I come now to the last clause of your petition, where, with the same wonderful sagacity with which you in another case discovered the excellency of a speech you never heard, you undertake to _characterise a petition_ [_from the_ assembly] _you own you never saw_; and venture to assure his majesty, that it is "exceeding grievous in its nature, that it by no means contains a proper representation of the state of this province, and is repugnant to the general sense of his numerous and loyal subjects in it." Are then his majesty's "numerous and loyal subjects" in this province all as great wizards as yourselves, and capable of knowing, without seeing it, that a petition is repugnant to their general sense? But the inconsistence of your petition, gentlemen, is not so much to be wondered at; the _prayer_ of it is _still more_ extraordinary, "We therefore most humbly pray, that your majesty would be graciously pleased _wholly to disregard_ the said petition of the assembly." What! without enquiry! without examination! without a hearing of what the assembly might say in support of it! "wholly disregard" the petition of your representatives in assembly, accompanied by other petitions, signed by thousands of your fellow-subjects as loyal, if not as wise and as good, as yourselves! Would you wish to see your great and amiable prince act a part that could not become a dey of Algiers? Do you, who are Americans, pray for a _precedent_ of such contempt in the treatment of an American assembly! such "total disregard" of their humble applications to the throne? Surely your wisdoms here have overshot yourselves.--But as wisdom shows itself not only in doing what is right, but in confessing and _amending_ what is wrong, I recommend the latter particularly to your present attention; being persuaded of this consequence, that though you have been mad enough to sign such a petition, you never will be fools enough to present it.
There is one thing mentioned in the preface, which I find I omitted to take notice of as I came along, _the refusal of the house to enter Mr. Dickinson's protest_ on their minutes. This is mentioned in such a manner there and in the newspapers, as to insinuate a charge of some partiality and injustice in the assembly. But the _reasons_ were merely these, that though protesting may be a practice with the lords of parliament, there is no instance of it in the house of commons, whose proceedings are the model followed by the assemblies of America; that there is no precedent of it on our votes, from the beginning of our present constitution; and that the introducing such a practice would be attended with inconveniences, as the representatives in assembly are not, like the lords in parliament, unaccountable to any constituents, and would therefore find it necessary for their own justification, if the reasons of the minority for being against a measure were admitted in the votes, to put there likewise the reasons that induced the majority to be for it: whereby the votes, which were intended only as a register of propositions and determinations, would be filled with the disputes of members with members, and the public business be thereby greatly retarded, if ever brought to a period.