target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_660a2c32-5518-5ebe-afe2-e9b903a8f97f">[124] So early as the year 1692, the difference of opinion between the mother country and the colonies on the great point, which afterwards separated them, made its appearance. The legislature of Massachusetts, employed in establishing a code of laws under their new charter, passed an act containing the general principles respecting the liberty of the subject, that are asserted in magna charta, in which was the memorable clause, "no aid, tax, talliage, assessment, custom, benevolence, or imposition whatsoever, shall be laid, assessed, imposed, or levied, on any of his majesty's subjects or their estates, on any pretence whatsoever, but by the act and consent of the governor, council, and representatives of the people, assembled in general court."
It is scarcely necessary to add that the royal assent to this act was refused.
[125] History of South Carolina.
[126] Chalmer.
[127] Hutchison.
[128] Hutchison. Belknap.
[129] Hutchison.
[130] Hutchison.
[131] Hutchison.
[132] History of South Carolina.
[133] Idem.
[134] In the same year Charleston was reduced to ashes. A large portion of its inhabitants passed, in one day, from prosperity to indigence. Under the pressure of this misfortune, the legislature applied to parliament for aid; and that body, with a liberality reflecting honour on its members, voted twenty thousand pounds, to be distributed among the sufferers.
[135] About five and a half millions of dollars.
[136] Belknap.
[137] Belknap.
[138] It is said the secret was kept until a member who performed family devotion at his lodgings, betrayed it by praying for the divine blessing on the attempt.
[139] Hutchison.
[140] The day before the armament sailed from Massachusetts, an express boat, which had been dispatched to admiral Warren to solicit assistance, returned with the unwelcome intelligence that he declined furnishing the aid required. This information could not arrest the expedition. Fortunately for its success, the orders from England soon afterwards reached the admiral, who immediately detached a part of his fleet; which he soon followed himself in the Superb, of sixty guns.
[141] Belknap. Hutchison.
[142] Hutchison. Belknap.
[143] Hutchison.
[144] Abbe Raynal.
[145] The following estimate is taken from "The History of the British empire in North America," and is there said to be an authentic account from the militia rolls, poll taxes, bills of mortality, returns from governors, and other authorities.
| The colonies of | Inhabitants. |
| Halifax and Lunenberg in Nova Scotia | 5,000 |
| New Hampshire | 30,000 |
| Massachusetts Bay | 220,000 |
| Rhode Island and Providence | 35,000 |
| Connecticut | 100,000 |
| New York | 100,000 |
| The Jerseys | 60,000 |
| Pennsylvania (then including Delaware) | 250,000 |
| Maryland | 85,000 |
| Virginia | 85,000 |
| North Carolina | 45,000 |
| South Carolina | 30,000 |
| Georgia | 6,000 |
| ---------- | |
| Total 1,051,000 |
The white inhabitants of the French colonies were thus estimated:
| The colonies of | Inhabitants. |
| Canada | 45,000 |
| Louisiana | 7,000 |
| ------- | |
| Total 52,000 |
[146] Minot Gazette.
[147] See note No. II, at the end of the volume.
[148] Minot.
[149] Minot.
