Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/174

160 equally dangerous committed. Their general aſſembly, which was compoſed of the council of ſtate and burgeſſes, ſitting together and deciding by plurality of voices, was ſplit into two houſes, by which the council obtained a ſeparate negative on their laws. Appeals from their ſupreme court, which had been fixed by law in their general aſſembly, were arbitrarily revoked to England, to be there heard before the king and council. Inſtead of four hundred miles on the ſea-coaſt, they were reduced, in the ſpace of thirty years, to about one hundred miles. Their trade with foreigners was totally ſuppreſſed, and when carried to Great-Britain, was there loaded with impoſts. It is unneceſſary, however, to glean up the ſeveral inſtances of injury, as ſcattered through American and Britiſh hiſtory, and the more eſpecially as by paſſing on to the acceſſion of the preſent king, we ſhall find ſpecimens of them all, aggravated, multiplied and crouded within a ſmall compaſs of time, ſo as to evince a fixed deſign of conſidering our rights natural, conventional and chartered as mere nullities. The following is an epitome of the firſt fifteen years of his reign. The colonies were taxed internally and externally; their eſſential intereſts ſacrificed to individuals in Great Britain; their legiſlatures ſuſpended; charters annulled; trials by juries taken away; their perſons ſubjected to tranſportation acroſs the Atlantic, and to trial before foreign judicatories: their ſupplications for redreſs thought beneath anſwer; themſelves publiſhed as cowards in the councils of their mother country and courts of Europe; armed troops ſent among them to enforce ſubmiſſion to theſe violences; and actual hoſtilities commenced