The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent PersonsJohnson, Samuel
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The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
Johnson, Samuel
English essays -- 18th century
It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of
malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather
repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.
In this last terrifick paragraph are two positions, that, if our fears
do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to support life a little
longer. We are told by these croakers of calamity, not only that our
present ministers design to enslave us, but that the same malignity of
purpose is to descend through all their successors; and that the wealth
to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America, will, whenever it
comes, be employed to purchase the "remains of liberty."
Of those who now conduct the national affairs, we may, without much
arrogance, presume to know more than themselves; and of those who shall
succeed them, whether minister or king, not to know less.
The other position is, that "the crown," if this laudable opposition
should not be successful, "will have the power of taxing America at
pleasure." Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions,
when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that
they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that
the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained
any additional power over their possessions.
It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect
these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter
among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really
dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to
communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But,
probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries,
that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands
among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address,
though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet,
probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some
master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political
electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to
repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by
the name of Boston.
When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general
legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus
acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their
claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and
allegiance.
It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces
of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to
indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found
themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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