tion I make between our actual and our legislative hom "They

is frivolous; for Dr. Price, your oracle, says, [the Colonies] gloried in their relation to us; — and they always spoke of this country and looked to it as their home." Now, as the Colonists were never so destitute of good sense, as to look on England as their actual home; it remains, that your oracle has spoken nonsense, or that England is their principal, legislative home. And would to God, they were not grown so uneasy, as to despise this "home, be it ever so homely!"

You hint indeed at the inconvenience and impossibility of the Colonists coming back to their legislative home; but this objection makes as much against your scheme of representation as against ours; for you insinuate, that all the non-voters in England may go and settle in the few boroughs, where the Constitution allows every pot-boiler to be a voter; and you give us a hint, that if they do not, "it is their own fault." But is it not more practicable for all the freeholders in America, to crowd into Great Britain; than for all the non-voters in Great Britain, to crowd into such privileged boroughs as you speak of; or for all the women, who have freeholds in England, to change their sex, that they may have a vote at the next election?

You reply, p. 38, "The representation in England is unequal; owing to a great variety of casual circumstances, which it would be useless to enumerate." Now, Sir, applying to all the British empire, what you say of England, I answer, The representation, with respect to America, "is unequal; owing to a great variety of casual circumstances," such as emigration, distance, interposing seas, and the impropriety of multiplyings

Mr. Evans wants each American assembly to be invested with supreme power in conjunction with the King, after the model of the Irish parliament; but I wish the British Empire too well to be of his sentiment. The same rule holds in po. litics and in mechanics; the more a government and a machine are needlessly complicated, the weaker are their motions, and the greater the danger of their being out of order. It is the glory and strength of our Constitution to be

parliaments, which would as much weaken the empire, as you would do a piece of clock-work, if you contrived to make each wheel move by means of a separate spring. Thus, if I am not mistaken, your own concessions, backed by one of Dr. Price's observations, shew that, so far, your attempt to demonstrate that the parliamentary doctrine of taxation is contrary to the Constitution, only shews that it is truly constitutional.

Come we now to your capital argument, the first part of which runs thus :-"The American can have no voice in the disposal of his property; and what is worse, those who are to have the power of disposing of it, are under every possible temptation to abuse the power, because every shilling they take out of the pocket of an American is so much saved in their own." To this I reply, Vind. p. 81, "You mistake: For as many of the Colonists as choose to purchase a freehold in England, may become electors; and as many as have a sufficient fortune, may be candidates at the next election ;" adding, that you yourself speak of a late American Candidate, who was a friend to America. But you take no notice of this sufficient answer.

Pressing you still farther, I remind you that "there are several members in both houses of parliament, who have a very large property in America, and who, when they tax the Colonists, take far more money out of their own pockets than they probably do out of the pocket of Mr. Hancock." To this you reply, page 41, "But what security have the Americans, that there will always be such members in parliament ?" I answer :-They have the same security for it, which we have, that there will always be a prince to fill the throne, and a num

compact, "in se totus teres atque rotundus." As I could not admire an human body with one head and a dozen stomachs, I should not be pleased to see Great Britain and her Colonies exhibiting to the world a political body, with one royal head and a dozen supreme courts of parliament. If such needless divisions and multiplications do not tend to speedy dissolu. tion, they certainly do to weakness, confusion, slowness of operation, and a thousand evils, which France with her several unconnected parliaments so severely feels.

ber of peers to compose a House of Lords. It is not impossible that a plague should sweep away all the royal family, and all the nobility: But would it be right to distress the public by such a supposition ? Would it not be ridiculous to frighten the simple, by telling them that the Constitution is in danger, and that, as we have no security that all the royal family and all the nobility will not die of the plague, or be blown up by a second gunpowder plot, " our Constitution is almost lost," and we are likely soon to have another rump parliament, without king, and without house of lords? But you add:. :-"Unless all the members of the British parliament had American property, they would not be on a level with the non-voters in England." I reply: If the American Colonies are, as some patriots suppose, the capital spring of British wealth, all the members of parliament have a particular, though indirect concern in the prosperity of the Colonists; nor does the Constitution require that taxed subjects should be on a level with each other in every possible respect. The Americans should be thankful for being on a level, not only with the non-voters of England, in the important right of qualifying themselves to be voters, or candidates for seats in parliament, but also with the freeholders in London, who have no vote, and with the members of parliament abroad, who, through emigration, cannot actually share in the legislature. I repeat it, to attempt to bring about a representation, equal in every respect, is as absurd as to attempt making all our fellow-subjects of one size, one age, one sex, one country, one revenue, one rank, and one capacity.

Another of my answers to your grand argument ran thus:-"It is improbable that our law-givers would save a dirty shilling in their pockets, by oppressively taking one out of an American's pocket. Being men of fortune they are raised by their circumstances above the felonious trick you speak of." Page 40, you humourously reply, "I suppose, Sir, if you should lend a few thousands to any of our legislators, you would not pre

tend to ask for a bond. It would be ungenerous to suspect men of such circumstances, as the Constitution obliges all our Law-givers to be, of such a felonious trick as not paying you again." But this reply of yours is fully obviated by my fifth answer, which is as follows: -"If the Colonists were afraid of being taxed more heavily than the rule of proportion allows, should they not have humbly requested, that the parliament would settle the matter by an act,—or a bond,' which might have been an effectual check upon the abuse of the power of taxation ?”

6

You think to unnerve this answer by saying, p. 42, "What the Colonists should have done is one thing, and what the British Parliament has done is another.' True: The parliament has laid upon the Colonists a little tax, and they have revolted, instead of paying it with the loyalty which becomes good subjects, and with the prudence which becomes men jealous of their liberty; and therefore their conduct is unjustifiable, and that of the parliament reasonable. You farther insinuate, that as you are not obliged "to conform to the Established Church," so the Colonists were not obliged to submit to British taxation in the prudential manner I have mentioned. But the case is not parallel. Neither Christianity nor the Constitution obliges us to conform to the Established Church; whereas both enjoin us to render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due,' that is, to the supreme protective

power.

You have another string to your bow. Sensible that the preceding argument is not strong enough to shoot the arrow of conviction into a thinking man's breast, you add, p. 42, "A man that robs me on the highway, may think that I should have previously asked him if he did not want my money.-But I presume this will not justify his robbing me.' So, Sir, you will always insinuate, that we are no more bound to pay reasonable taxes to the legislative power which protects us, than we are bound to give our money to a robber who demands

he not contradict St. Paul, Jesus Christ, and Mr. Evans himself, who, (p. 27,) not only grants "the necessity of subjects paying taxes," but intimates, that a man who denies the propriety of that custom, and the ground of that propriety, is "one of the most unreasonable beings in the universe, and a mere political Quixote ?" It does not become me to decide how far you have drawn your picture in this candid concession; but, as you finish your answer to my argument by this display of your consistency, I may desire the public to judge, whether your reply gives a finishing stroke to the cause of the parliament, or to your own.

The other part of your capital argument runs thus: -The Britons who have no vote, or who are unable to vote by emigration, may 66 consent to the disposal of their property, because they have always this security, that those who take an active part in the disposal of their property must at the same time dispose of an equal portion of their own." I have already shewn that the Colonists have considerable degrees of security, that the parliament will not tax them disproportionably. And if they had properly asked a fuller security, instead of fleeing to arms, the parliament would undoubtedly have granted their request. But, without dwelling upon this answer; to overthrow your argument, I need only observe that it is inconclusive, because it can be retorted, and saps the foundation of what you call "the fundamental privilege" of the Commons; which is, that no money-bills can reasonably "originate but from themselves." For, if money-bills always originated from the Lords, who are richer than the populace, the Commons would have always this security, that the Lords, in taking an active part in the disposal of the people's property, must at the same time dispose of an equal proportion of their own. So easily can your grand argument be turned against your own cause! And so great is the inconsistency of a system, one part of which you cannot support, without totally undermining the other!

If these remarks recommend themselves to your reason, piety, and sober patriotism, I hope, Sir, you will