American cause, the same virtue
that began it, ended it, and it has long since ceased to act.

This is a well-known state of facts; but what it did not suit with your own
by-purposes to admit, could not be expected from your integrity; you have,
therefore, constantly kept up the alarm of a constitutional opposition,
and, on every occasion, referred to this false cause, that honest and
useful opposition which was created by your weak, though violent and
tyrannical administration.

That you was called to the chair of government, by the unanimous vote of
council and assembly, you have often boasted, with a view of conveying to
the world an idea, that even the gentlemen opposed to the constitution
approved the choice. But they neither esteemed you as a gentleman, nor
approved your public conduct. They knew there was a majority in assembly in
favour of your election, and as their grand object was the obtaining a
resolution of that body, recommending the calling a convention for revising
the constitution, some of the party entered into an engagement for this
purpose, and your election was negotiated. _You_ were to use your
endeavours to prevail on the Council to enforce the recommendation of the
assembly by a similar resolution. From your own acknowledgment at the City
Tavern, the resolution of the Council was never obtained, or even moved
for, by you, and for this flimsy reason, that no formal information, of
such resolution having passed, had been communicated to you; though known
to all the world; and that it could not be expected that Council would
"tag" after the assembly, in a measure relating to the public. Yet you had
the effrontery to assert, that "_every engagement on your part_," was
strictly performed.

At this meeting, you say, you "in the most open manner called upon us, to
support our imputations, and that you so effectually vindicated every part
of your conduct, that every gentleman, (myself excepted,) acknowledged his
mistake." I own I made no concessions, and if the reasons I then gave are
not thought a sufficient justification to the world, of the opinion I had
formed, I am content to admit that it was not only "singular," but
"absurd."

After a reasonable pause, I remarked, that from the repeated conversations
I had had with you, on this subject, you appeared to me as much opposed as
I was, to the constitution, before the evacuation of the city; that you had
refused to accept the appointment of Chief Ju