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minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquillity, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty, which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should remain amongst us, remember that a Warren and a Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth! If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask

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The period, countrymen, is already come. calamities were at our door. The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity! This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defence and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind?

You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and a Montgomery, it is that these American States may never cease to be free and independent.

SELF-PRESERVATION THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE

DAVID PAUL BROWN

David Paul Brown, an eminent lawyer, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., September 28, 1795, and died in the same city, July 11, 1872. He won distinction, not only as a

lawyer, but also as an author and playwright. He was a learned man, and an earnest, forceful speaker, winning many difficult cases by the convincing style of his oratory.

N Tuesday night, about ten o'clock, the boat

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filled with water from above and below; the wind having risen; the waves having increased; the ice accumulating, and the passengers shrieking with horror at the prospect of drowning; the final, fatal order was given. It is not to be supposed that these hardy sons of the sea were unnecessarily alarmed. That Holmes, particularly, was a brave, resolute, and determined seaman, as well as a most humane man, no one will venture to deny; that he had but one supposable object, which was to save such as might be saved, is equally clear. I maintain, therefore, that the most favorable construction is to be placed upon his motives; and it is justly to be inferred that he acted upon the impression that the danger was imminent, and that death was inevitable to all, except by resorting to those means which he actually adopted.

We are told, however, that he is not the judge. I ask, who is the judge? There is a vast deal of difference between judging in a storm and judging of the representation of a storm; and, therefore, it was that I said, that, in order to reach a righteous determination of this case, your verdict

should be rendered in the midst of perils such as have been described, instead of being pronounced while surrounded by all the securities and sanctions of the law. I agree that if you can conceive of any other inducement than the desire of selfpreservation, and that of the majority of the passengers, inducing this act, which I defy you to do, you may then imagine that that inducement led to the act, and thereby divest the prisoner of his present defence; but even taking all the statements of the witnesses for the prosecution, highly colored —I will not say discolored — as they are, and torture them as you may, it is impossible for you to arrive at any other conclusion than that Holmes was actuated by the kindest and most generous influences; and certainly I need not say that kindness and generosity are opposed to wantonness and barbarity.

I repeat, then, that in these circumstances of terror, men are left to their honest determinations. They are not to resort to mere imaginary evils as a pretext, nor are they to be supposed to resort to them as a pretext. If they err in their determination, according to the rules adopted by a cold system of reasoning, their error, as thus detected, is not to be visited upon them as a crime.

Suppose two men, occupying perfectly friendly

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