"
"True," returned Kirkpatrick, "your wife fell dead under the steel of a
Southron governor; and you slew him for it! You were revenged; your
feelings were appeased."
"Not the death of fifty thousand governors," replied Wallace, "could
appease my feelings. Revenge were insufficient to satisfy the
yearnings of my soul." For a moment he covered his agitated features
with his hand, and then proceeded: "I slew Heselrigge because he was a
monster, under whom the earth groaned. My sorrow, deep as it was-was
but one of many, which his rapacity, and his nephew's licentiousness,
the whole nation without reserve! When the sword of war is drawn, all
who resist must conquer or fall; but there are some noble English who
abhor the tyranny they are obliged to exercise over us, and when they
declare such remorse, shall they not find mercy at our hands? Surely,
if not for humanity's, for policy's sake we ought to give quarter; for
the exterminating sword, if not always victorious, incurs the ruin it
threatens, even hope, that by or righteous cause and our clemency, we
shall not only gather our own people to our legions but turn the hearts
of the poor Welsh and the misled Irish, whom the usurper has forced
into his armies ,and so confront him with troops of his own levying.
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