l. VIII., Chap.
xlix., pp. 138, 139.]

[Footnote 368: In this appeal of Paine's, _monarchy_ was for the first
time attacked in America, except by the rulers of the Massachusetts
colony, under the first Charter. Some of Paine's words were, that "In
the early ages of the world, mankind were equals in the order of
creation; the heathen introduced the government of kings, which the will
of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly
disapproved. To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary
succession; and as the first is a lessening of ourselves, so the second
might put posterity under the government of a rogue or a fool. Nature
disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into
ridicule. England since the Conquest hath known some few good monarchs,
but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones." "In short,
monarchy and succession have laid not England only, but the world, in
blood and ashes." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VIII.,
Chap. xlix., pp. 236, 237.)]

[Footnote 369: But though Mr. Dickenson had done more than any other man
in America to vindicate colonial rights and expose the unconstitutional
character of the acts of the British Ministry and Parliament, he was
opposed to a declaration of independence, like a majority of the
colonists; yet he advocated resistance by force against submission to
the Boston Port Bill, and the suspension of the Massachusetts Charter,
and both without a trial, as in similar cases even under the despotic
reigns of Charles the First and Second. Mr. Bancroft blames Mr.
Dickenson severely for the instructions of the Pennsylvania Legislature
to its nine delegates in the Continental Congress in October, 1775; but,
writing under the date of the previous May, Mr. Bancroft says: "Now that
the Charter of Massachusetts had been impaired, Dickenson did not ask
merely relief from parliamentary taxation; he required security against
the encroachments of Parliament on charters and laws. The distinctness
with which he spoke satisfied Samuel Adams himself, who has left on
record that the Farmer was a thorough Bostonian." (History of the United
States, Vol. VII., Chap. xxxvi., p. 377.)]

[Footnote 370: As late as May, 1775, after the bloody affair of Concord
and Lexington, Mr. Bancroft remarks:

"The delegates of New England, especially those from Massachusetts,
could bring no remedy to the prevailing indecision (in the Cont