which that tyranny (of which you are only the intermediary
executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all
the blood that has and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed
against the oppressor--shall you tell me this, and must I be so very
a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent
Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be
appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? By you,
too, although if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood
that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry in one great reservoir
your lordship might swim in it."

[Here the judge interfered.]

"Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no
man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any
cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I
could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression and
misery of my country. The proclamation of the Provisional Government
speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to
countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection,
humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to
a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the
foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would
have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should
enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived
but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of
the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave,
only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her
independence, am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to
resent it? No; God forbid!"