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INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE 
 
 NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 EVTHE 
 
 J 
 ■" HONOURABLE GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 (president,) 
 4th SEPTEMBER, 1816; 
 
 THE 206th ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DISCOVERY OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 BY HUDSOjY, 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 Printed and Published by T. Si W. Mercein. 
 
 181G. 
 

 <g\(c 
 
 NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 Resolved, Thai the thanks of this Society be presented to 
 the Honourable Gouverneur Morris, for the Inaugural 
 Discourse, delivered by him this day ; and that Doctor David 
 HosACK, Samuel Boyd, Esq. and Mr. John Pintard, be a 
 Committee, to communicate this Resolution, and to request a 
 copy of the Address for publication. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes. 
 
 JOHN PINTARD, 
 
 Recording Secretary, 
 September 4th, 1816. 
 
 DISTRICT OF NEW- YORK, ss. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the nineteenth day of September, in the toi- 
 tietii year of the Independence of the United Slates of America, T. &, W. Mer- 
 CEIN, of the said district, have deposited in this olfice the title of a book, the 
 right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: 
 
 " An Inaugural Discourse, delivered before the New-York Hisioiical Society, 
 " by the Honourable Gouverneur Morris, President, 4th September, 1816; the 
 "206th Anniversary of the Discovery of New-York, by Hudson. 
 
 In conformitv to the act of Congress of the United Slates, entitled " An act 
 " for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, 
 " and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times 
 " therein mentioned ;" and also to an act, entitled " An act supplenjentary to 
 " an act, entitled an act for tiie encouragement of learning, by securing the 
 " copies of maps, <;harts, and books, to the authors and proprielors of such 
 " copies, during llie times therein mentioned, and e^itending the benefits 
 " thereof to the aits of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other 
 " prints. " 
 
 T HERON RUDD, 
 Cleik of tlie District of New-York. 
 
DISCOURSE, &c. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The place your partial kindness has called me to 
 occupy seems to require, and I hope, therefore, will 
 excuse an attempt to point out some benefits which 
 may be derived from this Institution. Something more 
 to repay the munificence of our State Legislature 
 than the grateful sentiment which it has inspired. 
 
 Let me, however, before I enter on the subject, 
 express our thanks to the honourable Corporation of 
 NewTork for the convenience we derive from their 
 goodness. The intelligent liberality which devoted 
 a spacious building to Science and the Arts, not only 
 reflects .onour on them, but sheds lustre on this 
 great commercial emporium of the United States. 
 Let the sordid collect and the riotous squander 
 hoards of useless or pernicious treasure; be It 
 yours, municipal fathers, to expend the fruit of honest 
 industry on objects which embellish your city, and 
 spread the influence of learning, genius, and taste 
 over the hearts and minds of its numerous inhabi- 
 tants. Your conduct has proved your conviction, 
 that, in order to promote virtue and multiply the 
 
souices or' social bliss, wise magistrates will direct 
 the people to laudable pursuits, and impressing on 
 them a just contempt for sensual gratification, raise 
 and adorn the moral dignity of man. 
 
 We live in a period so enlightened, that to dis- 
 })laj the use of History would be superfluous labour. 
 It would be the mere repetition of what has already 
 been expressed, by eminent authors, on various oc- 
 casions. They have told us that History is the science 
 of human nature; philosophy teaching by example; 
 the school of princes. 
 
 Dazzled by the splendour of such brilliant eulogy, 
 the mind's eye is bereft of distinct vision. But 
 reason, pausing and collecting her powers, raises 
 a great preliminary question: What is History .'^ 
 Is it the eloquence of Livy, the shrewdness of 
 Tacitus, or the profound sense of Polybius? 
 
 Not only those who have participated in the con- 
 duct of national affairs, but those also, whose atten- 
 tion has been engrossed by personal concerns, can- 
 not have failed to observe, that facts, as well as mo- 
 tives, are frequently misrepresented. That events 
 are attributed to causes which never existed, while 
 the real causes remain concealed. Presumptuous 
 writers affecting knowledge they do not possess, un- 
 dertake to instruct mankind by specious stories 
 founded on idle rumour and vague conjecture. Those 
 Avho are well informed smile at the folly. Great 
 
minds disdain to tell their own good deeds: it oeenis, 
 moreover, to those who have managed public busi- 
 ness, almost impossible that the tittle tattle of igno- 
 rance should meet with belief. Nevertheless, such 
 writings, though sheltered bj contempt, from con- 
 temporaneous contradiction, are raked out, in a suc- 
 ceeding age, from the ashes of oblivion, and relied 
 on as authority. History, compiled from such ma- 
 terials, can hardly teach us the science of human 
 nature. It is, at best, an entertaining novel with 
 the ornament of real names. Philosophy, indeed, 
 at a later day, may bring her balance of probability, 
 put the evidence of opposed facts in different scales, 
 and deduce fair-seemino; conclusions from an as- 
 sumed principle that man is a rational creature. But 
 is that assumption just ? or, rather, does not History 
 show, and experience prove, that he is swayed from 
 the course which reason indicates, by passion, by 
 indolence, and even by caprice ? When the founda- 
 tion is false, the superstructure must fall. Such 
 writings, therefore, however illumined by the rays 
 of genius, or adorned by the charms of style, instead 
 of showing man a just image of what he is, will fre 
 quently exhibit the delusive semblance of what he 
 is not. 
 
 When we consider History, in the second point 
 of view, as teaching morality by example, it seems 
 evident that examples, if not drawn from real life, 
 
instead of informing, may mislead the mind, and in- 
 stead of purifying, corrupt the heart. Neither is 
 it certain that wholesome nourishment will always 
 be extracted even from truth. Like other food, it may 
 be so mixed and manipulated as to nauseate, or so 
 seasoned as to give false appetite, stimulate morbid 
 sensibility, and excite spasmodic action. A facetious 
 writer who, in a rapid view of centuries, ridicules 
 the misery of injured virtue, displays the glory of 
 successful vice, laughs at the restraint of moral 
 principle, and chuckles at the commission of crimes, 
 may (if he please) call his work philosophy teaching 
 by example ; but example so selected and genius so 
 employed, are more likely to accomplish a scoundrel 
 than to form an useful member of society. 
 
 Again, if History be taken as the school in which 
 statesmen are to be taught, there can be little hope 
 that politics — that sublime science to make a na- 
 tion great and happy — will be acquired by reading 
 the relation of mutilated events, attributed to false 
 causes. Such compilations tend to inculcate erro- 
 neous notions ; and these, where the fate of millions 
 is concerned, can never be indiiferent. If measures 
 pregnant with misery are considered as sources of 
 prosperity, the best intentions may produce the 
 
 worst effects. 
 
 Mature reflection, therefore, w'lil diminish our 
 surprise that many, skilled in History, are ignorant 
 
of the world. Long is the list of learned men who 
 know not how to manage the common concerns of 
 h'fe, and not a few are rendered, by the violence 
 of untamed passion, incapable of controling them- 
 selves, much less of governing their fellow-creatures. 
 Perhaps it is not rash to suppose that more accu- 
 rate, more extensive, more useful knowledge of our 
 nature may be derived from the intuitive perception 
 andpersonificating power of Shakespeare, than from 
 the laborious research and acute discussion of Hume. 
 
 Many important events are on record, and how- 
 ever dark and doubtful the testimony of ancient 
 chronicles, there exists a great nujiiber of authenti- 
 cated facts. These, when collected, may be called 
 the Skeleton of History. But how much must de- 
 pend on judgment and skill in putting the scattered 
 materials together: and, again, the solid bones 
 duly placed and connected, those muscles must be 
 added which give symmetry, strength, and grace. At 
 last the goodly form, complete in all its fair propor- 
 tion, when language spreads a finish over the pro- 
 mcethian frame, how must its appearance be affected 
 by the colouring it receives? The same event, 
 treated by different historians, comes white from one 
 hand, tinged with a rosy blush from another, and 
 from another black. 
 
 The reflection and experience of many years have 
 led me to consider the holy writings, not only as 
 
most authentic and instructive in themselves, but as 
 the clue to all other liistorj. They tell us what man 
 is, and they, alone, tell us why he is what he is : a 
 contradictory creature that, seeing and approving 
 what is good, pursues and performs what is evil. 
 x\ll of private and of public life is there displayed. 
 Effects are traced, with unerring accuracy, each to 
 the real cause. We see, in the beautiful story of 
 Joseph, how envy, destroying the peace of fami- 
 lies, leads to cruelty and to crime. How a dig- 
 nified condition is degraded by lust. How the 
 wrath of despised wantonness stimulates a woman 
 to deadly revenge. How the heart-burnings in a 
 shepherd's family drove a minister of state to the 
 foot of Pharaoh's throne. And how, for purposes 
 still more important, a shepherd-boy was enabled 
 to govern a mighty kingdom. 
 
 From the same pure Fountain of Wisdom we learn 
 that vice destroys freedom ; that arbitrary power 
 is founded on public immorality, and that misconduct 
 in those who rule a republic, necessary consequence 
 of general licentiousness, so disgusts and degrades 
 the nation, that, dead to generous sentiment, they 
 become willing slaves. We read that, in the latter 
 days of Samuel, the judges '•'' turned aside after lucre, 
 and took bribes^ and perverted judgment ^ A more 
 miserable state of society can hardly be conceived. 
 Then laws to protect the weak against the strong. 
 
the innocent against the wicked, become instruments 
 of oppression and torture. Then order is lost, confu- 
 sion rules, and, to borrow expressions from the 
 favourite bard of nature, 
 
 " Wrong becomes right, or rather, right and wrong, 
 " Between whose endless jar justice resides, 
 " Have lost their names ; and so has justice too." 
 
 Reduced to this forlorn condition, the more se- 
 date and respectable members of the communi- 
 ty, seeing no security for property or for life, 
 seek shelter under the wings of absolute power. 
 " The elders said make ns a king to judge us like all 
 the nations:'' Samuel, his aged bosom still warm 
 with patriotic sentiment, endeavoured to preserve 
 the old form of equal right. To this end, he assem- 
 bled the people, and displayed a highly wrought, but 
 faithful, picture of evils which would grow out of 
 despotism. In vain. Men sore with present suifering 
 have not temper to reflect on remote consequence. 
 In the maddening moment, they are deaf even to the 
 voice of a prophet. " The people said., we will have a 
 king over us, that we may be like all the nations, 
 that he may judge m, and go out before us, and 
 fight our battles:'' Here is a profound lesson of 
 political wisdom, given long before Aristotle's Ethics, 
 very long before Machiavel's Discourses on the first 
 Decade of Livy, and still longer before Montesquieu's 
 
10 
 
 Spirit of Laws. When the last of these authors, in 
 sprightly repetition of his predecessors, tells us 
 that virtue is the principle of republics, he offers hu- 
 man testimony to confirm divine authority. That 
 form of government which God himself had establish- 
 ed, that code of laws which God himself had pro- 
 mulgated, those institutions which infinite wisdom 
 had provided, in special relation to the climate, soil, 
 and situation of the country, to the genius, temper, 
 and character of the people, became intolerable 
 from the prevalence of vice and impiety. It is a trite 
 maxim, that man is governed by hope and fear. The 
 desire of pleasure, wealth, and power, the appre- 
 hension of poverty, pain, and death, prompt generous 
 reward, speedy severe punishment, are the human 
 means to invigorate duty, stimulate zeal, correct 
 perversity, and restrain guilt. But experience teaches 
 that profligates may gain all the enticements of life, 
 and criminals escape punishment, by the perpetra- 
 tion of new and more atrocious crimes. Something 
 more, then, is required to encourage virtue, suppress 
 vice, preserve public peace, and secure national in- 
 dependence. There must be something more to 
 hope than pleasure, wealth, and power. Something 
 more to fear than poverty and pain. Something af- 
 ter death more terrible than death. There must be 
 religion. When that ligament is torn, society is 
 disjointed, and its members perish. The nation is 
 
11 
 
 exposed to foreign violence and domestic convul- 
 sion. Vicious rulers, chosen by a vicious people, 
 turn back the current of corruption to its source. 
 Placed in a situation where they can exercise autho- 
 rity for their own emolument, they betray their trust. 
 They take bribes. They sell statutes and decrees. 
 They sell honour and office. They sell their con- 
 science. They sell their country. By this vile 
 traffic, they become odious and contemptible. The 
 people, compelled to gulp down the poison they had 
 mingled, feel their vitals twinge, and in anguish ex- 
 claim, Away ivith these pretended patriots. Begone, 
 hypocrites. Begone. Let a single man he invested with 
 executive and judicial authority. Master and owner 
 of the state, he will, for his own sake, protect it 
 against foreign foes, and provide for an impartial ad- 
 ministration of justice; that his subjects, secured 
 and enriched, may multiply and thus increase his 
 wealth and power. In the simple language of Holy 
 Writ they say, " He will judge us., and go out before us, 
 and Jight our battles.'''' Two centuries have not yet 
 passed away since Europe saw a similar effect from 
 a similar cause. The Danes, writhing under op- 
 pressions of their nobility, conferred absolute power 
 on their king, by general suffrage. 
 
 We find in Sacred History another important poli- 
 tical lesson : that the possession of sovereign power 
 corrupts the best heart. The second Jewish king^ 
 
12 
 
 a man peculiarlj favoured by the King of kings, al- 
 ter leading an exemplary private life, no sooner as- 
 cends a throne, than, a prey to unbridled desire, he 
 becomes first vicious, then criminal. If, as tlie ad- 
 vocates of infidelity have gratuitously supposed, that 
 book had been written by bigoted priests, they 
 would have concealed the guilt of their pious pro- 
 tector. They would have held him out, an impec- 
 cant example, for admiration and imitation. They 
 would have covered, with bright varnish, the hi- 
 deous traits of adultery and assassination. But 
 truth, telling what he was, gives a lesson awfully in- 
 structive. It teaches the frailty of our nature, and 
 the danger of trusting too much power even to the 
 purest hands. 
 
 Another sublime lesson follows, in the succeeding 
 reign. The widest scope of genius, the completest 
 acquirement of science, the maturest strength of in- 
 tellect, are combined in one man ; and that man 
 wears a crown. By his wisdom he accumulates the 
 world's wealth in one of its narrowest districts. He 
 rears a stupendous monument of pious magnificence. 
 It is consecrated to the living God. And, then, the 
 royal architect commits follies that would almost 
 disgrace an idiot. In the prostration of manly 
 strength, he seeks pleasures that elude his grasp ; 
 leaving, in a bosom chilled by age, the dulness of 
 satiety, and the loathings of disgust. Happy had 
 
13 
 
 the wise man's weakness been restrained, even in 
 that excess. But, alas ! his bright intellect is so ob- 
 scured, by the apathy of exhausted desire, that he 
 worships sticks and stones, in pitiful condescension 
 to the consorts of his lust. If this part of the story 
 were tested, by fashionable rules of evidence, we 
 should perhaps be told that, as superlative wisdom 
 cannot be combined with excessive weakness, the 
 tale of his debauchery must be an interpolation, by 
 some foe to his fame, or the account of his talents, 
 an invention to gratify national pride. Thus Solo- 
 mon's character might come, from the philosophic 
 crucible, all gold or all dross. But experience 
 avouches the historic truth. We have known, in 
 English annals, a man whose capacious mind em- 
 braced all science. With a rare power of intuition, 
 he not only pointed out the means by which know- 
 ledge might be enlarged, but seems to have per- 
 ceived the remote bound to which it could extend. 
 And yet that wonderful man sullied his soul, by ac- 
 cepting a bribe. The character a great English 
 poet gave to Chancellor Bacon, is not wholly inap- 
 plicable to the Jewish king : " The greatest, wisest, 
 meanest of mankind." 
 
 But the most important of all lessons is, the denun- 
 ciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts 
 of religion. Those nations are doomed to death who 
 bury, in the corruption of criminal desire, the awful 
 
14 
 
 sense of an existing God, cast off the consoling hope 
 of immortalitj, and seek refuge from despair in the 
 dreariness of annihilation. Terrible, irrevocable 
 doom ! loudly pronounced, frequently repeated, 
 strongly exemplified in the sacred writings, and 
 fully confirmed by the long record of time. It is the 
 clue which leads thrjugh the intricacies of universal 
 history. It is the principle of all sound political 
 science. 
 
 The lapse of ages, and the change of manners, of 
 religion, of government, of customs, and of charac- 
 ter, frequently render examples of one age and coun- 
 try inapplicable to the circumstances of other coun- 
 tries and of other times. The ferocity of barba- 
 rians, and the perfidy of courtiers, become, indeed, 
 more striking by satiric contrast; but rude hospi- 
 tality cannot be made a model for polite conviviality; 
 neither can the charms of refined conversation cor- 
 rect, by example, the coarseness of rustic mirth. As 
 little can the stern severity of Roman virtue, though 
 it swell the youthful bosom with enthusiastic admira- 
 tion, teach the conduct which befits a Christian peo- 
 ple. Hearts chastened by the religion of love 
 would recoil from the Brutus who beheads his son, 
 and the Brutus who plants a dagger in the breast of 
 his friend, but for the lavish encomium of orators, 
 poets, and historians. Those celebrated names are 
 embalmed by the incense of eighteen centuries, and 
 
15 
 
 our sight grows dizzy as we snuff the deleterious 
 fragrance of flowers strewed on their tombs by 
 lengthened generations. But when the gloomy 
 Philip consigns Don Carlos to an early grave; when 
 the amorous Henry sends Biron to the scaifold, we 
 cannot but pity such interesting victims, though their 
 lives may have been justly forfeited to the law. 
 Whence this difference of sentiment ? It may, per- 
 haps, be found in that difference of manners which 
 makes us view with horror the Roman practice of 
 sending their superannuated slaves to perish on an 
 island on the Tiber, and fills us with astonishment 
 that the African Scipio should be celebrated for chas- 
 tity, because he did not violate a distinguished fe- 
 male prisoner. The laws and manners of every na- 
 tion, taken in the mass, have, generally speaking, 
 a due relation and proportion. They so influence 
 and correct each other, that the business of life goes 
 smoothly on. The social harmony is full. There 
 is no jar. And, though some features may be too 
 salient, there is no deformity. Yet particular insti- 
 / tutions may be selected, which, submitted to foreign 
 judgment, will be pronounced monstrous or ridicu- 
 lous. Travellers, who view what they see through 
 the medium of preconceived notions, measure what 
 th'^y meet with by the standard of early education, 
 and weighing the conduct of others in the scale of 
 their own opinion, find that, wherever they go, there 
 
16 
 
 is much to blame and much to reform. But when 
 strangers, bhnded by prejudice, are raised to power, 
 they muhiplj proofs, already too numerous, that re- 
 gulations uncongenial to national feeling are incon- 
 venient, if not injurious, and that rash reformation 
 leads to ruin. From the same cause it happens that 
 institutions which have been fruitful of good, in one 
 age or nation, may be as fruitful of evil in another 
 nation, or another age. 
 
 Every man, therefore, will find the history of his 
 own country the most interesting and the most instruc- 
 tive. Moreover, as the state of society is changed, 
 by time and chance, the laws, too, must change. 
 New disorders require new corrections, and when 
 the reason of ancient ordinances no longer exists, 
 they fall into oblivion. History and law, therefore, 
 are sister sciences. They support and enlighten 
 each other. But the history of one country can 
 have little connection with the laws of another, and 
 still less can the native code be modified be exotic 
 manners. 
 
 Permit me then, gentlemen, to offer my cordial con- 
 gratulations to you, and, through you, to our fellow- 
 citizens, that this Institution is rapidly collecting and 
 accumulating materials for a history of our own 
 country. Materials which, establishing facts by in- 
 disputable authority, will enable the future historian 
 
17 
 
 accurately to deduce effects from the true cause, 
 correctly to portray characters taken from real hfe, 
 and justly assign to each his actual agency. Let us, 
 humble as we are, and humble we ought to be com- 
 paring ourselves with the Eastern hemisphere, let 
 us proudly aver, that if, in modern history, the 
 period, when barbarous hordes broke the vast orb of 
 Roman empire, be one great epoch, the discovery 
 which immortalized Columbus, presents another not 
 less worthy of attention. If that era, when Europe 
 poured her crusading population on the southern 
 shores of the Mediterranean Sea, mark the lowest 
 depression of human character, its greatest elevation 
 will be found in the present age. Our struggle, 
 to defend and secure the rights of our fathers, 
 tore away that veil which had long concealed 
 the mysteries of government. Here, on this far 
 western coast of the broad Atlantic Ocean ; here, 
 by the feeble hand of infant unconnected colo- 
 nies, was raised a beacon to rouse and to alarm 
 a slumbering world. It awoke, and was convulsed. 
 What tremendous scenes it has exhibited ! The 
 history of our day is, indeed, a school for princes; 
 and, therefore, the proper school for American ci- 
 tizens. Exercising, by their delegates, the sovereign 
 power, it is meet they know how to assert and how 
 to preserve their freedom. Let them learn the mis- 
 chief that follows in the train of folly. Let them 
 
18 
 
 learii the misery that results from immorality. Let 
 them learn the crush of impiety. Let them learn, 
 also, for such we trust will be the final event, that 
 when the altars of idolatrous lust had been overturn- 
 ed, and those of Jehovah restored ; when nations 
 severely scourged had sincerely repented, they were 
 favoured with as much civil liberty, and as much 
 social enjoyment, as consist with their absolute and 
 relative condition. Permit me, also, to cherish a 
 belief that the partial distress and general inconve- 
 nience produced among us, by late events, will have a 
 salutary influence on pubhc manners. War, fruitful 
 as it is of misery and wo, is nevertheless medicinal to 
 a nation infected by the breath of foreign pollution, 
 engrossed by the pursuit of illicit gain, immersed in 
 the iiith of immoral traffic, or unnerved by the ex- 
 cess of selfish enjoyment. It draws more close 
 the bond of national sentiment, corrects degrading- 
 propensities, and invigorates the nobler feelings of 
 our nature. 
 
 I add, gentlemen, with the pleasure and the pride 
 which swell your bosoms, that America has shown 
 examples of heroic ardour not excelled by Rome, in 
 her brightest day of glory, and blended with milder 
 virtue than Romans ever knew. These exam- 
 ples will be handed down, by your care, for the in- 
 struction and imitation of our children's children ; 
 make them acquainted with their fathers ; and 
 grant, Oh God ! that a long and late posterity, en- 
 
19 
 
 joying freedom in the bosom of peace, may look, 
 with grateful exultation, at the day-dawn of our 
 empire. 
 
 I 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 By the occasion which called us together, we are 
 reminded that Hudson discovered, in 1609, the river 
 which bears his name. Imagine his amazement, had 
 some prophetic spirit revealed that this island would, 
 in two centuries from the first European settlement, 
 embrace a population of twice fifty thousand souls. 
 
 Europe witnessed, in eight years, four events 
 which had great influence on the condition of man- 
 kind. The race of English monarchs expired with 
 Elizabeth in 1603. Henry the Fourth of France was 
 assassinated in 1610. In the same year the Moors 
 were expelled from Spain. And, in the next, Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus became king of Sweden. These 
 events excited, as they ought, much attention. But 
 the discovery of Hudson's River, within the same pe- 
 riod, was of such trivial estimation as to occupy no 
 ipace in public annals. 
 
 Oh man! how short thy sight. To pierce the 
 cloud which overhangs futurity, how feeble. But 
 why be surprised that European statesmen, two cen- 
 turies ago, were indifferent to what passed on the 
 savage coast^ of America ; when, at the same tiniCj 
 
I 
 
 20 
 
 the existence of Russia was unnoticed and almost un- 
 known. 
 
 Little more than a century has elapsed since the 
 decisive victory of Pultowa introduced the empire 
 of the Czars to the society of European nations ; an 
 empire which stretched out from Germany to Kams- 
 chatska, from the Black Sea to the. Frozen Ocean, 
 contains a greater extent than was ever traversed by 
 the Roman eagle in his boldest flight. That vast 
 empire, so lately known, and so little understood, 
 resisted, unshaken, the shock of embattled Europe, 
 poured the rapid current of conquest back from the 
 ruins of Moscow to the walls of Paris, and stands a 
 proud arbiter of human destiny. 
 
 A mission of no common sort was latelv about to 
 proceed from the New World to the Old. From that 
 which in 1600 was a dreary wilderness, to that 
 which in 1700 Avas a cold morass. It was contem- 
 plated that a vessel of novel invention, leaving this 
 harbour, should display American genius and hardi- 
 hood in the port of St. Petersburgh. If this expedi- 
 tion be suspended or laid aside, it is not from any 
 doubt as to its practicability. 
 
 There are persons of some eminence, in Europe, 
 who look contemptuously at our country, in the per- 
 suasion that all creatures, not excepting man, dege- 
 nerate here. They triumphantly call on us to ex- 
 hibit a list of our scholars, poets, heroes, and states- 
 
21 
 
 men. Be this the care of posterity. But admitting 
 we had no proud names to show, is it reasonable to 
 make such heavy demand, on so recent a people. 
 Could the culture of science be expected from those 
 who, in cultivating the earth, were obliged, while 
 they held a plough in one hand, to grasp a sword in 
 the other ? Let those who depreciate their brethren 
 of the West, remember that our forests, though 
 widely spread, gave no academic shade. 
 
 In the century succeeding Hudson's voyage, the 
 great poets of England flourished, while we were 
 compelled to earn our daily bread by our daily 
 labour. The ground, therefore, was occupied be- 
 fore we had leisure to make our approach. The va- 
 rious chords of our mother tongue have, long since, 
 been touched to all their tones by minstrels, beneath 
 whose master-hand it has resounded every sound, 
 from the roar of thunder, rolling along the Vault 
 of Heaven, to the " lascivious pleasings of a lute." 
 British genius and taste have, already, given 
 to all " the ideal forms that imagination can body 
 forth," a "local habitation and a name." Nothing then 
 remains, for the present age, but to repeat their just 
 thoughts in their pure style. Those who, on either 
 side of the Atlantic, are too proud to perform this 
 plagiary task, must convey false thoughts, in the old 
 classic diction, or clothe in frippery phrase the cor- 
 rect conceptions of their predecessors. Poetry is the 
 
22 
 
 splendid eifect of genius moulding into language a 
 barbarous dialect. When the great bards have writ- 
 ten, the language is formed ; and by those who suc- 
 ceed it is disfigured. The reason is evident. New 
 authors would write something new, when there is 
 nothing new. All which they can do, therefore, is 
 to fill new moulds with old metal, and exhibit novelty 
 of expressions, since they cannot produce novelty 
 of thought. But these novel expressions must vary 
 from that elegance and force in which the power and 
 harmony of language have been already displayed. 
 Let us not, then, attempt to marshal, against each 
 other, infernal and celestial spirits, to describe the 
 various seasons, to condense divine and moral truth 
 in mellifluent verse, or to imitate, in our native speech, 
 the melody of ancient song. Other paths remain to 
 be trodden, other fields to be cultivated, other regions 
 to be explored. The fertile earth is not yet wholly 
 peopled. The raging ocean is not yet quite subdued. 
 If the learned leisure of European wealth can gain 
 applause or emolument for meting out, by syllables 
 reluctantly drawn together, unharmonious hexam- 
 eters, far be it from us to rival the manufacture. Be 
 it ours to boast that the first vessel successfully 
 propelled by steam was launched on the bosom of 
 Hudson's River. It was here that American genius 
 seizing the arm of European science, bent to the pur- 
 
2^3 
 
 pose of our favourite parent art the wildest and most 
 devouring element. 
 
 The patron — the inventor are no more. But the 
 names of Livingston and of Fulton, dear to fame, 
 shall be enofraven on a monument sacred to the bene- 
 factors of mankind. There generations yet unborn 
 shall read, 
 
 Godfrey taught seamen to interrogate, 
 With steady gaze, the' tempest-tost, the sun. 
 And from his beam true oracle obtain. 
 Franklin, dread thunder-bolts, with daring hand, 
 Seized, and averted their destructive stroke 
 From the protected dwellings of mankind. 
 Fulton by flame compeli'd the angry sea, 
 To vapour rarified, his bark to drive 
 In triumph proud thro' the loud sounding surge, 
 
 This invention is spreading fast in the civilized 
 world; and though excluded as yet from Russia, will 
 ere long, be extended to that vast empire. A bird 
 hatched on the Hudson will soon people the floods of 
 the vVolga, and cygnets descended from an Ameri- 
 can swan glide along the surface of the Caspian Sea» 
 Then the hoary genius of Asia, high throned on the 
 peaks of Caucasus, his moist eye glistening while it 
 glances over the ruins of Babylon, Persepolis, Jerusa- 
 lem, and Palmyra, shall bow with grateful reverence 
 to the inventive spirit of this western world. 
 
 Hail Columbia ! child of science, parent of use- 
 ful arts ; dear country, hail ! Be it thine to meliorate 
 
24 
 
 the condition of man. Too many thrones have been 
 reared by arms, cemented by blood, and reduced 
 again to dust by the sanguinary conflict of arms. 
 Let mankind enjoy at last the consolatory spectacle 
 of thy throne, built by industry on the basis of peace 
 and sheltered under the wings of justice. May it 
 be secured by a pious obedience to that divine will, 
 which prescribes the moral orbit of empire with the 
 same precision that his wisdom and power have dis- 
 played, in whirling millions of planets round millions 
 of suns through the vastness of infinite space. 
 
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