and maternal affection. A few restrictions on their trade, in
order to pay off what debts they contracted, while yet in the nursery,
cannot be construed into acts of severity, and as little can a tax
intended for their own defence, and appropriated to that sole use.

Upon the supposition that America is never to be taxed, this country,
which now groans, and is like long to groan under the weight of taxes,
will in time be left desolate, all its inhabitants will flock to
America, to enjoy the benefits of a less oppressive government, and to
mingle with a people of similar manners, religion and laws. Britain, the
assylum of liberty, the seat of arts and sciences, the glory of Europe,
and the envy of the world, will be ruined by her own ungrateful sons,
and become a desart. What neither Spain nor France, nor all the world
combined, could accomplish, America, the child of her own fostering,
will effect.

_Quos neque Tydides, nec Larissaeus Achilles,
Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae,
Vincentur_ pueris.

America will prove a continual drain upon her industry and people, an
eternal spunge to suck up her vital moisture, and leave her a dry and
sapless trunk, exposed, without branches, without leaves, to the
inclemency of the weather. This event may be distant, but it is in the
womb of time; and must be brought forth, unless we have sufficient skill
to cause an abortion.

But what does America gain by all this? A transitory independence
perhaps, on the most noble constitution, which the wit of man has been
hitherto able to invent. I say transitory independence, for the broken
and disjointed members of the American empire cannot be cemented and
consolidated into one firm mass; it is too unwieldy and unmanageable; it
is composed of particles too heterogeneous to be ever melted down into
one consistent and well digested system of liberty. Anarchy and
confusion will soon prevail, were it to attempt an union; and the loss
of liberty will tread fast upon their heels. For a free and extended
empire on a continent are incompatible: to think they are not is a
perfect solecism in politicks. No history furnishes us with an example;
foreign conquest, or the power with which the magistrate must be
entrusted, are an invincible obstacle in their way. It is in islands
alone, where one part of the people cannot be so easily employed to
oppress the other, where the sea separates them from conquerors and
great empires, tha