Select pieces &c.; [manuscript].

to please this Gentleman, I shall not lay msyelf under any restraint nor solicitously copy his diction or his [?] however matured by age or modelled by experience. If any man shall by charging me with a theatrical behaviour imply that I utter any Sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a [?] and a Villain nor Shall any protection shelfter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall upon [?] on occasion without [?] [?] upon all those forms, with which wealth and dignity entrench

themselves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment age which always brings one privelege; that of being [?] and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, for to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that of I had acted a borrowed [?] I should have avoided the censure. The [?] that offended them was the ardour of conviction that Zeal for the Service of my country, which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to [?]

[???], I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public rob= bery. I will exert my endeavours at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor & drag the thief to jus= tice, whoever may [pivoted??] them in their villainy & whoever may partake of their plunder.

Gentlemen,

In accordance with [??] {solutions??] which you have been pleased so [adopt??] and at the instigation, firm approval of my numerous friends, I can only say that the course, which my colleag ues have taken towards the final acoomplishments [to the??] [??] object before us meets with approval-----------

[Pitt??]

It has been in circulation, that if the Stamp act had never been re= pealed, we should at this hour have been at peace and quietness with America, and from this many people urge the danger as well as inefficiac of conciliating measures at present. I know on the contrary from the most respectable au= thority, that there were at that Instant the prevalent and most steady principles of America, that you might destroy their [town???] might cut them from the [superfluiti??] and even conve= neinces of life. But that they

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were prepared to despise your powera and would not lament their loss which they had--what my Lords? their [woods??] and their Liberty.

Do you think that men who could be roused to forgoe their profits, their pleasures, and the peaceable enjoyment of their dearest connections all for the sake of Liberty will be whipped into [???alage] like slaves? Why this conduct in government is so fan= tastical and aerial in practice that it by far exceeds the boldest wing of Poetry, for Poetry has often road [instruc??]= tive as well as pleasing [???] to Man= kind and [tho she sometimes amuses??]