The Crisis. No. III

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To the King:

SIR: To follow you regularly through every step of a fourteen years' shameful and inglorious reign, would be a task as painful as disagreeable, and far exceed the bounds of this paper: But we are called upon by the necessity of the times, the measures you are pursuing, by every principle of justice and self-preservation, and by the duty we owe to God and our Country, to declare our sentiments (with a freedom becoming Englishmen ) on some of those dreadful transactions and oppressions which the Kingdom has laboured under since the glory and lustre of England' s Crown was doomed to fade upon your brow; and to point out to you, Sir, your own critical and dangerous situation.

Sir, it is not your rotten troop, in the present House of Commons; it is not your venal, beggarly, pensioned Lords; it is not your polluted, canting, prostituted Bench of Bishops; it is not your whole set of abandoned Ministers; nor all your army of Scotch cut-throats, that can protect you from the People' s rage, when driven by your oppressions, and until now, unheard of cruelties, to a state of desperation.

The day, we fear, is not far distant, when you will have reason, too much reason, to wish you had acted like a father, and not like a tyrant; when you will be bound to curse those traitors, those exalted villains, who now, in the face of day, without a blush, you can be base enough to call your friends. Be assured, Sir, your danger is great, amidst all the fancied security; and it will be impossible for them to preserve you from the just resentment of an enraged, long abused, and much injured Nation. Should that day ever come, (but Heaven avert the stroke,) where ran you hide yourself from the tenfold vengeance of a brave and mighty people, with law, justice, Heaven, and all their sacred truths on their side?

Then, like the wounds that bleed afresh, will be brought to their minds your barbarous and unprovoked massacre in St˙ George' s Fields; when men and women were indiscriminately and inhumanly slaughtered, to gratify what would have disgraced even your footman — a pitiful revenge! Then, Sir, they will remember with horrour and indignation, the letter of thanks, sent from the Secretary at War, by your order, to the Officer on duty, the 10th of May, 1768, (the day of carnage,) and likewise your pensioning and screening the murderers from the punishment of the law. Then, Sir, they will remember, the horrid plan laid at Brentford, for destroying the right of election; or in the most savage manner to take away the lives of the Freeholders of Middlesex, which was (to make use of a word from your merciful Royal dictionary,) effectually carried into execution, and several people killed; to this plan, Sir, formed by Proctor and your minions, you must have been privy, as the event afterwards sufficiently proved. Then, Sir, they will remember the mean, low, and criminal subterfuge you had recourse to, to dispense with the laws set aside the just verdict of an honest jury, to

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The people, Sir, with a candour and indulgence peculiar to Englishmen, passed over the injuries and insults in the first part of your reign, or kindly laid the blame at the door of your Ministers; but if is now evident to the whole world, that there was a plan formed by Lord Bute and yourself, either before, or immediately after you came to the Crown, for subverting the British Constitution in Church and State; which, to our grief, with indefatigable pains und too much success, Lord Bute' s tools, and your infernal minions, have carried into execution; therefore it no longer remains to determine who is now the greatest criminal in England.

Consider, Sir, if, through the late and present iniquitous measures, and an obstinate resolution in your Majesty to pursue them, the sword is forced to be drawn in America, it cannot remain long unsheathed in England. We hope there is some virtue here; and we entertain a better opinion of our countrymen than to believe they are so far degenerated as to tamely see a mercenary army of soldiers, who are at all times a terrour to the peaceable inhabitants of every free State, butcher their brethren and fellow-subjects in America, because they are determined to defend their own rights and the British Constitution. I say they never will tamely see that, without putting out a helping hand, and sharing with them the glory of a decisive victory over tyranny, and all the agents of the infernal monarch of the dark regions of hell, who would enslave the world.

Should you, Sir, still pursue the tyrannical measures, only to gratify a mean vindictive spirit, and be the author of such dreadful mischiefs, O, we shudder at the thought, the people will then perhaps treat you with as little ceremony, as little respect, and as little mercy, as you and your minions have them; for, Sir whenever the State is convulsed by civil commotions, and the Constitution totters to its centre, the Throne of England must shake with it; a Crown will then be no security, and at one stroke all the gaudy trappings of royalty may be laid in the dust; at such a time of dreadful confusion and slaughter, when the son' s weapon drinks the father' s blood and we see the ruffian' s blade reeking from a brother' s heart; when rage is burning in the breasts of Englishmen, provoked by wrongs not to be borne by men, all distinctions must cease, the common safety and the rights of mankind will be the only objects in view, while the King and the peasant must share one and the same fate, and perhaps fall undistinguished together.

Let these things, Sir, be well weighed; tremble for the event; drive those traitors from your breast, who now surround you; let the just and honest have your confidence; and once more make your people happy, great and free; be not the instrument of their destruction consider the solemn and sacred oath you made at your coronation to protect your subjects in all their rights and liberties, and the Protestant Religion as by Law established: consider, Sir, what a perversion of all right and justice that must be (besides the heinous crime of perjury,) when, instead of being their protector you become their destroyer.

Your plan, Sir, for bringing the Colonies by force of arms into a state of subjection to your will, is cruel, bloody, and (I hope) impracticable; it is repugnant to every principle of humanity, justice, and sound policy, and the natural rights of mankind; it is the foulest disgrace to you, and

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Men, Sir, at three thousand miles distance, must think it extremely hard to work, toil, and run hazards, only to support the infamous luxury of high pampered Lords, a rotten Court, and your tribe of venal Senators, minions, pimps, and parasites — the pests of society; and to be taxed and mulcted, by them at their pleasure. All nature, Sir, revolts even at the idea of such a state of human misery.

Force, Sir, can never be used effectually to answer the end, without destroying the Colonies themselves. Liberty and encouragement are necessary to keep them together; and violence will hinder both. Any body of Troops, considerable enough to awe them, keep them in subjection, and under the direction of a needy Scotch Governour, sent only to be an instrument of slaughter, and to make his fortune, would soon put an end to planting, and leave the country to you, Sir, and your merciless plunderers only; and if it did not, they would starve the inhabitants and eat up all the profit of the Colonies. On the contrary, a few prudent laws, Sir, (but you seem to be a stranger to prudence as well as to justice and humanity,) and a little prudent conduct, (that, too, has long been despaired of by the Kingdom,) would soon give us far the greatest share of the riches of all America; perhaps drive other Nations out of it and into our Colonies for shelter.

If violent methods be not used (at this time) to prevent it, your Northern Colonies, Sir, must constantly increase in people, wealth, and power; their inhabitants are considerably more than doubled since the Revolution; and in less than a century must become powerful States; and the more powerful, the more people will flock thither. There are so many exigencies in all States, so many foreign wars and domestic disturbances, that these Colonies can seldom want opportunities, if they watch for them, to do what you, Sir, might be extremely sorry for — throw off their dependance on the Mother Country; therefore, Sir, it should be your first and greatest care, that it shall never be their interest to act against that of their native Country; an evil that can no otherwise be averted, than by keeping them fully employed in such trades as will increase their own, as well as our wealth; for, Sir, there is too much reason to fear, if you don' t find employment for them, they may find some for you. Withdraw, Then, Sir, from America, your armed ruffians, and make a full restoration of the peoples rights; let them tax themselves, and enjoy their property unviolated by the band of tyranny. Thus, Sir, the subsequent part, of your reign may yet be happy and glorious. May the compact between you and the people be no more invaded; may you be speedily reconciled to the just demands of the Colonies; may Lord Bute, Lord Mansfield, Lord North, and all your Majesty' s infamous minions, who would precipitate you and the Kingdom into ruin, answer with their heads (and soon) for their horrid crimes; and may the succession in your Majesty' s Royal House, and the Religion, Laws, Rights and Liberties, of the subject, go hand in hand down to all posterity, until this globe shall be reduced to its original chaos, and time be swallowed up in eternity.