Letter 2.

LETTER 2.

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 preceding 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 some 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 protection of the commonwealth, a militia is raised; and if the lot fall upon a pacific farmer, notwithstanding his objections, and the opposition of his parliamentary representative, he must bear arms, either in his own person, or in the person of his military representative. And when no such representatives can be procured, the men who are able may be personally pressed into the service of the commonwealth. Hence it is, that in an emergency, the sovereign issues press warrants to raise sailors for manning the fleet. A hardship this, which, great as it is, is not so great as the general overthrow of the state.

II. Your first error about the absoluteness of our property, naturally leads you into a second concerning abject slavery, which you confound with loyal subjection. Hence you say, p. 44, &c, “If there be any man, call him by what name you please, [you should have said, agreeably to the case in debate, if there be any set of men, call them by what name you please, lawgivers, magistrates, or officers of the legislative power,] who has [or have] a right to take it [his property] without his consent expressed by himself or representative, what is this but the quintessence of slavery? Wherein does the case of such a man differ from that of the most abject slaves in the universe? God’s lieutenants may, it is true, be very mild, and kind, and reasonable in their demands, and require no more of such a man than it is highly just he should pay: but what then? If my property be at their disposal, not my own, what becomes of my liberty? The man that robs me of five shillings only, commits a robbery as much as the man that robs me of five pounds. The most abject slave in the universe may chance to have a very good master; but still, if he be at the disposal of his master, he is equally a slave when treated well as when treated ill.” The plausibility of this argument rests upon the following mistakes:

(1.) You still suppose, that insisting on moderate taxes, as a reasonable equivalent for protection, is a species of robbery; whereas such a demand, by the consent of all men, except the patriots of the day, is as reasonable as the demand of a moderate fee, which a diligent lawyer has upon his client.

(2.) You do not consider that the colonists, being indirectly represented in parliament, have as much consented, by their indirect representatives, to pay taxes to the parliament, as the patriots and you have consented by your direct representatives to be additionally taxed in order to bring the colonies to reason.

(3.) The Latin word servus, means not only a servant, but a bondsman and a slave; and the English word servitude, means both slavery and the state of a servant. But would it be right in me to avail myself of this analogy, to put all the patriotic servants in the kingdom out of conceit with their servitude, and to make them shake off the yoke of dependence, under pretence that servitude is abject slavery, whether a servant is treated well or ill?

(4.) In Hebrew the word [obed] servant, means both a slave and a subject. But would you have approved of Absalom’s conduct, if, on this account, he had alienated the minds of his father’s subjects, and made an injudicious populace believe, that whosoever fully submits himself to good government, commences an abject slave? Who does not see the inconclusiveness of this argument? An abject slave is bound to submit himself reasonably or unreasonably to his lawless sovereign: a loyal subject is bound to submit himself reasonably to his lawful sovereign: and therefore, as they are both bound to submit or subject themselves to their sovereign, they are both “abject slaves.” Such logic, sir, may convert heated Americans to your overdoing patriotism; but, if I am not mistaken, it will confirm judicious Britons in their constitutional loyalty.

(5.) You conclude your argument by saying, “A slave is equally a slave, when treated well as when treated ill:” and you might have added, a subject is equally a subject when treated well as when treated ill; but then the pill would not have been properly gilded; and your own loyalty, as well as piety, would have taken the alarm at a doctrine which bears so hard upon this Gospel precept, “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” For my part, whatever you may say of my “meanness,” I will be the servant, the subject, and if you please, sir, the slave of good government. I am determined to glory in the subjection, of which you seem to be so afraid and ashamed. And applying to a freeman what the apostle says of a son, I do not scruple to assert, that a freeman, so long as he lives in society, and is a subject, differeth nothing from a servant or slave who “is well treated,” but is under governors (lawgivers and magistrates) until the time appointed of his heavenly Father for his removing from earth, and leaving the society of mortals, Galatians 4:1, 2. To oppose this doctrine is to overthrow subjection and government, which stand or fall together.

III. A word about the origin of power. I believe, with St. Paul, that “the powers that are, are ordained of God,” who is the fountain of all power, and the author of all good government. I date the Divine communication of power from the paradisiacal age; yea, from the hour in which God said to Adam and Eve, “Multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over - every living thing,” Genesis 1:28. Here, sir, is the original grant of power; and whosoever wantonly resisteth the power which Providence calls him to obey, breaks this great political charter of God, which is so strongly and so frequently confirmed in the Gospel. You reply, p. 74, “The first man could have no power to protect and rule mankind, till there were some for him to rule.” But is not this a mistake? Might not God endue him with a protective, as well as with a prolific power, before the earth began to be replenished? Would you not wonder at my positiveness, if I insisted, that God could not give to Adam power to multiply and rule his species, because his species was not yet multiplied and governable; and that our Creator could have no creative power, till creatures rose into positive existence?

But you add, p. 75, “When Adam became a father, he had as much power as any other father.” And p. 77, you ask, “Does not every father receive the same Divine right of dominion?” asserting, that “there is nothing to be inferred from the parental authority of Adam, but is equally applicable to all parents without exception.” I reply, that it is contrary to all divinity to say that every parent is endued with all the authority which Adam was invested with, when God said to him, “Subdue the earth and have dominion.” You are too judicious a divine, not to speak a different language in the pulpit. You know, sir, that Adam was invested with characters which he could not communicate to all his posterity, and which consequently are not common to all men. A simile will possibly convince you of your mistake. King George the Third is, with respect to his children, what Adam was with respect to his posterity. He is a father and a king. The first character he can entail upon all his sons; but the second he can entail upon none but the prince of Wales. This shows the inconclusiveness of the argument you draw from “Eve’s motherhood,” and “petticoat government.” I reverence the queen; and if she filled the throne as Queen Anne did, I would submit myself to her good government, not because of Eve’s motherhood, but because God said to Eve (as well as to Adam) in her regal capacity, “Have dominion;” and because he says in the decalogue, “Honour thy [political] mother,” as well as thy political “father.” Nor should I be ashamed to advance these two capital scriptures in support of the English constitution, if you excited me to dethrone an English queen, and urged the propriety of the loi salique - a French law this, which, in all cases, excludes princesses from the right of succeeding to the crown. You try to embarrass the question by saying, p. 79, “You must tell us who is Adam’s heir. What does it signify what power Adam had, or what power he left behind him to his [governing] successors; unless we certainly know who those successors are?” But I reply, that, in every country, those who share in the dominion given to Adam and Eve in their regal capacity, are as much known as the king and parliament are known in England, the doge and senate at Venice, the emperor and diet in Germany, the monarch in France, and the despot in Prussia. Whoever, by the good providence of God, is endued with the legislative and protective power in the country where I reside, and retains that power by the consent of a majority of the people, is the higher power which I consider as actually ordained of God for my protection. To that power I will cheerfully submit, so far as it is used for good: and to that power I will conscientiously pay taxes, for the protection which I enjoy. And suppose that power were possessed by a usurper, I would lament the usurpation, and hear my testimony against it, till the same overruling Providence which removed Absalom, John of Leyden, Ket, the rump, and Cromwell, took that usurper out of the way also. But if Divine Providence, instead of removing the usurper, established his power, as it did that of Jeroboam in the days of Solomon’s son, which I would know by the general and lasting consent of the people, I would no longer oppose that power, but submit myself to it as religiously as the Christians of the fourth century did to Constantine the Great, and as cheerfully as the French do to the ancient family of the Capets; though Hugues Capet, the first king of that house, was only a noble usurper. Such are, if I mistake not, the loyal views which the Scriptures give us of the origin of power; and such the marks by which we may know the power that Divine Providence calls us to obey.

Consider we now what are your views of the same doctrine. Page 66, you say, “Every good government is of God. Nor will the personal vices of our governors, nor any slight error in their administration of government, justify our resisting them.” Here, sir, you speak as a Christian and a Briton; and, so far, I heartily set my seal to your politics. But who are our governors? Are they not the men who are invested with governing, legislative, and supreme power? Now, sir, according to this just definition of the word governors, you have thrown down the distinction between the governors and the governed, and, before you are aware, you have crowned king mob. I prove my assertion by your own words. Page 71, you write, “Perhaps you will say, The supreme power in every government must be lodged somewhere, and this power must be omnipotent and uncontrollable. I allow it. But the glory of the British constitution is, that the people have never parted with this power, but have most religiously kept it in their owls hands.” Thus, sir, according to your doctrine, the supreme and governing power belongs not to the governors, but to the people, that is, to the governed. Was ever a more preposterous doctrine imposed upon injudicious patriots? O, sir, what you call “the glory of the British constitution,” would be the shade of the worst government. Nay, upon this plan, there could be no government at all. For, so long as the governed “most religiously [should you not have said most impiously and absurdly?] keep the [governing] power in their own hands,” that power is in every body’s hands. And the moment this is the case, there is an end of government; anarchy takes place; king mob breaks all the laws with a high hand; and a tyrannical populace fiercely trample upon all order, and carry devastation wherever they turn their steps. Thus, sir, you have helped me to prove the truth of this deep proposition of judicious Mr. Baxter, who, after having studied Christian politics near thirty years, left it upon record, that “if once legislation, the chief act of government, be denied to be any part of government at all, and affirmed to belong to the people as such, who are no governors, all government will thereby be overthrown,” and the grand principle of the fierce, mobbing, and levelling f38 Anabaptists will be “most religiously” set up.

This doctrine of yours, sir, brings to my remembrance an anecdote, to which a loyal and pious Anabaptist undesignedly helped me some weeks ago. In order to convince me that what Mr. Baxter says of the high republican spirit of the Anabaptists and Independents is not true, he sent me the fourth volume of “Blennerhasset’s History of England,” which contains all account of the proceedings of the mangled tyrannical parliament known by the name of the rump. This author informs us, p. 1541, that just before King Charles I. was beheaded, “the commons voted, that the people, under God, are the original of all just power; and that the commons of England, being chosen by the people, had the supreme authority of this nation: and what they enacted should be law, without the king or lords’ concurrence. This squared exactly with the Independents, who were for turning the monarchy into a republic.” Now if the Anabaptists were at least as zealous republicans as the Independents, I leave you to judge, sir, whether my neighbour’s book was a better proof of Baxter’s mistake than your own; and whether it is not evident, from this quotation, that when you teach the world that “the people most religiously keep the supreme power [that is, the power of their governors] in their own hands,” as their indubitable right, you plough with the wild, mischievous heifer of Cromwell and the rump.

IV. A word concerning the proper cause of the war with America. Page 51, you say, “Should it be made to appear that the British parliament have authority from Scripture to tax their unrepresented brethren in America, and to cut their throats, burn their towns, and spread universal devastation among them, because they do not choose to submit to such taxation, it would furnish a stronger objection, &c, against the Divine original of the sacred code, than has ever yet been produced.” You insinuate by these words, that the proper and immediate cause of cutting throats in America, is the demand which the king and parliament make of taxes. But are you not mistaken, sir? And does not your mistake make you throw an undeserved odium upon the sovereign? For my part, I conceive that the immediate occasion of the bloodshed which we lament, is not so much the parliamentary demand of taxes, as a chain of causes which chiefly contains the following links;

(1.) The heat of some Bostonian patriots, who, with felonious audacity, boarded our ships, seized upon the property of our merchants, and wantonly threw it into the sea. If the patriots would not buy tea subjected to a tax, could they not have kept their own money? Was it right in them to undo our innocent traders, by destroying their goods?

(2.) The demand which the government made of restitution, or satisfaction, for that act of glaring injustice; a just demand this, which the sovereign could not avoid making without being guilty of injustice; it being evident that it would be unjust in the legislative power to receive taxes of our merchants for the protection of their property, and then to look on unconcerned, when that property is feloniously destroyed.

(3.) The obstinacy with which the mobbing patriots and their abettors refused to make satisfaction to our injured merchants.

(4.) The prudence with which the parliament farther interposed, by passing the bill for shutting up the port of Boston, that by this unbloody and mild method, the Bostonians might gently be brought to make restitution. And, lastly, the flame of revolt, which on this occasion rapidly spread through British America.

Had the Algerines insulted the British flag, and injured British subjects as the mobbing Bostonians have done, the government would not have shown them the same lenity. A fleet would immediately have sailed for the inhospitable coast, and the admiral would have sent a card to the legislature of Algiers: “I am come to demand satisfaction for the injury done to British subjects. Send me, by to - morrow, £30,000, being the value of the goods which you, or the men whom you screen, have feloniously taken from our merchants, or I will do them and my country justice.” Instead of using this peremptory method as Admiral Blake would have done, our admiral quietly stationed his ships before Boston, and General Gage, far from “cutting throats,” amicably quartered his forces in or about that city; patiently waiting till remorse of conscience, a sense of equity, a spark of loyalty, or some tear of the power, wrought upon the patriots, so called, and inclined them to do an act of justice, which Mohammedans would hardly have refused to do. But all in vain. The mobbing patriots, and their ringleaders, hardened by this lenity, availed themselves of the kind delay. While humanity and brotherly love suspended the stroke of justice, enthusiastic demagogues sounded a false alarm, and engaged the misinformed colonists to countenance their obstinacy. In short, the Americans, seduced by misrepresentations, took up arms against Great Britain; and the forces sent by the sovereign, instead of obtaining the satisfaction they demanded, were obliged to provide for their own safety by attempting to seize some of the artillery and ammunition, brought from all quarters to destroy them. Hence the engagement at Lexington, and the fight at Bunker’s Hill, where the forces raised by the congress pressed those of the sovereign by an audacious blockade.

Should you object that the colonists once offered to make restitution on condition that they should never be taxed by the power that protected them; I reply, that by such an offer they only added injustice and revolt to felons. Suppose the Scotch plundered an English ship, and the sovereign insisted on speedy restitution, do you think they would deserve the name of patriots if they said, We will pay for the goods we have destroyed on condition that you shall exempt us from paying the window tax for ever; or, in other terms, we will be just to some of our fellow subjects, to shake off your authority, and to break Christ’s capital commandment, “Render to all their due, especially taxes to Cesar?”

If this be a true state of the case, are you not partial, sir, when you represent the parliament as “cutting the throats” of the colonists, because the colonists will not be taxed by the parliament? Is it not rather the colonists who want to cut the throats of our soldiers, because the king and parliament justly insist on proper satisfaction for the injury done to British merchants by the petty tyrants of Boston?

An illustration will make you still more sensible of your mistake. Suppose I harbour a parcel of house breakers, or ship breakers, who have stolen or destroyed your goods, and suppose you obtain a legal warrant, and come, attended with a number of armed constables, to recover your property, or apprehend the felons; if I raise a mob to hinder the constables from doing their office, and if some throats are cut, in the endeavours which the constables make not to fall into the hands of the armed mob which surrounds them, is the guilt of cutting throats chargeable upon you, who act according to law, and in a just cause? Is it not rather chargeable upon me, who wantonly oppose the legislative power, and can say nothing in defence of myself and my mob, but that the felons I protect are not felons, but spirited patriots; or that I shall pay you for damages, if you will promise to suffer yourself to be wronged of more money than the wrong you have sustained amounts to?

Suppose that the doctrine of taxation, which is the remote cause of our divisions, admits of some objections, as the plainest doctrines always do, (for the brightest clouds have their obscure side, and the most shining diamonds cast a faint shade,) yet the immediate cause of the American war, the refusing to make restitution for goods feloniously destroyed, has no shadow of difficulty. Whoever is honest enough to disapprove the malicious destruction of an innocent man’s property, whoever is conscientious enough to praise the steadiness of a governments which stands by oppressed subjects whom it is bound to protect, and whoever is so far a lover of order, as to blame a wanton opposition to the sovereign when he discharges his duty, must confess that the guilt of “cutting throats” in America, is properly caused by the obstinate injustice of the American patriots, and not by the moderate taxes laid by the British legislature. To assert the contrary is almost as great a mistake in politics, as it is in divinity to hint that the miseries consequent upon man’s fall, were not properly caused by the tempter’s artful misrepresentations, and by Adam’s wilful rebellion; but by God’s reasonable demand of a little proof of Adam’s loyalty.

And now, sir, if I have duly confirmed my proofs, that the doctrine of taxation, which you oppose, is just in every point of view; if I have shown that you confound loyal subjection with abject slavery; if I have demonstrated that your notions concerning the supreme power of the people are subversive of all government; and if I have made appear, that you do not fix the charge of wantonly “cutting throats” upon those who are properly guilty of that atrocious crime, may I not call upon your rational and moral feelings to decide, if I have not vindicated my Vindication? And are you not as precipitate, when you pronounce me “one of the most unmeaning and unfair disputants that ever took up the polemical gauntlet,” as when you insinuate that the British legislature “commits robbery,” because it lays a moderate tax upon those who have long basked in the beams of its protection, and have acquired immense wealth under the guardian shadow of its flags and standards? Hoping that no controversial heat will make us forget that we are fellow creatures, fellow subjects, fellow Protestants, and fellow labourers in the Gospel of truth and love; I ask a part in your esteem, equal to that which, notwithstanding your heats and mistakes, you have in the cordial respect of, reverend sir, your affectionate brother, and obedient servant, J. FLETCHER.