198
��New Hampshire in 178^.
��singular advantage of forming a con- stitution of government for ourselves and our posterity. If we should neglect to render due praise to him on such a great occasion, the heathen would rise up in judgment and con- demn us for our im[)iety and ingrati- tude."
He speaks of "the present glorious revolution in this laud," and con- tinues: "Hardly any people were ever less prepared to enter the list with such a great and powerful na- tion. War was not our object or wish ; on the contrary we deprecated it as a dreadful calamity, and con- tinued to hope, even against hope, that the gentle methods of petitioning and remonstrating might obtain a re- dress of grievances.
"The war on our part was not a war of ambition, but a justifiable self-defence against the claims of an arbitrary power, which was at- tempting to wrest from us the privi- leges we had all along enjoyed, and to subject us to a state of abject servi- tude.
"They were men of war from their youth. They had regular troops, used to service, who had signalized their valor on the Plains of Minden and on the Heights of Abraham, com- manded by able and experienced generals, amply furnished with all the terrible apparatus of death and de- struction, and aided by mercenary troops who had been bred to arms and were versed in all the stratagems of war ; — add to this they had a navy tiuit ruled the ocean, and regular re- sources to supply their demands — on the other hand we were inexperienced in the art of war, and had neither disciplined troops, nor magazines of
��provision and amunition, nor so much as one ship of war to oppose to their formidable fleets, nor any regular re- sources, not even so much as the certain prospect of any foreign aid ; — besides all the civil governments were dissolved and the people reduced back to a state of nature, and in danger of falling into anarchy and confu- sion.
"That people so widely separated from one another by their situation, manners, customs, and forms of gov- ernment, should all at once be willing to sacrifice their present interests to the public good and unite like a band of brothers to make the cause of one state, and even of one town, a com- mo,n cause : and that they should continue firm and united under the greatest discouragements and the most trying reverses of fortune — that an army of freemen, voluntarily as- sembled at the alarm of danger-men who had been nurtured in the bosom of liberty and unused to slavish re- straints, should be willing to submit to the severity of military government for the safety of their country, and patiently endure hardships that would have the fortitude of veterans, fol- lowing their illustrious leader in the depths of winter, through cold and snow, in nakedness and perils, when every step they took was marked with the blood that issued from their swollen feet, and when they could not be animated to such patience and perseverance by any mercenary mo- tives, was a rare spectacle, and for its solution must be traced to a higher source."
The whole sermon shows that the speaker, if not the hearers, appre- ciated the mncnitude of the struggle
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