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a bold heart with affright, terrible as they are with the tomahawk and scalping knife to a flying and prostrate foe, you have experienced how little their ferocity is to be dreaded by resolute men upon fair and open ground; you will now only consider them as the just objects of a severe revenge for the unhappy fate of many slaughtered countrymen.

This day puts it into your power to terminate the fatigues of a siege, which has so long employed your courage and patience. Possessed with a full confidence of the certain success which British valour must gain over such enemies, I have led you up to these steep and dangerous rocks; only solicitous to show you the foe within your reach. The impossibility of a retreat makes no difference in the situation of men resolved to conquer or die: and believe me, my friends, if your conquest could be bought with the blood of your general, he would most cheerfully resign a life which he has long devoted to his

country.

Aikin.

3.-Speech of Mr Horace Walpole, 1740, in Reproof of Mr Pitt.

SIR, I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate, while it was carried on with calmness and decency by men who do not suffer the ardour of opposition to cloud their reason or transport them to such expressions as the dignity of this assembly does not admit. I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman, who declaimed against the bill with such fluency and rhetoric, and such vehemence of gesture; who charged the advocates for the expedients now proposed, with having no regard to any interest but their own, and with making laws only to consume paper, and threatened them with the defec tion of their adherents, and the loss of their influence, upon this new discovery of their folly and their ignorance.

Nor, Sir, do I now answer him for any other purpose, than to remind him how little the clamour of rage and petulancy of invective contribute to the end for which this assembly is called together; how little the discovery

of truth is promoted, and the security of the nation established, by pompous diction and theatrical emotion.

Formidable sounds and furious declamation, confident assertions and lofty periods, may affect the young and unexperienced; and perhaps the gentleman may have contracted his habits of oratory by conversing more with those of his own age than with such as have more opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and more successful methods of communicating their sentiments.

If the heat of his temper, Sir, would suffer him to attend to those whose age and long acquaintance with business give them an indisputable right to deference and superiority, he would learn in time to reason rather than declaim; and to prefer justness of argument and an accurate knowledge of facts, to sounding epithets, and splendid superlatives; which may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impression on the mind. He would learn, Sir, that to accuse and prove are very different; and that reproaches, unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of him that utters them. Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory, are indeed pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it would surely contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciating the conduct of administration,) to prove the inconveniences and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert them, with whatever magnificence of language, or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compassion.

4.Mr Pitt's Reply.

SIR,The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of those who continue ignorant in spite of age and experience.

Whether youth can be attributed to any man as a reproach, I will not, Sir, assume the province of deter

mining; but surely age may justly become contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appear to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch, who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and in whom age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray head should secure him from insults. Much more, Sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation, who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.

But youth, Sir, is not my only crime: I have been accused of acting a theatrical part.-A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

In the first sense, Sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves to be mentioned only that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language: and though I may perhaps have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience.

But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment which he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity entrench themselves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment; age, which always brings with it one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment.

But with regard, Sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat which offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal U

for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery.-I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

5.-Lord Lyttleton's Speech on the Repeal of the Act called the Jew Bill, A. D. 1753.

SIR, IT has been hitherto the rare and envied felicity of his Majesty's reign, that his subjects have enjoyed such a settled tranquillity, such a freedom from angry religious disputes, as is not to be paralleled in any former times. The true Christian spirit of moderation, of charity, of universal benevolence, has prevailed in the people, has prevailed in the clergy of all ranks and degrees, instead of those narrow principles, those bigotted pleasures, that furious, that implacable, that ignorant zeal, which had often done so much hurt both to the church and the state. But from the ill-understood, insignificant, act of parliament you are now moved to repeal, occasion has been taken to deprive us of this inestimable advantage. It is a pretence to disturb the peace of the church, to infuse idle fear into the minds of the people, and make religion itself an engine of sedition. It behoves the piety, as well as the wisdom of parliament, to disappoint those endeavours. Sir, the very worst mischief that can be done to religion, is to pervert it to the purposes of faction. The most impious wars ever made were those called holy wars. He who hates another man for not being a Christian, is himself not a Christian. Christianity, Sir, breathes love, and peace, and good-will to man. A temper conformable to the dictates of that holy religion has lately distinguished this nation; and a glorious distinction it was! But there is latent, at all times, in the minds of the vulgar, a spark of enthusiasm; which, if blown by the breath of a party, may, even when it seems quite extinguished, be suddenly revived and raised to a flame.

The act of last session for naturalizing Jews, has very unexpectedly administered fuel to feed that flame. To what a height it may rise, if it should continue much longer, one cannot easily tell; but, take away the fuel, and it will die of itself.

Sir, I trust and believe that, by speedily passing this bill, we shall silence that obloquy which has so unjustly been cast upon our reverend prelates (some of the most respectable that ever adorned our church) for the part they took in the act which this repeals. And it greatly concerns the whole community, that they should not lose that respect which is so justly due to them, by a popular clamour kept up in opposition to a measure of no importance in itself. But if the departing from that measure should not remove the prejudice so maliciously raised, I am certain that no further step you can take will be able to remove it; and, therefore, I hope you will stop here. This appears to be a reasonable and safe condescension, by which nobody will be hurt; but all beyond this would be dangerous weakness in government: it might open a door to the wildest enthusiasm, and to the most mischievous attacks of political disaffection working upon that enthusiasm. If you encourage and authorize it to fall on the synagogue, it will from thence to the meeting-house, and in the end to the palace. But let us be careful to check its further progress. The more zealous we are to support Christianity, the more vigilant should we be in maintaining toleration. If we bring back persecution, we bring back the antichristian spirit of popery; and when the spirit is here, the whole system will soon follow. Toleration is the

go

basis of all public quiet. It is a charter of freedom given to the mind, more valuable, I think, than that which secures our persons and estates. Indeed, they are inseparably connected together; for, where the mind is not free, where the conscience is enthralled, there is no freedom. Spiritual tyranny puts on the galling chains; but civil tyranny is called in, to rivet and fix them. We see it in Spain, and many other countries; we have formerly both seen and felt it in England. By

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