crossing the sea, as to behold with love
and reverence, and submit with profound obedience to, the very same
things in Great Britain which in America they had been taught to
despise, and had been accustomed to awe and humble. All your Majesty's
troops, in the rotation of service, will pass through this discipline
and contract these habits. If we could flatter ourselves that this would
not happen, we must be the weakest of men; we must be the worst, if we
were indifferent whether it happened or not. What, gracious sovereign,
is the empire of America to us, or the empire of the world, if we lose
our own liberties? We deprecate this last of evils. We deprecate the
effect of the doctrines which must support and countenance the
government over conquered Englishmen.

As it will be impossible long to resist the powerful and equitable
arguments in favor of the freedom of these unhappy people that are to be
drawn from the principle of our own liberty, attempts will be made,
attempts have been made, to ridicule and to argue away this principle,
and to inculcate into the minds of your people other maxims of
government and other grounds of obedience than those which have
prevailed at and since the glorious Revolution. By degrees, these
doctrines, by being convenient, may grow prevalent. The consequence is
not certain; but a general change of principles rarely happens among a
people without leading to a change of government.

Sir, your throne cannot stand secure upon the principles of
unconditional submission and passive obedience,--on powers exercised
without the concurrence of the people to be governed,--on acts made in
defiance of their prejudices and habits,--on acquiescence procured by
foreign mercenary troops, and secured by standing armies. These may
possibly be the foundation of other thrones: they must be the subversion
of yours. It was not to passive principles in our ancestors that we owe
the honor of appearing before a sovereign who cannot feel that he is a
prince without knowing that we ought to be free. The Revolution is a
departure from the ancient course of the descent of this monarchy. The
people at that time reentered into their original rights; and it was not
because a positive law authorized what was then done, but because the
freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws,
required a proceeding paramount and superior to them. At that ever
memorable and instructive period, the letter of the