Historical voices

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?

Must we not look upon you as a confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are fraud, and their language deceit?

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?

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.

As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go.

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.

It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange.

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.

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.

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.

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…

Even Lucifer would scorn to reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep for only an entrance into America.

Has not the name of Englishman blots enough upon it, without inventing more?

England would appear a wretch indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe any thing to the bounty of America.

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.

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…

Must England ever be the sport of hope, and the victim of delusion?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They fatten on the folly of one country and the spoils of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go home rich.

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.