If the grievances justified the taking up
arms, they justified our separation; if they did not justify our
separation, neither could they justify our taking up arms. All
Europe was interested in reducing us as rebels, and all Europe (or the
greatest part at least) is interested in supporting us as
independent States. At home our condition was still worse: our
currency had no foundation, and the fall of it would have ruined
Whig and Tory alike. We had no other law than a kind of moderated
passion; no other civil power than an honest mob; and no other
protection than the temporary attachment of one man to another. Had
independence been delayed a few months longer, this continent would
have been plunged into irrecoverable confusion: some violent for it,
some against it, till, in the general cabal, the rich would have
been ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to independence that
every Tory owes the present safety which he lives in; for by that, and
that only, we emerged from a state of dangerous suspense, and became a
regular people.
The necessity, likewise, of being independent, had there been no
rupture between Britain and America, would, in a little time, have
brought one on. The increasing importance of commerce, the weight
and perplexity of legislation, and the entangled state of European
politics, would daily have shown to the continent the impossibility of
continuing subordinate; for, after the coolest reflections on the
matter, this must be allowed, that Britain was too jealous of
America to govern it justly; too ignorant of it to govern it well; and
too far distant from it to govern it at all.
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