omports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are
fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be
reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our
love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the
implements of war and subjugation,--the last arguments to
which kings resort.

"'I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if
its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen
assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain
any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none.
They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They
are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which
the British ministry have been so long forging.

"'And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument?
Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have
we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have
held the subject up in every light of which it is capable;
but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty,
and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have
not been already exhausted?

"'Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have
remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated
ourselves before the throne, and have implored its
interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry
and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult;
our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been
spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne.

"'In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope
of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for
hope. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have
been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon
the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged,
and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until
the glorious object of our contest shall be