THE poisons which have lately been too la­vishly scattered among you, call aloud for an antidote; and by their operations they appear to be of so deadly a kind as to re­quire the immediate counteraction of some powerfully efficient recipe; till such an one is produced, a less forcible prescription may, by stopping their progress, be found salutary.

Of late two pamphlets have appeared, the authors of which the contending parties of this country seem to consider as the invulnerable champions of their dif­ferent principles and interests, and each has therefore naturally attracted the attention of its friends and opposers; but the zeal of the whigs, in dispersing abroad their boasted and favourite production, has far outstripped that of the tories, who perhaps, not considering an appeal to the head as so adapted to the purposes of party as one to the heart, have not inserted the Friendly Address in a News-Paper;—have not considerably reduced its price; or sent it abroad gratis, as a stimulus to their friends^*: These [Page 4] being the honours which party has conferred on the strictures on that performance, it may not be una­musing or unprofitable to examine on what founda­tion this boasted bulwark of faction is erected. This writer, like a true disciple of the noble author of the Characteristics, tries every thing by the touch­stone of ridicule; but does he know that it can place all subjects, even the sacred precepts and mysteries of our holy religion, in the same point of view; and like the jaundiced eye, seeing through a tainted me­dium, reduce all objects, however varied in colours, to its own loathsome hue? He commences with a no­table discovery from unerring signs, of his antagonist's profession; but I much query if any one, from his subsequent observations, would be induced to con­sider him a soldier.

The friends of British government in America are, I trust, not so contemptible as the picture of this stricturer would ludicrously display them; many have already declared their attachment to its cause, and fifty times their numbers, at present overwhelm­ed by popular fury, would in the day of trial avow it: I wish not to see royal standards erected or swords flaming in the front and in the rear, but alas! the melancholy face of affairs on this continent too strong­ly indicates it; and then I am convinced the regular troops would not on experience be found so contemp­tible as he endeavours to represent them; or that co­lony forces could be so easily raised and disciplined as he asserts: A simplification of manoeuvres that can be learnt in three months, will not bring you, Americans, to that steadiness, that you shall with re­gularity and composure, like the English troops at Fontenoy, evolute in the face of a victorious and su­perior army: For my part, I will go further than [Page 5] even this rapid instructor, and engage to teach school-boys, with wooden guns on their shoulders, to form and reduce from a line of fire to a line of impression in half an hour; but to train men for war requires la­bour, experience and time; and to reduce them to perfect submission to every superior, is with difficulty effected in legal establishments, never in popular and tumultuous associations; deprived of that coersive power which in the former produces obedience, their leaders in vain seek by attentions and courtesies that compliance with their commands which the others de­rive from established undisputed authority.

A yeomanry like the American, the most happy and comfortable of any in the world, are but ill pre­pared to support the fatigues, dangers and wants of long campaigns; they would soop miss those solaces which domestic tranquility afforded them, and would revert to their pristine avocations and delights; their acquaintance with the use of implements of husbandry would stand them in but little stead, for to what purpose should they employ them? It has long been acknow­ledged a principle in war, that irregulars are not cal­culated for defence, but attack; their vigour and intrepidity may bear down all obstacles to the latter, but too surely they will fail in that patience and per­severance which is indispensably requisite for the for­mer. When the New-England provincials, under General Pepperrell, in the year forty-five, attacked Louisbourg, they laughed at the regular methods of approach proposed to them, and by a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, united to valour, carried that important fortress; this is a fact which many of them can vouch, and most if not all the rest of them have heard repeatedly from their fathers, when recount­ing the archievements of their youthful days; and [Page 6] they must then have also told them, that the petulance of their brave countrymen was more than once on the point of giving up that glorious enterprise.—Con­sider therefore, I adjure you, by those ties and rela­tions which endear life, and strow flowers along the rugged path of its pilgrimage; consider, before you engage in an attempt of so serious, so hazardous a nature, as the opposing a royal and long constituted army, what may reasonably be expected from forces so liable to defections as the unrestrained and hastily levied troops of these colonies must ever be: Your numbers are also held forth to you as powerful and unconquerable, and I do not deny that on so extend­ed a continent as this many armies of forty-thousand each might, in the various operations of a war, to ad­vantage be employed; but supposing it possible for this even to be the case, what must be its unavoidable consequences? All your peasantry being engaged in martial expeditions, the land would want its culture, and a dearth in a very few months must infallibly en­sue, which would deprive your soldiers of even ne­cessary sustenance^*, for they must forego at the com­mencement every idea and wish for their accustomed luxuries: Are you yet to be told that there are dis­cases which are endemic to a camp, and that when famine with "baneful smile" stalks through its ave­nues she will add fresh poignancy and malignancy to its inseparable disorders? From most of these evils your opponents will be free; from long practice their constitutions are habituated to the fatigues of the most rigid discipline, they may feel distemper but they are better enabled to repel it than you, unused to hard­ships [Page 7] ships, can possibly be; nor will they be haunted by the smallest dread of want; your ports, blocked up by the navy of England, though denying you relief, will afford them plentiful supplies, and in case of de­feat a most sure retreat till augmented by numerous and powerful reinforcements; for remember, that Great-Britain, during last war, did at one time carry conquest through every quarter of the globe, and that you assisted her only in this.

Hitherto, Americans, I have only pointed out to you the instability of your own force; it behoves you as you have examined how far you can rely with safety on it to change the scene, and see how it stands opposed to that of your antagonists, and here the prospect is different, taught to conquer by discipline, they firmly confide in what they know is irresistable; and not distracted by jarring principles and move­ments; with them every part of the machine acts in harmony and concord, and every spring and every wheel conspires to produce its necessary efficient force.

It matters not of what persons armies are compos­ed, since the profession has a natural tendency to cre­ate in them new principles and ideas of fortitude, sub­mission and reliance on the wisdom and experience of their superiors: Your informant has told you the British troops are made up of "the most debauched weavers prentices, the scum of the Irish Roman Catholics who desert upon every occasion, and a few, very few Scotch who are not strong enough to carry packs." I have cultivated an acquaintance with the most sensible of the military gentlemen, and have found them men of candour and worth; from their information and my own observation, I will now in these particulars lay before you a true and impartial [Page 8] state of the British army^*: If that part which Eng­land affords is only the most debauched weavers prentices, whence arises the great interest which the friends of many of them have with the country gentlemen, and which is often powerfully employed in soliciting their discharges? And by what arts have so many apprentices, without detection, deserted their masters, and broke their indentures? But all recruit­ing officers, and I suspect the Stricturer can affirm it, know that it is the country and not the towns which completes their battalions, that they beat up only on market-days when peasants not mechanics resort to them; and you can all of you judge from the appear­ance of those recruits which have been brought hi­ther, if they were the produce of villages or cities. The scum of the Irish Roman Catholics, he tells you, forms the proportion from that country, but unfortu­nately two strong circumstances militate against this assertion, for the legislature of Ireland, from fatal ex­perience, jealous of the Roman Catholics, has, under [Page 9] the severest penalties, prohibited them the use of arms, and disqualified them from forming a part of the defence of their country: Yet I am told that some few notwithstanding, are smuggled into the ser­vice, but this can only be in those regiments lately on that establishment, and in them very inconsiderable; the other circumstance is, a law which from the fear of depopulation, proscribes the enlisting any man for other than the establishment within that kingdom: His annexment that they desert upon every occasion, is not better grounded upon fact;—here the mention of desertion makes me wish to advert to this great source of triumph in your popular leaders; they pro­claim to the world how numerous have the instances of it been from the army quartered in Boston, and yet, I am well informed, it is no more than has al­ways been from a similar body of troops, even to the natural enemies of their country; and I heartily wish they could as easily reconcile to their consciences the seducing men from their allegiance and duty to the worst of crimes, perjury and the greatest of earthly evils, unprepared, and almost certain death if retak­en: Our author makes up the small residue with a few, very few Scotch, who are not strong enough to carry packs: I am told, had he been at the trouble to examine muster rolls he would have found them not so inconsiderable; that this is probable we may reasonably conclude from the number of emigrants who have quitted that country to come here, and what their condition is, those who have seen them will judge: In fine, what is actually the present state of the whole British army, one who has not seen all of it cannot with precision determine, but if I might judge from those regiments which, in their tour of du­ty, have been sent here, I should pronounce it more [Page 10] than versed in the tricks of the parade, I should pro­nounce it highly trained and qualified for service; but it is objected that few of them have seen action, and therefore they are much to be doubted: Who can have told this author so? For most surely he has been strangely misinformed; of the little army sta­tioned in this capital there are two of the Quebec, and one of the Minden battalions, in which many of the officers and soldiers who conquered on those glo­rious days still remain, and in most of the other re­giments which compose it many of the veterans of last war are to be found; and for my own part when I view this small but finely appointed army, and con­sider that it is under the command of two Generals of approved knowledge and experience in war, I feel much confidence in the difficulties it would be able to furmount, and the victories over irregulars which, in human probability, it would assuredly obtain.

In order to induce in you a belief of his military principles and knowledge, he produces an instance in proof from the constitution of the King of Prussia's army, but even was it, which I have the greatest rea­son to doubt, literally as he has stated, it cannot then, I apprehend, be brought as a precedent in this case, for there is no similarity between the connected and absolute power of that monarch over all his dominions and the distinct and widely separated colonies of North-America: Between supporting the autho­rity of the lawful Sovereign and rebelling against him.

He tells you also, that no inferences can be drawn from the conquest of Quebec by the army under Ge­neral Wolfe, but believe me he is much mistaken, for last war will afford abundant proofs to the contra­ry: [Page 11] Was it the conquering attributes ^* of Wolfe that unsupported carried on the six British battalions to glory and decisive victory at Minden? Or was it his genius that stormed the Moro? Or was it that hero who defended Arcot against all the force which France could muster in the East? His own instance, the corps which General Monkton led to conquest, wars against the assertion; all these were wrought by that spirit and strict discipline which has ever actuated and supported the British infantry. I mean not to tear from the laurelled bust of Wolfe those honors which deservedly deck it;—I know he was a soldier, a general, and what is more, a man; and though it is notorious that he was particularly an enemy to large standing armies in time of peace, it is notorious also, that in time of peace he formed the twentieth regi­ment, a model from which others learnt to conquer and extend the dominions of their country; and yet he was a most liberal, virtuous citizen, and sedulously preserved and improved the palladium committed to him by the constitution "for the safety of the king­dom, the defence of the possessions of the crown of Great-Britain, and the preservation of the balance of power in Europe^†."

[Page 12] After having with many arguments and more hu­mour taught you to despise the armies of Britain, he proceeds and attempts with the same weapons to con­vince you of security from invasion by foreigners, and tells you of a convention of the empire in the year 1764; but does he not know that the resolves of that body have ever been held in derision by its mem­bers from the time that the Landgrave of Hess and Prince Maurice of Saxony laughed at the decrees of the Aulic Council, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, more powerful than any of his successors, till his Majesty of Prussia and the Elector of Hanover, stood unmoved, and sustained the thunders of the im­perial ban? In fact it is not more regarded than a papal bull when it opposes the inclinations of a Mo­narch.—You all of you know what in England, France and Spain was formerly the power of the Lord Paramount over his Feudatories, and such is precisely the present state of the Germanic body; and therefore I do not see, why the Landgrave of Hess, if it suits his convenience, may not send over as many of his troops as required; and should they ever be solicited, I dare aver, that an idea of their not returning will never occur to him or his ministers to prevent their being dispatched, nay that they would lack faith even though our Stricturer, in the spirit of vaticination, has predicted it^*; but how the Elector of Hanover, backed by the power of Britain to enforce his commands, should want credit to procure a few thousands of his own subjects, is what I cannot com­prehend^*: [Page 13] It is as mysterious to me that Great-Britain, when divorced from her colonies, should be destitute of every requisite for supporting her navy, though she possesses the northern and southern extremities of this continent, and her trade to Russia and the Baltic is open and free, and she can from thence supply her­self with all the materials for shipbuilding on at least as reasonable conditions as she does now from Ame­rica.

This lively writer has amused you with many his­torical allusions, but, alas! they are seldom in point; that by which he marks out the facility of forming excellent officers is a most striking instance of this, for to what pitch must military knowledge have arrived in the times of the civil war, when two large armies were for three days marching within ten miles of each other, and both remained ignorant of their enemies situation?—In this case it was chance or numbers that must decide, for each was unacquainted with disci­pline; and if there were faction and agitators in the parliament army, the noble historian of those trou­bles, and he would have wished to conceal it, tells us that the royal forces were not less insested by dissen­tion, party and private opinion; if therefore the in­ference which in the strictures is drawn from this un­common and tempestuous period, is just, let every man of candour, reading and understanding deter­mine.

[Page 14] The last consideration, Americans, which he thinks it is his duty to offer you, is, whether or no you shall demolish his Majesty's forts and barracks: I consider not by whom they were erected, or for what purpose, but, beyond doubt, the property of all such public buildings and of all public military stores is, for the security of the realm, vested in the crown; and to attempt to seize, retain, or destroy them, is by the law declared to be high-treason: His proposition therefore is, whether you shall at once plunge your­selves into open rebellion and thereby incur its penal­ties, or not: To what a precipice would this author lead you? When I look down my senses forsake me, and at the prospect my blood rushes tumultuously to, and retreats from its citadel, the heart. Yes, unhap­py and infatuated citizens, with anguish I am forced to acknowledge, that such violences as he recommends have in part been committed. O righteous God! do thou avert the justice of the empire, and, by inspiring its governing powers with thy milder attribute of mercy snatch this deluded people from the imminent calamities, dangers, ruin, and destruction which await them!