insignificant young Colonies, struggling for bare existence off there on the uttermost edges of the civilized earth, thus to lift themselves against her sovereign will, and dare dispute her high decrees! It was not to be borne: she would humble them for this presumption, chastise them for their disobedience, and show them what a terrible thing it was to provoke her wrath. Her heart thus steeled to mercy, she stayed not her hand, but sent her hosts of armed men in her fleets of armed ships, to lay her heavy yoke, and fit it firm and fast on the necks of her rebellious children. Beholding this, and that it were vain to hope for reconciliation, the Colonies, with one voice, with one indignant voice, exclaimed, "Now, since our mother seems bent on treating us as slaves and strangers, and not as children, then are we compelled, in our own defence, to treat her, not as our mother, but as a stranger and our enemy. And bear us witness, O ye nations! how long and humbly and earnestly we have prayed that there should be love and peace between us and this our mother; and bear us witness also, that, although we now lift our rebellious hand against her, there is no hatred in our hearts, even now, but rather sorrow unspeakable, that she should at last have driven us to this saddest, this direfulest of alternatives." Then, moved with one spirit (that of the love of freedom), and bent on one purpose (that of the defence of their sacred rights), they rose in their young strength, and, commending their just cause to the God of hosts, made that last appeal,--which, to a brave and virtuous people, has ever been the last,--the appeal to arms. And so they did, while the nations looked on in wonder and applause. XXIV. THE CAUSE OF THE QUARREL. But, my children, I must tell you, in other and perhaps plainer words, what these measures were that led to such momentous results, why resorted to, how carried out, and by whom.