CRISIS.

1780
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
by Thomas Paine
I.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of
their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet
we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the
more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be
strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be
highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has
declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL
CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not
slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even
the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to
God.
Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon,
or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my
own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would
have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter,
neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the
fault, if it were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but
ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing
for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the
spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and
which time and a little resolution will soon recover.

* The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed; but, if
lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil; and
there is no punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or
what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a
season so precious and useful.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret
opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give
up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to
perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the
calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent.
Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has
relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the
care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king
of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common
murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence
as he.
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run
through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them.
Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of
flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the
whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven
back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was
performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan
of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit
up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage
and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they
produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind
soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before.
But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of
sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which
might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the
same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would
have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of
man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory
has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with
curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.
As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the
edge of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances,
which those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of.
Our situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a
narrow neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our
force was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe
could bring against us. We had no army at hand to have relieved the
garrison, had we shut ourselves up and stood on our defence. Our
ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been
removed, on the apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the
Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it
must occur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that
these kind of field forts are only for temporary purposes, and last in
use no longer than the enemy directs his force against the
particular object which such forts are raised to defend. Such was
our situation and condition at Fort Lee on the morning of the 20th
of November, when an officer arrived with information that the enemy
with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above; Major General
[Nathaniel] Green, who commanded the garrison, immediately ordered
them under arms, and sent express to General Washington at the town of
Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry = six miles. Our first
object was to secure the bridge over the Hackensack, which laid up the
river between the enemy and us, about six miles from us, and three
from them. General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an
hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the bridge,
which place I expected we should have a brush for; however, they did
not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our
troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some
which passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the
ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town
of Hackensack, and there passed the river. We brought off as much
baggage as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost. The simple
object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on till they
could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as
to be enabled to make a stand. We staid four days at Newark, collected
our out-posts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice
to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing,
though our numbers were greatly inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little
opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body
of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he
might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our
march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be
limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some
providential control.
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat
to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers
and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without
rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long
retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes
centred in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help
them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King
William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in
action; the same remark may be made on General Washington, for the
character fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which
cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a
cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public
blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed
him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can even
flourish upon care.
I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the
state of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following
question, Why is it that the enemy have left the New England
provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war? The answer is
easy: New England is not infested with Tories, and we are. I have been
tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless
arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a
world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now
arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one
or both must fall. And what is a Tory? Good God! what is he? I
should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand
Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward;
for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of
Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never
can be brave.
But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between
us, let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation
to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to
join him. Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is
injured by you. He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his
standard, with muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no
use to him, unless you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers,
and not Tories, that he wants.
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel,
against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted
one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as
pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever
saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was
prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me
peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully
believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place,
and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let
it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single
reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation
is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do
but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper
and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the
world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign
dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period
arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though
the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can
never expire.
America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper
application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it
is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an
excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and
trusted our cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning
militia. A summer's experience has now taught us better; yet with
those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to
the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! they are again
assembling. I always considered militia as the best troops in the
world for a sudden exertion, but they will not do for a long campaign.
Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on this city
[Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is
ruined. If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on
his side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the
consequence will be, that armies from both ends of the continent
will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle states; for
he cannot go everywhere, it is impossible. I consider Howe as the
greatest enemy the Tories have; he is bringing a war into their
country, which, had it not been for him and partly for themselves,
they had been clear of. Should he now be expelled, I wish with all the
devotion of a Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory may never
more be mentioned; but should the Tories give him encouragement to
come, or assistance if he come, I as sincerely wish that our next
year's arms may expel them from the continent, and the Congress
appropriate their possessions to the relief of those who have suffered
in well-doing. A single successful battle next year will settle the
whole. America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation
of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their
expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft
resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but
the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful
event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence
may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear
of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with
prejudice.
Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend
to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the
matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state
or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your
shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little,
when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future
world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue
could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common
danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands
are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the
day upon Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God may
bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you
hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the
near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will
suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the
blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at
a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them
happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather
strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the
business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and
whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto
death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear
as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I
believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I
think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and
destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that
are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute
will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who
does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman;
whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we
reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither
can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case
and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no
concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to
make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose
character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish
man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a
being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and
mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the
widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is
one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil
which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the
enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to
expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even
mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the
cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we
ought to guard equally against both. Howe's first object is, partly by
threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to
deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended
the same plan to Gage, and this is what the tories call making their
peace, "a peace which passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which
would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet
thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things!
Were the back counties to give up their arms, they would fall an
easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some
Tories would not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up
their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of the back
counties who would then have it in their power to chastise their
defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms,
that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons and
Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the
principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state
that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to
barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that
will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring
reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up
truth to your eyes.
I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know
our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army
was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to
him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean
opportunity to ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great
credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an orderly
retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all our
field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had four rivers
to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipitate, for we were
near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to
come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out
till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some
of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms
through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more
we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of
the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the
next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is
our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude
we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission,
the sad choice of a variety of evils- a ravaged country- a depopulated
city- habitations without safety, and slavery without hope- our
homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future
race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this
picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless
wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

COMMON SENSE.

December 23, 1776.
II.

TO LORD HOWE.

"What's in the name of lord, that I should fear
To bring my grievance to the public ear?"
CHURCHILL.

UNIVERSAL empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are
with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can
assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than
monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal
court of Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but
he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title
to "Defender of the Faith," than George the Third.
As a military man your lordship may hold out the sword of war, and
call it the "ultima ratio regum": the last reason of kings; we in
return can show you the sword of justice, and call it "the best
scourge of tyrants." The first of these two may threaten, or even
frighten for a while, and cast a sickly languor over an insulted
people, but reason will soon recover the debauch, and restore them
again to tranquil fortitude. Your lordship, I find, has now
commenced author, and published a proclamation; I have published a
Crisis. As they stand, they are the antipodes of each other; both
cannot rise at once, and one of them must descend; and so quick is the
revolution of things, that your lordship's performance, I see, has
already fallen many degrees from its first place, and is now just
visible on the edge of the political horizon.
It is surprising to what a pitch of infatuation, blind folly and
obstinacy will carry mankind, and your lordship's drowsy
proclamation is a proof that it does not even quit them in their
sleep. Perhaps you thought America too was taking a nap, and therefore
chose, like Satan to Eve, to whisper the delusion softly, lest you
should awaken her. This continent, sir, is too extensive to sleep
all at once, and too watchful, even in its slumbers, not to startle at
the unhallowed foot of an invader. You may issue your proclamations,
and welcome, for we have learned to "reverence ourselves," and scorn
the insulting ruffian that employs you. America, for your deceased
brother's sake, would gladly have shown you respect and it is a new
aggravation to her feelings, that Howe should be forgetful, and
raise his sword against those, who at their own charge raised a
monument to his brother. But your master has commanded, and you have
not enough of nature left to refuse. Surely there must be something
strangely degenerating in the love of monarchy, that can so completely
wear a man down to an ingrate, and make him proud to lick the dust
that kings have trod upon. A few more years, should you survive
them, will bestow on you the title of "an old man": and in some hour
of future reflection you may probably find the fitness of Wolsey's
despairing penitence- "had I served my God as faithful as I have
served my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in my old age."
The character you appear to us in, is truly ridiculous. Your
friends, the Tories, announced your coming, with high descriptions
of your unlimited powers; but your proclamation has given them the
lie, by showing you to be a commissioner without authority. Had your
powers been ever so great they were nothing to us, further than we
pleased; because we had the same right which other nations had, to
do what we thought was best. "The UNITED STATES of AMERICA," will
sound as pompously in the world or in history, as "the kingdom of
Great Britain"; the character of General Washington will fill a page
with as much lustre as that of Lord Howe: and the Congress have as
much right to command the king and Parliament in London to desist from
legislation, as they or you have to command the Congress. Only suppose
how laughable such an edict would appear from us, and then, in that
merry mood, do but turn the tables upon yourself, and you will see how
your proclamation is received here. Having thus placed you in a proper
position in which you may have a full view of your folly, and learn to
despise it, I hold up to you, for that purpose, the following
quotation from your own lunarian proclamation.- "And we (Lord Howe and
General Howe) do command (and in his majesty's name forsooth) all such
persons as are assembled together, under the name of general or
provincial congresses, committees, conventions or other
associations, by whatever name or names known and distinguished, to
desist and cease from all such treasonable actings and doings."
You introduce your proclamation by referring to your declarations of
the 14th of July and 19th of September. In the last of these you
sunk yourself below the character of a private gentleman. That I may
not seem to accuse you unjustly, I shall state the circumstance: by
a verbal invitation of yours, communicated to Congress by General
Sullivan, then a prisoner on his parole, you signified your desire
of conferring with some members of that body as private gentlemen.
It was beneath the dignity of the American Congress to pay any
regard to a message that at best was but a genteel affront, and had
too much of the ministerial complexion of tampering with private
persons; and which might probably have been the case, had the
gentlemen who were deputed on the business possessed that kind of easy
virtue which an English courtier is so truly distinguished by. Your
request, however, was complied with, for honest men are naturally more
tender of their civil than their political fame. The interview ended
as every sensible man thought it would; for your lordship knows, as
well as the writer of the Crisis, that it is impossible for the King
of England to promise the repeal, or even the revisal of any acts of
parliament; wherefore, on your part, you had nothing to say, more than
to request, in the room of demanding, the entire surrender of the
continent; and then, if that was complied with, to promise that the
inhabitants should escape with their lives. This was the upshot of the
conference. You informed the conferees that you were two months in
soliciting these powers. We ask, what powers? for as commissioner
you have none. If you mean the power of pardoning, it is an oblique
proof that your master was determined to sacrifice all before him; and
that you were two months in dissuading him from his purpose. Another
evidence of his savage obstinacy! From your own account of the
matter we may justly draw these two conclusions: 1st, That you serve a
monster; and 2d, That never was a messenger sent on a more foolish
errand than yourself. This plain language may perhaps sound
uncouthly to an ear vitiated by courtly refinements, but words were
made for use, and the fault lies in deserving them, or the abuse in
applying them unfairly.
Soon after your return to New York, you published a very illiberal
and unmanly handbill against the Congress; for it was certainly
stepping out of the line of common civility, first to screen your
national pride by soliciting an interview with them as private
gentlemen, and in the conclusion to endeavor to deceive the
multitude by making a handbill attack on the whole body of the
Congress; you got them together under one name, and abused them
under another. But the king you serve, and the cause you support,
afford you so few instances of acting the gentleman, that out of
pity to your situation the Congress pardoned the insult by taking no
notice of it.
You say in that handbill, "that they, the Congress, disavowed
every purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their
extravagant and inadmissible claim of independence." Why, God bless
me! what have you to do with our independence? We ask no leave of
yours to set it up; we ask no money of yours to support it; we can
do better without your fleets and armies than with them; you may
soon have enough to do to protect yourselves without being burdened
with us. We are very willing to be at peace with you, to buy of you
and sell to you, and, like young beginners in the world, to work for
our living; therefore, why do you put yourselves out of cash, when
we know you cannot spare it, and we do not desire you to run into
debt? I am willing, sir, that you should see your folly in every point
of view I can place it in, and for that reason descend sometimes to
tell you in jest what I wish you to see in earnest. But to be more
serious with you, why do you say, "their independence?" To set you
right, sir, we tell you, that the independency is ours, not theirs.
The Congress were authorized by every state on the continent to
publish it to all the world, and in so doing are not to be
considered as the inventors, but only as the heralds that proclaimed
it, or the office from which the sense of the people received a
legal form; and it was as much as any or all their heads were worth,
to have treated with you on the subject of submission under any name
whatever. But we know the men in whom we have trusted; can England say
the same of her Parliament?
I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th of
November last. Had you gained an entire conquest over all the armies
of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering (what you
call) mercy, your conduct would have had some specious show of
humanity; but to creep by surprise into a province, and there endeavor
to terrify and seduce the inhabitants from their just allegiance to
the rest by promises, which you neither meant nor were able to fulfil,
is both cruel and unmanly: cruel in its effects; because, unless you
can keep all the ground you have marched over, how are you, in the
words of your proclamation, to secure to your proselytes "the
enjoyment of their property?" What is to become either of your new
adopted subjects, or your old friends, the Tories, in Burlington,
Bordentown, Trenton, Mount Holly, and many other places, where you
proudly lorded it for a few days, and then fled with the precipitation
of a pursued thief? What, I say, is to become of those wretches?
What is to become of those who went over to you from this city and
State? What more can you say to them than "shift for yourselves?" Or
what more can they hope for than to wander like vagabonds over the
face of the earth? You may now tell them to take their leave of
America, and all that once was theirs. Recommend them, for
consolation, to your master's court; there perhaps they may make a
shift to live on the scraps of some dangling parasite, and choose
companions among thousands like themselves. A traitor is the foulest
fiend on earth.
In a political sense we ought to thank you for thus bequeathing
estates to the continent; we shall soon, at this rate, be able to
carry on a war without expense, and grow rich by the ill policy of
Lord Howe, and the generous defection of the Tories. Had you set
your foot into this city, you would have bestowed estates upon us
which we never thought of, by bringing forth traitors we were
unwilling to suspect. But these men, you'll say, "are his majesty's
most faithful subjects;" let that honor, then, be all their fortune,
and let his majesty take them to himself.
I am now thoroughly disgusted with them; they live in ungrateful
ease, and bend their whole minds to mischief. It seems as if God had
given them over to a spirit of infidelity, and that they are open to
conviction in no other line but that of punishment. It is time to have
done with tarring, feathering, carting, and taking securities for
their future good behavior; every sensible man must feel a conscious
shame at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a show about the streets,
when it is known he is only the tool of some principal villain,
biassed into his offence by the force of false reasoning, or bribed
thereto, through sad necessity. We dishonor ourselves by attacking
such trifling characters while greater ones are suffered to escape;
'tis our duty to find them out, and their proper punishment would be
to exile them from the continent for ever. The circle of them is not
so great as some imagine; the influence of a few have tainted many who
are not naturally corrupt. A continual circulation of lies among those
who are not much in the way of hearing them contradicted, will in time
pass for truth; and the crime lies not in the believer but the
inventor. I am not for declaring war with every man that appears not
so warm as myself: difference of constitution, temper, habit of
speaking, and many other things, will go a great way in fixing the
outward character of a man, yet simple honesty may remain at bottom.
Some men have naturally a military turn, and can brave hardships and
the risk of life with a cheerful face; others have not; no slavery
appears to them so great as the fatigue of arms, and no terror so
powerful as that of personal danger. What can we say? We cannot
alter nature, neither ought we to punish the son because the father
begot him in a cowardly mood. However, I believe most men have more
courage than they know of, and that a little at first is enough to
begin with. I knew the time when I thought that the whistling of a
cannon ball would have frightened me almost to death; but I have since
tried it, and find that I can stand it with as little discomposure,
and, I believe, with a much easier conscience than your lordship.
The same dread would return to me again were I in your situation,
for my solemn belief of your cause is, that it is hellish and
damnable, and, under that conviction, every thinking man's heart
must fail him.
From a concern that a good cause should be dishonored by the least
disunion among us, I said in my former paper, No. I. "That should
the enemy now be expelled, I wish, with all the sincerity of a
Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory might never more be
mentioned;" but there is a knot of men among us of such a venomous
cast, that they will not admit even one's good wishes to act in
their favor. Instead of rejoicing that heaven had, as it were,
providentially preserved this city from plunder and destruction, by
delivering so great a part of the enemy into our hands with so
little effusion of blood, they stubbornly affected to disbelieve it
till within an hour, nay, half an hour, of the prisoners arriving; and
the Quakers put forth a testimony, dated the 20th of December,
signed "John Pemberton," declaring their attachment to the British
government.* These men are continually harping on the great sin of our
bearing arms, but the king of Britain may lay waste the world in blood
and famine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say.

* I have ever been careful of charging offences upon whole societies
of men, but as the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown set of
men, who claim to themselves the right of representing the whole:
and while the whole Society of Quakers admit its validity by a
silent acknowledgment, it is impossible that any distinction can be
made by the public: and the more so, because the New York paper of the
30th of December, printed by permission of our enemies, says that "the
Quakers begin to speak openly of their attachment to the British
Constitution." We are certain that we have many friends among them,
and wish to know them.

In some future paper I intend to distinguish between the different
kind of persons who have been denominated Tories; for this I am
clear in, that all are not so who have been called so, nor all men
Whigs who were once thought so; and as I mean not to conceal the
name of any true friend when there shall be occasion to mention him,
neither will I that of an enemy, who ought to be known, let his
rank, station or religion be what it may. Much pains have been taken
by some to set your lordship's private character in an amiable
light, but as it has chiefly been done by men who know nothing about
you, and who are no ways remarkable for their attachment to us, we
have no just authority for believing it. George the Third has
imposed upon us by the same arts, but time, at length, has done him
justice, and the same fate may probably attend your lordship. You
avowed purpose here is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon, and enslave:
and the ravages of your army through the Jerseys have been marked with
as much barbarism as if you had openly professed yourself the prince
of ruffians; not even the appearance of humanity has been preserved
either on the march or the retreat of your troops; no general order
that I could ever learn, has ever been issued to prevent or even
forbid your troops from robbery, wherever they came, and the only
instance of justice, if it can be called such, which has distinguished
you for impartiality, is, that you treated and plundered all alike;
what could not be carried away has been destroyed, and mahogany
furniture has been deliberately laid on fire for fuel, rather than the
men should be fatigued with cutting wood.* There was a time when the
Whigs confided much in your supposed candor, and the Tories rested
themselves in your favor; the experiments have now been made, and
failed; in every town, nay, every cottage, in the Jerseys, where
your arms have been, is a testimony against you. How you may rest
under this sacrifice of character I know not; but this I know, that
you sleep and rise with the daily curses of thousands upon you;
perhaps the misery which the Tories have suffered by your proffered
mercy may give them some claim to their country's pity, and be in
the end the best favor you could show them.

* As some people may doubt the truth of such wanton destruction, I
think it necessary to inform them that one of the people called
Quakers, who lives at Trenton, gave me this information at the house
of Mr. Michael Hutchinson, (one of the same profession,) who lives
near Trenton ferry on the Pennsylvania side, Mr. Hutchinson being
present.

In a folio general-order book belonging to Col. Rhal's battalion,
taken at Trenton, and now in the possession of the council of safety
for this state, the following barbarous order is frequently
repeated, "His excellency the Commander-in-Chief orders, that all
inhabitants who shall be found with arms, not having an officer with
them, shall be immediately taken and hung up." How many you may thus
have privately sacrificed, we know not, and the account can only be
settled in another world. Your treatment of prisoners, in order to
distress them to enlist in your infernal service, is not to be
equalled by any instance in Europe. Yet this is the humane Lord Howe
and his brother, whom the Tories and their three-quarter kindred,
the Quakers, or some of them at least, have been holding up for
patterns of justice and mercy!
A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men; and
whoever will be at the pains of examining strictly into things, will
find that one and the same spirit of oppression and impiety, more or
less, governs through your whole party in both countries: not many
days ago, I accidentally fell in company with a person of this city
noted for espousing your cause, and on my remarking to him, "that it
appeared clear to me, by the late providential turn of affairs, that
God Almighty was visibly on our side," he replied, "We care nothing
for that you may have Him, and welcome; if we have but enough of the
devil on our side, we shall do." However carelessly this might be
spoken, matters not, 'tis still the insensible principle that
directs all your conduct and will at last most assuredly deceive and
ruin you.
If ever a nation was made and foolish, blind to its own interest and
bent on its own destruction, it is Britain. There are such things as
national sins, and though the punishment of individuals may be
reserved to another world, national punishment can only be inflicted
in this world. Britain, as a nation, is, in my inmost belief, the
greatest and most ungrateful offender against God on the face of the
whole earth. Blessed with all the commerce she could wish for, and
furnished, by a vast extension of dominion, with the means of
civilizing both the eastern and western world, she has made no other
use of both than proudly to idolize her own "thunder," and rip up
the bowels of whole countries for what she could get. Like
Alexander, she has made war her sport, and inflicted misery for
prodigality's sake. The blood of India is not yet repaid, nor the
wretchedness of Africa yet requited. Of late she has enlarged her list
of national cruelties by her butcherly destruction of the Caribbs of
St. Vincent's, and returning an answer by the sword to the meek prayer
for "Peace, liberty and safety." These are serious things, and
whatever a foolish tyrant, a debauched court, a trafficking
legislature, or a blinded people may think, the national account
with heaven must some day or other be settled: all countries have
sooner or later been called to their reckoning; the proudest empires
have sunk when the balance was struck; and Britain, like an individual
penitent, must undergo her day of sorrow, and the sooner it happens to
her the better. As I wish it over, I wish it to come, but withal
wish that it may be as light as possible.
Perhaps your lordship has no taste for serious things; by your
connections in England I should suppose not; therefore I shall drop
this part of the subject, and take it up in a line in which you will
better understand me.
By what means, may I ask, do you expect to conquer America? If you
could not effect it in the summer, when our army was less than
yours, nor in the winter, when we had none, how are you to do it? In
point of generalship you have been outwitted, and in point of
fortitude outdone; your advantages turn out to your loss, and show
us that it is in our power to ruin you by gifts: like a game of
drafts, we can move out of one square to let you come in, in order
that we may afterwards take two or three for one; and as we can always
keep a double corner for ourselves, we can always prevent a total
defeat. You cannot be so insensible as not to see that we have two
to one the advantage of you, because we conquer by a drawn game, and
you lose by it. Burgoyne might have taught your lordship this
knowledge; he has been long a student in the doctrine of chances.
I have no other idea of conquering countries than by subduing the
armies which defend them: have you done this, or can you do it? If you
have not, it would be civil in you to let your proclamations alone for
the present; otherwise, you will ruin more Tories by your grace and
favor, than you will Whigs by your arms.
Were you to obtain possession of this city, you would not know
what to do with it more than to plunder it. To hold it in the manner
you hold New York, would be an additional dead weight upon your hands;
and if a general conquest is your object, you had better be without
the city than with it. When you have defeated all our armies, the
cities will fall into your hands of themselves; but to creep into them
in the manner you got into Princeton, Trenton, &c. is like robbing
an orchard in the night before the fruit be ripe, and running away
in the morning. Your experiment in the Jerseys is sufficient to
teach you that you have something more to do than barely to get into
other people's houses; and your new converts, to whom you promised all
manner of protection, and seduced into new guilt by pardoning them
from their former virtues, must begin to have a very contemptible
opinion both of your power and your policy. Your authority in the
Jerseys is now reduced to the small circle which your army occupies,
and your proclamation is no where else seen unless it be to be laughed
at. The mighty subduers of the continent have retreated into a
nutshell, and the proud forgivers of our sins are fled from those they
came to pardon; and all this at a time when they were despatching
vessel after vessel to England with the great news of every day. In
short, you have managed your Jersey expedition so very dexterously,
that the dead only are conquerors, because none will dispute the
ground with them.
In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had
only armies to contend with; in this case you have both an army and
a country to combat with. In former wars, the countries followed the
fate of their capitals; Canada fell with Quebec, and Minorca with Port
Mahon or St. Phillips; by subduing those, the conquerors opened a
way into, and became masters of the country: here it is otherwise;
if you get possession of a city here, you are obliged to shut
yourselves up in it, and can make no other use of it, than to spend
your country's money in. This is all the advantage you have drawn from
New York; and you would draw less from Philadelphia, because it
requires more force to keep it, and is much further from the sea. A
pretty figure you and the Tories would cut in this city, with a
river full of ice, and a town full of fire; for the immediate
consequence of your getting here would be, that you would be
cannonaded out again, and the Tories be obliged to make good the
damage; and this sooner or later will be the fate of New York.
I wish to see the city saved, not so much from military as from
natural motives. 'Tis the hiding place of women and children, and Lord
Howe's proper business is with our armies. When I put all the
circumstances together which ought to be taken, I laugh at your notion
of conquering America. Because you lived in a little country, where an
army might run over the whole in a few days, and where a single
company of soldiers might put a multitude to the rout, you expected to
find it the same here. It is plain that you brought over with you
all the narrow notions you were bred up with, and imagined that a
proclamation in the king's name was to do great things; but Englishmen
always travel for knowledge, and your lordship, I hope, will return,
if you return at all, much wiser than you came.
We may be surprised by events we did not expect, and in that
interval of recollection you may gain some temporary advantage: such
was the case a few weeks ago, but we soon ripen again into reason,
collect our strength, and while you are preparing for a triumph, we
come upon you with a defeat. Such it has been, and such it would be
were you to try it a hundred times over. Were you to garrison the
places you might march over, in order to secure their subjection, (for
remember you can do it by no other means,) your army would be like a
stream of water running to nothing. By the time you extended from
New York to Virginia, you would be reduced to a string of drops not
capable of hanging together; while we, by retreating from State to
State, like a river turning back upon itself, would acquire strength
in the same proportion as you lost it, and in the end be capable of
overwhelming you. The country, in the meantime, would suffer, but it
is a day of suffering, and we ought to expect it. What we contend
for is worthy the affliction we may go through. If we get but bread to
eat, and any kind of raiment to put on, we ought not only to be
contented, but thankful. More than that we ought not to look for,
and less than that heaven has not yet suffered us to want. He that
would sell his birthright for a little salt, is as worthless as he who
sold it for pottage without salt; and he that would part with it for a
gay coat, or a plain coat, ought for ever to be a slave in buff.
What are salt, sugar and finery, to the inestimable blessings of
"Liberty and Safety!" Or what are the inconveniences of a few months
to the tributary bondage of ages? The meanest peasant in America,
blessed with these sentiments, is a happy man compared with a New York
Tory; he can eat his morsel without repining, and when he has done,
can sweeten it with a repast of wholesome air; he can take his child
by the hand and bless it, without feeling the conscious shame of
neglecting a parent's duty.
In publishing these remarks I have several objects in view.
On your part they are to expose the folly of your pretended
authority as a commissioner; the wickedness of your cause in
general; and the impossibility of your conquering us at any rate. On
the part of the public, my intention is, to show them their true and
sold interest; to encourage them to their own good, to remove the
fears and falsities which bad men have spread, and weak men have
encouraged; and to excite in all men a love for union, and a
cheerfulness for duty.
I shall submit one more case to you respecting your conquest of this
country, and then proceed to new observations.
Suppose our armies in every part of this continent were
immediately to disperse, every man to his home, or where else he might
be safe, and engage to reassemble again on a certain future day; it is
clear that you would then have no army to contend with, yet you
would be as much at a loss in that case as you are now; you would be
afraid to send your troops in parties over to the continent, either to
disarm or prevent us from assembling, lest they should not return; and
while you kept them together, having no arms of ours to dispute
with, you could not call it a conquest; you might furnish out a
pompous page in the London Gazette or a New York paper, but when we
returned at the appointed time, you would have the same work to do
that you had at first.
It has been the folly of Britain to suppose herself more powerful
than she really is, and by that means has arrogated to herself a
rank in the world she is not entitled to: for more than this century
past she has not been able to carry on a war without foreign
assistance. In Marlborough's campaigns, and from that day to this, the
number of German troops and officers assisting her have been about
equal with her own; ten thousand Hessians were sent to England last
war to protect her from a French invasion; and she would have cut
but a poor figure in her Canadian and West Indian expeditions, had not
America been lavish both of her money and men to help her along. The
only instance in which she was engaged singly, that I can recollect,
was against the rebellion in Scotland, in the years 1745 and 1746, and
in that, out of three battles, she was twice beaten, till by thus
reducing their numbers, (as we shall yours) and taking a supply ship
that was coming to Scotland with clothes, arms and money, (as we
have often done,) she was at last enabled to defeat them. England
was never famous by land; her officers have generally been suspected
of cowardice, have more of the air of a dancing-master than a soldier,
and by the samples which we have taken prisoners, we give the
preference to ourselves. Her strength, of late, has lain in her
extravagance; but as her finances and credit are now low, her sinews
in that line begin to fail fast. As a nation she is the poorest in
Europe; for were the whole kingdom, and all that is in it, to be put
up for sale like the estate of a bankrupt, it would not fetch as
much as she owes; yet this thoughtless wretch must go to war, and with
the avowed design, too, of making us beasts of burden, to support
her in riot and debauchery, and to assist her afterwards in
distressing those nations who are now our best friends. This
ingratitude may suit a Tory, or the unchristian peevishness of a
fallen Quaker, but none else.
'Tis the unhappy temper of the English to be pleased with any war,
right or wrong, be it but successful; but they soon grow
discontented with ill fortune, and it is an even chance that they
are as clamorous for peace next summer, as the king and his
ministers were for war last winter. In this natural view of things,
your lordship stands in a very critical situation: your whole
character is now staked upon your laurels; if they wither, you
wither with them; if they flourish, you cannot live long to look at
them; and at any rate, the black account hereafter is not far off.
What lately appeared to us misfortunes, were only blessings in
disguise; and the seeming advantages on your side have turned out to
our profit. Even our loss of this city, as far as we can see, might be
a principal gain to us: the more surface you spread over, the
thinner you will be, and the easier wiped away; and our consolation
under that apparent disaster would be, that the estates of the
Tories would become securities for the repairs. In short, there is
no old ground we can fail upon, but some new foundation rises again to
support us. "We have put, sir, our hands to the plough, and cursed
be he that looketh back."
Your king, in his speech to parliament last spring, declared,
"That he had no doubt but the great force they had enabled him to send
to America, would effectually reduce the rebellious colonies." It
has not, neither can it; but it has done just enough to lay the
foundation of its own next year's ruin. You are sensible that you left
England in a divided, distracted state of politics, and, by the
command you had here, you became a principal prop in the court
party; their fortunes rest on yours; by a single express you can fix
their value with the public, and the degree to which their spirits
shall rise or fall; they are in your hands as stock, and you have
the secret of the alley with you. Thus situated and connected, you
become the unintentional mechanical instrument of your own and their
overthrow. The king and his ministers put conquest out of doubt, and
the credit of both depended on the proof. To support them in the
interim, it was necessary that you should make the most of every
thing, and we can tell by Hugh Gaine's New York paper what the
complexion of the London Gazette is. With such a list of victories the
nation cannot expect you will ask new supplies; and to confess your
want of them would give the lie to your triumphs, and impeach the king
and his ministers of treasonable deception. If you make the
necessary demand at home, your party sinks; if you make it not, you
sink yourself; to ask it now is too late, and to ask it before was too
soon, and unless it arrive quickly will be of no use. In short, the
part you have to act, cannot be acted; and I am fully persuaded that
all you have to trust to is, to do the best you can with what force
you have got, or little more. Though we have greatly exceeded you in
point of generalship and bravery of men, yet, as a people, we have not
entered into the full soul of enterprise; for I, who know England
and the disposition of the people well, am confident, that it is
easier for us to effect a revolution there, than you a conquest
here; a few thousand men landed in England with the declared design of
deposing the present king, bringing his ministers to trial, and
setting up the Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly
carry their point, while you are grovelling here, ignorant of the
matter. As I send all my papers to England, this, like Common Sense,
will find its way there; and though it may put one party on their
guard, it will inform the other, and the nation in general, of our
design to help them.
Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of present
affairs: you may draw from it what conclusions you please. I wish as
well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I consider
INDEPENDENCE as America's natural right and interest, and never
could see any real disservice it would be to Britain. If an English
merchant receives an order, and is paid for it, it signifies nothing
to him who governs the country. This is my creed of politics. If I
have any where expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed,
immovable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel
measures. I have likewise an aversion to monarchy, as being too
debasing to the dignity of man; but I never troubled others with my
notions till very lately, nor ever published a syllable in England
in my life. What I write is pure nature, and my pen and my soul have
ever gone together. My writings I have always given away, reserving
only the expense of printing and paper, and sometimes not even that. I
never courted either fame or interest, and my manner of life, to those
who know it, will justify what I say. My study is to be useful, and if
your lordship loves mankind as well as I do, you would, seeing you
cannot conquer us, cast about and lend your hand towards accomplishing
a peace. Our independence with God's blessing we will maintain against
all the world; but as we wish to avoid evil ourselves, we wish not
to inflict it on others. I am never over-inquisitive into the
secrets of the cabinet, but I have some notion that, if you neglect
the present opportunity, it will not be in our power to make a
separate peace with you afterwards; for whatever treaties or alliances
we form, we shall most faithfully abide by; wherefore you may be
deceived if you think you can make it with us at any time. A lasting
independent peace is my wish, end and aim; and to accomplish that, I
pray God the Americans may never be defeated, and I trust while they
have good officers, and are well commanded, and willing to be
commanded, that they NEVER WILL BE.

COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 1777.
III.

IN THE progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life,
we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but
frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. We expend, if I
may so say, the knowledge of every day on the circumstances that
produce it, and journey on in search of new matter and new
refinements: but as it is pleasant and sometimes useful to look
back, even to the first periods of infancy, and trace the turns and
windings through which we have passed, so we may likewise derive
many advantages by halting a while in our political career, and taking
a review of the wondrous complicated labyrinth of little more than
yesterday.
Truly may we say, that never did men grow old in so short a time! We
have crowded the business of an age into the compass of a few
months, and have been driven through such a rapid succession of
things, that for the want of leisure to think, we unavoidably wasted
knowledge as we came, and have left nearly as much behind us as we
brought with us: but the road is yet rich with the fragments, and,
before we finally lose sight of them, will repay us for the trouble of
stopping to pick them up.
Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable
of forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos:
he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not
knowing how the world went in his absence, he would be at a loss to
know how it ought to go on when he recovered, or rather, returned to
it again. In like manner, though in a less degree, a too great
inattention to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment
in everything; while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past
with what is present, we frequently hit on the true character of both,
and become wise with very little trouble. It is a kind of
counter-march, by which we get into the rear of time, and mark the
movements and meaning of things as we make our return. There are
certain circumstances, which, at the time of their happening, are a
kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be followed by its
answer, so those kind of circumstances will be followed by their
events, and those events are always the true solution. A
considerable space of time may lapse between, and unless we continue
our observations from the one to the other, the harmony of them will
pass away unnoticed: but the misfortune is, that partly from the
pressing necessity of some instant things, and partly from the
impatience of our own tempers, we are frequently in such a hurry to
make out the meaning of everything as fast as it happens, that we
thereby never truly understand it; and not only start new difficulties
to ourselves by so doing, but, as it were, embarrass Providence in her
good designs.
I have been civil in stating this fault on a large scale, for, as it
now stands, it does not appear to be levelled against any particular
set of men; but were it to be refined a little further, it might
afterwards be applied to the Tories with a degree of striking
propriety: those men have been remarkable for drawing sudden
conclusions from single facts. The least apparent mishap on our
side, or the least seeming advantage on the part of the enemy, have
determined with them the fate of a whole campaign. By this hasty
judgment they have converted a retreat into a defeat; mistook
generalship for error; while every little advantage purposely given
the enemy, either to weaken their strength by dividing it, embarrass
their councils by multiplying their objects, or to secure a greater
post by the surrender of a less, has been instantly magnified into a
conquest. Thus, by quartering ill policy upon ill principles, they
have frequently promoted the cause they designed to injure, and
injured that which they intended to promote.
It is probable the campaign may open before this number comes from
the press. The enemy have long lain idle, and amused themselves with
carrying on the war by proclamations only. While they continue their
delay our strength increases, and were they to move to action now,
it is a circumstantial proof that they have no reinforcement coming;
wherefore, in either case, the comparative advantage will be ours.
Like a wounded, disabled whale, they want only time and room to die
in; and though in the agony of their exit, it may be unsafe to live
within the flapping of their tail, yet every hour shortens their date,
and lessens their power of mischief. If any thing happens while this
number is in the press, it will afford me a subject for the last pages
of it. At present I am tired of waiting; and as neither the enemy, nor
the state of politics have yet produced any thing new, I am thereby
left in the field of general matter, undirected by any striking or
particular object. This Crisis, therefore, will be made up rather of
variety than novelty, and consist more of things useful than things
wonderful.
The success of the cause, the union of the people, and the means
of supporting and securing both, are points which cannot be too much
attended to. He who doubts of the former is a desponding coward, and
he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a traitor. Their characters are
easily fixed, and under these short descriptions I leave them for
the present.
One of the greatest degrees of sentimental union which America
ever knew, was in denying the right of the British parliament "to bind
the colonies in all cases whatsoever." The Declaration is, in its
form, an almighty one, and is the loftiest stretch of arbitrary
power that ever one set of men or one country claimed over another.
Taxation was nothing more than the putting the declared right into
practice; and this failing, recourse was had to arms, as a means to
establish both the right and the practice, or to answer a worse
purpose, which will be mentioned in the course of this number. And
in order to repay themselves the expense of an army, and to profit
by their own injustice, the colonies were, by another law, declared to
be in a state of actual rebellion, and of consequence all property
therein would fall to the conquerors.
The colonies, on their part, first, denied the right; secondly, they
suspended the use of taxable articles, and petitioned against the
practice of taxation: and these failing, they, thirdly, defended their
property by force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded, and, in
answer to the declaration of rebellion and non-protection, published
their Declaration of Independence and right of self-protection.
These, in a few words, are the different stages of the quarrel;
and the parts are so intimately and necessarily connected with each
other as to admit of no separation. A person, to use a trite phrase,
must be a Whig or a Tory in a lump. His feelings, as a man, may be
wounded; his charity, as a Christian, may be moved; but his
political principles must go through all the cases on one side or
the other. He cannot be a Whig in this stage, and a Tory in that. If
he says he is against the united independence of the continent, he
is to all intents and purposes against her in all the rest; because
this last comprehends the whole. And he may just as well say, that
Britain was right in declaring us rebels; right in taxing us; and
right in declaring her "right to bind the colonies in all cases
whatsoever." It signifies nothing what neutral ground, of his own
creating, he may skulk upon for shelter, for the quarrel in no stage
of it hath afforded any such ground; and either we or Britain are
absolutely right or absolutely wrong through the whole.
Britain, like a gamester nearly ruined, has now put all her losses
into one bet, and is playing a desperate game for the total. If she
wins it, she wins from me my life; she wins the continent as the
forfeited property of rebels; the right of taxing those that are
left as reduced subjects; and the power of binding them slaves: and
the single die which determines this unparalleled event is, whether we
support our independence or she overturn it. This is coming to the
point at once. Here is the touchstone to try men by. He that is not
a supporter of the independent States of America in the same degree
that his religious and political principles would suffer him to
support the government of any other country, of which he called
himself a subject, is, in the American sense of the word, A TORY;
and the instant that he endeavors to bring his toryism into
practice, he becomes A TRAITOR. The first can only be detected by a
general test, and the law hath already provided for the latter.
It is unnatural and impolitic to admit men who would root up our
independence to have any share in our legislation, either as
electors or representatives; because the support of our independence
rests, in a great measure, on the vigor and purity of our public
bodies. Would Britain, even in time of peace, much less in war, suffer
an election to be carried by men who professed themselves to be not
her subjects, or allow such to sit in Parliament? Certainly not.
But there are a certain species of Tories with whom conscience or
principle has nothing to do, and who are so from avarice only. Some of
the first fortunes on the continent, on the part of the Whigs, are
staked on the issue of our present measures. And shall disaffection
only be rewarded with security? Can any thing be a greater
inducement to a miserly man, than the hope of making his Mammon
safe? And though the scheme be fraught with every character of
folly, yet, so long as he supposes, that by doing nothing materially
criminal against America on one part, and by expressing his private
disapprobation against independence, as palliative with the enemy,
on the other part, he stands in a safe line between both; while, I
say, this ground be suffered to remain, craft, and the spirit of
avarice, will point it out, and men will not be wanting to fill up
this most contemptible of all characters.
These men, ashamed to own the sordid cause from whence their
disaffection springs, add thereby meanness to meanness, by endeavoring
to shelter themselves under the mask of hypocrisy; that is, they had
rather be thought to be Tories from some kind of principle, than
Tories by having no principle at all. But till such time as they can
show some real reason, natural, political, or conscientious, on
which their objections to independence are founded, we are not obliged
to give them credit for being Tories of the first stamp, but must
set them down as Tories of the last.
In the second number of the Crisis, I endeavored to show the
impossibility of the enemy's making any conquest of America, that
nothing was wanting on our part but patience and perseverance, and
that, with these virtues, our success, as far as human speculation
could discern, seemed as certain as fate. But as there are many
among us, who, influenced by others, have regularly gone back from the
principles they once held, in proportion as we have gone forward;
and as it is the unfortunate lot of many a good man to live within the
neighborhood of disaffected ones; I shall, therefore, for the sake
of confirming the one and recovering the other, endeavor, in the space
of a page or two, to go over some of the leading principles in support
of independence. It is a much pleasanter task to prevent vice than
to punish it, and, however our tempers may be gratified by resentment,
or our national expenses eased by forfeited estates, harmony and
friendship is, nevertheless, the happiest condition a country can be
blessed with.
The principal arguments in support of independence may be
comprehended under the four following heads.
1st, The natural right of the continent to independence.
2d, Her interest in being independent.
3d, The necessity,- and
4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.
I. The natural right of the continent to independence, is a point
which never yet was called in question. It will not even admit of a
debate. To deny such a right, would be a kind of atheism against
nature: and the best answer to such an objection would be, "The fool
hath said in his heart there is no God."
II. The interest of the continent in being independent is a point as
clearly right as the former. America, by her own internal industry,
and unknown to all the powers of Europe, was, at the beginning of
the dispute, arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade and population,
beyond which it was the interest of Britain not to suffer her to pass,
lest she should grow too powerful to be kept subordinate. She began to
view this country with the same uneasy malicious eye, with which a
covetous guardian would view his ward, whose estate he had been
enriching himself by for twenty years, and saw him just arriving at
manhood. And America owes no more to Britain for her present maturity,
than the ward would to the guardian for being twenty-one years of age.
That America hath flourished at the time she was under the
government of Britain, is true; but there is every natural reason to
believe, that had she been an independent country from the first
settlement thereof, uncontrolled by any foreign power, free to make
her own laws, regulate and encourage her own commerce, she had by this
time been of much greater worth than now. The case is simply this: the
first settlers in the different colonies were left to shift for
themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any European government;
but as the tyranny and persecution of the old world daily drove
numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of heaven on their industry
and perseverance, they grew into importance, so, in a like degree,
they became an object of profit to the greedy eyes of Europe. It was
impossible, in this state of infancy, however thriving and
promising, that they could resist the power of any armed invader
that should seek to bring them under his authority. In this situation,
Britain thought it worth her while to claim them, and the continent
received and acknowledged the claimer. It was, in reality, of no
very great importance who was her master, seeing, that from the
force and ambition of the different powers of Europe, she must, till
she acquired strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some
one. As well, perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as
well to have been under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes
of engrossing and profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too
much, would have operated alike with any master, and produced to the
colonies the same effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all
a farce; because, in order to make that protection necessary, she must
first, by her own quarrels, create us enemies. Hard terms indeed!
To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be
independent, we need only ask this easy, simple question: Is it the
interest of a man to be a boy all his life? The answer to one will
be the answer to both. America hath been one continued scene of
legislative contention from the first king's representative to the
last; and this was unavoidably founded in the natural opposition of
interest between the old country and the new. A governor sent from
England, or receiving his authority therefrom, ought never to have
been considered in any other light than that of a genteel commissioned
spy, whose private business was information, and his public business a
kind of civilized oppression. In the first of these characters he
was to watch the tempers, sentiments, and disposition of the people,
the growth of trade, and the increase of private fortunes; and, in the
latter, to suppress all such acts of the assemblies, however
beneficial to the people, which did not directly or indirectly throw
some increase of power or profit into the hands of those that sent
him.
America, till now, could never be called a free country, because her
legislation depended on the will of a man three thousand miles
distant, whose interest was in opposition to ours, and who, by a
single "no," could forbid what law he pleased.
The freedom of trade, likewise, is, to a trading country, an article
of such importance, that the principal source of wealth depends upon
it; and it is impossible that any country can flourish, as it
otherwise might do, whose commerce is engrossed, cramped and
fettered by the laws and mandates of another- yet these evils, and
more than I can here enumerate, the continent has suffered by being
under the government of England. By an independence we clear the whole
at once- put an end to the business of unanswered petitions and
fruitless remonstrances- exchange Britain for Europe- shake hands with
the world- live at peace with the world- and trade to any market where
we can buy and sell.
III. The necessity, likewise, of being independent, even before it
was declared, became so evident and important, that the continent
ran the risk of being ruined every day that she delayed it. There
was reason to believe that Britain would endeavor to make an
European matter of it, and, rather than lose the whole, would
dismember it, like Poland, and dispose of her several claims to the
highest bidder. Genoa, failing in her attempts to reduce Corsica, made
a sale of it to the French, and such trafficks have been common in the
old world. We had at that time no ambassador in any part of Europe, to
counteract her negotiations, and by that means she had the range of
every foreign court uncontradicted on our part. We even knew nothing
of the treaty for the Hessians till it was concluded, and the troops
ready to embark. Had we been independent before, we had probably
prevented her obtaining them. We had no credit abroad, because of
our rebellious dependency. Our ships could claim no protection in
foreign ports, because we afforded them no justifiable reason for
granting it to us. The calling ourselves subjects, and at the same
time fighting against the power which we acknowledged, was a dangerous
precedent to all Europe. If the grievances justified the taking up
arms, they justified our separation; if they did not justify our
separation, neither could they justify our taking up arms. All
Europe was interested in reducing us as rebels, and all Europe (or the
greatest part at least) is interested in supporting us as
independent States. At home our condition was still worse: our
currency had no foundation, and the fall of it would have ruined
Whig and Tory alike. We had no other law than a kind of moderated
passion; no other civil power than an honest mob; and no other
protection than the temporary attachment of one man to another. Had
independence been delayed a few months longer, this continent would
have been plunged into irrecoverable confusion: some violent for it,
some against it, till, in the general cabal, the rich would have
been ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to independence that
every Tory owes the present safety which he lives in; for by that, and
that only, we emerged from a state of dangerous suspense, and became a
regular people.
The necessity, likewise, of being independent, had there been no
rupture between Britain and America, would, in a little time, have
brought one on. The increasing importance of commerce, the weight
and perplexity of legislation, and the entangled state of European
politics, would daily have shown to the continent the impossibility of
continuing subordinate; for, after the coolest reflections on the
matter, this must be allowed, that Britain was too jealous of
America to govern it justly; too ignorant of it to govern it well; and
too far distant from it to govern it at all.
IV. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are,
the moral advantages arising from independence: war and desolation
have become the trade of the old world; and America neither could
nor can be under the government of Britain without becoming a sharer
of her guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death. The
spirit of duelling, extended on a national scale, is a proper
character for European wars. They have seldom any other motive than
pride, or any other object than fame. The conquerors and the conquered
are generally ruined alike, and the chief difference at last is,
that the one marches home with his honors, and the other without them.
'Tis the natural temper of the English to fight for a feather, if they
suppose that feather to be an affront; and America, without the
right of asking why, must have abetted in every quarrel, and abided by
its fate. It is a shocking situation to live in, that one country must
be brought into all the wars of another, whether the measure be
right or wrong, or whether she will or not; yet this, in the fullest
extent, was, and ever would be, the unavoidable consequence of the
connection. Surely the Quakers forgot their own principles when, in
their late Testimony, they called this connection, with these military
and miserable appendages hanging to it- "the happy constitution."
Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly fifty years out of
every hundred at war with some power or other. It certainly ought to
be a conscientious as well political consideration with America, not
to dip her hands in the bloody work of Europe. Our situation affords
us a retreat from their cabals, and the present happy union of the
states bids fair for extirpating the future use of arms from one
quarter of the world; yet such have been the irreligious politics of
the present leaders of the Quakers, that, for the sake of they
scarce know what, they would cut off every hope of such a blessing
by tying this continent to Britain, like Hector to the chariot wheel
of Achilles, to be dragged through all the miseries of endless
European wars.
The connection, viewed from this ground, is distressing to every man
who has the feelings of humanity. By having Britain for our master, we
became enemies to the greatest part of Europe, and they to us: and the
consequence was war inevitable. By being our own masters,
independent of any foreign one, we have Europe for our friends, and
the prospect of an endless peace among ourselves. Those who were
advocates for the British government over these colonies, were obliged
to limit both their arguments and their ideas to the period of an
European peace only; the moment Britain became plunged in war, every
supposed convenience to us vanished, and all we could hope for was not
to be ruined. Could this be a desirable condition for a young
country to be in?
Had the French pursued their fortune immediately after the defeat of
Braddock last war, this city and province had then experienced the
woful calamities of being a British subject. A scene of the same
kind might happen again; for America, considered as a subject to the
crown of Britain, would ever have been the seat of war, and the bone
of contention between the two powers.
On the whole, if the future expulsion of arms from one quarter of
the world would be a desirable object to a peaceable man; if the
freedom of trade to every part of it can engage the attention of a man
of business; if the support or fall of millions of currency can affect
our interests; if the entire possession of estates, by cutting off the
lordly claims of Britain over the soil, deserves the regard of
landed property; and if the right of making our own laws, uncontrolled
by royal or ministerial spies or mandates, be worthy our care as
freemen;- then are all men interested in the support of
independence; and may he that supports it not, be driven from the
blessing, and live unpitied beneath the servile sufferings of
scandalous subjection!
We have been amused with the tales of ancient wonders; we have read,
and wept over the histories of other nations: applauded, censured,
or pitied, as their cases affected us. The fortitude and patience of
the sufferers- the justness of their cause- the weight of their
oppressions and oppressors- the object to be saved or lost- with all
the consequences of a defeat or a conquest- have, in the hour of
sympathy, bewitched our hearts, and chained it to their fate: but
where is the power that ever made war upon petitioners? Or where is
the war on which a world was staked till now?
We may not, perhaps, be wise enough to make all the advantages we
ought of our independence; but they are, nevertheless, marked and
presented to us with every character of great and good, and worthy the
hand of him who sent them. I look through the present trouble to a
time of tranquillity, when we shall have it in our power to set an
example of peace to all the world. Were the Quakers really impressed
and influenced by the quiet principles they profess to hold, they
would, however they might disapprove the means, be the first of all
men to approve of independence, because, by separating ourselves
from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never
given to man before of carrying their favourite principle of peace
into general practice, by establishing governments that shall
hereafter exist without wars. O! ye fallen, cringing,
priest-and-Pemberton-ridden people! What more can we say of ye than
that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a political
Quaker a real Jesuit.
Having thus gone over some of the principal points in support of
independence, I must now request the reader to return back with me
to the period when it first began to be a public doctrine, and to
examine the progress it has made among the various classes of men. The
area I mean to begin at, is the breaking out of hostilities, April
19th, 1775. Until this event happened, the continent seemed to view
the dispute as a kind of law-suit for a matter of right, litigating
between the old country and the new; and she felt the same kind and
degree of horror, as if she had seen an oppressive plaintiff, at the
head of a band of ruffians, enter the court, while the cause was
before it, and put the judge, the jury, the defendant and his counsel,
to the sword. Perhaps a more heart-felt convulsion never reached a
country with the same degree of power and rapidity before, and never
may again. Pity for the sufferers, mixed with indignation at the
violence, and heightened with apprehensions of undergoing the same
fate, made the affair of Lexington the affair of the continent.
Every part of it felt the shock, and all vibrated together. A
general promotion of sentiment took place: those who had drank
deeply into Whiggish principles, that is, the right and necessity
not only of opposing, but wholly setting aside the power of the
crown as soon as it became practically dangerous (for in theory it was
always so), stepped into the first stage of independence; while
another class of Whigs, equally sound in principle, but not so
sanguine in enterprise, attached themselves the stronger to the cause,
and fell close in with the rear of the former; their partition was a
mere point. Numbers of the moderate men, whose chief fault, at that
time, arose from entertaining a better opinion of Britain than she
deserved, convinced now of their mistake, gave her up, and publicly
declared themselves good Whigs. While the Tories, seeing it was no
longer a laughing matter, either sank into silent obscurity, or
contented themselves with coming forth and abusing General Gage: not a
single advocate appeared to justify the action of that day; it
seemed to appear to every one with the same magnitude, struck every
one with the same force, and created in every one the same abhorrence.
From this period we may date the growth of independence.
If the many circumstances which happened at this memorable time,
be taken in one view, and compared with each other, they will
justify a conclusion which seems not to have been attended to, I
mean a fixed design in the king and ministry of driving America into
arms, in order that they might be furnished with a pretence for
seizing the whole continent, as the immediate property of the crown. A
noble plunder for hungry courtiers!
It ought to be remembered, that the first petition from the Congress
was at this time unanswered on the part of the British king. That
the motion, called Lord North's motion, of the 20th of February, 1775,
arrived in America the latter end of March. This motion was to be
laid, by the several governors then in being, before, the assembly
of each province; and the first assembly before which it was laid, was
the assembly of Pennsylvania, in May following. This being a just
state of the case, I then ask, why were hostilities commenced
between the time of passing the resolve in the House of Commons, of
the 20th of February, and the time of the assemblies meeting to
deliberate upon it? Degrading and famous as that motion was, there
is nevertheless reason to believe that the king and his adherents were
afraid the colonies would agree to it, and lest they should, took
effectual care they should not, by provoking them with hostilities
in the interim. They had not the least doubt at that time of
conquering America at one blow; and what they expected to get by a
conquest being infinitely greater than any thing they could hope to
get either by taxation or accommodation, they seemed determined to
prevent even the possibility of hearing each other, lest America
should disappoint their greedy hopes of the whole, by listening even
to their own terms. On the one hand they refused to hear the
petition of the continent, and on the other hand took effectual care
the continent should not hear them.
That the motion of the 20th February and the orders for commencing
hostilities were both concerted by the same person or persons, and not
the latter by General Gage, as was falsely imagined at first, is
evident from an extract of a letter of his to the administration, read
among other papers in the House of Commons; in which he informs his
masters, "That though their idea of his disarming certain counties was
a right one, yet it required him to be master of the country, in order
to enable him to execute it." This was prior to the commencement of
hostilities, and consequently before the motion of the 20th February
could be deliberated on by the several assemblies.
Perhaps it may be asked, why was the motion passed, if there was
at the same time a plan to aggravate the Americans not to listen to
it? Lord North assigned one reason himself, which was a hope of
dividing them. This was publicly tempting them to reject it; that
if, in case the injury of arms should fail in provoking them
sufficiently, the insult of such a declaration might fill it up. But
by passing the motion and getting it afterwards rejected in America,
it enabled them, in their wicked idea of politics, among other things,
to hold up the colonies to foreign powers, with every possible mark of
disobedience and rebellion. They had applied to those powers not to
supply the continent with arms, ammunition, etc., and it was necessary
they should incense them against us, by assigning on their own part
some seeming reputable reason why. By dividing, it had a tendency to
weaken the States, and likewise to perplex the adherents of America in
England. But the principal scheme, and that which has marked their
character in every part of their conduct, was a design of
precipitating the colonies into a state which they might afterwards
deem rebellion, and, under that pretence, put an end to all future
complaints, petitions and remonstrances, by seizing the whole at once.
They had ravaged one part of the globe, till it could glut them no
longer; their prodigality required new plunder, and through the East
India article tea they hoped to transfer their rapine from that
quarter of the world to this. Every designed quarrel had its pretence;
and the same barbarian avarice accompanied the plant to America, which
ruined the country that produced it.
That men never turn rogues without turning fools is a maxim,
sooner or later, universally true. The commencement of hostilities,
being in the beginning of April, was, of all times the worst chosen:
the Congress were to meet the tenth of May following, and the distress
the continent felt at this unparalleled outrage gave a stability to
that body which no other circumstance could have done. It suppressed
too all inferior debates, and bound them together by a necessitous
affection, without giving them time to differ upon trifles. The
suffering likewise softened the whole body of the people into a degree
of pliability, which laid the principal foundation-stone of union,
order, and government; and which, at any other time, might only have
fretted and then faded away unnoticed and unimproved. But
Providence, who best knows how to time her misfortunes as well as
her immediate favors, chose this to be the time, and who dare
dispute it?
It did not seem the disposition of the people, at this crisis, to
heap petition upon petition, while the former remained unanswered. The
measure however was carried in Congress, and a second petition was
sent; of which I shall only remark that it was submissive even to a
dangerous fault, because the prayer of it appealed solely to what it
called the prerogative of the crown, while the matter in dispute was
confessedly constitutional. But even this petition, flattering as it
was, was still not so harmonious as the chink of cash, and
consequently not sufficiently grateful to the tyrant and his ministry.
From every circumstance it is evident, that it was the determination
of the British court to have nothing to do with America but to conquer
her fully and absolutely. They were certain of success, and the
field of battle was the only place of treaty. I am confident there are
thousands and tens of thousands in America who wonder now that they
should ever have thought otherwise; but the sin of that day was the
sin of civility; yet it operated against our present good in the
same manner that a civil opinion of the devil would against our future
peace.
Independence was a doctrine scarce and rare, even towards the
conclusion of the year 1775; all our politics had been founded on
the hope of expectation of making the matter up- a hope, which, though
general on the side of America, had never entered the head or heart of
the British court. Their hope was conquest and confiscation. Good
heavens! what volumes of thanks does America owe to Britain? What
infinite obligation to the tool that fills, with paradoxical
vacancy, the throne! Nothing but the sharpest essence of villany,
compounded with the strongest distillation of folly, could have
produced a menstruum that would have effected a separation. The
Congress in 1774 administered an abortive medicine to independence, by
prohibiting the importation of goods, and the succeeding Congress
rendered the dose still more dangerous by continuing it. Had
independence been a settled system with America, (as Britain has
advanced,) she ought to have doubled her importation, and prohibited
in some degree her exportation. And this single circumstance is
sufficient to acquit America before any jury of nations, of having a
continental plan of independence in view; a charge which, had it
been true, would have been honorable, but is so grossly false, that
either the amazing ignorance or the wilful dishonesty of the British
court is effectually proved by it.
The second petition, like the first, produced no answer; it was
scarcely acknowledged to have been received; the British court were
too determined in their villainy even to act it artfully, and in their
rage for conquest neglected the necessary subtleties for obtaining it.
They might have divided, distracted and played a thousand tricks
with us, had they been as cunning as they were cruel.
This last indignity gave a new spring to independence. Those who
knew the savage obstinacy of the king, and the jobbing, gambling
spirit of the court, predicted the fate of the petition, as soon as it
was sent from America; for the men being known, their measures were
easily foreseen. As politicians we ought not so much to ground our
hopes on the reasonableness of the thing we ask, as on the
reasonableness of the person of whom we ask it: who would expect
discretion from a fool, candor from a tyrant, or justice from a
villain?
As every prospect of accommodation seemed now to fail fast, men
began to think seriously on the matter; and their reason being thus
stripped of the false hope which had long encompassed it, became
approachable by fair debate: yet still the bulk of the people
hesitated; they startled at the novelty of independence, without
once considering that our getting into arms at first was a more
extraordinary novelty, and that all other nations had gone through the
work of independence before us. They doubted likewise the ability of
the continent to support it, without reflecting that it required the
same force to obtain an accommodation by arms as an independence. If
the one was acquirable, the other was the same; because, to accomplish
either, it was necessary that our strength should be too great for
Britain to subdue; and it was too unreasonable to suppose, that with
the power of being masters, we should submit to be servants.* Their
caution at this time was exceedingly misplaced; for if they were
able to defend their property and maintain their rights by arms, they,
consequently, were able to defend and support their independence;
and in proportion as these men saw the necessity and correctness of
the measure, they honestly and openly declared and adopted it, and the
part that they had acted since has done them honor and fully
established their characters. Error in opinion has this peculiar
advantage with it, that the foremost point of the contrary ground
may at any time be reached by the sudden exertion of a thought; and it
frequently happens in sentimental differences, that some striking
circumstance, or some forcible reason quickly conceived, will effect
in an instant what neither argument nor example could produce in an
age.

* In this state of political suspense the pamphlet Common Sense made
its appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to
mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel and John Adams, were severally
spoken of as the supposed author. I had not, at that time, the
pleasure either of personally knowing or being known to the two last
gentlemen. The favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in
England, and my introduction to this part of the world was through his
patronage. I happened, when a school-boy, to pick up a pleasing
natural history of Virginia, and my inclination from that day of
seeing the western side of the Atlantic never left me. In October,
1775, Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as were in his
hands, towards completing a history of the present transactions, and
seemed desirous of having the first volume out the next Spring. I
had then formed the outlines of Common Sense, and finished nearly
the first part; and as I supposed the doctor's design in getting out a
history was to open the new year with a new system, I expected to
surprise him with a production on that subject, much earlier than he
thought of; and without informing him what I was doing, got it ready
for the press as fast as I conveniently could, and sent him the
first pamphlet that was printed off.

I find it impossible in the small compass I am limited to, to
trace out the progress which independence has made on the minds of the
different classes of men, and the several reasons by which they were
moved. With some, it was a passionate abhorrence against the king of
England and his ministry, as a set of savages and brutes; and these
men, governed by the agony of a wounded mind, were for trusting
every thing to hope and heaven, and bidding defiance at once. With
others, it was a growing conviction that the scheme of the British
court was to create, ferment and drive on a quarrel, for the sake of
confiscated plunder: and men of this class ripened into independence
in proportion as the evidence increased. While a third class conceived
it was the true interest of America, internally and externally, to
be her own master, and gave their support to independence, step by
step, as they saw her abilities to maintain it enlarge. With many,
it was a compound of all these reasons; while those who were too
callous to be reached by either, remained, and still remain Tories.
The legal necessity of being independent, with several collateral
reasons, is pointed out in an elegant masterly manner, in a charge
to the grand jury for the district of Charleston, by the Hon.
William Henry Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina, [April 23,
1776]. This performance, and the address of the convention of New
York, are pieces, in my humble opinion, of the first rank in America.
The principal causes why independence has not been so universally
supported as it ought, are fear and indolence, and the causes why it
has been opposed, are, avarice, down-right villany, and lust of
personal power. There is not such a being in America as a Tory from
conscience; some secret defect or other is interwoven in the character
of all those, be they men or women, who can look with patience on
the brutality, luxury and debauchery of the British court, and the
violations of their army here. A woman's virtue must sit very
lightly on her who can even hint a favorable sentiment in their
behalf. It is remarkable that the whole race of prostitutes in New
York were tories; and the schemes for supporting the Tory cause in
this city, for which several are now in jail, and one hanged, were
concerted and carried on in common bawdy-houses, assisted by those who
kept them.
The connection between vice and meanness is a fit subject for
satire, but when the satire is a fact, it cuts with the irresistible
power of a diamond. If a Quaker, in defence of his just rights, his
property, and the chastity of his house, takes up a musket, he is
expelled the meeting; but the present king of England, who seduced and
took into keeping a sister of their society, is reverenced and
supported by repeated Testimonies, while, the friendly noodle from
whom she was taken (and who is now in this city) continues a drudge in
the service of his rival, as if proud of being cuckolded by a creature
called a king.
Our support and success depend on such a variety of men and
circumstances, that every one who does but wish well, is of some
use: there are men who have a strange aversion to arms, yet have
hearts to risk every shilling in the cause, or in support of those who
have better talents for defending it. Nature, in the arrangement of
mankind, has fitted some for every service in life: were all soldiers,
all would starve and go naked, and were none soldiers, all would be
slaves. As disaffection to independence is the badge of a Tory, so
affection to it is the mark of a Whig; and the different services of
the Whigs, down from those who nobly contribute every thing, to
those who have nothing to render but their wishes, tend all to the
same center, though with different degrees of merit and ability. The
larger we make the circle, the more we shall harmonize, and the
stronger we shall be. All we want to shut out is disaffection, and,
that excluded, we must accept from each other such duties as we are
best fitted to bestow. A narrow system of politics, like a narrow
system of religion, is calculated only to sour the temper, and be at
variance with mankind.
All we want to know in America is simply this, who is for
independence, and who is not? Those who are for it, will support it,
and the remainder will undoubtedly see the reasonableness of paying
the charges; while those who oppose or seek to betray it, must
expect the more rigid fate of the jail and the gibbet. There is a
bastard kind of generosity, which being extended to all men, is as
fatal to society, on one hand, as the want of true generosity is on
the other. A lax manner of administering justice, falsely termed
moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit public virtue, and promote
the growth of public evils. Had the late committee of safety taken
cognizance of the last Testimony of the Quakers and proceeded
against such delinquents as were concerned therein, they had,
probably, prevented the treasonable plans which have been concerted
since. When one villain is suffered to escape, it encourages another
to proceed, either from a hope of escaping likewise, or an
apprehension that we dare not punish. It has been a matter of
general surprise, that no notice was taken of the incendiary
publication of the Quakers, of the 20th of November last; a
publication evidently intended to promote sedition and treason, and
encourage the enemy, who were then within a day's march of this
city, to proceed on and possess it. I here present the reader with a
memorial which was laid before the board of safety a few days after
the Testimony appeared. Not a member of that board, that I conversed
with, but expressed the highest detestation of the perverted
principles and conduct of the Quaker junto, and a wish that the
board would take the matter up; notwithstanding which, it was suffered
to pass away unnoticed, to the encouragement of new acts of treason,
the general danger of the cause, and the disgrace of the state.

To the honorable the Council of Safety of the State of
Pennsylvania.

At a meeting of a reputable number of the inhabitants of the city of
Philadelphia, impressed with a proper sense of the justice of the
cause which this continent is engaged in, and animated with a generous
fervor for supporting the same, it was resolved, that the following be
laid before the board of safety:

"We profess liberality of sentiment to all men; with this
distinction only, that those who do not deserve it would become wise
and seek to deserve it. We hold the pure doctrines of universal
liberty of conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to
secure that sacred right to others, as well as to defend it for
ourselves; for we undertake not to judge of the religious rectitude of
tenets, but leave the whole matter to Him who made us.
"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any
man for religion's sake; our common relation to others being that of
fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single community; and in
this line of connection we hold out the right hand of fellowship to
all men. But we should conceive ourselves to be unworthy members of
the free and independent States of America, were we unconcernedly to
see or to suffer any treasonable wound, public or private, directly or
indirectly, to be given against the peace and safety of the same. We
inquire not into the rank of the offenders, nor into their religious
persuasion; we have no business with either, our part being only to
find them out and exhibit them to justice.
"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John
Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has
lately been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had
the framers and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to
exhort the youth and others of their society, to a patient
submission under the present trying visitations, and humbly to wait
the event of heaven towards them, they had therein shown a Christian
temper, and we had been silent; but the anger and political
virulence with which their instructions are given, and the abuse
with which they stigmatize all ranks of men not thinking like
themselves, leave no doubt on our minds from what spirit their
publication proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure cause of
truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred import, and
play them off as mechanically as if religion consisted only in
contrivance. We know of no instance in which the Quakers have been
compelled to bear arms, or to do any thing which might strain their
conscience; wherefore their advice, 'to withstand and refuse to submit
to the arbitrary instructions and ordinances of men,' appear to us a
false alarm, and could only be treasonably calculated to gain favor
with our enemies, when they are seemingly on the brink of invading
this State, or, what is still worse, to weaken the hands of our
defence, that their entrance into this city might be made
practicable and easy.
"We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders;
and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner of
treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the
two following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous
persons in some cases; and, secondly, by only a passionate treatment
of them in others. For the future we disown both, and wish to be
steady in our proceedings, and serious in our punishments.
"Every State in America has, by the repeated voice of its
inhabitants, directed and authorized the Continental Congress to
publish a formal Declaration of Independence of, and separation
from, the oppressive king and Parliament of Great Britain; and we look
on every man as an enemy, who does not in some line or other, give his
assistance towards supporting the same; at the same time we consider
the offence to be heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when
such persons, under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing,
speaking, or otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon
the independence of this continent as declared by Congress.
"The publishers of the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' have called in
a loud manner to their friends and connections, 'to withstand or
refuse' obedience to whatever 'instructions or ordinances' may be
published, not warranted by (what they call) 'that happy
Constitution under which they and others long enjoyed tranquillity and
peace.' If this be not treason, we know not what may properly be
called by that name.
"To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with
the word 'peace, peace,' continually on their lips, should be so
fond of living under and supporting a government, and at the same time
calling it 'happy,' which is never better pleased than when a war-
that has filled India with carnage and famine, Africa with slavery,
and tampered with Indians and negroes to cut the throats of the
freemen of America. We conceive it a disgrace to this State, to harbor
or wink at such palpable hypocrisy. But as we seek not to hurt the
hair of any man's head, when we can make ourselves safe without, we
wish such persons to restore peace to themselves and us, by removing
themselves to some part of the king of Great Britain's dominions, as
by that means they may live unmolested by us and we by them; for our
fixed opinion is, that those who do not deserve a place among us,
ought not to have one.
"We conclude with requesting the Council of Safety to take into
consideration the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' and if it shall
appear to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of a treasonable
nature, that they would commit the signer, together with such other
persons as they can discover were concerned therein, into custody,
until such time as some mode of trial shall ascertain the full
degree of their guilt and punishment; in the doing of which, we wish
their judges, whoever they may be, to disregard the man, his
connections, interest, riches, poverty, or principles of religion, and
to attend to the nature of his offence only."

The most cavilling sectarian cannot accuse the foregoing with
containing the least ingredient of persecution. The free spirit on
which the American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an
impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and
suspicious minds to grovel in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds
of the same dunghill, and flourish together. Had the Quakers minded
their religion and their business, they might have lived through
this dispute in enviable ease, and none would have molested them.
The common phrase with these people is, 'Our principles are peace.' To
which may be replied, and your practices are the reverse; for never
did the conduct of men oppose their own doctrine more notoriously than
the present race of the Quakers. They have artfully changed themselves
into a different sort of people to what they used to be, and yet
have the address to persuade each other that they are not altered;
like antiquated virgins, they see not the havoc deformity has made
upon them, but pleasantly mistaking wrinkles for dimples, conceive
themselves yet lovely and wonder at the stupid world for not
admiring them.
Did no injury arise to the public by this apostacy of the Quakers
from themselves, the public would have nothing to do with it; but as
both the design and consequences are pointed against a cause in
which the whole community are interested, it is therefore no longer
a subject confined to the cognizance of the meeting only, but comes,
as a matter of criminality, before the authority either of the
particular State in which it is acted, or of the continent against
which it operates. Every attempt, now, to support the authority of the
king and Parliament of Great Britain over America, is treason
against every State; therefore it is impossible that any one can
pardon or screen from punishment an offender against all.
But to proceed: while the infatuated Tories of this and other States
were last spring talking of commissioners, accommodation, making the
matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their good king
and ministry were glutting themselves with the revenge of reducing
America to unconditional submission, and solacing each other with
the certainty of conquering it in one campaign. The following
quotations are from the parliamentary register of the debate's of
the House of Lords, March 5th, 1776:

"The Americans," says Lord Talbot,* "have been obstinate, undutiful,
and ungovernable from the very beginning, from their first early and
infant settlements; and I am every day more and more convinced that
this people never will be brought back to their duty, and the
subordinate relation they stand in to this country, till reduced to
unconditional, effectual submission; no concession on our part, no
lenity, no endurance, will have any other effect but that of
increasing their insolence."

* Steward of the king's household.

"The struggle," says Lord Townsend,* "is now a struggle for power;
the die is cast, and the only point which now remains to be determined
is, in what manner the war can be most effectually prosecuted and
speedily finished, in order to procure that unconditional
submission, which has been so ably stated by the noble Earl with the
white staff" (meaning Lord Talbot;) "and I have no reason to doubt
that the measures now pursuing will put an end to the war in the
course of a single campaign. Should it linger longer, we shall then
have reason to expect that some foreign power will interfere, and take
advantage of our domestic troubles and civil distractions."

* Formerly General Townsend, at Quebec, and late lord-lieutenant
of Ireland.

Lord Littleton. "My sentiments are pretty well known. I shall only
observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to
produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher
America rose in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It
is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive
measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us, but to
relinquish America for ever, or finally determine to compel her to
acknowledge the legislative authority of this country; and it is the
principle of an unconditional submission I would be for maintaining."

Can words be more expressive than these? Surely the Tories will
believe the Tory lords! The truth is, they do believe them and know as
fully as any Whig on the continent knows, that the king and ministry
never had the least design of an accommodation with America, but an
absolute, unconditional conquest. And the part which the Tories were
to act, was, by downright lying, to endeavor to put the continent
off its guard, and to divide and sow discontent in the minds of such
Whigs as they might gain an influence over. In short, to keep up a
distraction here, that the force sent from England might be able to
conquer in "one campaign." They and the ministry were, by a
different game, playing into each other's hands. The cry of the Tories
in England was, "No reconciliation, no accommodation," in order to
obtain the greater military force; while those in America were
crying nothing but "reconciliation and accommodation," that the
force sent might conquer with the less resistance.
But this "single campaign" is over, and America not conquered. The
whole work is yet to do, and the force much less to do it with.
Their condition is both despicable and deplorable: out of cash- out of
heart, and out of hope. A country furnished with arms and ammunition
as America now is, with three millions of inhabitants, and three
thousand miles distant from the nearest enemy that can approach her,
is able to look and laugh them in the face.
Howe appears to have two objects in view, either to go up the
North River, or come to Philadelphia.
By going up the North River, he secures a retreat for his army
through Canada, but the ships must return if they return at all, the
same way they went; as our army would be in the rear, the safety of
their passage down is a doubtful matter. By such a motion he shuts
himself from all supplies from Europe, but through Canada, and exposes
his army and navy to the danger of perishing. The idea of his
cutting off the communication between the eastern and southern states,
by means of the North River, is merely visionary. He cannot do it by
his shipping; because no ship can lay long at anchor in any river
within reach of the shore; a single gun would drive a first rate
from such a station. This was fully proved last October at Forts
Washington and Lee, where one gun only, on each side of the river,
obliged two frigates to cut and be towed off in an hour's time.
Neither can he cut it off by his army; because the several posts
they must occupy would divide them almost to nothing, and expose
them to be picked up by ours like pebbles on a river's bank; but
admitting that he could, where is the injury? Because, while his whole
force is cantoned out, as sentries over the water, they will be very
innocently employed, and the moment they march into the country the
communication opens.
The most probable object is Philadelphia, and the reasons are
many. Howe's business is to conquer it, and in proportion as he
finds himself unable to the task, he will employ his strength to
distress women and weak minds, in order to accomplish through their
fears what he cannot accomplish by his own force. His coming or
attempting to come to Philadelphia is a circumstance that proves his
weakness: for no general that felt himself able to take the field
and attack his antagonist would think of bringing his army into a city
in the summer time; and this mere shifting the scene from place to
place, without effecting any thing, has feebleness and cowardice on
the face of it, and holds him up in a contemptible light to all who
can reason justly and firmly. By several informations from New York,
it appears that their army in general, both officers and men, have
given up the expectation of conquering America; their eye now is fixed
upon the spoil. They suppose Philadelphia to be rich with stores,
and as they think to get more by robbing a town than by attacking an
army, their movement towards this city is probable. We are not now
contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band of thieves,
who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of
conquest than by cruelty.
They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic,
by making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but
unless they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command
of the river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be
stopped with the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded
wherever they have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston
their defeat was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every
skirmish at Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to
retreat, and the instant that our arms were turned upon them in the
Jerseys, they turned likewise, and those that turned not were taken.
The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the
circumstances of the times we live in, is something so strikingly
obvious, that no sufficient objection can be made against it. The
safety of all societies depends upon it; and where this point is not
attended to, the consequences will either be a general languor or a
tumult. The encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any
state, and the suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the
principal objects for which all authority is instituted, and the
line in which it ought to operate. We have in this city a strange
variety of men and characters, and the circumstances of the times
require that they should be publicly known; it is not the number of
Tories that hurt us, so much as the not finding out who they are;
men must now take one side or the other, and abide by the
consequences: the Quakers, trusting to their short-sighted sagacity,
have, most unluckily for them, made their declaration in their last
Testimony, and we ought now to take them at their word. They have
involuntarily read themselves out of the continental meeting, and
cannot hope to be restored to it again but by payment and penitence.
Men whose political principles are founded on avarice, are beyond
the reach of reason, and the only cure of Toryism of this cast is to
tax it. A substantial good drawn from a real evil, is of the same
benefit to society, as if drawn from a virtue; and where men have
not public spirit to render themselves serviceable, it ought to be the
study of government to draw the best use possible from their vices.
When the governing passion of any man, or set of men, is once known,
the method of managing them is easy; for even misers, whom no public
virtue can impress, would become generous, could a heavy tax be laid
upon covetousness.
The Tories have endeavored to insure their property with the
enemy, by forfeiting their reputation with us; from which may be
justly inferred, that their governing passion is avarice. Make them as
much afraid of losing on one side as on the other, and you stagger
their Toryism; make them more so, and you reclaim them; for their
principle is to worship the power which they are most afraid of.
This method of considering men and things together, opens into a
large field for speculation, and affords me an opportunity of offering
some observations on the state of our currency, so as to make the
support of it go hand in hand with the suppression of disaffection and
the encouragement of public spirit.
The thing which first presents itself in inspecting the state of the
currency, is, that we have too much of it, and that there is a
necessity of reducing the quantity, in order to increase the value.
Men are daily growing poor by the very means that they take to get
rich; for in the same proportion that the prices of all goods on
hand are raised, the value of all money laid by is reduced. A simple
case will make this clear; let a man have 100 L. in cash, and as
many goods on hand as will to-day sell for 20 L.; but not content with
the present market price, he raises them to 40 L. and by so doing
obliges others, in their own defence, to raise cent. per cent.
likewise; in this case it is evident that his hundred pounds laid
by, is reduced fifty pounds in value; whereas, had the market
lowered cent. per cent., his goods would have sold but for ten, but
his hundred pounds would have risen in value to two hundred; because
it would then purchase as many goods again, or support his family as
long again as before. And, strange as it may seem, he is one hundred
and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, to what he would
have been had he lowered them; because the forty pounds which his
goods sold for, is, by the general raise of the market cent. per
cent., rendered of no more value than the ten pounds would be had
the market fallen in the same proportion; and, consequently, the whole
difference of gain or loss is on the difference in value of the
hundred pounds laid by, viz. from fifty to two hundred. This rage
for raising goods is for several reasons much more the fault of the
Tories than the Whigs; and yet the Tories (to their shame and
confusion ought they to be told of it) are by far the most noisy and
discontented. The greatest part of the Whigs, by being now either in
the army or employed in some public service, are buyers only and not
sellers, and as this evil has its origin in trade, it cannot be
charged on those who are out of it.
But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied by
partial methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the quantity
of money: with half the quantity we should be richer than we are
now, because the value of it would be doubled, and consequently our
attachment to it increased; for it is not the number of dollars that a
man has, but how far they will go, that makes him either rich or poor.
These two points being admitted, viz. tha