of the beholder. He turns for relief to the annals as subservient to its purposes, as their hopes were of those people whose masculine virtues have dependent on its venality, and making pretence of obstinately, will he not say wisely, resisted the trespasses, which, if real, the laws were open to refinement of a civilized world. But from the punis), unmasked its true designs, by quartering misfortunes of such a nation, much is to be learn- an armed force in this metropolis in a time of peace. ed. As she is hurried onwards by the vortex of Where was the citizen whose indignation did not that immeasurable gulph, in which empires sink flash at this undisguised attack on his liberties? to rise no more, let her serve us as a signal to avoid the soldiers pride too grew sanguinary at the idea the first impulse of its resistless tide. of contempt from the people he himself had been

*Venerable patrons of freedom, wherever your

To trace Great Britain through the whole pro-taught to despise; and, as though heaven designed gress of her ambition in this country, would be toto effect its greatest purposes by the sacrifice of step back to a very early period: for, long before what men conceive to be the dearest objects of she avowed her system of colonial slavery in the its guardianship, the lives and rights of citizens stamp-act, the liberties of our ancestors had were delivered over to the scourge of military endured the most alarming innovation from her rancour. throne. Without cause, and without notice, she had invalidated their charters; laid impositions up-country may lie! boast not that the reason and on their trade; attempted a most dangerous influence over their internal government, by endeavor ing to make it independent of the people;-and all this with the same confidence, as though her policy and foresight, and not her persecutions, had settled them on this side the Atlantic.

speculative truths of this our common cause, armed an extensive world in support of its justice. Turn to the tragedy we commemorate, as imprinted by the bloody hand of the tyrant, and view the highest outrage his power could commit, or the forbearance of humanity sustain. There hecatombs of But the full display of her despotic policy was slaughtered citizens were offered at the shrine of reserved to add accumulated disgrace to the in- cursed ambition.-What can we add to their glorious reign of the third-George. Then, intoxicat memories through whose wounds their country ed with America, she slumbered upon the tottering bled; whose names are handed round the globe pillars of her own constitution; the hand of slavery with the great occasion on which they fell; and rocked her as she lay on the giddy height; falsehood gilded her visions and bound her senses with the enchantment of success; while her blind ambition alone remained awake, to misdirect the ordinary assistance of fortune, and to make her fall equally certain and complete.

whose tombs shall everstand a basis to the stateliest pillar in the temple of freedom? heaven has avenged their fall by realizing the prophecy of the indignant, American, as he vented his anguish over their rankling blood. "These are indeed my country's wounds, but oh! said he, the deep and tremendous restitutions are at hand; I see them with a prophetic eye this moment before me. Horrors shall be

The genius of Britain once interred, the first spectre which shot from its tomb was the stamp-repaid with accumulation of horror. The wounds act. This promulgation of a scheme so repugnant in America shall be succeeded by deep-mouthe.l to the fundamental principles of the late English constitution, announced the fall, but did not obliterate the memory of that much respected system, in this country. America saw that the act bore not a single feature of its reputed parent, and having detected its illegitimacy, effectually resisted its operation. But, as though conviction must ever be productive of obstinacy, Britain desisted not to rend in pieces the charters of her colonies, which served to remind her of the violence she committed on her own. Her administration affecting to realize the fables of its minions, whose very fears were

gashes in the heart of Britain the chain of solemn consequences is now advancing. Yet, yet my friends, a little while, and the poor, forlorn one, who has fought and fallen at the gate of her proper of life, for all the sweet and binding principles in habitation, for freedom, for the common privileges humanity, for father, son, and brother, for the cradled infant, the wailing widow, and the weeping maid; yet, yet a little while and she shall find an avenger. Indignant nations shall arm in her defence. Thrones and principalities shall make her cause their own, and the fountains of blood that have run from her exhausted veins shall be answer*See Abbe Raynal's hist. American revolution, +Anonymous.

*For some of these fanciful misrepresentations, see a vindication of the town of Boston, from many false and malicious aspersions, contained in certain letters written by governor Bernard and others, p. 65. published by order of the town, 1769.

ed by a yet fuller measure of the horrible effusion must ever enliven her gratitude; exalt the honor of -blood for blood; and desolation for desolation; France, and we trust too, promote the interests of O my injured country! my massacred America!"

Melancholy scene! the fatal, but we trust the last effect in our country of a standing army quarter. ed in populous cities in a time of peace.

both.

Among the advantages which have arisen from these great events to the people of Massachusetts, that of securing their lives, their liberties, and property, the great object of all civil government, by Britain having thus violated the greatest law a constitution of their own framing, is not to be nations or individuals can be held by, to use the accounted the least. Dismembered from a govern. language of the ancients, threw a veil over the ment, which had long stood by the exactest balance altars of her gods whom she was too haughty to of its powers, even against the corruption of its appease. Would to heaven, for her sake, we too ministers, they found themselves accustomed to had a veil to hide from the eye of justice, the principles, which age had stamped with authority, ashes of our desolated towns, and the tracts which and patriots sealed with their blood. The cause her ravages have imprinted through every quarter of their separation had taught them the avenues of our once peaceful land. through which despotism insinuates itself into the If "every act of authority of one person over ano. community, and pointed out the means of excludther, for which there is not an absolute necessity, ing it. Under these circumstances they produced is tyrannical," and if tyranny justifies resistance, a system which, we trust, experience will evince to have remained inactive, under these injuries, had to be an improvement* upon the best mankind have been a kind of political stoicism, equally inconsist. hitherto admired. The quick return of all delegatent with the laws of nature and of society. On ed power to the people, from whom it is made to such principles arose the memorable declaration spring, and the check which each part of the goof July, 1776.-A declaration which at once gave vernment has upon the excesses of the other, seem life and freedom to a nation; dissolved a monopoly to warrant us in placing on it all the confidence hu. unnatural as unjust; and extended the embraces of man laws can deserve. But, our country to the universe.-A declaration which Let us not trust laws: an uncorrupted people can heaven has since ratified by the successful event exist without them; a corrupted people cannot long of her arms. For, when we consider the number exist with them, or any other human assistance. of her victories; the disadvantages under which They are remedies which at best always disclose they were obtained; with the chain of important and confess our evils. The body politic, once consequences which depended upon the very modistempered, they may indeed be used as a crutch ment of their decision, who but must acknowledge, to support it a while, but they can never heal it. after allowing to our military actors every thing Rome, when her bravery conquered the neighborheroism can claim, that there appeared peculiar ing nations, and united them to her own empire, marks of more than human assistance? the surrender was free from all danger within, because her armies, of entire armies to a power which they affected to being urged on by a love for their country, would look upon rather as an object of their chains than as readily suppress an internal as an external ene. of their swords, was a degree of glory which no my. In those times she made no scruple to throw enemy that ever passed the Roman yoke afforded out her kings who had abused their power. But to that republic. Hapless Britain! for even those when her subjects fought not for the advantage of whom you injure must pity you, how has fortune the commonwealth; when they thronged to the added acrimony to her fickleness, in choosing for a Asiatic wars for the spoils they produced, and prescene of your disgrace, that climate where, in a ferred prostituting the rights of citizenship upon late war, she so loudly vaunted the invincibility of any barbarian that demanded them, to meeting him in the field for their support, then Rome grew those rights, which she ought to have impaled him too modest to accept from the hands of a dictator for daring to invade. No alteration in her laws merely, could have effected this. Had she remained

your arms!

America once unfettered, nobly relied upon the uprightness of her cause and the bravery of her sons. But, as though the virtues of one crown were to apologize for the merciless cruelty of ano-virtuous, she might as well have expelled her ther, a monarch, equally wise in council as brilliant dictators as her kings. But what laws can save a and powerful in arms, met her in an alliance which

*Becaria on crimes and punishments, p. 10.

*Is it not so in the equality of representation and mode of election?

freedom.

people who, for the very purpose of enslaving them are we in the frequent change of our soldiery.* selves, choose to consider them rather as councils This seems to be the best antidote against such an which they may accept or refuse, than as precepts evil. It prevents that lethargy which would be a which they are bound to obey?* with such a people symptom of death in the citizen at home; and checks they must ever want a sanction and be contemned. that immoderation in the soldier which is apt to —†Virtue and long life seem to be as intimately mislead his virtues in the field. By this exchange allied in the political as in the moral world: she is of their qualities they mutually warrant happiness the guard which providence has set at the gate of to each other, and freedom to their country. America once guarded against herself, what has True it is, when the nature and principles of a she to fear? her natural situation may well inspire government are pure, we have a right to suppose her with confidence. Her rocks and her mountains it at the farthest possible distance from falling. are the chosen temples of liberty. The extent of But when we consider that those countriest in her climate, and the variety of its produce, throw which the wisest institutions of republican govern.the means of her greatness into her own hands, ments have been established, now exhibit the and insure her the traffic of the world. Navies strongest instances of apostacy, we cannot but see shall launch from her forests, and her bosom be the necessity of vigilance. Commerce, which makes found stored with the most precious treasures of perhaps, the greatest distinction between the old nature. May the industry of her people be a still world and the modern, having raised new objects surer pledge of her wealth.-The union of ber for our curiosity, habitual indulgence hath at length states too is founded upon the most durable prinmade them necessary to our infirmities. Thus ciples: the similarity of the manners, religion, and effeminated, can we hope to exceed the rigor of laws of their inhabitants, must ever support the their principles, who even forbade the mentioning measure which their common injuries originated. of a foreign custom, and whose sumptuary laws are Her government, while it is restrained from violat. held up in our age as objects of astonishment? Such ing the rights of the subject, is not disarmed against nations have mouldered away, an uncontrovertable the public foe.

proof, that the best constructed human govern. Could Junius Brutus, and his colleagues, have ments, like the human body, tend to corruption; beheld her republic erecting itself on this disjoint. but as with that too, there are not wanting remedies ed neck of tyranny, how would they have wreathed to procrastinate their final decay. a laurel for her temples as eternal as their own memories! America! fairest copy of such great originals! be virtuous, and thy reign shall be as the world you have enfranchised. happy as durable, and as durable as the pillars of

Among the causes of their fall there are none more common or less natural than that of their own

strength. Continual wars making a military force necessary, the habit of conquest once acquired and other objects being wanting, history is not without instances of its turning itself inwards, and knawing as it were, upon its own bowels. Happy

*A conscience more scrupulous, than it is probable Sylla ever had, would be apt to imagine this general disposition of the people wiped away the guilt of enslaving them from any hand that effected it. If in any case, 'tis in this that we may apply the maxim volenti non fit injuria,

Virtue, in a republic, is a most simple thing, it is a love for the republic; it is a sensation, and not a consequence of acquired knowledge: a sensation that may be felt by the meanest as well as by the highest person in the state.

Spirit of laws, book 5th, chap. 2d. The politic Greeks who lived under a popular government, who knew no other support but virtue. The modern inhabitants of that country are entirely taken up with manufactures, commerce, finances, riches, and luxury.

Spirit of laws, book 3d. chap. 3d. For a complete collection of these, I beg leave to refer to the 34 book of the political disquisitions.

ORATION DELIVERED AT BOSTON, MARCH 5, 1783,
BY DR. THOMAS WELSH.
Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget:

Virgil Eneid, Lib. 2. Lin. 521. Friends and fellow-citizens-Invited to this place by your choice, and recollecting your well known indulgence, I feel myself already possessed of your candor, while I "impress upon your minds, the ruinous tendency of standing armies being placed in free and populous cities in a time of peace."

A field here presents, annually traversed by those who, by their sagacity have discovered, and by

*The design of society being to protect the weak taking away the distinction between them, and to against the more powerful, whatever tends to be consonant to its first principles. This was an putting all its members upon the same level, must object with the old republics; Rome, obliged her citizens to serve in the field ten years, tons on the rise and fall of the Rom. Emp. c. 10 last age of sixteen years and forty-seven.-Vid. Reflecnote.

their voices declared, in strains of manly elo-) who had served abroad, yet the veterans were quence, the source from whence those fatal streams routed by the apprentices.

originate, which, like the destroying pestilence, have depopulated kingdoms and laid waste the fairest empires.

Rome advanced on the zenith of glory and greatness, and conquered all nations in the times of the republic, while her army was an unpaid militia.

The Grecians carried on their wars against Persia by means of their militia; and at last beat the numerous mercenary armies, and subdued the vast empire of Persia.

In prosecution of the subject, I presume I shall not offend a respectable part of my audience, I mean the gentlemen of the American patriot army*—an army whose glory and virtues have been long since recorded in the temple of fame-her trumpet has The deeds of valor performed by my own counsounded their praises to distant nations-her wing trymen, and in our day, are numerous and recent, shall bear them to latest ages. and point out, as with a sun-beam, that the militia When the daring spirit of ambition, or the bound-is to a free country a lasting security. less lust of domination, has prompted men to invade thef natural peaceful state of society, it is among the first emotions of the heart, to repel the bold invader. Men, assembled from such motives, having expelled the enemy from their borders, reassuming the pruning hook and the spade, for themanded, excites an idea of servitude and dependsword and the spear, have, in all ages, been called the saviours of their country.

You will now permit me to consider the condition and consequences of a standing army.

Men who enlist themselves for life soon lose the feelings of citizens. To command and be com

ence, which degrades the mind, and in a social view, destroys the character of a free agent.*

A militia is the most natural defence of a free They who follow the profession of arms conceive state, from invasion and tyranny: they who compose themselves exempted from the useful occupations the militia, are the proprietors of the soil; and who of life, and thence contract a habit of dissipation; are so likely to defend it, as they who have receiv. soldiers inured to exercise and labor in their duty, ed it from their ancestors-acquired it by their at leisure to roam, will not be wholly inactive in & labor-or obtained it by their valor? every free city, where the means of gratification abound; man has within his breast the great essentials of pursuing the objects of pleasure, with the same zeal with which they engaged in the toils and a soldier, and having made the use of arms familiar, is ever ready for the field. And where is the enterprises of the field, whole armies have too late, found themselves destroyed by the dissolving power tyrant who has not reason to dread an army of freeof luxury. men?

In the battle of Naseby, in the days of Cromwell, the number of forces was equal on both sides; and all circumstances equal. In the parliament's army only nine officers had ever seen actual service and most of the soldiers were London apprentices, drawn out of the city two months before. In the king's army there were about a thousand officers

*I should not have neglected so favorable an opening to have shewn my poor respects to the character of the commander in chief of the American army, but from a consciousness of inability to add to a name, more durable than marble, which will outlive the assaults of envy and the ravages

of time.

We have a remarkable instance of this, my fellow-citizens, in the army of Hannibal, which, having withstood the greatest hardships, and which the most dreadful dangers had never been able to discourage, in winter quarters, at Capua, was entirely conquered by plenty and pleasures.t

The effects of luxury, though productive of the greatest misfortunes to an army stationed in a city, are by no means confined to that class of men.

*Moore, in his view of society and manners in Europe, observes-"As to the common soldiers, the leading idea of the discipline is, to reduce them in many respects, to the nature of machines; that The natural state of nations with respect to each they may have no volition of their own, but be other, is certainly that of society and peace. Such actuated solely by that of their officers; that they is the natural and primitive state of one man with may have such a superlative dread of their officers, respect to another; and whatever alteration man-as annihilates all fear of the enemy; that they may kind may have made in regard to their original state, they cannot, without violating their duty, break in upon that state of peace and society, in which nature has placed them, and which, by her laws, she has strongly recommended to their observance. Purlamaqui, Part 4. Chap. 1. Sec. 4. #Vid. political disquisitions.

move forward when ordered, without deeper reasoning or more concern than the firelocks they carry along with them.”

Vid. Livy's Roman history for an account of the battles, sufferings, and almost incredible march and destruction of the renowned Carthagenian general and his army.

The great body of the people, smote by the charms their country, at the sight of one hundred and fifty and blandishments of a life of ease and pleasure, lictors, or peace officers, as a guard of the decemviri fall easy victims to its fascinations. The city, -Such an army was dangerous, they said, to lireared by the forming hand of industry, soon feels berty. These politic people knew the prevailing the symptoms of dissolution-the busy merchant propensity in all mankind to power. The history now no more extends his commerce; the mechanic of later times has abundantly justified the wisdom throws aside his chissel; the voice of riot succeeds of their jealousies. All parts of Europe which to the sound of the hammer, and the midnight revel have been enslaved, have been enslaved by armies. to the vigils of labor. No nation can be said to enjoy internal liberty which admits them in a time of peace. When a government has a body of standing troops at command, it is easy to form pretensions for the dis tribution of them, so as to effect their own purposes; when a favorite point is to be carried, a thousand soldiers may convey irresistible argument, and compel men to act against their feelings, interest, and country.

When a large respectable standing army has been stationed in a city, commanded by officers of known patriotism, who have taught those under their orders to interchange the kind and friendly offices of life; citizens, conceiving themselves secured from domestic broils and the danger of invasion from abroad, imperceptibly relax in their attention to military exercises, and may thus be exposed as a tempting bait to an aspiring despot; Such were the arguments employed by Philip besides, a people who have made themselves re-the second, of Spain, to persuade the inhabitants spectable by their personal attention to their own of the Netherlands to relinquish their liberties, defence, neglecting their militia, may be insulted by those neighbors who had formerly been accustomed to revere their power.

When communities have so far mistaken their interest as to commit the defence of every thing valuable in life to a standing army, the love of ease will scarcely permit them to re-assume the unpleasing task of defending themselves.

At the conclusion of a long and bloody war, the liberties of a people are in real danger from the admission of troops into a free city. When an army has suffered every hardship to which the life of a soldier is peculiarly incident, and has returned crowned with the well-earned laurels of the field, they justly expect to be received into the open arms, and with the applauses of those for whom they have fought, and in whose cause they have bied; in a situation like this, whole communities, in transport of gratitude, have weakly sacrificed at the shrine of a deliverer, every thing for which their armies have fought, or their heroes bled.

Nations, the most renowned among the ancients for their wisdom and their policy, have viewed the army with an eye of attentive jealousy; the Romans, characterised for personal bravery, trembled for

their property, and their religion; the progress of these dreadful measures produced scenes of massacre and devastation, the recital of which must excite exquisite horror in the most savage breast.

One of the commanders of the army under the duke of Alva, demanding a pass through the city of Rotterdam, was at first refused, but assuring the magistrates that he meant only to lead his troops through the town, and not to lodge them in it, they consented to suffer the companies to pass through one by one: no sooner had the first com. Pany entered the city, than the officer, without regard to his engagements, ordered them to keep the gates open until the other companies should arrive: one of the citizens, endeavoring to shut the gate, was killed by his own hand; his troops, eager to follow his example, drew their swords, and, giving a-loose to their fury, spread themselves over the town, and butchered more than three hundred of

the inhabitants.

This was among the first events of that war which rendered the Netherlands a scene of horror and devastation for more than thirty years; but which, whilst it proved the source, on many occasions, of extreme distress to the people, called forth an exertion of virtue, spirit, and intrepidity, which seldom occurs in the annals of history.Never was there a more unequal contest, than be. tween the inhabitants of the Low-Countries and the Spanish monarch; and never was the issue of

in the battles fought in our age, every single soldier has very little security and confidence except in the multitude; but among the Romans, every individual, more robust and of greater ex perience in war, as well as more inured to the fatigues of it, than the enemy, relied upon himself only. He was naturally endued with courage, or *The whole affair is related at length in Watin other words, with that virtue which a sensibility son's hist. of the Low-Countries, to which the reader of our own strength inspires. Montesquieu. is referred.