insisted that the colonies had borne but a small
proportion of the expenses of the last war, and had yet obtained by it
immense advantages at a vast expense to the mother country. He concluded
in the following words:

"And now will these American children, planted by our care, nourished
by our indulgence to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by
our arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy
burden under which we lie?"

As he sat down, Colonel Barre rose and replied with great energy, and,
under the influence of intense excitement, uttered the following
impassioned retort to the concluding words of Charles Townsend's speech:

"_They planted by your care!_ No; your oppressions planted them in
America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated,
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 God's 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.

"_They nourished 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 over 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 behaviour, on many occasions, has caused the
blood of those _sons of liberty_ to recoil within them; men promoted to
the highest seats 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.

"_They protected by your arms!_ They have nobly taken up arms in your
defence; have exerted a valour amidst their constant and laborious
industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in
blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your
emolument. And, believe me--remember, I this day told you so--the same
spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany
them still. But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God
knows, I do not at th