are not, or will not long be ignorant that the King, the Lords and Commons, have, (to satiate their Revenge against a few Individuals) declared the whole People of America to be in a State of Rebellion, only because they have openly avowed their Resolution to support their Charters, Rights and Liberties, against the secret Machinations of designing Men who would destroy them: and you are fixed upon as the Instruments of their Destruction. However, I entertain too good an Opinion of you, to believe there is one TRUE ENGLISHMAN, who will undertake the BLOODY Work. Men without Fortunes, Principles or Connections, may indeed, handle their Arms in a desperate Cause, to oblige a Tyrant, or Monster in human Shape: But Men of Family and Fortune, or, of honest Principles, I hope could never be prevailed upon to sheath their Swords in the Bowels of their Countrymen. Englishmen, surely cannot be found to execute so diabolical a Deed, to imbrue their Hands in innocent Blood, and fight against their Friends and Country; Actions which must brand them with perpetual Marks of Reproach and Infamy.
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O! my Countrymen, let neither private Interest, nor Friendship; neither Relations, nor Connections; prevail with, or induce you to obey (as you must answer at the last Day, before the aweful Judge of the World, for the Blood that will be wantonly and cruelly Spilt) the murderous Orders of an inhuman Tyrant; who, to gratify his lust of Power, would lay waste the World. No, rather enter into a solemn League, and join with the rest of your Countrymen, to oppose the present Measures of Government planned for our RUIN.
When your Country calls, then stand forth and defend the Cause of Liberty, despise the Degeneracy of the Age, the Venality of the Times, and hand Freedom down to Posterity; that your Children may smiling bless, not curse your war-like Resolution. To die gloriously fighting for the Laws and Liberties of your Country, is honourable, and would deserve a Crown of Martyrdom; to die fighting against it, is Infamy; and you would for ever deserve the heaviest Curses and Execration.
I hope neither you nor the Irish have forgot the shameful Insults you have received from the King, ever since the Conclusion, of the last war; you have been despised, neglected, and treated with Contempt; while a Parcel of beggarly Scotchmen only, have been put into every Place of Profit and Trust, in the East and West Indies, in England and America, and the Preference has, of Honours and Promotions, been constantly given to those People, nay even to Rebels; and some who have served in the French Service.
Be assured, if you can be prevailed upon to butcher, or enslave your fellow-Subjects, and to set up an arbitrary Power on the Ruins of public Liberty, that your Subsistance would soon be reduced to the miserable Pittance of foreign Troops; and you with the surviving Subjects of England and America, be reduced to the miserable Condition of being ruled by an Army of Scotch Janizaries, assisted by Roman Catholics.
Let every English and Irish Officer, Soldier, and Seaman, seriously Weigh these things; and then if they are Valiant, Courageous, Magnanimous and Free, like their Forefathers; if they are True to their King and their
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Country; if they Value their Religion, Laws, Lives, Liberties, Families, and Posterity; no Consideration can prevail with them to engage against the Americans, in an Inhuman Bloody CIVIL WAR.
Let every Man then who is really and truly a Protestant, who wishes well to his Country, and the Rights of Mankind; lay aside his Prejudices, and consider the Cause of America, and her Success in this Struggle for Freedom, as a Thing of the last Consequence to England, upon which OUR Salvation depends, for the present plan of Royal Despotism is a Plan of GENERAL RUIN. I say let us all SPEEDILY unite and endeavour to defend them from their OPEN, and ourselves from our own secret and domestic Enemies, and if any are luke-warm in this great public Cause, at this Time of emminent Danger; let them be made an Example of TREACHERY and COWARDICE: that the present Generation may detest and abhor them, and Posterity declaim against and curse them, as unnatural Monsters, who would destroy the Human Race.
To the People of ENGLAND and AMERICA.
Sometime in the middle of March will be published, Price 1s 6d. in Quarto, on a fine Paper and new Type,
The Prophecy of RUIN, a Poem.
Ense velut Stricto, quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet Auditor cui frigida Mens est,
Criminibus, tacita sudant Praecordia Culpa.
JUVENAL.
Sharp as a Sword Lucilius drew his Pen,
And struck with panic Terror guilty Men,
At his just Strokes the harden’d Wretch would start,
Feel the cold Sweat, and tremble at the Heart.
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Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. SHAW, Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, and by his Appointment the Corner of Little Turnstile, High Holborn, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.
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THE
CRISIS
| NUMBER V | To be continued Weekly. |
| SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1775 | [Price Two-pence Half-penny. |
Resistance to Tyrants and the Instruments of Tyranny is Justifiable, and Warranted, by all the Laws of GOD and MAN.
To the PEOPLE.
AT a juncture like the Present, when the National reputation of BRITAIN, as well as her absolute Safety, stands tottering on the brink of Destruction; when LIBERTY and FREEDOM, the great Pillars of the Constitution, are, by Force and Fraud, undermined, and tumbling into Ruins; when the BLOODY Sword of Tyranny is drawn against America, and soon to be plunged into the Bowels of her innocent Inhabitants; when the present Sovereign, aided by a despisable Junto, the REBEL, out-cast, and refuse of Scotland, and a Parliament not returned by the free Suffrages of the People, are rioting with IMPUNITY in the Spoils of an insulted powerful Kingdom; when they, by cruel Oppression, have spread Terror and CIVIL WAR, in every Part of the British Empire; when they have destroyed or suspended her
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Trade, and sapped the Credit of Public Security; when the most iniquitous and unjust Laws are Daily passed to curb the Spirit, and bind in Chains, the Hands of a BRAVE and FREE PEOPLE; when St. James’s is made the Slaughter House of America; when the Sovereign is become a national Executioner, and for a Scepter, carries a BLOODY KNIFE; when by a most Scandalous and Shameful profusion of the Public Money, we are hourly Robbed and Plundered, to answer all the Purposes of King-Craft and Villainy; When new Taxes are Daily imposed upon the People in time of Peace, to the almost intire Ruin of the State; when the Minions of Despotism are increasing the Land Forces, for the open and avowed Purpose of wading knee deep in Blood, through the Liberties of Britain; when the Protestant Religion is openly Subverted, and the British Subjects in Canada, deprived of those great Securities of their personal Liberty and Property, the HABEAUS CORPUS ACT, and Trial by JURIES; when a suspending, and dispensing Power is assumed by the Crown; when Opposition, to the most cruel and wanton Acts of LAWLESS POWER, is deemed REBELLION; when the Senators, designed the Protectors of the People, are become their Destroyers; when the appointed Guardians of Public Freedom, are become Base Apostates, and Conspirators against the Liberties of Mankind; when neither OATHS, nor CONSCIENCE, can bind the Sovereign or his Ministers; when both PUBLIC and PRIVATE JUSTICE is denied to a Subject, nay, to the whole Body of the People at Large; when our Lives are exposed to false Accusations, and our Persons to arbitrary Imprisonment, and heavy Fines; when the Judges before whom we are to stand upon Life and Death, and before whom all Cases concerning Liberty and Property, must be brought; too much devoted to the Will and Pleasure of the Crown, and Enemies to the natural Rights of Mankind; when Juries who are to decide our