But think not, gentlemen, that our distance secures you, or our
invention fails us. We can much easier accomplish such a point than
any nation in Europe. We talk the same language, dress in the same
habit, and appear with the same manners as yourselves. We can pass
from one part of England to another unsuspected; many of us are as
well acquainted with the country as you are, and should you
impolitically provoke us, you will most assuredly lament the effects
of it. Mischiefs of this kind require no army to execute them. The
means are obvious, and the opportunities unguardable. I hold up a
warning to our senses, if you have any left, and "to the unhappy
people likewise, whose affairs are committed to you."* I call not with
the rancor of an enemy, but the earnestness of a friend, on the
deluded people of England, lest, between your blunders and theirs,
they sink beneath the evils contrived for us.
* General [Sir H.] Clinton's letter to Congress.
"He who lives in a glass house," says a Spanish proverb, "should
never begin throwing stones." This, gentlemen, is exactly your case,
and you must be the most ignorant of mankind, or suppose us so, not to
see on which side the balance of accounts will fall. There are many
other modes of retaliation, which, for several reasons, I choose not
to mention. But be assured of this, that the instant you put your
threat into execution, a counter-blow will follow it. If you openly
profess yourselves savages, it is high time we should treat you as
such, and if nothing but distress can recover you to reason, to punish
will become an office of charity.
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