That dissimilitude
of appearance, which was supposed to keep them distinct from the
rest of the nation, might disincline them from coalescing with the
Pensylvanians, or people of Connecticut. If the restitution of
their arms will reconcile them to their country, let them have
again those weapons, which will not be more mischievous at home
than in the Colonies. That they may not fly from the increase of
rent, I know not whether the general good does not require that the
landlords be, for a time, restrained in their demands, and kept
quiet by pensions proportionate to their loss.
To hinder insurrection, by driving away the people, and to govern
peaceably, by having no subjects, is an expedient that argues no
great profundity of politicks. To soften the obdurate, to convince
the mistaken, to mollify the resentful, are worthy of a statesman;
but it affords a legislator little self-applause to consider, that
where there was formerly an insurrection, there is now a
wilderness.
It has been a question often agitated without solution, why those
northern regions are now so thinly peopled, which formerly
overwhelmed with their armies the Roman empire. The question
supposes what I believe is not true, that they had once more
inhabitants than they could maintain, and overflowed only because
they were full.
This is to estimate the manners of all countries and ages by our
own.
