Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/364

 340 SKETCHES OF THE

every principle of national law. From that series ol' plenty- in which we had been accustomed to hve and to revel, we were plunged into every species of human calamity. Our lives attacked — charge of rebels fixed upon us — confiscation and attainder denounced against the whole continent: and he that was called king of England sat judge upon our case — he pronounced his judgment, not like those to whom poetic fancy has given existence — not like him who sits in the infernal regions, and dooms to the Stygian lake those spirits who deserve it, because he spares the innocent, and sends some to the fields of Elysium — not like him who sat in ancient imperial Rome, and wished the people had but one neck, that he might at one blow strike off their heads, and spare himself the trouble of carnage and massacre, because one city would have satisfied his vengeance — not like any of his fellow-men, for nothing would satiate his sanguinary ferocity, but the indiscriminate destruc- tion of a whole continent — involving the innocent with the guilty. Yes, he sat in judgment with his coadjutors, and pronounced proscription, attainder, and forfeiture, against men, women, and even children at the breast. Is not this description pomtedly true, in all its parts .'^ And iv/io were his coadjutors and executioners in this strange court of judicature? Like the fiends of poetic imagination — Hessians, Indians, and JVegroes, were his coadjutors and executioners. Is there any thing in this sad detail of offences, which is unfounded.^ Any thing not enforced by the act of parliament against America.^ We were thereby driven out of their pro- tection, and branded by the epithet rebels. The term rebel may not now appear in all its train of horrid con- sequences. We know that when a person is called rebel by that government, his goods and life jire forfeit-^

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