Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

The Substance of a Council Held at Lancaster - 15

very well, but I love my Liberty better, and think it much more to the Advantage of the Laity to have the Clergy under their Thumb, than the Clergy to have us under theirs.

Shew me an instance in the Annals of Great-Britain or America, where the present Royal Family has attempted to * "abridge" the religious Liberties of the People; or taken any Advantage of their intestine Commotions to lay any Hardships upon the Consciences of their Subjects? Can any one believe that the Assembly don't love their own Liberties, and the Priviliges of their Constituents better than the P—r and his Tools, who wou'd rather see the Province overflowed in a Deluge of Blood than pay his proportionable Share of the Taxes? It is my humble Opinion that if six and thirty Turks were on the Assembly in Place of the present Members, that the same innate love of Freedom wou'd prompt them to struggle for the Liberties of their Country, and pursue the same measures while the same Bone of Contention subsisted.—That Bone may now be removed by an Application to the Crown to take us under it's immediate Protection, and send us Governors

* See Circular Letter.

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