that the Colonies and Great Britain are one, are parts of a whole, in their commercial interest. They see the necessity of a power somewhere, to preside, and preserve this commercial connection in due order. They consent that Parliament should exercise this power; we contend only for the rights and privileges of a perfectly free people, submitting to Acts for the regulating of Trade.

Massachusettensis having, as he says, settled the right of Parliament, dips his pen in gall; lost to all sense of candour or generosity, to all the noble sallies of the charitable soul, arms it with invectives, and with a facility peculiar to himself, hurls the envenomed shafts of oblique and reproach against some of the fairest characters on the Continent. He lashes all around him indiscriminately, with the dire scourges of calumny and slander.

To show what engines some of the tories, even the mildest of them, employ in their political war; what indecencies a party spirit betrays them into; to what expedients, and pitiful shifts they sometimes stoop, I will transcribe the substance of a part of this acrimonious . . .

We are told, that the Resolves of our Congresses either argue profound ignorance, or hypocritical cunning; that many unsuspecting persons have been prevailed upon to oppose the execution of Acts of Parliament by those who could have turned to the page where such insurrections were pronounced rebellion by the laws of the land; and had not their hearts been dead to a sense of justice, and steeled against every feeling of humanity, they would timely have warned us of our danger; that our patriots have sent, us in pursuit of a fascinating glare, devoid of substance; that when, we find ourselves bewildered, with scarce one ray of hope to raise our sinking spirits, or stay our fainting souls, they conjure up phantoms more delusive and fleeting, if possible, than that which first led us astray; they tell us that we are a match for Great Britain; that no pains have been spared by our wretched politicians to prevent a defection of the Army to the service; that the officers have a bad opinion of the cause of the Whigs, from the treatment of their General, and the infamous attempts to seduce the soldiers from His Majesty’s service; that the policy of our patriots has been as weak and contemptible as their motives are sordid and malevolent; that failing of success in corrupting, they, took pains to attach them firmer to the service, by preventing the erecting of barracks, by which means many contracted diseases, and some lost their lives; that our patriots had deprived them of a gratification never denied to the brute creation—straw to lay on; that we have been amused with intimations and prospects which were only the suggestions of despair; that the Grand Congress had prevented the people in England from espousing our cause; that they had bid Great Britain defiance. He then concludes his paper by telling us what warlike preparations are made against us, and advising us to provide for the safety of ourselves, our wives, our children, our friends, and our Country, by immediately protesting against all the traitorous Resolves and Associations of our Congresses, that the innocent may not be confounded with the guilty.

There is scarce one crime that human nature is capable of, but what is here imputed to our leaders, whose publick conduct is applauded by an admiring world. Not contented with vilifying their characters, he urges it upon us with an importunate pathos as a duty, to commit an act of the basest ingratitude, an instance of the blackest treachery. Perfidiously to protest against the proceedings of those gentlemen who, by our appointment and for our safety, have undertaken an arduous task, and, unawed by a sense of danger, confiding in the virtue and firmness of their Country, have discharged it with honor, wisdom, firmness, and courage themselves, would be blasting our species with disgrace, and consigning our names to everlasting infamy.

Paintings and colourings on indifferent matters may tickle the sense and please the imagination; even fictitious representations may be innocent. In affairs of serious and general concernment, to misrepresent and asperse, is to play with firebrands, arrows, and death. You well know, my countrymen, the real state of facts upon which our writer founds his ill-natured charges. You are acquainted with their concomitant circumstances, the principles and policy upon which they stand. The necessity of our situation, in which the Tories had plunged us, pointed them out; self-preservation gave them being. I shall not particularly advert to his charges against our publick characters, excepting to those of treason and rebellion. Power naturally exists where God Almighty placed it. Great oppressions, unless the people are sunk into ignorance and stupidity, will ever kindle the spirit of opposition. It is in vain to attempt to reason or frighten those who have minds to conceive, hearts to feel, and spirit to act, into servile submissions. They feel truths, feel injuries: and present sufferings render them strangers to future dangers. Exigencies call for exertions; efforts, may prove fortunate, glorious, and triumphant; and when a subjection, or vanquishment, can take nothing away that a submission would leave, reason warrants the procedure. It is an observation of the celebrated Doctor Blackstone, “that, whenever the unconstitutional oppressions, even of the sovereign power, advance with gigantick strides, and threaten desolation to a State, mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity, nor will sacrifice their liberty, by a scrupulous adherence to those political maxims which were established to preserve it.”

This will be the case, whether there be Congresses or Committees, patriots and politicians, or not, until men’s spirits are subdued. Had Massachusettensis been as much indebted to some of our patriots, as many of his good brethren in the western parts of this Province are for their kind interposition to appease a justly incensed multitude, he would have dealt out his invectives with a more sparing hand.* What would have been the situation of the Tories in the Country, had it not been for Committees of Correspondence, which they so much despise, and other gentlemen of influence, who possessed the confidence and affections of an abused people?

That all publick and civil powers, Royal prerogatives, and Kingly authority, may remain where the wisdom of our Constitution have placed them, is the wish of every true American. Every pulse beats loyalty to our gracious Sovereign. He pierces with indignant looks the wretch who dares to, lisp disloyalty, who would not spill his blood in defence of his King’s constitutional Government, his crown and dignity. By opposing innovations, Government is preserved. For subjects to hold their liberties dearer than life, must be the joyful boast of an English Prince: it is the most sparkling gem in the Crown of George the Third, whose life America prays may be long and happy. She considers the Crown and Royal dignity as an office instituted for the people for their good, as a trust for millions, and extending its influences to generations yet unborn, and not as a descendible property, as an estate vested in the possessor for the emolument and grandeur of himself and heirs.

To assert and defend those rights which have their foundation in the reason of things, in the nature of Government, the principles of the English Constitution, our own Charters, the laws of our being, the maxims of wisdom and sound policy that have been sanctified by long usage, a uniformity of principle and practice for ages past, cannot be disloyalty to that King who never dies, who is constitutionally present and active in all parts of his Government, and neither knows nor regards the pleasure or mandates of the man who wears the Crown, when they are not dictated by the laws of the land. The coronation oath, and the oath of allegiance, says a great writer, are in effect but swearing to the Constitution—in one to govern, and in the other to be governed, according to it.

Treason and rebellion consists in rising in opposition to lawful authority. If we are not a part of the Empire of Great Britain in such a sense as to be subject to her legislative authority in all cases, then she has no right to give us law in all cases, or to coerce obedience to them. If she has not this right, opposition to such laws as she has no right to make is neither treason nor rebellion, nor any other misdemeanor, but incumbent duty. Every society has a right to preserve its liberties and privileges against those who have no authority to invade them: and certainly they are justified in the use of those means by which alone they

* I could tell some merry stories of the Tories making application to some of the Whigs in the western part of this Province, for their assistance when in trouble, were it proper at this time.