The Crisis V
Thomas Paine
[An open letter directed to General Sir William
Howe,
21 March, 1778; from Lancaster, Pennsylvania]
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of
reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in
contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring
to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility
of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals. And no
man will envy you these honors, in which a savage only can be your
rival and a bear your master.
As the generosity of this country rewarded your brother's services
in the last war, with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, it
is consistent that she should bestow some mark of distinction upon
you. You certainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous place in
the catalogue of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be a pity to
pass you from the world in state, and consign you to magnificent
oblivion among the tombs, without telling the future beholder why.
Judas is as much known as John, yet history ascribes their fame to
very different actions.
Sir William has undoubtedly merited a monument; but of what kind,
or with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a
question that would puzzle all the heralds of St. James's in the
profoundest mood of historical deliberation. We are at no loss, sir,
to ascertain your real character, but somewhat perplexed how to
perpetuate its identity, and preserve it uninjured from the
transformations of time or mistake. A statuary may give a false
expression to your bust, or decorate it with some equivocal emblems,
by which you may happen to steal into reputation and impose upon the
hereafter traditionary world. Ill nature or ridicule may conspire,
or a variety of accidents combine to lessen, enlarge, or change Sir
William's fame; and no doubt but he who has taken so much pains to
be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular in
his exit, his monument and his epitaph.
The usual honors of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently
sublime to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and
ashes; for however men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or of
government here, the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death
is not the monarch of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he
obtains a conquest he loses a subject, and, like the foolish king
you serve, will, in the end, war himself out of all his dominions.
As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your funeral
honors, we readily admit of your new rank of knighthood. The title
is perfectly in character, and is your own, more by merit than
creation. There are knights of various orders, from the knight of
the windmill to the knight of the post. The former is your patron
for exploits, and the latter will assist you in settling your
accounts. No honorary title could be more happily applied! The
ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has discovered more
genius in fitting you therewith, than in generating the most
finished figure for a button, or descanting on the properties of a
button mould.
But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary
is exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument.
America is anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes
to do it in a manner that shall distinguish you from all the
deceased heroes of the last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is
not known to the present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath
outlived the science of deciphering it. Some other method,
therefore, must be thought of to immortalize the new knight of the
windmill and post. Sir William, thanks to his stars, is not
oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no ambition of being
wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and cassia. Less
expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens that the
simple genius of America has discovered the art of preserving
bodies, and embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than
the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure
as Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all
the mummies of Egypt.
As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by
numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved
an "here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere
affectation in you to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of
mankind respecting you. What remains of you may expire at any time.
The sooner the better. For he who survives his reputation, lives out
of despite of himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.
Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection of the
curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions.
The character of Sir William has undergone some extraordinary
revolutions. since his arrival in America. It is now fixed and
known; and we have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from
your capacity. Indolence and inability have too large a share in
your composition, ever to suffer you to be anything more than the
hero of little villainies and unfinished adventures. That, which to
some persons appeared moderation in you at first, was not produced
by any real virtue of your own, but by a contrast of passions,
dividing and holding you in perpetual irresolution. One vice will
frequently expel another, without the least merit in the man; as
powers in contrary directions reduce each other to rest.
It became you to have supported a dignified solemnity of character;
to have shown a superior liberality of soul; to have won respect by
an obstinate perseverance in maintaining order, and to have
exhibited on all occasions such an unchangeable graciousness of
conduct, that while we beheld in you the resolution of an enemy, we
might admire in you the sincerity of a man. You came to America
under the high sounding titles of commander and commissioner; not
only to suppress what you call rebellion, by arms, but to shame it
out of countenance by the excellence of your example. Instead of
which, you have been the patron of low and vulgar frauds, the
encourager of Indian cruelties; and have imported a cargo of vices
blacker than those which you pretend to suppress.
Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of right
and wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all
nations and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of
meanness. In the list of human vices we find some of such a refined
constitution, they cannot be carried into practice without seducing
some virtue to their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance
nor apology. It is generated in the dust and sweepings of other
vices, and is of such a hateful figure that all the rest conspire to
disown it. Sir William, the commissioner of George the Third, has at
last vouchsafed to give it rank and pedigree. He has placed the
fugitive at the council board, and dubbed it companion of the order
of knighthood.
The particular act of meanness which I allude to in this
description, is forgery. You, sir, have abetted and patronized the
forging and uttering counterfeit continental bills. In the same New
York newspapers in which your own proclamation under your master's
authority was published, offering, or pretending to offer, pardon
and protection to these states, there were repeated advertisements
of counterfeit money for sale, and persons who have come officially
from you, and under the sanction of your flag, have been taken up in
attempting to put them off.
A conduct so basely mean in a public character is without precedent
or pretence. Every nation on earth, whether friends or enemies, will
unite in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society, which
nothing can excuse or palliate, - an improvement upon beggarly
villany - and shows an inbred wretchedness of heart made up between
the venomous malignity of a serpent and the spiteful imbecility of
an inferior reptile.
The laws of any civilized country would condemn you to the gibbet
without regard to your rank or titles, because it is an action
foreign to the usage and custom of war; and should you fall into our
hands, which pray God you may, it will be a doubtful matter whether
we are to consider you as a military prisoner or a prisoner for
felony.
Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and impolitic in you, or any
other persons in the English service, to promote or even encourage,
or wink at the crime of forgery, in any case whatever. Because, as
the riches of England, as a nation, are chiefly in paper, and the
far greater part of trade among individuals is carried on by the
same medium, that is, by notes and drafts on one another, they,
therefore, of all people in the world, ought to endeavor to keep
forgery out of sight, and, if possible, not to revive the idea of
it. It is dangerous to make men familiar with a crime which they may
afterwards practise to much greater advantage against those who
first taught them. Several officers in the English army have made
their exit at the gallows for forgery on their agents; for we all
know, who know any thing of England, that there is not a more
necessitous body of men, taking them generally, than what the
English officers are. They contrive to make a show at the expense of
the tailors, and appear clean at the charge of the washer-women.
England, has at this time, nearly two hundred million pounds
sterling of public money in paper, for which she has no real
property: besides a large circulation of bank notes, bank post
bills, and promissory notes and drafts of private bankers, merchants
and tradesmen. She has the greatest quantity of paper currency and
the least quantity of gold and silver of any nation in Europe; the
real specie, which is about sixteen millions sterling, serves only
as change in large sums, which are always made in paper, or for
payment in small ones. Thus circumstanced, the nation is put to its
wit's end, and obliged to be severe almost to criminality, to
prevent the practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely a session
passes at the Old Bailey, or an execution at Tyburn, but witnesses
this truth, yet you, sir, regardless of the policy which her
necessity obliges her to adopt, have made your whole army intimate
with the crime. And as all armies at the conclusion of a war, are
too apt to carry into practice the vices of the campaign, it will
probably happen, that England will hereafter abound in forgeries, to
which art the practitioners were first initiated under your
authority in America. You, sir, have the honor of adding a new vice
to the military catalogue; and the reason, perhaps, why the
invention was reserved for you, is, because no general before was
mean enough even to think of it.
That a man whose soul is absorbed in the low traffic of vulgar
vice, is incapable of moving in any superior region, is clearly
shown in you by the event of every campaign. Your military exploits
have been without plan, object or decision. Can it be possible that
you or your employers suppose that the possession of Philadelphia
will be any ways equal to the expense or expectation of the nation
which supports you? What advantages does England derive from any
achievements of yours? To her it is perfectly indifferent what place
you are in, so long as the business of conquest is unperformed and
the charge of maintaining you remains the same.
If the principal events of the three campaigns be attended to, the
balance will appear against you at the close of each; but the last,
in point of importance to us, has exceeded the former two. It is
pleasant to look back on dangers past, and equally as pleasant to
meditate on present ones when the way out begins to appear. That
period is now arrived, and the long doubtful winter of war is
changing to the sweeter prospects of victory and joy. At the close
of the campaign, in 1775, you were obliged to retreat from Boston.
In the summer of 1776, you appeared with a numerous fleet and army
in the harbor of New York. By what miracle the continent was
preserved in that season of danger is a subject of admiration! If
instead of wasting your time against Long Island you had run up the
North River, and landed any where above New York, the consequence
must have been, that either you would have compelled General
Washington to fight you with very unequal numbers, or he must have
suddenly evacuated the city with the loss of nearly all the stores
of his army, or have surrendered for want of provisions; the
situation of the place naturally producing one or the other of these
events.
The preparations made to defend New York were, nevertheless, wise
and military; because your forces were then at sea, their numbers
uncertain; storms, sickness, or a variety of accidents might have
disabled their coming, or so diminished them on their passage, that
those which survived would have been incapable of opening the
campaign with any prospect of success; in which case the defence
would have been sufficient and the place preserved; for cities that
have been raised from nothing with an infinitude of labor and
expense, are not to be thrown away on the bare probability of their
being taken. On these grounds the preparations made to maintain New
York were as judicious as the retreat afterwards. While you, in the
interim, let slip the very opportunity which seemed to put conquest
in your power.
Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double the forces
which General Washington immediately commanded. The principal plan
at that time, on our part, was to wear away the season with as
little loss as possible, and to raise the army for the next year.
Long Island, New York, Forts Washington and Lee were not defended
after your superior force was known under any expectation of their
being finally maintained, but as a range of outworks, in the
attacking of which your time might be wasted, your numbers reduced,
and your vanity amused by possessing them on our retreat. It was
intended to have withdrawn the garrison from Fort Washington after
it had answered the former of those purposes, but the fate of that
day put a prize into your hands without much honor to yourselves.
Your progress through the Jerseys was accidental; you had it not
even in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal part
of your forces to Rhode Island beforehand. The utmost hope of
America in the year 1776, reached no higher than that she might not
then be conquered. She had no expectation of defeating you in that
campaign. Even the most cowardly Tory allowed, that, could she
withstand the shock of that summer, her independence would be past a
doubt. You had then greatly the advantage of her. You were
formidable. Your military knowledge was supposed to be complete.
Your fleets and forces arrived without an accident. You had neither
experience nor reinforcements to wait for. You had nothing to do but
to begin, and your chance lay in the first vigorous onset.
America was young and unskilled. She was obliged to trust her
defence to time and practice; and has, by mere dint of perseverance,
maintained her cause, and brought the enemy to a condition, in which
she is now capable of meeting him on any grounds.
It is remarkable that in the campaign of 1776 you gained no more,
notwithstanding your great force, than what was given you by consent
of evacuation, except Fort Washington; while every advantage
obtained by us was by fair and hard fighting. The defeat of Sir
Peter Parker was complete. The conquest of the Hessians at Trenton,
by the remains of a retreating army, which but a few days before you
affected to despise, is an instance of their heroic perseverance
very seldom to be met with. And the victory over the British troops
at Princeton, by a harassed and wearied party, who had been engaged
the day before and marched all night without refreshment, is
attended with such a scene of circumstances and superiority of
generalship, as will ever give it a place in the first rank in the
history of great actions.
When I look back on the gloomy days of last winter, and see America
suspended by a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at the recollection
of her delivery, and a reverence for the characters which snatched
her from destruction. To doubt now would be a species of infidelity,
and to forget the instruments which saved us then would be
ingratitude.
The close of that campaign left us with the spirit of conquerors.
The northern districts were relieved by the retreat of General
Carleton over the lakes. The army under your command were hunted
back and had their bounds prescribed. The continent began to feel
its military importance, and the winter passed pleasantly away in
preparations for the next campaign.
However confident you might be on your first arrival, the result of
the year 1776 gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not
impossibility of conquest. To this reason I ascribe your delay in
opening the campaign of 1777. The face of matters, on the close of
the former year, gave you no encouragement to pursue a discretionary
war as soon as the spring admitted the taking the field; for though
conquest, in that case, would have given you a double portion of
fame, yet the experiment was too hazardous. The ministry, had you
failed, would have shifted the whole blame upon you, charged you
with having acted without orders, and condemned at once both your
plan and execution.
To avoid the misfortunes, which might have involved you and your
money accounts in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently waited the
arrival of a plan of operations from England, which was that you
should proceed for Philadelphia by way of the Chesapeake, and that
Burgoyne, after reducing Ticonderoga, should take his route by
Albany, and, if necessary, join you.
The splendid laurels of the last campaign have flourished in the
north. In that quarter America has surprised the world, and laid the
foundation of this year's glory. The conquest of Ticonderoga, (if it
may be called a conquest) has, like all your other victories, led on
to ruin. Even the provisions taken in that fortress (which by
General Burgoyne's return was sufficient in bread and flour for
nearly 5000 men for ten weeks, and in beef and pork for the same
number of men for one month) served only to hasten his overthrow, by
enabling him to proceed to Saratoga, the place of his destruction. A
short review of the operations of the last campaign will show the
condition of affairs on both sides.
You have taken Ticonderoga and marched into Philadelphia. These are
all the events which the year has produced on your part. A trifling
campaign indeed, compared with the expenses of England and the
conquest of the continent. On the other side, a considerable part of
your northern force has been routed by the New York militia under
General Herkemer. Fort Stanwix has bravely survived a compound
attack of soldiers and savages, and the besiegers have fled. The
Battle of Bennington has put a thousand prisoners into our hands,
with all their arms, stores, artillery and baggage. General
Burgoyne, in two engagements, has been defeated; himself, his army,
and all that were his and theirs are now ours. Ticonderoga and
Independence [forts] are retaken, and not the shadow of an enemy
remains in all the northern districts. At this instant we have
upwards of eleven thousand prisoners, between sixty and seventy
[captured] pieces of brass ordnance, besides small arms, tents,
stores, etc.
In order to know the real value of those advantages, we must
reverse the scene, and suppose General Gates and the force he
commanded to be at your mercy as prisoners, and General Burgoyne,
with his army of soldiers and savages, to be already joined to you
in Pennsylvania. So dismal a picture can scarcely be looked at. It
has all the tracings and colorings of horror and despair; and
excites the most swelling emotions of gratitude by exhibiting the
miseries we are so graciously preserved from.
I admire the distribution of laurels around the continent. It is
the earnest of future union. South Carolina has had her day of
sufferings and of fame; and the other southern States have exerted
themselves in proportion to the force that invaded or insulted them.
Towards the close of the campaign, in 1776, these middle States were
called upon and did their duty nobly. They were witnesses to the
almost expiring flame of human freedom. It was the close struggle of
life and death, the line of invisible division; and on which the
unabated fortitude of a Washington prevailed, and saved the spark
that has since blazed in the north with unrivalled lustre.
Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have you performed? Through
all the variety of changes and opportunities which the war has
produced, I know no one action of yours that can be styled masterly.
You have moved in and out, backward and forward, round and round, as
if valor consisted in a military jig. The history and figure of your
movements would be truly ridiculous could they be justly delineated.
They resemble the labors of a puppy pursuing his tail; the end is
still at the same distance, and all the turnings round must be done
over again.
Your progress from the Chesapeake, was marked by no capital stroke
of policy or heroism. Your principal aim was to get General
Washington between the Delaware and Schuylkill, and between
Philadelphia and your army. In that situation, with a river on each
of his flanks, which united about five miles below the city, and
your army above him, you could have intercepted his reinforcements
and supplies, cut off all his communication with the country, and,
if necessary, have despatched assistance to open a passage for
General Burgoyne. This scheme was too visible to succeed: for had
General Washington suffered you to command the open country above
him, I think it a very reasonable conjecture that the conquest of
Burgoyne would not have taken place, because you could, in that
case, have relieved him. It was therefore necessary, while that
important victory was in suspense, to trepan you into a situation in
which you could only be on the defensive, without the power of
affording him assistance. The manoeuvre had its effect, and Burgoyne
was conquered.
There has been something unmilitary and passive in you from the
time of your passing the Schuylkill and getting possession of
Philadelphia, to the close of the campaign. You mistook a trap for a
conquest, the probability of which had been made known to Europe,
and the edge of your triumph taken off by our own information long
before.
Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a general attack
upon you at Germantown was carried into execution on the 4th of
October, and though the success was not equal to the excellence of
the plan, yet the attempting it proved the genius of America to be
on the rise, and her power approaching to superiority. The obscurity
of the morning was your best friend, for a fog is always favorable
to a hunted enemy. Some weeks after this you likewise planned an
attack on General Washington while at Whitemarsh. You marched out
with infinite parade, but on finding him preparing to attack you
next morning, you prudently turned about, and retreated to
Philadelphia with all the precipitation of a man conquered in
imagination.
Immediately after the battle of Germantown, the probability of
Burgoyne's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania, and
it was judged most consistent with the general safety of America, to
wait the issue of the northern campaign. Slow and sure is sound
work. The news of that victory arrived in our camp on the 18th of
October, and no sooner did that shout of joy, and the report of the
thirteen cannon reach your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat,
and the next day, that is, on the 19th, you withdrew your drooping
army into Philadelphia. This movement was evidently dictated by
fear; and carried with it a positive confession that you dreaded a
second attack. It was hiding yourself among women and children, and
sleeping away the choicest part of the campaign in expensive
inactivity. An army in a city can never be a conquering army. The
situation admits only of defence. It is mere shelter: and every
military power in Europe will conclude you to be eventually
defeated.
The time when you made this retreat was the very time you ought to
have fought a battle, in order to put yourself in condition of
recovering in Pennsylvania what you had lost in Saratoga. And the
reason why you did not, must be either prudence or cowardice; the
former supposes your inability, and the latter needs no explanation.
I draw no conclusions, sir, but such as are naturally deduced from
known and visible facts, and such as will always have a being while
the facts which produced them remain unaltered.
After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhibited the power
of Britain in a very contemptible light; which was the attack and
defence of Mud Island. For several weeks did that little unfinished
fortress stand out against all the attempts of Admiral and General
Howe. It was the fable of Bender realized on the Delaware. Scheme
after scheme, and force upon force were tried and defeated. The
garrison, with scarce anything to cover them but their bravery,
survived in the midst of mud, shot and shells, and were at last
obliged to give it up more to the powers of time and gunpowder than
to military superiority of the besiegers.
It is my sincere opinion that matters are in much worse condition
with you than what is generally known. Your master's speech at the
opening of Parliament, is like a soliloquy on ill luck. It shows him
to be coming a little to his reason, for sense of pain is the first
symptom of recovery, in profound stupefaction. His condition is
deplorable. He is obliged to submit to all the insults of France and
Spain, without daring to know or resent them; and thankful for the
most trivial evasions to the most humble remonstrances. The time was
when he could not deign an answer to a petition from America, and
the time now is when he dare not give an answer to an affront from
France. The capture of Burgoyne's army will sink his consequence as
much in Europe as in America. In his speech he expresses his
suspicions at the warlike preparations of France and Spain, and as
he has only the one army which you command to support his character
in the world with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what
quarter it will be most wanted, or can be best employed; and this
will partly account for the great care you take to keep it from
action and attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it
probably will, England may take her endless farewell not only of all
America but of all the West Indies.
Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the
eagerness and the ignorance with which Britain has done. Bent upon
the ruin of a young and unoffending country, she has drawn the sword
that has wounded herself to the heart, and in the agony of her
resentment has applied a poison for a cure. Her conduct towards
America is a compound of rage and lunacy; she aims at the government
of it, yet preserves neither dignity nor character in her methods to
obtain it. Were government a mere manufacture or article of
commerce, immaterial by whom it should be made or sold, we might as
well employ her as another, but when we consider it as the fountain
from whence the general manners and morality of a country take their
rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution thereof are by
their serious example an authority to support these principles, how
abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set
of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft
and every species of villany which the lowest wretches on earth
could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall any
country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing
than to be delivered therefrom. The soul of any man of sentiment
would rise in brave rebellion against them, and spurn them from the
earth.
The malignant and venomous tempered General Vaughan has amused his
savage fancy in burning the whole town of Kingston, in York
government, and the late governor of that state, Mr. Tryon, in his
letter to General Parsons, has endeavored to justify it and declared
his wish to burn the houses of every committeeman in the country.
Such a confession from one who was once intrusted with the powers of
civil government, is a reproach to the character. But it is the wish
and the declaration of a man whom anguish and disappointment have
driven to despair, and who is daily decaying into the grave with
constitutional rottenness.
There is not in the compass of language a sufficiency of words to
express the baseness of your king, his ministry and his army. They
have refined upon villany till it wants a name. To the fiercer vices
of former ages they have added the dregs and scummings of the most
finished rascality, and are so completely sunk in serpentine deceit,
that there is not left among them one generous enemy.
From such men and such masters, may the gracious hand of Heaven
preserve America! And though the sufferings she now endures are
heavy, and severe, they are like straws in the wind compared to the
weight of evils she would feel under the government of your king,
and his pensioned Parliament.
There is something in meanness which excites a species of
resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs
up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred; Britain has
filled up both these characters till no addition can be made, and
has not reputation left with us to obtain credit for the slightest
promise. The will of God has parted us, and the deed is registered
for eternity. When she shall be a spot scarcely visible among the
nations, America shall flourish the favorite of heaven, and the
friend of mankind.
For the domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the world, I
wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed within her
own island. Extent of dominion has been her ruin, and instead of
civilizing others has brutalized herself. Her late reduction of
India, under Clive and his successors, was not so properly a
conquest as an extermination of mankind. She is the only power who
could practise the prodigal barbarity of tying men to mouths of
loaded cannon and blowing them away. It happens that General
Burgoyne, who made the report of that horrid transaction, in the
House of Commons, is now a prisoner with us, and though an enemy, I
can appeal to him for the truth of it, being confident that he
neither can nor will deny it. Yet Clive received the approbation of
the last Parliament.
When we take a survey of mankind, we cannot help cursing the
wretch, who, to the unavoidable misfortunes of nature, shall
wilfully add the calamities of war. One would think there were evils
enough in the world without studying to increase them, and that life
is sufficiently short without shaking the sand that measures it. The
histories of Alexander, and Charles of Sweden, are the histories of
human devils; a good man cannot think of their actions without
abhorrence, nor of their deaths without rejoicing. To see the
bounties of heaven destroyed, the beautiful face of nature laid
waste, and the choicest works of creation and art tumbled into ruin,
would fetch a curse from the soul of piety itself. But in this
country the aggravation is heightened by a new combination of
affecting circumstances. America was young, and, compared with other
countries, was virtuous. None but a Herod of uncommon malice would
have made war upon infancy and innocence: and none but a people of
the most finished fortitude, dared under those circumstances, have
resisted the tyranny. The natives, or their ancestors, had fled from
the former oppressions of England, and with the industry of bees had
changed a wilderness into a habitable world. To Britain they were
indebted for nothing. The country was the gift of heaven, and God
alone is their Lord and Sovereign.
The time, sir, will come when you, in a melancholy hour, shall
reckon up your miseries by your murders in America. Life, with you,
begins to wear a clouded aspect. The vision of pleasurable delusion
is wearing away, and changing to the barren wild of age and sorrow.
The poor reflection of having served your king will yield you no
consolation in your parting moments. He will crumble to the same
undistinguished ashes with yourself, and have sins enough of his own
to answer for. It is not the farcical benedictions of a bishop, nor
the cringing hypocrisy of a court of chaplains, nor the formality of
an act of Parliament, that can change guilt into innocence, or make
the punishment one pang the less. You may, perhaps, be unwilling to
be serious, but this destruction of the goods of Providence, this
havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world with mischief,
must be accounted for to him who made and governs it. To us they are
only present sufferings, but to him they are deep rebellions.
If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of wilful and
offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow
limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very
general extension, and many kinds of sins have only a mental
existence from which no infection arises; but he who is the author
of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein
that bleeds a nation to death. We leave it to England and Indians to
boast of these honors; we feel no thirst for such savage glory; a
nobler flame, a purer spirit animates America. She has taken up the
sword of virtuous defence; she has bravely put herself between
Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse and a blessing, determined to
expel the one and protect the other.
It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there
was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which
America is now engaged. She invaded no land of yours. She hired no
mercenaries to burn your towns, nor Indians to massacre their
inhabitants. She wanted nothing from you, and was indebted for
nothing to you: and thus circumstanced, her defence is honorable and
her prosperity is certain.
Yet it is not on the justice only, but likewise on the importance
of this cause that I ground my seeming enthusiastical confidence of
our success. The vast extension of America makes her of too much
value in the scale of Providence, to be cast like a pearl before
swine, at the feet of an European island; and of much less
consequence would it be that Britain were sunk in the sea than that
America should miscarry. There has been such a chain of
extraordinary events in the discovery of this country at first, in
the peopling and planting it afterwards, in the rearing and nursing
it to its present state, and in the protection of it through the
present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence has some nobler
end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty elector of
Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Britain.
As the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Christian
church, so the political persecutions of England will and have
already enriched America with industry, experience, union, and
importance. Before the present era she was a mere chaos of
uncemented colonies, individually exposed to the ravages of the
Indians and the invasion of any power that Britain should be at war
with. She had nothing that she could call her own. Her felicity
depended upon accident. The convulsions of Europe might have thrown
her from one conqueror to another, till she had been the slave of
all, and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit enough to
become her own master, there was no knowing to which master she
should belong. That period, thank God, is past, and she is no longer
the dependent, disunited colonies of Britain, but the independent
and United States of America, knowing no master but heaven and
herself. You, or your king, may call this "delusion," "rebellion,"
or what name you please. To us it is perfectly indifferent. The
issue will determine the character, and time will give it a name as
lasting as his own.
You have now, sir, tried the fate of three campaigns, and can fully
declare to England, that nothing is to be got on your part, but
blows and broken bones, and nothing on hers but waste of trade and
credit, and an increase of poverty and taxes. You are now only where
you might have been two years ago, without the loss of a single
ship, and yet not a step more forward towards the conquest of the
continent; because, as I have already hinted, "an army in a
city can never be a conquering army." The full amount of your
losses, since the beginning of the war, exceeds twenty thousand men,
besides millions of treasure, for which you have nothing in
exchange. Our expenses, though great, are circulated within
ourselves. Yours is a direct sinking of money, and that from both
ends at once; first, in hiring troops out of the nation, and in
paying them afterwards, because the money in neither case can return
to Britain. We are already in possession of the prize, you only in
pursuit of it. To us it is a real treasure, to you it would be only
an empty triumph. Our expenses will repay themselves with tenfold
interest, while yours entail upon you everlasting poverty.
Take a review, sir, of the ground which you have gone over, and let
it teach you policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but on a very
tottering foundation. A change of the ministry in England may
probably bring your measures into question, and your head to the
block. Clive, with all his successes, had some difficulty in
escaping, and yours being all a war of losses, will afford you less
pretensions, and your enemies more grounds for impeachment.
Go home, sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined
country, by a just representation of the madness of her measures. A
few moments, well applied, may yet preserve her from political
destruction. I am not one of those who wish to see Europe in a
flame, because I am persuaded that such an event will not shorten
the war. The rupture, at present, is confined between the two powers
of America and England. England finds that she cannot conquer
America, and America has no wish to conquer England. You are
fighting for what you can never obtain, and we defending what we
never mean to part with. A few words, therefore, settle the bargain.
Let England mind her own business and we will mind ours. Govern
yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. You may then trade where
you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we please
unmolested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each
other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. If it were
possible that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must
still come to this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think
of it the better it will be for you.
My official situation enables me to know the repeated insults which
Britain is obliged to put up with from foreign powers, and the
wretched shifts that she is driven to, to gloss them over. Her
reduced strength and exhausted coffers in a three years' war with
America, has given a powerful superiority to France and Spain. She
is not now a match for them. But if neither councils can prevail on
her to think, nor sufferings awaken her to reason, she must e'en go
on, till the honor of England becomes a proverb of contempt, and
Europe dub her the Land of Fools.
I am, Sir, with every wish for an honorable peace,
Your friend, enemy, and countryman,
COMMON SENSE.
TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.
WITH all the pleasure with which a man exchanges bad company for
good, I take my leave of Sir William and return to you. It is now
nearly three years since the tyranny of Britain received its first
repulse by the arms of America. A period which has given birth to a
new world, and erected a monument to the folly of the old.
I cannot help being sometimes surprised at the complimentary
references which I have seen and heard made to ancient histories and
transactions. The wisdom, civil governments, and sense of honor of
the states of Greece and Rome, are frequently held up as objects of
excellence and imitation. Mankind have lived to very little purpose,
if, at this period of the world, they must go two or three thousand
years back for lessons and examples. We do great injustice to
ourselves by placing them in such a superior line. We have no just
authority for it, neither can we tell why it is that we should
suppose ourselves inferior.
Could the mist of antiquity be cleared away, and men and things be
viewed as they really were, it is more than probable that they would
admire us, rather than we them. America has surmounted a greater
variety and combination of difficulties, than, I believe, ever fell
to the share of any one people, in the same space of time, and has
replenished the world with more useful knowledge and sounder maxims
of civil government than were ever produced in any age before. Had
it not been for America, there had been no such thing as freedom
left throughout the whole universe. England has lost hers in a long
chain of right reasoning from wrong principles, and it is from this
country, now, that she must learn the resolution to redress herself,
and the wisdom how to accomplish it.
The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of
liberty but not the principle, for at the time that they were
determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to
enslave the rest of mankind. But this distinguished era is blotted
by no one misanthropical vice. In short, if the principle on which
the cause is founded, the universal blessings that are to arise from
it, the difficulties that accompanied it, the wisdom with which it
has been debated, the fortitude by which it has been supported, the
strength of the power which we had to oppose, and the condition in
which we undertook it, be all taken in one view, we may justly style
it the most virtuous and illustrious revolution that ever graced the
history of mankind.
A good opinion of ourselves is exceedingly necessary in private
life, but absolutely necessary in public life, and of the utmost
importance in supporting national character. I have no notion of
yielding the palm of the United States to any Grecians or Romans
that were ever born. We have equalled the bravest in times of
danger, and excelled the wisest in construction of civil
governments.
From this agreeable eminence let us take a review of present
affairs. The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with
British politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind are
governed by the same motives. They have no idea of a people
submitting even to temporary inconvenience from an attachment to
rights and privileges. Their plans of business are calculated by the
hour and for the hour, and are uniform in nothing but the corruption
which gives them birth. They never had, neither have they at this
time, any regular plan for the conquest of America by arms. They
know not how to go about it, neither have they power to effect it if
they did know. The thing is not within the compass of human
practicability, for America is too extensive either to be fully
conquered or passively defended. But she may be actively defended by
defeating or making prisoners of the army that invades her. And
this is the only system of defence that can be effectual in a large
country.
There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it
differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who
conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he gains be for him, or
against him, when he first obtains it. In the winter of 1776,
General Howe marched with an air of victory through the Jerseys, the
consequence of which was his defeat; and General Burgoyne at
Saratoga experienced the same fate from the same cause. The
Spaniards, about two years ago, were defeated by the Algerines in
the same manner, that is, their first triumphs became a trap in
which they were totally routed. And whoever will attend to the
circumstances and events of a war carried on by invasion, will find,
that any invader, in order to be finally conquered must first begin
to conquer.
I confess myself one of those who believe the loss of Philadelphia
to be attended with more advantages than injuries. The case stood
thus: The enemy imagined Philadelphia to be of more importance to us
than it really was; for we all know that it had long ceased to be a
port: not a cargo of goods had been brought into it for near a
twelvemonth, nor any fixed manufactories, nor even ship-building,
carried on in it; yet as the enemy believed the conquest of it to be
practicable, and to that belief added the absurd idea that the soul
of all America was centred there, and would be conquered there, it
naturally follows that their possession of it, by not answering the
end proposed, must break up the plans they had so foolishly gone
upon, and either oblige them to form a new one, for which their
present strength is not sufficient, or to give over the attempt.
We never had so small an army to fight against, nor so fair an
opportunity of final success as now. The death wound is already
given. The day is ours if we follow it up. The enemy, by his
situation, is within our reach, and by his reduced strength is
within our power. The ministers of Britain may rage as they please,
but our part is to conquer their armies. Let them wrangle and
welcome, but let, it not draw our attention from the one thing
needful. Here, in this spot is our own business to be accomplished,
our felicity secured. What we have now to do is as clear as light,
and the way to do it is as straight as a line. It needs not to be
commented upon, yet, in order to be perfectly understood I will put
a case that cannot admit of a mistake.
Had the armies under Generals Howe and Burgoyne been united, and
taken post at Germantown, and had the northern army under General
Gates been joined to that under General Washington, at Whitemarsh,
the consequence would have been a general action; and if in that
action we had killed and taken the same number of officers and men,
that is, between nine and ten thousand, with the same quantity of
artillery, arms, stores, etc., as have been taken at the northward,
and obliged General Howe with the remains of his army, that is, with
the same number he now commands, to take shelter in Philadelphia, we
should certainly have thought ourselves the greatest heroes in the
world; and should, as soon as the season permitted, have collected
together all the force of the continent and laid siege to the city,
for it requires a much greater force to besiege an enemy in a town
than to defeat him in the field. The case now is just the same as
if it had been produced by the means I have here supposed. Between
nine and ten thousand have been killed and taken, all their stores
are in our possession, and General Howe, in consequence of that
victory, has thrown himself for shelter into Philadelphia. He, or
his trifling friend Galloway, may form what pretences they please,
yet no just reason can be given for their going into winter quarters
so early as the 19th of October, but their apprehensions of a defeat
if they continued out, or their conscious inability of keeping the
field with safety. I see no advantage which can arise to America by
hunting the enemy from state to state. It is a triumph without a
prize, and wholly unworthy the attention of a people determined to
conquer. Neither can any state promise itself security while the
enemy remains in a condition to transport themselves from one part
of the continent to another. Howe, likewise, cannot conquer where we
have no army to oppose, therefore any such removals in him are mean
and cowardly, and reduces Britain to a common pilferer. If he
retreats from Philadelphia, he will be despised; if he stays, he may
be shut up and starved out, and the country, if he advances into it,
may become his Saratoga. He has his choice of evils and we of
opportunities. If he moves early, it is not only a sign but a proof
that he expects no reinforcement, and his delay will prove that he
either waits for the arrival of a plan to go upon, or force to
execute it, or both; in which case our strength will increase more
than his, therefore in any case we cannot be wrong if we do but
proceed.
The particular condition of Pennsylvania deserves the attention of
all the other States. Her military strength must not be estimated by
the number of inhabitants. Here are men of all nations, characters,
professions and interests. Here are the firmest Whigs, surviving,
like sparks in the ocean, unquenched and uncooled in the midst of
discouragement and disaffection. Here are men losing their all with
cheerfulness, and collecting fire and fortitude from the flames of
their own estates. Here are others skulking in secret, many making a
market of the times, and numbers who are changing to Whig or Tory
with the circumstances of every day.
It is by a mere dint of fortitude and perseverance that the Whigs
of this State have been able to maintain so good a countenance, and
do even what they have done. We want help, and the sooner it can
arrive the more effectual it will be. The invaded State, be it which
it may, will always feel an additional burden upon its back, and be
hard set to support its civil power with sufficient authority; and
this difficulty will rise or fall, in proportion as the other states
throw in their assistance to the common cause.
The enemy will most probably make many manoeuvres at the opening of
this campaign, to amuse and draw off the attention of the several
States from the one thing needful. We may expect to hear of alarms
and pretended expeditions to this place and that place, to the
southward, the eastward, and the northward, all intended to prevent
our forming into one formidable body. The less the enemy's strength
is, the more subtleties of this kind will they make use of. Their
existence depends upon it, because the force of America, when
collected, is sufficient to swallow their present army up. It is
therefore our business to make short work of it, by bending our
whole attention to this one principal point, for the instant that
the main body under General Howe is defeated, all the inferior
alarms throughout the continent, like so many shadows, will follow
his downfall.
The only way to finish a war with the least possible bloodshed, or
perhaps without any, is to collect an army, against the power of
which the enemy shall have no chance. By not doing this, we prolong
the war, and double both the calamities and expenses of it. What a
rich and happy country would America be, were she, by a vigorous
exertion, to reduce Howe as she has reduced Burgoyne. Her currency
would rise to millions beyond its present value. Every man would be
rich, and every man would have it in his power to be happy. And why
not do these things? What is there to hinder? America is her own
mistress and can do what she pleases.
If we had not at this time a man in the field, we could,
nevertheless, raise an army in a few weeks sufficient to overwhelm
all the force which General Howe at present commands. Vigor and
determination will do anything and everything. We began the war with
this kind of spirit, why not end it with the same? Here, gentlemen,
is the enemy. Here is the army. The interest, the happiness of all
America, is centred in this half ruined spot. Come and help us. Here
are laurels, come and share them. Here are Tories, come and help us
to expel them. Here are Whigs that will make you welcome, and
enemies that dread your coming.
The worst of all policies is that of doing things by halves.
Penny-wise and pound-foolish, has been the ruin of thousands. The
present spring, if rightly improved, will free us from our troubles,
and save us the expense of millions. We have now only one army to
cope with. No opportunity can be fairer; no prospect more promising.
I shall conclude this paper with a few outlines of a plan, either
for filling up the battalions with expedition, or for raising an
additional force, for any limited time, on any sudden emergency.
That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to
support. And any burden which falls equally on all men, and from
which every man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with
the most perfect ideas of liberty. I would wish to revive something
of that virtuous ambition which first called America into the field.
Then every man was eager to do his part, and perhaps the principal
reason why we have in any degree fallen therefrom, is because we did
not set a right value by it at first, but left it to blaze out of
itself, instead of regulating and preserving it by just proportions
of rest and service.
Suppose any State whose number of effective inhabitants was 80,000,
should be required to furnish 3,200 men towards the defence of the
continent on any sudden emergency.
1st, Let the whole number of effective inhabitants be divided into
hundreds; then if each of those hundreds turn out four men, the
whole number of 3,200 will be had.
2d, Let the name of each hundred men be entered in a book, and let
four dollars be collected from each man, with as much more as any of
the gentlemen, whose abilities can afford it, shall please to throw
in, which gifts likewise shall be entered against the names of the
donors.
3d, Let the sums so collected be offered as a present, over and
above the bounty of twenty dollars, to any four who may be inclined
to propose themselves as volunteers: if more than four offer, the
majority of the subscribers present shall determine which; if none
offer, then four out of the hundred shall be taken by lot, who shall
be entitled to the said sums, and shall either go, or provide others
that will, in the space of six days.
4th, As it will always happen that in the space of ground on which
a hundred men shall live, there will be always a number of persons
who, by age and infirmity, are incapable of doing personal service,
and as such persons are generally possessed of the greatest part of
property in any country, their portion of service, therefore, will
be to furnish each man with a blanket, which will make a regimental
coat, jacket, and breeches, or clothes in lieu thereof, and another
for a watch cloak, and two pair of shoes; for however choice people
may be of these things matters not in cases of this kind; those who
live always in houses can find many ways to keep themselves warm,
but it is a shame and a sin to suffer a soldier in the field to want
a blanket while there is one in the country.
Should the clothing not be wanted, the superannuated or infirm
persons possessing property, may, in lieu thereof, throw in their
money subscriptions towards increasing the bounty; for though age
will naturally exempt a person from personal service, it cannot
exempt him from his share of the charge, because the men are raised
for the defence of property and liberty jointly.
There never was a scheme against which objections might not be
raised. But this alone is not a sufficient reason for rejection. The
only line to judge truly upon is to draw out and admit all the
objections which can fairly be made, and place against them all the
contrary qualities, conveniences and advantages, then by striking a
balance you come at the true character of any scheme, principle or
position.
The most material advantages of the plan here proposed are, ease,
expedition, and cheapness; yet the men so raised get a much larger
bounty than is any where at present given; because all the expenses,
extravagance, and consequent idleness of recruiting are saved or
prevented. The country incurs no new debt nor interest thereon; the
whole matter being all settled at once and entirely done with. It is
a subscription answering all the purposes of a tax, without either
the charge or trouble of collecting. The men are ready for the field
with the greatest possible expedition, because it becomes the duty
of the inhabitants themselves, in every part of the country, to find
their proportion of men instead of leaving it to a recruiting
sergeant, who, be he ever so industrious, cannot know always where
to apply.
I do not propose this as a regular digested plan, neither will the
limits of this paper admit of any further remarks upon it. I believe
it to be a hint capable of much improvement, and as such submit it
to the public.
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