set up a new and unconstitutional authority, independent of the crown of Great Britain.

8. "That the elections, by several towns and districts in the province of Massachusets Bay, of deputies to sit in the said convention, and the meeting of such con vention in consequence thereof, were daring insults offered to his Majesty's authority, and audacious usurpations of the powers of government."

Then the following Address to his Majesty, was moved by the duke of Bedford:

"Most Gracious Sovereign, "We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords spiritual and temporal [and Commons] in parliament assembled, return your Majesty our humble thanks for the communication your Majesty has been graciously pleased to make to your parliament of several papers relative to public transactions in your Majesty's province of Massachusets Bay.

.

"We beg leave to express to your Majesty our sincere satisfaction in the measures which your Majesty has pursued for supporting the constitution, and for inducing a due obedience to the authority of the legislature; and to give your Majesty the strongest assurances that we will effectually stand by and support your Majesty in such farther measures as may be found necessary to maintain the civil magistrates in a due execution of the laws within your Majesty's province of Massachusets Bay; and as we conceive that nothing can be more immediately necessary, either for the maintenance of your Majesty's authority in the said province, or for guarding your Majesty's subjects therein from being farther deluded by the arts of wicked and designing men, than to proceed in the most speedy and effectual manner for bringing to condign punishment the chief authors and instigators of the late disorders, we most humbly beseech your Majesty, that you will be graciously pleased to direct your Majesty's governor of Massachusets Bay to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest information that can be obtained touching all treasons, or misprision of treason, committed within this government since the 30th day of December last, and to transmit the same, together with the names of the persons who were most active in the commission of such offences, to one of your Majesty's principal secretaries of state, in order that your Majesty may issue a spe

cial commission for enquiring of, hearing, and determining, the said offences within this realm, pursuant to the provisions of the statute of the 35th year of the reign of king Henry the eighth, in case your Majesty shall, upon receiving the said information, see sufficient ground for such a proceeding."

The above Resolutions and Address being agreed to by the Lords, were sent down to the Commons for their concur

rence.

1769.

January 25. Mr. Alderman Beckford offered to the Commons a Petition, purporting to be a petition of the major part of his Majesty's council of the province of Massachuset's Bay, signed Samuel Danforth, president of the council, in the name of the major part of the council aforesaid. And it appearing to the House, that the said Petition was not passed in a legal assembly of the council of his Majesty's province of Massachuset's Bay, and that no person was, or could be, authorised to sign the same, as president of the council of the said province; it was ordered, that the said Petition be brought up not as a Petition of the major part of the council of his Majesty's province of Massachuset's Bay, but as a Petition from Samuel Danforth, on the behalf of the several individual members of the said council at whose request he signed the same. Then the said Petition was brought up, and read; setting forth,

"That his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the council of the said province, being rendered unable, by the dissolution of the general court, to address this House in their legislative capacity, the petitioners, the major part of the said council, the other members living too remote to join with them, beg leave to do it, on a subject of the greatest importance, not only to that province and the colonies in general, but to Great Britain in particular, and humbly to represent to this House, that the first settlers of New England, more attentive to religion than worldly emolument, planted themselves in that country with a view of being secure from religious imposition, and not with any expectations of advancing their temporal interests, which the nature of the soil forbad them to indulge: and that they obtained a patent of that country from king Charles the 1st, which though vacated in

the unhappy times of James the 2nd, revived in the present charter of the province, which was granted in the succeeding glorious reign of king William and queen Mary, who, by said charter, confirmed to their subjects in that province divers important rights and privileges, particularly all such as are essential to, and constitute the peculiar happiness of British subjects, founded in the immutable laws of nature and reason, and inseparable from the grand and ultimate end of all government, the security and welfare of the subject, and which have been enjoyed till of late without interruption; and that, from the length and severity of the winters, the inferiority of the soil, and the great labour necessary to subdue it, they underwent incredible hardships; and, that, besides the climate and soil, they had to contend with a numerous and barbarous enemy, which made frequent inroads upon them, broke up their exterior settlements, and several times had nearly accomplished their utter destruction; by means whereof, they were kept in perpetual alarms, and their country made the scene of rapine and slaughter; and that nothing but the most invincible fortitude, animated by the principles of religion, and the warmest attachment to that civil liberty which the British constitution so happily defines and secures, could have enabled them to sustain the hardships and distresses that came upon them by those causes; nothing less could have induced them to persevere in the settlement of a country, from which, in its best estate, they had only to expect a scanty subsistence, and that in consequence of their unremitted labour; and that, by that labour, those hardships and distresses, they not only dearly purchased their settlements there, but acquired an additional title, over and above their common claim as men and as British subjects, to the immunities and privileges granted them by charter, and which they have transmitted to their children and successors, the present inhabitants, his Majesty's faithful subjects of that province; and that the present inhabitants, though more happily circumstanced than their ancestors, and though some among them, especially in the trading towns, may live in affluence, yet, from the operation of the same causes, the length and severity of the winters, and the stubbornness and infertility of the soil, are now able, with all their labour to obtain but a comfortable, and many of them but a Blender support for themselves and families; [VOL. XVI.]

their clothing, of which in that cold climate more is required than otherwise would be necessary, and which, some small part made by themselves only excepted, is made of the woollens and other manufac tures of Great Britain, the other necessary articles of subsistence, and the yearly taxes upon their polls, and on their real and personal estates, requiring the whole, or nearly the whole, produce of their lands; and that by their means his Majesty's dominions have been enlarged, his subjects increased, and the trade of Great Britain extended, all in a degree envied by her enemies, and unexpected by her friends, and all without any expence to her till the late war; and that in the late war, without recurring to the former expeditions against Canada, to the reduction of Nova Scotia in 1710, to the preservation of it several times since, to the conquest of Louisbourgh with its dependent territories in 1745, the reddition of which was esteemed by France an ample equivalent for all her conquests, during, on her part, a successful war, and gave peace to Europe; upon his Majesty's requisitions, and the requisitions of his royal grandfather, this province in the last war yearly raised a large body of troops, to assist in conjunction with other colony troops, in reducing the French power in America, the expence whereof was very great, and would have been insupportable, had not part of it been refunded by parliament, from a conviction of the inability of that province to bear the whole; and that the loss of men in the several campaigns of that war was great, and to so young a country very detrimental, and could not be compensated by grants of parliament, and to which those grants had no respect; and that the acquisition of so large a part of America by his Majesty's arms, though a great national good, and greatly beneficial to the colonies, as thereby they have been freed from the hostilities of the French, and, in a good measure, of the Indians that were under their influence, has, in divers respects, operated to the detriment of the colonies, particularly by diminishing the value of real estates, and drawing their inhabitants from them, to settle the new-acquired territories; and that the said acquisitions have occasioned new and increasing demands for the manufactures of Great Britain, and have opened to her sources of trade, greatly beneficial, and continually enlarging, the benefits of which center in herself, and which, with the ex[21]

tensive territories acquired, are apprehended to be an ample equivalent for all the charges of the war in America, and for the expences of defending, protecting, and securing, said territories; and that that province in particular is still in debt, on account of the charge incurred by the late war; and that the yearly taxes, excepting the present year, on which no public tax has been yet laid, by reason of general valuation through the province, which could not be completed before the dissolution of the late general assembly, but which will probably be resumed when a new assembly shall be called; and that the yearly taxes upon the people for lessening said debt, though not so great as during the war, are nevertheless with more difficulty paid, by reason of the greater scarcity of money in the colonies, owing to the balance of their trade with Great Britain being against them, which balance, exclusive of the operation of the several acts of parliament, taxing the colonies, by laying certain duties for the purpose of raising a revenue from them, drains them of their money, to the great embarrassment of their trade, the only source of it; and that that embarrassment is much increased by the late regulations of trade, and by the Tax Acts aforesaid, which draw immediately from trade the money necessary to support it, on the support whereof the payment of the balance aforesaid depends; and that the said Tax Acts, operating to the detriment of the trade of the colonies, must likewise operate to the detriment of Great Britain, by disabling the colonists from paying the debt due to her, and by laying them under a necessity of using less of her manufactures; and that, by the use and consumption of the manufactures of Great Britain, which are virtually charged with most of the taxes that take place there, the colonies pay no inconsiderable part of those taxes; and that, by several acts of parliament, the colonies are restrained from importing most of the commodities of Europe, unless from Great Britain, which occasions her manufactures, and all commodities coming from her, to be dearer charged, which is equivalent to a tax upon them; and that the colonies are prohibited sending to foreign markets many valuable articles of their produce, which giving to Great Britain an advantage in the price of them, is a proportionable and a further tax upon the colonies; and that the exports of the colonies, all their gold and

silver, and their whole powers of remittance, fall short of the charged value of what they import from Great Britain; and that, if it be considered what difficulties the colonies encountered on their first settlement; their having defended themselves, Nova Scotia and Georgia excepted, without any expence to Great Britain; the assistances given by them in the late war, whereby the empire of Great Britain is so greatly extended, and its trade proportionably increased; the diminution of the value of their estates, and the emigration of their inhabitants, occasioned by that extension; the loss of men in the said war, peculiarly detrimental to young countries; the taxes on them to support their own internal government; the share they pay of the duties and taxes in Britain, by the consumption of British manufactures for which such valuable returns are made; the restraints upon their trade, equivalent to a tax; the balance of trade continually against them, and their consequent inabi lity to pay the duties laid by the acts aforesaid: if those facts be considered, the petitioners conceive it must appear, that his Majesty's subjects in the colonies have been, and are, at least as much burthened as those in Great Britain; and that they are, whilst in America, more advantageous to Great Britain, than if they were transplanted thither, and subjected to all the duties and taxes paid there: and that the petitioners beg leave to lay their represen tation before this House; humbly praying a favourable consideration of it; and that the charter rights and privileges of the people of that province, and their invaluable liberties as British subjects, may be secured to them; and that the several acts of parliament made for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, be repealed."

The question being put, that the said Petition be referred to the committee of the whole House, to whom it is referred to consider further of the several papers which were presented to the House, by the lord North, upon the 28th of Nov. last, the 7th of Dec. last, and the 20th of this instant January, by his Majesty's command: the House divided; Yeas 70; Noes 133. So it passed in the negative. And the Petition was ordered to lie upon the table.

January 26. Sir George Saville pres sented a Petition from William Bollan, esq., of Boston, in the province of Massa