"America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics--England consults the good of _this_ country no further than it answers her _own_ purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of _ours_ in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a secondhand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name; and in order to show that reconciliation _now_ is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm _that it would be policy in the king at this time to repeal the acts, for the sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces_; in order _that he may accomplish by craft and subtlety, in the long run, what he can not do by force in the short one_. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related. "2dly. That as even the best terms which we can expect to obtain can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and which is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of the interval to dispose of their effects and quit the continent. "But the most powerful of all arguments is, that nothing but independence, _i. e._, a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.