Wesley Corpus

“And the most flagrant injustice and cruelty may be practised without remorse or pity.” (Page 20.) This is purely calculated to inflame; for no such injustice or cruelty was ever practised, nor was ever likely to be, either in this or any other province of America. That which follows is a curious sentiment indeed; I know not that ever I met with it before: “The government of one country over another” (suppose of England over North-America, or over the West Indian islands) “cannot be supported but by a military force. This is a state of oppression no country could submit to, an hour, without an armed force to compel them.” (Page 23.) Was ever anything more palpably false ! The English Govern ment, both in the islands and North-America, is the government of one country over another; but it has needed no armed force to support it for above these hundred years: And this Government which you would persuade them is oppressive, all the colonies did not only submit to, but rejoice in, without any armed force to compel them. They knew, and felt, they were not oppressed; but enjoyed all the liberty, civil and religious, which they could desire. 38. We come now to more matter entirely new : “No country can lawfully surrender their liberty, by giving up the power of legislating for themselves, to any extraneous jurisdiction; such a cession, being inconsistent with the unalienable rights of human nature, would either not bind at all, or bind only the individuals that made it.” (Page 25.) This is a home thrust. If this be so, all the English claim either to Ireland, Scotland, or America, falls at once. But can we admit this without any proof? Ought assertions to pass for arguments? If they will, here are more of the same kind: “No one generation can give up this for another.” That is, the English settlers in America could not “give up their power of legislating for themselves.” True, they could not give up what they never had. But they never had, either before or after they left England, any such power of making laws for themselves as exempted them from the King and Parliament; they never pretended to any such power till now; they never advanced any such claim; nay, when this was laid to their charge, they vehemently denied it, as an absolute slander.