Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

John Dickinson, 1767-68

[Part of: “Let Those Flatter Who Fear”: American Independence in Verse. This poem begins part 2, “Occupation and Massacre.”]

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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.

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