And
all the harm I wish them is, that it may not wither about their
ears, and that they may not make their exit in the belly of a whale.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21, 1778.
P.S.- Though in the tranquillity of my mind I have concluded with
a laugh, yet I have something to mention to the commissioners,
which, to them, is serious and worthy their attention. Their authority
is derived from an Act of Parliament, which likewise describes and
limits their official powers. Their commission, therefore, is only a
recital, and personal investiture, of those powers, or a nomination
and description of the persons who are to execute them. Had it
contained any thing contrary to, or gone beyond the line of, the
written law from which it is derived, and by which it is bound, it
would, by the English constitution, have been treason in the crown,
and the king been subject to an impeachment. He dared not,
therefore, put in his commission what you have put in your
proclamation, that is, he dared not have authorised you in that
commission to burn and destroy any thing in America. You are both in
the act and in the commission styled commissioners for restoring
peace, and the methods for doing it are there pointed out. Your last
proclamation is signed by you as commissioners under that act. You
make Parliament the patron of its contents. Yet, in the body of it,
you insert matters contrary both to the spirit and letter of the
act, and what likewise your king dared not have put in his
commission to you.
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