Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
of their port.
Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be
taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers,
and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent
planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.
But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom
the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous,
and who startle at the thoughts of "England free, and America in
chains." Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are
frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word;
but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations
between chains and anarchy.
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