"And it is with great concern that I inform you that the events of
war have been very unfortunate to my arms in Virginia, having ended in
the loss of my forces in that province."- And our great concern is
that they are not all served in the same manner.
"No endeavors have been wanted on my part," says the speech, "to
extinguish that spirit of rebellion which our enemies have found means
to foment and maintain in the colonies; and to restore to my deluded
subjects in America that happy and prosperous condition which they
formerly derived from a due obedience to the laws."
The expression of deluded subjects is become so hacknied and
contemptible, and the more so when we see them making prisoners of
whole armies at a time, that the pride of not being laughed at would
induce a man of common sense to leave it off. But the most offensive
falsehood in the paragraph is the attributing the prosperity of
America to a wrong cause. It was the unremitted industry of the
settlers and their descendants, the hard labor and toil of persevering
fortitude, that were the true causes of the prosperity of America. The
former tyranny of England served to people it, and the virtue of the
adventurers to improve it. Ask the man, who, with his axe, has cleared
a way in the wilderness, and now possesses an estate, what made him
rich, and he will tell you the labor of his hands, the sweat of his
brow, and the blessing of heaven. Let Britain but leave America to
herself and she asks no more. She has risen into greatness without the
knowledge and against the will of England, and has a right to the
unmolested enjoyment of her own created wealth.
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