odestly to offer his
sentiments on this topick; that by the confrontation of different
opinions we may strike out truth, as we do fire by the collision of
flints; and that, as much light as possible may be afforded to our
legislators to guide them through so dark and intricate a labyrinth.

This is the more necessary, as there can be found no similar case in all
the records of history to serve as a precedent, or clew, to direct their
steps; and all they can do is to grope their way by their own industry,
and to employ their reason, as the only compass which can steer their
course aright to this land unknown.

Without any farther preamble, therefore, I shall proceed to discuss this
point, and to state the case fairly between the two contending parties,
that those, who having like myself, no particular interest concerned,
have consequently little prepossession for either side, may be enabled
to form an adequate idea of the subject.

While the colonies were under any apprehensions from the encroachments
of the French and Indians, they submitted to the British legislature
without reluctance; because they were sensible of their inability to
defend themselves, and of the necessity of taking shelter under the
wings of their mother. But no sooner were the French kites and Indian
vultures scared away, than they began to strut and to claim an
independent property to the dunghil. Their fear and their natural
affection forsook them at one and the same time. They now boast that
they owe their present happy state to no power on earth but themselves;
that they worked out their own salvation by their own right arm:
forgetting that, had we not conquered at Louisbourg, at Quebec, and many
other places; had we not constantly protected and defended them, the
French and Indians would have long ago reduced them to the situation of
the ancient Britons, and we should ere now have received some such
letter as this, inscribed, _The groans of the Americans. The
barbarians, on one hand, drive us into the sea; the sea on the other,
forces us back on the barbarians: so that we have only the hard
alternative left us, of perishing by the sword, or by the waves._

Their insolence is arrived to such a pitch that they are not ashamed to
assume to themselves the merit of bringing the last war but one to a
period. According to them, what obliged the enemy to listen to terms of
accommodation was not our success by sea, not the ruin of the French
navy, n