ding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the
slaves should be set free, an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty
cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and
utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government
within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their
masters.

Far be it from any Englishman, to thirst for the blood of his
fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are, unhappily,
at less distance. The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed,
undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they
had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by
European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who
were friends only to themselves.

On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out
its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious
contest, they are, themselves, equally detestable. If they wish success
to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their
defeat, they are traitors, at once, to America and England. To them, and
them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the
miseries of war, the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood
of those that shall fall.

Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be
subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their
possessions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be
secured by stricter laws and stronger obligations!

Nothing can be more noxious to society, than that erroneous clemency,
which, when a rebellion is suppressed, exacts no forfeiture, and
establishes no securities, but leaves the rebels in their former state.
Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
of their port.

Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
privileges which are found