re Essays 71 
admitting them to such an equitable participation in 
the government of the whole. 
Then the next best thing seems to be, leaving 
them in the quiet enjoyment of their respective con- 
stitutions; and when money is wanted for any public 
service, in which they ought to bear a part, calling, 
upon them by requisitorial letters from the crown 
(according to the long-established custom) to grant 
such aids as their loyalty shall dictate, and their abili- 
ties permit. The very sensible and benevolent au- 
thor of that paper seems not to have known, that 
such a constitutional custom subsists, and has always 
hitherto been practised in America; or he would not 
have expressed himself in this manner: “It is evi- 
dent, beyond a doubt, to the intelligent and impar- 
tial, that after the very extraordinary efforts, which 
were effectually made by Great Britain in the late 
war to save the colonists from destruction, and at- 
tended of necessity with an enormous load of debts 
in consequence, that the same colonists, now firmly 
secured from foreign enemies, should be somehow in- 
duced to contribute some proportion towards the exi- 
gencies of state in future.” This looks as if he 
conceived the war had been carried on at the sole 
expense of Great Britain, and the colonies only 
reaped the benefit, without hitherto sharing the bur- 
den, and were therefore now indebted to Britain on 
that account. And this is the same kind of argu- 
ment that is used by those who would fix on the 
colonies the heavy charge of unreasonableness and 
ingratitude, which I think your friend did not intend. 
Please to acquaint him, then, that the fact is not 
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