PERIOD FIRST. FOUNDATION. Thou, too, sail on. O Ship of State! With all the hopes of future years, Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. PROTEST OF BOSTON AGAINST TAXATION. SAMUEL ADAMS. Boston, May 24, 1764. To Royal Tyler, James Otis, Thomas Cushing, and Oxenbridge Thacher, Esquires: GENTLEMEN-Your being chosen by the freeholders and inhabitants of the Town of Boston to represent them in the General Assembly the ensuing year, affords you the strongest testimony of that confidence which they place in your integrity and capacity. By this choice they have delegated to you the power of acting in their public concerns in general as your own prudence shall direct you, always reserving to themselves the constitutional right of expressing their mind, and giving you such instructions upon particular matters as they at any time shall judge proper. We therefore, your constituents, take this opportunity to declare our just expectations from you, that you will constantly use your power and influence in maintaining the valuable rights and privileges of the province, of which this town is so great a part, as well those rights which are derived to us by the royal charter, as those which being prior to and independent of it, we hold essentially as free-born subjects of Great Britain. That you will endeavor, as far as you shall be able, to preserve that independence in the House of Representatives which characterizes a free people, and the want of which may in a great measure prevent the happy efforts of a free government; cultivating as you shall have opportunity that harmony and union there which is ever desirable to good men, which is founded on principles of virtue and public spirit, and guarding against any undue weight which may tend to disadjust that critical balance upon which our happy constitution and the blessings of it do depend. And for this purpose we particularly recommend it to you to use your endeavors to have a law passed, whereby the seats of such gentlemen as shall accept of posts of profit from the Crown or the Governor, while they are members of the House, shall be vacated agreeably to an act of the British Parliament, till their constituents shall have the opportunity of re-electing them, if they please, or of returning others in their room. Being members of the legislative body, you will have a special regard to the morals of this people, which are the basis of public happiness, and endeavor to have such laws made, if any are still wanting, as shall be best adapted to secure them; and we particularly desire you carefully to look into the laws of excise, that if the virtue of the people is endangered by the multiplicity of oaths therein enjoined, or their trade and business is unreasonably impeded or embarrassed thereby, the grievance may be redressed. As the preservation of morals, as well as of property and right, so much depends upon the impartial distribution of justice, agreeable to good and wholesome law; and as the judges of the land do depend upon the free grants of the General Assembly for support, it is incumbent upon you at all times to give your voice for their honorable maintenance, so long as they, having in their minds an indifference to all other affairs, shall devote themselves wholly to the duties of their own department and the farther study of the law, by which their customs, precedents, proceedings and determinations are adjusted and limited. You will remember that this province hath been at a very great expense in carrying on the war, and that it still lies under a very grievous burden of debt; you will therefore use your utmost endeavor to promote public frugality as one means to lessen the public debt. You will join in any proposals which may be made for the better cultivating the lands, and improving the husbandry of the province; and as you represent a town which lives by its trade, we expect in a very particular manner, though you make it the object of your attention to support our commerce in all its just rights, to vindicate it from all unreasonable impositions and promote its prosperity. Our trade has for a long time labored under great discouragements, and it is with the deepest concern that we see such farther difficulties coming upon it as will reduce it to the lowest ebb, if not totally obstruct and ruin it. We cannot help expressing our surprise that when so early notice was given by the agent of the intentions of the Ministry to burden us with new taxes, so little regard was had to this most interesting matter, that the Court was not even called together to consult about it till the latter end of the year; the consequence of which was, that instructions could not be sent to the agent, though solicited by him, till the evil had gone beyond an easy remedy. There is now no room for farther delay; we therefore expect that you will use your earliest endeavors in the General Assembly that such methods may be taken as will effectually prevent these proceedings against us. By a proper representation we apprehend it may easily be made to appear that such severities will prove detrimental to Great Britain itself; upon which account we have reason to hope that an application, even for a repeal of the act, should it be already passed, will be successful. It is the trade of the colonies that renders them beneficial to the mother country; our trade as it is now, and always has been conducted, centres in Great Britain, and, in return for her manufactures, affords her more ready cash beyond any comparison than can possibly be expected by the most sanguinary promotor of these extraordinary methods. We are, in short, ultimately yielding large supplies to the revenues of the mother country, while we are laboring for a very moderate subsistence for ourselves. But if our trade is to be curtailed in its most profitable branches, and burdens beyond all possible bearing laid upon that which is suffered to remain, we shall be so far from being able to take off the manufactures of Great Britain, though it will be scarce possible for us to earn our bread. But what still heightens our apprehensions is, that these unexpected proceedings may be preparatory to new taxations upon us; for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands and everything we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our fellow subjects who are natives of Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? We therefore earnestly recommend it to you to use your utmost endeavors to obtain in the General Assembly all necessary instruction and advice to our agent at this most critical juncture; that while he is setting forth the unshaken loyalty of this province and this town -its unrivaled exertion in supporting his Majesty's government and rights in this part of his dominions-its acknowledged dependence upon and subordination to Great Britain, and the ready submission of its merchants to all just and necessary regulations of trade, he may be able in the most humble and pressing manner to remonstrate for us all those rights and privileges which justly belong to us either by charter or birth. As his Majesty's other Northern American colonies are embarked with us in this most important bottom, we farther desire you to use your endeavors that their weight may be added to that of this province, that by the united application of all who are aggrieved, all may happily obtain redress. |