Select the correct text in the passage.
Which sentence in this excerpt from Patrick Henry's famous "liberty or death" speech at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775 emphasizes the
American colonists' efforts to avoid war?
Speech to the Second Virginia Convention
by Patrick Henry (excerpt)
Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which
now coming on. We have
petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the
tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our
supplications have been disregarded; and we
have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge
of the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.
we wish to be free-if we mean to preserve inviolate those
inestimable privileges for which we have been:
long contending -if we mean not basely to abandon the
noble struggle in which we have been so long
engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -we must fight! I repeat it,
sir, we must fight! An appeal to
arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!