the present controversy. You first taught us to shake off our
idolatrous attachment to royalty, and to oppose its encroachments upon
our liberties with our very lives. By these means you saved us from
ruin. The independence of America is the offspring of that liberal
spirit of thinking, and acting, which followed the destruction of the
sceptres of kings and the mighty power of Great Britain.

But, sir, we have only passed the Red Sea. A dreary wilderness is
still before us, and unless a Moses or a Joshua are raised up in our
behalf, we must perish before we reach the promised land. We have
nothing to fear from our enemies on the way. General Howe, it is true,
has taken Philadelphia; but he has only changed his prison. His
dominions are bounded on all sides by his outsentries. America can
only be undone by herself. She looks up to her councils and arms for
protection; but alas! what are they? her representation in congress
dwindled to only twenty-one members--her Adams--her Wilson--her Henry,
are no more among them. Her councils weak--and partial remedies
applied constantly for universal diseases. Her army--what is it? a
major general belonging to it called it a few days ago in my hearing a
_mob_. Discipline unknown or _wholly_ neglected. The quartermaster and
commissary's departments filled with idleness, ignorance and
peculation--our hospitals crowded with six thousand sick, but half
provided with necessaries or accommodations, and more dying in them in
one month, than perished in the field during the whole of the last
campaign.

The money depreciating without any effectual measures being taken to
raise it--the country distracted with the Don Quixote attempts to
regulate the prices of provisions, an _artificial_ famine created by
it, and a _real_ one dreaded from it. The spirit of the people failing