But whatever the cause has been, the fact is certain, we have been excessively cautious of giving offence by complaining of grievances.----And it is as certain, that American governors, and their friends, and all the crown officers, have availed themselves of this disposition in the people.--They have prevailed on us to consent to many things, which were grossly injurious to us, and to surrender many others with voluntary tameness, to which we had the clearest right. Have we not been treated formerly, with abominable insolence, by officers of the navy?----I mean no insinuation against any gentleman now on this station, having heard no complaint of any one of them to his dishonour.--Have not some generals, from England, treated us like servants, nay, more like slaves than like Britons?--Have we not been under the most ignominious contribution, the most abject submission, the most supercilious insults of some custom-house officers? Have we not been trifled with, browbeaten, and trampled on, by former governors, in a manner which no King of England since James the Second has dared to indulge towards his subjects? Have we not raised up one family, placed in them an unlimited confidence, and been soothed, and flattered, and intimidated by their influence, into a great part of this infamous tameness and submission?----"These are serious and alarming questions, and deserve a dispassionate consideration."-- This disposition has been the great wheel and the main spring in the American machine of court politics.--We have been told, that "the word _Rights_ is an offensive expression." That "the King, his Ministry, and Parliament, will not endure to hear Americans talk of their _Rights_." That "Britain is the mother and we the children, that a filial duty and submission is due from us to her," and that "we ought to doubt our own judgment, and presume that she is right, even when she seems to us to shake the foundations of government." That "Britain is immensely rich, and great, and powerful, has fleets and armies at her command, which have been the dread and terror of the universe, and that the will force her own judgment into execution, right or wrong." But let me intreat you, Sir, to pause--Do you consider yourself as a missionary of loyalty or of rebellion? Are you not representing your K--, his Ministry and Parliament, as tyrants, imperious, unrelenting tyrants, by such reasoning as this?--Is not this representing your most gracious Sovereign, as endeavouring to destroy the foundations of his own throne?--Are you not representing every Member of Parliament as renouncing the transactions at _Runyn Mead_; [the meadow, near Windsor, where _Magna Charta_ was signed,] and as repealing in effect the bill of rights, when the Lords and Commons asserted and vindicated the rights of the people and their own rights, and insisted on the King's assent to that assertion and vindication? Do you not represent them, as forgetting