and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy
of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever
may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward,
and the spirit of a sycophant.

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying
them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies,
and without which, we should be incapable of discharging
the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it.
I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge,
but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we
may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the
power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do
not conquer herself by DELAY and TIMIDITY. The present winter
is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected,
the whole continent will partake of the misfortune;
and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve,
be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means
of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things,
to all examples from former ages, to suppose, that this
continent can longer remain subject to any external power.
The most sanguine in Britain does not think so. The utmost
stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan
short of separation, which can promise the continent even
a year's security. Reconciliation is NOW a fallacious dream.
Nature hath deserted the connection, and Art cannot supply
her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, "never can true
reconcilement grow, where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep."