On the first of these questions we have gained, as I have just taken the
liberty of observing to you, some ground. But I am sensible that a good deal
more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one
and the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think
it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar
circumstances of the object which we have before us; because after all our
struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that
nature and to those circumstances, [Footnote: 14] and not according to our own
imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right--by no means according to
mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our
present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore endeavor,
with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material of these
circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.
The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object
is--the number of people in the Colonies.
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