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America and France, that lord Cornwallis was obliged to furrender. This glorious event, which took place on the 19th of October, 1781, decided the conteft in favor of America, and laid the foundation of a general peace. 92. A few months after the furrender of Cornwallis, the British evacuated all their pofts in South Carolina and Georgia, and retired to the main army in New-York.

93 The next fpring (1782) fir Guy Carleton arrived in New-York, and took command of the British army in America. Immediately after his arrival he acquainted general Washington and Congrefs that negociations for a peace had been commenced at Paris.

194 On the 30th of November 1782, the provifional ar ticles of peace were figned at Paris, by which Great-Britain acknowledged the independence and fovereignty of, the United States of America,

95. Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great Britain expended near a hundred millions of money, with an hundred thoufand lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and diftress from her enemies; loft many lives and much treafure-but delivered herself from foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations. of the earth.

LESSONS IN SPEAKING.

ORATION, delivered at Boston, March 5, 1772, by Dr. JOSEPH WARREN; in commemoration of the evening of the fifth of March, 1770; when a number of citizens were killed by a party of British troops, quartered among them, in time of peace.

WH

HEN we turn over the hiftoric page, and trace the rife and fall of ftates and empires; the mighty revolutions which have fo often varied the face of the world, ftrike our minds with folemn furprife, and we are naturally led to fearch for the caufes of fuch afton ithing changes.

That man is formed for social life, is an obfervation, which, upon our firft enquiry, prefents itself to our view. Government has its origin in the weakness of individuals, and hath for its end, the strength and security of all; and

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fo long as the means of effecting this important end, are thoroughly known, and religiously attended to, government is one of the richeft bleffings to mankind, and ought to be held in the higheft veneration.

3. In young and new formed communities, the grand defign of this inftitution, is moft generally understood, and moft ftrictly regarded; the motives which urged to the focial compact cannot be at once forgotten, and that equali ty which is remembered to have fubfifted fo lately among them, prevents thofe who are clothed with authority from attemping to invade the freedom of their brethren, or, if fuch an attempt is made, it prevents the community from fuffering the offender to go unpunished,

4. Every member feels it to be his intereft, and knows it to be his duty, to preferve inviolate the conftitution on which the public fafety depends, and is equally teady to affift the magistrate in the execution of the laws, and the subject in the defence of his right. So long as the noble attachment to a conftitution, founded on free and benevolent principles, exifts in full vigor, in any ftate, that ftate must be flourish ing and happy.

5. It was this noble attachment to a free conftitution which raifed ancient Rome from the fmalleft beginnings to that bright fummit of happinefs and glory to which fhe arrived and it was the lofs of this which plunged her from that fummit, into the black gulph of infamy and flavery

6. It was this attachment which infpired her fenators with wifdom; it was this which glowed in the breaft of her heroes; it was this, which guarded her liberties, and extended her dominions, gave peace at home, and commanded refpect abroad: and when this decayed, her ma giftrates loft their reverence for juftice and laws, and de generated into tyrants and oppreffors her fenators, forgetful of their dignity, and feduced by bafe corruption, betrayed their country-her foilders, regardless of their relation to the community, and urged only by the hopes of plunder and rapine, unfeelingly committed the moft the trade of death, with Aagrant enormities; and hired relentlef fury they perpetrated the moft cruel murders; by which the streets of Imperial Rome was drenched with her noblest blood.

7. Thus this empress of the world loft her dominions abroad, and her inhabitants, diffolute in their manners, it length became contented slaves; and the ftands to this day, the fcorn and derifion of nations, and a monument of this eternal truth, that public happiness depends on a vir tuous and unshaken attachment to a free constitution.

8. It was this attachment to a conflitution founded on free and benevolent principles, which inspired the first settlers of this country:they faw with grief the daring outrages committed on the free conftitution of their native land they knew that nothing but a civil war could at that time Teftére its priftine purity.

6. So hard was it to refolve to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren, that they chofe rather to quit their fair poffeffions, and feek another habitation in a diftant clime. When they came to this new world, which they fairly purchafed of the Indian natives, the only might ful proprietors, they cultivated the then barren foil, by their inceffant labor, and defended their dear bought poffeffions with the fortitude of the chriftian, and the bravery of the hero.

10. After various struggles, which, during the tyrannic reigns of the house of STUART, were constantly maintained between right and wrong, between liberty and flavery, the connection between - Great Britain and this colony, was fettled in the reign of king William and queen Mary, by a compact, the conditions of which were expreffed in a charter, by which all the liberties and immunities of British fubjects were fecured to this province, as fully and as abfolutely as they poffibly could be by any human inftrument which can be devifed.

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11. It is undeniably true, that the greatest and most important right of a Britifh fubject is, that be shall be governed by no laws, but those to which be, either in person or by bis representative, bath given bis consent: and this I will venture to affert is the grand basis of British freedom; it is interwoven with the constitution; and whenever this is loft, the constitution must be destroyed. M

12. Let us now allow ourselves a few moments to examine the late acts of the British parliament for taxing America.Let us with candor judge whether they are confitutionally binding upon us if they are, in the name of

Justice, let us fubmit to them without one murmuring word.

13. First, I would ask, whether the members of the Bri tifh houfe of cominons, are the democracy of this province ? If they are, they are either the people of this province, or are elected by the people of this province, to reprefet them, and have therefore a conftitutional right to originate a bill for taxing them; it is most certain they are neither; and therefore nothing done by them can be faid to be done by the democratic branch of our constitution.

14. I would next afk, whether the lords who compofe the aristocratic branch of the legislature, are peers of Ame rica? I never heard it was (even in these extraordinary times) fo much as pretended, and if they are not, certainly no act of theirs can be faid to be the act of the ariftrocratic branch of our conftitution.

15. The power of the monarchic branch we with pleafure acknowledge, refides in the king, who may act either in perfon or by his reprefentative; and I freely confefs that J can fee no reafon why a PROCLAMATION for raising money in America, iffued by the king's sole authority, would not be equally confiftent with our conftitution, and therefore equally binding upon us with the late acts, it must arife altogether from the monarchical branch of the legitlature. And I further think, that it would be at least as equitable; for I do not conceive it to be of the least im-portance to us by whom our property is taken away, so long as it is taken away without our confent.

16. I-am very much at a loss to know by what figure of rhetorick, the inhabitants of this province can be called free subjects, when they are obliged to obey implicity fuch laws as are made for them by men three thousand miles off, whom they know not, and whom they never have empowered to act for them or how they can be faid to have property, when a body of men, over whom they have not the leaft control, and who are not, in any way accountable to them, shall oblige them to deliver up any part, or the whole of their fubflance, without even asking their confent.

17. And yet, whoever pretends that the late acts of the British parliament for taxing America, ought to be med binding upon us, muft admit at once that we are

abfolute SLAVES and have no property of our own; or elfe that we may be FREEMEN, and at the fame time, under the neceffity of obeying the arbitrary commands of those over whom we have no control nor influence; and that we may have property of our own, which is entirely at the dispo sal of another.

18. Such grofs abfurdities, I believe, will not be rel ifhed in this enlightened age; and it can be no great Matter of wonder, that the people quickly perceived, and feriously complained of the inroads which thefe acts muft unavoidably make upon their liberty, and of the hazard to which their whole property is by them expofed; for if they may be taxed without their confent, even in the smallest trifle, they may alfo, without their confent, be deprived of every thing they poffefs, altho ever fo valuable,

ever fo dear.

19. Certainly it never entered the heart of our anceftors, that after fo many dangers in this then defolate wildernefs, their hard earned property fhould be at the dif pofal of the British parliament. And as it was foon found that this taxation could not be fupported by reafon and argument, it seemed necefiary that one act of oppreffion fhould be enforced by another, and therefore, contrary to our juft rights, as poffeffing, or at leaft ha ving a juft title to poffefs all the liberties and immunities of British fubjects, a ftanding army was establifhed among us in time of peace, and evidently for the purpofe of effecting that, which it was one principal defign of the founders of the conftitution to prevent (when they declared a ftanding army in a time of peace to be against law) namely for the enforcement of obedience to acts, which upon fair examination, appeared to be unjust and unconflitutional.

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20. The ruinous confequences of ftanding armies to free communities, may be feen in the hiftories of Syracuse Rome urany other once flourishing states, fome of which have now fcarce a name! Their baneful influence is moft fuddenly felt, when they are placed in populous cities; for, by a corruption of morals, the public happinefs is immedi ately affected.

21. This is one of the effects of quartering troops in a populous city, is a truth, to which many a mouri

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