We have now no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude.  The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven:  “Will you permit our posterity to groan under the galling chains of our murderers?  Has our blood been expended in vain?  Is the only reward which our constancy, till death, has obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more ignominious vassalage?” Recollect who are the men that demand your submission; to whose decrees you are invited to pay obedience!  Men who, unmindful of their relation to you as brethren, of your long implicit submission to their laws; of the sacrifice which you and your forefathers made of your natural advantages for commerce to their avarice,—­formed a deliberate plan to wrest from you the small pittance of property which they had permitted you to acquire.  Remember that the men who wish to rule over you are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which had been made with your ancestors; conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder—­who called your patience, cowardice; your piety, hypocrisy.

Countrymen! the men who now invite you to surrender your rights into their hands are the men who have let loose the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren—­who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land—­who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them to assassinate your wives and children.

These are the men to whom we are exhorted to sacrifice the blessings which Providence holds out to us—­the happiness, the dignity of uncontrolled freedom and independence.

Let not your generous indignation be directed against any among us who may advise so absurd and madd’ning a measure.  Their number is but few and daily decreased; and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery, will render them contemptible enemies.

Our Union is now complete; our Constitution composed, established, and approved.  You are now the guardians of your own liberties.  We may justly address you, as the Decemviri did the Romans, and say:  “Nothing that we propose, can pass into a law without your consent.  Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”

You have now, in the field, armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies, and their base and mercenary auxiliaries.  The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom—­they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords, can look up to Heaven for assistance.  Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or