the name of enemies; the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure of desperate hostility: this people, despised as reb els, are acknowledged as enemies, are abetted against you; supplied with every military store; their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy! and our ministers dare not interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor of a great kingdom? Is this the indignant spirit of England, who, but yesterday, gave law to the house of Bourbon My lords the dignity of nations demands a decisive conduct in a situation like this.

This ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know they can achieve any thing except impossibilities: and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America.

Your armies, last war, effected every thing that could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, now a noble lord in this House, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you CANNOT conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know, that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. We shall soon know, and in any event, have reason to lament, what may have happened since.

As to conquest, therefore, my lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and

barter

barter with every little pitiful German Prince, who sells his subjects to the shambles of a foreign power; your efforts are forever vain and impotent; doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely. For it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop remained in my country, I NEVER would lay down my arms; NEVER, NEVER, NEVER

SCENE FROM THE TRAGEDY OF CATO.

Cato.

F

CATO, LUCIUS, and SEMPRONIUS.

ATHERS, we once again are met in council : Cesar's approach has summon'd us together, And Rome attends her fate from our resolves. How shall we treat this bold aspiring man ? Success still follows him, and backs his crimes: Pharsalia gave him Rome, Egypt has since Receiv'd his yoke, and the whole Nile is Cesar's. Why should I mention Juba's overthrow, And Scipio's death? Numidia's burning sands Still smoke with blood. 'Tis time we should decree What course to take. Our foe advances on us,, And envies us even Lybia's sultry deserts.

Fathers, pronounce your thoughts; are they still fix'd
To hold it out, and fight it to the last?

Or are your hearts subdu'd at length, and wrought
By time and ill success to a submission ?
Sempronius, speak.

Sempronius. My voice is still for war.
Heav'ns! can a Roman senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death!
No; let us rise at once, gird on our swords,
And at the head of our remaining troops,
Y

Attack

Attack the foe, break through the thick array
Of his throng'd legions, and charge home upon him.
Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest,

May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage.
Rise, fathers, rise! 'tis Rome demands your help;
Rise, and revenge her slaughter'd citizens,

Or share their fate! The corpse of half her senate
Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we
Sit here delib'rating in cold debates,

If we shall sacrifice our lives to honor,
Or wear them out in servitude and chains.
Rouse up, for shame! our brothers of Pharsalia
Point at their wounds, and cry aloud, To battle!
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow
And Scipio's ghost walks unreveng'd among us.
Cato. Let not a torrent of impetuous zeal
Transport thee thus beyond the bounds of reason.
True fortitude is seen in great exploits

That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides.
All else is tow'ring frenzy and distraction.
Are not the lives of those who draw the sword
In Rome's defence intrusted to our care?

Should we thus lead them to the field of slaughter,
Might not th' impartial world with reason say,
We lavish'd at our death the blood of thousands,
To grace our fall, and make our ruin glorious?
Lucius, we next would know what's your opinion?
Luc. My thoughts, I must confess, are turn'd on peace.
Already have our quarrels fill'd the world

With widows, and with orphans. Scythia mourns
Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions
Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Rome.

Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind.
It is not Cesar, but the gods, my fathers;
The gods declare against us; repel

Our vain attempts. To urge the foe to battle,
Prompted by blind revenge, and wild despair,
Were to refuse th' awards of Providence,
And not to rest in Heav'n's determination.

Already

Already have we shown our love to Rome;
Now let us show submission to the gods.
We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves,

But free the commonwealth; when this end fails,
Arms have no further use: our country's cause,

That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands,
And bids us not delight in Roman blood,
Unprofitably shed. What men could do, -

Is done already. Heav'n and earth will witness,
If Rome must fall, that we are innocent.

Cato.

Let us appear nor rash nor diffident;

Immod'rate valour swells into a fault;

And fear, admitted into public councils,
Betrays like treason. Let us shun them both.
Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs

Are grown thus desp'rate: we have bulwarks round us:
Within our walls are troops inur'd to toil
In Afric's heats, and season'd to the sun :
Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us,
Ready to rise at its young prince's call.
While there is hope, do not distrust the gods;
But wait at least till Cesar's near approach
Force us to yield. Twill never be too late
To sue for chains, and own a conqueror.
Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time?
No, let us draw our term of freedom out
In its full length, and spin it to the last;
So shall we gain still one day's liberty:
And let me perish; but in Cato's judgment,
A day, an hour of virtuous liberty,
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

EXTRACT

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION, DELIVERED AT BOSTON, JULY 4, 1794, IN COMMEMORATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

MERICANS! you have a country vast in extent,

of the

lubrious climes: held not by charters wrested from unwilling kings, but the bountiful gift of the Author of nature. The exuberance of your population is daily divesting the gloomy wilderness of its rude attire, and splendid cities rise to cheer the dreary desart. You have a government deservedly celebrated as giving the sanctions of law to the precepts of reason;" presenting, instead of the rank luxuriance of natural licentiousness, the corrected sweets of civil liberty. You have fought the battles of freedom, and enkindled that sacred flame which now glows with vivid fervour through the greatest empire in Europe.

We indulge the sanguine hope, that her equal laws and virtuous conduct will hereafter afford examples of imitation to all surrounding nations. That the blissful period will soon arrive when man shall be elevated to his primitive character; when illuminated reason and regulated liberty shall once more exhibit him in the image of his Maker; when all the inhabitants of the globe shall be freemen and fellow-citizens, and patriotism itself be lost in universal philanthropy. Then shall volumes of incense incessantly roll from altars inscribed to liberty. Then shall the innumerable varieties of the human race unitedly "worship in her sacred temple, whose pillars shall rest on the remotest corners of the earth, and whose arch will be the vault of heaven."

DIALOGUE