this Act seiz'd all British Property in their Power, whether consisting of Lands in their Country, Ships in their Harbours, or Debts in the Hands of their Merchants, by way of Retaliation, it is probable a great Part of the World would have deem'd such Conduct justifiable. They, it seems, thought otherwise, and it was done only in one or two States, and that under particular Circumstances of Provocation. And not having thus abolish'd all Demands, the Cry subsists, that the Americans should pay their Debts!

General Gage, being with his Army (before the declaration of open War) in peaceable Possession of Boston, shut its Gates, and plac'd Guards all around to prevent its Communication with the Country. The Inhabitants were on the Point of Starving. The general, though they were evidently at his Mercy, fearing that, while they had any Arms in their Hands, frantic Desperation might possibly do him some Mischief, propos'd to them a Capitulation, in which he stipulated, that if they would deliver up their Arms, they might leave the Town with their Families and Goods. In faith of this Agreement, they deliver'd their Arms. But when they began to pack up for their Departure, they were inform'd, that by the word Goods, the General understood only Houshold Goods, that is, their Beds, Chairs, and Tables, not Merchant Goods; those he was inform'd they were indebted for to the Merchants of England, and he must secure them for the Creditors. They were accordingly all seized, to an immense Value, what had been paid for not excepted. It is to be supposed, tho' we have never heard of it, that this very honourable General, when he returned home, made a just Dividend of those Goods, or their Value, among the said

Creditors. But the Cry nevertheless continued, These Boston People do not pay their Debts!

The Army, having thus ruin'd Boston, proceeded to different Parts of the Continent. They got possession of all the capital trading Towns. The Troops gorg'd themselves with Plunder. They stopp'd all the Trade of Philadelphia for near a year, of Rhode Island longer, of New York near eight Years, of Charlestown in South Carolina and Savanah in Georgia, I forget how long. This continu'd Interruption of their Commerce ruin'd many Merchants. The Army also burnt to the Ground the fine Towns of Falmouth and Charlestown near Boston, New London, Fairfield, Norwalk, Esopus, Norfolk, the chief trading City in Virginia, besides innumerable Country Seats and private Farm-Houses. This wanton Destruction of Property operated doubly to the Disabling of our Merchants, who were importers from Britain, in making their Payments, by the immoderate Loss they sustain'd themselves, and also the Loss suffered by their Country Debtors, who had bought of them the British Goods, and who were now render'd unable to pay. The Debts to Britain of course remained undischarg'd, and the Clamour continu'd, These knavish Americans will not pay us!

Many of the British Debts, particularly in Virginia and the Carolinas, arose from the Sales made of Negroes in those Provinces by the British Guinea merchants.' These, with all before in the country, were employed when the war came on, in raising tobacco and rice for remittance in payment of British debts. An order arrives from England, advised by one of their most celebrated moralists, Dr. Johnson, in his Taxation no Tyranny, to excite these slaves 1 At this point the draft in L. C. terminates. — ED.

to rise, cut the throats of their purchasers, and resort to the British army, where they should be rewarded with freedom. This was done, and the planters were thus deprived of near thirty thousand of their working people. Yet the demand for those sold and unpaid still exists; and the cry continues against the Virginians and Carolinians, that they do not pay their debts!

Virginia suffered great loss in this kind of property by another ingenious and humane British invention. Having the small-pox in their army while in that country, they inoculated some of the negroes they took as prisoners belonging to a number of plantations, and then let them escape, or sent them, covered with the pock, to mix with and spread the distemper among the others of their colour, as well as among the white country people; which occasioned a great mortality of both, and certainly did not contribute to the enabling debtors in making payment. The war too having put a stop to the exportation of tobacco, there was a great accumulation of several years' produce in all the public inspecting warehouses and private stores of the planters. Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis, with British troops, then entered and overran the country, burnt all the inspecting and other stores of tobacco, to the amount of some hundred ship-loads; all which might, on the return of peace, if it had not been thus wantonly destroyed, have been remitted to British creditors. But these d―d Virginians, why don't they pay their debts?

Paper money was in those times our universal currency. But, it being the instrument with which we combated our enemies, they resolved to deprive us of its use by depreciating it; and the most effectual means they could contrive was to counterfeit it. The artists they employed performed so

well, that immense quantities of these counterfeits, which issued from the British government in New York, were circulated among the inhabitants of all the States, before the fraud was detected. This operated considerably in depreciating the whole mass, first, by the vast additional quantity, and next by the uncertainty in distinguishing the true from the false; and the depreciation was a loss to all and the ruin of many. It is true our enemies gained a vast deal of our property by the operation; but it did not go into the hands of our particular creditors; so their demands still subsisted, and we were still abused for not paying our debts!

By the seventh article of the treaty of peace, it was solemnly stipulated, that the King's troops, in evacuating their posts in the United States, should not carry away with them any negroes. In direct violation of this article, General Carleton, in evacuating New York, carried off all the negroes that were with his army, to the amount of several hundreds. It is not doubted that he must have had secret orders to justify him in this transaction; but the reason given out was, that, as they had quitted their masters and joined the King's troops on the faith of proclamations promising them their liberty, the national honour forbade returning them into slavery. The national honour was, it seemed, pledged to both parts of a contradiction, and its wisdom, since it could not do it with both, chose to keep faith rather with its old black, than its new white friends; a circumstance demonstrating clear as daylight, that, in making a present peace, they meditated a future war, and hoped, that, though the promised manumission of slaves had not been effectual in the last, in the next it might be more successful; and that, had the negroes been forsaken, no aid could be hereafter expected from those of

the colour in a future invasion. The treaty however with us was thus broken almost as soon as made, and this by the people who charge us with breaking it by not paying perhaps for some of the very negroes carried off in defiance of it. Why should England observe treaties, when these Americans do not pay their debts?

Unreasonable, however, as this clamour appears in general, I do not pretend, by exposing it, to justify those debtors who are still able to pay, and refuse it on pretence of injuries suffered by the war. Public injuries can never discharge private obligations. Contracts between merchant and merchant should be sacredly observed, where the ability remains, whatever may be the madness of ministers. It is therefore to be hoped the fourth article of the treaty of peace which stipulates, that no legal obstruction shall be given to the payment of debts contracted before the war, will be punctually carried into execution, and that every law in every State which impedes it, may be immediately repealed. Those laws were indeed made with honest intentions, that the half-ruined debtor, not being too suddenly pressed by some, might have time to arrange and recover his affairs so as to do justice to all his creditors. But, since the intention in making those acts has been misapprehended, and the acts wilfully misconstrued into a design of defrauding them, and now made a matter of reproach to us, I think it will be right to repeal them all. Individual Americans may be ruined, but the country will save by the operation; since these unthinking, merciless creditors must be contented with all that is to be had, instead of all that may be due to them, and the accounts will be settled by insolvency. When all have paid that can pay, I think the remaining British creditors, who suffered by the

VOL. X-I