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cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehenfions are foon to be tê newed: the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again. In the day time, your path through the woods will be ambush ed. The darknefs of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father-the blood of your fons thall fatten on your corn-field-You are a mother-the waf whoop fhall wake the fleep of the cradle.

13. On this fubject you need not lufpect any deception on your feelings. It is a fpectacle of horror which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will fpeak a language compared with which all I have faid or can fay, will be poor and frigid.

14. Who will accufe me of wandering out of the fubject? Who will fay that I exaggerated the tendencies of our mea. fures will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preacha ing? will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the moft folemn fanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are defpots alone to be reproached for unfeel ing indifference to the tears or blood of their fubjects,? Are republicans unrefponfible? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical in Auence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle dec lamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper effay, or to furnish petty topics of harangue from the windows of that ftate house? I trust it is neither too prefumptuous nor too late to afk, can you put the dearest intereft of fociety at rifk without guilt, and without remorfe?

15. By rejecting the pofts we light the favage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decifion will make, to the wretches that will be roafted at the ftake to our country, and I do not deem it too ferious to fay, to confcience and to Godwe are answerable—and if duty be any, thing more than a word of impofture, if confcience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourfelves as wretched as our country.

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16. There is no mistake in this cafe, there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. western inhabitants are not a filent and uncomplaining facri fice. The voice of humanity iffues from the fhade of their wilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty the other grasps at a tomahawk. It fummons our imagination to the fcenes that will open. It is no great

effort of the imagination to conceive that events fo near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of favage vengeance and the fhricks of torture. Already they seem to figh in the west wind-already they mingle with every echo from the mountains,

17. Look again at the ftate of things-On the fea coaft, vaft loffes uncompenfated-On the frontier, Indian war, ac.. tual encroachment on our territory. Every where difcontent -refentments tenfold more fierce because they will be impo tent and humbled. National difcord and abasement,

18. The difputes of the old treaty of 1783, being left to rankle, will revive the almoft extinguished animofities of that period. Wars in all countries and most of all in fuch as are free, arife from the impetuofity of the public feelings, The defpotifm of Turkey is often obliged by clamor to un fheath the fword. War might perhaps be delayed, but could not be prevented. The caufes of it would remain, would be aggravated, would be multiplied, and foon become intolera ble. More captures, more impreffments would fwell the lift of our wrongs, and the current of our rage. I make no calculation of the arts of those whofe employment it had been on former occafions, to fan the fire. 1 fay nothing of the for, eign money and emiffaries that might foment the fpirit of hof. tility, because the fate of things will naturally run to vio lence. With lefs than their former exertion, they would be fuccefaful.

19. Will our government be able to temper and refrain the - turbulence of fuch a crifis? The government, alas, will be in no capacity to govern. A divided people; and divided coun. cils! Shall we cherish the fpirit of peace or fhew the energies of war? Shall we make our adverfary afraid of our strength, or difpofe him, by the measures of refentment and broken faith, to refpect our rights? Do gentlemen rely on the ftate of peace because both nations will be worfe difpofed to keep it? Becaufe injuries and infults ftill harder to indure, will be mutually offered,

20. Such a fate of things will exift, if we fhould long a void war, as will be worfe than war, Peace without fecurity, accumulation of injury without redrefs, or the hope of it, refentment against the aggreffor, contempt for ourfelves, intef tive difcord and anarchy. Worfe than this need not be apprehended, for if worfe could happen, anarchy would bring it. Is this the peace gentlemen undertake with fuch fearless con

fidence, to maintain? Is this the ftation of American dignity, which the high fpirited champions of our national independence and honor could endure--nay, which they are anxious and al moft violent to feize for the country? What is there in the treaty that could humble us fo low? Are they the men to fwallow their refentments, who fo lately were choaking with them? If in the cafe contemplated by them, it should be peace, I do not hesitate to declare it ought not to be peace.

21. Is there any thing in the profpect of the interior flate of the country, to encourage us to aggravate the dangers of a war? Would not the fhock of that evil produce another, and fhake down the feeble and then unbraced structure of our government? Is this a chimera? Is it going off the ground of matter of fact to fay, the rejection of the appropriation pro. ceeds upon the do&rine of a civil war of the departments! Two branches have ratified a treaty, and we are going to fet it afide, How is this diforder in the machine to be rectified? While it exicts its movements must ftop, and when we talk of a reme, dy, is that any other than the formidable one of a revolutionary interpofition of the people? And is this, in the judgment even of my oppofers, to execute, to preferve the conftitution, and the public order?. Is this the ftate of hazard, if not of convulfion, which they can have the courage to contemplate and to brave, or beyond which their penetration can reach and fee the iffue? They feem to believe, and they act as if they believed that our union, our peace, our liberty are invulnerable and immor tal-is if our happy fate was not to be difturbed by our dif fention, and that we are not capable of falling from it by our unworthinefs. Some of them have no doubt better nerves and better difcernment than mine. They can fee the bright afpects and happy confequences of all this array of horrors.They can fee inteftine difcords, our government disorganiz ed, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied and unredreffed, peace with difhonor, or war without juftice, union or resources iu "the calm lights of mild philosophy."

22. Let me cheer the mind, weary no doubt and ready to defpond on this profpect, by prefenting another which it is yet in our power to realize. Is it poffible for a real American to look at the profperity of this country without fome defire for its continuance, without fome refpect for the measures which many will fay, produced, and all will confefs have preserved it ? will he not feel fome dread that a change of fyftem will reverfe he fcene? The well grounded fears of our citizens in 1794

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were removed by the treaty, but are not forgotten. Then they deemed war nearly invincible, and would not this adjuft ment have been confidered at that day as a happy efcape from the calamity? The great intereft and the general defire of our people was to enjoy the advantage of neutrality. This inftrument, however mifreprefented, affords America that ineftimable fecurity. The caufes of our difputes are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new negociation, after the end of the European war. This was gaining every thing, because it confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens are gaining every thing. This alone would justify the engagements of the government. For when the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the fkirts of the horizen, all our wishes were concentrated in this one, that we might efcape the defolation of the ftorm. This treaty like a rainbow on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded at the fame time the fure prognoftic of fair weather. If we reject it the vived colours will grow pale, it will be a baleful meteor, portending tempeft and war.

23. Let us not hesitate then to agree to the appropriation to carry it into a faithful execution. Thus we shall fave the faith of our nation, fecure its peace, and diffuse the spirit of confidence and enterprite that will augment its profperity. The progrefs of wealth and improvement is wonderful, and fome will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and vaft, and if peace and good government fhould be preferved, the acquifitions of our citizens are not fo pleafing as the proof of their induftry, as the inftruments of their future fuc. cefs. The rewards of exertion go to augment its power.Profit is every hour becoming capital. The vaft crop of our neutrality is all feed wheat, and is fown again to fwell, almoft beyond calculation, the future harveft of profperity. And in this progress what feems to be fiction is found to fall short of Experience.

24. I rofe to fpeak under impreffions that I would have res fifted if I could. Thofe who fee me will believe that the reduced ftate of my health has unfitted me, almoft equally, for much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared for debate by cruel reflection in my retirement, or by long attention here, I thought the refolution I had taken to fit filent was impofed by neceffity and would cost me no effort to maintain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas and finking, as I really am, under a

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fenfe weaknefs, I imagined the very defire of fpeaking was extinguished by the perfuafion that I had nothing to fay. Yet when I come to the moment of deciding the vote, 1 ftart back with dread from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes we have spent in expoftulation Lave their value, becaufe they protract the crifis, and the fhort period in which alone we may refolve to efcape it.

25. I have thus been led by my feelings to fpeak more at length than I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little perfonal intereft in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness of the confequences greater than mine. If however the vote fhould pass to reject, and a fpirit fhould rife, as it will, with the public diforders to make confufion worfe confounded, even I, flender almost broken as my the government and conftitution of my country,

1.

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hold upon life is, may outlive

From CICERO's Oration againfi VERRES.

HE time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wished for towards allaying the envy your order. has been fubject to, and removing the imputations against tri als, is (not by human contrivance but fuperior direction) effectually put in our power.

2. An opinion has long prevailed, not only here at home, by likewife in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious, to the ftate, viz. that in profecutions men of wealth are always fafe however clearly convicted,

3. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confufion I hope of the propagators of this flanderous impu tation, one whofe life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial perfons, but who according to his own reckoning and declared dependence of his riches, is already ac quitted-I mean Caius Verres.

4. If that fentence is paffed, upon him which his crimes deferve, your authority, fathers, will be venerable and facred in the eyes of the public. But if his great riches fhould bias you in his favor I fall till gain one point, viz, to make it appar. ent to all the world, that what was wanting in this cafe was not a criminal nor a prosecutor, but justice and adequate pun

ishment.

5. To pafs over the fhameful irregularities of his youth, what does his quæftorfhip, the first public employment he held, what

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