The Connecticut courant, and the weekly intelligencer — Hartford [Conn.], 1780-03-28 00:00:00, page 1

The CRISIS. (No. VIII.)
Addressed to the People of England,
By the Author of Common Sense.
" 'TRUSTING, (fays the King of
& England in his speech of No
« vember last) in the Divine Providence,
" and in the justice of my cause, I am
" firmly resolved to prosecute the war
* with vigor, and to make every exerti
" on in order to compel our enemies to
" equitable terms of peace and accommo
«' d&ion." Tothis declaration the United
States of America and the Confederated
Powers of Europe, will reply, If Britain
will have war, she Jhall have enough of it.
Five years have nearly elapsed since
the commencement of hostilities, and ev
ery campaign, by a gradual decay, has
levered your ability to conquer, without
producing a serious thought on your con
dition or your fate. Like a prodigal lin
gering in an habitual consumption, you
feel the relicks of life and mistake them
for recovery. New schemes, like new
medicines, have administered frefh hopes
and prolonged the disease instead of cur
ing it. A change of Generals, like a
change of physicians, fervid only to keep
the flattery alive, and furnifh new preten
ces for new extravagance.
'' Can Britain fail ?" * Has been proud
b asked a: the commencement of every
enterprize, and that " whatever foe wills is
fate, § has been given with the solemni
ty of prophetic confidence, and tho' the
question has been constantly replied to by
disappointment, and the prediction falfifi
ed by misfortune, yet still the insult con
tinued, and your catalogue of national
evils encreafed therewith. Eager to per
suade the world of her power, (he consi
dered deftrudion as the minister fgreat
nefs, and conceived that the glory of a
nation, like that of an Indian, lay in the
number of its scalps and the miseries it
inflids.
Fire, sword and want, as far as the arms
©f Britain could extend them, have been
spread with wanton cruelty along the
coast of America; and while you, remo e
from the feene of fuffering, had nothing
to lose and as little to dread, the informa
tion reached you like 0 , tale of antiquity,
in which the distance of time defaces the
conception, and changes the severest fpr
rows into converfable amusement.
This makes the second paper, addressed
perhaps in vain to the people of England.
That advice should be taken where ex
ample has failed, or precept be regarded
* Whitehead's new. years ode for 1776.
§ Ode at the installation of Lord North
for Chancellor of the University of Ox
ford.
TUESDAY, March 28, i,Be. THE NUMBER„%
CONNECTICUT COURANT,
ANDTHB
WEEKLY I NTELLIGENCE R.
HA R T FOR D : Printed by HUDSON and GOODWIN, near the Great-Bridge.
where warning is ridiculed, is likea pic
ture of hope resting on difpair: But when
time shall stamp with universal currency,
the fads you have long encountered with
a laugh, and the irremeable evidence of
accumulated Joffes; like the hand writing
on the wall, shall add terror to distress,
you will then, in a confl & of fufferings,
learn to fympathife with others by feeling
for yourselves.
The triumphant appearance of the com
bined fleets in the channel and at your
harbour's mouth, and the expedition of
Captain Paul Jones on the western and
eastern eoaft of England and Scotland,
will, by placing you in the condition of
an endangered country, read to you a
stronger leisure on the calamities of inva
sion, and bring to your minds a truer
pidure of promifeuous distress, than the
most finifhed rhetoric can diferibe or the
keenest imagination conceive.
Hitherto you have eXperied the expen
ces, but nothing of the miseries of war.
Your disappointments have been accom
panied with no immediate fuffering, and
your losses came to yt^ only by in
telligence. Like fire at a distance, you
heard not even the cry ; you felt not the
danger, you saw n,ot the coi fufion. To
you every thing has been foreign but the
taxes to fopport it. You knew not what
it was to be alarmed at midnight with an
armed enemy- in the flreets. You were
ftrangets to the difireffing feene of a fa
mily in flight, and to the thousand restless
cares and tender sorrows that in ceffantly
arose. To fee women and children wan
dering in the severity of winter with the
broken remains of a well furnifhed house,
and seeking tinker in every crib and hut,
were matters you had no conception of.
You knew not what, it was to stand by
and fee your goods chopt up for fuel, and
your beds ript to pieces to make packages
for plunder. The misery of others, like
a tempestuous night, added to the pleasures
of your own security. You even enjoy
ed the form, by contemplating the diffe
rence of conditions ; and that which car
ried sorrow into the breasts of thousands,
served but to heighten in you a species of
tranquil pride. Yet these are but the
fainter fufferipgs of war, when compared
with carnage and daughter, the miseries
of a military hospital, or a town in flames.
The people of America by anticipating
difirefs had fortified their minds against
every species you could inflid. They had
resolved to abandon their homes, to resign
them to defirudion, and to seek new set
tlements rather than submit. Thus fa
miliarifed to misfortune, before it arrived,
they bore their portion with the iefs re
gret: The juflncfs of their cause was a
continual source of convocation, and the
hope of final vidory, which never left
them, served to lighten the load and swee
ten the cup alloted them to drink.
But when their fuffering shall become
yours, and invasion be transferred upon
the invaders, you will have neither their
extended wilderness to fly to, their cause
to comfort you, nor their hopes to rest on.
Distress with them was sharpened by no
felf reflection. They had not brought it
on themselves. On the contrary, they
had by every proceeding endeavoured to
avoid it, and had defeended even below
the mark of congressional character to pre#
vent a war. The national honor or the
advantages of independence were matters,
which at the commencement of the dis
pute, they had never studied, and it was
only at the last moment that the measure
was resolved on. Thus circumftancedy
they maturally and conscientiously felt a
dependence upon Providence. Theyhad.
a clear pretension to it, and had they fail
ed therein, infidelity had gameda triumphs
But your condition is the reverse of
theirs. Every thing you fuffer you have
fought ; nay, had yen created mifehiefs on
purpose to inherit them, you could not
have secured your title by a firmer deed.
The world awakens with no pity at your
complaints. You felt none for others ;
you deserve none for yourselves. Nature
does not interest herfelf in cases like
yours, but on the contrary turns from
them with dislike and abandons them to
punishment. You may now prefect me,
morials to what Court you please, but so
far as America is the obje& none will
listen. The policy of Europe and the
propensity there is in every mind to curb
insulting ambition, and bring cruelty to
judgment, are unitedly against you ; and
where nature and interest reinforces each
other, the compact is too intimate to be
diffolved.'
Make but the case of others your own;
and your own theirs, and you# illthen have
a clear idea of the whole. Had France
aded towards her Colonies as you have
done, you would have branded her with
every epithet of abhorrence , and had you
like her, ftept in to fuccour a struggling
people, all Europe must have echoed with
your own applauses. But entangled in
the passion of dispute, you fee it not as
you ought, and form opinions thereon
which luit with no interest but your own.
You wonder America does not rife in uni
on with you to impose on herfelf a por
tion of your taxes and reduce herfelf to
unconditional submission.. You are ama
zed that the Southern Powers of Europe
do not assist you in conquering a country
which is afterwards to be turned again^