 COMMON SENSE, APPENDICS Since the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather, on the same day on which it came out, the king's speech made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it could not have brought it forth at a more seasonable juncture, or a more necessary time. The bloody-mindedness of the one show the necessity of pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read, by way of revenge, and the speech, instead of terrifying, prepared away for the manly principles of independence. Ceremony and even silence from whatever motive they may arise have a hurtful tendency when they give the least degree of continence to base and wicked performances. Wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally follows that the king's speech as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and the people. Yet as the domestic tranquility of a nation depends greatly on the chastity of what may properly be called national manners, it is often better to pass some things over in silent disdain than to make use of such new methods of dislike as might introduce the least innovation on that guardian of our peace and safety. And perhaps it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy that the king's speech hath not before now suffered a public execution. The speech, if it may be called one, is nothing better than a willful, audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind, and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind is one of the privileges and the certain consequences of kings, for as nature knows them not, they know not her, and although they are beings of our own creation, they know not us, and are become the gods of their creators. The speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive. Neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it, it leaves us at no loss, and every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that he who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a savage than the king of Britain. Sir John Dollywimple, the punitive father and whining Jesuitical peace, feliciously called, the address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America, hath perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king given, though very unwisely on his part, the real character of the present one. But, says this writer, if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration which we do not complain of, meaning the marquee of rocking-hams at the repeal of the Stamp Act, it is very unfair in which to withhold them from that prince, if those who nod alone they were permitted to do anything, this is Toryism with a witness. Here is idolatry even without a mask, and he who can so calmly hear and digest such doctrine hath forfeited his claim to rationality, an apostate from the order of manhood, and ought to be considered as one who hath not only given up the proper dignity of a man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptuously crawls through the world like a worm. However, it matters very little now what the king of England either says or does. He hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, upholded nature and conscience beneath his feet, and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty procured for himself a universal hatred. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of than to be granting away her property, to support a power who has become a reproach to the names of men and Christians. Yee, whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation of whatsoever sect or denomination yee are of, as well as yee, who are more immediately the guardians of the public liberty. If ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, yee must in secret wish a separation. But, leaving the moral part to private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my further remarks to the following heads. First, that it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain. Secondly, which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independence, with some occasional remarks. In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the opinion of some of the ableest and most experienced men on this continent, and whose sentiments on that head are not yet publicly known. It is in reality a self-evident position, for no nation in a state of foreign dependence, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is, and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it, and the continent hesitating on a matter which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America by which England is to be benefited, and that would, in a great measure continue, were the countries as independent of each other as France and Spain, because in many articles neither can go to a better market. But it is the independence of this country, of Britain or any other, which is now the main and only object worthy of contention, and which, like all other truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every day, first because it will come to that one time or other, secondly because the longer it is delayed, the harder it will be to accomplish. I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking the specious errors of those who speak without reflecting, and among the many which I have heard, the following seems most general, these that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the continent would have been more able to have shaken off the dependence, to which I reply that our military ability at this time arises from the experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years time would have been totally extinct. The continent would not, by that time, have had a general, or even a military officer left, and we, or those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians, and this single position closely attended to will unanswerably prove that the present time is preferable to all others. The argument turns thus, at the conclusion of the last war we had experience, but wanted numbers, and forty or fifty years hence we should have numbers without experience, wherefore the proper point of time must be some particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained, and that point of time is the present time. The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return by the following position, these, should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America, which as matters are now circumstance is giving up the point entirely. We shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have, or may contract, the value of the backlands which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty five millions, Pennsylvania currency, and the quit rents at one penny sterling per acre to two millions yearly. It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burden to any, and the quit rent reserved thereof, will always lessen, and in time will wholly support the yearly expense of the government. It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of it, and for the extinction of which the Congress for the time being, will be continental trustees. I proceed now to second head, these, which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independence, with some occasional remarks. He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument, and on that ground I answer, generally, that independence being a single, simple line, contained within ourselves, and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which a treacherous capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt. The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection, without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is found on, and granted by, courtesy, held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present condition is legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, constitution without a name, and what is strangely astonishing, perfect independence, contending for dependence. The instance is without precedent. The case never existed before, and who can tell what may be the event. The property of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before them they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal, there is no such thing as treason, wherefore everyone thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dare not have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives by that act were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be made between English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter, traders. The one forfeits his liberty, and the other his head. Notwithstanding our wisdom there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions. The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled, and if something is not done in time we will be too late to do anything, and we shall fall into a state in which neither reconciliation nor independence will be practicable. The king and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the continent, and there are not wanting among us printers who will be busy spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter, which appeared a few months ago in two of the New York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men who want either judgment or honesty. It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation, but do such men seriously consider how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the continent divide thereon? Do they take within their view all the various orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein? Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer, whose all is already gone, and of the soldier, who hath quitted all for the defense of his country, if their ill-judged moderation be suited to their own private situations only, regardless of others, the event will convince them that they are reckoning without their host? Put us, some say, on the footing we were on in sixty-three, to which I answer the request is not now in the power of Britain to comply with. Neither will she propose it, but if it were, and even should be granted, I ask as a reasonable question, by what means is such a corrupt and faithless court to be kept to its engagements? Another parliament, nay, even the present, may hereafter repeal the obligation on the pretense of its being violently obtained or unwisely granted, and in that case, where is our redress? No going to the law with nations, canon are the barristers of crowns, and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the footing of sixty-three it is not sufficient that the laws only be put on the same state, but that our circumstances likewise be put on the same state. Our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made good, our public debts, contracted for defense, discharged. Otherwise we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the continent, but now it is too late. The Rubicon is past. Besides the taking up arms merely to enforce the repeal of a pecuniary law seems as unwarrantable as the divine law, and as repugnant to human feelings as the taking up arms to enforce obedience there too. The object on either side doth not justify the means, for the lives of men are too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons, the destruction of our property by the armed force, the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms, and the instant in which such a mode of defense became necessary, all subjugation to Britain ought to have ceased, and the independency of America should have been considered as dating its era from, and published by, the first musket that was fired against her. This line is a line of consistency, neither drawn by caprice nor extended by ambition, but produced by a chain of events of which the colonies were not the authors. I shall conclude these remarks with the following timely and well-intended hints. We ought to reflect that there are three different ways by which an independency may hereafter be affected, and that one of those three will one day or other be the fate of America, these by the legal voice of the people in Congress, by a military power, or by a mob. It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men, virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary. Neither is it perpetual. Should an independency be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little partly caverlings of a few weak or interested men appear when weighed against the business of a world. Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and an independency be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and prejudiced souls are habitually opposing the measure without either inquiring or reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of independence which men should rather privately think of than be publicly told of. We ought not now to be debating whether we shall be independent or not, but anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather than it is not yet begun upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the Tories, if such beings yet remain among us, should, of all men, be the most solicitous to promote it, for, as the appointment of committees at first protected them from popular rage, so a wise and well-established form of government will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. Wherefore, if they have not virtue enough to be wigs, they ought to have prudence enough to wish for independence. In short, independence is the only bond that can tie and keep us together. We shall see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing as well as a cruel enemy. We shall then, too, be on a proper footing to treat with Britain, for there is reason to conclude that the pride of that court will be less hurt by treating with the American states for terms of peace than with those whom she denominates rebellious subjects, for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war, as we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances. Let us now try the alternative by independently redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part in England will be still with us, because peace with trade is preferable to war without it, and if the offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to. On these grounds I rest the matter, and as no offer hath yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof that either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or that the party in favor of it are too numerous to be opposed. Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Wig and Tory be extinct, and let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the free and independent states of America.