| IN the following pages I offer
nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and
have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will
divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason
and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. | 1 |
| Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle
between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the
controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all
have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the
last resource, decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the
king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge. | 2 |
| It hath been reported of the late Mr Pelham (who tho' an able
minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the
house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a
temporary kind, replied, "they will last my time." Should a
thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present
contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations
with detestation. | 3 |
| The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the
affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a
continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not
the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually
involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the
end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental
union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name
engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The
wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown
characters. | 4 |
| By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for
politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans,
proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i. e. to the
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year;
which, though proper then, are superceded and useless now. Whatever was
advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then,
terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great-Britain;
the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it;
the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far
happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her
influence. | 5 |
| As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation,
which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were,
it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the
argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which
these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected
with, and dependant on Great-Britain. To examine that connexion and
dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we
have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if
dependant. | 6 |
| I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath
flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same
connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always
have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of
argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon
milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of
our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is
admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would
have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power
had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she hath enriched
herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while
eating is the custom of Europe. | 7 |
| But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us
is true, and defended the continent at our expence as well as her own
is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive,
viz. the sake of trade and dominion. | 8 |
| Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and
made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of
Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.
Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent
throw off the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and
Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war
ought to warn us against connexions. | 9 |
| It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i. e.
that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister
colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very round-about way
of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of
proving enemyship, if I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor
perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great-Britain. | 10 |
| But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more
shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor
savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true,
turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so,
and the phrase parent or mother country hath been
jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low
papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of
our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil
and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they
fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty
of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny
which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants
still. | 11 |
| In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow
limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and
carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every
European christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment. | 12 |
| It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we
surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance
with the world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes,
will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because
their interests in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the
name of neighbour; if he meet him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name of townsman; if he travel out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman; i. e. county-man; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France or any other part of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishmen. And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen;
for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole,
stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of
street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too
limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of
this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase
of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false,
selfish, narrow and ungenerous. | 13 |
| But admitting, that we were all of English descent, what does
it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes
every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty,
is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line
(William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England
are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of
reasoning, England ought to be governed by France. | 14 |
| Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the
colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But
this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the
expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself
to be drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either
Asia, Africa, or Europe. | 15 |
| Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at
defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure
us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest
of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders. | 16 |
| I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a
single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with
Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is
derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our
imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will. | 17 |
| But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that
connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as
well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any
submission to, or dependance on Great-Britain, tends directly to
involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at
variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and
against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our
market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part
of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European
contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependance on Britain,
she is made the make-weight in the scale on British politics. | 18 |
| Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at
peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign
power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain.
The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the
advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then,
because, neutrality in that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of
war. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The
blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'TIS TIME TO PART.
Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and
America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one,
over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at
which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the
manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The
reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty
graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years,
when home should afford neither friendship nor safety. | 19 |
| The authority of Great-Britain over this continent, is a form
of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious
mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and
positive conviction, that what he calls "the present constitution" is
merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government
is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath
to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the
next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we
use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty
rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a
few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect,
which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight. | 20 |
| Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet
I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of
reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions.
Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not
see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the
European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged
deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent,
than all the other three. | 21 |
| It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them
feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed.
But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that
seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to
renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that
unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence,
have now, no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to
beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the
city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present
condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a
general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to the fury of
both armies. | 22 |
| Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences
of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this."
But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of
reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether
you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath
carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then
are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon
posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither
love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on
the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a
relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass
the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your
property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children
destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a
parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched
survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have.
But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then you
are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and
whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a
coward, and the spirit of a sycophant. | 23 |
| This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them
by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without
which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life,
or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the
purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly
slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not
in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not
conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter
is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole
continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment
which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will,
that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful. | 24 |
| It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things to
all examples from former ages, to suppose, that this continent can
longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in
Britain does not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at
this time, compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the
continent even a year's security. Reconciliation is now a
falacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connexion, and Art cannot
supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, "never can true
reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep." | 25 |
| Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our
prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us,
that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in Kings more than
repeated petitioning—and noting hath contributed more than that very
measure to make the Kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and
Sweden. Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let
us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be
cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child. | 26 |
| To say, they will never attempt it again is idle and
visionary, we thought so at the repeal of the stamp act, yet a year or
two undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations, which have been
once defeated, will never renew the quarrel. | 27 |
| As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to
do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weighty,
and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience,
by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they
cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or
four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five
months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to
explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and
childishness—There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper
time for it to cease. | 28 |
| Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the
proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is
something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually
governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite
larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect
to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they
belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself. | 29 |
| I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to
espouse the doctrine of separation and independance; I am clearly,
positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest
of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is
mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,—that it is
leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a
little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the
glory of the earth. | 30 |
| As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a
compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the
acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expense of blood
and treasure we have been already put to. | 31 |
| The object, contended for, ought always to bear some just
proportion to the expense. The removal of North, or the whole detestable
junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary
stoppage of trade, was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently
ballanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals
been obtained; but if the whole continent must take up arms, if every
man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a
contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly, do we pay for the repeal of
the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a just estimation, it is
as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land. As I
have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an event,
which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of
the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on
the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have
disputed a matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we
meant to be in earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a
suit at law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just
expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself,
before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, 1
but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the
hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the
wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul. | 32 |
| But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the
event? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several
reasons. | 33 |
| First. The powers of governing still remaining in the
hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of
this continent. And as he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy
to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or
is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies, "You shall make no laws but what I please." And is there any inhabitant in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according to what is called the present constitution,
that this continent can make no laws but what the king gives it leave
to; and is there any man so unwise, as not to see, that (considering
what has happened) he will suffer no law to be made here, but such as
suit his purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by the want
of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England.
After matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt, but
the whole power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as
low and humble as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go
backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning.—We
are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not
hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one point.
Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern
us? Whoever says No to this question is an independant,
for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make our own
laws, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or
can have, shall tell us, "there shall be no laws but such as I like." | 34 |
| But the king you will say has a negative in England; the
people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and
good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of
twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of
people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours
to be law. But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I
will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that
England being the King's residence, and America not so, make quite
another case. The king's negative here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for there
he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into
as strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never
suffer such a bill to be passed. | 35 |
| America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics, England consults the good of this country, no farther than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of ours
in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least
interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a
second-hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change
from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to
shew that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, that
it would be policy in the king at this time, to repeal the acts for the
sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces; in order that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND SUBTILITY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related. | 36 |
| Secondly. That as even the best terms, which we can
expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a
kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till
the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things, in
the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property
will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but
by a thread, and who is every day tottering on the brink of commotion
and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold
of the interval, to dispose of their effects, and quit the continent. | 37 |
| But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but
independance, i. e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace
of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the
event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than
probable, that it will followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the
consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of
Britain. | 38 |
| Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands
more will probably suffer the same fate.) Those men have other feelings
than us who have nothing suffered. All they now possess is
liberty, what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and
having nothing more to lose, they disdain submission. Besides, the
general temper of the colonies, towards a British government, will be
like that of a youth, who is nearly out of his time; they will care very
little about her. And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is
no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing; and
pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be wholly on
paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after
reconciliation? I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke
without thinking, that they dreaded an independance, fearing that it
would produce civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are
truly correct, and that is the case here; for there are ten times more
to dread from a patched up connexion than from independance. I make the
sufferers case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and
home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that as a man,
sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of
reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby. | 39 |
| The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and
obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make every
reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the
least pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, that such as are
truly childish and ridiculous, viz. that one colony will be striving for
superiority over another. | 40 |
| Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority,
perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe are all
(and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Swisserland are without
wars, foreign or domestic: Monarchical governments, it is true, are
never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprizing
ruffians at home; and that degree of pride and insolence ever
attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers,
in instances, where a republican government, by being formed on more
natural principles, would negotiate the mistake. | 41 |
| If there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, it
is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way
out—Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following
hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion
of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to
something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be
collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to
improve into useful matter. | 42 |
|
| Let the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The
representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject
to the authority of a Continental Congress. | 43 |
| Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient
districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to
Congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in
Congress will be least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose a
president by the following method. When the delegates are met, let a
colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which,
let the whole Congress choose (by ballot) a president from out of the
delegates of that province. In the next Congress, let a colony be
taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the
president was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on till
the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order
that nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily just, not
less than three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority.—He that
will promote discord, under a government so equally formed as this,
would have joined Lucifer in his revolt. | 44 |
| But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what
manner, this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable
and consistent that it should come from some intermediate body between
the governed and the governors, that is, between the Congress and the
people, let a CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held, in the following manner, and for the following purpose. | 45 |
| A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for
each colony. Two members for each House of Assembly, or Provincial
Convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be
chosen in the capital city or town of each province, for, and in behalf
of the whole province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper
to attend from all parts of the province for that purpose; or, if more
convenient, the representatives may be chosen in two or three of the
most populous parts thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will be
united, the two grand principles of business, knowledge and power.
The members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had
experience in national concerns, will be able and useful counsellors,
and the whole, being impowered by the people, will have a truly legal
authority. | 46 |
| The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a CONTINENTAL CHARTER,
or Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to what is called the
Magna Charta of England) fixing the number and manner of choosing
members of Congress, members of Assembly, with their date of sitting,
and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them: (Always
remembering, that our strength is continental, not provincial:) Securing
freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such
other matter as is necessary for a charter to contain. Immediately
after which, the said Conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall
be chosen comformable to the said charter, to be the legislators and
governors of this continent for the time being: Whose peace and
happiness, may God preserve, Amen. | 47 |
Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some
similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wise
observer on governments Dragonetti. "The science" says he "of the
politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom.
Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a
mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual
happiness, with the least national expense."
"Dragonetti on virtue and rewards."
| 48 |
| But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you
Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the
Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even
in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the
charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of
God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so
far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought
to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should
afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be
demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is. | 49 |
| A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man
seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will
become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a
constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in
our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
If we omit it now, some, 2
Massanello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular
disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and discontented, and
by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the
liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the government of
America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation
of things, will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his
fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain give? Ere she
could hear the news, the fatal business might be done; and ourselves
suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the
Conqueror. Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do; ye
are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of
government. There are thousands, and tens of thousands, who would think
it glorious to expel from the continent, that barbarous and hellish
power, which hath stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us, the
cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and
treacherously by them. | 50 |
| To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us
to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores
instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the
little remains of kindred between us and them, and can there be any
reason to hope, that as the relationship expires, the affection will
increase, or that we shall agree better, when we have ten times more and
greater concerns to quarrel over than ever? | 51 |
| Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore
to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former
innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord
now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against
us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to
be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his
mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty
hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise
purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They
distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would
dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a
casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The
robber, and the murderer, would often escape unpunished, did not the
injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice. | 52 |
| O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the
tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is
overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia,
and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger,
and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive,
and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. |
No comments:
Post a Comment