k you can make it with us at
any time. A lasting independent peace is my wish, end and aim; and to
accomplish that, I pray God the Americans may never be defeated, and I
trust while they have good officers, and are well commanded, and willing
to be commanded, that they NEVER WILL BE.

COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 1777.

THE CRISIS III. (IN THE PROGRESS OF POLITICS)

IN THE progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life,
we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but
frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. We expend, if I may
so say, the knowledge of every day on the circumstances that produce it,
and journey on in search of new matter and new refinements: but as it is
pleasant and sometimes useful to look back, even to the first periods of
infancy, and trace the turns and windings through which we have passed,
so we may likewise derive many advantages by halting a while in our
political career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated
labyrinth of little more than yesterday.

Truly may we say, that never did men grow old in so short a time! We
have crowded the business of an age into the compass of a few months,
and have been driven through such a rapid succession of things, that
for the want of leisure to think, we unavoidably wasted knowledge as we
came, and have left nearly as much behind us as we brought with us: but
the road is yet rich with the fragments, and, before we finally lose
sight of them, will repay us for the trouble of stopping to pick them
up.

Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of
forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos:
he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not
knowing how the world went in his absence, he would be at a loss to
know how it ought to go on when he recovered, or rather, returned to it
again. In like manner, though in a less degree, a too great inattention
to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment in everything;
while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present,
we frequently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with
very little trouble. It is a kind of counter-march, by which we get into
the rear of time, and mark the movements and meaning of things as we
make our return. There are certain circumstances, which, at the time
of their happen