Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/379

 Jitors? However right it may appear now, to decry the paper money, it would have been fatal then; for America might have perished, without the aid and effect of that medium. Your citizens trusting to this com- pact, submitted to a number of things almost intolerable — impressments and violences on their property — it encouraged them to exert themselves in defence of their property against the enemy during the war. If the debt in the declaration mentioned be recovered, the compact is subverted, as respecting the paper money. And this subversion is to take effect for the interest of those men, whom, by all laws, human and divine, we were obliged to consider as enemies; men, who were obliged to comply with the regulations and requisitions of their king; and our people will have been labouring, not for themselves, but for the benefit of the British subject. When a vessel is in danger in a storm, those who abide on board of her, and encounter the dangers of the sea to save her, are allowed some little compen- sation for salvage, for their fidelity and gallantry in endeavouring to prevent her loss; while those who aban- don her are entitled to nothing. But, in opposition to this wise and politic principle, we, who have withstood the storms and dangers, receive no compensation; but those who left the political ship, and joined those on the other side of the watei^ who wished to sink her, and who caused us to fight eight long years for her preserva- tion, shall come in at last, and get their full share of this vessel, and yet will have been exonerated from every charge. For whom then, were the people of America engaged in war.^ Not for themselves, I am sure — the property that they saved will not be for them- selves, but for those whom they had a right to call ene- mies. I am not willing to ascribe to the meanest Ame-

�� �