John Quincy
Adams, 1802 |
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| "When the persecuted companions of Robinson, exiles
from their native land, anxiously sued for the privilege of removing a thousand leagues
more distant to an untried soil, a rigorous climate and a savage wilderness, for the sake
of reconciling their sense of religious duty with their affections for their country, few,
perhaps none of them formed a conception of what would be within two centuries the result
of their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of their British
sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and instead of liberty would barely
consent to promise connivance, neither he nor they might be aware that they were laying
the foundations of a power, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which in less
than two hundred years would stagger the throne of his descendants, and shake his united
kingdoms to the centre." |
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www.pilgrimhall.org |
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