supplies?  Indeed they complain without reason.  The table of the House of Commons will glut them, let their appetite for expense be never so keen.  And I assure them further, that those who think with them in the House of Commons are full as easy in the control as they are liberal in the vote of these expenses.  If this be not supply or confidence sufficient, let them open their own private purse-strings, and give, from what is left to them, as largely and with as little care as they think proper.

Tolerated in their passions, let them learn not to persecute the moderation of their fellow-citizens.  If all the world joined them in a full cry against rebellion, and were as hotly inflamed against the whole theory and enjoyment of freedom as those who are the most factious for servitude, it could not, in my opinion, answer any one end whatsoever in this contest.  The leaders of this war could not hire (to gratify their friends) one German more than they do, or inspire him with less feeling for the persons or less value for the privileges of their revolted brethren.  If we all adopted their sentiments to a man, their allies, the savage Indians, could not be more ferocious than they are:  they could not murder one more helpless woman or child, or with more exquisite refinements of cruelty torment to death one more of their English flesh and blood, than they do already.  The public money is given to purchase this alliance;—­and they have their bargain.

They are continually boasting of unanimity, or calling for it.  But before this unanimity can be matter either of wish or congratulation, we ought to be pretty sure that we are engaged in a rational pursuit.  Frenzy does not become a slighter distemper on account of the number of those who may be infected with it.  Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less because they are universal.  I declare that I cannot discern the least advantage which could accrue to us, if we were able to persuade our colonies that they had not a single friend in Great Britain.  On the contrary, if the affections and opinions of mankind be not exploded as principles of connection, I conceive it would be happy for us, if they were taught to believe that there was even a formed American party in England, to whom they could always look for support.  Happy would it be for us, if, in all tempers, they might turn their eyes to the parent state, so that their very turbulence and sedition should find vent in no other place than this!  I believe there is not a man (except those who prefer the interest of some paltry faction to the very being of their country) who would not wish that the Americans should from time to time carry many points, and even some of them not quite reasonable, by the aid of any denomination of men here, rather than they should be driven to seek for protection against the fury of foreign mercenaries and the waste of savages in the arms of France.