But to be more
serious with you, why do you say, "their independence?" To set you
right, sir, we tell you, that the independency is ours, not theirs.
The Congress were authorized by every state on the continent to
publish it to all the world, and in so doing are not to be
considered as the inventors, but only as the heralds that proclaimed
it, or the office from which the sense of the people received a
legal form; and it was as much as any or all their heads were worth,
to have treated with you on the subject of submission under any name
whatever. But we know the men in whom we have trusted; can England say
the same of her Parliament?
I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th of
November last. Had you gained an entire conquest over all the armies
of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering (what you
call) mercy, your conduct would have had some specious show of
humanity; but to creep by surprise into a province, and there endeavor
to terrify and seduce the inhabitants from their just allegiance to
the rest by promises, which you neither meant nor were able to fulfil,
is both cruel and unmanly: cruel in its effects; because, unless you
can keep all the ground you have marched over, how are you, in the
words of your proclamation, to secure to your proselytes "the
enjoyment of their property?" What is to become either of your new
adopted subjects, or your old friends, the Tories, in Burlington,
Bordentown, Trenton, Mount Holly, and many other places, where you
proudly lorded it for a few days, and then fled with the precipitation
of a pursued thief? What, I say, is to become of those wretches?
What is to become of those who went over to you from this city and
State? What more can you say to them than "shift for yourselves?" Or
what more can they hope for than to wander like vagabonds over the
face of the earth? You may now tell them to take their leave of
America, and all that once was theirs.
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