se who are incapable of comprehending to what degree they are
injured afflict you with clamours equally insolent and unmeaning.
Supposing it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you
determine at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation
either from interest or ambition. If an English king be hated or
despised, he _must_ be unhappy; and this, perhaps, is the only
political truth which he ought to be convinced of without experiment.
But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to
a submissive representation of their wrongs; if, following the glorious
example of their ancestors, they should no longer appeal to the
creature of the constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the
rights of humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surrender, let me
ask you, Sir, upon what part of your subjects would you rely for
assistance?

The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed. In
return they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They
despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because he is the
creature of Lord Bute, nor is it from any natural confusion in their
ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with
the disgraceful representation of him.

The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take
an active concern in your affairs, if they were as well affected to
your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were
ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They
complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no
higher than to the servants of the Crown; they pleased themselves with
the hope that their sovereign, if not favourable to their cause, at
least was impartial. The decisive personal part you took against them
has effectually banished that first distinction from their minds. They
consider you as united with your servants against America, and know how
to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side from
the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward
to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but,
if ever you retire to America, be assured they will give you such a
covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been
ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in
search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a
thous