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With a black falsehood? Unmanly cruelty,
Ingratitude, and most unnatural treason?
What mean these murmurs? Dare then
any
Proclaim Prince Emerick a spotted traitor?
One that has taken from you your sworn faith,
And given you in return a Judas' bribe,
Infamy now, oppression in reversion,
And Heaven's inevitable curse hereafter?
Yet bear with me awhile? Have I for this
Bled for your safety, conquered for your honour!
Was it for this, Illyrians! that I forded

Your thaw-swollen torrents, when the shouldering ice
Fought with the foe, and stained its jagged points
With gore from wounds I felt not? Did the blast
Beat on this body, frost-and-famine-numbed,
Till my hard flesh distinguished not itself
From the insensate mail, its fellow-warrior?
And have I brought home with me victory,
And with her, hand in hand, firm-footed peace,
Her countenance twice lighted up with glory,
As if I had charmed a goddess down from heaven!
But these will flee abhorrent from the throne
Of usurpation! Have you then thrown off shame,
And shall not a dear friend, a loyal subject,
Throw off all fear? I tell ye, the fair trophies,
Valiantly wrested from a valiant foe,
Love's natural offerings to a rightful king,
Will hang as ill on this usurping traitor,
This brother-blight, this Emerick, as robes
Of gold plucked from the images of gods
Upon a sacrilegious robber's back.

EXTRACT FROM THE ADDRESS OF THE AMERICAN CONGRESS

TO THE INHABITANTS OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1775.

OUR enemies charge us with sedition. In what does it

THE ACADEMICAL SPEAKER.

143

temned, what steps have we pursued to obtain redress? We have carried our dutiful petitions to the throne. We have applied to your justice for relief. We have retrenched our luxury, and withheld our trade.

The advantages of our commerce were designed as a compensation for your protection. When you ceased to protect, for what were we to compensate?

The

What has been the success of our endeavours? clemency of our sovereign is unhappily diverted; our petitions are treated with indignity; our prayers answered by insults. Our application to you remains unnoticed, and leaves us the melancholy apprehension of your wanting either the will or the power to assist us.

Even under these circumstances, what measures have we taken that betray a desire of independence? Have we called in the aid of those foreign powers, who are the rivals of your grandeur? When your troops were few and defenceless, did we take advantage of their distress, and expel them our towns? Or have we permitted them to fortify, to receive new aid, and to acquire additional strength?

Let not your enemies and ours persuade you, that in this we were influenced by fear, or any other unworthy motive. The lives of Britons are still dear to us. They are the children of our parents, and an uninterrupted intercourse of mutual benefits had knit the bonds of friendship. When hostilities were commenced, when, on a late occasion, we were wantonly attacked by your troops, though we repelled their assaults and returned their blows, yet we lamented the wounds they obliged us to give; nor have we yet learned to rejoice at a victory over Englishmen.

SECOND EXTRACT FROM THE SAME.

LET us now ask what advantages are to attend our reduction? The trade of a ruined and desolate country is always inconsiderable its revenue trifling; the expense of subjecting and retaining it in subjection certain and inevitable. What then remains but the gratification of an ill-judged pride, or the hope of rendering us subservient to designs on your liberty?

of their American brethren, will not draw them with more reluctance against you. When too late you may lament the loss of that freedom, which we exhort you, while still in your power, to preserve.

On the other hand, should you prove unsuccessful; should that connexion, which we most ardently wish to maintain, be dissolved; should your ministers exhaust your treasures, and waste the blood of your countrymen, in vain attempts on our liberty; do they not deliver you, weak and defenceless, to your natural enemies?

Since, then, your liberty must be the price of your victories; your ruin, of your defeat; what blind fatality can urge you to a pursuit destructive of all that Britons hold dear?

If you have no regard to the connexion that has for ages subsisted between us; if you have forgot the wounds we have received in fighting by your side for the extension of the empire; if our commerce is not an object below your consideration; if justice and humanity have lost their influence on your hearts;-still motives are not wanting to excite your indignation at the measures now pursued: your wealth, your honour, your liberty are at stake.

Notwithstanding the distress to which we are reduced, we sometimes forget our own afflictions, to anticipate and sympathize in yours. We grieve that rash and inconsiderate counsels should precipitate the destruction of an empire, which has been the envy and admiration of ages; and call God to witness, that we would part with our property, endanger our lives, and sacrifice every thing but liberty, to redeem you from ruin.

A cloud hangs over your heads and ours; ere this reaches you, it may probably burst upon us. Let us, then, (before the remembrance of former kindness is obliterated,) once more repeat those appellations which are ever grateful in our ears; let us entreat Heaven to avert our ruin, and the destruction that threatens our friends, brethren and countrymen, on the other side of the Atlantic.

THE MORAL EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.

Beecher.

THE sufferings of animal nature, occasioned by intemperance, my friends, are not to be compared with the moral agonies which convulse the soul. It is an immortal being,

who sins, and suffers; and as his earthly house dissolves, he is approaching the judgment seat, in anticipation of a miserable eternity. He feels his captivity, and in anguish of spirit clanks his chains and cries for help. Conscience thunders, remorse goads, and as the gulf opens before him, he recoils, and trembles, and weeps, and prays, and resolves, and promises, and reforms, and' seeks it yet again,'-again resolves, and weeps, and prays, and seeks it yet again!' Wretched man! he has placed himself in the hands of a giant, who never pities, and never relaxes his iron gripe. He may struggle, but he is in chains. He may cry for release, but it comes not; and lost! lost! may be inscribed upon the door-posts of his dwelling.

In the mean time these paroxysms of his dying moral nature decline, and a fearful apathy, the harbinger of spiritual death, comes on. His resolution fails, and his mental energy, and his vigorous enterprise; and nervous irritation and depression ensue. The social affections lose their fulness and tenderness, and conscience loses its power, and the heart its sensibility, until all that was once lovely and of good report, retires and leaves the wretch abandoned to the appetites of a ruined animal. In this deplorable condition, reputation expires, business falters and becomes perplexed, and temptations to drink multiply, as inclination to do so increases and the power of resistance declines. And now the vortex roars, and the struggling victim buffets the fiery wave with feebler stroke, and warning supplication, until despair flashes upon his soul, and with an outcry that pierces the heavens, he ceases to strive, and disappears.

RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION.
Webster.

IMPORTANT as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still

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more important to maintain the right of such discussion, in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretences, the firmer shall be the tone, in which I shall as sert, and the freer the manner, in which I shall exercise it.

It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of public men. It is a 'homebred right,' a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty, which those, whose Representative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from my ground.

This high constitutional privilege, I shall defend and exercise, within this House, and without this House, and in all places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at all times. Living I shall assert, dying I shall assert it; and should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God, I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of them.

DIALOGUE.

SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE AND CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.

Sheridan.

Capt. A. SIR ANTHONY, I am delighted to see you here,

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