Representative British Orations Volume 1 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
History
Representative British Orations Volume 1 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
Speeches, addresses, etc., English
These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them,
demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend
bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our
Church—I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the
religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this
learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I
call upon the Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their
lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their
ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of
your Lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to
maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country
to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the
Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal
ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace
of his country.[34] In vain he led your victorious fleets against the
boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor,
the liberties, the religion—the _Protestant religion_—of this country,
against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if
these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let
loose among us—to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient
connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting
for the blood of man, woman and child, to send forth the infidel
savage—against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste
their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race
and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war—_hell-hounds, I
say, of savage war!_ Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate
the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example
even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell-hounds
against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language,
laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should
sanctify humanity.
My Lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, our
Constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual
inquiry. And I again call upon your Lordships, and the united powers of
the State, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon
it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore
those holy prelates of our religion to do away these iniquities from
among us. Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this House,
and this country, from this sin.
My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my
feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could
not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow,
without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous
and enormous principles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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