showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of
his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there
arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon
him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him as
captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his
applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards,
the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. _Hope elevated and joy
brightened his crest_. I stood near him; and his face, to use the
expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, "his face was as if it
had been the face of an angel." I do not know how others feel; but if I
had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all
that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's
danger and honor would have been a bond to hold us all together forever.
But, alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished.

Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been represented as if it had
been a measure of an administration that, having no scheme of their own,
took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the
other. Sir, they took _no_ middle lines. They differed fundamentally
from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of
both. They preserved the authority of Great Britain; they preserved the
equity of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory Act; they repealed
the Stamp Act. They did both _fully_: because the Declaratory Act was
_without qualification_; and the repeal of the Stamp Act _total_. This
they did in the situation I have described.

Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these acts? If the
principle of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are
contending for this day is monstrous. If the principle of the repeal was
not good, why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective