denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to
hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they
promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted;
our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our
wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without
our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of
self-preservation which God has given us? No man had once a greater
veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me
as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same
religion and laws; I still view with respect the remains of the
constitution as I would a lifeless body, which had once been
animated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am aroused by the
din of arms; when I behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by
Englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood; when I tread over the
uncoffined bodies of my countrymen, neighbors, and friends; when I
see the locks of a venerable father torn by savage hands, and a
feeble mother, clasping her infants to her bosom, and on her knees
imploring their lives from her own slaves, whom Englishmen have
allured to treachery and murder; when I behold my country, once the
seat of industry, peace, and plenty, changed by Englishmen to a
theatre of blood and misery, Heaven forgive me, if I cannot root out
those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, and detest
submission to a people who have either ceased to be human, or have
not virtue enough to feel their own wretchedness and servitude!

Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, and a
display of words, talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for
protection. Had she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of
shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested. Let us not be so
amused with words; the extension of her commerce was her object.