for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment
of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices
and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and
eat out their substance. He kept among us in times of peace
a standing army without the consent of our legislators. He
has affected to render the military independent of and
superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to
subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and
unacknowledged 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 and punishment for any mur-
ders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these
states; 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 trans-
porting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;
for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbor-
ing province, establishing therein an arbitrary government
and enlarging its boundaries, 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 charter, abolish-
ing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the
forms of our government; for suspending our own legisla-
tures and declaring themselves invested with power to legis-
late for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated govern-
ment here by declaring us out of his protection and waging
war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our
towns and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this
time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to com-
plete the work 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 Christian nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens,
