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THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

Bay as in a state of actual rebellion.[1] The other provinces are held out to our indignation as aiding and abetting. Arguments have been employed to involve them in all the consequences of an open, declared rebellion, and to obtain the fullest orders for our officers and troops to act against them as rebels.

Whether their present state is that of rebellion, or of a fit and just resistance to unlawful acts of power—resistance to our attempts to rob them of their property and liberties, as they imagine—I shall not declare. This I know: a successful resistance is a revolution, not a rebellion! Rebellion indeed appears on the back of a flying enemy; but revolution flames on the breast-plate of the victorious warrior. Who can tell, sir, whether, in consequence of this day's violent and mad address to his majesty, the scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as by us; and, should success attend them, whether, in a few years, the independent Americans may not celebrate the glorious era of the Revolution of 1775, as we do that of 1688?

The policy, sir, of this measure, I can no more comprehend, than I can acknowledge the justice of it. Is your force adequate to the attempt? I am satisfied it is not. Boston, indeed, you may lay in ashes, or it may be made a strong

  1. ↑ The Boston Tea Party had occurred in December, 1773. General Gage became governor of Massachusetts in the following May, and in October the Provincial Congress met in defiance of Gage's orders forbidding it to do so.

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