers against the Colonies all bewilder themselves by
supposing the Colonies within the Realm, which is not
the Case, nor ever was. This then is the Spirit of the
Constitution, that Taxes shall not be laid with[out] the Consent of
those to be taxed. The Colonies were not then in being and
therefore nothing relating to them could be literally
express’d. As the Americans are now without the Realm, and
out of the Jurisdiction of Parliament, the Spirit of the
British Constitution dictates, that they should be taxed only by
their own Representatives as the English are by theirs.
These subjects, like changeable silks, have
different colors when seen in different lights. Let us move from
the spirit of the constitution to the constitution itself, which is
a factual matter. “The first Emigrants, who settled in America,
were certainly English Subjects;— subject to the Laws and
Jurisdiction of Parliament, and consequently to parliamentary
Taxes, before their Emigration; and therefore subject afterwards,
unless some legal constitutional Exemption can be produced.
This Position sup- poses, that Englishmen can never be out of the
Jurisdiction of Parliament. It may as well be said, that wherever
an Englishman resides, that Country is England. While an
Englishman resides in England he is undoubtedly subject to its
Laws. If he goes in to a foreign Country he is subject to the Laws
and Government he finds there. If he finds no Government or Laws
there, he is subject there to none, till he and his Companions if
he has any make Laws for themselves. And this was the Case of the
first Settlers in America. Otherwise and if they carried the
English Laws and Power of Parliament with them, what Advantage
could the Puritans propose to themselves by going, since they would
have been as subject to Bishops, Spiritual Courts, Tythes, and
Statutes relating to the Church in America as in England? Can the
Dean on his Principles tell us how it happens that those Laws, the
Game Acts, the Statutes for Labourers, and an infinity of others
made before and since the Emigration, are not in force in America,
nor ever were?
“Now this is the Question, and the sole
Question between you and me, reduced to a plain, single Matter of
Fact. Is there therefore any such Exemption, as here pretended? And
if you have it, why do you not produce it?—'The King, you say,
hath granted Charters of Exemption to the American Colonies.’ This
is now coming to the Point: and this will bring the Dispute to a
short Issue. Let us therefore first enquire, Whether he could
legally and constitutionally grant you such a Charter? And
secondly, Whether he did ever so much as attempt to do it? And
whether any such Charters are upon Record?
“Now, upon the first settling of an English
Colony, and before ever you, Americans, could have chosen any
Representatives,...to whose Laws, and to what legislative Power
were you then subject? To the English most undoubtedly; for you
could have been subject to no other. You were Englishmen
yourselves; and you carried the English Government, and an English
Charter over along with you. This being the Case, were you not then
in the same Condition, as to Constitutional Rights and Liberties,
with the rest of your Fellow-subjects, who remained in England?
Certainly you were.... You ought not to have been placed in
a worse: and surely you had no Right to expect a better. Suppose
therefore, that the Crown had been so ill advised, as to have
granted a Charter to any City or County here in England,
pretending to exempt them from the Power and Jurisdiction
of an English Parliament;—what would the Judges? what
would the Lawyers? nay, what would you Americans have said to
it?...Is it possible for you to believe, that the King has a Power
vested in him by the Constitution of dividing his Kingdom
into several independent States, and petty Kingdoms, like
the Heptarchy in the Times of the Saxons? ... Is it
possible, I say, for you to believe an Absurdity so gross and
glaring?” The alternative is to believe that the King can do in
America what he can not do in England, which means exalting his
power. “An American pleading for the Extension of the Prerogative
of the Crown? Yes, if it could make for his Cause;—and for
extending it too beyond all the Bounds of Law, of Reason, and of
Common Sense!”
The Author here appears quite ignorant of the Fact. The Colonies
carried no Law with them, They carried only a Power of making Law,
or adopting such Parts of the English Law, or of any other Law, as
they should think suitable to their Circumstances. The first
Settlers of Connecticut, for Instance, at their first Meeting in
that Country, finding themselves out of all Jurisdiction of other
Governments, resolved and enacted; That till a Code of Laws should
be prepared and agreed to, they would be governed by the Law
of Moses, as contained in the Old Testament. You are too
positive, Mr. Dean. If the first Settlers had no Right to expect a
better Constitution, what Fools were they for going over, to
encounter all the Hardships and Perils of new Settlements in a
Wilderness! for these were so many Additions to what they suffer’d
at home from tyrannical and oppressive Institutions in Church and
State if they carried those Institutions with them, with a
Subtraction of all their old Enjoyments of the Conveniencies and
Comforts of an old Settled Country, Friends, Neighbours, Relations,
Homes, &c &c. The American Settlers needed no
Exemption from the Power of Parliament; they were
necessarily exempted as soon as they landed out of its
Jurisdiction. Therefore all this Rhetorical Paragraph is founded on
a Mistake of the Author; he talks of is of his own Making. What
Stuff! Why may not an American plead for the just Prerogatives of
the Crown? And is it not a just Prerogative of the Crown to give
the Subjects Leave to settle in a foreign Country if they think it
necessary to ask such Leave? Was the Parliament at all considered
or consulted in making these first Settlements? [No]r did any
Lawyer then think it necessary.
Although I have supposed for argument’s sake
that the crown was so ill advised as to grant illegal and
unconstitutional charters, the fact was very different.
[Footnote: Kings formerly claimed the right to tax without
the consent of Parliament; but this right was not insisted on in
any of the charters, and was explicitly surrendered in that of
Maryland. Now this renunciation of an obsolete prerogative is made
into the renunciation by Parliament of the right to raise taxes.
The King was promising only for himself, not for Parliament.] No
such unconstitutional charters were ever granted. “Nay, many
of your Colony Charters assert quite the contrary, by
containing express Reservations of Parliamentary Rights,
particularly that great one of levying Taxes. And those Charters
which do not make such Provisoes in express Terms, must be
supposed virtually to imply them; because the Law and
Constitution will not allow, that the King can do more either at
home or abroad, by the Prerogative Royal, than the Law and
Constitution authorize him to do.”
It was not a Renunciation of [a] Right of Parliament; There was no
Need of such a Renunciation, for Parliament had not then pretended
to such a Right. But since the Royal Faith was pledg’d by the King
for himself and his Successors, how can any succeeding King,
without violating that Faith, even give his Assent to an Act of
Parliament for such Taxation? A Fib, Mr. Dean: In one
Charter only, and that a later one, is the Parliament
mentioned: And the right reserved is only that of laying Duties on
Commodities imported from the Colony or exported to it.
Suppositions and Implications will not weigh in these
important Cases. No Law or Constitution forbad the King’s doing
what he did in granting those Charters.
If you want a striking proof of this argument I
will give you one, “and such an one too, as shall
convince you, if anything can, of the Folly and Absurdity of
your Positions.” The City of London has long enjoyed great
liberties under its charter, but no Londoner would think of
pleading them as ground for being exempted from Parliamentary
authority or taxation. If any one did he would be sent, not to
prison, but “to another Place of Confinement, much fitter for a
Person in his unhappy Situation.
This Instance would be something, if London was not within
the Realm. Whereas the Colonies are without; and therefore
’tis nothing to the purpose, convinces no American of any thing but
the pert positiveness and Ignorance of the Author. The difference
between a Fool and a Madman is said to be, that the Fool reasons
wrong from right Premises, the Madman right but from wrong
Premises. This seems the Case of our Author, and therefore that
Place perhaps more suitable for him.
“And now, my good Friend, what can you say to
these things?—The only thing which you ought to say, is,—that you
did not see the Affair in its true Light before: and that you are
sincerely sorry for having been so positive in a wrong Cause.
Confuted most undoubtedly you are beyond the Possibility
of a Reply.....” But your letters indicate that you have other
arguments than the charters. What are they? The cruelty of taxing a
free people without permitting them to have representatives?
“Strange, that though the British Parliament has been, from the
Beginning, thus unreasonable,...you should not have been able
to have discovered, that you were without Representatives in the
British Parliament, of your own electing, till this enlightening
Tax upon Paper opened your Eyes! And what a pity is it, that you
have been Slaves for so many Generations, and yet did not know,
that you were Slaves until now.”
This is Hollowing before you are out of the Wood. False! Never
before the Restoration. The Parliament, it is acknowledged, have
made many oppressive Laws relating to America, which have passed
without Opposition, partly thro’ the Weakness of the Colonies,
partly thro’ their Inattention to the full Extent of their Rights
while employ’d in Labour to procure the Necessaries of Life. But
that is a wicked Guardian, and a Shameless one, who first takes
Advantage of the Weakness incident to Minority, cheats and Imposes
on his Pupil; and when that Pupil comes of Age urges those very
Impositions as Precedents to justify continuing them and adding
others!
But let that pass. If you mean anything by the
cruelty of the mother country, you must mean that she deals worse
with you than with her own inhabitants, by denying you rights and
privileges that they enjoy. But what are these rights? Name them if
you can. The right of voting for members of Parliament? “But surely
you will not dare to say, that we refuse your Votes, when you come
hither to offer them, and choose to poll: you cannot have the Face
to assert, that on an Election Day any Difference is put between
the Vote of a Man born in America, and of one born here in England.
Yet this you must assert, and prove too, before you can do any
thing to the present purpose. Suppose therefore, that an
American...is become a Freeman, or a Freeholder here in England;—on
that State of the Case, prove if you can, that his Vote was ever
refused, because he was born in America: your Complaints are very
just; and that you are indeed the much injured, the cruelly-treated
People, you would make the World believe.
This is all Banter and Insult, when you know the Impossibility of a
Million of Freeholders coming over Sea to vote here. If their
Freeholds in America were within the Realm, why have
they not, in virtue of those Freeholds, a Right to vote in your
Elections as well as an English Freeholder? Sometimes we are told,
that our Estates are by our Charters all in the Manor of East
Greenwich and therefore all in England, and yet have we any Rights
to vote among the Voters of East Greenwich? Can we trade to the
same Ports? In this very Paragraph you suppose that we cannot vote
in Eng- land if we come thither, till we have by Purchase acquired
a Right, therefore neither we nor our Estates are represented in
England.
“But, my good Friend, is this supposed refusal the real
Cause of your Complaint?...Oh! no, you have no Complaint of this
sort to make: but the Cause of your Complaint is this; that you
live at too great a Distance from the Mother Country to be present
at our English Elections....It may be so; but pray consider, if you
yourselves do choose to make it inconvenient for you to come and
vote, by retiring into distant Countries,—what is that to us? You
live in the colonies because you prefer to do so; why should we be
compelled to remodel our ancient constitution at your behest?
“You demand it too with a loud Voice, full of Anger, of
Defiance, and Denunciation.”
This is all beside the Mark. The Americans are by their
Constitutions provided with a Representation, and therefore need
nor desire any in the British Parliament. They have never ask’d any
such Thing. They only say, since we have a Right to grant our own
Money to the King; since we have Assemblies where we are
represented for such Purposes, why will you meddle out of your
Sphere, take the Money that is ours and give it as yours without
our Consent? An absolute Falshood: We never demanded in any Manner,
much less in the Manner you mention, that the Mother Country should
change her Constitution.
But let us be reasonable. Grant that the
colonies are unrepresented; what does this mean? At least six
million inhabitants of the British Isles are also unrepresented,
not from the necessity of distance as in your case, but because of
accidents of property-holding. “Copyholds and Leaseholds
of various Kinds” have no representatives; I myself am
possessed of “property in London, and of
several Copyholds and beneficial Leaseholds in the Country, and
yet...I never had a Vote. Moreover, in some Towns neither Freedom,
nor Birth-right, nor the serving of an Apprenticeship, shall
entitle a man to give a Vote....In other Towns the most numerous,
the most populous, and flourishing of any, there are no Freedoms or
Votes of any Sort; but all is open; and none are represented. And
besides all this,...the great East India Company,
which have such vast Settlements, and which dispose of the Fate of
Kings and Kingdoms abroad, have not so much as a single Member, or
even a single Vote, quatenus a Company, to watch over their
Interests at home. What likewise shall we say in regard to the
prodigious number of Stockholders in our public Funds? And may not
their Property, perhaps little short of One hundred Millions
Sterling, as much deserve to be represented in Parliament, as the
scattered Townships, or straggling Houses of some of your Provinces
in America? yet we raise no Commotions; we neither ring the
Alarm-Bell, nor sound the Trumpet; but submit to be taxed without
being represented;—and taxed too, let me tell you, for your
Sakes. Witness the additional Duties on our Lands, Windows,
Houses;—also on our Malt, Beer, Ale, Cyder, Perry, Wines, Brandy,
Rum, Coffee, Chocolate, &c. &c. &c. for defraying the
Expences of the late War,—not forgetting the grievous Stamp-Duty
itself. All this, I say, we submitted to, when you were, or at
least, when you pretended to be, in great Distress: so that neither
Men, almost to the last Drop of Blood we could spill,—nor Money, to
the last Piece of Coin, were spared; but all was granted away, all
was made a Sacrifice, when you cried out for Help.” In the
war we acquired a debt unparalleled in history, just as “the
Returns which you have made us for these Succours”
are also unparalleled.
Why then do you not give them a Representation? Copyholds and
Leaseholds are suppos’d to be represented in the original Landlord
of Whom they are held. Thus all the Land in England is in fact
represented notwithstanding what he here says. As to those who have
no Landed Property in a Country, the allowing them to vote for
Legislators is an Impropriety. They are transient Inhabitants, and
not so connected with the Welfare of the State which they may quit
when they please, as to qualify them properly for such Privilege.
By this Argument it may be prov’d that no Man in England has a
Vote. The Clergy have none as Clergymen; the Lawyers none as
Lawyers, the Physicians none as Physicians, and so on. But if they
have Votes as Freeholders that is sufficient: And that no
Freeholder in America has for a Representative in the British
Parliament. The Stockholders are many of them Foreigners, and all
may be so when they please, as nothing is more easy than the
transferring of Stock, and conveying Property beyond Sea by Bills
of Exchange. Such uncertain Subjects are therefore not properly
vested with Rights relating to Government. This is wickedly false.
While the Colonies were weak and poor, not a Penny or a single
Soldier was ever spared by Britain for their Defence: But as soon
as the Trade with them became an Object, and a Fear arose that the
French would seize that Trade and deprive her of it, she sent
Troops to America unask’d. And now brings this Account of
the Expence against us, which should be rather carried to her own
Merchants and Manufacturers. We join’d our Troops and Treasure with
hers, to help her in this War. Of this no Notice is taken. To
refuse to pay a just Debt is Knavish. Not to return an Obligation
is Ingratitude: But to demand Payment of a Debt where none has been
contracted, to forge a Bond or an Obligation in order to demand
what was never due is infamous Villainy. Every Year both King and
Parliament (during the War) acknowledged that we had done more than
our Part, and made us some Return, which is equivalent to a Receipt
in full and entirely sets aside this monstrous Claim. Never.
But let us come to the subject that you are
trying to make the basis of your case: the fact that you, like so
many of us, are unrepresented. Which lack of representation
“deserves first to be redressed?” Suppose that we
ought to increase the size of the House of Commons in order to
accommodate representatives of those British subjects who now have
none, we must first settle the proportions. If the two million now
represented elect 558 members as at present, six million will need
1,674, and the two million colonists will require an additional
558, making a total assembly of 2,790 members. “A goodly Number
truly! and very proper for the Dispatch of Business! Oh, the
Decency and Order of such an Assembly! The Wisdom and Gravity of
Two thousand Seven hundred and Ninety Legislators all met together
in one Room! What a Pity is it, that so hopeful a Project should
not be carried into immediate Execution!
By all means redress your own Grievances. If you are not just to
your own People, how can we trust you? We ask no Representation
among you: But if you have any thing wrong among yourselves,
rectify it, and do not make one Injustice a Precedent and Plea for
doing another. That would be increasing Evil in the World instead
of diminishing it. You need not be concern’d about the Number to be
added from America. We do not desire to come among you. But you may
make some Room for your own additional Members by removing those
that are sent by the rotten Burroughs. This Banter very useless and
silly.
“But...I must now tell you, that every Member of
Parliament represents you and me, and our Interests in all
essential Points, just as much as if we had voted for
him.” For as soon as he is elected he becomes responsible for
the interests of all, a guardian of the general welfare rather than
of the particular interests of his constituency. Boston and New
York are as truly represented as Manchester and Leeds by the 558
members, who are numerous enough to secure the rights and liberties
of all.
In the same Manner Mr. Dean, are the Pope and Cardinals
Representatives of the whole Christian Church. Why don’t you obey
them? What occasion is there then, my dear Sir, of being at the
Trouble of Elections? The Peers alone would do as well for our
Guardians tho’ chosen by the King or born such. If their present
Number is too small, his Majesty may be good enough to add 558, or
make the present House of Commons and their Heirs male Peers for
ever. If having a Vote in Elections would be of no Use to us, how
is it of any to you? Elections are the Causes of much Tumult, Riot,
Contention and Mischief; get rid of them at once and for ever.
But you may say that each member must look out
for his own interests in order to secure re-election. Perhaps, but
who can guard against all dangers? What system is perfect? Your
objection, furthermore, proves too much—that no man ought to pay
any tax until his own particular representative has consented to
it, and therefore that whoever does not have a representative in
Parliament is not obliged to obey its laws or pay its taxes.
You seem to take your Nephew for a Simpleton, Mr. Dean. Every one
who votes for a Representative knows and intends that the Majority
is to govern; and that the Consent of the Majority is to be
understood as the Consent of the whole, that being ever the Case in
all deliberative Assemblies.
Where will you turn to extricate yourself from
your logical difficulties? You cannot say that representatives whom
such a man never chose have a right to tax him “because he makes a
Part of the Body Politic implied in, and concluded by the rest;—you
cannot say this, because the Doctrine of Implication is the
very Thing to which you object, and against which you have raised
so many Batteries of popular Noise and Clamour. Nay, as the
Objection is entirely of your own making, it must go still further:
for if your Argument is good for any thing, it is as good for North
America as it is for Great Britain: and consequently you must
maintain, that all those in your several Provinces who
have no Votes (and many Thousands of such there are)" and
also all those whose representatives did not consent to a
provincial tax should not be compelled to pay it. “These now are
the happy Consequences of your own Principles, fairly,
clearly, and evidently deduced: Will you abide by
them?”
How far, my dear Sir, would you yourself carry the Doctrine of
Implication? If important Positions are to be imply’d when not
express’d, I suppose you can have no Objection to their being
imply’d where some Expression countenances the Implication. If you
should say to a Friend, I am your humble Servant, Sir, ought he to
imply from thence that you will clean his Shoes? No Freeholder in
North America is without a Vote. Many who have no Freeholds have
nevertheless a Vote, which indeed I do not think was necessary to
be allowed. Not of our Principles but of what you are pleas’d to
imagine such.
What would you say if you discovered that the
House of Commons has been more partial to you than to the British?
This can be proved from the statute book. You have the choice, for
example, “whether you will accept of my Price for your Tobacco,—or
after bringing it here, whether you will carry it away, and
try your Fortune at another Market: but I have no alternative
allowed, being obliged to buy yours at your own Price; or else to
pay such a Duty for the Tobacco of other Countries, as must
amount to a Prohibition. Nay, in order to favour your Plantations,
I am not permitted to plant this Herb on my own Estate,
though the Soil should be ever so proper for it. Again, the
same Choice, and the same Alternative are allowed to you,
and denied to me, in regard to Rice; with this additional
Advantage, that in many Respects you need not bring it into England
at all, unless you are so minded. And what will you say in Relation
to Hemp? The Parliament now gives you a Bounty of £8 per Ton
for exporting your Hemp from North America; but will allow
me nothing for growing it here in England; nay, will tax me very
severely for fetching it from any other country; though it be an
Article most essentially necessary for all the Purposes of Shipping
and Navigation. Moreover in respect to the Culture of Raw Silk, you
have an immense Parliamentary Premium for that Purpose; and you
receive farther Encouragements from our Society for Arts and
Sciences, which is continually adding fresh Rewards:—but I can
receive no Encouragement either from the one, or from the other, to
bear my Expences at first setting out;—though most undeniably the
white Mulberry-Trees can thrive as well on my Grounds, as they can
in Switzerland, Brandenburgh, Denmark, or Sweden, where vast
Quantities are now raising. Take another instance: Why shall I not
be permitted to buy Pitch, Tar, and Turpentine,— without which I
cannot put my Ships to sea,— and Indigo, so useful in many
Manufactures;— why shall not I be permitted to purchase these
Articles wherever I can, the best in their kind, and on the best
Terms?—No, I shall not; for though they are all raw Materials,
which therefore ought to have imported Duty free, yet I am
restrained by an heavy Duty, almost equal to a Prohibition, from
purchasing them anywhere, but from you:—Whereas you on the
contrary, are paid a Bounty for selling these very Articles, at the
only Market, in which you could sell them to advantage, viz. the
English. [Footnote: Those who have not the Statutes at
large, may see the Things here referred to, and many others
of the like Sort, in Crouche’s or Saxby’s Book of Rates.]"
A great Kindness this, to oblige me first to bring it here that the
Expence of another Voyage and Freight may deter me from carrying it
away, and oblige me to take the Price you are pleas’d to offer. You
lay a Duty on the Tobacco of other Countries, because you must pay
Money for that, but get ours in Exchange for your Manufactures.
Tobacco is not permitted to be planted in England, lest it should
interfere with the Corn necessary for your Subsistence. Rice you
cannot raise. It requires 11 Months, your Summer is too short.
Nature not the Laws denies you this Product. Did ever any North
American bring his Hemp to England for this Bounty? We have yet not
enough for our own Consumption. We begin to make our own Cordage.
You want to suppress that Manufacture and would do it by getting
the raw Material from us: You want to be supply’d with Hemp for
your Manufactures, and Russia demands Money. These were the Motives
for giving what you are pleased to call a Bounty to us. We
thank you for your Bounties. We love you and therefore must be
oblig’d to you for being good to yourselves. You do not encourage
raising Hemp in England, because you know it impoverishes the
richest Grounds; your Land Owners are all against it. What you call
Bounties given by Parliament and the Society are nothing more than
Induce-ments offered us, to induce us to leave Employments that are
more profitable and engage in such as would be less so without your
Bounty; to quit a Business profitable to ourselves and engage in
one that shall be profitable to you; this is the true Spirit of all
your Bounties. Your Duties on foreign Articles are from the same
Motives. Pitch, Tar and Turpentine used to cost you £5 a Barrel
when you had them from Foreigners, who us’d you ill into the
Bargain, thinking you could not do without them. You gave a bounty
of 5s. a Barrel to the Colonies, and they have brought you
such Plenty as to reduce the Price to 10s. a Barrel. Take
back your Bounties when you please, since you upbraid us with them.
Buy your Indigo, Pitch, Silk, and Tobacco where you please, and let
us buy our Manufactures where we please. I fancy we shall be
Gainers. I am sick of these forged Obligations. As to the
great Kindness of these 558 Parliamentary Guardians of American
Privileges, who can forbear smiling that has seen the Navigation
Act, the Hatters Act, the Steel, Hammer and Slit Iron Acts, and
numberless others restraining our Trade, obstructing our
Manufactures, and forbidding us the Use of the Gifts of God and
Nature? Hopeful Guardians truly! Can it be imagined that if we had
a reasonable Share in selecting them from time to time they would
thus have us’d us? See the Statutes too for the Navigation Act.
Of all people on earth you have least reason to
complain, but complain you will. No sooner is “one Recital of
imaginary Grievances silenced and confuted” than
another appears. Your last one is that this tax is inexpedient, ill
timed, ill digested, and unrelated to the colonists’ ability to
pay. This objection would be unnecessary if you had succeeded in
showing, as you have not, that the tax was illegal. But, as you
were probably dissatisfied yourself with the legal argument, “and
must have seen abundant Reason before this Time to have altered
your former hasty, and rash Opinion,” I will debate the question of
expediency. You cannot claim that you are too poor to pay after
having given us “such displays of your growing Riches and
increasing Magnificence, as perhaps never any People did in the
same Space of Time.” Remember how I expostulated with your father
on the tremendous increase of American luxury. He attributed it to
the growing wealth of the country, and told me to suit my wares to
my customers’ tastes. He and then you ordered richer and richer
goods of all sorts. Have you now put them aside? Have you given up
concerts and plays and gambling and horse races? “And is the
Luxury of your Tables, and the Variety and Profusion of
your Wines and Liquors quite banished from among you?” You must
answer these questions before pleading that the tax is excessive.
Even if you were poor, which you are not by comparison with thirty
years ago, it may be that we are relatively poorer. In that case
which people can better bear the tax burden?
It is your Confutations that are imaginary. All these Objections
were only to show, how unequal the Parliament was to the Business
of Taxing the Colonies if the Right had been with them, from their
Ignorance of Circumstances and Abilities &c. We see in you
abundance of Self Conceit, but no convincing Argument. This should
be a Caution to Americans how they indulge for the future in
British Luxuries. See here British Generosity! The People who have
made you poor by their worthless I mean useless Commodities, would
now make you poorer by Taxing you: And from the very Inability you
have brought on yourselves by a Partiality for their Fashions and
Modes of Living, of which they have had the whole Profit, would now
urge your Ability to pay the Taxes they are pleas’d to impose.
Reject then their Commerce as well as their pretended Power of
Taxing. Be frugal and industrious, and you will be free. The Luxury
of your Tables, which could be known to the English only by your
hospitably entertaining, is by these grateful Guests now made a
Charge against you, and given as a Reason for taxing you.
Assume “that you are two Millions of Souls: ... that the Public
Debt of the several Provinces amounts to about 800,000 Sterling:
and...that were this general Debt equally divided among the two
Millions, each Individual would owe about the Value of Eight
Shillings. Thus stands the Account on one side. Now we in Britain
are reckoned to be about Eight Millions of Souls; and we owe almost
One hundred and forty-four Millions of Money: which Debt, were it
equally divided among us, would throw a Burthen upon each Person of
about £18 Sterling. This then being the State of the Case...would
it be High-Treason in us to demand of you, who owe so little, to
contribute equally with ourselves, who owe so much, towards
the public Expences;— and such Expences too as you were the
Cause of creating?...Surely no:—And yet, my gentle Friend,
we do not so much as ask you to contribute equally with ourselves,
we only demand, that you would contribute something.” In other
words £100,000, the most that the stamp duty can amount to, which
comes to a shilling a person. “Blush! blush for shame at your
perverse and scandalous Behaviour!”
I have heard, Mr. Dean, that you have studied Political Arithmetick
more than Divinity, but by this Sample of it I fear to very little
purpose. If personal Service were the Matter in Question, out of so
many Millions of Souls so many Men might be expected, whether here
or in America. But when raising Money is the Question, It is not
the Number of Souls but the Wealth in Possession, that shows the
Ability. If we were twice as numerous as the People of England it
would not follow that we are half as able. There are Numbers of
single Estates in England each worth a hundred of the best [of]
ours in N A. The City of London alone is worth all the Provinces of
N. America. This Lie is forever repeated by these Writers. The
Colonies have ever been willing and ready to contribute in
Proportion to their Ability, and have done it in various Ways.
Blush for Shame at your own Ignorance Mr. Dean, who do not know
that the Colonies have Taxes and heavy ones of their own to pay, to
support their own Civil and military Establishments! and that the
Shilling should not be reckon’d upon Heads, but upon Pounds. There
never was a sillier Argument.
Perhaps you will say—and it is all that is left
for you to say—that you have other taxes of your own to pay.
Undoubtedly you have, but so have we, many others “besides those
which ... are to be accounted for at the Exchequer.... Witness our
County Taxes, Militia Taxes, Poor Taxes, Vagrant Taxes, High Road
and Turnpike Taxes, Watch Taxes, Lamps and Scavenger Taxes, &c.
&c. &c.—all of them as numerous and as burthensome as any
that you can mention. And yet with all this Burthen, yea, with an
additional Weight of a National Debt of £18 Sterling per Head,—we
require of each of you to contribute only One Shilling to every
Twenty from each of us!—yes; and this Shilling too to be
spent in your own Country, for the Support of your own
Civil and Military Establishments;—together with many Shillings
drawn from us for the same Purpose.—Alas! had you been in our
Situation, and we in yours, would you have been content with our
paying so small, so inconsiderable a Share of the Public
Expences?”
And have we not all these Taxes too, as well as you, and our
Provincial or Public Taxes besides? And over and above, have we not
new Roads to make, new Bridges to build, Churches and Colleges to
found, and a Number of other Things to do that your Fathers have
done for you and which you inherit from them, but which we are
oblig’d to pay for out of our present Labour? How fond he is of
this One Shilling and twenty! Who has desired this of you, and who
can trust you to lay it out? If you are thus to provide for our
Civil and military Establishments, what use will there afterwards
be for our Assemblies? No. We will pay nothing on Compulsion.
You are the world’s most unfortunate people in your
handling of this controversy: the way you prove your inability to
pay is “by breaking forth into Riots and Insurrections, and by
committing every kind of Violence, that can cause Trade to
stagnate, and Industry to cease. And is this the Method...to make
the World believe, that you are a poor People? Is this the Proof
you bring, that the Stamp Duty is a burthen too heavy for you to
bear? Surely, if you had really intended our Conviction you would
have chosen some other Medium.” If you are in fact
poor, you are taking the best way to make yourselves poorer. For if
“you can still afford to idle away your Time, and to waste Days,
and Weeks, in Outrages and Uproars,” you are demonstrating
your prodigality and extravagance.
The Americans never brought Riots as Arguments. It is unjust to
charge two or three Riots in particular Places upon all America.
Look for Arguments in the Petitions and Remonstrances of the
Assemblies, who detest Riots, of which there are ten in England for
one in America. How impudent it is to insinuate that the Americans
chose no other Medium. When? Where?
The stamp duty, despite what you say, is
neither unfair, unduly burthensome, nor badly timed. In the recent
past you were draining us dry to pay for our fleets and armies
“acting in Defence of America,” and at the same time our blood was
being sucked by the extortionate demands of “your Jobbers
and Contractors.” Meanwhile you were growing rich by
“continually acting the double Part either of Trade, or War,
of Smuggling, or Privateering, according to the Prospect of
greater Gain.” While we were striving to end the war you were
prolonging it, “and were supplying our enemies with all
Manner of Provisions, and all Sorts of warlike Stores
for that Purpose. Nay; because forsooth a Part of these
ill-gotten Riches were laid out in English Manufactures...your
Advocates and Authors trumpeted about the prodigious Profits of
this North American Trade;—not considering, or rather not willing
that we should consider, that while a few Individuals were getting
Thousands, the Public was spending Millions.”
Defence of your Trade in America. Your Jobbers and
Contractors if you please. We had none of those dainty Morsels. Is
the War we made on your Enemies then among our Offences? An
infamous Lie! They always have warlike Stores cheaper than ours:
Our Supplying them with Provisions was a Cry only to found an
Embargo on for the Benefit of English Contractors, that they might
buy our Provisions cheaper. All this Page is Falshood and
Misrepresentation. Money was actually much scarcer in the Colonies
after the War than before. This is a Fact known to all that know
any thing of them.
If you believe that the tax was ill timed
because Britain was “able to bear the additional Load, which you
had brought upon us,” you are completely mistaken: we are not
able, even if we were willing, to bear further taxation.
“The Expenses of America must be borne by the
Ameri-cans in some Form....”
Infamous Lie! Undoubtedly. We don’t desire you to bear our
Expences.
But perhaps you mean that the act was ill timed
because it was made “when neither the French, nor Indians were
in your Rear to frighten, nor the English Fleets and Armies on
your Front to force you to a Compliance. Perhaps this was
your real Meaning: and if it was, it must be confessed, that in
that Sense, the late Act was not well-timed; and that a much
properer Season might have been chosen. For had the Law been made
five or six years before, when you were moving Heaven and
Earth with your Cries and Lamentations; not a Tongue
would then have uttered a Word against it....” Even the Americans
would then have obeyed Britain “in Return for her kind and
generous Protection.”
It seems a prevailing Opinion in England, that Fear of their French
Neighbours would have kept the Colonies in Obedience to the
Parliament; and that if the French Power had not been subdu’d, no
Opposition would have been made to the Stamp Act. A very groundless
Notion. On the contrary, Had the French Power continued, to which
the Americans might have had Recourse in Case of Oppression from
Parliament, Parliament would not have dared to oppress them. It was
the Employment of 50,000 Men at Land, and a Fleet at the Coast,
five Years to subdue the French only. Half the Land Army were
Provincials. Suppose the British 25000 had acted by themselves with
all the Colonies against them: what time would it have taken to
subdue the whole? It is wonderful whence the English drew this
Notion! The Americans know nothing of it. The Protection was
mutual.
Your real grievance is not the Stamp Act but Britain’s
revival of trade restrictions. “The same Restrictions have been
the standing Rules of government from the Beginning;
though not enforced at all Times with equal Strictness.”
[Footnote: All European colonial powers have attempted by
legislation to confine colonial trade to the mother country “ever
since the Discovery of America.” A list follows of British statutes
for that purpose.] “During the late War, you Americans could not
import the Manufactures of other Nations (which it is your
constant Aim to do, and the aim of the Mother Country
always to prevent), so conveniently as you can in Times of
Peace: and therefore, there was no Need of watching you so
narrowly, as far as that Branch of Trade was concerned. But
immediately upon the Peace, the various Manufactures
of Europe, particularly those of France, which could not
find Vent before, were spread, as it were, over all your
Colonies, to the prodigious Detri-ment of your Mother Country.”
This caused the revival of trade restrictions. If their
administration is faulty, it will be improved; but the American
wants more. “He will ever complain and smuggle, and smuggle and
complain, till all Restraints are removed, and till he can both buy
and sell...wheresoever he pleases.”
Not from the Beginnings. Look below at your List, of Acts. The
first of them is in the 12 of Cha. II. Threescore Years after the
Beginning of Settlements in America. False. An absolute Lie! More
conveniently if we had lik’d them. But the Truth is, that Foreign
Manufactures are not to the Taste of the Americans. Not a single
Manufacture of France, except Brandy if that be one, ever used in
America. A vile Lie. Infinitely more Smuggling in England! Not a
Member of Parliament that has not smuggled Goods on his Wrists.
These restraints, nevertheless, will remain.
“They are the standing Laws of the Kingdom.... In short,
while you are a Colony, you must be subordinate to the
Mother Country. These are the Terms and
Conditions, on which you were permitted to make your first
Settlements: they are the Terms and Conditions,
on which alone you can be entitled to the Assistance and
Protection of Great Britain....” You ought to have
restrictions on your trade in order to promote our interest,
because we have restrictions on our trade in order to promote
yours. Do not expect, therefore, that the present administration
will long connive at your disobedience; they will have to enforce
the law.
They are Laws in the Kingdom. To the King only. Ignorance!
By suffering us to enjoin our Rights, you may expect our
Assistance, and not otherwise. Not at all to promote our Interests,
but your own. See p. 23, 24, 25 [above, pp. 363-6].
“Many among you are sorely concerned, That they
cannot pay their British Debts with an American sponge. This is an
intolerable Grievance: and...you have spoken out, and proposed
an open Association against paying your just Debts.” Had
our debtors, French or Spanish, proposed this, “what Name would you
have given to such Proceedings?”
Another infamous Lie! Who proposed this, you lying Villain! Had the
French or Spaniards rais’d such a Lie on you, what Name would you
have given them?
You resent the sovereignty of Great Britain.
“For you want to be independent: You wish to be an Empire
by itself, and to be no longer the Province of another. This
Spirit...is visible in all your Speeches, and all your Writings,
even when you take some Pains to disguise it. ‘What! an Island! A
Spot such as this to command the great and mighty Continent of
North America! Preposterous!’” Let us no longer be subjected to the
paltry Kingdom of Great Britain, you say, but let the seat of
empire be transferred to Great America.
We were always distinct separate States under the Same Sovereign. A
silly Speech Mr. Dean has made for us.
These extravagant conceits are founded on
calculations which “I think ... both false and absurd.” But
the question is what we are going to do with you before you become
as formidable as your dreams. “You endeavour, with all
your Might, to drive us to Extremities. For no Kind of
Outrage, or Insult is omitted...and you do not seem at all
disposed to leave Room for an Accommodation.” Only if we recant
will you acknowledge the power of Parliament, which means
acknowledging “that we have a Right and a Power to give
you Bounties, and to pay your Expences;—but no
other.”
Your Thought, Mr. Dean, avails little against Fact. On the
Contrary, It is you English that endeavour by every kind of Outrage
and Insult to drive us to Extremities. Witness your Troops
quarter’d upon us, Your Dissolution of our Assemblies, &c
&c &c We desire neither.
We have three choices: to coerce you, to
procrastinate, or to give you up entirely. The first would not be
difficult; an American mob would be no match for British officers
and soldiers, “who passed several Campaigns with your
Provincials in America,” and took their measure. We have faith
in our troops, despite some of your friends here and “their
Insinuations of the Feasibility of corrupting his Majesty’s
Forces...by Means of large Bribes, or double Pay.”
You say you are poor and cannot pay your debts, in other words,
while “you boast of the scandalous Use which you intend to
make of your Riches.”
And who did little or nothing without ’em: A ridiculous Imagination
of the Author’s own Head! A Silly Lie! No such Boast was ever made.
I am, however, opposed to military operations,
for how would conquering you benefit us? We might keep ships on
your coast, and an army of customs officers to hunt down smugglers;
but all this would only “sharpen your Wits, which are pretty sharp
already, to elude our Searches, and to bribe and corrupt our
Officers.” We might in the end force you to buy twenty or thirty
thousand pounds’ worth of our goods at a cost for enforcement of
two or three hundred thousand.
Here appears some Sense.
Procrastinating is no solution, for it would
only strengthen your opposition, as would any appearance of
yielding to your demands. If the Stamp Act were suspended for the
benefit of British merchants, who are in the pitiable position of
having entrusted you with hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of
goods, they would find that such indulgence had merely confirmed
you in refusing to pay your debts to them. For you demand repeal,
not suspension, of the act. “Consequently if you think you
could justify the Non-payment of your Debts, till a
Repeal took place; you certainly can justify the
Suspension of the Payment during the Suspension of
the Act.” Shall we, then, repeal the act “and maintain
you as we have hitherto done?” Or shall we let you go unless
you are willing to be governed by the same laws we are, and to
“pay something towards maintaining yourselves?
Infamous Scandal, without the least Foundation. The Merchants never
receiv’d better Payment of the Debts, than during the Suspension of
the Trade. Never any Such Justification was offered by any American
whatever, that I can hear of. Never! The Impudence of this Language
to Colonies who have ever maintained themselves is
astonishing! Except the late attempted Colonies of Nova
Scotia and Georgia, No Colony ever received Maintenance in any
Shape from Britain: And the Grants to those Colonies were mere
Jobbs for the Benefit of ministerial Favourites: English or
Scotchmen.
“The first, it is certain we can not do; and
therefore the next Point to be considered is (which is also the
third Proposal) Whether we are to give you entirely up?—and after
having obliged you to pay your just Debts, whether we are to have
no farther Connection with you, as a dependent State, or
Colony.”
Throughout all America, English Debts are more easily recovered
than in England, the Process being shorter and less expensive, and
Lands subject to Execution for the Payment of Debts. Evidence taken
ex parte in England to prove a Debt is allowed in
their Courts; and during the whole Dispute there was not one
single Instance of any English Merchants’ meeting with the
least Obstruction in any Process or Suit commenced there for that
purpose. I defy this lying Priest to mention one.
In order to judge this matter properly, we must
consider the prospects before us and before the colonies. “Behold
therefore a Political Portrait of the Mother Country;—a mighty
Nation under one Government of a King and Parliament,— firmly
resolved not to repeal the Act, but to give it time to execute
itself....determined to protect and cherish those Colonies,
which will return to their Allegiance within a limited Time
(suppose Twelve or Eighteen Months)—and as determined to compel the
obstinate Revolters to pay their Debts,—and then to cast them
off....”
It did indeed ex- ecute itself. It was Felo de se, before
the Parliament repeal’d it. This was the Dean’s wise Proposal. He
at least, thought it wise. The Parliament thought otherwise.
In America there would then be a variety of
small colonies, jealous of each other and unable to agree. “By
being severed from the British Empire, you will be excluded from
cutting Logwood in the Bays of Campeachy and Honduras, —from
fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, on the Coasts of Labrador, or
in the Bay of St. Laurence,—from trading (except by Stealth) with
the Sugar Islands, or with the British Colonies in any Part of the
Globe. You will also lose all the Bounties upon the Importation of
your Goods into Great Britain....You will lose the Remittance of
£300,000 a Year to pay your Troops; and you will lose the Benefit
of these Troops to protect you against the Incursions of the
much injured and exasperated Savages....” If you have
trouble with foreign powers, no one will assist you; “Holland,
France, and Spain, will look upon you with an evil Eye,...lest such
an Example should infect their own Colonies.... We in Britain shall
still retain the greatest Part of your European Trade;
because we shall give a better Price for many of your
Commodities than you can have any where else: and we shall
sell to you several of our Manufactures, especially in
the Woollen, Stuff, and Metal Way, on cheaper
Terms.”
We have no Use for Logwood but to remit it for your Fineries. We
join’d in conquering the Bay of St. L. and its Dependencies, won’t
you allow us some Share? The Sugar Islands, if you wont allow us to
trade with them, perhaps you will allow them to trade with us; or
do you intend to starve them? Pray keep your Bounties, and let us
hear no more of them. And your Troops, who never protected us
against the Savages, nor are they fit for such Service. And the
£300,000 which you seem to think so much clear Profit to us, when
in fact, they never spend a Penny among us but they have for it
from us a Penny’s worth. The Manufactures they buy are brought from
you, the Provisions we could, as we always did, sell elsewhere for
as much Money.
You know your clear’d Road would do that. Holland, France, and
Spain, would all be glad of our Custom. And pleas’d to see the
Separation. Oho! Then you will still trade with us! but can that be
without our Trading with you? And how can you buy our Oil if we
catch no Whales?
Your internal state will be lamentable, with
disputes between colonies and between factions within each. “The
Leaders of your Parties will then be setting all their Engines to
work, to make Fools become the Dupes of Knaves....” Your people
will be borne down by taxes and loss of trade, “and instead of
having Troops to defend them,...they must defend
themselves, and pay themselves.” Soldiers will be needed for
defense against Indians and against neighbors, and fleets as well.
All these burdens will soon disillusion the people and open their
eyes until, surfeited with republicanism, they will petition for
reunion with the mother country.
Just as they do in England. To oppress, insult and murder them, as
at Boston! These Evils are all imaginations of the Author. The same
were predicted to the Netherlands, but have never yet happened. But
suppose all of them together, and many more, it would be better to
bear them than submit to Parliamentary Taxation: We might still
have something we could call our own: But under the Power claim’d
by Parliament we have not a single Sixpence.
“And you, my Boy, after you have played the
Hero, and spoke all your fine Speeches,...perhaps even you may
awake out of your present political Trance, and become a reasonable
Man at last.”
The Author of this Pamphlet Dean Tucker, has
always been haunted with the Fear of the Seat of Government being
soon to be removed to America. He has in his Tracts on Commerce
some just Notions in Matters of Trade and Police, mix’d with many
wild chimerical Fancies, totally impracticable. He once proposed as
a Defence of the Colonies to clear the Woods for the Width of a
Mile all along behind them, that the Indians might not be able to
cross the cleared Part without being seen; forgetting that there is
a Night in every 24 Hours.
625638 = 017-348a.html