1Nature has willed that each man's children and kin should be dearest to him: these are carried off by levies to be slaves elsewhere; 1our wives and sisters, even if they escape the enemy's lust, are defiled by men calling themselves friends and guests. 1Our goods and fortunes are worn away in tribute, our land and its yearly harvest in grain, our very bodies and hands in clearing forests and marshes, amid blows and insults. 2Slaves born to servitude are sold once and for all, and are even fed by their masters: Britain buys her servitude every day, and every day she feeds it. 3And just as in a household the newest of the slaves is a laughing-stock even to his fellow slaves, so in this ancient servitude of the whole world we, the newest and cheapest, are marked out for destruction; 3for we have no fields or mines or harbours for the working of which we might be spared.
4Moreover, courage and spirit in subjects are displeasing to rulers; 4and our remoteness and seclusion itself, the safer it makes us, the more suspect it makes us. 4So, since all hope of mercy is gone, take courage at last, both you to whom safety is dearest and you to whom glory is. 5The Brigantes, with a woman as their leader, were able to burn a colony, storm a camp, and, had not success turned into carelessness, to throw off the yoke: we, untouched and unsubdued, are going to fight for liberty, not for remorse; 5let us show at the very first encounter what men Caledonia has kept in reserve for herself.