have removed this difficulty out of the way of your patriotism, you will allow us to think, that you deal in irrational, unscriptural, and unconstitutional paradoxes, when, speaking of taxation and direct representation, you say, "God has joined them: No British parliament can separate them: To endeavour to do it, is to stab our vitals."

When you have rashly charged nonsense upon God, you may well indirectly charge robbery upon the sovereign: Accordingly your patriotism mounts the rostrum and makes this convincing speech, "My position is this-I repeat it—I will maintain it to the last hour: Taxation and representation are inseparable: This position is founded upon the law of nature: It is more; it is an eternal law of nature:"-I grant it, Sir, if by nature you mean the fallen nature of the men who say, 'With our tongue will we prevail, our lips are our own: Who is Lord over us ?' (Ps. xii. 4.) But you go on: "Whatsoever is a man's own, if absolutely his own: No man has a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or his representative." Nay, you grow so warm as to say, "Whoever attempts to do it, [that is, agreeably to the context, whoever attempts to tax a man, who has not consented to the tax, either personally or by his direct representative,] attempts an injury: Whoever does it, [and the sovereign has done it,] commits a robbery."-What a speech! God save the King from such severe judges as you are!

Nothing can be more erroneous, Sir, than the principle on which you found your bold, though indirect indictment: "Whatsoever is a man's own, is absolutely his I do not scruple to assert, that this principle is detestable, as being unscriptural—irrational-and highly unconstitutional.—1. Unscriptural: For the scriptures teach us, that God is the first and grand proprietor of all things; that the powers that be are or'dained of him; and that, for the ends mentioned in my first letter, he delegates his dominion and authority to kings and magistrates. Hence it is, that both in the

Old and New Testament, those who make and enforce laws, are called gods; and that St. Paul declares, He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of GOD." To say, therefore, that what we have is absolutely our own, is to shake off the yoke of God's supreme dominion, and of the delegated dominion of kings, lawgivers, and magistrates, who are his lieutenants and representatives.

2. Your principle is irrational: For, if whatever a man has, "is absolutely his own:" It follows that nonvoters and foreigners, who never consented to our laws, either personally or by appointing their representatives, can never be taxed, imprisoned, or hanged, unless they first sign the warrants, by which their property, liberty, and life is legally disposed of. And if to dispose of their property by taxation, is robbery; by the same rule we may say, that to dispose of their liberty and life by legal warrants which they may have not indorsed, is inhospitable tyranny, and downright murder.

3. Your principle is highly unconstitutional. But few, comparatively, of the inhabitants of Great Britain have a share in the legislative power; nevertheless, the properties, liberties, and lives of all, are disposed of according to law. The Constitution allows it-the Constitution enjoins it. And yet you tell us, that disposing of the property of non-voters is unconstitutional; and that to lay taxes upon them, is to commit robbery. Now, Sir, if you are right, the government robs 212 families in my parish only. With two of my neighbours I have just calculated the number of housekeepers in our little district; upon a moderate computation we find 78 freeholders in 290 families. Hence it follows, that 212 families out of 290 have no share in legislation, either personally, or by sending any representative to parliament. And yet all these families are taxed: The masters of some of them, who live upon large farms, for which they pay the land-tax, pay more to the government than most freeholders. To say nothing of the land-tax and highway-money, they are all taxed in most of the articles which they use in house.

keeping. The tea and sugar they drink in the morning, the salt they eat at noon, the candle they burn at night, the shoes they wear all the day, are taxed; their tobacco, snuff, gin, ale, and rum, great articles with too many of them, are all taxed: Thus, according to your unconstitutional doctrine, they are robbed from morning till night. The freeholders, officers of excise, and collectors of taxes, are little robbers; and the King and his parliament, the great robbers. Did ever any patriot pour more contempt upon the Constitution, than you inadvertently do? If you could proselyte me to your patriotism, Sir, I would no more celebrate the 5th of November as a day of thanksgiving. I would wish success to any man who would venture his neck in order to blow up the den of thieves, with all the robbers who assemble therein.

You insinuate that these 212 non-voters are "able to purchase a freehold if they choose it," and to become voters for themselves and their familics. But you are mistaken, Sir; I know my parish better than you do. Some of the housekeepers I mention could not vote on account of their sex, though they should have twenty estates; and most of the rest would find it, through their poverty, much more difficult to purchase a freehold, than most of our American patriots. You answer, if this be the case, their " property must be so small, that it can be of no consequence to them who has the granting of it." But I argue in a quite contrary manner: For, if my poor parishioners have little of the necessaries of life, by every dictate of common sense, it is of the greatest consequence to them, not to be robbed of that little. Those who have blood to spare, may trust their arm in the hands of almost any surgeon; but those, whose veins are already drained, are deeply interested in the choice of him, who is to let out the precious drops, which they can so ill part with. The parting with a couple of shillings, or the losing of two days' work in mending the highways, is more to a poor man who has a large family, than the losing of 20007. is to a man of fortune. Taxes are never felt by the rich;

because they pay them out of their superfluous abu ance: Whereas the poor part with some of the nec saries of life, whenever they part with a penny. Besid the poor, not being able to buy meat, live chiefly up bread, which is the cheapest food. They eat a pou of it, where the rich eat an ounce. Therefore, wh our wealthy legislators raise the price of bread, I allowing a bounty for the exportation of corn, or b forbidding the importation, or permitting the distillin of it, they reap the principal benefit, and the poor bea the principal burden. You advance, then, a monstrou paradox, when you insinuate, that legislation" can be of no consequence" to the poor: For the capital branch of legislation, which raises or sinks the price of corn, chiefly concerns the lowest class of mankind, by whom corn is chiefly consumed.

This is not all. The legislative power disposes of our life, and locomotive liberty, as well as of our property. I have seen some free-born Englishmen, who never had any share in legislation, put in the stocks, or sent to jail: I have seen others loaded with irons, ready for transportation: And others with a rope about their neck, ready for the gallows. Now, as the poor are as much concerned in the disposal of their locomotive liberty and life, as the rich, do you not betray gross partiality, Sir, when you represent the poor as persons who may be doomed to abject slavery, which your system supposes to be inseparably connected with our having no share in the legislature? Indigence and slavery are not naturally connected. The poor Indians are as jealous of their liberty as you. And when the Lacedæmonians and the Romans were in the lowest circumstances, they valued their liberty most.

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It is true, you insinuate that all who cannot purchase a freehold, are not absolutely obliged to remain slaves; because a place in the legislature is a privilege extended in a few boroughs to every one that boils a pot." But does not this very argument pour fresh contempt upon your notions of slavery and liberty? Does it not

ke English liberty, or abject slavery, to turn upon

the boiling, or not boiling of a pot? However, suppose that all who are not able to purchase freeholds, could avoid slavery by crowding with their families into the few boroughs you mention; which many colonists could do with greater ease than thousands of Britons : Or, supposing this peculiar privilege were extended to all the pot-boilers in Great Britain; would you mend the Constitution by these means? No: You would only avoid one inconveniency by running upon another : For the rich would justly complain of a levelling scheme, which would allow every starving cottager to have as good a right of granting their property, as they have themselves.

Again: If Britons, and sons of Britons, must be "equally represented," with respect to the disposal of their property, in order to be free men; have not the rich a right to make a Congress, and to enact, that, as the man who has forty shillings a year in land, has one vote; so he who has twice forty shillings, should have two votes; and he who has ten thousand pounds a year, should have five thousand votes: By which means, he might return himself member for any poor borough in the kingdom ?-On the other hand, will the poor not have as good a right to rise in their turn, and to form another Congress, under pretence, that rich men have but one body, and one life, any more than the poor : And therefore it is unreasonable, that the rich should have so much greater a part in legislation than they?— Nor will the mischief stop here: The wise and experienced will rise also, and urge, it is absurd that a young man, or a fool, should have as great a share in the legislature as a wise, aged man; and they will insist on having votes according to their wisdom and years; nor will their claim be, in my judgment, the most unreasonable.

This is not all: Every little market-town, and every ancient village, will insist on sending two representatives to Parliament, as well as Wenlock and Old Sarum. By the rule of proportion, large towns, cities, and po❤