" In defence of this proposition,
he proceeds to consider the nation as commercial, and from thence
to show the necessity of laws for the regulation of trade. - In
the nation he includes Great-Britain and all the Colonies, and
infers that these acts for the regulation of trade, "should extend
to all the British dominions, to prevent one part of the national
body from injuring another." And, says he, "If laws for the
regulation of trade are necessary, who so proper to enact them,
&c. as the British parliament, or to dispose of the fines &
forfeitures arising from the breach of such acts?" And then he tells
us, that as a number of preventive officers will hereupon become
necessary, the parliament have thought proper to assign to his
Majesty's revenue "the profits arising on the duties of importation
for the payment of those officers ". This is Chronus's "method of
reasoning ", to prove that because it is necessary that the parliament
should enact laws for the regulation of trade, about which there has
as yet been no dispute that I know of, and because it is proper that
such preventive officers as shall be found needful to carry those
laws into execution, should be paid out of the fines and
forfeitures arising from the breach of them, Therefore, the
parliament hath a right to make laws imposing duties or taxes, for
the express purpose of raising a revenue in the colonies without
their consent; and that this is not (as is alledg'd by our
Patriots ") "repugnant to or subversive of our constitution ".
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