contribute very largely to all supplies granted there to the Crown.

XI. That the restrictions imposed by several late Acts of Parliament on the trade of these Colonies will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain.

XII. That the increase, prosperity and happiness of these Colonies depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great Britain mutually affectionate and advantageous.

There was contained in these resolutions a plain sug. gestion that these matters of tariff should be adjusted by diplomatic agreement between Great Britain and the Colonies, which could have been accomplished only by the recognition of the Colonial Agents as diplomatic representatives of the Colonies. This would have necessitated that they should be received at Court and should be allowed to negotiate terms with the King's Secretary or his Secretarial Board appointed for the purpose, subject to the final determination of the King, made after advising with his Secretary or Secretarial Board.

In the conclusion of the resolution the Congress recognized again the allegiance of the colonists to the person of the King and the connection of the Colonies, as political persons, with Great Britain as the Imperial State, in the following language:

Lastly, it is the indispensable duty of these Colonies to the best of Sovereigns, to the Mother-Country, and to themselves, to endeavor, by a loyal and dutiful address to his Majesty and humble applications to both Houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the Act for Granting and Applying Certain Stamp Duties, and of all clauses of any other Acts of Parliament, whereby the jurisdiction of the Admiralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late Acts for the restriction of American commerce.

The Congress said, in its "Address to the King":

Our connection with the British Empire we esteem our greatest happiness and security, and humbly conceive it may now be so established by your royal wisdom, as to endure to the latest period of time.

In its "Address to the House of Commons" it said:

We esteem our connections with, and dependence on Great Britain as one of our greatest blessings, and apprehend the latter will appear to be sufficiently secure, when it is considered that the inhabitants in the Colonies have the most unbounded affection for his Majesty's person, family, and Government, as well as for the Mother Country, and that their subordination to the Parliament is universally acknowledged.

In the "Address to the King," the grievances of the Colonies were thus stated:

Our subordinate Legislatures are in effect rendered useless by the late Acts of Parliament imposing duties and taxes on these Colonies and extending the jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty beyond its ancient limits,-statutes by which your Majesty's Commons in Britain undertake absolutely to dispose of the property of their fellow-subjects in America without their consent, and for the enforcing whereof, they are subjected to the determination of a single judge in a Court unrestrained by those wise rules of the common law, the birthright of Englishmen, and the safeguard of their persons and liberties.

In the "Address to the House of Commons,' Congress adopted the ideas of Dulany, Hopkins, and Dickinson, in the following language:

It is submitted that it is extremely improbable that the honorable House of Commons should at all times be thoroughly acquainted with our condition, and all facts requisite to a just and equal taxation of the Colonies.

It is also humbly submitted whether there be not a material distinction, in reason and sound policy, between the necessary

exercise of Parliamentary jurisdiction in general Acts, and the common law, and the regulations of trade and commerce through the whole Empire, and the exercise of that jurisdiction by taxing the Colonies.

The proposition that the power of Parliament in the Empire was in the nature of things different from its power in the Realm, being only such as was necessary to preserve, in an orderly manner, the Empire exercised by the State of Great Britain over the Colonies, was the fundamental proposition on which all the resolutions of the Congress rested. Once this was admitted, the question of the proper terms of the constitutional relationship between Great Britain and the Colonies resolved itself into a question of the character and extent of the power which Parliament ought to exercise over the Colonies on principles of justice, regardless of the character and extent of the power which it exercised in the Realm.

CHAPTER X

PLANS OF SETTLEMENT, 1765-1767

HORTLY after the dissolution of the Stamp Act Congress, Sir Francis Bernard, who was then the royal Governor of Massachusetts, in letters to friends in England who were high in authority as members of the Board of Trade and the Privy Council, made suggestions concerning the course which he thought it necessary for Great Britain, as the Imperial State, to follow, if it was to maintain itself at the head of the Empire. These letters were published in 1774, in a volume entitled Select Letters on Trade and Government of America. In them, he proposed that the British Government should call together a Constitutional Convention composed of delegates from Great Britain and the Colonies, to frame a written Constitution for the parts of the Empire situated in America and the West Indies, which should define the relationship between Great Britain and these Colonies (declaring it to be the Imperial State and they its dependencies), the conditions and limitations upon the powers of the Imperial State and the Colonies respectively, and the rights of the individuals inhabiting in the Colonies against the Imperial and Colonial Governments. In a letter of November 23, 1765, he said:

It is my opinion, that all the political evils in America arise from the want of ascertaining the relations between Great Britain and the American Colonies. Hence it is, that ideas of that relation are formed in Britain and America so very repugnant and contradictory to each other. In Great Britain,

the American Governments are considered as corporations, empowered to make by-laws, existing only during the pleasure of Parliament; which hath never yet done anything to confirm their establishments, and hath at any time a power to dissolve them. In America, they claim (I mean in the public papers) to be perfect States, no other wise dependent upon Great Britain than by having the same King; which, having complete Legislatures within themselves, are no way subject to that of Great Britain; which, in such instances as it has heretofore exercised a legislative power over them, has usurped it. difference so wide, who shall determine? The Parliament of Great Britain? No, say the Americans (I mean the violent of them); that would be to make them judges in their own Who then? The King? He is bound by Charters, or Constitutions equal to Charters, and cannot declare against his own grants. So, at this rate, there is no superior tribunal to determine upon the rights and privileges of the American Colonies.

cause.

But the general plea of the Americans against the Stamp Act is, that they are not represented in Parliament, and therefore not liable to be taxed by it: to which it has been answered in England, that they are virtually represented in Parliament. Each of these pleas tends to expose its own cause. If the Americans rest their defence upon their not being represented, it is in the power of Parliament, by admitting representatives from America, to take away all pretence of their not being bound by its Acts: on the other side, if the notion of the Americans being virtually represented should be falsified in fact, the plea of the Americans will remain in its full force; whereas the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to make laws for the American Colonies is founded upon its being the Supreme Imperial Legislature, to which all members of the Empire, whether represented or not, are subject in all matters and things, and in manner and form, as shall be judged most convenient for the whole.

But though the Parliament of Great Britain does not stand in need of a real or virtual representation to ground its authority over the Colonies, it may now be worth considera