anner as to we have already we have made are such as please ourselves, they answer the substantial purposes governmt & of justice, & other purposes than these should not be answered, We do not mean to burthen that our people shall be burthened with heavy & oppressive taxes to provide sinecures, for the drones of creation ministerial partisans the idle or wicked under color of providing for a civil list. But while parliament pursue their unmolested their plan of civil govnt within their own jurisdiction we hope also to pursue ours also without molestation.

We are of opinion the proposition is altogether unsatisfactory, because the parliament-it imports only a suspension, not a renunciation of the right to tax us; because too it is does not proposed to repeal the several acts of parl. passed for the purposes of restraining the trade and altering the form of government of the Eastern colonies; extending the boundaries, & changing the government & religion of Quebec; enlarging the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty & vice admiralty; taking from us the rights of trial by jury of the vicinage in cases affecting both life and property; exempting the murderers of colonists from legal trial transporting us into other countries to be tried for criminal offenses; exempting by mock-trial the murderers of colonists from punishment; and for quartering soldiers upon us in times of profound peace. Nor do they renounce the power of suspending our own legislatures & of legislating for us themselves in all cases whatsoever. So far indeed from repealing the injurious acts of parl. before mentioned they pass others at the same time equally injurious- On the contrary to show they mean not to dis continue- discontinuance of injuries injury at the very time of making this proposition they are passing acts at the very time of making holding out this proposition, for restraining the commerce & fisheries of the province of New England & for interdicting in general the trade of the other colonies with all foreign nations. This proof is proves unequivocally-of what we may expect in the future they mean not discontinuance of to relinquish this usurpa tion the exercise of indiscriminate legislation over us.

Upon the whole

This proposition seems to have been held up to the world to deceive them it into a belief that the colonies are unreasonable

there was no matter &c.' but and more particularly to lull into fatal security our well affected fellow subjects on that other side the water into a fatal security till time should be given for the operation of those arms which a British minister pronounced would instantaneously reduce the "cowardly" sons of America to unreserved submission. But when the world reflects how inadequate to justice are the vaunted terms offered, when it attends to the rapid & bold succession of injuries which for the space during a course of 11. years have been aimed at these colonies by a wicked administration, when it reviews the pacific & respectful applications complaints expostulations which during that whole time have been made the sole arms we oppose to their usurpations, them, when it considers observes that our complaints were either not heard at all, or were answered with new & accumulated injuries, when it considers recollects that the minister himself declared from the beginning on an former early occasion he would never cease [blank space in copy]' till America was at his feet, & that an avowed partisan of ministry has more lately denounced against America the dreadful sentence "Delenda est Carthago," that this was done in the presence of a British senate & being unreproved by them we must considered be taken to be as approved their own sentiment; when it considers the great armaments by sea & land with which they have invaded us by sea & land, & the circumstances of cruelty with which these have commenced & prosecuted hostilities; when these things we

1 That there is no matter in dispute between us but the single circumstance of the mode of levying taxes, which mode they are so good as to give up to us, of course that the colonies are unreasonable if they are not thereby perfectly satisfied whereas in truth our adversaries not only still claim a right of demanding ad libitum and of taxing us themselves to the full amount of their demands if we do not fulfil their pleasure, which leaves us without anything we can call property, but what is of more importance & what they keep in this proposal out of sight as if no such point was in contest, they claim a right of altering all our charters and established laws which leaves us without the least security for our lives or liberties. The proposition seems also calculated more particularly &c.-T. J.

In the copy as printed in the Journals of Congress (1., 191) the words that he would never treat with America till he had brought her to his feet are inserted here.

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say are laid together & attentively considered, can the world be deceived by the artifices of a ministry into an opinion that we are unreasonable, or can it hesitate to believe with us that nothing but our own exertions ean may defeat the ministerial sentence of death or submission.

TO JOHN RANDOLPH.'

MONTICELLO, August 25, 1775. DEAR SIR, I am sorry the situation of our country should render it not eligible to you to remain longer in it. I hope the returning wisdom of Great Britain will, ere long, put an end to this unnatural contest. There may be people to whose tempers and dispositions contention is pleasing, and who, therefore, wish a continuance of confusion, but to me it is of all states but one, the most horrid. My first wish is a restoration of our just rights; my second, a return of the happy period, when, consistently with duty, I may withdraw myself totally from the public stage, and pass the rest of my days in domestic ease and tranquillity, banishing every desire of ever hearing what passes in the world. Perhaps (for the latter adds considerably to the warmth of the former wish), looking with fondness towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, I cannot help hoping you may be able to contribute towards expediting this good work. I think it must be evident to yourself, that the Ministry have been deceived by their officers on this side of the water, who (for what purpose I cannot tell) have constantly represented the American opposition as

1 From Randolph's edition of Jefferson's writings.

that of a small faction, in which the body of the people took little part. This, you can inform them, of your own knowledge, is untrue. They have taken it into their heads, too, that we are cowards, and shall surrender at discretion to an armed force. The past and future operations of the war must confirm or undeceive them on that head. I wish they were thoroughly and minutely acquainted with every circumstance relative to America, as it exists in truth. I am persuaded, this would go far towards disposing

them to reconciliation. Even those in Parliament who are called friends to America, seem to know nothing of our real determinations. I observe, they pronounced in the last Parliament, that the Congress of 1774 did not mean to insist rigorously on the terms they held out, but kept something in reserve, to give up; and, in fact, that they would give up everything but the article of taxation. Now, the truth is far from this, as I can affirm, and put my honor to the assertion. Their continuance in this error may, perhaps, produce very ill consequences. The Congress stated the lowest terms they thought possible to be accepted, in order to convince the world they were not unreasonable. They gave up the monopoly and regulation of trade, and all acts of Parliament prior to 1764, leaving to British generosity to render these, at some future time, as easy to America as the interest of Britain would admit. But this was before blood was spilt. I cannot affirm, but have reason to think, these terms would not now be accepted. I wish no false sense of honor, no ignorance of our real

intentions, no vain hope that partial concessions of right will be accepted, may induce the Ministry to trifle with accommodation, till it shall be out of their power ever to accommodate. If, indeed, Great Britain, disjointed from her colonies, be a match for the most potent nations of Europe, with the colonies thrown into their scale, they may go on securely. But if they are not assured of this, it would be certainly unwise, by trying the event of another campaign, to risk our accepting a foreign aid, which, perhaps, may not be attainable, but on condition of everlasting avulsion from Great Britain. This would be thought a hard condition, to those who still wish for re-union with their parent country. I am sincerely one of those, and would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any other nation on earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of legislating for us, assumed by the British Parliament, and which late experience has shown they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole Island in the ocean.

If undeceiving the Minister, as to matters of fact, may change his disposition, it will, perhaps, be in your power, by assisting to do this, to render service to the whole empire, at the most critical time, certainly, that it has ever seen. Whether Britain shall continue the head of the greatest empire on earth, or shall return to her original station in the political scale of Europe, depends, perhaps, on the resolutions of the succeeding winter. God send they may be