Note A — LETTER

1. Dated January 21, 1769. There is a great regularity in the structure of this letter. The first two paragraphs contain the exordium. The transition follows in the third paragraph, leading to the main proposition, which is contained in the fourth, viz., "that the existing discontent and disasters of the nation were justly chargeable on the king and ministry." The next eight paragraphs are intended to give the proof of the proposition, by reviewing the chief departments of government, and endeavoring to show the incompetency or mal-administration of the men to whom they were intrusted. A recapitulation follows in the last paragraph but one, leading to a restatement of the proposition in still broader terms. This is strengthened in the conclusion by the remark, that if the nation should escape from its desperate condition through some signal interposition of Divine Providence, posterity would not believe the history of the times, or consider it possible that England should have survived a crisis "so full of terror and despair."