[Tucker], A Letter from a Merchant in London

Josiah Tucker was born in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, in December 1713 and educated at St John’s College, Oxford. In letters to newspapers and to friends, he opposed the French and Indian War and British-American territorial expansion as costly ways of encouraging colonial economic and political autonomy. His Letter from a Merchant in London to a fictional nephew elaborated some of these themes. After praising his notional nephew, Tucker proceeds on an often sarcastic attack on American objections to taxation, beginning with familiar points about how the English liberties colonists claimed were housed in Parliament and guaranteed by virtual or ‘implied’ representation, and that royal prerogative never extended to granting chartered exemptions from legislation. He further argued that parliamentary policy frequently favoured colonists and that Americans were much better placed to pay for their own protection than were heavily indebted and taxed Britons.