hey have not built a
fort, raised a man, or provided a grain of ammunition in order to
such opposition. The ringleaders of riots they think ought to be
punished; they would punish them themselves if they could. Every
sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished, as
otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or estate.
But as to an internal tax, how small soever, levied by the
Legislature here on the people there, while they have no
representatives in this Legislature, I think it will never be
submitted to. They will oppose it to the last. They do not consider
it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them by your
taxes, because they are, and always have been, ready to raise money
by taxes among themselves, and to grant large sums, equal to their
abilities, upon requisition from the Crown. They have not only
granted equal to their abilities, but during all the last war they
granted far beyond their abilities, and beyond their proportion
with this country, you yourselves being judges, to the amount of
many hundred thousand pounds; and this they did freely and readily,
only on a sort of promise from the Secretary of State that it
should be recommended to Parliament to make them compensation. It
was accordingly recommended to Parliament, in the most honourable
manner, for them. America has been greatly misrepresented and
abused here, in papers and pamphlets and speeches, as ungrateful,
unreasonable, and unjust in having put this nation to immense
expense for their defence, and refusing to bear any part of that
expense. The colonies raised, paid, and clothed near 25,000 men
during the last war--a number equal to those sent from Britain, and
far beyond their proportion; they went deeply into debt in doing
this, and all their taxes and estates are mortgaged, for many years
to come, for discharging that debt. The Government here was at that
time very sensible of this. The colonies were recommended to
Parliament. Every year the King sent down to the House a written
message to this purport: That his Majesty, being highly sensible of
the zeal and vigour with which his faithful subjects in North
America had exerted themselves in defence of his Majesty's just
rights and possessions, recommended it to the House to take the
same in