Letter 3.

LETTER 3.

Dr. Price’s politics are shows to be as irrational, unscriptural, and unconstitutional as those of Mr. Evans - His principal arguments are retorted - The foundation of his capital error is sapped - The legislative freedom of the members of the house of commons is asserted, in opposite to the legislative pretensions of plebeian levellers - The partiality and inconsistency of the London patriots are pointed out - On Dr. Price’s levelling principles there is an end of all subjection both on earth and in heaven - A conditional reproof to Mr. Evans and Dr. Price.

REVEREND SIR, - If I have answered you in the preceding letters, I may look your second in the face: I mean the ingenious Dr. Price, whom you call to your help in your notes, and whose arguments you introduce by this high encomium: “Dr. Price’s most excellent pamphlet, just published, carries conviction in every page, and breathes that noble spirit of liberty, for which the author so ably pleads!”

Page 46, your first quotation from him runs thus: “In the sixth of George II, an act passed for imposing certain duties on all foreign spirits, and sugars imported into the plantations. In this act the duties imposed are said to be given and granted by the parliament to the king, &c, and a small direct revenue was drawn by it from them.” The doctor intimates soon after, that “this revenue act was at worst only the exercise of a power, which then they [the colonists] seem not to have thought much of contesting; I mean the power of taxing them externally.” I thank Dr. Price and you, sir, for thus granting that the colonists were taxed before the present parliament and the present reign. This shows that the odium cast upon the present government, springs more from prejudice than from reason. If George II, his whig ministry, and his approved parliament, raised a “direct revenue,” by taxing the colonies, why do the American patriots insinuate that George III, the present ministry, and the present parliament are robbers, because they raise a direct revenue by taxing the colonists? And how strangely does Dr. Price forget himself, where he says, “How great would be our happiness could we now recall former times and return to the policy of the last reigns!” What have our lawgivers done after all? Truly, they have recalled former times, and returned to the policy of the last reigns; and yet Dr. Price, instead of being thankful for our happiness, frightens the public with the most dreadful hints about the infatuation of our governors, and the danger of “a general wreck;” just as if his grand business was to spirit up the colonists, and to deject his own countrymen. The doctor, it is true, tries to obviate this difficulty by making a distinction between external and internal taxes; insinuating that in the late reign the colonists were taxed externally, whereas in the present reign they have been taxed internally. But if this distinction be frivolous, will it reflect any praise on your patriotism? And that it is such I prove by the following argument: a distinction about taxation, which has no foundation in reason, Scripture, or the constitution, is frivolous: but Dr. Price’s distinction has no foundation in reason, Scripture, or the constitution, and therefore it is frivolous in the present controversy. Should you contest the second proposition of this syllogism, I ask, By what dictates of reason does it appear, that if taxes are due from subjects to their sovereign, they may not be levied internally, by rates upon the goods we already possess, as well as externally, by duties upon goods imported, which purchase has not yet made our own? Where does St. Paul charge Christians to pay taxes, if they are externally taxed; and to fly to arms if they are taxed internally? Did not Christ speak of internal taxes, when he commanded the Jews to render to Cesar what was his? And is there any law, either of God or of the realm, which allows the legislative power to tax the subjects of Great Britain externally, and precludes it from taxing them internally? The doctor’s distinction is not only unscriptural and unconstitutional, but unreasonable; inasmuch as it would, in a great degree, enable subjects to avoid paying taxes at all. Suppose, for example, we could be taxed only externally, by means of duties laid upon imported goods, such as tea, coffee, foreign wines, and rum; might we not, if I may so speak, starve the government, by drinking only sage, or balm tea, ale, made wines, and spirits distilled from our own wheat? The doctor’s distinction is not only unreasonable, but unjust. Why should the colonies enjoy greater privileges than the mother country? Why should Britons be taxed externally and internally, whether they have votes or not, and the Americans only externally; when both have their property internally and externally guarded by the protective power? If I owed my lawyer reasonable fees, amounting to ten pounds, what would you think of my honesty, if I said to him, Sir, I give you leave to pay yourself by demanding a shilling from me every time I drink a glass of claret or a dish of chocolate: but I declare to you, that, except in such cases, I will take you for a robber, if you lay claim to any part of my property? The doctor’s distinction is not only unjust in the present case, but it might prove destructive to the commonwealth. It is granted on all sides, that taxes and money are the sinews of the government. If external taxes did not bring in money enough to discharge the necessary expenses of the state; and if the sovereign could not lay internal taxes to supply that deficiency, what would become of the kingdom? Must it not fall a wanton sacrifice to Dr. Price’s political refinements? I hope, sir, that if you weigh these observations, you will own that his book, ingenious as it is, far from “carrying conviction in every page,” carries frivolousness and mischievous absurdity in the very first quotation which you produce from him. And we may well suppose you did not pick out his weakest argument to support the praises which you bestow on his “most excellent pamphlet.”

But let us hear him out. You continue, p. 47, to quote him thus: “The stamp act was passed. This being an attempt to tax them internally; and a direct attack on their property, by a power which would not suffer itself to be questioned; which eased itself by loading them; and to which it was impossible to fix any bounds, they were thrown at once, from one end of the continent to the other, into resistance and rage.” This sounds well to the ear; but judicious patriots who expect to find the kernel of truth under the specious shell of fine words, may be a little disappointed. Permit me, sir, to break the shell, and to see if the kernel be sound.

(1.) An attempt to tax subjects internally is a direct attack on their property! And what if it be? When reasonable taxes are due, may they not be directly demanded? And that they are due, do you not grant, p. 27, where you so much resent my supposing that you deny “the necessity of subjects paying taxes,” whether they be external or internal?

(2.) The legislative power of Great Britain would not suffer itself to be questioned! The doctor should have said, that it would not suffer itself to be deprived of its right of demanding reasonable taxes for expensive protection; an incontestable right this, which you allow none deny but “political Quixottes.”

(3.) But this power eases itself by loading them! And what if it do? Is the sovereign to bear all the national expense, without being eased by his subjects? Or are some of the subjects to bear all the burden, without being eased by others who are to help them? Where is either the equity or reasonableness of this objection?

(4.) But it is impossible to fix any bounds to this power! I have already shown, that nothing can be easier than to fix proper bounds to the power of taxing the colonies. The parliament can enact that the colonists shall be taxed as the Britons are; making the colonists a proper allowance for the superior commercial privileges of the mother country. Supposing, for instance, that the privileges of British subjects are four times greater than the privileges of American subjects, the taxes of the American subjects might be four times lighter than ours. Thus, when we pay four shillings in the pound, they might pay only one shilling: and when four articles of equal importance are taxed in England, only one might be taxed in America. It is therefore excessively wrong in Doctor Price to assert, that it is impossible to fix any bounds to the power of parliamentary taxation: and none but heated patriots will praise him for increasing, by such a groundless assertion, the absurd “rage into which the colonists” have “thrown” themselves, “from one end of the continent to the other.” Page 48, you take up again “Doctor Price’s truly valuable tract, and enrich” your “piece with a note from this capital writer upon the subject. In reference to the American charters, he speaks with true dignity as follows: - ‘The question with all liberal inquirers ought to be, not what jurisdiction over them (the colonies) precedents, statutes, and charters give, but what reason and equity, and the rights of humanity, give.’” Sir, this is the very first test to which I have brought your “American Patriotism.” The doctor insinuates, indeed, that the power which taxes the Americans will not suffer its rights to be questioned. But this is a mistake. The legislature of Great Britain is too equitable not to give up the right of reasonably taxing the colonists, whom they have so long protected, if you, sir, Doctor Price, or the congress, can prove that reason, equity, and the rights of humanity, are against such taxation. Have you not yourself granted the propriety and necessity of subjects paying proportionable taxes, for the good of the whole empire? Is it reasonable or equitable that Great Britain should bear all the burden of the navy, which protects the colonies and their trade? Is it contrary to “the rights of humanity,” to demand a penny for a penny load or, which comes to the same thing, to demand reasonable taxes for royal protection? Or do parent states violate “the rights of humanity,” in demanding some assistance from the growing states to which they have given birth, when those states are well able to bear the easy burden? As soon will Doctor Price persuade me that it is contrary to “the rights of humanity,” in twelve lubberly young fellows, who have always enjoyed the benefit of their father’s house, and who can get more money than their father, to give him something toward the payment of the window tax, when he is burdened with debts, and wants some assistance to pay that tax. Page 49, you continue to quote the doctor thus: “Did they not settle under the faith of charters which promised them the enjoyment of all the rights of Englishmen?” Granted. But did these charters promise them rights superior to those of Englishmen? Is it not evident, that if the colonists enjoy the right of being protected by the legislative power of Great Britain, without paying taxes to that power, they enjoy a right superior to that of Englishmen, who are bound to pay taxes for British protection? The doctor goes on: “These charters allowed them to tax themselves, and to be governed by legislatures of their own, similar to ours.” Granted in one sense, namely, in the same sense in which charters have been granted to corporations. Corporate bodies are allowed to tax themselves in a subordinate manner, and to be governed by legislatures of their own, similar to that of Great Britain. Thus the city of London is governed by a lord mayor, who represents the king; by a court of aldermen, which represents the high court of parliament, and by a body of liverymen and freemen, which answers to the body of voting burgesses and freeholders in Great Britain. And I suppose all together can raise money for the support of the corporation, by means of some peculiar rates, or subordinate taxes. Now if the citizens of London rose against parliamentary taxation under pretence that they are, and always have been, taxed by their own magistrates, they would show themselves as unjust as the colonists, and as good logicians as Dr. Price. What have subordinate taxes for the maintenance of lamplighters, watchmen, and trained bands, to do with the primary taxes by which the army and navy are supported? When rash patriots avail themselves of the payment of the former taxes, to refuse paying the latter, do they show more wisdom and equity than I should do, if I quarrelled with my physician for demanding of me ten guineas for ten visits, and dismissed him with the following speech: - Sir, I claim all the rights of Englishmen, nor will I be duped by you. I do not deny paying fees, but I will not pay any to you. I will discharge my apothecary’s bill, but as for your demands, they are contrary to “reason, equity, and the rights of humanity.” American patriots might give me thanks, and compliment me with the freedom of London in a golden box, for such a spirited opposition to tyranny and robbery; but I am of opinion that British patriots would hardly think me worthy of the freedom of Old Sarum in a wooden box: and if the physician were “thrown into a rage” by my provoking injustice, he might possibly think that I deserved a very different box from that which Doctor Price has been lately presented with. But the doctor has an answer ready. Speaking of the colonists, he says, “They are taxed to support their own governments: must they maintain two governments? Must they submit to be triple taxed?” To show the frivolousness of this argument, I need only farther apply it to my physician’s case thus: - Sir, you demand fees of me for your attendance, but I have already feed my apothecary: must I maintain two of you? Must I submit to be triple taxed? What! must I pay my surgeon too? You unreasonable men, will you all agree to enslave me? You pack of r - - s, will you leave me nothing that I can call my own?

While you are struck with the fallacy of this patriotic argument, I proceed to some observations upon Doctor Price’s doctrine with respect to the charters of the colonies. To suppose that their charters exempt them from paying taxes to the British government for ever, is not only contrary to the express terms of the charter of Pennsylvania, but also to all probability. What ruling power would be so unwise as to suffer the emigration of subjects out of a country which is not overstocked with inhabitants, into one where that power has claims and possessions, unless it was assured of retaining the right of supremacy over those emigrated subjects? Is it reasonable to think that a power would thus weaken itself? And is not the right of supreme taxation inseparably connected with the right of supreme government?

Again: when one of our kings granted a charter to the colonists, did he not grant it as being the head of the legislative power of Great Britain: a power this whose ships had taken possession of North America? Was it not as the representative of all this power, that he signed the charter? Suppose the lord mayor of London, as political head of that city, had granted one leave to build a house upon some waste ground belonging to the city; and suppose he had helped me to build it with some materials, the property of the city, and had from time to time preserved it from being robbed and burned, by sending me watchmen, firemen, and fire engines from the city, would it be right in me to say, I acknowledge myself indebted to the lord mayor, as a lord; but as for his London mayoralty, and the council of aldermen, I bid them defiance, and deny my being under the least obligation of submitting myself to them. In short, I am willing that the mayor of London should be my governor; but if the body of the corporation claim authority over me, and demand of me, who am neither one of the livery nor a freeman, city rates to pay the watchmen or buy new fire engines, I will show both them and the lord mayor that I am a patriot, and that I can defend my property and protect my person. Could you help smiling at the absurdity of such a speech? And think you Dr. Price himself could prove that the distinction which the colonists make between the king and the parliament, between the head and the body of the British legislature, is not as trifling and ungenerous as the distinction I make between the lordship of the mayor of London, and the London mayoralty, or between the head and the body of that respectable corporation?

To return. After saying that the arguments drawn from the charters for the colonies appear to him “greatly to outweigh the arguments against them,” Doctor Price speaks thus: “But I lay no stress on charters. They [the colonies] derive their rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common sense to imagine that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any such condition, as that the people from whom they withdrew should for ever be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of government they pleased.” The flaw of this argument consists in imputing to Great Britain false claims, which never entered into the minds of our legislators. When did the parliament say they would “for ever be masters of the property of the colonists,” any otherwise than they are masters of the property of Englishmen? If the king and parliament claim the right of “making statutes of sufficient force to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever,” does not candour dictate, that they only mean all cases wherein they have power to bind Englishmen? And is not Doctor Franklin too warm, when, availing himself of the laconic manner in which this reasonable claim is expressed, he renders the legislative power odious, by insinuating that it pretends to the authority of “compelling the colonists, if it pleases, to worship the devil?” Once more: when did the British legislature claim the right of “subjecting the Americans to any modes of government they please,” be these modes ever so foolish or tyrannical? Is it not wrong in Doctor Price and Doctor Franklin to fix upon our doctrine invidious consequences, which have not the least connection with our principles? What character could I not blast, and whom could I not represent as a rapacious tyrant, if I intimated, that whenever a master claims the authority of reasonably commanding his servants in all things, he assumes the authority of making them “worship the devil, if he pleases;” and that, whenever the lord of a manor insists on his chiefrie, a lawyer on his fees, a minister on his tithes, and a sovereign on reasonable taxes, they pretend to be “for ever masters of the property” of their vassals, tenants, clients, flocks, and subjects; so that the abject slaves can call nothing which they have their own? Can we lament too much the mistakes of divines, who, by such ungenerous insinuations, inflame the heated patriots, and pour contempt on their rightful governors?

Page 49, you continue to quote Doctor Price thus: “Had there been express stipulations to this purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be no more bound by them than if it had been stipulated with them, that they should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and tigers.” The doctor is highly worthy to be your second, sir. We have seen how you confound the right which the protecting power has to reasonable taxes, with the right which a highwayman has to a traveller’s money: and we see here that Doctor Price absurdly compares a Scriptural demand of moderate taxes, with an immodest command of going naked; and with a tyrannical edict of encountering “wolves and tigers.” If such method of arguing is consistent either with sound logic or Christian candour, I consent that the doctor’s gold box be set with rubies and diamonds.

The doctor’s argument is not only founded on an absurd comparison, but it can also be retorted in this manner: “I lay no stress on charters:” the king and parliament “derive their rights” of taxing their American subjects “from a higher source.” “Had there been express stipulations in all the charters,” that the colonies should ever be protected by Great Britain, without paying proportionable taxes as other subjects, it may be queried if the king and parliament would be any more bound by such stipulations, than they would be bound by a charter of the late king, supposing he had granted to all the Scotchmen and Yorkshiremen who have no vote, the privilege of paying no taxes to the government for ever. Might not such a charter be repealed on account of its unjust partiality? Should not the taxes be laid as proportionably as it is possible upon all the subjects? Can the king absolutely give up the rights of one part of his subjects to the other, any more than he can justly say, that when the parliament lays a tax of 4s. in the pound, Middlesex shall pay nothing for ever, because the trade at London brings in an immense revenue to the government? If these queries recommend themselves to your reason, sir, is it not evident that Dr. Price’s argument can be properly retorted, and that he is equally mistaken, whether he appeals to “charters,” or to “a higher source?”

Pass we on to his doctrine concerning the origin of power. Page 69, you introduce him as speaking thus: “I am sensible that all I have been saying would be very absurd, were the opinions just, which some have maintained concerning the origin of government. According to these opinions, government is not the creature of the people, or the result of a convention between them and their rulers: but there are certain men who possess in themselves, independently on the will of the people, a right of governing them, which they derive from the Deity.” From this quotation it is evident, that, according to Doctor Price’s principles and your own, “government is the creature of the people.” In full opposition to this doctrine, I assert, that government is the creature of God. It is as absurd to say that government is the creature of the people, as to maintain that religion and marriage are the creatures at the people. All that I can reasonably grant the doctor is, that as adultery and fornication, superstition and idolatry, are the creatures of immoral and irreligious men; so bad government, which includes confusion and tyranny, is the creature of wicked men.

Government is not less necessary in the moral world, than the subordinate motion of the planets in the natural. As God appointed the greater luminaries to rule the day and the night; so he appointed the higher powers to rule the less. When he manifested himself to rationals by his works or his word, and impressed their minds with a sense of their high obligations to him, he instituted religion. When he said, “I will make man a help meet for him,” and joined Adam and Eve together in their human capacity, bidding them increase and multiply, he instituted marriage. And when he said to them, in their regal capacity, “Have dominion;” he delegated governing power, and instituted government on earth; or, to speak more properly, he caused that celestial plant to take root in paradise; whence, with divers degrees of degeneracy, it has overspread the civilised parts of the earth. If this be the case, is not Doctor Price under a capital mistake when he makes government “the creature of the people?” And does he not flatly contradict St. James, who says, “Do not err: every good gift [and consequently government, one of the best public gifts] is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights?”

You will probably endeavour to render this doctrine odious by insinuating, that it makes the people altogether passive in matters of government, religion, and marriage. Nay, Doctor Price does it already where he says, that, according to the scheme he opposes, some men possess a right of governing “independently on the will of the people.” This assertion is true in one sense, and false in another. It is true that the higher power must govern the less, and that sovereigns have a right of ruling their subjects for good, “independently on the will of the people.” That is, supposing the people wantonly dethroned their sovereigns, to set up anarchy on the ruins of every legislature; it is true that such sovereigns would still have a right to rule such unruly subjects, just as a captain, against whom his soldiers wantonly rise, has still a right to command them, whether they will be commanded or not. If this were not true, rebellion and treason were no sin at all; the heinousness of those crimes consisting in a wanton resisting of a power, which possesses a right of governing us, whether we will be governed or not. But if Doctor Price intimates that our doctrine supposes the will of the people has absolutely no share in our doctrine of government, he greatly mistakes; for we think that the will of a majority of the people is indispensably necessary for the support of civil government in the state, as the will of a majority of the soldiers is necessary to the support of a military government in the army. Nevertheless, the consent of the people to be governed by their sovereign, and of the soldiers to be commanded by their general, is not the ground or origin of the sovereign’s and general’s authority. It is only [causa sane qua non] a requisite without which sovereigns and generals cannot exercise their authority. Some illustrations may help you to understand this nice point of doctrine. Men are bound to pay God a reasonable service, whether they will or not. A wife is bound to obey her husband in all reasonable things, whether willingly or unwillingly. And subjects are bound to obey their sovereign in all reasonable and lawful things, however averse they may be to it. Nor is it less absurd to make a lawful sovereign’s claim to the obedience of his subjects depend upon their will, than to make the right which a husband has of ruling his wife depend upon her caprice, or the right which God has to our adoration turn upon our consent. Nevertheless, if wives will absolutely refuse to submit to their husbands, sinners to their God, and subjects to their king, they can shake off the yoke of subjection, and affect domestic, religious, and civil independence. But then the purposes of marriage, religion, and government, are defeated, and a threefold rebellion takes place.

It will be proper here to trace back to its source the error about liberty, which Dr. Price has adopted from Rousseau, the great Geneva patriot; a fatal error this, by which that fanciful politician has kindled the flame of discord in his own country. This error consists in inferring that, because a savage, who lives alone in a wood, is his own governor, and can legislate for himself, a man who lives in civil society can do the same. But is not this as absurd as to suppose that because a man who is not listed, and of course is under no military government, can go backward or forward as he pleases; therefore a soldier in the field of battle has a right to legislate for himself, and advance or retire, just when he thinks proper? I grant, that if a number of savages, living like wild beasts, without religion, marriage, and government, could be prevailed on to enter upon a religious, conjugal, and civil life, among all the religions, women, and governments which they could choose, they might undoubtedly choose those which they thought best. This, after a close inquiry, would be both their right and their duty. And suppose they had mistaken idolatry for religion, an incestuous union for marriage, and tyranny for government; they would be bound to alter their plan, because such capital mistakes are destructive of the salutary ends proposed in religion, marriage, and government. Again: when they had agreed to embrace a religious, conjugal, and civil life, they might agree to worship God standing or kneeling, in open air, or in a place of worship, in hymns or in prayers, &c. They might agree to marry before two witnesses, or two hundred, and to do it by giving and receiving a ring, or only by joining hands. And they might embrace a monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical government; or they might, as the English have done, combine those three sorts of governments, and submit at once to a king, a house of lords, and a house of commons. But if they had once espoused a true religions lawful wives, and a lawful government, they would sin against God, their neighbour, and their own souls; they would be guilty of impiety, adultery, and rebellion, if they wantonly changed their religion, their wives, and their sovereign. The reason is evident: men who never had any religion, wife, or sovereign, are tied to no religion, wife, or sovereign. But as soon as they are bound by sacramental ordinances to profess a certain religion; by conjugal promises to cleave to a certain woman; and by oaths of allegiance to submit to a certain sovereign; they are highly guilty if they break through their engagements without a capital reason. I say without a capital reason, because as God allows divorce in case of undeniable adultery, so he permits our renouncing a Church undeniably and capitally corrupt, and our withdrawing from a government undeniably and capitally tyrannical. I lay a peculiar emphasis upon the words undeniably and capitally, to make room for the Scriptural doctrine which you advance, page 66, “The personal vices of our governors, and any slight error in their administration, will not justify our resisting them;” much less will an imaginary error, or a groundless suspicion, do it. And of this nature are undoubtedly the American conceits, that reasonable, legal taxes are not due by subjects to the supreme power which protects them; that a direct and equal representation in parliament is constitutionally necessary to the lawfulness of a money bill; and that the British legislature uses the colonists in a tyrannical manner, because it insists upon satisfaction for the depredations wantonly committed by the mobbing Bostonians. From the whole, I hope I may safely conclude, that the foundation of Dr. Price’s peculiar patriotism is laid in a gross mistake; a mistake which consists in confounding the lawless liberty of a savage, who lives under no sort of government, with the lawful liberty of a subject who is protected by a civil government; and that government, instead of being the creature of the people, or the result of a convention between them and their rulers, is the creature of God, and (when considered in the theory) is the cause, and not the result, of such a convention as the doctor speaks of.

Page 69, you continue to quote him thus: “It is a doctrine which avowedly subverts civil liberty.” No; it is a doctrine which avowedly secures a due submission to the governors that guard our civil liberty. “It represents mankind as a body of vassals, formed to descend like cattle from one set of owners to another, who have an absolute dominion over them. It is a wonder that those who view their species in a light so humiliating, should ever be able to think of themselves without regret and shame.” This argument appears to me illogical and invidious.

(1.) Illogical. Logic forbids us to alter the terms of a proposition. This Dr. Price does when he substitutes the words “absolute dominion,” for reasonable dominion, which our doctrine requires. I am so far from asserting that human sovereigns have an “absolute dominion” over their subjects, that I steadily oppose the pretended orthodoxy of the men who ascribe such a dominion to God. I need not inform either you, sir, or Dr. Price, that there are divines in England who teach that God’s dominion over his unborn creatures is so absolute, that he not only can, but does absolutely reprobate some of them, and appoint them to unavoidable and eternal ruin, before they hang yet at their mothers’ breasts; nor need I remind you that, in opposition to these men, I assert that God’s sovereignty, far from being thus absolute, is always circumscribed by his goodness, wisdom, and justice.

(2.) The doctor’s argument is, I fear, invidious. What would he think of my candour, if, treading in his steps, I reflected on the subordination of wives to their husbands, soldiers to their generals, flocks to their pastors, servants to their masters, and creatures to their Creator, in the same manner in which he reflects on the subordination of subjects to their sovereigns? I shall apply his argument only to the case of married women, thus: “The doctrine of the reasonable dominion, which all husbands have over their wives, represents womankind as a body of vassals. And those who marry two or three husbands, one after another, are formed to descend like cattle from one owner to another, who has an absolute dominion over them. It is a wonder that those who view their sex in a light so humiliating, should ever be able to think of themselves without regret and shame.” For my part, far from being brought over to American patriotism by this logic, I think it is a wonder that reasonable and good men should ever be able to think, without regret and shame, upon the public encomiums and rewards with which they have crowned such illogical and dangerous arguments. The rest of your quotation from Dr. Price is an insinuation that arts and sciences flourish no more in a country where the people submit to a monarch who will be obeyed, whether high republicans will submit or not. The whole of his argument is summed up in these concluding lines: “With what lustre do the ancient free states of Greece shine in the annals of the world! How different is that country now, under the great Turk! the difference between a country inhabited by men, and by brutes, is not greater.” I am not for an absolute monarchy. I repeat it, the English constitution, which places the legislative power in a king, a body of patrician senators, and a house of plebeian lawgivers, appears to me the most perfect upon earth; because it collects in one political focus all the advantages of the French monarch, the Venetian aristocracy and the new American democracy. Nevertheless, as a lover of truth and matter of fact, I shall venture to propose some queries relative to Dr. Price’s insinuation. What people are more self governed, or more free from supreme authority, than the Hottentots; and what people can come nearer than they to the wildness and stupidity of brutes? Were not the Lacedemonians, with all the ado they made about liberty, surprisingly regardless of arts and sciences? Did not learning so flourish in Egypt and Babylon, under absolute princes, that the Greeks formerly went thither for improvement, as we now do to our renowned universities? When did arts and sciences flourish more in Judea, than in Solomon’s reign; and whoever was a more absolute monarch? When did they reach a higher perfection in Rome, than under the reign of Augustus? And yet Augustus was a despot. What king ever ruled the French with a higher hand than Louis XIV? And was it not under his reign that the French literature shone in her meridian glory? When did Russia emerge out of a sea of barbarity and rude ignorance? Was it not when Peter the Great, her despotic emperor, lent her his powerful hand? And do not at this day arts and sciences continue to make rapid progress there, under the patronage of the present despotic empress? What people are under a more absolute government than the Prussians? And in what part of Germany do the “belles lettres” flourish more than in Prussia? If Dr. Price do these hints justice, he will own that a high monarchical government is at least as favourable to the improvement of arts and sciences, as a high republican administration. But I repeat it, the middle, constitutional way is preferable to both these extremes.

Page 73, you favour me with another quotation from Dr. Price. The doctrine of it centres in the last paragraph, which runs thus: - “All delegated power must be subordinate and limited.” Granted. All governing power is delegated from the King of kings, and therefore it is subordinate to him, and is limited by the bounds which he has fixed, that is, by reason and Scripture, and the apparent good of the people. The doctor goes on: “If omnipotence can, with any sense, be ascribed to a legislature, it must be lodged where all legislative power originates, that is, in the people.” This is a groundless supposition, which the doctor and you take for granted; a mischievous supposition, which is directly contrary to Scripture and reason. And first, to Scripture: “Put then in mind [says the apostle] to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates.” And why Christians are to be thus subject, he informs us where he says that “the powers that be are ordained of God, [not of the people; and that] they who resist, resist the ordinance of God,” and not of the people. A people who have no governors, may, indeed, choose their governors, just as a single woman may choose a husband; but the authority of the governors, once chosen, depends upon the people no more than the authority of a husband depends upon his wife, though she choose him preferably to all other men; no more than the legislative authority of our plebeian lawgivers depends upon the freeholders or burgesses who elected them preferably to other gentlemen.

This will probably offend our republican levellers, who fancy they are all born legislators, and can confer the power of legislation on the members of the house of commons, just as the king can confer the honour of knighthood upon a gentleman. But I must speak the truth, and do my subject justice, whoever is displeased at me for it. And I am ready to defend the following proposition against all our levellers and mistaken patriots. The people, that is, the governed, can no more create governing or legislative power, and bestow it upon the members of parliament whom they choose, than the aldermen, who have the right of choosing a mayor, can create a mayoralty; no more than the women, who have the right of choosing a husband, can create masculine supremacy; no more than the servants who have chosen a master, can create masterly power; or the soldiers, who choose to list under this or that captain, rather than another, can create the military authority to which they submit.

You possibly reply, What, is not Edmund Burke, Esq., my representative? laid not I choose him to represent me in parliament? Did not I invest him with my legislating power? And do not I, in his person, share in the government of Great Britain? Indeed you do not, sir, any more than I partake of the royal dignity in the person of the king. Permit me to hand you out of your imaginary paradise of legislation, by the following important distinction: - Every member of the house of commons has two characters. The first is that of representative of the commons of all the British empire in general, and of a certain borough or shire in particular. The second and nobler character of a member of parliament is that of representative of God himself. According to the former character, he is an agent of the people: but with respect to the latter, he is, in his degree, the substitute of God. According to the former capacity, he spreads before the legislature the wants or wishes of the people in general, and of his borough or shire in particular; and, according to the latter capacity, he, in his degree, makes laws, if the majority of the legislating body concur with him. Should you say that this is a political refinement, which originates from my fancy, I reply, that it is a solid distinction, which has its source in the very nature of things: and I prove it by a parallel case, which will strike you so much the more, as it is probably your own. The majority of a certain congregation of Protestants in Bristol expressed a desire to have you for their pastor, and upon this title you were ordained. But does it follow that your authority to preach the Gospel ascends from your flock to you? If your congregation insisted upon your preaching to them smooth things, and prophesying deceits, because they chose you to be their minister, would you not directly convince them of their folly, by a distinction similar to mine? Would you not say, Gentlemen, though I am your minister, and though I was ordained in consequence of your suffrages, yet, now I am ordained, I have an authority which you never gave, nor can give. I am the minister of God, as well as your pastor. My commission to preach the Gospel I have received from Christ, and not from you; and by order of that commission, whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, I must preach to you severe as well as soothing truths. Apply this, sir, to our political question, and you will see that the members of parliament, in their capacity of legislators, are no more authorised by the people to make laws, and bound to vote according to the directions of their constituents, than you and I receive authority from our flocks to preach the (gospel, and are bound in the delivery of our message to the people to consult their various humours; because legislators derive their authority from God, just as Gospel ministers receive their commission from Christ. Were this observation properly attended to, our lawgivers would study Christian politics with assiduity, that they might fully understand the will of God, the supreme Lawgiver whom they represent, and to whom they shall one day give a strict account for the precious talent of legislation with which they are entrusted; and Dr. Price would no longer poison the minds of thousands with the antichristian doctrine that every man is, or ought to be, his own legislator, and that legislative power ascends from the people, and governing power from the governed.

Secondly. As this notion is contrary to Scripture, so it is to reason. For reason dictates, that if governing power came from the people, the people might, whenever they pleased, choose to disobey their governors, and would have a right to do so. A parallel case will make you sensible of the truth of this assertion. Supreme, legislative authority belongs to me within the narrow compass of my family, as you suppose that it belongs to the people throughout the wide extent of the British dominions. I may, if I please, delegate to my servant the right of making house - hold regulations. And if I had delegated my right, and in consequence of this delegation my servant commanded me to breakfast at eight o’clock, is it not evident that, if I pleased, I might instantly resume my delegated power, and say, You are only my representative; my authority exceeds yours; I insist upon breakfasting an hour later? Leaving the application of my simile to your good sense, I conclude, that whenever you and Dr. Price teach that the power of the governors originates from, or is delegated by the governed, you sap the foundation of all government, and indirectly bring in the lawless democracy which a sacred historian describes, where he says, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

But the doctor adds, “For their [the people’s] sakes government was instituted; and theirs is the only real omnipotence!” And what if it be, does this prove that governing power is delegated by the governed? Would not the meanest corporation in the kingdom dishonour itself, if it complimented me for saying military government is instituted for the sake of soldiers, and theirs is the only real omnipotence of the army; therefore the power of the general and other officers is delegated by, and originates from the soldiers. Equally conclusive, O ye American patriots, is your grand argument concerning the origin of power.

Page 76, introducing the doctor for the last time, you say: “To prove the right Great Britain has to tax America, it is very common to plead, We are the parent state. Hear Dr. Price upon this subject.” - “These are the magic words which have fascinated and misled us. The English came from Germany. Does that give the German states a right to tax us?” To this triumphant question I answer, No; because the Germans do not protect us: but if the German Diet had, to this day, kept up fleets to guard our coasts, and an army to fight our battles; and if we had always called the emperor of Germany our sovereign, had received his lieutenants as our governors, and admitted his coin as our lawful money, I would think it a great piece of disloyalty and injustice to refuse him a reasonable tribute. For protection and reasonable taxes are equivalent to each other, as the customer’s money is equivalent to the tradesman’s goods. Nor is it less unreasonable in the colonists, who have got their immense wealth under the protective wings of Great Britain, to refuse Great Britain the return of reasonable taxes, now they are able to pay them, than it would be in you to receive the goods of a mercer, and to refuse making him a proper acknowledgment by paying the reasonable bill he sends you, when he thinks you can discharge it without distressing yourself. And as it would be a shameful excuse in a gentleman to say to his tradesmen, who kindly delayed sending in their bills till he had received their rents, Why did you not send me your bills before? So it is an unjust excuse in the colonists to say to the protective power, Why did you not pass bills of internal taxation before the stamp act? For a just right, founded on the eternal nature and fitness of things, can never be lost, though it should never be exercised. If you pay your servant wages for fifty years, without ever commanding him to go on one single errand, and at last order him to do something which he is able to do, he cannot plead prescription with any decency. He would betray an ingratitude equal to his insolence, if he said, Sir, you never commanded me to go on your errands before, and therefore you have lost your claim to my obedience. Had such a servant a grain of modesty and duty, he would argue in a manner diametrically opposite; he would say, I am doubly bound to go on all your errands to the utmost of my power. Your not calling upon me to exert my strength for you before, lays me under a double obligation to do it now with cheerfulness.

This brings to my mind another curious argument of Dr. Price. “Had the colonies [says he] been communities of foreigners, over whom we wanted to acquire dominion, &c, they [some Englishmen] are ready to admit that their resistance would have been just. In my opinion, this is the same with saving, that the colonists ought to be worse off than the rest of mankind, because they are our brethren.” To show the inconclusiveness of this argument I need only bring it to open light, thus: You have more right to command your own children and servants, than to command strangers; and therefore your own children and servants are worse off than strangers. Or thus: The British legislature has more right to tax British subjects than the subjects of France or Spain; and therefore British subjects are worse off than Frenchmen and Spaniards. The subjects of France and Spain would justly rise against British taxation, and therefore the subjects of Great Britain may also justly rise against it. Or thus: Englishmen have more authority over their wives than over the wives of the Turks; therefore English women are worse off than the rest of womankind, yea, than the wives of Turks, because they are our wives. I am grieved to see a doctor in divinity prostitute, by such arguments, Christianity, morality, and logic to the infatuation of a restless, levelling patriotism.

The preceding argument of Dr. Price is introduced by the levelling proposition which follows: -

“Unless different parts of the same community are united by an equal representation, all such authority [that is, all the authority exercised by one part of the community over the other] is inconsistent with the principles of civil liberty,” and “cannot be distinguished from the servitude of one” part “to another.” If this doctrine be true, are not the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the freemen of the city of London, chargeable with tyranny; as well as the king, the parliament, and the electors of Great Britain? Is not Middlesex filled with slaves, as well as America? And may I not address the London patriots thus: - Gentlemen, if Dr. Price’s levelling doctrine be false, why do you honour and reward him for propagating it? And if it be true, why do you not follow it? Why do you not begin to level authority in your own jurisdiction, as you want the king and parliament to do in theirs? In a word, why do you not unite the different parts of your community by an equal representation? Your community is made up of two sorts of men: freemen, and men who have not the freedom of your city. These, who make by far the greater part of your community, have no share in the government of it. By keeping the right of legislating for the city in your own hands, you exclude them from an equal representation, and according to the admired principles of your champion, your authority cannot be distinguished from the servitude of one part of the city to the other; from the servitude of non - freemen to yourselves; and therefore you yourselves are as much involved in the guilt of enslaving your fellow creatures, as your scheme supposes the king and parliament to be. Let your principles of civil liberty take place at home: level authority in the city; or, for decency’s sake, never more reflect upon our legislators because they do not level it in the empire.

Dr. Price presents us with another bold plea for levelling patriotism; and it is so much the more curious, as it is a perfect jest upon the freedom of the city of London with which the patriots have presented him. This plea runs thus: “We [non - voters] submit to a parliament that does not represent us, and therefore they [the colonists] ought. How strange an argument is this! It is saying we want liberty, and therefore they ought to want it. Suppose it true, that they are indeed contending for a better constitution of government, and more liberty than we enjoy: ought this to make us angry? Is it generous, because we are in a sink, to endeavour to draw them into it? Ought we not rather to wish earnestly that there may be at least one free country left upon earth, to which we may flee when venality, luxury, and vice have completed the ruin of liberty here?” I own to you, sir, that if I were the author of Dr. Price’s Observations, and the patriots of London rewarded me for my book, by giving me the freedom of their city, I would reject that honour with detestation, and say, Gentlemen, what do you mean by presenting me with the freedom of your city? Is not your intended favour a glaring proof that you enslaved me before, as you do all my fellow citizens who are not freemen? Will you bribe me into tyranny by a gold box? Far from accepting a place in your partial legislature, I will excite my enslaved fellow citizens to rise against you. I will contend for a better constitution of city government, and more liberty than we enjoy: ought this to make you angry? Is it generous, because the non - freemen are in a sink, to endeavour to keep them in it? Ought we not rather to wish earnestly, that there may at least be one free city left in Great Britain, to which we may flee when venality, luxury, and vice have completed the ruin of liberty in the kingdom? Till Dr. Price acts in this manner, and the city patriots recant their encomiums of his book, or abolish the distinction between freemen and non - freemen in their community, they must give the unprejudiced world leave to consider them as inconsistent men, who say and do not: as partial men, who lay upon other communities heavy burdens, which they will not suffer their own community to touch: and as restless, imperious subjects, who insist upon our legislators levelling authority in America, when they themselves will not level it in England; no, not in the city of London, where American patriotism has set up its standard. But I return to taxes.

You will perhaps object, that if the colonists once owed taxes to the British legislature for protection, yet they owe them now no more, because all ties and natural contracts are now broken; the mother country having turned her protection into acts of open hostility; I reply, that Great Britain chastises the colonies for their disobedience with the reluctance of a fond parent, who, when she corrects an undutiful child, is ready to take his part against a murderer. Were it not for the terror of our fleets, some greedy European powers would, perhaps, at this very time, fall upon the colonies, and endeavour to annex them to their dominions. Again: if your servant or your son had abused you, and you gave him correction to bring him to a sense of his duty, would he not add folly to wickedness if he said, Sir, my obligation to obey you ceases; for instead of using me as a master, or a father, you prepare to correct me; nay, you strike me! Every relation, therefore, is now at an end between us. You have cut the last knot which tied me to you, and I will now fight you as an open enemy. This immoral excuse brings to my remembrance the obstinacy of some incorrigible men, whom David describes thus: “The wrath of God came upon them” for their disobedience, “and slew the fattest of them. For all this they sinned still - yea, they sinned yet more against him” - their Divine Sovereign. But I hope better things of our pious American brethren. Notwithstanding the unwearied endeavours of some patriots to confirm them in their unnatural resistance, they will, I trust, submit to God and the king. Page 76, you continue to quote the doctor thus: “Children having no property, and being incapable of guarding themselves, the Author of nature has committed the care of them to their parents, and subjected them to their absolute authority. But there is a period when, having acquired property, and a capacity of judging for themselves, they become independent agents; and when, for this reason, the authority of their parent ceases, and becomes nothing, but the respect and influence due to benefactors.” This argument is as illogical as it is ingenious: the flaw of it consists in confounding the double relation which the colonists sustain, namely, that of sons, and that of subjects of Great Britain; granting, therefore, to Dr. Price, that according to the law of nature, there is a time when children become independent by acquiring property and wisdom; yet this is not the case with respect to subjects; but whatever be their wealth and age, and whatever capacity they have of judging for themselves, they continue to be dependent agents; being still bound to obey, in all reasonable things, the legislative power under which Providence has placed them. The plausible argument of your second, when touched with the finger of sound logic, shrinks, therefore, into a sophism as glaring as that which follows: when the prince of Wales shall be of age, he shall be independent on his father, and therefore he shall also be independent on the king. He shall have the liberty of taking a ride, whether his father consent or not, and therefore he shall also have the liberty of commanding the fleet and the army, whether his king consent or not. If you would be frightened at my wickedness, were I to stir up the prince to rebellion by such sophistry; why do you recommend as “excellent,” a pamphlet which supports the American revolt by so weak an argument?

You continue to quote the doctor: “Supposing, therefore, that the order of nature, in establishing the relation between parents and children, ought to have been the rule of our conduct to the colonies, we should have been gradually relaxing our authority as they grew up.” Another great mistake this, of which you will be sensible if you apply the doctor’s simile to the case in hand, thus: - If the sovereign ought to consider the colonists as the children of Great Britain, and to treat them in a parental manner; as they grew up in power he should have been gradually lessening their burdens. But is not the inference big with absurdity? Because parents lay no burden upon a sucking child, does it follow that they are to lay gradually less and less upon him as he grows up? Does not every unprejudiced person see that, if a parent wants his children’s assistance, he may increase, and has a right, as they grow up, gradually to increase the little burdens he wants them to carry; and that nothing would be more absurd than “gradually to relax his authority” in this respect, when their increasing strength begins to render that authority valuable? But supposing parents ought to require less and less of their children as they grow up, does it follow that sovereigns ought to do so too with respect to their subjects? Is there a legislature in all the universe so far sunk in stupidity as to say to their subjects, You have paid taxes to the sovereign for above a thousand years, you are now grown up into an ancient kingdom; the American patriots have insinuated that, as our subjects are our children, we should gradually relax our authority of taxing them as they grow up, and therefore we enact that you shall pay but one half of our taxes for fifty years, and in a hundred years you shall pay nothing, for the government will be old enough to support itself without any taxes at all: so shall we show the world that we are grey - headed lawgivers, that you “are no children,” and that our once childish constitution is grown to manly wisdom and strength. Such are the reasonings of Dr. Price’s “most excellent pamphlet!” Can feathers be lighter than these arguments, with which the American patriots hope to batter down British patriotism? Feathers however may do mischief, when they are closely compacted in a strong paper vehicle; when they are rendered ponderous by the weight of a gold box, and when busy prejudice hurls them through town and country with incredible ardour. This part of the American controversy is so important, that I beg leave to throw light upon it by an apposite illustration. I live in a parish where the wealth of several men consists in the number and strength of their children. A poor collier has, it may be, five or six sons. He works night and day to maintain them, in hopes that they will one day help to maintain him, and borrows money to build a house; flattering himself that by the assistance of his children, as they grow up, he shall soon discharge the debt. When they are eight years of age, they get him a groat a day; at fourteen, a shilling; and at nineteen, eighteen pence: so that the poor man has a fair prospect of being soon, as he says, “on a level with the world.” But alas! His hope proves abortive: a busy body, an envious neighbour, or some designing person, poisons the minds of his dutiful children with the politics of Dr. Price, and says, Your father does not use you well. He is a tyrant. The stronger you grow, the more burdens he lays upon you; whereas he should lay less and less. You “are no children:” you can maintain yourselves, and spend your own money. If I were in your place, this very day I would leave the old man and set up for myself. Too many of these deluded youths have I seen, first using their parent ill through such mischievous insinuations; and then turning their back upon him, to go and squander in riot and bloody sports, the money which they should have applied to the discharge of the family debt, which was contracted to build the house where they have lived rent free all their lives.

If I blame this conduct in my young, undutiful parishioners, can I approve of it in my American fellow - subjects, who despise a legislative power possessed of royal, as well as parental authority? Is it right in them to turn their backs upon their mother country when she groans under the weight of a debt, which has been in part contracted for their sake? And can we wonder enough at the conduct of Dr. Price, who tells us of “the ruin with which the national debt threatens us; a debt much heavier than that which, fifty years ago, the wisest men thought would necessarily sink us;” an immense debt which we have no fair prospect of discharging but by the prudent management of growing taxes, and by the loyal, filial, and brotherly assistance which we have a right to expect from the colonies; can we, I say, wonder enough at the strange conduct of Dr. Price, who, while he tries to frighten us with the awful aspect of this national debt, says all he can to render us odious and contemptible to the colonies, by whose friendly and proportionable help we are in hopes of discharging it? This conduct of Dr. Price is so much the more surprising, as he intimates, in his conclusion, that “the debt of England, &c, might be acknowledged the debt of every individual part of the whole empire, Asia, as well as America, included.” For my part, supposing subjects had a right to retire from their sovereigns, as grown - up children have to leave their parents, I do not see how the colonies could in conscience desire to set up for themselves, and form a separate empire before they have helped their mother country to extricate herself out of the difficulty of her national debt; nor can I conceive how the sovereign could justly permit them to commence independent; because the strength and wealth of all the British empire are the double security on which thousands of people have placed either the whole or a part of their fortune in the stocks; and it would be wronging the public to let so considerable a part of that security, as America, be lost.

However, (says Dr. Price, who is always unhappily ingenious in finding fault with the sovereign’s conduct,) “had we nourished and favoured America, with a view to commerce, instead of considering it as a country to be governed, &c, a growing surplus in the revenue might have been gained, which, invariably applied to the gradual discharge of the national debt, would have delivered us from the ruin with which it threatens us.” “This trade [with the colonies] was not only an increasing trade, but it was a trade in which we had no rivals - a trade certain, constant, and uninterrupted.”

But why was this trade “an increasing trade, in which we had no rivals?” Was it not because the colonists were so taken up with clearing ground, planting, and building, that they had no time to apply themselves to the culture of less necessary arts? But now that their houses are built, their fields in proper order, and their numbers multiplying fast, they must either idly look one at another, or erect manufactures, and provide themselves with a hundred articles with which they have been supplied from England. So shall they themselves naturally become our “rivals” in manufactures, and the moment this is the case, our trade with them will naturally decrease, and Dr. Price’s scheme for discharging the national debt will prove an idle speculation, unless we should act so tyrannical a part as to put a total stop to industry among them. Hence appears the propriety and necessity of internal taxes, in order to obtain from them a revenue, which may be at once rational, Scriptural, constitutional, and sure. Again: why has our trade with the colonies been hitherto “a trade certain, constant, and uninterrupted?” Was it not because Great Britain, by maintaining her supremacy over the colonies, could confine their trade and make it flow in British channels? If she give up her supremacy, will she be able to confine the colonies to trade with her, more than with France, Holland, or Spain? Is it not evident, that in the same year when she loses her supremacy, not only her American dominions and taxes, but likewise her American ports and trade will be lost for ever, unless the colonists can get more by us than by other nations? I should wonder that so obvious a thought escaped so penetrating a genius as Dr. Price; if I did not know that the peculiar patriotism, which I oppose, is so intent upon looking for defects in the constitution, and for blemishes in our governors, that it frequently overlooks the most glaring truths.

Return we now to your quotation, and let us see if the conclusion is preferable to the beginning. Dr. Price goes on: “But, like mad parents, we have done the contrary; and at the very time when our authority should have been most relaxed, we have carried it to the greatest extent, and exercised it with the greatest vigour. No wonder then that they [the colonists] have turned upon us, and obliged us to remember, that they are not children.” Bring the doctor’s meaning to open light; unfold his argument, and you will find the following propositions, which may be considered as the political creed of Dr. Price and the American patriots:

(1.) Parents who do not relax their authority of laying some easy burdens upon their children, as their children grow more able to bear such burdens, are “mad parents.”

(2.) Our political parents, that is, our legislators, who have not relaxed their authority of laying some easy taxes upon their American children, as these children grew more able to pay such taxes, are “mad” legislators.

(3.) When children grow up and have got strength enough to bear a little burden for their heavy - laden parents; and when such parents desire their children to give them some filial assistance, it is no wonder that grown - up children turn upon their parents, and oblige them “to remember that they are not children.”

(4.) the colonies have now got strength enough to ease Great Britain by bearing some small proportion of the taxes with which she is loaded; and therefore it is no wonder that they turn, sword in hand, upon their mother country, and oblige her to remember that they are not children. Such is the manner in which a doctor in divinity enforces the fifth commandment! If this doctrine shock you, sir, what would you think of it, were I to apply it to the character of subjects of Great Britain; a character this, which the colonists bear, as well as that of sons of Britons? In this view of things, the doctor’s patriotic creed naturally swells with the following articles:

(1.) A sovereign who does not relax his authority of laying reasonable taxes upon his subjects, as they grow more able to pay such taxes, acts like a “mad” sovereign.

(2.) When subjects have got strength and wealth enough to pay such taxes, they may “turn upon” their sovereign, and oblige him to remember that they are no impotent subjects. And lastly, to make an application of the whole, the king and parliament have acted like mad lawgivers, by laying a reasonable tax upon their American subjects; and the colonists only oppose madness, when they rise up in arms against their sovereign, rather than pay the reasonable tax laid upon them. If there be a grain of piety, morality, or good sense in one article of this patriotic creed, I consent to forfeit my claim to a grain of common sense.

Dr. Price may possibly attempt to prove that the last articles of this creed do not belong to his doctrine; for he insinuates that the colonists are not the subjects of Great Britain. Take his own words: - “The people of America are no more the subjects of the people of Great Britain, than the people of Yorkshire are the subjects of the people of Middlesex.” This proposition is true, if the doctor by the people of Great Britain mean you, me, and our British fellow subjects. But who ever pretended that the colonists are the subjects of Yorkshiremen or Cornishmen? No Briton but the king can say to a colonist, You are my subject. And if George the Third has a right to say it to every colonist, it is only as he is the head and representative of the whole legislative power, and can say it to every Englishman. When we assert that the colonists are the subjects of Great Britain, we do not set ourselves above them. We only mean that they are under the legislative power of Great Britain ss well as we. And Dr. Price inadvertently grants it, when he adds, “They are our fellow subjects.” For if they are our fellow subjects, they are bound to obey the British legislature as much as we are; as much at least as the body of non - voters in England; a countless body this, which far exceeds the number of all the American colonists, as appears from the account which Dr. Price himself gives us of the inequality of our representation; and the prodigious difference which the constitution makes between Briton and Briton, with regard to the privilege of voting at elections. “In Great Britain, (says he,) consisting of near six millions of inhabitants, five thousand seven hundred and twenty - three persons, most of them the lowest of the people, elect one half of the house of commons; three hundred and sixty - four votes choose the ninth part.” According to this account, and that which in other places he gives us of the colonies, which he says consist of “near three millions of people,” it follows that when the parliament taxes the non - voters in England, it taxes at least two millions of persons more than when it taxes all British America.

With respect to the prerogative which Britons, as a more ancient people, enjoy when they choose parliament men, it may be as reasonably and legally invested in an elder community of subjects, as a family prerogative is invested in an elder brother. Add to this, than by paying heavier taxes, we now make, and I hope shall always equitably make, a compensation to the colonies for the superior privileges annexed to our eldership. Nor is it more just in the colonies to levy war against Britons on the present occasion, than it would be in younger brothers to fall sword in hand upon their elder brother, because custom and law allow him peculiar rights necessary to support the dignity of their family, which, as the first - born son, he peculiarly represents.

Should you say that, according to this doctrine, the colonists lose the birthright transmitted to them, as sons of free born Englishmen, namely, the right of being their own legislators; a sacred right this, “without which government is a curse,” and subjection “abject slavery;” I reply, that what the people of England never had, cannot be lost by the people of England, much less by the people of America. “What! (says your scheme) have not the voters in England the right of making their own laws?” No, sir, no more than angels in heaven, and Frenchmen on earth. “What! do we not choose our own representatives? And are not our representatives lawgivers?” Yes, sir, but they are not lawgivers, as they are our agents and representatives; but as they are the agents and representatives of the great Lawgiver, who ordains the powers that are. “However, they legislate in consequence of our choice.” True; but not through any legislative power communicated to them by virtue of our choice. You rule your own wife, if you have one, in consequence of the choice she made of you for a husband; but not by any authority she conveyed to you. If you have sons, and give them the choice of half a dozen masters, he whom they choose acquires a right to command them in consequence of their choice, but not through any authority conveyed to him by virtue of that choice. The authority of commanding your sons must come from a higher source than their election. If they could bestow magisterial authority, they could resume it as often as they are inclined to play the truant. “What! according to the British constitution, is it not the prerogative of certain men, whom we call freeholders and burgesses, to give their vote to certain gentlemen, who, in consequence of those votes, are admitted as members of the house of commons, in which a large share of the legislative power is lodged?” True: this is a peculiarity of the British government, just as it is a peculiarity of the Church of England, that some men called rectors, vicars, and patrons, can give a student in divinity a title, in consequence of which he is invested with authority to be an ambassador of Christ, and to preach the Gospel. But observe! this authority comes not from the rector, vicar, or patron; it descends from Christ himself. If I fancied, that authority to preach the Gospel originates from me, because I can give a candidate for orders a title, in consequence of which he may be admitted into holy orders, and preach for me, and to me, I should betray my spiritual vanity in the Church, as much as those men betray their political pride in the state, who fancy that they are born legislators, and that they can convey the power of making laws to the gentlemen for whom they vote at an election, just as you can convey the authority of dressing your horse to the man whom you choose for your groom. I have dwelt the more upon this part of our controversy, because the notion of self government and self legislation naturally belong to all men in general, and to the people and colonies of Great Britain in particular, is the wrwtonyeudov, the capital error, from which flows your American patriotism. The moment that error is discovered, this boasted virtue visibly degenerates into a vice compounded of one or more of the following ingredients - inattention; prejudice, ignorance, conceit, pride, ambition, envy, refractoriness, and civil Antinomianism.

We have seen, in the preceding letter, how greatly you have wronged the sovereign in pointing out the cause of the war with America; let us see if Dr. Price does the king and parliament more justice than you do. “The present contest (says his pamphlet) is for dominion on the side of the colonies, as well as on ours; but with this difference: we are struggling for dominion over others; they for self dominion, the noblest of all blessings. I am persuaded, that were pride, the lust of dominion, exterminated from every heart among us, &c, this quarrel would soon be ended. To sheath our swords in the bowels of our brethren - for no other end than to oblige them to acknowledge our supremacy: how horrid! This is the cursed ambition that led a Cesar, and an Alexander, and many other mad conquerors, to attack peaceful communities, and to lay waste the earth. This war can have no other object than the extension of power.” These patriotic assertions appear to me big with absurdity and gross injustice. Does Great Britain aim at an “extension of power,” when she protects our injured merchants, her oppressed subjects? Have not all sovereigns the right to defend wronged innocence? Nay, is it not their bounden duty so to do with respect to their own subjects? Does our legislature “extend her power” when she taxes the Americans? Has not Dr. Price himself granted that they were taxed in the late reign? And does not his own conscience declare, that protective powers have the right of reasonably taxing the protected; and that this right has been enjoyed by all sovereigns in all ages? Again: if the king of Great Britain is the lawful sovereign of the colonies, and has as much right to command them as to command us; if all the men in power among them before the revolt took oaths of fidelity to him, as the king of Great Britain, who is inseparably connected with his British parliament; and if they have always submitted to British laws, and “always looked to this country as their home,” if this is the case, I say, can any thing be more unreasonable and unjust than to pour floods of odium upon the efforts which the sovereign makes to bring back the colonists to their former allegiance; and to compare those efforts to the lust of power which intoxicated Cesar and Alexander, when without any provocation they attacked and conquered foreign kingdoms? If a second Ket should arise in England, affect independency, play the tyrant, draw all the country people from their work, and engage half a dozen counties to revolt, would any man, except an American patriot, dare to say that it would be “savage folly to address the throne” for the suppression of the growing mischief? Could you insinuate, with candour, that if the king exerted his power on such an occasion, he would act the part of a “mad conqueror?” And would not your blood run cold, if you heard a Christian doctor put this wild plea into the mouth of a Ket and his adherents: “O king, the spirit of domination and the lust of power make thee mad. Thou wilt sheath thy sword in our bowels, and spread misery among a happy people for no other end than to oblige them to acknowledge thy supremacy. We confess that the present contest is for dominion on our side as well as on thine; but with this essential difference; thou art struggling for dominion over others; we for self dominion, the noblest of all blessings?”

This seditious sophism is sufficient to fill us with a just detestation of Dr. Price’s politics. But a scheme which has a direct tendency so to level authority, as to subvert all government, and abolish all subordination in the universe - such a scheme, I say, cannot be too strongly opposed: it should be totally extirpated. Archimedes said once, “Give me a point on which I may fix my engine, and I will move the earth out of its place.” And I may say, Give me Dr. Price’s political principles, and I will move all kings out of their thrones, and all subjection out of the world. To convince you of the truth of this assertion, I need only work a moment his patriotic engine in your presence.

The collector of the land tax is at the door: fired with Dr. Price’s patriotism, I run to him and say, Sir, I am a freeman. You shall treat me neither as a beast, nor as a slave. I never yet chose a parliament man in all my life; nor will I be taxed till I am directly and adequately represented in parliament. And suppose I were, I could not in conscience pay taxes to maintain a government, which enslaves millions of my free - born fellow creatures, who are taxed without being directly or adequately represented. Beside, I pay parish rates, and the levies of my hundred; and must I submit to be triple taxed? Will those who send you insist upon such a supremacy over me, as will leave me nothing that I can call my own? Would you let me alone and suffer me to enjoy in security my property and parish government, instead of disturbing me, I would thank and bless you. But if you will not, I have a right to emancipate myself as soon as I can: I will show you, that I and my hundred have the right of legislating for ourselves. This blessing, when lost, we have always a right to resume: and I resume it now in the name of all the non - electors in the parish and hundred, who are the majority, and who should be as glad as myself to pay taxes only when they have a mind. Dulce pro parochia mori! But suppose they choose to be enslaved, I do not. Dr. Price has converted me to patriotism. I act according to his admired doctrine, which is summed up in the following propositions: “In a free state every man is his own legislator.” “To be free, is to be guided by one’s own will; and to be guided by the will of another is the character of servitude.” “As far as, in any instance the operation of any cause comes in to restrain the power of self government, [whether it be in an individual, in a parish, hundred, colony, province, principality, or kingdom,] so far slavery is introduced. Nor do I think that a preciser idea than this of liberty or slavery can be formed.” According to this doctrine, I can not only refuse paying taxes with the majority of my hundred, but alone, by virtue of my own personal right. For if every man is his own legislator, it is plain that he can make his own laws. Now, as I am a man, I am my own legislator; and as such I enact, that I ought not to pay the tax you demand of me. Should you say that the parliament has enacted I shall pay it, I reply, (in Mr. Evans’ and Dr. Price’s words,) “What a man has is absolutely his own: no man has a right to take it from him without his consent, expressed by himself, or by his own representative,” that is, by a representative of his own choosing. What authority has the parliament to cede my property? “Such a cession being inconsistent with the unalienable rights of human nature, either binds not at all, or binds only the individuals who made it,” and the men who chose such individuals for their representatives. This is not all: Dr. Price asserts that “all taxes are free gifts.” And can any thing be more absurd than to demand a free gift, as if it were a just debt; especially considering that I never promised such a gift, no, nor the majority of the parish, the hundred, the county, or the kingdom to which I belong; the majority not having sent any member to parliament? A free gift is to be given freely; and whoever will take it from us against our own will, contradicts himself, tries to enslave us, stabs our vitals, and commits robbery. And is not such a gross abuse of power sufficient to rouse me into resistance? Beside, why should I be so much afraid of raising a rebellion? Does not Dr. Price say, “He who will examine the history of the world will find there has generally been more reason for complaining that they have been too patient, than that they have been turbulent and rebellious?” Should you object that, upon this footing, all the non - voters will soon rise against the voters and their representatives, and that the unity of the kingdom will be broken: I reply in the doctor’s pious language, “If in order to preserve the unity, one half of it [the realm] must be enslaved to the other half, let it, in the name of God, want unity.” “Of such liberty, as I have now described, it is impossible that there should be an excess.” And I apply to your tyrannical demand the patriotic query, which he makes with respect to the sovereign’s claims on the province of Massachusett’s Bay: “Can there be any Englishman, who, were it his own case, would not sooner lose his heart’s blood, than yield to claims so pregnant with evils, and destructive to every thing that can distinguish a free man from a slave?”

Nothing can exceed the wickedness of this patriotic speech of mine about taxes, except the insolence of that which follows. I suppose it was made by Satan to the Son of God, when, according to Milton’s fancy, they encountered each other in the heavenly plains. I meet thee in the field (says the fiend) to defend my freedom, and assert the liberty of these heavenly legions. Before I pierce thy side with my spear, let me pierce thy conscience with my arguments. “In a free state [much more in heaven, where liberty is perfect] every one is his own legislator. To be free is to be guided by one’s own will; and to be guided by the will of another, is the character of servitude.” They call thee Messiah the Prince; but forasmuch as thou sayest, “I do nothing of myself,” and art not ashamed to add, “ Father, not my will, but thine be done,” and to teach the mean spirits who follow thee to pray, “Thy will be done in heaven and on earth;” it is plain that thou “restrainest the power of self government,” and “introducest slavery.” Thou art lost to all sense of heavenly patriotism. Enslaved thyself, thou comest to damp the noble flame of liberty which glows in these angelical bosoms; and to make us wear the badge of the most abject slavery as thou dost. Thou proud and base tool of tyranny! Can thy reason blame us for our noble struggle, since we are not allowed to have our natural right of legislating for ourselves? And if those dastardly spirits who compose thy hosts say, “Neither have most of us;” I reply, “Then you so far want liberty, and your language is, We are not free, why will they be free?” “I have no other notion of slavery, but being bound by a law to which I do not consent.” Now I do not consent to the law which says, Thou shalt obey thy Divine Sovereign, and honour thy heavenly Father: I never made that law. And suppose I and my legions had made it, we have a right to repeal it. For “government is an institution for the benefit of the people governed, which they have power to model as they please.” “Liberty may be enjoyed in every possible degree.” “Liberty is most complete and perfect, when the people have most of a share in government, and of a controlling power over the persons by whom it is administered.” Now thou and thy Father are the persons by whom heavenly government is administered. “A spirit of domination, and lust of power, kindle thee into rage. The only object of the war thou wagest against us, is the extension of dominion.” Thou wilt maintain thy usurped supremacy over us: and we will maintain our native or acquired supremacy over ourselves. The present contest is for dominion on thy side as well as ours: but (like a tyrant) thou art struggling for dominion over others; and we (like free spirits) are struggling for self dominion, the noblest of all blessings. “Of such liberty [or self dominion] as I have now described, it is impossible that there should be an excess.” I, and these brave legions, will therefore fight for it, at the hazard of our happiness and glory. Self government and supremacy in hell, are preferable to servile obedience and subordinate grandeur in heaven.

I need not tell you, sir, that this speech of the patriotic seraph is formed upon the principles laid down in Dr. Price’s pamphlet. You easily discern not only his sentiments, but his very words and doctrine. Should you reply, that the case of creatures is different from that of subjects, because creatures owe more to God than subjects to an earthly sovereign; I grant it, and assert, that on this account obedience to the true God is prescribed in the first table of the law, and reasonable subjection to our rightful sovereign in the second table. The former is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it in dignity and importance. Therefore, says St. Peter, “Fear God and honour the king.” Give both God and Cesar their due. Subject yourselves to both in their place. To return: if your doctrine directly or indirectly strikes at the authority of God and Cesar, as the two preceding speeches show it does, how dangerous is your patriotism! I shall not, however, brand it with the epithets which Dr. Price applies to the conduct of his governors, and loyal fellow subjects; nor shall I borrow from him the words “cursed ambition - madness - rage - savage folly,” &c. But with a degree of the liberty with which Paul withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed, I shall venture to expostulate a moment both with him and with you. You are not only men, but Britons, patriots, Christians, and ministers of the Gospel. But which of these names do you adorn, when you teach the wretched politics, which, I trust, I have refuted in these pages? If your capital arguments are irrational, have you shown yourselves men? If they sap the foundation of civil government, have you shown yourselves civilized men? If they are unconstitutional, betray Great Britain, tend to rend from her all her American dominions, and pour undeserved contempt upon our rightful lawgivers, have you shown yourselves Britons and patriots, deservedly so called? If they subvert an important part of Christ’s doctrine, and defeat the effect of his loyal example, have you shown yourselves Christians? If they tend to kindle the fire of national discontent, to make uneasy subjects flee to arms, or rebellious subjects grasp, with new transports of enthusiasm, the swords which they wantonly bathe in floods of British blood, have you acted the part of preachers of the Gospel of peace? Have you shown that you either fear God or honour the king? If you have called all the powers of sophistry and oratory to your help, to hinder millions of subjects from paying obedience to God by rendering unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, have you not blown the trumpet of discord? And have you not sounded a false alarm through the British dominions, by representing our constitution as “almost lost” through the “weakness” and “violence” of our governors, when, if there is any likelihood of its being lost, the danger springs from the weakness or violence of the patriots, whom your publications intoxicate and “kindle into rage?” And shall I praise you for such a conduct? No: whoever they are that admire you as bold spirited citizens, I shall take the liberty to consider you as rash, injudicious patriots, who have more wit than prudence, and intend far better than you perform.

Should you say that you have the approbation of the minority in parliament, and of the patriots in the city of London; I reply, that the city patriots will not be your comforters on your death beds, nor your judges in the great day. And what if the majority of mankind were on your side; could they cause a doctrine which is irrational, unscriptural, and unconstitutional, to be agreeable to reason, Scripture, and the constitution? Permit me, then, my dear, mistaken fellow labourers in the Gospel, to beseech you to review our controversy, to study Christian politics, to drop your prejudices against our governors, to embrace genuine patriotism, and to second the efforts of the ministers of state and Gospel ministers, who try to stem the torrent of political enthusiasm which deluges America, and threatens to overthrow Great Britain itself. So shall you undo the harm which you have undesignedly done; and our revolted fellow subjects, instead of cursing the day when you confirmed them in their sin, will bless you for giving them an antidote as powerful as the error which now poisons their minds and distracts their country.

Should you wonder, sir, at my repeated opposition of your principles, I should urge two things by way of apology for it:

(1.) Though I believe that you and your second mean well, yet some of your principles have, I fear, a tendency to raise or foment a spirit of disobedience, sedition, and anarchy. And,

(2.) As a minister of the Church of England, I have subscribed to the doctrine of the homily against disobedience and wilful rebellion, which contains this remarkable ejaculation: “God of his infinite mercy grant unto us, that we may be good, natural, loving, and obedient subjects: not only showing all obedience ourselves, but as many of us as are able, to the utmost of our power, ability, and understandings [endeavouring] to stay and repress all rebels and rebellions against God, our gracious prince, and natural country, at every occasion that is offered unto us! And that, which we are all able to do, unless we do it, we shall be most wicked, and most worthy to feel in the end such extreme plagues, as God has ever poured upon rebels.” I produce this quotation, not to charge you, sir, or Dr. Price,