: Essays )
And as by frequent repetition these groundless
assertions and malicious calumnies may, if not contradicted
 and refuted, obtain further credit, and be
injurious throughout Europe to the reputation and
interest of the confederate colonies, it seems proper
and necessary to examine them in our own just
vindication.
With regard to the first, that the colonies were settled
 at the expense of Britain, it is a known fact, that
none of the twelve united colonies were settled, or
even discovered at the expense of England. Henry
the Seventh, indeed, granted a commission to Sebastian
 Cabot, a Venetian, and his sons, to sail into the
western seas for the discovery of new countries; but
it was to be “suis eorum propriis sumptibus et expensis,”
 at their own costs and charges. They discovered,
 but soon slighted and neglected these
northern territories, which were, after more than a
hundred years’ dereliction, purchased of the natives,
and settled at the charge and by the labor of private
men and bodies of men, our ancestors, who came
over hither for that purpose. But our adversaries
have never been able to produce any record that
ever the Parliament or government of England was
at the smallest expense on these accounts; on the
contrary, there exists on the journals of Parliament
a solemn declaration in 1642 (only twenty-two years
after the first settlement of the Massachusetts, when,
if such expense had ever been incurred, some of the
members must have known and remembered it),
I See the Commission in the Appendix to Pownall’'s Administration
of the Colonies. Edition 17735.

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