born here, be, by any principle of common law, bound even to allegiance to the king. The connection would be broken between the crown and the natives of the country.
It has been a great dispute whether charters granted within the realm, can be forfeited at all. It was a question debated with infinite learning, in the case of the charter of London: it was adjudged forfeited, in an arbitrary reign: but afterwards, after the revolution, it was declared in parliament, not forfeited, and by an act of parliament made incapable of forfeiture. The charter of Massachusetts was declared forfeited too. So were other American charters. The Massachusetts alone, were tame enough to give it up. But no American charter will ever be decreed forfeited again, or if any should, the decree will be regarded no more, than a vote of the lower house of the robinhood society. The court of chancery has no authority without the realm; by common law, surely it has none in America. What! the privileges of millions of Americans depend on the discretion of a lord chancellor? God forbid! The passivity of this colony in receiving the present charter, in lieu of the first, is, in the opinion of some, the deepest stain upon its character. There is less to be said in excuse for it, than the witchcraft, or hanging the Quakers. A vast party in the province were against it at the time, and thought themselves betrayed by their agent. It has been a warning to their posterity, and one principal motive with the people, never to trust any agent with power to concede away their privileges again. It may as well be pretended that the people of Great Britain can forfeit their privileges, as the people of this province. If the contract of state is broken, the people and king of England must recur to nature. It is the same in this province. We shall never more submit to decrees in chancery, or acts of parliament, annihilating charters, or abridging English liberties.
Whether Massachusettensis was born as a politician, in the year 1764, I knew [Errata: know] not: but he often writes as if he know [Errata: knew] nothing of that period. In his attempt to trace the denial of the supreme authority of the parliament, he commits such mistakes, as a man of age, at that time, ought to blush at. He says, that "when the stamp act was made, the authority of parliament to impose external taxes, or, in other words, to lay duties upon goods and merchandize was admitted," and that when the tea act was made, "a new distinction was set up, that parliament had a right to lay duties upon merchandize, for the purpose of regulating trade, but not for the purpose of raising a revenue." This is a total misapprehension of the declared opinions of people at those times. The authority of parliament to lay taxes for a revenue has been always generally denied. And their right to lay duties to regulate trade, has been denied by many, who have ever contended that trade should be regulated only by prohibitions.