IV. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are,
the moral advantages arising from independence: war and desolation
have become the trade of the old world; and America neither could
nor can be under the government of Britain without becoming a sharer
of her guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death. The
spirit of duelling, extended on a national scale, is a proper
character for European wars. They have seldom any other motive than
pride, or any other object than fame. The conquerors and the conquered
are generally ruined alike, and the chief difference at last is,
that the one marches home with his honors, and the other without them.
'Tis the natural temper of the English to fight for a feather, if they
suppose that feather to be an affront; and America, without the
right of asking why, must have abetted in every quarrel, and abided by
its fate. It is a shocking situation to live in, that one country must
be brought into all the wars of another, whether the measure be
right or wrong, or whether she will or not; yet this, in the fullest
extent, was, and ever would be, the unavoidable consequence of the
connection. Surely the Quakers forgot their own principles when, in
their late Testimony, they called this connection, with these military
and miserable appendages hanging to it- "the happy constitution."
Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly fifty years out of
every hundred at war with some power or other. It certainly ought to
be a conscientious as well political consideration with America, not
to dip her hands in the bloody work of Europe.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60