Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America

Summary

Preface to the Fifth Edition

The favourable reception which the following Tract has met with makes me abundant amends for the abuse it has brought upon me. I should be ill employed were I to take much notice of this abuse: but there is one circumstance attending it which I cannot help just mentioning. The principles on which I have argued form the foundation of every state as far as it is free, and are the same with those taught by Mr. Locke and all the writers on civil liberty who have been hitherto most admired in this country. But I find with concern that our governors chuse to decline trying by them their present measures. For, in a pamphlet which has been circulated by government with great industry, these principles are pronounced to be ‘unnatural and wild, incompatible with practice, and the offspring of the distempered imagination of a man who is biassed by party, and who writes to deceive’. I must take this opportunity to add that I love quiet too well to think of entering into a controversy with any writers, particularly nameless ones. Conscious of good intentions and unconnected with any party, I have endeavoured to plead the cause of general liberty and justice. And happy in knowing this, I shall, in silence, commit myself to that candour of the public of which I have had so much experience.