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array-no, it was royal George's livery that proved their shield it was that which turned the pointed engines of destruction from their breasts.

26. Thoughts of vengeance were soon buried in our inbred affection to Great-Britain, and calm reason dictated a method of removing the troops, more mild than an immediate recourse to the sword. With united efforts you urged the immediate departure of the troops from the town-you urged it with t resolution which insured success-you obtained your wishes, and the removal of the troops was effected, without one drop of their blood being shed by the inhabitants.

27. The immediate actors in the tragedy of that night were surrendered to justice. It is not mine to say how far they were guilty! They have been tried by the country and ACQUITTED of murder; and they are not again to be arraigned at an earthly bar; but surely the men who have promiscuously scattered death amidst the innocent inhabitants of a populous city, ought to see well to it, that they be prepared to stand before the bar of an omniscient Judge! and all who contrived or encouraged the stationing of troops in this place, have reasons of eternal importance, to reflect with deep contrition, on their base designs, and humbly to repent of their impious ma chinations.

28. The voice of your fathers' blood cries to you from the ground-My sons, scorn to be SLAVES! In vain we met the frowns of tyrants-in vain we crossed the boisterous ocean, found a new world, and prepared it for the happy residence of Liberty-in vain we toiled-in vain we fought-we bled in vain, if you, our offspring, want valor to repel the assaults of her invaders! Stain not the glory of your worthy ancestors, but like them resolve never to part with your birthright-be wise in your deliberations, and determined in your exertions for the preservation of your liberty.

29. Follow not the dictates of passion, but enlist yourselves under the sacred banner of reason; use every method in your power to secure your rights; at least prevent the curses of posterity from being heaped upon your memories.

30. If you with united zeal and fortitude, oppose the tor, rent of oppression-if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your breasts-if you from your souls despise the most gaudy dress that slavery can wear-if you really prefer the mely cottage (whilst blest with liberty) to gilded palaces sur. unded with the ensigns of slavery, you may have the ful

lest assurance that tyranny, with her whole accursed train, will hide her hideous head, in confusion, shame and despair.

31. If you perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence, that the same Almighty Being, who protected your pious and venerable forefathers, who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful field, who so often made bare his arm for their salvation, will still be mindful of you their offspring.

32. May this ALMIGHTY BEING graciously preside in all our councils-may he direct us to such measures as he himself shall approve, and be pleased to bless. May we ever be favored of GoD. May our land be a land of liberty, the stat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a pruise in the whole earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the world in undistinguished ruin!

ORATION, delivered at Boston, March 5, 1774, by the honorable JOHN HANCOCK, Esq. in commemoration of the evening of the 5th of March, 1770, when a number of the citizens were killed by a party of British troops, quartered among them in a time of peace.

Men, Brethren, Fathers and Fellow Countrymen !

1. TH

HE attentive gravity--the venerable appearance of this crouded audience-the dignity which I behold in the countenances of so many in this great assembly--the solemui. ty of the occasion upon which we have met together, joined to a consideration of the part I am to take in the important business of this day, fill me with an awe hitherto unknown; and heighten the sense which I have ever had, of my unworthiness to fill this sacred desk.

2. But, allured by the call of some of my respected fellowcitizens, with whose request it is always my greatest pleasure to comply, I almost forget my want of ability to perform what they required. In this situation I find my only support in assuring myself that a generous people will not severely censure what they know was well intended, tho' its want of merit should prevent their being able to applaud it. And I pray, that my sincere attachment to the interest of my country, and my hearty detestation of every design formed against her liberties, may be admitted as some apology for my appearance in this plac 3. I have always, from my earliest youth, rejoiced in the

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felicity of my fellow men; and have ever considered it as the Indispensible duty of every member of society to promote, as far as in in lies, the prosperity of every individual, but more especially of the community to which he belongs; and also, as a faithful subject of the state, to use his utmost endeavors to detect, and having detected, strenuously to oppose every,traitorous plot, which its enemies may devise for its destruction. 4. Security to the persons and properties of the governed, is so obviously the design and end of civil government, that to attempt a logical proof of it, would be like burning tapers at noon day, to assist the sun in enlightening the world. It cannot be either virtuous or honorable, to attempt to support a government, of which this is not the greatest and principal basis; and it is to the last degree vicious and infamous to attempt to support a government, which manifestly tends to render the persons and properties of the governed insecure.

5. Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny. Is the present system which the British administration have adopted for the government of the colonies, a righteous government ?--Or is it tyranny ?Here suffer me to ask (and would to Heaven there could be an answer) what tenderness, what regard, respect, or consideration has Great Britain shewn, in their late transactions, for the security of the persons or properties of the inhabitants of the colonies? Or rather, what have they omitted doing to destroy that security?

6. They have declared that they have ever had, and of right ought ever to have, full power to make laws of sufficient validity to bind the colonies in all cases whatever they have exercised this pretended right, by imposing a tax upon us without our consent; and lest we should shew some reluctance at parting with our property, her fleets and armies are sent to support their mad pretensions.

7. The town of Boston, ever faithful to the British crown, has been invested by a British fiect: the troops of George III. have crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors, in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects in America-those rights and liberties which, as a father, he ought ever to regard, and king, he is bound, in honor, to defend from violation, at the risk of his own life.

8. Let not the history of the illustrious house of Brunswick inform posterity, that a King, descended from that glorious monarch George the II. once sent his British subjects to conquer and enslave his subjects in America; but be perpetual infa my entailed upon that villain who dared to advise his master to such execrable measures; for it was easy to foresee the consequences which so naturally followed upon sending troops into America, to enforce obedience to acts of the British parliament, which neither God nor man ever empowered them to make.

9. It was reasonable to expect that troops, who knew the errand they were sent upon, would treat the people, whom they were to subjugate, with cruelty and haughtiness, which too often buries the honorable character of a soldier, in the disgrace. ful name of an unfeeling ruffian. The troops, upon their first arrival, took possession of our senate house, and pointed their cannon against the judgment hall, and even continued them there, whilst the supreme court of judicature for this province was actually sitting to decide upon the lives and fortunes of the king's subjects.

10. Our streets nightly resounded with the noise of riot and debauchery; our peaceful citizens were hourly exposed to shameful insults, and often felt the effects of their violence and outrage. But this was not all; as tho' they tho't it not enough to violate our civil rights, they endeavored to deprive us of the enjoyment of our religious privileges; to viciate our mor als, and thereby render us deserving of destruction. Hence the rude din of arms, which broke in upon your solemn devotions, in your temples, on that day hallowed by Heaven and set apart by God himself for his peculiar worship.

: 11. Hence, impious oaths and blasphemies so often tortured your unaccustomed ear. Hence, all the arts which idleness and luxury could invent, were used to betray our youth of one sex, Into extravagance and effeminacy-and of the other, into in'famy and ruin; and did they not but succeed too well? Did not a reverence for religion sensibly decay? Did not our infants almost learn to lisp out curses before they knew their horrid im'port? Did not our youth forget they were Americans, and, regardless of the admonitions of the wise and aged, servilely copy from their tyrants, vices which finally must overthrow the empire of Great Britain? And must I be impelled to acknowledge, that even the noblest, fairest part of all the lower creation, did not entirely escape the cursed snare? When virtue has once

erected her throne within the female breast, it is upon so solid a basis that nothing is able to expel the heavenly inhabitant.

12. But have there not been some, few indeed, I hope, whose youth and inexperience have rendered them a prey to wretches, whom upon the least reflection, they would have despised and hated, as foes to God and their country? I fear there have been some such unhappy instances; or why have I seen an honest father clothed with shame; or, why a virtuous mother drowned in tears!

13. But I forbear, and come reluctantly to the transactions of that dismal night, when in such quick succession we felt the extremes of grief, astonishment and rage; when Heaven in anger for a dreadful moment, suffered hell to take the reins; when Satan with his chosen band, opened the sluices of New England's blood, and sacriligiously polluted our land with the dead bodies of her guiltless sons.

14. Let this sad tale of death never be told without a tear: Let not the heaving bosom cease to burr. with a manly indignation at the barbarous story, thro' the long tracks of future time: Let every parent tell the shameful story to his listening children till tears of pity glisten in their eyes, and boiling passion shake their tender frames; and whilst the anniversary of that ill fated night is kept a jubilee in the grim court of pandemonium, let all America join in one common prayer to Heaven, that the inhuman, unprovoked murders of the fifth of March, 1770, planned by Hillsborough, and a knot of treacherous knaves in Boston, and executed by the cruel hand of Preston and his sanguinary coadjutors, may ever stand on history without a parallel.

15. But what, my countrymen, withheld the ready arm of vengeance from executing instant justice on the vile assassins? Perhaps you feared promiscuous carnage might ensue, and that the innocent might share the fate of those who had performed the infernal deed. But were not all guilty? Were you not too tender of the lives of those who came to fix a yoke on your neck? But I must not too severely blame a fault, which great souls only can commit.

16. May that magnificence of spirit which scorns the low pursuits of malice; may that generous compassion which often preserves from ruin, even a guilty villain, forever actuate the roble bosoms of Americans! But let not the miscreant

st vainly imagine that we feared their arms. No, them we

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