Wesley Corpus

A Calm Address to Our American Colonies Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 11 (Zondervan) Author: John Wesley --- I was of a different judgment on this head, till I read a tract entitled, “Taxation no Tyranny.” But as soon as I received more light myself, I judged it my duty to impart it to others. I therefore extracted the chief arguments from that treatise, and added an application to those whom it most concerns. I was well aware of the treatment this would bring upon myself; but let it be, so I may in any degree serve my King and country. A late tract, wrote in answer to this, is wrote in just such a spirit as I expected. It is strewed over with such flowers as these: “Contemptible sophistry ! Fallacious to the last degree Childish quirks! Pitiful sophisms 1” with strong assertions, repeated over and over, and with florid quotations. But all the arguments which are produced therein, may be contained in a nut-shell. The writert asserts twenty times, “He that is taxed without * Thus translated by Pitt: “O check your wrath, my sons; the nations spare ; And save your country from the woes of war; Nor in her sacred breast, with rage abhorr'd, So fiercely plunge her own victorious sword ' "-EDIT. + Or writers. For I am informed by a correspondent in Bristol, that this letter was wrote by two Anabaptist Ministers, assisted by a gentleman and a tradesman of the Church of England. his own consent, that is, without being represented, is a slave.” I answer, No; I have no representative in Parlia ment; but I am taxed; yet I am no slave. Yea, nine in ten throughout England have no representative, no vote; yet they are no slaves; they enjoy both civil and religious liberty to the utmost extent. He replies, “But they may have votes if they will; they may purchase freeholds.” What! Can every man in England purchase a freehold? No, not one in an hundred. But, be that as it may, they have no vote now; yet they are no slaves, they are the freest men in the whole world. “Who then is a slave?” Look into America, and you may easily see. See that Negro, fainting under the load, bleeding under the lash ! He is a slave.