country, into which I had just
set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It
was time for every man to stir. Those who had been long settled had
something to defend; those who had just come had something to pursue;
and the call and the concern was equal and universal. For in a country
where all men were once adventurers, the difference of a few years in
their arrival could make none in their right.

The breaking out of hostilities opened a new suspicion in the politics
of America, which, though at that time very rare, has since been proved
to be very right. What I allude to is, "a secret and fixed determination
in the British Cabinet to annex America to the crown of England as a
conquered country." If this be taken as the object, then the whole
line of conduct pursued by the ministry, though rash in its origin and
ruinous in its consequences, is nevertheless uniform and consistent in
its parts. It applies to every case and resolves every difficulty.
But if taxation, or any thing else, be taken in its room, there is no
proportion between the object and the charge. Nothing but the whole
soil and property of the country can be placed as a possible equivalent
against the millions which the ministry expended. No taxes raised in
America could possibly repay it. A revenue of two millions sterling a
year would not discharge the sum and interest accumulated thereon, in
twenty years.

Reconciliation never appears to have been the wish or the object of the
administration; they looked on conquest as certain and infallible, and,
under that persuasion, sought to drive the Americans into what they
might style a general rebellion, and then, crushing them with arms
in their hands, reap the rich harvest of a general confiscation, and
silence them for ever. The dependents at court were too numerous to be
provided for in England. The market for plunder in the East Indies was
over; and the profligacy of government required that a new mine should
be opened, and that mine could be no other than America, conquered
and forfeited. They had no where else to go. Every other channel was
drained; and extravagance, with the thirst of a drunkard, was gaping for
supplies.

If the ministry deny this to have been their plan, it becomes them to
explain what was their plan. For either they have abused us in coveting
property they never labored for, or they have abused you in expending an
amazing sum upon an incompetent object. Taxa