The Massachusetts Spy

For the Massachusetts SPY.

To T...-H........-, Esq.

SIR,

NOTWITHSTANDING your apparent ascendency over the representative power of any body politic in this community, I cannot deem myself fairly acquitted of my duty without giving you a little share of wholesome admonition, in common with the rest of my countrymen. Were you as ignorant as some have accounted you wicked, I should despair of having the least influence upon you by any argument; but as it is, I shall offer one that will not strictly apply to yourself

As matters now stand with us, you will not deny we are under an absolute despotism. The government of British America, by ministerial instructions, differs nothing in kind from that of French or Spanish America, by royal command; and taxes you are sensible will soon be imposed at pleasure, if things go on easy. You know to what a wretched condition these very measures have reduced the once noble and generous Spaniard; and how speedily that nation was involved in the
deepest misery after the crown had usurped and confirmed to itself the power of taxation. Universally aware of these tremendous consequences, you cannot believe an empire of wise and independent freemen will submit to them without a struggle. In the terrors of that dreadful day, perhaps not very distant, those favourite heirs to your so dearly purchased acquisitions, may share a heavy part. But should they even escape, who could wish, for any consideration, to see his country reduced to a state of civil wars, burnings, plundering and cruel executions, and have it pass to future ages, that himself was a very active procurer of it? Your namesake of Glasgow, very wisely tells you, that the public security is the only certain security of every individual; and he and many other good authors assure us, that public justice is the only stable basis of public felicity; without which private felicity is impossible. Figure to yourself another Tyronean expedition; suppose you saw another Captain Merrel, whose superior courage had retained him on the field while two thousand cowards ran away; suppose him taken and condemned to die, for endeavouring to prevent a conspiracy of villains from ruining him in defiance of right and positive law; could you refrain the tear? Could you view the loving wife and tender child, embracing the kind husband and indulgent parent on the verge of eternity, and not relent? If you could in my presence, would freely give a fresh example of enthusiasm to which many modern infidels feign too great an incredulity. Life on the terms of the slavery of ourselves and posterity is a dirty bargain, when mine appears irretrievably so, I shall feel little anxiety for its longer duration. I am positive, sir, I am far from being alone in this sentiment, and I cannot think that the publication of it can be a disadvantage to you or to mankind. Rods, you remember, conquered the army of slaves; but rods brought against an army of my disposition, would hardly be carried home again. For men wantonly to cut the bonds of human society, and render themselves the avowed enemy of every man of sense and spirit in a whole empire favors of much hardiness and temerity, or ignorance and stupidity. Of the latter till of late, you were by no means generally suspected; but your conduct towards Mr. Thomas and J. Greenleaf Esq; will hardly bear examination. Mr. Thomas a young man, dependant entirely on his business, set up in this town, rather plentifully stocked with well established printers, and opened a paper with the catholic declaration of being open to all parties but influenced by none. And to this profession he affirms he had ever acted in strict conformity; refusing nothing on either side that could be offered without nauseating the public. If your flatterers are so far inferior to their opponents that their zeal in your cause disserved you, it was not the printer's fault: you have had as little to boast from the worthy and impartial Messrs. Fleets; yet with them I have never heard you had any difference. If at that particular time the tide rose high against you, you must remember these were moving Provocations. You had in all your transactions with the legislative of this province behaved with so cavalier a spirit, as convinced every one you regarded them no more than a Turkish Bashaw would a group of his menial servants. You pleaded instructions to hold them in durance--you caused their committees to wait upon you at inconvenient places--indeed you insulted them with a sarcasm; as if it had been an improper assumption for the Representatives of the people, to style themselves his Majesty's commons of the Massachusetts Bay. To this was added your refusal of a salary from the grant of the people, which manifested you utterly in another interest, as you in your closing speech declared you really were. These things were then pretty warmly told you, and yet remain unanswered, under the evasive pretence of your despising such impotent calumny. Had you not read this best vindication your friends could make for you, one might overlook your mean interposition in the affair of the Taxes, but not content with the contempt you incurred in that low expedition you must forsooth engage in another. Unable to answer you would silence enquiry into your right of absolute control over a state, in which, nineteen twentieths, are each individual, by charter, as independent as your master. If you assume a control over them, in any wise inconsistent with this position, you claim a power with which no man has a right to invest you; which claim all political writers term usurpation. I argued this point with you in a former paper, and you summoned Mr. Justice Greenleaf to appear before you in council to answer to it. He knew you had again gone beyond your last; and treated your summons as it deserved. You still keep cobbling a wretched pattern, which all your art will never form into a tolerable any thing, nor all your care in this engagement prevent your bench from sticking to your breeches. But to conclude with you in a more serious style and manner, I will acknowledge you are among a few candidates for an unrivaled fame, if success should vindicate the practicability of enslaving so many millions of men among whom are many thousands wiser than yourself, without the aid of military force, or even that of corruption. The man that would bestow himself for an ass for you to ride on, deserves to be laded indeed, and while his entrails fall out, to pay him for his complaisance.