152 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



give to the delegates. This paper, when read in the 

 convention, was so much liked that it was printed as 

 a pamphlet under the title of " A Summary View of 

 the Rights of British America." In this paper Jeffer- 

 son set forth a doctrine which was very popular with 

 the Americans at that time, and deservedly so, because 

 it gave expression to the view of their relations with 

 Great Britain upon which they had always implicitly 

 acted. Jefferson held that " the relation between 

 Great Britain and the colonies was exactly the same 

 as that of England and Scotland" between 1603 an d 

 1607, "and the same as her present relations with 

 Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no 

 other necessary connection." The Americans acknow- 

 ledged the headship of the king, but not the authority 

 of Parliament, and when that body undertook to legis- 

 late for Americans, it was simply a case of " one free 

 and independent legislature " presuming " to suspend 

 the powers of another, as free and independent as it- 

 self." James Otis had said things not unlike this a 

 dozen years before, when he argued that the supremacy 

 of the colonial assembly in Massachusetts was as indis- 

 putable and as sacred as that of the Parliament in 

 Great Britain ; and similar arguments had been used 

 by Samuel Adams and others. But Jefferson's terse 

 way of stating the case had a decided savour of revo- 

 lution about it. His pamphlet went through ever so 

 many editions in England ; its arguments were incor- 

 porated into the resolutions adopted by the Continen- 

 tal Congress ; and in the following spring Jefferson 

 was himself elected a delegate to that great Revolu- 

 tionary body. He was then thirty-two years old, and 

 the only delegates younger than himself were John 



