Note 669 — Chapter III

It might be regarded as a matter of course that no parliamentary or other official proceeding or document of the British government would recognize, by way of examination or controversy, the crowning state paper of the American Congress. Chagrin, contempt, vengeful feelings, or a simple regard for its own dignity, may have induced the government to assume indifference. As yet the Declaration was a paper assertion of what was not then secured. But the English press was neither silent nor respectful about the Declaration. An able pamphlet appeared as An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress (London, 1776). Another pamphlet, at first privately circulated, afterwards published, was written by Governor Hutchinson, then in England, entitled Strictures on the late Declaration of Congress. It is reprinted anonymously in Almon's Remembrancer, iv. 25. The writer says that the reasons given in the Declaration to justify it are "false and frivolous." He sent a copy of this pamphlet to the king, with an obsequious letter. Adolphus, after saying "that at no preceding period of history was so important a transaction vindicated by so shallow and feeble a composition", adds that "some passages are remarkable for low and intemperate scurrility", (vol. ii. 405, 406).