ple so numerous, so active, so growing,
so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate
connexion with us.

First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone
is but _temporary_. It may subdue for a moment; but it does
not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is
not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its _uncertainty_. Terror is not always
the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you
do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation
failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope
of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes
bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by
an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you _impair the object_
by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought
for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated,
sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will
content me, than _whole America_. I do not choose to consume
its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is
the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be
caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting
conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape;
but I can make no assurance against such an event. Let me
add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American
spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of _experience_ in favor of force as
an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and
their utility has been owing to methods altogether different.
Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a
fault. It may be so. But we know if feeling is evidence that
our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and
our sin far more salutary than our penitence.

These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high
opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for whose
sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to
be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third
consideration concerning this object, which serves to
determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be
pursued in the management of America, even more than its
population an