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work-----let us save-----let us, continually, keep up our claim, and incessantly repeat our complaints-----But, above all, let us implore the protection of that infinitely good and gracious being, [1]“by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice.”
Nil desperandum.
Nothing is to despaired of.
LETTER IV.
- My dear Countrymen,
An objection, I hear, has been made against my second letter, which I would willingly clear up before I proceed. “There is,” say these objectors, “a material difference between the Stamp-Act and the late act for laying a duty on paper, &c. that justifies the conduct of those who opposed the former, and yet are willing to submit to the latter. The duties imposed by the Stamp-Act were internal taxes; but the present are external, and therefore the parliament may have a right to impose them.”
To this I answer, with a total denial of the power of parliament to lay upon these colonies any “tax” whatever.
This point, being so important to this, and to succeeding generations, I wish to be clearly understood.
To the word “tax,” I annex that meaning which the constitution and history of England require to be annexed to it; that is---that it is an imposition on the subject, for the sole purpose of levying money.
In the early ages of our monarchy, certain services were rendered to the crown for the general good. These were personal[1]: But,
- ↑ It is very worthy of remark, how watchful our wise ancestors were, lest their services should be encreased beyond what the law allowed. No man was bound to go out of the realm to serve the King. Therefore, even in the conquering reign of Henry the Fifth, when the martial spirit of the nation was highly enflamed by the heroic courage of their Prince, and by his great success, they still carefully guarded against the establishment of illegal services. “When this point (says Lord Chief Justice Coke) concerning maintenance of wars out of England, came in question, the commons did make their continual claim of their antient freedom and birthright, as in the first of Henry the Fifth, and in the seventh of Henry the Fifth, &c. the commons made a protest, that they were not bound to the maintenance of war in Scotland, Ireland, Calice,
