what England has expended in her defence; and of the ftream that will flow fo largely in less than half a century, I hope a fmail rill at least may be found to quench the thirft of the prefent generation, which seems to think itself in more danger of wanting money than of lofing liberty.

It is difficult to judge with what intention fuch airy burits of malevolence are vented; if fuch writers hope to deceive, let us rather repel them with fcorn than refute them by difputation.

In this latt terrifick paragraph are two pofitions that, if our fears do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to fupport life a little longer. We are told by thefe croakers of calamity, not only that our present minifters defign to enflave us, but that the fame malignity of purpofe is to defcend through all their fucceffors, and the wealth to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America will, whenever it comes, be employed to purchase the remains of liber

The other position is, that the crown, if this laudable oppofition thould not be fuccefsful, will have the power of taxing America at pleasure. Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehenfions, when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that the crown has not by the new impofts, whether right or wrong, obtained any additional power over their poffeffions.

It were a curious, but an idle fpeculation to inquire, what effect thefe dictators of fedition expect from the difperfion of their letter among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really dread the danger which they defcribe, they will naturally hope to communicate their own perceptions to their fellow fubjects. But probably in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and tofs brands among a rabble paffively combuftible. Those who wrote the address though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet probably wifer than to believe it: but they have been taught by fome matter of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of po

litical electricity, to attract by the founds of Liberty and Property, to repel by those of Popery and Slavery; and to give the great ttroke by the name of Bolton.

When fubordinate communities oppofe the decrees of the general legiflature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their claim of independence, or to reduce them by force to fubmiffion and allegiance.

It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to indig→ nation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found themselves excluded from their own houses by their flaves.

That corporations conftituted by favour, and exifting by fufferance, should dare to prohibit a commerce with their native country, and threaten individuals with infamy, and focieties with at lealt fufpenfion of amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themfelves, is a degree of infolence, which not only deferves to be punifhed, but of which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life, and the peace of nations.

Yet there have rifen up, in the face of the publiek, men who, by whatever corruptions or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend the Americans, endeavour to fhelter them from refentment, and propofe reconciliation without fubmiffion.

As political difeafes are naturally contagious, let it be fuppofed for a moment that Cornwall, feized with the Philadel phian frenzy, may refolve to separate itself from the general fyftem of the Englifh conftitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A congrefs might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties. in a style not unlike the language of the American patriots.

"Friends and Fellow-fubjects, "We the delegates of the several towns and parishes of Cornwall affembled to deliberate upon our own state and that of our constituents, having, after ferious debate and calm confideration, fettled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it neceffary to declare in this publick manner, the refolutions which we think ourselves entitled to form by the immutable laws of nature, and the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which we have been at latt compelled by grievances and oppreffions, long

endure

by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of Pennfylvanian eloquence can find any argument in the addrefs of the congrefs, that is not with greater ftrength urged by the Cornish

man.

The argument of the irregular troops of controverfy, ftripped of its colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this. Liberty is the birth right of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no liberty. The answer is equally fimple. Government is neceffary to man, and where obedience is not compelled, there is no government.

If the subject refufes to obey, it is the duty of authority to ufe compulfion. Society cannot fublift but by fome power; firft of making laws, and then of enforcing them.

To one of the threats hiffed out by the congrefs, I have put nothing similar into the Cornifh proclamation; becaufe it is too foolish for buffoonery and too wild for madness. If we do not withhold our King and his parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantick and enflave us.

How they will come they have not told us: perhaps they will take wing, and light upon our coafts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The Great Orator obferves, that they will be very fit, after they have been taxed, to impofe chains upon us. If they are fo fit as their friend defcribes them, and to willing as they defcribe themselves, let us increase our army, and double our mis litia.

It has been of late a very general practice to talk of flavery among thofe who are fetting at defiance every power that keeps the world in order. If the learned author of the Reflections on learning has rightly obferved, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain to prohibit the ufe of the word Javery; but I could with it more difcreet ly uttered; it is driven at one time too hard into our ears, by the loud hurricane of Pennfylvanian eloquence, and at another glides too cold into our hearts by the foft conveyance of a female patriot bewailing the miferies of her friends and fellow citizens.

Such has been the progrefs of fedition, that thofe who a few years ago difputed only our right of laying taxes, now queftion the validity of every act of legiflation. They confider themfelves as emancipated from obedience, and as being no longer the fubjects of the British

Crown They leave us no choice but of yielding or conquering, of refigning our dominion, or maintaining it by force.

From force many endeavours have been ufed, either to diffuade, or to deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and fometimes their fufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to the laft war, a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their protection, a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that they can boaft is, that they did fomething for themfelves, and did not wholly ftand inactive, while the fons of Britain were fighting in their cause.

If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity thofe that thow no regard to their mother country; have obeyed no law which they could violate; have imparted no good which they could withhold; have entered into affociations of fraud to rob their creditors; and into combinations to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with the cruelty of fhutting one port, where every port is fhutting against us. We are cenfured as tyrannical from hindering thofe from fishing, who have condemned our merchants to bankruptcy, and our manufacturers to hunger.

Others perfuade us to give them more liberty, to take off restraints, and relax authority; and tell us what happy confequences will arife from forbearance. How their affections will be conciliated, and into what diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love their friends, they will reverence their protectors. They will throw them. felves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet. They will buy from no other what we can fell them; they will fell to no other what we wife to buy.

That any obligations fhould over. power their attention to profit, we have known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefits, they are now fhowing us, who, as foon as we have delivered the from France, are defying and profcribing us.

But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will during pleasure pay us a fubfidy. The contest is not now for money, but for power. The question is not how much we shall collect, but by what authority the collection thall be made,

Thofe

Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown in any form that may raise love or pity, drefs them in habiliments of terror, and try to make us think them formidable. The Boltonians can call into the field ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take poffeffion of the towns, the colonifts will retire into the inland regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houtes and a wide extent of watte and defolation. If we fubdue them for the prefent, they will univerfally revolt in the next war, and refign us without pity to fubjection and destruction.

To all this it may be answered, that between lofing America and refigning it, there is no great difference; that it is not very reasonable to jump into the fea, because the fhip is leaky. All those evils may befal us, but we need not haften them.

The dean of Gloucefter has propofed, and feems to propose it seriously, that we should at once release our claims, declare them mafters of themfelves, and whiftle them down the wind, His opinion is, that our gain from them will be the fame, and our expence lefs. What they can have most cheaply from Britain, they will fill buy, what they can fell to us at the highest price they will ftill fell.

It is, however, a little hard, that having fo lately fought and conquered for their fafety, we fhould govern them no longer. By letting them loose before the war, how many millions might have been faved. One ridiculous propofal is bett answered by another. Let us reftore to the French what we have taken from them. We fall fee our colonists at our feet, when they have an enemy fo near them. Let us give the Indians arms, and teach them difcipline, and encourage them now and then to plunder a plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of fedition.

While thefe different opinions are agitated, it feems to be determined by the legiflature, that force fhall be tried. Men of the pen have feldom any great fkill in conquering kingdoms, but they have strong inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to with, that this commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be fubdued by terror rather than by violence; and therefore recommend fuch a force as may take away not only the power, but the hope of refittance, and by conquering without a battle, fave many from the fword.

If their obftinacy continues without actual hoftilities, it may perhaps be mollified by turning out the foldiers to free quarters, forbidding any perfonal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the flaves fhould be fet free, an a&t which furely the lovers of liberty cannot but commend. If they are furnithed with fire arms for defence, and utenfils for hufbandry, and fettled in fome fimple form of government within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their matters.

Far be it from any Englithman to thirst for the blood of his fellow-fubjects, Those who moft deferve our refentment are unhappily at lefs diftance. The Americans, when the Stamp-Act was first propofed, undoubtedly difliked it, as every nation dlflikes an impoft; but they had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by European intelligence from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves.

On the original contrivers of mischief let an infulted nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever defign they have inflamed this pernicious conteft, they are themfelves equally deteftable. If they with fuccefs to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they with their defeat, they are traitors at once to America and England. To them and them only must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the miseries of war, the forrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall.

Since the Americans have made it ne ceffary to fubdue them, may they be subdued with the leaft injury poffible to their perfons and their poffeffions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be secured by stricter laws and ftronger obligations!

Nothing can be more noxious to faciety than that erroneous clemency, which, when a rebellion is fuppreffed, exacts no forfeiture and establishes no fecurities, but leaves the rebels in their former state. Who would not try the experiment which promifes advantage without expence. If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are accomplished; if they are defeated, they fuffer little, perhaps less than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by victualling the troops that we have fent against them, and perhaps gain more by the refidence of the army than they lose by the obstruction of their port.

Their charters being now, I fuppofe, legally forfeited, may be modelled as fhall appear most commodious to the Mother-country. Thus the privileges, which are found by experience liable to misuse, will be taken away, and thofe who now bellow as patriots, blufter as foldiers, and domineer as legiflators, will fink into fober merchants and filent planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.

But there is one writer, and perhaps many who not write, to whom the

to hold a plantation, he fhall only take an oath of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be fuffered, while he lives inoffenfively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolefted in his confcience by an oath of abjuration.

An Anfwer to a Pamphlet, entitled Taxation no Tyranny. Addressed to the Author, and to Perfons in Power.

YOU fet out with this pofition," That

appears very dangerous, and who ftartle at the thoughts of England free and America in chains. Children fly from their own fhadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is undoubtedly a dreadful word; but perhaps the mafters of civil wifdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be reftrained without them. This conteft may end in the fofter phrase of English fuperiority and American obedience.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties: an event, which none but very perfpicacious politicians are able to foresee. If flavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudeft yelps for liberty among the drivers of

negroes!

But let us interrupt a while this dream of conqueft, fettlement, and fupremacy. Let us remember that being to contend, according to one orator, with three millions of Whigs, and according to another, with ninety thousand patriots of Maffachufett's Bay, we may poffibly be checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to violate a fecond time the happy borders of the land of liberty, The time is now perhaps at hand, which Sir Thomas Brown predicted between jeft and earnest,

When America fhall no more send out her

treasure,

But spend it at home in American pleasure. If we are allowed upon our defeat to ttipulate conditions, I hope the treaty of Bofton will permit us to import into the confederated cantons fuch products as they do not raife, and fuch manufactures as they do not make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying like others the appointed cuftonis; that if any Englifb fhip falutes a fort with four guns, it thall be answered at least by two, and that if an Englifman be inclined April, 1775.

munity has the right of requiring from all its fubjects fuch contributions as are neceffary to the public safety, or public profperity."

By your general terms the reader naturally fuppofes it only to be afferted, that the legiflature of every community has the power you fpeak of. Now this, in abftract, founds well. When we speak of the legiflature of a community, we fuppofe only one legiflature; and where there is but one, it must of neceffity have the right you fpeak of; otherwife no taxes at all could be raised in that community. But then the proof arifes from this neceffity, which makes it abfurd that it fhould be otherwife. Where therefore there is not the fame neceffity, the fame abfurdity will not arife; nor the fame proof, by confequence, follow.

But your maxim fays, that the fupreme power has a right to require fuch contributions as are neceffary to the public Safety and public profperity, If these words have any meaning but to deceive, they muft mean, that this right of the fupreme power has limits, viz. that it is only a right to impofe or require fuch contributions as are neceffary to the safety and profperity of the public. Suppofe the fupreme power to exceed thofe limits, It then exceeds its right; it acts without authority; and in all just reasoning becomes as impotent as an unauthorized individual. As fuch it may be refitted, and as fuch resistance to it cannot be rebellion. In your fundamental pofition therefore you establish a limit to the fupreme power, and by confequence a jus tification for refiftance, if that limit is tranfgreffed. And yet in every other place you affert, that government is the Jole judge: that if the people can withhold obedience in any cafe they are no longer fubjects; that they are rebels; that they must be compelled; that government is neceffary to man, and that where cbedience is not compelled, govern. ment is at an end. You fay, the fupreme power has limits, and it has not limits;

G&

that