FAMOUS WORDS AT GREAT MOMENTS
TEN years and more before the Declaration of Independence there was great excitement in the Colonies over the new Stamp Act. Patrick Henry, a young member of the General Assembly of Virginia, had the temerity to offer a resolution which declared that in the General Assembly lay the sole right and power to lay taxes upon the Colony. An excited debate followed this resolution, in the course of which Patrick Henry arose and addressed the assembly. His speech closed with the words which have made him famous:Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—The hall rang with cries ofTreason! Treason!The patriot orator paused for an impressive moment, and then continued calmly;—may profit by their example. If this be treason make the most of it!
(His resolution was carried.)
A decade passed before the actual outbreak of the War in New England inspired Patrick Henry to the oration which concluded thus:It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace—butthere is no peace. The war has actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Very early on the morning of April 19, 1775, Paul Revere, by his famous ride, had warned the men of Lexington of the coming of the redcoats. About half-past four the patriots’ drum beat to arms and the minute-men came hurrying from all directions, to receive the instructions of their stalwart Captain, John Parker. His orders were:Stand your ground, don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.Then came Major Pitcairn’s insolent order,Disperse, ye rebels, disperse!Actually, the first trigger was pulled by a hot-headed young American. His gun, however, failed to go off. A British soldier then discharged his piece—and the War began.
Dr. Joseph Warren, who was slain at Bunker Hill, when urged by Elbridge Gerry not to go into the fight, replied quietly, and we know sincerely:Dulce et decorumest pro patria mori(To die for one’s country is both agreeable and fitting). He had that very day been appointed a Major-General by Congress, but had not yet received his Commission. When he presented himself before Colonel Prescott, the latter naturally tendered him the command. But Warren replied with the modesty which so often characterizes the bravest of men,I come as a volunteer with my musket to serve under you.
When the British General Gage heard of Warren’s death he is said to have remarked,It is well; that one man was equal to five hundred ordinary soldiers. It was probably General Israel Putnam—“Old Put�—commanding at the rail fence at Bunker Hill, who gave the famous order,Don’t fire until you can see the whites of their eyes. This was because the patriots’ powder was so pitifully short. Colonel Prescott’s injunction was,Don’t waste a grain; make every shot tell.
Washington was journeying to New England to take command of the army when the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought. On hearing of it he inquired anxiously,Did they stand the fire of the regulars?That they did, was the response, andheld their own fire in reserve until the enemy was within eight rods.Then, said Washington,the liberties of the country are safe.
The Bunker Hill Monument, it will be remembered, inspired one of Daniel Webster’s greatest orations. This is its peroration:When honored and decrepitage shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of vigorous youths shall be gathered around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it was connected—then shall come from every youthful breast the ejaculation—Thank God!—I also—am an American!
After Washington’s retreat, following the battle of Long Island, he was most anxious to discover the intentions of the British in New York. Nathan Hale, a young Captain from Connecticut—he had formerly been a schoolmaster—volunteered to try and secure this information. He was detected, arrested, and summarily condemned by the British, however, and as he stood under the fatal noose awaiting the ignominious death of a spy, the brutal British officer, Cunningham, who was in charge of the execution shouted at him,Give us your dying speech, you young rebel.And Hale replied in a calm, clear voice,I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Young people sometimes forget that the patriots’ cause had many friends among the wiser statesmen of England. William Pitt was brave enough to say:We are told that the Americans are obstinate, that they are in almost open rebellion against us. I rejoice that Americahas resisted. I rejoice that they are not so dead to all feelings of liberty as to be willing to submit like slaves!
The winter at Valley Forge was a time of bitter discouragement for Washington and his cause. Tradition has preserved a touching picture of the great man in his lonely hour of trial.
A Quaker farmer, Isaac Potts, one day returned home joyful and confident in the ultimate success of the Americans:George Washington will succeed! George Washington will succeed!he told his wife.What makes thee think so, Isaac?was her reply.I have heard him pray, Hannah, alone out in the woods to-day. The Generals horse was tied to a sapling in a thicket. He himself was on his knees, praying most fervently. The Lord will surely hear his prayer. He will, Hannah; thee may rest assured, he will.
Washington’s soldiers were often exasperated by the pettiness and tedious delays of Congress. On one occasion a group of them proposed to improve matters by making their leader King. His downright reply to the man who finally summoned sufficient courage to broach the matter to him is too little known:I am at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which seems to me big with the greatest mischief that can befall any country.... Let me conjure you, if you have any regard foryour country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature!
When Ethan Allen, the Green Mountain Boy, broke into Fort Ticonderoga at the head of a handful of followers and demanded its surrender, its bewildered and still sleepy Commandant began to stutter out a very natural inquiry as to the authority in whose name Allen acted. History has recorded Allen’s grandiloquent reply:In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!(But certain old Vermonters will have it that his actual words were,Here, come out of that, you old rascal and give us the fort, quick, or we’ll smoke you out like rats!)
Mad Anthony Wayne was wounded in the head by a musket-ball during his famous assault on Stony Point. He fell to the ground with blood streaming over his face, and for a moment supposed himself to be mortally wounded. His order to his aids was eminently characteristic,Carry me into the fort and let me die at the head of the column.
It was before the Battle of Bennington, fought and won in defiance of the orders of the too cautious Congress,that bold John Stark uttered his famous invocation to his men:There they are, boys, he shouted, waving his sword toward the enemy;we’ll get ’em, or to-night Molly Stark’ll be a widow.
A pitiful story is told of the death in London, twenty years after the War, of Benedict Arnold, the traitor. His last request was for the old epaulettes and sword-knot given him by Washington.Let me die, said he,in the old American uniform, in which I fought my battles. God forgive me for ever having put on any other!
It is well to remember, in these days, that George Washington was in reality an Englishman who fought a German king whom chance had seated on the throne of England. And it is well to recall also that George the Third, though obstinate and wrong-headed enough, gave in at last with a better grace than might have been expected. To John Adams, our first minister to England, he said:Sir, I will be very free with you. I was the last to consent to the separation, but the separation having been made ... I have always said and I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.