Excerpt from give me liberty or give me death
patrick henry
3 i have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. i know of no way of judging of the future
but by the past. and judging by the past, i wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the british ministry for the last
ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been to solace themselves and the house is it that insidious
smile with which our petition has been lately received? trust it not, sir, it will prove a snare to your feet. suffer not yourselves to
be betrayed with a kiss. ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations
which cover our waters and darken our land. are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? have we
shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? let us not deceive ourselves,
sir. these are the implements of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. i ask gentlemen, sir, what means
this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? can gentlerden assign any other possible motive for it? has
great britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? no, sir, she has none
they are meant for us they can be meant for no other. they are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the
british ministry have been so long forging. and what have we to oppose to them? shall we try argument? sir, we have been
trying that for the last ten years. have we anything new to offer upon the subject? nothing. we have held the subject up in every
light of which it is capable, but it has been all in vain. shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? what terms shall we
find which have not been already exhausted? let us not, i beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. sir, we have done everything that
could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. we have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we
have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry
and parliament. our petitions have been slighted, our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our
supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the thronel in vain, after these
things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. there is no longer any room for hope. if we wish to be free-if
we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending-if we mean not basely
to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon
until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained-we must fight! i repeat it, sir, we must fight! an appeal to arms and to
the god of hosts is all that is left us!
- what evidence does henry offer in paragraph 3 to prove that the british are trying to subjugate, or control, the colonies by
force?