And form thyself to manhood, I would bid thee
Live and be still a king, that thou mayst learn
What man should be to man-
This royal tent, with such of thy domestics
As can be found, shall wait upon thy service;
Nor will I use my fortune to demand
Hard terms of peace; but such as thou mayest offer
With honor, I with honor may receive.
COLONEL BARRE'S SPEECH IN THE BRITISH ParLIAMENT, 1765, ON THE STAMP-ACT BILL.
N the first reading of the bill, Mr. Townsend spoke in its favour; and concluded with the following words: "And will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence; and protected by our arms; will they grudge to contribute their mite, to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?"
On this Colonel Barre rose, and answered Mr. Townsend in the following masterly manner.
"They planted by YOUR care!" No; your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny, to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of the earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends.
"They nourished up by YOUR indulgence!" They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending
persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them; men, whose behaviour, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seat of justice; some, who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a for eign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.
"They protected by YOUR arms!" They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valour, amidst their cons.ant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country, whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emoluments.
And, believe me; remember I this day told you so, that the same spirit of freedom, which actuated that people at first, will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. Heaven knows, I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart.
However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country.. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if ever they should be violated. But the subject is too delicate, I will say
EXTRACT FROM A MANUSCRIPT POEM.
TH
Tsing, that link extreme of time, which joins
HE day of Doom, the all-important day,
The measur'd chain of days, and months, and years,
To one eternal, one effulgent day:
Day to the children of the day; but night,
Eternal night, to all the sons of darkness.
The time affixed by God's decree arrives.
Th' Almighty spake: heav'n open'd wide her gates,
The herald, Gabriel, far advanc'd in front,
Rais'd on seraphic wings, first issued forth.
Next the creation's Sire, veil'd in a cloud
Of awful gloom, from which red lightnings flash'd,
Andrending thunders roar'd, pass'd through the gates.
At his right hand sat his eternal Son,
High rais'd upon a golden throne emboss'd
With gems, that sparkled through the cloud. Angels
And saints, the countless host of those, who hold
The realms of Bliss, next in procession mov'd:
Nor could the wide extended space from Aries
To the Scales, that poise the hemispheres,
Contain the army of the skies.
The earth had never seen a larger host,
Than when the foe of Greece spread o'er the land
And sea from Hebrus to Thermopyla;
But this was small compar'd with what the heavens
Now saw, as earth is small compar'd with heaven.
The numerous stars, that hold their course along
The milky-way, and in the neighb❜ring skies,
No sooner saw their Maker cloth'd in storms,
And felt his thunder shake their solid spheres,
Than trembling they retire; as when some king
Enrag'd frowns on his slaves, who flee his face,
Till he commands them stand and hear his will.
So had the frighted stars fled off and left
The mundane space all void, had not the trump
Of Gabriel interpos'd, and with a voice
More loud, than ever yet creation heard,
Impress'd the mandates of all nature's God
Upon all nature's works. Ye stars! (said he)
Return, and hold your station in your orbs;
There stand and see what He on earth transacts
This day, and witness how He deals with man.
Thou sun! who from the birth of time hast roll'd
Thy chariot round the world, and shed thy beams
Alike on all mankind, look on and see
The equal justice of thy God to man
Outshine thy equal rays. Th' affrighted earth
Took the alarm of heav'n: the atmosphere
Assay'd to flee upon the wings of storm.
Fierce tempests beat the lofty mountains' sides,
Sweep forests down, and spread destruction o'er
The works of man. The troubled ocean heaves:
His surging billows mingle with the clouds:
His deepest caverns lie expos'd to view.
The earth, convuls'd from her deep centre, heaves.
Order forsook the world: discord spread wide.
The confus'd elements again had join'd
The listless empire of primeval chaos,
Had not harmonic sounds assuag'd their tumult.
Spirit divine! thou soul of harmony
In heaven and earth, breathe through my lines and speak
The power of music's charms, when heavenly love
Warm'd every breast of angels, seraphim,
And doubly glow'd in the Almighty's Son;
Who, like a bridegroom clad in smiling youth
And robes of peace, prepar'd to meet his bride.
The lightning ceas'd; the thunders died, when he
Complacent smil'd. Gabriel, and all the choir
Of heaven, said he, hush the commoved world,
And wake the sleeping saints with sounds of peace
His words like melting music flow: his face,
More radiant than the vernal morn, that smiles
The earth to joy. The trump of Gabriel led
The choral song: unnumber'd harps of gold,
And voices sweet join'd the melodious sound.
Discord, that late had moved the elements
To war, and 'gan t' invade the spheres,
Was hush'd to sleep. Quick changed the scene,
From raging discord, universal storm,
To soothing sounds, and universal calm.
The sun, from blackest clouds, unveil'd his face,
And shone with double radiance on the earth.
The fixed stars had ceas'd to shed their beams,
And trembling, hid in sable darkness, stood;
But now, enraptur'd with symphonious sounds,
They dart their genial rays, and fill their orbs
With pleasing light, and soul-reviving warmth.
But thou, O Earth, most felt the pleasing change.
-Fierce storms were mute.
Old ocean heard, and smooth'd his tempest face;
And spring-like beauty smil'd on all the earth.
Poets have sung of Orpheus' potent lyre;
Eurydice, forc'd from the bands of death,
Of bending trees and moving rocks obsequious
To the sound. But now whole worlds obey.
Death could not hold his victims in the tomb.
"Thou monarch of the grave, resign the just!
Awake! ye saints, from your long night of sleep,
Adorn'd with ever-blooming youth and robes
Of heav'nly innocence. Salute the morn
Of everlasting day." Thus sung the choir.
Death's dreary mansions heard with sad dismay.
In the mid regions of eternal night,
There sits the ghastly monarch on his throne.
Substantial darkness fills the broad domain:
Heart-chilling vapours rise from noxious lakes.
His servants, War, Intemp'rance, Plague, Revenge,
Consumption, wrinkled Age, groan discord round
His throne, and offer up their loathsome fumes
Of putrid corps, contagion, dead'ning blasts;
Sweet incense to their king; or run before
His grisly steed, when he rides o'er the earth,
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