Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/367

 are one. I will therefore take it for granted, that whatever violences and excesses were committed on this continent, are chargeable to the plaintiff in this veiy action. Recollect our distressed situation. We had no exchequer, no finances, no army, no navy, no common means of defence. Our necessity — dire ne- cessity compelled us to throw aside those rules which respect private property, and to make impresses on our own citizens to support the war. Right and necessity being co-extensive, we were compelled to exert a right the most eminent over the whole community. The salus populi demanded what we did. If we had a right to disregard the legal fences thrown round the property of our citizens, had we not a greater right to take British property.^ Another peculiarity contributes to aid our defence. The want of an exchequer obliged us to emit paper money, and compel our citizens to receive it for gold. In the ears of some men this sounds harshly. But they are young men, who do not know and feel the irresistible necessity that urged us. Would your armies have been raised, clothed, main- tained, or kept together without paper money? With- out it, the war would have stood still, resistance to tyranny would have stopped, and despotism with all its horrid train of appurtenances, must have depressed your country. We compelled the people to receive it in payment of all debts — w^e induced and invited them (if we did not compel them) to put it into the treasury, as a complete discharge from their debts. Sir, I trust I shall not live to see the day, when the public councils of America will give ground to say that this was a state- trick, contrived to delude and defraud the citizens. What must it be ostensibly, when by the compact of your nation, they had publickly bound and pledged

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