Let us not weaken still the weaker side SEM. CATO, my resentments Are sacrific'd to ROME-I stand reprov'd. CATO. FATHERS, 'tis time you come to a resolve. SEM. We ought to hold it out TILL DEATH: but, CATO, My private voice is drown'd amidst the senate's. CATO. Then let us rise, my friends, and strive to fill This little interval, this pause of life (While yet our liberty and fates are doubtful) ADDISON. 173 ORATIONS AND IMPASSIONED PIECES. SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM AGAINST EMPLOYING THE INDIANS IN THE AMERICAN WAR.* Can I cannot, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of TRUTH. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the RUIN which is brought to our doors. ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to SCORN and CONTEMPT ! "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world: now, none so poor as to do her reverence." The people whom we at first despised as REBELS, but whom we now acknowledge as ENEMIES, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store ; have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained by our INVETERATE ENEMY-and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with DIGNITY or EFFECT. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. *This most eloquent and powerful speech particularly demands a vehemence of expression, with a dignity and solemnity of manner. ; No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do : I know their virtues and their valour I know they can achieve any thing but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an You cannot, my Lords, you cannot CONQUER America. What is your present situation there? IMPOSSIBILITY. We do not know the worst: but we know that in three campaigns we have done NOTHING, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot: your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to over-run them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American-as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms; -NEVER! NEVER! -NEVER! But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? to call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods? to delegate to the merciless Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our BRETHREN? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my Lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk," to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as MEN, as CHRISTIANS, to protest against such horrible barbarity!—“That God and nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and nature that noble Lord may entertain, I know not; but I know, that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature, to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that Right Reverend, and this most Learned Bench, to vindicate the religion of their GoD, to support the justice of their COUNTRY. I call upon the Bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn ;-upon the Judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution.- To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom?—our BRETHREN !to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid and instrumentality of these HORRIBLE HOUNDS OF WAR! Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She armed herself with blood-hounds, to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico! We, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your Lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure, the indelible stigma of public abhorrence. More particularly, I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong, to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such ENORMOUS and PREPOSTEROUS principles. TELL IN PRISON. *Think ye vile chains! to curb the soul of TELL? With my mind's energy! Think ye the spirit requires corporeal form To converse with the spirit? Are there not hours, * Strong expression of disdain with the most undaunted, courageous manner. The manner continues most undaunted, with the highest degree of enthusiasm. Relaxing into a solemn, contemplating, reflecting manner, requiring a slow utterance. |