The Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed; the Several Pleas of the Colonies, in Support of Their Right to All the Liberties and Privileges of British Subjects...
- William Knox (author)
- Jack P. Greene (collection editor)
William Knox’s pamphlet is a Loyalist tract that systematically dismantles the constitutional arguments colonial assemblies had advanced to resist Parliamentary authority. Knox examines the colonial claim to all the rights and liberties of British subjects while simultaneously asserting exemption from Parliament’s jurisdiction, arguing that the two positions are fundamentally contradictory — if the colonies are not part of the British realm, they have no basis for claiming English rights, but if they are part of it, they are fully subject to Parliamentary legislation and taxation.
Drawing heavily on Locke and historical precedent, Knox contends that the doctrine of “no taxation without representation” had never been strictly observed anywhere, including in Britain itself, where many groups were taxed without distinct representatives of their own. Ultimately, Knox frames the colonial resistance not as a principled constitutional stand but as a thinly veiled push for complete independence from British sovereignty.
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The text of these 18th century pamphlets has been converted by machine from scanned PDFs of the original microfilm copies. While the text has been machine-proofed, transcription errors may still remain. For example, the 18th-century long S, ſ , may be rendered as “f,” some words may be incorrectly transcribed, and there may be repeated words or phrases.