Part of America into our Sugar Colonies were the very Life of them: neither Planters, nor Negroes, can Subsist without them; particularly in the prohibited, interdicted Article of Fish, which, when salted, is their general Food. Your Lordship by your War, and your intended Famine, has effectually starved and ruined all the Passive and obedient Sugar-Colonies, as well as your declared Enemies in America. Thus a most valuable Fishery, a considerable Sugar Trade, and Thousands (perhaps Millions) of Innocent and brave Lives will be sacrificed by a narrow-minded Ministry to wicked Views, and insatiable Resentments, in the Reign of a Monarch born a Briton! An ancient Pict, or a wild Indian, (Savage in their Natures) would Blush and Shudder at such Proceedings.—With the Colonies and Trade the Revenues must sink. If royal Profusion, and Ministerial Corruption, were to sink likewise, it would be well; but they will still attempt to draw Blood from the most impoverished Veins. The Commerical, the landed Interest, the Public Bank, at last, must feel the Shock. Then, perhaps, when Famine threatens at our own Doors, the British Lion will be roused.—Then, (for I will Prophecy in my turn) comes a Revolution, fatal to Minions, Pensioners, Placemen, Knaves, and Tyrants; but happy for the Nation, if from the Ashes of all these Pests, the Rights of suffering and insulted Englishmen, can be once more established.—We shall find it to our Cost, in vain to send English Soldiers (none but Scotch will do
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the Business) against English Breasts. I am of Opinion (let the Wishes of the Ministry be what they will) that if every Officer who goes upon this Assassination were a Burgoyne,3 he would be Disappointed of the Blood he pants for, his Command will be a Sinecure, and his Victory a brave and virtuous Desertion. All who deserved the Names of Soldiers, would throw down their Arms, and Embrace their gallant and unhappy Countrymen. An English Army will not, and a Navy cannot destroy the Liberties of America: the Ministry, who wish to deceive the Nation, are (as they frequently are) deceived themselves: they cannot execute their Plan without extraordinary and successive (almost perpetual) Drafts of Forces. Should the Patient Sprit of this Kingdom, rise at such a Time in Arms, and France and Spain add to the Horrors of a CIVIL WAR, even in the midst of these Calamities, it will be some Consolation that the Advisers, Abettors, and detestable Heads of these diabolical Measures, cannot long escape the Vengeance of an injured People.
CASCA.4
Notwithstanding we have given almost the usual Quantity of Matter already, we cannot here omit without injury to our Readers and the Cause of Liberty, the spirited City Remonstrance which will do immortal Honour to the Heads and Hearts of those who framed it.
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The ADDRESS, REMONSTRANCE, and PETITION of the CITY of LONDON.5
“WE your Majesty’s dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of the City of London, beg leave to approach the Throne, and declare our Abhorrence of the Measures which have been pursued, and are now pursuing, to the Oppression of our fellow Subjects in America. These Measures are big with all the Consequences which can alarm a free and commercial People. A deep and perhaps a Fatal wound to Commerce; the ruin of Manufactures; the Diminution of the Revenue, and consequent increase of Taxes; the Alienation of the Colonies; and the Blood of your Majesty’s Subjects.
“But your Petitioners look with less Horror at the Conscquences, than at the purpose of those Measures. Not deceived by the specious Artifice of calling Despotism—Dignity, they plainly perceive that the real Purpose is—To establish Arbitrary Power over all America.
“Your Petitioners conceive the Liberties of the whole to be inevitably connected with those of every part of an Empire founded on the common Rights of Mankind. They cannot therefore observe, without the greatest Concern and Alarm, the Constitution fundamentally violated in any Part of your Majesty’s Dominions. They esteem it an essential, unalterable principle of Liberty, the Source, and Security of all constitutional Rights—that no Part of the Dominion can be Taxed without being represented. Upon this great leading Principle, they most ardently wish to see their fellow Subjects in America secured in what their humble Petition to your Majesty prays for—Peace, Liberty, and Safety.—Subordination in Commerce, under which the Colonies have always chearfully acquiesced, is, they conceive, all that this Country ought in Justice to require. From this subordination such advantages flow, by all the Profits of their Commerce centering here, as fully compensate this Nation for the Expence incurred, to which they also contribute in Men and Money for
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their Defence and Protection during a general War; and in their Provincial Wars they have manifested their Readiness and Resolution to defend themselves. To require more of them would, for this Reason, derogate from the Justice and Magnanimity which have been hitherto the Pride and Character of this Country.
“It is therefore with the deepest Concern, that we have seen the sacred security of Representation in their Assemblies wrested from them—the Trial by Jury abolished—and the odious powers of Excise extended to all cases of Revenue—the sanctuary of their Houses laid open to violation at the will and Pleasure of every Officer and Servant in the Customs—the dispensation of Justice corrupted, by rendering their Judges dependent for their Seats and Salaries on the will of the Crown—Liberty and Life rendered Precarious by subjecting them to be dragged over the Ocean, and tried for Treason or Felony here; where the Distance, making it impossible for the most Guiltless to maintain his Innocence, must deliver him up a victim to ministerial Vengeance—Soldiers and others in America have been instigated to shed the Blood of the People, by establishing a mode of Trial which holds out Impunity for such Murder—the Capital of New-England has been punished with unexampled Rigour—untried and unheard—involving the Innocent and the suspected in one common and inhuman calamity—Chartered Rights have been taken away, without any forfeiture proved, in order to deprive the People of every legal exertion against the Tyranny of their Rulers—the Habeas Corpus Act, and Trial by Jury, have been suppressed; and French despotic Government, with the Roman Catholic Religion, have been Established by Law, over an extensive Part of your Majesty’s Dominions in America; dutiful Petitions for redress of those Grievances, from all your Majesty’s American Subjects have been fruitless.6
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“To fill up the Measure of these oppressions, an Army has been sent to enforce them.
“Superadded to this, Measures are now planned upon the most merciless Policy of starving our fellow Subjects into a total surrender of their Liberties, and an unlimited Submission to Arbitrary Government.
“These Grievances have driven your Majesty’s faithful Subjects to despair, and compelled them to have recourse to that resistance which is justified by the great principles of the Constitution, actuated by which, at the glorious period of the Revolution, our Ancestors transferred the Imperial Crown of these Realms from the Popish and Tyrannic race of the Stuarts, to the Illustrious and Protestant House of Brunswick.
“Your Petitioners are persuaded, that these Measures originate in the secret advice of Men who are Enemies equally, to your Majesty’s Title and to the Liberties of your People. That your Majesty’s Ministers carry them into Execution by the same Fatal Corruption which has enabled them to wound the Peace and violate the Constitution of this Country—thus they poison the Fountain of Public Security, and render that Body which should be the guardian of Liberty, a formidable instrument of Arbitrary Power.
“Your Petitioners do therefore most earnestly beseech your Majesty to dismiss immediately, and forever, from your Councils, those Ministers and Advisers, as the first Step towards a full redress of those Grievances which alarm and afflict your whole People. So shall Peace and Commerce be restored, and the Confidence and Affection of all your Majesty’s Subjects, be the solid supporters of your Throne.”
The KING’s ANSWER,
Which
