England consults the good of THIS country, no farther than it answers
her OWN purpose.  Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress
the growth of OURS in every case which doth not promote her advantage,
or in the least interferes with it.  A pretty state we should soon be in
under such a secondhand government, considering what has happened!
Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name:
And in order to shew that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine,
I affirm, THAT IT WOULD BE POLICY IN THE KING AT THIS TIME, TO REPEAL
THE ACTS FOR THE SAKE OF REINSTATING HIMSELF IN THE GOVERNMENT
OF THE PROVINCES; in order, that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND SUBTLETY,
IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE.
Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

SECONDLY.  That as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain,
can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government
by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age,
so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled
and unpromising.  Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country
whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day tottering
on the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present
inhabitants would lay hold of the interval, to dispense of their effects,
and quit the continent.

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independence,
i.e.  a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent
and preserve it inviolate from civil wars.  I dread the event of a
reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable,
that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences
of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will
probably suffer the same fate) Those men have other feelings than us who
have nothing suffered.  All they NOW possess is liberty, what they before
enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more to lose,
they disdain submission.  Besides, the general temper of the colonies,
towards a British government, will be like that of a youth,
who is nearly out of his time; they will care very little about her.
And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all,
and in that case we pay our money for nothing; and pray what is it that
Britain can do, whose power will he wholly on paper.  should a civil
tumult break out the very day after reconciliation!  I have heard
some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they
dreaded an independence, fearing that it would produce civil wars.
It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that
is the case here; for there are ten times more to dread from a patched up
connection than from independence.  I make the sufferers case my own,
and I protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed,
and my circumstances ruined, that as man, sensible of injuries, I could never
relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.

The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience
to continental government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable
person easy and happy on that head.  No man can assign the least pretence
for his fears, on any other grounds, than such as are truly childish
and ridiculous, viz.  that one colony will be striving for superiority
over another.

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority,
perfect equality affords no temptation.  The republics of Europe
are all (and we may say always) in peace.  Holland and Switzerland
are without wars, foreign or domestic:  Monarchical governments,
it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation
to enterprising ruffians at HOME; and that degree of pride and insolence
ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers,
in instances, where a republican government, by being formed on more
natural principles, would negotiate the mistake.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence,
it is because no plan is yet laid down.  Men do not see their way out--
Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following hints;
at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion
of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to
something better.  Could the straggling thoughts of individuals
be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise
and able men to improve into useful matter.

LET the assemblies be annual, with a President only.
The representation more equal.  Their business wholly domestic,
and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts,
each district to send a proper number of delegates to Congress,
so that each colony send at least thirty.  The whole number in Congress
will be at least 390.  Each Congress to sit and to choose a president
by the following method.  When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken
from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which, let the whole Congress
choose (by ballot) a president from out of the delegates of that province.
In the next Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting
that colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so
proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation.
And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily
just not less than three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority--
He that will promote discord, under a government so equally formed as this,
would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.

But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what manner,
this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable
and consistent, that it should come from some intermediate body
between the governed and the governors, that is, between the Congress
and the people.  let a CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held, in the following manner,