taxed at the pleasure of a distant minister! Not, honoured sir, that the Americans care a fig for the _pence_ imposed on this bit of stamp paper, but for the _principle_. For they well know that if parliament claim a _right_ to take from us a penny in the pound, there is no line drawn to bound that right; and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other _nineteen shillings and eleven pence_? And besides, sir, where is the necessity for this _most degrading_ measure? Have not the Americans ever shown themselves the warmest friends of their king and country? Have they not, in all cases of danger, most readily voted both their men and money to the full extent of their means, and sometimes far beyond? "And in addition to all this, are they not daily paying large monies in secret taxes to Great Britain? "I. We are not _permitted to trade with foreign nations_! All the difference in the price of what we could buy cheaper from them, but must buy dearer from Britain, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "II. We are obliged to _carry our produce to Britain_! All that it sells for less _there_ than it would in any other market, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "III. All the manufactures that we could make, but are _forbidden_ and must buy of British merchants, is a clear _tax_ to Britain. "And what _freeborn_ Englishman can, without indignation, think of being so daringly defrauded of his _birthright_, that if he wants a pipe of good wine, he cannot go to the island of Madeira and get it on easy exchange for his bread stuff, and return at once to his home and business; but must go a thousand miles farther from his family, even to Great Britain, and there run the gauntlet, through so many ruinous charges, as to bring his wine up to almost double what it ought to have cost? And all this most flagrant injustice done to the whole people of the colonies, just to enrich half a dozen British merchants engaged in the Portugal wine trade! "A similar outrage on another of the dearest rights of Englishmen, _i.e._ '_to make the most that they honestly can of their property_,' is committed on the British subjects in America, for the sake of favouring a few hatters and nail makers in England. No country on the globe, furnishes better iron or better beaver than does North America. But the Americans must not make a hob-nail or a felt hat for themselves. No; they must send all their iron and fur to England for the hatters and nail makers _there_; who may give them their own price for the raw materials, and ask their own price for the manufactures. "All that a wise government wishes, is, that the people should be numerous and wealthy enough to _fight the battles_ of their country, and to _pay the taxes_. But they care not so much whether the fighting be done by John or Thomas, or the tax paid by William or Charles.