. Life and times of Washington. le, or risk our cause uponpetitions, which with difficulty obtain access, and after-wards are thrown by with the utmost contempt? Orshould we, because heretofore unsuspicious of design, andthen unwilling to enter into disputes with the mother coun-try, go on to bear more, and forbear to enumerate ourjust causes of complaint? For my owii part, I shall not undertake to say wherethe line between Great Britain and the Colonies should bedrawn, but I am clearly of opinion that one ought to bedrawn and our rights clearly ascertained. I could wish,I own, that the disput
. Life and times of Washington. le, or risk our cause uponpetitions, which with difficulty obtain access, and after-wards are thrown by with the utmost contempt? Orshould we, because heretofore unsuspicious of design, andthen unwilling to enter into disputes with the mother coun-try, go on to bear more, and forbear to enumerate ourjust causes of complaint? For my owii part, I shall not undertake to say wherethe line between Great Britain and the Colonies should bedrawn, but I am clearly of opinion that one ought to bedrawn and our rights clearly ascertained. I could wish,I own, that the dispute had been left for posterity to de-termine, but the crisis is arrived when we must assert ourrights or submit to every, imposition that can be heapedupon us, till custom shall make us as tame and abjectslaves as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway. If you disavow the right of Parliament to tax us, (un-represented as we are), we only differ in respect to themode of opposition, and this difference principally arises. FIRST MEETING UI li .lJjHJ.\ulU.\ AW iLIMlLtuN. LIFE AND TIMES. 625 from your belief that they ^ the Parliament — want a de-cent opportunity to repeal the acts; whilst I am as fullyconvinced, as I am of my own. existence, that there hasbeen a regular systematic plan formed to enforce them,and that nothing but unanimity in the colonies (a strokethey did not expect) and firmness, can prevent it. It seemsfrom the best advices from Boston, that General Gageis exceedingly disconcerted at the quiet and steady conductof the people of Massachusetts Bay, and at the measurespursuing by the other governments; as I dare say he ex-pected to have forced those oppressed people into compli-ance, or irritated them to acts of violence, before this, fora more colorable pretense of ruling that and the othercolonies with a high hand. But I am done. I shall set off on Wednesday next for Philadelphia.]Lord Chatham, in his celebrated speech in the Houseof Lords, on the 20th
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