ree distinct branches--a Governor,
Council, and General Assembly; under which political frame the
representatives of the people have uniformly exercised the right of
their civil government and the administration of justice in the colony.

"It is therefore with inexpressible grief that we have of late years
seen measures adopted by the British Parliament subversive of that
Constitution under which the people of this colony have always enjoyed
the same rights and privileges so highly and deservedly prized by their
fellow-subjects in Great Britain--a Constitution in its infancy modelled
after that of the parent state, in its growth more nearly assimilated to
it, and tacitly implied and undeniably recognised in the requisitions
made by the Crown, with the consent and approbation of Parliament.

"An exemption from internal taxation, and the exclusive right of
providing for the support of our own civil government and the
administration of justice in this colony, we esteem our undoubted and
inalienable rights as Englishmen; but while we claim these essential
rights, it is with equal pleasure and truth we can declare, that we ever
have been and ever will be ready to bear our full proportion of aids to
the Crown for the public service, and to make provision for the
necessary purposes, in as ample and adequate a manner as the
circumstances of the colony will admit. Actuated by these sentiments,
while we address ourselves to a British House of Commons, which has ever
been so sensible of the rights of the people, and so tenacious of
preserving them from violation, can it be a matter of surprise that we
should feel the most distressing apprehensions from the Act of the
British Parliament declaring their right to bind the colonies in all
cases whatsoever?--a principle which has been actually exercised by the
statutes made for the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue in
America, especially for the support of Government, and other usual and
ordinary services of the colonies.

"The trial by a jury of the vicinage, in causes civil and criminal
arising within the colony, we consider as essential to the security of
our lives and liberties, and one of the main pillars of the
Constitution, and therefore view with horror the construction of the
statute of the 35th of Henry the Eighth, as held up by the joint address
of both Houses of Parliament in 1769, advising his Majesty to send for
persons guilty of treasons and misprisions of