Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/181

 DEMOSTHENES the least evasion I shall boldly declare the truth! Not that, by breaking out into invectives, I may expose myself to the like treatment, and once more give my old enemies an opportunity of receiving Philip's gold; nor yet that I may indulge an impertinent vanity of haranguing; but I apprehend the time must come when Philip's actions will give you more concern than at present. His designs, I see, are ripening. I wish my apprehensions may not prove just; but I fear that time is not far off. And when it will no longer be in your power to disregard events; when neither mine nor any other person's information, but your own knowledge, your own senses will assure you of the impending danger, then will your severest resentment break forth. And as your ambassadors have concealed certain things, influenced (as they themselves are conscious) by corruption, I fear that they who endeavor to restore what these men have ruined may feel the weight of your displeasure; for there are some, I find, who generally point their anger, not at the deserving objects, but those most immediately at their mercy.

While our affairs, therefore, remain not absolutely desperate—while it is yet in our power to debate—give me leave to remind you all of one thing, tho none can be ignorant of it. Who was the man that persuaded you to give up Phocis and Thermopylæ? which once gained, he also gained free access for his troops to Attica and to Peloponnesus, and obliged us to turn