NUMBER III

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, and by his appointment the Corner of Little Turnstile, High Holborn, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER IV

THE steady and uniform Perseverance in a regular Plan of DESPOTISM, since the Commencement of this Reign, makes it evident to the meanest Capacity, that a Design was formed, (and it has with too much Success been carried into Execution) for subverting the Religion, Laws, and Constitution of this Kingdom, and establish upon the Ruins of PUBLIC LIBERTY, an arbitrary System of Government: in a Word, the Destruction of this Kingdom will soon be effected by a Prince of the House of Brunswick.

The BLOODY RESOLUTION has passed the House of Commons and the House of Lords to address our present HUMANE, GENTLE Sovereign, to give Directions for ENFORCING the cruel and unjust Edicts of the last Parliament against the Americans.1 His Majesty possessing Principles which nothing can equal but the GOODNESS of his Heart, will no doubt, give immediate Orders for carrying EFFECTUALLY into Execution the MASSACRE in America; especially as he is to be SUPPORTED in polluting the Earth with BLOOD, with the LIVES and FORTUNES of his faithful Butchers, the Lords and Commons; would to God they ONLY were to fall a Sacrifice in this unnatural civil War.

The Day of Trial is at Hand; it is Time to prove the Virtue and rouse the Spirit of the People of England; the Prospect is too dreadful, it is too melancholy to admit of farther Delay.

The Lord Mayor of London ought immediately to call a Common Hall for the Purpose of taking the Sense of his Fellow Citizens, at this ALARMING CRISIS, upon presenting a Remonstrance to the Throne; couched in Terms, that might do Honour to the City, as the First and most Powerful in the World, and to them as Men determined to be FREE; in Terms that might strike CONVICTION into his Majesty’s Breast; and TERROR into the Souls of his Minions: this is not a Time for Compliments, nor should Tyrants, or, the Instruments of Tyranny, ever be complimented.

The Merchants of London, it is to be hoped, and the whole commercial Interest of England, will exert themselves upon this great Occasion; by sending to the Throne spirited and pointed Remonstrances, worthy of Englishmen; by noble and generous SUBSCRIPTIONS, and in every Edition: current; Page: [33] other Manner, give all the RELIEF, and all the Assistance in their Power, to their oppressed and injured Fellow Subjects in America.2

Let them heartily join the Americans, and see whether TYRANNY and LAWLESS POWER, or, REASON, JUSTICE, HEAVEN, TRUTH, and LIBERTY, will prevail.

Let them, together with the Gentlemen of landed Property, who must greatly Suffer by this unnatural CIVIL WAR, make a glorious stand against the Enemies of PUBLIC FREEDOM, and the constitutional Rights of the Colonies; for, with the ruin of America, must be involved that of England.

Let them in plain Terms, declare their own Strength, and the POWER of the People, a Power, that has hitherto withstood the united Efforts of Fraud and Tyranny; a Power, to which all Kings have ever owed their Crowns; a Power, which raises them to a Throne; and when unworthy of their DELEGATED TRUST, can pull them down.

Let them declare to the World, they will never be so base and cowardly, as QUIETLY to see any Part of their Fellow Subjects, BUTCHERED, Edition: current; Page: [34] or ENSLAVED, either in England or America, to answer the Purpose of EXALTED Villainy; and by that Means, become the detested Instruments of their OWN DESTRUCTION.

Let them declare to the World, they are not yet ripe for SLAVERY, that their Forefathers made a noble Resistance, and obtained a decisive Victory over TYRANNY and LAWLESS POWER, when the Stuarts reigned; that they are determined to do THEMSELVES JUSTICE, and not to suffer any farther Attacks upon their FREEDOM, from the present Sovereign, who is exceedingly desirous, as well as ambitious, to destroy the Liberties of Mankind; but that they do INSIST upon a Restoration of their OWN violated Rights, and the Rights of British America.

Let them enter into an Association for the Preservation of their Lives, Rights, Liberties, and Privileges; and resolve at once to bring the whole Legion of public Traitors, who have wickedly entered into a Conspiracy to destroy the dear-bought Rights of this free Nation to condign Punishment, for their past and present diabolical Proceedings, which have already stained the Land with Blood, and threaten Destruction to the human Race.

A few spirited Resolutions from the City of London, and the whole Body of Merchants of England, would strike Terror into the Souls of those Miscreants, the Authors of these dreadful public Mischiefs.

The grand Principle of Self-preservation, which is the first and fundamental Law of Nature, calls aloud for such Exertions of public Spirit; the Security of the Nation depends upon it; Justice and the Preservation of our own, and the Lives of our fellow-Subjects in America demand it; the very being of the Constitution makes it necessary, and whatever is necessary to the public Safety, must be just.

The present Conspirators against the Peace and Happiness of Mankind, ought to know, that no Subterfuges, no knavish Subtilties, no Evasions, no Combinations, nor pretended Commissions, shall be able to screen or protect them from public Justice. They ought to know that the PEOPLE, can follow them thro’ all their Labyrinths, and doubling Meanders; a Power, confined by no Limitations but of public Justice, and Edition: current; Page: [35] the public Good; a Power that does not always follow Precedents, but makes them; a Power which has this for its Principle, that extraordinary and unprecedented Villainies; ought to have extraordinary and unprecedented Punishments.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, and by his Appointment the Corner of Little Turnstile, High Holborn, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER V

NUMBER VI

NUMBER VII

On this Letter I will make but one Comment:—Either Sir William De Grey’s Answer to the Appellant contains an Untruth, or your Lordship has practised on the House of Peers an Imposition of the Blackest Dye.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, and by his appointment the Corner of Little Turnstile, Holborn, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER VIII

To the Lords Suffolk, Pomfret, Radnor, Apsley, and Sandwich.

• • How Glorious the Æra, thrice happy th’ Day,
  • When Private Int’rest to Public gives way,
  • When Bribes cannot tempt your Lordships to sell,
  • Th’ Birthright of Freemen to Tyrants of Hell.
• • How Glorious th’ Æra, thrice happy indeed,
  • When TRAITORS, and MINIONS are sentenc’d t’bleed,
  • When JUSTICE shall reign, and Heav’n’s great call,
  • The Proud Seed of Hell, Just Victims do fall.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER IX

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER X

I never yet knew a Man perfectly Sober, taking Pains to convince every Man he met, that he was so; but a drunken Man is always acting the Part of a Sober one: when you rung the Alarum about Dr. Dodd,2 I violently suspected YOU, and soberly set you down for the Man, all the World will now believe you to be. And therefore I must repeat what I said before, the Nation will no longer bear with you; your Lordship cannot after such FOUL PROCEEDINGS, HOLD THE GREAT SEAL.

asterisks CAMBYSES,3 King of Persia, finding that his CHIEF JUSTICE, Sisamnes, had Pronounced an unjust Sentence, caused him to be Executed and Flayed, and with his Skin, covered the common Seat of Justice; then constituted Otanes his Son, Judge in his room, he sat My Lord upon his Fathers Skin; which probably put him in mind of his own: And Perrin will make the application for your Lordship, and if he is not ashamed, remind your Lordship, of the Fate of the two time serving Judges, EPSOM and DUDLEY, who were hanged in the Reign of Henry the 7th—of this Transaction, one of the greatest Lawyers and most upright Judges this Nation ever was blest with, makes this remarkable Epiphonema.

“Qui eorum vestigus insistunt, eorum Exitus prehorres cant.4

“Those that dare tread in their Steps, let them dread, or expect, the same dismal end.”

In my next I shall lay before the Public some farther traits of your Lordships public and private Life, for be assured I will never drop my Attention to you, while you continue to hold the Seals.

☞ The Public are desired to observe, the cunning of that most artful, as well as most wicked of Men, LORD MANSFIELD. His Lordship first planned the affirming the Decree, made by his Chan cellor in the above-Cause, in order to reak his private Vengeance on Edition: current; Page: [90] THICKNESS, and then, in a Matter in which he was totally indifferent about the Issue, he affects to correct Lords L.D. SPENCER,5 and DENBIGH, for Interferring in nice points of Law.—This repremand, was taken in good Part,—the two Lords were instantly convinced of their Error. They made proper and public Acknowledgement, of their ignorance in the Tythe Cause; but Lord Denbighs Villainy in the former Cause, is to pass unnoticed.

On the 3d. Day of April, will be Published, (Price 1s. 6d.)

The Prophecy of Ruin, a Poem.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XI

THIS Country is now reduced to a Situation really Degrading and Deplorable, through the strange Obstinacy and weak Prejudices of the King, who is determined, even at the risk of his own SAFETY, the Preservation of the Kingdom, and contrary to the united voice of his People, to encourage and protect an abandoned set of Men in the DESTRUCTION of that Constitution, he was Sworn to SUPPORT and DEFEND.

History fatally informs us, that the English have been driven to extremes, by Causes of less Moment than those, which have shaken this Kingdom during the present Reign.

Since the last stupendous Revolution, it has been generally believed, that the nature of our Constitution, became clearly ascertained, and fixt on Firmer and more lasting Principles, than it had known before that glorious Æra; at least the obtaining these Ends, as well as redressing Grievances, are acknowledged to be the Motives to the transactions of those Times.1 For had the exorbitant Power of the Crown been left unlimitted Edition: current; Page: [92] and unsettled, as before that event, and the Liberties and Privileges of the Subjects of England, in the same undecided State; it would have been only to change the Name of Masters, and not the Nature of their Sovereignty. And, if instead of removing the Causes of our Sufferings, and fixing our Rights and Liberties, we then gave to a House of Commons, an unlimited Power to dispose of the last according to their Inclination; it was only changing the Possessors of Arbitrary Power, by granting to a PROSTITUTED set of Representitives what was denied the King; and thus this illustrious Action of the Revolution, must appear to be the result of Faction, and aversion to one Interest, or unwarrantable Zeal for another. In what Manner can a Nation be more settled in its Freedom, by transferring ARBITRARY POWER from one Part of the Constitution to another.

It cannot be denied, but that the Laws, which were then enacted to establish upon a Foundation not to be again Shaken, the Freedom of the English Nation, and the Liberties of the People ought to be considered, as Unalterable, the very Basis and Boundary of the King’s Prerogative, and the Rights of Englishmen, something in the Government like the Center in the Earth, the fixt Point, round which all Things move and to which they tend.

Those Acts which were made at the Revolution, relative to the Constitution, such as the BILL of RIGHTS, and afterwards in Consequence of it THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT,2 which may be justly deemed the compact Edition: current; Page: [93] between the House of Hanover and the People of England, and which was preserved Inviolate, till broken by the unhallowed Hands of the Present SOVEREIGN and his Ministers; are undoubtedly of a Nature more sacred than those which established a Turnpike Road.

Those Acts founded on our former Rights in MAGNA CHARTA, ought to be considered as the essential Authority by which the House of Commons exists, than Laws which a Parliament may Abrogate, through pure Inclination to indulge a King, or his Ministers, to make them Despotic, and the People Miserable; for it must appear strangely absurd in a Constitution, that the Representatives of the People who form a third Part of it, should be Authorised by them to destroy their Liberties, and thereby exclude them from the Rights which they possess in the Government of the Kingdom? Besides, it is contrary to the very Idea of a free State, that a People should have given a Power of sacrificing their Privileges, to Men chosen the Guardians of them.

Something must exist in a FREE STATE, which no Part of it can be authorised to alter or destroy, otherwise the Idea of a Constitution cannot Subsist; for unless we allow the Freeholders and Electors of GREAT BRITAIN to be superior to a House of Commons, we grant to them an ABSOLUTE POWER, a Power inconsistent with the Notion of a FREE PEOPLE, and destructive of the Principles of a MIXED GOVERNMENT.

Should it be acknowledged, that, though the Commons have exercised a power of annihilating many Privileges and Rights, belonging to the People, and, that they possess no legal Title to it; then all Laws subversive of Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, act of Settlement, and spirit of the Constitution, are an excess of their Authority, and a Violation of their Trust; for which the present INFAMOUS PARLIAMENT, ought not only to be dissolved, but every MEMBER who visibly engaged in the Destruction of the Peoples Rights, should suffer DEATH, together with those Hellish MINISTERS who formed a design of enslaving the People; and it must be equally Just, as well as Necessary, to call to a strict Account the FIRST MAGISTRATE, who could be base enough to encourage the Destruction of our LIBERTIES and a SUBVERSION Edition: current; Page: [94] of the noblest Constitution in the World; as an Example to future Kings and Ministers.

If any Ministerial Hireling should assert that our Representatives after the Hour of Election, are no longer answerable for their Conduct, and are legally invested with Authority to Destory our Rights and Liberties at their Pleasure; then, what did King James do more than this by his Prerogative? and of what Advantage has the Revolution proved to us, if Subverting the Constitution be legally placed in the Hands of the Representatives? in what Sense does the Idea of a Free State, or the Liberty of the PEOPLE exist, when it depends upon nothing more permanent or established, than the vague, rapacious, or interested inclination of a Majority of FIVE HUNDRED and FIFTY EIGHT MEN, open to the insidious Attacks of a WEAK, or DESIGNING PRINCE, and his MINISTERS? surely it will be granted, that whether King, or Minister, who by undue influence should prevail in passing Laws subversive of the Statutes before mentioned, must be deemed an Offender against the most sacred of all Human Enjoyments, Liberty and the Constitution of his Country, and equally Criminal with JAMES THE SECOND and his Ministers.

The whole presumptive Title a Parliament can pretend to have of disposing of our RIGHTS and PREVILEGES can be but PREROGATIVE, which in many instances has been illegally carried beyond the Limits of Liberty and the Constitution. It is therefore necessary we should recur to the Spirit of the Constitution with the strictest Rigour and Perseverance.

The only Reason that can be given, why our Forefathers in the ancient Fundamental Statutes of the Realm, have delivered nothing verbally explicit on this Head; of limiting the Power of their Representatives, derives its Origin from the same Cause that the ROMANS had no Laws against Parricide: they never conceived that the thought of BETRAYING or SELLING a PEOPLES LIBERTIES, any more than MURDERING a FATHER could enter the Human Heart: they never imagined that the Representative could ever possess an Interest distinct from that of his Constituent, or that pecuniary Advantage could outweigh the Public good in his Breast: they did not foresee, that MINISTERS might Edition: current; Page: [95] have Occasion to OPPRESS US, for the Gratification of a WEAK or WICKED PRINCE; or that ENGLISHMEN no longer animated by the Soul of Public Prosperity, might Degenerate into granting OPPRESSIVE TAXES, till the NATION would be brought within ONE STEP of RUIN: Or that Laws essential to the Establishment of Freedom and Security of the State, could be made to burst at the Mandate of a Minister, by the Breach of a Majority of Five Hundred and Fifty Eight Men.

When the Representatives of the People Act contrary to the very Elements of the Constitution, betray and give up the RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES, and LIBERTIES of the PEOPLE, though nothing in the Fundamental Statutes literally prohibit so ignominious a Behaviour; the very Nature of their Station, the innate sense of Right, and Original Spirit of Government, directly contradict all possibility of their having Title for such proceedings; and whenever it is done, it is an unjust and wanton Exertion of Power, and not of Authority: add to this dreadful and heinous Crime the indignant and humiliating Consideration, that our Equals whom we chuse to save, have sold us like our Cattle to a WEAK (not to say worse) KING, and his accursed MINISTERS, who have paid our Betrayers with a Part of that Money which was most unjustly levied on us, not to Answer the NECESSITY of Government, but for the most Infamous and Villainous Purposes.

The Particulars mentioned in the Bill of Rights, at the Revolution, were then considered as so many Violations committed by King James, on the Previleges of the People, and necessary to be remedied, for the sake of securing our Religion, and reestablishing Liberty and the Constitution.

The Grievances at that Time complained of against the Sovereign, had their Foundation in Justice and the Rights of the People and the redressing them in the Nature of the Constitution: otherwise, by what Arguments could be assigned a Cause of Complaint against the Prince on the Throne or preserve those Men who accomplished the Revolution from the imputation of Traitors and Rebels to their King.

They considered the Constitution as the primary Object of an Englishman; and the King but as the Secondary; who by his attempts towards Despotism, became a Rebel against this superior Power. They justly Edition: current; Page: [96] reasoned, that as the People, who make a Third of the Constitution, are deemed Traitors, for plotting or attempting the life of, or taking up Arms against the King, who forms another Third of the Constitution, and doomed to Death in consequence of such Behaviour; in like Manner King JAMES rebelled against two Thirds of the Government, by attempting to subvert their Religion and Liberties: for our Constitution, supposes, that each Part of it has a Right to be preserved; that Two are more than One; and the Happiness of a whole PEOPLE to be preserved, in preference to the Ambition or pernicious Passion or Designs of a King.

Shall then the present Sovereign and his Ministers be exempted from a strict and nice inquiry into their Conduct, because they have effected in one Method, the very Despotism which was opposed in JAMES, who was deservedly drove into Exile, for attempting it in another. Forbid it Heaven! and every Thing that is Dear to ENGLISHMEN.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XII

• • The prophecy of Ruin, A POEM

  • SHOULD e’re a Prince the British Empire sway,
  • (And I be doom’d by Heav’n to see the day)
  • Who quite unmindful of that glorious state
  • To which he’s rais’d, not by desert, but fate;
  • Should he be base, be cruel, and unjust,
  • Edition: current; Page: [98]
  • False to his friends. unworthy that great trust;
  • Should he, unmindful of the good that springs
  • From true royalty, and true patriot Kings;
  • By oppression (destroying like a flood)
  • Cause civil war, and fill the land with blood;
  • Should he rebel ’gainst freedom, law, and right,
  • And laugh at truths which honest men should write
  • With fair intent, write with no other view,
  • But to save him, and save their country too;
  • Such deeds as these, would fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny, and stamp the tyrants crimes,
  • That he might live and stink to after-times.
• • Thrice happy, now, when ev’ry blessing springs
  • From GEORGE the THIRD; we boast the BEST of Kings.
• • Curs’d be the wretch who would support a plan,
  • Which must destroy the natural rights of man;
  • Perish the wretch, who unconcern’d would see
  • The laws destroy’d, a falling monarchy;
  • I could not, I am of another breed,
  • I ne’er should tamely see my country bleed;
  • Nor crouch to him, to truth and justice dead,
  • Or fawning compliment an empty head:
  • Let subtle knaves, to candour more inclin’d
  • Disguise the truth, I’d always speak my mind;
  • Perish the thought, the crime should ne’er be mine
  • To sacrifice at curst ambition’s shrine
  • The right to speak, and publickly display
  • In all it’s hideous forms despotic sway;
  • I ne’er should understand those prudent rules,
  • Decorum call’d by parasites and fools;
  • Discretion too, should with decorum fall,
  • I ne’er would be, what rascals decent call;
  • Resentment should to injuries be shewn,
  • Edition: current; Page: [99]
  • The people, by the language too be known,
  • ’Tis survile wretches who are decent thought,
  • Such as are sold, and those that would be bought:
  • When freedom calls, none should from danger start,
  • But take a noble, a decisive part;
  • I’d in the cause of freedom firmly stand,
  • And dare the stroke, e’en of that Tyrant’s hand,
  • Confed’rate villains, and their pow’r defy,
  • Born free like my forefathers, I would die
  • In that great cause, which is the cause of all,
  • Or free I’d live, or glory should I fall:
  • While truth and justice did my lines support,
  • I’d fear no King, nor Minion of that court;
  • Nor King, nor Minister, should then escape,
  • But share alike, the injur’d people’s hate:
  • Tho’ minions talk’d, and lawyers set about,
  • To find the LIBEL, and the AUTHOR out;
  • Tho’ one should stare, another rascal cry,
  • “’Tis TREASON all, the AUTHOR ought to die.”
  • I’d laugh at them, nor care what they could do,
  • In honest rhime, each VILLAIN would persue.
  • Should such a PRINCE succeed to England’s Throne,
  • (Tho’ BORN a BRITON, they must BLUSH to own.)
  • Should he keep foes of FREEDOM, and of LAW,
  • Such foes as keep TRUE LOYALTY in AWE;
  • Pervert fair JUSTICE from her even course,
  • And know no LAW, except the LAW of FORCE;
  • Should he keep such as these, close to his breast,
  • (Striving the Scepter from his hand to wrest)
  • Should he keep such, and of the Stuart race,
  • Who made this Empire tremble to her base;
  • Should Scotsmen be prefer’d to Briton’s brave,
  • And none but Scotsmen, or a Scotsman’s slave
  • Appear at Court, and lord it o’er the land,
  • Keeping all pow’r from the sovereign hand;
  • Edition: current; Page: [100]
  • Should he see only with a Scotsman’s eyes,
  • Be taught to mock his injur’d Briton’s cries;
  • Coop’d up at Court; (like sheep shut in a penn),
  • Little to read, and less to know of men;
  • To hear such men, as had no other ends
  • But to serve him, and be their country’s friends
  • Call’d disloyal, and rebels made appear
  • By base-born Scotsmen, always rebels HERE;
  • This to believe, believe it as his creed,
  • And through those traitors make all England Bleed:
  • Coop’d up at Court, and there be made a tool,
  • The greatest slave, as well as greatest fool;
  • Should England’s Crown be plac’d on such a head,
  • What mis’ry must the people then not dread:
  • Would they not curse the cause, the secret spring,
  • Whence all this dire oppression came, that King,
  • Would they not wish, the Day which gave him birth,
  • Had ne’er disgrac’d the records of the earth;
  • Would they not drag those traitors forth to view,
  • Who foes to him, sought England’s ruin too,
  • And make them answer for such horrid crimes,
  • Which all their race, as well as future times
  • Should strive to equal, or exceed in vain,
  • Crimes, that would leave a long, a lasting stain
  • Upon the land, worse than the Stuarts; who
  • Born Slaves, tried to make slaves of freemen too,
  • Who bound in chains, both Liberty and Law,
  • Quite friendless then, but Heaven sent NASSAU;
  • He ’gainst Slavery, made a glorious stand,
  • And broke those chains, which had disgrac’d the land;
  • With tenfold terror hurl’d his Vengeance down,
  • And drove a Slave, and Tyrant from the Crown,
  • Founded the throne in justice, truth, and right,
  • And rescu’d FREEDOM from the shades of night,
  • Drove superstition, (with her bigot crew)
  • Edition: current; Page: [101]
  • Far from this land, (James he run with her too,)
  • Drove persecution to her seat in Rome,
  • Whilst Tyrants wept at Slav’ry’s bloody tomb:
  • Restored to Britain, all the rights of man,
  • First fixt by Heav’n, on wisdom’s sacred plan.
• • Such deeds as theirs, wou’d fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny, and stamp their horrid crimes,
  • That each might live, and stink to after-times.
  • Would make me call forth ancient British rage
  • To just revenge, or mark the coward age,
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS.
• • Should such a King succeed to England’s Throne,
  • (Tho’ BORN a BRITON, they must BLUSH to own)
  • Should he succeed, when France and Spain are leagu’d
  • To shake the state, and make the nation bleed;
  • When France and Spain by compact2 shall engage,
  • To ruin us, with war’s destructive rage,
  • When Heaven sees the lives UNJUSTLY slain,
  • By restless France, join’d with ambitious Spain;
  • Sees ENGLAND bleed, her blood UNJUSTLY shed,
  • And hurl’s down vengeance, on each guilty head;
  • Bids ENGLAND’S arms pull lawless power down,
  • And with her conquests shake each TYRANT’s crown:
  • Should he succeed, when ENGLAND rais’d above
  • Edition: current; Page: [102]
  • All former times, and WISDOM join’d with LOVE,
  • In council sits, makes paltry factions cease,
  • And tho’ at War, yet all at HOME is PEACE;
  • Whilst ENGLAND keeps one half the world in AWE,
  • And by her POW’R can give the other LAW;
  • When each new day, crowns Britons with success,
  • And Heaven seems some Chatham’s plans to bless;
  • Should he succeed, when war in dread alarms,
  • Calls forth the nation’s WISDOM, with her ARMS,
  • Calls forth RESENTMENT from the BRITISH THRONE,
  • To make her VENGEANCE, and her POWER known;
  • Should he succeed, and roll SUPINE in state,
  • (And leave her GLORY and RENOWN to fate)
  • Would be a crime (that Heav’n could not forgive,)
  • To blast his name, and make his memory live:
  • Live, with recorded VILLAINS to that Day,
  • When time shall cease, and all the world decay:
  • Should he to make this crime still worse appear,
  • Turn out a Minister to ENGLAND DEAR,
  • Who’d rais’d his Country (from a SINKING state)
  • By WISDOM only, (not by chance or fate)
  • To POW’R and STRENGTH, not known in days of yore,
  • Known only then, and to be known no more;
  • At his command, like that great PATRIOT PITT,
  • Makes France to yield, and Spain, tho’ proud, SUBMIT;
  • Makes British VALOUR, with just vengeance hurl’d,
  • Strike TERROR thro’ each nation of the world:
  • Should he be (through a Scotsman’s base design)
  • Forc’d from his office, or made to resign,
  • And that same Scotsman of the Stuart race,
  • Mount in his seat, the nation’s foul disgrace,
  • False to his King, give up those conquests won,
  • And fix in strength, both France and Spain undone;
  • Should he make war, defensive war to cease,
  • On terms inglorious, by a shameful peace,
  • Edition: current; Page: [103]
  • A peace which must from foul CORRUPTION spring,
  • Thro’ that base Scotsman, but still BASER King;
  • Dead to all sense of England’s future good,
  • To sacrifice, her treasure, and her blood.
• • Such deeds as these, would fire my soul with RAGE,
  • And make me e’en against my SAFETY, wage
  • War with VILL’NY, and stamp their horrid crimes.
  • That each might live, and stink to after-times.
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS.
• • Should such a King succeed to ENGLAND’S Throne,
  • (Tho’ BORN a BRITON, they must BLUSH to own)
  • Should he, (when by Scots arts, by bribes, and fraud,
  • A peace most infamous, is made abroad;
  • And, for distinction sake, at Fontainbleau,3
  • The curse of England, and of Scotland too;)
  • Should he, persuing still the path of shame,
  • Give up all pow’r, reserving but the name
  • Of King, let rebel Scotsmen, steer the helm
  • Of State, and sow fell discord in the realm,
  • Make tax on tax, (while England curst with peace)
  • Each year arise, each year to say increase;
  • Each year call loud, aloud for new supplies,
  • While ruin did, with double horror rise;
  • Should he, when such oppressions from those men,
  • Call’d forth some Wilkes, (a Wilkes may be agen;
  • Edition: current; Page: [104]
  • Be sent by Heaven, his country to bless,
  • To rescue ENGLAND from each deep distress;)
  • Call’d forth some Wilkes, in honour to oppose
  • Their measures, and their subtle arts expose;
  • To shew the people ev’ry base design,
  • Their schemes to thwart, their plans to undermine;
  • To speak such truths, as some would fear to think,
  • And shew the gulph, where Englishmen must sink;
  • Sink and remain, till time would be no more,
  • In the damn’d gulph of ARBITRARY POW’R:
  • Thus to stand forth, and only with this view,
  • To save his COUNTRY, and her FREEDOM too;
  • To sound the alarm of danger in her ear,
  • Call forth her RAGE, and shew what she should FEAR
  • Make TRAITORS tremble at the strokes he gave,
  • Tremble and fear the nation to ENSLAVE;
  • To brand those villains with just marks of shame,
  • That each might live, live with a blasted name;
  • Thus to stand forth, with these, these noble views,
  • All DANGER to defy, and BRIBES refuse;
  • Would well deserve (altho’ some TRUTHS might sting,)
  • Both FAVOUR and PROTECTION from that King:
  • Should he, (weak Prince, a surer hate to gain,
  • And make the people daily curse his reign,)
  • Dead to all sense, of HONOUR and of TRUTH,
  • The friend of SLAV’RY in his early youth,)
  • Drunk with PREROGATIVE, a Scotsman’s tool,
  • In MEANNESS bred, fond of DESPOTIC rule;
  • Should he in rage, exert a LAWLESS POW’R,
  • And order him, CLOSE prison’r in the TOWER;
  • (His friends REFUSE admittance to his room,
  • And cruel PRESECUTION be his doom;)
  • Immur’d within those walls for life must be,
  • Unless a PRATT should rise and set him FREE;
  • Yet in such times, and he once more at LARGE,
  • Edition: current; Page: [105]
  • Some Scotch Chief Justice, may renew the charge;
  • Tyrannic pow’r not willing to RETRENCH,
  • And send him for TWO YEARS, to the King’s Bench.
  • The people then would surely flock to see,
  • Fair FREEDOM’S friend, the friend of LIBERTY;
  • To shew their Love, (with well deserv’d applause)
  • To him, who tri’d to save their CHARTER’D LAWS.
• • A SECRETARY ready to fulfill,
  • The bloody mandates of a Tyrant’s will;
  • Might send the cruel Scots, their swords to wield,
  • To gain fresh laurels in St. George’s Field;
  • Should e’er the English by the Scots be slain,
  • In such a cause, a TYRANT’S love to gain,
  • And I be doom’d by heav’n to see the day,
  • Some future year, and on the TENTH of MAY,
  • Should then a youth, thro’ VILLAINY decreed
  • To fall, by Scotsmen there be MASSACRED,
  • (Whom for distinction sake, I’ll ALLEN call,)
  • Persu’d, and in his Father’s house to fall,)
  • An only son, and all his father’s care,
  • His greatest hope, as well as only heir;
  • To see that father sunk in deep distress,
  • SUPPLICATE the Throne, begging for REDRESS;
  • Calling for JUSTICE, (distracted, undone,)
  • Justice, ’gainst the MURDERER’S of his SON
  • This REFUS’D, the MURDERER’S too be PAID,
  • A PRINCE for BLOOD, and from that KING have AID:
  • A Jury PACK’D, a JUDGE most ready too,
  • Obey that Court, and all its rotten crew;
  • ’Gainst JUSTICE, LAW, and TRUTH, (cursed deed!)
  • To hear him say, “the English ought to bleed;”
  • “I have it in commission from the King,
  • “That not ONE SCOTSMAN, while he reigns shall swing;
  • “The SCOTS were SENT, the King he thus had will’d,
  • “They should have butcher’d more, nay, thousand’s kill’d;
  • Edition: current; Page: [106]
  • “There can no CRIME unto THEIR charge be laid,
  • “But by the KING, whom they have not obey’d;
  • “For by the world, this should be understood,
  • “’Twas his DESIGN, to fill the fields with BLOOD.”
• • Such deeds as these would fire my soul with RAGE,
  • And make me e’en against my SAFETY, wage
  • War with VILLAINY, and stamp these Monsters crimes,
  • That each might live, and stink to after-times:
  • Would make me, if I had a hand to write,
  • Paint these foul deeds, dark as the shades of night;
  • Would make me call forth ancient British RAGE,
  • To JUST REVENGE, or mark the COWARD AGE.
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS.
• • Should such a King succeed to ENGLAND’S Throne,
  • (Tho’ BORN a BRITON, they must BLUSH to own;)
  • Should he, in meanness bred, LAUGH at all LAW,
  • The senate keep by BRIBES, and FRAUD and AWE;
  • That parliament to ROYAL MANDATE true,
  • Shall ruin England and her FREEDOM too;
  • Intestine war shall be at BRENTFORD laid,
  • (To which that King shall give his utmost AID;)
  • A war ’gainst truth and honour, horrid deed!
  • To root up FREEDOM, and make VIRTUE bleed,
  • To stab the constitution’s very soul,
  • That right destroy, which now supports the whole;
  • Elections right, that firm, that great support,
  • ’Gainst venal statesmen, and a slavish court:
  • Yet none should suffer for such mighty guilt,
  • Nor all the blood which might that day be spilt:
  • Altho’ by hir’d villains some should be slain,
  • The villains tri’d, condemn’d, ’twou’d be in vain,
  • In vain the nation should for justice call,
  • Edition: current; Page: [107]
  • A pardon would be sent from Surgeons Hall;
  • That King should laugh, his minions should laugh too,
  • To think each day they butcher’d one, or two.
• • Such deeds as these would fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny, and stamp that TYRANT’s crimes,
  • That he might live, and stink to after-times.
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS,
• • Should such a King succeed to England’s Throne,
  • (Tho’ born a Briton, they must blush to own;)
  • He would from France, to shameful insults yield,
  • And be afraid the British sword to wield;
  • Our cannon, France shall neither fear nor dread,
  • When known to her, a Patriot King was dead;
  • And he who reign’d, a scripture rule did know,
  • To strike him once, would turn for t’other blow;
  • The terror of our fleets should be no more,
  • Nor carry thunder to a foreign shore;
  • But piece, by piece, be left to rot away,
  • With British glory, moulder and decay;
  • The insulting Spaniard, unchastis’d shall dare,
  • To seize a ship, and off her rudder tare;
  • While England, neither dreaded, nor ador’d,
  • Stains with her pen, the lusture of her sword;
  • In cowardice gives up her rightful claim,
  • And blasts at once, her honour, and her name:
  • Curst be the time, the day, when that is told,
  • That England’s Empire of the sea is sold.
• • Such deeds as these, would fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny and stamp that TYRANT’S crimes,
  • That he might live and stink to after-times.
• Edition: current; Page: [108]
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS.
• • Should such a King succeed to England’s throne,
  • (Tho’ born a Briton, they must blush to own;)
  • Should he in meanness bred, laugh at all law,
  • The senate keep by bribes, and fraud in awe;
  • That parliament to loyal mandates true,
  • With England’s ruin, shall fix Boston’s too;
  • Her charters shall destroy, her rights invade,
  • Her commerce ruin, and the town blockade;
  • Shall fill that place, with men by slaughter fed,
  • To rob the starving people of their bred;
  • And fix by force, some curst oppressive laws,
  • Made through Scots villainy, (without a cause;)
  • In base compliance with that Tyrant’s will,
  • Her freedom to destroy, or blood to spill;
  • And step, by step, most infamous design,
  • Thus the whole constitution undermine;
  • First take from Boston, all the rights we gave,
  • Make each American, a Scotsman’s slave;
  • And next in chains the English shall be bound,
  • By that same King, in whom no truth they found;
  • Should I then live, I’d rather league with Hell,
  • Or rise in arms, and ’gainst that King rebel
  • Than be his slave, by all thats just and good,
  • I’d rather see my children roll in blood.
• • Such deeds as these, would fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny, and stamp that Tyrant’s crimes,
  • That he might live, and stink to after-times;
  • Would make me call forth antient British rage,
  • To just revenge, or mark the coward age.
• • Thrice happy now, when ev’ry blessing springs,
  • From GEORGE the THIRD, we boast the BEST of KINGS.
• Edition: current; Page: [109]
• • Should such a King succeed to England’s throne,
  • (The nation must, with dire oppression groan,)
  • Should he in meanness bred, laugh at all law,
  • The Senate keep by bribes, and fraud in awe;
  • That parliament to royal mandates true,
  • With freedom, shall subvert religion too;
  • The Lords and Bishops, shall that Senate join,
  • And with the State, the church shall undermine;
  • The Protestant faith, which for ages stood,
  • On truth’s firm base, bought with a sea of blood;
  • Shall be destroy’d, and at that Tyrants call,
  • The Laws of God, shall into ruins fall;
  • The English then, to Catholics must bow,
  • And worship Idols, as they do God now;
  • Or else submit to persecution’s rod,
  • Be burnt alive, (for owning of their God)
  • With shirt well pitch’d, to give a shocking light,
  • And Smithfield once more blaze, at dead of night;
  • Then as before, with Hell they may conspire,
  • To set our churches, and the town on fire:
  • (That pious King, at pious Priest’s command,
  • May make crusado’s to the Holy-land,
  • Thro’ dangerous seas, to find the blessed spring
  • Of holy water, to which the Pope shall bring
  • Him safe, purge, and absolve him from his crimes,
  • As Pope’s absolv’d our King’s in former times,
  • And made them devil’s on the British throne,
  • They reign’d in blood, and Hell was all their own.)
  • And Bishop’s then e’en Satan shall out vye,
  • To please that KING will give their GOD the lie,
  • (But still they’ll have a sure and certain hope,
  • And find at last a Saviour in the Pope)
  • And no distinction could a Scotsman bring,
  • ’Twixt, DEVIL Bishop’s, POPE, and such a KING;
  • So far alike, (none should this disbelieve)
  • Edition: current; Page: [110]
  • Their aim the same to ruin and deceive,
  • By oaths nor conscience neither would be bound,
  • Could worse on Earth, or worse in Hell be found.
• • Such deeds as these, would fire my soul with rage,
  • And make me e’en against my safety, wage
  • War with vill’ny, and stamp their cursed crimes,
  • That each might live and stink to after-times:
  • Would make me call forth ancient British rage
  • To Just revenge, or mark to coward age.
• • Thrice happy now, when every blessing springs
  • From GEORGE the THIRD; we boast the best of KINGS.
• • Through that dark gloom one comfort shall appear,
  • (And all the world own I’m a PROPHET here)
  • Altho’ like crimes of old in Sodom’s land,
  • Those might draw vengeance from GOD’s righteous hand,
  • Yet for time, the AUTHORS shall not bleed,
  • Thro’ one Just man, who then shall greatly plead;
  • One BISHOP shall be found, and only ONE,
  • Then true to Man, to God, and Christ his Son,
  • There shall be one, ASAPH4 that one shall sing,
  • Just to his God, his Country and his King.
• • Should that dread time to England e’er be known,
  • When such a Monarch sits upon the throne,
  • Her senate brib’d, and only kept for sport,
  • To aid the BLOODY measures of a court,
  • Should that e’er be, a few brave virtuous men,
  • Edition: current; Page: [111]
  • (A Chatham, Burke, a Glinn,5 may be agen)
  • May try, with truth and justice on their side,
  • To stem the torrent of corruption’s tide;
  • Like virtuous Romans they may firmly stand,
  • With some few more, to save a falling land;
  • May bravely struggle in their country’s cause,
  • And nobly try to save her charter’d laws;
  • But try in vain, truth shall not find support,
  • From rascals brib’d, and by a rotten court:
  • Should honour rise, by justice call’d to tell,
  • How England bled, and how the Romans fell;
  • Should virtue honour join, at Heaven’s call,
  • To shew that Britons must like Romans fall:
  • Should they, base villainy drag forth to light,
  • St. Stephen’s troops, shall then prepare to fight;
  • And legions arm, against truth and virtue’s laws,
  • Will there defend the blackest villain’s cause;
  • And honour, justice, truth and virtue meet
  • This fate, shall victims fall at powers feet.
• • Dread EVILS these, yet they will surely spring,
  • From Lords and Commons, join’d with such a King.
• • In such a time, at FREEDOM’S glorious call,
  • Britons must strike, and make those TRAITORS fall,
  • A deed which would by ages be admir’d,
  • Edition: current; Page: [112]
  • A day kept HOLY, when their souls expir’d:
  • Then would, happier days, to Albion be restor’d,
  • By ANTIENT JUSTICE, with her PATRIOT SWORD.
• • In such a time would REVOLUTION stand,
  • Each Briton’s boast, the glory of the land.
• • But should that time to England once be known,
  • When foul corruption stinks upon the throne,
  • And she has POPISH BISHOPS of her own.
  • When each other the THREE estates shall JOIN,
  • By force or fraud, the state to undermine;
  • When Britons do, and with INGLORIOUS ease,
  • SUBMIT to WRONGS, such curs’d wrongs as these;
  • When that shall be (quite dead to Heaven’s call)
  • THE BRITISH EMPIRE MUST IN RUINS FALL.

N. B. The spirited letter signed CASCA, is come safe to hand, and shall be properly attended to. The Authors of the CRISIS will be extremely glad of the future favours of the Writer, which will be very acceptable, and the expence of postage, most readily paid.—They hope to hear from him soon, and would wish to have an addition in a few Days to the letter already received.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XIII

With Rage from Hell the Tyrant’s Heart may glow,

But He’s no Briton who can strike the Blow.

Every Englishman must deplore the ill Success, and abhor the unworthy Treatment which attended the two late Conciliatory Plans in relation to America. Pregnant with good Sense, Benevolence, and sound Reason; they will do eternal Honour to the Wisdom, Justice, Policy, and Humanity, of the Heads and Hearts that formed them. How different was the Plan of North? Crafty, Mean, Insidious, Impolitic, Irrational, Shallow, and (like himself and his Coadjutors) beneath Contempt.1 This was not treating with America, but insulting her: every Step against her, hitherto, has been founded in the greatest Inhumanity, the grossest Ignorance, and the worst Policy. I will proceed to prove my Assertions, and defy the whole Cabal of Ministerial Slaughtermen to confute me. I do not call upon the Master-Butcher, because He can only be considered (after the Part he has acted by asserting) as an executive, and not as a rational Monster in this Business.—First then, for the Humanity of these Proceedings. Let it be granted only (as it Edition: current; Page: [114] must) that the Crown stands in the same Relation to America, as a Parent to her Child, and my first Assertion proves itself. Have any gentle, tender, sensible Means, been used to reconcile her? Have not her humble Remonstrances, Proposals, Submissions, and Supplications, been treated with Contempt?—not suffered to lie upon the Table of a British House of Commons? Have they been deemed Worthy of a Thought by her pious Sovereign? Has she not been branded with the ignominious Name of Rebel, by Act of Parliament, for no other Reason (I mean no true one) than because she has wisely and calmly deliberated upon, remonstrated against, and steadily, but not tumultuously, resented the repeated Injuries she has received?—as to Riots by Mobs, they are not to be imputed to her as Treason and Rebellion. America (as a Nation most unconstitutionally oppressed) has hitherto only deliberated upon her Sufferings:—She has not acted.—My Lords Suffolk, Pomfret, Radnor, Apsley, Sandwich, they have not acted.—It is, as yet, no Treason, my Lords, to think, to advise, to fear, and to prepare. You cannot, you dare not, move to annull (as you may wish) the Statute of Treasons in America. The Americans have as good a Right to that as your Lordships. I mean as yet, my Lords, because I am not quite satisfied that (even in the Present smuggled and corrupt Parliament) the Boldest and most venal Prostitute, durst make so dangerous a Trial upon the Patience and long Suffrance of this Kingdom.—I will now inform your Lordships that it is contrary to the Law of Nations to attempt the Destruction even of the most inveterate Enemy by Famine, until he has been first solemnly summoned to submit. Have the Americans ever yet been (though, if Men, they shortly will be) in Arms? Have they yet had a Prospect of any other Terms than such as would make them Slaves? Will they be Weak enough to submit to such Conditions? the Preliminaries hitherto proposed, have been founded in Oppression, not in Reason: they are fit for Brutes, not Men. The lenient, the compassionate North, has treated America like the Assassin of an Alley—with his Knife at her Throat, he has humanely left it at her Choice to strip herself, for Fear she should be stripped by him.—Why have the Ministry had recourse at first to this inhuman Scheme of Famine? They fear the Army will relent, when they find they must Wade through the Blood of Edition: current; Page: [115] their own Country-men. Their present General (Gage) has, to his Honour, declined the Bloody Task. Even a foreigner, to whom the same Command was offered, has revolted at the Thought.2 Is not this Stratagem of starving Freemen into Slavery, the most Inhuman, as well as the most Cowardly, of all others, especially when it is considered that all the Remonstrances of these unhappy Sufferers, have been rejected? I should insult the Reader’s understanding by waiting for a Reply,—I therefore come to the next Ingredient in the American Persecution, Ignorance.—I must first Remark that some of their wise Lordships were for having Maryland and Virginia (very remote inland Countrys) prohibited from the fishery.—Thus far have some of the great and sage Counsellors of this Nation been Ignorant even of the Situation of that Part of their Fellow-Creatures, whom they wish to involve in the most dreadful of all Calamities,—Famine. But the very Scheme itself is Impracticable; these wretched People cannot be totally destroyed either by Butchery or Famine: their Numbers are great and formidable; in such a vast extent of Country their resourses will be endless: they are not destitute of Arms already, and they will be supplied with more in spite of our vigilant Fleet. They have all the Materials necessary for War in the Bowels of their Country: they have Artists, Handicraftsmen, Manufacturers, and Mechanics of all Sorts; Cattle of all kinds; Fruit of the Earth in vast aboundance; fine streams and Rivers: though, no doubt, Administration (for the sake of Consistency) will give strict Orders, and pay highly for the poisoning of these; but that will not easily be effected: these People in General, know the use of Arms; they have Perseverance, Courage, Resolution,—and above all, (most prophetic Lord Sandwich) they have Virtue, which can never be overcome. Should our Army strike, and fail, the hatred, enmity, and revolt of America, is Edition: current; Page: [116] fixed for ever: they never will submit to lick the Tyrant-hand, which has once been raised against their Liberties, their Properties, and their Lives. Under the above Considerations, the Present scheme of Government must seem Impracticable; if so, or if from Rancour and Resentment, it has been viewed but Partially, it is the grossest Ignorance to pursue it. Should Heaven interpose on the Side of Justice, we shall perceive our Error too late; but were our Attempts by Sword or Famine, sure of Success, Government is only destroying its own Vitals.—What then is the Policy of this unnatural War? It is like the War between the Belly and the other Members; the whole State must feel is Consequences. Shallow North told his House of Commons (for it is his) that the Imports from the American Continent were inconsiderable. Now my Lord? You ought to know (and in Honour you should have declared) that the Imports of that Part of America into our Sugar Colonies were the very Life of them: neither Planters, nor Negroes, can Subsist without them; particularly in the prohibited, interdicted Article of Fish, which, when salted, is their general Food. Your Lordship by your War, and your intended Famine, has effectually starved and ruined all the Passive and obedient Sugar-Colonies, as well as your declared Enemies in America. Thus a most valuable Fishery, a considerable Sugar Trade, and Thousands (perhaps Millions) of Innocent and brave Lives will be sacrificed by a narrow-minded Ministry to wicked Views, and insatiable Resentments, in the Reign of a Monarch born a Briton! An ancient Pict, or a wild Indian, (Savage in their Natures) would Blush and Shudder at such Proceedings.—With the Colonies and Trade the Revenues must sink. If royal Profusion, and Ministerial Corruption, were to sink likewise, it would be well; but they will still attempt to draw Blood from the most impoverished Veins. The Commerical, the landed Interest, the Public Bank, at last, must feel the Shock. Then, perhaps, when Famine threatens at our own Doors, the British Lion will be roused.—Then, (for I will Prophecy in my turn) comes a Revolution, fatal to Minions, Pensioners, Placemen, Knaves, and Tyrants; but happy for the Nation, if from the Ashes of all these Pests, the Rights of suffering and insulted Englishmen, can be once more established.—We shall find it to our Cost, in vain to send English Soldiers (none but Scotch will do Edition: current; Page: [117] the Business) against English Breasts. I am of Opinion (let the Wishes of the Ministry be what they will) that if every Officer who goes upon this Assassination were a Burgoyne,3 he would be Disappointed of the Blood he pants for, his Command will be a Sinecure, and his Victory a brave and virtuous Desertion. All who deserved the Names of Soldiers, would throw down their Arms, and Embrace their gallant and unhappy Countrymen. An English Army will not, and a Navy cannot destroy the Liberties of America: the Ministry, who wish to deceive the Nation, are (as they frequently are) deceived themselves: they cannot execute their Plan without extraordinary and successive (almost perpetual) Drafts of Forces. Should the Patient Sprit of this Kingdom, rise at such a Time in Arms, and France and Spain add to the Horrors of a Civil War, even in the midst of these Calamities, it will be some Consolation that the Advisers, Abettors, and detestable Heads of these diabolical Measures, cannot long escape the Vengeance of an injured People.

Notwithstanding we have given almost the usual Quantity of Matter already, we cannot here omit without injury to our Readers and the Cause of Liberty, the spirited City Remonstrance which will do immortal Honour to the Heads and Hearts of those who framed it.

NUMBER XIV

IT must be apparent to every Englishman, not blinded by Malice or Ignorance, that the Americans by raising Forces, and taking up Arms, have no Intention to offer Violence to his Majesty’s Person, Crown or Dignity, nor to draw any English Blood; but only to defend themselves, their Rights and Liberties, against encroaching Violence and LAWLESS POWER, to rescue his Majesty out of the Hands of his present evil, malignant Advisers; to bring him back to a just Sense of his DUTY; and those Delinquents to condign Punishment; who are now engaged in a desperate Conspiracy against the natural Rights of Mankind. The Americans have endeavoured by every possible Means, to accommodate the present unhappy Dispute with the King and his INFERNAL MINIONS, upon just, reasonable, and honourable Terms; but hitherto in vain. His Majesty having contrary to his OATH, his DUTY, and the fundamental Laws of God and the Realm, sent an Army of mercinary Soldiers to America, against his Subjects, for the avowed and open Edition: current; Page: [124] Purpose of robbing them of their PEACE, their RIGHTS, their LIBERTIES, their PROPERTIES, or their LIVES, and to impose UNLAWFUL TAXES by force of Arms; the Americans may Lawfully and Justly, by the great Principles of the Constitution, without any Treason or Rebellion, take up Arms in Defence of their Privileges, Laws, Lives, Liberties, and Properties; even if the King were present to assist and encourage his Soldiers, in this unnatural, bloody, and destructive Civil War.

When a King throws off all restraint of Law, and is bound by no Principles of Justice or Humanity, when he Invades with open Force, the Liberties and Persons of his Subjects in a hostile Manner, only to answer the most diabolical, arbitrary, and infamous Purposes, the People of England, and every Part of the British Empire, will be justified in taking up Arms, and resisting such Invasions and Violence; otherwise they must fall a Prey to his insatiable Rapine, and become the absolute Slaves of Arbitrary Power, by way of Conquest.

We have several Instances in the History of this Country, and in many Ages, of the People of England resisting by force of Arms, the Oppressions, Rapines, unjust Violence, and Armies of their Princes raised against them; and they have even encountered their KINGS in open Battle, and taken them Prisoners; sometimes expelled, and at other Times deposed them from their Royal Authority, when they became Incorrigible, open and professed Enemies to the Kingdom, and sought the Ruin and Desolation of their subjects when by Office, Duty, Oath and common Justice, they were Bound inviolably to protect them in Liberty and Peace. Among many other Examples of such Proceedings, and the Bravery and Virtue of our Ancestors, are the following; viz. the Case of King John, Henry the Third, Edward the First, Richard the Third, and Henry the Sixth; nor are these Examples singular, all Kingdoms, and in all Ages, have done the same, when their King (like the present Sovereign on the Throne of England) degenerated into Tyrants, of which there are infinite Precedents in History: and such Actions in every Age and Nation have always been deemed Lawful and Just; as warranted by the Laws of God, Nature, Reason, State, and Nations; all which Instruct, not only particular Persons, but whole Cities and Kingdoms, for their own necessary Edition: current; Page: [125] Defence and Preservation, the Support of human Society, and Liberty, to protect themselves against all unlawful Violence and Tyranny, even in the Person of their Kings, their Ministers, or Minions, to whom the Laws of God, Nature, Man, nor any civil Nation, ever yet gave the least Authority to murder, spoil, oppress, or enslave their Subjects, or deprive them of their Liberties or Estates: Resistance were it Unlawful or Unjust, (as the Pimps and Parisites of a Court would insinuate) a few ambitious, bloody minded, tyrannizing Kings, might, without Molestation, in a short space of Time, RUIN, MURDER, or ENSLAVE, the whole Race of Men; overturn the settled Forms of Civil Government, extirpate the Christian Religion, and destroy human Society at their Pleasure: this, and Worse, if possible, had been effected; nay, every State and Kingdom, had been totally subverted long ago, by the worst of Monsters, Lawless Princes; had not this just, natural, hereditary Power of resisting and opposing their illegal Violence, (inherent in the People) restrained and prevented, such bloody and destructive Designs, from being carried into Execution.

This necessary and defensive Opposition, and resistance against regal Violence, which has ever been held Lawful, and often practised in almost every Kingdom, will justify the Americans, in taking up Arms, and resisting the present Arbitrary, Cruel, and Bloody Measures, now carrying on against them, by an infatuated, obstinate, perverse King, his infernal Ministers, and their Agents, whose only Object in View, is the entire RUIN of this once GREAT, HAPPY, POWERFUL, and FLOURISHING KINGDOM, and the DESTRUCTION of PUBLIC LIBERTRY.

It is expressly declared by Aristotle, Xenophon, King Edward the Confessor, in his established Laws, the Council of Paris in 829, by Bracton, Fortescue, and even King James himself, that a King governing in a settled Kingdom, CEASES TO BE A KING, and degenerates into a TYRANT, so soon as he leaves to rule by LAW, much more, when he begins to INVADE his SUBJECTS, PERSONS, RIGHTS, LIBERTIES, to set up an ARBITRARY POWER, impose UNLAWFUL TAXES, RAISE FORCES, and make WAR upon his Subjects, whom he should PROTECT, and Edition: current; Page: [126] Rule in PEACE;1 to PILLAGE, PLUNDER, WASTE, and SPOIL his Kingdoms; IMPRISON, MURDER, and DESTROY his People in an HOSTILE Manner; this they severally declare to be the highest degree of Tyranny, condemned and detested by God, and all good Men. The whole State and Kingdom therefore, in such Cases as these, for their own necessary Preservation, may Lawfully, with FORCE of ARMS, when no other Means can secure them, not only Passively, but actively resist their Prince, in such his Violent and Tyrannical Proceedings; without resisting any Kingly lawful Authority, for that is vested in the Kings Person, for the Preservation, not the Destruction of the Kingdom; because these illegal Oppressions and Tyrannical Actions, are not warranted, but prohibited by the Laws of God, and the Realm, (to whom he is Accountable, and by whom he is justly Censurable) he is no lawful King, nor Magistrate, but an unjust oppressive Tyrant, a mere Private Man, who by such Proceedings, hath denuded himself of his Just regal Authority: so that all those Laws made for the Defence of the Kings Person, and Sovereign Power, the Suppression of Insurrections, Treasons, and Conspiracies against him, while he Governs his People according to Law, as by OATH and DUTY he is Bound will yield no Countenance, Encouragement, or Protection to him; in such Tyrannical and cruel Oppressions, but more especially when he turns a public Enemy to his People, and proclaims OPEN WAR against them; invades their Laws, Liberties, Edition: current; Page: [127] and Persons, and exercises all Manner of Hostilities against them, the same as the most Barbarous and Foreign Enemy would do: It being contrary to common Sense and Reason, to suppose that our Laws, which strictly Inhibit and Punish the very smallest Violations of the Public Pease, in all other Persons, should COUNTENANCE, JUSTIFY, and PATRONIZE them in the King, the FIRST MINISTER, and supreme Fountain of Justice; and not permit the People under pain of Rebellion and Treason, so much as to defend their Lives, Liberties, Estates, and Religion, from the open Violence of the King himself, or his malignant plundering Ministers and Favourites. When as Fortescue and Bracton prove, Kings of all others, both by OATH and DUTY, ought to be more observant, and obedient to the Laws of God and the Land, than the very Meanest of their Subjects.

That Precept of St. Paul, Romans 13, 1–2–3. Let every Soul be Subject to the Higher Powers. &c.2 Means no more than this, that as long as Kings legally and justly execute the Trust committed to their Charge, and conferred on them by God and the People, they must, and ought to be OBEYED and submitted to, without the least Resistance, Private or Public; but if they degenerate into Tyrants, and turn professed Enemies to their People, by Murdering, Imprisoning, or destroying them by open Violence; or endeavouring by FORCE of ARMS, to subvert their Laws, Liberties, or Religion, and expose them as a Prey to their merciless blood thirsty Soldiers; I dare confidently to affirm, it was never the Intention of St. Paul, much less of our Laws, to inhibit Subjects, under Pain of Damnation, High in conscience Treason, or Rebellion, by defensive Arms, to resist KINGS THEMSELVES, or any of their Mercinary Adherents.

It was certainly never the Intention of the Apostle, to establish in the World, any errisistable Lawless Tyranny, or spoil of Kingdoms, and Butchery of Edition: current; Page: [128] Subjects, execrable to God and Man, in all Ages, and in all Persons who have resisted them, even unto Blood: he meant rather totally to suppress them. There being scarce any more pregnant Text, against the Tyranny, the boundless Prerogative, the illegal proceedings of Kings, and the higher Powers in all the Scripture, than that of Romans 13, 1st to 7th Verse, if properly understood, and rightly Interperted, as Pareus3 and others prove: therefore the Resistance of the Americans, against our Present seduced, malignant, Popish King, is no Violation of any Law of God or the Land, but a just and necessary War, which they have by every Means, to the utmost of their Power, endeavoured to prevent, and therefore no Treason or Rebellion within the meaning of any Law, or Statute; they are only arming themselves, for their own necessary Preservation, and to prevent their inevitable RUIN, they mean not OPENLY to assault the royal Army of Butchers; and I believe, there is no Divine among the whole Bench of Popish Bishops, no Casuist among the whole Tribe of venal Lawyers, except a few prostituted Court Slaves, VILLAINOUS enough to affirm, that it is Damnation in Conscience, or Treason and Rebellion in point of LAW, for our injured and suffering Fellow Subjects in America, to take up Arms for the Preservation of their Lives, their Liberties, and their Property; but would rather deem it Just and Honourable, nay, a Duty for every Englishman to venture his Life, and his Fortune in their Defence; in Defence of the dear bought Rights of his Country, and rather than Live a Slave, to die Gloriously in the Cause of PUBLIC LIBERTY.

N. B. Two Letters from CASCA are received, they came too late for this Weeks Number, but shall be made the Subject of our next. The Authors of the CRISIS beg CASCA will accept their most grateful Acknowledgements for this Favour.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Streer, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XV

A constant Scourge—still I’ll renew the Charge, And lash the Tyrant as his Crimes enlarge.

A Foolish King grasps at Wealth and Power, as the Ends, a Wise King uses them as the means of Government. With the one, they are Gorgeous, vain Appendages of Royalty; with the other, they are happy Instruments of Benevolence. A foolish King eyes LIBERTY askaunt, and execrates it as the bane of Greatness; a wise King knows that neither Kingdom, nor Sovereign, can be Great without it. The Fool endeavours to root up, what the Patriot King most assiduously Cultivates. A weak Prince is jealous of LIBERTY in its lowest Branches. Hence it is, that he not only strikes at the Rights and Privileges of his People, but Edition: current; Page: [130] is Mean enough to envy the IMMUNITIES of a CORPORATION. He starts at Shadows. In such a Reign even COMMERICAL MEETINGS are ODIOUS, because they are composed of FREEMEN. Even Common Halls are an UNLAWFUL CONGRESS; like that in America, they are deemed REBELLIOUS ASSOCIATIONS. How sophistically do ministerial Scriblers labour to draw an artful Veil over such Political Transgressions as SOVEREIGNS, without a Blush, avow? Can the sagacious Doctor Johnson (that ministerial Hackney) any longer rally the well grounded Jealousies of England and America?2 Can he now ask these Croakers of Calamity, how Slavery can be brought from America into England? If he dares, I refer him for his Answer to Lord Hertford3 (one of the State Nurserymen) who sowed a subtle Seed, or two, of Slavery, even in our Metropolis, the other Day. I hope, however, that these Seeds will be severely choaked by the rank and stubborn WEED of LIBERTY. A Weed it is now deemed in the CABINET, and in the LEGISLATURE, and in both condemned to be rooted up. A Crop far more promising is expected. The Experiment of raising it by SLOW DEGREES, has just been made. His MAJESTY, sick of all ADDRESSES but those of his FAITHFUL PARLIAMENT, has just declared, “That he will not receive on the Throne, any ADDRESS, REMONSTRANCE, or PETITION, of the Lord Mayor, and Aldermen of the City of London, but on their CORPORATE CAPACITY.” Thus is the Notice worded by Lord Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice (not of the Ceremonies) but of England.—The Reason, or rather the DESIGN of this, is Plain. For all Acts done in their CORPORATE Edition: current; Page: [131] CAPACITY, the City of London is Responsible as a CORPORATION. Neither the Proceedings, the Resolves, nor the CONGRESS of a COMMON HALL, can forfeit the CHARTER of the City; the Offences, (such as Petitions) of the City, as a CORPORATION, may. In the one Case, they act in their Political Capacity; in the other, they do not. The Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Liverymen, are Individuals; but the CORPORATION has but one Neck. This ministerial Mouse-Trap, is baited by a Lord Chief Justice of England, whose Duty it most clearly is (for I will Teach it him) to carry the Balance with an even and an equal Hand, between the just PREROGATIVES of the CROWN, and the undoubted PRIVILEGES of the SUBJECT.

I make no doubt but a Mansfield and a Thurloe will conduct the intended Scheme as well as a Jefferies, or a Sawyer. The memorable Case of the SEVEN BISHOPS, in James the Seconds Time, is now forgot at Court, and PETITIONS are once more degenerated into CRIMES.4

Though the actual Annihilation of the CITY CHARTER may not be intended, as it cannot be the Interest of the Crown to check any Source of Wealth; yet the Menaces, and intimidating Prosecutions of a RAPACIOUS MINISTRY may be expected to have the same happy Effects, as threatening Letters, sometimes, have among Thieves. They found it so lately, in the Case of the East India Company, and it is not improbable that their Audacity may strengthen with their Hopes.

Toys and Baubles must be bought, and Baby Houses must be crowded to amuse and divert VACANT SOVEREIGNS, and Ravens must have Food. The numerous Mouths of CORRUPTION must be stopped. Too many Stratagems for the Sake of WEALTH and ARBITRARY POWER, cannot be tried. For GOLD every Coffer; for POWER every Vein must BLEED. The Predictions of America in respect to England herself, are now verifying. They are coming forward by slow Degrees, at this Instant. Our Ministers of late have had a strange Appetite for CHARTERS. In Wilkes’s Case they had the DARING IMPUDENCE to attack the GREAT CHARTER of ENGLAND for the sake of POWER. They have since been nibbling at the East India Company’s, for the sake of Wealth and Power both; the Company compounded and acquiesed.5 They are striking again at CHARTERS in America, (as their retained and pensioned Advocate Dr. Johnson says) for the sake of POWER, and they now have their Eye upon the Charters of London, for a Royal Reason,—for the sake of pursuing the Commercial-Interests of this Kingdom.

But are the PETITIONS of Common Halls, or Common Halls themselves, so dreadful? are the Meetings, (or more properely the Great Councils,) of this Metropolis so terrible? are they not Meetings of Meritorious Citizens and Loyal Subjects? in both these Capacities they have ADDRESSED, and in both they have OFFENDED.

How harsh and grating is the Voice of TRUTH! how unhallowed are the Lips that dare to utter it before the THRONE! Approach it ye British Slaves, upon the Knee; adore it with prostration, but profane it not with a PETITION! upon this Mercy Seat (alas!) the Sovereign will no more receive PETITIONS, from his Faithful Citizens and Friends, from those who supply his WANTS, his SUPERFLUITIES, his EXTRAVAGANCIES, and his Plenteous Coffers, upon this sacred Seat he can only listen to the SYCOPHANTIC ADDRESSES of a Corrupt and Destructive PARLIAMENT, those Leeches of the Realm, who so Edition: current; Page: [133] largely drain for their own abandaned uses, those Coffers, which his REPULSED CITIZENS so largely fill.

How like a GOD does a MONARCH look, encircled by TREACHEROUS MINIONS and RAPACIOUS FLATTERERS! How like a mere MORTAL, surrounded by Subjects MOST AFFECTIONATE, and SINCERE, who shower down at once both SUPPLIES and BLESSINGS, upon a Prince whom they HONOUR, ESTEEM, and LOVE!

But KINGS should quit the Track of MORTALS—they should disdain the little Virtues of HUMANITY! The Spirit of a Monarch should aspire at an ECCENTRIC CHARACTER, beyond the reach of MAN. This will nobly lead him not to endure, but to repell the humble Suits of his AGGRIVED SUBJECTS;—not to caress, but to detest his People;—not to sooth, conciliate, and appease; but to menace, insult, and exterminate: not to human Errors, but INHUMAN CRIMES: not to REFORMATION, but to MURDER. Not to JUSTICE, but to TYRANNY. Not to PEACE and HONOUR, but to REMORSE, HATRED, CALAMITY, RESISTANCE and the SCAFFOLD.

Let such Princes, like that unhappy Tyrant Charles the First, seek in Vain for Shelter, among the fawning Herds that idolize their Vices, for the sake of sharing their Prodigality and Profusion.

Let them try their faithful Scots, who as they have often received the Wages of CORRUPTION, will a Second Time receive the PRICE OF BLOOD.

Let them fly to the Arms of those tender Tyrants, their PRECEPTORS, who have thus carefully trained them to their IGNOMINY and RUIN from their Cradle.

Whilst they repulse a suffering and an injured Subject, let them fall for Consolation, upon the FRIENDLY Bosom of a Mansfield or a Bute.—Let them in their Frenzy fly for Succour to their CHANCELLOR,—not a York, alas!—but an Apsley, the poor SHADOW of a Mansfield.—Let them most deservedly taste all the Bitterness of Despair, and find Relief (though late) at last, in the generous CONDESCENSION and FORGIVENESS, of a DESPISED, INSULTED, and OPPRESSED PEOPLE.

ASTONISHED then, my Lord Mansfield, not at the Humble, just PETITIONS, but at the LENITY of their PATIENT SUBJECTS, let them deliver up their MINIONS to the BLOCK, with Shame and Contrition resign the CROWN, and Sleep IGNOBLY with their Fathers; but let their INFAMY be recorded, that succeeding Princes may profit largely from such WEAK and GUILTY ANNALS.

N. B. The Epistle to Lord Mansfield from CASCA is received, and shall be made the Subject of our XVII Number. The Writer may depend, his Directions will upon every Occasion, be implicitly followed—The Authors of the CRISIS wish to be honoured with a private Direction, how to convey a few Papers Weekly to CASCA, for the Use of himself and Friends, as a small Tribute of Gratitude for the repeated Favours he has conferred on them. He may rest assured they never can betray PRIVATE CONFIDENCE, nor abuse the sacred Offices of Friendship.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XVI

THE Motto of this Paper gives a Specimen of Roman, the proceedings against America, of English Policy.—There is, and must necessarily be, a Compact, either express, or emplyed, between every Sovereign and Subject. PROTECTION and OBEDIENCE are the mutual Stipulations, if the ONE is WITHDRAWN, the OTHER CEASES. Now, PROTECTION is certainly withdrawn, when Subjects, guilty of no HOSTILE, or REBELLIOUS Act, (I defy Edition: current; Page: [136] the Ministry to prove one against them) are nevertheless treated (like the Americans) as ENEMIES and REBELS. Administration, most falsely and audaciously, stigmatize them with the Name of REBELS, merely to colour their own base Designs, and UNJUSTIFIABE HOSTILITIES against their Fellow-Subjects; in whom they discern an odious Spirit of LIBERTY, which sets (for them) a DANGEROUS EXAMPLE to the Mother Country. The NOBLE FLAME is dying HERE, and it would be fatal to Ministerial designs, that it should be cherished in any Part of our Dominions.

The SPIRITED AMERICANS feel this Truth, they foresee, and wisely guard against the Danger. They have convened, and consulted for the PUBLIC SAFETY, like TRUE BRITONS. What then? Is such a national, political Congress, a traiterous Association? At SUCH a Time too, and in SUCH a Cause? Is the Situation and Circumstances of America (a NATION in point of Territory and Numbers) to be compared to that of Truro (a rotten Borough) in Cornwall? Buffoonery in serious Cases, Doctor Johnson, dishonours human Nature, and degrades human Understanding. Not even the Example of your Master, Doctor, who played Falstaff, after he had deluded a late unhappy Lord Chancelor of England into Suicide, can sanctify dramatic Pleasantry, at the Expence of LIFE, LIBERTY, PROPERTY, and a whole COUNTRY.2

“Kill the next Piercy yourself,” my Lord, is a species of Drollery, in a Case of BLOOD, unworthy even of a Hackney Writer; as to you, Doctor Johnson,—I do not expect you will write HONESTLY, but write Sensibly. Treat Subjects, (which might Affect even the Humanity of a Edition: current; Page: [137] Scotchman) no more ludicrously, indecently, unfeelingly, and abandonly.3—With your leave, Doctor, I once more call America a NATION, and a great NATION; too far distant from her Mother Country, to receive from her either immediate, or timely Assistance on any sudden foreign Attack, SHE must, in such a Case, find Succour within herself, or PERISH. And shall SHE, whose ABILITIES we do not know, whose Country, on an emergency, we cannot Defend, shall SHE be denied the BRITISH RIGHT of Representation in our Parliament, if SHE must be TAXED by our Parliament: suppose it will not avail her, if she had it, and she would, notwithstanding, be borne down and overwhelmed (as Doctor Johnson tells us) by a Majority of CORRUPT VOICES: yet, let her have the Pleasure of seeing the UNCLEAN Hands, if not the TRAITEROUS HEARTS, of those by whom she is to FALL.—It is her BIRTHRIGHT.—Shall SHE, so situated, so circumstanced, be denied the INHERENT PRIVILEGE, that INDUBITABLE RIGHT, of MEETING, CONSULTING, and RESOLVING for herself, at all Times, much less when we have wantonly assailed her? Is this REBELLION, let me cooly ask, Who was the first Agressor? Did we first consult, resolve, nay, act against America, or America against us? Here Administration must be dumb.

If UNWARRANTABLE OPPRESSION may be RESISTED, upon Revolution Principles, the Tye between England and America, is actually dissolved, our PROTECTION is withdrawn, our TYRANNIC Sword unsheathed, and Common Sense proclaims aloud, that OBEDIENCE in America is no more.

Why have we thus attacked her with unmerited Hostilities? because SHE would not PASSIVELY hold out her Hands to receive our CHAINS. Edition: current; Page: [138] SHE is wise,—SHE saw those CHAINS forging, and CONSULTED.—SHE sees them now actually ready to be rivitted, and is RESOLVED.

The Memory of a Cromwell warms my soul! America wants one at this Instant.4—Was there not a Period, long before those weak and wicked Monarchs Charles the First, and James the Second, were RESISTED, when England might have been truly said to have owed no Obedience to those Sovereigns? This cannot be denied.—But, Subjects were then to PRAY, and to APPEAL TO HEAVEN against TYRANTS, because they styled themselves GODS VICEGERENTS upon Earth. We seem to be coming round to the same Species of ADULATION and IDOLATRY again. As a Revolutionist, and a Whig, I hold a KING to be no more (upon Revolution Principles he is no more) than the HEAD CONSTABLE of the Realm. If he is a PATRIOT KING, he ought to be HONOURED and REVERED; but if he is less than that, he is no more to be WORSHIPPED than a CALF.5

In the Case of America we have been the Aggressors clearly. The Protection stipulated by the Sovereign AT THE ALTAR; extends to the LIVES, the LIBERTIES, and PROPERTY of the Subject. ALL THESE have been FIRST violated BY US, WANTONLY, WEAKLY, and WICKEDLY in America. Such a Violation is TREASON; (nay, start not, my Lords Bute and Mansfield) I say it is TREASON by the Laws of England.—Laws (my Lord Mansfield) not so easily erased as a Record. Whilst Edition: current; Page: [139] these Laws stand, every actual Breach of the COMPACT between King and People, committed by the SOVEREIGN, is TREASON AGAINST THE PEOPLE, and worse than TREASON; it is a Sin against HEAVEN, as well as against the SUBJECT. It is ROYAL PERJURY.

After such a Breach, does Obedience exist among Subjects? Answer me—not ye Mansfields and Machiavels, but ye venerable Shades, who bled for LIBERTY and JUSTICE; even the fanciful Montesquieu (as Doctor Johnson calls him) would turn a PERJURED MONARCH pale with his Reply.6—The Contention now (says the Doctor) is for Power. But is Power (before gentle Means are tried) to be maintained by FAMINE and by BLOOD! are the earliest Supplications of suffering Subjects to be slighted, rejected, and derided? Surely not.—Yet this has been the Fate of America. These humble Applications from distressed America have finally fallen down through the Fingers of MAJESTY, ADMINISTRATION, and the LEGISLATURE, to that consummate Politician, and Representative of the three great Estates of this Kingdom, Doctor Johnson; who has the unparalleled-impudence to treat them with low Humour, open Laughter, and Scurrility, in his late patriotic Publication, called Taxation no Tyranny. Thus, and only thus, have the Americans received a verbal Answer; received it from the hackney Pen of a scribbling Prostitute. They are, it seems, to receive Edition: current; Page: [140] a DECESIVE ONE in the FIELD.—Alas! had any TREASON been committed, Bills of Attainder would have passed? What? without hearing? Certainly. The consistent Spirit of Administration, and the MANLY PERSEVERANCE of their Sovereign, who confides in a smuggled and corrupt Parliament, would have requested it. Government now cannot be supported without Injustice. Besides, the hungry Myrmidons,7 the ministerial Bloodhounds, are looking for their Prey. They are already gaping for forfeited Lands in America.—Had there been but a glimmering of Treason, Bills of Attainder must have passed. The Fishery Bill is almost as penal. America is at this Moment suffering without an hearing, and without a Crime.

The Means used by Administration are, most humanely, and sagaciously, Preventive. They are now carrying Famine and Desolation into America, for fear she should resist, and punishing her as a REBEL, for fear she should Rebel. Her Supplications spurned, all conciliating Measures rejected, despotic Measures alone pursued, what resourse has She now, but in herself? General Gage, the Commander first sent against them, has from natural Honour, Justice, and Humanity, exceeded his Commission: in his Heart he is more an Advocate than an Enemy.—He has offended—He has desired to be recalled.—Administration are disappointed in their Man; yet dare not discover and declare their Disappointment, by recalling him. This General, with a handful of Soldiers, was wisely commissioned to bully all America.—He disdained it.—It is a Task fitter for Burgoyne, who has learned it at the gaming Table, and practiced it at Preston. But this favourite Commander will make an admirable Figure for Mat. Darley, left, like a solitary Quixote, in the Field by his honest Troops, who will never sheath their Swords in the Bowels of their Countrymen.8 Edition: current; Page: [141] Had we acted like a Parent, we should have heard, admonished, advised, and (if possible) reclaimed, mistaken America; but still protected her. Instead of this, we have not only withdrawn our Protection (without trying one lenient Measure) but commenced War against her.—She sensibly withheld her former commercial Intercourses with England, and threatened to do the same with the West India Colonies.—Thus (says Doctor Johnson) they have defrauded their Creditors here, and condemned our Merchants to Bankruptcy. If Creditors and Merchants suffer, if Manufacturers complain, they must recurr to the first Cause. These are the pernicious Effects of the wise Steps, taken first by the ministerial Aggressors in this Country. Nor is it to be wondered at, if the Consequence of these rash and unjust Proceedings by the Harpies of Power, should produce (in case of an approaching War with France and Spain) a general Bankruptcy of this Nation.—A Thought by no means Chemerical, but truly Melancholy; a Thought, which can neither be baffled by the buffoonery of Hackney Scriblers, the grave Sarcasms of Statesmen, or the cruel Pleasantry of thoughtless Majesty itself.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XVII

Casca’s Epistle to LORD MANSFIELD.

* Uni æqures Virtuti atque ejus amicis.

To Virtue only just and Virtue’s Friends.

• Can you, my Lord, who serve despotic Ends,
• Can you be “just to Virtue and her Friends?”
• To wanton† Murders when did She afford
• Protection yet, or alter a Record?
• Say, does your callous Soul receive no Shock,
• When, conscious, in the Hall, you view the‡ Clock?
• Or can you fill perfidious ||Scroges’s place,
• Edition: current; Page: [144]
• Without a pressage of your own Disgrace?
• Yes—Yes—to England’s shame, you’re out of reach,
• And Laugh at him who Threatens to impeach.
• If Burke should rise, the Farce no farther goes;
• To one just Aye, North brings ten impious No’s.
• In Youth, before dissembling was your Trade,
• To James Libations on your Knees you made:
• Not Loyalty, but Fear has sheath’d your Sting;
• No Murray can be faithful to his King.
• From the black North in famish’d Clans you swarm,
• And, thawing, feel how Albion’s Sun can warm;
• Your Clime you change, your Sentiments retain;
• In Scotchmen Treason is an innate Stain;
• Like Itch and Scurvy, in their Blood it reigns;
• He who wou’d cure it, must exhaust their Veins.
• Once against Rebels, ’twas your *Place to plead;
• Your Mouth condemn’d, your Soul approv’d the Deed.
• Whilst round your Heart sad Disappointmant hung,
• Dissimulation oil’d your treach’rous Tongue.
• A Murray then (your Brother too) was found
• In Arms, in secret Trust; in Duty bound,
• And Principle (like yours) to aid a Claim,
• Which you affected with a Blush to name;
• A Blush ill-acted;—to thy Ghostly pale,
• (Index of Guilt) soft Nature lends no Veil.
• No—She, my Lord, disdains to serve base Ends;
• She’s “only just to Virtue and her Friends.”
• On them She smiles, on CHATHAM’S Cheek she glows,
• When injur’d Children are assail’d like Foes;
• When Famine’s call’d to aid the coward-plan,
• And North completes what Bute and You began.
• Perish your Names!—your Thane in fear is fled,
• With ev’ry Curse, but Scotland’s, on his Head;
• Edition: current; Page: [145]
• In Shade, but not (alas!) in Death enshrin’d,
• Whilst you, his faithful Proxy, speak his Mind;
• And (to weak George from soothing Flatt’ry dear)
• Pour your Laird’s Poison in the Royal-ear.
• Why do your treach’rous Actions shun the Light?
• Why do Back-stairs feel Mansfield’s Steps at Night?
• To George your Councils and yourself convey,
• Fraught with Infection, in the face of Day.
• Let not the royal Closet’s Whisper screen,
• Your glorious Works; but let your Light be seen.
• Conduct, avow, enforce your Patriot-plans,
• Nor trust their Merits to Subaltern Clans.
• Tho’ Bute absconds, yet aid your Joint-design,
• Yourself, my Lord; and help to spring the Mine.
• Whilst Grafton, Sandwich, Denbigh, North, stand forth,
• And to astonish’d Ears, proclaim their Worth;
• Whilst, with rank Nonsense, Suffolk, Pomfret, dare,
• Without a Blush, to make Plebeians stare;
• Why, when your Sov’reign’s pleas’d by Law to kill,
• Step not you forth to guild the desp’rate Pill?
• ’Tis decent, sure, so pension’d, plac’d, and brib’d,
• To recommend the Dose you have prescrib’d
• But Fear, my Lord, mean, abject Fear, still gives
• A Check—in you a lurking Traytor lives;
• The worst of Traytors—you have Sense to see
• Fair Freedom’s Charms, yet blast the Soul that’s Free.
• Early and late, incessant in your Pains,
• For brave America you forge vile Chains.
• Yet meanly, in your House, or Court, take root,
• When you should Speak, as Deputy to Bute.
• He still lies Hid; perhaps, at *Clapham lurks,
• Whilst You and Apsley carry on the Works.
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• To grant a Nation’s Claim each House is loth,
• But You have Representatives in both.
• Strangely absurd!—yet this we know and see;
• This Truth subdu’d your modest Member *Leigh.
• The Man had Sense, and felt his own Disgrace,
• How well an †Aston wou’d supply his Place!
• So represented, with such Leaders too,
• (North—George—obsequious to your Lordship’s Cue.)
• This War against ourselves will soon be won,
• Odious America be soon undone.
• Remonstrances are vain, Bute won’t relax,
• But sternly bids North lay another Tax.
• The Tax of Death, by Bayonet and Ball;
• But Famine is the hardest Tax of all.
• From Scotland, could that Thought derive its Source?
• Where is sharp Famine felt with greater Force?
• In all the Horrors there the Fiend’s array’d;
• There her shrunk Hand for ever chills the Blade.
• There, with lank Sides, the meagre Cattle moan;
• Their Keeper asks for Bread and gets a Stone.
• From this distress Bute and yourself soon fled,
• Yet pour it’s plagues upon a Nation’s head.
• By vilest means, my Lord, you seek vile ends;
• Thus are you “just to virtue and her friends.”
• In all your strokes a master’s hand appears:
• Stand forth—claim all your praise, and banish fears.
• If Conscience dictates every ill you do,
• Frankly expose the Knave you hide, to view.
• Plebeians scorn—to gain your King’s applause,
• Like base ‡De Burgo, fawn and wrest the Laws.
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• Dispise what faithful History shall say;
• Full in your Zenith now, enjoy your Day;
• Tho’ in Times annals your foul Name shou’d rust,
• Whilst Fame to Holt’s erects lasting bust.
• He had no *Smythe; no bias he had shown,
• But dragg’d Assassins from behind the Throne.
• Guardian of England’s Laws he gave ’em sway,
• And held them forth for Sovereigns to obey.
• Against the People’s Rights he took no part,
• But judg’d, and counsell’d, with an honest Heart.
• Prerogative (unpension’d and unbrib’d)
• He kept within the bounds that Law prescrb’d,
• By Freedom’s side he firmly took his stand,
• Yet held the Ballance with an equal Hand.
• Of that fair Plant he cherish’d ev’ry Shoot,
• And, with a Parent’s fondness, nurs’d the Root.
• His Name, whilst Law endures, shall live in Praise;
• Ashby and White, †no Mansfield can erase.
• But you, my Lord, to Infamy still true,
• Indulge your King’s Caprice in all you do.
• If Citizens their humble Plaints express,
• You bid him spurn the May’r, and his Address.
• With pleasantry your Sov’reign’s heat asswage,
• And arm him for the ‡horned Cattle’s rage.
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• Instruct him how to Speak, to Sneer, and Frown,
• To try if Tricks will bear a City down:
• To be astonish’d that one Voice shou’d sue
• To turn a Tyrant from his Bloody-view.
• Death is the Word—let loose the Dogs of Prey;
• Burgoyne’s the Man, my Lord; encrease his Pay.
• Your Heart’s well known; your Voice attention Draws;
• Arise and vindicate your Master’s cause.
• In Art supreme, in Perfidity not weak,
• Show bashful Lordlings what it is to speak.
• Let not such Fools as Suffolk, when they rise,
• Without a word of English, snatch the Prize.
• Shall Peers, whose Infamy is scarce half-blown,
• Vaunt Mansfield’s Schemes, as if they were his own;
• In Language, which no Grammar e’er equipp’d,
• Language, for which a School-boy wou’d be whipp’d?
• No.—Be yourself, my Lord; and unconfin’d,
• Assert your Right of ruining Mankind.
• Break forth in all your Ciceronian blaze,
• And let your Front no more than Heart amaze.
• Equal in Private and in Public shine,
• And dare to be another Cataline.
• Shou’d galling Junius make a new attack,
• (Whose Lashes still are flagrant on your Back,)
• The Libeller by some State blood-hound Trace,
• And let him feel the Terrors of your Place.
• Grafton in Friendship some sure Snare will lay,
• As Friend, and Spy, he’ll join him and betray.
• If precedent Injustice can anoint,
• John Wilkes’s Case, will be a Case in point.
• Then, make the Senate ring; like Pomfret rave;
• And scorn by pension’d Proxies to enslave.
• “Pomfret!—there’s Weight in what such Heads advise;
• Madmen in council are to me a Prize.
• Since Smith is Dead, Pomfret may be endured:
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• We loose a Vote, shou’d the poor Man be cur’d.
• Besides, he Speaks—in Sentiments unites,
• He sometimes Raves and Stares, but never Bites.”
• “Granted, my Lord”—but yet (unknown to yield,
• As your Troops are) why don’t you take the Field
• In Person? Clear Suspicions, Doubts dispel:
• No Lord contrives, abetts, or speaks, so well.
• Does virtuous Camden talk your Spirit down,
• Or Chatham awe you with a Roman frown?
• When Patriot Rockingham, or Richmond rise,
• Does Freedom’s ray annoy your dazzled Eyes?
• Does Shelburne’s Boldness shake your dastard Soul?
• Or Temple’s perseverance want Controul?
• Can you, with Forces so well paid, and fed,
• Despond, unless your Thane is at your Head?
• Can you, his staunch Lieutenant Colonel, fail
• In Senate, as in Council, to prevail?
• Or is your Courage check’d in it’s Career,
• Because you’ve lost five thousand Pounds a Year?
• Long in Commission you had kept the Seals;
• *Three Judges moving on your Lordship’s Wheels;
• Their Mouths pronounc’d, but your’s prescrib’d the Law;
• Thus have we Kings and Judges too, of Straw.
• If ten such learn’d Triumvirates as that,
• With all their Law will scarce make half a Pratt;
• Who can behold (and not with Rage be stirr’d)
• A Prætor †sliver’d from the weakest Third?
• This Thought of yours, my Lord, your Pow’r ensures,
• The weaker the Man is, the more he’s yours.
• In Council, Court, and Parliament we see
• Your faithful Shadow moves as you decree;
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• witness the *Cause of Thickness against Leigh.]
• This Project shows your Machiavelian skill,
• You’re † Speaker thus (and more than Speaker) still.
• Profoundly Politic in all you do,
• Thus are you Chancellor and Speaker too.
• Yet, when you can foresee an hard fought Day,
• Like Falstaff, from your post you sneak away.
• The risque your rag-o-muffin bands may share:
• You (like your Thane) make Self your dearest Care.
• Boldly you counsel underneath the Rose;
• But fly the Conflict when the Armies close.
• A War of Reason gives your Lordship pain:
• Virtue alone such Conflicts can sustain.
• Too free, too pure, to serve Oppression’s end,
• She can’t mistake a Mansfield for a Friend.
• Some few hard fronts can stand the shock of Steel,
• But none the Thunder of the Public-Weal.
• Ev’n JOVE himself, GREAT JOVE, can’t bear reproach,
• Nor pass without a pannic in his Coach,
• When to North’s smuggled Parliament he rides,
• The God betraying what the Stoic hides.
• Fain would he smile—shrill hoots his muscles check,
• Then how he wishes England had one ‡Neck!
• At ev’ry Hiss he feels a conscious Start,
• And Groans re-echo’d pierce his Tyrant-Heart;
• A Heart, in infancy too soon ensur’d:
• To slight those Ills his People have endur’d;
• Harden’d by Female Insolence and Pride;
• To Bute entrusted as it’s only Guide,
• A Guide to what? not to the People’s Love,
• (The safest Ground on which a King can move)
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• Nor to the Path of Honour, Truth, or Fame,
• In which our Edward’s won a glorious Name;
• Not, with discernment, to enforce the Laws,
• Or yield to Subjects in a *Righteous Cause;
• To aid the just, to sooth the giddy Throng,
• And wisely to distinguish right from wrong;
• To temper Justice with an even Hand,
• And drive Corruption from a sinking Land;
• But train’d (alas!) to act the meanest part,
• To speak a Language foreign to his heart,
• To promise more than Briton’s ever hear’d,
• Trusting to have his †sacred Lyes rever’d;
• To set his Honour and his soul to Sale,
• As Water false, as courtly Sunshine frail;
• In Theory well-School’d; in Practice taught
• To be the sad reverse of what he ought.
• Honour and Faith in Falshood’s, Stream he laves,
• And toil’s to make a freeborn People Slaves.
• Not so our great ‡ Deliver’r sought renown;
• He knew from whom, and why, he had the Crown.
• But now, the Globe and Scepter’s held for show,
• Bute, says that ||Craft is all a King should know;
• Quotes bright examples from each Stuart’s reign;
• To such a Scholar not one Hint’s in vain.
• A Just Petition’s answer’d with a sneer;
• And to secure his point, he drops a Tear.
• Unhappy York! Too fickle to resist!
• Alas! thy Death encreas’d the Tyrants List!
• Not to be won by all that Sense could try,
• You fell by water from the weakest Eye!
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• If *Hypocrites are Murd’rers, who shall dare
• To excuse that Guilt, which bare-fac’d thanks declare?
• When harmless Lives were lost, and Rome was burn’d,
• NERO, in form his grateful thanks return’d;
• Happy to have a cool, obedient Scot
• Perform his bloody Orders to a jot;
• Happy to find two more so bravely warm’d,
• So hot for Blood, to stab one † Youth unarm’d.
• O! when in British Annals shall this blot
• Of Sanguinary Power be forgot!
• Never whilst this corrupt and bloody Reign
• Shall Furnish a Record of Slaves and Slain.
• Never whilst brave America can feel
• The Sense of wrongs, or the redress of Steel:
• Never whilst Liberty and Right Divine,
• Mark the vile Stuart from the Brunswick Line.
• Behold! what Bute’s long-labour’d Culture brings,
• A King of Patches! And a shame to Kings!
• A Baby! who is humour’d till he thinks
• That Water sacred, which a Monarch drinks.
• Taught that the height of Piety’s to kneel,
• He says his pray’rs and bids the Vulgar feel.
• Let meaner Souls relent, forgive forget;
• Such Weakness ne’er disgrac’d a Stuart yet.
• No—let the Slave that thwarts US be undone,
• Long live the Mother in the Tyrant Son!
• Thus lectures Bute,—and this advice embrac’d,
• All Sense of Virtue in the Bud’s effac’d,
• How shou’d King’s see in infancy made blind?
• Whose Manhood’s watch’d, whose Knowledge is confin’d?
• To whom no page in History’s reveal’d,
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• But where they find the Subject’s Cause appeal’d
• To Heav’n?—this same Redress Carte’s Volumes teach;
• These George may read—these Bute and Mansfield preach.
• True to his trust the Thane his task begun;
• He pleas’d the Mother and he dup’d the Son.
• Taught him to fly above the legal Sphere,
• And by sad Charles’s Star his Course to steer;
• To bear no Counsel, no sage hint, no Guide;
• But think all Subjects born for King’s to ride;
• By *Famine brave resistance to entomb,
• And (with Macbeth) to “leap the life to come”;
• To wait no Tide, attend no rising Gale,
• But rashly spread Prerogative’s full sail:
• To heed no Subject in his bold careers,
• But Passive Pensioners and rotten Peers.
• To spare no Life, if poignant Satyr strikes;
• To Plan the Death of him he most dislikes;
• Waiting impatient for the setting Sun,
• To hear good news from †Martyn and from Dun.
• To give in jest a Coronation Pledge,
• Nor think an Oath more sacred than a ‡Wedge.
• Alas! that Off’ring shou’d suggest a Thought,
• That Charity by former Kings was wrought;
• That, from the royal Cradle to the Grave,
• The truest Piety’s to guard and save.
• Such Acts as these to Crowns a Lustre lend;
• This, Mansfield, this is being “Virtues Friend.”
• But, when Destruction is a King’s Command,
• And Death gains Passports from the royal Hand;
• When Carnage is the Word—when gen’rous Gage,
• Dreads that his Name shou’d blot th’historic Page,
• And, with a Tenderness his Prince will blame,
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• Shrinks from rank Murder, and eternal Shame;
• When Conscience and Remorse from Court is flown,
• Nor dare sollicit a despotic Throne;
• All must be Slaves, till Spirit shall return,
• To fire those Bosoms where it us’d to burn;
• Till we consider Names far less than Things,
• Nor care from what sound Stem we take our Kings;
• Till scepter’d Pride is taught to bless the Hand
• That calls her to protect a gen’rous Land;
• Is taught that British Monarchs owe their State,
• To those who can depose them or create;
• Provok’d, insult’d, spurn’d can spare, or try;
• Or throw, with Scorn, their royal Creature by.
• Bute! Mansfield! These are Doctrines which appear
• Horrid and Harsh to your distemper’d Ear;
• But there will come a Time when you shall rue
• That e’er you counsell’d with a Heart untrue:
• When from those Counsels deadly Fueds shall rise
• To force a Tear unfeign’d from George’s Eyes.
• Truth ev’n on Kings in that sad Hour attends:
• Charles found, at last, his People were his Friends;
• To Notions, false as Friends, he bid adieu;
• These had deceiv’d; the Block spoke plain, but true.
• Ne’er may a Brunswick taste such bitter Fruit,
• But leave the Axe to Mansfield, North, and Bute.
• These Lines, inspir’d by Churchill’s laurell’d Shade,
• I write, unknown, unpatronized, unpaid:
• Proud, if my honest Muse, by chance, has cropp’d
• One Flow’r from that fair Wreath which Churchill dropp’d.
• Let Johnson toil for Hire, with Falsehoods please;
• (North’s Fiat feeds, and dubbs him with Degrees.)
• His be the Shame; the gen’rous Transport mine,
• To goad a Villain’s Heart at ev’ry Line.
• Disdaining Pidlers, who for Flowret’s roam,
• Like Brutus, rough, I’ll plant the Dagger Home.
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• Tyrants and Traytors CASCA ne’er forgives;
• Tremble such Monsters whilst that CASCA lives.
• The Blasts he blows their guilty Souls shall shock,
• And drive them to perdition and the Block.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XVIII

• • To you my Lord, these honest Lines I send;
  • To you the Sov’reign’s not the People’s Friend.
  • The Sov’reign’s Friend? yes, when I think again,
  • A Friend like Wolsey in a Harry’s reign.2
  • Edition: current; Page: [158]
  • Harry, who gave his Royal Lusts full scope;
  • Commenc’d a Devil and renounc’d the Pope.
  • In Bute and North two Devils make us groan,
  • And at Quebec the Pope resumes his Throne.
  • Harry’s despotic Frowns o’er cast us now;
  • Fate hangs on Bute’s proud Will and George’s Brow.
  • Below, North represents absconding Bute,
  • Above, a *Nation dyes by Roy le veut.†
  • Proud of North’s Name Corruption wears no Veil;
  • At North’s soft Bribe, no Senator turns Pale.
  • Shrew’d Walpole never went your Lordship’s length;
  • But Boldness with supplies has gather’d strength.
  • Safe from Impeachments in this venal Time,
  • Each Parricide may triumph in his Crime.
  • Knaves in your Lordship’s Numbers put their hope;
  • Lords fear no AX, and Commoners no ROPE,
  • Virtue’s fair Dawn you’ve clouded with a Sum;
  • And check’d her Test for Seven Years to come.
  • Association is a dreadful Sound;
  • And Bute must dye if Virtue is not bound.
  • Shou’d Tests ensue; Impeachments wou’d take place,
  • And old St. Stephen wear an Honest Face.
  • What must be done?—“dissolve, crys Bute in Fits:
  • “Dissolve—and stab your Country with new Writs.”
  • He spoke: and North obedient to his Voice,
  • With Gold prepar’d his Boroughs for their Choice.
  • Appriz’d his Members of the dex’trous Cheat,
  • And plac’d Corruption in her former Seat.
  • Crouching she licks the Hand by which she’s fed,
  • And Joys to see Sir Fletcher 3 at her Head;
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  • To see North ape Bute’s dictatorial Nod,
  • For George deserts his Country and his GOD.
  • To see her Sons alert when North Commands,
  • And at his beck lift up Four Hundred Hands.
  • But whence this mighty influence? whence this Pow’r?
  • All Virtue’s delug’d in a golden Show’r
  • A Treas’ry Storm what Virtue can resist?
  • Ev’n George to drown her, dips his Civil List.
  • With Thirst hydropic all North’s Patriots drink,
  • And half a Million scarce will make’ em sink.
  • From craving more no Decency restrains,
  • At once they Poison and exhaust our Veins.
  • Let those, who feel the Civil List decrease,
  • Call on Mountstewart to restore his Fleece.
  • Father and Son are equally a Curse:
  • One dupes the Sov’reign, and one drains the Purse.
  • In Baubles and douceurs what Treasures fly?
  • How are the People plunder’d to supply!
  • Elegance lavish’d on a SCOT is vain,
  • A Hovel might content an Embryo Thane.
  • His Ancestors (this Truth is Wormwood now,)
  • Whose Hut contain’d their Wife, their Bairns, and Cow,
  • Thought e’er their Union taught their Pride to feel,
  • A Pounde in Siller was a muckle deale.
  • But since Scots felt the Blessings of that Law,
  • Which laid their Thanes on Down instead of Straw,
  • Bless’d them with Commerce, Arts, and all their Fruits,
  • And bade them herd no longer with their Brutes;
  • By Culture humaniz’d their Savage mind,
  • And plac’d them on a footing with Mankind;
  • Their haughty Sons who else had fed on Grass,
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  • Or filch’d for hunger, Thistles from their Ass,
  • Shiv’ring on Mountains desolate and cold,
  • Strangers alike to luxury and Gold,
  • Forgetting, like their Sires, Want’s bitter Sting,
  • Disdain the *Palace of an English King;
  • Demand supurb additions, vast expence,
  • To fit it for a Lordlings Residence.
  • O! Shame! where art thou fled!—ye Britons, rise!
  • Is it for Bute’s pround Race you grant Supplies?
  • With just Resentment bid Mountstewart fly,
  • And feed his Pride beneath his Father’s Sky;
  • There pinch on Rocks where barren Nature sleeps;
  • Yes—scourge him back to his paternal †Nieps.
  • Weak Sov’reigns, thus their artful Minions bless;
  • Ask what they dare their constant answer’s YES.
  • When injur’d Subjects with Petitions go,
  • The Sov’reign, low’ring, looks an haughty NO.
  • Yet if his Kingship wants a fresh Supply,
  • Below—aye, aye,—above, Contents the cry.
  • Petitioners with Rebels are involv’d;
  • Let Bute but hint—the Parliaments dissolv’d.
  • This influence ‡BECKFORD labour’d to resist?
  • Corruption, was maintain’d, and HE dismiss’d.
  • Cities Petition, yet their Plague endures;
  • But Virtue’s rage ||quick Dissolution cures.
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  • Say (for you know, my Lord,) the Cause of this,
  • You know who Counsels and who Acts amiss.
  • Disguise no Truth by Specious, trite harangue;
  • But say, at once your Parliament’s a Gang.
  • If Truth’s a Crime, and George’s frown you dread,
  • Say in a Whisper who is at their Head?
  • That Question’s home—your Lordship’s silent still—
  • l’ll answer it myself then—frown who will.
• • In ancient Days when simple Monarchs saw
  • No better means by reigning than by law,
  • When sages counsell’d with an honest Heart,
  • And Kings religiously perform’d their part;
  • E’er Standing Armies were a standing Curse,
  • Subjects were Children, and their King a Nurse;
  • No Suitor unredress’d then left the Throne;
  • The Nurse’s Interest and the Child’s were one.
  • The three Estates then us’d to coalesce,
  • With no Intention but to save and bless.
  • Now Kings, Lords and Commons, faithfully agree,
  • Like a Banditti, in Confed’racy.
  • Combin’d to plunge a Nation in distress,
  • To double Grievances without redress.
  • In vain to GEORGE the suppliant Knee is bent;
  • He enjoins silence, suffering, and content*.
  • With sullen gloom he arm’s his sulky brow,
  • And tell us Slav’ry is our CHARTER now.
  • ASTONISH’D at his City’s daring cries,
  • He tells ’em Kings and Parliaments are wise.
  • Tells ’em their Constitution is controul;
  • That of all Trades oppression is the Soul;
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  • That their Protection hangs on Royal breath;
  • To Day ’tis slav’ry and to Morrow Death.
  • That all are REBELS, but that Passive Tribe,
  • Who kiss his Chains, his Footstool and his Bribe.
  • That ev’ry Subject’s Trayterous in his View,
  • Who dares petition, meet, consult or sue.
  • These Sentiments are Bute’s by Mansfield penn’d;
  • Mansfield who tells us he is Virtues Friend.*
  • This Doctrine good my Lord, full scope affords,
  • To your vile Commons and your supple Lords.
  • Since ev’ry Act brings forth some Grievance new,
  • Enlarge the narrow bounds of Treason too.
  • Like Mary’s Minion in her Tyrant Reign,
  • Enlarge Old Edwards †Act amend, explain,
  • Shew Edward’s Sages they mistook the Case;
  • Declare new Treasons—’tis an Act of Grace.
  • Declare it Treason but to wish Success‡
  • To Freedom’s Arms, or Supplicate redress;
  • Work your new Doctor’s Insult into Fact;
  • ’Tis Johnson’s Thought, so call it Johnson’s Act.
  • Go farther still, and stop the teeming Press;
  • If wishing’s Treason, writing is no less.
  • Safe in your Votes, Corruption now invites:
  • This is your Time—Lop off the Hand that writes.
  • By Libels full of Truth, your Mansfield bleeds,
  • And Bute still dreads Impeachement’s swelling Seeds.
  • Preserve your Sov’reign in Tyrannic Health;
  • Nor let him read the CRISIS but by Stealth.
  • No Quarter to that whiggish CRISIS give;
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  • But let the Tory Patriot’s*Falsehoods live.
  • Let Johnson’s Sheets attract the Monarch’s Eye;
  • There he may see how Knaves well Paid can lye.
  • In Johnson’s Tenets let him read his own;
  • That Kings are born to laugh whilst Subjects groan;
  • That Power is their’s in Supplication’s spite;
  • Whatever They and Heav’n inflict, is right.
  • When Kings for wanton Slaughter give the Word,
  • Subjects are bound to fall upon their Sword.
  • When Kings by Famine choose their Slaves shou’d dye;
  • Those Slaves must drop without an asking Eye.
  • So much for Life—to claim our own is vain:
  • Like Montesquieu they †fancy who complain.
  • What has a Slave? nor Fire, nor Cloaths, nor Meat;
  • Not for themselves they’re warm’d, or cloath’d, or eat;
  • But to defend their Master in his Pride;
  • Their Sov’reign; who may Tax their very Hide.
  • Flay off their Skin in Wantonness and Sport,
  • Or send an Order for their Heads from Court.
  • Shou’d Freedom’s odious Form presume to rise,
  • North makes a Motion, and the Phantom flies.
  • Mansfield and Bute the ‡murd’rous Bill invent,
  • North brings it in—’tis pass’d—and gains Assent.
  • No Tax, no Pain, no Penalty’s too much;
  • All are thrice hallow’d by the Scepter’s touch.
  • Thus by no Tyranny the Slave’s oppress’d;
  • The Means are sacred, and the End is bless’d.
  • He’s the best Subject who most prostrate lyes,
  • He’s the true Patriot who submits and dyes.
  • Thus Johnson Writes:—at Court his Works have praise;
  • No Resolution-Whims in George’s Days!
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  • Thus frantic Savages present their Breast,
  • To pointed Lightnings, with false Zeal possess’d;
  • Behold th’ Enthusiasts all Jove’s rage invoke;
  • And he’s the Happiest who receives the Stroke.
  • O mighty King! wise Council! righteous Throne!
  • Where Freedom, Property, nor Life’s our own.
  • Britons, adore this Sun, that gilds your Days;
  • Surround St. James’s with new Songs of Praise.
  • Let Wilkes no more, like Beckford’s Ghost,4 arise,
  • And with Petitions sear his Sov’reign’s Eyes.
  • For wrong’d America let Pity cease,
  • Let all her Sons be massacr’d in Peace.
  • Those Minds, says George, which Sympathy can stir,
  • In blackest Treason with his Foes concurr.
  • Those are his Foes; Bute’s, North’s, and Mansfield’s too,
  • Who of their Actions take too near a View.
  • Demand the Cause why Sword or Famine drinks
  • Bostonian-blood?—Crys Johnson, Boston thinks;
  • Thinks as her cursed Ancestors were us’d,
  • By whom our martyr Charles was so abus’d.
  • O glorious Martyrdom! henceforth appear
  • The Joyous Feast of ev’ry future Year.
  • Blest be those Shades! who taught our Kings to dread
  • No Loss of Honour like a Loss of Head!
  • ’Tis that alone, my Lord, that can restrain
  • Kings and their Minions in a Tyrant-Reign.
  • The Good or Ill their Ministers may do,
  • Arises always from the Point in view.
  • Their darling Aim gives Life to their Designs;
  • Now vacates Patents, and now watches Mines.
  • Edition: current; Page: [165]
  • To Day, supplants a Bentinck in his Right,
  • And backs mean Lowther in a legal Fight;
  • The Board of Customs by Direction meet
  • To morrow, and pronounce Sir James a Cheat.
  • For why? of late Sir James too restive draws;
  • To scourge him North pretends a public Cause.
  • Now for Sir James, in Patents *picking Holes,
  • And now against him for his Frauds in Coals.
  • Thus we discern the Justice of the State;
  • That Kings and Ministers breathe Life or Fate;
  • Petitions as rebellious are withstood;
  • Whilst Spleen is gratify’d for Public good.
  • Beware the Goal, my Lord, nor drive too high;
  • Kings dare be Tyrants, but they durst not dye.
  • ’Tis a nice Conduct that can steer between
  • King’s Lusts, Mens Rights, and Ills that intervene.
  • When godlike Kings (like Alfred)5 give Assent
  • To all that can relieve, assist, content;
  • When Justice by the royal Touch gains force,
  • And Virtue is supported in her Course;
  • When regal Power is for a Blessing us’d,
  • And Mercy like the Beams of Heav’n dissus’d;
  • Then Righteousness and Truth surround the Throne;
  • Then Kings are Ministers that Heav’n may own.
  • By Day their presence gives all Hearts delight,
  • Edition: current; Page: [166]
  • And ev’ry Subject is their *guard by Night.
  • But when inflate with Pride they Ape the God;
  • Affect to damp Addresses with a Nod;
  • Check and o’er bear the humble Suiter’s Claim,
  • And give to Liberty, vile Treason’s Name;
  • When in their Face and Words the Tyrant’s reigns,
  • And Free-born Subjects must receive their Chains;
  • When you, my Lord, behold this daring Scene;
  • With caution steer your little Bark between
  • The Sov’reign’s and the Subject’s side;
  • On a rough Sea behold each Vessel ride,
  • This mann’d by Freedom, that by Tyrant Pride.
  • Beware, my Lord; nor with a Bravo’s boast,
  • Trust your small Pennace from the safer Coast.
  • Send Sandwich out, whose Tongue so vilely runs†
  • And bid Clay Harvey,‡ whip him to the Guns.
  • See what the Mansfield, or the Bute can do,
  • When Freedom’s Fleet triumphant bears in view.
  • Hark!—England tells you that she will be Free:
  • Your servile Force turns pale; your Commons flee.
  • Mark well the Conflict, Lord; lament the shock;
  • If England conquers, you must kiss the BLOCK.
  • See, like a Coward, how the Mansfield flies!
  • At the first Fire, BUTE, and Corruption, dies,
  • Against a Nation’s Rage what Force can stand?
  • Your hirling Army’s lessen’d to a Band.
  • Your venal Commoners, your vaunting Lords,
  • (How great a Change the fate of War affords!)
  • Your IDOL too, and IDOL now no more,
  • Kneel before those whose Suits they spurn’d before;
  • Edition: current; Page: [167]
  • Not now insulting in despotic Strains.
  • But bound in wrong’d Britannia’s awful Chains.
  • Then her stern Lion rousing from her Den,
  • Shall treat pale Tyrants as they now treat Men.
  • Minions and Traytors, in the Wreck be hurl’d,
  • And Injur’d Subjects see a better World.

No. XIX. will be addressed to the KING.6

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XIX

• —Sero sapiunt Phryges.1
• False to yourselves, the People and the State,
• Like Foolish Phrygians, you’ll grow Wise too late.

A DMINISTRATION has now “let slip the Dogs of War, the hellish Cerberus, with her three Heads,2 BURGOYNNE, HOWE, and CLINTON, is sailed. The dogmatic Goose Quil of the sallacious Dr. Johnson, that hireling Quixote of an hireling Ministry, has promulgated a solemn Sentence of Attainder against all Revolutionists in Great Britain;—Hear it ye WHIGS,

• “And put in ev’ry honest Hand a Whip,
• To lash the Rascal naked thro’ the World.”

This pitiful Retailer of Apologies for MINISTERIAL TREACHERY, has had the Impudence to declare with the Effrontery of a SANDWICH, or a DENBIGH, that whoever wishes Success to AMERICA is a Traytor to his Country.

From this patriotic Declaration, I presume the redoubted Doctor is at length admitted into the Arcana of the Ministry. He pronounces with as much insolence as if he was assured of their Intentions to pass a Bill, (they have Voices enough to do it,) for declaring a New Species of Treason, namely, the wishing Success to oppressed America. I will venture to say, that every Revolutionist in England, Ireland, and the Sugar Colonies, have long since incurred the Pains and Penalties of this Law in Embryo, if such a One there be.

No Englishman can wear two Faces: Therefore if his MAJESTY, should for the future, see as much ill Humour and Contempt in the Faces of his English and Irish Subjects, as they observe in his, he must not be surprized. BUTE and MANSFIELD, will instruct him that the Aspects and Affections of a People are beneath the Notice of a Sovereign who inherits them. But Conscience in the Depth of Night, will speak another Language, that will remind him, that he has rejected the Supplications of Millions in AMERICA, that has at length assented to their MURDER, that he has with an Iron Tongue and an Iron Heart, rung the Knell of expiring AMERICA.

It is a Maxim of our Law, (says the honest Chancellor FORTESCUE) that no Man was ever yet condemned or sentenced by the Mouth of the King himself.—’tis not so now,—the present Sovereign has been advised to declare preemptoraly to his Supplicating Citizens of London, that, “he is determined to pursue the Measures which his wise Parliament have Edition: current; Page: [171] recommended.” We know that these are not conciliating but destructive Measures: Under these Measures AMERICA is either to be destroyed, or lost for ever to this Nation.

The late Royal Answer to the PETITION of the City of London, fairly interpreted, would run thus: Let it speak the Language of Despotism in despotic Terms: viz. “SLAVES, by daring thus to remind US of our OPPRESSIONS in America, you are yourselves TRAITORS; by this libellous Petition you aid and encourage REBELS. It is the Duty of loyal Subjects passively to obey our Will. Our Will and Pleasure is REVENGE. This Resolve we think fit to notify by FAMINE and the SWORD: These are the lenient Measures, which our Divan has advised, and these we will pursue. Your Confidence and Affection we despise, we confide alone in the Wisdom of our Divan, by that great Council your fancied Rights and your despicable Commerce are wisely doomed, with our entire Concurrence, to DESTRUCTION.”

Thus we see how easily a deluded Christian Prince, may speak the Language of an Eastern Tyrant; for this Purpose we have fairly cloathed an Eastern Spirit, in an Eastern Garb; we have given the haughty Sovereign’s plain Meaning in proper Words; we have not (like Mansfield, who penned the vile Harrangue) meanly suffered the Sentiments of an insolent Mogul to be cramped by the Poverty of Princely Diction.

Upon Bute’s and Mansfield’s Plans, Sovereigns are Divine Viceregents, sent down from Heaven, not in Mercy, but in Wrath, to indulge their own impious Lusts, and Scourge Mankind. Let such Sovereigns, therefore, be consistent with themselves; let them equally disdain the Fetters of Language and Humanity—Let them speak DAGGERS to their People, and Salvation to their MINIONS. But can such a Prince, conscious that his Parliament has been infamously smuggled, by a mean and execrable Stretch of the Prerogative, (a sudden Dissolution) For fear of a National ASSOCIATION against future Treachery; conscious that the Majority of his and his Minister’s great Council (it is no national Council) are a Set of Hirelings, filched into their Seats, and corrupted to promote every despotic Lust of a deluded MONARCH; can such a conscious Prince pronounce the Doom of Millions, Edition: current; Page: [172] not only without Emotion, but with composed Stupidity? This is not Fortitude, but Callosity of Soul.

The whole European World is astonished at our Persecution of AMERICA, even Foreign, and despotic Princes, upon this Occasion, have different Feelings, from the FATHER of that People who are destined to Destruction: Even Princes, who can send forth Sword and Famine by a NOD, are astonished at our wicked Policy and abhor it; even the natural Enemies of Great Britain presume to interfere with our INFERNAL ADMINISTRATION, they will not permit our Government (without Reproaches, Insults, Threats, and animated Declarations) to Massacre MANKIND: France, under the Mask of Humanity, presumes to make us sensible of her great Condescension, Magnanimity, and Moderation, in suffering AMERICAN MURDER to pass on freely and without Controul, She makes us understand that She connives at this Slaughter of our Gallant Subjects for the Sake of cultivating a good Understanding with the King of Great Britain, and the whole English Nation. But when She finds (as She shortly may) that this KING and Kingdom are divided and trying the Claim of FREEDOM together in the Field, will FRANCE, who professes so much Magnanimity and Moderation, remain Neuter? Her Humanity, her Honour will not Suffer her. She will retaliate our former Interpositions in her Government with the like Strokes of Political Humanity. Spain, who has so lately felt the Force of English Arms, will not permit us to turn them so unnaturally against oursleves. She speaks in plainer Terms: Let his persevering Majesty hear her Humane Menaces; She tells him boldly, that She will not tye up her Hands from relieving Fellow Creatures suffering under wanton unprovoked Oppression. Alas! Blind, infatuated Sovereign. Canst thou not discern the Tendency of this Artful Spanish Declaration? Does not Spain already hold out Succour to AMERICA? Will not Injured and Despairing People embrace the Offer? Will they not rather submit to be aided by an Enemy than MURDERED by a PARENT? Will they not sooner Change their Names, their Laws, their Government, their Religion, in just Resentment, than enjoy these flattering Modes, these Sounding Nothings in a State of Slavery?—Think again, Wise Sire, before it is too late. Let Edition: current; Page: [173] me ask Thee, thou Clement Pious SOVEREIGN,3 are not the People, in whose Favour Spain hath thus declared, thy Fellow Creatures also? Were they not under the just Reign of your lamented Grandfather, your Fellow Subjects too? Could he arise, one Honest Frown from him, would disperse your MINIONS, annihilate your Pride, blast your execrable Politics, and restore Peace, Commerce, and Protection, to the tottering Constitution of the BRITISH EMPIRE.

The Spanish Nation is brave, her Pretext for interposing is a noble one; tho merely Political, it is to be preferred to that which is Tyrannical; it has, at least, a plausible Appearance, for it speaks the Language of Justice, Benevolence, and Humanity. We find neither of these Ingredients in the rigid Answer which lately repelled the Petition of the City. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.4

Let Bute and Mansfield, the Leaders of an INFAMOUS ADMINISTRATION, let their great Council their Parliament (l say again it is not the Nation’s) let the Head Constable of this Kingdom (the Dupe of all the Herd) for once receive Instruction from an Enemy. The Spaniards distinguish justly between a Sovereign’s Right of reducing refractory Subjects to just Obedience, and making War upon humble Supplicants who Petition for their RIGHTS. They discern a difference (and there is a wide One) between just Resistance and unnatural Rebellion. They tell us in Manly (to America they are tempting) Terms that America shall not Suffer unheared, unpitied, unredressed, and Innocent. Tho’a venal and Corrupt Majority, to gratify despotic Spleen, have in a BLOODY ACT, styled America Rebellious, yet what Sanction Edition: current; Page: [174] can such Laws derive from Venality and Corruption? Laws, to be Sacred and obligatory must be consistent with the Laws of God, Nature, Reason, sound Policy and the Constitution of the Kingdom. If they err in these respects it is an Error in the first Concoction, they are absolutely Null and void in themselves, and are no more to be regarded than “the Laws of a parcel of Drunken Porters.” I borrow this Elegant Comparison from the Mouth of a Great Man, who is, at one and the same Time, a privey Counsellor, a Pensioner, a Placeman, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Situations as compatible with that of Speaker, as Obligatory Laws are with Venality and Corruption.

I do not say that Rebellious Subjects are not to be chastised; but they must first Rebel, all Civil Chastisment besides, must be inflicted by the Hand of Wisdom and Justice, not by the Scourge of the Oppressor. The Wanton Power that Aggresses and Afflicts ought not to Punish, but Redress. What Political Wisdom is there in driving a whole Territory, a Great Nation of Obedient (tho’ not Passive) Subjects to Despair? What Wisdom in losing or exterminating? What Justice in refusing to hear the supposed Delinqnent before She turned SUPPLICATION into RAGE.

AMERICA professes all legal, but like the BRAVE ANCESTRY from whence she Springs, difdains passive Obedience, she honours and revers KINGS, but despises and defys TYRANTS.

If she conquers she will continue to support the Liberty she wins, if she falls, (believe me ye WRETCHED, ye SHALLOW MINISTERIAL POLITICIANS!) she will not fall unrevenged, the Crowns of France and Spain, will not continue neuter, they will be the providential means of punishing our Iniquity to AMERICA; they will embroil a CIVIL WAR here, and assist it there, they will conquer ENGLAND in AMERICA, they will be received there with open Arms; in the last Agonies of AMERICAN DESPAIR, They will be received as CONQURERS, and usurping TYRANNY, will be expelled for ever.

AMERICA will never condescend to enjoy the unessential Name of ENGLISHMEN under the Lawless Power, of a GRAND MOGUL, and his detested Divan.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XX

NUMBER XXI

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. SHAW, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXII

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXIII

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXIV

• —Immedicabile Vulnus
• Ense recidendum, ne pars sincera trahatur.
• Ovid.1

• The prudent Surgeon, of a Gangrene sure,
• By Amputation keeps the Vitals pure;
• State Dissolutions thus effect a Cure.

A Disease of a venal Majority in the great Council of the Nation, may be truly called a Mortification in the Body politic. This desperate Case requires a desperate Remedy. A Patriot King2 would neither delay, nor fear the application. It’s Success depends upon the Hand that operates. The Operation of a wholesome and salutary Edition: current; Page: [210] Desolution has been wisely intrusted by our considerate Ancestors to the Sovereign. The Exertion of this great Prerogative was petitioned for, with the greatest Reason, during the Tyranny and Iniquities of the last venal Parliament, by the first, the most loyal, and respectable Metropolis in the Universe, the City of London. It was twice Petitioned for, and twice refused.

Several other Cities and Corporations in this Kingdom were not silent, they likewise supplicated the Throne, and met with the like Repulse. This Prerogative (a glorious one it is) is intrusted with the Sovereign by the People, to be by him exerted in the nicest and most critical Emergencies of State.

Of all the Prerogatives of the Crown, the most essential to the Constitution, the most salutary to the People, the most Honourable to a Patriot King, is that of dissolving Parliaments. In this respect a King of England is wisely invested by the People, with the Power of a temporary Dictator. Ne quid detriment i Respublica capiat.3

It is his Duty when either the two other Estates (the Lords and Commons) preponderate, to interpose, as a constitutional Moderator, and to keep the Ballance even, that the Common Weal may not suffer by Democratical Passions, or Aristocratical Ambition. This Power, however, (of Dissolution) never will be exercised by a Tyrant, and never can be exercised by a Fool, but for Purposes destructive of the Constitution; perhaps, to save a Minion, or to keep Corruption in the hopeful Channel prescribed for it by himself and his faithless Ministers. But the People’s Hopes, Addresses, and Petitions, will be vain. What can they hope from a Tyrant, or a Fool? Either of these are equally unfit to Reign. The one will be duped by his Ministers and Favourites, the other biased by his Lusts. Ambition fires the Tyrant, and Geugaws captivate the Fool; the one is subdued by false Glory, the other by Flattery and Show.

Should the Majesty of Great Britain ever happen to be a compound of Fool and Tyrant, the National Misfortune will be equal. The Truth is, that so glorious a Prerogative cannot be justly exercised, or wisely conducted, without a discerning Judgment, and a good Heart; without Fortitude sufficient to throw off the Leading strings of presumptuous Favourites, and Sense enough to proceed without them; without Capacity to think, and Ability to act; without considering upon what Condition the Crown of England is now held, and by what Conduct alone it can be maintained; without adhering to Facts instead of Favourites; to Truth instead of ministerial Sophistry; to constitutional Principles, instead of unconstitutional Councils. A smuggled, venal Parliament is more properly a great Majority, than a great Council; it is certainly not the Constitutional great Council of this Nation. A King of England is a parliamentary King; he is wisely placed at the Head of that Parliament, as having in his Breast, the executive Power of the Kingdom. The other two Estates consult and propound, but he must approve; they advise, but he confirms; they prepare Measures, but he enforces them. If those Measures are salutary, his Assent promotes the Welfare; if pernicious, it may compleat the Ruin of his Kingdom. No English King ought, no PATRIOT KING will, be the subservent Fool of a corrupt, a wicked, or a bloody Parliament. He will judiciously, and righteously, withold his Assent to such Acts, as must inflict Dishonour and Infamy upon himself, and Destruction upon his People. The worst Consequence that can ensue, will be that this wicked, precipitate Parliament, must deliberate again upon their intended Measures. This wise Delay in a constitutional King, may be the saving of a great Nation. If a Tyrannic Parliament still persists, a PATRIOT KING, like an honest Dictator, will dissolve such Miscreants.

Thus Corruption will be extinguished, honest Representatives elected, and a good King enthroned in the Hearts of a grateful and affectionate People, whom he has thus constitutionally protected from Slavery and Ruin. What? (says some ministerial Scribler, a Johnson perhaps) shall a King of England detach himself from his Parliament? I answer, Yes; if that Parliament is corrupt, wicked, and tyrannical; it is then no constitutional Parliament, but an illicit Gang; nor is he a constitutional King, Edition: current; Page: [212] but a daring and unthinking Tyrant, who adheres to them. By so doing, he plainly shews that it is not his Intention to protect, but to enslave his People. That venerable Body alone can be called a Parliament, who are known, according to the im po4 of the Word, (parler le ment) to speak their Mind, to be above all human Influence. Can this be said of a servile, detestable, insidious, unconstitutional Majority, who come to the great Council, with a mercenary Gagg in their Mouths, their perfidious Names in the Court Calendar, and Lord Bute’s (under the Colour of Lord North’s) Instructions in their Pockets? Our Kings, it is true, are parliamentary Kings; but there is a wide difference between a Parliament and a Cabal; between Sages convened, and Voters hired, between free, constitutional States, and servile, ministerial Dependents.

When a Parliament is degenerated thus far, they loose their Honour, they ought to lose their former Name; they deserve no farther Confidence. They would find none, in a wise and good King. No Prince who is not under the Ideocy, Insanity, or the worst Passions, could adhere to such a Junto. Such Men are audacious in calling themselves a Parliament. They no longer Represent, but usurp; they are not faithful Servants, but assuming Tyrants, they are not Counsellors of the King, but Traytors to the People. A great Council (or rather a great Majority) composed of such Monsters, such Pests of a Community, cannot be said either to regard, or to represent, a People; their Views and Interests are different. The People sue for Protection, they for Places; the People wish to support the Constitution, they to supply their Luxury; the People are affected by the decay of commerce, they by the Largesses of the Minister.

Can a PATRIOT KING confide in, or cooperate with such a Mock-Parliament? When we hear a King talk of steadily pursuing the Advice of the great Council of the Nation, it must be taken for granted, that he knows and believes the Majority of that Council (whose Votes are decesive of the Fate of this Kingdom) to be incorrupt. Can such Faith as this Edition: current; Page: [213] be found in Israel? If not, a King of England may well be asked, even by the Meanest of his Subjects, why he is wicked enough, or weak enough, to approve, sanctify, and confirm, the despotic Acts, not of such a Parliament, but of such a traiterous Convention? Is it his Duty in such a Case, to confide or to dissolve? In such a dangerous Crisis, the Constitution has given a judicial Power to Kings; they are Bound to exercise that Power, not for the Destruction, but for the Safety of the Commonwealth. They are not to consult the Views, the Wishes, the Interests, or Security of Ministers or Favourites, but the Salvation of the Kingdom. Our Laws, under which every King must submit to Reign, speaks plainly to the Sovereign, in open, intelligible, rational Terms, when it says, “Cessa regnare, si non vis judicare.”5 “If you will not exercise those judicial Powers, with which the Constitution has entrusted you, resign your Crown, you are no longer fit to reign over a free People.” The Word (judicare) in the Maxim above mentioned, extends not merely to the Exertion of a King’s judicial Powers in civil, or criminal Cases, (though this would be the false Interpretation of a Mansfield) but it must be taken in it’s largest, and most important Sense; it is allowed by every honest, learned Interpreter, to extend to the whole System of the King’s executive Powers. In that large Sense it has ever been considered by such political Writers as Locke, Sidney, Acherly, and Nathanial Bacon, who Writes so admirably on Government.6

This Maxim is strong, and pointed; it comes directly home to my present Purpose, and opens a large Field for no very favourable Inferences at the present Juncture. A king of England must not, cannot live for himself (much less for his Minions) but only for his People. I speak an honest, constitutional Truth, when I say that he must not Indulge, but Toil. A King’s Revenues, Magnificence, Splendor, Pomp, and Grandeur, are not designed to emblazon him, but to do Honour to his Kingdom. All his glittering rays of Majesty are reflected from the People. An English Throne is not like a Turkish Sophia, to be made the idle Seat of Slumber and Repose. It is erected for the Exercise of Mercy, Truth, and Justice. Neither of these Princely attributes is concerned in maintaining Corruption, or repelling just Suitors without Redress; nay, with ignominious Language and Contempt. It is a King of England’s Duty to cleanse the Augean Stable.7 He is the Argus of the Commonwealth;8 his Eyes, his Ears, his mental Powers, must all be open to his People, whilst his royal Passions are subdued. He can acquire neither Honour nor Security by an injudicious Struggle with his Subjects. Truth and Liberty will prevail. Tyrants and Fools have been dethroned. Injured Subjects have triumphed and exulted in their turn. Minions, and abandoned Ministers have been guarded to the Scaffold; and Corruption itself, though not to be dissolved, may be, at last, extinguished, in another glorious and necessary REVOLUTION.

These are Lessons which English Princes should be Taught betimes in their Minority. By these, even King’s themselves, may profit in riper Edition: current; Page: [215] Years. By these, the present obdurate, deluded Sovereign, whom Heaven has not been pleased to bless with any great share of natural Discernment, may be taught to avoid these Miseries, which must attend his rash and headstrong Perseverance, his unjust and guilty Confidence; his Tyrannic Pride, and an insolent Contempt of that People, through whose Patience and Indulgence, he most unworthyly holds the Crown of England.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXV

• Vis, Consili expers, mole ruit sua.
• Hor.1

• Be wise, ye Kings, nor to mere Power trust,
• Without sound Counsels, Pow’rs Tyrannic Lust,
• And brings it’s haughty Master to the Dust.

WE have lately heard much, and too much, of the Wisdom of Parliament, the great Council of the Nation; that is to say, the corrupt Majority of that great Council, where the most Votes enforce the vilest Measures. We know what this great Council once was, and what it ought to be. Let us reflect upon what it now is. It is (alas!) no more at present than a Majority of Ay’s and No’s—Contents and not Contents. And what is this Majority? the Minister’s—What is this Minister? The King’s;—What is the King? my Lord Bute’s.—What is Lord Bute? An Enemy to this Nation.—I had like to have said what I think, a Traytor; but I hope this will be said with more Weight in a future Impeachment, unless popular Revenge should Edition: current; Page: [218] justly make a less solemn, but a more dreadful Example of this public Pest. Through these Channels of Wisdom flow all the Grievances, Oppressions, and Calamities, which are now so severely felt in England and America. The Subjects of these Nations feel all the Power of this great and wise Council, without a single ray of its Benignity. It shines upon it’s Idols, but lowers upon the Subject. Power, and despotic Power, is the great end in view, and the Growth of it is cultivated with the greatest Boldness and Assiduity. We now see the three great Estates of this Kingdom, which were, in their Origin, wisely designed as salutary Checks upon each other, to preserve the Constitution, in an amicable Confederacy to destory it. As to the Peers, they are created by the Crown, not for Meritorious, but political Reasons. Wealth, and a pliant Disposition, are essential Requisites. Some Minion of the Crown becomes bound for their good Behaviour, and then the Great Seal stamps them for the Tools of an audacious and corrupt Minister. But your Apostate Chathams, Camdens, Richmonds, Buckinghams, Temples, Shelburnes, &c. are repudiated.2 The virtuous Minority is too thin to save their Country. They are out-clamoured, and out-voted. I have heard Lord Chatham’s manly Eloquence rudely drowned by a combined Roar of the Minister’s Majority in the House of Lords. I have heard that great Orator answered by ministerial Mouths without Argument, without Sense, without Grammar, and without English.

Their Lordships may well clear their House, and be as much ashamed of their Speeches, as they ought to be of their Principles. As to the House of Commons, it is filled, and fed, three Parts out of four, by the Minister.

Let me not forget, however, to congratulate them on a new Privilege, which they acquired and established in Wilkes’s Case, the rational and Edition: current; Page: [219] modest Privilege of electing themselves. This Acquisition is a great one. It is plain that honourable House esteems it so, because they have lately most iniquitiously refused to erase those base and daring Innovations upon the Rights of the People from their Journals. Thus they have industriously preserved the Infamy of the last detested Parliament to posterity. But they have likewise (which was the real Design) treasured up a vile Precedent to be produced in future Times of need, against the Liberties of their Masters, the People of this Kingdom.

There was a Time when this House of Commons was not too Modest to oppose the arbitrary Wills of Princes. There was a Time when they had the Honesty to refuse Supplies, when the Former had been ill-applied, and as ill-accounted for; when the old had been lavished in profusion and donceurs to Favourites, and new were demanded for the like Purposes, or worse, the insidious Purposes of Corruption. There was a Time too, when the Head of that House (the Speaker) had Integrity, though some Parts of that Body were Corrupt.

Whoever remembers Onslow, must respect his Memory;3 whoever knew him must revere it. He respected his Sovereign, but he loved the People. He preserved the Dignity and Integrity of his Station. He distinguished nobly and justly between a Post of Honour and a Post of Profit. He was neither Pensioner, Placeman, nor Privy Councellor. He knew that it was impossible to serve two Masters. He rejoiced to be at the Head of a Free People. He had a thorough knowledge of their Rights, and was zealous in defending them. He knew that it was impossible for a Speaker of the House of Commons to be, with the least Consistency, a Courtier and a Demagogue at the same Time. He knew that if he held a lucrative Place, he could not hold his Edition: current; Page: [220] Integrity. He preferred his Duty to Trash. He preferred virtuous Liberty to ministerial Influence and Controul. He preferred Honour to Infamy, Sincerity to Duplicity, and Propriety to Absurdity. For what can be more absurd than a ductile Speaker, who is at the Head of the Commons in the Morning, and at the Ear of the Sovereign in the Evening? At one Hour in Character of a Speaker, at another in the Function of a Privy Counsellor. Now in the Peoples Chair, and now at a Ministerial Board. To Day collecting the Sense of the People, and to Morrow promoting the Intrigues of a Court. Cooperating with the People at one Instant, and forming Schemes against their Liberties at another. To crown all, let us suppose this Speaker an established Placeman for Life; to which Place an annual Income is appendant of 4000l. per Annum, and eventually twice that Sum, or more, in a Place which no subject had enjoyed for Years, till the present Speaker (Norton) broke the Ground anew. Why had it not been enjoyed for many Years before? Because it was for Life, and the Minister had not sufficient Confidence in the steady Perfidy, and superior Demerits of any one Hireling, to bestow it, till they were conscious that Norton deserved that, and more. Let us view this malleable Speaker, and patriotic Statesman, this political Proteus, this double-fronted Janus, in another Light, which will fully show the Compatibility of the two different Functions.4

Suppose a Bute or a Mansfield were to be impeached, as they well deserve, by the Commons of England (’tis but a Supposition, for Corruption at present makes it impracticable) suppose it only: Whose Duty would it be Edition: current; Page: [221] to carry up these Bills of Impeachment to the Bar of the House of Lords? Sir Fletcher Norton’s. Sir Fletcher? What? a Placeman, a Pensioner, a Privy Counsellor? A Bird of the same Feather? Can Jemmy Twitcher ’peach?5 I have said enough to be sufficiently understood, and to show how inconsistent and absurd it is for a Speaker of the House of Commons, to be amphibiously inclined.

Let us now return to the noble Lords—We see among them another Majority, not indeed with Lord Bute (for he absconds) but with his Deputy, Mansfield, at their Head.—No; ’tis Lord Apsley; those insignia upon the Table are his, true, the Insignia, (the baubles, the Purse and Mace) are Apsley’s; but Apsley himself is Mansfield’s, as Mansfield himself is Bute’s. These three dance the Hay, like the Sun, Moon, and Earth, in the Rehearsal; though indeed it is Lord Bute’s interest, at present to continue in Eclipse. At present that Thane is to all intents and purposes, by his two Proxies Mansfield and Apsley, at the Head of the House of Lords. He has his Majority of Myrmidons there, as well as among the Commons, where he is represented by Lord North. Where then shall we find a Patriot? in the Throne. This (alas!) would be a blessing “devoutly to be wished”.

But the three great Estates of this Kingdom, are now not in a wholesome, but a dangerous Coalition; not in Harmony, but in Combination; not in Friendship, but in Confedracy. The House of Commons now shut the Doors against their Constituents, the Lords debate in private, they are ashamed, (as they well may) of their Harrangues, These Houses are now, in truth, a Divan, a Conclave, a Junto, a Cabal, a Gang; but they are no Edition: current; Page: [222] longer what they where, or what they ought to be; they will shortly feel the Consequences, of such an unnatural Coalition. The Body Politic can never be healthy, whilst it Functions are ill-performed; yet this is the great and wise Council of the Nation, in which Soverigns will confide.

I know that a Majority of Votes can save Minions and Favourites from the SCAFFOLD; but they cannot save them from PUBLIC VENGEANCE, nor can they secure the Sovereigns Peace, Affection, and Esteem, they can augment the Civil List, from near a Million a Year to any Sum that royal profusion may demand; they can allow (without entering into pricise Accounts) what a King may expend for Public Uses, a Term of the largest the most vague and most indefinite meaning, including every Species of regal, domestic, political, and unjust Profusion; they can lay still heavier Taxes for this purpose, as well as for the carrying on the further ASSASSINATION of America; but they can neither force the united Subjects of this Kingdom to pay those unreasonable Taxes, nor heal the Wounds of a Civil War if they refuse. How will our common Enemies France and Spain, embroil the Scene? at such a Crisis will an importation of Hanoverians, Hissians, and mercinary Troops from the little States of Germany avail? From Hanoverians no Assistance can be expected, they will not be able to defend their own State against the designing and ambitious King of Prussia. That great Monarch will not forget the ill Treatment he has received from England; Civil War here will afford him the long wished-for Opportunity.

Our Standing Army (if any Part should be base enough, to Fight for Tyrants, and the Benefit of being Slaves,) will be fully employed; Such Part of it as is truly English, will join their Countrymen, and put a final Period to Despotism and Corruption.

The constitutional, and the only constitutional Force of this Kingdom, the Militia, will not fail to signalize themselves in defence of LIBERTY, in this unhappy Period will the patriotic Spirit of Ireland be still? by what foreign Power, amidst this confusion at home, is America, at last, to be protected, or enslaved? By which of her Friends the French or Spaniards? Our standing Army will be too much wanted here to afford fresh Succour to Burgoyne.

Does that idle Notion prevail, any longer in this Century, which supplied King Charles the First with Forces and Recruits, in the last; when that blessed Martyr, endeavoured to subdue this Country to his Despotic Will by force of Arms? Is passive Obedience, non Resistance, and the Divine Right of Tyrants, of any weight even with the lowest of the People? Is not the Idea and Spirit of LIBERTY universal still? Is the Invasion of its Rights a Secret? It is true that we have long lived in an Age of Venality and Corruption, but we also live in an Age of Reason and Discernment. The meanest Individual among us knows that he has a Right to call his Life, Liberty and Property his own, and will die in their Defence.

A foolish and wicked King like the present effects, the Power of a Despot; a Patriot King uses the Authority of a Parent. A Sacrifice to Public Liberty could not be grateful to a Patriot King, it would sully his Glory, and disappoint his Views. To a weak or a designing Prince Liberty is odious, it is an Object of perpetual Terror and Alarm. Under the Reign of one, the Lives and Properties of the Subject are no longer valuable, then whilst they are employed to promote the wise Ends of paternal Government, Common Good; under the other, they are useless, unless they are exerted for the Public Safety. The People live in allegiance to the one, and in league against the other; the one reaps all the Fruits of National Confidence and Affection, the other feels all the Weight of general Distrust, and all the ignominy of individual Destruction, the one has no Favourites, and the other has no Enemies. The readiest Obedience waits upon the Father and the bitterest Execrations pursue the Despot of a Country.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXVI

• Molle Pecus, mutumque Metu.
• Virg.1

• Mansfield derides and George such Suppliants Scorns;
• You’re a tame Herd; why don’t you use your *Horns.

A DMINISTRATION dare not, as yet (or else they would) deny the Subjects Right of PETITIONING the King; but Bute and Mansfield, will not suffer even the Petition of the first City in the Kingdom, to be received upon the Throne. Can their supreme Lordships give a Reason why? I mean a solid Reason. It is an undoubted, and till now has been an undisputed Right, which this grateful City claims, a Right, which no ROYAL TYRANT in past Ages has controuled.

This late politic Display of Sovereign Insolence, has broke out, to dignify the present Reign; our Kings are still ready to receive a Petition from the greatest City in the Universe, but they are the Judges WHERE—at their Leveé—or in their Water Closet?—Be it ordained henceforth, that all Petitions for Redress of National Grievances, shall be received WHERE they may be most useful to the Sovereign, and least likely to rise in Judgement against the Minister.

Is it come to this at last, that one of the most essential Rights of a British Subject is to be treated with Indignity? Is it become a Farce that may be acted at a Sycophantic Levee, and attended to with as much affected Indifference as a Birth Day Ode? Is the Ground and Reason of this invaluable Right forgot? Or are the Rights of the Crown alone to be maintained, and those of the Subject trampled under Foot? Let us enquire into the Foundation of the Subject’s Right to address the Throne; we shall then see with what Propriety, Policy, or Decency, this Satisfaction is refused now. Whilst the Sovereign has a Right to Allegiance, the Subject has an equal Claim to Protection.

These Essentials form the Bond of Union, the reciprocal Relation, between the Governor and the Governed; that the State may enjoy the Benefits arising from this Union, the King becomes the Head of the Body Politic, by the Suffrage of a Free People; the People remain Members of this Body Politic, giving up their Natural Rights, by Compact with the Sovereign, for the Sake of Protection and good Government. These are the two great Ends which every Subject has in View. A King of England, on the other Hand has not a single Prerogative which is not conducive to these two great Ends. This is the true State of an English Sovereign, and an English Subject: In consequence, a good Sovereign may well expect to be obeyed without Reluctance; a loyal Subject to be heard without Contempt; if the Sovereign’s Dignity must be maintained, the Subjects Grievances must be redressed; the one is lessened by an insolent Deportment, and the other aggrivated by cold Indifference. The Prince who will not hear Information, is a FOOL; he who persists in Spite of it, is a TYRANT.

It is a Maxim with us, “that the King can do no Wrong;” the Result of every political Evil, is imputed to his Ministers, but the unthinking Prince who checks Petitions to the Throne, rashly takes every impolitic Transgression upon himself. To this injudicious Conduct that weak Tyrant Charles the First, deluded by his ministerial Sycophants, owed his Ruin, he foresaw the Storm approaching, when it was too late to take Shelter from its Fury, his Sufferings (and just they were) should be a perpetual Lesson for Crowned Heads, but alas! they are kept (if possible) in Infancy all their Lives, at their hazard their infamous Dependants are to rise; a wise King would not only open his Ears, but his Arms, to the Information of his Subjects, they are his Creators, and they ought to be his Guides, they are in Truth his only Friends.

Till Subjects commence Slaves, neither weak Kings, nor wicked Ministers, can stand before them, no Army is sufficient in a free Country, to encounter civil Indignation and Resentment, Iniquity never can prevail till Men have lost their Reason, those who dare to think, will dare to act. To injured Subjects the sharpest of all Incentives is Contempt, the happiest expedient is Redress, the sole Right of exercising this lenient Measure, lies in the Breast of the Sovereign; if Ministers are wicked he can discard them, if venal Parliaments, at the Back of a Minister, attempt to undermine the Constitution, he can dissolve them; without proceeding to this extremity, he can, and it is his Duty to withhold his Assent whenever any Act has improvidently passed the two Houses, which is likely to be pernicious to the Nation.

In such Times of Corruption and Iniquity, every Member of the Body Politic has a Right to inform the Head (the King) of the approaching Danger, in such Times, shall a great City be repulsed? if they are to be received with unusual Indignity, such an intended Reception is equal to an actual Repulse. That Prince wants Wisdom, who is not capable of reflecting that opulent Cities are the vital Parts of his Dominions, yet what Treatment has the City of London lately met with? have they not been charged with encouraging his Majesty’s rebellious Subjects (as they are called) in America? Is it not TREASON to encourage TRAYTORS? Yet my Lord Mansfield knows that the Word (Encourage) is the Word Edition: current; Page: [228] used by his Majesty, in his Answer to the City-Petition. Now if Subjects have a Right, (and who dare deny it?) to Petition the Sovereign, they are intituled to some Degree of Decency, when they approach the Throne with a Remonstrance; because these Remonstrants are a most important Part, of those People to whom the Sovereign owes his Existence and Continuance. The Majesty of a People resides in the collective Body, not in a packed Majority of smuggled Representatives in a venal House of Commons, it is not from the Luxurious and Corrupt, but from the Industrious and Commercial Parts of the Kingdom, that this collective Body will take its Tone, they are the Sinews of the State. The rotten Commons, and still more rotten Peers, are but as Straws floating lightly upon the Surface of this great Community, these are the Bees that make the Honey, and those the idle Drones, that rob the public Hives; yet these alone are the Persons whom the “King delighteth to Honour,” they alone are received with Smiles.

The incense of Flattery is grateful, the Voice of Truth an abomination, to the Throne, the Sovereign (tho’ not to be surfeited with supplies) is grown sick of information; Petitions are therefore to be received at LEVEES, there they will be handed to a Lord in waiting (one of the corrupt Gang) and neither opened nor heard of, afterwards, but when Petitions are received upon the Throne, a King cannot stop his Ears; their Contents, their Reception, and the Answer, are notorious, the whole World may then look on, and either applaud the Wisdom, or be astonished at the Justice of the Sovereign.

Can TYRANTS who violate the Laws of God, fear the sentence of this earthly Forum? Is it for this pusillanimous Reason, Public Remonstrances are to be treated like private Petitions, presented by indignant Individuals? Are the City of London to be received like Paupers in the Corner of a Levee? Do they come for Alms, or for Redress? Do they come to solicit a Pension, or to claim a Right? Do they sue for the Performance of a jobbing Contract made with a perfidious Minister, or for an Establishment and due Observence in future, of that Compact made between the Crown and the Subject, at the Revolution? If they come in the latter Shape, the Importance of their Suit demands all the Dignity and Attention of the Sovereign. Edition: current; Page: [229] If Petitions of such a serious Nature, can be baffled by a careless, light Reception at a Levee of Idolatrous Placemen, and needy Mendicants, every Avenue of Honest Information is shut up by the false FRIENDS of deluded MAJESTY; the Sovereign is still kept in a State of Darkness and dangerous Perseverance, for the Sake of a Ministerial GANG of Public ROBBERS, at the Hazard of the Property, Lives, and Liberties of a whole Empire.

The iniquitons Proceedings of this atrocious GANG in the last, and present Parliament, which they packed, fully justify me in branding them with the Name of PUBLIC ROBBERS. Let them look into the Black Journals of their Guilty HOUSES—There they will find that Individuals, Corporations, Electing Counties in Great Britain (not to mention the vast Continent of America and the Colonies, Merchants, and Manufacturers, dependent on it) have been deprived of their Rights, their Liberties, and Lives, by that Banditti, who call themselves the KING’s FRIENDS, yet act like ENEMIES to him, and to their Country.

Let me ask these National RAVAGERS, have no Royal Assents been given by their Procurement, to Bills most pernicious in their consequences to the whole British Empire? If so, are those Remonstrances, which seek a Repeal of these destructtive Acts, to be smothered in Oblivion? Are they to be stifled by those Guilty Parents to whom they owe their Birth? Are they to be crushed in the Pocket of some Lordly Lacquey, who attends a PRIVATE LEVEE? Shall those wicked Counsellors, who have brought on the Ruin of an Empire, stand for ever before the King? Shall Bute and Mansfield, with their dependent Shadows, North and Apsley, still be suffered to whisper at the Ear of Majesty? Whilst the Nation is justly alarmed for her Liberties, shall these domestic Spoilers be suffered to pursue their Triumph in Defiance of Great Britain and America? They have long trembled, and are now in hourly Fear of popular Petitions.

These would open the Way (should they at last meet with due Attention) first to their Removal from the King’s Presence, and then to fatal Enquiries—To the Salvation of Great Britain and America, and to the Punishment of an Infernal GANG of National Parricides. They, on the other Hand, fearing only for themselves, wish to stop all Access to the Edition: current; Page: [230] Sovereign’s Ear, and every Appeal to his Understanding, or his Heart. England cannot look with Unconcern upon the Sufferings of America. Her Claim is just, she says, and she says truely, that Taxation (when it is for the single Purpose of taking Money out of her Pocket) and Representation are, and must necessarily be, reciprocal. In every other Respect She submits (as a Colony) to the Legislature of her Mother Country; She submits to all those Laws of England, which affect the general System of Policy throughout the Empire of Great Britain; but She says wisely, that the Money which She acquires by the Sweat of her own Brow, is not the Money of the People of England; and therefore cannot be given away by such Persons as represent the People of England only.2

It is no Objection, that all the People of England are not represented themselves; because it is well known, that they were once represented to a Man; but some of the poorer Counties petitioned the King (in the Infancy of Parliaments) that they might be excused from sending up Representatives to appear for them in the Great Council of the Nation, as they could not afford to pay their Expences and they were excused accordingly.

Thus stands the Case of America, whom Administration are labouring to bring under the absolute Yoke of their corrupt Parliamentary Majority: Unless they can compass this, they know that neither America, nor Great Britain (whom they keep like an Apple in their Jaw, as Hamlet says, first mouthed to be last swallowed)3 can be effectually enslaved. Unless America can be massacred, and her refractory Numbers reduced, Edition: current; Page: [231] by Sword and Famine, within a Possibility of Controul, She will set a terrible Example of SPIRIT to her MOTHER COUNTRY, for whom a Net is likewise already spread. Till America is totally subdued, the Liberties of Great Britain, cannot be finally extinguished. The Aim of the present despotic Administration, and their servile MAJORITY, is plain: They wish to bring America not only under the Yoke of our Legislature, but of their standing Army, with which they will keep them under Foot for ever, should they conquer now. Should they fail in this Diabolical design; America rising from her Ruins, will erect an Empire of her own; an Asylum for the distressed Subjects of her MOTHER COUNTRY; who, as they seem at present careless about the RIGHTS, will at last retain the Name of ENGLISHMEN. But should our Parricides succeed, and America be once subdued, the whole British Empire will in due Time be Slaves.—Then will the Patriotic Scheme of our present Virtuous Administration be compleat; their Friendship to their KING, their Affection for their COUNTRY; the vain Confidence of the one, the well grounded distrust of the other, will appear. The secret Machinations of the Cabinet, the superior Wisdom of the Great Council of the Nation, will be disclosed, to the eternal Shame and Infamy of those, who must neither presume to call themselves Britons nor Men, if they long continue thus tamely to PETITION when they ought to ACT. Then shall We all deserve the Ridicule of the Sarcastic Mansfield, and be, in very deed, a tame Herd of Animals, among whom the worst of all Distempers (Slavery) may be said to rage; whilst we dare not avail ourselves either of our HOOFS, or HORNS.

N.B. The Authors of the CRISIS acknowledge with gratitude, the various Favours received from their able, judicious, and sensible, Correspondent CASCA, which will be carefully attended to.

☞ The Authors of the CRISIS present their respectful Compliments to CATO, and return him Thanks for his Spirited Address to the KING, which shall be made the Subject of our next Number; the Authors fear no TYRANT, nor the Instruments of TYRANY, and Edition: current; Page: [232] they will always pay particular attention to the future Correspondence of CATO, who breaths the Godlike Sentiments of FREEDOM. They embrace this Opportunity of contradicting a most Infamous Report, no less INDUSTRIOUSLY than FALSELY Propagated by the Emissaries of the present infernal Administration. “That the CRISIS was set on Foot, and is countenanced by the Ministry as a Pretence for laying a Restraint on the Press.” The Authors beg Leave to declare in the most solemn Manner, before God and Man, that such Assertions have not the least Foundation in Truth, and that they are circulated by a Tribe of PENSIONED RASCALS, who are employed to write down Truth, and establish Falshood, only with a View to DECEIVE and MISLEAD the People, and to draw their Attention from the true Channel of FAITHFUL Information, and from that DESTRUCTION with which they are now threatened. The CRISIS was set on Foot with a Design to support and defend the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS and PRIVILEGES of England and America, which the Authors hold equally dear with their LIVES. It was set on Foot at a Time when the LIBERTY of the PRESS was nearly destroyed, or rendered useless, by Ministerial Prosecutions; a Scotch CHIEF JUSTICE, and the Dastardly Souls of narrow-minded Printers, who were afraid to give a TYRANT his true Appellation. The Authors are determined to Write like ENGLISHMEN unawed by FEAR, or Prosecution, to SPEAK bold Truths, such Truths as some would fear to THINK. Freedom of Speech and Writing is one of the FIRST, and most Glorious PRIVILEGES of a FREE People; this the Authors Claim as a RIGHT, and this they are firmly Resolved to use and Defend; for to this Privilege we may again stand indebted, for another REVOLUTION.

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXVII

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXVIII

Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. Shaw, in Fleet-Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House; where Letters to the Publisher, will be thankfully received.

NUMBER XXIX