Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-04-23
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE
Nramnr,os of Anrn 1e.

II nineteenth of April famous. the blood of Lexington and Concord made 1t immortal. If the former failed to stay the thunders opening over the head of England. the latter gave the first light by which the clouds were dispelled from that of Ameri- ca. Upon the ears of the British minis ters, the eloquence of the one. as the valor of the others, broke with an indig- nant vehemence and a scornful warming, worthy alike to denounce and defy des- potism, or to indicate the 'transhguration of colony into nation. On the nine teenth of April, 1774, Burke delivered his famous speech on American Taxation, in the British commons. On that day twelve month the Americans took up the theme at the point of the bayonet,. Truly. Burke has said, terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. Lexington proved the first; the war succeeding it illustrated the latter, to the English.
 Burkes speech on the occasion has pro- bably never been surpassed, if equalled, as sustained effort. It is an unbroken stream. now rolling sonorously along. now descending with the forco of unity, over mighty chasms, now .doubly concentrated in the space allowed it, now expanding from the gaze, ever beautiful and un- divided. For effulgent energy and pictor- ial sarcasm, the speech was admitted to be unequalled at. the time. He shook out every plea of the minister. He paraded the stupid that kept the tax on tea, by the importation of which, by America. the East Indies were to be kept from crushing England with their burden. The govern ment he stigmatlzes as being without sys- tenn, and invepting occasionally some miserable tale for the day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties, into which they had proudly stricted. He reminded them that on the previous year they were on the verge of bankruptcy, when, by the operation of the injudicious tax, ten mil lion pounds of tea were rotting Tn the warehouses;, the sale of which would have prevented the distress. Exposing the policy, he condemned on other grounds as tax of sophistry. tax of peasantry, a tax of disputation, tax or war and re- bellion, tax for anything but benefit to the lmposers, or satisfaction to the subject.
 What man IS this, exclaimed Lord Townshend. How could he acquire such transcendent powers And and American in the gallery said to an English friend: You have a most wonderful man here; he of your house put together
 year had passed, Burke made another speech in favor of America, and while the voluminous moralist, Sam Jonson, was re- plying to him in pamphlet of ponderous puerilities, entitled Taxation no Tyranny" the colonial policy of Lord North had driven the provincials to cast ing bullets; to the silent collecting of mili- tary stores and such trersonable practices. The government officials scented out a store of artillery and ammunition at Con- cord, and eight hundred men, led by Major Pitcairn, were dispatched with great secrecy to destroy it. But the ears of rebellion, like the Indians, are tenacious, and hear footsteps through miles of earth. There is an attraction of repulsion that brings the stealthiest steps and dullest ears of enemies together. As the royalists approached Lexington on the morning of April 18th. some seventy armed provin- cials stood in their path. Pitcairn val iantly charged the little band, which re- treated leaving eight dead, the first heroes of the war of independence, on the field. Concord was reached by the royalists, but Concord had no peace for them. The alarm spreading. their work of demolition was interrupted. There were dead people in Lexington, their blood was on the hands in Concord. The indignant militia assembled, the army of Pitcairn was baffied, beaten, routed and only saved from utter extermination by the arrival of Lord Percy with two companies of ar tillery, sixteen of infantry, and a corps of marines. Even with this aid the army barely effectedUa retreat to Charlestown leaving in killed. wounded and prisoners in the hands of the victorious people two hundred and seventy-three. The rebels lost ninety men.
 nation without valor has no history. Literature may be the heart science the head. and art the eye of a country, but valor is it's strong right arm. As it pro- tects the others, 1t inspires them. As it inspires them, 1t gives them actual being. Their being is its history. It makes a his tory they live to chronicle. It makes a peace that gives them life. Thus these memories must be ever present to us ali. Not to cherish them is to be a vandal. To forget them is to be a suicide. To Irish history the day is necessity also. And on the records of eloquencs it is marked with another name not less remarkable, and around which more imaginative splen- dors radiate than that of Edmund Burke. On the 18th of April, 17S0. Henry Grattan made his celebrated declaration of Irish rights. It was and is, famous in many respects. Famous for the infamous cen turies of wrong it compressed into that days glowing agony; famous for the words which gave these wrongs an appalling in- humanity, and for the eloquence with which the rights invoked: famous for the fresh blood it throbbed into Irish politics; and famous, above all, for the success which it initiated. it broke the clouds and let in a comparative burst of sunshine on the land.
 Any light would be sunshine for a peo- pie groping for centuries. now in uncer- tain gloom, now in unmistakable darkness Backed by the arms of the volunteers, the | independence of the Irish parliament was guaranteed, such as the British govern l ment could guarantee. in 17S2. The glory of it was Grattan's, but it was an illusion, like the "Fata Morgana." In 1900 it was not. It was granted through fear. exer- cised with questionable faith, and revoked | with unquestionable treachery. To Ameri- l ca, Ireland and England, the date of this l day is an important index. It initiated | revolutions in the two former against the | latter. That of America was war of | seven years. Ireland by parsding the | volunteers gained her parliament, the end | of the latter was & concession which lasted | eighteen years. The end of the former | was independence and republic which | still lives. Who will say it was not worth | the blood?
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 A Va t Railroad Corporation.