of America makes her of too much value in
the scale of Providence, to be cast like a pearl before swine, at the
feet of an European island; and of much less consequence would it be
that Britain were sunk in the sea than that America should miscarry.
There has been such a chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of
this country at first, in the peopling and planting it afterwards, in
the rearing and nursing it to its present state, and in the protection
of it through the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence
has some nobler end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty
elector of Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Britain.

As the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Christian church,
so the political persecutions of England will and have already enriched
America with industry, experience, union, and importance. Before the
present era she was a mere chaos of uncemented colonies, individually
exposed to the ravages of the Indians and the invasion of any power that
Britain should be at war with. She had nothing that she could call her
own. Her felicity depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe
might have thrown her from one conqueror to another, till she had been
the slave of all, and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit
enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to which master
she should belong. That period, thank God, is past, and she is no longer
the dependent, disunited colonies of Britain, but the independent and
United States of America, knowing no master but heaven and herself. You,
or your king, may call this "delusion," "rebellion," or what name you
please. To us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will determine the
character, and time will give it a name as lasting as his own.

You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can fully
declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part, but blows
and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and credit, and
an increase of poverty and taxes. You are now only where you might have
been two years ago, without the loss of a single ship, and yet not a
step more forward towards the conquest of the continent; because, as I
have already hinted, "an army in a city can never be a conquering army."
The full amount of your losses, since the beginning of the war, exceeds
twenty thousand men, besides millions of treasure, for which you have
nothing in exchange. Our e