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and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future, but by the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been, in the conduct of the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes, with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves, and the house? Is it that insidious smile, with which our petition has been lately received?

3. Trust it nɔt, sir, it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves, how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations, which cover our waters, and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?

4. Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?

No, sir, she has none.

They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British ministry have been so long forging.

5. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon

the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject ur in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already exhausted?

6. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition, to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

7. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve, inviolate, those inestimable privileges, for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle, in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it! sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us.

8. They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and

when a British guard shall be stationed in every house! Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction! Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

9. Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible, by any force which our enemy can send against us.

10. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking n ay be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

Gentle

11. It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. men may cry, peace, peace-but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and

slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

BURKE ON THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA-1781.

OH! inestimable right, oh! wonderful, transcendent right, the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money! Oh invaluable right! for the sake of which we have sacrificed our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home! Oh right! more dear to us than our existence, which has already cost us so much, and which seems likely to cost us our all. Infatuated man! (cried Mr. Burke, fixing his eyes on the minister,) miserable and undone country! not to know that the claim of right without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory and idle. We had a right to tax America, the noble lord tells us; therefore we ought to tax America. This is the profound logic which comprises the whole chain of his reasoning. Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What! shear a wolf! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and therefore I will shear the wolf. How wonderful that a nation could be thus deluded! But the noble lord dealt in cheats and delusions. They were the daily traffic of his invention; and he would continue to play off his cheats on this

house, so long as he thought them necessary to his pur pose, and so long as he had money enough at command to bribe gentlemen to pretend that they believed hii. But a black and bitter day of reckoning would surely come; and whenever that day came, he trusted he should be able, by a parliamentary impeachment, to bring upɔn the heads of the authors of our calamities, the punish ment they deserved.

LORD CHATHAM ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS

AGAINST AMERICA.

I AM astonished, SHOCKED to hear such principles confessed: to hear them avowed in this house, or even in this country. My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again on your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself IMPELLED to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, aз men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity "That God and Nature put into our hands!" What ideas of God and Nature that noble lord may en tertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity! What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife!— to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that

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