p there; and that your own large Possessions, your splendid
Titles, your hereditary Honours, and ample Privileges will escape unhurt,
amidst that general _Wreck_ of private Property, and _Crush_ of
Subordination, which will necessarily ensue; you will be woefully
mistaken:--And I must beg Leave to say, that you will have profited but
very little, by what has been so well written in the Annals of this very
Country, for your Instruction and Admonition. For depend upon it, the Use
of _Committee-Men_, and the Business of _Sequestrators_ are not yet
forgot; depend upon it, I say, that Ways and Means are still to be found
out, for the lowest of the People to get at the Possession of the greatest
of your Estates, as well in these, as in former Times. Their Appetites are
equally keen:--And if these hungry Patriots should succeed, after such an
Example is set before your Eyes, who are you to blame but yourselves?--In
one Word, you know, or ought to know, that even the tender Mercies of a
Republic are cruel. Or, if you are not yet convinced of the Truth of this
Assertion, look abroad into the World; nay, look into what is now doing by
the Republican Congresses in _America_; and then see how you would approve
such Men as these for YOUR MASTERS.
HERE THEREFORE I willingly close the whole Dispute between Mr. BURKE and
me: And I most chearfully submit the Decision of this important Question
to those (but to _those only_) who are the best qualified, the most able,
and the most concerned to decide impartially. What therefore is to follow
in this Treatise, is to be considered rather _ex abundanti_, than as
strictly necessary for the Support of my Argument, and the Confutation of
my Opponent. Yet, seeing that the following Points may serve to elucidate
some of the former, and seeing that so much has been said, and such
confident Boastings have been uttered, concerning the Advantages, and even
the Immensity of the Colony-Trade; I will enter the more particularly into
these Matters.
And first of all, and previous to any Enquiry into the Fact, I enter a
solemn Protest against the disingenuous Artifice, so often practiced by
the Partizans of _America_, viz. That OF BEGGING THE QUESTION. They beg
the Question, when they take for granted, that if _America_ were separated
from _Great-Britain_, all commercial Intercourse would cease between the
two Countries. For this is the very Point, which they ought to have
proved, instead of taking it for
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