We all know that the natal soil has a sweetness in it beyond the
harmony of verse. This instinct, I say, that binds all creatures to
their country, never becomes inert in us, nor ever suffers us to want a
memory of it. Those, therefore, who seek to fly their country can only
wish to fly from oppression: and what other proof can you want of this
oppression, when, as a witness has told you, Colonel Hannay was obliged
to put bars and guards to confine the inhabitants within the country?
We have seen, therefore, Nature violated in its strongest principles. We
have seen unlimited and arbitrary exaction avowed, on no pretence of any
law, rule, or any fixed mode by which these people were to be dealt
with. All these facts have been proved before your Lordships by costive
and unwilling witnesses. In consequence of these violent and cruel
oppressions, a general rebellion breaks out in the country, as was
naturally to be expected. The inhabitants rise as if by common consent;
every farmer, every proprietor of land, every man who loved his family
and his country, and had not fled for refuge, rose in rebellion, as they
call it. My Lords, they did rebel; it was a just rebellion. Insurrection
was there just and legal, inasmuch as Colonel Hannay, in defiance of the
laws and rights of the people, exercised a clandestine, illegal
authority, against which there can be no rebellion in its proper sense.
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