22 
a doubt. nothing but force or conceffion 
ceulé reftore authority. It feemed to us 
-ablurd, in the higheft degree, to hold 
cut, as a means of quieting a people on 
the point of taking arms, the auftere law 
which a rigid cosiqueror would enforce 
en his ultimate tuecefs. Force was fent 
ont not fuffictent to hold one town ; laws 
were paffed to inflarhe thirteen prov INCES 3 
at length Britifh blood was {pit by Bri- 
tifh hands! A fatal zra! which we 
muft ever deplore, becaufe your empire 
will for ever icel it, -Your majefty was 
touched witha (enfe of fo great a difaf- 
ter 5 your paternal breaft was affected 
with the fuBerings of your Englifh iup- 
jects, in America. You inclined to re- 
Hevetheir difireffes, and to pardon their 
errors. You felt their fufferings under 
the late 1] penat a acts of parliament, but 
oF miortry felt differently : > not dif- 
couraged by the pernicious confequences 
of all they had hitherto advifed, they 
obtained another aét of parliament, in 
which the rigour of all the former were 
confolidated, and embittered by circum- 
frances cf additional feverity and outrage. 
Fhe «whole trading prope:ty, even in- 
noxious fhipping in port, was indifcri- 
minately and irrecoverably given, as the 
plunder of foreign enemies, to the fail- 
ors of your navy. This property was 
put out of the reach of your mercy. 
Your people were defpoiled, and your 
avy, by a new, dangerous, prolific ex- 
ample, corrupted with the piahidee of 
their countrymen. They were put, in 
their general and political, as well as per- 
fonal, capacities, out of the protection of 
your governmer They were put on 
the footing not al of foreigners but of 
foreign enemies. Though unwilling to 
dwell on all the improper modes of car- 
rying op this ruinous war, and which 
lead dire€ily to a feparation of the coun- 
tries, we mutt beg Icave to reprefent two 
which we are fure muft have been entire- 
iy contrary to your we s order or 
appr robation. Ey ery ceurfe in hoftility, 
however that hoftiliry may be ju or me- 
rited, 1s not juttifiable or exculable. It 
is the duty of thofe who claim to rule 
over others. not to provoke them beyond 
the neceflity of the cafe; nor to leave 
ftings in their minds which muft long 
yrankle, even when the appearance ot 
tranquillity is reftored. ‘We, therefore, 
affure your majeity, that it is with fhame 
and furrow we have feen feveral a€ts of 
Hae which could have no other ten- 
dency than incurebly to alienate the 
minds of your American fubjeéts. We 
Interefting State Paper relative 
d > 
(J uly, 
are perfuaded, that to excite by a 
clamation, iffued by your majefty’ s 
vernor, an univerfal fate rece of 
gro flaves, in any of the colonies, isa 
meafure, full of complicated horrors, 
abfoluteiy illegal, fuitable neither to the 
practice of war, nor to the laws of peace. 
Of the fame quality we look upon all at- 
tempts to bring down en your fubje Ets 
an irruption of thofe fierce and cruel 
tribes of favages and cannibals, in whom 
the aes of human nature are near! 
effaced by gnorance and barbarity. They 
are nut me “allies for your majefty, in a 
war with your people; they are not fit - 
inftruments of an Englith government. 
Thefe and other things we difclaim as 
having advifed or approved, and we 
clear ourfelves to your majefty, and to 
ali civilized nations, from any participa- 
tion whatever, before or after the faét, 
in fuch. unjuftifiable proceedings. But . 
there is one circumftance which we lae 
ment equa lly with the caufes of the 
war, and the modes of carrying it on: 
that no dilpofition, whatever, towards 
peace or reconciliation have been fhown 
by thefe who have -direéted the public 
councils of thefe he dons either before 
the breakiny out of thefe hofiilities, cr 
during the continuance of them. Every 
propofition iwade’m your parliamént to 
remove the or iginal caufe of thefe trou- 
bles, by taking off taxes, obnoxicus for 
their Beery or their defign, has been 
over -ruled ; every bill brought in for 
quiet, rejected on the firft Ppropofition. . 
‘The petitions of the colonies have not 
deen admitted even to an hearing. The 
very polhibility” of public agency, by 
which {uch peticions could authenticalls 
arrive at parliament, has been evaded and 
chicaned away. All public declarations, 
which indicate a difpofition to reconcile, 
are loofe, general, equivocal, capable of 
various meanings, or of none 3 and con- 
firued differently, at different times, by 
thofe on whofe recommendation “| 
have been made, as fit for that purpofe 
being, as they are, wholly unlike che 
precifion and ftabiliry of ‘public faith, 
and that i ingenuous fimplicity and native 
candour and integrity which formerly 
characterized the Engli fh nation. i 
Inftead of any ‘relaxation of ~ the 
claims of taxing up tothe difcretion of 
a parliament (which does not reprefent 
thofe for whom they grant) your mi- 
nifters have eo anew mode of en- 
forcing that claim much more effeétually, 
both as to the quantity and application, 
than any of the former methods; and 
thie 
pro- 
go 
ne- 
