ove a snare to your feet. Suffer
not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this
gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in
to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the
implements of war, and subjugation--the last arguments to which kings
resort. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if
we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we
have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the
noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have
pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our
contest is obtained, we must fight, I repeat it, sir, we must fight. An
appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when
a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of
effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the
God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed
in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against
us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just
God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides,
sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is
now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in
submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be
heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable--and let it come! I
repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,
peace; but there is no p