DOCUMENTS BEAKING ON TREATY OF 1783. 11 



He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high 

 seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners 

 of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 



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

 oured 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. 



In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress 

 in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been an- 

 swered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus 

 marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the 

 ruler of a free people. 



Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. 

 We have warned them from time to time, of attempts by their legis- 

 lature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 

 reminded them of the circumstances of pur emigration and settlement 

 here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, 

 and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to 

 disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our 

 connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the 

 voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce 

 in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as 

 we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. 



We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 

 in general Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of 

 the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by 

 authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 

 declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 

 and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegience 

 to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them 

 and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; 

 and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy 

 war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do 

 all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. 

 And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the 

 protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other 

 our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour. 



No. 2. 1776, December 30: Extract from the Instructions given l>y 



Congress to their Commissioners to France. 

 ******* 



That the commissioners be likewise instructed to assure His Most 

 Christian Majesty, that should his forces be employed, in conjunction 

 with those of the United States, to exclude His Britannic Majesty 

 from any share in the cod fishery of America, by reducing the Islands 

 of Newfoundland and Cape Breton, and ships of war be furnished, 

 when required by the United States, to reduce Nova Scotia, the fishery 

 shall be enjoyed equally and in common by the subjects of His Most 

 Christian Majesty and of these States, to the exclusion of all other 

 nations and people whatever; and half the Island of Newfound- 

 land shall be owned by and subject to the jurisdiction of His Most 



