While your fleet lay last winter in the Delaware, I offered my
service to the Pennsylvania Navy Board then at Trenton, as one who
would make a party with them, or any four or five gentlemen, on an
expedition down the river to set fire to it, and though it was not
then accepted, nor the thing personally attempted, it is more than
probable that your own folly will provoke a much more ruinous act. Say
not when mischief is done, that you had not warning, and remember that
we do not begin it, but mean to repay it. Thus much for your savage
and impolitic threat.
In another part of your proclamation you say, "But if the honors
of a military life are become the object of the Americans, let them
seek those honors under the banners of their rightful sovereign, and
in fighting the battles of the united British Empire, against our late
mutual and natural enemies." Surely! the union of absurdity with
madness was never marked in more distinguishable lines than these.
Your rightful sovereign, as you call him, may do well enough for
you, who dare not inquire into the humble capacities of the man; but
we, who estimate persons and things by their real worth, cannot suffer
our judgments to be so imposed upon; and unless it is your wish to see
him exposed, it ought to be your endeavor to keep him out of sight.
The less you have to say about him the better. We have done with
him, and that ought to be answer enough. You have been often told
so. Strange! that the answer must be so often repeated.
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