peare and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen: whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted; from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions has been borrowed-representation-jury trial-voting the supplies-writ of habeas corpus-our whole civil and criminal jurisprudence against our fellow protestants, identified in blood, in language, in religion with ourselves. In what school did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of America, learn those principles of civil liberty, which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and valor? American resistance to British usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots; not more by Washington, Hancock and Henry, than by Chatham and his illustrious associates in the British parliament. It ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt ministry, and their servile tools, to whom we were not more opposed than they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among us; for tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare and a Milton upon my imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God, I possessed in common with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock and a Porteus, upon my religion. This is a British influence which I can never shake off. I allow much to the just and honest prejudices growing out of the revolution. But by whom have they been suppressed, when they ran counter to the interests of my country? By Washington. By whom, would you listen to them, are they most keenly felt? By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, Newgate and Kilmainham, since the breaking out of the French revolution; who, in this abused and insulted country, have set up for political

teachers, and whose disciples give no other proof of their progress in republicanism, except a blind devotion to the most ruthless military despotism that the world ever saw. These are the patriots, who scruple not to brand with the epithet of tory, the men, (looking towards the seat of Col. Stewart,) by whose blood your liberties have been cemented. These are they, who hold in such keen remembrance the outrages of the British armies, from which many of them are deserters. Ask these self-styled patriots where they were during the American war, (for they are, for the most part, old enough to have borne arms,) and you strike them dumb; their lips are closed in eternal silence. If it were allowable to entertain partialities, every consideration of blood, language, religion and interest, would incline us towards England: and yet, shall they be alone extended to France and her ruler, whom we are bound to believe a chastening God suffers as the scourge of a guilty world! On all other nations he tramples; he holds them in contempt; England alone he hates; he would, but he cannot despise her; fear cannot despise; and shall we disparage our ancestors? Shall we bastardize ourselves by placing them even below the brigands of St. Domingo ?-with whom Mr. Adams negociated a sort of treaty, for which he ought to have been, and would have been impeached, if the people had not previously passed sentence of disqualification for their service upon him. This antipathy to all that is English, must be French.

But the outrages and injuries of England-bred up in the principles of the revolution, I can never palliate, much less defend them. I well remember flying, with my mother and her new born child, from Arnold and Philips-and we were driven by Tarleton and other British Pandours, from pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country. The impression is indelible on my memory: and yet, (like my worthy old neighbor, who added seven buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford, and drew a

fine sight at his man.) I must be content to be called a tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get rid of one evil, (supposing it possible,) at the expense of a greater: mutatis mutandis, suppose France in possession of the British naval power-and to her the trident must pass, should England be unable to wield it--what would be your condition? What would be the situation of your sea-ports, and their sea-faring inhabitants? Ask Hamburg, Lubec! Ask Savannah! What! sir, when their privateers are pent up in our harbors by the British bull-dogs, when they receive at our hands, every right of hospitality. from which their enemy is excluded; when they capture in our own waters, interdicted to British armed ships, American vessels; when such is their deportment towards you, under such circumstances; what could you expect if they were the uncontrolled lords of the ocean? Had those privateers at Savannah borne British commissions; or had your shipments of cotton, tobacco, ashes, and what not, to London and Liverpool, been confiscated, and the proceeds poured into the English exchequer-my life upon it, you would never have listened to any miserable wire-drawn distinctions between" orders and decrees affecting our neutral rights," and " municipal decrees," confiscating in mass, your whole property: you would have had instant war! The whole land would have blazed out in war. And shall republicans become the instruments of him who has effaced the title of Attila to the scourge of God!' Yet, even Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites in the very countries that he overrun; sons of that soil, whereon his horse had trod; where grass could never after grow. If perfectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my memory clouded, my intellect stupified, my strength and spirits exhausted, I could not give utterance to that strong detestation which I feel towards, (above all other

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works of the creation,) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Khan or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who have ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition! Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the last of these chieftains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become a party to his views, a partner in his wars?

But before this miserable force of ten thousand men is raised to take Canada, I beg gentlemen to look at the state of defence at home; to count the cost of the enterprize before it is set on foot, not when it may be too late; when the best blood of the country shall be spilt, and nought but empty coffers left to pay the cost. Are the bounty lands to be given in Canada? It might lessen my repugnance to that part of the system, to granting these lands, not to these miserable wretches who sell themselves to slavery for a few dollars, and a glass of gin, but in fact, to the clerks in our offices, some of whom, with an income of fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars, live at the rate of four or five thousand, and yet grow rich; who, perhaps, at this moment, are making out blank assignments for these land rights. I beseech the House, before they run their heads against this post, Quebec, to count the cost. My word for it, Virginia planters will not be taxed to support such a war-a war which must aggravate their present distresses; in which they have not the remotest interest. Where is the Montgomery, or even the Arnold, or the Burr, who is to march to the Point Levi?

I call upon those professing to be republicans, to make good the promises, held out by their republican predecessors, when they came into power; promises, which for years afterwards, they honestly, faithfully fulfilled. We have vaunted of paying off the national debt; of retrenching useless establishments; and yet

have now become as infatuated with standing armies, loans, taxes, navies and war, as ever were the Essex Junto.

[Mr. Randolph apologized for his very desultory manner of speaking. He regretted that his bodily indisposition had obliged him to talk, perhaps, somewhat wildly; yet he trusted some method would be found in his madness.]