Britain's Happiness, and the Proper Improvement

                            of it



                           (1759)







                     Britain's Happiness, 

                            and 

                  the proper improvement of it, 

                       represented in a 

                          sermon, 

                          preach'd 

                at Newington-Green, Middlesex, 

                      on Nov. 29. 1759. 

                 Being the Day appointed for a 

                    General Thanksgiving.



                        Psal. cxlvii. 20. 

    He hath not dealt so with any nation: And as for his judgments, 

           they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.



This psalm contains a warm exhortation, addressed to the Jewish people, to 

praise God for the blessings and benefits which he had conferred upon them.



Praise the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, and praise is 

comely.



Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath 

strengthened the bars of thy gates.



He hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders and 

filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, 

his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any 

nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the 

Lord.



The whole of this passage is applicable, with great propriety, to this 

Kingdom on the present occasion. We have like reasons for joy and 

thanksgiving, and may now take up these words and say: Praise thy God, Oh 

Britain! For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. He hath blessed thy 

children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders and filleth thee with 

the finest of the wheat. He hath shewed his word unto thee, his statutes and 

his judgments. He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as for his 

judgments they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.



My present design is (I) to shew you how happily we are distinguished as a 

nation, and (II) what effects the consideration of our peculiar happiness 

ought to have upon us.



In speaking on the former of these heads, the circumstance I shall first 

mention is our situation as an island, by which our internal peace and 

tranquillity are secured.



Nothing can be more affecting than to think of the dismal state of many of 

the countries about us, where the noise and tumults of war fill every ear, 

where powerful armies march in dreadful pomp spreading devastation around 

them, and numberless innocent persons are driven from their houses and 

families and all that is dear to them. In those countries garments are 

continually rolled in blood, and none can enjoy any thing in comfort or 

security. They live in perpetual terror. They plant vineyards without 

knowing who shall eat the fruit thereof. They carry seed into the field, 

without knowing who shall gather in the harvest, and their wives and their 

children and themselves often fall a prey to relentless insult and cruelty.



But we are exempted from all these miseries. We can sit every man under his 

own vine and under his fig-tree, and no one maketh us afraid. As long as we 

agree among ourselves, it is scarcely possible that we should become the 

seat of war. The ocean is our wall of defense, which guards us on all 

sides, and cuts off our communication with the neighbouring nations, so that 

no hostile feet or destroying armies can easily alarm our borders. We live 

in the quiet and full possession of all our properties and blessings, 

without being in any danger from the inroads of enemies or the depredations 

of lawless savages. We hear indeed of the dreadful calamities and 

desolations of war, but we only hear of them. We neither feel nor see them. 

And so little is the difference between the state of most of us now, and 

what it was before the commencement of war, that, was it not for the 

accounts we read and the reports conveyed to us, we should scarcely know 

that we are engaged in war. 



How great a privilege is this? How distinguishingly happy are we to possess 

thus, among contending nations and in the midst of desolation and 

bloodshed, tranquillity and security and almost all the enjoyments and 

sweets of peace? 



Secondly. Another part of our peculiar happiness, as a nation, is the 

plenty and opulence we enjoy. God has given us the appointed weeks of 

harvest. He has satisfied our poor with bread, and crowned our seasons with 

his goodness. We want nothing that can contribute to make us easy and happy. 

All the conveniences and even the elegancies of life are poured upon us in 

the greatest profusion. Such plenty have we, that we help to feed and cloath 

other nations. Such is our opulence, that there is not a kingdom upon earth 

which can in this respect be compared with us. Notwithstanding all the 

drains of war, we feel no very sensible scarcity of any kind. Our wealth 

increases continually; and it may be questioned whether any nation ever 

raised, with so much ease, such large expences as have been laid out by this 

nation in the present war. Our commerce is extended from one end of the 

earth to the other. Our naval force is unrivaled. Our enemies dare not shew 

themselves before our fleets; and we are acknowledged by all the world as 

the sovereigns of the sea.



But there is a still higher instance of our distinguished happiness to be 

mentioned; I mean the LIBERTY we are blessed with. There is no country where 

this is enjoyed in such extent and perfection. The greatest part of the rest 

of mankind are slaves. They are subject to arbitrary and insolent masters, 

who say to them bow down before us that we may go over you, and who have 

their properties and lives entirely at their mercy. How melancholy a 

situation must this be; and how disgraceful to human nature is it, that men 

should be capable of enduring such encroachments on their natural rights; or 

that, in so many countries, such slavish forms of government should take 

place, human beings descend, by hereditary right, like beasts, from one 

tyrant to another, and the will of, perhaps, the most silly and contemptible 

creature in a nation, be established as its supreme guide and law?



But our case is totally different. While other nations groan under slavery, 

we rejoyce in the possession of liberty and independency. Our rights and 

properties are, in general, secured to us beyond the possibility of 

violation. Every man among us can enjoy the fruits of his industry without 

restraint or disturbance. We can have no burdens laid upon us without our 

own consent, and the laws by which we are governed are not such as a 

senseless tyrant may please to appoint, but such as we ourselves by our 

representatives concur in making. The meanest of our fellow-subjects cannot 

have the least injury done him without being able to find redress. No life 

can be taken away, or any punishment inflicted on any one, without a fair 

and equitable trial. The King himself has not power to touch the person, to 

seize any part of the property, or to make the smallest infringement on the 

liberty, of any one man in his dominions.



But our religious liberty is the crown of all our national advantages. 

There are other nations who enjoy civil liberty as well as we, tho' perhaps 

not so completely. But with respect to religious liberty we are almost 

singular and unparalleled.



In other countries not only the lives and fortune, but the souls and 

consciences of men are subject to the absolute will of their governors. In 

those countries a person dare not speak his mind about religious matters, or 

avow any opinions different from those commonly received, without exposing 

himself to the greatest dangers. Nothing, surely, can be more dismal than 

for men to have their minds thus shackled, to be obliged to receive without 

examination the decisions of ignorant pretenders to spiritual authority, or 

to be deprived of a liberty which is the very last thing a wise man would 

consent to part with, I mean, that of worshiping God according to his 

conscience, and of professing those principles of religion, which he thinks, 

come nearest to the simplicity of me Gospel.



If it is a disgrace to human nature, as I have observed before, that men 

should be capable of enduring civil slavery, how much more ignominious and 

dastardly is it to suffer themselves to be inslaved in religious matters, 

or to follow blindly the direction of earthly masters in things that concern 

their everlasting salvation?



But we, Brethren, are unspeakably happier. We see the shameful folly of 

this. The principles of liberty have been thoroughly explained and are now 

generally understood and embraced among us. We well know that Christ is the 

only law-giver of Christians, that mere can be no such thing as human 

authority in religious matters, and that the office of the magistrate is not 

to interpose in any religious differences, but to keep the peace, to secure 

the civil rights of men, and to protect and encourage all good subjects of 

all sects and persuasions. In mis nation every one may judge for himself, 

and act agreeably to his judgment, without molestation or fear. A free and 

publick discussion is allowed of all points, even such as in other nations 

it would be imprisonment or death to discover any doubts about. All sects 

enjoy the benefit of toleration, and may worship God in whatever way they 

think most acceptable to him; and nothing exposes any person to civil 

penalties or censures, but overt acts inconsistent with the peace and 

security of society. The researches of learned men among us have been pushed 

farther than ever they were in any nation. An absolute and unbounded scope 

is given to enquiries of all kinds; and the consequence of this has been, 

that the greatest improvements have been made in all the sciences, and that 

we are now become the Fountain-head of knowledge, and the Instructors of the 

world.



Religious knowledge, I think, in particular owes more to us that [than?] to 

all the world besides. It would be wonderful indeed if it did not, 

considering our distinctions in other respects. Christianity has been 

cleared among us of a great deal of that shocking rubbish, which has been 

thrown upon it by Popery. And, perhaps, there never was a time, since that 

of the Apostles, in which the nature and design of the Gospel were so well 

understood, and its evidences and excellency so well explained, as in the 

present age and kingdom.



Blessed are our eyes, for they see, while those of others are shut. Blessed 

are our minds, for they are free, while those of others are fettered and 

enslaved. Here light and knowledge prevail, and from hence the arts and 

sciences diffuse their influence, and are propagated to the nations around 

us. In this Island peace and liberty have fixed their abode, and from hence 

superstition, persecution, and slavery are fled, while in other nations they 

still remain to confound and terrify and oppress the souls of men.



How is it possible to reflect on these things without joy and exultation? 

How happy is it for us that our lot has been cast in such a land? A land 

favoured with so many invaluable privileges and advantages. A land where, 

peace, plenty, knowledge and liberty abound and flourish. A land which has 

the best constitution of government, the best laws, the best king and the 

best religion in the world.



To this account of our happiness I shall add once more, that we have among 

us many persons of characters eminent for virtue and piety founded upon 

rational principles. I wish however I had more to say on this head. It must 

be acknowledged that our improvements in goodness have by no means been 

proportionable to those which we have made in other respects. But tho' this 

is true; yet, without doubt, there are in this kingdom many truly worthy and 

good men; and were they to be collected together from the different 

persuasions of Christians among us, they would, whatever they might be in 

comparison with the rest of the nation, appear, I imagine, a great 

multitude. These are, indeed, the flowers of the nation. They are the cause 

of all its happiness and its chief glory. Were these taken away, its whole 

beauty would be destroyed, its prosperity would be blasted, and immediate 

ruin would overtake it. That we have then any considerable number of these 

in the nation must be matter of great consolation to us, and it ought to be 

our whole study and business to add to this number by at least adding 

ourselves to it.



To say no more here. One branch of virtue at least there is which shines 

with peculiar lustre among us. Our charities exceed all that ever was known 

in any kingdom. And tho' there is among us a prodigious rabble of loose and 

irreligious persons, yet I cannot but hope and presume, that there is not a 

spot on earth of equal size which has an equal number of good persons in it, 

or where there are so many who understand so well what true religion is, and 

who so uniformly and steddily practise it.



What I have hitherto said, contains chiefly an account of such particulars 

of our happiness as constitute what seems to be our permanent and settled 

state as a nation, and what has been its state for a course of many years.



But there are some particulars to be added which relate peculiarly to the 

present time, and which, on this occasion, it would be inexcusable not to 

remember. During the course of this year, this happy and memorable year, 

you all know what occasions of joy we have met with, and what additions have 

been made to our glory.



The tumults of party seem to be laid asleep among us; and God grant they 

may never wake more. Scarcely one murmur is there to be heard any where. Our 

counsels have been wise, our measures vigorous and our enterprizes 

successful. Our Navy and our Army have gained the highest honour by their 

unanimity and bravery. Our enemies have been taught to fear and to feel our 

superiority. They have fled before us every where. They have been conquered 

by sea and by land, and in all the quarters of the world. Their towns, 

their ships and their fortresses have been delivered up into our hands; and 

we now appear among the nations great, rich, prosperous and formidable, 

whilst they appear mean and wretched, and are impoverished, distracted and 

confounded. With the utmost propriety, therefore, may we on this joyful day 

adopt the words of my text, and say: Surely God hath not dealt so with any 

nation.



One circumstance, indeed, there is, relating to our late successes and 

victories, which cannot but deeply affect our minds. They have cost us some 

of the best blood that was ever shed. When we think of those brave men who 

have sacrificed their lives in our defence, all the springs of grateful 

anguish must be opened within us, and it becomes almost impossible to avoid 

mingling tears with the joy of this day. But, my Brethren and Countrymen, 

amidst the concern we must feel on this account, let us remember how 

gloriously they have fallen, and that they are more the objects of envy than 

lamentation. Their example, we may expect, will kindle courage in others, 

and their spirit be transfused into thousands who will emulate their virtues 

and aspire to their glory. There ought not indeed to be one person in this 

nation, whose heart does not glow with this emulation, and who does not 

earnestly wish, that he could die the same death, and that his latter end 

might be like theirs. How much better is it to expire thus in a blaze of 

glory earned by virtue, and to go down to the grave followed by the 

acclamations and the tears of a nation, than to drag a worthless life 

beneath universal contempt and infamy?



Having now represented to you our happiness as a nation, it is proper that 

I should next endeavour to shew you what improvement we ought to make of it, 

or what effects the consideration of it should have upon us.



In the first place, it must be very obvious that we ought to be thankful 

for our happiness. We ought to have a deep sense of it upon our hearts, and 

to praise God for assigning us our passage thro' life in such a country, and 

blessing it with so many mercies and advantages.



'Tis to God we owe all that makes us happy. 'Tis he that bringeth down one 

nation, and that exalteth another. 'Tis from him that all the distinctions 

among the communities, as well as the individuals of mankind, are derived. 

All events are subject to his superintendency, and he doeth whatsoever he 

pleaseth in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. We 

ought therefore, in all circumstances, to acknowledge and adore his hand. We 

ought to ascribe all our successes to his goodness, and, with grateful 

hearts, to direct our regards to his providence, and to fix our dependence 

upon his favour, as the original sources of all prosperity and bliss. So 

distinguishing and invaluable are our national privileges, that it is not 

possible for us to be thankful enough for them; and miserably base and 

disingenuous would it be in us to discover in such happy circumstances no 

thankful emotions, or, amidst such a profusion of blessings, to forget and 

neglect the supreme Author of all blessings. There are, I believe, many 

among us who are capable of this detestable impiety and profaneness; and it 

cannot but give every good man great pain to think of their characters; or 

to observe that inattention to providence, and that readiness to ascribe all 

our advantages to our own merit, without any thought of the Deity, which 

prevail among us. It is with the greatest pleasure that I can observe to you 

here, that we have had a better example set us from the throne, which has 

been since followed in both houses of Parliament. May the influence of so 

noble an example extend itself every where, and be communicated to every 

heart in the nation. There are indeed, in the successes we have lately met 

with, so many appearances of a providential disposal of things in our 

favour, as one would think sufficient to kindle devotion in the coldest 

breast, and to extort acknowledgement and praise from the most blind and 

atheistical. In all events we ought to look higher than second causes, but 

in cases, where the fate of nations is concerned, to ascribe events (of so 

striking a kind especially as those we this day celebrate) to human agency 

merely, would show an insensibility and ignorance of the most shocking 

nature. Let us study carefully to avoid such guilt; and, while we honour and 

admire the instruments of our happiness, let us remember that they are no 

more than the instruments of it, and that our thoughts ought always to be 

directed primarily and chiefly to that Almighty Being who is the cause of 

all causes, the ruler of all events, and the giver of every good and perfect 

gift.



The antient heathens thought they did the greatest honour to their Heroes 

and Warriors, when they represented them as favoured of heaven, and indebted 

to superior power for their successes.



The Psalmist, after mentioning in my text the peculiar happiness of the 

Jewish nation, adds immediately, Praise ye the Lord. No exhortation could be 

more properly added. We have as much reason to praise the Lord as the Jews 

had. We seem to be, as they were, his peculiar and favourite people; and 

nothing can be more fit than that, with joy and triumph, we should magnify 

his holy name.



Secondly, the peculiar happiness we enjoy ought to lead us to the general 

practise of virtue and religion. This, above all things, ought to be the 

effect of God's goodness to us. The unspeakable riches of his forbearance 

and love should engage us to amend our evil ways, and to fear and obey him. 

We shall shew the most shameful perverseness, if we convert the benefits he 

heaps upon us into instruments of rebellion against him, or make the plenty 

and the liberty with which he distinguishes us, the occasions of luxury and 

licentiousness.



We are now, God be praised, a great, a free and powerful people. As far as 

we have among us any principles of true ingenuity, the consideration of 

this will make us ambitious to shew ourselves worthy of our advantages by 

our integrity, humanity, and piety. The continuance of our happiness depends 

entirely on the practise of righteousness among us. It is this alone that 

exalteth a nation, and that can maintain its dignity and superiority. If our 

remarkable successes produce no other effect than to increase irreligion 

among us, or to make us more proud and wanton, and mad after pleasure; then 

may we well fear, that our glory will be soon laid in the dust, and our 

enemies, now under our feet, raised up to humble and chastise us. Let then 

every one of us labour to the greatest extent of his power to practise 

virtue himself, and to promote it in others. Thus shall we be the means of 

strengthening in the best manner the foundations of our public happiness, 

and do the greatest service to our country. Nothing need give us the least 

pain about this kingdom, except the vice and irreligion which prevail in it. 

Every vicious man is a canker at the root of our happiness, and a curse to 

his country. Sin, without doubt, is the worst enemy a nation can have; and 

our sins are peculiarly aggravated by being committed in a land blest with 

such light as ours enjoys. But, yet, we find that heaven smiles upon us, and 

that we are happy beyond example. What then should we be, and how should we 

be favoured, did publick virtue prevail among us in proportion to our 

successes and advantages?



Thirdly, a sense of our peculiar happiness ought to engage us to endeavour 

to establish and improve it. After advancing so far, it will be inexcusable 

to stop short, or to neglect doing our utmost to push things to that point 

of perfection which we have brought so nearly within our reach. Our glory is 

great. How ambitious should we be to place it above all danger, and to wipe 

off from it every stain? Is it not too sadly notorious, and has it not been 

often lamented by the wisest and best men amongst us, that, in our 

constitution, both civil and ecclesiastical, there are many particulars, 

which greatly want amendment, and some of which are inconsistent with that 

liberty, which is the chief subject of our boast and triumph, and really a 

scandal to a great and wise people?



It would be very easy to give a particular recital of these, and to mention 

many alterations and amendments, which would make us greater and happier. 

What an addition, for instance, to our strength and riches would be produced 

by encouraging foreign Protestants to settle among us? What a dreadful load 

of prevarication and perjury, which overwhelms the integrity, and destroys 

the souls of multitudes about us, might be taken off by abolishing all 

useless tests and lessening the number of oaths? At the time that our 

present religious establishment was made, the nation was but just emerging 

from Popery. Is it possible then, that it should be entirely agreeable to 

the purity of the Christian doctrine and worship, or that it should want no 

review in order to secure its safety, and adapt it to a more improved and 

enlightened age?



But I will not enlarge here, lest I should offend any worthy men, and 

deviate into what would be inconsistent with the design of this day.



Were those alterations and amendments made effectually but willingly, which 

almost every body now sees to be necessary, and which, as generous 

sentiments spread, are daily growing more and more necessary; and were we 

likewise heartily to love one another amidst our religious differences, and 

to study above all things to imbibe the spirit and to obey the precepts of 

our holy religion, nothing would be wanting to raise us to the highest pitch 

of grandeur and prosperity, and to make us the pride and wonder of the 

earth.



In the mean time, however, it is, I think, our duty, as private men, to do 

what we can towards removing those offences which dishonour our country, by 

declaring our sentiments about them, on all proper occasions, with modesty 

and humility; by never complying in any instance contrary to our 

sentiments; and giving as far as possible, a publick testimony in favour of 

universal liberty and the simplicity of the Gospel. As long as wise men will 

not do this, or indulge timidity and indolence, it is certain, that 

corruptions must continue, and that no alterations or improvements can ever 

be expected. Had the primitive Christians, or the first reformers, acted 

thus, neither Christianity nor the reformation would ever have taken in the 

world.



Fourthly, the consideration of our unparalleled happiness should engage us 

to do every thing in our power, to preserve and defend it against all 

dangerous attacks. Who would not exert himself to the utmost in such a 

cause? Who would not sooner sacrifice every thing in the world than part 

with so much bliss? What shame ought to confound that man who, in such a 

country, can entertain one factious thought, or discover the least 

reluctance in contributing his part towards its support?



How do I wish that, on this occasion, I had a voice which could reach and 

penetrate the hearts of all my countrymen, that I might make them more 

deeply sensible of their unspeakable happiness, and convince them 

effectually that there never was a people, who had so much reason to shew 

themselves valiant; that I might inspire them with the most ardent gratitude 

to the Author of all good for their blessings, and engage them to pray 

continually for the peace of our Jerusalem, to forget private interest and 

party prejudices in zeal for virtue and their country, and to concur, as one 

man, in striving to exalt this nation to the highest, and to make it an 

example of all that is great and excellent!



We are engaged in a most important and decisive war. Upon the issue of it 

depends, in a great measure, all that is valuable to us, and the state of 

Europe, perhaps, for many ages to come. Let us, joyfully, give every aid 

possible towards making it successful, and towards humbling that cruel and 

faithless nation, which has so long been the plague of Europe, and in whose 

weakness our only security lies: Remembring that we have every thing to 

fight for, they nothing except their breaden God and their chains; and that 

the consequence of our being conquered by them would be our sinking into the 

lowest infamy, our becoming, what they are, ignoble and miserable slaves, 

and the prevalency once more among us of that religion which would crush all 

our liberties and privileges, which would teach us to cut one another's 

throats in order to do God service, and which is the shame and the scourge 

of mankind. Oh! frightful prospect! Can any British heart bear to view it 

with patience?



But, thanks be to God, there seems at present no danger of any such event. 

We are the bulwark of the Protestant interest in the world, and this is an 

interest which, we may hope, God will not forsake. We have been hitherto 

wonderfully prospered; and we have shewn our enemies what they may expect, 

if they go on to contend with us. This year will always shine among the 

brightest in our Annals. Never, never was Britain so glorious.



But, let us not be too much elated. The struggle is not yet over, and the 

issues of war are still uncertain. 'Tis possible that we may lose the 

advantages we have gained, and our joy and triumph be suddenly changed to 

misery and despair. Let us then rejoyce with trembling, and suppress 

carefully in ourselves all vain confidence, placing our chief trust in God, 

and discovering, in all events, that regard to the common welfare of mankind 

and those equitable, reasonable, and pious dispositions, which are the best 

proofs of true magnanimity, and the best means of securing the continuance 

of the divine protection.



Lastly, the account, which has been given of the happy state of this 

nation, may lead our thoughts to that time when the whole world shall enjoy 

the like happiness. The scriptures, I think, give us abundant reason to 

expect such a time; a time when Popish darkness and oppression shall be 

exceeded by universal peace and liberty, and nation no more lift up a sword 

against nation; when the everlasting Gospel in its native purity shall 

prevail thro' the whole earth, and the kingdoms of this world become the 

kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ.



The invention of printing followed by the reformation and the revival of 

Literature; the free communication which has been opened between the 

different parts of the world, and the late amazing improvements in 

knowledge of every kind, have remarkably prepared the way for this joyful 

period. The world is now advanced far beyond its infancy. There are many 

indications of an approaching general amendment in human affairs. The season 

fixed by prophecy for the destruction of the man of sin cannot be far 

distant, and the glorious light of the latter days seems to be now dawning 

upon mankind from this happy Island.



Nothing can be more pleasing than to indulge such views and hopes; and it 

should be a great encouragement to those who have espoused the principles 

of liberty, and who stand up against anti-christian usurpations and 

corruptions, to consider, that it is by such principles this period is 

likely to be introduced, and that, in the end, they must prevail over all 

opposition. This should engage them to adhere steddily to them under all 

difficulties, and to strive, by all the methods consistent with true wisdom 

and benevolence, to diffuse and propagate them, thro' the world. There have 

been many in this nation who have nobly distinguished themselves in this 

work, and may their names be had in everlasting remembrance and honour.





____________



                        Two Tracts



                          (1778)







                        Two Tracts 

                             on 

                        Civil Liberty, 

                   the War with America, 

                            and 

                 The Debts and Finances of 

                        the Kingdom: 

                            with 

                 A General Introduction and 

                        Supplement.







                 General Introduction



The first of the following tracts was published in the beginning of the year 

1776 and the second in the beginning of last year.



The principal design of the first part of the second tract was ... to remove 

the misapprehensions of my sentiments on civil liberty and government into 

which some had fallen. It gives me concern to find that it has not answered 

that end in the degree I wished. I am still charged with maintaining 

opinions which tend to subvert all civil authority. I paid little regard to 

this charge while it was confined to the advocates for the principles which 

have produced the present war; but as it seems lately to have been given the 

public from the authority of a writer of the first character, it is 

impossible I should not be impressed by it; and I find myself under a 

necessity of taking farther notice of it.



There are two accounts, directly opposite to one another, which have been 

given of the origin of civil government. One of them is that 'civil 

government is an expedient contrived by human prudence for gaining security 

against oppression, and that, consequently, the power of civil governors is 

a delegation or trust from the people for accomplishing this end'.



The other account is that 'civil government is an ordinance of the Deity, by 

which the body of mankind are given up to the will of a few, and, 

consequently, that it is a trust from the Deity, in the exercise of which 

civil governors are accountable only to him'.



The question 'which of these accounts we ought to receive' is important in 

the highest degree. There is no question which more deeply affects the 

happiness and dignity of man as a citizen of this world. If the former 

account is right, the people (that is, the body of independent agents in 

every community) are their own legislators. All civil authority is properly 

their authority. Civil governors are only public servants, and their power, 

being delegated, is by its nature limited. On the contrary, if the latter 

account is right the people have nothing to do with their own government. 

They are placed by their Maker in the situation of cattle on an estate, 

which the owner may dispose of as he pleases. Civil governors are a body of 

masters, constituted such by inherent rights, and their power is a 

commission from Heaven, unbounded in its extent and never to be resisted.



I have espoused, with some zeal, the first of these accounts; and in the 

following tracts endeavoured to explain and defend it. And this is all I 

have done to give countenance to the charge I have mentioned. Even the 

masterly writer who, after a croud of writers infinitely his inferiors, 

seems to have taken up this accusation against me, often expresses himself 

as if he had adopted the same idea of government. Such indeed is my opinion 

of his good sense, and such has been the zeal which he has discovered for 

the rights of mankind, that I think it scarcely possible his ideas and mine 

on this subject should be very different. His language, however, sometimes 

puzzles me, and particularly when he intimates that government is an 

institution of divine authority; when he scouts all discussions of the 

nature of civil liberty, the foundation of civil rights, and the principles 

of a free government; and when he asserts the competence of our legislature 

to revive the High-Commission Court and Star-Chamber, and its boundless 

authority not only over the people of Britain, but over distant communities 

who have no voice in it.



But whatever may be Mr. Burke's sentiments on this subject, he cannot 

possibly think of the former account of government that 'it is a speculation 

which destroys all authority'. Both accounts establish an authority. The 

difference is that one derives it from the people and makes it a limited 

authority; and the other derives it from heaven and makes it unlimited. I 

have repeatedly declared my admiration of such a constitution of government 

as our own would be, were the House of Commons a fair representation of the 

kingdom and under no undue influence. The sum of all I have meant to 

maintain is, 'that legitimate government as opposed to oppression and 

tyranny, consists in the dominion of equal laws made with common concent or 

of men over themselves and not in the dominion of communities over 

communities, or of any men over other men'. How then can it be pretended, 

that I have aimed at destroying all authority? Does our own constitution 

destroy all authority? Is the authority of equal laws made with common 

consent no authority? Must there be no government in a state that governs 

itself? Or, must an institution, contrived by the united counsels of the 

members of a community for restraining licentiousness and gaining security 

against injury and violence, encourage licentiousness and give to every one 

a power to commit what outrages he pleases?



The Archbishop of York [William Markham] (in a sermon preached before the 

Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 21 Feb. 1777) has taken 

notice of some loose opinions, as he calls them, which have been lately 

current on civil liberty; some who mean delinquency having given accounts of 

it 'by which every man's humour is made to be the rule of his obedience, all 

the bad passions are let loose, and those dear interests abandoned to 

outrage for the protection of which we trust in law'. It is not difficult to 

guess at one of the delinquents intended in these words. In opposition to 

the horrid sentiments of liberty which they describe, but which in reality 

no man in his senses ever entertained, the Archbishop defines it to be 

simply the supremacy of law, or government by law, without adding to 'law' 

as I had done, the words 'equal and made with common consent'; and without 

opposing a government by law to a government by men, as others had done. 

According to him, therefore, the supremacy of law must be liberty, whatever 

the law is, or whoever makes it. In despotic countries government by law is 

the same with government by the will of one man, which Hooker has called 

'the misery of all men'; but, according to this definition, it is liberty. 

In England formerly the law consigned to the flames all who denied certain 

established points of faith. Even now, it subjects to fines, imprisonment 

and banishment all teachers of religion who have not subscribed the 

doctrinal articles of the church of England; and the good Archbishop, not 

thinking the law in this case sufficiently rigorous, has proposed putting 

Protestant Dissenters under the same restraints with the Papists. And should 

mis be done, if done by law, it will be the establishment of liberty.



The truth is that a government by law, is or is not liberty, just as the 

laws are just or unjust; and as the body of the people do or do not 

participate in the power of making them. The learned prelate seems to have 

thought otherwise, and therefore has given a definition of liberty which 

might as well have been given of slavery.



At the conclusion of his sermon, the Archbishop adds words which he calls 

comfortable, addressed to those who had been 'patient in tribulation', and 

intimating that they might 'rejoice in hope', 'a ray of brightness then 

appearing after a prospect which had been long dark'. And in an account 

which follows the sermon, from one of the missionaries in the province of 

New-York, it is said that, 'the rebellion would undoubtedly be crushed, and 

that then will be the time for taking steps for the increase of the church 

in America, by granting it an episcopate'. In conformity to the sentiments 

of this missionary the Archbishop also expresses his hope, that the 

opportunity which such an event will give for establishing episcopacy among 

the colonists, will not be lost; and advises that measures should be thought 

of for that purpose, and for thereby rescuing the church from the 

persecution it has long suffered in America.



This is a subject so important, and it has been so much misrepresented, that 

I cannot help going out of my way to give a brief account of it.



It does not appear that the lay members themselves of the church in America 

have ever wished for bishops. On the contrary, the assembly of Virginia (the 

first episcopal colony) some years ago returned thanks to two clergymen in 

that colony who had protested against a resolution of me other clergy to 

petition for bishops. The church here cannot have a right to impose bishops 

on the church in another country; and, therefore, while churchmen in America 

are averse to bishops, it must be persecution to send bishops among them. 

The Presbyterians and other religious sects there are willing, from a sense 

of the reasonableness of toleration, to admit bishops whenever the body of 

episcopalian laity shall desire them, provided security is given that they 

shall be officers merely spiritual, possessed of no other power, than those 

which are necessary to the full exercise of that mode of religious worship. 

It is not bishops, as spiritual officers, they have opposed; but bishops on 

a state-establishment; bishops with civil powers; bishops at the head of 

ecclesiastical courts, maintained by taxing other sects, and possessed of a 

pre-eminence which would be incompatible with the equality which has long 

subsisted among all religious sects in America. In this last respect, the 

colonies have hitherto enjoyed a happiness which is unparalleled, but which 

the introduction of such bishops as would be sent from hence would destroy. 

In Pensilvania (one of the happiest countries under heaven before we carried 

into it desolation and carnage) all sects of Christians have been always 

perfectly on a level, the legislature taking no part with any one sect 

against others, but protecting all equally as far as they are peaceable. The 

state of the colonies north of Pensilvania is much the same; and, in the 

province of Massachusett's Bay in particular, civil authority interposes no 

farther in religion than by imposing a tax for supporting public worship, 

leaving to all the power of applying the tax to the support of that mode of 

public worship which they like best. This tax the episcopalians were, at one 

time, obliged to pay in common with others; but so far did the province 

carry its indulgence to them, that an act was passed on purpose to excuse 

them. With this let the state of Protestant Dissenters in this country be 

compared. Not only are they obliged to pay tithes for the support of the 

established church, but their worship is not even tolerated unless their 

ministers will subscribe the articles of the church. In consequence of 

having long scrupled this subscription, they have lost all legal right to 

protection, and are exposed to the cruellest penalties. Uneasy in such a 

situation, they not long ago applied twice to Parliament for the repeal of 

the penal laws against them. Bills for that purpose were brought into me 

House of Commons, and passed that House. But, in the House of Lords, they 

were rejected in consequence of the opposition of the Bishops.[a] There are 

few I reverence so much as some on the sacred bench, but such conduct (and 

may I not add the alacrity with which most of them support the present 

measures?) must leave an indelible stain upon them, and will probably 

exclude them for ever from America.



On this occasion, I cannot help thinking with concern of the learned 

prelate's feelings. After a prospect long dark, he had discovered a ray of 

brightness shewing him America reduced, and the church triumphant. But 

lately, that ray of brightness has vanished, and defeat has taken place of 

victory and conquest. And what do we now see? What a different prospect, 

mortifying to the learned prelate, presents itself? A great people likely to 

be formed in spite of all our efforts into free communities under 

governments which have no religious tests and establishments?[1] A new aera 

in future annals, and a new opening in human affairs beginning, among the 

descendants of Englishmen, in a new world; A rising empire, extended over an 

immense continent, without bishops, without nobles, and without kings.



O the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God! How unsearchable are his 

judgments!



------------



1. I am sorry to mention one exception to the fact here intimated. The new 

constitution for Pennsylvania (in other respects wise and liberal) is 

dishonoured by a religious test. It requires an acknowledgement of the 

divine inspiration of the Old and the New Testament, as a condition of being 

admitted to a seat in the House of Representatives; directing however, at 

the same time, that no other religious test shall for ever hereafter be 

required of any civil officer. This has been, probably, an accommodation to 

the prejudices of some of the narrower sects in the province, to which the 

more liberal part have for the present thought fit to yield; and, therefore, 

it may be expected that it will not be of long continuance.



Religious tests and subscriptions in general, and all establishments of 

particular systems of faith, with civil emoluments annexed, do inconceivable 

mischief, by turning religion into a trade, by engendering strife and 

persecution, by forming hypocrites, by obstructing the progress of truth, 

and fettering and perverting the human mind; nor will the world ever grow 

much wiser, or better, or happier, till, by the abolition of them, truth can 

gain fair play, and reason free scope for exertion.





____________



          Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty



                           (1776)







                        Observations 

                      on the Nature of 

          Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, 

                  and the Justice and Policy 

                  of the War with America.



                  Preface to the Fifth Edition



The favourable reception which the following Tract has met with makes me 

abundant amends for the abuse it has brought upon me. I should be ill 

employed were I to take much notice of this abuse: but there is one 

circumstance attending it which I cannot help just mentioning. The 

principles on which I have argued form the foundation of every state as far 

as it is free, and are the same with those taught by Mr. Locke and all the 

writers on civil liberty who have been hitherto most admired in this 

country. But I find with concern that our governors chuse to decline trying 

by them their present measures. For, in a pamphlet[b] which has been 

circulated by government with great industry, these principles are 

pronounced to be 'unnatural and wild, incompatible with practice, and the 

offspring of the distempered imagination of a man who is biassed by party, 

and who writes to deceive'. I must take this opportunity to add that I love 

quiet too well to think of entering into a controversy with any writers, 

particularly nameless ones. Conscious of good intentions and unconnected 

with any party, I have endeavoured to plead the cause of general liberty and 

justice. And happy in knowing this, I shall, in silence, commit myself to 

that candour of the public of which I have had so much experience.



March 12th. 1776.







Our colonies in North America appear to be now determined to risk and suffer 

every thing under the persuasion that Great Britain is attempting to rob 

them of that liberty to which every member of society, and all civil 

communities, have a natural and unalienable title. The question, therefore, 

whether this is a right persuasion, is highly interesting and deserves the 

careful attention of every Englishman who values liberty and wishes to avoid 

staining himself with the guilt of invading it. But it is impossible to 

judge properly of this question without just ideas of liberty in general, 

and of the nature, limits, and principles of civil liberty in particular. 

The following observations on this subject appear to me of some importance, 

and I cannot make myself easy without offering them to the public at the 

present period, big with events of the last consequence to this kingdom. I 

do this with reluctance and pain urged by strong feelings, but at the same 

time checked by the consciousness that I am likely to deliver sentiments not 

favourable to the present measures of that government under which I live and 

to which I am a constant and zealous well-wisher. Such, however, are my 

present sentiments and views, that this is a consideration of inferior 

moment with me, and, as I hope never to go beyond the bounds of decent 

discussion and expostulation, I flatter myself, that I shall be able to 

avoid giving any person reason for offence.



The observations with which I shall begin are of a more general and abstract 

nature; but being necessary to introduce what I have principally in view, I 

hope they will be patiently read and considered.



                           Sect. I 

               Of the Nature of Liberty in General



In order to obtain a more distinct view of the nature of liberty as such it 

will be useful to consider it under the four following general divisions.



First, physical liberty; secondly, moral liberty; thirdly, religious 

liberty; and fourthly, civil liberty. These heads comprehend under them all 

the different kinds of liberty. And I have placed civil liberty last because 

I mean to apply to it all I shall say of the other kinds of liberty.



By physical liberty I mean that principle of spontaneity, or 

self-determination, which constitutes us agents, or which gives us a command 

over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the 

operation of any foreign cause. Moral liberty is the power of following, in 

all circumstances, our sense of right and wrong, or of acting in conformity 

to our reflecting and moral principles, without being controuled by any 

contrary principles. Religious liberty signifies the power of exercising, 

without molestation, that mode of religion which we think best, or of making 

the decisions of our own consciences respecting religious truth, the rule of 

our conduct, and not any of the decisions of our fellow-men. In like manner 

civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by 

its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to 

the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the 

collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no 

controul.



It should be observed that, according to these definitions of the different 

kinds of liberty, there is one general idea that runs through them all; I 

mean the idea of self-direction, or self-government. Did our volitions 

originate not with ourselves, but with some cause over which we have no 

power; or were we under a necessity of always following some will different 

from our own, we should want physical liberty.



In like manner, he whose perceptions of moral obligation are controuled by 

his passions has lost his moral liberty, and the most common language 

applied to him is that he wants self-government.



He likewise who, in religion, cannot govern himself by his convictions of 

religious duty, but is obliged to receive formularies of faith, and to 

practise modes of worship imposed upon him by others, wants religious 

liberty. And the community also that is governed, not by itself, but by some 

will independent of it, wants civil liberty.



In all these cases there is a force which stands opposed to the agent's own 

will, and which, as far as it operates, produces servitude. In the first 

case, this force is incompatible with the very idea of voluntary motion; and 

the subject of it is a mere passive instrument which never acts, but is 

always acted upon. In the second case, this force is the influence of 

passion getting the better of reason, or the brute overpowering and 

conquering the will of the man. In the third case, it is human authority in 

religion requiring conformity to particular modes of faith and worship, and 

superseding private judgment. And in the last case, it is any will distinct 

from that of the majority of a community which claims a power in making laws 

for it and disposing of its property.



This it is, I think, that marks the limit between liberty and slavery. As 

far as, in any instance, the operation of any cause comes in to restrain the 

power of self-government, so far slavery is introduced. Nor do I think that 

a preciser idea than this of liberty and slavery can be formed.



I cannot help wishing I could here fix my reader's attention, and engage him 

to consider carefully the dignity of that blessing to which we give the name 

of liberty, according to the representation now made of it. There is not a 

word in the whole compass of language which expresses so much of what is 

important and excellent. It is, in every view of it, a blessing truly sacred 

and invaluable. Without physical liberty, man would be a machine acted upon 

by mechanical springs, having no principle of motion in himself, or command 

over events; and, therefore, incapable of all merit and demerit. Without 

moral liberty, he is a wicked and detestable being, subject to the tyranny 

of base lusts, and the sport of every vile appetite. And without religious 

and civil liberty, he is a poor and abject animal, without rights, without 

property, and without a conscience, bending his neck to the yoke, and 

crouching to the will of every silly creature who has the insolence to 

pretend to authority over him. Nothing, therefore, can be of much 

consequence to us as liberty. It is the foundation of all honour, and the 

chief privilege and glory of our natures.



In fixing our idea on the subject of liberty, it is of particular use to 

take such an enlarged view of it as I have now given. But the immediate 

object of the present enquiry being civil liberty, I will confine to it all 

the subsequent observations.



                           Sect. II 

         Of Civil liberty and the Principles of Government



From what has been said it is obvious that all civil government, as far as 

it can be denominated free, is the creature of the people. It originates 

with them. It is conducted under their direction, and has in view nothing 

but their happiness. All its different forms are no more than so many 

different modes in which they chuse to direct their affairs, and to secure 

the quiet enjoyment of their rights. In every free state every man is his 

own Legislator. All taxes are free-gifts for public services. All laws are 

particular provisions or regulations established by common consent for 

gaining protection and safety. And all magistrates are trustees or deputies 

for carrying these regulations into execution.



Liberty, therefore, is too imperfectly denned when it is said to be 'a 

government by laws, and not by men'. If the laws are made by one man, or a 

junto of men in a state, and not by common consent, a government by them 

does not differ from slavery. In this case it would be a contradiction in 

terms to say that the state governs itself.



From hence it is obvious that civil liberty, in its most perfect degree, can 

be enjoyed only in small states where every independent agent is capable of 

giving his suffrage in person, and of being chosen into public offices. When 

a state becomes so numerous, or when the different parts of it are removed 

to such distances from one another as to render this impracticable, a 

diminution of liberty necessarily arises. There are, however, in these 

circumstances, methods by which such near approaches may be made to perfect 

liberty as shall answer all the purposes of government, and at the same time 

secure every right of human nature.



Tho' all the members of a state should not be capable of giving their 

suffrages on public measures, individually and personally, they may do this 

by the appointment of substitutes or representatives. They may entrust the 

powers of legislation, subject to such restrictions as they shall think 

necessary, with any number of delegates; and whatever can be done by such 

delegates within the limits of their trust, may be considered as done by the 

united voice and counsel of the community. In this method a free government 

may be established in the largest state, and it is conceivable that by 

regulations of this kind any number of states might be subjected to a scheme 

of government that would exclude the desolations of war, and produce 

universal peace and order.



Let us think here of what may be practicable in this way with respect to 

Europe in particular. While it continues divided, as it is at present, into 

a great number of independent kingdoms whose interests are continually 

clashing, it is impossible but that disputes will often arise which must end 

in war and carnage. It would be no remedy to this evil to make one of these 

states supreme over the rest, and to give it an absolute plenitude of power 

to superintend and controul them. This would be to subject all the states to 

the arbitrary discretion of one, and to establish an ignominious slavery not 

possible to be long endured. It would, therefore, be a remedy worse than the 

disease; nor is it possible it should be approved by any mind that has not 

lost every idea of civil liberty. On the contrary, let every state, with 

respect to all its internal concerns, be continued independent of all the 

rest, and let a general confederacy be formed by the appointment of a senate 

consisting of representatives from all the different states. Let this senate 

possess the power of managing all the common concerns of the united states, 

and of judging and deciding between them, as a common arbiter or umpire, in 

all disputes; having, at the same time, under its direction the common force 

of the states to support its decisions. In these circumstances, each 

separate state would be secure against the interference of sovereign power 

in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess liberty, and at the 

same time it would be secure against all oppression and insult from every 

neighbouring state. Thus might the scattered force and abilities of a whole 

continent be gathered into one point, all litigations settled as they rose, 

universal peace preserved, and nation prevented from any more lifting up a 

sword against nation.



I have observed that tho' in a great state all the individuals that compose 

it cannot be admitted to an immediate participation in the powers of 

legislation and government, yet they may participate in these powers by a 

delegation of them to a body of representatives. In this case it is evident 

that the state will be still free or self-governed, and that it will be more 

or less so in proportion as it is more or less fairly and adequately 

represented. If the persons to whom the trust of government is committed 

hold their places for short terms, if they are chosen by the unbiassed 

voices of a majority of the state, and subject to their instructions, 

liberty will be enjoyed in its highest degree. But if they are chosen for 

long terms by a part only of the state, and if during that term they are 

subject to no controul from their constituents, the very idea of liberty 

will be lost and the power of chusing representatives becomes nothing but a 

power, lodged in a few, to chuse at certain periods a body of masters for 

themselves and for the rest of the community. And if a state is so sunk that 

the majority of its representatives are elected by a handful of the 

meanest[2] persons in it, whose votes are always paid for, and if also there 

is a higher will on which even these mock representatives themselves depend, 

and that directs their voices: in these circumstances, it will be an abuse 

of language to say that the state possesses liberty. Private men, indeed, 

might be allowed the exercise of liberty, as they might also under the most 

despotic government; but it would be an indulgence or connivance derived 

from the spirit of the rimes, or from an accidental mildness in the 

administration. And, rather than be governed in such a manner, it would 

perhaps be better to be governed by the will of one man without any 

representation, for a representation so degenerated could answer no other 

end than to mislead and deceive, by disguising slavery, and keeping up a 

form of liberty when the reality was lost.



Within the limits now mentioned, liberty may be enjoyed in every possible 

degree, from that which is complete and perfect, to that which is merely 

nominal; according as the people have more or less of a share in government, 

and of a controuling power over the persons by whom it is administered.



In general, to be free is to be guided by one's own will; and to be guided 

by the will of another is the characteristic of servitude. This is 

particularly applicable to political liberty. That state, I have observed, 

is free which is guided by its own will, or (which comes to the same) by the 

will of an assembly of representatives appointed by itself and accountable 

to itself. And every state that is not so governed, or in which a body of 

men representing the people make not an essential part of the legislature, 

is in slavery. In order to form the most perfect constitution of government, 

there may be the best reasons for joining to such a body of representatives 

an hereditary council, consisting of men of the first rank in the state, 

with a supreme executive magistrate as the head of all. This will form 

useful checks in a legislature, and contribute to give it vigour, union, and 

dispatch, without infringing liberty; for, as long as that part of a 

government which represents the people is a fair representation, and also 

has a negative on all public measures, together with the sole power of 

imposing taxes and originating supplies, the essentials of liberty will be 

preserved. We make it our boast in this country that this is our own 

constitution. I will not say with how much reason.



Of such liberty as I have now described, it is impossible there should be an 

excess. Government is an institution for the benefit of the people governed, 

which they have the power to model as they please; and to say that they can 

have too much of this power, is to say that there ought to be a power in the 

state superior to that which gives it being, and from which all jurisdiction 

in it is derived. Licentiousness, which has been commonly mentioned, as an 

extreme of liberty, is indeed its opposite. It is government by the will of 

rapacious individuals in opposition to the will of the community made known 

and declared in the laws. A free state, at the same time that it is free 

itself, makes all its members free by excluding licentiousness, and guarding 

their persons and property and good name against insult. It is the end of 

all just government, at the same time that it secures the liberty of the 

public against foreign injury, to secure the liberty of the individual 

against private injury. I do not, therefore, think it strictly just to say 

that it belongs to the nature of government to entrench on private liberty. 

It ought never to do this, except as far as the exercise of private liberty 

encroaches on the liberties of others. That is, it is licentiousness it 

restrains and liberty itself only when used to destroy liberty.



It appears from hence that licentiousness and despotism are more nearly 

allied than is commonly imagined. They are both alike inconsistent with 

liberty and the true end of government; nor is there any other difference 

between them than that the one is the licentiousness of great men, and the 

other the licentiousness of little men; or that, by the one, the persons and 

property of a people are subject to outrage and invasion from a king or a 

lawless body of grandees; and that, by the other, they are subject to the 

like outrage from a lawless mob. In avoiding one of these evils, mankind 

have often run into the other. But all well constituted governments guard 

equally against both. Indeed of the two, the last is, on several accounts, 

the least to be dreaded and has done the least mischief. It may be truly 

said that if licentiousness has destroyed its thousands, despotism has 

destroyed its millions. The former, having little power and no system to 

support it, necessarily finds its own remedy; and a people soon get out of 

the tumult and anarchy attending it. But a despotism, wearing the form of 

government and being armed with its force, is an evil not to be conquered 

without dreadful struggles. It goes on from age to age, debasing the human 

faculties, levelling all distinctions, and preying on the rights and 

blessings of society. It deserves to be added that in a state disturbed by 

licentiousness, there is an animation which is favourable to the human mind 

and which puts it upon exerting its powers; but in a state habituated to a 

despotism, all is still and torpid. A dark and savage tyranny stifles every 

effort of genius, and the mind loses all its spirit and dignity. 



Before I proceed to what I have farther in view, I will observe that the 

account now given of the principles of public liberty and the nature of an 

equal and free government shews what judgment we should form of that 

omnipotence, which, it has been said, must belong to every government as 

such. Great stress has been laid on this, but most unreasonably. Government, 

as has been before observed, is, in the very nature of it, a trust, and all 

its powers a delegation for gaining particular ends. This trust may be 

misapplied and abused. It may be employed to defeat the very ends for which 

it was instituted, and to subvert the very rights which it ought to protect. 

A parliament, for instance, consisting of a body of representatives, chosen 

for a limited period to make laws and to grant money for public services, 

would forfeit its authority by making itself perpetual, or even prolonging 

its own duration; by nominating its own members; by accepting bribes; or 

subjecting itself to any kind of foreign influence. This would convert a 

parliament into a conclave or junto of self-created tools; and a state that 

has lost its regard to its own rights, so far as to submit to such a breach 

of trust in its rulers, is enslaved. Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd 

than the doctrine which some have taught with respect to the omnipotence of 

parliaments. They possess no power beyond the limits of the trust for the 

execution of which they were formed. If they contradict this trust, they 

betray their constituents and dissolve themselves. All delegated power must 

be subordinate and limited. If omnipotence can, with any sense, be ascribed 

to a legislature, it must be lodged where all legislative authority 

originates; that is, in the people. For their sakes government is 

instituted, and theirs is the only real omnipotence. 



I am sensible that all I have been saying would be very absurd, were the 

opinions just which some have maintained concerning the origin of 

government. According to these opinions, government is not the creature of 

the people, or the result of a convention between them and their rulers; but 

there are certain men who possess in themselves, independently of the will 

of the people, a right of governing them, which they derive from the Deity. 

This doctrine has been abundantly refuted by many excellent writers. It is a 

doctrine which avowedly subverts civil liberty and which represents mankind 

as a body of vassals, formed to descend like cattle from one set of owners 

to another, who have an absolute dominion over them. It is a wonder that 

those who view their species in a light so humiliating should ever be able 

to think of themselves without regret and shame. The intention of these 

observations is not to oppose such sentiments, but, taking for granted the 

reasonableness of civil liberty, to shew wherein it consists, and what 

distinguishes it from its contrary. And, in considering this subject, as it 

has been now treated, it is unavoidable to reflect on the excellency of a 

free government and its tendency to exalt the nature of man. Every member of 

a free state, having his property secure and knowing himself his own 

governor, possesses a consciousness of dignity in himself and feels 

incitements to emulation and improvement to which the miserable slaves of 

arbitrary power must be utter strangers. In such a state all the springs of 

action have room to operate and the mind is stimulated to the noblest 

exertions. But to be obliged from our birth to look up to a creature no 

better than ourselves as the master of our fortunes, and to receive his will 

as our law -- what can be more humiliating? What elevated ideas can enter a 

mind in such a situation? Agreeably to this remark, the subjects of free 

states have, in all ages, been most distinguished for genius and knowledge. 

Liberty is the soil where the arts and sciences have flourished and the more 

free a state has been, the more have the powers of the human mind been drawn 

forth into action, and the greater number of brave men has it produced. With 

what lustre do the antient free states of Greece shine in the annals of the 

world? How different is that country now, under the great Turk? The 

difference between a country inhabited by men and by brutes, is not greater. 



These are reflexions which should be constantly present to every mind in 

this country. As moral liberty is the prime blessing of man in his private 

capacity, so is civil liberty in his public capacity. There is nothing that 

requires more to be watched than power. There is nothing that ought to be 

opposed with a more determined resolution than its encroachments. Sleep in a 

state, as Montesquieu says, is always followed by slavery.



The people of this kingdom were once warmed by such sentiments as these. 

Many a sycophant of power have they sacrificed. Often have they fought and 

bled in the cause of liberty. But that time seems to be going. The fair 

inheritance of liberty left us by our ancestors, many of us are willing to 

resign. An abandoned venality, the inseparable companion of dissipation and 

extravagance, has poisoned the springs of public virtue among us; and should 

any events ever arise that should render the same opposition necessary that 

took place in the times of King Charles the First and James the Second, I am 

afraid all that is valuable to us would be lost. The terror of the standing 

army, the danger of the public funds, and the all-corrupting influence of 

the treasury, would deaden all zeal and produce general acquiescence and 

servility.



                          Sect. III 

           Of the Authority of One Country over Another



From the nature and principles of civil liberty, as they have been now 

explained, it is an immediate and necessary inference that no one community 

can have any power over the property or legislation of another community 

which is not incorporated with it by a just and adequate representation. 

Then only, it has been shewn, is a state free when it is governed by its own 

will. But a country that is subject to the legislature of another country in 

which it has no voice, and over which it has no controul, cannot be said to 

be governed by its own will. Such a country, therefore, is in a state of 

slavery. And it deserves to be particularly considered that such a slavery 

is worse, on several accounts, than any slavery of private men to one 

another, or of kingdoms to despots within themselves. Between one state and 

another there is none of that fellow-feeling that takes place between 

persons in private life. Being detached bodies that never see one another, 

and residing perhaps in different quarters of the globe, the state that 

governs cannot be a witness to the sufferings occasioned by its oppressions; 

or a competent judge of the circumstances and abilities of the people who 

are governed. They must also have in a great degree separate interests; and 

the more the one is loaded the more the other may be eased. The infamy 

likewise of oppression, being in such circumstances shared among a 

multitude, is not likely to be much felt or regarded. On all these accounts 

there is, in the case of one country subjugated to another, little or 

nothing to check rapacity; and the most flagrant injustice and cruelty may 

be practised without remorse or pity. I will add that it is particularly 

difficult to shake off a tyranny of this kind. A single despot, if a people 

are unanimous and resolute, may be soon subdued. But a despotic state is not 

easily subdued, and a people subject to it cannot emancipate themselves 

without entering into a dreadful and, perhaps, very unequal contest.



I cannot help observing farther, that the slavery of a people to internal 

despots may be qualified and limited; but I don't see what can limit the 

authority of one state over another. The exercise of power in this case can 

have no other measure than discretion, and, therefore, must be indefinite 

and absolute.



Once more, it should be considered that the government of one country by 

another can only be opposed by a military force, and, without such a support 

must be destitute of all weight and efficiency.



This will be best explained by putting the following case. There is, let us 

suppose, in a province subject to the sovereignty of a distant state, a 

subordinate legislature consisting of an assembly chosen by the people; a 

council chosen by that assembly; and a governor appointed by the sovereign 

state, and paid by the province. There are, likewise, judges and other 

officers, appointed and paid in the same manner, for administering justice 

agreeably to the laws by the verdicts of juries fairly chosen.



This forms a constitution seemingly free, by giving the people a share in 

their own government and some check on their rulers. But, while there is a 

higher legislative power to the controul of which such a constitution is 

subject, it does not itself possess liberty, and therefore cannot be of any 

use as a security to liberty; nor is it possible that it should be of long 

duration. Laws offensive to the province will be enacted by the sovereign 

state. The legislature of the province will remonstrate against them. The 

magistrates will not execute them. Juries will not convict upon them, and, 

consequently, like the Pope's bulls which once governed Europe, they will 

become nothing but forms and empty sounds to which no regard will be shewn. 

In order to remedy this evil and to give efficiency to its government, the 

supreme state will naturally be led to withdraw the governor, the council, 

and the judges from the controul of the province by making them entirely 

dependent on itself for their pay and continuance in office, as well as for 

their appointment. It will also alter the mode of chusing juries on purpose 

to bring them more under its influence. And in some cases, under the 

pretence of the impossibility of gaining an impartial trial where government 

is resisted, it will perhaps ordain that offenders shall be removed from the 

province to be tried within its own territories. And it may even go so far 

in this kind of policy as to endeavour to prevent the effects of discontents 

by forbidding all meetings and associations of the people except at such 

times, and for such particular purposes, as shall be permitted them.



Thus will such a province be exactly in the same state that Britain would be 

in were our first executive magistrate, our House of Lords, and our judges, 

nothing but the instruments of a sovereign democratical power; were our 

juries nominated by that power; or were we liable to be transported to a 

distant country to be tried for offences committed here; and restrained from 

calling any meetings, consulting about any grievances, or associating for 

any purposes, except when leave should be given us by a Lord Lieutenant or 

Viceroy.



It is certain that this is a state of oppression which no country could 

endure, and to which it would be vain to expect, that any people should 

submit an hour without an armed force to compel them.



The late transactions in Massachusett's Bay are a perfect exemplification of 

what I have now said. The government of Great Britain in that province has 

gone on exactly in the train I have described; till at last it became 

necessary to station troops there not amenable to the civil power; and all 

terminated in a government by the sword. And such, if a people are not sunk 

below the character of men, will be the issue of all government in similar 

circumstances.



It may be asked, 'Are there not causes by which one state may acquire a 

rightful authority over another, though not consolidated by an adequate 

representation?' I answer that there are no such causes. All the causes to 

which such an effect can be ascribed are conquest, compact, or obligations 

conferred.



Much has been said of the right of conquest; and history contains little 

more than accounts of kingdoms reduced by it under the dominion of other 

kingdoms, and of the havock it has made among mankind. But the authority 

derived from hence, being founded on violence, is never rightful. The Roman 

Republic was nothing but a faction against the general liberties of the 

world; and had no more right to give law to the provinces subject to it than 

thieves have to the property they seize, or to the houses into which they 

break. Even in the case of a just war undertaken by one people to defend 

itself against the oppressions of another people, conquest gives only a 

right to an indemnification for the injury which occasioned the war and a 

reasonable security against future injury.



Neither can any state acquire such an authority over other states in virtue 

of any compacts or cessions. This is a case in which compacts are not 

binding. Civil liberty is, in this respect, on the same footing with 

religious liberty. As no people can lawfully surrender their religious 

liberty by giving up their right of judging for themselves in religion, or 

by allowing any human beings to prescribe to them what faith they shall 

embrace, or what mode of worship they shall practise, so neither can any 

civil societies lawfully surrender their civil liberty by giving up to any 

extraneous jurisdiction their power of legislating for themselves and 

disposing their property. Such a cession, being inconsistent with the 

unalienable rights of human nature, would either not bind at all, or bind 

only the individuals who made it. This is a blessing which no one generation 

of men can give up for another, and which, when lost, a people have always a 

right to resume. Had our ancestors in this country been so mad as to have 

subjected themselves to any foreign community, we could not have been under 

any obligation to continue in such a state. And all the nations now in the 

world who, in consequence of the tameness and folly of their predecessors, 

are subject to arbitrary power have a right to emancipate themselves as soon 

as they can.



If neither conquest nor compact can give such an authority, much less can 

any favours received or any services performed by one state for another. Let 

the favour received be what it will, liberty is too dear a price for it. A 

state that has been obliged is not, therefore, bound to be enslaved. It 

ought, if possible, to make an adequate return for the services done to it, 

but to suppose that it ought to give up the power of governing itself and 

the disposal of its property, would be to suppose, that, in order to show 

its gratitude, it ought to part with the power of ever afterwards exercising 

gratitude. How much has been done by this kingdom for Hanover? But no one 

will say that on this account we have a right to make the laws of Hanover; 

or even to draw a single penny from it without its own consent.



After what has been said, it will, I am afraid, be trifling to apply the 

preceding arguments to the case of different communities which are 

considered as different parts of the same empire. But there are reasons 

which render it necessary for me to be explicit in making the application.



What I mean here is just to point out the difference of situation between 

communities forming an empire; and particular bodies or classes of men 

forming different parts of a kingdom. Different communities forming an 

empire have no connexions which produce a necessary reciprocation of 

interests between them. They inhabit different districts and are governed by 

different legislatures. On the contrary, the different classes of men within 

a kingdom are all placed on the same ground. Their concerns and interests 

are the same, and what is done to one pan must affect all. These are 

situations totally different and a constitution of government that may be 

consistent with liberty in one of them may be entirely inconsistent with it 

in the other. It is, however, certain that, even in the last of these 

situations, no one part ought to govern the rest. In order to a fair and 

equal government, there ought to be a fair and equal representation of all 

that are governed; and as far as this is wanting in any government, it 

deviates from the principles of liberty, and becomes unjust and oppressive. 

But in the circumstances of different communities, all this holds with 

unspeakably more force. The government of a part in this case becomes 

complete tyranny, and subjection to it becomes complete slavery.



But ought there not, it is asked, to exist somewhere in an empire a supreme 

legislative authority over the whole, or a power to controul and bind all 

the different states of which it consists? This enquiry has been already 

answered. The truth is, that such a supreme controuling power ought to exist 

nowhere except in such a senate or body of delegates as that described in 

page 25; and that the authority or supremacy of even this senate ought to be 

limited to the common concerns of the Empire. I think I have proved that the 

fundamental principles of liberty necessarily require this.



In a word, an empire is a collection of states or communities united by some 

common bond or tye. If these states have each of them free constitutions of 

government, and, with respect to taxation and internal legislation, are 

independent of the other states, but united by compacts, or alliances, or 

subjection to a great council, representing the whole, or to one monarch 

entrusted with the supreme executive power; in these circumstances the 

empire will be an empire of freemen. If, on the contrary, like the different 

provinces subject to the Grand Seignior, none of the states possess any 

independent legislative authority, but are all subject to an absolute 

monarch whose will is their law, then is the empire an empire of slaves. If 

one of the states is free, but governs by its will all the other states; 

then is the empire, like that of the Romans in the times of the Republic, an 

empire consisting of one state free, and the rest in slavery. Nor does it 

make any more difference in this case that the governing state is itself 

free than it does in the case of a kingdom subject to a despot that this 

despot is himself free. I have before observed that this only makes the 

slavery worse. There is, in the one case, a chance that in the quick 

succession of despots a good one will sometimes arise. But bodies of men 

continue the same and have generally proved the most unrelenting of all 

tyrants.



A great writer before[3] quoted, observes of the Roman Empire, that while 

liberty was at the center, tyranny prevailed in the distant provinces; that 

such as were free under it were extremely so, while those who were slaves 

groaned under the extremity of slavery; and that the same events that 

destroyed the liberty of the former, gave liberty to the latter.



The liberty of the Romans, therefore, was only an additional calamity to the 

provinces governed by them; and though it might have been said of the 

citizens of Rome, that they were the 'freest members of any civil society in 

the known world', yet of the subjects of Rome, it must have been said that 

they were the completest slaves in the known world. How remarkable is it 

that this very people, once the freest of mankind, but at the same time the 

most proud and tyrannical, should become at last the most contemptible and 

abject slaves that ever existed?



                           Part II



In the foregoing disquisitions, I have, from one leading principle, deduced 

a number of consequences that seem to me incapable of being disputed. I have 

meant that they should be applied to the great question between this kingdom 

and the colonies which has occasioned the present war with them.



It is impossible but my readers must have been all along making this 

application; and if they still think that the claims of this kingdom are 

reconcileable to the principles of true liberty and legitimate government, I 

am afraid, that nothing I shall farther say will have any effect on their 

judgments. I wish, however, they would have the patience and candour to go 

with me and grant me a hearing some time longer.



Though clearly decided in my own judgment on this subject, I am inclined to 

make great allowances for the different judgments of others. We have been so 

used to speak of the colonies as our colonies, and to think of them as in a 

state of subordination to us, and as holding their existence in America only 

for our use, that it is no wonder the prejudices of many are alarmed when 

they find a different doctrine maintained. The meanest person among us is 

disposed to look upon himself as having a body of subjects in America, and 

to be offended at the denial of his right to make laws for them, though 

perhaps he does not know what colour they are of, or what language they 

talk. Such are the natural prejudices of this country. But the time is 

coming, I hope, when the unreasonableness of them will be seen, and more 

just sentiments prevail.



Before I proceed, I beg it may be attended to that I have chosen to try this 

question by the general principles of civil liberty; and not by the practice 

of former times; or by the charters granted the colonies. The arguments for 

them, drawn from these last topics, appear to me greatly to outweigh the 

arguments against them. But I wish to have this question brought to a higher 

test and surer issue. The question with all liberal enquirers ought to be, 

not what jurisdiction over them precedents, statutes and charters give, but 

what reason and equity, and the rights of humanity give. This is, in truth, 

a question which no kingdom has ever before had occasion to agitate. The 

case of a free country branching itself out in the manner Britain has done, 

and sending to a distant world colonies which have there, from small 

beginnings and under free legislatures of their own, increased and formed a 

body of powerful states, likely soon to become superior to the parent state. 

This is a case which is new in the history of mankind, and it is extremely 

improper to judge of it by the rules of any narrow and partial policy, or to 

consider it on any other ground than the general one of reason and justice. 

Those who will be candid enough to judge on this ground, and who can divest 

themselves of national prejudices, will not, I fancy, remain long 

unsatisfied. But alas! matters are gone too far. The dispute probably must 

be settled another way, and the sword alone, I am afraid, is now to 

determine what the rights of Britain and America are. Shocking situation! 

Detested be the measures which have brought us into it: and, if we are 

endeavouring to enforce injustice, cursed will be the war. A retreat, 

however, is not yet impracticable. The duty we owe our gracious sovereign 

obliges us to rely on his disposition to stay the sword, and to promote the 

happiness of all the different parts of the empire at the head of which he 

is placed. With some hopes, therefore, that it may not be too late to reason 

on this subject, I will, in the following sections, enquire what the war 

with America is in the following respects.



     1. In respect of Justice.



     2. The principles of the constitution.



     3. In respect of policy and humanity.



     4. The Honour of the Kingdom.



     And, lastly, the probability of succeeding in it.



                           Sect. I 

              Of the Justice of the War with America



The enquiry, whether the war with the colonies is a just war, will be best 

determined by stating the power over them, which it is the end of the war to 

maintain: and this cannot be better done, than in the words of an act of 

parliament, made on purpose to define it. That act, it is well known, 

declares, 'That this kingdom has power, and of right ought to have power to 

make laws and statutes to bind the colonies, and people of America, in all 

cases whatever'.[c] Dreadful power indeed! I defy anyone to express slavery 

in stronger language. It is the same with declaring 'that we have a right to 

do with them what we please'. I will not waste my time by applying to such a 

claim any of the preceding arguments. If my reader does not feel more in 

this case, than words can express, all reasoning must be vain.



But, probably, most persons will be for using milder language; and for 

saying no more than that the united legislatures of England and Scotland 

have of right power to tax the colonies, and a supremacy of legislature over 

America. But this comes to the same. If it means anything, it means that the 

property and the legislations of the colonies are subject to the absolute 

discretion of Great Britain, and ought of right to be so. The nature of the 

thing admits of no limitation. The colonies can never be admitted to be 

judges how far the authority over them in these cases shall extend. This 

would be to destroy it entirely. If any part of their property is subject to 

our discretion, the whole must be so. If we have a right to interfere at all 

in their internal legislations, we have a right to interfere as far as we 

think proper. It is self-evident that this leaves them nothing they can call 

their own. And what is it that can give to any people such a supremacy over 

other people? I have already examined the principal answers which have been 

given to this enquiry. But it will not be amiss in this place to go over 

some of them again.



It has been urged, that such a right must be lodged somewhere, 'in order to 

preserve the unity of the British Empire'.



Pleas of this sort have, in all ages, been used to justify tyranny. They 

have in religion given rise to numberless oppressive claims and slavish 

hierarchies. And in the Romish communion, particularly, it is well known 

that the Pope claims the tide and powers of the supreme head on earth of the 

Christian church in order to preserve its unity. With respect to the British 

Empire nothing can be more preposterous than to endeavour to maintain its 

unity by setting up such a claim. This is a method of establishing unity 

which, like the similar method in religion, can produce nothing but discord 

and mischief. The truth is that a common relation to one supreme executive 

head, an exchange of kind offices, types of interest and affection, and 

compacts, are sufficient to give the British Empire all the unity that is 

necessary. But if not -- if in order to preserve its unity, one half of it 

must be entrusted to the other half, let it, in the name of God, want unity.



Much has been said of 'the superiority of the British state'. But what gives 

us our superiority? Is it our wealth? This never confers real dignity. On 

the contrary its effect is always to debase, intoxicate, and corrupt. Is it 

the number of our people? The colonies will soon be equal to us in number. 

Is it our knowledge and virtue? They are probably equally knowing and more 

virtuous. There are names among them that will not stoop to any names among 

the philosophers and politicians of this island.



But we are the parent state. These are the magic words which have fascinated 

and misled us. The English came from Germany. Does that give the German 

states a right to tax us? Children, having no property and being incapable 

of guiding themselves, the author of nature has committed the care of them 

to their parents, and subjected them to their absolute authority. But there 

is a period when having acquired property and a capacity of judging for 

themselves, they become independent agents; and when, for this reason, the 

authority of their parents ceases, and becomes nothing but the respect and 

influence due to benefactors. Supposing, therefore, that the order of nature 

in establishing the relation between parents and children ought to have been 

the rule of our conduct to the colonies, we should have been gradually 

relaxing our authority as they grew up. But, like mad parents, we have done 

the contrary; and, at the very time when our authority should have been most 

relaxed, we have carried it to the greatest extent and exercised it with the 

greatest rigour. No wonder then that they have turned upon us, and obliged 

us to remember that they are not children.



'But we have', it is said, 'protected them and run deeply in debt on their 

account.' The full answer to this has been already given, Will any one say 

that all we have done for them has not been more on our own account than on 

theirs? But suppose the contrary. Have they done nothing for us? Have they 

made no compensation for the protection they have received? Have they not 

helped us to pay our taxes, to support our poor, and to bear the burthen of 

our debts, by taking from us, at our own price, all the commodities with 

which we can supply them? Have they not, for our advantage, submitted to 

many restraints in acquiring property? Must they likewise resign to us the 

disposal of that property? Has not their exclusive trade with us been for 

many years one of the chief sources of our wealth and power? In all our wars 

have they not fought by our side, and contributed much to our success? In 

the last war, particularly, it is well known that they ran themselves deeply 

in debt; and that the Parliament thought it necessary to grant them 

considerable sums annually as compensations for going beyond their abilities 

in assisting us. And in this course would they have continued for many 

future years; perhaps, for ever. In short, were an accurate account stated, 

it is by no means certain which side would appear to be most indebted. When 

asked as freemen they have hitherto seldom discovered any reluctance in 

giving. But, in obedience to a demand and with the bayonet at their breasts, 

they will give us nothing but blood.



It is farther said, 'that the land on which they settled was ours'. But how 

came it to be ours? If sailing along a coast can give a right to a country, 

then might the people of Japan become, as soon as they please, the 

proprietors of Britain. Nothing can be more chimerical than property founded 

on such a reason. If the land on which the colonies first settled had any 

proprietors, they were the natives. The greatest part of it they bought of 

the natives. They have since cleared and cultivated it; and, without any 

help from us, converted a wilderness into fruitful and pleasant fields. It 

is, therefore, now on a double account their property, and no power on earth 

can have any right to disturb them in the possession of it, or to take from 

them, without their consent, any part of its produce.



But let it be granted that the land was ours. Did they not settle upon it 

under the faith of charters which promised them the enjoyment of all the 

rights of Englishmen, and allowed them to tax themselves, and to be governed 

by legislatures of their own, similar to ours? These charters were given 

them by an authority which at the time was thought competent; and they have 

been rendered sacred by an acquiescence on our part for near a century. Can 

it then be wondered at that the colonies should revolt when they found their 

charters violated, and an attempt made to force innovations upon them by 

famine and the sword? But I lay no stress on charters. They derive their 

rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common sense to imagine 

that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any 

such condition, as that the people from whom they withdrew, should for ever 

be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of 

government they pleased. And had there been express stipulations to this 

purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be 

no more bound by them, than if it had been stipulated with them, that they 

should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and 

tigers.



The defective state of the representation of this kingdom has been farther 

pleaded to prove our right to tax America. We submit to a parliament that 

does not represent us, and therefore they ought. How strange an argument is 

this? It is saying we want liberty, and, therefore, they ought to want it. 

Suppose it true, that they are indeed contending for a better constitution 

of government, and more liberty than we enjoy: ought this to make us angry? 

Who is there that does not see the danger to which this country is exposed? 

Is it generous, because we are in a sink, to endeavour to draw them into it? 

Ought we not rather to wish earnestly that there may at least be one free 

country left upon earth to which we may fly, when venality, luxury, and vice 

have completed the ruin of liberty here?



It is, however, by no means true that America has no more right to be 

exempted from taxation by the British Parliament, than Britain itself. Here, 

all freeholders and burgesses in boroughs are represented. There, not one 

freeholder or any other person is represented. Here the aids granted by the 

represented part of the kingdom must be proportionably paid by themselves; 

and the laws they make for others, they at the same time make for 

themselves. There, the aids they would grant would not be paid, but 

received, by themselves; and the laws they made would be made for others 

only. In short, the relation of one country to another country, whose 

representatives have the power of taxing it (and of appropriating the money 

raised by the taxes) is much the same with the relation of a country to a 

single despot, or a body of despots within itself, invested with the like 

power. In both cases, the people taxed and those who tax have separate 

interests, nor can there be any thing to check oppression, besides either 

the abilities of the people taxed, or the humanity of the taxers. But indeed 

I can never hope to convince that person of any thing, who does not see an 

essential difference between the two cases now mentioned; or between the 

circumstances of individuals, and classes of men, making parts of a 

community imperfectly represented in the legislature that governs it; and 

the circumstances of a whole community, in a distant world, not at all 

represented.



But enough has been said by others on this point; nor is it possible for me 

to throw any new light upon it. To finish, therefore, what I meant to offer 

under this head, I must beg that the following considerations may be 

particularly attended to.



The question now between us and the colonies is whether in respect of 

taxation and internal legislation, they are bound to be subject to the 

jurisdiction of this kingdom: or, in other words, whether the British 

Parliament has or has not of right a power to dispose of their property, and 

to model as it pleases their governments? To this supremacy over them, we 

say, we are entitled; and in order to maintain it, we have begun the present 

war. Let me here enquire,



First, whether, if we have now this supremacy, we shall not be equally 

entitled to it in any future time? They are now but little short of half our 

number. To this number they have grown from a small body of original 

settlers by a very rapid increase. The probability is that they will go on 

to increase, and that, in 50 or 60 years, they will be double our number and 

form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of states, all equal or 

superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity 

and happiness to human life. In that period, will they be still bound to 

acknowledge that supremacy over them which we now claim? Can there be any 

person who will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a 

vast continent holding all that is valuable to it at the discretion of a 

handful of people on the other side of the Atlantic? But if, at that period, 

this would be unreasonable; what makes it otherwise now? Draw the line if 

you can. But there is a still greater difficulty.



Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue; and its 

legislature consists of a body of able and independent men who govern with 

wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be reversed: when its 

excellent constitution of government will be subverted: when, pressed by 

debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue 

from every distant province, in order to ease its own burdens. When the 

influence of the crown, strengthened by luxury and an universal profligacy 

of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of 

liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals: when a 

general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs; and when 

the Parliament, the Grand Council of the nation and once the faithful 

guardian of the state and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated 

into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any 

measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts. 

Such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the state of Great 

Britain. What will, at that period, be the duty of the colonies? Will they 

be still bound to unconditional submission? Must they always continue an 

appendage to our government and follow it implicitly through every change 

that can happen to it? Wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen as 

good as ourselves. Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there 

is no danger of any such revolution? Would to God this were true. But will 

you not always say the same? Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or 

not? Can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never 

come? Once more, if we have indeed that power which we claim over the 

legislations, and internal rights of the Colonies, may we not, whenever we 

please, subject them to the arbitrary power of the crown? I do not mean that 

this would be a disadvantageous change, for I have before observed that if a 

people are to be subject to an external power over which they have no 

command, it is better that power should be lodged in the hands of one man 

than of a multitude. But many persons think otherwise and such ought to 

consider that, if this would be a calamity, the condition of the Colonies 

must be deplorable. 'A government by King, Lords, and Commons, (it has been 

said) is the perfection of government', and so it is when the Commons are a 

just representation of the people and when also it is not extended to any 

distant people or communities not represented. But if this is the best, a 

government by a king only must be the worst, and every claim implying a 

right to establish such a government among any people must be unjust and 

cruel. It is self-evident that by claiming a right to alter the 

constitutions of the Colonies, according to our discretion, we claim this 

power. And it is a power that we have thought fit to exercise in one of our 

Colonies and that we have attempted to exercise in another. Canada, 

according to the late extension of its limits, is a country almost as large 

as half Europe, and it may possibly come in time to be filled with British 

subjects. The Quebec Act[d] makes the king of Great Britain a despot over 

all that country. In the province of Massachuset's Bay the same thing had 

been attempted and begun.



The act for better regulating their government,[e] passed at the same time 

with the Quebec Act, gives the king the right of appointing, and removing at 

his pleasure, the members of one part of the legislature; alters the mode of 

chusing juries, on purpose to bring it more under the influence of the king; 

and takes away from the province the power of calling any meetings of the 

people without the king's consent. The judges, likewise, have been made 

dependent on the king for their nomination and pay and continuance in 

office. If all this is no more than we have a right to do, may we not go on 

to abolish the house of representatives, to destroy all trials by juries, 

and to give up the province absolutely and totally to the will of the king? 

May we not even establish Popery in the province, as has been lately done in 

Canada, leaving the support of Protestantism to the king's discretion? Can 

there be any Englishmen who, were it his own case, would not sooner lose his 

heart's blood than yield to claims so pregnant with evils and destructive to 

every thing that can distinguish a freeman from a slave?



I will take this opportunity to add that what I have now said suggests a 

consideration that demonstrates on how different a footing the Colonies are 

with respect to our government from particular bodies of men within the 

kingdom who happen not to be represented. Here, it is impossible that the 

represented part should subject the unrepresented part to arbitrary power 

without including themselves. But in the Colonies it is not impossible. We 

know that it has been done.



                           Sect. II 

  Whether the War with America is Justified by the Principles of the

                         Constitution



I have proposed, in the next place, to examine the war with the Colonies by 

the principles of the constitution. I know that it is common to say that we 

are now maintaining the constitution in America. If this means that we are 

endeavouring to establish our own constitution of government there, it is by 

no means true, nor, were it true, would it be right. They have chartered 

governments of their own, with which they are pleased and which, if any 

power on earth may change without their consent, that power may likewise, if 

it thinks proper, deliver them over to the Grand Seignior. Suppose the 

colonies of France had, by compacts, enjoyed for many years free governments 

open to all the world, under which they had grown and flourished; what 

should we think of that kingdom, were it to attempt to destroy their 

governments and to force upon them its own mode of government? Should we not 

applaud any zeal they discovered in repelling such an injury? But the truth 

is, in the present instance, that we are not maintaining but violating our 

own constitution in America. The essence of our constitution consists in its 

independency. There is in this case no difference between subjection and 

annihilation. Did, therefore, the Colonies possess governments perfectly the 

same with ours, the attempt to subject them to ours would be an attempt to 

ruin them. A free government loses its nature from the moment it becomes 

liable to be commanded or altered by any superior power.



But I intended here principally to make the following observation. The 

fundamental principle of our government is, 'the right of a people to give 

and grant their own money'. It is of no consequence, in this case, whether 

we enjoy this right in a proper manner or not. Most certainly we do not. It 

is, however, the principle on which our government, as a free government, is 

founded. The spirit of the constitution gives it us and, however imperfectly 

enjoyed, we glory in it as our first and greatest blessing. It was an 

attempt to encroach upon this right, in a trifling instance, that produced 

the civil war in the reign of Charles the First. Ought not our brethren in 

America to enjoy this right as well as ourselves? Do the principles of the 

constitution give it us, but deny it to them? Or can we, with any decency, 

pretend that when we give to the king their money, we give them our own? 

What difference does it make that in the time of Charles the First the 

attempt to take away this right was made by one man; but that, in the case 

of America it is made by a body of men?



In a word, this is a war undertaken not only against the principles of our 

own constitution, but on purpose to destroy other similar constitutions in 

America, and to substitute in their room a military force. It is, therefore, 

a gross and flagrant violation of the constitution.



                          Sect. III 

              Of the Policy of the War with America



In writing the present section, I enter upon a subject of the last 

importance, on which much has been said by other writers with great force, 

and in the ablest manner. But I am not willing to omit any topic which I 

think of great consequence, merely because it has already been discussed. 

And, with respect to this in particular, it will, I believe, be found that 

some of the observations on which I shall insist have not been sufficiently 

attended to. 



The object of this war has been often enough declared to be 'maintaining 

the supremacy of this country over the colonies'. I have already enquired 

how far reason and justice, the principles of liberty, and the rights of 

humanity, entitle us to this supremacy. Setting aside, therefore, now all 

considerations of this kind, I would observe that this supremacy is to be 

maintained either merely for its own sake or for the sake of some public 

interest connected with it and dependent upon it. If for its own sake, the 

only object of the war is the extension of dominion, and its only motive is 

the lust of power. All government, even within a state, becomes tyrannical 

as far as it is a needless and wanton exercise of power, or is carried 

farther than is absolutely necessary to preserve the peace and to secure the 

safety of the state. This is what an excellent writer [Jonathan Shipley] 

calls 'governing too much'[f] and its effect must always be, weakening 

government by rendering it contemptible and odious. Nothing can be of more 

importance in governing distant provinces and adjusting the clashing 

interests of different societies than attention to this remark. In these 

circumstances it is particularly necessary to make a sparing use of power 

in order to preserve power. Happy would it have been for Great Britain, had 

this been remembered by those who have lately conducted its affairs. But our 

policy has been of another kind. At the period when our authority should 

have been most concealed, it has been brought most in view and by a 

progression of violent measures, every one of which has increased distress, 

we have given the world reason to conclude that we are acquainted with no 

other method of governing than by force. What a shocking mistake! If our 

object is power we should have known better how to use it, and our rulers 

should have considered that freemen will always revolt at the sight of a 

naked sword, and that the complicated affairs of a great kingdom, holding in 

subordination to it a multitude of distant communities, all jealous of their 

rights and warmed with spirits as high as our own, require not only the most 

skilful but the most cautious and tender management. The consequences of a 

different management we are now feeling. We see ourselves driven among rocks 

and in danger of being lost.



The following reasons make it too probable that the present contest with 

America is a contest for power only, abstracted from all the advantages 

connected with it.



First, there is a love of power inherent in human nature, and it cannot be 

uncharitable to suppose that the nation in general, and the cabinet in 

particular, are too likely to be influenced by it. What can be more 

flattering than to look across the Atlantic, and to see in the boundless 

continent of America increasing millions whom we have a right to order as we 

please, who hold their property at our disposal, and who have no other law 

than our will? With what complacency have we been used to talk of them as 

our subjects? Is it not the interruption they now give to this pleasure, is 

it not the opposition they make to our pride, and not any injury they have 

done us, that is the secret spring of our present animosity against them? I 

wish all in this kingdom would examine themselves carefully on this point. 

Perhaps they might find that they have not known what spirit they are of. 

Perhaps they would become sensible that it was a spirit of domination more 

than a regard to the true interest of this country that lately led so many 

of them, with such savage folly, to address the throne for the slaughter of 

their brethren in America if they will not submit to them and to make offers 

of their lives and fortunes for that purpose. Indeed, I am persuaded that, 

were pride and the lust of dominion exterminated from every heart among us 

and the humility of Christians infused in their room, this quarrel would be 

soon ended.



Secondly, another reason for believing that this is a contest for power 

only is that our ministers have frequently declared that their object is not 

to draw a revenue from America, and that many of those who are warmest for 

continuing it represent the American trade as of no great consequence.



But what deserves particular consideration here is that this is a contest 

from which no advantages can possibly be derived. Not a revenue, for the 

provinces of America, when desolated, will afford no revenue, or, if they 

should, the expence of subduing them and keeping them in subjection will 

much exceed that revenue. Not any of the advantages of trade, for it is a 

folly, next to insanity, to think trade can be promoted by impoverishing our 

customers and fixing in their minds an everlasting abhorrence of us. It 

remains, therefore, that this war can have no other object than the 

extension of power. Miserable reflection! To sheath our swords in the bowels 

of our brethren and spread misery and ruin among a happy people for no other 

end than to oblige them to acknowledge our supremacy. How horrid! This is 

the cursed ambition that led a Caesar and an Alexander, and many other mad 

conquerors, to attack peaceful communities and to lay waste the earth.



But a worse principle than even this influences some among us. Pride and 

the love of dominion are principles hateful enough, but blind resentment and 

the desire of revenge are infernal principles. And these, I am afraid, have 

no small share at present in guiding our public conduct. One cannot help 

indeed being astonished at the virulence with which some speak on the 

present occasion against the Colonies. For what have they done? Have they 

crossed the ocean and invaded us? Have they attempted to take from us the 

fruits of our labour and to overturn that form of government which we hold 

so sacred? This cannot be pretended. On the contrary, this is what we have 

done to them. We have transported ourselves to their peaceful retreats and 

employed our fleets and armies to stop up their ports, to destroy their 

commerce, to seize their effects, and to bum their towns. Would we but let 

them alone and suffer them to enjoy in security their property and 

governments, instead of disturbing us they would thank and bless us. And yet 

it is we who imagine ourselves ill-used. The truth is, we expected to find 

them a cowardly rabble who would lie quietly at our feet and they have 

disappointed us. They have risen in their own defence and repelled force by 

force. They deny the plenitude of our power over them and insist upon being 

treated as free communities. It is this that has provoked us and kindled our 

governors into rage.



I hope I shall not here be understood to intimate that all who promote this 

war are actuated by these principles. Some, I doubt not, are influenced by 

no other principle than a regard to what they think the just authority of 

this country over its colonies and to the unity and indivisibility of the 

British Empire. I wish such could be engaged to enter thoroughly into the 

enquiry which has been the subject of the first pan of this pamphlet and to 

consider particularly how different a thing maintaining the authority of 

government within a state is from maintaining the authority of one people 

over another already happy in the enjoyment of a government of their own. I 

wish farther they would consider that the desire of maintaining authority is 

warrantable only as far as it is the means of promoting some end and doing 

some good, and that, before we resolve to spread famine and fire through a 

country in order to make it acknowledge our authority, we ought to be 

assured that great advantages will arise not only to ourselves, but to the 

country we wish to conquer. That from the present contest no advantage to 

ourselves can arise has been already shewn, and will presently be shewn more 

at large. That no advantage to the Colonies can arise from it need not, I 

hope, be shewn. It has however been asserted that even their good is 

intended by this war. Many of us are persuaded that they will be much 

happier under our government than under any government of their own, and 

that their liberties will be safer when held for them by us than when 

trusted in their own hands. How kind is it thus to take upon us the trouble 

of judging for them what is most. for their happiness? Nothing can be kinder 

except the resolution we have formed to exterminate them if they will not 

submit to our judgment. What strange language have I sometimes heard? By an 

armed force we are now endeavouring to destroy the laws and governments of 

America, and yet I have heard it said that we are endeavouring to support 

law and government there. We are insisting upon our right to levy 

contributions upon them and to maintain this right we are bringing upon them 

all the miseries a people can endure, and yet it is asserted that we mean 

nothing but their security and happiness.



But I have wandered a little from the point I intended principally to 

insist upon in this section, which is, 'the folly, in respect of policy, of 

the measures which have brought on this contest, and its pernicious and 

fatal tendency'.



The following observations will, I believe, abundantly prove this.



First, there are points which are likely always to suffer by discussion. Of 

this kind are most points of authority and prerogative and the best policy 

is to avoid, as much as possible, giving any occasion for calling them in 

question.



The Colonies were at the beginning of this reign in the habit of 

acknowledging our authority and of allowing us as much power over them as 

our interest required and more, in some instances, than we could reasonably 

claim. This habit they would have retained, and had we, instead of imposing 

new burdens upon them and increasing their restraints, studied to promote 

their commerce and to grant them new indulgences, they would have been 

always growing more attached to us. Luxury and, together with it, their 

dependence upon us, and our influence in their assemblies, would have 

increased till in time perhaps they would have become as corrupt as 

ourselves; and we might have succeeded to our wishes in establishing our 

authority over them. But, happily for them, we have chosen a different 

course. By exertions of authority which have alarmed them they have been put 

upon examining into the grounds of all our claims and forced to give up 

their luxuries and to seek all their resources within themselves. And the 

issue is likely to prove the loss of all our authority over them and of all 

the advantages connected with it. So little do men in power sometimes know 

how to preserve power and so remarkably does the desire of extending 

dominion sometimes destroy it. Mankind are naturally disposed to continue in 

subjection to that mode of government, be it what it will, under which they 

have been born and educated. Nothing rouses them into resistance but gross 

abuse or some particular oppressions out of the road to which they have been 

used. And he who will examine the history of the world will find there has 

generally been more reason for complaining that they have been too patient 

than that they have been turbulent and rebellious.



Our governors, ever since I can remember, have been jealous that the 

Colonies, some time or other, would throw off their dependence. This 

jealousy was not founded on any of their acts or declarations. They have 

always, while at peace with us, disclaimed any such design, and they have 

continued to disclaim it since they have been at war with us. I have reason, 

indeed, to believe that independency is, even at this moment, generally 

dreaded among them as a calamity to which they are in danger of being driven 

in order to avoid a greater. The jealousy, I have mentioned, was, however, 

natural and betrayed a secret opinion that the subjection in which they were 

held was more than we could expect them always to endure. In such 

circumstances, all possible care should have been taken to give them no 

reason for discontent and to preserve them in subjection by keeping in that 

line of conduct to which custom had reconciled them, or, at least, never 

deviating from it except with great caution, and, particularly, by avoiding 

all direct attacks on their property and legislations. Had we done this, the 

different interests of so many states scattered over a vast continent, 

joined to our own prudence and moderation, would have enabled us to maintain 

them in dependence for ages to come. But instead of this, how have we acted? 

It is in truth too evident that our whole conduct, instead of being directed 

by that sound policy and foresight which in such circumstances were 

absolutely necessary, has been nothing (to say the best of it) but a series 

of the blindest rigour followed by retraction, of violence followed by 

concession, of mistake, weakness and inconsistency. A recital of a few facts 

within every body's recollection, will fully prove this.



In the 6th of George the Second, an act was passed for imposing certain 

duties on all foreign spirits, molasses and sugars imported into the 

plantations.[g] In this act the duties imposed are said to be given and 

granted by the Parliament to the King, and this is the first American act in 

which these words have been used. But notwithstanding this, as the act had 

the appearance of being only a regulation of trade, the Colonies submitted 

to it and a small direct revenue was drawn by it from them. In the 4th of 

the present reign, many alterations were made in this act, with the declared 

purpose of making provision for raising a revenue in America.[h] This 

alarmed the Colonies and produced discontents and remonstrances which might 

have convinced our rulers this was tender ground on which it became them to 

tread very gently. There is, however, no reason to doubt but in time they 

would have sunk into a quiet submission to this revenue act as being at 

worst only the exercise of a power which then they seem not to have thought 

much of contesting, I mean, the power of taxing them externally. But before 

they had time to cool, a worse provocation was given them and the Stamp 

Act[i] was passed. This being an attempt to tax them internally, and a 

direct attack on their property by a power which would not suffer itself to 

be questioned, which eased itself by loading them, and to which it was 

impossible to fix any bounds, they were thrown at once, from one end of the 

continent to the other, into resistance and rage. Government, dreading the 

consequences, gave way and the Parliament (upon a change of ministry) 

repealed the Stamp Act without requiring from them any recognition of its 

authority, or doing any more to preserve its dignity than asserting, by the 

declaratory law, that it was possessed of full power and authority to make 

laws to bind them in all cases whatever. Upon this, peace was restored, 

and, had no farther attempts of the same kind been made, they would 

undoubtedly have suffered us (as the people of Ireland have done) to enjoy 

quietly our declaratory law. They would have recovered their former habits 

of subjection, and our connexion with them might have continued an 

increasing source of our wealth and glory. But the spirit of despotism and 

avarice, always blind and restless, soon broke forth again. The scheme for 

drawing a revenue from America, by parliamentary taxation, was resumed and 

in a little more than a year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, when all was 

peace, a third act was passed, imposing duties payable in America on tea, 

paper, glass, painters' colours, etc.[j] This, as might have been expected, 

revived all the former heats and the Empire was a second time threatened 

with the most dangerous commotions. Government receded again and the 

Parliament (under another change of ministry) repealed all the obnoxious 

duties except that upon tea. This exception was made in order to maintain a 

shew of dignity. But it was, in reality, sacrificing safety to pride and 

leaving a splinter in the wound to produce a gangrene. For some time, 

however, this relaxation answered its intended purposes. Our commercial 

intercourse with the Colonies was again recovered and they avoided nothing 

but that tea which we had excepted in our repeal. In this state would things 

have remained, and even tea would perhaps in time have been gradually 

admitted, had not the evil genius of Britain stepped forth once more to 

embroil the Empire.



The East India Company having fallen under difficulties, partly in 

consequence of the loss of the American market for tea, a scheme was formed 

for assisting them by an attempt to recover that market. With this view an 

act was passed to enable them to export their tea to America free of all 

duties here, and subject only to 3d per pound duty payable in America. It 

was to be offered at a low price and it was expected the consequence would 

prove that the Colonies would be tempted to buy it, a precedent gained for 

taxing them, and at the same time the company relieved. Ships were, 

therefore, fitted out and large cargoes sent. The snare was too gross to 

escape the notice of the Colonies. They saw it and spurned at it. They 

refused to admit the tea and at Boston some persons in disguise threw it 

into the sea. Had our governors in this case satisfied themselves with 

requiring a compensation from the province for the damage done, there is no 

doubt but it would have been granted. Or had they proceeded no farther in 

the infliction of punishment than stopping up the port and destroying the 

trade of Boston till compensation was made, the province might possibly have 

submitted and a sufficient saving would have been gained for the honour of 

the nation. But having hitherto proceeded without wisdom they observed now 

no bounds in their resentment. To the Boston Port Bill[k] was added a 

bill[l] which destroyed the chartered government of the province, a bill[m] 

which withdrew from the jurisdiction of the province persons who in 

particular cases should commit murder, and the Quebec Bill. At the same time 

a strong body of troops was stationed at Boston to enforce obedience to 

their bills.



All who knew any thing of the temper of the Colonies saw that the effect of 

this sudden accumulation of vengeance would probably be not intimidating but 

exasperating them and driving them into a general revolt. But our ministers 

had different apprehensions. They believed that the malecontents in the 

Colony of Massachusett's were a small party, headed by a few factious men, 

that the majority of the people would take the side of government as soon as 

they saw a force among them capable of supporting them, that, at worst, the 

Colonies in general would never make a common cause with this provin