This appeal was followed by two other memorials, "drawn up solely for the king's use, and designed solely for his eye," dated at Richmond, January, 1782, in which the author most persuasively pleads with the king to treat with the Colonies on the footing of independence, and with this view to institute a preliminary negotiation "as with free states de facto under a truce." On the signature of the treaty of peace, he wrote a private letter to Franklin, dated at Richmond, 28th February, 1783, in which be testifies again to the magnitude of the event, as follows:—
"My old Friend,—I write this to congratulate you on the establishment of your country as a free and sovereign power, taking its equal station amongst the powers of the world. I congratulate you, in particular, as chosen by Providence to be a principal instrument in this great Revolution,—a Revolution that has stranger marks of Divine interposition, superseding the ordinary course of human affairs, than any other event which this world has experienced."
He closes this letter by saying that he thought of making a tour of America, adding that, "if there ever was an object worth travelling to see, and worthy of the contemplation of a philosopher, it is that in which he may see the beginning of a great empire at its foundation."[61] He communicated this purpose also to John Adams, who answered him, that "he would be received respectfully in every part of America,—that he had always been considered friendly to America,—and that his writings had been useful to our cause."[62]
Then came another work, first published in 1783, entitled, "A Memorial addressed to the Sovereigns of America, by Governor Pownall," of which he gave the mistaken judgment to a private friend, that it was "the best thing he ever wrote." Here for the first time American citizens are called "sovereigns." At the beginning he explains and indicates the simplicity with which he addresses them:—
"Having presumed to address to the Sovereigns of Europe a Memorial ... permit me now to address this Memorial to you, Sovereigns of America. I shall not address you with the court titles of Gothic Europe, nor with those of servile Asia. I will neither address your Sublimity or Majesty, your Grace or Holiness, your Eminence or High-mightiness, your Excellence or Honors. What are titles, where things themselves are known and understood? What title did the Republic of Rome take? The state was known to be sovereign and the citizens to be free. What could add to this? Therefore, United States and Citizens of America, I address you as you are."[63]
Here again are the same constant sympathy with liberty, the same confidence in our national destinies, and the same aspirations for our prosperity, mingled with warnings against disturbing influences. He exhorts that all our foundations should be "laid in nature"; that there should be "no contention for, nor acquisition of, unequal domination in men"; and that union should be established on the attractive principle by which all are drawn to a common centre. He fears difficulty, in making the line of frontier between us and the British Provinces "a line of peace," as it ought to be; he is anxious lest something may break out between us and Spain; and he suggests that possibly, "in the cool hours of unimpassioned reflection," we may learn the danger of our "alliances,"—referring plainly to that original alliance with France which, at a later day, was the occasion of such trouble. Two other warnings occur. One is against Slavery, which is more noteworthy, because in an earlier memorial he enumerates among articles of commerce "African slaves carried by a circuitous, trade in American shipping to the West India market."[64] The other warning is thus strongly expressed:—"Every inhabitant of America is, de facto as well as de jure, equal, in his essential, inseparable rights of the individual, to any other individual, and is, in these rights, independent of any power that any other can assume over him, over his labor, or his property. This is principle in act and deed, and not a mere speculative theorem."[65]
I close this strange and striking testimony, all from one man, with his farewell words to Franklin. As Pownall heard that the great philosopher and negotiator was about to embark for the United States, he wrote to him from Lausanne, under date of 3d July, 1785, as follows:—
"Adieu, my dear friend. You are going to a New World, formed to exhibit a scene which the Old World never yet saw. You leave me here in the Old World, which, like myself, begins to feel, as Asia hath felt, that it is wearing out apace. We shall never meet again on this earth; but there is another world where we shall, and where we shall be understood."
Clearly Pownall was not understood in his time; but it is evident that he understood our country as few Englishmen since have been able to understand it.