who had formerly been accustomed to revere | recital of which must excite exquisite horror in their power. When communities have so far mistaken their interest as to commit the defence of every thing valuable in life to a standing army, the love of ease will scarcely permit them to reassume the unpleasant task of defending themselves. At the conclusion of a long and bloody war, the liberties of a people are in real danger from the admission of troops into a free city. When an army has suffered every hardship to which the life of a soldier is peculiarly incident, and has returned crowned with the well-earned laurels of the field, they justly expect to be received into the open arms, and with the applauses of those for whom they have fought, and in whose cause they have bled; in a situation like this, whole communities, in transport of gratitude, have weakly sacrificed at the shrine of a deliverer, every thing for which their armies have fought, or their heroes bled. Nations, the most renowned among the ancients for their wisdom and their policy, have viewed the army with an eye of attentive jealousy; the Romans, characterized for personal bravery,* trembled for their country, at the sight of one hundred and fifty lictors, or peace officers, as a guard of the decemviri. Such an army was dangerous, they said, to liberty. These politic people knew the prevailing propensity in all mankind to power. The history of later times has abundantly justified the wisdom of their jealousies. All parts of Europe which have been enslaved, have been enslaved by armies. No nation can be said to enjoy internal liberty which admits them in a time of peace. When a government has a body of standing troops at command, it is easy to form pretensions for the distribution of them, so as to effect their own purposes; when a favorite point is to be carried, a thousand soldiers may convey irresistible argument, and compel men to act against their feelings, interest, and country. Such were the arguments employed by Philip the Second, of Spain, to persuade the inhabitants of the Netherlands to relinquish their liberties, their property, and their religion; the progress of these dreadful measures produced scenes of massacre and devastation, the In the battles fought in our age, every single soldier has very little security and confidence except in the multitude; but among the Romans, every individual, more robust and of greater experience in war, as well as more inured to the fatigues of it, than the enemy, relied upon himself only. He was naturally endued with courage, or in other words, with that virtue which a sensibility of our own strength inspires. Montesquieu. the most savage breast. One of the commanders of the army under the duke of Alva, demanding a pass through the city of Rotterdam,* was at first refused, but assuring the magistrates that he meant only to lead his troops through the town, and not to lodge them in it, they consented to suffer the companies to pass through one by one: no sooner had the first company entered the city, than the officer, without regard to his engagements, ordered them to keep the gates open until the other companies should arrive: one of the citizens, endeavoring to shut the gate, was killed by his own hand; his troops, eager to follow his example, drew their swords, and, giving a-loose to their fury, spread themselves over the town, and butchered more than three hundred of the inhabitants. This was among the first events of that war which rendered the Netherlands a scene of horror and devastation for more than thirty years; but which, whilst it proved the source, on many occasions, of extreme distress to the people, called forth an exertion of virtue, spirit, and intrepidity, which seldom occurs in the annals of history.-Never was there a more unequal contest, than between the inhabitants of the Low-Countries and the Spanish monarch; and never was the issue of any dispute more contrary to what the parties had reason to expect. Under similar circumstances, my fellowcitizens, a standing army was introduced and stationed in this city; which produced the scene we now commemorate, and which I know you cannot all remember, but let the stranger hear and let the listening youth be told that on the evening of the fifth of March, seventeen hundred and seventy, under the orders of a mercenary officer, murder, with her polluted weapons, stood trampling in the blood of our slaughtered countrymen; imagination cannot well conceive what mingling passions then convulsed the soul and agonized the heart!—those pangs were sharp indeed, which ushered into life a nation!-like Hercules † she rose brawny from the cradle, the snakes of Britain yet hung hissing round her horrible, and fell!—at her infant voice they *The whole affair is related at length in Watson's History of the Low Countries, to which the reader is referred. ↑ Hercules is represented, when very young, engaged in the most courageous and dangerous enterprises---such as encountering lions, squeezing them to death against his own breast, or tearing their jaws asunder; sometimes, when an infant, grasping serpents with a little smile upon his cheek, as if he was pleased with their fine colors and their motions, and killing them by his strong gripe with so much ease, that he scarce deigns to look up on them. hasted at the dread of her rising arm they | security. We may add the situation of our fled away. America, separated from the nations of Europe by the mighty ocean, and from Britain by the mightier hand of heaven, is acknowledged an independent nation; she has now to maintain her dignity and importance among the kingdoms of the earth. May she never be seduced from her true interest, by subtle intrigue, mistaken policy, or misguided ambition! but, considering her own condition, may she follow the maxims of wisdom, which are better than the weapons of war! It has become fashionable in Europe, to keep a large standing army in times of peace. The people of Great Britain have professed their aversion to the establishment, yet have suffered it to gain ground upon the idea of preserving the balance of power. This custom is so deeply rooted and so firmly established, that nothing short of annihilation of the governments where they have been so long tolerated can abolish the institution. From the situation and vicinity of the nations of Europe with respect to each other, the different extent of territory rendering it more difficult to repel an invasion from some countries than others, for the celerity of defence and the more complete security of extensive countries; from these and similar considerations, even wise politicians have defended the propriety of the establishment, but let their motives be ever so pure the ambitious and the aspiring have views extensive and ruinous; they have felt the charms and experienced the utility of this engine, and are not wanting in their exertions to support its existence. Our fortunate alliances in Europe have secured us from any danger of invasion from thence; this security is derived from considerations of the best policy and true interest of the allied powers. The new and glorious treaty concluded, since the last anniversary, with the states of Holland, whose manners, laws, religion, and bloody contest for freedom, so nearly resemble our own,* affords a happy presage of lasting * If there was ever among nations a natural alliance, one may be formed between the two republics. The first planters of the four northern states found in this country an asylum from persecution, and resided here from the year one thousand six hundred and eight, to the year one thousand six hundred and twenty, twelve years preceding their migration. They ever entertained and have transmitted to posterity, a grateful remembrance of that protection and hospitality, and especially of that religious liberty they found here, having sought it in vain in England. "The first inhabitants of two other states, New York and New Jersey, were immediate emigrants from this nation, and have transmitted their religion, language, country, with respect to other dominions, is so secured by nature, that no one can feign pretensions sufficiently plausible to convince the people of America of the propriety of supporting a standing army in a time of peace; whilst memory retains the exploits of our brave citizens in the field, who have joined the standard of freedom, and successfully defended her injured altars and her devoted rites. The community will be assured that, upon the basis of a wellregulated militia, an army may be raised upon all future occasions sufficient to oppose the most formidable invaders. Here, were it pertinent, I would express a confidence, that when the army shall be disbanded, justice, with impartial scale, will distribute due rewards to those who have jeoparded their lives in the high places of the field. Every American is conscious of the effects produced by the knowledge of the people in the use of arms, and from that experience need not be exhorted to an attention to their militia. When we consider our own prosperous condition, and view the state of that nation, of customs, manners and character; and America in general until her connections with the house of Bourbon, has ever considered this nation as her first friend in Europe, whose history, and the great character it exhibits, in the various arts of peace, as well as achievements of war by sea and land, have been particularly studied, admired, and imitated in every state. "A similarity of religion, although it is not deemed so essential in this as in former ages, to the alliance of nations is still, as it ever will be thought, a desirable circumstance. Now it may be said with truth, that there are no two nations, whose worship, doctrine and discipline, are, more alike than those of the two republics. In this particular, therefore, as far as it is of weight, an alliance would be perfectly natural. "A similarity in the forms of government is usually considered as another circumstance which renders alliances natural; and although the constitutions of the two republics are not perfectly alike, there is yet analogy enough between them to make a connection easy in this respect. "The originals of the two republics are so much alike, that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other so that every Dutchman, instructed in the subject, must pronounce the American revolution just and necessary or pass a censure upon the greatest actions of his immortal ancestors; actions which have been approved and applauded by mankind, and justified by the decision of heaven. "If therefore an analogy of religion, government, original manners, and the most extensive and lasting commercial interests, can form a ground and an invitation to political connexions, the subscriber flatters himself, that in all these particulars the union is so obviously natural, that there has seldom been a more distinct designation of Providence to any two distant nations to unite themselves together." Extracts from the memorial to their high mightinesses, the states general of the United Provinces of the LowCountries, by that great statesman and patriot, his excellency John Adams, esq., minister plenipotentiary at the Hague, dated Leyden, April 19, 1781. which we were once a part, we even weep over our enemy, when we reflect that she was once great; that her navies rode formidable upon the ocean; that her commerce was extended to every harbor of the globe; that her name was revered wherever it was known; that the wealth of nations was deposited in her island; and that America was her friend, but by means of her standing armies, an immense continent is separated from her kingdom,* and that oncemighty empire, ready to fall an untimely victim to her own mad policy. Near eight full years have now rolled away since America has been cast off from the bosom and embraces of her pretended parent, and has set up her own name among the empires. The assertions of so young a country, were at first beheld with dubious expectation; and the world were ready to stamp the name of rashness or enterprise according to the event. But a manly and fortunate beginning soon ensured the most generous assistance. The renowned and the ancient Gauls came early to the combat-wise in council-mighty in battle! then with new fury raged the storm of war! the seas were crimsoned with the richest blood of nations! America's chosen legions waded to freedom through rivers, dyed with the mingled blood of her enemies and her citizens; through fields of carnage, and the gates of death! IMPORTANT LETTER WRITTEN BY GOV. HUTCHINSON OF MASSACHUSETTS, JULY 20, 1770. A great number of governor Hutchinson's letters have lately fallen into the hands of our people. A correspondent at Roxbury has favored us with the following extract from one of them to general Gage, then at New York, dated at Boston, July 20, 1770. "It appears to me to be a matter of great importance to his majesty's general service, and to the real interest of the colonies, that the discord beginning between New York and us should be encouraged: I wrote some time ago to Mr. C-upon this subject, but he rather declined concerning himself in it; he certainly has a strange aversion, which nothing but the confederacy against Great Britain could have conquered: this has too much the appearance of Machiavelian policy; but it is justifiable, as it has the most obvious tendency to save the colonies ruining themselves, as well as preventing them destroying the mother country. If Pennsylvania could be brought to take part with New York, I think the business would be done. I must beg the favor of you not to let this letter come under any other than your own observation." At length independence is ours-the halcyon | MASSACHUSETTS STATE PAPERS. day appears! lo from the east I see the harbinger, and from the train, 'tis peace herself, SPEECH AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Feb. 16, 1773. Gentlemen of the Council, and and as attendants, all the gentle arts of life; OF Gov. T. HUTCHINSON TO THE COUNCIL commerce displays her snow-white navies fraught with the wealth of kingdoms; plenty from her copious horn, pours forth her richest gifts. Heaven commands! the east and the west give up, and the north keeps not back! all nations meet! and beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruninghooks, and resolve to learn war no Henceforth shall the American wilderness blossom as the rose, and every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig-tree, and none shall make him afraid. more. * A doubt may be entertained of the truth of this assertion; but we can hardly believe that it would have entered into the head of a minister or parliament, to collect a militia in Great Britain to enforce their acts in America; so that in our view, had the army been disbanded at the end of the last war, America and Britain, at this moment would have been parts of the same kingdom. Gentlemen of the House of Representatives. The proceedings of such of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, as assembled together, and passed and published their resolves or votes, as the act of the town, at a legal town meeting, denying, in the most express terms, the supremacy of parliament, and inviting every other town and district in the province, to adopt the same principle, and to establish com mittees of correspondence, to consult upon proper measures to maintain it, and the proceedings of divers other towns, in consequence of this invitation, appeared to me to be so unwarrantable, and of such a dangerous nature and tendency, that I thought myself bound to call upon you in my speech at opening the session, to join with me in discountenancing and bearing a proper testimony against such irregularities and innovations. I will only observe, that your attempts to draw a line as the limits of the supreme author I stated to you fairly and truly, as I conceived, the constitution of the kingdom and of the province, so far as relates to the depend-ity in government, by distinguishing some natuence of the former upon the latter; and I desired you, if you differed from me in sentiments, to show me, with candor, my own errors, and to give your reasons in support of your opinions, so far as you might differ from me. I hoped that you would have considered my speech by your joint committees, and have given me a joint answer: but as the house of representatives have declined that mode of proceeding, and as your principles in government are very different, I am obliged to make separate and distinct replies. I shall first apply myself to you, Gentlemen of the Council: | ral rights, as more peculiarly exempt from such authority than the rest, rather tend to evince the impracticability of drawing such a line: and that some parts of your answer seem to infer a supremacy in the province, at the same time that you acknowledge the supremacy of parliament; for otherwise, the rights of the subjects cannot be the same in all essential respects, as you suppose them to be, in all parts of the dominions, "under a like form of legislature." From these, therefore, and other considerations, I cannot help flattering myself, that upon more mature deliberation, and in order to a more consistent plan of government, you will | liament's exercising its authority in cases that may happen, than to limit the authority itself, especially, as you agree with me in the proper method of obtaining a redress of grievances by constitutional representations, which cannot well consist with a denial of the authority to which the representations are made; and from the best information I have been able to obtain, the denial of the authority of parliament, expressly, or by implication, in those petitions to which you refer, was the cause of their being admitted, and not any advice given by the minister to the agents of the colonies. I must enlarge, and be more particular in my reply to you, Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: The two first parts of your answer, which re- | choose rather to doubt the expediency of parspect the disorders occasioned by the stamp act, and the general nature of supreme authority, do not appear to have a tendency to invalidate anything which I have said in my speech; for, however the stamp act may have been the immediate occasion of any disorders, the authority of parliament was, notwithstanding, denied, in order to justify or excuse them. And, for the nature of the supreme authority of parliament, I have never given you any reason to suppose, that I intended a more absolute power in parliament, or a greater degree of active or passive obedience in the people, than what is founded in the nature of government, let the form of it be what it may. I shall, therefore, pass over those parts of your answer, without any other remark. I would also have saved you the trouble of all those authorities which you have brought to show, that all taxes upon English subjects, must be levied by virtue of the act, not of the king alone, but in conjunction with the lords and commons, for I should very readily have allowed it; and I should as readily have allowed, that all other acts of legislation must be passed by the same joint authority, and not by the king alone. Indeed, I am not willing to continue a controversy with you, upon any other parts of your answer. I am glad to find, that independence is not what you have in contemplation, and that you will not presume to prescribe the exact limits of the authority of parliament, only, as with due deference to it, you are humbly of opinion, that, as all human authority in the nature of it is, and ought to be limited, it cannot constitutionally extend, for the reasons you have suggested, to the levying of taxes, in any form, on his majesty's subjects of this province. I shall take no notice of that part of your answer, which attributes the disorders of the province, to an undue exercise of the power of parliament; because you take for granted, what can by no means be admitted, that parliament had exercised its power without just authority. The sum of your answer, so far as it is pertinent to my speech, is this. You allege that the colonies were an acquisition of foreign territory, not annexed to the realm of England; and, therefore, at the absolute disposal of the crown; the king, having, as you take it, a constitutional right to dispose of, and alienate any part of his territories, not annexed to the realm: that Queen Elizabeth accordingly conveyed the property, dominion, and sovereignty of Virginia, to Sir Walter Raleigh, to be held of the crown by homage and a certain render, without reserving any share in the legislative and executive authority: that the subsequent grants of America were similar in this respect; that they were without any reservation for securing the subjection of the colonists to the parliament, and future laws | ular act of power of a prince, in selling, or of England; that this was the sense of the delivering up any part of his dominions to a English crown, the nation, and our predeces- foreign prince or state, against the general sors, when they first took possession of this sense of the nation, be urged to invalidate country; that, if the colonies were not then an- them; and, upon examination, it will appear, nexed to the realm, they cannot have been an- that all the grants which have been made of nexed since that time; that, if they are not now America, are founded upon them, and are annexed to the realm, they are not part of the made to conform to them, even those which you kingdom; and, consequently, not subject to the have adduced in support of very different legislative authority of the kingdom; for no principles. country, by the common law, was subject to the laws or to the parliament, but the realm of England. Now, if this foundation shall fail you in every part of it, as I think it will, the fabric which you have raised upon it must certainly fall. Let me then observe to you, that as English subjects, and agreeable to the doctrine of feudal tenure, all our lands and tenements are held mediately, or immediately, of the crown, and although the possession and use, or profits, be in the subject, there still remains a dominion in the crown. When any new countries are discovered by English subjects, according to the general law and usage of nations, they become part of the state, and, according to the feudal system, the lordship or dominion, is in the crown; and a right accrues of disposing of such territories, under such tenure, or for such services to be performed, as the crown shall judge proper; and whensoever any part of such territories, by grant from the crown, becomes the possession or property of private persons, such persons, thus holding, under the crown of England, remain, or become subjects of England, to all intents and purposes, as fully as if any of the royal manors, forests, or other territory, within the realm, had been granted to them upon the like tenure. But that it is now, or was, when the plantations were first granted, the prerogative of the kings of England to alienate such territories from the crown, or to constitute a number of new gov-| ernments, altogether independent of the sovereign legislative authority of the English empire, I can by no means concede to you. I have never seen any better authority to support such an opinion, than an anonymous pamphlet, by which, I fear, you have too easily been misled; for I shall presently show you, that the declarations of king James the I. and of king Charles the I, admitting they are truly related by the author of this pamphlet, ought to have no weight with you; nor does the cession or restoration, upon a treaty of peace, of countries which have been lost or acquired in war, militate with these principles; nor may any partic You do not recollect that, prior to what you call the first grant by queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter Raleigh, a grant had been made by the same princess, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of all such countries as he should discover, which were to be of the allegiance of her, her heirs and successors; but he dying in the prosecution of his voyage, a second grant was made to Sir Walter Raleigh, which, you say, conveyed the dominion and sovereignty, without any reserve of legislative or executive authority, being held by homage and a render. To hold by homage, which implies fealty and a render, is descriptive of soccage tenure, as fully as if it had been said to hold, as of our manor of East Greenwich, the words in your charter. Now, this alone was a reserve of dominion and sovereignty in the queen, her heirs and successors; and, besides this, the grant is made upon this express condition, which you pass over, that the people remain subject to the crown of England, the head of that legislative authority, which, by the English constitution, is equally extensive with the authority of the crown, throughout every part of the dominions. Now, if we could suppose the queen to have acquired, separate from her relation to her subjects, or in her natural capacity, which she could not do, a title to a country discovered by her subjects, and then to grant the same country to English subjects, in her public capacity as queen of England, still, by this grant, she annexed it to the crown. Thus, by not distinguishing between the crown of England and the kings and queens of England, in their personal or natural capacities, you have been led into a fundamental error, which must prove fatal to your system. It is not material, whether Virginia reverted to the crown by Sir Walter's attainder, or whether he never took any benefit from his grant, though the latter is most probable, seeing he ceased from all attempts to take possession of the country after a few years'trial. There were, undoubtedly, divers grants made by king James the I. of the continent of America, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and similar to the grant of queen Elizabeth, in this respect, |