with bodies as with individuals: their past behaviour is the best security for their future conduct. The Ministry, however weak, narrow, and unstable in their means, have been, like the needle to the pole, fixed upon their favourite end. The entire subjugation of all America is their object. This must be attempted, at all adventures, say the Ministry, and the Commons echo back the humane sentiment. Nothing but a feeling conviction, from fatal experience of its utter impracticability, will ever divert King, Lords, or Commons, from the shameful pursuit. Deaf to the dictates of true policy, to the voice of prudence, the cries of humanity, and the schemes of the experienced statesman, to the reasoning of the wise, and the tongues of the eloquent, unsheathed daggers, fire and force, guns and swords, are their reasoning topicks.

Whoever dreams of settling the controversy, of recovering our injured rights, and defending our Country, on beds of down or in the garden of pleasure, may awake in melancholy disappointment. A restoration of our envied liberties, and the barriers against subsequent encroachments and usurpations, cannot be erected but by those exertions of understanding and integrity, those struggles of an undaunted and vigorous spirit, which have adorned the annals of old time, and may transmit to future periods a theme of admiration and just applause. A contempt of luxury, indolence, and private emolument, love to our fellow-mortals, publick spirit, and a persevering patience in hardships, dangers, and fatigues, are necessary for the mighty occasion. Infernal policy and the mighty of the earth are in array against us. The subtilest heads, and the most obstinate and incorrigible hearts, have joined the confederacy. Americans, stung with disappointment, minds reeking with malice, and souls black with revenge and the worst of passions, influence the process, and, with the importunity of a Hutchinson, call for vengeance, havock, and desolation. Let us not court deception, or become dupes to a fond, ill-founded hope. Let us anticipate their power, consider their motives, and weigh their principles. Let us expect the conflict to be fierce and vigorous, the struggle long and expensive. Fortify for the event; prepare for the trial. Rise in spirit and resolution in proportion to the importance of the object. Hazard of life and fortune is not an equivalent for the extirpation of tyranny, the re-establishment of freedom and its attendant blessings. I repeat it, an imagination that the Ministry will slacken their pace, or halt in their career, from the sentiments of humanity, the checks of national interest, or the rebukes of their own consciences, is idle and dangerous. Considerations of future happiness, national felicity, and distant dangers, do not affect the callous hearts of court favourites, the creatures of venality, who live by the hour, and are warm in the pursuit of fortunes, rapine, and plunder. Removed from personal danger, they plot with security, and send forth their banded mercenaries to execute their hazardous projects. Necessity alone will make them retreat. A spirited opposition, on the part of America, must beget this necessity. In reply to British petitions, for redress of American grievances, says one in the Cabinet: “I do not doubt but the petitioners are aggrieved. I do not doubt but they labour under great and singular distresses. I do not doubt but every degree of men—the landed gentleman, the merchant, the manufacturer, and the mechanick—would all heavily feel, in their several situations, the threatened calamities. Nay, I do not promise certain success from present measures. The Army may proceed to hostilities; they may be defeated. The Americans may prevail. We may be stripped of the sovereignty of that Country; but what of that? (with marble apathy, says the Westminster demon.) The events of war are uncertain. The question is, allowing all the inconveniences, as set forth in the petitions, to be precisely just, and taking into full contemplation every possible contingency that human foresight and prudence can suggest, whether we should, relinquish our rights, or resolve, at all events, resolutely to persist in their assertion. It is utterly impossible to say one syllable on the matter of expediency, till the right is first as fully asserted on one side, as acknowledged on the other.”

What have we to expect? What not to fear, when the political pendulum is vibrated, and the reins of government guided by men possessing such principles?—artificially headstrong; determined to plunge a whole Kingdom into wretchedness, for the formal establishment of that which she might ever realize, as to all its valuable purposes, with pacifick facility. An experienced statesman would comprehend measures and their consequences. Actions, independent of their tendency, are like substances stripped of their essential qualities. That cannot be justifiable which is inexpedient, nor that expedient from which many bad and no good consequences can result. But this glorious advocate for servility has declared it impossible to attend to that alone which demands attention, until the right is established, “at all events,” and then his question of expediency comes too late.

Certainly, then, it is not to the King, or his prostituted Court, that we are to look for security. Under a kind Providence, the strength of our arms, and our own bodies, must form the line of protection. Miracles are not to be expected. Heaven proceeds in the use of means. We are not to look for a dividing sea to swallow up an hostile fleet, or for hail-stones, from above, to humble the pride of an opposing power. The means of safety are in our own hands. Our internal resources are inexhaustible. Our natural strength, if fully and uniformly exerted, invincible. Our numbers sufficient; our bodies hardy and vigorous. Our union such as to quell the proudest Ministers and baffle the efforts of the greatest Jesuit to break it. Our courage and our discipline continually increasing, while a sense of indignities is still trickling in our veins, and the lash of oppression sharpening the edge of our spirits. Our all is at stake, and, in defence of our all, every thing is to be risked, forced, and attempted.

Worcester, Massachusetts, October 27, 1775.

ADDRESS OF THE BURGH OF RENFREW.

Address of the Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of the Burgh of Renfrew, presented to His Majesty by the Right Honourable Lord Frederick Campbell, their Representative in Parliament.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.