[Part of: “Let Those Flatter Who Fear”: American Independence in Verse. This poem begins part 2, “Occupation and Massacre.”]
My Dear Countrymen: New duties have been laid on certain goods We’re bound by law to buy from England: glass, Paper, lead, paint, and tea. It’s said they’re not Internal taxes, and that Parliament, Therefore, has acted in its right. Not so: A duty laid for revenue, is tax; If laid on us, then we are taxed; and yes, If we be taxed without consent, are slaves. Rouse yourselves, my dear countrymen: behold The ruin hanging over your heads. If you Admit these duties, then the tragedy Of our American liberty is finished. Complying with this Act will warrant Britain, Through precedent, to later evil use Of falsely claimed authority. And it will prove you tame, and if you bend Your neck and take this yoke, they will not fear To offer futher bondage as they please. Like a bird sent across the sea to tell Whether the violent waves that agitated Distant waters have yet stilled, this Act Is an experiment upon your Disposition. What striving power seizes, it will keep. We must resist at once— —as dutiful Children, who have received unmerited Blows from a much loved parent. Our complaints Must speak the quiet tones of veneration. The right response, with calm resolve, is to Assemble and petition to obtain Relief. Differences, unattended, grow To anger; and imprudent acts create Incurable rage. And what then? If once We’re separated from the mother country, Torn from her to whom we’re bound by laws, And by religion, language, and affection— We must bleed at every vein. —A Farmer.