Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/368

344 duties in America under the management of commissioners," etc., and the king thereupon erected the present expensive Board of Commissioners, for the express purpose of carrying into execution the several acts relating to the revenue and trade in America.

After the repeal of the Stamp Act, having again resigned ourselves to our ancient unsuspicious affections for the parent state, and anxious to avoid any controversy with her, in hopes of a favorable alteration in sentiments and measures towards us, we did not press our objections against the above-mentioned statutes made subsequent to that repeal.

Administration attributing to trifling causes, a conduct that really proceeded from generous motives, were encouraged in the same year, (1767) to make a bolder experiment on the patience of America.

By a statute commonly called the Glass, Paper, and Tea Act, made fifteen months after the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Commons of Great Britain resumed their former language, and again undertook to "give and grant rates and duties to be paid in these colonies," for the express purpose of; "raising a revenue to defray the charges of the administration of justice, the support of civil government, and defending the king's dominions," on this continent. The penalties and forfeitures incurred under this statute, are to be recovered in the same manner with those mentioned in the foregoing acts.

To this statute, so naturally tending to disturb the tranquillity then universal throughout the colonies, Parliament in the same session added another no less extraordinary.

Ever since the making the present peace, a standing army has been kept in these colonies. From respect for the mother country, the innovation was not only tolerated, but the provincial legislatures generally made provision for supplying the troops.

The Assembly of the province of New York having passed an act of this kind, but differing in same articles from the directions of the Act of Parliament made in the fifth year of this reign, the House of Representatives in that colony was prohibited by a statute made in the last session mentioned from making any bill, order, resolution, or vote, except for adjourning or choosing a speaker, until provision should be made by the said Assembly for furnishing the troops within that province, not only with all such necessaries as were required by the statute, which they were charged with disobeying, but also with those required by two other subsequent statutes, which were declared to be in force until the twenty-fourth day of March, 1769.

The statutes of the year 1767 revived the apprehensions and discontents that had entirely subsided on the repeal of the Stamp Act; and, amidst the just fears and jealousies thereby occasioned, a statute was made in the next year, (1768) to establish courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty on a new model, expressly for the end of more effectually recovering of the penalties and forfeitures inflicted by Acts of Parliament, framed for the purpose of raising a revenue in America etc. The immediate tendency of these statutes is to subvert the right of having a share in legislation, by rendering Assemblies useless; the right of property, by taking the money of the colonists without their consent; the right of trial by jury by substituting in their places trials in admiralty and vice-admiralty courts, where single judges preside, holding their commissions during pleasure, and unduly to influence the courts of common law, by rendering the judges thereof totally dependent on the crown for their salaries.

These statutes, not to mention many others exceedingly exceptionable, compared one with another, will be found not only to form a regular system in which every part has great force, bu also a pertinacious adherence to that system for subjugating these colonies, that are not, and from local circumstances cannot, be represented in the House of Commons, to the uncontrollable and unlimited power of Parliament, in violation of their undoubted rights and liberties, in contempt of their humble and repeated supplications.

This conduct must appear equally astonishing and unjustifiable, when it is considered how unprovoked it has been by any behavior of these colonies. From their first settlement, their bitterest enemies never fixed on any of them any charge of disloyalty to their sovereign, or disaffection to their mother country. In the wars she has carried on, they have exerted themselves, whenever required, in giving her assistance; and have rendered her services which she has publicly acknowledged to be extremely important. Their fidelity, duty, and usefulness during the last war,