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ment, is so much to be sought in their religious tenets as in their history.

Every

one knows, that the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received great favour, and every kind of support, from authority. The church of England, too, was formed, from her cradle, under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitting assertion of that claim. All protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the diffidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of

liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces. The colonists left England when this spirit was high; and in the emigrants highest of all.' The manners of the southern provinces, he contends, have the same effect with the religion of the northern. Here he makes a very ingenious and profound observation; that in whatever country, of which the bulk of the people is free, and yet there are many slaves, domestic or predial, the spirit of liberty is more high and haughty, than in those countries in which there are no human beings in that state of degradation. This remark is justified by the history of Greece and Rome. In all the provinces, he shews that the mode of education, and the remoteness from enslaved nations, increases their love of freedom.

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The spirit of liberty being from a multiplicity of causes, some physical, and most of them moral, very strong, he argued, that it must be treated in one of three

ways:

it

must either be changed, as inconvenient, by

removing its causes; prosecuted, as criminal;

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or, thirdly, be complied with, as necessary. One means proposed by the friends of Government for repressing the power of America, was to withhold future grants of land, and so check population. The futility of this project he demonstrated: the people, he said, had already occupied much land without grants, and even if Britain had force to drive them from some parts, they would occupy others : they would soon forget a government by which they were disowned; would become hordes of English Tartars, and, pouring down on your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command and blessing of Providence—“ Increase and multiply." Such would be the happy result of an endeavour to keep, as a lair of wild beasts, that earth which God, by an express charter, has given to the

children of men. To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would not be so impracticable.' But',

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says he, we have colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us; it seems preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient.' He contends that the temper and character of the colonies are unalterable by any human art. But let us,' proceeds he, " suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue. "Ye Gods, annihilate but space and time, and make two lovers happy!" was a pious and passionate prayer; but just as reasonable as many of the serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.'

The second mode of breaking the stubborn spirit of the Americans, by prosecuting it as criminal, he exposes as impossible in

the execution, and consequently absurd in the attempt. I,' says he, do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.' He went on to other effects which might be expected from perseverance in an endeavour which the colonies would resist. From a contest with. America he predicted that there would ensue a rupture with European powers, and a general war. After adducing every argument that genius, informed by knowledge, and guided by wisdom, could invent to incline Britain to conciliation, éven at the expence of concession, he proceeds to consider what this country ought to concede. general principle is, that to conciliate, we should rescind all the acts which had tended to alienate America. He illustrates, by a very accurate narrative, the operation of the several laws, and examines the arguments by which they had been supported in Parliament; shews the futility of the reasoning and the contrariety of the effects to its anticipations. Wisdom is simple in her process, she judges of the future from the past.

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