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other from the arbitrary decisions of the executive power.
The continuation of these liberties to the inhabitants of
America, we ardently implore, as absolutely necessary to
unite the several parts of your wide extended dominions,
in that harmony so essential to the preservation and happiness
of the whole. Protected in these liberties, the
emoluments Great Britain receives from us, however greet
at present, are inconsiderable, compared with those she
hasthe fairest prospect of acquiring. By this protection
she will for ever secure to herself the advantages of conveying
to all Europe, the merchandise which America.
furnishes, and for supplying, through the sune channel,
whatsoever is wanted from thence. Here opens a boundless
source of wealth and naval strength. - Yet these
immense advantages, by the abridgment of those invaluable
righu and liberties, by which our growth has been
nourished, are in danger of being forever lost, and our
subordinate legislatures in effect rendered useless by the
late acts of parliament imposing duties and times on these
colonies, and extending the- jurisdiction of the courts of
admiralty here, beyond its ancient ' limits; statutes by
which your maiestyb commons in Britain undertake absolutely
to dispose of the property of their fellow-subjects in
America. without their consent, and for the enforcing
whereof they are subjected no the determination of a
single judge, in a court unrestrained by the wise rules. of
the common law, the birthright of Englishmen, and the
safeguard of, their persons and properties
The invaluable rights of taxing ourselves and trial by our peers, of which we implore your majesty's protection, are not, we most humbly conceive, unconstitutional but confirmed by the Great Charter of English liberties. On the first of these rights the honorable 'house of commons found their ractice of originating money, s right enjoyed by the kingdom of Ireland, by the clergy of England, un-
