Your retreat from Philadelphia, was only a timely escape,
and your next expedition may be less fortunate.
It would puzzle all the politicians in the universe to conceive what
you stay for, or why you should have stayed so long. You are
prosecuting a war in which you confess you have neither object nor
hope, and that conquest, could it be effected, would not repay the
charges: in the mean while the rest of your affairs are running to
ruin, and a European war kindling against you. In such a situation,
there is neither doubt nor difficulty; the first rudiments of reason
will determine the choice, for if peace can be procured with more
advantages than even a conquest can be obtained, he must be an idiot
indeed that hesitates.
But you are probably buoyed up by a set of wretched mortals, who,
having deceived themselves, are cringing, with the duplicity of a
spaniel, for a little temporary bread. Those men will tell you just
what you please. It is their interest to amuse, in order to lengthen
out their protection. They study to keep you amongst them for that
very purpose; and in proportion as you disregard their advice, and
grow callous to their complaints, they will stretch into
improbability, and season their flattery the higher. Characters like
these are to be found in every country, and every country will despise
them.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 20, 1778.
VII.
TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
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