But, unanswerable as the reasons are against America returning to a subjection under the British crown, now in fact become despotic; and America, after unheard of injuries, infinite toil, hazard and expense, her inhabitants called cowards by your master's servants, civil and military, having declared herself independent; did not your Excellencies feel a little for our honor, when you, at the head of your armies, held out to us, subjection and peace! Did not you feel the dignity of your characters affected, when you, under the guise of a security upon the true principles of the Constitution, recommend to "the inhabitants at large," to rescind their decree, and by their own mouths declare themselves the most contemptible people in history, which gives no example of such baseness—render their name a term of reproach among all nations, and forbid each other from placing any, the least degree of confidence in, and all foreign states from paying the least degree of credit to, their most solemn, declarations! In short, to submit to a government abandoned to corruption, lost to a sense of justice, and already but a step behind absolute despotism; a government that has long been, and ever must be, jealous of our rise, and studious to depress our natural growth! Did not your Excellencies blush, and shrink within yourselves, when you asked men, who had been almost ruined by your gracious master, to abandon the honor able and natural station of independence, and stoop to kiss his hand, now daily bathed in, and which ever must continue stained by, the blood of a friend, a brother, a son, a father!
That your Excellencies may "reflect seriously" upon "the unjust cause in which you are engaged;" and that the name of Howe may be enrolled with the names of Marlborough and Effingham, are the wishes of,
| A CAROLINIAN. |
| [Judge Drayton.] |
| Charleston, October 22, 1776. |
