Appendix C: A Summary View of the Rights of British Americans (1774)
| Author | Arthur Rizer |
| Profession | Director of Justice Policy and a senior fellow at the R Street Institute |
| Pages | 207-222 |
207
APPENDIX C
A Summary View
of the Rights of British
Americans (1774)
e Summary was a combative publication, meant as a last ditch eort to
warn the King that his American subjects’ patience was at its end. It was
distributed throughout the colonies and in Britain, making “omas
Jeerson” a household name on both sides of the Atlantic.
Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said deputies, when assembled in
general congress with the deputies from the other states of British America,
to propose to the said congress that an humble and dutiful address be pre-
sented to his majesty, begging leave to lay before him, as chief magistrate of
the British empire, the united complaints of his majesty’s subjects in America;
complaints which are excited by many unwarrantable encroachments and
usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire,
upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and indepen-
dently to all. To represent to his majesty that these his states have often indi-
vidually made humble application to his imperial throne to obtain, through
its intervention, some redress of their injured rights, to none of which was
ever even an answer condescended; humbly to hope that this their joint ad-
dress, penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of
servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favours, and not
rights, shall obtain from his majesty a more respectful acceptance. And this
his majesty will think we have reason to expect when he reects that he is
no more than the chief ocer of the people, appointed by the laws, and
208 JEFFER SON’S PEN: THE ART OF PE RSUASION
circumscribed with denite powers, to assist in working the great machine of
government, erected for their use, and consequently subject to their superin-
tendance. And in order that these our rights, as well as the invasions of them,
may be laid more fully before his majesty, to take a view of them from the
origin and rst settlement of these countries.
To remind him that our ancestors, before their emigration to America,
were the free inhabitants of the British dominions in Europe, and possessed
a right which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in
which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going in quest of new habita-
tions, and of there establishing new societies, under such laws and regula-
tions as to them shall seem most likely to promote public happiness. at
their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal law, in like manner left their
native wilds and woods in the north of Europe, had possessed themselves of
the island of Britain, then less charged with inhabitants, and had established
there that system of laws which has so long been the glory and protection of
that country. Nor was ever any claim of superiority or dependence asserted
over them by that mother country from which they had migrated; and were
such a claim made, it is believed that his majesty’s subjects in Great Britain
have too rm a feeling of the rights derived to them from their ancestors, to
bow down the sovereignty of their state before such visionary pretensions.
And it is thought that no circumstance has occurred to distinguish materi-
ally the British from the Saxon emigration. America was conquered, and her
settlements made, and rmly established, at the expence of individuals, and
not of the British public. eir own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for
their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that settlement ef-
fectual; for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for
themselves alone they have right to hold. Not a shilling was ever issued from
the public treasures of his majesty, or his ancestors, for their assistance, till of
very late times, after the colonies had become established on a rm and per-
manent footing. at then, indeed, having become valuable to Great Britain
for her commercial purposes, his parliament was pleased to lend them as-
sistance against an enemy, who would fain have drawn to herself the benets
of their commerce, to the great aggrandizement of herself, and danger of
Great Britain. Such assistance, and in such circumstances, they had often
before given to Portugal, and other allied states, with whom they carry on a
commercial intercourse; yet these states never supposed, that by calling in
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