Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies was a series of essays written by John Dickinson, a lawyer from Pennsylvania, in late 1767 and early 1768.

Letters from a Farmer

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania was published to protest against the Townshend Acts.

In 1767 and 1768, the British government passed a range of legislation imposing new taxes and restrictions on the Thirteen Colonies. The laws were unpopular, not just because of the new taxes, but also because they gave British customs officers greater powers to interfere with colonial trade.

In response, John Dickinson, a Patriot who was a practicing lawyer at the time, published a series of 12 essays, titled Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. Rather than signing the essays with his own name, Dickinson ended each of his works with “- A FARMER”.

Letters from a Farmer argued:

• The British government’s policy of taxation without colonial representation violated colonists’ rights under British law.
• Allowing the British Parliament to impose taxes without representation set a dangerous precedent, threatening the colonists’ future freedoms.
• While the Parliament had the right to regulate colonial trade, there was a difference between duties meant to regulate commerce, and those meant to raise revenue. The Townshend Acts were purely revenue-raising measures and, therefore, unconstitutional.
• The colonists should engage in peaceful protest against the Townshend Acts, including petitions and boycotts.

The essays were originally published in the Pennsylvania Chronicle newspaper, as a weekly series of 12 essays, beginning on December 2, 1767. In total, the Letters are approximately 130 pages in length.

Who was John Dickinson?

John Dickinson was a lawyer and writer from Pennsylvania who supported the Patriot cause.

He was one of the most wealthy men in the Thirteen Colonies, but he was most renowned for his writing. After publishing Letters from a Farmer, and writing the Liberty Song, Dickinson became known as the “penman of the Revolution”.

Dickinson went on to join the First Continental Congress, before becoming a Founding Father of the United States. Later, he took the office of the President of Delaware from 1781 to 1783, and the President of Pennsylvania from 1782 to 1785.

Significance & effects

Other Patriot writers had made similar arguments to Dickinson’s in the months and years prior.

However, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania struck a chord with the colonists because Dickinson distilled his arguments in a persuasive, easy to understand manner. And Dickinson’s pseudonym helped to make his work more relatable to ordinary citizens.

Quickly, the letters spread throughout the colonies, and were published in other newspapers. They were then reprinted on their own, as a separate pamphlet, and distributed as far as France.

Dickinson quickly became a household name, and Patriot leaders praised his work, encouraging politicians to put his arguments into action.

In large part due to the essays’ popularity, public sentiment quickly turned against the Townshend Acts.

After repealing the Stamp Act, the British thought that the new legislation might be more widely accepted by the colonists. The new taxes were relatively small, and the new rules mostly targeted illegal smuggling.

However, Dickinson successfully argued against the entire principle of the Acts – making the case that the British government was acting illegally, and if left unchecked, their behavior would lead to a significant loss of autonomy for the colonists.

The Townshend Acts were repealed by the British government in 1770.

In essence, Letters from a Farmer helped unify colonial opposition to British policies and influenced early revolutionary thought. It is one of the most important Patriot literary works of the American Revolution, along with Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and the Declaration of Independence.

Letter One

My dear COUNTRYMEN,

I am a Farmer, settled, after a variety of fortunes, near the banks of the river Delaware in the province of Pennsylvania. I received a liberal education and have been engaged in the busy scenes of life, but am now convinced that a man may be as happy without bustle as with it. My farm is small; my servants are few and good; I have a little money at interest; I wish for no more; my employment in my own affairs is easy; and with a contented, grateful mind, undisturbed by worldly hopes or fears relating to myself, I am completing the number of days allotted to me by divine goodness.

Being generally master of my time, I spend a good deal of it in a library, which I think the most valuable part of my small estate; and being acquainted with two or three gentlemen of abilities and learning who honor me with their friendship, I have acquired, I believe, a greater knowledge in history and the laws and constitution of my country than is generally attained by men of my class, many of them not being so fortunate as I have been in the opportunities of getting information.

From my infancy I was taught to love humanity and liberty. Enquiry and experience have since confirmed my reverence for the lessons then given me, by convincing me more fully of their truth and excellence. Benevolence toward mankind excites wishes for their welfare, and such wishes endear the means of fulfilling them. These can be found in liberty only, and therefore her sacred cause ought to be espoused by every man, on every occasion, to the utmost of his power. As a charitable but poor person does not withhold his mite because he cannot relieve all the distresses of the miserable, so should not any honest man suppress his sentiments concerning freedom, however small their influence is likely to be. Perhaps he “may touch some wheel” that will have an effect greater than he could reasonably expect.

These being my sentiments, I am encouraged to offer to you, my countrymen, my thoughts on some late transactions that appear to me to be of the utmost importance to you. Conscious of my defects, I have waited some time, in expectation of seeing the subject treated by persons much better qualified for the task; but being therein disappointed, and apprehensive that longer delays will be injurious, I venture at length to request the attention of the public, praying that these lines may be read with the same zeal for the happiness of British America with which they were wrote.

With a good deal of surprise I have observed that little notice has been taken of an act of Parliament as injurious in its principle to the liberties of these colonies as the Stamp Act was: I mean the act for suspending the legislation of New York.

The assembly of that government complied with a former act of Parliament requiring certain provisions to be made for the troops in America in every particular, I think, except the articles of salt, pepper, and vinegar. In my opinion they acted imprudently, considering all circumstances, in not complying so far as would have given satisfaction, as several colonies did. But my dislike of their conduct in that instance has not blinded me so much that I cannot plainly perceive that they have been punished in a manner pernicious to American freedom and justly alarming to all the colonies.

If the British Parliament has a legal authority to issue an order that we shall furnish a single article for the troops here and to compel obedience to that order, they have the same right to issue an order for us to supply those troops with arms, clothes, and every necessary, and to compel obedience to that order also; in short, to lay any burdens they please upon us. What is this but taxing us at a certain sum and leaving us only the manner of raising it? How is this mode more tolerable than the Stamp Act? Would that act have appeared more pleasing to Americans if, being ordered thereby to raise the sum total of the taxes, the mighty privilege had been left to them of saying how much should be paid for an instrument of writing on paper, and how much for another on parchment?

An act of Parliament commanding us to do a certain thing, if it has any validity, is a tax upon us for the expense that accrues in complying with it, and for this reason, I believe, every colony on the continent that chose to give a mark of their respect for Great Britain, in complying with the act relating to the troops, cautiously avoided the mention of that act, lest their conduct should be attributed to its supposed obligation.

The matter being thus stated, the assembly of New York either had or had not a right to refuse submission to that act. If they had, and I imagine no American will say they had not, then the Parliament had no right to compel them to execute it. If they had not this right, they had no right to punish them for not executing it, and therefore no right to suspend their legislation, which is a punishment. In fact, if the people of New York cannot be legally taxed but by their own representatives, they cannot be legally deprived of the privilege of legislation, only for insisting on that exclusive privilege of taxation. If they may be legally deprived in such a case of the privilege of legislation, why may they not, with equal reason, be deprived of every other privilege? Or why may not every colony be treated in the same manner, when any of them shall dare to deny their assent to any impositions that shall be directed? Or what signifies the repeal of the Stamp Act if these colonies are to lose their other privileges by not tamely surrendering that of taxation?

There is one consideration arising from this suspension, which is not generally attended to, but shows its importance very clearly. It was not necessary that this suspension should be caused by an act of Parliament. The Crown might have restrained the governor of New York even from calling the assembly together, by its prerogative in the royal governments. This step, I suppose, would have been taken if the conduct of the assembly of New York had been regarded as an act of disobedience to the Crown alone; but it is regarded as an act of “disobedience to the authority of the British Legislature.” This gives the suspension a consequence vastly more affecting. It is a parliamentary assertion of the supreme authority of the British legislature over these colonies in the point of taxation and is intended to COMPEL New York into a submission to that authority. It seems therefore to me as much a violation of the liberties of the people of that province, and consequently of all these colonies, as if the Parliament had sent a number of regiments to be quartered upon them until they should comply. For it is evident that the suspension meant as a compulsion, and the method of compelling is totally indifferent. It is indeed probable that the sight of red coats and the hearing of drums would have been most alarming, because people are generally more influenced by their eyes and ears than by their reason. But whoever seriously considers the matter must perceive that a dreadful stroke is aimed at the liberty of these colonies. I say, of these colonies, for the cause of one is the cause of all. If the Parliament may lawfully deprive New York of any of her rights, it may deprive any or all the other colonies of their rights; and nothing can possibly so much encourage such attempts as a mutual inattention to the interests of each other. To divide, and thus to destroy, is the first political maxim in attacking those who are powerful by their union. He certainly is not a wise man who folds his arms and reposes himself at home, viewing with unconcern the flames that have invaded his neighbor’s house, without using any endeavors to extinguish them. When Mr. Hampden’s ship-money case for Three Shillings and Four-pence was tried, all the people of England, with anxious expectation, interested themselves in the important decision; and when the slightest point touching the freedom of one colony is agitated, I earnestly wish that all the rest may with equal ardor support their sister. Very much may be said on this subject, but I hope more at present is unnecessary.

With concern, I have observed that two assemblies of this province have sat and adjourned without taking any notice of this act. It may perhaps be asked: what would have been proper for them to do? I am by no means fond of inflammatory measures; I detest them. I should be sorry that anything should be done which might justly displease our sovereign or our mother country: But a firm, modest exertion of a free spirit should never be wanting on public occasions. It appears to me that it would have been sufficient for the assembly to have ordered our agents to represent to the King’s ministers their sense of the suspending act and to pray for its repeal. Thus we should have borne our testimony against it and might therefore reasonably expect that, on a like occasion, we might receive the same assistance from the other colonies.