Wesley Corpus

But what hope can I have of doing good, of making the least impression upon your Lordship where so many have spoken in vain, and those far better qualified to speak on so delicate a subject They were better qualified in some respects; in others they were not. They had not less bias upon their minds; they were not free from worldly hopes and fears. Their passions were engaged; and how easily do these blind the eyes of the understanding! They were not more impartial. Most of them were prejudiced in the highest degree. They neither loved the King nor his Ministers. Rather they hated them with a perfect hatred. And your Lordship knowing this, if you was a man, could not avoid having some prejudice to them; in which case it would be hardly possible to feel the full force of their arguments. They had not better means of information, of knowing the real tempers and sentiments, either of the Americans on the one hand, or of the English, Irish, and Scots on the other. Above all, they trusted in themselves, in their own power of convincing and persuading. I trust only in the living God, who hath the hearts of all men in His hand. And whether my writing do any good or no, it need do no harm. For it rests within your Lordship's breast whether any eye but your own shall see it. All my prejudices are against the Americans. For I am an High Churchman, the son of an High Churchman, bred up from my childhood in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance. And yet, in spite of all my rooted prejudice, I cannot avoid thinking (if I think at all) that an oppressed people asked for nothing more than their legal rights, and that in the most modest and inoffensive manner which the nature of the thing would allow. But waiving this, waiving all considerations of right and wrong, I ask, Is it common sense to use force toward the Americans A letter now before me says, 'Four hundred of the Regulars and forty of the Militia were killed in the last skirmish.' What a disproportion! And this is the first essay of raw men against regular troops!