"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"

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JANUARY    

      “Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. What have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce; and that, well attended to, will secure us the friendship of all Europe. I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain.
     “As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do while by her dependence on Britain she is the make weight in the scale of British politics.
     “Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the One over the other was never the design of Heaven. It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she does not conquer herself by delay and timidity.
     “It is repugnant to reason and the universal order of things, to all examples from former ages, to suppose that this continent can long remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain do not think so. The authority of Great Britain, sooner or later, must have an end; and the event cannot be far off. The business of this continent, from its rapid progress to maturity, will soon be too weighty and intricate to he managed with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant from us and so very ignorant of us. There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island: in no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than the primary planet. They belong to different systems; England to Europe, America to itself, Everything short of independence is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time when going a little further would render this continent the glory of the earth. Admitting that matters were now made up, the king will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent; and he will suffer no law to be made here but such as suits his purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England.
     “Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related. The best terms which we can expect to obtain can amount to no more than a guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age. Emigrants of property will not come to a country whose form of government hangs by a thread. Nothing but a continental form of government can keep the peace of the continent inviolate from civil wars.
     “The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head; if there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Let a continental conference he held, to frame a continental charter, or charter of the united colonies. But where, say some, is the king of America? He reigns above; in America, the law is king; in free countries there ought to be no other.
      “All men, whether in England or America, confess that a separation between the countries will take place one time or other. To find out the very time, we need not go far, for the time hath found us. The present, likewise, is that peculiar time which never happens to a nation but once, the time of forming itself into a government. Until we consent that the seat of government in America be legally and authoritatively occupied, where will be our freedom, where our property?
     “Nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independence. It is unreasonable to suppose that France or Spain will give us assistance, if we mean only to use that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach. While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must in the eyes of foreign nations be considered as rebels. A manifesto published and dispatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and declaring that we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connection with her, at the same time assuring all such courts of our desire of entering into trade with them, would produce more good effects to this continent than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.

 

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