I think I know America,—­if I do not, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it,—­and I do most solemnly assure those of my constituents who put any sort of confidence in my industry and integrity, that everything that has been done there has arisen from a total misconception of the object:  that our means of originally holding America, that our means of reconciling with it after quarrel, of recovering it after separation, of keeping it after victory, did depend, and must depend, in their several stages and periods, upon a total renunciation of that unconditional submission which has taken such possession of the minds of violent men.  The whole of those maxims upon which we have made and continued this war must be abandoned.  Nothing, indeed, (for I would not deceive you,) can place us in our former situation.  That hope must be laid aside.  But there is a difference between bad and the worst of all.  Terms relative to the cause of the war ought to be offered by the authority of Parliament.  An arrangement at home promising some security for them ought to be made.  By doing this, without the least impairing of our strength, we add to the credit of our moderation, which, in itself, is always strength more or less.

I know many have been taught to think that moderation in a case like this is a sort of treason,—­and that all arguments for it are sufficiently answered by railing at rebels and rebellion, and by charging all the present or future miseries which we may suffer on the resistance of our brethren.  But I would wish them, in this grave matter, and if peace is not wholly removed from their hearts, to consider seriously, first, that to criminate and recriminate never yet was the road to reconciliation, in any difference amongst men.  In the next place, it would be right to reflect that the American English (whom they may abuse, if they think it honorable to revile the absent) can, as things now stand, neither be provoked at our railing or bettered by our instruction.  All communication is cut off between us.  But this we know with certainty, that, though we cannot reclaim them, we may reform ourselves.  If measures of peace are necessary, they must begin somewhere; and a conciliatory temper must precede and prepare every plan of reconciliation.  Nor do I conceive that we suffer anything by thus regulating our own minds.  We are not disarmed by being disencumbered of our passions.  Declaiming on rebellion never added a bayonet or a charge of powder to your military force; but I am afraid that it has been the means of taking up many muskets against you.