Monday, 12 May 2014

What is Henry's response to those who say the colonists are too weak to fight the British?

In anticipating the objection to war against the military superpower of Britain, Henry makes two responses.  First, he asks the rhetorical question "when shall we be stronger?"  He doesn't believe that time ("next week...next year") alone will enable the colonies to strengthen themselves. He creates an image of every colonial home forced to quarter a British soldier, implying that then it would be too late to muster any military strength.  He goes on to claim...

In anticipating the objection to war against the military superpower of Britain, Henry makes two responses.  First, he asks the rhetorical question "when shall we be stronger?"  He doesn't believe that time ("next week...next year") alone will enable the colonies to strengthen themselves. He creates an image of every colonial home forced to quarter a British soldier, implying that then it would be too late to muster any military strength.  He goes on to claim that God will send allies to help the colonies repel the British; it seems plausible that he was thinking of the French, who did indeed assist the colonies later in the Revolutionary War.  Henry estimates that there are three million in the colonies, and that if they all united in the common cause, they would be invincible against "any force which our enemy can send against us." 

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