y executioners; whereby our coasts are lined,
and harbours crowded with ships of war; whereby the charter of the
colony, that sacred barrier against the encroachments of tyranny, is
mutilated, and in effect annihilated; whereby a murderous law is
framed to shelter villains from the hands of justice; whereby the
unalienable and inestimable inheritance, which we derived from nature,
the constitution of Britain, and the privileges warranted to us in the
charter of the province, is totally wrecked, annulled, and vacated:
Posterity will acknowledge that virtue which preserved them free and
happy; and while we enjoy the rewards and blessings of the faithful,
the torrent of panegyrists will roll our reputations to that latest
period, when the streams of time shall be absorbed in the abyss of
eternity.

"Therefore resolved," &c. &c. &c.

* * * * *

NOTE--No. IX.--_See Page 427._

"Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament,
claiming a power, of right, to bind the people of America by statutes
in all cases whatsoever, hath in some acts expressly imposed taxes on
them; and in others, under various pretences, but in fact for the
purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in
these colonies, established a board of commissioners with
unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of courts of
admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial
of causes merely arising within the body of a county.

"And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before
held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependent
on the crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in
times of peace: And whereas it has lately been resolved in parliament,
that by force of a statute, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign
of King Henry VIII. colonists may be transported to England and tried
there upon accusations for treasons, and mis prisons and concealments
of treasons committed in the colonies, and by a late statute, such
trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned.

"And whereas, in the last session of parliament, three statutes were
made; one entitled, 'An act to discontinue in such manner and for such
time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or
shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the
harbour of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay i