America and France, that lord Cornwallis was obliged to furrender. This glorious event, which took place on the 19th of October, 1781, decided the contest in favor of America, and laid the foundation of a general peace.

92. A few months after the furrender of Cornwallis, the British evacuated all their posts in South Carolina and Georgia, and retired to the main army in New-York.

93. The next spring (1782) fir Guy Carleton arrived in New-York, and took command of the British army in America. Immediately after his arrival he acquainted general Washington and Congress that negociations for a peace had been commenced at Paris.

94. On the 30th of November 1782, the provifional articles of peace were signed at Paris, by which Great-Britain acknowledged the independence and fovereignty of the United States of America.

95. Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great-Britain expended near a hundred millions of money, with an hundred thousand lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and distress from her enemies; loft many lives and much treasure-but delivered herself from a foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations of the earth.

LESSONS IN SPEAKING.

ORATION, delivered at Boston, March 5, 1772, by Dr. JOSEPH WARREN; in commemoration of the evening of the fifth of March, 1770; when a number of citizens were killed by a party of British troops, quartered among them, in time of peace.

THEN

we turn over the historic page, and trace W the rife and fall of states and empires; the mighty revolutions which have fo often varied the face of the world, strike our minds with folemn surprise, and we are naturally led to fearch for the causes of fuch aftonithing changes.

2. That man is formed for social life, is an observation, which, upon our first enquiry, presents itself to our view. Government has its origin in the weakness of individuals, and hath for its end, the strength and security of all; and fo long as the means of effecting this, important end, are thoroughly known, and religiously attended to, government is one of the richest blessings to mankind, and ought to be held in the highesl veneration.

3. In young and new formed communities, the grand design of this institution, is most generally understood, and most strictly regarded; the motives which urged to the social compact cannot be at once forgotten, and that equality which is remembered to have subsisted so lately among them, prevents those who are clothed with authority from attemping to invade the freedom of their brethren; or, if fuch an attempt is made, it prevents the community from fuffering the offender to go unpunished.

4. Every member feels it to be his interest, and knows it to be his duty, to preserve inviolate the constitution on which the public fafety depends, and is equally teady to affift the magistrate in the execution of the laws, and the subject in the defence of his right. So long as the noble attachment. to a constitution, founded on free and benevolent principles, exists in full vigor, in any ftate, that state must be flourishing and happy.

5. It was this noble attachment to a free constitution, which raised ancient Rome from the smallest beginnings, to that bright fummit of happiness and glory to which she arrived: and it was the lofs of this which plunged her from that fummit, into the black gulph of infamy and lavery.

6. It was this attachment which inspired her fenators with wisdom; it was this which glowed in the breast of her heroes; it was this which guarded her liberties, and extended her dominions, gave peace at home, and commanded respect abroad: and when this decayed, her magiftrates lok their reverence for justice and laws, and de generated into tyrants and oppreffors her fenators, forgetful of their dignity, and seduced by base corruption, betrayed their country her foilders, regardless of their relation to the community, and urged only by the hopes, of plunder and rapine, unfeelingly committed the most Aagrant enormities; and hired to the trade of death, with relentless fury they perpetrated the most cruel murders by which the streets of Imperial Rome was drenched with her noblest blood.

7. Thus this empress of the world loft her dominions abroad, and her inhabitants, dissolute in their manners, at length became contented slaves; and the stands to this day, the scorn and derifion of nations, and a monument of this eternal truth, that public happiness depends on a virtuous and unsbuken attachment to a free constitution.

8. It was this attachment to a constitution founded on free and benevolent principles, which inspired the first fettlers of this country they saw with grief the daring outrages committed on the free constitution of their native land they knew that nothing but a civil war could at that time Testore its priftine purity.

6. So hard was it to refolve to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren, that they chose rather to quit their fair poffeffions, and feek another habitation in a distant clime. When they came to this new world, which they fairly purchased of the Indian natives, the only right ful proprietors, they cultivated the then barren foil, by their inceffant labor, and defended their dear bought poffeffions with the fortitude of the chriftian, and the bravery of the hero.

10. After various struggles, which, during the tyrannic reigns of the house of STUART, were comtantly maintained between right and wrong, between liberty and flavery, the connection between Great Britain and this colony, was fettled in the reign of king William and queen Mary, by a compact, the conditions of which were expreffed in a charter, by which all the liberties and immunities of British subjects were fecured to this province, as fully and as abfolutely as they poffibly could be by any human inftrument which can be devifed.

11. It is undeniably true, that the greatest and most important right of a British fubject is, that be shall be governed by no laws, but those to which be, either in person or by bis representative, bath given bis consent : and this I will venture to affert is the grand basis of British freedom; it is interwoven with the constitution; and whenever this is loft, the constitution must be destroyed.

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12. Let us now allow ourselves a few moments to examine the late acts of the British parliament for taxing America. Let us with candor judge whether they are conAitutionally binding upon us: if they are, in the name of Justice, let us submit to them without one murmuring word.

13. First, I would ask, whether the members of the Brie tish house of cominons, are the democracy of this province ? If they are, they are either the people of this province, or are elected by the people of this province, to reprefet them, and have therefore a constitutional right to originate a bill for taxing them; it is most certain they are neither; and therefore nothing done by them can be faid to be done by the democratic branch of our constitution.

14. I would next ask, whether the lords who compofe the aristocratic branch of the legislature, are peers of America ? I never heard it was (even in these extraordinary times) so much as pretended, and if they are not, certainly no act of theirs can be faid to be the act of the ariftrocratic branch of our constitution.

15. The power of the monarchic branch we with pleafure acknowledge, refides in the king, who may act either in perfon or by his representative; and I freely confefs that I can fee no reason why a PROCLAMATION for raising money in America, issued by the king's sole authority, would not be equally comfistent with our conftitution, and therefore equally binding upon us with the late acts, it must arife altogether from the monarchical branch of the legitlature, And I further think, that it would be at least as equitable; for I do not conceive it to be of the least im-portance to us by whom our property is taken away, so long as it is taken away without our confent.

16. I am very much at a loss to know by what figure of rhetorick, the inhabitants of this province can be called free subjects, when they are obliged to obey implicity such laws as are made for them by men three thousand miles off, whom they know not, and whom they never have empowered to act for them; or how they can be faid to have property, when a body of men, over whom they have not the least control, and who are not, in any way accountable to them, shall oblige them to deliver up any part, or the whole of their substance, without even afking their confent.

17. And yet, whoever pretends that the late acts of the British parliament for taxing America, ought to be med binding upon us, must admit at once that we are

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abfolute SLAVES and have no property of our own; or elfe that we may be FREEMEN, and at the fame time, under the neceffity of obeying the arbitrary commands of those over whom we have no control nor influence; and that we may bave property of our own, which is entirely at the disposal of another.

18. Such grofs absurdities, I believe, will not be ref ished in this enlightened age; and it can be no great matter of wonder, that the people quickly perceived, and ferioufly complained of the inroads which these acts must unavoidably make upon their liberty, and of the hazard to which their whole property is by them exposed; for if they may be taxed without their confent, even in the smallest trifle, they may alfo, without their consent, be deprived of every thing they poffefs, altho ever fo valuable, ever so dear.

19. Certainly it never entered the heart of our anceftors, that after so many dangers in this then defolate wildernefs, their hard earned property should be at the difpofal of the British parliament. And as it was foon found that this taxation could not be supported by reafon and argument, it feemed necefiary that one act of oppreffion should be enforced by another, and therefore, contrary to our just rights, as pofleffing, or at least having a just title to poffefs all the liberties and immunities of British subjects, a standing army was established among us in time of peace, and evidently for the purpose of effecting that, which it was one principal design of the founders of the conftitution to prevent (when they declared a fstanding army in a time of peace to be against law) namely for the enforcement of obedience to acts, which upon fair examination, appeared to be unjust and unconftitutional.

20. The ruinous consequences of standing armies to free communities, may be seen in the hiftories of Syracuse Rome and many other once flourishing states, some of which have now scarce a name! Their baneful influence is most fuddenly felt, when they are placed in populous cities; for, by a corruption of morals, the public happiness is immediately affected.

21. This is one of the effects of quartering troops in a populous city, is a truth, to which many a mourn

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