for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its population and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and, as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable,1 whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane,2 what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any other people of the earth: and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.

8

The people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, sir, is a nation, which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias

1 untractable = intractable. 2 chicane, fraudulent craft.

...

the early emigrations to New England took place at a time when the

3 which largely. Change | Puritan revolt against the tyranny from the rhetorical to the direct order of words.

4 this part. . . predominant. The reference here is to the fact that

of the Stuarts was preparing the civil war which resulted in the dethronement and beheading of Charles I.

and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles. Their governments are popular1 in a high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance.

8

Permit me, sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education.

In no country, perhaps, in the world, is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful, and in most provinces it takes the lead. The great number of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance: here they anticipate

5

1 popular; that is, springing from the people.

2 merely popular. In some of the colonies, all the officers of government were chosen directly by the people: in others, the governor and some of the magistrates were appointed by the Crown, but were unable to act without the cooperation of the local assemblies.

8 contributes no mean part; i.e., contributes a great part. This figure (which, by denying the contrary, has the force of a positive assertion) is called litotes.

4 the Congress; that is, the first Continental Congress, which met in 1774.

5 mercurial, lively, quick-witted. See Webster for etymology.

the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.1

The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, wingéd ministers 2 of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces & to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no farther."

Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law, of extensive and detached empire.

From all these sources, a fiercer spirit of liberty has

1 snuff... breeze. A strong metaphor.

3 bolts... pounces: an allusion to the thunderbolts placed by the

2 wingéd ministers; i.e., the Greek artists in the talons of the British ships of war.

eagle, the bird of Jove.

grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth, a spirit, that unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us.

EDMUND BURKE.

82.-Character of Lord Chatham.

This keen analysis of the character of the elder Pitt, Lord Chatham (1708-78), was spoken in Parliament by Henry Grattan, one of the most eloquent orators in the British Parliament during the last century.

The Secretary1 stood alone: modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity; his august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns 2 thought royalty so impaired in his presence that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous.

1 Secretary; i.e., who was Brit- | ish secretary of state in 1755.

2 one of his sovereigns; i.e., George the Third.

3

4

5

3 chi-cān'er-y, political trickery and corruption.

4 object, i.e., loved object.

5 venal, corrupt.

France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite, and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished: always seasonable; always adequate; the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent those sensations which soften and allure and vulgarize-were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and decide.

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of PITT through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her.

Nor were his political abilities his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous. Familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom, not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully, it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like

1 Tully; i.e., Cicero, whose full name was Marcus Tullius Cicero.