Notwithstanding some opportunities have been neglected, and all the advantages of a sudden attack have been irrecoverably lost; notwithstanding our friends, sir, have learned to despise and neglect us, and our enemies are animated to confidence and obstinacy, yet our real and intrinsick strength continues the same; nor are there yet any preparations made against us by the enemy, with views beyond their own security and defence. It does not yet appear, sir, that our enemies, however insolent, look upon us as the proper objects of a conquest, or that they imagine it possible to besiege us in our own ports, or to confine us to the defence of our own country. We are not, therefore, to have recourse to measures, which, if they are ever to be admitted, can be justified by nothing but the utmost distress, and can only become proper, as the last and desperate expedient. The enemy, sir, ought to appear not only in our seas, but in our ports, before it can be necessary that one part of the nation should be enslaved for the preservation of the rest. To destroy any part of the community, while it is in our power to preserve the whole, is certainly absurd, and inconsistent with the equity and tenderness of a good government: and what is slavery less than destruction? What greater calamity has that man to expect, who has been already deprived of his liberty, and reduced to a level with thieves and murderers? With what spirit, sir, will he draw his sword upon his invaders, who has nothing to defend? Or why should he repel the injuries which will make no addition to his misery, and will fall only on those to whom he is enslaved? It is well known that gratitude is the foundation of our duty to our country, and to our superiours, whom we are obliged to protect upon some occasions, because, upon others, we receive protection from them, and are maintained in the quiet possession of our fortunes, and the security of our lives. But what gratitude is due to his country from a man distinguished, without a crime, by the legislature, from the rest of the people, and marked out for hardships and oppressions? From a man who is condemned to labour and to danger, only that others may fatten with indolence, and slumber without anxiety? From a man who is dragged to misery without reward, and hunted from his retreat, as the property of his master?