| You are here: Home >> American Archives |
Unhappily, during your administration, measures have been pursued very contrary to American hopes; and we easily conceive your Lordship may think it not less strange that many friends of religion in America should be so uneasy under laws which had your Lordship’s concurrence and approbation. It is to the man and to the Christian I wish to be permitted to address myself. Your Lordship ranks among the highest subjects, and has a large share in all publick measures; but anxiety for what may distress, and zeal for the welfare of the Empire, can be no crime, even in the meanest; and when a house is once in flames, every man is inexcusable, or must at least be so in his own breast, that does not contribute whatever he may think in his power to their being extinguished. The effects of the present measures are visible, and it requires no sagacity to foresee what may be the consequence, should they be continued. Your Lordship may do much towards restoring and perpetuating the tranquillity of a great Empire: persons of my station have nothing to offer but hints and wishes; should these be beneath your notice, or stand in need of forgiveness, my sincere wish to contribute any thing towards a just, happy, and perpetual connection between a parent State and an infant Country, growing apace to the most astonishing importance, must be my only apology. Pulchrumest bene facere reipublicœ, sed et bene dicere non est absurdum. The question, my Lord, which now agitates Great Britain and America, and in which your Lordship has taken such an active part, is, whether the Parliament of Great Britain has a right to lay taxes on the Americans, who are not and cannot there be represented; and whether the Parliament has a right to bind the Americans in all cases whatsoever? Whatever may be said, or whatever the good people in Great Britain may believe, this is the whole subject of the dispute. All the severities hitherto exercised upon the Americans professedly have no other view than to enforce such a dependance; and nothing less than a claim destructive of all natural and national liberty could possibly have united all America in a general opposition, or have aroused them to join all like one man in their common defence. Let a declaratory bill be passed that, any law and usage to the contrary notwithstanding, America is entitled to all the common rights of mankind, and all the blessings of the British Constitution, that the sword shall never be drawn to abridge, but to confirm her birthright, and the storm instantly becomes a calm, and every American thinks himself happy to contribute to the necessities, defence, and glory of Great Britain, to the utmost of his strength and power. To bind them in all cases whatsoever, my Lord, the Americans look upon this as the language of despotism in its utmost perfection. What can, say they, an Emperor of Morocco pretend more of his slaves than to bind them in all cases whatsoever? Were it meant to make the Americans hewers of wood and drawers of water; were it meant to oblige them to make bricks without straw; were it meant to deprive them of the enjoyment of their religion, and to establish a hierarchy over them similar to that of the Church of Rome in Canada; it would, say they, be no more than a natural consequence of the right of binding them (unseen, unheard, unrepresented) in all cases whatsoever. My Lord, the Americans are no idiots, and they appear determined not to be slaves. Oppression will make wise men mad, but oppressors in the end frequently find that they were not wise men; there may be resources, even in despair, sufficient to render any set of men strong enough not to be bound in all cases whatsoever. Grievous is the thought, my Lord, that a nobleman of your Lordship’s character should be so zealous to make war, and to imbrue his hands in the blood of millions of your fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians. Pray, my Lord, is it possible that those, who at three thousand miles distance can be bound in all cases, may be said to have any liberty at all? Is it nothing in your Lordship’s eye to deprive so considerable a part of the globe of the privilege of breathing a free air, or to subjugate numbers and generations to slavery and despotism? Can your Lordship think on these things without horror, or hope they must be productive of any thing but detestation and disappointment? Your Lordship believes a Supreme Ruler of the earth, and that the small and great must stand before him at last. Would your Lordship be willing, at the general meeting of all mankind, to take a place among those who destroyed or enslaved Empires, or risk your future state on the merit of having, at the expense of British blood and treasure, taken away the property, the life and liberty of the largest part of the British Empire? Can your Lordship think those that fear the Lord will not cry to him against their oppressors? and will not the Father of mankind hear the cries of the oppressed? or would you be willing that their cries and tears should rise against you, as a forward instrument of their oppression? I know, my Lord, that this is not courtly language, but your Lordship is a professor of religion, and of the pure, gentle, benevolent religion of Jesus Christ. The groans of a people pushed on a precipice, and driven on the very brink of despair, will prove forcible; till it can be proved that any power, in whose legislation the Americans have no part, may at pleasure bind them in all cases whatsoever; till it can be proved that such a claim does not constitute the very essence of slavery and despotism; till it can be proved that the Americans (whom in this view I can no longer call Britons) may, and of right ought to be thus bound; abhorrence of such assertions is only the language of truth, which in the end will force its way, and rise superiour to all the arts of falsehood and all the powers of oppression. Right or wrong, my Lord, in all cases whatsoever, but more especially when the fate of Nations is concerned, are words of infinite moment. Your Lordship doubtless believes that the weighty alternative must have very solemn and different effects here and hereafter; but waiving the right or wrong of this vile unhappy dispute, let me entreat your Lordship’s attention to consider at what an infinite risk the present measures must be pursued, even were it not demonstrable that they are in the highest degree wrong, cruel, and oppressive. The bulk of the inhabitants of a Continent extending eighteen hundred miles in front on the Atlantick, and permitting an extension in breadth as far as the South Sea, look upon the claim to bind them in all cases whatsoever, as unjust, illegal, and detestable. Let us suppose for a moment that they are grossly mistaken—yet an errour imbibed by millions, and in which they believe the all of the present and future generations lies at stake, may prove a very dangerous errour—destroying the Americans will not cure them, nor will any acts that condemn to starve or be miserable, have any tendency to persuade them that these acts were made by their friends. The people in England are made to believe that the Americans want to separate from them, or are unwilling to bear their part of the common burden. No representation can be more false; but, my Lord, a Nation cannot be misled always, and when once the good people of Great Britain get truer notions of the matter, they will naturally wreak their resentment on those by whom they have been grossly misinformed or wretchedly deceived. Review, my Lord, the effects of the present measures; the past and present will inform your Lordship of what may be to come. With an unparalleled patience did the Bostonians bear the annihilation of their trade, the blocking up of their harbour, and many other distresses, till at Lexington an attack was made upon their lives, and then they gave sufficient proof that their patience was not the effect of timidity, but of prudence, and an unwillingness to shed British blood. This attack convinced all America that the British Ministry and Troops were athirst after their blood; and the behaviour of both parties on that day, and in many little skirmishes since, must convince all the world that in the cause of liberty the Americans are not afraid to look Regulars in the face, and that in an unjust and oppressive service British Troops are far from being invincible. The burning of the innocent Town of Charlestown, after it had been left by its inhabitants, is a piece of such wanton cruelty as will fix an everlasting disgrace on the British arms. In the long civil war in Great Britain, nothing of the kind was attempted by either party; and this barbarity cannot fail being condemned by all civilized nations. If at the battle on Bunker’s Hill the Americans have been surprised, superiority has cost the Regulars dearer
|