"But I should not," continues the speech, "answer the trust
committed to the sovereign of a free people, nor make a suitable
return to my subjects for their constant, zealous, and affectionate
attachment to my person, family and government, if I consented to
sacrifice, either to my own desire of peace, or to their temporary
ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests,
upon the maintenance and preservation of which, the future strength
and security of this country must principally depend."
That the man whose ignorance and obstinacy first involved and
still continues the nation in the most hopeless and expensive of all
wars, should now meanly flatter them with the name of a free people,
and make a merit of his crime, under the disguise of their essential
rights and permanent interests, is something which disgraces even
the character of perverseness. Is he afraid they will send him to
Hanover, or what does he fear? Why is the sycophant thus added to
the hypocrite, and the man who pretends to govern, sunk into the
humble and submissive memorialist?
What those essential rights and permanent interests are, on which
the future strength and security of England must principally depend,
are not so much as alluded to. They are words which impress nothing
but the ear, and are calculated only for the sound.
But if they have any reference to America, then do they amount to
the disgraceful confession, that England, who once assumed to be her
protectress, has now become her dependant.
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