Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/231

A. M. SULLIVAN the men, savages tho they be, who fell with their feet on their native soil defending themselves against an invader. My morality is not cribbed, cabined, and confined by geographical lines. I mete out to the savage the same measure of justice which I extend to more civilized races. Altho a man be a savage, we ought not to deny him the degree of praise which is due to his patriotism, as praise is paid to Caractacus and Kosciusko. This Zulu king stood within his own territories. He only did what Queen Elizabeth did in the case of the Spanish Armada when it threatened English soil. He called his forces around him, as she did hers, and said: "I will make the invader bite the dust." And he did so.

England, with the £1,500,000 you vote to-night, will doubtless succeed in a war of revenge upon this African prince. £1,500,000! Why, if the government had asked for £5,000,000 they would have got it. If I saw Cetewayo pushing his advantage so far as to invade the territories which do not belong to him, and to endanger the safety of peaceful settlers who are outside his own land, I could sympathize with your military movements. But in so far as he stands in the position of one who is resisting aggression, and is on his own soil, defending his own people and country, for my part I can not avoid confessing—whatever consequences may follow from my avowing it—that my sympathies are on his side. I say he ought to have from us the same 221