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nies shall be subject to the disposal of parliament alone, is to propose that they shall relinquish this right of enquiry, and put it in the power of others to render their gifts ruinous, in proportion as they are liberal.

That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies, is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which, if left altogether without controul, may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shows how efficacious is its intercessions for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights, and how improvident it would be to part with so powerful a mediator.

We are of opinion that the proposition contained in this resolution is unreasonable and insidious: Unreasonable, because, if we declare we accede to it, we declare, without reservation, we will purchace the favour of parliament, not knowing at the same time at what price they will please to estimate their favour; it is insidious, because, individual colonies, having bid and bidden again, till they find the avidity of the seller too great for all their powers to satisfy; are then to return into opposition, divided from their sister colonies whom the minister will have previously detached by a grant of easier terms, or by an artful procrastination of a definitive answer.

That the suspension of the exercise of their pretended power of taxation being expressly made commensurate with the continuance of our gifts, these must be perpetual to make that so. Whereas no experience has shewn that a gift of perpetual revenue secures a perpetual return of duty or of kind disposition. On the contrary, the parliament itself, wisely attentive to this observation, are in the established practice of granting their supplies from year to year only.

Desirous and determined, as we are, to consider, in the most dispassionate view, every seeming advance towards a reconciliation made by the British parliament, let our brethren of Britain reflect, what would have been the sacrifice to men of free spirits, had even fair terms been proffered, as these insidious proposals were with circumstances of insult and defiance. A proposition to give our money, accompanied with large fleets and armies, seems addressed to our fears rather than to our freedom. With what patience would Britons have received articles of treaty from

any power on earth when borne on the point of the bayonet by military plenipotentiaries?

We think the attempt unnecessary to raise upon us by force or by threats our proportional contributions to the common defence, when all know, and themselves acknowledge, we have fully contributed, whenever called upon to do so in the character of free

men.

We are of opinion it is not just that the colonies should be required to oblige themselves to other contributions, while GreatBritain possesses a monopoly of their trade. This of itself lays them under heavy contribution. To demand, therefore, additional aids in the form of a tax, is to demand the double of their equal proportion: if we are to contribute equally with the other parts of the empire, let us equally with them enjoy free commerce with the whole world. But while the restrictions on our trade shut to us the resources of wealth, is it just we should bear all other burthens equally with those to whom every resource is open?

We conceive that the British parliament has no right to intermeddle with our provisions for the support of civil government, or administration of justice. The provisions we have made, are such as please ourselves, and are agreeable to our own circumstances: They answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered. We do not mean that our people shall be burthened with oppressive taxes, to provide sinecures for the idle or the wicked, under colour of providing for a civil list. While parliament pursue their plan of civil government within their own jurisdiction, we also hope to pursue ours without molestation.

We are of opinion the proposition is altogether unsatisfactory, because it imports only a suspension of the mode, not a renunciation of the pretended right to tax us: because, too, it does not propose to repeal the several acts of parliament passed for the purposes of restraining the trade, and altering the form of gov ernment of one of our colonies: extending the boundaries and changing the government of Quebec; enlarging the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty; taking from us the rights of trial by a jury of the vicinage, in cases affecting both life and property; transporting us into other countries to be tried for criminal offences; exempting, by mock-trial, the murderers

of colonists from punishment; and quartering soldiers on us in times of profound peace. Nor do they renounce the power of suspending our own legislatures, and for [of] legislating for us themselves in all cases whatsoever. On the contrary, to shew they mean to [no] discontinuance of injury, they pass acts, at the very time of holding out this proposition, for restraining the commerce and fisheries of the provinces of New-England, and for interdicting the trade of other colonies with all foreign nations, and with each other. This proves, unequivocally, they mean not to relinquish the exercise of indiscriminate legislation over us.

Upon the whole, this proposition seems to have been held up to the world, to deceive it into a belief that there was nothing in dispute between us but the mode of levying taxes; and that the parliament having now been so good as to give up this, the colonies are unreasonable if not perfectly satisfied: Whereas, in truth, our adversaries still claim a right of demanding ad libitum, and of taxing us themselves to the full amount of their demand, if we do comply with it. This leaves us without any thing we can call property. But, what is of more importance, and what in this proposal they keep out of sight, as if no such point was now in contest between us, they claim a right to alter our charters and establish laws, and leave us without any security for our lives and liberties. The proposition seems also to have been calculated more particularly to lull into fatal security, our well-affected fellow-subjects on the other side the water, till time should be given for the operation of those arms, which a British minister pronounced would instantaneously reduce the "cowardly" sons of America to unreserved submission. But, when the world reflects, how inadequate to justice are these vaunted terms; when it attends to the rapid and bold succession of injuries, which, during the course of eleven years, have been aimed at these colonies; when it reviews the pacific and respectful expostulations, which, during that whole time, were the sole arms we opposed to them; when it observes that our complaints were either not heard at all, or were answered with new and accumulated injuries; when it recollects that the minister himself, on an early occasion, declared, "that he would never treat with America, till he had brought her to his feet," and that an avowed partisan of ministry has more lately denounced against us the

dreadful sentence, "delenda est Carthago;" that this was done in presence of a British senate, and being unreproved by them, must be taken to be their own sentiment, (especially as the purpose has already in part been carried into execution, by their treatment of Boston and burning of Charlestown;) when it considers the great armaments with which they have invaded us, and the circumstances of cruelty with which these have commenced and prosecuted hostilities; when these things, we say, are laid together and attentively considered, can the world be deceived into an opinion that we are unreasonable, or can it hesitate to believe with us, that nothing but our own exertions may defeat the ministerial sentence of death or abject submission.

No. 49. Proclamation of Rebellion

August 23, 1775

THE party in Congress which still hoped for reconciliation succeeded, June 3, 1775, in passing a resolution for the appointment of a committee to prepare a petition to the King; and Dickinson, Johnson, John Rutledge, Jay, and Franklin were chosen by ballot as the members of the committee. The petition, drafted by Dickinson, was reported June 19, taken up for consideration July 4, and the following day agreed to. On the 8th the engrossed copy was signed by the members present. The petition, together with other addresses adopted by the Congress, was entrusted to Richard Penn, to be carried to England and laid before the King. The petition was the last offer of reconciliation made by Congress; and the decision of the question of independence was thought by many to depend upon its reception. Already, in January, before the first petition had been laid before Parliament, the Privy Council had decided that force should be used to suppress the rebellion, and that all persons resisting the King should be proclaimed traitors. The attention of Parliament, however, was immediately taken up with the conciliatory proposals of Chatham, Burke, and Lord North, and the acts restraining the trade of the northern and southern colonies; and the proclamation was not then issued. In the mean time, the British and American forces came into collision at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and Congress chose Washington as commander-in-chief of the American army. The news of these proceedings fixed the determination of the King, and he ordered the proclamation to be drawn up. On the 23d of August, the day on which Richard Penn and Arthur Lee were to have presented the "olive branch” petition to Lord Dartmouth, the proclamation was issued. The petition was handed to Lord Dartmouth September 1, but the colonial representa

tives were refused an audience with the King, and were finally informed that no answer would be given. The news of the rejection of the petition reached America October 31. November 3, Congress recommended the people of New Hampshire to establish a form of government. December 6, a formal report on the proclamation was agreed to, in which, after repudiating the charge of treason, Congress declared that "whatever punishment shall be inflicted upon any persons in the power of our enemies, for favouring, aiding, or abetting the cause of American liberty, shall be retaliated in the same kind, and the same degree, upon those in our power, who have favoured, aided, or abetted, or shall favour, aid, or abet the system of ministerial oppression."

REFERENCES. Text in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, III., 240, 241. The report of December 6 is in the Journals of Congress (ed. 1800, I., 263-265; Ford's ed., III., 409-412). The best account of events is in Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, chap. 10. The petition of July 8 is in MacDonald's Select Charters, No. 77.

GEORGE R.

Whereas many of our subjects in divers parts of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, misled by dangerous and ill designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and supported them; after various disorderly acts committed in disturbance of the publick peace, to the obstruction of lawful commerce, and to the oppression of our loyal subjects carrying on the same; have at length proceeded to open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in a hostile manner, to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously preparing, ordering and levying war against us: And whereas, there is reason to apprehend that such rebellion hath been much promoted and encouraged by the traitorous correspondence, counsels and comfort of divers wicked and desperate persons within this realm: To the end therefore, that none of our subjects may neglect or violate their duty through ignorance thereof, or through any doubt of the protection which the law will afford to their loyalty and zeal, we have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to issue our Royal Proclamation, hereby declaring, that not only all our Officers, civil and military, are obliged to exert their utmost endeavours to suppress such rebellion, and to bring the traitors to justice, but that all our subjects of this Realm, and the dominions thereunto belonging, are bound by law to be aiding and assisting in the suppression of such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all traitorous conspiracies and attempts against us, our crown and dignity; and

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