“ There is not in any nation of the world so unlimited a freedom of the press as is now established in every State of America, both by law and practice. Every man in Europe, who reads their newspapers, must see it. There is nothing that the people dislike, that they do not attack. They attack officers of every rank in the militia, and in the army; they attack judges, governors, and magistrates, of every denomination. They attack Assemblies, and Councils, members of Congress, and Congress itself, whenever they dislike their conduct. ”

“ I firmly believe, that the moment of reconciliation is not far distant. The state of profound distress, to which the Americans find themselves reduced, has brought them back, if not to duty in general, at least to reflection, and to a knowledge of their true interests; and I can assure the House, that the greatest number not only desire to return to their allegiance, but express the desire of it, and testify that they are ready to seize a favorable opportunity, and would not wait for any opportunity, if they were not held in by the tyranny of those, who have made themselves masters of power. ”

“ I see no reason at all that we should be ashamed of asking to borrow money, after maintaining a war against Great Britain and her allies for about six years, without borrowing anything abroad, when England [361] has been all the time borrowing of all the nations of Europe, even of individuals among our allies, it cannot be unnatural, surprising, or culpable, or dishonorable for us to borrow money. When England borrows, annually, a sum equal to all her exports, we ought not to be laughed at for wishing to borrow a sum, annually, equal to a twelfth part of our annual exports. ”

“ The body of the people have great confidence in the sincerity of France; but if these contrary opinions should be suffered to gain ground, as they most assuredly will if something is not done to prevent it, when all the world sees and declares as they do, that it is the best policy of France, if she considered her own interest alone in the conduct of the war, to keep a superior naval force upon the coast of the continent of North America, I leave your Excellency to judge what a melancholy effect it will have upon our affairs. ”

“ Is not Congress the creature of the Assemblies? Do not the Assemblies create the members of Congress every year? Cannot they annihilate them every moment? Cannot the Assemblies instruct their members of Congress? [115] Cannot the people instruct their members of Assembly? But it is endless to remark. The same system of fraud and misrepresentation, which first deceived Great Britain into this controversy and war with America, still deceives them into the continuance of it, and will deceive them to their ruin. ”

“ An inextinguishable ambition and avarice, that were ever seen among his other qualities, and which grew with his growth and strengthened with his age and experience, and at last predominated over every other principle of his heart, rendered him credulous to a childish degree, of everything that favored his ruling passion, and blind and deaf to everything that thwarted it, to such a degree, that his representations, with those of his fellow-laborer, Bernard, drew on the King, Ministry, Parliament, and nation, to concert measures, which will end in their reduction and the exaltation of America. ”

“ The safest, easiest, and surest way of reducing the power and the spirits of the English is to intercept their trade. It is every year exposed, yet every year escapes; by which means they get spirits to indulge their passions, money to raise millions, and men to man their ships.
Pray is it not necessary to think a little of Portugal? Should not Spain, France, and America too, use their influence with Portugal, to shut her ports against the armed vessels of all nations at war, or else admit freely the armed vessels of all? ”

“ The Assemblies thus annually chosen by the people, or militia, annually choose the delegates in Congress, and have power to recall them at pleasure. Will the militia then obey either Assemblies or Congress in the execution of tyrannical orders, or any orders that are not generally agreeable to them? The thing speaks for itself. Is it the Continental army then, that is the instrument of their own servitude and that of their country? Every officer holds his commission at the pleasure of Congress. ”

“ But when I consider, that there are more people in America than there are in the United Provinces of the Low Countries, that the earth itself produces abundance in America, both for consumption and exportation, and that the United Provinces produce nothing but butter and cheese, and that the United Provinces have successfully maintained wars against the formidable monarchies of Spain, France, and England, I cannot but persuade myself, it is in the power of America to defend herself against all that England can do. ”

“ Is it not every man, who has demanded more paper money for his labor or his goods than they were worth in silver? The public faith, in the sense these words are here used, would require that Congress should make up to every man, who for five years past has paid more in paper money for anything he has purchased, than he could have had it for in silver. The public faith is no more pledged to the present possessor of the bills, than it is to every man, through whose hands they may have passed, at a less value than the nominal value. ”

“ We contemplate with astonishment, mixed with a joy most intimately felt, an armed multitude proceeding to give, so to express myself, the island to the civil power, and aiding it to protect and facilitate the execution of its laws. Such are the advantages, which we ought always to provide ourselves from an army, the humblest soldier of which finds his interest in good order and good government. ”

“ By declaring that there is no power capable of subjecting this country, but the King, the Peers, and Commons of Ireland, you render a great service to this nation, because you give to all the other corps of volunteers the great example, to make the same declaration of their rights under the sanction of your corps, who not only protect the nation in arms, but by your knowledge and authority, propagate the great principles of law and liberty.
"In a country which possesses laws like ours, and men of your merit agitate the great question of liberty, it is to be free. ”

“ When I express myself thus, I speak of Americans in general. I pretend not to insinuate, that there were not among them some men of inferior rank, who have thought that they saw their present interest in the independence of their country. In so vast a country it is impossible, that there should not be found some such senseless men, and I should be more senseless, more absurd, than the absurdest of them all, if I could doubt of it a moment. But again, once more; the mass of the nation did not aim at independence ”

“ If Great Britain loses sixtythree thousand seamen by our independence, and I believe she will not lose much less, I mean in the course of a few years, will not America gain them? Are sixtythree thousand seamen a feebler bulwark for America than Great Britain? Are they weaker instruments of wealth and strength, of power and glory, in the hands of Americans, than in those of the English; at the command of Congress than at the command of the King of England? ”

“ In the situation in which America stands at present with regard to England, to announce to that power that they have forgotten her system of tyranny, her cruelties, and her perfidy, is discovering too great a degree of weakness, or at least too much good nature, and inviting her to believe, that the Americans have an irresistible predilection for her, and to fortify her in the opinion she entertains, that the American patriots will submit through weariness, or the preponderating influence of the tories. ”

“ Resolved unanimously, that the opinion of the present assembly is, that a war against North America is evidently a measure, which, by obliging us to carry all our forces to that quarter, puts us out of a condition to resist with vigor, as we might otherwise do, the united efforts of France and Spain, while the said war produces no other effect upon the Americans than to add to the enmity, which has but too long subsisted between us. An enmity, of which we have felt the fatal effects, and which, by putting an obstacle to our union, threatens England with a ruin as complete as it is inevitable. ”

“ I regard the liberty of Ireland as adding to the safety of that of Great Britain, which, instead of protestations of loyalty extorted from a Province devoted to pillage, will actually receive a tribute of affection sensibly felt on the part of a free people. As a friend of the constitutions of the two kingdoms, as desirous of an honorable and permanent union, I esteem myself happy to see myself enrolled among men, who have your courage and your principles. ”

“ But while I admit, Sir, that that Assembly might have recourse to the expedient abovementioned in order to remove their load of debt, I am far from agreeing, that it is just, or agreeable to the ordinary course of things to extend the effect to strangers, as well as to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, I think it ought to be confined to Americans, and that an exception ought to be made in favor of strangers, or at least, that some means ought to be devised to indemnify them, for the losses they may suffer by the general laws. ”

“ True policy would have omitted everything in this letter, which should call up to the minds of the people the ideas of national honor. Every man in the world, who is thoroughly acquainted with the subject, knows that Great Britain never can obtain a peace without a diminution of her honor and dignity. It is impossible without miracles, and therefore the Englishman, who undertakes to plan for peace, must be convinced of this and take it into his plan, and consequently should avoid with the utmost caution every word, which should excite these ideas in the minds of the people. ”

“ If a neutrality the most exact and the most perfect, with a navigation the most regular, and an inviolable respect for treaties had been sufficient to place the freedom of commerce of the subjects of the King of Denmark and Norway in a state of safety from these misfortunes, which ought to be unknown to nations which are at peace, and who are free and independent, it would not be necessary to take new measures to insure them this liberty to which they have a right the most incontestible. ”

“ But to send Ministers to every great Court in Europe, especially the maritime Courts, to propose an acknowledgment of the independence of America, and treaties of amity and commerce, is no more than becomes us, and in my opinion is our duty to do. It is perfectly consistent with the genuine system of American policy, and a piece of respect due from new nations to old ones. ”

“ Sir;—The body of the gentlemen of the law, ambitious of associating to themselves a man, whom they consider as an ornament of his country, and as the firm support of her rights, unanimously prays you to accept the title of honorary member of the society, as an unequivocal testimony of their admiration of vast talents when they are displayed in the cause of liberty and virtue. ”

“ Would the paper money embarrass Congress less if they had a war to maintain against France and Spain, than it does now? Would not the embarrassment be much greater? Does the paper money prevent the increase and the population of the States? No. Does the war prevent it? No. Both the population and the property of the States have increased every year, since this war began. And all the efforts of Great Britain cannot prevent it. On the contrary, has the wealth and population of Great Britain increased? Has her commerce increased? ”

“ But there is another piece of news, to which we give more credit, because, really, there is no good citizen, nor genuine friend of humanity, who does not wish to hear it confirmed. It is, that there should be, as it is said, upon the carpet, a plan concerted between all the maritime powers of Europe, to the end to form and digest a universal code for the sea, the laws of which no nation should attempt to infringe, without devoting herself to the indignation, or exposing herself to the vengeance, of all the others ”

“ No man is more ready than I am to acknowledge the obligations we are under to France; but the flourishing state of her marine and commerce, and the decisive influence of her councils and negotiations in Europe, which all the world will allow to be owing in a great measure to the separation of America from her inveterate enemy, and to her new connexions with the United States, show that the obligations are mutual. And no foreign merchant ought to expect to be treated in America better than her native merchants, who have hazarded their property through the same perils of the seas and of enemies. ”

“ The King of Denmark has always founded his glory and his grandeur upon the esteem and the confidence of other people; he has made it a law to himself, from the commencement of his reign, to manifest to all the powers, his friends, a conduct the most capable of convincing them of his pacific sentiments, and of his sincere desire to contribute to the general prosperity of Europe. His proceedings, the most uniform and which nothing can conceal, are a proof of this. ”