[ 25 ]
from them; for all their difficulties and distresses in fixing themselves, what was the recompence made them? A communication of her rights in general, and particularly of that great one, the foundation of all the rest----that their property, acquired with so much pain and hazard, should be disposed of by none but [1]themselves---or, to use the beautiful and emphatic language of the sacred scriptures[2], “that they should sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, and none should make them afraid.”
Can any man of candor and knowledge deny, that these institutions form an affinity between Great-Britain and her colonies, that sufficiently secures their dependence upon her? Or that for her to levy taxes upon them, is to reverse the nature of things? Or that she can pursue such a measure, without reducing them to a state of vassalage?
If any person cannot conceive the supremacy of Great-Britain to exist, without the power of laying taxes to levy money upon us, the history of the colonics, and of Great-Britain, since their settlement, will prove the contrary. He will there find the amazing advantages arising to her from them----the constant exercise of her supremacy---and their filial submission to it, without a single rebellion, or even the thought of one, from their first emigration to this moment----And all these things have happened, without one instance of Great-Britain’s laying taxes to levy money upon them.
How many [3]British authors have demonstrated, that the present wealth, power and glory of their country, are founded upon
- ↑ “The power of taxing themselves, was the privilege of which the English were, with reason, particularly jealous.” Hume’s Hist. of England.
- ↑ Mic. iv. 4.
- ↑ It has been said in the House of Commons, when complaints have been made of the decay of trade to any part of Europe, “That such things were not worth regard, as Great-Britain was possessed of colonies that could consume more of her manufactures than she was able to supply them with.”
“As the case now stands, we shall shew that the plantations are a spring of wealth to this nation, that they work for us, that their treasure centers all here, and that the laws have tied them fast enough to us; so that it must be through our own fault and mismanagement, it they become independent of England.”Davenant on the Plantation Trade.
“It is better that the islands should be supplied from the Northern Colonies than from England; for this reason, the provisions we might send to Barbados, Jamaica, &c. would be unimproved product of the earth, as grain of all kinds, or such product where there is little got by the improvement, as malt, salt beef and pork; indeed the exportation of salt fish thither would be more advantageous, but the goods which we send to the Northern Colonies, are such, whose improvement may be justly said, one with another, to be near four fifths of the value of the whole commodity, as apparel, houshold furniture, and many other things.”Idem.
“New-England is the most prejudicial plantation to the kingdom of England; and yet, to do right to that most industrious English colony, I must confess, that though we lose by their unlimited trade with other foreign plantations, yet
