s
themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to
others.' (Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 15.) The striking out of the passage
declaring the slave trade 'piratical warfare against human nature
itself,' was deeply regretted by many of that generation. Other
alterations were for the better, making the paper more dispassionate and
terse, and--what was no small improvement--more brief and exact. On the
evening of the 4th the Committee rose, when Harrison reported the
Declaration as having been agreed upon. It was then adopted by twelve
States, unanimously." [That is, by the majority of the delegates of
twelve provinces, and, of course, _reported_ as "unanimous," according
to previous agreement.]--_Ib._, p. 539.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE DISCUSSED.

The foregoing chapters bear ample testimony how heartily I have
sympathized with our elder brother colonists of America, in their
conception and manly advocacy and defence of their constitutional rights
as British subjects; how faithfully I have narrated their wrongs and
advocated their rights, and how utterly I have abhorred the despotic
conduct of George the Third, and of his corrupt Ministers and mercenary
and corrupted Parliament, in their unscrupulous efforts to wrest from
the American colonists the attributes and privileges of British freemen,
and to convert their lands, with their harbours and commerce, into mere
plantations and instruments to enrich the manufacturers and merchants of
England, and provide places of honour and emolument for the scions and
protegees of the British aristocracy and Parliament. But I cannot
sympathize with, much less defend, the leaders of the old American
colonists in the repudiating what they had professed from their
forefathers; in avowing what they had for many years denied; in making
their confiding and distinguished defenders in the British
Parliament--the Chathams, Camdens, Sherburnes, the Foxes, Burkes, and
Cavendishes--liars in presence of all Europe; in deliberately practising
upon their fellow-colonists what they had so loudly complained of
against the King and Parliament of Great Britain; in seeking the
alliance of a Power which had sought to destroy them for a hundred
years, against the land of their forefathers which had protected them
during that hundred years, and whose Administration had wronged and
sought to oppress them for only twelve years.

After many years of anxious study