ghty hath placed England
and America, is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the
one over the other was never the design of heaven. The time, likewise,
at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument,
and the manner in which it was peopled, increases the force of it. The
Reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the
Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in
future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

[Footnote 31: From "Common Sense," a pamphlet issued by Paine in
Philadelphia on January 1, 1776. In this work Paine advocated complete
separation from England. His arguments helped to consolidate and make
effective a sentiment which already was drifting in the same
direction. Washington said he effected "a powerful change in the minds
of many men."]

The authority of Great Britain over this continent is a form of
government which sooner or later must have an end: and a serious mind
can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and
positive conviction that what he calls "the present constitution" is
merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy knowing that this
government is not sufficiently lasting to insure anything which we may
bequeath to posterity; and by a plain method of argument, as we are
running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it,
otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the
line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and
fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will
present a prospect which a few present fears and prejudices conceal
from our sight.

Tho I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offense, yet I am
inclined to believe that all those who espouse the doctrine of
reconciliation may be included within the following descriptions:

Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who can not see;
prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men,
who think better of the European world than it deserves: and this last
class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more
calamities to this continent than all the other three.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of
sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make
them feel the precariousness with which all American property is
possest. But let our imaginations tra