The Writings of Samuel Adams - Volume 2Adams, Samuel
History
The Writings of Samuel Adams - Volume 2
Adams, Samuel
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1809
While we are mentioning the infringement of the rights of
this Colony in particular by means of Instructions, we cannot help
calling to remembrance the late unexampled suspension of the
legislative of a Sister Colony, New York by force of an
Instruction, untill they should comply with an Arbitrary Act of
the British Parliament for quartering troops, designed by military
execution, to enforce the raising of a tribute. -
8th - The extending the power of the Courts of Vice Admirality to
so enormous a degree as deprives the people in the Colonies in a
great measure of their inestimable right to tryals by Juries.,
which has ever been Justly considered as the grand Bulwark and
security of English property.
This alone is sufficient to rouse our jealousy:And we are again
obliged to take notice of the remarkable contrast, which the
British Parliament has been pleased to exhibit between the
Subjects in Great Britain & the Colonies. In the same Statute, by
which they give up to the decision of one dependent interested
Judge of Admirality the estates and properties of the Colonists,
they expressly guard the estates & properties of the people of
Great Britain; for all forfeitures & penalties inflicted by the
Statute of George the Third, or any other Act of Parliament
relative to the trade of the Colonies, may be sued for in any
Court of Admiralty in the Colonies; but all penalties and
forfeitures which shall be incurred in Great Britain, may be sued
for in any of his Majestys Courts of Record in Westminster or in
the Court of Exchequer in Scotland, respectively. Thus our Birth
Rights are taken from us; and that too with every mark of
indignity, insult and contempt. We may be harrassed and dragged
from one part of the Continent to the other (which some of our
Brethren here and in the Country Towns already have been) and
finally be deprived of our whole property, by the arbitrary
determination of one biassed, capricious Judge of the Admirality.
9th - The restraining us from erecting Stilling Mills for
manufacturing our Iron the natural produce of this Country, Is an
infringement of that right with which God and nature have invested
us, to make use of our skill and industry in procuring the
necessaries and conveniences of life. And we look upon the
restraint laid upon the manufacture and transportation of Hatts to
be altogether unreasonable and grievous. Although by the Charter
all Havens Rivers, Ports, Waters, &c. are expressly granted the
Inhabitants of the Province and their Successors, to their only
proper use and behoof forever, yet the British Parliament passed
an Act, whereby they restrain us from carrying our Wool, the
produce of our own farms, even over a ferry; whereby the
Inhabitants have often been put to the expence of carrying a Bag
of Wool near an hundred miles by land, when passing over a River
or Water of one quarter of a mile, of which the Province are the
absolute Proprietors, would have prevented all that trouble. -
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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