Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-07-04

| TOT SuSpclulnS Oul OHn * SlSidluiCe
and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislatc for US in all cases
whatsoever.
| He has abdicated government here by
declaring us out of his protection and
waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged
our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroy
eel the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large
armies of foreign merccnaries, to COM
plete the works of death, desolation, and
tyranny, already begun, with circum-
stances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely
paralleled in the most barborous ages,
and totally unworthy the head OF a civil
lied nation.
He has constrained our fellow citi-
zens, taken captive on the high seas, to
bear arms against their country, TO be-
come the executioners of their friends
and brethren, or TO fall themselves by
their hands.
He has excited domestic instructions
amongst US, and has endeavored to bring
merciless Indian savages whose known
rule of warfare is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and condi-
tons.
In every stage of these expressions,
we have petitioned for redress, in the
most humble terms; our repeated petit
tons have been answered only by re-
peated injury. A prince whose charac-
ter is thus marked, by every act, which
may define tyrant, is unfit to be the ru-
Ter of free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention
to our British brethren. We have warn
ed them from time to time, of attempts
by their legislature, to extend an I'M
warrantable jurisdiction over US: We
have reminded them of the circumstan-
stances of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native
Justice and magnanimity, and we have
conlured them by the ties ofour common
kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our
connections and correspondence. They,
too, have been deafto the voice of justice
and consequently. We must therefore
acquiesce in the necessity, which de-
nounces our separation, and hold them
as we hold the rest of mankind-ene-
mics in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives
of the United States of America, in
General Congress assembled, appealing
to the Supreme Judge Of the world, for
the rectitude ofour intentions, Do, in the
name and by the authority of the good
people of these colonies, solemnly pub
lish and declare, that these United CO.
lonies are, and of right, ought to be free
and independent states that they are
absolved from all allegiance to the Bril-
fish crown, and that all political con-
nexion, between them and the state of
Great Britain, is and ought to be totally
dissolved; and that as free and indie
pendent states, they have full power to
levy war, conclude peace, contract al
liances, establish commerce, and to do
all other acts and things which indepcn-
dent states may of right do. And for
the support of this declaration, with a
firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each
other, our lives, our fortunes, and our
sacred honor.
Signed by order and in behalf of the
Congress.
JOHN HANCOCK,
President.
Acknowledgements THOMSON,
Secretary.
FROM TIE PHILADELPHIA FRANKLIN GAZETTE.
SPAIN.
Congratulation of the Consul of the United
States of America to the Constitutional
Council of the City of Cadiz, on the change
in the government of Spain.
AS citizen of the United States of
America, and as their consular repre-
sentative in this city / embrace with the
highest satisfaction, the earliest oppor-
tunity of rendering to your excellencies
my cordial and sincere Fluctuations up
on the great and glorious event which |
have witnessed. On the restoration of
liberty to a nation SO worthy to possess
it, have contemplated, with admiration,
the happy means by which it was OBJ.
tanned, and the good order observed
throughout, but particularly in this
capital, during successes SO interesting:
and now that this nation, like my own,
enjoys the right to be free, feerit my
duty, among the first, to manifest to your
excellencies these the sentiments of my
country and myself on SO suspicious an
occasion.
God preserve you many years.