"Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain lords of their own
property? Can it be taken from them without their consent? Will they
yield it to the arbitrary disposal of any men or number of men
whatsoever? You know they will not.

"Why then are the proprietors of the soil of America less lords of their
property than you are of yours; or why should they submit it to the
disposal of your Parliament, or any other Parliament or Council in the
world, not of their election? Can the intervention of the sea that
divides us cause disparity of rights; or can any reason be given why
English subjects who live three thousand miles distant from the royal
palace should enjoy less liberty than those who are three hundred miles
distant from it? Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and
freemen can never perceive their propriety."

They conclude their address to their fellow-subjects in Great Britain in
the following words:

"We believe there is yet much virtue, much justice, and much public
spirit in the English nation. To that justice we now appeal. You have
been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous
of independence. Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies.
Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union
with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness; and we
shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the
empire. We shall consider your enemies as our enemies, and your interest
as our own.

"But if you are determined that your Ministers shall wantonly sport with
the rights of mankind; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of
law, the principles of the Constitution, nor the suggestions of humanity
can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious
cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to be hewers of
wood and drawers of water to any Ministry or nation in the world.

"_Place us in the same situation that we were at the close of the late
war, and our former harmony will be restored._"

The address of the members of this Congress to their constituents is a
lucid exposition of the several causes which had led to the then
existing state of things, and is replete with earnest but temperate
argument to prove that their liberties must be destroyed, and the
security of their persons and property annihilated, by submission to the
pretensions of the British Ministry and P