Tell our dear good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his
doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is
determined and unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen
excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at
the expense of three millions, has killed a hundred and fifty
Yankees this campaign, which is L20,000 a head; and at Bunker's
Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again
by our taking the post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time
sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these
_data_ his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and
expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole
territory.
In 1776 Franklin, then seventy years old, was appointed one of three
Commissioners to visit Canada, in order, if possible, to promote a
union between it and the States. Finding that only one Canadian in
five hundred could read, and that the state of feeling in Canada was
fatal to the success of the Commissioners, they returned, and Franklin
suggested that the next Commission sent to Canada should consist of
schoolmasters. On the 4th of July Franklin took part in the signing of
the Declaration of Independence. When the document was about to be
signed, Mr. Hancock remarked, "We must be unanimous; there must be no
pulling different ways; we must all hang together." Franklin replied,
"Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all
hang separately."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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