n was the proposition that there should be no
taxation without representation; upon which principle it was necessary
to observe only that many individuals in England, such as copyholders
and leaseholders, and many communities, such as Manchester and
Birmingham, were taxed in Parliament without being represented there. If
Americans quoted you "Lock, Sidney, Selden, and many other great names
to prove that every Englishman ... is still represented in Parliament,"
he would only ask why, since Englishmen are all represented in
Parliament, are not all Americans represented in exactly the same way?
Either Manchester is not represented or Massachusetts is. "Are Americans
not British subjects? Are they not Englishmen? Or are they only
Englishmen when they solicit protection, but not Englishmen when taxes
are required to enable this country to protect them?" Americans said
they had Assemblies of their own to tax them, which was a privilege
granted them by charter, without which "that liberty which every
Englishman has a right to is torn from them, they are all slaves, and
all is lost." Colonial charters were, however, "undoubtedly no more than
those of all corporations, which empower them to make bye-laws." As for
"liberty," the word had so many meanings," having within a few years
been used as a synonymous term for Blasphemy, Bawdy, Treason, Libels,
Strong Beer, and Cyder," that Mr. Jenyns could not presume to say what
it meant.

Against the expediency of the taxes, Mr. Jenyns found that two
objections had been raised: that the time was improper and the manner
wrong as to the manner, the colonies themselves had in a way prescribed
it, since they had not been able at the request of ministers to suggest
any other. The time Mr. Jenyns thought most propitious, a point upon
which he grew warm and almost serious.

"Can any time be more proper to require some assistance from our
colonies, to preserve to themselves their present safety, than when this
country is almost undone by procuring it? Can any time be more proper to
impose some tax upon their trade, than when they are enabled to rival us
in their manufactures by the encouragement and protection which we
have given them? Can any time be more proper to oblige them to settle
handsome incomes on their governors, than when we find them unable to
procure a subsistence on any other terms than those of breaking all
their instructions, and betraying the rights of their Sovereign?... Can