G. A. Henty - "By England's Aid"

Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860"

Johanna Brandt - "The Petticoat Commando"

Robert Smythe Hichens - "The Call of the Blood"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 1773)

S >> Samuel Adams >> The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 1773)




I Think it necessary the publick should be inform'd, that his
Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq; Governor of this Province, has
lately receiv'd, a warrant from the Lords of the Treasury in England,
for the Sum of Twenty-two Hundred and fifty Pounds Sterling for his
Services for one year and a half, being at the rate of Fifteen
Hundred Sterling or Two Thousand L. M. per Ann. - The payment is to
be made out of the Commissioners Chest; wherein are reposited the
Treasures that are daily collected, tho' perhaps insensibly, from the
Earnings and Industry of the honest Yeomen, Merchants and Tradesmen,
of this continent, against their Consent; and if his friends speak the
truth, against his own private judgment. - This treasure is to be
appropriated according to the act of parliament so justly and loudly
complain'd of by Americans, for the support of civil government, the
payment of the charges of the administration of justice, and the
defence of the colonies: And it may hereafter be made use of, for the
support of standing armies and ships of war; episcopates & their
numerous ecclesiastical retinue; pensioners, placemen and other
jobbers, for an abandon'd and shameless ministry; hirelings, pimps,
parasites, panders, prostitutes and whores - His Excellency had
repeatedly refused to accept the usual Salary out of the treasury of
this province; which leads us to think that his eminent patron the
Earl of Hillsborough, or his most respected friend Sir Francis
Bernard, who is ever at his Lordship's elbow, had given him certain
information that this honorable stipend would be allow'd to him -
Whether he tho't the generous grant of a thousand sterling, annually
made to his predecessors, and offer'd to him, by the assembly, not
adequate to his important services to the province in supporting and
vindicating its charter and constitutional rights and liberties; or
whether he was forbid by instruction from his Lordship to receive it,
which is probable from his own words, "I could not consistent with my
duty to the King"; or lastly, and which is still more probable,
Whether he was ambitious of being, beyond any of his predecessors, a
Governor independent of the free grants of the assembly, which is no
doubt reconcileable with his Excellency's idea of a constitutional
governor of a free people, are matters problematical. - Adulating
Priestlings and others, who have sounded his high praises in the
news-papers, and in the church of God, as well as in other solemn
assemblies, may perhaps echo the fallacious reasoning from one of his
publick speeches, "The people will not blame (him) for being willing
to avoid burdening them with his support, by the increase of the tax
upon their polls and estates," since it is now "provided for another
way." In all ages the supercilious part of the clergy have adored the
Great Man, and shown a thorough contempt of the understanding of the
people. But the people, and a great part, I hope, of the clergy of
this enlightened country, have understanding enough to know, that a
Governor independent of the people for his support, as well as his
political Being, is in fact, a MASTER; and may be, and probably, such
is the nature of uncontroulable power, soon will be a TYRANT. It will
be recorded by the faithful historian, for the information of
posterity, that the first American Pensioner - the first independent
Governor of this province, was, not a stranger, but one "born and
educated" in it - Not an ANDROSS or a RANDOLPH; but that cordial
friend to our civil constitution -that main Pillar of the Religion
and the Learning of this country; the Man, upon whom she has, (I will
not say wantonly) heaped all the Honors she had to bestow -
HUTCHINSON!! - We are told that the Justices of the Superior Court
are also to receive fixed salaries out of this American revenue! -
"Is it possible to form an idea of slavery, more compleat, more
miserable, more disgraceful, than that of a people, where justice is
administer'd, government exercis'd, and a standing army maintain'd, at
the expence of the people, and yet without the least dependence upon
them? If we can find no relief from this infamous situation" - I
repeat it, "If we can find no relief from this infamous situation ",
let the ministry who have stripped us of our property and liberty,
deprive us of our understanding too; that unconscious of what we have
been or are, and ungoaded by tormenting reflections, we may tamely bow
down our necks, with all the stupid serenity of servitude, to any
drudgery which our lords & masters may please to command" - I appeal
to the common sense of mankind. To what a state of misery and infamy
must a people be reduced! To have a governor by the sole
appointment of the crown, under the absolute controul of a weak and
arbitrary minister, to whose dictates he is to yield an unlimited
obedience, or forfeit his political existence while he is to be
supported at the expence of the people, by virtue of an authority
claimed by strangers, to oblige them to contribute for him such an
annual stipend, however unbounded, as the crown shall be advised to
order! If this be not a state of despotism, what is? Could such a
governor, by all the arts of persuasion, prevail upon a people to be
quiet and contented under such a mode of government, his noble patron
might spare himself the trouble of getting their Charter vacated by a
formal decision of parliament, or in the tedious process of law -
Whenever the relentless enemies of America shall have compleated their
system, which they are still, though more silently pursuing, by subtle
arts, deep dissimulation, and manners calculated to deceive, our
condition will then be more humiliating and miserable, and perhaps
more inextricable too, than that of the people of England in the
infamous reigns of the Stuarts, which blacken the pages of history;
when,

"Oppression stalk'd at large and pour'd abroad
Her unrelenting Train; Informers - Spies -
Hateful Projectors of aggrieving Schemes
To sell the starving many to the few,
And drain a thousand Ways th' exhausted Land...
And on the venal Bench
Instead of Justice, Party held the Scale,
And Violence the Sword."

Your's,
CANDIDUS.



ARTICLE SIGNED "CANDIDUS."

[Boston Gazette, October 14, 1771.]

Messieurs EDES & GILL,

"Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear
A MASTER, nor had Virtue to be free."

I Believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of
slavery, but when they deserv'd it. This may be called a severe
censure upon by far the greatest part of the nations in the world who
are involv'd in the misery of servitude: But however they may be
thought by some to deserve commiseration, the censure is just.
Zuinglius, one of the first reformers, in his friendly admonition to
the republic of the Switzers, discourses much of his countrymens
throwing off the yoke: He says, that they who lie under oppression
deserve what they suffer, and a great more; and he bids them perish
with their oppressors. The truth is, All might be free if they valued
freedom, and defended it as they ought. Is it possible that millions
could be enslaved by a few, which is a notorious fact, if all
possessed the independent spirit of Brutus, who to his immortal
honor, expelled the proud Tyrant of Rome, and his "royal and
rebellious race?" If therefore a people will not be free; if they
have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a
presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated
with contempt and ignominy. Had not Caesar seen that Rome was ready
to stoop, he would not have dared to make himself the master of that
once brave people. He was indeed, as a great writer observes, a
smooth and subtle tyrant, who led them gently into slavery; "and on
his brow, 'ore daring vice deluding virtue smil'd". By pretending to
be the peoples greatest friend, he gain'd the ascendency over them:
By beguiling arts, hypocrisy and flattery, which are even more fatal
than the sword, he obtain'd that supreme power which his ambitious
soul had long thirsted for: The people were finally prevail'd upon to
consent to their own ruin: By the force of perswasion, or rather by
cajoling arts and tricks always made use of by men who have ambitious
views, they enacted their Lex Regia: whereby Quod placuit principi
legis habuit vigorem; that is, the Will and pleasure of the Prince
had the force of law. His minions had taken infinite pains to paint
to their imaginations the god-like virtues of Caesar: They first
persuaded them to believe that he was a deity, and then to sacrifice
to him those Rights and Liberties which their ancestors had so long
maintained, with unexampled bravery, and with blood & treasure. By
this act they fixed a precedent fatal to all posterity: The Roman
people afterwards, influenced no doubt by this pernicious example,
renew'd it to his successors, not at the end of every ten years, but
for life. They transfer'd all their right and power to Charles the
Great: In eum transtulit omne suum jus et poteslatem. Thus, they
voluntarily and ignominiously surrendered their own liberty, and
exchanged a free constitution for a TYRANNY!

It is not my design at present to form the comparison between the
state of this country now, and that of the Roman Empire in those
dregs of time; or between the disposition of Caesar, and that of ---;
The comparison, I confess, would not in all parts hold good: The
Tyrant of Rome, to do him justice, had learning, courage, and great
abilities. It behoves us however to awake and advert to the danger we
are in. The Tragedy of American Freedom, it is to be feared is nearly
compleated: A Tyranny seems to be at the very door. It is to little
purpose then to go about cooly to rehearse the gradual steps that
have been taken, the means that have been used, and the instruments
employed, to encompass the ruin of the public liberty: We know them
and we detest them. But what will this avail, if we have not courage
and resolution to prevent the completion of their system?

Our enemies would fain have us lie down on the bed of sloth and
security, and persuade ourselves that there is no danger They are
daily administering the opiate with multiplied arts and delusions,
and I am sorry to observe, that the gilded pill is so alluring to
some who call themselves the friends of Liberty. But is there no
danger when the very foundations of our civil constitution tremble? -
When an attempt was first made to disturb the corner-stone of the
fabrick, we were universally and justly alarmed: And can we be cool
spectators, when we see it already removed from its place? With what
resentment and indignation did we first receive the intelligence of a
design to make us tributary, not to natural enemies, but infinitely
more humiliating, to fellow subjects? And yet with unparallelled
insolence we are told to be quiet, when we see that very money which
is torn from us by lawless force, made use of still further to
oppress us - to feed and pamper a set of infamous wretches, who swarm
like the locusts of Egypt; and some of them expect to revel in wealth
and riot on the spoils of our country. - Is it a time for us to sleep
when our free government is essentially changed, and a new one is
forming upon a quite different system? A government without the least
dependance upon the people: A government under the absolute controul
of a minister of state; upon whose sovereign dictates is to depend
not only the time when, and the place where, the legislative assembly
shall sit, but whether it shall sit at all: And if it is allowed to
meet, it shall be liable immediately to be thrown out of existence,
if in any one point it fails in obedience to his arbitrary mandates.
Have we not already seen specimens of what we are to expect under
such a government, in the instructions which Mr. HUTCHINSON has
received, and which he has publickly avow'd, and declared he is bound
to obey? - By one, he is to refuse his assent to a tax-bill, unless
the Commissioners of the Customs and other favorites are exempted:
And if these may be freed from taxes by the order of a minister, may
not all his tools and drudges, or any others who are subservient to
his designs, expect the same indulgence? By another he is to forbid
to pass a grant of the assembly to any agent, but one to whose
election he has given his consent; which is in effect to put it out
of our power to take the necessary and legal steps for the redress of
those grievances which we suffer by the arts and machinations of
ministers, and their minions here. What difference is there between
the present state of this province, which in course will be the
deplorable state of all America, and that of Rome, under the law
before mention'd? The difference is only this, that they gave their
formal consent to the change, which we have not yet done. But let us
be upon our guard against even a negative submission; for agreeable
to the sentiments of a celebrated writer, who thoroughly understood
his subject, if we are voluntarily silent, as the conspirators would
have us to be, it will be consider'd as an approbation of the change.
"By the fundamental laws of England, the two houses of parliament in
concert with the King, exercise the legislative power: But if the two
houses should be so infatuated, as to resolve to suppress their
powers, and invest the King with the full and absolute government,
certainly the nation would not suffer it." And if a minister shall
usurp the supreme and absolute government of America, and set up his
instructions as laws in the colonies, and their Governors shall be so
weak or so wicked, as for the sake of keeping their places, to be
made the instruments in putting them in execution, who will presume
to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their
indispensible duty to God and their Country, by all rational means in
their power to RESIST THEM.

"Be firm, my friends, nor let UNMANLY SLOTH
Twine round your hearts indissoluble chains.
Ne'er yet by force was freedom overcome.
Unless CORRUPTION first dejects the pride,
And guardian vigour of the free-born soul,
All crude attempts of violence are vain.
Determined, hold
Your INDEPENDENCE; for, that once destroy'd,
Unfounded Freedom is a morning dream."

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution
are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them
against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from
our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger
and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with
care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on
the present generation, enlightned as it is, if we should suffer them
to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated
out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the
latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of
it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to
maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of
the latter. - Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we
have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of
the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection,
deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember, that "if
we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it,
and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration,
which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may
be the miserable sharers in the event.

CANDIDUS.



ARTICLE SIGNED “VALERIUS POPLICOLA."1

[Boston Gazette, October 28, 1771; the text is also in W. V. Wells,
Life of Samuel Adams, vol. 1., pp. 427-432.]

Messieurs EDES & GILL,

THE writer of the history of Massachusetts Bay tells us, that "our
ancestors apprehended the acts of trade to be an invasion of the
rights, liberties and properties of the subjects of his Majesty in
the colony, they not being represented in parliament; and according
to the usual sayings of the learned in the law, the laws of England
were bounded within the four seas, and did not reach America.
However, they made provision by an act of the colony, that they, i.e.
the acts of trade should be strictly attended from time to time" -

The passing of this law of the colony, and thus making it an act of
their own legislature, he says, "plainly shows the wrong sense they
had of the relation they stood in to England " - And he further adds,
that "tho' their posterity have as high notions of English Liberties
as they had, yet they are sensible that they are Colonists, and
therefore subject to the controul of the parent state." As I am not
disposed to yield an implicit assent to any authority whatever, I
should have been glad if this historian, since he thought proper to
pronounce upon so important a matter, had shown us what was the
political relation our ancestors stood in to England, and how far, if
at all, their posterity are subject to the controul of the parent
state. - If he had vouchsafed to have done this, when he published his
history, he would have rendered the greatest service both to
Great-Britain and America, and eased the minds of multitudes who have
been unsatisfied in points of such interesting importance.

Mr. Locke, in his treatise on government discovers the weakness of
this position, That every man is born a subject to his Prince, and
therefore is under the perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance;
and he shows that express consent alone, makes any one a member of
any commonwealth. He holds that submission to the laws of any country,
& living quietly & enjoying privileges & protection under them, does
not make a man a member of that society, or a perpetual subject of
that commonwealth, any more than it would make a man subject to
another, in whose family he found it convenient to abide for some
time, tho' while he continued under it, he were obliged to comply with
the laws, and submit to the government he found there. Every man was
born naturally free; nothing can make a man a subject of any
commonwealth, but his actually entering into it by positive
engagement, and express promise & compact.

If the sentiments of this great man are well grounded, our historian
before he asserted so peremptorily that the ancestors of this country
as colonists were subject to the controul of the parent state, should
have first made it appear that by positive engagement, or express
promise or contract, they had thus bound themselves.

Every man being born free, says another distinguished writer, the son
of a citizen, arrived at the years of discretion, may examine whether
it be convenient for him to join in the society for which he was
destined by birth. If he finds that it will be no advantage for him
to remain in it, he is at liberty to leave it, preserving as much as
his new engagements will allow him, the love and gratitude he owes
it.2 He further says, "There are cases in which a citizen has an
absolute right to renounce his country, and abandon it for ever";
which is widely different from the sentiment of the historian, that
"allegiance is not local, but perpetual and unalienable": And among
other cases in which a citizen has this absolute right, he mentions
that, when the sovereign, or the greater part of the nation will
permit the exercise of only one religion in the state; which was the
case when our ancestors forsook their native country.

They were denied the rights of conscience. They left, it however with
the consent of the nation: It is allowed by this historian that they
departed the kingdom with the leave of their prince. They removed at
their own expence and not the nation's, into a country claimed and
possessed by independent princes, whose right to the lordship and
dominion thereof has been acknowledged by English kings; and they
fairly purchased the lands of the rightful owners, and settled them
at their own and not the nation's expence. It is incumbent then upon
this historian to show, by what rule of equity or right, unless they
expressly consented to it, they became subject to the controul of the
parent state. - The obligation they had been under to submit to the
government of the nation, by virtue of their enjoyment of lands which
were under its jurisdiction, according to Mr. Locke, began and ended
with the enjoyment. That was but a tacit consent to the government;
and when by donation, sale or otherwise, they quitted the possession
of those lands, they were at liberty, unless it can be made to appear
they were otherwise bound by positive engagement or express contract,
to incorporate into any other commonwealth, or begin a new one in
vacuis locis, in any part of the world they could find free and
unpossessed. - They entered into a compact, it is true, with the king
of England, and upon certain conditions become his voluntary
subjects, not his slaves. But did they enter into an express promise
to be subject to the controul of the parent state? What is there to
show that they were any way bound to obey the acts of the British
parliament, but those very acts themselves? Is there any thing but
the mere ipse dixit of an historian, who for ought any one can tell,
design'd to make a sacrifice to the ruling powers of Great-Britain,
to show that the parent state might exercise the least controul over
them as Colonists, any more than the English parliament could
exercise controul over the dominions which the Kings formerly held in
France, or than it can now over the inhabitants of the moon, if there
be any?

By the charter of this province, the legislative power is in the
Governor, who is appointed by the King, the Council and House of
Representatives. The legislative of any commonwealth must be the
supreme power. But if any edict or instruction of any body else, in
what form soever conceiv'd, or by what power soever backed, can have
the force and obligation of a law in the province which has not its
sanction from that legislative, it cannot be the supreme power. Its
laws however salutary, are liable at any time to be abrogated at the
pleasure of a superior power. No body can have a power to make laws
over a free people, but by their own consent, and by authority
receiv'd from them: It follows then, either that the people of this
province have consented & given authority to the parent state to make
laws over them, or that she has no such authority. No one I believe
will pretend that the parent state receives any authority from the
people of this province to make laws for them, or that they have ever
consented she should. If the people of this province are a part of
the body politick of Great Britain, they have as such a right to be
consulted in the making of all acts of the British parliament of what
nature soever. If they are a separate body politick, and are free,
they have a right equal to that of the people of Great Britain to
make laws for themselves, and are no more than they, subject to the
controul of any legislature but their own. "The lawful power of
making laws to command whole politick societies of men, belongs so
properly unto the same intire societies, that for any prince or
potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of
himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally
receiv'd from God, or else from authority deriv'd at the first from
their consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, is no better than
mere tyranny. Laws therefore they are not which publick approbation
hath not made so.3 This was the reason given by our ancestors why
they should not be bound by the acts of parliament, because not being
represented in parliament, the publick approbation of the province
had not made them laws. And this is the reason why their posterity do
not hold themselves rightly oblig'd to submit to the revenue acts now
in being, because they never consented to them. The former, under
their circumstances, thought it prudent to adopt the acts of trade,
by passing a law of their own, and thus formally consenting that they
should be observ'd. But the latter I presume will never think it
expedient to copy after their example.

The historian tells his readers that "They (the people of this
province) humbly hope for all that tenderness and indulgence from a
British parliament, which the Roman senate, while Rome remain'd free,
shewed to Roman colonies" - Why the conduct of Rome towards her
colonies should be recommended as an example to our parent state,
rather than that of Greece, is difficult to conjecture, unless it was
because as has been observed, the latter was more generous and a
better mother to her colonies than the former. Be that as it may, the
colonists have a right to expect from the parent state all possible
tenderness; not only as they sprang from her, and are subjects of the
same King, but as they have greatly contributed to her wealth &
grandeur: And we are willing to render to her respect and certain
expressions of honor and reverence as the Grecian colonies did to the
city from whence they deriv'd their origin, as Grotius says, so long
as the colonies were well treated. By our compact with our King,
wherein is contain'd the rule of his government and the measure of our
submission, we have all the liberties and immunities of Englishmen,
to all intents, purposes and constructions whatever; and no King of
Great-Britain, were he inclin'd, could have a right either with or
without his parliament, to deprive us of those liberties - They are
originally from God and nature, recognized in the Charter, and
entail'd to us and our posterity: It is our duty therefore to
contend for them whenever attempts are made to violate them.

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