tain this pleasing expectation. Every day brought an accumulation of injuries, and the invention of the Ministry has been constantly exercised, in adding to the calamities of your American brethren.
After the most valuable right of legislation was infringed; when the powers assumed by your Parliament, in which we are not represented, and from our local and other circumstances cannot properly be represented, rendered our property precarious; after being denied that mode of trial to which we have long been indebted for the safety of our persons, and the preservation of our liberties; after being, in many instances, divested of those laws which were transmitted to us by our common ancestors, and subjected to an arbitrary code, compiled under the auspices of Roman tyrants; after those charters, which encouraged our predecessors to brave death and danger in every shape, on unknown seas, in deserts unexplored, amidst barbarous and inhospitable nations, were annulled; when, without the form of trial, without a publick accusation, whole Colonies were condemned, their trade destroyed, their inhabitants impoverished; when soldiers were encouraged to imbrue their hands in the blood of Americans, by offers of impunity; when new modes of trial were instituted for the ruin of the accused, where the charge carried with it the horrours of conviction; when a despotick Government was established in a neighbouring Province, and its limits extended to every of our frontiers; we little imagined that any thing could be added to this black catalogue of unprovoked injuries: but we have unhappily been deceived, and the late measures of the British Ministry fully convince us that their object is the reduction of these Colonies to slavery and ruin.
To confirm this assertion, let us recall your attention to the affairs of America, since our last address. Let us combat the calumnies of our enemies; and let us warn you of the dangers that threaten you in our destruction. Many of your fellow-subjects, whose situation deprived them of other support, drew their maintenance from the sea; but the deprivation of our liberty being insufficient to satisfy the resentment of our enemies, the horrours of famine were superadded, and a British Parliament, who, in better times, were the protectors of innocence and the patrons of humanity, have, without distinction of age or sex, robbed thousands of the food which they were accustomed to draw from that inexhaustible source, placed in their neighbourhood by the benevolent Creator.
Another act of your Legislature shuts our ports, and prohibits our trade with any but those states from whom the great law of self-preservation renders it absolutely necessary we should at present withhold our commerce. But this act (whatever may have been its design) we consider rather as injurious to your opulence than our interest. All our commerce terminates with you; and the wealth we procure from other Nations, is soon exchanged for your superfluities. Our remittances must then cease with our trade; and our refinements with our affluence. We trust, however, that laws which deprive us of every blessing but a soil that teems with the necessaries of life, and that liberty which renders the enjoyment of them secure, will not relax our vigour in their defence.
We might here observe on the cruelty and inconsistency of those, who, while they publickly brand us with reproachful and unworthy epithets, endeavour to deprive us of the means of defence, by their interposition with foreign Powers, and to deliver us to the lawless ravages of a merciless soldiery. But happily we are not without resources; and though the timid and humiliating applications of a British Ministry should prevail with foreign Nations, yet industry, prompted by necessity, will not leave us without the necessary supplies.
We could wish to go no further, and, not to wound the ear of humanity, leave untold those rigorous acts of oppression, which are daily exercised in the Town of Boston, did we not hope, that by disclaiming their deeds and punishing the perpetrators, you would shortly vindicate the honour of the British name, and re-establish the violated laws of justice.
That once populous, flourishing and commercial Town is now garrisoned by an Army sent not to protect, but to enslave its inhabitants. The Civil Government is over- turned, and a Military Despotism erected upon its ruins. Without law, without right, powers are assumed unknown to the Constitution. Private property is unjustly invaded. The inhabitants, daily subjected to the licentiousness of the soldiery, are forbid to remove in defiance of their natural rights, in violation of the most solemn compacts. Or if, after long and wearisome solicitation, a pass is procured, their effects are detained, and even those who are most favoured, have no alternative but poverty or slavery. The distress of many thousand people, wantonly deprived of the necessaries of life, is a subject on which we would not wish to enlarge.
Yet we cannot but observe, that a British fleet (unjustified even by acts of your Legislature) are daily employed in ruining our commerce, seizing our ships, and depriving whole communities of their daily bread. Nor will a regard for your honour permit us to be silent, while British Troops sully your glory, by actions which the most inveterate enmity will not palliate among civilized Nations, the wanton and unnecessary destruction of Charlestown, a large, ancient, and once populous Town, just before deserted by its inhabitants, who had fled to avoid the fury of your soldiery.
If you still retain those sentiments of compassion by which Britons have ever been distinguished, if the humanity which tempered the valour of our common ancestors has not degenerated into cruelty, you will lament the miseries of their descendants.
To what are we to attribute this treatment? If to any secret principle of the Constitution, let it be mentioned; let us learn that the Government we have long revered, is not without its defects, and that while it gives freedom to a part, it necessarily enslaves the remainder of the Empire. If such a principle exists, why for ages has it ceased to operate? Why at this time is it called into action? Can no reason be assigned for this conduct? Or must it be resolved into the wanton exercise of arbitrary power? And shall the descendants of Britons tamely submit to this? No, Sirs ! we never will. While we revere the memory of our gallant and virtuous ancestors, we never can surrender those glorious privileges, for which they fought, bled, and conquered. Admit that your fleets could destroy our towns, and ravage our sea-coasts; these are inconsiderable objects, things of no moment to men whose bosoms glow with the ardour of liberty. We can retire beyond the reach of your navy, and, without any sensible diminution of the necessaries of life, enjoy a luxury, which from that period you will want the luxury of being free.
We know the force of your arms, and was it called forth in the cause of justice and your Country, we might dread the exertion; but will Britons fight under the banners of tyranny? Will they counteract the labours, and disgrace the victories of their ancestors? Will they forge chains for their posterity? If they descend to this unworthy task, will their swords retain their edge, their arms their accustomed vigour? Britons can never become the instruments of oppression, till they lose the spirit of freedom, by which alone they are invincible.
Our enemies charge us with sedition. In what does it consist? In our refusal to submit to unwarrantable acts of injustice and cruelty? If so, shew us a period in your history, in which you have not been equally seditious.
We are accused of aiming at independence; but how is this accusation supported? By the allegations of your Ministers, not by our actions. Abused, insulted, and condemned, what steps have we pursued to obtain redress? We have carried our dutiful petitions to the Throne. We have applied to your justice for relief. We have retrenched our luxury, and withheld our trade. The advantages of our commerce were designed as a compensation for your protection; when you ceased to protect, for what were we to compensate?
What has been the success of our endeavours? The clemency of our Sovereign is unhappily diverted; our petitions are treated with indignity; our prayers answered by insults. Our application to you remains unnoticed, and leaves us the melancholy apprehension of your wanting either the will or the power to assist us.
Even under these circumstances, what measures have we taken that betray a desire of independence? Have we called in the aid of those foreign powers, who are the rivals
