TO argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose phi­losophy consists in holding humanity in con­tempt, is like administring medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an Atheist by scripture. En­joy, Sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you those honours, in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master.

As the generosity of this country rewarded your brother's services last war with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, it is consistent that she should be­stow some mark of distinction upon you. You certain­ly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous place in the catalogue of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be pity to pass you from the world in state, and consign you to magnificent oblivion among the tombs, with­out telling the future beholder why. Judas is as much known as John, yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions.

Sir William hath undoubtedly merited a monument: But of what kind, or with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a question that would puzzle all the Heralds of St James's in the profoundest mood of historical deliberation. We are at no loss, Sir, to ascertain your real character, but somewhat perplex­ed how to perpetuate it's identity, and preserve it [Page 64] uninjured from the transformations of time or mistake. A statuary may give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with some equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into reputation and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Ill nature or ridicule may conspire, or a variety of accidents com­bine, to lessen, enlarge, or change Sir William's fame; and no doubt but he who has taken so much pains to be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular in his exit, his monument and his epitaph.

The usual honours of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently sublime to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and ashes; for however men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or government here, the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death is not the monarch of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject, and, like the foolish King you serve, will, in the end, war himself out of all dominion.

As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your funeral honors, we readily admit your new rank of Knighthood. The title is perfectly in cha­racter, and is your own, more by merit than creation. There are Knights of various orders from the Knight of the Windmill to the Knight of the Post. The former is your patron for exploits, and the latter will assist you in settling your accounts. No honorary ti­tle could be more happily applied! The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master hath discovered more genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the most finished figure for a button, or discanting on the properties of a button-mould.

But how, Sir, shall we dispose of you? The inven­tion of the Statuary is exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument. America is anxi­ous to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes to do it in a manner that shall distinguish you from all the deceased heroes of the last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath out-lived the sci­ence [Page 65] of decyphering it. Some other method, there­fore, must be thought of to immortalize the new Knight of the Windmill and Post. Sir William, thanks to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no ambition of being wrapt up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and cassia. Less charge­able odors will suffice; and it fortunately happen [...], that the simple genius of America hath discovered the art of preserving bodies and embellishing them to [...], with much greater frugality than the ancients. In a balmage, Sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure as Pharoah, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers rival in finery all the mummies of Egypt.

As you have already made your exit from the mo­ral world, and by numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved an "HERE LYETH" on your deceased honor, it must be meer affectati­on in you to pretend concern at the humours or opi­nions of mankind respecting you. What remains▪ of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For he who survives his reputation, lives out of spite to himself, like a man listening to his own re­proach.

Thus entombed and ornamented I leave you to the inspection of the curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions.—The character of Sir William hath undergone some extraordinary revolu­tions since his arrival in America. It is now fix'd and known; and we have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from your capacity. Indolence and inability have too large a share in your composition ever to suffer you to be any thing more than the hero of little villainies and unfinished adventures. That, which to some persons appeared moderation in you at first, was not produced by any real virtue of your own, but by a contrast of passions dividing and holding you in perpetual irresolution. One vice will frequently expel another without the least merit in the ma [...]n, as powers in contrary directions reduce each other to rest.

[Page 66]It became you, to have supported a dignified solem­nity of character; to have shewn a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by an obstinate perse­verance in maintaining order, and to have exhibited, on all occasions, such an unchangeable graciousness of conduct, that while we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy we might admire in you the sincerity of a man. You came to America under the high-sound­ing titles of Commander and Commissioner; not only to suppress what you called rebellion by arms, but to shame it out of countenance by the excellence of your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of low and vulgar frauds, the encourager of Indian cruelties; and have imported a cargo of vices blacker than those you pretended to suppress.

Mankind are not universally agreed in their deter­mination of right and wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations and individu­als hath branded with the unchangeable name of MEANNESS. In the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution, that they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to their assistance; but meanness hath neither alliance nor apology. It is generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices, and is of such a hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it. Sir William, the Commissioner of George the Third, hath at last vouchsafed to give it rank and pedigree. He has placed the fugitive at the Council Board, and dubbed it companion of the order of knighthood.

The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this description, is forgery. You, Sir, have abetted and patronised the forging and uttering counterfeit continental bills. In the same New-York news-papers in which your own proclamation under your master's authority was published, offering, or pretending to offer, pardon and protection to the inhabitants of these States, there were repeated advertisements of counterfeit money for sale, and persons who have come officially from you and under sanction of your flag, have been taken up in attempting to put them off.

[Page 67]A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without precedent or pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or enemies, will unite in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society which no­thing can excuse or palliate—An improvement upon beggarly villainy—and shews an inbred wretchedness of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a serpent and the spiteful imbecility of an inferior reptile.

The laws of any civilized country would condemn you to the gibbet without regard to your rank or titles, because it is an action foreign to the usage and custom of war; and should you fall into our hands, which pray God you may, it will be a doubtful mat­ter whether we are to consider you as a military pri­soner or a prisoner for felony.

Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and impolitic in you, or any persons in the English service, to promote, or even encourage, or wink at, the crime of forgery in any case whatever. Because, as the riches of England, as a nation, is chiefly in paper, and the far greater part of trade among individuals is carried on by the same medium, that is, by notes and drafts on one another, they, therefore, of all people in the world ought to endeavour to keep forgery out of sight, and, if possible, not to revive the idea of it. It is danger­ous to make men familiar with a crime which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage against those who first taught them. Several officers in the English army have made their exit at the gal­lows for forgery on their agents; for we all know, who know any thing of England, that there is not a more necessitous body of men, taking them generally, than what the English officers are. They contrive to make a shew at the expence of the taylor, and appear clean at the charge of the washer-woman.

England hath at this time nearly two hundred mil­lions pounds sterling of public money in paper, for which she hath no real property, besides a large cir­culation of bank notes, bank post bills, and promissary [Page 68] notes and drafts of private bankers, merchants and tradesmen. She hath the greatest quantity of paper currency and the least quantity of gold and silver of any nation in Europe; the real specie, which is about sixteen millions sterling, serve only as change in large sums, which are always made in paper, or for pay­ment in small ones. Thus circumstanced, the nation is put to its wit's ends, and obliged to be severe al­most to criminality, to prevent the practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely a session passes at the Old Bai­ley, or an execution at Tyburn, but witnesseth this truth. Yet you, Sir, regardless of the policy which her necessity obliges her to adopt, have made your whole army intimate with the crime. And as all ar­mies, at the conclusion of a war, are too apt to carry into practice the vices of the campaign, it will pro­bably happen, that England will hereafter abound in forgeries, to which Art, the practitioners were first ini­tiated under your authority in America. You, Sir, have the honor of adding a new vice to the military catalogue; and the reason, perhaps, why the inven­tion was reserved for you, is, because no General be­fore was mean enough even to think of it.

That a man whose soul is absorbed in the low traffic of vulgar vice, is incapable of moving in any superior region, is clearly shewn in you by the event of every campaign. Your military exploits have been without plan, object or decision. Can it be possible that you or your employers can suppose the possession of Phila­delphia to be any ways equal to the expence or ex­pectation of the nation which supports you? What advantages does England derive from any atchieve­ments of yours? To her it is perfectly indifferent what place you are in, so long as the business of conquest is unperformed and the charge of maintaining you remains the same.

If the principal events of the three campaigns be attended to, the balance will appear strongly against you at the close of each; but the last, in point of importance to us, hath exceeded the former two. It [Page 69] is pleasant to look back on dangers past, and equally as pleasant to meditate on present ones when the way out begins to appear. That period is now arrived, and the long doubtful winter of war is changing to the sweeter prospects of victory and joy. At the close of the cam­paign in seventy-five, you were obliged to retreat from Boston. In the summer seventy-six, you appeared with, a numerous fleet and army in the harbour of New-York. By what miracle the Continent was preserved in that season of danger is a subject of admiration! If instead of wasting your time against Long-Island, you had run up the North River and landed any where above New-York, the consequence must have been, that either you would have compelled General Washington to fight you with very unequal numbers, or he must have suddenly evacu­ated the city with the loss of nearly all the stores of the army, or have surrendered for want of provisions, the situation of the place naturally producing one or other of these events.

The preparations made to defend New-York were, nevertheless, wise and military; because your forces were then at sea, their numbers uncertain; storms, sickness, or a variety of accidents might have disabled their coming, or so diminished them on their passage, that those which survived would have been incapa­ble of opening the campaign with any prospect of suc­cess; in which case, the defence would have been suffici­ent and the place preserved; for cities that have been raised from nothing with an infinitude of labor and ex­pence, are not to be thrown away on the bare probabi­lity of their being taken. On these grounds, the prepa­rations made to maintain New-York were as judicious as the retreat afterwards. While you, in the interim, let slip the very opportunity which seemed to put conquest in your power.

Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double the forces which General Washington immediate­ly commanded. The principal plan, at that time, on our part, was to wear away the season with as little loss as possible, and to raise the army for the next year. Long-Island, New-York, Ports Washington and Lee were [Page 70] not defended, after your superior force was known, un­der any expectation of their being finally maintained, but as a range of out works, in the attacking of which, your time might be wasted, your numbers reduced, and your vanity amused by possessing them on our retreat. It was intended to have withdrawn the garrison from Fort Washington after it had answered the former of those purposes, but the fate of that day put a prize into your hands without much honour to yourselves.

Your progress through the Jerseys was accidental; you had it not even in contemplation, or you would not have sent so principal a part of your force to Rhode-Island be­fore-hand. The utmost hope of America in the year se­venty-six reached no higher than that she might not then be conquered. She had no expectation of defeating you in that campaign. Even the most cowardly Tory allowed, that, could she withstand the shock of that summer her independence would be past a doubt. You had then great­ly the advantage of her. You were formidable. Your military knowledge was supposed to be compleat. Your fleets and forces arrived without an accident. You had neither experience nor reinforcements to wait for. You had nothing to do but to begin, and your chance lay in the first vigorous onset.

America was young and unskilled. She was obliged to trust her defence to time and practice; and hath, by meer dint of perseverance, maintained her cause, and brought her enemy to a condition, in which, she is now capable of meeting him on any grounds.

It is remarkable that in the campaign of seventy-six, you gained no more, notwithstanding your great force, than what was given you by consent or evacuation, ex­cept Fort Washington: While every advantage obtained by us was by fair and hard fighting. The defeat of Sir Peter Parker was compleat. The conquest of the Hessi­ans at Trenton by the remains of a retreating army, which, but a few days before, you affected to despise, is an instance of heroic perseverance very seldom to be met with. And the victory over the British troops at Prince­ton, by a harrassed and wearied party, who had been engaged the day before and marched all night without refreshment, is attended with such a scene of circum­stances [Page 71] and superiority of Generalship, as will ever give it a place on the first line in the history of great actions.

When I look back on the gloomy days of last winter and see America suspended by a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at the recollection of her delivery, and a reverence for the characters which snatched her from destruction. To doubt now would be a species of infidelity, and to forget the instruments which saved us then would be in­gratitude.

The close of that campaign left us with the spirits of conquerors. The Northern districts were relieved by the retreat of General Carleton over the lakes. The army under your command were hunted back and had their bounds prescribed. The Continent began to feel its mi­litary importance, and the winter passed pleasantly away in preparations for the next campaign.

However confident you might be on your first arrival, the course of the year seventy-six gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of conquest. To this reason I ascribe your delay in opening the campaign in seventy-seven. The face of matters, on the close of the former year, gave you no encouragement to pursue a dis­cretionary war as soon as the spring admitted the taking the field; for though conquest, in that case, would have given you a double portion of same, yet the experiment was too hazardous. The Ministry, had you failed, would have shifted the whole blame upon you, charged you with having acted without orders, and condemned at once both your plan and your execution.

To avoid those misfortunes, which might have involved you and your money accounts in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently waited the arrival of a plan of operations from England, which was, that you should proceed for Philadelphia by the way of Chesapeak, and that Bur­goyne, after reducing Ticonderoga, should take his route by Albany, and, if necessary, join you.

The splendid laurels of the last campaign have flou­rished in the North. In that quarter America hath sur­prized the world, and laid the foundation of her this year's glory. The conquest of Ticonderoga (if it may be called a conquest) has, like all your other victories, [Page 72] led on to ruin. Even the provisions taken in that for­tress, (which by General Burgoyne's return was sufficient in bread and flour for nearly 5000 men for ten weeks, and in beef and pork for the same number of men for one month) served only to hasten his overthrow, by enabling him to proceed for Saratoga the place of his destruction. A short review of the operations of the last campaign will shew the condition of affairs on both sides.

You have taken Ticonderoga and marched into Phila­delphia. These are all the events which the year hath produced on your part. A trifling campaign indeed, compared with the expences of England and the conquest of the Continent. On the other side, a considerable part of your Northern force has been routed by the New-York militia under General Herkimer. Fort Stanwix hath bravely survived a compounded attack of soldiers and savages, and the besiegers have fled. The battle of Ben­nington has put a thousand prisoners into our hands, with all their arms, stores, artillery and baggage. Ge­neral Burgoyne in two engagements has been defeated; himself, his army, and all that were his and theirs are now ours. Ticonderoga and Independence are retaken, and not the shadow of an enemy remains in all the Northern districts. At this instant we have upwards of ele­ven thousand prisoners, between sixty and seventy pieces of brass ordnance, besides small arms, tents, stores, &c. &c.

In order to know the real value of those advantages we must reverse the scene, and suppose General Gates, and the force he commanded, to be at your mercy as pri­soners, and General Burgoyne with his army of soldiers and savages to be already joined to you in Pennsylvania. So dismal a picture can scarcely be looked at. It hath all the traces and colourings of horror and despair; and excites the most swelling emotions of gratitude by exhi­biting the miseries we are so graciously preserved from.

I admire this distribution of laurels around the Conti­nent. It is the earnest of future union. South-Carolina has had her day of suffering and of fame; and the other Southern States have exerted themselves in proportion to the force that invaded or insulted them. Towards the close of the campaign in seventy-six, these middle States [Page 73] were called upon and did their duty nobly. They were witnesses to the almost expiring flame of human freedom. It was the close struggle of life and death. The line of invisible division; and on which, the unabated fortitude of a Washington prevailed, and saved the spark, that has since blazed in the North with unrivalled lustre.

Let me ask, Sir, what great exploits have you per­formed? Through all the variety of changes and oppor­tunities which this war hath produced, I know no one action of yours that can be stiled masterly. You have moved in and out, backward and forward, round and round, as if valor consisted in a military jig. The history and figure of your movements would be truly ridiculous could they be justly delineated. They resemble the la­bors of a puppy pursuing his tail; the end is still at the same distance, and all the turnings round must be done over again.

The first appearance of affairs at Ticonderoga wore such an unpromising aspect, that it was necessary, in July, to detach a part of the forces to the support of that quar­ter, which were otherwise destined or intended to act against you, and this, perhaps, has been the means of post­poning your downfal to another campaign. The destruc­tion of one army at a time is work enough. We know, Sir, what we are about, what we have to do, and how to do it.

Your progress from Chesapeak was marked by no ca­pital stroke of policy or heroism. Your principal aim was to get General Washington between the Delaware and Schuylkill and between Philadelphia and your army. In that situation, with a river on each of his flanks, which united about five miles below the city, and your army above him, you could have intercepted his rein­forcements and supplies, cut off all his communication with the country, and, if necessary, have dispatched as­sistance to open a passage for General Burgoyne. This scheme was too visible to succeed, for had General Wash­ington suffered you to command the open country above him, I think it a very reasonable conjecture that the con­quest of Burgoyne would not have taken place, because you could, in that case, have relieved him. It was therefore [Page 74] necessary, while that important victory was in suspence, to trepan you into a situation, in which you could only be on the defensive without the power of affording him assistance. The manoeuvre had its effect and Burgoyne was conquered.

There has been something unmilitarily passive in you from the time of your passing the Schuylkill and getting possession of Philadelphia to the close of the campaign. You mistook a trap for a conquest, the probability of which has been made known to Europe, and the edge of your triumph taken off by our own information long before.

Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a ge­neral attack upon you at Germantown was carried into execution on the fourth of October, and though the suc­cess was not equal to the excellence of the plan, yet the attempting it proved the genius of America to be on the rise and her power approaching to superiority The obscurity of the morning was your best friend, for a fog is always favorable to a hunted enemy. Some weeks after this, you, likewise, planned an attack on General Washington while at Whitemarsh, marched out with in­finite parade, but on finding him preparing to attack you the next morning, you prudently cut about and re­treated to Philadelphia with all the precipitation of a man conquered in imagination.

Immediatly after the battle of Germantown, the pro­bability of Burgonye's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pensylvania, and it was judged most consistent with the general safety of America to wait the issue of the Northern campaign. Slow and sure is sound work. The news of that victory arrived in our camp on the 18th of October, and no sooner did the shout of joy and the re­port of the thirteen cannon reach your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat, and the next day, that is, on the 19th, withdrew your drooping army into Philadel­phia. This movement was evidently dictated by fear; and carried with it a positive confession that you dreaded a second attack. It was hiding yourself among women and children, and sleeping away the choicest part of a campaign in expensive inactivity. An army in a city can [Page 75] never be a conquering army. The situation admits only of defence. It is meer shelter; and every military pow­er in Europe will conclude you to be eventually defeated.

The time when you made this retreat was the very time you ought to have fought a battle, in order to put yourself in a condition of recovering in Pennsylvania what you had lost at Saratoga. And the reason why you did not, must be either prudence or cowardice; the former sup­poses your inability, and the latter needs no explanation. I draw no conclusions, Sir, but such as are naturally de­duced from known and visible facts, and such as will always have a being while the facts which produced them remain unaltered.

After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhi­bited the power of Britain in a very contemptible light, which was the attack and defence of Mud-Island. For several weeks did that little unfinished fortress stand out against all the attempts of Admiral and General Howe. It was the fable of Bender realized on the Delaware. Scheme after scheme and force upon force were tried and defeated. The garrison, with scarce any thing to cover them but their bravery, survived in the midst of mud, shot and shells, and were at last obliged to give it up more to the powers of time and gun-powder than to the military superiority of the besiegers.

It is my sincere opinion that matters are in a much worse condition with you than what is generally known. Your master's speech at the opening of Parliament is like a soliloquy on ill luck. It shews him to be coming a little to his reason, for sense of pain is the first symptom of recovery in profound stupefactions. His condition is deplorable. He is obliged to submit to all the insults of France and Spain without daring to know or resent them, and thankful for the most trivial evasions to the most humble remonstrances. The time was when he could not deign an answer to a petition from America, and the time now is when he dare not give an answer to an af­front from France. The capture of Burgoyne's army will sink his consequence as much in Europe as in America. In his speech he expresses his suspicions at the warlike preparations of France and Spain, and as he has only [Page 76] the one army which you command to support his cha­racter in the world with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what quarter, it will be most wanted or can be best employed, and this will partly account for the great care you take to keep it from action and attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it probably will, England may take her endless farewell not only of all America but of all the West-Indies.

Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the eagerness and ignorance with which Britain has done. Bent upon the ruin of a young and unoffending country, she hath drawn the sword that hath wounded herself to the heart, and in the agony of her resentment hath ap­plied a poison for a cure. Her conduct towards America is a compound of rage and lunacy; she aims at the go­vernment of it, yet preserves neither dignity nor cha­racter in her methods to obtain it. Were government a mere manufacture or article of commerce immaterial by whom it should be made or sold, we might as well em­ploy her as another, but when we consider it as the fountain from whence the general manners and morality of a country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution thereof are by their serious example and authority to support these principles, how abomina­bly absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft, and every species of villainy which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or in­vent. What greater public curse can befal any country than to be under such authority, and what greater bless­ing than to be delivered therefrom. The soul of any man of sentiment would rise in brave rebellion against them and spurn them from the earth.

The malignant and venemous tempered Gen. Vaughan has amused his savage fancy in burning the whole own of Kingston, in York government, and the late Governor of that State, Mr. Tryon, in his letter to General Parsons, has endeavoured to justify it, and declared his wish to burn the houses of every Committee-man in the country. Such a confession from one who was once entrusted with the powers of civil government, is a reproach to the cha­racter. [Page 77] But it is the wish and the declaration of a man whom anguish and disappointment have driven to de­spair, and who is daily decaying into the grave with constitutional rottenness.

There is not in the compass of language a sufficiency of words to express the baseness of your King, his Mi­nistry and his Army. They have refined upon villainy till it wants a name. To the fiercer vices of former ages they have added the dregs and scummings of the most finished rascality, and are so compleatly sunk in serpen­tine deceit, that there is not left among them one gene­rous enemy.

From such men and such masters may the gracious hand of Heaven preserve America! And though the suf­ferings she now endures are heavy and severe, they are like straws in the wind compared to the weight of evils she would feel under the government of your King, and his pensioned Parliament.

There is something in meanness which excites a spe­cies of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred; Britain hath filled up both these cha­racters till no addition can be made, and hath not repu­tation left with us to obtain credit for the slightest pro­mise. The will of God hath parted us, and the deed is registered for eternity. When she shall be a spot scarcely visible among the nations, America shall flourish the favorite of Heaven and the friend of mankind.

For the domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the world I wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed within her own island. Extent of domini­on hath been her ruin, and instead of civilizing others hath brutalized herself. Her late reduction of India under Clive and his successors, was not so properly a conquest as an extermination of mankind. She is the only power who could practise the prodigal barbarity of tying men to the mouths of loaded cannon and blowing them away. It happens that General Burgoyne, who made the report of that horrid transaction in the House of Commons, is now a prisoner with us, and though an enemy, I can appeal to him for the truth of it, being [Page 78] confident that he neither can nor will deny it. Yet Clive received the approbation of the last Parliament.

When we take a survey of mankind we cannot help cursing the wretch, who, to the unavoidable misfortunes of nature shall wilfully add the calamities of war. One would think there were evils enough in the world with­out studying to increase them, and that life is sufficient­ly short without shaking the sand that measures it. The histories of Alexander, and Charles of Sweden, are the histories of human devils; a good man cannot think of their actions without abhorrence nor of their deaths without rejoicing. To see the bounties of Heaven de­stroyed, the beautiful face of nature laid waste, and the choicest works of creation and art tumbled into ruin, would fetch a curse from the soul of piety itself. But in this country the aggravation is heightened by a new combination of affecting circumstances. America was young, and, compared with other counties, was virtu­ous. None but a Herod of uncommon malice would have made war upon infancy and innocence, and none but a people of the most finished fortitude dared, under those circumstances, have resisted the tyranny. The natives, or their ancestors, had fled from the former op­pressions of England, and with the industry of bees had changed a wilderness into a habitable world. To Bri­tain they were indebted for nothing. The country was the gift of Heaven, and God alone is their Lord and Sovereign.

The time, Sir, will come when you, in a melancholy hour, shall reckon up your miseries by your murders in America. Life, with you, begins to wear a clouded as­pect. The vision of pleasurable delusion is wearing away, and changing to the barren wild of age and sorrow. The poor reflection of having served your King will yield you no consolation in your parting moments He will crum­ble to the same undistinguished ashes with yourself, and have sins enough of his own to answer for. It is not the farcical benedictions of a Bishop, nor the cringing hy­pocrisy of a court of Chaplains, nor the formality of an act of Parliament, that can change guilt into innocence, or make the punishment one pang the less. You may, [Page 79] perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods of Providence, this havoc of the human [...], and this sowing the world with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it. To us they are only present sufferings, but to him they are deep rebellions.

If there is a sin superior to every other it is that of willful and offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension, and many kind of sins have only a mental existence from when no infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of Hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. We leave it to England and Indians to boast of these honors; we feel no thirst for such savage glory; a nobler flame, a purer spirit animates America. She hath taken up the sword of virtuous defence; she hath bravely put herself between Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse and a blessing, determined to expel the one, and protect the other.

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable And if there were ever a just war since the world began, it is this which America is now engaged in. She invaded no land of yours. She hired no mercenaries to burn your towns, nor Indians to mas­sacre their inhabitants. She wanted nothing from you and was indebted for nothing to you; and thus circumstanced, her de­fence is honorable and her prosperity certain.

Yet it is not on the justice only, but likewise on the import­ance of this cause that I ground my seeming enthusiastical con­fidence of our success. The vast extension of America makes her of too much value in the scale of Providence, to be cast, like a pearl before swine, at the feet of a European island; and of much less consequence would it be that Britain were sunk in the sea than that America should miscarry. There has been such a chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of this country at first, in the peopling and planting it afterwards, in the rearing and [...] it to its present State, and in the pro­tection of it through the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence hath some nobler end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty Elector of Hanover or the ignorant and insignificant King of Britain.

As the blood of the martyrs hath been the seed of the Chris­tian Church, so the political persecutions of England will, and [Page 80] hath already enriched America with industry, experience, uni­on and importance. Before the present aera she was a meer chaos of uncemented Colonies, individually exposed to the ra­vages of the Indians and the invasion of any power that Britain should be at war with. She had nothing she could call her own. Her felicity depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe might have thrown her from one conqueror to ano­ther, till she had been the slave of all and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to which master she should belong. That pe­riod, thank God, is past, and she is no longer the dependent, disunited Colonies of Britain, but the independent and united States of America, knowing no master but Heaven and herself. You or your King may call this "Delusion," "Rebellion," or what name you please. To us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the character and Time will give it a name as lasting as his own.

You have now, Sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can fully declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part but blows and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and credit and an encrease of poverty and taxes. You are now only where you might have been two years ago without the loss of a single ship, and yet not a step the forwarder towards the conquest of the Continent; because, as I have al­ready hinted, "An army in a city can never be a conquering army." The full amount of your losses since the beginning of the war exceeds twenty thousand men, besides millions of trea­sure for which you have nothing in exchange. Our expences, though great, are circulated within ourselves. Yours is a direct sinking of money, and that from both ends at once, first in hiring troops out of the nation, and in paying them afterwards, because the money in neither case can return again to Britain. We are already in possession of the prize, you only in suit for it. To us it is a real treasure, to you it would be only an empty triumph. Our expences will repay themselves with ten fold interest, while yours entail upon you everlasting poverty.

Take a review, Sir, of the ground you have gone over, and let it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but on a very tottering foundation. A charge of the Ministry in Eng­land may probably bring your measures into question and your head to the block. Clive, with all his successes, had some dif­ficulty [Page 81] in escaping, and yours being all a war of losses, will af­ford you less pretensions and your enemies more grounds for impeachment.

Go home, Sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined country by a just representation of the madness of her measures. A few moments well applied may yet preserve her from political destruction. I am not one of those who wish to see Europe in a flame, because I am persuaded such an event will not shorten the war. The rupture, at present, is confined between the two powers of America and England. England finds she cannot conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer England. You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we defending what we mean never to part with. A few words, therefore, settle the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will mind ours. Govern yourselves and we will govern ourselves. You may then trade where you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we please un­molested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. If it were possible that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must still come to this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think of it the better it will be for you.

My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults which Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and the wretched shifts she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her reduced strength and exhausted coffers in a three years war with America have given a powerful superiority to France and Spain. She is not now a match for them—But if neither counsels can prevail on her to think, nor sufferings awaken her to reason, she must e'en go on, till the honor of England becomes a proverb of contempt, and Europe dub her the Land of Fools.