MAY it please your Honors: I was desired by one of the court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance.

I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writ of Assistance is.

I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject.

Every one with this writ may be a tyrant; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm.

Much of what we now consider to be problems concerning immigration and assimilation really concern Mexican immigration and assimilation.

May it please the court, I am not guilty,