London, have no votes for town or country," because they are neither freemen nor liverymen. On this important concession, which you make, page 98, I rest the following queries:-If the constitution allows the taxation of some freeholders in the cities of Gloucester, Hereford, and London, although such freeholders, through an accidental cause, have no votes for town or country, why can it not allow the taxation of some freeholders who, through an accidental cause, have no votes for England or America? And if you grant that the constitution permits that some men who possess a freehold in the centre of Great Britain, are constitutionally taxed by the parliament, though they have no vote, do you not expose your prejudice before all the world, if you say that the colonists cannot be constitutionally taxed by the parliament, merely because they have no vote?

I have pressed you with the case of some members of parliament, who are constitutionally taxed with or without their consent, so long as they choose to live abroad. Pages 31, 32, you reply, "The Americans are at home." You insinuate that my doctrine supposes they "are never at home," and you humourously say, "Were I a colonist, the prerogative I would humbly sue for, should be that of being permitted to be at home; for home is home, says the old proverb, be it ever so homely." I answer, Lord Pigot, a member of parliament, who is in the East Indies, and Mr. Hancock, a member of the congress, have the full-leave of the constitution to be at home. Only it must be remembered, that, by emigration, they have their home in two places; as the gentlemen who have a house in London, and another in the country. They have their legislative home in Great Britain, and their actual home: Lord Pigot in Bengal, and Mr. Hancock in Philadelphia. If they will enjoy the prerogatives of their legislative home, they must return to England, just as the gentlemen who fill their seats in the parliament, and enjoy their honours at court, must leave their country seats and repair to London. Nor say that the distinction I make between our actual and our legislative home is frivolous; for Dr. Price, your oracle, says, "They [the colonies] gloried in their relation to us; and they always spoke of this country, and looked to it as their home." Now, as the colonists were never so destitute of good sense as to look on England as their actual home; it remains that your oracle has spoken nonsense, or that England is their principal, legislative home. And would to God they were not grown so uneasy as to despise this "home, be it ever so homely!"

You hint indeed at the inconvenience and impossibility of the colonists coming back to their legislative home; but this objection makes as much against your scheme of representation as against ours; for you insinuate that all the non-voters in England may go and settle in the few boroughs where the constitution allows every pot boiler to be a voter; and you give us a hint that if they do not, "it is their own fault." But is it not more practicable for all the freeholders in America to crowd into Great Britain, than for all the non-voters in Great Britain to crowd into such privileged boroughs as you speak of; or for all the women, who have freeholds in England, to change their sex, that they may have a vote at the next election?

You reply, p. 38, "The representation in England is unequal, owing to a great variety of casual circumstances which it would be useless to

enumerate." Now, sir, applying to all the British empire what you say of England, I answer, The representation, with respect to America, "is unequal, owing to a great variety of casual circumstances," such as emigration, distance, interposing seas, and the impropriety of multiply. ing* parliaments, which would as much weaken the empire, as you would do a piece of clock work, if you contrived to make each wheel move by means of a separate spring. Thus, if I am not mistaken, your own concessions, backed by one of Dr. Price's observations, show that, so far, your attempt to demonstrate that the parliamentary doctrine of taxation is contrary to the constitution, only shows that it is truly constitutional.

Come we now to your capital argument, the first part of which runs thus:The American can have no voice in the disposal of his property; and what is worse, those who are to have the power of disposing of it, are under every possible temptation to abuse the power, because every shilling they take out of the pocket of an American is so much saved in their own." To this I reply, (Vindication, p. 456,) “You mistake for as many of the colonists as choose to purchase a freehold in England, may become electors; and as many as have a sufficient fortune may be candidates at the next election;". adding, that you yourself speak of a late American candidate, who was a friend to America. But you take no notice of this sufficient answer.

Pressing you still farther, I remind you that "there are several mem. bers in both houses of parliament who have a very large property in America, and who, when they tax the colonists, take far more money out of their own pockets than they probably do out of the pocket of Mr. Hancock." To this you reply, page 41, "But what security have the Americans that there will always be such members in parliament?" I answer, They have the same security for it which we have, that there will always be a prince to fill the throne, and a number of peers to compose a house of lords. It is not impossible that a plague should sweep away all the royal family, and all the nobility: but would it be right to distress the public by such a supposition? Would it not be ridiculous to frighten the simple by telling them that the constitution is in danger, and that as we have no security that all the royal family and all the nobility will not die of the plague, or be blown up by a second gunpowder plot, "our constitution is almost lost," and we are likely soon to have another rump parliament, without king, and without house of lords?

But you add: "Unless all the members of the British parliament had American property, they would not be on a level with the non-voters in

* Mr. Evans wants each American assembly to be invested with supreme power in conjuction with the king, after the model of the Irish parlament; but I wish the British empire too well to be of his sentiment. The same rule holds in politics and in mechanics; the more a government and a machine are needlessly complicated, the weaker are their motions, and the greater the danger of their being out of order. It is the glory and strength of our constitution to be compact, "in se totus teres atque rotundus." As I could not admire a human body with one head and a dozen stomachs, I should not be pleased to see Great Britain and her colonies exhibiting to the world a political body, with one royal head and a dozen supreme courts of parliament. If such needless divisions and multiplications do not tend to speedy dissolution, they certainly do to weakness, confusion, slowness of operation, and a thousand evils which France with her several unconnected parliaments so severely feels.

VOL. IV.

32

England." I reply, If the American colonies are, as some patriots suppose, the capital spring of British wealth, all the members of parlia. ment have a particular, though indirect concern in the prosperity of the colonists; nor does the constitution require that taxed subjects should be on a level with each other in every possible respect. The Americans should be thankful for being on a level, not only with the non-voters of England, in the important right of qualifying themselves to be voters, or candidates for seats in parliament, but also with the freeholders in London, who have no vote, and with the members of parliament abroad, who, through emigration, cannot actually share in the legislature. I repeat it, to attempt to bring about a representation, equal in every respect, is as absurd as to attempt making all our fellow subjects of one size, one age, one sex, one country, one revenue, one rank, and one capacity.

Another of my answers to your grand argument ran thus:-"It is improbable that our lawgivers would save a dirty shilling in their pockets, by oppressively taking one out of an American's pocket. Being men of fortune, they are raised by their circumstances above the felonious trick you speak of." Page 40, you humoursly reply, "I suppose, sir, if you should lend a few thousands to any of our legislators, you would not pretend to ask for a bond. It would be ungenerous to suspect men of such circumstances, as the constitution obliges all our lawgivers to be, of such a felonious trick as not paying you again." But this reply of yours is fully obviated by my fifth answer, which is as follows:-" If the colonists were afraid of being taxed more heavily than the rule of proportion allows, should they not have humbly requested that the parliament would settle the matter by an act, or a bond,' which might have been an effectual check upon the abuse of the power of taxation ?"

You think to unnerve this answer by saying, page 42, "What the colonists should have done is one thing, and what the British parliament has done is another." True: the parliament has laid upon the colonists a little tax, and they have revolted, instead of paying it with the loyalty which becomes good subjects, and with the prudence which becomes men jealous of their liberty; and therefore their conduct is unjustifiable, and that of the parliament reasonable. You farther insinuate, that as you are not obliged "to conform to the Established Church," so the colonists were not obliged to submit to British taxation in the prudential manner I have mentioned. But the case is not parallel. Neither Christianity nor the constitution obliges us to conform to the Established Church; whereas both enjoin us to "render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due," that is, to the supreme, protective power.

You have another string to your bow. Sensible that the preceding argument is not strong enough to shoot the arrow of conviction into a thinking man's breast, you add, page 42, "A man that robs me on the highway may think that I should have previously asked him if he did not want my money. But I presume this will not justify his robbing me." So, sir, you will always insinuate, that we are no more bound to pay reasonable taxes to the legislative power which protects us, than we are bound to give our money to a robber who demands it! But when Americanus argues in this manner, does he not contradict St. Paul, Jesus Christ, and Mr. Evans himself, who, page 27, not only grants "the necessity of subjects paying taxes," but intimates that a man who

denies the propriety of that custom, and the ground of that propriety, is "one of the most unreasonable beings in the universe, and a mere political Quixotte?" It does not become me to decide how far you have drawn your picture in this candid concession; but, as you finish your answer to my argument by this display of your consistency, I may desire the public to judge whether your reply gives a finishing stroke to the cause of the parliament, or to your own.

The other part of your capital argument runs thus:-The Britons who have no vote, or who are unable to vote by emigration, may consent to the disposal of their property, because they have always this security, that those who take an active part in the disposal of their property must, at the same time, dispose of an equal portion of their own." I have already shown that the colonists have considerable degrees of security, that the parliament will not tax them disproportionably. And if they had properly asked a fuller security, instead of fleeing to arms, the parliament would undoubtedly have granted their request. But, without dwelling upon this answer, to overthrow your argument, I need only observe that it is inconclusive, because it can be retorted, and saps the foundation of what you call "the fundamental privilege" of the commons; which is, that no money bills can reasonably "originate but from themselves:" for, if money bills always originated from the lords, who are richer than the populace, the commons would have always this security, that the lords, in taking an active part in the disposal of the people's property, must at the same time dispose of an equal proportion of their own. So easily can your grand argument be turned against your own cause! And so great is the inconsistency of a system, one part of which you cannot support, without totally undermining the other!

If these remarks recommend themselves to your reason, piety, and sober patriotism, I hope, sir, you will confess that truth is a file which we bite in vain; that it is as imprudent to attack a good argument in the field of controversy, as to lay hold of an antagonist's sword with a naked hand in a field of battle; that your Reply has given me an opportunity of confirming my Vindication; and that the doctrine of taxation, embraced by the parliament, is truly rational, Scriptural, and constitutional. Q. E. D. I am, reverend sir, your friendly opponent, and obedient servant in the Gospel, J. FLETCHER.

LETTER II.

A view of Mr. Evans' mistake concerning, I. The absoluteness of our property. II. The nature of slavery. III. The origin of power. And IV. The proper cause of the war with America. A note concerning the Anabaptists.

Reverend Sir, I would have taken my leave of you in the preced. ing letter, had I not considered that a patient controvertist ought to contend for truth till she enjoys her full liberty. The truth I defend is not yet free. She is still bound with three or four of the chains with which you have loaded her. Nor can I complete my rescue, without breaking them with my polemical hammer.

I. The first of these chains is your error, or that of Lord Camden, concerning the absoluteness of our property.

Page 34, you still insinuate that "what a man has, is absolutely his own. Nevertheless, pressed by my objection, you indirectly grant that God has a right to our property. But if God has a right to our property, does he not delegate his right to our political gods, I mean to our lawgivers and governors, who are his lieutenants and representatives? And in this case, how can you say that no man has a right to take our property from us without our consent, our property being absolutely our own? I still farther assert, that so long as we live in society, our property is a part of the common wealth; but if it be absolutely our own, how can it be a part of the common wealth? And if it be a part of the common wealth, how can it be absolutely our own? I support this dilemma by the following queries:-Who is such a novice in politics, as not to know that private interest, in a thousand cases, is to yield to public good; and, of consequence, private possession to public claims? If a man have a thousand bushels of wheat, which he hoards up in time of scarcity, may he not be justly compelled to sell it at a reasonable price, though he and his representatives should cry out ever so loud, "Oppression! tyranny! robbery !" If a nobleman found rich mines of coals in his estates near London, could he not be legally hindered from working those mines, lest the Newcastle colliers, and a thousand sailors, should starve for want of employment? If Bristol were besieged, and you had a house near the walls, where the enemy might lodge his forces to annoy the city, might not your house be justly pulled down, though you and your American representative should refuse your consent to the very last? If you have rich meadows, which you delight in, and if the general good requires that a fort be erected upon them, or a canal cut through them, may you not be made sensible that the public has a superior right to your property, and that your ground is not so absolutely your own but you may be compelled to part with it for the good of the kingdom? If you have a ship laden with goods, brought from the Levant, and you want to sell them immediately, to prevent their being spoiled; and if there be some reason to fear that they will convey the plague, may not a magistrate, in spite of you and a hundred representatives, if you had a right to choose so many, force you to let your goods be spoiled, rather than to endanger the lives of thousands? And, to come to the case of the colonists, if you and your representative fancied that you owe nothing to the sovereign for protecting you in time past, and that you can very well protect yourselves for the time to come; and if, upon such a fancy, you refused to contribute to the expense of the general protection; think you the public would be duped by your conceit, and grant you to live as free from taxes in England, as David did in Israel, when he had slain Goliah? Would not our governors justly seize upon a proportion of your property, whether you and your representative reasonably consented to it, or whether you absurdly raised the neighbourhood by the patriotic cry of "Tyranny! robbery! murder?"

Nor is it only our property which is not absolutely our own, when we live in civil society: for what I have said of our goods, may be applied to our persons. We are not absolutely our own. Hence it is, that in all civilized countries, when the sovereign wants soldiers for the protec