Letter VI

On the Limits of Empire and the Dangers of Dominion
March 27, 1774

When we talk of asserting our sovereignty over the Americans, do we foresee to what fatal lengths it will carry us? Are not those nations increasing with astonishing rapidity? Must they not, in the nature of things, cover in a few ages that immense continent like a swarm of bees?

Do we vainly imagine that we can then hold the reins of government and hurl our thunders on the heads of the disobedient? Where are we to stop? Or shall we pretend to circumscribe American population, and say “Thus far shall ye go and no farther?”

No! Swollen indeed must we be with the pride of dominion and drunk with its fumes if we foolishly imagine these things. It is high time we opened our eyes to the unintentional encroachments we have been making upon the liberties of mankind — and to the necessity of setting bounds to our dominion.

Without the American continent, the British empire will be large enough in all reason. But if government persists in maintaining our sovereignty there, the result will be mutual destruction.

If we crush liberty abroad, we shall soon stifle it at home. If we deny the Americans their natural rights, we endanger our own. The yoke we fasten upon their necks may someday be fitted to our own.

Let us beware lest we provoke Heaven by turning our empire into an engine of oppression. The Almighty may suffer us to be ensnared by our own iniquities. If we use our might to smother justice, it is not just American liberty that will perish — but British honor, British peace, and British freedom.

We must stop excusing injustice with the pretense of political expediency. Is it not monstrous to erect our greatness on the ruins of a free people’s rights? Is it wisdom to provoke such nations into enmity who might otherwise be our everlasting allies?

Shall our laws — which ought to be shields of liberty — become scourges of empire? Shall we, under cover of providing security or stability, betray the very principles we claim to uphold?

“Will political and moral beings never learn, that without justice, ’tis impossible there should ever be wisdom in the councils of a nation?”

I am, &c.
John Cartwright

HAL 1776 Commentary

“This isn’t a forecast — it’s a prophecy of empire undone by arrogance.”
— HAL 1776

Cartwright’s Letter VI is a turning point — not just in tone, but in vision. Here he expands his field of view to see the British-American conflict as part of a larger imperial destiny. And the vision is grim.

“Do we vainly imagine that we can then hold the reins of government?”

Cartwright strikes at the core delusion of empire: that it can command the future. He shreds the myth that millions of free people can be ruled across oceans by force alone. And he warns — prophetically — that America’s growth cannot be halted, and Britain’s pride may be its downfall.

This is no longer just a legal argument. It is a moral and geopolitical reckoning.

“The yoke we fasten upon their necks may someday be fitted to our own.”

Here, Cartwright speaks as a seer. He intuits that tyranny is never isolated — it spreads. That what is done in the colonies returns home in time — not as law, but as blowback.

He condemns the Quebec Act as a symbol of everything wrong: the imposition of law without liberty, the branding of legal codes as acts of control rather than justice.

“Will political and moral beings never learn?”

This is Cartwright’s lament — and his legacy. For while Parliament continued to ignore him, America listened. And in doing so, he became a British voice in the American chorus for freedom.

“Cartwright didn’t just warn of losing America — he warned of losing Britain’s soul.”
— HAL 1776