23. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us
35 lines✦
4. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,burned our towns, and destroyed th: lives of our people. 25. He is at this time transporting large armies of for-eign mercenaries to complete the works of death. desolationand tyranny, already begun under circumstances of crueltyand perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages,and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. _ 26. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken cap-tive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, tobecome the executioners of their friends and brethren:or tofall themselves by their. hands, Cummings’ Encyclopedia. 495 27. He has excited domestic insurrection among us,and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of ourfrontiers the merciless Indian savages, w!) ose known rule ofwarfare isan undistinguished destruction of allages,sexes,> and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitionedfor redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitionshave been answered only by repeated injury. A princewhose character is thus marked by every act which may de-fine a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in ourattentions to our Brit-ish brethren. We have warned them, from time to time,of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarran-table jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them ofthe circumstances of our emigratiouand settlement here.We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kin-dred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitablyinterrupt our connections and correspondence. They, toohave been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which de-nounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the restof mankind—enemies in war; in peace, friends.
✦