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and must be weighed by the causes which have mule meh omduot and
such measures necesssry. A free and impartial inquiry, therefore, into
the leading and primary eaums is indispensably necessary to a just decision
of the case. If their claims of exemption from Parliamentary laxationare
founded in equity and the principles of the constitution-if they
have been driven by a wanton, »cruel and impolite attack on their privileges
to their present desperate defence-then, sir, the 'whole guilt and
censure is chargeable on those, and those alone, whose ambition and ill direeted
measures have forced them to those extremities. Thus also, if
a form of government is introduced into Canada, »[breathing little of the
spirit of English liberty, ] and intended to liuk the Canadians to the chain
of ministerial intiuence-if they scrupled not to make a religion which
has so often deluged Europe with blood an engine of their despotism to
crush the Protestant colonies-if every artifiee was used to seduce and
employe. servile, bigoted people to subvert the liberties of America, nan
we wonder, sir, can we complain, if the colonists wisely diverted the
storm, and secured a country to their own allil-nee, the strength and lfllll
of which were avowedly to be directed to their destruction?
When what was dearer to them than their lives—their liberties-were
at stake-when, Mr. Speaker, 'their opposition to government reached no
higher than petition and remonstrance, then they were stigmatized with
want of courage. Every 'method was taken to irritate them. Insults on
their character as a people were added to encroachments on their Rights
as citizens. The partisans of confident oppresaifm represented them ll
a herd of puslianimous wretches, whom the appearance of martial array
would terrify into submission. How unjust-how impolitic, to reduce
men to the miserable alternative of being branded with the epithet of
cowards, or of taking up arms to vindicate their injured honor and violated
liberties-first, to compel them to resistance, and then to derive arguments
of their guilt from their vigor, courage and success. How contemptible
the cause which pleads the misfortunes it has occasioned as
reasons for its support!
The arguments of Administration, stripped, of their false CQIOHDQI, with all humility, I conceive to be these: ' We have plunged Great Britain into a most expensive and ruinous contest with her colonies; we have opened the door for endless animosities, by reviving disputed questions and claims which shake the foundation of the empire. The meassures we have pursued have increased the storm, and multiplied the common misfortunes. We have united all America in a firm league against you. Your trade has been impaired-your ships insulted and taken. We have lost for you every place of strength or importance in the eolo. nies; we have left' you an army broken by sickness, fatigue and want, and now perishing under all the modifications, ignemin and
