This Massachusetts Petition to the House of Commons of November 3, 1764 is Massachusetts' colonial legislature's formal complaint to Parliament about the
provisions of the Sugar Act and the rumored Stamp Act. In particular, it mentions the colonists' belief that Parliament
had no constitutional right
to tax them, the damage a sugar and molasses tax does to
their local economies and the reduced outlets to foreign markets for
their produce. The Sugar
Act helped instigate colonial opposition to Parliament, eventually leading the colonists to revolt in the American Revolutionary War. You can read the
Massachusetts Petition to the House of Commons below.
You can read more about the Sugar Act here.
November 3, 1764
The petition of the Council and House of Representatives of his Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay, Most humbly showeth:
That the Act passed in the last session of Parliament, entitled "An act
for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in
America,"
etc., must necessarily bring many burdens upon the inhabitants of these
colonies and plantations, which your petitioners conceive would not have
been
imposed if a full representation of the state of the colonies had been
made to your honourable House. That the duties laid upon foreign sugars
and molasses
by a former Act of Parliament entitled "an Act for the better securing
and encouraging the trade of his Majesty's sugar colonies in America,"
if the Act had
been executed with rigour, must have had the effect of an absolute
prohibition.
That the duties laid on those articles by the present Act still remain
so great that, however otherwise intended, they must undoubtedly have
the same effect.
That the importation of foreign molasses into this province in
particular is of the greatest importance, and a prohibition will be
prejudicial to many branches
of its trade and will lessen the consumption of the manufactures of
Great Britain. That this importance does not arise merely, nor
principally, from the
necessity of foreign molasses in order to its being consumed or
distilled within the province. That if the trade for many years carried
on for foreign
molasses can be no longer continued, a vent cannot be found for more
than one half the fish of inferior quality which are caught and cured by
the inhabitants
of the province, the French not permitting fish to be carried by
foreigners to any of their islands, unless it be bartered or exchanged
for molasses.
That if there be no sale of fish of inferior quality it will be
impossible to continue the fishery, the fish usually sent to Europe will
then cost so dear
that the French will be able to undersell the English at all the
European markets; and by this means one of the most valuable returns to
Great Britain will
be utterly lost, and that great nursery of seamen destroyed.
That the restraints laid upon the exportation of timber, boards, staves,
and other lumber from the colonies to Ireland and other parts of
Europe, except
Great Britain, must greatly affect the trade of this province and
discourage the clearing and improving of the lands which are yet
uncultivated.
That the powers given by the late Act to the court of vice-admiralty,
instituted over all America, are so expressed as to leave it doubtful,
whether goods
seized for illicit importation in any one of the colonies may not be
removed, in order to trial, to any other colony where the judge may
reside, although
at many hundred miles distance from the place of seizure.
That if this construction should be admitted, many persons, however
legally their goods may have been imported, must lose their property,
merely from an
inability of following after it, and making that defence which they
might do if the trial had been in the colony where the goods were
seized.
That this construction would be so much the more grievous, seeing that
in America the officers by this Act are indemnified in case of seizure
whenever the
judge of admiralty shall certify that there was probable cause; and the
claimant can neither have costs nor maintain an action against the
person seizing,
how much soever he may have expended in defence of his property.
That the extension of the powers of courts of vice-admiralty has, so far
as the jurisdiction of the said courts hath been extended, deprived the
colonies
of one of the most valuable of English liberties, trials by juries.
That every Act of Parliament, which in this respect distinguishes his
Majesty's subjects in the colonies from their fellow subjects in Great
Britain, must
create a very sensible concern and grief.
That there have been communicated to your petitioners sundry resolutions
of the House of Commons in their last session for imposing stamp duties
or taxes
upon the inhabitants of the colonies, the consideration whereof was
referred to the next session. That your petitioners acknowledge with all
gratitude the
tenderness of the legislature of Great Britain of the liberties of the
subjects in the colonies, who have always judged by their
representatives both of
the way and manner in which internal taxes should be raised within their
respective governments, and of the ability of the inhabitants to pay
them.
That they humbly hope the colonies in general have so demeaned
themselves, more especially during the late war, as still to deserve the
continuance of all
those liberties which they have hitherto enjoyed.
That although during the war the taxes upon the colonies were greater
than they have been since the conclusion of it, yet the sources by which
the inhabitants
were enabled to pay their taxes having ceased, and their trade being
decayed, they are not so able to pay the taxes they are subjected to in
time of peace as
they were the greater taxes in time of war.
That one principal difficulty which has ever attended the trade of the
colonies, proceeds from the scarcity of money, which scarcity is caused
by the balance
of trade with Great Britain, which has been continually against the
colonies. That the drawing sums of money from the colonies from time to
time must distress
the trade to that degree that eventually Great Britain may lose more by
the diminution of the consumption of her manufactures than all the sums
which it is
possible for the colonies thus to pay can countervail.
That they humbly conceive if the taxes which the inhabitants of this
province are obliged annually to pay towards the support of the internal
government, the
restraint they are under in their trade for the benefit of Great
Britain, and the consumption thereby occasioned of British manufactures,
be all considered
and have their due weight it must appear that the subjects of this
province are as fully burdened as their fellow subjects in Britain, and
that they are,
whilst in America, more beneficial to the nation than they would be if
they should be removed to Britain and there held to a full proportion of
the national
taxes and duties of every kind.
Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly pray that they may be relieved
from the burdens which, they have humbly represented to have been
brought upon them by
the late Act of Parliament, as to the wisdom of the honourable House
shall seem meet, that the privileges of the colonies relative to their
internal taxes which
they have so long enjoyed, may still be referred, until your
petitioners, in conjunction with the other governments, can have
opportunity to make a more full
representation of the state and the condition of the colonies and the
interest of Great Britain with regard to them.
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