operate wonderfully to your purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a power, something like that spoken of in the scriptures, which cannot only kill their bodies, but damn their souls to all eternity, by compelling them, if it pleases, to worship the devil.

XI. To make your taxes more odious, and more likely to procure resistance, send from the capital a board of officers, to superintend the collection, composed of the most indiscreet, ill-bred, and insolent you can find. Let these have large salaries out of the extorted revenue, and live in open, grating luxury upon the sweat and blood of the industrious, whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive prosecutions before the above-mentioned arbitrary revenue-judges; all at the cost of the party prosecuted, though acquitted, because the king is to pay no costs. Let these men, by your order, be exempted from all the common taxes and burdens of the province, though they and their property are protected by its laws. If any revenue-officers are suspected of the least tenderness for the people, discard them. If others are justly complained of, protect and reward them. If any of the under officers behave so as to provoke the people to drub them, promote them to better offices: this will encourage others to procure for themselves such profitable drubbings, by multiplying and enlarging such provocations, and all will work towards the end you

aim at.

XII. Another way to make your tax odious is, to misapply the produce of it. If it was originally appropriated for the defence of the provinces, and the better support of government, and the administration of justice, where it may be necessary, then apply some of it for that defence, but bestow it, where it is not necessary, in augmenting salaries or pensions to every governor who has distinguished himself by his enmity to the people, and by calumniating them to their sovereign. This will make them pay it more unwillingly, and be more apt to quarrel with those that collect them, and all shall contribute to your own purpose, of making them weary of your government.

XIII. If the people of any province have been accustomed to support their own governors and judges to satisfaction, you are to apprehend that such governors and judges may be thereby influenced to treat the people kindly, and to do them justice. This is another reason for applying part of that resource in larger salaries to such governors and judges, given, as their commissioners are, during your pleasure only, forbidding them to take any salaries from their pro

vinces; that thus the people may no longer hope any kindness from their governors, or (in crown cases) any justice from their judges. And as the money, thus misapplied in one province, is extorted from all, probably all will resent the misapplication.

XIV. If the parliaments of your provinces should dare to claim rights, or complain of your administration, order them to be harassed with repeated dissolutions. If the same men are continually returned by new elections, adjourn their meetings to some country village, where they cannot be accommodated, and there keep them during pleasure; for this, you know, is your prerogative, and an excellent one it is, as you may manage it, to promote discontents among the people, diminish their respect, and increase their disaffection.

XV. Convert the brave honest officers of your navy into pimping tidewaiters and colony-officers of the customs. Let those, who in time of war fought gallantly in defence of the commerce of their countrymen, in peace be taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real smugglers; but (to shew their diligence) scour with armed boats every bay, harbour, river, creek, cove or nook, throughout the coasts of your colonies; stop and detain every coaster, every wood-boat, every fisherman, tumble their cargoes and even their ballast inside out, and upside down; and if a pennyworth of pins is found unentered; let the whole be seized and confiscated. Thus shall the trade of your colonists suffer more from their friends in time of peace, than it did from their enemies in war. Then let these boats' crews land upon every farm in their way, rob their orchards, steal their pigs and poultry, and insult the inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated farmers, unable to procure other justice, should attack the aggressors, drub them, and burn their boats, you are to call this high treason and rebellion, order fleets and armies into their country, and threaten to carry all the offenders three thousand miles to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.-O! this will work admirably.

XVI. If you are told of discontents in your colonies, never believe that they are general, or that you have given occasion for them; therefore do not think of applying any remedy, or of changing any offensive measure. Redress no grievances, lest they should be encouraged to demand the redress of some other grievance. Grant no request that is just and reasonable, lest they should make another that is unreasonable. Take all your informations of the state of your colonies from your governors and officers in enmity

with them. Encourage and reward these leasing-makers, secrete their lying accusations, lest they should be confuted, but act upon them as on the clearest evidence, and believe nothing you hear from the friends of the people. Suppose all their complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly, and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favour of your purpose.

XVII. If you see rival nations rejoicing at the prospect of your disunion with your provinces, and endeavouring to promote it, if they translate, publish and applaud all the complaints of your discontented colonists, at the same time stimulating you to severer methods, let not that alarm or offend you. Why should it—since you all mean the same thing?

XVIII. If any colony should at their own charge erect a fortress, to secure their ports against the fleets of a foreign enemy, get your governor to betray that fortress into your hands. Never think of paying what it cost the country; that would look, at least, like some regard for justice; but turn it into a citadel, to awe the inhabitants and curb their commerce. If they should have lodged in such fortress the very arms they bought and used to aid you in your conquests, seize them all; it will provoke, like ingratitude added to robbery. One admirable effect of these operations will be, to discourage every other colony from erecting such defences, and so their and your enemies may more easily invade them, to the great disgrace of your government, and of course the furtherance of your project.

XIX. Send armies into their country, under pretence of protecting the inhabitants; but, instead of garrisoning the forts on their frontiers with those troops, to prevent incursions, demolish those forts, and order the troops into the heart of the country, that the savages may be encouraged to attack the frontiers, and that the troops may be protected by the inhabitants; this will seem to proceed from your ill will or your ignorance, and contribute further to produce and strengthen an opinion among them, that you are no longer fit to govern them.

XX. Lastly, invest the general of your army in the provinces with great and unconstitutional powers, and free him from the control of even your own civil governors. Let him have troops enow under his command, with all the fortresses in his possession, and who knows but (like some provincial generals in the Roman empire, and encouraged

by the universal discontent you have produced) he may take it into his head to set up for himself? If he should, and you have carefully practised these few excellent rules of mine, take my word for it, all the provinces will immediately join him; and you will that day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the trouble of governing them, and all the plagues attending their commerce and connexion from thenceforth and for ever.

No. V.

Preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America, signed at Paris, 30th November, 1782.

ARTICLES agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, esq. the commissioner of his Britannic majesty, for treating of peace with the commmissioners of the United States of America in behalf of his said majesty on one part, and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Lawrens, four of the commissioners of the said states for treating of peace with the commissioner of his said majesty on their behalf on the other part, to be inserted in and constitute the treaty of peace proposed to be concluded between the crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which treaty is not to be concluded till terms of peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain and France, and his Britannic majesty shall be ready to conclude such treaty accordingly. Whereas reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience are found by experience to form the only permanent foundation of a peace and friendship between states, it is agreed to form articles of the proposed treaty, on such principles of liberal equity and reciprocity as that, partial advantages (those seeds of discord) being excluded, such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries may be established as to promise and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony.

I. His Britannic majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Providence Plantation, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and inde

pendent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, proprietary, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof, that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared that the following are and shall be their boundaries, viz.:II. From the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of St Croix river to the highlands, along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean to the north-westernmost head of Connec ticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the 45th degree of north latitude, from thence by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the river Iroquois or Calaraguy, thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario, through the middle of said lake until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and lake Erie, thence along the middle of said communication into the lake Erie, through the middle of said lake, until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and lake Huron, thence along the middle of the said water communication into the lake Huron, thence through the middle of the water communication between that lake and lake Superior, thence through lake Superior, northward of the isles Royal and Phelipeaux to the Long lake, thence through the middle of said Long lake, and the water communication between it and the lake of the Woods, to the said lake of the Woods, thence through the same lake to the most north-western point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi, thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude; south, by a line to be drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned in the latitude of thirty-one degrees north of the equator, to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouche, thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint river, thence straight to the head of St Mary's river, and thence down along the middle of St Mary's river to the Atlantic Ocean; east by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St Croix, from its mouth to the bay of Fundy to its source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those that fall into the river St Lawrence, comprehending all islands with