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That in an age, where every mouth is open for liberty of confcience, it is equitable to fhew fome regard to the confcience of a papift, who may be fuppofed, like other men, to think himfelf fafeft in his own religion; and that thofe at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to deny it to our new fubjects.

If liberty of confcience be a natural right, we have no power to withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papifts, while it is not denied to other fects.

A Patriot is neceffarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even this mark may fometimes deceive us.

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The people is a very heterogeneous and confufed mass of the wealthy and the poor, the wife and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we confer on a man, who careffes the people, the title of Patriot, we must examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is proverbially faid, that he who diffembles his own character, may be known by that of his companions. If the candidate of Pa triotifm endeavours to infufe right opinions into the higher ranks, and by their influence to regulate the lower; if he conforts chiefly with the wife, the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may be rational and honeft. But if his firft or principal application be to the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally fufpicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the profligate, who have no hope but from mifchief and confufion; let his love of the people be

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no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot, or attending the meeting at Mile-End, or registering his name in the Lumber Troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and among fober handicraftfmen, a free-fpoken gentleman; but he must have some better diftinction before he is a Patriot.

A Patriot is always ready to countenance the juft claims, and animate the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them frequently of their rights, and ftimulates them to resent encroachments, and to multiply fecurities.

But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that raifes falfe hopes to ferve a prefent purpose, only makes a way for disappointment and discontent. He who promifes to endeavour, what he knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.

A true Patriot is no lavish promifer: he undertakes not to fherten parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation, tranfmitted by our ancestors: he knows that futurity is not in his power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.

Much less does, he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the mandates of his conftituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and the inconftancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the opinion of his conftituents fhall be taken. Popular instructions are commonly the work, not of

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the wife and steady, but the violent and rafh; meetings held for directing representatives are feldom attended but by the idle and the diffolute; and he is not without fufpicion, that of his conftituents, as of other numbers of men, the finaller part may often be the wifer.

He confiders himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to preferve his conftituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.

The common marks of Patriotifm having been examined, and fhewn to be fuch as artifice may counterfeit, or folly mifapply, it cannot be improper to confider, whether there are not fome characteristical modes of fpeaking or acting, which may prove a man to be NOT A PATRIOT.

In this inquiry, perhaps clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer perfuafion attained; for it is commonly easier to know what is wrong than what is right; to find what we fhould avoid, than what we should purfue,

As war is one of the heavieft of national evils, a calamity in which every fpecies of mifery is involved; as it fets the general fafety to hazard, fufpends commerce, and defolates the country; as it expofes great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who defires the publick profperity, will inflame general refentment by aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing difputable rights of little importance.

It may therefore be fafely pronounced, that thofe men are no Patriots, who when the national honour

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was vindicated in the fight of Europe, and the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had fhrunk to a difavowal of their attempt and a relaxation of their claim, would ftill have inftigated us to a war for a bleak and barren fpet in the Magellanick ocean, of which no ufe could be made, unless it were a place of exile for the hypocrites of patriotifm.

Yet let it not be forgotten, that by the howling violence of patriotick rage the nation was for a time exafperated to fuch madness, that for a barren rock, under a ftormy sky, we might have now been fighting and dying, had not our competitors been wiser than ourfelves; and those who are now courting the favour of the people by noify profeffions of publick fpirit, would, while they were counting the profits of their artifice, have enjoyed the patriotick pleasure of hearing fometimes, that thousands had been flaughtered in a battle, and fometimes that a navy had been difpeopled by poifoned air and corrupted food.

He that wishes to fee his country robbed of its rights, cannot be a Patriot.

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That man therefore is no Patriot, who juftifies the ridiculous claims of American ufurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its natural and lawful authority over its own colonies; thofe colonies, which were fettled under English protection; were constituted by an English charter; and have been defended by English arms.

To fuppofe, that by fending out a colony, the na¬ tion established an independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are become

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rich, they fhall not contribute to their own defence, but at their own pleasure; and that they fhall not be included, like millions of their fellow-fubjects, in the general fyftem of reprefentation; involves fuch an accumulation of abfurdity, as nothing but the fhow of patriotifm could palliate.

He that accepts protection, ftipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans; we may therefore fubject them to government.

The lefs is included in the greater. That power which can take away life, may feize upon property. The parliament may enact for America a law of capital punishment; it may therefore establish a mode and proportion of taxation,

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But there are fome who lament the ftate of the Boftonians, because they cannot all be fuppofed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all are involved in the penalty impofed. This, they fay, is to violate the first rule of juftice, by condemning the innocent to fuffer with the guilty.

This deferves fome notice, as it feems dictated by equity and humanity, however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the ftate of man, and the fyftem of things. That the innocent should be confounded with the guilty, is undoubtedly an evil; but it is an evil which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national punithments, of which many muft neceffarily have their part, who have not incurred them by perfonal guilt. If rebels fhould fortify a town, the cannon of lawful authority will endanger equally the harmless burghers and the criminal garrifon.

In fome cafes, those fuffer moft who are least intended to be hurt. If the French in the late war had

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