[Philadelphia] April 12. 1776
[Extract]
The Ports are opened wide enough at last, and Privateers are allowed to prey upon British Trade. This is not Independency you know. ー What is? Why Government in every Colony; a Confederation among them all, and Treaties with foreign Nations, to acknowledge Us a Sovereign State, and all that. ー When these Things will be done, or any of them, Time must discover. Perhaps the Time is near, perhaps a great Way off.
1. Butterfield, ed., Adams Family Correspondence, I, 376-77.
