"
Thus far the speech; on which I remark- That his lordship is a total
stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped
himself up in fond delusion, that something less than independence,
may, under his administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent
to Congress, to prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which
is, that independence, the sublimest of all human conditions, is
loss of liberty.
In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the
contrary word dependence means, we have only to look back to those
years of severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could
obtain no other notice than the haughtiest of all insults; and when
the base terms of unconditional submission were demanded, or
undistinguishable destruction threatened. It is nothing to us that the
ministry have been changed, for they may be changed again. The guilt
of a government is the crime of a whole country; and the nation that
can, though but for a moment, think and act as England has done, can
never afterwards be believed or trusted. There are cases in which it
is as impossible to restore character to life, as it is to recover the
dead. It is a phoenix that can expire but once, and from whose ashes
there is no resurrection. Some offences are of such a slight
composition, that they reach no further than the temper, and are
created or cured by a thought. But the sin of England has struck the
heart of America, and nature has not left in our power to say we can
forgive.
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