OCR Text |
Show 312 ACTS RELATING Part III. guide a new parliament through the labyrinth, which this very diverfity of plans had rendered to intricate. The very works which each party had thrown up in its own defence, were {0 many vantage grounds, from whence a new parliament taking a comprehenfive View of the country all around, might have direéted its meafures with a certainty of fuccefs. The great objeets before the parliament, were to fix the relation between Britain and her colonies: to examine into the right of the Britifh parliament to impofe taxes on the colonies: to enquire whe- ther it was grounded on the conflitution: if it was not, to give it up: if it was, to afl‘ert it; and regulate and fix the mode in which it {hould be exerted : to confider whether the prefent were a fea~ fonable time: to poflpone accordingly, or give prefent effeét to fuch regulations for that purpofe as {hould be concluded on: and then to do, what after the fet- tling Se&.I. To TIIE COLONIES. 313 tling of thefe moft contefied points would have followed as of courfe ; to fix on proper regulations for vindicating the unlimited fupremacy of the Britiflr parliament in all points whatever. Whether this parliament attained all, or any of thefe important objefis, will bell: appear from its own acts. |