Braintree, 7 May, 1776.
How many are the solitary hours I spend ruminating upon the past and
anticipating the future, whilst you, overwhelmed with the cares of
state, have but a few moments you can devote to any individual. All
domestic pleasures and enjoyments are absorbed in the great and
important duty you owe your country, "for our country is, as it were, a
secondary god, and the first and greatest parent. It is to be preferred
to parents, wives, children, friends, and all things,--the gods only
excepted; for, if our country perishes, it is as impossible to save an
individual as to preserve one of the fingers of a mortified hand." Thus
do I suppress every wish, and silence every murmur, acquiescing in a
painful separation from the companion of my youth and the friend of my
heart.
I believe 't is near ten days since I wrote you a line. I have not felt
in a humor to entertain you. If I had taken up my pen perhaps some
unbecoming invective might have fallen from it. The eyes of our rulers
have been closed, and a lethargy has seized almost every member. I fear
a fatal security has taken possession of them. Whilst the building is in
flames, they tremble at the expense of water to quench it. In short, two
months have elapsed since the evacuation of Boston, and very little has
been done in that time to secure it, or the harbor, from future
invasion. The people are all in a flame, and no one among us, that I
have heard of, even mentions expense. They think, universally, that
there has been an amazing neglect somewhere. Many have turned out as
volunteers to work upon Noddle's Island, and many more would go upon
Nantasket, if the business was once set on foot. "'T is a maxim of
state, that power and liberty are like heat and moisture. Where they are
well mixed, everything prospers; where they are single, they are
destructive."
A government of more stability is much wanted in this colony, and they
are ready to receive it from the hands of the Congress. And since I have
begun with maxims of state, I will add another, namely, that a people
may let a king fall, yet still remain a people; but, if a king let his
people slip from him, he is no longer a king. And as this is most
certainly our case, why not proclaim to the world, in decisive terms,
your own importance?
Shall we not be despised by foreign powers, for hesitating so long at a
word?
I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies; for,
whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to men, emancipating all
nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you
must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are
very hard, very liable to be broken; and, notwithstanding all your wise
laws and maxims, we have it in our power, not only to free ourselves,
but to subdue our masters, and, without violence, throw both your
natural and legal authority at our feet;--
"Charm by accepting, by submitting sway,
Yet have our humor most when we obey."
I thank you for several letters which I have received since I wrote
last; they alleviate a tedious absence, and I long earnestly for a
Saturday evening, and experience a similar pleasure to that which I used
to find in the return of my friend upon that day after a week's absence.
The idea of a year dissolves all my philosophy.
Our little ones, whom you so often recommend to my care and
instruction, shall not be deficient in virtue or probity, if the
precepts of a mother have their desired effect; but they would be doubly
enforced, could they be indulged with the example of a father
alternately before them. I often point them to their sire,--
"engaged in a corrupted state,
Wrestling with vice and faction."