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JOSEPH HOWE, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE PxlOVINGES, AT THS HO^YE I*^E8TIVA.L, FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, AUGUST 31, 1871. ^}y the gradual i)roces8 of decay, tho luxurlaiu^o of vegetation, or by improvements, wiiicii have placed modern structures, of vast proportions, ui)on the old feudal sites, replete with every convenience for ease and comfort, which, from tho thickness of the walls, and the defensive character of tho design, could not always be commanded in the old foud;d castles. But whether the stylo of the structure be ancient or modern, it is surrounded by an estate, which, from gener- ation to generation, has Ijcloiigod to one family, — been known by one name, — and the iiouso, whatever the style of architecture may be, is tilled with all that can ilhistrate tJhe manhood and the intellectual vigor of tliat family, from its rise, amidst tho convulsions of some shadowy by-gone age, down to tho hour in which, with mingled wonder and ad- miration, we survey the marvellous results of a system not recognized by the institutions under which wo live. That those fatuilies should desire to preserve their estates intact, and gather around them the evidences of their antiqui- ty and achievements, is not at all surprising, 'when we relloct, that a very large proportion of them arc in8e[)arably interwo- ven with the great events which have miide the history of their country memorable ; and the valuable services rendered to the nation by many of these families, not only throw around their country seats and personal relics an indescribable 6 charui, but give them a strong hold on the affections of the people. A iStanley won the field of Floddon. One of the Talbots, who led the English forces in France, and fought against Joan of Arc, was the victor in forty-seven battles and dangerous skirmishes. The Percys have seven times driven back the tide of foreign invasion, and for eight hundred years have stood in the front of resistance to regal tyranny : and, say the writers from whom 1 quote,* " One Kussell has staked his head for the Protestant faith ; a second the family estates in successful resistance to a despot ; a third has died on the scaf- fold for the liberties of Englishmen ; a fourth has aided mate- rially in the revolution which substituted law for the will of the sovereigns' ; a fifth spent his life in resisting tlie attempt of the House of Brunswick to rebuild the power of the throne, and gave one of the first examples of just religious govern- ment in Ireland; and a sixth organized and carried through a bloodless but complete transfer of power from his own order to the middle classes." These are eminent services, and we cannot wonder that the faiiiily seats, where such men were bred, are religiously pre- served by their descendants, and regarded with deep interest by the nation. There is no name more familiar to Americans than that of Lord North, who, under (leorgo tiie Third, conducted, for many years, the disastrous war which was only closed by the establisliment of the Independence of these United States. How few of all the able and distinguished men, who, on your side, led in that great struggle, have left behind tliem homes that have been preserved, ])roperties still undivided, or com- mon centres where their pictures, books, and family muniments have been treasured up, to keep alive for succeeding genera- tions tlie memory of their martial or diplomatic achiove- * SanforU and Townshcnd's Governing Fiuuilics of England. ments ! By the personal exertions of Everett, Mount Vernon has been preserved; and, to their honor ])o it spoken, the Adams family, by a rare exhibition of hereditary qualities, have held their property and maintained their positions in the highest circles of political and social elevation. But nearly all the others, though honora1>ly known to history, have passed away, and have left no property to embellish the sccLery, no rallying places for their descendants, no familiar evidences of their existence. In the heart of Oxfordshire stands Wroxton Abbey, the seat of the Norths. It is an old ecclesiastical structure, turned into a modern residence of surpassing beauty, where all that is antique is preserved with religious care, and gracefully interwoven with whatever can administer to refined luxury and convenience. It is surrounded by forty thousand acres of the best land in England. The outlying farms are culti- vated by a prosperous tenantry, whose families have occupied the same lands for centuries, many of whom keep hunters worth five hundred guineas, and pay a thousand sovereigns a year of annual rent. Ancestral trees, older than the abbey, fling their shadows down upon sinuous walks and carriage drives that appear aln^ost endless ; whilst every Avindow in the house looks out upon verdant lawns, well-kept gardens, or clumps of tree roses, interspersed with masses of evergreens, the preservation of which is so much favortjd by the moist cliuiate of England. The Baroness North, grand-daughter of Lord North of the Revolutionary War, and her husband. Colonel North, reside on this beautiful estate ; and while distinguished for the largeness of heart and great hospitality which become their stations, are not unmindful of the hereditary obligation which devolves upon them to treasure, to enlarge, and to transmit to their descendants, all that can illustrate the daily life, the personal traits, or the distinguished services of the houoo to which they belong, in all its branches. 8 You are aware that the family of the Norths was interwo- ven with the Guildfords and Greys. The hundred rooms and long corridors of Wroxton tell the family story, from its foundation in 149(> to the present hour. Beautiful women, in the costume of the period in which they flourished — chil- dren of all ages — eminent Lawyers, Privy Councillors, Soldiers, Ambassadors and Judges, line the walls of every staircase and of every room. Many of these pictures are valuable as works of art, but their chief value is in the record they supply of forma long passed away, — of features that cannot be reproduced, and for the facilities they aflford to every rising generation to study and transmit the family story, by the aid of authentic materials, which in our countries, and under our systems, we can very rarely supply. Two or three rooms in this old house deeply interested mo. One was Lord North's Library, in which every book that he had ever owned or handled has been preserved. Though unsuccessful as a War Minister, he was a scholar and a wit, and many of the volumes are rare editions, or presentation copies, enriched by autographs or annotations. A small room, opening from the library, was Lord North's study. A very remarkable likeness of him overhangs and looks down on the table at which he wrote his despatches. The inkstand, and I might almost add the pens with which they were written, have been preserved. A bedroom in this fine old edifice interested me even more deeply. I slept one night in it without knowing to whom it had belonged. It was a stately chamber, hung with arras, greatly faded, with quaint old andirons in an open fireplace, a low bedstead with high posts ; and all the furniture, though admirably preserved, bearing the unmistakable imi)ress of antiquity. To my great surprise I was told, on coming down to breakfast on the following morning, that I had occu- pied the apartment of Lady Jane Grey, and slept in her bed, ■ , I 9 nothing having ])ccn changed in tho room, since her death, but the bed-linen, wliich had worn out. I atn not quite sure that I ever slept so soundly in the same apartment a second night as I did thu first. Visions of the beautiful martyr to misplaced ambition seemed ever flitting ronnd me, and I sometimes fancied that the grim headsman, with his axe, Avas lingering in the long shadows flung out by the massive walls. A volume might be written descriptive of the beauties of Wroxton, and of the treasures of art and of biography which it contains, and yet it is a comparatively modern edifice, nor do the Norths trace back their lineage nearly so far as many of the great historic families of England. But I have taken this single house to show you how strong is the family sentiment in our mother country, and to answer, in advance, those who would smile at our humble endeavors to engraft upon our democratic institutions some graceful forms of development for a yearning that is universal, and for the outcrop of feelings as old as history. Neither in the United States, nor in Canada, is any provis- ion made for this development. By our old laws two-thirds of the real estate were given to the eldest son, but modern legislation has swept this provision away, and property is now equally divided in all our States and Provinces. The univer- sal feeling sustains this condition of the law ; entails are dis- couraged, and fortunes are earned only to be distributed, often with a rapidity that far outruns the process of accumu- lation. A spendthrift is too apt to follow a miser, and the thriftless, bred in luxurious homes, often seem to have come into the world for no other purpose than to scatter what tho industrious have earned, and to disperse, without a thought of name or race, all that their fathers prized, and in wliich their descendants, if not below the ordinary scale of human- ity, would be sure to take an interest. The democratic system, which prevails all over this conti- nent, cannot be changed. It has its advantages, and tho 10 evils arising from the law of primogeniture cannot be veiled, even by the graceful surroundings to which I have referred ; and the practical (juestion which we have met here to endeav- or to solve is this, — Can we, without disturbing the law, or disregarding the common sentiment of the continent, keep alive our family name — trace back our family story, and while dividing our property among our children, divide with them also all that we have been able to learn, to authenticate, and to transmit, of the family from which they have sprung? May wo not do more ? May we not so pass this day as to make it a festival in the finest sense of the term — to the repe- tition of which the thousands who bear our name will look forward with intense delight ? In England the Howe? have lived and flourished for centu- ries. The Howe banner hangs as high, in Henry 7th's chapel, as any other evidence of honorable service, and the battle of the first of June will be remembered so long as the naval an- nals of England lust. In the old French wars, for the posses- sion of this continent, one Howe fell at Ticonderoga, and another was killed on the Nova Scotia frontier. In the Revo- lutionary War the Howes were not fortunate. I have heard my father describe Sir William, as he saw him leading up the Brit- ish forces at the battle of Bunker Hill, with the bullets flying like hail around him. But I am apprehensive that in that old war God was not "on the side of the strongest columns," and that the time had arrived Avhen the peopling and develop- ment of a continent could not be postponed by the agencies of fleets and armies. The Howes, who have been enabled, trace their family back to the reign of Henry 8th, and seem to have held estates in Somersetshire, Gloucester, Wiltshire, Nottingham, and Fermanagh in Ireland. Jack Howe, as he was familiarly called, who was a member of Parliament in the reigns of William and Anno, was a fluent speaker, and, like a good many other people in those days, had a great dislike to stand- 11 lUg armies. His son, who sat for Nottingham in the Con- vention Parliament, was one of those who established the lib- erties of England, in 1688. But many branches of the family arc scattered all about England. I found three Howes, bearing my own family Christian names, lying side by side in the church-yard at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, and I learned that in the western end of the Island a family of honest farmers, who are all Howes, have been living there on the same land, be- yond the memory of man. I found three others, all males, lying just inside the grave- yard at Berwick on Tweed. I could not hear of any Howes in the neighbcu-hood, and I took it for granted that they must have been killed in some old border light, which is not at all improbable if they came from the south side of the stream. But, passing over the nobles and the plebeians of England, I must confess that there is one Howe of whom we may all be proud. This is John Howe, who was Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and whose fine form and noble features are pre- served in some of the old engravings. He must have been an eloquent preacher, for he won his place by a sermon which the I'rotector happened to hear. That he was a fine scholar, and learned theologian, is proved by the body of divinity, written in classic English, which ho has left behind him. That he was a noble man is proved, also, by a single anecdote which is preserved to us. On one occasion he was soliciting aid or patronage for some person whom he thought deserv- ing, when Cromwell turned sharply round, and, by a single question, let a flood of light in upon the disinterestedness and amiability of his character, which will illuminate it in all time to come. "John," said the Protector, "you are always ask- ing something for some poor fellow ; why do yon never ask anything for yourself?" INIy father's name was John, and I have often tried to trace him back to this good Christian, whose character in many points his own so much resembled. 12 I may hazard one observation, before passing from the Eng- lish Howes, and it is this, that the present possessor of the peerage had better ))estir himself, and do something to add lustre to his coronet, or else we Howes in America will begin to think it has dropped on an inactive brain. He lights lio battles — he writes no books — he makes no s[)eeches, and although 1 believe ho is a very amiable person, and was a great friend of the late Queen Dowager, I beg to enter my protest against the apparent want of patriotism, or mental activity, which this very supine recipient of hereditary rank seems to display. But, passing over the Howes who have figured, or still dwell, on the other side of the Atlantic, I take it for granted that the whole of this vast audience are descended from those who settled in New England between 1630 and 1637. It would a])pear, by the circular kindly sent to me by your secretary, that there were seven of these, although my father used to tell me that there were but four. Two of them, Jo- seph of Boston, and Abraham of Watertown, may have been sons of some of the others, if they married early, which is ])robable ; but I take the list as 1 find it, and to me it is full of interest. What was the Old World about when these men came to America? Why did they come? are questions that naturidly occur to us. In 1629, Charles the First dissolved his Parliament, and no other was called in England till the Long Parliament met in 1G40. During the eleven years Avhicli intervened, we all know what was going on in England. Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury, Strafford was first Min- ister, and that hopeful experiment was being tried of ruling without Parliaments, which ended in the wreck and ruin of the monarchy. Within these eleven years five of the seven Howes were settled in New England, and the reasonable pre- sumption is that they found old England too hot for them. They had no fancy for paying ship money on compulsion, for having their ears cropped, or for standing in the pillory 13 for the free expression of opinions; antl, perhaps foreseeing what was comin<^, they accomplished what it is sjud Crom- well, Hampden, andotiuM's at one time meditated, and reached America before the Civil War began. Tlie earlier battles of Worcester and Edgehill were fought in 1642, and before this five of the Howes had made good their lodgment in America. If the two who date from 1652 and 1657 were not born in this country, they may have taken the field ; but of the fact we have no authentic I'ecord. It is enough for us to know that these ancestors of ours were God-fearing, worthy men, sprung from the sturdy middle class of English civic and rural life, who left their native country, not because they did not love it, but because they could not stay there Avithout mean compliance and tame submission to usurped authority. ^Ve would perhaps have been just as well pleased had they remained behind, and struck a few manful blows for the liberties of Engiiuid ; but we must accept the record as we find it, with this source of consolation, that no brother's blood was upon their hands when they landed in America. That they were men of worth and intelligence, there is proof enough. They were i.eemen, and proprietors, in the townships where they settled ; select men, representatives, officers, Indian commissioners, and seem to have brought from the old country, in fair measure, the common sense, industry and thrift, so much needed by the emigrant. That they were men of fine proportions and of sound constitutions, I may infer from the audience before me, and from the fact, which your secretary has recorded, that five of these old worthies left forty-four children behind them. That those " forefathers of our hamlets " set us a gfood example, their simple records prove. That the Howe women have been fruitful, and the men vigorous, is con- sistent with all I know of their descendants on this conti- nent, and this vast audience, where forms of manly beauty 14 and femtilo loveliness abonnd, shows mo that in physical proportions and feraiuiuo attraction the race has been well preserved. But in these sound bodies are there sound minds ? What of the intellectual qualities and mental development of the family ? Have our women been born " to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer"? Have the men displayed the energy and capacity for affairs demanded of them by the free and rapidly expanding communities in which they lived? It is only by the mutual interchange of fact and thought, at such a gathering as this, that we can answer these questions to our own satisfaction. But if 1 were challenged by the trans- atlantic branches of the family to bear testimony upon these points, I think, even with my limited knowledge of your country, I could produce a group of eloquent senators, eminent soldiers, distinguished philanthropists, and success- ful business men, to prove conclusively that, in these United States, the race has not declined. In turning to the Provinces it must be borne in mind that but one of all the Howes in these States took the British side in the Revolutionary War. Of my father I spoke, some years ago, at Faneuil Hall, and my good friend Lorenzo Sa- bine (one of the best writers and most accomplished states- men produced in the Eastern States) has kindly embodied what was said in the second edition of his Lives of the Loyal- ists, to which I must refer those who take interest in the Brit- ish American branch of the family. To-day I have leisure to say only this, that if it be permitted to the saints in Heaven to revisit the scenes they loved, and to hover over the inno- cent reunions of their kindred, my father's spirit will be here gratified to see that the family, divided by the Revolution, is again united, and that his son, to use the language which Burns puts into the mouth of the peasant woman in his Cot- ter's Saturday Night, is "respected like the lave." Of the past history of the family, on both sides of the 15 Atlantic, we may bo justly proud. That the present is full of hope and promise this j^reat festival assures us. For the future I have no fears. We meet to gather \\[) the; fragment- ary biographies of the family, and to encourage each other in well-doing, that the family may not decline. By honest industry and manly exercises we must see to it that the race is well preserved, and by careful cultivation that the brain is well developed. Savage, in his Genealogical Dictionary, tells ustlmt seven of the Howes, prior to 1834, had graduated at Harvard University, and twenty-three at other colleges in New England. Nearly all the Howes, that I have ever known, were dear lovers of books, and reasonably intelligent. To keep abreast with the active intellect of the age we must be students still. We inherit a rich and noble language. We are the "heirs," says Professor Greenwood, "of all the ages in the foremost files of time." "Knowledge," Disraeli tells us, "is like the mystic ladder in the Patriarch's dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth — its crest is lost in the shadowy splendor of the empyrean ; while the great authors, who, for traditionary ages, have held the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are the angels ascend- ing and descending the sacred scale, and maintaining, as it were, the communication between man and Heaven." But we must not be mere students. This is not an age wherein people should be content to see visions and dream dreams. The work of the world is before us, and on this continent there is work enough and to spare for centuries to come. We must do our share of it, and the family will be judged by the style and manner in which it is done. The Scotch have a familiar phrase, " Put a stout heart to a stiff brae ; " and Goethe tells us, " All I had to do I have done in king]}' fashion. I let tongues wag. What I saw to be the right thing that I did." May your hearts be "stout" when the " braes " are " stiff." Let the world take note of you that you are good husbands, good fathers, good citizens, and 16 true and hoiiorablo men ; that your doBcondants may corao up here to Framingham, looking back at this festival as though from itH fruits it wore worth a repetition ; and come, not to glorify a more name, that has no significanco, but to see that au honorable name, wiiich they inherit, is kept untar- nished, and transmitted with new histre to their children. But let us hope that these family meetings may be made to subserve a higher purpose than the more renewal of broken ties of relationship in limited circles. May they not embrace a wider range, ascend to a higher elevation, and have a tendency to draw together, not only single families, but that great family that the unhai)py events which led to the Revolutionary War divided into three branches ? Germany had its Seven Years' War, and its Thirty Years' War, to say nothing of centuries of rivalries and divisions, and yet a common sentiment, "the Fatherland," is rapidly uniting all who speak its language, love its literature, and are proud of its martial achievements. The Civil Wars of France have been endless, and yet the common ties of literature a!id language, however rudely those of brotherhood are broken at times, draw the whole people together; and, though kings and emperors, republics and communes, pass away, under them all the common sentiment is, "Vive la France ! " and this is the cry of a united people, when each system in its turn has been overthrown. Great Britain and the United States have had eleven years of war, eight at the Revolution and three in the foolish strug- gle which lasted from 1812 to 1815. What are eleven years in history ? Your own Civil War lasted nearly four, and more men were killed in it than Great Britain and the United States could ever put into the field in those old contests which sen- sible men everywhere remember only to regret. You hope to be, and I trust the hope may be realized, a united people. Why should not the three great branches of the Brii,ish fam- ily unite, our old wars and divisions to the contrary notwith- ll 17 standing ? This is "a consummation devoutly to bo \vislied." Ocean steamers, railroads, cheap postage and telegraphs, make a union possible ; and gatherings such as this may has- ten on the time, when, living nnder dillercnt forms of gov- ernment, and each loyal to the institutions it prefers, the three gi-eat branches of the British family ma}'^ not only live in perpetual amity, but combine to develop free institutiiins everywhere and to keep the peace of the world. Such a union, to be permanent, must be based on mutual respect, and on a just appreciation of the position and resour- ces of each branch of the Great Familv. The marvellous growth and vast resources of these United States are frankly acknowledged by every rational English and British American man that I know. That your country contains nearly forty millions of people, as intelligent, industrious, inventive, and martial, as any other equal number on the face of the earth, wo frankly admit ; but I am often amused at the style of exaggeration adopted in this country, and at the mode in which we Britishers are talked of on platforms, and in circles not over well informed. Four millions of freemen on the other side of the line, who govern them elves, and who can change their rulers when Parliament sits, any night of the year, by a simple resolution ; who could declare their inde- pendence to-morrow, or join these United States, if so inclined, are often spoken of as serfs and bondmen, because they do not care to rupture old relations, and go in search of political guaranties, which, by their own firmness and practi- cal sagacity, they have already secured. That wo arc not lag- gards and idlers over the border may be gathered from the growth of our cities, and from the rapid development of our industry in all its branches. Though but a handful of people commenced to clear up our country at the close of the Revo- lutionary War, we have already a population more numerous than Scotland, and have peacefully organized into provinces a territory more extensive than the United States, larger than 18 the whole Empire of Brazil ; the volume of our trade has increased to $120,000,000; and the mercantile marine of the Northern Provinces places them in the rank of the fourth maritime country in the world. My own native Province, I am proud to say, takes the lead in this honorable form of enterprise. Nova Scotia owns more than a ton of shipping for every man, woman, and child on her soil. The babe that was born yesterday is represented by a ton of shipping that was built before it was born. But are the British Islands so decrepit and effete as we sometimes hear in this country ? Is the empire which is sus- tained by the two other branches of the family, unworthy of the friendship of these United States? Would it not bring its share of everything that constitutes national gi'eatness into the union of which I have spoken ? Republican America, impoverished by the war of Independence, loaded with debt, having a great country to explore, finances to reorganize, in- stitutions to consolidate, and a navy to create, has done her work in the face of the world in a manner that challenges its respect and admiration. Her contributions to literature, her able judges, sagacious statesmen, eloquent orators, acute diplomatists- and eminent soldiers and sailors have won for her a place in civilization and history which all British Americans and Englishmen proudly acknowledge. You are "bone of our bone," and as one of your Commodores ex- claimed, when lending a helping hand to Englishmen in the Chinese rivers, "blood is thicker than water," and the laurels you win, and the triumphs you achieve, even at our expense, but illustrate the versatility and vigor of the life-currents which we share. Now let us see what the elder branch of the family has been about for the last eighty years, and whether, as we approach the fountain-head, the stream shows less anima- tion. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, all Lou- don was built of wood, and thirty years after the Howes 19 settled in New England, four hundred streets and thirteen thousand houses were consumed in the great fire. In 1783, the population did not exceed six hundred thousand, and the docks were not yet constructed. By the time 1 saw London first, in 1839, the population had increased to a million and a half; but within the last third of a century the numbers have swelled to about four millions, so that the metropolis of our empire is nearly as large as the cities of New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, New Orleans, San Fran- cisco, and Buffalo, all put together. At the close of the Revolutionary War, the British Empire was assumed to be on the decline. Thirteen noble provinces had just been lost. She had been humiliated by land and sea. Her power on the American Continent had been shaken to its foundations. Her great rival had defeated and triumphed over her; and, with her capital imperilled by mobs, and her treasury loaded down with debt, she had but a grim outlook for the future, at that disastrous period. But the people round the old homestead were not discour- aged. The brain power was not exhausted, nor the physi- cal forces spent. They went on thinking, working, and fighting, as though, like Antoeus, they gathered strength from their fall; and now, at the end of four-fifths of a century, let us see what they have accomplished. On this continent, profiting by the lessons of the past, and learning the science of colonial government, they have planted and fostered great provinces as populous as those they lost. They have explored and planted Australia and New Zea- land, conquered an empire in the East, taken Singapore, the Mauritius, British Guiana, and Hong Kong, and now, instead of the few feeble colonies left to them in 1783, when this country broke away, they have nearly seventy great provinces and dependencies, scattered all over the world, to whom Webster's drum-beat is familiar : which contains a 20 population of Imndreds of millions, and secure to the mother islands an abounding commerce, independent of all the rest of the world ; but which they throw open to free competi- tion, with a somewhat chivalrous confidence in their own resources. Of the men produced in these modern days, why should I weary you with a bead-roll? Nelson and Wellington, Clive and Njipier, stand in the front of a noble army of warriors, who have carried the Ked Cross Flag by land and sea ; and under its ample folds great statesmen have remodelled their institutions, reformed their laws, enlarged the franchise, lim- ited the prerogative, and laid the foundations of civil and religious liberty broad and deep. Nor have the Mother Islands hung their harps upon the willows ; while their engineers have covered the ocean with lines of steamships, and their architects have embellished the scenery with noble structures, their great writers have remodelled history, and the melodious strains of Scott and Byron, of Hemans and Campbell, have been heard above the din of workshops that never tire, the ebb and flow of capital enlarging with each pulsation, and the gradual unfolding of that marvellous web and woof of finance, whose meshes envelop the world. I have but little more to say. If it be wise to gather the Howes together, and renew old fixmily ties, how much more important will it be to bring together the three great branches of the British fomily, and unite them in a common policy, as indestructible as their language, as enduring as the litera- ture they cannot divide I Out of such a union would flow the blessings of perpetual peace, for no foreign power would venture to assail us, and we would be sufficiently strong to be magnanimous when international difficulties arose. Ships enough to keep the peace of the seas would bo all wo should require. With a landwehr of millions in reserve, our standing armies might be reduced to the minimum of cost. Capital would ebb aud i 'ik-' W M h W M i'^ 21 flow freely over the whole confederacy; our transports, instead of carrying war material, might carry the snrplus population to the regions where labor was wanting and land was cheap ; ocean telegrams would come down to a penny rate ; and our national debts would disappear, by the gradual increase of the population, and the growth of the general prosperity. May the great Father of mercies hear our prayers, and so overrule our national counsels, that we may come to be one people, living under different forms of govemment it may be, but knit together by a common policy, based upon an enlightened appreciation of each other's strength, and on a sentiment of mutual esteem.