| Samuel Danforth, Esqr. Isaac Royal, John Erving, | James Bowdoin, James Russell, James Pitts, Samuel Dexter, Esqrs. | Geo. Leonard, Artemas Ward, John Winthrop, |
His Excellency directed that the Council proceed upon the business for which it stands adjourned. After debate upon the report of the Comtee the question whether it should be accepted was put, which passed unanimously in the affirmative as the advice of the Council to his Excellency, in the words following, viz.:
Previous to the consideration of the petition before the Board, they would make a few observations occasioned by the subject of it. The situation of things between Great Britain and the Colonies has been for some years past very unhappy. Parliament, on the one hand, has been taxing the Colonies, and they, on the other hand, have been petitioning and remonstrating against it, apprehending they have constitutionally an exclusive right of taxing themselves, and that without such a right, their condition would be but little better than slavery.
Possessed of these sentiments, every new measure of Parliament tending to establish and confirm a tax on them renews and increases their distress, and it is particularly encreased by the Act lately made, empowering the East India Company to ship their tea to America. This Act, in a commercial view, they think introductive of monopolies, and tending to bring on them the extensive evils thence arising. But their great objection to it is from its being manifestly intended (tho' that intention is not expressed therein,) more effectually to secure the payment of the duty on tea, laid by an Act of Parliament passed in the 7th year of his present Majesty, entitled, "An Act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America," which Act in its operation deprives the colonists of the right above mentioned (the exclusive right of taxing themselves), which they hold to be so essential a one that it cannot be taken away or given up, without their being degraded, or degrading themselves below the character of men.
It not only deprives them of that right, but enacts that the monies arising from the duties granted by it may be applied "as his Majesty or his successors shall think proper or necessary for defraying the charges of the administration of justice and the support of the civil government, in all or any of the said colonies or plantations."
This clause of the Act has already operated in some of the colonies, and in this colony in particular, with regard to the support of civil government, and thereby has operated in diminution of its charter rights to the great grief of the good people of it, who have been and still are greatly alarmed by repeated reports, that it is to have a further operation with respect to the defraying the charge of the administration of justice, which would not only be a further diminution of those rights, but tend in all constitutional questions, and in many other cases of importance to bias the judges against the subject. They humbly rely on the justice and goodness of his Majesty for the restitution and preservation of those rights.
This short statement of facts the board thought it necessary to be given to shew the cause of the present great uneasiness which is not confined to this neighbourhood, but is general and extensive. The people think their exclusive right of taxing themselves by their representatives, infringed and violated by the Act above mentioned. That the new Act empowering the East India Company to import their tea into America confirms that violation, and is a new effort, not only more effectually to secure the payment of the tea duty, but lay a foundation for enhancing it, and in a like way, if this should succeed, to lay other taxes on America. That it is in its attendants and consequences ruinous to the liberties and properties of themselves and their posterity; that as their numerous petitions for relief have been rejected, the said New Act demonstrates an indisposition in ministry that Parliament should grant them relief; that this is the source of their distress, a distress that borders upon dispair, and that they know not where to apply for relief.
These being the sentiments of the people, it is become the indispensible duty of this Board to mention them that the occasion of the late demands on Mr. Clarke and others, the agents of the East India Company, and of the consequent disturbances, the authors of which we have advised should be prosecuted, but to give a just idea of the rise of them.
On this occasion, justice impels us to declare that the people of this Town and Province, tho' they have a high sense of liberty derived from the manners, the example and constitution of the mother country, have, 'till the late parliamentary taxation of the Colonies, been as free from disturbances as any people whatever.