The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Editor’s Note
• 1: Essays and Controversial Papers of the Revolution
• On Private Revenge
• On Self-delusion
• On Private Revenge
• 2: A Dissertation On the Canon and Feudal Law
• 3: Instructions of the Town of Braintree to Their Representative, 1765
• 4: The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym
• No. I
• No. Ii
• No. Iii
• 5: Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford
• No. I
• No. II: That the Hypocrite Reign Not, Lest the People Be Ensnared. Job.
• 6: The Independence of the Judiciary; a Controversy Between William Brattle and John Adams
• 7: Two Replies of the Massachusetts House of Representatives to Governor Hutchinson
• Answer to His Excellency’s Speech At the Opening of the Session
• Answer to His Excellency’s Speech
• 8: Novanglus; Or, a History of the Dispute With America, From Its Origin, In 1754, to the Present Time Addressed to the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay
• No. I
• No. Ii
• No. Iii
• No. Iv
• No. V
• No. Vi
• No. Vii
• No. Viii
• No. Ix
• No. X
• No. Xi
• No. Xii
• 9: Thoughts On Government: Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies
• 10: The Report of a Constitution, Or Form of Government, For the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Preamble
• Chapter I: A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Chapter II: The Frame of Government
• Chapter III: Executive Power
• Chapter IV: Judiciary Power
• Chapter V: Delegates to Congress, Commissions, Writs, Indictments, &c.; Confirmation of Laws, Habeas Corpus, and Enacting Style
• Chapter VI: The University At Cambridge, and Encouragement of Literature, &c.
• Chapter Vii and Last

No. i

We have often congratulated each other, with high satisfaction, on the glory we secured in both worlds by our favorite enterprise of planting America. We were Englishmen; we were citizens of the world; we were Christians. The history of nations and of mankind was familiar to us; and we considered the species chiefly in relation to the system of great nature and her all-perfect Author. In consequence of such contemplations as these, it was the unwearied endeavor of our lives to establish a society on English, humane, and Christian principles. This, (although we are never unwilling to acknowledge that the age in which we lived, the education we received, and the scorn and persecution we endured, had tinctured our minds with prejudices unworthy of our general principles and real designs,) we are conscious, was our noble aim. We succeeded to the astonishment of all mankind; and our posterity, in spite of all the terrors and temptations which have from first to last surrounded them, and endangered their very being, have been supremely happy. But what shall we say to the principles, maxims, and schemes, which have been adopted, warmly defended, and zealously propagated in America, since our departure out of it,—adopted, I say, and propagated, more by the descendants of some of our worthiest friends than by any others? You and I have been happier, in this respect, than most of our contemporaries. If our posterity have not without interruption maintained the principal ascendency in public affairs, they have always been virtuous and worthy, and have never departed from the principles of the Englishman, the citizen of the world, and the Christian. You very well remember the grief we felt, for many years together, at the gradual growth and prevalence of principles opposite to ours; nor have you forgotten our mutual joy at the very unexpected resurrection of a spirit which contributed so much to the restoration of that temper and those maxims which we have all along wished and prayed might be established in America. Calamities are the caustics and cathartics of the body politic. They arouse the soul. They restore original virtues. They reduce a constitution back to its first principles. And, to all appearance, the iron sceptre of tyranny, which was so lately extended over all America, and which threatened to exterminate all for which it was worth while to exist upon earth, terrified the inhabitants into a resolution and an ardor for the noble foundations of their ancestors.

But how soon is this ardor extinguished! In the course of a few months they have cooled down into such a tame, torpid state of indolence and inattention, that the missionaries of slavery are suffered to preach their abominable doctrines, not only with impunity, but without indignation and without contempt. What will be the consequence if that (I will not say contemptible but abominable) writer, Philanthrop, is allowed to continue his wicked labors? I say allowed, though I would not have him restrained by any thing but the cool contempt and dispassionate abhorrence of his countrymen; because the country whose interior character is so depraved as to be endangered from within by such a writer, is abandoned and lost. We are fully persuaded, that New England is in no danger from him, unless his endeavors should excite her enemies abroad, of whom she has many, and extremely inveterate and malicious, and enable them, in concert with others within her own bosom, whose rancor is no less malignant and venomous, to do her a mischief. With pleasure I see that gentlemen are taking measures to administer the antidote with the poison.

As the sober principles of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny are so gravely inculcated by this writer, as his artifices are so insidious, and his mis-affirmations so numerous and egregious, you will excuse me if I should again trouble you with a letter upon these subjects from your assured and immutable friend,

Winthrop

9and16 February 1767