t.

It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of character;
to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by an
obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have exhibited on
all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of conduct, that while
we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we might admire in you the
sincerity of a man. You came to America under the high sounding titles
of commander and commissioner; not only to suppress what you call
rebellion, by arms, but to shame it out of countenance by the excellence
of your example. Instead of which, you have been the patron of low and
vulgar frauds, the encourager of Indian cruelties; and have imported a
cargo of vices blacker than those which you pretend to suppress.

Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of right and
wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations
and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of meanness. In
the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution,
they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to
their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance nor apology. It is
generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices, and is of such a
hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it. Sir William, the
commissioner of George the Third, has at last vouchsafed to give it
rank and pedigree. He has placed the fugitive at the council board, and
dubbed it companion of the order of knighthood.

The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this description, is
forgery. You, sir, have abetted and patronized the forging and uttering
counterfeit continental bills. In the same New York newspapers in which
your own proclamation under your master's authority was published,
offering, or pretending to offer, pardon and protection to these states,
there were repeated advertisements of counterfeit money for sale, and
persons who have come officially from you, and under the sanction of
your flag, have been taken up in attempting to put them off.

A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without precedent or
pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or enemies, will unite
in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society, which nothing can
excuse or palliate,--an improvement upon beggarly villany--and shows an
inbred wretchedness of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a
serpent and the