ENDW 70BLIC LIBRARY 304706822 LENOX AND FOUNDDISTRICT OF VERMONT, TO WIT: BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the fourth day of May, in the thirty-fourth year of the independence of the United States of America, IGNATIUS THOMSON, of faid diftri&t, hath depofited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: "The Patriot's Monitor, for New-Hampfhire, defigned to imprefs and perpetuate the first principles of the revolution on the minds of youth; together with fome pieces important and interefting. Adapted for the use of schools. By Ignatius Thomfon." In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by fecuring the copies of maps, charts and books to the authors and proprietors of fuch copies during the times therein mentioned," and alfo to an act, entitled "An act fupplementary to an act, entitled 'An act for the encouragemen of learning, by fecuring the copies of maps, charts and books to th authors and proprietors of fuch copies during the times therein men tioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of defigning, engraving and etching hiftorical and other prints." A true copy of record. JESSE GOVE, the grant Amoartal 4 washington 23 "p) Exch• Ame Lawak DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. IN CONGRESS, JULY FOURTH, ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUN- 1. A DECLARATION by the reprefentatives of the United States of America, in congrefs affembled. 2. When in the courfe of human events, it becomes neceffary for one people to diffolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to affume among the powers of the earth, the feparate and equal ftation to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that "they should declare the causes which impel them to the feparation. 3. We hold thefe truths to be felf-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the purfuit of happinefs; that to fecure thefe rights, governments are inftituted among men, deriving their juft powers from the confent of the governed; 4. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to inftitute new government, laying its foundation on fuel principles, and organizing its powers in fuch form, as to them fhall feem most likely to effect their fafety and happiness. 5. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and tranfier caufes; and accordingly all experience hath fhown, that mankind are more difpofed to fuffer, while evils are fufferable, than to right themfelves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 6. But when a long train of abufes and furpations, purfuing invariably the fame object, evinces a defign to reduce them under abfolute defpotifm, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off fuch government, and to provide new guards for their future fecurity. 7. Such has been the patient fufferance of thefe colonies; and fuch is now the neceffity which conftrains them to alter their former fyftems of government. The history of the prefent king of Great-Britain is a history of repeated injuries and ufurpations, all having in direct object the eftablishment of an abfolute tyranny over thefe ftates. To prove this, let facts be fubmitted to a candid world. 8. He has refufed his affent to laws the most wholefome and neceffary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pafs laws of immediate and preffing importance, unless fufpended in their operation till his affent fhould be obtained; and when fo fufpended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 9. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large diftricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of reprefentation in the legislature, a right ineftimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 10. He has called together legislative bodies at places unufual, uncomfortable, and diftant from the depofitory of their public records, for the fole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has diffolved reprefentative houses repeatedly, for oppofing with manly firmnefs his invasions on the rights of the people. 11. He has refused for a long time, after fuch diffolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercife; the state remaining in the mean time expofed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulfions within. 12. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obftructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refufing to pass others to encour age their migrations hither, and raifing the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 13. He has obftructed the administration of justice, by refufing his affent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their falarics. 14. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and fent hither fwarms of officers to harrass our people, and eat out their fubftance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the confent of our legiflatures. 15. He has affected to render the military independent of and fuperior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurifdiction foreign to our conftitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his affent to their acts of pretended legislation: for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 16. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: for impofing taxes on us without our confent for depriving us, in many cafes, of the benefits of trial by jury: 17. For transporting us beyond feas to be tried for pretended offences: for abolifhing the free fyftem of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries; fo as to render it at once an example and fit inftrument for introducing the fame abfolute rule into these colonies: 18. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments for fufpending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cafes whatever. 19. He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our feas, ravaged our coafts, burnt our towns, and deftroyed the lives of our people. 20. He is at this time, tranfporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, defolation and tyranny, already begun with circumftances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 21. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high feas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 22. He has excited domestic infurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our fron tiers, the mercilefs Indian favages, whofe known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, fexes and conditions. 23. In every stage of these oppreffions we have petitioned for redrefs, in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whofe character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 24. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurifdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumftances of our emigration and fettlement here. 25. We have appealed to their native juftice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to difavow thefe ufurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. 26. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of confanguinity. We muft, therefore, acquiefce in the neceffity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war; in peace friends. 27. We, therefore, the reprefentatives of the United States of America, in general congrefs affembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, folemnly publish and declare, that thefe united colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; 28. That they are abfolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great-Britain, is, and ought to be totally diffolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent ftates may of right do. 29. And for the fupport of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our facred honor. Signed by order and in behalf of the con |