... If we can avail ourselves of
these taxes on no other condition, I shall never look upon it as
a measure of frugality, being perfectly satisfied that in the
end, it will be much cheaper for us to pay their army than their
orators."
Mr. Jenyns's pamphlet, which could be had for sixpence, was
widely read, with much appreciation for its capital wit and
extraordinary common sense; more widely read in England than Mr.
James Otis's "Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved"
or Daniel Dulaney's "Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing
Taxes on the British Colonies"; and it therefore did much more
than these able pamphlets to clarify English opinion on the
rights of Parliament and the expediency of taxing America. No one
could deny that Government had yielded in the face of noisy
clamor and forcible resistance. To yield under the circumstances
may have been wise or not; but Government had not yielded on any
ground of right, but had on the contrary most expressly affirmed,
in the Declaratory Act, that "the King's Majesty, by and with the
advice of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great
Britain, in Parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought
to have, full power and authority to make such laws and statutes
of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people
of America, subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases
whatsoever.
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