Romans, that they may protect our holy places: are our matters
then brought to that pass? and are we come to that degree of
misery, that our enemies themselves are expected to pity us? O
wretched creatures! will not you rise up and turn upon those that
strike you? which you may observe in wild beasts themselves, that
they will avenge themselves on those that strike them. Will you
not call to mind, every one of you, the calamities you yourselves
have suffered? nor lay before your eyes what afflictions you
yourselves have undergone? and will not such things sharpen your
souls to revenge? Is therefore that most honorable and most
natural of our passions utterly lost, I mean the desire of
liberty? Truly we are in love with slavery, and in love with
those that lord it over us, as if we had received that principle
of subjection from our ancestors; yet did they undergo many and
great wars for the sake of liberty, nor were they so far overcome
by the power of the Egyptians, or the Medes, but that still they
did what they thought fit, notwithstanding their commands to the
contrary. And what occasion is there now for a war with the
Romans? (I meddle not with determining whether it be an
advantageous and profitable war or not.) What pretense is there
for it? Is it not that we may enjoy our liberty? Besides, shall
we not bear the lords of the habitable earth to be lords over us,
and yet bear tyrants of our own country? Although I must say that
submission to foreigners may be borne, because fortune hath
already doomed us to it, while submission to wicked people of our
own nation is too unmanly, and brought upon us by our own
consent. However, since I have had
occasion to mention the Romans, I will not conceal a thing
that, as I am speaking, comes into my mind, and affects me
considerably; it is this, that though we should be taken by them,