I have always been loyal to the King, but is this how a king treats his subjects, by drawing weapons on them on a hillside? The colonists did not start this fight; they are here in response to the threat. Every real man wants to defend his homeland from threat, in my opinion. Until today I thought of my homeland as Great Britain, and I saw my allegiance to King George. But there are King George's representatives ready to aim their muskets at Mr. Cooper, and old Mr. Pike, and our only doctor, and a lot of other good people. Look there, I see Matthew Cooper, my fellow apprentice and best friend. It seems he has made up his mind.

I am of two minds about the Stamp Acts. On the one hand, the British did send soldiers to protect us and fight for us when the French threatened (Kreamer, PAGE). There is no doubt about that. But that war is long over, and yet here we sit, paying high taxes on products that are already expensive due to their being shipped from England. We are barred from buying them anywhere else, even though we might get some things much cheaper. They don't want us to make goods for ourselves more cheaply, and we have to buy these highly taxed items instead.

A fear the royal government has badly misread the sentiments on this side of the ocean. They characterize those who want to separate as malcontents and people of no consequence, but those "people of no consequence"...

They are brave and sober men who would not offer their lives up lightly or for a trivial cause. I cannot deny what I see now; British soldiers preparing to fire on colonists who are poorly armed and ill-prepared for a battle. I do not know what my parents and the rest of my family will think of this, but I do not see how I can remain loyal to the British government if firing on their own countrymen is the only way they can think of to solve their problems. This situation is going to pull our town apart at the seams, because I can see that other good people are not with the colonists. Probably many of them are still loyal to the King. But for myself, it is time to rethink that stand.
Bibliography

Author not given. "The Boston Massacre." Boston Gazette and Country Journal, March 12, 1770. Accessed via the Internet 2/23/05. http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/boston.html

Kreamer, Todd Alan. "Sons of Liberty: Patriots or Terrorists? How a Secret Society of Rebel Americans

Made Its Mark on Early America." The Early America Review: A Journal of People, Issues and Events in 18th Century America, I:2, Fall 1996.

Stanley, Kevin. "Soldiers of the Colonial Militia." The Early America Review: A Journal of People, Issues and Events in 18th Century America, III:3, Winter-Spring 2001.