" They, anxious to secure to themselves and their "posterity power and authority, and to engross some " (jlfices or pensions from or under the Crown, have " made a sacrifice of all public virtue on the altar of "self-interest. This desperate spirit it was that in- " duced these traitors or mercenary hirelings to exert " tlieir influence to bring about the detestable meas- " urcs proposed by a certain j)aper handed about here

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

" last Winter, entitled ' The Loyalist's Test.' ^ But, " happily for this Mauor, this very dangerous scheme " was disconcerted by some lovers of Loyally and " Liberty. For the men who would make such in- " roads ou the liberties of the people, as they were " aiming at, to gratify their thirst for power, and give •' Administration a high idea of their influence in this " Manor, would, from the same principle, exert every

nerve of influence to carry any ministerial mandate ''into execution, at the expense of the liberties of

their fellow-countrymen.

"Can any judicious American son of liberty behold "these traitors of their Country without the utmost " abhorrence, by whose influence the more illiterate " and tho.-e who are uiiuctiuainted with the principles " of the present disi)ute, are so besotted as to resign •■ their liberties into the hands of the most ambitious ■' and designing fellows, who are aiming to make a " merit with the Ministry by enslaving their fellow- " countrymen, and to aggrandise themselves and "their posterity? Surely he caunot. If Charles the " i'irst deserved the axe, and James the Second the " loss of his Kingdom, for changing the Constitution, " and thereby trampling on the rights of their sub- "jects, 1 leave you, my Countrymen, to judge what " punishment would be adequate to the crimes of " these loyalists and their tools, who are aiming at " the same by a sacrifice of all public virtue and the " liberty of their Country.