"Are Americans not
British subjects? Are they not Englishmen? Or are they only
Englishmen when they solicit protection, but not Englishmen when
taxes are required to enable this country to protect them?"
Americans said they had Assemblies of their own to tax them,
which was a privilege granted them by charter, without which
"that liberty which every Englishman has a right to is torn from
them, they are all slaves, and all is lost." Colonial charters
were, however, "undoubtedly no more than those of all
corporations, which empower them to make bye-laws." As for
"liberty," the word had so many meanings," having within a few
years been used as a synonymous term for Blasphemy, Bawdy,
Treason, Libels, Strong Beer, and Cyder," that Mr. Jenyns could
not presume to say what it meant.
Against the expediency of the taxes, Mr. Jenyns found that two
objections had been raised: that the time was improper and the
manner wrong as to the manner, the colonies themselves had in a
way prescribed it, since they had not been able at the request of
ministers to suggest any other. The time Mr. Jenyns thought most
propitious, a point upon which he grew warm and almost serious.
"Can any time be more proper to require some assistance from our
colonies, to preserve to themselves their present safety, than
when this country is almost undone by procuring it? Can any time
be more proper to impose some tax upon their trade, than when
they are enabled to rival us in their manufactures by the
encouragement and protection which we have given them? Can any
time be more proper to oblige them to settle handsome incomes on
their governors, than when we find them unable to procure a
subsistence on any other terms than those of breaking all their
instructions, and betraying the rights of their Sovereign?.
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