cable plan,
RECONCILIATION OR INDEPENDANCE? With some occasional remarks.

In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the
opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this
continent; and whose sentiments, on that head, are not yet publicly
known. It is in reality a self-evident position: For no nation in a
state of foreign dependance, limited in its commerce, and cramped and
fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material
eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the
progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of
other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be
capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative
powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting
what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the Continent
hesitating on a matter, which will be her final ruin if neglected. It
is the commerce and not the conquest of America, by which England is to
be benefited, and that would in a great measure continue, were the
countries as independant of each other as France and Spain; because in
many articles, neither can go to a better market. But it is the
independance of this country of Britain or any other, which is now the
main and only object worthy of contention, and which, like all other
truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every
day.

First. Because it will come to that one time or other.

Secondly. Because, the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to
accomplish.

I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies,
with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak without
reflecting. And among the many which I have heard, the following seems
the most general, viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty
years hence, instead of NOW, the Continent would have been more able to
have shaken off the dependance. To which I reply, that our military
ability, AT THIS TIME, arises from the experience gained in the last
war, and which in forty or fifty years time, would have been totally
extinct. The Continent, would not, by that time, have had a General,
or even a military officer left; and we, or those who may succeed us,
would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians:
And this single position, closely attended to, will unanswerably prove,
that the