ENGLAND was just disengaged from a long and bloody war, in which her fleets had displayed the banner of victory in all seas; in which a dominion, already too vast, was augmented by an immense accession of territory in both the Indies. This splendid face of things might have an imposing air abroad; but the na­tion was reduced within to groan for its acquisitions and its triumphs. Overwhelmed with a debt of £. 148,000,000 which cost her an interest of £. 4,959,000, she was scarce­ly sufficient to the most necessary expences with the five millions eight hundred thousand pounds which remained to her of her revenue; and this revenue, so far from be­ing capable of increase, had no certain and assured con­sistency.

Land remained loaded with a higher tax than it ever had been in time of peace. New taxes had been laid on windows and on houses. These acts laid a heavy charge on all real estate. Wine, plate, cards, dice, all that was regarded as an object of luxury, or amusement, paid more than could have been thought possible. To reimburse it­self for the sacrifice made to the preservation of the public health, in the prohibition of spiritous liquors, the treasury had recourse to malt, beer, cider, and all the usual beve­rages of the people. The sea-ports dispatched nothing to foreign countries, and received nothing from them, but what was burthened cruelly with duties, on the import and the export. Raw materials and workmanship were risen to so high a price in Great-Britain, that her mer­chants found themselves supplanted in countries where they had never before experienced a competition. The [Page 10] profits of her commerce, with all parts of the globe, a­mounted not annually to above two millions and a half; and, from this balance in her favour, there must have been deducted a million and a half, paid in interest to foreigners, on their capitals placed in her public funds.

The springs of the state were strained. All the muscles of the body politic, experiencing at once a violent ten­sion, were in some sort displaced. It was a critical mo­ment. It was necessary to let the people breathe. They could not be relieved by a dimmution of expence. That of the government was necessary, either to give value to conquests bought at the price of so much treasure, at the price of so much blood; or to restrain the house of Bour­bon, angered by the humiliations of the last war, and by the sacrifice [...] of the last peace. In default of other means, to fix [...] the security of the present, and the prosperity of [...] future, an idea was formed of calling the colonies to the aid of the mother-country. This view was wise and just.

The members of a confederacy ought all, in proportion to the extent of their powers, to contribute to its defence and to its spendor, since it is by the public power alone that each class can preserve the entire and peaceable en­joyment of its possessions. The indigent man has, with­out doubt, less interest in it than the rich; but he has the interest of his quiet in the first instance, and in the next, that of the preservation of the public wealth, which he is called upon to partake of by his industry. There is no principle of society more evident; and [...]et no fault in po­litics more common than its infraction. Whence can arise this perpetual contradiction between the knowledge and the conduct of those who govern? From the vice of the legislative power, which exaggerates the maintenance of the public power, and [...], for its fancies, a part of the [...] destined to this maintenance. The gold of the [...]der and of the husbandman, with the subsistence of the [...], to [...] from [...], in the name of the state, in [...] and their habitations, and prostituted in courts to [...] and to vice, goes to swell the pomp of a set of men, was flatter, hate, and corrupt their master; goes [Page 11] ultimately into still viler hands, to pay the scandal and the ignominy of their pleasures. It is prodigally squan­dered in a fastuous shew of grandeur, the vain decoration of those who cannot attain to real grandeur, and in festi­vities and entertainments, the resource of impotent idle­ness, in the midst of the cares and labours which the right government of an empire would demand. A portion of it, it is true, is given to the public wants; but inatten­tion, and incapacity, apply it without judgment, as with­out oeconomy. Authority deceived, and which will not condescend even to make an effort at being undeceived, suffers an unjust distribution in the taxes, and a manner of gathering them which is itself but an oppression more. Then is every patriotic sentiment extinguished. A war is established between the prince and subjects. They who raise the revenues of the state appear to be no other than the enemies of the citizen. He defends his fortune from taxation as he would defend it from invasion. Whatever cunning can purloin from power seems lawful gain; and the subjects, corrupted by the government, make reprisals on the master by whom they are pillaged. They perceive not, that in this unequal combat, they are themselves dupes and victims. The insatiable and ardent treasury, less satisfied with what if given, than irritated by what has been refused, reaches eagerly, with a hundred hands, after what one alone has dared to divert from its g [...]ipe. It joins the activity of power to, that of interest. Vex­ations are multiplied, under the specious name of chastise­ment and justice; and the monster who beggars all those whom he torments, thanks heaven devoutly for the num­ber of the criminals who have been punished by him, and of the crimes by which he is enriched. Happy the sove­reign who should not disdain, for the prevention of so many abuses, to render to his subjects a faithful account of the employment of the sums he might exact! But this sovereign has not yet appeared; and, without doubt, he never will appear. The debt, however, of the protected people, towards the protector state, is not a less necessary and sacred tie; and no nation has disowned it. The En­lish colonies in North-America had not given an example [Page 12] of it; and never had the British ministry recourse to them without obtaining the succour it solicited.

But this succour was granted in gifts, and not in taxes, since the concession of it was preceded by free and public deliberations in the assemblies of each establishment. The mother-country had found herself engaged in expensive and cruel wars. Tumultuous and enterprising parliaments had disturbed her tranquillity. She had fallen into the hands of ministers corrupt and bold; unhappily disposed to raise 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 cus­tom, stablished and strengthened by the happy experience of two ages, had ever once been dreamed of.

The colonies in the new world had been accustomed to regard this mode of furnishing their contingent, in men and money, as a right. Had this pretension been doubt­ful, or erroneous, prudence would have forbidden its be­ing too openly attacked. The art of maintaining autho­rity is a delicate art, which requires more circumspection than is generally thought. They who govern, are, per­haps, too much accustomed to hold men in contempt. They regard them too much as slaves, subdued and bent down by nature, whilst they are only so from habit. If you lay on them a new load, take care lest they shake it off with fury and with interest. Forget not that the lever of power has no other fulcrum than opinion; that the power of those who govern, is, in reality, but the power of those who suffer government. Remind not people at­tentively occupied by their labours, or sleeping in their chains, to lift up their eyes to truth too terrible for you; and whilst they are obeying, bring not to their remem­brance their right to command. When the moment of this fearful rousing shall arrive; when they shall have thought in earnest that they are not made for their ma­gistrates, but that their magistrates are made for them; when they shall once have been able to bring themselves together, to feel the communication of kindred minds, and to pronounce with a voice unanimous; We will not have this law; this practice it offensive; medium is no [Page 13] more; you will be constrained, by an unavoidable alter­native, either to punish or to yield; either to be tyran­nical or weak; and your authority henceforth detested or despised, whichever part it take, will have to chuse from the people but their upon insolence, or their hidden ha [...].

The first duty, therefore, of a wise administration, is to manage the prevailing opinions in any country: for opinion is the property most dear to man, dearer even than his life, and consequently much dearer than his wealth. A wise administration may, without doubt, en­deavour to rectify opinions by information, or to altar them by persuasion, if they tend to the diminution of the public power. But it is not permitted to thwart them without necessity; and there never was any necessity for rejecting the system adopted by North-America.

In effect, whether the different settlements in this new world had been authorized, as they wished, to send re­presentatives to parliament, where they might have deli­berated with their fellow-citizens on the necessities of the British empire at large; or, whether they had continued to examine within themselves what should be the contri­bution which it was right for them to make, no inconve­nience could have resulted from it to the treasury. In one case, the voice of their delegated claimants would have been drowned in that of the majority; and these provin­ces would have found themselves legally loaded with such a portion of the burden as it should be wished to make them bear. In the other, the ministry, continuing to dispose of the dignities, the employments, the pensions, and even of the elections, would have experienced no more resistance to its will in that hemisphere than in this.

But the maxims consecrated by custom in America were not founded in prejudice alone. The pretensions of the colonists rested on the nature of their charters, and on the still more solid basis of that right of every English subject, not to be taxed without consent, expressed by himself or his representative. This right, which ought to be that of every people, since it is founded on the eternal law of reason, originated so far back as in the reign of the first Edward. From that epoch the Englishman has never [Page 14] lost sight of it. In peace, in war, under weak or wicked kings, in slavish or tumultuous times, it has been his un­permitted claim. Under the Tudors, this Englishman has been seen to give up some of his most precious privileges, and, unresistingly, to submit his neck to the axe of ty­rants; but never to renounce the right of self-taxation. It was in the defence of it that he has shed rivers of blood, that he has punished or dethroned his kings. In short, at the Revolution in 1688, this right was solemnly ac­knowledged, by the celebrated act, in which liberty was soon to trace, with the same hand with which it had dri­ven out the royal despot, the conditions of the contract between a nation and the sovereign it had newly chosen. This prerogative of a people, much more sacred, without all question, than so many imaginary rights which super­stition would sanctify in tyrants, was, with regard to England, at once both the instrument and the rampart of her liberty. She thought, she felt, that it was the only barrier which could for ever limit despotism; that the moment which strips a people of this privilege, con­demns it to oppression; and that the funds, raised in ap­pearance for its security, are sooner or later subservient to its ruin. The Englishman, in founding his colony, had carried with him these principles beyond the seas; and the same ideas had been transmitted to his progeny.

Ah! if in the countries even of Europe, in which sla­very seems long since to have taken its seat in the midst of vices, of riches, and of arts; in which the despotism of armies supports the despotism of courts; in which man, chained from his cradle, and bound tightly by all the cords both of policy and superstition, has never breathed the air of liberty; if in these countries, notwithstanding, they who have once in their lives restricted on the fate of nations, cannot forbear adopting the maxims, and envy­ing the happiness of the people who knew how to make it the ground work and foundation of their constitution; how much more ought the English natives of America to be attached to the glorious birth right they inherit! They know the price at which their ancestors had bought it. The very soil which they inhabit must produce in [Page 15] them a sentiment favourable to these ideas. Dispersed throughout an immense continent; free as the wild na­ture which surrounds them, amidst their rocks, their mountains, the vast plains of their deserts, on the confines of those forests in which all is still in its savage state, and where there are no traces of either the slavery or the ty­ranny of man, they seem to receive from every natural ob­ject a lesson of liberty and independence. Besides, these people, given up almost all of them to agriculture and to commerce, to useful labours, which elevate and fortify the soul in inspiring simple manners, hitherto as far re­moved from riches as from poverty, cannot be yet cor­rupted either by the excess of luxury, or by the excess of want. It is in this state above all others, that the man who enjoys liberty is most capable to maintain it, and to shew himself jealous in the defence of an hereditary right, which seems to be the most certain security for all the rest. Such was the resolution of the Americans.

Whether the British ministry were ignorant of these dis­positions, of whether they hoped that their delegates would succeed 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 remarked, war, whether unfortunate or successful, serves always as a pretext for the usurpations of governments; as if the directors of the warring powers proposed to them­selves by it less to vanquish their enemies, than to enslave their subjects. The year 1764 saw the birth of the fa­mous stamp act, which forbid the admission in the courts of justice of any instrument which should not be written on paper marked and sold for the profit of the British treasury.

The English provinces of North America become in­dignant at this usurpation of their most precious and most sacred rights. By an unanimous agreement they renounce the consumption of whatever was furnished them by the mother country, 'till it should have withdrawn this ille­gal and oppressive bid. Even the women, whose weak­ness might have been [...], are the most ardent, sacri­liciou [...] the subserviences to their dress and ornament; and [Page 16] the men, animated by this example, give up on their part other conveniencies and enjoyments. Many cultivators of land quit the plough, to form themselves to the industry of the workshop; and wool, flax, and cotton, coarsely wrought, are sold at the price which would before have purchased the finest cloths and the most beautiful stuffs.

This kind of conspiracy stu [...] the government. By the clamour of the merchants, whose wares are without vent, its inquietude is increased. The enemies of the ministry uphold these discontents; and the stamp-act is revoked after two years of a convulsive agitation, which, in other times, would have lighted up a civil war.

But the triumph of the colonies is of short duration. The parliament, which had retreated but with extreme repugnance, ordains, in 1767, that the revenue which could not be obtained by means of stamps, should be rai­sed by taxes on the glass, the lead, the paste-board, the colours, the paper-hangings, and the tea, which are car­ried from England to America. The people of the North­ern Continent are not less revolted at this innovation than at the former. In vain are they told that no one could dispute the right of Great-Britain to lay on her exporta­tions the duties which her interest demands, since she de­nies not to her colonies, situated beyond the seas, the li­berty of fabricating themselves the wa [...]es subjected to the new taxation. This subterfuge appears but as a derision to men, who, being cultivators of land alone, and redu­ced to the having no communication but with their mo­ther-country, cannot procure, either by their own in­dustry, or by foreign connections, the objects which had recently been taxed. Whether 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 less attacked by this mode, than by that which had been repelled by them with success. The colonists sea clearly that the government would beguile them; and they will not be beguiled. These political sophisms ap­pear to them as they are, the mask of tyranny.

Nations in general are made more for feeling than for thinking. The greatest part of them never had an [Page 17] idea of analysing the nature of the power by which they are governed. They obey without reflection, and because they have the habit of obeying. The origin and the ob­ject of the first national associations being unknown to them, all resistance to government appears to them a crime. It is chiefly in those states where the principles of legislation are confounded with those of religion, that this blindness is to be met with. The habit of believing, fa­vours the habit of suffering. Man renounces not any one object with impunity. It seems as if nature would re­venge herself upon him who dares thus to degrade her. The servile disposition which she stamps upon his soul in consequence, extends itself throughout. It makes a duty of resignation as of meanness; and kissing chains of all kinds with respect, trembles to examine either its doc­trines or its laws. In the same manner that a single ex­travagance in religious opinions is sufficient to make many more to be adopted by minds once deceived, a first usur­pation of government opens the door to all the rest. He who believes the greater, believes the less; he who can do the greater, can do the less. It is by this double abuse of credulity and authority, that all the absurdities in mat­ters of religion and of policy have been introduced into the world for the harassing and the crushing of the hu­man race. Thus, at the first signal of liberty amongst na­tions, they have been prompted to shake off both these yokes together; and the epoch in which the human mind began to discuss the abuses of the church and clergy, is that in which reason perceived at last the rights of men; and in which courage attempted to set the first limits to despotic power. The principles of toleration and of li­berty, established in the English colonies, had made them a different people from all others. There it was known what was the dignity of man; and when the British mi­nistry violated it, it could not be otherwise but that a peo­ple all composed of denizens, should rise against the wick­edness of the attempt.

Three years elapsed, without a revenue from any one of the taxes which had so wounded the Americans to the quick. This was something: but it was not all to which [Page 18] [...] jealous of their prerogatives had pretensions. They [...]sisted upon a general and formal renunciation of what had been so illegally ordained; and this satisfaction was given them in 1770. Tea only was excepted. But the object of this exception was only to palliate the shame of entirely giving up the superiority of the mother country [...]ver her colonies: for this duty was not more cogently [...]xacted than the others had been.

The ministry, deceived by their delegates, believed un­doubtedly that the disposition of the new world was alter­ed, when, in 1773, they ordered the collection of the duty upon tea.

At this news the indignation becomes general in North-America. In some provinces, formal thanks are agreed upon to be rendered to the masters of vessels who would not suffer this production to make any part of their cargo. In others, the merchants to whom it is consigned will not receive it. Here, he is declared an enemy of his country who shall dare to vend it. There, they are stig­matized with the same reproach who shall keep it in their stores. Many provinces solemnly renounce the use of this elegant refreshment. A still greater number burn what they had remaining of this leaf, 'till then the object of their delight. The tea sent to this part of the globe was valued at more than two hundred thousand pounds; and not a single chest of it was landed. Boston was the prin­cipal theatre of this insurrection. Its inhabitants destroy­ed, in their very port, three cargoes of tea which arrived from Europe.

This great town had always appeared more occupied by a sense of its rights than the rest of America. The least attempt that was made upon their privileges had been repelled without scruple and without reserve. This re­sistance, sometimes not unaccompanied by tumult, had for some years been tiresome to government. The mini­stry who had a vengeance to wreak, seized too eagerly upon the circumstance of a blameable excess; and requi­red the parliament to punish it severely.

Moderate men wished that the offending town might be sentenced only to an indemnification proportioned to [Page 19] the waste that had been made in its road, and to such a [...]end [...] as it ought to [...]ake for not having punished this at of violence. This sentence was thought too slight; and on the 13th of March, 1774, a bill was passed for shut­ting up the port of Boston, and forbidding any thing to be landed or loaded at it.

The court of London applauded itself for so rigorous a law, and doubted not but that it would bring the Bostoni­ans to that disposition to slavery which it had vainly la­boured 'till then to give them. If, contrary to all ap­pearance, these sturdy men should persevere in their pre­tensions, their neighbours would be ardent in profiting from the interdiction laid upon the principal harbour of the province. Supposing the worst, the other colonies, long since jealous of that of Massachusetts, would aban­don it with indifference to its melancholy fate, and gather up the immense trade which would flow in to them on the tide of its misfortunes. By these means would be broken the union of these different establishments, which had for some years past acquired a greater degree of consistency than was pleasing to the mother-country.

The expectation of the ministry was totally deceived. An act of rigour sometimes over-awes. The people who have murmured as long as the thunder-storm grow [...]ed on­ly at a distance, when it comes to burst upon them, fre­quently submit. It is then that they weigh the advanta­ges and disadvantages of resistance; that they contem­plate their own strength and that of their oppressors; that a panic terror seizes those who have every thing to lose, without any thing to gain; that they lift up their voice, that they intimidate, that they corrupt; that division arises in the minds of men, and that the community is separated into two factions, which irritate each other, which come oftentimes to blows, and cut each other's throats under the eyes of their tyrants, who, with sweet complacency, behold their streaming blood. But tyrants seldom find accomplices but amongst a people already cor­rupted to their hands. It it vice which gives them allies amongst those whom they oppress. It is humanly soft­ness, which, filled with terrors, dares not barter its re­pose [Page 20] for honourable peril. It is the vile ambition to com­mand, which lends its arm to despotic power, and con­sents to be a slave in order to domineer; to give up a peo­ple in order to partake their spoil; and to renounce real honour for the obtaining of titles, the nick-names of ho­nour. It is, above all, the indifferent and cold person­ality, which is the last vice amongst a people, the last crime of governments, for it is ever the government which gives it birth; it is that, which, from principle, sacrifices a nation to a man, and the happiness of an age and of posterity to the enjoyment of a day and of a moment. None of these vices, the production of a society opulent and voluptuous, of a society grown old and verging to its end, belong to a people newly established and occu­pied in useful labours. The Americans remained united. The execution of a bill, which they called inhuman, bar­barous, and bloody, tended but to strengthen them in the resolution of maintaining their rights with the more ac­cord and constancy.

At Boston, the acrid and ardent spirit is more and more exalted. The try of religion adds force to that of liberty. The houses of worship re echo with the most vi­olent exhortations against England. It was, without doubt, an interesting spectacle for philosophy, to see that even in temples, at the foot of altars, where superstition has so often blessed the chains of nations, where priests have so often flattered tyrants, liberty lifted up her voice in defence of the privileges of an oppressed people; and if it can be thought that the Deity vouchsafes to look down upon the unhappy feuds of men, it was better pleas­ed undoubtedly to see its sanctuary consecrated to this use, and hymns to liberty make a part of the worship by which it was addressed. These exhortations of the preach­ers must have had a great effect; and when a free people invokes heaven against oppression, it delays not long to have recourse to arms.

The other inhabitants of the province of Massachusetts disdain even the idea of drawing the least advantage from the cisasters of the capital. They think but of drawing closer the bonds which unite them with the Bostonians, [Page 21] disposed rather to seek a grave in the ruins of their com­mon country, than to let the least assault be ma [...]e on rights which they had learned to prize more highly than their lives.

All the provinces attach themselves to the cause of Bos­ton; and their affection increases in proportion to the sufferings of this unhappy town. Nearly as culpable of a resistance so severely punished, they are well aware that the mother country but defers her vengeance against them; and that all the grace with which the most favoured can be flattered, is to be the last on which the hand of op­pression shall be doomed to fall.

These dispositions to a general insurrection are aug­mented by the act against Boston, which is seen circulating throughout the continent upon paper edged with black, emblematical of mourning for liberty departed. Soon the disquietude communicates itself from house to house. The inhabitants assemble and converse together in the public places: and writings, full of eloquence and vigour, are delivered every where from the press.

"The severities of the British Parliament against Bos­ton (say they in these writings) should cause all the Ame­rican provinces to tremble. They have now nothing left them but to chuse between fire and sword and the horrors of death, or the yoke of passive, slavish obedience. Be­hold the [...] of an important revolution is at length ar­rived, the event of which, as it shall be happy or success­less, will claim and fix for ever either the regret or the administration of posterity.

"Shall we be freemen, or be slaves? On the solution of this grand problem is about to depend, for the present, the fate of three millions of men, and, for the future, the happiness or misery of their numberless descendants.

"Awake then, rouse then, O Americans! Never did clouds so black hang over the region you inhabit. You are called rebels, because you will not be taxed but by your representatives. Vindicate this just pretension by your courage, or seal the loss of it with all your blood.

"Time for deliberation is no more. Whilst the hand of the oppressor labours incessantly to forge your chains, [Page 22] silence would be guilt, in action infamy. Let the preser­vation of the rights of the commonweal be your su [...]re [...] law. That man would be the last of slaves, who, in the danger into which the liberty of America is fallen, would not exert every effort to preserve it"

This disposition was the common one: but the impor­tant object, the difficult thing, in the midst of a general tumult, was to contrive that a calm might be brought on, by favour of which might be formed a concert of wills, to give dignity, strength, and consistency, to their resolu­tions. It is this concert, which, of a multitude of scat­tered parts, and each easily to be broken, composes a whole that is not to be rendered tractable, unless it be to be divided by policy or by power. The necessity of this grand combination, or totality, is strikingly perceived by the provinces of New-Hampshire, of Massachusetts, of Rhode-Island, of Connecticut, of New York, of New-Jersey, of the Delaware counties, of Maryland, of Penn­sylvania, of Virginia, and of both the Carolinas. These twelve colonies, which were afterwards joined by Geor­gia, sent deputies to Philadelphia, in the month of Sep­tember, 1774, charged with the defence of their rights and interests.

The disputes of the mother country with her colonies, assume at this period an importance to which they had not been before intitled. It is no longer a few individuals who make an obstinate resistance to imperious masters. It is the struggle of one body of men against another; of the Congress of America against the Parliament of En­gland; of a nation against a nation. By the resolutions taken on either side, minds mutually are heated. The ferment of animosity increases. All hope of reconciliation vanishes. On each side the sword is whetted. Great-Britain sends troops to the new world. This other he­misphere prepares for its defence. Its citizens become soldiers. The combustibles are collected; the conflagra­tion is about to b [...]aze.

Gage, the commander of the royal troops, sends from Boston, in the night of the 18th of April, 1775, a de­tachment charged with the destruction of a magazine of [Page 23] arms, and other military stores, collected by the Ameri­cans at Concord. This body of troops meet at Lexing­ton with some militia, whom they disparse with little dif­ficulty, continue their march rapidly, and execute the commission to which they had been appointed. But scarce­ly are they on their return towards the capital, but they find themselves assailed, for the space of fifteen miles, by a furious multitude, and death on each side is given and received. English blood, so often shed in Europe by En­glish hands, irrigates America in its turn, and the civil war is embarked in.

On the same field of battle, the following months, more regular combats are behold. Warren becomes one of the victims of these unnatural and murderous actions. The Congress honour his ashes.

"He is not dead, (said the orator) this excellent citi­zen shall never die. His memory shall be for ever present, and for ever dear, to all good men, to all who love their country. In the short space of a life but of three and thirty years, he had displayed the talents of a statesman, the virtues of a senator, the soul of a hero.

"Approach, all you whom the same interest in spirits; approach your countryman's still bleeding body. Wash with your tears his honorable wounds. But hang not too long over this inanimated corse. Return to your habita­tions to fill them with detestation at the crime of tyranny. Let your horrible descriptions of it make each particular hair to stand on end upon your children's heads, inflame their eyes with noble rage, stamp menaces on their brows, and draw, by their months, indignation from their hearts! Then, then, shall you give them arms; and your last, your fondest wish, shall be, that they may return victo­rious, or may die like Warren."

The disturbances by which the province of Massachu­setts was agitated, were repeated in the other provinces. The scenes, indeed, were not bloody, because there were no British troops? but the Americans seize every where on the forts, the arms, and the military stores: they eve­ry where expel their governers, and the other agents of England; and every where harrass such of the inhabi­tants [Page 24] as appeared favourable to its cause. Some enter­prising men have the spirit even to take possession of the works formerly erected by the French upon the lake Champlain, between New-England and Canada, and to make an irruption into this vast region.

Whilst simple individuals, or detached districts, are thus usefully serving the common cause, the Congress is occupied with the care of assembling an army. The com­mand of it is given to George Washington, a native of Virginia, and known by some happy exploits in preceding wars. Instantly the new general flies to the province of Massachusetts, drives the royal troops from post to post, and obliges them to shut themselves up in Boston. Six thousand of these old soldiers, escaped from the sword, from sickness, from all the miseries incident to their pro­fession, and pressed by hunger, or by the enemy, embark the 24th of March 1776, with a precipitation which par­takes of flight. They go to seek an asylum in Nova-Scotia, which remained, as well as Florida, faithful to its ancient masters.

This success was the first step of English America to­wards the revolution. It was begun to be openly desired. The principles which justified it were dispersed on all sides. These principles, which were indebted for their birth to Europe, and particularly to England, had been transplanted in America by philosophy. The knowledge, and the discoveries, of the mother-country, were turned against herself, and she was told that,

Care must be taken not to confound together society and government. That they may be known distinctly, their origin should be considered.

Man, thrown, as it were, by chance, upon this globe, surrounded by all the evils of nature; obliged continually to defend and protect his life against the storms and tem­pests of the air, against the inundations of water, against the fire of volcanos, against the intemperature of frigid or torrid zones, against the sterility of the earth, which refuses him aliment, or its baneful fecundity, which makes p [...]isons spring up beneath his feet; in short, against the claws and teeth of savage beasts, who dispute with him [Page 25] his habitation and his prey, and, attacking his person, [...]em resolved to render themselves rulers of this globe, of which he thinks himself to be the master: man in this state, alone and abandoned to himself, could do nothing for his preservation. It was necessary, therefore, that he sh [...]uld unite himself, and associate with his like, in order to bring together their strength and intelligence in common stock. It is by this union that he has triumphed over so many evils, that he has fashioned this globe to his use, restrained the rivers, subjugated the seas, insured his subsistence, conquered a part of the animals in obli­ging them to serve him, and driven others far from his empire, to the depths of deserts or of woods, where their number diminishes from age to age. What a man alone would not have been able to effect, men have executed in concert; and all together they preserve their work. Such is the origin, such the advantage and the end of all society.

Government owes its birth to the necessity of prevent­ing and repressing the injuries which the associated indi­viduals had to fear from one another. It is the sentinel who watches, in order that the common labours be not disturbed.

Thus society originates in the wants of men, govern­ment in their vices. Society tends always to good; go­vernment ought always to tend to the repressing of evil. Society is the first, it is in its origin independent and free; government was instituted for it, and is but its instru­ment. It is for one to command; it is for the other to obey. Society created the public power; government, which has received it from society, ought to consecrate it entirely to its use. In short, society is essentially good; government, as is well known, may be, and is but too often, evil.

It has been said that we were all born equal; that is not so: that we had all the same rights. I am ignorant of what are rights, where there is an inequality of talents, or of strength, and no security nor sanction: that nature offered to us all the same dwelling, and the same resour­ces; that is not so: that we are all endowed indifferently [Page 26] with the same means of defence; that is not so: and▪ know not in what sense it can be true, that we all enjoy the same qualities of mind and body.

There is amongst men an original inequality which no­thing can remedy. It must last for ever; and all that can be obtained by the best legislation, is, not to destroy it, but to prevent the abuse of it.

But in making distinctions between her children, like a step mother, in creating some children strong and others weak, has not nature herself formed the germe or princi­ple of tyranny? I do not think it can be denied; espe­cially if we look back to a time anterior to all legislation, a time in which man will be seen as passionate and as void of reason as a brute.

What then have founders of nations, what have legi­slators proposed to themselves? To obviate all the dis­asters arising from this germe when it is expanded, by a sort of artificial equality, which might reduce all the mem­bers of a society, without exception, under an impartial, sole authority. It is a sword which moves gently, equa­bly, and indifferently, over every head: but this sword was ideal. It was necessary that there should be a hand, a corporeal being who should hold it.

What has resulted thence? Why, that the history of civilized man is but the history of his misery. All the pages of it are stained with blood; some with the blood of the oppressors, the others with the blood of the op­pressed.

In this point of view, man appears more wicked and more miserable than a beast. D [...]fferent species of beasts subsist on different species. But societies of men have ne­ver ceased to attack each other. Even in the same soci­ety there is no condition but devours and is devoured, whatever may have been or are the forms of the govern­ment, or artificial equality, which have been opposed to the primitive and natural inequality.

But are the [...]e the forms of government, supposing them made by the choice, and the free choice, of the first set­tlers in a country, and whatever sanction they may have received, whether that of oaths, or of unanimous accord, [Page 27] as of their duration, are they obligatory upon their de­scendants? There is no such thing: and it is impossible that you Englishmen, who have successively undergone so many different revolutions in your political constitution, tossed as you have been from monarchy to tyranny, from tyranny to aristocracy, from aristocracy to democracy, and from democracy to anarchy; it is impossible that you, without accusing yourselves of rebellion and of perjury, can think otherwise than I do.

We examine things with a philosophic eye; and it is well known, that it is not the speculations of philosophers which bring on civil troubles. No subjects are more pa­tient than we are. I proceed then in pursuit of my ob­ject, without any cause to fear that mischief can follow from my reasoning.

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 impossibi­lity of suffering more, and longer, which will determine them to change it; a salutary impulse, which the oppres­sor will call revolt, though it be but the just exercise of a natural and unalienable right of the man who is oppressed, and even of the man who is not oppressed.

A man wills and chuses for himself. He cannot will nor chuse for another; and it would be a madness to will and to chuse for him who is yet unborn, for him who will not yet exist for ages. There is no individual but who, discontented with the form of the government of his coun­try, may go elsewhere to seek a better. There is no so­ciety but which has the same right to change, as their an­cestors had to adopt, their form of government. Upon this point, it is with societies as if they were at the first moment of their civilizaiion. Without which there would be a great evil; nay, the greatest of evils would be with­out a remedy. Millions of men would be condemned to misery without end. Conclude then with me.

That there is no form of government which has the prerogative to be immutable.

No political authority, which, created yesterday, or a thousand years ago, may not be ab [...]ogated in ten years time or to-morrow.

[Page 28]No power, however respectable, however sacred, that is authorised to regard the state as its property.

Whoever thinks otherwise is a slave. It is to be an ido­lator of the work of his own hands.

Whoever thinks otherwise is a madman, who devotes himself to eternal misery, who devotes to it his family, his children, and his children's children, in allowing to his ancestors the right of stipulating for him when he ex­isted not, and in arrogating to himself the right of stipu­lating for a progeny which does not yet exist.

All authority in this world has begun either by the consent of the subjects, or by the power of the master. In both one and the other case, it may justly end. There is no prescription in favour of tyranny against liberty.

The truth of these principles is so much the more essen­tial, because that all power by its very nature tends [...]o despotism, even in the most jealous nations, even in yours, ye Englishmen, yes, in yours.

I have heard it said by a whig, by a fanatic, if you will; but words of great sense escape sometimes from a madman; I have heard it said by him, that so long as the power should be wanting of taking to Tyburn a bad king, or at least a bad minister, with as little formality, prepa­ration, tumult, or surprise, as the obscurest malefactor is conducted thither, the nation would not have either that just idea, or that f [...]ll enjoyment, of their rights, which became a people who [...]ared to think or to say that they were free; and yet an administration, by your own ac­knowledgment, ignorant, corrupted, and audacious, pre­cipitates you, with imperiousness and with impunity, into the most profound abyss!

The quantity of your circulating cash is inconsiderable. You are overwhelmed with paper; which you have under all sorts of denominations. Were all the gold of Europe collected in your treasury, it would scarcely pay the na­tion's debt. We know not by what incredible illusion this fictitious money is kept up. The most frivolous event might in the course of a day throw it into discredit. There is need but of an alarm to bring on a sudden bank­ruptcy. The dreadful consequences which would follow [Page 29] this failure of faith, are beyond our imagination. And, behold, such is the instant marked out for you to make you declare against your colonies, that is, to make you raise up against yourselves, an unjust, mad, ruinous war. What will become of you, when an important branch of your commerce shall be destroyed; when you shall have but a third of your possessions; when you shall have mas­sacred a million or two of your countrymen; when your force shall be exhausted, your traders ruined, your manu­facturers reduced to starve; when your debt shall be aug­mented, and your revenue decreased! Look well to it; the blood of the Americans will sooner or later fall heavy on your heads. Its effusion will be revenged by your own hands; and you are arriving at the point.

But, say you, these people are rebels.—Rebels! And who? because they will not be your slaves. A people subjected to the will of another people, who can dispose as they chuse of their government, of their laws, and of their trade; tax them at their pleasure; set bounds to their industry, and enchain it by arbitrary prohibitions, are bond servants, yes, certainly are bond-servants; and their servitude is worse than what they would undergo if governed by a tyrant. Deliverance from the oppression of a tyrant is effected by his expulsion, or his death. You have delivered yourselves by each of these methods. But a nation is not to be put to death, is not to be expelled. Liberty is only to be expected from a rupture, which by its consequences involves one of the nations, and some­times both of them, in ruin. A tyrant is a monster with a single head, which may be struck off at a single blow. A tyrannic nation is an hydra with a thousand heads, for the cutting o [...] of which a thousand swords must be lifted up together. The crime of oppression committed by a tyrant collects all the indignation upon him alone. The commission of the same crime by a numerous society, scat­ters [...]he horror and the shame of it upon a multitude, which never blushes. It is every body's fault and nobo­dy's; and the resentment of injury wanders wildly in de­spair, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is car­ried.

[Page 30] But they are our subjects—Your subjects! no more than the inhabitants of Wales are subjects to those of Lanca­shire. The authority of one nation over another cannot be founded but upon conquest, upon general consent, or upon conditions proposed on one part, and accepted on the other. Conquest binds no more than theft: the con­sent of ancestors cannot be obligatory upon descendants: and there can be no condition which must not be under­stood to be exclusive of the sacrifice of liberty. Liberty is not to be bartered for any thing, because there is not any thing which is of a comparable price. Such have been the discourses held by you to your tyrants, such hold we to you for your colonists.

The earth which they occupy is our's.—Your's! it is thus you call it because you usurped it. But be it so. Does not the charter of concession oblige you to treat the Ame­ricans as countrymen? Do you do so? But we are well employed here truly in talking of concessions by charters, by which men grant what they are not masters of, what consequently they have not the right to grant to a hand­ful of weak people, forced by circumstances to receive as a gratification that which belongs to them of natural right. And then, have the descendants who are now li­ving been called to a compact signed by their ancestors? Either confess the truth of this principle, or recal the de­scendants of James. What right had you to drive him away which we have not to separate ourselves from you? say the Americans to you: and what have you to say in answer?

They are ungrateful: we are their founders; we have been their defenders; we have run in debt upon their account.— 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 Suitan of Constantinople, had your ambition or your interest required it. But have they not requitted you, in delivering up to you their productions; in receiving your merchandise exclusively at the exorbitant price you would please to put upon it; in subjecting them­selves to prohibitions which cramped their industry, and to restrictions by which you have oppressed their property? [Page 31] 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 requests to them, which is the proper way of dealing with freemen, have they not complied with them? When did you ever expe­rience a refusal from them, but when you clapped a ba­yonet to their breast, and said, Your money or life; die or be slaves? What! because you have been beneficent, have you a right to be oppressive? What! and shall na­tions too build on gratitude the barbaroos claim, to de­base, and trample under foot, those 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 benefactor, tolerate a tyrant. In them, it is great, it is magnanimous, undoubtedly, to consent to be wretched, that they may not be ungrateful. But nations have a different morality. The public hap­piness is the first law, as the first duty. The first obliga­tion of these great bodies is with themselves. They owe, before all other things, liberty and justice to the members which compose them. Every child which is burn to the state, every new citizen who comes to breathe the air of the country he has chosen, or nature given him, is enti­tled to the greatest happiness 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 ancestors have been re­lieved, if he is destined to be himself oppressed? With what right can be exacted from him the payment of this usurious debt of benefits, which he has never felt? No, no. The wishing to arm one's self with such a claim, a­gainst a whole nation, and its posterity, is to overthrow all the ideas of policy and order, and, whilst 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 services; but did any one exact, as a mark of gratitude, the right of disposing of the government of the succou [...]ed state?

Our honour is engaged—Say that of your bad mini­sters, and not your's. In what consists the true honour [Page 32] of [...] who has been mistaken? Is it to persist in his error, or to acknowledge it? Has he who returns to a sen [...]e of justice, any curse to blush? Englishmen, you have been too hasty. Why did you not wait, till the Americans had been corrupted, as you are, by riches? Then they would have thought no more highly of their liberty, than you do of your own. Then it would have been need ef [...] to take [...], against men subdued by opulence. But what instant have you chosen for attacking them? That in which what they had to lose, 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 you attempted? the enslaving a people who shall be unfettered in spite of you by time. In twenty, in thirty years, the remembrance of your atro­cious deeds will still be fresh; and the fruit of them will be ravished from you. Then, there will remain to you but remorse and shame. There is a decree of nature which you shall not change; which is, that great bodies give laws to little ones. But, tell me, if the Americans should then undertake against Great Britain, what you have now undertaken against them, what would you say? Precisely what they at this moment say to you. Why should motives which affect you so little in their mouths, appear to you more solid in your own?

They will not obey our parliament, nor adopt our ordinances — Did they make them? Can they change them?

We obey them readily enough, without having had, in time past, or having in the present, any influence over them— That is to say, that you are slaves; and that you cannot bear that men should be free. However, do not confound the situation of the Americans with your own. You have representatives, and they have not. You have voices which speak for you, and no person stipulates for them. If, indeed, these voices are bought and sol [...] it is an ex­cellent reason for their disdaining such a fri [...]lous advan­tage.

They wish to be independent of us—Are not you so of them?

They will never be able to support themselves without us— [Page 33] If that be so, be quiet. Necessity will bring them back.

And if we should not be able to subsist without them—It would be a great misfortune: but to cut their throats in order to get out of it, is a singular expedient.

It is for their interest, it is for their good, that we are se­vere with them, as one is severe with frantic children— Their interest! Their good! And who made you judges of these two objects which so nearly touch them, and which they should better know than you? If it should happen, that a man should make a forcible entry into another's house, because, forsooth, he is a man of great sense, and nobody more able to maintain peace and good order for his neighbour, should not one be in the right to humbly beg he would be pleased to take himself away, and to trouble his head about his own affairs? And if the affairs of this officious hypocrite should be very badly or­dered? If he should be at the bottom but an ambitious mortal, who, under the pretence of settling and ordering, should have a violent inclination to usurp? If he should cover with the ma [...] of benevolence, but views full of in­justice, such, for example, as to get himself out of strait [...] and difficulties at his neighbour's cost?

We are the mother-country—What, always the most holy names to serve as a veil to interest and ambition? The mother-country! Fulfil the duties of it then. Be­sides, colonies are formed of different nations, amongst which some will grant, others refuse you this appellation; and all will with one voice tell you. There is a time when the authority of parents over their children ceases; and this time is when the children are able to provide for them­selves. What term have you fixed for our emancipation? Be candid, and you will allow that you had promised yourselves to be able to hold us in a wardship or minority which should never end. If, indeed, this wardship were not to have turned for us into an insupportable constraint; if our advantage were not for ever to be sacrificed to your's; if we were not to have had a multitude of those minor oppressions, which, together, swell to a bulk most burdensome, to bear from the governors, the judges, the collectors, and the military, whom you send us; if the [Page 34] greatest part of them, at their arrival in our climate, were not to have brought with them, blasted characters, ruined fortunes, rapacious hands, and the insolence of subaltern [...] tyrants, who, tired, in their own country, with obeying laws, come to requite themselves, in a new world, by the exercise of an arbitrary power. You are the mother coun­try: but so far from encouraging, you fear our progress, [...]ind our hands, and repress and strangle our growing strength. Nature in favouring us deceives your secret wishes; or rather, you would chuse, that we should re­main in an eternal childhood, with regard to all that can be useful to ourselves, and that, notwithstanding, we should be robust [...]ssals, to be employed in your service, and in the furnishing, without remission, new sources of riches to your insatiable avidity. Is it this then to be a mother? Is it this to be a country to her children? Ah! in the forests which surround us, nature has given a gen­tler instinct to the savage beast, which, become a mother, devours not at least those which she has produced.

Were all their pretensions to be acquiesced in, they would soon be happier than we are. And why not? If you are cor­rupted, is it necessary that they must be corrupted too? If you have a disposition to slavery, must they too follow your example? If they had you for masters, why should you not confer the property of their country upon another power, upon your sovereign? Why should you not ren­der him their despot, as you have by a solemn act declared him the despot of Canada? Would it then be necessary that they should ratify this extravagant concession? And even if they should have ratified it, must they obey the so­vereign whom you should have given them, and, if he commanded it, take arms against you? The King of England has a negative power. No law can be promul­gated without his consent. Why should the Americans grant him, in their country, a power, of the inconveni­ence of which you are continually made sensible? Should it be, in order one day to divest him of it, sword in hand, as it will happen to you, if your government be perfect­ed? What advantage do you find in subjecting them to a vicious constitution?

[Page 35] Vicious or not, this is our constitution; and it ought to be generally acknowledged and received, by all who bear the Eng­lish name; without which, each of our provinces governing itself in its own way, having its own laws, and pretending to independence, we cease to form a national body, and are no more than a heap of little republics, detached, divided, con­tinually rising against one another, and easily to be usurped by a common enemy. The adroit and powerful Philip, capable of attempting such an enterprise, is at our door.

If he is at your door, he is far from the Americans. A privilege which may have some inconvenience with re­gard to you, is not the less a privilege. But separated, as they are, from Great Britain, by immense seas, of what importance is it to you, whether your colonies re­ceive, or reject, your constitution? What does that make, for, or against, your power; for, or against, your safety? This unity, of which you exaggerate the advantages, is still but a vain pretext. You object your laws to your co­lonies, when they are harrassed by them; and you tread them under foot, when they make in their favour. You tax yourselves, and you would tax them. If the least at­tempt is made upon this privilege, you make a furious outcry, fly to arms, and are ready to run on swords in its defence; and yet, you hold a dagger to the breast of your countryman, to oblige him to renounce it. Your ports are open to all the world; and you shut up the ports of your colonists. Your merchandize is wafted where you please; and their's must necessarily come to you. You manufacture, and you will not suffer them to manufacture. They have skins, they have iron; and they must deliver up to you, unwrought, this iron and these skins. What you acquire at a low price, they must buy of you at the price which your capacity imposes. You offer them up as victims to your traders; and because your India Company was in danger, the Americans must needs repair their losses. And yet you call them your countrymen and fellow-citizens; and it is thus that you invite them to receive your constitution? Go to, go to. This unity, this league▪ which seems so necessary to you, is but that of the silly animals in the fable, amongst which you have reserved to yourselves the lion's part.

[Page 36]Perhaps you have not suffered yourselves to be drawn to the filling the new world with blood and devastation but by a false point of honour. We wish to persuade ourselves that so many crimes have not been the consequences of a project deliberately formed. You had been told, that the Americans were but a vile herd of cowards, whom the least threat would bring, terrified and trembling, to ac­quiesce in whatever it should please you to exact. Instead of the cowards which had been described and promised you, you find true men, true Englishmen, countrymen worthy of yourselves. Is this a reason for your being ir­ritated? What! your ancestors admired the Hollander shaking off the Spanish yoke; and should you, their de­scendants, be angry or surprised, that your countrymen, your brethren, that they who feel your blood circulate in their veins, should rather pour it on the ground and die, than live in yokes and bondage? A stranger, upon whom you should have formed the same pretensions, would have disarmed you, if, shewing you his naked breast, he said, Flunge in your priguard here, or leave me free: and yet you stab your brother; and you stab him without remorse, because he is your brother! Englishmen! what can be more ignominious than the savageness of a man, proud of his own liberty, and wickedly attempting to destroy the liberty of another! Would you have us believe, that the greatest enemy to freedom is the man that is free? Alas! 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 shew yourselves tyrants. Well then, tyrants of nations, and of your colonies, if in the event you prove the strong­est, it will be because heaven is deaf to the prayers which are directed to it from all the countries upon earth.

Since the seas have not swallowed up your blustering ruffians, tell me, what will become of them, if there should arise in the new world a man of eloquence, promi­sing eternal happiness to the martyrs of liberty who die in arms. Americans! let your preachers be seen inces­santly in their pulpits, with crowns of glory in their hands, pointing to heaven open. Priests of the new [Page 37] world, now is the time for it; expiate the detestable fa­naticism, which once laid waste America, by the hap [...] fanaticism, begotten by policy upon freedom. No; you will not deceive your countrymen. To God, who is the principle of justice and of order, tyrants are abomination, God has imprinted on the heart of man this sacred love of liberty; he wills not that slavery disfigure and debase his noblest work. If dei [...]cation be due to man, it is, un­doubtedly, to that man who fights and dies for his nati [...] soil. Put his image in your temples; set it on your al­tars. It shall be worshipped by his country. Form a political and religious calandar, marking each day by the name of some hero, who shall have spilled his blood to set you free. Your posterity shall one day read them with holy joy: these, shall it say, behold, these were the man who gave liberty to half a world; and who, charging themselves with our happiness, before we had existence, secured our infant slumbers from the being disturbed and terrified by the clank of chains.

When the cause of your colonies was argued in your houses of parliament, we heard some excellent pleadings pronounced in their favour. But that which should have been addressed to you perhaps is this:

"I shall not talk to you, my lords and gentleman, of the justice or injustice of your pretensions. I am not such a stranger to public affairs as not to know that this preli­minary discussion, so sacred in all the other circumstances of life, would be misplaced and ridiculous in this. I shall not examine what hope you can have of succeeding, or if you are likely to prove the strongest in the event, though this subject might, perhaps, appear to you of some im­portance, and might, probably, insure me the honour of your attention. I will do more. I shall not compare the advantages of your situation, if you succeed, with the consequences which will follow, if you are unfortunate. I shall not ask you how long you are determined to serve the cause of your enemies. But I will suppose at ones, that you have reduced your colonies to the degree of servi­tude which you have authoritatively required. Shew me only how you will fix and keep them. By a standing ar­my? [Page 38] But will this army, which will drain you of men and money, keep pace, or not keep pace, with the in­crease of population? There are but two answers to my question; and, of these two answers, one seems to be ab­surd, and the other brings you back to the point at which you are. I have reflected on it well; and I have disco­vered, if I am not mistaken, the only rational and certain plan which you have to follow. And it is, as soon as you shall be the masters, to stop the progress of popula­tion, since it appears to you more advantageous, more honourable, and more becoming, to domineer over a small number of slaves, than to have a nation of freemen for your equals and your friends.

"But you will ask me, how is the progress of popula­tion to be stopped? The expedient might revolt weak minds, and cowardly souls; but happily there are not any such in this august assembly. It is, to stab without pity the greatest part of these vile rebels, and to reduce the rest of them to the condition of the negroes. The high-spirited and generous Spartans, so extolled in an­cient and modern story, have set you the example. Like them, and with their faces muffled in their cloaks, shall our fellow-citizens, and the bravoes in our pay, go clan-destinely, and by night, to massacre the children of our Helots, at their father's side, and on their mother's breast; and leave alive but such a number of them, as may be sufficient for their labours, and consistent with our safety."

Englishmen! you shudder at this horrible proposition, and you ask what part there is to take. Vanquishers, or vanquished, see here, then, what you ought to do. If the resentment, excited by your cruelties, can be calmed; if the Americans can shut their eyes to the devastation which surrounds them; if, in passing over the ruins of their towns destroyed by fire, and their fields whitened by the bones of murdered relatives; if, in drawing in with every respiration the scent of the blood which your hands have on all sides shed, they can forget the outrages of your despotism; if they can prevail upon themselves to place the least confidence in your declarations of contri­tion, and to believe that you have indeed renounced the [Page 39] injustice of your pretensions, begin by recalling your [...] ­tenary cut-throats. Restore freedom to their ports, which you keep shut up; withdraw your squadrons from their coasts; and, if there be a wise citizen amongst you, let him take the olive-branch in his hand, present at himself, and say,

"O you, our countrymen, and our old friends; al­low us this title; we have profaned it, but our repent­ance renders us worthy to resume it, and we aspire hence­forward at the glory to preserve it. We confess, in the presence of this heaven, and of this earth, which have been conscious of it, we confess, that our pretensions have been unjust, our conduct has been cruel. Let it on each side be forgotten. Raise up again your fortresses and your ramparts. Re-assemble in your peaceable habita­tions. Let us wash out the remembrance of every drop of blood that has been spilled. We admire the generous spirit by which you have been directed. It is the same with that to which, in similar circumstances, we have been indebted for our political salvation. Yet, it is by these marks, expressly, that we now know you to be in­deed our countrymen; to be indeed our brothers; con­cerning whom we have verily been guilty; and therefore is this distress come upon us. You would be free; be ye free. Be so, in the whole extent which we have ourselves given to this sacred 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 fine and swords of tyrants may oppose, but which the sins and swords of tyrants cannot destroy. We lay claim to no sort of superiority over you. We aspire but at the honor of equality. This glory is sufficient for us. We know too well the inestimable value of governing ourselves, to wish henceforward that you should be divested of the boon.

"If, supreme masters and arbiters of your legislation, you can create for your states a better government than our's, we give you anticipated joy. Your happiness will inspire us with no other sentiment, than the desire of imi­tation. Form for yourselves constitutions adapted to your [Page 40] climate, to your soil, to this new world you civilize. Who better than yourselves can know your peculiar wants? High-spirited and virtuous minds, like your's, should obey but the laws which shall be given them by themselves. All other restraint would be unworthy of them. Regulate your own taxation. We desire you on­ly to conform yourselves to our custom in the assessment of the duties. We will present to you a state of our wants; and you will of yourselves assign the just proportion be­tween your succours and your riches.

"Moreover, exercise your industry, like us; without limitation exercise it. Avail yourselves of the benefits of nature, and of the fruitful countries you inhabit. Let the iron of your mines, the wool of your flocks, the skin [...] of the savage animals which wander in your woods, fashioned in your manufactures, take a new value from your hands. Be your ports free. Go, and expose to sale the productions of your lands, and of your arts, in all the quarters of the world. Go, and seek for those of which you stand in need. It is one of our privileges, let it be likewise your's. The empire of the ocean, which we have acquired by two ages of greatness and glory, be­longs as well to you as us. We shall be united by the ties of commerce. You will bring us your productions, which we shall receive in preference to those of all other people, and we hope that you will prefer our's to those of foreigners, without being restrained to it, however, by any law, but that of the common interest, and the fair claims of countrymen and friends.

"Let the ships of your country and of our's, adorned by the same streamer, overspread the seas; and let shouts of joy arise on each side, when sister vessels meet each other in the deserts of the ocean. Let peace spring up again between us, and concord last forever. We are sen­sible at length, that the chain of mutual benevolence is the only one, which can bind such distant empires toge­ther, and that every other principle of unity would be p [...]ecaricus and unjust.

"Upon this new plan of eternal amity, let agricul­ture, industry, laws, arts, and the first of all sciences, [Page 41] that of procuring the greatest good to communities and individuals, be perfected amongst you. Let the recital of your happiness call around you all the unfortunate of the earth. Let the tyrants of all countries, let all oppressors, political or sacred, know, that there exists upon the earth a place, where a deliverance from their chains is to be found; where afflicted, dejected humanity has lifted up her head; where harvests grow for the poor; where laws are no more than the security of happiness; where religion is free, and conscience has ceased to be a slave; where, in short, nature seems to put in her plea of justi­fication, for having created man; and government, so long time guilty, over all the earth, makes at last the reparation of its crimes. Let the idea of such an asylum serve as a terror and restraint to despots: for if they have no kindness about their hearts, and look with indifference on the happiness of man, they have at least much avarice and ambition, which must make them anxious to preserve both their riches and their power.

"We ourselves, O countrymen, O friends, we our­selves shall profit by your example. If our constitution should be altered for the worse; if public riches should corrupt the court, and the court the nation; if our kings, to whom we have given so many terrible examples, should at last forget them; if we should be in danger, we who were an august people, of dwindling to a vile herd of ab­jects, by basely setting ourselves to sale; we might be re­animated by the sight of your virtues and your laws. It might recal to our depraved and dastard hearts, with a sense of the value and the grandeur of liberty, the energy to preserve it. But if it must be, that such an example as your's shall want power to prompt us; if it must be, that slavery, the never failing follower of venality, shall be, one day, established in that land, which has been in­undated with blood in the cause of freedom, which has seen scaffolds erected for the punishment of tyrants; then will we emigrate like your fathers, then will we abandon, in a body, the ungrateful isle, delivered up to a despot, and leave the monster, to reign and roar, in a desart, for domain. Then shall you surely welcome us as friends, as [Page 42] brothers. You will suffer us to partake with you of this soil, of this air, free as the generous sou [...]s of their inha­bitants, and, thanks to your virtues, we shall find again an England, again a country.

"Such, brave countrymen, are our hopes, such our wishes. Receive then our oaths, pledges of so holy an alliance. Let us invoke, to still add solemnity to the treaty, let us invoke our common ancestors, who were all animated by the spirit of liberty like you, and did not dread to die in its defence. Let us call to witness, the memory of the illustrious founders of your colonies, that of your august legislators, of the philosophic Locke, the first man upon the earth who made a code of toleration, of the venerable Penn, the first who founded a city of brethren. The spirits of these great men, who surely at this moment are beholding us with earnestness and with pleasure, are worthy to preside at a treaty, which is about to draw the blessings of peace upon a double world. Swear we, in their presence; swear we, upon the very arms, with which you have so valiantly withstood us; swear we, to remain for ever united, and for ever true; and when the oath of peace shall have been pronounced by all, make, of these same arms, a sacred deposite in some hal­lowed pile, where the father's shall shew them to the ge­nerations as they rise; and there keep them carefully from age to age, in order to their being, one day, turned a­gainst the first, be he English or American, who shall dare propose the rupture of that alliance, which is equally useful, equally honorable to both the names."

At this discourse, I hear the towns, the villages, the fields, all the shores of North-America resound, with live­liest acclamation, with tenderest repetition of the endear­ing names of brother and of mother, applied to your country and her sons. And whilst the conflagrations of war are succeeded by bonfires and sports, and every de­monstration of a heart-felt triumphant joy, I see the na­tions, envious of your power, to stand aghast, in silence, astonishment, despair.

Your parliament is about to meet. What is to be ex­pected from it? Will it listen to reason, or will it perse­vere [Page 43] in its madness? Will it be the defender of the rights of nations, or the instrument of the tyranny of ministers? Will its acts be the decrees of a free people, or edicts dic­tated by the court? I am present at the deliberations of your houses. In these revered resorts I hear wisdom speak by the mouth of moderation. Soft persuasion seems to flow there, from the lips of most distinguished orators. My heart is filled with hope: my eyes over-run with tears. Presently a voice, the organ of despotism and of war, suspends the delicious, sweet emotion.

"Englishmen, cries a mad haranguer, can you hesitate a moment? It is your rights, it is your must important interests, it is the glory of your name, that you are called upon to defend. It is not a foreign power which attacks these essential objects. They are menaced by an interior, domestic enemy. The danger therefore is more imminent, the outrage the more sensible.

"Between two rival powers, armed for mutual preten­sions, policy may sometimes suspend hostilities. Against rebel subjects, slackness is the greatest fault, and all mo­deration weakness. The standard of revolt, which was set up by audacity, should be torn down by power. Let the sword of justice fall heavy on the hands which dared display it. Let us be expeditious. In these cases there is a first moment which must be seized on; revolutions should be strangled in their birth. Give not to minds, yet in amazement, time to grow familiar with their guilt; to the ringleaders, time to confirm their power; not to the people, that of learning to obey new masters. The peo­ple in a revolt, are almost always actuated by alien im­pu [...]es. Neither their fury, nor their hatred, nor their love, are properly their own. You may give them pas­sions, as easily as arms. Display to their eyes, the power and majesty of the British empire: they will presently be falling at your feet; and go in an instant from terror to compunction, from compunction to obedience. If we must have recourse to the severity of arms, let us have no scruples. In civil war, pity is a most mistaken virtue. When the sword is once drawn, it ought not to be stayed, but by submission. It is for them to answer now, to hea­ven [Page 44] and to earth, for the evils which they bring; upon themselves. Consider that a transient severity, in these rebellious countries, will insure us peace and obedience that will last for ages.

"In order to make us suspend our blows, and disarm our hands, we have been told, and 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? These names, these bands, so sacred, are the very thing that accuses and attaints [...]m. Since when, were these revered titles to impose duties but on us? Since when, had rebellious children the right to take arms a­gainst their mother, despoil her of her heritage, and rend her heart? They talk of liberty: I respect this name as much as they do; but by this liberty, is it independence, that we are to understand? Is it the right, to overturn a legislation, founded and established two ages since? Is it the right, to usurp all those which we possess? They talk of liberty, but I talk, and will always talk, of the supre­macy, and the sovereign power, of Britain.

"What, supposing they had some causes of complaint, supposing they intended to refuse bearing some light por­tion of the heavy burden under which we stagger, to re­fuse unreasonably to make themselves partners in our ex­pences, as we have made them partners in our greatness, had they no other way to do it, than by revolt and arms? There are those who call them our countrymen, and our friends; but, for my part, I can see them in no other light than that of the most cruel persecutors and enemies of our country. We had common fathers, it is [...]aid; and so, undoubtedly, we had; but these respectable ancestors I myself with confidence invoke. If their spirits could here resume their places, their indignation would not be inferior to our own. With what wrath would these vir­tuous citizens then understand, that those of their chil­dren who went to fix themselves beyond the seas, no sooner began to be a little conscious of their strength, than they made a traitorous trial of it against thei un­try; armed themselves against her with the very benefits [Page 45] her bounty had bestowed? Yes, all; even to that pacific sect, enjoined strictly by their founder never to dip their hands in blood; they, who have respected the lives and the rights of savage people; they, who by an enthusiasm of humanity, have struck off the fetters from their slaves: now, equally faithless to their country and their religion, they arm their hands for slaughter; and it is against you. They treat all men as brethren; and you, you only, of all people, are excluded from the title. They have shewn the world that the savages of America, that the negroes of Africa, are henceforward less alien to them than the citizens of Britain.

"Arm, then, arm. Britons, strike home; revenge, revenge, your country's wrongs, your offended rights. Revenge the treason to your greatness. Display that power, so redoubtable in Europe, in Africa, and the la­dies; which has so often astonished America herself; and since, between a sovereign-people and the subject people who revolt, there can be no treaty now, but force, let force decide. Snatch opportunely at this world, which is falling from you, and resume it; it is your property, which ingratitude and insolence would ravish from you."

The sophisms of a fretting, strutting sprechifier, up­held by royal power and national pride, suppress, in the majority of the representatives of the people, the desire of pacific measures. New resolutions resemble those which begot them; but with aggravated features of fero­city and despotism. Levies of troops, equipments of fleets. Admirals and generals set sail for the new world, with orders and projects sanguinary and savage. No­thing less than unconditional submission can restrain or retard the devastation ordained against the colonies.

Until this memorable period, the Americans had con­fined themselves to a resistance, authorized even by the English laws. No other ambition appeared in them, than that of maintaining the very limited rights which they had hitherto enjoyed. Even the leading men amongst them, who might be supposed to have more en­larged ideas, had not yet ventured to speak to the multi­tude of any thing but an advantageous accommodation. [Page 46] They would have been afraid, in going further, of lossing the confidence of people attacked by habit to an empire, under whose wings they had prospered. The accounts o [...] the great preparations which were making in the old world, with fetters to confine, or with fire to consume, the new, extinguished all remains of affection for the ori­ginal government. The only business now, was to give energy to minds ready to receive it. This was the effect which a work, entitled "Common Sense," produced. We shall give here the sum and substance of its doctrine, with­out tying ourselves down to its exact form and order.

Never, says the author of this celebrated performance, never did a more grand concernment call for the attention of the world. It is not that of a city or a province, it is that of an immense continent, and of a considerable por­tion of the globe. It is not the affair of a day, it is that of ages. The present is about to decide upon a long fu­turity; and many hundreds of years after that we shall be no more, the sun, in illuminating this hemisphere, will il­luminate our glory, or expose our shame. A long time did we speak of peace and reconcilement: all is changed, On the day when, in consequence of the recourse which has been had to arms, the first drop of blood was shed, time for disquisition passed away. A day has given birth to a revolution. A day has transported us to another age.

Timid souls, souls who measure the future by the past, think that we stand in need of the protection of England. That protection might be useful to a rising colony; it is become dangerous for a nation formed. Infancy must needs be supported, in its weak endeavours to walk; youth should march actively and freely, in power and pride of port. The nation, as well as the man, who may have the power and right to protect me, may have the power and will to oppress me. I give up the support of a protector, to be secured from the fear of a master.

In Europe, the people are two much agitated to allow to this part of the world the enjoyment of constant peace. In those courts and nations interests meet interests, and jostle without end. As friends of England we must neces­sarily have all her enemies for our own. This alliance [Page 47] will entail upon America the dower of perpetual war. Let us part, let us part. Neutrality, trade and peace; such, and such only, can be the foundations of our great­ness.

The authority of Great-Britain over America must sooner or later be extinct. So wills nature, necessity, and time. The English government can, therefore, give us only a transient constitution; and we shall bequeath to our posterity but debts, and dissentions, and a precarion state. If we would insure their happiness, let us part. If we are fathers, if we love our children, let us part. Laws and liberty are the heritage we owe them.

England is too far removed from us; we cannot be go­verned by such a distant country. What, to traverse, al­ways, two thousand leagues, to claim justice, or to ask for laws! to exculpate ourselves from imaginary crimes, or solicit, with meanness, the court and ministers of a fo­reign clime! What, to wait for years for every answer; and to find, as we might too often, when we had crossed and recrossed the ocean, that injustice only would be the product of our voyage! No; to be a great state, the cen­tre and the seat of power must be in the state itself. No­thing but the despotism of the East can inure men thus to receive their laws from rulers far remote, or from the ba­shaws, by whom invisible tyrants are represented. But let it not be forgotten, that the more the distance is aug­mented, the more ponderous and cruel is the pressure of the despotic power; and the people then, deprived of al­most all the advantages of government, feel only its mi­series and its vices.

Nature did not create a world to subject it to the inha­bitants of an island. Nature has established the laws of equilibrium, which she every where observes, in the hea­vens as well as upon the earth. By the laws of bodies, and of distances, America can belong but to itself.

There is no government without 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 shewn that she would command us like slaves; America, that she was equally [Page 48] sensible both of her rights and of her strength. They have each betrayed their secret. From this moment there can be no further treaty. It would be signed by hatred and distrust; hatred, which never pardons; distrust, which, by its very nature, can never be reconciled.

Would you know what an accommodation would pro­duce? Your ruin. You stand in need of laws; you will not obtain them. Who would give them to you? The English nation? She is jealous of your increase. The [...] ? He is your enemy. Yourselves, in your as­semblies? Do you not remember that all legislation is submitted to the negative right of the monarch who would bring you to his yoke? This right would be a formidable right incessantly armed against you. Make requests; they will be eluded. Form p [...]ans of commerce and greatness; they will become to the mother-country an object of af­fright. Your government will be no more than a kind of clandestine war; that of an enemy who would destroy without openly attacking; it will be, according to the ordinary course of policy, a slow and secret assassination, which will cause languor and prolong weakness, and, with the art of an imperial torturer, equally prohibit you to live or die. Submit to England; and behold your fate.

It is not without right that we take arms. Our right is necessity, a just defence, the miseries of ourselves and of our children, the excesses committed against us. Our right is our august title of nation. It is for the sword to judge us. The tribunal of war, is the only tribunal which now exists for us. Well then, since the sword must ne­cessarily be drawn, let us be sure at least, that it be for a cause that may be worthy of it, and requite us for both our treasure and our blood. What, shall we expose our­selves to the seeing our habitations ruined, our lands laid waste, our families slaughtered, in order to compass at last an accommodation; that is, to implore new chains, and cement ourselves the edifice of our bondage? What, shall it be by the dreadful light of conflagrations, shall it be on the tomb of our fathers, or our chidren, or our wives, that we shall sign a treaty with our proud oppressors! and, all covered with our blood, will they d [...]g [...] to par­don [Page 49] us! Ah, we should then be but a vile object of pity­ing wonder to Europe, of indignation to America, and of contempt even to our enemies. If we can obey them, we had not the right to combat them. Liberty only can absolve us. Liberty, and perfect liberty, is the only ob­ject worthy of our labours and our dangers. What do I say? From this moment it is our own. Our title is writ­ten on the bloody plains of Lexington; it was there that the hand of England tore the contract by which we were united to her. Yes. At the moment when the report of the first musquet discharged by England was heard, na­ture herself proclaimed us free and independent.

Let us profit by the benefit of foes. The youth of na­tions is the age most favourable to their independence. It is the time of energy and vigour. Our souls are not yet surrounded by that apparatus of luxury, which serves as hostage to a tyrant. Our arms are not yet enervated in the arts of softness. Amongst us are not seen to domineer those nobles, who, by their very constitution, are the ne­cessary allies of kings; who love not liberty, but when they can make of it an instrument of oppression; those no­bles, eager for privilege and title, for whom, in critical conjunctures, the people are but [...]ools, for whom the su­preme power is a ready corruptor.

Your colonies are formed of plain, brave, laborious, upright men, proprietors and cultivators of their land in one. Liberty is their first want. Rural labours have al­ready hardened them for war. Public enthusiasm brings to light unknown talents. It is in revolutions that great minds are formed, that heroes show themselves, and take their place. Remember Holland, and all her sons; and that number of extraordinary men to which the quarrel of her liberty gave birth: behold in these men an example for you; remember their success, and behold a presage.

Let our first step be to form a constitution by which we may be united. The moment is arrived. Later, it would be abandoned to an uncertain fururity and the caprice of chance. The more people and riches we shall acquire, the more barriers will there be raised up between us. Then, how shall so many provinces and interests be made [Page 50] consistent? For such an union, it is necessary that each people should at once be sensible, both of the particular weakness, and the general strength. There must be great calamities or great fears. It is then amongst communities as amongst individuals, that spring up those firm and vi­gorous friendships which associate souls with souls, and interests with interests. It is then, that one spirit, breath­ed from every part, forms the genius of states; and that all the scattered powers become by union a single and a formidable power. Thanks to our persecuters, we are at this epoch [...]. If we have courage, it will be that of our happiness. Few nations have laid hold of the favour­able moment to form their government. Once escaped, this moment returns no more; and anarchy or slavery pu­nishes the neglect of it for ages. Let not a similar fault prepare for us similar regret. Regret is impotent.

Let the moment, which, in respect to us, is singular, be seized on. We have it in our power to frame the finest constitution that the world has seen. You have read in your sacred books how mankind were destroyed by the general deluge. A single family survived, and was com­manded by the Supreme Being to re-people the earth. We are this family. Despotism has deluged all; and we can a second time renew the world.

We are about, at this moment, to decide the fate of a race of men more numerous, perhaps, than all the peo­ple of Europe put together. Shall we wait till we may be the prey of a conqueror, and suffer the hope of the uni­verse to be destroyed? Imagine to yourselves, 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 destiny: If we give them up, they will, perhaps, one day, drag their chains across our tombs, and load them with imprecations.

Call to mind a writing which has appeared amongst you, and had for a motto, UNITE OR DIE.

Let us unite then, and begin by declaring our INDE­PENDENCE. That alone can efface the name of rebelli­ous subjects, which our insolent oppressors have dared to give us. That alone can make us rise up to the dignity [Page 51] which is our due, insure us allies amongst the powers, impress respect even upon our enemies, and, if we treat with them, give us the right to treat, with the power and majesty which becomes a nation.

But I repeat it; we must be quick. Our uncertainty makes our weakness. Let us dare to be free, and we are so. Ready to take the leap, we draw back. We read the countenances of each other with anxious curiosity. It seems, as if we were astonished at our own boldness, and that our very courage gave us fear. But it is not now the time to be musing on calculations. It is passed. In great affairs, in which there is but one great part to take, too much circumspection ceases to be prudence. Every thing that is extreme, demands resolution in the extreme. Then, the boldest measures are the wisest; and the excess of boldness itself becomes the means and the warrant of success.

Such was the substance of the sentiments displayed in this work. They confirmed in their principles the enter­prising spirits who had long required a total separation from the mother-country. The timid citizens, who had been wavering till then, now declared decisively for this great and interesting rupture. The votaries of indepen­dence were numerous enough to bring the general con­gress, 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 orators of Athens and of Rome!—With what grandeur, with what enthusiasm, should I not speak of those generous men who erected this grand edifice, by their patience, their wisdom, and their courage! Han­cock, Franklin, the two Adamses, were the greatest actors in this affecting scene: but they were not the only ones. Posterity shall know them all. Their honor­ed names shall be transmitted to it by a happier pen than mine. B [...]ass and marble shall shew them to remotest a­ges. In beholding them, shall the friend of freedom feel his heart palpitate wi [...]h joy, feel his eyes floating in deli­cious tea [...]s. Under the bust of one of them has been writ­ten, HE WRESTED THUNDER FROM HEAVEN, AND [Page 52] THE SCEPTRE FROM TYRANTS ^*. Of the last words of this eulogy shall all of them partake.

Heroic country! my advanced age permits me not to visit thee. Never shall I see myself amongst the respect­able personages of thy Areopagus; never shall I be pre­sent at the deliberations of thy Congress. I shall die without having seen the retreat of toleration, of manners, of laws, of virtue, and of freedom. My ashes will not be covered by a free and holy earth: but I shall have de­sired it; and my last breath shall bear to heaven an eja­culation for thy prosperity.

Though America might be assured of universal appro­bation, she thought it incumbent on her to expose to the eyes of the world the motives of her conduct. She pub­lished her manifesto, in which we read.

"That the history of the English nation and its king▪ will shew to the succeeding generations, whom it shall en­tertain and instruct with accounts of them and us, a series of outrages and of usurpations, which vied with each o­ther in their tendency to establish absolute tyranny in these provinces.

"It will she that the monarch refused his consent to laws the most salutary and the most necessary to the pub­lic good.

"That he removed the assemblies to inconvenient pla­ces, at a distance from all records, in order to bring the deputies more easily to his views.

"That he had frequently dissolved the assembly of re­presentatives, because they had firmly defended the peo­ple's rights.

"That, after such dissolution, he had left the states too long without representatives, and consequently expo­sed to the inconveniencies resulting from the want of as­semblies.

"That he endeavoured to hinder population, by rais­ing difficulties to the naturalization of foreigners, and by [Page 53] selling the lands, of which he granted the property, too dear.

"That he made the judges too dependent on himself, by decreeing that they should hold but of him alone, both their offices and their salaries.

"That he created new employments, and filled this country with a multitude of place men, who devoured our substance, and disturbed our quiet.

"That he maintained amongst us, in time of profound peace, a considerable number of troops, without the con­sent of the legislative power.

"That he rendered military power independent of, and even superior to, the civil power.

"That he contrived all means, in conjunction with perverse men, to quarter armed soldiers in our houses, and exempt them from the pains due to the murders they might commi [...] in America; to destroy our trade in all parts of the world; to impose taxes on us without our consent; to deprive us, in many cases, of our trials by juries; to transport us, and make us take our trials, be­yond the seas; to take away our charters, suppress our best laws, to alter the foundation and the form of our go­vernment for the worse; to suspend our own legislation, and make us receive other laws.

"That he himself abdicated his government in the American provinces, by declaring us fallen from his pro­tection, and by making war upon us.

"That he caused our coasts to be ravaged, our ports to be destroyed, our towns to be burnt, our people to be massacred.

"That he forced those who were taken prisoners upon the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to be­come the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to perish themselves by hands so dear.

"That he excited amongst us intestine divisions; and that he endeavoured to raise against our peaceable inha­bitants, the barbarous savages, accustomed to massacre all, without distinction of rank, sex, and age.

"That at this time there arrived on our shores foreign mercenaries, commissioned to complete the work of de­vastation and death.

[Page 54]"And that a prince, whose character was thus mark­ed by all the features at tyranny, was not fit to govern a free people."

A step which broke the ties formed by blood, by reli­gion, and by habit, was to be supported by a grand con­cert of wills, by wise and vigorous measures. The United States of America gave themselves a federate constitution, which joined to the interior advantages of republican go­vernment, all the power of monarchy.

Each province had an assembly formed by the repre­sentatives of the different districts, and in which the le­gislative power resided. The executive power was com­mitted to its president. His rights and his obligations were, to listen to every application from any of the peo­ple; to call them together when circumstances might re­quire it; to provide for the arming and subsisting troops, and concert the operations of them with their officers. He was at the head of a secret committee, which was to hold a continual correspondence with the general congress. The time of his continuance in office was limited to two years. But the laws permitted a prolongation of it.

The provinces were not obliged to render an account of their administration to the great council of the nation, though composed of the deputies of all the colonies. The superiority of the general congress over the particular con­gresses, was confined to matters relative to politics and wa [...].

But some people have thought that the institution of this body was not so well contrived as the legislation of the provinces. It seems, it must be confessed, that fede­rate states, which raise themselves from the condition of subjects up to that of being independent, cannot, without danger, trust their delegates with the unlimited power of making peace and war. For these delegates, should they be corrupt or ill informed, might bring back the whole state to the bondage which it is seeking to escape from. It seems, that in these times of revolution, the public will cannot be too well known, too literally pronounced. It is necessary, undoubtedly, they say, that all the mea­sures, all the operations, which relate to the common de­fence and offence, should be decided on by the common [Page 55] representatives of the body of the state: but the continu­ation of war, and the conditions of peace, ought to be deliberated upon in every province; and the deliberations to be transmitted to the congress by the deputies, who would submit the opinion of their provinces to the plura­lity of voices. In short, they add, that if in established governments it is proper that the people should rely with confidence in the wisdom of their senate, in a state where the constitution is forming, where the people, as yet un­certain of their fate, call for their liberty, sword in hand, it is necessary that all the citizens should be continually in council, in camp, in the public places, and have their eyes continually open upon the representatives to whom their destiny has been committed.

Though these principles are true in general, there might be a difficulty, we may answer, in applying them to the new republic formed by the Americans. It is not with that republic as with the federate republics which we see in Europe, I mean Holland and Switzerland, which oc­cupy a country but of small extent, and in which it is easy to establish a rapid communication between all the provinces. The same thing may be said of the confede­racies of ancient Greece. These states were situated at a small distance from each other, confined almost within the narrow compass of the Peloponnesus, or, at most, within the limits of the Archipelago. But the United States of America, dispersed over an immense continent; occupy­ing in the new world a space of almost fifteen degrees; separated by desarts, by mountains, by gulfs, and by a vast extent of coast, cannot have the advantage of this ra­pid communication. If the general congress could not de­cide upon political interests without the particular delibe­rations of each province; if on every important occasion, on every unforeseen event, it should be necessary to give new instructions, and, as we may say, a new power to the representatives, this body would remain inactive. The distances to be passed, the delays and the multitude of de­bates, might too often be hurtful to the public good.

Besides, it is never at the birth of a constitution, and amidst the great fermentations of liberty, that there is [Page 56] cause to fear that a body of representatives should, either from weakness or corruption, betray the interests with which they are entrusted. It is rather in such a body that the general spirit is both exalted and inflamed. In that resides, in its vigour, the genius of the nation. Chosen by the esteem of their fellow-citizens, chosen at a time when every public function is a danger, and every vote an honour, placed at the head of those who will compose for ever that celebrated Areopagus, and thence even na­turally carried to regard the public liberty as their own work, they cannot but have the enthusiasm of founders, who make it their pride to have their names engraved con­spicuously, to be read by distant ages, on the frontispiece of an august monument which is rising. The fears which the partisans of the contrary system might have upon this object, seem, therefore, to have small foundation.

I will say more. It might happen that a people who are fighting for liberty, fatigued with a long and painful struggle, and more struck with the present danger than the future good, might feel their courage failing, and perhaps, one day, be tempted to prefer dependence and peace to independence and tumult, attended with peril and with blood. Then would it be advantageous to this people to have divested themselves of the power of making peace with their oppressors, and deposited it in the hands of the senate which they had chosen to serve as an organ to their will, when this will could shew itself with freedom, pride, and courage. It seems as it each individual, when he had given his voice for the instituting such a senate, should say to it▪ I raise the standard of war against my ty­rants. If my arm should weary in the war, if I could de­base myself so low as to implore repose, support me against my weakness. Listen to no prayer or wish unworthy of me, which I disavow beforehand; and pronounce not the name of peace until my bonds be broken.

In reality, if we consult the history of republics, we shall see, that the multitude have almost always great im­petuosity and heat at the first moment; but that it is only in a small number of chosen men, and qualified to serve as chiefs, that reside those constant and vigorous resolu­tions [Page 57] which march, with a steady, firm, undaunted step, towards some great and worthy end, never turning, or looking, from the path, and never ceasing most stubborn­ly to combat all obstructions that they meet with, from fortune, from misery, and from man.

However it be, and whatsoever side may be taken in this political discussion, the Americans had not yet created for themselves a system of government, when in the month of March, Hopkins plundered the island of Provi­dence of a large train of artillery and a considerable quan­tity of ammunition; when in the beginning of May, Carleton drove out of Canada the provincial troops, which were employed to reduce Quebec with a view of compleat­ing the conquest of that important territory; when in the month of June, Clinton and Parker had been so vigorously repulsed on the Southern coasts of America. Far greater scenes followed the declaration of independence.

Howe had been appointed to supersede the feeble Gage: and it was this new general who had evacuated Boston. Having arrived on the 2d of April at Halifax, on the 10th of June he departed for Staten-Island. The forces, which were to act both by sea and land, successive­ly joined him according to expectation; and on the 28th of August he landed on Long-Island without opposition, under the protection of a fleet commanded by the admiral his brother. The Americans exhibited as little spirit in defending the interior part of their country as they did on the landing of the enemy.

After a very feeble resistance, and considerable loss, they took refuge on the continent with a facility which would hardly have been granted them by a conqueror who knew how to avail himself of the advantages he had ob­tained. The city of New-York too was abandoned by these new republicans with still greater precipitation than they had evacuated Long Island: and they filed off to­wards Kingsbridge, where they appeared determined to make an obstinate resistance.

If the English had followed up their success with that vivacity which circumstances demanded, the new-raised troops which had opposed them, had infallibly been dis­persed, [Page 58] or reduced to the necessity of laying down their arms. On the contrary, they were allowed six week: to recover from their consternation: nor did they abandon their intrenchments till the night of the first or second of November, when the movements, which were making in their view, were sufficient to convince them that their camp was upon the point of being attacked.

Their commander in chief, Washington, was unwil­ling to trust the fate of his country to an action, which might, and naturally would have terminated to the pre­judice of those important interests which had been com­mitted to him. He knew, that delays, ever favourable to a native, are ever fatal to a stranger. This conviction determined him to retire to the Jerseys with a design of protracting the war. Favoured both by the inclemency of the season, by his knowledge of the country, and by the nature of the ground, which compensated in some measure for the want of discipline, he had reason to flatter himself, that he should be able to cover the greatest part of this fertile province, and keep the enemy at a distance from Pennsylvania. In a moment, however, he sees his colours abandoned by the soldiers, whose engagement, at the end of six, and even at the end of three months, had expired: and of an army of twenty five thousand men, there scarce remained two thousand five hundred, with which he was fortunate enough to retire beyond the De­laware.

Without losing a moment, the King's troops ought to have passed the river in pursuit of this handful of fu [...] ­tives, and have put them totally to the route. If the fi [...] thousand men, destined for the conquest of Rhode-Island, had gone up the river in the transports they were aboard of, the junction of the two corps might have been effected without opposition even in Philadelphia itself, and the new republic had been stifled in that important and cele­brated city which gave it birth.

At this time, perhaps, reproaches were cast on the English general for being timid and too circumspect in the operations of the campaign. Certain it is, however, that he was rash enough in the distribution of his winter-can­tonments. [Page 59] They were disposed in such a manner, as if there remained not in America a single individual, who had either inclination or power to molest them.

This presumption encouraged the militia of Pennsyl­vania, Maryland, and Virginia, collected together and re-united for the support of the common cause.

On the 25th of December they crossed the Delaware, and fell accidentally upon Trenton, which was occupied by fifteen hundred of the twelve thousand Hessians, sold in so base a manner, by their avaricious master, to the king of Great-Britain. This corps was massacred, taken, or entirely dispersed. Eight days after three English re­giments were in like manner driven from Princeton, but after having better supported their reputation than the foreign troops in their pay.

These unexpected events reduced the enemies of Ame­rica, in the Jerseys, to the necessity of confining their posts to Amboy and Brunswick, where yet they were exceed­ingly harrassed during the remainder of the winter.

The effect of strong passions, and of great dangers, is often to astonish the mind, and to throw it into that kind of torpor that deprives it of the use of its powers; by de­grees it recovers and collects itself; all its faculties, sus­pended for a moment, display themselves with redoubled vigour: every spring of action is awakened, and it feels its powers rise at once to a level with the difficulties it has to encounter. In a great multitude there are always some who feel this immediate effect, which rapidly communi­cates itself to others. Such a revolution took place a­mongst the confederate states. It caused armed men to issue from all quarters.

It was very late before the campaign of 1777 was open­ed. The English army, in despair of penetrating into Pennsylvania by way of the Jerseys, at last embarked on the 23d of July, and, by the bay of Chesapeak, landed in a country which their generals may very justly be re­proached for not having invaded the year before. Their march is uninterrupted, till they reach Brandywine. There, on the 11th of September, they attack and beat the Americans, and arrive on the 30th at Philadelphia, [Page 60] which had been abandoned on the 25th by the Congress, and a few days later or sooner by the greatest number of the inhabitants.

This victory is attended with no consequences. The conqueror sees nothing around him but hatred and de­vastation. Pent up in a space extremely circumscribed, he meets with insurmountable obstacles in extending him­self over an uncultivated country. Even his gold affords him not its usual resources in the neighbouring districts, nor is there a possibility of any supplies, but what must necessarily cross the seas. The irksomeness of an impri­sonment of nine months duration, determined him to re­gain New York by way of the Jerseys; and under the command of Clinton, successor to Howe, this long and dangerous retreat was effected, without sustaining so much loss as a more experienced enemy would have occasioned.

While the English were wasting away their time in Pennsylvania, an important scene opens itself in the more northern part of America. In the month of May, 1776, Carleton had driven the provincials out of Canada, and in October destroyed the armed sloops which they had constructed on the Lake Champlain. This success drew Burgoyne to Ticonderoga, in the month of July in the following year. At his approach, a garrison consisting of four thousand men, abandoned this important post, with the loss of their rear-guard, their artillery, and am­munition.

The English general was naturally presumptuous. A weakness so extraordinary increased his arrogance. He had conceived the design of re uniting the troops of Ca­nada with those of New-York by Hudson's-river. This project was bold and great. Had he succeeded he would have out North-America in two, and, perhaps, have end­ed the war. But, to have had success, it would have been necessary, that whilst one army was going down, the other should have gone up, the river. Having failed in this idea. Burgoyne ought to have seen, from the very first steps of it, that his enterprize was chimerical. At every march it became more and more so. His communication grew more distant; his provisions less abundant. The Ameri­cans, [Page 61] taking heart again, assembled from all parts round him. At length this unlucky body of men found them­selves caught, on the 13th of October, at Saratoga; and nations learned with astonishment, that six thousand of the best disciplined troops of the old hemisphere, had laid down their arms before the husbandmen of the new, con­ducted by the fortunate Gates. Those who remembered that the Swedes, under Charles the twelfth, till then in­vincible, had capitulated before the Ruffians, yet uncivi­lized, did not accuse the English troops, but only bla­med the imprudence of their general.

This event, so decisive in the opinion of our politicians, was of no greater consequence than that with which other actions, less favourable to the American arms, had been attended. After three years of fighting, massacre, and devastacion, the state of things was scarcely changed from what it had been a fortnight after the commencement of hostilities. Let us endeavour to discover the causes of so strange a singularity.

Great-Britain, accustomed to storms at home, saw not at first all the danger there might be in the tempest which was rising in her remote possessions. For a long time her troops had been insulted at Boston; an authority, inde­pendent of her's, had been formed in the province of Massachusetts. The other colonies were making dispo­sitions to follow this example, had not the administration taken those great objects into their serious consideration. When th [...] were laid before parliament, both houses were filled with clamour; and much declamation followed af­ter much declamation that had gone before. The senate of the nation decreed at last, that the country which was rebellious to its decreed, should by force be made obedient: but his violent resolution was executed with the slowness too frequent in states of freedom.

England thought, in general, that coasts without de­fence, that countries entirely open, could not resist her fleets and armies. It did not appear to her that this ex­pedition could be of sufficient duration to give time to the peaceful husbandmen of America to learn the art of war. It was forgotten that the climate, the rivers, the desires, [Page 62] the swamps, the want of provision, in proportion as ad­vances were made into the country, and an infinity of o­ther natural obstructions, militating against a rapid pro­gress in a region three-fourths uncultivated, should have made a part of the calculation.

Success was still more retarded by the influence of mo­ral causes.

Great-Britain is the region of party. Her kings have generally seemed to be well enough convinced of the ne­cessity of leaving public affairs to the management of the prevailing faction, by which they were conducted com­monly with intelligence and with vigour, because the principal agents of which it was composed were animated by a common interest. Then, to public spirit, which reigns more in England than in any other government of Europe, was added the power of a faction, and that spirit of party which moves men's minds so powerfully, because it is always the effect of passion. To rid himself of this restraint, George the third composed his council of detached, unconnected members. This innovation was not attended with any very great inconveniencies, as long as events rolled round in their common course. But as soon as a war with America had complicated a ma­chine, which was not before too simple, it was perceived that it had neither that strength, nor that union, which are so necessary for the execution of great affairs. The wheels, too far asunder, wanted, as we may say, a cen­tre of motion, and a common impulse. They went slug­gishly and precipitately, by turns. The administration too much resembled that of an ordinary monarchy, when the principle of action proceeds not from the head of an intelligent and active monarch, who brings together all the springs under his own hand. There was no longer any integrity or wholeness in what was undertaken, nor was there more of it in what was executed.

A ministry, without harmony and concord, was expo­sed to the incessantly renewed attacks of a body of ene­mies, united, close, and firm. Its resolutions, be they what they would, were sure to be combated by reasoning or by ridicule. It was reproached for having been severe [Page 63] with the distant members of the state, as it would have been reproached for having been too tender to them. Even they who in parliament were the most outrageous against the treatment which had been shewn to the Ame­ricans; they who most encouraged them to resistance; they who, perhaps, secretly sent them succour, were as averse to their independence as the very ministers whom they laboured, without ceasing, to remove or vilify. Could the opposition have succeeded in disgusting the king with his confidents, or have obtained the sacrifice of them by the cry of the nation, the project of subjugating America had still been followed, but with more dignity, more force, and perhaps with measures better planned. As the reduction of the revolted provinces was not to be their work, they rather wished that this immense part of the British empire might be separated from it, than that it should be re-united by any other hands than theirs.

The activity of the generals repaired not the vice of these contrarieties, and the delays in consequence. They indulged the soldier with too long repose; they employed in meditating, the time for acting; they approached new-raised men with the precaution they would have taken before veteran troops. The English, who have so much impetuosity in party, are of a cool and calm character in other things. They are to be agitated but by violent pas­sions. When this spring is wanting, they move slow e­nough to count their steps. Then they govern themselves by the temper of their mind, which, in general, if we except the arts of imagination and taste, is, in every thing else, methodical and wise. In war, their valour never loses sight 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 sy­stem has its advantages, particularly in a close and nar­row country, in a country set thick with strong holds and fortified towns. But in the present circumstances, and upon the vast continent of America, against a people who should 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 substitute, in its [Page 64] stead, the rapid and impetuous march, and the mighty da [...]ngs which at once astonish, strike, and overcome. It was in the first moments, above all, that it would have been necessary to impress upon the Americans, not the terror of such ravages as affect a people, armed for their liberty, more with indignation than with fear; but that dread which is struck from a superiority of talents and of arms, and which a warlike people, of the old world, should naturally be supposed to carry to the new. The confidence of victory had soon been victory itself. But by too much circumspection, by their too servile attach­ment to rules and principles, skilful leaders failed of ren­dering to their country the service it expected from them, and which it was justified in expecting.

The troops, on their side, did not press their com­manders to lead them on. They were just come from a country, where the cause which had sent them across the ocean, made no impression. It was, in the eyes of the people, but a broil which could not be of any conse­quence. They confounded the debates it occasioned in parliament with other debates, often of small importance. It was not talked of; or if some persons entertained themselves with it, they were not more earnest about it than about those pieces of news, which, in great cities, occupy the idleness of every day. The indifference of the nation had communicated itself to the defenders of its rights. They would even have been afraid, perhaps, to gain too decisive advantages over countrymen, who had taken arms but to keep themselves from chains. In all the monarchies of Europe, the soldier is but an instru­ment of despotism, and has its disposition. He looks up­on himself as belonging to the throne, and not to the country; and a hundred thousand armed men, are but a hundred thousand disciplined and formidable slaves. The habit even of exercising the empire of force, that empire to which all gives way, contributes to extinguish in them every spark o [...] the love of liberty. At length, the mili­tary government and subordination, which moves thou­sands of arms by a single voice, which permits no asking, nor seeing, nor judging, nor thinking; and, at the first [Page 65] signal, makes it a law to kill or die, compleats the work of changing these sentiments into principles, which make what may be called the morals of their state. It is not so in England. The influence of the constitution is so great, that it extends itself even to the troops. There, a man is a citizen before he is a soldier. Public opinion, con­forming itself to the constitution, honours one, and light­ly regards the other, of these titles. That we see by the history of the revolutions and tempests by which that tur­bulent island has been torn, that the English soldier, though enlisted for life, preserves for political liberty a passion, of which an idea is not easily to be formed in our countries of slaves.

How should the ardour which was wanting in the Bri­tish troops have animated the Hessians, the Brunswickers, and the other Germans ranking under the same banners, all equally discontented with the princes who had sold them, discontented with the sovereign who had bought them, discontented with the nation which paid their wa­ges, and discontented with their comrades, who treated their mercenariness with contempt? Besides, they [...]d also brothers in the enemy's camp, to whom they dreaded to give death, and from whose hand a wound would have grieved them with a double pain.

The spirit of the English army had been altered too, in consequence of a revolution in the manners of their country, which had taken place about fifteen or eighteen years before. The successes of the last war; the extension which the peace had given to commerce; the great ac­quisitions made in the East Indies: all these means of fortune had, without interruption, accumulated in Great-Britain prodigious riches. These riches kindled the de­sire of new enjoyments. The great went to acquire them in foreign countries; and, above all, in France; and brought home the poison to their country. From the higher conditions, it flowed down into all the classes, even to the lowest. To a character of plainness, simplicity, re­serve, and haughtiness, succeeded a taste for exterior shew, for dissipation, gallantry, and what is called politeness. Travellers who had formerly visited this island so renown­ed, [Page 66] thought themselves in another climate. The conta­gion had spread to the troops. They carried with them to the new hemisphere the passion which they had con­tracted in the old, for gaming, for soft accommodation, and good living. In departing from their coast, they should have renounced the superfluities of which they were enamoured. This taste for luxury, this ardour, so much the more violent as it was new, did not encourage them to pursue, into the interior part of the country, an enemy ever ready to plunge into it for shelter. Ye new politi­cians, who advance with so much confidence, that man­ners have no influence on the fate of nations; that, with regard to them, the measure of greatness is that of riches; that the pleasures of peace and the voluptuousness of the citizen cannot weaken the effect of those great machines called armies, and of which the European discipline has, according to your account, so perfected the infallible and tremendous operations: you, who to support your opi­nion, must turn away your eyes from the ashes of Carthage and the ruins of Rome, upon the recital I am making to you; suspend your judgment, and believe it possible that there may be opportunities of success which are lost by luxury. Believe, that, even to courageous troops, inde­pendence on wants has been often the chief cause of con­quest. It is too easy perhaps to brave only death. For nations corrupted by opulence, a severer trial is reserved, that of supporting the loss of their pleasures.

Add to all these reasons, that the means of war seldom arrived, across such a length of sea, in the convenient season for action. Add, that the councils of George the third were wisely determined to have too much influence in military operations which were to be executed at such a distance from them; and you will know the greatest part of the obstacles by which the ruinous efforts of the mo­ther country against the freedom of her colonies were op­posed.

But how happened it that America did not herself re­pulse from her shores these Europeans who were bringing to her chains or death?

This new world was desended by regular troops, which [Page 67] at first had been enlisted but for three or six months, and afterwards for three years, or as long as hostilities might continue. It was defended by citizens who took the field only when their particular province was invaded or me­naced. Neither this army always on foot, nor this mili­tia casually assembled, had a military turn. They were farmers, traders, lawyers, exercised only in the arts of peace, and conducted to danger by guides, as little versed as their subalterns in the very complicated science of war. In this state of things, what hope could they have of mea­suring themselves with advantage against veterans in dis­cipline, formed to evolution, instructed in tactics, and abundantly provided with all the instruments necessary to a vigorous attack, to an obstinate defence?

Enthusiasm alone might have surmounted these difficul­ties: but did there in reality exist more enthusiasm in the colonies than in the mother-country?

The general opinion in England, was, that the parlia­ment had essentially the right of taxing every country which made a part of the British empire. Perhaps, in the beginning of the troubles, not a hundred individuals were to be found who would have called this authority in question. Yet no anger was excited by the refusal of the Americans to acknowledge it. No hatred was borne to­wards them even after they had taken arms in support of their pretensions. As the labours of the people in the interior part of the kingdom were not affected by it, as the storm murmured but at a distance, every one was peaceably occupied with his business, or gave himself up without disturbance to his pleasures. They all waited for the conclusion of the drama without impatience, as if al­ready certain of what was to be exhibited in the unravel­ling of the plot.

The ferment must be supposed to have shewn itself at first much greater in the new hemisphere than the old. I [...] ever the co [...]s name of tyranny, or the grateful sound of independence, pronounced to nations without commu­nicating to them that warmth which produces motion? But did that warmth sustain itself? Had the first vehe­mence of imagination lasted, must not the repressing of [Page 68] excesses have occupied the attention of the new authority? But so far from having cause to withhold courage, it had cowardice to pursue. It was seen to punish desertion with death, staining the standard of liberty with blood. It was seen to refuse admitting of an exchange of prisoners, for fear of augmenting the inclination of the troops to sur­render at the first summons. It was seen reduced to the necessity of erecting tribunals for the prosecution of the generals or their lieutenants who should too easily give up the posts which their vigilance was to guard. It is true, that a hoary patriot, of fourscore years, who was desired to return to his fi [...]e side, cried out, My death will be of use; I shall shield with my body a younger man. It is true, that Putnam said to a royalist his prisoner, Return to thy com­mands, and if be asks thee how many troops I have, tell him, that I have enough; that, even if he should beat them, I should have still enough; and that he will find, in the event, that I have too many for him and for the tyrants whom he serves. These sentiments were heroic, but they were rare; and they became less common every day.

The intoxication was never general; and it could be but momentateous. None of those energetic causes, which have produced so many revolutions upon the globe, exist­ed in North-America. Neither religion nor lawe had there been outraged. The blood of martyrs or patriots had not there streamed from scaffolds. Morals had not been there insulted. Manners, customs, habits, no ob­ject dear to nations had there been the sport of ridicule. Arbitrary power had not there torn any inhabitant from the arms of his family and his friends, to drag him to a dreary dungeon. Public order had not been there invert­ed. The principles of administration had not been chang­ed there; and the maxims of government had there al­ways remained the same. The whole question was re­duced to the knowing whether the mother country had, or had not, the right to lay, directly, or indirectly, a flight tax upon the colonies: for the accumulated griev­ances in the manifesto were valid only in consequence of this leading grievance. This, almost metaphysical, que­stion, was scarcely of sufficient importance to cause the [Page 69] multitude to rise, or at least to interest them strongly in a quarrel for which they saw their land deprived of the hands destined to its cultivation, their harvests laid waste, their fields covered with the dead bodies of their kindred, or stained with their own blood. To these calamities, the work of the royal troops upon the coast, were soon added more insupportable ones in the heart of the country.

Never had the restlessness of the courts of London and Versailles disturbed the tranquillity of North America but both these powers brought some of the migratory clans in this part of the new hemisphere to partake in their san­guinary strife. Instructed by experience in the weight which these bordes could add to the scale, the English and the colonists were equally resolved to employ them for their mutual destruction.

Carleton tried, first, to arm these barbarous bands in Canada. "It is the dispute," said they in answer to his solicitations, "of a father with his children; we do not think it right for us to enter into this domestic squabble." —"But if the rebels should come to attack this province, would not you help us to drive them back?"—"Ever since the peace, the hatchet of war has been buried forty fathoms deep."—"You would certainly find it, if you were to dig for it."—"The helve of it is rotten, and we cannot make any use of it."

The United States were not more fortunate. "We have heard talk of some differences that have happened between Old and New England (said the tribe of the O­neidas to their deputies) but we shall never take a part in such atrocious divisions. War between brethren is a new and a strange thing in these regions. Our traditions have left us no example of this nature. Suppress your mad ha­tred; and may a benevolent sun disperse the black vapour in which you are involved!"

The Masphies alone seemed to interest themselves in the cause of the Americans. "There (said these good savages to them) there's sixteen shillings for you. 'Tis all that we have. We thought to have bought some rum with it; we'll drink water. We'll go a hunting. If any beasts fall by our arrows, we'll sell their skins, and bring you the money."

[Page 70]But in time, the very active agents of Great Britain succeeded in conciliating to it many nations of these abo­rigines. Its interests were preferred to those of its ene­mies, as well because the remoter distance had prevented the savages from having received so many outrages from it as from their proud neighbours, as because it could and would better pay the services which might be rendered to its cause. Under its banners, these allies, whose cha­racteristic fierceness knew no restraint, did a hundred times more damage to the colonists settled near the moun­tains, than had been suffered, from the royal troops, by those of their fellow citizens whom a happier destiny had fixed upon the confines of the ocean.

These calamities attacked but a more or less considera­ble number of the members of the United States, who soon after were all, collectively, afflicted by an inward hurt.

The metals, which, throughout the whole globe, re­present all the object of commerce, had, in this part of the new world, never been abundant. The small quan­tity of them which had been seen there, disappeared even at the commencement of hostilities. To these signs, uni­versally agreed upon, were substituted signs peculiar to these provinces. Paper replaced silver and gold. In or­der to give some dignity to the new pledge, it was adorn­ed with emb [...]ems, which might continually remind the people of the greatness of thei [...] undertaking, of the inesti­mable price of liberty, and of the necessity of a perseve­rance superior to all sufferings. The artifice did not suc­ceed. These ideal riches were rejected. The more the multiplication of them was urged by want, the greater did their depreciation grow. The Congress was indig­nant at the affronts given to its money, and declared all those to be traitors to their country who should not receive it as they would have received gold itself.

Did not this body know, that prepossessions are no more to be controled than feelings are? Did it not per­ceive, that in the present crisis every rational man would be afraid of exposing his fortune? Did it not see, that at the beginning of a republic it permitted to itself the exer­cise [Page 71] of such acts of despotism as are unknown even in the countries which are moulded to, and become familiar with, servitude and oppres [...]ion? Could it pretend that it did not punish a want of confidence with the pains which would have been scarcely merited by revolt and treason? Of all this was the Congress well aware. But it had no choice of means. Its despised and despicable scraps of paper were actually thirty times below their original va­lue, when more of them were ordered to be made. On the 13 [...]h of September, 1779, there was of this paper mo­ney, amongst the public, to the amount of £ 35, 544.155. The state owe [...] moreover £. 8.385, 356, without reckon­ing the particular debts of single provinces.

The people had no amends for this domestic scourge, as it might be called, by an easy communication with all the other parts of the world. Great-Britain had inter­cepted their navigation with Europe, with the West-In­dies, with all the latitudes which their vessels covered. Then, they said to the universe, "It is the English name which makes us od [...]us; we solemnly abjure it. All men a [...]e [...]ou [...], brethren. We are the friends of all nations. Every flag may, without fear of insult, shew itself upon our coasts, frequent our ports." An invitation, so sedu­cing in appearance, was not complied with. Those states which are truly commercial ones, knowing that North-America had been reduced to contract debts at the e [...] even of her greatest prosperity, thought wisely that in her present d [...]stress she 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 incon­veniencies of this new connection. But by the judicious vigilance of Admiral Lord Howe, the greatest part of the ships which they sent out were taken before they arrived at the places of their destination, and the others at their dep [...] from the American coasts. Of many hundreds of vessels which s [...]led from France, but twenty-five or thirty returned back to it, and even those brought no pro­fit, or very little, to their owners.

A multitude of privateers, added to so many other mis­fortunes, might make the Americans regret their former [Page 72] tranquillity, and incline them to an accommodation with England. In vain had the people been bound to the new government by the sacredness of oaths and the influ­ence of religion. In vain had endeavours been used to convince them that it was impossible to treat safely with a country in which one parliament might overturn what should have been established by another. In vain had they been threatened with the eternal resentment of an exasperated and vindictive enemy. It was possible that these distant troubles might not be balanced by the weight of present evils.

So thought the British ministry, when they sent to the new world public agents, authorised to offer every thing except independence to these very Americans, from whom they had two years before exacted an unconditional sub­mission. It is not improbable but that by this plan of conciliation, a few months sooner, some effect might have been produced. But at the period at which it was pro­posed by the court of London, it was rejected with dis­dain, because this measure appeared but as an argument of fear and weakness. The people were already re [...]assured. The Congress, the generals, the troops, the bold and skil­ful men who in each colony had possessed themselves of the authority; every thing had recovered its first spirit. This was the effect of a treaty of friendship and commerce between the United States and the court of Versailles, signed the 6th of February, 1778.

If the British ministry had reflected upon it, they would have comprehended that the same delirium which was drawing them to attack their colonies, was reducing them to the necessity of declaring war in the same instant against France. Then prevailed in the councils of this crown the circumspection which must always be inspired by a new reign. Then the finances were still in the confusion into which they had been plunged by a madness of twen­ty years. Then the decayed condition of the navy was such as filled every citizen with disquiet. Then Spain, already fatigued with her extravagant expedition of Al­giers, found herself in embarrassments which would not have permitted her to run to the succour of her ally. And [Page 73] then might England, without rashness, have promised herself success against the most powerful of her enemies, and to intimidate America by victories gained or conquests made near home. The importance that it was of, for this crown to take away from its rebellious subjects the only support of which they might be assured, would have diminished the indignation inspired by a violation of the most solemn treaties.

George the third saw nothing of all this. The ob­scure succours which the court of Versailles sent to the provinces armed for the defence of their rights, did not open his eyes. The dock-yards of France were fil [...]ing with shipwrights. Her arsenals were filling with artillery. Scarcely was there room remaining in her magazines for more naval stores. Her ports presented the most mena­cing appearance; and this strange blindness still conti­nued. To awaken the court of St. James's from its le­thargy, it was necessary that Lewis the sixteenth should signify to i [...], on the 14th of March, that he had acknow­ledged the independence of the United States.

This signification was a declaration of war. It was impossible that a nation, more accustomed to give provo­cation than receive it, could patiently look on, whilst ano­ther nation was loosening its subjects from their bonds of allegiance, and raising them up with much parade to the rank of sovereign powers. All Europe foresaw that two states, in rivalship for ages, were about to tinge the wa­ters of the ocean with their blood, and again play that dreadful game, in which public prosperities will never compensate for particular disasters. They in whom am­bition had not extinguished all benevolence for their fel­low-creatures, deplored beforehand the calamities, which, in either hemisphere, were ready to fall upon the human race.

The bloody scene, notwithstanding, did not open yet; and this delay gave credulity a ground of hope, that peace would still continue. It was not known that a fleet, which had sailed from Tou [...]on, was commissioned to at­tack the English in North America. It was not known that orders had been dispatched from London to drive the [Page 74] French from the East Indies. Without being initiated in those mysteries of perfidy, which infidious politics are arrived at regarding as great strokes of state▪ judicious men supposed that hostilities must be inevitable, and on the point of taking place, even in our ocean. This event, which had been foreseen, was brought on by the fight of two frigates, on the 17th of June, 1778.

Here our task becomes more and more difficult. Our sole object is to be useful, and to be true. Far be from us that spirit of party which blinds and degrades those who are the conductors, and those who aspire to be the instructors, of mankind. Our wish is for our country; our homage is to justice. We honour virtue, in whatever place, in whatever form, she is seen: the distinctions of condition and of nation cannot estrange us from her; and the man who is just and magnanimous is our country­man over all the world. If in the different events which pass under our eyes, we blame with boldness what appears to us blame worthy, we seek not the vain and sorry plea­sure of casting indiscreet reproach. But we are speaking to nations and to posterity. We ought to give them the history of errors, to teach them how they may be shun­ed. Should we dare to be traitorously wanting to so great a duty, we might, perhaps, flatter the generation which passeth away; but truth and justice, which are eternal, would impeach us to future generations, who would read us with contempt, and pronounce not our name but with disdain. In this long career we should be just to those who still exist, as we have been to those who exist no more. If, amongst 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 supreme tribunal, which reason is erecting upon a basis that cannot be shaken. There is no longer a government in Europe but should stand in fear of its determinations. Public opinion, which is becoming more and more informed, and which nothing has power to arrest or awe, has its eyes open upon nations and their courts. It penetrates into the cabinets where policy would he hid. There it judges the de­positaries of power, their weaknesses and their passions; [Page 75] and, by the empire of genius and knowledge, raises it­self, on all sides, above the ministers of kings, to incite or to restrain them. Wo to them who despise or brave it! This seeming courage is weakness in reality. Wo to them whose talents cannot arm them with a confidence to sustain its look! Let such, that they may once do justice, at least to themselves, lay down the burden too heavy for their feeble shoulders. They will cease to expose themselves and the nations they pretend to serve.

France began the war with invaluable advantages. The time, the place, the circumstances; she had chosen all. It was not till after she had, at leisure, made her preparations, till after she had increased her power to the proper pitch, that she shewed herself upon the field of battle. She had to combat but an enemy who was humbled, weakened, and discouraged by domestic feuds. The wishes of other nations were with her, against those imperious masters, or, as they were called, those tyrants of the ocean.

Events seemed to correspond to the desire of Europe. The French officers, who had old humiliations to wipe away, performed brilliant actions, the remembrance of which will be of long duration. Great theoretic know­ledge, and unshaken courage, supplied what might be wanting in them from practice and experience. All the single engagements, of ship to ship, did them the highest honour, and most of them terminated to their advantage. The British fleet ran still greater danger than the isolated vessels. It was so roughly treated as to have cause to fear being wholly or partially destroyed; had not the French fleet, by which it was reduced, off Ushant, to this almost despairing state, been destined, from timid orders, from odious intrigues, from the weakness of its admirals, or from all these motives together, to quit the sea and be the first to make for port.

In the intoxication of this, perhaps, unexpected success, France seemed to lose sight of her dearest interests. Her principal object should have been to intercept the com­merce of her enemies, cutting the double nerve of their strength, their seamen and their wealth, and so sap, at [Page 76] once, the two foundations of English greatness. Nothing was more easy for a power prepared a long while for hostilities, than to intercept fleets of merchantmen, quite unprepared, and very feebly convoyed. This was not done. The immense riches expected by Great Britain, from all parts of the globe, entered peaceably into her harbours, without suffering the smallest diminution.

The commerce of France, on the contrary, was harass­ed in both the hemispheres, and every where intercepted. Her colonies saw ravished from them, on their very coasts, subsistences, to welcome which they were reaching out their arms with all the eagerness of want; whilst the mo­ther country was deprived of four millions sterling, arri­ved almost in her fight. This reverse was not without a cause. Let us endeavour to discover it.

The French navy had been a long time unsuccessful; and it was to the vice of its constitution that so many mis­fortunes had been ascribed. Many attempts had been made to modify or change the regulations of it; but these innovations, good or bad, were always repelled with a more or less strongly marked disdain. At length its ad­mirals dictated themselves, in 1776, a disposition, which rendering them absolute masters of the roads and anchor­ing places, of the arsenals, of the dock-wards, and the magazines, destroyed that mutual inspectorship, which Lewis the fourteenth thought it was right he should esta­blish, between the military officers and those of the admi­nistration. From that time there was no longer any re­sponsibility, regulation, or oeconomy; in the ports. Eve­ry thing there fell into disorder and confusion.

The new plan had an influence that was still more un­happy. Till this period, it was the ministry who had directed the naval operations towards the end aimed at by their politics. This authority passed, perhaps, almost without being perceived, to those who were to execute these operations, which took insensibly a tincture from their prejudices. These prejudices inclined them to think, that it was not in heavily and laborious [...] ▪ convoying the ships of their nation, or in remaining out upon difficult cruises, to surprise or destroy those of the enemy's nation, [Page 77] that fame was to be acquired. This double duty, there­fore, was entirely neglected, or very ill performed, in consequence of the opinion common at Brest, that such a service had nothing noble in it, and led not to any kind of glory.

It must be confessed, that this prejudice is a very odd one, and qui [...]e contrary to all the laws of society. What can be supposed to have been the design of states in insti­tuting this military force destined to scour the seas? Was it only to procure promotions for those who command or serve? Only to give them opportunities of exercising a valour useless to every body but themselves? Only to stain red another element with bloody battles? No, un­doubtedly. Fleets of war upon the ocean, are what for­tresses and ramparts are for inhabitants of cities; what the national armies are for provinces exposed to incursions of the foe. There are some sorts of property attached to the soil; there are others which are created, transported by commerce, and, as they may be called, wandering on the ocean. Both these sorts of property want defenders. Warriors, that is your function. What would be said, if the land forces should refuse to protect the inhabitants of cities, the cultivators of fields, and to drive back the fire threatened to the harvest? Naval officers, you think yourselves debased by convoying and protecting com­merce. But if commerce is to be no more protected, what will become of the riches of the state, of which, without doubt, you expect a part, in recompence of your service? 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 yourselves debased. What, debased in making yourselves useful to your countrymen! And what are all the orders in the state, to whom government has committed any portion of the public power, but protectors and defenders of your countrymen and the [...] wealth? Your post is upon the ocean, as that of the magistrate upon the bench, that of the soldier in the camp, and that of the monarch him­self upon the throne, where he commands from a higher station but to take a wider survey, and comprise, at one [Page 78] view, all those who stand in need of his protection and defence. Know, that glory is to be gleaned in every field on which a service to your country can be perform­ed. Know, that to preserve is more glorious, as well as more blessed, than to destroy. In ancient Rome there were also admirers of glory. Yet, there, the glory of having saving a single citizen, was preferred to the glory of having slain a host of foes. What, see you [...]ot that in saving the commercial ships, you save the fortune of the state? Yes, your valour is splendid; it is known to Europe as well as to your country; but what b [...] it to your countrymen, that it has been displayed upon occa­sions of eclat, that it has brought the ship of your enemy in tow, or blown its ruins wide upon the waves, if you have suffered to perish, or be taken, the ships which bear your country's riches; if, in the very port, which you triumphantly re enter, a thousand desolate families de­plore their fortunes lost? On your landing, instead of hearing the shouts of victory, you will be received with silence and dejection; and your exploits will be destined but to swell the recital of a court gazette, and those pub­lic papers, which, in amusing idleness, 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 max [...]ms sacred at Portsmouth were very different. There was felt, there was respected, the dignity of com­merce. There, it was both a duty and an honour to de­fend it; and events have decided on which side the na­val officers had the justest ideas of their function.

Great-Britain had just experienced a very humiliating reverse in the new world, and a more powerful enemy threatened her with greater disasters in the old. This alarming situation filled all minds with doubtfulness and distrust. The national riches arrive. Those of the rival power add to the enormous mass; and instantly public credit is reanimated; hope sorings up again, and this people, who were contemptuously thought to be brought down, resume, and sustain, their usual prowess and their usual pride.

[Page 79]The ports of France, on the contrary, are filled with groans. A shameful and ruinous inaction succeeded to an activity which contributed to their same and riches; The indignation of the merchants communicated itself to all the nation. The first moments of success are moments of intoxication, in which faults seem to be justified as well as hid. But misfortune gives more severity to judgment. The nation then observes more nearly those who govern, and loudly calls for an account of the employment of the power and authority which have been committed [...]o them. The councils of Lewis the sixteenth are reproached for having wounded the majesty of the first power on the globe, in disavowing, to the face of the universe, the succours which were sent continually to the Americans in a clandestine manner. They are reproached, for having; by a ministerial intrigue, or, by the ascendency of some obscure agents, engaged the nation in a disastrous war, whilst they should have been occupied in putting the springs of government again in order, in healing the te­dious wounds of a reign, of which the latter half was di­vided between depredation and shame, between the base­ness of vice and the convulsions of despotism. They are reproached, for having provoked the con [...]est by infidious politics, for having descended to wrap themselves round with guile, in discourses unworthy of France; for having employed with England the language of a timid audacity, which seems to disown and contradict the projects which are formed, and the sentiments which are uppermost, in the heart; a language which can only debase him from whom it proceeds, without deceiving him to whom it is addressed; and, whilst it brings dishonour, can make that dishonour of no use either to the minister or to the state. How much nobler had it been to say, with all the frank­nesss of dignity, Englishmen, you have abused your victories. Now is the moment for you to shew to justice; or it shall be that of vengeance. Europe is weary of suffering tyrants. She r [...] enters at length upon her rights. Henceforward, equality [...] war. Chuse.— It is thus that they would have been ta [...]ed to by that Richelieu, whom every citizen, it is [...] should hate, because he was an inhuman butcher, and [Page 80] that he might reign despotic, murdered his enemies with the hangman's axe; but whom, as a minister, the nation is bound to honour, as it was he who first shewed France her dignity, and gave her, amongst the states 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 greatness with his very faults, who never, even in adversity and abasement, degraded his people or himself. Ah, for governing a great nation, a great character is requisite. There is no fitness for it in those minds which are indifferent and cold from levity, to which absolute authority is but as it were a kind of last amusement, which carelessly leave great in­terest [...] floating at the caprice of chance, and are more oc­cupied in preserving than employing power▪ Why, it is asked again, why did men, who hold in their hands all the authority of the state, and have but to command in order to be obeyed, why did they suffer themselves to be prevented, in all seas, by an enemy whose constitution must of necessity cause slowness in putting their measures in execution? Why did they, by an inconsiderate treaty, tie themselves down to conditions with the Congress, which they might themselves have herd in dependence, by ample and regular supplies? Why, in short, did they not strengthen and confirm the revolution, by keeping al­ways, on the northern coasts of the new world, a squa­dron which might protect the colonies, and, at the same time, make our alliance to be respected? But Europe, who has her eyes fixed upon us, sees a great design, and no concerted measures; sees, in our arsenals and our ports, immense preparations, and no execution; sees me­nacing fleets fitted out, and the pompous expence of them rendered almost useless; sees spirit and valour in subal­terns, irresolution and timidity in chiefs; sees whatever proclaims, on one hand, the strength and the awe-com­manding power of a great people, and, on the other, the slackness and weakness inseparable from its character and views. It is by this striking contradiction between our projects and their execution, between our means and their [Page 81] direction, that the genius of England, stunned for a mo­ment, has resumed his vigour: and it is even now a pro­blem for Europe to resolve, if, in declaring for America, we have not ourselves revived and advanced the English power.

Such are the complaints with which all parts of the kingdom ring, and which we are not afraid to collect to­gether here, and lay before the eyes of authority, if it deigns to read or hear them.

In short, philosophy, whose first sentiment is the desire to see all government [...] just, and all people happy, in cast­ing her eyes upon this alliance of a monarchy with a peo­ple who are defending their liberty, i [...] curious to know its motives▪ She sees at once, too clearly, that the hap­piness of mankind has no part in it▪ She thinks that if the court of Versailles had been determined by the love of justice, it would have settle [...] in the first article of its agreement with America. That all oppressed people have the right of resisting their oppressors. But this maxim, which forms one of the laws of England; which a king of Hun­gary was great enough, when he was ascending the throne, to make one of the constitutions of the state; which was adopted by one of the greatest princes who reigned over the world, Trajan, when he said▪ before an assembly of the Roman people, to the first officer of the empire, in presenting him with a drawn sword, according to custom upon investing him with his charge, Use it for me, if I continue just; against me, if I become tyrannical. This maxim is too foreign for our feeble and corrupted governments, in which the suffering patiently is so much become a duty, that the sufferer ought to deprecate [...] sen­sation of his misery, lest it be punished as a crime.

But the most bitter complaints are directed above all to Spain. She is blamed for her blindness, her wavering, her tardiness, and sometimes even for her infidelity: all which accusations are ill founded.

Some politicians imagined, in seeing France engage herself without necessity in a naval war, that this crown supposed itself powerful enough to divide the British do­main, without sharing with a [...]lly the honour of [...] im­portant [Page 82] revolution. We shall not examine whether the spirit which then reigned in the cabinet of Versailles au­thorised this conjecture. It is now known that this crown, which from the very beginning of the troubles had sent secret succour to the Americans, was watching for the propitious moment of declaring openly in their favour. The event of Saratoga appeared to it the most favourable conjuncture for proposing to the Catholic king to make the cause a common one. Whether it were that this prince might then jude the liberty of the United States to be contrary to his interest; whether the resolution might ap­pear to him to be precipitate; or whether, in short, other political objects might require all his attention, he did not agree to the proposal. From his character it was sup­posed that repeated solicitation would be useless. After the first experiment, he was so little applied to about this great affair, that it was without his being apprised of it that the court of Versailles caused it to be signified at St. James's that it had acknowledged the independence of the confederate provinces.

In the mean time the land and sea forces which Spain employed against the Portuguese in the Brazils, were re­turned home. The rich fleet which she expected from Mexico was arrived in her ports. The treasures which came to her from Peru and from her other possessions were secure. She was free from all inquietude, and mistress of her motions, when she aspired to the glory of being a pa­cificator between the two hemispheres. Her mediation was accepted, as well by France, whose bold attempts had not been attended with the happy consequences which she had promised herself from them, as by England, who might fear the having an additional adversary to contend with.

Charles the third sustained with dignity the great part he had to act. He awarded that, laying down their arms, each of the belligerent powers should be maintained in the territories which it should occupy at the time of the con­vention; that a congress should be formed, in which the different pretensions should be discussed; and that no fresh hostilities should commence till after the expiration of a twelve month's notice.

[Page 83]This monarch was aware that this arrangement gave to Great-Britain a facility of being reconciled with her colonies, or at least of making them purchase, by great advantages to her commerce, the ports which she occupi- in the midst of them. He was aware that it must 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 just; and without forgetting all personal considerations, one cannot be so.

This plan of conciliation was displeasing to Versailles, whose only consolation was ministred by the hope that it would be rejected at London. This hope was not decei­ved. England could not resolve upon acknowledging the Americans to be really independent; though they were not to be called to the conferences which were to have ta­ken place; though France could not negotiate for them; though their interests were to have been taken care of solely by a mediator who was not bound to them by any treaty, and who, perhaps, at the bottom of his heart, was not desirous of their prosperity; though her refusal threatened her with an enemy the more.

It is in such a circumstance as this; it is in the time when noble pride elevates the soul superior to all terror; when nothing is seen more dreadful than the shame of re­ceiving the law, and when there is no doubt or hesitation which to chuse between ruin and dishonour; it is then, that the greatness of a nation is displayed. I acknow­ledge however, that men, accustomed to judge of things by the event, call great and perilous resolutions, heroism or madness, according to the good or bad success with which they have been attended. If then I should be ask­ed, what is the name which shall in years to come be gi­ven to the firmness, which was in this moment exhibited by the English, I should answer, that I do not know. But that which it deserves, I know▪ I know that the annals of the world hold out to us but rarely, the august and majestic spectacle of a nation, which chuses rather to re­nounce its duration than its glory.

The British ministry had no sooner given their deter­mination, than the court of Madrid espoused the quarrel [Page 84] of that of Versailles, and consequently that of the Ame­ricans. Spain had then sixty [...] ships of the line, and six on the stocks. France had eighty of the line, and eight upon the stocks. The United States had but twelve frigates; but a great number of privateers.

To [...] this united force, England had to oppose but ninety five ships of the [...] with twenty three upon the st [...]ks. The sixteen which [...]ere to be seen in her ports, over and above, were [...], and had been con­verted into prisons or hospitals. Inferior in instruments of war, she was still more so in means of all sorts for their employment. Her domestic dissentions still weakened the resources which remained. It is the nature of govern­ments truly free to be agitated during peace. It is by this intestine motion that the spirit [...] preserve their energy and the continual remembrance of the nation's rights. But in war, all ferments ought to cease, all hatred; to [...] extinguished, all interests to coalesce and be mutually sub­servient to the public good. It happened quite otherwise, at this time, in the British isles. Never were there more violen [...] dissentions. Never did contrary pretensions shew themselves in any circumstance with less reserve. The public good was by either faction audaciously trodden un­der foot. Those houses of parliament, in which the most important questions had formerly been discuss [...]d with elo­quence, with dignity, and with power, now rung but with the clamours of rage, but with the grossest insults, 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 minister who like him should have neither relations nor friends; but this ex­traordinary man did not appear. And indeed it was pret­ty generally imagined that this people would now give way, notwithstanding the high spiritedness of its charac­ter, notwithstanding the experience of its admirals, not­withstanding the bravery of its seamen, notwithstanding that energy which a free nation must acquire from vibra­ting with concussion.

But the empire of chance is a very wide one. Who knows in favour of which side the elements shall declare? [Page 85] By a gust of wind, is a victory given or snatched away. The discharge of a gun disconcerts a fleet by its admiral's death. Signals are not seen or heard; are not obeyed. Experience, valour skill, are thwarted by ignorance, by jealous [...], by treachery, by an assurance of impunity. A fog covers contending navies, and separates or confounds them. A tempest or a calm equally preserves, or equally destroys. Forces are divided by the unequal ce [...]y of ships. The propitious moment is missed, by pusillani­mity which lingers, or by rashness which rushes on. Plane shall have been formed with wisdom; but their success shall fail for want of concert in the movements of execu­tion. By an inconsiderate order of the court, what might have proved a proud day, is decided to dishonour. Pro­jects are changed by a minister's disgrace or death. Is it possible that a strict union should long subsist amongst con­federates of characters so opposite, as the hasty, light, disdainful Frenchman, the jealous, haughty, sly, slow, circumspective Spaniard, and the American, who is se­cretly snatching looks at the mother-country, and would rejoice, were they compatible with his independence, at the disasters of his allies? Will these nations long delay, whether they act separately or conjointly, mutually to ac­cuse, complain, and be embroiled? Ought not their greatest hope to be, that multiplied ill successes may do no more than replunge them into that humiliating state from which they endeavoured to emerge, and firmly fix the trident in the hand of England; whilst a considerable defeat or two would bring down this ambitious people from ever ranking again amongst the principal powers of the European world?

Who shall decide then, who can foresee, the event? France and Spain united, have powerful means to em­ploy; England the art of employing her's. France and Spain have their treasures; England, a great national credit. On one side, the multitude of men; on the other, the superiority in the art of working ships, and, as it were, of subjecting the sea in fighthing. Here, impetu­osity and valour; there, valour and experience. In one party, the activity which absolute monarchy gives to de­signs; [Page 86] in the other, the vigour and elasticity which liber­ty supplies. There, losses and grudges to revenge; here, their late glory, with the sovereignty of America, and of the ocean, to recover and preserve. The allied nations have the advantage with which the union of two vast powers must be at ended, but the inconvenience likewise which must result from this very union, by the difficulty of harmony and concord both in their designs, and in the execution of them by their respective forces; England is abandoned to herself, but having only her own forces to direct, she has the advantage of unity in designs, and of a more sure and perhaps more ready disposition in ideas: she can more easily range her plans of defence and offence under a single view.

In order to weigh the matter with exactness, we should yet put into the scales the different energy which may be communicated to the rival nations by a war, which is in a great many respects but a war of kings and ministers, on one si [...]e; but, on the other, a truly national war, in which the greatest interests of Englands are concerned; that of a commerce which produces her riches, that of an empire and a glory on which her greatness tests.

In short, if we consider the spirit of the French nation, opposite to that of the nation with which it is at variance, we shall see that the ardour [...]f the Frenchman is as quick­ly extinguished as it is inflamed; that he hopes every thing when he begins, that he despairs of every thing as soon as an obstacle shall retard him; that, from his cha­racter, h [...]s arm must be nerved by the enthusiasm of suc­cess, in order to reap more success: that the Englishman, on the contrary, less presumptuous, notwithstanding his natural bondness, at the beginning, knows how, [...]hen occasion calls for it, to struggle courageously, to raise him­self in proportion as the danger rises, and to [...]ather ad­vantages even from disgrace: [...]ke the robust oak to which Horace compares the Romans, which, mutilated by the axe, springs afresh under the strokes worth are given it, and draws vigour and spirit from its very losses and its very wounds.

History shews us likewise that few leagues have divi­ded the spoil of the nation against which they have been [Page 87] formed. A hens victorious over Persia; Rome saved from Hannibal; in modern times, Venice escaped from the famous league of Cambray; and, even in our days, Prus­sia rendered by the genius of one man capable to cope with Europe; should suspend our judgment upon the issue of the present war.

But let us suppose that the house of Bourbon have the advantages with which it may have been flattered. What ought to be its conduct?

France is in all points of view the empire the most strongly constituted, of which any remembrance has been preserved in the annals of the world. Without being able to bear any comparison with her, Spain is likewise a ve­ry powerful state, and her means of prosperity are conti­nually increasing. The most important concern then of the house 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 bestowed on it by events. Should it endeavour to augment its superiori­ty, the alarm would become general, and it would be thought that an universal slavery was threatened. It is perhaps to be wondered at, that the other nations of Eu­rope have not yet thwarted it in its projects against Eng­land. The resentment which the injustice and the haugh­tiness of this proud island have every where inspired, must be the cause of this inaction. But hatred is silent when interest appears. It is possible that Europe may think the weakening of Great Britain in the old and the new hemisphere contrary to its safety; and that, after having enjoyed the humiliations and dangers of this lofty and tyrannie power, she may at length take arms in its defence. Should it be so, the courts of Versailles and Madrid would see themselves fallen from the hope which they have conceived of a decisive prepondence upon the globe. These considerations should determine them to ha [...]ten their attacks, and not give time, for the forming of new dispositions, to a prophetic or even a jealous poli­cy. Above all, let them stop in time, and not suffer an immoderate desire of humbling their common enemy to make them blind to their own interests.

[Page 88]The United States have shewn openly the project of drawing all North America to their league. Many mea­sures, that in particular of inviting the people of Canada to rebellion, have given cause to believe that this was likewise the wish of France. Spain may be suspected to have equally adopted this idea.

The conduct of the provices which have shaken off the yoke of Great-Britain is simple, and such as was to be expected. But would not their allies be wanting is foresight, if they should have really the same system?

The new hemisphere must be detached one day from the old. This grand seissure in prepared in Europe, by the collision and fermentation of our opinions; by [...]ur being deprived of our rights, which constituted our cou­rage; by the luxury of our courts and the misery of our countries; by the hatred, the endless hatred, between men without heart, honour, or vigour, who possess all else, and robust men, and even virtuous men, who have nothing but life to lose. It is prepared in America, by the increase of population, of cultivation, of industry, and of knowledge. Every thing forwards this rupture, as well the progress of evil in the old world, as in the new the progress of good.

But would it be right for Spain and France, whose pos­sessions in the new world are an inexhaustible source of riches; would it be right for them to precipitate this rup­ture? Now this rupture is the thing that would precisely happen, were all the north of those regions subjected to the same laws, or bound together by a common interest.

No sooner would the liberty of this vast continent be established, than it would become the asylum of all the off-scouring amongst us, of man of intriguing, seditious spirits, b [...]sted characters, or ruined fortunes. Culture, arts, commerce, would have no charms for such refugees as these. They must have a less laborious and more agi­tated [...]. This turn of mind, equally distant from la­bour or repose, would direct itself towards conquests; and a passion which has so many attractions would easily captivate the first colonists, diverted by a long war from their accustomed occupations. The new people would [Page 89] have compleated their preparations for invasion before the report of it had reached our climates. They would chuse their enemy, the field and the moment of their vic­tories. Their thunder would fall always upon seas with­out defence, or on coasts taken at unawares. In a little while the southern provinces would become their prey, and supply by the riches of their productions the medi­ocrity of those of the northern. Perhaps the possessions of our absolute monarchies might even be candidates for the honour of being admitted to a confederacy with a free people, or would detach themselves from Europe in order to belong but to themselves.

The part which the courts of Madrid and Versailles should take, if they are free to chuse, is to let two powers subsist in North America▪ who may watch, restrain, and counterpoize each other. Then will ages roll away, be­fore England and the republics formed at her expence can come together. This reciprocal distrust will prohibit them from any distant enterprize; and the establishments, be­longing to other nations, in the new world, will enjoy without disturbance that tranquillity, which, even down to our own times, has been so often troubled.

In all probability, indeed, it is the very order of things which would be most suitable even for the confederate provinces themselves. Their respective limits are not regulated. A great jealousy subsists between the countries to the northward and those to the southward. Political principles vary from one river to another. Great animo­sities are observed between the inhabitants of the same town, between the members of the same family. Each would throw off from himself the heavy burden of public expences and debts. A thousand principles of division are generally springing in the bosom of the United States. When dangers are once at an end, how is the explosion of so many discontents to be retarded? how are so many unsettled minds, and angered hearts, to be held attach­ed to a common centre? Let the true friends of Ameri­ca reflect upon it, and they will find that the only means to prevent disturbances, amongst that people, is to leave remaining on their frontiers a powerful rival, always dis­posed to profit by their dissentions.

[Page 90]Monarchies thrive best with peace and security; inqui­ [...]tudes, and formidable enemies, make republics flourish. Rome had need of Carthage; and he who destroyed the Roman liberty was neither Sylla, nor Caesar; it was the first Cato, when his narrow and austere politics took her rival away from Rome, by lighting, in the senate, those torches which burnt Carthage to the ground. Even Ve­nice, perhaps, would not have had her government, and her laws, these four hundred years, had she not had at her door powerful neighbours, who might become her enemies or her masters.

But, supposing them thus situated, to what degree of happiness, splendor, and power, may the United Pro­vinces in time be raised?

Here, in order to form a sound judgment, let us im­mediately begin with laying aside the interest which all hearts, not excepting those of slaves, have taken in the generous efforts of a people, who exposed themselves to the most dreadful calamities to be free. The name of li­berty is so sweet, that all they who fight for it are sure to interest our secret wishes. Their cause is that of the whole human race; it becomes our own. We revenge ourselves of our own oppressors, by giving vent, at least, with liberty, to our hatred against those oppressors who cannot punish it. At the sound of breaking chains, it seems as if our own were about to become lighter; and we think for some moments that we breathe a purer air, in learning that fewer tyrants are to be counted in the world. These great revolutions of liberty, moreover, admonish despots. They warn them not to trust to too long patience in the people, not to trust to impunity with­out end. Thus, when the laws of society execute ven­geance upon the crimes of private individuals, the good man hopes that the punishment of the guilty will, by its terrible example, prevent the commission of new crimes. Terror sometimes supplies the place of justice to the thief, and conscience to the assassin. Such is the source of the warm interest we feel in all the wars of liberty. Such is that with which we have been inspired for the Americans. Our imaginations have been inflamed in their favour. [Page 91] We seem to be present at, and to feel as they do, all their victories and their defeats. The spirit of justice, which is pleased in compensating past misery by happiness to come, is pleased in thinking that this part of the new world cannot fail of becoming one of the most flourishing countries upon the globe. Nay, it has been even suppo­sed, that there is cause to fear lest Europe should one day find her masters in her children. Let us dare to stem [...] torrent of public opinion, and that of public enthusiasm. Let us not be led astray by imagination, that embellisher of all things; nor by passion, which loves to create illu­sions, and realizes all it hopes. Our duty is to combat every prejudice, should it be even that which is most con­formable to the wishes of our heart. To be true, above all things, is our chief concern, and not to betray the pure and upright conscience which presides over our wri­tings, and dictates every judgment that we pass. At this moment, perhaps, we shall not be believed: but a bold conjecture, which is verified at the end of many ages, does more honour to the historian, than the recital of a long series of facts which cannot be contested; and I write not only for my contemporaries, who will but some years survive me. Yet a few revolutions of the sun, and they and I shall be no more. But I deliver over my ideas to posterity and to time. It is for them to judge me.

The space occupied by the thirteen republics, between the mountains and the ocean, is but of sixty-seven sea­leagues; but upon the coast their extent is, in a strait line, three hundred and forty five.

In this region the lands are, almost throughout, bad, or of a middling quality. Scarcely any thing but maze grows in the four most northern colonies. The only re­source of their inhabitants is fishery, of which the annual product, in money, does not amount to above two hun­dred and sixty or seventy thousand pounds.

Corn sustains principally the provinces of New-York, Jersey, and Pennsylvania. But the soil there is so rapid­ly become worse than it was, that an acre, which former­ly yielded full sixty bushels of wheat, now produces but very rarely above twenty.

[Page 92]Though the soil of Maryland and Virginia is much su­perior to all the rest, it cannot be said to be very fruitful. The old plantations do not yield above a third of the to­bacco which they formerly produced. It is not possible to form new ones; and the cultivators have been obliged to turn their views towards other objects.

North-Carolina produces some corn, but of a quality so inferior, that it is sold for five and twenty, or thirty per cent. less than the other, in all the markets.

South Carolina and Georgia have a perfectly flat face of country, for the distance of fifty miles from the sea-side. The excessive rains which fall there, finding no means of discharge, form numerous ma [...]s [...] or [...]akes, in which rice is cultivated, to the great detriment of the slaves and the freemen occupied in this labour. On the intermedi­ate spaces left by these multitudinous little seas, grows an inferior kind of indigo, which must have its place chan­ged every year. Where the country rises from [...]he level, it is but with ungrateful sands or frightful rocks, inter­spersed, from distance to distance, with pastures of the nature of rush.

The English government, seeing that North America could never enrich them by the productions proper to that country, thought of the powerful motive of premi­ums, for the creating, in this part of the new world, of linen, wine, and silk. The poverty of the soil, which would not bear flax, obstructed the first of these views; the badness of the climate, which would not agree with vines, opposed the success of the second: and the want of hands permitted not the third to take place. The so­ciety established at London, for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce, was not more happy than the ministry had been. Its premiums did not give birth to any one of the objects which it had proposed to the activity and industry of those countries.

Great Britain was obliged to content herself with sell­ing every year to these countries, merchandise to the a­mount of something more than two millions. The con­sumers of this merchandise delivered up to her, exclusive­ly, their indigo, their iron, their tobacco, and their f [...]r [...]. [Page 93] They delivered up to her whatever money, and raw ma­terial [...], the rest of the globe had given them for their wood, their cuts, their fish, their rice, and their salted provisions. Yet the balance was always so much against them, that, when the troubles began, the colonies owed from five to six millions to the mother country, and had no cash in circulation.

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, there had been successively formed, within the thirteen provinces, a po­pulation of two millions nine hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and seventy eight persons, including four hundred thousand negroes. Oppression and intole­rance 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 numbers than ever. They who shall go with projects of cultivation will not have all the satisfaction which they may promise themselves, because they will find the good land, and even the middling, all occupied; and there will be nothing to be offered them but barren sands, unhealthy marshes, or sleep mountains. Emigration will be more favourable to manufacturers and artists, though even they may, perhaps, gain nothing by their change of country and climate.

We cannot determine, without rashness, what may one day be the population of the United States. Such a cal­culation, generally pretty difficult, becomes impracticable for a region where the land degenerates very rapidly, and where the expence of labour and improvement is not pro­portionably answered by the reproduction. If ten millions of men ever find a certain subsistence in these provinces, it will be much. Even then the exportation will be re­duced to nothing, or next to nothing: but interior in­dustry will replace foreign industry. The country, with­in a little, will be able to suffice for itself, provided that the inhabitants know how to make themselves happy by oeconomy and with mediocrity.

[Page 94]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, serve you for instruction. Fear the affluence of gold, which brings with luxury the cor­ruption of manners, the contempt of laws. Fear a too unequal distribution of riches, which exhibits a small number of citizens in opulence, and a great multitude of citizens in extreme poverty; whence springs the insolence of the former, and the debasement of the latter. Secure yourselves against the spirit of conquest. The tranquility of an empire diminishes in proportion to its extension. Have arms for your defence; have none for offence. Seek competency and health, in labour; prosperity, in the cul­ture of lands, and the workshops of industry; power, in manners and virtue. Cause arts and sciences, which di­stinguish the civilized from the savage man, to flourish and abound. Above all, watch carefully over the educa­tion of your children. It is from public schools, be as­sured, that come the wise magistrates, the capable and courageous soldiers, the good fathers, the good husbands, the good brothers, the good friends, the good men. Wherever the youth are seen depraved, the nation is on the decline. Let liberty have an immoveable foundation in the wisdom of your laws, and let it be the indestructi­ble cement to bind your provinces together. Establish no legal preference amongst the different forms of worship. Superstition is innocent, wherever it is neither persecuted nor protected; and may your duration, if it be possible, equal the duration of the world!