tual consultation
and harmonious action. They say: "This House hope that this letter will
be candidly considered in no other light than as expressing a
disposition freely to communicate their mind to a sister colony, upon a
common concern, in the same manner as they would be glad to receive the
sentiments of your or any other House of Assembly on the continent."

As this letter was the first step to the union of the American colonies,
and was followed by results that culminated in the War of Independence,
it may be proper to give such extracts from it as will show its
character and design; in neither of which do I find anything which I
think is inconsistent with the principles and spirit of a loyal subject.
The general principles on which they rested their claims to the rights
and privileges of British subjects are stated as follows:

"The House have humbly represented to the Ministry their own sentiments:
That his Majesty's High Court of Parliament is the supreme legislative
power over the whole empire. That in all free States the constitution is
fixed; and as the supreme legislative derives its power and authority
from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it without
destroying its foundation. That the constitution ascertains and limits
both sovereignty and allegiance; and therefore his Majesty's American
subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance,
have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules
of the British constitution. That it is an essential, unalterable right
in nature, ingrafted into the British constitution as a fundamental law,
and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm,
that what a man hath honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he
may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent. That
the American subjects may, therefore, exclusive of any consideration of
Charter rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the character of
freemen and subjects, assert this natural constitutional right.

"It is moreover their humble opinion, which they express with the
greatest deference to the wisdom of the Parliament, that the Acts made
there, imposing duties on the people of this Province, _with the sole
and express purpose of raising a revenue_, are infringements of their
natural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented
in the British Parliament, his Majesty's Commons in Great Britain b