interim, it was necessary that you should make the most of every
thing, and we can tell by Hugh Gaine's New York paper what the
complexion of the London Gazette is. With such a list of victories
the nation cannot expect you will ask new supplies; and to confess
your want of them would give the lie to your triumphs, and impeach
the king and his ministers of treasonable deception. If you make the
necessary demand at home, your party sinks; if you make it not, you
sink yourself; to ask it now is too late, and to ask it before was
too soon, and unless it arrive quickly will be of no use. In short,
the part you have to act, cannot be acted; and I am fully persuaded
that all you have to trust to is, to do the best you can with what
force you have got, or little more. Though we have greatly exceeded
you in point of generalship and bravery of men, yet, as a people, we
have not entered into the full soul of enterprise; for I, who know
England and the disposition of the people well, am confident, that it
is easier for us to effect a revolution there, than you a conquest
here; a few thousand men landed in England with the declared design
of deposing the present king, bringing his ministers to trial, and
setting up the Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry
their point, while you are grovelling here, ignorant of the matter.
As I send all my papers to England, this, like Common Sense, will
find its way there; and though it may put one party on their guard,
it will inform the other, and the nation in general, of our design to
help them.

Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of present
affairs: you may draw from it what conclusions you please. I wish as
well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I consider
INDEPENDENCE as America's natural right and interest, and never could
see any real disservice it would be to Britain. If an English