The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): The American CrisisPaine, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): The American Crisis
Paine, Thomas
Political science; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, and you
will then have a clear idea of the whole. Had France acted towards her
colonies as you have done, you would have branded her with every epithet
of abhorrence; and had you, like her, stepped in to succor a struggling
people, all Europe must have echoed with your own applauses. But
entangled in the passion of dispute you see it not as you ought, and
form opinions thereon which suit with no interest but your own. You
wonder that America does not rise in union with you to impose on herself
a portion of your taxes and reduce herself to unconditional submission.
You are amazed that the southern powers of Europe do not assist you
in conquering a country which is afterwards to be turned against
themselves; and that the northern ones do not contribute to reinstate
you in America who already enjoy the market for naval stores by the
separation. You seem surprised that Holland does not pour in her succors
to maintain you mistress of the seas, when her own commerce is suffering
by your act of navigation; or that any country should study her own
interest while yours is on the carpet.
Such excesses of passionate folly, and unjust as well as unwise
resentment, have driven you on, like Pharaoh, to unpitied miseries, and
while the importance of the quarrel shall perpetuate your disgrace, the
flag of America will carry it round the world. The natural feelings of
every rational being will be against you, and wherever the story shall
be told, you will have neither excuse nor consolation left. With an
unsparing hand, and an insatiable mind, you have desolated the world,
to gain dominion and to lose it; and while, in a frenzy of avarice and
ambition, the east and the west are doomed to tributary bondage, you
rapidly earned destruction as the wages of a nation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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