jects of government by joint
counsels, and protected in them by a common force. Other subordination
in you we require none. We have never pressed that argument of general
union to the extinction of your local, natural, and just privileges.
Sensible of what is due both to the dignity and weakness of man, we have
never wished to place over you any government, over which, in great,
fundamental points, you should have no sort of check or control in your
own hands, or which should be repugnant to your situation, principles,
and character.

No circumstances of fortune, you may be assured, will ever induce us to
form or tolerate any such design. If the disposition of Providence
(which we deprecate) should even prostrate you at our feet, broken in
power and in spirit, it would be our duty and inclination to revive, by
every practicable means, that free energy of mind which a fortune
unsuitable to your virtue had damped and dejected, and to put you
voluntarily in possession of those very privileges which you had in vain
attempted to assert by arms. For we solemnly declare, that, although we
should look upon a separation from you as an heavy calamity, (and the
heavier, because we know you must have your full share in it,) yet we
had much rather see you totally independent of this crown and kingdom
than joined to it by so unnatural a conjunction as that of freedom with
servitude,--a conjunction which, if it were at all practicable, could
not fail, in the end, of being more mischievous to the peace,
prosperity, greatness, and power of this nation than beneficial by any
enlargement of the bounds of nominal empire.

But because, brethren, these professions are general, and such as even
enemies may make, when they reserve to themselves the construction of
what servitude and what liberty are, we inform you that we adopt your
own standard of the blessing of free government. We are of opinion that
you ought to enjoy the sole and exclusive right of freely granting, and
applying to the support of your administration, what God has freely
granted as a reward to your industry. And we do not confine this
immunity from exterior coercion, in this great point, solely to what
regards your local establishment, but also to what may be thought proper
for the maintenance of the whole empire. In this resource we cheerfully
trust and acquiesce, satisfied by evident reason that no other
expectation of revenue can possibly be given by freemen, and knowin