17! Essays J 
servient to it; they are not unnecessarily to be 
thwarted, however absurd such popular opinions may 
be in their nature. 
This had been the wisdom of our government with 
respect to raising money in the colonies. It was well 
known that the colonists universally were of opinion 
that no money could be levied from English subjects 
but by their own consent, given by themselves or 
their chosen representatives; that, therefore, what- 
ever money was to be raised from the people in the 
colonies, must first be granted by their assemblies, as 
the money raised in Britain is first to be granted by 
the House of Commons; that this right of granting 
their own money was essential to English liberty; 
and that, if any man, or body of men, in which they 
had no representative of their choosing, could tax 
them at pleasure, they could not be said to have any 
property, any thing they could call their own. But 
as these opinions did not hinder their granting money 
voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown by its 
servants came into their assemblies (as it does into 
its parliaments of Britain and Ireland) and demanded 
aids, therefore that method was chosen, rather than 
the hateful one of arbitrary taxes. 
I do not undertake here to support these opinions 
of the Americans; they have been refuted by a late 
act of Parliament, declaring its own power; which 
very Parliament, however, showed wisely so much 
tender regard to those inveterate prejudices, as to re- 
peal a tax that had militated against them. And 
those prejudices are still so fixed and rooted in the 
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