"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 independent 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.

"For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

"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 country, 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 o