will reflect eternal infamy on your reign and memory as the Sovereign and father of a free people. It is such a plan of encroaching violence and lawless power, as the Americans never can, never ought, nor ever will, submit to; it is such a scheme for enslaving, or destroying the human race, as every man ought to execrate and condemn, and to oppose even till he perish.

Men, Sir, at three thousand miles distance, must think it extremely hard to work, toil, and run hazards, only to support the infamous luxury of high pampered Lords, a rotten Court, and your tribe of venal Senators, minions, pimps, and parasites—the pests of society; and to be taxed and mulcted by them at their pleasure. All nature, Sir, revolts even at the idea of such a state of human misery.

Force, Sir, can never be used effectually to answer the end, without destroying the Colonies themselves. Liberty and encouragement are necessary to keep them together; and violence will hinder both. Any body of Troops, considerable enough to awe them, keep them in subjection, and under the direction of a needy Scotch Governour, sent only to be an instrument of slaughter, and to make his fortune, would soon put an end to planting, and leave the country to you, Sir, and your merciless plunderers only; and if it did not, they would starve the inhabitants and eat up all the profit of the Colonies. On the contrary, a few prudent laws, Sir, (but you seem to be a stranger to prudence as well as to justice and humanity,) and a little prudent conduct, (that, too, has long been despaired of by the Kingdom,) would soon give us far the greatest share of the riches of all America; perhaps drive other Nations out of it, or into our Colonies for shelter.

If violent methods be not used (at this time) to prevent it, your Northern Colonies, Sir, must constantly increase in people, wealth, and power; their inhabitants are considerably more than doubled since the Revolution; and in less than a century must become powerful States; and the more powerful, the more people will flock thither. There are so many exigencies in all States, so many foreign wars and domestic disturbances, that these Colonies can seldom want opportunities, if they watch for them, to do what you, Sir, might be extremely sorry for—throw off their dependance on the Mother Country; therefore, Sir, it should be your first and greatest care, that it shall never be their interest to act against that of their native Country; an evil that can no otherwise be averted, than by keeping them fully employed in such trades as will increase their own, as well as our wealth; for, Sir, there is too much reason to fear, if you don’t find employment for them, they may find some for you. Withdraw, then, Sir, from America, your armed ruffians, and make a full restoration of the people’s rights; let them tax themselves, and enjoy their property unviolated by the hand of tyranny. Thus, Sir, the subsequent part of your reign may yet be happy and glorious. May the compact between you and the people be no more invaded; may you be speedily reconciled to the just demands of the Colonies; may Lord Bute, Lord Mansfield, Lord North, and all your Majesty’s infamous minions, who would precipitate you and the Kingdom into ruin answer with their heads (and soon) for their horrid crimes; and may the succession in your Majesty’s Royal House, and the Religion, Laws, Rights and Liberties, of the subject, go hand in hand down to all posterity, until this globe shall be reduced to its original chaos, and time be swallowed up in eternity.

THE CRISIS.—NO. IV.

To the Conspirators against the Liberties of mankind, at ST. JAMES’S, in ST. STEPHEN’S Chapel, the House of Lords, or amongst the Bench of Bishops.

The steady and uniform perseverance in a regular plan of depotism, since the commencement of this reign, makes it evident to the meanest capacity, that a design was formed (and it has with too much success been carried into execution) for subverting the Religion, Laws, and Constitution of this Kingdom, and to establish upon the ruins of publick liberty, an arbitrary system of Government: in a word, the destruction of this Kingdom will soon be effected by a Prince of the House of Brunswick.

The bloody Resolution has passed the House of Commons and the House of Lords, to address our present humane, gentle Sovereign, to give directions for enforcing the cruel and unjust edicts of the last Parliament against the Americans. His Majesty, possessing principles which nothing can equal but the goodness of his heart, will no doubt give immediate orders for carrying effectually into execution the massacre in America; especially as he is to be supported in polluting the earth with blood with the lives and fortunes of his faithful butchers—the Lords and Commons. Would to God they only were to fall a sacrifice in this unnatural Civil War.

The day of trial is at hand; it is time to prove the virtue, and rouse the spirit of the people of England; the prospect is too dreadful, it is too melancholy to admit of farther delay.

The Lord Mayor of London ought immediately to call a Common-Hall for the purpose of taking the sense of his fellow-citizens at this alarming crisis, upon presenting a remonstrance to the Throne, couched in terms that might do honour to the City, as the first and most powerful in the world, and to them as men determined to be free; in terms that might strike conviction into his Majesty’s breast, and terrour into the souls of his minions. This is not a time for compliments, nor should tyrants, or the instruments of tyranny ever be complimented.

The Merchants of London, it is to be hoped, and the whole commercial interest of England, will exert themselves upon this great occasion, by sending to the Throne spirited and pointed remonstrances, worthy of Englishmen; by noble and generous subscriptions; and in every other manner, give all the relief, and all the assistance in their power, to their oppressed and injured fellow-subjects in America.

Let them heartily join the Americans, and see whether tyranny and lawless power, or reason, justice, Heaven, truth, and liberty, will prevail.

Let them, together with the gentlenmen of landed property, who must greatly suffer by this unnatural Civil War, make a glorious stand against the enemies of publick freedom, and the constitutional rights of the Colonies; for, with the ruin, of America, must be involved that of England.

Let them, in plain terms, declare their own strength, and the power of the people; a power that has hitherto withstood the united efforts of fraud and tyranny; a power which raises them to a Throne; and when unworthy of their delegated trust, can pull them down.

Let them declare to the world they will never be so base and cowardly as quietly to see any part of their fellow-subjects butchered or enslaved, either in England or America, to answer the purpose of exalted villany; and by that means become the detested instruments of their own destruction.

Let them declare to the world they are not yet ripe for slavery; that their forefathers made a noble resistance, and obtained a decisive victory over tyranny and lawless power, when the Stuarts reigned; that they are determined to do themselves justice, and not to suffer any farther attacks upon their freedom, from the present Sovereign, who is exceedingly desirous, as well as ambitious, to destroy the liberties of mankind, but that they do insist upon a restoration of their own violated rights, and the rights of British America. Let them enter into an Association for the preservation of their lives, rights, liberties, and privileges, and resolve at once to bring the whole legion of publick traitors, who have wickedly entered into a conspiracy to destroy the dear-bought rights of this free Nation, to condign punishment, for their past and present diabolical proceedings, which have already stained the land with blood, and threaten destruction to the human race.

A few spirited resolutions from the City of London, and the whole body of Merchants of England, would strike terrour into the souls of those miscreants—the authors of these dreadful publick mischiefs.

The grand principle of self-preservation, which is the first and fundamental law of nature, calls aloud for such exertions of publick spirit; the security of the Nation depends upon it; justice, and the preservation of our own, and the lives of our fellow-subjects in America, demand it;