AFTERMATH
I know not how it shall be with me and mine! In this year of our Lord, 1782, in which I write, here in the casemates at West Point, the war rages throughout the land, and there seems no end to it, nor none likely that I can see.
That horrid treason which, through God's mercy, did not utterly confound us and deliver this fortress to our enemy, still seems to brood over this calm river and the frowning hills that buttress it, like a low, dark cloud.
But I believe, under God, that our cause is now clean purged of all villainy, and all that is sordid, base, and contemptible.
I believe, under God, that we shall accomplish our freedom and recover our ancient and English liberties in the end.
That dull and German King, who sits yonder across the water, can never again stir in any American the faintest echo of that allegiance which once all offered simply and without question.
Nor can his fat jester, my Lord North, contrive any new pleasantry to seduce us, or any new and bloody deviltry to make us fear the wrath of God's anointed or the monkey chatter of his clown.
For us, the last king has sat upon a throne; the last privilege has been accorded to the last and noble drone; the last slave's tax has long been paid.
Yet—and it sounds strange—England still seems home to us.... We think of it as home.... It is in our blood; and I am not ashamed to say it. And I think a hundred years may pass, and, in our hearts, shall still remain deep, deep, a tenderness for that far, ocean-severed home our grandsires knew as England.
I say it spite o' the German King, spite of his mad ministers, spite o' British wrath and scorn and jibes and cruelty. For, by God! I believe that we ourselves who stand in battle here are the true mind and heart and loins of England, fighting to slay her baser self!