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Title: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I

Author: Thomas Paine

Release Date: February, 2003  [Etext #3741]
Posting Date: February 7, 2010

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS PAINE ***




Produced by Norman M. Wolcott





THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, VOLUME I.

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY


1774 - 1779


[Redactor's Note: Reprinted from the "The Writings of Thomas Paine
Volume I" (1894 - 1896). The author's notes are preceded by a "*".]




XIX. THE AMERICAN CRISIS


   Table of Contents

   Editor's Preface

   The Crisis No. I

   The Crisis No. II - To Lord Howe

   The Crisis No. III

   The Crisis No. IV

   The Crisis No. V - To General Sir William Howe
   - To The Inhabitants Of America

   The Crisis No. VI - To The Earl Of Carlisle, General Clinton, And
   William Eden, ESQ., British Commissioners At New York

   The Crisis No. VII  - To The People Of England

   The Crisis No. VIII - Addressed To The People Of England

   The Crisis No. IX   - The Crisis Extraordinary - On the Subject
   of Taxation

   The Crisis No. X    - On The King Of England's Speech
   - To The People Of America

   The Crisis No. XI   - On The Present State Of News
   - A Supernumerary Crisis (To Sir Guy Carleton.)

   The Crisis No. XII  - To The Earl Of Shelburne

   The Crisis No. XIII - On The Peace, And The Probable Advantages
   Thereof

   A Supernumerary Crisis - (To The People Of America)




THE AMERICAN CRISIS.




EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THOMAS PAINE, in his Will, speaks of this work as The American Crisis,
remembering perhaps that a number of political pamphlets had appeared in
London, 1775-1776, under general title of "The Crisis." By the blunder
of an early English publisher of Paine's writings, one essay in the
London "Crisis" was attributed to Paine, and the error has continued
to cause confusion. This publisher was D. I. Eaton, who printed as
the first number of Paine's "Crisis" an essay taken from the London
publication. But his prefatory note says: "Since the printing of this
book, the publisher is informed that No. 1, or first Crisis in this
publication, is not one of the thirteen which Paine wrote, but a
letter previous to them." Unfortunately this correction is sufficiently
equivocal to leave on some minds the notion that Paine did write the
letter in question, albeit not as a number of his "Crisis "; especially
as Eaton's editor unwarrantably appended the signature "C. S.,"
suggesting "Common Sense." There are, however, no such letters in the
London essay, which is signed "Casca." It was published August, 1775,
in the form of a letter to General Gage, in answer to his Proclamation
concerning the affair at Lexington. It was certainly not written by
Paine. It apologizes for the Americans for having, on April 19, at
Lexington, made "an attack upon the King's troops from behind walls and
lurking holes." The writer asks: "Have not the Americans been driven
to this frenzy? Is it not common for an enemy to take every advantage?"
Paine, who was in America when the affair occurred at Lexington, would
have promptly denounced Gage's story as a falsehood, but the facts known
to every one in America were as yet not before the London writer. The
English "Crisis" bears evidence throughout of having been written in
London. It derived nothing from Paine, and he derived nothing from it,
unless its title, and this is too obvious for its origin to require
discussion. I have no doubt, however, that the title was suggested
by the English publication, because Paine has followed its scheme in
introducing a "Crisis Extraordinary." His work consists of thirteen
numbers, and, in addition to these, a "Crisis Extraordinary" and a
"Supernumerary Crisis." In some modern collections all of these have been
serially numbered, and a brief newspaper article added, making sixteen
numbers. But Paine, in his Will, speaks of the number as thirteen,
wishing perhaps, in his characteristic way, to adhere to the number
of the American Colonies, as he did in the thirteen ribs of his iron
bridge. His enumeration is therefore followed in the present volume, and
the numbers printed successively, although other writings intervened.

The first "Crisis" was printed in the Pennsylvania Journal, December
19, 1776, and opens with the famous sentence, "These are the times that
try men's souls"; the last "Crisis" appeared April 19,1783, (eighth
anniversary of the first gun of the war, at Lexington,) and opens with
the words, "The times that tried men's souls are over." The great
effect produced by Paine's successive publications has been attested by
Washington and Franklin, by every leader of the American Revolution,
by resolutions of Congress, and by every contemporary historian of the
events amid which they were written. The first "Crisis" is of especial
historical interest. It was written during the retreat of Washington
across the Delaware, and by order of the Commander was read to groups of
his dispirited and suffering soldiers. Its opening sentence was adopted
as the watchword of the movement on Trenton, a few days after its
publication, and is believed to have inspired much of the courage which
won that victory, which, though not imposing in extent, was of great
moral effect on Washington's little army.




THE CRISIS




THE CRISIS I. (THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS)

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness
only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper
price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an
article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to
enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX)
but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that
manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon
earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can
belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or
delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own
simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have
been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither
could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it
were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but ourselves. But
no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month
past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the
Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a
little resolution will soon recover.


     * The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed; but, if
lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil; and
there is no punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or what, or
where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious
and useful.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret
opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up
a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish,
who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities
of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I
so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the
government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I
do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up
to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a
house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he.

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through
a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has
trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed
boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army,
after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified
with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces
collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might
inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair
fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases,
have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is
always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer
habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the
touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to
light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact,
they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary
apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the
hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many
a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially
solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.

As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge
of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which
those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of. Our
situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a narrow
neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our force
was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe could bring
against us. We had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had
we shut ourselves up and stood on our defence. Our ammunition, light
artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the
apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in
which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it must occur to every
thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kind of field forts
are only for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer than the
enemy directs his force against the particular object which such forts
are raised to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee
on the morning of the 20th of November, when an officer arrived with
information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles
above; Major General [Nathaniel] Green, who commanded the garrison,
immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to General
Washington at the town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry
= six miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the
Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, about six
miles from us, and three from them. General Washington arrived in about
three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards
the bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush for; however,
they did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our
troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which
passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry, and
made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack,
and there passed the river. We brought off as much baggage as the wagons
could contain, the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off
the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the
Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand.
We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of
the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being
informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly
inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error
in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island
through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores
at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we
believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that
their agents are under some providential control.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to
the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers
and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest,
covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat,
bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centred in
one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive
the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared
to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may
be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a
natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but
which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it
among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see,
that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a
mind that can even flourish upon care.

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state
of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why
is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these
middle ones the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not
infested with Tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the
cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their
danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly
or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or
we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a
Tory? Good God! what is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred
Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms.
Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is
the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may
be cruel, never can be brave.

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us,
let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the
enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him.
Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you.
He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with
muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless
you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not Tories, that he
wants.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against
the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a
tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his
hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking
his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this
unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives
on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or
other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If
there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have
peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to
awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as
America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she
has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself
between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God
governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear
of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that
period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for
though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can
never expire.

America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper
application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it
is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess
of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our
cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A summer's
experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they
were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy,
and, thank God! they are again assembling. I always considered militia
as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not
do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on
this city [Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he
is ruined. If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his
side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will
be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march to assist
their suffering friends in the middle states; for he cannot go
everywhere, it is impossible. I consider Howe as the greatest enemy the
Tories have; he is bringing a war into their country, which, had it not
been for him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of. Should
he now be expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a Christian, that
the names of Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the
Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I
as sincerely wish that our next year's arms may expel them from the
continent, and the Congress appropriate their possessions to the relief
of those who have suffered in well-doing. A single successful battle
next year will settle the whole. America could carry on a two years' war
by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made
happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather
the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view
but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful
event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence
may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear
of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with
prejudice.

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to
those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter
out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that
state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the
wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an
object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the
depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that
the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to
meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your
tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but
"show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not
where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing
will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the
back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart
that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his
cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the
whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles
unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear
as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I
believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think
it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my
property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it,
and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to
suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or
a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by
an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root
of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be
assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I
should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by
swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid,
stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in
receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to
the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the
orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one.
There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which
threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he
succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect
mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where
conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the
fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard
equally against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats and
partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their
arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage,
and this is what the tories call making their peace, "a peace which
passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which would be the immediate
forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of
Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to
give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are
all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were
the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the
resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to
chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up
its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons
and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is
the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state
that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous
destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see
it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your
ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know
our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was
collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him
that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to
ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with
a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred
miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest
part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our
retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it,
that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to
meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not
seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected
inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had
never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our
new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall
be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed
and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By
perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue;
by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils--a
ravaged country--a depopulated city--habitations without safety, and
slavery without hope--our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses
for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall
doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet
remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it
unlamented.

COMMON SENSE.

December 23, 1776.




THE CRISIS II. TO LORD HOWE.

            "What's in the name of lord, that I should fear
              To bring my grievance to the public ear?"
                                              CHURCHILL.

UNIVERSAL empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with
all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can assign
them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy,
and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of
Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in
defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to "Defender
of the Faith," than George the Third.

As a military man your lordship may hold out the sword of war, and call
it the "ultima ratio regum": the last reason of kings; we in return
can show you the sword of justice, and call it "the best scourge of
tyrants." The first of these two may threaten, or even frighten for a
while, and cast a sickly languor over an insulted people, but reason
will soon recover the debauch, and restore them again to tranquil
fortitude. Your lordship, I find, has now commenced author, and
published a proclamation; I have published a Crisis. As they stand, they
are the antipodes of each other; both cannot rise at once, and one of
them must descend; and so quick is the revolution of things, that your
lordship's performance, I see, has already fallen many degrees from
its first place, and is now just visible on the edge of the political
horizon.

It is surprising to what a pitch of infatuation, blind folly and
obstinacy will carry mankind, and your lordship's drowsy proclamation
is a proof that it does not even quit them in their sleep. Perhaps you
thought America too was taking a nap, and therefore chose, like Satan
to Eve, to whisper the delusion softly, lest you should awaken her. This
continent, sir, is too extensive to sleep all at once, and too watchful,
even in its slumbers, not to startle at the unhallowed foot of an
invader. You may issue your proclamations, and welcome, for we have
learned to "reverence ourselves," and scorn the insulting ruffian that
employs you. America, for your deceased brother's sake, would gladly
have shown you respect and it is a new aggravation to her feelings,
that Howe should be forgetful, and raise his sword against those, who at
their own charge raised a monument to his brother. But your master has
commanded, and you have not enough of nature left to refuse. Surely
there must be something strangely degenerating in the love of monarchy,
that can so completely wear a man down to an ingrate, and make him proud
to lick the dust that kings have trod upon. A few more years, should you
survive them, will bestow on you the title of "an old man": and in some
hour of future reflection you may probably find the fitness of Wolsey's
despairing penitence--"had I served my God as faithful as I have served
my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in my old age."

The character you appear to us in, is truly ridiculous. Your friends,
the Tories, announced your coming, with high descriptions of your
unlimited powers; but your proclamation has given them the lie, by
showing you to be a commissioner without authority. Had your powers been
ever so great they were nothing to us, further than we pleased; because
we had the same right which other nations had, to do what we thought
was best. "The UNITED STATES of AMERICA," will sound as pompously in the
world or in history, as "the kingdom of Great Britain"; the character of
General Washington will fill a page with as much lustre as that of
Lord Howe: and the Congress have as much right to command the king and
Parliament in London to desist from legislation, as they or you have
to command the Congress. Only suppose how laughable such an edict would
appear from us, and then, in that merry mood, do but turn the tables
upon yourself, and you will see how your proclamation is received here.
Having thus placed you in a proper position in which you may have a full
view of your folly, and learn to despise it, I hold up to you, for
that purpose, the following quotation from your own lunarian
proclamation.--"And we (Lord Howe and General Howe) do command (and in
his majesty's name forsooth) all such persons as are assembled together,
under the name of general or provincial congresses, committees,
conventions or other associations, by whatever name or names known and
distinguished, to desist and cease from all such treasonable actings and
doings."

You introduce your proclamation by referring to your declarations of
the 14th of July and 19th of September. In the last of these you sunk
yourself below the character of a private gentleman. That I may not
seem to accuse you unjustly, I shall state the circumstance: by a verbal
invitation of yours, communicated to Congress by General Sullivan, then
a prisoner on his parole, you signified your desire of conferring with
some members of that body as private gentlemen. It was beneath the
dignity of the American Congress to pay any regard to a message that
at best was but a genteel affront, and had too much of the ministerial
complexion of tampering with private persons; and which might probably
have been the case, had the gentlemen who were deputed on the business
possessed that kind of easy virtue which an English courtier is so truly
distinguished by. Your request, however, was complied with, for honest
men are naturally more tender of their civil than their political fame.
The interview ended as every sensible man thought it would; for
your lordship knows, as well as the writer of the Crisis, that it is
impossible for the King of England to promise the repeal, or even the
revisal of any acts of parliament; wherefore, on your part, you had
nothing to say, more than to request, in the room of demanding, the
entire surrender of the continent; and then, if that was complied with,
to promise that the inhabitants should escape with their lives. This was
the upshot of the conference. You informed the conferees that you were
two months in soliciting these powers. We ask, what powers? for as
commissioner you have none. If you mean the power of pardoning, it is
an oblique proof that your master was determined to sacrifice all before
him; and that you were two months in dissuading him from his purpose.
Another evidence of his savage obstinacy! From your own account of the
matter we may justly draw these two conclusions: 1st, That you serve
a monster; and 2d, That never was a messenger sent on a more foolish
errand than yourself. This plain language may perhaps sound uncouthly to
an ear vitiated by courtly refinements, but words were made for use,
and the fault lies in deserving them, or the abuse in applying them
unfairly.

Soon after your return to New York, you published a very illiberal and
unmanly handbill against the Congress; for it was certainly stepping out
of the line of common civility, first to screen your national pride
by soliciting an interview with them as private gentlemen, and in the
conclusion to endeavor to deceive the multitude by making a handbill
attack on the whole body of the Congress; you got them together under
one name, and abused them under another. But the king you serve, and the
cause you support, afford you so few instances of acting the gentleman,
that out of pity to your situation the Congress pardoned the insult by
taking no notice of it.

You say in that handbill, "that they, the Congress, disavowed every
purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their extravagant and
inadmissible claim of independence." Why, God bless me! what have you to
do with our independence? We ask no leave of yours to set it up; we ask
no money of yours to support it; we can do better without your fleets
and armies than with them; you may soon have enough to do to protect
yourselves without being burdened with us. We are very willing to be at
peace with you, to buy of you and sell to you, and, like young beginners
in the world, to work for our living; therefore, why do you put
yourselves out of cash, when we know you cannot spare it, and we do not
desire you to run into debt? I am willing, sir, that you should see
your folly in every point of view I can place it in, and for that reason
descend sometimes to tell you in jest what I wish you to see in earnest.
But to be more serious with you, why do you say, "their independence?"
To set you right, sir, we tell you, that the independency is ours, not
theirs. The Congress were authorized by every state on the continent to
publish it to all the world, and in so doing are not to be considered as
the inventors, but only as the heralds that proclaimed it, or the office
from which the sense of the people received a legal form; and it was as
much as any or all their heads were worth, to have treated with you on
the subject of submission under any name whatever. But we know the men
in whom we have trusted; can England say the same of her Parliament?

I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th of
November last. Had you gained an entire conquest over all the armies
of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering (what you call)
mercy, your conduct would have had some specious show of humanity; but
to creep by surprise into a province, and there endeavor to terrify
and seduce the inhabitants from their just allegiance to the rest by
promises, which you neither meant nor were able to fulfil, is both cruel
and unmanly: cruel in its effects; because, unless you can keep all
the ground you have marched over, how are you, in the words of your
proclamation, to secure to your proselytes "the enjoyment of their
property?" What is to become either of your new adopted subjects, or
your old friends, the Tories, in Burlington, Bordentown, Trenton, Mount
Holly, and many other places, where you proudly lorded it for a few
days, and then fled with the precipitation of a pursued thief? What, I
say, is to become of those wretches? What is to become of those who went
over to you from this city and State? What more can you say to them than
"shift for yourselves?" Or what more can they hope for than to wander
like vagabonds over the face of the earth? You may now tell them to take
their leave of America, and all that once was theirs. Recommend them,
for consolation, to your master's court; there perhaps they may make
a shift to live on the scraps of some dangling parasite, and choose
companions among thousands like themselves. A traitor is the foulest
fiend on earth.

In a political sense we ought to thank you for thus bequeathing estates
to the continent; we shall soon, at this rate, be able to carry on a war
without expense, and grow rich by the ill policy of Lord Howe, and the
generous defection of the Tories. Had you set your foot into this city,
you would have bestowed estates upon us which we never thought of, by
bringing forth traitors we were unwilling to suspect. But these men,
you'll say, "are his majesty's most faithful subjects;" let that honor,
then, be all their fortune, and let his majesty take them to himself.

I am now thoroughly disgusted with them; they live in ungrateful ease,
and bend their whole minds to mischief. It seems as if God had
given them over to a spirit of infidelity, and that they are open to
conviction in no other line but that of punishment. It is time to have
done with tarring, feathering, carting, and taking securities for their
future good behavior; every sensible man must feel a conscious shame
at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a show about the streets, when it is
known he is only the tool of some principal villain, biassed into his
offence by the force of false reasoning, or bribed thereto, through sad
necessity. We dishonor ourselves by attacking such trifling characters
while greater ones are suffered to escape; 'tis our duty to find
them out, and their proper punishment would be to exile them from the
continent for ever. The circle of them is not so great as some imagine;
the influence of a few have tainted many who are not naturally corrupt.
A continual circulation of lies among those who are not much in the way
of hearing them contradicted, will in time pass for truth; and the crime
lies not in the believer but the inventor. I am not for declaring
war with every man that appears not so warm as myself: difference of
constitution, temper, habit of speaking, and many other things, will go
a great way in fixing the outward character of a man, yet simple honesty
may remain at bottom. Some men have naturally a military turn, and can
brave hardships and the risk of life with a cheerful face; others have
not; no slavery appears to them so great as the fatigue of arms, and
no terror so powerful as that of personal danger. What can we say? We
cannot alter nature, neither ought we to punish the son because the
father begot him in a cowardly mood. However, I believe most men have
more courage than they know of, and that a little at first is enough
to begin with. I knew the time when I thought that the whistling of a
cannon ball would have frightened me almost to death; but I have since
tried it, and find that I can stand it with as little discomposure, and,
I believe, with a much easier conscience than your lordship. The same
dread would return to me again were I in your situation, for my solemn
belief of your cause is, that it is hellish and damnable, and, under
that conviction, every thinking man's heart must fail him.

From a concern that a good cause should be dishonored by the least
disunion among us, I said in my former paper, No. I. "That should the
enemy now be expelled, I wish, with all the sincerity of a Christian,
that the names of Whig and Tory might never more be mentioned;" but
there is a knot of men among us of such a venomous cast, that they
will not admit even one's good wishes to act in their favor. Instead
of rejoicing that heaven had, as it were, providentially preserved this
city from plunder and destruction, by delivering so great a part of the
enemy into our hands with so little effusion of blood, they stubbornly
affected to disbelieve it till within an hour, nay, half an hour, of
the prisoners arriving; and the Quakers put forth a testimony, dated the
20th of December, signed "John Pemberton," declaring their attachment to
the British government.* These men are continually harping on the great
sin of our bearing arms, but the king of Britain may lay waste the world
in blood and famine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say.


     * I have ever been careful of charging offences upon whole societies
of men, but as the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown set of
men, who claim to themselves the right of representing the whole:
and while the whole Society of Quakers admit its validity by a silent
acknowledgment, it is impossible that any distinction can be made by
the public: and the more so, because the New York paper of the 30th of
December, printed by permission of our enemies, says that "the Quakers
begin to speak openly of their attachment to the British Constitution."
We are certain that we have many friends among them, and wish to know
them.

In some future paper I intend to distinguish between the different kind
of persons who have been denominated Tories; for this I am clear in,
that all are not so who have been called so, nor all men Whigs who
were once thought so; and as I mean not to conceal the name of any true
friend when there shall be occasion to mention him, neither will I that
of an enemy, who ought to be known, let his rank, station or religion be
what it may. Much pains have been taken by some to set your lordship's
private character in an amiable light, but as it has chiefly been done
by men who know nothing about you, and who are no ways remarkable for
their attachment to us, we have no just authority for believing it.
George the Third has imposed upon us by the same arts, but time, at
length, has done him justice, and the same fate may probably attend your
lordship. You avowed purpose here is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon,
and enslave: and the ravages of your army through the Jerseys have been
marked with as much barbarism as if you had openly professed yourself
the prince of ruffians; not even the appearance of humanity has been
preserved either on the march or the retreat of your troops; no general
order that I could ever learn, has ever been issued to prevent or
even forbid your troops from robbery, wherever they came, and the only
instance of justice, if it can be called such, which has distinguished
you for impartiality, is, that you treated and plundered all alike; what
could not be carried away has been destroyed, and mahogany furniture has
been deliberately laid on fire for fuel, rather than the men should be
fatigued with cutting wood.* There was a time when the Whigs confided
much in your supposed candor, and the Tories rested themselves in your
favor; the experiments have now been made, and failed; in every town,
nay, every cottage, in the Jerseys, where your arms have been, is
a testimony against you. How you may rest under this sacrifice of
character I know not; but this I know, that you sleep and rise with the
daily curses of thousands upon you; perhaps the misery which the Tories
have suffered by your proffered mercy may give them some claim to their
country's pity, and be in the end the best favor you could show them.


     * As some people may doubt the truth of such wanton destruction, I
think it necessary to inform them that one of the people called Quakers,
who lives at Trenton, gave me this information at the house of Mr.
Michael Hutchinson, (one of the same profession,) who lives near Trenton
ferry on the Pennsylvania side, Mr. Hutchinson being present.

In a folio general-order book belonging to Col. Rhal's battalion, taken
at Trenton, and now in the possession of the council of safety for
this state, the following barbarous order is frequently repeated, "His
excellency the Commander-in-Chief orders, that all inhabitants who
shall be found with arms, not having an officer with them, shall be
immediately taken and hung up." How many you may thus have privately
sacrificed, we know not, and the account can only be settled in another
world. Your treatment of prisoners, in order to distress them to enlist
in your infernal service, is not to be equalled by any instance in
Europe. Yet this is the humane Lord Howe and his brother, whom the
Tories and their three-quarter kindred, the Quakers, or some of them at
least, have been holding up for patterns of justice and mercy!

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men; and whoever
will be at the pains of examining strictly into things, will find that
one and the same spirit of oppression and impiety, more or less,
governs through your whole party in both countries: not many days ago,
I accidentally fell in company with a person of this city noted for
espousing your cause, and on my remarking to him, "that it appeared
clear to me, by the late providential turn of affairs, that God Almighty
was visibly on our side," he replied, "We care nothing for that you may
have Him, and welcome; if we have but enough of the devil on our side,
we shall do." However carelessly this might be spoken, matters not, 'tis
still the insensible principle that directs all your conduct and will at
last most assuredly deceive and ruin you.

If ever a nation was made and foolish, blind to its own interest and
bent on its own destruction, it is Britain. There are such things as
national sins, and though the punishment of individuals may be reserved
to another world, national punishment can only be inflicted in this
world. Britain, as a nation, is, in my inmost belief, the greatest and
most ungrateful offender against God on the face of the whole earth.
Blessed with all the commerce she could wish for, and furnished, by
a vast extension of dominion, with the means of civilizing both the
eastern and western world, she has made no other use of both than
proudly to idolize her own "thunder," and rip up the bowels of whole
countries for what she could get. Like Alexander, she has made war her
sport, and inflicted misery for prodigality's sake. The blood of India
is not yet repaid, nor the wretchedness of Africa yet requited. Of
late she has enlarged her list of national cruelties by her butcherly
destruction of the Caribbs of St. Vincent's, and returning an answer by
the sword to the meek prayer for "Peace, liberty and safety." These
are serious things, and whatever a foolish tyrant, a debauched court,
a trafficking legislature, or a blinded people may think, the national
account with heaven must some day or other be settled: all countries
have sooner or later been called to their reckoning; the proudest
empires have sunk when the balance was struck; and Britain, like an
individual penitent, must undergo her day of sorrow, and the sooner it
happens to her the better. As I wish it over, I wish it to come, but
withal wish that it may be as light as possible.

Perhaps your lordship has no taste for serious things; by your
connections in England I should suppose not; therefore I shall drop this
part of the subject, and take it up in a line in which you will better
understand me.

By what means, may I ask, do you expect to conquer America? If you could
not effect it in the summer, when our army was less than yours, nor
in the winter, when we had none, how are you to do it? In point of
generalship you have been outwitted, and in point of fortitude outdone;
your advantages turn out to your loss, and show us that it is in our
power to ruin you by gifts: like a game of drafts, we can move out of
one square to let you come in, in order that we may afterwards take
two or three for one; and as we can always keep a double corner for
ourselves, we can always prevent a total defeat. You cannot be so
insensible as not to see that we have two to one the advantage of you,
because we conquer by a drawn game, and you lose by it. Burgoyne might
have taught your lordship this knowledge; he has been long a student in
the doctrine of chances.

I have no other idea of conquering countries than by subduing the armies
which defend them: have you done this, or can you do it? If you have
not, it would be civil in you to let your proclamations alone for the
present; otherwise, you will ruin more Tories by your grace and favor,
than you will Whigs by your arms.

Were you to obtain possession of this city, you would not know what to
do with it more than to plunder it. To hold it in the manner you hold
New York, would be an additional dead weight upon your hands; and if a
general conquest is your object, you had better be without the city than
with it. When you have defeated all our armies, the cities will fall
into your hands of themselves; but to creep into them in the manner you
got into Princeton, Trenton, &c. is like robbing an orchard in the
night before the fruit be ripe, and running away in the morning. Your
experiment in the Jerseys is sufficient to teach you that you have
something more to do than barely to get into other people's houses; and
your new converts, to whom you promised all manner of protection, and
seduced into new guilt by pardoning them from their former virtues, must
begin to have a very contemptible opinion both of your power and your
policy. Your authority in the Jerseys is now reduced to the small circle
which your army occupies, and your proclamation is no where else seen
unless it be to be laughed at. The mighty subduers of the continent have
retreated into a nutshell, and the proud forgivers of our sins are fled
from those they came to pardon; and all this at a time when they were
despatching vessel after vessel to England with the great news of
every day. In short, you have managed your Jersey expedition so very
dexterously, that the dead only are conquerors, because none will
dispute the ground with them.

In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had only
armies to contend with; in this case you have both an army and a country
to combat with. In former wars, the countries followed the fate of their
capitals; Canada fell with Quebec, and Minorca with Port Mahon or St.
Phillips; by subduing those, the conquerors opened a way into, and
became masters of the country: here it is otherwise; if you get
possession of a city here, you are obliged to shut yourselves up in it,
and can make no other use of it, than to spend your country's money in.
This is all the advantage you have drawn from New York; and you would
draw less from Philadelphia, because it requires more force to keep it,
and is much further from the sea. A pretty figure you and the Tories
would cut in this city, with a river full of ice, and a town full of
fire; for the immediate consequence of your getting here would be, that
you would be cannonaded out again, and the Tories be obliged to make
good the damage; and this sooner or later will be the fate of New York.

I wish to see the city saved, not so much from military as from natural
motives. 'Tis the hiding place of women and children, and Lord Howe's
proper business is with our armies. When I put all the circumstances
together which ought to be taken, I laugh at your notion of conquering
America. Because you lived in a little country, where an army might run
over the whole in a few days, and where a single company of soldiers
might put a multitude to the rout, you expected to find it the same
here. It is plain that you brought over with you all the narrow notions
you were bred up with, and imagined that a proclamation in the king's
name was to do great things; but Englishmen always travel for knowledge,
and your lordship, I hope, will return, if you return at all, much wiser
than you came.

We may be surprised by events we did not expect, and in that interval of
recollection you may gain some temporary advantage: such was the case
a few weeks ago, but we soon ripen again into reason, collect our
strength, and while you are preparing for a triumph, we come upon you
with a defeat. Such it has been, and such it would be were you to try
it a hundred times over. Were you to garrison the places you might march
over, in order to secure their subjection, (for remember you can do it
by no other means,) your army would be like a stream of water running to
nothing. By the time you extended from New York to Virginia, you would
be reduced to a string of drops not capable of hanging together; while
we, by retreating from State to State, like a river turning back upon
itself, would acquire strength in the same proportion as you lost it,
and in the end be capable of overwhelming you. The country, in the
meantime, would suffer, but it is a day of suffering, and we ought
to expect it. What we contend for is worthy the affliction we may go
through. If we get but bread to eat, and any kind of raiment to put on,
we ought not only to be contented, but thankful. More than that we ought
not to look for, and less than that heaven has not yet suffered us
to want. He that would sell his birthright for a little salt, is as
worthless as he who sold it for pottage without salt; and he that would
part with it for a gay coat, or a plain coat, ought for ever to be
a slave in buff. What are salt, sugar and finery, to the inestimable
blessings of "Liberty and Safety!" Or what are the inconveniences of
a few months to the tributary bondage of ages? The meanest peasant in
America, blessed with these sentiments, is a happy man compared with a
New York Tory; he can eat his morsel without repining, and when he has
done, can sweeten it with a repast of wholesome air; he can take his
child by the hand and bless it, without feeling the conscious shame of
neglecting a parent's duty.

In publishing these remarks I have several objects in view.

On your part they are to expose the folly of your pretended authority
as a commissioner; the wickedness of your cause in general; and the
impossibility of your conquering us at any rate. On the part of the
public, my intention is, to show them their true and sold interest;
to encourage them to their own good, to remove the fears and falsities
which bad men have spread, and weak men have encouraged; and to excite
in all men a love for union, and a cheerfulness for duty.

I shall submit one more case to you respecting your conquest of this
country, and then proceed to new observations.

Suppose our armies in every part of this continent were immediately to
disperse, every man to his home, or where else he might be safe, and
engage to reassemble again on a certain future day; it is clear that you
would then have no army to contend with, yet you would be as much at
a loss in that case as you are now; you would be afraid to send your
troops in parties over to the continent, either to disarm or prevent us
from assembling, lest they should not return; and while you kept them
together, having no arms of ours to dispute with, you could not call it
a conquest; you might furnish out a pompous page in the London Gazette
or a New York paper, but when we returned at the appointed time, you
would have the same work to do that you had at first.

It has been the folly of Britain to suppose herself more powerful than
she really is, and by that means has arrogated to herself a rank in the
world she is not entitled to: for more than this century past she
has not been able to carry on a war without foreign assistance. In
Marlborough's campaigns, and from that day to this, the number of German
troops and officers assisting her have been about equal with her own;
ten thousand Hessians were sent to England last war to protect her
from a French invasion; and she would have cut but a poor figure in her
Canadian and West Indian expeditions, had not America been lavish both
of her money and men to help her along. The only instance in which she
was engaged singly, that I can recollect, was against the rebellion in
Scotland, in the years 1745 and 1746, and in that, out of three battles,
she was twice beaten, till by thus reducing their numbers, (as we
shall yours) and taking a supply ship that was coming to Scotland
with clothes, arms and money, (as we have often done,) she was at last
enabled to defeat them. England was never famous by land; her officers
have generally been suspected of cowardice, have more of the air of a
dancing-master than a soldier, and by the samples which we have taken
prisoners, we give the preference to ourselves. Her strength, of late,
has lain in her extravagance; but as her finances and credit are now
low, her sinews in that line begin to fail fast. As a nation she is the
poorest in Europe; for were the whole kingdom, and all that is in it, to
be put up for sale like the estate of a bankrupt, it would not fetch as
much as she owes; yet this thoughtless wretch must go to war, and with
the avowed design, too, of making us beasts of burden, to support her in
riot and debauchery, and to assist her afterwards in distressing those
nations who are now our best friends. This ingratitude may suit a Tory,
or the unchristian peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else.

'Tis the unhappy temper of the English to be pleased with any war, right
or wrong, be it but successful; but they soon grow discontented with ill
fortune, and it is an even chance that they are as clamorous for peace
next summer, as the king and his ministers were for war last winter.
In this natural view of things, your lordship stands in a very critical
situation: your whole character is now staked upon your laurels; if they
wither, you wither with them; if they flourish, you cannot live long to
look at them; and at any rate, the black account hereafter is not far
off. What lately appeared to us misfortunes, were only blessings in
disguise; and the seeming advantages on your side have turned out to
our profit. Even our loss of this city, as far as we can see, might be a
principal gain to us: the more surface you spread over, the thinner
you will be, and the easier wiped away; and our consolation under that
apparent disaster would be, that the estates of the Tories would become
securities for the repairs. In short, there is no old ground we can fail
upon, but some new foundation rises again to support us. "We have put,
sir, our hands to the plough, and cursed be he that looketh back."

Your king, in his speech to parliament last spring, declared, "That
he had no doubt but the great force they had enabled him to send to
America, would effectually reduce the rebellious colonies." It has not,
neither can it; but it has done just enough to lay the foundation of
its own next year's ruin. You are sensible that you left England in a
divided, distracted state of politics, and, by the command you had here,
you became a principal prop in the court party; their fortunes rest on
yours; by a single express you can fix their value with the public, and
the degree to which their spirits shall rise or fall; they are in your
hands as stock, and you have the secret of the alley with you. Thus
situated and connected, you become the unintentional mechanical
instrument of your own and their overthrow. The king and his ministers
put conquest out of doubt, and the credit of both depended on the proof.
To support them in the interim, it was necessary that you should make
the most of every thing, and we can tell by Hugh Gaine's New York
paper what the complexion of the London Gazette is. With such a list
of victories the nation cannot expect you will ask new supplies; and
to confess your want of them would give the lie to your triumphs, and
impeach the king and his ministers of treasonable deception. If you make
the necessary demand at home, your party sinks; if you make it not, you
sink yourself; to ask it now is too late, and to ask it before was too
soon, and unless it arrive quickly will be of no use. In short, the part
you have to act, cannot be acted; and I am fully persuaded that all you
have to trust to is, to do the best you can with what force you have
got, or little more. Though we have greatly exceeded you in point of
generalship and bravery of men, yet, as a people, we have not entered
into the full soul of enterprise; for I, who know England and the
disposition of the people well, am confident, that it is easier for us
to effect a revolution there, than you a conquest here; a few thousand
men landed in England with the declared design of deposing the present
king, bringing his ministers to trial, and setting up the Duke of
Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry their point, while you
are grovelling here, ignorant of the matter. As I send all my papers to
England, this, like Common Sense, will find its way there; and though
it may put one party on their guard, it will inform the other, and the
nation in general, of our design to help them.

Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of present
affairs: you may draw from it what conclusions you please. I wish
as well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I consider
INDEPENDENCE as America's natural right and interest, and never could
see any real disservice it would be to Britain. If an English merchant
receives an order, and is paid for it, it signifies nothing to him who
governs the country. This is my creed of politics. If I have any where
expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed, immovable hatred I
have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measures. I have likewise an
aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man; but
I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever
published a syllable in England in my life. What I write is pure nature,
and my pen and my soul have ever gone together. My writings I have
always given away, reserving only the expense of printing and paper, and
sometimes not even that. I never courted either fame or interest, and my
manner of life, to those who know it, will justify what I say. My study
is to be useful, and if your lordship loves mankind as well as I do,
you would, seeing you cannot conquer us, cast about and lend your hand
towards accomplishing a peace. Our independence with God's blessing
we will maintain against all the world; but as we wish to avoid
evil ourselves, we wish not to inflict it on others. I am never
over-inquisitive into the secrets of the cabinet, but I have some notion
that, if you neglect the present opportunity, it will not be in our
power to make a separate peace with you afterwards; for whatever
treaties or alliances we form, we shall most faithfully abide by;
wherefore you may be deceived if you think you can make it with us at
any time. A lasting independent peace is my wish, end and aim; and to
accomplish that, I pray God the Americans may never be defeated, and I
trust while they have good officers, and are well commanded, and willing
to be commanded, that they NEVER WILL BE.

                                     COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 1777.




THE CRISIS III. (IN THE PROGRESS OF POLITICS)


IN THE progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life,
we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but
frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. We expend, if I may
so say, the knowledge of every day on the circumstances that produce it,
and journey on in search of new matter and new refinements: but as it is
pleasant and sometimes useful to look back, even to the first periods of
infancy, and trace the turns and windings through which we have passed,
so we may likewise derive many advantages by halting a while in our
political career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated
labyrinth of little more than yesterday.

Truly may we say, that never did men grow old in so short a time! We
have crowded the business of an age into the compass of a few months,
and have been driven through such a rapid succession of things, that
for the want of leisure to think, we unavoidably wasted knowledge as we
came, and have left nearly as much behind us as we brought with us: but
the road is yet rich with the fragments, and, before we finally lose
sight of them, will repay us for the trouble of stopping to pick them
up.

Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of
forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos:
he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not
knowing how the world went in his absence, he would be at a loss to
know how it ought to go on when he recovered, or rather, returned to it
again. In like manner, though in a less degree, a too great inattention
to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment in everything;
while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present,
we frequently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with
very little trouble. It is a kind of counter-march, by which we get into
the rear of time, and mark the movements and meaning of things as we
make our return. There are certain circumstances, which, at the time
of their happening, are a kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be
followed by its answer, so those kind of circumstances will be followed
by their events, and those events are always the true solution. A
considerable space of time may lapse between, and unless we continue our
observations from the one to the other, the harmony of them will pass
away unnoticed: but the misfortune is, that partly from the pressing
necessity of some instant things, and partly from the impatience of our
own tempers, we are frequently in such a hurry to make out the meaning
of everything as fast as it happens, that we thereby never truly
understand it; and not only start new difficulties to ourselves by so
doing, but, as it were, embarrass Providence in her good designs.

I have been civil in stating this fault on a large scale, for, as it now
stands, it does not appear to be levelled against any particular set of
men; but were it to be refined a little further, it might afterwards
be applied to the Tories with a degree of striking propriety: those men
have been remarkable for drawing sudden conclusions from single facts.
The least apparent mishap on our side, or the least seeming advantage
on the part of the enemy, have determined with them the fate of a whole
campaign. By this hasty judgment they have converted a retreat into
a defeat; mistook generalship for error; while every little advantage
purposely given the enemy, either to weaken their strength by dividing
it, embarrass their councils by multiplying their objects, or to secure
a greater post by the surrender of a less, has been instantly magnified
into a conquest. Thus, by quartering ill policy upon ill principles,
they have frequently promoted the cause they designed to injure, and
injured that which they intended to promote.

It is probable the campaign may open before this number comes from
the press. The enemy have long lain idle, and amused themselves with
carrying on the war by proclamations only. While they continue their
delay our strength increases, and were they to move to action now, it
is a circumstantial proof that they have no reinforcement coming;
wherefore, in either case, the comparative advantage will be ours. Like
a wounded, disabled whale, they want only time and room to die in; and
though in the agony of their exit, it may be unsafe to live within the
flapping of their tail, yet every hour shortens their date, and lessens
their power of mischief. If any thing happens while this number is in
the press, it will afford me a subject for the last pages of it. At
present I am tired of waiting; and as neither the enemy, nor the state
of politics have yet produced any thing new, I am thereby left in
the field of general matter, undirected by any striking or particular
object. This Crisis, therefore, will be made up rather of variety than
novelty, and consist more of things useful than things wonderful.

The success of the cause, the union of the people, and the means of
supporting and securing both, are points which cannot be too much
attended to. He who doubts of the former is a desponding coward, and
he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a traitor. Their characters are
easily fixed, and under these short descriptions I leave them for the
present.

One of the greatest degrees of sentimental union which America ever
knew, was in denying the right of the British parliament "to bind the
colonies in all cases whatsoever." The Declaration is, in its form, an
almighty one, and is the loftiest stretch of arbitrary power that ever
one set of men or one country claimed over another. Taxation was
nothing more than the putting the declared right into practice; and
this failing, recourse was had to arms, as a means to establish both
the right and the practice, or to answer a worse purpose, which will be
mentioned in the course of this number. And in order to repay themselves
the expense of an army, and to profit by their own injustice, the
colonies were, by another law, declared to be in a state of actual
rebellion, and of consequence all property therein would fall to the
conquerors.

The colonies, on their part, first, denied the right; secondly, they
suspended the use of taxable articles, and petitioned against the
practice of taxation: and these failing, they, thirdly, defended their
property by force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded, and, in answer
to the declaration of rebellion and non-protection, published their
Declaration of Independence and right of self-protection.

These, in a few words, are the different stages of the quarrel; and the
parts are so intimately and necessarily connected with each other as to
admit of no separation. A person, to use a trite phrase, must be a
Whig or a Tory in a lump. His feelings, as a man, may be wounded; his
charity, as a Christian, may be moved; but his political principles must
go through all the cases on one side or the other. He cannot be a Whig
in this stage, and a Tory in that. If he says he is against the united
independence of the continent, he is to all intents and purposes against
her in all the rest; because this last comprehends the whole. And he may
just as well say, that Britain was right in declaring us rebels; right
in taxing us; and right in declaring her "right to bind the colonies in
all cases whatsoever." It signifies nothing what neutral ground, of his
own creating, he may skulk upon for shelter, for the quarrel in no
stage of it hath afforded any such ground; and either we or Britain are
absolutely right or absolutely wrong through the whole.

Britain, like a gamester nearly ruined, has now put all her losses into
one bet, and is playing a desperate game for the total. If she wins
it, she wins from me my life; she wins the continent as the forfeited
property of rebels; the right of taxing those that are left as reduced
subjects; and the power of binding them slaves: and the single die
which determines this unparalleled event is, whether we support our
independence or she overturn it. This is coming to the point at once.
Here is the touchstone to try men by. He that is not a supporter of the
independent States of America in the same degree that his religious and
political principles would suffer him to support the government of any
other country, of which he called himself a subject, is, in the American
sense of the word, A TORY; and the instant that he endeavors to bring
his toryism into practice, he becomes A TRAITOR. The first can only be
detected by a general test, and the law hath already provided for the
latter.

It is unnatural and impolitic to admit men who would root up our
independence to have any share in our legislation, either as electors
or representatives; because the support of our independence rests, in
a great measure, on the vigor and purity of our public bodies. Would
Britain, even in time of peace, much less in war, suffer an election to
be carried by men who professed themselves to be not her subjects, or
allow such to sit in Parliament? Certainly not.

But there are a certain species of Tories with whom conscience or
principle has nothing to do, and who are so from avarice only. Some
of the first fortunes on the continent, on the part of the Whigs, are
staked on the issue of our present measures. And shall disaffection only
be rewarded with security? Can any thing be a greater inducement to a
miserly man, than the hope of making his Mammon safe? And though the
scheme be fraught with every character of folly, yet, so long as he
supposes, that by doing nothing materially criminal against America
on one part, and by expressing his private disapprobation against
independence, as palliative with the enemy, on the other part, he stands
in a safe line between both; while, I say, this ground be suffered to
remain, craft, and the spirit of avarice, will point it out, and men
will not be wanting to fill up this most contemptible of all characters.

These men, ashamed to own the sordid cause from whence their
disaffection springs, add thereby meanness to meanness, by endeavoring
to shelter themselves under the mask of hypocrisy; that is, they had
rather be thought to be Tories from some kind of principle, than Tories
by having no principle at all. But till such time as they can show
some real reason, natural, political, or conscientious, on which their
objections to independence are founded, we are not obliged to give them
credit for being Tories of the first stamp, but must set them down as
Tories of the last.

In the second number of the Crisis, I endeavored to show the
impossibility of the enemy's making any conquest of America, that
nothing was wanting on our part but patience and perseverance, and
that, with these virtues, our success, as far as human speculation could
discern, seemed as certain as fate. But as there are many among us, who,
influenced by others, have regularly gone back from the principles
they once held, in proportion as we have gone forward; and as it is the
unfortunate lot of many a good man to live within the neighborhood of
disaffected ones; I shall, therefore, for the sake of confirming the one
and recovering the other, endeavor, in the space of a page or two, to go
over some of the leading principles in support of independence. It is a
much pleasanter task to prevent vice than to punish it, and, however our
tempers may be gratified by resentment, or our national expenses eased
by forfeited estates, harmony and friendship is, nevertheless, the
happiest condition a country can be blessed with.

The principal arguments in support of independence may be comprehended
under the four following heads.

     1st, The natural right of the continent to independence.
     2d, Her interest in being independent.
     3d, The necessity,--and
     4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.

I. The natural right of the continent to independence, is a point which
never yet was called in question. It will not even admit of a debate.
To deny such a right, would be a kind of atheism against nature: and the
best answer to such an objection would be, "The fool hath said in his
heart there is no God."

II. The interest of the continent in being independent is a point as
clearly right as the former. America, by her own internal industry,
and unknown to all the powers of Europe, was, at the beginning of the
dispute, arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade and population, beyond
which it was the interest of Britain not to suffer her to pass, lest she
should grow too powerful to be kept subordinate. She began to view
this country with the same uneasy malicious eye, with which a covetous
guardian would view his ward, whose estate he had been enriching himself
by for twenty years, and saw him just arriving at manhood. And America
owes no more to Britain for her present maturity, than the ward would
to the guardian for being twenty-one years of age. That America hath
flourished at the time she was under the government of Britain, is
true; but there is every natural reason to believe, that had she been an
independent country from the first settlement thereof, uncontrolled by
any foreign power, free to make her own laws, regulate and encourage her
own commerce, she had by this time been of much greater worth than now.
The case is simply this: the first settlers in the different colonies
were left to shift for themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any
European government; but as the tyranny and persecution of the old world
daily drove numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of heaven on their
industry and perseverance, they grew into importance, so, in a like
degree, they became an object of profit to the greedy eyes of Europe.
It was impossible, in this state of infancy, however thriving and
promising, that they could resist the power of any armed invader that
should seek to bring them under his authority. In this situation,
Britain thought it worth her while to claim them, and the continent
received and acknowledged the claimer. It was, in reality, of no very
great importance who was her master, seeing, that from the force and
ambition of the different powers of Europe, she must, till she acquired
strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some one. As well,
perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as well to have been
under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes of engrossing and
profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too much, would have
operated alike with any master, and produced to the colonies the same
effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all a farce; because,
in order to make that protection necessary, she must first, by her own
quarrels, create us enemies. Hard terms indeed!

To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent,
we need only ask this easy, simple question: Is it the interest of a man
to be a boy all his life? The answer to one will be the answer to both.
America hath been one continued scene of legislative contention from
the first king's representative to the last; and this was unavoidably
founded in the natural opposition of interest between the old country
and the new. A governor sent from England, or receiving his authority
therefrom, ought never to have been considered in any other light
than that of a genteel commissioned spy, whose private business was
information, and his public business a kind of civilized oppression. In
the first of these characters he was to watch the tempers, sentiments,
and disposition of the people, the growth of trade, and the increase of
private fortunes; and, in the latter, to suppress all such acts of the
assemblies, however beneficial to the people, which did not directly
or indirectly throw some increase of power or profit into the hands of
those that sent him.

America, till now, could never be called a free country, because her
legislation depended on the will of a man three thousand miles distant,
whose interest was in opposition to ours, and who, by a single "no,"
could forbid what law he pleased.

The freedom of trade, likewise, is, to a trading country, an article of
such importance, that the principal source of wealth depends upon it;
and it is impossible that any country can flourish, as it otherwise
might do, whose commerce is engrossed, cramped and fettered by the
laws and mandates of another--yet these evils, and more than I can here
enumerate, the continent has suffered by being under the government of
England. By an independence we clear the whole at once--put
an end to the business of unanswered petitions and fruitless
remonstrances--exchange Britain for Europe--shake hands with the
world--live at peace with the world--and trade to any market where we
can buy and sell.

III. The necessity, likewise, of being independent, even before it was
declared, became so evident and important, that the continent ran the
risk of being ruined every day that she delayed it. There was reason to
believe that Britain would endeavor to make an European matter of it,
and, rather than lose the whole, would dismember it, like Poland, and
dispose of her several claims to the highest bidder. Genoa, failing in
her attempts to reduce Corsica, made a sale of it to the French, and
such trafficks have been common in the old world. We had at that time no
ambassador in any part of Europe, to counteract her negotiations, and
by that means she had the range of every foreign court uncontradicted
on our part. We even knew nothing of the treaty for the Hessians till it
was concluded, and the troops ready to embark. Had we been independent
before, we had probably prevented her obtaining them. We had no credit
abroad, because of our rebellious dependency. Our ships could claim no
protection in foreign ports, because we afforded them no justifiable
reason for granting it to us. The calling ourselves subjects, and at
the same time fighting against the power which we acknowledged, was
a dangerous precedent to all Europe. If the grievances justified the
taking up arms, they justified our separation; if they did not justify
our separation, neither could they justify our taking up arms. All
Europe was interested in reducing us as rebels, and all Europe (or the
greatest part at least) is interested in supporting us as independent
States. At home our condition was still worse: our currency had no
foundation, and the fall of it would have ruined Whig and Tory alike. We
had no other law than a kind of moderated passion; no other civil
power than an honest mob; and no other protection than the temporary
attachment of one man to another. Had independence been delayed a few
months longer, this continent would have been plunged into irrecoverable
confusion: some violent for it, some against it, till, in the general
cabal, the rich would have been ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to
independence that every Tory owes the present safety which he lives
in; for by that, and that only, we emerged from a state of dangerous
suspense, and became a regular people.

The necessity, likewise, of being independent, had there been no rupture
between Britain and America, would, in a little time, have brought one
on. The increasing importance of commerce, the weight and perplexity of
legislation, and the entangled state of European politics, would daily
have shown to the continent the impossibility of continuing subordinate;
for, after the coolest reflections on the matter, this must be allowed,
that Britain was too jealous of America to govern it justly; too
ignorant of it to govern it well; and too far distant from it to govern
it at all.

IV. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are, the
moral advantages arising from independence: war and desolation have
become the trade of the old world; and America neither could nor can be
under the government of Britain without becoming a sharer of her
guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death. The spirit
of duelling, extended on a national scale, is a proper character for
European wars. They have seldom any other motive than pride, or any
other object than fame. The conquerors and the conquered are generally
ruined alike, and the chief difference at last is, that the one marches
home with his honors, and the other without them. 'Tis the natural
temper of the English to fight for a feather, if they suppose that
feather to be an affront; and America, without the right of asking why,
must have abetted in every quarrel, and abided by its fate. It is a
shocking situation to live in, that one country must be brought into all
the wars of another, whether the measure be right or wrong, or whether
she will or not; yet this, in the fullest extent, was, and ever would
be, the unavoidable consequence of the connection. Surely the Quakers
forgot their own principles when, in their late Testimony, they called
this connection, with these military and miserable appendages hanging to
it--"the happy constitution."

Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly fifty years out of every
hundred at war with some power or other. It certainly ought to be a
conscientious as well political consideration with America, not to
dip her hands in the bloody work of Europe. Our situation affords us
a retreat from their cabals, and the present happy union of the states
bids fair for extirpating the future use of arms from one quarter of
the world; yet such have been the irreligious politics of the present
leaders of the Quakers, that, for the sake of they scarce know what,
they would cut off every hope of such a blessing by tying this continent
to Britain, like Hector to the chariot wheel of Achilles, to be dragged
through all the miseries of endless European wars.

The connection, viewed from this ground, is distressing to every man
who has the feelings of humanity. By having Britain for our master, we
became enemies to the greatest part of Europe, and they to us: and the
consequence was war inevitable. By being our own masters, independent of
any foreign one, we have Europe for our friends, and the prospect of an
endless peace among ourselves. Those who were advocates for the British
government over these colonies, were obliged to limit both their
arguments and their ideas to the period of an European peace only; the
moment Britain became plunged in war, every supposed convenience to us
vanished, and all we could hope for was not to be ruined. Could this be
a desirable condition for a young country to be in?

Had the French pursued their fortune immediately after the defeat of
Braddock last war, this city and province had then experienced the woful
calamities of being a British subject. A scene of the same kind might
happen again; for America, considered as a subject to the crown
of Britain, would ever have been the seat of war, and the bone of
contention between the two powers.

On the whole, if the future expulsion of arms from one quarter of the
world would be a desirable object to a peaceable man; if the freedom of
trade to every part of it can engage the attention of a man of business;
if the support or fall of millions of currency can affect our interests;
if the entire possession of estates, by cutting off the lordly claims
of Britain over the soil, deserves the regard of landed property; and if
the right of making our own laws, uncontrolled by royal or ministerial
spies or mandates, be worthy our care as freemen;--then are all men
interested in the support of independence; and may he that supports it
not, be driven from the blessing, and live unpitied beneath the servile
sufferings of scandalous subjection!

We have been amused with the tales of ancient wonders; we have read,
and wept over the histories of other nations: applauded, censured, or
pitied, as their cases affected us. The fortitude and patience of the
sufferers--the justness of their cause--the weight of their oppressions
and oppressors--the object to be saved or lost--with all the
consequences of a defeat or a conquest--have, in the hour of sympathy,
bewitched our hearts, and chained it to their fate: but where is the
power that ever made war upon petitioners? Or where is the war on which
a world was staked till now?

We may not, perhaps, be wise enough to make all the advantages we ought
of our independence; but they are, nevertheless, marked and presented
to us with every character of great and good, and worthy the hand of
him who sent them. I look through the present trouble to a time of
tranquillity, when we shall have it in our power to set an example of
peace to all the world. Were the Quakers really impressed and influenced
by the quiet principles they profess to hold, they would, however
they might disapprove the means, be the first of all men to approve of
independence, because, by separating ourselves from the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never given to man before of
carrying their favourite principle of peace into general practice, by
establishing governments that shall hereafter exist without wars. O! ye
fallen, cringing, priest-and-Pemberton-ridden people! What more can we
say of ye than that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a
political Quaker a real Jesuit.

Having thus gone over some of the principal points in support of
independence, I must now request the reader to return back with me to
the period when it first began to be a public doctrine, and to examine
the progress it has made among the various classes of men. The area I
mean to begin at, is the breaking out of hostilities, April 19th, 1775.
Until this event happened, the continent seemed to view the dispute as
a kind of law-suit for a matter of right, litigating between the old
country and the new; and she felt the same kind and degree of horror,
as if she had seen an oppressive plaintiff, at the head of a band of
ruffians, enter the court, while the cause was before it, and put the
judge, the jury, the defendant and his counsel, to the sword. Perhaps a
more heart-felt convulsion never reached a country with the same
degree of power and rapidity before, and never may again. Pity for the
sufferers, mixed with indignation at the violence, and heightened with
apprehensions of undergoing the same fate, made the affair of Lexington
the affair of the continent. Every part of it felt the shock, and all
vibrated together. A general promotion of sentiment took place: those
who had drank deeply into Whiggish principles, that is, the right and
necessity not only of opposing, but wholly setting aside the power of
the crown as soon as it became practically dangerous (for in theory
it was always so), stepped into the first stage of independence; while
another class of Whigs, equally sound in principle, but not so sanguine
in enterprise, attached themselves the stronger to the cause, and fell
close in with the rear of the former; their partition was a mere point.
Numbers of the moderate men, whose chief fault, at that time, arose from
entertaining a better opinion of Britain than she deserved, convinced
now of their mistake, gave her up, and publicly declared themselves
good Whigs. While the Tories, seeing it was no longer a laughing matter,
either sank into silent obscurity, or contented themselves with coming
forth and abusing General Gage: not a single advocate appeared to
justify the action of that day; it seemed to appear to every one with
the same magnitude, struck every one with the same force, and created in
every one the same abhorrence. From this period we may date the growth
of independence.

If the many circumstances which happened at this memorable time, be
taken in one view, and compared with each other, they will justify a
conclusion which seems not to have been attended to, I mean a fixed
design in the king and ministry of driving America into arms, in order
that they might be furnished with a pretence for seizing the whole
continent, as the immediate property of the crown. A noble plunder for
hungry courtiers!

It ought to be remembered, that the first petition from the Congress
was at this time unanswered on the part of the British king. That the
motion, called Lord North's motion, of the 20th of February, 1775,
arrived in America the latter end of March. This motion was to be laid,
by the several governors then in being, before, the assembly of each
province; and the first assembly before which it was laid, was the
assembly of Pennsylvania, in May following. This being a just state of
the case, I then ask, why were hostilities commenced between the time
of passing the resolve in the House of Commons, of the 20th of February,
and the time of the assemblies meeting to deliberate upon it? Degrading
and famous as that motion was, there is nevertheless reason to believe
that the king and his adherents were afraid the colonies would agree
to it, and lest they should, took effectual care they should not, by
provoking them with hostilities in the interim. They had not the least
doubt at that time of conquering America at one blow; and what they
expected to get by a conquest being infinitely greater than any thing
they could hope to get either by taxation or accommodation, they seemed
determined to prevent even the possibility of hearing each other, lest
America should disappoint their greedy hopes of the whole, by listening
even to their own terms. On the one hand they refused to hear the
petition of the continent, and on the other hand took effectual care the
continent should not hear them.

That the motion of the 20th February and the orders for commencing
hostilities were both concerted by the same person or persons, and not
the latter by General Gage, as was falsely imagined at first, is evident
from an extract of a letter of his to the administration, read among
other papers in the House of Commons; in which he informs his masters,
"That though their idea of his disarming certain counties was a right
one, yet it required him to be master of the country, in order to enable
him to execute it." This was prior to the commencement of hostilities,
and consequently before the motion of the 20th February could be
deliberated on by the several assemblies.

Perhaps it may be asked, why was the motion passed, if there was at the
same time a plan to aggravate the Americans not to listen to it? Lord
North assigned one reason himself, which was a hope of dividing them.
This was publicly tempting them to reject it; that if, in case the
injury of arms should fail in provoking them sufficiently, the insult
of such a declaration might fill it up. But by passing the motion and
getting it afterwards rejected in America, it enabled them, in their
wicked idea of politics, among other things, to hold up the colonies to
foreign powers, with every possible mark of disobedience and rebellion.
They had applied to those powers not to supply the continent with arms,
ammunition, etc., and it was necessary they should incense them against
us, by assigning on their own part some seeming reputable reason why.
By dividing, it had a tendency to weaken the States, and likewise to
perplex the adherents of America in England. But the principal scheme,
and that which has marked their character in every part of their
conduct, was a design of precipitating the colonies into a state which
they might afterwards deem rebellion, and, under that pretence, put an
end to all future complaints, petitions and remonstrances, by seizing
the whole at once. They had ravaged one part of the globe, till it could
glut them no longer; their prodigality required new plunder, and through
the East India article tea they hoped to transfer their rapine from that
quarter of the world to this. Every designed quarrel had its pretence;
and the same barbarian avarice accompanied the plant to America, which
ruined the country that produced it.

That men never turn rogues without turning fools is a maxim, sooner or
later, universally true. The commencement of hostilities, being in the
beginning of April, was, of all times the worst chosen: the Congress
were to meet the tenth of May following, and the distress the continent
felt at this unparalleled outrage gave a stability to that body which
no other circumstance could have done. It suppressed too all inferior
debates, and bound them together by a necessitous affection, without
giving them time to differ upon trifles. The suffering likewise softened
the whole body of the people into a degree of pliability, which laid the
principal foundation-stone of union, order, and government; and which,
at any other time, might only have fretted and then faded away
unnoticed and unimproved. But Providence, who best knows how to time her
misfortunes as well as her immediate favors, chose this to be the time,
and who dare dispute it?

It did not seem the disposition of the people, at this crisis, to
heap petition upon petition, while the former remained unanswered. The
measure however was carried in Congress, and a second petition was sent;
of which I shall only remark that it was submissive even to a dangerous
fault, because the prayer of it appealed solely to what it called the
prerogative of the crown, while the matter in dispute was confessedly
constitutional. But even this petition, flattering as it was, was
still not so harmonious as the chink of cash, and consequently not
sufficiently grateful to the tyrant and his ministry. From every
circumstance it is evident, that it was the determination of the British
court to have nothing to do with America but to conquer her fully and
absolutely. They were certain of success, and the field of battle was
the only place of treaty. I am confident there are thousands and tens of
thousands in America who wonder now that they should ever have thought
otherwise; but the sin of that day was the sin of civility; yet it
operated against our present good in the same manner that a civil
opinion of the devil would against our future peace.

Independence was a doctrine scarce and rare, even towards the conclusion
of the year 1775; all our politics had been founded on the hope of
expectation of making the matter up--a hope, which, though general on
the side of America, had never entered the head or heart of the British
court. Their hope was conquest and confiscation. Good heavens! what
volumes of thanks does America owe to Britain? What infinite obligation
to the tool that fills, with paradoxical vacancy, the throne! Nothing
but the sharpest essence of villany, compounded with the strongest
distillation of folly, could have produced a menstruum that would have
effected a separation. The Congress in 1774 administered an abortive
medicine to independence, by prohibiting the importation of goods,
and the succeeding Congress rendered the dose still more dangerous by
continuing it. Had independence been a settled system with America, (as
Britain has advanced,) she ought to have doubled her importation, and
prohibited in some degree her exportation. And this single circumstance
is sufficient to acquit America before any jury of nations, of having
a continental plan of independence in view; a charge which, had it been
true, would have been honorable, but is so grossly false, that either
the amazing ignorance or the wilful dishonesty of the British court is
effectually proved by it.

The second petition, like the first, produced no answer; it was
scarcely acknowledged to have been received; the British court were too
determined in their villainy even to act it artfully, and in their rage
for conquest neglected the necessary subtleties for obtaining it. They
might have divided, distracted and played a thousand tricks with us, had
they been as cunning as they were cruel.

This last indignity gave a new spring to independence. Those who knew
the savage obstinacy of the king, and the jobbing, gambling spirit of
the court, predicted the fate of the petition, as soon as it was sent
from America; for the men being known, their measures were easily
foreseen. As politicians we ought not so much to ground our hopes on
the reasonableness of the thing we ask, as on the reasonableness of
the person of whom we ask it: who would expect discretion from a fool,
candor from a tyrant, or justice from a villain?

As every prospect of accommodation seemed now to fail fast, men began to
think seriously on the matter; and their reason being thus stripped of
the false hope which had long encompassed it, became approachable by
fair debate: yet still the bulk of the people hesitated; they startled
at the novelty of independence, without once considering that our
getting into arms at first was a more extraordinary novelty, and that
all other nations had gone through the work of independence before
us. They doubted likewise the ability of the continent to support
it, without reflecting that it required the same force to obtain an
accommodation by arms as an independence. If the one was acquirable, the
other was the same; because, to accomplish either, it was necessary that
our strength should be too great for Britain to subdue; and it was too
unreasonable to suppose, that with the power of being masters, we should
submit to be servants.* Their caution at this time was exceedingly
misplaced; for if they were able to defend their property and maintain
their rights by arms, they, consequently, were able to defend and
support their independence; and in proportion as these men saw the
necessity and correctness of the measure, they honestly and openly
declared and adopted it, and the part that they had acted since has done
them honor and fully established their characters. Error in opinion has
this peculiar advantage with it, that the foremost point of the contrary
ground may at any time be reached by the sudden exertion of a thought;
and it frequently happens in sentimental differences, that some striking
circumstance, or some forcible reason quickly conceived, will effect in
an instant what neither argument nor example could produce in an age.


     * In this state of political suspense the pamphlet Common Sense made
its appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to
mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel and John Adams, were severally spoken
of as the supposed author. I had not, at that time, the pleasure either
of personally knowing or being known to the two last gentlemen. The
favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in England, and my
introduction to this part of the world was through his patronage. I
happened, when a school-boy, to pick up a pleasing natural history of
Virginia, and my inclination from that day of seeing the western side
of the Atlantic never left me. In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed
giving me such materials as were in his hands, towards completing a
history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous of having the
first volume out the next Spring. I had then formed the outlines of
Common Sense, and finished nearly the first part; and as I supposed the
doctor's design in getting out a history was to open the new year with
a new system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that
subject, much earlier than he thought of; and without informing him what
I was doing, got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could,
and sent him the first pamphlet that was printed off.

I find it impossible in the small compass I am limited to, to trace out
the progress which independence has made on the minds of the different
classes of men, and the several reasons by which they were moved. With
some, it was a passionate abhorrence against the king of England and his
ministry, as a set of savages and brutes; and these men, governed by
the agony of a wounded mind, were for trusting every thing to hope and
heaven, and bidding defiance at once. With others, it was a growing
conviction that the scheme of the British court was to create, ferment
and drive on a quarrel, for the sake of confiscated plunder: and men
of this class ripened into independence in proportion as the evidence
increased. While a third class conceived it was the true interest of
America, internally and externally, to be her own master, and gave their
support to independence, step by step, as they saw her abilities to
maintain it enlarge. With many, it was a compound of all these reasons;
while those who were too callous to be reached by either, remained, and
still remain Tories.

The legal necessity of being independent, with several collateral
reasons, is pointed out in an elegant masterly manner, in a charge to
the grand jury for the district of Charleston, by the Hon. William
Henry Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina, [April 23, 1776]. This
performance, and the address of the convention of New York, are pieces,
in my humble opinion, of the first rank in America.

The principal causes why independence has not been so universally
supported as it ought, are fear and indolence, and the causes why it
has been opposed, are, avarice, down-right villany, and lust of personal
power. There is not such a being in America as a Tory from conscience;
some secret defect or other is interwoven in the character of all those,
be they men or women, who can look with patience on the brutality,
luxury and debauchery of the British court, and the violations of their
army here. A woman's virtue must sit very lightly on her who can even
hint a favorable sentiment in their behalf. It is remarkable that the
whole race of prostitutes in New York were tories; and the schemes for
supporting the Tory cause in this city, for which several are now
in jail, and one hanged, were concerted and carried on in common
bawdy-houses, assisted by those who kept them.

The connection between vice and meanness is a fit subject for satire,
but when the satire is a fact, it cuts with the irresistible power of a
diamond. If a Quaker, in defence of his just rights, his property,
and the chastity of his house, takes up a musket, he is expelled the
meeting; but the present king of England, who seduced and took into
keeping a sister of their society, is reverenced and supported by
repeated Testimonies, while, the friendly noodle from whom she was taken
(and who is now in this city) continues a drudge in the service of his
rival, as if proud of being cuckolded by a creature called a king.

Our support and success depend on such a variety of men and
circumstances, that every one who does but wish well, is of some use:
there are men who have a strange aversion to arms, yet have hearts to
risk every shilling in the cause, or in support of those who have better
talents for defending it. Nature, in the arrangement of mankind, has
fitted some for every service in life: were all soldiers, all would
starve and go naked, and were none soldiers, all would be slaves. As
disaffection to independence is the badge of a Tory, so affection to
it is the mark of a Whig; and the different services of the Whigs, down
from those who nobly contribute every thing, to those who have nothing
to render but their wishes, tend all to the same center, though with
different degrees of merit and ability. The larger we make the circle,
the more we shall harmonize, and the stronger we shall be. All we want
to shut out is disaffection, and, that excluded, we must accept from
each other such duties as we are best fitted to bestow. A narrow system
of politics, like a narrow system of religion, is calculated only to
sour the temper, and be at variance with mankind.

All we want to know in America is simply this, who is for independence,
and who is not? Those who are for it, will support it, and the remainder
will undoubtedly see the reasonableness of paying the charges; while
those who oppose or seek to betray it, must expect the more rigid fate
of the jail and the gibbet. There is a bastard kind of generosity, which
being extended to all men, is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the
want of true generosity is on the other. A lax manner of administering
justice, falsely termed moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit
public virtue, and promote the growth of public evils. Had the late
committee of safety taken cognizance of the last Testimony of the
Quakers and proceeded against such delinquents as were concerned
therein, they had, probably, prevented the treasonable plans which
have been concerted since. When one villain is suffered to escape, it
encourages another to proceed, either from a hope of escaping likewise,
or an apprehension that we dare not punish. It has been a matter of
general surprise, that no notice was taken of the incendiary publication
of the Quakers, of the 20th of November last; a publication evidently
intended to promote sedition and treason, and encourage the enemy, who
were then within a day's march of this city, to proceed on and possess
it. I here present the reader with a memorial which was laid before the
board of safety a few days after the Testimony appeared. Not a member of
that board, that I conversed with, but expressed the highest detestation
of the perverted principles and conduct of the Quaker junto, and a wish
that the board would take the matter up; notwithstanding which, it was
suffered to pass away unnoticed, to the encouragement of new acts of
treason, the general danger of the cause, and the disgrace of the state.



        To the honorable the Council of Safety of the State of
                            Pennsylvania.

At a meeting of a reputable number of the inhabitants of the city of
Philadelphia, impressed with a proper sense of the justice of the cause
which this continent is engaged in, and animated with a generous fervor
for supporting the same, it was resolved, that the following be laid
before the board of safety:

"We profess liberality of sentiment to all men; with this distinction
only, that those who do not deserve it would become wise and seek
to deserve it. We hold the pure doctrines of universal liberty of
conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to secure that sacred
right to others, as well as to defend it for ourselves; for we undertake
not to judge of the religious rectitude of tenets, but leave the whole
matter to Him who made us.

"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any
man for religion's sake; our common relation to others being that of
fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single community; and in this
line of connection we hold out the right hand of fellowship to all men.
But we should conceive ourselves to be unworthy members of the free and
independent States of America, were we unconcernedly to see or to suffer
any treasonable wound, public or private, directly or indirectly, to be
given against the peace and safety of the same. We inquire not into the
rank of the offenders, nor into their religious persuasion; we have no
business with either, our part being only to find them out and exhibit
them to justice.

"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John
Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has lately
been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had the framers
and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to exhort the youth
and others of their society, to a patient submission under the present
trying visitations, and humbly to wait the event of heaven towards them,
they had therein shown a Christian temper, and we had been silent; but
the anger and political virulence with which their instructions are
given, and the abuse with which they stigmatize all ranks of men not
thinking like themselves, leave no doubt on our minds from what spirit
their publication proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure cause of
truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred import, and play
them off as mechanically as if religion consisted only in contrivance.
We know of no instance in which the Quakers have been compelled to bear
arms, or to do any thing which might strain their conscience; wherefore
their advice, 'to withstand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary
instructions and ordinances of men,' appear to us a false alarm, and
could only be treasonably calculated to gain favor with our enemies,
when they are seemingly on the brink of invading this State, or, what
is still worse, to weaken the hands of our defence, that their entrance
into this city might be made practicable and easy.

"We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders;
and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner of
treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the two
following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous persons in
some cases; and, secondly, by only a passionate treatment of them in
others. For the future we disown both, and wish to be steady in our
proceedings, and serious in our punishments.

"Every State in America has, by the repeated voice of its inhabitants,
directed and authorized the Continental Congress to publish a formal
Declaration of Independence of, and separation from, the oppressive king
and Parliament of Great Britain; and we look on every man as an
enemy, who does not in some line or other, give his assistance towards
supporting the same; at the same time we consider the offence to be
heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when such persons,
under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or
otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence
of this continent as declared by Congress.

"The publishers of the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' have called in a
loud manner to their friends and connections, 'to withstand or refuse'
obedience to whatever 'instructions or ordinances' may be published, not
warranted by (what they call) 'that happy Constitution under which they
and others long enjoyed tranquillity and peace.' If this be not treason,
we know not what may properly be called by that name.

"To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with the
word 'peace, peace,' continually on their lips, should be so fond of
living under and supporting a government, and at the same time calling
it 'happy,' which is never better pleased than when a war--that has
filled India with carnage and famine, Africa with slavery, and tampered
with Indians and negroes to cut the throats of the freemen of America.
We conceive it a disgrace to this State, to harbor or wink at such
palpable hypocrisy. But as we seek not to hurt the hair of any man's
head, when we can make ourselves safe without, we wish such persons to
restore peace to themselves and us, by removing themselves to some part
of the king of Great Britain's dominions, as by that means they may live
unmolested by us and we by them; for our fixed opinion is, that those
who do not deserve a place among us, ought not to have one.

"We conclude with requesting the Council of Safety to take into
consideration the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' and if it shall appear
to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of a treasonable nature, that
they would commit the signer, together with such other persons as they
can discover were concerned therein, into custody, until such time as
some mode of trial shall ascertain the full degree of their guilt and
punishment; in the doing of which, we wish their judges, whoever
they may be, to disregard the man, his connections, interest, riches,
poverty, or principles of religion, and to attend to the nature of his
offence only."



The most cavilling sectarian cannot accuse the foregoing with containing
the least ingredient of persecution. The free spirit on which the
American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an impurity, and
leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel
in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and
flourish together. Had the Quakers minded their religion and their
business, they might have lived through this dispute in enviable ease,
and none would have molested them. The common phrase with these people
is, 'Our principles are peace.' To which may be replied, and your
practices are the reverse; for never did the conduct of men oppose their
own doctrine more notoriously than the present race of the Quakers. They
have artfully changed themselves into a different sort of people to what
they used to be, and yet have the address to persuade each other that
they are not altered; like antiquated virgins, they see not the havoc
deformity has made upon them, but pleasantly mistaking wrinkles for
dimples, conceive themselves yet lovely and wonder at the stupid world
for not admiring them.

Did no injury arise to the public by this apostacy of the Quakers from
themselves, the public would have nothing to do with it; but as both the
design and consequences are pointed against a cause in which the whole
community are interested, it is therefore no longer a subject confined
to the cognizance of the meeting only, but comes, as a matter of
criminality, before the authority either of the particular State in
which it is acted, or of the continent against which it operates. Every
attempt, now, to support the authority of the king and Parliament of
Great Britain over America, is treason against every State; therefore
it is impossible that any one can pardon or screen from punishment an
offender against all.

But to proceed: while the infatuated Tories of this and other States
were last spring talking of commissioners, accommodation, making the
matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their good king
and ministry were glutting themselves with the revenge of reducing
America to unconditional submission, and solacing each other with the
certainty of conquering it in one campaign. The following quotations are
from the parliamentary register of the debate's of the House of Lords,
March 5th, 1776:

"The Americans," says Lord Talbot,* "have been obstinate, undutiful, and
ungovernable from the very beginning, from their first early and infant
settlements; and I am every day more and more convinced that this people
never will be brought back to their duty, and the subordinate relation
they stand in to this country, till reduced to unconditional, effectual
submission; no concession on our part, no lenity, no endurance, will
have any other effect but that of increasing their insolence."


     * Steward of the king's household.

"The struggle," says Lord Townsend,* "is now a struggle for power; the
die is cast, and the only point which now remains to be determined is,
in what manner the war can be most effectually prosecuted and speedily
finished, in order to procure that unconditional submission, which has
been so ably stated by the noble Earl with the white staff" (meaning
Lord Talbot;) "and I have no reason to doubt that the measures now
pursuing will put an end to the war in the course of a single campaign.
Should it linger longer, we shall then have reason to expect that
some foreign power will interfere, and take advantage of our domestic
troubles and civil distractions."


     * Formerly General Townsend, at Quebec, and late lord-lieutenant of
Ireland.

Lord Littleton. "My sentiments are pretty well known. I shall only
observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to
produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher
America rose in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It
is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive
measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us, but to
relinquish America for ever, or finally determine to compel her to
acknowledge the legislative authority of this country; and it is the
principle of an unconditional submission I would be for maintaining."

Can words be more expressive than these? Surely the Tories will believe
the Tory lords! The truth is, they do believe them and know as fully as
any Whig on the continent knows, that the king and ministry never had
the least design of an accommodation with America, but an absolute,
unconditional conquest. And the part which the Tories were to act, was,
by downright lying, to endeavor to put the continent off its guard, and
to divide and sow discontent in the minds of such Whigs as they might
gain an influence over. In short, to keep up a distraction here, that
the force sent from England might be able to conquer in "one campaign."
They and the ministry were, by a different game, playing into each
other's hands. The cry of the Tories in England was, "No reconciliation,
no accommodation," in order to obtain the greater military force;
while those in America were crying nothing but "reconciliation and
accommodation," that the force sent might conquer with the less
resistance.

But this "single campaign" is over, and America not conquered. The
whole work is yet to do, and the force much less to do it with. Their
condition is both despicable and deplorable: out of cash--out of heart,
and out of hope. A country furnished with arms and ammunition as America
now is, with three millions of inhabitants, and three thousand miles
distant from the nearest enemy that can approach her, is able to look
and laugh them in the face.

Howe appears to have two objects in view, either to go up the North
River, or come to Philadelphia.

By going up the North River, he secures a retreat for his army through
Canada, but the ships must return if they return at all, the same way
they went; as our army would be in the rear, the safety of their passage
down is a doubtful matter. By such a motion he shuts himself from all
supplies from Europe, but through Canada, and exposes his army and
navy to the danger of perishing. The idea of his cutting off the
communication between the eastern and southern states, by means of
the North River, is merely visionary. He cannot do it by his shipping;
because no ship can lay long at anchor in any river within reach of the
shore; a single gun would drive a first rate from such a station. This
was fully proved last October at Forts Washington and Lee, where one
gun only, on each side of the river, obliged two frigates to cut and
be towed off in an hour's time. Neither can he cut it off by his army;
because the several posts they must occupy would divide them almost
to nothing, and expose them to be picked up by ours like pebbles on a
river's bank; but admitting that he could, where is the injury? Because,
while his whole force is cantoned out, as sentries over the water, they
will be very innocently employed, and the moment they march into the
country the communication opens.

The most probable object is Philadelphia, and the reasons are many.
Howe's business is to conquer it, and in proportion as he finds himself
unable to the task, he will employ his strength to distress women and
weak minds, in order to accomplish through their fears what he cannot
accomplish by his own force. His coming or attempting to come to
Philadelphia is a circumstance that proves his weakness: for no general
that felt himself able to take the field and attack his antagonist would
think of bringing his army into a city in the summer time; and this mere
shifting the scene from place to place, without effecting any thing,
has feebleness and cowardice on the face of it, and holds him up in a
contemptible light to all who can reason justly and firmly. By several
informations from New York, it appears that their army in general, both
officers and men, have given up the expectation of conquering America;
their eye now is fixed upon the spoil. They suppose Philadelphia to be
rich with stores, and as they think to get more by robbing a town than
by attacking an army, their movement towards this city is probable. We
are not now contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band
of thieves, who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of
conquest than by cruelty.

They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic, by
making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but unless
they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command of the
river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be stopped with
the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded wherever they
have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston their defeat
was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every skirmish at
Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to retreat, and the
instant that our arms were turned upon them in the Jerseys, they turned
likewise, and those that turned not were taken.

The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the circumstances
of the times we live in, is something so strikingly obvious, that no
sufficient objection can be made against it. The safety of all
societies depends upon it; and where this point is not attended to,
the consequences will either be a general languor or a tumult. The
encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any state, and the
suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the principal objects for
which all authority is instituted, and the line in which it ought to
operate. We have in this city a strange variety of men and characters,
and the circumstances of the times require that they should be publicly
known; it is not the number of Tories that hurt us, so much as the not
finding out who they are; men must now take one side or the other, and
abide by the consequences: the Quakers, trusting to their short-sighted
sagacity, have, most unluckily for them, made their declaration in their
last Testimony, and we ought now to take them at their word. They have
involuntarily read themselves out of the continental meeting, and cannot
hope to be restored to it again but by payment and penitence. Men whose
political principles are founded on avarice, are beyond the reach
of reason, and the only cure of Toryism of this cast is to tax it.
A substantial good drawn from a real evil, is of the same benefit to
society, as if drawn from a virtue; and where men have not public spirit
to render themselves serviceable, it ought to be the study of government
to draw the best use possible from their vices. When the governing
passion of any man, or set of men, is once known, the method of managing
them is easy; for even misers, whom no public virtue can impress, would
become generous, could a heavy tax be laid upon covetousness.

The Tories have endeavored to insure their property with the enemy, by
forfeiting their reputation with us; from which may be justly inferred,
that their governing passion is avarice. Make them as much afraid of
losing on one side as on the other, and you stagger their Toryism; make
them more so, and you reclaim them; for their principle is to worship
the power which they are most afraid of.

This method of considering men and things together, opens into a large
field for speculation, and affords me an opportunity of offering some
observations on the state of our currency, so as to make the support
of it go hand in hand with the suppression of disaffection and the
encouragement of public spirit.

The thing which first presents itself in inspecting the state of the
currency, is, that we have too much of it, and that there is a necessity
of reducing the quantity, in order to increase the value. Men are daily
growing poor by the very means that they take to get rich; for in the
same proportion that the prices of all goods on hand are raised, the
value of all money laid by is reduced. A simple case will make this
clear; let a man have 100 L. in cash, and as many goods on hand as will
to-day sell for 20 L.; but not content with the present market price,
he raises them to 40 L. and by so doing obliges others, in their own
defence, to raise cent. per cent. likewise; in this case it is evident
that his hundred pounds laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value;
whereas, had the market lowered cent. per cent., his goods would have
sold but for ten, but his hundred pounds would have risen in value to
two hundred; because it would then purchase as many goods again, or
support his family as long again as before. And, strange as it may seem,
he is one hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, to
what he would have been had he lowered them; because the forty pounds
which his goods sold for, is, by the general raise of the market cent.
per cent., rendered of no more value than the ten pounds would be had
the market fallen in the same proportion; and, consequently, the whole
difference of gain or loss is on the difference in value of the hundred
pounds laid by, viz. from fifty to two hundred. This rage for raising
goods is for several reasons much more the fault of the Tories than the
Whigs; and yet the Tories (to their shame and confusion ought they to
be told of it) are by far the most noisy and discontented. The greatest
part of the Whigs, by being now either in the army or employed in some
public service, are buyers only and not sellers, and as this evil has
its origin in trade, it cannot be charged on those who are out of it.

But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied by partial
methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the quantity of money:
with half the quantity we should be richer than we are now, because
the value of it would be doubled, and consequently our attachment to it
increased; for it is not the number of dollars that a man has, but how
far they will go, that makes him either rich or poor. These two points
being admitted, viz. that the quantity of money is too great, and that
the prices of goods can only be effectually reduced by, reducing the
quantity of the money, the next point to be considered is, the method
how to reduce it.

The circumstances of the times, as before observed, require that the
public characters of all men should now be fully understood, and the
only general method of ascertaining it is by an oath or affirmation,
renouncing all allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and to support
the independence of the United States, as declared by Congress. Let, at
the same time, a tax of ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. per annum, to
be collected quarterly, be levied on all property. These alternatives,
by being perfectly voluntary, will take in all sorts of people. Here
is the test; here is the tax. He who takes the former, conscientiously
proves his affection to the cause, and binds himself to pay his quota
by the best services in his power, and is thereby justly exempt from the
latter; and those who choose the latter, pay their quota in money, to be
excused from the former, or rather, it is the price paid to us for their
supposed, though mistaken, insurance with the enemy.

But this is only a part of the advantage which would arise by knowing
the different characters of men. The Whigs stake everything on the issue
of their arms, while the Tories, by their disaffection, are sapping and
undermining their strength; and, of consequence, the property of the
Whigs is the more exposed thereby; and whatever injury their estates
may sustain by the movements of the enemy, must either be borne by
themselves, who have done everything which has yet been done, or by the
Tories, who have not only done nothing, but have, by their disaffection,
invited the enemy on.

In the present crisis we ought to know, square by square and house by
house, who are in real allegiance with the United Independent States,
and who are not. Let but the line be made clear and distinct, and all
men will then know what they are to trust to. It would not only be
good policy but strict justice, to raise fifty or one hundred thousand
pounds, or more, if it is necessary, out of the estates and property
of the king of England's votaries, resident in Philadelphia, to be
distributed, as a reward to those inhabitants of the city and State, who
should turn out and repulse the enemy, should they attempt to march this
way; and likewise, to bind the property of all such persons to make
good the damages which that of the Whigs might sustain. In the
undistinguishable mode of conducting a war, we frequently make reprisals
at sea, on the vessels of persons in England, who are friends to our
cause compared with the resident Tories among us.

In every former publication of mine, from Common Sense down to the last
Crisis, I have generally gone on the charitable supposition, that the
Tories were rather a mistaken than a criminal people, and have applied
argument after argument, with all the candor and temper which I was
capable of, in order to set every part of the case clearly and fairly
before them, and if possible to reclaim them from ruin to reason. I have
done my duty by them and have now done with that doctrine, taking it for
granted, that those who yet hold their disaffection are either a set
of avaricious miscreants, who would sacrifice the continent to save
themselves, or a banditti of hungry traitors, who are hoping for
a division of the spoil. To which may be added, a list of crown or
proprietary dependants, who, rather than go without a portion of power,
would be content to share it with the devil. Of such men there is no
hope; and their obedience will only be according to the danger set
before them, and the power that is exercised over them.

A time will shortly arrive, in which, by ascertaining the characters of
persons now, we shall be guarded against their mischiefs then; for in
proportion as the enemy despair of conquest, they will be trying the
arts of seduction and the force of fear by all the mischiefs which they
can inflict. But in war we may be certain of these two things, viz. that
cruelty in an enemy, and motions made with more than usual parade, are
always signs of weakness. He that can conquer, finds his mind too free
and pleasant to be brutish; and he that intends to conquer, never makes
too much show of his strength.

We now know the enemy we have to do with. While drunk with the
certainty of victory, they disdained to be civil; and in proportion as
disappointment makes them sober, and their apprehensions of an European
war alarm them, they will become cringing and artful; honest they cannot
be. But our answer to them, in either condition they may be in, is short
and full--"As free and independent States we are willing to make peace
with you to-morrow, but we neither can hear nor reply in any other
character."

If Britain cannot conquer us, it proves that she is neither able to
govern nor protect us, and our particular situation now is such, that
any connection with her would be unwisely exchanging a half-defeated
enemy for two powerful ones. Europe, by every appearance, is now on the
eve, nay, on the morning twilight of a war, and any alliance with George
the Third brings France and Spain upon our backs; a separation from him
attaches them to our side; therefore, the only road to peace, honor and
commerce is Independence.

Written this fourth year of the UNION, which God preserve.

                                            COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1777.




THE CRISIS IV. (THOSE WHO EXPECT TO REAP THE BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM)


THOSE who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men,
undergo the fatigues of supporting it. The event of yesterday was one
of those kind of alarms which is just sufficient to rouse us to duty,
without being of consequence enough to depress our fortitude. It is not
a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending,
and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the
consequences will be the same.

Look back at the events of last winter and the present year, there you
will find that the enemy's successes always contributed to reduce them.
What they have gained in ground, they paid so dearly for in numbers,
that their victories have in the end amounted to defeats. We have always
been masters at the last push, and always shall be while we do our duty.
Howe has been once on the banks of the Delaware, and from thence driven
back with loss and disgrace: and why not be again driven from the
Schuylkill? His condition and ours are very different. He has everybody
to fight, we have only his one army to cope with, and which wastes away
at every engagement: we can not only reinforce, but can redouble our
numbers; he is cut off from all supplies, and must sooner or later
inevitably fall into our hands.

Shall a band of ten or twelve thousand robbers, who are this day fifteen
hundred or two thousand men less in strength than they were yesterday,
conquer America, or subdue even a single state? The thing cannot be,
unless we sit down and suffer them to do it. Another such a brush,
notwithstanding we lost the ground, would, by still reducing the enemy,
put them in a condition to be afterwards totally defeated. Could our
whole army have come up to the attack at one time, the consequences
had probably been otherwise; but our having different parts of
the Brandywine creek to guard, and the uncertainty which road to
Philadelphia the enemy would attempt to take, naturally afforded them an
opportunity of passing with their main body at a place where only a
part of ours could be posted; for it must strike every thinking man with
conviction, that it requires a much greater force to oppose an enemy in
several places, than is sufficient to defeat him in any one place.

Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern
at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the
natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the
want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they
soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and
fortitude, will, in a little time, supply the place of every inferior
passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism.

There is a mystery in the countenance of some causes, which we have not
always present judgment enough to explain. It is distressing to see an
enemy advancing into a country, but it is the only place in which we can
beat them, and in which we have always beaten them, whenever they made
the attempt. The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer
it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together,
and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead.

There are many men who will do their duty when it is not wanted; but a
genuine public spirit always appears most when there is most occasion
for it. Thank God! our army, though fatigued, is yet entire. The attack
made by us yesterday, was under many disadvantages, naturally arising
from the uncertainty of knowing which route the enemy would take; and,
from that circumstance, the whole of our force could not be brought
up together time enough to engage all at once. Our strength is yet
reserved; and it is evident that Howe does not think himself a gainer by
the affair, otherwise he would this morning have moved down and attacked
General Washington.

Gentlemen of the city and country, it is in your power, by a spirited
improvement of the present circumstance, to turn it to a real advantage.
Howe is now weaker than before, and every shot will contribute to reduce
him. You are more immediately interested than any other part of the
continent: your all is at stake; it is not so with the general cause;
you are devoted by the enemy to plunder and destruction: it is the
encouragement which Howe, the chief of plunderers, has promised his
army. Thus circumstanced, you may save yourselves by a manly resistance,
but you can have no hope in any other conduct. I never yet knew our
brave general, or any part of the army, officers or men, out of heart,
and I have seen them in circumstances a thousand times more trying than
the present. It is only those that are not in action, that feel languor
and heaviness, and the best way to rub it off is to turn out, and make
sure work of it.

Our army must undoubtedly feel fatigue, and want a reinforcement of rest
though not of valor. Our own interest and happiness call upon us to
give them every support in our power, and make the burden of the day, on
which the safety of this city depends, as light as possible. Remember,
gentlemen, that we have forces both to the northward and southward of
Philadelphia, and if the enemy be but stopped till those can arrive,
this city will be saved, and the enemy finally routed. You have too much
at stake to hesitate. You ought not to think an hour upon the matter,
but to spring to action at once. Other states have been invaded, have
likewise driven off the invaders. Now our time and turn is come, and
perhaps the finishing stroke is reserved for us. When we look back on
the dangers we have been saved from, and reflect on the success we have
been blessed with, it would be sinful either to be idle or to despair.

I close this paper with a short address to General Howe. You, sir, are
only lingering out the period that shall bring with it your defeat.
You have yet scarce began upon the war, and the further you enter, the
faster will your troubles thicken. What you now enjoy is only a respite
from ruin; an invitation to destruction; something that will lead on to
our deliverance at your expense. We know the cause which we are engaged
in, and though a passionate fondness for it may make us grieve at every
injury which threatens it, yet, when the moment of concern is over, the
determination to duty returns. We are not moved by the gloomy smile of a
worthless king, but by the ardent glow of generous patriotism. We fight
not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the
earth for honest men to live in. In such a case we are sure that we are
right; and we leave to you the despairing reflection of being the tool
of a miserable tyrant.

                                           COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 12, 1777.




THE CRISIS. V. TO GEN. SIR WILLIAM HOWE.


TO argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason,
and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like
administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist
by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting.
It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you these honors,
in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master.

As the generosity of this country rewarded your brother's services
in the last war, with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, it is
consistent that she should bestow some mark of distinction upon you. You
certainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous place in the catalogue
of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be a pity to pass you from the
world in state, and consign you to magnificent oblivion among the tombs,
without telling the future beholder why. Judas is as much known as John,
yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions.

Sir William has undoubtedly merited a monument; but of what kind, or
with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a question
that would puzzle all the heralds of St. James's in the profoundest mood
of historical deliberation. We are at no loss, sir, to ascertain your
real character, but somewhat perplexed how to perpetuate its identity,
and preserve it uninjured from the transformations of time or mistake.
A statuary may give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with
some equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into reputation
and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Ill nature or ridicule
may conspire, or a variety of accidents combine to lessen, enlarge, or
change Sir William's fame; and no doubt but he who has taken so much
pains to be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular
in his exit, his monument and his epitaph.

The usual honors of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently sublime
to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and ashes; for
however men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or of government here,
the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death is not the monarch
of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses
a subject, and, like the foolish king you serve, will, in the end, war
himself out of all his dominions.

As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your funeral honors,
we readily admit of your new rank of knighthood. The title is perfectly
in character, and is your own, more by merit than creation. There are
knights of various orders, from the knight of the windmill to the knight
of the post. The former is your patron for exploits, and the latter will
assist you in settling your accounts. No honorary title could be more
happily applied! The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has
discovered more genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the
most finished figure for a button, or descanting on the properties of a
button mould.

But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary is
exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument. America is
anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes to do it in
a manner that shall distinguish you from all the deceased heroes of the
last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the
present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath outlived the science
of deciphering it. Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to
immortalize the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks
to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no
ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and
cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens
that the simple genius of America has discovered the art of preserving
bodies, and embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than
the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure
as Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all the
mummies of Egypt.

As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by
numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved an
"here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere affectation in you
to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of mankind respecting you.
What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For
he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite of himself, like a
man listening to his own reproach.

Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection of the
curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions. The
character of Sir William has undergone some extraordinary revolutions.
since his arrival in America. It is now fixed and known; and we
have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from your capacity.
Indolence and inability have too large a share in your composition, ever
to suffer you to be anything more than the hero of little villainies and
unfinished adventures. That, which to some persons appeared moderation
in you at first, was not produced by any real virtue of your own, but
by a contrast of passions, dividing and holding you in perpetual
irresolution. One vice will frequently expel another, without the least
merit in the man; as powers in contrary directions reduce each other to
rest.

It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of character;
to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by an
obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have exhibited on
all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of conduct, that while
we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we might admire in you the
sincerity of a man. You came to America under the high sounding titles
of commander and commissioner; not only to suppress what you call
rebellion, by arms, but to shame it out of countenance by the excellence
of your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of low and
vulgar frauds, the encourager of Indian cruelties; and have imported a
cargo of vices blacker than those which you pretend to suppress.

Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of right and
wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations
and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of meanness. In
the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution,
they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to
their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance nor apology. It is
generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices, and is of such a
hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it. Sir William, the
commissioner of George the Third, has at last vouchsafed to give it
rank and pedigree. He has placed the fugitive at the council board, and
dubbed it companion of the order of knighthood.

The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this description, is
forgery. You, sir, have abetted and patronized the forging and uttering
counterfeit continental bills. In the same New York newspapers in which
your own proclamation under your master's authority was published,
offering, or pretending to offer, pardon and protection to these states,
there were repeated advertisements of counterfeit money for sale, and
persons who have come officially from you, and under the sanction of
your flag, have been taken up in attempting to put them off.

A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without precedent or
pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or enemies, will unite
in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society, which nothing can
excuse or palliate,--an improvement upon beggarly villany--and shows an
inbred wretchedness of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a
serpent and the spiteful imbecility of an inferior reptile.

The laws of any civilized country would condemn you to the gibbet
without regard to your rank or titles, because it is an action foreign
to the usage and custom of war; and should you fall into our hands,
which pray God you may, it will be a doubtful matter whether we are to
consider you as a military prisoner or a prisoner for felony.

Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and impolitic in you, or any other
persons in the English service, to promote or even encourage, or wink
at the crime of forgery, in any case whatever. Because, as the riches of
England, as a nation, are chiefly in paper, and the far greater part of
trade among individuals is carried on by the same medium, that is, by
notes and drafts on one another, they, therefore, of all people in the
world, ought to endeavor to keep forgery out of sight, and, if possible,
not to revive the idea of it. It is dangerous to make men familiar with
a crime which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage
against those who first taught them. Several officers in the English
army have made their exit at the gallows for forgery on their agents;
for we all know, who know any thing of England, that there is not a more
necessitous body of men, taking them generally, than what the English
officers are. They contrive to make a show at the expense of the
tailors, and appear clean at the charge of the washer-women.

England, has at this time, nearly two hundred million pounds sterling
of public money in paper, for which she has no real property: besides a
large circulation of bank notes, bank post bills, and promissory notes
and drafts of private bankers, merchants and tradesmen. She has the
greatest quantity of paper currency and the least quantity of gold and
silver of any nation in Europe; the real specie, which is about sixteen
millions sterling, serves only as change in large sums, which are always
made in paper, or for payment in small ones. Thus circumstanced, the
nation is put to its wit's end, and obliged to be severe almost to
criminality, to prevent the practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely
a session passes at the Old Bailey, or an execution at Tyburn, but
witnesses this truth, yet you, sir, regardless of the policy which her
necessity obliges her to adopt, have made your whole army intimate with
the crime. And as all armies at the conclusion of a war, are too apt to
carry into practice the vices of the campaign, it will probably happen,
that England will hereafter abound in forgeries, to which art the
practitioners were first initiated under your authority in America. You,
sir, have the honor of adding a new vice to the military catalogue; and
the reason, perhaps, why the invention was reserved for you, is, because
no general before was mean enough even to think of it.

That a man whose soul is absorbed in the low traffic of vulgar vice, is
incapable of moving in any superior region, is clearly shown in you by
the event of every campaign. Your military exploits have been without
plan, object or decision. Can it be possible that you or your employers
suppose that the possession of Philadelphia will be any ways equal
to the expense or expectation of the nation which supports you? What
advantages does England derive from any achievements of yours? To her it
is perfectly indifferent what place you are in, so long as the business
of conquest is unperformed and the charge of maintaining you remains the
same.

If the principal events of the three campaigns be attended to, the
balance will appear against you at the close of each; but the last, in
point of importance to us, has exceeded the former two. It is pleasant
to look back on dangers past, and equally as pleasant to meditate on
present ones when the way out begins to appear. That period is now
arrived, and the long doubtful winter of war is changing to the sweeter
prospects of victory and joy. At the close of the campaign, in 1775, you
were obliged to retreat from Boston. In the summer of 1776, you appeared
with a numerous fleet and army in the harbor of New York. By what
miracle the continent was preserved in that season of danger is a
subject of admiration! If instead of wasting your time against Long
Island you had run up the North River, and landed any where above
New York, the consequence must have been, that either you would have
compelled General Washington to fight you with very unequal numbers, or
he must have suddenly evacuated the city with the loss of nearly all
the stores of his army, or have surrendered for want of provisions; the
situation of the place naturally producing one or the other of these
events.

The preparations made to defend New York were, nevertheless, wise and
military; because your forces were then at sea, their numbers uncertain;
storms, sickness, or a variety of accidents might have disabled their
coming, or so diminished them on their passage, that those which
survived would have been incapable of opening the campaign with
any prospect of success; in which case the defence would have been
sufficient and the place preserved; for cities that have been raised
from nothing with an infinitude of labor and expense, are not to be
thrown away on the bare probability of their being taken. On these
grounds the preparations made to maintain New York were as judicious
as the retreat afterwards. While you, in the interim, let slip the very
opportunity which seemed to put conquest in your power.

Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double the forces
which General Washington immediately commanded. The principal plan at
that time, on our part, was to wear away the season with as little loss
as possible, and to raise the army for the next year. Long Island, New
York, Forts Washington and Lee were not defended after your superior
force was known under any expectation of their being finally maintained,
but as a range of outworks, in the attacking of which your time might be
wasted, your numbers reduced, and your vanity amused by possessing them
on our retreat. It was intended to have withdrawn the garrison from Fort
Washington after it had answered the former of those purposes, but
the fate of that day put a prize into your hands without much honor to
yourselves.

Your progress through the Jerseys was accidental; you had it not even
in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal part of your
forces to Rhode Island beforehand. The utmost hope of America in the
year 1776, reached no higher than that she might not then be conquered.
She had no expectation of defeating you in that campaign. Even the
most cowardly Tory allowed, that, could she withstand the shock of that
summer, her independence would be past a doubt. You had then greatly
the advantage of her. You were formidable. Your military knowledge
was supposed to be complete. Your fleets and forces arrived without an
accident. You had neither experience nor reinforcements to wait for.
You had nothing to do but to begin, and your chance lay in the first
vigorous onset.

America was young and unskilled. She was obliged to trust her defence to
time and practice; and has, by mere dint of perseverance, maintained her
cause, and brought the enemy to a condition, in which she is now capable
of meeting him on any grounds.

It is remarkable that in the campaign of 1776 you gained no more,
notwithstanding your great force, than what was given you by consent of
evacuation, except Fort Washington; while every advantage obtained by
us was by fair and hard fighting. The defeat of Sir Peter Parker was
complete. The conquest of the Hessians at Trenton, by the remains of a
retreating army, which but a few days before you affected to despise, is
an instance of their heroic perseverance very seldom to be met with.
And the victory over the British troops at Princeton, by a harassed and
wearied party, who had been engaged the day before and marched all night
without refreshment, is attended with such a scene of circumstances and
superiority of generalship, as will ever give it a place in the first
rank in the history of great actions.

When I look back on the gloomy days of last winter, and see America
suspended by a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at the recollection of
her delivery, and a reverence for the characters which snatched her
from destruction. To doubt now would be a species of infidelity, and to
forget the instruments which saved us then would be ingratitude.

The close of that campaign left us with the spirit of conquerors. The
northern districts were relieved by the retreat of General Carleton over
the lakes. The army under your command were hunted back and had their
bounds prescribed. The continent began to feel its military importance,
and the winter passed pleasantly away in preparations for the next
campaign.

However confident you might be on your first arrival, the result of the
year 1776 gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not impossibility of
conquest. To this reason I ascribe your delay in opening the campaign of
1777. The face of matters, on the close of the former year, gave you
no encouragement to pursue a discretionary war as soon as the spring
admitted the taking the field; for though conquest, in that case, would
have given you a double portion of fame, yet the experiment was too
hazardous. The ministry, had you failed, would have shifted the whole
blame upon you, charged you with having acted without orders, and
condemned at once both your plan and execution.

To avoid the misfortunes, which might have involved you and your money
accounts in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently waited the arrival
of a plan of operations from England, which was that you should proceed
for Philadelphia by way of the Chesapeake, and that Burgoyne, after
reducing Ticonderoga, should take his route by Albany, and, if
necessary, join you.

The splendid laurels of the last campaign have flourished in the north.
In that quarter America has surprised the world, and laid the foundation
of this year's glory. The conquest of Ticonderoga, (if it may be called
a conquest) has, like all your other victories, led on to ruin. Even the
provisions taken in that fortress (which by General Burgoyne's return
was sufficient in bread and flour for nearly 5000 men for ten weeks, and
in beef and pork for the same number of men for one month) served only
to hasten his overthrow, by enabling him to proceed to Saratoga, the
place of his destruction. A short review of the operations of the last
campaign will show the condition of affairs on both sides.

You have taken Ticonderoga and marched into Philadelphia. These are all
the events which the year has produced on your part. A trifling campaign
indeed, compared with the expenses of England and the conquest of the
continent. On the other side, a considerable part of your northern force
has been routed by the New York militia under General Herkemer. Fort
Stanwix has bravely survived a compound attack of soldiers and savages,
and the besiegers have fled. The Battle of Bennington has put a thousand
prisoners into our hands, with all their arms, stores, artillery and
baggage. General Burgoyne, in two engagements, has been defeated;
himself, his army, and all that were his and theirs are now ours.
Ticonderoga and Independence [forts] are retaken, and not the shadow of
an enemy remains in all the northern districts. At this instant we
have upwards of eleven thousand prisoners, between sixty and seventy
[captured] pieces of brass ordnance, besides small arms, tents, stores,
etc.

In order to know the real value of those advantages, we must reverse
the scene, and suppose General Gates and the force he commanded to be at
your mercy as prisoners, and General Burgoyne, with his army of soldiers
and savages, to be already joined to you in Pennsylvania. So dismal a
picture can scarcely be looked at. It has all the tracings and colorings
of horror and despair; and excites the most swelling emotions of
gratitude by exhibiting the miseries we are so graciously preserved
from.

I admire the distribution of laurels around the continent. It is the
earnest of future union. South Carolina has had her day of sufferings
and of fame; and the other southern States have exerted themselves in
proportion to the force that invaded or insulted them. Towards the close
of the campaign, in 1776, these middle States were called upon and did
their duty nobly. They were witnesses to the almost expiring flame of
human freedom. It was the close struggle of life and death, the line of
invisible division; and on which the unabated fortitude of a Washington
prevailed, and saved the spark that has since blazed in the north with
unrivalled lustre.

Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have you performed? Through all the
variety of changes and opportunities which the war has produced, I know
no one action of yours that can be styled masterly. You have moved in
and out, backward and forward, round and round, as if valor consisted in
a military jig. The history and figure of your movements would be truly
ridiculous could they be justly delineated. They resemble the labors of
a puppy pursuing his tail; the end is still at the same distance, and
all the turnings round must be done over again.

The first appearance of affairs at Ticonderoga wore such an unpromising
aspect, that it was necessary, in July, to detach a part of the forces
to the support of that quarter, which were otherwise destined or
intended to act against you; and this, perhaps, has been the means of
postponing your downfall to another campaign. The destruction of one
army at a time is work enough. We know, sir, what we are about, what we
have to do, and how to do it.

Your progress from the Chesapeake, was marked by no capital stroke of
policy or heroism. Your principal aim was to get General Washington
between the Delaware and Schuylkill, and between Philadelphia and your
army. In that situation, with a river on each of his flanks, which
united about five miles below the city, and your army above him, you
could have intercepted his reinforcements and supplies, cut off all
his communication with the country, and, if necessary, have despatched
assistance to open a passage for General Burgoyne. This scheme was too
visible to succeed: for had General Washington suffered you to command
the open country above him, I think it a very reasonable conjecture that
the conquest of Burgoyne would not have taken place, because you could,
in that case, have relieved him. It was therefore necessary, while that
important victory was in suspense, to trepan you into a situation in
which you could only be on the defensive, without the power of
affording him assistance. The manoeuvre had its effect, and Burgoyne was
conquered.

There has been something unmilitary and passive in you from the time of
your passing the Schuylkill and getting possession of Philadelphia,
to the close of the campaign. You mistook a trap for a conquest, the
probability of which had been made known to Europe, and the edge of your
triumph taken off by our own information long before.

Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a general attack upon
you at Germantown was carried into execution on the 4th of October, and
though the success was not equal to the excellence of the plan, yet the
attempting it proved the genius of America to be on the rise, and her
power approaching to superiority. The obscurity of the morning was your
best friend, for a fog is always favorable to a hunted enemy. Some weeks
after this you likewise planned an attack on General Washington while
at Whitemarsh. You marched out with infinite parade, but on finding him
preparing to attack you next morning, you prudently turned about, and
retreated to Philadelphia with all the precipitation of a man conquered
in imagination.

Immediately after the battle of Germantown, the probability of
Burgoyne's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania, and it
was judged most consistent with the general safety of America, to wait
the issue of the northern campaign. Slow and sure is sound work. The
news of that victory arrived in our camp on the 18th of October, and
no sooner did that shout of joy, and the report of the thirteen cannon
reach your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat, and the next day,
that is, on the 19th, you withdrew your drooping army into Philadelphia.
This movement was evidently dictated by fear; and carried with it a
positive confession that you dreaded a second attack. It was hiding
yourself among women and children, and sleeping away the choicest part
of the campaign in expensive inactivity. An army in a city can never
be a conquering army. The situation admits only of defence. It is mere
shelter: and every military power in Europe will conclude you to be
eventually defeated.

The time when you made this retreat was the very time you ought to have
fought a battle, in order to put yourself in condition of recovering in
Pennsylvania what you had lost in Saratoga. And the reason why you did
not, must be either prudence or cowardice; the former supposes your
inability, and the latter needs no explanation. I draw no conclusions,
sir, but such as are naturally deduced from known and visible facts,
and such as will always have a being while the facts which produced them
remain unaltered.

After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhibited the power of
Britain in a very contemptible light; which was the attack and defence
of Mud Island. For several weeks did that little unfinished fortress
stand out against all the attempts of Admiral and General Howe. It was
the fable of Bender realized on the Delaware. Scheme after scheme, and
force upon force were tried and defeated. The garrison, with scarce
anything to cover them but their bravery, survived in the midst of mud,
shot and shells, and were at last obliged to give it up more to the
powers of time and gunpowder than to military superiority of the
besiegers.

It is my sincere opinion that matters are in much worse condition with
you than what is generally known. Your master's speech at the opening of
Parliament, is like a soliloquy on ill luck. It shows him to be coming
a little to his reason, for sense of pain is the first symptom of
recovery, in profound stupefaction. His condition is deplorable. He is
obliged to submit to all the insults of France and Spain, without daring
to know or resent them; and thankful for the most trivial evasions to
the most humble remonstrances. The time was when he could not deign an
answer to a petition from America, and the time now is when he dare not
give an answer to an affront from France. The capture of Burgoyne's army
will sink his consequence as much in Europe as in America. In his speech
he expresses his suspicions at the warlike preparations of France and
Spain, and as he has only the one army which you command to support his
character in the world with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what
quarter it will be most wanted, or can be best employed; and this will
partly account for the great care you take to keep it from action and
attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it probably will,
England may take her endless farewell not only of all America but of all
the West Indies.

Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the eagerness and
the ignorance with which Britain has done. Bent upon the ruin of a
young and unoffending country, she has drawn the sword that has wounded
herself to the heart, and in the agony of her resentment has applied a
poison for a cure. Her conduct towards America is a compound of rage and
lunacy; she aims at the government of it, yet preserves neither dignity
nor character in her methods to obtain it. Were government a mere
manufacture or article of commerce, immaterial by whom it should be made
or sold, we might as well employ her as another, but when we consider
it as the fountain from whence the general manners and morality of a
country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution
thereof are by their serious example an authority to support these
principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter
governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury,
treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches
on earth could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall
any country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing
than to be delivered therefrom. The soul of any man of sentiment would
rise in brave rebellion against them, and spurn them from the earth.

The malignant and venomous tempered General Vaughan has amused his
savage fancy in burning the whole town of Kingston, in York government,
and the late governor of that state, Mr. Tryon, in his letter to General
Parsons, has endeavored to justify it and declared his wish to burn the
houses of every committeeman in the country. Such a confession from
one who was once intrusted with the powers of civil government, is a
reproach to the character. But it is the wish and the declaration of a
man whom anguish and disappointment have driven to despair, and who is
daily decaying into the grave with constitutional rottenness.

There is not in the compass of language a sufficiency of words to
express the baseness of your king, his ministry and his army. They
have refined upon villany till it wants a name. To the fiercer vices of
former ages they have added the dregs and scummings of the most finished
rascality, and are so completely sunk in serpentine deceit, that there
is not left among them one generous enemy.

From such men and such masters, may the gracious hand of Heaven preserve
America! And though the sufferings she now endures are heavy, and
severe, they are like straws in the wind compared to the weight of evils
she would feel under the government of your king, and his pensioned
Parliament.

There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment
that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart
to the highest agony of human hatred; Britain has filled up both these
characters till no addition can be made, and has not reputation left
with us to obtain credit for the slightest promise. The will of God has
parted us, and the deed is registered for eternity. When she shall be
a spot scarcely visible among the nations, America shall flourish the
favorite of heaven, and the friend of mankind.

For the domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the world, I
wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed within her own
island. Extent of dominion has been her ruin, and instead of civilizing
others has brutalized herself. Her late reduction of India, under Clive
and his successors, was not so properly a conquest as an extermination
of mankind. She is the only power who could practise the prodigal
barbarity of tying men to mouths of loaded cannon and blowing them away.
It happens that General Burgoyne, who made the report of that horrid
transaction, in the House of Commons, is now a prisoner with us,
and though an enemy, I can appeal to him for the truth of it, being
confident that he neither can nor will deny it. Yet Clive received the
approbation of the last Parliament.

When we take a survey of mankind, we cannot help cursing the wretch,
who, to the unavoidable misfortunes of nature, shall wilfully add the
calamities of war. One would think there were evils enough in the world
without studying to increase them, and that life is sufficiently short
without shaking the sand that measures it. The histories of Alexander,
and Charles of Sweden, are the histories of human devils; a good man
cannot think of their actions without abhorrence, nor of their deaths
without rejoicing. To see the bounties of heaven destroyed, the
beautiful face of nature laid waste, and the choicest works of creation
and art tumbled into ruin, would fetch a curse from the soul of piety
itself. But in this country the aggravation is heightened by a new
combination of affecting circumstances. America was young, and, compared
with other countries, was virtuous. None but a Herod of uncommon malice
would have made war upon infancy and innocence: and none but a people
of the most finished fortitude, dared under those circumstances, have
resisted the tyranny. The natives, or their ancestors, had fled from the
former oppressions of England, and with the industry of bees had changed
a wilderness into a habitable world. To Britain they were indebted for
nothing. The country was the gift of heaven, and God alone is their Lord
and Sovereign.

The time, sir, will come when you, in a melancholy hour, shall reckon up
your miseries by your murders in America. Life, with you, begins to wear
a clouded aspect. The vision of pleasurable delusion is wearing away,
and changing to the barren wild of age and sorrow. The poor reflection
of having served your king will yield you no consolation in your
parting moments. He will crumble to the same undistinguished ashes with
yourself, and have sins enough of his own to answer for. It is not the
farcical benedictions of a bishop, nor the cringing hypocrisy of a court
of chaplains, nor the formality of an act of Parliament, that can change
guilt into innocence, or make the punishment one pang the less. You may,
perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods
of Providence, this havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world
with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it.
To us they are only present sufferings, but to him they are deep
rebellions.

If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of wilful and
offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits,
that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension,
and many kinds of sins have only a mental existence from which no
infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the
whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
We leave it to England and Indians to boast of these honors; we feel no
thirst for such savage glory; a nobler flame, a purer spirit animates
America. She has taken up the sword of virtuous defence; she has bravely
put herself between Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse and a blessing,
determined to expel the one and protect the other.

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was
ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is
now engaged. She invaded no land of yours. She hired no mercenaries to
burn your towns, nor Indians to massacre their inhabitants. She
wanted nothing from you, and was indebted for nothing to you: and thus
circumstanced, her defence is honorable and her prosperity is certain.

Yet it is not on the justice only, but likewise on the importance of
this cause that I ground my seeming enthusiastical confidence of our
success. The vast extension of America makes her of too much value in
the scale of Providence, to be cast like a pearl before swine, at the
feet of an European island; and of much less consequence would it be
that Britain were sunk in the sea than that America should miscarry.
There has been such a chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of
this country at first, in the peopling and planting it afterwards, in
the rearing and nursing it to its present state, and in the protection
of it through the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence
has some nobler end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty
elector of Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Britain.

As the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Christian church,
so the political persecutions of England will and have already enriched
America with industry, experience, union, and importance. Before the
present era she was a mere chaos of uncemented colonies, individually
exposed to the ravages of the Indians and the invasion of any power that
Britain should be at war with. She had nothing that she could call her
own. Her felicity depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe
might have thrown her from one conqueror to another, till she had been
the slave of all, and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit
enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to which master
she should belong. That period, thank God, is past, and she is no longer
the dependent, disunited colonies of Britain, but the independent and
United States of America, knowing no master but heaven and herself. You,
or your king, may call this "delusion," "rebellion," or what name you
please. To us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the
character, and time will give it a name as lasting as his own.

You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can fully
declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part, but blows
and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and credit, and
an increase of poverty and taxes. You are now only where you might have
been two years ago, without the loss of a single ship, and yet not a
step more forward towards the conquest of the continent; because, as I
have already hinted, "an army in a city can never be a conquering army."
The full amount of your losses, since the beginning of the war, exceeds
twenty thousand men, besides millions of treasure, for which you have
nothing in exchange. Our expenses, though great, are circulated within
ourselves. Yours is a direct sinking of money, and that from both ends
at once; first, in hiring troops out of the nation, and in paying them
afterwards, because the money in neither case can return to Britain. We
are already in possession of the prize, you only in pursuit of it. To
us it is a real treasure, to you it would be only an empty triumph. Our
expenses will repay themselves with tenfold interest, while yours entail
upon you everlasting poverty.

Take a review, sir, of the ground which you have gone over, and let
it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but on a very
tottering foundation. A change of the ministry in England may probably
bring your measures into question, and your head to the block. Clive,
with all his successes, had some difficulty in escaping, and yours being
all a war of losses, will afford you less pretensions, and your enemies
more grounds for impeachment.

Go home, sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined country,
by a just representation of the madness of her measures. A few moments,
well applied, may yet preserve her from political destruction. I am not
one of those who wish to see Europe in a flame, because I am persuaded
that such an event will not shorten the war. The rupture, at present,
is confined between the two powers of America and England. England finds
that she cannot conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer
England. You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we
defending what we never mean to part with. A few words, therefore,
settle the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will mind
ours. Govern yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. You may then
trade where you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we
please unmolested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each
other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. If it were possible
that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must still come to
this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think of it the better
it will be for you.

My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults which
Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and the wretched
shifts that she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her reduced strength
and exhausted coffers in a three years' war with America, has given a
powerful superiority to France and Spain. She is not now a match
for them. But if neither councils can prevail on her to think, nor
sufferings awaken her to reason, she must e'en go on, till the honor of
England becomes a proverb of contempt, and Europe dub her the Land of
Fools.

I am, Sir, with every wish for an honorable peace,

            Your friend, enemy, and countryman,

                                       COMMON SENSE.



                    TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.

WITH all the pleasure with which a man exchanges bad company for good,
I take my leave of Sir William and return to you. It is now nearly three
years since the tyranny of Britain received its first repulse by the
arms of America. A period which has given birth to a new world, and
erected a monument to the folly of the old.

I cannot help being sometimes surprised at the complimentary references
which I have seen and heard made to ancient histories and transactions.
The wisdom, civil governments, and sense of honor of the states of
Greece and Rome, are frequently held up as objects of excellence and
imitation. Mankind have lived to very little purpose, if, at this period
of the world, they must go two or three thousand years back for lessons
and examples. We do great injustice to ourselves by placing them in such
a superior line. We have no just authority for it, neither can we tell
why it is that we should suppose ourselves inferior.

Could the mist of antiquity be cleared away, and men and things be
viewed as they really were, it is more than probable that they would
admire us, rather than we them. America has surmounted a greater variety
and combination of difficulties, than, I believe, ever fell to the share
of any one people, in the same space of time, and has replenished the
world with more useful knowledge and sounder maxims of civil government
than were ever produced in any age before. Had it not been for America,
there had been no such thing as freedom left throughout the whole
universe. England has lost hers in a long chain of right reasoning from
wrong principles, and it is from this country, now, that she must learn
the resolution to redress herself, and the wisdom how to accomplish it.

The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty
but not the principle, for at the time that they were determined not to
be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of
mankind. But this distinguished era is blotted by no one misanthropical
vice. In short, if the principle on which the cause is founded, the
universal blessings that are to arise from it, the difficulties that
accompanied it, the wisdom with which it has been debated, the fortitude
by which it has been supported, the strength of the power which we had
to oppose, and the condition in which we undertook it, be all taken
in one view, we may justly style it the most virtuous and illustrious
revolution that ever graced the history of mankind.

A good opinion of ourselves is exceedingly necessary in private life,
but absolutely necessary in public life, and of the utmost importance in
supporting national character. I have no notion of yielding the palm of
the United States to any Grecians or Romans that were ever born. We
have equalled the bravest in times of danger, and excelled the wisest in
construction of civil governments.

From this agreeable eminence let us take a review of present affairs.
The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with British
politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind are governed by the
same motives. They have no idea of a people submitting even to temporary
inconvenience from an attachment to rights and privileges. Their plans
of business are calculated by the hour and for the hour, and are uniform
in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth. They never had,
neither have they at this time, any regular plan for the conquest of
America by arms. They know not how to go about it, neither have they
power to effect it if they did know. The thing is not within the compass
of human practicability, for America is too extensive either to be fully
conquered or passively defended. But she may be actively defended by
defeating or making prisoners of the army that invades her. And this is
the only system of defence that can be effectual in a large country.

There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ
in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it
cannot tell whether the ground he gains be for him, or against him, when
he first obtains it. In the winter of 1776, General Howe marched with
an air of victory through the Jerseys, the consequence of which was his
defeat; and General Burgoyne at Saratoga experienced the same fate from
the same cause. The Spaniards, about two years ago, were defeated by
the Algerines in the same manner, that is, their first triumphs became
a trap in which they were totally routed. And whoever will attend to
the circumstances and events of a war carried on by invasion, will find,
that any invader, in order to be finally conquered must first begin to
conquer.

I confess myself one of those who believe the loss of Philadelphia to
be attended with more advantages than injuries. The case stood thus:
The enemy imagined Philadelphia to be of more importance to us than it
really was; for we all know that it had long ceased to be a port: not a
cargo of goods had been brought into it for near a twelvemonth, nor any
fixed manufactories, nor even ship-building, carried on in it; yet as
the enemy believed the conquest of it to be practicable, and to that
belief added the absurd idea that the soul of all America was centred
there, and would be conquered there, it naturally follows that their
possession of it, by not answering the end proposed, must break up the
plans they had so foolishly gone upon, and either oblige them to form a
new one, for which their present strength is not sufficient, or to give
over the attempt.

We never had so small an army to fight against, nor so fair an
opportunity of final success as now. The death wound is already given.
The day is ours if we follow it up. The enemy, by his situation, is
within our reach, and by his reduced strength is within our power. The
ministers of Britain may rage as they please, but our part is to conquer
their armies. Let them wrangle and welcome, but let, it not draw our
attention from the one thing needful. Here, in this spot is our own
business to be accomplished, our felicity secured. What we have now to
do is as clear as light, and the way to do it is as straight as a
line. It needs not to be commented upon, yet, in order to be perfectly
understood I will put a case that cannot admit of a mistake.

Had the armies under Generals Howe and Burgoyne been united, and taken
post at Germantown, and had the northern army under General Gates been
joined to that under General Washington, at Whitemarsh, the consequence
would have been a general action; and if in that action we had killed
and taken the same number of officers and men, that is, between nine and
ten thousand, with the same quantity of artillery, arms, stores, etc.,
as have been taken at the northward, and obliged General Howe with the
remains of his army, that is, with the same number he now commands, to
take shelter in Philadelphia, we should certainly have thought ourselves
the greatest heroes in the world; and should, as soon as the season
permitted, have collected together all the force of the continent and
laid siege to the city, for it requires a much greater force to besiege
an enemy in a town than to defeat him in the field. The case now is just
the same as if it had been produced by the means I have here supposed.
Between nine and ten thousand have been killed and taken, all their
stores are in our possession, and General Howe, in consequence of that
victory, has thrown himself for shelter into Philadelphia. He, or his
trifling friend Galloway, may form what pretences they please, yet no
just reason can be given for their going into winter quarters so early
as the 19th of October, but their apprehensions of a defeat if they
continued out, or their conscious inability of keeping the field with
safety. I see no advantage which can arise to America by hunting the
enemy from state to state. It is a triumph without a prize, and wholly
unworthy the attention of a people determined to conquer. Neither can
any state promise itself security while the enemy remains in a condition
to transport themselves from one part of the continent to another. Howe,
likewise, cannot conquer where we have no army to oppose, therefore any
such removals in him are mean and cowardly, and reduces Britain to a
common pilferer. If he retreats from Philadelphia, he will be despised;
if he stays, he may be shut up and starved out, and the country, if he
advances into it, may become his Saratoga. He has his choice of evils
and we of opportunities. If he moves early, it is not only a sign but a
proof that he expects no reinforcement, and his delay will prove that he
either waits for the arrival of a plan to go upon, or force to execute
it, or both; in which case our strength will increase more than his,
therefore in any case we cannot be wrong if we do but proceed.

The particular condition of Pennsylvania deserves the attention of all
the other States. Her military strength must not be estimated by
the number of inhabitants. Here are men of all nations, characters,
professions and interests. Here are the firmest Whigs, surviving,
like sparks in the ocean, unquenched and uncooled in the midst of
discouragement and disaffection. Here are men losing their all with
cheerfulness, and collecting fire and fortitude from the flames of their
own estates. Here are others skulking in secret, many making a market
of the times, and numbers who are changing to Whig or Tory with the
circumstances of every day.

It is by a mere dint of fortitude and perseverance that the Whigs of
this State have been able to maintain so good a countenance, and do even
what they have done. We want help, and the sooner it can arrive the more
effectual it will be. The invaded State, be it which it may, will always
feel an additional burden upon its back, and be hard set to support its
civil power with sufficient authority; and this difficulty will rise or
fall, in proportion as the other states throw in their assistance to the
common cause.

The enemy will most probably make many manoeuvres at the opening of this
campaign, to amuse and draw off the attention of the several States from
the one thing needful. We may expect to hear of alarms and pretended
expeditions to this place and that place, to the southward, the
eastward, and the northward, all intended to prevent our forming
into one formidable body. The less the enemy's strength is, the more
subtleties of this kind will they make use of. Their existence depends
upon it, because the force of America, when collected, is sufficient
to swallow their present army up. It is therefore our business to make
short work of it, by bending our whole attention to this one principal
point, for the instant that the main body under General Howe is
defeated, all the inferior alarms throughout the continent, like so many
shadows, will follow his downfall.

The only way to finish a war with the least possible bloodshed, or
perhaps without any, is to collect an army, against the power of which
the enemy shall have no chance. By not doing this, we prolong the war,
and double both the calamities and expenses of it. What a rich and happy
country would America be, were she, by a vigorous exertion, to reduce
Howe as she has reduced Burgoyne. Her currency would rise to millions
beyond its present value. Every man would be rich, and every man would
have it in his power to be happy. And why not do these things? What
is there to hinder? America is her own mistress and can do what she
pleases.

If we had not at this time a man in the field, we could, nevertheless,
raise an army in a few weeks sufficient to overwhelm all the force
which General Howe at present commands. Vigor and determination will do
anything and everything. We began the war with this kind of spirit, why
not end it with the same? Here, gentlemen, is the enemy. Here is the
army. The interest, the happiness of all America, is centred in this
half ruined spot. Come and help us. Here are laurels, come and share
them. Here are Tories, come and help us to expel them. Here are Whigs
that will make you welcome, and enemies that dread your coming.

The worst of all policies is that of doing things by halves. Penny-wise
and pound-foolish, has been the ruin of thousands. The present spring,
if rightly improved, will free us from our troubles, and save us
the expense of millions. We have now only one army to cope with. No
opportunity can be fairer; no prospect more promising. I shall conclude
this paper with a few outlines of a plan, either for filling up the
battalions with expedition, or for raising an additional force, for any
limited time, on any sudden emergency.

That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to support.
And any burden which falls equally on all men, and from which every
man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with the most perfect
ideas of liberty. I would wish to revive something of that virtuous
ambition which first called America into the field. Then every man was
eager to do his part, and perhaps the principal reason why we have in
any degree fallen therefrom, is because we did not set a right value by
it at first, but left it to blaze out of itself, instead of regulating
and preserving it by just proportions of rest and service.

Suppose any State whose number of effective inhabitants was 80,000,
should be required to furnish 3,200 men towards the defence of the
continent on any sudden emergency.

1st, Let the whole number of effective inhabitants be divided into
hundreds; then if each of those hundreds turn out four men, the whole
number of 3,200 will be had.

2d, Let the name of each hundred men be entered in a book, and let four
dollars be collected from each man, with as much more as any of the
gentlemen, whose abilities can afford it, shall please to throw in,
which gifts likewise shall be entered against the names of the donors.

3d, Let the sums so collected be offered as a present, over and above
the bounty of twenty dollars, to any four who may be inclined to propose
themselves as volunteers: if more than four offer, the majority of the
subscribers present shall determine which; if none offer, then four out
of the hundred shall be taken by lot, who shall be entitled to the said
sums, and shall either go, or provide others that will, in the space of
six days.

4th, As it will always happen that in the space of ground on which a
hundred men shall live, there will be always a number of persons who, by
age and infirmity, are incapable of doing personal service, and as such
persons are generally possessed of the greatest part of property in any
country, their portion of service, therefore, will be to furnish each
man with a blanket, which will make a regimental coat, jacket, and
breeches, or clothes in lieu thereof, and another for a watch cloak,
and two pair of shoes; for however choice people may be of these things
matters not in cases of this kind; those who live always in houses can
find many ways to keep themselves warm, but it is a shame and a sin to
suffer a soldier in the field to want a blanket while there is one in
the country.

Should the clothing not be wanted, the superannuated or infirm persons
possessing property, may, in lieu thereof, throw in their money
subscriptions towards increasing the bounty; for though age will
naturally exempt a person from personal service, it cannot exempt him
from his share of the charge, because the men are raised for the defence
of property and liberty jointly.

There never was a scheme against which objections might not be raised.
But this alone is not a sufficient reason for rejection. The only line
to judge truly upon is to draw out and admit all the objections which
can fairly be made, and place against them all the contrary qualities,
conveniences and advantages, then by striking a balance you come at the
true character of any scheme, principle or position.

The most material advantages of the plan here proposed are, ease,
expedition, and cheapness; yet the men so raised get a much larger
bounty than is any where at present given; because all the expenses,
extravagance, and consequent idleness of recruiting are saved or
prevented. The country incurs no new debt nor interest thereon; the
whole matter being all settled at once and entirely done with. It is
a subscription answering all the purposes of a tax, without either the
charge or trouble of collecting. The men are ready for the field with
the greatest possible expedition, because it becomes the duty of the
inhabitants themselves, in every part of the country, to find their
proportion of men instead of leaving it to a recruiting sergeant, who,
be he ever so industrious, cannot know always where to apply.

I do not propose this as a regular digested plan, neither will the
limits of this paper admit of any further remarks upon it. I believe it
to be a hint capable of much improvement, and as such submit it to the
public.

                                       COMMON SENSE.

LANCASTER, March 21, 1778.




THE CRISIS VI. (TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE AND GENERAL CLINTON)


            TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, GENERAL CLINTON, AND
              WILLIAM EDEN, ESQ., BRITISH COMMISSIONERS
                             AT NEW YORK.


THERE is a dignity in the warm passions of a Whig, which is never to be
found in the cold malice of a Tory. In the one nature is only heated--in
the other she is poisoned. The instant the former has it in his power to
punish, he feels a disposition to forgive; but the canine venom of the
latter knows no relief but revenge. This general distinction will, I
believe, apply in all cases, and suits as well the meridian of England
as America.

As I presume your last proclamation will undergo the strictures of other
pens, I shall confine my remarks to only a few parts thereof. All that
you have said might have been comprised in half the compass. It is
tedious and unmeaning, and only a repetition of your former follies,
with here and there an offensive aggravation. Your cargo of pardons will
have no market. It is unfashionable to look at them--even speculation
is at an end. They have become a perfect drug, and no way calculated for
the climate.

In the course of your proclamation you say, "The policy as well as the
benevolence of Great Britain have thus far checked the extremes of war,
when they tended to distress a people still considered as their fellow
subjects, and to desolate a country shortly to become again a source of
mutual advantage." What you mean by "the benevolence of Great Britain"
is to me inconceivable. To put a plain question; do you consider
yourselves men or devils? For until this point is settled, no
determinate sense can be put upon the expression. You have already
equalled and in many cases excelled, the savages of either Indies; and
if you have yet a cruelty in store you must have imported it, unmixed
with every human material, from the original warehouse of hell.

To the interposition of Providence, and her blessings on our endeavors,
and not to British benevolence are we indebted for the short chain that
limits your ravages. Remember you do not, at this time, command a foot
of land on the continent of America. Staten Island, York Island, a small
part of Long Island, and Rhode Island, circumscribe your power; and even
those you hold at the expense of the West Indies. To avoid a defeat, or
prevent a desertion of your troops, you have taken up your quarters in
holes and corners of inaccessible security; and in order to conceal what
every one can perceive, you now endeavor to impose your weakness upon
us for an act of mercy. If you think to succeed by such shadowy devices,
you are but infants in the political world; you have the A, B, C, of
stratagem yet to learn, and are wholly ignorant of the people you have
to contend with. Like men in a state of intoxication, you forget that
the rest of the world have eyes, and that the same stupidity which
conceals you from yourselves exposes you to their satire and contempt.

The paragraph which I have quoted, stands as an introduction to the
following: "But when that country [America] professes the unnatural
design, not only of estranging herself from us, but of mortgaging
herself and her resources to our enemies, the whole contest is changed:
and the question is how far Great Britain may, by every means in her
power, destroy or render useless, a connection contrived for her ruin,
and the aggrandizement of France. Under such circumstances, the laws
of self-preservation must direct the conduct of Britain, and, if the
British colonies are to become an accession to France, will direct her
to render that accession of as little avail as possible to her enemy."

I consider you in this declaration, like madmen biting in the hour of
death. It contains likewise a fraudulent meanness; for, in order to
justify a barbarous conclusion, you have advanced a false position. The
treaty we have formed with France is open, noble, and generous. It is
true policy, founded on sound philosophy, and neither a surrender
or mortgage, as you would scandalously insinuate. I have seen every
article, and speak from positive knowledge. In France, we have found an
affectionate friend and faithful ally; in Britain, we have found nothing
but tyranny, cruelty, and infidelity.

But the happiness is, that the mischief you threaten, is not in your
power to execute; and if it were, the punishment would return upon you
in a ten-fold degree. The humanity of America has hitherto restrained
her from acts of retaliation, and the affection she retains for
many individuals in England, who have fed, clothed and comforted her
prisoners, has, to the present day, warded off her resentment, and
operated as a screen to the whole. But even these considerations
must cease, when national objects interfere and oppose them. Repeated
aggravations will provoke a retort, and policy justify the measure. We
mean now to take you seriously up upon your own ground and principle,
and as you do, so shall you be done by.

You ought to know, gentlemen, that England and Scotland, are far more
exposed to incendiary desolation than America, in her present state, can
possibly be. We occupy a country, with but few towns, and whose riches
consist in land and annual produce. The two last can suffer but little,
and that only within a very limited compass. In Britain it is otherwise.
Her wealth lies chiefly in cities and large towns, the depositories
of manufactures and fleets of merchantmen. There is not a nobleman's
country seat but may be laid in ashes by a single person. Your own
may probably contribute to the proof: in short, there is no evil which
cannot be returned when you come to incendiary mischief. The ships in
the Thames, may certainly be as easily set on fire, as the temporary
bridge was a few years ago; yet of that affair no discovery was ever
made; and the loss you would sustain by such an event, executed at a
proper season, is infinitely greater than any you can inflict. The East
India House and the Bank, neither are nor can be secure from this sort
of destruction, and, as Dr. Price justly observes, a fire at the latter
would bankrupt the nation. It has never been the custom of France and
England when at war, to make those havocs on each other, because the
ease with which they could retaliate rendered it as impolitic as if each
had destroyed his own.

But think not, gentlemen, that our distance secures you, or our
invention fails us. We can much easier accomplish such a point than any
nation in Europe. We talk the same language, dress in the same habit,
and appear with the same manners as yourselves. We can pass from
one part of England to another unsuspected; many of us are as well
acquainted with the country as you are, and should you impolitically
provoke us, you will most assuredly lament the effects of it. Mischiefs
of this kind require no army to execute them. The means are obvious, and
the opportunities unguardable. I hold up a warning to our senses, if you
have any left, and "to the unhappy people likewise, whose affairs are
committed to you."* I call not with the rancor of an enemy, but the
earnestness of a friend, on the deluded people of England, lest, between
your blunders and theirs, they sink beneath the evils contrived for us.


     * General [Sir H.] Clinton's letter to Congress.

"He who lives in a glass house," says a Spanish proverb, "should never
begin throwing stones." This, gentlemen, is exactly your case, and you
must be the most ignorant of mankind, or suppose us so, not to see on
which side the balance of accounts will fall. There are many other modes
of retaliation, which, for several reasons, I choose not to mention. But
be assured of this, that the instant you put your threat into execution,
a counter-blow will follow it. If you openly profess yourselves savages,
it is high time we should treat you as such, and if nothing but distress
can recover you to reason, to punish will become an office of charity.

While your fleet lay last winter in the Delaware, I offered my service
to the Pennsylvania Navy Board then at Trenton, as one who would make
a party with them, or any four or five gentlemen, on an expedition down
the river to set fire to it, and though it was not then accepted, nor
the thing personally attempted, it is more than probable that your own
folly will provoke a much more ruinous act. Say not when mischief is
done, that you had not warning, and remember that we do not begin it,
but mean to repay it. Thus much for your savage and impolitic threat.

In another part of your proclamation you say, "But if the honors of
a military life are become the object of the Americans, let them seek
those honors under the banners of their rightful sovereign, and in
fighting the battles of the united British Empire, against our late
mutual and natural enemies." Surely! the union of absurdity with madness
was never marked in more distinguishable lines than these. Your rightful
sovereign, as you call him, may do well enough for you, who dare not
inquire into the humble capacities of the man; but we, who estimate
persons and things by their real worth, cannot suffer our judgments to
be so imposed upon; and unless it is your wish to see him exposed, it
ought to be your endeavor to keep him out of sight. The less you have
to say about him the better. We have done with him, and that ought to
be answer enough. You have been often told so. Strange! that the answer
must be so often repeated. You go a-begging with your king as with a
brat, or with some unsaleable commodity you were tired of; and though
every body tells you no, no, still you keep hawking him about. But
there is one that will have him in a little time, and as we have no
inclination to disappoint you of a customer, we bid nothing for him.

The impertinent folly of the paragraph that I have just quoted, deserves
no other notice than to be laughed at and thrown by, but the principle
on which it is founded is detestable. We are invited to submit to a man
who has attempted by every cruelty to destroy us, and to join him in
making war against France, who is already at war against him for our
support.

Can Bedlam, in concert with Lucifer, form a more mad and devilish
request? Were it possible a people could sink into such apostacy they
would deserve to be swept from the earth like the inhabitants of Sodom
and Gomorrah. The proposition is an universal affront to the rank which
man holds in the creation, and an indignity to him who placed him
there. It supposes him made up without a spark of honor, and under no
obligation to God or man.

What sort of men or Christians must you suppose the Americans to be,
who, after seeing their most humble petitions insultingly rejected;
the most grievous laws passed to distress them in every quarter; an
undeclared war let loose upon them, and Indians and negroes invited to
the slaughter; who, after seeing their kinsmen murdered, their fellow
citizens starved to death in prisons, and their houses and property
destroyed and burned; who, after the most serious appeals to heaven, the
most solemn abjuration by oath of all government connected with you, and
the most heart-felt pledges and protestations of faith to each other;
and who, after soliciting the friendship, and entering into alliances
with other nations, should at last break through all these obligations,
civil and divine, by complying with your horrid and infernal proposal.
Ought we ever after to be considered as a part of the human race? Or
ought we not rather to be blotted from the society of mankind, and
become a spectacle of misery to the world? But there is something in
corruption, which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself
to the object it looks upon, and sees every thing stained and impure;
for unless you were capable of such conduct yourselves, you would never
have supposed such a character in us. The offer fixes your infamy. It
exhibits you as a nation without faith; with whom oaths and treaties
are considered as trifles, and the breaking them as the breaking of a
bubble. Regard to decency, or to rank, might have taught you better; or
pride inspired you, though virtue could not. There is not left a step in
the degradation of character to which you can now descend; you have put
your foot on the ground floor, and the key of the dungeon is turned upon
you.

That the invitation may want nothing of being a complete monster,
you have thought proper to finish it with an assertion which has no
foundation, either in fact or philosophy; and as Mr. Ferguson, your
secretary, is a man of letters, and has made civil society his study,
and published a treatise on that subject, I address this part to him.

In the close of the paragraph which I last quoted, France is styled the
"natural enemy" of England, and by way of lugging us into some strange
idea, she is styled "the late mutual and natural enemy" of both
countries. I deny that she ever was the natural enemy of either; and
that there does not exist in nature such a principle. The expression
is an unmeaning barbarism, and wholly unphilosophical, when applied to
beings of the same species, let their station in the creation be what
it may. We have a perfect idea of a natural enemy when we think of the
devil, because the enmity is perpetual, unalterable and unabateable. It
admits, neither of peace, truce, or treaty; consequently the warfare is
eternal, and therefore it is natural. But man with man cannot arrange
in the same opposition. Their quarrels are accidental and equivocally
created. They become friends or enemies as the change of temper, or the
cast of interest inclines them. The Creator of man did not constitute
them the natural enemy of each other. He has not made any one order of
beings so. Even wolves may quarrel, still they herd together. If any two
nations are so, then must all nations be so, otherwise it is not nature
but custom, and the offence frequently originates with the accuser.
England is as truly the natural enemy of France, as France is of
England, and perhaps more so. Separated from the rest of Europe, she
has contracted an unsocial habit of manners, and imagines in others the
jealousy she creates in herself. Never long satisfied with peace,
she supposes the discontent universal, and buoyed up with her own
importance, conceives herself the only object pointed at. The expression
has been often used, and always with a fraudulent design; for when the
idea of a natural enemy is conceived, it prevents all other inquiries,
and the real cause of the quarrel is hidden in the universality of the
conceit. Men start at the notion of a natural enemy, and ask no other
question. The cry obtains credit like the alarm of a mad dog, and is
one of those kind of tricks, which, by operating on the common passions,
secures their interest through their folly.

But we, sir, are not to be thus imposed upon. We live in a large world,
and have extended our ideas beyond the limits and prejudices of an
island. We hold out the right hand of friendship to all the universe,
and we conceive that there is a sociality in the manners of France,
which is much better disposed to peace and negotiation than that of
England, and until the latter becomes more civilized, she cannot expect
to live long at peace with any power. Her common language is vulgar
and offensive, and children suck in with their milk the rudiments of
insult--"The arm of Britain! The mighty arm of Britain! Britain that
shakes the earth to its center and its poles! The scourge of France! The
terror of the world! That governs with a nod, and pours down vengeance
like a God." This language neither makes a nation great or little; but
it shows a savageness of manners, and has a tendency to keep national
animosity alive. The entertainments of the stage are calculated to the
same end, and almost every public exhibition is tinctured with insult.
Yet England is always in dread of France,--terrified at the apprehension
of an invasion, suspicious of being outwitted in a treaty, and privately
cringing though she is publicly offending. Let her, therefore, reform
her manners and do justice, and she will find the idea of a natural
enemy to be only a phantom of her own imagination.

Little did I think, at this period of the war, to see a proclamation
which could promise you no one useful purpose whatever, and tend only
to expose you. One would think that you were just awakened from a four
years' dream, and knew nothing of what had passed in the interval.
Is this a time to be offering pardons, or renewing the long forgotten
subjects of charters and taxation? Is it worth your while, after every
force has failed you, to retreat under the shelter of argument and
persuasion? Or can you think that we, with nearly half your army
prisoners, and in alliance with France, are to be begged or threatened
into submission by a piece of paper? But as commissioners at a hundred
pounds sterling a week each, you conceive yourselves bound to do
something, and the genius of ill-fortune told you, that you must write.

For my own part, I have not put pen to paper these several months.
Convinced of our superiority by the issue of every campaign, I was
inclined to hope, that that which all the rest of the world now see,
would become visible to you, and therefore felt unwilling to ruffle your
temper by fretting you with repetitions and discoveries. There have been
intervals of hesitation in your conduct, from which it seemed a pity to
disturb you, and a charity to leave you to yourselves. You have often
stopped, as if you intended to think, but your thoughts have ever been
too early or too late.

There was a time when Britain disdained to answer, or even hear
a petition from America. That time is past and she in her turn is
petitioning our acceptance. We now stand on higher ground, and offer
her peace; and the time will come when she, perhaps in vain, will ask
it from us. The latter case is as probable as the former ever was. She
cannot refuse to acknowledge our independence with greater obstinacy
than she before refused to repeal her laws; and if America alone could
bring her to the one, united with France she will reduce her to the
other. There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other
passion; whenever it fails it never recovers, but either breaks like
iron, or crumbles sulkily away like a fractured arch. Most other
passions have their periods of fatigue and rest; their suffering and
their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is
mortal. You have already begun to give it up, and you will, from the
natural construction of the vice, find yourselves both obliged and
inclined to do so.

If you look back you see nothing but loss and disgrace. If you look
forward the same scene continues, and the close is an impenetrable
gloom. You may plan and execute little mischiefs, but are they worth the
expense they cost you, or will such partial evils have any effect on the
general cause? Your expedition to Egg Harbor, will be felt at a distance
like an attack upon a hen-roost, and expose you in Europe, with a sort
of childish frenzy. Is it worth while to keep an army to protect you
in writing proclamations, or to get once a year into winter quarters?
Possessing yourselves of towns is not conquest, but convenience, and
in which you will one day or other be trepanned. Your retreat from
Philadelphia, was only a timely escape, and your next expedition may be
less fortunate.

It would puzzle all the politicians in the universe to conceive what you
stay for, or why you should have stayed so long. You are prosecuting
a war in which you confess you have neither object nor hope, and that
conquest, could it be effected, would not repay the charges: in the mean
while the rest of your affairs are running to ruin, and a European war
kindling against you. In such a situation, there is neither doubt nor
difficulty; the first rudiments of reason will determine the choice, for
if peace can be procured with more advantages than even a conquest can
be obtained, he must be an idiot indeed that hesitates.

But you are probably buoyed up by a set of wretched mortals, who, having
deceived themselves, are cringing, with the duplicity of a spaniel, for
a little temporary bread. Those men will tell you just what you
please. It is their interest to amuse, in order to lengthen out their
protection. They study to keep you amongst them for that very purpose;
and in proportion as you disregard their advice, and grow callous to
their complaints, they will stretch into improbability, and season their
flattery the higher. Characters like these are to be found in every
country, and every country will despise them.

                                            COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 20, 1778.




THE CRISIS VII. TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.


THERE are stages in the business of serious life in which to amuse is
cruel, but to deceive is to destroy; and it is of little consequence, in
the conclusion, whether men deceive themselves, or submit, by a kind of
mutual consent, to the impositions of each other. That England has long
been under the influence of delusion or mistake, needs no other proof
than the unexpected and wretched situation that she is now involved in:
and so powerful has been the influence, that no provision was ever made
or thought of against the misfortune, because the possibility of its
happening was never conceived.

The general and successful resistance of America, the conquest of
Burgoyne, and a war in France, were treated in parliament as the dreams
of a discontented opposition, or a distempered imagination. They were
beheld as objects unworthy of a serious thought, and the bare intimation
of them afforded the ministry a triumph of laughter. Short triumph
indeed! For everything which has been predicted has happened, and all
that was promised has failed. A long series of politics so remarkably
distinguished by a succession of misfortunes, without one alleviating
turn, must certainly have something in it systematically wrong. It is
sufficient to awaken the most credulous into suspicion, and the most
obstinate into thought. Either the means in your power are insufficient,
or the measures ill planned; either the execution has been bad, or the
thing attempted impracticable; or, to speak more emphatically, either
you are not able or heaven is not willing. For, why is it that you have
not conquered us? Who, or what has prevented you? You have had every
opportunity that you could desire, and succeeded to your utmost wish in
every preparatory means. Your fleets and armies have arrived in America
without an accident. No uncommon fortune has intervened. No foreign
nation has interfered until the time which you had allotted for victory
was passed. The opposition, either in or out of parliament, neither
disconcerted your measures, retarded or diminished your force. They only
foretold your fate. Every ministerial scheme was carried with as high a
hand as if the whole nation had been unanimous. Every thing wanted was
asked for, and every thing asked for was granted.

A greater force was not within the compass of your abilities to send,
and the time you sent it was of all others the most favorable. You were
then at rest with the whole world beside. You had the range of every
court in Europe uncontradicted by us. You amused us with a tale of
commissioners of peace, and under that disguise collected a numerous
army and came almost unexpectedly upon us. The force was much greater
than we looked for; and that which we had to oppose it with, was unequal
in numbers, badly armed, and poorly disciplined; beside which, it was
embodied only for a short time, and expired within a few months after
your arrival. We had governments to form; measures to concert; an
army to train, and every necessary article to import or to create. Our
non-importation scheme had exhausted our stores, and your command by sea
intercepted our supplies. We were a people unknown, and unconnected with
the political world, and strangers to the disposition of foreign
powers. Could you possibly wish for a more favorable conjunction of
circumstances? Yet all these have happened and passed away, and, as
it were, left you with a laugh. There are likewise, events of such an
original nativity as can never happen again, unless a new world should
arise from the ocean.

If any thing can be a lesson to presumption, surely the circumstances
of this war will have their effect. Had Britain been defeated by
any European power, her pride would have drawn consolation from the
importance of her conquerors; but in the present case, she is excelled
by those that she affected to despise, and her own opinions retorting
upon herself, become an aggravation of her disgrace. Misfortune and
experience are lost upon mankind, when they produce neither reflection
nor reformation. Evils, like poisons, have their uses, and there are
diseases which no other remedy can reach. It has been the crime and
folly of England to suppose herself invincible, and that, without
acknowledging or perceiving that a full third of her strength was drawn
from the country she is now at war with. The arm of Britain has been
spoken of as the arm of the Almighty, and she has lived of late as if
she thought the whole world created for her diversion. Her politics,
instead of civilizing, has tended to brutalize mankind, and under the
vain, unmeaning title of "Defender of the Faith," she has made war like
an Indian against the religion of humanity. Her cruelties in the East
Indies will never be forgotten, and it is somewhat remarkable that the
produce of that ruined country, transported to America, should there
kindle up a war to punish the destroyer. The chain is continued,
though with a mysterious kind of uniformity both in the crime and the
punishment. The latter runs parallel with the former, and time and fate
will give it a perfect illustration.

When information is withheld, ignorance becomes a reasonable excuse; and
one would charitably hope that the people of England do not encourage
cruelty from choice but from mistake. Their recluse situation,
surrounded by the sea, preserves them from the calamities of war, and
keeps them in the dark as to the conduct of their own armies. They see
not, therefore they feel not. They tell the tale that is told them and
believe it, and accustomed to no other news than their own, they receive
it, stripped of its horrors and prepared for the palate of the nation,
through the channel of the London Gazette. They are made to believe that
their generals and armies differ from those of other nations, and have
nothing of rudeness or barbarity in them. They suppose them what
they wish them to be. They feel a disgrace in thinking otherwise, and
naturally encourage the belief from a partiality to themselves. There
was a time when I felt the same prejudices, and reasoned from the
same errors; but experience, sad and painful experience, has taught me
better. What the conduct of former armies was, I know not, but what the
conduct of the present is, I well know. It is low, cruel, indolent and
profligate; and had the people of America no other cause for separation
than what the army has occasioned, that alone is cause sufficient.

The field of politics in England is far more extensive than that of
news. Men have a right to reason for themselves, and though they cannot
contradict the intelligence in the London Gazette, they may frame upon
it what sentiments they please. But the misfortune is, that a general
ignorance has prevailed over the whole nation respecting America. The
ministry and the minority have both been wrong. The former was always
so, the latter only lately so. Politics, to be executively right, must
have a unity of means and time, and a defect in either overthrows the
whole. The ministry rejected the plans of the minority while they were
practicable, and joined in them when they became impracticable. From
wrong measures they got into wrong time, and have now completed the
circle of absurdity by closing it upon themselves.

I happened to come to America a few months before the breaking out of
hostilities. I found the disposition of the people such, that they might
have been led by a thread and governed by a reed. Their suspicion was
quick and penetrating, but their attachment to Britain was obstinate,
and it was at that time a kind of treason to speak against it. They
disliked the ministry, but they esteemed the nation. Their idea of
grievance operated without resentment, and their single object was
reconciliation. Bad as I believed the ministry to be, I never conceived
them capable of a measure so rash and wicked as the commencing of
hostilities; much less did I imagine the nation would encourage it.
I viewed the dispute as a kind of law-suit, in which I supposed the
parties would find a way either to decide or settle it. I had no
thoughts of independence or of arms. The world could not then have
persuaded me that I should be either a soldier or an author. If I had
any talents for either, they were buried in me, and might ever have
continued so, had not the necessity of the times dragged and driven them
into action. I had formed my plan of life, and conceiving myself happy,
wished every body else so. But when the country, into which I had just
set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It
was time for every man to stir. Those who had been long settled had
something to defend; those who had just come had something to pursue;
and the call and the concern was equal and universal. For in a country
where all men were once adventurers, the difference of a few years in
their arrival could make none in their right.

The breaking out of hostilities opened a new suspicion in the politics
of America, which, though at that time very rare, has since been proved
to be very right. What I allude to is, "a secret and fixed determination
in the British Cabinet to annex America to the crown of England as a
conquered country." If this be taken as the object, then the whole
line of conduct pursued by the ministry, though rash in its origin and
ruinous in its consequences, is nevertheless uniform and consistent in
its parts. It applies to every case and resolves every difficulty.
But if taxation, or any thing else, be taken in its room, there is no
proportion between the object and the charge. Nothing but the whole
soil and property of the country can be placed as a possible equivalent
against the millions which the ministry expended. No taxes raised in
America could possibly repay it. A revenue of two millions sterling a
year would not discharge the sum and interest accumulated thereon, in
twenty years.

Reconciliation never appears to have been the wish or the object of the
administration; they looked on conquest as certain and infallible, and,
under that persuasion, sought to drive the Americans into what they
might style a general rebellion, and then, crushing them with arms
in their hands, reap the rich harvest of a general confiscation, and
silence them for ever. The dependents at court were too numerous to be
provided for in England. The market for plunder in the East Indies was
over; and the profligacy of government required that a new mine should
be opened, and that mine could be no other than America, conquered
and forfeited. They had no where else to go. Every other channel was
drained; and extravagance, with the thirst of a drunkard, was gaping for
supplies.

If the ministry deny this to have been their plan, it becomes them to
explain what was their plan. For either they have abused us in coveting
property they never labored for, or they have abused you in expending an
amazing sum upon an incompetent object. Taxation, as I mentioned before,
could never be worth the charge of obtaining it by arms; and any kind of
formal obedience which America could have made, would have weighed with
the lightness of a laugh against such a load of expense. It is therefore
most probable that the ministry will at last justify their policy by
their dishonesty, and openly declare, that their original design was
conquest: and, in this case, it well becomes the people of England to
consider how far the nation would have been benefited by the success.

In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the charge of
making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be
worth their while to go to war for profit's sake. If they are made war
upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their
duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light, and
from every other cause, is war inglorious and detestable. But to return
to the case in question--

When conquests are made of foreign countries, it is supposed that the
commerce and dominion of the country which made them are extended. But
this could neither be the object nor the consequence of the present
war. You enjoyed the whole commerce before. It could receive no possible
addition by a conquest, but on the contrary, must diminish as the
inhabitants were reduced in numbers and wealth. You had the same
dominion over the country which you used to have, and had no complaint
to make against her for breach of any part of the contract between
you or her, or contending against any established custom, commercial,
political or territorial. The country and commerce were both your own
when you began to conquer, in the same manner and form as they had been
your own a hundred years before. Nations have sometimes been induced to
make conquests for the sake of reducing the power of their enemies, or
bringing it to a balance with their own. But this could be no part of
your plan. No foreign authority was claimed here, neither was any such
authority suspected by you, or acknowledged or imagined by us. What
then, in the name of heaven, could you go to war for? Or what chance
could you possibly have in the event, but either to hold the same
country which you held before, and that in a much worse condition, or
to lose, with an amazing expense, what you might have retained without a
farthing of charges?

War never can be the interest of a trading nation, any more than
quarrelling can be profitable to a man in business. But to make war with
those who trade with us, is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at
the shop-door. The least degree of common sense shows the madness of
the latter, and it will apply with the same force of conviction to the
former. Piratical nations, having neither commerce or commodities of
their own to lose, may make war upon all the world, and lucratively
find their account in it; but it is quite otherwise with Britain: for,
besides the stoppage of trade in time of war, she exposes more of her
own property to be lost, than she has the chance of taking from others.
Some ministerial gentlemen in parliament have mentioned the greatness of
her trade as an apology for the greatness of her loss. This is miserable
politics indeed! Because it ought to have been given as a reason for her
not engaging in a war at first. The coast of America commands the West
India trade almost as effectually as the coast of Africa does that of
the Straits; and England can no more carry on the former without the
consent of America, than she can the latter without a Mediterranean
pass.

In whatever light the war with America is considered upon commercial
principles, it is evidently the interest of the people of England not to
support it; and why it has been supported so long, against the clearest
demonstrations of truth and national advantage, is, to me, and must be
to all the reasonable world, a matter of astonishment. Perhaps it may
be said that I live in America, and write this from interest. To this
I reply, that my principle is universal. My attachment is to all the
world, and not to any particular part, and if what I advance is right,
no matter where or who it comes from. We have given the proclamation of
your commissioners a currency in our newspapers, and I have no doubt you
will give this a place in yours. To oblige and be obliged is fair.

Before I dismiss this part of my address, I shall mention one more
circumstance in which I think the people of England have been equally
mistaken: and then proceed to other matters.

There is such an idea existing in the world, as that of national honor,
and this, falsely understood, is oftentimes the cause of war. In a
Christian and philosophical sense, mankind seem to have stood still
at individual civilization, and to retain as nations all the original
rudeness of nature. Peace by treaty is only a cessation of violence for
a reformation of sentiment. It is a substitute for a principle that
is wanting and ever will be wanting till the idea of national honor be
rightly understood. As individuals we profess ourselves Christians, but
as nations we are heathens, Romans, and what not. I remember the late
Admiral Saunders declaring in the House of Commons, and that in the time
of peace, "That the city of Madrid laid in ashes was not a sufficient
atonement for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English sloop
of war." I do not ask whether this is Christianity or morality, I ask
whether it is decency? whether it is proper language for a nation to
use? In private life we call it by the plain name of bullying, and
the elevation of rank cannot alter its character. It is, I think,
exceedingly easy to define what ought to be understood by national
honor; for that which is the best character for an individual is the
best character for a nation; and wherever the latter exceeds or
falls beneath the former, there is a departure from the line of true
greatness.

I have thrown out this observation with a design of applying it to Great
Britain. Her ideas of national honor seem devoid of that benevolence of
heart, that universal expansion of philanthropy, and that triumph over
the rage of vulgar prejudice, without which man is inferior to himself,
and a companion of common animals. To know who she shall regard or
dislike, she asks what country they are of, what religion they profess,
and what property they enjoy. Her idea of national honor seems to
consist in national insult, and that to be a great people, is to be
neither a Christian, a philosopher, or a gentleman, but to threaten with
the rudeness of a bear, and to devour with the ferocity of a lion. This
perhaps may sound harsh and uncourtly, but it is too true, and the more
is the pity.

I mention this only as her general character. But towards America she
has observed no character at all; and destroyed by her conduct what she
assumed in her title. She set out with the title of parent, or mother
country. The association of ideas which naturally accompany this
expression, are filled with everything that is fond, tender and
forbearing. They have an energy peculiar to themselves, and, overlooking
the accidental attachment of common affections, apply with infinite
softness to the first feelings of the heart. It is a political term
which every mother can feel the force of, and every child can judge of.
It needs no painting of mine to set it off, for nature only can do it
justice.

But has any part of your conduct to America corresponded with the title
you set up? If in your general national character you are unpolished and
severe, in this you are inconsistent and unnatural, and you must have
exceeding false notions of national honor to suppose that the world can
admire a want of humanity or that national honor depends on the
violence of resentment, the inflexibility of temper, or the vengeance of
execution.

I would willingly convince you, and that with as much temper as the
times will suffer me to do, that as you opposed your own interest by
quarrelling with us, so likewise your national honor, rightly conceived
and understood, was no ways called upon to enter into a war with
America; had you studied true greatness of heart, the first and fairest
ornament of mankind, you would have acted directly contrary to all that
you have done, and the world would have ascribed it to a generous cause.
Besides which, you had (though with the assistance of this country)
secured a powerful name by the last war. You were known and dreaded
abroad; and it would have been wise in you to have suffered the world to
have slept undisturbed under that idea. It was to you a force existing
without expense. It produced to you all the advantages of real power;
and you were stronger through the universality of that charm, than any
future fleets and armies may probably make you. Your greatness was so
secured and interwoven with your silence that you ought never to have
awakened mankind, and had nothing to do but to be quiet. Had you been
true politicians you would have seen all this, and continued to draw
from the magic of a name, the force and authority of a nation.

Unwise as you were in breaking the charm, you were still more unwise
in the manner of doing it. Samson only told the secret, but you have
performed the operation; you have shaven your own head, and wantonly
thrown away the locks. America was the hair from which the charm was
drawn that infatuated the world. You ought to have quarrelled with no
power; but with her upon no account. You had nothing to fear from any
condescension you might make. You might have humored her, even if there
had been no justice in her claims, without any risk to your reputation;
for Europe, fascinated by your fame, would have ascribed it to your
benevolence, and America, intoxicated by the grant, would have slumbered
in her fetters.

But this method of studying the progress of the passions, in order to
ascertain the probable conduct of mankind, is a philosophy in politics
which those who preside at St. James's have no conception of. They know
no other influence than corruption and reckon all their probabilities
from precedent. A new case is to them a new world, and while they are
seeking for a parallel they get lost. The talents of Lord Mansfield can
be estimated at best no higher than those of a sophist. He understands
the subtleties but not the elegance of nature; and by continually
viewing mankind through the cold medium of the law, never thinks of
penetrating into the warmer region of the mind. As for Lord North, it
is his happiness to have in him more philosophy than sentiment, for he
bears flogging like a top, and sleeps the better for it. His punishment
becomes his support, for while he suffers the lash for his sins,
he keeps himself up by twirling about. In politics, he is a good
arithmetician, and in every thing else nothing at all.

There is one circumstance which comes so much within Lord North's
province as a financier, that I am surprised it should escape him,
which is, the different abilities of the two countries in supporting the
expense; for, strange as it may seem, England is not a match for America
in this particular. By a curious kind of revolution in accounts, the
people of England seem to mistake their poverty for their riches; that
is, they reckon their national debt as a part of their national wealth.
They make the same kind of error which a man would do, who after
mortgaging his estate, should add the money borrowed, to the full value
of the estate, in order to count up his worth, and in this case he would
conceive that he got rich by running into debt. Just thus it is with
England. The government owed at the beginning of this war one hundred
and thirty-five millions sterling, and though the individuals to whom it
was due had a right to reckon their shares as so much private property,
yet to the nation collectively it was so much poverty. There are as
effectual limits to public debts as to private ones, for when once the
money borrowed is so great as to require the whole yearly revenue to
discharge the interest thereon, there is an end to further borrowing;
in the same manner as when the interest of a man's debts amounts to
the yearly income of his estate, there is an end to his credit. This is
nearly the case with England, the interest of her present debt being
at least equal to one half of her yearly revenue, so that out of ten
millions annually collected by taxes, she has but five that she can call
her own.

The very reverse of this was the case with America; she began the war
without any debt upon her, and in order to carry it on, she neither
raised money by taxes, nor borrowed it upon interest, but created it;
and her situation at this time continues so much the reverse of yours
that taxing would make her rich, whereas it would make you poor. When we
shall have sunk the sum which we have created, we shall then be out of
debt, be just as rich as when we began, and all the while we are doing
it shall feel no difference, because the value will rise as the quantity
decreases.

There was not a country in the world so capable of bearing the expense
of a war as America; not only because she was not in debt when she
began, but because the country is young and capable of infinite
improvement, and has an almost boundless tract of new lands in store;
whereas England has got to her extent of age and growth, and has not
unoccupied land or property in reserve. The one is like a young heir
coming to a large improvable estate; the other like an old man whose
chances are over, and his estate mortgaged for half its worth.

In the second number of the Crisis, which I find has been republished
in England, I endeavored to set forth the impracticability of conquering
America. I stated every case, that I conceived could possibly happen,
and ventured to predict its consequences. As my conclusions were drawn
not artfully, but naturally, they have all proved to be true. I was upon
the spot; knew the politics of America, her strength and resources, and
by a train of services, the best in my power to render, was honored with
the friendship of the congress, the army and the people. I considered
the cause a just one. I know and feel it a just one, and under that
confidence never made my own profit or loss an object. My endeavor was
to have the matter well understood on both sides, and I conceived
myself tendering a general service, by setting forth to the one the
impossibility of being conquered, and to the other the impossibility
of conquering. Most of the arguments made use of by the ministry for
supporting the war, are the very arguments that ought to have been used
against supporting it; and the plans, by which they thought to conquer,
are the very plans in which they were sure to be defeated. They have
taken every thing up at the wrong end. Their ignorance is astonishing,
and were you in my situation you would see it. They may, perhaps,
have your confidence, but I am persuaded that they would make very
indifferent members of Congress. I know what England is, and what
America is, and from the compound of knowledge, am better enabled to
judge of the issue than what the king or any of his ministers can be.

In this number I have endeavored to show the ill policy and
disadvantages of the war. I believe many of my remarks are new. Those
which are not so, I have studied to improve and place in a manner that
may be clear and striking. Your failure is, I am persuaded, as certain
as fate. America is above your reach. She is at least your equal in the
world, and her independence neither rests upon your consent, nor can it
be prevented by your arms. In short, you spend your substance in vain,
and impoverish yourselves without a hope.

But suppose you had conquered America, what advantages, collectively or
individually, as merchants, manufacturers, or conquerors, could you
have looked for? This is an object you seemed never to have attended to.
Listening for the sound of victory, and led away by the frenzy of arms,
you neglected to reckon either the cost or the consequences. You must
all pay towards the expense; the poorest among you must bear his share,
and it is both your right and your duty to weigh seriously the matter.
Had America been conquered, she might have been parcelled out in grants
to the favorites at court, but no share of it would have fallen to you.
Your taxes would not have been lessened, because she would have been
in no condition to have paid any towards your relief. We are rich by
contrivance of our own, which would have ceased as soon as you became
masters. Our paper money will be of no use in England, and silver and
gold we have none. In the last war you made many conquests, but were any
of your taxes lessened thereby? On the contrary, were you not taxed to
pay for the charge of making them, and has not the same been the case in
every war?

To the Parliament I wish to address myself in a more particular manner.
They appear to have supposed themselves partners in the chase, and to
have hunted with the lion from an expectation of a right in the booty;
but in this it is most probable they would, as legislators, have
been disappointed. The case is quite a new one, and many unforeseen
difficulties would have arisen thereon. The Parliament claimed a
legislative right over America, and the war originated from that
pretence. But the army is supposed to belong to the crown, and if
America had been conquered through their means, the claim of the
legislature would have been suffocated in the conquest. Ceded, or
conquered, countries are supposed to be out of the authority of
Parliament. Taxation is exercised over them by prerogative and not by
law. It was attempted to be done in the Grenadas a few years ago, and
the only reason why it was not done was because the crown had made a
prior relinquishment of its claim. Therefore, Parliament have been all
this while supporting measures for the establishment of their authority,
in the issue of which, they would have been triumphed over by the
prerogative. This might have opened a new and interesting opposition
between the Parliament and the crown. The crown would have said that it
conquered for itself, and that to conquer for Parliament was an unknown
case. The Parliament might have replied, that America not being a
foreign country, but a country in rebellion, could not be said to be
conquered, but reduced; and thus continued their claim by disowning
the term. The crown might have rejoined, that however America might
be considered at first, she became foreign at last by a declaration of
independence, and a treaty with France; and that her case being, by that
treaty, put within the law of nations, was out of the law of Parliament,
who might have maintained, that as their claim over America had never
been surrendered, so neither could it be taken away. The crown might
have insisted, that though the claim of Parliament could not be taken
away, yet, being an inferior, it might be superseded; and that, whether
the claim was withdrawn from the object, or the object taken from the
claim, the same separation ensued; and that America being subdued after
a treaty with France, was to all intents and purposes a regal conquest,
and of course the sole property of the king. The Parliament, as the
legal delegates of the people, might have contended against the term
"inferior," and rested the case upon the antiquity of power, and this
would have brought on a set of very interesting and rational questions.

  1st, What is the original fountain of power and honor in any country?
  2d, Whether the prerogative does not belong to the people?
  3d, Whether there is any such thing as the English constitution?
  4th, Of what use is the crown to the people?
  5th, Whether he who invented a crown was not an enemy to mankind?
  6th, Whether it is not a shame for a man to spend a million a year
  and do no good for it, and whether the money might not be better
  applied? 7th, Whether such a man is not better dead than alive?
  8th, Whether a Congress, constituted like that of America, is not the
  most happy and consistent form of government in the world?--With a
  number of others of the same import.

In short, the contention about the dividend might have distracted the
nation; for nothing is more common than to agree in the conquest and
quarrel for the prize; therefore it is, perhaps, a happy circumstance,
that our successes have prevented the dispute.

If the Parliament had been thrown out in their claim, which it is most
probable they would, the nation likewise would have been thrown out in
their expectation; for as the taxes would have been laid on by the crown
without the Parliament, the revenue arising therefrom, if any could
have arisen, would not have gone into the exchequer, but into the privy
purse, and so far from lessening the taxes, would not even have been
added to them, but served only as pocket money to the crown. The more I
reflect on this matter, the more I am satisfied at the blindness and
ill policy of my countrymen, whose wisdom seems to operate without
discernment, and their strength without an object.

To the great bulwark of the nation, I mean the mercantile and
manufacturing part thereof, I likewise present my address. It is your
interest to see America an independent, and not a conquered country. If
conquered, she is ruined; and if ruined, poor; consequently the
trade will be a trifle, and her credit doubtful. If independent, she
flourishes, and from her flourishing must your profits arise. It
matters nothing to you who governs America, if your manufactures find
a consumption there. Some articles will consequently be obtained from
other places, and it is right that they should; but the demand for
others will increase, by the great influx of inhabitants which a state
of independence and peace will occasion, and in the final event you may
be enriched. The commerce of America is perfectly free, and ever will
be so. She will consign away no part of it to any nation. She has not
to her friends, and certainly will not to her enemies; though it is
probable that your narrow-minded politicians, thinking to please you
thereby, may some time or other unnecessarily make such a proposal.
Trade flourishes best when it is free, and it is weak policy to attempt
to fetter it. Her treaty with France is on the most liberal and generous
principles, and the French, in their conduct towards her, have proved
themselves to be philosophers, politicians, and gentlemen.

To the ministry I likewise address myself. You, gentlemen, have studied
the ruin of your country, from which it is not within your abilities to
rescue her. Your attempts to recover her are as ridiculous as your plans
which involved her are detestable. The commissioners, being about to
depart, will probably bring you this, and with it my sixth number,
addressed to them; and in so doing they carry back more Common Sense
than they brought, and you likewise will have more than when you sent
them.

Having thus addressed you severally, I conclude by addressing you
collectively. It is a long lane that has no turning. A period of sixteen
years of misconduct and misfortune, is certainly long enough for any one
nation to suffer under; and upon a supposition that war is not declared
between France and you, I beg to place a line of conduct before you
that will easily lead you out of all your troubles. It has been hinted
before, and cannot be too much attended to.

Suppose America had remained unknown to Europe till the present year,
and that Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, in another voyage round the world,
had made the first discovery of her, in the same condition that she is
now in, of arts, arms, numbers, and civilization. What, I ask, in that
case, would have been your conduct towards her? For that will point out
what it ought to be now. The problems and their solutions are equal,
and the right line of the one is the parallel of the other. The question
takes in every circumstance that can possibly arise. It reduces politics
to a simple thought, and is moreover a mode of investigation, in which,
while you are studying your interest the simplicity of the case will
cheat you into good temper. You have nothing to do but to suppose that
you have found America, and she appears found to your hand, and while
in the joy of your heart you stand still to admire her, the path of
politics rises straight before you.

Were I disposed to paint a contrast, I could easily set off what you
have done in the present case, against what you would have done in that
case, and by justly opposing them, conclude a picture that would make
you blush. But, as, when any of the prouder passions are hurt, it is
much better philosophy to let a man slip into a good temper than to
attack him in a bad one, for that reason, therefore, I only state the
case, and leave you to reflect upon it.

To go a little back into politics, it will be found that the true
interest of Britain lay in proposing and promoting the independence of
America immediately after the last peace; for the expense which Britain
had then incurred by defending America as her own dominions, ought to
have shown her the policy and necessity of changing the style of the
country, as the best probable method of preventing future wars and
expense, and the only method by which she could hold the commerce
without the charge of sovereignty. Besides which, the title which she
assumed, of parent country, led to, and pointed out the propriety,
wisdom and advantage of a separation; for, as in private life, children
grow into men, and by setting up for themselves, extend and secure the
interest of the whole family, so in the settlement of colonies large
enough to admit of maturity, the same policy should be pursued, and the
same consequences would follow. Nothing hurts the affections both of
parents and children so much, as living too closely connected, and
keeping up the distinction too long. Domineering will not do over those,
who, by a progress in life, have become equal in rank to their parents,
that is, when they have families of their own; and though they may
conceive themselves the subjects of their advice, will not suppose them
the objects of their government. I do not, by drawing this parallel,
mean to admit the title of parent country, because, if it is due any
where, it is due to Europe collectively, and the first settlers from
England were driven here by persecution. I mean only to introduce the
term for the sake of policy and to show from your title the line of your
interest.

When you saw the state of strength and opulence, and that by her own
industry, which America arrived at, you ought to have advised her to set
up for herself, and proposed an alliance of interest with her, and in
so doing you would have drawn, and that at her own expense, more real
advantage, and more military supplies and assistance, both of ships and
men, than from any weak and wrangling government that you could exercise
over her. In short, had you studied only the domestic politics of a
family, you would have learned how to govern the state; but, instead of
this easy and natural line, you flew out into every thing which was
wild and outrageous, till, by following the passion and stupidity of the
pilot, you wrecked the vessel within sight of the shore.

Having shown what you ought to have done, I now proceed to show why it
was not done. The caterpillar circle of the court had an interest
to pursue, distinct from, and opposed to yours; for though by the
independence of America and an alliance therewith, the trade would have
continued, if not increased, as in many articles neither country can go
to a better market, and though by defending and protecting herself,
she would have been no expense to you, and consequently your
national charges would have decreased, and your taxes might have been
proportionably lessened thereby; yet the striking off so many places
from the court calendar was put in opposition to the interest of the
nation. The loss of thirteen government ships, with their appendages,
here and in England, is a shocking sound in the ear of a hungry
courtier. Your present king and ministry will be the ruin of you; and
you had better risk a revolution and call a Congress, than be thus led
on from madness to despair, and from despair to ruin. America has set
you the example, and you may follow it and be free.

I now come to the last part, a war with France. This is what no man in
his senses will advise you to, and all good men would wish to prevent.
Whether France will declare war against you, is not for me in this place
to mention, or to hint, even if I knew it; but it must be madness in you
to do it first. The matter is come now to a full crisis, and peace is
easy if willingly set about. Whatever you may think, France has behaved
handsomely to you. She would have been unjust to herself to have acted
otherwise than she did; and having accepted our offer of alliance she
gave you genteel notice of it. There was nothing in her conduct reserved
or indelicate, and while she announced her determination to support her
treaty, she left you to give the first offence. America, on her part,
has exhibited a character of firmness to the world. Unprepared and
unarmed, without form or government, she, singly opposed a nation
that domineered over half the globe. The greatness of the deed demands
respect; and though you may feel resentment, you are compelled both to
wonder and admire.

Here I rest my arguments and finish my address. Such as it is, it is a
gift, and you are welcome. It was always my design to dedicate a Crisis
to you, when the time should come that would properly make it a Crisis;
and when, likewise, I should catch myself in a temper to write it, and
suppose you in a condition to read it. That time has now arrived, and
with it the opportunity for conveyance. For the commissioners--poor
commissioners! having proclaimed, that "yet forty days and Nineveh shall
be overthrown," have waited out the date, and, discontented with their
God, are returning to their gourd. And all the harm I wish them is, that
it may not wither about their ears, and that they may not make their
exit in the belly of a whale.

COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21, 1778.

P.S.--Though in the tranquillity of my mind I have concluded with a
laugh, yet I have something to mention to the commissioners, which, to
them, is serious and worthy their attention. Their authority is derived
from an Act of Parliament, which likewise describes and limits their
official powers. Their commission, therefore, is only a recital, and
personal investiture, of those powers, or a nomination and description
of the persons who are to execute them. Had it contained any thing
contrary to, or gone beyond the line of, the written law from which
it is derived, and by which it is bound, it would, by the English
constitution, have been treason in the crown, and the king been subject
to an impeachment. He dared not, therefore, put in his commission what
you have put in your proclamation, that is, he dared not have authorised
you in that commission to burn and destroy any thing in America. You are
both in the act and in the commission styled commissioners for restoring
peace, and the methods for doing it are there pointed out. Your last
proclamation is signed by you as commissioners under that act. You
make Parliament the patron of its contents. Yet, in the body of it, you
insert matters contrary both to the spirit and letter of the act, and
what likewise your king dared not have put in his commission to you. The
state of things in England, gentlemen, is too ticklish for you to run
hazards. You are accountable to Parliament for the execution of that act
according to the letter of it. Your heads may pay for breaking it, for
you certainly have broke it by exceeding it. And as a friend, who would
wish you to escape the paw of the lion, as well as the belly of the
whale, I civilly hint to you, to keep within compass.

Sir Harry Clinton, strictly speaking, is as accountable as the rest; for
though a general, he is likewise a commissioner, acting under a superior
authority. His first obedience is due to the act; and his plea of being
a general, will not and cannot clear him as a commissioner, for that
would suppose the crown, in its single capacity, to have a power of
dispensing with an Act of Parliament. Your situation, gentlemen, is nice
and critical, and the more so because England is unsettled. Take heed!
Remember the times of Charles the First! For Laud and Stafford fell by
trusting to a hope like yours.

Having thus shown you the danger of your proclamation, I now show you
the folly of it. The means contradict your design: you threaten to lay
waste, in order to render America a useless acquisition of alliance to
France. I reply, that the more destruction you commit (if you could do
it) the more valuable to France you make that alliance. You can destroy
only houses and goods; and by so doing you increase our demand upon her
for materials and merchandise; for the wants of one nation, provided it
has freedom and credit, naturally produce riches to the other; and,
as you can neither ruin the land nor prevent the vegetation, you would
increase the exportation of our produce in payment, which would be to
her a new fund of wealth. In short, had you cast about for a plan on
purpose to enrich your enemies, you could not have hit upon a better.

                                           C. S.




THE CRISIS VIII. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.


"TRUSTING (says the king of England in his speech of November last,)
in the divine providence, and in the justice of my cause, I am firmly
resolved to prosecute the war with vigor, and to make every exertion
in order to compel our enemies to equitable terms of peace and
accommodation." To this declaration the United States of America, and
the confederated powers of Europe will reply, if Britain will have war,
she shall have enough of it.

Five years have nearly elapsed since the commencement of hostilities,
and every campaign, by a gradual decay, has lessened your ability to
conquer, without producing a serious thought on your condition or your
fate. Like a prodigal lingering in an habitual consumption, you feel
the relics of life, and mistake them for recovery. New schemes, like
new medicines, have administered fresh hopes, and prolonged the disease
instead of curing it. A change of generals, like a change of physicians,
served only to keep the flattery alive, and furnish new pretences for
new extravagance.

"Can Britain fail?"* has been proudly asked at the undertaking of every
enterprise; and that "whatever she wills is fate,"*(2) has been given
with the solemnity of prophetic confidence; and though the question
has been constantly replied to by disappointment, and the prediction
falsified by misfortune, yet still the insult continued, and your
catalogue of national evils increased therewith. Eager to persuade
the world of her power, she considered destruction as the minister of
greatness, and conceived that the glory of a nation like that of an
[American] Indian, lay in the number of its scalps and the miseries
which it inflicts.


     * Whitehead's New Year's ode for 1776.
*(2) Ode at the installation of Lord North, for Chancellor of the
University of Oxford.

Fire, sword and want, as far as the arms of Britain could extend them,
have been spread with wanton cruelty along the coast of America; and
while you, remote from the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose
and as little to dread, the information reached you like a tale of
antiquity, in which the distance of time defaces the conception, and
changes the severest sorrows into conversable amusement.

This makes the second paper, addressed perhaps in vain, to the people
of England. That advice should be taken wherever example has failed,
or precept be regarded where warning is ridiculed, is like a picture
of hope resting on despair: but when time shall stamp with universal
currency the facts you have long encountered with a laugh, and the
irresistible evidence of accumulated losses, like the handwriting on
the wall, shall add terror to distress, you will then, in a conflict of
suffering, learn to sympathize with others by feeling for yourselves.

The triumphant appearance of the combined fleets in the channel and at
your harbor's mouth, and the expedition of Captain Paul Jones, on the
western and eastern coasts of England and Scotland, will, by placing
you in the condition of an endangered country, read to you a stronger
lecture on the calamities of invasion, and bring to your minds a truer
picture of promiscuous distress, than the most finished rhetoric can
describe or the keenest imagination conceive.

Hitherto you have experienced the expenses, but nothing of the miseries
of war. Your disappointments have been accompanied with no immediate
suffering, and your losses came to you only by intelligence. Like fire
at a distance you heard not even the cry; you felt not the danger, you
saw not the confusion. To you every thing has been foreign but the taxes
to support it. You knew not what it was to be alarmed at midnight with
an armed enemy in the streets. You were strangers to the distressing
scene of a family in flight, and to the thousand restless cares and
tender sorrows that incessantly arose. To see women and children
wandering in the severity of winter, with the broken remains of a well
furnished house, and seeking shelter in every crib and hut, were matters
that you had no conception of. You knew not what it was to stand by and
see your goods chopped for fuel, and your beds ripped to pieces to make
packages for plunder. The misery of others, like a tempestuous night,
added to the pleasures of your own security. You even enjoyed the storm,
by contemplating the difference of conditions, and that which carried
sorrow into the breasts of thousands served but to heighten in you a
species of tranquil pride. Yet these are but the fainter sufferings
of war, when compared with carnage and slaughter, the miseries of a
military hospital, or a town in flames.

The people of America, by anticipating distress, had fortified their
minds against every species you could inflict. They had resolved to
abandon their homes, to resign them to destruction, and to seek new
settlements rather than submit. Thus familiarized to misfortune, before
it arrived, they bore their portion with the less regret: the justness
of their cause was a continual source of consolation, and the hope of
final victory, which never left them, served to lighten the load and
sweeten the cup allotted them to drink.

But when their troubles shall become yours, and invasion be transferred
upon the invaders, you will have neither their extended wilderness
to fly to, their cause to comfort you, nor their hope to rest upon.
Distress with them was sharpened by no self-reflection. They had not
brought it on themselves. On the contrary, they had by every proceeding
endeavored to avoid it, and had descended even below the mark of
congressional character, to prevent a war. The national honor or the
advantages of independence were matters which, at the commencement of
the dispute, they had never studied, and it was only at the last moment
that the measure was resolved on. Thus circumstanced, they naturally
and conscientiously felt a dependence upon providence. They had a clear
pretension to it, and had they failed therein, infidelity had gained a
triumph.

But your condition is the reverse of theirs. Every thing you suffer you
have sought: nay, had you created mischiefs on purpose to inherit
them, you could not have secured your title by a firmer deed. The world
awakens with no pity it your complaints. You felt none for others; you
deserve none for yourselves. Nature does not interest herself in cases
like yours, but, on the contrary, turns from them with dislike, and
abandons them to punishment. You may now present memorials to what court
you please, but so far as America is the object, none will listen.
The policy of Europe, and the propensity there in every mind to curb
insulting ambition, and bring cruelty to judgment, are unitedly against
you; and where nature and interest reinforce with each other, the
compact is too intimate to be dissolved.

Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, and you
will then have a clear idea of the whole. Had France acted towards her
colonies as you have done, you would have branded her with every epithet
of abhorrence; and had you, like her, stepped in to succor a struggling
people, all Europe must have echoed with your own applauses. But
entangled in the passion of dispute you see it not as you ought, and
form opinions thereon which suit with no interest but your own. You
wonder that America does not rise in union with you to impose on herself
a portion of your taxes and reduce herself to unconditional submission.
You are amazed that the southern powers of Europe do not assist you
in conquering a country which is afterwards to be turned against
themselves; and that the northern ones do not contribute to reinstate
you in America who already enjoy the market for naval stores by the
separation. You seem surprised that Holland does not pour in her succors
to maintain you mistress of the seas, when her own commerce is suffering
by your act of navigation; or that any country should study her own
interest while yours is on the carpet.

Such excesses of passionate folly, and unjust as well as unwise
resentment, have driven you on, like Pharaoh, to unpitied miseries, and
while the importance of the quarrel shall perpetuate your disgrace, the
flag of America will carry it round the world. The natural feelings of
every rational being will be against you, and wherever the story shall
be told, you will have neither excuse nor consolation left. With an
unsparing hand, and an insatiable mind, you have desolated the world,
to gain dominion and to lose it; and while, in a frenzy of avarice and
ambition, the east and the west are doomed to tributary bondage, you
rapidly earned destruction as the wages of a nation.

At the thoughts of a war at home, every man amongst you ought to
tremble. The prospect is far more dreadful there than in America. Here
the party that was against the measures of the continent were in general
composed of a kind of neutrals, who added strength to neither army.
There does not exist a being so devoid of sense and sentiment as to
covet "unconditional submission," and therefore no man in America could
be with you in principle. Several might from a cowardice of mind, prefer
it to the hardships and dangers of opposing it; but the same disposition
that gave them such a choice, unfitted them to act either for or against
us. But England is rent into parties, with equal shares of resolution.
The principle which produced the war divides the nation. Their
animosities are in the highest state of fermentation, and both sides, by
a call of the militia, are in arms. No human foresight can discern, no
conclusion can be formed, what turn a war might take, if once set on
foot by an invasion. She is not now in a fit disposition to make a
common cause of her own affairs, and having no conquests to hope for
abroad, and nothing but expenses arising at home, her everything is
staked upon a defensive combat, and the further she goes the worse she
is off.

There are situations that a nation may be in, in which peace or war,
abstracted from every other consideration, may be politically right or
wrong. When nothing can be lost by a war, but what must be lost without
it, war is then the policy of that country; and such was the situation
of America at the commencement of hostilities: but when no security can
be gained by a war, but what may be accomplished by a peace, the case
becomes reversed, and such now is the situation of England.

That America is beyond the reach of conquest, is a fact which experience
has shown and time confirmed, and this admitted, what, I ask, is now the
object of contention? If there be any honor in pursuing self-destruction
with inflexible passion--if national suicide be the perfection of
national glory, you may, with all the pride of criminal happiness,
expire unenvied and unrivalled. But when the tumult of war shall cease,
and the tempest of present passions be succeeded by calm reflection, or
when those, who, surviving its fury, shall inherit from you a legacy
of debts and misfortunes, when the yearly revenue scarcely be able to
discharge the interest of the one, and no possible remedy be left for
the other, ideas far different from the present will arise, and embitter
the remembrance of former follies. A mind disarmed of its rage feels no
pleasure in contemplating a frantic quarrel. Sickness of thought, the
sure consequence of conduct like yours, leaves no ability for enjoyment,
no relish for resentment; and though, like a man in a fit, you feel
not the injury of the struggle, nor distinguish between strength and
disease, the weakness will nevertheless be proportioned to the violence,
and the sense of pain increase with the recovery.

To what persons or to whose system of politics you owe your present
state of wretchedness, is a matter of total indifference to America.
They have contributed, however unwillingly, to set her above themselves,
and she, in the tranquillity of conquest, resigns the inquiry. The case
now is not so properly who began the war, as who continues it. That
there are men in all countries to whom a state of war is a mine of
wealth, is a fact never to be doubted. Characters like these naturally
breed in the putrefaction of distempered times, and after fattening
on the disease, they perish with it, or, impregnated with the stench,
retreat into obscurity.

But there are several erroneous notions to which you likewise owe a
share of your misfortunes, and which, if continued, will only increase
your trouble and your losses. An opinion hangs about the gentlemen
of the minority, that America would relish measures under their
administration, which she would not from the present cabinet. On this
rock Lord Chatham would have split had he gained the helm, and several
of his survivors are steering the same course. Such distinctions in
the infancy of the argument had some degree of foundation, but they now
serve no other purpose than to lengthen out a war, in which the limits
of a dispute, being fixed by the fate of arms, and guaranteed by
treaties, are not to be changed or altered by trivial circumstances.

The ministry, and many of the minority, sacrifice their time in
disputing on a question with which they have nothing to do, namely,
whether America shall be independent or not. Whereas the only question
that can come under their determination is, whether they will accede to
it or not. They confound a military question with a political one, and
undertake to supply by a vote what they lost by a battle. Say she shall
not be independent, and it will signify as much as if they voted
against a decree of fate, or say that she shall, and she will be no more
independent than before. Questions which, when determined, cannot be
executed, serve only to show the folly of dispute and the weakness of
disputants.

From a long habit of calling America your own, you suppose her governed
by the same prejudices and conceits which govern yourselves. Because you
have set up a particular denomination of religion to the exclusion of
all others, you imagine she must do the same, and because you, with an
unsociable narrowness of mind, have cherished enmity against France and
Spain, you suppose her alliance must be defective in friendship.
Copying her notions of the world from you, she formerly thought as you
instructed, but now feeling herself free, and the prejudice removed, she
thinks and acts upon a different system. It frequently happens that
in proportion as we are taught to dislike persons and countries, not
knowing why, we feel an ardor of esteem upon the removal of the mistake:
it seems as if something was to be made amends for, and we eagerly give
in to every office of friendship, to atone for the injury of the error.
But, perhaps, there is something in the extent of countries, which,
among the generality of people, insensibly communicates extension of the
mind. The soul of an islander, in its native state, seems bounded by
the foggy confines of the water's edge, and all beyond affords to him
matters only for profit or curiosity, not for friendship. His island
is to him his world, and fixed to that, his every thing centers in it;
while those who are inhabitants of a continent, by casting their eye
over a larger field, take in likewise a larger intellectual circuit,
and thus approaching nearer to an acquaintance with the universe, their
atmosphere of thought is extended, and their liberality fills a wider
space. In short, our minds seem to be measured by countries when we are
men, as they are by places when we are children, and until something
happens to disentangle us from the prejudice, we serve under it without
perceiving it.

In addition to this, it may be remarked, that men who study any
universal science, the principles of which are universally known, or
admitted, and applied without distinction to the common benefit of all
countries, obtain thereby a larger share of philanthropy than those
who only study national arts and improvements. Natural philosophy,
mathematics and astronomy, carry the mind from the country to the
creation, and give it a fitness suited to the extent. It was not
Newton's honor, neither could it be his pride, that he was an
Englishman, but that he was a philosopher, the heavens had liberated him
from the prejudices of an island, and science had expanded his soul as
boundless as his studies.

                                          COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, March, 1780.




THE CRISIS IX. (HAD AMERICA PURSUED HER ADVANTAGES)


HAD America pursued her advantages with half the spirit that she
resisted her misfortunes, she would, before now, have been a conquering
and a peaceful people; but lulled in the lap of soft tranquillity, she
rested on her hopes, and adversity only has convulsed her into action.
Whether subtlety or sincerity at the close of the last year induced the
enemy to an appearance for peace, is a point not material to know; it is
sufficient that we see the effects it has had on our politics, and that
we sternly rise to resent the delusion.

The war, on the part of America, has been a war of natural feelings.
Brave in distress; serene in conquest; drowsy while at rest; and in
every situation generously disposed to peace; a dangerous calm, and
a most heightened zeal have, as circumstances varied, succeeded each
other. Every passion but that of despair has been called to a tour
of duty; and so mistaken has been the enemy, of our abilities
and disposition, that when she supposed us conquered, we rose the
conquerors. The extensiveness of the United States, and the variety of
their resources; the universality of their cause, the quick operation of
their feelings, and the similarity of their sentiments, have, in every
trying situation, produced a something, which, favored by providence,
and pursued with ardor, has accomplished in an instant the business of
a campaign. We have never deliberately sought victory, but snatched it;
and bravely undone in an hour the blotted operations of a season.

The reported fate of Charleston, like the misfortunes of 1776, has at
last called forth a spirit, and kindled up a flame, which perhaps
no other event could have produced. If the enemy has circulated a
falsehood, they have unwisely aggravated us into life, and if they have
told us the truth, they have unintentionally done us a service. We were
returning with folded arms from the fatigues of war, and thinking and
sitting leisurely down to enjoy repose. The dependence that has been
put upon Charleston threw a drowsiness over America. We looked on the
business done--the conflict over--the matter settled--or that all which
remained unfinished would follow of itself. In this state of dangerous
relaxation, exposed to the poisonous infusions of the enemy, and having
no common danger to attract our attention, we were extinguishing, by
stages, the ardor we began with, and surrendering by piece-meal the
virtue that defended us.

Afflicting as the loss of Charleston may be, yet if it universally rouse
us from the slumber of twelve months past, and renew in us the spirit of
former days, it will produce an advantage more important than its loss.
America ever is what she thinks herself to be. Governed by sentiment,
and acting her own mind, she becomes, as she pleases, the victor or the
victim.

It is not the conquest of towns, nor the accidental capture of
garrisons, that can reduce a country so extensive as this. The
sufferings of one part can never be relieved by the exertions of
another, and there is no situation the enemy can be placed in that does
not afford to us the same advantages which he seeks himself. By dividing
his force, he leaves every post attackable. It is a mode of war that
carries with it a confession of weakness, and goes on the principle of
distress rather than conquest.

The decline of the enemy is visible, not only in their operations, but
in their plans; Charleston originally made but a secondary object in the
system of attack, and it is now become their principal one, because
they have not been able to succeed elsewhere. It would have carried a
cowardly appearance in Europe had they formed their grand expedition, in
1776, against a part of the continent where there was no army, or not
a sufficient one to oppose them; but failing year after year in their
impressions here, and to the eastward and northward, they deserted their
capital design, and prudently contenting themselves with what they can
get, give a flourish of honor to conceal disgrace.

But this piece-meal work is not conquering the continent. It is a
discredit in them to attempt it, and in us to suffer it. It is now full
time to put an end to a war of aggravations, which, on one side, has
no possible object, and on the other has every inducement which honor,
interest, safety and happiness can inspire. If we suffer them much
longer to remain among us, we shall become as bad as themselves.
An association of vice will reduce us more than the sword. A nation
hardened in the practice of iniquity knows better how to profit by it,
than a young country newly corrupted. We are not a match for them in the
line of advantageous guilt, nor they for us on the principles which we
bravely set out with. Our first days were our days of honor. They have
marked the character of America wherever the story of her wars are told;
and convinced of this, we have nothing to do but wisely and unitedly to
tread the well known track. The progress of a war is often as ruinous
to individuals, as the issue of it is to a nation; and it is not only
necessary that our forces be such that we be conquerors in the end,
but that by timely exertions we be secure in the interim. The present
campaign will afford an opportunity which has never presented itself
before, and the preparations for it are equally necessary, whether
Charleston stand or fall. Suppose the first, it is in that case only
a failure of the enemy, not a defeat. All the conquest that a besieged
town can hope for, is, not to be conquered; and compelling an enemy
to raise the siege, is to the besieged a victory. But there must be
a probability amounting almost to a certainty, that would justify a
garrison marching out to attack a retreat. Therefore should Charleston
not be taken, and the enemy abandon the siege, every other part of the
continent should prepare to meet them; and, on the contrary, should it
be taken, the same preparations are necessary to balance the loss, and
put ourselves in a position to co-operate with our allies, immediately
on their arrival.

We are not now fighting our battles alone, as we were in 1776; England,
from a malicious disposition to America, has not only not declared war
against France and Spain, but, the better to prosecute her passions
here, has afforded those powers no military object, and avoids them,
to distress us. She will suffer her West India islands to be overrun by
France, and her southern settlements to be taken by Spain, rather than
quit the object that gratifies her revenge. This conduct, on the part
of Britain, has pointed out the propriety of France sending a naval and
land force to co-operate with America on the spot. Their arrival cannot
be very distant, nor the ravages of the enemy long. The recruiting the
army, and procuring the supplies, are the two things most necessary to
be accomplished, and a capture of either of the enemy's divisions will
restore to America peace and plenty.

At a crisis, big, like the present, with expectation and events, the
whole country is called to unanimity and exertion. Not an ability ought
now to sleep, that can produce but a mite to the general good, nor even
a whisper to pass that militates against it. The necessity of the case,
and the importance of the consequences, admit no delay from a friend,
no apology from an enemy. To spare now, would be the height of
extravagance, and to consult present ease, would be to sacrifice it
perhaps forever.

America, rich in patriotism and produce, can want neither men nor
supplies, when a serious necessity calls them forth. The slow
operation of taxes, owing to the extensiveness of collection, and their
depreciated value before they arrived in the treasury, have, in many
instances, thrown a burden upon government, which has been artfully
interpreted by the enemy into a general decline throughout the
country. Yet this, inconvenient as it may at first appear, is not only
remediable, but may be turned to an immediate advantage; for it makes no
real difference, whether a certain number of men, or company of militia
(and in this country every man is a militia-man), are directed by law
to send a recruit at their own expense, or whether a tax is laid on them
for that purpose, and the man hired by government afterwards. The first,
if there is any difference, is both cheapest and best, because it saves
the expense which would attend collecting it as a tax, and brings the
man sooner into the field than the modes of recruiting formerly used;
and, on this principle, a law has been passed in this state, for
recruiting two men from each company of militia, which will add upwards
of a thousand to the force of the country.

But the flame which has broken forth in this city since the report from
New York, of the loss of Charleston, not only does honor to the place,
but, like the blaze of 1776, will kindle into action the scattered
sparks throughout America. The valor of a country may be learned by the
bravery of its soldiery, and the general cast of its inhabitants, but
confidence of success is best discovered by the active measures pursued
by men of property; and when the spirit of enterprise becomes so
universal as to act at once on all ranks of men, a war may then, and not
till then, be styled truly popular.

In 1776, the ardor of the enterprising part was considerably checked by
the real revolt of some, and the coolness of others. But in the present
case, there is a firmness in the substance and property of the country
to the public cause. An association has been entered into by
the merchants, tradesmen, and principal inhabitants of the city
[Philadelphia], to receive and support the new state money at the value
of gold and silver; a measure which, while it does them honor, will
likewise contribute to their interest, by rendering the operations of
the campaign convenient and effectual.

Nor has the spirit of exertion stopped here. A voluntary subscription is
likewise begun, to raise a fund of hard money, to be given as bounties,
to fill up the full quota of the Pennsylvania line. It has been the
remark of the enemy, that every thing in America has been done by the
force of government; but when she sees individuals throwing in their
voluntary aid, and facilitating the public measures in concert with the
established powers of the country, it will convince her that the cause
of America stands not on the will of a few but on the broad foundation
of property and popularity.

Thus aided and thus supported, disaffection will decline, and the
withered head of tyranny expire in America. The ravages of the enemy
will be short and limited, and like all their former ones, will produce
a victory over themselves.

                                       COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, June 9, 1780.

P. S. At the time of writing this number of the Crisis, the loss of
Charleston, though believed by some, was more confidently disbelieved
by others. But there ought to be no longer a doubt upon the matter.
Charleston is gone, and I believe for the want of a sufficient supply of
provisions. The man that does not now feel for the honor of the best
and noblest cause that ever a country engaged in, and exert himself
accordingly, is no longer worthy of a peaceable residence among a people
determined to be free.

                                             C. S.

                       THE CRISIS EXTRAORDINARY

                      ON THE SUBJECT OF TAXATION.

IT IS impossible to sit down and think seriously on the affairs of
America, but the original principles upon which she resisted, and
the glow and ardor which they inspired, will occur like the undefaced
remembrance of a lovely scene. To trace over in imagination the purity
of the cause, the voluntary sacrifices that were made to support it,
and all the various turnings of the war in its defence, is at once both
paying and receiving respect. The principles deserve to be remembered,
and to remember them rightly is repossessing them. In this indulgence
of generous recollection, we become gainers by what we seem to give, and
the more we bestow the richer we become.

So extensively right was the ground on which America proceeded, that it
not only took in every just and liberal sentiment which could impress
the heart, but made it the direct interest of every class and order
of men to defend the country. The war, on the part of Britain, was
originally a war of covetousness. The sordid and not the splendid
passions gave it being. The fertile fields and prosperous infancy of
America appeared to her as mines for tributary wealth. She viewed the
hive, and disregarding the industry that had enriched it, thirsted for
the honey. But in the present stage of her affairs, the violence of
temper is added to the rage of avarice; and therefore, that which at
the first setting out proceeded from purity of principle and public
interest, is now heightened by all the obligations of necessity; for it
requires but little knowledge of human nature to discern what would
be the consequence, were America again reduced to the subjection of
Britain. Uncontrolled power, in the hands of an incensed, imperious, and
rapacious conqueror, is an engine of dreadful execution, and woe be to
that country over which it can be exercised. The names of Whig and Tory
would then be sunk in the general term of rebel, and the oppression,
whatever it might be, would, with very few instances of exception, light
equally on all.

Britain did not go to war with America for the sake of dominion, because
she was then in possession; neither was it for the extension of trade
and commerce, because she had monopolized the whole, and the country
had yielded to it; neither was it to extinguish what she might call
rebellion, because before she began no resistance existed. It could then
be from no other motive than avarice, or a design of establishing, in
the first instance, the same taxes in America as are paid in England
(which, as I shall presently show, are above eleven times heavier than
the taxes we now pay for the present year, 1780) or, in the second
instance, to confiscate the whole property of America, in case of
resistance and conquest of the latter, of which she had then no doubt.

I shall now proceed to show what the taxes in England are, and what
the yearly expense of the present war is to her--what the taxes of
this country amount to, and what the annual expense of defending it
effectually will be to us; and shall endeavor concisely to point out
the cause of our difficulties, and the advantages on one side, and the
consequences on the other, in case we do, or do not, put ourselves in
an effectual state of defence. I mean to be open, candid, and sincere.
I see a universal wish to expel the enemy from the country, a murmuring
because the war is not carried on with more vigor, and my intention is
to show, as shortly as possible, both the reason and the remedy.

The number of souls in England (exclusive of Scotland and Ireland) is
seven millions,* and the number of souls in America is three millions.


     * This is taking the highest number that the people of England have
been, or can be rated at.

The amount of taxes in England (exclusive of Scotland and Ireland)
was, before the present war commenced, eleven millions six hundred and
forty-two thousand six hundred and fifty-three pounds sterling; which,
on an average, is no less a sum than one pound thirteen shillings and
three-pence sterling per head per annum, men, women, and children;
besides county taxes, taxes for the support of the poor, and a tenth of
all the produce of the earth for the support of the bishops and clergy.*
Nearly five millions of this sum went annually to pay the interest of
the national debt, contracted by former wars, and the remaining sum of
six millions six hundred and forty-two thousand six hundred pounds
was applied to defray the yearly expense of government, the peace
establishment of the army and navy, placemen, pensioners, etc.;
consequently the whole of the enormous taxes being thus appropriated,
she had nothing to spare out of them towards defraying the expenses
of the present war or any other. Yet had she not been in debt at the
beginning of the war, as we were not, and, like us, had only a land and
not a naval war to carry on, her then revenue of eleven millions and a
half pounds sterling would have defrayed all her annual expenses of
war and government within each year. * The following is taken from Dr.
Price's state of the taxes of England.

An account of the money drawn from the public by taxes, annually, being
the medium of three years before the year 1776.

    Amount of customs in England                         2,528,275 L.
    Amount of the excise in England                      4,649,892
    Land tax at 3s.                                      1,300,000
    Land tax at 1s. in the pound                           450,000
    Salt duties                                            218,739
    Duties on stamps, cards, dice, advertisements,
      bonds, leases, indentures, newspapers,
      almanacks, etc.                                      280,788
    Duties on houses and windows                           385,369
    Post office, seizures, wine licences, hackney
      coaches, etc.                                        250,000
    Annual profits from lotteries                          150,000
    Expense of collecting the excise in England            297,887
    Expense of collecting the customs in England           468,703
    Interest of loans on the land tax at 4s. expenses
      of collection, militia, etc.                         250,000
    Perquisites, etc. to custom-house officers, &c.
      supposed                                             250,000
    Expense of collecting the salt duties in England
      10 1/2 per cent.                                      27,000
    Bounties on fish exported                               18,000
    Expense of collecting the duties on stamps, cards,
      advertisements, etc. at 5 and 1/4 per cent.           18,000

                                                  Total 11,642,653 L.

But this not being the case with her, she is obliged to borrow about ten
millions pounds sterling, yearly, to prosecute the war that she is now
engaged in, (this year she borrowed twelve) and lay on new taxes to
discharge the interest; allowing that the present war has cost her only
fifty millions sterling, the interest thereon, at five per cent., will
be two millions and an half; therefore the amount of her taxes now
must be fourteen millions, which on an average is no less than forty
shillings sterling, per head, men, women and children, throughout the
nation. Now as this expense of fifty millions was borrowed on the hopes
of conquering America, and as it was avarice which first induced her to
commence the war, how truly wretched and deplorable would the condition
of this country be, were she, by her own remissness, to suffer an
enemy of such a disposition, and so circumstanced, to reduce her to
subjection.

I now proceed to the revenues of America.

I have already stated the number of souls in America to be three
millions, and by a calculation that I have made, which I have every
reason to believe is sufficiently correct, the whole expense of the
war, and the support of the several governments, may be defrayed for
two million pounds sterling annually; which, on an average, is thirteen
shillings and four pence per head, men, women, and children, and the
peace establishment at the end of the war will be but three quarters of
a million, or five shillings sterling per head. Now, throwing out of
the question everything of honor, principle, happiness, freedom, and
reputation in the world, and taking it up on the simple ground of
interest, I put the following case:

Suppose Britain was to conquer America, and, as a conqueror, was to lay
her under no other conditions than to pay the same proportion towards
her annual revenue which the people of England pay: our share, in that
case, would be six million pounds sterling yearly. Can it then be
a question, whether it is best to raise two millions to defend the
country, and govern it ourselves, and only three quarters of a million
afterwards, or pay six millions to have it conquered, and let the enemy
govern it?

Can it be supposed that conquerors would choose to put themselves in a
worse condition than what they granted to the conquered? In England, the
tax on rum is five shillings and one penny sterling per gallon, which is
one silver dollar and fourteen coppers. Now would it not be laughable to
imagine, that after the expense they have been at, they would let either
Whig or Tory drink it cheaper than themselves? Coffee, which is so
inconsiderable an article of consumption and support here, is there
loaded with a duty which makes the price between five and six shillings
per pound, and a penalty of fifty pounds sterling on any person detected
in roasting it in his own house. There is scarcely a necessary of life
that you can eat, drink, wear, or enjoy, that is not there loaded with
a tax; even the light from heaven is only permitted to shine into their
dwellings by paying eighteen pence sterling per window annually; and the
humblest drink of life, small beer, cannot there be purchased without a
tax of nearly two coppers per gallon, besides a heavy tax upon the malt,
and another on the hops before it is brewed, exclusive of a land-tax on
the earth which produces them. In short, the condition of that country,
in point of taxation, is so oppressive, the number of her poor so great,
and the extravagance and rapaciousness of the court so enormous, that,
were they to effect a conquest of America, it is then only that the
distresses of America would begin. Neither would it signify anything
to a man whether he be Whig or Tory. The people of England, and the
ministry of that country, know us by no such distinctions. What they
want is clear, solid revenue, and the modes which they would take to
procure it, would operate alike on all. Their manner of reasoning would
be short, because they would naturally infer, that if we were able to
carry on a war of five or six years against them, we were able to pay
the same taxes which they do.

I have already stated that the expense of conducting the present war,
and the government of the several states, may be done for two millions
sterling, and the establishment in the time of peace, for three quarters
of a million.*


     * I have made the calculations in sterling, because it is a rate
generally known in all the states, and because, likewise, it admits of
an easy comparison between our expenses to support the war, and those
of the enemy. Four silver dollars and a half is one pound sterling, and
three pence over.

As to navy matters, they flourish so well, and are so well attended to
by individuals, that I think it consistent on every principle of real
use and economy, to turn the navy into hard money (keeping only three or
four packets) and apply it to the service of the army. We shall not have
a ship the less; the use of them, and the benefit from them, will be
greatly increased, and their expense saved. We are now allied with a
formidable naval power, from whom we derive the assistance of a navy.
And the line in which we can prosecute the war, so as to reduce the
common enemy and benefit the alliance most effectually, will be by
attending closely to the land service.

I estimate the charge of keeping up and maintaining an army, officering
them, and all expenses included, sufficient for the defence of the
country, to be equal to the expense of forty thousand men at thirty
pounds sterling per head, which is one million two hundred thousand
pounds.

I likewise allow four hundred thousand pounds for continental expenses
at home and abroad.

And four hundred thousand pounds for the support of the several state
governments--the amount will then be:

    For the army                                         1,200,000 L.
    Continental expenses at home and abroad                400,000
    Government of the several states                       400,000

                                                   Total 2,000,000 L.

I take the proportion of this state, Pennsylvania, to be an eighth part
of the thirteen United States; the quota then for us to raise will be
two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling; two hundred thousand
of which will be our share for the support and pay of the army, and
continental expenses at home and abroad, and fifty thousand pounds for
the support of the state government.

In order to gain an idea of the proportion in which the raising such a
sum will fall, I make the following calculation:

Pennsylvania contains three hundred and seventy-five thousand
inhabitants, men, women and children; which is likewise an eighth of the
number of inhabitants of the whole United States: therefore, two hundred
and fifty thousand pounds sterling to be raised among three hundred and
seventy-five thousand persons, is, on an average, thirteen shillings
and four pence per head, per annum, or something more than one shilling
sterling per month. And our proportion of three quarters of a
million for the government of the country, in time of peace, will be
ninety-three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling; fifty
thousand of which will be for the government expenses of the state,
and forty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds for continental
expenses at home and abroad.

The peace establishment then will, on an average, be five shillings
sterling per head. Whereas, was England now to stop, and the war cease,
her peace establishment would continue the same as it is now, viz. forty
shillings per head; therefore was our taxes necessary for carrying on
the war, as much per head as hers now is, and the difference to be
only whether we should, at the end of the war, pay at the rate of five
shillings per head, or forty shillings per head, the case needs no
thinking of. But as we can securely defend and keep the country for
one third less than what our burden would be if it was conquered, and
support the governments afterwards for one eighth of what Britain would
levy on us, and could I find a miser whose heart never felt the emotion
of a spark of principle, even that man, uninfluenced by every love but
the love of money, and capable of no attachment but to his interest,
would and must, from the frugality which governs him, contribute to the
defence of the country, or he ceases to be a miser and becomes an idiot.
But when we take in with it every thing that can ornament mankind; when
the line of our interest becomes the line of our happiness; when all
that can cheer and animate the heart, when a sense of honor, fame,
character, at home and abroad, are interwoven not only with the security
but the increase of property, there exists not a man in America, unless
he be an hired emissary, who does not see that his good is connected
with keeping up a sufficient defence.

I do not imagine that an instance can be produced in the world, of a
country putting herself to such an amazing charge to conquer and enslave
another, as Britain has done. The sum is too great for her to think of
with any tolerable degree of temper; and when we consider the burden
she sustains, as well as the disposition she has shown, it would be the
height of folly in us to suppose that she would not reimburse herself by
the most rapid means, had she America once more within her power. With
such an oppression of expense, what would an empty conquest be to her!
What relief under such circumstances could she derive from a victory
without a prize? It was money, it was revenue she first went to war for,
and nothing but that would satisfy her. It is not the nature of avarice
to be satisfied with any thing else. Every passion that acts upon
mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary
and fluctuating; they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a
fixed, uniform passion. It neither abates of its vigor nor changes its
object; and the reason why it does not, is founded in the nature of
things, for wealth has not a rival where avarice is a ruling passion.
One beauty may excel another, and extinguish from the mind of man the
pictured remembrance of a former one: but wealth is the phoenix of
avarice, and therefore it cannot seek a new object, because there is not
another in the world.

I now pass on to show the value of the present taxes, and compare them
with the annual expense; but this I shall preface with a few explanatory
remarks.

There are two distinct things which make the payment of taxes difficult;
the one is the large and real value of the sum to be paid, and the other
is the scarcity of the thing in which the payment is to be made; and
although these appear to be one and the same, they are in several
instances riot only different, but the difficulty springs from different
causes.

Suppose a tax to be laid equal to one half of what a man's yearly income
is, such a tax could not be paid, because the property could not be
spared; and on the other hand, suppose a very trifling tax was laid, to
be collected in pearls, such a tax likewise could not be paid, because
they could not be had. Now any person may see that these are distinct
cases, and the latter of them is a representation of our own.

That the difficulty cannot proceed from the former, that is, from the
real value or weight of the tax, is evident at the first view to any
person who will consider it.

The amount of the quota of taxes for this State for the year, 1780, (and
so in proportion for every other State,) is twenty millions of dollars,
which at seventy for one, is but sixty-four thousand two hundred and
eighty pounds three shillings sterling, and on an average, is no more
than three shillings and five pence sterling per head, per annum, per
man, woman and child, or threepence two-fifths per head per month. Now
here is a clear, positive fact, that cannot be contradicted, and which
proves that the difficulty cannot be in the weight of the tax, for in
itself it is a trifle, and far from being adequate to our quota of the
expense of the war. The quit-rents of one penny sterling per acre on
only one half of the state, come to upwards of fifty thousand pounds,
which is almost as much as all the taxes of the present year, and
as those quit-rents made no part of the taxes then paid, and are now
discontinued, the quantity of money drawn for public-service this year,
exclusive of the militia fines, which I shall take notice of in the
process of this work, is less than what was paid and payable in any year
preceding the revolution, and since the last war; what I mean is, that
the quit-rents and taxes taken together came to a larger sum then, than
the present taxes without the quit-rents do now.

My intention by these arguments and calculations is to place the
difficulty to the right cause, and show that it does not proceed from
the weight or worth of the tax, but from the scarcity of the medium in
which it is paid; and to illustrate this point still further, I shall
now show, that if the tax of twenty millions of dollars was of four
times the real value it now is, or nearly so, which would be about two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, and would be our full quota,
this sum would have been raised with more ease, and have been less felt,
than the present sum of only sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty
pounds.

The convenience or inconvenience of paying a tax in money arises from
the quantity of money that can be spared out of trade.

When the emissions stopped, the continent was left in possession of
two hundred millions of dollars, perhaps as equally dispersed as it was
possible for trade to do it. And as no more was to be issued, the rise
or fall of prices could neither increase nor diminish the quantity. It
therefore remained the same through all the fluctuations of trade and
exchange.

Now had the exchange stood at twenty for one, which was the rate
Congress calculated upon when they arranged the quota of the several
states, the latter end of last year, trade would have been carried on
for nearly four times less money than it is now, and consequently the
twenty millions would have been spared with much greater ease, and when
collected would have been of almost four times the value that they now
are. And on the other hand, was the depreciation to be ninety or one
hundred for one, the quantity required for trade would be more than at
sixty or seventy for one, and though the value of them would be less,
the difficulty of sparing the money out of trade would be greater. And
on these facts and arguments I rest the matter, to prove that it is
not the want of property, but the scarcity of the medium by which the
proportion of property for taxation is to be measured out, that makes
the embarrassment which we lie under. There is not money enough, and,
what is equally as true, the people will not let there be money enough.

While I am on the subject of the currency, I shall offer one remark
which will appear true to everybody, and can be accounted for by nobody,
which is, that the better the times were, the worse the money grew;
and the worse the times were, the better the money stood. It never
depreciated by any advantage obtained by the enemy. The troubles of
1776, and the loss of Philadelphia in 1777, made no sensible impression
on it, and every one knows that the surrender of Charleston did not
produce the least alteration in the rate of exchange, which, for long
before, and for more than three months after, stood at sixty for one. It
seems as if the certainty of its being our own, made us careless of its
value, and that the most distant thoughts of losing it made us hug
it the closer, like something we were loth to part with; or that we
depreciate it for our pastime, which, when called to seriousness by the
enemy, we leave off to renew again at our leisure. In short, our good
luck seems to break us, and our bad makes us whole.

Passing on from this digression, I shall now endeavor to bring into one
view the several parts which I have already stated, and form thereon
some propositions, and conclude.

I have placed before the reader, the average tax per head, paid by the
people of England; which is forty shillings sterling.

And I have shown the rate on an average per head, which will defray
all the expenses of the war to us, and support the several governments
without running the country into debt, which is thirteen shillings and
four pence.

I have shown what the peace establishment may be conducted for, viz., an
eighth part of what it would be, if under the government of Britain.

And I have likewise shown what the average per head of the present
taxes is, namely, three shillings and fivepence sterling, or threepence
two-fifths per month; and that their whole yearly value, in sterling,
is only sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty pounds. Whereas our
quota, to keep the payments equal with the expenses, is two hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. Consequently, there is a deficiency of one
hundred and eighty-five thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds, and
the same proportion of defect, according to the several quotas, happens
in every other state. And this defect is the cause why the army has been
so indifferently fed, clothed and paid. It is the cause, likewise, of
the nerveless state of the campaign, and the insecurity of the country.
Now, if a tax equal to thirteen and fourpence per head, will remove all
these difficulties, and make people secure in their homes, leave them to
follow the business of their stores and farms unmolested, and not only
drive out but keep out the enemy from the country; and if the neglect of
raising this sum will let them in, and produce the evils which might be
prevented--on which side, I ask, does the wisdom, interest and policy
lie? Or, rather, would it not be an insult to reason, to put the
question? The sum, when proportioned out according to the several
abilities of the people, can hurt no one, but an inroad from the enemy
ruins hundreds of families.

Look at the destruction done in this city [Philadelphia]. The many
houses totally destroyed, and others damaged; the waste of fences in
the country round it, besides the plunder of furniture, forage,
and provisions. I do not suppose that half a million sterling would
reinstate the sufferers; and, does this, I ask, bear any proportion to
the expense that would make us secure? The damage, on an average, is
at least ten pounds sterling per head, which is as much as thirteen
shillings and fourpence per head comes to for fifteen years. The same
has happened on the frontiers, and in the Jerseys, New York, and other
places where the enemy has been--Carolina and Georgia are likewise
suffering the same fate.

That the people generally do not understand the insufficiency of the
taxes to carry on the war, is evident, not only from common observation,
but from the construction of several petitions which were presented to
the Assembly of this state, against the recommendation of Congress of
the 18th of March last, for taking up and funding the present currency
at forty to one, and issuing new money in its stead. The prayer of the
petition was, that the currency might be appreciated by taxes (meaning
the present taxes) and that part of the taxes be applied to the support
of the army, if the army could not be otherwise supported. Now it could
not have been possible for such a petition to have been presented,
had the petitioners known, that so far from part of the taxes being
sufficient for the support of the whole of them falls three-fourths
short of the year's expenses.

Before I proceed to propose methods by which a sufficiency of money
may be raised, I shall take a short view of the general state of the
country.

Notwithstanding the weight of the war, the ravages of the enemy, and the
obstructions she has thrown in the way of trade and commerce, so soon
does a young country outgrow misfortune, that America has already
surmounted many that heavily oppressed her. For the first year or two
of the war, we were shut up within our ports, scarce venturing to look
towards the ocean. Now our rivers are beautified with large and valuable
vessels, our stores filled with merchandise, and the produce of the
country has a ready market, and an advantageous price. Gold and silver,
that for a while seemed to have retreated again within the bowels of
the earth, have once more risen into circulation, and every day adds new
strength to trade, commerce and agriculture. In a pamphlet, written
by Sir John Dalrymple, and dispersed in America in the year 1775, he
asserted that two twenty-gun ships, nay, says he, tenders of those
ships, stationed between Albermarle sound and Chesapeake bay, would shut
up the trade of America for 600 miles. How little did Sir John Dalrymple
know of the abilities of America!

While under the government of Britain, the trade of this country was
loaded with restrictions. It was only a few foreign ports which we were
allowed to sail to. Now it is otherwise; and allowing that the quantity
of trade is but half what it was before the war, the case must show the
vast advantage of an open trade, because the present quantity under her
restrictions could not support itself; from which I infer, that if half
the quantity without the restrictions can bear itself up nearly, if not
quite, as well as the whole when subject to them, how prosperous must
the condition of America be when the whole shall return open with all
the world. By the trade I do not mean the employment of a merchant only,
but the whole interest and business of the country taken collectively.

It is not so much my intention, by this publication, to propose
particular plans for raising money, as it is to show the necessity and
the advantages to be derived from it. My principal design is to form the
disposition of the people to the measures which I am fully persuaded it
is their interest and duty to adopt, and which need no other force to
accomplish them than the force of being felt. But as every hint may
be useful, I shall throw out a sketch, and leave others to make such
improvements upon it as to them may appear reasonable.

The annual sum wanted is two millions, and the average rate in which it
falls, is thirteen shillings and fourpence per head.

Suppose, then, that we raise half the sum and sixty thousand pounds
over. The average rate thereof will be seven shillings per head.

In this case we shall have half the supply that we want, and an annual
fund of sixty thousand pounds whereon to borrow the other million;
because sixty thousand pounds is the interest of a million at six per
cent.; and if at the end of another year we should be obliged, by the
continuance of the war, to borrow another million, the taxes will be
increased to seven shillings and sixpence; and thus for every million
borrowed, an additional tax, equal to sixpence per head, must be levied.

The sum to be raised next year will be one million and sixty thousand
pounds: one half of which I would propose should be raised by duties on
imported goods, and prize goods, and the other half by a tax on landed
property and houses, or such other means as each state may devise.

But as the duties on imports and prize goods must be the same in all the
states, therefore the rate per cent., or what other form the duty shall
be laid, must be ascertained and regulated by Congress, and ingrafted in
that form into the law of each state; and the monies arising therefrom
carried into the treasury of each state. The duties to be paid in gold
or silver.

There are many reasons why a duty on imports is the most convenient
duty or tax that can be collected; one of which is, because the whole is
payable in a few places in a country, and it likewise operates with the
greatest ease and equality, because as every one pays in proportion to
what he consumes, so people in general consume in proportion to what
they can afford; and therefore the tax is regulated by the abilities
which every man supposes himself to have, or in other words, every man
becomes his own assessor, and pays by a little at a time, when it suits
him to buy. Besides, it is a tax which people may pay or let alone
by not consuming the articles; and though the alternative may have no
influence on their conduct, the power of choosing is an agreeable thing
to the mind. For my own part, it would be a satisfaction to me was there
a duty on all sorts of liquors during the war, as in my idea of things
it would be an addition to the pleasures of society to know, that when
the health of the army goes round, a few drops, from every glass becomes
theirs. How often have I heard an emphatical wish, almost accompanied by
a tear, "Oh, that our poor fellows in the field had some of this!" Why
then need we suffer under a fruitless sympathy, when there is a way to
enjoy both the wish and the entertainment at once.

But the great national policy of putting a duty upon imports is, that it
either keeps the foreign trade in our own hands, or draws something for
the defence of the country from every foreigner who participates in it
with us.

Thus much for the first half of the taxes, and as each state will best
devise means to raise the other half, I shall confine my remarks to the
resources of this state.

The quota, then, of this state, of one million and sixty thousand
pounds, will be one hundred and thirty-three thousand two hundred and
fifty pounds, the half of which is sixty-six thousand six hundred
and twenty-five pounds; and supposing one fourth part of Pennsylvania
inhabited, then a tax of one bushel of wheat on every twenty acres of
land, one with another, would produce the sum, and all the present taxes
to cease. Whereas, the tithes of the bishops and clergy in England,
exclusive of the taxes, are upwards of half a bushel of wheat on every
single acre of land, good and bad, throughout the nation.

In the former part of this paper, I mentioned the militia fines, but
reserved speaking of the matter, which I shall now do. The ground I
shall put it upon is, that two millions sterling a year will support
a sufficient army, and all the expenses of war and government, without
having recourse to the inconvenient method of continually calling men
from their employments, which, of all others, is the most expensive and
the least substantial. I consider the revenues created by taxes as the
first and principal thing, and fines only as secondary and accidental
things. It was not the intention of the militia law to apply the fines
to anything else but the support of the militia, neither do they produce
any revenue to the state, yet these fines amount to more than all the
taxes: for taking the muster-roll to be sixty thousand men, the fine
on forty thousand who may not attend, will be sixty thousand pounds
sterling, and those who muster, will give up a portion of time equal
to half that sum, and if the eight classes should be called within the
year, and one third turn out, the fine on the remaining forty thousand
would amount to seventy-two millions of dollars, besides the fifteen
shillings on every hundred pounds of property, and the charge of seven
and a half per cent. for collecting, in certain instances which, on
the whole, would be upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
sterling.

Now if those very fines disable the country from raising a sufficient
revenue without producing an equivalent advantage, would it not be for
the ease and interest of all parties to increase the revenue, in the
manner I have proposed, or any better, if a better can be devised, and
cease the operation of the fines? I would still keep the militia as an
organized body of men, and should there be a real necessity to call them
forth, pay them out of the proper revenues of the state, and increase
the taxes a third or fourth per cent. on those who do not attend. My
limits will not allow me to go further into this matter, which I shall
therefore close with this remark; that fines are, of all modes of
revenue, the most unsuited to the minds of a free country. When a
man pays a tax, he knows that the public necessity requires it, and
therefore feels a pride in discharging his duty; but a fine seems
an atonement for neglect of duty, and of consequence is paid with
discredit, and frequently levied with severity.

I have now only one subject more to speak of, with which I shall
conclude, which is, the resolve of Congress of the 18th of March last,
for taking up and funding the present currency at forty for one, and
issuing new money in its stead.

Every one knows that I am not the flatterer of Congress, but in this
instance they are right; and if that measure is supported, the currency
will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. But this is not
all: it will give relief to the finances until such time as they can be
properly arranged, and save the country from being immediately doubled
taxed under the present mode. In short, support that measure, and it
will support you.

I have now waded through a tedious course of difficult business, and
over an untrodden path. The subject, on every point in which it could be
viewed, was entangled with perplexities, and enveloped in obscurity, yet
such are the resources of America, that she wants nothing but system to
secure success.

                                          COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4, 1780.




THE CRISIS X. ON THE KING OF ENGLAND'S SPEECH.


OF all the innocent passions which actuate the human mind there is none
more universally prevalent than curiosity. It reaches all mankind, and
in matters which concern us, or concern us not, it alike provokes in us
a desire to know them.

Although the situation of America, superior to every effort to enslave
her, and daily rising to importance and opulence, has placed her above
the region of anxiety, it has still left her within the circle of
curiosity; and her fancy to see the speech of a man who had proudly
threatened to bring her to his feet, was visibly marked with that
tranquil confidence which cared nothing about its contents. It was
inquired after with a smile, read with a laugh, and dismissed with
disdain.

But, as justice is due, even to an enemy, it is right to say, that the
speech is as well managed as the embarrassed condition of their affairs
could well admit of; and though hardly a line of it is true, except the
mournful story of Cornwallis, it may serve to amuse the deluded commons
and people of England, for whom it was calculated.

"The war," says the speech, "is still unhappily prolonged by that
restless ambition which first excited our enemies to commence it, and
which still continues to disappoint my earnest wishes and diligent
exertions to restore the public tranquillity."

How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual
wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance. That the very man
who began the war, who with the most sullen insolence refused to answer,
and even to hear the humblest of all petitions, who has encouraged
his officers and his army in the most savage cruelties, and the most
scandalous plunderings, who has stirred up the Indians on one side, and
the negroes on the other, and invoked every aid of hell in his behalf,
should now, with an affected air of pity, turn the tables from himself,
and charge to another the wickedness that is his own, can only be
equalled by the baseness of the heart that spoke it.

To be nobly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right, is an
expression I once used on a former occasion, and it is equally
applicable now. We feel something like respect for consistency even in
error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice, but the
vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable: and amongst the
various assumptions of character, which hypocrisy has taught, and men
have practised, there is none that raises a higher relish of disgust,
than to see disappointed inveteracy twisting itself, by the most visible
falsehoods, into an appearance of piety which it has no pretensions to.

"But I should not," continues the speech, "answer the trust committed
to the sovereign of a free people, nor make a suitable return to my
subjects for their constant, zealous, and affectionate attachment to my
person, family and government, if I consented to sacrifice, either to
my own desire of peace, or to their temporary ease and relief, those
essential rights and permanent interests, upon the maintenance and
preservation of which, the future strength and security of this country
must principally depend."

That the man whose ignorance and obstinacy first involved and still
continues the nation in the most hopeless and expensive of all wars,
should now meanly flatter them with the name of a free people, and make
a merit of his crime, under the disguise of their essential rights and
permanent interests, is something which disgraces even the character of
perverseness. Is he afraid they will send him to Hanover, or what does
he fear? Why is the sycophant thus added to the hypocrite, and the man
who pretends to govern, sunk into the humble and submissive memorialist?

What those essential rights and permanent interests are, on which the
future strength and security of England must principally depend, are not
so much as alluded to. They are words which impress nothing but the ear,
and are calculated only for the sound.

But if they have any reference to America, then do they amount to
the disgraceful confession, that England, who once assumed to be her
protectress, has now become her dependant. The British king and ministry
are constantly holding up the vast importance which America is of
to England, in order to allure the nation to carry on the war: now,
whatever ground there is for this idea, it ought to have operated as a
reason for not beginning it; and, therefore, they support their present
measures to their own disgrace, because the arguments which they now
use, are a direct reflection on their former policy.

"The favorable appearance of affairs," continues the speech, "in the
East Indies, and the safe arrival of the numerous commercial fleets of
my kingdom, must have given you satisfaction."

That things are not quite so bad every where as in America may be some
cause of consolation, but can be none for triumph. One broken leg
is better than two, but still it is not a source of joy: and let the
appearance of affairs in the East Indies be ever so favorable, they are
nevertheless worse than at first, without a prospect of their ever being
better. But the mournful story of Cornwallis was yet to be told, and it
was necessary to give it the softest introduction possible.

"But in the course of this year," continues the speech, "my assiduous
endeavors to guard the extensive dominions of my crown have not been
attended with success equal to the justice and uprightness of my
views."--What justice and uprightness there was in beginning a war with
America, the world will judge of, and the unequalled barbarity with
which it has been conducted, is not to be worn from the memory by the
cant of snivelling hypocrisy.

"And it is with great concern that I inform you that the events of war
have been very unfortunate to my arms in Virginia, having ended in the
loss of my forces in that province."--And our great concern is that they
are not all served in the same manner.

"No endeavors have been wanted on my part," says the speech, "to
extinguish that spirit of rebellion which our enemies have found means
to foment and maintain in the colonies; and to restore to my deluded
subjects in America that happy and prosperous condition which they
formerly derived from a due obedience to the laws."

The expression of deluded subjects is become so hacknied and
contemptible, and the more so when we see them making prisoners of whole
armies at a time, that the pride of not being laughed at would induce a
man of common sense to leave it off. But the most offensive falsehood
in the paragraph is the attributing the prosperity of America to a
wrong cause. It was the unremitted industry of the settlers and their
descendants, the hard labor and toil of persevering fortitude, that
were the true causes of the prosperity of America. The former tyranny
of England served to people it, and the virtue of the adventurers to
improve it. Ask the man, who, with his axe, has cleared a way in the
wilderness, and now possesses an estate, what made him rich, and he will
tell you the labor of his hands, the sweat of his brow, and the blessing
of heaven. Let Britain but leave America to herself and she asks no
more. She has risen into greatness without the knowledge and against the
will of England, and has a right to the unmolested enjoyment of her own
created wealth.

"I will order," says the speech, "the estimates of the ensuing year to
be laid before you. I rely on your wisdom and public spirit for such
supplies as the circumstances of our affairs shall be found to require.
Among the many ill consequences which attend the continuation of the
present war, I most sincerely regret the additional burdens which it
must unavoidably bring upon my faithful subjects."

It is strange that a nation must run through such a labyrinth of
trouble, and expend such a mass of wealth to gain the wisdom which an
hour's reflection might have taught. The final superiority of America
over every attempt that an island might make to conquer her, was as
naturally marked in the constitution of things, as the future ability of
a giant over a dwarf is delineated in his features while an infant.
How far providence, to accomplish purposes which no human wisdom could
foresee, permitted such extraordinary errors, is still a secret in the
womb of time, and must remain so till futurity shall give it birth.

"In the prosecution of this great and important contest," says the
speech, "in which we are engaged, I retain a firm confidence in the
protection of divine providence, and a perfect conviction in the justice
of my cause, and I have no doubt, but, that by the concurrence and
support of my Parliament, by the valour of my fleets and armies, and by
a vigorous, animated, and united exertion of the faculties and resources
of my people, I shall be enabled to restore the blessings of a safe and
honorable peace to all my dominions."

The King of England is one of the readiest believers in the world. In
the beginning of the contest he passed an act to put America out of the
protection of the crown of England, and though providence, for seven
years together, has put him out of her protection, still the man has no
doubt. Like Pharaoh on the edge of the Red Sea, he sees not the plunge
he is making, and precipitately drives across the flood that is closing
over his head.

I think it is a reasonable supposition, that this part of the speech was
composed before the arrival of the news of the capture of Cornwallis:
for it certainly has no relation to their condition at the time it was
spoken. But, be this as it may, it is nothing to us. Our line is
fixed. Our lot is cast; and America, the child of fate, is arriving at
maturity. We have nothing to do but by a spirited and quick exertion,
to stand prepared for war or peace. Too great to yield, and too noble
to insult; superior to misfortune, and generous in success, let us
untaintedly preserve the character which we have gained, and show to
future ages an example of unequalled magnanimity. There is something in
the cause and consequence of America that has drawn on her the attention
of all mankind. The world has seen her brave. Her love of liberty; her
ardour in supporting it; the justice of her claims, and the constancy
of her fortitude have won her the esteem of Europe, and attached to her
interest the first power in that country.

Her situation now is such, that to whatever point, past, present or to
come, she casts her eyes, new matter rises to convince her that she is
right. In her conduct towards her enemy, no reproachful sentiment lurks
in secret. No sense of injustice is left upon the mind. Untainted with
ambition, and a stranger to revenge, her progress has been marked by
providence, and she, in every stage of the conflict, has blest her with
success.

But let not America wrap herself up in delusive hope and suppose the
business done. The least remissness in preparation, the least relaxation
in execution, will only serve to prolong the war, and increase
expenses. If our enemies can draw consolation from misfortune, and
exert themselves upon despair, how much more ought we, who are to win a
continent by the conquest, and have already an earnest of success?

Having, in the preceding part, made my remarks on the several matters
which the speech contains, I shall now make my remarks on what it does
not contain.

There is not a syllable in its respecting alliances. Either the
injustice of Britain is too glaring, or her condition too desperate, or
both, for any neighboring power to come to her support. In the beginning
of the contest, when she had only America to contend with, she hired
assistance from Hesse, and other smaller states of Germany, and
for nearly three years did America, young, raw, undisciplined and
unprovided, stand against the power of Britain, aided by twenty thousand
foreign troops, and made a complete conquest of one entire army. The
remembrance of those things ought to inspire us with confidence and
greatness of mind, and carry us through every remaining difficulty with
content and cheerfulness. What are the little sufferings of the present
day, compared with the hardships that are past? There was a time, when
we had neither house nor home in safety; when every hour was the hour of
alarm and danger; when the mind, tortured with anxiety, knew no repose,
and every thing, but hope and fortitude, was bidding us farewell.

It is of use to look back upon these things; to call to mind the times
of trouble and the scenes of complicated anguish that are past and gone.
Then every expense was cheap, compared with the dread of conquest and
the misery of submission. We did not stand debating upon trifles, or
contending about the necessary and unavoidable charges of defence. Every
one bore his lot of suffering, and looked forward to happier days, and
scenes of rest.

Perhaps one of the greatest dangers which any country can be exposed
to, arises from a kind of trifling which sometimes steals upon the mind,
when it supposes the danger past; and this unsafe situation marks at
this time the peculiar crisis of America. What would she once have given
to have known that her condition at this day should be what it now is?
And yet we do not seem to place a proper value upon it, nor vigorously
pursue the necessary measures to secure it. We know that we cannot be
defended, nor yet defend ourselves, without trouble and expense. We have
no right to expect it; neither ought we to look for it. We are a people,
who, in our situation, differ from all the world. We form one common
floor of public good, and, whatever is our charge, it is paid for our
own interest and upon our own account.

Misfortune and experience have now taught us system and method; and the
arrangements for carrying on the war are reduced to rule and order. The
quotas of the several states are ascertained, and I intend in a future
publication to show what they are, and the necessity as well as the
advantages of vigorously providing for them.

In the mean time, I shall conclude this paper with an instance of
British clemency, from Smollett's History of England, vol. xi., printed
in London. It will serve to show how dismal the situation of a conquered
people is, and that the only security is an effectual defence.

We all know that the Stuart family and the house of Hanover opposed each
other for the crown of England. The Stuart family stood first in the
line of succession, but the other was the most successful.

In July, 1745, Charles, the son of the exiled king, landed in Scotland,
collected a small force, at no time exceeding five or six thousand
men, and made some attempts to re-establish his claim. The late Duke of
Cumberland, uncle to the present King of England, was sent against him,
and on the 16th of April following, Charles was totally defeated at
Culloden, in Scotland. Success and power are the only situations in
which clemency can be shown, and those who are cruel, because they
are victorious, can with the same facility act any other degenerate
character.

"Immediately after the decisive action at Culloden, the Duke of
Cumberland took possession of Inverness; where six and thirty deserters,
convicted by a court martial, were ordered to be executed: then he
detached several parties to ravage the country. One of these apprehended
The Lady Mackintosh, who was sent prisoner to Inverness, plundered her
house, and drove away her cattle, though her husband was actually in the
service of the government. The castle of Lord Lovat was destroyed.
The French prisoners were sent to Carlisle and Penrith: Kilmarnock,
Balmerino, Cromartie, and his son, The Lord Macleod, were conveyed by
sea to London; and those of an inferior rank were confined in different
prisons. The Marquis of Tullibardine, together with a brother of the
Earl of Dunmore, and Murray, the pretender's secretary, were seized and
transported to the Tower of London, to which the Earl of Traquaire
had been committed on suspicion; and the eldest son of Lord Lovat was
imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh. In a word, all the jails in
Great Britain, from the capital, northwards, were filled with those
unfortunate captives; and great numbers of them were crowded together in
the holds of ships, where they perished in the most deplorable manner,
for want of air and exercise. Some rebel chiefs escaped in two French
frigates that arrived on the coast of Lochaber about the end of April,
and engaged three vessels belonging to his Britannic majesty, which
they obliged to retire. Others embarked on board a ship on the coast
of Buchan, and were conveyed to Norway, from whence they travelled to
Sweden. In the month of May, the Duke of Cumberland advanced with the
army into the Highlands, as far as Fort Augustus, where he encamped; and
sent off detachments on all hands, to hunt down the fugitives, and
lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of Glengary and
Lochiel were plundered and burned; every house, hut, or habitation,
met with the same fate, without distinction; and all the cattle and
provision were carried off; the men were either shot upon the mountains,
like wild beasts, or put to death in cold blood, without form of trial;
the women, after having seen their husbands and fathers murdered, were
subjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their
children, to starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed
in a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so
alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was
neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen within the compass of
fifty miles; all was ruin, silence, and desolation."

I have here presented the reader with one of the most shocking instances
of cruelty ever practised, and I leave it, to rest on his mind, that he
may be fully impressed with a sense of the destruction he has escaped,
in case Britain had conquered America; and likewise, that he may see
and feel the necessity, as well for his own personal safety, as for the
honor, the interest, and happiness of the whole community, to omit or
delay no one preparation necessary to secure the ground which we so
happily stand upon.


                       TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA

          On the expenses, arrangements and disbursements for
           carrying on the war, and finishing it with honor
                            and advantage

WHEN any necessity or occasion has pointed out the convenience of
addressing the public, I have never made it a consideration whether the
subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it was right or wrong; for
that which is right will become popular, and that which is wrong, though
by mistake it may obtain the cry or fashion of the day, will soon lose
the power of delusion, and sink into disesteem.

A remarkable instance of this happened in the case of Silas Deane; and
I mention this circumstance with the greater ease, because the poison
of his hypocrisy spread over the whole country, and every man, almost
without exception, thought me wrong in opposing him. The best friends
I then had, except Mr. [Henry] Laurens, stood at a distance, and this
tribute, which is due to his constancy, I pay to him with respect, and
that the readier, because he is not here to hear it. If it reaches him
in his imprisonment, it will afford him an agreeable reflection.

"As he rose like a rocket, he would fall like a stick," is a metaphor
which I applied to Mr. Deane, in the first piece which I published
respecting him, and he has exactly fulfilled the description. The credit
he so unjustly obtained from the public, he lost in almost as short a
time. The delusion perished as it fell, and he soon saw himself stripped
of popular support. His more intimate acquaintances began to doubt, and
to desert him long before he left America, and at his departure, he saw
himself the object of general suspicion. When he arrived in France,
he endeavored to effect by treason what he had failed to accomplish by
fraud. His plans, schemes and projects, together with his expectation of
being sent to Holland to negotiate a loan of money, had all miscarried.
He then began traducing and accusing America of every crime, which could
injure her reputation. "That she was a ruined country; that she only
meant to make a tool of France, to get what money she could out of her,
and then to leave her and accommodate with Britain." Of all which and
much more, Colonel Laurens and myself, when in France, informed Dr.
Franklin, who had not before heard of it. And to complete the character
of traitor, he has, by letters to his country since, some of which, in
his own handwriting, are now in the possession of Congress, used every
expression and argument in his power, to injure the reputation of
France, and to advise America to renounce her alliance, and surrender up
her independence.* Thus in France he abuses America, and in his letters
to America he abuses France; and is endeavoring to create disunion
between two countries, by the same arts of double-dealing by which he
caused dissensions among the commissioners in Paris, and distractions in
America. But his life has been fraud, and his character has been that of
a plodding, plotting, cringing mercenary, capable of any disguise that
suited his purpose. His final detection has very happily cleared up
those mistakes, and removed that uneasiness, which his unprincipled
conduct occasioned. Every one now sees him in the same light; for
towards friends or enemies he acted with the same deception and
injustice, and his name, like that of Arnold, ought now to be forgotten
among us. As this is the first time that I have mentioned him since my
return from France, it is my intention that it shall be the last. From
this digression, which for several reasons I thought necessary to give,
I now proceed to the purport of my address.


     * Mr. William Marshall, of this city [Philadelphia], formerly a
pilot, who had been taken at sea and carried to England, and got from
thence to France, brought over letters from Mr. Deane to America, one of
which was directed to "Robert Morris, Esq." Mr. Morris sent it unopened
to Congress, and advised Mr. Marshall to deliver the others there, which
he did. The letters were of the same purport with those which have been
already published under the signature of S. Deane, to which they had
frequent reference.

I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war,
the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for
the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own
property. It is not the war of Congress, the war of the assemblies, or
the war of government in any line whatever. The country first, by
mutual compact, resolved to defend their rights and maintain their
independence, at the hazard of their lives and fortunes; they elected
their representatives, by whom they appointed their members of Congress,
and said, act you for us, and we will support you. This is the
true ground and principle of the war on the part of America, and,
consequently, there remains nothing to do, but for every one to fulfil
his obligation.

It was next to impossible that a new country, engaged in a new
undertaking, could set off systematically right at first. She saw not
the extent of the struggle that she was involved in, neither could she
avoid the beginning. She supposed every step that she took, and every
resolution which she formed, would bring her enemy to reason and close
the contest. Those failing, she was forced into new measures; and these,
like the former, being fitted to her expectations, and failing in their
turn, left her continually unprovided, and without system. The
enemy, likewise, was induced to prosecute the war, from the temporary
expedients we adopted for carrying it on. We were continually expecting
to see their credit exhausted, and they were looking to see our currency
fail; and thus, between their watching us, and we them, the hopes of
both have been deceived, and the childishness of the expectation has
served to increase the expense.

Yet who, through this wilderness of error, has been to blame? Where is
the man who can say the fault, in part, has not been his? They were the
natural, unavoidable errors of the day. They were the errors of a whole
country, which nothing but experience could detect and time remove.
Neither could the circumstances of America admit of system, till either
the paper currency was fixed or laid aside. No calculation of a finance
could be made on a medium failing without reason, and fluctuating
without rule.

But there is one error which might have been prevented and was not; and
as it is not my custom to flatter, but to serve mankind, I will speak it
freely. It certainly was the duty of every assembly on the continent to
have known, at all times, what was the condition of its treasury, and
to have ascertained at every period of depreciation, how much the real
worth of the taxes fell short of their nominal value. This knowledge,
which might have been easily gained, in the time of it, would have
enabled them to have kept their constituents well informed, and this is
one of the greatest duties of representation. They ought to have studied
and calculated the expenses of the war, the quota of each state, and
the consequent proportion that would fall on each man's property for
his defence; and this must have easily shown to them, that a tax of one
hundred pounds could not be paid by a bushel of apples or an hundred of
flour, which was often the case two or three years ago. But instead of
this, which would have been plain and upright dealing, the little line
of temporary popularity, the feather of an hour's duration, was too much
pursued; and in this involved condition of things, every state, for the
want of a little thinking, or a little information, supposed that it
supported the whole expenses of the war, when in fact it fell, by the
time the tax was levied and collected, above three-fourths short of its
own quota.

Impressed with a sense of the danger to which the country was exposed by
this lax method of doing business, and the prevailing errors of the day,
I published, last October was a twelvemonth, the Crisis Extraordinary,
on the revenues of America, and the yearly expense of carrying on
the war. My estimation of the latter, together with the civil list of
Congress, and the civil list of the several states, was two million
pounds sterling, which is very nearly nine millions of dollars.

Since that time, Congress have gone into a calculation, and have
estimated the expenses of the War Department and the civil list of
Congress (exclusive of the civil list of the several governments) at
eight millions of dollars; and as the remaining million will be
fully sufficient for the civil list of the several states, the two
calculations are exceedingly near each other.

The sum of eight millions of dollars have called upon the states to
furnish, and their quotas are as follows, which I shall preface with the
resolution itself.



             "By the United States in Congress assembled.

                          "October 30, 1781.

"Resolved, That the respective states be called upon to furnish the
treasury of the United States with their quotas of eight millions of
dollars, for the War Department and civil list for the ensuing year, to
be paid quarterly, in equal proportions, the first payment to be made on
the first day of April next.

"Resolved, That a committee, consisting of a member from each state, be
appointed to apportion to the several states the quota of the above sum.

"November 2d. The committee appointed to ascertain the proportions of
the several states of the monies to be raised for the expenses of the
ensuing year, report the following resolutions:

"That the sum of eight millions of dollars, as required to be raised by
the resolutions of the 30th of October last, be paid by the states in
the following proportion:

               New Hampshire....... $  373,598
               Massachusetts.......  1,307,596
               Rhode Island........    216,684
               Connecticut.........    747,196
               New York............    373,598
               New Jersey..........    485,679
               Pennsylvania........  1,120,794
               Delaware............    112,085
               Maryland............    933,996
               Virginia............  1,307,594
               North Carolina......    622,677
               South Carolina......    373,598
               Georgia.............     24,905

                                    $8,000,000

"Resolved, That it be recommended to the several states, to lay taxes
for raising their quotas of money for the United States, separate from
those laid for their own particular use."



On these resolutions I shall offer several remarks.

   1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of the country.
   2d, On the several quotas, and the nature of a union. And,
   3d, On the manner of collection and expenditure.

1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of the country. As I know my
own calculation is as low as possible, and as the sum called for by
congress, according to their calculation, agrees very nearly therewith,
I am sensible it cannot possibly be lower. Neither can it be done for
that, unless there is ready money to go to market with; and even in that
case, it is only by the utmost management and economy that it can be
made to do.

By the accounts which were laid before the British Parliament last
spring, it appeared that the charge of only subsisting, that is, feeding
their army in America, cost annually four million pounds sterling, which
is very nearly eighteen millions of dollars. Now if, for eight millions,
we can feed, clothe, arm, provide for, and pay an army sufficient for
our defence, the very comparison shows that the money must be well laid
out.

It may be of some use, either in debate or conversation, to attend to
the progress of the expenses of an army, because it will enable us to
see on what part any deficiency will fall.

The first thing is, to feed them and prepare for the sick.

  _Second_, to clothe them.
  _Third_, to arm and furnish them.
  _Fourth_, to provide means for removing them from place to place. And,
  _Fifth_, to pay them.

The first and second are absolutely necessary to them as men. The third
and fourth are equally as necessary to them as an army. And the fifth is
their just due. Now if the sum which shall be raised should fall short,
either by the several acts of the states for raising it, or by the
manner of collecting it, the deficiency will fall on the fifth head, the
soldiers' pay, which would be defrauding them, and eternally disgracing
ourselves. It would be a blot on the councils, the country, and the
revolution of America, and a man would hereafter be ashamed to own that
he had any hand in it.

But if the deficiency should be still shorter, it would next fall on the
fourth head, the means of removing the army from place to place; and, in
this case, the army must either stand still where it can be of no use,
or seize on horses, carts, wagons, or any means of transportation which
it can lay hold of; and in this instance the country suffers. In short,
every attempt to do a thing for less than it can he done for, is sure to
become at last both a loss and a dishonor.

But the country cannot bear it, say some. This has been the most
expensive doctrine that ever was held out, and cost America millions
of money for nothing. Can the country bear to be overrun, ravaged,
and ruined by an enemy? This will immediately follow where defence is
wanting, and defence will ever be wanting, where sufficient revenues
are not provided. But this is only one part of the folly. The second is,
that when the danger comes, invited in part by our not preparing against
it, we have been obliged, in a number of instances, to expend double the
sums to do that which at first might have been done for half the money.
But this is not all. A third mischief has been, that grain of all sorts,
flour, beef fodder, horses, carts, wagons, or whatever was absolutely or
immediately wanted, have been taken without pay. Now, I ask, why was all
this done, but from that extremely weak and expensive doctrine, that
the country could not bear it? That is, that she could not bear, in the
first instance, that which would have saved her twice as much at last;
or, in proverbial language, that she could not bear to pay a penny to
save a pound; the consequence of which has been, that she has paid a
pound for a penny. Why are there so many unpaid certificates in almost
every man's hands, but from the parsimony of not providing sufficient
revenues? Besides, the doctrine contradicts itself; because, if the
whole country cannot bear it, how is it possible that a part should?
And yet this has been the case: for those things have been had; and they
must be had; but the misfortune is, that they have been obtained in
a very unequal manner, and upon expensive credit, whereas, with ready
money, they might have been purchased for half the price, and nobody
distressed.

But there is another thought which ought to strike us, which is, how is
the army to bear the want of food, clothing and other necessaries? The
man who is at home, can turn himself a thousand ways, and find as many
means of ease, convenience or relief: but a soldier's life admits of
none of those: their wants cannot be supplied from themselves: for an
army, though it is the defence of a state, is at the same time the child
of a country, or must be provided for in every thing.

And lastly, the doctrine is false. There are not three millions of
people in any part of the universe, who live so well, or have such a
fund of ability, as in America. The income of a common laborer, who is
industrious, is equal to that of the generality of tradesmen in England.
In the mercantile line, I have not heard of one who could be said to be
a bankrupt since the war began, and in England they have been without
number. In America almost every farmer lives on his own lands, and in
England not one in a hundred does. In short, it seems as if the poverty
of that country had made them furious, and they were determined to risk
all to recover all.

Yet, notwithstanding those advantages on the part of America, true it
is, that had it not been for the operation of taxes for our necessary
defence, we had sunk into a state of sloth and poverty: for there was
more wealth lost by neglecting to till the earth in the years 1776,
'77, and '78, than the quota of taxes amounts to. That which is lost by
neglect of this kind, is lost for ever: whereas that which is paid, and
continues in the country, returns to us again; and at the same time that
it provides us with defence, it operates not only as a spur, but as a
premium to our industry.

I shall now proceed to the second head, viz., on the several quotas, and
the nature of a union.

There was a time when America had no other bond of union, than that of
common interest and affection. The whole country flew to the relief of
Boston, and, making her cause, their own, participated in her cares and
administered to her wants. The fate of war, since that day, has carried
the calamity in a ten-fold proportion to the southward; but in the mean
time the union has been strengthened by a legal compact of the states,
jointly and severally ratified, and that which before was choice, or the
duty of affection, is now likewise the duty of legal obligation.

The union of America is the foundation-stone of her independence;
the rock on which it is built; and is something so sacred in her
constitution, that we ought to watch every word we speak, and every
thought we think, that we injure it not, even by mistake. When a
multitude, extended, or rather scattered, over a continent in the manner
we were, mutually agree to form one common centre whereon the whole
shall move to accomplish a particular purpose, all parts must act
together and alike, or act not at all, and a stoppage in any one is a
stoppage of the whole, at least for a time.

Thus the several states have sent representatives to assemble together
in Congress, and they have empowered that body, which thus becomes their
centre, and are no other than themselves in representation, to conduct
and manage the war, while their constituents at home attend to the
domestic cares of the country, their internal legislation, their farms,
professions or employments, for it is only by reducing complicated
things to method and orderly connection that they can be understood
with advantage, or pursued with success. Congress, by virtue of this
delegation, estimates the expense, and apportions it out to the several
parts of the empire according to their several abilities; and here the
debate must end, because each state has already had its voice, and the
matter has undergone its whole portion of argument, and can no more be
altered by any particular state, than a law of any state, after it has
passed, can be altered by any individual. For with respect to those
things which immediately concern the union, and for which the union was
purposely established, and is intended to secure, each state is to the
United States what each individual is to the state he lives in. And
it is on this grand point, this movement upon one centre, that our
existence as a nation, our happiness as a people, and our safety as
individuals, depend.

It may happen that some state or other may be somewhat over or under
rated, but this cannot be much. The experience which has been had upon
the matter, has nearly ascertained their several abilities. But even
in this case, it can only admit of an appeal to the United States, but
cannot authorise any state to make the alteration itself, any more than
our internal government can admit an individual to do so in the case of
an act of assembly; for if one state can do it, then may another do the
same, and the instant this is done the whole is undone.

Neither is it supposable that any single state can be a judge of all the
comparative reasons which may influence the collective body in arranging
the quotas of the continent. The circumstances of the several states are
frequently varying, occasioned by the accidents of war and commerce, and
it will often fall upon some to help others, rather beyond what their
exact proportion at another time might be; but even this assistance is
as naturally and politically included in the idea of a union as that of
any particular assigned proportion; because we know not whose turn
it may be next to want assistance, for which reason that state is the
wisest which sets the best example.

Though in matters of bounden duty and reciprocal affection, it is rather
a degeneracy from the honesty and ardor of the heart to admit any thing
selfish to partake in the government of our conduct, yet in cases where
our duty, our affections, and our interest all coincide, it may be of
some use to observe their union. The United States will become heir to
an extensive quantity of vacant land, and their several titles to
shares and quotas thereof, will naturally be adjusted according to their
relative quotas, during the war, exclusive of that inability which may
unfortunately arise to any state by the enemy's holding possession of
a part; but as this is a cold matter of interest, I pass it by,
and proceed to my third head, viz., on the manner of collection and
expenditure.

It has been our error, as well as our misfortune, to blend the affairs
of each state, especially in money matters, with those of the United
States; whereas it is our case, convenience and interest, to keep them
separate. The expenses of the United States for carrying on the war, and
the expenses of each state for its own domestic government, are distinct
things, and to involve them is a source of perplexity and a cloak for
fraud. I love method, because I see and am convinced of its beauty and
advantage. It is that which makes all business easy and understood, and
without which, everything becomes embarrassed and difficult.

There are certain powers which the people of each state have delegated
to their legislative and executive bodies, and there are other powers
which the people of every state have delegated to Congress, among
which is that of conducting the war, and, consequently, of managing the
expenses attending it; for how else can that be managed, which concerns
every state, but by a delegation from each? When a state has furnished
its quota, it has an undoubted right to know how it has been applied,
and it is as much the duty of Congress to inform the state of the one,
as it is the duty of the state to provide the other.

In the resolution of Congress already recited, it is recommended to the
several states to lay taxes for raising their quotas of money for the
United States, separate from those laid for their own particular use.

This is a most necessary point to be observed, and the distinction
should follow all the way through. They should be levied, paid and
collected, separately, and kept separate in every instance. Neither have
the civil officers of any state, nor the government of that state, the
least right to touch that money which the people pay for the support of
their army and the war, any more than Congress has to touch that which
each state raises for its own use.

This distinction will naturally be followed by another. It will occasion
every state to examine nicely into the expenses of its civil list, and
to regulate, reduce, and bring it into better order than it has hitherto
been; because the money for that purpose must be raised apart, and
accounted for to the public separately. But while the, monies of both
were blended, the necessary nicety was not observed, and the poor
soldier, who ought to have been the first, was the last who was thought
of.

Another convenience will be, that the people, by paying the taxes
separately, will know what they are for; and will likewise know that
those which are for the defence of the country will cease with the war,
or soon after. For although, as I have before observed, the war is their
own, and for the support of their own rights and the protection of their
own property, yet they have the same right to know, that they have
to pay, and it is the want of not knowing that is often the cause of
dissatisfaction.

This regulation of keeping the taxes separate has given rise to a
regulation in the office of finance, by which it is directed:

"That the receivers shall, at the end of every month, make out an exact
account of the monies received by them respectively, during such month,
specifying therein the names of the persons from whom the same shall
have been received, the dates and the sums; which account they shall
respectively cause to be published in one of the newspapers of the
state; to the end that every citizen may know how much of the monies
collected from him, in taxes, is transmitted to the treasury of the
United States for the support of the war; and also, that it may be known
what monies have been at the order of the superintendent of finance. It
being proper and necessary, that, in a free country, the people should
be as fully informed of the administration of their affairs as the
nature of things will admit."

It is an agreeable thing to see a spirit of order and economy taking
place, after such a series of errors and difficulties. A government or
an administration, who means and acts honestly, has nothing to fear, and
consequently has nothing to conceal; and it would be of use if a monthly
or quarterly account was to be published, as well of the expenditures
as of the receipts. Eight millions of dollars must be husbanded with an
exceeding deal of care to make it do, and, therefore, as the management
must be reputable, the publication would be serviceable.

I have heard of petitions which have been presented to the assembly of
this state (and probably the same may have happened in other states)
praying to have the taxes lowered. Now the only way to keep taxes low
is, for the United States to have ready money to go to market with: and
though the taxes to be raised for the present year will fall heavy,
and there will naturally be some difficulty in paying them, yet the
difficulty, in proportion as money spreads about the country, will every
day grow less, and in the end we shall save some millions of dollars by
it. We see what a bitter, revengeful enemy we have to deal with, and
any expense is cheap compared to their merciless paw. We have seen the
unfortunate Carolineans hunted like partridges on the mountains, and it
is only by providing means for our defence, that we shall be kept from
the same condition. When we think or talk about taxes, we ought to
recollect that we lie down in peace and sleep in safety; that we
can follow our farms or stores or other occupations, in prosperous
tranquillity; and that these inestimable blessings are procured to us
by the taxes that we pay. In this view, our taxes are properly our
insurance money; they are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict
policy, are the best money we can lay out.

It was my intention to offer some remarks on the impost law of five per
cent. recommended by Congress, and to be established as a fund for the
payment of the loan-office certificates, and other debts of the United
States; but I have already extended my piece beyond my intention. And
as this fund will make our system of finance complete, and is strictly
just, and consequently requires nothing but honesty to do it, there
needs but little to be said upon it.

                                              COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, March 5, 1782.




THE CRISIS. XI. ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEWS.


SINCE the arrival of two, if not three packets in quick succession, at
New York, from England, a variety of unconnected news has circulated
through the country, and afforded as great a variety of speculation.

That something is the matter in the cabinet and councils of our enemies,
on the other side of the water, is certain--that they have run their
length of madness, and are under the necessity of changing their
measures may easily be seen into; but to what this change of measures
may amount, or how far it may correspond with our interest, happiness
and duty, is yet uncertain; and from what we have hitherto experienced,
we have too much reason to suspect them in every thing. I do not address
this publication so much to the people of America as to the British
ministry, whoever they may be, for if it is their intention to promote
any kind of negotiation, it is proper they should know beforehand, that
the United States have as much honor as bravery; and that they are no
more to be seduced from their alliance than their allegiance; that their
line of politics is formed and not dependent, like that of their enemy,
on chance and accident. On our part, in order to know, at any time, what
the British government will do, we have only to find out what they ought
not to do, and this last will be their conduct. Forever changing and
forever wrong; too distant from America to improve in circumstances, and
too unwise to foresee them; scheming without principle, and executing
without probability, their whole line of management has hitherto been
blunder and baseness. Every campaign has added to their loss, and every
year to their disgrace; till unable to go on, and ashamed to go back,
their politics have come to a halt, and all their fine prospects to a
halter.

Could our affections forgive, or humanity forget the wounds of an
injured country--we might, under the influence of a momentary oblivion,
stand still and laugh. But they are engraven where no amusement can
conceal them, and of a kind for which there is no recompense. Can ye
restore to us the beloved dead? Can ye say to the grave, give up the
murdered? Can ye obliterate from our memories those who are no more?
Think not then to tamper with our feelings by an insidious contrivance,
nor suffocate our humanity by seducing us to dishonor.

In March 1780, I published part of the Crisis, No. VIII., in the
newspapers, but did not conclude it in the following papers, and the
remainder has lain by me till the present day. There appeared about
that time some disposition in the British cabinet to cease the further
prosecution of the war, and as I had formed my opinion that whenever
such a design should take place, it would be accompanied by a
dishonorable proposition to America, respecting France, I had suppressed
the remainder of that number, not to expose the baseness of any such
proposition. But the arrival of the next news from England, declared her
determination to go on with the war, and consequently as the political
object I had then in view was not become a subject, it was unnecessary
in me to bring it forward, which is the reason it was never published.
The matter which I allude to in the unpublished part, I shall now make a
quotation of, and apply it as the more enlarged state of things, at this
day, shall make convenient or necessary. It was as follows:

"By the speeches which have appeared from the British Parliament, it is
easy to perceive to what impolitic and imprudent excesses their passions
and prejudices have, in every instance, carried them during the present
war. Provoked at the upright and honorable treaty between America and
France, they imagined that nothing more was necessary to be done to
prevent its final ratification, than to promise, through the agency of
their commissioners (Carlisle, Eden, and Johnstone) a repeal of their
once offensive acts of Parliament. The vanity of the conceit, was as
unpardonable as the experiment was impolitic. And so convinced am I of
their wrong ideas of America, that I shall not wonder, if, in their last
stage of political frenzy, they propose to her to break her alliance
with France, and enter into one with them. Such a proposition, should
it ever be made, and it has been already more than once hinted at in
Parliament, would discover such a disposition to perfidiousness, and
such disregard of honor and morals, as would add the finishing vice to
national corruption.--I do not mention this to put America on the watch,
but to put England on her guard, that she do not, in the looseness of
her heart, envelop in disgrace every fragment of reputation."--Thus far
the quotation.

By the complection of some part of the news which has transpired through
the New York papers, it seems probable that this insidious era in the
British politics is beginning to make its appearance. I wish it may
not; for that which is a disgrace to human nature, throws something of a
shade over all the human character, and each individual feels his share
of the wound that is given to the whole. The policy of Britain has ever
been to divide America in some way or other. In the beginning of the
dispute, she practised every art to prevent or destroy the union of the
states, well knowing that could she once get them to stand singly, she
could conquer them unconditionally. Failing in this project in America,
she renewed it in Europe; and, after the alliance had taken place, she
made secret offers to France to induce her to give up America; and what
is still more extraordinary, she at the same time made propositions to
Dr. Franklin, then in Paris, the very court to which she was secretly
applying, to draw off America from France. But this is not all. On the
14th of September, 1778, the British court, through their secretary,
Lord Weymouth, made application to the Marquis d'Almadovar, the Spanish
ambassador at London, to "ask the mediation," for these were the words,
of the court of Spain, for the purpose of negotiating a peace with
France, leaving America (as I shall hereafter show) out of the question.
Spain readily offered her mediation, and likewise the city of Madrid as
the place of conference, but withal, proposed, that the United States of
America should be invited to the treaty, and considered as independent
during the time the business was negotiating. But this was not the
view of England. She wanted to draw France from the war, that she might
uninterruptedly pour out all her force and fury upon America; and being
disappointed in this plan, as well through the open and generous conduct
of Spain, as the determination of France, she refused the mediation
which she had solicited. I shall now give some extracts from the
justifying memorial of the Spanish court, in which she has set the
conduct and character of Britain, with respect to America, in a clear
and striking point of light.

The memorial, speaking of the refusal of the British court to meet in
conference with commissioners from the United States, who were to be
considered as independent during the time of the conference, says,

"It is a thing very extraordinary and even ridiculous, that the court of
London, who treats the colonies as independent, not only in acting, but
of right, during the war, should have a repugnance to treat them as
such only in acting during a truce, or suspension of hostilities.
The convention of Saratoga; the reputing General Burgoyne as a lawful
prisoner, in order to suspend his trial; the exchange and liberation of
other prisoners made from the colonies; the having named commissioners
to go and supplicate the Americans, at their own doors, request peace of
them, and treat with them and the Congress: and, finally, by a thousand
other acts of this sort, authorized by the court of London, which have
been, and are true signs of the acknowledgment of their independence.

"In aggravation of all the foregoing, at the same time the British
cabinet answered the King of Spain in the terms already mentioned, they
were insinuating themselves at the court of France by means of secret
emissaries, and making very great offers to her, to abandon the colonies
and make peace with England. But there is yet more; for at this same
time the English ministry were treating, by means of another certain
emissary, with Dr. Franklin, minister plenipotentiary from the colonies,
residing at Paris, to whom they made various proposals to disunite them
from France, and accommodate matters with England.

"From what has been observed, it evidently follows, that the whole
of the British politics was, to disunite the two courts of Paris and
Madrid, by means of the suggestions and offers which she separately
made to them; and also to separate the colonies from their treaties and
engagements entered into with France, and induce them to arm against the
house of Bourbon, or more probably to oppress them when they found,
from breaking their engagements, that they stood alone and without
protection.

"This, therefore, is the net they laid for the American states; that is
to say, to tempt them with flattering and very magnificent promises to
come to an accommodation with them, exclusive of any intervention of
Spain or France, that the British ministry might always remain the
arbiters of the fate of the colonies. But the Catholic king (the King
of Spain) faithful on the one part of the engagements which bind him
to the Most Christian king (the King of France) his nephew; just and
upright on the other, to his own subjects, whom he ought to protect
and guard against so many insults; and finally, full of humanity and
compassion for the Americans and other individuals who suffer in the
present war; he is determined to pursue and prosecute it, and to make
all the efforts in his power, until he can obtain a solid and permanent
peace, with full and satisfactory securities that it shall be observed."

Thus far the memorial; a translation of which into English, may be seen
in full, under the head of State Papers, in the Annual Register, for
1779.

The extracts I have here given, serve to show the various endeavors
and contrivances of the enemy, to draw France from her connection with
America, and to prevail on her to make a separate peace with England,
leaving America totally out of the question, and at the mercy of a
merciless, unprincipled enemy. The opinion, likewise, which Spain
has formed of the British cabinet's character for meanness and
perfidiousness, is so exactly the opinion of America respecting it,
that the memorial, in this instance, contains our own statements and
language; for people, however remote, who think alike, will unavoidably
speak alike.

Thus we see the insidious use which Britain endeavored to make of the
propositions of peace under the mediation of Spain. I shall now proceed
to the second proposition under the mediation of the Emperor of Germany
and the Empress of Russia; the general outline of which was, that a
congress of the several powers at war should meet at Vienna, in 1781,
to settle preliminaries of peace. I could wish myself at liberty to make
use of all the information which I am possessed of on this subject, but
as there is a delicacy in the matter, I do not conceive it prudent, at
least at present, to make references and quotations in the same manner
as I have done with respect to the mediation of Spain, who published the
whole proceedings herself; and therefore, what comes from me, on this
part of the business, must rest on my own credit with the public,
assuring them, that when the whole proceedings, relative to the proposed
Congress of Vienna shall appear, they will find my account not only
true, but studiously moderate.

We know at the time this mediation was on the carpet, the expectation of
the British king and ministry ran high with respect to the conquest of
America. The English packet which was taken with the mail on board,
and carried into l'Orient, in France, contained letters from Lord G.
Germaine to Sir Henry Clinton, which expressed in the fullest terms the
ministerial idea of a total conquest. Copies of those letters were sent
to congress and published in the newspapers of last year. Colonel
[John] Laurens brought over the originals, some of which, signed in the
handwriting of the then secretary, Germaine, are now in my possession.

Filled with these high ideas, nothing could be more insolent towards
America than the language of the British court on the proposed
mediation. A peace with France and Spain she anxiously solicited; but
America, as before, was to be left to her mercy, neither would she hear
any proposition for admitting an agent from the United States into the
congress of Vienna.

On the other hand, France, with an open, noble and manly determination,
and a fidelity of a good ally, would hear no proposition for a separate
peace, nor even meet in congress at Vienna, without an agent from
America: and likewise that the independent character of the United
States, represented by the agent, should be fully and unequivocally
defined and settled before any conference should be entered on. The
reasoning of the court of France on the several propositions of the
two imperial courts, which relate to us, is rather in the style of an
American than an ally, and she advocated the cause of America as if she
had been America herself.--Thus the second mediation, like the first,
proved ineffectual. But since that time, a reverse of fortune has
overtaken the British arms, and all their high expectations are dashed
to the ground. The noble exertions to the southward under General
[Nathaniel] Greene; the successful operations of the allied arms in the
Chesapeake; the loss of most of their islands in the West Indies, and
Minorca in the Mediterranean; the persevering spirit of Spain against
Gibraltar; the expected capture of Jamaica; the failure of making a
separate peace with Holland, and the expense of an hundred millions
sterling, by which all these fine losses were obtained, have read them
a loud lesson of disgraceful misfortune and necessity has called on them
to change their ground.

In this situation of confusion and despair, their present councils have
no fixed character. It is now the hurricane months of British politics.
Every day seems to have a storm of its own, and they are scudding under
the bare poles of hope. Beaten, but not humble; condemned, but not
penitent; they act like men trembling at fate and catching at a straw.
From this convulsion, in the entrails of their politics, it is more than
probable, that the mountain groaning in labor, will bring forth a mouse,
as to its size, and a monster in its make. They will try on America the
same insidious arts they tried on France and Spain.

We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not equal.
The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the torture of
thinking, we stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by their magnitude,
find no way out--and, in the struggle of expression, every finger tries
to be a tongue. The machinery of the body seems too little for the mind,
and we look about for helps to show our thoughts by. Such must be the
sensation of America, whenever Britain, teeming with corruption, shall
propose to her to sacrifice her faith.

But, exclusive of the wickedness, there is a personal offence contained
in every such attempt. It is calling us villains: for no man asks the
other to act the villain unless he believes him inclined to be one.
No man attempts to seduce the truly honest woman. It is the supposed
looseness of her mind that starts the thoughts of seduction, and he who
offers it calls her a prostitute. Our pride is always hurt by the same
propositions which offend our principles; for when we are shocked at the
crime, we are wounded by the suspicion of our compliance.

Could I convey a thought that might serve to regulate the public mind,
I would not make the interest of the alliance the basis of defending
it. All the world are moved by interest, and it affords them nothing to
boast of. But I would go a step higher, and defend it on the ground of
honor and principle. That our public affairs have flourished under the
alliance--that it was wisely made, and has been nobly executed--that by
its assistance we are enabled to preserve our country from conquest, and
expel those who sought our destruction--that it is our true interest to
maintain it unimpaired, and that while we do so no enemy can conquer
us, are matters which experience has taught us, and the common good of
ourselves, abstracted from principles of faith and honor, would lead us
to maintain the connection.

But over and above the mere letter of the alliance, we have been nobly
and generously treated, and have had the same respect and attention paid
to us, as if we had been an old established country. To oblige and
be obliged is fair work among mankind, and we want an opportunity of
showing to the world that we are a people sensible of kindness and
worthy of confidence. Character is to us, in our present circumstances,
of more importance than interest. We are a young nation, just stepping
upon the stage of public life, and the eye of the world is upon us
to see how we act. We have an enemy who is watching to destroy our
reputation, and who will go any length to gain some evidence against
us, that may serve to render our conduct suspected, and our character
odious; because, could she accomplish this, wicked as it is, the world
would withdraw from us, as from a people not to be trusted, and our task
would then become difficult. There is nothing which sets the character
of a nation in a higher or lower light with others, than the faithfully
fulfilling, or perfidiously breaking, of treaties. They are things not
to be tampered with: and should Britain, which seems very probable,
propose to seduce America into such an act of baseness, it would
merit from her some mark of unusual detestation. It is one of those
extraordinary instances in which we ought not to be contented with the
bare negative of Congress, because it is an affront on the multitude as
well as on the government. It goes on the supposition that the public
are not honest men, and that they may be managed by contrivance, though
they cannot be conquered by arms. But, let the world and Britain know,
that we are neither to be bought nor sold; that our mind is great and
fixed; our prospect clear; and that we will support our character as
firmly as our independence.

But I will go still further; General Conway, who made the motion, in
the British Parliament, for discontinuing offensive war in America, is a
gentleman of an amiable character. We have no personal quarrel with him.
But he feels not as we feel; he is not in our situation, and that alone,
without any other explanation, is enough. The British Parliament suppose
they have many friends in America, and that, when all chance of conquest
is over, they will be able to draw her from her alliance with France.
Now, if I have any conception of the human heart, they will fail in this
more than in any thing that they have yet tried.

This part of the business is not a question of policy only, but of honor
and honesty; and the proposition will have in it something so visibly
low and base, that their partisans, if they have any, will be ashamed of
it. Men are often hurt by a mean action who are not startled at a wicked
one, and this will be such a confession of inability, such a declaration
of servile thinking, that the scandal of it will ruin all their hopes.

In short, we have nothing to do but to go on with vigor and
determination. The enemy is yet in our country. They hold New York,
Charleston, and Savannah, and the very being in those places is an
offence, and a part of offensive war, and until they can be driven from
them, or captured in them, it would be folly in us to listen to an idle
tale. I take it for granted that the British ministry are sinking under
the impossibility of carrying on the war. Let them then come to a fair
and open peace with France, Spain, Holland and America, in the manner
they ought to do; but until then, we can have nothing to say to them.

                                     COMMON SENSE.

                    PHILADELPHIA, May 22, 1782.



                        A SUPERNUMERARY CRISIS

                         TO SIR GUY CARLETON.

IT is the nature of compassion to associate with misfortune; and I
address this to you in behalf even of an enemy, a captain in the British
service, now on his way to the headquarters of the American army, and
unfortunately doomed to death for a crime not his own. A sentence so
extraordinary, an execution so repugnant to every human sensation, ought
never to be told without the circumstances which produced it: and as the
destined victim is yet in existence, and in your hands rests his life or
death, I shall briefly state the case, and the melancholy consequence.

Captain Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was attacked in a small fort on
Tom's River, by a party of refugees in the British pay and service, was
made prisoner, together with his company, carried to New York and lodged
in the provost of that city: about three weeks after which, he was taken
out of the provost down to the water-side, put into a boat, and brought
again upon the Jersey shore, and there, contrary to the practice of all
nations but savages, was hung up on a tree, and left hanging till found
by our people who took him down and buried him. The inhabitants of that
part of the country where the murder was committed, sent a deputation
to General Washington with a full and certified statement of the fact.
Struck, as every human breast must be, with such brutish outrage, and
determined both to punish and prevent it for the future, the General
represented the case to General Clinton, who then commanded, and
demanded that the refugee officer who ordered and attended the
execution, and whose name is Lippencott, should be delivered up as
a murderer; and in case of refusal, that the person of some British
officer should suffer in his stead. The demand, though not refused, has
not been complied with; and the melancholy lot (not by selection, but by
casting lots) has fallen upon Captain Asgill, of the Guards, who, as I
have already mentioned, is on his way from Lancaster to camp, a
martyr to the general wickedness of the cause he engaged in, and the
ingratitude of those whom he served.

The first reflection which arises on this black business is, what sort
of men must Englishmen be, and what sort of order and discipline do
they preserve in their army, when in the immediate place of their
headquarters, and under the eye and nose of their commander-in-chief,
a prisoner can be taken at pleasure from his confinement, and his death
made a matter of sport.

The history of the most savage Indians does not produce instances
exactly of this kind. They, at least, have a formality in their
punishments. With them it is the horridness of revenge, but with your
army it is a still greater crime, the horridness of diversion. The
British generals who have succeeded each other, from the time of General
Gage to yourself, have all affected to speak in language that they have
no right to. In their proclamations, their addresses, their letters
to General Washington, and their supplications to Congress (for they
deserve no other name) they talk of British honor, British generosity,
and British clemency, as if those things were matters of fact; whereas,
we whose eyes are open, who speak the same language with yourselves,
many of whom were born on the same spot with you, and who can no more
be mistaken in your words than in your actions, can declare to all the
world, that so far as our knowledge goes, there is not a more detestable
character, nor a meaner or more barbarous enemy, than the present
British one. With us, you have forfeited all pretensions to reputation,
and it is only by holding you like a wild beast, afraid of your keepers,
that you can be made manageable. But to return to the point in question.

Though I can think no man innocent who has lent his hand to destroy
the country which he did not plant, and to ruin those that he could not
enslave, yet, abstracted from all ideas of right and wrong on the
original question, Captain Asgill, in the present case, is not the
guilty man. The villain and the victim are here separated characters.
You hold the one and we the other. You disown, or affect to disown and
reprobate the conduct of Lippincut, yet you give him a sanctuary; and by
so doing you as effectually become the executioner of Asgill, as if you
had put the rope on his neck, and dismissed him from the world. Whatever
your feelings on this interesting occasion may be are best known to
yourself. Within the grave of your own mind lies buried the fate of
Asgill. He becomes the corpse of your will, or the survivor of your
justice. Deliver up the one, and you save the other; withhold the one,
and the other dies by your choice.

On our part the case is exceeding plain; an officer has been taken from
his confinement and murdered, and the murderer is within your lines.
Your army has been guilty of a thousand instances of equal cruelty,
but they have been rendered equivocal, and sheltered from personal
detection. Here the crime is fixed; and is one of those extraordinary
cases which can neither be denied nor palliated, and to which the custom
of war does not apply; for it never could be supposed that such a brutal
outrage would ever be committed. It is an original in the history
of civilized barbarians, and is truly British. On your part you are
accountable to us for the personal safety of the prisoners within your
walls. Here can be no mistake; they can neither be spies nor suspected
as such; your security is not endangered, nor your operations subjected
to miscarriage, by men immured within a dungeon. They differ in every
circumstance from men in the field, and leave no pretence for severity
of punishment. But if to the dismal condition of captivity with you must
be added the constant apprehensions of death; if to be imprisoned is
so nearly to be entombed; and if, after all, the murderers are to be
protected, and thereby the crime encouraged, wherein do you differ from
[American] Indians either in conduct or character?

We can have no idea of your honor, or your justice, in any future
transaction, of what nature it may be, while you shelter within your
lines an outrageous murderer, and sacrifice in his stead an officer of
your own. If you have no regard to us, at least spare the blood which
it is your duty to save. Whether the punishment will be greater on him,
who, in this case, innocently dies, or on him whom sad necessity forces
to retaliate, is, in the nicety of sensation, an undecided question? It
rests with you to prevent the sufferings of both. You have nothing to do
but to give up the murderer, and the matter ends.

But to protect him, be he who he may, is to patronize his crime, and to
trifle it off by frivolous and unmeaning inquiries, is to promote it.
There is no declaration you can make, nor promise you can give that will
obtain credit. It is the man and not the apology that is demanded.

You see yourself pressed on all sides to spare the life of your own
officer, for die he will if you withhold justice. The murder of Captain
Huddy is an offence not to be borne with, and there is no security which
we can have, that such actions or similar ones shall not be repeated,
but by making the punishment fall upon yourselves. To destroy the last
security of captivity, and to take the unarmed, the unresisting prisoner
to private and sportive execution, is carrying barbarity too high for
silence. The evil must be put an end to; and the choice of persons rests
with you. But if your attachment to the guilty is stronger than to the
innocent, you invent a crime that must destroy your character, and if
the cause of your king needs to be so supported, for ever cease, sir,
to torture our remembrance with the wretched phrases of British honor,
British generosity and British clemency.

From this melancholy circumstance, learn, sir, a lesson of morality. The
refugees are men whom your predecessors have instructed in wickedness,
the better to fit them to their master's purpose. To make them useful,
they have made them vile, and the consequence of their tutored villany
is now descending on the heads of their encouragers. They have been
trained like hounds to the scent of blood, and cherished in every
species of dissolute barbarity. Their ideas of right and wrong are
worn away in the constant habitude of repeated infamy, till, like men
practised in execution, they feel not the value of another's life.

The task before you, though painful, is not difficult; give up the
murderer, and save your officer, as the first outset of a necessary
reformation.                                             COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA May 31, 1782.




THE CRISIS. XII. TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE.


MY LORD,--A speech, which has been printed in several of the British and
New York newspapers, as coming from your lordship, in answer to one from
the Duke of Richmond, of the 10th of July last, contains expressions and
opinions so new and singular, and so enveloped in mysterious reasoning,
that I address this publication to you, for the purpose of giving them a
free and candid examination. The speech I allude to is in these words:

"His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, that he had
been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he asserted that
he still held the same principles in respect to American independence
which he at first imbibed. He had been, and yet was of opinion, whenever
the Parliament of Great Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of
England's glory is set forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on
a former day, and such the sentiments he continued to hold at this
hour. It was the opinion of Lord Chatham, as well as many other able
statesmen. Other noble lords, however, think differently, and as the
majority of the cabinet support them, he acquiesced in the measure,
dissenting from the idea; and the point is settled for bringing
the matter into the full discussion of Parliament, where it will be
candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The independence of America
would end in the ruin of England; and that a peace patched up with
France, would give that proud enemy the means of yet trampling on this
country. The sun of England's glory he wished not to see set forever; he
looked for a spark at least to be left, which might in time light us
up to a new day. But if independence was to be granted, if Parliament
deemed that measure prudent, he foresaw, in his own mind, that England
was undone. He wished to God that he had been deputed to Congress, that
be might plead the cause of that country as well as of this, and that he
might exercise whatever powers he possessed as an orator, to save both
from ruin, in a conviction to Congress, that, if their independence was
signed, their liberties were gone forever.

"Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable object, but it must be an
honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by France, or
insisted on by America. It was very true, that this kingdom was not in a
flourishing state, it was impoverished by war. But if we were not
rich, it was evident that France was poor. If we were straitened in our
finances, the enemy were exhausted in their resources. This was a great
empire; it abounded with brave men, who were able and willing to fight
in a common cause; the language of humiliation should not, therefore, be
the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he was not afraid
nor ashamed of those expressions going to America. There were numbers,
great numbers there, who were of the same way of thinking, in respect
to that country being dependent on this, and who, with his lordship,
perceived ruin and independence linked together."

Thus far the speech; on which I remark--That his lordship is a total
stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped
himself up in fond delusion, that something less than independence, may,
under his administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent to
Congress, to prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which is,
that independence, the sublimest of all human conditions, is loss of
liberty.

In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the contrary
word dependence means, we have only to look back to those years of
severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could obtain no
other notice than the haughtiest of all insults; and when the base
terms of unconditional submission were demanded, or undistinguishable
destruction threatened. It is nothing to us that the ministry have been
changed, for they may be changed again. The guilt of a government is
the crime of a whole country; and the nation that can, though but for
a moment, think and act as England has done, can never afterwards be
believed or trusted. There are cases in which it is as impossible to
restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a phoenix
that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no resurrection.
Some offences are of such a slight composition, that they reach no
further than the temper, and are created or cured by a thought. But the
sin of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left
in our power to say we can forgive.

Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before Congress the
cause of England and America, and to save, as you say, both from ruin.

That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought our
destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the
wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England
has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened
by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from
America; for the criminal who owes his life to the grace and mercy of
the injured, is more executed by living, than he who dies.

But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no effect.
Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would plead against
you. We are a people who think not as you think; and what is equally
true, you cannot feel as we feel. The situations of the two countries
are exceedingly different. Ours has been the seat of war; yours has seen
nothing of it. The most wanton destruction has been committed in our
sight; the most insolent barbarity has been acted on our feelings. We
can look round and see the remains of burnt and destroyed houses, once
the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking monuments of
British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in every part of
America, and remember by whom they fell. There is scarcely a village but
brings to life some melancholy thought, and reminds us of what we have
suffered, and of those we have lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A
thousand images arise to us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and
are accompanied by as many ideas which you cannot know; and therefore
your supposed system of reasoning would apply to nothing, and all your
expectations die of themselves.

The question whether England shall accede to the independence of
America, and which your lordship says is to undergo a parliamentary
discussion, is so very simple, and composed of so few cases, that it
scarcely needs a debate.

It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which has no
object, and without which acknowledgment there can be no peace.

But your lordship says, the sun of Great Britain will set whenever she
acknowledges the independence of America.--Whereas the metaphor would
have been strictly just, to have left the sun wholly out of the figure,
and have ascribed her not acknowledging it to the influence of the moon.

But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace
that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of
sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776,
made use of an idea of much the same kind,--Relinquish America! says
he--What is it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a
dwarf.

Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little
internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes
upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in
obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? Was America, then,
the giant of the empire, and England only her dwarf in waiting! Is the
case so strangely altered, that those who once thought we could not live
without them, are now brought to declare that they cannot exist without
us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their first minister of
state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her importance
only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they, who
long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to
ours, and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so
unqualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of
it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to
cover their insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob
over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the
world by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of
conduct would be to bear it without complaint; and to show that England,
without America, can preserve her independence, and a suitable rank with
other European powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to
weep for her now is childish.

But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something
is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms
there is no hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense
of an hundred million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies,
must positively decide that point. Besides, the British have lost their
interest in America with the disaffected. Every part of it has been
tried. There is no new scene left for delusion: and the thousands
who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have now to quit the
settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to
cultivate the deserts of Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an end to
all further expectations of aid.

If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have they
to console themselves with for the millions expended? Or, what
encouragement is there left to continue throwing good money after bad?
America can carry on the war for ten years longer, and all the charges
of government included, for less than you can defray the charges of war
and government for one year. And I, who know both countries, know well,
that the people of America can afford to pay their share of the expense
much better than the people of England can. Besides, it is their own
estates and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that
they are defending; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to
lose all, and none would pity them. The fault would be their own, and
their punishment just.

The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. They enjoy
an easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly of one country and
the spoils of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go
home rich. But the case is very different with the laboring farmer, the
working tradesman, and the necessitous poor in England, the sweat of
whose brow goes day after day to feed, in prodigality and sloth, the
army that is robbing both them and us. Removed from the eye of that
country that supports them, and distant from the government that employs
them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is none to call them
to account.

But England will be ruined, says Lord Shelburne, if America is
independent.

Then I say, is England already ruined, for America is already
independent: and if Lord Shelburne will not allow this, he immediately
denies the fact which he infers. Besides, to make England the mere
creature of America, is paying too great a compliment to us, and too
little to himself.

But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to say, as Lord
Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war against America is
ruinous, and yet to continue the prosecution of that ruinous war for
the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a language which cannot be understood.
Neither is it possible to see how the independence of America is to
accomplish the ruin of England after the war is over, and yet not affect
it before. America cannot be more independent of her, nor a greater
enemy to her, hereafter than she now is; nor can England derive less
advantages from her than at present: why then is ruin to follow in the
best state of the case, and not in the worst? And if not in the worst,
why is it to follow at all?

That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and fourteen or
fifteen millions a-year less expenses than before, is a new doctrine in
politics. We have heard much clamor of national savings and economy; but
surely the true economy would be, to save the whole charge of a silly,
foolish, and headstrong war; because, compared with this, all other
retrenchments are baubles and trifles.

But is it possible that Lord Shelburne can be serious in supposing that
the least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any advantage can
be equal to the expense or the danger of attempting it? Will not
the capture of one army after another satisfy him, must all become
prisoners? Must England ever be the sport of hope, and the victim of
delusion? Sometimes our currency was to fail; another time our army was
to disband; then whole provinces were to revolt. Such a general said
this and that; another wrote so and so; Lord Chatham was of this
opinion; and lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and
20 Russian ships of the line were to come; to-morrow the empress was
abused without mercy or decency. Then the Emperor of Germany was to
be bribed with a million of money, and the King of Prussia was to do
wonderful things. At one time it was, Lo here! and then it was, Lo
there! Sometimes this power, and sometimes that power, was to engage in
the war, just as if the whole world was mad and foolish like Britain.
And thus, from year to year, has every straw been catched at, and every
Will-with-a-wisp led them a new dance.

This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne wishes to
be sent to Congress, and he thinks that something may be done.

Are not the repeated declarations of Congress, and which all America
supports, that they will not even hear any proposals whatever, until the
unconditional and unequivocal independence of America is recognised; are
not, I say, these declarations answer enough?

But for England to receive any thing from America now, after so many
insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would show such
a spirit of meanness in her, that we could not but despise her for
accepting it. And so far from Lord Shelburne's coming here to solicit
it, it would be the greatest disgrace we could do them to offer it.
England would appear a wretch indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe
any thing to the bounty of America. Has not the name of Englishman blots
enough upon it, without inventing more? Even Lucifer would scorn to
reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep for only
an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so many charms, that
to be a doorkeeper in it is better than to be an English minister of
state?

But what can this expected something be? Or, if obtained, what can it
amount to, but new disgraces, contentions and quarrels? The people
of America have for years accustomed themselves to think and speak so
freely and contemptuously of English authority, and the inveteracy is
so deeply rooted, that a person invested with any authority from that
country, and attempting to exercise it here, would have the life of a
toad under a harrow. They would look on him as an interloper, to whom
their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no more than the
Mungo of a farce; and if he disliked that, he must set off. It would
be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, and despised by our
pride, and would place England in a more contemptible situation than
any she has yet been in during the war. We have too high an opinion
of ourselves, even to think of yielding again the least obedience to
outlandish authority; and for a thousand reasons, England would be the
last country in the world to yield it to. She has been treacherous, and
we know it. Her character is gone, and we have seen the funeral.

Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of
contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with
those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms
the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns
of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and
proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is
wicked, and shows the last scene of the drama to be as inconsistent as
the first.

As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go. Your
lordship had no hand in the separation, and you will gain no honor
by temporising politics. Besides, there is something so exceedingly
whimsical, unsteady, and even insincere in the present conduct of
England, that she exhibits herself in the most dishonorable colors. On
the second of August last, General Carleton and Admiral Digby wrote to
General Washington in these words:

"The resolution of the House of Commons, of the 27th of February last,
has been placed in Your Excellency's hands, and intimations given at
the same time that further pacific measures were likely to follow. Since
which, until the present time, we have had no direct communications
with England; but a mail is now arrived, which brings us very important
information. We are acquainted, sir, by authority, that negotiations for
a general peace have already commenced at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville
is invested with full powers to treat with all the parties at war, and
is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we are further, sir,
made acquainted, that His Majesty, in order to remove any obstacles to
this peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded his
ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence of the Thirteen
United Provinces, should be proposed by him in the first instance,
instead of making it a condition of a general treaty."

Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing them with the
declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of your king, or his
ministers, or the Parliament, good for? Must we not look upon you as a
confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are
fraud, and their language deceit? What opinion can we possibly form of
you, but that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport
even with your own character, and are to be held by nothing but the
bayonet or the halter?

To say, after this, that the sun of Great Britain will be set whenever
she acknowledges the independence of America, when the not doing it is
the unqualified lie of government, can be no other than the language of
ridicule, the jargon of inconsistency. There were thousands in America
who predicted the delusion, and looked upon it as a trick of treachery,
to take us from our guard, and draw off our attention from the only
system of finance, by which we can be called, or deserve to be called,
a sovereign, independent people. The fraud, on your part, might be worth
attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high.

There are others who credited the assurance, because they thought it
impossible that men who had their characters to establish, would begin
with a lie. The prosecution of the war by the former ministry was savage
and horrid; since which it has been mean, trickish, and delusive.
The one went greedily into the passion of revenge, the other into the
subtleties of low contrivance; till, between the crimes of both, there
is scarcely left a man in America, be he Whig or Tory, who does not
despise or detest the conduct of Britain.

The management of Lord Shelburne, whatever may be his views, is a
caution to us, and must be to the world, never to regard British
assurances. A perfidy so notorious cannot be hid. It stands even in the
public papers of New York, with the names of Carleton and Digby affixed
to it. It is a proclamation that the king of England is not to be
believed; that the spirit of lying is the governing principle of the
ministry. It is holding up the character of the House of Commons to
public infamy, and warning all men not to credit them. Such are the
consequences which Lord Shelburne's management has brought upon his
country.

After the authorized declarations contained in Carleton and Digby's
letter, you ought, from every motive of honor, policy and prudence,
to have fulfilled them, whatever might have been the event. It was
the least atonement that you could possibly make to America, and the
greatest kindness you could do to yourselves; for you will save millions
by a general peace, and you will lose as many by continuing the war.

COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 29, 1782.

P. S. The manuscript copy of this letter is sent your lordship, by the
way of our head-quarters, to New York, inclosing a late pamphlet of
mine, addressed to the Abbe Raynal, which will serve to give your
lordship some idea of the principles and sentiments of America.

                                                 C. S.




THE CRISIS. XIII. THOUGHTS ON THE PEACE, AND PROBABLE ADVANTAGES
THEREOF.

"THE times that tried men's souls,"* are over--and the greatest and
completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily
accomplished.


     * "These are the times that try men's souls," The Crisis No. I.
published December, 1776.

But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety--from the tumult
of war to the tranquillity of peace, though sweet in contemplation,
requires a gradual composure of the senses to receive it. Even calmness
has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us. The long
and raging hurricane that should cease in a moment, would leave us in a
state rather of wonder than enjoyment; and some moments of recollection
must pass, before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of repose.
There are but few instances, in which the mind is fitted for sudden
transitions: it takes in its pleasures by reflection and comparison
and those must have time to act, before the relish for new scenes is
complete.

In the present case--the mighty magnitude of the object--the various
uncertainties of fate it has undergone--the numerous and complicated
dangers we have suffered or escaped--the eminence we now stand on,
and the vast prospect before us, must all conspire to impress us with
contemplation.

To see it in our power to make a world happy--to teach mankind the art
of being so--to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe a character
hitherto unknown--and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to
our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too
highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.

In this pause then of recollection--while the storm is ceasing, and the
long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back on the scenes
we have passed, and learn from experience what is yet to be done.

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her
setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded
and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her
temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and
everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country
(perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair
an origin. Even the first settlement of America corresponds with the
character of the revolution. Rome, once the proud mistress of the
universe, was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her
rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But America need
never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she
rose to empire.

The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, must
inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to
the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity;
struggling, without a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated
difficulties, bravely, nay proudly, encountering distress, and rising
in resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to her, for
her fortitude has merited the character. Let, then, the world see that
she can bear prosperity: and that her honest virtue in time of peace, is
equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.

She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. Not
beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy in her own
land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of
her toil.--In this situation, may she never forget that a fair national
reputation is of as much importance as independence. That it possesses
a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil. That it
gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands reverence
where pomp and splendor fail.

It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to be
forgotten, were a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffered to fall
on a revolution, which to the end of time must be an honor to the age
that accomplished it: and which has contributed more to enlighten the
world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind,
than any human event (if this may be called one) that ever preceded it.

It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war,
that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other
times appear so amiable. The continual spectacle of woe blunts the
finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it
familiar. In like manner, are many of the moral obligations of society
weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity becomes an apology,
where it is truly a crime. Yet let but a nation conceive rightly of
its character, and it will be chastely just in protecting it. None
ever began with a fairer than America and none can be under a greater
obligation to preserve it.

The debt which America has contracted, compared with the cause she
has gained, and the advantages to flow from it, ought scarcely to be
mentioned. She has it in her choice to do, and to live as happily as
she pleases. The world is in her hands. She has no foreign power
to monopolize her commerce, perplex her legislation, or control her
prosperity. The struggle is over, which must one day have happened, and,
perhaps, never could have happened at a better time.* And instead of a
domineering master, she has gained an ally whose exemplary greatness,
and universal liberality, have extorted a confession even from her
enemies.


     * That the revolution began at the exact period of time best fitted
to the purpose, is sufficiently proved by the event.--But the great
hinge on which the whole machine turned, is the Union of the States: and
this union was naturally produced by the inability of any one state to
support itself against any foreign enemy without the assistance of the
rest. Had the states severally been less able than they were when
the war began, their united strength would not have been equal to the
undertaking, and they must in all human probability have failed.--And,
on the other hand, had they severally been more able, they might not
have seen, or, what is more, might not have felt, the necessity
of uniting: and, either by attempting to stand alone or in small
confederacies, would have been separately conquered. Now, as we cannot
see a time (and many years must pass away before it can arrive) when the
strength of any one state, or several united, can be equal to the whole
of the present United States, and as we have seen the extreme difficulty
of collectively prosecuting the war to a successful issue, and
preserving our national importance in the world, therefore, from the
experience we have had, and the knowledge we have gained, we must,
unless we make a waste of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the
advantage, as well as the necessity of strengthening that happy union
which had been our salvation, and without which we should have been
a ruined people. While I was writing this note, I cast my eye on the
pamphlet, Common Sense, from which I shall make an extract, as it
exactly applies to the case. It is as follows: "I have never met with
a man, either in England or America, who has not confessed it as his
opinion that a separation between the countries would take place one
time or other; and there is no instance in which we have shown less
judgment, than in endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness
or fitness of the continent for independence. As all men allow the
measure, and differ only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order
to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavor, if
possible, to find out the very time. But we need not to go far,
the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time has found us. The general
concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact. It is not
in numbers, but in a union, that our great strength lies. The continent
is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is
able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish
the matter; and either more or less than this, might be fatal in its
effects."

With the blessings of peace, independence, and an universal commerce,
the states, individually and collectively, will have leisure and
opportunity to regulate and establish their domestic concerns, and to
put it beyond the power of calumny to throw the least reflection on
their honor. Character is much easier kept than recovered, and that man,
if any such there be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of soul,
lends unseen his hand to injure it, contrives a wound it will never be
in his power to heal.

As we have established an inheritance for posterity, let that
inheritance descend, with every mark of an honorable conveyance.
The little it will cost, compared with the worth of the states, the
greatness of the object, and the value of the national character, will
be a profitable exchange.

But that which must more forcibly strike a thoughtful, penetrating mind,
and which includes and renders easy all inferior concerns, is the UNION
OF THE STATES. On this our great national character depends. It is this
which must give us importance abroad and security at home. It is through
this only that we are, or can be, nationally known in the world; it is
the flag of the United States which renders our ships and commerce safe
on the seas, or in a foreign port. Our Mediterranean passes must be
obtained under the same style. All our treaties, whether of alliance,
peace, or commerce, are formed under the sovereignty of the United
States, and Europe knows us by no other name or title.

The division of the empire into states is for our own convenience, but
abroad this distinction ceases. The affairs of each state are local.
They can go no further than to itself. And were the whole worth of even
the richest of them expended in revenue, it would not be sufficient to
support sovereignty against a foreign attack. In short, we have no other
national sovereignty than as United States. It would even be fatal
for us if we had--too expensive to be maintained, and impossible to be
supported. Individuals, or individual states, may call themselves what
they please; but the world, and especially the world of enemies, is
not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty must have
power to protect all the parts that compose and constitute it: and as
UNITED STATES we are equal to the importance of the title, but otherwise
we are not. Our union, well and wisely regulated and cemented, is the
cheapest way of being great--the easiest way of being powerful, and the
happiest invention in government which the circumstances of America can
admit of.--Because it collects from each state, that which, by being
inadequate, can be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves
for all.

The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects of
individual sovereignty. Their disjointed condition exposes them to
numerous intrigues, losses, calamities, and enemies; and the almost
impossibility of bringing their measures to a decision, and that
decision into execution, is to them, and would be to us, a source of
endless misfortune.

It is with confederated states as with individuals in society; something
must be yielded up to make the whole secure. In this view of things
we gain by what we give, and draw an annual interest greater than the
capital.--I ever feel myself hurt when I hear the union, that great
palladium of our liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of.
It is the most sacred thing in the constitution of America, and that
which every man should be most proud and tender of. Our citizenship
in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any
particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we
are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is
AMERICANS--our inferior one varies with the place.

So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to
conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep
the mind of the country together; and the better to assist in this
foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit
or office, either in the state I live in, or in the United States; kept
myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even
disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when we take into
view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought
to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then see, that the
little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley, are as
dishonorable to our characters, as they are injurious to our repose.

It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which
it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me
in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those
who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only
line that could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, made
it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the
course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have
likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and
disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing
that there may be genius without prostitution.

Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided
the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object:
and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended,
and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of
circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn
in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their
opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill
fortune, till they crowned it with success.

But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home
and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most
sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns
and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always
feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude
to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to
mankind.

                                                COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1783.




A SUPERNUMERARY CRISIS: TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA.

IN "_Rivington's New York Gazette_," of December 6th, is a publication,
under the appearance of a letter from London, dated September 30th; and
is on a subject which demands the attention of the United States.

The public will remember that a treaty of commerce between the United
States and England was set on foot last spring, and that until the
said treaty could be completed, a bill was brought into the British
Parliament by the then chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Pitt, to admit
and legalize (as the case then required) the commerce of the United
States into the British ports and dominions. But neither the one nor the
other has been completed. The commercial treaty is either broken off, or
remains as it began; and the bill in Parliament has been thrown aside.
And in lieu thereof, a selfish system of English politics has started
up, calculated to fetter the commerce of America, by engrossing to
England the carrying trade of the American produce to the West India
islands.

Among the advocates for this last measure is Lord Sheffield, a member
of the British Parliament, who has published a pamphlet entitled
"Observations on the Commerce of the American States." The pamphlet
has two objects; the one is to allure the Americans to purchase British
manufactures; and the other to spirit up the British Parliament to
prohibit the citizens of the United States from trading to the West
India islands.

Viewed in this light, the pamphlet, though in some parts dexterously
written, is an absurdity. It offends, in the very act of endeavoring
to ingratiate; and his lordship, as a politician, ought not to have
suffered the two objects to have appeared together. The latter alluded
to, contains extracts from the pamphlet, with high encomiums on Lord
Sheffield, for laboriously endeavoring (as the letter styles it) "to
show the mighty advantages of retaining the carrying trade."

Since the publication of this pamphlet in England, the commerce of
the United States to the West Indies, in American vessels, has been
prohibited; and all intercourse, except in British bottoms, the property
of and navigated by British subjects, cut off.

That a country has a right to be as foolish as it pleases, has been
proved by the practice of England for many years past: in her island
situation, sequestered from the world, she forgets that her whispers are
heard by other nations; and in her plans of politics and commerce she
seems not to know, that other votes are necessary besides her own.
America would be equally as foolish as Britain, were she to suffer so
great a degradation on her flag, and such a stroke on the freedom of her
commerce, to pass without a balance.

We admit the right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of another
into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the contrary; but
as this right belongs to one side as well as the other, there is always
a way left to bring avarice and insolence to reason.

But the ground of security which Lord Sheffield has chosen to erect his
policy upon, is of a nature which ought, and I think must, awaken
in every American a just and strong sense of national dignity. Lord
Sheffield appears to be sensible, that in advising the British nation
and Parliament to engross to themselves so great a part of the carrying
trade of America, he is attempting a measure which cannot succeed, if
the politics of the United States be properly directed to counteract the
assumption.

But, says he, in his pamphlet, "It will be a long time before the
American states can be brought to act as a nation, neither are they to
be feared as such by us."

What is this more or less than to tell us, that while we have no
national system of commerce, the British will govern our trade by their
own laws and proclamations as they please. The quotation discloses
a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischievous not to be
remedied.

Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery none could
operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and indecent
opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to the
recommendations of Congress last winter, for an import duty of five per
cent. It could not but explain to the British a weakness in the national
power of America, and encourage them to attempt restrictions on her
trade, which otherwise they would not have dared to hazard. Neither is
there any state in the union, whose policy was more misdirected to its
interest than the state I allude to, because her principal support is
the carrying trade, which Britain, induced by the want of a well-centred
power in the United States to protect and secure, is now attempting to
take away. It fortunately happened (and to no state in the union more
than the state in question) that the terms of peace were agreed on
before the opposition appeared, otherwise, there cannot be a doubt, that
if the same idea of the diminished authority of America had occurred
to them at that time as has occurred to them since, but they would have
made the same grasp at the fisheries, as they have done at the carrying
trade.

It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so much
ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive advantages
to the country, should be cavilled at by those whose duty it is to watch
over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon it. But this,
perhaps, will ever be the case, till some misfortune awakens us into
reason, and the instance now before us is but a gentle beginning of what
America must expect, unless she guards her union with nicer care and
stricter honor. United, she is formidable, and that with the least
possible charge a nation can be so; separated, she is a medley of
individual nothings, subject to the sport of foreign nations.

It is very probable that the ingenuity of commerce may have found out
a method to evade and supersede the intentions of the British, in
interdicting the trade with the West India islands. The language of both
being the same, and their customs well understood, the vessels of one
country may, by deception, pass for those of another. But this would
be a practice too debasing for a sovereign people to stoop to, and too
profligate not to be discountenanced. An illicit trade, under any shape
it can be placed, cannot be carried on without a violation of truth.
America is now sovereign and independent, and ought to conduct her
affairs in a regular style of character. She has the same right to
say that no British vessel shall enter ports, or that no British
manufactures shall be imported, but in American bottoms, the property
of, and navigated by American subjects, as Britain has to say the same
thing respecting the West Indies. Or she may lay a duty of ten, fifteen,
or twenty shillings per ton (exclusive of other duties) on every
British vessel coming from any port of the West Indies, where she is not
admitted to trade, the said tonnage to continue as long on her side as
the prohibition continues on the other.

But it is only by acting in union, that the usurpations of foreign
nations on the freedom of trade can be counteracted, and security
extended to the commerce of America. And when we view a flag, which to
the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires
a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our
interest to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other.

                                                COMMON SENSE.

NEW YORK, December 9, 1783.






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