ay suffer on the
resistance of our brethren. But I would wish them, in this grave matter,
and if peace is not wholly removed from their hearts, to consider
seriously, first, that to criminate and recriminate never yet was the
road to reconciliation, in any difference amongst men. In the next
place, it would be right to reflect that the American English (whom they
may abuse, if they think it honorable to revile the absent) can, as
things now stand, neither be provoked at our railing or bettered by our
instruction. All communication is cut off between us. But this we know
with certainty, that, though we cannot reclaim them, we may reform
ourselves. If measures of peace are necessary, they must begin
somewhere; and a conciliatory temper must precede and prepare every plan
of reconciliation. Nor do I conceive that we suffer anything by thus
regulating our own minds. We are not disarmed by being disencumbered of
our passions. Declaiming on rebellion never added a bayonet or a charge
of powder to your military force; but I am afraid that it has been the
means of taking up many muskets against you.

This outrageous language, which has been encouraged and kept alive by
every art, has already done incredible mischief. For a long time, even
amidst the desolations of war, and the insults of hostile laws daily
accumulated on one another, the American leaders seem to have had the
greatest difficulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of
total independence. But the Court Gazette accomplished what the abettors
of independence had attempted in vain. When that disingenuous
compilation and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a
proof of the united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was
a great change throughout all America. The tide of popular affection,
which had still set towards the parent country, began immediately to
turn, and to flow with great rapidity in a contrary course. Par from
concealing these wild declarations of enmity, the author of the
celebrated pamphlet which prepared the minds of the people for
independence insists largely on the multitude and the spirit of these
addresses; and he draws an argument from them, which, if the fact were
as he supposes, must be irresistible. For I never knew a writer on the
theory of government so partial to authority as not to allow that the
hostile mind of the rulers to their people did fully justify a change of
government; nor can any reason what