For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us, [in many cases,] of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these “states” [colonies:]
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us, in all cases whatever:
He has abdicated government here “withdrawing his governors, and” [by] declaring us out of his [allegiance] protection, [and waging war against us:]
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people:
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, [scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and] totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
The three next paragraphs in the original draught, were as follows: