me advise you, Sir, as you regard your own Prosperity, and the Welfare of your Kingdom, let me conjure you, as you value your own Safety, to consider well the fatal and ruinous Measures your Ministers are persuing, and you sanctifying with the Royal Authority; consider the Miserable, the unfortunate Situation of this Country; think on the Dangers which threaten it on every side; consider, we are now upon the Eve of a Civil War with our Colonies; from the present Face of things, it is inevitable; Trade and Commerce is at a stand, and all the Horrors of Wretchedness and Want, stare them in the Face; consider, Sir, the feelings of Men, reduced in the short space of a few Days, through wanton Acts of Power, from a state of Ease and Plenty, to that of Misery and Famine, I ask, is it possible for them to set Bounds to their Resentment; consider, Sir, the French and Spaniards will not long remain idle Spectators, when once they see us deeply engaged in a War with the Colonies. Throw off then your supine Indolence; awake from your Lethargic State; and if you will not be excited by the desire of doing GOOD, awake at least to a Sense of your OWN DANGER: think when the general Calamity comes on, who will be the Objects of Public hatred. Will not the Advisers of these destructive Measures, be the first Sacrifices to the popular Resentment. When the Merchants, Traders, and Manufacturers, are starving; when the whole Body of the People are in Misery and Distress, what Security, Sir, can you expect to find? Where will your Ministers conceal themselves; they will not be Safe even within the Walls of your Palace?
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Let these things, Sir, be well weighed, and no longer persuade yourself the People was made for you, and not you for them; no longer believe that you do not Govern for them but for yourself; that the People Live only to increase your Glory, or to furnish Matter for your Pleasure: for once, Sir, consider what you may do for them, and not what you may draw from them.
The People, Sir, think it to be a Crime of the first Magnitude, to convert that power to their Hurt, which was intended for their Good: and to obey a King, while he Acts in this Manner, and tramples under Foot all Laws, Divine and Human, argues not only a want of Sense in the highest Degree, but a want of Love for our Country, and a disregard for ourselves and Posterity.
Your Subjects, Sir, are under no Obligations to you, nor do they owe you any Allegiance, any longer than you continue to protect them, and make their Good, the chief end of your Government.4 When a Prince assumes to himself an extravagant, or an unlawful Power, then all Respect ceases; and he ceases to be a King: whilst he Protects and Preserves his People in their just Right, and Governs them by the Laws of the Land, all good Men will Love and Esteem him, and risk their Lives and Fortunes in his Service; but when he begins to invade their Liberties, to set up an Arbitrary Power, to impose unlawful Taxes, raise Forces, and make War upon his People, and suffer Foreign States
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to insult and injure them; then all Virtuous and Good Men, will detest and abhor him, and endeavour to remove him from a Throne, he unworthily fills.
In such cases, resistance is a Virtue, and to say that some should passively Suffer, lest by resisting they should cause the Ruin of many, is not a just Reason; because, in all Probability, they will be the Cause that Millions unborn, shall Live Happy and Free, and what can be a more Noble, Glorious, and Pious Motive for Suffering, than to transmit Liberty to Posterity: for this our Fathers bravely Fought, and many of them gloriously Fell, to preserve themselves and their descendants Free, and to destroy the Tyranny and Despotism of the Stuarts; and, Sir, let me beg you will reminder with Gratitude, to place your Family upon the Throne of the British Empire.5
The Author of this Paper, is far from advising violent Measures, upon every Error, or Misconduct of a Prince, but Resistance becomes a Duty, when they attempt the Ruin of the state, the subversion of Liberty, or overturning the Constitution of the Kingdom. It is notorious to the World, Sir, that your Ministers are Guilty of all these black, and deadly Crimes, and yet you Screen and Protect them; the Conclusions to be drawn from thence are obvious, and you, like Charles, may Live to see Your Favourites FALL.
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To the People of ENGLAND and AMERICA.
On the 31st 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.
Printed and published for the Authors, by T. W. SHAW, in Fleet Street, opposite Anderton’s Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received.
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THE
CRISIS
| NUMBER X | To be continued Weekly. |
| SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1775 | [Price Two-pence Half-penny. |
LETTER II.
To the Right Honourable LORD APSLEY, Lord Chancellor of England.
My LORD,
March 6, 1775.
I SHALL begin this letter to your Lordship, with an extract of a Letter, I addressed some Time since, to Lord Mansfield, because I knew how exactly your Lordship’s capacity is fitted, to think just as he thinks.
To him observed;—to your Lordship I repeat it.—
“That in matters of private Property, we see the same byass and Inclination, to depart from the decision of your Predecessors, which you certainly ought to receive, as evidence of Common Law: Instead of those certain positive Rules, by which the Judgement of a Court of Law, should invariably be determined; you have fondly introduced, your own unsettled notions, of equity, and substantial Justice. Decisions given upon such Principles, do not alarm the Public, so much as they ought; because the Consequence, and tendency of EACH PARTICULAR INSTANCE, is not observed, or regarded.” But the Day is now come my Lord;—the Public
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have taken the Alarm;—your Lordships lawless Decision, in the court of Chancery, in the Cause of THICKNESS and LIEGE, and the Mannner in which it was corruptly Affirmed in the House of Lords, has shook the Kingdom to its very Basis.—Till that fatal Day my Lord, the supreme Tribunal of this Country, stood un-impeached and un-polluted, as to Matters of Private Property: But that was a Day in which a Deed was done, that even Lord Mansfield durst not become a Partisan.
That Day, my Lord, was only a grievous Day, to the Appellant: but it will prove a fatal Blow to BRITAIN.
When the Foundations of Justice, are so corrupted, that the first Law Officer in the Kingdom, shall dare to stand forth, in the highest Court of Judicature, knowing that he has assistant Judges, determined to support him in reading Letters containing the Opinions of Men, not Judges in that Court; in order to affirm a Decree unsupported by Argument, and in direct contradiction to a former and recent Judgment of that House; the Day cannot be very remote, when the Nation, the Laws and the Violators of them, will all be involved in one COMMON RUIN.
You Lordship is now brought to a greater TRIBUNAL, than even the House of Lords.
The Tribunal of the PUBLIC.
You stand Charged my Lord, at that awful Bar, with setting at Defiance, those Laws you were so shamefully appointed to support, in order to confirm