I shall now restore to your recollection the famous Duche letter which was written in the autumn of 1777. Duche was a brilliant young clergyman of the Church of England and was settled in Philadelphia. He was inclined to take sides with the rebel colonists, and would have been very glad to see them attain what they wished if it could have been done peaceably and in the manner of ordinary business negotiations; and he was even willing to go a little farther than this and have the rebel colonists make a certain amount of armed resistance up to a certain point, not beyond the bounds of good taste. In short he was very much of your professed way of thinking, and he represented a large class of people who were of that way of thinking. At the meeting of the first Continental Congress he opened the session with a prayer so eloquent and suitable that it attracted universal attention, and gave him at once a political standing of some little importance. But after three years of Boer tactics, irregular methods, hopelessness, evident failure, the rise into power of men who were not gentlemen, petty peculation and fraud in the rebel army, apparent deterioration in character of the men in the rebel congress, the undignified runaway, wandering habit of that congress with its papers hauled from one refuge to another in a wagon, and similar things which make a deep impression on men of a certain kind of education and refinement, he saw so clearly the unutterable folly and wickedness of the attempt at independence that he could stand it no longer. There were many others who thought just as he did; but they usually either went to live in England or Canada or kept quiet in semi-concealment waiting until the power of Britain should restore order and good government to the colonies. But Duche, feeling that he was in somewhat of a public position, argued out the whole subject in a long letter to General Washington, calling on him in the name of God and humanity to put an end to the frightful state of affairs so mutually destructive to the best interests of both the colonies and England. He was horrified he said to find that rather than give up the idol independence the rebels "would deluge this country in blood." In short he was horrified at the Krugerism of Washington who intended to make England "pay a price that would stagger humanity." As to the rebel army its existence depended on one man. Most of its officers were from "the lowest of the people." "Take away those who surround your person, how few are there that you can ask to sit at your table." The rebels had hoped for aid from France: but after three years of waiting it had not come and there were no signs of it. The whig party in England was growing smaller. The whole English nation, "all orders and ranks of men are now unanimous and determined to risk their all on the contest."