The intentions of Great Britain, derogatory at once of all the sacred rights of humanity, and of the honor of God, and of the established laws of civilized nations, are thus declared in the manifesto. “The policy as well as the benevolence of Great Britain have thus far checked the extremes of war, when they tended to distress a people still considered as our fellow subjects, and to desolate a country shortly to become again a source of mutual advantage. But when that country professes the unnatural design, not only of estranging herself from us, but of mortgaging herself and her resources to our enemy, the whole contest is changed, and the question is how far Great Britain may, by every means in her power, destroy or render useless a connexion contrived for her ruin, and for the aggrandizement of France. Under such circumstances, the laws of self-preservation must direct the conduct of Great Britain; and if the British Colonies are to become an accession to France, will direct her to render that acquisition of as little avail as possible to her enemy.”
The pretext here alleged for carrying war to all extremities, which the laws of humanity and of nations forbid, and of desolating merely for the purpose of desolation, is, that the country is to be monopolised by France. That this is merely a pretext is manifest from the treaty itself on which they ground it, in which it is declared, that the United States are at liberty to make the same treaty with all nations.
Your Excellency knows too, how unjust this imputation is in our most secret transactions. By one of those strange absurdities, into which men blinded by bad passions are often betrayed, they denounce this desolation against the people at large, who they in the same breath assert have not ratified the treaty. Thus, if we are to credit their own assertions, the ground of their rage is pretended, and the objects of it innocent.
It is therefore most clear, that the threatened cruelties are not out of policy, but out of revenge. And as nothing is more odious than this spirit, nothing more dangerous to all that is deemed dear and sacred among men, than an open avowal of such a principle, and an exercise of the barbarities which it suggests, such a conduct ought to arm all nations against a people, whose proceedings thus proclaim them to be hostis humani generis.
It is not that they can add to the cruelties they have already exercised; desolation and massacre have marked their steps wherever they could approach. The sending of those captives, whom they pretend now to be their fellow subjects, into perpetual slavery in Africa and India; the crowding of their captives into dungeons, where thousands perish by disease and famine; the compelling of others, by chains and stripes, to fight against their country and their relations; the burning of defenceless towns; and the exciting of the savages, by presents and bribes, to massacre defenceless frontier families, without distinction of age or sex, are extremities of cruelty already practised, and which they cannot exceed. But the recovery of what they called their rights, and the reduction of those who had renounced as they alleged a just supremacy, was then avowedly the object of the war. These cruelties were, it was pretended, incidental severities, and necessary to the attainment of a just object. But now destruction alone is the object. It is not profit to themselves, but injuries to others, which they are pursuing. Desolation for the pleasure of destroying is their only purpose. They will sacrifice to disappointed vengeance what their injustice lost, and their power cannot regain.
There cannot be a greater violation of those laws, which bind civilized nations together, which are the general property, and which distinguish their wars from those of savages and barbarians, than this manifesto. All civilized nations are called upon, as well by their own interests as those of humanity, to vindicate its violated laws. Your Excellency will therefore permit me to hope, that so daring and dangerous a procedure will call forth a declaration from the king of Spain, whose pre-eminent character among princes for piety, wisdom, and honor, will render him a fit avenger of the common cause of mankind. It is not America only, that is wronged by this savage proclamation, but the feelings of humanity, the dictates of religion, the laws of God, and of nations.
Your Excellency will also give me leave to request, that this representation may be laid before his Majesty, and enforced with such arguments as your Excellency’s greater knowledge, and the favor you have had the goodness to manifest for our just cause may suggest.
I have the honor to be your Excellency’s very humble servant,
ARTHUR LEE.