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The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Volume 01 by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
page 67 of 178 (37%)
provinces. Our nursery tales, taught our infant lips to
lisp in English, and the ballads, that first exercised
our memories, stored the mind with the traditions of our
forefathers; their literature was our literature, their
religion our religion, their history our history. The
battle of Hastings, the murder of Becket, the signature
of Runymede, the execution at Whitehall; the divines,
the poets, the orators, the heroes, the martyrs, each
and all were familiar to us.

"In approaching this country now, after a lapse of many,
many years, and approaching it too for the last time,
for mine eyes shall see it no more, I cannot describe to
you the feelings that agitate my heart. I go to visit
the tombs of my ancestors; I go to my home, and my home
knoweth me no more. Great and good, and brave and free
are the English; and may God grant that they may ever
continue so!"

"I cordially join in that prayer, Sir," said I; "you have
a country of your own. The old colonies having ripened
into maturity, formed a distinct and separate family, in
the great community of mankind. You are now a nation of
yourselves, and your attachment to England, is of course
subordinate to that of your own country; you view it as
the place that was in days of yore the home of your
forefathers; we regard it as the paternal estate, continuing
to call it 'Home' as you have just now observed. We owe
it a debt of gratitude that not only cannot be repaid,
but is too great for expression. Their armies protect us
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