chapter, which treats of the rights of persons, he says, “All oppressions which may happen to spring from any branch of the sovereign power, must necessarily be out of the reach of any stated rule or express legal provision; but if ever they unfortunately happen, the prudence of the times must provide new remedies upon new emergencies.” And again, “It is found by experience 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 originally established to preserve it.” “Whenever necessity and the safety of the whole shall require it, they will exert those inherent though latent powers of society, which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract can ever destroy or diminish.” A fuller and plainer justification of resistance on certain occasions cannot be penned; and that the occasions have offered which call forth the exertion of those “inherent though latent powers of society, ” is very evident, from the convulsions into which all America is thrown.

The American gentlemen, in their petition to Parliament last year, which has done them infinite honour, and which he ought to remember with shame, very justly observe, that “no history can show, nor will human nature admit of an instance of general discontent, but from a general sense of oppression. As there is now no legal provision against such oppression left untried, every Province having in vain, first separately and then unitedly, petitioned and remonstrated, they are compelled into a contest the most shocking and unnatural, with a parent State which has ever been the object of their veneration and their love.”

The present Administration and the rest of the friends of arbitrary power and non-resistance, have been premature in declaring this contest rebellion. The event must prove whether it may not be called the necessary step to a revolution. I hope that this Nation may have wisdom and virtue enough to prevent it, by a total and immediate repeal of all the offensive acts, and by resting satisfied with the monopoly of the American trade, which is all that the one ought to require, or the other submit to. But it seems the honour of Parliament must not be hurt. They have declared that these are terms they will not be satisfied with. This is a difficulty that Lord North will be so good as to obviate for me. The necessity of the case has always been thought a sufficient justification for a departure from such resolutions, which, if not impracticable, never can compensate for the miseries and calamities which must be the consequence of an attempt to carry them into execution. “If (says Lord North, in his speech on what he called his conciliatory motion) it should seem to be abandoning the high ground taken in the address, or be contrary to the assurances so frequently given that no terms should be held out to America previous to her submission, this is nothing but what is common. The greatest Powers have done it. In the war of the Succession it was a fundamental point that no Prince of the house of Bourbon should ever sit on the throne of Spain. This was several times repeated, and in the most solemn manner. Such politicks are necessary to gain or to animate allies.* Yet all the powers which composed this confederacy yielded, and a Prince of the house of Bourbon did sit, and one of the same house does now sit on the throne of Spain. In the Spanish war of 1739, we declared that we could never treat with Spain, until she had given up the point of search. Yet peace was made without her giving up the point, and the search continued.” Lord North added to these many other instances in which great Powers had abandoned their pretensions. His Lordship will, I hope, for the sake of stopping the farther effusion of blood, and for the sake of making us a happy, powerful, and united people, add another example to his catalogue. I shall trouble Coriolanus with but one more observation, which, to a clergyman, may have some weight. If he should be as fortunate as Dr. Johnson, and get an addition to his pension; if he should succeed his worthy friend and patron, the President of the College in which he is a professor; if he should attain the summit of all spiritual honours in this kingdom, even the See of Canterbury, it is worthy of his consideration whether there may not be

               Some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of Heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who owes his greatness to his Country’s ruin.

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

London, June, 1775.

I am a plain man, and you must therefore expect to hear plain truths. Silence would now be a crime.

You have but two choices left, and if you have not wisdom to choose wisely, or virtue to act as wisdom dictates, you will deserve to sink under the evils which this very moment hang suspended, ready to crush you by their fall.

Continue these tory Ministers at your helm, and after having been accustomed for ten years to the news of unnatural carnage, you will have the satisfaction of seeing the whole Continent of America totally wrested from you, or, what is equally hurtful, their affections entirely estranged. Your commerce, of course, must decay, and your enemies will have cause to rejoice in your destruction.

Or, if you prefer your own welfare to the emoluments and gratification of your tory Ministers, drive them from their offices, and prevail on Lord, Chatham to take the reins of Government. He will offer the Americans the terms proposed by their Congress, namely, to be governed as in the late reigns; and the Americans must gladly accept these terms from whig Ministers, or else all England, to a man, will zealously be their enemies. This pen has often fought their battles, because I think them injured by the common enemy of our liberties; but let them refuse to be governed by a whig Administration, according to whig principles, and I will be their most violent opposer. I think they ought not to trust tory Ministers, though they should offer ever such fair terms, because they are not to be trusted. Enemies to freedom, they must be enemies to America. But if whigs govern, America may depend on their favour, for they have fought one battle, and our hearts are with them. It may truly be said, that if this Nation is saved from ruin, it will be by American virtue, for. I fear there is none left in England. The sun of Liberty is setting here, but Englishmen may yet be warmed by its rays from America, since they have courage to bleed for freedom.

The Gazette styles them rebels; the Ministry honoured them with that appellation long before they drew the sword. I say “honoured them, ” because I think it an honour to be termed rebels by such men.

Is it rebellion to defend freedom? If your Juries were attacked, if Magna Charta in any shape was to be daringly violated, would you not yourselves draw the sword? Could you then be properly styled rebels? Certainly you could not. Can you hesitate in the choice of the only alternatives left you by Heaven? Can you read the accounts from America without horrour? Are you not shocked when your imagination presents to your view Englishmen shedding English blood? Do you wish for the continuance of such unnatural, horrid carnage? If the idea of this detestable civil war does not excite the most generous feelings for your brave countrymen, (now driven almost to madness by the obstinate perseverance of tories,) you have lost the humanity, you have degenerated from the virtue of your ancestors.

Are the Ministry to be gratified longer with the ability of involving you still deeper in this ruinous contention? Will you allow them to prosecute this bloody, unnatural war, any longer? They talk of embodying the Militia, in order to be able to send more mercenaries to America; ought they not rather to lose their heads, for having sent those which are already there? Has not enough of English blood been shed? Must more be spilled? Are they to add a fresh list of murders to the black account? If the idea of such repeated massacres does not awaken your feelings, England ought to be deserted by the few whigs, whose hearts glow with indignation; they should fly to America, where liberty is idolized, and tyranny detested.

Have not Ministry, by every measure hitherto adopted, made what was bad, still worse? Did the bills of spring

* Or to endeavour to intimidate the Colonies into a surrender of every thing that is dear and valuable to them.