The Virginia Gazette

Mess. DIXON & HUNTER.

GENTLEMEN,

SUSSEX, April 24, 1776.

NOTWITHSTANDING the performance in your gazette of the 13th instant, for his accurate calculations, yet I cannot help thinking but we might have been benefited in a much higher degree, had the writer treated the subject with more candour. He enumerates the many and great advantages which America would receive from a free and unlimited commerce, but forgets that this commerce would meet with daily interruptions from the most powerful naval force in the whole world, and consequently the profits which might accrue from it could not be half so considerable as if carried on without molestation: And so fond is he of his favourite doctrine, that he thinks nothing of the loss we should certainly sustain, nothing of the lives of thousands of our fellow creatures, which would inevitably be sacrificed if independence was at once declared. An ingenuous writer will never suppress any weighty argument which can be urged on the opposite side of the question, but will sum up the whole which reason suggests, and then draw his conclusion, without partiality or prejudice. That the Americans are able to throw off their dependence on Britain, and still be a happy people, I hope, appears obvious to all; but this is not to be done in a moment. Time is necessary to bring about an event of such importance as this, and a sea of blood must be spilt before it can be effected. And that Britain would fall from that state of grandeur, which has distinguished her for ages past, if separated from the colonies, has been foretold by an able Statesman, no less famed for his goodness of heart, than his skill in politics. But why should we, through an impetuous zeal, involve ourselves still deeper in an expensive war, for the sake of injuring a people with whom we have been long connected, and in which connexion we once were happy, when perhaps it may be avoided? If commissioners are coming over, why should we condemn their propositions before we have heard them? It is ungenerous, it is absurd. The writer above-mentioned seems to dread the wiles and artifice of a corrupt Ministry; but I am thoroughly satisfied that our Congress is superior to any Ministry on earth in point of abilities. However closely attached some men may be to their own opinions, I think, that in matters of this nature we ought to be governed by the wisest and most discerning among us: These undoubtedly form the Congress, and therefore let our line of conduct be drawn by the Congress. I am, with esteem, &c.

A LOVER OF LIBERTY.