ed
or hindered thereby.

I have already mentioned, how that the right of choosing their judges
and other civil officers, and the right of trial by jury, had been
taken from them,--measures that had a meanness and odium quite their
own; as serving no end of profit, but merely as safety-valves, through
which the royal bile might find vent now and then.

Now, the good people of the Colonies, as I have hinted elsewhere,
would not have raised the hue and outcry that they did against these
measures, had it not been for one thing, which to them, as Englishmen,
was all in all; to wit, the right of taxing themselves, and
legislating or making laws for themselves through persons of their own
choosing, called representatives. And this is, my little folks, what
is meant by taxation, and legislation by representation, in a nation.
You will do well to bear this in mind continually; for it is the very
keystone to the arch of all true government.

This right of representation, however, was denied them; for what
earthly reason, no one, not in the secret, could imagine. As the king
himself was never able to render a reason for any thing he did, his
ministers would not for any thing they did, and the parliament dared
not for any thing they did.

What could they do, then, but send petitions to the king, and
remonstrances to the parliament, complaining of, and crying out
against, their many grievances, and deploring and demanding that they
be removed and redressed. Although they did this with more dignity and
respectfulness, with more clearness and ability, than the like thing
had ever been done before, or has been since, by any people, yet their
petitions were spurned by the king, because they were just and manly,
and he was not; and their remonstrances went unheeded by the
parliament, because they were wise and reasonable, and it was not.

Failing to get redress for their grievances, the colonists resolved
that the source of these same grievances should not be a source of
profit to those who imposed them. To bring about this result, they, as
one man, entered into what was called the "non-importation
agreement,"--or, in other words, an agreement by which they solemnly
pledged themselves to abstain from the use of all articles burdened
with a tax, until such tax should be removed; and, furthermore, that
they would not buy or use any thing that they were forbidden to
manufacture themselves; and, still furthermore, that not a ship of
t