2. 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. Besides, sir, we shall not fight 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.

3. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone,—it is to the active, the vigilant, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no elec tion! 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!

4. 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!

5. 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 pur. chased 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!

PATRICK HENRY

I

63. RETURN OF BRITISH FUGITIVES, 1782.

VENTURE to prophesy, there are those now living who will see this favored land amongst the most powerful on earth,―able, sir, to take care of herself, without resorting to that policy which is always so dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid.

2. Yes, sir, they will see her great in arts and in arms,-her golden harvests waving over fields of immeasurable extent,

her commerce penetrating the most distant seas, and her cannon silencing the vain boasts of those who now proudly affect to rule the waves.

3. But, sir, you must have men,-you cannot get along without them. Those heavy forests of valuable timber, under which your lands are groaning, must be cleared away. Those vast riches which cover the face of your soil, as well as those which lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and gathered only by the skill and enterprise of men.

4. Your timber, sir, must be worked up into ships, to transport the productions of the soil from which it has been cleared. Then, you must have commercial men and commercial capital, to take off your productions, and find the best markets for them abroad. Your great want, sir, is the want of men; and these you must have, and will have speedily, if you are wise.

5. Do you ask how you are to get them? Open your doors, sir, and they will come in! The population of the Old World is full to overflowing. That population is ground, too, by the oppressions of the governments under which they live. Sir, they are already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your coasts with a wistful and longing eye.

6. They see here a land blessed with natural and political advantages, which are not equalled by those of any other country upon earth;-a land on which a gracious Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance,-a land over which peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where content and plenty lie down at every door.

7. Sir, they see something still more attractive than all this. They see a land in which Liberty hath taken up her abode,that liberty whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only in the fancies of poets. They see here a real divinity, her altars rising on every hand, throughout these happy States; her glories chanted by three millions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under her blessed influence.

8. Sir, let but this, our celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand towards the people of the Old World,-tell

them to come, and bid them welcome,—and you will see them pouring in from the North, from the South, from the East, and from the West. Your wilderness will be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of any adversary.

9. But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Brit ain, and particularly to the return of the British refugees Sir, I feel no objection to the return of those deluded people. They have, to be sure, mistaken their own interests most wofully; and most wofully have they suffered the punishment due to their offences.

10. But the relations which we bear to them, and to their native country, are now changed. Their king hath acknowl edged our independence; the quarrel is over, peace hath returned, and found us a free people. Let us have the magnanimity, sir, to lay aside our antipathies and prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light.

11. Those are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will be serviceable in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us with necessaries, during the infant state of our manufactures. Even if they be inimical to us in point of feeling and principle, I can see no objection, in a political view, in making them tributary to our advantage. And, as I have no prejudices to prevent my making this use of them, so, sir, I have no fear of any mischief that they can do us. Afraid of them!-What, sir, shall we, who have laid the prond British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps?

PATRICK HENRY.

64. LAFAYETTE.

[JOHN QUINCY ADAMS was not merely a statesman, but, as Professor of Oratory, his lectures are able productions, and evince the vigor of a mind thoroughly conversant with the subject it investigates. The following is an extract from Mr. Adams's finished oration on the life and character of Lafayette, delivered before Congress in 1834:]

PRONO

RONOUNCE him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon, from the creation of the world to this day, the mighty dead of every age and every clime,-and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette?

2. There have doubtless been in all ages men whose discoveries or inventions in the world of matter, or of mind, have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.

3. Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal nobility, under the most absolute monarchy of Europe; in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities, at the mo ment of attaining manhood the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above.

4. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of Liberty. He came to another hemisphere, to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of our independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us.

5. In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of pol icy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form

of government. He wished to add nothing to it. He would gladly have abstracted nothing from it. Instead of the imag inary Republic of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, he took a practical existing model in actual operation here, and never attempted or wished more than to apply it faithfully to his own country.

6. It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land; but he saw it from the summit of Pisgah. It was not given to Lafayette to witness the consummation of his wishes in the establishment of a Republic and the extinction of all hereditary rule in France. His principles were in advance of the age and hemisphere in which he lived. . . . The prejudices and passions of the people of France rejected the principle of inherited power in every station of public trust, excepting the first and highest of them all; but there they clung to it, as did the Israelites of old to the savory deities of Egypt.

7. When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extin guished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafay ette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full devel opment of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors, and perils, and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward till the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound, to announce that time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race high on the list of pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.