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ments 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?

4. 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 And what have we to oppose them?

been so long forging. Shall we try argument? the last ten years.

Sir, we have been trying that for

5. Have we any thing new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up 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? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.

6. Sir, we have done every thing 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.

7. 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! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

8. 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 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!

9. The gentlemen who are opposed to our resisting with arms the aggressions of Great Britain, tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But, sir, when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are to

tally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?

10. 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? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power.

11. 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. 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.

12. 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 may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

13. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 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, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Heaven! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

LESSON LXXXI

The Death of Washington.

1. It is natural, my fellow citizens, that the gratitude of mankind should be drawn to their benefactors. A number of these have successively arisen, who were no less distinguished for the elevation of their virtues, than the lustre of their talents. Of those, however, who were born, and

who acted through life, as if they were born, not for themselves, but for their country and the whole human race, how few, alas! are recorded in the long annals of ages, and how wide the intervals of time and space that divide them.

2. In all this dreary length of way, they appear like five or six light-houses on as many thousand miles of coast; they gleam upon the surrounding darkness, with an inextinguishable splendour, like stars seen through a mist; but they are seen like stars, to cheer, to guide, and to save. 3. WASHINGTON is now added to that small number. Already he attracts curiosity, like a newly discovered star, whose benignant light will travel on to the world's and time's farthest bounds. Already his name is hung up by history as conspicuously, as if it sparkled in one of the constellations of the sky.

4. By commemorating his death, we are called this day to yield the homage that is due to virtue; to confess the common debt of mankind, as well as our own; and to pronounce for posterity, now dumb, that eulogium which they will delight to echo ten ages hence, when we are dumb.

5. I consider myself not merely in the midst of the citizens of this town, or even of the state. In idea, I gather round me the nation. In the vast and venerable congregation of the patriots of all countries and of all enlightened men, I would, if I could, raise my voice, and speak to mankind in a strain worthy of my audience, and as elevated as my subject.

6. But how shall I express emotions that are condemned to be mute, because they are unutterable? I felt, and I was witness, on the day when the news of his death reached us, to the throes of that grief that saddened every countenance, and wrung drops of agony from the heart. Sorrow laboured for utterance, but found none. Every man looked round for the consolation of other men's tears.

7. Gracious Heaven! what consolation! Each face was convulsed with sorrow for the past; every heart shivered with despair for the future. The man who, and who alone, united all hearts, was dead-dead, at the moment when his power to do good was the greatest, and when the aspect of the imminent public dangers seemed more than ever to render his aid indispensable, and his loss irreparable: irreparable for two WASHINGTONS come not in one age.

F. AMES.

LESSON LXXXII.

The Old Servant.

1. The reflected light from the white cliffs of France, on which my eyes were fixed, made them appear to press forward on my sight; and while my imagination was taking a frisk from the Straits of Dover to the Mediterranean, and dropping a sigh over political necessity, I found I had thrown the reins of my horse on his neck, who had taken advantage of my inattention to pick up a little clover that grew by the way-side.

2. Nay, if it be thy will, old companion, says I, e'en take the other bite; the farmer will be never the poorer for the mouthful thou shalt carry away: did he know thy good qualities, he would let thee eat thy fill. I will not interrupt thy pleasurable moments; so, prithee, feed on. Long have I wished an occasion to record thy deserts, thou faithful old servant! It now presents itself, and thou shalt have a page in my book, though it provoke the sneer of the critic. It is thy due, for thou hast given me health.

3. Full many a year hast thou journeyed with me through the uneven ways of the world! We have tugged up many a steep hill, and borne the buffet of the tempest together! I have had the labours of thy youth, and thy age hath a claim on me, which, while I have sixpence in my pocket, I dare not refuse. Thou shalt not, when thy strength is exhausted, be consigned to poverty and toil! or, as thou passest by my door, lashed on by some unfeeling owner, look at me with the severe eye of reproach.

4. Had that Hand, which fashioned us both, endued thy species with the faculty of speech, with what bitterness of heart would they complain of the ingratitude of ours!

5. In the wide extent of the animal reign, there scarce exists an object from which man may not draw some useful hint: thou, my trusty friend, hast offered me no inconsiderable one; thou never aimedst to appear what thou wast not; a steady walk, or a cheerful trot, was all thou attemptest; nay, perhaps, it was as much as thy master himself aspired to; and, when remembrance shall be weighing thy merits, the scale shall turn in thy favour, when I reflect, that thou scornedst to desert the path of nature for the perilous one of affectation! KEATE.

LESSON LXXXIII.

The Hatefulness of War.

1. Apart altogether from the evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, and see whether we can find its character engraven on the aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive observer. The stoutest heart would recoil, were he who owns it to behold the destruction of a single individual by some deed of violence.

2. Were the man, who at this moment stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid, by some deadly aim, a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death.

3. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed,who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away, who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or enjoyment,-who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments,-who would dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed, which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever-meddling memory, into a scene of restlessness.

4. But, generally, the death of violence is not instantaneous; and there is often a sad and dreary interval between its final consummation and the infliction of the blow which causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not found its direct avenue to that spot where the principle of life is situated; and the soul, finding obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle for hours, ere it can make its dreary way through the winding avenues of that tenement, which has been torn open by a brother's hand.

5. O! if there be something appalling in the suddenness of death, think not that, when gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contemplation by viewing it in a milder form.

6. O! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold

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