can attain this valuable end. Sighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts are of no effect against the frightful blaze of warlike apparatus. The points of swords, mouths of thundering cannon, arms, and other instruments of death; these must be answered by a different argument.

The good of the whole is the same with the good of all its parts. If self-defence is justifiable, nay, a duty in individuals, it must be lawful in a community composed of individuals. “The right of self-defence, in cases of great and urgent necessity, and where no other remedy is at hand, (says a great Crown lawyer,) is perfectly understood and universally assented to; a right which the law of nature giveth, and no law of society hath taken away.”

If this be true in case of individuals, it will be equally so in cases of communities under the like circumstances of necessity. For all the rights and powers for defence and preservation belonging to society, are nothing more than the natural rights and powers of individuals transferred to, and concentering in the body, for the preservation of the whole. And from the law of self-preservation, considered as extending to civil society, resulteth the well known maxim, salus populi suprema lex.

I think the principles here kid down must be admitted, unless any one will choose to say that individuals in a community are, in certain cases, under the protection of the primitive law of self-preservation; but communities, composed of the same individuals, are in like cases excluded. Or that when the enemy is at the gate, every single soldier may and ought to stand to his arms, but the garrison must surrender at discretion.

Is there not but too much reason to contemplate upon these principles, to expect an attack, to prepare for the conflict? Has not our capital street been bathed in blood? some of our countrymen cut and mangled with pointed steel? Others abused and injured in triumphant rage? Is not much of our property wrested from the hands of its lawful owners? Are not many valuable lives in constant jeopardy? Is not our Metropolis in captivity, and our Harbours filled with Ships-of-War? Are not our adversaries preparing for havock and desolation? In this situation is it loyalty to lay still unarmed, until destruction comes upon us as a whirlwind? Is it treason to prepare to act on the defensive? The great Somers tells us, that “he who lets any person whatever destroy him contrary to law, when it is in his power to preserve his life by defending himself, does tacitly consent to his own death, which he is obliged to defend by the law of nature; and therefore is guilty of his own blood.” Is it not the same with communities?

Massachusettiensis tells us, in his publication of February 20th, “that he agrees with the Whigs, if the Colonies are separate or distinct States, (that is, not within the jurisdiction of Parliament,) every Act of Parliament extending to the Colonies, and every movement of the Crown to carry them into execution, would be really grievances, however wise and salutary they might be in themselves, as they would be exertions of a power that we were not constitutionally subject to, and would deserve the names of usurpation and tyranny.” He might have added, and every person who has been deliberately attempting to enforce and carry them into execution is guilty of … and deserves the …. together with the abhorrence of all America.

If the Parliament has not the right she contends for, of taxation and legislation over the Colonies, a few extracts from the illustrious Locke and Lord Somers will, perhaps, come home to the point. “Whenever (says Locke) Legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves in a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whenever, therefore, the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp to themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estate of the people, they forfeit their trust, and the people have a right to reassume their original liberty. The same holds true concerning the supreme Executor, who acts against his trust, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society, when he employs the force, treasure and offices of the society to corrupt the Representatives, and gain them to his purposes. What is this but to cut up Government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of publick security?” These are the words of that great man, and if they apply in any degree to present times it is not my fault.

Seeing all power must be derived from some grant of the people, it is incumbent upon every body politick to prove and justify the several degrees of authority which it pretends to claim; and what it cannot derive from some concession of the people, must remain vested in them as their reserved right. If it assumes any authority which it cannot prove the people surrendered, it is guilty of an invasion of their rights. To extend the rights of governing and commanding, and the duties of submission and obedience, beyond the laws of one’s Country, is treason against the Constitution, treachery to the society, and an injury to mankind. It is cutting up the hedges and fences of the subject’s liberty, an attempt to make one part of mankind tyrants and monsters, the other food for their malice, revenge, and brutal lust—to make them wretched slaves, miserable reptiles.

Is there any proof or evidence of any surrender, compact, or consent of the people, that the Colonies should be, in all cases, within the legislative authority of Parliament? Would not this be subversive of our Constitutions, and repugnant to every principle of freedom? What, then, are the crimes of those who have been, and are still struggling to establish this subjection?

“They are not, nor can be rebels,” says the famous Lord Somers, “who endeavour to preserve and maintain the Constitution; but they are traitors who design and pursue the subversion of it. They are rebels who go about to overthrow the Government of their Country; whereas such as seek to defend and support it, are the truly loyal persons, and do act according to the ties and obligations of fealty. Nor is it merely the first and highest treason in itself, that a member of a political society is capable of committing, to go about to subvert the Constitution; but it is also the greatest treason he can perpetrate against the person, crown, and dignity of the King.”

“Whosoever, either ruler or the subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either Prince or People, and lay the foundation for overturning the Constitution and frame of any just Government, he is guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of, being to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking to pieces of Government brings upon a Country; and he who does it is justly to be accounted one who resists the ordinance of God, and the common enemy and pest of mankind.”

The above is the judgment of whole Kingdoms and Nations. Let those, whoever they be, that have been sporting with the rights of mankind, and rioting on their spoils; who, contracted in the little point of self, and equally steeled against the rebukes of conscience and the sentiments of humanity, that have been thundering to the world the terrours of prostituted law, and proclaiming the manly and loyal struggles of an oppressed people in defence of their just rights, sedition and rebellion—thus, instigated by the sweets of revenge, the hopes of conquest, the prospect of rich plunder in a plenty of confiscations, the pleasing expectation of unbounded power, with a misgiving heart still dreading the final issue of things, have been eager to travel the crimson fields of blood, and to send the terrours of fire and sword into the innocent places of domestick retirement; let such consider what has been the judgment of past ages, and will be the opinion of future generations respecting their conduct.

FROM THE COUNTY OF HAMPSHIRE.

Portsmouth, New-Hampshire, April 14, 1775.

The alarming crisis to which the Parliamentary controversy with the Colonies is now brought, demands the united wisdom and attention of every serious, well-disposed person among us; and the grand question which obtrudes itself at first view is, can we withstand the power of Great Britain, when determined to enforce obedience to the laws of her Parliament? To this question, many heated