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last was a man of sense, and meant, by this admirable irony, to cast a ridicule on the whole selfish, partial, arbitrary and contracted system of parliamentary regulations in America.
Another statute there is, and was quoted by Mr. Otis, by which wool was prohibited to be water-borne in America; in consequence of which, a fleece of wool could not be conveyed in a canoe across a river or brook, without seizure and forfeiture.
But I am wearied to death by digging in this mud; with searching among this trash, chaff, rubbish of acts of parliament; of that parliament which declared it had a right to legislate for us, as sovereign, absolute and supreme, in all cases whatsoever. But I deny that they ever had any right to legislate for us, in any case whatsoever. And on this point we are and were at issue, before God and the world. These righteous judges have decided the question; and it is melancholy that any Americans should still doubt the equity and wisdom of the decision.
Such were the bowels of compassion, such the tender mercies of our pious, virtuous, our moral and religious mother country, towards her most dutiful and affectionate children! Such they are still; and such they will be, till the United States shall compel that country to respect this. To this end, poor and destitute as I am, I would cheerfully contribute double my proportion of the expense of building and equipping thirty ships of the line, before the year 1820.
Mr. Otis asserted all these acts to be null and void by the law of nature, by the English constitution, and by the American charters, because America was not represented in parliament. He entered into the history of the charters. James the first and Charles the first, could not be supposed to have ever intended that parliament, more hated by them both than the pope or the French king, should share with them in the government of colonies and corporations which they had instituted by their royal prerogatives--"Tom, Dick, and Harry were not to censure them and their council." Pym, Hambden, sir Harry Vane and Oliver Cromwell did not surely wish to subject a country, which they sought as an asylum, to the arbitrary jurisdiction of a country from which they wished to fly. Charles the second had learned by dismal, doleful experience, that parliaments were not to be wholly despised. He, therefore, endeavoured to associate parliament with himself, in his navigation act, and many others of his despotic projects, even in that of destroying, by his unlimited licentiousness and debauchery, the moral character of the nation. Charles the second courted parliament as a mistress; his successors embraced her as a wife, at least for the purpose of enslaving America.
Mr. Otis roundly asserted this whole system of parliamentary regulations, and every act of parliament before quoted, to be illegal, unconstitutional, tyrannical, null and void. Nevertheless, with all my admiration of Mr. Otis, and enthusiasm for his character, I must acknowledge he was not always consistent in drawing or admitting the necessary consequences from his principles, one of which comprehended them all, to wit, that Parliament had no authority over America in any case whatsoever.
But at present we must confine ourselves to his principles and authorities in opposition to the acts of trade and writs of assistance. These principles I perfectly remember. The authorities in detail I could not be supposed to retain; though with recollecting the names, Vattel, Coke and Holt, I might have found them again by a diligent search. But Mr. Otis himself has saved that trouble, by a publication of his own, which must be the subject of another letter from your humble servant,
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
Quincy, August 31, 1818.
DEAR SIR,