Straw is doubtless as necessary to make a Soldier’s Tent comfortable, as a Mattress is to make an Officer’s Tent so; and both would be alike withheld if they were equally in our power. From the Soldier, because he waits only for the word of command to cut our throats, and spread desolation as far and wide as his balls and bayonet, and the strength of his arm will enable him to extend it. From the Officer, because being better bred, his mind ought to be impressed with a due sense of the natural and civil rights of mankind; yet, nevertheless, can so steel his heart to the dictates of his conscience and the feelings of humanity, as wantonly to imbrue his hands in the blood of his innocent fellow-subjects, in obedience to the mandate of a petty Ministerial tyrant!—For I shall never be persuaded to believe, that the best of Kings, my most Gracious Sovereign, who, so early in life, is able to count a Royal dozen, can be so lost to the tender feeling of a parent, as coming to the knowledge of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that he would not, with the highest indignation, spurn from his presence into everlasting banishment, the wretch who would dare to suggest, under any pretence whatever, the horrid thoughts of shedding the blood of his innocent American subjects; who, notwithstanding all they have suffered from delegated power, are still earnestly desirous to be esteemed his children; and could the malevolent tongue of slander and defamation be silenced, would soon become the objects of his Royal patronage: for they never have forfeited it, unless a forfeiture can be incurred by refusing to become subject to their fellow-subjects in power; or to any other laws but those to which they or their Representatives have given their consent; and their firm attachment to that Constitution of Government under which they, or their forefathers, have lived peaceably and happily for more than a century past. I repeat it, therefore, if blood is to be shed, it will be at the mandate of a petty Ministerial tyrant!

The officer who stoops to execute the hangman’s office, rather than lose his commission, must and will be viewed in a most infamous light; whilst the soldier is beheld with an eye of pity and compassion, because the consequence of his disobedience is death without mercy. Neither straw, therefore, nor any other convenience that can render a soldier’s life comfortable, is withheld from him upon any other principle than that of self-preservation.

If the General requires proof of the certainty of what is here advanced, let him give a regular discharge to all the soldiers under his command, and at the hazard of my head, I will give him incontestable security, that not one of them who is bred to labour, and is willing to work for an honest livelihood, but his industry shall immediately be so conducted, as to gain him from eighteen pence to three shillings sterling, for every faithful day’s work he shall perform. For those of them that are honest, industrious manufacturers, convenient room and rough materials shall be provided for them to manufacture; and for those who are bred to husbandry, and the cultivation of lands, they shall become freeholders—sufficient land shall be allotted to them— they shall be assisted to build their houses, and supplied with necessaries to begin their new Plantations. For all these, and more than these benefits, they shall have security, not from one Province only, but the whole Continent.

Although, therefore, their profession is war and bloodshed, must they not shudder at the horrid thought of butchering the lives, and destroying the substance of those who never willingly injured them; but, on the contrary, would rejoice to see their circumstances as comfortable and happy as the friendly offices of their fellow-subjects, and their own industry and economy can make them. For we have land enough, and, therefore, room enough for a million of them.*

Let not then the community be charged with “shewing enmity to the King’s Troops.” Let not their “treatment” of them be stigmatized as “hostile.” It arises from the “power of necessity, a solicitor that will not be denied; and, therefore, ought not to be resented.

It is difficult to conceive how the General, when he talked of resenting the hostile treatment of the King’s Troops since their arrival here, could avoid reflecting that the complaints might, and ought to be retorted an hundred fold.

Have not the inhabitants of this Continent, for years past, been every day defrauded (under colour of laws called British Statutes) of money, which has been shamefully lavished upon some of the most worthless characters? And does it not amount almost to a demonstration, that the baneful measure was adopted, not to lessen the national debt, as has been pretended, but with a premeditated design to plunder one part of the community, to bribe the other, and, by spreading general corruption, to establish universal slavery?

Have not the streets of our Capital been stained with the blood of its innocent inhabitants unnecessarily, and therefore wantonly shed by merciless military murderers? Are not out liberties abridged and our Constitution subverted to gratify the avarice and ambition of a few infamously distinguished parricides, who are willing, and by their conduct seem desirous to see their native country ruined, provided they may be permitted to riot in the spoils of it?

Does the English language afford words expressive of one half the hostile treatment—the cruel and unparalleled injuries, this Colony has suffered within these few years past, from the Parent State?

Is not our capital invaded by sea and land? —Are not the lives and property of its inhabitants at the mercy of Military and Naval Commanders? —Are not thousands of innocent persons deprived of the means of subsistence, by the annihilation of our Commerce? Must not many of them have inevitably perished with hunger, cold, and famine, had not their charitable brethren, throughout the Continent, come in aid of them?

Have we not been repeatedly threatened with an army of Canadian and Indian Savages to come, as soon as the season will permit, and invade our frontier settlements, to massacre the innocent inhabitants, and carry their children into captivity. Upon the arrival of every Vessel from Europe, are we not alarmed with the news of more Ships-of-war, and Transports with more Troops that are to be here in the Spring; when an open rupture is generally expected?

Has not an unmitred, unprincipled, would-be Bishop of New-York, in a pamphlet, under the specious title of “A Friendly Address,” but with all the rancour and malice of an infernal fiend, threatened to let loose the dogs of war, like so many hell-hounds, to devour us? But let him beware lest the fate of Actæon should be verified in his own person.

Britons and Americans: Suffer me, for a moment, to arrest your attention; are not the facts above recited, not only true, but attended with innumerable circumstances of aggravation? Is not the provocation arising from them in a ratio of a million to one, compared with the provocation arising from the pretended hostile treatment of the King’s Troops.

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
NO. V.

Boston, March 2, 1775.

My Friends and Countrymen:

The question which we have been considering is, whether we are not so far independent of the British Empire, as to have the exclusive right of legislation inherently and irrefragably in ourselves, except in the instance of regulating Trade. It would give me pain to dwell so long upon a subject so generally understood in its nature, importance, and consequences, were it not to show to what cob-web reasonings the present scheme of Colony administration has driven its votaries; what latitudinarians they have become, in order to execute that which, in better times, the proudest Minister that Britain ever saw would have been too undaring to have projected.

The right is so clear as to almost elude the force of argumentation—so obvious, as in spite of opposing efforts, to command conviction, and to rank high towards the scale of intuitions—so stale, as to be determined from the first commencement of that relation of things out of which it grew—so indisputable, as to be presumed, and practised

* Cannot the wisdom of the Continent devise motives sufficient to conciliate the friendship of the Officers to the dictates of humanity, and convince them that they ought, for their own sakes, to become the defenders, and not the destroyers of Civil and Religious Liberty; since the welfare and prosperity of every well regulated society can rest securely upon no other foundation.