Little did I think, at this period of the war, to see a proclamation
which could promise you no one useful purpose whatever, and tend
only to expose you. One would think that you were just awakened from a
four years' dream, and knew nothing of what had passed in the
interval. Is this a time to be offering pardons, or renewing the
long forgotten subjects of charters and taxation? Is it worth your
while, after every force has failed you, to retreat under the
shelter of argument and persuasion? Or can you think that we, with
nearly half your army prisoners, and in alliance with France, are to
be begged or threatened into submission by a piece of paper? But as
commissioners at a hundred pounds sterling a week each, you conceive
yourselves bound to do something, and the genius of ill-fortune told
you, that you must write.
For my own part, I have not put pen to paper these several months.
Convinced of our superiority by the issue of every campaign, I was
inclined to hope, that that which all the rest of the world now see,
would become visible to you, and therefore felt unwilling to ruffle
your temper by fretting you with repetitions and discoveries. There
have been intervals of hesitation in your conduct, from which it
seemed a pity to disturb you, and a charity to leave you to
yourselves. You have often stopped, as if you intended to think, but
your thoughts have ever been too early or too late.
There was a time when Britain disdained to answer, or even hear a
petition from America.
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