There never, Gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been put to so sore a trial.  It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest; but the separation of fame and virtue is an harsh divorce.  Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen.  Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.  The principles of our forefathers become suspected to us, because we see them animating the present opposition of our children.  The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more shocking to us than the base vices which are generated from the rankness of servitude.  Accordingly, the least resistance to power appears more inexcusable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of authority.  All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as a superstitious panic.  All shame of calling in foreigners and savages in a civil contest is worn off.  We grow indifferent to the consequences inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword.  We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state.

It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breeds such notions and dispositions without some great alteration in the national character.  Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so fortified against all other things, and so unarmed to whatever approaches in the shape of disgrace, finding these principles, which they considered as sure means of honor, to be grown into disrepute, will retire disheartened and disgusted.  Those of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men, who pay some of their court to power through the people, and substitute the voice of transient opinion in the place of true glory, will give into the general mode; and those superior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice will confirm and aggravate its errors.  Many things have been long operating towards a gradual change in our principles; but this American war has done more in a very few years than all the other causes could have effected in a century.  It is therefore not on its own separate account, but because of its attendant circumstances, that I consider its continuance, or its ending in any way but that of an honorable and liberal accommodation, as the greatest evils which can befall us.  For that reason I have troubled you with this long letter.  For that reason I entreat you, again and again, neither to be persuaded, shamed, or frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so many of you to abhor the war, its cause, and its consequences.  Let us not be amongst the first who renounce the maxims of our forefathers.