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.
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