140. A Spirited Remonstrance (1765)
BY THE TOWN-MEETING OF CAMBRIDGE
This piece is selected as a spirited example of the protests made against the Stamp Act by all sorts of public bodies and public meetings.— Bibliography : Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 29-33; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic 183-184; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 134.
AT a Legal meeting of the freeholdrs & other Inhabitants of the Town of Cambridge this 14 day of October 1765.
The Honbl William Brattle Esqr Chosen Moderatr
Voted (that with all humility) It is the opinion of the Town that the Inhabitants of this Province have a Legal Claim to all the natural Inherent Constitutional Rights of Englishmen notwithstanding their distance from Great Brittain ; That the Stamp Act is an Infraction upon these Rights ; one Instance out of many in our Opinion is this : The Distributor of Stamps will have a Soveranity over Every thing, but the lives of the People, since it is in his Power to Summon Every one he pleases to Qebeck, Montreal, or New found land, to answer for the pretended or Real Breaches of this Act, and when the faithfull Subject arrives there ; By whom is he to be Tryed, not by his Peers (the Birth Right of Every English man) No but by the ludge of Admiralty without a Iury, and it is possible without Law.
Under these Circumstances the Stamp Master may unrighteously get more than His Majesty will upon a Ballance by the Stamps, for who would not Rather pay the fine then be thus harrassed, thus Tryed ; Why are not His Majestes Subjects in Great Brittain Treated in this manner, Why must we in America who have in Every Instance discovered as much Loyalty for His Majesty & Obedience to His Laws as any of His Brittish Subjects (and whose Exertion in some of the Provinces during the Last Warr have been Greater ; be thus Discriminated ; at this time Especially whilst we are under an almost unsupportable load of Debt the Consequence of this Exertion ; We believe it may be Truly said that no one in Great Brittain pays so great a Tax as some do in this Province in proportion to their Estates ; let this Act but take place, Liberty will be no more, Trade will Languish & dye ; Our Medium will be Sent into His Majestes Exchequer, And Poverty come upon us as an Armed man ; The Town therefore hereby Advise & Direct their Representatives by no means whatsoever to do any one thing that may Aid said Act in its opperation ; But that in Conjunction with the friends
