English boys! We have tried to put reason before sentiment, duty before love; our minds approve, but our hearts reproach us. While apparently it was only the nobility, only the gentry, only the twenty-five or thirty thousand knights left alive out of the late wars, we were of one mind, and undisturbed by any troubling doubt; each and every one of these fifty-two lads who stand here before you, said, ‘They have chosen — it is their affair.

’ But think! — the matter is altered — All England is marching against us ! Oh, sir, consider! — reflect! — these people are our people, they are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, we love them — do not ask us to destroy our nation!”

Well, it shows the value of looking ahead, and being ready for a thing when it happens. If I hadn’t