MEMOB8IM. 
 
 University of California Berkeley 
 
1 
 
i 
 
 Jfl, 
 

I 
 
THE 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 O F 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
THE 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 ^ / ,^.^'<I_^ O F . J^/><^ 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 <$ /' 
 B Y 
 
 THE ABBE RAYNAL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND 
 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE ESTA- 
 BLISHMENTS AND COMMERCE OF THE 
 EUROPEANS IN BOTH THE INDIES. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. TALBOT, 
 
 For Meflrs. PRICE, w. WATSON, SLEATOR, WHITE- 
 STONE, SHEPPARD, LYNCH, COLLES, WILSON, 
 WILLIAMS, CHAMBERLAINE, R. CROSS, T, 
 STEWART, WOGAN, BURNET, JENJCIN, 
 MONCRIEFFE, POTTS, WALKER, 
 
 WHITE, BEATTY, BURTON, 
 M'DONNEL, MILLS, PARKER, 
 
 HIGLY, TALBOT, BYRN, 
 
 EXSHAW, and WEBB. 
 

 
ADVERTISEMENT, 
 
 BY THE TRANSLATOR. 
 
 JL HE Philofophical and political 
 Hiftory of the Eftablifhments and 
 Commerce of the Europeans, in 
 both the Indies, by the Abbe R A Y- 
 NAL, is certainly one of the fineft 
 works which have appeared fince 
 the revival of letters; and perhaps 
 the moft inftrudtive of any which 
 have been known. It is an origi- 
 nal as to its formation ; and ought 
 to ferve henceforward for a 'mo- 
 del. An additional part to this 
 work, difcuffing the difputes of 
 Great Britain with her Colonies, 
 has been long and ardently ex- 
 A pefted. 
 
peded. In the courfe of his tra- 
 vels, the tranflator happily fuc- 
 ceeded in obtaining a copy of this 
 exquifite little piece, which has 
 not yet made its appearance from 
 any prefs. He publifhes a French 
 edition, in favour of thofe who 
 will feel its eloquent reafoning 
 more forcibly in its native lan- 
 guage, at the fame time with the 
 following tranflation of it ; in 
 which he has been defirous, per- 
 haps in vain, that all the warmth, 
 the grace, the ftrength, the dignity 
 of the original, fhould not be loft. 
 And he flatters himfelf, that the 
 indulgence of the illuftrious hifto- 
 rian will not be wanting to a man, 
 
 who 
 
[ vii ] 
 
 who of his own motion, has taken 
 the liberty to give this compofition 
 to the public, only from a ftrong per- 
 fuafion, that its momentous argu- 
 ment will be ufeful, in a critical 
 conjun&ure, to that country which 
 he loves with an ardour, that can 
 be exceeded only by the nobler 
 flame, which burns in the bofom 
 of the philanthropic author, for the 
 freedom and happinefs of all the 
 countries upon earth. 
 
 It may not, perhaps, be quite 
 needlefs to obferve, though it ought 
 to be understood, that the valua- 
 tion of fums, made in the original 
 in foreign money, is, in the tran- 
 flation made in fterling, 
 
 A 2 The 
 
The abundant good fenfe, the 
 political fagacity, and even the fa- 
 lutary farcafm, to be found, amidft 
 the effufions of benevolence, in this 
 hiftorical tradt, could never, it is 
 apprehended, be more opportunely 
 laid before thofe whom it may con- 
 cern, than now. It now feems to 
 be the general and anxious expec- 
 tation, that, before the rifing of 
 Parliament from its prefent feffion, 
 fome proper and efficacious fteps 
 will at laft, at this high time, be 
 thought of, towards clofing the un- 
 natural, the fhameful, and diftrefs- 
 ful breach, between the mother- 
 country and her colonies ; a breach 
 in which, as it is obferved, with 
 
 great 
 
great truth, by the author of a 
 Plan of Accommodation*, founded 
 in juftice and liberality, "The peo- 
 " pie on both fides are robbed of 
 " their trueft intereft, and made to 
 " facrifice their mutual happinefs, 
 '* to gain nothing but contempt 
 " and mifery." 
 
 Let not wifdom utter her voice 
 in the ftreets, and no man regard 
 ben 
 
 * Printed in 1780. 
 
 The 
 
The Tranflator cannot help 
 moft folicitoufly wifhing that fome 
 of his fellow-fubjefts, of the 
 Britifh dominions, may enter the 
 lifts for the prize propofed in the 
 following Advertifement from the 
 Academy of Lyons, in the hope 
 that he fhall have the happinefs to 
 fee it borne from the reft of the 
 lettered world, by a hero of that 
 people, who have been dear, tarn 
 Marti quam Mercurio, who are 
 diftinguifhed for their eloquence, 
 and who, he trufts, when frater- 
 nal feuds (hall be reconciled, will 
 vindicate their faperiority in arms. 
 He humbly offers his fervice to any 
 candidate for this prize, produc- 
 tive 
 
tive of fo great celebrity, who 
 may not know the ready means of 
 doing it himfelf, to get his per- 
 formance conveyed to Lyons, free 
 of poftage, provided that it be left 
 with his Bookfeller, Mr, Lock- 
 yer Davis, before the firft of De- 
 cember, 1782* 
 
 London^ March $ f 178 it 
 
 AD- 
 
[ xiii ] 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 FROM 
 THE ACADEMY 
 
 OP SCIENCES, POLITE LITERATURE, AND ARTS, 
 
 AT LYONS. 
 
 A HE ABBS' RAYNAL, after having 
 inftru&ed mankind by his writings, 
 would ftill contribute to the improve- 
 ment of their knowledge, by exciting, 
 emulation. An AfTociate in the labours 
 of the Academy of Lyons, he propofed 
 to it to give out two fubjedts. for prizes, 
 of which he has conftituted the fund, to 
 be diftributed by the Academy, to the 
 
 authors 
 
authors whom it fliall judge to have beft 
 anfwered the views of the propounded 
 queftions. 
 
 The Academy accepted of the offer 
 with gratitude, and publilhes the fubjeds 
 without delay.. 
 
 The fir ft fubjeft propofed for the year 
 1782, relating exclujively to the manu- 
 faftures and profperity of the city of 
 Lyons is omitted here, as, however ju- 
 dicious and patriotic in the founder of 
 the prize, it is an objeft only of particu- 
 lar concern, and* confequently, not in- 
 terejiing, like the fecond, to the world 
 at large. 
 
 FOR 
 
FO.R THE YEAR 1783. 
 
 THE ACADEMY propofes the follow- 
 ing fubjedt. 
 
 Has the dif cowry of America been ufe- 
 ful or hurtful to mankind? 
 
 If advantages have refulted from /'/, 
 'what are the means to preferve and increafe 
 them ? 
 
 If disadvantages * 'what are the means 
 to remedy them ? 
 
 The prize confifts of the fum of fifty 
 Louis d'or, which will be remitted to 
 the fuccefsful author, or his afllgns. 
 
 CONDITIONS. 
 
 Any perfon of any nation may be a 
 competitor for this prize, except titulary 
 and veteran academicians. The aflbci- 
 ates of academies will be admitted. 
 
 The 
 
[ xvi ] 
 
 The authors muft not let themfelves 
 Jbe known, diredtly or indirectly; they 
 will put fome line, or motto, at the head 
 of their performance, which will be ac- 
 companied by a note fealed up, contain- 
 ing the fame line or motto, with their 
 names and places of abode. 
 
 The Academy confidering the impor- 
 tance of the fubjeft, fees no Jimits to the 
 length of the compofition, but only 
 wiflies the author to write in French or 
 Latin, 
 
 No work can be admitted after the 
 firft of February, 1783, The Aca- 
 demy will proclaim the prize the fame 
 year, in its public affembly, after St. 
 Lewis's day, or the 25th of Auguft. 
 
 The packets are to be fent to Lyons, 
 free of poflage, directed to 
 
 M.LA 
 
[ xvii ] 
 
 M. LA TOURRETTE, Secretaire per- 
 petuel pour la Clajje des Sciences^ Rue 
 Boiffac ; or to 
 
 M. DE BORY, Secretaire perpetuel pour 
 la claffe des Belles-Lettres, Rue Boiffac - 9 
 or to 
 
 M. AIME' DE LA ROCHE, Imprimeur- 
 Libraire de FAcademie, maifon des halles 
 de la Grenette. 
 
 Signed, 
 
 LA TOURRETTE, 
 Perpetual Secretary. 
 
 Lyons, Sept. 5, 1780. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISTRESSED ftate of England in 
 1763 page i 
 
 England calls the colonies to her aid 4 
 
 England exafls from her colonies what 
 fhe fhould but have requefted 17 
 
 After having given way, England would 
 be obeyed by her colonies. Meafures 
 which they take to refift her 25 
 
 The colonies were in the right to fepa- 
 rate themfelves from their mother- 
 country, independently of all difcon- 
 tent 42 
 
 What was the part which England fhould 
 have taken, when (he faw the fermen- 
 tation of her colonies 78 
 
 England determines to reduce her colo- 
 nies by force 102 
 
 The colonies break the ties which united 
 them to England, and declare them- 
 felves independent of her 1 20 
 
 Com- 
 
[ XX ] 
 
 Commencement of the war between the 
 United States and England 136 
 
 Why the Englifh did not fucceed in 
 bringing the confederate provinces to 
 fubmiflion 1 49 
 
 Why the confederate provinces did not 
 fucceed in driving the Englifh from 
 the contient of America 1 65 
 
 France acknowledges the independence 
 of the United States. This meafure 
 occafions war between this crown and 
 that of England 182 
 
 Spain, not having fucceeded in reconcil- 
 ing England and France, declares for 
 the latter power ait 
 
 What ought to be the politics of the 
 Houfe of Bourbon, if victorious 224 
 
 What idea fhould be formed of the thir- 
 teen united provinces 232 
 
 THE 
 
THE 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 O F 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 [ Dijlrejfed State of England in \ 763. ] 
 
 ENGLAND was juft dlfengaged 
 from a long and bloody war, in which 
 her fleets had difplayed the banner of 
 viftory in all feas ; in which a dominion, 
 already too vaft, was augmented by an 
 immenfe acceffion of territory in both 
 the Indies. This fplendul face of things 
 might have an impc fing air abroad ; but 
 the nation was reduced within to <^ioan 
 for its acquifitior.s and iis triumph? Over- 
 B whelmed 
 
whelmed with a debt of ,1 48,000^000, 
 which coft her an intereft of 4,959,000, 
 fhe was fcarcely fufficient to the moil 
 necefTary expences with the five milli- 
 ons eight hundred thoufand pounds 
 which remained to her of her revenue ; 
 and this revenue, fo far from being ca- 
 pable of increafe, had no certain arid 
 affured confiftency. 
 
 Land remained loaded with a higher 
 tax than it ever had been in time of 
 peace. New taxts had been laid on 
 windows and on houfts. Thefe ads 
 laid a heavy charge on all real eftate. 
 Wine, plate, cards, dice, all that was 
 regarded as an objecft of luxury, or 
 amufement, paid more than could have 
 been thought poflible. To rcimburfe 
 itfelf for the facrifice made to the pre- 
 fervation of the public health, in the 
 prohibition of fpirituous liquors, the 
 treafury had recourfe to malt, beer, cy- 
 der, 
 
t 3 3 
 
 der, and all the ufnal beverages of the 
 people. The fea-ports difpatched no- 
 thing to foreign countries, and received 
 nothing from them, but what wjs bur- 
 tbenrd cruelly with duties, on the im- 
 port and the export. Rav\ mattrials 
 and woikmanfhip were rifen to fo high 
 a price in Great Britain, that her mer- 
 chants found thernfelves fuppltnttdin 
 countries wheie they had never before 
 experienced a competi ion. The pro- 
 fits of her commerce, -with all pans of 
 the globe, amounted not aunua.ly to 
 above two millions and a halt - 9 and, 
 from this balance in her favour, there 
 muft have been deducted a million and 
 a half, paid in interdi to foreigners, 
 on their capitals placed in her public 
 funds. 
 
 The fpi ings of the (late were drained. 
 
 All the mufcles of the body-politic, 
 
 experiencing at once a violent tenfion, 
 
 B 2 were 
 
I 4 1 
 
 were in fome fort difplaced. ft was a 
 critical moment. It was neceffary to 
 let the peop'e breathe. They could 
 not be relieved by a diminution of ex- 
 pence. That of the government was 
 necefiary, cither to give value to con- 
 quefts bought at the price of fo much 
 treafure, at the price of fo much blood ; 
 or to reftrain the houfe of Bourbon, an- 
 gered by the humiliations of the laft 
 war, and by the facrifices of the laft 
 peace. In default of other means, to 
 fix both the fecurity of the prefent, and 
 the profperity of the future, an idea 
 was formed of calling the colonies to the 
 aid of the mother-country. This view 
 was wife and juft. 
 
 [ England calls the colonies to her aid. ] 
 
 The members of a confederacy ought 
 all, in proportion to the extent of their 
 powers, to contribute to its defence 
 
 and 
 
[ 5 ) 
 
 and to its fplendour, flnce it is by the 
 public power alone that each clafs can 
 preferve the intire and peaceable enjoy- 
 ment of its pofleflions.. The indigent 
 man has, without doubt, lefs intereft 
 in it than the rich ; but he has the 
 intereft of his quiet in the firft in- 
 fiance, and in the next, that of the 
 prefervation of the public wealth, which 
 he is called upon to partake of by his 
 induftry. There is no principle of 
 fociety more evident ; and yet no fault 
 in politics more common than its 5n- 
 fra&ion, Whence can arife this perpe- 
 petual contradiction between the know- 
 ledge and the conduct of thofe who go- 
 vern ? From the vice of the legiflative 
 power, which exaggerates the mainten- 
 ance of the public power, and ufurps, 
 for its fancies, a part of the funds 
 cjeftined to this maintenance. The gold 
 of the trader, and of the hufbandman, 
 with the fubfiftence of the poor, torn 
 B 3 from 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 from th^m, in th? name of the (late, in 
 their fields and their habitations, and 
 proftitmed in courts to intereft and to 
 vice, goes to fwell the pomp of a fet 
 of men who flatter, ha e, and corrupt 
 their matter ; goes ultimately into (till 
 viler hands, to pay the fcandal and the 
 ignominy of their pie .fares. It is prodi- 
 gally fquandcred in a faftuous fhew of 
 grandeur, the vain decoration of thofe 
 who cannot attain to real grandeur, and 
 in fcflivities and entertainments, the re- 
 fotirce of impotent idlenefs, in the midft 
 of the cares and labours which the right 
 government of an empire would de- 
 mand. A portion of it, it is true, is 
 given to the public wants ; but inatten- 
 tion, and incapacity, apply it without 
 judgment, as without oeconomy. .Au- 
 thority deceived, and which will not 
 condefcend even to make an effort at 
 being undeceived, fuffers an unjuft dif- 
 
 tribution in the taxes, and a manner of 
 
 gathering 
 
[ 7 1 
 
 gathering them which is itfelf but an 
 oppreffion more. Then is every patri- 
 otic fentiment extinguiflv.d. A war is 
 eftablifhed between the prince and fub- 
 jedts. They who raife the reve r ius of 
 the date appear to be no other than the- 
 enemies of the citizen. He defends 
 his fortune from taxation as he would 
 defend it from invafion. Whatever 
 cunning can purloin from power feems 
 lawful gain ; and the fubjedts, corrupt- 
 ed by the government, make reprifals 
 on the mafter by whom they are pillag- 
 ed. They perceive not, that in this un- 
 equal combat, they are themfelves dupes 
 and vidims. 1 he infatiable and ar- 
 dent treafury, lefs fatisfied with what is 
 given, than irritated by what has been 
 refufed, reaches eagerly, with a hundred 
 hands, after what one alone has dared 
 to divert from its gripe. It joins the 
 a&ivity of power to that of intereft. 
 Vexations are multiplied, under the fpe- 
 B 4 cious 
 
[ 8 ] 
 
 cious name of chaftifement and juitice ; 
 and the monfler who beggars all thofe 
 whom he torments, thanks heaven de- 
 voutly for the number of the criminals 
 \vho have been punifhed by him, and 
 of the crimes by which he is enriched. 
 Happy the fovereign who fhould not 
 difdatn, for the prevention of fo may 
 abufes, to render to his fubjedls a faith- 
 ful account of the employment of the 
 fums he might exadt ! But this fove- 
 reign has not yet appeared ^ and, with- 
 out doubt, he never will appear. The 
 debt, however, of the proteded peo- 
 ple, towards the prote<5tor-ftate, is not 
 a lefs neceflary and facred tie ; and no 
 nation has difowned it. The Englifh 
 colonies in North America had not 
 given an example of it ; and never had 
 the Britifh miniftry recourfe to them 
 without obtaining the fuccour it foli- 
 cited. 
 
 But 
 
[ 9 1 
 
 But this fuccour was granted in gifts, 
 and not in taxes ; fmce the concefllon of 
 it was preceded by free and public deli- 
 berations in the aflemblies of each efta- 
 blifhment. The mother-country had 
 found herfelf engaged in expenfive arid 
 cruel wars. Tumultuous and enterpriz- 
 ing parliaments had difturbed her tran- 
 quillity. She had fallen into the hands 
 of minifters corrupt and bold ; unhap- 
 pily difpofed to raife the authority of the 
 throne upon the ruin of all the rights, 
 and all the powers of the people. And 
 even revolutions had taken place, before 
 an attack upon a cuftom, ftablifhed and 
 ftrengthened by the happy experience 
 of two ages, had ever once been dream- 
 ed of. 
 
 , * * .* " 
 
 The colonies in the new world had 
 
 been accuftomed to regard this mode of 
 
 furnifhing their contingent, in men and 
 
 money, as a right. Had this pretenfion 
 
 B 5 been 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 been doubtful, or erroneous, prudence 
 would have forbidden its being too 
 openly attacked The art of main- 
 taining authority is a delicate art, which 
 requires more circumfpeftion than is 
 generally thought. They who govern 
 are perhaps too much accuftomed to hold 
 them in contempt. They regard them 
 too much as flaves, fubdued and bent 
 down by nature, whilft they are only fo 
 from habit. If you lay on them a new 
 load, take care left they fhake it off 
 with fury and with intereft. Forget 
 not that the lever of power has no other 
 fulcrum than opinion ; that the power of 
 thofe who govern is in reality but the 
 power of thofe who fuffer government. 
 Remind not people attentively occupied 
 by their labours, or fleeping in their chains, 
 lift up their eyes to truths too terrible 
 for you; and whilft they are obeying, 
 bring not to their remembrance their right 
 to command. When the moment of this 
 
 fearful 
 
[ II ] 
 
 fearful roufing fhall arrive ; when they 
 fhall have thought in earned that they are 
 not made for their magiftrates, but that 
 their magiftrates are made for them ; 
 when they fhall once have been able to 
 bring themfelves together, to feel the 
 communication of kindred minds, and 
 to pronounce with a voice unanimous ; 
 IV e will not have this law ; this practice 
 is offevfae ; medium is no more ; you 
 will be conftrained, by an unavoidable 
 alternative, either to punifh or to yield ; 
 either to be tyrannical or weak ; and 
 your authority henceforth detefled or 
 defpifed, whichever part it take, will 
 have to chufe from the people but their 
 open infolence, or their hidden hate. 
 
 The firft duty, therefore, of a wife 
 adminiftration, is to manage the pre- 
 vailing opinions in any country : for 
 opinion is the property rnoft dear to 
 man, dearer even than his life, and con- 
 
 fequently 
 
C 12 3 
 
 fequently much dearer than his wealth. 
 A wife adminiftration, may without 
 doubt, endeavour to reftify opinions by 
 information, or to alter them by perfua- 
 fion, if they tend to the diminution of the 
 public power. But it is not permitted 
 to thwart them without neceflity ; and 
 there never was any neceffity for re-* 
 jelling the fyftem adopted by North 
 America. 
 
 In effeft, whether the different fet- 
 tlements in this new world had been 
 authorized, as they wifhed, to fend 
 reprefentatives to parliament, where they 
 might have deliberated with their fel- 
 low-citizens on the neceflhies of the 
 Britifh empire at large ; or, whether 
 they had continued to examine within 
 themfelves what fhould be the contri- 
 bution which it was right for them to 
 make, no inconvenience could have re- 
 fulted from it to the treafury. In one 
 
 cafe, 
 
[ 13 ] 
 
 cafe, the voice of their delegated claim- 
 ants would have been drowned in that 
 of the majority; and thefe provinces 
 would have found themfelves legally 
 loaded with fuch a portion of the bur- 
 den as it fhould be wifhed to make 
 them bear. In the other, the miniftry> 
 continuing to difpofe of the dignities, 
 the employments, the penfions, and even 
 of the elections, would have experienced 
 no more refinance to its will in that he- 
 mifphere than in this. 
 
 But the maxims confecrated by cuf- 
 tom in America were not founded in 
 prejudice alone. The pretenfions of 
 the colonifls refted on the nature of 
 their charters, and on the ftill more fo- 
 lid bafis of that right of every Englifh 
 fubjeCl not to be taxed without con- 
 fent, exprefled by himfelf or his repre- 
 fentative. This right, which ought to 
 be that of every people, fmce it is 
 
 founded 
 
[ 14 ] 
 
 founded on the eternal law of reafon, ori- 
 ginated fo far back as in the nign of 
 the firft Edward. From that epoch the 
 EngHfhman has never loft fight of it. 
 In peace, in war, under weak or wicked 
 kings, in flavifh or tumultuous times, it 
 has been his unremitted claim. Under 
 the Tudors, this Englifhman has been 
 feen to give up fome of his moft preci- 
 ous privileges, and, unrefiftingly, to fub- 
 mit his neck to the axe of tyrants; but 
 never to renounce the right of felf- tax- 
 ation. It was in the defence of it that 
 he has fhed rivers of blood, that he has 
 punifhcd or dethroned his kings. In 
 fhort, at the revolution in 1688, this right 
 was folemnly acknowledged, by the ce- 
 lebrated a6t, in which liberty was feen to 
 tract", with the fame hand with which it 
 had driven out the royal defpot, the con- 
 ditions of the contraft between a nation 
 and the fovereign it had newly chofen. 
 This prerogative of a people, much more 
 
 facred, 
 
[ '5 ] 
 
 facred, without all queftion, than fo ma- 
 ny imaginary rights which fuperfHtion 
 would fandtify in tyrants, was, with re- 
 gard to England, at once both the in- 
 ftrument and the rampart of her liberty. 
 She thought, fhe felt, that it was the only 
 barrier which could for ever limit defpo- 
 tifm ; that the moment which drips a 
 people of this privilege, condemns it to 
 opprefiion ; and that the funds, raifed 
 in appearance for its fecurity, are fooner 
 or later fubfervient to its ruin. The 
 Englifhman, in founding his colony, had 
 carried with him thefe principles beyond 
 the feas ; and the fame ideas had been 
 tranfmitted to his progeny. 
 
 Ah! if in the countries even of Eu- 
 rope, in which flavery feems long fince 
 to have taken its feat in the midft of 
 vices, of riches, and of arts ; in which the 
 depotifm of armies fupports the defpo- 
 tifm of courts -, in which man, chained 
 
 from 
 
[ 16 I 
 
 from his cradle, and bound tightly by all 
 the cords both of policy and fuperftition, 
 has never breathed the air of liberty ; if 
 in thefe countries, notwithftanding, they 
 who have once in their lives refledted on 
 the fate of nations, cannot forbear adopt- 
 ing the maxims, and envying the hap- 
 pinefs of the people who knew how to 
 make it the ground-work and foundation 
 of thtir conftitution ; how much more 
 ought the Englifli natives of America to 
 be attached to the glorious birth-right 
 they inherit ! They know the price at 
 which their anceftors had bought it. The 
 very foil which they inhabit muft produce 
 in them a fentiment favourable -to thefe 
 ideas. Difperfed throughout an immenfe 
 continent ; free as the wild nature which 
 furrounds them, amidft their rocks, their 
 mountains, the vaft plains of their de- 
 ferts, on the confines of thofe forefts m 
 which all is ftill in its favage ftate, and 
 where there are no traces of either the 
 
 flavery 
 
C 17 3 
 
 flavery or the tyranny of man, they feem 
 to receive from every natural objeft a 
 lefibn of liberty and independence. Be- 
 fides, thefe people, given upalmoft all of 
 them to agriculture and to commerce, 
 to ufeful labours which elevate and for- 
 tify the foul in infpiring fimple manners, 
 hitherto as far removed from riches as 
 from poverty, cannot be yet corrupted 
 either by the excefs of luxury, or by the 
 excefs of want. It is in this (late above 
 all others, that the man who enjoys li- 
 berty is moft capable to maintain it, and 
 to fhew himfelf jealous in the defence of 
 an hereditary right, which feems to be 
 the moft -certain fecurity for all the reft. 
 Such was the refolution of the Ameri- / 
 cans. 
 
 [England exacts from her cvlonies what 
 foe foould but have requefted.] 
 
 Whether the Britifh miniftry were ig- 
 norant of thefe difpofitions, or whether 
 
 they 
 
they hoped that their delegates would 
 fucceed in changing them, they laid hold 
 of the moment of a glorious peace for 
 exacting a forced contribution from the 
 colonies. For war, and let it be well re- 
 marked, war, whether unfortunate or 
 fuccefsful, ferves always as a pretext for 
 the tifurpations of governments; as if the 
 directors of the warring powers propofed 
 to themfelves by it Ids to vanquifh thtir 
 enemies than to enflave their fubjedts. 
 The year 1764 faw the birth of the fa- 
 mous ftamp-i'.d, which forbid the admif- 
 fion in the courts of juftice of any inftru- 
 rnent which fhould not be written on pa- 
 per marked and fold for the profit of the 
 Britifh treafury^ 
 
 The Englifh provinces of North Ame- 
 rica become indignant at this ufurpation 
 of their mod precious and moft facred 
 rights By an unanimous agreement they 
 renounce the confumption of whatever 
 
 was 
 
r '9 ] 
 
 was furnifhed them by the mother- 
 country, till it fhould have with- 
 drawn this illegal and oppreilive bill. 
 Even the women, whofe weaknefs might 
 have been feared, are the moft ardent, 
 facrificing the fubferviencies to their drefs 
 and ornament; and the men, animated 
 by this example, give up on their part 
 other conveniencies and enjoyments. Ma- 
 ny cultivators of land quit the plough, 
 to form themfelves to the induftry of 
 the workfhop ; and wool, flax, and cot- 
 ton, coarfely wrought, are fold at the 
 price which would before have purchafed 
 the finefl cloths and the moft beautiful 
 fluffs. 
 
 This kind of confpiracy ftuns the go- 
 vernment. By the clamour of the mer- 
 chants, whofe wares are without vent,, 
 its inquietude is encreafed. The enemies 
 of the miniftry uphold thefe difcontents; 
 and the ftamp-a& is revoked after two 
 
 years 
 
[ 20 ] 
 
 years of a convul five agitation, which m 
 other times would have lighted up a civil 
 war. 
 
 , But the triumph of the Colonies is of 
 fhort duration. The parliament which 
 had retreated but with extreme repug- 
 nance, ordains, in 1767, that the revenue 
 which could not be obtained by means of 
 ftamps fhould be raifed by taxes on the 
 glafs, the lead,, the pafte- board,, the co* 
 lours, the paper-hangings, and the tea, 
 which are carried, from England to Ame- 
 rica. The people of the Northern con- 
 tinent are not lefs revolted at this innova- 
 tion than at the former. In vain are they 
 told that no one could difpute the right 
 of Great Britain to lay on her exportati- 
 ons the duties which her intereft demands, 
 fince fhe denies not to her Colonies, fitu- 
 ated beyond the feas, the liberty of fa- 
 bricating themfclves the wares fubjedted 
 to the new taxation. This fubterfuge 
 
 appeals 
 
[ 21 ] 
 
 appears but as a derifion to men, who, 
 being cultivators of land alone, and re- 
 duced to the having no communication 
 but with their mother-country, cannot 
 procure, either by their own induftry, 
 or by foreign connexions, the objeds 
 which had recently been taxed. Whe- 
 ther this tribute be paid in the old or 
 new world, they perceive that the word 
 makes no alteration in the thing, and that 
 their liberty would not be Ids attacked 
 by this mode, than by that which had 
 been repelled by them with fuccefs. 
 The colonifts fee clearly that the govern- 
 ment would beguile them ; and they 
 will not be beguiled. Thefe political 
 fophifms appear to them as they are, the 
 maik of tyranny. 
 
 Nations in general are made more for 
 feeling than for thinking. The greateft 
 part of them never had an ideaofana- 
 lyfing the nature of the power by which 
 
 they 
 
t 22 1 
 
 t!iey are governed. They obey without 
 reflection, and bee aife they have the 
 habit of obeying. The origin and the 
 objedt of the firft national aflocianons 
 being unknown to them, all refinance to 
 government appears to them a crime. 
 It is chiefly in thofe ftates where the 
 principles of leg fiuion are confounded 
 with thofe of religion, that this blindnefs 
 is to be met with. I he habit of believ- 
 ing f ivours the habit of differing. Man 
 renounces not an) one object with im- 
 punity. It feems as if nature would re- 
 venge herfelfupon him who dares thus 
 to degrade her. The fervile difpofition. 
 which (he (lamps upon his foul in confe- 
 qucnce,- extends itielf throughout. It 
 mak-s a duty of rdignation as of mean- 
 n-- (s , and killing chains of all kinds with 
 refp-:6t, trembles to examine either its 
 dodtii)ies or its laws. In the fame man- 
 ner that a fingle extravagance in religi- 
 ous opinions is fufficient to make many 
 
 more 
 
t 23 1 
 
 fnore to be adopted by minds once de- 
 ceived, a fuft ufurpation of government 
 opens the door to all the reft. He who 
 believes the greater, believes the lefs; 
 he who can do the greater, can do the 
 lefs. It is by this double abufe of 7 cre- 
 dulity and authority that alt the abfurdi- 
 ties in matters of religion and of policy 
 have been introduced into the world for 
 the ha raffing and the crufhing of the 
 human race. Thus at the firft fignal of 
 liberty amongft nations, they have been 
 prompted to fhake off both thefe yokes 
 together ; and the epoch in which the 
 human mind began to difcufs the abufes 
 of the church and clergy, is that in which 
 reafon perceived at laft the rights of men ; 
 and in which courage attempted to fet 
 the firft limits to defpotic power. The 
 principles of toleration and of liberty, 
 ^ftabiifhcd in the Englifh colonies, had 
 made them a different people from all 
 others. There it was known what was 
 
 the 
 
I 24 ] 
 
 the dignity of man ; and when the Bn- 
 tifh miniftry violated it, it could not be 
 otherwife bat that a people all compofed 
 of denizens, fhould rife againil the wick- 
 ednefs of the attempt. 
 
 Three years elapfed, without a reve- 
 nue from any one of the taxes which 
 had fo wounded the Americans to the 
 <juick. This was fomething; but it 
 was not all to which men jealous of their 
 prerogatives had pretentious. They in- 
 fifled upon a general and formal renun- 
 ciation of what had been fo illegally or- 
 dained ; and this fausfadtion was given 
 them in 1770. Tea only was excepted. 
 But the objeft of this exception was 
 only to palliate the fhame of entirely 
 giving up the fuperiority of the mother- 
 country over her colonies : for this duty 
 was not more cogently ^exaded than the 
 others had been. 
 
 [Jfter 
 
[ 25 ] 
 
 [jffter having given wny England 'would 
 be obeyed by her colonies. Meafures 
 which they take to rejifl herj] 
 
 The miniftry deceived by their dele- 
 gates, believed undoubtedly that the dif- 
 pofition of the new-world was altered, 
 when, in 1773, they ordered the collec- 
 tion of the duty upon tea. 
 
 At this news the indignation becomes 
 general in North America. In fome 
 provinces, formal thanks are agreed up- 
 on to be rendered to the matters of vef- 
 fels who would not fuffer this production 
 to make any part of their cargo. In 
 others, the merchants to whom it is con- 
 figned will not receive it. Here, he is 
 declared an enemy of his country who 
 fhall J re to vend it. There, they are 
 ftigmatized with the fame reproach who 
 fhall keep it in their ftores. Many pro- 
 vinces folemnly renounce the ufe of this 
 C elegant 
 
[ 26 ] 
 
 elegant refreshment. A ftill greater 
 number burn what they had remaining 
 of this leaf, till then the objed of their 
 delight. The tea fent to this part of the 
 globe was valued at more than two hun- 
 dred thoufand pounds ; and not a fingle 
 cheft of it was landed. Bofton was the 
 principal theatre of this infurredion. Its 
 inhabitants deftroyed, in their very port, 
 three cargoes of tea which arrived from 
 Europe. 
 
 This great town had always appeared 
 more occupied by a fenfe of its rights than 
 the reft of America. The leaft attempt 
 that was made upon their privileges had 
 been repelled without fcruple and with- 
 out referve. This refiftance, fometimes 
 not unaccompanied by tumult, had for 
 fome years been tirefome to government. 
 The miniftry, who had a vengeance to 
 wreak, feized too eagerly upon the cir- 
 cumftance of a blameable excefs ; and 
 
 required 
 
[ 27 1 
 
 quired the parliament to punifh it fc- 
 verely. 
 
 Moderate men wifhed that the offend- 
 ing town might be fentenced only to an 
 indemnification proportioned to the wafte 
 that had been made in its road, and to 
 fuch amends as it ought to make for 
 not having punifhed this act of violence. 
 This fentence was thought too flight ; 
 on the 1 3th of March, 1774, a bill was 
 paffcd for (hutting up the port of Bof- 
 ton, and forbidding any thing to be 
 landed or loaded at it. 
 
 The court of London applauded it- 
 felf for fo rigorous a law, and doubted 
 not but that it would bring the Boflo- 
 nians to that difpofition to flavery which, 
 it had vainly laboured till then to give 
 them. If, contrary to all appearance, 
 thefe fturdy men fhould perfevere in 
 their pretenfions, their neighbours would 
 2 be 
 
[ 28 ] 
 
 "be ardent in profiting from the interdic- 
 tion laid upon the principal harbour of 
 the province. Suppofing the worfe, the 
 other colonies, long fince jealous of that 
 of Maflachufet, would abandon it with 
 indifference to its melancholy fate, and 
 gather up the immenfe trade which would 
 flow in to them on the tide of its mis- 
 fortunes. By thefe means would be brok- 
 en the union of thefe different eftab- 
 liihments, which had for fome years 
 paft acquired a greater degree of confif- 
 tency than was pleafing to the mother- 
 country. 
 
 The expectation of the miniftry was 
 totally deceived. An a6l of rigour fome- 
 times over-awes. The people who have: 
 murmured as long as the thunder-ftorm' 
 ' growled only at a diftance, when it comes 
 to burft upon them frequently fubmit. 
 It is then that they weigh the advanta- 
 ges and difadvantages of refiftance ; that 
 
 . they 
 
C 29 J 
 
 they contemplate their own ftrength and 
 that of their oppreffors; that a panic 
 terror feizes thofe who have every thing 
 tolofe, without any thing to gain ; that 
 they lift up their voice, that they intimi- 
 date, that they corrupt; that divifion 
 arifes in the minds of men, and that the 
 community is feparated into two fa&i- 
 ons, which irritate each other, which 
 come oftentimes to blows, and cut each 
 other's throats under the eyes of their 
 tyrants, who with fweet complacency 
 behold their dreaming blood. But ty- 
 rants feldom find accomplices but a- 
 mongft a people already corrupted to 
 their hands. It is vice which gives them 
 allies amongft thofe whom they opprefs. 
 It is unmanly foftnefs, which, filled with 
 terrors, dares not barter its repofe for 
 honourable peril. It is the vile ambiti- 
 on to command, which lends its arm to 
 defpotic power, and confents to be a 
 (lave in order to domineer ; to give up a 
 C 3 people 
 
[ 30 ] 
 
 people in order to partake their fpoil ^ 
 and to renounce real honour for the ob- 
 taining of titles, the nick- names of ho- 
 nour. It is, above all, the indifferent 
 and cold perfonality, which is the laft 
 vice amongft a people, the laft crime of 
 governments, for it is ever the govern- 
 ment which gives it birth; it is that, 
 which from principle facrifices a nation 
 to a man, and the happinefs of an age 
 and of pofterity to the enjoyment of a 
 day and of a moment. None of thefe 
 vices, the production of a fociety opu- 
 lent and voluptuous, of a fociety grown 
 old and verging to its end, belong to a 
 people newly eftablifhed and occupied 
 in ufeful labours. The Americans re- 
 mained united. The execution of a bill, 
 which they called inhuman, barbarous, 
 and bloody,tended but toftrengthen them 
 in the refolution of maintaining their 
 rights with the more accord and con- 
 flancy. 
 
 At 
 
At Bofton, the acrid and ardent fpi- 
 rit is more and more exalted. The cry 
 of religion adds force to that of liber- 
 ty. The houfcs of worfhip re-echo 
 with the mofl violent exhortations a- 
 gainft England. It was without doubt 
 an interesting fpedacle for philofophy, 
 to fee that even in temples, at the foot 
 of altars, where fuperftition has fo 
 often blefled the chains of nations, 
 where priefts have fo often flattered ty- 
 rants, liberty lifted up her voice in de- 
 fence of the privileges of an opprefled 
 people ; and if it can be thought that 
 the Deity vouchfafes to look down up- 
 on the unhappy feuds of men, it was 
 better plea fed undoubtedly to fee its 
 fanftuary confecrated to this life, and 
 hymns to liberty make a part of the 
 worfhip by which it was addrefTed. 
 Thefe exhortations of the preachers muft 
 have had a great effedt ; and when a free 
 people invokes heaven againft opprefiion, 
 C 4 it 
 

 [ 3* ] 
 
 it delays not long to have recourfe to 
 arms. 
 
 The other inhabitants of the pro- 
 vince of Maflachufet difdain even the 
 idea of drawing the lead advantage from 
 the difafters of the capital. They 
 think but of drawing clofer the bonds 
 which unite them with the Boftonians, 
 difpofed rather to feck a grave in the 
 ruins of their common country, than to 
 let the leafl aflault be made on rights 
 which they had learned to prize more 
 highly than their lives. 
 
 All the provinces attach themfelves 
 to the caufe of Bofton ; and their affec- 
 tion encreafes in proportion to the fuffcr- 
 ings of this unhappy town. Nearly as 
 culpable of a refinance fo feverely pu- 
 nifhed, they arc well aware that the 
 mother-country but defers her vengeance 
 ngainft them ; and that all the grace 
 
 with 
 
[ 33 1 
 
 with which the moft favoured can be 
 flattered, is to be the laft on which 
 the hand of oppreffion fhall be doomed 
 to fall. 
 
 Thefe difpofuions to a general infur- 
 reftion are augmented by the aft a- 
 gainfl Bofton, which is feen circulating 
 throughout the continent upon paper 
 edged with black, emblematical of 
 mourning for liberty departed. Soon 
 the difquietude communicates itfelf 
 from houfe to houfe. The inhabitants 
 aflemble and converfe together in the 
 public places : and writings, full of elo- 
 quence and vigour, are delivered every 
 where from the prefs. 
 
 " The feverities of the Britifh Par- 
 <c liament againft Bofton. (fay they in 
 " thefe writings) fhould caufe all the 
 54 American provinces to tremble. They 
 C 5 " have 
 
C 34 ] 
 
 " have now nothing left them but to 
 " chufe between fire and fword and 
 44 the horrors of death, or the yoke of 
 " paffive, flavifh obedience. Behold 
 " the oera of an important revolution 
 " is at length arrived, the event of 
 w which, as it (hall be happy or fuc- 
 4C cefslefs, will claim and fix for ever 
 4i either the regret or the admiration of 
 *' pofterity. 
 
 44 Shall we be freemen, or be flaves ? 
 44 On the folution of this grand prob- 
 44 lem is about to depend, for the pre- 
 44 fent, the fate of three millions of 
 44 men, and, for the future, the happi- 
 " nefs or mifery of their numberlefs de- 
 " fcendants. 
 
 " Awake then, roufe then, O Ame- 
 44 ricans ! Never did clouds fo black 
 4C hang over the region you inhabit. You 
 
 u are 
 
[ 35 ] 
 
 " are called rebels, becaufe you will not 
 " be taxed but by your reprefentatives. 
 ** Vindicate this juft pretenfion by your 
 " courage, or feal the lofs of it with all 
 " your blood. 
 
 " Time for deliberation is no more. 
 cc Whilft the hand of the oppreflbr la- 
 " hours incefTantly to forge your chains, 
 " filence would be guilt, inadion in- 
 " famy. Let the preservation of the 
 <c rights of the commonweal be your fu- 
 u preme law. That man w r ould be the 
 " laft of flaves, who, in the danger into 
 <c which the liberty of America is fallen 
 " would not exert every effort to pre- 
 " ferve it." 
 
 This difpofition was the common one : 
 but the important objeft, the difficult 
 thing, in the midft of a general tu- 
 mult, was to contrive that a calm might 
 
 be 
 
r. 36 i 
 
 be brought on, by favour of which 
 might be formed a concert of wills, to 
 give dignity, ftrength, and confiftency 
 to their refolutions. It is this concert, 
 which, of a multitude of fcattered parts, 
 and each eafily to be broken, compofes 
 a whole that is not to be rendered traft- 
 able, unlefs it be to be divided by policy 
 or by power. The neceflity of this 
 grand combination, or totality, is ftrik- 
 ingly perceived by the provinces of 
 New Hampfliire, of MafTachufet, of 
 Rhode-Ifland, of Connecticut, of New 
 York, of New Jerfey, of the Delaware 
 counties, of Maryland, of Pennfylvania, 
 of Virginia, and of both the Carolinas. 
 Thefe twelve colonies, which were af- 
 terwards joined by Georgia, fent de- 
 puties to Philadelphia, in the month 
 of September 1774, charged with the 
 defence of their rights and interefts. 
 
 The 
 
[ 37 1 
 
 The difputes of the mother country 
 with her colonies, affume at this period 
 an importance to which they had not 
 been before intitled. It is no longer a 
 few individuals who make an obftinate 
 refiftance to imperious mafters. It is the 
 ftruggle of one body of men againfl a- 
 nother; of the Congrefs of America 
 againft the Parliament of England ; of 
 a nation againfl a nation. By the refo- 
 lutions taken on either fide, minds mu- 
 tually are heated. The ferment of ani- 
 mofity increafes. All hope of reconci- 
 liation vanifhes. On each fide the fword 
 is whetted. Great Britain fends troops 
 to the new world. This other hemif- 
 phere prepares for its defence. Its citi- 
 zens become foldiers. The combuftibles 
 'are collected , the conflagration is about 
 to blaze. 
 
 Gage, the commander of the royal 
 troops, fends from Boflon, in the night 
 
 of 
 
C 38 ] 
 
 of the 1 8th of April, 1775, a detach- 
 ment charged with the definition of a 
 magazine of arms, and other military 
 flores, colleded by the Americans, at 
 Concord. This body of troops meet at 
 Lexington with fome militia, whom they 
 difperfe with little difficulty, continue 
 their march rapidly, and execute the 
 commiiTion to which they had been ap- 
 pointed. But fcarcely are they on their 
 return towards the capital but they find 
 thenifelves aflailed, for the fpace of fif- 
 teen miles, by a furious multitude, and 
 death on each fide is given and received. 
 Englifh blood, fo often fhed in Europe 
 by Englifh hands, irrigates America in 
 its turn, and the civil war is embarked 
 in. 
 
 On the fame field of battle, the follow- 
 ing months, more regular combats are 
 beheld. Warren becomes one of the 
 vidims of thefe unnatural and murder- 
 ous 
 
[ 39 1 
 
 ous adions. The Congrefs honour his 
 afties. 
 
 " He is not dead, (faid the orator) this 
 " excellent citizen (hall never die. His 
 " memory (hall be for ever prefent, 
 c< and for ever dear, to all good men, 
 " to all who love their country. In 
 " the fhort fpace of a life but of three 
 " and thirty years, he had difplayed the 
 " talents of a ftatefman, the virtues of a 
 " fenator, the foul of a hero; 
 
 " Approach, all you whom the fame 
 " intereft infpirits ; approach your coun- 
 " tryman's ftill bleeding body. Wafh 
 tC with your tears his honourable wounds. 
 " But hang not too long over this ina- 
 " nimated corfe. Return to your habi- 
 " tations to fill them with deteftation at 
 u the crime of tyranny. Let your hor- 
 u rible defcriptions of it make each par- 
 tC ticular hair to (land on end upon your 
 
 "chil- 
 
[ 40 ] 
 
 c< children's heads, inflame their eyes 
 ct with noble rage, (lamp menaces on 
 " their brows, and draw by their mouths, 
 " indignation from their hearts! Then, 
 " then, fhall you give them arms ; and 
 " your laft, your fondeft wifh fhall be, 
 " that they may return victorious, or 
 " may die like Warren.'* 
 
 The diflurbances by which the pro- 
 vince of Maflachufet was agitated, were 
 repeated in the other provinces. The 
 fcenes, indeed, were not bloody, becaufe 
 there were no Britifh troops ; but the 
 Americans feize every where on the forts, 
 the arms, and the military (lores \ they 
 every where expel their governors, and 
 the other agents of England ; and every 
 where harafs fuch of the inhabitants as 
 appeared favourable to its caufe. Some 
 enterprizing men have the fpirit even to 
 take pofleflion of the works formerly 
 ereded by the French upon- the lake 
 
 Cham- 
 
[ 4* ) 
 
 Champlain, between New England and 
 Canada, and to make an irruption inta 
 this vaft region. 
 
 Whilft fimple individuals, or detached 
 diftrifts are thus ufefully ferving the 
 common caufe, the Congrefs is occupied 
 with the care of aflernbling an army. 
 The command of it is given to George 
 Wafhington, a native of Virginia, and 
 known by fome happy exploits in pre- 
 ceding wars. Inftantly the new general 
 flies to the province of Maflachufet^ 
 drives the royal troops from poft to poff, 
 and obliges them to (hut themfelves up 
 in Bofton. Six thoufand of thefe old 
 foldiers, efcaped from the fword, from 
 ficknefs, from all the miferies incident to 
 their profeflion, and prefled by hunger, 
 or by the enemy, embark the 24th of 
 March, 1776, with a precipitation which 
 partakes of flight. They go to feek an 
 afylum in-Nova Scotia, which remained, 
 
 as 
 
[ 42 ] 
 
 as well as Florida, faithful to its ancient 
 matters. 
 
 [The colonies were in the right to feparate 
 themfelves from their mother-country^ 
 independently of all dif content.] 
 
 This fuccefs was the firft ftep of Eng- 
 lifh America towards the revolution, 
 It was begun to be openly defired. The 
 principles which juftified it were dif- 
 perfed on all fides. Thefe principles* 
 which were indebted for their birth to 
 Europe, and particularly ro England, had 
 been tranfplanted in America by philo- 
 fophy. The knowledge, and the difco- 
 veries of the mother-country were turn- 
 ed againft herfelf, and (he was told 
 that, 
 
 Care mud be taken not to confound 
 together fociety and government. That 
 
 they 
 
[ 43 1 
 
 they may be known diftindly, their ori- 
 gin fhould be confidered. 
 
 Man, thrown, as it were, by chance 
 upon this globe, furrounded by all the / 
 evils of nature ; obliged continually to \ 
 defend and proteft his life againfl the \ 
 dorms and tempefts of the air, againft 
 the inundations of water, againfl the 
 fire of volcanos, againft the intempe- 
 rature of frigid or torrid zones, againft 
 the fterility of the earth, which refufes 
 him aliment, or its baneful fecundity, 
 which makes poifons fpring up beneath 
 his feet ; in fhort, againft the claws and 
 teeth of favage beads, who difpute with 
 him his habitation and his prey, and at- 
 tacking his perfon, feem refolved to ren- 
 der themfelves rulers of this globe, of 
 which he thinks himfelf to be the maf- 
 ter : man in this ftate, alone and aban- 
 doned to himfelf, could do nothing for 
 his prefervation. It was neceflary, there- 
 fore, 
 
[ 44 J 
 
 fore, that he fhould unite himfelf, anc 
 affociate with his like, in order to bring, 
 together their ftrength and intelligence 
 in common ftock. It is by this union 
 that he has triumphed over fo many evils, 
 that he has falhioned this globe to his ufe, 
 retrained the rivers, fubjugated the feas,. 
 infured his fubfiftence, congua^d a part 
 Vof the animals in obliging them to ferve 
 him, and driven others far from his em- 
 pire, to the depths of defartsor of woods, 
 where their number diminifhes from age 
 to age. What a man alone would not 
 have been able to efFed, men have ex- 
 ecuted in concert , and all together they 
 preferve their work. Such is the origin, 
 fuch the advantage and the end of all 
 fociety. 
 
 Government owes its birth to the ne- 
 eeffity of preventing and reprefiing the 
 injuries which the aflbciated individuals 
 had to fear from one another, it is the 
 
 fentinel 
 
{ 45 1 
 
 fentinel who watches, in order that the 
 common labours may be not diflurbed. 
 
 Thus fociety originates in the wantsl^ 
 of men, government in their vices. Scr 
 >ciety tends always to good ; government 
 ought always to tend to the reprefling 
 of evil. Society is the firft, it is in its 
 origin independent and free; govern- 
 ment was instituted for it, and is but 
 its inftrument. It is for one to com- 
 mand ; it is for the other to obey. So- 
 ciety .created the public power ; govern- 
 ment, which has received it from fo- 
 ciety, ought to confecrate it entirely to 
 its ufe. In fhort, fociety is efientially 
 good ; government, as is well known, 
 may be, and is but too often evil. 
 
 It has been faid that we were all born 
 equal ; that is not fo : that we had all 
 the fame rights. I am ignorant of what 
 are lights, where there is an inequality 
 
 of 
 
[ 46 ] 
 
 of talents, or of ftrength, and no fecurity 
 nor fandion : that nature offered to us 
 all the fame dwelling,and the fame re- 
 fources ; that is not fo: that we were all 
 endowed indifferently with the fame 
 means of defence -, that is not fo : and 
 I know not in what fenfe it can be true, 
 that we all enjoy the fame qualities of 
 mind and body. 
 
 There is amongft men an original in- 
 equality which nothing can remedy. It 
 rnuft laft for ever; and all that can be 
 obtained by the befl legiflation, is not to 
 deftroy it, but to prevent the abufe of 
 it. 
 
 : f, TV- 
 
 But in making diftinftions between 
 her children like a ftep-mother, in creat- 
 ; ing fome children ftrong and others 
 weak, has not nature herfelf formed the 
 |germ or principle of tyranny ? I do not 
 
 think 
 
[ 47 1 
 
 think it can be denied ; efpecially if we 
 look back to a time anterior to all legifla- 
 tion, a time in which man^j^j^Jo^^Qn 
 as afllonateni^sj^ a 
 
 What then have founders of nations, 
 what have legiflators propofed to them- 
 felves ? To obviate all the difafters arif- 
 ing from this germ when it is expanded, 
 by a fort of artificial equality, which 
 might reduce all the members of a fo* 
 ciety, without exception, under an im- 
 partial, fole authority. It is a fword 
 which moves gently, equably, and indif- 
 ferently, over every head : but this fword 
 was ideal. It was neceffary that there 
 (hould be a hand, a corporeal being who 
 Ihould hold it. 
 
 What has refulted thence ? Why, that 
 the hiftory of civilized man is but the 
 hiftory of his mifery. All the pages of 
 
 it 
 
I 48 3 
 
 it are ftained with blood ; fome with the 
 blood of the opprefibrs, the others with 
 the blood of the opprefled. 
 
 1 '--v-*' 
 
 In this point of view, man appears 
 / more wicked and more miferable than 
 I a beaft Different fpecies of beafts fub- 
 / fifton different fpecies. But focieties of 
 men have never ceafed to attack each 
 i other. Even in the fame fociety there is 
 no condition but devours and is devour- 
 ed, whatever may have been or are'the 
 forms of the government, or artificial 
 equality, which have been oppofed to the 
 primitive and natural inequality. 
 
 But are thefe forms of government, 
 fnppofmg them made by the choice, and 
 the free choice, of the firft fettlers in a 
 country, and whatever fan&ion they 
 may have received, whether that of 
 oaths, or of unanimous accord, or of 
 theii duration, are they obligatory upon 
 
 their 
 
[ 49 1 
 
 their defendants? There is no fuch 
 thing: and it is impoffible that you 
 Englifhmen, who have fucceffively un- 
 dergone fo many different revolutions in 
 your political conftitution, tofled as you 
 have been from monarchy to tyranny, 
 from tyranny to ariftocracy, from arif- 
 tocracy to democracy, and from demo- 
 cracy to anarchy ; it is impoffible that 
 you, without accufing yourfelves of re- 
 bellion and of perjury, can think other- 
 wife than I do. 
 
 We examine things with a philofophic 
 eye ; and it is well known, that it is not 
 the fpeculations of philofophers which 
 bring on civil troubles. No fubjedts are 
 more patient than we are. I proceed then 
 in purfuit of my objeft, without any 
 caufe to fear that mifchief can follow 
 from my reafoning. 
 
 D If 
 
f 50 ] 
 
 If the people are happy under their 
 form of government, they will keep it. 
 If they are unhappy, it will not be either 
 your opinions or mine, it will be the im~ 
 poflibility of fuffering more, and longer, 
 which will determine them to change it^ 
 a falutary impulfe, which the oppreflbr 
 will call revolt, though it be but the 
 juft exercife of a natural and unaliena- 
 ble right of the man who is opprefled, 
 and even of the man who is not op- 
 prefled. 
 
 A man wills and chufes for himfelf. 
 He cannot, will not chufe for another; 
 and it would be a madnefs to will and 
 to chufe for him who is yet unborn, for 
 him who will not yet exifl for ages. 
 There is no individual but who, difcon- 
 tented with the form of the government of 
 his country, may go elfewhere to feek a 
 
 better. 
 
P t 5i 3 
 
 better. There is no fociety but which 
 has the fame right to change, as their 
 anceftors had to adopt, their form of go- 
 vernment Upon this point, it is with 
 focieties. as if they were at the firft mo- 
 ment of their civilization. \yithout 
 which there would be a great evil ; nay, 
 the greateft of evils would be without a 
 remedy. Millions of men would be con- 
 demned to mifery without end. Con- 
 clude then with me, 
 
 I * .rmil'-v I 
 
 That there is no form of government 
 which has the prerogative to be immu- 
 table. 
 
 No political authority, which,, created 
 yeftcrday, or a thoufand years ago, may 
 not be abrogated in ten years' time or 
 to-morrow. 
 
 No power, however refpe&able, how- 
 D 2 ever 
 
-[ 52 3 
 
 ever facred, that is authorized to regard 
 the flate as its property. 
 
 Whoever thinks otherwife is a flave. 
 It is to be an Idolater of the work of 
 
 his own hands. 
 
 Whoever thinks otherwife, is a mad- 
 man, who devotes himfelf to eternal mi- 
 fery, who devotes to it his family, his 
 children, and his childrens* children, in 
 allowing to his anceftors the right of fli- 
 pulating for him when he exifled not, 
 and in arrogating to himfelf the right of 
 ilipulating for a progeny which does not 
 yet exifL 
 
 All authority in this world has begun 
 either by the confent of the fubjedls, or 
 by the power of the mailer. In both one 
 and the other cafe, it may juftly end. 
 
 There 
 
C 53 1 
 
 There is no prefcription in favour of ty- 
 ranny againfl liberty. 
 
 The truth of thefe principles is fo 
 much the more efTential, becaufe that all 
 power by its very nature tends to defpo- 
 tifm, even in the moft jealous nations, 
 even in yours, ye Englifhmen, yes, in 
 yours. 
 
 I have heard it faid by a whig, by a 
 fanatic, if you will; but words of great 
 fenfe efcape fometimes from a madman ; 
 I have heard it faid by him, that fo long 
 as the power fhould be wanting of tak- 
 ing to Tyburn a bad king, or at leaft a 
 bad minifter, with as little formality, 
 preparation, tumult, or fur prize, as the 
 obfcureft malefadtor is condudted thi- 
 ther, the nation would not have either 
 that juft idea, or that full enjoyment, 
 of their rights, which became a people 
 D 3 who 
 
[ 54 1 
 
 who dared to think or to fay that they 
 were free; and yet an adminiftration, 
 by your own acknowledgment* igno- 
 rant, corrupted, and audacious, precipi- 
 tates vou with imperioufnefs and with 
 impunity, into the ipoft profound abyfs ! 
 
 The quantity of your circulating cafh 
 is inconfiderable. You are overwhelmed 
 with paper 5 which you have under all 
 forts of denominations. Were all the 
 gold y of Europe collected 'in your trea- 
 fury, it v^ould fcarcely pay the nation's 
 debt. We know not by what incredi- 
 ble illufion this fictitious money is kept 
 up. The mofl frivolous event might 
 in the courfe of a day throw it into dif- 
 credit. There is need but of an alarm to 
 bring on a fudden bankruptcy. The 
 dreadful confequences which would fol- 
 low this failure of faith, are beyond our 
 imagination. And, behold, fuch is the 
 
 inftant 
 
[ 55 3 
 
 inftant marked out for you to make 
 you declare againft your colonies, that 
 is, to make you raife up againft your- 
 felves, an unjuft, mad, ruinous war. 
 What will become of you, when an 
 important branch of your commerce 
 lhall be deftroyed ; when you fhall have 
 but a third of your poiTeffions ; when you 
 (hall have maflacred a million or two of 
 your countrymen ; when your force fhall 
 be exhaufted, your traders ruined, your 
 manufa&urers reduced to ftarve ; when 
 your debt lhall be augmented, and your 
 revenue decreafed ! Look well to it ; 
 the blood of the Americans will fooner 
 or later fall heavy on your heads. Its 
 effufion will be revenged by your own 
 hands \ and you are arriving at the 
 point. 
 
 But) fay you, thefe people are re- 
 bels Rebels ! And why ? becaufe they 
 will not be your flaves. A people flib- 
 jedted to the will of another people, 
 D 4 who 
 
[ 56 1 
 
 who can difpofe as they chnfe of their 
 government, of their laws, and of their 
 trade ; tax them at their pleafure ; fet 
 bounds to their induftry, and enchain 
 it by arbitrary prohibitions, are bond- 
 fervants, yes, certainly are bond-fer- 
 vants ; and their fervitude is worfe than 
 what they would undergo if governed 
 by a tyrant. Deliverance from the op- 
 prefTion of a tyrant is effe&ed by his 
 expulfion, or his death. You have de- 
 livered yourfelves by each of thefe me- 
 thods. But a nation is not to be put to 
 death, is not to be expelled. Liberty 
 is only to be expedted from a rupture, 
 which by its confequences involves one 
 of the nations, and fometimes both of 
 them, in ruin. A tyrant is a monfter 
 with a fingle head, which may be flruck 
 off at a fingle blow. A tyrannic nation 
 5s an hydra with a thoufand heads, for 
 the cutting off of which a thoufand 
 
 fwords 
 
[ 57 1 
 
 fwords muft be lifted up together. The 
 crime of oppreffion committed by a 
 tyrant colle&s all the indignation upon 
 him alone. The commiflion of the 
 fame crime by a numerous fociety, fcat- 
 ters the horrour and the fliame of it 
 upon a multitude, which never blufhes. 
 It is every body's fault and nobody's ; 
 and the refentment of injury wan- 
 ders wildly in defpair,, without know- 
 ing where to fix,, or whither it is car- 
 ried. 
 
 But they arc our Jubjefts Your 
 
 fubje&s !. no more than the inhabitants 
 of Wales are fubjeds to thofe of Lan- 
 cafhire. The authority of one nation 
 over another cannot be founded but 
 upon conqueft, upon general confent, 
 or upon conditions propofed on one 
 part, and accepted on the other. Con- 
 queft binds no more than theft: the 
 D 5 confent 
 
[ 58 1 
 
 confent of anceflors cannot be obliga- 
 tory upon dependents : and there can 
 be no condition which muft not be un- 
 derftood to be exclufive of the facrifice 
 of liberty. Liberty is not to be bar- 
 tered for any thing, becaufe there is 
 not any thing which is of a compara- 
 ble price. Such have been the dif- 
 courfes held by you to your tyrants, 
 fuch hold we to you for your colo- 
 nifts. 
 
 earth which they occupy is our*s- 
 Your's! it is thus you call it becaufe 
 you ufurped it. But be it fo. Does 
 not the charter of coneeffion oblige you 
 to treat the Americans as countrymen ? 
 Do you do fo ? But we are well em- 
 ployed here truly in talking of conceffi- 
 ons by charters, by which men grant 
 what they are not mafters of, what con- 
 fequently they have not the right to 
 
 grant 
 
C 59 ] 
 
 grant to a handful of weak people, 
 forced by circumftances to receive as 
 a gratification that which belongs to 
 them of natural right. And then, have 
 the defendants who are now living 
 been called to a compact figned by their 
 anceftors ? Either confefs the truth of? 
 this principle, or recall the defendants 
 of James. What right had you to 
 drive him away which we have not to 
 feparate ourfelves from you ? fay the 
 Americans to you: and what have you 
 to fay in anfwer ? 
 
 : ;/ t'l- 
 
 They are ungrateful, we are their foun- 
 ders ; we have been their defenders ; 
 | we have run in debt upon their ac- 
 count Say, as much or more upon 
 your own than theirs. If you have 
 undertaken their defence, it was as you 
 would have undertaken that of the Sul- 
 tan of Conftantinople, had your ambi- 
 tion 
 
[ 60 ] 
 
 tion or your intereft required it. But 
 have they not requited you, in deliver- 
 ing up to you their productions ; in 
 receiving your merchandize exclufively 
 at the exorbitant price you would pleafe 
 to put upon it ; in fujefting themfelves 
 to prohibitions which cramped their in- 
 duftry, and to reftri&ions by which 
 you have opprefled their poverty ? 
 Have they not helped you ? Have they 
 not run in debt upon your account ? 
 Have they not taken arms and fought 
 for you ? When you have made your 
 fequefls to them, which is the proper 
 way of dealing with freemen, have they 
 not complied with them ? When did 
 you ever experience a refufal from them, 
 but v/hen you clapped a bayonet to 
 their breaft, and faid, Tour money or life, 
 die or be flaws ? What! becaufe you 
 have been beneficent, have you a right 
 
 to 
 
C 61 ] 
 
 to be oppreflive ? What ! and fhall 
 nations too build on gratitude the bir- 
 barous claim, to debafe, and trample 
 under foot, thofe who have had the 
 misfortune to receive their favours ? 
 Ah! individuals perhaps, though it is 
 by no means a duty, individuals may, 
 perhaps, in a benefador tolerate a ty- 
 rant. In them, it is great r it is magna- 
 nimous, undoubtedly, to confent to be 
 wretched, that they may not be ungrate- 
 ful. But nations have a different mora- 
 lity. The public happinefs is the firft 
 Jaw, as the firft duty. The firft obli- 
 gation of thefe great bodies is with 
 themfelves. They owe, before all other 
 things, liberty andjuftice to the mem- 
 bers which compofe them. Every child 
 which is born to the ftate, every new 
 citizen who comes to breathe the air of 
 the country he has chofen, or nature 
 
 given 
 
given him, is in titled to the greateft hap- 
 pinefs he can enjoy. Every obligation 
 which cannot be reconciled with that, 
 is broken. Every contrary claim, is a 
 wicked attempt upon his rights. And 
 what is it to him, that his anceftors have 
 been relieved, if he is deftined to be 
 himfelf oppreffed ? With what right 
 can be exacted from him the payment 
 of his ufurious d^bt of benefits, which 
 he has never felt ? No, no. The wifh- 
 ing to arm one's felf wkh fuch a claim, 
 again ft a whole nation, and its pofterity, 
 is to overthrow all the ideas of policy 
 and order, and, whilft one invokes the 
 name of morality, to betray all its laws. 
 What have you not done for Hanover ? 
 Do you command at Hanover? All 
 the republics of Greece were bound 
 together by mutual fervices ; but did 
 any one exvift, as a mark of gratitude, 
 the rght of difpofing of the government 
 
 of the fuccoured ftate ? 
 
 Our 
 
[ 63 3 
 
 Our honour is engaged Say, that of 
 
 your bad minifters> and not your's. In 
 what confifts the true honour of him 
 who has been miftaken ? is it to perfift 
 in his error, or to acknowledge it ? Has 
 he who returns to a fenfe of juftiee,. any 
 caufe to blufh ? Englifhmen, you have 
 been too hafly. Why did you not wait, 
 till the Americans had been corrupted, as 
 you are, by riches I Then, they would 
 have thought no more highly of their 
 liberty, than you do of your own. Then 
 it would have been needlefs to take arms, 
 againft men fubdued by opulence. But 
 what inftant have you chofen for attack- 
 ing them ? That in which what they 
 had to lofe, their liberty, could not be 
 balanced by what they had to keep. 
 
 But later they would be more numerous 
 - I agree, they would. What then 
 
 have 
 
r 6 4 j 
 
 have you attempted ? the enflaving a 
 people who (hall be unfettered in fpite of 
 you by time. In twenty, in thirty years, 
 the remembrance of your atrocious deeds 
 will dill be frefh ; and the fruit of them 
 will be raviftied from you. Then, there 
 will remain to you but remorfe and 
 fhame. There is a decree of nature 
 which you fhatt not change ; which is, 
 that great bodies give laws to little ones. 
 But, tell me, if the Americans ftiould 
 then undertake againft Great Britain 
 what you have now undertaken againft 
 them, what would you fay ? Precifely 
 what they at this moment fay to you. 
 "Why fhould motives which affedt you fo 
 little m their mouths, appear to you more 
 folid in your own ? 
 
 They will not obey our parliament, nor 
 adopt our ordinances Did they make 
 
 them ? Can they change them ? 
 
 We 
 
[ % J 
 
 We obey them readily enough, without 
 Moving had, in time pajf, or having in the 
 
 prefent, any influence over them That 
 
 is to fay, that you are flaves ; and that 
 you cannot bear that men ihould be free, 
 However do not confound the fituation 
 of the Americans with your own. You 
 have reprefentatives, and they have not. 
 You have voices which fpeak for you, 
 and no perfon ftipulates for them. If 
 indeed thefe voices are bought and fold, 
 it is an excellent reafon for their difdain- 
 ing fuch a frivolous advantage. 
 
 They wifh to be independent of us 
 Are not you fo of them ? 
 
 They will never be able tofupport them- 
 
 fehes without us If that be fo, be 
 
 quiet. Neceffity will bring them back. 
 
 And if we Jhould not be able to fubfijl 
 without them It would be a great 
 
 mif- 
 
[ 66 ] 
 
 misfortune : but to cut their throats in 
 order to get out of it, is a fingular ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 // is for their inter eft ^ h is for their 
 good, that we are fevere with them, as one 
 is fevere with frantic children ~~Their 
 intereft ! Their good ! And who made 
 you judges of thefe two objedls which fo 
 nearly touch them,and which they fhould 
 better know than you ? If it fhould hap- 
 pen that a man fhould make a forcible 
 entry into another's houfe, becaufe, for- 
 footh, he is a man of great fenfe, and 
 nobody more able to maintain peace 
 and good order for his neighbour, fhould 
 not one be in the right to humbly beg 
 he would be pleafed to take himfelf a.- 
 way, and to trouble his head about his 
 own affairs? And if the affairs of this 
 officious hypocrite fhould' be very badly 
 
 ordered? 
 
ordered ? If he fhouM be at the bottom 
 but an ambitious mortal, who, under 
 the pretence of fettling and ordering, 
 fhould have a violent inclination co ufurp? 
 If he fhould cover wi*h the mafk of be- 
 nevolence, but views full of injuftice, 
 fuch for example, as to get himfelf out 
 of ftraits and difficulties at his neigh- 
 bour's coft ? 
 
 We are the mother- country What, 
 always the mod holy names to ferve as 
 a veil to interefl and ambitroii ! The 
 mother-country ! Fulfil the duties of it 
 then. Befides, colonies are formed of 
 different nations, amongft which fome 
 will grant, others refufe you this appel- 
 lation ; and all will with one voice tell 
 you, There is a time when the autho- 
 rity of parents over their children ceafes ; 
 and this time is when the children are 
 
 able 
 
[ 68 ] 
 
 able to provide for themfelves. What 
 term have you fixed for our emancipa- 
 tion ? Be candid, and you will allow that 
 you had promifed yourfelves to be able 
 to hold us in a wardship or minority 
 which fhould never end. If, indeed, 
 this wardftiip were not to have turned 
 for us into an infupportable conftraint ; 
 if our advantage were not for ever to be 
 facrificed to yours ; if we were not to 
 have had a multitude of thofe minor op- 
 preffions, which, together, fwell to a bulk 
 mofl burdenfome, to bear from the go- 
 vernors, the judges, the collectors, and 
 the military, whom you fend us ; if the 
 greatefl part of them, at their arrival 
 in our climate, were not to have brought 
 with them, blafted characters, ruined 
 fortunes, rapacious hands, and the in- 
 folenee of fubaltern tyrants, who r tired,, 
 
 in 
 
I 69 ] 
 
 in their own country, with obeying laws, 
 come to requite themfelves, in a new 
 world, by the exercife of an arbitrary 
 power. You are the mother-country: 
 but fo far from encouraging, you fear 
 our progrefs, bind our hands, and reprefs 
 and ftrangle our growing ftrength. Na- 
 ture in favouring us deceives your fecret 
 wiflies ; or rather, you would chufe, that 
 we ftiould remain in an eternal chilhood, 
 with regard to all that can be ufeful to 
 ourfelves, and that, notwithftanding, we 
 fliould be robuft vaflals, to be employed 
 in your fervice, and in the furnifhing, 
 without remiffion, new fources of riches 
 to your infatiable avidity. Is it this 
 then to be a mother ? Is it this to 
 be a country to her children ? Ah, in 
 the forefts which furround us, nature has 
 given a gemler Jnftind to the favage 
 
 beaft, 
 
I 70 3 
 
 beaft, which, become a mother, devours 
 not at leaft thofc which fhe has pro- 
 duced. 
 
 * Were all their pretenfions to be acqiiief- 
 ced in, they would foon be happier than we 
 are. And why not ? If you are corrupt- 
 ed, is it neceflary that they mutt be cor- 
 rupted too? If you have adifpofition to 
 flavery, muft they too follow your ex- 
 ample? If they had you for mafters, 
 why fhould you not confer the property 
 of their country upon another power, 
 upon your fovereign ? Why fhould you 
 not render him their defpot, as you have 
 by a folemn aft declared him the defpot 
 of Canada ? Would it then be ne- 
 ceflary that they (hould ratify this 
 extravagant conceflion ? And even if 
 they fhould have ratified it, muft they 
 obey the fovereign whom you fhould 
 
 have 
 
I 7i 1 
 
 liave given them, and, if he command- 
 ed it, take arms againft you ? The 
 King of England has a negative power. 
 No law can be promulgated without his 
 confent. Why fhould the Americans 
 grant him, in their' country, a power, 
 of the inconvenience of which you are 
 continually made fenfible ? Should it be, 
 in order one day to diveft him of it, 
 fword in hand, as it will happen to you, 
 if your government be perfected? What 
 advantage do you find in fubje&ing them 
 to a vicious conftitution ? 
 
 Vicious or not, th'is is our conjlitittion ; 
 and ought to be generally acknowledged 
 and received, by all who bear the Englijh 
 name ; 'without which, each of our pro- 
 vinces governing itfelf in its own way, 
 having its own laws, and pretending to 
 independence, we ceafe to form a national 
 
 body, 
 
I 72 I 
 
 and, are no more than a heap of 
 little republics, detached, divided, con- 
 tinually rifing again/I one another, and 
 eafily to be ufurped by a common enemy* 
 The adroit and powerful Philip, capable 
 of attempting fuch an enterprize, is at 
 our door. 
 
 If he is at your door, he is far from 
 the Americans. A privilege which may 
 have fome inconvenience with regard to 
 you, is not the lefs a privilege. But fepa- 
 rated, as they are, from Great Britain 
 by immenfe feas, of what importance 
 is it to you, whether your colonies re- 
 ceive, or rejeft, your conftitution ? 
 What does that make, for, or againft, 
 your power; for, or againft, your 
 fafety ? This unity, of which you ex- 
 aggerate the advantages, is ftill but a 
 vain pretext. You objeft your laws to 
 
 your 
 
[ 73 ] 
 
 your colonies, when they are haraffed 
 by them ; and you tread them under 
 foot, when they make in their favour. 
 You tax yourfelves, and you would tax 
 them. If the leaft attempt is made 
 upon this privilege, you make a furious 
 outcry, fly to arms, and are ready to 
 run on fwords in its defence ; and yet, 
 you hold a dagger to your countryman, 
 to oblige him to renounce it. Your 
 ports are open to all the world ; and 
 you (hut up the ports of your colonifts. 
 Your merchandize is wafted where you 
 pleafe ; and theirs muft neceflarily come 
 to you. You manufacture, and you will 
 not fuffer them to manufacture. They 
 have Ikins, they have iron ; and they 
 muft deliver up to you, unwroughc, 
 this iron and thefe (kins. What you ac 
 quire at a low price, they mud buy of 
 you at the price which your rapacity 
 E impofcs. 
 
I 74 ] 
 
 impofes. You offer them up as vidlims 
 to your traders ; and becaufe your India 
 Company was in danger, the Ameri- 
 cans muft needs repair their lofles. 
 And yet you call them your country- 
 men and fellow- citizens ; and it is thus 
 that you invite them to receive your 
 conftitution. Go to, go to. This 
 unity, this league which feems fo necef- 
 fary to you, is but that of the filly 
 animals in the fable, amongft which you 
 have referved to yourfelves the lion's 
 part. 
 
 Perhaps you have not fuffered your- 
 felves to be drawn to the filling the new 
 world with blood and devaftation, but by 
 a falfe point of honour. We wifti to 
 perfuade ourfelves that fo many crimes 
 have not been the confequences of a 
 projeft deliberately formed. You had 
 
 been 
 
t 75 ] 
 
 been told, that the Americans were but 
 a vile herd of cowards, whom the leaft 
 threat would bring, terrified and trem- 
 bling, to acquiefce in whatever it fliould 
 pleafe you to exaft. Inftead of the 
 cowards which had been defcribed and 
 promifed-you, you find true men, true 
 Engliihmen, country men worthy of your- 
 felves. Is this a reafon for your being 
 irritated? What! your anceftors ad- 
 mired the Hollander ftiaking off the 
 Span ifh yoke; and fliould you, their 
 defcendants, be angry or furprized, that 
 your countrymen, your brethren, that 
 they who feel your blood circulate in 
 their veins, fliould rather pour it on 
 the ground and die, than live fin yokes 
 and bondage ? A. flranger, upon whom 
 you fhould have formed the fame pre- 
 tenfions, would have difarrned you, if, 
 ftiewing you his naked breaft, he had 
 E 2 faid, 
 
[ 76 ] 
 
 faid, Plunge in your poignard here, cr 
 leave me free : and yet you flab your 
 brother ; and you flab him without re- 
 morfe, becaufe he is your brother! 
 Englifhmen! what can be more igno- 
 minious than the favagenefs of a man, 
 proud of his own liberty, and wickedly 
 attempting to deflroy the liberty of ano- 
 ther ! Would you have us believe, that 
 the greatefl -enemy to freedom is the 
 man that is free? Alas 1 we are but too 
 much inclined to it. Enemies of kings, 
 you have their arrogance and pride. 
 Enemies of royal prerogative, you carry 
 it every where. Every where you fhew 
 yourfelves tyrants. Well then, tyrants 
 of nations, and of your colonies, if in 
 the event you prove the flrongefl, it 
 will be becaufe heaven is deaf to the 
 prayers which are directed to it from all 
 
 .the countries upon earth. 
 
 ;:$':: ?n 
 
 Since 
 
I 77 3 
 
 Since the feas have not fwallowed up 
 your hindering ruffians, tell me, what 
 will become of them, if there fhould 
 arife in the new world a man of elo- 
 quence, promifmg eternal happinefs to 
 the martyrs of liberty who die in arms* 
 Americans ! let your preachers be feen 
 iriceflantly in their pulpits, with crowns 
 of glory in their hands, pointing to 
 heaven open. Priefts of the new world, 
 now is the time for it ; expiate the de~ 
 teflable fanaticifm, which once laid wafte 
 America, by the happy fanaticifm, be- 
 gotten by policy upon freedom. No; 
 you will not deceive your countrymen. 
 To God, who is the principle of juftice 
 and of order, tyrants are abomination. 
 God has imprinted on the heart of man 
 this facred love of liberty ; he wills not 
 that flavery disfigure and debafe his 
 nobleft work. If deification be due to 
 
t 78 I 
 
 man, it is, undoubtedly, to that man 
 who fights and dies for his native foil. 
 Put his image in your temples - 9 fet it 
 on your altars. It fhall be worfhipped 
 by his country. From a political 
 and religious calendar, marking each 
 day by the name of fome hero, who 
 (hall have fpilled his blood to fet you 
 free. Your pofterity (hall one day read 
 them with holy joy : thefe, (hall it fay, 
 behold, thefe were the men who gave 
 liberty to half a world ; and who t 
 charging themfelves with our happinefs, 
 before we had exiftence, fecured our 
 infant (lumbers from the being difturb- 
 ed and terrified by the clank of chains. 
 
 \lVhat 'was the part 'which England Jhould 
 have taken, <wben (le faw the fermen- 
 tation of her colonies ?] 
 
 When the caufe of your colonies was 
 
 argued 
 
[ 79 1 
 
 argued in your houfes of parliament, we 
 heard fome excellent pleadings pro- 
 nounced in their favour. But that which 
 fhould have been add reflect to you per- 
 haps is this : 
 
 " Khali not talk to you, my lords 
 ** and gentlemen, of the juftice or in- 
 w juftice of your pretenfions. I am not 
 " fuch a ftranger to public affairs as not 
 ** to know that this preliminary difcuffion, 
 c * fo facred in all the other circumftanccs 
 w of life, would be mifplaced and ridi- 
 " culous in this. I fhall not examine 
 " what hope you can have of fucceeding, 
 ** or if you are likely to prove the 
 '* ftrongeft in the event, tho' this fub- 
 " jedt might, perhaps, appear to you of 
 c< fome importance, and might, probably, 
 " infure me the honour of your atteq- 
 " tion. I will do more. I fhall not 
 
 " compare 
 
[ 8o ] 
 
 " compare the advantages of your fitua- 
 " tion, if you fucceed, with the confe- 
 " quences which will follow, if you are 
 " unfortunate. I fhall not afk you how 
 ft long you are determined to ferve the 
 u caufe of your enemies. But I will 
 " fuppofe at once, that you have re- 
 " duced your colonies to the degree of 
 " fervitude which you have authorita- 
 t tively required. Shew me only how 
 " you will fix and keep them. By a 
 " (landing army ? But will this army, 
 " which will drain you of men and 
 " money, keep pace, or not keep pace, 
 <c with the increafe of population ? There 
 ct are but two anfwers to my queftion ; 
 " and, of thefe two anfwers, one feems 
 * c to be abfurd, and the other brings 
 " you back to the point at which you 
 < are. I have reflected on it well ; and 
 " I have difcovered ? if I am not mif- 
 
 " taken. 
 
[ 8i ] 
 
 cc taken, the only rational and certain 
 44 plan which you have to follow. And 
 " it is, as foon as you fhall be the maf- 
 " ters, to flop the progrefs of popula- 
 " tion, fince it appears to you more 
 " advantageous, more honourable, and 
 " more becoming, to domineer over a 
 " fmall number of flaves, than to have 
 " a nation of freemen for your equals 
 " and your friends.. 
 
 <4 But you will afk me, how is the 
 " progrefs of population to be flopped ? 
 " The expedient might revolt weak 
 " minds, and cowardly fouls ; but hap- 
 6i pily there are not any fuch in this 
 * 4 auguft affembly. It is, to flab with- 
 " out pity the greateft part of thefe vile 
 " rebels, and to reduce the reft of them 
 " to the condition of the negroes. The 
 " high-fpirited and generous Spartans, 
 " fo extolled in ancient and modern 
 E 5 flory 
 
C 82 3 
 
 " ftory, have fet you the example. 
 " Like them, and with their faces 
 " muffled in their cloaks, (hall our fel- 
 " low-citizens, and the bravoes in our 
 " pay, go clandeftinely, and by night, 
 " to maflacre the children of our Helots, 
 " at their fathers* fide, and on their mo- 
 " thers' breaft ; and leave alive but fuch 
 4< a number of them, as may be fuffici- 
 " ent for their labours, and confiftent 
 f with our fafety/* 
 
 Englifhmen ! you (hudder at this hor- 
 rible propofition, and you afk what part 
 there is to take. Vanquifhers, or van- 
 quifhed, fee here then what you ought 
 to do. If the refentment, excited by 
 your cruelties, can be calmed ; if the 
 Americans can fhut their eyes to the 
 devaftation which furrounds them ; if, 
 in pafling over the ruins of their towns 
 
 deftroyed 
 
r. 83 3 
 
 deftroyed by fire, and their fields 
 whitened by the bones of murdered 
 relatives ; if, in drawing-in with every 
 refpiration the fcent of the blood which 
 your hands have on all fides ftied, they 
 can forget the outrages of your defpo- 
 tifm ; if they can prevail upon them- 
 felves to place the leaft confidence in 
 your declarations of contrition, and to 
 believe that you have indeed renounced 
 the injuftice of your pretenfions, begin 
 by recalling your mercenary cut-throats. 
 Reftore freedom to their ports, which 
 you keep (hut up ; withdraw your 
 fquadrons from their coafts ; and, if 
 there be a wife citizen amongft you, let 
 him take the olive-branch in his hand, 
 prefent himfelf, and fay, 
 
 " O you, our countrymen, and our 
 "old friends ; allow us this title; we 
 
 <c have 
 
[ 84 ] 
 
 " have profaned it, but cur repentance 
 
 " renders us worthy to refume it, and 
 
 " we afpire henceforward at the glory 
 
 " to preferve it. We confefs, in the 
 
 " prefence of this heaven, and of this 
 
 4i earth, which have been confcious of 
 
 <c it, we confefs, that our pretenfions 
 
 " have been unjuft, our conduft has 
 
 " been cruel. Let it on each fide be 
 
 " forgotten. Raife up again your for- 
 
 " trefles and your ramparts. Reaflem- 
 
 " ble in your peaceable habitations. Let 
 
 " us wafli out the remembrance of every 
 
 u drop of blood that has been fpilled. 
 
 c< We admire the generous fpirit by 
 
 <c which you have been directed. It is 
 
 " the fame with that to which, in fimi- 
 
 " lar circumflances, we have been in- 
 
 <c debted for our political falvation. 
 
 "Yes, it is by thefe marks, exprefsly, 
 
 u that we now know you to be indeed 
 
 " our 
 
[ 85 I 
 
 " our countrymen, to be indeed our 
 <c brothers ; concerning whom we have 
 " verily been guilty ; and therefore is 
 " this diftrefe come upon us. You 
 " would be free v be ye free. Be fo,. 
 <{ in the whole extent which we have 
 " ourfelves given to this facred name* 
 " It is not of us that you hold this right. 
 " Not unto us, not unto us, doth belong 
 " the power, by which it is to be given, 
 " or taken away. You have received 
 " it, as we did, from nature, which the 
 44 fins and fwords of tyrants may oppofe^ 
 " but which the frns and fwords of ty- 
 <c rants cannot deftroy. We lay claim to 
 " no fort of fuperiority over you. We 
 u afpire but at the honour of equality. 
 <c This glory is fufficient for us. We 
 " know too well the ineftimable value 
 " of governing ourfelves, to wifti hence- 
 " forward that you fhould be diverted of 
 
 a the boon. 
 
 " If, 
 
[ 86 ] 
 
 ** If, fupreme matters and arbiters 
 " of your legiflation, you can create 
 " for your dates a better government 
 " than ours, we give you anticipated 
 "joy. Your happinefs will infpire us 
 ** with no other fentiment, than the de- 
 " fire of imitation. Form for yourfelves 
 <c conftitutions adapted to your climate, 
 " to your foil, to this new world 
 " you civilize. Who better than your- 
 " felves can know your peculiar wants ? 
 " High-fpirited and virtuous minds, like 
 " yours, fhould obey but the laws which 
 " (hall be given them by themfelves. 
 " All other reftraint would be unworthy 
 44 of them. Regulate your own taxa- 
 " tion. We defire you only to con- 
 <4 form yourfelves to our cuflom in the 
 u affeffment of the duties. We will 
 " prefent to you a flate of our wants \ 
 " and you will of yourfelves aflign the 
 
[ 87 1 
 
 " juft proportion between your fuccours 
 " and your riches. 
 
 " Moreover, exercife your induftry, 
 u like us ; without limitation exercife 
 " it. Avail yourtelves of the benefits of 
 " nature, and of the fruitful countries 
 " you inhabit. Let the iron of your 
 " mines, the wool of your flocks, the 
 " fkins of the favage animals which \j 
 " wander in your woods, fafiiioned in 
 " your manufactures, take a new value 
 c< from your hands. Be your ports free. 
 " Go, and expofe to fale the produdtt- 
 44 ons of your lands, and of your arts, 
 ** in all the quarters of the world. Go, 
 44 and feek for thofe of which you ftand 
 " in need. It is one of our privileges, 
 " let it be likewife yours. The empire 
 ci of the ocean, which we have acquired 
 !* by two ages of greatnefs and glory, 
 
 ** belongs 
 
[ 88 ] 
 
 tc belongs as well to you as us. We 
 " (hall be united bv the ties of com- 
 " merce, You will bring us your pro- 
 " dnftions, which we (hall receive in 
 " preference to thofe of all other people, 
 " and we hope that you will prefer ours 
 " to thofe of foreigners, without being 
 41 retrained to it however by any law, 
 <c but that of the common intereft, and 
 4C the fair claims of countrymen and 
 " friends. 
 
 u Let the (hips of your country and 
 " of ours, adorned by the fame ftream- 
 u er, overfpread the feas ; and let (houts 
 44 of joy arife on each fide, when fifler- 
 ic veflels meet each other in the deferts 
 " of tlie ocean. Let peace fpring up 
 " again between us, and concord laft 
 " for ever. We are fenfible at length, 
 <c that the chain of mutual benevolence 
 * c is the only one, which can bind 
 
 " fuch 
 
[ 8 9 I 
 
 " fuch diftant empires together, and 
 " that every other principle of unity 
 4t would be precarious and unjuft. 
 
 4t Upon this new plan of eternal ami- 
 44 ty, let agriculture, induftry, laws, 
 44 arts, and the firft of all fciences, that 
 44 of procuring the greateft good to com- 
 4C munities and individuals, be perfeft- 
 44 ed amongft you. Let the recital of 
 44 your happinefs call around you all 
 44 the unfortunate of the earth. Let 
 " the tyrants of all countrie^ let all 
 44 opprefTors, political or facred, know, 
 <4 that there exifts upon the earth a 
 44 place, where a deliverance from their 
 44 chains is to be found ; where afflidl- 
 44 ed, dejedted humanity has lifted up 
 44 her head ; where harvefts grow for 
 " the poor ^ where laws are no more 
 
 " than 
 
[ 90 ] 
 
 M than the fecurity of happinefs; where 
 ** religion is free, and confcience has 
 " ceafed to be a Have ; where, in fhort, 
 a nature feems to put in her plea of jufti- 
 " fication, for having created man ; and 
 " government, fo long time guilty, over 
 " all the earth, makes at laft the repa- 
 " ration of its crimes. Let the idea of 
 Ci fuch an afylum ferv,e as a terror and 
 " reftraint to defpots : for if they have no 
 " kindnefs about their hearts, and look 
 *' with indifference on the happinefs of 
 " man, they have at leafl much avarice 
 " and ambition, which muft take them 
 
 . ? yi>- I -'>.*.>" 
 
 " anxious to preferve both their riches 
 
 " and their power. 
 
 ''" 
 " We ourfelves, O countrymen, O 
 
 u friends, we ourfelves fhall profit by 
 w your example. If our conftitution 
 4< -(hould be altered for the worfe; if 
 <s public riches fhould corrupt the court, 
 
 c> and 
 
E 9i 1 
 
 " and the court the nation ; if our kings 
 44 to whom we have given fb many ter- 
 44 rible examples, fhould at laft forget 
 " them ; if we fhould be in danger, we 
 44 who were an anguft people, of d win- 
 " dling to a vile herd of abjefts, by, 
 44 bafely felting ourfelves to fale ; we 
 44 might be re-animated by the fight of 
 " your virtues and your laws. It might 
 c4 recall to our depraved and daftard 
 " hearts, with a fenfe of the value and 
 " the grandeur of liberty, the energy ta 
 " preferve it. But if it muft be, that 
 a fuch an example as yours fhall want 
 ic power to prompt us; if it muft be^ 
 " that flavery, the never-failing follower 
 <c of venality, ftiall be, one day, eftab- 
 " lifhed in that land, which has been in- 
 i4 undated with blood in the caufe of 
 44 freedom, which has feen fcaffolds erec- 
 *' ted for the punifliment of tyrants ; 
 
 44 then 
 
[ 9* I 
 
 cc then will we emigrate like your fa- 
 * c thers, then will we abandon, in a body, 
 *' the ungrateful ifle, delivered up, to 
 u a defpot, and leave the monfter, to 
 cc reign and roar, in a dcfert for domain* 
 " Then (hall you furely welcome us as 
 " friends, as brothers. You will fuffer 
 " us to partake with you of this foil, of 
 " this air, free as the generous fouls of 
 " their inhabitants, and, thanks to your 
 " virtues, we (hall find again an Eng- 
 " land, again a country. 
 
 " Such, brave countrymen, are our 
 " hopes, fuch our wifhes. Receive then, 
 " our oaths, pledges of fo holy an al- 
 " liance. Let us invoke, to ftill add fo- 
 w lemnity to the treaty, let us invoke 
 " our common anceftors, who were all 
 " animated by the fpirit of liberty like 
 " you, and did not dread to die in its 
 
 " defence* 
 
r 93 ] 
 
 ** defence. Let us call to witnefs, the 
 " memory of the illuftrious founders of 
 " your colonies, that of your auguft Ie- 
 " giflators, of the philofophic Locke, the 
 " firfl man upon the earth who made 
 " a code of toleration, of the venerable 
 " Penn, the firfl who founded a city of 
 * c brethren. The fpirits of thefe great 
 *' men, who furely at this moment are 
 " beholding us with earneftnefs and with 
 " pleafure, are worthy to prefide at a 
 " treaty, which is about to draw the 
 " Sleflingsof peace upon a double- world: 
 "Swear we, in their prefence; fwear we, 
 " upon the very arms, with which you 
 <c have fo valiantly withftoodus; fwear 
 <c we, to remain for ever united, and for 
 " ever true ; and when the oath of peace 
 " lhall have been pronounced by al)^ 
 M make, of thefe fame arms, a facred 
 
 " depofite 
 
[ 94 ] 
 
 " f< depofite in fome hallowed pile, where 
 cC the fathers fhall fhew them to the ge- 
 '** nerations as they rife ; and there keep 
 " them carefully from age to age, in order 
 " to their being, one day, turned againft 
 *" the firft, be he Englifh or American, 
 " \tfho fhall dare propofe the rupture of 
 * c that alliance, which is equally ufeful, 
 cc equally honourable to both the names." 
 
 At this difcourfe, I hear the towns, 
 the villages, the fields, all the fhores of 
 North America refound, with livelieft 
 acclamation, with tendereft repetition of 
 the endearing names of brother and of 
 mother, applied to your country and her 
 fons. And whilfl the conflagrations of 
 war are fucceeded by bonfires and 
 fports, and every demonftration of a 
 heart-felt triumphant joy, I fee the na- 
 tions 
 
I 95 1 
 
 tions envious of your power, to (land 
 aghaft, in filence, aftonifliment, defpair. 
 
 Your parliament is about to meet. 
 What is to be expedted from it ? Will it 
 liften to reafon, or will it perfevere in 
 its madnefs ? Will it be the defender 
 of the rights of nations, or the inftru- 
 ment of the tyranny of minifters ? Will 
 its a&s be the decrees of a free people, 
 or edi&s didated by the Court ? 1 am at 
 prefentat the deliberations of your houfes. 
 In thefe revered reforts I hear wifdom 
 fpeak by the mouth of moderation, Soft 
 perfuafion feems to flow there, from the 
 lips of moft diftingui(hed orators. My 
 heart is filled with hope: my eyes over- 
 run with tears. Prefently a voice, the 
 organ of defpotifm and of war, fufpends 
 the delicious, fweet emotion. 
 
 
 i 
 
 Englifh- 
 
t 96 3 
 
 *' "Englishmen, cries a mad haranguer, 
 * 4 >can you hefitate a moment ? It is your 
 * 6 rights, it is your mofl important inte- 
 " refts, it is the glory of your name, 
 " that you are called upon to defend. 
 * c It is not a foreign power which attacks 
 " thefe eflential objects. They are me- 
 <c naced by an interior, domeftic enemy. 
 c< The danger therefore is more im- 
 * l minent, the outrage the more fen- 
 
 <c Between two rival powers, armed 
 4C for mutual pretenfions, policy may 
 " fometimes fufpend hoflilities. Againft 
 "rebel fubjeds, flacknefs is thegreateft 
 a fault, and all moderation weaknefs. 
 Ct The (landard of revolt, which was fet 
 " up by audacity, fhould be torn down 
 u by power. Let the fword of juftice 
 " fall heavy on the hands which dared 
 
 " difplay 
 
[ 97 1 
 
 " difplay it. Let us be expeditious. In 
 4< thefe cafes there is a firft moment 
 " which muft be feized on ; revolutions 
 iC fhould be ftrangled in their birth. 
 44 Give not to minds, yet in amazement, 
 " time to grow familiar with their guilt ; 
 a to the ringleaders, time to confirm their 
 " power ; nor to the people, that of learn- 
 " ing to obey new matters. The people, in 
 " a revolt, are almoft always a&uated by 
 u alien impulfes. Neither their fury, nor 
 <c their hatred, nor their love, are properly 
 " their own. You maj give them paf- 
 u fions, as eafily as arms. Difplay to 
 u their eyes, the power and majefty o 
 *' the Britifh empire : they wil) prefently 
 " be falling at your feet ; and go in an 
 <c inftant from terror to compundtion, 
 u from compunction to obedience. If 
 " we muft have recourfe to the feverity 
 ;** of arms,, let us have nofcruples. In 
 F " civil 
 
u civil war, pity is a mod miftaken vir- 
 *' tue. When the fword is once drawn, 
 " it ought not to be flayed, but by fub- 
 " million. It is for them to anfwer now, 
 " to heaven and to earth, for the evils 
 u which they bring upon themfelves. 
 u Confider that a tranfient feverity, in 
 " thefe rebellious countries, will infure 
 " us peace and obedience that will lafl 
 " for ages. 
 
 V ' ' V f '** '"'$' '"*\*- ,'-''"* - '' * j 
 
 " In order to make us fufpend our 
 44 blows, and difarm our hands, we have 
 " been told, jand told repeatedly, that the 
 " land is peopled by our countrymen, by 
 *' our friends, by our brethren. What, 
 " invoke in their favour names -which 
 " they have outraged, bands which they 
 " have broken ? Thefe names, thefe 
 " bands, fo facred, are the very thing 
 " that accufes and attaints them. Since 
 " when, were thefe revered titles to im- 
 
 " pofe 
 
[ 99 3 
 
 * pofe duties but on us ? Since when, 
 " had rebellious children the right to take 
 " arms againft their mother, defpoil her 
 " of her heritage, and rend her heart ? 
 " They talk of liberty : I refpedt this 
 " name as much as they do ; but by this 
 " liberty, is it independance, that we are 
 ** to underftand? Is it the right, to over- 
 u turn a legiflation, founded and efta- 
 " blifhed two ages fince ? Is it the right, 
 i to ufurp all thofe which we poflefs ? 
 " They talk of liberty, but I talk, and 
 " will always talk, of the fupremacy, 
 u and the fovereign power, of Britain. 
 
 46 What, fuppofing they had fome 
 <c caufes of complaint, fuppofing they 
 " intended to refufe bearing fome light 
 " portion of the heavy burden under 
 cc which we ftagger, to refufe unreafona- 
 u bly to make themfelves partners in 
 F 2 ct our 
 
[ too ] 
 
 * c our expences, as we have made them 
 " partners in our greatnefs, had they no 
 " other way to do it, than by revolt and 
 " arms ? There are thofe who call them 
 <c our countrymen, and our friends; 
 " but, for my part, lean fee them in no 
 " other light than that of the mod cruel 
 " perfecutors and enemies of our coun- 
 " try. We had common fathers, it is 
 " faid ; and fo, undoubtedly, we had : 
 " but thefe refpeftable anceftors I myfelf 
 " with confidence invoke. If their 
 " fpirits could here refume their places, 
 " their indignation would not be inferior 
 " to our own. With what wrath would 
 " thefe virtuous citizens then underftand, 
 <c that thofe of their children who went 
 u to fix themfelves beyond the feas, no 
 " fooner began to be a little confcious 
 <c of their ftrength, than they made a 
 " traitorous trial of it againft their coun- 
 
 "try; 
 
[ 101 j 
 
 * try ; armed themfelves againft her 
 ** with the very benefits her bounty had 
 " beftowed ?; Yes, all ; even to that paci- 
 " fie fed,, enjoined ftridly by their 
 " founder never to dip their hands in 
 " blood ; they, who have refpefted the 
 u lives and the rights of favage peo- 
 " pie ; they, who by an enthufiafm of 
 " humanity, have ftruck off the fetters 
 ** from their flaves : now, equally faith- 
 ct lefs to their country and their religion, 
 cf they arm their hands for flaughter; 
 " and it is againft you. They treat all 
 " men as brethren ; and you, you only, 
 <c of all people are excluded from the 
 
 * title. They have fhewn the world 
 " that the favages of America, that the 
 " negroes of Africa, are henceforward 
 '* lefs alien to them than the citizens of 
 " Britain.. 
 
 F 3 "Arm, 
 
[102 ] 
 
 " Arm, then, arm. Britons, ftrike 
 " home ; revenge, revenge, your coun- 
 * c try's wrongs, your offended rights. 
 " Revenge the treafon to your greatnefs. 
 
 " Difplay that power, fo redoubtable in 
 " Europe, in Africa, and the Indies ; 
 " which has fo often aftonifhed Ameri- 
 " ca herfelf ; and fmce between a fo- 
 <c vereign people and the fubjedt-people 
 4< who revolt, there can be no treaty now t 
 " but force, let force decide. Snatch 
 " opportunely at this world, which is 
 " falling from you, and refume it ; it is 
 "your property, which ingratitude and 
 " infolence would ravifh from you." 
 
 \England determines to reduce her colonies 
 by force.] 
 
 The fophifms of a fretting, ftrutting 
 fpeechifier, upheld by royal power and 
 
 national 
 
national pride, fupprefs, in the majo- 
 rity of the reprefentatives of the people, 
 the defire of pacific meafures. New re- 
 folutions referable thofe which begot 
 them ; but with aggravated features of 
 ferocity and defpotifm. Levies of troop^ 
 equipments of fleets. Admirals and ge- 
 nerals fet fail for the new world, with 
 orders and proje&s fanguinary and fa- 
 vage. Nothing lefs than unconditional 
 fubmiffion can reftrain or retard the de- 
 vaftation ordained againft the colonies. 
 
 Until this memorable period, the A.- 
 mericans had confined themfelves to a 
 refiftance, authorized even by the Eng- 
 lifh laws. No other ambition appeared 
 in them, than that of maintaining the 
 very limited rights which they had hi- 
 therto enjoyed. Even the leading men 
 amongft them, who might be fuppofed 
 F4 to 
 
to have more enlarged ideas, had not 
 yet ventured to fpeak to the multitude of 
 any thing but an advantageous accom- 
 modation. They would have been afraid, 
 in going further, of lofing the confidence 
 of people attached by habit to an empire, 
 under whofe wings they had profpered. 
 The accounts of the great preparations 
 which were making in the old-world, 
 with fetters to confine, or with fire to 
 con fume, the new, extinguifhed all re- 
 mains of affedion for the original go- 
 vernment. The only bufmefs now, was, 
 tagive energy to minds ready to receive 
 it. This was the effeft which a work 
 intituled, " Common Senfef produced. 
 We ftiall give here the fum and fub- 
 flance of its doftrine, without tying 
 ourfelves down to its exa<5l form and 
 order. 
 
 Never, 
 
[ 105 ] 
 
 Never, fays the author of this cele- 
 brated performance, never did a mora 
 grand concernment call for the attention 
 of the world. It is not that of a city or 
 a province, it is that of an immenfe con- 
 tinent, and of a confiderable portion of 
 the globe. It is not the affair of a day, 
 it is that of ages. The prefent is about 
 to decide upon a long futurity ; and ma* 
 ny hundreds of years after that we fhall 
 be no more, the fun, in illuminating this 
 hemifphere, will illuminate our glory, 
 or expofe our fhame. A long time did 
 we fpeak of peace and reconcilement : 
 all is changed. On the day when,incon- 
 fequence of the recourfe which has been 
 had to arms, the firft drop of blood 
 was fhed, time for difquifuion pafled 
 away. A day ha&given birth to a revo- 
 lution. A day has * tranfported us to 
 another age. 
 
 F 5 Timid 
 
C 106 ] 
 
 Timid fouls, fouls who meafure the 
 future by the paft, think that we (land in 
 need of the protection of England. That 
 protection might be ufeful to a rifing co- 
 lony ; it is become dangerous for a na- 
 tion formed; Infancy muft needs be 
 fupported, in its weak endeavours to 
 walk ; youth fhould march aftively and 
 freely, in power and pride of port. The 
 nation, as well as the man, who may 
 have the power and right to proteft me, 
 may have the power and will to opprefs 
 me. I give up the fupport of a protec- 
 tor, to be fecured from the fear of a 
 mafter. 
 
 In Europe the people are too much 
 agitated to allow to this part of the world 
 the enjoyment of conftant peace. In 
 thofe courts and nations interefts meet 
 interefts, and joftle without end. As 
 
 friends 
 
f 107 ] 
 
 friends of England we muft necefiarily 
 have all her enemies for our own. This 
 alliance will entail upon America the 
 dower of perpetual war. Let us part, 
 let us part. Neutrality, trade and peace ; 
 fuch, and fuch only, can be the founda- 
 tions of our greatnefs. 
 
 The authority of Great Britain over 
 America muft fooner or later be extindh 
 So wills nature, neceflity, and time. The 
 Englifh government can, therefore, give 
 us only a tranfient conftitution * and we 
 ftiall bequeath to our pofterity but de.bts, 
 and diffentions, and a precarious ftate. 
 If we would infure their happinefs, let 
 us part. If we are fathers, if we love 
 our children, let us part. Laws and li- 
 berty are the heritage we owe them. 
 
 England is too far removed from us - 9 
 we cannot be governed by fuch a diftant 
 
 coun- 
 
[ io8 ] 
 
 try. What to traverfe, always, two 
 thoufand leagues, to claim juftice, or to 
 afk for laws! to exculpate ourfelves from 
 imaginary crimes, or folicit, with mean- 
 nefs, the court and minifters of a foreign 
 clime ! What, to wait for years for 
 every anfwer ; and to find, as we might 
 too often, when we had crofied and re- 
 crofled the ocean, that injuftice only 
 would be the produdt of our voyage! 
 No; to be a great {late, the center and 
 the feat of power muft be in the flate 
 itfelf. Nothing but the defpotifm of the 
 Eaft can inure men thus to receive 
 their laws from rulers far remote, or from 
 the bafhaws, by whom invifible tyrants 
 are reprefented. But let it not be for- 
 gotten, that the more the diftance is 
 augmented, the more ponderous and 
 cruel is the preflure of the defpotic pow- 
 er; and the people then, deprived of al- 
 mod all the advantages of government, 
 
 feel only its miferies and its vices. 
 
 Na- 
 
Nature did not create a world to fub- 
 jedt it to the inhabitants of an ifland. I 
 Nature has eftablifhed the laws of \ 
 equilibrium, which (he every where ob- 
 ferves, in the heavens as well as upon 
 the earth. By the laws of bodies, and 
 of diftanccs, America can belong but to 
 itfelf. 
 
 There is no government without a 
 a mutual confidence between him who 
 commands and him who obeys, It is 
 all over ; this mutual confidence is 
 gone, and never can return. England 
 has too clearly fhewn that (he would 
 command us like flaves ; America, that 
 (he was equally fenfible both of her 
 rights and of her ftrength. They have 
 each betrayed their fecret. From this 
 moment there can be no further trea- 
 ty. It would be figned by hatred and 
 
 diftruft ; 
 
[ 1 10 ] 
 
 diftruft ; hatred, which never pardons ; 
 diftruft, which, by its very nature, can 
 never be reconciled. 
 
 Would you know what an accommo- 
 dation would produce ? Your ruin. 
 You ftand in need of laws - 9 you will 
 not obtain them. Who would give 
 them to you ? The Englifh nation ? 
 She is jealous of your increafe. The 
 ? He is your enemy. Your- 
 felves, in your aflemblies ? Do you not 
 remember that all legiflation is fub- 
 mitted to the negative right of the mo- 
 narch who would bring you to his 
 yoke ? This right would be a formida- 
 ble right inceflantly armed againft you. 
 Make requefts ; they will be eluded. 
 Form plans of commerce and great- 
 nefs ; they will become to the mother- 
 country an objcft of affright, Your 
 
 govern- 
 
C 
 
 government will be no more than a 
 kind of clandeftine war ; that of an 
 enemy who would deftroy without open- 
 ly attacking ; it will be, according to 
 the ordinary courfe of policy, a flow 
 and fecret aflaffinaticn, which will caufe 
 languor and prolong weaknefs, and, 
 with the art of an imperial torturer,, 
 equally prohibit you to live or die. Sub- 
 mit to England * and behold your 
 fate. 
 
 It is not without right that we take 
 arms. Our right is neceflity, a juft de- 
 fence, the miieries of ourfelves and of 
 our children, the exceffes committed 
 againft us. Our right is our auguft 
 title of nation. It is for the fword to 
 judge us. The tribunal of war, is the 
 only tribunal which now exifts for us. 
 Well then, fince the fword mud neeef- 
 
 farily 
 
[ m 3 
 
 farily be drawn, let us be fure at leaft, 
 that it be for a caufe that may be wor- 
 thy of it, and requite us for both our 
 treafure and our blood. What, (hall 
 we expofe ourfelves to the feeing our 
 habitations ruined, our lands laid wafte, 
 our families ilaughtered, in order to 
 compafs at laft an accommodation ; 
 that is, to implore new chains, and ce- 
 ment ourfelves the edifice of our bon- 
 dage ? What, (hall it be by the dread- 
 ful light of conflagrations, (hall it be 
 on the tomb of our fathers, or our chil- 
 dren, or our wives, that we (hall fign 
 oppreflbrs! and, all covered with our 
 blood, will they deign to pardon us! 
 Ah, we (hould then be but a vile objeft 
 of pitying wonder to Europe, of indig- 
 nation to America, and of contempt 
 even to our enemies. If we can obey 
 them, we had not the right to combat 
 
 . them. 
 
r "3 3 
 
 them. Liberty only can abfolve u& 
 Liberty, and perfect liberty, is the only 
 object worthy of our labours and our 
 dangers. What do I fay ? From this 
 moment it is cur own. Our title is 
 written on the bloody plains of Lexing* 
 ton ; it was there that the hand of Eng- 
 land tore the contraft by which we were 
 united to her. Yes. At the moment 
 when the report of the firft mufket dif~ 
 charged by England was heard, nature 
 herfelf proclaimed us free and indepen- 
 dent. 
 
 Let us profit by the benefit of foes. 
 The youth of nations is the age moft fa- 
 vourable to their independence. It is the 
 time of energy and vigour. Our fouls 
 are not yet furrounded by that apparatus 
 of luxury, which ferves as hoflage to a ty- 
 rant. Our arms are not yet enervated in 
 
 the 
 
3 
 
 the arts of foftnefs. Amongft us are 
 not feen to domineer thofe nobles, who r 
 by their very conftitution, are the necef- 
 fary allies of kings ; who love not liber- 
 ty, but when they can make of it an in- 
 ftrument of oppreffion ; thofe nobles,, 
 eager for privilege and title, for whom, 
 in critical conjunctures, the people are 
 but tools, for whom the fupreme power 
 is a ready corruptor. 
 
 Your colonies are formed of plain, 
 brave, laborious, upright men, proprie- 
 tors and cultivators of their land in one. 
 Liberty is thtir firfl want. Rural labours 
 have already hardened them for war. 
 Public enthufiafrn brings to light un- 
 known talents. It is in revolutions that 
 great rnindsare formed, that heroes fhew 
 themfelves, and take their place. Remem- 
 ber Holland, and all her fons ; and that 
 
 number 
 
number of extraordinary men to which 
 the quarrel of her liberty gave birth : 
 behold in thefe men an example for you ^ 
 remember their fuccefe, and behold a 
 prefage. 
 
 Let our firfl ftep be to form a confti- 
 tution by which we may be united. 
 The moment is arrived. Later, it would 
 be abandoned to an uncertain futurity 
 and the caprice of chance. The more 
 people and riches we (hall acquire, the 
 more barriers will there be raifed up be- 
 tween us. Then, how ftiall fa many 
 provinces and interefls be made con- 
 fiftent ? For fuch an union, it is necef- 
 fary that each people fliould at once be 
 fenfible, both of the particular weak~ 
 nefs, and the general flrength. There 
 muft be great calamities or great fears. 
 It is then, amongft communities as 
 
 amongft 
 
tK 
 
 amongft individuals, that fpring up thofe 
 firm and vigorous friendfhips which af- 
 fociate fouls with fouls, and interefts 
 \vith interefts. It is then, that one fpirify. 
 breathed from every part, forms the 
 genius of dates; and that all the (bat- 
 tered powers become by union a fingle 
 and a formidable power. Thanks to 
 our perfecutors, we are at this epocha.. 
 If we have courage, it will be that of 
 our happinefs. Few nations have laid 
 hold of the favourable moment to form, 
 their government. Once efcaped, this 
 moment returns no more ; and anarchy 
 or flavery punilhes the negledt of it for 
 ages. Let not a fimilar fault prepare 
 for us fimilar regret. Regret is impo- 
 tent. 
 - t " 
 
 Let the moment, which, in refped to 
 us, is fingular, be feized on. We have 
 
 it 
 
it in our power to frame the fineft con- 
 ftitution that the world has feen. You 
 have read in your facred books how man- 
 kind were deflroyed by the general de- 
 luge. A fingle family furvived, and 
 *was commanded by the Supreme Being 
 to re-people the earth. We are this fa- 
 mily. Defpotifm has deluged all ; and 
 we can a fecond time renew the world. 
 
 We are about, at this moment, to 
 decide the fate of a race of men more 
 numerous perhaps than ail the people of 
 Europe put together. Shall we wait till 
 we may be the prey of a conqueror, 
 and fuffer the hope of the univerfe to be 
 deftroyed ? Imagine to yourfelves, that 
 all the generations of the world to come, 
 have at this moment their eyes fixed on 
 us, and demand of us their liberty. 
 We are about to fix their deftiny. If 
 
 we 
 
we give them up, they will, perhaps, 
 one day, drag their chains acrofs our 
 tombs, and load them with impreca- 
 tions. 
 
 Call to mind a writing which has ap- 
 peared amongft you, and had for a 
 motto, UNITE OR DIE. 
 
 Let us unite then, and begin by de- 
 claring our INDEPENDENCE. That alone 
 can efface the name of rebellious fub- 
 jedls, which our infolent opprefTors have 
 dared to give us. That alone can make 
 us rife up to the dignity which is our 
 due, infure us allies amongft the powers, 
 imprefs refped even upon our enemies, 
 and, if we treat with them, give us the 
 right to treat, with the power and ma* 
 jefty which becomes a nation. 
 
 But 
 
r 
 
 But I repeat it ; we muft be quick. 
 Our uncertainty makes our weaknefs. 
 Let us dare to be free, and we are fo. 
 Ready to take, the leap, we draw back. 
 We read the countenances of each other 
 with anxious curio fity. It feems, as if 
 we were aftonifhed at our own boldnefs, 
 and that our very courage gave us fear. 
 But it is not now the time to be mufing 
 on calculations. It is patted. In great 
 affairs, in which there is but one great 
 part to take, too much circumfpedtion 
 ceafes to be prudence. Every thing that 
 is extreme, demands refblution in the 
 extreme. Then, the boldeft meafures 
 are the wifeft ; and the excefs of bold- 
 nefs itfelf becomes the means and the 
 warrant of fuccefs. 
 
 [The 
 
{ 120 ] 
 
 \The colonies break the ties which united 
 them to England, and declared them- 
 f elves independent of her.] 
 
 Such was the fubftance of the fenti- 
 ments difplayed in this work. They 
 confirmed in their principles the enter- 
 prizing fpirits who had long required a 
 total reparation from the mother-country. 
 The timid citizens, who had been wa- 
 vering till then, now declared decifively 
 for this great and interefttng rupture. 
 The votaries of independence were nu- 
 merous enough to bring the general con- 
 -grefs, on the 4th of July, 1776, to the 
 determination to pronounce it. 
 
 Why have I not received the genius 
 and the eloquence of the celebrated ora- 
 tors of Athens and of Rome ] With what 
 grandeur, with what enthufiafm, fhould I 
 
 not 
 
not fpeak of thofe generous men who 
 ereded this grand edifice, by their pa- 
 tience, their wifdom, and their courage! 
 Hancock, Franklin, the two Adamfes, 
 were the greateft a&ors in this affeding 
 fcene : but they were not the only ones; 
 Pofterity fhall know them all. Their 
 honoured names fhall be tranfmitted to it 
 by a happier pen than mine. Brafs and 
 marble fhall (hew them to remoteft 
 ages. In beholding them, (hall the friend 
 of freedom feel his heart palpitate with 
 joy, feel his eyes floating in delicious 
 tears, Under the buft of one of them 
 has been written; HE WRESTED THUN- 
 DER FROM HEAVEN, AND THE SCEPTRE 
 
 FROM TYRANTS*. Of the laft words of" 
 this eulogy (hair all of them partake. 
 
 G Heroic 
 
 * Eripuit ccek fubnen, fceptnimque iyrannis, is 
 the line applied to the great Electrician , and the 
 tranflator dares not criticife a line which his niaf- 
 ter has thought worthy to be ftudded in his work. 
 
 
f. 
 
 Heroic country, my advanced age 
 permits me not to vifit thee. .Never fhall 
 I fee myfelf amongft the refpedable per- 
 fonages of thy Areopagus ; never fhall I 
 be prefent at the deliberations of thy 
 congrefs. I fhall die without having 
 feen the retreat of toleration, of man- 
 ners, of laws, of virtue, and of freedom. 
 My afhes will not be covered by a free 
 and holy earth : but I fhall have defired 
 it; and my laft breath fhall bear to hea- 
 ven an ejaculation for thy profperity. 
 
 Though America might be allured of 
 univerfal approbation, fhe thought it in- 
 cumbent on her to expofe to the eyes of 
 the world the motives of her condudl. 
 She publifhed her manifeflo, in which we 
 read that, 
 
 " The hiftory of the Englifh nation 
 " and its king will fliew to the fucceeding 
 
 " gene- 
 
[ 123 ] 
 
 generations, whom it (hall entertain 
 " and inftrudl with accounts of them and 
 " us, a feries of outrages and of ufurpa- 
 '* tions, which vied with each other in 
 " their tendency to eitablifh abfolute ty- 
 " ranny in thefe provinces. 
 
 44 It will (hew, that the monarch re- 
 " fufed his confent to laws the moft fa- 
 " lutary and the moft neceffary to the 
 <c public good. 
 
 44 That he removed the affemblies to 
 44 inconvenient places, at a diftance from 
 44 all records in order to bring the depn- 
 * 4 ties more eafily to his views. 
 
 44 That he had frequently diffolved 
 44 theaflembly of reprefeutatives, becaufe 
 44 they had firmly defended the people's 
 
 44 rights. 
 
 ,. 'i.- 
 
 4C That after fuch diflblution, he had 
 G 2 " left 
 
 m- 
 
[ 124 ] 
 
 " left the dates too long without repre- 
 ic fentatives, and confequently expofed 
 ic to the inconveniences refulting from 
 " the want of aflemblies. 
 
 " That he endeavoured to hinder po- 
 " pulation, by raifing difficulties to the 
 " naturalization of foreigners, and by 
 " felling the lands, of which he granted 
 " the property, too dear. 
 
 " That he made the judges too de- 
 u pendant on himfelf, by decreeing that 
 " they fhould hold but of him alone, 
 " both their offices and their falaries. 
 
 " That he created new employments, 
 " and filled this country with a multi- 
 " tude of placemen, who devoured our 
 " fubftance and difturbed our quiet. 
 
 <c That he maintained amongfl us, in 
 " time of profound peace, a confider- 
 
 <c able 
 
I 125 ] 
 
 " able number of troops, without the 
 " confent of the legiflative power. 
 
 44 That he rendered military power in- 
 " dependent of, and even fuperior to, 
 44 the civil power. 
 
 44 That he contrived all means, in con- 
 44 junftion with perverfe men, to quar- 
 44 ter armed foldiers in our houfes, and 
 44 exempt them from the pains due to 
 i4 the murders they might commit in 
 44 America; to deftroy our trade in all 
 44 parts of the world ; to impofe taxes on 
 44 us without our confeiit ; to deprive us, 
 i{ in many cafes, of our trials by juries ; 
 " to tranfport us, and make us take 
 " our trials, beyond the feas ; to take 
 44 away our charters, fupprefs our befl 
 44 laws, to alter the foundation and the 
 44 form of our government for the worfe ; 
 G 3 < 4 to 
 
[ 126 ] 
 
 * 4 to fufpend our own legiflation, and 
 " make us receive other laws. 
 
 " That he himfelf abdicated his go- 
 " vernment in the American provinces, 
 " by declaring us fallen from his pro- 
 <c tedtion, and by making war upon us. 
 
 " That he caufed our coafts to be ra- 
 " vaged, our ports to be deftroyed, our 
 " towns to be burnt, our people to be 
 " maffacred. 
 
 " That he forced thofe who were taken 
 " prifoners upon the high feas, to bear 
 " arms againft their country, to become 
 " the executioners of their friends and 
 " brethren, or to perifh themfelves by 
 " hands fo dear. 
 
 u That he excited amongft us inteftine 
 c divifions ; and that he endeavoured 
 
 "to 
 
[ 127 I 
 
 <c to raife againft our peaceable inhabit- 
 " ants, the barbarous favages, accuftom- 
 " ed to maffacre all, without diftindtion 
 " of rank, fex, and age. 
 
 " That at this time there arrived on 
 " our fhores foreign mercenaries, com- 
 " miflioned to complete the work of 
 " devaftation and death. 
 
 <4 And that a prince, whofe character 
 " was thus marked by all the features of 
 " tyranny, was not fit to govern a free 
 " people." 
 
 A ftep which broke the ties formed by 
 blood, by religion, and by habit, was to 
 be fupported by a grand concert of wills* 
 by wife and vigorous meafures. The 
 United ftates of America gave them- 
 ftlves a federate conftitution, which join- 
 ed, to the interior advantages of repub- 
 G 4 lican 
 
[ I 2 8 ] 
 
 lican government, all the power of mo* 
 narchy. 
 
 Each province had an aflembly form- 
 ed by the reprefentatives of the different 
 diftrifts, and in which the legiflative 
 power refided. The executive power 
 was committed to its prefident His 
 rights and his obligations were, to liflen 
 to every application from any of the peo- 
 ple; to call them together when cir- 
 cumftances might require it ; to provide 
 for the arming and fubfifting troops, and 
 concert the operations of them with their 
 officers. He was at the head of a fecret 
 committee, which was to hold a conti- 
 nual correfpondence with the general 
 congrefs. The time of his continuance, 
 in office was limited to two years. But 
 the laws permitted a prolongation of 
 it. 
 
 The 
 
E 129 1 
 
 The provinces were not obliged to ren- 
 der an account of their adminiftration to 
 the great council of the nation, though 
 compofed of the deputies of all the co- 
 lonies. The fuperiority of the general 
 congrefs over the particular congrefles 
 was confined to matters relative to poli- 
 tics and war. 
 
 But fome people have thought that the 
 inftitution of this body was not fo well 
 contrived as the legiflation of the pro- 
 vinces. It feems, it muft be confefled, 
 that federate dates, which raife them- 
 ielves from the condition of fubje&s up 
 to that of being independent, cannot 
 without danger truft their delegates with 
 the unlimited power of making peace 
 and war. For thefe delegates, fhould 
 they be corrupt or ill informed, might 
 bring back the whole flate to the bon- 
 G 5 dage 
 
dage which it is feeking to efcape from, 
 It feems that in thefe times of revolution, 
 the public will, cannot be too well known, 
 too literally pronounced. Jt is neceflary, 
 undoubtedly, they fay, that all the mea- 
 fures, all the operations, which relate to 
 the common defence and offence, fhould 
 be decided on by the common repre- 
 fentatives of the body of the date : but 
 the continuation of war, and the condi- 
 tions of peace ought to be deliberated 
 upon in every province; and the delibe- 
 rations to be tranfmitted to the congrefs 
 by the deputies, who would fubmit the 
 opinion of their provinces to the plura- 
 lity of voices. In fhort, they add, that 
 if in dlablifhed governments it is proper 
 that the people (hould rely with confi- 
 dence in the wifdom of their fenate, in a 
 ftate where the conflitution is forming, 
 where the people, as yet uncertain of 
 
 their 
 
L 131 1 
 
 their fate, call for their liberty, fword 
 in hand, it is neceflTary that all the ci- 
 tizens fhould be continually in council, 
 in camp, in the. public places, and have 
 their eyes continually open upon the 
 reprefentatives to whom their deftiny 
 has been committed. 
 
 Though thefe principles are true in- 
 general, there might be a difficulty, we 
 may anfwer, in applying them to a new 
 republic formed by the Americans. It 
 is not with that republic as with the fe- 
 derate republics which we fee in Eu- 
 rope, I mean Holland and Switzerland, 
 which occupy a country but of fmall 
 extent, and in which it is eafy to efta- 
 blifh a rapid communication between all 
 the provinces. The fame thing may be 
 faid of the confederacies of ancient 
 Greece. Thefe flates were fituated at 
 
 $ fmall 
 
a fmall diftance from each other, con- 
 fined almoft within the narrow compafs 
 of the Peloponnefus, or, at moft, within 
 the lijnits of the Archipelago. But the 
 United States of America, difperfed over 
 an immenfe continent ; occupying in 
 the new world a fpace of almoft fifteen 
 degrees ; feparated by deferts, by moun- 
 tains, by gulfs, and by a vafl extent of 
 coaft, cannot have the advantage of this 
 rapid communication. If the general 
 congrefs could not decide upon politi- 
 cal interefts without the particular deli- 
 berations of each province; if on every 
 important occafion, on every unforefeen 
 event, it fhould be fiecefTary to give 
 new inftrudtions, and, as we may fay, 
 a new power to the reprefentatives, this 
 body would remain inadive. The dif- 
 tances to be paffed, the delays and the 
 
 multi- 
 
C 133 ] 
 
 multitude of debates, might too often 
 be hurtful to the public good. 
 
 Befides, it is never at the birth of a 
 conftitution, and amidft the great fer- 
 mentations of liberty, that there is caufe 
 to fear that a body of reprefentatives 
 fliould, either from weaknefs or corrup- 
 tion, betray the interefts with which 
 they are entrufted. It is rather in fuch 
 a body that the general fpirit is both 
 exalted and inflamed. In that refides, 
 in its vigour, the genius of the nation. 
 Chofen by the efleem of their fellow- 
 citizens, chofen at a time when every 
 public fundion is a danger, and every 
 vote an honour, placed at the head of 
 thofe who will compofe for ever that 
 celebrated areopagus, and thence even 
 naturally carried to regard the . public 
 liberty as their own work, they cannot 
 
 but 
 
[ I'M- J 
 
 but have the enthufiafm of founders, 
 who make it their pride to have their 
 names engraved confpicuoufly, to be read 
 by diftant ages, on the frontifpiece of 
 an auguft monument which is rifing. 
 The fears which thepartifans of the con- 
 trary fyftem might have upon this ob- 
 jed, feem therefore to have fmall foun- 
 dation. 
 
 I will fay more. It might happen 
 that a people who are fighting for liber- 
 ty, fatigued with a long and painful 
 ftruggle, and more ftruck with the pre- 
 fent danger than the future good, might 
 feel their courage failing, and perhaps, 
 one day, be tempted to prefer depend- 
 ence and peace to independence and 
 tumult, attended with peril and with 
 blood. Then would it be advantage- 
 ous to this people to have diverted thecn- 
 
 felves 
 
[ 135 1 
 
 felves of the power of making peace 
 with their oppreflbrs, and depofited it 
 in the hands of the fenate which they 
 had chofen to ferve as an organ to their 
 will, when this will could fhew itfelf 
 with freedom, pride, and courage. It 
 feems as if each individual, when he had 
 given his voice for the inflituting fuch a 
 fenate, fhould fay to it, I raife the 
 ftandard of war againft my tyrants. If 
 my arm fhould weary in the war, if I 
 could debafe myfelf fo low as to implore 
 repofe, fupport me againft my weak- 
 nefs. Liften to no prayer or wifh unwor- 
 thy of me, which I difavow beforehand ; 
 and pronounce not the name of peace 
 until my bonds be broken. 
 
 In reality, if we confult the hiftory 
 of republics, we (hall fee, that the mul- 
 titude have almoft always great impe- 
 
 tuofity 
 
[ 136 ] 
 
 tuofity and heat at the firft moment ; 
 but that it is only in a fmall number of 
 chofen men, and qualified to ferve as 
 chiefs, that refide thofe conftant and 
 vigorous refolutions which march, with 
 a fteady, firm, undaunted ftep, towards 
 fome great and worthy end, never turn- 
 ing, or looking, from the path, and 
 never ceafing, mod ftubbornly to com- 
 bat all obftrudions that they meet with 
 from fortune, from mifery, and from 
 man. 
 
 [Commencement of the war between the 
 United States and England.} 
 
 However it be, and whatfoever fide 
 may be taken in this political difcuflion, 
 the Americans had not yet created for 
 themfelves a fyftem of government, 
 
 when in the month of March, Hopkins 
 
 plundered 
 
[ 137 1 
 
 plundered the Ifland of Providence of a 
 large train of artillery and a confidera- 
 ble quantity of ammunition ; when in 
 the beginning of May, Carleton drove 
 out of Canada the Provincial troops, 
 which were employed to reduce Que- 
 bec with a view of completing the con- 
 queft of that important territory ; when 
 in the month of June, Clinton and Par- 
 ker had been fo vigoroufly repulfed on 
 the Southern coafts of America. Far 
 greater fcenes followed the declaration of 
 independence. 
 
 Howe had been appointed to fuper- 
 fede the feeble Gage : and it was this 
 new general who had evacuated Bofton. 
 Having arrived on the 2d of April at 
 Halifax, on the loth of June he departed 
 for Staten Ifland. The forces, which 
 were to aft both by fea and land, fuc- 
 
 ceflively 
 
J 
 
 ceffively joined him according to ex- 
 pe&ation $ and on the 28 th of Auguft 
 he landed on Long-Ifland without oppo- 
 fition, under the protection of a fleet 
 commanded by the admiral his brother. 
 The Americans exhibited as little fpirit 
 in defending the interior part of their 
 country as they did on the landing of 
 the enemy. 
 
 After a very feeble refifiance, and con- 
 fiderable lofs, they took refuge on the 
 continent with a facility, which would 
 hardly have been granted them by a 
 conqueror, who knew how to avail him- 
 felf of the advantages he had obtained. 
 The city of New-York too was aban- 
 doned by thefe new republicans with 
 flill greater precipitation than they had 
 evacuated Long-Ifland: and they filed 
 off towards Kingfbridge, where they ap- 
 peared 
 
[ 139 ] 
 
 peared determined to make an obflinate 
 refiftance. 
 
 If the Englifh had followed up their 
 fuccefs with that vivacity which circum- 
 Itances demanded, the new-raifed troops 
 which had oppofed them had infallibly 
 been difperfed, or reduced to the necef- 
 fity of laying down their arms. On 
 the contrary, they were allowed fix 
 weeks to recover from their confterna- 
 tiori : nor did they abandon their in- 
 trenchments till the night of the firft or 
 fecond of November, when the move- 
 ments, which were making in their 
 view, were fufficient to convince them 
 that their camp was upon the point of 
 being attacked. 
 
 Their commander in chief, Wafhing- 
 ton, was unwilling to trufl the fate of 
 
 his 
 
[ 140 ] 
 
 his country to an aft ion, which might 
 and naturally would have terminated to 
 the prejudice of thofe important interefts 
 which had been committed to him. He 
 knew, that delays, ever favourable to a 
 native, are ever fatal to a flranger.. 
 This conviction determined him to retire 
 to the Jerfeys with a defign of protraft- 
 ing the war. Favoured both by the in- 
 clemency of the feafon, by his know- 
 ledge of the country, and by the na- 
 ture of the ground, which compenfated 
 in Tome meafure for the want of difci- 
 pline, he had reafon to flatter himfelf, that 
 he fhould be able to covet the greateft 
 part of this fertile province, and keep 
 the enemy at a diftance from Penfylva- 
 nia. In a moment, however, he fees his 
 colours abandoned by the foldiers, whofe 
 engagement, at the end of fix, and even 
 
 at 
 
C 
 
 at the end of three months, had expired : 
 and of an army of twenty -five thoufand 
 men, w there fcarce remained two thoufand 
 five hundred, with which he was for- 
 tunate enough to retire beyond the De- 
 lawar. 
 
 Without lofing a moment, the King's 
 troops ought to have patted the river in 
 purfuit of this handful of fugitives, and 
 have put them totally to the rout. If the 
 five thoufand men, deftined for the con- 
 queft of Rhode-Ifland, had gone up the 
 river in the tranfports they were aboard 
 of, the junction of the two corps might 
 have been effedted without oppofition 
 even in Philadelphia itfelf, and the new 
 republic had been ftifled in that import- 
 ant and celebrated city which gave it 
 birth. 
 
 At 
 
r 142 i 
 
 At this time, perhaps, reproaches were 
 caft on the Englifh general for being 
 timid and too circumfpedt in the opera- 
 tions of the compaign. Certain it is, 
 however, that he was rafli enough in 
 the diftribution of his winter-canton- 
 ments. They were difpofed in fuch a 
 manner, as if there remained not in 
 America a fingle individual, who had 
 either inclination or power to moleft 
 them. 
 
 This preemption encouraged the 
 militia of Penfylvania, Maryland and 
 Virgina, collected together and reuni- 
 ted for the fupport of the common 
 caufe. 
 
 On the 25th of December they crofled 
 the Delaware, and fell accidentally upon 
 Trenton, which was occupied by fifteen 
 
 hundred 
 
[ 143 3 
 
 hundred of the twelve thoufand Heflians, 
 fold in fo bafe a manner, by their avari- 
 cious mafter, to the King of Great Britain. 
 This corps was maflacred, taken, or en- 
 tirely difperfed. Eight days after three 
 Englifh regiments were in like manner 
 driven from Prince-town, but after hav- 
 ing better fupported their reputation 
 than the foreign troops in their pay, 
 
 Thefe unexpe&ed events reduced the 
 enemies of America, in the Jerfeys, to 
 neceffity of confining their polls to Am- 
 boy and Brunfwick, where yet they were 
 exceedingly haraffed during the re- 
 mainder of the winter. 
 
 The effeft of ftrong paffions, and of 
 great dangers, is often to aftonifh the 
 mind, and to throw it into that kind of 
 torpor that deprives it of the ufe of its 
 
 powers; 
 
[ H4 1 
 
 powers ; by degrees it recovers and col- 
 lefts itfelf: all its faculties, fufpended 
 for a moment, difplay themfelves with 
 redoubled vigour; every fpring of a6tion 
 is awakened, and it feels its powers rife 
 at once to a level with the difficulties 
 it has to encounter. In a great multi- 
 tude there are always fome who feel this 
 immediate effeft, which rapidly com- 
 municates itfelf to others. Such a re- 
 volution took place amongft the confe- 
 derate dates. It caufed armed men to 
 iflue from all quarters. 
 
 It was very late before the campaign of 
 1777 was opened. TheEnglifh army, in 
 defpair of penetrating into Penfylvania 
 by way of the Jerfeys, at laft embarked 
 on the ?-3d of July, and by the bay of 
 Chefapeak, landed in a country which 
 their generals may very juftly be re- 
 proached 
 
[ 145 3 
 
 preached for not having invaded the 
 year before. Their march is .uninter- 
 rupted, till they reach Brandywine; 
 There, on the nth of September, they 
 attack and beat the Americans, and ar- 
 rive on the goth at Philadelphia, which 
 had been abandoned on the 25th by the 
 Congrefs, and a few days later or fooner 
 by the greateft number of the inhabit- 
 ants. 
 
 This vidtory is attended with no confe- 
 quences. The conqueror fees nothing a- 
 round him but hatred and devaftation. Pent 
 up in a fpace extremely circumfcribed, 
 he meets with infurmountable obftacles 
 in extending himfelf over an uncultivated 
 country. Even his gold affords him not 
 its ufual refources in the neighbouring 
 diftrids, nor is there a pofllbility of any 
 fupplies, but what muft neceffarily crofs 
 H the 
 
r 146 ] 
 
 the feas. The irkfomenefs of animprifon- 
 ment of nine months duration, deter- 
 mined him to regain New York by way 
 of the Jerfeys; and under the command 
 of Clinton, fucceflbr to Howe, this long 
 and dangerous retreat wasefteded, with- 
 out fuftaining fo much ]ofs as a more ex- 
 perienced enemy would have occa- 
 fioned. 
 
 While the Englifh were wafting away 
 their time in Penfylvania, an important 
 fcene opens itfelf in the more northern 
 part of America. In the month of May 
 1776, Carlton had driven the provincials 
 out of Canada, and in Oftober deftroyed 
 the armed floops which they had con- 
 ftrudted on the Lake Champlain. This 
 fuccefs drew Burgoyne to Ticonderago, 
 in the month of July in the following 
 year. At his approach, a garrifon, con- 
 
 fifting 
 
 
[ 147 1 
 
 fitting of four thoufand men, abandoned 
 this important poft, with the lofs of 
 their rear-guard, their artillery, and amu- 
 niuon. 
 
 The Englifh general was naturally 
 prefumptuous. A weaknefs fo extraor- 
 dinary increafed his arrogance. He had 
 conceived the defign of reuniting the 
 troops of Canada with thofe of New 
 York by Hudfon's-bay. This project 
 was bold and great. Had he fucceeded 
 he would have cut North America in 
 two, and, perhaps, have ended the war. 
 But, to have had fuccefs, it would have 
 been neceffary, that whilft one army was 
 
 going down, the other fhould have gone 
 up the river. Having failed in this idea, 
 Burgoyne ought to have feen, from the 
 
 : veryfir(l fleps of it, that his enterprife 
 was chimerical. At every march it be- 
 ll % came 
 
C 148 1 
 
 came more and more fo. His cornmi 
 nications grew more diftant ; his pro- 
 vifiorts lefs abundant. The Americans, 
 taking heart again, affembled from all 
 parts round him. At length this un- 
 lucky body of men found themfelves 
 caught, on the i3th of Oftober, at Sara- 
 toga ; and nations learned with aftonifh- 
 rnent, that fix thoufand of the befl dif- 
 ciplined troops of the old hemifphere, 
 had laid down their arms before the huf- 
 bandmen of the new, ccndu&ed by the 
 fortunate Gates. Thofe who remem- 
 bered that the Swedes, under Charles the 
 Twelfth, till then invincible, had capitu- 
 lated before the Ruffians, yet uncivilised, 
 did not aceufe the Englifli troops, but 
 only blamed the imprudence of their 
 general; 
 
 
 
 This 
 
This event, fo decifive in the opinion 
 of our politicians, was of no greater con- 
 fequence than that with which other ac- 
 tions, lefs favourable to the American 
 arms, had been attended. After three 
 years of fighting, maflacre, and devafta- 
 tion, the ftate of things was fcarcely * 
 changed from what it had been a fort- 
 night after the commencement of hoftili- 
 ties. Let lis endeavour to difcover the 
 caufes of fo ft range a fingularity. 
 
 theEngliJhdidnotfucceedin bring- 
 ing the confederate provinces to fub~ 
 mifflan.] 
 
 Great Britain, accuftomed to ftorms 
 at home, faw not at fir ft all the danger 
 there might be in the tempeft which was 
 rifing in her remote pofTeffions. For a 
 long time her troops had been infulted 
 at Bofton ; an authority, independent of 
 H 3 hers, 
 
[ 150 ] 
 
 hers, had been formed in the province of 
 MafTachufet. The other colonies were 
 making difpofitions to follow this ex- 
 ample, had not the adminiftration taken 
 thofe great objeds into their ferious con- 
 fideration. When they were laid before 
 - parliament, both houfes were filled with 
 clamour; and much declamation fol- 
 lowed, after much declamation that had 
 gone before. The fenate of the nation 
 decreed at laft, that the country which 
 was rebellious to its decrees, fhould by 
 force be made obedient : but this violent 
 refolution was executed with the flow- 
 nefs too frequent in flates of freedom. 
 
 England thought, in general, that 
 coafts without defence, that countries 
 entirely open, could not refift her fleets 
 and armies. It did not appear to her 
 
 that 
 
 H. 
 
C i5i 3 
 
 that this expedition could be of fufficient 
 duration to give time to the peaceful 
 hufbandmen of America to learn the art 
 cfwar. It was forgotten that the cli- 
 mate, the rivers, the defiles, the fwamps, 
 the want of provifion, in proportion as 
 advances were made into the country, 
 and an infinity of other natural obftruc- 
 tions, militating againft a rapid progrefs 
 in a region three-fourths uncultivated, 
 fhould have made a part of the calcula- 
 tion. 
 
 Succefs was ftill more retarded by the 
 influence of moral caufes. 
 
 Great Britain is the region of party. 
 Her kings have generally feemed to be 
 well enough convinced of the neceffity 
 of leaving public affairs to the manage- 
 ment of the prevailing fadion, by which 
 H 4 they 
 
[ 152 ] 
 
 they were conduced commonly with in- 
 telligence and with vigour, becaufe the 
 principal agents of which it was com- 
 pofed were animated by a common in- 
 tereft. Then, to public fpirit, which 
 reigns more in England than in any other 
 government of Europe, was added the 
 power of a fa&ion, and that fpirit of 
 party which moves men's minds fo pow- 
 erfully, becaufe it is always the effedt of 
 paflion. To rid himfelf of this rtftraint, 
 George the Third compofed his council 
 of detached, unconnected members. This 
 innovation was not attended with any 
 very great inconveniences, as long as 
 events rolled round in their common 
 c&urfe. But as foon as a war with Ame- 
 rica had complicated a machine, which, 
 was not before too fimple, it was per- 
 cdved that it had neither that ftrength, 
 
 nor 
 
[ 153 ] 
 
 nor that union, which are fp necefTary for 
 the execution of great affairs. The 
 wheels, too far afunder, wanted, as we 
 may fay, a centre of motion, and a com- 
 mon impulfe. They went fluggifhly 
 and precipitately, by turns The admi- 
 niftration too much refembled that of an 
 ordinary monarchy, when the principle 
 of action proceeds not from the head 
 of an intelligent and adive monarch, who 
 brings together all the fprings under his 
 own hand. There was no longer any 
 integrity or wholenefs in what was 
 undertaken., nor was there more of it 
 in what was executed. 
 
 A miniftry, without harmony and con- 
 cord, was expofed to the inceflantly re- 
 newed attacks of a body of enemies, 
 united, clofe, and firm. Its refolutions, 
 be they what they would, were fure to 
 H 5 be 
 
C '54 3 
 
 be combated by reafoning or by ridicule, 
 It was reproached for having been fevere 
 with the diftant members of the ftate, 
 as it would have been reproached for hav- 
 ing been too tender to them. Even they, 
 who in parliament were the moft outrage- 
 ous againft the treatment which had been 
 fhewn to the Americans ; they who moft 
 encouraged them to refiftance ; they 
 who, perhaps, fecretly fent them fuc- 
 cour, were as averfe to their indepen- 
 dence as they very miniflers whom they 
 laboured, without ceafing, to remove or 
 vilify. Could the oppofition have fuc- 
 ceeded in difgufting the king with his 
 confidents, or have obtained the facri- 
 fice of them by the cry of the nation, 
 the project of fubjugating America had 
 flill been followed, but with more dig- 
 nity, more force, and perhaps with mea- 
 fures better planned. As the reduction 
 
 of 
 
[ 155 1 
 
 of the revolted provinces was not to be 
 their work, they rather wifhed that this 
 immenfe part of the Britifh empire 
 might be feparated from it, than that it 
 fhould be reunited to it.by any other 
 hands than theirs. 
 
 The adivity of the generals repaired 
 not the vice of tbefe contrarieties, and 
 the delays in confcquence. They in- 
 dulged the foldier with too long repofe ; 
 they employed in meditating, the time 
 for adting , they approached new-raifed 
 men with the precaution they would have 
 taken before veteran troops. They 
 Englifh, who have fo much impetuo- 
 fity in party, are of a cool and calm 
 character in other things. They are to 
 be agitated but by violent paffions. 
 When this fpring is wanting, they move 
 flow enough to count their fleps. .Then 
 
 they 
 
[ 156 ] 
 
 they govern themfelves by the temper 
 of their mind, which, in general, if 
 we except the arts of imagination and 
 tafte, is, in every thing elfe, methodi- 
 cal and wife. In war, their valour 
 never lofes fight of principles, or leaves 
 much to chance. Rarely do they leave, 
 either on their flanks, or in their rear, 
 any thing which may give them trouble. 
 This fyftem has its advantages, parti- 
 cularly in a clofe and narrow country, 
 in a country ftt thick with ftrong holds 
 and fortified towns. But in the prefent 
 circumftances, and upon the vaft con- 
 tinent of America, againft a people who 
 fhould not have had time allowed them 
 for their being fortified, or inured to 
 war, the perfection of the art, perhaps, 
 had been to have forgot it, and to fub~ 
 ftitute, in its ftead, the rapid and impe- 
 tuous march, and the mighty darings 
 
 which 
 
[ 157 1 
 
 which at once aftonifh, ftrike, and over- 
 come. It was in the fir (I moments, 
 above all, that it would have been ne- 
 eeffary to imprefs upon the Americans, 
 not the terror of fuch ravages as affedt 
 a people, armed for their liberty, more 
 with indignation than with fear ; but 
 that dread which is ftruck from a fupe- 
 riority of talents and of arms, and which 
 a warlike people, of the old world, fhould 
 naturally be fuppofed to carry to the 
 new. The confidence of vidory had 
 foon been victory kfelf. But by too 
 much circumfpedion, by their too fer- 
 vile attachment to rules and princi- 
 ples, fkilful leaders failed of rendering 
 to their country the fervice it expeded 
 from them, and which it was juftifiedira 
 expedting. 
 
 The troops, on their fide, did not 
 
 prefs 
 
[ '58 ] 
 
 prefs their commanders to lead them on. 
 They were juft come from a country, 
 where the caufe which had fent them 
 acrofs the ocean, made no impreffion. 
 It was, in the eyes of the people, but a 
 broil which could not be of any con- 
 fequence. They confounded the de- 
 bates it occafioned in parliament with 
 other debates, often of fmall impor- 
 tance. It was not talked of; or if fome 
 perfons entertained themfelves with it, 
 they were not more earneft about it 
 than about thofe pieces of news, which, 
 in great cities, occupy the idlenefs of 
 everyday. The indifference of the nation 
 had communicated itfelf to the defenders 
 of its rights. They would even have 
 been afraid, perhaps, to gain too decifive 
 advantages over countrymen, who had 
 taken arms but to keep themfelves from 
 chains. In all the monarchies of Eu- 
 rope, 
 
[ '59 ] 
 
 rope, the foldier is but an inftrument of 
 defpotifm, and has its difpofition. He 
 looks upon himfelf as belonging to the 
 throne, and not to the country j and a 
 hundred thoufand armed men, are but 
 a hundred thoufand difciplined and for- 
 midable Haves. The habit even of ex- 
 ercifing the empire of force, that em- 
 pire to which all gives way, contributes 
 to extinguifh in them every fpark of the 
 love of liberty. At length, the military 
 government and fubordination, winch 
 moves thoufands of arms by a fingle 
 voice, which permits no afking, nor fee- 
 ing, nor judging, nor thinking ; and, 
 at the firft fignal, makes it a law to kill 
 or die, completes the work of changing 
 thefe fentiments into principles, which 
 make what may be called the morals of 
 their ftate. It is not fo in England. The 
 influence of the conftitution is fo great, 
 
 that 
 
[ iffo ] 
 
 that it extends itfelf even to the troops. 
 There, a man is a citizen before he is a 
 folditr. Public opinion, conforming it- 
 felf to the conftitution, honours one, and 
 lightly regards the other, of theft titles. 
 Thus we fee by the hiftory of the revo- 
 lutions and tempeft by which that turbu- 
 lent ifland has been torn, that the Englifh 
 foldier, though enlifted for life, preferves 
 for political liberty a paffion, of which an 
 idea is not eafily to be formed in our 
 countries of flaves. 
 
 How fhould the ardour which was 
 wanting in the Britifh troops have ani- 
 mated the Heffians, the Brunfwickers, 
 and the other Germans ranking under 
 the fame banners, all equally difconten- 
 ted with the princes who had fold them* 
 difcontented with the fovereign who had 
 bought them, difeontented with. the na- 
 tion 
 
f 161 ] 
 
 tlon which paid their wages, and dif- 
 contented with their comrades, who 
 treated their mercenarinefs with con- 
 tempt ? Befides, they had alfo brothers 
 in the enemy's camp, to whom they 
 dreaded to give death, and from whofe 
 hand a wound would have grieved them? 
 with a double pain. 
 
 The fpirit of the Englifli army ha* 
 been altered too, in confequence of a 
 revolution in the manners of their coun- 
 try, which had taken place about fifteen 
 or eighteen years before. The fuccefles 
 of the lail war * the extenfion which 
 the peace had given to commerce 5 the 
 great acquifitions made in the Eaft- 
 Indies : all thefe means of fortune had, 
 without interruption, accumulated in 
 Great Britain prodigious riches. Thefe 
 riches kindled the defire of new enjoy- 
 ments. 
 
ments. The great went to acquire 
 them in foreign countries, and, above 
 all, in France; and brought home the 
 poifon to their country. From the 
 higher conditions, it flowed down into 
 all the clafles, even to the lowed.. To 
 a chara&er of plainnefs,, fimplicity,, re- 
 ferve, and haughtinefs, fucceeded a tafte 
 for exterior (hew, for diflipation, gal- 
 lantry, and what is called politenefs. 
 Travellers who had formerly vifued this 
 ifland fo renowned, thought thcmfelves 
 in another climate. The contagion had 
 fpread to the troops. They carried with 
 them to the new hemifphere the paffion 
 which they had contraded in the old, 
 for gaming, for foft accommodation, 
 and good living. In departing from 
 their coafl, they (hould have renounced 
 the fuperfluities of which they were 
 enamoured. This tafte for luxury, 
 
 this 
 
C 163 ] 
 
 this ardour, fo much the more violent 
 as it was new, did not encourage them 
 to purfue, into the interior part of the 
 country, an enemy very ready to plunge 
 into it for fhelter. Ye new politicians 
 who advance with fo much confidence 
 that manners have no influence on the 
 fate on nations, that, with regard to 
 them, the meafure of greatnefs is that 
 of riches ; that the pleafures of peace 
 and the voluptuoufnefs of the citizen 
 cannot weaken the efFedt of thofe great 
 machines called armies, and of which 
 the European difcipline has, according 
 to your account, fo perfected the infal- 
 lible and tremendous operations : you, 
 who to fupport your opinion, muft turn 
 away your eyes from the afhes of Car- 
 thage and the ruins of Rome, upon the 
 recital I am making to you, fiifpend 
 your judgment, and believe it poffible 
 
 that 
 
that there may be opportunities of fuo 
 eefs which are loft by luxury. Believe r 
 that, even to courageous troops, inde- 
 den pence on wants has been often the 
 chief caufe of conqueft. It is too eafy 
 perhaps to brave only death. For na- 
 tions corrupted by opulence a feverer 
 trial is referred, that of fupporttng the 
 lofs of their pleafures. 
 
 Add to all thefe reafons, that the 
 means of war feldom arrived, acrofs fuch 
 a length of fea, in the convenient fea- 
 fon for adlion. Add, that the councils 
 of George the Third were wifely deter- 
 mined to have too much influence in 
 military operations which were to be 
 executed at fuch a diflance from them ; 
 and you will know the greateft part of 
 the obftacles by which the ruinous ef- 
 forts of the mother-country againft 
 
 the 
 
I 165 ] 
 
 the Freedom of her colonies were op- 
 pofed. 
 
 [Why the confederate provinces did not 
 fucceed in driving the Englijh from the 
 continent of America*] 
 
 But how happened it that America 
 did not herfelf repulfe from her fhores 
 thefe Europeans who were bringing to 
 her chains or death ? 
 
 This new world was defended by re- 
 gular troops, which at firft had been 
 enlifted but for three or fix months, 
 and afterwards for three years, or as 
 long as hoftilities might continue. It 
 defended by citizens who took the field 
 only when their particular province was 
 invaded or menaced. Neither this ar- 
 my always on foot, nor this militia ca- 
 fually aflembled, had a military turn. 
 
 They were farmers, traders, lawyers, 
 
 exercifed 
 
[ 166 ] 
 
 exercifed only in the arts of peace, and 
 conducted to danger by guides as little 
 verfed as their fubalterns in the very 
 complicated fcience of war. In this 
 ftate of things, what hope could they 
 have of meafuring themfelves with ad- 
 vantage againft veterans in difcipline, 
 formed to evolutions, inftru&ed in tac- 
 tics, and abundantly provided with all 
 the inflruments neceflary to a vigorous 
 attack, to an obftinate defence ? 
 
 Enthufiafm alone might have fur- 
 mounted thefe difficulties : but did 
 there in reality exift more enthufiafm 
 in the colonies than in the mother- 
 country ? 
 
 The general opinion in England, was, 
 that the parliament had eifentiaily the 
 right of taxing every country which 
 made a part of the Britifh empire. Per- 
 haps, 
 
[ i6 7 ] 
 
 haps, in the beginning of the troubles, not 
 a hundred individuals were to be found 
 who would have called this authority in 
 queftion. Yet no anger was excited by 
 the refufal of the Americans to acknow- 
 ledge it. No hatred was borne towards 
 them, even after they had taken arms 
 in fupport of their pretenfions. As the 
 labours of the people in the interior part 
 of the kingdom were not affeded by it, 
 as the ftorm murmured but at diftance, 
 every one was peaceably occupied with 
 his bufmefs, or gave himfelf up without 
 difturbance to his pleafures. They all 
 waited for the conclufion of the drama 
 without impatience, as if already certain 
 of what was to be exhibited in the un- 
 ravelling of the plot. 
 
 The ferment muft be fuppofed to have 
 fhevvn itfclf at firft much greater in the 
 
 new 
 
C 168 ] 
 
 new hemifphere than the old. It is ever 
 the odious name of tyranny, or the grate* 
 ful found of independance, pronounced 
 to nations without communicating to 
 them that warmth which produces mo- 
 tion ? But did that warmth fuftain itfelf ? 
 Had the firft vehemence of imagination 
 lafted, mud not the reprefling of excefles 
 have occupied the attention of the new 
 authority ? But fo far from having caufe 
 to withhold courage, it had cowardice 
 to purfue. It was feen to punilh defer- 
 tion with death, ftaining the ftandard of 
 liberty with blood. It was feen to refufe 
 admitting of an exchange of prifoners, 
 for fear of augmenting the inclination 
 of the troops to furrender at the firft 
 fummons. It was feen reduced to the 
 neceffity of eredting tribunals fofr the 
 profecution of the generals or their lieu- 
 tenants 
 
[ i6p ] 
 
 tenants who fhould too eafily give up the 
 pofts which their vigilance was to guard. 
 It is true, that a hoary patriot, of four- 
 fcore years, who was defired to return 
 to his fire-fide, cried out, My death will 
 be of ufe , / Jhall Jlield with my body a 
 younger man. It is true, that Putnam 
 faid to a royalift his prifoner, return to 
 thy command-er^ and if he ajks thee how 
 many troops I have^ tell him that 1 have 
 enough-, that even if he Jbould beat them> 
 I jkould have ftill enough ; and that h'e 
 will find, in the event, that 1 have too 
 many for him and for the tyrants whom 
 he ferves. Thefe Tentiments were he- 
 ^ roic, but they were rare ; and they be- 
 came lefs common every day. 
 
 The intoxication was never general ; 
 
 and it could be but mom^ntaneous. 
 
 None of thofe energetic caufes, which 
 
 I have 
 
I 170 ] 
 
 have produced fo many revolutions upon 
 the globe, exifted in North America, 
 Neither religion nor laws had there been 
 outraged. The blood of martyrs or pa- 
 triots had not there flreamed from fcaf- 
 folds. Morals had not been there in- 
 fulted. Manners, cuftoms, habits, no 
 objeft dear to nations had there been the 
 fport of ridicule. .Arbitrary power had 
 not there torn any inhabitant from the 
 arms of his family and his friends, to 
 xlrag him to a dreary dungeon. Public 
 Border had not been there inverted. The 
 principles of adminiftration had not been 
 changed there ; and the maxims of go- 
 vernment had there always remained the 
 
 
 fame. The whole queflion was reduced 
 to the knowing whether the mother- 
 ecuntry had, or had not, the right to lay 
 direftly, or indire&Iy, a flight tax upon 
 
 the 
 
C 171 3 
 
 the colonies : for the accumulated griev- 
 ances in the manifefto Were valid only 
 in confequence of this leading grievance. 
 This, almoft metaphyfical, queflion was 
 fcarcely of fufficient importance to caufe 
 the multitude to rife, or at lead to interefl 
 them ftrongly in a quarrel for which 
 they few their land deprived of the hands 
 deftined to its cultivation, their harvefts 
 laid wafte, their fields covered with the 
 dead bodies of their kindred, or ftained 
 with their own blood. To thefe calami- 
 ties, the work of the royal troops upon 
 the coaft, were foon added more infup- 
 portable ones in the heart of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 Never had the reflleflhefs of the courts 
 
 of London and Verfailles difturbed the 
 
 tranquillity of North America but both 
 
 thefe powers brought fome of the migra- 
 
 1 2 tory 
 
[ 172 ] 
 
 tory clans in this part of the new hemi- 
 fphere to partake in their fanguinary 
 flrife. Inftru&ed by experience in the 
 weight which thefe v hordes could add to 
 the (bale, the Englifli and the colonifts 
 were equally refolved to employ them 
 -for their mutual destruction. 
 
 Carleton tried, firft, to arm thefe 
 barbarous hands in Canada. * 4 It is the 
 iC difpute," faid they in anfwer to his fo- 
 licitations, " of a father with his chil- 
 4< dren ; we do not think it right for us 
 tc to enter into thisdomeftic fquabble." 
 * f : But if the rebels fhould come to at- 
 " tack this province, would not you 
 <c help us to drive them back ?" " Ever 
 <c fince the peace the hatchet of war has 
 44 been buried forty fathoms deep." 
 " You would certainly find it, if you 
 " were to dig for it." 44 The helve of 
 
[ '73 1 
 
 it is rotten, and we cannot make any 
 ufe of it". 
 
 The United States were not more for- 
 tunate. " We have heard talk of fome 
 " differences that have happened betweerr 
 w Old and New England (faid the tribe 
 " of the Oneidas 10 their deputies) but 
 " we (hall never take a part in fuch a- 
 " trocious divisions. War between bre- 
 ic thren is a flrange and a new thing in 
 " thefe regions. Our traditions have left 
 "us no example of this nature. Sup- 
 " prefs your mad hatred ; and may a 
 f< benevolent fun difperfe the black va- 
 4i pour in which you are involved !" 
 
 The Mafphies alone feemed to inter- 
 eft themfelvesin the caufe of the Ame- 
 ricans. " There, (faid thefe good fa- 
 " vagesto them) there's fixteen (hillings 
 I 3 " for 
 
" for you. 'Tis all that we have. We 
 " thought to have bought fome rum 
 " with it we'll drink water. We'll go 
 u a hunting. If any beafts fall by our 
 " arrows, we'll fell their (kins, and bring 
 " you the money." 
 
 But in time the very adtive agents of 
 Great Britain fucceeded in conciliating 
 to it many nations of thefe aborigines. 
 Its interests were preferred to thofe of 
 its enemies, as well becaufe the remoter 
 diftance had prevented the favages from 
 having received fo many outrages from 
 it as from their proud neighbours, as be- 
 caufe it could and would better pay the 
 fervices which might be rendered to its 
 caufe. Under its banners, thefe allies, 
 \vhofe chara&eriftic fiercenefs knew no 
 reftraint, did a hundred times more da* 
 rfcage to the colonifts fettled near the 
 
 moun- 
 
C '75 ] 
 mountains, than had been fuffered, from 
 the royal troops, by thofe of their fellow- 
 citizens whom a happier deftiny had 
 fixed upon the confines of the ocean. 
 
 Thefe calamities attacked but a more 
 or lefs confrderable number of the mem- 
 bers of the United States, who foon after 
 were all, collectively, aflflidted by an in- 
 ward hurt. 
 
 The metals, which, throughout the 
 whole globe, reprefent all the objefts of 
 commerce, had, in this part of the new 
 world, never been abundant. The fmall 
 quantity of them which had been feen 
 there, difappeared even at the com- 
 mencement of hoftilities. To thefc figns 
 univerfally agreed upon, were fubflituted 
 figns peculiar to thefe provinces. Paper 
 replaced filver and gold. In order to give 
 1 4 fome 
 
[ '76 3 
 
 fbme dignity to the new pledge, it was 
 adorned with emblems, which might 
 continually remind the people of the 
 greatnefs of their undertaking, of the 
 ineflimable price of liberty, and of the 
 neceflity of a perfeverance fuperior to 
 all fufFerings. The artifice did not 
 fucceed. Thefe ideal riches were re- 
 jected. The more the multiplication of 
 them was urged by want, the greater 
 did their depreciation grow. The con^ 
 grefs was indignant at the affronts given 
 to its money, and declared all thofe to 
 be traitors to their country who fhould 
 not receive it as they would have receiv- 
 ed gold itfelf. 
 
 Did not this body know, that pre- 
 pofleffiqns are no more to be controled 
 than feelings are ? Did it not perceive, 
 that in the prefent crifis every rational 
 
 man 
 
[ '77 J 
 
 man would be afraid of expofmg his 
 fortune? Did it. not fee, that at the 
 beginning of a republic it permitted to 
 itfelf the exercife of fuch arts of def- 
 potifm as are unknown even in the 
 countries which are moulded to, and 
 become familiar with, fervitude and op- 
 preffion ? Could it pretend that it did 
 not punifh a want of confidence 
 with the pains which would have been 
 fcarcely merited by revolt and treafon ? 
 Of all this was the congrefs well aware. 
 But it had no choice of means. Its de- 
 fpifed and defpicable fcraps of paper 
 were actually thirty times below their 
 original value, when more of them 
 were ordered to be made. On the t3th 
 of September, 1779, there was of this 
 paper money, amongft the public, to 
 the amount of 35,544*155. The flate 
 owed moreover 8,385,356, without 
 I 5 reckon- 
 
[ 178 I 
 
 reckoning the particular debts of fin gle 
 provinces. 
 
 The people had no amends for this 
 domeftic fcourge, as it might be called, 
 by an eafy communication with all the 
 other parts of the world. Great Bri- 
 tain had intercepted their navigation 
 with Europe, with the Weft Indies, 
 with all the latitudes which their vefiels 
 covered. Then, they faid to the uni- 
 verfe, " It is the Englifti name which 
 44 makes us odious ; we folemnly ab- 
 44 jure it. All men are our brethren. 
 " We are the friends of all nations. 
 " Every flag may, without fear of in- 
 i4 fult, fhew itfelf upon our coafts, fre- 
 " quent our ports.'* An invitation, fo 
 feducing in appearance, was not com- 
 plied with. Thofe ftates which are 
 truly commercial ones, knowing that 
 
 North 
 
t '79 3 
 
 North America had been reduced to 
 contrad debts at the epoch even of her 
 greatefl profperity,, thought wifely that 
 in her prefent diftrefs (he would be able 
 to pay but very little for what might be 
 carried to her. The French alone, who 
 dare every thing, dared to brave the 
 inconveniences of this new conne&ion. 
 But by the judicious vigilance of Ad- 
 miral Lord Howe, the greateft part of 
 the fhips which they fent out were taken 
 before they arrived at the places of their 
 deftination, and the others at their de- 
 parture from the American coafts. Of 
 many hundreds of veflels which failed 
 from France, but twenty-five or thirty 
 returned back to it, and even thofe 
 brought no profit, or very little, to their 
 owners. 
 
 A multitude of privations, added to fo 
 
 many 
 
[ i8o ] 
 
 many other misfortunes, might make 
 the Americans regret their former tran- 
 quillity, and incline ihem to an accom- 
 modation with England. In vain had 
 the people been bound to the new go- 
 vernment by the facrednefs of oaths and 
 the influence of religion. In vain had 
 endeavours been ufed to convince them 
 that it was impoflible to treat fafely with 
 a country in which one parliament 
 might overturn what fliould have been 
 eftablifhed by -another. In vain had 
 they been threatened with the eternal 
 refentment of an exafperated and vin- 
 didive enemy. It was poffible that 
 thefe diftant troubles might not be 
 balanced by the weight of prefent 
 evils. 
 
 So thought the Britifh miniftry, when 
 they fent to the new-world public 
 
 agents, 
 
L 181 7 
 
 agents, authorized to offer every thing 
 except independence to thefe very Ame- 
 ricans, from whom they had two years 
 before exaded an unconditional fub- 
 miflion. It is not improbable but that 
 by this plan of conciliation, a few 
 months fooner, fome effecfl might have 
 been produced. But at the period at 
 which it was propofed by the Court of 
 London, it was rejected with difdain, 
 becaufe this meafure appeared but as 
 an argument of fear and weaknefs. 
 The people were already re-afiured. 
 The congrefs, the generals, the troops, 
 the bold and fkilful men who in each 
 colony had poffefled themfelves of the 
 authority ; every thing had recovered 
 its firft fpirit. This was the effeft of 
 a treaty of friendfhip and commerce be- 
 tween the United States and the Court 
 
 of 
 
[ 1 82 3 
 
 of Verfailles, figned the 6th of February, 
 1778. 
 
 [France acknowledges tie independence of 
 the United States. This meafure occa- 
 Jlons the war between this crown and 
 that of England'] 
 
 If the Britifh miniftry had refle&ed 
 upon it, they would have comprehended 
 that the fame delirium which was draw- 
 ing them to attack their colonies was re- 
 ducing them to the neceffity of declar- 
 ing war in the fame inftant againft 
 France. Then prevailed in the councils 
 of this crown the circumfpe&ion which 
 muft always be infpired by a new reign. 
 Then the finances were ftill in the con- 
 fufion into which they had been plunged 
 by a madnefs of twenty years. Then 
 the decayed condition of the navy was 
 
 fuch 
 
[ i8 3 3 
 
 fuch as filled every citizen with difquiet. 
 Then Spain, already fatigued with her 
 extravagant expedition of Algiers, found 
 herfelf in embarrafTments which would 
 not have permitted her to run to the 
 fuccour of her ally. And then might 
 England, without rafhnefs, have pro- 
 mi fed herfclf fuccefs againft the moft 
 powerful of her enemies, and to intimi- 
 date America by victories gained or 
 conquefts made near home. The im- 
 portance that it was of, for this crown 
 -to take away from its rebellious fubjels 
 the only fupport of which they might 
 be aflured, would have diminiflied the 
 indignation infpired by a violation of the 
 ftio'ft folemn treaties. 
 
 George the third faw nothing of all 
 this. The obfcure fuccours which the 
 Court of Verfailles fent to the provinces 
 
 armed 
 
[ 1 84 I 
 
 armed for the defence of their rights, 
 did not open his eyes. The dock-yards 
 of France were filling with fhip-wrights. 
 Her arfenals were filling with artillery. 
 Scarcely was there room remaining in 
 her magazines for more naval flores. 
 Her ports prefented the mod menacing 
 appearance ; and this ftrange blindnefs 
 ftill continued. To awaken the Court 
 of St. James's from its lethargy, it was 
 neceflary that Lewis the Sixteenth fhould 
 fignify to it, on the i4th of March, 
 that he had acknowledged the indepen- 
 dence of the United States. 
 
 This fignification was a declaration of 
 war. It was impoffible that a nation, 
 more accuftomed to give provocation 
 than receive it, could patiently look on, 
 whi^ft another nation was loofening -its 
 fubjedls from their bonds of allegiance, 
 
 and 
 
[ ,8 5 ] 
 
 and railing them up with much parade 
 to the rank of fovereign powers. All 
 Europe forefaw that two ftates, in rival- 
 fhip for ages, were about to tinge the 
 waters of the ocean with their, blood, 
 and again play that dreadful game, in 
 which public profperities will never com- 
 penfate for particular difafters. They in 
 in whom ambition had not extinguifhed 
 all benevolence for their fellow-creatures, 
 deplored beforehand the calamities, 
 which, in either hemifphere, were ready 
 to fall upon the human race. 
 
 The bloody fccne, notwithflanding, did 
 not open yet y and this delay gave cre- 
 dulity a ground of hope, that peace 
 would ftill continue, ft was not known 
 that a fleet, which had failed from Tou^ 
 Ion, was commiffioned to attack the 
 Englilh in North America, It was not 
 
 known 
 
[ 186 ] 
 
 known that orders had been difpatched 
 from London to drive the French from 
 the Eafl Indies. Without being initi- 
 ated in thofe myfteries of perfidy, which 
 infidious politics are arrived at regard- 
 ing as great flrokes of ftate, judicious 
 men fuppofed that hoftilities muft be in- 
 evitable, and on the point of taking place, 
 even in our ocean. This event, which 
 had been forefeen, was brought on by 
 the fight of two frigates^ on the I7th of 
 June, 1778, 
 
 Here our talk becomes more and more 
 difficult. Our fole objeft is to be ufeful, 
 and to be true. Far be from us that 
 fpirit of party which blinds and degrades 
 thofo who are the condudors^ and thofe 
 who afprre to be the rnftru&ors, of man- 
 kind. Our wifh is for our country ; 
 our homage is to juftice. We honour 
 
 virtue. 
 
virtue, in whatever place, in whatever 
 form, (he is feen : the diftindions of 
 condition and of nation cannot eftrange 
 us from her ; and the man who is juft 
 and magnanimous is our countryman 
 over all the world. If in the different 
 events which pafs under our eyes, we 
 blame with boldnefs what appears to us 
 blame-worthy, we feek not the vain and 
 forry pleafure of cafting indifcreet re- 
 proach. But we are fpeaking to nations 
 and to pofterity. We ought faithfully 
 to tranfmit to them what may be influen- 
 tial on the public good. We ought to 
 give them the hiflory of errors, to teach 
 them how they may be fliunned. Should 
 we dare to be traiteroufly wanting to fo 
 great a duty, we might, perhaps, flatter 
 the generation which pafleth away ; but 
 truth and juftice, which are eternal, 
 would impeach us to future generations, 
 
 who 
 
[ i88 ] 
 
 who would read us with contempt, and 
 pronounce not our name but with dif- 
 dain. In this long career we (hall be 
 juft to thofe who ftill exift, as we have 
 been to thofe who exift no more. If* 
 amongft the men of power, there are 
 any who are offended at this freedom, 
 let us not fear to tell them, that we are 
 but the organ of a fupreme tribunal, 
 which reafon is ereding upon a bafis that 
 cannot be fhaken. There is no longer 
 a government in Europe but (hould ftand 
 in fear of its determinations. Public opi- 
 nion, which is becoming more and more 
 informed, and which nothing has power 
 to arreft or awe, has its eyes open upon 
 nations and their courts. It penetrates 
 into the cabinets where policy would lie 
 hid. There it judges the depofitaries of 
 power, their weakneffes and their paf- 
 fions j and, by the empire of genius and 
 
 knowledge, 
 
t 1*9 3 
 
 knowledge, raifes itfelf, on all fides* 
 above the minifters of kings, to incite or 
 to reftrain them. Woe to them who de- 
 fpife or brave it! This feeming courage 
 is weaknefs in reality. Woe to them 
 whofe talents cannot arm them with a 
 confidence to fuftain its look ! Let fuch, 
 that they may once do juftice, at leaft to 
 themfelves, lay down the burden too 
 heavy for their feeble {boulders. They 
 will ceafe to expofe themfelves and the 
 nations they pretend to ferve. 
 
 France began the war with invaluable 
 advantages. The time, the place, the 
 circumftances ; (he had chofen all. It 
 was not till after (he had, at leifure, 
 made her preparations, till after (he had 
 increafed her power to the proper pitch, 
 that (he fhewed herfelf upon the field of 
 battle. She had to combat but an ene- 
 my 
 
I 190 ] 
 
 who was humbled, weakened, and 
 difcouraged by domeftic feuds. The 
 -wifhes of other nations were with her, 
 againft thofe imperious mafters, or, as 
 they were called, thofe tyrants of the 
 ocean. 
 
 Events feemed to correfpond to the 
 defire of Europe. The French officers, 
 who had old humiliations to wipe away, 
 performed brilliant adions, the remem- 
 brance of which will be of long duration. 
 Great theoretic knowledge, and unftiak- 
 en courage, fupplied what might be 
 ^wanting in them from practice and ex- 
 perience. All the fingle engagements, 
 of (hip to (hip, did them the higheft ho- 
 nour, and mod of them terminated to 
 their advantage. The Britifh fleet ran 
 ftil! greater danger than the ifolated vef- 
 fels. It was fo roughly treated as to 
 
 have 
 
[ i9i 1 
 
 Tiave caufe to fear being wholly or par- 
 tially deftroyed ; had not the French 
 fleet, by which it was reduced, offUfh- 
 ant, to this almoft defpairing ftate, been 
 deftined, from timid orders, from odious 
 intrigues, from the weaknefs of its ad- 
 mirals, or from all thefe motives toge- 
 ther, to quit the fea and be the fir ft to 
 make for port. 
 
 In the intoxication of this, perhaps, un- 
 expedled fuccefs, France feemed to lofe 
 fight of her deareft interefts. Her prin- 
 cipal dbjedt ftiould' have been to inter- 
 cept the commerce of her enemies, cut- 
 ting the double nerve of her ftrength, 
 - their feamen and their wealth, and fo 
 fap, at once, the two foundations of 
 Englifh greatnefs. Nothing was more 
 eafy for a power prepared a long while 
 for hoftilities, than to intercept fleets of 
 
 merchant- 
 
I 192 ] 
 
 merchantmen, quite unprepared, and 
 very feebly convoyed. This was not 
 done. The immenfe riches expeded by 
 Great Britain, from all parts of the globe, 
 entered peaceably into her harbours, 
 without fuffering the fmallefl diminu- 
 tion. 
 
 The commerce of France, on the con- 
 trary, was harafled in both the hemi- 
 fpheres, and every where intercepted. 
 Her colonies faw ravifhed from them, on 
 their very coafts, fubfiftences, to wel- 
 come which they were reaching out 
 their arms with all the eagernefs of 
 want ; whilft the mother-country was 
 deprived of four millions fterling, arriv- 
 ed almoft in her fight. This reverfe 
 was not without a caufe. Let us endea- 
 vour to difcover it. 
 
 The 
 
[ 193 1 
 
 The French navy had been a long 
 time unfuccefsful ; and it was to the 
 vice of its conftitution that fo many 
 misfortunes had been afcribed. Many 
 attempts had been made to modify or 
 change the regulations of it ; but thefe 
 innovations, good or bad, were always 
 repelled with a more or leis ftrongly 
 marked difdain. At length its admirals 
 dictated themfelves, in 1776, a difpofi- 
 tion, which rendering them abfokue maf- 
 ters of the roads or anchoring-places, 
 of the arfenals, of the dock-yards, and 
 the magazines, deftroyed that mutual in- 
 fpeftorfhip which Lewis the Fourteenth 
 thought it was right he fhould eftablifh. 
 between the military officers and thofe 
 of the adminiftration. From that time 
 there was no longer any refponfibility, 
 regulation, or oeconomy in the ports. 
 K Every 
 
[ IP4 1 
 
 Every thing there fell into diforder and 
 confufion. 
 
 The new plan had an influence that 
 was ftill more unhappy. Till this pe- 
 riod it was the miniftry who had directed 
 the naval operations towards the end 
 aimed at by their politics. This autho- 
 rity pafled, perhaps almoft without being 
 perceived, to thofe who were to execute 
 thefe operations, which took infenfibly 
 a tindure from their prejudices. Thefe 
 prejudices inclined them to think, that 
 it was not in heavily and laborioufly 
 convoying the (hips of their nation, or 
 in remaining out upon difficult cruizes, 
 to furprize or deftroy thofe of the ene- 
 my's nation, that fame was to be ac- 
 quired. This double duty, therefore, 
 was entirely neglected, or very ill per- 
 formed, in confequence of the opinion 
 
 common 
 
t ; '95 3 
 
 common at Breft, that fuch a fervice 
 had nothing noble in it, and led not to 
 any kind of glory. 
 
 It muft be confefied, that this prejudice 
 is a very odd one, and quite contrary to 
 all the laws of fociety. What can be fup- 
 pofed to have been the defign of ftates in 
 inftituting this military force deftined to 
 fcour the feas ? Was it only to procure 
 promotions for thofe who command or 
 ferve ? Only to give them opportunities 
 of exercifing a valour ufelefs to every body 
 but themfelves ? Only to ftain red ano- 
 ther element with bloody battles ? No, 
 undoubtedly. Fleets of war upon the 
 ocean, are what Fortrefles and ramparts 
 are for inhabitants of cities - 9 what the 
 national armies are for provinces expofed 
 to iacurfions of the foe. There n^ ...,me 
 forts of property attached to the foil ; 
 K z there 
 
[ 196 ] 
 
 there are others which are created, tranf- 
 ported by commerce, and, as they may 
 be called, wandering on the ocean. -Both 
 thefe forts of property want defenders. 
 Warriors, that is your function. What 
 would be faid, if the land-forces fhould 
 refufe to proteft the inhabitants of cities, 
 the cultivaters of fields, and to drive 
 back the fire threatened to the harveft ? 
 Naval Officers, you think yourfelves de- 
 bafed by convoying and protecting com- 
 merce. But if commerce is to be no 
 more protefted, what will become of 
 the riches of the flate, of which, without 
 doubt, you expedt a part, in recompence 
 of your fervice ? What will become of 
 your own property, in the revenue of 
 your land, which commerce and the 
 circulation of wealth chiefly contribute 
 to make fruitful ? You think yourfelves 
 
 debafed. 
 
[ 197 1 
 
 debafed. What, debafed in making your- 
 felf ufeful to your countrymen ! And 
 what are all the orders in the ftate, to 
 . whom government has committed any 
 portion of the public power, but protec- 
 tors and defenders of your countrymen 
 and their wealth ? Your poft is upon the 
 ocean, as that of the rnagiftrate upon the 
 bench, that of the foldier in the camp, 
 and that of the monarch himfelf upon 
 the throne, where he commands from a 
 higher ftation but to take a wider furvey, 
 and comprize, at one view, all thofe 
 who ftand in need of his protection and 
 defence. Know that glory is to be 
 . gleaned in every field on which a fervice 
 to your country can be performed. 
 Know., that to preferve is more glorious, 
 as well as more bleffed, than to deftroy. 
 In ancient Rome there were alfo admi- 
 K 3 rers 
 
rers of glory. Yet, there, the glory of 
 having faved a fingle citizen, was pre- 
 ferred to the glory of having flain a hod 
 of foes. What, fee you not that in fav- 
 ing the commercial fhips, you fave the 
 fortune of the ftate ? Yes, your valour 
 is fplendid ; it is known to Europe as 
 well as to your country ; but what boots 
 it to your countrymen, that it has been 
 difplayed upon occafions of eclat, that it 
 has brought the fhip of your enemy in 
 tow, or blown its ruins wide upon the 
 waves, if you have fuffered to perifh, or 
 to be taken, the fhips which bear your 
 country's riches ; if in the very port, 
 which you triumphantly re-enter, a 
 thoufand defolate families deplore their 
 fortunes loft ? On your landing, in- 
 ftead of hearing the (hours of vidtory, 
 you will be received with filence and 
 dejeftion ; and your exploits will be 
 deftined but to fwell the recital of a 
 
 court- 
 
[ 199 ] 
 court-gazette, and thofe public papers, 
 which, in amufmg idlenefs, give glory 
 but for a day, when that glory is not 
 graven upon the hearts of your fellow- 
 citizens, by the remembrance of real 
 utility to the common good. 
 
 The maxims facred at Portfmouth 
 were very different. There was felt, 
 there was refpedted, the dignity of com- 
 merce. There, it was both a duty and 
 an honour to defend it ; and events 
 have decided on which fide the naval 
 officers had the jufteft ideas of their 
 function. 
 
 Great Britain had juft experienced a 
 very humiliating reverfe in the new 
 world, and a more powerful enemy 
 threatened her with greater difafters in 
 the old. This alarming fuuation filled 
 all minds with doubtEulnefs and diftruft. 
 K 4 The 
 
[ 200 ] 
 
 The national riches arrive. Thofe of 
 the rival power add to the enormous 
 mafs ; and inftantly public credit is re- 
 animated ; hope fprings up again, and 
 this people, who were contemptuoufly 
 thought to be brought down, refume, 
 and fuftain, their ufual prowefs and their 
 ufual pride. 
 
 The ports of France, on the contrary, 
 are filled with groans. A fhameful and 
 ruinous inaftion fucceeded to an adivity 
 which contributed to their fame and 
 riches. The indignation of the mer- 
 chants communicated itfelf to all the 
 nation. The firft moments of fuccefs 
 are moments of intoxication, in which 
 faults feem to be juftified as well as hid. 
 But misfortune gives more fe verity to 
 judgment. The nation then obferves 
 more nearly thofe who govern, and 
 
 loudly 
 
[ 201 ] 
 
 .loudly calls for an account of the em- 
 ployment of the power and authority 
 which have been committed to them. 
 The councils of Lewis the Sixteenth are 
 reproached, for having wounded the 
 majefty of the fir ft power on the globe,, 
 in difavowing, to the face of the uni~ 
 verfe, the fuccours which were fent 
 continually to the Americans in a clan- 
 deftine manner. They are reproached, 
 for having, by a rninifteria] intrigue, or, 
 by the afcendancy of fome obfeure 
 agents, engaged the nation in a difaf- 
 trous war, whilft they fhould have been 
 occupied in putting the fprings of go- 
 vernment again in order, in healing the 
 tedious wounds of a reign,, of which the 
 latter half was divided between depre- 
 dation and (hame, between the bafenefs 
 of vice and the convulfions of defpotifm. 
 They are reproached, for having pro- 
 K 5 yoked 
 
[ 202 ] 
 
 voiced the conteft by infidious politics, 
 for having defcended to wrap themfelves 
 round with guile, in difcourfes unwor- 
 thy of France ; for having employed 
 with England the language of a timid 
 audacity, which feems to difown and 
 contradift, the projects which are form- 
 ed, and the fentiments which are up- 
 permoft, in the heart ; a language which 
 can only debafe him from whom it pro- 
 ceeds, without deceiving him to whom 
 it is addrefied ; and, whilft it brings 
 difhonour, can make that diflionour of 
 no ufe either to the minifter or to the 
 ftate. How much nobler had it been to 
 fay, with all the franknefs of dignity ; 
 " Englifhmen, you have abufed your vic- 
 " tories. Now is the moment for you to 
 " fhew juftice ; or it fhall be that of ven- 
 " geance. Europe is weary of fuffering ty- 
 " rants. She re-enters at length upon her 
 " rights. Henceforward, equality or war. 
 
 " Chufe." 
 
[ 203 ] 
 
 " Chufe." It is thus that they would 
 have been talked to by that Richelieu, 
 whom every citizen, it is true, fhould 
 hate, becaufe he was an inhuman butch- 
 er, and, that he might reign defpotic, 
 murdered his enemies with the hang- 
 man's axe ; but whom, as a minifter, 
 the nation is bound to honour, as it 
 was he who firft (hewed France her dig- 
 nity, and gave her, amongft the ftates 
 of Europe, the air which became her 
 power. It is thus that they would have 
 been talked to by that Lewis, who, for 
 forty years together, knew how to be 
 worthy of the age to which he gave a 
 name, who mixed greatnefs with his 
 very faults, who never r even in adverfi- 
 ty and abafement, degraded his people 
 or himfelf. Ah, for governing a great 
 nation, a great character is requifite. 
 There is no fitnefs for it in thofe minds 
 
 which 
 
[ 204 ] 
 
 which are indifferent and cold from 
 levity, to which abfolute authority is 
 but as it were a kind of laft amufement, 
 which carelefsly leave great interefts 
 floating at the caprice of chance, and 
 are more occupied in prefervrng than 
 employing power. Why, it is afked 
 again, why did men, who hold in their 
 hands all the authority of the ftate, and 
 have but to command in order to be 
 obeyed, why did they fuffer themfelves 
 to be prevented, in all feas, by an ene- 
 my whofe conftitution muft of neceflity 
 caufe flownefs in putting their meafures 
 in execution ? Why did they, by an 
 inconfiderate treaty, tie themfelves down 
 to conditions with the congrefs, which 
 they might themfelves have held in de- 
 pendence, by ample and regular fup- 
 plies? Why, in fhort, did they not 
 ftrengthen and confirm the revolution, 
 
 by 
 
[ 205 ] 
 
 by keeping always, on the northern 
 coafls of the new world, a fquadron 
 which might proteft the colonies, and 
 at the fame time, make our alliance to 
 be refpefted ? But Europe, who has 
 her eyes fixed upon us, fees a great de- 
 fign, and no concerted meafures ; fees, 
 in our arfenals and our ports, immenfe 
 preparations, and no execution j fees me- 
 nacing fleets fitted out, and the pom- 
 pous expence of them rendered almoft 
 ufelefs ; fees fpirit and valour in fubal- 
 terns, irrefolution and timidity in chiefs; 
 fees whatever proclaims, on one hand, 
 the ftrength and the awe commanding 
 power of a great people, and, on the 
 other, the flacknefs and weaknefs infe- 
 parable from its character and views. 
 It is by this ftriking contradiction be- 
 tween our projeds and their execution, 
 between our means and their dire&ion, 
 
 that 
 
[ 206 ] 
 
 that the genius of England ftunned for 
 a moment, has refummed his vigour; 
 and it is even now a problem for Europe 
 to refolve, if, in declaring for America, 
 we have not ourfelves revived and ad- 
 vanced the Englifh power. 
 
 Such are the complaints with which all 
 parts of the kingdom ring, and which 
 we are not afraid to colled together here, 
 and lay before the eyes of authority, if 
 it deigns to read or hear them. 
 
 In fhort, philofophy, whofe firft fenti- 
 ' ment is the defire to fee all governments 
 juft and all people happy, in catling her 
 eyes upon this alliance of a monarchy 
 with a people who are defending their 
 liberty, is curious to know its motive. 
 She fees at once, too clearly, that the 
 happinefs of mankind has no part in it. 
 
 She 
 
L 207 ] 
 
 She thinks that if the Court of Verfailles 
 had been determined by the love of 
 juftice, it would have fettled in the firft 
 article of its agreement with Ameri- 
 ca, that all oppreffed people have the 
 right of refifling their oppreffors. But 
 this maxim, which forms one of the 
 laws of England ; which a king of Hun- 
 gary was great enough, when he was 
 afcending the throne, to make one of 
 the conftitutions of the flate ; which 
 was adopted by one of the greateft 
 princes who reigned over the world, 
 Trajan, when he faid, before an aflembly 
 of the Roman people, to the firft officer 
 of the empire, in prefenting him with a 
 drawn fword, according to cuftom upon 
 inverting him with his charge, Ufe it for 
 me, if 1 continue jufi ; againft me^ if / 
 become tyrannical. This maxim is too 
 foreign for our feeble and corrupted go- 
 * vernments, 
 
[ 208 ] 
 
 Vernments, in which the differing pa- 
 tiently is fo much become a duty, that 
 the (offerer ought to deprecate a fenfa- 
 tion of his mifery, left it be punifhed as 
 a crime. 
 
 But the moft bitter complaints are 
 direfted above all to Spain. She is 
 blamed for her blindnefs, her wavering, 
 her tardinefs, and fometimes even for her 
 infidelity : all which accufations are ill- 
 founded. 
 
 Some politicians imagined, in feeing 
 France enagage herfelf without neceflity 
 in a naval war, that this crown fuppofed 
 itfelf powerful enough to divide the 
 Britifh domain, without fharing with an 
 ally the honour of this important revo- 
 lution. We (hall not examine whether 
 the fpirit which then reigned in the ca- 
 binet 
 
binet of Verfailles authorifed this con- 
 jedture. It is now known that this 
 crown, which from the very beginning 
 of the troubles had fent fecret fuccour 
 to the Americans, was watching for the 
 propitious moment of declaring openly 
 in their favour. The event of Saratoga 
 appeared to it the moft favourable con- 
 juncture for propofing to the Catholic 
 king to make the caufe a common one. 
 Whether it were that this prince might 
 then judge the liberty of the United 
 States to be contrary to his intereft ; 
 whether the refolution might appear to 
 him to be precipitate ; or whether, in fhort, 
 other political objefts might require all 
 his attention, he did not agree to the 
 propofal. From his character it was fup- 
 pofed that repeated felicitation would be 
 ufelefs. After the fir ft experiment, he 
 was fo little applied to about this great 
 
 affair, 
 
[ aio ] 
 
 affair, that it was without his beng ap- 
 prifed of it that the Court of Verfailles 
 caufed it to be fignified at St. James's 
 that it had acknowledged the indepen- 
 dence of the confederate provinces. 
 
 In the mean time the land and fea 
 forces which Spain employed againft the 
 Portuguefe in the Brazils were returned 
 home. The rich fleet which ihe ex- 
 pedled from Mexico was arrived in her 
 ports. The treafures which came to her 
 from Peru and from her other pofleffions 
 were fecure. She was free from all in- 
 quietude, and miftrefs of her motions, 
 when (he afpired to the glory of being a 
 pacificator between the two hemifpheres. 
 Her mediation was accepted, as well by 
 France, whofe bold attempts had not 
 been attended with the happy confe- 
 quences which (he had promifed herfelf 
 
 from 
 
from them, as by England, who might 
 fear the having an additional adverfary 
 to contend with. 
 
 [Spain^ not having fucceeded in reconciling 
 England and France, declares for the 
 latter power.] 
 
 Charles the Third fuftained with dig- 
 nity the great part he had to aft. He 
 awarded that, laying down their arms, 
 each of the belligerant powers ifhould 
 be maintained in the territories which it 
 fhould occupy at the time of the con- 
 vention ; that a congrefs fhould be form- 
 ed, in which the different pretenfions 
 fhould be difcufled ; and that no frefli 
 hoflilities fliould commence till after 
 the expiration of a twelve-month's no- 
 tice. 
 
 This monarch was aware that this 
 
 arrange- 
 
[ 212 ] 
 
 arrangement gave to Great Britain a 
 facility of being reconciled with her 
 colonies, or at leaft of making them 
 purchafe, by great advantages to her 
 commerce, the ports which (he occupied 
 in the midil of them. He was aware 
 that it mud wound the dignity of the 
 king his nephew, who had engaged to 
 maintain the United States in the totality 
 of their territory. But he would be 
 juft ; and without forgetting all perfonal 
 confiderations one cannot be fo. 
 
 This plan of conciliation was difpleaf- 
 ing to Verfailles, whofc only confolation 
 was miniftered by the hope that it would 
 be rejedled at London. This hope was 
 not deceived. England could not re- 
 folve upon acknowledging the Americans 
 to be really independant ; though they 
 were not to be called to the conferences 
 
 which 
 
which were to have taken place ; though 
 France could not negotiate for them^ 
 though their interefts were to have been 
 taken care of folely by a mediator who 
 was not bound to them by any treaty, and 
 who, perhaps, at the bottom of his 
 heart, was not defirous of their profpe- 
 rity ; though her refufal threatened her 
 with an enemy the more. 
 
 It is in fuch a circumftance as this ; it 
 is in the time when noble pride elevates 
 the foul fuperior to all terror ; when no- 
 thing is feen more dreadful than the 
 fhame of receiving the law, and when 
 there is no doubt or hefitation which to 
 chufe between ruin and difhonour ; it is 
 then, that the greatnefs of a nation is 
 difplayed. I acknowledge however that 
 men, accuftomed to judge of things by 
 the event, call great and perilous refolu- 
 
 tions, 
 
tions, heroifm or madnefs, according to 
 the good or bad fuccefs with which they 
 have been attended. If then I ihould be 
 afked, what is the name which fhall in 
 years to come be given to the firmnefs, 
 which was in this moment exhibited by 
 the Englifh, I fhould anfwer that I do 
 not know. But that which it deferves, 
 I know. I know that the annals of the 
 world hold out to us but rarely, the au- 
 guft and majeftic fpedacle of a nation, 
 which chufes rather to renounce its du- 
 ration than its glory. 
 
 The Britifh miaiftry had no fooner 
 given their determination, than the court 
 of Madrid efpoufed the quarrel of that 
 of Verfailles, and confequently that of 
 the Americans. Spain had then fixty- 
 three (hips of the line and fix on the 
 flocks. France had eighty of the line, 
 
 and 
 
[ 215 ] 
 
 and eight upon the flocks. The United 
 States had but twelve frigates ; but a 
 great number of privateers. 
 
 To all this united force England had 
 to oppofe but ninety-five (hips of the 
 line, with twenty-three upon the flocks. 
 The fixteen which were to be feen in 
 her ports, over and above, were unfit 
 for fervice, and had been converted in- 
 to prifons or hofpitals. Inferior in in- 
 flruments of war, (he was ftill more fo 
 in means of all forts for their employ- 
 ment. Her domeflic diffentions ftill 
 weakened the refources which remained. 
 It is the nature of governments truly 
 free to be agitated during peace. It is 
 by this inteftine motion that the fpirits 
 preflrve their energy and the continual 
 remembrance of the nation's rights. 
 But in war, all ferments ought to ceafe, 
 
 all 
 
ai6 ] 
 
 all hatreds to be extinguifhed, all inter- 
 efts to coalefce and be mutually fubfer- 
 vient to the public good. It happened 
 quite otherwife, at this time, in the Bri- 
 tifh ifles. Never were there more vio- 
 lent diflenfions. Never did contrary pre- 
 tenfions fhew themfelves in any circum- 
 ftance with lefs referve. The public 
 good was by either faction audacioufly 
 trodden under foot. Thofe houfes of 
 parliament, in which the moft important 
 queftions had formerly been diicuifed 
 with eloquence, with dignity, and with 
 power, now rung but with the clamours 
 of rage, but with the grofleft infults, 
 but with altercations as hurtful as they 
 were indecent. The few true friends of 
 the nation who were remaining called 
 loudly for another Pitt, for the minifter 
 who like him fhould have neither relations 
 nor friends -, but this extraordinary man 
 
 did 
 
[ 217 ] 
 
 did not appear. And indeed it was 
 pretty generally imagined that this peo- 
 ple would now give way, notwithftand- 
 ing the high-fpiritednefs of its character, 
 notwithstanding the experience of its ad- 
 mirals, notwithstanding the bravery of its 
 feamen, notwithflanding that energy 
 which a free nation muft acquire from 
 vibrating withconcuffion. 
 
 But the empire of chance is a very 
 wide one. Who knows in favour of 
 which fide the elements (hall declare ? 
 By a guft of wind, is a victory given or 
 fnatched away. The difcharge of a gun 
 difconcerts a fleet by its admiral's death. 
 Signals are not feen or heard ^ are not 
 obeyed. Experience, valour, (kill, are 
 thwarted by ignorance, byjealoufy, by 
 treachery, by an affurance of impunity. 
 A fog covers contending navies, and fe- 
 L parates 
 
[ 218 ] 
 
 parates or con founds them. A tempefl or 
 a calm equally preferves, or equally de- 
 ftroys. Forces are divided by the unequal 
 celerity of (hips. The propitious moment 
 is miffed, by a pufillanimity which ling- 
 ers, or by rafhnefs which rufhes on. 
 Plans (hall have been formed with wif- 
 dom ; but their fuccefs fhall fail for want 
 of concert in the movements of execu- 
 tion. By an inconfiderate order of the 
 court, what might have proved a proud 
 day, is decided to diflionour. Projeds 
 are changed by a minifler's difgrace or 
 death. Is it poffible that a drift union 
 fhould long fubfift amongft confederates 
 of chara&ers fo oppofite,as the hafty, light, 
 difdainful Frenchman, the jealous, haugh- 
 ty, fly, flow, circumfpe&ive Spaniard, 
 and the American, who is fecretly (hatch- 
 ing looks at the mother-country, and 
 
 would 
 
[ 219 ] 
 
 "- Hllii**" .'.:;,'-.'.:.- i,- ; :,./ 
 
 would rejoice, were they compatible 
 with his independence, at the difafters of 
 his allies ? Will thefe nations long de- 
 lay, whether they aft feparately or con- 
 jointly, mutually to accufe, complain, 
 and be embroiled ? Ought not their 
 greateft hope to be that multiplied ill- 
 fucceffes may do no more than replunge 
 them into that humiliating ftate from 
 which they endeavoured to emerge, 
 and firmly fix the trident in the hand of 
 England ; whilft a confiderable defeat 
 or two would bring down this ambiti- 
 ous people from ever ranking again 
 amongft the principal powers of the 
 European world ? 
 
 Who (hall decide then, who can 
 
 forefee, the event ? France and Spain 
 
 united have powerful means to employ ; 
 
 England, the art of employing hers. 
 
 L 2 France 
 
[ 220 ] 
 
 Francdf and Spain have their treafures ; 
 England, a great national credit. On 
 one fide, the multitude of men ; on the 
 other, the fuperiority in the art of 
 working fhips, and, as it were, of fub- 
 jefting the fea in fighting. Here, im- 
 petuofity and valour ; there, valour and 
 experience. In one party, the activity 
 which abfolute monarchy gives to de- 
 figns ; in the other, the vigour and 
 elafticity which liberty fupplies. There, 
 loffes and grudges to revenge ; here, 
 their late glory, with the fovereignty of 
 America, and of the ocean, to recover 
 and preferve. The allied nations have 
 the advantage with which the unibn of 
 two vaft powers muft be attended, but 
 the inconvenience likewife which muft 
 refult from this very union, by the dif- 
 ficulty of harmony and concord both in 
 their defigns, and in the execution of 
 
 them 
 
t 221 ] 
 
 them by their refpe&ive forces ; Eng- 
 land is abandoned to herfelf, but having 
 only her own forces to direft, (he has 
 the advantage of unity in defigns, and of 
 a more fure and perhaps more ready dif- 
 pofition in ideas : fhe can more eafily 
 range her plans of defence and offence 
 under a fmgle view. 
 
 In order to weigh the matter with ex- 
 adnefs, we fhould yet put into the fcales 
 the different energy which may be com- 
 municated to the rival nations by a war, 
 which is in a great many refpe&s but a 
 a war of kings and minifters, on one 
 fide ; but on the other, a truly national 
 war, in which the greateft interefts of 
 England are concerned ; that of a com- 
 merce which produces her riches, that of 
 an empire and a glory on which her 
 greatnefs refts. 
 
 L 3 In 
 
[ 222 ] 
 
 In (hort, if we confider the fpirit of 
 the French nation, oppofite to that of the 
 nation with which it is at variance, we 
 jfhall fee that the ardour of the French- 
 man is as quickly extinguifhed as it is 
 inflamed ; that he hopes every thing 
 when he begins, that he defpairs of eve- 
 ry thing as foon as an obftacle (hall re- 
 tard him ; that, from his character, his 
 arm muft be nerved by the enthufiafm 
 of fuccefs, in order to reap more fuc- 
 cefs : that the Englifhman, on the contrary 
 lefs prefumptuous, notwithftanding his 
 natural boldnefs, at the beginning, 
 knows how, when occafion calls for it, 
 to ftruggle courageoufly, to raife him- 
 felf in proportion as the danger rifes, 
 and to gather advantages even from dif- 
 grace : like the robufl oak to which 
 Horace compares the Romans, which, 
 mutilated by the axe, fprings afrcfh un- 
 der 
 
der the ftrokes which are given it, and 
 draws vigour and fpirit from its very 
 loffes and its very wounds. 
 
 Hiftory fhews us likewife that few 
 leagues have divided the fpoil of the na- 
 tion againft which they have been form- 
 ed. Athens victorious over Perfia * Rome 
 faved from Hannibal ; in modern times, 
 Venice efcaped from the famous league 
 of Cambray ; and, even in our own days, 
 Pruffia rendered by the genius of one 
 man capable to cope with Europe, jfhould 
 fufpend our judgment upon the iffue of 
 the prefent war. 
 
 But let us fuppofe that the houfe of 
 Bourbon have the advantages with which 
 it may have been flattered. What ought 
 to be its conduft ? 
 
 L 4 \fTbat 
 
[ 224 ] 
 
 [What ought to be the politics of the boufe 
 of Bourbon if victorious."] 
 
 France is in all points of view the em- 
 pire the mofl ftrongly conftituted, of 
 which any remembrance has been pre- 
 ferved in the annals of the world. With- 
 out being able to bear any comparifon 
 with her, Spain is likewife a very power- 
 ful Hate, and her means of profperity 
 are continually increafing. The moft 
 important concern then of the houfe of 
 Bourbon ought to be, to obtain pardon 
 of its neighbours for the advantages 
 which it has from nature, which it owes 
 to art, or which have been beftowed on 
 it by events. Should it endeavour to 
 augment its fuperiority, the alarm would 
 become general, and it would be thought 
 that an univerfal flavery was threatened. 
 It is perhaps to be wondered at, that the 
 
 other 
 
C 
 
 other nations of Europe have not yet 
 thwarted it in its projedts againft Eng- 
 land. The refentment which the injuf- 
 tice and the haughtinefs of this proud 
 ifland have every where infpired, muft 
 be the caufe of this inacflion. But hatred 
 is filent when intereft appears. It is 
 poflible that Europe may think the weak- 
 ening of Great Britain in the old and the 
 pew hemifphere contrary to its fafety ; 
 and that, after having enjoyed the humi- 
 liations and dangers of this lofty and ty- 
 rannic power, ftie may at length take 
 arms in its defence. Should it be fo, 
 the Courts of Verfailles and Madrid 
 would fee themfelves fallen from the 
 hope which they have conceived of a 
 decifive preponderance upon the globe. 
 Thefe confiderations fhould determine 
 them to haften their attacks, and not 
 give time, for the forming of new difpo- 
 L 5 fitions, 
 
[ 226 ] 
 
 fitions, to a prophetic or even a jealous 
 policy. Above all, let them flop in time, 
 and not fuffer an immoderate defire of 
 humbling their common enemy to make 
 them blind to their own interefts. 
 
 The United States have ftiewn openly 
 the projedt of drawing all North Ame- 
 rica to their league. Many meafures, 
 that in particular of inviting the people 
 of Canada to rebellion, have given caufe 
 to believe that this was likewife the wifh 
 of France, Spain may be fufpefted to 
 have equally adopted this idea. 
 
 The conduft of the provinces which 
 have fhaken off the yoke of Great Bri- 
 tain is fimple, and fuch as was to be ex- 
 pedled. But would not their allies be 
 wanting in forefight, if they fhould have 
 really the fame fyftem ? 
 
 The 
 
[ 227 1 
 
 The new hemifphere muft be detach- 
 ed one day from the old. This grand 
 failure is prepared in Europe, by the 
 collifion and fermentation of our opini- 
 ons ; by our being deprived of our rights, 
 which conftituted our courage ; by the 
 luxury of our courts and the mifery of 
 our countries; by the hatred, the end- 
 lefs hatred, between men without heart, 
 honour, or vigour, who poflefs all elfe, 
 and robufl men, and even virtuous men, 
 who have nothing but life to loofe. It 
 is prepared in America, by the increafe 
 of population, of cultivation, of induflry, 
 and of knowledge. Every thing for- 
 wards this rupture, as well the progrefs 
 of evil in the old world, as in the new 
 the progrefs of good* 
 
 But would it be right for Spain and 
 France, whofe pofleffions in the new 
 world are an inexhauflible fource of 
 riches, would it be right for them to 
 
 precipi- 
 
precipitate this rupture ? Now this rup- 
 ture is the thing that would precifely 
 happen, were all the north of thofe 
 regions fubjeAed to the fame laws, or 
 bound together by a common intereft. 
 
 No fooner would the liberty of this vaft 
 continent be eftablifhed, than it would 
 become the afylum of all the offscour- 
 ing amongft us, of men of intriguing, fe- 
 ditious fpirits, blafted characters, or ruin- 
 ed fortunes. Culture, arts, commerce, 
 would have no charms for fuch refugees 
 as thefe. They muft have a lefs labori- 
 ous and more agitated life. This turn 
 of mind, equally diftant from labour or 
 repofe, would direft itfelf towards con- 
 quefts ; and a paffion which has fo many 
 attractions would eafily captivate the firfl 
 colonifts, diverted by a long war from 
 their accuftomed occupations. The new 
 people would have completed their pre- 
 parations 
 
t 229 ] 
 
 parations for invafion before the report 
 of it had reached our climates. They 
 would chufe their enemy, the field and 
 the moment of their victories. Their 
 thunder would fall always upon feas 
 without defence, or on coafts taken at 
 unawares. In a little while the Southern 
 provinces would become their prey, and 
 fupply by the riches of their produdions 
 the mediocrity of thofe of the Northern. 
 Perhaps the pofleflions of our abfolute 
 monarchies might even be candidates for 
 the honour of being admitted to a con- 
 federacy with a free people, or would de- 
 tach themfelves from Europe in order to 
 belong but to themfelves. 
 
 The part which the Courts of Madrid 
 and Verfailles fhould take, if they are 
 free to chufe, is to let two powers fubfift 
 in North America, who may watch, re- 
 ftrain, and counterpoife each other. 
 
 Then 
 
Then will ages roll away, before Eng- 
 land and the republics formed at her ex- 
 pence can come together. This recipro- 
 cal diflruft will prohibit them from any 
 diftant enterprise ; and the eftablifh- 
 ments, belonging to other nations, in 
 the new world, will enjoy without diftur- 
 bance that tranquillity, which, even 
 down to our own times, has been fo of- 
 ten troubled. 
 
 In all probability, indeed, it is the very 
 order of things which would be mofl fuit- 
 able even for the confederate provinces 
 themfelves. Their refpedive limits are 
 not regulated. A great jealoufy fubfifts 
 between the countries to the northward 
 and thofe to the fouthward. Political 
 principles vary from one river to ano- 
 ther. Great animofities are obferved 
 between the inhabitants of the fame 
 town, between the members of the fame 
 
 family. 
 
family. Each would throw off from 
 himfelf the heavy burden of public ex- 
 pences and debts. A thoufand princi- 
 ples of divifion are generally fpringing 
 in the bofom of the United States. When 
 dangers are once at an end, how is the 
 explofion of fo many difcontents to be 
 retarded ? how are fo many unfettled 
 minds, and angered hearts, to be held 
 attached to a common centre ? Let the 
 true friends of America refledt upon it, 
 and they will find that the only means 
 to prevent difturbances, amongft that 
 people, is to leave remaining on their 
 frontiers a powerful rival, always dif- 
 pofed to profit by their difTenfions. 
 
 Monarchies thrive beft with peace and 
 fecurity; inquietudes, and formidable 
 enemies, make republics flourifh. Rome 
 had need of Carthage $ and he who de- 
 
 ftroyed 
 
ftroyed the Roman liberty was neither 
 Sylla nor Caefar ; it was the firfl Cato, 
 when his narrow and auftere politics 
 took her rival away from Rome, by 
 lighting in the fenate, thofe torches 
 which burnt Carthage to the ground. 
 Even Venice, perhaps, would not have 
 had her government, and her laws, thefe 
 four hundred years, had (he not had at 
 her door powerful neighbours, who might 
 become her enemies or her matters. 
 
 \What ideajhould be formed of the thir- 
 teen united provinces.] 
 
 But, fuppofing them thus fituated, to 
 what degree of happinefs, fplendour, and 
 power, may the united provinces in time 
 be raifed ? 
 
 Here, in order to form a found judg- 
 ment, let us immediately begin with 
 laying afide the interefl which all hearts, 
 
 not 
 
not excepting thofe of Haves, have taken 
 in the generous efforts of a people who 
 expofed themfelves to the moft dreadful 
 calamities to be free. The name of li- 
 berty is fo fweet, that all they who fight 
 for it are fure to intereft our fecret 
 wifhes. Theiy caufe is that of the whole 
 human race ; it becomes our own. We 
 revenge ourfelves of our own oppreffors, 
 by giving vent, at leaft, with liberty, 
 to our hatred againft thofe oppreffors 
 who cannot punifh it. At the found of 
 breaking chains, it feems as if our own 
 were about to become lighter; and we 
 think for fome moments that we breathe 
 a purer air, in learning that fewer ty- 
 rants are to be counted in the world. 
 Thefe great revolutions of liberty, more* 
 over, admonifh defpots. They warn 
 them not to truft to too long patience in 
 the people, not to truft to impunity 
 without end. Thus, when the laws of 
 
 fociety 
 
fociety execute vengeance upon the 
 crimes of private individuals, the good 
 man hopes that the punifhment of the 
 guilty will, by its terrible example, pre- 
 vent the commiffion of the crimes. 
 Terror fometimes fupplies the place of 
 juftice to the thief, and confcience to 
 the aflaffin. Such is the fource of the 
 warm interefl we feel in all the wars 
 of liberty. Such is that with which we 
 have been infpired for the Americans. 
 Our imaginations have been inflamed in 
 their favour. We feem to be prefent at 
 and to feel as they do, all their victories 
 and their defeats. The fpirit of juflice, 
 which is pleafed in compenfating paft 
 mifery by happinefs to come, is pleafed 
 in thinking that this part of the new 
 world cannot fail of becoming one of the 
 mod flourifliing countries upon the globe. 
 Nay, it has been even fuppofed that 
 there is caufe to fear left Europe fhould 
 
 one 
 
one day find her Matters in her children. 
 Let us dare to flem the torrent of pub- 
 lic opinion, and that of public enthufiafm. 
 Let us not be led aftray by imagination, 
 that embellifher of all things, nor by 
 paffion, which loves to create illufions, 
 and realizes all its hopes. Our duty is 
 to combat every prejudice, fhould it be 
 even that which is moft conformable to 
 the wifhes of our heart. - To be true, 
 above all things, is our chief concern, 
 and not to betray the pure and upright 
 confcience which prefides over our writ- 
 ings, and dictates every judgment that 
 we pafs. At this moment, perhaps we 
 (hall not be believed : but a bold con- 
 jedture, which is verified at the end of 
 many ages, does more honour to the 
 hiflorian, than the recital of a long feries 
 of fads which cannot be contested ; and 
 I write not only for my contemporaries, 
 who will but fome years furvive me. 
 
 Yet 
 
[ 236 ] 
 
 Yet a few revolutions of the fun, and 
 they and I fhall be no more. But I de- 
 liver over my ideas to pofterity and to 
 time. It is for them to judge me. 
 
 The fpace occupied by the thirteen re- 
 publics, between the mountains and the 
 ocean, is but of fixty-feven fea- leagues; 
 but upon the coaft their extent is, in a 
 ftrait line, three hundred and forty five. 
 
 In this region the lands are, almoft 
 throughout, bad, or of a middling qua- 
 lity. Scarcely any thing but maize grows 
 in the four moft northern colonies. The 
 only refource of their inhabitants is fifh- 
 ery, of which the annual produdt, in 
 money, does not amount to above two 
 hundred and fixty or feventy thoufand 
 pounds. 
 
 Corn fuftains principally the provinces 
 of New York, Jerfey, and Pennfylvania. 
 But the foil there is fo rapidly become 
 
 worfe 
 
., [ 237 I 
 
 worfe than it was, that an acre, which 
 formerly yielded full fixty bufhels of 
 wheat, now produces but very rarely 
 above twenty. 
 
 Though the foil of Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia is much fuperior to all the reft, it / 
 cannot be faid to be very fruitful. The 
 old plantations do not yield above a third 
 of the tobacco which they formerly pro- 
 duced. It is not poffible to form new / 
 ones ; and the cultivators have been 
 obliged to turn their views towards other 
 objeds. 
 
 North Carolina produces fome corn, 
 but of a quality fo inferior, that it is fold 
 for five and twenty, or thirty per cent. 
 lefs than the other, in all the markets. 
 
 South Carolina and Georgia have a 
 perfectly flat face of country, for the 
 diftance of fifty miles from the fea-fide. 
 The exceffive rains which fall there, 
 
 finding 
 
finding no means of difcharge, form nu- 
 merous marfhes or lakes, in which rice 
 is cultivated, to the great detriment of 
 the flaves and the freemen occupied in 
 this labour. On the intermediate fpaces 
 left by thefe multitudinous little feas, 
 grows an inferior kind of indigo, which 
 muft have its place changed every year. 
 Where the country rifes from the level, 
 it is but with ungrateful fands or fright- 
 
 fiil.rodfl5tJuol&^ 
 
 diftance, with paftures of the nature of 
 
 rufh. 
 
 The Engiifh government, feeing that 
 North America could never enrich them 
 by the productions proper to that coun- 
 try, thought of the powerful motive of 
 premiums, for the creating in this^part 
 of the new world, of linen, wine, and 
 filk. Thsjjore^ 
 
 would not bear flax, *obftruded the firft 
 
 of 
 
[ 239 ] 
 
 of thefe views ; the badnefs of jhej:U- 
 mate, which would not agree with vines, 
 oppofed the fuccefs of the fecond ; and 
 the want of hands permitted not the 
 third to take place. The fociety efta- 
 blifhed at London, for the encourage- 
 ment of arts, manufactures and com- 
 merce, was not more happy than the 
 miniftry had been. Its premiums 'did 
 not give birth to any one of the cbjefts 
 which it had propofed to'the activity and 
 induftry of thofe countries. 
 
 Great Britain was obliged to content 
 herfelf with felling every year to thefe 
 countries, merchandize to the amount of 
 fomething more than two millions. The 
 confumers of this merchandize delivered 
 up to her, exclufively, their indigo, their 
 iron, their tobacco, and their furs. They 
 delivered up to her whatever money, 
 and raw materials, the reft of the globe 
 
 had 
 
[ 240 ] 
 
 had given them for their wood, their 
 corn, their fi(h, their rice, and their falt- 
 ed provifions. Yet the balance was al- 
 ways fo much againft them, that, when 
 the troubles began, the colonies owed 
 from five to fix millions to the mother- 
 country, and had no cafh in circulation. 
 
 Notwithftanding thefe difadvantages, 
 there had been fucceflively formed^ 
 within the thirteen provinces, a popula- 
 / tion of two millions nine hundred eighty- 
 one thoufand fix hundred and feventy- 
 eight perfons, including four hundred 
 thoufand negroes. Oppreflion and into- 
 lerance were continually driving thither 
 new inhabitants. The war has now 
 barred this refuge to the unhappy ; but 
 the peace will open it to them again ; 
 when they will flock thither in greater 
 C numbers than ever. They who fhall go 
 I with projeds of cultivation will not have 
 * all 
 
[ 241 ] 
 
 all the fatisfaftion which they may pro- 
 mife themfelves, becaufe they will find 
 the good land, and even the middling, 
 all occupied ; and there will be nothing 
 to be offered them but barren fands, un- 
 healthy marfties, or fteep mountains. 
 Ernigratbr^will Jbe ;_ more f a ^vojarablejto^ 
 manufactures and artifts, tho' even they 
 may, perhaps, gain nothing by their 
 change of country and climate. 
 
 We cannot determine, without rafli- ) 
 nefs, what may one day be the popula- I 
 tion of the United States. Such a cal- 
 culation, generally pretty difficult, be- 
 comes impracticable for a region where 
 the land^degenerates very rapidly, and 
 where the expence of labour and im- 
 provement is not proportionably anfwer- 
 ed by the reproduction. If ten millions I 
 of men ever find a certain fubfiftence in ; 
 thefe provinces, it will be much. Even ^ 
 M then ' 
 
[ 242 ] 
 
 then the exportation will be reduced to 
 nothing, or next to nothing: but inte- 
 rior induftry will replace foreign induflry. 
 The country, within a little, will be able 
 to fuffice for itfelf, provided that the in- 
 habitants know how to make themfelves 
 I happy by oeconomy and with medio^ 
 [crity. ;&, 
 
 Ye people of North America, let the 
 example of all the nations who have gone 
 before you, and above all that of your 
 mother-country, ferve you for inftrufti- 
 on - Fear the a^ijgnce^fjgold^ which 
 
 brings with luxury the corruption of 
 manners, the contempt of laws. Fear a 
 too unequal diflribution of riches, which 
 exhibits a fmall number of citizens in 
 opulence, and a great multitude of citi- 
 zens in extreme poverty ; whence fprings 
 the infolence of the former, and the de- 
 bafement of the latter. Secure your- 
 
 felves 
 
L 243 ] 
 
 felves againft the fpirit of conqueft. The 
 tranquillity of an empire diminifhes in 
 proportion to its extenfion. Have arms 
 for your defence^ have none for offence. 
 Seek competency and health in labour ^yj 
 profperity in the culture of lands, and 
 thej^ojM^^ ; power in f 
 
 manners and virtue. Caufe^ju^ 
 
 &J2g20^ 
 
 from the favage man, to flourifli and ; 
 
 abound Above all, watch carefully over 
 the education of your children. It is 
 from public fchools, be affured, that 
 come the wife magiftrates, the capable 
 and courageous foldiers, the good fa- 
 thers, the good hufbands, the good bro- 
 thers, the good friends, the good men. 
 Wherever the youth are feen depraved, 
 the nation is on the decline. Let liberty 
 have an immoveable foundation in the 
 wifdom of your laws, and let it be the 
 indefinable cement to bind your pro- 
 vinces 
 
[ 244 ] 
 
 vinces together. Eftablifh no legal pre- 
 ference amongft the different forms of 
 worfhip. Superftition is innocent, where- 
 ever it is neither perfecuted nor protedt- 
 ed; and may your duration, if it be pof- 
 fible, equal the duration of the world ! 
 
 FINIS, 
 


GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 BOOOBbSbaO 
 
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