xington and Concord, and the very walls will cry
out in its support.

6. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see--I see clearly
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not
live to see the time this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die
colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.
Be it so: be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall
require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the
appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live,
let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a FREE
country.

7. But whatever may be our fate, be assured--be assured that this
Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but
it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick
gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our
graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with
thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its
annual return they will shed tears,--copious, gushing tears; not of
subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude, and of joy.

8. Sir, before God I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves the
measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am,
and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it;
and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for
the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God,
it shall by my dying sentiment; independence now, and INDEPENDENCE
FOREVER.

DEFINITIONS.--1. Rec-on-cil-i-a'tion, renewal of friendship. Col'league
(pro. kol'leg), an associate in some civil office. Pro-scribed', doomed to
destruction, put out of the protection of the law. Pre-des'tined, decreed
beforehand. Clem'en-cy, mercy, indulgence.

Notes.--Mr. Webster, in a speech upon the life and character of John
Adams, imagines some one opposed to the Declaration of Independence to
have stated his fears and objections before Congress while deliberating on
that subject. He then supposes Mr. Adams to have replied in the language
above.

1. The quotation is from "Hamlet," Act V, Scene 2.

You, sir, who sit in that chair. This was addressed to John Hancock,