[Redactor's Note: Reprinted from the "The Writings of Thomas Paine

Volume I" (1894 - 1896). The author's notes are preceded by a "*". ]

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THE WRITINGS

OF

THOMAS PAINE

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY

MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY

VOLUME I.

1774 - 1779

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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 )

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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 I9, 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

I.

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, 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, 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, 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 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 THE 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.

End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. I

by Thomas Paine