Bad as I believed the ministry to
be, I never conceived them capable of a measure so rash and wicked
as the commencing of hostilities; much less did I imagine the nation
would encourage it. I viewed the dispute as a kind of law-suit, in
which I supposed the parties would find a way either to decide or
settle it. I had no thoughts of independence or of arms. The world
could not then have persuaded me that I should be either a soldier
or an author. If I had any talents for either, they were buried in me,
and might ever have continued so, had not the necessity of the times
dragged and driven them into action. I had formed my plan of life, and
conceiving myself happy, wished every body else so. But when the
country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my
ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir. Those
who had been long settled had something to defend; those who had
just come had something to pursue; and the call and the concern was
equal and universal. For in a country where all men were once
adventurers, the difference of a few years in their arrival could make
none in their right.
The breaking out of hostilities opened a new suspicion in the
politics of America, which, though at that time very rare, has since
been proved to be very right. What I allude to is, "a secret and fixed
determination in the British Cabinet to annex America to the crown
of England as a conquered country." If this be taken as the object,
then the whole line of conduct pursued by the ministry, though rash in
its origin and ruinous in its consequences, is nevertheless uniform
and consistent in its parts.
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