did not vote into parliament; nay, by a man wh they opposed with all their might. Their choice → perhaps, equally frustrated with regard to the ot knight of the shire. Now, are these three thousand hundred voters in any degree reduced to a state slavery, till they can have an opportunity of being 1 presented according to their minds? Again, a free-bo Englishman is possessed of a house, which he lets f thirty-eight shillings a year; for want of two shillin: more in his yearly income he is no freeholder: And li the Colonists, he is taxed without his consent; is "an abject slave" on this account? Wild patriotisı answers in the affirmative; but impartial men smile an say, What is British liberty so mean a blessing as t depend upon a couple of shillings? Could a Jew mak it turn on a hinge more contemptible than this? C Sir, what a low price does your system indirectly fix upor a jewel, on which you seem to set so immense a value !

Once more: During the last election, myriads of Englishmen were abroad, some upon their travels for their health, and others upon civil, military or mercantile business; nor had they any more share in the choice of the members of parliament who now tax them, than the American Colonists; and will you aver, Sir, that if all these Englishmen were collected, they might constitutionally reform the Constitution, and tax themselves by a Congress composed of men who stimulate them to discontent? Will you assert, thut such a Congress would do well to make laws in opposition to the statutes of the King and parliament ? And would you call the members of such a Congress loyal subjects, if they raised an army to drive the King's forces out of his own dominions; yea, out of those very provinces, where they hold their land by gracious grants of the crown ;-where they have acquired their wealth under the protection of the Mother Country; and where the Sovereign's forces, which they now endeavour to cut off, have kindly fought their battles?

To come nearer to the point: Some years ago, Lord Clive, member for Shrewsbury, went to the East Indies;

and Lord Pigot, member for Bridgenorth, is now gone thither. Their estates are immensely large; yet in consequence of their leaving Eagland, the former lord was, and the latter is, taxed without his consent. And will you stand to your absurd doctrine, Sir, and infer, that the Burgesses of Shrewsbury were, and that those of Bridgnorth are, reduced to a partial, temporary state of slavery, by the emigration of one of their representatives; and that Lord Clive was, and Lord Pigot now is, an absolute slave; because, in consequence of their emigration, the former was, and the latter is, taxed without his consent? If you say that Lord Clive came back to England, and that Lord Pigot may return and tax himself, if he please; I reply, This is exactly the case with the Colonists. By emigration they are prevented from sharing in the legislative power of the parliament. But let them come back, if they bave set their hearts upon legislative honours. The mother-country and the parliamenthouse are as open to them, as to any free-born Englishman. They may purchase freeholds, they may be made burgesses of corporate towns, they may be chosen members of the House of Commons; and some of them, if I mistake not, sit already there. The Colonists are then on a level, not only with Britons in general, but with all members of parliament who are abroad. And therefore to demand superior privileges, is to demand rights which no Britons have, and which the members of parliament who go out of Great Britain never thought of, our British nabobs not excepted.

As mountains rise upon mountains among the Alps, so absurdities rise upon absurdities in your system: Take some more instances of it. If we believe you, Sir, he is an abject slave, who is taxed without his consent. Hence follows another absurdity. The day that a Bill for an additional land-tax to subdue the Colonies passes, the knights of a large shire are absent; the one, I suppose, is kept from the House by illness, and the other is called into the country by business or pleasure: neither votes for the bill. Now, Sir, are they and the county they represent, made slaves by being taxed without their con

sent? If you reply, that their not opposing the E implies that they consent to it: I answer, The inferen is not just. I did not oppose the last murder which w committed in the county, but you will wrong me, if y▲ infer that I consented to it. Many clergymen will n oppose your letter, who nevertheless reprobate the do trine it contains.

But, granting that your inferences are just, I press yo closer, and point out two knights (suppose the member for Middlesex) who oppose the Bill with all their might And yet the bill passes. Now, Sir, if your scheme a liberty be right, it follows, that our great patriots an the little patriots whom they represent, are abject slaves for they are evidently taxed, not only without thei consent, but against their warmest opposition; seeing they are additionally taxed to bring their mistaken friends to reason. How excessively absurd then is your scheme, Sir; since it not only puts the badge of the most abject slavery upon all the Britons who are not electors, but also upon all the electors and members of parliament, who call themselves patriots, with as much confidence as some mistaken divines call themselves orthodox!

You reply, "In all collective bodies, the determinations of the majority of that body are always considered as the determinations of the whole body; and every man who enters into society implicitly consents it should be so." Mr. W. and I, Sir, thank you for this concession. If you and the Colonists stand to it, you will throw down your pen, and they their arms. For every

body knows that Great Britain and her Colonies make a collective, political body, called the British Empire: And you declare, that, "in all" such bodies, "the determinations of the majority are always considered as the determinations of the whole body." Now, Sir, if you do but allow that Great Britain is the majority of the British empire, and you cannot reasonably deny it; considering the glory, wealth, fame, and invincible navy of the mother-country; together with the grant she made to the Colonies of the large provinces, which they

bold under her, as cottagers hold their gardens and habitations under the lord of the manor, who gave them leave to enclose and build upon a part of the waste within the limits of his jurisdiction-if you do but allow, I say, that Great Britain is the majority of the British empire; according to your own concession, the determinations of Great Britain are always to be considered as the determinations of the whole British empire: And every Colony "implicitly consents it should be so." But the American Colonies have not only implicitly consented it should be so; they have also done it explicitly, by humbly thanking the King for their charters, one of which says, in express terms, you are exempt from paying taxes to the King for seven years; plainly implying, says Mr. W. with great truth, that after those seven years they were to pay taxes like other subjects, if the sovereign taxed them; and if the King and parliament have allowed them a longer time, it is absurd and wicked to draw from this indulgence a plea to palliate a notorious breach of trust. As for the charter of Pennsylvania, it says in express terms that they are liable to taxation by the parliament, and therefore their rising against such taxation is ingratitude, perverseness, and a notorious breach of charter.

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One more remark upon your important concession. If you grant that the minority in parliament has implicitly and passively consented to the measures of the majority, though very much against their will; witness their warm petitions, protestations, remonstrances, &c. do you not abundantly grant this leading proposition of Mr. W.'s Address, in a thousand cases, Any other than this kind of consent the condition of civil life does not allow ?" Thus (so great is the force of truth!) after all your outcry against your opponent, you yourself lay down his grand principle: You come back to the very point whence he started, and are reduced to the mortifying necessity of maintaining, that our English patriots, so called, are some of the most abject slaves in the universe; or that our American Colonies are some of the most unreasonable Colonies in the world, since they

take up arms to oppose a legislative body to which they have consented, not only implicitly and passively, as the minority does to the majority in parliament; but expli- citly and actively: Witness the charter of the Colony, in which the Congress is assembled, and the constant submission, which for many years the Colonists paid to the British laws; supreme laws these, according to which they have suffered their lives, and the liberty of their persons, to be disposed of; though they had no more hand in actually making those laws, than the Great Mogul; most of them having been made long before any living Englishman drew his breath.

To shew that taxation and your narrow ideas of representation are inseparable according to the Constitution, to Monsieur Montesquieu's erroneous account of the British Constitution you add the bare assertion of Lord Camden, and Lord Chatham. But permit me to observe, Sir, that all the Frenchmen and English lords in the world, can never overthrow a doctrine, which, as I have proved in my first letter, stands or falls with Reason, Scripture, and Matter of Fact.

If your noble auxiliaries, to whom you join Mr. Locke, mean an indirect representatiou, we readily assent to your assertion: And we reply, that in this sense, the taxation of the Colonists is not separated from representation: For the Colonies of Great Britain are indirectly represented by Great Britain, as the children of electors are indirectly represented by their fathers; as the non-voters at elections are indirectly represented by the voters; and as the electors who are at sea, or on the continent, are indirectly represented by those who are in the island. But if those lords mean a direct representation, they are desired to show how all the myriads of men, non-voters in Great Britain, to say nothing of minors, widows, maidens, bed-ridden or imprisoned burgesses, and absent freeholders, are directly represented in the parliament which now taxes them, if (through a variety of insurmountable obstacles) they neither did, nor could, vote for a representative at the last election.

Till you, Sir, or the lords who patronize your system,