calling and hallooing out, Order; at every attempt. Other wording and drefling certainly would be wanting. Some other cafes have come across me:-The other day it was voted that the King had too much power and it should be diminished; (I forget the form of the wording) and after the act paffing, fuppofe you had got up in the House and proposed a repeal of it, with these few words; "Your act is a "folecifm; it is felo de fe. It declares what itfelf contradicts in the very "declaration. I propofe a repeal."-What would have been anfwered? It It' is unanfwerable. Perhaps the majority was really a little occafional; but what is that to the great public eye? Again: You vote ftrong things against fome Eaft-India gentlemen whom you would compel to refund ill-gotten treasures there, in order to reftore them to their true owners; this feems good principle; but not to stop at these gentlemen but go to the great delinquent himself of whofe general caufe as I am not competent, fo am I not defirous, to decide; but only with (and indeed rationally) to fay a word to a fingle point of confideration, and therefore would make one query, it is this; and as involving us, I mean the parliament and the nation, in the question: Mr. Haftings has been accused of much peculation, and of course injury to the poor Indians; immenfe fums he has indeed procured to this country. from them fomehow or other, though I know very little how; our almost existence as a people proves it. I mean not that this is to justify the thing, if it fo be; yet alfo, no one is to live ftill lefs flourish on ftolen goods, and my query, in fhort, is this:-If you condemn Mr. Haftings for his malverfations and his rapines, (and to be fure, in justice to those ruined people) are you to execute the guilty committer of them, and at the fame time yourself profit from them, by the acceptance and ufe of the money? Sure at one and the fame time (to be at all confiftent as well as juit) that you execute the criminal, you should return to the defrauded their ftolen property; most certainly not use it yourself, else methinks your Justice is a very lame, though very truly blind, goddess. Suppose I got up then, and proposed an act that all the fums truly found to be wrongfully taken from the Indians, should at the same time be returned by the nation to them, and the robber who procured them executed? Could any one gainsay this? If you do the latter only, (nay, may I not say even attempt, or think of it) need I reason about it?— There is a national queftion, great indeed! and that will not foon be forgotten; I mean that of America, and our lofs of it. How we loft it, has been much agitated indeed; whether by minds of white paper or no, need hardly be asked, when it is, or rather need not be, told, that it was so by the parties concerned on both fides. Yet I believe by this time people in general are pretty well agreed as to that how; though I will not pretend to name it. Was it taxable or not? To my little apprehenfion, however open to conviction, I mean information and retractation-" What's Hecuba to me, or "I to Hecuba?" it appears that it was; and though it were for this reason only, that no people ever were, or even can be, fubjects of any government without being taxable; that it is inherent in fubjection, a conftituent part of it, and that saying I am a subject of such or such a state, of whatever fort it be, and wherever placed, is faying I'am taxable by it. And I imagine the dispute between the two parties might have had the offer from one of them to put the difpute to this iffue, viz. If this was not the opinion of every fubject in America before the time of Mr. Franklin, and the tenets he broached, and their confequences, which are too well known; nay farther, do I recollect right, in thinking that I have seen or heard fomewhere of an instance of their actually having been taxed on some occafion, and paying it without a murmur (then) or idea of its not being quite within the common course of things and the law of the land? God knows if I mistake here, and if in shew of political learning, of which I know fo little, I might not fail fail through all my quotations of Rome, with all her etceteras; but yet all this, it must be granted, is lefs the question than the nature of things; and if from fituation, or any other caufe, they could not be governed by us as free fubjects, then, ipfo facto they belonged to themselves only, and had a right to be fo as fast as they could. But ftill more, if though they could be any how made fuch fubjects to our King, &c. and he, &c. would not confent to it, then, by laws to which all others have nothing to fay, I mean of natural inherent right, they had only to get free of us as faft as they could. But from the little I know along with every common man as to all this, we were ready to accommodate them all we could, and enough to their liberty and happiness; and if I understand it right, on a footing of freedom equal to ourselves. But they fay No, most loudly, to it all:-They? we say fo, and have said fo enough to fix them as they are. The grand objection, I think, has been, that they could not be taxable, because they were not, and could not, be reprefentable. We, they tell us:-They! why do I again fay they?-We, (see what generous enemies we are!) aye, we tell ourselves this;-" Mother, father, (man "and wife, are one flesh)-So mother," They, we, tell ourselves this, and prove the affertion thus, viz. The people of Great-Britain have the unexampled privilege of chusing, even through the nation, the very man they like beft to be their medium, (better, if I dared use it, their organe) through which themselves are to affert their every privilege, their every object of dear and due liberty;-and this, I fay, all through the country. What a means of security! particular and univerfal! Of all this, we Americans, fay they, have nothing, or can. By this means the money you pay is at your own choice; through the whole nation not a man (except indeed fome, fo low, they could not, and want not, a participation, fince fafe from their very infignificancy and incapacity of contribution) but pays from himself, and his own will and choice, whatever he does pay; let us then pay from ours, which is all we afk, and we are con We promise you we will pay our juft quota; we have done fo hitherto; and why not trust us ftill? Do this, and our quarrel is over; it is true you tell us that large bodies of men, and of high confideration among yourselves, have none of the above advantages, and yet are taxed by your collective and embodied parliament, and are content. How different their cafe and ours! They are, if not of cities or boroughs, connected with them; connected fo many ways, that they may be faid at least to be virtually reprefented: (how far the Americans would have been united with us, and virtually reprefented, I really am not politician enough to fay) they are involved with their fellowfubjects in their fecurity, and are therefore fecure enough. We are not connected with you, and you may have a different interest from us. Let us then pay as we ourselves fhall fee fitting; we have and will pay our quota. Imperfectly am I informed as to the origin of the Americans' quarrel with us, but latterly, furely they were governed juftly; and I never understood the violence and virulence of thofe people against us, fince governed by fomething or fomebody they must be; and furely, a worfe government than this might be their lot; how far now arrived or not, others, and many to be fure, know: and as to any little nominal, and probably ideal, or at least infigni*ficant difadvantage of neceffity about this fame dear reprefentation, see at least what it really and truly is. But to this may I not answer myself, by only referring to the famous Dr. Price's writings? His Utopian ideas of the liberty men ought to have, (worthy in truth of Bedlam) his angelical notions of impartiality and truth; alas! little knowing in his own practice how fhamefully, wickedly, he was acting the very reverfe in representations of our finking populoufnefs, our quantity of fpecie, &c. &c. things the very reverse in reality of what he fo folemnly fet forth; and all (la pauvre humanité!) adopted and believed by perhaps one quarter of the nation, and pretended perhaps to be fo by another, and by the whole of America; to perhaps the lofs of the country to us, and poffibly not lefs the lofs of us to the country. Who knows, but at the very time he and Mrs. Macaulay, and the reft of them, were tyrannizing in their own little families over their children and fervants, &c.? If not they, does any one doubt it of others? Little did any reflect, reflect, that with the acquifition of power, its concomitant of nature, domineering and overbearing, would with it equally (as with Oliver Cromwell and Co.) come in; nature affume her rights, and find her level. To much of this, what goes before feems a reply; but a word or two further. And firft of all, is it true that every British subject pays what he pleases, and taxes himself?-Let us talk a little of things, and not of names, which in my poor opinion govern more people than they ought. Aye, a little voir les chofes comme elle font;-it ftrikes me, that if really and truly every man, nay every great city, Winchester, Salisbury, York, &c. were really and truly to pay only what they (not each man, but each city) chofe, we should have but a short account of it. As to every single man, does he not evade even every payment he can, after giving it?—tea, brandy, rum, &c. he will get fmuggled, if he can. No, the Parliament collected compel it; and even they are in part compelled by a majority, and that majority enfured by emolument; as in truth is that no lefs neceffary minority by the hope of it:man is man every where, and will get to himself all he can. Then as to really and truly choosing the man you like beft, or indeed, fairly and freely any man, it is too great a farce to realize the queftion; but it is all very well as it is, and (to me) as to a reform of parliament, (though to be fure it is a great joke to call it a representation) it matters not a farthing bow elected, fo that they are fo, and become a body. But even to talk of these electing men making or recommending laws or votes to their members, only look at them, and fee what judges they are, not only of an intricate queftion, but any; even if they had an opinion, they do not even know a word of what is going forward, or can, or care. It is true (we will not enter into the why) that fome will tell you they are to counsel their members on all.-What inference do I draw from this? that it is impoffible for any ftate to fubfift without a complete, aye abfolute power over all its fubjects. Now that fuch power can fubfift, as over one man, so over a great community, without a command from itself as to monies to be paid by them, &c. &c. to me feems impoffible; -even in private affairs, without compulfion what fecurity have you? The effect of verbal agreement only, I at this moment well experience and feel in the |