Title page from The Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, with respect to North America, and the Privileges of the Assemblies there briefly considered

The Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, with respect to North America, and the Privileges of the Assemblies there briefly considered

This essay defends Parliament’s authority over America “when considered as a collective Body of Colonies,” because only it could consider “the general good of the whole.” While certainly consistent with an idea of virtual representation, the essay’s focus on an intercolonial perspective and the general interests of the empire, marks a distinctive alternative case for the supremacy of Parliament.

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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.