chap. X.} 1764. July. |
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consistency of conduct.
His colleague, Oxenbridge
Thacher, was less enthusiastic and less variable.
Connection with Great Britain was to him no blessing, if Great Britain would impose burdens unconstitutionally.
He vindicated the right of resisting arbitrary taxation by the frequent example of the British parliament; and he dwelt on the danger to the inhabitants of England if the ministers could disfranchise a million and a half of subjects in America.1
‘Here,’ said Mayhew,2 as he lamented the cold adhesion of ‘the timid good,’3 and for himself, trod the thorny path of resistance to the grandeurs of the world—‘here there are many who ‘see the right, and yet the wrong pursue.’
But it is my fixed resolution, notwithstanding many discouragements, in my little sphere to do all I can for the service of my country; that neither the republic nor the churches of New England may sustain any injury.’
And every where men began to enter into a solemn agreement notto use a single article of British manufacture; not even to wear black clothes for mourning.
To encourage the growth and manufacture of wool, nearly all Boston signed a covenant to eat no lamb.
While the people encouraged one another in the conviction that taxation by parliament was tyranny, Hutchinson addressed his thoughts to the Secretary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
‘The colonists,’ said he, claim a power of making laws, and a privilege of exemption from taxes, unless
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