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 our 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 powerthree 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. Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and 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 might be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come!! I repeat it, Sir, let it come!!! It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace-but there is no peace! The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH! Orations, BIOGRAPHICAL. DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WAS born at Boston, 1706, and placed at a very early age, under one of his brothers, who was a printer, where he made a rapid progress in that art, so useful to mankind, and contracted an attachment for the press, which continued as long as he lived. Scarcely emerged from infancy, Franklin was a philosopher, without being conscious of it; and by the continued exercise of his genius, prepared himself for those great discoveries, which in science have since associated his name with that of Newton, and for those political reflections, which have placed him by the side of a Solon and a Lycurgus. Soon after his removal from Boston to Philadelphia, Franklin, in concert with some other young men, established a small club, where every member, after his work was done, and on holidays, brought his stock of ideas, which were submitted to discussion. This society, of which the young printer was the soul, has been the source of every useful establishment in that state, calculated to promote the progress of science, the mechanical arts, and particularly the improvement of the human understanding. Higher employments, however, at length called him from his country, which he was destined to serve more effectually as its agent in England, whither he was sent in 1757. The stamp act, by which the British minister wished to familiarize the Americans to pay taxes to the mother country, revived that love of liberty which had led their forefathers to a country at that time a desert; and the colonies formed a congress, the first idea of which had been communicated to them by Franklin, at the conferences at Albany, in 1754. The war that was just terminated, and the exertions made by them to support it, had given them a conviction of their strength; they opposed this measure, and the minister gave way, but he reserved the means of renewing the attempt. Once cautioned however, they remained on their guard; liberty, cherished by their alarms, took deeper root, and the rapid circulation of ideas, by means of newspapers, for the introduction of which they were indebted to the printer of Philadelphia, united them together to resist every fresh enterprize. In the year 1766, this printer, called to the bar of the house of commons, underwent that famous interrogatory, which placed the name of Franklin as high in politics, as it was in natural philosophy. From that time he defended the cause of America with a firmness and moderation, becoming a great man, pointing out to the ministry all the errors they had committed, and the consequences they would produce, till the period when the tax on tea, meeting the same opposition as the stamp act had done, England blindly fancied herself capable of subjecting by force 3,000,000 of men, determined to be free, at a distance of 1000 leagues. Every man is acquainted with the particulars of that war, but every man has not equally reflected on the bold attempt of Franklin as a legislator. Having asserted their independence, and placed themselves in the rank of nations, the different colonies, now the United States of America, adopted each its own form of government, and retaining, almost universally, their admiration for the British constitution, framed them from the same principles, variously modelled. Franklin alone, disengaging the political engine from those multiplied movements and admired counterpoises that rendered it so complicated, proposed the reducing it to the simplicity of a single legislative body. This grand idea startled the legislators of Pennsylvania; but the philosopher removed the fears of many, and at length determined them to the adoption of his principle. Having given laws to his country, Franklin undertook again to serve it in Europe, not by representation to the metropolis or answers at the bar of the house of commons; but, by treaties with France, and successively with other powers. From France he returned to America in 1785, and lived five years after this period: for three years he was president of the general assembly of Pennsylvania; he was a member of the convention that established the new form of federal government; and his last public act was a grand example for those who are employed in the legislation of their country. In this convention he had differed in some points from the majority; but when the ar ticles were ultimately decreed, he said to his colleagues, "we ought to have but one opinion; the good of our country requires that the resolution should be unanimous" and he signed. He died, April 17, 1790. As an author, he never wrote a work of any length. His political works consist of letters or short tracts; but all of them, even those of a humourous nature, bear the marks of his observing genius and mild philosophy. He wrote many for that rank of people who have no opportunity for study, and whom it is yet of so much consequence to instruct; and he was well skilled in reducing useful truths to maxims, casily retained, and sometimes to proverbs or little tales, the simple and natural graces of which acquire a new value when associated with the name of their author. The most voluminous of his works is the history of his own life, which he commenced for his son, and which reaches no farther than 1757. He speaks of himself, as he would have done of another person, delineating his thoughts, his actions, and even his errors and faults; he describes the unfolding of his genius and tallents with the simplicity of a great man, who knows how to do justice to himself, and with the testimony of a clear conscience void of reproach. In short, the whole life of Franklin, his meditations and his labours, have all been directed to public utility; but the grand object that he had always in view, did not shut his heart against private friendship: he loved his family, and his friends, and was extremely beneficent. In society he was sententious, but not fluent; a listener rather than a talker; an informing, rather than a pleasing companion: impatient of interruption, he often mentioned the custom of the Indians, who always remain silent sometime before they give an answer to a question which they have heard attentively; unlike some of the politest societies in Europe, where a sentence can scarcely be finished without in. terruption. In the midst of his greatest occupations for the liberty of his country, he had some physical experiment always near him in his closet; and the sciences, which he had rather discovered than studied, afforded him a continual source of pleasure. He made various bequests and donations to cities, public bodies and individuals; and requested that the following epitaph, which he composed for himself some years ago, might be inscribed on his tombstone: The body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, (Like the covering of an old book, And stript of its lettering and gilding,) Yet the work itself shall not be lost, but will, Appear once more in a new and more THE AUTHOR. Biographical Dictionary. NATHANIEL GREENE, A MAJOR GENERAL of the army of the United States, was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, about the year 1740. His parents were Quakers. His father was an anchor smith, who was concerned in some valuable iron works, and transacted much business. While he was a boy, he learned the Latin language, chiefly by his own unassisted industry. Having procured a small library, his mind was much improved, though the perusal of military his tory occupied a considerable share of his attention. Such was the estimation in which his character was held, that he was, at an early period of his life, chosen a member of |