it was proposed to each of the lawyers singly, _Do you desire that business should proceed contrary to the act of parliament?_ Every one of them answered in the negative, even Mr. Otis himself.—But they said, it would be proper to try a cause or two to quiet the people: accordingly one cause, which had been at issue before the stamp act took place, was tried and all other civil business was postponed to the middle of April. Though the violent and righteous proceedings, which have been noticed, were severely censured by many; and numbers in all the colonies might seem inclined to submit to the stamp act, yet the right of imposing it was universally condemned, and the colonial rights as universally acceded to by the most peaceably disposed. The resolutions of the _Pennsylvania_ assembly, which met at _Philadelphia_ in September 1765, were passed _nemine contradicente_; and left upon their minutes, “as a testimony of the zeal and ardent desire of that house, to preserve their inestimable rights, which as _Englishmen_ they possessed ever since the province was settled, and to transmit them to their latest posterity.” They “resolved, That the only legal representatives of the inhabitants of this province, are the persons they annually elect to serve as members of assembly—Resolved, therefore, That the taxation of the people of this province by any other persons whatsoever, than such their representatives in assembly, is unconstitutional, and subversive of their most valuable rights—Resolved, That the laying of taxes upon the inhabitants of this province, in any other manner, being naturally subversive of public liberty, must of necessary consequence, be utterly destructive of public happiness.”[85] There might not be so many quakers in the house as usual; the times probably occasioned a larger choice out of other denominations; but there must have been several, and these we find acquiesced. These resolutions are as much opposed to the claims of the British parliament, as are those of the _Massachusetts_ assembly, passed October the twenty-ninth. Indeed the latter dwell more upon the unalienable essential rights of mankind, of which these cannot be divested, consistent with the law of God and nature, by any law of society; and they evidently mark it out, in their opinion, as one of those rights, that no man can justly take the property of another without his consent. They also resolved, that a representation in parliament of the inhabitants of their province, such as the subjects of Britain actually enjoy, is impracticable for the subjects in America.[86]—But both assemblies, though their expressions differed, agreed in resolving, that the extensions of the court of admiralty within the provinces, is a most violent infraction of the right of trials by juries. The resolves of the _Maryland_ and _Connecticut_ assemblies, passed, the one September the twenty-eighth, and the other November the first, breathed the same spirit.[87]