Every attempt, now, to support the authority of the
king and Parliament of Great Britain over America, is treason
against every State; therefore it is impossible that any one can
pardon or screen from punishment an offender against all.
But to proceed: while the infatuated Tories of this and other States
were last spring talking of commissioners, accommodation, making the
matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their good king
and ministry were glutting themselves with the revenge of reducing
America to unconditional submission, and solacing each other with
the certainty of conquering it in one campaign. The following
quotations are from the parliamentary register of the debate's of
the House of Lords, March 5th, 1776:
"The Americans," says Lord Talbot,* "have been obstinate, undutiful,
and ungovernable from the very beginning, from their first early and
infant settlements; and I am every day more and more convinced that
this people never will be brought back to their duty, and the
subordinate relation they stand in to this country, till reduced to
unconditional, effectual submission; no concession on our part, no
lenity, no endurance, will have any other effect but that of
increasing their insolence."
* Steward of the king's household.
"The struggle," says Lord Townsend,* "is now a struggle for power;
the die is cast, and the only point which now remains to be determined
is, in what manner the war can be most effectually prosecuted and
speedily finished, in order to procure that unconditional
submission, which has been so ably stated by the noble Earl with the
white staff" (meaning Lord Talbot;) "and I have no reason to doubt
that the measures now pursuing will put an end to the war in the
course of a single campaign.
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