73 Pennsylvania Farmer’s Remedy (1768)
I hope, my dear countrymen, that you will in every colony be upon your guard against those who may at any time endeavor to stir you up under pretenses of patriotism to any measures disrespectful to our sovereign and our mother country. Hot, rash, disorderly proceedings injure the reputation of a people as to wisdom, valor, and virtue without procuring them the least benefit. I pray God that he may be pleased to inspire you and your posterity to the latest ages with that spirit of which I have an idea but find a difficulty to express. To express in the best manner I can, I mean a spirit that shall so guide you that it will be impossible to determine whether an American’s character is most distinguishable for his loyalty to his sovereign, his duty to his mother country, his love of freedom, or his affection for his native soil.
Every government at some time or other falls into wrong measures; these may proceed from mistake or passion. But every such measure does not dissolve the obligation between the governors and the governed. The mistake may be corrected, the passion may pass over. It is the duty of the governed to endeavor to rectify the mistake and appease the passion. They have not at first any other right than to represent their grievances and to pray for redress, unless an emergency is so pressing as not to allow time for receiving an answer to their applications, which rarely happens. If their applications are disregarded, then that kind of opposition becomes justifiable which can be made without breaking the laws or disturbing the public peace. This consists in the prevention of the oppressors reaping advantage from their oppressions and not in their punishment. For experience may teach them what reason did not and harsh methods cannot be proper till milder ones have failed.
If at length it become undoubted that an inveterate resolution is formed to annihilate the liberties of the governed, the English history affords frequent examples of resistance by force. What particular circumstances will in any future case justify such resistance can never be ascertained till they happen. Perhaps it may be allowable to say generally that it never can be justifiable until the people are fully convinced that any further submission will be destructive to their happiness. When the appeal is made to the sword, highly probable it is that the punishment will exceed the offense and the calamities attending on war outweigh those preceding it. These considerations of justice and prudence will always have great influence with good and wise men.
To these reflections on this subject, it remains to be added and ought for ever to be remembered that resistance in the case of colonies against their mother country is extremely different from the resistance of a people against their prince. A nation may change their King or race of Kings and retaining their ancient form of government be gainers by changing. Thus Great Britain under the illustrious house of Brunswick [Hanover, now Windsor], a house that seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts. But if once we are separated from our mother country, what new form of government shall we accept or when shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affections, relations, language, and commerce we must bleed at every vein.
In truth, the prosperity of these provinces is founded in their dependance on Great Britain and when she returns to “her old good humor and old good nature,” as Lord Clerendon expresses it. I hope they will always esteem it their duty and interest, as it most certainly will be, to promote her welfare by all the means in their power. We cannot act with too much caution in our disputes. Anger produces anger and differences that might be accommodated by kind and respectful behavior may by imprudence be changed to an incurable rage.
In quarrels between countries as well as in those between individuals, when they have risen to a certain height, the first cause of dissension is no longer remembered, the minds of the parties being wholly engaged in recollecting and resenting the mutual expressions of their dislike. When feuds have reached that fatal point, all considerations of reason and equity vanish and a blind fury governs, or rather confounds, all things. A people no longer regards their interest but the gratification of their wrath. The sway of the Cleons and Clodiuses, the designing and detestable flatterers of the prevailing passion, becomes confirmed.
Wise and good men in vain oppose the storm and may think themselves fortunate if, endeavoring to preserve their ungrateful fellow citizens, they do not ruin themselves. Their prudence will be called baseness, their moderation guilt. And if their virtue does not lead them to destruction, as that of many other great and excellent persons has done, they may survive to receive from their expiring country the mournful glory of her acknowledgment that their councils, if regarded, would have saved her. The constitutional modes of obtaining relief are those which I would wish to see pursued on the present occasion. That is by petitioning of our assemblies or, where they are not permitted to meet, of the people to the powers that can afford us relief.
We have an excellent prince in whose good dispositions towards us we may confide. We have a generous, sensible, and humane nation to whom we may apply. They may be deceived; they may by artful men be provoked to anger against us. But I cannot yet believe they will be cruel or unjust or that their anger will be implacable. Let us behave like dutiful children who have received unmerited blows from a beloved parent. Let us complain to our parents but let our complaints speak at the same time the language of affliction and veneration.
If however, it shall happen by an unfortunate course of affairs that our applications to his Majesty and the parliament for the redress prove ineffectual, let us then take another step by withholding from Great Britain all the advantages she has been used to receive from us. Then let us try if our ingenuity, industry, and frugality will not give weight to our remonstrances. Let us all be united with one spirit in one cause. Let us invent, let us work, let us save, let us at the same time keep up our claims and unceasingly repeat our complaints. But above all, let us implore the protection of that infinite good and gracious Being “by whom kings reign and princes decree justice.”
“Nil desperandum” Nothing is to be despaired of.
A FARMER.
Source: John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (Boston, 1768), 30-35. https://archive.org/details/toldcontemporari02hartrich/page/422/mode/2up
