8 ORATION. such, a people, and spoke of New England as an asylum where honest men might take refuge, if all the rest of the world should prove false to freedom. When the sons of Carolina have learned to love liberty with all the warmth of that century, and all the light of this, then may the children of the two proud old Commonwealths once more remember that their fathers loved each other as brothers. The distress of Boston was discussed in Virginia, where the most eloquent speech was made by George Washington. And this was his speech: “ I will raise a regiment of a' thousand men. I will subsist them at my own expense. I will march at their head to the relief of Boston.” How, in the hour of national peril, the man of action stands pre-eminent above the man of words! How, for the last three year$, has our country, through all her bleeding wounds, cried out for one such man! How all hearts rejoice in the belief that at last the man of action has been found in our silent, persistent, triumphant General Grant ? The time for action rapidly approached. On the evening of the 18th of April, 1775, British soldiers met at the foot of the Common on their way to East Cambridge and to Concord. As they embarked, two lanterns, provided by the care of Paul Revere, flung out their light from the steeple of the Old North Church to warn the minute-men of Middle
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