the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! Its parentage is all inland.

'It turns the other, also."

Is embargo independence? Deceive not yourselves! It is palpable submission! Gentlemen exclaim, "Great Britain smites us on one cheek!" And what does Administration? Gentlemen say, "Great Britain is a robber; she takes our cloak." And what says Administration? "Let her take our coat, also." France and Great Britain require you to relinquish a part of your commerce, and you yield it entirely! At every corner of this great city we meet some gentlemen of the majority wringing their hands and exclaiming, "What shall we do? Nothing but an embargo will save us. Remove it and what shall we do?" Sir, it is not for me, an humble and uninfluential individual, at an awful distance from the predominant influences, to suggest plans of government. But, to my eye, the path of our duty is as distinct as the Milky Way,- all studded with living sapphires, glowing with cumulating light. It is the path of active preparation, of dignified energy. It is the path of 1776! It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist, and where they exist,on the ocean as well as on the land. But I shall be told, "This may lead to war." I ask, "Are we now at peace?" Certainly not, unless retiring from insult be peace; unless shrinking under the lash be peace! The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is inculcated too studiously among us. Disgrace is worse! Abandonment of essential rights is worse!

27. CICERO AGAINST VERRES.-Marcus Tullius Cicero.

I ask now, Verres, what you have to advance against this charge. Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that anything false, that even anything aggravated,

is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privilege of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape?

The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen: I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus and will attest my innocence."

The blood-thirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defense, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, Fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; while the only words he uttered amid his cruel sufferings were, “I am a Roman citizen!" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that, while he was thus asserting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution,- for his execution upon the cross!

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship!- once sacred!

now trampled upon! But what then! - Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman cítizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman Commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the root of liberty and sets mankind at defíance?

I conclude with expressing my hopes that your wisdom and justice, Fathers, will not, by suffering the atrocious and unexampled insolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, leave room to apprehend the danger of a total subversion of authority and the introduction of general anarchy and confusion.

28. BRITISH INFLUENCE, 1811.-John Randolph.

Imputations of Brìtish | ìnfluence have been uttered against the opponents of this war. Against whom are these charges brought? Against men whó, in the war of the Revolution, were in the Coun

cils of the nation, or fighting the battles of your country! And by

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whom are these charges made? By rùnaways, chiefly from the

British dominions, since the breaking out of the French troubles.

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high considerátion. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of pírates are 1 RO I RO down

very cívil, góod sort of people, with whom we find no dífficulty in

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maintaining the relations of peace and ámity. "Turks, Jews and LO1 s LO 1

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welcome to our arms. With chiefs of bandítti, negro or mulatto, we

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antipathies are up in àrms against her. Against whom? Against

those whose blood runs in our | vèins; in common with whom we

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laim Shakspeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen; LC Ft on waist and whose government | is the freest on earth, our own only | excèpted;

fróm | whom every valuable principle of our own institutions has

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been borrowed-representation, trial by júry, voting the supplies,

writ of habeas corpus· - our whole civil and criminal jurisprudence;

—against our fellow-Pròtestants, identified in blóod, in lánguage, in

In what school did the worthies of our land-the Washingtons, Hénrys, Háncocks, Fránklins, Rútledges, of America — learn those

principles of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and valor? American resistance to British usurpation has not been more warmly | cherished by these great men and their compátriots,—not more by Washington, Hancock and Henry, than by

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ought to be remémbered, too, that the heart of the English people

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was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt mìnistry, and their servile

tools, to whom we were not more opposed than they were. I trust

that none such may ever exist among ùs; for tools will never be

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wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Mìlton upon my imagination; of a Lòcke upon

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teus upon my religion. This is a British influence which I can never | shake off.

29. IRISH AGITATORS, 1834.-Richard L. Sheil.

The population of Ireland has doubled since the Union. What is the condition of the mass of the people? Has her capital increased in the same proportion? Behold the famine, the wretchedness and pestilence of the Irish hovel, and if you have the heart to do so, mock at the calamities of the country, and proceed in your demonstrations of the prosperity of Ireland. The mass of the people are in a condition more wretched than that of any nation in Europe; they are worse housed, worse covered, worse fed, than the basest boors in the provinces of Russia; they dwell in habitations to which your swine would not be committed; they are covered with rags which your beggars would disdain to wear, and not only do they never taste the flesh of the animals which crowd into your markets, but while the sweat drops from their brows, they never touch the bread into which their harvests are converted. For you they toil, for you they delve; they reclaim the bog, and drive the plow to the mountain's top, for you. And where does all this misery exist? In a country teeming with fertility, and stamped with the beneficent intents of God! When the famine of Ireland prevailed,-when her cries crossed the Channel, and pierced your ears and reached your hearts, the granaries of Ireland were bursting with their contents; and while a people knelt down and stretched out their hands for food, the business of deportation, the absentee tribute, was going on! Talk of the prosperity of Ireland! Talk of the external magnificence of a poor-house, gorged with misery within!

But the Secretary for the Treasury exclaims: "If the agitators would but let us alone, and allow Ireland to be