Such as are born to be slaves are but once
sold, and thenceforward nourished by their lords. Britain is daily paying
for its servitude, is daily feeding it. Moreover, as in a tribe of
household slaves, he who comes last serves for sport to all his fellows;
so in this ancient state of slavery to which the world is reduced, we, as
the freshest slaves and thence held the most contemptible, are now
designed to destruction. For, we have no fields to cultivate, nor mines to
dig, nor ports to make; works for which they might be tempted to spare us
alive: besides that ever distasteful to rulers is magnanimity and a daring
spirit in their subjects. Indeed our very situation, so solitary and
remote, the more security it affords to us, does but raise the greater
jealousy in them. Seeing therefore you are thus bereft of all hopes of
mercy, rouse now at last all your courage, both you to whom life is
dearest, and you to whom glory. The Brigantes, even under the leading of a
woman, burned their colony, stormed their entrenchments, and, had not such
success degenerated into sloth, might have quite cast off the yoke of
slavery.
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