Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America.
history
Description
Thoughts, on the Present State of American Affairs
Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America.
Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource,
decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the
challenge.
The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ’Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a
province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ’Tis
not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will
be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of
continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the
point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity
read it in full grown characters
By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for politics is struck; a new
method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper then,
are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the
question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great-Britain; the only
difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other
friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her
influence.
