[Knox], A Letter to a Member of Parliament

The essence of Knox’s argument is the indivisibility of sovereignty. In a reference to colonial ideas of diffused sovereignty, Knox claims that ‘The Doctrine of the Colonists not only dictates to, but strikes at the very Root and Essence of the Constitution; and indeed the Example might be of the most calamitous Consequence to the State’. While Knox seems to have abandoned his previous concession that colonists were in a different political situation from non-voting residents of the British Isles and therefore ought to be consulted about modes of taxation, he nevertheless thought it a matter of ‘Polity’ that enforcement should be carried out through ‘the constitutional Right of a Trial by a Jury’ rather than through Admiralty Courts. Knox had nevertheless hardened in his attitude towards colonists, as William Bollan would harden in his towards Parliament. In The Present State of the Nation, Knox suggested that colonies raise their own levies towards imperial administration.