Of this Memorial, what could be said but that it was written in jest) or written by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of Pennsylvanian eloquence can find any argument in the Addresses of the Congress, that is not with greater strength urged by the Cornishman.

The argument of the irregular troops of controversy, Stripped of its colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this: Liberty is the birthright of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no liberty. The answer is equally simple: Government is necessary to man; and where obedience is not compelled, there is no Government.

If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by some power; first of making laws, and then of enforcing them.

To one of the threats hissed out by the Congress, I have put nothing similar into the Cornish Proclamation; because it is too foolish for buffoonery, and too wild for madness. If we do not withhold our King and his Parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantic and enslave us!

How they will come they have not told us; perhaps they will take wing and light upon our coasts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The great Orator observes, that they will be very fit, after they have teen taxed, to impose chains upon us. If they are so fit as their friend describes them, and so willing as they describe themselves, let us increase our Army and double our Militia.

It has been of late a very general practice to talk of slavery among those who are setting at defiance every power that keeps the world in order. If the learned author of the "Reflections on Learning" has rightly observed, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain to prohibit the use of the word slavery; but I could wish it more discreetly uttered. It is driven at one time too hard into our ears by the loud hurricane of Pennsylvanian eloquence, and at another glides too cold into our hearts by the soft conveyance of a female patriot bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.

Such has been the progress of sedition, that those who a few years ago disputed only our right of laying taxes, now question the validity of every act of legislation. They consider themselves as emancipated from obedience, and as being no longer the subjects of the British Crown. They leave us no choice but of yielding or conquering, of resigning our Dominion, or maintaining it by force.

From force, many endeavours have been used, either to disuade or to deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and sometimes Their sufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to the last war—a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their protection—a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that they can boast is, that they did something for themselves, and did not wholly stand inactive while the sons of Britain were fighting in their cause.

If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity those that show no regard to their mother country; have obeyed no laws which they could violate; have imparted no good which they could withhold; have entered into associations of fraud to rob their creditors, and into combinations to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with the cruelty of shutting one Port, where every Port is shut against us. We are censured as tyrannical for hindering those from fishing who have condemned our Merchants bankruptey, and our Manufacturers to hunger.

Others persuade us to give them more liberty; to take off restraints, and relax authority; and tell us what happy consequences will arise from forbearance; how their affections will be conciliated, and into what diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love their friends, they will reverence their protectors; they will throw themselves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet they will buy from no other what we can sell them; they will sell to no other what we wish to buy.

That any obligations should overpower their attention to profit, we have known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefit they are now showing us, who, as soon as we have delivered them from France, are defying and proscribing us.

But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will, during pleasure, pay us a subsidy. The contest is not now for money, but for power. The question is not how much we shall collect, but by what authority the collection shall be made.

Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown in any form that may raise love or pity, dress them in habiliments of terrour, and try to make us think them formidable. The Bostonians can call into the field ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take possession of the Towns, the Colonists will retire into the inland regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houses and a wide extent of waste and desolation. If we subdue them for the present, they will universally revolt in the next war, and resign us without pity to subjection and destruction.

To all this it may be answered, that between losing America and resigning it, there is no great difference: that it is not very reasonable to jump into the sea because the ship is leaky. All those evils may befall us, but we need not hasten them.

The Dean of Gloucester has proposed, and seems to propose it seriously, that we should at once release our claims, declare them masters of themselves, and whistle them down the wind. His opinion is, that our gain from them will be the same, and our expense less. What they can have most cheaply from Britain they will still buy; what they can sell to us at the highest price they will still sell.

It is, however, a little hard, that having so lately fought and conquered for their safety, we should govern them no longer. By letting them loose before the war how many millions might have been saved. One ridiculous proposal is best answered by another: Let us restore to the French what we have taken from them. We shall see our Colonists at our feet when they have an enemy so near them. Let us give the Indians Arms, and teach them discipline, and encourage them now and then to plunder a plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition.

While these different opinions are agitated, it seems to be determined by the Legislature that force shall be tried. Men of the pen have seldom any great skill in conquering Kingdoms, but they have strong inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to wish that this commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued by terrour rather than by violence; and therefore recommend such a force as may take away not only the power, but the hope of resistance, and by conquering without a battle, save many from the sword.

If their obstinacy continues without actual hostilities, it may perhaps be mollified by turning out the Soldiers to free-quarters, forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed that the Slaves should be set free, an act which surely the lovers of liberty cannot but commend. If they are furnished with fire-arms for defence, and utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of Government within the country they may be more grateful and honest than their masters.

Far be it from any Englishman to thirst for the blood of his fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are unhappily at less distance. The Americans, when the Stamp Act was first proposed, undoubtedly disliked it, as every Nation dislikes an impost; but they had no thought of resisting it till they were encouraged and incited by European intelligence—from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves.

On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted Nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious contest, they are themselves equally detestable. If they wish success to the Colonies, the are traitors to this country; if they wish their defeat, they are traitors at once to America and England. To them and them only must be imputed the interruption of commerce and the miseries of war; the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall.

Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their possessions, When they are re