        A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH AMERICA
        by Thomas Jefferson

 
 

        Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said deputies, when
assembled in general congress with the deputies from the other states
of British America, to propose to the said congress that an humble
and dutiful address be presented to his majesty, begging leave to lay
before him, as chief magistrate of the British empire, the united
complaints of his majesty's subjects in America; complaints which are
excited by many unwarrantable encroachments and usurpations,
attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire,
upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and
independently to all.  To represent to his majesty that these his
states have often individually made humble application to his
imperial throne to obtain, through its intervention, some redress of
their injured rights, to none of which was ever even an answer
condescended; humbly to hope that this their joint address, penned in
the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility
which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favours, and not
rights, shall obtain from his majesty a more respectful acceptance.
And this his majesty will think we have reason to expect when he
reflects that he is no more than the chief officer of the people,
appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers, to
assist in working the great machine of government, erected for their
use, and consequently subject to their superintendance.  And in order
that these our rights, as well as the invasions of them, may be laid
more fully before his majesty, to take a view of them from the origin
and first settlement of these countries.

        To remind him that our ancestors, before their emigration to
America, were the free inhabitants of the British dominions in
Europe, and possessed a right which nature has given to all men, of
departing from the country in which chance, not choice, has placed
them, of going in quest of new habitations, and of there establishing
new societies, under such laws and regulations as to them shall seem
most likely to promote public happiness.  That their Saxon ancestors
had, under this universal law, in like manner left their native wilds
and woods in the north of Europe, had possessed themselves of the
island of Britain, then less charged with inhabitants, and had
established there that system of laws which has so long been the
glory and protection of that country.  Nor was ever any claim of
superiority or dependence asserted over them by that mother country
from which they had migrated; and were such a claim made, it is
believed that his majesty's subjects in Great Britain have too firm a
feeling of the rights derived to them from their ancestors, to bow
down the sovereignty of their state before such visionary
pretensions.  And it is thought that no circumstance has occurred to
distinguish materially the British from the Saxon emigration.
America was conquered, and her settlements made, and firmly
established, at the expence of individuals, and not of the British
public.  Their own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their
settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that settlement
effectual; for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered,
and for themselves alone they have right to hold.  Not a shilling was
ever issued from the public treasures of his majesty, or his
ancestors, for their assistance, till of very late times, after the
colonies had become established on a firm and permanent footing.
That then, indeed, having become valuable to Great Britain for her
commercial purposes, his parliament was pleased to lend them
assistance against an enemy, who would fain have drawn to herself the
benefits of their commerce, to the great aggrandizement of herself,
and danger of Great Britain.  Such assistance, and in such
circumstances, they had often before given to Portugal, and other
allied states, with whom they carry on a commercial intercourse; yet
these states never supposed, that by calling in her aid, they thereby
submitted themselves to her sovereignty.  Had such terms been
proposed, they would have rejected them with disdain, and trusted for
better to the moderation of their enemies, or to a vigorous exertion
of their own force.  We do not, however, mean to under-rate those
aids, which to us were doubtless valuable, on whatever principles
granted; but we would shew that they cannot give a title to that
authority which the British parliament would arrogate over us, and
that they may amply be repaid by our giving to the inhabitants of
Great Britain such exclusive privileges in trade as may be
advantageous to them, and at the same time not too restrictive to
ourselves.  That settlements having been thus effected in the wilds
of America, the emigrants thought proper to adopt that system of laws
under which they had hitherto lived in the mother country, and to
continue their union with her by submitting themselves to the same
common sovereign, who was thereby made the central link connecting
the several parts of the empire thus newly multiplied.

        But that not long were they permitted, however far they thought
themselves removed from the hand of oppression, to hold undisturbed
the rights thus acquired, at the hazard of their lives, and loss of
their fortunes.  A family of princes was then on the British throne,
whose treasonable crimes against their people brought on them
afterwards the exertion of those sacred and sovereign rights of
punishment reserved in the hands of the people for cases of extreme
necessity, and judged by the constitution unsafe to be delegated to
any other judicature.  While every day brought forth some new and
unjustifiable exertion of power over their subjects on that side the
water, it was not to be expected that those here, much less able at
that time to oppose the designs of despotism, should be exempted from
injury.

        Accordingly that country, which had been acquired by the lives,
the labours, and the fortunes, of individual adventurers, was by
these princes, at several times, parted out and distributed among the
favourites and (* 1) followers of their fortunes, and, by an assumed
right of the crown alone, were erected into distinct and independent
governments; a measure which it is believed his majesty's prudence
and understanding would prevent him from imitating at this day, as no
exercise of such a power, of dividing and dismembering a country, has
ever occurred in his majesty's realm of England, though now of very
antient standing; nor could it be justified or acquiesced under
there, or in any other part of his majesty's empire.

        That the exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world,
possessed by the American colonists, as of natural right, and which
no law of their own had taken away or abridged, was next the object
of unjust encroachment.  Some of the colonies having thought proper
to continue the administration of their government in the name and
under the authority of his majesty king Charles the first, whom,
notwithstanding his late deposition by the commonwealth of England,
they continued in the sovereignty of their state; the parliament for
the commonwealth took the same in high offence, and assumed upon
themselves the power of prohibiting their trade with all other parts
of the world, except the island of Great Britain.  This arbitrary
act, however, they soon recalled, and by solemn treaty, entered into
on the 12th day of March, 1651, between the said commonwealth by
their commissioners, and the colony of Virginia by their house of
burgesses, it was expressly stipulated, by the 8th article of the
said treaty, that they should have "free trade as the people of
England do enjoy to all places and with all nations, according to the
laws of that commonwealth." But that, upon the restoration of his
majesty king Charles the second, their rights of free commerce fell
once more a victim to arbitrary power; and by several acts (* 2) of
his reign, as well as of some of his successors, the trade of the
colonies was laid under such restrictions, as shew what hopes they
might form from the justice of a British parliament, were its
uncontrouled power admitted over these states.  History has informed
us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the
spirit of tyranny.  A view of these acts of parliament for
regulation, as it has been affectedly called, of the American trade,
if all other evidence were removed out of the case, would undeniably
evince the truth of this observation.  Besides the duties they impose
on our articles of export and import, they prohibit our going to any
markets northward of Cape Finesterre, in the kingdom of Spain, for
the sale of commodities which Great Britain will not take from us,
and for the purchase of others, with which she cannot supply us, and
that for no other than the arbitrary purposes of purchasing for
themselves, by a sacrifice of our rights and interests, certain
privileges in their commerce with an allied state, who in confidence
that their exclusive trade with America will be continued, while the
principles and power of the British parliament be the same, have
indulged themselves in every exorbitance which their avarice could
dictate, or our necessities extort; have raised their commodities,
called for in America, to the double and treble of what they sold for
before such exclusive privileges were given them, and of what better
commodities of the same kind would cost us elsewhere, and at the same
time give us much less for what we carry thither than might be had at
more convenient ports.  That these acts prohibit us from carrying in
quest of other purchasers the surplus of our tobaccoes remaining
after the consumption of Great Britain is supplied; so that we must
leave them with the British merchant for whatever he will please to
allow us, to be by him reshipped to foreign markets, where he will
reap the benefits of making sale of them for full value.  That to
heighten still the idea of parliamentary justice, and to shew with
what moderation they are like to exercise power, where themselves are
to feel no part of its weight, we take leave to mention to his
majesty certain other acts of British parliament, by which they would
prohibit us from manufacturing for our own use the articles we raise
on our own lands with our own labour.  By an act (* 3) passed in the
5th Year of the reign of his late majesty king George the second, an
American subject is forbidden to make a hat for himself of the fur
which he has taken perhaps on his own soil; an instance of despotism
to which no parrallel can be produced in the most arbitrary ages of
British history.  By one other act, (* 4) passed in the 23d year of
the same reign, the iron which we make we are forbidden to
manufacture, and heavy as that article is, and necessary in every
branch of husbandry, besides commission and insurance, we are to pay
freight for it to Great Britain, and freight for it back again, for
the purpose of supporting not men, but machines, in the island of
Great Britain.  In the same spirit of equal and impartial legislation
is to be viewed the act of parliament (* 5), passed in the 5th year
of the same reign, by which American lands are made subject to the
demands of British creditors, while their own lands were still
continued unanswerable for their debts; from which one of these
conclusions must necessarily follow, either that justice is not the
same in America as in Britain, or else that the British parliament
pay less regard to it here than there.  But that we do not point out
to his majesty the injustice of these acts, with intent to rest on
that principle the cause of their nullity; but to shew that
experience confirms the propriety of those political principles which
exempt us from the jurisdiction of the British parliament.  The true
ground on which we declare these acts void is, that the British
parliament has no right to exercise authority over us.

        That these exercises of usurped power have not been confined to
instances alone, in which themselves were interested, but they have
also intermeddled with the regulation of the internal affairs of the
colonies.  The act of the 9th of Anne for establishing a post office
in America seems to have had little connection with British
convenience, except that of accommodating his majesty's ministers and
favourites with the sale of a lucrative and easy office.

        That thus have we hastened through the reigns which preceded
his majesty's, during which the violations of our right were less
alarming, because repeated at more distant intervals than that rapid
and bold succession of injuries which is likely to distinguish the
present from all other periods of American story.  Scarcely have our
minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke
of parliamentary thunder has involved us, before another more heavy,
and more alarming, is fallen on us.  Single acts of tyranny may be
ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of
oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably
through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and
systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.

 
        That the act (* 6) passed in the 4th year of his majesty's
reign, intitled "An act for granting certain duties in the British
colonies and plantations in America, &c."

        One other act (* 7), passed in the 5th year of his reign,
intitled "An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties and
other duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, &c."

        One other act (* 8), passed in the 6th year of his reign,
intituled "An act for the better securing the dependency of his
majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great
Britain;" and one other act (* 9), passed in the 7th year of his
reign, intituled "An act for granting duties on paper, tea, &c." form
that connected chain of parliamentary usurpation, which has already
been the subject of frequent applications to his majesty, and the
houses of lords and commons of Great Britain; and no answers having
yet been condescended to any of these, we shall not trouble his
majesty with a repetition of the matters they contained.

        But that one other act (* 10), passed in the same 7th year of
the reign, having been a peculiar attempt, must ever require peculiar
mention; it is intituled "An act for suspending the legislature of
New York." One free and independent legislature hereby takes upon
itself to suspend the powers of another, free and independent as
itself; thus exhibiting a ph;oenomenon unknown in nature, the creator
and creature of its own power.  Not only the principles of common
sense, but the common feelings of human nature, must be surrendered
up before his majesty's subjects here can be persuaded to believe
that they hold their political existence at the will of a British
parliament.  Shall these governments be dissolved, their property
annihilated, and their people reduced to a state of nature, at the
imperious breath of a body of men, whom they never saw, in whom they
never confided, and over whom they have no powers of punishment or
removal, let their crimes against the American public be ever so
great?  Can any one reason be assigned why 160,000 electors in the
island of Great Britain should give law to four millions in the
states of America, every individual of whom is equal to every
individual of them, in virtue, in understanding, and in bodily
strength?  Were this to be admitted, instead of being a free people,
as we have hitherto supposed, and mean to continue ourselves, we
should suddenly be found the slaves, not of one, but of 160,000
tyrants, distinguished too from all others by this singular
circumstance, that they are removed from the reach of fear, the only
restraining motive which may hold the hand of a tyrant.

        That by "an act (* 11) to discontinue in such manner and for
such time as are therein mentioned the landing and discharging,
lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandize, at the town and
within the harbour of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay,
in North America," which was passed at the last session of British
parliament; a large and populous town, whose trade was their sole
subsistence, was deprived of that trade, and involved in utter ruin.
Let us for a while suppose the question of right suspended, in order
to examine this act on principles of justice: An act of parliament
had been passed imposing duties on teas, to be paid in America,
against which act the Americans had protested as inauthoritative.
The East India company, who till that time had never sent a pound of
tea to America on their own account, step forth on that occasion the
assertors of parliamentary right, and send hither many ship loads of
that obnoxious commodity.  The masters of their several vessels,
however, on their arrival in America, wisely attended to admonition,
and returned with their cargoes.  In the province of New England
alone the remonstrances of the people were disregarded, and a
compliance, after being many days waited for, was flatly refused.
Whether in this the master of the vessel was governed by his
obstinancy, or his instructions, let those who know, say.  There are
extraordinary situations which require extraordinary interposition.
An exasperated people, who feel that they possess power, are not
easily restrained within limits strictly regular.  A number of them
assembled in the town of Boston, threw the tea into the ocean, and
dispersed without doing any other act of violence.  If in this they
did wrong, they were known and were amenable to the laws of the land,
against which it could not be objected that they had ever, in any
instance, been obstructed or diverted from their regular course in
favour of popular offenders.  They should therefore not have been
distrusted on this occasion.  But that ill fated colony had formerly
been bold in their enmities against the house of Stuart, and were now
devoted to ruin by that unseen hand which governs the momentous
affairs of this great empire.  On the partial representations of a
few worthless ministerial dependents, whose constant office it has
been to keep that government embroiled, and who, by their
treacheries, hope to obtain the dignity of the British knighthood,
without calling for a party accused, without asking a proof, without
attempting a distinction between the guilty and the innocent, the
whole of that antient and wealthy town is in a moment reduced from
opulence to beggary.  Men who had spent their lives in extending the
British commerce, who had invested in that place the wealth their
honest endeavours had merited, found themselves and their families
thrown at once on the world for subsistence by its charities.  Not
the hundredth part of the inhabitants of that town had been concerned
in the act complained of; many of them were in Great Britain and in
other parts beyond sea; yet all were involved in one indiscriminate
ruin, by a new executive power, unheard of till then, that of a
British parliament.  A property, of the value of many millions of
money, was sacrificed to revenge, not repay, the loss of a few
thousands.  This is administering justice with a heavy hand indeed!
and when is this tempest to be arrested in its course?  Two wharfs
are to be opened again when his majesty shall think proper.  The
residue which lined the extensive shores of the bay of Boston are
forever interdicted the exercise of commerce.  This little exception
seems to have been thrown in for no other purpose than that of
setting a precedent for investing his majesty with legislative
powers.  If the pulse of his people shall beat calmly under this
experiment, another and another will be tried, till the measure of
despotism be filled up.  It would be an insult on common sense to
pretend that this exception was made in order to restore its commerce
to that great town.  The trade which cannot be received at two wharfs
alone must of necessity be transferred to some other place; to which
it will soon be followed by that of the two wharfs.  Considered in
this light, it would be an insolent and cruel mockery at the
annihilation of the town of Boston.

        By the act (* 12) for the suppression of riots and tumults in
the town of Boston, passed also in the last session of parliament, a
murder committed there is, if the governor pleases, to be tried in
the court of King's Bench, in the island of Great Britain, by a jury
of Middlesex.  The witnesses, too, on receipt of such a sum as the
governor shall think it reasonable for them to expend, are to enter
into recognizance to appear at the trial.  This is, in other words,
taxing them to the amount of their recognizance, and that amount may
be whatever a governor pleases; for who does his majesty think can be
prevailed on to cross the Atlantic for the sole purpose of bearing
evidence to a fact?  His expences are to be borne, indeed, as they
shall be estimated by a governor; but who are to feed the wife and
children whom he leaves behind, and who have had no other subsistence
but his daily labour?  Those epidemical disorders, too, so terrible
in a foreign climate, is the cure of them to be estimated among the
articles of expence, and their danger to be warded off by the
almighty power of parliament?  And the wretched criminal, if he
happen to have offended on the American side, stripped of his
privilege of trial by peers of his vicinage, removed from the place
where alone full evidence could be obtained, without money, without
counsel, without friends, without exculpatory proof, is tried before
judges predetermined to condemn.  The cowards who would suffer a
countryman to be torn from the bowels of their society, in order to
be thus offered a sacrifice to parliamentary tyranny, would merit
that everlasting infamy now fixed on the authors of the act!  A
clause (* 13) for a similar purpose had been introduced into an act,
passed in the 12th year of his majesty's reign, intitled "An act for
the better securing and preserving his majesty's dockyards,
magazines, ships, ammunition, and stores;" against which, as meriting
the same censures, the several colonies have already protested.

 
        That these are the acts of power, assumed by a body of men,
foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws, against
which we do, on behalf of the inhabitants of British America, enter
this our solemn and determined protest; and we do earnestly entreat
his majesty, as yet the only mediatory power between the several
states of the British empire, to recommend to his parliament of Great
Britain the total revocation of these acts, which, however nugatory
they be, may yet prove the cause of further discontents and
jealousies among us.

        That we next proceed to consider the conduct of his majesty, as
holding the executive powers of the laws of these states, and mark
out his deviations from the line of duty: By the constitution of
Great Britain, as well as of the several American states, his majesty
possesses the power of refusing to pass into a law any bill which has
already passed the other two branches of legislature.  His majesty,
however, and his ancestors, conscious of the impropriety of opposing
their single opinion to the united wisdom of two houses of
parliament, while their proceedings were unbiassed by interested
principles, for several ages past have modestly declined the exercise
of this power in that part of his empire called Great Britain.  But
by change of circumstances, other principles than those of justice
simply have obtained an influence on their determinations; the
addition of new states to the British empire has produced an addition
of new, and sometimes opposite interests.  It is now, therefore, the
great office of his majesty, to resume the exercise of his negative
power, and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of
the empire, which might bear injuriously on the rights and interests
of another.  Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this
power which we have seen his majesty practise on the laws of the
American legislatures.  For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes
for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of
the most salutary tendency.  The abolition of domestic slavery is the
great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily
introduced in their infant state.  But previous to the
enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all
further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect
this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a
prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative:
Thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs to
the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of
human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.  Nay, the
single interposition of an interested individual against a law was
scarcely ever known to fail of success, though in the opposite scale
were placed the interests of a whole country.  That this is so
shameful an abuse of a power trusted with his majesty for other
purposes, as if not reformed, would call for some legal restrictions.

        With equal inattention to the necessities of his people here
has his majesty permitted our laws to lie neglected in England for
years, neither confirming them by his assent, nor annulling them by
his negative; so that such of them as have no suspending clause we
hold on the most precarious of all tenures, his majesty's will, and
such of them as suspend themselves till his majesty's assent be
obtained, we have feared, might be called into existence at some
future and distant period, when time, and change of circumstances,
shall have rendered them destructive to his people here. And to
render this grievance still more oppressive, his majesty by his
instructions has laid his governors under such restrictions that they
can pass no law of any moment unless it have such suspending clause;
so that, however immediate may be the call for legislative
interposition, the law cannot be executed till it has twice crossed
the atlantic, by which time the evil may have spent its whole force.

        But in what terms, reconcileable to majesty, and at the same
time to truth, shall we speak of a late instruction to his majesty's
governor of the colony of Virginia, by which he is forbidden to
assent to any law for the division of a county, unless the new county
will consent to have no representative in assembly?  That colony has
as yet fixed no boundary to the westward.  Their western counties,
therefore, are of indefinite extent; some of them are actually seated
many hundred miles from their eastern limits.  Is it possible, then,
that his majesty can have bestowed a single thought on the situation
of those people, who, in order to obtain justice for injuries,
however great or small, must, by the laws of that colony, attend
their county court, at such a distance, with all their witnesses,
monthly, till their litigation be determined?  Or does his majesty
seriously wish, and publish it to the world, that his subjects should
give up the glorious right of representation, with all the benefits
derived from that, and submit themselves the absolute slaves of his
sovereign will?  Or is it rather meant to confine the legislative
body to their present numbers, that they may be the cheaper bargain
whenever they shall become worth a purchase.

        One of the articles of impeachment against Tresilian, and the
other judges of Westminister Hall, in the reign of Richard the
second, for which they suffered death, as traitors to their country,
was, that they had advised the king that he might dissolve his
parliament at any time; and succeeding kings have adopted the opinion
of these unjust judges.  Since the establishment, however, of the
British constitution, at the glorious revolution, on its free and
antient principles, neither his majesty, nor his ancestors, have
exercised such a power of dissolution in the island of Great Britain;
and when his majesty was petitioned, by the united voice of his
people there, to dissolve the present parliament, who had become
obnoxious to them, his ministers were heard to declare, in open
parliament, that his majesty possessed no such power by the
constitution.  But how different their language and his practice
here!  To declare, as their duty required, the known rights of their
country, to oppose the usurpations of every foreign judicature, to
disregard the imperious mandates of a minister or governor, have been
the avowed causes of dissolving houses of representatives in America.
But if such powers be really vested in his majesty, can he suppose
they are there placed to awe the members from such purposes as these?
When the representative body have lost the confidence of their
constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most
valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which
the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing
in office becomes dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise
of the power of dissolution.  Such being the causes for which the
representative body should, and should not, be dissolved, will it not
appear strange to an unbiassed observer, that that of Great Britain
was not dissolved, while those of the colonies have repeatedly
incurred that sentence?

        But your majesty, or your governors, have carried this power
beyond every limit known, or provided for, by the laws: After
dissolving one house of representatives, they have refused to call
another, so that, for a great length of time, the legislature
provided by the laws has been out of existence.  From the nature of
things, every society must at all times possess within itself the
sovereign powers of legislation.  The feelings of human nature revolt
against the supposition of a state so situated as that it may not in
any emergency provide against dangers which perhaps threaten
immediate ruin.  While those bodies are in existence to whom the
people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone possess
and may exercise those powers; but when they are dissolved by the
lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the
people, who may exercise it to unlimited extent, either assembling
together in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may
think proper.  We forbear to trace consequences further; the dangers
are conspicuous with which this practice is replete.

        That we shall at this time also take notice of an error in the
nature of our land holdings, which crept in at a very early period of
our settlement.  The introduction of the feudal tenures into the
kingdom of England, though antient, is well enough understood to set
this matter in a proper light.  In the earlier ages of the Saxon
settlement feudal holdings were certainly altogether unknown; and
very few, if any, had been introduced at the time of the Norman
conquest.  Our Saxon ancestors held their lands, as they did their
personal property, in absolute dominion, disencumbered with any
superior, answering nearly to the nature of those possessions which
the feudalists term allodial.  William, the Norman, first introduced
that system generally.  The lands which had belonged to those who
fell in the battle of Hastings, and in the subsequent insurrections
of his reign, formed a considerable proportion of the lands of the
whole kingdom.  These he granted out, subject to feudal duties, as
did he also those of a great number of his new subjects, who, by
persuasions or threats, were induced to surrender them for that
purpose.  But still much was left in the hands of his Saxon subjects;
held of no superior, and not subject to feudal conditions.  These,
therefore, by express laws, enacted to render uniform the system of
military defence, were made liable to the same military duties as if
they had been feuds; and the Norman lawyers soon found means to
saddle them also with all the other feudal burthens.  But still they
had not been surrendered to the king, they were not derived from his
grant, and therefore they were not holden of him.  A general
principle, indeed, was introduced, that "all lands in England were
held either mediately or immediately of the crown," but this was
borrowed from those holdings, which were truly feudal, and only
applied to others for the purposes of illustration.  Feudal holdings
were therefore but exceptions out of the Saxon laws of possession,
under which all lands were held in absolute right.  These, therefore,
still form the basis, or ground-work, of the common law, to prevail
wheresoever the exceptions have not taken place.  America was not
conquered by William the Norman, nor its lands surrendered to him, or
any of his successors.  Possessions there are undoubtedly of the
allodial nature.  Our ancestors, however, who migrated hither, were
farmers, not lawyers.  The fictitious principle that all lands belong
originally to the king, they were early persuaded to believe real;
and accordingly took grants of their own lands from the crown.  And
while the crown continued to grant for small sums, and on reasonable
rents; there was no inducement to arrest the error, and lay it open
to public view.  But his majesty has lately taken on him to advance
the terms of purchase, and of holding to the double of what they
were; by which means the acquisition of lands being rendered
difficult, the population of our country is likely to be checked.  It
is time, therefore, for us to lay this matter before his majesty, and
to declare that he has no right to grant lands of himself.  From the
nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the
limits which any particular society has circumscribed around itself
are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment only.
This may be done by themselves, assembled collectively, or by their
legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and
if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the
society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and
occupancy will give him title.

        That in order to enforce the arbitrary measures before
complained of, his majesty has from time to time sent among us large
bodies of armed forces, not made up of the people here, nor raised by
the authority of our laws: Did his majesty possess such a right as
this, it might swallow up all our other rights whenever he should
think proper.  But his majesty has no right to land a single armed
man on our shores, and those whom he sends here are liable to our
laws made for the suppression and punishment of riots, routs, and
unlawful assemblies; or are hostile bodies, invading us in defiance
of law.  When in the course of the late war it became expedient that
a body of Hanoverian troops should be brought over for the defence of
Great Britain, his majesty's grandfather, our late sovereign, did not
pretend to introduce them under any authority he possessed.  Such a
measure would have given just alarm to his subjects in Great Britain,
whose liberties would not be safe if armed men of another country,
and of another spirit, might be brought into the realm at any time
without the consent of their legislature.  He therefore applied to
parliament, who passed an act for that purpose, limiting the number
to be brought in and the time they were to continue.  In like manner
is his majesty restrained in every part of the empire.  He possesses,
indeed, the executive power of the laws in every state; but they are
the laws of the particular state which he is to administer within
that state, and not those of any one within the limits of another.
Every state must judge for itself the number of armed men which they
may safely trust among them, of whom they are to consist, and under
what restrictions they shall be laid.

        To render these proceedings still more criminal against our
laws, instead of subjecting the military to the civil powers, his
majesty has expressly made the civil subordinate to the military.
But can his majesty thus put down all law under his feet?  Can he
erect a power superior to that which erected himself?  He has done it
indeed by force; but let him remember that force cannot give right.

        That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before
his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which
becomes a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws
of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate: Let those
flatter who fear; it is not an American art.  To give praise which is
not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who
are asserting the rights of human nature.  They know, and will
therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of
the people.  Open your breast, sire, to liberal and expanded thought.
Let not the name of George the third be a blot in the page of
history.  You are surrounded by British counsellors, but remember
that they are parties.  You have no ministers for American affairs,
because you have none taken from among us, nor amenable to the laws
on which they are to give you advice.  It behoves you, therefore, to
think and to act for yourself and your people.  The great principles
of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them
requires not the aid of many counsellors.  The whole art of
government consists in the art of being honest.  Only aim to do your
duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.  No longer
persevere in sacrificing the rights of one part of the empire to the
inordinate desires of another; but deal out to all equal and
impartial right.  Let no act be passed by any one legislature which
may infringe on the rights and liberties of another.  This is the
important post in which fortune has placed you, holding the balance
of a great, if a well poised empire.  This, sire, is the advice of
your great American council, on the observance of which may perhaps
depend your felicity and future fame, and the preservation of that
harmony which alone can continue both to Great Britain and America
the reciprocal advantages of their connection.  It is neither our
wish, nor our interest, to separate from her.  We are willing, on our
part, to sacrifice every thing which reason can ask to the
restoration of that tranquillity for which all must wish.  On their
part, let them be ready to establish union and a generous plan.  Let
them name their terms, but let them be just.  Accept of every
commercial preference it is in our power to give for such things as
we can raise for their use, or they make for ours.  But let them not
think to exclude us from going to other markets to dispose of those
commodities which they cannot use, or to supply those wants which
they cannot supply.  Still less let it be proposed that our
properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by
any power on earth but our own.  The God who gave us life gave us
liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot
disjoin them.  This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution;
and that you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which
your earnest endeavours may ensure to procure redress of these our
great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British
America, against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to
establish fraternal love and harmony through the whole empire, and
that these may continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent
prayer of all British America!

        (* 1) 1632 Maryland was granted to lord Baltimore, 14. c. 2.
Pennsylvania to Penn, and the province of Carolina was in the year
1663 granted by letters patent of majesty, king Charles II. in the
15th year of his reign, in propriety, unto the right honourable
Edward earl of Clarendon, George duke of Albemarle, William eral of
Craven, John lord Berkeley, Anthony lord Ashley, sir George Carteret,
sir John Coleton, knight and baronet, and sir William Berkeley,
knight; by which letters patent the laws of England were to be in
force in Carolina: But the lords proprietors had power, _with the
consent of the inhabitants,_ to make bye-laws for the better
government of the said province; so that no money could be received,
or law made, without the consent of the inhabitants, or their
representatives.

        (* 2) 12. c. 2. c. 18. 15. c. 2. c. II. 25. c. 2. c. 7. 7. 8.
W. M.  c. 22. II. W. 3. 4. Anne. 6. G. 2. c. 13.

        (* 3) 5. G. 2.

        (* 4) 23. G. 2. c. 29.

        (* 5) 5. G. 270.

        (* 6) 4. G. 3. c. 15.

        (* 7) 5. G. 3. c. 12.

        (* 8) 6. G. 3. c. 12.

        (* 9) 7. G. 3.

        (* 10) 7. G. 3. c. 59.

        (* 11) 14. G. 3.

        (* 12) 14. G. 3.

        (* 13) 12. G. 3. c. 24.

