amid the winds and storms of the desert.

We plunged into the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth,
because the fagot and the torch were behind us. We have waked this New
World from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path;
towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics, and
the fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase
of our wealth and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of
the mother-country? No! We owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her, to
the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy.

But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money from your gratitude--we only
demand that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge
of their necessity? Why, the king--(and with all due reverence to his
sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as
little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge concerning
the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the
money is properly expended? The cabinet behind the throne. In every
instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is
suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem it a great
privilege, that rain and dew do not depend upon parliament; otherwise they
would soon be taxed and dried.

But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such
monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and
Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the
shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto
death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a
desperate community have heaped upon their enemies, shall be amply and
speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember