1364. COLONIES (The American), Union of.—[continued].
[Lord North's] proposition
* * * is unreasonable and insidious:
unreasonable because if we declare we
accede to it, we declare, without reservation,
we will purchase the favor of Parliament,
not knowing at the same time at what price
they will please to estimate their favor; it is
insidious because any individual Colonies,
having bid and bidden again till they find the
avidity of the seller too great for all their
powers, are then to return into opposition,
divided from their sister Colonies, whom the
minister will have previously detached by a
grant of easier terms, or by an artful procrastination
of a definitive answer.—
Reply of Congress to Lord North's Proposition.
Ford ed., i, 478.
(July. 1775)
