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ant of Great-Britain,) together with that of the Weft-India iflands, and the Newfoundland fishery, and (in confequence of thefe loffes) with the diminution of our trade and maritime power, the decreafe of the produce of the customs and excife, the leffening of the fecurity of the national debt, and the neceffity, at the fame time, of continually laying on new taxes, which muft, in such a state of things, be principally levied upon the landed property of the kingdom. All thefe misfortunes, and more, were likely to be the confequence of the failure of fuccefs in this attempt to fubjugate America. And that this attempt would fail of fuccefs, was eafily forefeen, and publickly and repeatedly foretold, not only by many of the proteftant diffenters of the kingdom, but by numbers of people of other defcriptions in it, who thought it highly improbable that France (notwithflanding her profeffions of friendship and fidelity to her engagements with Great-Britain,) would forbear to interfere in favour of the colonies in one period or other of the difpute, in order to prevent the reconciliation and re-union of those two great members of the British empire, and (to ufe Dr. Franklin's expreffion in his memorial to the court of France in the autumn of the year 1777,) to improve the most favourable opportunity that had ever been offered her, of humbling her moft powerful and hereditary enemy. And now the event has fhown that this apprehenfion was but too well grounded. It ought not therefore to be imputed as a crime to the proteftant diffenters of the kingdom, that they oppofed that impolitick fyftem of meafures which, they faw, was likely to bring ruin on the nation, and deprive his Majefty of a great and oft flourishing part of his dominions ;--and much lefs ought it to be confidered as a crime of fo deep a dye as to warrant the very fevere meafures which the Archbishop recommends to be taken against them, of treating

them

them as a fet of people who, by principle, are enemies to the conftitution of their country, and of extending to them, on that account, the laws formerly made against papifts.

As for the other event of this attempt to fubjugate America, I mean the fuccefsful one, the Archbishop himfelf has furnished all lovers of civil liberty with the most substantial reafons for wifhing that it might not happen, by difplaying to them the fyftem of measures which, he thinks, in that event, ought to have been, and would have been, adopted, by those who direct the publick counfels of this nation, for the future regulation of America, to wit, the fyftem which is contained in the firft paffage above-recited from his grace's ferinon, and of which I have ventured in the foregoing pages to furnish the reader with a paraphrafe. For, if America had been perfectly fubdued, and reduced, (as the fashionable expreffion was,) to unconditional fubmiffion, and, in confequence of fuch reduction, the aforefaid fyftem of meafures, (which are defcribed in the above paraphrase, and which I conceive to have been thofe which the Archbishop must have had in his eye when he preached that fermon,) had been adopted by the British parliament; I must freely confefs that I fhould have thought it a greater misfortune than even the contrary, and more probable, event, which has happened, with all the train of melancholy confequences that feem likely to accompany it,-fuch as the lofs of all ourpoffeffions both in North-America and the Weft-Indies, together with that of the Newfoundland fishery (though fo valuable to us as a nursery for feamen,) and that of Gibraltar and Minorca, and of all our poffeffions in Africa and the East-Indies. Thefe, I acknowledge, are great misfortunes: but the lofs of the civil liberties of the nation, or their being rendered precarious and dependant on the perfonal character and virtues of the king for the time being, (which would

have

have been the confequence of the fyftem of meafures recommended by the archbishop,) would be a much greater. And in this opinion, I truft, I am not fingular, but have the concurrence of thousands and tens of thousands of my fellow-fubjects.

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Flere veta populos; lacrymas, luctus que remitte:
Vincere PEJUS erat."

Lucani Pharfalia, Lib. 7, vers. 707, 708, 709.

F. M.

OF THE STATE OF NORTH AMERICA, AFTER THE CAPTURE OF LORD CORNWALLIS'S ARMY.

For the MORNING CHRONICLE.

MR. PRINTER,

London, August 7, 1782.

INCLOSED you have a letter wrote by a gentleman in South-Carolina to his friend in London, without the alteration of a word or fyllable. The writer I know to be a native of South-Britain, and that he is a gentleman of large property in America, where he has refided near twenty years. The knowledge and ability of the writer, and the fitness and propriety of the plans and reasons suggested, are submitted to the opinion of the nation; but whatever the politics of the day may determine, I am confident that Great-Britain will ere long be convinced, that it was her intereft and her wisdom to have adopted and pursued them with an ardour, which is due to that patriotifm, integrity, and good fenfe, with which they are recommended by the writer, for the benefit of his King and country.

A. B.

South-Carolina, March 28, 1782.

In the prefent fituation of affairs, to be filent is to be criminal; and I fhould ill deferve the confidence and friendship I have fo repeatedly experienced from you, if I did not give you my fentiments candidly on the times.

The fall of Lord Cornwallis is, beyond a doubt, a mis fortune of the first magnitude, but by no means places America in fo independent a fituation as the first com

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plexion of this unfortunate event feemed to give it in the eyes of the enemies to Great-Britain; but I am confining myself to the fouth country altogether, and, before I write another sentence, I will be free enough to own the imposfibility now of reducing the northern country to obedience, for there I confefs it is taking a bull by the horns. But the cafe is very different to the fouthward. The fall of Lord Cornwallis was not effected by the abilities, members, or refources of America: it was the power of France, it was their fuperior navy, and the infamous conduct of our own, that did the bufinefs: till the French gained this decifive advantage, our troops, though inferior in numbers, marched from one end of Virginia to the other, backwards and forwards, with little or no lofs. You will fay this is not conquering the country; I grant it; but it is exhaufting it in fuch a manner, that another campaign, with fuccefs, muft fo cripple it, as to render it incapable of fupporting itfelf against your operations. Whilft this was doing, about fixteen hundred troops, under a fenfible and an active officer, kept North-Carolina not only at bay, but in actual fufpenfe; whilst the Tories were ranging at large, and with support and judicious officers, would have very foon poffeffed themselves of all the principal leaders in that country against Britain. Why nothing was at tempted to be done in South-Carolina, with fo fine an army, is a paradox only to be folved by comparing it with what was not done to the northward.

Had my humble ideas prevailed either in England or New-York, Green would not have infulted a fuperior army fo long and fo fatally. I propofed (in my mind) that the laft reinforcement from England would have been made 1500 ftrong, and that fuch a number would have been fent into North-Carolina, and either landed at Cape Fear or Edenton; and forced their march to the weftward,

and

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