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The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete

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Title: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete

Author: Thomas Paine

Editor: Moncure Daniel Conway
        David Widger


        
Release date: February 13, 2010 [eBook #31270]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31270

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, COMPLETE ***




Produced by David Widger





THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, VOLUME I.

By Thomas Paine

Collected And Edited By Moncure Daniel Conway


Transcriber's Note:This file posted, on the US President's Day Holiday,
in memory of Thomas Paine, one of our most influential and most
unappreciated patriots.



THE AMERICAN CRISIS


   Table of Contents

   Editor's Preface

   The Crisis No. I

   The Crisis No. II - To Lord Howe

   The Crisis No. III

   The Crisis No. IV

   The Crisis No. V - To General Sir William Howe
   - To The Inhabitants Of America

   The Crisis No. VI - To The Earl Of Carlisle, General Clinton, And
   William Eden, ESQ., British Commissioners At New York

   The Crisis No. VII  - To The People Of England

   The Crisis No. VIII - Addressed To The People Of England

   The Crisis No. IX   - The Crisis Extraordinary - On the Subject
   of Taxation

   The Crisis No. X    - On The King Of England's Speech
   - To The People Of America

   The Crisis No. XI   - On The Present State Of News
   - A Supernumerary Crisis (To Sir Guy Carleton.)

   The Crisis No. XII  - To The Earl Of Shelburne

   The Crisis No. XIII - On The Peace, And The Probable Advantages
   Thereof

   A Supernumerary Crisis - (To The People Of America)




THE AMERICAN CRISIS.




EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THOMAS PAINE, in his Will, speaks of this work as The American Crisis,
remembering perhaps that a number of political pamphlets had appeared in
London, 1775-1776, under general title of "The Crisis." By the blunder
of an early English publisher of Paine's writings, one essay in the
London "Crisis" was attributed to Paine, and the error has continued
to cause confusion. This publisher was D. I. Eaton, who printed as
the first number of Paine's "Crisis" an essay taken from the London
publication. But his prefatory note says: "Since the printing of this
book, the publisher is informed that No. 1, or first Crisis in this
publication, is not one of the thirteen which Paine wrote, but a
letter previous to them." Unfortunately this correction is sufficiently
equivocal to leave on some minds the notion that Paine did write the
letter in question, albeit not as a number of his "Crisis "; especially
as Eaton's editor unwarrantably appended the signature "C. S.,"
suggesting "Common Sense." There are, however, no such letters in the
London essay, which is signed "Casca." It was published August, 1775,
in the form of a letter to General Gage, in answer to his Proclamation
concerning the affair at Lexington. It was certainly not written by
Paine. It apologizes for the Americans for having, on April 19, at
Lexington, made "an attack upon the King's troops from behind walls and
lurking holes." The writer asks: "Have not the Americans been driven
to this frenzy? Is it not common for an enemy to take every advantage?"
Paine, who was in America when the affair occurred at Lexington, would
have promptly denounced Gage's story as a falsehood, but the facts known
to every one in America were as yet not before the London writer. The
English "Crisis" bears evidence throughout of having been written in
London. It derived nothing from Paine, and he derived nothing from it,
unless its title, and this is too obvious for its origin to require
discussion. I have no doubt, however, that the title was suggested
by the English publication, because Paine has followed its scheme in
introducing a "Crisis Extraordinary." His work consists of thirteen
numbers, and, in addition to these, a "Crisis Extraordinary" and a
"Supernumerary Crisis." In some modern collections all of these have been
serially numbered, and a brief newspaper article added, making sixteen
numbers. But Paine, in his Will, speaks of the number as thirteen,
wishing perhaps, in his characteristic way, to adhere to the number
of the American Colonies, as he did in the thirteen ribs of his iron
bridge. His enumeration is therefore followed in the present volume, and
the numbers printed successively, although other writings intervened.

The first "Crisis" was printed in the Pennsylvania Journal, December
19, 1776, and opens with the famous sentence, "These are the times that
try men's souls"; the last "Crisis" appeared April 19,1783, (eighth
anniversary of the first gun of the war, at Lexington,) and opens with
the words, "The times that tried men's souls are over." The great
effect produced by Paine's successive publications has been attested by
Washington and Franklin, by every leader of the American Revolution,
by resolutions of Congress, and by every contemporary historian of the
events amid which they were written. The first "Crisis" is of especial
historical interest. It was written during the retreat of Washington
across the Delaware, and by order of the Commander was read to groups of
his dispirited and suffering soldiers. Its opening sentence was adopted
as the watchword of the movement on Trenton, a few days after its
publication, and is believed to have inspired much of the courage which
won that victory, which, though not imposing in extent, was of great
moral effect on Washington's little army.




THE CRISIS




THE CRISIS I. (THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS)

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness
only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper
price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an
article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to
enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX)
but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that
manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon
earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can
belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or
delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own
simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have
been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither
could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it
were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but ourselves. But
no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month
past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the
Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a
little resolution will soon recover.


     * The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed; but, if
lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil; and
there is no punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or what, or
where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious
and useful.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret
opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up
a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish,
who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities
of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I
so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the
government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I
do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up
to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a
house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he.

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through
a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has
trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed
boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army,
after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified
with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces
collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might
inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair
fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases,
have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is
always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer
habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the
touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to
light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact,
they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary
apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the
hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many
a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially
solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.

As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge
of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which
those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of. Our
situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a narrow
neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our force
was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe could bring
against us. We had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had
we shut ourselves up and stood on our defence. Our ammunition, light
artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the
apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in
which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it must occur to every
thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kind of field forts
are only for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer than the
enemy directs his force against the particular object which such forts
are raised to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee
on the morning of the 20th of November, when an officer arrived with
information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles
above; Major General [Nathaniel] Green, who commanded the garrison,
immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to General
Washington at the town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry
= six miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the
Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, about six
miles from us, and three from them. General Washington arrived in about
three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards
the bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush for; however,
they did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our
troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which
passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry, and
made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack,
and there passed the river. We brought off as much baggage as the wagons
could contain, the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off
the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the
Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand.
We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of
the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being
informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly
inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error
in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island
through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores
at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we
believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that
their agents are under some providential control.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to
the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers
and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest,
covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat,
bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centred in
one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive
the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared
to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may
be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a
natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but
which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it
among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see,
that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a
mind that can even flourish upon care.

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state
of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why
is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these
middle ones the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not
infested with Tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the
cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their
danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly
or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or
we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a
Tory? Good God! what is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred
Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms.
Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is
the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may
be cruel, never can be brave.

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us,
let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the
enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him.
Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you.
He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with
muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless
you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not Tories, that he
wants.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against
the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a
tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his
hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking
his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this
unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives
on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or
other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If
there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have
peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to
awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as
America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she
has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself
between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God
governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear
of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that
period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for
though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can
never expire.

America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper
application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it
is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess
of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our
cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A summer's
experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they
were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy,
and, thank God! they are again assembling. I always considered militia
as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not
do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on
this city [Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he
is ruined. If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his
side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will
be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march to assist
their suffering friends in the middle states; for he cannot go
everywhere, it is impossible. I consider Howe as the greatest enemy the
Tories have; he is bringing a war into their country, which, had it not
been for him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of. Should
he now be expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a Christian, that
the names of Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the
Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I
as sincerely wish that our next year's arms may expel them from the
continent, and the Congress appropriate their possessions to the relief
of those who have suffered in well-doing. A single successful battle
next year will settle the whole. America could carry on a two years' war
by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made
happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather
the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view
but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful
event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence
may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear
of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with
prejudice.

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to
those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter
out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that
state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the
wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an
object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the
depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that
the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to
meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your
tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but
"show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not
where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing
will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the
back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart
that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his
cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the
whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles
unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear
as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I
believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think
it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my
property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it,
and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to
suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or
a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by
an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root
of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be
assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.
Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I
should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by
swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid,
stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in
receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to
the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the
orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one.
There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which
threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he
succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect
mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where
conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the
fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard
equally against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats and
partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their
arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage,
and this is what the tories call making their peace, "a peace which
passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which would be the immediate
forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of
Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to
give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are
all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were
the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the
resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to
chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up
its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons
and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is
the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state
that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous
destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see
it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your
ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know
our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was
collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him
that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to
ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with
a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred
miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest
part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our
retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it,
that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to
meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not
seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected
inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had
never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our
new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall
be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed
and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By
perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue;
by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils--a
ravaged country--a depopulated city--habitations without safety, and
slavery without hope--our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses
for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall
doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet
remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it
unlamented.

COMMON SENSE.

December 23, 1776.




THE CRISIS II. TO LORD HOWE.

            "What's in the name of lord, that I should fear
              To bring my grievance to the public ear?"
                                              CHURCHILL.

UNIVERSAL empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with
all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can assign
them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy,
and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of
Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in
defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to "Defender
of the Faith," than George the Third.

As a military man your lordship may hold out the sword of war, and call
it the "ultima ratio regum": the last reason of kings; we in return
can show you the sword of justice, and call it "the best scourge of
tyrants." The first of these two may threaten, or even frighten for a
while, and cast a sickly languor over an insulted people, but reason
will soon recover the debauch, and restore them again to tranquil
fortitude. Your lordship, I find, has now commenced author, and
published a proclamation; I have published a Crisis. As they stand, they
are the antipodes of each other; both cannot rise at once, and one of
them must descend; and so quick is the revolution of things, that your
lordship's performance, I see, has already fallen many degrees from
its first place, and is now just visible on the edge of the political
horizon.

It is surprising to what a pitch of infatuation, blind folly and
obstinacy will carry mankind, and your lordship's drowsy proclamation
is a proof that it does not even quit them in their sleep. Perhaps you
thought America too was taking a nap, and therefore chose, like Satan
to Eve, to whisper the delusion softly, lest you should awaken her. This
continent, sir, is too extensive to sleep all at once, and too watchful,
even in its slumbers, not to startle at the unhallowed foot of an
invader. You may issue your proclamations, and welcome, for we have
learned to "reverence ourselves," and scorn the insulting ruffian that
employs you. America, for your deceased brother's sake, would gladly
have shown you respect and it is a new aggravation to her feelings,
that Howe should be forgetful, and raise his sword against those, who at
their own charge raised a monument to his brother. But your master has
commanded, and you have not enough of nature left to refuse. Surely
there must be something strangely degenerating in the love of monarchy,
that can so completely wear a man down to an ingrate, and make him proud
to lick the dust that kings have trod upon. A few more years, should you
survive them, will bestow on you the title of "an old man": and in some
hour of future reflection you may probably find the fitness of Wolsey's
despairing penitence--"had I served my God as faithful as I have served
my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in my old age."

The character you appear to us in, is truly ridiculous. Your friends,
the Tories, announced your coming, with high descriptions of your
unlimited powers; but your proclamation has given them the lie, by
showing you to be a commissioner without authority. Had your powers been
ever so great they were nothing to us, further than we pleased; because
we had the same right which other nations had, to do what we thought
was best. "The UNITED STATES of AMERICA," will sound as pompously in the
world or in history, as "the kingdom of Great Britain"; the character of
General Washington will fill a page with as much lustre as that of
Lord Howe: and the Congress have as much right to command the king and
Parliament in London to desist from legislation, as they or you have
to command the Congress. Only suppose how laughable such an edict would
appear from us, and then, in that merry mood, do but turn the tables
upon yourself, and you will see how your proclamation is received here.
Having thus placed you in a proper position in which you may have a full
view of your folly, and learn to despise it, I hold up to you, for
that purpose, the following quotation from your own lunarian
proclamation.--"And we (Lord Howe and General Howe) do command (and in
his majesty's name forsooth) all such persons as are assembled together,
under the name of general or provincial congresses, committees,
conventions or other associations, by whatever name or names known and
distinguished, to desist and cease from all such treasonable actings and
doings."

You introduce your proclamation by referring to your declarations of
the 14th of July and 19th of September. In the last of these you sunk
yourself below the character of a private gentleman. That I may not
seem to accuse you unjustly, I shall state the circumstance: by a verbal
invitation of yours, communicated to Congress by General Sullivan, then
a prisoner on his parole, you signified your desire of conferring with
some members of that body as private gentlemen. It was beneath the
dignity of the American Congress to pay any regard to a message that
at best was but a genteel affront, and had too much of the ministerial
complexion of tampering with private persons; and which might probably
have been the case, had the gentlemen who were deputed on the business
possessed that kind of easy virtue which an English courtier is so truly
distinguished by. Your request, however, was complied with, for honest
men are naturally more tender of their civil than their political fame.
The interview ended as every sensible man thought it would; for
your lordship knows, as well as the writer of the Crisis, that it is
impossible for the King of England to promise the repeal, or even the
revisal of any acts of parliament; wherefore, on your part, you had
nothing to say, more than to request, in the room of demanding, the
entire surrender of the continent; and then, if that was complied with,
to promise that the inhabitants should escape with their lives. This was
the upshot of the conference. You informed the conferees that you were
two months in soliciting these powers. We ask, what powers? for as
commissioner you have none. If you mean the power of pardoning, it is
an oblique proof that your master was determined to sacrifice all before
him; and that you were two months in dissuading him from his purpose.
Another evidence of his savage obstinacy! From your own account of the
matter we may justly draw these two conclusions: 1st, That you serve
a monster; and 2d, That never was a messenger sent on a more foolish
errand than yourself. This plain language may perhaps sound uncouthly to
an ear vitiated by courtly refinements, but words were made for use,
and the fault lies in deserving them, or the abuse in applying them
unfairly.

Soon after your return to New York, you published a very illiberal and
unmanly handbill against the Congress; for it was certainly stepping out
of the line of common civility, first to screen your national pride
by soliciting an interview with them as private gentlemen, and in the
conclusion to endeavor to deceive the multitude by making a handbill
attack on the whole body of the Congress; you got them together under
one name, and abused them under another. But the king you serve, and the
cause you support, afford you so few instances of acting the gentleman,
that out of pity to your situation the Congress pardoned the insult by
taking no notice of it.

You say in that handbill, "that they, the Congress, disavowed every
purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their extravagant and
inadmissible claim of independence." Why, God bless me! what have you to
do with our independence? We ask no leave of yours to set it up; we ask
no money of yours to support it; we can do better without your fleets
and armies than with them; you may soon have enough to do to protect
yourselves without being burdened with us. We are very willing to be at
peace with you, to buy of you and sell to you, and, like young beginners
in the world, to work for our living; therefore, why do you put
yourselves out of cash, when we know you cannot spare it, and we do not
desire you to run into debt? I am willing, sir, that you should see
your folly in every point of view I can place it in, and for that reason
descend sometimes to tell you in jest what I wish you to see in earnest.
But to be more serious with you, why do you say, "their independence?"
To set you right, sir, we tell you, that the independency is ours, not
theirs. The Congress were authorized by every state on the continent to
publish it to all the world, and in so doing are not to be considered as
the inventors, but only as the heralds that proclaimed it, or the office
from which the sense of the people received a legal form; and it was as
much as any or all their heads were worth, to have treated with you on
the subject of submission under any name whatever. But we know the men
in whom we have trusted; can England say the same of her Parliament?

I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th of
November last. Had you gained an entire conquest over all the armies
of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering (what you call)
mercy, your conduct would have had some specious show of humanity; but
to creep by surprise into a province, and there endeavor to terrify
and seduce the inhabitants from their just allegiance to the rest by
promises, which you neither meant nor were able to fulfil, is both cruel
and unmanly: cruel in its effects; because, unless you can keep all
the ground you have marched over, how are you, in the words of your
proclamation, to secure to your proselytes "the enjoyment of their
property?" What is to become either of your new adopted subjects, or
your old friends, the Tories, in Burlington, Bordentown, Trenton, Mount
Holly, and many other places, where you proudly lorded it for a few
days, and then fled with the precipitation of a pursued thief? What, I
say, is to become of those wretches? What is to become of those who went
over to you from this city and State? What more can you say to them than
"shift for yourselves?" Or what more can they hope for than to wander
like vagabonds over the face of the earth? You may now tell them to take
their leave of America, and all that once was theirs. Recommend them,
for consolation, to your master's court; there perhaps they may make
a shift to live on the scraps of some dangling parasite, and choose
companions among thousands like themselves. A traitor is the foulest
fiend on earth.

In a political sense we ought to thank you for thus bequeathing estates
to the continent; we shall soon, at this rate, be able to carry on a war
without expense, and grow rich by the ill policy of Lord Howe, and the
generous defection of the Tories. Had you set your foot into this city,
you would have bestowed estates upon us which we never thought of, by
bringing forth traitors we were unwilling to suspect. But these men,
you'll say, "are his majesty's most faithful subjects;" let that honor,
then, be all their fortune, and let his majesty take them to himself.

I am now thoroughly disgusted with them; they live in ungrateful ease,
and bend their whole minds to mischief. It seems as if God had
given them over to a spirit of infidelity, and that they are open to
conviction in no other line but that of punishment. It is time to have
done with tarring, feathering, carting, and taking securities for their
future good behavior; every sensible man must feel a conscious shame
at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a show about the streets, when it is
known he is only the tool of some principal villain, biassed into his
offence by the force of false reasoning, or bribed thereto, through sad
necessity. We dishonor ourselves by attacking such trifling characters
while greater ones are suffered to escape; 'tis our duty to find
them out, and their proper punishment would be to exile them from the
continent for ever. The circle of them is not so great as some imagine;
the influence of a few have tainted many who are not naturally corrupt.
A continual circulation of lies among those who are not much in the way
of hearing them contradicted, will in time pass for truth; and the crime
lies not in the believer but the inventor. I am not for declaring
war with every man that appears not so warm as myself: difference of
constitution, temper, habit of speaking, and many other things, will go
a great way in fixing the outward character of a man, yet simple honesty
may remain at bottom. Some men have naturally a military turn, and can
brave hardships and the risk of life with a cheerful face; others have
not; no slavery appears to them so great as the fatigue of arms, and
no terror so powerful as that of personal danger. What can we say? We
cannot alter nature, neither ought we to punish the son because the
father begot him in a cowardly mood. However, I believe most men have
more courage than they know of, and that a little at first is enough
to begin with. I knew the time when I thought that the whistling of a
cannon ball would have frightened me almost to death; but I have since
tried it, and find that I can stand it with as little discomposure, and,
I believe, with a much easier conscience than your lordship. The same
dread would return to me again were I in your situation, for my solemn
belief of your cause is, that it is hellish and damnable, and, under
that conviction, every thinking man's heart must fail him.

From a concern that a good cause should be dishonored by the least
disunion among us, I said in my former paper, No. I. "That should the
enemy now be expelled, I wish, with all the sincerity of a Christian,
that the names of Whig and Tory might never more be mentioned;" but
there is a knot of men among us of such a venomous cast, that they
will not admit even one's good wishes to act in their favor. Instead
of rejoicing that heaven had, as it were, providentially preserved this
city from plunder and destruction, by delivering so great a part of the
enemy into our hands with so little effusion of blood, they stubbornly
affected to disbelieve it till within an hour, nay, half an hour, of
the prisoners arriving; and the Quakers put forth a testimony, dated the
20th of December, signed "John Pemberton," declaring their attachment to
the British government.* These men are continually harping on the great
sin of our bearing arms, but the king of Britain may lay waste the world
in blood and famine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say.


     * I have ever been careful of charging offences upon whole societies
of men, but as the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown set of
men, who claim to themselves the right of representing the whole:
and while the whole Society of Quakers admit its validity by a silent
acknowledgment, it is impossible that any distinction can be made by
the public: and the more so, because the New York paper of the 30th of
December, printed by permission of our enemies, says that "the Quakers
begin to speak openly of their attachment to the British Constitution."
We are certain that we have many friends among them, and wish to know
them.

In some future paper I intend to distinguish between the different kind
of persons who have been denominated Tories; for this I am clear in,
that all are not so who have been called so, nor all men Whigs who
were once thought so; and as I mean not to conceal the name of any true
friend when there shall be occasion to mention him, neither will I that
of an enemy, who ought to be known, let his rank, station or religion be
what it may. Much pains have been taken by some to set your lordship's
private character in an amiable light, but as it has chiefly been done
by men who know nothing about you, and who are no ways remarkable for
their attachment to us, we have no just authority for believing it.
George the Third has imposed upon us by the same arts, but time, at
length, has done him justice, and the same fate may probably attend your
lordship. You avowed purpose here is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon,
and enslave: and the ravages of your army through the Jerseys have been
marked with as much barbarism as if you had openly professed yourself
the prince of ruffians; not even the appearance of humanity has been
preserved either on the march or the retreat of your troops; no general
order that I could ever learn, has ever been issued to prevent or
even forbid your troops from robbery, wherever they came, and the only
instance of justice, if it can be called such, which has distinguished
you for impartiality, is, that you treated and plundered all alike; what
could not be carried away has been destroyed, and mahogany furniture has
been deliberately laid on fire for fuel, rather than the men should be
fatigued with cutting wood.* There was a time when the Whigs confided
much in your supposed candor, and the Tories rested themselves in your
favor; the experiments have now been made, and failed; in every town,
nay, every cottage, in the Jerseys, where your arms have been, is
a testimony against you. How you may rest under this sacrifice of
character I know not; but this I know, that you sleep and rise with the
daily curses of thousands upon you; perhaps the misery which the Tories
have suffered by your proffered mercy may give them some claim to their
country's pity, and be in the end the best favor you could show them.


     * As some people may doubt the truth of such wanton destruction, I
think it necessary to inform them that one of the people called Quakers,
who lives at Trenton, gave me this information at the house of Mr.
Michael Hutchinson, (one of the same profession,) who lives near Trenton
ferry on the Pennsylvania side, Mr. Hutchinson being present.

In a folio general-order book belonging to Col. Rhal's battalion, taken
at Trenton, and now in the possession of the council of safety for
this state, the following barbarous order is frequently repeated, "His
excellency the Commander-in-Chief orders, that all inhabitants who
shall be found with arms, not having an officer with them, shall be
immediately taken and hung up." How many you may thus have privately
sacrificed, we know not, and the account can only be settled in another
world. Your treatment of prisoners, in order to distress them to enlist
in your infernal service, is not to be equalled by any instance in
Europe. Yet this is the humane Lord Howe and his brother, whom the
Tories and their three-quarter kindred, the Quakers, or some of them at
least, have been holding up for patterns of justice and mercy!

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men; and whoever
will be at the pains of examining strictly into things, will find that
one and the same spirit of oppression and impiety, more or less,
governs through your whole party in both countries: not many days ago,
I accidentally fell in company with a person of this city noted for
espousing your cause, and on my remarking to him, "that it appeared
clear to me, by the late providential turn of affairs, that God Almighty
was visibly on our side," he replied, "We care nothing for that you may
have Him, and welcome; if we have but enough of the devil on our side,
we shall do." However carelessly this might be spoken, matters not, 'tis
still the insensible principle that directs all your conduct and will at
last most assuredly deceive and ruin you.

If ever a nation was made and foolish, blind to its own interest and
bent on its own destruction, it is Britain. There are such things as
national sins, and though the punishment of individuals may be reserved
to another world, national punishment can only be inflicted in this
world. Britain, as a nation, is, in my inmost belief, the greatest and
most ungrateful offender against God on the face of the whole earth.
Blessed with all the commerce she could wish for, and furnished, by
a vast extension of dominion, with the means of civilizing both the
eastern and western world, she has made no other use of both than
proudly to idolize her own "thunder," and rip up the bowels of whole
countries for what she could get. Like Alexander, she has made war her
sport, and inflicted misery for prodigality's sake. The blood of India
is not yet repaid, nor the wretchedness of Africa yet requited. Of
late she has enlarged her list of national cruelties by her butcherly
destruction of the Caribbs of St. Vincent's, and returning an answer by
the sword to the meek prayer for "Peace, liberty and safety." These
are serious things, and whatever a foolish tyrant, a debauched court,
a trafficking legislature, or a blinded people may think, the national
account with heaven must some day or other be settled: all countries
have sooner or later been called to their reckoning; the proudest
empires have sunk when the balance was struck; and Britain, like an
individual penitent, must undergo her day of sorrow, and the sooner it
happens to her the better. As I wish it over, I wish it to come, but
withal wish that it may be as light as possible.

Perhaps your lordship has no taste for serious things; by your
connections in England I should suppose not; therefore I shall drop this
part of the subject, and take it up in a line in which you will better
understand me.

By what means, may I ask, do you expect to conquer America? If you could
not effect it in the summer, when our army was less than yours, nor
in the winter, when we had none, how are you to do it? In point of
generalship you have been outwitted, and in point of fortitude outdone;
your advantages turn out to your loss, and show us that it is in our
power to ruin you by gifts: like a game of drafts, we can move out of
one square to let you come in, in order that we may afterwards take
two or three for one; and as we can always keep a double corner for
ourselves, we can always prevent a total defeat. You cannot be so
insensible as not to see that we have two to one the advantage of you,
because we conquer by a drawn game, and you lose by it. Burgoyne might
have taught your lordship this knowledge; he has been long a student in
the doctrine of chances.

I have no other idea of conquering countries than by subduing the armies
which defend them: have you done this, or can you do it? If you have
not, it would be civil in you to let your proclamations alone for the
present; otherwise, you will ruin more Tories by your grace and favor,
than you will Whigs by your arms.

Were you to obtain possession of this city, you would not know what to
do with it more than to plunder it. To hold it in the manner you hold
New York, would be an additional dead weight upon your hands; and if a
general conquest is your object, you had better be without the city than
with it. When you have defeated all our armies, the cities will fall
into your hands of themselves; but to creep into them in the manner you
got into Princeton, Trenton, &c. is like robbing an orchard in the
night before the fruit be ripe, and running away in the morning. Your
experiment in the Jerseys is sufficient to teach you that you have
something more to do than barely to get into other people's houses; and
your new converts, to whom you promised all manner of protection, and
seduced into new guilt by pardoning them from their former virtues, must
begin to have a very contemptible opinion both of your power and your
policy. Your authority in the Jerseys is now reduced to the small circle
which your army occupies, and your proclamation is no where else seen
unless it be to be laughed at. The mighty subduers of the continent have
retreated into a nutshell, and the proud forgivers of our sins are fled
from those they came to pardon; and all this at a time when they were
despatching vessel after vessel to England with the great news of
every day. In short, you have managed your Jersey expedition so very
dexterously, that the dead only are conquerors, because none will
dispute the ground with them.

In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had only
armies to contend with; in this case you have both an army and a country
to combat with. In former wars, the countries followed the fate of their
capitals; Canada fell with Quebec, and Minorca with Port Mahon or St.
Phillips; by subduing those, the conquerors opened a way into, and
became masters of the country: here it is otherwise; if you get
possession of a city here, you are obliged to shut yourselves up in it,
and can make no other use of it, than to spend your country's money in.
This is all the advantage you have drawn from New York; and you would
draw less from Philadelphia, because it requires more force to keep it,
and is much further from the sea. A pretty figure you and the Tories
would cut in this city, with a river full of ice, and a town full of
fire; for the immediate consequence of your getting here would be, that
you would be cannonaded out again, and the Tories be obliged to make
good the damage; and this sooner or later will be the fate of New York.

I wish to see the city saved, not so much from military as from natural
motives. 'Tis the hiding place of women and children, and Lord Howe's
proper business is with our armies. When I put all the circumstances
together which ought to be taken, I laugh at your notion of conquering
America. Because you lived in a little country, where an army might run
over the whole in a few days, and where a single company of soldiers
might put a multitude to the rout, you expected to find it the same
here. It is plain that you brought over with you all the narrow notions
you were bred up with, and imagined that a proclamation in the king's
name was to do great things; but Englishmen always travel for knowledge,
and your lordship, I hope, will return, if you return at all, much wiser
than you came.

We may be surprised by events we did not expect, and in that interval of
recollection you may gain some temporary advantage: such was the case
a few weeks ago, but we soon ripen again into reason, collect our
strength, and while you are preparing for a triumph, we come upon you
with a defeat. Such it has been, and such it would be were you to try
it a hundred times over. Were you to garrison the places you might march
over, in order to secure their subjection, (for remember you can do it
by no other means,) your army would be like a stream of water running to
nothing. By the time you extended from New York to Virginia, you would
be reduced to a string of drops not capable of hanging together; while
we, by retreating from State to State, like a river turning back upon
itself, would acquire strength in the same proportion as you lost it,
and in the end be capable of overwhelming you. The country, in the
meantime, would suffer, but it is a day of suffering, and we ought
to expect it. What we contend for is worthy the affliction we may go
through. If we get but bread to eat, and any kind of raiment to put on,
we ought not only to be contented, but thankful. More than that we ought
not to look for, and less than that heaven has not yet suffered us
to want. He that would sell his birthright for a little salt, is as
worthless as he who sold it for pottage without salt; and he that would
part with it for a gay coat, or a plain coat, ought for ever to be
a slave in buff. What are salt, sugar and finery, to the inestimable
blessings of "Liberty and Safety!" Or what are the inconveniences of
a few months to the tributary bondage of ages? The meanest peasant in
America, blessed with these sentiments, is a happy man compared with a
New York Tory; he can eat his morsel without repining, and when he has
done, can sweeten it with a repast of wholesome air; he can take his
child by the hand and bless it, without feeling the conscious shame of
neglecting a parent's duty.

In publishing these remarks I have several objects in view.

On your part they are to expose the folly of your pretended authority
as a commissioner; the wickedness of your cause in general; and the
impossibility of your conquering us at any rate. On the part of the
public, my intention is, to show them their true and sold interest;
to encourage them to their own good, to remove the fears and falsities
which bad men have spread, and weak men have encouraged; and to excite
in all men a love for union, and a cheerfulness for duty.

I shall submit one more case to you respecting your conquest of this
country, and then proceed to new observations.

Suppose our armies in every part of this continent were immediately to
disperse, every man to his home, or where else he might be safe, and
engage to reassemble again on a certain future day; it is clear that you
would then have no army to contend with, yet you would be as much at
a loss in that case as you are now; you would be afraid to send your
troops in parties over to the continent, either to disarm or prevent us
from assembling, lest they should not return; and while you kept them
together, having no arms of ours to dispute with, you could not call it
a conquest; you might furnish out a pompous page in the London Gazette
or a New York paper, but when we returned at the appointed time, you
would have the same work to do that you had at first.

It has been the folly of Britain to suppose herself more powerful than
she really is, and by that means has arrogated to herself a rank in the
world she is not entitled to: for more than this century past she
has not been able to carry on a war without foreign assistance. In
Marlborough's campaigns, and from that day to this, the number of German
troops and officers assisting her have been about equal with her own;
ten thousand Hessians were sent to England last war to protect her
from a French invasion; and she would have cut but a poor figure in her
Canadian and West Indian expeditions, had not America been lavish both
of her money and men to help her along. The only instance in which she
was engaged singly, that I can recollect, was against the rebellion in
Scotland, in the years 1745 and 1746, and in that, out of three battles,
she was twice beaten, till by thus reducing their numbers, (as we
shall yours) and taking a supply ship that was coming to Scotland
with clothes, arms and money, (as we have often done,) she was at last
enabled to defeat them. England was never famous by land; her officers
have generally been suspected of cowardice, have more of the air of a
dancing-master than a soldier, and by the samples which we have taken
prisoners, we give the preference to ourselves. Her strength, of late,
has lain in her extravagance; but as her finances and credit are now
low, her sinews in that line begin to fail fast. As a nation she is the
poorest in Europe; for were the whole kingdom, and all that is in it, to
be put up for sale like the estate of a bankrupt, it would not fetch as
much as she owes; yet this thoughtless wretch must go to war, and with
the avowed design, too, of making us beasts of burden, to support her in
riot and debauchery, and to assist her afterwards in distressing those
nations who are now our best friends. This ingratitude may suit a Tory,
or the unchristian peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else.

'Tis the unhappy temper of the English to be pleased with any war, right
or wrong, be it but successful; but they soon grow discontented with ill
fortune, and it is an even chance that they are as clamorous for peace
next summer, as the king and his ministers were for war last winter.
In this natural view of things, your lordship stands in a very critical
situation: your whole character is now staked upon your laurels; if they
wither, you wither with them; if they flourish, you cannot live long to
look at them; and at any rate, the black account hereafter is not far
off. What lately appeared to us misfortunes, were only blessings in
disguise; and the seeming advantages on your side have turned out to
our profit. Even our loss of this city, as far as we can see, might be a
principal gain to us: the more surface you spread over, the thinner
you will be, and the easier wiped away; and our consolation under that
apparent disaster would be, that the estates of the Tories would become
securities for the repairs. In short, there is no old ground we can fail
upon, but some new foundation rises again to support us. "We have put,
sir, our hands to the plough, and cursed be he that looketh back."

Your king, in his speech to parliament last spring, declared, "That
he had no doubt but the great force they had enabled him to send to
America, would effectually reduce the rebellious colonies." It has not,
neither can it; but it has done just enough to lay the foundation of
its own next year's ruin. You are sensible that you left England in a
divided, distracted state of politics, and, by the command you had here,
you became a principal prop in the court party; their fortunes rest on
yours; by a single express you can fix their value with the public, and
the degree to which their spirits shall rise or fall; they are in your
hands as stock, and you have the secret of the alley with you. Thus
situated and connected, you become the unintentional mechanical
instrument of your own and their overthrow. The king and his ministers
put conquest out of doubt, and the credit of both depended on the proof.
To support them in the interim, it was necessary that you should make
the most of every thing, and we can tell by Hugh Gaine's New York
paper what the complexion of the London Gazette is. With such a list
of victories the nation cannot expect you will ask new supplies; and
to confess your want of them would give the lie to your triumphs, and
impeach the king and his ministers of treasonable deception. If you make
the necessary demand at home, your party sinks; if you make it not, you
sink yourself; to ask it now is too late, and to ask it before was too
soon, and unless it arrive quickly will be of no use. In short, the part
you have to act, cannot be acted; and I am fully persuaded that all you
have to trust to is, to do the best you can with what force you have
got, or little more. Though we have greatly exceeded you in point of
generalship and bravery of men, yet, as a people, we have not entered
into the full soul of enterprise; for I, who know England and the
disposition of the people well, am confident, that it is easier for us
to effect a revolution there, than you a conquest here; a few thousand
men landed in England with the declared design of deposing the present
king, bringing his ministers to trial, and setting up the Duke of
Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry their point, while you
are grovelling here, ignorant of the matter. As I send all my papers to
England, this, like Common Sense, will find its way there; and though
it may put one party on their guard, it will inform the other, and the
nation in general, of our design to help them.

Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of present
affairs: you may draw from it what conclusions you please. I wish
as well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I consider
INDEPENDENCE as America's natural right and interest, and never could
see any real disservice it would be to Britain. If an English merchant
receives an order, and is paid for it, it signifies nothing to him who
governs the country. This is my creed of politics. If I have any where
expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed, immovable hatred I
have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measures. I have likewise an
aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man; but
I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever
published a syllable in England in my life. What I write is pure nature,
and my pen and my soul have ever gone together. My writings I have
always given away, reserving only the expense of printing and paper, and
sometimes not even that. I never courted either fame or interest, and my
manner of life, to those who know it, will justify what I say. My study
is to be useful, and if your lordship loves mankind as well as I do,
you would, seeing you cannot conquer us, cast about and lend your hand
towards accomplishing a peace. Our independence with God's blessing
we will maintain against all the world; but as we wish to avoid
evil ourselves, we wish not to inflict it on others. I am never
over-inquisitive into the secrets of the cabinet, but I have some notion
that, if you neglect the present opportunity, it will not be in our
power to make a separate peace with you afterwards; for whatever
treaties or alliances we form, we shall most faithfully abide by;
wherefore you may be deceived if you think you can make it with us at
any time. A lasting independent peace is my wish, end and aim; and to
accomplish that, I pray God the Americans may never be defeated, and I
trust while they have good officers, and are well commanded, and willing
to be commanded, that they NEVER WILL BE.

                                     COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 1777.




THE CRISIS III. (IN THE PROGRESS OF POLITICS)


IN THE progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life,
we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but
frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. We expend, if I may
so say, the knowledge of every day on the circumstances that produce it,
and journey on in search of new matter and new refinements: but as it is
pleasant and sometimes useful to look back, even to the first periods of
infancy, and trace the turns and windings through which we have passed,
so we may likewise derive many advantages by halting a while in our
political career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated
labyrinth of little more than yesterday.

Truly may we say, that never did men grow old in so short a time! We
have crowded the business of an age into the compass of a few months,
and have been driven through such a rapid succession of things, that
for the want of leisure to think, we unavoidably wasted knowledge as we
came, and have left nearly as much behind us as we brought with us: but
the road is yet rich with the fragments, and, before we finally lose
sight of them, will repay us for the trouble of stopping to pick them
up.

Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of
forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos:
he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not
knowing how the world went in his absence, he would be at a loss to
know how it ought to go on when he recovered, or rather, returned to it
again. In like manner, though in a less degree, a too great inattention
to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment in everything;
while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present,
we frequently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with
very little trouble. It is a kind of counter-march, by which we get into
the rear of time, and mark the movements and meaning of things as we
make our return. There are certain circumstances, which, at the time
of their happening, are a kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be
followed by its answer, so those kind of circumstances will be followed
by their events, and those events are always the true solution. A
considerable space of time may lapse between, and unless we continue our
observations from the one to the other, the harmony of them will pass
away unnoticed: but the misfortune is, that partly from the pressing
necessity of some instant things, and partly from the impatience of our
own tempers, we are frequently in such a hurry to make out the meaning
of everything as fast as it happens, that we thereby never truly
understand it; and not only start new difficulties to ourselves by so
doing, but, as it were, embarrass Providence in her good designs.

I have been civil in stating this fault on a large scale, for, as it now
stands, it does not appear to be levelled against any particular set of
men; but were it to be refined a little further, it might afterwards
be applied to the Tories with a degree of striking propriety: those men
have been remarkable for drawing sudden conclusions from single facts.
The least apparent mishap on our side, or the least seeming advantage
on the part of the enemy, have determined with them the fate of a whole
campaign. By this hasty judgment they have converted a retreat into
a defeat; mistook generalship for error; while every little advantage
purposely given the enemy, either to weaken their strength by dividing
it, embarrass their councils by multiplying their objects, or to secure
a greater post by the surrender of a less, has been instantly magnified
into a conquest. Thus, by quartering ill policy upon ill principles,
they have frequently promoted the cause they designed to injure, and
injured that which they intended to promote.

It is probable the campaign may open before this number comes from
the press. The enemy have long lain idle, and amused themselves with
carrying on the war by proclamations only. While they continue their
delay our strength increases, and were they to move to action now, it
is a circumstantial proof that they have no reinforcement coming;
wherefore, in either case, the comparative advantage will be ours. Like
a wounded, disabled whale, they want only time and room to die in; and
though in the agony of their exit, it may be unsafe to live within the
flapping of their tail, yet every hour shortens their date, and lessens
their power of mischief. If any thing happens while this number is in
the press, it will afford me a subject for the last pages of it. At
present I am tired of waiting; and as neither the enemy, nor the state
of politics have yet produced any thing new, I am thereby left in
the field of general matter, undirected by any striking or particular
object. This Crisis, therefore, will be made up rather of variety than
novelty, and consist more of things useful than things wonderful.

The success of the cause, the union of the people, and the means of
supporting and securing both, are points which cannot be too much
attended to. He who doubts of the former is a desponding coward, and
he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a traitor. Their characters are
easily fixed, and under these short descriptions I leave them for the
present.

One of the greatest degrees of sentimental union which America ever
knew, was in denying the right of the British parliament "to bind the
colonies in all cases whatsoever." The Declaration is, in its form, an
almighty one, and is the loftiest stretch of arbitrary power that ever
one set of men or one country claimed over another. Taxation was
nothing more than the putting the declared right into practice; and
this failing, recourse was had to arms, as a means to establish both
the right and the practice, or to answer a worse purpose, which will be
mentioned in the course of this number. And in order to repay themselves
the expense of an army, and to profit by their own injustice, the
colonies were, by another law, declared to be in a state of actual
rebellion, and of consequence all property therein would fall to the
conquerors.

The colonies, on their part, first, denied the right; secondly, they
suspended the use of taxable articles, and petitioned against the
practice of taxation: and these failing, they, thirdly, defended their
property by force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded, and, in answer
to the declaration of rebellion and non-protection, published their
Declaration of Independence and right of self-protection.

These, in a few words, are the different stages of the quarrel; and the
parts are so intimately and necessarily connected with each other as to
admit of no separation. A person, to use a trite phrase, must be a
Whig or a Tory in a lump. His feelings, as a man, may be wounded; his
charity, as a Christian, may be moved; but his political principles must
go through all the cases on one side or the other. He cannot be a Whig
in this stage, and a Tory in that. If he says he is against the united
independence of the continent, he is to all intents and purposes against
her in all the rest; because this last comprehends the whole. And he may
just as well say, that Britain was right in declaring us rebels; right
in taxing us; and right in declaring her "right to bind the colonies in
all cases whatsoever." It signifies nothing what neutral ground, of his
own creating, he may skulk upon for shelter, for the quarrel in no
stage of it hath afforded any such ground; and either we or Britain are
absolutely right or absolutely wrong through the whole.

Britain, like a gamester nearly ruined, has now put all her losses into
one bet, and is playing a desperate game for the total. 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. This is coming to the point at once.
Here is the touchstone to try men by. He that is not a supporter of the
independent States of America in the same degree that his religious and
political principles would suffer him to support the government of any
other country, of which he called himself a subject, is, in the American
sense of the word, A TORY; and the instant that he endeavors to bring
his toryism into practice, he becomes A TRAITOR. The first can only be
detected by a general test, and the law hath already provided for the
latter.

It is unnatural and impolitic to admit men who would root up our
independence to have any share in our legislation, either as electors
or representatives; because the support of our independence rests, in
a great measure, on the vigor and purity of our public bodies. Would
Britain, even in time of peace, much less in war, suffer an election to
be carried by men who professed themselves to be not her subjects, or
allow such to sit in Parliament? Certainly not.

But there are a certain species of Tories with whom conscience or
principle has nothing to do, and who are so from avarice only. Some
of the first fortunes on the continent, on the part of the Whigs, are
staked on the issue of our present measures. And shall disaffection only
be rewarded with security? Can any thing be a greater inducement to a
miserly man, than the hope of making his Mammon safe? And though the
scheme be fraught with every character of folly, yet, so long as he
supposes, that by doing nothing materially criminal against America
on one part, and by expressing his private disapprobation against
independence, as palliative with the enemy, on the other part, he stands
in a safe line between both; while, I say, this ground be suffered to
remain, craft, and the spirit of avarice, will point it out, and men
will not be wanting to fill up this most contemptible of all characters.

These men, ashamed to own the sordid cause from whence their
disaffection springs, add thereby meanness to meanness, by endeavoring
to shelter themselves under the mask of hypocrisy; that is, they had
rather be thought to be Tories from some kind of principle, than Tories
by having no principle at all. But till such time as they can show
some real reason, natural, political, or conscientious, on which their
objections to independence are founded, we are not obliged to give them
credit for being Tories of the first stamp, but must set them down as
Tories of the last.

In the second number of the Crisis, I endeavored to show the
impossibility of the enemy's making any conquest of America, that
nothing was wanting on our part but patience and perseverance, and
that, with these virtues, our success, as far as human speculation could
discern, seemed as certain as fate. But as there are many among us, who,
influenced by others, have regularly gone back from the principles
they once held, in proportion as we have gone forward; and as it is the
unfortunate lot of many a good man to live within the neighborhood of
disaffected ones; I shall, therefore, for the sake of confirming the one
and recovering the other, endeavor, in the space of a page or two, to go
over some of the leading principles in support of independence. It is a
much pleasanter task to prevent vice than to punish it, and, however our
tempers may be gratified by resentment, or our national expenses eased
by forfeited estates, harmony and friendship is, nevertheless, the
happiest condition a country can be blessed with.

The principal arguments in support of independence may be comprehended
under the four following heads.

     1st, The natural right of the continent to independence.
     2d, Her interest in being independent.
     3d, The necessity,--and
     4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.

I. The natural right of the continent to independence, is a point which
never yet was called in question. It will not even admit of a debate.
To deny such a right, would be a kind of atheism against nature: and the
best answer to such an objection would be, "The fool hath said in his
heart there is no God."

II. The interest of the continent in being independent is a point as
clearly right as the former. America, by her own internal industry,
and unknown to all the powers of Europe, was, at the beginning of the
dispute, arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade and population, beyond
which it was the interest of Britain not to suffer her to pass, lest she
should grow too powerful to be kept subordinate. She began to view
this country with the same uneasy malicious eye, with which a covetous
guardian would view his ward, whose estate he had been enriching himself
by for twenty years, and saw him just arriving at manhood. And America
owes no more to Britain for her present maturity, than the ward would
to the guardian for being twenty-one years of age. That America hath
flourished at the time she was under the government of Britain, is
true; but there is every natural reason to believe, that had she been an
independent country from the first settlement thereof, uncontrolled by
any foreign power, free to make her own laws, regulate and encourage her
own commerce, she had by this time been of much greater worth than now.
The case is simply this: the first settlers in the different colonies
were left to shift for themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any
European government; but as the tyranny and persecution of the old world
daily drove numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of heaven on their
industry and perseverance, they grew into importance, so, in a like
degree, they became an object of profit to the greedy eyes of Europe.
It was impossible, in this state of infancy, however thriving and
promising, that they could resist the power of any armed invader that
should seek to bring them under his authority. In this situation,
Britain thought it worth her while to claim them, and the continent
received and acknowledged the claimer. It was, in reality, of no very
great importance who was her master, seeing, that from the force and
ambition of the different powers of Europe, she must, till she acquired
strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some one. As well,
perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as well to have been
under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes of engrossing and
profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too much, would have
operated alike with any master, and produced to the colonies the same
effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all a farce; because,
in order to make that protection necessary, she must first, by her own
quarrels, create us enemies. Hard terms indeed!

To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent,
we need only ask this easy, simple question: Is it the interest of a man
to be a boy all his life? The answer to one will be the answer to both.
America hath been one continued scene of legislative contention from
the first king's representative to the last; and this was unavoidably
founded in the natural opposition of interest between the old country
and the new. A governor sent from England, or receiving his authority
therefrom, ought never to have been considered in any other light
than that of a genteel commissioned spy, whose private business was
information, and his public business a kind of civilized oppression. In
the first of these characters he was to watch the tempers, sentiments,
and disposition of the people, the growth of trade, and the increase of
private fortunes; and, in the latter, to suppress all such acts of the
assemblies, however beneficial to the people, which did not directly
or indirectly throw some increase of power or profit into the hands of
those that sent him.

America, till now, could never be called a free country, because her
legislation depended on the will of a man three thousand miles distant,
whose interest was in opposition to ours, and who, by a single "no,"
could forbid what law he pleased.

The freedom of trade, likewise, is, to a trading country, an article of
such importance, that the principal source of wealth depends upon it;
and it is impossible that any country can flourish, as it otherwise
might do, whose commerce is engrossed, cramped and fettered by the
laws and mandates of another--yet these evils, and more than I can here
enumerate, the continent has suffered by being under the government of
England. By an independence we clear the whole at once--put
an end to the business of unanswered petitions and fruitless
remonstrances--exchange Britain for Europe--shake hands with the
world--live at peace with the world--and trade to any market where we
can buy and sell.

III. The necessity, likewise, of being independent, even before it was
declared, became so evident and important, that the continent ran the
risk of being ruined every day that she delayed it. There was reason to
believe that Britain would endeavor to make an European matter of it,
and, rather than lose the whole, would dismember it, like Poland, and
dispose of her several claims to the highest bidder. Genoa, failing in
her attempts to reduce Corsica, made a sale of it to the French, and
such trafficks have been common in the old world. We had at that time no
ambassador in any part of Europe, to counteract her negotiations, and
by that means she had the range of every foreign court uncontradicted
on our part. We even knew nothing of the treaty for the Hessians till it
was concluded, and the troops ready to embark. Had we been independent
before, we had probably prevented her obtaining them. We had no credit
abroad, because of our rebellious dependency. Our ships could claim no
protection in foreign ports, because we afforded them no justifiable
reason for granting it to us. The calling ourselves subjects, and at
the same time fighting against the power which we acknowledged, was
a dangerous precedent to all Europe. If the grievances justified the
taking up arms, they justified our separation; if they did not justify
our separation, neither could they justify our taking up arms. All
Europe was interested in reducing us as rebels, and all Europe (or the
greatest part at least) is interested in supporting us as independent
States. At home our condition was still worse: our currency had no
foundation, and the fall of it would have ruined Whig and Tory alike. We
had no other law than a kind of moderated passion; no other civil
power than an honest mob; and no other protection than the temporary
attachment of one man to another. Had independence been delayed a few
months longer, this continent would have been plunged into irrecoverable
confusion: some violent for it, some against it, till, in the general
cabal, the rich would have been ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to
independence that every Tory owes the present safety which he lives
in; for by that, and that only, we emerged from a state of dangerous
suspense, and became a regular people.

The necessity, likewise, of being independent, had there been no rupture
between Britain and America, would, in a little time, have brought one
on. The increasing importance of commerce, the weight and perplexity of
legislation, and the entangled state of European politics, would daily
have shown to the continent the impossibility of continuing subordinate;
for, after the coolest reflections on the matter, this must be allowed,
that Britain was too jealous of America to govern it justly; too
ignorant of it to govern it well; and too far distant from it to govern
it at all.

IV. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are, the
moral advantages arising from independence: war and desolation have
become the trade of the old world; and America neither could nor can be
under the government of Britain without becoming a sharer of her
guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death. The spirit
of duelling, extended on a national scale, is a proper character for
European wars. They have seldom any other motive than pride, or any
other object than fame. The conquerors and the conquered are generally
ruined alike, and the chief difference at last is, that the one marches
home with his honors, and the other without them. 'Tis the natural
temper of the English to fight for a feather, if they suppose that
feather to be an affront; and America, without the right of asking why,
must have abetted in every quarrel, and abided by its fate. It is a
shocking situation to live in, that one country must be brought into all
the wars of another, whether the measure be right or wrong, or whether
she will or not; yet this, in the fullest extent, was, and ever would
be, the unavoidable consequence of the connection. Surely the Quakers
forgot their own principles when, in their late Testimony, they called
this connection, with these military and miserable appendages hanging to
it--"the happy constitution."

Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly fifty years out of every
hundred at war with some power or other. It certainly ought to be a
conscientious as well political consideration with America, not to
dip her hands in the bloody work of Europe. Our situation affords us
a retreat from their cabals, and the present happy union of the states
bids fair for extirpating the future use of arms from one quarter of
the world; yet such have been the irreligious politics of the present
leaders of the Quakers, that, for the sake of they scarce know what,
they would cut off every hope of such a blessing by tying this continent
to Britain, like Hector to the chariot wheel of Achilles, to be dragged
through all the miseries of endless European wars.

The connection, viewed from this ground, is distressing to every man
who has the feelings of humanity. By having Britain for our master, we
became enemies to the greatest part of Europe, and they to us: and the
consequence was war inevitable. By being our own masters, independent of
any foreign one, we have Europe for our friends, and the prospect of an
endless peace among ourselves. Those who were advocates for the British
government over these colonies, were obliged to limit both their
arguments and their ideas to the period of an European peace only; the
moment Britain became plunged in war, every supposed convenience to us
vanished, and all we could hope for was not to be ruined. Could this be
a desirable condition for a young country to be in?

Had the French pursued their fortune immediately after the defeat of
Braddock last war, this city and province had then experienced the woful
calamities of being a British subject. A scene of the same kind might
happen again; for America, considered as a subject to the crown
of Britain, would ever have been the seat of war, and the bone of
contention between the two powers.

On the whole, if the future expulsion of arms from one quarter of the
world would be a desirable object to a peaceable man; if the freedom of
trade to every part of it can engage the attention of a man of business;
if the support or fall of millions of currency can affect our interests;
if the entire possession of estates, by cutting off the lordly claims
of Britain over the soil, deserves the regard of landed property; and if
the right of making our own laws, uncontrolled by royal or ministerial
spies or mandates, be worthy our care as freemen;--then are all men
interested in the support of independence; and may he that supports it
not, be driven from the blessing, and live unpitied beneath the servile
sufferings of scandalous subjection!

We have been amused with the tales of ancient wonders; we have read,
and wept over the histories of other nations: applauded, censured, or
pitied, as their cases affected us. The fortitude and patience of the
sufferers--the justness of their cause--the weight of their oppressions
and oppressors--the object to be saved or lost--with all the
consequences of a defeat or a conquest--have, in the hour of sympathy,
bewitched our hearts, and chained it to their fate: but where is the
power that ever made war upon petitioners? Or where is the war on which
a world was staked till now?

We may not, perhaps, be wise enough to make all the advantages we ought
of our independence; but they are, nevertheless, marked and presented
to us with every character of great and good, and worthy the hand of
him who sent them. I look through the present trouble to a time of
tranquillity, when we shall have it in our power to set an example of
peace to all the world. Were the Quakers really impressed and influenced
by the quiet principles they profess to hold, they would, however
they might disapprove the means, be the first of all men to approve of
independence, because, by separating ourselves from the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never given to man before of
carrying their favourite principle of peace into general practice, by
establishing governments that shall hereafter exist without wars. O! ye
fallen, cringing, priest-and-Pemberton-ridden people! What more can we
say of ye than that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a
political Quaker a real Jesuit.

Having thus gone over some of the principal points in support of
independence, I must now request the reader to return back with me to
the period when it first began to be a public doctrine, and to examine
the progress it has made among the various classes of men. The area I
mean to begin at, is the breaking out of hostilities, April 19th, 1775.
Until this event happened, the continent seemed to view the dispute as
a kind of law-suit for a matter of right, litigating between the old
country and the new; and she felt the same kind and degree of horror,
as if she had seen an oppressive plaintiff, at the head of a band of
ruffians, enter the court, while the cause was before it, and put the
judge, the jury, the defendant and his counsel, to the sword. Perhaps a
more heart-felt convulsion never reached a country with the same
degree of power and rapidity before, and never may again. Pity for the
sufferers, mixed with indignation at the violence, and heightened with
apprehensions of undergoing the same fate, made the affair of Lexington
the affair of the continent. Every part of it felt the shock, and all
vibrated together. A general promotion of sentiment took place: those
who had drank deeply into Whiggish principles, that is, the right and
necessity not only of opposing, but wholly setting aside the power of
the crown as soon as it became practically dangerous (for in theory
it was always so), stepped into the first stage of independence; while
another class of Whigs, equally sound in principle, but not so sanguine
in enterprise, attached themselves the stronger to the cause, and fell
close in with the rear of the former; their partition was a mere point.
Numbers of the moderate men, whose chief fault, at that time, arose from
entertaining a better opinion of Britain than she deserved, convinced
now of their mistake, gave her up, and publicly declared themselves
good Whigs. While the Tories, seeing it was no longer a laughing matter,
either sank into silent obscurity, or contented themselves with coming
forth and abusing General Gage: not a single advocate appeared to
justify the action of that day; it seemed to appear to every one with
the same magnitude, struck every one with the same force, and created in
every one the same abhorrence. From this period we may date the growth
of independence.

If the many circumstances which happened at this memorable time, be
taken in one view, and compared with each other, they will justify a
conclusion which seems not to have been attended to, I mean a fixed
design in the king and ministry of driving America into arms, in order
that they might be furnished with a pretence for seizing the whole
continent, as the immediate property of the crown. A noble plunder for
hungry courtiers!

It ought to be remembered, that the first petition from the Congress
was at this time unanswered on the part of the British king. That the
motion, called Lord North's motion, of the 20th of February, 1775,
arrived in America the latter end of March. This motion was to be laid,
by the several governors then in being, before, the assembly of each
province; and the first assembly before which it was laid, was the
assembly of Pennsylvania, in May following. This being a just state of
the case, I then ask, why were hostilities commenced between the time
of passing the resolve in the House of Commons, of the 20th of February,
and the time of the assemblies meeting to deliberate upon it? Degrading
and famous as that motion was, there is nevertheless reason to believe
that the king and his adherents were afraid the colonies would agree
to it, and lest they should, took effectual care they should not, by
provoking them with hostilities in the interim. They had not the least
doubt at that time of conquering America at one blow; and what they
expected to get by a conquest being infinitely greater than any thing
they could hope to get either by taxation or accommodation, they seemed
determined to prevent even the possibility of hearing each other, lest
America should disappoint their greedy hopes of the whole, by listening
even to their own terms. On the one hand they refused to hear the
petition of the continent, and on the other hand took effectual care the
continent should not hear them.

That the motion of the 20th February and the orders for commencing
hostilities were both concerted by the same person or persons, and not
the latter by General Gage, as was falsely imagined at first, is evident
from an extract of a letter of his to the administration, read among
other papers in the House of Commons; in which he informs his masters,
"That though their idea of his disarming certain counties was a right
one, yet it required him to be master of the country, in order to enable
him to execute it." This was prior to the commencement of hostilities,
and consequently before the motion of the 20th February could be
deliberated on by the several assemblies.

Perhaps it may be asked, why was the motion passed, if there was at the
same time a plan to aggravate the Americans not to listen to it? Lord
North assigned one reason himself, which was a hope of dividing them.
This was publicly tempting them to reject it; that if, in case the
injury of arms should fail in provoking them sufficiently, the insult
of such a declaration might fill it up. But by passing the motion and
getting it afterwards rejected in America, it enabled them, in their
wicked idea of politics, among other things, to hold up the colonies to
foreign powers, with every possible mark of disobedience and rebellion.
They had applied to those powers not to supply the continent with arms,
ammunition, etc., and it was necessary they should incense them against
us, by assigning on their own part some seeming reputable reason why.
By dividing, it had a tendency to weaken the States, and likewise to
perplex the adherents of America in England. But the principal scheme,
and that which has marked their character in every part of their
conduct, was a design of precipitating the colonies into a state which
they might afterwards deem rebellion, and, under that pretence, put an
end to all future complaints, petitions and remonstrances, by seizing
the whole at once. They had ravaged one part of the globe, till it could
glut them no longer; their prodigality required new plunder, and through
the East India article tea they hoped to transfer their rapine from that
quarter of the world to this. Every designed quarrel had its pretence;
and the same barbarian avarice accompanied the plant to America, which
ruined the country that produced it.

That men never turn rogues without turning fools is a maxim, sooner or
later, universally true. The commencement of hostilities, being in the
beginning of April, was, of all times the worst chosen: the Congress
were to meet the tenth of May following, and the distress the continent
felt at this unparalleled outrage gave a stability to that body which
no other circumstance could have done. It suppressed too all inferior
debates, and bound them together by a necessitous affection, without
giving them time to differ upon trifles. The suffering likewise softened
the whole body of the people into a degree of pliability, which laid the
principal foundation-stone of union, order, and government; and which,
at any other time, might only have fretted and then faded away
unnoticed and unimproved. But Providence, who best knows how to time her
misfortunes as well as her immediate favors, chose this to be the time,
and who dare dispute it?

It did not seem the disposition of the people, at this crisis, to
heap petition upon petition, while the former remained unanswered. The
measure however was carried in Congress, and a second petition was sent;
of which I shall only remark that it was submissive even to a dangerous
fault, because the prayer of it appealed solely to what it called the
prerogative of the crown, while the matter in dispute was confessedly
constitutional. But even this petition, flattering as it was, was
still not so harmonious as the chink of cash, and consequently not
sufficiently grateful to the tyrant and his ministry. From every
circumstance it is evident, that it was the determination of the British
court to have nothing to do with America but to conquer her fully and
absolutely. They were certain of success, and the field of battle was
the only place of treaty. I am confident there are thousands and tens of
thousands in America who wonder now that they should ever have thought
otherwise; but the sin of that day was the sin of civility; yet it
operated against our present good in the same manner that a civil
opinion of the devil would against our future peace.

Independence was a doctrine scarce and rare, even towards the conclusion
of the year 1775; all our politics had been founded on the hope of
expectation of making the matter up--a hope, which, though general on
the side of America, had never entered the head or heart of the British
court. Their hope was conquest and confiscation. Good heavens! what
volumes of thanks does America owe to Britain? What infinite obligation
to the tool that fills, with paradoxical vacancy, the throne! Nothing
but the sharpest essence of villany, compounded with the strongest
distillation of folly, could have produced a menstruum that would have
effected a separation. The Congress in 1774 administered an abortive
medicine to independence, by prohibiting the importation of goods,
and the succeeding Congress rendered the dose still more dangerous by
continuing it. Had independence been a settled system with America, (as
Britain has advanced,) she ought to have doubled her importation, and
prohibited in some degree her exportation. And this single circumstance
is sufficient to acquit America before any jury of nations, of having
a continental plan of independence in view; a charge which, had it been
true, would have been honorable, but is so grossly false, that either
the amazing ignorance or the wilful dishonesty of the British court is
effectually proved by it.

The second petition, like the first, produced no answer; it was
scarcely acknowledged to have been received; the British court were too
determined in their villainy even to act it artfully, and in their rage
for conquest neglected the necessary subtleties for obtaining it. They
might have divided, distracted and played a thousand tricks with us, had
they been as cunning as they were cruel.

This last indignity gave a new spring to independence. Those who knew
the savage obstinacy of the king, and the jobbing, gambling spirit of
the court, predicted the fate of the petition, as soon as it was sent
from America; for the men being known, their measures were easily
foreseen. As politicians we ought not so much to ground our hopes on
the reasonableness of the thing we ask, as on the reasonableness of
the person of whom we ask it: who would expect discretion from a fool,
candor from a tyrant, or justice from a villain?

As every prospect of accommodation seemed now to fail fast, men began to
think seriously on the matter; and their reason being thus stripped of
the false hope which had long encompassed it, became approachable by
fair debate: yet still the bulk of the people hesitated; they startled
at the novelty of independence, without once considering that our
getting into arms at first was a more extraordinary novelty, and that
all other nations had gone through the work of independence before
us. They doubted likewise the ability of the continent to support
it, without reflecting that it required the same force to obtain an
accommodation by arms as an independence. If the one was acquirable, the
other was the same; because, to accomplish either, it was necessary that
our strength should be too great for Britain to subdue; and it was too
unreasonable to suppose, that with the power of being masters, we should
submit to be servants.* Their caution at this time was exceedingly
misplaced; for if they were able to defend their property and maintain
their rights by arms, they, consequently, were able to defend and
support their independence; and in proportion as these men saw the
necessity and correctness of the measure, they honestly and openly
declared and adopted it, and the part that they had acted since has done
them honor and fully established their characters. Error in opinion has
this peculiar advantage with it, that the foremost point of the contrary
ground may at any time be reached by the sudden exertion of a thought;
and it frequently happens in sentimental differences, that some striking
circumstance, or some forcible reason quickly conceived, will effect in
an instant what neither argument nor example could produce in an age.


     * In this state of political suspense the pamphlet Common Sense made
its appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to
mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel and John Adams, were severally spoken
of as the supposed author. I had not, at that time, the pleasure either
of personally knowing or being known to the two last gentlemen. The
favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in England, and my
introduction to this part of the world was through his patronage. I
happened, when a school-boy, to pick up a pleasing natural history of
Virginia, and my inclination from that day of seeing the western side
of the Atlantic never left me. In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed
giving me such materials as were in his hands, towards completing a
history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous of having the
first volume out the next Spring. I had then formed the outlines of
Common Sense, and finished nearly the first part; and as I supposed the
doctor's design in getting out a history was to open the new year with
a new system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that
subject, much earlier than he thought of; and without informing him what
I was doing, got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could,
and sent him the first pamphlet that was printed off.

I find it impossible in the small compass I am limited to, to trace out
the progress which independence has made on the minds of the different
classes of men, and the several reasons by which they were moved. With
some, it was a passionate abhorrence against the king of England and his
ministry, as a set of savages and brutes; and these men, governed by
the agony of a wounded mind, were for trusting every thing to hope and
heaven, and bidding defiance at once. With others, it was a growing
conviction that the scheme of the British court was to create, ferment
and drive on a quarrel, for the sake of confiscated plunder: and men
of this class ripened into independence in proportion as the evidence
increased. While a third class conceived it was the true interest of
America, internally and externally, to be her own master, and gave their
support to independence, step by step, as they saw her abilities to
maintain it enlarge. With many, it was a compound of all these reasons;
while those who were too callous to be reached by either, remained, and
still remain Tories.

The legal necessity of being independent, with several collateral
reasons, is pointed out in an elegant masterly manner, in a charge to
the grand jury for the district of Charleston, by the Hon. William
Henry Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina, [April 23, 1776]. This
performance, and the address of the convention of New York, are pieces,
in my humble opinion, of the first rank in America.

The principal causes why independence has not been so universally
supported as it ought, are fear and indolence, and the causes why it
has been opposed, are, avarice, down-right villany, and lust of personal
power. There is not such a being in America as a Tory from conscience;
some secret defect or other is interwoven in the character of all those,
be they men or women, who can look with patience on the brutality,
luxury and debauchery of the British court, and the violations of their
army here. A woman's virtue must sit very lightly on her who can even
hint a favorable sentiment in their behalf. It is remarkable that the
whole race of prostitutes in New York were tories; and the schemes for
supporting the Tory cause in this city, for which several are now
in jail, and one hanged, were concerted and carried on in common
bawdy-houses, assisted by those who kept them.

The connection between vice and meanness is a fit subject for satire,
but when the satire is a fact, it cuts with the irresistible power of a
diamond. If a Quaker, in defence of his just rights, his property,
and the chastity of his house, takes up a musket, he is expelled the
meeting; but the present king of England, who seduced and took into
keeping a sister of their society, is reverenced and supported by
repeated Testimonies, while, the friendly noodle from whom she was taken
(and who is now in this city) continues a drudge in the service of his
rival, as if proud of being cuckolded by a creature called a king.

Our support and success depend on such a variety of men and
circumstances, that every one who does but wish well, is of some use:
there are men who have a strange aversion to arms, yet have hearts to
risk every shilling in the cause, or in support of those who have better
talents for defending it. Nature, in the arrangement of mankind, has
fitted some for every service in life: were all soldiers, all would
starve and go naked, and were none soldiers, all would be slaves. As
disaffection to independence is the badge of a Tory, so affection to
it is the mark of a Whig; and the different services of the Whigs, down
from those who nobly contribute every thing, to those who have nothing
to render but their wishes, tend all to the same center, though with
different degrees of merit and ability. The larger we make the circle,
the more we shall harmonize, and the stronger we shall be. All we want
to shut out is disaffection, and, that excluded, we must accept from
each other such duties as we are best fitted to bestow. A narrow system
of politics, like a narrow system of religion, is calculated only to
sour the temper, and be at variance with mankind.

All we want to know in America is simply this, who is for independence,
and who is not? Those who are for it, will support it, and the remainder
will undoubtedly see the reasonableness of paying the charges; while
those who oppose or seek to betray it, must expect the more rigid fate
of the jail and the gibbet. There is a bastard kind of generosity, which
being extended to all men, is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the
want of true generosity is on the other. A lax manner of administering
justice, falsely termed moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit
public virtue, and promote the growth of public evils. Had the late
committee of safety taken cognizance of the last Testimony of the
Quakers and proceeded against such delinquents as were concerned
therein, they had, probably, prevented the treasonable plans which
have been concerted since. When one villain is suffered to escape, it
encourages another to proceed, either from a hope of escaping likewise,
or an apprehension that we dare not punish. It has been a matter of
general surprise, that no notice was taken of the incendiary publication
of the Quakers, of the 20th of November last; a publication evidently
intended to promote sedition and treason, and encourage the enemy, who
were then within a day's march of this city, to proceed on and possess
it. I here present the reader with a memorial which was laid before the
board of safety a few days after the Testimony appeared. Not a member of
that board, that I conversed with, but expressed the highest detestation
of the perverted principles and conduct of the Quaker junto, and a wish
that the board would take the matter up; notwithstanding which, it was
suffered to pass away unnoticed, to the encouragement of new acts of
treason, the general danger of the cause, and the disgrace of the state.



        To the honorable the Council of Safety of the State of
                            Pennsylvania.

At a meeting of a reputable number of the inhabitants of the city of
Philadelphia, impressed with a proper sense of the justice of the cause
which this continent is engaged in, and animated with a generous fervor
for supporting the same, it was resolved, that the following be laid
before the board of safety:

"We profess liberality of sentiment to all men; with this distinction
only, that those who do not deserve it would become wise and seek
to deserve it. We hold the pure doctrines of universal liberty of
conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to secure that sacred
right to others, as well as to defend it for ourselves; for we undertake
not to judge of the religious rectitude of tenets, but leave the whole
matter to Him who made us.

"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any
man for religion's sake; our common relation to others being that of
fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single community; and in this
line of connection we hold out the right hand of fellowship to all men.
But we should conceive ourselves to be unworthy members of the free and
independent States of America, were we unconcernedly to see or to suffer
any treasonable wound, public or private, directly or indirectly, to be
given against the peace and safety of the same. We inquire not into the
rank of the offenders, nor into their religious persuasion; we have no
business with either, our part being only to find them out and exhibit
them to justice.

"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John
Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has lately
been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had the framers
and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to exhort the youth
and others of their society, to a patient submission under the present
trying visitations, and humbly to wait the event of heaven towards them,
they had therein shown a Christian temper, and we had been silent; but
the anger and political virulence with which their instructions are
given, and the abuse with which they stigmatize all ranks of men not
thinking like themselves, leave no doubt on our minds from what spirit
their publication proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure cause of
truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred import, and play
them off as mechanically as if religion consisted only in contrivance.
We know of no instance in which the Quakers have been compelled to bear
arms, or to do any thing which might strain their conscience; wherefore
their advice, 'to withstand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary
instructions and ordinances of men,' appear to us a false alarm, and
could only be treasonably calculated to gain favor with our enemies,
when they are seemingly on the brink of invading this State, or, what
is still worse, to weaken the hands of our defence, that their entrance
into this city might be made practicable and easy.

"We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders;
and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner of
treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the two
following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous persons in
some cases; and, secondly, by only a passionate treatment of them in
others. For the future we disown both, and wish to be steady in our
proceedings, and serious in our punishments.

"Every State in America has, by the repeated voice of its inhabitants,
directed and authorized the Continental Congress to publish a formal
Declaration of Independence of, and separation from, the oppressive king
and Parliament of Great Britain; and we look on every man as an
enemy, who does not in some line or other, give his assistance towards
supporting the same; at the same time we consider the offence to be
heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when such persons,
under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or
otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence
of this continent as declared by Congress.

"The publishers of the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' have called in a
loud manner to their friends and connections, 'to withstand or refuse'
obedience to whatever 'instructions or ordinances' may be published, not
warranted by (what they call) 'that happy Constitution under which they
and others long enjoyed tranquillity and peace.' If this be not treason,
we know not what may properly be called by that name.

"To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with the
word 'peace, peace,' continually on their lips, should be so fond of
living under and supporting a government, and at the same time calling
it 'happy,' which is never better pleased than when a war--that has
filled India with carnage and famine, Africa with slavery, and tampered
with Indians and negroes to cut the throats of the freemen of America.
We conceive it a disgrace to this State, to harbor or wink at such
palpable hypocrisy. But as we seek not to hurt the hair of any man's
head, when we can make ourselves safe without, we wish such persons to
restore peace to themselves and us, by removing themselves to some part
of the king of Great Britain's dominions, as by that means they may live
unmolested by us and we by them; for our fixed opinion is, that those
who do not deserve a place among us, ought not to have one.

"We conclude with requesting the Council of Safety to take into
consideration the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' and if it shall appear
to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of a treasonable nature, that
they would commit the signer, together with such other persons as they
can discover were concerned therein, into custody, until such time as
some mode of trial shall ascertain the full degree of their guilt and
punishment; in the doing of which, we wish their judges, whoever
they may be, to disregard the man, his connections, interest, riches,
poverty, or principles of religion, and to attend to the nature of his
offence only."



The most cavilling sectarian cannot accuse the foregoing with containing
the least ingredient of persecution. The free spirit on which the
American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an impurity, and
leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel
in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and
flourish together. Had the Quakers minded their religion and their
business, they might have lived through this dispute in enviable ease,
and none would have molested them. The common phrase with these people
is, 'Our principles are peace.' To which may be replied, and your
practices are the reverse; for never did the conduct of men oppose their
own doctrine more notoriously than the present race of the Quakers. They
have artfully changed themselves into a different sort of people to what
they used to be, and yet have the address to persuade each other that
they are not altered; like antiquated virgins, they see not the havoc
deformity has made upon them, but pleasantly mistaking wrinkles for
dimples, conceive themselves yet lovely and wonder at the stupid world
for not admiring them.

Did no injury arise to the public by this apostacy of the Quakers from
themselves, the public would have nothing to do with it; but as both the
design and consequences are pointed against a cause in which the whole
community are interested, it is therefore no longer a subject confined
to the cognizance of the meeting only, but comes, as a matter of
criminality, before the authority either of the particular State in
which it is acted, or of the continent against which it operates. Every
attempt, now, to support the authority of the king and Parliament of
Great Britain over America, is treason against every State; therefore
it is impossible that any one can pardon or screen from punishment an
offender against all.

But to proceed: while the infatuated Tories of this and other States
were last spring talking of commissioners, accommodation, making the
matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their good king
and ministry were glutting themselves with the revenge of reducing
America to unconditional submission, and solacing each other with the
certainty of conquering it in one campaign. The following quotations are
from the parliamentary register of the debate's of the House of Lords,
March 5th, 1776:

"The Americans," says Lord Talbot,* "have been obstinate, undutiful, and
ungovernable from the very beginning, from their first early and infant
settlements; and I am every day more and more convinced that this people
never will be brought back to their duty, and the subordinate relation
they stand in to this country, till reduced to unconditional, effectual
submission; no concession on our part, no lenity, no endurance, will
have any other effect but that of increasing their insolence."


     * Steward of the king's household.

"The struggle," says Lord Townsend,* "is now a struggle for power; the
die is cast, and the only point which now remains to be determined is,
in what manner the war can be most effectually prosecuted and speedily
finished, in order to procure that unconditional submission, which has
been so ably stated by the noble Earl with the white staff" (meaning
Lord Talbot;) "and I have no reason to doubt that the measures now
pursuing will put an end to the war in the course of a single campaign.
Should it linger longer, we shall then have reason to expect that
some foreign power will interfere, and take advantage of our domestic
troubles and civil distractions."


     * Formerly General Townsend, at Quebec, and late lord-lieutenant of
Ireland.

Lord Littleton. "My sentiments are pretty well known. I shall only
observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to
produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher
America rose in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It
is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive
measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us, but to
relinquish America for ever, or finally determine to compel her to
acknowledge the legislative authority of this country; and it is the
principle of an unconditional submission I would be for maintaining."

Can words be more expressive than these? Surely the Tories will believe
the Tory lords! The truth is, they do believe them and know as fully as
any Whig on the continent knows, that the king and ministry never had
the least design of an accommodation with America, but an absolute,
unconditional conquest. And the part which the Tories were to act, was,
by downright lying, to endeavor to put the continent off its guard, and
to divide and sow discontent in the minds of such Whigs as they might
gain an influence over. In short, to keep up a distraction here, that
the force sent from England might be able to conquer in "one campaign."
They and the ministry were, by a different game, playing into each
other's hands. The cry of the Tories in England was, "No reconciliation,
no accommodation," in order to obtain the greater military force;
while those in America were crying nothing but "reconciliation and
accommodation," that the force sent might conquer with the less
resistance.

But this "single campaign" is over, and America not conquered. The
whole work is yet to do, and the force much less to do it with. Their
condition is both despicable and deplorable: out of cash--out of heart,
and out of hope. A country furnished with arms and ammunition as America
now is, with three millions of inhabitants, and three thousand miles
distant from the nearest enemy that can approach her, is able to look
and laugh them in the face.

Howe appears to have two objects in view, either to go up the North
River, or come to Philadelphia.

By going up the North River, he secures a retreat for his army through
Canada, but the ships must return if they return at all, the same way
they went; as our army would be in the rear, the safety of their passage
down is a doubtful matter. By such a motion he shuts himself from all
supplies from Europe, but through Canada, and exposes his army and
navy to the danger of perishing. The idea of his cutting off the
communication between the eastern and southern states, by means of
the North River, is merely visionary. He cannot do it by his shipping;
because no ship can lay long at anchor in any river within reach of the
shore; a single gun would drive a first rate from such a station. This
was fully proved last October at Forts Washington and Lee, where one
gun only, on each side of the river, obliged two frigates to cut and
be towed off in an hour's time. Neither can he cut it off by his army;
because the several posts they must occupy would divide them almost
to nothing, and expose them to be picked up by ours like pebbles on a
river's bank; but admitting that he could, where is the injury? Because,
while his whole force is cantoned out, as sentries over the water, they
will be very innocently employed, and the moment they march into the
country the communication opens.

The most probable object is Philadelphia, and the reasons are many.
Howe's business is to conquer it, and in proportion as he finds himself
unable to the task, he will employ his strength to distress women and
weak minds, in order to accomplish through their fears what he cannot
accomplish by his own force. His coming or attempting to come to
Philadelphia is a circumstance that proves his weakness: for no general
that felt himself able to take the field and attack his antagonist would
think of bringing his army into a city in the summer time; and this mere
shifting the scene from place to place, without effecting any thing,
has feebleness and cowardice on the face of it, and holds him up in a
contemptible light to all who can reason justly and firmly. By several
informations from New York, it appears that their army in general, both
officers and men, have given up the expectation of conquering America;
their eye now is fixed upon the spoil. They suppose Philadelphia to be
rich with stores, and as they think to get more by robbing a town than
by attacking an army, their movement towards this city is probable. We
are not now contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band
of thieves, who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of
conquest than by cruelty.

They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic, by
making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but unless
they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command of the
river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be stopped with
the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded wherever they
have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston their defeat
was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every skirmish at
Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to retreat, and the
instant that our arms were turned upon them in the Jerseys, they turned
likewise, and those that turned not were taken.

The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the circumstances
of the times we live in, is something so strikingly obvious, that no
sufficient objection can be made against it. The safety of all
societies depends upon it; and where this point is not attended to,
the consequences will either be a general languor or a tumult. The
encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any state, and the
suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the principal objects for
which all authority is instituted, and the line in which it ought to
operate. We have in this city a strange variety of men and characters,
and the circumstances of the times require that they should be publicly
known; it is not the number of Tories that hurt us, so much as the not
finding out who they are; men must now take one side or the other, and
abide by the consequences: the Quakers, trusting to their short-sighted
sagacity, have, most unluckily for them, made their declaration in their
last Testimony, and we ought now to take them at their word. They have
involuntarily read themselves out of the continental meeting, and cannot
hope to be restored to it again but by payment and penitence. Men whose
political principles are founded on avarice, are beyond the reach
of reason, and the only cure of Toryism of this cast is to tax it.
A substantial good drawn from a real evil, is of the same benefit to
society, as if drawn from a virtue; and where men have not public spirit
to render themselves serviceable, it ought to be the study of government
to draw the best use possible from their vices. When the governing
passion of any man, or set of men, is once known, the method of managing
them is easy; for even misers, whom no public virtue can impress, would
become generous, could a heavy tax be laid upon covetousness.

The Tories have endeavored to insure their property with the enemy, by
forfeiting their reputation with us; from which may be justly inferred,
that their governing passion is avarice. Make them as much afraid of
losing on one side as on the other, and you stagger their Toryism; make
them more so, and you reclaim them; for their principle is to worship
the power which they are most afraid of.

This method of considering men and things together, opens into a large
field for speculation, and affords me an opportunity of offering some
observations on the state of our currency, so as to make the support
of it go hand in hand with the suppression of disaffection and the
encouragement of public spirit.

The thing which first presents itself in inspecting the state of the
currency, is, that we have too much of it, and that there is a necessity
of reducing the quantity, in order to increase the value. Men are daily
growing poor by the very means that they take to get rich; for in the
same proportion that the prices of all goods on hand are raised, the
value of all money laid by is reduced. A simple case will make this
clear; let a man have 100 L. in cash, and as many goods on hand as will
to-day sell for 20 L.; but not content with the present market price,
he raises them to 40 L. and by so doing obliges others, in their own
defence, to raise cent. per cent. likewise; in this case it is evident
that his hundred pounds laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value;
whereas, had the market lowered cent. per cent., his goods would have
sold but for ten, but his hundred pounds would have risen in value to
two hundred; because it would then purchase as many goods again, or
support his family as long again as before. And, strange as it may seem,
he is one hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, to
what he would have been had he lowered them; because the forty pounds
which his goods sold for, is, by the general raise of the market cent.
per cent., rendered of no more value than the ten pounds would be had
the market fallen in the same proportion; and, consequently, the whole
difference of gain or loss is on the difference in value of the hundred
pounds laid by, viz. from fifty to two hundred. This rage for raising
goods is for several reasons much more the fault of the Tories than the
Whigs; and yet the Tories (to their shame and confusion ought they to
be told of it) are by far the most noisy and discontented. The greatest
part of the Whigs, by being now either in the army or employed in some
public service, are buyers only and not sellers, and as this evil has
its origin in trade, it cannot be charged on those who are out of it.

But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied by partial
methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the quantity of money:
with half the quantity we should be richer than we are now, because
the value of it would be doubled, and consequently our attachment to it
increased; for it is not the number of dollars that a man has, but how
far they will go, that makes him either rich or poor. These two points
being admitted, viz. that the quantity of money is too great, and that
the prices of goods can only be effectually reduced by, reducing the
quantity of the money, the next point to be considered is, the method
how to reduce it.

The circumstances of the times, as before observed, require that the
public characters of all men should now be fully understood, and the
only general method of ascertaining it is by an oath or affirmation,
renouncing all allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and to support
the independence of the United States, as declared by Congress. Let, at
the same time, a tax of ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. per annum, to
be collected quarterly, be levied on all property. These alternatives,
by being perfectly voluntary, will take in all sorts of people. Here
is the test; here is the tax. He who takes the former, conscientiously
proves his affection to the cause, and binds himself to pay his quota
by the best services in his power, and is thereby justly exempt from the
latter; and those who choose the latter, pay their quota in money, to be
excused from the former, or rather, it is the price paid to us for their
supposed, though mistaken, insurance with the enemy.

But this is only a part of the advantage which would arise by knowing
the different characters of men. The Whigs stake everything on the issue
of their arms, while the Tories, by their disaffection, are sapping and
undermining their strength; and, of consequence, the property of the
Whigs is the more exposed thereby; and whatever injury their estates
may sustain by the movements of the enemy, must either be borne by
themselves, who have done everything which has yet been done, or by the
Tories, who have not only done nothing, but have, by their disaffection,
invited the enemy on.

In the present crisis we ought to know, square by square and house by
house, who are in real allegiance with the United Independent States,
and who are not. Let but the line be made clear and distinct, and all
men will then know what they are to trust to. It would not only be
good policy but strict justice, to raise fifty or one hundred thousand
pounds, or more, if it is necessary, out of the estates and property
of the king of England's votaries, resident in Philadelphia, to be
distributed, as a reward to those inhabitants of the city and State, who
should turn out and repulse the enemy, should they attempt to march this
way; and likewise, to bind the property of all such persons to make
good the damages which that of the Whigs might sustain. In the
undistinguishable mode of conducting a war, we frequently make reprisals
at sea, on the vessels of persons in England, who are friends to our
cause compared with the resident Tories among us.

In every former publication of mine, from Common Sense down to the last
Crisis, I have generally gone on the charitable supposition, that the
Tories were rather a mistaken than a criminal people, and have applied
argument after argument, with all the candor and temper which I was
capable of, in order to set every part of the case clearly and fairly
before them, and if possible to reclaim them from ruin to reason. I have
done my duty by them and have now done with that doctrine, taking it for
granted, that those who yet hold their disaffection are either a set
of avaricious miscreants, who would sacrifice the continent to save
themselves, or a banditti of hungry traitors, who are hoping for
a division of the spoil. To which may be added, a list of crown or
proprietary dependants, who, rather than go without a portion of power,
would be content to share it with the devil. Of such men there is no
hope; and their obedience will only be according to the danger set
before them, and the power that is exercised over them.

A time will shortly arrive, in which, by ascertaining the characters of
persons now, we shall be guarded against their mischiefs then; for in
proportion as the enemy despair of conquest, they will be trying the
arts of seduction and the force of fear by all the mischiefs which they
can inflict. But in war we may be certain of these two things, viz. that
cruelty in an enemy, and motions made with more than usual parade, are
always signs of weakness. He that can conquer, finds his mind too free
and pleasant to be brutish; and he that intends to conquer, never makes
too much show of his strength.

We now know the enemy we have to do with. While drunk with the
certainty of victory, they disdained to be civil; and in proportion as
disappointment makes them sober, and their apprehensions of an European
war alarm them, they will become cringing and artful; honest they cannot
be. But our answer to them, in either condition they may be in, is short
and full--"As free and independent States we are willing to make peace
with you to-morrow, but we neither can hear nor reply in any other
character."

If Britain cannot conquer us, it proves that she is neither able to
govern nor protect us, and our particular situation now is such, that
any connection with her would be unwisely exchanging a half-defeated
enemy for two powerful ones. Europe, by every appearance, is now on the
eve, nay, on the morning twilight of a war, and any alliance with George
the Third brings France and Spain upon our backs; a separation from him
attaches them to our side; therefore, the only road to peace, honor and
commerce is Independence.

Written this fourth year of the UNION, which God preserve.

                                            COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1777.




THE CRISIS IV. (THOSE WHO EXPECT TO REAP THE BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM)


THOSE who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men,
undergo the fatigues of supporting it. The event of yesterday was one
of those kind of alarms which is just sufficient to rouse us to duty,
without being of consequence enough to depress our fortitude. It is not
a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending,
and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the
consequences will be the same.

Look back at the events of last winter and the present year, there you
will find that the enemy's successes always contributed to reduce them.
What they have gained in ground, they paid so dearly for in numbers,
that their victories have in the end amounted to defeats. We have always
been masters at the last push, and always shall be while we do our duty.
Howe has been once on the banks of the Delaware, and from thence driven
back with loss and disgrace: and why not be again driven from the
Schuylkill? His condition and ours are very different. He has everybody
to fight, we have only his one army to cope with, and which wastes away
at every engagement: we can not only reinforce, but can redouble our
numbers; he is cut off from all supplies, and must sooner or later
inevitably fall into our hands.

Shall a band of ten or twelve thousand robbers, who are this day fifteen
hundred or two thousand men less in strength than they were yesterday,
conquer America, or subdue even a single state? The thing cannot be,
unless we sit down and suffer them to do it. Another such a brush,
notwithstanding we lost the ground, would, by still reducing the enemy,
put them in a condition to be afterwards totally defeated. Could our
whole army have come up to the attack at one time, the consequences
had probably been otherwise; but our having different parts of
the Brandywine creek to guard, and the uncertainty which road to
Philadelphia the enemy would attempt to take, naturally afforded them an
opportunity of passing with their main body at a place where only a
part of ours could be posted; for it must strike every thinking man with
conviction, that it requires a much greater force to oppose an enemy in
several places, than is sufficient to defeat him in any one place.

Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern
at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the
natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the
want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they
soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and
fortitude, will, in a little time, supply the place of every inferior
passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism.

There is a mystery in the countenance of some causes, which we have not
always present judgment enough to explain. It is distressing to see an
enemy advancing into a country, but it is the only place in which we can
beat them, and in which we have always beaten them, whenever they made
the attempt. The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer
it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together,
and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead.

There are many men who will do their duty when it is not wanted; but a
genuine public spirit always appears most when there is most occasion
for it. Thank God! our army, though fatigued, is yet entire. The attack
made by us yesterday, was under many disadvantages, naturally arising
from the uncertainty of knowing which route the enemy would take; and,
from that circumstance, the whole of our force could not be brought
up together time enough to engage all at once. Our strength is yet
reserved; and it is evident that Howe does not think himself a gainer by
the affair, otherwise he would this morning have moved down and attacked
General Washington.

Gentlemen of the city and country, it is in your power, by a spirited
improvement of the present circumstance, to turn it to a real advantage.
Howe is now weaker than before, and every shot will contribute to reduce
him. You are more immediately interested than any other part of the
continent: your all is at stake; it is not so with the general cause;
you are devoted by the enemy to plunder and destruction: it is the
encouragement which Howe, the chief of plunderers, has promised his
army. Thus circumstanced, you may save yourselves by a manly resistance,
but you can have no hope in any other conduct. I never yet knew our
brave general, or any part of the army, officers or men, out of heart,
and I have seen them in circumstances a thousand times more trying than
the present. It is only those that are not in action, that feel languor
and heaviness, and the best way to rub it off is to turn out, and make
sure work of it.

Our army must undoubtedly feel fatigue, and want a reinforcement of rest
though not of valor. Our own interest and happiness call upon us to
give them every support in our power, and make the burden of the day, on
which the safety of this city depends, as light as possible. Remember,
gentlemen, that we have forces both to the northward and southward of
Philadelphia, and if the enemy be but stopped till those can arrive,
this city will be saved, and the enemy finally routed. You have too much
at stake to hesitate. You ought not to think an hour upon the matter,
but to spring to action at once. Other states have been invaded, have
likewise driven off the invaders. Now our time and turn is come, and
perhaps the finishing stroke is reserved for us. When we look back on
the dangers we have been saved from, and reflect on the success we have
been blessed with, it would be sinful either to be idle or to despair.

I close this paper with a short address to General Howe. You, sir, are
only lingering out the period that shall bring with it your defeat.
You have yet scarce began upon the war, and the further you enter, the
faster will your troubles thicken. What you now enjoy is only a respite
from ruin; an invitation to destruction; something that will lead on to
our deliverance at your expense. We know the cause which we are engaged
in, and though a passionate fondness for it may make us grieve at every
injury which threatens it, yet, when the moment of concern is over, the
determination to duty returns. We are not moved by the gloomy smile of a
worthless king, but by the ardent glow of generous patriotism. We fight
not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the
earth for honest men to live in. In such a case we are sure that we are
right; and we leave to you the despairing reflection of being the tool
of a miserable tyrant.

                                           COMMON SENSE.

    PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 12, 1777.




THE CRISIS. V. TO GEN. SIR WILLIAM HOWE.


TO argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason,
and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like
administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist
by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting.
It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you these honors,
in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master.

As the generosity of this country rewarded your brother's services
in the last war, with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, it is
consistent that she should bestow some mark of distinction upon you. You
certainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous place in the catalogue
of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be a pity to pass you from the
world in state, and consign you to magnificent oblivion among the tombs,
without telling the future beholder why. Judas is as much known as John,
yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions.

Sir William has undoubtedly merited a monument; but of what kind, or
with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a question
that would puzzle all the heralds of St. James's in the profoundest mood
of historical deliberation. We are at no loss, sir, to ascertain your
real character, but somewhat perplexed how to perpetuate its identity,
and preserve it uninjured from the transformations of time or mistake.
A statuary may give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with
some equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into reputation
and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Ill nature or ridicule
may conspire, or a variety of accidents combine to lessen, enlarge, or
change Sir William's fame; and no doubt but he who has taken so much
pains to be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular
in his exit, his monument and his epitaph.

The usual honors of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently sublime
to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and ashes; for
however men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or of government here,
the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death is not the monarch
of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses
a subject, and, like the foolish king you serve, will, in the end, war
himself out of all his dominions.

As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your funeral honors,
we readily admit of your new rank of knighthood. The title is perfectly
in character, and is your own, more by merit than creation. There are
knights of various orders, from the knight of the windmill to the knight
of the post. The former is your patron for exploits, and the latter will
assist you in settling your accounts. No honorary title could be more
happily applied! The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has
discovered more genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the
most finished figure for a button, or descanting on the properties of a
button mould.

But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary is
exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument. America is
anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes to do it in
a manner that shall distinguish you from all the deceased heroes of the
last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the
present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath outlived the science
of deciphering it. Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to
immortalize the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks
to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no
ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and
cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens
that the simple genius of America has discovered the art of preserving
bodies, and embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than
the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure
as Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all the
mummies of Egypt.

As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by
numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved an
"here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere affectation in you
to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of mankind respecting you.
What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For
he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite of himself, like a
man listening to his own reproach.

Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection of the
curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions. The
character of Sir William has undergone some extraordinary revolutions.
since his arrival in America. It is now fixed and known; and we
have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from your capacity.
Indolence and inability have too large a share in your composition, ever
to suffer you to be anything more than the hero of little villainies and
unfinished adventures. That, which to some persons appeared moderation
in you at first, was not produced by any real virtue of your own, but
by a contrast of passions, dividing and holding you in perpetual
irresolution. One vice will frequently expel another, without the least
merit in the man; as powers in contrary directions reduce each other to
rest.

It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of character;
to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by an
obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have exhibited on
all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of conduct, that while
we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we might admire in you the
sincerity of a man. You came to America under the high sounding titles
of commander and commissioner; not only to suppress what you call
rebellion, by arms, but to shame it out of countenance by the excellence
of your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of low and
vulgar frauds, the encourager of Indian cruelties; and have imported a
cargo of vices blacker than those which you pretend to suppress.

Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of right and
wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations
and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of meanness. In
the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution,
they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to
their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance nor apology. It is
generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices, and is of such a
hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it. Sir William, the
commissioner of George the Third, has at last vouchsafed to give it
rank and pedigree. He has placed the fugitive at the council board, and
dubbed it companion of the order of knighthood.

The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this description, is
forgery. You, sir, have abetted and patronized the forging and uttering
counterfeit continental bills. In the same New York newspapers in which
your own proclamation under your master's authority was published,
offering, or pretending to offer, pardon and protection to these states,
there were repeated advertisements of counterfeit money for sale, and
persons who have come officially from you, and under the sanction of
your flag, have been taken up in attempting to put them off.

A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without precedent or
pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or enemies, will unite
in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society, which nothing can
excuse or palliate,--an improvement upon beggarly villany--and shows an
inbred wretchedness of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a
serpent and the spiteful imbecility of an inferior reptile.

The laws of any civilized country would condemn you to the gibbet
without regard to your rank or titles, because it is an action foreign
to the usage and custom of war; and should you fall into our hands,
which pray God you may, it will be a doubtful matter whether we are to
consider you as a military prisoner or a prisoner for felony.

Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and impolitic in you, or any other
persons in the English service, to promote or even encourage, or wink
at the crime of forgery, in any case whatever. Because, as the riches of
England, as a nation, are chiefly in paper, and the far greater part of
trade among individuals is carried on by the same medium, that is, by
notes and drafts on one another, they, therefore, of all people in the
world, ought to endeavor to keep forgery out of sight, and, if possible,
not to revive the idea of it. It is dangerous to make men familiar with
a crime which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage
against those who first taught them. Several officers in the English
army have made their exit at the gallows for forgery on their agents;
for we all know, who know any thing of England, that there is not a more
necessitous body of men, taking them generally, than what the English
officers are. They contrive to make a show at the expense of the
tailors, and appear clean at the charge of the washer-women.

England, has at this time, nearly two hundred million pounds sterling
of public money in paper, for which she has no real property: besides a
large circulation of bank notes, bank post bills, and promissory notes
and drafts of private bankers, merchants and tradesmen. She has the
greatest quantity of paper currency and the least quantity of gold and
silver of any nation in Europe; the real specie, which is about sixteen
millions sterling, serves only as change in large sums, which are always
made in paper, or for payment in small ones. Thus circumstanced, the
nation is put to its wit's end, and obliged to be severe almost to
criminality, to prevent the practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely
a session passes at the Old Bailey, or an execution at Tyburn, but
witnesses this truth, yet you, sir, regardless of the policy which her
necessity obliges her to adopt, have made your whole army intimate with
the crime. And as all armies at the conclusion of a war, are too apt to
carry into practice the vices of the campaign, it will probably happen,
that England will hereafter abound in forgeries, to which art the
practitioners were first initiated under your authority in America. You,
sir, have the honor of adding a new vice to the military catalogue; and
the reason, perhaps, why the invention was reserved for you, is, because
no general before was mean enough even to think of it.

That a man whose soul is absorbed in the low traffic of vulgar vice, is
incapable of moving in any superior region, is clearly shown in you by
the event of every campaign. Your military exploits have been without
plan, object or decision. Can it be possible that you or your employers
suppose that the possession of Philadelphia will be any ways equal
to the expense or expectation of the nation which supports you? What
advantages does England derive from any achievements of yours? To her it
is perfectly indifferent what place you are in, so long as the business
of conquest is unperformed and the charge of maintaining you remains the
same.

If the principal events of the three campaigns be attended to, the
balance will appear against you at the close of each; but the last, in
point of importance to us, has exceeded the former two. It is pleasant
to look back on dangers past, and equally as pleasant to meditate on
present ones when the way out begins to appear. That period is now
arrived, and the long doubtful winter of war is changing to the sweeter
prospects of victory and joy. At the close of the campaign, in 1775, you
were obliged to retreat from Boston. In the summer of 1776, you appeared
with a numerous fleet and army in the harbor of New York. By what
miracle the continent was preserved in that season of danger is a
subject of admiration! If instead of wasting your time against Long
Island you had run up the North River, and landed any where above
New York, the consequence must have been, that either you would have
compelled General Washington to fight you with very unequal numbers, or
he must have suddenly evacuated the city with the loss of nearly all
the stores of his army, or have surrendered for want of provisions; the
situation of the place naturally producing one or the other of these
events.

The preparations made to defend New York were, nevertheless, wise and
military; because your forces were then at sea, their numbers uncertain;
storms, sickness, or a variety of accidents might have disabled their
coming, or so diminished them on their passage, that those which
survived would have been incapable of opening the campaign with
any prospect of success; in which case the defence would have been
sufficient and the place preserved; for cities that have been raised
from nothing with an infinitude of labor and expense, are not to be
thrown away on the bare probability of their being taken. On these
grounds the preparations made to maintain New York were as judicious
as the retreat afterwards. While you, in the interim, let slip the very
opportunity which seemed to put conquest in your power.

Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double the forces
which General Washington immediately commanded. The principal plan at
that time, on our part, was to wear away the season with as little loss
as possible, and to raise the army for the next year. Long Island, New
York, Forts Washington and Lee were not defended after your superior
force was known under any expectation of their being finally maintained,
but as a range of outworks, in the attacking of which your time might be
wasted, your numbers reduced, and your vanity amused by possessing them
on our retreat. It was intended to have withdrawn the garrison from Fort
Washington after it had answered the former of those purposes, but
the fate of that day put a prize into your hands without much honor to
yourselves.

Your progress through the Jerseys was accidental; you had it not even
in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal part of your
forces to Rhode Island beforehand. The utmost hope of America in the
year 1776, reached no higher than that she might not then be conquered.
She had no expectation of defeating you in that campaign. Even the
most cowardly Tory allowed, that, could she withstand the shock of that
summer, her independence would be past a doubt. You had then greatly
the advantage of her. You were formidable. Your military knowledge
was supposed to be complete. Your fleets and forces arrived without an
accident. You had neither experience nor reinforcements to wait for.
You had nothing to do but to begin, and your chance lay in the first
vigorous onset.

America was young and unskilled. She was obliged to trust her defence to
time and practice; and has, by mere dint of perseverance, maintained her
cause, and brought the enemy to a condition, in which she is now capable
of meeting him on any grounds.

It is remarkable that in the campaign of 1776 you gained no more,
notwithstanding your great force, than what was given you by consent of
evacuation, except Fort Washington; while every advantage obtained by
us was by fair and hard fighting. The defeat of Sir Peter Parker was
complete. The conquest of the Hessians at Trenton, by the remains of a
retreating army, which but a few days before you affected to despise, is
an instance of their heroic perseverance very seldom to be met with.
And the victory over the British troops at Princeton, by a harassed and
wearied party, who had been engaged the day before and marched all night
without refreshment, is attended with such a scene of circumstances and
superiority of generalship, as will ever give it a place in the first
rank in the history of great actions.

When I look back on the gloomy days of last winter, and see America
suspended by a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at the recollection of
her delivery, and a reverence for the characters which snatched her
from destruction. To doubt now would be a species of infidelity, and to
forget the instruments which saved us then would be ingratitude.

The close of that campaign left us with the spirit of conquerors. The
northern districts were relieved by the retreat of General Carleton over
the lakes. The army under your command were hunted back and had their
bounds prescribed. The continent began to feel its military importance,
and the winter passed pleasantly away in preparations for the next
campaign.

However confident you might be on your first arrival, the result of the
year 1776 gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not impossibility of
conquest. To this reason I ascribe your delay in opening the campaign of
1777. The face of matters, on the close of the former year, gave you
no encouragement to pursue a discretionary war as soon as the spring
admitted the taking the field; for though conquest, in that case, would
have given you a double portion of fame, yet the experiment was too
hazardous. The ministry, had you failed, would have shifted the whole
blame upon you, charged you with having acted without orders, and
condemned at once both your plan and execution.

To avoid the misfortunes, which might have involved you and your money
accounts in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently waited the arrival
of a plan of operations from England, which was that you should proceed
for Philadelphia by way of the Chesapeake, and that Burgoyne, after
reducing Ticonderoga, should take his route by Albany, and, if
necessary, join you.

The splendid laurels of the last campaign have flourished in the north.
In that quarter America has surprised the world, and laid the foundation
of this year's glory. The conquest of Ticonderoga, (if it may be called
a conquest) has, like all your other victories, led on to ruin. Even the
provisions taken in that fortress (which by General Burgoyne's return
was sufficient in bread and flour for nearly 5000 men for ten weeks, and
in beef and pork for the same number of men for one month) served only
to hasten his overthrow, by enabling him to proceed to Saratoga, the
place of his destruction. A short review of the operations of the last
campaign will show the condition of affairs on both sides.

You have taken Ticonderoga and marched into Philadelphia. These are all
the events which the year has produced on your part. A trifling campaign
indeed, compared with the expenses of England and the conquest of the
continent. On the other side, a considerable part of your northern force
has been routed by the New York militia under General Herkemer. Fort
Stanwix has bravely survived a compound attack of soldiers and savages,
and the besiegers have fled. The Battle of Bennington has put a thousand
prisoners into our hands, with all their arms, stores, artillery and
baggage. General Burgoyne, in two engagements, has been defeated;
himself, his army, and all that were his and theirs are now ours.
Ticonderoga and Independence [forts] are retaken, and not the shadow of
an enemy remains in all the northern districts. At this instant we
have upwards of eleven thousand prisoners, between sixty and seventy
[captured] pieces of brass ordnance, besides small arms, tents, stores,
etc.

In order to know the real value of those advantages, we must reverse
the scene, and suppose General Gates and the force he commanded to be at
your mercy as prisoners, and General Burgoyne, with his army of soldiers
and savages, to be already joined to you in Pennsylvania. So dismal a
picture can scarcely be looked at. It has all the tracings and colorings
of horror and despair; and excites the most swelling emotions of
gratitude by exhibiting the miseries we are so graciously preserved
from.

I admire the distribution of laurels around the continent. It is the
earnest of future union. South Carolina has had her day of sufferings
and of fame; and the other southern States have exerted themselves in
proportion to the force that invaded or insulted them. Towards the close
of the campaign, in 1776, these middle States were called upon and did
their duty nobly. They were witnesses to the almost expiring flame of
human freedom. It was the close struggle of life and death, the line of
invisible division; and on which the unabated fortitude of a Washington
prevailed, and saved the spark that has since blazed in the north with
unrivalled lustre.

Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have you performed? Through all the
variety of changes and opportunities which the war has produced, I know
no one action of yours that can be styled masterly. You have moved in
and out, backward and forward, round and round, as if valor consisted in
a military jig. The history and figure of your movements would be truly
ridiculous could they be justly delineated. They resemble the labors of
a puppy pursuing his tail; the end is still at the same distance, and
all the turnings round must be done over again.

The first appearance of affairs at Ticonderoga wore such an unpromising
aspect, that it was necessary, in July, to detach a part of the forces
to the support of that quarter, which were otherwise destined or
intended to act against you; and this, perhaps, has been the means of
postponing your downfall to another campaign. The destruction of one
army at a time is work enough. We know, sir, what we are about, what we
have to do, and how to do it.

Your progress from the Chesapeake, was marked by no capital stroke of
policy or heroism. Your principal aim was to get General Washington
between the Delaware and Schuylkill, and between Philadelphia and your
army. In that situation, with a river on each of his flanks, which
united about five miles below the city, and your army above him, you
could have intercepted his reinforcements and supplies, cut off all
his communication with the country, and, if necessary, have despatched
assistance to open a passage for General Burgoyne. This scheme was too
visible to succeed: for had General Washington suffered you to command
the open country above him, I think it a very reasonable conjecture that
the conquest of Burgoyne would not have taken place, because you could,
in that case, have relieved him. It was therefore necessary, while that
important victory was in suspense, to trepan you into a situation in
which you could only be on the defensive, without the power of
affording him assistance. The manoeuvre had its effect, and Burgoyne was
conquered.

There has been something unmilitary and passive in you from the time of
your passing the Schuylkill and getting possession of Philadelphia,
to the close of the campaign. You mistook a trap for a conquest, the
probability of which had been made known to Europe, and the edge of your
triumph taken off by our own information long before.

Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a general attack upon
you at Germantown was carried into execution on the 4th of October, and
though the success was not equal to the excellence of the plan, yet the
attempting it proved the genius of America to be on the rise, and her
power approaching to superiority. The obscurity of the morning was your
best friend, for a fog is always favorable to a hunted enemy. Some weeks
after this you likewise planned an attack on General Washington while
at Whitemarsh. You marched out with infinite parade, but on finding him
preparing to attack you next morning, you prudently turned about, and
retreated to Philadelphia with all the precipitation of a man conquered
in imagination.

Immediately after the battle of Germantown, the probability of
Burgoyne's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania, and it
was judged most consistent with the general safety of America, to wait
the issue of the northern campaign. Slow and sure is sound work. The
news of that victory arrived in our camp on the 18th of October, and
no sooner did that shout of joy, and the report of the thirteen cannon
reach your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat, and the next day,
that is, on the 19th, you withdrew your drooping army into Philadelphia.
This movement was evidently dictated by fear; and carried with it a
positive confession that you dreaded a second attack. It was hiding
yourself among women and children, and sleeping away the choicest part
of the campaign in expensive inactivity. An army in a city can never
be a conquering army. The situation admits only of defence. It is mere
shelter: and every military power in Europe will conclude you to be
eventually defeated.

The time when you made this retreat was the very time you ought to have
fought a battle, in order to put yourself in condition of recovering in
Pennsylvania what you had lost in Saratoga. And the reason why you did
not, must be either prudence or cowardice; the former supposes your
inability, and the latter needs no explanation. I draw no conclusions,
sir, but such as are naturally deduced from known and visible facts,
and such as will always have a being while the facts which produced them
remain unaltered.

After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhibited the power of
Britain in a very contemptible light; which was the attack and defence
of Mud Island. For several weeks did that little unfinished fortress
stand out against all the attempts of Admiral and General Howe. It was
the fable of Bender realized on the Delaware. Scheme after scheme, and
force upon force were tried and defeated. The garrison, with scarce
anything to cover them but their bravery, survived in the midst of mud,
shot and shells, and were at last obliged to give it up more to the
powers of time and gunpowder than to military superiority of the
besiegers.

It is my sincere opinion that matters are in much worse condition with
you than what is generally known. Your master's speech at the opening of
Parliament, is like a soliloquy on ill luck. It shows him to be coming
a little to his reason, for sense of pain is the first symptom of
recovery, in profound stupefaction. His condition is deplorable. He is
obliged to submit to all the insults of France and Spain, without daring
to know or resent them; and thankful for the most trivial evasions to
the most humble remonstrances. The time was when he could not deign an
answer to a petition from America, and the time now is when he dare not
give an answer to an affront from France. The capture of Burgoyne's army
will sink his consequence as much in Europe as in America. In his speech
he expresses his suspicions at the warlike preparations of France and
Spain, and as he has only the one army which you command to support his
character in the world with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what
quarter it will be most wanted, or can be best employed; and this will
partly account for the great care you take to keep it from action and
attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it probably will,
England may take her endless farewell not only of all America but of all
the West Indies.

Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the eagerness and
the ignorance with which Britain has done. Bent upon the ruin of a
young and unoffending country, she has drawn the sword that has wounded
herself to the heart, and in the agony of her resentment has applied a
poison for a cure. Her conduct towards America is a compound of rage and
lunacy; she aims at the government of it, yet preserves neither dignity
nor character in her methods to obtain it. Were government a mere
manufacture or article of commerce, immaterial by whom it should be made
or sold, we might as well employ her as another, but when we consider
it as the fountain from whence the general manners and morality of a
country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution
thereof are by their serious example an authority to support these
principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter
governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury,
treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches
on earth could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall
any country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing
than to be delivered therefrom. The soul of any man of sentiment would
rise in brave rebellion against them, and spurn them from the earth.

The malignant and venomous tempered General Vaughan has amused his
savage fancy in burning the whole town of Kingston, in York government,
and the late governor of that state, Mr. Tryon, in his letter to General
Parsons, has endeavored to justify it and declared his wish to burn the
houses of every committeeman in the country. Such a confession from
one who was once intrusted with the powers of civil government, is a
reproach to the character. But it is the wish and the declaration of a
man whom anguish and disappointment have driven to despair, and who is
daily decaying into the grave with constitutional rottenness.

There is not in the compass of language a sufficiency of words to
express the baseness of your king, his ministry and his army. They
have refined upon villany till it wants a name. To the fiercer vices of
former ages they have added the dregs and scummings of the most finished
rascality, and are so completely sunk in serpentine deceit, that there
is not left among them one generous enemy.

From such men and such masters, may the gracious hand of Heaven preserve
America! And though the sufferings she now endures are heavy, and
severe, they are like straws in the wind compared to the weight of evils
she would feel under the government of your king, and his pensioned
Parliament.

There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment
that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart
to the highest agony of human hatred; Britain has filled up both these
characters till no addition can be made, and has not reputation left
with us to obtain credit for the slightest promise. The will of God has
parted us, and the deed is registered for eternity. When she shall be
a spot scarcely visible among the nations, America shall flourish the
favorite of heaven, and the friend of mankind.

For the domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the world, I
wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed within her own
island. Extent of dominion has been her ruin, and instead of civilizing
others has brutalized herself. Her late reduction of India, under Clive
and his successors, was not so properly a conquest as an extermination
of mankind. She is the only power who could practise the prodigal
barbarity of tying men to mouths of loaded cannon and blowing them away.
It happens that General Burgoyne, who made the report of that horrid
transaction, in the House of Commons, is now a prisoner with us,
and though an enemy, I can appeal to him for the truth of it, being
confident that he neither can nor will deny it. Yet Clive received the
approbation of the last Parliament.

When we take a survey of mankind, we cannot help cursing the wretch,
who, to the unavoidable misfortunes of nature, shall wilfully add the
calamities of war. One would think there were evils enough in the world
without studying to increase them, and that life is sufficiently short
without shaking the sand that measures it. The histories of Alexander,
and Charles of Sweden, are the histories of human devils; a good man
cannot think of their actions without abhorrence, nor of their deaths
without rejoicing. To see the bounties of heaven destroyed, the
beautiful face of nature laid waste, and the choicest works of creation
and art tumbled into ruin, would fetch a curse from the soul of piety
itself. But in this country the aggravation is heightened by a new
combination of affecting circumstances. America was young, and, compared
with other countries, was virtuous. None but a Herod of uncommon malice
would have made war upon infancy and innocence: and none but a people
of the most finished fortitude, dared under those circumstances, have
resisted the tyranny. The natives, or their ancestors, had fled from the
former oppressions of England, and with the industry of bees had changed
a wilderness into a habitable world. To Britain they were indebted for
nothing. The country was the gift of heaven, and God alone is their Lord
and Sovereign.

The time, sir, will come when you, in a melancholy hour, shall reckon up
your miseries by your murders in America. Life, with you, begins to wear
a clouded aspect. The vision of pleasurable delusion is wearing away,
and changing to the barren wild of age and sorrow. The poor reflection
of having served your king will yield you no consolation in your
parting moments. He will crumble to the same undistinguished ashes with
yourself, and have sins enough of his own to answer for. It is not the
farcical benedictions of a bishop, nor the cringing hypocrisy of a court
of chaplains, nor the formality of an act of Parliament, that can change
guilt into innocence, or make the punishment one pang the less. You may,
perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods
of Providence, this havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world
with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it.
To us they are only present sufferings, but to him they are deep
rebellions.

If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of wilful and
offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits,
that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension,
and many kinds of sins have only a mental existence from which no
infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the
whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
We leave it to England and Indians to boast of these honors; we feel no
thirst for such savage glory; a nobler flame, a purer spirit animates
America. She has taken up the sword of virtuous defence; she has bravely
put herself between Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse and a blessing,
determined to expel the one and protect the other.

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was
ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is
now engaged. She invaded no land of yours. She hired no mercenaries to
burn your towns, nor Indians to massacre their inhabitants. She
wanted nothing from you, and was indebted for nothing to you: and thus
circumstanced, her defence is honorable and her prosperity is certain.

Yet it is not on the justice only, but likewise on the importance of
this cause that I ground my seeming enthusiastical confidence of our
success. The vast extension of America makes her of too much value in
the scale of Providence, to be cast like a pearl before swine, at the
feet of an European island; and of much less consequence would it be
that Britain were sunk in the sea than that America should miscarry.
There has been such a chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of
this country at first, in the peopling and planting it afterwards, in
the rearing and nursing it to its present state, and in the protection
of it through the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence
has some nobler end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty
elector of Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Britain.

As the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Christian church,
so the political persecutions of England will and have already enriched
America with industry, experience, union, and importance. Before the
present era she was a mere chaos of uncemented colonies, individually
exposed to the ravages of the Indians and the invasion of any power that
Britain should be at war with. She had nothing that she could call her
own. Her felicity depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe
might have thrown her from one conqueror to another, till she had been
the slave of all, and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit
enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to which master
she should belong. That period, thank God, is past, and she is no longer
the dependent, disunited colonies of Britain, but the independent and
United States of America, knowing no master but heaven and herself. You,
or your king, may call this "delusion," "rebellion," or what name you
please. To us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the
character, and time will give it a name as lasting as his own.

You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can fully
declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part, but blows
and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and credit, and
an increase of poverty and taxes. You are now only where you might have
been two years ago, without the loss of a single ship, and yet not a
step more forward towards the conquest of the continent; because, as I
have already hinted, "an army in a city can never be a conquering army."
The full amount of your losses, since the beginning of the war, exceeds
twenty thousand men, besides millions of treasure, for which you have
nothing in exchange. Our expenses, though great, are circulated within
ourselves. Yours is a direct sinking of money, and that from both ends
at once; first, in hiring troops out of the nation, and in paying them
afterwards, because the money in neither case can return to Britain. We
are already in possession of the prize, you only in pursuit of it. To
us it is a real treasure, to you it would be only an empty triumph. Our
expenses will repay themselves with tenfold interest, while yours entail
upon you everlasting poverty.

Take a review, sir, of the ground which you have gone over, and let
it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but on a very
tottering foundation. A change of the ministry in England may probably
bring your measures into question, and your head to the block. Clive,
with all his successes, had some difficulty in escaping, and yours being
all a war of losses, will afford you less pretensions, and your enemies
more grounds for impeachment.

Go home, sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined country,
by a just representation of the madness of her measures. A few moments,
well applied, may yet preserve her from political destruction. I am not
one of those who wish to see Europe in a flame, because I am persuaded
that such an event will not shorten the war. The rupture, at present,
is confined between the two powers of America and England. England finds
that she cannot conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer
England. You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we
defending what we never mean to part with. A few words, therefore,
settle the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will mind
ours. Govern yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. You may then
trade where you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we
please unmolested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each
other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. If it were possible
that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must still come to
this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think of it the better
it will be for you.

My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults which
Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and the wretched
shifts that she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her reduced strength
and exhausted coffers in a three years' war with America, has given a
powerful superiority to France and Spain. She is not now a match
for them. But if neither councils can prevail on her to think, nor
sufferings awaken her to reason, she must e'en go on, till the honor of
England becomes a proverb of contempt, and Europe dub her the Land of
Fools.

I am, Sir, with every wish for an honorable peace,

            Your friend, enemy, and countryman,

                                       COMMON SENSE.



                    TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.

WITH all the pleasure with which a man exchanges bad company for good,
I take my leave of Sir William and return to you. It is now nearly three
years since the tyranny of Britain received its first repulse by the
arms of America. A period which has given birth to a new world, and
erected a monument to the folly of the old.

I cannot help being sometimes surprised at the complimentary references
which I have seen and heard made to ancient histories and transactions.
The wisdom, civil governments, and sense of honor of the states of
Greece and Rome, are frequently held up as objects of excellence and
imitation. Mankind have lived to very little purpose, if, at this period
of the world, they must go two or three thousand years back for lessons
and examples. We do great injustice to ourselves by placing them in such
a superior line. We have no just authority for it, neither can we tell
why it is that we should suppose ourselves inferior.

Could the mist of antiquity be cleared away, and men and things be
viewed as they really were, it is more than probable that they would
admire us, rather than we them. America has surmounted a greater variety
and combination of difficulties, than, I believe, ever fell to the share
of any one people, in the same space of time, and has replenished the
world with more useful knowledge and sounder maxims of civil government
than were ever produced in any age before. Had it not been for America,
there had been no such thing as freedom left throughout the whole
universe. England has lost hers in a long chain of right reasoning from
wrong principles, and it is from this country, now, that she must learn
the resolution to redress herself, and the wisdom how to accomplish it.

The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty
but not the principle, for at the time that they were determined not to
be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of
mankind. But this distinguished era is blotted by no one misanthropical
vice. In short, if the principle on which the cause is founded, the
universal blessings that are to arise from it, the difficulties that
accompanied it, the wisdom with which it has been debated, the fortitude
by which it has been supported, the strength of the power which we had
to oppose, and the condition in which we undertook it, be all taken
in one view, we may justly style it the most virtuous and illustrious
revolution that ever graced the history of mankind.

A good opinion of ourselves is exceedingly necessary in private life,
but absolutely necessary in public life, and of the utmost importance in
supporting national character. I have no notion of yielding the palm of
the United States to any Grecians or Romans that were ever born. We
have equalled the bravest in times of danger, and excelled the wisest in
construction of civil governments.

From this agreeable eminence let us take a review of present affairs.
The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with British
politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind are governed by the
same motives. They have no idea of a people submitting even to temporary
inconvenience from an attachment to rights and privileges. Their plans
of business are calculated by the hour and for the hour, and are uniform
in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth. They never had,
neither have they at this time, any regular plan for the conquest of
America by arms. They know not how to go about it, neither have they
power to effect it if they did know. The thing is not within the compass
of human practicability, for America is too extensive either to be fully
conquered or passively defended. But she may be actively defended by
defeating or making prisoners of the army that invades her. And this is
the only system of defence that can be effectual in a large country.

There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ
in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it
cannot tell whether the ground he gains be for him, or against him, when
he first obtains it. In the winter of 1776, General Howe marched with
an air of victory through the Jerseys, the consequence of which was his
defeat; and General Burgoyne at Saratoga experienced the same fate from
the same cause. The Spaniards, about two years ago, were defeated by
the Algerines in the same manner, that is, their first triumphs became
a trap in which they were totally routed. And whoever will attend to
the circumstances and events of a war carried on by invasion, will find,
that any invader, in order to be finally conquered must first begin to
conquer.

I confess myself one of those who believe the loss of Philadelphia to
be attended with more advantages than injuries. The case stood thus:
The enemy imagined Philadelphia to be of more importance to us than it
really was; for we all know that it had long ceased to be a port: not a
cargo of goods had been brought into it for near a twelvemonth, nor any
fixed manufactories, nor even ship-building, carried on in it; yet as
the enemy believed the conquest of it to be practicable, and to that
belief added the absurd idea that the soul of all America was centred
there, and would be conquered there, it naturally follows that their
possession of it, by not answering the end proposed, must break up the
plans they had so foolishly gone upon, and either oblige them to form a
new one, for which their present strength is not sufficient, or to give
over the attempt.

We never had so small an army to fight against, nor so fair an
opportunity of final success as now. The death wound is already given.
The day is ours if we follow it up. The enemy, by his situation, is
within our reach, and by his reduced strength is within our power. The
ministers of Britain may rage as they please, but our part is to conquer
their armies. Let them wrangle and welcome, but let, it not draw our
attention from the one thing needful. Here, in this spot is our own
business to be accomplished, our felicity secured. What we have now to
do is as clear as light, and the way to do it is as straight as a
line. It needs not to be commented upon, yet, in order to be perfectly
understood I will put a case that cannot admit of a mistake.

Had the armies under Generals Howe and Burgoyne been united, and taken
post at Germantown, and had the northern army under General Gates been
joined to that under General Washington, at Whitemarsh, the consequence
would have been a general action; and if in that action we had killed
and taken the same number of officers and men, that is, between nine and
ten thousand, with the same quantity of artillery, arms, stores, etc.,
as have been taken at the northward, and obliged General Howe with the
remains of his army, that is, with the same number he now commands, to
take shelter in Philadelphia, we should certainly have thought ourselves
the greatest heroes in the world; and should, as soon as the season
permitted, have collected together all the force of the continent and
laid siege to the city, for it requires a much greater force to besiege
an enemy in a town than to defeat him in the field. The case now is just
the same as if it had been produced by the means I have here supposed.
Between nine and ten thousand have been killed and taken, all their
stores are in our possession, and General Howe, in consequence of that
victory, has thrown himself for shelter into Philadelphia. He, or his
trifling friend Galloway, may form what pretences they please, yet no
just reason can be given for their going into winter quarters so early
as the 19th of October, but their apprehensions of a defeat if they
continued out, or their conscious inability of keeping the field with
safety. I see no advantage which can arise to America by hunting the
enemy from state to state. It is a triumph without a prize, and wholly
unworthy the attention of a people determined to conquer. Neither can
any state promise itself security while the enemy remains in a condition
to transport themselves from one part of the continent to another. Howe,
likewise, cannot conquer where we have no army to oppose, therefore any
such removals in him are mean and cowardly, and reduces Britain to a
common pilferer. If he retreats from Philadelphia, he will be despised;
if he stays, he may be shut up and starved out, and the country, if he
advances into it, may become his Saratoga. He has his choice of evils
and we of opportunities. If he moves early, it is not only a sign but a
proof that he expects no reinforcement, and his delay will prove that he
either waits for the arrival of a plan to go upon, or force to execute
it, or both; in which case our strength will increase more than his,
therefore in any case we cannot be wrong if we do but proceed.

The particular condition of Pennsylvania deserves the attention of all
the other States. Her military strength must not be estimated by
the number of inhabitants. Here are men of all nations, characters,
professions and interests. Here are the firmest Whigs, surviving,
like sparks in the ocean, unquenched and uncooled in the midst of
discouragement and disaffection. Here are men losing their all with
cheerfulness, and collecting fire and fortitude from the flames of their
own estates. Here are others skulking in secret, many making a market
of the times, and numbers who are changing to Whig or Tory with the
circumstances of every day.

It is by a mere dint of fortitude and perseverance that the Whigs of
this State have been able to maintain so good a countenance, and do even
what they have done. We want help, and the sooner it can arrive the more
effectual it will be. The invaded State, be it which it may, will always
feel an additional burden upon its back, and be hard set to support its
civil power with sufficient authority; and this difficulty will rise or
fall, in proportion as the other states throw in their assistance to the
common cause.

The enemy will most probably make many manoeuvres at the opening of this
campaign, to amuse and draw off the attention of the several States from
the one thing needful. We may expect to hear of alarms and pretended
expeditions to this place and that place, to the southward, the
eastward, and the northward, all intended to prevent our forming
into one formidable body. The less the enemy's strength is, the more
subtleties of this kind will they make use of. Their existence depends
upon it, because the force of America, when collected, is sufficient
to swallow their present army up. It is therefore our business to make
short work of it, by bending our whole attention to this one principal
point, for the instant that the main body under General Howe is
defeated, all the inferior alarms throughout the continent, like so many
shadows, will follow his downfall.

The only way to finish a war with the least possible bloodshed, or
perhaps without any, is to collect an army, against the power of which
the enemy shall have no chance. By not doing this, we prolong the war,
and double both the calamities and expenses of it. What a rich and happy
country would America be, were she, by a vigorous exertion, to reduce
Howe as she has reduced Burgoyne. Her currency would rise to millions
beyond its present value. Every man would be rich, and every man would
have it in his power to be happy. And why not do these things? What
is there to hinder? America is her own mistress and can do what she
pleases.

If we had not at this time a man in the field, we could, nevertheless,
raise an army in a few weeks sufficient to overwhelm all the force
which General Howe at present commands. Vigor and determination will do
anything and everything. We began the war with this kind of spirit, why
not end it with the same? Here, gentlemen, is the enemy. Here is the
army. The interest, the happiness of all America, is centred in this
half ruined spot. Come and help us. Here are laurels, come and share
them. Here are Tories, come and help us to expel them. Here are Whigs
that will make you welcome, and enemies that dread your coming.

The worst of all policies is that of doing things by halves. Penny-wise
and pound-foolish, has been the ruin of thousands. The present spring,
if rightly improved, will free us from our troubles, and save us
the expense of millions. We have now only one army to cope with. No
opportunity can be fairer; no prospect more promising. I shall conclude
this paper with a few outlines of a plan, either for filling up the
battalions with expedition, or for raising an additional force, for any
limited time, on any sudden emergency.

That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to support.
And any burden which falls equally on all men, and from which every
man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with the most perfect
ideas of liberty. I would wish to revive something of that virtuous
ambition which first called America into the field. Then every man was
eager to do his part, and perhaps the principal reason why we have in
any degree fallen therefrom, is because we did not set a right value by
it at first, but left it to blaze out of itself, instead of regulating
and preserving it by just proportions of rest and service.

Suppose any State whose number of effective inhabitants was 80,000,
should be required to furnish 3,200 men towards the defence of the
continent on any sudden emergency.

1st, Let the whole number of effective inhabitants be divided into
hundreds; then if each of those hundreds turn out four men, the whole
number of 3,200 will be had.

2d, Let the name of each hundred men be entered in a book, and let four
dollars be collected from each man, with as much more as any of the
gentlemen, whose abilities can afford it, shall please to throw in,
which gifts likewise shall be entered against the names of the donors.

3d, Let the sums so collected be offered as a present, over and above
the bounty of twenty dollars, to any four who may be inclined to propose
themselves as volunteers: if more than four offer, the majority of the
subscribers present shall determine which; if none offer, then four out
of the hundred shall be taken by lot, who shall be entitled to the said
sums, and shall either go, or provide others that will, in the space of
six days.

4th, As it will always happen that in the space of ground on which a
hundred men shall live, there will be always a number of persons who, by
age and infirmity, are incapable of doing personal service, and as such
persons are generally possessed of the greatest part of property in any
country, their portion of service, therefore, will be to furnish each
man with a blanket, which will make a regimental coat, jacket, and
breeches, or clothes in lieu thereof, and another for a watch cloak,
and two pair of shoes; for however choice people may be of these things
matters not in cases of this kind; those who live always in houses can
find many ways to keep themselves warm, but it is a shame and a sin to
suffer a soldier in the field to want a blanket while there is one in
the country.

Should the clothing not be wanted, the superannuated or infirm persons
possessing property, may, in lieu thereof, throw in their money
subscriptions towards increasing the bounty; for though age will
naturally exempt a person from personal service, it cannot exempt him
from his share of the charge, because the men are raised for the defence
of property and liberty jointly.

There never was a scheme against which objections might not be raised.
But this alone is not a sufficient reason for rejection. The only line
to judge truly upon is to draw out and admit all the objections which
can fairly be made, and place against them all the contrary qualities,
conveniences and advantages, then by striking a balance you come at the
true character of any scheme, principle or position.

The most material advantages of the plan here proposed are, ease,
expedition, and cheapness; yet the men so raised get a much larger
bounty than is any where at present given; because all the expenses,
extravagance, and consequent idleness of recruiting are saved or
prevented. The country incurs no new debt nor interest thereon; the
whole matter being all settled at once and entirely done with. It is
a subscription answering all the purposes of a tax, without either the
charge or trouble of collecting. The men are ready for the field with
the greatest possible expedition, because it becomes the duty of the
inhabitants themselves, in every part of the country, to find their
proportion of men instead of leaving it to a recruiting sergeant, who,
be he ever so industrious, cannot know always where to apply.

I do not propose this as a regular digested plan, neither will the
limits of this paper admit of any further remarks upon it. I believe it
to be a hint capable of much improvement, and as such submit it to the
public.

                                       COMMON SENSE.

LANCASTER, March 21, 1778.




THE CRISIS VI. (TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE AND GENERAL CLINTON)


            TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, GENERAL CLINTON, AND
              WILLIAM EDEN, ESQ., BRITISH COMMISSIONERS
                             AT NEW YORK.


THERE is a dignity in the warm passions of a Whig, which is never to be
found in the cold malice of a Tory. In the one nature is only heated--in
the other she is poisoned. The instant the former has it in his power to
punish, he feels a disposition to forgive; but the canine venom of the
latter knows no relief but revenge. This general distinction will, I
believe, apply in all cases, and suits as well the meridian of England
as America.

As I presume your last proclamation will undergo the strictures of other
pens, I shall confine my remarks to only a few parts thereof. All that
you have said might have been comprised in half the compass. It is
tedious and unmeaning, and only a repetition of your former follies,
with here and there an offensive aggravation. Your cargo of pardons will
have no market. It is unfashionable to look at them--even speculation
is at an end. They have become a perfect drug, and no way calculated for
the climate.

In the course of your proclamation you say, "The policy as well as the
benevolence of Great Britain have thus far checked the extremes of war,
when they tended to distress a people still considered as their fellow
subjects, and to desolate a country shortly to become again a source of
mutual advantage." What you mean by "the benevolence of Great Britain"
is to me inconceivable. To put a plain question; do you consider
yourselves men or devils? For until this point is settled, no
determinate sense can be put upon the expression. You have already
equalled and in many cases excelled, the savages of either Indies; and
if you have yet a cruelty in store you must have imported it, unmixed
with every human material, from the original warehouse of hell.

To the interposition of Providence, and her blessings on our endeavors,
and not to British benevolence are we indebted for the short chain that
limits your ravages. Remember you do not, at this time, command a foot
of land on the continent of America. Staten Island, York Island, a small
part of Long Island, and Rhode Island, circumscribe your power; and even
those you hold at the expense of the West Indies. To avoid a defeat, or
prevent a desertion of your troops, you have taken up your quarters in
holes and corners of inaccessible security; and in order to conceal what
every one can perceive, you now endeavor to impose your weakness upon
us for an act of mercy. If you think to succeed by such shadowy devices,
you are but infants in the political world; you have the A, B, C, of
stratagem yet to learn, and are wholl

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