"And could it have been conceived that we again should see a British army in our land, sent to enforce obedience to acts of Parliament destructive to our liberty?... Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war: but these cannot intimidate us: our liberty must be preserved: it is far dearer than _life_--we hold it even dear as our _allegiance_. We must defend it against the attacks of _friends_, as well as _enemies_: we cannot suffer even Britons to ravish it from us. No longer could we reflect, with generous pride, on the heroic actions of our American forefathers; no longer boast our origin from that far famed island, whose warlike sons have so often drawn their well tried swords to save her from the ravages of tyranny;--could we, but for a moment, entertain the thought of giving up our liberty. The man who meanly will submit to wear a shackle, contemns the noblest gift of Heaven; and impiously affronts the God that made him free." Highly wrought as these passages may appear, they accorded, perfectly, with the minds to which they were addressed. It may be doubted, if any scene of the kind ever possessed more of the moral sublime, than that which our young countryman presented,--daring thus, amidst armed and frowning enemies, to denounce them and their masters, and to speak forth the startling truths of justice and freedom, with the naked sword of tyranny suspended over his head. The rising of Brutus, "refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate," shaking his crimsoned steel, and hailing Tully aloud as the "father of his country"--Tully's own denunciations of Catiline, Verres and Anthony--or the more illustrious Philippics of Demosthenes--all remote from personal danger--the objects of their enmity and invective being absent, defenceless, or prostrate--cannot be compared, for moral sublimity, with the splendid boldness of Warren. And, whatever classical anathemas await us for it, we are heretical enough to venture the opinion, that for true _eloquence_, blendedly pathetic and argumentative, _his_ oration outstrips any that we have read of Cicero's, and _equals_ aught that we have seen of Demosthenes. To the most effective effusions of the latter, indeed, it bears the closest resemblance--rapid, condensed, inornate, impassioned: similar, too, in its result, if we consider the difference of their auditories--the one a mercurial mob, ever liable to be swayed by whim or convulsed by passion; the other a grave, reflecting people, who subjected every thing--feeling, imagination, and even the love of liberty--to REASON. The oratory of Demosthenes made the Athenians cry out, "Let us march against Philip!" When Warren ended, a glow of admiration and respect pervaded even the hostile bosoms around him; but the people of Boston were ready at once to abjure allegiance to Great Britain. For this, however, affairs were not yet ripe.