ASSIGNMENT: Write an essay response contrasting the attitude taken toward England in the following two historical U.S. documents – the 1620 “The Mayflower Compact” and an excerpt from the 1776 pamphlet called, “The Crisis–X: On the King of England’s Speech” by Thomas Paine.
Remember: Be sure to support your stance with adequate, relevant details from the texts.
The Mayflower Compact
In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together in a Civil Body Politic…for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty–fourth. Anno Domini 1620.
The Crisis–X: On the King of England’s Speech
by Thomas Paine
How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance. That the very man who began the war, who with the most sullen insolence refused to answer, and even to hear the humblest of all petitions, who has encouraged his officers and his army in the most savage cruelties, and the most scandalous plundering…and invoked every aid of hell in his behalf, should now, with an affected air of pity, turn the tables from himself, and charge to another the wickedness that is his own, can only be equaled by the baseness of the heart that spoke it.
