Page:Political Tracts.djvu/195

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TAXATION NO TYRANNY.
185

This the Americans have never openly denied. That it is their duty to pay the coſt of their own ſafety they ſeem to admit; nor do they refuſe their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of the Britiſh empire; but they make this participation of the public burden a duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation, a duty temporary, occaſional, and elective, of which they reſerve to themſelves the right of ſettling the degree, the time, and the duration, of judging when it may be required, and when it has been performed.

They allow to the ſupreme power nothing more than the liberty of notifying to them its demands or its neceſſities. Of this notification they profeſs to think for themſelves, how far it ſhall influence their counſels, and of the neceſſities alleged, how far they ſhall endeavour to relieve them. They aſſume the excluſive power of ſettling not only the mode, but the

quantity