o grant to
the crown, and, indeed, had constantly done so; and he himself was
specially instructed by the Assembly of his own State to assure the
ministry that, as they always had done, so they should always think it
their duty to grant such aids to the crown as were suitable to their
circumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for the purpose in a
constitutional manner; and that instruction he had communicated to the
ministry. But the Colonies objected to Parliament laying on them such a
tax as that imposed by the Stamp Act. Some duties, they admitted, the
Parliament had a right to impose, but he drew a distinction between
"those duties which were meant to regulate commerce and internal taxes."
The authority of Parliament to regulate commerce had never been disputed
by the Colonists. The sea belonged to Britain. She maintained by her
fleets the safety of navigation on it; she kept it clear of pirates; she
might, therefore, have a natural and equitable right to some toll or
duty, on merchandise carried through that part of her dominions, toward
defraying the expenses she was at in ships to maintain the safety of
that carriage. But the case of imposition of internal taxes was wholly
different from this. The Colonists held that, by the charters which at
different times had been granted to the different States, they were
entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen. They found
in the Great Charters, and the Petition and Declarations of Right, that
one of the privileges of English subjects is that they are not to be
taxed but by their common consent; and these rights and privileges had
been confirmed by the charters which at different times had been granted
to the different States. In reply to a question put to him, he allowed
that in the Pennsylvania charter there was a clause by which the King
granted that he would levy no taxes on the inhabitants unless it were
with the consent of the Colonial Assembly, or by an act of Parliament;
words which certainly seemed to reserve a right of taxation to the
British Parliament; but he also demonstrated that, in point of fact, the
latter part of the clause had never been acted on, and the Colonists
had, therefore, relied on it, from the first settlement of the province,
that the Parliament never would nor could, by the color of that clause
in the charter, assume a right of taxing them till it had qualified
itself to exercise such right by admitting representatives f