Wesley Corpus

4. But you say, you “are entitled to life, liberty, and property by nature; and that you have never ceded to any sovereign power the right to dispose of these without your consent.” While you speak as the naked sons of nature, this is certainly true. But you presently declare, “Our ancestors, at the time they settled these colonies, were entitled to all the rights of natural-born subjects within the realm of England.” This likewise is true; but when this is granted, the boast of original rights is at an end. You are no longer in a state of nature, but sink down into colonists, governed by a charter. Tf your ancestors were subjects, they acknowledged a Sovereign; if they had a right to English privileges, they were accountable to English laws, and had ceded to the King and Parliament the power of disposing, without their consent, of both their lives, liberties, and properties. And did the Parliament cede to them a dispensation from the obedience which they owe as natural subjects? or any degree of inde Pendence, not enjoyed by other Englishmen? 5. “They did not” indeed, as you observe, “by emigra tion forfeit any of those privileges; but they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to all such as their circum stances enable them to enjoy.” That they who form a colony by a lawful charter, forfeit no privilege thereby, is certain. But what they do not forfeit by any judicial sentence, they may lose by natural effects. When a man voluntarily comes into America, he may lose what he had when in Europe. Perhaps he had a right to vote for a knight or burgess; by crossing the sea he did not forfeit this right. But it is plain, he has made the exercise of it no longer possible. He has reduced himself from a voter to one of the innumerable multitude that have no votes. 6. But you say, “As the colonies are not represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free power of legislation. For they inherit all the right which their ancestors had of enjoying all the privileges of Englishmen.” They do inherit all the privileges which their ancestors had; but they can inherit no more.