show some real reason, natural, political, or conscientious, on
which their objections to independence are founded, we are not obliged
to give them credit for being Tories of the first stamp, but must
set them down as Tories of the last.

  In the second number of the Crisis, I endeavored to show the
impossibility of the enemy's making any conquest of America, that
nothing was wanting on our part but patience and perseverance, and
that, with these virtues, our success, as far as human speculation
could discern, seemed as certain as fate. But as there are many
among us, who, influenced by others, have regularly gone back from the
principles they once held, in proportion as we have gone forward;
and as it is the unfortunate lot of many a good man to live within the
neighborhood of disaffected ones; I shall, therefore, for the sake
of confirming the one and recovering the other, endeavor, in the space
of a page or two, to go over some of the leading principles in support
of independence. It is a much pleasanter task to prevent vice than
to punish it, and, however our tempers may be gratified by resentment,
or our national expenses eased by forfeited estates, harmony and
friendship is, nevertheless, the happiest condition a country can be
blessed with.

  The principal arguments in support of independence may be
comprehended under the four following heads.

  1st, The natural right of the continent to independence.

  2d, Her interest in being independent.

  3d, The necessity,- and

  4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.

  I. The natural right of the continent to independence, is a point
which never yet was called in question. It will not even admit of a
debate. To deny such a right, would be a kind of atheism against
nature: and the best answer to such an objection would be, "The fool
hath said in his heart there is no God."

  II. The interest of the continent in being independent is a point as
clearly right as the former. America, by her own internal industry,
and unknown to all the powers of Europe, was, at the beginning of
the dispute, arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade and population,
beyond which it was the interest of Britain not to suffer her to pass,
lest she should grow too powerful to be kept subordinate. She began to
view this country with the same uneasy malicious eye, with which a
covetous guardian would view his ward, whose estate he had been
enriching himself by for twenty years, and saw him just arriving at
manhood. And America owes no more to Britain for her present maturity,
than the ward would to the guardian for being twenty-one years of age.
That America hath flourished at the time she was under the
government of Britain, is true; but there is every natural reason to
believe, that had she been an independent country from the first
settlement thereof, uncontrolled by any foreign power, free to make
her own laws, regulate and encourage her own commerce, she had by this
time been of much greater worth than now. The case is simply this: the
first settlers in the different colonies were left to shift for
themselves, unnoticed and unsupported by any European government;
but as the tyranny and persecution of the old world daily drove
numbers to the new, and as, by the favor of heaven on their industry
and perseverance, they grew into importance, so, in a like degree,
they became an object of profit to the greedy eyes of Europe. It was
impossible, in this state of infancy, however thriving and
promising, that they could resist the power of any armed invader
that should seek to bring them under his authority. In this situation,
Britain thought it worth her while to claim them, and the continent
received and acknowledged the claimer. It was, in reality, of no
very great importance who was her master, seeing, that from the
force and ambition of the different powers of Europe, she must, till
she acquired strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some
one. As well, perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as
well to have been under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes
of engrossing and profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too
much, would have operated alike with any master, and produced to the
colonies the same effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all
a farce; because, in order to make that protection necessary, she must
first, by her own quarrels, create us enemies. Hard terms indeed!

  To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be
independent, we need only ask this easy, simple question: Is it the
interest of a man to be a boy all his life? The answer to one will
be the answer to both. America hath been one continued scene of
legislative contention from the first king's representative to the
last; and this was unavoidably founded in the natural opposition of
interest between the old country and the new. A governor sent from
England, or receiving his authority therefrom, ought never to have
been considered in any other light than that of a genteel commissioned
spy, whose private business was information, and his public business a
kind of civilized oppression. In the first of these characters he
was to watch the tempers, sentiments, and disposition of the people,
the growth of trade, and the increase of private fortunes; and, in the
latter, to suppress all such acts of the assemblies, however
beneficial to the people, which did not directly or indirectly throw
some increase of power or profit into the hands of those that sent
him.

  America, till now, could never be called a free country, because her
legislation depended on the will of a man three thousand miles
distant, whose interest was in opposition to ours, and who, by a
single "no," could forbid what law he pleased.