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 spoil- 
ings, thefts, burnings of houses and towns, and mur- 
ders 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 them- 
selves 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~