sense, their patriotism, and their virtue. Do not, gentlemen, suffer the rage of passion to drive Reason from her seat! If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your pride, or roused your resentment?

4. Have, I conjure you, the magnanimity to pardon that offence! I entreat, I implore you, to sacrifice those angry passions to the interests of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiating libation for the weal of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin!

5. Indeed, indeed, it will be but of little, very little, avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong; it will heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will which has brought us frail beings into political existence. That opinion is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This very measure will change it. You will be deceived.

6. Do not, I beseech you, in a reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation, to the wild wind! Trust not your treasure to the Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived!

waves.

7. Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained: I stand in the presence of Almighty God, and of the world; and I declare to you, that, if you lose this charter, never,—no, never, will you get another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. Pause-pause!--for Heaven's sake, pause!

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.

12*

60. WASHINGTON'S SWORD AND FRANKLIN'S STAFF.

[From an address in the United States House of Representatives, on the reception of these memorials by Congress.]

THE

HE sword of Washington! The staff of Franklin! Oh, sir, what associations are linked in adamant with these names! Washington, whose sword was never drawn but in the cause of his country, and never sheathed when wielded in his country's cause! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the printing-press, and the ploughshare!

2. What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of human kind! Washington and Franklin! What other two men, whose lives belong to the eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a deeper impression of themselves upon the age in which they lived, and upon all after time?

3. Washington, the warrior and the legislator! In war, contending, by the wager of battle, for the independence of his country, and for the freedom of the human race,-ever manifesting, amidst its horrors, by precept and by example, his reverence for the laws of peace, and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity; in peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord, among his own countrymen, into harmony and union, and giving to that very sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent than that attributed, in ancient times, to the lyre of Orpheus.

4. Franklin! The mechanic of his own fortune; teaching in early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its ter rors, the lightning of its fatal blast; and wresting from the tyrant's hand the still more afflictive sceptre of oppression; while descending into the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, in the dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his hand the charter of independence, which

he had contributed to form, and tendering from the selfcreated nation to the mightiest monarchs of Europe, the olivebranch of peace, the mercurial wand of commerce and the amulet of protection and safety to the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable cruelty and merciless rapacity of war.

5. And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, returning to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels, under the presidency of Washington, and recording his name, under the sanction of devout prayer, invoked by him to God, to that Constitution under the authority of which we are here assembled, as the representatives of the North American people, to receive, in their name and for them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great confederated Republicthese sacred symbols of our golden age.

6. May they be deposited among the archives of our gov ernment! And may every American who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that Supreme Ruler of the universe, by whose tender mercies our Union has been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitude and revolutions of this turbulent world; and of prayer for the continuance of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence, to our beloved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more! J. Q. ADAMS.

61. LIBERTY OR DEATH.

[This speech was delivered by PATRICK HENRY before the Virginia Convention of Delegates, 1775. When he took his seat at the close, no murmur of applause was heard. The effect was too deep. After a trance of a moment, several members started from their seats. The cry, "To arms!" seemed to quiver on every lip, and gleam from every eye. Richard H. Lee arose and supported Mr. Henry with spirit and elegance; but his melody was lost amidst the agitation of that ocean which the master spirit of the storm had lifted up

on high. The supernatural voice still sounded in their ears. They heard in every pause the cry of "Liberty or Death!" They became impatient of speech. Their souls were on fire for action. "The speeches of Patrick Henry are uniformly pervaded by an impassional glow, by a strength and point of language, and by a convenient structure of the sentences which make them of great service for a pupil in declaiming."]

MR.

[R. PRESIDENT, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is it the part of wise men, engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly con cern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever an guish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, and to provide for it.

2. I have but one lamp, by which my feet are guided; 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?

3. Is it that insidious smile, with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, 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.

4. 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? 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 gentle men assign any other motive for it?

5. Has Great Britain any other 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 ministers have been so long forging.

6. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argu ment? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we any thing new to offer on the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capa ble; 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.

7. 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 parlia ment. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplica. tions have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. PATRICK HENRY.

62. LIBERTY OR DEATH-(CONTINUED).

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 irreso lution 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?