Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More Speech on Immigration and Humanity

It's all happening 400 years ago, uh, uh, and in London there's a, there's a riot happening. There's a mob out in the streets, and they're complaining about the, the presence of strangers in London, by which they mean the recent, uh,

immigrants who've arrived there. And they're shouting the odds and complaining and saying that the immigrants should be sent back home, wherever they came from.

And, uh, the authorities send out this young lawyer, Thomas More, to put down the riot, which he does in two ways.

One, by, uh, saying that y- you can't riot like this, it's against the law, so shut up, be quiet.

Uh, and also, being by Shakespeare, with an appeal, uh, to their humanity.

So in order to set it up, we really need somebody to shout that the strangers should be removed. Could someone do that?

The strangers should be removed. Grant them removed.

And grant that this your noise hath chid down all the majesty of England.

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, their babies at their backs, with their poor luggage, plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation, and that you sit as kings in your desires, authority quite silenced by your brawl,

and you in rough of your opinions clothed.

What had you got? I'll tell you. You had taught how insolence and strong hands should prevail, how order should be quelled.

And by this pattern, not one of you should live an aged man, for other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, with self same hands, self reason, and self right would shark on you, and men, like ravenous fishes, feed on one another.

You'll put down strangers, kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses.

Oh, desperate as you are, wash your foul minds with tears.

And those same hands that you, like rebels, lift against the peace, lift up for peace. And your unreverent knees, make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven.

And say now the king, as he is clement, if the offender mourn, should so much come too short of your great trespass as but to banish you.

Whither would you go? What country, by the nature of your error, should give you harbor?

Go you to France or Flanders, to any German province, Spain or Portugal, nay, anywhere that not adheres to England.

Why, you must needs be strangers. Would you be pleased to find a nation of s- such barbarous temper, that, breaking out in hideous violence, would not afford you an abode on earth?

Whet their detested knives against your throats, spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God owned not nor made not you, nor that the elements were not all appropriate to your comforts, but chartered unto them.

What would you think to be thus used? This is the strangers' case, and this your mountainish inhumanity.

William Shakespeare, 400 years ago.