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ries of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasion on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolution, to cause others to be erected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise,-the state remaining in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and pay. ment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independant of and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation.

us.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade, with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments :

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us,

in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the work of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their coun

try, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestick insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is, undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts, by their Legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us; we have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here; we have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these nsurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexion and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, peace friends.

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We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent

States; and that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

CHAPTER XIII.

Effect of the Declaration-Vigorous preparations of the British Ministry-Letters of Washington-Resolutions of CongressMiscellaneous Summary-Inquiry into the capture of the Cedars Commencement of the system of retaliation-Reflections on its policy-Letters-Orders-Miscellaneous ReflectionsAdmiral and General Howe arrive as Commissioners-Etiquette observed in their intercourse with Washington-Crown Point abandoned-State of preparations-British vessels pass up the North River-Remarks.

THE Declaration of Independence once published to the world with such solemnity, gave a new character to the contest, not only in the Colonies, but in Europe. Before this decisive step, the American people were regarded by many able and good men, as well as sound politicians, on both sides of the Atlantick, rather as children struggling for doubtful privileges with a parent, than as men contending with men for their natural and indisputable rights. But this deliberate appeal to the nations of the earth, to posterity, and to the God of battles, gave a new political character, an immediate dignity and manhood, to their cause. It was no longer the unholy struggle of subjects against their monarch; of children against their parent; of rash and turbulent men who never measure nor weigh the consequence of their deeds: it was no longer a contest for mere matters of opinion, but for a national existence, for life or death. It became, under the awful sanction of that assembly, the temperate and determined stand of men who have entrenched themselves within the certain and thoroughly-understood limits of their

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