It was conceived that by no act had the people surrendered up or forfeited their rights and liberties as natural-born subjects of the British Government; but those rights had been brought over and were vested by inheritance.
The duties and taxes for the sole purpose of raising revenue imposed by parliament upon the Americans, they not being represented in that body, and being taxable only by themselves or their representatives, were destructive of those rights and without precedent until the passage of the Stamp Act.
Whenever the King had had occasion for aid to defend and secure the colonies, requisitions had been made upon the Pennsylvania Assemblies, who with cheerfulness granted them, and “often so liberally as to exceed the abilities and circumstances of the people.”
It was essential to the liberties of Englishmen that no laws be made which would take away their property without their consent, and even if this taxation had been constitutional the present law was injurious to the mother country as well as America. And lastly, the revenue was to be applied in such colonies as it should be thought proper. Thus Pennsylvania would pay, without their consent, taxes which might be applied to the use of other colonies.
In Anticipation of War with France General
Washington Arrives in Philadelphia,
November 11, 1798
On November 11, 1798, General George Washington, who was then lieutenant-general of the army, arrived in Philadelphia to assume charge of matters in relation to the threatened war with France, and was received by the troops of horse and a large number of uniformed companies of foot.
On the 24th President John Adams, who had left the city on account of the recurrence of the yellow fever, returned, and was received with salutes from the sloop-of-war “Delaware,” Captain Stephen Decatur, and Captain Matthew Hale’s Ninth Company of Philadelphia Artillery, which was stationed near Center Square.
The presence of John Jay, of New York, in England to make a treaty with Great Britain aroused the French to a sense of the importance[importance] of observing its own treaty stipulations with the United States, which had been utterly disregarded since the war with England began. Jay’s treaty with England, November 19, 1794, caused such a division of the Americans that they were all either Frenchmen or Englishmen in their politics.