Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/262

 238 SKETCHES OF THE

what he spoke: — ' Why/ said he, ' should we fetter commerce? If a man is in chains, he droops and bows to the earth, for his spirits are broken; (looking sor- rowfully at his feet) but let him twist the fetters from his legs, and he will stand erect (straightening himself, and assuming a look of proud defiance). Fetter not commerce, sir — let her be as free as air — she will range the whole creation, and return on the wings of the four winds of heaven, to bless the land with plenty/ ^'

In the fall session of 1 784, Mr. Henry proposed and advocated several measures which deserve particular mention; one of them, on account of the originahty and boldness of mind from which it proceeded; and others, because they have sometimes been made the subjects of censure against him. The first, respects the Indians. Those unfortunate beings, the natural enemies of the white people, whom they regarded as lawless intruders into a country set apart for themselves by the Great Spirit, had continued, from their first landing, to harass the white settlements, and hang like a pestilence on their frontier, as it advanced itself to- wards the west. The story of their accumulated wrongs, handed do^vn by tradition from father to son, and emblazoned with all the colours of Indian oratory, had kept their war fires smoking from age to age, and the hatchet and scalping knife perpetually bright. They had long since abandoned the hope of being able by their single strength, to exteniiinate the usurpers of their soil; but either from the spirit of habitual and deadly revenge, or from the policy of checking as far as they could, the pei'petually extending encroachments of the white men, they had waged an unremitting war upon their borders, marked with horrors which eclipse

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