HOUSE OF BURGESSES • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of House of Burgesses

... rights of man have been at stake, the all-animating voice of the orator has kept alive the sacred flame. In the witenagemote of the earlier tongs, in the parliament of the later kings, in the Massachusetts town-meeting and in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in the legislature of every State, and in the Congress of the United States, wherever in Anglo-Saxon countries the torch of liberty seemed to burn low, the breath of the orator has fanned it into flame. It fired the eloquence ...

— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various