Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
Shall I wait to be punished with death, or else to be stripped of all food and raiment,
reduced to despair without redress and without hope. Shall those who may escape,
see everything they hold dear destroyed and gone. Shall those few survivors, lurking
in some obscure corner, deplore in vain the fate of their families, mourn over parents
either captivated, butchered, or burnt; roam among our wilds, and wait for death at
the foot of some tree, without a murmur, or without a sigh, for the good of the
cause? No, it is impossible! so astonishing a sacrice is not to be expected from
human nature, it must belong to beings of an inferior or superior order, actuated by
less, or by more rened principles. Even those great personages who are so far
elevated above the common ranks of men, those, I mean, who wield and direct so
many thunders; those who have let loose against us these demons of war, could they
be transported here, and metamorphosed into simple planters as we are, they
would, from being the arbiters of human destiny, sink into miserable victims; they
would feel and exclaim as we do, and be as much at a loss what line of conduct to
prosecute. Do you well comprehend the diculties of our situation? If we stay we
are sure to perish at one time or another; no vigilance on our part can save us; if we
retire, we know not where to go; every house is lled with refugees as wretched as
ourselves; and if we remove we become beggars. The property of farmers is not like
that of merchants; and absolute poverty is worse than death. If we take up arms to
defend ourselves, we are denominated rebels; should we not be rebels against
nature, could we be shamefully passive? Shall we then, like martyrs, glory in an
allegiance, now become useless, and voluntarily expose ourselves to a species of
desolation which, though it ruin us entirely, yet enriches not our ancient masters.
By this inexible and sullen attachment, we shall be despised by our countrymen,
and destroyed by our ancient friends; whatever we may say, whatever merit we may
claim, will not shelter us from those indiscriminate blows, given by hired banditti,
animated by all those passions which urge men to shed the blood of others; how
bitter the thought! On the contrary, blows received by the hands of those from
whom we expected protection, extinguish ancient respect, and urge us to selfdefence-
-perhaps to revenge; this is the path which nature herself points out, as
well to the civilised as to the uncivilised. The Creator of hearts has himself stamped
on them those propensities at their rst formation; and must we then daily receive
this treatment from a power once so loved? The Fox ies or deceives the hounds
that pursue him; the bear, when overtaken, boldly resists and attacks them; the hen,
the very timid hen, ghts for the preservation of her chickens, nor does she decline
to attack, and to meet on the wing even the swift kite. Shall man, then, provided
both with instinct and reason, unmoved, unconcerned, and passive, see his
subsistence consumed, and his progeny either ravished from him or murdered?
Shall ctitious reason extinguish the unerring impulse of instinct? No; my former
respect, my former attachment vanishes with my safety; that respect and attachment
was purchased by protection, and it has ceased. Could not the great nation we
belong to have accomplished her designs by means of her numerous armies, by
means of those eets which cover the ocean? Must those who are masters of two
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