Be not deceived, my countrymen. Believe not these venal hirelings, when they would cajole you by their subtleties into submission, or frighten you by their vaporings into compliance. When they strive to flatter you by the terms “moderation and prudence,” tell them that calmness and deliberation are to guide the judgment; courage and intrepidity command the action. When they endeavor to make us “perceive our inability to oppose our mother country,” let us boldly answer—In defence of our civil and religious rights, we dare oppose the world; with the God of armies on our side, even the God who fought our fathers’ battles, we fear not the hour of trial, though the hosts of our enemies should cover the field like locusts. If this be enthusiasm, we will live and die enthusiasts.
Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a “halter” intimidate. For, under God, we are determined, that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die freemen. Well do we know that all the regalia of this world can not dignify the death of a villain, nor diminish the ignominy with which a slave shall quit existence.
Neither can it taint the unblemished honor of a son of freedom though he should make his departure on the already prepared gibbet, or be dragged to the newly-erected scaffold for execution. With the plaudits of his country, and what is more, the plaudits of his conscience, he will go off the stage. The history of his life, his children shall venerate. The virtues of their sires shall excite their emulation.
Is the debt we owe posterity paid? Answer me, thou coward, who hidest thyself in the hour of trial! If there is no reward in this life, no prize of glory in the next, capable of animating thy dastard soul, think and tremble, thou miscreant! at the whips and stripes thy master shall lash thee with on earth—and the flames and scorpions thy second master shall torment thee with hereafter!
Oh my countrymen! what will our children say, when they read the history of these times, should they find that we tamely gave way, without one noble struggle for the most invaluable of earthly blessings! As they drag the galling chain, will they not execrate us? If we have any respect for things sacred, any regard to the dearest treasure on earth; if we have one tender sentiment for posterity; if we would not be despised by the world; let us, in the most open, solemn manner, and with determined fortitude, swear—we will die if we cannot live freemen. While we have equity, justice, and God on our side, tyranny, spiritual or temporal, shall never ride triumphant in a land inhabited by Englishmen.
CENTENNIAL ORATION.
BY HENRY ARMITT BROWN.