I Essays 7
our estates are theirs, and all our property found
upon the sea divisible among such of their armed
plunderers as shall take the same; and have even
dared in the same act, to declare that all the spoilings,
 thefts, burnings of houses and towns, and murders
 of innocent people, perpetrated by their wicked
and inhuman corsairs on our coasts, previous to any
war declared against us, were just actions, and shall
be so deemed, contrary to several commandments of
God (which by this act they presume to repeal), and
to all the principles of right and all the ideas of
justice entertained heretofore by every other nation,
savage as well as civilized; thereby manifesting themselves
 to be hostes human generis; And whereas, as
it 1s not possible for the people of America to subsist
under such continual ravages without making some
reprisals; Therefore, Resolved, etc.”

775] 18~