CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

       1775 - 1779

      DXCVIII: AN ACCOUNT OF NEGOTIATIONS IN LONDON FOR EFFECTING A RECONCILIATION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN COLONIES (Continued.)

      The 9th article was so drawn, in compliance with an idea of Dr. Fothergill’s, started at our first meeting, viz., that government here would probably not be satisfied with the promise of voluntary grants in time of war from the Assemblies, of which the quantity must be uncertain; that, therefore, it would be best to proportion them in some way to the shillings in the pound raised in England; but how such proportion could be ascertained he was at a loss to contrive. I was desired to consider it. It has been said, too, that Parliament was become jealous of the right claimed and heretofore used by the crown, of raising money in the colonies without parliamentary consent; and, therefore, since we would not pay parliamentary taxes, future requisitions must be made with consent of Parliament, and not otherwise. I wondered that the crown should be willing to give up that separate right, but had no objection to its limiting itself, if it thought proper; so I drew the article accordingly, and contrived to proportion the aid by the tax of the last year of peace. And since it was thought that the method I should have liked best would never be agreed to, viz., a Continental Congress to be called by the crown, for answering requisitions and proportioning aids, I chose to leave room for voluntary additions by the separate Assemblies, that the crown might have some motive for calling them together, and cultivating their goodwill, and they have some satisfaction in showing their loyalty and their zeal in the common cause, and an opportunity of manifesting their disapprobation of a war, if they did not think it a just one. This article therefore met with no objection from them; and I had another reason for liking it, viz., that the view of the proportion to be given in time of war might make us the more frugal in time of peace.

      For the 10th article, I urged the injustice of seizing that fortress (which had been built at an immense charge by the province, for the defence of their port against national enemies), and turning it into a citadel for awing the town, restraining their trade, blocking up their port, and depriving them of their privileges. That a great deal had been said of their injustice in destroying the tea; but here was a much greater injustice uncompensated, that castle having cost the province three hundred thousand pounds. And that such a use made of a fortress they had built would not only effectually discourage every colony from ever building another, and thereby leave them more exposed to foreign enemies, but was a good reason for their insisting that the crown should never erect any hereafter in their limits, without the consent of the legislature. The gentlemen had not much to say against this article, but thought it would hardly be admitted.

      The 11th article, it was thought, would be strongly objected to; that it would be urged the old colonists could have nothing to do with the affairs of Canada, whatever we had with those of the Massachusetts; that it would be considered as an officious meddling merely to disturb government; and that some even of the Massachusetts acts were thought by administration to be improvements of that government, viz., those altering the appointment of counsellors, the choice of jurymen, and the forbidding of town meetings. I replied, that we having assisted in the conquest of Canada, at a great expense of blood and treasure, we had some right to be considered in the settlement of it. That the establishing an arbitrary government on the back of our settlements might be dangerous to us all; and that, loving liberty ourselves, we wished it to be extended among mankind, and to have no foundation for future slavery laid in America. That, as to amending the Massachusetts government, though it might be shown that every one of these pretended amendments were real mischiefs, yet that charters being compacts between two parties, the king and the people, no alteration could be made in them, even for the better, but by the consent of both parties. That the Parliament’s claim and exercise of a power to alter our charters, which had