Having expostulated with you, as with a conscientious man, and a minister of the gospel, permit me, sir, to address you, thirdly, as a consistent writer. You give us to understand, that the act of parliament by which the colonists are taxed is an unconstitutional act, because the colonists, as inheriting the privileges of Britons, cannot be constitutionally taxed by a parliament where they are not allowed to send representatives. But do you not in your very letter to Mr. Wesley overthrow this grand plea? Do you not grant the very truth on which he rests his doctrine of the constitutional reasonableness of the taxation you represent as tyrannical? Undoubtedly, you do; for, considering that many large towns, as Birmingham, &c., send no representative to parliament, when the hill called Old Sarum sends two; and that myriads of men, who have their fortune in ready money, in goods, in trade, or in the stocks, have no right to vote for parliament-men, because they have no freehold ; when a poor man, who has a mortgaged freehold on which he starves, has a right to choose his representative;-considering this I say, you tell Mr. Wesley, "In England the people are by no means equally represented." We thank you, sir, for this concession, which, by the bye, you could not help making. You grant, then, that the constitution allows of unequal representation, since it allows that some towns and some men shall send representatives to parliament, when other towns and other men are not permitted to send any. And in granting this you indirectly grant, that Boston may be constitutionally taxed without a peculiar representative, as well as Birmingham; and that the rich merchants of Boston may as legally taxed as the rich merchants of Birmingham, who are not entitled to a vote. Now, sir, if the constitution allows of unequal representation; and if the taxation of myriads of men who send no representatives to the house of commons is constitutional; I ask, in the name of consistency, why do you represent such taxation as unconstitutional with respect to the colonists? be You reply, "This is an acknowledged defect of the constitution." So, sir, your zeal for the constitution throws off the mask, and you impeach the constitution. Might you not have said at once?—The parliament may indeed constitutionally tax the colonists, for it taxes millions of Britons who have no vote for parliamentmen; but the constitution is defective; and we patriots, we friends of the constitution, will avowedly find fault with the constitution, till we can find an opportunity of casting it into a new mould." And what this mould is, which, I fear, rash patriots are getting ready as fast as they can, and into which they hope to cast the inflamed minds of the populace, you, sir, help us to guess, where you say, "It is glaringly evident "-to such good friends. of the constitution as you are, it is glaringly evident— “that there is not a man in England who is able to boil a pot in ever so despicable an hovel, but may, if he pleases, have a voice in the disposal of his property," that is, in laying on or taking off taxes, or, which comes to the same, in making and repealing laws. Sir, I would no more encourage a tyrannical monarch and an oppressive parliament than you. But supposing our mild king were a tyrant, and his parliament consisted of three hundred and ninety-nine little tyrants, would it not be better, upon the whole, to be ruled by four hundred tyrants, than to be at the mercy of four hundred thousand? If you calmly weigh this question, I am persuaded, sir, that your prejudices will subside. In the mean time, remember that if you are right as a patriot, you are wrong, not only as a man and a Christian, but also as a controvertist; and that, whether the constitution is defective or not, and whether you can mend it or not, you have granted that unequal representation is constitutional, and, of consequence, that the taxation of myriads of Britons in England, and sons of Britons in America, who send no representatives to parliament, is perfectly agreeable to the constitution. You strengthen your cause by quoting a French and an English judge. As Mr. Wesley has taken particular notice of these quotations in the last edition of his Address, I shall only transcribe his answers. You write: "All the inhabitants," &c., says Montesquieu, speaking of the English constitution, "ought to have a right of voting at the election of a representative, except such as are so mean as to be deemed to have no will of their own." " Nay," answers Mr. Wesley, "if all have a right to vote that have a will of their own, certainly this right belongs to every man, woman, and child in England." A man has a will of his own, whether he be twenty or thirty years old, and whether he have forty pence or forty shillings a year. One quotation more. Judge Blackstone says, "In a free state, every man who is supposed to be a free agent ought, in some measure, to be his own governor; therefore, one branch, at least, of the legislative power should reside in the whole body of the people." Mr. Wesley answers: "But who are the whole body of the people? According to him, every free agent. Then the argument proves too much; for, are not women free agents? Yea, and poor as well as rich men. According to this argument, there is no free state under the sun." From these just answers, it is evident that your scheme drives at putting the legislative power in every body's hands, that is, at crowning king mob. To conclude: upon the force of the preceding arguments I ask, first, Is not the demand of proportionable, moderate taxes, which the sovereign of Great Britain has upon our wealthy fellow-subjects settled in the British dominions on the continent, both rational, scriptural, and constitutional? rational, as being founded upon a reasonable, self-evident right, flowing from the nature and fitness of things, and acknowledged by every civilized nation under heaven; scriptural, as being supported by the explicit commands of St. Paul and Christ himself; and constitutional, since the constitution enjoins, that millions of Britons at home who have no voice at elections, or are represented by men whom they voted against, and that myriads of Britons abroad, whether they are freeholders or not, (and some of them are not only freeholders, but members of parliament also,) shall be all taxed without their consent. I flatter myself, sir, that this appeal to your conscience, your bible, and your legal patriotism, will soften your pre judices, and prepare your mind for my next letter. In the mean time, I earnestly recommend to your thankful admiration the excellence of the British government, which equally guards our properties, liberties, and lives against the tyranny of unjust, arbitrary, or cruel monarchs; and against the ferocity of that Cerberus, that Hydra, that Briareus, that many-headed monster,-a mob of ungrateful, uneasy, restless men, who "despise dominion; speak evil of dignities;" give to illiberal behaviour, scurrilous insolence, and disloyalty unmasked, the perverted name of "patriotism;" commit enormities under pretence of redressing grievances; and set up the ensign of devastation wherever they erect their standard of lawless liberty. Hoping, sir, that a panic fear of a virtuous king, a lawful parliament, and a conscientious minister, whose crime is only that of making a constitutional stand against the boisterous overflowings of civil antinomianism; -hoping, I say, that such an absurd fear will never hurry you into groundless discontent and unguarded publications; entreating you to take no step which may countenance king mob, his merciless minister, rapine, and his riotous parliament, summoned from the "most despicable hovels;" requesting you to exalt our divine Lawgiver, who sums up his law of liberty in these precious statutes;— "Render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and to God the things which are God's,"—"A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another, as I have loved you;" wishing you, sir, all scriptural success in the gospel, which says, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well;" ardently praying, that when the governors, generals, and forces, going to America, shall land there, our disobedient fellow-subjects may be found doing well,-that is, penitently submitting themselves to their sovereign, that the threatened punishment may be turned into deserved praise; and begging you would take in good part the freedom of this well-meant expostulation; I declare, that I am as much in love with liberty as with loyalty, and that I write an heart-felt truth when I subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, Your affectionate fellow-labourer in the gospel, a republican by birth and education, and a subject of Great Britain by love of liberty and free choice, MADELEY, JOHN FLETCHER. LETTER II. REV. SIR, I HOPE I have proved in my first letter, that Mr. Wesley's doctrine of government is rational, scriptural, and constitutional; and that a right of taxing subjects, with or without their consent, is an inseparable appendage of supreme government. I shall now attempt to prove, that your doctrine of liberty, and taxation only with our own consent, is absurd and unconstitutional; and that, whilst you try to break the lawful yoke of civil government laid on the colonists, you doctrinally bind the greatest part of the English with chains of the most abject slavery, and fix a ridiculous charge of robbery on the king and parliament, for taxing some millions of Britons who are no more represented in parliament than the foreigners who sojourn in England, or the English who live abroad. Permit me to state the question more particularly than I have done in my former letter. Mr. Wesley thinks, that the colonists are mistaken when they consider themselves as put on a level with slaves because they are taxed by a parliament in which they have no representatives of their own choosing: I say, of their own choosing, because I apprehend that, as all the freeholders and voting burgesses in Great Britain virtually represent the commonalty of all the British empire, except Ireland, which, being a kingdom by itself, and no English colony, |