Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

charge of a small armament to take it from the Dutch, who planted it. But to retain this colony at peace, another at that time, full as valuable, planted by private countrymen of ours, was given up by the crown to the Dutch in exchange, viz. Surinam, now a wealthy sugar-colony in Guiana, and which, but for that cession, might still have remained in our possession. Of late, indeed, Britain has been at some expence in planting two colonies, Georgia and Nova Scotia ; but those are not in our confederacy; and the expence she has been at in their name, has chiefly been in grants of sums unnecessarily large, by way of salaries to officers sent from England, and in jobs to friends, whereby dependants might be provided for; those excessive grants not being requisite to the welfare and good government of the colonies; which good government (as experience in many instances of other colonies has taught us) may be much more frugally, and full as effectually provided for, and supported.

With regard to the second assertion, that these colonies were protected in their infant state by England: it is a notorious fact, that in none of the many wars with the Indian natives, sustained by our infant settlements, for a century 'after our first arrival, were ever any troops or forces of any kind sent from England to assit us; nor were any forts built at her expence to secure our sea-ports from foreign invaders; nor any ships of war sent to protect our trade, till many years after our first settlement, when our commerce became an object of revenue, or of advantage to British merchants; and then it was thought necessary to have a frigate in some of our ports, during peace, to give weight to the authority of custom-house officers, who were to restrain that commerce for the benefit of England. Our own arms, with our poverty, and the care of a kind providence, were all this time our only protection, while we were neglected by the English government; which either thought

p Georgia acceded to the confederacy afterwards, that is in July, 1775

1

us not worth its care, or, having no good will to some of us, on account of our different sentiments in religion and politics, was indifferent what became of us. On the other hand, the colonies have not been wanting to do what they could in every war for annoying the enemies of Britain. They formerly assisted her in the conquest of Nova Scotia. In the war before last they took Louisbourg, and put it into her hands. She made her peace with that strong fortress, by restoring it to France, greatly to their detriment. In the last war, it is true, Britain sent a fleet and army, who acted with an equal army of ours, in the reduction of Canada; and perhaps thereby did more for us, than we in the preceding wars had done for her. Let it be remembered however, that she rejected the plan we formed in the congress at Albany, in 1754, for our own defence, by an union of the colonies; an union she was jealous of, and therefore chose to send her own forces; otherwise her aid to protect us was not wanted: and from our first settlement to that time, her military operations in our favor were small, compared with the advantages she drew from her exclusive commerce with us. We are however willing to give full weight to this obligation; and as we are daily growing stronger, and our assistance to her becomes of more importance, we should with pleasure embrace the first opportunity of showing our gratitude, by returning the favor in kind; but when Britain values herself as affording protection, we desire it may be considered, that we have followed her in all her wars, and joined with her at our own expence against all she thought fit to quarrel with. This she has required of us, and would never permit us to keep peace with any power she declared her enemy, though by separate treaties we might well have done it. Under such circumstances, when, at her instance, we made nations our enemies, whom we might otherwise have retained our friends; we submit it to the common sense of mankind, whether her protection of us in these wars was not our just due, and to be claimed of right, instead of being received as a favor? And whether, when all the parts of

an empire exert themselves to the utmost in their common defence, and in annoying the common enemy, it is not as well the parts that protect the whole, as the whole that protects the parts? The protection then has been proportionably mutual. And whenever the time shall come, that our abilities may as far exceed hers, as hers have exceeded ours, we hope we shall be reasonable enough to rest satisfied with her proportionable exertions, and not think we do too much for a part of the empire, when that part does as much as it can for the whole.

The charge against us, that we refuse to contribute to our own protection, appears from the above to be groundless; but we farther declare it to be absolutely false; for it is well known, that we ever held it as our duty to grant aids to the crown, upon requisition, towards carrying on its wars; which duty we have cheerfully complied with, to the utmost of our abilities; insomuch that frequent and grateful acknowlegments thereof by king and parliament appear on their records. But as Britain has enjoyed a most gainful monopoly of our commerce, the same, with our maintaining the dignity of the king's representative in each colony, and all our own separate establishments of government, civil and military, has ever hitherto been deemed an equivalent for such aids, as might otherwise be expected from us in time of peace. And we hereby declare, that on a reconciliation with Britain, we shall not only continue to grant aids in time of war, as aforesaid; but, whenever she shall think fit to abolish her monopoly, and give us the same privileges of trade as Scotland received at the union, and allow us a free commerce with all the rest of the world, we shall willingly agree (and we doubt not it will be ratified by our constituents) to give and pay into the sinking fund 100,000l. sterling per annum for the term of one hundred

q Alluding to passages in the Journals of the English house of commons of date the 4th of April, 1748; 28th January, 1756; 3d February, 1756; 16th and 19th of May, 1757; 1st of June, 1758; 26th and 30th of April, 1759; 26th and 31st of March; and 28th of April, 1760; 9th and 20th January, 1761; 22d and 26th January, 1762; and 14th and 17th March, 1763.

years, which, duly, faithfully, and inviolably applied to that purpose, is demonstrably more than sufficient to extinguish all her present national debt, since it will in that time amount, at legal British interest, to more than 230,000,0001.

But if Britain does not think fit to accept this proposition, we, in order to remove her groundless jealousies, that we aim at independence, and an abolition of the navigation act, (which hath in truth never been our intention) and to avoid all future disputes about the right of making that and other acts for regulating our commerce, do hereby declare ourselves ready and willing to enter into a covenant with Britain, that she shall fully possess, enjoy, and exercise that right, for an hundred years to come, the same being bona fide used for the common benefit; and in case of such agreement, that every assembly be advised by us, to confirm it solemnly, by laws of their own, which, once made, cannot be repealed without the assent of the crown.

The last charge, that we are dishonest traders, and aim at defrauding our creditors in Britain, is sufficiently and authentically refuted by the solemn declarations of the British merchants to parliament, (both at the time of the stamp-act and in the last session) who bore ample testimony to the general good faith and fair dealing of the Americans, and declared their confidence in our integrity, for which we refer to their petitions on the journals of the house of commons. And we presume we may safely call on the body of the British tradesmen, who have had experience of both, to say, whether they have not received much more punctual payment from us than they generally have from the members of their own two houses of parlia

ment.

On the whole of the above it appears, that the charge af ingratitude towards the mother country, brought with so much confidence against the colonies, is totally without foundation; and that there is much more reason for retorting that charge on Britain, who not only never contri

Y See Dr. Price's Appeal on the National Debt.

butes any aid, nor affords, by an exclusive commerce, any advantages to Saxony, her mother country; but no longer since than in the last war, without the least provocation, subsidized the king of Prussia while he ravaged that mother country, and carried fire and sword into its capital, the fine city of Dresden: an example we hope no provocation will induce us to imitate.

TO DR. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, IN ENGLAND.

Conciliation hopeless from the Conduct of Great Britain to America. Philadelphia, July 7, 1775.

DEAR FRIEND,

THE congress met at a time when all minds were so exasperated by the perfidy of general Gage, and his attack' on the country people, that propositions for attempting an accommodation were not much relished; and it has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble petition to the crown, to give Britain one more chance, one opportunity more of recovering the friendship of the colonies; which however I think she has not sense enough to embrace, and so I conclude she has lost them for ever.

She has begun to burn our sea-port towns; secure, I suppose, we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. She may doubtless destroy them all; but if she wishes to recover our commerce, are these the probable means? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman out of Bedlam ever thought of encreasing the number of his customers, by knocking them on the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts, by burning their houses.

If she wishes to have us subjects and that we should sub, mit to her as our compound sovereign, she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government, that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire, and pestilence.

You will have heard, before this reaches you, of the treacherous conduct of general Gage to the remaining people in

« ZurückWeiter »