Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/108

 84 SKETCHES OF THE

death. Ever}' grade of society, all ages, and both sexes, kindled in this sacred competition of patriotism. The ladies of the colonies, in the dawn and throughout the whole progress of the revolution, shone with pre-emi- nent lustre in this war of fortitude and self-denial. They renounced without a sigh, the use of the luxuries and even of the comforts to which they had been accustom- ed; and felt a nobler pride in appearing dressed in the simple productions of their own looms, than they had ever experienced from glittering in the brightest orna- ments of the east.

The British court looked upon this trial of virtuous fortitude, with surly and inexorable rigour. They seem- ed deteniiined to cany the point, at every hazard. The sufferings of their own merchants and manufacturers were forgotten, in the barbarous pleasure with which they contemplated the sufferings of the colonists. It is not in human nature to continue long to return good for evil, affection for cruelty. The admiration and devo- tion of the colonies for the parent country became gra- dually weaker. This transition of feeling is most inter- estingly marked in the chronicles of the day. The epithets, " our kind and indulgent mother,^^ with which she was wont to be greeted, were progressively changed into "unnatural parent — cruel stepmother — ^proud, mer- ciless oppressor — ^liaughty, unfeeling, and unrelenting ty- rant.'^ This state of feeling was aggravated by the col- lisions which were perpetually occurring between the king's soldiery and the people of the towns in which they were quartered. The streets of New York and of Boston were the theatres of continual riots, ending al- most invariably in blood, and not unfrequently in death. The newspapers of the day teem with the detail of scenes of this sort; and from the effect which they pro-

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