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OPINIONS OF AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER IN AMERICA.

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guage and the most insulting scoffs. If you persist in your resolution, all hope of a reconciliation is extinct. The Americans will triumph,-the whole continent of North America will be dismembered from Great Britain, and the wide arch of the raised empire fall. But I hope the just vengeance of the people will overtake the authors of these pernicious counsels, and the loss of the first province of the em pire be speedily followed by the loss of the heads of those ministers who first invented them.

Ex. XXX.-OPINIONS OF AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER IN

AMERICA.

Speech in Parliament Feb. 27, 1775.

TEMPLE LUTTRELL.

I AM not, Sir, altogether unacquainted with the people of whom I am now speaking. Curiosity once led me to travel many hundreds of miles along their flourishing and hospitable provinces. I found in most of them the Spartan temperance, in many the urbanity of Athens; and notwithstanding the base and groundless imputations on their spirit which the cankered tongue of prejudice and slander has poured forth against them, they will, I am confident, if set to the proof, evince the Roman magnanimity, ere Rome fell under sceptred usurpation. But, Sir, if a foreign enemy should appear at your gates, will there be found among them many a Coriolanus? He stands single as the prodigy of forgiveness, in the annals of a people whose attachment to their native land was carried to the utmost height of enthusiasm.

How soon that foreign enemy may appear at your gates, I know not. According to the horological predictions of a most enlightened state soothsayer, we have about seven years more of profound tranquillity with the House of Bourbon to trust to; but from the symptoms of our domestic distraction, and the improved state of the government and finances of our neighbors, I should judge it prudent to be somewhat better provided than we are at present for an , early rupture; not entirely to dismantle our ports and our coasts of soldiers and seamen, sent to immolate the martyrs to liberty of their own flesh and blood, on the distant continent of America.

It is well known, through melancholy observation, drawn from the fate of the Assyrian, Persian, and Roman empires, that national societies, as well as the individual mortals of whom those societies are composed, have their nonage, their adult vigor, and their decline. Whatever share of indulgence and independency Great Britain shall, in this her florid and athletic stage, generously bestow on her rising colonies, they will no doubt amply repay to her in some future generation when she is verging towards that awful goal which must close her race of glory.

The military coercion of America will be impracticable. What has been the fate of your famous Bills passed in the last session of the deceased parliament? I mean, Sir, the Boston Port Bill, and the one for altering the charter of Massachusetts Bay. America, as an earnest of her triumph over the future labors for which envy and malice may reserve her, has, like another Hercules in the cradle, already grappled with those two serpents sent for her destruction. Neither shall we be long able to sustain the unhallowed war at so remote a distance; unexplored deserts, woodland ambuscades, latitudes to which few of our soldiery have been seasoned; the southern provinces scarcely to be endured in the summer months, the northern provinces not approachable in the winter season; shipwrecks, pestilence, famine, the unrelenting inveteracy and carnage of York and Lancaster will here be joined to all the elementary hardships and maladies of a bigot crusade.

Now, Sir, who can look forward to a probable epoch in the red volume of Time, when the sword drawn in this quarrel will be sheathed in peace? Without a gift of preternat ural foresight, I may remark that these are features in the aspect of infant America which denote at maturer years a most colossal force, And, to adopt their own words, what they contend for is that reasonable portion of liberty with which they were chartered as their birthright, not by any earthly potentate, but by the King of kings, "to make their lives happy in the possession of which liberty they do now hourly invoke that King of kings, or to make their death glorious in its just defence."

Beware how you aggravate a spirit like this! It will grow, it will strengthen, it will gather to itself every stream of patriotic feeling and love of freedom, until, like a roaring torrent, it will overwhelm you and bury you in the abyss of its waters!

ANNIVERSARY ORATION.

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Ex. XXXI.-ANNIVERSARY ORATION.

Delivered at Boston, March 5, 1775.

DR. JOSEPH WARREN.

My ever honored fellow-citizens: You will not now expect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing strains of eloquence, which charmed you when a Lovell or a Hancock spoke; but you will permit me to say, that with a sincerity equal to theirs, I mourn over my bleeding country. With them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply resent the injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.

Yet, though our country is in danger, it is not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determined to be free-and Heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand forth in the cause of virtue; but sternly frown upon the inhuman miscreant who, to secure the loaves and fishes to himself, would breed a serpent to destroy his children!

But pardon me, my fellow citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights, or perish in the generous struggle. However difficult the combat, you never will decline it when Freedom is the prize. An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No! our wish is that Great Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength together. But if pacific measures are ineffectual-if it should appear that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will never turn your faces from the foe, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess Liberty fast by a Brunswick's side on an American throne.

You then, who nobly have espoused your country's cause -who generously have sacrificed wealth and ease-who have despised the pomp and show of tinselled greatness-refused the summons to the festive board, and been deaf to the allur

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ing calls of luxury and mirth; who have forsaken your downy pillow to keep your vigils by the midnight lamp, for the salvation of your invaded country; you will reap that harvest of renown which you so justly have deserved. Even the children of your most inveterate enemies, ashamed to tell from whence they sprung, shall join the general cry of gratitude to those who broke the fetters that their fathers forged.

Having redeemed your country, and secured the blessing to future generations, who, fired by your example, shall emulate your virtues, and learn from you the heavenly art of making millions happy-with heart-felt joy, with transports all your own, you will cry, "The glorious work is done!" Then drop the mantle to some young Elisha, and take your seats with kindred spirits in your native skies.

Ex. XXXII.-USELESS TOIL.

Speech in Parliament, March 16, 1775.

LORD CAMDEN.

MY LORDS:-To conquer a great continent of 1,800 miles. in length, containing three millions of people, all indissolubly united on the great Whig foundation of liberty, seems an undertaking not to be rashly engaged in. Where are you to get men and money adequate to the service and expense that the reduction of such a continent must require? What are the ten thousand men you have just voted out to Boston? Merely to save General Gage from the disgrace and destruction of being sacked in his entrenchments. It is obvious, my lords, that you cannot furnish armies, or treasure competent to the mighty purpose of subduing America. It is obvious that your only effort can be by your naval power; and admitting full success to this, what can you effect? Merely the blocking up of their ports, and the suppression of their trade.

But will this procure the conquest of America? No, my lords, they are prepared to meet these severities, and to surmount them. They are applying themselves most diligently to agriculture, that great source of strength and independence. Foreseeing the important crisis, they have provided against its wants; and have imported into their country

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stores of industry, implements of husbandry and manufactures. They have united in the rejection of luxury and superfluous enjoyment. They have suppressed their public diversions, formerly common enough in their great and wealthy towns; and every man attaches himself wholly to the great business of his country. Such is the state of America. She has curtailed her expenses; she has reduced her table; she has clothed herself in mean and coarse stuffs; she has adopted the wise system of frugal industry. Her wants can be only ideal, imaginary, non-existent.

But, my lords, what will be the state of this civilized, enlightened, dissipated and debauched country? How shall the want of American commerce be supplied, of that commerce which contributes the means of your luxury, of your enjoyments, of the imaginary happiness of this country? We may feel the loss of American connection, a loss which nothing can compensate; but America will have little reason to regret her disconnection from England; and, my lords, it is evident that England must one day lose the dominion of America.

It is impossible that this petty island can retain in dependence that mighty continent increasing daily in numbers and strength. To protract the time of separation to a distant day, is all that can be hoped; and this hope might be obtained by wise and temperate counsels; not by precipita tion and violence uniting England against you; for so it is, my lords; there is not a man in America who can endure the idea of being taxed, perhaps to the amount of his whole property, by a legislation three thousand miles distant; or who can separate the idea of taxation from representation.

And when you consider what has been your conduct towards America; when the severest and most comprehensive punishments are inflicted, without examining the offence; when their constitutional liberties are destroyed; when their charters and their rights are sacrificed to the vindictive spirit of the moment; when you thus tear up all their privileges by the roots; is there a country under heaven, breathing the last gasp of freedom, that will not resist such oppressions, and vindicate, on the oppressors' heads, such violations of justice?

And what, my lords, is the state into which the present measures have brought both countries? At home, discontent and division prevail; but in America it was reserved for the wisdom of these times to produce such a union as

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