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of Irishmen-I beseech you to seize the auspicious occasion, and let THIS be the hour of your freedom. The enemies of England are on all sides pouring on her. The sea is not her's; the honor of her councils and arms is tarnished. She has no army-no fleet—no admirals— no generals. A supineness pervades her measures-and distractions attend her councils. Your parliament is the only spring to convey the native voice of the people; never did this or any other country behold a senate possessed of so much public confidence. There is an ardent combination among the PEOPLE, a fire which animates the nation to its own redemption. A sacred enthusiasm, which the language of antiquity has not depicted, and which only belongs to the natural confidence of freedom. FORTY THOUSAND MEN IN ARMS look up to the result of this day's deliberation.-Let the lovers of freedom rejoice at that martial spirit, which has operated to national redemption. If you refuse to comply with the resolution of this day, you belie the expectation of your constituents. A providential conjunction, and the hand of God direct it; grasp at a blessing, which promises independence and happiness. Yesterday the servants of the crown were asked, whether a standing army of FIFTEEN THOUSAND IRISHMEN, were to be bound in this kingdom by English laws; and the servants of the crown have asserted that they shall. The servants of the crown have dared to avow that they SHALL be bound by English laws.-This is the consequence of your rejoicing at a partial repeal of the laws which oppress you your exultation betrayed your rights. The courtier may have his salary-the landed gentleman may have his rent-you may export the commodities of your country, and bring the returns of another-but LIBERTY-LIBERTY, the consummation of all trade, is wanting. The superstructure is left without a base you have commerce without a full trade, and a senate without a parliament.

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XXXIX.

COLONEL BARRE'S SPEECH IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT,

ON THE STAMP-ACT BILL.

Sir--I have listened to the honorable member who spoke last, with astonishment. Has he forgotten the history of the colonies?" Will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, protected by our arms, refuse their mite! !"

"They planted by YOUR care!" No; your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny, to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of the earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends.

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They nourished up by YOUR indulgence!" They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this house, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them; men, whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seat of justice; some, who to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.

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They protected by YOUR arms!" They have nobly taken up arms in your defense; have exerted a valor, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defense of a country, whose frontier was drenched in blood,

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while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emoluments. And, believe me; remember I this day told you so, that the same spirit of freedom, which actuated that people at first, will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. Heaven knows, I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if ever they should be violated. But the subject is too delicate: I will say no more.

XL.

EXTRACT FOM MR. QUINCY'S SPEECH ON FOREIGN RELA

TIONS.

Mr. Chairman-Other gentlemen must take their responsibilities; I shall take mine. This embargo must be repealed. You cannot enforce it for any important period of time longer. When I speak of your inability to enforce this law, let not gentlemen misunderstand me. I mean not to intimate insurrections or open defiances of them; although it is impossible to foresee in what acts that" oppression" will finally terminate, which, we are told, "makes wise men mad." I speak of an inability resulting from very different causes. I ask this House, is there no control to its authority, is there no limit to the power of this national legislature? I hope I shall offend no man, when I intimate that two limits exist :-nature and the constitution.

Should this House undertake to declare, that this atmosphere should no longer surround us, that water should cease to flow, that gravity should not hereafter operate,

that the needle should not vibrate to the pole, I do suppose, Mr. Chairman-sir, 1 mean no disrespect to the authority of this House, I know the high notions some gentleinen entertain on this subject:-I do suppose-sir, I hope I shall not offend ;-I think I may venture to affirm, that such a law to the contrary notwithstanding, the air would continue to circulate, the Mississippi, the Hudson, and the Potomac, would roll their floods to the ocean, heavy bodies continue to descend, and the mysterious magnet hold on its course to its celestial cynosure. Just as utterly absurd and contrary to nature is it, to attempt to prohibit the people of New-England, for any considerable length of time, from the ocean. Commerce is not only associated with all the feelings, the habits, the interests and relations of that people, but the nature of our soil, and of our coasts, the state of our population and its mode of distribution over our territory, renders it indispensable. We have five hundred miles of sea-coast; all furnished with harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, basins, with every variety of invitation to the sea, with every species of facility to violate such laws as these. Our people are not scattered over an immense surface, at a solemn distance from each other, in lordly retirement, in the midst of extended plantations and intervening wastes: they are collected on the margin of the ocean, by the sides of rivers, at the heads of bays, looking into the water or on the surface of it, for the incitement and the reward of their industry. Among a people thus situated, thus educated, thus numerous, laws prohibiting them from the exercise of their natural rights, will have a binding effect not one moment longer than the public sentiment supports them. Gentlemen talk of twelve revenue cutters additional, to enforce the embargo laws. Multiply the number by twelve, multiply it by an hundred, join all your ships of war, all your gun boats, and all your militia; in despite of them all, such laws as these are of no avail when they become odious to public sentiment.

But where is our love of order-where our respect

for the laws? Let legislators beware, lest by the very nature of their laws, they weaken that sentiment of respect for them, so important to be inspired, and so difficult to be reinstated when it has once been driven from the mind. Regulate not the multitude to their ruin. Disgust not men of virtue by the tendency of your laws, lest when they cannot yield them the sanction of their approbation, the enterprising and the necessitous find a principal check upon their fears of violating them removed. When you present to the choice of a citizen, bankruptcy, a total loss of the accumulated wealth of his whole life, or a violation of a positive law, restrictive of the exercise of the most common rights, it presents to him a most critical alternative. I will not say how sublime casuists may decide. But it is easy to foretell that nature will plead too strong in the bosom to make obedience long possible. To such laws, in such a situation, patriotism is, to say the least, a very inactive assisYou cannot lay a man upon the rack, and crack his muscles by a slow torment, and call patriotism to soothe the sufferer.

tant.

XLI.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF MR. FOX IN THE BRITISH

PARLIAMENT.

I will, for the moment, put out of consideration all question of danger to ourselves, I will suppose Bonaparte to feel the truth of what he himself has declared, namely, that he despaired of success in attempting a dissent. I will suppose that all parts of our empire are at present secure, and that even in a protracted war there will be no probability, no possibility, (if gentlemen will take it so,) of affecting us in any quarter by invasion. Even in this state of security, however, what is our situation? Have we forgotten the last two years of the last war? Have we forgotten the condition of the middle classes of society

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