tion, because there can be no manner of doubt but that this fingle act of national ingratitude, has proved the signal of the diffolution of the civilized world, that it has fhaken every state and every form of government to its centre, and loofened the foundations of fociety itself. Unhappy England! There was no Cordelia amongst all her daughters; Regan turned her from the door to the rude pelting of the pitiless ftorm, and Gonerill denies her hundred knights.

But it is not England that it is necessary to confider; she has triumphed, hitherto, over all her enemies and all her traitors, and over the worst of all her thankless children. When I look to America, I diftinguish the crime but not its utility; I fee every thing but the profit of ingratitude. Is fhe happier, or greater, fince the ceafed to be a part of Britain? Are her taxes lighter? Is her commerce protected better? Is her government more respected or fecure? While fhe belonged to England,

what stranger dared oppress her? Who plun dered her merchants, or infulted her flag, or fuborned her people? What Frenchman dic tated to her councils? What impofitions did The lay upon her land? What disunion. what diffolution threatened her? Did the live or linger then by the care of a declining hand? Did the frail tenure of an old man's life fuftain and comprefs her provinces together? Did the hold the empire not by her strength, but the approach of her weakness, and the expectation of a better opportunity to divide and dismember her?-Oh, but she is independent! The enjoys the fovereign rights and supreme arbitrement of empire; the fends ambaffadors; the levies armies; the prepares fleets, and decides on peace and war. For these advantages, he is a feeble statesman indeed, who will not pardon a little ambition, and a little ingra titude. Prove then that these are advantages. I fee her ambaffadors infulted or unheard, ex pelled or ranfomed; I fee taxes raised to pay forces, but they are to constrain her own revolts:

to

but nei

to defeat, not the armies, but the plots of foreigners. I fee fleets, but the dares not employ them. I fee taxes and arms, ther war nor peace. I fee treaties, but it is with England, whom the abandoned and abjured. I fee that tutulary alliance, that mafernal flag, protect the commerce for which America facrificed every moral duty, and fo many political advantages. I fee this cruel parent, whom the deferted and betrayed, maintain her among the nations, and uphold her perifhable ftate amidst the factions that prey upon her vitals.

America, however, had driven her favages behind her frontiers'; fhe had conquered and repelled the wild barbarian whom she could not civilize. By the impolitic peace of 1763, we had delivered her from the neighbourhood and hoftility of France, and the demanded to be foris-familiated, like a profperous child whofe fortune has corrupted his heart. Has our fettlement in Ireland even this

excufe?

excufe? Is there any thing in common be, tween the ftate of these two colonies? In Ireland, the native prowls unconquered and untamed, confined within no pale, and forced behind no barrier-France is at her door and in her chamber-and while fhe bellows " independence," she is the prey ef miseries unknown and unheard of by the rest of men; of crimes, for which the names are unin vented, of which the knowledge must be buried in dark eternal filence, where no found is heard, nor eye may penetrate, fealed by disgust and horror, and guarded by the wounded dignity of humanity itself?

America, as it appears to me, I own, was happy and respectable, was fortunate and secure, when she began her crime, and affected her independence. Her independence too was real and effectual. It was perfect in all its parts; the abjured our crown as well as our legislature, and fhe became a fovereign by her ingratitude. Yet if I look at this

fovereign

fovereign ftate, and all her dangers and divifions-if I contemplate the peculiar evils of her conftitution, admired I think by none of the wife and provident, and commended only by the fpeculatift and the Jacobin as example of revolution and impunity-if I confider her present state, and the circumstances upon which the advances, I am fcarcely to be reftrained from affirming that there is nothing but union-this very meafure of union and incorporation, of all her Provinces-that can fave and defend her: or extricate her from the dangers and perplexities of that federal independence, which has neither defended Holland, nor Switzerland, nor the empire of Germany.

From the cafe of America, who has feperated, we are naturally led to that of Scotland, who has united herself with England; and I confess it appears to me not a little fingular, that I should have been fo little anticipated upon one of the great and leading