!

ested every part of the continent.

Every colony

had been engaged in it, and every colony had felt its ravages. The part taken in it by Indian auxiliaries had greatly increased its horrors, and had added to the joy produced in every bosom by its successful termination. The union of that vast tract of country which extends from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, was deemed a certain guarantee of future peace, and an effectual security against the return of those bloody scenes, from the sufferings of which, no condition in life could afford an exemption.

This state of things, so long and so anxiously wished for by British America, had at length been effected by the union of British and American valour. They had co-operated in the same service, their blood had mingled in the same plains, and the object pursued was common to both people.

the colony took a very deep interest. A custom-house officer applied for what was termed "a writ of assistance," which was an authority to search any house whatever for dutiable articles suspected to be concealed in it. The right to grant special warrants was never contested, but this grant of a general warrant was deemed contrary to the principles of liberty, and was thought an engine of oppression equally useless and vexatious, which would enable every petty officer of the customs to gratify his resentments by harassing the most respectable men in the province. The ill temper excited on this occasion was shown by a reduction of the salaries of the judges, but no diminution of attachment to the mother country appears to have been produced by it.

While the British nation was endeared to the American heart by this community of danger, and identity of interest, the brilliant achievements of the war had exalted to enthusiasm, their admiration of British valour. They were proud of the land of their ancestors, and gloried in their descent from Englishmen. But this sentiment of admiration was not confined to the military character of the nation. A full portion of it was bestowed on their political institutions. While the excellence of the English constitution was a rich theme of declamation in America, every man believed himself entitled to a large share of its advantages; nor could he admit that, by crossing the Atlantic, his ancestors had relinquished the essential rights of British subjects.

The degree of authority which might rightfully be exercised by the mother country over her colonies, had never been accurately defined. In Britain, it had always been asserted that parliament possessed the power of binding them in all cases whatsoever. In America, at different times and in different colonies, various opinions had been entertained on this subject.

In New England, originally settled by republicans, and during the depression of the regal government, the favourite of the English nation, habits of independence had nourished the theory, that the colonial assemblies possessed all the powers of legislation not surrendered by compact; that the Americans were subjects of the British crown, but not of the nation; and were bound by

no laws, to which their representatives had not assented. From this high ground they had been compelled reluctantly to recede. The judges, being generally appointed by the governors with the advice of council, had determined that the colonies were bound by acts of parliament which concerned them, and which were expressly extended to them; and we have seen the general court of Massachussetts, on a late occasion, explicitly recognising the same principle. This had, perhaps, become the opinion of many of the best informed men in the province; but the doctrine seems still to have been extensively maintained, that acts of parliament possessed only an external obligation; that they could regulate commerce, but not the interior affairs of the colonies.

In the year 1692, immediately after the receipt of their new charter, the legislature of Massachussetts had passed an act, denying most explicitly the right of any authority, other than that of the general court, to impose on the colony any tax whatever; and also asserting those principles of national liberty, which are found in magna charta. Not long afterwards, the legislature of New York, probably with a view only to the authority claimed by the governor, and not to that of the mother country, passed an act similar to that of Massachussetts, in which its own supremacy, not only in matters of taxation, but of general legislation, is expressly asserted. Both these acts, however, were disapproved in England; and the parliament asserted its authority by