George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[50] For Massachusetts, William Bollan, through

chap. II.} 1749.

‘the very good-natured Lord Baltimore,’ represented, that the bill virtually included all future orders of all future princes, however repugnant they might be to the constitution of Great Britain, or of the colonies; thus abrogating for the people of Massachusetts their common rights as Englishmen, not less than their charter privileges The agent of South Carolina cautiously intimated, that, as obedience to instructions was already due from the governors, whose commissions depended on the royal pleasure, the deliberative rights of the assemblies were the only colonial safeguard against unlimited authority.¹

‘Venerating the British constitution, as established at the Revolution,’ Onslow, the speaker of the House of Commons, believed that parliament had power to tax America, but not to delegate that power; and, by his order, the objections to the proposed measure were spread at length on the journal.² The Board of Trade wavered, and in April consented, reluctantly, ‘to drop for the present, and reserve,’ the despotic clauses;³ but it continued to cherish the spirit that dictated them, till it had driven the colonies to independence, and had itself ceased to exist.

At the same time Massachusetts was removing every motive to interfere with its currency by abolishing its paper money. That province had demanded, as a right, the reimbursement of its expenses for the capture of Louisburg. Its claim, as of right, was denied; for its people, it was said, were the subjects,