Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm, which is now coming on.

We have petitioned. We have remonstrated. We have supplicated. We have prostrated ourselves before the throne and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted.

Our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult.

Our supplications have been disregarded.

And we have been spurned with with contempt, from the foot of the

throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate, those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending,

if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged,

and which we have pledged ourselves

never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must

fight.

I repeat it, sir, we must fight.

An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts is all that has left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary.

But when shall we be stronger?

Will it be the next week or the next year?

Will it be when we are totally disarmed and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power.

The millions of people armed which the God of nature has placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that

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