This, my friends, I conceive to be your situation.

Hurried to the very verge of both, another step would ruin you for ever.

To be tame and unprovoked when injuries press hard upon you, is more than weakness; but to look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly you deserve those chains you broke.

To guard against this evil, let us take a review of the ground upon which we now stand, and from thence carry our thoughts forward for a moment into the unexplored field of expedient.
"After a pursuit of seven long years, the object for which we set out is at length brought within our reach .-- Yes, my friends, that suffering courage of yours was active once .-- It has conducted the United States of America through a doubtful and a bloody war .-- It has placed her in the chair of independency; and peace returns again to bless--whom ?--A country willing to redress your wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services?
A country courting your return to private life with tears of gratitude and smiles of admiration--longing to divide with you that independency which your gallantry has given, and those riches which your wounds have preserved?
Is this the case?
Or is it rather a country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your distresses?
Have you not more than once suggested your wishes and made known your wants to congress?
Wants and wishes which gratitude and policy would have anticipated rather than evaded; and have you not lately, in the meek language of entreating memorials, begged from their justice what you could no longer expect from their favour?
How have you been answered?
Let the letter which you are called to consider to-morrow reply.
"If this then be your treatment while the swords you wear are necessary for the defence of America, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall sink, and your strength dissipate by division?
When those very swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left but your wants, infirmities, and scars?
Can you then consent to be the only sufferers by this revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt?
Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honour?
If you can--go--and carry with you the jest of tories, and the scorn of whigs;--the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the world.

Go,--starve and be forgotten.