nce
to beggary. Men who had spent their lives in extending the British
commerce, who had invested in that place, the wealth their honest
endeavors had merited, found themselves and their families, thrown at
once on the world, for subsistence by its charities. Not the hundredth
part of the inhabitants of that town had been concerned in the act
complained of; many of them were in Great Britain, and in other parts
beyond sea; yet all were involved in one indiscriminate ruin, by a new
executive power, unheard of till then, that of a British Parliament.
A property of the value of many millions of money was sacrificed
to revenge, not to repay, the loss of a few thousands. This is
administering justice with a heavy hand indeed! And when is this tempest
to be arrested in its course? Two wharves are to be opened again when
his Majesty shall think proper: the residue which lined the extensive
shores of the bay of Boston, are for ever interdicted the exercise of
commerce. This little exception seems to have been thrown in for no
other purpose, than that of setting a precedent for investing his
Majesty with legislative powers. If the pulse of his people shall beat
calmly under this experiment, another and another will be tried, till
the measure of despotism be filled up. It would be an insult on common
sense, to pretend that this exception was made in order to restore its
commerce to that great town. The trade which cannot be received at two
wharves alone, must of necessity be transferred to some other place; to
which it will soon be followed by that of the two wharves. Considered
in this light, it would be an insolent and cruel mockery at the
annihilation of the town of Boston. By the act for the suppression of
riots and tumults in the town of Boston, [14 G.3.] passed also in
the last session of Parliament, a murder committed there, is, if the
Governor pleases, to be tried in the court of King's Bench, in the
island of Great Britain, by a jury of Middlesex. The witnesses, too, on
receipt of such a sum as the Governor shall think it reasonable for them
to expend, are to enter into recognisance to appear at the trial. This
is, in other words, taxing them to the amount of their recognisance; and
that amount may be whatever a Governor pleases. For who does his Majesty
think can be prevailed on to cross the Atlantic, for the sole purpose
of bearing evidence to a fact? His expenses are to be borne, indeed, as
they shall be estimated by a