may shortly hope, under your own vine and your own figtree, to spend the remainder of your days in tranquillity and ease; when the dangers you have passed, and the difficulties you sustain, will only seem to heighten your enjoyments; when you will look forward to the applauses of succeeding ages, and extend your happiness to the most remote period, by anticipating that which your exertions shall transmit to posterity. But, friends, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, vain is your hope to experience these glorious rewards for all your toils, and quaff the cup of bliss; in vain has our hardy ancestor traversed the trackless ocean to seek in the wilds of the new world a refuge from the oppression of the old; in vain for our sakes has he fled from that tyranny which, by taxing industry, transmits poverty as an inheritance from one generation to another; in vain has he striven with the ruthless barbarian, and with the various difficulties incident on the emigration to countries untrodden by civilized man, if, by internal discord, by a pusillanimous impatience under unavoidable burdens, by an immoderate attachment to perishable property, by an intemperate jealousy of those servants whom each revolving year may displace from your confidence, by forgetting those fundamental principles which induced America to separate from Britain, we play into the hands of a haughty nation, spurred on to perseverance in injury by a despairing and unrelenting tyrant, and his rapacious minions. Your representatives feel themselves incapable of believing that any but the misguided, the weak and the unwary amongst our fellow citizens, can be guilty of so foully staining the honor of their State, and wantonly becoming parricides of their own peace and happiness, and that of their posterity. Let us then all, for our interest is the same, with one heart and one voice, mutually aid and support each other. Let us steadily, unanimously, and vigorously prosecute the great business of establishing our independence. Thus shall we be free ourselves, and leave the blessings of freedom to millions yet unborn. AN ENGLISHMAN'S OPINION OF THE WAR. 123 war. Ex. LXXIV.—AN ENGLISHMAN'S OPINION OF THE Speech in the House of Commons, June 12, 1781. WILLIAM PITT. * A NOBLE lord, in the heat of his zeal, has called it a holy For my part, though the honorable gentleman who made the motion has been more than once in the course of the debate severely reprehended for calling it a wicked and accursed war, I am persuaded, and will affirm, that it is a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust and diabolical war! It was conceived in injustice; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly; its footsteps are marked with blood, slaughter, persecution and devastation; in truth, everything which goes to constitute moral depravity and human turpitude, are to be found recorded there. But the mischief of it recoils on the unhappy people of this country, who are made the instruments by which the wicked purposes of its authors are to be effected. The nation is drained of its best blood, its most vital resources of men and money. The expenses of it are enormous, much beyond any former experience; and what has the British nation received in return? Nothing but a series of ineffective victories, or severe defeats; victories celebrated only by a temporary triumph over our brethren whom we would trample down and destroy, which have filled the land with mourning for the loss of dear and valuable relations, slain in the impious cause of enforcing unconditional submission, or with narratives of the glorious exertions of men struggling in the holy cause of liberty, though struggling under all the difficulties and disadvantages which are in general deemed the necessary concomitants of victory and success. Where is the Englishman who, on reading the narratives of those bloody and well-fought contests, can refrain from lamenting the loss of so much British blood spilt in such a cause; or from *William Pitt, "the illustrious son of an illustrious father," was second son of the great Earl of Chatham, and inherited, with his father's great abilities, his love of constitutional liberty. He was elected to Parliament in 1781, and therefore displayed his sympathy with America only during the latter part of the war; but his voice was always raised on the side of freedom and justice. He was called "The Great Commoner," from the fact that, being a second son, he was not entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, but won all his distinction in the Commons. weeping, on whatever side victory might be declared? Add to this melancholy consideration, that on whichever side we look, we can perceive nothing but our natural and powerful enemies, or lukewarm and faithless friends, rejoicing in our calamities, or meditating our ultimate downfall. Ex. LXXV.-THE ATTACK ON FORT GRISWOLD.* September 7, 1781. T. K. POTTER. "RISE! man the wall! our clarion's blast This dawning morn must be the last Yon trumpet-clang, and cannon's peal, Is ours, but not our country's, knell. We fall! we die! but our expiring breath "Here, on this new Thermopyla, * After the treason of Benedict Arnold, he was rewarded by the British with the rank of Brigadier-General in their army, and in this capacity was sent to ravage and lay waste the coast of his native state, Connecticut. Among other valiant deeds he assaulted and took by storm Fort Griswold, opposite New London, and caused its brave commander, Col. Ledyard, with sixty of his garrison, to be slaughtered in cold blood after the surrender. Informed of this outrage, the militia of the neighborhood assembled to avenge it; but Arnold did not choose to risk an encounter with them, and reëmbarked on board his ships with most undignified haste. IN MEMORIAM. "Welcome the Spartan's death! 125 We fall! we die! but our expiring breath They come like autumn leaves they fall, Well may the ruffians quake to tell They died the Spartan's death, Like brothers died; and their expiring breath Ex. LXXVI.-IN MEMORIAM.* PHILIP FRENEAU. Ar Eutaw Springs the valiant died: How many heroes are no more! If in this wreck of hope, the brave Can yet be thought to claim a tear, The friends of freedom slumber here! Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain, Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest! Stranger! their humble graves adorn; *This poem is inscribed by the author, "To the memory of the brave Americans under General Greene, in South Carolina, who fell in the action of September 8, 1781." "Tis not the beauty of the morn They saw their injured country's woe, But, like the Parthian, famed of old, Now rest in peace our patriot band; Ex. LXXVII.-CIRCULAR LETTER FROM CONGRESS TO THE STATES, DECEMBER 17, 1781. SEVEN years have nearly passed since the sword was first unsheathed. The sums expended in so long a period in a just and necessary war must appear moderate; nor can any demand for pecuniary aid be deemed exorbitant by those who compute the extent of the public exigencies and the proportion of the requisition to the ability of the States. Suppose not that funds exist for our relief beyond the limits of these states. As the possessions of the citizens constitute our natural resources, and from a sense of their sufficiency the standard of war was erected against Great Britain, so on them alone we now rely. But the want of money is not the only source of our difficulties; nor do the enemy gather consolation from the state of our finances alone. We are distressed by the thinness of our battalions. Tardiness in the collection of our troops has constantly encouraged in our enemy a suspicion that Ameri can opposition is on the decline. Hence money from time to time is poured into the coffers of our enemy; and the lender is perhaps allured by the prospect of receiving it with a usurious interest from the spoils of confiscation. |