for quartering large bodies of troops among us;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
for imposing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offences; and
for suspending our own legislatures & declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;
by plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, burning our towns
and destroying the lives of our people;
by inciting insurrections of our fellow subjects with the
allurements of forfeiture & confiscation;
by prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us; those very
negroes whom *he hath from time to time* by an inhuman use of his
negative he hath refused permission to exclude by law;
by endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of
existence;
by transporting at this time a large army of foreign
mercenaries [_to complete_] the works of death, desolation & tyranny
already begun with circum[_stances_] of cruelty & perfidy so unworthy
the head of a civilized nation;
by answering our repeated petitions for redress with a
repetition of injuries;
and finally by abandoning the helm of government and declaring
us out of his allegiance & protection;
by which several acts of misrule the said George
Guelf has forfeited the kingly office and has rendered it
necessary for the preservation of the people that he should be
immediately deposed from the same, and divested of all its
privileges, powers, & prerogatives:
And forasmuch as the public liberty may be more certainly
secured by abolishing an office which all experience hath shewn to be
inveterately inimical thereto *or which* and it will thereupon become
further necessary to re-establish such ancient principles as are
friendly to the rights of the people and to declare certain others
which may co-operate with and fortify the same in future.
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