Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/362

 338 SKETCHES OP THE

debts be liable to forfeiture, a fortiori, must they be so, in a revolution war? Let me contrast the late war with wars in common. According to those people called kings, wars in common are systematic and produced for trifles; for not conforming to imaginary honours; because you have not lowered your flag before him at sea; or for a sup- posed affront to the person of an ambassador. Nations are set by the ears, and the most horrid devastations are brought on mankind, for the most frivolous causes. If then, when small matters are in contest, debts be for- feitable, what must have accrued to us, as engaged in the late revolution w^ar — a war commenced in attainder, perfidy and confiscation? If we take with us this great principle of Vattel, that nghtgoes in hand niih necessity, and consider the peculiar situation of the American people, we will find reason more than sufficient, to give us a right of confiscating those debts. The most strik- ing peculiarity attended the American war. In the first of it, we were stripped of eveiy municipal right. Rights and obligations are correspondent, co-extensive and inseparable — they must exist together, or not at all — ^we were therefore, when stripped of all our municipal rights, clear of every municipal obligation, burden and onerous engagement. If then the obligation be gone, what is become of the correspondent right? They are nuitually gone.''^ (These little words, " they are mutu- ally gone,^' which would have made no figure in the pronunciation of an ordinary speaker, are said to have formed a beautiful picture, as delivered by Mr. Henry: his eyes seemed to have pursued these associated objects to the extremest verge of mortal sight, while the fall of his voice, and correspondent fall of his extended hand, with the palm downwards, depicted the idea of evanescence, with indescribable force: the audience

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