Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/367

] may be more satisfactory to you to be informed by us in a collective body, man in any other manner of those sentiments that nave been approved upon a full and free discussion, by the representatives of so great a part of America, we esteem ourselves obliged to add this address to these resolutions.

In every case of opposition by a people to their rulers, or of one state to another, duty to Almighty God, the Creator of all, requires that a true and impartial judgment be formed of the measures leading to such opposition; and of the causes by which it has been provoked, or can in any degree be justified, that neither affection on one hand, nor resentment on the other, being permitted to give a wrong bias to reason, it may be enabled to take a dispassionate view of all circumstances, and to settle the public conduct on the solid foundations of wisdom and justice.

From councils thus tempered arise the surest hopes of the divine favor, the firmest encouragement of the parties engaged, and the strongest recommendation of their cause to the rest of mankind.

With minds deeply impressed by a sense of these truths, we have diligently, deliberately, and calmly inquired into and considered those exertions, both of the legislative and executive power of Great Britain, which have excited so much uneasiness in America, and have with equal fidelity and attention considered the conduct of the colonies. Upon the whole, we find ourselves reduced to the disagreeable alternative of being silent and betraying the innocent, or of speaking out and censuring those we wish to revere. In making our choice of these distressing difficulties, we prefer the course dictated by honesty and a regard for the welfare of our country.

Soon after the conclusion of the late war there commenced a memorable change in the treatment of these colonies. By a statute made in the fourth year in the present reign, a time of profound peace, alleging "the expediency of new provisions and regulations for extending the commerce between Great Britain and his majesty's dominions in America, and the necessity of raising a revenue in the said dominions, for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same," the Commons of Great Britain undertook to give and to grant to his majesty many rates and duties to be paid in these colonies. To enforce the observance of this act, it prescribes a great number of severe penalties and forfeitures; and in two sections makes a remarkable distinction between the subjects in Great Britain and those in America. By the one, the penalties and forfeitures incurred there are to be recovered in any of the king's courts of record at Westminster, or in the court of exchequer in Scotland; and by the other, the penalties and forfeitures incurred here are to be recovered in any court of record, or in any court of admiralty or vice-admiralty, at the election of the informer or prosecutor.

The inhabitants of these colonies, confiding in the justice of Great Britain, were scarcely allowed sufficient time to receive and consider this act, before another, well known by the name of'the Stamp Act, and passed in the fifth year of this reign, engrossed their whole attention. By this statute the British Parliament exercised in the most explicit manner a power of taxing us, and extending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty in the colonies to matters arising within the body of a country, and directed the numerous penalties and forfeitures thereby inflicted, to be recovered in the said courts.

In the same year a tax was imposed upon us by an act establishing several new fees in the customs. In the next year the Stamp Act was repealed, not because it was founded in an erroneous principle, but, as the repealing act recites, because "the continuance thereof would be attended with many inconveniences, and might be productive of consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interest of Great Britain."

In the same year, and by a subsequent act, it was declared, "that his majesty in Parliament, of right, had power to bind the people of these colonies by statutes in all cases whatsoever." In the same year another act was passed for imposing rates and duties payable in these colonies. In this statute the Commons, avoiding the terms of giving and granting, "humbly besought his majesty, that it might be enacted, etc."' But from a declaration in the preamble, that the rates and duties were "in lieu of" several others granted by the statute first before mentioned for raising a revenue, and from some other expressions, it appears that these duties were intended for that purpose.

In the next year, (1767) an act was made, "to enable his majesty to put the customs and other