Page:Common sense - addressed to the inhabitants of America.djvu/35

Rh To talk of friendhip with thoe in whom our reaon forbids us to have faith, and our affections, wounded through a thouand pores, intruct us to detet, is madnes and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them, and can there be any reaon to hope, that as the relationhip expires, the affection will increae, or that we hall agree better, when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?—Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye retore to us the time that is pat? Can ye give to protitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The lat cord now is broken, the people of England are preenting addrees againt us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; he would ceae to be nature if he did. As well can the lover forgive the raviher of his mitres, as the Continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us thee unextinguihable feelings for good and wie purpoes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They ditinguih us from the herd of common animals. The ocial compact would diolve, and jutice be extirpated the earth, or have only a caual exitence, were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer would often ecape unpunihed, did not the injuries which our tempers utain provoke us into jutice.

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppoe not only the tyranny, but the Tyrant, tand forth! Every pot of the old world is over-run with oppreion. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Aia and Africa have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a tranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an aylum for mankind.

HAVE never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath not confeed his opinion, that a eparation between the countries would take place one time or other: And there is no intance in which we have hewn les judgment, than in endeavoring to decribe what we call the ripenes or fitnes of the Continent for independence.—As all men allow the meaure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mitakes, take a general urvey of things, and endeavor if poible, to find out the very time. But I need not go far, the enquiry ceaes at once, for the time hath found us. The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things, prove the fact.—It is not in numbers but in unity that our great trength lies: Yet our preent numbers are ufficient to repel the force of all the world. The Continent hath at this time the larget diciplined army of any power under heaven; and is jut arrived at that pitch of trength, in which no ingle Colony is able to upport itelf, and the whole, when united, is able to do any thing. Our land force is more than ufficient, and as to navy affairs, we cannot be inenible that Britain would never uffer an American man of war to be built, while the Continent remained in her hands. Wherefore, we hould be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch than we are now; but the truth is, we hould be les o,