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.
Paine outlines the dire consequences of a British victory in the American Revolution, emphasizing the loss of life, liberty, and self-governance for the colonists.
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They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.