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We have also the Misfortune to find, that all the Penalties and
Forfeitures mentioned in the Stamp Act, and in divers late Acts
of Trade extending to the Plantations, are, at the Election of the
Informer, Recoverable in any Court of Admiralty in America. This,
as the newly erected Court of Admiralty has a general Jurisdiction
over all British America, renders his Majesty's Subjects in these
Colonies, liable to be carried, at an immense Expence, from one
End of the Continent, to the other.
It gives us also great Pain, to see a manifest Distinction made
therein, between the Subjects of our Mother Country, and those in
the Colonies, in that the like Penalties and Forfeitures recoverable
there only in his Majesty's Courts of Record are made cognizable
here by a Court of Admiralty: By these Means we seem to be, in
Effect, unhappily deprived of Two Privileges essential to Freedom,
and which all Englishmen have ever considered as their best Birth-
rights, that of being free from all Taxes but such as they have con-
sented to in Person, or by their Representatives, and of Trial by
their Peers.
Your Petitioners further shew, That the remote Situation, and
other Circumstances of the Colonies, render it impracticable that
they should be Represented, but in their respective subordinate Legis-
lature; and they humbly conceive, that the Parliament, adhering
strictly to the Principles of the Constitution, have never hitherto
Tax'd any, but those who were actually therein Represented; for this
Reason, we humbly apprehend, they never have Tax'd Ireland, or
any other of the Subjects without the Realm.
But were it ever so clear, that the Colonies might in Law, be
reasonably deem'd to be Represented in the Honourable House of
Commons, yet we conceive, that very good Reasons, from Incon-
venience, from the Principles of true Policy, and from the Spirit
of the British Constitution, may be adduced to shew, that it would
be for the real Interest of Great-Britain, as well as her Colonies, that
the late Regulations should be rescinded, and the several Acts of
Parliament imposing Duties and Taxes on the Colonies, and ex-
tending the Jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty here, beyond
their ancient Limits, should be Repeal'd.
We shall not Attempt a minute detail of all the Reasons which
the Wisdom of the Honourable House may suggest, on this Occa-
sion, but would humbly submit the following Particulars to their
Consideration.
That Money is already become very scarce in these Colonies, and is
still decreasing by the necessary Exportation of Specie from the
Continent, for the Discharge of our Debts to British Merchants.
That an immensely heavy Debt is yet due from the Colonies for
British Manufactures, and that they are still heavily burthen'd with
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