George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

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‘But the members of parliament,’ argued the

chap. XIV.} 1765. June.

royalists, ‘are men of the highest character for wisdom, justice, and integrity, and incapable of dealing unjustly.’ ‘Admitting this to be true,’ retorted Hopkins, ‘one who is bound to obey the will of another is as really a slave, though he may have a good master, as if he had a bad one; and this is stronger in politic bodies than in natural ones.’

The plea recurred, that the British parliament virtually represented the whole British empire. ‘It is an insult on the most common understanding,’ thought James Habersham of Georgia, and every American from the banks of the Savannah to the frontier of Maine, ‘to talk of our being virtually represented in parliament.’ ‘It is an insult on common sense to say it,’ repeated the Presbyterian ministers of the middle states to the Calvinist ministers of New England. ‘Are persons chosen for the representatives of London and Bristol, in like manner chosen to be the representatives of Philadelphia or Boston? Have two men chosen to represent a poor borough in England, that has sold its votes to the highest bidder, any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?’¹

But it was argued again and again: ‘Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, like America, return no members.’ ‘Why,’ rejoined Otis, and his answer won immediate applause in England,² ‘why ring everlasting changes to the colonists on them? If they are not represented, they ought to be.’ ‘Every man of a sound mind,’ he continued, ‘should have his vote.’ ‘Ah, but,’ replied the royalists, holding