unmanageable.

Some of you complain that the privileges granted by your charters are
invaded.

But by whom, pray, were these privileges granted? By a king, who had no
power, I mean legal power, to grant you any privileges, which rendered
you independent of parliament, no more than he can make a corporation in
England independent of it. Talk not then, of such privileges; the spirit
of the British constitution could allow you none, by which you did not
remain subordinate to every branch of the legislature, and consequently
subordinate to parliament. The king makes but one member of the
legislature, and it is self-evident he cannot give away the rights and
privileges of the rest. He can grant any body of men a charter, by which
they are empowered to make bye-laws for their own government, but
farther his prerogative does not extend. He cannot free them from
obedience to acts of parliaments.

Another, and a general complaint is, that you are taxed by a body of men
unacquainted with your circumstances.

But who can be so well acquainted with the circumstances of the colonies
in general, as the British parliament? It is composed of men very well
versed in mercantile affairs, and much accustomed to the discussion of
intricate questions; many of them are merchants, and merchants that
trade to America and the West Indies. They are always ready to receive
information from any hand, and never proceed to business of importance,
till they have made the requisite inquiries. Nothing can be a better
proof of this, than their conduct with regard to the stamp act. A year
before it was passed, the ministers desired you to send agents over to
London, in order to propose your objections to the whole, or any part of
it; but you neglected this reasonable request; therefore, if the duty
on some articles should be too high, you have none but yourselves to
blame.

How then can you pretend to set up your own knowledge in competition
with that of the British parliament? Every single assembly among you,
may, perhaps, be a better judge of its own province than it; but that is
all: a full and comprehensive idea of the whole they cannot be expected
to have; their own particular interest they may understand, but the
interest of the colonies in general is an object too large, too complex,
to be taken in at one view, and to be perfectly scanned by them. It is
the British legislature alone, whose close connection with all the
colonies, whose thorou