t which seems lost to every sense of virtue and those
feelings which distinguish a civilized people from the most barbarous
savages."

Thus the loyal churchmen of Virginia received the same treatment from
Lord Dunmore as did the republican Congregationalists of Massachusetts
from General Gage. The loyal Presbyterians of the two Carolinas
experienced similar treatment from Governors Campbell and Martin, as
stated by the English Annual Register, in the preceding note. The three
Southern Governors each fled from their seats of government and betook
themselves to ships of war; while Gage was shut up in Boston until his
recall to England.

The Southern colonies, with those of New England, shared the same fate
of misrepresentation, abuse, and invasion of their rights as British
subjects; the flames of discontent were spread through all the colonies
by a set of incompetent and reckless Governors, the favourites and tools
of perhaps the worst Administration and the most corrupt that ever ruled
Great Britain. All the colonies might adopt the language of the last
address of the Assembly of Virginia: "We have exhausted every mode of
application which our inventions could suggest, as proper and promising.
We have decently remonstrated with Parliament; they have added new
injuries to the old. We have wearied the King with our supplications; he
has not deigned to answer them. We have appealed to the native honour
and justice of the British nation; their efforts in our favour have been
hitherto ineffectual." At the meeting of Parliament, October 26th,
1775, the King was advised to utter in the Royal speech the usual
denunciation against the colonies, but the minority in Parliament (led
by Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, General Conway, and Lord John Cavendish)
discussed and denied the statements in the Royal speech, and exhibited
the results of the Ministerial warfare against the colonies at the close
of the year 1775, the year before the Declaration of Independence. "In
this contest," says the Annual Register of 1776, "the speech was taken
to pieces, and every part of it most severely scrutinized. The Ministers
were charged with having brought their Sovereign into the most
disgraceful and unhappy situation of any monarch now living. Their
conduct had already wrested the sceptre of America out of his hands.
One-half of the empire was lost, and the other thrown into a state of
anarchy and confusion. After having spread corruption like a deluge
t