ievances
of any of his Majesty's subjects, which shall, in a dutiful and
constitutional manner, be laid before us; and whenever any of the
colonies shall make proper application to us, we shall be ready to
afford them every just and reasonable indulgence; but that, at the same
time, we consider it our indispensable duty humbly to beseech his
Majesty to take the most effectual measures to enforce due obedience to
the laws and authority of the Supreme Legislature; and that we beg
leave, in the most solemn manner, to assure his Majesty that it is our
fixed resolution, at the hazard of our lives and properties, to stand by
his Majesty against all rebellious attempts, in the maintenance of the
just rights of his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament."[356]

I have given Lord North's proposed address to the King at length, in
order that the reader may understand fully the policy of the Government
at that eventful moment, and the statements on which that policy was
founded.

In relation to this address several things may be observed: 1. There is
not the slightest recognition in it that the American colonists have any
constitutional rights whatever; they are claimed as the absolute
property of King and Parliament, irrespective of local Charters or
Legislatures. 2. It is alleged that Parliament always had been and would
be "ready to pay attention to any _real_ grievances of any of his
Majesty's subjects which shall, _in a dutiful and constitutional
manner_, be laid before us," when "we shall be ready to afford them
every just and reasonable _indulgence_." Yet every one of the hundreds
of petitions which had been sent from the colonies to England for the
previous ten years, complaining of grievances, was rejected, under one
pretext or another, as not having been adopted or transmitted in "a
dutiful and constitutional manner." If a Legislative Assembly proceeded
to prepare a petition of grievances to the King, the King's Governor
immediately dissolved the Assembly; and when its members afterwards met
in their private capacity and embodied their complaints, their
proceedings were pronounced unlawful and seditious. When township,
county, and provincial conventions met and expressed their complaints
and grievances in resolutions and petitions, their proceedings were
denounced by the Royal representatives as unlawful and rebellious; and
when elected representatives from all the provinces (but Georgia)
assembled in Philadelphia to