’ Essays 115 
Q. Don't you know that there is in the Pennsyl- 
vania charter an express reservation of the right of 
Parliament to lay taxes there? 
A. I know there is a clause in the charter by 
which the King grants that he will levy no taxes on 
the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the 
assembly or by act of Parliament. 
Q. How, then, could the assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania assert that laying a tax on them by the Stamp 
Act was an infringement of their rights? 
A. They understand it thus: by the same charter, 
and otherwise, they are entitled to all privileges 
and liberties of Englishmen. They find in the Great 
Charters and the Petition and Declaration of Rights 
that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that 
they are not to be taxed but by their common con- 
sent. They have, therefore, relied upon it from the 
first settlement of the province, that the Parliament 
never would, nor could, by color of that clause in the 
charter assume a right of taxing them till it had 
qualified itself to exercise such right by admitting 
representatives from the people to be taxed, who 
ought to make a part of that common consent. 
Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify 
that construction? 
A. “The common rights of Englishmen,” as de- 
clared by Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, 
all justify it. 
Q. Does the distinction between internal and ex- 
ternal taxes exist in the words of the charter? 
A. No, I believe not. 
Q. Then, may they not, by the same interpreta- 
766]