s advantages; nor could he
admit that, by crossing the Atlantic, his ancestors had relinquished
the essential rights of British subjects.

The degree of authority which might rightfully be exercised by the
mother country over her colonies, had never been accurately defined.
In Britain, it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed the
power of binding them in all cases whatever. In America, at different
times, and in different provinces, different opinions had been
entertained on this subject.

In New England, originally settled by republicans, habits of
independence had nourished the theory that the colonial assemblies
possessed every legislative power not surrendered by compact; that the
Americans were subjects of the British crown, but not of the nation;
and were bound by no laws to which their representatives had not
assented. From this high ground they had been compelled reluctantly to
recede. The Judges, being generally appointed by the governors with
the advice of council, had determined that the colonies were bound by
acts of parliament which concerned them, and which were expressly
extended to them; and the general court of Massachusetts had, on a
late occasion, explicitly recognised the same principle. This had
probably become the opinion of many of the best informed men of the
province; but the doctrine seems still to have been extensively
maintained, that acts of parliament possessed only an external
obligation; that they might regulate commerce, but not the internal
affairs of the colonies.

In the year 1692, the general court of Massachusetts passed an act,
denying the right of any other legislature to impose any tax whatever
on the colony; and also asserting those principles of national
liberty, which are found in Magna Charta. Not long afterwards, the
legislature of New York, probably with a view only to the authority
claimed by the governor, passed an act in which its own supremacy, not
only in matters of taxation, but of general legislation, is expressly
affirmed. Both these acts however were disapproved in England; and the
parliament asserted its authority, in 1696, by declaring "that all
laws, bye laws, usages, and customs, which shall be in practice in any
of the plantations, repugnant to any law made or to be made in this
kingdom relative to the said plantations, shall be void and of none
effect." And three years afterwards, an act was passed for the trial
of pirates in America, in whic