Should they retract the exercise of their assumed power, you ask
when will they be able to renew it? I know not when, but I fear
they will soon do it, unless, as your worthy brother in Virginia
in a letter I yesterday received from him expresses himself, "we
make one uniform, steady effort to secure an explicit bill of
rights for British America." Let the executive power and right on
each side be therein stipulated, that Britain may no longer have
a power or right to make laws to bind us, in all cases
whatsoever. While the claim is kept up, she may exercise the
power as often as she pleases; and the colonies have experienced
her disposition to do it too plainly since she in anger made the
claim. Even imaginary power beyond right begets insolence. The
people here I am apt to think will be satisfied on no other terms
but those of redress; and they will hardly think they are upon
equitable terms with the mother country, while by a solemn act
she continues to claim a right to enslave them, whenever she
shall think fit to exercise it. I wish for a permanent union with
the mother country, but only on the principles of liberty and
truth. No advantage that can accrue to America from such an union
can compensate for the loss of liberty. The time may come sooner
than they are aware of it, when the being of the British nation,
I mean the being of its importance, however strange it may now
appear to some, will depend on her union with America. It
requires but a small portion of the gift of discernment for any
one to foresee, that providence will erect a mighty empire in
America; and our posterity will have it recorded in history, that
their fathers migrated from an ISLAND in a distant part of the
world, the inhabitants of which had long been revered for wisdom
and valour. They grew rich and powerful; these emigrants
increased in numbers and strength. But they were at last absorbed