One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears - by listening to them.
Dean Rusk 1909-1994
Former United States Secretary of State, 1961-1969


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Actus curiæ neminem gravabit
[An act of the court injures no one.]
(Jenk. Cent. 118)


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SIR, it ill becomes the duty and dignity of Parliament to lose itself in such a fulsome adulatory address to the Throne as that now proposed. We ought rather, sir, to approach it with sound and wholesome advice, and even with remonstrances, against the ministers who have precipitated the nation into an unjust, ruinous, murderous and felonious war. I call the war with our brethren in America an unjust and felonious war, because the primary cause and confessed origin of it is to attempt to take their money from them without their consent, contrary to the common right of all mankind, and those great fundamental principles of the English Constitution for which Hampden bled.

I assert, sir, that it is a murderous war, because it is an effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the defense of their property and their clear rights. Such a war, I fear, sir, will draw down the vengeance of Heaven on this devoted kingdom. Sir, is any minister weak enough to flatter himself with the conquest of the Americans? You can not, with all your allies—with all the mercenary ruffians of the North—you can not effect so wicked a purpose. The Americans will dispute every inch of territory with you, every narrow pass, every strong defile, every Thermopylæ, every Bunker’s Hill! More than half the empire is already lost and almost all the rest is in confusion and anarchy. We have appealed to the sword, and what have we gained? Bunker’s Hill only—and that with the loss of twelve hundred men! Are we to pay as dear for the rest of America? The idea of the conquest of that immense country is as romantic as unjust.

The honorable gentleman who moved this address says, “The Americans have been treated with lenity.” Will facts justify the assertion? Was your Boston Port Bill a measure of lenity? Was your Fishery Bill a measure of lenity? Was your Bill for taking away the charter of Massachusetts Bay a measure of lenity, or even of justice? I omit your many other gross provocations and insults by which the brave Americans have been driven to their present state. Sir, I disapprove, not only the evil spirit of this whole address, but likewise the wretched adulation of almost every part of it. My wish and hope, therefore, is, that it will be rejected by this House; and that another, dutiful yet decent, manly address, will be presented to his majesty, praying that he would sheathe the sword, prevent the further effusion of the blood of our fellow subjects, and adopt some mode of negotiation with the general Congress, in compliance with their repeated petition, thereby restoring peace and harmony to this distracted empire.

John Wilkes 1727 - 1797
Member of English Parliament and journalist
Speech entitled, Conquest of America Impossible, December 1777




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The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain, 1869
[An account of his trip to Europe and the Holy Land in the 19th century]


I picked up a good deal of information during the afternoon. At one time
I was climbing up the quarterdeck when the vessel's stem was in the sky;
I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody
ejaculated:
"Come, now, that won't answer. Read the sign up there--NO SMOKING ABAFT
THE WHEEL!"

It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went forward, of
course. I saw a long spyglass lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck
state-rooms back of the pilot-house and reached after it--there was a
ship in the distance.

"Ah, ah--hands off! Come out of that!"

I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep--but in a low voice:
"Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and the discordant
voice?"

"It's Captain Bursley--executive officer--sailing master."

I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do,
fell to carving a railing with my knife. Somebody said, in an
insinuating, admonitory voice:
"Now, say--my friend--don't you know any better than to be
whittling the ship all to pieces that way?
You ought to know better than that."

I went back and found the deck sweep.

"Who is that smooth-faced, animated outrage yonder in the fine clothes?"

"That's Captain L****, the owner of the ship--he's one of the main
bosses."

In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the
pilot-house and found a sextant lying on a bench. Now, I said, they
"take the sun" through this thing; I should think I might see that vessel
through it. I had hardly got it to my eye when someone touched me on the
shoulder and said deprecatingly:
"I'll have to get you to give that to me, Sir. If there's anything you'd
like to know about taking the sun, I'd as soon tell you as not--but I
don't like to trust anybody with that instrument. If you want any
figuring done--Aye, aye, sir!"

He was gone to answer a call from the other side. I sought the
deck-sweep.

"Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious
countenance?"

"It's Captain Jones, sir--the chief mate."

"Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of before.
Do you--now I ask you as a man and a brother--do you think I could
venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a
captain of this ship?"

"Well, sir, I don't know--I think likely you'd fetch the captain of the
watch may be, because he's a-standing right yonder in the way."

I went below--meditating and a little downhearted. I thought, if five
cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five captains do with a pleasure
excursion.


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Worth repeating: selections from past mail-outs.


”YOU CAN'T KEEP US”
Graffiti on the closed doors of the dilapidated and former Grandview Training School for Girls in Galt, Ontario.
The school was opened in the 30's and was finally closed in the 70s. Tragically, many women later admitted to being abused while residents of the school. See the following link under heading 2 for a summary of the heartbreaking story.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/kaufmanreport/chapter16.htm