Excerpt from New York, Vol. 2 of 2: The Planting and the Growth of the Empire State

Another series of petitions and addresses, re ported by Philip Livingston, in December, 1765, from the grand committee for courts of justice, in behalf of the chairman John Cruger, was adopted by the assembly, repeating the arguments against internal taxations and du ties by authority Of parliament, and enlarg ing on the wrong Of the extension of admi ralty jurisdiction to causes only cognizable at common law, and the granting of appeals from the verdicts of juries. Lieutenant Governor Colden had tried to enforce such an appeal, while the judges of the supreme court had re sisted his interference, and they had been sus tained by the council. This incident was the incentive to these petitions, which were fol lowed by resolutions adopted December 18, 1765, nemz'ne contradicente, as the official journal records, and closing with the declaration that the duties lately imposed by act of parliament on the trade of this colony are very grievous and burdensome; and in the apprehension of this house, impossible to be paid.

The burdensof the navigation act, as it be gan to be enforced, were keenly felt, and the attitude of parliament in imposing certain duties, followed by the stamp act, aroused all the colonies, and the proposal of New York for mutual correspondence was supplemented by an invitation from Massachusetts for a colonial congress. Seventy-eight delegates assembled, October 7, 1765, in New York, representing all the colonies but Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, while New York chose no delegates; but its committee of correspondence took an important share in the proceedings. Philip Livingston wrote a petition to the king, and John Cruger a declaration of rights and griev ances to the people of England and America, claiming for the colonists the right of taxing themselves either personally or by representa tives of their own choosing, the right of trial by jury, and the right of petition. Of the ad dress to parliament James Otis of Massachu setts was the author.

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