by Nathan Allen
That you will constantly use your power and influence in maintaining the invaluable rights and privileges of the province, of which this town is so great a part: As well those rights which are derived to us by the royal charter, as those which being prior to and independent on it, we hold essentially as free-born subjects of Great-Britain;
That you will endeavour, as far as you shall be able, to preserve that independence in the house of representatives, which characterizes a free people; and the want of which may in a great measure prevent the happy effects of a free government: Cultivating as you shall have opportunity, that harmony and union there, which is ever desirable to good men, when founded in principles of virtue and public spirit; and guarding against any undue weight which may tend to disadjust that critical balance upon which our happy constitution, and the blessings of it do depend. And for this purpose, we particularly recommend it to you to use your endeavours to have a law passed, whereby the seats of such gentlemen as shall accept of posts of profit from the Crown, or the Governor, while they are members of the house, shall be vacated, agreeable to an act of the British parliament, ‘till their constituents shall have the opportunity of re-electing them if they please, or of returning others in their room.
Being members of the legislative body, you will have a special regard to the morals of this people, which are the basis of public happiness; and endeavour to have such laws made, if any are still wanting, as shall be best adapted to secure them: And we particularly desire you carefully to look into the laws of excise, that if the virtue of the people is endangered by the multiplicity of oathes therein enjoined, or their trade and business is unreasonably impeded or embarrassed thereby, the grievance may be redressed.
As the preservation of morals, as well as property and right, so much depends upon the impartial distribution of justice, agreeable to good and wholesome law: And as the judges of the land do depend upon the free grants of the general assembly for support; it is incumbent upon you at all times to give your voice for their honourable maintenance, so long as they, having in their minds an indifference to all other affairs, shall devote themselves wholly to the duties of their own department, and the further study of the law by which their customs, precedents, proceedings, and determinations are adjusted and limited.
You will remember that this province hath been at a very great expence in carrying on the war; and that it still lies under a very grievous burden of debt: You will therefore use your utmost endeavor to promote public frugality as one means to lessen the publick debt.
You will join in any proposals which may be made for the better cultivating the lands, and improving the husbandry of the province: and as you represent a town which lives by its trade, we expect in a very particular manner, that you make it the object of your attention, to support our commerce in all its just rights, to vindicate it from all unreasonable impositions, and promote its prosperity—Our trade has for a long time laboured under great discouragements; and it is with the deepest concern that we see such further difficulties coming upon it, as will reduce it to the lowest ebb, if not totally obstruct and ruin it. We cannot help expressing our surprize that when so early notice was given by the agent, of the intentions of the ministry, to burthen us with new taxes, so little regard was had to this most interesting matter,
that the court was not even call’d together to consult about it ‘till the latter end of the year; the consequence of which was, that instructions could not be sent to the agent, tho’ solicited by him, ‘till the evil had got beyond an easy remedy.
There is now no room for further delay: We therefore expect that you will use your earliest endeavours in the General Assembly, that such methods may be taken as will effectually prevent these proceedings against us. By a proper representation, we apprehend it may easily be made to appear that such severities will prove .detrimental to Great Britain itself; upon which account we have reason to hope that an application, even for a repeal of the act, should it be already pass’d, will be successful. It is the trade of the colonies, that renders them beneficial to the mother country; Our trade, as it is now, and always has been conducted, centers in Great Britain, and in return for her manufactures, affords her more ready cash, beyond any comparison, than can possibly be expected by the most sanguine promoters of these extraordinary methods. We are in short ultimately yielding large supplies to the revenues of the mother country, while we are labouring for a very moderate subsistence for ourselves. But if our trade is to be curtail’d in its most profitable branches, and burdens beyond all possible bearing laid upon that which is suffer’d to remain, we shall be so far from being able to take off the manufactures of Great Britain, that it will be scarce possible for us to earn our bread.—
But what still heightens our apprehensions is, that these unexpected proceedings may be preparatory to new taxations upon us: For if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands, and every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our
charter right to govern and tax ourselves—It strikes at our British privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our fellow subjects who are natives of Britain: If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduc’d
from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves?
We therefore earnestly recommend it to you to use your utmost endeavors to obtain in the general assembly, all necessary instruction and advice to our agent at this most critical juncture; that while he is setting forth the unshaken loyalty of this province and this town—its unrival’d exertion in supporting his Majesty’s government and rights in this part of his dominions-its acknowledg’d dependence upon and subordination to Great-Britain; and the ready submission of its merchants to all just and necessary regulations of trade; he may be able in the most humble and pressing manner to remonstrate for us all those rights and privileges which justly belong to us either by charter or birth.
As his Majesty’s other northern American colonies are embark’d with us in this most important bottom, we further desire you to use your endeavors, that their weight may be added to that of this province: that by the united application of all who are aggrieved, All may happily obtain redress.
Substance of a Memorial presented the House, in Pursuance of the above
Instructions; and by them voted to be transmitted to Jasper Mauduit,
Esq; Agent for this Province; to be improved as he may judge proper.
The publick transactions from William the I. to the revolution, may be considered as one continued struggle between the prince and the people, all tending to that happy establishment, which Great-Britain has since enjoyed.
The absolute rights of Englishmen, as frequently declared in parliament, from Magna Charta, to this time, are the rights of personal security, personal liberty, and of private property.
The allegiance of British subjects being natural, perpetual and inseparable from their persons, let them be in what country they may; their rights are also natural, inherent and perpetual.
By the laws of nature and of nations, the voice of universal reason, and of God, when a nation takes possession of a desert, uncultivated, and uninhabited country, or purchases of Savages; as was the case with far the greatest part of the British settlements; the colonists transplanting themselves, and their posterity, tho’ separated from the principal establishment, or mother country, naturally become part of the state with its ancient possessions, and intitled to all the essential rights of the mother country. This is not only confirmed by the practice of the antients, but by the moderns ever since the discovery of America. Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Portugals are no greater slaves abroad than at home; and hitherto Britons have been as free on one side of the atlantic as on the other: And it is humbly hoped that his Majesty and the Parliament, will in their wisdom be graciously pleased to continue the colonists in this happy state.
Their legislative power is subject by the same charter to the King’s negative as in Ireland. This effectually secures the dependence of the colonies on Great-Britain—By the thirteenth of George the second, chapter the ninth, even foreigners having lived seven years in any of the colonies, are deemed natives on taking the oaths of allegiance, &c. and are declared by the said act to be his Majesty’s natural born subjects of the kingdom of Great-Britain, to all intents, constructions and purposes, as if any of them had been born within the kingdom. The reasons given for this naturalization in the preamble of the act are, “that the increase of the people is the means of advancing the wealth and strength of any nation or country; and that many foreigners and strangers, from the lenity of our government, the purity of our religion, the benefit of our laws, the advantages of our trade, and the security of our property, might be induced to come and settle in some of his Majesty’s colonies in America; if they were partakers of the advantages and priviledges, which the natural born subjects there enjoy.”
The several acts of parliament and charters declaratory of the rights and liberties of the colonies are but in affirmance of the common law, and law of nature in this point. There are says my Lord Coke, regularly three incidents to subjects born. (1.) Parents under the actual obedience of the King. (2.) That the place of his birth be within the King’s dominions. (3.) The time of his birth to be chiefly considered: For he cannot be a subject born of one kingdom, that was born under the allegiance of the King of another kingdom; albeit afterwards the kingdom descends to the King of the other kingdom. See Calvin’s case, and the several acts of parliament and decisions on naturalization, from Edward the third to this day. The common law is received and practiced upon here, and in the rest of the colonies; and all antient and modern acts of parliament that can be considered as part of, or in amendment of the common law, together with all such acts of parliament as expresly name the plantations; so that the power of the British parliament is held as sacred and as uncontroulable in the colonies as in England. The question is not upon the general power or right of the parliament, but whether it is not circumscribed within some equitable and reasonable bounds? ‘Tis hoped it will not be considered as a new doctrine, that even the authority of the parliament of Great-Britain is circumscribed by certain bounds, which if exceeded their acts become
those of meer power without right, and consequently void. The judges of England have declared in favour of these sentiments, when they expressly declare; that acts of parliament against natural equit), are void. That acts against the fundamental principles of the British constitution are ooid. This doctrine is agreable to the law of nature and nations, and to the divine dictates of natural and revealed religion. J t is contrary to reason that the supreme power should have right to alter the constitution. This would imply that those who are intrusted with Sovereignty by the people, have a right to do as they please. In other words, that those who are invested with power to protect the people, and support their rights and liberties, have a right to make slaves of them. This is not very remote from a flat contradiction. Should the parliament of Great Britain follow the example of some other foreign states, and vote the King absolute and despotic; would such an act of parliament make him so? Would any minister in his senses advise a Prince to accept of such an offer of power? It would be unsafe to accept of such a donation, because the parliament or donors would grant more than was ever in their power lawfully to give. The law of nature never invested them with a power of surrendering their own liberty; and the people certainly never intrusted any body of men with a power to surrender theirs in exchange for slavery.
It is now near three hundred years since the continent of North-America was first discovered, and that by British subjects Ten generations have passed away thro’ infinite toils and bloody conflicts in settling this country. None of those ever dreamed but that they were intitled, at least, to equal priviledges with those of the same rank born within the realm.
British America has been hitherto distinguished from the slavish colonies around about it, as the fortunate Britons have been from most of their neighbours on the continent of Europe. It is for the interest of Great-Britain that her colonies should be ever, thus distinguished. Every man must willfully blind himself that don’t see the immense value of our acquisitions in the late war; and that tho’ we did not retain all at the conclusion of the peace that we obtained by the sword; yet our gracious Sovereign, at the same time that he has given a divine lesson of equitable moderation to the Princes of the earth, has retained sufficient to make the British arms the dread of the universe, and his name dear to all posterity.
To the freedom of the British constitution, and to their increase of commerce, ‘tis owing that our colonies have flourished without diminishing the inhabitants of the mother country; quite contrary to the effects of plantations made by most other nations, which have suffered at home, in order to aggrandize themselves abroad. This is remarkably the case with Spain. The subjects of a free and happy constitution of government, have a thousand advantages to colonize above those who live under despotic princes. We see how the British colonies on the continent, have out-grown those of the French, notwithstanding they have ever engaged the Savages to keep us back. Their advantages over us in the West-Indies are, among other causes perhaps, partly owing to these, (1.) A capital neglect in former reigns, in suffering them to have a firm possession of so many valuable islands, that we had a better title to than they. (2.) The French unable to push their settlements effectually on the continent, have bent their views to the islands, and poured vast numbers into them. (3.) The climate and business of these islands is by nature much better adapted to Frenchmen and to Negroes, than to Britons. (4.) The labour of slaves, black or white, will be ever cheaper than that of freemen, because that of the individuals among the former, will never be worth so much as with the latter; but this difference is more than supplied; by numbers under the advantages abovementioned. The French win ever be able to sell their West-India produce cheaper than our own islanders; and yet while our own islanders can have such a price for theirs, as to grow much richer than the French, or any other of the King’s subjects in America, as is the case, and what the northern colonies take from the French, and other foreign islands, centers finally in returns to Great-Britain for her manufactures, to an immense value, and with a vast profit to her: It is contrary to the first principles of policy to clog such a trade with duties, much more to prohibit it, to the risque if not certain destruction of the fishery. I t is allowed by the most accurate British writers on commerce, Mr. Postlethwait in particular, who seems to favour the cause of the sugar islands, that one half of the immense commerce of Great-Britain is with her colonies. It is very certain that without the fishery seven eights of this commerce would cease. The fishery is the center of motion, upon which the wheel of all British commerce in America turns. Without the American trade, would Britain, as a commercial state, make any great figure at this day in Europe? Her trade in woolen and other manufactures is said to be lessening in all parts of the world, but America, where it is increasing, and capable of infinite increase, from a concurrence of every circumstance in its favour. Here is an extensive territory of different climates, which in time will consume, and be able to pay for as many manufactures as Great Britain and Ireland can make, if true maxims are persued. The French for reasons already mentioned, can underwork, and consequently undersell the English manufactures of Great-Britain in every market in Europe. But they can send none of their manufactures here; and it is the wish of every honest British American that they never may; ‘tis best they never should; we can do better without the manufactures of Europe, save those of Great-Britain, than with them: But without the French West-India produce w
e cannot; without it our fishery must infallibly be ruined. When that is gone our own islands will very poorly subsist. No British manufactures can be paid for by the colonists. What will follow? One of these two things, both of which it is the interest of Great-Britain to prevent. (1.) The northern colonists must be content to go naked, and turn Savages. Or (2.) Become manufacturers of linnen and woolen, to Cloath themselves; which if they cannot carry to the
perfection of Europe, will be very destructive to the interests of Great-Britain. The computation has been made, and that within bounds, and it can be demonstrated, that if North-America is only driven to the fatal necessity of manufacturing a suit of the most ordinary linnen or woolen for each inhabitant annually, which may be soon done, when necessity the mother of invention shall operate, Great-Britain & Ireland will loose two millions per annum, besides a diminution of the revenue to nearly the same amount. This may appear paradoxical, but a few years experience of the execution of the sugar act will sufficiently convince the parliament not only of the inutility, but destructive tendency of it, while calculations may be little attended to. That the trade with the colonies has been of surprizing advantage to Great-Britain, notwithstanding the want of a good regulation is past all doubt. Great-Britain is well known to have increased prodigiously both in numbers and in wealth since she began to colonize. To the growth of the plantations Britain is in a great measure indebted for her present riches and strength. As the wild wastes of America have been turned into pleasant habitations, and flourishing trading towns; so many of the little villages and obscure boroughs in Great-Britain have put on a new face, and suddently started up, and become fair markets, and manufacturing towns, and opulent cities. London itself, which bids fair to be the metropolis of the world, is five times more populous than it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Such are the fruits of the spirit of commerce and liberty. Hence it is manifest how much we all owe to that beautiful form of civil government, under which we have the happiness to live.