How much better is the state of the American colonies soon likely to
be, than that of France and Spain or than Britain would have been
in, if the Bill before mention'd had pass'd into an act? Does it
make any real difference whether one man has the sovereign disposal
of the peoples purses, or five hundred? Is it not as certain that
the British parliament have assumed to themselves the power of
raising what money they please in the colonies upon all occasions,
as it is, that the Kings of France and Spain exercise the same power
over their subjects upon emergencies? Those Kings by the way, being
the sole judges when emergencies happen, they generally create them
as often as they want money. And what security have the colonies
that the British parliament will not do the same? It is dangerous to
be silent, as the ministerial writers would have us to be, while such
a claim is held up; but much more to submit to it. Your very silence,
my countrymen, may be construed a submission, and those who would
perswade you to be quiet, intend to give it that turn. Will it be
likely then that your enemies, who have exerted every nerve to
establish a revenue, rais'd by virtue of a suppos'd inherent right in
the British parliament without your consent, will recede from the
favorite plan, when they imagine it to be compleated by your
submission? Or if they should repeal the obnoxious act, upon the terms
of your submitting to the right, is it not to be apprehended that your
own submission will be brought forth as a precedent in a future time,
when your watchful adversary shall have succeeded, and laid the most
of you fast asleep in the bed of security and insensibility.
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