' Doctor Sparks noticed this outrage, in these words : " The Committee "reasoned but imperfectly from the facts of history and the principles of "human nature, when they supposed that people, with arms in their " hands, would be tempted to resign them, by such motives as were held "out. They must either be treated as friends or enemies. If friends, "their safety and interest required that the soldiers who were to pro- " tect their property and defend their rights should be armed ; and the " call of patriotism would be the loudest that could be made to them. " While deaf to this call, they would not be made to listen to the Orders " of a Committee or the Resolves of a Congress. If enemies, the senBO " of present danger, operating on the first law of nature, would prompt " them to keep within their powerj their only sure means of defence. "In either case, the idea of taking away their arms, by a compulsory "impressment, had little to recommend it, either in policy or prudence." -- {Life of Gouverneur Morris, i., 63.)
■The Doctor reasoned, above, on the ground that the Order of the Committee was an isolated act, disconnected with any other of the class ; and he reasoned well, on that premise ; but the fact was, another Order had just been made, in- secret, to seize the persons and properties of those who were obnoxious to the Committee and its subordinates ; and it was considered necessary, for the safety of the marauders, to deprive the secretly proposed victims of that earlier enactment, of their means for defence, before it commenced, openly, its work of lawlessness and outrage, on the persons and properties of those who had been or who should, thenceforth, be designated as its victims.