Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not
yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long
habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable
outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time
makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means
of calling the right of it in question (and in matters too which
might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been
aggravated into the inquiry) and as the K— of England had
undertaken in his own Right, to support the Parliament in what he
calls Theirs, and as the good people of this country are
grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted
privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to
reject the usurpation of either.
In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided
every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as
well as censure to individuals makes no part thereof. The wise,
and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those
whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of
themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their
conversion.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all
mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not
local, but universal, and through which the principles of all
Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their
Affections are interested. The laying a Country
desolate with
Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all
Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of
the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given
the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure,
is the
AUTHOR.
P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with
a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to
refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet
appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for
getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably
past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to
the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself,
not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is
unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public
or private, but the influence of reason and principle.
Philadelphia, February 14, 1776.