AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 21

the sole enjoyment of their trade was a tax in itself more in proportion than all that were levied on the people of Britain.

The right of taxing them, without their being re- presented in the British Parliament, they denied, as resolutely as their ancestors did the payment of ship money to Charles 1.; while they claimed also the privilege of being represented, as their undoubted birthright.

Ministers expressed astonishment on hearing such language from the colonists, and charged them with ingratitude and disloyalty, and with being solicitous only to profit by the generosity of the mother country. The Americans repelled this unfounded charge with indignation. They gloried in calling Britain their mother country ; they never disgraced the title ; they always obeyed her just and lawful commands ; and they submitted to heavy burdens to ease her. During the last war, they raised twenty thousand men, and maintained them at their own expense ; and they fit- ted out the expedition that took Louisburg in 17 4:5. Antecedent to which, they supplied the British expe- ditions, against Spanish America, with several thou- sands of their best men, and exerted themselves with equal bravery against the French in North America.

They assured the king in their petition, that, not- withstanding their sufferings, they retained too high a regard for the kingdom from which they derived their origin, to request any thing that might be inconsistent With its dignity or welfare. “ These,” said they, “ related as we are to her, honour and duty,