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Thoughts on the origin and nature of go vernment. Occafioned by the difputes between G. Britain and her American colonies. Written in the year 1766. 18. Becket.

and ruinous, it became neceffary, that each man in the community thould contribute a certain portion of the produc of his private industry, for the maintenance of thofe, who, being occupied in fulfilling the general obligation, of ferving or affifting the protecting power, have not fufficient leisure to provide fubfiftence for themselves. In short, a tax, in whatever mode it may appear, is but another word for fervice; and as that enters effentially into the very being of government, whatever concerns the appointing, regulating, or rendering it effectual, becomes the most important part of legiflation; and which, from the nature of things, no inferior part of adminiftration, much less the fubjects, have the leaft right to meddle with, except under the fupreme authority. Were the fupreme authority to refign this power of the purfe into the hands of any other part of the fociety, fuch a refignation would amount to an abdication of the government; and that part which became invefted with the power of levying money, would be ipfo facto fupreme.

THE author lays lays down his fundamental principle in these terms: "The rights of government are built upon fomething much more certain and permanent than any voluntary human contract, real or imaginary; for they are built upon the weakness and neceffities of mankind. The natural weakness of man in a folitary ftate,. prompts him to fy for protection to whoever is able to af ford it; that is, to fome one more powerful than himself; while the more powerful flanding equally in need of his fervice, readily receives it in return for the protection he gives. This is the true nature of that contract, which pervades every part of the focial world, and which is to be feen at all times, in every empire, republic, city, and family, or indeed where-ever two or three are met together. From this is derived all the relations of mafter and fervant, patron and client, king and fubject; and every project in public and private life which does not proceed upon this reciprocal obligation of protection and fervice, will be for ever abortive, or fatal to the projector."

What then becomes of the notion, That people ought not to be taxed but by their own confent? Any fet of people who are masters of their own purses, are mafters of their own fervices; they are their own mafters, and fubject to no body. From those who are really subjects, fuch confent never was, nor ever can be asked. It will be faid, That the people of England confent to their own taxation by their reprefentatives. But this is only a vulgar misapprehenfion; the confent of the people being no more required in England, upon fuch occafions, than it is in Turky. The fole difference is, that the fupreme power happens to be differently conftituted in thofe two different ftates; but when conftituted, it equally affumes the right of impofing taxes upon the people without their confent. people of England, or certain claffes of thein, have a right by election to constitute the third part of the legislative power for feven years; and it would make no difference in my argument if they conftituted the whole for that term: but from the day of election, the people

He then proceeds as follows: In a flate confifting of one ruler, and one for fubject, like that of Robinson Crufoe and this man Friday, the fervice of one of Whethefe, in return for the protection of the other, can be only perfonal; and the es brmode, as well as the quantity, of this fervice, must be left to the difcretion of the fuperior; whose will must serve for all the different forts of law, either with regard to public or private rights, which the nature of that fimple fociety can poffibly admit. But in a numerous fociety, it would be abfurd, that all the fubjects fhould be perfonally employed in the public fervice; as a very few of a numerous community are fufficient to do all that is required for the defence and protection of the whole. But as all are equally liable, and the letting the whole labour fall upon a few, would be unjust

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have no more fhare in the legislation than those of Turky, and the ftrings of their purfes are equally refigned into the bands of their rulers. It may be perhaps faid, that if these members of parliament abufe the confidence that is put in them, the people may at the end of feven years elect others in their stead. But this does not in the least affect the question; which is not, What is to happen after the fupreme legislative power is diffolved? but, What happens while it actually fubfifts? When a parliament is diffolved, the people must proceed to the election, either of the fame, or other members; but whoever they elect, will have the fame unlimited power with their predeceffors; and although the perfons may be changed, the conftitution of the government, and the rights of the governors and the governed, are perpetual, and are no more changed along with the members of parliament, than they are in Turky, when one Sultan, in that military democracy, is depofed by his conftituents the Janifaries, and another fet up in his place. So far from the confent or opinion of the people of England being more particularly neceffary in this fpecies of legislation than in any other, that all who know any thing of the practice of parliament, must know, that it is a constant rule, not to admit any petition, however humbly conceived, against any bill in deliberation for levying money, while this privilege is allowed upon almost very other occasion *.

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In order to fhew in its utmost extent, and unembarrassed by any accidental circumstances, the frivolousness of the vulgar notion that the people of England keep the poffeffion of their own purfes, and give their confent to their own taxation by their reprefentatives, I have fuppofed that every ditcher in the country, and every chimney-fweeper in town, gives his vote for electing members of the houfe of Commons, peers of the realm, and if you pleafe, the king likewise, for the space of feven years; and have fhewn, that with all these fuppofitions, they would be taxed without their own confent, as much as if they lived under the Great Turk.

• Petitions were received in the cafe of the excife upon wine and tobacco in 1733, and of the excife upon cyder in 1763. But thofe petitions were not admitted as against the taxes themselves, but only as against the mode of collecting them.

The author proceeds to obferve, a very fmall part of the inhabitants England are actually represented; a that the word virtual, which has been i troduced to fupply the defect, has meaning. It was not a fundamental pri ciple of the English conftitution, Th every freeholder should fit in parliamen either in perfon, or in the person of o whom he had concurred in chufing. T freeholders fat in parliament as the pow of the state, and when they ceased to powerful, they ceafed to be qualifie This, fays he, is manifeft from the f tute 8° Hen. VI. for reftraining t number of voters to freeholders that p feffed 40s. a-year. This act was wife intended to give a stability to the conf tution, which, by a constant increase its conflituents, was gradually changin But, unhappily, by fuppofing a ftabili in the value of money, it produced an e fe&t the very contrary of what was i tended: a piece of land which was the worth 40 s. would now be worth 201. that there may now be ten legal vote for a knight of the shire, for one in th time of Hen. VI.; but though they ar legal voters by the letter of the law, the are not fo by the fpirit of the ancien conftitution, which plainly intended t lop off nine out of ten of them; and confequently no argument can be drawn from their prefent multiplicity, for the neceflity of all freeholders being repre fented.

But it is faid, that all the lands o England, being divided amongst the free holders, they become by that means th virtual representatives of all those wh live upon thefe lands; and by that tual reprefentation, have a right of giving laws to the whole; and to which the whole, by a fort of tacit or virtual com pact, give their confent.

If this is a principle of government fays the author, it will be true in every application of it.

The freeholders, as ordered to be fum moned to parliament by King John' Magna Charia, were, it feems, the vir tual reprefentatives of every man in the kingdom, whether their number was great or small. They were poffibly at that time two or three thoufand. Suppofe they had been only feven hundred, as in the 20th year of the Conqueror, or fuppofe them seventy, or only fever, then these seven must be acknowledged to be the virtual representatives of the

whole.

shole. But let us come to the matter it once, and suppose all the lands held by one freeholder, as is actually the cafe in Torky. Then is the Grand Signior mirtual representative of all the people of Turky, their univerfal knight of the fhire, and, in a moft parliamentary manner, levies what taxes he pleases upon them, by their own confent. [xxx. 284.] The author having thus endeavoured to how, that the notion of people conenting to their own taxation is contrary ⚫ the nature of government, and unfuported by any fact; that the notion of be legislative power acting by virtue of epresentation, is no principle in the ritish conftitution; and that the words irtual representation either have no meanag at all, or mean much more than hofe who use them would be willing to dmit, proceeds to confider the claim of he Americans as founded upon their harters. When they are fhewn, fays de, that these charters are no other than what are given to every common corporation and trading company, then they ceafe to be charters, and become, all at ence, compacts: they pretend to have taken fhelter in a diftant country from the tyranny of prerogative, yet they made what they now call their compacts with a James or a Charles. How must the fhades of Sidney and Locke exclaim, to hear Englishmen who pretend to read and admire their writings, confefs that they had entered into a compact, or, as thefe patriots would call it, a conspiracy, with a king, to obtain a difpenfation from the laws of the land, and the authority of parliament! The whole fovereign power could not enter into any indefeable compact of that fort. Waving reas Soning, however, he has recourse to fact. There never was, he says, a more folemn compact than that which was made by the union of England and Scotland; in this compact, there was an article that gase the British parliament as abfolute an authority in the affairs of the united kingdoms, as the feveral parliaments had in thofe kingdoms when feparate. To this uncontrollable power was intrusted the guardianship of the other articles, and the fole right of explaining their meaning.

In the year 1725, an act passed in the British parliament, for extending the malt-tax to Scotland, where a malt-tax was as new as a ftamp-tax was three years ago in America. This innovation

had been objected to on a former occafion by many of the Scotch, who declared it a breach of the article of the Union. It was answered, that the tax propofed was within the fpirit of thofe articles, and whether it was or not, could only be determined by the majority of both houfes, with his Majesty's concurrence. It was accordingly voted a legal, as well as an expedient mode of taxation.

Many people in Scotland, however, still declared the tax to be illegal, and wore they would never pay it. When the officers attempted to levy it, they beat them away, pulling down the houfes, destroying the furniture, and threatening the lives of fuch of their countrymen as had concurred in paffing the act. What, fays this author, would our American friends have advised government to do in this cafe? To repeal the act be caufe a Scotch mob pronounced it illegal? or to try by letters in the Gazetteer to convince them they were in the wrong? Government acted more worthy of itself: A few companies of fool and troops of dragoons were fent to Glasgow, where the standard of Liberty was fet up, with a fenfible and fpirited officer at their head, who foon brought the mistaken reasoners to a better understanding *.

This the gentlemen of America will fay is club law. I will not difpute it. They may call it by what name they pleafe, but there never was a question of fupremacy decided by any other fort of law. Those who try to feparate law from force, attempt impiously to put thole afunder whom God has been pleased to join: and as the reasonings of fuch men are never correfpondent to any facts that have gone before; fo are their own actions never correspondent to their reasonings. Is it to argument, or club law, to which the refpectable populace of Boston and Rhode-ifland trust the justice of their caufe? Is it argument, to demolish the houses, or destroy the goods of thofe who differ from them in opinion? or is it argument, to carry them to the tree of Liberty, and there oblige them to take God to witness to fentiments not their own, for fear of being immediately put to death? Thefe are outrages which none but the most ignorant and diflempered imaginations could ever dread from any kind of established government, and yet are committed by thofe, who, in the

[The jurifdiction-act, paffed in 1747, [ix. Index], is perhaps still more in point.)