(Early America, "Why the Loyalists Lost," 2005) Support for the American colonial control of local matters and taxation does not necessarily signify that we Loyalists advocate a division between the imperial powers and our own -- and does not mean we believe our tenuous support for greater local control means that the Revolutionaries are justified in seeking severance from the British power. Rather, it is an effective effort at a compromise. Only when a king becomes a tyrant are the governed peoples not remiss in seeking revolt. In this case, although evident tensions exist between the colonies and King George III, this does not mean that the King's taxation to repair the costs the colonies have incurred upon the mother country are unjust in the sense that the taxes were imposed simply to enrich the king's own pockets -- such self-aggrandizing enrichment is the definition of tyranny, not simply disputing the best way to go about paying for a past, long and costly war.

Sovereigns have a duty to protect the rights, such as the life, liberty, and property of their subjects, and if rulers abrogated this trust, the ruler's subjects could legitimately withdraw their allegiance and unite to form a new government. But in this case, the Crown protected our lives during the French-Indian wars, protected our liberty from savage powers, and the safety of our property. Moreover, if war and sundering with Great...

The economic drains of a conflict will impinge upon our colonial liberty, and our property destroyed. Economic resistance of the aforementioned tariffs has caused, one might argue, more economic harm than the taxation itself.
Thomas Sewall has eloquently opinioned that at present, despite the current conflicts, the American colonies have still enjoyed and continue to enjoy the benefits of British law, British military protection, and a wide array of commercial advantages. Let those benefits suffice at present, we Loyalists would stress. We must attempt to make measured, slow and reasonable reforms to continue to exist in harmony with our parent country, so that the American colonies can continue to create a vast source of materials and an enormous markets for British goods, and both nations may reap the rewards of trade and economic prosperity. Do not let the hotheaded notions of vagabonds dominate the discourse! Rather, let both spheres engage in a reasoned yet still respectful form of political discourse so that England may in the future avoid antagonistic innovations -- such as taxation -- in a system that up until now has been so manifestly successful for most of the gentle-minded and high-thinking populace.

Works Cited

Why the Loyalists Lost." The Early America Review. Winter 2000. http://earlyamerica.com/review/winter2000/loyalists.html[6Mar 2005].

Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1907-21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000 (www.bartleby.com/cambridge/).[6 Mar 2005].