Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/127

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INTERCOLONIAL AND INDIAN WARS.
123

with which he began to make merry. He remained by the liquor till death came to his relief.

The heroism of an Indian who meets his enemy single-handed in that way, and, though greatly outnumbered, dies with his face to the foe, is deserving of more than a passing notice.

The French and Indian War cost the Colonists sixteen million dollars, of which the English repaid only five million. The Americans lost thirty thousand men, none of whom were replaced. They suffered every kind of horror and barbarity, written and unwritten, and for years their taxes were two-thirds of their income; and yet they did not murmur.

These were the fathers and mothers of whom we justly brag. These were the people whose children we are. What are inherited titles and ancient names many times since dishonored, compared with the heritage of uncomplaining suffering and heroism which we boast of to-day because those modest martyrs were working people, proud that by the sweat of their brows they wrung from a niggardly soil the food they ate, proud also that they could leave the plough to govern or to legislate, able also to survey a county or rule a nation.