asleep by those two Cabinets, being more cunning than to stay, or to turn is in the beginning of a career, which must Be so much to their satisfaction and their inclination. It is an old proverb, that any one should make a bridge of gold for his enemy, when be is flying from him. Is it to be doubted, but that these powers would willingly pave almost with any materials, and at any expense, a way for us by winch to march and to attack our own Provinces—those Provinces which have so long been the support of ourselves and the envy of other Nations. It has been said that they have before now found the means of paving the way to their own peace with us; but Heaven forbid that they should ever find that of putting us at daggers-draw among ourselves-of engaging in a war with one another other the mother country and our Colonies of North America. Whenever that ill-star'd hour shall arrive, and by whose folly or artifice soever brought about, the arms of our rivals will hardly be wanted to lay the glory and the greatness of Britain in the dust. France and Spain laugh and sing in the mean time to see what we are doing, and it may be depended upon that they know better than to meddle at this moment, in our broils.

There is another point to which I would speak a word a word before I have done. Some sycophants and makers of mischief on the other side of the Atlantic seem to have had had no small part in causing the present disturbances. Why by should otherwise all These have rather arisen in Massachusetts Bay than in Connecticut or in Rhode-Island, except that we appoint the Governours in the former, and that the people themselves do so in the latter? The counsels of these men must, upon experience, have been found wrong and mistaken. They magnified the mighty power of. Parliaments, and appear to have flattered some people here, as if their finger was irresistible. Had they pointed out events as they have really happened, it is impossible possible that we should conducted ourselves as we have actually done. All this may clearly be accounted for, if we suppose one principle, which is, that they meant to advance themselves in Great Britain, however their endeavours might turn out either for would be a most strange thing should these same persons be still consulted, countenanced, and encouraged. We ought to be Sensible how dearly we have already paid on that article. The writer does not know the face of one of if one of them; I speak singly for the sake of the publick; but there can, in all appearance, no common good come to the two countries of Great Britain and North America, until that these fatal authors of our mutual evils shall be banished from all councils and confidence.

So much for my present object. I have on this occasion not entered into the difficulty, or rather the apparent impossibility of subduing, with a few thousands of Soldiers from England, a very great Continent, most strong in itself, and defended by some hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants naturally placed over the different parts, and commanding all the produce and the advantages of the country, and who are armed, trained, and ready to take the field in defence of what they believe to be their all; men of tried bravery, and that have, upon experience, performed many actions of remark; I have not insisted on the absolute certainty of their finding, in case of a direct rapture and revolt from Great Britain, foreign assistance; I have not mentioned our Ministers having wantonly, and, in all appearance, out of personal ambition, taken upon themselves the affairs of our East India Company, and having by that means subjected, on any contention with the native powers of those regions, the Nation to the danger of being one day found between the two fires of the. West Indies and of the East, and perhaps, at the same time, a fire in Europe hotter than either of the others; I have not examined the burthen of our National Debt pressing, in the midst of these circumstances, most heavily upon us; I have not touched on very many other topicks respecting our present ill-judged and ill-omened attempt; these were of a preceding subject. This matter has now been only taken up on the ground where it was left upon a former argument, and upon our measures and the change and the state of state of affairs in America since that time; here will I likewise leave it once more.

It is not owing to a want of information, to a want of understanding, to a want of a sense and a knowledge of the importance or the imprudence of our American measures, if some people of property, of capacity, of independence seem to sleep supinely while a rock is ready to fall and to crush their country. There is in publick concerns an abjectness which obtains and daily increases among us, and that in a rank of men where it ought least to prevail, and to whom others are entitled to look up in a time of danger or of difficulty. The rise and the beginning of this might readily be pointed out; it was not first of this reign; but these men may truly be told that there is no support for themselves but in the stability of all; that their private fortunes and possessions will in the common destruction, most inevitably go to wreck and to ruin with the rest; the cloud from the Atlantic threatens them as well as the Merchant and the Manufacturer, the Farmer and the Labourer. But we seem not to remember that we are born Britons; that Governments are instituted for the good of the governed, and for that only; that we have, in our immediate, personal, and collective capacity, an inherent right to signify our sentiments of the national measures to those who contrive, govern, and direct them; that the concern therein of many is, upon the comparison, much as considerable one for one as their own, but that of all united and taken together almost as the ocean to a drop of water; that we are men, and not a flock of sheep forced to follow our fellow, because he happens to bear a bell about his neck. The writer has thrown out these things from a sincere and earnest desire of the general safety and welfare; he heartily hopes that the seed is sown in good ground, and that it will bear fruit for the benefit of the whole; but if, after all, the hand of fate is upon this Nation; if the period approaches in which we are doomed to perish; if there is once an incurable mad ness in our councils, and a boundless obsequiousness in proper guardians and protectors; if the Constitution is for gotten, and men of weight and of respect abandon their country, I must say that His will be done who governs both individuals and communities. I trust, nevertheless, that these words will not be so lost but that they shall at least preserve one private person from the charge and the consciousness of having scrupled to speak plainly his opinion and his expectation of the dangers and the evils impending over the publick.

November, 1774.

P. S. During the printing of these sheets authentick accounts are come of Resolutions respecting a suspension of commerce between America and Great Britain, being entered into and recommended by the Congress held at Philadelphia. This is another material circum stance and consideration pointed out and pressed in the foregoing book. I mean now to make no reflections on the subject; time will tell, whether the consequences shall also be such, as are there supposed or conceived. There is another vote of the same meeting, which is both so very plain, and so very important, that I cannot omit to repeat it in its own words, which are "That the Congress approve of the opposition by the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late Acts of Parliament, and if the same should be attempted to be carried into execution by force, all America ought, in such a case, to support them in their opposition." This neither needs nor admits of any comment; but how amply does it fulfil what we were on that head forewarned. How ever let us at least not neglect the caution which it contains for the time to come. It is likewise almost impossible for an Englishman not to observe with the most sincere regret that the first proceedings of new and an essential assembly among ourselves have been such as must by all men in our America be understood to approve and to maintain in the highest and the harshest of language the measures carrying on against them. It becomes the writer to receive with respect these Resolves of our Legislature; however, I shall, in regard thereto, desire once more every person, having for his country any concern, most seriously to consider whether humble, constitutional, general, and universal petitions are not our last and our only remaining although, at the same time, our sure and our certain resource; if they shall duly and properly be employed and applied.