bias on the credulous
weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent
country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the
persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from _every part_
of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of
the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far
true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first
emigrants from home pursues their descendants still.

"In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow
limits of three hundred and sixty miles--the extent of
England--and carry our friendship on a larger scale. We claim
brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the
generosity of the sentiment.

"It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount
local prejudices, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A
man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will
naturally associate most with his fellow-parishioners--because
their interests, in many cases, will be common--and distinguish
him by the name of _neighbor_; if he meet him but a few miles from
home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the
name of _townsman_; if he travel out of the county, and meets him
in any other, he forgets the minor division of street and town,
and calls him _countryman_--_i. e._, _countyman_; but if, in their
foreign excursions, they should associate in France, or any other
part of _Europe_, their local remembrance would be enlarged into
that of _Englishmen_. And, by a just parity of reasoning, all
Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe,
are _countrymen_; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when
compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger
scale which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the
smaller one--distinctions too limited for continental minds. Not
one-third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of
English descent. Wherefore, I reprobate the phrase of parent, or
mother country, applied to England only, as being false, selfish,
narrow, and ungenerous.

"But, admitting that we were all of English descent, what does it
amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes
every other name and title; and to say that reconciliation is our
duty, is truly farcical. The first King of England, of the present