at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended

it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,

and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices,

of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;

to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles 4

to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,

to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy

giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War,

by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: