a tax of ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. per annum, to
be collected quarterly, be levied on all property. These alternatives,
by being perfectly voluntary, will take in all sorts of people. Here
is the test; here is the tax. He who takes the former, conscientiously
proves his affection to the cause, and binds himself to pay his quota
by the best services in his power, and is thereby justly exempt from the
latter; and those who choose the latter, pay their quota in money, to be
excused from the former, or rather, it is the price paid to us for their
supposed, though mistaken, insurance with the enemy.

But this is only a part of the advantage which would arise by knowing
the different characters of men. The Whigs stake everything on the issue
of their arms, while the Tories, by their disaffection, are sapping and
undermining their strength; and, of consequence, the property of the
Whigs is the more exposed thereby; and whatever injury their estates
may sustain by the movements of the enemy, must either be borne by
themselves, who have done everything which has yet been done, or by the
Tories, who have not only done nothing, but have, by their disaffection,
invited the enemy on.

In the present crisis we ought to know, square by square and house by
house, who are in real allegiance with the United Independent States,
and who are not. Let but the line be made clear and distinct, and all
men will then know what they are to trust to. It would not only be
good policy but strict justice, to raise fifty or one hundred thousand
pounds, or more, if it is necessary, out of the estates and property
of the king of England's votaries, resident in Philadelphia, to be
distributed, as a reward to those inhabitants of the city and State, who
should turn out and repulse the enemy, should they attempt to march this
way; and likewise, to bind the property of all such persons to make
good the damages which that of the Whigs might sustain. In the
undistinguishable mode of conducting a war, we frequently make reprisals
at sea, on the vessels of persons in England, who are friends to our
cause compared with the resident Tories among us.

In every former publication of mine, from Common Sense down to the last
Crisis, I have generally gone on the charitable supposition, that the
Tories were rather a mistaken than a criminal people, and have applied
argument after argument, with all the candor and temper which I was
capable of, in order to se