that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence,
instead of NOW, the Continent would have been more able
to have shaken off the dependance.  To which I reply, that our
military ability, AT THIS TIME, arises from the experience
gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years time,
would have been totally extinct.  The Continent, would not,
by that time, have had a General, or even a military officer left;
and we, or those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant
of martial matters as the ancient Indians:  And this single position,
closely attended to, will unanswerably prove, that the present time
is preferable to all others.  The argument turns thus--at the conclusion
of the last war, we had experience, but wanted numbers;
and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers,
without experience; wherefore, the proper point of time,
must be some particular point between the two extremes,
in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper
increase of the latter is obtained:  And that point of time
is the present time.

The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly
come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return
by the following position, viz.

Should affairs he patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing
and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters are now circumstanced,
is giving up the point entirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means
of sinking the debt we have, or may contract.  The value of the back lands
which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust
extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling
per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions,
Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre,
to two millions yearly.

It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk,
without burthen to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon,
will always lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly
expence of government.  It matters not how long the debt is in
paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge
of it, and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time
being, will be the continental trustees.                 .

I proceed now to the second head, viz.  Which is the easiest
and most practicable plan, RECONCILIATION or lNDEPENDANCE;
With some occasional remarks.

He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument,
and on that ground, I answer GENERALLY--THAT _INDEPENDANCE_
BEING A _SINGLE SIMPLE LINE,_ CONTAINED WITHIN OURSELVES;
AND RECONCILIATION, A MATTER EXCEEDINGLY PERPLEXED AND COMPLICATED,
AND IN WHICH, A TREACHEROUS CAPRICIOUS COURT IS TO INTERFERE,
GIVES THE ANSWER WITHOUT A DOUBT.

The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is
capable of reflexion.  Without law, without government, without any
other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy.
Held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which,
is nevertheless subject to change, and which, every secret enemy is
endeavouring to dissolve.  Our present condition, is, Legislation
without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name;
and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance contending
for dependance.  The instance is without a precedent; the case never
existed before; and who can tell what may be the event?  The property
of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things.  The mind
of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before
them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts.  Nothing is criminal;
there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself
at liberty to act as he pleases.  The Tories dared not have assembled
offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited
to the laws of the state.  A line of distinction should be drawn, between,
English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms.
The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors.
The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.

Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some
of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions.
The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled.  And if something
is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing,
and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither RECONCILIATION
nor INDEPENDANCE will be practicable.  The king and his worthless
adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent,
and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy
in spreading specious falsehoods.  The artful and hypocritical letter
which appeared a few months ago in two of the New York papers,
and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men
who want either judgment or honesty.

It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation:
But do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is, and how
dangerous it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon.  Do they
take within their view, all the various orders of men whose situation
and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein.
Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer whose ALL
is ALREADY gone, and of the soldier, who hath quitted ALL for the defence
of his country.  If their ill judged moderation be suited to their own
private situations only, regardless of others, the event will convince them,
that "they are reckoning without their Host."

Put us, says some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three:
To which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain
to comply with, neither will she propose it; but if it were,