decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators. In the last case he must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay his just quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence; and those who hold the reins of gov ernment have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from the same principle that "the laborer is worthy of his hire." But then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots and tyrants. Hence as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty. In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty and property. If men through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

TO HIS MAJESTY'S COMMISSIONERS.

[To the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Viscount Howe, Sir William Howe (or in his absence Sir Henry Clinton), William Eden, and George Johnstone. 1778.]

TRUS

RUSTY and well-beloved servants of your sacred master, in whom he is well pleased, as you are sent to America for the express pur

pose of treating with anybody and anything, you will pardon an address from one who disdains to flatter those whom he loves. Should you, therefore, deign to read this address, your chaste ears will not be offended with the language of adulation,-a language you despise. I have seen your most elegant and most excellent letter "to his Excellency, Henry Laurens, the President, and other members of the Congress." As that body have thought your propositions unworthy their particular regard, it may be some satisfaction to your curiosity, and tend to appease the offended spirit of negotiation, if one out of the many individuals on this great continent should speak to you the sentiments of America,— sentiments which your own good sense hath doubtless suggested, and which are repeated only to convince you that, notwithstanding the narrow ground of private information on which we stand in this distant region, still a knowledge of our own rights, and attention to our own interests, and a sacred respect for the dignity of human nature, have given us to understand the true principles which ought, and which therefore shall, sway our conduct.

You begin with the amiable expressions of humanity, the earnest desire of tranquillity and peace. A better introduction to Americans could not be devised. For the sake of the latter we once laid our liberties at the feet of your prince, and even your armies have not eradicated the former from our bosoms.

You tell us you have powers unprecedented in the annals of your history. And England, unhappy England, will remember with deep contrition that these powers have been rendered of no avail by a conduct unprecedented in the annals of mankind. Had your royal master condescended to listen to the prayer of millions, he had not thus have sent you. Had moderation swayed what we were proud to call "mother country," her full blown dignity would not have broken down under her. You tell us that all "parties may draw some degree of consolation, and even auspicious hope, from recollection." We wish this most sincerely for the sake of all parties. America, in the moment of subjugation, would have been consoled by conscious virtue, and her hope was, and is, in the justice of her cause and the justice of the Almighty. These are sources of hope and of consolation which neither time nor chance can alter or take away.

You mention "the mutual benefits and consideration of evils that may naturally contribute to determine our resolutions." As to the former, you know too well that we could derive no benefit from a union with you, nor will I, by deducing the reasons to evince this, put an insult upon your understandings; as to the latter, it were to be wished you had preserved a line of conduct equal to the delicacy of your feelings. You could not but know that men who sincerely love freedom disdain

the consideration of all evils necessary to attain it. Had not your own hearts borne testimony to this truth, you might have learned it from the annals of your own history; for in those annals instances of this kind at least are not unprecedented. But should those instances be insufficient, we pray you to read the unconquered mind of America.

You tell us you are willing to consent to a cessation of hostilities, both by sea and land. It is difficult for rude Americans to determine whether you are serious in this proposition, or whether you mean to jest with their simplicity. Upon a supposition, however, that you have too much magnanimity to divert yourselves on an occasion of so much importance to America, and, perhaps, not very trivial in the eyes of those who sent you, permit me to assure you, on the sacred word of a gentleman, that if you shall transport your troops to England, where before long your Prince will certainly want their assistance, we shall never follow them thither. We are not so romantically fond of fighting, neither have we such regard for the city of London, as to commence a crusade for the possession of that holy land. Thus you may be certain hostilities will cease by land. It would be doing singular injustice to your national character to suppose you are desirous of a like cessation by sea. The course of the war, and the very flourishing state of your commerce, notwithstanding our weak efforts to interrupt it, daily show that you can exclude us from the seathe sea, your kingdom!

You offer "to restore free intercourse, to revive mutual affection, and renew the common benefits of naturalization." Whenever your countrymen shall be taught wisdom by experience, and learn from past misfortunes to pursue their true interests in future, we shall readily admit every intercourse which is necessary for the purposes of commerce and usual between different nations. To revive mutual affection is utterly impossible. We freely forgive you, but it is not in nature that you should forgive us. You have injured us too much. We might, on this occasion, give you some instances of singular barbarity committed, as well by the forces of his Britannic Majesty as by those of his generous and faithful allies, the Senecas, Onondagas, and Tuscaroras. But we will not offend a courtly ear by the recital of those disgusting scenes. Besides this, it might give pain to that humanity which hath, as you observe, prompted your overtures, to dwell upon the splendid victories obtained by a licentious soldiery over unarmed men in defenceless villages, their wanton devastations, their deliberate murders, or to inspect those scenes of carnage painted by the wild excesses of savage rage. These amiable traits of national conduct cannot but revive in our bosoms that partial affection we once felt for everything which bore the name of Englishman. As to the common benefits of naturalization, it is a matter we conceive to be of the most sovereign indifference. A few of our wealthy citizens

On

may hereafter visit England and Rome, to see the ruins of those august temples in which the goddess of Liberty was once adored. These will hardly claim naturalization in either of those places as a benefit. the other hand, such of your subjects as shall be driven by the iron hand of oppression to seek for refuge among those whom they now persecute, will certainly be admitted to the benefits of naturalization.

We labor to rear an asylum for mankind, and regret that circumstances will not permit you, gentlemen, to contribute to a design so very agreeable to your several tempers and dispositions. But further, your excellencies say, "We will concur to extend every freedom to trade that our respective interests can require." Unfortunately there is a little difference in these interests which you might not have found it very easy to reconcile, had the Congress been disposed to risk their heads by listening to terms which I have the honor to assure you are treated with ineffable contempt by every honest Whig in America. The difference I allude to is, that it is your interest to monopolize our commerce, and it is our interest to trade with all the world. There is, indeed, a method of cutting this Gordian knot, which, perhaps, no statesman is acute enough to untie. By reserving to the Parliament of Great Britain the right of determining what our respective interests require, they might extend the freedom of trade or circumscribe it at their pleasure, for what they might call our respective interests. But I trust it would not be for our mutual satisfaction. Your "earnest desire to stop the effusion of blood and the calamities of war" will therefore lead you, on maturer reflection, to reprobate a plan teeming with discord, and which, in the space of twenty years, would produce another wild expedition across the Atlantic, and in a few years more some such commission as that "with which his Majesty hath been pleased to honor you.

We cannot but admire the generosity of soul which prompts you "to agree that no military force shall be kept up in the different States of North America without the consent of the General Congress or particular Assemblies." The only grateful return we can make for this exemplary condescension is, to assure your excellencies-and on behalf of my countrymen, I do most solemnly promise and assure you that no military force shall be kept up in the different States of North America without the consent of the General Congress and that of the Legislatures of those States. You will, therefore, cause the forces of your royal master to be removed; for I can venture to assure you that the Congress have not consented, and probably will not consent, that they be kept up. You have also made the unsolicited offer of concurring "in measures calculated to discharge the debts of America, and to raise the credit and value of the paper circulation." If your excellencies mean by this to apply for offices in the department of our finance, I am to assure you

(which I do with "perfect respect") that it will be necessary to procure very ample recommendations. For as the English have not yet pursued measures to discharge their own debt and raise the credit and value of their own paper circulation, but, on the contrary, are in a fair way to increase the one and absolutely destroy the other, you will instantly perceive that financiers from that nation would present themselves with the most awkward grace imaginable. You propose to us a device to "perpetuate our union." It might not be amiss previously to establish this union, which may be done by your acceptance of the treaty of peace and commerce tendered to you by Congress. And such treaty, I can venture to say, would continue as long as your ministers could prevail upon themselves not to violate the faith of nations.

You offer to use your language, the inaccuracy of which, considering the importance of the subject, is not to be wondered at, or at least may be excused-"in short, to establish the powers of the respective Legislatures in each particular State, to settle its revenue, its civil and military establishment, and to exercise a perfect freedom of legislation and internal government, so that the British States throughout North America, acting with us in peace and war, under one common sovereign, may have the irrevocable enjoyment of every privilege that is short of a total separation of interests, or consistent with that total union of force on which the safety of our common religion and liberty depends." Let me assure you, gentlemen, that the power of the respective Legislatures in each particular State is most fully established, and on the most solid foundations. It is established on the perfect freedom of legislation and a vigorous administration of internal government. As to the settlement of the revenue and the civil and military establishment, these are the work of the day, for which the several Legislatures are fully competent. I have also the pleasure to congratulate your excellencies that the country for the settlement of whose government, revenue, administration, and the like, you have exposed yourselves to the fatigues and hazards of a disagreeable voyage and more disagreeable negotiation, hath abundant resources wherewith to defend her liberties now, and pour forth the rich stream of revenue hereafter. As the States of North America mean to possess the irrevocable enjoyment of their privileges, it is absolutely necessary for them to decline all connection with a Parliament who, even in the laws under which you act, reserve in express terms the power of revoking every proposition which you may agree to.

We have a due sense of the kind offer you make to grant us a share in your sovereign; but really, gentlemen, we have not the least inclination to accept of it. He may suit you extremely well, but he is not to our taste. You are solicitous to prevent a total separation of interests; and this, after all, seems to be the gist of the business. To make you as