Do you murmur because Britain is not taxed for you, or because you are not allowed to lay the tax on what commodities you please? If the former be the source of your discontent, you are very unnatural, and very ungrateful: very unnatural, because you have no compassion, no fellow-feeling for the distresses of your exhausted parent; very ungrateful, because, after Britain has done so much for you, after she has nourished and reared you up, from your sickly infancy to a vigorous state of adolescence, or rather manhood, after she has conquered your enemies, and placed you, if now you be not wanting to yourselves, beyond the reach of French perfidy and fraud, you will not stretch forth your hand to ease her, sinking under her burden, nor contribute to her security, or more properly your own.
But if the latter gave rise to your disaffection, you are very ill informed, very short sighted, in not perceiving, that a general tax, for the general defence of all America, could not be raised by peace-meal, in every province separately. How could the quota of every colony be ascertained; and, if it could be ascertained, how were the colonists to be persuaded to grant it? We remember with what difficulty they were induced to advance money for their own defence in the late war, when the enemy was at their gates, when they fought pro aris & focis, for their religion and property. Some of them have not, to this day, contributed a single shilling. Are we to imagine, that they will be more forward, more lavish now, when the danger is distant, and perhaps imperceptible to the dull senses of most of them, than when it stared them in the face, and threatened immediate ruin. Whoever thinks so, must be a very weak politician, and ought to be sent to catch flies with Domitian.
Each assembly among you, forsooth, pretends to an equality with the British parliament, and allows no laws binding but those, which are imposed by itself. But mark the consequence. Every colony becomes at once an independant kingdom, and the sovereign may become, in a short time, absolute master, by playing the one against the other.
But were the sovereign always virtuous enough not to avail himself of this power, which with the greatest good nature, with the utmost political foresight, you thus put into his hand, quarrels would, in all probability, soon arise among you. It is well known you cannot boast of much mutual love, or christian charity; the same spirit which actuated your ancestors, and kindled the flames of civil war in this country, still reigns among you, and wants but a single spark to raise a combustion.
You will tell me, perhaps, that notwithstanding the multiplicity of governments, you may, like the Swiss cantons, live for ages in harmony and unity.
But I aver the contrary. The strength of the Protestants and Roman Catholicks among them, is nearly equal, and keeps them in awe of each other; but above all, the fear of being crushed by the surrounding powers in case of intestine dissensions, prevents ambitious projects, and secures the peace. But as neither of these is your case, you have little reason to hope that you could preserve your liberties. Greece, as soon as it ceased to dread the Persian monarch, fell immediately into the hands of a despotick prince; you have no king of Persia to fear, how then do you expect to remain free from slavery? Believe me, your safest course is to continue in your dependence on Britain, where liberty is naturalized, and where you are entitled to every blessing with which it is attended.
Can you be so weak as to imagine that the two houses of parliament will allow you to set up a claim to uncontrollable authority in your several provinces? Perhaps you do not comprehend how this will in time reduce them, and consequently you to mere cyphers? I will inform you. The power of the crown is, of late, greatly encreased, by the vast number of places, which the last war, and the enormous growth of the national debt have left at its disposal. Give it also but the management of the colonies, exclusive of the parliament, and there needs no more, in a few years, to render it despotick.
Undoubtedly, the weight of this consideration was what moved the British, to assume a superiority over the Irish parliament; and Ireland, considerable a country as it is, submits to their controul; how can you have the front to ask greater privileges? Indeed, till you are placed on a quite different footing, you cannot expect even this indulgence: such a number of scattered jarring governments would create so much embarrassment and perplexity, as to be quite unmanageable.
Some of you complain that the privileges granted by your charters are invaded.
But by whom, pray, were these privileges granted? By a king, who had no power, I mean legal power, to grant you any privileges, which rendered you independent of parliament, no more than he can make a corporation in England independent of it. Talk not then, of such privileges; the spirit of the British constitution could allow you none, by which you did not remain subordinate to every branch of the legislature, and consequently subordinate to parliament. The king makes but one member of the legislature, and it is self-evident he cannot give away the rights and privileges of the rest. He can grant any body of men a charter, by which they are empowered to make bye-laws for their own government, but farther his prerogative does not extend. He cannot free them from obedience to acts of parliaments.