[ 10 ]
not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us.
This I call an [1]innovation; and a most dangerous innovation. It may perhaps be objected, that Great-Britain has a right to lay what duties she pleases upon her [2]exports, and it makes no difference to us, whether they are paid here or there.
To this I answer. These colonies require many things for their use, which the laws of Great-Britain prohibit them from getting any where but from her. Such are paper and glass.
That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great-Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp-Act.
What is the difference in substance and right, whether the same sum is raised upon us by the rates mentioned in the Stamp-Act, on the use of paper, or by these duties, on the importation of it. It is only the edition of a former book, shifting a sentence from the end to the beginning.
Suppose the duties were made payable in Great-Britain?
It signifies nothing to us, whether they are to be paid here or there. Had the Stamp-Act directed, that all the paper should be landed at Florida, and the duties paid there, before it was brought to the British colonies, would the act have raised less money upon us, or have been less destructive of our rights? By no means: For as we were under a necessity of using the paper, we should have been under the necessity of paying the duties. Thus, in the present case, a like necessity will subject us, if this act continues in force, to the payment of the duties now imposed.
Why was the Stamp-Act then so pernicious to freedom? It did not enact, that every man in the colonies should buy a certain
- ↑ “It is worthy observation how quietly subsidies, granted in forms usual and accustomable (though heavy) are borne; such a power hath use and custom. On the other side, what discontentments and disturbances subsidies framed in a new mould do raise (such an inbred hatred novelty doth hatch) is evident by examples of former times.” Lord Coke’s 2d Institute, p. 33.
- ↑ Some people think that Great-Britain has the same right to impose duties on the exports to these colonies, as on the exports to Spain and Portugal, &c. Such persons attend so much to the idea of exportation, that they entirely drop that of the connection between the mother country and her colonies. If Great-Britain had always claimed, and exercised an authority to compel Spain and Portugal to import manufactures from her only, the cases would be parallel: But as she never pretended to such a right, they are at liberty to get them where they please; and if they chuse to take them from her, rather than from other nations, they voluntarily consent to pay the duties imposed on them.
