NOTE: This letter was enclosed in a package that was delivered to Messr. Grimes by courier. It has been transcribed here for the modern reader’s sight.
Ah yes, another whelp has occurred in the British Isles to their most Esteemed Family. Why should this Birth be any different from that of the low and humble Mason? At least the Mason contributes more to society than charity and displays of grandeur? Without the masons, where would we be? Laboring to construct homes of straw and sticks. Without kings and queens, where would we be? Our nation is proof of that.
Why do we care about this disempowered Monarchy? They are but a family living in a Monstrous home as their subjects sleep on the streets! When they go out to do their average business in life, how do they go? To marriage in a fine Carriage! In fine cars and with bodyguards (to protect their bodies from the rage of the people, I should think).
Why should a nation so Victoriously and Fatefully separated from those Isles be so enamored with the daily doings of their Royal Family? They be not particularly remarkable beyond their Lineage. What also amuses me so is that the Noble family that is a hallmark of Britain hails not from their shores, but from noble Prussia. How quickly such memory fades in the eras of control and evolution of images.
If Monarchical blood was the only qualification, why do we not see the same amor for that of Liechtenstein, the most remarkably wealthy European Family? Or that of India, who can boast a truly charitable and generous Lord who shelters those who are like him? Would these not be equals in our hearts? It is not so.
For their ‘Great Occasions,’ they bundle those unfortunate souls, disenfranchised in property, not to the welcome arms of shelters and kitchens, but to another street corner equally as cold and uncaring as the one where the Great Family will rise above them all.
Does America long for these shackles it once overcame? The feudalistic, King-Worshipping chains we rebelled and killed in anger against? I do not think that this is the truth, but the obsession and cult of personality and status cannot be ignored. It is dangerous logic and thought that will only promote the legacy and power of idols.
Soon, I desire to write another Pamphlet and profess my opinions on the state of this Great Nation, endowed with liberty so greatly and rocked with tensions regarding those very same Liberties. It may, in fact, be too late.
-Thomas Paine