Page:An Oration Delivered April 2d, 1771.djvu/17

18 The Right which imposes Duties upon us is in dispute: but whether they are managed by a Surveyor General, a Board of Commissioners, Turkish Janizaries or Russian Cossacks, let them enjoy, during our time of fair tryal, the common personal protection of the laws of our constitution. Let us shut our eyes, for the present, to their being executors of claims subversive of our rights.

Watchful hawkeyed ever guards the portal of the temple of the. This is known to those who frequent her altars. Our whole conduct therefore, I am sure, will meet with the utmost candor of her : but I am wishing we may be able to convert even her basest.

We are SLAVES 'till we obtain such redress thro' the justice of our King as our happy constitution leads us to expect. In that condition, let us behave with the propriety and dignity of FREEMEN; and thus exhibit to the world a new character of a people which no history describes.