“ That, supposing, for a moment, that a peace between England and United America were not so near as we have reason to presume, not without probability, there would be found in that case nations enough who will be jealous of acquiring, after the example of France, the earliest right to commerce with a country, which already peopled by several millions of inhabitants, augments every day in population, in a manner incredible; but, as a new people, unprovided as yet with several necessary articles, will procure a rich, even an immense outlet, for the fabricks and manufactures of Europe. ”

“ The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great—They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form an union and exert their strength—ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known, by the great, to be the temper of mankind, and they have accordingly laboured, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. ”

“ Liberty, and with her, knowledge, and virtue too, seem to have deserted the earth; and one age of darkness succeeded another, till God, in his benign Providence, raised up the champions, who began and conducted the Reformation.—From the time of the Reformation, to the first settlement of America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as synonymous expressions, for the canon and feudal laws, seem to have lost their strength and weight. ”

“ When sound policy dictated to Congress the precaution of sending persons to negotiate natural alliances in Europe, it was not from a failure in respect that they did not send a minister to your High Mightinesses, with the first whom they sent abroad: but, instructed in the nature of the connections between Great Britain and the Republic, and in the system of peace and neutrality, which she had so long pursued, they thought proper to respect both so far, as not to seek to embroil her with her allies, to excite divisions in the nation, or lay embarrassments before it. ”

“ Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty.——Let us hear the danger of thraldom to our consciences, from ignorance, extream poverty and dependance, in short from civil and political slavery.—Let us see delineated before us, the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God! that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God, as it is derogatory from our own honour, or interest or happiness ”

“ In general usages, and in the liberality of sentiments in those momentous points, the freedom of enquiry, the right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience, of so much importance to be supported in the world, and imparted to all mankind, and which at this hour are in more danger from Great Britain and that intolerant spirit which is secretly fomenting there, than from any other quarter, the two nations resemble each other more than any others. ”

“ Let the colleges join their harmony, in the same delightful concert.—Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude and malignity of slavery and vice.—Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil.—Let the dialogues and all the exercises become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing, far and wide, the ideas of right and the sensations of freedom. ”

“ But it is of equal truth and importance, if applied to the happiness of men in society, on this side the grave.—In the earliest ages of the world, absolute Monarchy seems to have been the universal form of government.—Kings, and a few of their great counsellors and captains, exercised a cruel tyranny over the people who held a rank in the scale of intelligence, in those days, but little higher than the camels and elephants, that carried them and their engines to war. ”

“ Whether the return of America, with her nurseries of seamen and magazines of materials for navigation and commerce, to the domination and monopoly of Great Britain, if that were practicable, would not put the possessions of other nations beyond seas wholly in the power of that enormous empire, which has been long governed wholly by the feeling of its own power, at least without a proportional attention to justice, humanity, or decency. ”

“ But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us at the expence of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.—And Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know ”

“ Do you not represent them, as forgetting that the Prince of Orange was created King William by the People, on purpose that their rights might be eternal and inviolable?—Is there not something extremely fallacious, in the common place images of mother country and children colonies? Are we the children of Great Britain, any more than the cities of London, Exeter and Bath? Are we not brethren and fellow-subjects, with those in Britain, only under a somewhat different method of legislation, and a totally different method of taxation? ”

“ It is not only the manufactures, high and mighty Lords, which promise a permanent advantage to our Republic. The navigation will derive also great advantages; for it is very far from being true (as several would maintain) that the Americans, being once in the tranquil possession of their independence, would themselves exercise with vigour these two branches; and that in the sequel, we shall be wholly frustrated of them. Whoever has the least knowledge of the country of America, and of its vast extent, knows that the number of inhabitants is not there in proportion. ”

“ But, since our interest excites us forcibly to act in concert with the enemies of our enemy; since the United States of [Pg 22] America invited us to it long ago; since France appears inclined to concert her military operations with ours (although this power has infinitely less interest to ally itself with us, whose weakness manifests itself in so palpable a manner, than we have to form an alliance, the most respectable in the universe) it is indubitably the duty of every Regency, to promote it with all their forces, and with all the celerity imaginable. ”

“ Since the promulgation of christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny, that have sprung from this original, are the cannon and the feudal law—The desire of dominion, that great principle by which we have attempted to account for so much good, and so much evil, is, when properly restrained, a very useful and noble movement in the human mind: but when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable power. ”

“ Is not the human understanding exhausted there? Are not reason, imaginations, wit, passion, senses and all, tortured to find out satire and invective against the characters of the vile and futile fellows who sometimes get into place and power?—The most exceptionable paper that ever I saw here is perfect prudence and modesty, in comparison of multitudes of their applauded writings. Yet the high regard they have for the freedom of the Press, indulges all.—I must and will repeat it, Newspapers deserve the patronage of every friend to his country. ”

“ Great Britain, not long since so proud of her forces, that she feared not to declare war against an ancient and faithful Ally, already repents of that unjust and rash proceeding; and, succumbing under the weight of a war, which becomes more and more burthensome, she sighs after peace; whilst that the harmony among the members of the supreme Government of this country increases with our arms, according as your political system, whose necessity and salutary influence were heretofore less acknowledged, gains every day more numerous imitators. ”

“ Let us banish for ever from our minds, my countrymen, all such unworthy ideas of the K—g, his Ministry, and Parliament. Let us not suppose, that all are become luxurious, effeminate and unreasonable, on the other side the water, as many designing persons would insinuate. Let us presume, what is in fact true, that the spirit of liberty is as ardent as ever among the body of the nation, though a few individuals may be corrupted.—Let us take it for granted, that the same great spirit, which once gave Cæsar so warm a reception ”

“ Your alarmed petitioners throw their eyes round every where, to discover new sources, capable of procuring them more success, in future. They even flatter themselves that they have found them upon the new theatre of commerce which the United States of America offer them; a commerce, of which, in this moment, but in this moment only, they believe themselves to be in a condition to be able to assure to themselves a good share ”

“ For all other commercial nations, who take to heart, ever so little, their own prosperity, will apply themselves ardently, to collect from it all the fruit possible. To this effect, it would be unpardonable for the business and commerce of this Republic in general, and for those of this city in particular, to suffer to escape this occasion so favourable for the encouragement of our manufactures so declined, and languishing in the interior cities, as well as that of the commerce and navigation in the maritime cities ”

“ The prospect, now before us, in America, ought, in the same manner, to engage the attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction.——Nothing less than this seems to have been meditated for us, by somebody or other in Great Britain. ”

“ Give to understand, in the most respectful manner, that it is sufficiently notorious that the inhabitants of this Republic have, as well as any other nation, an interest, that they give us an opportunity to open a free communication and correspondence with the inhabitants of America, by making a treaty of commerce, as Mr. Adams has represented in his memorial; to which they add, that the advantages which must result from it, are absolutely the only means of reviving the fallen commerce of this country ”

“ That to this happy revolution in the dispositions of the English in favour of the liberty and independence of America, according to all appearances, the resolution taken by the Congress, towards the end of the last year, to wit, to forbid in all America the importation of British manufactures and productions, has greatly contributed: a resolution, of which they perceive in England, too visibly, the consequences ruinous to their manufactures, trade, commerce, and navigation, to be able to remain indifferent in this regard. ”

“ That nevertheless, among all the nations there is none which can entertain a hope, better founded, and more sure, in this respect, than the citizens of this free Republic, whether on account of the identity of religion, the fashion of living, and the manners, whether because of the extent of its commerce, and the convenience of its navigation, but above all, by reason of the activity and good faith, which still distinguishes (without boasting too much) the Dutch nation above all other people ”

“ The conformity of religion and government, which is found between us and America, joined to the indubitable marks that she hath already long since given of the preference that she feels for our friendship, makes the undersigned not only suppose, but inspires them with a confidence that our connections with her will be equally solid, advantageous, and salutary to the interests of the two nations. The well-being and prosperity which will very probably result from them ”

“ However great may be the advantages foreseen by the petitioners, from a legal commerce duly protected with America, their fear is not less, lest we should suffer to escape the happy moment of assuring to them, and to all the Republic, these advantages. The present moment must determine the whole. The English nation is weary of the war; and as that people runs easily into extremes, the petitioners are afraid, with strong probable appearances, that a compleat acknowledgment of American independence will soon take place ”

“ In the second place, that America, which ought to be regarded as become free at the point of the sword, and as willing, by the prohibition of all the productions and manufactures of England, to break absolutely with that kingdom; it is precisely the time, and perhaps the only time, in which we may have a favourable opportunity to enter into connection with this new and powerful Republic; a time which we cannot neglect without running the greatest risque of being irrevocably prevented by the other powers, and even by England. ”

“ America will therefore be for ages a market for these articles of the Baltic trade.
Nor is there more solidity in another supposition, propagated by the English to prevent other nations from pursuing their true interests, that the colonies of other nations will follow the example of the United States. Those powers, who have as large possessions as any beyond seas, have already declared against England, apprehending no such consequences. ”