to enterprising ruffians at HOME; and that degree of pride and insolence
ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers,
in instances, where a republican government, by being formed on more
natural principles, would negotiate the mistake.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence,
it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out--
Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following hints;
at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion
of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to
something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals
be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise
and able men to improve into useful matter.

LET the assemblies be annual, with a President only.
The representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic,
and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts,
each district to send a proper number of delegates to Congress,
so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in Congress
will be at least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose a president
by the following method. When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken
from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which, let the whole Congress
choose (by ballot) a president from out of the delegates of that province.
In the next Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting
that colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so
proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation.
And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily
just not less than three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority--