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the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that 55 proud station in the world which Providence had fitted her to fill.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power 60 in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. 65 Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights and my country her independence-am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No! 70 God forbid !

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny on the conduct of your suffering son, and see 75 if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life!

My Lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood 80 which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven!

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Be ye patient; I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished;

my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world-it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my 90 epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the 95 nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written! I have done.

Biographical and Historical: During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the spirit of independence was abroad. The American Revolution was followed by the French Revolution, and in 1803 Robert Emmet, an Irish patriot, headed a band to gain independence for Ireland. After an unsuccessful attempt to take the arsenal and castle at Dublin, he fled to the Wicklow mountains, whence he planned to escape to the continent. Contrary to the advice of his friends, he determined to have a last interview with his sweetheart, but the delay proved fatal to him. He was seized and condemned to death. This extract is from the remarkably eloquent speech with which he vainly defended himself.

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KING PHILIP TO THE WHITE SETTLER

EDWARD EVERETT

THINK of the country for which the Indians fought. Who can blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope, that glorious eminence, that

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-throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,'

as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as

10 with fire, the slanting beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forest,—could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into the hands of the stranger?

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As the river chieftains-the lords of the waterfalls and the mountains-ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's ax-the fishing-place disturbed by his saw-mills? Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, 20 the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians, who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain (rising as it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur),-in company with a friendly settler,-contemplating the progress already made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which 25 he was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, "White man, there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide, unrestrained, in my bark canoe. 30 By those dashing waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn.

"Stranger, the land is mine! I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They 35 could sell what was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my fathers sell that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did.

"The stranger came, a timid suppliant,-few and feeble, and asked to lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself 40 at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn

for his women and children; and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his parchments over the whole, and says, 'It is mine.'

"Stranger! there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit 45 has not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce Mohawk,—the 50 man-eater, is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great water is before me. No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee.

"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone 55 I thank thee. And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest down by night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant 50 in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I will burn,-till the white man or the Indian perish from the land. Go thy way for this time in safety,—but 65 remember, stranger, there is eternal war between me and thee!"

Biographical and Historical:

Edward Everett was a celebrated American orator and statesman. His career was varied, but he will be remembered chiefly through his essays and orations. He was in turn clergyman, professor of Greek at Harvard, representative in Congress, governor of Massachusetts, minister to England, president of Harvard, and secretary of state. He died at the close of the Civil War.

This extract is from an address delivered at Bloody Brook, South Deerfield, Mass., September 30, 1835, in commemoration of the death of many colonists in that spot during King Philip's War, September 18, 1675. King Philip, son of Massasoit, was an Indian chief who resented the coming of the white man and, gathering many Indian tribes about him, waged bitter war against the colonists. He himself was killed at Mount Hope, Rhode Island.

THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC

(From "Montcalm and Wolfe.")

FRANCIS PARKMAN

THE sun rose, and, from the ramparts of Quebec, the astonished people saw the Plains of Abraham glittering with arms, and the dark-red lines of the English forming in array of battle. Breathless messengers had borne the evil tidings to Montcalm, and far 5 and near his wide-extended camp resounded with the rolling of alarm drums and the din of startled preparation.

He, too, had had his struggles and his sorrows. The civil power had thwarted him; famine, discontent, and disaffection were rife among his soldiers; and no small portion of the Canadian 10 militia had dispersed from sheer starvation. In spite of all, he had trusted to hold out till the winter frosts should drive the invaders from before the town; when, on that disastrous morning, the news of their successful temerity fell like a cannon-shot upon his ear.

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Still he assumed a tone of confidence. "They have got to the weak side of us at last," he is reported to have said, "and we must crush them with our numbers." With headlong haste, his troops were pouring over the bridge of the St. Charles, and gathering in heavy masses under the western ramparts of the town. Could 20 numbers give assurance of success, their triumph would have been secure; for five French battalions and the armed colonial peasantry amounted in all to more than seven thousand five hundred men.

Full in sight before them stretched the long, thin lines of the British forces, the half-wild Highlanders, the steady soldiery of 25 England, and the hardy levies of the provinces,-less than five thousand in number, but all inured to battle, and strong in the full assurance of success.

Yet, could the chiefs of that gallant army have pierced the secrets of the future, could they have foreseen that the victory 30 which they burned to achieve would have robbed England of her proudest boast, that the conquest of Canada would pave the way

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