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The other position is, that “the crown,” if this laudable opposition should not be successful, “will have the power of taxing America at pleasure.” Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions, when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained any additional power over their possessions.

It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But, probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address, though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet, probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by the name of Boston.

When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and allegiance.

It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.

That corporations, constituted by favour, and existing by sufferance, should dare to prohibit commerce with their native country, and threaten individuals by infamy, and societies with, at least, suspension of amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themselves, is a degree of insolence which not only deserves to be punished, but of which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life and the peace of nations.

Yet there have risen up, in the face of the publick, men who, by whatever corruptions, or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend the Americans, endeavour to shelter them from resentment, and propose reconciliation without submission.

As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A congress might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties in a style not unlike the language of the American patriots:

“FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,–We, the delegates of the several towns and parishes of Cornwall, assembled to deliberate upon our own state, and that of our constituents, having, after serious debate and calm consideration, settled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it necessary to declare the resolutions which we think ourselves entitled to form, by the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which we have been compelled by grievances and oppressions, long endured by us in patient silence, not because we did not feel, or could not remove them, but because we were unwilling to give disturbance to a settled government, and hoped that others would, in time, find, like ourselves, their true interest and their original powers, and all cooperate to universal happiness.

“But since, having long indulged the pleasing expectation, we find general discontent not likely to increase, or not likely to end in general defection, we resolve to erect alone the standard of liberty.

“Know then, that you are no longer to consider Cornwall as an English county, visited by English judges, receiving law from an English parliament, or included in any general taxation of the kingdom; but as a state, distinct and independent, governed by its own institutions, administered by its own magistrates, and exempt from any tax or tribute, but such as we shall impose upon ourselves.