passed in the sixth year of his reign, entitled "an act
[Act declaring the right of Parliament over the colonies.]

'And one other act passed in the seventh year of his reign, entitled an
act [ Act for granting duties on paper, tea, &c.

'Form that connected chain of parliamentary usurpation, which has
already been the subject of frequent applications to his Majesty, and
the Houses of Lords and Commons of Great Britain; and, no answers having
yet been condescended to any of these, we shall not trouble his Majesty
with a repetition of the matters they contained.

'But that one other act passed in the same seventh year of his reign,
having been a peculiar attempt, must ever require peculiar mention. It
is entitled "an act [Act suspending Legislature of New York.]

'One free and independent legislature hereby takes upon itself to
suspend the powers of another, free and independent as itself. Thus
exhibiting a phenomenon unknown in nature, the creator and creature of
its own power. Not only the principles of common sense, but the common
feelings of human nature must be surrendered up, before his Majesty's
subjects here can be persuaded to believe, that they hold their
political existence at the will of a British Parliament. Shall these
governments be dissolved, their property annihilated, and their people
reduced to a state of nature, at the imperious breath of a body of men
whom they never saw, in whom they never confided, and over whom they
have no powers of punishment or removal, let their crimes against the
American public be ever so great? Can any one reason be assigned, why
one hundred and sixty thousand electors in the island of Great Britain
should give law to four millions in the states of America, every
individual of whom is equal to every individual of them in virtue, in
understanding, and in bodily strength? Were this to be admitted, instead
of being a free people, as we have hitherto supposed, and mean to
continue ourselves, we should suddenly be found the slaves, not of one,
but of one hundred and sixty thousand tyrants; distinguished, too, from
all others, by this singular circumstance, that they are removed from
the reach of fear, the only restraining motive which may hold the hand
of a tyrant.

'That, by "an act to discontinue in such manner, and for such time as
are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping
of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of