WHEN the Advocates of a cause de­scend to the low chicanery of assert­ing the most evident untruths, of imposing meanings on words which they do not import, and perverting the arguments of their opponents to points, the contrary of which they most solidly prove; it is difficult to determine whether they exhibit clearer evidence of weak heads, depraved hearts, or a bad cause. A conduct so destitute of candor and honour, may tend, for a time, to raise a mist before the eyes of the weak and ignorant, and seduce the credulous and unwary; but cannot, for a moment, draw the sensible part of mankind into those snares which your am­bition and destructive schemes of independ­ence have already, in idea, prepared for them. The sight of the Americans, too long blinded by your sophistical distinctions, and incoherent arguments, is daily growing clearer. True information respecting their rights and duties, [Page 4] and your pernicious designs, are pouring in upon them. And were you not transported and infatuated with the wild scheme of rais­ing your own importance upon the separation of two great countries, whose interest and safety are inseparable; you would perceive that the honest and wise in both, are raising a firm opposition to your measures; and that, like the viper in the fable, you are gnawing a file, which will wear out your own teeth before you will blunt the softest part of it.

To convince you of this truth, if possible, and disabuse mankind, whom you have been deceiving by your wild and novel ideas of government, ever since the unhappy aera of the Stamp-act, I mean to trace you through all your artful meanders and sophistical laby­rinths; and to show to the world, that your last doctrines are as replete with fallacy and absurdities, as those which are long since ex­ploded by all America. But before I enter upon a particular Reply to your Answer, I will take a general View of it; and there every Reader will find that its sole aim is to shew that the several Colonies are not members of the British state, but so many distinct, independent states, vested by their respective inhabitants with a “le­gislative power, as SUPREME and as UNLI­MITED as the power of the legislature of Great Britain, ” This Gentlemen, is throw­ing [Page 5] off the mask with a witness. The cloven foot, which has hitherto been artfully and in­dustriously concealed, by those who under­stand the management of your designs better than yourselves, is here exhibited to our view in all its horrid deformity. The black scheme of independence, which is to rear its head out of the ruinous horrors of a civil war, is now boldly asserted and published; and no­thing less than a total separation of each Colony from the Parent State, is the avowed object of your ambitious designs. Permit me, in the name and behalf of the virtuous and loyal part of America, to thank you cordially for blabbing this long concealed and most important secret. It will instruct them, in future, to be upon their guard against your manoeuvres, and en­able them to oppose, with success, the ruin you are preparing for them.

It is a disagreeable task to travel through all your groundless assertions, sophistical in­consistencies, and ill-founded principles. They display so great a want of candor, so much mean subtilty, and so little regard for truth, that it is painful to find human nature capable of descending to such low expedients. How­ever, unpleasing as the task may be, my duty to my country shall prevail.

In the first paragraph of your Answer, you begin with a malevolent untruth—one so [Page 6] shameless and easily detected, that I should not waste paper in resuting it, was it not on account of those who are apt to swallow assertions without examination. You there tell us, I have laboured to show, “that America has no rights at all, and that we are the most abject slaves on earth.” Knowing that I had done the reverse, and ever wished to put the mildest construction on human conduct, even upon your's, however injurious, I sought for an apology for this bold asseveration, through all the pages of the pamphlet; but not finding any, I turned to your Answer, and in the latter end I find you confess your “Remarks are hasty,” that is, as I conclude, passionate and rash. This construction, charity command­ed me to put on your conduct; for to suppose that you could publish to the world so mani­fest an untruth, with temper and deliberation, is to suppose that you are lost, not only to all sense of candor, but character. Because who­ever has, with temper, perused the pamphlet, [...]ust know, that from page 32 to 62, more than one half of it is devoted to sh [...]w the re­verse of your assertion—that “ America has the most important rights, drawn from the same [...]o [...]r [...]—end as firmly established on the same principles, as those of the Parliament: ” that though by our emigration to a country, for which the constitution had not provided a [Page 7] representation, we had lost the enjoyment of those rights, yet we had neither surrendered, forfeited nor lost those rights themselves; but that on the contrary, we ought, in justice as well as policy, to be restored to the first and great right of English freedom, a participation of the supreme authority, and all the other rights of Enlishmen, upon such principles of liberty and policy as shall suit our local and other cir­cumstances. Nor did I stop here; but offered a variety of cogent arguments to induce the Americans to petition for, and the State to grant, them—Thus endeavouring, from the most disinterested motives, to lend my small aid towards uniting two great countries by the firmest bands of political freedom, into one grand and illustrious Empire: Under which union, upon every principle of reason and po­licy, all our present grievances must be relieved, and we shall hold the best of all political securi­ties against the future. Let this union be esta­blished, and all the fetters upon American manufactures, and all the burdens and prohi­bitions peculiar to American trade and com­merce, must be removed. The American merchant will enjoy the same [...]ght to trade to every port and place, where, by treaty, the merchant in Britain may trade—and the Ame­rican manufacturer will be at liberty to set up every kind of manufacture. Because, under this [Page 8] union, the cause and reason of all those bur­dens, prohibitions, and unjust distinctions be­tween an English subject in Britain, and one in America, cease of course. For, when America shall, by the union, be restored to a capacity of discharging, with justice and punc­tuality, all her duties to the state, and parti­cularly that first and most essential one, of granting the necessary and just aids to the state; and the state shall have the like political secu­rity with respect to America, which it hath as to its other members, that she will do so: No reason can possibly subsist why the Americans should not enjoy the same rights and privi­leges which the other subjects of the state do enjoy. Nor can it be of the least consequence to the state, whether a subject grows rich by his labour or commerce in the city of Lon­don, or on the Ohio; provided it can obtain a just and reasonable proportion of his wealth, when necessary for the protection and safety of the Empire. Upon this obvious principle of reason and justice, Calais, Wales, Chester, Durham, and Scotland, upon their respective unions with the English govern­ment, were taken into its bosom, and vested with all the rights of English subjects. And upon the same principle, they cannot be de­nied to America. Such must be the happy effects of an union between Great Britain and [Page 9] her colonies—Such the fortunate change in favour of America, which would emerge immediately from a condition the most slavish, limited in her manufactures, restrained and prohibited in her commerce, and bound by laws, in the making of which she does not participate, into all the rights, liberties and freedom, of the most free state upon earth. Is it possible that any men whose minds are not fraught with dark and sinister designs, can, upon cool reflection, prefer to a condition replete with such important benefits, an ignis fatuus, which must lead us into the distress­ful state of a conquered people, after being reduced by the calamities of a civil war!

But to follow you now closely; you say, that I have laid it down as a principle that there must be in every state a “supreme legis­lature, universal in extent over every mem­ber;—that the British Parliament is the supreme legislature of the colonies, and that the Colonists are therefore subject to its laws.” Now this is a partial and corrupt representation of the doctrine of the pamphlet:—It is but one half of the truth:—Because, although I have asserted, that the Parliament is, ever has been, and must, from the nature and reason of civil society, continue to be, the legislature of the Colonies while they remain members of the British State, there being no [Page 10] other; yet I have also added, and substantially proved, that in order to give the laws of Par­liament the same equitable and constitutional obligation in America, which they carry with them in Britain, some new provision, some constitutional union between the two coun­tries, should be adopted, to restore the Colo­nists to their antient and essential right of par­ticipating the power of making the laws: That this right was originally, and yet is, of the essence of the English government—That without it, the parliament is as absolute and despotic over the colonies, as any monarch whatever who singly holds the legislative au­thority; to which I have subjoined many solid reasons to induce the colonies to ask for, and the British state to grant it. But all this part of my argument you chose to omit; because it contains a flat contradiction to your ground­less charge: For it now evidently appears, when the doctrines of the pamphlet are taken and con­sidered together, that they are as different from your representation of them, as Light is from Darkness—Truth from your assertions.

Finding that the necessity of a supreme legis­lature in every state was too clearly proved to be denied, you have been obliged to confess it: And in order to shew that every Colony is an independent State, and consequently not sub­ject to the supreme power of Great Britain, [Page 11] you have, without shame or remorse, had re­course to a number of the most fallacious, ab­surd and sophistical positions. You begin with acknowledging, that “wherever men have, from a state of nature, entered into a state of society, there must be somewhere lodged a power to make laws obligatory on all the members of that society;” and then you ask, “Whether we have not a legislature in Pennsylvania, in the hands where the community have placed it?” This you say, cannot “be denied— It's power within the bounds of the province, is as supreme and as unlimited as the power of the legislature of Great-Britain.”—"Here," you add, “the principle of Mr. Locke applies.” In support of these dogmatical asseverations, you have not offered to the public a single shadow of proof! Nay you have not even attempted to carp at, much less to deny or refute, those incontestible facts and arguments, which demonstrate the contrary, and are to be found in the pamphlet from page 10 to 24.—But in what an unfor­tunate situation have you involved yourselves, if I should show that not one of this group of assertions, to which you would apply your doc­trine, is founded in truth or fact—that they are all inventions of your own brain, contrary to your own knowledge of the facts, and that they never existed elsewhere? What think [Page 12] you will become of your Application? To evince this will be no arduous task: For, 1st, The Pennsylvanians did not “from a state of nature enter into a state of society;” but some of them were originally members of the British State, who emigrated from one part of its territory to another, with intent to po­pulate that territory, and to extend the com­merce and interests of the nation, of which they still remained a part; and the others came from other established societies, which they relinquished, in order to become mem­bers of the British government. 2dly, The le­gislature of Pennsylania is not “in the hands where the community have place it:” But where the Representative of the supreme legis­lature of Great Britain originally "placed it;" who had no authority to discharge it from its subordination to the British State, or to render it " supreme" and independent. In 1682, King Charles, as Representative of the State, [...]and under its signature, formed the territory of P [...]nnsylvania into an inferior and subordi­nate body politic, by virtue of the power con­stitutionally vested in him to constitute infe­rior Corporations. In this grant, Section 4, among other privileges, be granted to William Penn, and his heirs, and to his and their Deputies and Lieutenants, “by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the free­men [Page 13] of the country, or of their delegates and deputies, to make laws for the good and happy government of the said country.” Under this authority Mr. Penn, in the year 1701, constituted the present Assembly, and vested them with their present rights, powers and privileges, many of which were shortly after confirmed by laws of the Province, which were transmitted to the Sovereign for his ap­probation, and became confirmed under the terms of the original grant. 3dly, I have shewn in the pamphlet, that no Representa­tive of any State ever held a power to consti­tute a supreme and independent legislature, not "subject to the regulations of the civil "government;" and that this is inconsistent with the nature of society. And I will next show you, that “the power of the legislature of Pennsylvania, is not supreme, and as un­limited as the power of the legislature of Great Britain,” by the words of its constitu­tion; nor supreme in any sense of the word, which I will define for your sakes who do not appear clearly to understand the meaning of it. Supreme—is highest in authority; or as Mr. Locke has it, “ having none equal in power; ” and in this sense you may find that all authors on government use it. Now the legislative power of Pennsylvania is not " supreme," but restrained and limited in a [Page 14] variety of instances, by the express words of the grant under the authority of which it has been established, and by the power which gave it existence. The laws which this legislature is impowered to make, are confined to such as are “not repugnant to, but as near may con­veniently be agreable to the laws and statutes. and rights of the kingdom of England; ” and the proprietor, who is the first branch of this legislature, is made answerable for “every wil­ful defualt or neglect permitted by him, against the laws of trade and navigation, and such other forfeitures and penalties as by acts of parl [...]ament in England are or shall be provi­ded;” and in case of failure, the representa­tive of the British state has reserved a right, “to resume the government of the province or country, and to retain the same until payment shall be made thereof” To this I may add, that the power of laying all man­ner of taxes is expressly reserved to the Parlia­ment. Thus we find that the legislature to which you would apply Mr. Locke's idea of supreme, having none equal in power, is an in­ferior, limited and restrained legislature—having no power by its constitution to make any laws which shall be repugnant to the laws, statutes and rights of a superior; and bound, under a forfeiture of its rights, to yield obedi­ence to such legislative acts as were a [...] the [Page 15] time of its institution, or should afterwards be provided by that superior. Such, I say, is the legilslature which you have either the igno­rance or folly of imposing on the public, “as supreme and as unlimited as the legislature of Great Britain. ”

But it seems, I myself have proved suffi­cient to shew “that each [colony] legislature is supreme within its own circle;” for I have said, “that each colony in the present con­stitution is capable, by its own internal le­gislature, to regulate its own police within its particular circle of territory.” And can you then, without a blush, assert that, from, this acknowledgment, you can, upon any fair and logical principle, infer that “each co­ony legislature is proved to be supreme [...] ” Is your knowledge in politic law, or the nature of government so totally defective, as not to teach you—that a power “to regulate its own police,” is common to almost every subordinate and inferior corporation which has a power to make laws, and which not­withstanding, remains subject to the supreme authority of the state? Has not the corpora­tion of London a competent [...] power to make laws "for regulating its own police?" Has it not a particular code of its own laws by which that police is governed? And does it not yet remain subject in all things to the jurisdiction [Page 16] of Parliament? Is not this the case also of the corporation of Bristol, and many others in England? Look into the charter of incorpo­ration of the city where you live, and which you ought to understand, and you will there find, that full power is granted to the cor­poration to make “such, and so many good and reasonable laws, ordinances, and con­stitutions, as shall seem necessary and con­venient for the government of the city: ” And yet I do not believe that any men, your­selves excepted, will conclude from thence, that the city of Philadelphia is possessed of a supreme legislative authority.

It also seems, in your novel and refined ideas of government, “it would be irregular and monstrous to suppose us subject to two legislatures.” Surely your pen has here written what your understanding did not dictate. Can you give me an instance in any civilized society where this is not the case? In all complex systems, whether mechanical or political, the subordinate wheels or powers must be actuated by, and submit to, one supreme first mover; and every inferior power, which is more than one remove from the first, must be governed by the secondary or intermediate powers, as well as the primary; all acting in concert, and adding to its strength. And therefore the learned author, whose sense [Page 17] you have grossly perverted, speaking of these inferior politic bodies, tells you, “ Whatever right they possess, or whatever power they hold over their members, is all under the determination of the supreme authority, which it ought on no account to oppose or over­balance; ” for otherwise there would be a state within a state; which would “render it irregular and monstrous.” Are not the members of every corporation in England subject to the authority of Parliament?

Fatigued as I am by my researches into the numerous absurdities upon which you have endeavoured to erect the supremacy and inde­pendence of the colonies, I should stop here, did not one yet remain, upon which you greatly rely, still more profoundly stupid than all the rest. You tell us, "this supreme power of each colony, is subject to our sovereign's negative."

Could the great Mr. Locke arise from the grave, and hear his idea of a " supreme power," thus corrupted and applied to a power subject to the controul of another; I much doubt whe­ther all his philosophy and religion could sup­press his resentment at such unintelligible jar­gon and horrid nonsense. In your notions of government then, it seems, that a “su­preme power,” i. e. a power highest in au­thority, having none equal in power, may be subject to a power higher than the highest, [Page 18] or to one superior, which can repeal and annihilate all its acts. Again—this supreme power of the several colonies, is in your sense of things, subject to the power of the King—and yet not to the legislative authority of Great Britain, which that King represents, and from which he derives all his powers; and without whose authority, Mr. Locke expressly declares, he “is but a single, private person, without power, without will, that has any right to obedience! ”

Thus upon a candid examination, all your arguments adduced to shew that the “legis­latures of the several colonies are supreme,” are either founded on false facts; or are inconclusive, or absurd; and cannot " apply" to any principle, to be found in any treatise on politic law or government whatever.

Equally unsuccessful you will be found in your attempt to prove, that the oath of al­legiance, taken by the subject in America, is not taken to the King as Representative of the British state, but as a distinct Representa­tive of the several legislatures of the Colonies. You ask. “Where is the absurdity of suppos­ing that an oath of allegiance, taken by a Pennsylvanian, to be taken to him, to the King as Representative of the supreme le­gislative power of Pennsylvania?” Here we perceive, in order to seduce the Coloniests [Page 19] from their connection with the British State, his Majesty is vested with a new capacity, un­heard and unthought of before; and when its propriety or necessity is enquired into, it will be found as wild and absurd as it is novel. You yourselves have told us, that the legis­lative authority of Pennysylvania is placed in the Governor and Assembly; and you know that all the other colony legislatures are either vested in a Governor and Assembly, Gover­nor, Council and Assembly, or Proprietor, Go­vernor, Council and Assembly, or Governor and Council alone. You also know that they derive all their authority from the representa­tive of the British state; and yet you insist that this “representative is the distinct re­presentative” of these several inferior legis­latures. That is, in other words, that the representative of the whole state, is a distinct and separate representative, of its several sub­ordinate parts. Or, that he is the represen­tative of his own representative, of his own delegates, or substitutes: A representative being a person who acts in the place of another, a substitute in power. And thus to serve your own ends, you make his Majesty act in the place of, and as a substitute in power to, eve­ry inferior Governor,—Council and Assembly in America, who derive all their powers from him. What will you at length make of his [Page 20] Majesty and the Parliament? You first took it into your learned, heads, philosophers-like, to conceive that the supreme legislative autho­rity, which is indivisible in its nature, was, like matter, divisible ad infinitum; and under this profound mistake, you began with split­ing and dividing it, until by one slice after another, you have hacked and pared it away to less than an atom. And not content with thus mangling the most beautiful and regular political system in the world, your barbarian pens have now attacked, with equal glee, the royal authority. Your first attempt was to degrade his Majesty from the illustrious office and dignity of a King of the realm, and all its appending dominions, to the inferior office of King of America, a part of those dominions. Since the congress, you have thought that rank too exalted for him; and therefore have dubbed him only King of each inferior colo­ny. And now you are graciously pleased, in the abundant overflowings of your loyalty to­wards him, to drag him down lower still, to the mean office of an inferior representative, or substitute, of the representatives and substi­tutes of his own power. And thus from the fertility of your amazing geniuses, you have, out of the ingredients which compose the su­preme authority of the British state, formed an [...]dol of your own, which indeed you may safely [Page 21] "worship," without breach of the command­ment, as it truly bears not the least resemblance to “any thing that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.”

But let me ask you, in what treatise on go­vernment did you find this new-fangled dis­tinction? When, and by what act, have the colony legislatures delegated their executive powers to his Majesty? When did his Ma­jesty give up his representative capacity of the British Legislature, and condescend to accept of this new, inferior delegation? Pray tell us this in your next modest and learned per­formance.

You may possibly here ask, do not the oaths of allegiance, as now taken, enforce an obedience to the laws of the colonies, as well as to the laws of parliament? I answer, they certainly do. But yet they are not taken to the King, as a distinct representative of each colony Legislature, no more than the oath of allegiance administered to a citizen of London, is taken to him as a distinct representative of the laws of that corporation; but to him as representative of the whole state, from which every subordinate authority, and the colony legislatures in particular, originally derive their powers; and to which, whenever they cease by forfeiture, or otherwise, they all revert; [Page 22] and from which also they must reflow, being grantable only by its representative.

But conscious that you could not efface the sacred obligation of the oaths of allegiance, and pervert their true meaning by this refined distinction, you take other ground, and ask, “does not every American acknowledge that he is bound by the common law of Eng­land, and such statutes as were made be­fore the settlement of the colonies,—and which are applicable to our situation? Is not the King supreme executor of those laws? And where is the absurdity of sup­posing the oaths of allegiance to relate to him as supreme executor of those laws, which we acknowledge do bind us; and at the same time rejecting the absurd and dange­rous idea of its including an obligation to be bound by every law which the British parliament has, or may make?”—To what do you intend to reduce the meaning of these oaths at last, by your absurd suppositions? You first, by a supposition, are for confining their force and obligation of obedience to the laws of the colony legislatures;—and then by an­other supposition, to the common law, and such statutes as were made before the settle­ment of the colonies; and I verily believe when you shall make your third supposition, which I suspect will not be until you have [Page 23] better hopes of success in your schemes, you will " suppose" they have no meaning at all. Permit me to answer your questions, in your own way, by asking you others. Under what authority do you claim the benefits of the "common law and those statutes," but that of the British State? Did you not bring them over with you as members of that [...] ever acknowledging and submitting to [...] supre­macy, until the year 1765? How old you otherwise obtain them? [...]id you get them from France or Spain; or did you pick them up in a state of nature? or did you adept them by compact among yourselves? When, where, and how was that compact formed and estab­lished? By what right or law do you claim these benefits, and disclaim the authority of future acts of parliament?—Do you not take the oaths of allegiance in pursuance of the di­rection, and under the authority, of the sta­tute made in his present Majesty's reign? Are not the words of the oath the same in America as in England? Does the change of place change their meaning? And has not that meaning been ascertained, and known, to all Englishmen, for centuries? And has it not ever been held to enforce the most solemn ties of obedience to the authority of the state, unfettered with, and perfectly clear of, those groundless distinctions you have lately invent­ed? [Page 24] —You yourselves, in the characters of British subjects, took these oaths in October last, in the words of the statute, and in the sense the statute intends, to the representative of the British Parliament, “as rightful and lawful King of the realm, and the domini­ons thereunto belonging. ”—And you swore you took them in the “ common sense and un­derstanding of the words, without any equi­vocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whasotever, ” Do not, therefore, Gentlemen, trifle with such sacred things;—play with your new, exploded distinctions, between taxes laid for the purpose of revenue, and for the regu­lation of trade; between internal and external taxation; and between an English and an American war, for to you we are indebted for them; but sport not with the established meaning of the most sacred covenants, made in the presence, and under the invocation of a most JUST, TREMENDUOUS and AVERNG­ING OMNIPOTENCE. Suffer not your con­sciences, like the willow, to be bent by every gale that seems to blow successs to your infa­tuated schemes. But if you are resolved to sacrifice your own morals, at the altar of your ambition, stop there. Do not corrupt the morals of your innocent fellow subjects, whose leisure, or abilities, will not suffer them to inquire into your fallacious doctrines. You [Page 25] may perhaps believe you have a right to sport with your own; but remember you can have none to debauch the morals, and sport with the present and future happiness of thousands.

Having shewn the futility of your argu­ments, upon which you have attempted to superstruct the supremacy and independence of the colonies, and the right in Americans to impose what meaning they please on the oaths of allegiance; I will trace you still far­ther in your absurdities. You say I am for “reducing the legislatures of the colonies, to the degrading situation of MERE corpora­tions. ” And though you acknowledge, in substance, all I have said on the subject, to be true, viz. “That the King may erect the inhabitants of particular districts, into in­ferior communities, with municipal rights and privileges;” yet it requires more than this to shew that the colonies are MERE cor­porations, "Nor," you add, “does it fol­low that the King can grant to MERE cor­porations full legislative powers. ” It is much more easy to assert than prove; and more difficult to answer nonsense than sense. Convinced of these truths, you have often pestered me more with your dogmatical asser­tions and nonsense, in a few lines, than by all the sense in your whole performance. I con­fess I do not understand what you mean by a [Page 26] " mere corporation." And yet I suspect you have annexed to it some emphatic idea. The dictionaries tell us it is a corporation, or a cor­poration only. Now a corporation, or a mere corporation, if you please, is an inferior body politic, established under the authority of the principal society; and in the English govern­ment, they are established by a charter from the King, or representative of the British state, in whom the power of incorporating inferior and subordinate societies, or bodies politic, is vested by the constitution. This power, or the practice of it, is not peculiar to the British government. We find them in almost all civilized states, being necessary to render the grand system more manageable and regular: But these political bodies, re­ceiving their existence, and deriving all their powers from the principal state, must be sub­ordinate. The histories of all states give no in­stance of the contrary. And all authors upon politic law, agree that an independent corpo­ration within the territories of the principal state, is a monster, a thing out of nature;—and that the supreme authority itself can have no right to establish a thing so inconsistent with the uniformity and safety of the state. Hence the colonies can be considered only as corporations, or subordinate bodies politic, vested with legislative powers, to regulate their [Page 27] own internal police, under certain regulations and restrictions, and no more. But you con­tend, that though the King may incorporate inferior communities, with municipal rights and privileges, it does not follow that he can grant to mere corporations" full legislative pow­ers! This is strange jargon, and amounts to this—That though the King may do an act, yet it does not follow that he can do it. One of these municipal rights which is usually granted by the Crown to inferior corporations, is authority to make all necessary laws for the regulations of its internal police: And I know of no bounds by which this prerogative is re­strained, either by the principles of politic law, or those of the English constitution; except that he cannot discharge the corporation or its members from their obedience to the supreme legislature. But let us gratify you by suppos­ing, as you contend, that the reverse is true; and that the King by his prerogative of incor­porating inferior communities, could not grant "the full powers of legislation" which he has granted to the Colonies; in what an unhappy predicament are they involved? For if he has not such power, under this prerogative, you, with all your wisdom, and knowledge of the English constitution, cannot derive it from any other source, or find it elsewhere; and it must be of necessary consequence, that the le­gislation [Page 28] of the Colonies has been granted without authority, and is therefore void. Such are the blessed conclusions of your arguments—such the mischievous tendency of your doc­trines! From whence learn how dangerous it is for men to dabble in sciences they do not understand; or to attempt to vindicate rights they know nothing of.

You find great fault with my idea of repre­sentation; and after taking much pains to misrepresent all I have said upon the subject, without offering a single argument, you con­tent yourselves with drawing the conclusion that “enough has been said to shew it to be erroneous. ” Had you said that I had not founded American rights on the partial repre­sentation of personal property in England, you would have been much nearer to truth. And you might have perceived, had not your "Re­marks" been too "hasty," that my design was to establish them on a more tenable and solid foundation—to trace the right to a parti­cipation in the legislative authority from that principle, which in the English constitution was original, and remains permanent and un­altered to this day; carefully avoiding to sup­port them, as you have done, on props and pil­lars which might be prostrated by the most trivial blasts. It was for this reason I did not choose to tread on the ground of personal re­presentation, [Page 29] or that of personal property, which is very partial and inadequate, and ori­ginally did not form a part of the English con­stitution. For let me tell you what you seem to be strangers to, that anciently, and for many ages, none but the proprietors of lands were represented in parliament; that even the Bur­gesses represented lands within their buroughs, and that neither the Ceorles nor Thanes, who were the farmers, living on rented estates, however wealthy, were represented; except such Thanes who held their lands of the Crown and paid for them “in service which related to the public.” And in confirmation of this truth, you will find that our ancestors when they sought for and obtained a perfect restoration of the ancient constitution, all they asked of King John to grant them, in this re­spect, by Magna Charta, was to summon to parliament those who represented the landed interest, viz. " The Abbots, the Earls, the greater Barons, and the Tenants in capite." Every no­vice in politics knows that since the Conquest, a number of corporations and buroughs hold rights, either by prescription or grant, to send members to parliament, in some of which the trade, and not lands are represented; and also that this kind of representation was not a part of the ancient constitution, but an innovation—that it is esteemed by all good judges a rotten [Page 30] and dangerous part of the constitution; and therefore I do not believe there are more than two novices in the world who would censure or carp at a person for not fixing on it as a pillar to support American liberty.

It would occupy the leaves of a folio, mi­nutely to follow you through all the gross ab­surdities of your ideas of representation—Hav­ing answered them in general, I shall content myself for the present with giving the Reader one other specimen of your knowledge of the English constitution. After giving us a truly ridiculous idea of English representation, drawn from the petty democracies of Greece, you tell us—“therefore it is provided by the English constitution, that the people (meaning all men of property, whether landholders or others) shall exercise this power by their representatives. This is the principle of representation by which every man of pro­perty in England has a voice in Parliament. ” Now I will not take upon myself to deny, but it may be possible that these two political magicians may, from their profound researches, have discovered some antient, and hitherto la­tent manuscript which has taught them, that our ancestors formed their representation upon the model of the Grecian democracies;—be­cause I would not wish to suspect that they could venture, without some kind of autho­rity [Page 31] to advance a fact so universally contra­dicted.—However, I affirm that every author who has written on the English government, within the last thousand years, informs us, that it was originally established by our ances­tors, the Anglo-Saxons; and that the legisla­tive part of it was, in all probability, taken from the forms of their governments in their own country, where the proprietors of the land composed the legislature. But whatever this manuscript may have told them, certain I am it never could inform them, that “every man of property in England has a voice in Parliament.” In every corporation which sends members to Parliament, the right to vote is confined to the members of the corpo­ration; to the exclusion of all the other inha­bitants, however wealthy. In London, that great and populous city, none can vote but those who are made free of the city. In Bristol, the case is the same. In others, the members of Parliament are chosen by twelve only; and in some, by less. So that it is ge­nerally allowed, that not one thirtieth part of the inhabitants of Britain, holds by the con­stitution, a right to vote. Do you not, Gen­tlemen, know this to be fact? If you do, how far beneath the characters of men of ve­racity and honour have you descended to ad­vance untruths, so easily detected?

[Page 32] You next make a feeble attack on the Plan of Union proposed in Congress, with a view to prevail on the members to desert their wild and destructive schemes of independence; and to adopt, in its stead, some system of nego­tiation with Great-Britain. The amount of your objections is, that the Delegates, men­tioned in the plan, who are to be freely chosen by and from among the people, are not to be trusted. And after supposing what, in the nature and reason of things, is altogether im­probable, that they will be corrupted, though their election should be annual; you say, “the trust is too sacred.”—That neither wisdom nor policy would “dictate the leaving the li­berties of a country to the virtues of any men, however conspicuous,” I much sus­pect, Gentlemen, whatever your declarations may be, was that trust offered to either of you, as protectors of the colonies, like your great master, whose steps you are as yet following at humble distance, you would reject it in appear­ance only; but would take care, if you could find the means, to secure it in substance. This most certainly is what you aim at. It follows from your own position. For if the "liber­ties of a country." are not to be left "to the virtues of any men, however conspicuous," and yet are to be committed in trust at all, it must of course, be to one man—a Protector. [Page 33] And who can that protector be, but one of yourselves? But let me seriously ask you, Where can the liberties of mankind be so safely reposed as in the hands of their repre­sentatives, who are accountable to them, and who cannot destroy or injure their rights with­out destroying or injuring their own? Is not this the very predicament, in which, sound policy has ever placed the liberties of all free people? Has human wisdom ever invented a better, or one more safe? But it seems the "fallibility of human nature" has taught you, that there are "other props and pillars" upon which you mean "to support your li­berties." What they are, you have not been so obliging as to inform us; but left us the task of finding them out; which is by no means a difficult one. For making the doc­trines of your whole performance the clue, we readily discover, that these "props and pillars" can be nothing else, but the fire and sword, the civil wars, into which you are, by your system of independence, unnecessarily leading your deluded country.

After having thus, in vain, attempted to shew that the plan is “idle, dangerous, whim­sical, and ministerial;” you ask, “If it was indefensible, why did not the author enter into the argument with a Gentleman from Virginia, who challenged him to it; [Page 34] and who said he could prove it big with destruction to America?” You have unwil­lingly given a just and reasonable answer to your own question, and vindicated the author against the charge you intended to asperse him with: For you add, “tis true, he did say he would defend it, if the Congress would appoint a day for that purpose; but this was when all was hurry, and the forms of business only, delayed their breaking up.” Here you have for once lost your usual art. It is a difficult task for men, however hac­kneyed in deception, to continue uniform in it. Truth will now and then, in spight of all the pains to suppress it, pop out. For it seems by your own confession, when this challenge was made, " all was hurry," and the Congress was about to break up. And do you think that this was either a proper time to give or to accept of a challenge to discuss, by fair argu­ment, the merits of a plan, in which, as was acknowledged by a Massachusett [...] Delegate, questions of greater magnitude than ever were agitated in any state were involved? Was it candid in the Virginian to propose it? And was it not justifiable in the Author, and the other advocates of the plan, who were a majo­rity of the men of the first abilities in the Congress, to decline it? And was it not all that reason or honour required of the author [Page 35] to tender an acceptance of the proposal the next day or any other day which should be appointed? Especially, when he knew it had been previously determined at the new tavern to expunge it, with the rules taken on it, totally from their minutes. However, that gentleman and his colleague, who in a man­ner pledged himself to do so, have now had sufficient time to show it, "big with destruc­tion to America;" and yet they have chose not to undertake a taske so arduous, I might say impossible. And now I call on you, and all your independent compeers, to prove this plan, in any respect, inconsistent with the freedom of America. You have been nibbling at it for some time, in your private cabals, and now in public; but you find your assaults have not even ruffled its scarf-skin. You have read it, and meditated upon it over and over again; and yet you know not what to do with it. It stands, like an impregnable bulwark, in the path to your independence; and you know not how to remove it. Here is your great objection against it; and for this only reason you fret, and fume, and rage so much about it.

Before I conclude this head, let me tell you that, altho' the author is confident no good objection can, with propriety or reason, be made against the plan by America, seeing she denies a representation in Parliament: Yet he [Page 36] neither is, nor ever was, tenacious of it: That his great aim, as he declared in Congress, in proposing it, was to prevail on them to take the ground of rational accommodation and ne­gociation with the parent state: And therefore that he would most chearfully adopt any other which should be thought more eligible, and bet­ter tend to those necessary and salutary purposes; should the one proposed, on examination, be rejected. In the same disposition of mind, the Author still continues, from a full conviction, arising from a long and mature consideration of the subject, that the ruin of America can only be averted, by a candid state of her grievances; and some rational propositions of a union between the two countries, upon a constitutional plan. And as to his inclination to be sent over as a "Delegate" to solicit the cause of America, with which you charge him—He never enter­tained the wish. He will make himself ex­tremely happy at the accomplishment of so great and good a work, let it be performed by whom it may. But, Gentlemen, he never looked for such a charge from you. And had not that same desire existed in one, if not both of your breasts, you never had made the charge. Had he, like one of you, signified such a desire to a Delegate in Congress, and thereby prevail­ed on the Delegate to propose him alone to so­licit the petition to his Majesty; and further [Page 37] like you, had his mind been so puffed up with vanity and conceit of his own abilities and importance, as officiously to accept of the de­legation, in Congress, before it was offered, or he could possibly foretel the determination of a Majority; and afterwards had he met with the mortification of a refusal: I say, had the Author of the Plan acted this vain and forward part, your charge would have had some foun­dation. But you know he did not: And therefore I cannot avoid applying to you the old Latin adage, Turpe est Doctori cui culpa redarguit ipsum.

You, in the next place, inperiously ask, “How dare you, Sir, in the face of America, assert, that they, the Congress, have pro­posed no plan of accommodation, and that every page conveys sentiments of indepen­dence?"” I will tell you, Gentlemen—was I capable of being bullied by your menaces; was I to be intimidated and frightened by that lawless power which you have greatly contributed to erect in America, I should not dare to do it. But as that is not the case, un­awed by all your tyrannous edicts, when the welfare of my country demands it, I dare to speak the truth, and to arraign the conduct of men who are leading that country to her ruin, however dignified and potent they may be in their own, or in the opinion of their minions. [Page 38] Re-examine their claim of rights, the great basis of American pretensions, and we shall find that the claim of the congress is an exclu­sive right of legislature in all cases of taxation and internal polity; and that to the legislature of Great-Britain, there is not left the least authori­ty to make a law of any denomination or kind what­soever for the colonies. And you yourselves have now insisted that the legislature of every colo­ny is equally supreme and as unlimited as the le­gislature of Great-Britain. Are not these clear, evident declarations of independence? and do you think you have already, by your despotic authority, so effectually subdued the spirit of liberty, and even the freedom of speech, that we dare not call facts by their true and proper names? If you do, you are grossly mis­taken. But it seems that the Congress did propose to the Crown “to place American in the situation she was in before the year 1763, and all our complaints will subside.” This you say is "a plan of accommodation." But this is all finesse and delusion, too flimsy not to be detected by the penetrating eyes of a [...] Parliament—For altho' they artfully [...] the Crown that upon a repeal of the sta­ [...] [...] the year 1763, “their complaints will subside;” yet in the claim of rights, page 6, they tell the world a different story—They are there only to subside " for the pre­sent." [Page 39] What, in common sense, is the mean­ing of all this, but that if you will repeal those obnoxious statutes, we will be content until we find it convenient to be otherwise; or un­til we are better prepared: And then we in­tend to insist upon a repeal of all those “ma­ny infringements and violations of the fore­going rights” [alluding to every right con­tained in the claim of rights] “which we pass over for the present; and if our demand is not granted, we will oppose force to force.” Such is your blessed plan of accommodation intended to restore harmony between the two countries!

One word more before I conclude; you say the author of the plan of union, “signed the association. That it certainly was the act of all who signed it—And that he has firmly agreed and associated under the sacred ties of virtue, honour and love of his country, to carry the association into execution.” That he signed the association is true. But that he and a number of other delegates did not sign it as their private act, or as binding on them­selves or their constituents, is as true. Nor was the signing of that gentleman and a num­ber of others who voted against many parts of the association, and particularly the non-im­portation agreement, which many foresaw would be ruinous to America, held or esteem­ed [Page 40] in congress as their private act, and which they pledged themselves to see carried into exe­cution: Otherwise, the congress knew they never would have signed it. And therefore to prevail on them to sign it, it was said it should be done by order of the congress; and then it would be the act of a majority, and not of each private person, nor his particular act. That such was the case of a speaker of assem­bly who signed a bill or other legislative act by order, tho' against his judgment, which could not be considered as his private act, but that of the majority who made the order. In consequence of this mode of reasoning, an or­der was made, and the clause next preceding the delegates names was added to the associa­tion in these words. “the foregoing associati­on being determined upon by the congress, was ordered to be signed by the several mem­bers thereof, and thereupon we have here unto set our respective names accordingly. ” Now, however just this reasoning may be thought, it was the reasoning of the congress and it was one, among other reasons, which prevailed on the author of the plan, and a number of other delegates to sign the association. Thus you find that the last effort of your malevolence to slander the character of this gentleman, has, like the rest, proved abortive; and must recoil upon yourselves, as both of you were in con­gress [Page 41] and knew of the order and the reason of making it.

I will now conclude with giving you my serious advice. I think you stand in much need of it; and I assure you I really intend it for your benefit, and it must be owing to your own perverseness if it should prove otherwise. Take it therefore ill or well I care not. Know then that there is such a thing as honour and candour in argument, and that whoever deserts them for the sake of perverting truth, loses character, and must be despised by all sensible and honest men. Believe, that a bad cause can never be supported by sophisms, bold as­sertions, or evident untruths; and that the fair cause of liberty requires no such aids. Do not persuade yourselves, that by your so­phistry you can render that "supreme" and independent, which in its nature is limited, subordinate and dependent: Nor that you can, by your futile distinctions, pare away the established meaning of the most sacred things—nor induce the honest and virtuous to perjure themselves, and with the load of that perjury in their hearts, to take up arms against their lawful Sovereign. Lay aside your reveries of independence, and your high expectations of gratifying your ambition on the ruins of your country; for the virtuous and the wise of that country are aware of your design, and will pre­vent [Page 42] your success. Persuade not yourselves to believe what one of you has said, that “you can find employment in America for all the British troops.” For you may as well attempt to scale the moon, and wrench her from her orbit as withstand the power of Britain. Desert the men who are push­ing you with precipitation into sedition and rebellion; [...]or the time is approaching when they will desert you and leave you only the ostensible and answerable objects; and then one of you may be " pitied" as a deluded man, and the other will be despised as a bad man, and a deluder.