Letter 1.

LETTER 1.

The arguments by which Mr. Evans tries to support his American politics, are shown to be contrary, I. To sound reason. II. rob plain Scripture. And, III. To the British constitution.

REVEREND SIR, - The interests of truth are often as much promoted by the inconclusiveness of the arguments with which she is attacked, as by the force of the reasons with which she is defended. If my Vindication of the Calm Address has thrown some light upon the American controversy, your Reply, sir, in the issue, may possibly throw much more. Supposing that plain truth can be compared to a good steel, and keen error to a sharp flint, I venture to say, that the more any one strikes the steel with such a flints the more will the fragments of the broken stone show the superior solidity of the impugned metal; and the more easily will sparks be collected to light the bright candle of truth. The public will judge which arguments, yours or mine, will serve the cause of truth, by flying to pieces in the controversial collision.

Desirous to share the blessings which our pacific Lord promises to the “meek” and the “peace makers,” I shall, in these sheets, neither throw oil upon the flame of the American revolt, nor blow up the coals of indignations which glow in the breasts of our insulted governors. Whatever my performance and success may be, moderation and reconciling truth are my aim: I can assure you, sir, that my utmost ambition is to draw the line between unruly patriotism and servile subjection, in such a manner as to give you, and our readers, an equal detestation of both these unconstitutional extremes.

After throwing away all your first letter upon a useless f35 question, and beginning the second with an idle f36 report, you step into the tribunal of the reviewers, and condemn my Vindication before you have refuted one of my arguments. As if you were both judge and jury, without producing one true witness, page 24, you authoritatively say, “Instead of argument, I meet with nothing but declamation; instead of precision, artful colouring; instead of proof, presumption; instead of consistency, contradiction; instead of reasoning, a string of sophistries.”

To support this precipitate sentence, you represent me as saying things which I never said. Thus, page 25, you write: “One while you tell us that our constitution guards our properties, &c, against the tyranny of unjust, arbitrary, or cruel monarchs; then you preach up, with great solemnity, &c, that their subjects have no more right to resist, than children or scholars have a right to take away paternal or magisterial authority.” I desire, sir, you would inform me where I advance such a doctrine. Far from “preaching it with great solemnity,” I abhor and detest it. If a Nebuchadnezzar commanded me to worship his golden image, I would (God being my helper) resist him as resolutely as did Shadrach. And suppose the king and parliament were to lay a tax upon me, in order to raise money for the purchasing of poison, wherewith to destroy my fellow subjects, I would resist them, and absolutely refuse to pay such a tax. When you have made my doctrine odious, by lending me principles which I never advanced, or drawing consequences which have not the least connection with my sentiments, you prejudice the public against my book, by insinuating that I contradict myself, where it is plain I do not. Thus you say, page 26: “In one letter you tell us the colonists are on a level with Britons in general; in another, that they were never on a level with England.” This last sentence I spake of the colonies, as independent legislatures, and not of the colonists: and both sentences in their place are perfectly consistent. For, although not one of the colonies was ever on a level with England (an independent kingdom) with respect to supreme dominion; yet all the colonists are on a level with Britons in general, with respect to several particulars enumerated just before, as appears by the whole argument, which (Vind. p. 450) runs, thus: “The mother country and the Parliament house are as open to them [the colonists] 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 [absent] Britons in general, but with all our members of Parliament who are abroad.” Had you, sir, quoted any words in this manner, your readers would have seen that there is something in my letters beside contradiction and sophistry; but it is more easy to shuffle the cards, than to win the game.

Permit me, sir, to produce another instance of your polemical skill. You say, page 24: “Your reasoning upon the quotation I made from the very learned Judge Blackstone, is equally conclusive, &c. In a free state, (says Judge Blackstone,) every man who is supposed a free agent, ought to be in some measure his own governor; and therefore a branch, at least, of the legislative power should reside in the whole body of the people. You reply: Your scheme drives at putting the legislative power into every body’s hands.” No, sir, this is not my reply, but only a just inference which I naturally drew from my solid answer. My reply (Vind. p. 446) runs thus: “But who are the whole body of the people? According to Judge Blackstone, every free agent. Then the argument proves too much; for are not women free agents? Yea, and poor, as well as rich men?” This, and this only; I advance as a reply to Judge Blackstone’s argument. I cannot, therefore, help being surprised at your mistake. You keep my real answer to your argument out of sight; you render me ridiculous by producing as my answer, what is not my answer at all; and, before you conclude, you make me amends for this piece of patriotic liberty, by calling me “one of the most unmeaning and unfair controvertists.” The reader’s patience would fail were I minutely to describe the logical stratagems of this sort by which you support your cause, which I confess stands in need of all manner of props.

However, in your second letter you come to the question, which is, Whether the colonists, as good men, good Christians, or good subjects, are bound to pay moderate, proportionable taxes, for the benefit of the whole British empire, when such taxes are legally laid upon them by the supreme, protective power, that is, by the three branches of the British legislature. In my Vindication of the Calm Address, I have produced the arguments which induce me to believe that the doctrine of such taxation is rational, Scriptural, and constitutional: and in your Reply you attempt to prove that it is contrary to reason, Scripture, and the constitution. Let us see how your attempt is carried on, and,

FIRST, How you disprove the reasonableness of the taxation I contend for. Page 27, you say that you do not deny “the necessity and propriety of subjects paying taxes.” But in not denying this, sir, do you not indirectly give up the point? Do you not grant that, as the colonists are not protected by the king alone, but by the whole legislative power of Great Britain, they are not under the jurisdiction of the king alone, but of all the British legislature? Now, if they are not the subjects of the king, as unconnected with the British parliament, but as constitutionally connected with that high court, which supplies him with proper subsidies to protect his American dominions, it is evident that they owe taxes to the king and the British parliament, for you yourself acknowledge “the necessity of subjects paying taxes” to the supreme power which protects them. But which tax have they, of late, consented to pay? Has it been a tax upon tea, or upon stamped paper?

Should you reply that they have offered to pay taxes to the king and their provincial assemblies, I reply, that this is not paying capital tribute to whom capital tribute is due: for capital tribute is due to the capital protective power; and the capital power that protects the colonists is not the king and the regency of Hanover, nor the king and the Irish parliament, much less the king and a provincial assembly; but the king and the British parliament. Had the Americans got their wealth under the protection of the Irish; had the Hanoverian fleets kept off the Spanish ships from the American coasts; or had squadrons of American men of war beat off the French fleets, I would not hesitate a moment to affirm, that the colonists ought to pay proportionable taxes to the king and the Irish parliament; to the elector and regency of Hanover, or to the king of British America and the American assemblies. But when all this has been done for the colonists by the king and the British parliament, I confess to you, sir, that setting aside the consideration of the love and duty which colonies owe to their mother country, I cannot see what law of gratitude, equity, and justice, the colonists can plead to refuse paying the king and the British parliament moderate and proportionable taxes.

Page 36, you indirectly appeal to the case of “the patriots of Charles’ days,” who refused to pay the tax called ship money: but their cause was far better than that of the Americans. The ship money was demanded by the king alone; but the king alone is not the supreme legislative power that protects the subjects of Great Britain, because he can make no laws, and of consequence raise no taxes, without the concurrence of the parliament. The patriots of the last century were not then absolutely bound either by the law of God, or the law of the land, to pay, a tax which had not the sanction of the legislative power; a money bill passed by the king alone being no law at all, according to the British constitution. But a proportionable money bill, as the stamp act, a bill passed by the complete legislative power of Great Britain, is every way binding in all the dominions of Great Britain. Whoever resists such a law breaks off with the legislative power, affects independence, and commences a petty sovereign.

I have said that a rightful “sovereign has a right to live by his noble business;” and because I have observed, that in England the sovereign (i.e. the legislative and protective power) is the king and his parliament, you suppose I have poured shame upon the cause I defend. “So, &c, (say you, page 25,) a member of parliament, instead of vacating his seat, ought to have a palace provided for him, upon his becoming a member of the legislature.” No, sir; your inference has no connection with my doctrine. If you had said that every member of parliament, while he attends the parliament, has a right to a public maintenance suitable to his share in the legislature, you would have said what I mean, and what no unprejudiced person will deny. If the king and parliament ordered that all the attending members shall be honourably entertained during the session, at the expense of the public; and that a proper sum shall be annually raised to discharge this expense; what Briton would be so niggardly, ungrateful, and unjust, as to find fault with such a statute? Was our Lord mistaken when he said, “The labourer is worthy of his hire?”’ If the speaker, who is the principal member of the house of commons, enjoys, as speaker, an income of some thousand pounds a year, does he not “live by his business?” Might not all the other members do the same in due proportion? When they exempt themselves and their friends from paying the tax which we call postage, do they not show that the legislature have pecuniary rights which other Britons have not? And if their generosity prevents their using those self evident rights, should we not extol their disinterestedness, rather than pour contempt upon their reasonable and constitutional prerogative? Unable to invalidate my doctrine by any just argument, you have recourse to a polemical stratagem which will do your cause no credit. To render the politics I defend odious to your readers, you insinuate, that, upon my principles, the sovereign “is entitled to just what he pleases, and may take it with or without consent, whenever he thinks proper.” This doctrine, which you impute to me, page 27, has no more connection with my system, than darkness with the rising sun. I abhor it as well as you, sir; being fully persuaded that legislative power is to be used for good, and not for evil; for protection, and not for tyranny. If the king and parliament had laid disproportionable and unreasonable taxes upon our American fellow subjects, I would no more have taken the pen in defence of such taxation, than I would take it in vindication of robbery.

Nor do my appeals to the propriety of giving the lawyers and physicians whom we employ the proper fees they demand of us, prove that I hold the doctrine of despotism; for as I should be a knave if I refused to give a gentleman of the faculty a reasonable fee for his attendance; so should I be a fool if I supposed that he “is entitled to just what he pleases.” I only assert that, as a good man will find a medium between dishonesty and folly, with respect to the fees due to his physician and lawyer; so a candid colonist will find a middle way between the injustice of the patriots, who refuse moderate taxes to the legislative power that protects them, and between the slavish tameness of the poltroons, who suffer a rapacious tyrant to grind their faces and suck their blood. Nevertheless, I dare affirm, that as we trust, to a certain degree, a lawyer’s conscience, an apothecary’s discretion, and a physician’s candour, with respect to their bills and fees; we may also trust, to a certain degree, the discretion of our governors with respect to their money bills and taxes. And, therefore, nothing can be more contrary to good manners, loyalty, reason, and conscience, than to represent the sovereign who protects the colonists as a robber and a tyrant, for laying a moderate tax upon them, in order lo discharge the national debt, and the daily expenses of government.

You indeed insinuate that the case is not parallel, because we employ our physicians and lawyers “voluntarily.” But have not the colonists “voluntarily” reaped for a hundred years the benefit of protection from the king and parliament? And, supposing they can now support themselves without British protection; yet are they not guilty of injustice if they now refuse to pay proportionable taxes? What would you think of my honesty, if the following case were matter of fact? I “voluntarily” employ a lawyer for ten years to recover an estate. When I have gained my ends, he demands fees, which, on account of my poverty, he forbore doing before. I storm on the occasion; I run up and down, screaming, Robbery! tyranny! And at last I turn my back upon him with such a speech as this: “Sir, I can do without you now; and as I am not willing to employ you any more, you have no right to demand fees of me as your due. I am a free man, and you shall not treat me as an abject slave, by insisting on fees with or without my consent.” If I put off my industrious lawyer with this American plea, would not your moral feelings brand me as a man devoid of conscience and honour?

I grant, however, that the case between the taxes of the sovereign, and the fees of a lawyer, is not exactly similar: but if the parallel fails, it is in a point which does your cause no service. For although I am perfectly at liberty to dismiss my honest lawyer as soon as I please, when I have paid him his reasonable fees: I cannot cast off the authority of my rightful sovereign as soon as I please, when I have paid his reasonable taxes; and I prove it by the following reasons.

(1.) I may possibly live fifty years without going to law, but I cannot safely live one day in society without being protected.

(2.) As an unconnected individual, I may neglect the care of my property as I please; and if a man unjustly demands my cloak, I may let him have my coat also: but, as a man joined with others in civil society, I am a debtor to all the society with which I am connected: I must defend my property as a part of the common stock; and, of consequence, I must pay taxes, and help to support the sovereign, who protects and guards the whole society. Hence it is, that those who live in the centre of the kingdom pay as much toward the fleet as those that live on the sea coast; though they are not half so much exposed to the depredations of invaders and pirates.

(3.) The laws of God and of the land bind me to obey my rightful sovereign rather than another king, in all things which are just and reasonable: but none of these laws bind me to employ one lawyer rather than another, under the fearful penalties due to rebellion and high treason. If the American patriots considered this, would they not blush to insinuate, that we may change our sovereigns as we do our tradesmen; and that, as the colonists no longer demand the protection of Great Britain, the British legislature has no longer any right to demand taxes of them? Who could sufficiently wonder at the insolence and injustice of the following plea, which I suppose to be urged by Yorkshire non - voters? “Neither we, nor our county, are represented in parliament according to our wishes. We are not afraid of an invasion. Yorkshire is large and populous. We can protect ourselves: and therefore we refuse to pay any thing toward the protection of the British dominions. What we have is absolutely our own: nor will we be robbed by any body; no, not by the legislature. For as we are desirous that the sovereign would keep his protection to himself; so we are determined to keep our money to ourselves.” I question, sir, whether, prejudiced as you are in favour of the American patriots, you would not be one of the first to exclaim against such Yorkshire patriots. Nor do you weaken my argument taken from the proper fees due to lawyers, by intimating that such fees are “lawful, accustomed fees,” and that “in England the sovereign has no power to recover a debt even for himself, but according to law.” Has it not been in all ages, and in all parts of the world, the “custom” of civilized nations to pay taxes to the protective power they are under? Is it not the “custom” of all just sovereigns, to lay those taxes according to the wants and emergencies of the government? When such taxes are properly laid by the supreme power which makes and executes every law, are they not “lawful?” Is it not “according to law,” that the king and parliament laid a little tax upon our American fellow subjects? And are there no statutes enjoining that the goods of perverse subjects, who refuse to pay lawful and reasonable taxes, shall be distrained; and that, if such subjects oppose the distraint, they shall be farther proceeded against according to law; especially if, instead of paying taxes, they break into ships, and tyrannically destroy the property of their fellow subjects?

If these observations overthrow your reply to the rational arguments, by which I have supported the doctrine of taxation laid down in the Calm Address; I may consider,

SECONDLY, How you answer my SCRIPTURAL arguments, on which, as a Christian, I lay the greatest stress.

Page 52, you say, “The golden rule of Scripture, both for governors and governed, is this: ‘As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.’ Now I presume the good people of England would not be willing that the Americans, in their assemblies, should tax English property here; and why should we therefore desire, in our parliament, to tax American property there?”

I reply, The case is not similar. The Americans are protected, and the British legislature is the protecting power. The protected owe taxes to their protectors, and not the protectors to the protected. You apply “the golden rule of Scripture” to the case in hand, as unfortunately as I should do, if I said that this rule entitles my servant to command me, because I have a right to command him; and that I may justly demand a fee of the physician who attends me, because he justly demands a fee of me for his attendance. Nay, if your argument be just, it proves that the king is bound to pay you taxes. You may go to his majesty and address him thus, according to your patriotic doctrine: “O king, the golden rule of Scripture, both for governors and governed, obliges thee to do to me as thou wouldst that I should do to thee. Now, thou wouldst that I should pay thee taxes, and, therefore, drop thy British partiality, commence an American patriot, and confess that thou oughtest to pay me taxes.”

If the objection, which you draw from our Lord’s golden rule, is trifling, may not that which you raise from his blessed example be affirmed to be deplorable? Our reformers say, in their HOMILY against wilful rebellion, part 2: “No example ought to be of more force with us, Christians, than the example of Christ our Master, who, though he was the Son of God, yet did always behave himself most reverently to such men as were in authority in the world in his time. He behaved not himself rebelliously; but openly did teach the Jews to pay tribute to the Roman emperor, though a foreign and a Pagan prince: yea, himself with his apostles paid tribute unto him.” How different is your doctrine from that of those loyal champions of truth! That very example of our Lord’s loyalty, which they so highly extol, you indirectly represent as an instance of weakness. How could he, say you, p. 54, “avoid paying the tribute demanded of him?” So it seems that our Lord paid tribute because he could not avoid paying it! He did it through necessity! He broke his own commandments delivered by St. Peter and St. Paul: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: ye must be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” Fear of wrath, and human prudence, were the slavish motives of his loyal action! Nay, you intimate, p. 55, that he thought it lawful to pay tribute to Cesar, only in the same sense in which it is “lawful to give a highwayman our money,” and, p. 54, you roundly assert that such a [forced] submission as this is all the submission our Lord’s example can be supposed in the least to countenance.”

If you could prove this assertion, sir, the brightness of our Lord’s moral character would suffer a total eclipse. For if “what a man has is absolutely his own,” and if the Roman emperor had not, as protector of the Jews, a reasonable claim to their tribute money, did not our Lord prevaricate, and was not an untruth found in his mouth, when he said to the Jews who showed him the tribute money, “Render, therefore, to Cesar the things which are Cesar’s?” In what sense could he say that this money was Cesar’s, if Cesar had no more right to it than a highwayman? And with what moral propriety could he bid the Jews to render such money to Cesar as a part of Cesar’s property?

This is not all: the manner in which our Lord enforced paying taxes to Tiberius, shows that he rested this branch of our duty to our neighbour upon the very same authority on which he rested our obedience to God himself. To be convinced of it, we need only consider his evangelical charge, “Render, therefore, to Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, and to God the things which are God’s.” The manner in which the two pasts of this injunction are connected, demonstrates that we must pay taxes to the civil power by which we are protected, as conscientiously as we pay adoration to the Divine power by which we exist. But, according to your patristic doctrine, our Lord’s solemn precept degenerates into a charge as absurd and profane as the following: “Your money is absolutely your own; render it therefore to Cesar, or to a highwayman, for it is his if he demands it; nor forget, in like manner, to render your all to God; for it is his, as your money is a highwayman’s.” What monstrous doctrines does your patriotism couple together! Geminantur tigribus agni! And how hard is it to do justice to Scripture, when we directly or indirectly part these inseparable precepts, “Fear God and honour the king,” that is, the protective power: honour him with a reasonable part of thy substance, as well as by thy respectful behaviour.”

Let us see if you are more successful in your attempt to overthrow what you call my “grand plea from Scripture,” taken from Romans 13. St. Paul there proves, by various reasons, that taxes are due to the higher powers that protect us. Such powers are ordained of God: resisting them, when they lay reasonable taxes upon us, is “resisting the ordinance of God:” those who resist, in such a case, shall receive to themselves damnation: “they are God’s ministers to us for good;” their grand business being to protect us in the way of virtue, and to curb or punish us in the way of vice: and they attend continually to do this very thing, that is, to our protection when we do well, and to our punishment when we break the laws. “Render, therefore, to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due,” &c. To set aside the force of this nervous comment of St. Paul upon the words of our Lord, “Render unto Cesar,” &c, you tell us, p. 63, that “the apostle does not take upon him, in the least, to determine to whom tribute was due.” But are you not mistaken, sir? Does he not explicitly say to whom, when he mentions the higher powers that protect us? Now if the king and the British parliament be the higher powers that have hitherto protected the colonies, does not the apostle decide our controversy as much as if he said, Let the American colonies pay taxes to the king and parliament, who are the higher powers that have continually attended to the protection of the colonists when they did well, and now attend to the punishing of them because they do ill?

But you add also, “The apostle does not take upon him to determine what quantum of tribute might be due.” True: for he did not attend continually to the dangers of the state, and to the best means of averting them. He minded his own business, instead of reflecting upon the higher powers in the execution of theirs. He knew no more than you and I, what expense those powers might be at, to protect him and all his fellow subjects; though he could easily conceive that such expense was prodigious, since the “chief captain, Lysias,” employed once an army to rescue him from the charge of mobbing religionists; and protected him on another occasion, by granting him “a guard of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen,” Acts 23:23, 27. Now as Paul did not know but myriads of his fellow subjects stood in need of such a guard as well as himself, and as he did not claim a place in the legislature jure divino, he did not pretend to determine the quantum of tribute necessary to maintain a sufficient protecting force, all over the Roman empire. But what has this to do with the question? Could not Paul make Christians understand that they must pay rent to their landlords, and taxes to the higher powers, without “determining the quantum of such rents and taxes? Must not a divine, who makes so frivolous an objection, be at a strange loss for arguments? But you go on: p. 63, “The apostle only enjoins the conscientious payment of what was due, according to the nature of the government under which they lived.” True, sir, if by “the nature of the government under which we live,” you mean the reasonable demands of the legislative power which protects us. But if you mean by this phrase, as your scheme requires, that we are to pay taxes only according to the nice speculations of men, who cry up the constitution one hour, and decry it the next, if it does not suit their chimerical notions of equal representation, and their injudicious ideas of liberty; your doctrine is subversive of the apostle’s loyal precept, opens the door to all manner of sedition, and leaves Christians at an utter uncertainty with respect to a capital branch of morality, the payment of taxes: and I prove my assertion by the following observations: -

1. The Jews were divided among themselves, with respect to the nature of the government they were under. While some of them said, We are under the Roman government, “we will have no king but Cesar;” the patriots said, “We were never in bondage to any man: we are freemen, we are under the Mosaic constitution: we owe no taxes to Cesar. To pay taxes to a heathen prince, is to give up the excellent constitution which our ancestors have transmitted to us.” Now, in full opposition to these plausible notions, our Lord bid the Jews pay taxes to Cesar, according to the Roman government; another government this, than that which the patriots said they were under.

2. When Joseph and the Virgin Mary went to Bethlehem, to be taxed according to the decree of Cesar Augustus, the ablest politicians were at a loss to say what was precisely the nature of the Roman government, which the Jews and most other nations were then under; so many were the changes which it had undergone. At first it was a monarchy, by and by a republic, headed by consuls, and by and by a republic headed by a dictator. One time the supreme power had centered in a decemvirate; at another time a triumvirate had held the reins of administration. At that juncture the government wore the form of a monarchy again; but there was yet a considerable minority, who held the high republican principles of Cato, Brutus, and Cassius, the three great patriots of the day. This minority considered Cesar Augustus as a tyrant and a robber, to whom no taxes were due; asserting that the government, which the Romans were under, was entirely republican Now what must subjects do in such a case? Must they refuse to pay taxes to the power that actually protects them till the minority and the majority be perfectly agreed concerning “the nature of the government under which they live?” Or must they lose their time in trying to decide nice political questions, which puzzle the men who have studied civil law all their lives?

3. As it was next to impossible to determine, with exactness, what was the nature of the Roman government, so it requires more wisdom than millions of people in the British empire were masters of, precisely to determine the nature of the British government. The strong whigs are for the republican government, which obtained in the days of Cromwell and the rump. The strong tories contend for the high monarchical government which prevailed in the days of King James II. You and I, sir, are for the government which has obtained since the revolution. Nor are you satisfied even with this, for you speak of an avowed defect in the present constitution. You are for an equal representation of the people, that is, for an utter impossibility: and, p. 98, you inform us, “that till the eighth year of Henry VI, all the residents in a county were permitted to elect representatives without exception;” insinuating, that now “the representation here in England is imperfect,” because that practice is disused. Now, sir, if this kind of representation be essential to the nature of the government we live under; and if we be not bound to pay taxes which are not laid according to the ancient form of the constitution; it is clear, that no man in Great Britain is bound to pay any tax at all; for no tax is laid, according to your levelling scheme of representation, and according to the nature of government, which obtained before Henry VI. Hence it appears, that as the pope’s bulls formerly loosed Britons from the oaths of fidelity which they had taken to their sovereign, and by this mean raised and fomented rebellion, so your political refinements loose not only the colonies, but Great Britain also, from the obligation of paying taxes to the king and parliament. So true it is, that overdoing is the way of undoing; and that your politics tend to kindle the flame of rebellion in England, and to keep it up in America. I say your politics, because candour obliges me to do justice to your good meaning, and to make a friendly distinction between your person and your opinions.

4. Should you say, that though it cannot be expected that every subject should study the nature of all the wheels and springs which compose that piece of political mechanism we call the constitution; yet every subject may choose his own representative, whose business it is to decide what taxes must be paid according to the constitution: I reply, that in most Christian governments the people are not allowed to choose any representatives, and therefore in such states every individual must, upon your plan, revolt, or personally study politics, that he may know how to pay taxes according to the nature of the constitution.

Things, I grant, are upon another footing in England. But this does not remove the difficulty; for (not to mention that perhaps nineteen subjects in England out of twenty cannot choose representatives) the members of parliament are as much divided among themselves as the Romans were in the days of Augustus, and the Jews in the days of Tiberius. The minority declare that the colonists are taxed against the nature of the constitution; while the majority assert that they are constitutionally taxed. Thus your patriotic comment absolutely unnerves St. Paul’s doctrine of taxation, and leaves Christians in the greatest uncertainty with respect to the payment of taxes, which are the sinews of government. For if that payment be suspended on our notions of the nature of the government we are under, it might as well be suspended on the shape of the clouds, and the colour of a pigeon’s neck.

Should you reply, that when our representatives do not agree, touching the nature of the government we live under, we must follow the majority; I answer, that the majority has decided the question. But what care some patriots for the majority? Does not Americanus openly oppose their decisions, and wishfully quote the misapplied saying, “Dulce pro patria mori;” just as if mori pro pertinacia were the same thing as pro patria mori? O, sir, if the former be sweet, the latter is the quintessence of bitterness; for the Scripture declares that wilful “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,” and that “stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” We have seen by what arguments you have endeavoured to prove that the doctrine of taxation espoused by the sovereign is irrational and unscriptural. Let us see,

THIRDLY, How you attempt to prove that it is unconstitutional. Permit me, sir, to lay this doctrine before you with some capital improvements. The king and parliament believe that the constitution allows of indirect representation, and that among the several sorts of indirect representation, some are less, and others are more indirect. This sentiment is founded on the following facts:

(1.) Though the constitution allows a woman, for instance, Queen Elizabeth, or Queen Anne, to be the head of the legislative power, yet no woman subject can have any share in the legislature; but all women are indirectly represented by the men, be their rank ever so high, and their property ever so considerable.

(2.) According to the constitution, all the voters, who actually choose parliament men, indirectly represent all the voters who do not, or cannot attend the election, whether the absent voters be at home or abroad, in jails or on sick beds.

(3.) Though the number of the non - voters exceeds ten or twenty times the number of the voters, yet, according to the constitution, the voters indirectly represent the countless body of the non - voters, whether such non - voters be poor men of age, or rich men under age.

(4.) The constitution allows that men of a certain profession shall be particularly represented, when men of other honourable professions are not. Thus the clergy are particularly represented, when the rich body of our merchants, the gentlemen of the law, those of the fleet, those of the army, and those of the faculty are not allowed a particular representation. This constitutional partiality does not stop here: the whole order of bishops is admitted into the house of lords; but not one seat in the house of commons is appropriated to the order of the priests. Such is the latitude which the constitution allows herself, when she decides concerning the right of representation!

(5.) According to the same prerogative, she orders that the little county of Rutlandshire shall send as many members as the large county of Yorkshire, so that if Yorkshire be ten times more populous than Rutlandshire, the representation of a Yorkshire freeholder is by ten degrees weaker or less direct than the representation of a Rutlandshire freeholder. And, suppose the city of Bristol contains a thousand times more freemen than the decayed borough of Old Sarum, the constitution allows that a burgess of Old Sarum shall be a thousand times more directly, or particularly represented. than a freeman of Bristol.

(6.) On the same plan, some flourishing and populous towns are not allowed to send any representative, when some poor and deserted Cornish or Welsh boroughs send as many members as some of the greatest cities in the kingdom.

(7.) The constitution allows that the present members shall represent all those who are absent; and that the majority of the present members shall indirectly represent the minority; and that the parliament shall determine the affairs of all the British settlements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and in the West Indies; although the colonists settled in those parts have no direct representatives in parliament: I say no direct representatives, because the constitution supposes, that as the men indirectly represent all the women; the burgesses all that are not burgesses; and the freeholders all that have no freehold; and as the majority in parliament indirectly represents the minority, and the members who are in the house indirectly represent those who are absent; so the three branches of the legislature indirectly represent all the political body which is called the British empire, just as the head, the heart, and the breast, indirectly represent all the natural body; whether the hands and feet touch each other, or whether they are widely extended toward the east and the west.

(8.) The prosperity of the mother country being as closely connected with the prosperity of the colonies, as the welfare of parents is connected with that of their children, Great Britain has as rational and natural a right to represent the colonies, as parents have to represent their children; present burgesses those that are absent; and voting freeholders those that have no vote. Lastly: matter of fact demonstrates that the American colonies are indirectly represented in parliament, and matter of fact bears down ten thousand sophisms. I have already made appear that the constitution allows of various degrees of indirect representation, some proximate, and others more remote. And that the colonists are represented in one of the degrees which the constitution allows, is evident by the following remark: - As a lawyer who pleads your cause in a court of judicature, is indirectly your representative, whether you choose him or not: so the members who plead the cause of the colonists in the high court of parliament, show themselves the indirect representatives of the colonists, whether the colonists choose them or not. And, therefore, to deny that the provincials are indirectly represented in parliament, is as bold an imposition upon the good sense of the public, as to deny that the minority, in both houses of parliament, opposes the claims of Great Britain, and votes for the colonies: for reason, conscience, and the constitution, agree to decide, that if the colonists are not indirectly represented in parliament, the members who plead their cause have no more right to vote for them than you and I have. My demonstration is short: a considerable number of parliament men vote in both houses that parliamentary taxation is unjust with respect to the colonies; all the members have a right to vote in their favour, and would do it, if their conscience permitted, and therefore the colonists are incontestably, though indirectly, represented in the parliament. Nor can one of the members who compose the minority, give his vote for the Americans, without confuting himself, if he denies that they are indirectly represented in the parliament; and if they are indirectly represented in parliament, they may be constitutionally taxed by the parliament. On this ground, which is firm as matter of fact, the majority are ready to stand the minority and you, in all the courts of reason, which are or can be erected in Great Britain or America.

Consider we now what you object to this constitutional doctrine. Page 37, you say, “The non - voters here can point out their virtual representatives, as clearly as the voters can point out their direct representatives. But who are the specific, virtual representatives of America? Who are appointed to represent the property there?” I reply,

(1.) The whole body, in which the legislative power is lodged, is appointed by the constitution to protect the property of all the subjects of Great Britain.

(2.) Your ideas of representation are far too much circumscribed. Though the members of a Cornish borough directly represent the burgesses of that borough, yet they indirectly represent the commons of all England, and of all the British dominions. If it were not so, they could have no voice in the house, except when the petty concerns of their borough are debated. Now, sir, by the same constitutional rule by which the members of a Welsh borough are appointed to manage the affairs of all England, the members of Middlesex are appointed to manage the affairs of all British America. If you want me to point out some of the indirect, virtual representatives of the Americans, I take up the first newspaper and point at the names of the members who distinguish themselves by their zeal to support what they judge to be the rights of the Americans. And I ask, if these lords and gentlemen do not indirectly represent the rich and the poor in our colonies, what right have they to vote for the colonists, more than the members of the Irish parliament?

Page 31, you intimate that it is “perfectly unconstitutional to exclude the Americans from having a voice in the disposal of their property, whose estates may amount to thirty - nine pounds per annum;” though you grant that “a man in England can have no voice in the disposal of his property, whose estate amounts to no more than thirty - nine shillings per annum.” But have you forgot that the constitution allows “the pot boilers in the despicable hovels of some boroughs” to have votes for parliament men, while some “freeholders in Gloucester, Hereford and 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 multiplying f37 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 members 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 England.” I reply, If the American colonies are, as some patriots suppose, the capital spring of British wealth, all the members of parliament 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 nonvoters 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.