convinced can only arise from the union of both
countries. To render this union permanent and solid, we esteem it the
undoubted right of the colonies to participate in that Constitution
whose direct aim is the liberty of the subject; fully trusting that your
honourable House will listen with attention to our complaints, and
redress our grievances by adopting such measures as shall be found most
conducive to the general welfare of the whole empire, and most likely to
restore union and harmony amongst all its different branches.

"By order of the General Assembly,

"JOHN CRUGER, _Speaker_.

"Assembly Chamber, City of New York, the 25th day of
March, 1775."

This representation and remonstrance having been presented to the House
of Commons, Mr. Burke moved, the 15th of May, that it be brought up. He
said "he had in his hand a paper of importance from the General Assembly
of the Province of New York--a province which yielded to no part of his
Majesty's dominions in its zeal for the prosperity and unity of the
empire, and which had ever contributed as much as any, in its
proportion, to the defence and wealth of the whole." "They never had
before them so fair an opportunity of putting an end to the unhappy
disputes with the colonies as at present, and he conjured them in the
most earnest manner not to let it escape, as possibly the like might
never return. He thought this application from America so very desirable
to the House, that he could have made no sort of doubt of their entering
heartily into his ideas, if Lord North, some days before, in opening the
budget, had not gone out of his way to make a panegyric on the last
Parliament, and in particular to commend as acts of lenity and mercy
those very laws which the Remonstrance considers as intolerable
grievances."

"Lord North spoke greatly in favour of New York, and said he would
gladly do everything in his power to show his regard to the good
behaviour of that colony; but the honour of Parliament required that no
paper should be presented to that House which tended to call in question
the unlimited rights of Parliament."

"Mr. Fox said the right of Parliament to tax America was not simply
denied in the Remonstrance, but was coupled with the exercise of it. The
exercise was the thing complained of, not the right itself. When the
Declaratory Act was passed, asserting the right in the fullest extent,
there were no tumults in America, no opposition to Government in a