Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine to which is Added, the Argument of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier Selected by a Member of the Philadelphia Bar

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E.C. & F. Biddle, 1851 - 540 pages

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Page 475 - The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly.
Page 107 - ... to dive into the depths of dungeons ; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain ; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries.
Page 475 - ... is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government ; they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
Page 36 - To overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder ; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty ! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never...
Page 347 - ... devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases...
Page 348 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam...
Page 42 - That God and nature put into our hands !' I know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature ; but I know that such abominable 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...
Page 88 - Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life, but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
Page 321 - Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent. " My lords, is it a prosecutor you want ? You have before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors ; and I believe, my lords, that the sun in his beneficent progress round the world does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of a social and moral community — all the Commons of England resenting...
Page 90 - When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty; are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our Constitution? Are we to give them our weakness for their strength; our opprobrium for their glory; and the slough of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom?

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