Every man being born free, says another distinguished writer, the son of a citizen, arrived at the years of discretion, may examine whether it be convenient for him to join in the society for which he was destined by birth. If he finds that it will be no advantage for him to remain in it, he is at liberty to leave it, preserving as much as his new engagements will allow him, the love and gratitude he owes it.2 He further says, "There are cases in which a citizen has an absolute right to renounce his country, and abandon it for ever"; which is widely different from the sentiment of the historian, that "allegiance is not local, but perpetual and unalienable": And among other cases in which a citizen has this absolute right, he mentions that, when the sovereign, or the greater part of the nation will permit the exercise of only one religion in the state; which was the case when our ancestors forsook their native country. They were denied the rights of conscience. They left, it however with the consent of the nation: It is allowed by this historian that they departed the kingdom with the leave of their prince. They removed at their own expence and not the nation's, into a country claimed and possessed by independent princes, whose right to the lordship and dominion thereof has been acknowledged by English kings; and they fairly purchased the lands of the rightful owners, and settled them at their own and not the nation's expence. It is incumbent then upon this historian to show, by what rule of equity or right, unless they expressly consented to it, they became subject to the controul of the parent state. - The obligation they had been under to submit to the government of the nation, by virtue of their enjoyment of lands which were under its jurisdiction, according to Mr. Locke, began and ended with the enjoyment. That was but a tacit consent to the government; and when by donation, sale or otherwise, they quitted the possession of those lands, they were at liberty, unless it can be made to appear they were otherwise bound by positive engagement or express contract, to incorporate into any other commonwealth, or begin a new one in vacuis locis, in any part of the world they could find free and unpossessed. - They entered into a compact, it is true, with the king of England, and upon certain conditions become his voluntary subjects, not his slaves. But did they enter into an express promise to be subject to the controul of the parent state? What is there to show that they were any way bound to obey the acts of the British parliament, but those very acts themselves? Is there any thing but the mere ipse dixit of an historian, who for ought any one can tell, design'd to make a sacrifice to the ruling powers of Great-Britain, to show that the parent state might exercise the least controul over them as Colonists, any more than the English parliament could exercise controul over the dominions which the Kings formerly held in