government (of England) but as near as may be to it; and this variation is allowed but for the sake of emergencies; and that latitude bounded with these words, _for the good of the adventurer and planter_. This tax is not to be found in the duke’s conveyances, but is an after business. Had the planters foreseen it, they would sooner have taken up in any other plantation in America—[a plain intimation that no such tax was imposed in any other American plantation.] Beside, there is no end of this power; for since we are by this precedent assessed without any law, and thereby excluded our English right of common assent to taxes; what security have we of any thing we possess? We can call nothing our own, but are tenants at will not only for the soil, but for all our personal estates; we endure penury, and the sweat of our brows, to improve them at our own hazard only. This is to transplant from good to bad. _This sort of conduct has destroyed government, but never raised one to any true greatness._[35] The paper presented to the duke’s commissioners, evidently proves, that it was the opinion of these gentlemen, who were quakers, that no tax could be justly imposed upon the inhabitants, without their own consent first had, and by the authority of their own general assembly. The report of the council in favour of the aggrieved, and the relief that followed, were virtual concessions to the same purport. This will not be judged wholly unprecedented by those who are acquainted with what happened relative to the county-palatine and city of _Chester_, in the 35th year of the reign of _Henry_ VIII. [1543.] The inhabitants complained in a petition to the king, that for want of knights and burgesses in the court of parliament, they sustained manifold damages, not only in their lands, goods, and bodies, but in the civil and politic governance and maintenance of the commonwealth of their said county; and that while they had been always bound by the acts and statutes of the said court of parliament, the same as other counties, cities, and boroughs, that had knights and burgesses in said court, they had often been touched, and grieved with acts and statutes made within the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of the said court-palatine, as prejudicial unto the commonwealth, quietness, and peace of his majesty’s subjects. They proposed to the king, as a remedy, that it would please his highness, that it be enacted, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and by the commons in parliament assembled, that from the end of the session, the county-palatine shall have two knights for the said county, and likewise two citizens to be burgesses for the city of Chester. The complaint and remedy were thought to be so just and reasonable, that the relief for which they prayed was granted, and they were admitted to send representatives to parliament, to guard their