Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/391

 LIFE OP HENRY.

��declaration of the legislature by the act of 1779, that the British subjects had become aliens, and their pro- perty vested in the commonwealth, nor any other act passed on the subject, could divest the debts out of the British creditors. It cannot be done without the so- lemnity of an inquiry by a jury. The debt of A or B cannot be given to C, without this solemnity. Is the little legality of forms, which are necessary when you speak of estates and titles, requisite on such mighty occasions as these .^ When the fate of a nation is con- cerned, you are to speak the language of nature. When your very existence is at stake, are you to speak the technical language of books, and to be confined to the limited rules of technical criticism? — to those tricks and quirks — those little twists and twirls of low chica- nery and sophistry, which are so beneficial to profes- sional men.^ Alexander said, in the style of that mighty man to the Thessalians, Ycm are free from the Tlwbarw, and the debts they owed them were thereby remitted. Every other sovereign has the same right to use the same natural, manly, and laconic language; not when he is victorious only, but in every situation, if he be in a state of hostility with other nations. The acts use not the language of technicality, they speak not of releases, discharges, and acquittances; but they speak the legislative will, in simple speech, to the human understanding — a style better suited to the purpose, than the turgid and pompous phraseology of many great writers.^^

Mr. Ronald, who was a native of Scotland, and at the commencement of the revolutionary war at least, had been suspected of being not very warm in the American cause, had urged the objection to the national compe- tency of Virginia, at the time of the passage of those

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