The Virginia Gazette

Mr. RIND,

SIR,

Be pleased to insert the following lines in your next Gazette, and oblige your friend,

BRUTUS.

My dear countrymen,

The times indeed are big with danger and alarm; and we stand upon the precipice of ruin and misery. We are therefore called upon by reason, prudence, and a tender regard for our posterity, to use the means which nature hath given us, to provide for our safety. Let us put on a resolution equal to the mighty occasion: Let us exert a spirit worthy of Britons, worthy of freemen, who deserve liberty. Let all those who have a common interest in the public safety, join in common measures to defend the public safety. We have now an opportunity of rescuing the constitution, and settling it upon a firm and solid basis. Let us not then cease our endeavours, until we have accomplished that desirable end. We claim nothing new; we desire nothing more than the privileges of British subjects, the continuance of that constitution which we have long and peaceably enjoyed.

No government can long subsist, but by recurring often to its first principles. The prevailing principle of our government is virtue. If we would be happy, we must be more attentive to it than we hitherto have been; By that only can liberty be preserved; and on the preservation of liberty depends our happiness. By virtue, I here mean a love for our country, which makes us pursue, with alacrity, such measures as tend to its preservation; and cheerfully resist the temptations of ease and luxury, with which liberty is incompatible.

For luxury and idleness bring on a general depravation of manners, which sets us loose from all the restraints of both private and public virtue, and diverts our thoughts from examining the behaviour and politics of artful and designing men, who meditate our ruin, and would sacrifice their country for their private emolument. From immorality and excess we fall into necessity, and this leads us to a servile dependence upon power, and fits us for the chains prepared for us.

Whilst we live at ease and in luxury, we cannot be persuaded to see distant dangers, of which we feel no part. The conjunctures, then, proper for reformations in government, are when men are awakened by misfortunes, and sensible of the approach of present evils. Such, my countrymen, is the present conjuncture; and we may turn our misfortunes to our advantage, if we will consider our oppression as an opportunity given us by indulgent Providence to save ourselves. The measures, for this end, proposed by our late Representatives in their association, are wise and salutary. We should adopt them without hesitation. They greatly deserve our attention; and the example is worthy of imitation. They should know that we approve their conduct; and our approbation of it cannot be so well manifested, as by pursuing the measures they have prescribed. Whoever will reflect on the means used to procure a repeal of the Stamp-Act, and the good effects which resulted therefrom, will surely perceive the propriety of the present association, and admit the necessity for such a conduct. Similar causes will undoubtedly produce like effects. If a regard to our own manufactures, and a resolution not to import those of Britain, until that act was repealed, did then avail us, the success of the present measure is warranted; and nothing more is requisite, but an unfeigned and unanimous exertion of our powers to execute it.

Let the contention among us be, then, who shall most contribute to promote so salutary a purpose. Let us not foolishly neglect the invitation of Heaven to be happy. But let us from this moment pursue our real interest, and resolve to pay that attention to the manufactures of our own country, which alone can continue us a free and happy people.