HISTORY OF VERMO>7T. ' 89 



Jhumbers, discipline, strength, and every milita- 

 ry accommodation and equipment, to any force 

 that the Americans had been able to bring 

 against them. The fate and the reward of the 

 American rebellion, said the British ministers 

 and parliament, is at hand ; and for the good of 

 the nation and the colonies, it must be exem- 

 plary .and severe. And whoever computed the 

 ^vent by the , natural course and operation 

 of things, could scarcely avoid concluding that 

 the contest mnjjt soon terminate in the entire 

 subjection of. the colonies^ and in the compleat 

 establishment of the power and sovereignty of 

 Great Britain. 



Amidst these misfortunes and disasters, the 

 Americans discovered a firmness of character j, 

 ^nd a steadiness of pursuit, equal to any thing 

 that is to be found in the virtue or hardihood of 

 antiquity. It was while their armies were weak, 

 defeated and dispirited ; when their enemies 

 were strong, powerful and gaining the victory ; 

 at the moment when an immense fleet and army 

 of English, Scotch, Irish, and German troops, 

 were pooring into their country, that they form- 

 ed the resolution to dissolve all political connec- 

 tion with the British king and nati/on ; and to 

 declare themselves- i^r«?c and Independent States. 

 in defiance of every risk and danger, surrounded 

 by victorious fleets and armies, uncertain of any 

 foreign assistance, on July the fourth, 1776, in 

 the name and by the authority of the people of 

 the colonies, they solemnly published and de- 

 qlared, " that the united colonies are, and of 

 *' right ought to be, Free and Independent 

 ''^ States, and that they are absolved from all' 



VOT.. li, 1/ 



