probability of carrying into execution some certain measures, without cutting the throats of almost all our America, without dying its Forests, its Swamps, and its Savannahs, with the blood of those whose ancestors fled from their country, and went thither in hopes of finding refuge from the tyranny and the oppression of the governours of Great Britain? What does it matter who dies a victim the first or the last, and whether by the sword, the musket, and the bayonet, or by famine, distress, and misery, when a whole region shall be laid waste and depopulated? Is it difficult to pick a quarrel on any subject, or to drive a people into despair, and then to destroy them for being desperate, or are there wanting writers or speakers to defend any action or any measure? But will the glossing, the quibbling, the flattery of pensioners or of sycophants, heal the wounds, calm the minds, appease the passions, reconcile the affections, or blind and confound the understandings of an injured and exasperated Continent, consisting of many numerous, and flourishing Provinces, and inhabited by a people possessed and inspired with a love of liberty, almost lost to the shame of the human species out of Europe, but most powerful and irresistible wherever it prevails, and is united with the means of defence? I don't mean to talk to Ministers and to Statesmen about right and wrong, humanity, compassion, and the cardinal virtues; but I repeat that there is, in these measures, full as little of the policy of Machiavel as of the morality of Grotius, or the religion of the Whole Duty of Man; not a whit more of the wisdom of the serpent, than of the innocence of the dove.

The sense of the Nation is in the meantime most strong against these transactions. People were not at the beginning so much moved; they appear not to have believed that any men at the head of a state would really be so wild and so headlong as to bring about in effect what now stares them most strongly and most fully in the face. It is well understood, that the all of the publick and of every private person is upon a desperate cast at stake against nothing; men raise their eyes and their hands with horrour when they speak on the occasion; they sympathize in common with the Americans, and express plainly and roundly their own sentiments on their account. Such are, on the contrary, silent and reserved on the subject, who are used to direct their discourse by mean motives; the change or discharge of these measures would be a most sincere and universal satisfaction. Shall, then, a great Nation, with its eyes open and sensible of its situation and its danger, be drawn or driven upon its ruin by a few men among them, and those perhaps intrusted for its safety and its protection? Where is, in that case, the Constitution, or what is our pretended and our boasted representation? Is there nothing, nothing even to the utmost extremity of our destruction, but what corruption can compass and prostitution will perform? These proceedings are of that dangerous and destructive tendency, that whoever promotes or unites in them does, as a private man, light a brand to fire his own house, and to lay waste his own estate; but as one of the publick, he concurs with his own hand to thrust a dagger into the heart of his already wounded, helpless, and almost expiring country. It may be wondered how any such person can hold up his hands towards Heaven to pray for prosperity on him or his, which he does himself so directly counteract. Can, then, any Nation, famous for its freedom, want in such an extremity some proper remedy and resource against the rage, the madness, or the incapacity of an Administration?

I answer, that our ancestors were far from being so careless of those to come after them, as to have left us in concerns depending on our own domestick government, without means very sufficient for our safety and our welfare. The people of Great Britain have a lawful, constitutional, acknowledged, undisputed, undoubted power of application and petition. This is an inherent right of every County, every City, every Borough, every body of men in it, and which any one may be confident that no King, no Minister, and, let me add, no Parliament will resist or withstand, if the exertion of it shall be general, universal, and unanimous, such as shall evidently speak with the full and the clear voice of the whole Nation; it may, in such a case, be depended upon for sufficient and effectual. Never did perhaps any period of our history more require such an exertion than the present moment. I will not repeat what has been said with respect to the stake, either of the publick or of private persons; but even the Minister must, in all appearance, be in his own breast pleased with it. It might afford him a fair opportunity, or almost force him to withdraw his foot out of difficulties, in which he cannot but by this time be sensible how rashly and inconsiderately he has involved both himself and his country. What unaccountable fatality is it which can prevent any one at the helm of a Nation from taking of his own accord so prudent and so salutary a step. But this matter mounts higher. The King is blessed with a fair and a large family, from whom even a private parent might promise himself the greatest comfort and felicity; but much more may his Majesty if they near him shall, by their fatal and unfortunate counsels, mingle no bitter in his cup. However, let all loyal subjects well reflect, and especially they first in favour, whether these measures are not of such a magnitude and a malignity, that they may either immediately or in their consequences throw the whole state into the last confusion—endanger our becoming a prey to foreign Powers—shake the throne itself, and disturb one day the peace and the happiness of our gracious Prince, even within his own palace and in the midst of his numerous royal progeny. To whomsoever we may therefore presume on this subject to offer up our humble petitions, we shall beseech those respectable persons to bless and to secure equally both the publick and themselves.

It seems the more necessary to use this last safe resource of the Constitution, as it is difficult to find any other help, that is left for us under Heaven. Our political parties and their leaders bear a suspicion of covering and concealing under pretences of the general good, designs of personal ambition and advancement. The people of England have had but too much experience in that respect. What division, what connection, what denomination of men among us have not in their turn spoiled and plundered this poor country? Our liberties and our properties were, before the Revolution, attacked under the pretence of prerogative, by a set of men who bore the name and who invented or advanced the doctrines of Tories; but the virtue of our ancestors saved us then. Through how long a series of successive Administrations has since that time this Nation been sold, bartered, and betrayed by a race of false, pretended, unworthy, and venal Whigs; whose endeavours towards our destruction have unfortunately been more successful than those of their predecessors? God forbid that we should now be ready to receive our fatal and our final stroke from the joint force of both these causes—from the accursed practice of corruption, united with the senseless principles of a boundless obedience of the people, and of an extravagant power of the Crown! These evils do not, perhaps, least prevail in the very places which ought most to be a sanctuary and a security against them. What is become of the ancient publick spirit of England, when the first in rank and in fortune were ever the foremost to protect the rights of the whole? It is for the honour of our name and our Nation to be hoped that this noble passion of the human breast is retired, and is setting up its standard among our countrymen on the Continent, if it has totally fled from this once free and fortunate Island. It must grieve any one to ask, Whether there are none, even in the respected band of our professed Patriots, who had it once in their power to have utterly extinguished, but who left unhappily and purposely to lurk and to smother in their proceedings, and in their own Acts of Parliament, this very pretension, and, as it were, the same fire, which has since broken out so fiercely, and which threatens now to consume in one common flame both Britain and America? However, it is to be hoped that these persons will, from such violent and such evident mischiefs, be at length convinced, nor continue backward to concur and to contribute towards some sufficient measures for the lasting peace and relief of our country and our Colonies. But we are now upon the brink of the precipice; our situation admits no longer of our being led blindfold; it is too late for us to trust either to thorough-paced Ministers or to half-paced Patriots; the time requires this Nation to declare its own genuine sense, perhaps its last sense of its condition and its