poor by the colonists, you are entirely to forget. But remember to make your arbitrary tax more grievous to your provinces by public declarations, importing, that your power of taxing them has no limits, so that when you take from them without their consent a shilling in the pound, you have a clear right to the other nineteen. This will probably weaken every idea of security in their property, and convince them, that under such a government they have nothing they can call their own; which can scarce fail of producing the happiest consequences!

X. Possibly indeed some of them might still comfort themselves and say, "though we have no property, we have yet something left that is valuable, we have constitutional liberty, both of person and conscience. This king, these lords, and these commons, who it seems are too remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us our habeas corpus rights or our rights of trial by a jury of our neighbours they cannot deprive us of the exercise of our religion, alter our ecclesiastical constitution, and compel us to be papists if they please, or Mahometans." To annihilate this comfort, begin by laws to perplex their commerce with infinite regulations, impossible to be remembered and observed: ordain seizures of their property for every failure, take away the trial of such property by jury, and give it to arbitrary judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest characters in the country, whose salaries and emoluments are to arise out of the duties or condemnations, and whose appointments are during pleasure. Then let there be a formal declaration of both houses, that opposition to your edicts is treason, and that persons suspected of treason in the provinces, may, according to some obsolete law, be seized and sent to the metropolis of the empire for trial ; and pass an act, that those, there charged with certain other offences, shall be sent away in chains from their friends and country, to be tried in the same manner for felony. Then erect a new court of inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed force, with instructions to transport all such suspected persons, to be ruined by the expense, if they bring over evidence to prove their innocence, or be found guilty and hanged, if they cannot afford it. And lest the people should think you cannot possibly go any farther, pass another solemn declaratory act, "that king, lords, and commons had, have, and of right ought to have full power and authority to make statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the unrepresented provinces in all cases whatsoever." This will include spiritual with temporal, and taken together must

operate wonderfully to your purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a power, something like that spoken of in the scriptures, which cannot only kill their bodies, but damn their souls to all eternity, by compelling them, if it pleases, to worship the devil.

XI. To make your taxes more odious, and more likely to procure resistance, send from the capital a board of officers, to superintend the collection, composed of the most indiscreet, ill-bred, and insolent you can find. Let these have large salaries out of the extorted revenue, and live in open, grating luxury upon the sweat and blood of the industrious, whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive prosecutions before the above-mentioned arbitrary revenue-judges; all at the cost of the party prosecuted, though acquitted, because the king is to pay no costs. Let these men, by your order, be exempted from all the common taxes and burdens of the province, though they and their property are protected by its laws. If any revenue-officers are suspected of the least tenderness for the people, discard them. If others are justly complained of, protect and reward them. If any of the under officers behave so as to provoke the people to drub them, promote them to better offices: this will encourage others to procure for themselves such profitable drubbings, by multiplying and enlarging such provocations, and all will work towards the end you

aim at.

XII. Another way to make your tax odious is, to misapply the produce of it. If it was originally appropriated for the defence of the provinces, and the better support of government, and the administration of justice, where it may be necessary, then apply some of it for that defence, but bestow it, where it is not necessary, in augmenting salaries or pensions to every governor who has distinguished himself by his enmity to the people, and by calumniating them to their sovereign. This will make them pay it more unwillingly, and be more apt to quarrel with those that collect them, and all shall contribute to your own purpose, of making them weary of your government.

XIII. If the people of any province have been accustomed to support their own governors and judges to satisfaction, you are to apprehend that such governors and judges may be thereby influenced to treat the people kindly, and to do them justice. This is another reason for applying part of that resource in larger salaries to such governors and judges, given, as their commissioners are, during your pleasure only, forbidding them to take any salaries from their pro

vinces; that thus the people may no longer hope any kindness from their governors, or (in crown cases) any justice from their judges. And as the money, thus misapplied in one province, is extorted from all, probably all will resent the misapplication.

XIV. If the parliaments of your provinces should dare to claim rights, or complain of your administration, order them to be harassed with repeated dissolutions. If the same men are continually returned by new elections, adjourn their meetings to some country village, where they cannot be accommodated, and there keep them during pleasure; for this, you know, is your prerogative, and an excellent one it is, as you may manage it, to promote discontents among the people, diminish their respect, and increase their disaffection.

XV. Convert the brave honest officers of your navy into pimping tidewaiters and colony-officers of the customs. Let those, who in time of war fought gallantly in defence of the commerce of their countrymen, in peace be taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real smugglers; but (to shew their diligence) scour with armed boats every bay, harbour, river, creek, cove or nook, throughout the coasts of your colonies; stop and detain every coaster, every wood-boat, every fisherman, tumble their cargoes and even their ballast inside out, and upside down; and if a pennyworth of pins is found unentered, let the whole be seized and confiscated. Thus shall the trade of your colonists suffer more from their friends in time of peace, than it did from their enemies in war. Then let these boats' crews land upon every farm in their way, rob their orchards, steal their pigs and poultry, and insult the inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated farmers, unable to procure other justice, should attack the aggressors, drub them, and burn their boats, you are to call this high treason and rebellion, order fleets and armies into their country, and threaten to carry all the offenders three thousand miles to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.-O! this will work admirably.

XVI. If you are told of discontents in your colonies, never believe that they are general, or that you have given occasion for them; therefore do not think of applying any remedy, or of changing any offensive measure. Redress no grievances, lest they should be encouraged to demand the redress of some other grievance. Grant no request that is just and reasonable, lest they should make another that is unreasonable. Take all your informations of the state of your colonies from your governors and officers in enmity

with them. Encourage and reward these leasing-makers, secrete their lying accusations, lest they should be confuted, but act upon them as on the clearest evidence, and believe nothing you hear from the friends of the people. Suppose all their complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly, and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favour of your purpose.

XVII. If you see rival nations rejoicing at the prospect of your disunion with your provinces, and endeavouring to promote it, if they translate, publish and applaud all the complaints of your discontented colonists, at the same time stimulating you to severer methods, let not that alarm or offend you. Why should it-since you all mean the same thing?

XVIII. If any colony should at their own charge erect a fortress, to secure their ports against the fleets of a foreign enemy, get your governor to betray that fortress into your hands. Never think of paying what it cost the country; that would look, at least, like some regard for justice; but turn it into a citadel, to awe the inhabitants and curb their commerce. If they should have lodged in such fortress the very arms they bought and used to aid you in your conquests, seize them all; it will provoke, like ingratitude added to robbery. One admirable effect of these operations will be, to discourage every other colony from erecting such defences, and so their and your enemies may more easily invade them, to the great disgrace of your government, and of course the furtherance of your project.

XIX. Send armies into their country, under pretence of protecting the inhabitants; but, instead of garrisoning the forts on their frontiers with those troops, to prevent incursions, demolish those forts, and order the troops into the heart of the country, that the savages may be encouraged to attack the frontiers, and that the troops may be protected by the inhabitants; this will seem to proceed from your ill will or your ignorance, and contribute further to produce and strengthen an opinion among them, that you are no longer fit to govern them.

Let

XX. Lastly, invest the general of your army in the provinces with great and unconstitutional powers, and free him from the control of even your own civil governors. him have troops enow under his command, with all the fortresses in his possession, and who knows but (like some provincial generals in the Roman empire, and encouraged

by the universal discontent you have produced) he may take it into his head to set up for himself? If he should, and you have carefully practised these few excellent rules of mine, take my word for it, all the provinces will immediately join him; and you will that day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the trouble of governing them, and all the plagues attending their commerce and connexion from thenceforth and for ever.

No. V.

Preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America, signed at Paris, 30th November, 1782.

ARTICLES agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, esq. the commissioner of his Britannic majesty, for treating of peace with the commmissioners of the United States of America in behalf of his said majesty on one part, and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Lawrens, four of the commissioners of the said states for treating of peace with the commissioner of his said majesty on their behalf on the other part, to be inserted in and constitute the treaty of peace proposed to be concluded between the crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which treaty is not to be concluded till terms of peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain and France, and his Britannic majesty shall be ready to conclude such treaty accordingly. Whereas reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience are found by experience to form the only permanent foundation of a peace and friendship between states, it is agreed to form articles of the proposed treaty, on such principles of liberal equity and reciprocity as that, partial advantages (those seeds of discord) being excluded, such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries may be established as to promise and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony.

I. His Britannic majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Providence Plantation, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and inde