Page:Journal of the First Congress of the American Colonies (1765).djvu/35

 other from the arbitrary decisions of the executive power. The continuation of these liberties to the inhabitants of America, we ardently implore, as absolutely necessary to unite the several parts of your wide extended dominions, in that harmony so essential to the preservation and happiness of the whole. Protected in these liberties, the emoluments Great Britain receives from us, however greet at present, are inconsiderable, compared with those she hasthe fairest prospect of acquiring. By this protection she will for ever secure to herself the advantages of conveying to all Europe, the merchandise which America. furnishes, and for supplying, through the sune channel, whatsoever is wanted from thence. Here opens a boundless source of wealth and naval strength. - Yet these immense advantages, by the abridgment of those invaluable righu and liberties, by which our growth has been nourished, are in danger of being forever lost, and our subordinate legislatures in effect rendered useless by the late acts of parliament imposing duties and times on these colonies, and extending the- jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty here, beyond its ancient ' limits; statutes by which your maiestyb commons in Britain undertake absolutely to dispose of the property of their fellow-subjects in America. without their consent, and for the enforcing whereof they are subjected no the determination of a single judge, in a court unrestrained by the wise rules. of the common law, the birthright of Englishmen, and the safeguard of, their persons and properties

The invaluable rights of taxing ourselves and trial by our peers, of which we implore your majesty's protection, are not, we most humbly conceive, unconstitutional but confirmed by the Great Charter of English liberties. On the first of these rights the honorable 'house of commons found their ractice of originating money, s right enjoyed by the kingdom of Ireland, by the clergy of England, un-