You say in that handbill, "that they, the Congress, disavowed every
purpose for reconciliation not consonant with their extravagant and
inadmissible claim of independence." Why, God bless me! what have you
to do with our independence? We ask no leave of yours to set it up;
we ask no money of yours to support it; we can do better without your
fleets and armies than with them; you may soon have enough to do to
protect yourselves without being burdened with us. We are very
willing to be at peace with you, to buy of you and sell to you, and,
like young beginners in the world, to work for our living; therefore,
why do you put yourselves out of cash, when we know you cannot spare
it, and we do not desire you to run into debt? I am willing, sir,
that you should see your folly in every point of view I can place it
in, and for that reason descend sometimes to tell you in jest what I
wish you to see in earnest. But to be more serious with you, why do
you say, "their independence?" To set you right, sir, we tell you,
that the independency is ours, not theirs. The Congress were
authorized by every state on the continent to publish it to all the
world, and in so doing are not to be considered as the inventors, but
only as the heralds that proclaimed it, or the office from which the
sense of the people received a legal form; and it was as much as any
or all their heads were worth, to have treated with you on the
subject of submission under any name whatever. But we know the men in
whom we have trusted; can England say the same of her Parliament?

I come now more particularly to your proclamation of the 30th of
November last. Had you gained an entire conquest over all the armies
of America, and then put forth a proclamation, offering (what you
call) mercy, your conduct would have had some specious show of
humanity; but to creep by surprise into a province, and there
endeavor to terrify and seduce the inhabitants from their just