Imputations of British influence have been uttered against the
opponents of this war. Against whom are these charges brought? Against
men who, in the war of the Revolution, were in the Councils of the
Nation, or fighting the battles of your country! And by whom are these
charges made? By runaways, chiefly from the British dominions, since
the breaking out of the French troubles. The great autocrat of all
the Russias receives the homage of our high consideration. The Dey of
Algiers and his divan of pirates are very civil, good sort of people,
with whom we find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace
and amity. "Turks, Jews, and Infidels,"--Melimelli or the Little
Turtle,--barbarians and savages of every clime and color, are welcome
to our arms. With chiefs of banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat
and can trade. Name, however, but England, and all our antipathies are
up in arms against her. Against whom? Against those whose blood runs
in our veins; in common with whom we claim Shakspeare, and Newton, and
Chatham, for our countrymen; whose form of government is the freest
on earth, our own only excepted; from whom every valuable principle
of our own institutions has been borrowed,--representation, jury
trial, voting the supplies, writ of habeas corpus, our whole civil and
criminal jurisprudence;--against our fellow-Protestants, identified in
blood, in language, in religion, with ourselves.
In what school did the worthies of our land--the Washingtons, Henrys,
Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges, of America--learn those principles
of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and
valor? American resistance to British usurpation has not been more
warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots,--not
more by Washington, Hancock, and Henry,--than by Chatham, and his
illustrious associates in the British Parliament. It ought to be
remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was with us. It
was a selfish and corrupt ministry, and their servile tools, to whom
_we_ were not more opposed than _they_ were. I trust that none such
may ever exist among us; for tools will never be wanting to subserve
the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of
state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Milton upon
my imagination; of a Locke, upon my understanding; of a Sidney, upon
my political principles; of a Chatham, upon qualities which would to
God I possessed in common with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a
Sherlock, and a Porteus, upon my religion. This is a British influence
which I can never shake off.