Her felicity depended upon accident. The
convulsions of Europe might have thrown her from one conqueror to
another, till she had been the slave of all, and ruined by every
one; for until she had spirit enough to become her own master, there
was no knowing to which master she should belong. That period, thank
God, is past, and she is no longer the dependent, disunited colonies
of Britain, but the independent and United States of America,
knowing no master but heaven and herself. You, or your king, may
call this "delusion," "rebellion," or what name you please. To us it
is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the character,
and time will give it a name as lasting as his own.
You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can
fully declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part,
but blows and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and
credit, and an increase of poverty and taxes. You are now only where
you might have been two years ago, without the loss of a single
ship, and yet not a step more forward towards the conquest of the
continent; because, as I have already hinted, "an army in a city can
never be a conquering army." The full amount of your losses, since the
beginning of the war, exceeds twenty thousand men, besides millions of
treasure, for which you have nothing in exchange. Our expenses, though
great, are circulated within ourselves. Yours is a direct sinking of
money, and that from both ends at once; first, in hiring troops out of
the nation, and in paying them afterwards, because the money in
neither case can return to Britain.
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