CHAP. have connected them with another, and to assume among IX. the powers of the earth, the separate an equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, requires. that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self evident-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted amongmen, deriving their just powers from the eonsent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the pecessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immedīate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their o peration, till his consent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature-a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies, at places, unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representatives Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. the people X He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions, CHAP. to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned at large, for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. . He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others, to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws, for establishing judiciary pew ers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harrass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation; For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States; For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences; For abolishing the free system of English law in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power, to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. Y He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the work of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked, by every act, which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the necesssity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind-enemies in war— in peace friends. WE, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, Do, in the name, and by the authority of the good People of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection, between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support IX. of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection CHAP. of Divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour." dence Thus was the birth of Independence solemnly proclaim- Rejoicings ed. Regardless of the perils which surrounded her cra- on. ccount of dle, and resolved to nurse her into vigour, to cherish her Indepen into maturity, the people hailed her auspicious appearance with reverential joy, and steady confidence. What was to them the smallness of their armies? What, the exhausted state of their Treasury? What the threatening and formidable attitude of the tyrant, the distant and uncertain chance of Fereign succours? They were now Free and Independent, and resolved to live so, or to live no more. With such a disposition, they were invincible. Moral forces are the true bulwarks of nations. On the eighth of July, Independence was celebrated at Philadelphia with every mark of universal exultation; boonfires, discharges of artillery, joyous acclamations, announced the momentous æra. At New-York, the Declaration was, on the 11th of the same month, read to each brigade of the American army, then stationed in that city, and its neighbourhood:-it was heard with a respectful attention, soon succeeded by prolonged bursts of enthusiastic applause. In the evening, the equestrian statue of George III, erected in 1770, was laid prostrate; and its leaden materials were afterwards converted into bullets. In Baltimore and Boston, the patriots gave to their rejoicings still more vivid tints. Every trace of royalty was there obliterated. In Virginia, this confirmation of the popular wishes, and of the act by which a republican government had already been established, excited feelings which transcend all description. The interesting scene exhibited at Williamsburg, on the adoption of the Constitution, was renewed with additional effusions of that genuine, heartfelt joy, which flows from great national events. The pompous emblems of royal authority had already disappeared; an appropriate seal for the Commonwealth, now superceded that, formerly used by the representative of royalty, in the Colony.* During these transactions, the naval and military force Capture of the Ox.ord. of Virginia had not remained inactive. Two hundred and seventeen Scotch Highland regulars, were, on the 22d of June, brought to Williamsburg. Taken by the adventu rous Captain Biddle, off the banks of Newfoundland, in the Oxford, a Transport from Clyde,, but afterwards separated from their conqueror by a storm, they had overpowered the Prize-master and his few companions, and steered for Hampton Roads, where they expected to find * See Appendix, No. 14. CHAP. shelter and employment with Lord Dunmore. The ExIX. Governor, as already related, had now quitted that station. Captain Barron fell in with the Oxford, and again compelled her to humble her flag. Among these prisoners, were many valuable tradesmen. peaceably to prosecute their respective occupations in the It was proposed to them country; but few of them embraced the proposal. In general, their prejudices against America, were violent; and, strange effect of contending passions! many among them exhaled, in the same breath, an inconsistent rage against the Parliament and the Congress. The most stubborn, were ordered up to Richmond, at the falls of James river, and there placed under an adequate guard. Other, but less important prizes,were about the same time,brought into the principal rivers of Virginia. By a striking providential interposition, a similar good fortune had crowned the boldness and vigilance of the northern cruizersThey also had intercepted multitudes of armed mercenaries. and neutralized their aid. Dunmore is sland. Fire rafts, row-galleys, and floating batteries, were radriven from pidly constructed; and whilst Colonel Stephens was fortiGwynn's Ifying Portsmouth, and providing for the command of the whole harbour of Norfolk, Brigadier General Lewis prepared to attack Dunmore, and to dislodge him from his strong and comfortable station, on Gwynn's Island. The following narrative, transcribed from Purdie's Gazette, for July 29th, gives a full view of the manner in which this important object was accomplished : "We got to the Island on Monday, the 8th, and next |