[dateline] [Monday, 21 October 1765]
WE have been afraid to think. We have felt a reluctance to examining into the grounds
of our privileges, and the extent in which we have an indisputable right to demand
them against all the power and authority, on earth. And many who have not scrupled
to examine for themselves, have yet for certain prudent reasons been cautious, and
diffident of declaring the result of their enquiries.
The cause of this timidity is perhaps hereditary and to be traced back in history,
as far as the cruel treatment the first settlers of this country received, before
their embarkation for America, from the government at Home. Every body knows how dangerous
it was to speak or write in favour of any thing in those days, but the triumphant
system of religion and politicks. And our fathers were particularly, the objects of
the persecutions and proscriptions of the times. It is not unlikely therefore, that,
although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing
against their principles, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious
diffidence of asserting their opinions publickly. These habits they probably brought
with them to America, and have transmitted down to us. Or, we may possibly account
for this appearance, by the great affection and veneration, Americans have always
entertained for the country from whence they sprang—or by the quiet temper for which
they have been remarkable, no country having been less disposed to discontent than
this—or by a sense they have, that it is their duty to acquiesce, under the administration
of government, even when in many smaller matters gravaminous to them, and until the
essentials of the great compact are destroy'd or invaded. These peculiar causes might
operate upon them; but without these we all know, that human nature itself, from indolence,
modesty, humanity or fear, has always too much reluctance to a manly assertion of
its rights. Hence perhaps it has happened that nine tenths of the species, are groaning
and gasping in misery and servitude.
{ 124 } But whatever the cause has been, the fact is certain, we have been excessively cautious
of giving offence by complaining of grievances. And it is as certain that American
governors, and their friends and all the crown officers have avail'd themselves of
this disposition in the people. They have prevailed on us to consent to many things,
which were grosly injurious to us, and to surrender many others with voluntary tameness,
to which we had the clearest right. Have we not been treated formerly, with abominable
insolence, by officers of the navy? I mean no insinuation against any gentleman now
on this station, having heard no complaint of any one of them to his dishonor. Have
not some generals, from England, treated us like servants, nay more like slaves than
like Britons? Have we not been under the most ignominious contribution, the most abject
submission, the most supercilious insults of some custom house officers? Have we not
been trifled with, browbeaten, and trampled on, by former governors, in a manner which
no king of England since James the second has dared to indulge towards his subjects?
Have we not raised up one family,
1 in them placed an unlimitted confidence, and been soothed and battered and intimidated
by their influence, into a great part of this infamous tameness and submission? “These
are serious and alarming questions, and deserve a dispassionate consideration.”
2
This disposition has been the great wheel and the mainspring in the American machine
of court politicks. We have been told that “the word 'Rights' is an offensive expression.”
That “the King his ministry and parliament will not endure to hear Americans talk
of their Rights.” That “Britain is the mother and we the children, that a filial duty
and submission is due from us to her,” and that “we ought to doubt our own judgment,
and presume that she is right, even when she seems to us to shake the foundations
of government.” That “Britain is immensely rich and great and powerful, has fleets
and armies at her command, which have been the dread and terror of the universe, and
that she will force her own judgment into execution, right or wrong.” But let me intreat
you Sir to pause and consider. Do you consider your self as a missionary of loyalty
or of rebellion? Are you not representing your King his ministry and parliament as
tyrants, imperious, unrelenting tyrants by such reasoning as this? Is not this representing
your most gracious sovereign, as endeavouring to destroy the foundations of his own
throne? Are you not putting language into the royal mouth, which if fairly pursued
will shew him to have no right to the crown on his own sacred head? Are you not representing
every member of parliament as renouncing the transactions at Running•
{ 125 } mede,
3 and as repealing in effect the bill of rights, when the Lords and Commons asserted
and vindicated the rights of the people and their own rights, and insisted on the
King's assent to that assertion and vindication? Do you not represent them as forgetting
that the prince of Orange, was created King William by the People, on purpose that
their rights might be eternal and inviolable? Is there not something extremely fallacious,
in the common-place images of mother country and children colonies? Are we the children
of Great-Britain, any more than the cities of London, Exeter and Bath? Are we not
brethren and fellow subjects, with those in Britain, only under a somewhat different
method of legislation, and a totally different method of taxation? But admitting we
are children; have not children a right to complain when their parents are attempting
to break their limbs, to administer poison, or to sell them to enemies for slaves?
Let me intreat you to consider, will the mother, be pleased, when you represent her
as deaf to the cries of her children? When you compare her to the infamous miscreant,
who lately stood on the gallows for starving her child? When you resemble her to Lady
Macbeth in Shakespear, (I cannot think of it without horror)
Who “had given suck, and knew
How tender 'twas to love the Babe that milk'd her.”
But yet, who could
“Even while 'twas smiling in her Face,
Have pluck'd her Nipple from the boneless Gums,
And dash'd the Brains out.”
Let us banish forever from our minds, my countrymen, all such unworthy ideas of the
King, his ministry and parliament. Let us not suppose, that all are become luxurious
effeminate and unreasonable, on the other side the water, as many designing persons
would insinuate. Let us presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty,
is as ardent as ever among the body of the nation, though a few individuals may be
corrupted. Let us take it for granted, that the same great spirit, which once gave
Caesar so warm a reception; which denounced
4 hostilities against John 'till Magna Charta was signed; which severed the head of
Charles the first from his body, and drove James the second from his kingdom; the
same great spirit (may heaven preserve it till the earth shall be no more) which first
seated the great grand father of his present most gracious Majesty, on the throne
of Britain, is still alive and active and warm in England; and that the same spirit
in America, instead of provoking the inhabitants of that country, will endear us to
them for ever and secure their good will.
{ 126 } This spirit however without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage.
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore the means of knowledge. Let us dare
to read, think, speak and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse
their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the
grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law
of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories
of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us,
the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us, the inherent rights
of mankind, against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings
and cruel priests, in short against the gates of earth and hell. Let us read and recollect
and impress upon our souls, the views and ends, of our own more immediate forefathers,
in exchanging their native country for a dreary, inhospitable wilderness. Let us examine
into the nature of that power and the cruelty of that oppression which drove them
from their homes. Recollect their amazing fortitude, their bitter sufferings! The
hunger, the nakedness, the cold, which they patiently endured! The severe labours
of clearing their grounds, building their houses, raising their provisions amidst
dangers from wild beasts and savage men, before they had time or money or materials
for commerce! Recollect the civil and religious principles and hopes and expectations,
which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships, and patience and
resignation! Let us recollect it was liberty! The hope of liberty for themselves and
us and ours, which conquered all discouragements, dangers and trials! In such researches
as these let us all in our several departments chearfully engage! But especially the
proper patrons and supporters of law, learning and religion.
Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let
us hear the danger of thraldom to our consciences, from ignorance, extream poverty
and dependance, in short from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before
us, the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank
he holds among the works of God! that consenting to slavery is a sacriligious breach
of trust, as offensive in the sight of God, as it is derogatory from our own honor
or interest or happiness; and that God almighty has promulgated from heaven, liberty,
peace, and good-will to man!
Let the Bar proclaim, “the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power,” delivered
down from remote antiquity; inform the world of
{ 127 } the mighty struggles, and numberless sacrifices, made by our ancestors, in defence
of freedom. Let it be known, that British liberties are not the grants of princes
or parliaments, but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal with
prerogative and coeval with government.—That many of our rights are inherent and essential,
agreed on as maxims and establish'd as preliminaries, even before a parliament existed.
Let them search for the foundations of British laws and government in the frame of
human nature, in the constitution of the intellectual and moral world. There let us
see, that truth, liberty, justice and benevolence, are its everlasting basis; and
if these could be removed, the superstructure is overthrown of course.
Let the colleges join their harmony, in the same delightful concern. Let every declamation
turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude and malignity
of slavery and vice. Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds
and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing
the evil. Let the dialogues and all the exercises, become the instruments of impressing
on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing, far and wide, the ideas of
right and the sensations of freedom.
In a word, let every sluice of knowledge be open'd and set a flowing. The encroachments
upon liberty, in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles, by turning the
general attention of learned men to government, are said to have produced the greatest
number of consummate statesmen, which has ever been seen in any age, or nation. Your
Clarendons, Southamptons, Seldens, Hampdens, Faulklands, Sidneys, Locks, Harringtons,
are all said to have owed their eminence in political knowledge, to the tyrannies
of those reigns. The prospect, now before us, in America, ought in the same manner
to engage the attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right,
that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction. Nothing
less than this seems to have been meditated for us, by somebody or other in Great-Britain.
There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America. This
however must be done by degrees. The first step that is intended seems to be an entire
subversion of the whole system of our Fathers, by an introduction of the cannon and
feudal law, into America. The cannon and feudal systems tho' greatly mutilated in
England, are not yet destroy'd. Like the temples and palaces, in which the great contrivers
of them, once worship'd and inhabited, they exist in ruins; and much of the domineering
spirit of them still remains. The designs and labours of a cer•
{ 128 } tain society,
5 to introduce the former of them into America, have been well exposed to the public
by a writer of great abilities,
6 and the further attempts to the same purpose that may be made by that society, or
by the ministry or parliament, I leave to the conjectures of the thoughtful. But it
seems very manifest from the S—p A-t itself, that a design is form'd to strip us in
a great measure of the means of knowledge, by loading the Press, the Colleges, and
even an Almanack and a News-Paper, with restraints and duties; and to introduce the
inequalities and dependances of the feudal system, by taking from the poorer sort
of people all their little subsistance, and conferring it on a set of stamp officers,
distributors and their deputies. But I must proceed no further at present. The sequel,
whenever I shall find health and leisure to pursue it, will be a “disquisition of
the policy of the stamp act.”
7 In the mean time however let me add, These are not the vapours of a melancholly mind,
nor the effusions of envy, disappointed ambition, nor of a spirit of opposition to
government: but the emanations of an heart that burns, for its country's welfare.
No one of any feeling, born and educated in this once happy country, can consider
the numerous distresses, the gross indignities, the barbarous ignorance, the haughty
usurpations, that we have reason to fear are meditating for ourselves, our children,
our neighbours, in short for all our countrymen and all their posterity, without the
utmost agonies of heart, and many tears.