It is long, weeks or
even months, perhaps, since the last wave, crested with bloody froth,
rolled its desolating flood over the country; it is high time,
therefore, for all men to prepare themselves for the shock of the
succeeding wave. And we consider it right to root up thorns and
thistles, to drain malarious marshes, to extirpate rats and vipers;
but it would be immoral, I suppose, to stamp out these people because
their vicious natures are disguised in human shape; this people that
in crimes have surpassed all others, ancient or modern, until because
of them the name of a whole continent has grown to be a byword of scorn
and reproach throughout the earth, and to stink in the nostrils of all
men!
"I swear that I, too, will become a conspirator if I remain long on
this soil. Oh, for a thousand young men of Devon and Somerset here
with me, every one of them with a brain on fire with thoughts like
mine! What a glorious deed would be done for humanity! What a mighty
cheer we would raise for the glory of the old England that is passing
away! Blood would flow in yon streets as it never flowed before, or,
I should say, as it only flowed in them once, and that was when they
were swept clean by British bayonets. And afterwards there would be
peace, and the grass would be greener and the flowers brighter for
that crimson shower.
"Is it not then bitter as wormwood and gall to think that over these
domes and towers beneath my feet, no longer than half a century ago,
fluttered the holy cross of St.
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