Wesley Corpus

No officer could seize the smuggled goods; or, if he did, no jury would condemn the smuggler. There was therefore no possibility that the King should have his right, without taking some such step as was taken. There was not any alternative, but either to give up the customs altogether, (as the evil was increasing more and more,) or to try the offenders here; so that still they had as much liberty as their notorious offences allowed. With what justice, then, can this be urged as a violation of their liberty “O!” cries the man in yon stone doublet, “Bondage 1 slavery ! Help, Englishmen? I am deprived of my liberty!” Certainly you are; but first you deprived the man of his purse. “What I Do you compare Mr. H. to a felon?” I do, in this respect: I compare every smuggler to a felon; a private smuggler to a sneaking felon, a pick-pocket; a noon-day smuggler, to a bold felon, a robber on the highway. And if a person of this undeniable character is made President of a Congress, I leave every man of sense to determine what is to be expected from them. 10. To return: As the colonies are free, with regard to their persons, so they are with regard to their goods. It is no objection that they pay out of them a tax, to which they did not previously consent. I am free; I use my money as I please, although I pay taxes out of it, which were fixed by law before I was born, and, consequently, without my consent; and indeed those taxes are so moderate, that neither they nor I have reason to complain. “But if the Parliament tax you moderately now, it is Possible they may, hereafter, tax you immoderately.” It is possible, but not probable; they never have done it yet: When they do, then complain. We are not talking of what may be, but what is; and it cannot be denied, they are free (which is the present question) in all the three particulars which Judge Blackstone includes in civil liberty. 11. But liberty will not content either them or you. You now openly plead for independency, and aver that the colonies ought to be independent on England, to assert their own supremacy, (1.) Because they are half as many as the Fnglish.