1898.] HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATIOX OF TXDEPEXDEXCE. 105 



He has affected to render the military independant of, & superior 

 to, the civil power. 



He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction 

 foreign to our constitution [s] and unacknowledged by our laws ;- 

 giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation 



for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; 



for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any 

 murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these 

 States ; 



for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world ; 



for imposing taxes on us without our consent ; 



for depriving us /;/ 7na?7y cases of the benefits of trial by jury ; 



for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences ; 



for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 

 province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and 

 enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example 

 & fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into 

 these [States] Colonies ; 



for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, 

 and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments ; 



for suspending our own legislatures, & declaring themselves in- 

 vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 



He has abdicated government here, [withdrawing his governors, 

 &] dy declaring us out of his [allegiance and] protection, a?id wag- 

 ing war against us. 



He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, 

 & destroyed the lives of our people. 



He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercena- 

 ries, to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny, already 

 begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scaj'cely paralleled 

 in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civil- 

 ized nation. 



He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeav- 

 ored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless In- 

 dian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished 

 destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions [of existence]. 



[He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens 

 with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.] 



He has constrained [others] our fellow citizens taken captive[s] 

 on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the 



