st hope should from any circumstances appear of a
return to the ancient maxims and true policy of this kingdom, we shall
with joy and readiness return to our attendance, in order to give our
hearty support to whatever means may be left for alleviating the
complicated evils which oppress this nation.

If this should not happen, we have discharged our consciences by this
faithful representation to your Majesty and our country; and however few
in number, or however we may be overborne by practices whose operation
is but too powerful, by the revival of dangerous exploded principles,
or by the misguided zeal of such arbitrary factions as formerly
prevailed in this kingdom, and always to its detriment and disgrace, we
have the satisfaction of standing forth and recording our names in
assertion of those principles whose operation hath, in better times,
made your Majesty a great prince, and the British dominions a mighty
empire.

ADDRESS

TO THE

BRITISH COLONISTS IN NORTH AMERICA.

The very dangerous crisis into which the British empire is brought, as
it accounts for, so it justifies, the unusual step we take in addressing
ourselves to you.

The distempers of the state are grown to such a degree of violence and
malignity as to render all ordinary remedies vain and frivolous. In such
a deplorable situation, an adherence to the common forms of business
appears to us rather as an apology to cover a supine neglect of duty
than the means of performing it in a manner adequate to the exigency
that presses upon us. The common means we have already tried, and tried
to no purpose. As our last resource, we turn ourselves to you. We
address you merely in our private capacity, vested with no other
authority than what will naturally attend those in whose declarations of
benevolence you have no reason to apprehend any mixture of dissimulation
or design.

We have this title to your attention: we call upon it in a moment of the
utmost importance to us all. We find, with infinite concern, that
arguments are used to persuade you of the necessity of separating
yourselves from your ancient connection with your parent country,
grounded on a supposition that a general principle of alienation and
enmity to you had pervaded the whole of this kingdom, and that there
does no longer subsist between you and us any common and kindred
principles upon which we can possibly unite, consistently with those
ideas of liberty in which you have ju