The case is simply this: the
first settlers in the different colonies were left to shift for
themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any European government;
but as the tyranny and persecution of the old world daily drove
numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of heaven on their industry
and perseverance, they grew into importance, so, in a like degree,
they became an object of profit to the greedy eyes of Europe. It was
impossible, in this state of infancy, however thriving and
promising, that they could resist the power of any armed invader
that should seek to bring them under his authority. In this situation,
Britain thought it worth her while to claim them, and the continent
received and acknowledged the claimer. It was, in reality, of no
very great importance who was her master, seeing, that from the
force and ambition of the different powers of Europe, she must, till
she acquired strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some
one. As well, perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as
well to have been under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes
of engrossing and profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too
much, would have operated alike with any master, and produced to the
colonies the same effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all
a farce; because, in order to make that protection necessary, she must
first, by her own quarrels, create us enemies. Hard terms indeed!
To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be
independent, we need only ask this easy, simple question: Is it the
interest of a man to be a boy all his life? The answer to one will
be the answer to both.
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