Extract of a Letter from General Gage to the Earl of Dartmouth

v2:1718

The designs of the leaders of the rebellion are plain, and every day confirms the truth of what was asserted years ago by intelligent people, that a plan was laid in this Province, and adjusted with some of the same stamp in others, for a total independence; whilst they amused people in England, called the friends of America, as well as many in this Country, with feigned professions of affection and attachment to the Parent State, and pretended to be aggrieved and discontented only on account of taxation; that they have designedly irritated Government by every insult, whilst they artfully poisoned the minds of the people, and ripened them for insurrection. They would still deceive and lull the Mother Country into a belief that nothing is meant against the Nation, and that their quarrel is only with the Ministers. But it is hoped that the Nation will see through this falsehood and deceit. It matters not who hold the helm of the state; the stroke is levelled at the British Nation, on whose ruins they hope to build their so much vaunted American Empire, and to rise, like the Phoenix, out of the ashes of the Mother Country.