IN almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in
long and bloody wars, as well civil as foreign,
against many and powerful nations, against the
open assaults of enemies and the more danger-
ous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants
of your island, your great and glorious ances-
tors, maintained their independence and trans-
mitted the rights of men and the blessings of
liberty to you their posterity.
BE not surprized therefore, that we, who are
descended from the same common ancestors;
that we, whose forefathers participated in all
the rights, the liberties and the constitution,
you so justly boast, and who have carefully con-
veyed the same fair inheritance to us, guaran-
tied by the plighted faith of government and
the most solemn compacts with British Sove-
reigns, should refuse to surrender them to men,
who found their claims on no principles of
reason, and who prosecute them with a design,
that by having our lives and property in their
power, they may with the greater facility en-
slave you.
THE cause of
America is now the object of
universal attention: it has at length become ve-
ry serious. This unhappy country has not only
been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented;
and the duty we owe to ourselves and posterity,
to your interest, and the general welfare of the
British empire, leads us to address you on this
very important subject.
Know then, THAT we consider ourselves, and
do insist, that we are and ought to be, as free as