ected a multitude of new offices, [_by a self-assumed power_]
and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out
their substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies [_and ships of
war_] 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 constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to
their acts of pretended 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 benefits 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 neighboring 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 [_states_] (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 [_withdrawing his governors, and
declaring us out of his allegiance and protection._] (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 works 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 domestic insurrections amoungst us and has)
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless
Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an
|