Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/373

 warfare and Indian butchery, your soul would have been struck with liorrm\' Even those helpless women and children were the objects of the most shocking barbarity. Give me leave again to recur to Vattel, p. 9. ' Nations, being free, independent, and equal, and having a right to judge according to the dictates of con- science, of what is to be done in order to fulfil its du- ties; the effect of all this is, the producing, at least externally and among men, a perfect equality of rights between nations, in the administration of their affairs, and the pursuit of their pretensions, without regard to the intrinsic justice of their conduct, of which others have no right to form a definitive judgment: so that what is permitted in one, is also permitted in the other; and they ought to be considered in human society as having an equal right/ If it be allowed to the British nation to put to death, to forfeit and confiscate debts and every thing else, may we not (having an equal right) confiscate — not life, for we never desire it — but that which is the common object of confiscation — ^j^o- peHy, goods, and debts, which strengthen ourselves and weaken our enemies? I trust that this short recapitu- lation of events shows, that if there ever was in the history of man, a case requiring the full use of all hu- man means, it was our case in the late contest; and we were therefore warranted to confiscate the British debts."

He now takes another ground to establish the con- fiscation. I shall give his whole argument on this point in his own words:

" I beg leave to add that these debts are lost on another principle. By the dissolution of the British government, America went into a state of nature — on the dissolution of that of which we had been members.

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