He has combined with others to subject us to
a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and un-
acknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation :

For quartering large bodies of armed troops
among us :

For protecting them by a mock trial from pun-
ishment for any murders which they should com-
mit on the inhabitants of these States :

:,gitized by GOOgle



166 APPENDIX

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the
world :

For imposing taxes on us without our consent :

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits
of trial by jury :

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for
pretended offenses :

For abolishing the free system of English laws
in a neighboring province, establishing therein an
arbitrary government, and enlarging its bound-
aries, so as to render it at once an example and
fit instrument for introducing the same absolute
rule into these colonies :

For taking away our charters, abolishing our
most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally,
the forms of our government :

For suspending our own legislatures, and de-
claring themselves invested with power to legis-
late for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here by declar-
ing us out of his protection, and waging war
against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our
people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of



APPENDIX 167

foreign mercenaries to complete the works of
death, desolation, and tyranny already begun,
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
