This plain language may perhaps sound
uncouthly to an ear vitiated by courtly refinements, but words were
made for use, and the fault lies in deserving them, or the abuse in
applying them unfairly.
Soon after your return to New York, you published a very illiberal
and unmanly handbill against the Congress; for it was certainly
stepping out of the line of common civility, first to screen your
national pride by soliciting an interview with them as private
gentlemen, and in the conclusion to endeavor to deceive the
multitude by making a handbill attack on the whole body of the
Congress; you got them together under one name, and abused them
under another. But the king you serve, and the cause you support,
afford you so few instances of acting the gentleman, that out of
pity to your situation the Congress pardoned the insult by taking no
notice of it.
You say in that handbill, "that they, the Congress, disavowed
every purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their
extravagant and inadmissible claim of independence." Why, God bless
me! what have you to do with our independence? We ask no leave of
yours to set it up; we ask no money of yours to support it; we can
do better without your fleets and armies than with them; you may
soon have enough to do to protect yourselves without being burdened
with us. We are very willing to be at peace with you, to buy of you
and sell to you, and, like young beginners in the world, to work for
our living; therefore, why do you put yourselves out of cash, when
we know you cannot spare it, and we do not desire you to run into
debt? I am willing, sir, that you should see your folly in every point
of view I can place it in, and for that reason descend sometimes to
tell you in jest what I wish you to see in earnest.
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