[145] Georgia has since acceded, July, 1775.
[146] Supposed to allude to certain passages in the Journals of the house of commons on the 4th of April, 1748, 28th January, 1756, 3d February, 1756, 16th and 19th of May, 1757, 1st of June, 1758, 26th and 30th of April, 1759, 26th and 31st of March, and 28th of April, 1760, 9th and 20th January, 1761, 22d and 26th January, 1762, and 14th and 17th March, 1763. B. V.
[147] See Dr. Price's Appeal on the National Debt. B. V.
_Reprobation of Mr. Strahan's parliamentary Conduct._[148]
You are a member of that parliament, and have formed part of that majority, which has condemned my native country to destruction.
You have begun to burn our towns, and to destroy their inhabitants!
Look at your hands!--they are stained with the blood of your relations and your acquaintances.
You and I were long friends; you are at present my enemy, and I am yours.
[148] This letter appeared, shortly after the period of its date, in most of the public papers. We extract it from the Gentleman's Magazine. _Editor._
_Conciliation hopeless from the Conduct of Great Britain to America._
The congress met at a time when all minds were so exasperated by the perfidy of general Gage, and his attack on the country people, that propositions of attempting an accomodation were not much relished; and it has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble petition to the crown, to give Britain one more chance, one opportunity more of recovering the friendship of the colonies; which however I think she has not sense enough to embrace, and so I conclude she has lost them for ever.
She has begun to burn our sea-port towns; secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. She may doubtless destroy them all; but if she wishes to recover our commerce, are these the probable means? She must certainly be distracted; for no tradesman out of Bedlam ever thought of encreasing the number of his customers by knocking them [on] the head; or of enabling them to pay their debts by burning their houses.
If she wishes to have us subjects and that we should submit to her as our compound sovereign, she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government, that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire and pestilence.