5 755 :.. A ' B^l ^Tllcl TTT^lt^^^^JI^^-T/^fl^^n ^^J^Fn/T^/^^^^/^g^^T?/^^!^^ i *^= ^ /* -, ,-^P^Cn r^^^^r-^f^^^i^^r^M^^I^^^ t ,- L.iDi\riiM UNIVERSITY O CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ J >' g A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Vol. IV. A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME COMPILED AND EDITED BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN AND ELLEN MACKAY HUTCH INSON IN TEN VOLUMES VOL. IV NEW-YORK CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY 1888 COPYRIGHT, 1888, BT CHARLES L. WEBSTEK & COMPANY. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. Eiterature of tfje Ifcepttftlte. ^art #. WILLIAM BARTRAM. PAGE In the Home of the Alligator 3 Puc-Puggy and his Notes on the Rattlesnake 10 ELIAS BOUDINOT. Origin of a Famous Hereditary Order 15 TIMOTHY PICKERING. Advice to a College Graduate 17 The Directory and the United States 18 NATHANAEL EMMONS. The Evil Jeroboam 22 A Good Tragedy the Best Model for a Sermon . . 23 MASON L. WEEMS. The Ingenious Weems Relates some Pleasing Anecdotes 24 Ben Fninklin and Pomposo Keimer 31 RED JACKET. The Indians must Worship the Great Spirit in their own Way 36 JAMES THACHER. The Execution of John Andre 39 Glimpses of Revolutionary Days 42 A Cruel Deed 43 JOEL BARLOW. The Hasty Pudding . . . . . . 46 America 55 A Judicial Estimate of the Character and Genius of Thomas Paine .... 56 JOHN MARSHALL. Expediency of Direct Taxation 58 Troubles of the First Administration 59 Man, Soldier, and Statesman 62 HANNAH ADAMS. Nathan Hale and John Andre 65 A Literary W T omau in the Last Century 67 Yi CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. HENRY LEE. PAGE The Father of his Country 74 The Episode of Champe 75 JOHN TRUMBULL. The Memorable Precept of an Indian Chief 89 An Experience at Mr. Jefferson's Dinner-Table 90 ROYALL TYLER. The First American Comedy regularly Produced 92 Independence Day 98 The Rival Doctors 99 English and New-English, Eighty Years Ago ,103 The Bookworm 105 JAMES WILKINSON. The Capture of Charles Lee 106 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Financial Condition and Prospects of the United States 110 The Federal Constitution . 113 ^Encroachments of France 117 Defects of the Confederation . .'.",' 119 The Office of President 122 Advantages of the Constitution 124 A PAIR OF ECLOGUES. The Country School 127 The Country Meeting 129 ALEXANDER GARDEN. Southern Women in the Revolution 132 ROBERT DINSMOOR. The Sparrow ' . * . . . 135 FISHER AMES. The Character and Talents of Washington . . . . . . . .137 Alexander Hamilton ' 139 The Dangers of American Liberty , 144 NOAH WORCESTER. The Abolition of War ....*. 146 NOAH WEBSTER. Woman's Education in the Last Century ......... 148 English Corruption of the American Language . . . . . . . . 150 GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT. The Grievances which led to " Shays's Rebellion " . . . . . . .151 ELKANAH WATSON. The Great Fire at Charleston 152 Tom Paine in France 154 Patience Wright and Doctor Franklin 155 SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON. To Aaron Burr, Under Trial for High Treason ...*. . . 160 HANNAH WEBSTER FOSTER. A Proposal of the Last Century 161 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. V U MATHEW CAKEY. PAGE The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 ......... 162 A Case in Congress in 1818 ............ 166 RICHARD ALSOP. To the Shade of Washington ............ 167 ALBERT GALLATIN. The Debt of the United States . ........... 169 The Currency and Banking System ......... 172 TABITHA TENNEY. Doiia Quixota ............... 174 SUSANNA ROWSON. To Time ................ I 76 The Death of Charlotte Temple ....... .... 176 ABIEL HOLMES. President Stiles ..... '. ........ 179 The Siege of Mexico .............. 182 JAMES KENT. Thoughts on the Nation .... ......... 184 Christianity the Promoter of International Law ........ 185 WILLIAM PINKNEY. Slavery and a Republican Form of Government not Incongruous .... 187 SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. A History of St. Tammany ............ 189 Elegy on a Shell The Nautilus ........... 193 ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD. Darby and Joan .............. 195 HARRISON GRAY OTIS. The Character of Hamilton ............ 197 ANONYMOUS. Sleighing Song ............... 198 ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. Parisian Society before the Revolution .......... 199 A Little Patriot and her Papa ........ ..... 201 JOHN SYLVESTER JOHN GARDINER. Our Illogical Distrust of England ........... 203 How Women may best Commend Themselves ........ 204 ROBERT GOODLOE HARPER. Federalist Maxims .............. 204 SAMUEL Low. To a Spider %.-.-.'.<. ...... . . 207 WILLIAM DUNLAP. Marriage a la Mode ,,.... f f , . . . . 208 Closing Scene of the First American Tragedy regularly Produced .... 212 Mr. Cooke gives Mr. Treat Paine the Snub Direct ....... 215 Mr. Cooke's Propensity to Sarcasm, ,.,. ...... 217 Burning of the Richmond. Theatre ....... ....... 219 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. ALEXANDER WILSON. PAGE The Ballimore Bird ' . ' . . . . .222 The Character ;iud Manners of Master Blue Jay 222 The Little Widower . 226 My Landlady's Nose 227 WILLIAM IRVING. The Days of GrogramGrandames 228 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Extracts from his Diary . 229 The Death of Children 235 Liberty and Eloquence . 235 Deliberative Oratory . 236 To Sally .237 The Mission of America ...*..,...... 239 Our Forefathers ...*., 240 Injustice to the Indian ' 242 The Lip and the Heart . . 243 The Crime of Slavery . ........... , 243 JAMES ASHETON BAYARD. Plea for an Independent Judiciary 246 THADDEUS MASON" HARRIS. The Little Orator ... 1 "".'"'. 247 JOSEPH DENNIE. Silent American Society . . . "V" 248 The Imported French Philosophy . ... . .249 ANONYMOUS. To the Gods ....;;......... 251 TECUMSEH. Speech to General Proctor, shortly before the Battle ....... 252 DAVID EVERETT. Lines Spoken by a Boy of Seven Tears 253 DE WITT CLINTON. Eloquence of the Six Nations . . . . 254 A Plea for Peace and Loyalty ...... 257 JOSEPH HOPKINSON. - Hail Columbia 259 TRISTAM BURGES. A Prophecy . 260 A Rebuke to John Randolph 262 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. Wieland's Defence 265 The Strange Adventure of Edgar Huntly ........... 273 THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. The Country Lovers . . . . . .293 HOSEA BALLOU. Lucifer and the Origin of Sin , . . . ' 298 The Influence of Persecution . 301 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. j x ELIHU HUBBARD SMITH. PAGE . . At the Press of Laurentius .... ........ 01 WILLIAM KAY. The Frigate "Philadelphia" Captured by the Turks ....... 303 WILLIAM MARTIN JOHNSON. On Snow-flakes Melting on his Lady's Breast ........ 305 JOSIAH QUINCY. The Struggle for Patronage ............ 306 Southern Rule in the North ... ......... 307 The Witchcraft Excitement and the Mathers ........ 309 WILLIAM CLIFFTON. To Sleep ............ . . . .311 Song . ............. 312 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. The Necessity of Divine Revelation .;........ 313 The Bible ........... ..... 314 WILLIAM WIRT. An Old Virginia Preacher ............ 314 A Country Boy's First Trial ....... ..... 317 A Natural Orator \ '. ......... 321 The Statesman and the Dandy ....... .... 822 The Deaths of Adams and Jefferson ......... . 325 Burr and Blennerhassett ............. 327 The Lawyer's " Twelve Good Rules." .......... 329 MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES. To the Moon ....... ........ 331 JSLIPHALET The Lesson of a National Tragedy . ......... .332 WILLIAM BIGLOW. Receipt to Make a Magazine ............ 334 JOHN RANDOLPH. The Slaves after the Revolution . .......... 335 England and Napoleon . . ........... 3:36 An Epistle to a School-Boy . : ....... .... 338 ROBERT TREAT PAINE, JUN. Adams and Liberty ....... ..... . . 341 Eulogy on Washington ............. 343 Epilogue to "The Clergyman's Daughter " ....... .344 WILLIAM SULLIVAN. American Society in the Constitutional Period . . ...... 344 President Washington's Receptions. , T ........ 346 WILLIAM MUNFORD. The Triumph of Hector ............. 347 LYMAN BEECHER. The New England Fathers ....... ..... 348 The Awakening . .......... 350 The Young Divine's First Home . . . . . ...... 352 x CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. JOHN HENRY HOBART. PAGB America and England ; . . . , . 353 PHILANDER CHASE. A Strange Scene t 355 An Incident at Gambier 356 JOHN BLAIR LINN. In Praise of Laurelled Women 358 HENRY CLAY. For the Humane Treatment of Captive Indians 359 The Grecian Struggle for Independence 361 A Graphic Political Contrast . 363 The Attitude of South Carolina 364 Vindication of his Policy and Ambition 366 His Position with respect to Slavery and Abolition 368 JOHN SHAW. Song 371 WILLIAM AUSTIN. Peter Rugg, the Missing Man 372 CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE. A Visit from St. Nicholas 394 JOHN FANNING WATSON. Old New York . 395 REMBRANDT PEALE. Music 402 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. A Point of Etiquette 402 A Strange Bird in Nieuw- Amsterdam 406 Catilina's Escape 413 The Old Man's Carousal 418 FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. The Star-Spangled Banner 419 JOSEPH TINKER BUCKINGHAM. An Editor of the Last Century 420 JOSEPH STORY. The Lawyer 421 A Picture of Slave-Dealing Days 422 The Task of American Statesmen 423 The Woman's Mind 424 The Story of an Indian Brave .... - 425 Advice to a Young Lawyer 426 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. The Picture of Satan and his Thrall 427 On the Study of Form in the Works of Raphael and Michael Angelo ... 428 Aphorisms Written on the Walls of his Studio 431 America to Great Britain 432 On the Late S. T. Coleridge 433 Immortality 434 NlNIAN PlNKNEY. A Fete Champetre at Montreuil 434 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. x | BENJAMIN ALLEN. PAGE Prayer . 436 TIMOTHY FLINT. The Escape of Berrian and Martha 436 HENRY J. FINN. The Frog Catcher 439 The Curse of the Competent ; or, The Lay of the Last Genius 443 HOBERT YOUNG HAYNE. The South Carolina Doctrine 444 DANIEL WEBSTER. Personal Reminiscences 450 Portrait of a Great Lawyer 454 Jefferson at Eighty-One 455 Lines on the Death of his Son Charles 456 The Shaft at Bunker Hill 457 Apostrophe to the Veterans of 1775 459 Imaginary Speech of John Adams 460 Murder Will Out - . . . . . .462 Hamilton, the Financier 464 Reply to Mr. Hayne's Strictures on New England 464 Peaceable Secession an Impossibility 467 To John Randolph, In rejoinder to a Challenge 470 To George Tickuor, After Reading a Life of Byron . . . . . . .470 To Mrs. Paige. On the Joy and Glory of the Morn 471 To the Rev. Mr. Furness, Explaining his Attitude in regard to the Slavery Question 472 To Mrs. Paige, In Praise of an Inimitable Dish 474 To President Fillmore, From the Broad Acres of Marshfield 475 To John Taylor, To Eschew Politics and Speed the Plough 476 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. State Sovereignty expounded by its Greatest Champion 478 Preservation of the Union 484 NOTED SAYINGS. Reply to the French Directory. 1796. A Toast on the Anniversary of Jefferson's Birthday, 13 April, 1830. Against the Admission of Louisiana to the Union. 1811. A Naval Hero's Sentiment. 1816. After the Victory on Lake Erie, 10 September, 1813 o 490 LEVI FRISBIE. The Dream 491 JOSEPH STEVENS BUCKMINSTER. The Future Life 491 ELIZA SOUTHGATE BOWNE. Winter Episodes in Maine 493 A New England Bride in New York 496 The Banquet in Honor of Rufus King 499 WILLIAM TUDOR. Bostonians and their Manners 499 RICHARD DABNEY. Youth and Age . 501 x j[ PORTRAITS IN VOLUME IV, itg in tins IMume. ON STEEL. CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN . FRONTISPIECE. JOEL BARLOW . . . . . Page 46 MISCELLANEOUS. ROYALL TYLER i 92 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 110 SUSANNA ROWSON . . . . * 176 ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. . . * . . . . . . . . 200 WILLIAM DUNLAP . . . . . . . .'".'. . . 208 JOSEPH HOPKINSON 259 WILLIAM WIRT . . . 314 HENRY CLAY .360 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING . 402 FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. . . . " 419 WASHINGTON ALLSTON 428 DANIEL WEBSTER - 450 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN . . . . 478 LITERATURE OF THE REPUBLIC PART I. CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD 1788-1820 THE COMMONWEALTH. ONE great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion ' Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeathed, a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. A. D. 1819. ORATORY OF A REPUBLIC. I CAN conceive nothing more admirable or more powerful than a great orator debating great questions of state in a democratic assembly. As no particular class is ever repre sented there by men commissioned to defend its own interests, it is always to the whole nation, and in the name of the whole nation, that the orator speaks. This expands his thoughts, and heightens his power of language. As precedents have there but little weight, as there are no longer any privileges attached to certain property, nor any rights inherent in certain individ uals, the mind must have recourse to general truths derived from human nature to resolve the particular question under discussion. Hence the political debates of a democratic people, however small it may be, have a degree of breadth which frequently renders them attractive to mankind. All men are interested by them, because they treat of man, who is everywhere the same. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. A. D. 1840. LITEKATUEE OF THE REPUBLIC. PABT I. CONSTITUTIONAL PEEIOD. 1788-1820. William BORN In Kingsessing, Phila. Co., Penn., 1739. DIED there, 1823. IN THE HOME OF THE ALLIGATOR. [Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. 1791.] THE verges and islets of the lagoon were elegantly embellished with flowering plants and shrubs; the laughing coots with wings half spread were tripping over the little coves and hiding themselves in the tufts of grass ; young broods of the painted summer teal, skimming the still surface of the waters, and following the watchful parent unconscious of danger, were frequently surprised by the voracious trout ; and he, in turn, as often by the subtle, greedy alligator. Behold him rushing forth from the flags and reeds. His enormous body swells. His plaited tail, brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract de scend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils. The earth trembles with his thunder. When immediately, from the opposite coast of the lagoon, emerges from the deep his rival champion. They suddenly dart upon each other. The boiling surface of the lake marks their rapid course, and a terrific conflict commences. They now sink to the bottom folded together in horrid wreaths. The water becomes thick and discolored. Again they rise, their jaws clap 4 WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- together, re-echoing through the deep surrounding forests. Again they sink, when the contest ends at the muddy bottom of the lake, and the van quished makes a hazardous escape, hiding himself in the muddy, turbu lent waters and sedge on a distant shore. The proud victor exulting returns to the place of action. The shores and forests resound his dread ful roar, together with the triumphing shouts of the plaited tribes around, witnesses of the horrid combat. My apprehensions were highly alarmed after being a spectator of so dreadful a battle. It was obvious that every delay would but tend to increase my dangers and difficulties, as the sun was near setting, and the alligators gathered around my harbor from all quarters. From these considerations I concluded to be expeditious in my trip to the lagoon, in order to take some fish. Not thinking it prudent to take my fusee with me, lest I might lose it overboard in case of a battle, which I had every reason to dread before my return, I therefore furnished myself with a club for my defence, went on board, and penetrating the first line of those which surrounded my harbor, they gave way ; but being pursued toy several very large ones, I kept strictly on the watch, and paddled with all my might towards the entrance of the lagoon, hoping to be shel tered there from the multitude of my assailants ; but ere I had half-way reached the place. I was attacked on all sides, several endeavoring to over set the canoe. My situation now became precarious to the last degree : two very large ones attacked me closely, at the same instant, rushing up with their heads and part of their bodies above the water, roaring terribly and belching floods of water over me. They struck their jaws together so close to my ears, as almost to stun me, and I expected every moment to "be dragged out of the boat and instantly devoured. But I applied my weapons so effectually about me, though at random, that I was so suc cessful as to beat them off a little; when, finding that they designed to renew the battle, I made for the shore, as the only means left me for my preservation ; for, by keeping close to it, I should have my enemies on one side of me only, whereas I was before surrounded by them ; and there was a probability, if pushed to the last extremity, of saving my self, by jumping out of the canoe on shore, as it is easy to outwalk them on land, although comparatively as swift as lightning in the water. I found this last expedient alone could fully answer my expectations, for as soon as I gained the shore, they drew off and kept aloof. This was a happy relief, as my confidence was, in some degree, recovered by it. On recollecting myself, I discovered that I had almost reached the entrance of the lagoon, and determined to venture in, if possible, to take a few fish, and then return to my harbor, while daylight continued : for I could now, with caution and resolution, make my way with safety along shore; and indeed there was no other way to regain my camp, without leaving -1820] WILLIAM BARTRAM. 5 my boat and making my retreat through the marshes and reeds, which, if I could even effect, would have been in a manner throwing myself away, for then there would have been no hopes of ever recovering my bark, and returning in safety to any settlements of men. I accordingly proceeded, and made good my entrance into the lagoon, though not without opposition from the alligators, who formed a line across the entrance, but did not pursue me into it, nor was I molested by any there, though there were some very large ones in a cove at the upper end. I soon caught more trout than I had present occasion for, and the air was too hot and sultry to admit of their being kept for many hours, even though salted or barbecued. I now prepared for my return to camp, which I succeeded in with but little trouble, by keeping close to the shore ; yet I was opposed upon re- entering the river out of the lagoon, and pursued near to my landing (though not closely attacked), particularly by an old daring one, about twelve feet in length, who kept close after me ; and when I stepped on shore and turned about, in order to draw up my canoe, he rushed up near my feet, and lay there for some time, looking me in the face, his head and shoulders out of water. I resolved he should pay for his temerity, and having a heavy load in my fusee, I ran to my camp, and returning with my piece, found him with his foot on the gunwale of the boat, in search of fish. On my coming up he withdrew sullenly and slowly into the water, but soon returned and placed himself in his former position, looking at me, and seeming neither fearful nor any way dis turbed. I soon despatched him by lodging the contents of my gun in his head, and then proceeded to cleanse and prepare my fish for supper; and accordingly took them out of the boat, laid them down on the sand close to the water, and began to scale them ; when, raising my head, I saw before me, through the clear water, the head and shoulders of a very- large alligator, moving slowly towards me. I instantly stepped back, when, with a sweep of his tail, he brushed off several of my fish. It was certainly most providential that I looked up at that instant, as the monster would probably, in less than a minute, have seized and dragged me into the river. This incredible boldness of the animal disturbed me greatly, supposing there could now be no reasonable safety for me during the night, but by keeping continually on the watch ; I therefore, as soon as I had prepared the fish, proceeded to secure myself and effects in the best manner I could. In the first place, I hauled my bark upon the shore, almost clear out of the water, to prevent their oversetting or sink ing her ; after this, every movable was taken out and carried to my camp, which was but a few yards off ; then ranging some dry wood in such order as was the most convenient, I cleared the ground round about it, that there might be no impediment in my way, in case of an attack in (5 WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- the night either from the water or the land; for I discovered by this time that this small isthmus, from its remote situation and fruitfulness, was resorted to by bears and wolves. Having prepared myself in the best manner I could, I charged my gun and proceeded to reconnoitre my camp and the adjacent grounds ; when I discovered that the peninsula and grove, at the distance of about two hundred yards from my encamp ment on the land side, were invested by a cypress swamp covered with water, which below was joined to the shore of the little lake, and above to the marshes surrounding the lagoon ; so that I was confined to an islet exceedingly circumscribed, and I found there was no other retreat for me, in case of an attack, but by either ascending one of the large oaks, or pushing off with my boat. It was by this time dusk, and the alligators had nearly ceased their roar, when I was again alarmed by a tumultuous noise that seemed to be in my harbor, and therefore engaged my immediate attention. Eeturning to my camp, I found it undisturbed, and then continued on to the extreme point of the promontory, where I saw a scene, new and surprising, which at first threw my senses into such a tumult, that it was some time before I could comprehend what was the matter ; however, I soon accounted for the prodigious assemblage of crocodiles at this place, which exceeded everything of the kind I had ever heard of. How shall I express myself so as to convey an adequate idea of it to the reader, and at the same time avoid raising suspicions of my veracity? Should I say, that the river (in this place) from shore to shore, and per haps near half a mile above and below me, appeared to be one solid bank of fish, of various kinds, pushing through this narrow pass of St. Juan's into the little lake, on their return down the river, and that the alligators were in such incredible numbers, and so close together from shore to shore, that it would have been easy to have walked across on their heads, had the animals been harmless? What expressions can sufficiently declare the shocking scene that for some minutes continued, whilst this mighty army of fish were forcing the pass? During this attempt, thousands, I may say hundreds of thousands, of them were caught and swallowed by the devouring alligators. I have seen an alligator take up out of the water several great fish at a time, and just squeeze them betwixt his jaws while the tails of the great trout flapped about his eyes and lips, ere he had swallowed them. The horrid noise of their closing jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, and rising with their prey some feet upright above the water, the floods of water and blood rushing out of their mouths, and the clouds of vapor issuing from their wide nostrils, were truly frightful. This scene continued at intervals during the night, as the fish came to the pass. After this sight, shock ing and tremendous as it was, I found myself somewhat easier and more -1820] WILLIAM BARTRAM. f reconciled to my situation ; being convinced that their extraordinary assemblage here was owing to this annual feast of fish ; and that they were so well employed in their own element, that I had little occasion to fear their paying me a visit. It being now almost night, I returned to my camp, where I had left my fish broiling, and my kettle of rice stewing ; and having with me oil, pepper and salt, and excellent oranges hanging in abundance over my head (a valuable substitute for vinegar), I sat down and regaled myself cheerfully. Having finished my repast, I rekindled my fire for light, and whilst I was revising the notes of my past day's journey, I was sud denly roused with a noise behind me towards the main-land. I sprang up on my feet, and listening, I distinctly heard some creature wading in the water of the isthmus. I seized my gun and went cautiously from my camp, directing my steps towards the noise : when I had advanced about thirty yards, I halted behind a coppice of orange trees, and soon perceived two very large bears, which had made their way through the water, and had landed in the grove, about one hundred yards distance from me, and were advancing towards me. I waited until they were within thirty yards of me : they there began to snuff and look towards my camp : I snapped my piece, but it flashed, on which they both turned about and galloped off, plunging through the water and swamp, never halting, as I suppose, until they reached fast land, as I could hear them leaping and plunging a long time. They did not presume to return again, nor was I molested by any other creature, except being occasion ally awakened by the whooping of owls, screaming of bitterns, or the wood-rats running amongst the leaves. .... The noise of the crocodiles kept me awake the greater part of the night ; but when I arose in the morning, contrary to my expectations, there was perfect peace ; very few of them to be seen, and those were asleep on the shore. Yet I was not able to suppress my fears and appre hensions of being attacked by them in future ; and indeed yesterday's combat with them, notwithstanding I came off in a manner victorious, or at least made a safe retreat, had left sufficient impression on my mind to damp my courage; and it seemed too much for one of my strength, being alone in a very small boat, to encounter such collected danger. To pursue my voyage up the river, and be obliged every evening to pass such dangerous defiles, appeared to me as perilous as running the gaunt let betwixt two rows of Indians armed with knives and firebrands. I however resolved to continue my voyage one day longer, if I possibly could with safety, and then return down the river, should I find the like difficulties to oppose. Accordingly I got everything on board, charged my gun, and set sail cautiously, along shore. As I passed by Battle lagoon, I began to tremble and keep a good lookout; when suddenly a g WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- huge alligator rushed out of the reeds, and with a tremendous roar came up, and darted as swift as an arrow under my boat, emerging upright on my lee quarter, with open jaws, and belching water and smoke that fell upon me like rain in a hurricane. I laid soundly about his head with my club and beat him off ; and after plunging and darting about my boat, he went off on a straight line through the water, seemingly with the rapidity of lightning, and entered the cape of the lagoon. I now employed my time to the very best advantage in paddling close along shore, but could not forbear looking now and then behind me, and pres ently perceived one of them coming up again. The water of the river hereabouts was shoal and very clear ; the monster came up with the usual roar and menaces, and passed close by the side of my boat, when I could distinctly see a young brood of alligators, to the number of one hundred or more, following after her in a long train. They kept close together in a column without straggling off to the one side or the other; the young appeared to be of an equal size, about fifteen inches in length, almost black, with pale yellow transverse waved clouds or blotches, much like rattlesnakes in color. I now lost sight of my enemy again. Still keeping close along shore, on turning a point or projection of the river bank, at once I beheld a great number of hillocks or small pyramids, resembling hay-cocks, ranged like an encampment along the banks. They stood fifteen or twenty yards distant from the water, on a high marsh, about four feet perpendicular above the water. I knew them to be the nests of the crocodile, having had a description of them before ; and now expected a furious and general attack, as I saw several large crocodiles swimming abreast of these buildings. These nests being so great a curiosity to me, I was determined at all events immediately to land and examine them. Accordingly, I ran my bark on shore at one of their landing-places, which was a sort of nick or little dock, from which ascended a sloping path or road up to the edge of the meadow, where their nests were ; most of them were deserted, and the great thick whitish egg-shells lay broken and scattered upon the ground round about them. The nests or hillocks are of the form of an obtuse cone, four feet high and four or five feet in diameter at their bases ; they are constructed with mud, grass, and herbage. At first they lay a floor of this kind of tem pered mortar on the ground, upon which they deposit a layer of eggs, and upon this a stratum of mortar seven or eight inches in thickness, and then another layer of eggs, and in this manner one stratum upon another, nearly to the top. I believe they commonly lay from one to two hundred eggs in a nest : these are hatched, I suppose, by the heat of the sun ; and perhaps the vegetable substances mixed with the earth, being acted upon by the sun, may cause a small degree of fermentation, and so increase the heat in those hillocks. The ground for several acres \ -1820] WILLIAM BARTRAM. g about these nests showed evident marks of a continual resort of alligators ; the grass was everywhere beaten down, hardly a blade or straw was left standing; whereas, all about, at a distance, it was five or six feet high, and as thick as it could grow together. The female, as I imagine, care fully watches her own nest of eggs until they are all hatched ; or per haps while she is attending her own brood, she takes under her care and protection as many as she can get at one time, either from her own par ticular nest or others : but certain it is, that the young are not left to shift for themselves ; for I have had frequent opportunities of seeing the female alligator leading about the shores her train of young ones, just as a hen does her brood of chickens ; and she is equally assiduous and courageous in defending the young which are under her care, and pro viding for their subsistence ; and when she is basking upon the warm banks, with her brood around her, you may hear the young ones con tinually whining and barking, like young puppies. I believe but few of a brood live to the years of full growth and magnitude, as the old feed on the young as long as they can make prey of them. The alligator when full grown is a very large and terrible creature, and of prodigious strength, activity, and swiftness in the water. I have seen them twenty feet in length, and some are supposed to be twenty -two or twenty-three feet. Their body is as large as that of a horse ; their shape exactly resembles that of a lizard, except their tail, which is flat or cuneiform, being compressed on each side, and gradually diminishing from the abdomen to the extremity, which, with the whole body is cov ered with horny plates or squamae, impenetrable when on the body of the live animal, even to a rifle-ball, except about their head and just be hind their forelegs, or arms, where it is said they are only vulnerabla The head of a full grown one is about three feet, and the mouth opens nearly the same length ; their eyes are small in proportion and seem sunk deep in the head, by means of the prominency of the brows ; the nostrils are large, inflated and prominent on the top, so that the head in the water resembles, at a distance, a great chunk of wood floating about. Only the upper jaw moves, which they raise almost perpendicular, so as to form a right angle with the lower one. In the forepart of the upper jaw, on each side, just under the nostrils, are two very large, thick, strong teeth or tusks, not very sharp, but rather the shape of a cone : these are as white as the finest polished ivory, and are not covered by any skin or lips, and always in sight, which gives the creature a fright ful appearance : in the lower jaw are holes opposite to these teeth, to re ceive them: when they clap their jaws together it causes a surprising noise, like that which is made by forcing a heavy plank with violence upon the ground, and may be heard at a great distance. But what is yet more surprising to a stranger, is the incredible loud 10 WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- and terrifying roar which they are capable of making, especially in the spring season, their breeding-time. It most resembles very heavy distant thunder, not only shaking the air and waters, but causing the earth to tremble; and when hundreds and thousands are roaring at the same time, you can scarcely be persuaded but that the whole globe is violently and dangerously agitated. An old champion, who is perhaps absolute sovereign of a little lake or lagoon (when fifty less than himself are obliged to content themselves with swelling and roaring in little coves round about), darts forth from the reedy coverts all at once, on the surface of the waters, in a right line ; at first seemingly as rapid as lightning, but gradually more slowly until he arrives at the centre of the lake, when he stops. He now swells himself by drawing in wind and water through his mouth, which causes a loud, sonorous rattling in the throat for near a minute, but it is im- . mediately forced out again through his mouth and nostrils, with a loud noise, brandishing his tail in the air, and the vapor ascending from his nostrils like smoke. At other times, when swollen to an extent ready to burst, his head and tail lifted up, he spins or twirls round on the surface of the water. He acts his part like an Indian chief when rehearsing his feats of war ; and then retiring, the exhibition is continued by others who dare to step forth, and strive to excel each other, to gain the atten tion of the favorite female. PUC-PUGGY AND HIS NOTES ON THE RATTLESNAKE. [From the Same.] I WAS in the forenoon busy in my apartment in the council-house, drawing some curious flowers ; when, on a sudden, my attention was taken off by a tumult without, at the Indian camp. I stepped to the door opening to the piazza, where I met my friend the old interpreter, who informed me that there was a very large rattlesnake in the Indian camp, which had taken possession of it, having driven the men, women and children out, and he heard them saying that they would send for Puc-Puggy (for that was the name which they had given me, signifying "the Flower Hunter") to kill him or take him out of their camp. I answered that I desired to have nothing to do with him, apprehending some disagreeable consequences ; and desired that the Indians might be acquainted that I was engaged in business that required application and quiet, and was determined to avoid it if possible. My old friend turned about to carry my answer to the Indians. I presently heard them ap- -1820J WILLIAM BARTRAM. H proacliing and calling for Puc-Puggy. Starting up to escape from their sight by a back door, a party consisting of three young fellows, richly dressed and ornamented, stepped in, and with a countenance and action of noble simplicity, amity and complaisance, requested me to accompany them to their encampment. I desired them to excuse me at this time ; they pleaded and entreated me to go with them, in order to free them from a great rattlesnake which had entered their camp; that none of them had freedom or courage to expel him ; and understanding that it was my pleasure to collect all their animals and other natural productions of their land, desired that I would come with them and take him away, that I was welcome to him. I at length consented and attended on them to their encampment, where I beheld the Indians greatly disturbed indeed. The men with sticks and tomahawks, and the women and children collected together at a distance in affright and trepidation, whilst the dreaded and revered serpent leisurely traversed their camp, visiting the fireplaces from one to another, picking up fragments of their provisions and licking their platters. The men gathered around me, exciting me to remove him ; being armed with a lightwood knot, I approached the reptile, who instantly collected himself in a vast coil (their attitude of defence) ; I cast my missile weapon at him, which, luckily taking his head, despatched him instantly, and laid him trembling at my feet. I took out my knife, severed his head from his body, then turning about, the Indians complimented me with every demonstration of satisfaction and approbation for my heroism, and friendship for them. I carried off the head of the serpent bleeding in my hand as a trophy of victory ; and taking out the mortal fangs, deposited them carefully amongst my col lections. I had not been long retired to my apartment, before I was again roused from it by a tumult in the yard ; and hearing Puc-Puggy called on, I started up, when instantly the old interpreter met me again, and told me the Indians were approaching in order to scratch me. I asked him for what ? He answered, for killing the rattlesnake within their camp. Before I could make any reply or effect my escape, three young fellows singing, arm in arm, came up to me. I observed one of the three was a young prince who had, on my first interview with him, declared himself my friend and protector, when he told me that if ever occasion should offer in his presence, he would risk his life to defend mine or my property. This young champion stood by his two associates, one on each side of him ; the two affecting a countenance and air of dis pleasure and importance, instantly presenting their scratching instru ments, and flourishing them, spoke boldly, and said that I was too heroic and violent, that it would be good for me to lose some of my blood to make me more mild and tame, and for that purpose they were come to 12 WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- scratch me. They gave me no time to expostulate or reply, but attempted to lay hold on me, which I resisted ; and my friend, the young prince, interposed and pushed them off, saying that I was a brave warrior and his friend; that they should not insult me; when instantly they altered their countenance and behavior : they all whooped in chorus, took me friendly by the hand, clapped me on the shoulder, and laid their hands on their breasts in token of sincere friendship, and laughing aloud, said I was a sincere friend to the Seminoles, a worthy and brave warrior, and that no one should hereafter attempt to injure me. They then all three joined arm in arm again and went off, shouting and proclaiming Puc- Puggy was their friend, etc. Thus it seemed that the whole was a ludi crous farce to satisfy their people and appease the manes of the dead rattlesnake. These people never kill the rattlesnake or any other serpent, saying if they do so, the spirit of the killed snake will excite or influ ence his living kindred or relatives to revenge the injury or violence done to him when alive. . . . But let us again resume the subject of the rattlesnake ; a wonderful creature, when we consider his form, nature and disposition. It is cer tain that he is capable by a puncture or scratch of one of his fangs, not only to kill the largest animal in America, and that in a few minutes' time, but to turn the whole body into corruption ; but such is the nature of this dreadful reptile, that he cannot run or creep faster than a man or child can walk, and he is never known to strike until he is first assaulted or fears himself in danger, and even then always gives the earliest warn ing by the rattles at the extremity of the tail. I have in the course of my travels in the Southern States (where they are the largest, most numerous, and supposed to be the most venomous and vindictive) stepped unknowingly so close as almost to touch one of them with my feet, and when I perceived him he was already drawn up in circular coils ready for a blow. But however incredible it may appear, the generous, I may say magnanimous creature lay as still and motionless as if inanimate, his head crouched in, his eyes almost shut. I precipitately withdrew, unless when I have been so shocked with surprise and horror as to be in a manner riveted to the spot, for a short time not having strength to go away; when he often slowly extends himself and quietly moves off in a direct line, unless pursued, when he erects his tail as far as the rattles extend, and gives the warning alarm by intervals. But if you pursue and overtake him with a show of enmity, he instantly throws himself into the spiral coil ; his tail by the rapidity of its motion appears like a vapor, making a quick tremulous sound ; his whole body swells through rage, continually rising and falling as a bellows ; his beautiful parti colored skin becomes speckled and rough by dilatation; his head and neck are flattened, his cheeks swollen and his lips constricted, discovering -1820] WILLIAM BAETRAM. [<$ his mortal fangs; his eyes red as burning coals, and his brandishing forked tongue, of the color of the hottest flame, continually menaces death and destruction, yet never strikes unless sure of his mark. When on the sea-coast of Georgia, I consented, with a few friends, to make a party of amusement at fishing and fowling on Sapello, one of the sea-coast islands. We accordingly descended the Altamaha, crossed the sound, and landed on the north end of the island, near the inlet, fix ing our encampment at a pleasant situation, under the shade of a grove of live-oaks and laurels, on the high banks of a creek, which we ascended, winding through a salt-marsh, which had its source from a swamp and savanna in the island : our situation, elevated and open, commanded a comprehensive landscape ; the great ocean, the foaming surf breaking on the sandy beach, the snowy breakers on the bar, the endless chain of islands, checkered sound, and high continent all appearing before us. The diverting toils of the day were not fruitless, affording us oppor tunities of furnishing ourselves plentifully with a variety of game, fish and oysters for our supper. About two hundred yards from our camp was a cool spring, amidst a grove of the odoriferous myrica : the winding path to this salubrious fountain led through a grassy savanna. I visited the spring several times in the night, but little did I know, or any of my careless drowsy companions, that every time we visited the fountain we were in imminent danger, as I am going to relate. Early in the morning, excited by un conquerable thirst, I arose and went to the spring ; and having, thought less of harm or danger, nearly half passed the dewy vale, along the ser pentine footpath, my hasty steps were suddenly stopped by the sight of a hideous serpent, the formidable rattlesnake, in a high spiral coil, form ing a circular mound half the height of my knees, within six inches of the narrow path. As soon as I recovered my senses and strength from so sudden a surprise, I started back out of his reach, where I stood to view him: he lay quiet whilst I surveyed him, appearing no way sur prised or disturbed, but kept his half-shut eyes fixed on me. My imagi nation and spirits were in a tumult, almost equally divided betwixt thanks giving to the supreme Creator and preserver, and the dignified nature of the generous though terrible creature, who had suffered us all to pass many times by him during the night, without injuring us in the least, although we must have touched him, or our steps guided therefrom by a supreme guardian- spirit. I hastened back to acquaint my associates, but with a determination to protect the life of the generous serpent. I presently brought my companions to the place, who were, beyond ex pression, surprised and terrified at the sight of the animal, and in a mo ment acknowledged their escape from destruction to be miraculous ; and I am proud to assert, that all of us, except one person, agreed to let him 14 WILLIAM BARTRAM. [1788- lie undisturbed, and that person at length was prevailed upon to suffer him to escape. Again, when, in my youth, attending my father on a journey to the Catskill Mountains, in the government of New York, having nearly ascended the peak of Giliad, being youthful and vigorous in the pursuit of botanical and novel objects, I had gained the summit of a steep rocky precipice, ahead of our guide; when just entering a shady vale, I saw, at the root of a small shrub, a singular and beautiful appearance, which I re member to have instantly apprehended to be a large kind of fungus which we called Jews' ears, and was just drawing back my foot to kick it over ; when at the instant, my father being near, cried out, " A rattlesnake, my son ! " and jerked me back, which probably saved my life. I had never be fore seen one. This was of the kind which our guide called a yellow one ; it was very beautiful, speckled and clouded. My father pleaded for his life, but our guide was inexorable, saying he never spared the life of a rattlesnake, and killed him ; my father took his skin and fangs. Some years after this, when again in company with my father on a journey into East Florida, on the banks of St. Juan, at Port Picolata, attending the congress at a treaty between that government and the Creek Nation, for obtaining a territory from that people to annex to the new government; after the Indians and a detachment from the garrison of St. Augustine had arrived and encamped separately, near the fort, some days elapsed before the business of the treaty came on, waiting the arrival of a vessel from St. Augustine, on board of which were the pres ents for the Indians. My father employed this time of leisure in little excursions round about the fort ; and one morning, being the day the treaty commenced, I attended him on a botanical excursion. Some time after we had been rambling in a swamp about a quarter of a mile from the camp, I being ahead a few paces, my father bid me observe the rat tlesnake before and just at my feet. I stopped and saw the monster formed in a high spiral coil, not half his length from my feet: another step forward would have put my life in his power, as I must have touched if not stumbled over him. The fright and perturbation of my spirits at once excited resentment ; at that time I was entirely insensible to gratitude or mercy. I instantly cut off a little sapling and soon despatched him : this serpent was about six feet in length, and as thick as an ordinary man's leg. The rencounter deterred us from proceeding on our re searches for that day. So I cut off a long tough withe or vine, which, fastening round the neck of the slain serpent, I dragged him after me, his scaly body sounding over the ground, and entering the camp with him in triumph, was soon surrounded by the amazed multitude, both In dians and my countrymen. The adventure soon reached the ears of the commander, who sent an officer to request that, if the snake had not bit -1820] ELIAS BOUDINOT. 15 himself, he might have him served up for his dinner. I readily deliv ered up the body of the snake to the cooks, and being that day invited to dine at the governor's table, saw the snake served up in several dishes ; Governor Grant being fond of the flesh of the rattlesnake. I tasted of it but could not swallow it. I, however, was sorry after killing the ser pent, when coolly recollecting every circumstance. He certainly had it in his power to kill me almost instantly, and I make no doubt but that he was conscious of it. I promised myself that I would never again be accessory to the death of a rattlesnake, which promise I have invariably kept to. This dreaded animal is easily killed ; a stick no thicker than a man's thumb is sufficient to kill the largest at one stroke, if well directed, either on the head or across the back ; nor can they make their escape by running off, nor indeed do they attempt it when attacked. isouMnot BORN in Philadelphia, Penu., 1740. DIED at Burlington, N. J., 1821. ORIGIN OF A FAMOUS HEREDITARY ORDER. [Oration before the New Jersey Society of the Cincinnati, 4 July, 1793.] MANKIND, considered as brethren, should be dear to each other ; but fellow-citizens who have together braved the common danger who have fought side by side, who have mingled their blood together, as it were in one rich stream, who have labored and toiled with united efforts to accomplish the same glorious end, must surely be more than brethren it is a union cemented by blood. I can no longer deny myself the felicity, my beloved friends and fellow- citizens, members of a Society founded on these humane and benevolent principles, of addressing myself more particularly to you, on a day, which in so peculiar a manner shines with increasing lustre on you, refreshing and brightening your hard-earned laurels, by renewing the honorable reward of your laborious services in the gratitude of your rejoicing fellow-citizens. Methinks I behold you on the victorious banks of the Hudson, bowed down with the fatigues of an active campaign, and the sufferings of an inclement winter, receiving the welcome news of approaching peace, and your country's political salvation, with all that joy of heart and serenity of mind, that become citizens who flew to their arms, merely at their country's call, in a time of common danger. The war-worn soldiers, reduced to the calamities of a seven years' arduous IQ ELI AS BOUDINOT. [1788- service, now solemnly pause and reflect on the peculiarity of their critical situation. The ravages of war had been extended through a country dearer to them than life, and thereby prevented that ample provision in service or reasonable recompense on their return to private life, that prudence required and gratitude powerfully dictated. They thought that the distresses of the army had before been brought to a point. "That they had borne all that men could bear; their property expended their private resources at an end their friends wearied out and dis gusted with incessant applications." But another trial, severer than all, still awaits them ; they are now to be disbanded and a separation to take place more distressing than every former scene ! Till now the severe conflict was unseen or unattended to. Poverty and the gratitude of their country are their only reward. True, they are to return to their friends and fellow-citizens with bless ings on their heads. The general liberty and independence are now secured, but yet want and dire distress stare many in the face. They are to return to wives and children, long used to dependence OD the cold hand of charity, in hopes of a sure support from the success of the com mon cause, when their husband, father or child returned glorious from the field of conquest. Alas ! these flattering hopes now are no more. Their country's exhausted treasury cannot yield them even the hard- earned pittance of a soldier's pay. Being urged on one hand by the subtle poison of inflammatory, violent and artful addresses, under the ispecious mask of pretended friendship (the last expiring effort of a con quered foe), warned on the other hand by the experience, wisdom, and rational conduct of their beloved commander, their father and long-tried friend, they solemnly deliberate. Some guardian angel, perhaps the happy genius of America, ever attendant on the object of her care, raises the drooping head, wipes the indignant, falling tear from the hardy soldier's eye, and suggests the happy expedient! Brotherly affection produces brotherly relief the victorious bands unite together they despise the infamous idea they refuse to listen to the siren's song they form the social tie they cast in the remaining fragment of their scanty pay, and instead of seizing their arms and de manding their rights by menace and violence, they ref use " to lessen the dignity or sully the glory they had hitherto maintained. They deter mined to give one more proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of their complicated sufferings, and thereby afford an occasion to posterity to say, had that day been wanting, the world had not seen the last stage of political perfection, to which human nature is capable of attaining." The glorious certainty of peace, purchased by their sufferings and -1820] TIMOTHY PICKERING. 17 perseverance, now rouses the patriotic fire. They again rejoice in the event; they unite in a firm, indissoluble bond, "gratefully to comemorate the event, which gave independence to America, to inculcate to latest ages the duty of laying down in peace, arms assumed for public defence in war, to continue their mutual friendship, which commenced under the pressure of common dangers, and to effectuate every act of beneficence, dictated by a spirit of brotherly kindness to any of their number and their families, who might unfortunately be under the necessity of re ceiving them ; " and by this unanimous act establish this sacred truth, " that the glory of soldiers cannot be well completed without acting well the part of citizens." This, gentlemen, is your origin as a Society the source from whence you sprang, and this day we are carrying on the work first begun in these social principles. BOEN in Salem, Mass., 1745. DIED there, 1829. ADVICE TO A COLLEGE GRADUATE. [From a Letter to Ms son Octavius, recently graduated at Harvard. Life of Timothy Pickering. 1863-73.] I HAD before thought of writing to you on the subject of your studies, although I trust you duly feel the importance of diligently pursuing them. Do not suffer yourself to be diverted from them by company or associations of any kind. Without secluding yourself from the other sex, let it occupy but a small portion of your time, more precious to you than money ; a contrary indulgence will make a fearful waste of both. Neither give yourself up to politics, an evil at least as baneful in your situation and time of life as the other. While the law engrosses most of your time, bear in mind the advice I gave you at home, not to neglect your Latin and Greek. You must not be stationary in these languages. Read the classics so frequently, or rather so constantly, as to make them familiar, and the Greek Testament every Sunday. I feel sensibly on the subject, deeply mortified by my own deficiencies from conscious neglect of opportunities, now never to be recovered. And it is not mortification only, but a real disadvantage as a public man now, and the loss of high gratification as an individual, which compel me to press this matter on your attention. The classics of Greece and Rome are now also becoming objects of more diligent VOL. IV. 2 }g TIMOTHY PICKERING. [1783- study than heretofore ; and defective knowledge of them will hence forward be less excusable, and, by comparisons, more painful. Attend to your position of body in reading and writing, to avoid any one which can interfere with its vital functions, and daily take exer cise enough to preserve you in vigorous health. That your eyes may not suffer, let the books you read be raised to the height of your eyes, so that you may read (whether sitting or standing) with your head erect. I am pleased to find in your letter the evidence of proper attention to your handwriting ; it greatly needed improvement, and you are not yet too old to amend it permanently. Above all, be careful to write legibly, if you should not write elegantly. Be particularly attentive to proper names, that every letter be clear and distinct, for so only can they be ascertained. Other words may be discovered by their connection ; although it is a valuable attainment to write all words in legible charac ter and expeditiously. "With tender and anxious affection, I give you this advice, T. PICKEBING. WASHINGTON, 14 December, 1810. THE DIRECTORY AND THE UNITED STATES. [A Review of the Correspondence between the Hon. John Adams and the late Wm. Cun ningham. 1824.] VERY American who lived in the days of the French republic, par- ticularly in the years 1796, 7, 8 and 9, or who, by a little reading, has become acquainted with the transactions of that period, will remember the familiar use of the letters X, Y, and Z, in relation to those transac tions. Those letters have often been repeated ludicrously, even as though they represented fictitious characters ; whereas, in deciphering the volu minous despatches of our envoys, Pinckney, Marshall and Gerry, I substi tuted, for a reason to be hereinafter mentioned, those letters for the names of persons introduced to our envoys in Paris ; whither they had been sent, and where they waited patiently for six months, for the pur pose of effecting an amicable settlement of all differences between the United States and the French Republic ; which differences, by the gov ernment of that republic, in the hands of a Five-Headed Executive, called the " Directory," were made the pretences for a scene of piracies, in kind never surpassed, in extent never equalled, by the barbarous Mahometan Regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. On the arrival of our envoys at Paris, " cards of hospitality " were sent to them, to entitle them to stay there unmolested by the police. They delivered to Mr. -1820] TIMOTHY PICKERING. }g Talleyrand, minister for foreign affairs, copies of their letters of credence ; and rightfully expected to be soon presented to the Directory, by its minister. But they were not presented they were never admitted to the presence of that haughty and insolent Executive. The arms of France had subjected Holland, Spain, Portugal, and the minor powers conveniently within their reach ; and even Austria was compelled to make peace. All the subject nations were treated with little ceremony ; and some with utter contempt ; to which they submitted The Directory expected a like humble submission from the United States. In this they , were encouraged by their knowledge of a powerful party which from the beginning were opposed to the federal administration under Washington, .and who persisted in their opposition during the continued federal administration of government under his successor, Mr. Adams. Few, if any, important acts of the federal administrations, prior to the year 1799, escaped opposition from that party, of which Mr. Jefferson was the reputed, and undoubtedly the actual, head and oracle. This party vehe mently opposed even the building of two or three frigates, which were necessary to protect our commerce from the Algerines ! those frigates which were the commencement of that navy which, in the late war hav ing saved the administration from political perdition, has now become a favorite with the government, as well as with the people. Instead of admitting our envoys to an audience with the Directory, their minister, Mr. Talleyrand, employed certain agents to make over tures to inform them of the temper of the Directory towards the United States, as filled with resentment, on account of some expressions in Pres ident Adams's speech to Congress, in which he noticed the offensive dis crimination made by the French government, between the people of the United States and their government, in the last public audience given to Mr. Monroe, minister from the United States, on his taking leave of the Directory, in the year 1796. The parts of the President's speech, with which the Directory affected to be offended, regarded chiefly the speech of the President of the Direc tory to Mr. Monroe. Mr. Adams said (and most truly) that it was marked with indignities towards the government of the United States. " It evinced," said he, " a disposition to separate the people of the United States from their government ; to persuade them that they have different affections, principles and interests from those of their fellow-citizens whom they themselves had chosen to manage their common concerns ; and thus to produce divisions fatal to our peace." But not the government only was reproached ; the whole people of the United States were in sulted in the speech to Mr. Monroe : " They " (said the President Barras), " always proud of their liberty, will never forget that they owe it to France." 1 ' A generous friend, who had conferred the greatest benefit, even at the 20 TIMOTHY PICKERING. [1788- hazard of life, on another, would never boast of it ; much less would he tauntingly remind the latter of his obligations. I have suggested, that the resentment of the Directory against the American government was merely affected, for the purpose now to be explained. Had there existed in the Directory a particle of honesty or honor, and had there been any solid grounds for complaint against the United States, our envoys would have been at once admitted to an audience ; commis sioners would have been appointed to negotiate on all the topics of com plaint; all differences would have been settled, and harmony and good will restored. But the French government had no just ground for even one of their complaints. Such was the opinion of well-informed men at the time ; and such, the reader has seen, was the deliberate opinion of the enlightened citizen, Chief-Justice Marshall, formed several years afterwards, on an examination of all the public documents, aided by his own personal knowledge relating to the subject. Why then, was there such a loud and long- continued clamor of the French government against the United States ; especially against their government ? I shall not attempt to enumerate all the causes. Those who conducted the affairs of France, doubtless, wished to involve the United States in the war commenced with England in 1793. But the President (Washington) after the most mature consultation with the members of the administration, consisting of Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox and Eandolph, determined that it was the right, as well as the interest, of the United States, to remain at peace ; and, in pursuance of this deter mination, he issued his proclamation of neutrality, and enjoined upon the citizens of the United States an observance of all the duties of neu trality. The exactness with which the Executive endeavored to secure and enforce their observance offended the government of France. Having a serious controversy with Great Britain on subjects arising out of the existing war, as well as claims of vast importance resulting from the treaty of peace of 1783, the government of the United States, instead of plunging the country into an expensive and bloody war, sought redress by an amicable negotiation. Success attended the pacific measure. By mutual stipulations, provision was made for adjusting all the matters in dispute between the two nations* for which the mission was instituted. Of this treaty, the French government loudly complained, and pretended that it contravened some of the articles of our commercial treaty with France. There was no foundation for this complaint ; the treaty with Great Britain (well known by the name of Jay's treaty) con taining an article, introduced by Mr. Jay, for the express purpose of securing to France and other nations, with whom we had engaged in treaties, the perfect enjoyment of every right and privilege to which those -1820J TIMOTHY PICKERING. 21 treaties entitled them. The real cause of French clamor about this treaty was, that it prevented a war between the United States and her most hated enemy, Great Britain. The French government pretended that some articles in the British treaty gave that nation advantages not secured to France by our commercial treaty with her. To remove this ground of complaint, though under no obligation to do it, we offered to change our stipulations with her which she said operated to her disadvantage or to make an entire new treaty, to give to her every advantage which accrued to Great Britain by any article in Jay's treaty. But the French government evaded every offer we could make : it would not negotiate it would not receive our envoys commissioned for the sole purpose of adjusting, by an amicable negotiation, every point in dispute between France and the United States. She had for two years been carrying on a piratical war against our commerce ; to which we had made no armed resistance, and which therefore she preferred to mutual peace ; presum ing that while so many nations, subdued by her arms, humbly submitted to their fate, the United States would be alike subservient. Threats corresponding with these expectations were thrown out, indirectly, to intimidate our envoys, to induce them to yield to her demands ; a com pliance with which would have furnished to her enemy, Great Britain, a just cause of war. Those threats made no impression on our envoys. They persevered in their attempts to bring on a negotiation ; if with little hope of success, at least with the expectation of such a development of the character and views of the French government, as would satisfy the people of the United States, strongly prejudiced in favor of France, that no treaty with her, compatible with the interest, the honor and the independence of the United States, was practicable. This was suffi ciently ascertained some time before Pinckney and Marshall quitted Paris ; and at an earlier day they would have sent their final letter to the French minister, but were delayed by Mr. Gerry ; on whom, in private conferences, Talleyrand had made impressions favorable to the designs of the Directory ; as will be more particularly related in another place. The Directory and Talleyrand expected to engage him singly to enter on a negotiation, and to impose on him such terms of a treaty as would suit their own and the interests of France ; such unequal terms as they had been accustomed to impose on the vassal nations around them, and which, once stipulated by Mr. Gerry, and favored by the whole party opposed to the federal administration, which was relied upon as partial to France, they presumed the American government would not dare to reject. 22 NATHANAEL EMMONS. [1788- BOBN in East Haddam, Conn., 1745. DIED at Franklin, Mass., 1840. THE EVIL JEROBOAM. [From a Fast-Day Sermon preached 9 April, 1801, and supposed to le an attack upon Jefferson, the newly -inaugurated President.] IT appears, from his character and conduct in early life, that he pos sessed, in a high degree, the art of captivating and corrupting all sorts of people with whom he conversed. And when he was clothed with the ensigns of royalty, his power and opportunity of corrupting his subjects greatly increased. He became the standard of taste, and the model of imitation. His sentiments and manners became a living law to his subjects. In his familiar intercourse with all around him, he un doubtedly seized those soft moments, which' were the most favorable to his malignant design of seduction. This he could do without departing from the dignity of his station ; but it appears that he did more than this, and even stooped to mingle with the priests, and "to burn incense upon the altars of the golden gods of his own making." He was such an apostate from the true religion, and such a bigot to idolatry, that he esteemed nothing too low, nor too mean to be done, that would serve to eradicate every moral and religious principle from the minds of the people. Hence it is natural to conclude, that he did more "to drive Israel from following the Lord," by his personal example, than by all the other methods he employed for that impious purpose. And, indeed, his example is oftener mentioned than anything else, as the fatal cause of corrupting and destroying the people whom he governed. High and low, rich and poor, princes and people, are said "to walk in the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." It is certain, how ever, that his loose and irreligious example gave peculiar weight and authority to his idolatrous institutions and his partial appointments in church and state, and largely contributed " to drive all the tribes of Israel from following the Lord," and eventually to plunge them in per petual ruin. The character and conduct of Jeroboam may lead us to form a just estimate of good rulers. Everything appears in the truest light, by the way of contrast. Folly is a foil to wisdom ; vice is a foil to virtue ; false religion is a foil to that which is true ; and wicked rulers are a foil to those who are wise and faithful. These, however, are often despised and reproached, when they deserve to be esteemed and admired. Though Solomon was the greatest man, and the wisest king, that ever -1820] NATHANAEL EMMONS. 23 adorned an earthly throne ; and though the measures which he devised and pursued raised his kingdom to the summit of national prosperity, yet his subjects did not duly appreciate the blessings of his reign until he was succeeded by a vile and impious usurper. Then the striking contrast between Solomon and Jeroboam could not fail to open the eyes of a stupid and ungrateful nation. Those who had unreasonably mur mured under the wise and gentle administration of the best of rulers, must have found the little finger of Jeroboam thicker than the loins of a wise and lenient prince. Solomon did a great deal to promote the temporal and eternal interests of his subjects ; but Jeroboam did as much to ruin his subjects, both in time and eternity. Never before was there a greater contrast between two rulers in succession than between Jero boam the son of Nebat, who drave Israel from following the Lord, and his great and illustrious predecessor. It seems God intended by this contrast, to make the house of Israel deeply sensible of the pre-eminent virtues and services of Solomon; and, by recording this contrast, he undoubtedly meant to teach future nations properly to appreciate those who govern them in wisdom and integrity. Let us all learn this lesson, and especially those who have complained of the late wise and gentle administration of government It is more than possible that our nation may find themselves in the hand of a Jeroboam who will drive them from following the Lord ; and whenever they do they will rue the day, and detest the folly, delusion, and intrigue, which raised him to the head of the United States. A GOOD TRAGEDY THE BEST MODEL FOR A SERMON. [From his Autobiography. The Works of Nathanael Emmons, D.D. 1843.] r I ^HOUGrH I read a variety of books, yet I always meant, if I could, -*- to read the proper books at a proper time ; that is, when I was in vestigating the subject upon which they treated. I gained but little advantage from reading any author, without a particular object in view ; but when I read any author with reference to a particular object, I then took more notice of what he said, understood it better, and derived much more benefit from his writings. I usually restrained myself from reading for amusement ; and put captivating books out of sight, when I had occasion of consulting authors upon any important subject. At times, however, I read some authors for the sake of their beautiful style, their lively descriptions, and moral sentiments. Some few novels pos sessed these excellences, and gained my attention at leisure hours. But I read deep, well- written tragedies, for the sake of real improvement in 24 MASON L. WEEMS. [1788- the art of preaching. They appeared to me the very best books to teach true eloquence. They are designed to make the deepest impression on the human mind, and many of them are excellently calculated to produce this effect. A preacher can scarcely find a better model for constructing a popular, practical, pathetic discourse, than a good tragedy ; which all along prepares the mind for the grand catastrophe, without discovering it, till the whole soul is wrought into a proper frame to feel the final im pression. I found also much benefit from reading a variety of sermons. I read ancient authors, for the sake of the matter contained in their dis courses. They were more sentimental than modern preachers. I found good ideas poorly expressed, in old sermons ; and those ideas I felt my self at liberty to borrow, and put into my own words. Besides, the Puritan writers breathed a most pious and devout spirit into all their dis courses ; which I wished to imbibe, and transfuse into my own sermons. I read modern sermonizers, for the benefit of learning the various methods of constructing sermons, and for the purpose of gaining a neat and per spicuous style. But lest I should become a plagiary, and imitator of any man, I made a point of choosing my subject and my text, and of laying out my method, before I read any author who had treated on the same text. For I found, if I read another man's sermon before I had done this, I was naturally led to follow his track, or take peculiar pains to avoid it. Nor did I ever mean to make any single author my general model of sermonizing ; though I wished to unite, as much as I could, the pe culiar excellences of Watts, Doddridge, and Edwards. But it is prob able that I did approach nearer to Mr. Edwards's manner than to that of any other man, except Mr. Smalley, my admired instructor. His great excellence consisted in representing divine truths in a clear light, and in reconciling them with each other. This I endeavored to imitate in the general course of my preaching. jttagotr JL RECTOR at Mount Vernon, Va., before the Revolution. DIED at Beaufort, S. C., 1825. THE INGENIOUS WEEMS RELATES SOME PLEASING ANECDOTES. [The Life of George Washington. Sixth Edition. 1808.] r ITEE following anecdote is a case in point ; it is too valuable to be -*- lost, and too true to be doubted, for it was communicated to me by the same excellent lady to whom I was indebted for the last. -1820] MASON L. WEEM8. 25 " When George/' said she, "was about six years old, tie was made the wealthy master of a hatchet ! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother's pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly that I don't believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favorite, came into the house, and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. No body could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. " George," said his father, "do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry- tree yonder in the garden ? " This was a tough question, and George staggered under it for a moment ; but quickly recovered himself ; and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-triumphant truth, he bravely cried out, "I can't tell a lie, Pa, you know I can't tell a lie ; I did cut it with my hatchet." " Kun to my arms, you dearest boy," cried his father in trans ports, " run to my arms ; glad am I, George, that you ever killed my tree, for you have paid me for it a thousand -fold. Such an act of hero ism in my son, is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver and their fruits of fairest gold." Soon after the death of his father, his mother sent him down to "West moreland, the place of his nativity, where he lived with his half-brother Augustin, and went to school to a Mr. Williams, an excellent teacher in that neighborhood. He carried with him his virtues, his zeal for un blemished character, his love of truth, and detestation of whatever was false and base. A gilt chariot, with richest robes and liveried servants, could not half so substantially have befriended him ; for, in a very short time, so completely had his virtues secured the love and confidence of the boys, his word was just as current among them as a law. A very aged gentleman, formerly a schoolmate of his, has often assured me (while pleasing recollection brightened his furrowed cheeks), that nothing was more common, when the boys were in high dispute about a question of fact, than for some little shaver among the mimic heroes to call out, " Well, boys ! George Washington was there ; George Washington was there ; he knows all about it ; and if he don't say it was so, then we will give it up." " Done ! " said the adverse party. Then away they would trot to hunt for George. Soon as his verdict was heard, the party favored would begin to crow, and then all hands would return to play again. 05 MASON L. WE EMS. [1788- Some of his historians have said, and many believe, that Washington was a Latin scholar ! But 'tis all a joke. He never learned a syllable of Latin. His second and last teacher, Mr. Williams, was Indeed a cap ital hand but not at Latin ; for of that he understood perhaps as little as Balaam's ass but at reading, spelling, English grammar, arithmetic, surveying, book-keeping and geography, he was indeed famous. And in these useful arts, 'tis said he often boasted that he had made George Washington nearly as proficient as himself. Born to be a soldier, Washington early discovered symptoms of nat ure's intentions towards him. In his eleventh year, while at school under old Mr. Hobby, he used to divide his playmates into two parties, or armies. One of these, for distinction's sake, was called French, the other American. A big boy at the school, named William Bustle, com manded the former, George commanded the latter. And, every day, at play-time, with corn-stalks for muskets, and calabashes for drums, the two armies would turn out, and march, and countermarch, and file off or fight their mimic battles with great fury. This was fine sport for George, whose passion for active exercise was so strong, that at play -time no weather could keep him wi thin-doors. His fair cousins, who visited at his mother's, used to complain, that "George was not fond of their company, like other boys ; but soon as he had got his task would run out to play." But such trifling play as marbles and tops he could never abide. They did not afford him exercise enough. His delight was in that of the manliest sort, which, by flinging the limbs and swelling the muscles, promote the kindest flow of blood and spirits. At jumping with a long pole, or heaving heavy weights, for his years he hardly had an equal. And as to running, the swift-footed Achilles could scarcely have matched his speed. " Egad ! he ran wonderfully," said my amiable and aged friend, John Fitzhugh, Esq., who knew him well; "we had nobody hereabouts that could come near him. There was young Langhorn Dade, of Westmore land, a confounded clean made, tight young fellow, and a mighty swift runner too but then he was no match for George. Langy, indeed, did not like to give it up ; and would brag that he had sometimes brought George to a tie. But I believe he was mistaken: for I have seen them run together many a time, and George always beat him easy enough. Col. Lewis Willis, his playmate and kinsman, has been heard to say that he has often seen him throw a stone across Rappahannock, at the lower ferry of Fredericksburg. It would be no easy matter to find a man nowadays, who could do it. It was in his fifteenth year, according to the best of my information, -1820] MASON L. WEENS 2T that Washington first felt the kindlings of his soul for war. The cause was this : in those days the people of Virginia looked on Great Britain as the mother country, and to go thither was, in common phrase, " to go home." The name of Old England was music in their ears, and the bare mention of a blow meditated against her, never failed to rouse a some thing at the heart, which instantly flamed on the cheek and flashed in the eye. Washington had his full share of these virtuous feelings ; on hearing, therefore, that France and Spain were mustering a black cloud over his mother country, his youthful blood took fire, and he instantly tendered what aid his little arm could afford. The rank of midshipman was procured for him on board a British ship-of-war, then lying in our waters, and his trunk and clothes were actually sent on board. But when he came to take leave of his mother, she wept bitterly and told him, " She felt that her heart would break if he left her." George immediately got his trunk ashore ! for he could not, for a moment, bear the idea of inflicting a wound on that dear bosom which had so long and so fondly sustained his life. Washington pursued Tarleton twenty miles, and during the race was- often so near him, that he could easily have killed him with a pistol-shot But having strictly forbidden his men to fire a pistol that day, he thought it would never do to break his own orders. However there was one of his men who broke them. At one time Washington was thirty or forty yards ahead of his men, Tarleton observing this, suddenly wheeled with a couple of his dragoons to cut him off. Washington, with more courage than prudence perhaps, dashed on, and rising on his stirrups, made a blow at Tarleton with such force that it beat down his guard and mutilated one or two of his fingers. In this unprotected state, one of the British dragoons was aiming a stroke which must have killed him. But the good genii, who guard the name of Washington, prevailed, for in that critical moment a mere dwarf of a Frenchman rushed up, and, with a pistol-ball, shivered the arm of the Briton. The other dragoon attempted to wheel off, but was cut down. Tarleton made his escape. Tarleton was brave, but not generous. He could not bear to hear another's praise. When some ladies in Charleston were speaking very handsomely of Washington, he replied, with a scornful air, that, " He should be very glad to get a sight of Col. Washington. He had heard much talk of him," he said, "but had never seen him yet." "Why, sir," rejoined one of the ladies, " if you had looked behind you at the battle of the CowpenSj you might very easily have enjoyed that pleasure." While in the neighborhood of Halifax, North Carolina, Tarleton dined in a large company. The elegant and witty Mrs. Wiley Jones happened to be of the party. The ladies, who were chiefly Whigs, were frequently 28 MASON L. WEEMS. [1788- praising the brave Col. Washington. Tarleton, with looks considerably angry, replied, " That he was very much surprised that the Americans should think so highly of Col. Washington ; for, from what he could learn, he was quite an illiterate fellow, and could hardly write his own name." " That may be very true," replied Mrs. Jones, "but I believe, sir, you can testify that he knows how to make his mark." Poor Tarle ton looked at his crippled finger, and bit his lips with rage. The French Directory, engaged in a furious war with England, turned to America for aid. But Washington, wisely dreading the effects of war on his young Eepublic, and believing that she had an unquestioned right to neutrality, most strictly enjoined it on his people by proclama tion. This so enraged the Directory, that they presently gave orders to their cruisers, to seize American ships on. the high seas that equal path which God had spread for the nations to trade on ! Washington had sent out General Charles C. Pinckney, to remonstrate against such in iquitous proceedings. The Directory would not receive him ! but still continued their spoliations on our wide-spread and defenceless commerce, ruining numbers of innocent families. Still determined, according to Washington's advice, "so to act as to make our enemy in the wrong," the American government despatched two other Envoys, Marshall and Gerry, to aid Pinckney. But still they fared no better. Though they only supplicated for peace ! though they only prayed to be permitted to make explanations, they were still kept by the Directory at a most mor tifying distance ; and, after all, were told, that America was not to look for a single smile of reconciliation, nor even a word on that subject, until her Envoys should bring large tribute in their hands. This, as Wash ington had predicted, instantly evaporated the last drop of American patience. He had always said, that "though some very interested or deluded persons were much too fond of England and France to value America as they ought, yet he was firmly persuaded that the great mass of the people were hearty lovers of their country, and soon as their eyes were open to the grievous injuries done her, would assuredly resent like men, to whom God had given strong feelings on purpose to guard their rights." His prediction was gloriously verified. For, on hearing the word Tribute, the American Envoys instantly took fire, while the brave Gen. Pinckney (a revolutionary soldier, and neither Englishman nor French man, but a true American), indignantly exclaimed to ^ the Secretary of the Directory " Tribute, Sir ! no, sir ! The Americans pay no tribute ! Tell the Directory that we will give millions for defence ; but not one cent for tribute." -1820] MASON L. WE EM 8. 29 In the winter of '77, while Washington, with the American army lay encamped at Valley Forge, a certain good old Friend, of the respectable family and name of Potts, if I mistake not, had occasion to pass through the woods near head-quarters. Treading his way along the venerable grove, suddenly he heard the sound of a human voice, which as he ad vanced increased in his ear, and at length became like the voice of one speaking much in earnest. As he approached the spot with a cautious step, whom should he behold in a dark natural bower of ancient oaks, but the commander-in-chief of the American armies on his knees at prayer ! Motionless with surprise, Friend Potts continued on the place till the General having ended his devotions arose, and with a counte nance of angel serenity retired to head-quarters. Friend Potts then went home, and on entering his parlor called out to his wife, " Sarah ! my dear ! Sarah I All's well ! all's well ! George Washington will yet pre vail!" " What's the matter, Isaac," replied she ; " thee seems moved." " Well, if I seem moved, 'tis no more than what I am ; I have this day seen what I never expected. Thee knows that I always thought the sword and the gospel utterly inconsistent, and that no man could be a soldier and a Christian at the same time. But George Washington has this day convinced me of my mistake." He then related what he had seen, and concluded with this prophetical remark " If George Washington be not a man of God, I am greatly deceived and still more shall I be deceived if God do not, through him, work out a great salvation for America." The following anecdote was related to me by his Excellency Gov ernor Johnson (Maryland) one of the few surviving heroes of '76. " You seem sir," said he, addressing himself to me, " very fond of col lecting anecdotes of General Washington. Well, I'll tell you one, and one too to which you may attach the most entire faith, for I have heard it a dozen times, and oftener, from the lips of a very valuable man and magistrate, in Conostoga, a Mr. Conrad Hogmyer. 'Just before the revolutionary war,' said Mr. Hogmyer, 'I took a trip for my health's sake to the Sweet Springs of Virginia, where I found a world of people collected ; some like me, looking for health, others for pleasure. In con sequence of the crowd, I was at first rather hard run for lodgings, but at length was lucky enough to get a mattress in the hut of a very honest baker of my acquaintance, who often visited those springs for the benefit of his oven. Being the only man of the trade on the turf, and well- skilled in the science of dough, he met with no small encouragement ; and it was really a matter of gratitude to see what heaps of English loaves, Indian pones, French bricks, cakes and crackers, lay piled up on 30 MASON L. WE EMS. [1788- his counter every morning. I often amused myself in marking the vari ous airs and manners of the different waiters, who, in gay liveries and shining faces, came every morning, rattling down their silver, and trip ping away with bread by the basket. Among those gay -looking sons .and daughters of Africa, I saw every now and then a poor Lazarite, with sallow cheek and hollow eye, slowly creeping to the door, and at a nod from the baker, eagerly seize a fine loaf and bear it off without deposit ing a cent Surely, thought I to myself, this baker must be the best man or the greatest fool in the world ; but fearing that this latter cap best fitted his pericranium, I one morning could not help breaking my mind to him for crediting his thread to such very unpromising dealers. " ' Stophel,' " for that was his name, " * you seem,' " said I, " ' to sell a world of bread here every day, but notwithstanding that, I fear you don't gain much by it." ' " ' No ! 'Squire, what makes you think so ? ' ! " ' You credit too much, Stophel.' " " 'Not I indeed, sir, not I, I don't credit a cent.' " " ' Ay ! how do you make that out, Stophel, don't I see these poor people ^every day carrying away your bread and yet paying you nothing ? ' ' " ' Pshaw, no matter for that, 'squire, they'll pay me all in the lump at last.' " " ' At last ! at last ! ! Oh ho, at the last day, I suppose you mean, Stophel, when you have the conscience to expect that God Almighty will stand paymaster, and wipe off all your old scores for you, at a dash.' " " ' Oh no ! 'squire, we poor bakers can't give such long credit ! but I'll tell you how we work the matter : the good man, Col. George Washing ton, is here. Every season, soon as he comes, he calls and says to me, ' Stophel,' says he, 'you seem to have a great deal of company; and, some I fear, who don't come here for pleasure, and yet you know, they can't do without eating ; though pale and sickly they must have bread ; but it will never do to make them pay for it. Poor creatures ! they seem already low spirited enough, through sickness and poverty ; their spirits must not be sunk lower by taking from them every day, what little money they have pinched from their poor families at home I'll tell you what's to be done, Stophel, you must give each of them a good hot loaf every morning, and charge it to me; when I am going away I'll pay you all/ And believe me, 'squire, he has often, at the end of the season, paid me as much as eighty dollars, and that too for poor creatures who did not know the hand that fed them, for I had strict orders from him, not to mention a syllable of it to anybody." ' " -1S20J MASON L. WEEMS. 3^ X BEN FRANKLIN AND POMPOSO KEIMER. [The Life of Benjamin Franklin. Revised Edition. 1835.] BEN was naturally comic in a high degree, and this pleasant vein, greatly improved by his present golden prospects, betrayed him into many a frolic with Keimer, to whom he had prudently attached himself as a journeyman, until the Annis should sail. The reader will excuse Ben for these frolics when he comes to learn what were their aims ; as also what an insufferable old creature this Keimer was. Silly as a booby, yet vain as a jay, and garrulous as a pie, he could never rest but when in a stiff argument, and acting the orator, at which he looked on Cicero himself as but a boy to him. Here was a fine target for Ben's Socratic artillery, which he frequently played off on the old pomposo with great effect. By questions artfully put, he would obtain of him certain points, which Keimer readily granted, as seeing in them no sort of connection with the matter in debate. But yet these points, when granted, like distant nets slyly hauling round a porpoise or sturgeon, would, by degrees, so completely circumvent the silly fish, that with all his flouncing and fury he could never extricate himself, but rather got more deeply entangled. Often caught in this way, he became at last so afraid of Ben's questions, that he would turn as mad when one of them was " poked at him," as a bull at sight of a scarlet cloak ; and would not answer the simplest question without first asking, "Well, and what would you make of that ? " He came at length to form so exalted an opinion of Ben's talents for refutation, that he seriously proposed to him one day that they should turn out together and preach up a new religion! Keimer was to preach and make the converts, and Ben to answer and put to silence the gainsayers. He said a world of money might be made by it. On hearing the outlines of this new religion, Ben found great fault with it. This he did only that he might have another frolic with Keimer ; but his frolics were praiseworthy, for they all "leaned to virtue's side." The truth is, he saw that Keimer was prodigiously a hypocrite. At every whipstitch he could play the knave, and then for a pretence would read his Bible. But it was not the moral part of the Bible, the sweet precepts and parables of the Gospel that he read. No verily. Food so angelic was not at all to the tooth of his childish fancy, which delighted in nothing but the novel and curious. Like too many of the saints now adays, he would rather read about the witch of Endor, than the good Samaritan, and hear a sermon on the brazen candlesticks than on the love of God. And then, oh dear! who was Melchizedeck ? Or where was the land of Nod? Or, was it in the shape of a serpent or a monkey 32 MASON L. WEE MS. [1788- that the devil tempted Eve ? As he was one day poring over the Penta teuch as busy after some nice game of this ' sort as a terrier on the track of a weazle, he came to that famous text where Moses says, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard." Ay! this was the divinity for Keimer. It struck him like a new light from the clouds : then rolling his eyes as from an apparition, he exclaimed, " Miserable man that I am ! and was I indeed forbidden to mar even the corners of my beard, and have I been all this time shaving myself as smooth as an eunuch ! Fire and brimstone, how have you been boiling up for me, and I knew it not ! Hell, deepest hell is my portion, that's a clear case, unless I reform. And reform I will if I live. Yes, my poor naked chin, if ever I but get an other crop upon thee and I suffer it to be touched by the ungodly steel, then let my right hand forget her cunning/' From that day he became as shy of a razor as ever Samson was. His long black whiskers "whistled in the wind." And then to see how he would stand up before his glass and stroke them down, it would have re minded you of some ancient Druid, adjusting the sacred mistletoe. Ben could not bear that sight. Such shameless neglect of angel morality, and yet such fidgetting about a goatish beard ! "Heavens, sir," said he to Keimer, one day in the midst of a hot argument, "Who can think, with common sense, A smooth-shaved face gives God offence ? Or that a whisker hath a charm, Eternal justice to disarm ? " He even proposed to him to get shaved. Keimer swore outright that he would never lose his beard. A stiff altercation ensued. But Keimer getting angry, Ben agreed at last to give up the beard. He said that, " as the beard at best was but an external, a mere excrescence, he would not insist on that as so very essential. But certainly, sir," continued he, "there is one thing that is." Keimer wanted to know what that was. "Why, sir," added Ben, " this turning out and preaching up a new re ligion, is, without doubt, a very serious affair, and ought not to be under taken too hastily. Much time, sir, in my opinion at least, should be spent in making preparation, in which, fasting should certainly have a large share." Keimer, who was a great glutton, said he could never fast. Ben then insisted that if they were not to fast altogether, they ought, at any rate, to abstain from animal food, and live as the saints of old did, on vegetables and water. Keimer shook his head, and said that if he were to live on vegetables and water, he should soon die. -1820] MASON L. WEEMS. 33 Ben assured him that it was entirely a mistake. He had tried it often, he said, and could testify from his own experience that he was never more healthy and cheerful than when he lived on vegetables alone. ''Die from feeding on vegetables, indeed! Why, sir, it contradicts reason; and contradicts all history, ancient and profane. There was Daniel, and his three young friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who fed on a vegetable diet, of choice; did they languish and die of it? Or rather, did they not display a rouge of health and fire of genius, far beyond those silly youths who crammed on all the luxuries of the royal table ? And that amiable Italian nobleman, Lewis Cornaro, who says of bread, that it was such a dainty to his palate, that he was almost afraid, at times, it was too good for him to eat ; did he languish and die of this simple fare? On the contrary, did he not outlive three generations of gratified epicures ; and after all, go off in his second century, like a bird of Paradise, singing the praises of temperance and virtue? And pray r sir," continued Ben, "where's the wonder of all this? Must not the blood that is formed of vegetables be the purest in nature? And then, as the spirits depend on the blood, must not the spirits secreted from such blood be the purest too? And when this is the case with the blood and spirits, which are the very life of the man, must not that man enjoy the best chance for such healthy secretions and circulations as are most conducive to long and happy life ? " While Ben argued at this rate, Keimer regarded him with a look which seemed to say, " Very true, sir ; all this is very true ; but still I cannot go it." Ben, still unwilling to give up his point, thought he would make one more push at him. "What a pity it is," said he, with a sigh, "that the blessings of so sublime a religion should be all lost to the world, merely for lack of a little fortitude on the part of its propagators." This was touching him on the right string; for Keimer was a man of such vanity, that a little flattery would put him up to anything. So after a few hems and ha's, he said, he believed he would, at any rate, make a trial of this new regimen. Having thus carried his point, Ben immediately engaged a poor old woman of the neighborhood to become their cook ; and gave her off hand, written receipts for three-and-forty dishes; not one of which con tained a single atom of fish, flesh, or fowl. For their first day's breakfast on the new regimen, the old woman treated them with a tureen of oat meal gruel. Keimer was particularly fond of his breakfast, at which a nice beef-steak with onion sauce was a standing dish. It was as good as a farce to Ben, to see with what an eye Keimer regarded the tureen, when entering the room, in place of his steak, hot, smoking, and savory, he beheld this pale, meagre-looking slop. VOL. IV. 3 34 MASON L. WE EMS [1788- " What liave you got there ? " said he, with a visage gram, and scowl ing eye. "A dish of hasty -pudding," replied Ben, with the smile of an innocent youth who had a keen appetite, with something good to satisfy it "a dish of nice hasty -pudding, sir, made of oats." "Of oats! " retorted Keimer, with a voice raised to a scream. "Yes, sir, oats," rejoined Ben, "oats, that precious grain which gives such elegance and fire to our noblest of quadrupeds, the horse." Keimer growled out, that he was no horse to eat oats. " No matter for that," replied Ben, " 'tis equally good for men." Keimer denied that any human being ever eat oats. "Ay!" said Ben, "and pray what's become of the Scotch? Don't they live on oats; and yet, where will you find a people so 'bonny, TDlythe, and gay; ' a nation of such wits and warriors?" As there was no answering this, Keimer sat down to the tureen, and swallowed a few spoonfuls, but not without making as many wry faces as if it had been so much jalap ; while Ben, all smile and chat, break fasted most deliciously. At dinner, by Ben's order, the old woman paraded a trencher piled up with potatoes. Keimer's grumbling fit came on him again. " He saw clear enough," he said, "that he was to be poisoned." "Pooh, cheer up, man," replied Ben; "this is your right preacher's bread." "Bread the d 1!" replied Keimer, snarling. " Yes, bread, sir," continued Ben, pleasantly ; " the bread of life, sir ; for where do you find such health and spirits, such bloom and beauty, as among the honest-hearted Irish, and yet for their breakfast, dinner, and supper, the potato is their teetotum ; the first, second, and third course." In this way, Ben and his old woman went on with Keimer; daily ringing the changes on oatmeal gruel, roasted potatoes, boiled rice, and so on, through the whole family of roots and grains in all their various genders, moods, and tenses. Sometimes, like a restive mule, Keimer would kick up and show strong symptoms of flying the way. But then Ben would prick him up again with a touch of his ruling passion, vanity; "only think, Mr. Keimer," he would say, " only think what has been done by the founders of new religions : how they have enlightened the ignorant, polished the rude, civilized the savage, and made heroes of those who were little bet ter than brutes. Think, sir, what Moses did among the stiff-necked Jews ; what Mahomet did among the wild Arabs and what you may do among these gentle drab-coated Pennsylvanians." This, like a spur in the flank of a jaded horse, gave Keimer a new start, and pushed him on afresh to his gruel breakfasts and potato dinners. Ben strove hard to -1820] MASON L. WEEMS. 35 keep him up to this gait. Often at table, and especially when he saw that Keimer was in good-humor and fed kindly, he would give a loose to fancy, and paint the advantages of their new regimen in the most glowing colors. "Ay, sir," he would say, letting drop at the same time his spoon, as in an ecstacy of his subject, while his pudding on the plat ter cooled " ay, sir, now we are beginning to live like men going a- preaching indeed. Let your epicures gormandize their fowl, fish, and flesh, with draughts of intoxicating liquors. Such gross, inflammatory food may suit the brutal votaries of Mars and Venus. But our views, sir, are different altogether ; we are going to teach wisdom and benevolence to mankind. This is a heavenly work, sir, and our minds ought to be heavenly. Now, as the mind depends greatly on the body, and the body on the food, we should certainly select that which is of the most pure .and refining quality. And this, sir, is exactly the food to our purpose. This mild potato, or this gentle pudding, is the thing to insure the light stomach, the cool liver, the clear head, and, above all, those celestial passions which become a preacher that would moralize the world. And these celestial passions, sir, let me add, though I don't pretend to be a prophet, these celestial passions, sir, were you but to stick to this diet, would soon shine out in your countenance with such apostolic majesty and grace, as would strike all beholders with reverence, and enable you to carry the world before you." Such was the style of Ben's rhetoric with old Keimer. But it could not all do. For though these harangues would sometimes make him fancy himself as big as Zoroaster or Confucius, and talk as if he should soon have the whole country running after him, and worshipping him for the Great Lama of the West; yet this divinity fit was too much against the grain to last long. Unfortunately for poor Keimer, the kitchen lay between him and his bishopric : and both nature and habit had so wed ded him to that swinish idol, that nothing could divorce him. So, after having been led by Ben a "very d 1 of a life," as he called it, "for three months," his flesh-pot appetites prevailed, and he swore, "by his whiskers, he would suffer it no longer." Accordingly, he ordered a nice roast pig for dinner, and desired Ben to invite a young friend to dine with them. Ben did so : but neither himself nor his young friend were anything the better for the pig. For before they could arrive, the pig being done, and his appetite beyond all restraint, Keimer had fallen on it and devoured the whole. And there he sat panting and torpid as an anaconda who had just swallowed a young buffalo. But still his looks gave sign that the "ministers of grace" had not entirely deserted him, for at sight of Ben and his young friend, he blushed up to the eyelids, and in a glow of scarlet, which showed that he paid dear for his whistle (glut tony), he apologized for disappointing them of their dinner. "Indeed, 3(5 RED JACKET. [1788- the smell of the pig," he said, "was so sweet, and the nicely browned skin so inviting, especially to him who had been long starved, that for the soul of him he could not resist the temptation to taste it and then, oh ! if Lucifer himself had been at the door, he must have gone on, let what would have been the consequences." He said, too, "that for his part he was glad it was a pig and not a hog, for that he verily believed he should have bursted himself." Then leaning back in his chair and pressing his swollen abdomen with his paws, he exclaimed, with an awk ward laugh, "Well, I don't believe I was ever cut out for a bishop!" Here ended the farce : for Keimer never after this uttered another word about his new religion. BORN at "Old Castle," Seneca Lake, N. Y., about 1752. His Indian name was Sagoyewatha. DIED at Seneca Village, N. Y., 1830. THE INDIANS MUST WORSHIP THE GREAT SPIRIT IN THEIR OWN WAY. [Speech against the Foundation of a Mission among the Senecas. 1805. The Life and Times of Red Jacket. By W. L. Stone. 1841.] FKIEND AND BROTHER : It was the will of the Great Spirit that we should meet together this day. He orders all things, and has given us a fine day for our council. He has taken his garment from before the sun, and caused it to shine with brightness upon us. Our eyes are opened, that we see clearly ; our ears are unstopped, that we have been able to hear distinctly the words you have spoken. For all these favors we thank the Great Spirit ; and him only. BROTHER: This council fire was kindled by you. It was at your request that we came together at this time. We have listened with attention to what you have said. You requested us to speak our minds freely. This gives us great joy ; for we now consider that we stand upright before you, and can speak what we think. All have heard your voice, and all speak to you now as one man. Our minds are agreed. BROTHER : You say you want an answer to your talk before you leave this place. It is right you should have one, as you are a great distance from home, and we do not wish to detain you. But we will first look back a little, and tell you what our fathers have told us, and what we have heard from the white people. BROTHER : Listen to what we say. There was a time when our fore fathers owned this great island. Their seats extended from the rising to -1820J RED JACKET. 37 the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of Indians. He had created the buffalo, the deer, and other animals for food. He had made the bear and the beaver. Their skins served us for clothing. He had scattered them over the country, and taught us how to take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn for bread. All this He had done for his red children, because He loved them. If we had some disputes about our hunting ground, they were generally settled without the shedding of much blood. But an evil day came upon us. Your forefathers crossed the great water, and landed on this island. Their numbers were small. They found friends and not enemies. They told us they had fled from their own country for fear of wicked men, and had come here to enjoy their religion. They asked for a small seat. We took pity on them ; granted their request ; and they sat down amongst us. We gave them corn and meat ; they gave us poison in return. The white people, brother, had now found our country. Tidings were carried back, and more came amongst us. Yet we did not fear them. We took them to be friends. They called us brothers. We believed them, and gave them a larger seat. At length their numbers had greatly increased. They wanted more land ; they wanted our country. Our eyes were opened, and our minds became uneasy. Wars took place. Indians were hired to fight against Indians, and many of our people were destroyed. They also brought strong liquor amongst us. It was strong and powerful, and has slain thousands. BROTHEK: Our seats were once large, and yours were small. You have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got our country, but are not satisfied ; you want to force your religion upon us. BROTHER : Continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind ; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers, the knowledge of that book, with the means of under standing it rightly ? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people ? BROTHER : You say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it ? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book? BROTHER : We do not understand these things. We are told that your gg RED JACKET. [1788- religion was given to your forefathers, and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our fore fathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive ; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion. BROTHER: The Great Spirit has made us all, but He has made a great difference between his white and red children. He has given us differ ent complexions and different customs. To you He has given the arts. To these He has not opened our eyes. We know these things to be true. Since He has made so great a difference between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a different religion according to our understanding ? The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for his children ; we are satisfied. BROTHER : We do not wish to destroy your religion, or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own. BROTHER : You say you have not come to get our land or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell you that I have been at your meetings, and saw you collect money from the meeting. I cannot tell what this money was intended for, but suppose that it was for your minister, and if we should conform to your way of thinking, perhaps you may want some from us. BROTHER : We are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are ac quainted with them. We will wait a little while, and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest, and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again of what you have said. BROTHER : You have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you oa your journey, and return you safe to your friends. -1820J JAMES TEACHER. 39 BORN in Barnstable, Mass., 1754. DIED at Plymouth, Mass., 1844. THE EXECUTION OF JOHN ANDR& [Military Journal of the American Revolutionary War. Revised Edition. 1827.] MAJOK ANDRE is no more among the living. I have just wit nessed his exit It was a tragical scene of the deepest interest. During his confinement and trial, he exhibited those proud and elevated sensibilities which designate greatness and dignity of mind. Not a mur mur or a sigh ever escaped him, and the civilities and attentions bestowed on him were politely acknowledged. Having left a mother and two sisters in England, he was heard to mention them in terms of the tender- est affection, and in his letter to Sir Henry Clinton, he recommends them to his particular attention. The principal guard officer, who was constantly in the room with the prisoner, relates that when the hour of his execution was announced to him. in the morning, he received it without emotion, and while all present were affected with silent gloom, he retained a firm countenance, with calmness and composure of mind. Observing his servant enter the room in tears, he exclaimed, " Leave me till you can show yourself more manly ! " His breakfast being sent to him from the table of General Washington, which had been done every day of his confinement, he partook of it as usual, and having shaved and dressed himself, he placed his hat on the table, and cheerfully said to the guard officers, "I am ready at any moment, gentlemen, to wait on you." The fatal hour hav ing arrived, a large detachment of troops was paraded, and an immense concourse of people assembled ; almost all our general and field officers, excepting his excellency and his staff, were present on horseback ; mel ancholy and gloom pervaded all ranks, and the scene was affectingly awful. I was so near during the solemn march to the fatal spot, as to observe every movement, and participate in every emotion which the melancholy scene was calculated to produce. Major Andre walked from the stone house, in which he had been confined, between two of our subaltern officers, arm-in-arm ; the eyes of the immense multitude were fixed on him, who, rising superior to the fears of death, appeared as if conscious of the dignified deportment which he displayed. He betrayed no want of fortitude, but retained a complacent smile on his countenance, and politely bowed to several gentlemen whom he knew, which was re spectfully returned. It was his earnest desire to be shot, as being the mode of death most conformable to the feelings of a military man, and 40 JAMES TEACHER. [1788- he had indulged the hope that his request would be granted. At the moment, therefore, when suddenly he came in view of the gallows, he involuntarily started backward, and made a pause. " Why this emotion, sir? " said an officer by his side. Instantly recovering his composure, he said, "I am reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode." While waiting and standing near the gallows, I observed some degree of trepi dation; placing his foot on a stone, and rolling it over and choking in his throat, as if attempting to swallow. So soon, however, as he per ceived that things were in readiness, he stepped quickly into the wagon, and at this moment he appeared to shrink, but instantly elevating his head with firmness, he said, "It will be but a momentary pang," and taking from his pocket two white handkerchiefs, the provost-marshal, with one, loosely pinioned his arms, and with the other, the victim, after taking oil his hat and stock, bandaged his own eyes with perfect firm ness, which melted the hearts and moistened the cheeks, not only of his servant, but of the throng of spectators. The rope being appended to the gallows, he slipped the noose over his head and adjusted it to his neck, without the assistance of the awkward executioner. Colonel Scammel now informed him that he had an opportunity to speak, if he desired it; he raised the handkerchief from his eyes, and said, "I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man." The wagon being now removed from under him, he was suspended, and instantly expired ; it proved indeed "but a momentary pang." He was dressed in his royal regimentals and boots, and his remains, in the same dress, were placed in an ordinary coffin, and interred at the foot of the gallows ; and the spot was consecrated by the tears of thousands. Thus died, in the bloom of life, the accomplished Major Andre, the pride of the royal army, and the valued friend of Sir Henry Clinton. He was about twenty-nine years of age, in his person well-proportioned, tall, genteel and graceful. His mien respectable and dignified. His countenance mild, expressive and prepossessing, indicative of an intelli gent and amiable mind. His talents are said to have been of a superior cast, and, being cultivated in early life, he had made very considerable proficiency in literary attainments. Colonel Hamilton, aide-de-camp to General Washington, having had an interview with him, entertains an exalted opinion of his character. In the line of his profession, Major Andre* was considered as a skilful, brave and enterprising officer, and he is reported to have been benevolent and humane to our people who have been prisoners in New York. Military glory was the mainspring of his actions, and the sole object of his pursuits, and he was advancing rap idly in the gratification of his ambitious views, till by a misguided zeal he became a devoted victim. He enjoyed the confidence and friendship of Sir Henry Clinton, being consulted in his councils and admitted to -1820] JAMES THACHER. 4| the secrets of his cabinet. The heart of sensibility mourns when a life of so much worth is sacrificed on a gibbet. General Washington was called to discharge a duty from which his soul revolted ; and it is asserted that his hand could scarcely command his pen when signing the warrant for the execution of Major Andre. But, however abhorrent in the view of humanity, the laws and usages of war must be obeyed, and in all armies it is decreed that the gallows shall be the fate of spies from the enemy. It was universally desired that Major Andre should experience every possible favor and indulgence, consistent with his peculiar circum stances, but it was well considered that, should he be indulged in his re quest to be shot, it would imply that his case admitted of extenuation, and it might be doubted whether in justice he ought to be convicted as a spy. The British general himself has not hesitated to execute several persons of the same description sent from our army into New York. Could Arnold have been suspended on the gibbet erected for Andre, not a tear or a sigh would have been produced, but exultation and joy would have been visible on every countenance. But General Clinton suffers the vile and infamous traitor to elude the hand of justice, and even bestows on him a reward for his crime. It may perhaps be suggested, that in the last act of his life Major Andre* derogated from his character and station. That the laurels to adorn the brow of a soldier, can only be acquired in the field of battle, and not by encouraging acts of treason, "by bribery and corruption. Surprise and stratagem, it is well known, constitute a valuable part of the art of war, by which many important objects are effected, and by some it is said that when acts of treason are practised, the infamy devolves on the head of the traitors alone. In the present instance, it is supposed that Arnold made the first overture. It is well understood that Sir Henry Clinton enjoined it on Andre' to transact the business on board the Vulture, and it was his own determina tion not to land on our shore; but such was the management of Arnold and his confederate, Smith, that he was actually compelled, contrary to his own judgment and intention, to come within our lines, and this cir cumstance alone placed him in the character of a common spy. The commander-in-chief was generously disposed to compassionate his un happy condition, and to soothe and mitigate his sorrow, and every officer in the army was actuated by feelings of sympathy and tenderness towards him. The base and perfidious Arnold is held in the utmost abhorrence and detestation throughout our army, and his person, with the garrison at West Point into the bargain, would have been a dear purchase to Sir Henry for the life of his valuable friend and adjutant- general. 42 JAMES TEACHER. [1788- GLIMPSES OF REVOLUTIONARY DAYS. [From the Same.] It is asserted from Boston, that on the evening when Major Knowlton set fire to the houses in Charlestown, 8th instant, the farce of "The Blockade of Boston," of which General Burgoyne is the reputed author, was to be performed. The figure designed to burlesque General Wash ington was dressed in an uncouth style, with a large wig and long rusty sword, attended by his orderly-sergeant in his country dress, having on his shoulder an old rusty gun, seven or eight feet long. At the moment this figure appeared on the stage one of the regular sergeants came run ning on the stage, threw down his bayonet, and exclaimed, "The Yankees are attacking our works on Bunker's Hill." Those of the audience who were unacquainted with the different parts, supposed that this belonged to the farce; but when General Howe called out, " Officers, to your alarm posts," they were undeceived; all was confusion and dismay ; and among the ladies, shrieking and fainting ensued. How pure the satisfaction to a great mind employed in burlesquing those Yankees by whom they are besieged ! During the siege of Savannah, an event occurred, singularly honorable to an enterprising individual, which should never be forgotten. A cap tain of Colonel Delancey's battalion of refugee troops, with about one hundred American royal regulars, was posted near a river twenty-five miles from Savannah, where were four armed British vessels, manned with about forty sailors. Colonel John "White, of the Georgia line, was desirous of the honor of capturing this party; his whole force, however, consisted of no more than six volunteers, including his own servant; it was only by a well-concerted stratagem, therefore, that he could hope for success. In the night, he kindled a number of fires, in different places, and exhibited the appearance of a large encampment, and having arranged his plan, he summoned the captain to surrender, threatening his entire destruction, by a superior force, in case of a refusal. Intimidated, and deceived by appearances, the captain immediately signified his readiness to comply with the demand, and made no further defence. The American colonel, White, had now the satisfaction, by his peculiar address, to see the whole of the prisoners, amounting to one hundred and forty, divest themselves of their arms, and submit to himself and his six volunteers. The prisoners were afterwards safely conducted by three of the captors for twenty-five miles through the country, to an American post. A new year commences, but brings no relief to the sufferings and pri- -1820] JAMES THACHER. 43 vations of our army. Our canvas covering affords but a miserable security from storms of rain and snow, and a great scarcity of provisions still prevails, and its effects are felt even at head-quarters, as appears by the following anecdote: "We have nothing but the rations to cook, sir," said Mrs. Thomson, a very worthy Irishwoman and house-keeper to Gen eral Washington. " Well, Mrs. Thomson, you must then cook the rations, for I have not a farthing to give you." "If you please, sir, let one of the gentlemen give me an order for six bushels of salt." "Six bushels of salt! for what?" "To preserve the fresh beef, sir." One of the aids gave the order, and the next day his excellency's table was amply pro vided. Mrs. Thomson was sent for, and told that she had done very wrong to expend her own money, for it was not known when she could be repaid. "I owe you," said his excellency, "too much already to per mit the debt being increased, and our situation is not at this moment such as to induce very sanguine hope." "Dear sir," said the good old lady, " it is always darkest just before daylight, and I hope your excel lency will forgive me for bartering the salt for other necessaries which are now on the table." Salt was eight dollars a bushel, and it might always- be exchanged with the country people for articles of provision. A CRUEL DEED [From the Same.~\ T ORD KAWDON and Lieutenant-colonel Balfour have perpetrated -" an act which, in all its distressing circumstances, surpasses in enor mity and wickedness all others which have come to our knowledge, and which has roused the indignant spirit of every true American to a pitch of desperation. Colonel Isaac Hayne, during the siege of Charleston, served his country as an officer of militia. After the capitulation, no alternative was left but to abandon his family and property, or to sur render to the conquerors. The small-pox was near his plantation, and he had a wife, six small children, and more than one hundred negroes, all liable to the disease. He concluded that, instead of waiting to be capt ured, it would be both more safe and more honorable to go within the British lines, and surrender himself a voluntary prisoner. He therefore repaired to Charleston, and offered to bind himself by the honor of an American officer to do nothing prejudicial to the British interest till he should be exchanged. Eeports made of his superior abilities and influ ence, uniformly exerted in the American cause, operated with the con querors to refuse him a parole, though they were daily accustomed to 44 JAMES THACHER. [1788- grant this indulgence to other inhabitants. He was told that he must either become a British subject or submit to close confinement. To be arrested and detained in the capital, was not to himself an intolerable evil ; but to abandon his family, both to the ravages of the small-pox then raging in their neighborhood, and to the insults and depredations of the royalists, was too much for the tender husband and fond, parent. To acknowledge himself the subject of a government which he had from principle renounced, was repugnant to his feelings ; but, without this, he was cut off from every prospect of a return to his family. In this em barrassing situation, he waited on Dr. Earn say, with a declaration to the following effect: "If the British would grant me the indulgence which we in the day of our power gave to their adherents, of removing my family and property, I would seek an asylum in the remotest corner of the United States, rather than submit to their government ; but, as they allow no other alternative than submission or confinement in the capital, at a distance from my wife and family, at a time when they are in the most pressing need of my presence and support, I must for the present yield to the demands of the conquerors. I request you to bear in mind, that previous to my taking this step, I declare that it is contrary to my inclination, and forced on me by hard necessity. I never will bear arms against my country. My new masters can require no service of me but what is enjoined by the old militia law of the province, which substitutes a fine in lieu of personal service. This I will pay as the price of my protection. If my conduct should be censured by my countrymen, I beg that you would remember this conversation, and bear witness for me, that I do not mean to desert the cause of America." In this state of perplexity, Colonel Hayne subscribed a declaration of his allegiance to the King of Great Britain ; but not without expressly objecting to the clause which required him with his arms to support the royal government. The commandant of the garrison, Brigadier-general Patterson, and James Simpson, Esquire, intendant of the British police, assured him that this would never be required ; and added, further, that when the regular forces could not defend the country without the aid of its inhabitants, it would be high time for the royal army to quit it. Having submitted to the royal government, he was permitted to return to his family. Notwithstanding what had passed at the time of his sub mission, he was repeatedly called on to take arms against his countrymen, and finally threatened with close confinement in case of a further refusal. This he considered as a breach of contract, and it being no longer in the power of the British to give him that protection which was to be the compensation of his allegiance, he viewed himself as released from all en gagements to their commanders. The inhabitants of his neighborhood, who had also revolted, petitioned General Pickens to appoint him to the -1820] JAMES THACHER. 45 command of their regiment, which was done, and the appointment accepted. Hayne fell into their hands. He was carried to the capital, and confined in the provost prison, for having resumed his arms after accepting British protection. At first he was promised a trial, and had counsel prepared to justify his conduct by the laws of nations and usages of war ; but this was finally refused, and he was ordered for execution by Lord Kawdon and Lieutenant-colonel Balfour. The royal Lieutenant- governor Bull, and a great number of inhabitants, both royalists and Americans, interceded for his life. The ladies of Charleston generally signed a petition in his behalf, in which was introduced every delicate sentiment that was likely to operate on the gallantry of officers or ttje humanity of men. His children, accompanied by some near relations (the mother had died of the small-pox), were presented on their bended knees as humble suitors for their father's life. Such powerful intercessions were made in his favor as touched many an unfeeling heart, and drew tears from many a hard eye ; but Lord Rawdon and Balfour continued firm in their determination. The colonel was repeatedly visited by his friends, and conversed on various subjects with a becoming fortitude. He particularly lamented that, on principles of retaliation, his execution would probably be an in troduction to the shedding of much innocent blood. He requested those in whom the supreme power was vested, to accommodate the mode of his death to his feelings as an officer ; but this was refused. On the last evening of his life he told a friend that he was no more alarmed at the thoughts of death, than at any other occurrence which was necessary and unavoidable. On receiving his summons, on the morning of August the 4th, to pro ceed to the place of execution, he delivered to his eldest son, a youth of about thirteen years of age, several papers relative to his case, and said : " Present these papers to Mrs. Edwards, with my request that she should forward them to her brother in Congress. You will next repair to the place of execution, receive my body, and see it decently interred among my forefathers." They took a final leave. The colonel's arms were pinioned, and a guard placed round his person. The procession began from the Exchange in the forenoon. The streets were crowded with thousands of anxious spectators. He walked to the place of execution with such decent firmness, composure and dignity, as to awaken the com passion of many, and command respect from all. When the city barrier was passed, and the instrument of his catastrophe appeared in fall view, a faithful friend by his side observed to him, that he hoped he would exhibit an example of the manner in which an American can die. He answered, with the utmost tranquillity, " I will endeavor to do so." He ascended the cart with a firm step and serene aspect. He inquired of the 46 JOEL BARLOW. [1788- I g" 1 outf Yes, bring some wood in What's that noise? It isn't I, Sir, it's them boys. Come Billy, read What's that? That's A Sir, Jim has snatched my rule away Return it, James. Here, rule with this Billy, read on, That's crooked 8. Read in the spelling-book Begin The boys are out Then call them in My nose Heeds, mayn't I get some ice, And hold it in my breeches ? Yes. John, keep your seat. My sum is more' Then do't again Divide by four, By twelve, and twenty Mind the rule. Now speak, Manasseh, and spell tool. I can't Well try T, W, L. Not wash'd your hands yet, booby, ha? You had your orders yesterday. Give me the ferule, hold your hand. Oh! Oh! There, mind my next command. The grammar read. Tell where the place is. C sounds like K in cat and cases. My book is torn. The next Here not E final makes it long say note. What are the stops and marks, Susannah? Small points, Sir. And how many, Hannah? Four, Sir. How many, George? You look: Here's more than fifty in my book. How's this? Just come, Sam? Why, Fve been Who knocks? / don 1 't know, Sir. Come in. " Your most obedient, Sir?" And yours. Sit down, Sir. Sam, put to the doors. What do you bring to tell that's new ! "Nothing that's either strange or true. What a prodigious school ! I'm sure You've got a hundred here, or more. A word, Sir, if you please." I will You girls, till I come in be still. -1820] A PAIR OF ECLOGUES. 129 * ' Come, we can dance to-night so you Dismiss your brain-distracting crew, And come for all the girls are there, We'll have a fiddle and a player." Well, mind and have the sleigh-bells sent, I'll soon dismiss my regiment. Silence ! The second class must read. As quick as possible proceed. Not found your book yet? Stand be fix'd The next read, stop the next the next. You need not read again, 'tis well. Come, Tom and Dick, choose sides to spell. Will this word do ? Yes, Tom spell dunce. Sit still there all you little ones. I've got a word, Well, name it. Gizzard. You spell it, Sampson G, /, Z. Spell conscience, Jack. K, 0, JV, 8, H, U, N, T, 8. Well done! Put out the next Mine is folks. Tim, spell it P, H, 0, U, X. O shocking! Have you all tried? No. Say Master, but no matter, go Lay by your books and you, Josiah, Help Jed to make the morning fire. THE COUNTRY MEETING. [Attributed, in Smith's Collection, to T. C. James.] yonder ancient dome, with trees beset, From which no lofty spire doth proudly rise, Nor hence each week, when congregation's met, Are studied hymns e'er winged unto the skies, Nor doth "amen " from parish clerk arise. E'en music's lulling charms beseemeth wrong To those who did this modest temple rear; For all who to those lonely confines throng Worship in guise of solemn silent prayer; Nor can they think that words their sinful deeds repair. No pulpit here doth grace the naked wall, Nor doth the sculptor his gay art express: For thus they teach: " Religion does not call For the vain ornaments of splendid dress, Nor will meek heaven superfluous grandeur bless." VOL. IV. 9 130 -4 PAIR OF ECLOGUES. [1788- And wrong they hold it, that the flock should pay For truths which ought to flow without control, Free as the silver dew, or light of day, To beam mild virtue on the expanding soul, And spread celestial sparks, free gift, from pole to pole. But see, o'er yonder field, the elder train Of village dames their little infants bring, Who else might loiter on the grassy plain, And wet their new clothes in yon bubbling spring, Which would their parents' minds with sorrow sting. The sportive urchins oft will skip away, To chase the partridge from the neighboring bush: And oft with balls of well-attempered clay, Will from its covert fright the trembling thrush, Nor mind the careful matron's voice, which would them hush. Down the sloped hill the gayer tribe descend, On neighing steeds, that champ the steeled bit, Straight to the fane their pompous way they tend ; There 'midst their peers in goodly order sit, Young swains for strength renowned, and maids for wit: Such strength as at the mill-door oft is seen When Colin lifts the sack of mighty weight; Such wit as sports in gambols o'er the green, And would the ear of nicer townsman grate; He'd call it shocking stuff, and rude, unseemly prate. Yet Humor her abode will deign to fix Amidst the lively rustics of the place, And with the village hinds will often mix, Giving to every feat a festive grace, And spreading cheerfulness o'er every face. Let the polite, the polished, blame their joys, Whom Nature, unconstrained, can never charm: This is the life which ennui never cloys, Nor e'er can fell Ambition work it harm, Blowing with hideous blast its poisonous alarm. See yonder youth on prancing bay steed ride, While satisfaction on his broad front beams; And view his gentle charmer by his side, For whom he wishes, and of whom he dreams; Of heavenly ^orm and mind to him she seems. For her each evening anxiously he culls, Of wild flowers fair, a nosegay scented sweet : For her the chestnut drops its prickly hulls, And the wood-pigeon yields its savory meat, With thousand tempting gifts which verse cannot repeat. -1820] A PAIR OF ECLOGUES. And now through folding doors, full wide displayed, The assembly's grave and pious numbers throng, While well each noisy buzzing murmur's stayed, With the loose prattling of each infant tongue ; For oft confusion has from childhood sprung. See the wise elder's venerable grace ; Mark with what slow-paced dignity he moves; See every little eye hangs on his face, And over all his features fondly roves, For he the junior train affectionately loves. The village teacher sits with looks profound, And marks the entering throng, with eye askance ; If, as he careful views the dome around, He should on careless pupil's visage chance, He sends him straight a play-forbidding glance. Of looks like theee he hath a plenteous store, To fright his students from each frolic mood: And well they watch to see his aspect lower, Trying each art to avert the baleful wood, By sitting wondrous still, and seeming e'en as good. Silence with Sleep his empire now divides, While some on this, and some on that side nod; The ploughman still his steers and ploughshare guides, And breaks in pleasing dreams the fancied sod; While the school-mistress wields the birchen rod. Others, more wakeful, plan their future deeds, While on increase of wealth their wishes stray: The farmer thus in rapture counts his steeds, And deals to each his part of winter's hay, Till spring renews the grass, and gives returning May. Where will not thirst of treacherous gold approach, Since here, e'en here, it holds its wide domain! Prom the warm cit who rolls in gilded coach, To the dull carter, whistling o'er the plain, Does Plutus, god of shining lucre, reign. Happy, thrice happy are the instructed few, On whom fell Want ne'er lays her harpy claws, But, far retired from 'midst the toiling crew, Live in observance of wise Nature's laws, And learn from her to trace the great Eternal Cause. 132 ALEXANDER GARDEN. [178&- BORN in Charleston, S. C., 1757. DIED there, 1829. SOUTHERN WOMEN IN THE REVOLUTION. [Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America. 1822.] patriotic enthusiasm of Mrs. Jacob Motte demands particular -*- notice. When compelled by painful duty, Lieutenant-colonel Lee informed her "that in order to accomplish the immediate surrender of the British garrison occupying her elegant mansion, its destruction was indispensable," she instantly replied : "The sacrifice of my property is nothing, and I shall view its destruction with delight, if it shall in any degree contribute to the good of my country." In proof of her sincerity, she immediately presented the arrows by which combustible matter was to be conveyed to the building. Nor is the firmness of Mrs. Thomas Heyward less worthy of admira tion. An order having been issued for a general illumination, to cele brate the supposed victory at Guildford, the front of the house occupied by Mrs. Heyward and her sister, Mrs. George Abbot-Hall, remained in darkness. Indignant at so decided a mark of disrespect, an officer (I hope, for the sake of humanity and the honor of the military character, unauthorized) forced his way into her presence, and sternly demanded of Mrs. Heyward, "How dare you disobey the order which has been issued? Why, Madam, is not your house illuminated?" "Is it possible for me, Sir," replied the lady, with perfect calmness, "to feel a spark of joy? Can I celebrate the victory of your army, while my husband remains a prisoner at St. Augustine." "That," rejoined the officer, "is a matter of little consequence ; the last hopes of rebellion are crushed by the defeat of Greene: you shall illuminate." "Not a single light," replied the lady, "shall be placed with my consent, on such an occasion, in any window in the house." "Then, Madam, I will return with a party, and before midnight level it to the ground." "You have power to de stroy, Sir, and seem well disposed to use it, but over my opinions you possess no control. I disregard your menaces, and resolutely declare, / will not illuminate" Would to God that I could name the man, capable of thus insulting a helpless female, that I might hold him up to the scorn of the world ! Mrs. Heyward was graceful and majestic in person, beau tiful in countenance, angelic in disposition; none but a ruffian could have treated her with indignity. On the anniversary of the surrender of Charleston, May 12th, 1781, an illumination was again demanded, in testimony of joy for an event so propitious to the cause of Britain. Mrs. -1820] ALEXANDER GARDEN. 133 G. A. Hall, who labored under a wasting disease, lay at the point of death. Again Mrs. Heyward refused to obey. Violent anger was ex cited, and the house was assailed by a mob with brickbats and every species of nauseating trash that could offend or annoy. Her resolution remained unshaken and, while the tumult continued and shouts and clamor increased indignity, Mrs. Hall expired. . . Mrs. Daniel Hall, having obtained permission to pay a visit to her mother on John's Island, was on the point of embarking, when an officer stepping forward, in the most authoritative manner, demanded the key of her trunk. " What do you expect to find there? " said the lady. "I seek for treason," was the reply. "You may save yourself the trouble of search, then," said Mrs. Hall " You may find a plenty of it at my tongue's end." An officer, distinguished by his inhumanity and constant oppression of the unfortunate, meeting Mrs. Charles Elliott in a garden adorned with a great variety of flowers, asked the name of the camomile, which appeared to flourish with peculiar luxuriance. "The Kebel Flower," she replied. "Why was that name given to it? " said the officer. " Be cause," rejoined the lady, "it thrives most when most trampled upon." To Mrs. Pinckney, the wife of Colonel Charles Pinckney, a British officer of rank once said " It is impossible not to admire the intrepid firmness of the ladies of your country. Had your men but half their resolution, we might give up the contest, America would be invincible." So much were the ladies attached to the Whig interest, habituated to injuries, and so resolute in supporting them, that they would jocosely speak of misfortunes, though at the moment severely suffering under their pressure. Mrs. Sabina Elliott having witnessed the activity of an officer, who had ordered the plundering of her poultry-houses, finding an old muscovy drake, which had escaped the general search, still straying about the premises, had him caught, and mounting a servant on horse back, ordered him to follow and deliver the bird to the officer, with her compliments, as she concluded, that in the hurry of departure, "it had been left altogether by accident." . . . .' There was not a more intrepid being in existence [than Mrs. Eichard Shubrick]. I will present a noble instance of it. An American soldier, flying from a party of the enemy, sought her protection, and was promised it. The British pressing close upon him, insisted that he should be de livered up, threatening immediate and universal destruction in case of 134 ALEXANDER GARDEN. [1788- refusal. The ladies, her friends and companions, who were in the house with her, shrunk from the contest, and were silent ; but undaunted by their threats, this intrepid lady placed herself before the chamber into which the unfortunate fugitive had been conducted, and resolutely said : " To men of honor the chamber of a lady should be as sacred as the sanctuary ! I will defend the passage to it, though I perish. You may succeed, and enter it, but it shall be over my corpse." "By God," said the officer, "if muskets were only placed in the hands of a few such women, our only safety would be found in retreat. Your intrepidity, Madam, gives you security ; from me you shall meet no further annoy ance." Nor is this the only instance of her unconquerable fortitude. At Brabant, the seat of the respectable and patriotic Bishop Smith, a sergeant of Tarleton's Dragoons, eager for the acquisition of plunder, followed the overseer, a man advanced in years, into the apartment where the ladies of the family were assembled, and on his refusal to discover the spot where the plate was concealed, struck him with violence, inflicting a severe sabre wound across the shoulders. Aroused by the infamy of the act, Mrs. Shubrick, starting from her seat, and placing herself betwixt the ruffian and his victim, resolutely said, " Place yourself behind me, Murdoch, the interposition of my body shall give you protection, or I will die." Then, addressing herself to the sergeant, exclaimed, " what a degradation of manhood, what departure from that gallantry which was- once the characteristic of British soldiers ! Human nature is degraded by your barbarity ; but should you persist, then strike at me, for till I die, no further injury shall be done to him." The sergeant, unable to resist such commanding eloquence, retired. During the period when the British were confined within very narrow limits, in the neighborhood of Charleston, Mrs. Kalph Izard, of Fair Spring, residing near Dorchester, and within the range of their excur sions, whenever they ventured beyond their lines, was frequently sub jected to annoyance, but by the suavity of her manners, and polite atten tion to the officers who commanded, had happily preserved the plantation from destruction. Mr. Izard, who was distinguished by his activity, act ing as aide-de-camp to the commanding officer of the light troops, was at home, when one of these parties appeared, and had scarcely time to enter a clothes-press, when the house was surrounded and filled with British soldiers. They had been apprised of his visit, and their object was to make him a prisoner. A search was therefore commenced, and menaces held out, that unless he voluntarily surrendered, a torch should drive him from the place of his concealment. The composure of Mrs. Izard, at such a moment, was astonishing ; she betrayed no symptoms of appre- -1820] ROBERT DINSMOOR. hension, and though treated with more than usual indignity, an attempt being made to force her rings from her fingers, and much valuable prop- ery plundered in her presence, preserved her accustomed politeness, and behaved with such urbanity, as to induce the belief that the information communicated was incorrect, and the party were drawn off. Mr. Izard now quitted his hiding-place, and rapidly passing the Ashley, gave notice of the proximity of the enemy. He chose a happy moment for hia escape, for speedily returning, the soldiers immediately sought Mrs. Izard's chamber, and burst open the press, which they had not before disturbed ; when missing their object, they again retired. On the alarm given by Mr. Izard, all on the other side of the river were on the alert A body of cavalry was pushed across Bacon's Bridge, who speedily overtook the retiring enemy, and so completely routed them, that few only of their number returned within their lines to tell of their disaster. .... The contrivances adopted by the ladies to carry from the British garri son supplies to the gallant defenders of their country, were highly credit able to their ingenuity, and of infinite utility to their friends. The cloth of many a military coat, concealed with art, and not unfrequently made an appendage to female attire, has escaped the vigilance of the guards expressly stationed to prevent smuggling, and speedily converted into regimental shape, worn triumphantly in battle. Boots have, in many instances, been relinquished by the delicate wearer to the active partisan. I have seen a horseman's helmet concealed by a well arranged head-dress, and epaulettes delivered from the folds of the simple cap of a matron. Feathers and cockades were much in demand, and so cunningly hid, and handsomely presented, that he could have been no true knight who did not feel the obligation to defend them to the last extremity. BORN in Windham, N. H., 1757. DIED there, 1836. THE SPARROW. [Incidental Poems. 1828. J POOR innocent and hapless Sparrow! Why should my moul-board gie thee sorrow ? 136 ROBERT DINSMOOR. [1788- This day thou'll chirp, an' mourn the morrow, Wi' anxious breast The plough has turn'd the mould'ring furrow Deep o'er thy nest. Just in the middle o' the hill, Thy nest was plac'd wi' curious skill ; There I espy'd thy little bill Beneath the shade, In that sweet bower secure frae ill, Thine eggs thou laid. Five corns o' maize had there been drappit, An' through the stalks thine head thou pappit; The drawing nowt couldna' be stappit, I quickly foun', Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit, An' flutt'ring ran. The sklentin stane beguil'd the sheer, In vain I tri'd the plough to steer; A wee bit stuinpie i' the rear Cam' 'tween my legs, An' to the gee side gart me veer, An' crush thine eggs. Alas ! alas ! my bonnie birdie ! Thy faithfu' mate flits rouu' to guard ye. Connubial love ! a pattern wordy The pious priest ! What savage heart could be sae hardy As wound thy breast ? Thy ruin was nae fau't o' mine (It gars me greet to see thee pine), It may be serves His great design, Who governs all ; Omniscience tents wi' eyes divine, The Sparrow's fall. A pair more friendly ne'er were married, Their joys an' pains M r ere equal carried ; But now, ah me ! to grief they're hurried, Without remead ; When all their hope and treasure's buried 'Tis sad indeed. How much like theirs are human dools ! Their sweet wee bairns laid i' the mools, -1820] FISHER AMES. 137 That sovereign Pow'r, who nature rules, Has said so be it ; But poor blin' mortals are sic' fools, They canna' see it. Nae doubt, that He wha' first did mate us, Has fixt our lot as sure as fate is, And when he wounds, he disna' hate us, But only this He'll gar the ills thai here await us, Yield lasting bliss. BORN in Dedham, Mass., 1758. DIED there, 1808. THE CHARACTER AND TALENTS OF WASHINGTON. [From the Eulogy delivered before the Massachusetts Legislature, 8 February, 1800.] IT is not impossible that some will affect to consider the honors paid to this great patriot by the nation as excessive, idolatrous, and de grading to freemen, who are all equal. I answer, that refusing to virtue its legitimate honors would not prevent their being lavished in future on any worthless and ambitious favorite. If this day's example should have its natural effect, it will be salutary. Let such honors be so conferred only when, in future, they shall be so merited ; then the public sentiment will not be misled, nor the principles of a just equality corrupted. The best evidence of reputation is a man's whole life. We have now, alas ! all Washington's before us. There has scarcely appeared a really great man whose character has been more admired in his lifetime, or less cpr- rectly understood by his admirers. When it is comprehended, it is no easy task to delineate its excellences in such a manner as to give to the portrait both interest and resemblance ; for it requires thought and study to understand the true ground of the superiority of his character over many others, whom he resembled in the principles of action, and even in the manner of acting. But perhaps he excels all the great men that ever lived, in the steadiness of his adherence to his maxims of life, and in the uniformity of all his conduct to the same maxims. These maxims, though wise, were yet not so remarkable for their wisdom as for their authority over his life; for if there were any errors in his judgment (and he discovered as few as any man), we know of no blemishes in his 138 FISHER AMES [1788- virtue. He was the patriot without reproach ; lie loved his country well enough to hold his success in serving it an ample recompense. Thus far self-love and love of country coincided ; but when his country needed sacrifices that no other man could or perhaps would be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This was virtue in its most exalted character. More than once he put his fame at hazard, when he had reason to think it would be sacrificed, at least in this age. Two instances cannot be de nied; when the army was disbanded; and again, when he stood, like Leonidas at the pass of ThermopylaB, to defend our independence against France. It is indeed almost as difficult to draw his character as the portrait of virtue. The reasons are similar; our ideas of moral excellence are obscure, because they are complex, and we are obliged to resort to illus trations. Washington's example is the happiest to show what virtue is ; and to delineate his character we naturally expatiate on the beauty of virtue; much must be felt and much imagined. His pre-eminence is not so much to be seen in the display of any one virtue as in the possession of them all, and in the practice of the most difficult. Hereafter, there fore, his character must be studied before it will be striking ; and then it will be admitted as a model, a precious one to a free republic. It is no less difficult to speak of his talents. They were adapted to lead, without dazzling, mankind ; and to draw forth and employ the talents of others, without being misled by them. In this he was cer tainly superior, that he neither mistook nor misapplied his own. His. great modesty and reserve would have concealed them, if great occasions had not called them forth ; and then, as he never spoke from the affecta tion to shine, nor acted from any sinister motives, it is from their effects- only that we are to judge of their greatness and extent. In public trusts,, where men, acting conspicuously, are cautious, and in those private con cerns, where few conceal or resist their weaknesses, Washington was uni formly great, pursuing right conduct from right maxims. His talents were such as assist a sound judgment, and ripen with it. His prudence was consummate, and seemed to take the direction of his powers and passions ; for as a soldier, he was more solicitous to avoid mistakes that might be fatal, than to perform exploits that are brilliant ; and as a statesman, to adhere to just principles, however old, than to pursue novelties ; and therefore, in both characters, his qualities were singularly adapted to the interest, and were tried in the greatest perils, of the coun try. His habits of inquiry were so far remarkable, that he was never sat isfied with investigating, nor desisted from it, so long as he had less than all the light that he could obtain upon a subject, and then he made his decision without bias. This command over the partialities that so generally stop men short, -1820] FISHER AMES. or turn them aside in their pursuit of truth, is one of the chief causes of his unvaried course of right conduct in so many difficult scenes, where every human actor must be presumed to err. If he had strong passions, he had learned to subdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had weaknesses, he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them from the government of his temper and conduct, which is still more rare. If he loved fame, he never made improper compliances for what is called popularity. The fame he enjoyed is of the kind that will last forever ; yet it was rather the effect, than the motive, of his conduct. Some future Plutarch will search for a parallel to his character. Epaminondas is perhaps the brightest name of all antiquity. Our Washington resem bled him in the purity and ardor of his patriotism; and like him, he first exalted the glory of his country. There it is to be hoped the parallel ends; for Thebes fell with Epaminondas. But such compari sons cannot be pursued far, without departing from the similitude. For we shall find it as difficult to compare great men as great rivers ; some we admire for the length and rapidity of their current, and the grandeur of their cataracts ; others, for the majestic silence and fulness of their streams: we cannot bring them together to measure the difference of their waters. The unambitious life of Washington, declining fame, yet courted by it, seemed, like the Ohio, to choose its long way through solitudes, diffusing fertility; or, like his own Potomac, widening and deepening his channel, as he approaches the sea, and displaying most the usefulness and serenity of his greatness towards the end of his course. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. [ Works of Fisher Ames. 1854.] HHHAT writer would deserve the fame of a public benefactor who -*- could exhibit the character of Hamilton, with the truth and force that all who intimately knew him conceived it ; his example would then take the same ascendant as his talents. The portrait alone, however ex quisitely finished, could not inspire genius where it is not; but if the world should again have possession of so rare a gift, it might awaken it where it sleeps, as by a spark from heaven's own altar ; for surely if there is anything like divinity in man, it is in his admiration of virtue. But who alive can exhibit this portrait ? If our age, on that supposi tion more fruitful than any other, had produced two Hamiltons, one of them might then have depicted the other. To delineate genius one must feel its power; Hamilton, and he alone, with all its inspirations, could FISHER AMES. [1788- have transfused its whole fervid soul into the picture, and swelled its lineaments into life. The writer's mind, expanding with his own peculiar enthusiasm, and glowing with kindred fires, would then have stretched to the dimensions of his subject. Such is the infirmity of human nature, it is very difficult for a man who is greatly the superior of his associates, to preserve their friendship without abatement ; yet, though he could not possibly conceal his su periority, he was so little inclined to display it, he was so much at ease in its possession, that no jealousy or envy chilled his bosom, when his friends obtained praise. He was indeed so entirely the friend of his friends, so magnanimous, so superior, or more properly so insensible to all exclusive selfishness of spirit, so frank, so ardent, yet so little over bearing, so much trusted, admired, beloved, almost adored, that his power over their affections was entire, and lasted through his life. We do not believe that he left any worthy man his foe who had ever been his friend. Men of the most elevated minds have not always the readiest discern ment of character. Perhaps he was sometimes too sudden and too lavish in bestowing his confidence; his manly spirit, disdaining artifice, sus pected none. But while the power of his friends over him seemed to have no limits, and really had none, in respect to those things which were of a nature to be yielded, no man, not the Eoman Cato himself, was more inflexible on every point that touched, or only seemed to touch, integrity and honor. With him, it was not enough to be unsuspected ; his bosom would have glowed, like a furnace, at its own whispers of re proach. Mere purity would have seemed to him below praise; and such were his habits, and such his nature, that the pecuniary temptations, which many others can only with great exertion and self-denial resist, had no attractions for him. He was very far from obstinate ; yet, as his friends assailed his opinions with less protound thought than he had devoted to them, they were seldom shaken by discussion. He defended them, however, with as much mildness as force, and evinced, that if he did not yield, it was not for want of gentleness or modesty. The tears that flow on this fond recital will never dry up. My heart, penetrated with the remembrance of the man, grows liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could weep too for my country, which, mournful as it is, does not know the half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it turns its eyes back, and sees what Hamilton was ; but my soul stiffens with despair when I think what Hamilton would have been. His social affections and his private virtues are not, however, so prop erly the object of public attention, as the conspicuous and commanding qualities that gave him his fame and influence in the world. It is not as -1820] FISHER AMES. Apollo, enchanting the shepherds with his lyre, that we deplore him ; it is as Hercules, treacherously slain in the midst of his unfinished labors, leaving the world overrun with monsters. His early life we pass over ; though his heroic spirit in the army has furnished a theme that is dear to patriotism and will be sacred to glory. In all the different stations in which a life of active usefulness has placed him, we find him not more remarkably distinguished by the ex tent, than by the variety and versatility of his talents. In every place he made it apparent that no other man could have filled it so well ; and in times of critical importance, in which alone he desired employment, his services were justly deemed absolutely indispensable. As secretary of the treasury, his was the powerful spirit that presided over the chaos : Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled Indeed, in organizing the federal government in 1789, every man of either sense or candor will allow, the difficulty seemed greater than the first-rate abilities could surmount. The event has shown that his abilities were greater than those difficulties. He surmounted them and Washington's administration was the most wise and beneficent, the most prosperous, and ought to be the most popular, that ever was intrusted with the affairs of a nation. Great as was Washington's merit, much of it in plan, much in execution, will of course devolve upon his minister. As a lawyer, his comprehensive genius reached the principles of his profession ; he compassed its extent, he fathomed its profound, perhaps even more familiarly and easily, than the ordinary rules of its practice. With most men law is a trade ; with him it was a science. As a statesman, he was not more distinguished by the great extent of his views than by the caution with which he provided against impedi ments, and the watchfulness of his care over right and the liberty of the subject. In none of the many revenue bills which he framed, though committees reported them, is there to be found a single clause that savors of despotic power ; not one that the sagest champions of law and liberty would, on that ground, hesitate to approve and adopt It is rare that a man, who owes so much to nature, descends to seek more from industry; but he seemed to depend on industry, as if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of investigation were very re markable ; his mind seemed to cling to his subject till he had exhausted it. Hence the uncommon superiority of his reasoning powers, a superi ority that seemed to be augmented from every source, and to be fortified by every auxiliary, learning, taste, wit, imagination, and eloquence. These were embellished and enforced by his temper and manners, by his fame 142 FISHER AMES. [1788- and his virtues. It is difficult, in the midst of such various excellence, to say in what particular the effect of his greatness was most manifest. No man more promptly discerned truth ; no man more clearly displayed it ; it was not merely made visible, it seemed to come bright with illumi nation from his lips. But prompt and clear as he was, fervid as Demos thenes, like Cicero full of resource, he was not less remarkable for the copiousness and completeness of his argument, that left little for cavil, and nothing for doubt. Some men take their strongest argument as a weapon, and use no other ; but he left nothing to be inquired for more, nothing to be answered. He not only disarmed his adversaries of their pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all excuse for having urged them ; he confounded and subdued as well as convinced. He in demnified them, however, by making his discussion a complete map of his subject, so that his opponents might, indeed, feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they could not repeat them. In fact, it was no common -effort that could preserve a really able antagonist from becoming his convert ; for the truth, which his researches so distinctly presented to the understanding of others, was rendered almost irresistibly command ing and impressive by the love and reverence which, it was ever ap parent, he profoundly cherished for it in his own. While patriotism glowed in his heart, wisdom blended in his speech her authority with her charms. Such, also, is the character of his writings. Judiciously collected, they will be a public treasure. No man ever more disdained duplicity or carried frankness further than he. This gave to his political opponents some temporary advan tages, and currency to some popular prejudices, which he would have lived down if his death had not prematurely dispelled them. He knew that factions have ever in the end prevailed in free states; and, as Tie saw no security (and who living can see any adequate?) against the destruction of that liberty which he loved, and for which he was ever ready to devote his life, he spoke at all times according to his anxious forebodings ; and his enemies interpreted all that he said according to the supposed interest of their party. But he ever extorted confidence, even when he most provoked opposi tion. It was impossible to deny that he was a patriot, and such a patriot as, seeking neither popularity nor office, without artifice, without mean ness, the best Romans in their best days would have admitted to citizenship and to the consulate. Virtue so rare, so pure, so bold, by its very purity and excellence inspired suspicion as a prodigy. His enemies judged of him by themselves ; so splendid and arduous were his services, they could not find it in their hearts to believe that they were disinterested. Unparalleled as they were, they were nevertheless no otherwise requited -1820] FISHER AMES. 143 than by the applause of all good men, and by his own enjoyment of the spectacle of that national prosperity and honor which was the effect of them. After facing calumny, and triumphantly surmounting an unre lenting persecution, he retired from office with clean, though empty hands, as rich as reputation and an unblemished integrity could make Mm. Some have plausibly, though erroneously inferred, from the great ex tent of his abilities, that his ambition was inordinate. This is a mistake. Such men as have a painful consciousness that their stations happen to be far more exalted than their talents, are generally the most ambitious. Hamilton, on the contrary, though he had many competitors, had no rivals ; for he did not thirst for power, nor would he, as it was well known, descend to office. Of course he suffered no pain from envy when bad men rose, though he felt anxiety for the public. He was perfectly content and at ease in private life. Of what was he ambitious ? Not of wealth; no man held it cheaper. Was it of popularity? That weed of the dunghill he knew, when rankest, was nearest to withering. There is no doubt that he desired glory, which to most men is too inaccessible to be an object of desire ; but feeling his own force, and that he was tall enough to reach the top of Pindus or of Helicon, he longed to deck his brow with the wreath of immortality. A vulgar ambition could as little comprehend as satisfy his views ; he thirsted only for that fame, which virtue would not blush to confer, nor time to convey to the end of his coarse. The only ordinary distinction, to which, we confess he did aspire, was military ; and for that, in the event of a foreign war, he would have been solicitous. He undoubtedly discovered the predominance of a soldier's feelings ; and all that is honor in the character of a soldier was at home in his heart. His early education was in the camp; there the first fervors of his genius were poured forth, and his earliest and most cordial friendships formed ; there he became enamoured of glory, and was ad mitted to her embrace. Those who knew him best, and especially in the army, will believe, that if occasions had called him forth, he was qualified, beyond any man of the age, to display the talents of a great general. It may be very long before our country will want such military talents ; it will probably be much longer before it will again possess them. Alas ! the great man who was at all times so much the ornament of our country, and so exclusively fitted in its extremity to be its champion, is withdrawn to a purer and more tranquil region. "We are left to endless labors and unavailing regrets. Such honors Ilion to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 144 FI8HER AMES. [1788- The most substantial glory of a country is in its virtuous great men ; its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their example. That nation is fated to ignominy and servitude, for which such men have lived in vain. Power may be seized by a nation that is yet barbarous ; and wealth may be enjoyed by one that it finds or renders sordid ; the one is the gift and the sport of accident, and the other is the sport of power. Both are mutable, and have passed away without leaving behind them any other memorial than ruins that offend taste, and traditions that baffle conjecture. But the glory of Greece is imperishable, or will last as long as learning itself, which is its monument ; it strikes an everlasting root, and bears perennial blossoms on its grave. The name of Hamilton would have honored Greece in the age of Aristides. May heaven, the guardian of our liberty, grant that our country may be fruitful of Ham- iltons, and faithful to their glory ! THE DANGERS OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. [From the Same.] political sphere, like the globe we tread upon, never stands still, - but with a silent swiftness accomplishes the revolutions which, we are too ready to believe, are effected by our wisdom or might have been controlled by our efforts. There is a kind of fatality in the affairs of republics, that eludes the foresight of the wise as much as it frustrates the toils and sacrifices of the patriot and the hero. Events proceed, not as they were expected or intended, but as they are impelled by the irre sistible laws of our political existence. Things inevitable happen, and we are astonished, as if they were miracles, and the course of nature had been overpowered or suspended to produce them. Hence it is, that, till lately, more than half our countrymen believed our public tranquillity was firmly established, and that our liberty did not merely rest upon dry land, but was wedged, or rather rooted high above the flood in the rocks of granite, as immovably as the pillars that prop the universe. They, or at least the discerning of them, are at length no less disappointed than terrified to perceive that we have all the time floated, with a fearless and unregarded course, down the stream of events, till we are now visibly drawn within the revolutionary suction of Niagara, and everything that is liberty will be dashed to pieces in the descent. We have been accustomed to consider the pretension of Englishmen to be free as a proof how completely they were broken to subjection, or hardened in imposture. We have insisted that they had no constitution, -1820] FISHER AMES. 145 because they never made one; and that their boasted government, which is just what time and accident have made it, was palsied with age and blue with the plague-sores of corruption. We have believed that it de rived its stability, not from reason, but from prejudice ; that it is sup ported, not because it is favorable to liberty, but as it is dear to national pride ; that it is reverenced, not for its excellence, but because ignorance is naturally the idolater of antiquity ; that it is not sound and healthful, but derives a morbid energy from disease, and an unaccountable aliment from the canker that corrodes its vitals. But we maintained that the federal Constitution, with all the bloom of youth and splendor of innocence, was gifted with immortality. For if time should impair its force, or faction tarnish its charms, the people, ever vigilant to discern its wants, ever powerful to provide for them, would miraculously restore it to the field, like some wounded hero of the epic, to take a signal vengeance on its enemies, or like Antaeus, in vigorated by touching his mother earth, to rise the stronger for a fall. There is of course a large portion of our citizens who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impend ing. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee that licentious* ness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty. They consider her as a nymph, who need not be coy to keep herself pure, but that on the contrary, her chastity will grow robust by frequent scuffles with her seducers. They say, while a faction is a minority it will remain harm less by being outvoted ; and if it should become a majority, all its acts, however profligate or violent, are then legitimate. For with the demo crats the people is a sovereign who can do no wrong, even when he re spects and spares no existing right, and whose voice, however obtained or however counterfeited, bears all the sanctity and all the force of a living divinity. .... The clamors of party are so loud, and the resistance of national vanity is so stubborn, it will be impossible to convince any but the very wise (and in every state they are the very few), that our democratic liberty is utterly untenable; that we are devoted to the successive struggles of factions, who will rule by turns, the worst of whom will rule last and triumph by the sword. But for the wise this unwelcome task is, per haps, superfluous : they, possibly, are already convinced. VOL. IV. 10 146 NOAH WORCESTER. [1788- BORN in Hollis, N. H., 1758. DIED at Brighton, Mass., 1837. THE ABOLITION OF WAR. [A Solemn Review of the Custom of War. 1814.] SO prone are men to be blinded by their passions, their prejudices, and their interests, that in most private quarrels, each of two individuals persuades himself that he is in the right, and his neighbor in the wrong. Hence the propriety of arbitrations, references, and appeals to courts of justice, that persons more disinterested may judge, and prevent that in justice and desolation which would result from deciding private disputes by single combats, or acts of violence. But rulers of nations are as liable to be misled by their passions and interests as other men ; and, when misled, they are very sure to mislead those of their subjects who have confidence in their wisdom and integrity. Hence it is highly important that the custom of war should be abolished, and some other mode adopted to settle disputes between nations. In private disputes there may be cause of complaint on each side, while neither has reason to shed the blood of the other, much less to shed the blood of innocent family connections, neighbors and friends. So of two nations, each may have cause of complaint, while neither can be justified in making war, and much less in shedding the blood of innocent people who have had no hand in giving the offence. It is an awful feature in the character of war, and a strong reason why it should not be countenanced, that it involves the innocent with the guilty in the calamities it inflicts, and often falls with the greatest ven geance on those who have had no concern in the management of national affairs. It surely is not a crime to be born in a country which is after wards invaded ; yet in how many instances do war-makers punish, or destroy, for no other crime than being a native or resident of an invaded territory ! A mode of revenge or redress which makes no distinction be tween the innocent and the guilty, ought to be discountenanced by every friend to justice and humanity. Besides, as the rulers of a nation are as liable as other people to be governed by passion and prejudice, there is as little prospect of justice in permitting war for the decision of national dis putes, as there would be in permitting an incensed individual to be, in his own cause, complainant, witness, judge, jury and executioner. In what point of view then is war not to be regarded with horror? That wars have been so overruled by God as to be the occasion of some benefits to mankind, will not be denied ; for the same may be said -1820] NOAH WORCESTER. of every custom that ever was popular among men. War may have been the occasion of advancing useful arts and sciences, and even of spreading the gospel ; but we are not to do evil that good may come, nor to countenance evil because God may overrule it for good. " But war gives opportunity for the display of extraordinary talents of daring enterprise and intrepidity?" True; but let robbery and piracy become as popular as war has been ; and will not these customs give as great opportunity for the display of the same talents and qualities of mind? Shall we therefore encourage robbery and piracy? Indeed it may be asked, do we not encourage these crimes ? For what is modern warfare but a popular, refined and legalized mode of robbery, piracy and murder, preceded by a proclamation giving notice of the pur pose of the war-maker? The answer of a pirate to Alexander the Great, was as just as it was severe: "By what right," said the king, "do you infest the seas? " The pirate replied, "By the same that you infest the universe. But because I do it in a small ship, I am called a robber ; and because you do the same acts with a great fleet, you are called a conqueror!" Equally just was the language of the Scythian ambassadors to the same deluded monarch, "Thou boastest, that the only design of thy marches is to extirpate robbers. Thou thyself art the greatest robber in the world." Is it not, then, time for Christians to learn not to attach glory to guilt, or to praise actions which God will condemn? That Alexander pos sessed talents worthy of admiration, will be admitted; but when such talents are prostituted to the vile purposes of military fame by spreading destruction and misery through the world, a character is formed which should be branded with everlasting infamy. And nothing, perhaps, short of the commission of such atrocious deeds, can more endanger the welfare of a community, than the applause given to successful military desperadoes. Murder and robbery are not the less criminal for being perpetrated by a king, or a mighty warrior. Shall the Christian world, then, remain silent in regard to the enormity of this custom, and even applaud the deeds of men who were a curse to the age in which they lived ? On the same principle we may applaud the chief of a band of robbers and pirates in proportion to his ingenuity, intrepedity and address in doing mischief. But if we attach glory to such exploits, do we not encourage others to adopt the same road to fame ? Besides, would not such applause betray a most depraved taste ; a taste which makes no proper distinction between virtue and vice, or doing good and doing mischief ; a taste to be captivated with the glare of bold exploits, bat regardless of their end, or the means by which they were accomplished, of the misery they occasion to others, or the light in which they must be viewed by a benevolent God ? 148 NOAH WEBSTER. [1788- BORN in Hartford, Conn., 1758. DIED in New Haven, Conn., 1843. WOMAN'S EDUCATION IN THE LAST CENTURY. [A Collection of Essays and Fugitive Writings. 1790.] IN all nations a good education is that which renders the ladies correct in their manners, respectable in their families, and agreeable in society. That education is always wrong, which raises a woman above the duties of her station. In America, female education should have for its object what is useful. Young ladies should be taught to speak and write their own language with purity and elegance ; an article in which they are often deficient. The French language is not necessary for ladies. In some cases it is convenient, but in general it may be considered as an article of luxury. As an accomplishment, it may be studied by those whose attention is not employed about more important concerns. Some knowledge of arithmetic is necessary for every lady. Geography should never be neglected. Belles-lettres learning seems to correspond with the dispositions of most females. A taste for poetry and fine writing should be cultivated ; for we expect the most delicate sentiments from the pens of that sex, which is possessed of the finest feelings. A course of reading can hardly be prescribed for all ladies. But it should be remarked, that this sex cannot be too well acquainted with the writers upon human life and manners. The Spectator should fill the first place in every lady's library. Other volumes of periodical papers, though inferior to the Spectator, should be read ; and some of the best histories. With respect to novels, so much admired by the young, and so gen erally condemned by the old, what shall I say ? Perhaps it may be said with truth, that some of them are useful, many of them pernicious, and most of them trifling. A hundred volumes of modern novels may be read, without acquiring a new idea. Some of them contain entertaining stories, and where the descriptions are drawn from nature, and from characters and events in themselves innocent, the perusal of them may be harmless. Were novels written with a view to exhibit only one side of human nature, to paint the social virtues, the world would condemn them as defective : but I should think them more perfect. Young people, espe cially females, should not see the vicious part of mankind. At best, novels may be considered as the toys of youth ; the rattle-boxes of six- -1820] NOAH WEBSTER. 14 9 teen. The mechanic gets his pence for his toys, and the novel writer for his books, and it would be happy for society if the latter were in all cases as innocent playthings as the former. In the large towns in America, music, drawing and dancing, constitute a part of female education. They, however, hold a subordinate rank ; for my fair friends will pardon me, when I declare, that no man ever marries a woman for her performance on a harpsichord, or her figure in a minuet. However ambitious a woman may be to command admiration abroad, her real merit is known only at home. Admiration is useless when it is not supported by domestic worth. But real honor and perma nent esteem are always secured by those who preside over their own families with dignity. Nothing can be more fatal to domestic happiness, in America, than a taste for copying the luxurious manners and amuse ments of England and France. Dancing, drawing and music, are princi pal articles of education in those kingdoms ; therefore every girl in America must pass two or three years at a boarding-school, though her father cannot give her a farthing when she marries. This ambition to educate females above their fortunes pervades every part of America. Hence the disproportion between the well-bred females and the males in our large towns. A mechanic or shopkeeper in town, or a farmer in the country, whose sons get their living by their father's employments, will send their daughters to a boarding-school, where their ideas are elevated, and their views carried above a connection with men in those occupa tions. Such an education, without fortune or beauty, may possibly please a girl of fifteen, but must prove her greatest misfortune. This fatal mistake is illustrated in every large town in America. In the country, the number of males and females is nearly equal ; but in towns, the number of genteelly -bred women is greater than of men ; and in some towns the proportion is as three to one. The heads of young people of both sexes are often turned by reading descriptions of splendid living, of coaches, of plays, and other amuse ments. Such descriptions excite a desire to enjoy the same pleasures. A fortune becomes the principal object of pursuit ; fortunes are scarce in America, and not easily acquired ; disappointment succeeds, and the youth, who begins life with expecting to enjoy a coach, closes the pros pect with a small living, procured by labor and economy. Thus a wrong education, and a taste for pleasures which our fortunes will not enable us to enjoy, often plunge the Americans into distress, or at least prevent early marriages. Too fond of show, of dress and expense, the sexes wish to please each other ; they mistake the means, and both are disappointed. 150 NOAH WEBSTER. [1788- ENGLISH CORRUPTION OF THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE. [From the Same.] OUR language was spoken in purity about eighty years ago ; since which time, great numbers of faults have crept into practice about the theatre and court of London. An affected erroneous pronunciation has in many instances taken place of the true ; and new words or modes of speech have succeeded the ancient correct English phrases. Thus we have, in the modern English pronunciation, their natshures, conjunctshures, constitshutions, and tshumultshuous legislatshures ; and a long catalogue of fashionable improprieties. These are a direct violation of the rules of analogy and harmony ; they offend the ear, and embarrass the language. Time was, when these errors were unknown ; they were- little known in America before the Revolution. I presume we may safely say, that our language has suffered more injurious changes in America, since the British army landed on our shores, than it had suffered before in the period of three centuries. The bucks and bloods tell us that there is no proper standard in language ; that it is all arbitrary. The asser tion, however, serves but to show their ignorance. There are, in the language itself, decisive reasons for preferring one pronunciation to another ; and men of science should be acquainted with these reasons. But if there were none, and everything rested on practice, we should never change a general practice without substantial reasons : no change should be introduced, which is not an obvious improvement. But our leading characters seem to pay no regard to rules, or their former practice. To know and embrace every change made in Great Britain, whether right or wrong, is the extent of their inquiries and the height of their ambition. It is to this deference we may ascribe the long catalogue of errors in pronunciation and of false idioms which disfigure the language of our mighty fine speakers. And should this imitation con tinue, we shall be hurried down the stream of corruption, with older nations, and our language, with theirs, be lost in an ocean of perpetual changes. The only hope we can entertain is, that America, driven by the shock of a revolution from the rapidity of the current, may glide along near the margin with a gentler stream, and sometimes be wafted back by an eddy. -1820] GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT. BORN in Boston, Mass., 1758. DIED there, 1803. THE GRIEVANCES WHICH LED TO "SHAYS'S REBELLION." [The History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts in the Year MDCCLXXXVI. 1788.] TT^ROM the short view which we have taken of the affairs of the -*- Commonwealth, sufficient causes appear, to account for the commo tions which ensued. A heavy debt lying on the State, added to burdens of the same nature upon almost every incorporation within it ; a decline, or rather an extinction, of public credit ; a relaxation of manners, and a free use of foreign luxuries ; a decay of trade and manufactures, with a prevailing scarcity of money ; and, above all, individuals involved in debt to each other, are evils which leave us under no necessity of search ing further for the reasons of the insurrections which took place. We ought not to be surprised to find the people, who but a few years before, upon the abolition of royal government among them, exhibited a most striking example of voluntary submission to a feeble authority, now driven into a confusion of affairs, common to all countries, but most so, perhaps, to those who have shown the strongest ardor in pursuit of freedom. The long restraints, which the confusion of war had laid upon the ad ministration of justice in private cases, occasioned a very rapid increase of civil actions, when those restraints were removed. This circumstance gave employment to the practitioners at the bar, and increased their numbers beyond what had been usual in the State. The profession naturally became a subject of observation ; and, at length, was generally spoken of as an object of reform. Advantage was taken of the prevail ing jealousy against lawyers ; and unfortunately, a prelude to the insur rections was framed out of it. Inflammatory writings were inserted in the newspapers, to excite an idea, in the minds of the people, that the burdens which they labored under were occasioned by the abuses of this profession : and a doctrine was particularly insisted on in one of them, that this class of men ought to be abolished. The electors were there fore conjured to leave them out of public office, and to instruct their representatives, then about to be chosen for the year 1786, to annihilate them. This idea communicated itself from very natural causes. The lawyers were odious to debtors as the legal instruments of their distresses. They were also intimately connected with the courts of justice, and, in a great measure, under their control : a clamor against the one, therefore, was a kind of impeachment of the other. The transition from the ser- 152 ELKANAH WATSON. [1788- vants of the courts, to the courts themselves, being easy and direct, the cry, of course, was received and spread with avidity, by those whose in tentions were directed at the administration of justice in general. The flame pervaded the greatest part of the Commonwealth. The lawyers, in most instances, were excluded from the House of Kepresentatives,, Among other towns, the capital filled the seat which she had from ancient times reserved for one of this profession, the seat where Pratt, Thacher, Otis, and Adams, had drawn admiration and love from the public eye, with a gentleman of a less unpopular calling. When the assembly met, their zeal was kindled from the people. This was first evidenced by their elections in filling up the vacancies in Senate. Preference was given to some characters, which could not be accounted for on any other grounds, than that of their fellow candidates being practitioners of the law. As soon as business came forward, an emulation was shown to be foremost in correcting abuses which occupied so large a share of the pub lic attention. Various instances were adduced, wherein the principles of the fee bill, from the local circumstances of the parties, operated to dis tress them ; and much was said to convince the House that these distresses had been greatly increased by the exorbitant fees of attorneys. After many warm altercations upon this subject, the House, with a view of re- ducing the exactions and influence of the regular practitioners, at length passed a bill to admit all persons of a moral character into the practice of the law, before the Judicial Courts ; to fix the fees of attorneys ; to provide for their taking an oath previously to their pleading, in every cause, that they would not receive more than lawful fees of their employ ers ; and to restrain the practice of champerty. But, when this bill was sent up, the Senate, desirous of a further consideration of the subject, took measures for examining it in the recess, and referred their decision to their next assembling. Matron. BORN in Plymouth, Mass., 1758. DIED at Port Kent, N. Y., 1842. THE GREAT FIRE AT CHARLESTON. [Men and Times of the Revolution ; or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson. Edited by Ms Son, Winslow C. Watson. 1856.] IN the intervals of business I mingled with delight in the elegant and gay society of this refined metropolis, under the wing of Mr. Eussel, the consignee of Mr. Brown, a gentleman of New England origin, but -1820] ELKANAH WATSON. occupying a distinguished position in the mercantile community of Charleston. My prospects were brilliant and auspicious, when a deep public and private calamity cast a dark pall over the whole. I had passed the evening of the 15th of January, '78, with a brilliant party, at the splendid mansion of a wealthy merchant of the city. In two hours after we had left the scene of elegant refinement, the stately edifice, the rich furniture, and all its gorgeous appliances, were wrapped in flames. In the mid-hours of a cold and tempestuous night, I was aroused by the cry of fire, and by a loud knocking at the door, with the appalling in telligence " The town's in flames." I pressed forward to the theatre of one of the most terrific conflagrations that probably ever visited Charles ton. The devastation was frightful. The fire raged with unmitigated fury for seventeen hours. Every vessel, shallop, and negro-boat was crowded with the distressed inhabitants. Many who, a few hours before, retired to their beds in affluence, were now reduced, by the all-devouring clement, to indigence. After laboring at the fire for many hours, I returned to my quarters to obtain a brief respite. I had scarcely seated myself before a man rushed in, exclaiming u Your roof is on fire ! " The mass of the con flagration was yet afar off, but it, as it were, rained fire. When we had extinguished the flame on the roof, I thought it time to remove my trunk, containing funds to a large amount Not being able to procure assistance, I was constrained to shoulder it myself. Staggering under my load (a burden which, in ordinary times, I could scarcely have lifted), I proceeded along Main Street. The fire had extended far and wide, and was bearing down, in awful majesty, a sea of flame. Almost the whole of this spacious street exhibited, on one side, a continuous and glaring blaze. My heart sickened at beholding half-dressed matrons, delicate young ladies and children, wandering about unprotected, and in despair. I soon found myself prostrated on the ground, along-side of my trunk, by the explosion of a large building. Fortunately being uninjured, I hastened on until I reached an elegant house in the suburbs of the city. Without hesitation I entered it, and, seeing no one, went into a splendid parlor, deposited my trunk in a closet, locked the door, and put the key in my pocket. Early the next morning I went in pursuit of my trunk. I everywhere saw heart-rending spectacles amid the smoking ruins, and the constant falling of walls and chimneys. I reached the house where I had left my trunk, which I then first discovered was the residence of Governor Kutledge. A young gentleman answered my knock, of whom I requested my trunk. He eyed me with attention, and casting a sus picious glance upon my person and clothes, replied, that not knowing me, he could not deliver it. My face and hand had been injured, and my clothes torn, in the confusion of the fire. I was mortified, but con- 154 ELKANAH WATSON. [1788- scious that my appearance justified Ms suspicion. I forthwith proceeded to a friend, borrowed a clean shirt and decent clothes (my own being' locked up in the Governor's parlor), got shaved and powdered, and again proceeded after my trunk. I knocked with confidence, was politely received by the same young gentleman, who evidently did not recall my features. I was ushered into the presence of the Governor. I stated to him where I had placed my trunk, and was apologizing for the liberty, when he interrupted me, remarking that the fearful crisis justified me. He continued "Sit down, sir will you take a glass of wine? My secretary informed me that a person called for the trunk an hour or two ago, but not liking his appearance he had declined delivering it." The Governor was much amused at understanding that I was the person who- had called. I record this incident to show the importance of external ap pearance to a man's success in the world, and more particularly, among strangers. TOM PAINE IN FRANCE. [From the Same.'] A BOUT this period, the notorious Tom Paine arrived at Nantes, in -fcJL the Alliance frigate, as Secretary of Colonel Laurens, Minister Ex traordinary from Congress, and took up his quarters at my boarding- place. He was coarse and uncouth in his manners, loathsome in his appearance, and a disgusting egotist ; rejoicing most in talking of him self, and reading the effusions of his own mind. Yet I could not repress the deepest emotions of gratitude towards him, as the instrument of Providence in accelerating the declaration of our Independence. He cer tainly was a prominent agent in preparing the public sentiment of America for that glorious event. The idea of Independence had not occu pied the popular mind, and when guardedly approached on the topic, it shrunk from the conception, as fraught with doubt, with peril, and with suffering. In 1776 I was present, at Providence, Ehode Island, in a social assem bly of most of the prominent leaders of the State. I recollect that the subject of independence was cautiously introduced by an ardent Whig, and the thought seemed to excite the abhorrence of the whole circle. A few weeks after, Paine's "Common Sense" appeared, and passed through the continent like an electric spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit, which resulted in the Dec laration of Independence, upon the 4th of July ensuing. The name -1820] ELKANAH WATSON. 155 of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded through out Europe. On his arrival being announced, the Major, and some of the most dis tinguished citizens of Nantes, called upon him to render their homage of respect. I often officiated as interpreter, although humbled and mortified at his filthy appearance, and awkward and unseemly address. Besides, as he had been roasted alive on his arrival at L'Orient, for the .... and well basted with brimstone, he was absolutely offensive, and per fumed the whole apartment. He was soon rid of his respectable visitors, who left the room with marks of astonishment and disgust. I took the liberty, on his asking for the loan of a clean shirt, of speaking to him frankly of his dirty appearance and brimstone odor, and prevailed upon him to stew for an hour, in a hot bath. This, however, was not done without much entreaty, and I did not succeed, until, receiving a file of English newspapers, I promised, after he was in the bath, he should have the reading of them, and not before. He at once consented, and accom panied me to the bath, where I instructed the keeper in French (which Paine did not understand) to gradually increase the heat of the water until " le Monsieur bta.it lien bouilli." He became so much absorbed in his reading that he was nearly parboiled before leaving the bath, much to his improvement and my satisfaction. PATIENCE WRIGHT AND DOCTOR FRANKLIN. [From the Same.] I CAME oddly in contact with the eccentric Mrs. Wright, on my arrival in Paris from Nantes. Giving orders from the balcony of the Hotel d'York, to my English servant, I was assailed by a powerful female voice, crying out from an upper story, "Who are you? An American, I hope!" "Yes, Madam," I replied, "and who are you?" In two minutes she came blustering down stairs, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance. We were soon on the most excellent terms. I dis covered that she was in the habit of daily intercourse with Franklin, and was visited and caressed by all the respectable Americans in Paris. She was a native of New Jersey, and by profession a moulder of wax figures. The wild flights of her powerful mind stamped originality on all her acts- and language. She was a tall and athletic figure; walked with a firm, bold step, and erect as an Indian. Her complexion was somewhat sallow her cheek-bones high her face furrowed, and her olive eyes keen, ELKANAH WATSON. [1788- piercing, and expressive. Her sharp glance was appalling ; it had almost the wildness of the maniac. The vigor and originality of her conversation corresponded with her manners and appearance. She would utter language in her incessant volubility, as if unconscious to whom directed, that would put her hear ers to the blush. She apparently possessed the utmost simplicity of heart and character. With the head of wax upon her lap, she would mould the most accu rate likenesses, by the mere force of a retentive recollection of the traits and lines of the countenance ; she would form her likenesses by the manipulation of the wax with her thumb and finger. Whilst thus en gaged, her strong mind poured forth an uninterrupted torrent of wild thought, and anecdotes and reminiscences of men and events. She went to London about the year 1767, near the period of Franklin's appearance there as the agent of Pennsylvania. The peculiarity of her character, and the excellence of her wax figures, made her rooms in Pall Mall a fashionable lounging- place for the nobility and distinguished men of England. Here her deep penetration and sagacity, cloaked by her ap parent simplicity of purpose, enabled her to gather many facts and secrets important to " dear America " her uniform expression in refer ring to her native land, which she dearly loved. She was a genuine Eepublican and ardent Whig. The King and Queen often visited her rooms ; they would induce her to work upon her heads, regardless of their presence. She would often, as if forgetting herself, address them as George and Charlotte. This fact she often men tioned to me herself. Whilst in England, she communicated much im portant information to Franklin, and remained in London until '75 or '76, engaged in that kind of intercourse with him and the American gov ernment, by which she was placed in positions of extreme hazard. I saw her frequently in Paris, in '81, and in various parts of England, from '82 to '84. Her letters followed me in my travels through Europe. I had assisted her at Paris ; had extended aid to her son at Nantes, and given him a free passage in one of our ships to America. Her gratitude was unbounded. This son was a painter and artist of some eminence, and in 1784 took a model of Washington's head, in plaster. I heard from Washington himself an amusing anecdote connected with this bust. In January, 1785, I enjoyed the inestimable privilege of a visit under his roof, in the absence of all visitors. Among the many interesting subjects which engaged our conversation in a long winter evening (the most valuable of my life), in which his dignified lady and Miss Custis united, he amused us by relating the incident of the taking this model. "Wright came to Mount Yernon," the General remarked, "with the singular request, that I should permit him to take a model of my face in -1820] ELKANAH WATSON- plaster of Paris, to which I consented with some reluctance. He oiled my features over, and placing me flat upon my back, upon a cot, pro ceeded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst in this ludicrous atti tude, Mrs. Washington entered the room, and seeing my face thus over spread with the plaster, involuntarily exclaimed. Her cry excited in me a disposition to smile, which gave my mouth a slight twist, or compres sion of the lips, that is now observable in the busts Wright afterwards made." These are nearly the words of Washington. Some time after my acquaintance with Mrs. Wright commenced, she informed me that an eminent female chemist of Paris had written her a note, that she would make her a visit at twelve o'clock the next day, and announced also, that she could not speak English. Mrs. Wright desired me to act as interpreter. At the appointed hour, the thundering of a carriage in the court-yard announced the arrival of the French lady. She entered with much grace, in which Mrs. W. was no match for her. She was old, with a sharp nose with broad patches of vermilion spread over the deep furrows of her cheeks. I was placed in a chair between the two originals. Their tongues flew with velocity, the one in English and the other in French, and neither understanding a word the other uttered. I saw no possibility of interpreting two such volleys of words, and at length abruptly commanded silence for a moment. I asked each "Do you understand?" "Not a word," said Mrs. Wright. " N'importe" replied the chemist, bounding from her chair, in the midst of the floor, and dropping a low courtesy was off. "What an old painted fool," said Mrs. W., in anger. It was evident that this visit was not intended for an interchange of sentiment, but a mere act of civility a call. I employed Mrs. W. to make the head of Franklin, which was often the source of much amusement to me. After it was completed, both being invited to dine with Franklin, I conveyed her to Passy in my carriage, she bearing the head upon her lap. No sooner in presence of the Doctor, than she had placed one head by the side of the other. "There!" she exclaimed, " are twin brothers." The likeness was truly admirable, and at the suggestion of Mrs. Wright, to give it more effect, Franklin sent me a suit of silk clothes he wore in 1778. Many years afterwards, the head was broken in Albany, and the clothes I presented to the "His torical Society of Massachusetts." An adventure occurred to Mrs. Wright in connection with this head, ludicrous in the highest degree, and although almost incredible, is literally true. After the head had been modelled, she walked out to Passy, carry ing it in a napkin, in order to compare it with the original. In returning in the evening she was stopped at the barrier, in course to be searched for contraband goods ; but as her mind was as free as her native American 158 ELKANAH WATSON. [1788- air, she knew no restraint, nor the reason why she was detained. She resisted the attempt to examine her bundle, and broke out in the rage of a fur j. The officers were amazed, as no explanation, in the absence of an interpreter, could take place. She was compelled, however, to yield to power. The bundle was opened, and to the astonishment of the officials, exhibited the head of a dead man, as appeared to them in the obscurity of the night. They closed the bundle without further examination, be lieving, as they afterwards assured me, that she was an escaped maniac, who had committed murder, and was about concealing the head of her victim. They were determined to convey her to the police station, when she made them comprehend her entreaties to be taken to the Hotel d'York. I was in my room, and hearing in the passage a great uproar, and Mrs. Ws. voice pitched upon a higher key than usual, I rushed out, and found her in a terrible rage, her fine eye flashing. I thrust myself between her ;and the officers, exclaiming, " Ah mon Dieu, qu'est ce qdil-y-a?" An ex planation ensued. All except Mrs. W. were highly amused at the singu larity and absurdity of the affair. The head and clothes I transmitted to Nantes, they were the instru ments of many frolics, not inappropriate to my youth, but perhaps it is hardly safe to advert to them in my age. A few I will venture to relate. On my arrival at Nantes, I caused the head to be properly adjusted to the dress, which was arranged in a natural shape and dimensions. I had the figure placed in the corner of a large room, near a closet, and behind a table. Before him I laid an open atlas, his arm resting upon the table, and mathematical instruments strewn upon it. A handkerchief was thrown over the arm stumps, wires were extended to the closet, by which means the body could be elevated or depressed, and placed in various positions. Thus arranged, some ladies and gentlemen were invited to pay their respects to Dr. Franklin, by candle-light. For a moment, they were completely deceived, and all profoundly bowed and courtesied, which was reciprocated by the figure. Not a word being uttered, the trick was soon revealed. A report soon circulated that Doctor Franklin was at Monsieur Wat son's, "sur TIsle de Frydeau" At eleven o'clock the next morning, the Mayor of Nantes came in full dress, to call on the renowned philosopher. Cossoul, my worthy partner, being acquainted with the Mayor, favored the joke, for a moment after their mutual salutations. Others came in, and all were disposed to gull their friends in the same manner. The most amusing of all the incidents connected with this head, occur red in London, where I had sent it after the peace of '83, when I had established a bachelor's hall in that city. I placed the figure in full dress, with the head leaning out of the window, apparently gazing up and down -1820] ELK AN AH WATSON. the square. He had formerly been well known in that part of the city, and was at once recognized. Observing a collection of people gathering at another window, looking at him, I ordered him down. The morning papers announced the arrival of Doctor Franklin at an American merchant's in Beliter Square, and I found it necessary to con tradict the report. In the interval, three Boston gentlemen, who were in the city, expressed a wish to pay their respects to the Doctor. I desired them to call in the evening, and bring their letters of introduction, which they had informed me they bore, expecting to see him at Paris. I con certed measures with a friend, to carry the harmless deception to the utmost extent on this occasion. Before entering, I apprised them that he was deeply engaged in examining maps and papers, and begged they would not be disturbed at any apparent inattention. Thus prepared, I con ducted them into a spacious room. Franklin was seated at the extremity, with his atlas, etc., etc., and my friend at the wires. I advanced in suc cession with each, half across the room, and introduced them by name. Franklin raised his head, bowed, and resumed his attention to the atlas. I then retired, and seated them at the further side of the room. They spoke to me in whispers : " What a venerable figure," exclaims one. "Why don't he speak," says another. "He is doubtless in a reverie," I remarked, " and has forgotten the presence of his company ; his great age must be his apology. Get your letters, and go up again with me to him." When near the table, I said, "Mr. B , Sir, from Boston." The head raised up. "A letter," says B , "from Doctor Cooper." I could go no further. The scene was too ludicrous. As B. held out the letter, I struck the figure smartly, exclaiming, " Why don't you receive the letter like a gentleman? " They were all petrified with astonishment, but B. never forgave me the joke. * Soon after my return to Paris, I dined and spent the evening with the immortal Franklin. Arriving at an early hour, I discovered the philoso pher in a distant room, reading, in the exact posture in which he is repre sented by an admirable engraving from his portrait, his left arm resting upon the table, and his chin supported by the thumb of his right hand. The mingling in the. most refined and exalted society of both hemispheres had communicated to his manners a blandness and urbanity, well sus tained by his native grace and elegance of deportment. His venerable locks waving over his shoulders, and the dignity of his personal appear ance, commanded reverence and respect; and yet his manners were so pleasant and fascinating that one felt at ease and unrestrained in his presence. He inquired if I knew that he was a musician, and conducted me across the room to an instrument of his own invention, which he called the Harmonica. The music was produced by a peculiar combina tion of hemispherical glasses. At my solicitation he played upon it, and 160 SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON. [1788- performed some Scotch pastorales with great effect. The exhibition was truly striking and interesting ; to thus contemplate an eminent states^ man, in his seventy-sixth year, and the most distinguished philosopher of the age, performing a simple pastorale on an instrument of his own construction. The interest was not diminished by the fact, that this philosopher, who was guiding the intellects of thousands; that this statesman, an object of veneration in the metropolis of Europe, and who was influencing the destiny of nations, had been an untutored printer's boy in America. BORN in Braintree, Mass., 1759. DIED at Quincy, Mass., 1846. TO AARON BURR, UNDER TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON. [My Mind and its Thoughts. 1823.] r I ^HOU wonder of the Atlantic shore, -*- Whose deeds a million hearts appall ; Thy fate shall pity's eye deplore, Or vengeance for thy ruin call. Thou man of soul ! whose feeble form Seems as a leaf the gales defy, Though scattered in sedition's storm, Yet borne by glorious hope on high. Such did the youthful Ammon seem, And such does Europe's scourge appear, As, of the sun, a vertic beam, The brightest in the golden year. Nature, who many a gift bestowed, The strong herculean limbs denied, But gave a mind, where genius glowed, A soul, to valor's self allied. Ambition, as her curse was seen, Thy every blessing to annoy; To blight thy laurels' tender green; The banner of thy fame destroy. Ambition, by the bard denned The fault of godlike hearts alone, Like fortune in her frenzy, blind, Here gives a prison, there a throne. -1820] HANNAH WEBSTER FOSTER. anebgtcr f ojstejt, BORN about 1759. Daughter of Grant Webster, of Boston, Mass. DIED in Montreal, Canada, 1840. A PROPOSAL OF THE LAST CENTURY. ' . [The Coquette, or The History of Eliza Wharton. 1797.] HHHIS was the day fixed for deciding Mr. Boyer's cause. My friends -*- here gave me a long dissertation on his merits. Your letter, like wise, had its weight ; and I was candidly summing up the pros and cons in the garden, whither I had walked (General Kichman and lady having rode out), when I was informed that he was waiting in the parlor. I went immediately in (a good symptom, you will say), and received him very graciously. After the first compliments were over, he seemed eager to improve the opportunity to enter directly on the subject of his present visit. It is needless for me to recite to you, who have long been ac quainted with the whole process of courtship, the declarations, proposi tions, protestations, entreaties, looks, words, and actions of a lover. They are, I believe, much the same in the whole sex, allowing for their differ ent dispositions, educations, and characters ; but you are impatient, I know, for the conclusion. You have hastily perused the preceding lines, and are straining your eye forward to my part of the farce ; for such it may prove, after all. Well, then, not to play too long with the curiosity which I know to be excited and actuated by real friendship, I will relieve it. I think you would have been pleased to have seen my gravity on this important occasion. With all the candor and frankness which I was capable of assuming, I thus answered his long harangue, to which I had listened without interrupting him : " Self-knowledge, sir, that most important of all sciences, I have yet to learn. Such have been my situa tions in life, and the natural volatility of my temper, that I have looked but little into my own heart in regard to its future wishes and views. From a scene of constraint and confinement, ill-suited to my years and inclina tion, I have just launched into society. My heart beats high in expecta tion of its fancied joys. My sanguine imagination paints, in alluring colors, the charms of youth and freedom, regulated by virtue and inno cence. Of these I wish to partake. While I own myself under obliga tions for the ecteem which you are pleased to profess for me, and, in return, acknowledge that neither your person nor manners are disagree able to me, I recoil at the thought of immediately forming a connection which must confine me to the duties of domestic life, and make me dependent for happiness, perhaps, too, for subsistence, upon a class of peo- VOL. iv. 11 162 MATHEW CARET. [1788- ple who will claim the right of scrutinizing every part of my conduct, and, by censuring those foibles which I am conscious of not having pru dence to avoid, may render me completely miserable. While, therefore, I receive your visits, and cultivate towards you sentiments of friendship and esteem, I would not have you consider me as confined to your society, or obligated to a future connection. Our short acquaintance renders it impossible for me to decide what the operations of my mind may hereafter be. You must either quit the subject, or leave me to the exercise of my free will, which, perhaps, may coincide with your present wishes." "Madam," said he, "far is the wish from me to restrain your person or mind. In your breast I will repose my cause. It shall be my study to merit a return of affection ; and I doubt not but generosity and honor will influence your conduct towards me. I expect soon to settle among a generous and enlightened people, where I flatter myself I shall be exempt from those difficulties and embarrassments to which too many of my brethren are subject. The local situation is agreeable, the society refined and polished ; and if, in addition, I may obtain that felicity which you are formed to bestow in a family connection, I shall be happy indeed." He spoke with emphasis. The tear of sensibility sparkled in his eye. I involuntarily gave him my hand, which he pressed with ardor to his lips ; then, rising, he walked to the window to conceal his emotion. I rang the bell and ordered tea, during andjafter which we shared that social converse which is the true zest of life, and in which I am per suaded none but virtuous minds can participate. jttat^eto Carey* BORN in Dublin, Ireland, 1760. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1839. THE YELLOW FEVER IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1793. [Miscellaneous Essays. 1830. ] THE consternation of the people of Philadelphia, at this period, was carried beyond all bounds. Dismay and affright were visible in almost every person's countenance. Most of those who could, by any means, make it convenient, fled from the city. Of those who remained, many shut themselves up in their houses, being afraid to walk the streets. The smoke of tobacco being regarded as a preventive, many persons, even women and small boys, had cigars almost constantly in their mouths. -1820] MATHEW CAREY. 163 Others, placing full confidence in garlic, chewed it almost the whole day ; some kept it in their pockets and shoes. Many were afraid to allow the barbers or hair-dressers to come near them, as instances had occurred of some of them having shaved the dead, and many having engaged as bleeders. Some, who carried their caution pretty far, bought lancets for themselves, not daring to allow themselves to be bled with the lancets of the bleeders. Many houses were scarcely a moment in the day free from the smell of gunpowder, burned tobacco, nitre, sprinkled vinegar, etc. Some of the churches were almost deserted, and others wholly closed. The coffee-house was shut up, as was the city library, and most of the public offices three, out of the four, daily papers were discontinued, as were some of the others. Many devoted no small portion of their time to purifying, scouring, and whitewashing their rooms. Those who vent ured abroad, had handkerchiefs or sponges, impregnated with vinegar or camphor, at their noses, or smelling-bottles full of thieves' vinegar. Others carried pieces of tarred rope in their hands or pockets, or camphor bags tied round their necks. The corpses of the most respectable citizens, even of those who had not died of the epidemic, were carried to the grave on the shafts of a chair, the horse driven by a negro, unattended by a friend or relation, and without any sort of ceremony. People uni formly and hastily shifted their course at the sight of a hearse coming towards them. Many never walked on the foot-path, but went into the middle of the streets, to avoid being infected in passing houses wherein people had died. Acquaintances and friends avoided each other in the streets, and only signified their regard by a cold nod. The old custom of shaking hands fell into such general disuse, that many shrunk back with affright at even the offer of the hand. A person with a crape, or any appearance of mourning, was shunned like a viper. And many valued themselves highly on the skill and address with which they got to wind ward of every person whom they met. Indeed it is not probable that London, at the last stage of the plague, exhibited stronger marks of terror, than were to be seen in Philadelphia, from the 25th or 26th of August till late in September. When the citizens summoned resolution to walk abroad, and take the air, the sick cart conveying patients to the hospital, or the hearse carrying the dead to the grave, which were travel^ ling almost the whole day, soon damped their spirits, and plunged them again into despondency. While affairs were in this deplorable state, and people at the lowest ebb of despair, we cannot be astonished at the frightful scenes that were acted, which seemed to indicate a total dissolution of the bonds of society in the nearest and dearest connections. Who, without horror, can reflect on a husband, married perhaps for twenty years, deserting his wife in the last agony a wife, unfeelingly, abandoning her husband on his death- 164 MATHEW CAREY. [1788- bed parents forsaking their children children ungratefully flying from their parents, and resigning them to chance, often without an inquiry after their health or safety masters hurrying off their faithful servants to Bushhill, even on suspicion of the fever, and that at a time, when, almost like Tartarus, it was open to every visitant, but rarely returned any servants abandoning tender and humane masters, who only wanted a little care to restore them to health and usefulness who, I say. can J i think of these things without horror? Yet they were often exhibited throughout our city; and such was the force of habit, that the parties who were guilty of this cruelty, felt no remorse themselves nor met with the censure from their fellow-citizens, which such conduct would have excited at any other period. Indeed, at this awful crisis, so much did self appear to engross the whole attention of many, that in some cases not more concern was felt for the loss of a parent, a husband, a wife, or an only child, than, on other occasions, would have been caused by the death of a faithful servant. This kind of conduct produced scenes of distress and misery, of which parallels are rarely to be met with, and which nothing could palliate, but Ihe extraordinary public panic, and the great law of self-preservation, the dominion of which extends over the whole animated world. Men of affluent fortunes, who have given daily employment and sustenance to hundreds, have been abandoned to the care of a negro, after their wives, children, friends, clerks, and servants, had fled away, and left them to their fate. In some cases, at the commencement of the disorder, no money could procure proper attendance. With the poor, the case was, as might be expected, infinitely worse than with the rich. Many of these have perished, without a human being to hand them a drink of water, to administer medicines, or to perform any charitable office for them. Various instances have occurred, of dead bodies found lying in the streets, of persons who had no house or habitation, and could pro cure no shelter. A man and his wife, once in affluent circumstances, were found lying dead in bed, and between them was their child, a little infant, who was sucking its mother's breast. How long they had lain thus, was uncertain. A woman, whose husband had just died of the fever, was seized with the pains of parturition, and had nobody to assist her, as the women in the neighborhood were afraid to go into the house. She lay, for a con siderable time, in a degree of anguish that will not bear description. At length, she struggled to reach the windows, and cried out for assistance. Two men, passing by, went up stairs ; but they came at too late a stage. She was striving with death and actually, in a few minutes, expired in their arms. -1820] MATHEW CARET. Anotlier woman, whose husband and two children lay dead in the room with her, was in the same situation as the former, without a mid wife, or any other person to aid her. Her cries at the window brought up one of the carters employed by the committee for the relief of the sick. With his assistance she was delivered of a child, which died in a few minutes, as did the mother, who was utterly exhausted by her labor, by the disorder, and by the dreadful spectacle before her. And thus lay, in one room, no less than five dead bodies, an entire family, carried off within a few hours. Instances have occurred, of respectable women, who, in their lying-in, have been obliged to depend on their maid servants for assistance and some have had none but from their hus bands. Some of the midwives were dead and others had left the city. A servant-girl, belonging to a family in this city, in which the fever had prevailed, was apprehensive of danger, and resolved to remove to a relation's house, in the country. She was, however, taken sick on the road, and returned to town, where she could find no person to receive her. One of the guardians of the poor provided a cart, and took her to the Almshouse, into which she was refused admittance. She was brought back, but the guardian could not procure her a single night's lodging. And in fine, after every effort made to provide her shelter, she absolutely expired in the cart. This occurrence took place before Bush- hill hospital was opened. A drunken sailor lay in the street, in the Northern Liberties, for a few hours asleep, and was supposed by the neighbors to be dead with the disorder ; but they were too much afraid to make personal examination. They sent to the committee at the city hall for a cart and coffin. The carter took the man by the heels, and was going to put him into the coffin. Handling him roughly he awoke, and damning his eyes, asked him what he was about? The carter let him drop in a fright, and ran off as if a ghost was at his heels. A lunatic, who had the malignant fever, was advised by his neighbors to go to Bushhill. He consented, and got into the cart ; but soon changing his mind, he slipped out at the end, unknown to the carter, who, after a while, missing him, and seeing him at a distance running away, turned his horse about, and trotted hard after him. The other doubled his pace ; and the carter whipped his horse to a gallop; but the man turned a corner, and hid himself in a house, leaving the mortified carter to return, and deliver an account of his ludicrous adventure. Several instances have occurred of the carters on their arrival at Bush- hill, and proceeding to deliver up their charge, finding, to their amaze ment, the carts empty. A woman, whose husband died, refused to have him buried in a coffin provided for her by one of her friends, as too paltry and mean. She MATHEW CARET. [1788^ bought an elegant and costly one and had the other laid by in the yard. In a week she was herself a corpse and was buried in the very coffin she had so much despised. The wife of a man who lived in Walnut Street was seized with the malignant fever, and given over by the doctors. The husband abandoned her, and next night lay out of the house for fear of catching the infec tion. In the morning, taking it for granted, from the very low state she had been in, that she was dead, he purchased a coffin for her; but, on entering the house, was surprised to see her much recovered. He fell sick shortly after, died, and was buried in the very coffin, which he had so precipitately bought for his wife, who is still living. A CASE IN CONGRESS IN 1818. [The New Olive Branch. 1820.] TWO, three, and sometimes four months are drawled away in the early part of the session with three, four, six, eight, ten or twelve ac ts and afterwards all the business is hurried through with indecent haste. In the one portion of the time, the progress resembles that of the snail or the sloth in the other, that of the high-mettled racer. In fact and in truth, if Congress desired to bring republican government into disgrace, to render it a by- word and a reproach, it would not be very easy to devise a plan more admirably calculated for the purpose than a considerable part of their proceedings The case of General Stark deserves to be put on record, to corroborate some of the opinions offered in this chapter. On the 6th of March, 1818, a petition was presented by this old vet eran, representing his necessitous circumstances, and praying that the bounty of the national government might be extended to him, in the decline of life, in compensation of his faithful services in defence of his country. It was referred to a committee, who reported a bill on the 9th. which was read the first and second time on that day. It then lay over untouched for above five weeks, till Saturday the ~L8th of April, when it was passed and sent to the senate, where it was read and referred to the com mittee on pensions, who reported it on that day without amendments. It was read the third time on Monday the 20th, in committee of the whole, and agreed to with amendments. It being against a rule of the senate to pass a bill under those circumstances, on the same day, Mr. Fromentin moved that the rule be dispensed with. But this motion was unfeelingly rejected. And as the session was closed that day, the bill of -1820] EICHAED AL80P. course was lost ; and the venerable old hero, about ninety years of age, and bending over the grave, was disappointed at that time of receiving the pittance intended for him. The importance of his victory at Ben- nington, which led to those all-important events, the battle of Saratoga and the capture of General Burgoyne, which stand conspicuous among the proudest triumphs of the revolutionary war, is so deeply impressed on the public mind, that every good man in the nation felt deep regret at this very ill-timed and ungracious punctilio. The compensation bill, which was to render members of congress salary officers at the rate of 1500 dollars per annum, passed by a former congress, forms a proper contrast to the bill in favor of General Stark. It was read the first and second time in the house of represen tatives . . -w . . . . . . . March 6th, 1815. Read a third time and passed "" 9th Bead first time in senate \ llth Second time 12th Third time and passed < - . 14th Laid before the president 18th Approved same day. What wonderful economy of time ! Thus a bill for their own benefit which introduced a novel principle into the country, in twelve days passed through all its stages from its inception to the presidential approbation 1 1 BORN in Middletown, Conn., 1761. DIED at Flatbush, N. Y., 1815. TO THE SHADE OF WASHINGTON. [From "A Poem; Sacred to the Memory of George Washington, Late President," etc. 1800.] XALTED Chief in thy superior mind What vast resource, what various talents joined 1 Tempered with social virtue's milder rays, There patriot worth diffused a purer blaze : Formed to command respect, esteem inspire, Midst statesmen grave, or midst the social choir, With equal skill the sword or pen to wield, In council great, unequalled in the field, Mid glittering courts or rural walks to please, Polite with grandeur, dignified with ease ; 168 MICHARD AL80P. [1788- Before the splendors of thy high renown How fade the glowworm lustres of a crown, How sink diminished in that radiance lost The glare of conquest, and of power the boast. Let Greece her Alexander's deeds proclaim, Or Caesar's triumphs gild the Roman name, Stripped of the dazzling glare around them cast, Shrinks at their crimes humanity aghast; With equal claim to honor's glorious meed See Attila his course of havoc lead ! O'er Asia's realms, in one vast ruin hurled, See furious Zingis' bloody flag unfurled. On base far different from the conqueror's claim Rests the unsullied column of thy fame; His on the woes of millions proudly based, With blood cemented and with tears defaced ; Thine on a nation's welfare fixed sublime, By freedom strengthened and revered by time. He, as the Comet, whose portentous light Spreads baleful splendor o'er the glooms of night, With chill amazement fills the startled breast, While storms and earthquakes dire its course attest, And nature trembles, lest, in chaos hurled, Should sink the tottering fabric of the world. Thou, like the Sun, whose kind propitious ray Opes the glad morn and lights the fields of day, Dispels the wintry storm, the chilling rain, With rich abundance clothes the smiling plain, Gives all creation to rejoice around, And life and light extends o'er nature's utmost bound. Though shone thy life a model bright of praise, Not less the example bright thy death portrays. When, plunged in deepest woe, around thy bed, Each eye was fixed, despairing sunk each head, While nature struggled with severest pain, And scarce could life's last lingering powers retain: In that dread moment, awfully serene, No trace of suffering marked thy placid mien, No groan, no murmuring plaint, escaped thy tongue, No lowering shadows on thy brow were hung; But calm in Christian hope, undamped with fear, Thou sawest the high reward of virtue near, On that bright meed in surest trust reposed, As thy firm hand thine eyes expiring closed, Pleased, to the will of heaven resigned thy breath, And smiled as nature's struggles closed in death. -1820] ALBERT GALLATIN. Albert (Eallatitt, BORN in Geneva, Switzerland, 1761. DIED at Astoria, N. Y., 1849. THE DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES. [A Sketch of the Finances of the United States. 17QQ,The Writings of Albert Gattatin. 1879.] IF the public debt is not an additional national capital, no other disad vantage can result from its extinction except the increase of taxes necessary for that purpose, and the annual loss which will be suffered by replacing to Europe the capital borrowed there, either under the denom ination of foreign debt or by the sales of domestic debt. So far as the taxes necessary for that purpose will check consumption, the capital to be thus repaid abroad will be supplied by economy, and its payment will in no shape whatever impoverish the country. So far as those taxes will fall, not on that portion of the annual revenue which would have been consumed, but on that part which would have been saved and have become an addition to the permanent wealth of the nation, so far the progress of the country will, in a certain degree, be checked by the with drawing and paying the capital due to Europe. To do this too suddenly would certainly be injurious to the community. But any evil that may arise from a gradual extinction of the debt, from a gradual repayment of the capital borrowed in Europe, will be more than counterbalanced by the natural progress of America, will free us from the payment of interest upon that capital, and will, at the same time, strengthen the bonds of our Union and give additional vigor and respectability to the nation. It may have been supposed by some that the debt, by rendering the creditors dependent on government, gave it an additional stability. But it should be recollected that although an artificial interest is thereby created, which may at times give an useful support, it may at some future period lend its assistance to bad measures and to a bad adminis tration. So far as that interest is artificial, so far as it is distinct from the general interest, it may perhaps act against that general interest and become as pernicious as it is supposed to have been useful. At all events, who can doubt that the jealousies, the apprehensions, the discon tents excited by the public debt have been more injurious to our domestic peace, have gone farther to weaken our real union, than any other inter nal cause ? It is a lamentable truth that the Americans, although bound together by a stronger Government, are less united in sentiment than they were eight years ago. Every source of discontent, every permanent 170 ALBERT GALLATIN. [1788- cause of taxation which can be removed, adds to the strength of the Union and to the stability of its government. But, in regard to our strength and consequent respectability and inde pendence in relation to other nations, as speedy an extinction of the debt as circumstances will admit becomes indispensable. As there is not the smallest probability that we ever shall be involved in any war except in self-defence, and as the exhausted situation of all the European nations seems to warrant, at the conclusion of the present war, a contin uance of peace for at least ten or twelve years, we should by all means improve that period to discharge the heaviest part of our debt. It requires no argument to prove, it is a self-evident truth, that, in a politi cal point of view at least, every nation is enfeebled by a public debt. Spain, once the first power of Europe, Spain, with her extensive and rich possessions, Holland, nothwith standing her immense commerce, still feel the effects of the debts they began to contract two centuries ago, and their present political weakness stands as a monument of the unavoidable consequences of that fatal system. Yet what are those instances when compared with that of France, where the public debt, although once discharged by the assistance of a national bankruptcy, has at last overwhelmed government itself ! The debt of Great Britain, which began at a later period than that of any of those three nations, has not yet produced such visible effects. The unexampled prosperity of that country has heretofore been sufficient to support its strength and to increase its wealth, notwithstanding the weight of that burden. Yet the revenue now necessary to discharge the interest annually payable on that debt and to support the peace establishment of that nation, that is to say, the annual revenue now raised by taxes in Great Britain, would, if unencumbered, discharge the yearly expenses even of the war in which she is now engaged. The sum necessarv to pay the annuity and interest on the debt of the */ -L */ / United States constitutes more than two-thirds of their yearly expend iture ; and it is presumable that we would not be much exposed to the wanton attacks, depredations, or insults of any nation was it not known that our revenue and resources are palsied by an annual defalcation of five millions of dollars. It does not seem that any possible object of expense, without even excepting the creation of a navy, can be so emi nently useful in adding to our external security and respectability as that which, by paying the principal of our debt, will give us the command of an unimpaired revenue, and enable us to dispose, if necessary, of all our resources. A circumstance which seems to render this still more requisite in America, is the difficulty for the United States of raising moneys by loans, except in time of profound peace. It is well known that the great -1820] ALBERT GALLATIN. demand for capital in America, the usual high market-rate for interest, the peculiar circumstances of the country, render it nearly impossible to borrow any large sums at home ; and experience has lately proved that the circumstance of an European war, even though we ourselves were not engaged, was sufficient to prevent us from any further loan in Europe. Hence it results that as we cannot in case of any emergency put much reliance on that resource, we should during our state of peace and pros perity hasten to disencumber our domestic resources. We have, indeed, severely felt the obligation of repaying during the present European war the anticipation at home and the instalments of the foreign debt abroad. We have thereby been compelled to borrow on the most disadvantageous terms, to contract the obligation of paying an interest of at least six per cent, for 24 years, and to remit to Europe stock purchased at par, and which will probably sell there under its nominal value. These considerations, supported, it is believed, by the general opinion of the people of America, forcibly point out the necessity of an imme diate recourse to our domestic resources, of an immediate increase of revenua It has already been shown that our present receipts are hardly adequate to our present expenditure ; in fact, that we have heretofore made only a nominal provision for paying the principal of any part of our debt. For although (supposing the present receipts to be equal to the present rate of expenditure) it may be said that we have provided for the yearly payment of 2 per cent, on the principal of our six per cent, debt bearing a present interest, yet we have not made any provision whatever for the payment of the annuity payable after the year 1800 on the deferred stock. Indeed, the interest (exclusively of the additional 2 per cent.) payable on this stock exceeds the yearly payment of 2 per cent, upon the 6 per cent, stock ; and the fact is that our present revenue is not even sufficient to pay after the year 1800 the interest on our debt. Our faith is now pledged to pay from after that year an annuity of 8 per cent, upon both stocks ; and whatever difference of opinion may exist upon the extinguishment of other parts of the debt it is necessary to increase our revenue from after that year by a sum suffi cient to discharge that annuity, which has already been stated at about 1,100,000 dollars. 172 ALBERT GALLATIN. [1788- THE CURRENCY AND BANKING SYSTEM. [Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States. 1831. From the Same.] TTTE do not wish, by the preceding observations, to be understood as * V objecting generally to the extension of the banking system to the country, but only to the indiscriminate establishment of banks without regard to the actual wants and means of the districts which may apply for that purpose. There is a general spirit of enterprise in the United States, to which they are greatly indebted for their rapid growth, and it is difficult to ascertain in all cases to what extent it should be encour aged and when it ought to be checked. The remarks apply particularly to the newly-settled parts of the country, which present a state of things different from that found in any other part of the civilized world, and to which, therefore, even the most generally admitted principles of political economy will not always apply. Amongst the first emigrants there are but few possessed of much capital, and these, generally employing it in the purchase of land, are soon left with out any active resources. The great mass bring nothing with them but their industry and a small stock of cattle and horses. A considerable portion of the annual labor is employed in clearing, enclosing l and preparing the land for cultivation. Those difficulties and all the privations incident to their new situation are encountered with unparalleled spirit and persever ance. Within a very short time our numerous new settlements, which in a few years have extended from the Mohawk to the great western lakes, and from the Alleghany to the Mississippi and beyond it, afford the spectacle of a large population with the knowledge, the intelligence and the habits which belong to civilized life, amply supplied with the means of subsistence, but without any other active capital but agricult ural products, for which, in many instances, they have no market. It is in this last respect that their situation essentially differs from that of any other country as far advanced in civilization. We might even add that there is, in several ancient settlements of the United States, a less amount of active capital than in the interior parts of many European countries. The national industry, out of the seaports, has, at least till very lately, been exclusively applied to agriculture, and circulating capi tal will rarely be created out of commercial cities without the assistance of manufactures. With the greatest abundance of provisions, it is impossible for a new country to purchase what it does not produce unless it has a market for its own products. Specie is a foreign product, and, though one of the most necessary, is not yet always that which is most imperatively -1820] ALBERT GALLATIN. required We may aver from our own knowledge that the western counties of Pennsylvania had not, during more than twenty years after their first settlement, the specie necessary for their own internal trade and usual Jransactions. The want of communications and the great bulk of their usual products reduced their exports to a most inconsiderable amount. The two indispensable articles of iron and salt, and a few others almost equally necessary, consumed all their resources. The principle, almost universally true, that each country will be naturally supplied with the precious metals according to its wants, did not apply to their situa tion. Household manufactures supplied the inhabitants with their ordinary clothing, and the internal trade and exchanges were almost exclusively carried on by barter. This effectually checked any advance even in the most necessary manufactures. Every species of business required the utmost caution, as any failure in the performance of engage ments in the way of barter became, under the general law of the land, an obligation to pay money, and might involve the party in complete ruin. Under those circumstances even a paper currency, kept within proper bounds, might have proved useful. We know the great diffi culties which were encountered by those who first attempted to establish the most necessary manufactures, and that they would have been essentially relieved and some of them saved from ruin by moderate bank loans. Yet there were instances where those difficulties were overcome, and the most successful manufactures of iron and glass were established and prospered prior to the establishment of any bank ; but the general progress of the country was extremely slow, and might have been hastened by such institutions soberly administered. It is obvious that in this and other similar cases where there is an actual want of capital, this should, in order to insure success, be obtained from the more wealthy parts of the country, either by subscriptions to local banks or by the establishment of branches of the city banks. TABITHA TENNET. [1788- Cabit^a BORN in Exeter, N. H., 1762. DIED there, 1837. DOftA QUIXOTA. [Female Quixotism : Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon. 1808.] The conceited Barber has been persuaded, by a wag, that the lady has fallen in love with him at church. EDS. MONDAY being come, the barber, arrayed in his Sunday clothes, with his hair as white as powder could make it, set out, at four o'clock, for the arbor, which had been pointed out to him by Philander ; who, previous to this time, judging that Puff would arrive at an early hour, had taken possession of a thick tree, to enjoy, unobserved, the coming scene. The barber found the hour of waiting very tedious. He sang, he whistled, and listened attentively to every passing noise ; when, at length, his ears were saluted by the sound of female voices, which were no other than those of Dorcasina and her attendant. "Betty," said the former, " you may seat yourself with your knitting work, without the arbor, and at a small distance from it ; for it would not be treating the young man with delicacy, to admit a third person to witness his passion." Betty did as she was desired; and the little barber no sooner discov ered Dorcasina approaching the arbor, than, stepping forward and taking her hand, he addressed her with the utmost familiarity: "Gad, my dear, I began to be very impatient, and was afraid you had changed your mind ; but I am very glad to see you at last ! Pray, my dsar, be seated." This familiar address, so different from what Dorcasina had been led to expect, and from what she had been accustomed to from O'Connor, so totally disconcerted her, that she was unable to answer a single word. She, however, did mechanically as she was desired, and seated herself upon the turf in silence. The barber placed himself by her, and still holding the hand which she had not attempted to withdraw, pitied her for what he thought her country timidity, and kindly endeavored to en courage her. " I suppose, my dear, you feel a little bashful or so ! but don't be afraid to confess your love. Be assured you will meet with a suitable return; and that I shall be ever grateful and kind for being thus distinguished." Dorcasina, still more confounded by this strange speech, and wholly unable to comprehend its meaning, continued silent. The barber, after waiting some moments in vain for a reply, again began : "Why, gad, my dear! if you don't intend to speak, you might as well -1820J TABITHA TENNEY. have stayed at home. Pray, now, afford me a little of your sweet con versation, if it is but just to say how much you love me." Here Dorcasina could contain herself no longer. " I had thought, sir," said she, hesitating, " I had expected, from your professions, a quite dif ferent reception from this." "Did you, indeed? Gad, my dear, you are in the right." Upon this he threw his arms round her neck, and almost stifled her with kisses. The astonished Dorcasina endeavored to disen gage herself, but in vain ; for the enraptured barber continued his caresses, only at intervals exclaiming, " Gad, my dear, how happy we shall be when we are married. I shall love you infinitely, I am sure." Dorcasina, at length finding breath, in a loud and angry tone exclaimed, " Let me go this moment ; unhand me, sir. I will not endure to be thus treated." Betty, who had hitherto sat quietly knitting upon a stump, hearing the angry voice of her mistress, darted towards the arbor, and instantly recognized little Puff, who had been once or twice at the house (though unseen by Dorcasina) to dress Mr. Sheldon, and whom she had observed to be a pretty, spruce young fellow. Her indignation being raised at the treatment of her mistress, she sprung upon him before he was aware of it, and gave him, with her large heavy hand, a rousing box on the ear ; exclaiming, at the same time, in a tone of great contempt, "The little barber ! as I hope to live, ma'am." This unexpected blow had the desired effect. Puff, surprised in his turn, instantly released the mistress, and turning about to the maid, de sired to know what the d 1 she meant. Betty did not deign to answer him, but "stood collected in her might." Kecollecting with indignation the treatment she had so lately received in this very spot, of which she now supposed him to be the instigator, and incensed at his unpardonable insolence to her mistress, she now rejoiced in an opportunity of taking an ample revenge, in kind, for all the affronts they had both received. Eudely grasping him, therefore, under one arm (for though naturally mild, she was a virago when exasperated), " You pitiful little scoundrel," she cried, " what is it you mean by thus insulting Miss Sheldon ? You pretend for to inspire to love her, and decoy her here, on purpose to be impudent to her ; besides setting some impudent varlet in women's clothes to insult me, t'other night." Thus saying, she boxed his ears with great fury, till the terrified barber bawled to her to desist ; which she did not do till she was heartily tired. Meanwhile, the wicked scholar, perched .on the tree (determined if matters should come to extremity to descend and take the part of Puff), enjoyed the scene with the highest relish; being obliged to stuff the corner of his gown into his mouth, to prevent laughing aloud and spoil ing the sport. 176 SUSANNA ROWSON. [1788- BOBN iu Portsmouth, England, 1762. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1824. TO TIME. [Miscellaneous Poems. 1804.] OLD Time, thou'rt a sluggard ; how long dost thou stay ; Say, where are the wings witli which poets adorn thee? Sure, 'twas some happy being, who ne'er was away From the friend he most loved, and who wished to have shorn thee, First drew thee with pinions ; for had lie e'er known A long separation, so slow dost thou move, He'd have pictured thee lame, and with fetters bound down; So tedious is absence to friendship and love. I am sure thou'rt a cheat, for I often have woo'd thee To tarry, when blest with the friend of my heart : But you vanished with speed, though I eager pursued thee, Entreating thee not in such haste to depart. Then, wretch, thou wast deaf nor would'st hear niy petition, But borrowed the wings of a sparrow or dove ; And now, when I wish thee to take thy dismission Till those hours shall return, thou refusest to move. THE DEATH OF CHARLOTTE TEMPLE. [Charlotte Temple; or, A Tale of Truth. 1790.] WHEN" Mrs. Beauchamp entered the apartment of the poor sufferer, she started back with horror. On a wretched bed without hang ings, and but poorly supplied with covering, lay the emaciated figure of what still retained the semblance of a lovely woman, though sickness had so altered her features that Mrs. Beauchamp had not the least recol lection of her person. In one corner of the room stood a woman wash ing, and, shivering over a small fire, two healthy, but half -naked children ; the infant was asleep beside its mother, and on a chair by the bedside stood a porringer and wooden spoon, containing a little gruel, and a tea cup with about two spoonfuls of wine in it. Mrs. Beauchamp had never before beheld such a scene of poverty ; she shuddered involuntarily, and exclaiming, "heaven preserve us! " leaned on the back of a chair, ready to sink to the earth. The doctor repented having so precipitately brought her into this affecting scene; but there was no time for apologies ; Char -1820] SUSANNA ROWSON. 177 lotte cauglit the sound of her voice, and starting almost out of bed, ex claimed "Angel of peace and mercy, art thou come to deliver me? Oh, I know you. are, for whenever you was near me I felt eased of half my sorrows ; but you do not know me, nor can I, with all the recollection I am mistress of, remember your name just now, but I know that benev olent countenance and the softness of that voice which has so often com forted the wretched Charlotte." Mrs. Beaucharnp had, during the time Charlotte was speaking, seated herself on the bed and taken one of her hands. She looked at her atten tively, and at the name of Charlotte she perfectly conceived the whole shocking affair. A faint sickness came over her. " Gracious heaven," said she, "is this possible!" and bursting into tears, she reclined the burning head of Charlotte on her own bosom ; and folding her arms about her, wept over her in silence. " Oh ! " said Charlotte, " you are very good to weep thus for me ; it is a long time since I shed a tear for myself ; my head and heart are both on fire, but these tears of yours seem to cool and. refresh them. Oh ! now I remember, you said you would send a letter to my poor father; do you think he ever received it? or perhaps you have brought me an answer. Why do you not speak, Madam ? Does he say I may go home? Well, he is very good ; I shall soon be ready." She then made an effort to get out of bed ; but being prevented, her frenzy again returned, and she raved with the greatest wildness and in coherence. Mrs. Beauchamp, finding it was impossible for her to be removed, contented herself with ordering the apartment to be made com fortable, and procuring a proper nurse for both mother and child ; and having learnt the particulars of Charlotte's fruitless application to Mrs. Crayton, from honest John, she amply rewarded him for his benevolence, and returned home with a heart oppressed with many painful sensations, but yet rendered easy by the reflection that she had performed her duty towards a distressed fellow-creature. Early the next morning she again visited Charlotte, and found her tol erably composed. She called her by name, thanked her for her goodness, and when her child was brought to her, pressed it in her arms, wept over it, and called it the offspring of disobedience. Mrs. Beauchamp was delighted to find her so much amended, and began to hope she might recover, and spite of her former errors, become a useful and respectable member of society ; but the arrival of the doctor put an end to these delusive hopes ; he said nature was making her last effort, and a few hours would most probably consign the unhappy girl to her kindred dust. Being asked how she found herself, she replied " Why, better, much better, doctor. I hope now I have but little more to suffer. I had last night a few hours' sleep, and when I awoke recovered the full power of VOL. TV. 12 ]78 8U8ANNA ROWSON. [1788- recollection. I am quite sensible of my weakness ; I feel I have but little longer to combat with the shafts of affliction. I have an humble confidence in the mercy of Him who died to save the world, and trust that my sufferings in this state of mortality, joined to my unfeigned re pentance, through his mercy, have blotted my offences from the sight of my offended Maker. I have but one care my poor infant! Father of mercies," continued she, raising her eyes, " of Thy infinite goodness, grant that the sins of the parent be not visited on the unoffending child. May those who taught me to despise Thy laws be forgiven ; lay not my offences to their charge, I beseech Thee ; and oh ! shower the choicest of Thy blessings on those whose pity has soothed the afflicted heart, and made easy even the bed of pain and sickness." She was exhausted by this fervent address to the Throne of Mercy, and though her lips still moved, her voice became inarticulate ; she lay for some time as it were in a doze, and then recovering, faintly pressed Mrs. Beauchamp's hand, and requested a clergyman might be sent for. On his arrival, she joined fervently in the pious office, frequently men tioning her ingratitude to her parents as what lay most heavy at her heart. When she had performed the last solemn duty, and was prepar ing to lie down, a little bustle at the outside door occasioned Mrs. Beauchamp to open it, and inquire the cause. A man, in appearance about forty, presented himself, and asked for Mrs. Beauchamp. " That is my name, Sir," said she. " Oh then, my dear Madam," cried he, "tell me where I may find my poor, ruined, but repentant child." Mrs. Beauchamp was surprised and affected ; she knew not what to say ; she foresaw the agony this interview would occasion Mr. Temple, who had just arrived in search of his Charlotte, and yet was sensible that the pardon and blessing of her father would soften even the agonies of death to the daughter. She hesitated. " Tell me, Madam," cried he, wildly, u tell me, I beseech thee, does she live? shall I see my darling once again? Perhaps she is in this house. Lead, lead me to her, that I may bless her, and then lie down and die." The ardent manner in which he uttered these words, occasioned him to raise his voice. It caught the ear of Charlotte ; she knew the beloved sound; and uttering a loud shriek, she sprang forward as Mr. Temple entered the room. " My adored father." " My long lost child." Nature could support no more, and they both sunk lifeless into the arms of the attendants. Charlotte was again put into bed, and a few moments restored Mr. Temple ; but to describe the agony of his sufferings is past the power of any one, who, though they may readily conceive, cannot delineate the -1820] ABIEL HOLMES. I7g -dreadful scene. Every eye gave testimony of what each heart felt but all were silent. When Charlotte recovered she found herself supported in her father's .arms. She cast on him a most expressive look, but was unable to speak. A reviving cordial was administered. She then asked, in a low voice, for her child ; it was brought to her ; she put it in her father's arms. "Protect her," said she, "and bless your dying Unable to finish the sentence, she sunk back on her pillow ; her coun tenance' was serenely composed ; she regarded her father as he pressed the infant to his breast, with a steadfast look ; a sudden beam of joy passed across her languid features ; she raised her eyes to heaven and then closed them forever. BORN in Woodstock, Conn., 1763. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1837. PRESIDENT STILES. [The Life of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D. 1798.] TDRESIDENT STTLES was a man of low and small stature ; of a -L very delicate structure ; and of a well-proportioned form. His eyes were of a dark gray color ; and, in the moment of contemplation, singu larly penetrating. His voice was clear and energetic. His countenance, especially in conversation, was expressive of mildness and benignity ; but, if occasion required, it became the index of majesty and authority. The delicacy of his frame requiring a special care of his health, he was prudently attentive, amidst his multiplied studies and labors, to its pres ervation. Always temperate, he found it easy, when necessary, to be abstemious. Having carefully studied his own constitution, he was gene rally his own physician. By regulating his diet, exercising daily in the -open air, and using occasionally a few simple medicines, he was, by the divine blessing, enabled, with but very small interruptions, to apply him self assiduously to study, and to discharge the various duties of public and of domestic life. To his prudent care, under Providence, we are much indebted for the prolongation of his successful studies, and of his useful life. During a great part of his life, he was subject to wakeful nights. At these sleepless seasons, he rose from his bed, and repaired to his study, where he either perused some favorite book, or, more commonly, walked an hour or two, absorbed in contemplation. In some such in stances, he went abroad, to survey the heavens, and " kindled his devo- 180 ABIEL HOLMES. [1788- tion at the stars." He accustomed himself to the exercise of walking in the open air ; and often walked within-doors, in a very contemplative manner, especially on Saturday evenings, and on the Lord's-day. His passions were naturally strong and impetuous ; but he attained an habitual government of them, by prayerful and pious influence. Proofs of this are derived from his particular conduct, when put to the test of temptation, as well as from the general equability of his deportment. On the reception of injuries, he was patient and placable ; and took pe culiar pains to effect a reconciliation with those, who, having done him an injury, were disposed to alienation. When assaulted with virulence, as he was in some instances from the press, he made it an inflexible rule to offer no public reply; and his private behavior, in such instances, evinced a superiority to insult, and the divine temper of Christian for giveness. Sometimes he briefly recorded the injury in his Diary, and, without one acrimonious reflection, made it subservient to new improve ment in' knowledge and virtue; observing, with one of the ancients: Fas est et ab hoste doceri "It is lawful to be taught, even by an enemy." With a rare felicity, he united, in his address and manners, familiarity with dignity. While an ornament to the highest, he was accessible to the lowest, classes of mankind. Communicative, hospitable, and polite to strangers, entertaining and instructive to all, none left his company without delightful impressions. ' . .',..' .. For his extensive acquisitions of knowledge, he was indebted to a mind at once active and comprehensive ; to a memory quick to receive, and faithful to retain; and to a diligence patient and indefatigable. No difficulties, however formidable, deterred him from pursuing, to their extent, whatever researches he judged worthy of a man of science. Though he read with rapidity, he read with heedful attention ; and made himself master of the subject. If the book was not his own, and especially if rare and valuable, he copied its most interesting passages into his literary diary. If his own, he wrote in the margin such remarks as occurred to him in the perusal. Here are questions concerning the justness of an opinion; doubts, or denials, of what is alleged as a fact ; corrections of errors ; and notes of particular approbation. He always carried a pencil in his pocket, and a small quarto sheet of blank paper, doubled lengthwise, on which he minuted every noticeable occurrence, and useful information. When he travelled, he carried several blank sheets, folded in the same manner, and applied them to the same pur pose. When these memoranda formed materials sufficient for a volume, he had them bound : and they, collectively, compose four curious volumes of Itineraries, preserved in his cabinet of manuscripts. Though it was peculiarly the province of the Tutors to visit the scholars at their chambers a practice which, from the experience of its -1820J ABIEL HOLMES. numeroTis advantages, was uniformly maintained yet he often made such visits in person. He made choice of the hours of study, for this purpose, that he might detect and admonish the negligent or vicious ; applaud the studious ; assist and encourage all. In the exercise of a discretionary power, he was prompt, judicious and decisive. If he discovered any indecorum, he instantly noticed and cor rected it. On the Lord's-day, he was peculiarly attentive to the preser vation of order and decency ; and, to this end, strictly enjoined it on the Tutors to visit the chambers of the students on that day. When the Professor of Divinity began his sermon in the chapel, the President rose, and cast his eyes, with minute attention, over all the students, first on one side of the chapel, and then on the other, to see that they were prop erly seated, and decently attentive. By such vigilant inspection he pre served a stillness and solemnity which the eminent talents of the Professor might not, alone, have uniformly insured. It was his early resolution to receive no gifts, directly or indirectly, from the students. In many instances their parents sent him articles of provision, as gratuities, for which, as appears by his account-books, he uniformly gave credit in their quarterly bills. He manifested a paternal concern for such of his pupils as found it difficult to defray the expenses of their education ; inquired and ascertained their exigencies ; and in numerous instances gratuitously discharged their bills for quarterly tuition. The best scholars are, not unfrequently, to be found among the most indigent. Knowing that their future fortunes are suspended on their present diligence, they learn to estimate their collegiate privileges more justly than many others, who, through the indiscretion of their parents, are furnished with the means of dissipation ; or, in the expecta tion of an ample patrimony, seek nothing more than the honor of a diploma. The President coming, one day, out of the Library, and seeing a student, of bright parts and of studious application, walking pensively alone in the college yard, called him, and made some inquiry about his situation. Having encouraged his perseverance, he put a guinea into his hand, and dismissed him with renovated spirits and a brightened coun tenance. It was done with his usual delicacy. " Make a good improve ment of it," said he; " ask no questions ; and say nothing." Many of his seasonable and liberal gratuities, to his pupils and others, ~have been divulged since his decease. Not the result of blind sensibility, nor of mechanical habit, they were at once inspired and regulated by a Christian principle. Intrusted with the bounties of Providence, he felt himself sacredly obligated to distribute them to others, in proportion to his ability. In confirmation of this trait, it is with singular pleasure that I can produce a respectable testimony from my much esteemed friend, President Fitch ; without whose information, no one, perhaps, ABIEL HOLMES. [1788- could have done full justice to this eminent part of his character. " I am glad you have undertaken the Life of that excellent man, Dr. Stiles. You have, I presume, all his papers, and will not want materials. I know not that I can give you anecdotes or information that you have not already. One thing occurred to me ; but I think it probable you know it. Several instances of Dr. Stiles's liberality to poor students, which were intended to be concealed, came to my knowledge. I took occasion, once, to hint to him that perhaps the situation of his family- made it rather a duty to lay up something for them, than to give so much, as I apprehended he did, to needy students. He gave me indirectly to- understand, that early in life he had devoted a tenth of his income to the^ ' great Melchizedec ' this was his expression and he seemed deter mined to adhere to his resolution. He appeared unwilling to say much on the subject; and I never introduced the delicate topic again. Prob ably this will appear from his private writings. "Whether it should, or not, I believe he had formed such a resolution, and carried it into- practice." THE SIEGE OF MEXICO. [The Annals of America. Second Edition. 1829.] siege was begun on the 30th of May. After several days, spent -- in various acts of hostility, Cortes, with much difficulty, effected an entrance into the great square of the city ; but was so violently assailed by the citizens that he found it expedient to retreat. Twenty days hav ing passed, during which the Spaniards had made continual entrance into the city, Cortes determined on a general assault. On the appointed day, he marched with 25 horses, all his infantry, and more than 100,000 allies ; his brigantines, with more than 3,000 canoes, forming the two wings of his army on each side of the causeway. Having entered the city with little opposition, and commenced a most vigorous action, the Mexicans made some resistance, and then feigned a retreat. The Spaniards, pushing forward with emulation to enter the great square of the market, unwarily left behind them a broad gap in the causeway, badly filled up ; and the priests at this instant blew the horn of the god Painalton, which was reserved for times of extreme danger, to excite the people' to arms, when a multitude of Mexicans assembled, and, pouring with fury upon their assailants, threw them into confusion, and compelled them to retreat precipitately. In attempting to pass the gap, apparently filled up with faggots and other light materials, it sunk with the weight and -1820] ABIEL HOLMES. I violence of the multitude, when Spaniards, Tlascalans, horsemen and in fantry, plunged in promiscuously, the Mexicans at the same moment rushing upon them fiercely on every side. A tremendous conflict ensued. Cortes, who had come to the ditch in aid of his defeated troops, was at length bringing them off, when he was seized by six chiefs, who had cautiously taken him alive, "to honor their gods with the sacrifice of so illustrious a victim," and were already leading him away for this purpose. His men, apprised of his capture, flew to his aid ; and Christoval de Olea, cutting off with one stroke of his sword the arm of a Mexican who held him, and killing four of the enemy, liberated his general, at the expense of his own life. Other soldiers arriving to the assistance of Cortes, they took him out of the water in their arms, and, placing him on a horse, hurried him off from the crowd of his enemies. The loss sustained by the besiegers, on that day, was seven horses, a number of arms and boats, a piece of artillery, upwards of a thousand allies, and more than sixty Spaniards. Some of the Spaniards were killed in battle ; but forty were taken alive, and immediately sacrificed in the great temple of Mexico. The Mexicans celebrated their victory during eight successive days, with illuminations and music in their temples. Various acts of mutual and bloody hostility succeeded by land and on the Mexican lake. Quauhtemotzin, the king of Mexico, though reduced to the greatest distress, still obstinately refused to surrender, on repeated proposals of terms more honorable and indulgent than in such an ex tremity he might perhaps have possibly expected. In addition to the daily loss of incredible numbers in action, famine began to consume the Mexicans within the city. The brigantines, having the entire command of the lake, rendered it almost impossible to convey to* the besieged any provisions by water. By means of the vast number of Indian auxiliaries, Cortes had shut up the avenues to the city by land. The stores, laid up by Quauhtemotzin, were exhausted. The complicated sufferings of this devoted people brought on infectious and mortal distempers, "the last calamity that visits besieged cities, and which filled up the measure of their woes." Cortes, now determining upon an assault, began with most of his forces to attack some ditches and intrenchments ; and Sandoval with another division attacked the city in the quarter of the north. Terrible was the havoc made this day among the Mexicans, more than 40,000 of whom, it is affirmed, were slain. The stench of the unburied carcasses obliged the besiegers to withdraw from the city, three-fourths of which were already laid in ruins ; but the next day they returned, to make the last assault on that district of it which was yet in possession of the Mexicans. All the three divisions of the troops, having pene trated into the great square in the centre of the city, made the attack at once, and pressed so hard on the feeble, exhausted citizens, that, finding 1 84 JAMES KENT. [1788- no place of refuge, many threw themselves into the water, and some sur rendered themselves to the conquerors. The Mexicans having previously prepared vessels, to save themselves by flight from the fury of the enemy, one of them, carrying the royal personages, escaped ; but it was soon overtaken by a Spanish brigantine, and surrendered. " I am your prisoner," said Quauhtemotzin, the Mexican king, to the Spanish cap tain ; "I have no favor to ask, but that you will show the queen my wife, and her attendants, the respect due to their sex and rank." When conducted to Cortes, he appeared neither with the sullen fierceness of a barbarian, nor with the dejection of a suppliant. " I have done what be came a monarch. I have defended my people to the last extremity. Nothing now remains but to die. Take this dagger," continued he, lay ing his hand on one which Cortes wore at his side, "plant it in my breast, and put an end to a life which can no longer be of use." Cortes now ordered that all the Mexicans should leave the city without arms or baggage ; and for three days and three nights all the three roads, leading from the city, were seen "full of men, women, and children, feeble, emaci ated, and dirty, who went to recover in other parts " of the Mexican ter ritory. The fate of the capital decided the fate of the empire, which was soon after entirely reduced under the dominion of Spain. ftent. BOKN in Philippi, Putnam Co., N. Y., 1763. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1847. THOUGHTS ON THE NATION. [From a Discourse delivered before the N. Y. Hist. Soc. , 6 December, 1828.] IT was observed at the beginning of this discourse that we had in this State illustrious annals to appeal to, and I humbly hope that I have made good the assertion. The noble monument erecting on Bunker's Hill to the memory of her early patriots does honor to the pride and zeal of the sons of New England ; but the records of this State, in the hands of some future historian, are capable of elevating a loftier monu ment, and one of less perishable materials, on which, not the rays of the setting sun, but the rays of a nation's glory, as long as letters shall endure, will continue "to play and linger on its summit." I do not wish, however, to cherish or inculcate that patriotism which is purely local or exclusive. My object is more disinterested and liberal. It is to enkindle that generous zeal and ardent public virtue, with which Scipio -1820] JAMES KENT. and other citizens of Rome are said to have been inspired, as often as they beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. The glory of each State is the common property of the nation, and our freedom was established by the united will and consolidated efforts of every part of the Union. Our responsibility for the wise and temperate use of civil liberty is of general obligation ; and it is our example as a nation that has sensibly affected the civilized world. The image of per sonal freedom, of order, of security, of happiness, and of national pros perity, which our country presents, has had its influence wherever learning and commerce have penetrated. When our revolution began, despotism prevailed everywhere, except in Great Britain and her colonies ; or if civil liberty existed at all on the continent of Europe, it dwelt in timid retirement, in the romantic valleys of Switzerland, within the shade of the loftiest Alps. But we have lived to witness a visible improvement in the institutions and policy of nations, after the tempest of the French revolution had subsided, and its ravages were repaired. It left the nations upon which it had spent its fury in a better and healthier condi tion than it found them. This was some compensation for the injustice and the miseries which it had produced. Limited monarchies, resting on a recognition of popular rights, and constitutional restrictions upon power, and invigorated by the admission of the principle of representa tion, are now established in the kingdoms of France and the Netherlands. The energy of the press and of popular instruction, and the free and liberal spirit of the age, control or mitigate the evils of a bad administra tion, or chastise its abuses in every department of government, and they carry their influence to the highest ranks and summits of society. Those mighty causes will gradually enlarge the sphere of their action, and pro duce freer institutions, and a better administration of justice, in every part of Europe. At any rate, we are assured that in our own hemisphere, from the head of the Gulf of Mexico, through all the good and bad forms of government in Spanish and Portuguese America, down to u the farthest verge of the green earth," the force of our great example is strongly felt, and the eye is turned, with respect and reverence, to the character of our power and the splendor of our rising greatness. o CHRISTIANITY THE PROMOTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. [Commentaries on American Law. Revised Edition. 1832.] F all these causes of reformation, the most weight is to be attributed to the intimate alliance of the great powers as one Christian com- 186 JAMES KENT. [1788- munity. The influence of Christianity was very efficient towards the in troduction of a better and more enlightened sense of right and justice among the governments of Europe. It taught the duty of benevolence to strangers, of humanity to the vanquished, of the obligation of good faith, and of the sin of murder, revenge, and rapacity. The history of Europe, during the early periods of modern history, abounds with in teresting and strong cases, to show the authority of the church over tur bulent princes and fierce warriors, and the effect of that authority in meliorating manners, checking violence, and introducing a system of morals which inculcated peace, moderation, and justice. The church had its councils or convocations of the clergy, which formed the nations professing Christianity into a connection resembling a federal alliance, and those councils sometimes settled the titles and claims of princes, and regulated the temporal affairs of the Christian powers. The con federacy of the Christian nations was bound together by a sense of com mon duty and interest in respect to the rest of mankind. It became a general principle of belief and action, that it was not only a right, but a duty, to reduce to obedience, for the sake of conversion, every people who professed a religious faith different from their own. To make war upon infidels was, for many ages, a conspicuous part of European public law ; and this gross perversion of the doctrines and spirit of Christianity had at least one propitious effect upon the Christian powers, inasmuch as it led to the cultivation of peace and union between them, and to a more free and civilized intercourse. The notion that it was lawful to invade and subdue Mahometan and Pagan countries, continued very long to sway the minds of men ; and it was not until after the age of Grotius and Bacon, that this error was entirely eradicated. Lord Coke held that an alliance for mutual defence was unlawful between Christians and Turks ; and Grotius was very cautious as to the admission of the lawfulness of alliances with infidels, and he had no doubt that all Chris tian nations were bound to assist one another against the attacks of in fidels. Even Lord Bacon thought it a matter of so much doubt, as to- propound it seriously as a question, whether a war with infidels was not first in order of dignity, and to be preferred to all other just temporal quarrels; and whether a war with infidels might not be undertaken merely for the propagation , of the Christian faith, without other cause of hostility. -1820] WILLIAM PINKNET. BORN in Annapolis, Md., 1764. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1822. SLAVERY AND A REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT NOT INCON GRUOUS. [From a Speech on the Missouri Slave Bill, delivered in the U. S. Senate, 15 Feb., 1820.) BUT let us proceed to take a rapid glance at the reasons which have been assigned for this notion that involuntary servitude and a re publican form of government are perfect antipathies. The gentleman from New Hampshire has denned a republican government to be that in which all the men participate in its power and privileges : from whence it follows that where there are slaves, it can have no existence. A defi nition is no proof, however, and even if it be dignified (as I think it was) with the name of a maxim, the matter is not much mended. It is Lord Bacon who says "that nothing is so easily made as a maxim;" and cer tainly a definition is manufactured with equal facility. A political maxim is the work of induction, and cannot stand against experience, or stand on anything but experience. But this maxim, or definition, or whatever else it may be, sets fact at defiance. If you go back to antiquity, you will obtain no countenance for this hypothesis ; and if you look at home you will gain still less. I have read tnat Sparta, and Eome, and Athens, and many others of the ancient family, were republics. They were so in form undoubtedly the last approaching nearer to a perfect democracy than any other government which nas yet been known in the world. Judging of them also by their fruits, they were of the highest order of republics. Sparta could scarcely be any other than a republic, when a Spartan matron could say to her son just marching to battle, " Eeturn victorious, or return no more." It was the unconquerable spirit of liberty, nurtured by republican habits and institutions, that illustrated the pass of Thermopylae. Yet slavery was not only tolerated in Sparta, but was established by one of the fundamental laws of Lycurgus, having for its object the encouragement of that very spirit. Attica was full of slaves yet the love of liberty was its characteristic. What else was it that foiled the whole power of Persia at Marathon and Salamis? What other soil than that which the genial sun of republican freedom illuminated and warmed, could have produced such men as Leonidas and Miltiades r Themistocles and Epaminondas? Of Eome it would be superfluous to speak at large. It is sufficient to name the mighty mistress of the world, before Sylla gave the first stab to her liberties and the great dictator accomplished their final ruin, to be reminded of the practicability of Igg WILLIAM PINKNEY. [1788- union between civil slavery and an ardent love of liberty cherished by republican establishments. If we return home for instruction upon this point, we perceive that same union exemplified in many a State, in which " liberty has a temple in every house, an altar in every heart," while involuntary servitude is seen in every direction. Is it denied that those States possess a republi can form of government ? If it is, why does our power of correction sleep? Why is the constitutional guarantee suffered to be inactive? Why am I permitted to fatigue you, as the representative of a slave- holding State, with the discussion of the nugce canorce (for so I think them) that have been forced into this debate contrary to all the remon strances of taste and prudence ? Do gentlemen perceive the consequences to which their arguments must lead if they are of any value? Do they reflect that they lead to emancipation in the old United States or to an exclusion of Delaware, Maryland, and all the South, and a great portion of the West from the Union? My honorable friend from Virginia has no business here, if this disorganizing creed be anything but the pro duction of a heated brain. The State to which I belong must " perform a lustration " must purge and purify herself from the feculence of civil slavery, and emulate the States of the North in their zeal for throwing down the gloomy idol which we are said to worship, before her senators can have any title to appear in this high assembly. It will be in vain to urge that the old United States are exceptions to the rule or rather (as the gentlemen express it), that they have no disposition to apply the rule to them. There can be no exceptions by implication only, to such a rule; and expressions which justify the exemption of the old States by inference, will justify the like exemption of Missouri, unless they point exclusively to them, as I have shown they do not. The guarded manner, too, in which some of the gentlemen have occasionally expressed themselves on this sub ject, is somewhat alarming. They have no disposition to meddle with slav ery in the old United States. Perhaps not but who shall answer for their successors? Who shall furnish a pledge that the principle once ingrafted into the constitution, will not grow, and spread, and fructify, and over shadow the whole land? It is the natural office of such a principle to wrestle with slavery, wheresoever it finds it. New States, colonized by the apostles of this principle, will enable it to set on foot a fanatical crusade against all who still continue to tolerate it, although no practicable means are pointed out by which they can get rid of it consistently with their own safety. At any rate, a present forbearing disposition in a few or in many, is not a security upon which much reliance can be placed upon a subject as to which so many selfish interests and ardent feelings are connected with the cold calculations of policy. Admitting, however, that the old United States are in no danger from this principle why is it so? There -1820] SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. can be no other answer (which these zealous enemies of slavery can use) than that the constitution recognizes slavery as existing or capable of ex isting in those States. The constitution, then, admits that slavery and a republican form of government are not incongruous. It associates and binds them up together, and repudiates this wild imagination which the gentlemen have pressed upon us with such an air of triumph. Samuel Latham BORN in North Hempstead, Queens Co., N. Y., 1764. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1831. A HISTORY OF ST. TAMMANY. [From an Oration pronounced before the Tammany Society. 1795.] I SHALL, therefore, talk to you concerning the life, character, and exploits of your great father, Tammany. In many parts of that extensive and fertile tract of country west of the Alleghany mountains, and extending northward of the river Ohio, are found remains of fortifications, and monuments and vestiges of human art, whose antiquity no man knows, nor can ascertain. The regularity of their plan and figure, and the skill and labor displayed in their erec tion, have given rise to an idea that some Europeans must have had an agency in making them. After many fruitless conjectures on the sub ject, the most experienced antiquarians have given it up in despair. Now, it was not Ferdinando de Soto, nor De La Salle, nor any other Spaniard or Frenchman, that erected these works ; but, at a period far more remote than the fancied voyage of Boehm, or the real navigation of Columbus, Tammany and his people inhabited these lands. He was in his youth both a hunter and a warrior, and the fame of his exploits had travelled through all the space embraced by the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and had even extended beyond the Missouri and the upper lakes. In his hazardous excursions he labored with extraordinary zeal to subdue the monsters of the forest, and the Grecian Hercules him self does not appear to have achieved greater exploits. In the war which he waged for many years with the Evil Spirit, his sagacity, courage, and prowess, were wonderfully distinguished. For this author and promoter of mischief, envying the reputation and happiness which Tammany en joyed, determined to harass and torment him in every possible way. He accordingly first caused poison sumach and stinging- nettles to grow so thick in the land, that they almost choked every other vegetable, and 190 SAMUEL LATHAM MITGHILL. [1788- diff used virulent exhalations through every part of the air, to the annoy ance of all the people, who were also poisoned and punctured by them, whenever they went forth to hunt. Tammany, after various trials to destroy them, found at last that the soil in which they grew was inflam mable, and availing himself of a severe drought, after the fall of the leaf, set fire to the turf and consumed the venomous plants, which burned with such rapidity that the Evil Spirit himself, who happened to be skulking about the spot, was sorely singed by the flames. In revenge for this, he next sent innumerable rattlesnakes to infest the land ; but Tammany, by sowing the seeds of the ash-tree upon the ground just cleared of the sumach, soon caused the serpents to disappear, and while this was doing, the distress and affliction caused by their bites gave occasion to the discovery of curing them by seneka-root and plantain. Frustrated in thft scheme, he brought from the other side of Lake Superior alarming droves of Mammoths, carnivorous animals, and espe cially loving to feed upon human flesh. These he turned loose upon the Tammanial Territories, and many deaths and much devastation they caused. They were so swift that nobody could overtake them, and so ferocious that they filled whole villages with terror. Arrows fell blunted from their skins and clubs assailed them in vain. From some prisoners brought home in an expedition against the Indians of the Tide- waters, the Tammanites had learned the use of seasoning for their food, and a part of the tribute paid to the conquerors by the Atlantic nations- was wampum, dried fish, and salt. This latter they caused to be brought thither in vast quantities, and the creatures of the wilderness, attracted by the diffusion of its atoms through the air, flocked around the maga zines, and pawed and licked the dust impregnated with the smallest saline particles. They grew so fond of it that Tammany ordered large spots of ground to be sprinkled with salt, that the wild animals drawn thither might fall a, more easy prey to the hunters, who lay in wait to kill them. Among others came the Mammoth, who was remarkably raven ous of the product of the ocean, and when intent in gratifying his palate, was led into the covered pits dug across his paths by direction of Tam many, and there expired impaled on the sharpened points of trees, which tore to pieces his belly and bowels as he fell. Thus the country was cleared of those monsters, whose bones, discovered to this day at the Licks, confirm the reality of the story. Mortified and disappointed at this extraordinary expedient, his deter mined adversary next attempted by an inundation to cover the land, and to destroy its inhabitants at once. For this purpose he raised a dam of compact rock a little above Ontario, and caused a rising of the waters of Lake Erie to a great height; and then made another, above where -4820] SAMUEL LATHAM MITCH1LL. Detroit now is, which confined the lakes Huron and Michigan: the banks were overflowed by the mighty collection afforded by rain and melting snow, and the southern country began to be deluged; fout Tammany getting intelligence of what was going on, opened the drains in which the waters of Alleghany, Miamis, and Wabash now run ; cut the ditch, which at this time forms the channel of the Ohio, through the solid limestone, and thus collected and gave vent to the mighty body of waters rushing from above; being hailed on the accomplishment of it by his almost adoring people, the saviour of his country. The lakes by degrees subsided ; but the rapids of Detroit and the falls of Niagara remain to this day, monuments of the astonishing event! But no sooner had this difficulty been surmounted than Tammany's implacable adversary stirred up the red men of the East and North to hostility against him. Their fighters assembled and told over their valiant deeds in former expeditions, to encourage each other. The war- dance, in all its terrible pomp, was exhibited, and the performers worked themselves up to a frenzy. The conjurors, who had been powwowing during the ceremony, reported a favorable event to the war. The march was begun, and in less than two moons they had entered the hunting- grounds of Tammany. By the superior address of the latter they were led into an ambuscade, surprised, overpowered, and except some few, who were slain in the conflict, the whole party taken prisoners. These invaders imagined that the cruel tortures of fire and laceration, which the successful Indians usually inflict upon captives, were to be prac tised upon them ; each had prepared himself to endure the horrible exe cution, and, like Alknoomook, sing his death -song, and utter expressions of bravado and defiance, while gashes were separating limb from limb, and blazing splinters, stuck into his flesh, excited the double torment of wounding and burning at once. But while they were expecting, hour after hour, the arrival of this awful moment, they were told that Tam many had determined to spare their lives. They were conducted to his wigwam, and heard from him discourses so full of good-sense and reason, that, ashamed and confounded at their own villany, they fell prostrate before him to the ground and begged to be put to death; which, they said, would be infinitely more honorable than to live in disgrace. This was refused them ; but they were taken away, and so distributed and bil leted out amongst the Tammanites, that, without a chance of escaping or of doing mischief, they became gradually incorporated with the nation, and entertained for it the sincerest attachment and love. Thus Tammany turned the disasters of his enemy to his own advantage, and increased his own strength, while he impaired theirs. For it was a maxim of con duct with this sagacious savage, far more refined and excellent than pre- Tails among most of our civilized, enlightened, and Christian legislators, 192 SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. [178S- that, putting revenge and retaliation entirely out of the question, a fellow- man ought never to be degraded to the condition of a slave, and it was necessity alone which justified, in any case, the destruction of human life. Some of them were at length dismissed to go home, and these carried the news of the generous treatment they had experienced, and filled with amaze ment all who heard them talk of such an innovation in Indian policy. Many of them returned with their squaws and pappooses to the land of Tammany; and the rest resolved upon everlasting peace, the discontinu ance of slavery, and the abolition of that cold-blooded butchery, called public execution. More fell than ever by this unexpected turn of things, the enemy de vised a new mode of attack. As all his schemes and projects had hitherto failed, he determined to watch an opportunity of attacking Tammany in person. But his meanness of temper led him, instead of sending an open challenge, to seek, like an assassin, an opportunity of secret injury. He accordingly concealed himself in a swamp, near one of Tammany's accus tomed walks, with intention to fall upon him and slay him, as he un guardedly passed along. But mischief full often defeats itself. Tam many knew by the moving tops of the bushes that some creature was in concealment there, and by the peculiar smell which evil spirits emit, he concluded his enemy was lurking in ambush to waylay him. Pretending not to notice his discovery, he cautiously advanced within striking dis tance, when suddenly, and with great force, directing a blow with the hickory sapling which served him for a walking-stick, he made his wounded adversary bellow out with pain. They clinched, and dreadful was the crashing of timber which they trod down in the scuffle ; never, since the time when the Giants piled mountain upon mountain, were there such exertions of animal strength. For the space of more than a league square not a tree of any size was left standing. All were smashed and trampled flat by the combatants. At length, after unceasing exertions for fifty days, Tammany, skilfully taking advantage of the hip-lock, threw him head and shoulders to the ground and endeavored to roll him into the Ohio, and drown him ; but an immense rock standing in the way, he could not effect it. He then seized him by the throat, and would certainly have strangled him had not his wrist and thumb been so sprained and weakened, that they could not gripe him hard enough to stop his weasand. Tammany by this time grew faint and exhausted, which the Evil Spirit perceiving, slipped out of his hands ; but, as he departed, was told to confine himself to the cold and remote regions of Labrador and Hud son's Bay ; and was threatened with instant death, if he should ever be catched showing his face on this side of the great waters. Tammany lived after this many years in great happiness, and wonder- -1820] SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHILL. fully beloved by his people; at last, after arriving to an unusual age, that universal palsy, which, in the natural course of things immediately precedes death, terminated his life without either sickness or pain ; and he expired aXvnos nod anovos, without a sigh or a groan. Great honors were paid to his memory. After more parade and cere mony than was ever shown to any corpse before, they committed the body of Tammany to the ground, after their manner; and raised over it a large mound of earth. Our curious antiquarians have detected the spot, though they knew not its design or use, for he lies interred within the great Indian fort, near Muskingum, beneath that hillock which they have so often ad mired ; a monument for size and labor second to nothing of the kind, save the Pyramids of Egypt. After this the Tammanites, as long as they continued to observe the institutions of their sage, went on to be prosperous and great. But nations as well as individuals have their rise, decline, and termination. Babylon, the capital city of a mighty empire, where is it? And what lias become of the government itself? Who knows, but from story, .aught of Troy or Persepolis, whose very ruins had perished centuries ago? Now another race inhabits the land formerly occupied by the Jews ; and what has become of ten of the Israelitish Tribes ? Where are the all-subduing Romans, whose standards waved victorious from Spain almost to Parthia? They are all extinct. ' In like manner, in the vicissitudes of human affairs, the degenerate Tammanites, after dwindling into insignificance, finally lost entirely their character and name, and were swallowed up or scattered abroad among the surrounding nations. All we know of them, therefore, as they were unacquainted with letters, is by oral communication. And you may consider the Talk you have now heard, as an effort to rescue a curious portion of unwritten history from oblivion. ELEGY ON A SHELL -THE NAUTILUS. I SAW thee, beauteous form, As late I walked the oceanic strand, And as my curiosity was warm, I took thee in niy hand. Soon I discovered, a terrific storm, Which nothing human could command, Had robbed thee of thy life and cast thee on the sand. Thou wast a house with many chambers fraught, Built by a Nautilus or Argonaut, VOL. iv. 13 194 SAMUEL LATHAM MTTCHILL. [1788- With fitness, symmetry, and skill, To suit the owner's taste and sovereign will. In curves of elegance thy shape appears, Surpassing art through centuries of years, By tints and colors brilliant made, And all, the finished workman lias displayed. In life thy home was near Manilla's shore, Where on the bottom groves of coral grow, And when aweary of thy seat below, Thee and thy architect the flood uplifted bore. Then on the surface of the placid wave, With guiding oars and elevated sail, Thou didst enjoy the pleasure-breathing gale, And in the sea thy healthy body lave. To thee allied is many a splendid shell, In which a fair Mollusca used to dwell, Such as the Harpa, marked with chorded signs, The Musica, with imitative lines, The Cowry, with its spots and figures gay, The Cone, distinguished by its rich array, The smooth Volute, that glossy beauty bears, The prized Scalaria, with its winding stairs, The Murex, famous for its purple dye, The Trochus, dressed to captivate the eye, And Buccinum and Strombus, taught to sound Their signal notes to every region round. These sorts and more, through rich museums spread, Are vacant dwellings, and their tenants dead, And though there's not an occupant alive, The well cemented tenements survive. So man erects in sumptuous mode A structure proud for his abode, But knows not, when of life bereft, Who'll creep within the shell he left. -1820] ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD. 195 BOBN in Leicester, Mass., 1764. DIED at Salem, Washington Co., N. Y., 1798. DARBY AND JOAN. [Poems. 1801.] I. WHEN Darby saw the setting sun, He swung his scythe, and home he run, Sat down, drank off his quart, and said, "My work is done, I'll go to bed." "My work is done! " retorted Joan, " My work is done ! your constant tone ; But hapless woman ne'er can say, ' My work is done,' till judgment day. You men can sleep all night, but we Must toil." " Whose fault is that ? " quoth " I know your meaning," Joan replied, " But, Sir, my tongue shall not be tied; I will go on, and let you know What work poor women have to do : First, in the morning, though we feel As sick as drunkards when they reel; Yes, feel such pains in back and head As would confine you men to bed, We ply the brush, we wield the broom, We air the beds, and right the room ; The cows must next be milked and then We get the breakfast for the men. Ere this is done, with whimpering cries, And bristly hair, the children rise ; These must be dressed, and dosed with rue, And fed and all because of you : We next " Here Darby scratched his head, And stole off grumbling to his bed ; And only said, as on she run, " Zounds! woman's clack is never done." II. At early dawn, ere Pho3bus rose, Old Joan resumed her tale of woes ; When Darby thus "I'll end the strife, Be you the man and I the wife : Take you the scythe and mow, while I Will all your boasted cares supply." 196 ST. JOHN HONETWOOD. [1788- 4 'Content," quoth Joan, "give me my stint." This Darby did, and out she went. Old Darby rose and seized the broom, And whirled the dirt about the room: Which having done, he scarce knew how, He hied to milk the brindled cow. The brindled cow whisked round her tail In Darby's eyes, and kicked the pail. The clown, perplexed with grief and pain, Swore he'd ne'er try to milk again : When turning round, in sad amaze, He saw his cottage in a blaze : For as he chanced to brush the room, In careless haste, he fired the broom. The fire at last subdued, he swore The broom and he would meet no more. Pressed by misfortune, and perplexed, Darby prepared for breakfast next ; But what to get he scarcely knew The bread was spent, the butter too. His hands bedaubed with paste and flour, Old Darby labored full an hour : But, luckless wight ! thou couldst not make The bread take form of loaf or cake. As every door wide open stood, In pushed the sow in quest of food ; And, stumbling onwards, with her snout O'erset the churn the cream ran out. As Darby turned, the sow to beat, The slippery cream betrayed his feet ; He caught the bread trough in his fall, And down came Darby, trough, and all. The children, wakened by the clatter, Start up, and cry, "Oh! what's the matter?" Old Jowler barked, and Tabby mewed, And hapless Darby bawled aloud, " Return, my Joan, as heretofore, I'll play the housewife's part no more: Since now, by sad experience taught, Compared to thine my work is naught; Henceforth, as business calls, I'll take, Content, the plough, the scythe, the rake, And never more transgress the line Our fates have marked, while thou art mine. Then Joan, return, as heretofore, I'll vex thy honest soul no more ; Let's each our proper task attend Forgive the past, and strive to mend." -1820] HARBISON GRAY OTIS. BORN in Boston, Mass., 1765. DIED there, 1848. THE CHARACTER OF HAMILTON. [From the Eulogy pronounced before the Citizens of Boston, 26 July, 1804.] SUCH was the untimely fate of Alexander Hamilton, whose character warrants the apprehension, that " take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon his like again." Nature, even in the partial distribution of her favors, generally limits the attainments of great men within distinct and particular spheres of eminence. But he was the darling of nature, and privileged beyond the rest of her favorites. His mind caught at a glance that perfect compre hension of a subject for which others are indebted to a patient labor and investigation. In whatever department he was called to act, he dis covered an intuitive knowledge of its duties, which gave him an imme diate ascendency over those who had made them the study of their lives ; so that, after running through the circle of office, as a soldier, statesman and financier, no question remained for which he had been qualified, but only in which he had evinced the most superlative merit. He did not dissemble his attachment to a military life, nor his consciousness of pos sessing talents for command ; yet no man more strenuously advocated the rights of the civil over the military power, nor more cheerfully abdi cated command and returned to the rank of the citizen, when his country could dispense with the necessity of an army. In his private profession, at a bar abounding with men of learning and experience, he was without a rival. He arranged, with the happiest facility, the materials collected in the vast storehouse of his memory, surveyed his subject under all its aspects, and enforced his arguments with such powers of reasoning, that nothing was wanting to produce con viction, and generally to insure success. His eloquence combined the nervousness and copious elegance of the Greek and Roman schools, and gave him the choice of his clients and his business. These wonderful powers were accompanied by a natural politeness and winning condescen sion, which forestalled the envy of his brethren. Their hearts were gained before their pride was alarmed ; and they united in their appro bation of a pre-eminence which reflected honor on their fraternity. From such talents, adorned by incorruptible honesty and boundless generosity, an immense personal influence over his political and private friends was inseparable ; and by those who did not know him, and who saw the use to which ambition might apply it, he was sometimes suspected 1Q8 ANONYMOUS. [1788- of views unpropitious to the nature of our government. The charge was inconsistent with the exertions he had made to render that government, in its present form, worthy of the attachment and support of the people, and his voluntary relinquishment of the means of ambition, the purse- strings of the nation. He was, indeed, ambitious, but not of power ; he was ambitious only to convince the world of the spotless integrity of his administration and character. This was the key to the finest sensibilities of the heart. He shrunk from the imputation of misconduct in public life; and if his judgment ever misled him, it was only when warped by an excessive eagerness to vindicate himself at the expense of his discre tion. To calumny, in every other shape, he opposed the defence of dignified silence and contempt. Had such a character been exempt from foibles and frailties, it would not have been human. Yet so small was the catalogue of these, that they would have escaped observation, but for the unparalleled frankness of his nature, which prompted him to confess them to the world. He did not consider greatness as an authority for habitual vice ; and he repented with such contrition of casual error, that none remained offended bat those who never had a right to complain. The virtues of his private and domestic character comprised whatever conciliates affection and begets respect. To envy he was a stranger, and of merit and talents the unaffected eulogist and admirer. The charms of his conversation, the brilliance of his wit, his regard to decorum, his ineffable good-humor, which led him down from the highest range of intellect to the level of colloquial pleasantry, will never be forgotten, perhaps never equalled. SLEIGHING SONG. [From " The Better Sort, or the Girl of Spirit. A Farce." 1789.] WHAT pleasure can compare To a sleighing with the fair In the evening, the evening, in cold and frosty weather ? When rapidly we go As we jingle o'er the snow And tantarra, huzza ! And tantarra, huzza ! And tantarra ! sings every brave fellow ! When to Watertown we get And the turkey's on the spit, -1820] ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. 199 And we dance, boys, and dance, boys, and drive away all sorrow, 'Tis then your milk and tea Give place to strong sangree And we banish, huzza! We banish, huzza! And we banish the cares of to-morrow 1 When the turkey's roasted brown, To the supper we sit down, And "Keep it up ! " and ''Keep it up ! " sings every jovial fellow; With the wine-glass in his hand He never makes a stand, But guzzles, huzza, but guzzles, huzza, And guzzles it away till he's mellow. Now for Boston we prepare And the night is cold and clear, And we're stowing close, we're stowing close, because it's chilly weather. O then what fun we feel When the sleigh it takes a heel And we're huddled, huzza! And we're huddled, huzza! And we're huddled, brave boys, altogether! 'Tis then the ladies cry, O lud ! O dear ! O my ! And we scrabble, boys, we scrabble, boys, all from the snowy weather. Then in the sleigh again Do we scamper o'er the plain And tantarra, huzza! tantarra, huzza! And tantarra ! sings every brave fellow ! Abigail BORN in Braintree, Mass., 1765. DIED at Quincy, Mass., 1813. PARISIAN SOCIETY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. [Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams. Edited by her Daughter. 1841.] MARCH 20th Well might the Abbe* Arneau say that people in this country put their children into convents to keep them out of the influence of their manners. Mrs. told me last Monday when she dined here, she was going to pass the eve with Madame la Marquise de Buillye, and, added she, I suppose I shall play cards there till the morning. She said she was there the last day of the Carnival, and she stayed until two o'clock in the morning, then came away leaving the com- 200 ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. [1788- pany at cards ; that a gentleman who was of the party, called upon her the next day at ten, and assured her when he came away he left the com pany at play ; she told me that the Marquis de B. went to bed, rose the next morning, went in full dress to pay his wife a visit, and found the company as he had left them ! What a picture ! She adds, that there are five ladies and some gentlemen, who are of that particular party ; they meet at each other's houses five nights in the week, as constantly as the week passes ; that four nights they play till morning ; the other two nights they reserve for other parties ; that they go to the play in the forepart of the evening, and after the play or opera is over, they meet. She said she knew a gentleman who was of all their parties, and that it was inconceivable the money he had lost this winter at play with them. These are the wives' parties. The husbands meet at their public clubs, and have gamed until it was prohibited by the king lately. There are two of these, the saloons, and the arcander, where the first and principal men of the kingdom meet every night ; they have the public papers, and all the news, and a supper, and used to play, till for bidden. There must be a formal reception, for which they pay a certain sum. These clubs are not approved of by the government of this coun try, and it is said they would be forbidden. But what a portrait of real life ! who could be induced to believe that human beings sacrificed their time and lives to such practices, if they were not assured of the truth of it? The picture Swift has drawn of a fashionable lady, I now believe verily true in every iota; these are the people, and these are the manners, that my father will not introduce us to ; there are a few exceptions, the Marquis de la Fayette and family. I have heard madame the marquise say, that she seldom went out except into her family connections. I suppose the true reason is that the company she would go into would be of this sort, and it would not be agreeable to her. I have heard her ex press her disapprobation of gaming, or indeed of play ; even Mrs. B. is not so pleased with it as when she first arrived. As an American lady, she might always have excused herself from playing, if she had wished it, "but," said Mrs. - , "I became fond of it, before the winter was over, and have won sometimes twenty guineas of an evening." Of all practices, this is to me the most detestable. There is scarce a greater offence against delicacy possible to be com mitted, than to go into company with a little powder upon your face ; it is almost the criterion of indecency; but at the same time, a lady will put an ounce or two of rouge upon her face, and even think she is not dressed without it. Mr. Williams told me an anecdote. When he first arrived in Paris, a friend of his accompanied him to dine with a lady of his acquaintance. The first thing that struck him was being introduced to the ladies' bed- -1820J ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. OQ1 chamber, which is here as usual as it is to visit. The lady was rather in a dishabille, except her head, which was highly dressed. When dinner was served, they went into another room ; after dining, they returned again to the lady's bed-chamber; a gentleman in company took from the table an orange ; while the rest of the company were taking their coffee, he was eating his orange and, unfortunately, happened to put the peel upon the side of the chimney-piece, and after a little time went away, as is usual in this country, without taking leave. Some time after he was gone, the lady called her servant and inquired for this gentleman ; the servant told her he had gone, but he had heard him order his servants to drive him to such a hotel. She ordered her servant to go and request the gentleman to return, for she wished to see him ; in less than an hour the gentleman returned, begging to know her commands when she called her servant and ordered him to take that orange peel away. This, said Mr. W., completed my wonder and astonishment When I dined at Dr. Franklin's last Thursday, I asked Mr. R, by whom I was seated at table, whether the image in the centre of it repre sented any particular device, as I observed a crown of laurel and some figures? he said " he believed it was Love and Hymen, an old-fashioned idea, you know," said he; "they used to talk of such things in former times, but at present they know better." I told him I was surprised to find it at his table, I believed it was not of his choice. He is strongly attached to the French. He told me he preferred an English lady who had acquired the graces of French manners ; which, he added, were to be gained nowhere but at Paris that was the centre, and there they were all collected and reside % d. I believe he was here right; there is a something not to be defined, that the French women possess, which, when it orna ments and adorns an English lady, forms something irresistibly charming. A LITTLE PATRIOT AND HER, PAPA. [From the Same. ] T ONDON, June 1st, 1785. To-day my father went with Lord Car- J ^ marthen to the Palace, where he found many gentlemen, known to him before. Lord C. introduced him to his majesty, George III. Papa made his speech when he presented his letter ; his majesty was affected, and said, " Sir, your words have been so proper, upon this occasion, that I cannot but say I am gratified that you are the man chosen to be the Minister." June 4th. This is the anniversary of his majesty's birth ; consequently 202 ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH. [1788- there was a Leve*e at St. James. On this day their majesties speak to every person present. The King speaks first to the Foreign Ministers. He conversed a quarter of an hour with the Spanish Minister, upon music, of which he said he was passionately fond, particularly of Handel's ; he respected the memory of Handel, for he owed to him the greatest happi ness of his life, and observed that Handel had said of him when young, " That young man will preserve my music." My father observed that he had never heard anything like conversation at court before. One of the Ambassadors who had attended at the French court thirty years, said, Monsieur the king's brother, had asked every time he had been to court, which was generally every Tuesday, "have you come from Paris to-day ? " and no other question. September 2d. About twelve o'clock, Mrs. Smith, from Clapham, and Miss B. called upon us. Mamma was just dressing, so I had to appear. Miss B. began to question me, as to which country I liked best, France or England? I would not give a preference. "But you undoubtedly prefer England to America?" "I must indeed confess, Miss, that I do not at present." Was it possible! I acknowledged the excellencies of this country. There was more to please and gratify the senses; but I had formed such friendships and attachments in America, as would ever render it dear to me. "But surely, the culture is carried to a much greater degree of perfection here than in America." " Granted." "And you must," said Miss B., very pertly, "find a great difference between America and this country?" "In what, pray, Miss?" said I. "Why, in the general appearance, in the people, their manners, customs, be havior, and in everything." "Indeed," said I, "I do not; there is so great a similarity in the manners of the people, in the two countries, that I should take them for one. If anything, I find a greater degree of politeness and civility in America, than in the people of this country. And the lower class of people in America are infinitely superior to the lower class of people here." Their astonishment was great was it pos sible I could think so! Surely the distressing war had been an impedi ment to all improvement and education. Dr. Bancroft came in, and passed an hour. After he had gone, we had some conversation upon the pictures below. Papa said they were spoiled ; he was not at all con tent with his own, yet thought it the best that had ever been taken of him. No one had yet caught his character. The ruling principles in his moral character, were candor, probity, and decision. I think he dis covered more knowledge of himself than usually falls to the lot of man ; for, from my own observation, I think these are characteristic of him ; and I add another, which is sensibility. I have never discovered a greater portion of candor in any character. I hope if I inherit any of his virtues it may be this ; it is a necessary attendant through life. In -1820] JOHN SYLVESTER JOHN GARDINER. 203 whatever intercourse we have with society, we find it necessary in a greater or less degree; and in the mind of a woman, I esteem it par. ticularly amiable. BORN in Haverford West, So. Wales, 1765. Rector of Trinity Church, Boston. DIED at Harrowgate, England, 1830. OUR ILLOGICAL DISTRUST OF ENGLAND. [From his Fast-Day Sermon at Trinity Church. 1808.] THOUGH submissive and even servile to France, to Great Britain we are eager to display our hatred and hurl our defiance. The American eagle, though meek as a dove before the Gallic cock, yet to the British lion will present the " terrors of his beak, the lightnings of his eye," and the strength of his talons. Every petty dispute which may happen between an American captain and a British officer is magnified into a national insult. The land of our fathers, whence is derived the best blood of the nation, the country to which we are chiefly indebted for our laws and knowledge, is stigmatized as a nest of pirates, plunderers, and assassins. We entice away her seamen, the very sinews of her power ; we refuse to restore them on application ; we issue hostile proclamations ; we interdict her ships of war from the common rites of hospitality ; we pass non-importation acts ; we lay embargoes ; we refuse to ratify a treaty in which she had made great concessions to us; we dismiss her envoy of peace, who came purposely to apologize for an act unauthorized by her government ; we commit every act of hostility against her proportioned to our means and situation. Observe the contrast between the two nations, and our strange conduct. France robs iis, and we love her; Britain courts us, and we hate her. France is hostile, Britain friendly. With France we have a treaty, with Britain none. France is fighting for the subjugation of the world, Britain for its independence. France is contending for her own aggrandizement, Britain for her salvation. If France is victorious we are slaves ; if Britain proves victorious we re main free. France is a land of slavery ; Britain of freedom. The insults and injuries we receive from France are unpardonable, and the immediate acts of her government; the insults and injuries we receive from Britain are not authorized by her government, and are often provoked by the rudeness and ill-manners of our own people. France makes actual war upon us, and yet we court her. We make actual war on Britain, and yet she tries every expedient to conciliate us. 204 ROBERT CfOODLOE HARPER. [1788- HOW WOMEN MAY BEST COMMEND THEMSELVES. [From a Sermon at Trinity, before the Members of the Boston Female Asylum. 1809.] OF all women, I have generally observed that your great readers are the most insufferable, who repeat whole passages of prose and poetry, in season and out season, and who, instead of obtaining the admiration they aim at, disgust all who hear them with their vanity and impertinence. Nor are those ladies who have received what is called a genteel education, most admired by sensible and judicious men. The modest female, who shuns rather than courts observation, who is desti tute of every fashionable accomplishment, if she has affable manners, good principles, good-humor, and good-sense, will be sure of securing their suffrages. There must, then, be something wrong in the present sys tem of female education. It is far too superficial. It is almost exclu sively directed to the improvement of the person and address. I should wish for something more substantial, I should wish them educated, not merely to nutter in a ball-room, not merely to display the graces of a beautiful animal without intellect, but as beings who are to be wives and mothers, the first and most important guardians and instructors of the rising generation, as beings endued with reason, and designed for immor tality. Only lay a solid foundation, and you may raise on it a super structure as airy and fantastical as you please. You may then permit them to cultivate every elegant art, and to gain every accomplishment becoming their age and sex. Eobert BORN near Fredericksburg, Va., 1765. DIED in Baltimore, Md., 1835. FEDERALIST MAXIMS. [Select Works. 1814.] T~N the management of our domestic affairs their system has been, in * - the first place to support vigorously the independence and authority of the federal government ; which alone is capable of insuring our safety from abroad, by opposing to foreign nations the barrier of our united strength, and of maintaining our peace at home, by checking the ambi tion and repressing the passions of the several states, and balancing their forces, so as to prevent the greater from overpowering and subduing the -1820] ROBERT GOODLOE HARPER. 205 lesser. They well knew this government, being under the necessity of laying and collecting considerable taxes, of raising and supporting armies and fleets, of maintaining numerous officers, and of carrying on all those expensive operations which its superintendence of our general affairs require, and from which the state governments are wholly exempt, is far more likely than those governments to incur unpopularity, to become subject to the imputation of extravagance, oppression, and ambitious views, and to be deprived of the public confidence. They well knew that this government, being removed to a greater distance than the state governments from the people, was more apt to be viewed with jealousy and considered as a foreign government ; and that there never would be wanting ambitious and restless men, who failing to obtain that share of influence in the federal government, or those honors and employments under it, to which they might think themselves entitled, would take refuge in the state governments, and avail themselves of all these cir cumstances to render the federal government odious, to excite against it the public resentment, and even to overrule and control it by means of the state governments. Well knowing this, the federalists considered it as a principle of the utmost importance for the preservation of the federal government, to render it as independent as possible of state influence; to give it a movement of its own, and complete power to enforce its own laws ; to resist state encroachments ; and to restrain the state governments within their just and proper bounds. In every struggle between the federal and the state governments, they considered the latter as possessing infinitely the greatest natural strength ; and therefore thought it their duty to take part with the former, in order to preserve the balance. As to the federal government itself, their second great maxim was to support the executive power against the encroachments, the ambition and the superior strength of the popular branch. The power of a popu lar assembly, being little suspected by the people, is always little watched ; and as no one member is to bear the blame of any excesses which the whole body may commit, its power is but little restrained by personal responsibility and a regard to character, and of course is very likely to be abused. Hence has resulted, in every age and nation where the form of government admitted popular assemblies, a constant effort on the part of those assemblies to get all power into their own hands, and to exercise it according to their own passions and caprice. This has everywhere produced the necessity of checking the power of those assem blies, by confining it wholly to legislation, by dividing it between two houses, and by giving the judicial and executive powers to persons inde pendent of the legislature. This has been done by our constitution, which gives the executive power to the President, a single magistrate, places 206 ROBERT OOODLOE HARPER. [1788- the judicial power in the courts, and divides the legislative power between the Senate and House of Eepresentatives. This House of Kepresentatives, being the most numerous and the most popular body, is subject to the same passions and dispositions which popular bodies ever feel; and consequently has a perpetual tendency to encroach on the executive powers, and to direct and control the President in the exercise of his authority. As the President, being a single magistrate, is much more apt to be suspected and viewed with a jealous eye than this popular assembly, which the people consider as nearer to themselves and more under their control, he would have the people against him in these con tests, and must finally submit absolutely to the control of the House, were there not always some members of it, whose just way of thinking and regard to the constitution induce them to oppose the improper enter- prizes of their own body, and to defend the executive power against its perpetual attacks. This was the conduct of the federalists. Knowing the executive power to be absolutely essential for preserving the due balance of the constitution and for conducting the affairs of the nation with prudence, steadiness and success, and knowing it also to be in itself much weaker than its antagonist, they made themselves its defenders, and by their perseverance and talents have thus far succeeded in pre serving to it the weight and authority designed for it by the constitution. It was a third maxim in the system of the federalists, to give liberal not large compensations to men in office: well knowing that in a country where there are but few fortunes, and where almost every man of talents and character depends on his industry for supporting and providing for his family, the contrary system has a constant and powerful tendency to throw the most important offices into the hands of unworthy or unquali fied persons, who either neglect or mismanage the public business, or resort to dishonest means for supplying the deficiencies in their regular compensation. Nothing is more true than that men of talents and char acter will not long leave their homes and devote their time to the public service, unless they are at least supported decently ; and that if we wish for able and faithful services we must pay their price. This the federal government has never done. The first officers under it do not receive enough to support them and their families in a proper manner. Hence in part the difficulty which has been constantly experienced, in prevail ing on men of high character and qualifications to fill those offices. The Secretary of State for instance, or the Secretary of the Treasury, receives but little more from his office, than half as much as a lawyer of talents can derive from his practice, with half the labor and confinement. The federalists have constantly endeavored to remedy this abuse. They have done something, but never were able to do enough. The expense is con stantly made an objection ; but it is a most futile objection. To com- -1820] SAMUEL LOW. 207 pensate liberally, and even handsomely, all the principal officers of the government, would require an additional expense of perhaps thirty thou sand dollars annually ; which is less than a man without talents, in one of those offices, may waste or lose through mismanagement in a month. ILcrto* BORN in , 1765. DIED, 18. TO A SPIDER. [Poems. By Samuel Low. 1800.] T LIKE thee not, Arachne ; thou art base, -*- Perfidious, merciless, and full of guile; Cruel and false, like many of our race, Voracious as the monster of the Nile. Thou villain insect ! well do I perceive. The treacherous web thy murderous fangs have wrought, And yet so fine and subtle dost thou weave, That heedless innocence perceives it not. E'en now I see thee sit, pretending sleep, Yet dost thou eager watch the livelong day, With squinting eyes, which never knew to weep ; Prepared to spring upon unguarded prey. Ill fares it with the unwary little fly, Or gnat, ensnared by thy insidious loom ; In thy envenomed jaws the wretch must die ; To glut thy loathsome carcass is his doom 1 Instinctive is my terror at thy sight ; Oft, ugly reptile, have I shunned thy touch ; Nor do I wonder thou should'st thus affright, Since thou resemblest vicious man so much. Like him thy touch, thy very look, can blight; But not the Spider species dost thou kill ; While, spite of duty, e'en in God's despite, "Man is to man the surest, sorest ill." 208 WILLIAM DUNLAP [1788- (HXfUiam Bunlap, BORN in Perth Amboy, N. J., 1766. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1839. MARRIAGE A LA MODE. [Scene from " The Father of an Only Child." First produced in 1789. The Dramatic Works of William Dunlap. 1806. J MR. and MRS. RACKET seated at breakfast. He has a black patch on his nose, and is reading a newspaper. ACKET. Yaw ! yaw ! Curse me if I can see distinctly this morning. Is it that I lack sleep, or do the printers lack new types? Go on, my dear, go on : I believe you were speaking. [Reads again.] MRS. E,ACK. [Rising, and speaking aside.] This provoking indifference is not to be borne! I must rouse him from it, or lose all hopes of happi ness. [To him.'] Let me tell you, Mr. Eacket, your present behavior is neither manly nor polite. Contrary to the advice of Colonel Campbell, my guardian, I threw myself and my fortune into your arms, blindly excusing, as the levities of youth, your noted propensities to vicious dis sipation. RACK. [Reads.] " A majority of thirty-one in favor of adopting it with amendments." Pray sit down, my dear; you will fatigue yourself; pray sit down. MKS. RACK. Sir, this is adding insult to injury ! In marrying you, I risked the displeasure of all my friends : and though the excellent Colo nel Campbell, my second father, yielded to my will, I hazarded by my conduct that paternal love, which was the first joy of my heart. On your faith I staked all. RACK. Let me tell you, my life, you are a desperate gambler ! After such a confession, can you ever have the face to find fault with my staking a few hundreds on a card ? MRS. RACK. I deserve the reproach, sir; and if the game was yet to play [Pauses.] RACK. Come, there is some spirit in that. Go on, madam. MRS. RACK. Perhaps [Pauses.] RACK. You would play the same stake again. MRS. RACK. What is my gain ? RACK. A husband. MRS. RACK. Whose face I never see, except when excess and riot have made it unfit for public view. RACK. [Reads.] "And weTiope our virtuous example will be followed by all our fellow-citizens." -1820] WILLIAM DUNLAP. 209 MRS. BACK. [ Walking in agitationJ] Virtuous example truly ! 0, Mr. Racket, we Lave been married but one year, and BACK. [Rising and y awning. ~] No more! It has been a curst long year. Enter JACOB. JAC. Sair, here is someboty as vat vaunts you. BACK. Who is it? JAC. De toctor, sair. BACK. O, Tattle ! What patient has applied to him last night, that he is out so early this morning to tell of it? Curse his eternal prating! I'm not at home. JAC. Sair, it isn't him, sair ; it is toder toctor, as vat brings de papers and de notes. BACK. O ho ! my friend Doctor Four-per-cent, the medical broker. He must be attended to. I'm coming. Show him into another room. [Exit Jacob.] He must not be kept waiting. He is a physician indeed ! [Exit.'] MRS. BACK. Whose medicine is the most deadly of all poisons ; the pernicious palliative, which, like the morning stimulant, encourages to persist in the race of destruction. What resource have I for reclaiming him ? Beproach will not do ; that but renders still more disgusting the domestic scene, which ought to allure, not repulse. If I could rouse his dormant love for that he still loves me I know ; if I could make him fear to lose my affection ; if I could make him jealous ! Jealousy ! it will be playing with edged tools. Something I must try, or I shall be undone! His companion, the English officer, has already, by his eyes, made overtures. If I mistake him not, he is villain enough to rob his bottle-companion of his money and his wife, while he insults him with the title of friend. I will encourage his familiarities, and perhaps [Sees Backet coming.'] He seems vexed. I will begin to play my new part Re-enter RACKET. BACK. Damned exorbitant scoundrel ! MRS. BACK. My dear Mr. Backet BACK. Five per cent. ! MRS. BACK. I shall go to the theatre this evening. BACK. I shall be obliged to change the fellow's name again, and call him Five-per-cent instead of Four. He rises as fast as national credit under the new constitution. MRS. BACK. Mr. Backet ! BACK. My dear? MRS. BACK. I am going to the play to-night BACK. What is it ? VOL IV. 14 210 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- MRS. BACK. The "Boad to Buin." BACK. Hum! MRS. BACK. Mr. Kacket, I want money. BACK. So do I, my dear. MRS. BACK. It's no matter ; Captain Busport will lend ma BACK. Hum! MRS. BACK. He has offered me already BACK. Has he? Hum! At what premium ? MRS. BACK. O fie ! He's a gentleman. BACK. Yes ; and when a gentleman lends a lady money, a fine lady, a gay lady, a young lady, it is pretty well understood what premium he expects. You shall have money. My medical broker has a note of mine to discount ; that is to get discounted by & friend, who has in trust the money of a poor widow-woman, whose whole support depends on the interest he procures upon her little mite. Damn him, hypocrite! MRS. BACK. And yet you take BACK. I must take his physic ; I'm sick. "When he brings the dose, I'll share with you. But don't borrow of Busport. MRS. BACK. You'll accompany me to the theatre ? BACK. With this face? MRS. BACK. Why, indeed, my dear, your nose looks as if it wanted the doctor as much as your purse. It is rather hard, though, that I can't have your company, either at home or abroad. A fine woman may dis pense with her husband's assiduities at home, but, for the sake of public opinion, he ought to attend her abroad : for if she is seen at the assembly, the theatre, and public walks with a pretty fellow, the ill-natured world will talk. However, if you can't go, I must take Busport as usual, and rely upon my prudence as the safeguard of my reputation. Adieu ! don't forget the money, the medicine, the healing balm ! Ha, ha, ha ! [Exit.'] BACK. Hum! What's the meaning of all this? "Pretty fellow.'' "prudence," "reputation!" Your humble servant, Mrs. Backet; you wish for my attentions to blind the world's eye. A convenient husband ! A stalking-horse, or ox ! My head aches ! Is it no, damn it, not yet ; this headache is not her gift. Well, this drinking is not the thing for a sober citizen. [Looks at his watch.'] Half-past eleven, by all that's indo lent, and my store not yet visited. Enter RUSPORT BUSP. Ha ! Backet, how do ye? BACK. Captain Busport, I'm very glad to see you ! BUSP. Why, what the devil's the matter, Backet? A broken nose? BACK. Why a yes 'tis rather broke. And I wasn't drunk upon my honor, I wasn't drunk. BUSP. It has a curst ugly appearance. How did you get it ? -1820] WILLIAM D UNLAP. 211 RACK. I fell in with an un genteel beast last night RUSP. You must call him out, my dear fellow. I'll bear your message. No officer in the army or navy can prepare a pistol with me, I'll assure you. RACK. Call him out? RUSP. The brute that broke your nose. RACK. My dear fellow, it was only a cow. I'll tell you the whole affair. You must know I honored St. Patrick, last night, with as hearty a set of boys as ever encircled a table : fellows who have no peace with a full glass before them, and to whom an empty one is worse than the devil. We kept it up ; and going to see Frank M'Connally home, who was a little cut, I fell in with a very modest milch-cow. Frank swore she was a bull ; and, as the bare thought of a bull makes an Irishman horn-mad, I swore she was a horse ; and, to convince him, with a spring I mounted, but, somehow or other, found myself most uncleanly de posited in the kennel, with no other animal near than honest Frank, now thoroughly persuaded, that if it was not a bull at first, I had made it one. RUSP. And so you broke your nose cow-riding ! You, being perfectly sober, out of pure friendship, bestrode a cow, to convince a drunken Irishman that she was not a bull. My dear fellow, don't tell this story until the tenth bumper has gone round. But a truce with badinage; you know I'm a man of business. RACK. Yes, with the women. Pray, when do you proceed to Canada to join your regiment? RUSP. I don't know exactly. I am afraid it is too late to proceed by land ; they tell me the lakes will be broke up ; and I'm detained until my servant and baggage arrive. It's a curst awkward situation. My bills of credit are with my baggage. Couldn't you let me have another hundred with perfect convenience ? RACK. Not exactly with perfect convenience but a RUSP. My drafts will be honored at sight, be assured ; but if not con venient, don't think of it. Where are the ladies? Your wife's a damned fine woman, Racket, and if you will herd with horned cattle I say no more. [ Walks up the stage.] RACK. Curse his infernal gunpowder impudence ! Enter JACOB. JAC. Sair, dare is doo beebles as vat vaunts you. RACK. Two duns I suppose. English riders, with pattern-cards in one pocket, and accounts current in t'other. [To him.'] Is it any of the English gentlemen ? I'm not at home. JAC. Sair, maister Quill vaunts to know if dare is any coods to go to vendue to-day. RACK. Yes; all those packages we received yesterday, first changing 212 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- the marks. But I must see him. Go. [Exit Jacob.'] Rusport, I'll try and serve you. Excuse me I'll send my wife to you. Excuse me a minute. [Exit] RUSP. [Alone.] You cannot serve me better than by sending your wife, and I can excuse your presence most willingly. This fellow knows me to be a pr6fessed libertine, yet sends to me, without jealousy, a wife whom he neglects and ill-uses. He must have a higher opinion of her virtue than I have. I must bring the enemy to terms soon ; and yet the sinews of war are wanting. How to raise money? I would willingly keep this jewel longer [looking at a ring on his finger], though the sight of it is a constant reproach to me. It must dazzle the eyes of Racket's giddy wife, and fascinate the attention of her sentimental sister. Once married, and secure of her fortune, I will annihilate this glittering evi dence, which darts a ray more piercing to my conscience, than any of those which flow from its surface to the eye of the admiring beholder. Would I could annihilate [Sees Mrs. Racket entering.'] Ah ! as gay and radiant as the morn, bright Delia comes 1 CLOSING SCENE OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAGEDY REGULARLY PRODUCED. [Leicester : A Tragedy. By William Dunlap. Performed at the Theatre in John Street, New York, 1794. From the Same.] Scene draws, and discovers a table, lights, etc. A covered dish at each end. EDRED with the attendants. Enter MATILDA. "IV/TATILDA. Why does he not more quickly follow me? -LJ-L I fear I fear. His brow is darkly clouded; Slow he speaks, and solemn. All is mystery. How changed, alas! Alas! who is not changed! He comes, and still the same black clouds hang on him. Enter LEICESTER. Why walks my lord thus gloomily wrapt up, With folded arms and eye devoid of pleasure? There was a time LEIC. There was a time, indeed. Pr'ythee think that I am weary. Heaven knows The speed with which I've posted from my duty To meet no matter. Is the supper ready? MAT. Art thou not well, my lord? LEIC. Ay, very well ; Exceeding well. Is this the seat for me? .1820] WILLIAM DUNLAP. v]^ MAT. If it so please thee, sir. [They sit.] Throw off thy mantle. LEIC. Not yet. MAT. Where is thy friend ? LEIC. He will be here Anon. And where's thy brother Linneric ? MAT. My lord forgets that Linneric is ill. By thee is placed a dish thou lovest much ; I pr'ythee eat. Here do I make my choice. [In great distress and agitation, she offers to uncover the dish next to her. LEICESTER rises solemnly ; while he speaks, she is violently agitated.] LEIC. Hold, madam. It has ever been my mode. Before I eat, to address to Heaven a prayer. All-seeing Mercy ! if what is now about Be in thy sight acceptable, bless it : And for this food, thou who can'st make the wholesomest Meats pernicious to this mortal tenement, Canst likewise, by thy power give nourishment And sweet refreshment from the most pernicious; We therefore may HOWARD. [Without.] Villains! audacious knaves 1 MAT. What means this? We're betrayed [Exit to the noise, attendants follow.] LEIC. Now, faithful Edred. EDR. Thus be all evil far removed from Leicester. [EDRED changes the dishes, shifts the covers, and exit.] LEIC. Methinks the pangs that I did feel for her Are o'er. She makes her guilt appear so plain, I now can firmly sit and see her fall, A victim to her own pernicious arts. Re-enter MATILDA and ATTENDANTS. MAT. Thy friend, perhaps by weariness enticed, Hath drank of wine too freely; but ashamed At seeing me, retired. Now to our seats. Will my lord help himself to that he likes? LEIC. [Uncovering the dish next him.] Here do I make my choice. MAT. And here choose I. LEIC. [Rises.] Hold, Matilda! touch not MAT. [Alarmed.] What means my lord? LEIC. That food is poisoned. MAT. Alas! what meanest thou? LEIC. Thou art discovered. Fallen, fallen Matilda! I did intend to see thee take the bait For me prepared ; but gentle mercy hinders. During the tumult were the dishes changed, And that which thou wast on the point of tasting Was crossed upon the cover ; thou knowest wherefore. MAT. Tis well. Eternal Providence, I thank theel It is not chance which thrice this day hath saved The worthiest gentleman that England owns. 214 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- To avoid foul infamy I sought thy life ; Heaven hath preserved thee, and I am caught. But think not, Leicester, I will live to bear This load of guilt and shame. I have a friend That will avenge thy wrongs, although thou would'st not. [Stabs herself. LEICESTER advances to her. Attendants support her. Some go off.] Leicester, pity my youthful paramour; His guilt is innocence compared to mine. My brother Linneric will soon be here : The knowledge of his coming drove me on To desperate exertion. Oh ! I faint. [Noise without.] Quick stop those ruffians defend thee, Leicester. Bear me from this scene. Forgive forgive forgive. [Exit, lorne off.} Enter ASSASSINS, who advance towards LEICESTER with drawn swords. On the other side, enter HENRY CECIL, his sword drawn. HEN. Stand all aside, leave Leicester to my arm. LEIC. [Throwing off his mantle, and discovering his armor.] Come all! murderers alike! Leicester defies ye all; Armed and prepared, ye vainly seek his life. Enter HOWARD, EDRED, and PEASANTS. They drive off the ASSASSINS, and exeunt. HEN. Defend thee! LEIC. Ungrateful boy, who art thou? HEN. Thy mortal foe, Lord Leicester. Defend thee! LEIC. Rash youth, forbear ! I would not shed thy blood ; But for yon woman, thou hadst never fallen. HEN. No more. Stand on thy guard. This to thy heart ! [LEICESTER stands on his defence ; HENRY drops his sword and runs on LEICESTER'S.} Now do I thank thee! thank thee, generous Leicester! LEIC. [Supports him.} O, heavenly powers! my sword has pierced thee through! HEN. Never came joy so welcome to my heart. could this blood, ungrateful, expiate The injuries I've done thee But I faint [Falls.'] Did'st thou but know how, while I sought thy life, 1 loved thee much, much better than myself Weak wretch! thou'rt caught; hell, hell, thou hast me now! LEIC. Poor youth ! But quick, ere thy fast fleeting breath Hath left thee quite, resolve my pressing doubts. Who art thou? HEN. Henry Cecil is my name. I knew Matilda ere she was thy wife I faint Oh, Matilda! thou hast undone me! LEIC. She hears thee not ; pale Death, ere this, sits ghastly On her visage. Lost Matilda! Speak, poor youth, Yet speak, if thou hast breath. Art thou Lord Cecil's brother? HEN. Brother to him, and to yon bleeding corpse. He did slay Cecil, and I murdered him, Thinking 'twas thee, my lord. So turns the wheel, -1820] WILLIAM DUNLAP. 215 And Guilt doth punish guiltiness. I sink Down plunged to torments fierce and everlasting. LEIC. Nay, think not so, poor soul : who shall set bounds To Heaven's unbounded mercy? Leicester forgives thee; And shall Heaven's gates be shut upon repentance? Look up, and give some sign of blessed hope. [HENRY starts up so as to reach LEICESTER'S hand ; kisses it, throws himself back, and expires. LEICESTER stands over him, pitying. Enter HOWARD, EDRED, etc.] How. Art thou unhurt, my lord? LEIC. My body is Untouched, but sorely is my spirit wounded, Howard. O complicated tale of woe ! Poor guilty wretches! may your sufferings here, Upon this mortal shoal, this bank, whereon So many goodly souls are stranded, prove Atonement ample for your heinous crimes! ,How quick hath Justice followed on the heel Of Perpetration ! Here let the guilty Tremble, and be well assured, one eye there is Which never, never sleeps. MR. COOKE GIVES MR. TREAT PAINE THE SNUB DIRECT. [The Life of George Fred. Cooke. 1812.] SOON after Mr. Cooke bad played Richard, when sitting after dinner with Mr. Price and his friend B , the waiter came up to announce that Mr. Robert Treat Paine and Mr. White bad called on him. Cooke knew them not, and looked to his companions. They knew them, and did not want their company. But, while hesitating as to the mode of getting rid of them, the gentlemen marched up and made their appear- ance. Mr. Robert Treat Paine, with that confident ease which arises from a consciousness of superior worth, or superior talents, or many other causes, introduced himself and his friend White, and apologized for the visit, by signifying his impatience to see a gentleman whose acting had given him such superlative delight. Cooke was not pleased with this trowel -plastering, and, besides, was put upon his guard by the looks and behavior of his companions. He therefore received the orator with cold civility, pointed to chairs, and called : " Sam ! bring glasses, and let these gentlemen help themselves to wine." Mr. White took some wine, but Mr. Robert Treat Paine excused him- self, by saying he preferred brandy. 216 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- " I thought so," says Cooke ; " Sam ! some brandy for the gentleman." The brandy was brought. The orator proceeded : " I thought, Mr. Cooke, that I was pretty well read in Shakespeare ; that I understood him well, few much better ; but, Sir, your Eichard con- vinced me of my ignorance." 44 The stage does sometimes bring the truth home to a man." 44 Ha, ha, ha ! very well, Sir, a fair hit but, Sir, the first beauty I shall mention was, when the attendant informed you of your brother's death the manner in which you received the intelligence and the way in which you gave the passage " 'Would he were wasted, marrowbones and all.'" Cooke, who was writhing under this praise, roared out in his sharpest and shrillest tone " Marrowbones and cleavers, by G d I " Eobert Treat Paine, Esquire, was for once confounded the company laughed and he joined in it, to get rid of it. "Pray, Sir, help your silent friend to a glass of wine." " My silent friend come, Mr. White, your glass. I'll assure you Mr. Cooke, though Mr. White says little " He thinks the more, I suppose may be so ! " 44 Mr. White, Sir, is a man of literature, a player, a poet, a dramatic writer ; but, Sir, Mr. White is a modest man " 44 1 wish the gentleman could say as much for his friend." 44 Very well, Sir ! That's very well. Mr. Cooper is your friend, Mr. Cooke. When he first played here, I wrote a good deal for the theatre then ; I gave him a lift ; my opinion was of some consequence but Mr. Cooper's playing why a to be sure but you know, Mr. Cooke, what playing is and I must say, Mr. Cooper's attempting to represent such characters as " Cooke, who had looked at Price and at Paine alternately, now seized one of the candles, and starting up, held it before Paine, and pointed to the door. 44 Good-night, Sir good-night ! There's the door ! Good-night, I say ! there's the door, there's the door, Sir ! there's the door ! " and continued repeating u there's the door," till the visiting gentlemen were fairly out of the room. Then returning and putting down the candle, he joined in the laugh with his former companions. -1820] WILLIAM DUNLAP. 217 MR. COOKE'S PROPENSITY TO SARCASM. [From the Same.'} ~[ FERE, as in every other city on the continent, the greatest admira- -* - tion was shown of Mr. Cooke's talents as an actor, and the strong- est desire to pay him every respect as a gentleman. But the same obsta- cles arose to the iulfilment of this wish, as at every other place he had visited. tin one instance, when a gentleman happened to mention that his family were among the first settlers of Maryland, he asked him if he had carefully preserved the family jewels? And, on being questioned as to his meaning, replied, " the chains and handcuffs." The notoriety of his character preserved him from such returns as such language would have met if coming from other men ; and this perhaps encouraged him to indulge what he called his propensity to sarcasm. At a dinner-party given in honor of him by Mr. , he was led, still continuing his libations, to descant on Shakespeare, and the mode of representing his great characters, which he did eloquently, and to the delight of a large company. Suddenly, to the astonishment of them all, he jumped up and exclaimed, " Who among ye sent me that damned anonymous letter ? " "What do you mean, Mr. Cooke? " " You know what I mean. What have I done to offend you? Have I not treated ye all with more respect than ye deserved ? And now to have a charge of so base a nature made against me." " What do you complain of, Mr. Cooke ? " " Sir, I am accused of falsehood. I am accused of making false asser- tions. I have received an anonymous letter containing this line alone, * Justify your words.' Sir, my words are truth. What have I said that I cannot justify ? I have perhaps been too keen upon the character of your country, but truth is the severest satire upon it. I am ready to justify what I have said ! " Mr. seeing his company thrown into confusion, and all harmony broken up, arose and expostulated with his guest, and finally hinted that the anonymous letter was a creation of his heated imagination. Cooke then resumed his seat, and fixing his eye on his host for some time, exclaimed, " I have marked you, Sir ! I have had my eye upon you, and it is time that your impertinence should be curbed." This excessive licentiousness of speech, with the peculiar manner of the speaker, appeared so ludicrous, that the company burst into loud laughter, and Cooke, changing his manner, joined heartily with them, and again resumed his glass. 218 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- Some time after, a gentleman told him that it was reported that Mr. Madison, the President of the United States, purposed to come from "Washington to Baltimore to see him act. "If he does, I'll be damned if I play before him. What, I? I! George Frederick Cooke ! who have acted before the Majesty of Britain, play before your Yankee President ! No ! I'll go forward to the audi- ence and I'll say, ' Ladies and Gentlemen ' " Here he was interrupted playfully by Mr. W., who happened to be dressed in black : " Oh no, Mr. Cooke, that would not be right in this country ; you should say, ' friends and fellow -citizens.' " Cooke, surveying him contemptuously, cried, " Hold your tongue, you. damned Methodist preacher," and then proceeded, " Ladies and gentle- men. The king of the Yankee Doodles has come to see me act. Me ; me, George, Frederick, Cooke ! who have stood before my royal master George the Third, and received his Imperial approbation ! And shall I exert myself to play before one of his rebellious subjects, who arrogates kingly state in defiance of his master ? No, it is degradation enough to play before rebels, but I'll not go on for the amusement of a king of rebels, the contemptible King of the Yankee Doodles ! " This effusion only excited laughter, and he went on to expatiate on his deeds of arms in the war against the rebels, and every pla^e in the neighborhood where an action had been fought, was the scene of his military achievement. His garrulity led him to talk of his domestic affairs, and to lament that he had no children ; but shortly after, filling a bumper, he proposed the health of his eldest son, a Captain in the Fifth. " What is his name, Mr. Cooke? " " What is my name, Sir? George Frederick Cooke." A short time after, his second son was proposed with a bumper. "What is his name, Mr. Cooke? " " What should it be, Sir, but George Frederick Cooke ! " With difficulty he was prevailed upon to get into a coach to return home to Baltimore. Still it was necessary that some one should attend him, and, late at night, his host performed that kindness. This offended Cooke, and he began to abuse him and f every thing belonging to the country. This gentleman, observing a stump of a tree near the wheel- track as they passed through a grove, cautioned the coachman. " What, Sir, do you pretend to direct my servant ? " cries Cooke. His companion humored him by apologizing, but seeing the coachman driving too near the edge of a bridge, he again spoke to him "This is too much," cries Cooke "Get out of my coach, Sir! Out I Stop, coachman I" -1820J WILLIAM DUNLAP. 219 ' "Drive on!" " Get out ! Do you order my coachman ? Get out, or this fist shall Mr. who had been told Cooke's character, interrupted him by exclaiming " Sit still, Sir, or I blow your brains out this instant." Cooke was petrified, and sat like a statue but soon began with, " Has George Frederick Cooke come to this damned country to be treated thus ? Shall it be told in England Well, Sir, if you will not get out I will ; " and he opened the door. Mr. was obliged to stop the coach for fear of injury to Cooke, who tumbled himself out and surlily sat down under a tree. With great difficulty his opposition was overcome, and Mr. , near daylight, got rid of his troublesome and turbulent guest, by depositing him at his lodgings. BURNING OF THE RICHMOND THEATRE. [A History of the American Theatre. 1832.] ANEW play and pantomime had been advertised for the benefit of Mr. Placide. The house was fuller than on any night of the season. The play was over, and the first act of the pantomime had passed. The second and last had begun. All was yet gayety, all so far had been pleasure, curiosity was yet alive, and further gratification anticipated the orchestra sent forth its sounds of harmony and joy when the audi- ence perceived some confusion on the stage, and presently a shower of sparks falling from above. Some were startled, others thought it was a part of the scenic exhibition. A performer on the stage received a por- tion of the burning materials from on high, and it was perceived that others were tearing down the scenery. Some one cried out from the stage that there was no danger. Immediately after, Hopkins Eobinson ran forward and cried out " the house is on fire ! " pointing to the ceiling, where the flames were progressing like wildfire. In a moment, all was appalling horror and distress. Kobinson handed several persons from the boxes to the stage, as a ready way for their escape. The cry of "Fire, fire!" ran through the house, mingled with the wailings of females and children. The general rush was to gain the lobbies. It appears from the following description of the house, and the scene that ensued, that this was the cause of the great loss of life. The general entrance to the pit and boxes was through a door not more than large enough to admit three persons abreast. This outer 220 WILLIAM DUNLAP. [1788- entrance was within a trifling distance of the pit door, and gave an easy escape to those in that part of the house. But to attain the boxes from the street it was necessary to descend into a long passage, and ascend again by an angular staircase. The gallery had a distinct entrance, and its occupants escaped. The suffering and death fell on the occupants of the boxes, who, panic-struck, did not see that the pit was immediately left vacant, but pressed on to gain the crowded and tortuous way by which they had entered. The pit door was so near the general entrance, that those who occupied that portion of the house gained the street with ease. A gentleman who escaped from the pit among the last, saw it empty, and when in the street, looked back again upon the general entrance to the pit and boxes, and the door had not yet been reached by those from the lobbies. A gentleman and lady were saved by being thrown accidentally into the pit, and most of those who perished would have escaped if they had leaped from the boxes and sought that avenue to the street. But all darted to the lobbies. The stairways were blocked up. All was enveloped in hot scorching smoke and flame. The lights were extinguished by the black and smothering vapor, and the shrieks of despair were appalling. Happy for a moment were those who gained a window and inhaled the air of heaven. Those who had issued to the street cried to the sufferers at the windows to leap down, and stretched out their arms to save them. Some were seen struggling to gain the apertures to inhale the fresh air. Men, women, and children precipitated themselves from the first and second stories. Some escaped unhurt others were killed or mangled by the fall. Some with their clothes on fire, shrieking, leaped from the windows to gain a short reprieve and die in agonies. " Who can picture," says a correspondent of the Mirror, " the distress of those who, unable to gain the windows or afraid to leap from them, were pent up in the long narrow passages." The cries of those who reached the upper windows are described as being heart-sickening. Many who found their way to the street were so scorched or burnt as to die in con- sequence, and some were crushed to death underfoot after reaching the outer door. Add to this mass of suffering, the feelings of those who knew that they had relatives or friends who had gone to the house that night. Such rushed half frantic to the spot with the crowds of citizens from all quar- ters while the tolling bells sounded the knell of death to the heart of the father or mother whose child had been permitted to visit the theatre on that night of horror. " As my father was leading me home," said Mr. Ilenry Placide, " we saw Mr. Greene, exhausted by previous exertion, leaning on a fence, and looking at the scene of ruin. For all was now one black mass of smok- -1820] WILLIAM DUN LAP. 221 ing destruction. ' Thank God ! ' ejaculated Greene, ' Thank God ! I prohibited Nancy from coming to the house to-night ! She is safe ! ' ' Nancy was his only daughter, just springing into womanhood, still at the boarding-school of Mrs. Gibson ; and as beautiful and lovely a girl as imagination can picture. Mrs. Gibson and the boarders had made up a party for the theatre that evening, and Nancy Greene asked her father's permission to accompany them. He refused but unfortunately added his reason "the house will be crowded, and you will occupy a seat that would otherwise be paid for." On these words hung the fate of youth, innocence, and beauty. " I will pay for your ticket," said the kind instructress, " we will not leave you behind." The teacher and the pupil were buried in the ruins on which the father gazed, and over which he returned thanks for the safety of his child. He went home and learned the truth. An instance of the escape of a family is given. The husband, with three children, were in the second boxes ; his wife, with a female friend, in another part of the house. The wife gained a window leaped out and escaped unhurt. Her friend followed and was killed. The father clasped two helpless girls to his breast, and left a boy of twelve years of age to follow the boy was forced from the father, and to a window sprang out and was safe. The parent, with his precious charge, followed the stairway, pressed upon by those behind him, and those who mounted on the heads and shoulders of the crowd before them he became uncon- scious, but was still borne along he was taken up, carried to his bed, and opened his eyes to see all his family safe. On the contrary, Lieut. Gibbon, of the Navy as exemplary in private life as heroic in the service of his country, and on the brink of a union with Miss Conyers, the pride of Richmond for every accomplishment and virtue was swept into eternity while exerting himself to do all that man should do in such trying circumstances. He was with his mother at the theatre, and carried her to a place of safety then rushed back to save her in whose fate his own was bound up he caught her in his arms had borne her partly down the staircase, when the steps gave way, and a body of flame swept them to eternity. Friday, the 27th of December, 1811, was a day of mourning to Rich- mond. The banks and stores were closed. A law was passed prohibit- ing amusements of every kind for four months. A day was set apart for humiliation and prayer. A monument was resolved on to be erected to the memory of the dead and the event. 222 ALEXANDER WILSON. [1788- BORN in Paisley, Scotland, 1766. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1813. THE BALTIMORE BIRD. [The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson. 1876.] HIGH on yon poplar, clad in glossiest green, The orange, black-capped Baltimore is seen; The broad-extended boughs still please him best, Beneath their bending skirts he hangs his nest; There his sweet mate, secure from every harm, Broods o'er her spotted store, and wraps them warm, Lists to the noon-tide hum of busy bees, Her partner's mellow song, the brook, the breeze ; These day by day the lonely hours deceive, From dewy morn to slow-descending eve. Two weeks elapsed, behold a helpless crew Claim all her care, and her affection too ; On wings of love the assiduous nurses fly, Flowers, leaves, and boughs, abundant food supply; Glad chants their guardian, as abroad he goes, And waving breezes rock them to repose. THE CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF MASTER BLUE JAY. [American Ornithology. 1808-14.] Blue Jay is an almost universal inhabitant of the woods, fre- quenting the thickest settlements, as well as the deepest recesses of the forest, where his squalling voice often alarms the deer, to the disap- pointment and mortification of the hunter ; one of whom informed me that he made it a point, in summer, to kill every Jay he could meet with. In the charming season of spring, when every thicket pours forth har- mony j the part performed by the Jay always catches the ear. He appears to be among his fellow musicians what the trumpeter is in a band, some of his notes having no distant resemblance to the tones of that instrument. These he has the faculty of changing through a great variety of modulations, according to the particular humor he happens to be in. When disposed for ridicule, there is scarce a bird whose peculiar- ities of song he cannot tune his notes to. "When engaged in the blandish- ments of love they resemble the soft chatterings of a duck, and while he nestles among the thick branches of the cedar, are scarce heard at a few -1820] ALEXANDER WILSON. 223 paces distant ; but no sooner does he discover your approach, than he sets up a sudden and vehement outcry, flying off, and screaming with all his might, as if he called the whole feathered tribes of the neighborhood to witness some outrageous usage he had received. When he hops undis- turbed among the high branches of the oak and hickory, they become soft and musical ; and his calls of the female a stranger would readily mistake for the repeated creakings of an ungreased wheelbarrow. All these he accompanies with various nods, jerks, and other gesticulations, for which the whole tribe of Jays are so remarkable, that, with some other peculiarities, they might have very well justified the great Swedish naturalist in forming them into a separate genus by themselves. The Blue Jay builds a large nest, frequently in the cedar, sometimes on an apple-tree, lines it with dry fibrous roots, and lays five eggs of a dull olive, spotted with brown. The male is particularly careful of not being heard near the place, making his visits as silently and secretly as possible. His favorite food is chestnuts, acorns, and Indian corn. He occasionally feeds on bugs and caterpillars, and sometimes pays a plun- dering visit to the orchard, cherry -rows, and potato-patch ; and has been known in times of scarcity to venture into the barn, through openings between the weather-boards. In these cases he is extremely active and silent, and if surprised in the fact makes his escape with precipitation, but without noise, as if conscious of his criminality. Of all birds he is the most bitter enemy to the Owl. No sooner has he discovered the retreat of one of these, than he summons the whole feathered fraternity to his assistance, who surround the glimmering solitaire, and attack him from all sides, raising such a shout as may be heard, in a still day, more than half a mile off. When in my hunting excursions I have passed near this scene of tumult, I have imagined to myself that I heard the insulting party venting their respective charges with all the virulency of a Billingsgate mob; the Owl, meanwhile, returning every compliment with a broad goggling stare. The war becomes louder and louder, and the Owl, at length forced to betake him- self to flight, is followed by the whole train of his persecutors, until driven beyond the boundaries of their jurisdiction. But the Blue Jay himself is not guiltless of similar depredations with the Owl, and becomes, in his turn, the very tyrant he detested, when he sneaks through the woods, as he frequently does, and among the thickets and hedge-rows, plundering every nest he can find of its eggs, tearing up the callow young by piecemeal, and spreading alarm and sorrow around him. The cries of the distressed parents soon bring together a number of interested spectators (for birds in such circumstances seem ,truly to sympathize with each other), and he is sometimes attacked with such spirit as to be under the necessity of making a speedy retreat 224 ALEXANDER WILSON. [1788- He will sometimes assault small birds, with the intention of killing and devouring them ; an instance of which I myself once witnessed over a piece of woods near the borders of Schuylkill, where I saw him engaged for more than five minutes pursuing what I took to be a species of Motacilla, wheeling, darting and doubling in the air, and at last, to my great satisfaction, got disappointed, by the escape of his intended prey. In times of great extremity, when his hoard or magazine is frozen up, buried in snow, or perhaps exhausted, he becomes very voracious, and will make a meal of whatever carrion or other animal substance comes in the way ; and has been found regaling himself on the bowels of a Robin in less than five minutes after it was shot. There are, however, individual exceptions to this general character for plunder and outrage, a proneness for which is probably often occasioned by the wants and irritations of necessity. A Blue Jay, which I have kept for some time, and with whom I am on terms of familiarity, is in reality a very notable example of mildness of disposition and sociability of manners. An accident in the woods first put me in possession of this bird, while in full plumage and in high health and spirits ; I carried him home with me, and put him into a cage already occupied by a Gold-winged "Woodpecker, where he was saluted with such rudeness, and received such a drubbing from the lord of the manor, for entering his premises, that to save his life, I was obliged to take him out again. I then put him into another cage, where the only tenant was a female Orchard Oriole. She also put on airs of alarm, as if she considered herself endangered and insulted by the intrusion ; the Jay meanwhile sat mute and motionless on the bottom of the cage, either dubious of his own situation, or willing to allow time for the fears of his neighbor to subside. Accordingly in a few minutes, after displaying various threatening gestures (like some of those Indians we read of in their first interviews with the whites), she began to make her approaches, but with great circumspection and readi- ness for retreat. Seeing, however, the Jay begin to pick up some crumbs of broken chestnuts in a humble and peaceable way, she also descended and began to do the same ; but at the slightest motion of her new guest wheeled round and put herself on the defensive. All this ceremonious jealousy vanished before evening ; and they now roost together, feed, and play together, in perfect harmony and good-humor. When the Jay goes to drink, his messmate very impudently jumps into the saucer to wash herself, throwing the water in showers over her companion, who bears it all patiently ; venturing now and then to take a sip between every splash, without betraying the smallest token of irritation. On the contrary, he seems to take pleasure in his little fellow-prisoner, allowing her to pick (which she does very gently) about his whiskers, and to clean his claws from the minute fragments of chestnuts which happen to -1820] ALEXANDER WILSON. 225 adhere to them. This attachment on the one part, and mild condescen- sion on the other, may perhaps be partly the effect of mutual misfortunes* which are found not only to knit mankind, but many species of inferior animals, more closely together ; and shows that the disposition of the Blue Jay may be humanized, and rendered susceptible of affectionate impressions, even for those birds which in a state of nature he would have no hesitation in making a meal of. He is not only bold and vociferous, but possesses a considerable talent for mimicry, and seems to enjoy great satisfaction in mocking and teasing other birds, particularly the little hawk (F. Sparverius), imitating his cry wherever he sees him, and squealing out as if caught. This soon brings a number of his own tribe around him, who all join in the frolic, darting about the hawk and feigning the cries of a bird sorely wounded and already under the clutches of its devourer; while others lie concealed in bushes, ready to second their associates in the attack. But this ludicrous farce often terminates tragically. The hawk, singling out one of the most insolent and provoking, sweeps upon him in an unguarded moment, and offers him up a sacrifice to his hunger and resentment. In an instant the tune is changed ; all their buffoonery vanishes, and loud and incessant screams proclaim their disaster. Wherever the Jay has had the advantage of education from man, he has not only shown himself an apt scholar, but his suavity of manners seems equalled only by his art and contrivances, though it must be con- fessed that his itch for thieving keeps pace with all his other acquire- ments. Dr. Mease, on the authority of Colonel Postell, of South Carolina, informs me that a Blue Jay which was brought up in the family of the latter gentleman had all the tricks and loquacity of a parrot ; pilfered everything he could conveniently carry off, and hid them in holes and crevices ; answered to his name with great sociability, when called on ; could articulate a number of words pretty distinctly ; and when he heard any uncommon noise or loud talking, seemed impatient to contribute his share to the general festivity (as he probably thought it) by a display of all the oratorical powers he was possessed of. Mr. Bartram relates an instance of the Jay's sagacity worthy of remark. "Having caught a Jay in the winter season," says he, "I turned him loose in the greenhouse, and fed him with corn (zea, maize), the heart of which they are very fond of. This grain being ripe and hard, the bird at first found a difficulty in breaking it, as it would start from his* bill when he struck it. After looking about, and as if considering for a moment, he picked up his grain, carried and placed it close up in a cor- ner on the shelf, between the wall and a plant box, where being confined on three sides he soon effected his purpose, and continued afterwards to make use of this same practical expedient." " The Jay, 1 ' continues this VOL IV. 15 226 ALEXANDER WILSON. [1788- judicious observer, " is one of the most useful agents in the economy of nature, for disseminating forest trees and other rucif erous and hard-seeded vegetables on which they feed. Their chief employment during the autumnal season is foraging to supply their winter stores. In performing this necessary duty they drop abundance of seed in their flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where they alight to deposit them in the post holes, etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet winter and spring. These birds alone are capable, in a few years' time, to replant all the cleared lands." THE LITTLE WIDOWER. [From the Same.] A BOX fixed up in the window of the room where I slept was taken possession of by a pair of wrens. Already the nest was built, and two eggs laid, when one day the window being open, as well as the room door, the female wren venturing too far into the room to reconnoitre, was sprung upon by grimalkin, who had planted herself there for the pur- pose, and before relief could be given was destroyed. Curious to see how the survivor would demean himself, I watched him carefully for several days. At first he sung with great vivacity for an hour or so, but becoming uneasy went off for half an hour ; on his return he chanted again as before, went to the top of the house, stable, and weeping-willow, that she might hear him ; but seeing no appearance of her, he returned once more, visited the nest, ventured cautiously into the window, gazed about with suspicious looks, his voice sinking to a low melancholy note as he stretched his little neck about in every direction. Returning to the box, he seemed for some minutes at a loss what to do, and soon after went off, as I thought, altogether, for I saw him no more that day. Towards the afternoon of the second day he again made his appearance accompanied with a new female, who seemed exceedingly timorous and shy; and who after great hesitation entered the box; at this moment the little widower or bridegroom seemed as if he would warble out his very life with ecstacy of joy. After remaining about half a minute in, they both flew off, but returned in a few minutes and instantly began to carry out the eggs, feathers, and some of the sticks, supplying the place of the two latter with materials of the same sort ; and ultimately succeeded in raising a brood of seven young, all of which escaped in safety. -1820] ALEXANDER WILSON. 227 MY LANDLADY'S NOSE. [The Poems, etc., etc. 1876.] O'ER the evils of life 'tis a folly to fret, Despondence and grief never lessened them yet; Then a fig for the world, let it coine as it goes, I'll sing to the praise of rny landlady's nose. My landlady's nose is in noble condition, For longitude, latitude, shape, and position; 'T is as round as a horn, and as red as a rose; Success to the hulk of my landlady's nose ! To jewellers' shops let your ladies repair, For trinkets and knick-knacks to give them an air, Here living carbuncles, a score of them glows On the big massy sides of my landlady's nose. Old Patrick M'Dougherty, when on the fuddle, Pulls out a cigar, and looks up to her noddle ; For Dougherty swears, when he swigs a good dose, By Marjory's firebrand, my landlady's nose. Ye wishy-wash buttermilk drinkers so cold, Come here, and the virtues of brandy behold; Here's red burning ^Etna ; a mountain of snows Would roll down in streams from my landlady's nose. Each cavern profound of this snuff-loving snout Is furnished within, sir, as well as without; O'er the brown upper lip such a cordial flows the cordial brown drops of my landlady's nose ! But, gods ! when this trunk, with an uplifted arm, She grasps in the dish-clout to blow an alarm, Horns, trumpets, conches, are but screaming of crows, To the loud thundering twang of my landlady's nose. My landlady's nose unto me is a treasure, % A care-killing nostrum, a fountain of pleasure; If I want for a laugh to discard all my woes, 1 only look up to my landlady's nose. 228 WILLIAM IRVING. [1788- BOKN In New York, N. Y., 1766. DIED there, 1821. THE DAYS OF GROGRAM GRANDAMES. [" From the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq." Salmagundi. 1807.] HOW oft in musing mood my heart recalls, From gray-beard Father Time's oblivious halls, The modes and maxims of my early day, Long in those dark recesses stowed away : Drags once more to the cheerful realms of light Those buckram fashions, long since lost in night, And makes, like Endor's witch, once more to rise My grogram grandames to my raptured eyes! Shades of my fathers ! in your pasteboard skirts, Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts, Your formal bag-wigs wide-extended cuffs, Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs! Gods ! how ye strut, at times, in all your state, Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate! I see ye move the solemn minuet o'er, The modest foot scarce rising from the floor; No thundering rigadoon with boisterous prance, No pigeon-wing, disturb your contre-dause, But, silent as the gentle Lethe's tide, Adown the festive maze ye peaceful glide! Still in my mental eye each name appears Each modest beauty of departed years ; Close by mamma I see her stately march, Or sit, in all the majesty of starch ; When for the dance a stranger seeks her hand, I see her doubting, hesitating, stand, Yield to his claim with most fastidious grace, And sigh for her intended in his place ! Oh! golden days; when every gentle fair On sacred Sabbath conned with pious care Her Holy Bible, or her prayer-book o'er, Or studied honest Bunyan's drowsy lore ; Travelled with him the Pilgrim's Progress through, And stormed the famous town of Man-Soul too : Beat Eye- and Ear- gate up with thundering jar, And fought triumphant through the Holy War; Or if, perchance, to lighter works inclined, They sought with novels to relax the mind, 'Twas Grandison's politety formal page, Or Clelia or Pamela were the rage. No plays were then theatrics were unknown ; A learned pig a dancing monkey shown -1820] JOHN QUINCT ADAMS. 229 The feats of Punch a cunning juggler's sleight, Were sure to fill each bosom with delight. An honest, simple, humdrum race we were, Undazzled yet by fashion's wildering glare. BORN in Braintree, Mass., 1767. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1848. EXTRACTS FROM HIS DIARY. [Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 1874r-77.] AMERICAN GENIUS. WE had a band of music playing during the dinner. Eichard asked me whether there Was much taste for music in America. I told him no ; that American genius was very much addicted to painting, and we had produced in that art some of the greatest masters of the age; but that we had neither cultivated nor were attached much to music ; that it had always appeared to me a singular phenomenon in the national character, and I could not account for it otherwise than by supposing it owing to some particular construction of our fibres, that we were created without a strong devotion to music. "Oh, do not say so!" said he; "you will be chargeable with high-treason against the character of your country for such a sentiment, especially if you were to deliver it to an Italian or French connoisseur and virtuoso." "I suppose so," said I; " but then I must rely for my pardon upon the other tribute which I have paid to my country's genius in the article of painting. As for the rest," I added, "I pretend not to trace the cause of the fact, but music is not an object of enthusiasm in America ; and that Marseillaise hymn, that your band are now playing, reminds me of a forcible proof of the fact I have stated The Americans fought seven years and more for their liberty. If ever a people had occasion to combine the sensations of harmony with the spirit of patriotism, they had it during that time. Yet there never was during the whole period a single song written, nor a single tune composed, whicd electrized every soul, and was resounded by every voice, like your patriotic songs." " That is indeed," said he, " a very strong fact." I told him that if I could be permitted to cite myself as an instance, I am extremely fond of music, and by dint of great pains have learned to blow very badly the flute but could never learn to per- form upon the violin, because I never could acquire the art of putting 230 JOHN qUINCY ADAMS. [1788- the instrument in tune that I consoled myself with the idea of being an American, and therefore not susceptible of great musical powers ; though I must do my countrymen the justice to say that few of them are so very dull as this ; that I knew many who had a musical ear, and could tune an instrument with little or no instruction at all. I know not whether the Representative Richard finally concluded that I was guilty of debasing the genius of my country; but the American character needs no speaking-trumpet of vanity to proclaim its praise. For us the voice of truth and of justice is enough, and on that ground we shall never dread the test of comparison with any nation upon earth. THE CHAEACTEE OF HIS MOTHEE. Had she lived to the age of the Patriarchs, every day of her life would have been filled with clouds of goodness and of love. There is not a virtue that can abide in the female heart but it was the ornament of hers. She had been fifty-four years the delight of my father's heart, the sweetener of all his toils, the comforter of all his sorrows, the sharer and heightener of all his joys. It was but the last time when I saw my father that he told me, with an ejaculation of gratitude to the Giver of every good and every perfect gift, that in all the vicissitudes of his fortunes, through all the good report and evil report of the world, in all his struggles and in all his sorrows, the affectionate participation and cheer- ing encouragement of his wife had been his never-failing support, without which he was sure he should never have lived through them. Never have I known another human being the perpetual object of whose life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even, of her own ex- cellence, that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence it came. She had seen the world its glories, without being dazzled ; its vices and follies, without being infected by them. She had suffered often and severely from fits of long and painful sickness, always with calmness and resignation. She had a profound, but not an obtrusive, sensibility. She was always cheerful, never frivolous ; she had neither gall nor guile. Her attention to the domestic economy of her family was unrivalled rising with the dawn, and superintending the household concerns with indefatigable and all-foreseeing care. She had a warm and lively relish for literature, for social conversation, for whatever was interesting in the occurrences of the time, and even in political affairs. She had been, during the war of our Revolution, an ardent patriot, and the earliest lesson of unbounded devotion to the cause of their country that her children received was from her. She had the most delicate -1820] JOHN QUINCT ADAMS. 231 sense of propriety of conduct, but nothing uncharitable, nothing bitter. Her price was indeed above rubies. EDWAKD EVERETT IN 1820. Attended the divine service at the Capitol, and heard Mr. Edward Everett, the Professor of the Greek language at Harvard University, a young man of shining talents and of illustrious promise. His text was from L Cor. vii. 29 : " Brethren, the time is short; " and it was without comparison the most splendid composition as a sermon that I ever heard delivered. He had preached it last Sunday evening, where my sons had heard him, and George had written to me that it was the finest sermon he had ever heard, and foretelling that he would preach it again here. Hackneyed as this subject, the shortness of time, is, I never be- fore saw so forcibly exemplified the truth that nothing is stale or trite in the hands of genius. His composition is more rich, more varied, more copious, more magnificent, than was that of Buckminster. There were passages that reminded me perhaps too much of Massillon, but the whole sermon was equal to any of the best that Massillon ever wrote. It abounded in splendid imagery, in deep pathos, in cutting satire, in pro- found reflections of morals, in coruscations of wit, in thunder-bolts of feeling. His manner of speaking was slow, and his articulation distinct, perhaps to excess. There was some want of simplicity both in the matter and manner. A still greater defect was a want of unity in his subject He gave as one sermon a cento of extracts from two or more. There was a description of the destructive operations of time, absolutely terrific and a portrait of the blessings and future glories of this country, wrought up like a work of enchantment. The house was full, but not crowded. The New England hearers were rapt in enthusiasm. Mr. King told me he had never heard anything like it. The Southern auditors ap- proved more coolly. Mr. Clay, with whom I walked, after the service, to call upon Chief -Justice Marshall, told me that although Everett had a fine fancy and a chaste style of composition, his manner was too theatrical, and he liked Mr. Holley's manner better. . . A TALK WITH CALHOUN. After this meeting, I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had avowed were just and noble; but that in the Southern country, whenever they were mentioned, they were always understood as applying only to white men. Domestic labor was confined to the blacks, and such was the prejudice, that if he, who was the most popular man in his district, were to keep a white servant in his house, his character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined. 232 JOHN quiNCT ADAMS. [1788- I said that this confounding of the ideas of servitude and labor was one of the bad effects of slavery ; but he thought it attended with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all kinds of labor not, for example, to farming. He himself had often held the plough; so had his father. Manufacturing and mechanical labor was not degrading. It was only manual labor the proper work of slaves. No white person could descend to that. And it was the best guarantee to equality among the whites. It produced an unvarying level among them. It not only did not excite, but did not even admit of inequalities, by which one white man could domineer over another. I told Calhoun I could not see things in the 'same light. It is, in truth, all perverted sentiment mistaking labor for slavery, and dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's man- ners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? ' It perverts human reason, and reduces man en- dowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion, that slaves are happy and contented in their condition, that between master and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while at the same time they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very mention of human rights as ap- plicable to men of color. The impression produced upon my mind by the progress of this discussion is, that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles upon which alone our Eevolution can be justified ; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master ; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by ad- mitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured or restored to their owners, and persons not to be represented -1820] JOHN Q UINCT ADAMS. 233 themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been that this slave representation has governed the Union. Benjamin portioned above his brethren has ravened as a wolf. In the morning he has devoured the prey, and at night he has divided the spoil. It would be no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union under this Con- stitution, that almost everything which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has been accomplished in despite of them or forced upon them, and that everything unpropitious and dishonorable, includ- ing the blunders and follies of their adversaries, may be traced to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme un- willingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the States to amend and revise the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States unpolluted with slavery, with a great and glorious object to effect, namely, that of rallying to their standard the other States by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep. . . MORALS IN GOVERNMENT. My own deliberate opinion is, that the more of pure moral principle is carried into the policy and conduct of a Government, the wiser and more profound will that policy be. If it is not the uniform course of human events that virtue should be crowned with success, it is at least the uni- form will of Heaven that virtue should be the duty of man. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked. Time and chance hap- peneth to them all. So says Divine Eevelation, and so proves constant experience. The path of virtue is, indeed, not always clear, and in the complication of human affairs artifice and simulation itself must occa- sionally be practised. The sternest moralists allow it in time of war, and there may perhaps be occasions when it is justifiable in contemplation of war, or defensively against deceptions of the same kind. But it may, I believe, be laid down as a universal maxim that fraud is never justifi- able where force would not be equally justifiable to effect the same object. Fraud is, therefore, a weapon essentially belonging to the relations of war, and in them to be very sparingly resorted to ; for every instance of it, even when justifiable, tends when discovered to impair the confidence of mankind in the sincerity and integrity of him who uses it. 234 JOHN QUIWGY ADAMS [1788- THE SCHOOL OF CONVERSATION. I went out this evening in search of conversation, an art of which I never had an adequate idea. Long as I hav.e lived in the world, I have never thought of conversation as a school in which something was to be learned. I never knew how to make, to control, or to change it. I am by nature a silent animal, and my dear mother's constant lesson in child- hood, that children in company should be seen and not heard, confirmed me irrevocably in what I now deem a bad habit. Conversation is an art. of the highest importance, and a school in which, for the business of life, more may perhaps be learned than from books. It is, indeed, and must be, desultory and superficial ; and, as a school, consists more in making others talk than in talking. Therein has been, and ever will be, my deficiency the talent of starting the game. A man who has that need talk but little himself. When once the ball is set in motion, it will roll, and in considering conversation as a school, I mean it as a school to- Jearn, and not to teach THE PASSION OF A STATESMAN. Charles must teach himself all that he learns. He will learn nothing from others. Literature has been the charm of my life, and, could I have carved out my own fortunes, to literature would my whole life have been devoted. I have been a lawyer for bread, and a statesman at the call of my country. In the practice of the law I never should have attained the highest eminence, for the want of natural and spontaneous eloquence. The operations of my mind are slow, my imagination slug- gish, and my powers of extemporaneous speaking very inefficient. But I have much capacity for, and love of, labor, habits on the whole of industry and temperance, and a strong and almost innate passion for literary pursuits. The business and sometimes the dissipations of my life have in a great measure withdrawn me from it. The summit of my ambition would have been by some great work of literature to have done honor to my age and country, and to have lived in the gratitude of future ages. This consummation of happiness has been denied me. The por- tion of life allotted to me is that of my mortal existence; but even in this failure of my highest objects, literature has been to me a source of continual enjoyment and a powerful preservative from vice. -1820] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 235 THE DEATH OF CHILDREN. [Poems of Religion and Society. 1848.] Q1 URE, to the mansions of the blest ^ When infant innocence ascends, Some angel brighter than the rest The spotless spirit's flight attends. On wings of ecstasy they rise, Beyond where worlds material roll Till some fair sister of the skies Receives the unpolluted soul. There, at the Almighty Father's hand, Nearest the throne of living light, The choirs of infant seraphs stand, And dazzling shine, where all are bright. That inextinguishable beam, With dust united at our birth. Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam, The more it lingers upon earth. Closed in this dark abode of clay, The stream of glory faintly burns, Nor unobscured the lucid ray To its own native fount returns. But when the Lord of mortal breath Decrees his bounty to resume, And points the silent shaft of death, Which speeds an infant to the tomb- No passion fierce, no low desire, Has quenched the radiance of the flame; Back to its God the living fire Returns unsullied, as it came. LIBERTY AND ELOQUENCE. [Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory. 1810.] SO dear, and so justly dear, to us are the blessings of freedom, that if no other advantage could be ascribed to the powers of speech, than that they are her inseparable companions, that alone would be an unanswer- 236 JOHN QUINGY ADAMS. , [1788- able argument for us to cherish them with more than a mother's affection. Let, then, the frosty rigor of the logician tell you that eloquence is an insidious appeal to the passions of men. Let the ghastly form of despot- ism groan from his hollow lungs and bloodless heart, that eloquence is the instrument of turbulence and the weapon of faction. Nay, let the severe and honest moralist himself pronounce in the dream of abstraction, that truth and virtue need not the aid of foreign ornament. Answer ; silence them all. Answer ; silence them forever, by recurring to this great and overpowering truth. Say, that by the eternal constitution of things it was ordained, that liberty should be the parent of eloquence ; that eloquence should be the last stay and support of liberty ; that with her she is ever destined to live, to flourish, and to die. Call up the shades of Demosthenes and Cicero to vouch your words ; point to their immortal works, and say these are not only the sublimest strains of oratory that ever issued from the uninspired lips of mortal men ; they are at the same time the expiring accents of liberty, in the nations, which have shed the brightest lustre on the name of man. DELIBERATIVE ORATORY. [From the Same.] ' principal feature in the style of deliberative oratory should be simplicity. Not that it disdains, but that it has seldom occasion for decoration. The speaker should be much more solicitous for the thought than for the expression. This constitutes the great difference between the diction proper for this, and that which best suits the two other kinds of oratory. Demonstrative eloquence, intended for show, delights in ostentatious ornament. The speaker is expected to have made previous preparation. His discourse is professedly studied, and all the artifices of speech are summoned to the gratification of the audience. The heart is cool for the reception, the mind is at leisure for the contemplation of polished periods, oratorical numbers, coruscations of metaphor, profound reflection, and subtle ingenuity. But deliberative discussions require little more than prudence and integrity. Even judicial oratory supposes a previous painful investigation of his subject by the speaker, and exacts an elaborate, methodical conduct of the discourse. But deliberative sub- jects often arise on a sudden, and allow of no premeditation. Hearers are disinclined to advice which they perceive the speaker has been dressing up in his closet. Ambitious ornament should then be ex- cluded, rather than sought. Plain sense, clear logic, and above all ardent sensibility, these are the qualities needed by those who give, and -1820] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 237 those who take, counsel. A profusion of brilliancy betrays a speaker more full of himself than of his cause ; more anxious to be admired than believed. The stars and ribbons of princely favor may glitter on the breast of the veteran hero at a birthday -ball ; but, exposed to the rage of battle, they would only direct the bullet to his heart. A deliberative orator should bury himself in his subject. Like a superintending provi- dence, he should be visible only in his mighty works. Hence that universal prejudice, both of ancient and modern times, against written deliberative discourses ; a prejudice which bade defiance to all the thunders of Demosthenes. In the midst of their most enthusiastic admiration of his eloquence, his countrymen nevertheless remarked that his orations " smelt too much of the lamp." Let it however be observed that, upon great and important occasions, the deliberative orator may be allowed a more liberal indulgence of preparation. When the cause of ages and the fate of nations hangs upon the thread of a debate, the orator may fairly consider himself as addressing, not only his immediate hearers, but the world at large, and all future times. Then it is, that, looking beyond the moment in which he speaks, and the immediate issue of the deliberation, he makes the question of an hour a question for every age and every region ; takes the vote of unborn millions upon the debate of a little senate, and incor- porates himself and his discourse with the general history of mankind. On such occasions and at such times, the oration naturally and properly assumes a solemnity of manner and a dignity of language, commensurate with the grandeur of the cause. Then it is, that deliberative eloquence lays aside the plain attire of her daily occupation, and assumes the port and purple of the queen of the world. Yet even then she remembers that majestic grandeur best comports with simplicity. Her crown and sceptre may blaze with the brightness of the diamond, but she must not, like the kings of the gorgeous East, be buried under a shower of bar- baric pearls and gold. TO SALLY. [Poems, etc. 1848.] THE man in righteousness arrayed, A pure and blameless liver, Needs not the keen Toledo blade, Nor venom-freighted quiver. What though he wind his toilsome way O'er regions wild and weary 238 JOHN QUTNGT ADAMS. [1788- Through Zara's burning desert stray, Or Asia's jungle's dreary: What though he plough the billowy deep By lunar light, or solar, Meet the resistless Simoon's sweep, Or iceberg circumpolar. In bog or quagmire deep and dank, His foot shall never settle ; He mounts the summit of Mont Blanc, Or Popocatapetl. On Chimborazo's breathless height, He treads o'er burning lava ; Or snuffs the Bohan Upas blight, The deathful plant of Java. Through every peril he shall pass, By Virtue's shield protected ; And still by Truth's unerring glass His path shall be directed. Else wherefore was it, Thursday last, While strolling down the valley, Defenceless, musing as I passed A canzonet to Sally ; A wolf, with mouth-protruding snout, Forth from the thicket bounded I clapped my hands and raised a shout- He heard and fled confounded. Tangier nor Tunis never bred An animal more crabbed ; Nor Fez, dry-nurse of lions, fed A monster half so rabid. Nor Ararat so fierce a beast Has seen, since days of Noah; Nor stronger, eager for a feast, The fell constrictor boa. Oh ! place me where the solar beam Has scorched all verdure vernal ; Or on the polar verge extreme, Blocked up with ice eternal Still shall my voice's tender lays Of love remain unbroken; And still my charming Sally praise, Sweet smiling and sweet spoken. -1820J JOHN QUINCT ADAMS. 239 THE MISSION OF AMERICA. [Fourth of July Address at Washington. 1821.] AND now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philoso- phers of the older world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire, what has America done for the benefit of mankind ? let our answer be this America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the in- extinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among tnem, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and in- dependence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her bene- dictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and inde- pendence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence ; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. 240 JOHN QUINC? ADAMS. [1788- OUR FOREFATHERS. [An Eulogy on the Life and Character of James Madison. Delivered in Boston, 27 Sep- tember, 1836.] WE reverse the order of sentiment and reflection of the ancient Persian king we look back on the century gone by we look around with anxious and eager eye for one of that illustrious host of patriots and heroes under whose guidance the revolution of American Independence was begun and continued and completed. We look around in vain. To them this crowded theatre, full of human life in all its stages of existence, full of the glowing exultation of youth, of the steady maturity of manhood, the sparkling eyes of beauty, and the gray hairs of reverend age all this to them is as the solitude of the sepulchre. We think of this and say, how short is human life ! But then, then, we turn back our thoughts again, to the scene over which the falling curtain has but now closed upon the drama of the day. From the saddening thought that they are no more, we call for comfort upon the memory of what they were, and our hearts leap for joy that they were our fathers. We see them, true and faithful subjects of their sovereign, first meeting with firm but respectful remonstrance the approach of usurpation upon their rights. We see them, fearless in their fortitude and confident in the righteousness of their cause, bid defiance to the arm of power, and de- clare themselves Independent States. We see them waging for seven years a war of desolation and of glory, in most unequal contest with their own unnatural stepmother, the mistress of the seas, till under the sign- manual of their king their Independence was acknowledged and last and best of all, we see them, toiling in war and in peace to perpetuate an union, under forms of Government intricately but skilfully adjusted so as to secure to themselves and their posterity the priceless blessings of inseparable Liberty and Law. Their days on earth are ended, and yet their century has not passed away. Their portion of the blessings which they thus labored to secure, they have enjoyed and transmitted to us their posterity. We enjoy them as an inheritance won, not by our toils watered, not with our tears saddened, not by the shedding of any blood of ours. The gift of heaven through their sufferings and their achievements but not without a charge of correspondent duty incumbent upon ourselves. And what, my friends and fellow-citizens, what is that duty of our own? Is it to remonstrate to the adder's ear of a king beyond the Atlantic wave, and claim from him the restoration of violated rights ? No. Is it to sever the ties of kindred and of blood, with the people from whom we sprang : to cast away the precious name of Britons and -1820] JOHN QUINGT ADAMS. 241 be no more the countrymen of Shakspeare and Milton, of Newton and Locke of Chatham and Burke? Or more and worse, is it to meet their countrymen in the deadly conflict of a seven years' war? No. Is it the last and greatest of the duties fulfilled by them ? Is it to lay the founda- tions of the fairest Government and the mightiest nation that ever floated on the tide of time ? No ! These awful and solemn duties were allotted to them ; and by them they were faithfully performed What then is our duty ? Is it to preserve, to cherish, to improve the inheritance which they have left us won by their toils watered by their tears saddened but fertilized by their blood ? Are we the sons of worthy sires, and in the onward march of time have they achieved in the career of human improvement so much, only that our posterity and theirs may blush for the contrast between their unexampled energies and our nerveless im- potence? Between their more than Herculean labors and our indolent repose? No, my fellow-citizens far be from us far be from you, for he who now addresses you has but a few short days before he shall be called to join the multitudes of ages past far be from you the reproach or the suspicion of such a degrading contrast. You too have the solemn duty to perform, of improving the condition of your species, by improv- ing your own. Not in the great and strong wind of a revolution, which rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord for the Lord is not in the wind not in the earthquake of a -revolutionary war, marching to the onset between the battle-field and the scaffold for the Lord is not in the earthquake not in the fire of civil dissension in war between the members and the head in nullification of the laws of the tTnion by the forcible resistance of one refractory State for the Lord is not in the fire ; and that fire was never kindled by your fathers ! No ! it is in the still small voice that succeeded the whirlwind, the earth- quake, and the fire. The voice that stills the raging of the waves and the tumults of the people that spoke the words of peace of harmony of union. And for that voice, may you and your children's children, " to the last syllable of recorded time," fix your eyes upon the memory, and Usten with your ears to the life of James Madison. VOL. iv. 16 242 JOHN qUINGT ADAMS. [1788- INJUSTICE TO THE INDIAN. [From a Speech in the U. S. H. of R. on Certain Resolutions for Distributing Stores to the Distressed Fugitives from Indian Hostilities in Alabama and Georgia. 1836.] YOU have sanctioned all these outrages upon justice, law, and humanity, by succumbing to the power and the policy of Georgia ; by accommodating your legislation to her arbitrary will ; by tearing to tat- ters your old treaties with the Indians, and by constraining them, under pdne forte et dure, to the mockery of signing other treaties with you, which, at the first moment when it shall suit your purpose, you will again tear to tatters, and scatter to the four winds of heaven ; till the Indian race shall be extinct upon this continent, and it shall become a problem, beyond the solution of antiquaries and historical societies, what the red man of the forest was. This, sir, is the remote and primitive cause of the present Indian war your own injustice sanctioning and sustaining that of Georgia and Alabama. This system of policy was first introduced by the present administration of your national government. It is directly the reverse of that system which had been pursued by all the preceding adminis- trations of this government under the present constitution. That system consisted in the most anxious and persevering efforts to civilize the Indians, to attach them to the soil upon which they lived, to enlighten their minds, to soften and humanize their hearts, to fix in permanency their habitations, and to turn them from the wandering and precarious pursuits of the hunter to the tillage of the ground, to the cultivation of corn and cotton, to the comforts of the fireside, to the delights of home. This was the system of Washington and of Jefferson, steadily pursued by all their successors, and to which all your treaties and all your laws of intercourse with the Indian tribes were accommodated. The whole system is now broken up, and instead of it you have adopted that of expelling, by force or by compact, all the Indian tribes from their own territories and dwellings to a region beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Arkansas, bordering upon Mexico ; and there you have deluded them with the hope that they will find a permanent abode, a final resting-place from your never-ending rapacity and persecution. There you have undertaken to lead the willing, and drive the reluctant, by fraud or by force, by treaty or by the sword and the rifle all the remnants of the Seminoles, the Creeks, of the Cherokees and the Choc- taws, and of how many other tribes I cannot now stop to enumerate. In the process of this violent and heartless operation you have met with all the resistance which men in so helpless a condition as that of the Indian tribes can make. Of the immediate causes of the war we are not yet fully informed ; but -1820] JOHN qUINGT ADAMS. 243 I fear you will find them, like the remoter causes, all attributable to yourselves. It is in the last agonies of a people forcibly torn and driven from the soil which they had inherited from their fathers, and which your own example, and exhortations, and instructions, and treaties, had riveted more closely to their hearts it is in the last convulsive struggles of their despair that this war has originated ; and, if it bring some portion of the retributive justice of heaven upon our own people, it is our melancholy duty to mitigate, as far as the public resources of the national treasury will permit, the distresses of our own kindred and blood, suffering under the necessary consequences of our own wrong. THE LIP AND THE HEART. [Poems, etc. 1848.] ONE day between the Lip and the Heart A wordless strife arose, Which was expertest in the art His purpose to disclose. The Lip called forth the vassal Tongue, And made him vouch a lie ! The slave his servile anthem sung, And braved the listening sky. The Heart to speak in vain essayed, Nor could his purpose reach His will nor voice nor tongue obeyed, His silence was his speech. Mark thou their difference, child of earth! While each performs his part, Not all the lip can speak is worth The silence of the heart. THE CRIME OF SLAVERY. [Oration on the Declaration of Independence, at Newluryport, 4 July, 1837.] M ^HE inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the 4- principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the Southern patriots of the Eevolution ; by no one with deeper 244 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [1788- and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself. No insincerity or hypocrisy can fairly be laid to their charge. Never, from their lips, was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country ; and they saw that, before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting con- viction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the memoir of his life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not far distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves. " Nothing is more certainly written," said he, "in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free." My countrymen! it is written in a better volume than the book of fate ; it is written in the laws of Nature and of Nature's Grod. We are told, indeed, by the learned doctors of the nullification school, that color operates as a forfeiture of the rights of human nature : that a dark skin turns a man into a chattel; that crispy hair transforms a human being into a four-footed beast. The master-priest informs you that slavery is consecrated and sanctified by the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament : that Ham was the father of Canaan, and all his posterity were doomed, by his own father, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the descendants of Shem and Japhet; that the native Americans of African descent are the children of Ham, with the curse of Noah still fastened upon them; and the native Americans of European descent are children of Japhet, pure Anglo-Saxon blood, born to command, and to live by the sweat of another's brow. The master- philosopher teaches you that slavery is no curse, but a blessing ! that Providence Providence ! has so ordered it that this country should be inhabited by two races of men, one born to wield the scourge, and the other to bear the record of its stripes upon his back ; one to earn, through a toilsome life, the other's bread, and to feed him on a bed of roses ; that slavery is the guardian and promoter of wisdom and virtue; that the slave, by laboring for another's enjoyment, learns disinterestedness and humility ; that the master, nurtured, clothed, and sheltered, by another's toils, learns to be generous and grateful to the slave, and sometimes to feel for him as a father for his child ; that, released from the necessity of supplying his own wants, he acquires opportunity of leisure to improve his mind, to purify his heart, to cultivate his taste; that he has time on his hands to plunge into the depths of philosophy, and to soar to the clear empyrean of seraphic morality. The master-statesman ay, the statesman in the land of the Declaration of Independence, in the halls of national legislation, with the muse of history recording his words as -1820] JOHN QUINCT ADAMS. 245 they drop from his lips, with the colossal figure of American Liberty leaning on a column entwined with the emblem of eternity over his head, with the forms of Washington and Lafayette speaking to him from the canvas turns to the image of the father of his country, and, for- getting that the last act of his life was to emancipate his slaves, to bolster up the cause of slavery says, " That man was a slave-holder." My countrymen! these are the tenets of the modern nullification school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free dis- cussion that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth ? Is there among you one who hea^s me, solicitous above all things for the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us of that Union proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence of that Union never to be divided "by any act whatever and who dreads that the discussion of the merits of slavery will endanger the continuance of the Union ? Let him dis- card bis terrors, and be assured that they are no other than the phantom fears of nullification ; that, while doctrines like these are taught in her schools of philosophy, preached in her pulpits, and avowed in her legis- lative councils, the free, unrestrained discussion of the rights and wrongs of slavery, far from endangering the Union of these States, is the only condition upon which that Union can be preserved and perpetuated. What ! are you to be told, with one breath, that the transcendent glory of this day consists in the proclamation that all lawful government is founded on the inalienable rights of man, and, with the next breath, that you must not whisper this truth to the winds, lest they should taint the atmosphere with freedom, and kindle the flame of insurrection ? Are you to bless the earth beneath your feet because she spurns the footsteps of a slave, and then to choke the utterance of your voice lest the sound of liberty should be re-echoed from the palmetto-groves, mingled with the discordant notes of disunion ? No ! No ! Freedom of speech is the only safety-valve which, under the high pressure of slavery, can preserve your political boiler from a fearful and fatal explosion. Let it be ad- mitted that slavery is an institution of internal policy, exclusively sub- ject to the separate jurisdiction of the States where it is cherished as a blessing, or tolerated as an evil as yet irremediable. But let that slavery which intrenches herself within the walls of her own impregnable fortress not sally forth to conquest over the domain of freedom. Intrude not beyond the hallowed bounds of oppression ; but, if you have by solemn compact, doomed your ears to hear the distant clanking of the chain, let not the fetters of the slave be forged afresh upon your own soil ; far less permit them to be riveted upon your own feet. Quench not the spirit of freedom. Let it go forth, not in panoply of fleshly wisdom, but with the promise of peace, and the voice of persuasion, clad in the whole armor of truth, conquering and to conquer. 246 JAMES ASHETON BAYARD. [1788- BORN in Philadelphia, Perm., 1767. DIED at Wilmington, Del., 1815. PLEA FOE AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY. [From a Speech on the Judiciary Sill, U. S. H. of R., 19 February, 1802.] SIB, the morals of your people, the peace of the country, the stability of the government, rest upon the maintenance of the independence of the judiciary. It is not of half the importance in England, that the judges should be independent of the Crown, as it is with us that they should be independent of the legislature. Am I asked, would you render the judges superior to the legislature? I answer, no, but co- ordinate. Would you render them independent of the legislature? I answer, yes, independent of every power on earth, while they behave themselves well. The essential interests, the permanent welfare of society, require this independence; not, sir, on account of the judge; that is a small consideration, but on account of those between whom he is to decide. You calculate on the weaknesses of human nature, and you suffer the judge to be dependent on no one, lest he should be partial to those on whom he depends. Justice does not exist where partiality prevails. A dependent judge cannot be impartial. Independence is, therefore, essential to the purity of your judicial tribunals. Let it be remembered, that no power is so sensibly felt by society, as- that of the judiciary. The life and property of every man is liable to be in the hands of the judges. Is it not our great interest to place our judges upon such high ground that no fear can intimidate, no hope seduce them? The present measure humbles them in the dust, it prostrates them at the feet of faction, it renders them the tools of every dominant party. It is this effect which I deprecate, it is this consequence which I deeply deplore. What does reason, what does argument avail, when party-spirit presides ? Subject your bench to tKe influence of this spirit, and justice bids a final adieu to your tribunals. We are asked, sir, if the judges are to be independent of the people? The question presents a false and delusive view. We are all the people. We are r and as long as we enjoy our freedom, we shall be divided into parties. The true question is, shall the judiciary be permanent, or fluctuate with the tide of public opinion? I beg, I implore gentlemen to consider the magnitude and value of the principle which they are about to annihilate. If your judges are independent of political changes, they may have their preferences, but they will not enter into the spirit of party. But let their existence depend upon the support of the power of a certain set of -1820] THADDEUS MASON HARRIS. 247 men, and they cannot be impartial. Justice will be trodden underfoot Your courts will lose all public confidence and respect. The judges will be supported by their partisans, who, in their turn, will expect impunity for the wrongs and violence they commit. The spirit of party will be inflamed to madness : and the moment is not far off, when this fair country is to be desolated by a civil war. Do not say that you render the judges dependent only on the peopla You make them dependent on your President. This is his measure. The same tide of public opinion which changes a President, will change the majorities in the branches of the legislature. The legislature will be the instrument of his ambition, and he will have the courts as the instru- ments of his vengeance. He uses the legislature to remove the judges, that he may appoint creatures of his own. In effect, the powers of the government will be concentrated in the hands of one man, who will dare to act with more boldness, because he will be sheltered from responsibility. The independence of the judiciary was the felicity of our constitution. It was this principle which was to curb the fury of party on sudden changes. The first movements of power gained by a struggle, are the most vindictive and intemperate. Kaised above the storm, it was the judiciary which was to control the fiery zeal, and to quell the fierce passions of a victorious faction. We are standing on the brink of that revolutionary torrent, which deluged in blood one of the fairest countries of Europe. France had her national assembly, more numerous and equally popular with our own. She had her tribunals of justice, and her juries. But the legis- lature and her courts were but the instruments of her destruction. Acts of proscription and sentences of banishment and death were passed in the cabinet of a tyrant. Prostrate your judges at the feet of party, and you break down the mounds which defend you from this torrent. jttagott BORN in Charlestown, Mass., 1768. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1842. THE LITTLE ORATOR. [Written for Edward Everett, and recited by him in childhood. 1798.] PRAY, how should I, a little lad, In speaking, make a figure ? You're only joking, I'm afraid, Do wait till I am bigger. 248 JOSEPH DENNIE. [1788- But, since you wish to hear my part, ' And urge nie to begin it, I'll strive for praise, with all my heart, Though small the hope to win it. I'll tell a tale how Farmer John A little roan- colt bred, sir, And every night and every morn He watered and he fed, sir. Said Neighbor Joe to Farmer John, " Arn't you a silly dolt, sir, To spend such time and care upon A little useless colt, sir ? " Said Farmer John to Neighbor Joe, " I'll bring my little roan up, Not for the good he now can do, But will do, when he's grown up." The moral you can well espy, To keep the tale from spoiling; The little colt, you think, is I, I know it by your smiling. And now, my friends, please to excuse My lisping and my stammers ; I, for this once, have done my best, And so I'll make my manners. Jennie* BORN in Boston, Mass., 1768. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1813. SILENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. [From " The Farrago." The Port Folio. Vol. I. 1801.] rights of men have been so assiduously conned in the school of Paine, it is surprising that the rights of conversation are so par- tially understood. Though the genius of our government is republican, yet our conversation partakes much of the old leaven of monarchy. Though our political conventions timidly limit the balanced powers of a President, yet our evening clubs, careless of equality, voluntarily become passive and silent subjects, permitting some despot to dictate and to decide. Men, when quitting their closets to combine in social joys, -1820] JOSEPH DENNIE. forget that they must give as well as receive pleasure. Dean Swift never spoke more prolixly at a time, than ten minutes would allow ; but then regularly and justly expected ten minutes' worth of instruc- tion or amusement from others. If the Dean Swifts of American circles waited for the motion of other tongues, full soon, I ween, there would be lack of sound. Foreigners remark, to our prejudice, that taciturnity which descends in a straight line to us from our British ancestors. A modern company of gentlemen and ladies, sitting on both sides of the room, reflecting the rays of each other's eyes, and maintaining a dead silence, reminds one more of a regiment under Prussian discipline, than of social beings, sitting at their ease, and chat- ting with fluency and good-humor. It has been my misfortune to pass whole evenings with weak women and men, " without a manly mind," among whom, as Goldsmith tersely expresses it, there seemed to be a general combination in favor of stupidity. I have been compelled to sit, "with sad civility, and an aching head," and devolve the whole stream of chat among a circle, whose heads were as vacant as their faces, and whose tongues were as silent as if mouldering in a charnel-house. " Now this is worshipful society," I have exclaimed, and secretly prayed that I might be wafted to Amsterdam and smoke a smutty pipe with a Dutch burgomaster; that I might exchange conditions with an oyster, alternately opening and shutting his shell on a rock; that I might be confined in a milliner's bandbox, and doomed to hear the clamorous click-clack of feminine folly, rather than yawn for hours among silent starers who, like puppets, acted in dumb show. To converse with spirit requires exertion, and hence even the in- genious lounger may consider conversation as a tax. The exigencies of society require that every quota be paid. He, who drone-like indo- lently and sullenly refuses to contribute to the common stock, is guilty of a high misdemeanor; and Sociability should enjoin on her officers to punish with severity the contempt. THE IMPORTED FRENCH PHILOSOPHY. [From " The Lay Preacher" in the Same.'] A PHILOSOPHER, in the modern sense of the word, I would define a presumptuous mortal, proudly spurning at old S3 7 stems, and promptly inventing new. Be the materials ever so naught, be their connection ever so slight, be the whole ever so disjointed and crazy, if it be new, these confident architects will swear that their building will accommodate you better than any that you have previously used. To 250 JOSEPH DENNIE. [1788- catch the eye, and abuse the credulity of wondering fools, the puppet- show philosopher exhibits his scheme, gorgeously painted and gloriously illuminated, and bellows all the time in praise of his varnished ware. The whole is artfully calculated to captivate and charm all, except those few who are not suddenly delighted with such representations, who know of what stuff they are made, for what purposes they are intended, and in what they are sure invariably to end. Such men -gaze only to deride. But laugh as you please, the philosophers find in human nature such a fund of credulity that, be their draughts large as they may, no protest is anticipated. It is a bank, not merely of discount, but deposit, and bolstered up by all the credit of the great body corporate of all the weakness in the world. The moment that a man arrives in this fairy and chivalric land of French philosophy, he beholds at every creek and corner something to dazzle and surprise, but nothing steadfast or secure. The surface is slippery, and giants, and dwarfs, and wounded knights and distressed damsels abound. Nor are enchanters wanting ; and they are the philosophers themselves. They will, in a twinkling, conjure away kingdoms, chain a prince's daughter in a dungeon, and give to court pages, lackeys, and all those "airy nothings," u a local habitation and a name.' 1 If the adventurer in this fantastic region be capriciously weary of his old mansion, the philosophic enchanters will quickly fur- nish a choice of castles, "roughly rushing to the skies." They are un- stable, it is true, and comfortless, and cold, and cemented with blood, but show speciously at a distance, with portcullis most invitingly open for the free and equal admission of all mankind. Those who have been professors of the new philosophy of France, and their servile devotees in America, taint everything they touch. Like the dead insect in the ointment, they cause the whole to send forth an odious and putrid savor. Instead of viewing man as he is, they are continually forming plans for man as he should be. Nothing established, nothing common, is admitted into their systems. They invert all the rules of adaptation. They wish to fashion nature and society in their whimsical mould, instead of regulating that mould according to the proportions of society and nature. They glow with intense love for the whole species, but are cold and chill as death towards every in- dividual To men of the complexion of Condorcet and his associates, most of the miseries of France may be ascribed. Full of paradox, recent from wire- drawing in the schools, and with mind all begrimed from the Cyclops cave of metaphysics, behold a Sieyes, in the form of a politician, draught- ing, currents calamo, three hundred constitutions in a day, and not one of them fit for use, but delusive as a mountebank's bill, and bloody as the habiliments of a Banquo. -1820] ANONYMO US. 251 Of this dangerous, deistical, and Utopian school, a great personage from Virginia is a favored pupil. His Gallic masters stroke his head, and pronounce him forward and promising. Those who sit in the same form cheerfully and reverently allow him to be the head of his class. In allusion to the well marshalled words of a great orator, him they worship; him they emulate; his "notes" they con over all the time they can spare from the " Aurora " of the morning, or French politics at night. The man has talents, but they are of a dangerous and delusive kind. He has read much, and can write plausibly. He is a man of letters, and should be a retired one. His closet, and not the cabinet, is his place. In the first; he might harmlessly examine the teeth of a non- descript monster, the secretions of an African, or the Almanac of Banneker. At home he might catch a standard of weight from the droppings of his eaves, and, seated in his epicurean chair, laugh at Moses and the prophets, and wink against the beams of the Sun of Eighteousness. At the seat of government, his abstract, inapplicable, metaphysico-politics are either nugatory or noxious. Besides, his prin- ciples relish so strongly of Paris, and are seasoned with such a profusion of French garlic, that he offends the whole nation. Better for Americans, that on their extended plains "thistles should grow, instead of wheat, and cockle, instead of barley," than that a "philosopher" should influ- ence the councils of the country, and that his admiration of the works of Yoltaire and Helvetius should induce him to wish a closer connection with Frenchmen. "When a metaphysical and Gallic government obtains in America, may the pen drop from the hand, and "the arm fall from the shoulder-blade " of THE LAY PKEACHEK. TO THE GODS. [The Port Folio. Vol. I. 1801.] gods, who sit and live at rest, Attend to hear my wishes ; I'm in a hurry to be blest, So, pray, be expeditious. Grant me let's see now, if you please, This very moment grant Plague take it how vexatious this! I can't think what I want. 252 TECUMSEH. [1788- BORN near the present town of Springfield, O., about 1768. FELL at the Battle of the Thames, 1813. SPEECH TO GENERAL PROCTOR, SHORTLY BEFORE THE BATTLE. [Found among Proctor's papers, and printed in the National Intelligencer. 1813.] FATHER, listen to jour children ! yon have them now all before you. The war before this our British father gave the hatchet to his red children, when old chiefs were alive. They are now dead. In that war our father was thrown on his back by the Americans, and our father took them by the hand without our knowledge ; and we are afraid that our father will do so again at this time. Summer before last, when I came forward with my red brethren, and was ready to take up the hatchet in favor of our British father, we were told not to be in a hurry, that he had not yet determined to fight the Americans. Listen ! When war was declared, our father stood up and gave us the tomahawk, and told us that he was ready to strike the Americans; that he wanted our assistance, and that he would certainly get us our lands back, which the Americans had taken from us. Listen! You told us, at that time, to bring forward our families to this place, and we did so : and you promised to take care of them, and that they should want for nothing, while the men would go and fight the enemy. That we need not trouble ourselves about the enemy's garri- sons; that we knew nothing about them, and that our father would attend to that part of the business. You also told your red children that you would take good care of your garrison here, which made our hearts glad. Listen! When we were last at the Rapids, it is true we gave you little assistance. It is hard to fight people who live like ground-hogs. Father, listen ! Our fleet has gone out ; we know they have fought : we have heard the great guns : but know nothing of what has happened to our father with one arm. Our ships have gone one way, and we are much astonished to see our father tying up everything and preparing to run away the other, without letting his red children know what his in- tentions are. You always told us to- remain here and take care of our lands. It made our hearts glad to hear that was your wish. Our great father, the King, is the head, and you represent him. You always told us that you would never draw your foot off British ground ; but now, father, we see you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father -1820] DAVID EVERETT. 253 doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare our father's con- duct to a fat animal that carries its tail upon its back, but when affrighted, it drops it between its legs and runs off. Listen, Father! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land; neither are we sure that they have done so by water we therefore wish to remain here and fight our enemy, should they make their appearance. If they defeat us, we will then retreat with our father. At the battle of the Kapids, last war, the Americans certainly defeated us ; and when we retreated to our father's fort in that place, the gates were shut against us. We were afraid that it would now be the case, but instead of that, we now see our British father preparing to march out of his garrison. Father! You have got the arms and ammunition which our great father sent for his red children. If you have an idea of going away, give them to us, and you may go and welcome, for us. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend our lands, and if it is his will, we wish to leave our bones upon them. Ctoerett BORN in Princeton, Mass., 1769. DIED at Marietta, 0., 1813. LINES SPOKEN BY A BOY OF SEVEN YEARS. [Caleb Bingham's " Columbian Orator." 1810.] YOU'D scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage; And if I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow ; Tall oaks from little acorns grow ; And though I now am small and young, Of judgment weak and feeble tongue, Yet all great learned men, like me, Once learned to read their A, B, C. But why may not Columbia's soil Rear men as great as Britain's isle? Exceed what Greece and Rome have done? Or any land beneath the sun? Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great As any other sister State? 254 DE WITT CLINTON. [1788- Or where's the town, go far and near, That does not find a rival here? Or where's the boy, but three feet high, Who's made improvements more than I ? These thoughts inspire my youthful mind To be the greatest of mankind: Great, not like Caesar, stained with blood, But only great as I am good. mitt Clinton, BORN in Little Britain, New Windsor, Orange Co., N. Y., 1769. DIED in Albany, N. T., 1838. ELOQUENCE OF THE SIX NATIONS. [From These tokens were incompatible with the result of the exam- ination I had made. If my hands were true, I was immured between walls through which there was no avenue. I now exerted my voice, and cried as loud as my wasted strength would admit. Its echoes were sent back to me in broken and confused sounds and from above. This effort was casual, but some part of that uncertainty in which I was involved was instantly dispelled by it. In passing through the cavern on the former day, I have mentioned the verge of the pit at which I arrived. To acquaint me as far as was pos- sible with the dimensions of the place, I had hallooed with all my force, knowing that sound is reflected according to the distance and relative positions of the substances from which it is repelled. The effect produced by my voice on this occasion resembled, with re- markable exactness, the effect which was then produced. Was I, then, shut up in the same cavern? Had I reached the brink of the same precipice and been thrown headlong into that vacuity? Whence else could arise the bruises which I had received, but from my fall ? Yet all remembrance of iny journey hither was lost. I had determined to ex- plore this cave on the ensuing day, but my memory informed me not that this intention had been carried into effect. Still, it was only pos- sible to conclude that I had come hither on my intended expedition, and had been thrown by another, or had, by some ill chance, fallen, into the pit. This opinion was conformable to what I had already observed. Tbe pavement and walls were rugged like those of the footing and sides of the cave through which I had formerly passed. But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe to which I was now reserved ? The sides of this pit were inaccessible ; human footsteps would never wander into these recesses. My friends were unapprized of my forlorn state. Here I should continue till wasted by famine. In this grave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable agonies, and then perish for- ever. . . .. My hunger speedily became ferocious. I tore the linen of my shirt between my teeth and swallowed the fragments. I felt a strong pro- pensity to bite the flesh from my arm. My heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered on the delight I should experience in rending some living animal to pieces, and drinking its blood and grinding its quivering fibres between my teeth. 276 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- Tliis agony had already passed beyond the limits of endurance. I saw that time, instead of bringing respite or relief, would only aggravate my wants, and that my only remaining hope was to die before I should be assaulted by the last extremes of famine. I now recollected that a toma- hawk was at hand, and rejoiced in the possession of an instrument by which I could so effectually terminate my sufferings. I took it in my hand, moved its edge over my fingers, and reflected on the force that was required to make it reach my heart. I investigated the spot where it should enter, and strove to fortify myself with resolu- tion to repeat the stroke a second or third time, if the first should prove insufficient. I was sensible that I might fail to inflict a mortal wound, but delighted to consider that the blood which would be made to flow would finally release me, and that meanwhile my pains would be allevi- ated by swallowing this blood. You will not wonder that I felt some reluctance to employ so fatal though indispensable a remedy. I once more ruminated on the possibility of rescuing myself by other means. I now reflected that the upper termination of the wall could not be at an immeasurable distance from the pavement. I had fallen from a height; but if that height had been considerable, instead of being merely bruised, should I not have been dashed into pieces? Gleams of hope burst anew upon my soul. Was it not possible, I asked, to reach the top of this pit? The sides were rugged and uneven. Would not their projectures and abruptnesses serve me as steps by which I might ascend in safety? This expedient was to be tried without delay. Shortly my strength would fail, and my doom would be irrevo- cably sealed. I will not enumerate my laborious efforts, my alternations of despond- ency and confidence, the eager and unwearied scrutiny with which I examined the surface, the attempts which I made, and the failures which, for a Jfane, succeeded each other. A hundred times, when I had ascended some feet from the bottom, I was compelled to relinquish my undertaking by the untenable smoothness of the spaces which remained to be gone over. A hundred times I threw myself, exhausted by fatigue and my pains, on the ground. The consciousness was gradually restored that, till I had attempted every part of the wall, it was absurd to despair, and I again drew my tottering limbs and aching joints to that part of the wall which had not been surveyed. At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found somewhat that seemed like a recession in the wall. It was possible that this was the top of the cavity, and this might be the avenue to liberty My heart leaped with joy, and I proceeded to climb the wall. No undertaking could be conceived more arduous than this. The space between this verge and the floor was nearly smooth. The verge was higher from the -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 277 bottom than my head. The only means of ascending that were offered me were by my hands, with which I could draw myself upward so as, at length, to maintain my hold with my feet. My efforts were indefatigable, and at length I placed myself on the verge. When this was accomplished, my strength was nearly gone. Had I not found space enough beyond this brink to stretch myself at length, I should unavoidably have fallen backward into the pit, and all my pains had served no other end than to deepen my despair and hasten my destruction. . . * . In this state, I once more consoled myself that an instrument of death was at hand. I had drawn up with me the tomahawk, being sensible that, should this impediment be overcome, others might remain that would prove insuperable. Before I employed it, however, I cast my eyes wildly and languidly around. The darkness was no less intense than in the pit below, and yet two objects were distinctly seen. They resembled a fixed and obscure flame. They were motionless. Though lustrous themselves, they created no illumination around them. This circum- stance, added to others, which reminded me of similar objects noted on former occasions, immediately explained the nature of what I beheld. These were the eyes of a panther. Thus had I struggled to obtain a post where a savage was lurking and waited only till my efforts should place me within reach of- his fangs. The first impulse was to arm myself against this enemy. The desperate- ness of my condition was, for a moment, forgotten. The weapon which was so lately lifted against my own bosom was now raised to defend my life against the assault of another. There was no time for deliberation and delay. In a moment he might spring from his station and tear me to pieces. My utmost speed might not enable me to reach him where he sat, but merely to encounter his assault. I did not reflect how far my strength was adequate to save me. All the force that remained was mustered up and exerted in a throw. No one knows the powers that are latent in his constitution. Called forth by imminent dangers, our efforts frequently exceed our most sanguine belief. Though tottering on the verge of dissolution, and apparently unable to crawl from this spot, a force was exerted in this throw, probably greater than I had ever before exerted. It was resistless and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between those glowing orbs. It penetrated the skull, and the animal fell, struggling and shrieking, on the ground. My ears quickly informed me 1 when his pangs were at an end. His cries and his convulsions lasted for a moment and then ceased. The effect of his voice, in these subterranean abodes, was unspeakably rueful. The abruptness of this incident, and the preternatural exertion of my 278 CHAELES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- strength, left me in a state of languor and sinking, from which slowly and with difficulty I recovered. The first suggestion that occurred was to feed upon the carcass of this animal. My hunger had arrived at that pitch where all fastidiousness and scruples are at an end. I crept to the spot. I will not shock you by relating the extremes to which dire neces- sity had driven me. I review this scene with loathing and horror. Now that it is past I look back upon it as on some hideous dream. The whole appears to be some freak of insanity. No alternative was offered, and hunger was capable of being appeased even by a banquet so detest- able. If this appetite has sometimes subdued the sentiments of nature, and compelled the mother to feed upon the flesh of her offspring, it will not excite amazement that I did not turn from the yet warm blood and reeking fibres of a brute. One evil was now removed, only to give place to another. The first sensations of fulness had scarcely been felt when my stomach was seized by pangs, whose acuteness exceeded all that I ever before experienced. I bitterly lamented my inordinate avidity. The excruciations of famine were better than the agonies which this abhorred meal had produced. Death was now impending with no less proximity and certainty, though in a different form. Death was a sweet relief for my present miseries, and I vehemently longed for its arrival. I stretched myself on the ground. I threw myself into every posture that promised some alleviation of this evil. I rolled along the pavement of the cavern, wholly inattentive to the dangers that environed me. That I did not fall into the pit whence I had just emerged must be ascribed to some mirac- ulous chance. Gradually my pains subsided, and I fell into a deep sleep. I was visited by dreams of a thousand hues. They led me to flowing streams and plenteous banquets, which, though placed within my view, some power forbade me to approach. From this sleep I recovered to the fruition of solitude and darkness, but my frame was in a state less feeble than before. That which I had eaten had produced temporary distress, but on the whole had been of use. If this food had not been provided for me I should scarcely have avoided death. I had reason, therefore, to congratulate myself on the danger that had lately occurred. . I was now assailed by the torments of thirst. My invention and my courage were anew bent to obviate this pressing evil. I reflected that there was some recess from this cavern, even from the spot where I now stood. Before, I was doubtful whether in this direction from this pit any avenue could be found; but, since the panther had come hither, there was reason to suppose the existence of some such avenue. I now likewise attended to a sound, which, from its invariable tenor, denoted somewhat different from the whistling of a gale. It seemed -1820] CHAELES BROCKDEN BROWN. 279 like the murmur of a running stream. I now prepared to go forward and endeavor to move along in that direction in which this sound apparently came. .... I had gone some hundred feet when the murmur, before described, once more saluted my ear. This sound, being imagined to proceed from a running stream, could not but light up joy in the heart of one nearly perishing with thirst. I proceeded with new courage. The sound approached no nearer, nor became more distinct; but, as long as it died not away, I was satisfied to listen and to hope. I was eagerly observant if any, the least, glimmering of light should visit this recess. At length, on the right hand, a gleam, infinitely faint, caught my attention. It was wavering and unequal. I directed my steps towards it. It became more vivid and permanent. It was of that kind, however, which proceeded from a fire, kindled with dry sticks, and not from the sun. I now heard the crackling of flames. This sound made me pause, or, at least, to proceed with circum- spection. At length the scene opened, and I found myself at the entrance of a cave. I quickly reached a station, when I saw a fire burning. At first no other object was noted, but it was easy to infer that the fire was kindled by men, and that they who kindled it could be at no great distance. Thus was I delivered from my prison, and restored to the enjoyment of the air and the light. Perhaps the chance was almost miraculous that Jed me to this opening. In any other direction, I might have in- volved myself in an inextricable maze and rendered my destruction sure ; but what now remained to place me in absolute security ? Beyond the fire I could see nothing ; but, since the smoke rolled rapidly away, it was plain that on the opposite side the cavern was open to the air. I went forward, but my eyes were fixed upon the fire : presently, in consequence of changing my station, I perceived several feet, and the skirts of blankets. I was somewhat startled at these appearances. The legs were naked, and scored into uncouth figures. The moccasons which lay beside them, and which were adorned in a grotesque manner, in addition to other incidents, immediately suggested the suspicion that they were Indians. No spectacle was more adapted than this to excite wonder and alarm. Had some mysterious power snatched me from earth, and cast me, in a moment, into the heart of the wilderness? Was I still in the vicinity of my parental habitation, or was I thousands of miles distant? Were these the permanent inhabitants of this region, or were they wanderers and robbers? While in the heart of the mountain, I had entertained a vague belief that I was still within the precincts of Norwalk. This opinion was shaken for a moment by the objects which I now beheld, but it insensibly returned : yet how was this opinion to be 280 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- reconciled to appearances so strange and uncouth, and what measure did a due regard to mj safety enjoin me to take? I now gained a view of four brawny and terrific figures, stretched upon the ground. They lay parallel to each other, on their left sides ; in consequence of which their faces were turned from me. Between each was an interval where lay a musket. Their right hands seemed placed upon the stocks of their guns, as if to seize them on the first moment of alarm. The aperture through which these objects were seen was at the back of the cave, and some feet from the ground. It was merely large enough to suffer a human body to pass. It was involved in profound darkness, and there was no danger of being suspected or discovered as long as I maintained silence and kept out of view. . * I should, no doubt, be safe by remaining in this nook ; but might not some means be pursued to warn others of their danger ? Should they leave this spot without notice of their approach being given to the fear- less and pacific tenants of the neighboring district, they might commit, in a few hours, the most horrid and irreparable devastation. The alarm could only be diffused in one way. Could I not escape, unperceived, and without alarming the sleepers, from this cavern? The slumber of an Indian is broken by the slightest noise; but, if all noise be precluded, it is commonly profound. It was possible, I conceived, to leave my present post, to descend into the cave, and issue forth without the smallest signal. Their supine posture assured me that they were asleep. Sleep usually comes at their bidding, and if, perchance, they should be wakeful at an unseasonable moment, they always sit upon their haunches, and, leaning their elbows on their knees, consume the tedious hours in smoking. My peril would be great. Accidents which I could not foresee, and over which I had no command, might occur to awaken some one at the moment I was passing the fire. Should I pass in safety, I might issue forth into a wilderness, of which I had no knowl- edge, where I might wander till I perished with famine, or where my footsteps might be noted and pursued and overtaken by these implacable foes. These perils were enormous and imminent ; but I likewise con- sidered that I might be at no great distance from the habitations of men, and that my escape might rescue them from the most dreadful calamities. I determined to make this dangerous experiment without delay. I came nearer to the aperture, and had, consequently, a larger view of this recess. To my unspeakable dismay, I now caught a glimpse of one seated at the fire. His back was turned towards me, so that I could dis- tinctly survey his gigantic form and fantastic ornaments. My project was frustrated. This one was probably commissioned to watch and to awaken his companions when a due portion of sleep had -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 281 been taken. That lie would not be unfaithf ul or remiss in the perform- ance of the part assigned to him was easily predicted. To pass him without exciting his notice (and the entrance could not otherwise be reached) was impossible. Once more I shrunk back, and revolved with hopelessness and anguish the necessity to which I was reduced. This interval of dreary foreboding did not last long. Some motion in him that was seated by the fire attracted my notice. I looked, and be- held him rise from his place and go forth from the cavern. This unex- pected incident led my thoughts into a new channel. Could not some advantage be taken of his absence? Could not this opportunity be seized for making my escape? He had left his gun and hatchet on the ground. It was likely, therefore, that he had not gone far, and would speedily return. Might not these weapons be seized, and some pro- vision be thus made against the danger of meeting him without, or of being pursued? Before a resolution could be formed, a new sound saluted my ear. It was a deep groan, succeeded by sobs that seemed struggling for utterance but were vehemently counteracted by the sufferer. This low and bitter lamentation apparently proceeded from some one within the cave. It could not be from one of this swarthy band. It must, then, proceed from a captive, whom they had reserved for torment or servitude, and who had seized the opportunity afforded by the absence of him that watched to give vent to his despair. I again thrust my head forward, and beheld, lying on the ground, apart from the rest, and bound hand and foot, a young girl. Her dress was the coarse russet garb of the country, and bespoke her to be some farmer's daughter. Her features denoted the last degree of fear and anguish, and she moved her limbs in such a manner as showed that the ligatures by which she was confined produced, by their tightness, the utmost degree of pain. My wishes were now bent not only to preserve myself and to frustrate the future attempts of these savages, but likewise to relieve this miserable victim. This could only be done by escaping from the cavern and re- turning with seasonable aid. The sobs of the girl were likely to rouse the sleepers. My appearance before her would prompt her to testify her surprise by some exclamation or shriek. What could hence be predicted but that the band would start on their feet and level their unerring pieces at my head ? > I know not why I was insensible to these dangers. My thirst was rendered by these delays intolerable. It took from me, in some degree, the power of deliberation. The murmurs which had drawn me hither continued still to be heard. Some torrent or cascade could not be far distant from the entrance of the cavern, and it seemed as if one draught 232 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- of clear water was a luxury cheaply purchased by death itself. This, in addition to considerations more disinterested, and which I have already mentioned, impelled 'me forward. The girl's cheek rested on the hard rock, and her eyes were dim with tears. As they were turned towards me, however, I hoped that my movements would be noticed by her gradually and without abruptness. This expectation was fulfilled. I had not advanced many steps before she discovered me. This moment was critical beyond all others in the course of my existence. My life was suspended, as it were, by a spider's thread. All rested on the effect which this discovery should make upon this feeble victim. I was watchful of the first movement of her eye which should indi- cate a consciousness of my presence. I labored, by gestures and looks, to deter her from betraying her emotion. My attention was, at the same time, fixed upon the sleepers, and an anxious glance was cast towards the quarter whence the watchful savage might appear. I stooped and seized the musket and hatchet. The space beyond the fire was, as I ex- pected, open to the air. I issued forth with trembling steps. The sen- sations inspired by the dangers which environed me, added to my recent horrors, and the influence of the moon, which had now gained the zenith, and whose lustre dazzled my long-benighted senses, cannot be adequately described. For a minute, I was unable to distinguish objects. This confusion was speedily corrected, and I found myself on the verge of a steep. Craggy eminences arose on all sides. On the left hand was a space that offered some footing, and hither I turned. A torrent was below me, and this path appeared to lead to it. It quickly appeared in sight, and all foreign cares were, for a time, suspended. This water fell from the upper regions of the hill, upon a flat projecture which was continued on either side, and on part of which I was now standing. The path was bounded on the left by an inaccessible wall, and on the right termi- nated, at the distance of two or three feet from the wall, in a precipice. The water was eight or ten paces distant, and no impediment seemed likely to rise between us. I rushed forward with speed. My progress was quickly checked. Close to the falling water, seated on the edge, his back supported by the rock, and his legs hanging over the precipice, I now beheld the savage who left the cave before me. The noise of the cascade and the improbability of interruption, at least from this quarter, had made him inattentive to my motions. . Yet I did hesitate. My aversion to bloodshed was not to be subdued but by the direst necessity. I knew, indeed, that the discharge of a musket would only alarm the enemies who remained behind ; but I had another and a better weapon in my grasp. I could rive the head of my -1820] CHARLES BROGKDEN BROWN. 283 adversary, and cast him headlong, without any noise which should be heard, into the cavern. Still, I was willing to withdraw, to re-enter the cave, and take shelter in the darksome recesses from which I had emerged. Here I might remain, unsuspected, till these detested guests sho'uld de- part. The hazards attending my re-entrance were to be boldly encoun- tered, and the torments of unsatisfied thirst were to be patiently endured, rather than imbrue my hands in the blood of my fellow-men. But this expedient would be ineffectual if my retreat should be observed by this savage. Of that I was bound to be incontestably assured. I retreated, therefore, but kept my eye fixed at the same time upon the enemy. Some ill-fate decreed that I should not retreat unobserved. Scarcely had I withdrawn three paces when he started from his seat, and, turning towards me, walked with a quick pace. The shadow of the rock, and the improbability of meeting an enemy here, concealed me for a moment from his observation. I stood still. The slightest motion would have attracted his notice. At present, the narrow space engaged all his vigilance. Cautious footsteps, and attention to the path, were indis- pensable to his safety. The respite was momentary, and I employed it in my own defence. How otherwise could I act? The danger that impended aimed at nothing less than my life. To take the life of another was the only method of averting it. The means were in my hand, and they were used. In an extremity like this, my muscles would have acted almost in defiance of my will. The stroke was quick as lightning, and the wound mortal and deep. He had not time to descry the author of his fate, but, sinking- on the path, expired without a groan. The hatchet buried itself in his breast, and rolled with him to the bottom of the precipice. Never before had I taken the life of a human creature. On this head I had, indeed, entertained somewhat of religious scruples. These scruples did not forbid me to defend myself, but they made me cautious and re- luctant to decide. Though they could not withhold my hand when urged by a necessity like this, they were sufficient to make me look back upon the deed with remorse and dismay. I did not escape all compunction in the present instance, but the tumult of my feelings was quickly allayed. To quench my thirst was a con- sideration by which all others were supplanted. I approached the tor- rent, and not only drank copiously, but laved my head, neck, and arms, in this delicious element. Never was any delight worthy of comparison with the raptures which I then experienced. Life, that was rapidly ebbing, appeared to return upon me with redoubled violence. My languors, my excruciating heat, vanished in a moment, and I felt prepared to undergo the labors of 284 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- Hercules. Having fully supplied the demands of nature in this respect, I returned to reflection on the circumstances of my situation. The path winding round the hill was now free from all impediments. What re- mained "but to precipitate my flight? I might speedily place myself beyond all danger. I might gain some hospitable shelter, where my fatigues might be repaired by repose, and my wounds be cured. I might likewise impart to my protectors seasonable information of the enemies who meditated their destruction. I thought upon the condition of the hapless girl whom I had left in the power of the savages. Was it impossible to rescue her? Might I not relieve her from her bonds, and make her the companion of my flight? The exploit was perilous, but not impracticable. There was something dastardly and ignominious in withdrawing from the danger, and leaving a helpless being exposed to it. A single minute might suf- fice to snatch her from death or captivity. The parents might deserve that I should hazard or even sacrifice my life in the cause of their child. After some fluctuation, I determined to return to the cavern and attempt the rescue of the girl. The success of this project depended on the continuance of their sleep. It was proper to approach with wari- ness, and to heed the smallest token which might bespeak their condi- tion. I crept along the path, bending my ear forward to catch any sound that might arise. I heard nothing but the half -stifled sobs of the girl. I entered with the slowest and most anxious 'circumspection. Every- thing was found in its pristine state. The girl noticed my entrance with a mixtufe of terror and joy. My gestures and looks enjoined upon her silence. I stooped down, and, taking another hatchet, cut asunder the deer-skin thongs by which her wrists and ankles were tied. I then made signs for her to rise and follow me. She willingly complied with my directions ; but her benumbed joints and lacerated sinews refused to support her. There was no time to be lost ; I therefore lifted her in my arms, and, feeble and tottering as I was, proceeded with this burden along the perilous steep and over a most rugged path. I hoped that some exertion would enable her to retrieve the use of her limbs. I set her, therefore, on her feet, exhorting her to walk as well as she was able, and promising her my occasional assistance. The poor girl was not deficient in zeal, and presently moved along with light and quick steps. We speedily reached the bottom of the hill. * I made inquiries of my companion, but she was unable to talk co- herently. She answered my questions with weeping, and sobs, and entreaties to fly from the scene of her distress. I collected from her, at length, that her father's house had been attacked on the preceding even- ing, and all the family but herself destroyed. Since this disaster she -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 285 Lad walked very fast and a great way, but knew not how far or in what direction. In a wilderness like this, my only hope was to light upon obscure paths, made by cattle. Meanwhile I endeavored to adhere to one line, and to burst through the vexatious obstacles which encumbered our way. The ground was concealed by the bushes, and we were perplexed and fatigued by a continual succession of hollows and prominences. At one moment we were nearly thrown headlong into a pit. At another we struck our feet against the angles of stones. The branches of the oak rebounded in our faces or entangled our legs, and the unseen thorns inflicted on us a thousand wounds. I was obliged, in these arduous circumstances, to support not only myself, but my companion. Her strength was overpowered by her evening journey, and the terror of being overtaken incessantly harassed her. . . On either side, the undergrowth of shrubs and brambles continued as before. Sometimes small spaces were observed, which had lately been cleared by fire. At length a vacant space, of larger dimensions than had hitherto occurred, presented itself to my view. It was a field of some acres, that had, apparently, been upturned by the hoe. At the corner of this field was a small house. My heart leaped with joy at this sight. I hastened towards it, in the hope that my uncertainties, and toils, and dangers, were now drawing to a close. This dwelling was suited to the poverty and desolation which surrounded it. It consisted of a few unhewn logs laid upon each other, to the height of eight or ten feet, including a quadrangular space of similar dimensions, and covered by a thatch. There was no window, light being sufficiently admitted into the crevices between the logs. These had formerly been loosely plastered with clay ; but air and rain had crumbled and washed the greater part of this rude cement away. Somewhat like a chimney, built of half-burnt bricks, was perceived at one corner. The door was fastened by a leathern thong, tied to a peg. All within was silence and darkness. I knocked at the door and called, but no one moved or answered. The tenant, whoever he was, was absent. His leave could not be obtained, and 1, therefore, entered without it. The autumn had made some progress, and the air was frosty and sharp. My mind and muscles had been of late so strenuously occu- pied, that the cold had not been felt. The cessation of exercise, however, quickly restored my sensibility in this respect, but the unhappy girl complained of being half -frozen. Fire, therefore, was the first object of my search. Happily, some embers were found upon the hearth, together with potato-stalks and dry chips. Of these, with much difficulty, I kindled a fire, by which some 286 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- warmth was imparted to our shivering limbs. The light enabled me, as I sat upon the ground, to survey the interior of this mansion. Three saplings, stripped of their branches and bound together at their ends by twigs, formed a kind of bedstead, which was raised from the ground by four stones. Eopes stretched across these, and covered by a blanket, constituted the bed. A board, of which one end rested on the bedstead and the other was thrust between the logs that composed the wall, sustained the stale fragments of a rye-loaf, and a cedar bucket kept entire by withes instead of hoops. In the bucket was a little water, full of droppings from the roof, drowned insects, and sand. A basket or two neatly made, and a hoe, with a stake thrust into it by way of handle, made up all the furniture that was visible. Next to cold, hunger was the most urgent necessity by which we were now pressed. This was no time to give ear to scrupjes. We, therefore, unceremoniously divided the bread and water between us. I had now leisure to bestow some regards upon the future. . .. . , .. My thoughts were too tumultuous, and my situation too precarious, to allow me to sleep. The girl, on the contrary, soon sank into a sweet oblivion of all her cares. She laid herself, by my advice, upon the bed, and left me to ruminate without interruption. I was not wholly free from the apprehension of danger. What influ- ence this boisterous and solitary life might have upon the temper of the being who inhabited this hut, I could not predict. How soon the Indians might awake, and what path they would pursue, I was equally unable to guess. It was by no means impossible that they might tread upon my footsteps, and knock, in a few minutes, at the door of this cottage. It behooved me to make all the preparations in my power against untoward incidents. I had not parted with the gun which I had first seized in the cavern, nor with the hatchet which I had afterwards used to cut the bands of the girl. These were at once my trophies and my means of defence, which it had been rash and absurd to have relinquished. My present reliance was placed upon these. I now, for the first time, examined the prize that I had made. Other considerations had prevented me, till now, from examining the structure of the piece ; but I could not but observe that it had two barrels, and was lighter and smaller than an ordinary musket. The light of the fire now enabled me to inspect it with more accuracy. Scarcely had I fixed my eyes upon the stock, when I perceived marks that were familiar to my apprehension. Shape, ornaments, and ciphers, were evidently the same with those of a piece which I had frequently handled. The marks were of a kind which could not be mistaken. This piece was mine ; and, when I left my uncle's house, it was deposited, as I believed, in the closet of my chamber -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 2S7 Thou wilt easily conceive the inference which this circumstance sug- gested. My hairs rose and my teeth chattered with horror. My whole frame was petrified, and I paced to and fro, hurried from the chimney to the door, and from the door to the chimney, with the misguided fury of a maniac. I needed no proof of my calamity more incontestable than this. My uncle and my sisters had been murdered ; the dwelling had been pillaged, and this had been a part of the plunder. Defenceless and asleep, they were assailed by these inexorable enemies, and I, who ought to have been their protector and champion, was removed to an immeasurable distance, and was disabled, by some accursed chance, from affording them the succor which they needed. For a time, I doubted whether I had not witnessed and shared this catastrophe. I had no memory of the circumstances that preceded my awaking in the pit. Had not the cause of my being cast into this abyss some connection with the ruin of my family? Had I not been dragged hither by these savages, and reduced, by their malice, to that breathless and insensible condition ? Was I born to a malignant destiny never tired of persecuting? Thus had my parents and their infant offspring perished, and thus completed was the fate of all those to whom my affections cleaved, and whom the first disaster had spared. . . [: ,. Amidst these gloomy meditations, the idea was suddenly suggested of returning, with the utmost expedition, to the cavern. It was possible that the assassins were still asleep. He who was appointed to watch, and to make, in due season, the signal for resuming their march, was forever silent. Without this signal it was not unlikely that they would sleep till dawn of day. But, if they should be roused, they might be overtaken or met, and, by choosing a proper station, two victims might at least fall. The ultimate event to myself would surely be fatal ; but my own death was an object of desire rather than of dread. To die thus speedily, and after some atonement was made for those who had already been slain, was sweet. The way to the mountain was difficult and tedious, but the ridge was distinctly seen from the door of the cottage, and I trusted that auspi- cious chance would lead me to that part of it where my prey was to be found. I snatched up the gun and tomahawk in a transport of eager- ness. On examining the former, I found that both barrels were deeply loaded. .... Thus armed, I prepared to sally forth on my adventurous expedition. Sober views might have speedily succeeded to the present tempest of my passions. I might have gradually discovered the romantic and criminal temerity of my project, the folly of revenge, and the duty of preserving my life for the benefit of mankind. I might have suspected the propriety 288 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [178S- of my conclusion, and have admitted some doubts as to the catastrophe which I imagined to have befallen my uncle and sisters. I might, at least, have consented to ascertain their condition with my own eyes, and for this end have returned to the cottage, and have patiently waited till the morning light should permit me to resume my journey. This conduct was precluded by a new incident. Before I opened the door I looked through a crevice of the wall, and perceived three human figures at the farther end of the field. They approached the house. Though indistinctly seen, something in their port persuaded me that these were the Indians from whom I had lately parted. I was startled but not dismayed. My thirst of vengeance was still powerful, and I be- lieved that the moment of its gratification was hastening. In a short time they would arrive and enter the house. In what manner should they be received ? I studied not my own security. It was the scope of my wishes to kill the whole number of my foes ; but, that being done, I was indifferent to the consequences. I desired not to live to relate or to exult in the deed. To go forth was perilous and useless. All that remained was to sit upon the ground opposite the door, and fire at each as he entered. In the hasty survey I had taken of this apartment, one object had been overlooked, or imperfectly noticed. Close to the chimney was an aper- ture, formed by a cavity partly in the wall and in the ground. It was the entrance of an oven, which resembled, on the outside, a mound of earth, and which was filled with dry stalks of potatoes and other rubbish. Into this it was possible to* thrust my body. A sort of screen might be formed of the brushwood, and more deliberate and effectual execu- tion be done upon the enemy. I weighed not the disadvantages of this scheme, but precipitately threw myself into this cavity. I discovered, in an instant, that it was totally unfit for my purpose ; but it was too late to repair my miscarriage. This wall of the hovel was placed near the verge of a sand-bank. The oven was erected on the very brink. This bank, being of a loose and mutable soil, could not sustain my weight. It sunk, and I sunk along with it. The height of the bank was three or four feet, so that, though disconcerted and embarrassed, I received no injury. I still grasped my gun, and resumed my feet in a moment. What was now to be done ? The bank screened me from the view of the savages. The thicket was hard by, and, if I were eager to escape, the way was obvious and sure, But though single, though enfeebled by toil, by abstinence, and by disease, and though so much exceeded in num- ber and strength by my foes, I was determined to await and provoke the contest -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 289 The first impulse prompted me to re-enter the cottage by this avenue, but this could not be done with certainty and expedition. What then remained ? "While I deliberated, the men approached, and, after a mo- ment's hesitation, entered the house, the door being partly open. The fire on the hearth enabled them to survey the room. One of them uttered a sudden exclamation of surprise. This was easily interpreted. They had noticed the girl who had lately been their captive lying asleep on the blanket. Their astonishment at finding her here, and in this condi- tion, may be easily conceived. I now reflected that I might place myself, without being observed, near the entrance, at an angle of the building, and shoot at each as he successively came forth. I perceived that the bank conformed to two sides of the house, and that I might gain a view of the front and of the entrance, without exposing myself to observation. I lost no time in gaining this station. The bank was as high as my breast. It was easy, therefore, to crouch beneath it, to bring my eye close to the verge, and, laying my gun upon the top of it among the grass, with its muzzles pointed to the door, patiently to wait their forth-coming. My eye and my ear were equally attentive to what was passing. A low and muttering conversation was maintained in the house. Presently I heard a heavy stroke descend. I shuddered, and my blood ran cold at the sound. I entertained no doubt but that it was the stroke of a hatchet on the head or breast of the helpless sleeper. It was followed by a loud shriek. The continuance of these shrieks proved that the stroke had not been instantly fatal. I waited to hear it repeated, but the sounds that now arose were like those produced by dragging somewhat along the ground. The shrieks, meanwhile, were incessant and piteous. My heart faltered, and I saw that mighty efforts must be made to preserve my joints and my nerves steadfast. All depended on the strenuous exertions and the fortunate dexterity of a moment. One now approached the door, and came forth, dragging the girl, whom he held by the hair, after him. What hindered me from shooting at his first appearance, I know not. This had been my previous resolu- tion. My hand touched the trigger, and, as he moved, the piece was levelled at his right ear. Perhaps the momentous consequences of my failure made me wait till his ceasing to move might render my aim more sure. Having dragged the girl, still piteously shrieking, to the distance of ten feet from the house, he threw her from him with violence. She fell upon the ground, and, observing him level his piece at her breast, re- newed her supplications in a still more piercing tone. Little did the forlorn wretch think that her deliverance was certain and near. I re- VOL. iv. 19 290 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- buked myself for having thus long delayed. I fired, and my enemy sunk upon the ground without a struggle. Thus far had success attended me in this unequal contest. The next shot would leave me nearly powerless. If that, however, proved as un- erring as the first, the chances of defeat were lessened. The savages within, knowing the intentions of their associate with regard to the captive girl, would probably mistake the report which they heard for that of his piece. Their mistake, however, would speedily give place to doubts, and they would rush forth to ascertain the truth. It behooved me to provide a similar reception for him that next appeared It was as I expected. Scarcely was my eye again fixed upon the entrance, when a tawny and terrific visage was stretched fearfully forth. It was the signal of his fate. His glances, cast wildly and swiftly round, lighted upon me, and on the fatal instrument which was pointed at his forehead. His muscles were at once exerted to withdraw his head, and to vociferate a warning to his fellow ; but his movement was too slow. The ball entered above his ear. He tumbled headlong to the ground, bereaved of sensation though not of life, and had power only to struggle and mutter. .... There was now an interval for flight. Throwing my weapons away, I might gain the thicket in a moment. I had no ammunition, nor would time be afforded me to reload my piece. My antagonist would render my poniard and my speed of no use to me. Should he miss me as I fled, the girl would remain to expiate, by her agonies and death, the fate of his companions. These thoughts passed through my mind in a shorter time than is de- manded to express them. They yielded to an expedient suggested by the sight of the gun that had been raised to destroy the girl, and which now lay upon the ground. I am not large of bone, but am not deficient in agility and strength. All that remained to me of these qualities was now exerted ; and, dropping my own piece, I leaped upon the bank, and flew to seize my prize. It was not till I snatched it from the ground, that the propriety of re- gaining my former post rushed upon my apprehension. He that was still posted in the hovel would mark me through the seams of the wall, and render my destruction sure. I once more ran towards the bank, with the intention to throw myself below it. All this was performed in an instant ; but my vigilant foe was aware of his advantage, and fired through an opening between the logs. The bullet grazed my cheek, and produced a benumbing sensation that made me instantly fall to the earth. Though bereaved of strength, and fraught with the belief that I had received a mortal wound, my caution was not remitted. I loosened not my grasp of the gun, and the posture into which I accidentally fell -1820] CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 291 | enabled me to keep an eye upon the house and a hand upon the trigger. Perceiving my condition, the savage rushed from his covert in order to complete his work ; but at three steps from the threshold he received my bullet in his breast. The uplifted tomahawk* fell from his hand, and, uttering a loud shriek, he fell upon the body of his companion. His cries struck upon my heart, and I wished that his better fortune had cast this evil from him upon me. - My anguish was mingled with astonishment. In spite of the force and uniformity with which my senses were impressed by external ob- jects, the transition I had undergone was so wild and inexplicable ; all that I had performed, all that I had witnessed since my egress from the pit, were so contradictory to precedent events, that I still clung to the belief that my thoughts were confused by delirium. From these reveries I was at length recalled by the groans of the girl, who lay near me on the ground. I went to her and endeavored to console her. I found that, while lying in the bed, she had received a blow upon the side, which was still productive of acute pain. She was unable to rise or to walk, and it was plain that one or more of her ribs had been fractured by the blow. I knew not what means to devise for our mutual relief. It was pos- sible that the nearest dwelling was many leagues distant. I knew not in what direction to go in order to find it, and my strength would not suffice to carry my wounded companion thither in my arms. There was no expedient but to remain in this field of blood till the morning. I had scarcely formed this resolution before the report of a musket was heard at a small distance. At the same moment, I distinctly heard the whistling of a bullet near me. I now remembered that, of the five Indians whom I saw in the cavern, I was acquainted with the destiny only of four. The fifth might be still alive, and fortune might reserve for him the task of avenging his companions. His steps might now be tending hither in search of them. The musket belonging to him who was shot upon the threshold was still charged. It was discreet to make all the provision in my power against danger. I possessed myself of this gun, and, seating myself on the ground, looked carefully on all sides, to descry the approach of the enemy. I listened with breathless eagerness. Presently voices were heard. They ascended from that part of the thicket from which my view was intercepted by the cottage. These voices had something in them that bespoke them to belong to friends and countrymen. As yet I was unable.to distinguish words. Presently my eye was attracted to one quarter, by a sound as of feet trampling down bushes. Several heads were seen moving in succession, and at length the whole person was conspicuous. One after another 292 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. [1788- leaped over a kind of mound which bordered the field, and made towards the spot where I sat. This band was composed of ten or twelve persons, with each a gun upon his shoulder. Their guise, the moment it was perceived, dissipated all my apprehensions. They came within the distance of a few paces before they discovered me. One stopped, and, bespeaking the attention of his followers, called to know who was there. I answered that I was a friend, who entreated their assistance. I shall not paint their astonishment when, on coming nearer, they beheld me surrounded by the arms and dead bodies of my enemies. I sat upon the ground, supporting my head with my left hand, and resting on my knee the stock of a heavy musket. My countenance was wan and haggard, my neck and bosom were dyed in blood, and my limbs, almost stripped by the brambles of their slender covering, were lacerated by a thousand wounds. Three savages, two of whom were steeped in gore, lay at a small distance, with the traces of recent life on their visages. Hard by was the girl, venting her anguish in the deepest groans, and entreating relief from the new-comers. One of the company, on approaching the girl, betrayed the utmost perturbation. "Good God ! " he cried, " is this a dream? Can it be you? Speak!" " Ah, my father ! my father ! " answered she, " it is I indeed." The company, attracted by this dialogue, crowded round the girl, whom her father, clasping in his arms, lifted from the ground, and pressed, in a transport of joy, to his breast. This delight was succeeded by solicitude respecting her condition. She could only answer his in- quiries by complaining that her side was bruised to pieces. " How came you here? " "Who hurt you? " "Where did the Indians carry you?" were questions to which she could make no reply but by sobs and plaints. My own calamities were forgotten in contemplating the fondness and compassion of the man for his child. I derived new joy from reflecting that I had not abandoned her, and that she owed her preservation to my efforts. The inquiries which the girl was unable to answer were now put to me. Every one interrogated me who I was, whence I had come, and what had given rise to this bloody contest. I was not willing to expatiate on my story. The spirit which had hitherto sustained me began now to subside. My strength ebbed away with my blood. Tremors, lassitude, and deadly cold, invaded me, and I fainted on the ground. -1820] THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. -293 in Walpole, N. H., 1771. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1837. THE COUNTRY LOVERS. [Original Poems. 1806.] A MERRY tale I will rehearse, As ever you did hear, sir, How Jonathan set out, so fierce, To see his dearest dear, sir. Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle dandy, Mind the music mind the step, And with the girls be handy. His father gave him bran new suit, And money, sir, in plenty, Besides a prancing nag to boot, When he was one-and-twenty. Moreover, sir, I'd have you know, That he had got some knowledge, Enough for common use, I trow, But had not been at college. A hundred he could count, 'tis said, And in the bible read, sir, And by good Christian parents bred, Could even say the creed, sir. He'd been to school to Master Drawl, To spell a-bom-in-a-ble, And when he miss'd, he had to crawl, Straight under master's table. One day his mother said to him, "My darling son, come here, Come fix you up, so neat and trim, And go a courting, dear." " Why, what the deuce does mother want ? I snigs I daresn't go ; I shall get funn'd and then plague on't Folks will laugh at me so 1 " "Pho! pho! fix up, a courting go, To see the deacon's Sarah, 294 THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. [1788- Who'll have a hundred pound, you know, As soon as she does marry." Then Jonathan, in best array, Mounted his dappled nag, sir; But trembled, sadly, all the way, Lest he should get the bag, sir. He mutter'd as he rode along, Our Jotham overheard, sir, And if 'twill jingle in my song, I'll tell you every word, sir. **I wonder mother '11 make me go. Since girls I am afraid of ; I never know'd, nor want to know, What sort of stuff they're made of. tl A wife would make good housen stuff, If she were downright clever, And Sal would suit we well enough, If she would let me have her. " But then, I shan't know what to say, When we are left together, I'd rather lie in stack of hay, In coldest winter weather." He reach'd the house, as people say, Not far from eight o'clock, sir; And Joel hollow'd "in, I say," As soon as he did knock, sir. He made of bows 'twixt two and three, Just as his mother taught him, All which were droll enough to see: You'd think the cramp had caught him. At length came in the deacon's Sal From milking at the barn, sir ; And faith she is as good a gal As ever twisted yarn, sir. For she knows all about affairs, Can wash, and bake, and brew, sir, Sing "Now I lay me," say her prayers, And make a pudding too, sir. \ To Boston market she has been On horse, and in a wagon, And many pretty things has seen, Which every one can't brag on. -1820] THOMAS GREEN FEtiSEJDEN. 295 She's courted been, by many a lad, And knows how sparking's done, sir, With Jonathan she was right glad To have a little fun, sir. The ladies all, as I should guess, And many a lady's man, sir, Would wish to know about her dress; I'll tell them all I can, sir. Her wrapper, gray, was not so bad, Her apron check'd with blue, sir, One stocking on one foot she had, On t'other foot a shoe, sir. Now, should a Boston lady read, Of Sally's shoe and stocking, She'd say a " monstrous slut, indeed, Oh la ! she is quite shocking 1 " You fine Miss Boston lady, gay, For this your speech, I thank ye, Call on me, when you come this way, And take a drachm of Yankee. Now Jonathan did scratch his head, When first he saw his dearest ; Got up sat down and nothing said, But felt about the queerest : 4 Then talk'd with Sally's brother Joe 'Bout sheep, and cows, and oxen, How wicked folks to church did go, With dirty woollen frocks on. And how a witch, in shape of owl, Did steal her neighbor's geese, sir, And turkies too, and other fowl, When people did not please her. And how a man, one dismal night, Shot her with silver bullet, And then she flew straight out of sight, As fast as she could pull it. How Widow Wunks was sick next day, The parson went to view her, And saw the very place, they say, Where forsaid ball went through her! And now the people went to bed : They guess 1 d for what he'd come, sir; 295 THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. 1788- But Jonathan was much afraid, And wish'd himself at home, sir. At length, says Sal, u they're gone, you see, And we are left together;" Says Jonathan, " indeed they be 'Tis mighty pleasant weather ! " Sal cast a sheep's eye at the dunce, Then turn'd towards the fire ; He muster'd courage, all at once, And hitch'd a little nigher. Ye young men all, and lads so smart, Who chance to read these vasses, His next address pray learn by heart, To whisper to the lasses, "Miss Sal, Ps going to say, as how, We'll spark it here to-night, I kind of love you, Sal, I vow, And mother said I might." Then Jonathan, as we are told, Did even think to smack her ; Sal cock'd her chin, and look'd so bold, He did not dare attack her ! II Well done, my man, you've broke the ice, And that with little pother, Now, Jonathan, take my advice, And always mind your mother! " This courting is a kind of job I always did admire, sir, And these two brands, with one dry cob, Will make a courting fire, sir." "Miss Sal, you are the very she, If you will love me now, That I will marry then, you see, You'll have our brindled cow. " Then we will live, both I and you, In father's t'other room, For that will sartin hold us two, When we've mov'd out the loom. "Next Sabbath-day we will be cried, And have a * taring ' wedding, And lads and lasses take a ride, If it should be good sledding. -1820] THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. 297 " My father has a nice bull calf, Which shall be yours, my sweet one; 'Twill weigh two hundred and a half.'' Says Sal, "well, that's a neat one. " Your father's full of fun, d'ye see, And faith, I likes his sporting, To send his fav'rite calf to me, His nice bull calf a courting. 41 Are you the lad who went to town, Put on your streaked troicses, Then vow'd you could not see the town, There were so many houses ? " Our lover hung his under lip, He thought she meant to joke him; Like heartless hen that has the pip, His courage all forsook him. For he to Boston town had been, As matters here are stated ; Came home and told what he had seen, As Sally has related. And now he wish'd he could retreat, But dar'd not make a racket ; It seem'd as if his heart would beat The buttons off his jacket! Sal ask'd him "if his heart was whole ? J> His chin began to quiver; He said, he felt so deuced droll, He guess'd he'd lost his liver! Now Sal was scar'd out of her wits To see his trepidation, She bawl'd " he's going into fits," And scamper'd like the nation! A pail of water she did throw All on her trembling lover, Which wet the lad from top to toe, Like drowned rat all over. Then Jonathan straight hied him home, And since I've heard him brag, sir, That though the jade did wet him some, He didn't get the bag, sir ! Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle dandy, Mind the music, mind the step, And with the girls be handy ! 298 HOSEA BALLOU. [1788- BORN in Richmond, N. H., 1771. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1852. LUCIFER AND THE ORIGIN OF SIN. [A Treatise on Atonement. 1804. Edition of 1832.] THE origin of sin has, among Christians in general, been very easily accounted for ; but in a way, I must confess, that never gave me any satisfaction since I came to think for myself on subjects of this nature. A short chimerical story of the bard, Milton, has given perfect satisfaction to millions, respecting the introduction of moral evil into the moral system which we occupy. The substance of the account is, some time before the creation of man, the Almighty created multitudes of spiritual beings, called angels. Some of these creatures of God were much higher in dignity and authority than others, but all perfectly destitute of sin, or moral turpitude. One dignified above all the rest, stood Prime- Minister of the Almighty, clothed with the highest missive power, and clad with garments of primeval light; obsequious to nothing but the high behests of his Creator, he discharged the functions of his office with a promptitude and dignity suited to the eminency of his station, and to the admiration of celestial millions. But when it pleased Jehovah to reveal the brightness of his glory and the image of the Godhead in humanity, he gave forth the command (see Psalm xcvii. 7), "Worship him, all ye Gods." And Heb. i. 6, "And again, when he bringeth the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him." Lucifer, Son of the Morning (as Christians have called him), surprised at the idea of worshipping any being but God himself, looked on the Son with ineffable disdain, and in a moment grew indignant, rebelled against God, challenged supremacy with the Almighty, and cast his eyes to the sides of the north as a suitable place to establish his empire. Legions of spirits followed this chief in rebellion, and formed a dangerous party in the kingdom of the Almighty. The Son of God was invested with full power as Generalissimo of Heaven, to command the remaining forces, against the common enemy. And in short, after many grievous battles between armies of contending spirits, where life could not in the least be exposed, Lucifer and his party were driven out of Heaven, leaving it in peace, though in a great measure depopulated ! God having created the Earth, and placed the first man and woman in a most happy situation of innocence and moral purity, without the smallest appetite for sin or propensity to evil, the arch Apostate envi- ously looked from his fiery prison, to which he was consigned by the com- -1820] HO SEA BALLOU. 299 mand of the Almighty, and beholding man placed in so happy a situation, and in a capacity to increase to infinite multitudes, by which the king- dom of Heaven would be enlarged, was determined to crop this tree in the bud. He therefore turns into a serpent, goes to the woman arid beguiles her, gets her to eat of a fruit which God had forbidden, by which means he introduced sin into our system. I have not been particular in this sketch, but it contains the essence of the common idea. I shall now put it under examination, looking diligently for the propriety of accounting for the origin of moral evil in this way. And first, of this memorable rebellion in heaven ! It seems that this rebel angel was always obedient to the commands of his Maker, until the hour of his fall ; that there was not the least spot of pollution in him, until he felt the emotions of pride which lifted him above submission to the Son of God. This being the case, I ask, was this angel ignorant of the real character of the Son, whom he was commanded to worship? If he were not, but knew it to be no other than the true Eternal, his Creator, manifested in a nature which Jehovah created ; if he loved his Maker as he ought to do, which none will pretend to dispute ; he would have wor- shipped him with due reverence, the moment he made the discovery and heard the command. This no person in his senses will dispute. If he did not know the real character whom he was commanded to worship, had he complied, he would have worshipped he knew not what. And nothing can be more absurd, than to suppose that infinite wisdom would command his creatures to worship ignorantly. I ask, further, could purity produce impurity ; or moral holiness, unholiness ? All answer, No. Was not the angel holy in every faculty ? Was not the command for him to worship the Son, holy and just? All answer, Yes. Then from such causes, how was sin produced ? The reader will easily see the question cannot be answered. Now, be so kind as to turn to the script- ure, to which I have referred on this subject, and see if we have any authority for saying that either gods or angels refused to worship, when commanded. " Again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, let all the angels of God worship him." That this first begotten is Christ, no doubt will be entertained. But when was he brought into the world ? before or since the first transgression of man ? Since, most certainly. Then, supposing millions of angels had sinned at that time, it could have had no consequence productive of man's transgression, as a cause cannot be posterior to its effects. Therefore, to suppose that those angels, who never sinned until long after man became a transgressor, were the instigators of what is called the fall, discovers a want of calculation. .-'.. Observe, the question is asked, How art thou fallen from heaven, O 300 H08EA BALLOU. [1788- Lucifer, Son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations ? This Lucifer weakened the nations be- fore he fell, but was unable to weaken them afterwards. He said in his heart, he would ascend unto Heaven. Was this the sin of Satan, as is generally supposed ? Was he not already in Heaven ? How then could lie say in his heart, I will ascend unto Heaven? ... Again, this angel of light must have been very ignorant of the power and goodness of the Almighty, in order to have possessed a thought, that to rebel against him could be of any possible advantage, or that he could have carried and maintained a contest with him. If he were as ignorant as all this, the inhabitants of Heaven must have been extremely unculti- vated, in that age of eternity, and no great ornament to a place so much famed for glory and grandeur. If Heaven, which is said to be God's throne, be, or ever were inhabited by defectible beings, the place itself must be a defectible place ; and why the Almighty should take up his special abode in a defectible place, surrounded by defectible beings, I cannot imagine. But I pass on After Satan was turned out of Heaven, he saw no possible way to in- jure his adversary, only by contaminating his creatures, which he had just made, and placed in the happy situation before described. Here, observe, the matter appears strange. Did God not know the evil dispo- sition of Satan? Had he forgotten the awful difficulty but just settled? Or would he leave an innocent lamb to the ferocity of a bear robbed of her whelps ? God had driven Satan from heaven, from his own presence, but left him at loose ends to prey on his tender offspring, whom he had just left in a defenceless situation, on this ball of earth. What would appear more unnatural and shocking, than for a father to chase his enemy out at his door, but leave him to slay his defenceless children in the street? I shall, after what I have observed, beg liberty to say I am so far from believing any such story respecting the cause of sin, that I have not even the shadow of evidence, from Scripture or reason, to support the sentiment. But I have been told, that man, standing in a state of sinless purity, could not have fallen from that rectitude, unless there had been some sinful being to have tempted him. Admitting there is any force in this observation, it stands as directly against the fall of Satan, without a sinful temptation, as it does against man's transgression, with- out a tempter. Was man more pure, before he sinned, than that holy angel in Heaven ? If not, how could that angel sin, without a tempta- tion, easier than man, who was made in a lower grade ? But supposing we should admit that God commanded an angel to worship his Son Jesus, and the angel refused, and call that the first sin ever committed, it would not determine its origin or cause. A cause, or origin, must exist before an effect, or production. So, after all our -1820] ELIHU HUBBARD SMITH. 30]- journeying to heaven after a sinning angel, and after pursuing "him to hell, and from hell to the earth, we have not yet answered the question, viz. : What is the origin of sin ? We have only shown that the way in which this question has been generally solved, is without foundation. THE INFLUENCE OF PERSECUTION. [An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution. 1834.] FT is well known, and will be acknowledged by every candid person, -*- that the human heart is capable of becoming soft, or hard ; kind, or unkind ; merciful or unmerciful, by education and habit. On this prin- ciple we contend that the infernal torments, which false religion has placed in the future world, and which ministers have, with an overflow- ing zeal, so constantly held up to the people, and urged with all their learning and eloquence, have tended so to harden the hearts of the pro- fessors of this religion, that they have exercised towards their fellow- creatures a spirit of enmity, which but too well corresponds with the relentless cruelty of their doctrine, and the wrath which they have im- agined to exist in our Heavenly Father. By having such an example constantly before their eyes, they have become so transformed into its image, that, whenever they have had the power, they have actually exe- cuted a vengeance on men and women, which evinced that the cruelty of their doctrine had overcome the native kindness and compassion of the human heart. BORN in Litchfield, Conn., 1771. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1798. AT THE PRESS OF LAURENTIUS. [From an Epistle prefixed to the first American Edition of Darwin 's "Botanic Garden.' 1798.] FIRST, their nice hands the tempered "letter" frame, Alike in height, in width, in depth, the same Deep in the "matrices" secure enfold, And fix within, and "justify" the "mould; " 302 ELTHU HVBBARD SMITH. [1788- The red amalgam from the cauldron take, And flaming pour, and as they pour it, shake ; On the hard table spread the tj^pe congealed, And smooth and polish on its marble field ; While, as his busy fingers either plies, The embryou parts of future volumes rise. Next, with wise care, the slender ' ' plate " they choose, Of shining steel, and tit, with hardened screws, The shifting "sliders," which the varying line Break into parts, or yet as one confine; Whence, firmly bound, and fitted for the chase, " Imposed," it rests upon the stony base; Till, hardly .driven, the many figured "quoins" Convert to forms the accumulated lines. Then, with new toil, the upright frame they shape, And strict connect it by the solid cap ; The moving "head'' still more the frame combines, The guiding shelf its humbler tribute joins; While the stout "winter" erring change restrains, And bears the carriage, and the press sustains: The "platen" these, and "spindle" well connect, Four slender bars support it, and direct, As the high handle urging from above, Downwards and forceful bids its pressure move. Beneath, with "plank" the patent "carriage" spread, Lifts the smooth marble on its novel bed, Rides on its wheeled " spit " in rapid state, Nor fears to meet the quick-descending weight. Last, the wise sire the ready "form" supplies, With cautious hands and scrutinizing eyes; Fits the moist "tympan" (while the youth intent, With "patting balls," applies the sable paint), Then lowers the "frisket," turns the flying rounce, And pulls amain the forceful "bar " at once ; A second turn, a second pressure, gives, And on the sheet the fair impression lives. Raptured, the youth and reverend sire behold, Press to their lips and to their bosoms fold ; Mingle their sighs, ecstatic tears descend, And, face to face, in silent union blend : Fond Science triumphs, and rejoicing Fame, From pole to pole, resounds LAURENTIUS' name. -1820] WILLIAM BAT. 393 TOliam BORN in Salisbury, Conn., 1771. DIED at Auburn, N. Y., 1827. THE FRIGATE "PHILADELPHIA" CAPTURED BY THE TURKS. [Poems. . . . With a brief sketch of the Author's Captivity and Sufferings, etc. 1821.] ON the 31st day of October, early in the morning, a sail was discov- ered on our larboard bow, and orders were immediately given for chase. She hoisted Tripoliton colors and bore away, making in-shore towards Tripoli. The white walls of our destined place of confinement soon hove in sight. Every sail was set, and every effort made to over- haul the ship, and cut her off from the town. The wind was not very favorable to our purpose, and we frequently had to wear ship. A con- stant fire was kept up from the Philadelphia, but to no purpose. We were now within about four and a half miles from the town, and Cap- tain Bainbridge, not being acquainted with the harbor, having no pilot nor correct chart, trusted implicitly to Lt. Porter, who had been here before, and who professed to be well acquainted with the situation of the harbor. "We, however, went so close in that the Captain began to be fearful of venturing any further, and was heard to express his apprehen- sions to Lt. P., who made answer that there was no danger yet, and that he would give them a few shots more. A few moments afterwards, and just as our ship was preparing to wear away, she struck upon the shoals and remained fast I was writing in the wardroom at the time, and hearing a tremendous bustle on deck ran up the hatchway to see what was the matter. I saw at once that the ship's bow lay up partly careened, and that she was aground. She lay in a posture exactly as I had dreamed of seeing her a few nights before, and the moment I saw her, the dream recurred to me in a very striking manner. Dismay was visible in every countenance. The sails were put aback, the top-gallant sails loosened, three anchors thrown away from the bows, the water in the hold started, and the guns thrown overboard, excepting a few abaft to defend the ship against the attacks of the gunboats, three of which were now under way from the wharves. Her foremast was also cut awav ; but all to no effect. J ' One gunboat only was able to gain a position where she could reach us, and this began and continued to spit her fiery vengeance ; but they fired too high, and hit nothing but the rigging. The stern of our frigate was partly demolished to make way for our guns to bear upon the enemy the better, but all was unavailing. It was about twelve o'clock when the frigate struck the shoals. We continued firing at the gunboats and using every means in our power to get the ship afloat and annoy the 304 WILLIAM RA Y. [1788- enemy, when, a little before sunset, the Eagle of America fell a prey to the vultures of Barbary the flag was struck and, what is worse, struck to one Tripolitan gunboat! We had boarding pikes, battle-axes, mus- kets and bayonets, cutlasses and pistols, dirks and tomahawks, boarding nettings, and everything else to defend ourselves with ; there were more than three hundred of us on board. We might, I humbly beg leave to think, have kept off the enemy for that night, and behold, the next morning, as I have always been told by the Tripolitans, the ship was afloat ! How this act was justified by the court-martial that afterwards investigated the subject, is not for me to say. I know, however, that it was thought by many of the warrant, and all the petty officers, as well as by the whole crew, to say the least of it, an unnecessary and premature surrender. The fact was, the enemy were so dastardly, that after the flag was struck they dare not, for they did not, come to take possession of their prize, until our boat was sent and convinced them that it was no farce, rib trick, and that the U. S. frigate Philadelphia of forty -four guns had actually struck her colors to one Tripolitan gunboat ! And yet we must not indulge the idea that Capt. Bainbridge was a coward, by any means. I suppose it was feared that, when night came on, the enemy would venture out in full force, and probably overpower us, giving no quarter. While the boat was gone, the ship was scuttled, and everything de- stroyed or thrown overboard, that could be of any use to the enemy, all hands were called to muster on the quarter-deck, Capt. Bainbridge read a clause in the articles of war stating that our wages would be continued while prisoners of war, encouraged us to hope for a ransom, and advised us to behave with fortitude and circumspection while amongst our bar- barous captors. About sundown, the boats of the enemy came along- side, boarded us, hurried us into their boats, and commenced their plunder stripping us of all our clothing, except shirts, trousers, and hats. I had some pieces of gold which an officer had given me, in my vest pocket; which I at first refused to give up, but one of the pirates, pushing the muzzle of a cocked pistol hard against my breast, soon brought me to terms. When we approached the shore, we were thrown headlong into the waves, foaming from a high breeze, when the water was up to our armpits, and left to strangle, or get ashore as we could. At the beach stood a row of armed janizaries, through which we passed, amidst cursings and spittings, to the castle gate. It opened, and we ascended a narrow, winding, dismal passage, which led into a paved avenue lined with grizzly guards, armed with sabres, muskets, pistols, and hatchets. Here we halted again a few moments, and were again hurried on through various turnings and flights of stairs, until we found ourselves in the presence of his majesty, the puissant Bashaw of Tripoli. The throne on -1820] WILLIAM MARTIN JOHNSON. 305 which he was seated was raised about four feet from the surface, inlaid with mosaic, covered with a cushion of the richest velvet, fringed with gold, bespangled with brilliants. The floor of the hall was of variegated marble, spread with carpets of the most beautiful kind. The person of the Grand Bashaw made a very tawdry appearance. His clothing was a long robe of blue silk embroidered with gold. His broad belt, orna- mented with diamonds, held two gold-mounted pistols and a sabre with a golden scabbard, hilt, and chains. On his head he wore a large white turban, decorated in the richest manner. His whole vestments were superb in the extreme. His dark beard swept his breast. I should suppose him to be about forty, is rather corpulent, five feet ten inches in height, and of a manly, majestic deportment. When he had satiated his pride and curiosity, the guard conducted us into a dreary and filthy apartment of the castle, where there was scarcely room for us to turn round, and where we were kept for nearly two hours, shivering in our wet clothes, and with the chills of a very damp night. The Neapolitan slaves, of whom the Bashaw had more than one hundred and fifty, brought us dry clothing to exchange for our wet, and we sincerely thanked them for their apparent kindness, expecting to receive ours again when dry ; but the trickish scoundrels never returned our clothes nor made us any restitution. Our clothing was new, and what they brought us in exchange was old and ragged. We were next taken to a piazza nearly in front of the Bashaw's audience hall, where we lodged for the night. It was open on one side to the cold winds of the night, and, as many of us had wet clothes on, not having exchanged them, add to this the gloomy prospects before us, it will not be imagined that we enjoyed very comfortable repose. SBUliattt jttartin S BORN about 1771. Adopted by Ebenezer Albee, of Wrentham, Mass. DIED at Jamaica, Long Island, N. Y., 1797. ON SNOW-FLAKES MELTING ON HIS LADY'S BREAST. [Preserved in an Article on " Our Neglected Poets, " by John Howard Payne. The Democratic Review. 1838.] rjlO kiss my Celia's fairer breast, *- The snow forsakes its native skies, But proving an unwelcome guest, It grieves, dissolves in tears, and dies. VOL. iv. 20 306 JO 81 AH QUWCY. [1788- Its touch, like mine, but serves to wake Through all her frame a death-like chill, Its tears, like those I shed, to make That icy bosom colder still. I blame her not ; from Celia's eyes A common fate beholders proved Each swain, each fair one, weeps and dies, With envy these, and those with love! BORN in Boston, Mass., 1772. Third bearer of the name. DIED at Quincy, Mass., 1864. THE STRUGGLE FOR PATRONAGE. [From a Speech on the Influence of Place and Patronage. U. S. H. of JR., 30 Jan., 1811.] BUT as to that other class of persons, who are open, notorious solici- tors of office, they give occasion to reflections of a very different nature. This class of persons, in all times past, have appeared, and (for I say nothing of times present), in all times future, will appear, on this and the other floor of Congress, creatures who, under pretence of serv- ing the people, are in fact serving themselves, creatures who, while their distant constituents, good easy men, industrious, frugal, and unsus- picious, dream in visions that they are laboring for their country's welfare, are in truth spending their time mousing at the doors of the palace or the crannies of the departments, and laying low snares to catch, for themselves and their relations, every stray office that flits by them. For such men, chosen into this high and responsible trust, to. whom have been confided the precious destinies of this people, and who thus openly abandon their duties, and set their places and their consciences to sale, in defiance of the multiplied strong and tender ties by which they are bound to their country, I have no language to express my contempt. I never have seen, and I never shall see, any of these notorious solicitors of office for themselves or their relations, standing on this or the other floor, bawling and bullying, or coming down with dead votes, in support of executive measures, but I think I see a hackney, laboring for hire in a most degrading service, a poor earth-spirited animal, trudging in his traces, with much attrition of the sides and induration of the membranes, encouraged by this special certainty, that, at the end of his journey, he shall have measured out to him his proportion of provender. But I have heard that the bare suggestion of such corruption was a -1820] JOSIAH qUINCT. 3Q7 libel upon this House, and upon this people. I have heard that we were, in this country, so virtuous that we were above the influence of these allurements ; that beyond the Atlantic, in old governments, such things might be suspected, but that here we were too pure for such guilt, too innocent for such suspicions. Mr. Chairman, I shall not hesitate, in spite of such popular declamation, to believe and follow the evidence of my senses and the concurrent testimonies of contemporaneous beholders. 1 shall not, in my estimation of character, degrade this people below, nor exalt them far above, the ordinary condition of cultivated humanity. And of this be assured, that every system of conduct, or course of policy, which has for its basis an excess of virtue in this country beyond what human nature exhibits in its improved state elsewhere, will be found, on trial, fallacious. Is there on this earth any collection of men in which exists a more intrinsic, hearty, and desperate love of office or place, par- ticularly of fat places? Is there any country more infested than this with the vermin that breed in the corruptions of power? Is there any in which place and official emolument more certainly follow distinguished servility at elections, or base scurrility in the press? And as to eager- ness for the reward, what is the fact? Let, now, one of your great office- holders, a collector of the customs, a marshal, a commissioner of loans, a postmaster in one of your cities, or any officer, agent, or factor for your territories or public lands, or person holding a place of minor distinction, but of considerable profit, be called upon to pay the last great debt of nature. The poor man shall hardly be dead, he shall not be cold, long before the corpse is in the coffin, the mail shall be crowded, to repletion, with letters and certificates, and recommendations and representations, and every species of sturdy, sycophantic solicitation, by which obtrusive mendicity seeks charity or invites compassion. Why, sir, we hear the clamor of the craving animals at the treasury trough, here in this capital. Such running, such jostling, such wriggling, such clambering over one another's backs, such squealing because the tub is so narrow and the company so crowded ! No, sir, let us not talk of stoical apathy towards the things of the national treasury, either in this people or in their Kep- resentatives or Senators. SOUTHERN RULE IN THE NORTH. [From an Address delivered at Quincy, Mass., 5 June, 1856.] THE passage of the Louisiana Admission Bill was effected by the arts which slave-holders well know how to select and apply. Sops were given to the congressional watch-dogs of the Free States. To some 308 JOSIAH qUINCY. [1788- promises were made, by way of opiates ; and those whom they could neither pay nor drug were publicly treated with insolence and scorn. Threats, duels, and violence were at that day, as now, modes approved by them to deter men from awakening the Free States to a sense of their danger. From the moment that act was passed, they saw that the Free States were shorn of their strength; that they had obtained space to multiply Slave States at their will ; and Mr. Jefferson had confidentially told them, that from that moment, the " Constitution of the United States was blank paper;" but more correctly there was "no longer any Consti- tution." The slave-holders from that day saw they had the Free States in their power; that they were masters, and the Free States slaves; and have acted accordingly. From the passage of the Louisiana Bill until this day, their policy has been directed to a single object, with almost unin- terrupted success. That object was to exclude the Free States from any share of power, except in subserviency to their views ; and they have undeniably, during all the subsequent period of our history (the admin- istration of John Quincy Adams only excepted), placed in the chair of state either slave-holders or men from the Free States who, for sake of power, consented to be their tools, "Northern men with Southern prin- ciples ; " in other words, men who, for the sake of power or pay, were willing to do any work they would set them upon. In the times of non-intercourse and embargo, I had frequent .inter- course with John Randolph, and for many years a correspondence with him. During the extreme pressure of those measures upon the com- merce of the Northern States, I said to him, "Mr. Randolph, these measures are absolutely insupportable. You Southern men will, at this rate, put an end to parties in the Northern States, and we shall come down upon the South in one united phalanx." I shall never forget the half-triumph and half-sneer with which he replied, " You are mistaken, sir; you are mistaken, sir. The South are as sure of your democracy as they are of their own negroes." Let any man examine the history of the United States, from the reign of Thomas Jefferson to that of Franklin Pierce, and he will find that, when the slave-holders have any particularly odious and obnoxious work to do, they never fail to employ the leaders of the democracy of the Free States. This fact speaks volumes to the Free States. In all estimates of their future duties, it should never be forgotten, that every act by which their interests have been sacrificed, and the power of slave-holders in- creased, has been effected by the treachery of members of the Free States How is it that a body of slave-holders, which at no previous period have exceeded in numbers more than three hundred thousand, and which -1820] JOSIAH qUINGY. 399 at this day do not equal three hundred and fifty thousand, of which certainly not more than one thousand have any weight or voice in de- vising and conducting their policy, have been able, for more than fifty years, to lead from eighteen to twenty millions of men whithersoever they will, and to establish over them a sovereignty which is yet to be proved not immovable and permanent? This power of slave-holders has its origin, as has been already inti. mated, first, from a concentration of interests and fears in the body of slave-holders; second, from a total want of concentration of interests among the people of the Free States, combined with an entire want of all apprehensions of danger, owing to their unquestionable superiority in physical power. This, then, is the exact state of things in this Union. There are in it about three hundred thousand slave-holders, whose in- terests and fears are identical. There are in it at least from twenty to twenty-four millions of men in the Free States, who have no special identity of interest, and absolutely no fear whatsoever. This state of things is one of the sources from which the power slave-holders wield emanates. Their slaves are at once their pride and their weakness, the objects of their dependence and their fear. In 1S11, John Eandolph, who, with all his eccentricities, was the truest to his class and the most honorable of all slave-holders, and who saw with contempt the blustering bravadoes of many of his brethren, thus exposed their weakness and their terrors on the floor of Congress: "While you are talking of taking Canada, some of us are shuddering for our own safety at home. I speak from facts, when I say that the night-bell never tolls for fire, in Eichmond, that the mother does not hug her infant more closely to her bosom. I have been witness of some alarms in the capital of Virginia." How greatly the terror of their slave population has increased since the days of John Eandolph, may be conceived from the following facts. Then the slave population but little exceeded one million ; now it greatly exceeds three millions. THE WITCHCRAFT EXCITEMENT AND THE MATHERS. [The History of Harvard University. 1840.] particulars of that excitement scarcely fall within the sphere of 4- this history. Some reference to it, however, is required by the faci that, as the belief in the agency of the invisible world began to lessen, and some of those who were the chief actors in the tragedy to feel the weight of public indignation pressing upon them, they, being members of the Corporation, brought this body into the field for the purpose of 310 JOSIAH QUINCY. [1788- giving countenance to that belief, and of sustaining this decaying faith. In March, 1694, a paper, purporting to be proposals made by the Presi- dent and Fellows of Harvard College, prepared by both the Mathers, and signed by the whole board, was circulated throughout New England : in- viting all men, and particularly the clergy, to observe and record "the illustrious discoveries of Divine Providence in the government of the world," and among others, " apparitions, possessions, enchantments, and all extraordinary things, wherein the existence and agency of the in- visible world are more sensibly demonstrated." That both the Mathers had an efficient agency in producing and pro- longing that excitement, there can be, at this day, no possible question. The conduct of Increase Mather in relation to it was marked with caution and political skill; but that of his SOQ, Cotton Mather, was headlong, zealous, and fearless, both as to character and consequences. In its commencement and progress, his activity is everywhere conspicuous. The part he acted in that tragedy -has left on his memory a stain, which time has deepened rather than removed. Belief in invisible agencies was adapted to a mind naturally active, imaginative, and ambitious. He had been early taught the power of the imagination in matters of religion, and by the precept and example of his father had been instructed in the language of excitement and alarm. No sooner was the field left open to him, by the absence in Europe of his father and colleague, than he en- tered upon it with an ardor natural to his youth, and congenial with his temperament. Kegarded as the hope of the clergy, he aspired to be their champion, and for a short time became their idol. At the age of twenty-seven, he was raised to a seat, by the side of his father, in the Corporation of the College. A short time afterward, the General Court constituted him their preacher on Election day. He was courted and con- sulted by the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, Phips and Stoughton ; both of whom were conscious that they were largely indebted to his in- fluence for their respective appointments. Excited and emboldened by the elevated station he had obtained, in relation both to the Colony and the College, Cotton Mather seized, with a .sagacity characteristic of zeal and ambition, on that popular belief in invisible agencies, which the general tenor of the preaching of that day had encouraged and made almost universal in New England. His dis- courses from the pulpit were passionate and exciting; and awakened perpetually into action this popular delusion. He employed himself sedulously in seeking out every case, which encouraged faith in super- natural agencies. Thus standing before his contemporaries in the light, he incurred the responsibility of being its chief cause and promoter. In the progress of the superstitious fear, when it amounted to frenzy, and could only be satisfied with blood, he neither blanched nor halted ; but -1820] WILLIAM CLIFFTON. attended the courts, watched the progress of invisible agency in the prisons, and joined the multitude in witnessing the executions. After " two hundred persons had been accused, one hundred and fifty imprisoned, nineteen hanged, one pressed to death, and twenty-eight condemned, one- third of whom were members of the churches, and more than half of good general conversation," he wrote a formal treatise, entitled "Wonders of the Invisible World," approving the proceedings of the courts, and ex- citing the multitude to a continuance in the belief, and the courts to a perseverance in their vindictiveness. After the excitement had passed away, and shame had succeeded to passion, those who had guided or submitted to its course gave it the name of "popular delusion," or of "a visitation of Providence." But the delusion of the multitude is never general or violent, unless those who are their natural or assumed leaders countenance or encourage it. Nor ought human agents to be permitted to evade just responsibility, under pretence of supernatural suggestions and impulses. The guilt of the excesses and horrors, consequent on that excitement, rests, and ought to rest, heavily upon the leading divines and politicians of the Colony at that period; who had either the hardihood to uphold, or the cowardice not to withstand, the madness of the populace, of which they had been in no small degree the authors. Cotton Mather, however, with the sin- gular infelicity of judgment which constituted an element of his char- acter, while his contemporaries and coadjutors were drawing off from the delusion, and some of them, under the influence of shame and remorse, were confessing their sins and asking pardon of Heaven and their fellow- citizens, exhibited no uneasiness, no self -upbrai dings. On the contrary, he continued to avow his belief, and thus connected his name and fame inseparably with that excitement, as its chief cause, agent, believer, and justifier. William Cliffton. BORN in Philadelphia, Perm., 1772. DIED there, 1799. TO SLEEP. [Poems, chiefly Occasional, by the late Mr. Cliff ton. 1800.] HENCE with thy palsied hand, detested Sleep! Go seal the lids of wretchedness and care: Seek thou the couch where injured beauties weep, And rescue these one moment from despair. 312 WILLIAM CLIFFTON. [1788- For me, I charge thee o'er my busy brain Thy stupefying influence never fling; Fancy is there, with all her lovely train, And dreads the shadow of thy raven wing. But when exhausted is my lingering breath, And songs of joy, and every transport o'er, One sleep I'll take, the last cold sleep of death, To wake where thou can'st never plague me more. SONG. BOY, shut to the door, and bid trouble begone, If sorrow approach, turn the key ; Our comfort this night from the glass shall be drawn, And mirth our companion shall be. Who would not with pleasure the moments prolong, When tempted with Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song? / What art thou, kind power, that softenest me so, That kindlest this love-boding sigh, That bid'st with affection my bosom o'erflow, And send'st the fond tear to my eye? I know thee ! forever thy visit prolong, Sweet spirit of Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song. See the joy-waking influence rapidly fly, And spirit with spirit entwine, The effulgence of rapture enamels each eye, Each soul rides triumphant like mine, On a sea of good-humor floats gayly along, Surrounded with Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song. And now to the regions of Fancy we soar, Through scenes of enchantment we stray, We revel in transports untasted before, Or loiter with love on the way; Resolved like good fellows the time to prolong That cheers us with Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song. For Friendship, the solace of mortals below, In the thicket of life loves a rose, Good wine can content on misfortune bestow, And a song's 'not amiss, I suppose. Then fill, my good fellows, the moment prolong, With a bumper to Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song. -1820] ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 3^3 BORN in Rockbridge Co., Va., 1772. DIED at Princeton, N. J., 1851. THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE REVELATION. {Evidences. Edition 0/1836.] A NOTHER argument for the necessity of a divine revelation is, that ** without it man must remain ignorant of his origin and his end, and utterly unable to account for the circumstances by which he is sur- rounded. He finds himself here upon the earth, and feels that he is borne along the stream of time with the rest of his generation, towards a dark gulf before him, which he perceives he can by no means escape. But when he inquires respecting the origin of the human race, when he seeks a solution of the enigma of his sinful, suffering, and mortal exist- ence, he finds no one among the living or the dead, from whom he can obtain the least satisfactory information. All the traditions and histories of men are full of fables ; and if they contain some rays of truth, they are so mingled with error that no man can distinguish the one from the other. Leave out of view the history contained in the Bible, and all that we can learn from others casts not a solitary ray of light on the points under consideration. We have no means of tracing up our race to its origin, and the deist can give no rational account of the wickedness of men and their suffer- ings and death. The darkness and uncertainty resting on these subjects have led many, who rejected the authority of the Bible, to adopt most absurd and atheistical hypotheses respecting the origin of man. Some have professed to believe that the earth and its inhabitants have existed from all eternity; which is too absurd to require refutation. Others have amused themselves and their readers with the idea, that originally mankind were merely a species of monkey or baboon, and that by de- grees they laid aside their brutal appearance and manners, and certain inhuman appendages, and having in process of time invented language and the arts most necessary to provide for the clothing and shelter of the body, they gradually rose higher and higher in the scale of improvement, until they arrived at that pitch of refinement and civilization, which has been attained by the most polished nations. These, it is true, are rather atheistical than deistical hypotheses ; but they serve to show how little light reason can shed on this subject, and how much we need a divine revelation. For the deist can form no theory which can satisfy our rea- sonable desires. He can give no good reason for^the moral condition and mortality of our race. He may say that it is the law of nature ; but this is merely to declare the fact, not to account for it. 314 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- THE BIBLE. [From the Same.] IF any man can bring himself, after an impartial examination of the Scriptures, to believe that they were written by unprincipled im- postors, then he may believe that an untutored savage might construct a ship of the line; that a child might have written the "Iliad" or "Para- dise Lost : " or even that the starry firmament was the work of mere creatures. No: it cannot be that this is a forgery. No man or set of men ever had sufficient talents and knowledge to forge such a book as the Bible. It evidently transcends all human effort. It has upon its face the impress of divinity. It shines with a light, which by its clear- ness and its splendor shows itself to be celestial. It possesses the energy and penetrating influence which bespeak the omnipotence and omniscience of its author. It has the effect of enlightening, elevating, purifying, di- recting, and comforting all those who cordially receive it. Surely then it is the Word of God, and we hold it fast as the best blessing which God has vouchsafed to man. precious gospel ! Will any merciless hand endeavor to tear away from our hearts this best, this last, and sweetest consolation ? Would you darken the only avenue through which one ray of hope can enter ? Would you tear from the aged and infirm poor the only prop on which their souls can repose in peace? Would you deprive the dying of their only source of consolation? Would you rob the world of its richest trea's- ure ? Would you let loose the flood-gates of every vice, and bring back upon the earth the horrors of superstition or the atrocities of atheism? Then endeavor to subvert the gospel ; throw around you the firebrands of infidelity ; laugh at religion, and make a mock of futurity ; but be assured that for all these things God will bring you into judgment :V MM. BORN in Bladensburg, Md., 1772. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1834. AN OLD VIRGINIA PREACHER. [The Letters of the British Spy. Contributed to the Richmond Argus in 1803. Tenth Edition. 1832.] TT was one Sunday, as> I travelled through the county of Orange, that -*- my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old, -1820] WILLIAM WLRT. 315 wooden house, in the forest, not far from the road-side. Having fre- quently seen such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation ; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance ; he was a tall and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriv- elled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. The first emotions which touched my breast, were those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah ! sacred God ! how soon were all my feel- ings changed ! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prog- nostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament ; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times : I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos, than I had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour ; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history ; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored ! It was all new : and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so de- liberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews : the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of indignation ; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Saviour ; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven ; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do " the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and 3] 6 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no ; the descent was as beau- tiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quo- tation from Eousseau, " Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!" I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before, did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher ; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy gran- deur of their geniuses ; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house ; the preacher re- moving his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears), and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, " Socrates died like a philoso- pher " then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice "but Jesus Christ like a God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon, or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood, which just before had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my heart, with a sensation which I cannot describe a kind of shuddering delicious horror! The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which I had been transported, subsided into the deepest self-abasement, humility and adoration. I had just been lacerated -1820] WILLIAM WIET. and dissolved by sympathy for our Saviour as a fellow-creature ; but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him as " a God ! " If this description give you the impression that this incomparable minister had anything of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have never seen, in any other orator, such a union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude or an accent, to which he does not seem forced, by the sentiment which he is expressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far re- moved from ostentation as a man can be, yet it is clear from the train, the style and substance of his thoughts, that he is, not only a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and profound erudition. I was forcibly struck with a short, yet beautiful character which he drew of our learned and amiable countryman, Sir Eobert Boyle : he spoke of him, as if " his noble mind had, even before death, divested herself of all influence from his frail tabernacle of flesh ; " and called him, in his peculiarly emphatic and impressive manner, " a pure intelligence : the link between men and angels." This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A thou- sand times, as I rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to imitate his quotation from Rousseau ; a thousand times I abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded that his peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of soul, which nature could give, but which no human being could justly copy. In short, he seems to be altogether a being of a former age, or of a totally different nature from the rest of men. A COUNTRY BOY'S FIRST TRIAL. [Sketches of fhe Life and Character of Patrick Henry. Second Edition. 1818.] AS Mr. Henry owed no part of his distinction either to birth or fortune, but wholly to himself, the deeper the obscurity and poverty from which he emerged, the stronger is the evidence which it bears to his powers, and the greater glory does it shed around him. About the time of Mr. Henry's coming to the bar, a controversy arose in Virginia, which gradually produced a very strong excitement, and called to it, at length, the attention of the whole state. This was the famous controversy between the clergy on the one hand, and the legislature and people of the colony on the other, touching the stipend claimed by the former. .... 318 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- Th e case stood for argument on the demurrer to the November term, 1763, and was argued by Mr. Lyons for the plaintiff, and Mr. John Lewis for the defendants ; when the court, very much to the credit of their candor and firmness, breasted the popular current by sustaining the de- murrer. Thus far the clergy sailed before the wind, and concluded, with good reason, that their triumph was complete: for the act of 1758 having been declared void by the judgment on the demurrer, that of 1748 was left in full force, and became, in law, the only standard for the finding of the jury. Mr. Lewis was so thoroughly convinced of this, that he retired from the cause ; informing his clients that it had been, in effect, decided against them, and that there remained nothing more for him to do. In this desperate situation, they .applied to Patrick Henry, and he undertook to argue it for them before the jury, at the ensuing term. Accordingly, on the first day of the following December, he attended the court, and, on his arrival, found on the court-yard, such a concourse, as would have appalled any other man in his situation. They were not the people of the county merely who were there, but visitors from all the counties, to a considerable distance around. The decision upon the demurrer had produced a violent ferment amongst the people, and equal exultation on the part of the clergy ; who attended the court in a large body, either to look down opposition, or to enjoy the final triumph of this hard fought contest, which they now considered as perfectly secure. Among many other clergymen, who attended on this occasion, came the reverend Patrick Henry, who was the plaintiff in another cause of the same nature, then depending in court. When Mr. Henry saw his uncle approach, he walked up to his carriage, accompanied by Col. Meredith, and expressed his regret at seeing him there. "Why so?" inquired the uncle. ''Be- cause, sir," said Mr. Henry, " you know that I have never yet spoken in public, and I fear that I shall be too much overawed by your presence, to be able to do my duty to my clients ; besides sir, I shall be obliged to say some hard things of the clergy, and I am very unwilling to give pain to your feelings." His uncle reproved him for having engaged in the cause; which Mr. Henry excused by saying that the clergy had not thought him worthy of being retained on their side, and he knew of no moral principle by which he was bound to refuse a fee from their adver- saries; besides, he confessed that, in this controversy, both his heart and judgment, as well as his professional duty, were on the side of the people ; he then requested that his uncle would do him the favor to leave the ground. "Why, Patrick," said the old gentleman with a good-natured smile, "as to your saying hard things of the clergy, I advise you to let that alone take my word for it, you will do yourself more harm than you will them ; and as to my leaving the ground, I fear, my boy, that my presence could neither do you harm or good, in such a cause. How- -1820] WILLIAM WIRT. ever, since you seem to think otherwise, and desire it of me so earnestly, you shall be gratified." Whereupon, he entered his carriage again, and returned home. Soon after the opening of the court, the cause was called. It stood on a writ of inquiry of damages, no plea having been entered by the de- fendants since the judgment on the demurrer. The array before Mr. Henry's eyes was now most fearful. On the bench sat more than twenty clergymen, the most learned men in the colony, and the most capable, as well as the severest critics before whom it was possible for him to have made his debut. The court-house was crowded with an overwhelming multitude, and surrounded with an immense and anxious throng, who not finding room to enter, were endeavoring to listen without, in the deepest attention. But there was something still more awfully discon- certing than all this ; for in the chair of the presiding magistrate sat no other person than his own father. Mr. Lyons opened the cause very briefly : in the way of argument he did nothing more than explain to the jury, that the decision upon the demurrer had put the act of 1758 entirely out of the way, and left the law of 1748 as the only standard of their damages ; he then concluded with a highly wrought eulogium on the benevolence of the clergy. And now came on the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a com- mencement; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others of a very different character. For now were those won- derful faculties which he possessed, for the first time developed ; and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural trans- formation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in him. For as his mind rolled along, and began to glow from its own action, all the exuviae, of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eyes which seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and commanding; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which no one can give any adequate description. They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart, in a manner which language cannot tell. Add to all these, his wonder-working fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its images ; for 320 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- he painted to the heart with a force that almost petrified it. In the lan- guage of those who heard him on this occasion, " he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end." It will not be difficult for any one, who ever heard this most extraor- dinary man, to believe the whole account of this transaction which is given by his surviving hearers ; and from their account, the court-house of Hanover county must have exhibited, on this occasion, a scene as picturesque, as has been ever witnessed in real life. They say that the people, whose countenance had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up ; then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses; then, attracted by some strong gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fas- cinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, and the varied and commanding expression of his countenance, they could look away no more. In less than twenty minutes, they might be seen in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, stooping for- ward from their stands, in death-like silence; their features fixed in amazement and awe; all their senses listening and rivetted upon the speaker, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. The mockery of the clergy was soon turned into alarm ; their triumph into confusion and despair ; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming- invective, they fled from the bench in precipitation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstacy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclina- tion to repress them. The jury seemed to have been so completely bewildered, that they lost sight not only of the act of 1748, but that of 1758 also ; for thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar, when they returned with a verdict of one penny damages. A motion was made for a new trial ; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by an unanimous vote. The verdict and judgment overruling the motion, were followed by redoubled acclamations, from within and without the house. The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion, from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and in spite of his own exertions, and the continued cry of " order " from the sheriffs and the court, they bore him out of the court-house, and raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard in a kind of electioneering triumph. 0! what a scene was this for a father's heart! so sudden; so unlocked for; so delightfully overwhelming! At the time, he was not able to give utterance to any sentiment ; but a few days after, when speaking of it to -1820] WILLIAM WIET. 321 Mr. Winston, he said, with the most engaging modesty, and with a tremor of voice which showed how much more he felt than he ex- pressed, " Patrick spoke in this cause, near an hour ! and in a manner that surprised me ! and showed himself well informed on a subject, of which I did not think he had any knowledge ! " A NATURAL ORATOR. [From the Same.'} IT was on questions before a jury that he was in his natural element There, his intimate knowledge of human nature, and the rapidity as well as justness of his inferences, from the flitting expressions of the countenance, as to what was passing in the hearts of his hearers, availed him fully. The jury might be composed of entire strangers, yet he rarely failed to know them, man by man, before the evidence was closed. There was no studied fixture of features, that could long hide the char- acter from his piercing and experienced view. The slightest unguarded turn of countenance, or motion of the eye, let him at once into the soul of the man whom he was observing. Or, if he doubted whether his con- clusions were correct, from the exhibitions of countenance during the narration of the evidence, he had a mode of playing a prelude as it were upon the jury, in his exordium, which never failed to "wake into life each silent string," and show him the whole compass as well as pitch of the instrument; and, indeed (if we may believe all the concurrent accounts of his exhibitions in the general court), the most exquisite per- former that ever " swept the sounding lyre," had not a more sovereign mastery over its powers, than Mr. Henry had over the springs of feeling and thought that belong to a jury. There was a delicacy, a taste, a felicity in his touch, that was perfectly original, and without a rival. His style of address, on these occasions, is said to have resembled very much that of the Scriptures. It was strongly marked with the same simplicity, the same energy, the same pathos. He sounded no alarm ; he made no parade, to put the jury on their guard. It was all so natural, so humble, so unassuming, that they were carried imperceptibly along, and attuned to his purpose, until some master touch dissolved them into tears. His language of passion was perfect. There was no word "of learned length or thundering sound," to break the charm. It had almost all the stillness of solitary thinking. It was a sweet reverie, a delicious trance. His voice, too, had a wonderful effect. He had a singular power of infusing it into a jury, and mixing its notes with their nerves, in a man- VOL. iv. 21 322 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- ner which it is impossible to describe justly ; but which produced a thrilling excitement, in the happiest concordance with his designs. No man knew so well as he did what kind of topics to urge to their understandings ; nor what kind of simple imagery to present to their hearts. His eye, which he kept ri vetted upon them, assisted the process of fascination, and at the same time informed him what theme to press, or at what instant to retreat, if by rare accident he touched an unpropitious string. And then he had such an exuberance of appropriate thoughts, of apt illustrations, of ap- posite images, and such a melodious and varied roll of the happiest words, that the hearer was never wearied by repetition, and never winced from an apprehension that the intellectual treasures of the speaker would be exhausted. * A striking example of this witchery of his eloquence, even on common subjects, was related by a very respectable gentleman, the late Major Joseph Scott, the marshal of this state. This gentleman had been sum- moned, at great inconvenience to his private affairs, to attend as a witness a distant court, in which Mr. Henry practised. The cause which had carried him thither having been disposed of, he was setting out in great haste to return, when the sheriff summoned him to serve on a jury. This cause was represented as a complicated and important one ; so im- portant, as to have enlisted in it all the most eminent members of the bar. He was therefore alarmed at the prospect of a long detention, and made an unavailing effort with the court to get himself discharged from the jury. He was compelled to take his seat. When his patience had been nearly exhausted by the previous speakers, Mr. Henry rose to con- clude the cause, and having much matter to answer, the major stated that he considered himself a prisoner for the evening, if not for the night. But, to his surprise, Mr. Henry appeared to have consumed not more than fifteen minutes in the reply ; and he would scarcely believe his own watch, or those of the other jurymen, when they informed him that he had in reality been speaking upwards of two hours. So powerful was the charm by which he could bind the senses of his hearers, and make even the most impatient unconscious of the lapse of time. THE STATESMAN AND THE DANDY. \From the Same. ] T~T was in the course of the debate which has been just mentioned, that J- Mr. Henry was driven from his usual decorum into a retaliation, that became a theme of great public merriment at the time, and has continued -1820] WILLIAM WIRT. 393 ever since one of the most popular anecdotes that relate to him. He had insisted, it seems, with great force, that the speedy adoption of the amendments was the only measure that could secure the great and un- alienable rights of the freemen of this country that the people were known to be exceedingly anxious for this measure that it was the only step which could reconcile them to the new constitution and assure that public contentment, security, and confidence, which were the sole objects of government, and without which no government could stand that whatever might be the individual sentiments of gentlemen, yet the wishes of the people, the fountain of all authority, being known, they were bound to conform to those wishes that, for his own part, he con- sidered his opinion as nothing, when opposed to those of his constituents; and that he was ready and willing, at all times and on all occasions, " to bow, with the utmost deference, to the majesty of the people." A young gentleman, on the federal side of the house, who had been a member of the late convention, and had in that body received, on one occasion, a slight touch of Mr. Henry's lash, resolved now, in an ill-fated moment, to make a set charge upon the veteran, and brave him to the combat. He possessed fancy, a graceful address, and an easy, sprightly elocution ; and had been sent by his father (an opulent man, and an officer of high rank and trust under the regal government) to finish his education in the colleges of England, and acquire the polish of the court of St. James ; where he had passed the whole period of the American revolution. Ke- turning with advantages which were rare in this country, and with the confidence natural to his years, presuming a little too far upon those ad- vantages, he seized upon the words, " bow to the majesty of the people," which Mr. Henry had used, and rung the changes upon them with con- siderable felicity. He denied the solicitude of the people for the amend- ments, so strenuously urged on the other side ; he insisted that the people thought their "great and unalienable rights" sufficiently secured by the constitution which they had adopted : that the preamble of the constitu- tion itself, which was now to be considered as the language of the people, declared its objects to be, among others, the security of those very rights; the people then declare the constitution the guarantee of their rights, while the gentleman, in opposition to this public declaration of their sen- timents, insists upon his amendments as furnishing that guarantee; yet the gentleman tells us, that "he bows to the majesty of the people:" these words he accompanied with a most graceful bow. " The gentle- man," he proceeded, " had set himself in opposition to the will of the people, throughout the whole course of this transaction : the people ap- proved of the constitution: the suffrage of their constituents in the last convention had proven it the people wished, most anxiously wished, the adoption of the constitution, as the only means of saving the credit 32-i WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- and the honor of the country, and producing the stability of the Union : the gentleman, on the contrary, had placed himself at the head of those who opposed its adoption yet, the gentleman is ever ready and will- ing, at all times and on all occasions, to bow to the majesty of the people " (with another profound and graceful bow). Thus he proceeded, through a number of animated sentences, winding up each one with the same words, sarcastically repeated, and the accompaniment of the same graceful obeisance. Among other things, he said, "it was of little im- portance, whether a country was ruled by a despot, with a tiara on his head, or by a demagogue in a red cloak, a caul-bare wig, etc. (describing Mr. Henry's dress so minutely, as to draw every eye upon him), " although he should profess on all occasions to bow to the majesty of the people." A gentleman who was present, and who, struck with the singularity of the attack, had the curiosity to number the vibrations on those words, and the accompanying action, states that he counted thirteen of the most graceful bows he had ever beheld. The friends of Mr. Henry considered such an attack on a man of his years and high character as very little short of sacrilege ; on the other side of the house, there was, indeed, a smothered sort of dubious laugh, in which there seemed to be at least as much apprehension as enjoyment. Mr. Henry had heard the whole of it, without any apparent mark of attention. The young gentleman having finished his philippic, very much at least to his own satisfaction, took his seat, with the gayest ex- pression of triumph in his countenance "Heu! Nescia mens hominum fati, sortisque futurce, ! " Mr. Henry raised himself up, heavily and with affected awkwardness "Mr. Speaker," said he, "I am a plain man, and have been educated altogether in Virginia. My whole life has been spent among planters and other plain men of similar education, who have never had the advantage of that polish which a court alone can give, and which the gentleman over the way has so happily acquired; indeed, sir, the gentleman's employments and mine (in common with the great mass of his countrymen) have been as widely different as our fortunes ; for while that gentleman was availing himself of the opportunity which a splendid fortune afforded him, of acquiring a foreign education, mixing among the great, attending levees and courts, basking in the beams of royal favor at St. James's, and exchanging courtesies with crowned heads, I was engaged in the arduous toils of the Revolution ; and was probably as far from thinking of acquiring those polite accomplishments which the gentleman has so successfully cultivated, as that gentleman then was from sharing in the toils and dangers in which his. unpolished country- men were engaged. I will not, therefore, presume to vie with the gen- tleman in those courtly accomplishments, of which he,has just given the house so agreeable a specimen ; yet such a bow as I can make, shall be -1820] WILLIAM WIRT. 325 ever at the service of the people " herewith, although there was no man who could make a more graceful bow than Mr. Henry, he made one so ludicrously awkward and clownish, as took the house by surprise, and put them into a roar of laughter "the gentleman, I hope, will com- miserate the disadvantages of education under which I have labored, and will be pleased to remember that I have never been a favorite with that monarch, wh"ose gracious smile he has had the happiness to enjoy/' He pursued this contrast of situations and engagements, for fifteen or twenty minutes, without a smile, and without the smallest token of re- sentment, either in countenance, expression, or manner. "You would almost have sworn," says a correspondent, " that he thought himself making his apology for his own awkwardness, before a full drawing- room at St. James's. I believe there was not a person that heard him, the sufferer himself excepted, who did not feel every risible nerve affected. His adversary meantime hung down his head, and sinking lower and lower, until he was almost concealed behind the interposing forms, sub- mitted to the discipline as quietly as a Eussian malefactor, who had been beaten with the knout till all sense of feeling was lost." THE DEATHS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [From the Oration on Adams and Jefferson, delivered in the H. of R., 19 October, 1826.] npHESE two great men, so eminently distinguished among the patriots f- of the Eevolution, and so illustrious by their subsequent services, became still more so, by having so long survived all that were most highly conspicuous among their coevals. All the stars of first magni- tude, in the equatorial and tropical regions, had long since gone down, and still they remained. Still they stood full in view, like those two resplendent constellations near the opposite poles, which never set to the inhabitants of the neighboring zones. But they, too, were doomed at length to set; and such was their set- ting as no American bosom can ever forget ! In the midst of their fast decaying strength, and when it was seen that the approach of death was certain, their country and its glory still occu- pied their thoughts, and circulated with the last blood that was ebbing to their hearts. Those who surrounded the death-bed of Mr. Jefferson report that, in the few short intervals of delirium that occurred, his mind manifestly relapsed to the age of the Eevolution. He talked, in broken sentences, of the committees of safety, and the rest of that great machin- ery, which he imagined to be still in action. One of his exclamations 326 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- was, " Warn the committee to be on their guard ; " and he instantly rose in his bed, with the help of his attendants, and went through the act of writing a hurried note. But these intervals were few and short. His reason was almost constantly upon her throne, and the only aspiration he was heard to breathe, was the prayer, that he might live to see the Fourth of July. When that day came, all that he was .heard to whisper was the repeated ejaculation " Nunc Domine dimittas" Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace ! And the prayer of the patriot was heard and answered. The patriarch of Quincy, too, with the same certainty of death before him, prayed only for the protraction of his life to the same day. His prayer was also heard: and when a messenger from the neighboring festivities, unapprised of his danger, was deputed to ask him for the honor of a toast, he showed the object on which his dying eyes were fixed, and exclaimed with energy, " Independence for ever ! " His coun- try first, his country last, his country always ! " O save my country Heaven! he said and died! " Hitherto, fellow-citizens, the Fourth of July had beeD celebrated among us, only as the anniversary of our independence, and its votaries had been merely human beings. But at its last recurrence the great jubilee of the nation the anniversary, it may well be termed, of the liberty of man Heaven, itself, mingled visibly in the celebration, and hallowed the day anew by a double apotheosis. Is there one among us to whom this language seems too strong ? Let him recall his own feelings, and the objection will vanish. When the report first reached us, of the death of the great man whose residence was nearest, who among us was not struck with the circumstance that he should have been removed on the day of his own highest glory? And who, after the first shock of the intelli- gence had passed, did not feel a thrill of mournful delight at the charac- teristic beauty of the close of such a life. But while our bosoms were yet swelling with admiration at this singularly beautiful coincidence, when the second report immediately followed, of the death of the great sage of Quincy, on the same day I appeal to yourselves is there a voice that was not hushed, is there a heart that did not quail, at this close manifestation of the hand of Heaven in our affairs ? Philosophy, recov- ered of her surprise, may affect to treat the coincidence as fortuitous. But philosophy herself was mute, at the moment, under the pressure of the feeling that these illustrious men had rather been translated, than had died. It is in vain to tell us that men die by thousands every day in the year, all over the world. The wonder is, not that two men have died on the same day, but that two such men, after having performed so many and such splendid services in the cause of liberty after the multitude of -1820] WILLIAM WIRT. 327 other coincidences which seem to have linked their destinies together after having lived so long together, the objects of their country's pint veneration after having been spared to witness the great triumph of their toils at home and looked together from Pisgah's top, on the sublime effect of that grand impulse which they had given to the same glorious cause throughout the world, should, on this fiftieth anniversary of the day on which they had ushered that cause into light, be both caught up to Heaven, together, in the midst of their raptures ! Is there a being of heart so obdurate and sceptical, as not to feel the hand and hear the voice of Heaven in this wonderful dispensation? And may we not, with reverence, interpret its language? Is it not this ? " These are my beloved servants, in whom I am well pleased. They have finished the work for which I sent them into the world ; and are now called to their reward. Go ye, and do likewise ! " BURR AND BLENNERHASSETT. [Argument in the Trial of Aaron Burr. U. S. Circuit Court, Richmond, Va. 1807.] WHO is Blennerhassett ? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. His history shows that war is not the natural element of his mind. If it had been, he never would have exchanged Ireland for America. So far is an army from furnishing the society natural and proper to Mr. Blenner- hassett's character, that on his arrival in America, he retired even from the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he carried with him taste and science and wealth ; and lo, the desert smiled ! Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shen- stone might have envied, blooms around him. Music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, tranquillity and innocence shed their mingled delights around him. And to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of several children. The evidence would convince you that this is but a faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart, 328 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- the destroyer comes ; lie comes to change this paradise into a hell. Yet the flowers do not wither at his approach. No monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortunate possessor warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him. A stranger presents himself. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no design itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guard before its breast. Every door, and portal, and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpractised heart of the unfortunate Blennerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage ; a daring and desperate thirst for glory ; an ardor panting for great enter- prises, for all the storm and bustle and hurricane of life. In a short time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight is relin- quished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene ; it has become flat and insipid to his taste. His books are abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain ; he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music ; it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar. Even the. prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto tpuched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unseen and unfelt. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, of stars, and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of great heroes and conquerors. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilderness; and in a few months we find the beautiful and tender part- ner of his bosom, whom he lately " permitted not the winds of " summer " to visit too roughly," we find her shivering at midnight, on the wintry banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace, thus confounded in the toils that were deliberately spread for him, and over- whelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offender, while he, by whom he was thus plunged in misery, is comparatively -1820] WILLIAM WIRT. 339 innocent, a mere accessary ! Is this reason ? Is it law ? Is it human- ity ? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd ! so shocking to the soul ! so revolting to reason ! Let Aaron Burr, then, not shrink from the high destination which he has courted, and having already ruined Blenner- hassett in fortune, character and happiness, for ever, let him not attempt to finish the tragedy by thrusting that ill-fated man between himself and punishment. THE LAWYER'S "TWELVE GOOD RULES/' [Letter to Francis W. Gilmer, 1815. Kennedy's "Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt." fievised Edition. 1849.] I PERCEIVE that you are going to work, pell-mell, nee mora, nee re- quies : that's your sort give it to them thicker and faster ! Nunc dextra ingeminans citus, nunc itte sinistra. It is this glow and enthusiasm of enterprise that is to carry you to the stars. But then bear in mind, that it is a long journey to the stars, and that they are not to be reached per saltum. "Perseverando vinces " ought to be your motto and you should write it in the first page of every book in your library. Ours is not a profession, in which a man gets along by a hop, step, and a jump. It is the steady march of a heavy armed legionary soldier. This armor you have yet, in a great measure, to gain ; to learn how to put it on ; to wear it without fatigue ; to fight in it with ease, and use every piece of it to the best advantage. I am against your extending your practice, therefore, to too many courts, in the beginning. I would not wish you to plunge into an extensive practice at once. It will break up your reading, and prevent you from preparing properly for that higher theatre which you ought always to keep intently in your mind's eye. For two or three years, you must read, sir read read delve medi- tate study and make the whole mine of the law your own. For two or three years, I had much rather that your appearances should be rare and splendid, than frequent, light and vapid, like those of the young country practitioners about you. Let me use the privilege of my age and experience to give you a few hints, which, now that you are beginning the practice, you may find not useless. 1. Adopt a system of life, as to business and exercise ; and never de- 330 WILLIAM WIRT. [1788- viate from it, except so far as you may be occasionally forced by imperious and uncontrollable circumstances. 2. Live in your office ; i. e., be always seen in it except at the hours of eating or exercise. 3. Answer all letters as soon as they are received ; you know not how many heartaches it may save you. Then fold neatly, endorse neatly, and file away neatly, alphabetically, and by the year, all the letters so received. Let your letters on business be short, and keep copies of them. 4. Pat every law paper in its place, as soon as received ; and let no scrap of paper be seen lying for a moment, on your writing chair or tables. This will strike the eye of every man of business who enters. 5. Keep regular accounts of every cent of income and expenditure, and file your receipts neatly, alphabetically, and by the month, or at least by the year. 6. Be patient with your foolish clients, and hear all their tedious cir- cumlocution and repetitions with calm and kind attention ; cross-examine and sift them, till you know all the strength and weakness of their cause, and take notes of it at once whenever you can do so. 7. File your bills in Chancery at the moment of ordering the suit, and while your client is yet with you to correct your statement of his case ; also prepare every declaration the moment the suit is ordered, and have it ready to file. 8. Cultivate a simple style of speaking, so as to be able to inject the strongest thought into the weakest capacity. You will never be a good jury lawyer without this faculty. 9. Never attempt to be grand and magnificent before common tribu- nals ; and the most you will address are common. The neglect of this principle of common-sense has ruined with all men of sense. 10. Keep your Latin and Greek, and science, to yourself, and to that very small circle which they may suit. The mean and envious world will never forgive you your knowledge, if you make it too public. It will require the most unceasing urbanity and habitual gentleness of man- ners, almost to humility, to make your superior attainments tolerable to your associates. 1 1. Enter with warmth and kindness into the interesting concerns of others whether you care much for them or not ; not with the conde- scension of a superior, but with the tenderness and simplicity of an equal. It is this benevolent trait which makes and such universal favor- ites and, more than anything else, has smoothed my own path of life, and strewed it with flowers. 12. Be never flurried in speaking, but learn to assume the exterior of composure and self-collectedness, whatever riot and confusion may be within; speak slowly, firmly, distinctly, and mark your periods by -1820] MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES. 331 proper pauses, and a steady, significant look : " Trick I" True, but a good trick, and a sensible trick. You talk of complimenting your adversaries. Take care of your manner of doing this. Let it be humble and sincere, and not as if you thought it was in your power to give them importance by your fiat. You see how natural it is for old men to preach, and how much easier to preach than to practise. Yet you must not slight my sermons, for I wish you to be much greater than I ever was or can hope to be. Our friend Carr will tell you that my maxims are all sound. Practise them, and I will warrant your success. jttargaretta t^. f augetos. BOKN in Tomhanick, near Albany, N. Y., 1771. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1801. TO THE MOON. [From her Writings, appended to the Posthumous Works of her Mother, Mrs. Ann Eliza Bleecker. 1793.] "TTTHILE wandering through the dark blue vault of heaven, * ^ Thy trackless steps pursue their silent way, And from among the starry host of even Thou shed'st o'er slumbering earth a milder day; And when thou pourest abroad thy shadowy light Across the ridgy circles of the stream, With raptured eyes, O changeful nymph of night! I gaze upon thy beam. Great was the hand that formed thy round, O Moon! That marked the precincts of thy steady wheel, That bade thee smile on Night's oblivious noon, And rule old Ocean's solemn swell ; Great was the Power, that filled with radiant light Those worlds unnumbered which from pole to pole Hang out their golden lamps to deck thy flight, Or gild the planets which around thee roll. 332 ELIPHALET NOTT. [1788- BUp^alet jl-Jott. BOEN in Ashford, Conn., 1773. DIED at Schenectady, N. Y., 1866. THE LESSON OF A NATIONAL TRAGEDY. [Discourse on the Death of Hamilton, delivered at Albany, 29 July, 1804. Colemarfs " Collection." 1804.] I KNOW lie had his failings. I see on the picture of his life, a pict- ure rendered awful by greatness, and luminous bj virtue, some dark shades. On these let the tear that pities human weakness fall : on these let the veil which covers human frailty rest. As a hero, as a statesman, as a patriot, he lived nobly : and would to God I could add, he nobly fell. Unwilling to admit his error in this respect, I go back to the period of discussion. I see him resisting the threatened interview. I imagine myself present in his chamber. Various reasons, for a time, seem to hold his determination in arrest. Yarious and moving objects pass before him, and speak a dissuasive language. His country, which may need his counsels to guide, and his arm to defend, utters her veto. The partner of his youth, already covered with weeds, and whose tears flow down into her bosom, intercedes! His babes, stretching out their little hands and pointing to a weeping mother, with lisping eloquence, but eloquence which reaches a parent's heart, cry out "Stay stay dear papa, and live for us ! " In the mean time the spectre of a fallen son, pale and ghastly, approaches, opens his bleeding bosom, and, as the har- binger of death, points to the yawning tomb, and warns a hesitating father of the issue ! He pauses. Eeviews these sad objects ; and reasons on the subject. I admire his magnanimity. I approve his reasoning, and I wait to hear him reject with indignation the murderous proposition, and to see him spurn from his presence the presumptuous bearer of it. But I wait in vain. It was a moment in which his great wisdom for- sook him. A moment in which Hamilton was not himself. He yielded to the force of an imperious custom: and yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interest, and he is lost lost to his country lost to his family lost to us. For this act, because he dis- claimed it, and was penitent, I forgive him. But there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean not his antagonist ; over whose erring steps, if there be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already all that humanity can suffer : suffers, and wherever he may fly, will suffer, with the poignant recollec- -1820] , ELIPHALET NOTT. 333 tion of having taken the life of one who was too magnanimous in return to attempt his own. Had he have known this, it must have paralyzed his arm, while it pointed at so incorruptible a bosom the instrument of death. Does he know this now ? his heart, if it be not adamant, must soften if it be not ice, it must melt. But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, if he be penitent, I forgive him and if he be' not, before these altars, where all of us appear as suppliants. I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in behalf of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers. But I have said, and I repeat it, there are those whom I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive that minister at the altar, who has hitherto forborne to remonstrate on this subject. I cannot forgive that public prosecutor, who, intrusted with the duty of avenging his country's wrongs, has seen those wrongs, and taken no measures to avenge them. I cannot forgive that judge upon the bench, or that governor in the chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offences. I cannot forgive the public, in whose opinion the duellist finds a sanctuary. I cannot forgive you, my brethren, who till this late hour, have been silent, while successive mur- ders were committed. No ; I cannot forgive you, that you have not, in common with the freemen of this state, raised your voice to the powers that be, and loudly and explicitly demanded an execution of your laws. Demanded this in a manner, which, if it did not reach the ear of gov- ernment, would at least have reached the heavens, and pleaded your excuse before the God that filleth them in whose presence as I stand, I should not feel myself innocent of the blood that crieth against us, had I been silent. But I have not been silent. Many of you who hear me are my witnesses the walls of yonder temple, where I have heretofore addressed you, are my witnesses, how freely I have animadverted on this subject, in the presence both of those who have violated the laws, and of those whose indispensable-duty it is to see the laws executed on those who violate them. I enjoy another opportunity ; and would to God, I might be permitted to approach for once the late scene of death. Would to God, I could there assemble, on the one side, the disconsolate mother with her seven fatherless children and on the other, those who administer the justice of my country. Could I do this, I would point them to these sad objects. I would entreat them, by the agonies of bereaved fondness, to listen to the widow's heartfelt groans ; to mark the orphans' sighs and tears. And having done this, I would uncover the breathless corpse of Hamilton I would lift from his gaping wound his bloody mantle I would hold it up to heaven before them, and I would ask, in the name of God, I would ask, whether at the sight of it they felt no compunction? 334 WILLIAM BIGLOW. [1788- BOBN in Natick, Mass., 1773. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1844. RECEIPT TO MAKE A MAGAZINE. [Buckingham's " Specimens of Newspaper Literature." 1850.] A PLATE, of art and meaning void, To explain it a whole page employed: Two tales prolonged of maids deluded ; Two more begun, and one concluded ; Life of a fool to fortune risen ; The death of a starved bard in prison; On woman, beauty-spot of nature, A panegyric and a satire ; Cook's voyages, in continuation ; On taste a tasteless dissertation ; Description of two fowls aquatic ; A list of ladies, enigmatic; A story true from French translated, Which, with a lie, might well be mated ; A mangled slice of English history; Essays on miracles and mystery ; An unknown character attacked, In story founded upon fact ; Advice to jilts, coquets, and prudes : And thus the pompous Prose concludes. For Poetry a birth-day ode ; A fable of the mouse and toad ; A modest wish for a kind wife, And all the other joys of life; A song, descriptive of the season; A poem, free from rhyme and reason; A drunken song, to banish care ; A simple sonnet to despair; Some stanzas on a bridal bed; An epitaph on Shock, just dead; A pointless epigram on censure ; An imitation of old Spenser; A dull acrostic and a rebus; A blustering monody to Phoebus ; The country 'gainst the town defended; And thus the Poetry is ended. Next, from the public prints, display The news and lyings of the day; Paint bloody Mars & Co. surrounded By thousands slain, ten thousand wounded: -1820] JOHN RANDOLPH. 335 Steer your sly politics between The Aristocrat and Jacobin ; Then end the whole, both prose and rhyme, in The ravages of Death and Hymen. BORN at Cawsons, Chesterfield Co., Va., 1773. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1833. THE SLAVES AFTER THE REVOLUTION. [From a Speech on the Militia Bill. U. S. H. of R., 10 December, 1811.] PERMIT me now, sir, to call your attention to the subject of our black population. I will touch this subject as tenderly as possible. It is with reluctance that I touch it at all; but in cases of great emer- gency, the State physician must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical humanity, from probing the wound of his patient ; he must not be with- held by a fastidious and mistaken delicacy from representing his true situation to his friends, or even to the sick man himself, when the occasion calls for it. What is the situation of the slave-holding States ? During the war of the Revolution, so fixed were their habits of subordination, that while the whole country was overrun by the enemy, who invited them to desert, no fear was ever entertained of an insurrection of the slaves. During a war of seven years, with our country in possession of the enemy, no such danger was ever apprehended. But should we, therefore, be unobservant spectators of the progress of society within the last twenty years ; of the silent but powerful change wrought, by time and chance, upon its composition and temper? When the fountains of the great deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor slaves did not escape the general deluge. The French Revolution has polluted even them Men, dead to the operation of moral causes, have taken away from the poor slave his habit of loyalty and obedience to his master, which light- ened his servitude by a double operation; beguiling his own cares and disarming his master's suspicions and severity ; and now, like true em- pirics in politics, you are called upon to trust to the mere physical strength of the fetter which holds him in bondage. You have deprived him of all moral restraint ; you have tempted him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wickedness ; you have opened his eyes to his nakedness; you have armed his nature against the hand that has fed, that has clothed him, that has cherished 336 JOHN RANDOLPH. [1788- him in sickness; that hand which before he became a pupil of your school, he had been accustomed to press with respectful affection. You have done all this and then show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incentives to a sullen, repugnant obedience. God forbid, sir, that the Southern States should ever see an enemy on their shores, with these in- fernal principles of French fraternity in the van. While talking of taking- Canada, some of us are shuddering for our own safety at home. I speak from facts, when I say, that the night-bell never tolls for fire in Kich- mond, that the mother does not hug her infant more closely to her bosom. I have been a witness of some of the alarms in the capital of Yirginia. ENGLAND AND NAPOLEON. [From the Same.] THE great autocrat of all the Kussias receives the homage of our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of pirates are very civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in maintain- ing the relations of peace and amity. "Turks, Jews, and Infidels;" Melimelli or the Little Turtle ; barbarians and savages of every clime and color, are welcome to our arms. With chiefs of banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and trade. Name, however, but England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against her. Against whom ? Against those whose blood runs in our veins ; in common with whom we claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen; whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted ; from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions has been bor- rowed representation, jury trial, voting the supplies, writ of habeas corpus, our whole civil and criminal jurisprudence ; against our fellow- Protestants, identified in blood, in language, in religion, with ourselves. In what school did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Eutledges of America, learn those principles of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and valor ? American resistance to British usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots ; not more by Wash- ington, Hancock, and Henry, than by Chatham and his illustrious asso- ciates in the British Parliament. It ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was with us. It was a selfish and cor- rupt ministry, and their servile tools, to whom we were not more opposed than they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among us ; for -1820] JOHN RANDOLPH. 337 tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, "however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare and a Milton upon my imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God I possessed in common with that illustrious man ! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porteus upon my re- ligion. This is a British influence which I can never shake off. I allow much to the just and honest prejudices growing out of the Revolution. But by whom have they been suppressed, when they ran counter to the interests of my country? By Washington. By whom, would you listen to them, are they most keenly felt? By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, Newgate, and Kilmainham, since the breaking out of the French Revolution ; who, in this abused and insulted country, have set up for political teachers, and whose disciples give no other proof of their prog- ress in republicanism, except a blind devotion to the most worthless military despotism that the world ever saw. These are the patriots, who scruple not to brand with the epithet of Tory, the men [looking toward the seat of CoL Stewart] by whose blood your liberties have been cemented. These are they, who hold in such keen remembrance the outrages of the British armies, from which many of them are deserters. Ask these self- styled patriots where they were during the American war (for they are, for the most part, old enough to have borne arms), and you strike them dumb; their lips are closed in eternal silence. If it were allowable to entertain partialities, every consideration of blood, language, religion, and interest, would incline us toward England : and yet, shall they alone be extended to France and her ruler, whom we are bound to believe a chastening God suffers as the scourge of a guilty world ! On all other nations he tramples ; he holds them in contempt ; England alone he hates ; he would, but he cannot, despise her; fear cannot despise; and shall we disparage our ancestors? But the outrages and injuries of England bred up yi the principles of the Revolution I can never palliate, much less defend them. I well remember flying, with rny mother and her new-born child, from Arnold and Philips ; and we were driven by Tarleton and other British Pandours from pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country. The impression is indelible on my memory; and yet (like my worthy old neighbor, who added seven buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford, and drew fine sight at his man) I must be con- tent to be called a Tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get rid of one evil (supposing it possible) at the expense of a greater ; mutatis mutandis, suppose France in possession of the British naval power and to her the trident must pass should England be unable to wield it what would be your condition? What would be the situation of VOL. iv. 22 338 JOHN RANDOLPH. [1708- y our seaports, and their seafaring inhabitants ? Ask Hamburg, Lubec ! Ask Savannah! Shall republicans become the instruments of him who has effaced the title of Attila to the " scourge of God!" Yet, even Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites, in the very countries that he overran ; sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod ; where grass could never after grow. If per- fectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength and spirits exhausted, I could not give utterance to that strong detestation which I feel toward (above all other works of the creation) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Kahn, or Bona- parte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who have ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition! Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the last of these chieftains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become a party to his views, a partner in his wars? AN EPISTLE TO A SCHOOL-BOY. [Letters of John Randolph to a Young Relative. 1834.] MY DEAK BOY : After I had gone to bed last night, and lay tum- bling and tossing about, uneasy and unable to rest, my thoughts running upon many an anxious subject, among which you were not for- gotten, I was relieved by the entrance of a servant, who handed me your letter of the 9th, with some others. But that relief was only temporary. My mind fixed itself on your situation for the remainder of the night, and I have determined to settle you at school at Winchester, unless (of which I have no expectation) I shall find Hampden Sidney very greatly altered for the better. At your time of life, my son, I was even more ineligibly placed than you are, and would have given worlds for quiet seclusion and books. I never had either. You will smile when I tell you that the first map that I almost ever saw was one of Virginia, when I was nearly fifteen; and that I never (until the age of manhood) pos- sessed any treatise on geography, other than an obsolete Gazetteer of Salmon, and my sole atlas were the five maps, if you will honor them with that name, contained in the Gazetteer, each not quite so big as this page, of the three great eastern divisions, and two western ones, of the earth. The best and only Latin dictionary that I ever owned, you now have. I had a small Greek lexicon, bought with my own pocket-money, and many other books, acquired in the same way (from sixteen to twenty -1820] ,70^ RANDOLPH. 339 years of age), but these were merely books of amusement. I never was with any preceptor, one only excepted (and he left the school after I had been there about two months), who would deserve to be called a Latin or Greek scholar; and I never had any master of modern lan- guages, but an old Frenchman (some gentleman valet, I suppose), who could neither write nor spell. I mention these things, my child, that you may not be disheartened. 'Tis true, that I am a very ignorant man, for one who is thought to have received a learned education. You (I hope) will acquire more informa- tion, and digest it better. There is an old proverb, "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks." Yours is the time of life to acquire knowledge. Hereafter you must use it ; like the young, sturdy laborer, who lays up, whilst he is fresh and vigorous, provision for his declining age. When I asked whether you had received the bank-notes I sent you, I did not mean to inquire how you had laid them out. Don't you see the difference ? From your not mentioning that they had come to hand (a careless omission ; you should break yourself of this habit), and your cousin informing me that she had not received two packets sent by the same mail, I concluded that the notes were probably lost or embezzled. Hence my inquiry after them. No, my son ; whatever cash I send you (unless for some special purpose) is yours: you will spend it as you please, and I have nothing to say to it. That you will not employ it in a manner that you ought to be ashamed of, I have the fullest confidence. To pry into such affairs would not only betray a want of that confidence, and even a suspicion discreditable to us both, but infringe upon your rights and independence. For, although you are not of an age to be your own master, and independent in all your actions, yet you are possessed of rights which it would be tyranny and injustice to withhold, or invade. Indeed, this independence, which is so much vaunted, and which young people think consists in doing what they please, when they grow up to man's estate (with as much justice as the poor negro thinks liberty con- sists in being supported in idleness, by other people's labor), this inde- pendence is but a name. Place us where you will, along with our rights there must coexist correlative duties, and the more exalted the station, the more arduous are these last. Indeed, as the duty is pre- cisely correspondent to the power, it follows that the richer, the wiser, the more powerful a man is, the greater is the obligation upon him to employ his gifts in lessening the sum of human misery ; and this employ- ment constitutes happiness, which the weak and wicked vainly imagine to consist in wealth, finery, or sensual gratification. Who so miserable as the bad Emperor of Eome? Who more happy than Trajan and Antoninus ? Look at the fretful, peevish, rich man, whose senses are as much jaded by attempting to embrace too much gratification, as 340 JOHN RANDOLPH. [1788- the limbs of the poor post-horse are by incessant labor. (See the Gen- tlemen and Basket-makers, and, indeed, the whole of Sandford and Merton.) Do not, however, undervalue, on that account, the character of the real gentleman, which is the most respectable amongst men. It consists not of plate, and equipage, and rich living, any more than in the disease which that mode of life engenders ; but in truth, courtesy, bravery, gen- erosity, and learning, which last, although not essential to it, yet does very much to adorn and illustrate the character of the true gentleman. Tommy Merton's gentlemen were no gentlemen, except in the acceptation of innkeepers (and the great vulgar, as well as the small), with whom he who rides in a coach-and-six is three times as great a gentleman as he who drives a post-chaise and pair. Lay down this as a principle, that truth is to the other virtues what vital air is to the human system. They cannot exist at all without it ; and as the body may live under many dis- eases, if supplied with pure air for its consumption, so may the character survive many defects, where there is a rigid attachment to truth. All equivocation and subterfuge belong to falsehood, which consists, not in using false words only, but in conveying false impressions, no matter how ; and if a person deceive himself, and I, by my silence, suffer him to remain in that error, I am implicated in the deception, unless he be one who has no right to rely upon me for information, and, in that case, 'tis plain, I could not be instrumental in deceiving him. I send you two letters, addressed to myself, whilst at school of which I now sorely repent me I did not then avail myself (so far, at least, as my very ineligible situation would admit). Will you accept a little of my experience, instead of buying some of your own at a very dear rate? and so, God bless you, my son. Your affectionate uncle, JOHN EANDOLPH. GEORGETOWN, 15 February, 1806. -1820] ROBERT TREAT PAINE, JUN. 1 Robert Creat ^aint, BORN in Taunton, Mass., 1773. His name was changed from THOMAS to that of his father, In 1801.' DIED iu Boston, Mass., 1811. ADAMS AND LIBERTY. [First Sung at the Anniversary of the Mass. Charitable Fire Society, in 1798. Works, in Verse and Prose. 1812.] YE sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought For those rights, which unstained from your sires had descended, May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended* 'Mid the reign of mild peace, May your nation increase, With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece ; And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world, Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion, The trident of commerce should never be hurled, To incense the legitimate powers of the ocean, But should pirates invade, Though in thunder arrayed, Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, Had justly ennobled our nation in story, Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day, And enveloped the sun of American glory. But let traitors be told, Who their country have sold, And bartered their God for his image in gold, That ne'er will the sons, etc. While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood, And society's base threats with wide dissolution ; May peace, like the dove who returned from the flood, Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution. But, though peace is our aim, Yet the boon we disclaim, If bought by our sovereignly, justice, or fame. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. 'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms: Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision; 342 ROBERT TREAT PAINE, JUN. [1788- Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms, We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a division ; While, with patriot pride, To our laws we're allied, No foe can subdue us, no faction divide. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak, Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished, But long ere our nation submits to the yoke, Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourished. Should invasion impend, Every grove would descend From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. Let our patriots destroy Anarch's pestilent worm, Lest our liberty's growth should be checked by corrosion ; Then let clouds thicken round us; we heed not the storm; Our realm fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion; Foes assail us in vain, Though their fleets bridge the main, / For our altars and laws, with our lives, we'll maintain. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; For, unmoved, at its portal would Washington stand, And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder 1 His sword from the sleep Of its scabbard would leap, And conduct with its point every flash to the deep. For ne'er shall the sons, etc. ^ Let fame to the world sound America's voice ; No intrigues can her sons from their government sever: Her pride is her Adams ; her laws are his choice, And shall flourish till Liberty slumbers forever. Then unite heart and hand, Like Leonidas' band, And swear to the God of the ocean and land, That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. -1820] ROBERT TREAT PAIliE, JUN. 343 EULOGY ON WASHINGTON. {Oration at Newburyport, Mass., 2 January, 1800. From the Same.] A MERICANS! The Saviour of your country has obtained his last -A_ victory. Having reached the summit of human perfection, he has quitted the region of human glory. Conqueror of time, he has triumphed over mortality ; Legate of Heaven, he has returned with the tidings of his mission ; Father of his people, he has ascended to advocate their cause in the bosom of his God. Solemn, "as it were a pause in nature," was his transit to eternity ; thronged by the shades of heroes, his ap- proach to the confines of bliss ; paeaned by the song of angels, his jour- ney beyond the stars ! The voice of a grateful and afflicted people has pronounced the eulo- gium of their departed hero; "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." That this exalted tribute is justly due to his memory, the scar-honored veteran, who has fought under the banners of his glory, the enraptured statesman, who has bowed to the dominion of his eloquence, the hardy cultivator, whose soil has been defended by the prodigies of his valor, the protected citizen, whose peaceful rights have been secured by the vigilance of his wisdom, yea, every fibre, that can vibrate in the heart of an American will attest with agonized sensi- bility. Born to direct the destiny of empires, his character was as majestic as the events, to which it was attached, were illustrious. In the delineation of its features, the vivid pencil of genius cannot brighten a trait, nor the blighting breath of calumny obscure. His principles were the result of organic philosophy, his success, of moral justice. His integrity assumed the port of command, his intelligence, the aspect of inspira- tion. Glory, to many impregnable, he obtained without ambition ; pop- ularity, to all inconstant, he enjoyed without jealousy. The one was his from admiration, the other from gratitude. The former embellished, but could not reward ; the latter followed, but never could lead him. The robust vigor of his virtue, like the undazzled eye of the eagle, was in- accessible to human weakness ; and the unaspiring temperament of his passions, like the regenerating ashes of the phoenix, gave new life to the greatness it could not extinguish. In the imperial dignity of his person was exhibited the august stature of his mind. 344 WILLIAM SULLIVAN. [1788- EPILOGUE TO " THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER." [From the Same.] "TTTHO delves to be a wit must own a mine, W i n wealth must glitter ere in taste he shine; Gold buys him genius, and no churl will rail, When feasts are brilliant, that a pun is stale. Tip wit with gold ; each shaft with shouts is flown; He drinks Campaign, and must not laugh alone. The grape has point, although the joke be flat! Pop ! goes the cork ! there's epigram in that ! The spouting bottle is the brisk jet d'eau, Which shows how high its fountain head can throw! See! while the foaming mist ascends the room, Sir Fopling rises in the mf perfume ! But ah ! the classic knight at length perceives His laurels drop with fortune's falling leaves. He vapors cracks and clinches as before, But other tables have not learnt to roar. At last, in fashion bankrupt as in pence, He first discovers undiscovered sense And finds, without one jest in all his bags, A wit in ruffles is a fool in rags ! BORN in Saco, Maine, 1774. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1839. AMERICAN SOCIETY IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD. [The Public Men of the Revolution. 1834. Edition of 1847.] IT may not be uninteresting to sketch the condition and usages of society about the time of the adoption of the constitution, according to the impression now retained of them. There were families who were affluent and social. They interchanged dinners and suppers. The even- ing amusement was usually games at cards. Tables were loaded with pro- visions. Those of domestic origin were at less than half the cost of the present time. The busy part of society dined then, as now, at one, others at two o'clock; three o'clock was the latest hour for the most formal occasions. There were no theatrical entertainments ; there was a positive legal prohibition. There were concerts. About the year 1760, Concert -1820J WILLIAM SULLIVAN. . 345 Hall was built by a gentleman named Deblois, for the purpose of giving concerts ; and private gentlemen played and sang, for the amusement of the company. There were subscription assemblies for dancing, at the same place, and it required a unanimous assent to gain admission. Dress was much attended to by both sexes. Coats of every variety of color were worn, not excepting red ; sometimes the cape and collar were of velvet, and of a different color from the coat. Minuets were danced, and contre dances. Cotillions were of later date. They were introduced by the French, who were refugees from the West India islands. A very important personage in the fashionable world was Mrs. Haley, sister of the celebrated John Wilkes. She came over in the year 1785 and pur- chased the house in which the late Gardiner Greene lived, at the head of Court Street. She was then advanced in life, of singular personal ap- pearance, but a lady of amiable deportment. She afterwards married a gentleman who was the uncle of a celebrated Scotch reviewer; but after some years returned to England. Her house was a place of fashion- able resort. Marriages and 'funerals were occurrences of much more ceremony than at the present day. The bride was visited daily for four successive weeks. Public notice was given of funerals, and private in- vitations also. Attendance was expected ; and there was a long train of followers, and all the carriages and chaises that could be had. The number of the former in town was not more than ten or twelve. There were no public carriages earlier than the beginning of 1789 ; and very few for some years afterwards. Young men at their entertainments sat long and drank deep, compared to the present custom. Their meetings were enlivened with anecdote and song. Among the remarkable visitors of this country was Brissot de War- ville, in 1788, afterwards chief of a faction in the French [Revolution called the Girondists. He was executed in Kobespierre's time, at the age of thirty-eight. He came over to learn how to be a Eepublican. He was a handsome, brisk little Frenchman, and was very well received here. He wrote a book on this country. He was much delighted with the Quakers, and is said to have respected their simplicity of dress, and to have introduced in his own country the fashion of wearing the hair without powder. It was a common practice for clergymen to receive boys into families to prepare them for college. The means of educating females were far inferior to those of the present time. The best were "boarding-schools," and there were but two or three of these. The accomplishments acquired were inferior to those which are common among hundreds of young females of the present time. 346 WILLIAM 8ULL1VAF. [1788- PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S EECEPTIONS. [From the Same.] HE devoted one hour every other Tuesday, from three to four, to these visits. He understood himself to be visited as the President of the United States, and not on his own account. He was not to be seen by anybody and everybody ; but required that every one who came should be introduced by his secretary, or by some gentleman whom he knew himself. He lived on the south side of Market Street, just below Sixth. The place of reception was the dining-room in the rear, twenty- five or thirty feet in length, including the bow projecting into the garden. Mrs. Washington received her visitors in the two rooms on the second floor, from front to rear. At three o'clock, or at any time within a quarter of an hour afterwards, the visitor was conducted to this dining-room, from which all seats had been removed for the time. On entering, he saw the tall, manly figure of Washington clad in black velvet ; his hair in full dress, powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag ; yellow gloves on his hands ; holding a cocked hat with cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles ; and a long sword, with a finely-wrought and polished steel hilt, which appeared at the left hip ; the coat worn over the sword, so that the hilt, and the part below the folds of the coat behind, were in view. The scabbard was white polished leather. He stood always in front of the fire-place, with his face towards the door of entrance. The visitor was conducted to him and he required to have the name so distinctly pronounced, that he could hear it. He had the very uncommon faculty of associating a man's name and personal appearance so durably in his memory, as to be able to call any one by name, who made him a second visit. He received his visitor with a dig- nified bow, while his hands were so disposed of as to indicate that the salutation was not to be accompanied with shaking hands. This cere- mony never occurred in these visits, even with his most near friends, that no distinction might be made. As visitors came in, they formed a circle around the room. At a quarter past three, the door was closed, and the circle was formed for that day. He then began on the right and spoke to each visitor, calling him by name and exchanging a few words with him. When he had completed his circuit he resumed his first position, and the visitors ap- proached him in .succession, bowed and retired. By four o'clock this ceremony was over. On the evenings when Mrs. Washington received visitors, he did not -1820] WILLIAM MTTNFORD. 347 consider himself as visited. He was then as a private gentleman, dressed usually in some colored coat and waistcoat (the only one recollected was brown, with bright buttons), and black on his lower limbs. He had then neither hat nor sword ; he moved about among the company, con- versing with one and another. He had once a fortnight an official din- ner and select companies on other days. He sat (it is said) at the side, in a central position, Mrs. Washington opposite ; the two ends were occupied by members of his family, or by personal friends. BORN in Mecklenburg Co., Va., 1775. DIED at Richmond, Va., 1825. THE TRIUMPH OF HECTOR. [From the Translation of the Iliad, completed in 1825. Homer's Iliad: Translated William Munford. 1846.] SO equal, then, the war and battle hung, Till Jove at length superior glory gave To Hector, Priam's son, who entered first Achaia's wall. With loud, tremendous shout, He called his Trojan heroes. Sons of Troy, Equestrian warriors, to the onset corne! Break now the Grecian wall, and on their ships Throw flaming brands, like thunder-bolts of Jove! He said, inspiring fury; they his call With transport heard throughout that numerous host! Thronging together, to the wall they ran, Armed with keen spears, before them held erect, And mounting scaling-ladders. Hector seized And bore a stone which stood before the gates, Heavy and craggy, pointed sharp at top, Which not two men, though stoutest of the race Earth now sustains, could without toil have moved By levers from the ground and heaved its mass Into a wagon ; yet did singly he Toss it witli ease, so light Saturnian Jove Made it to him ! For, as a shepherd brings In one hand joyfully, a ram's rich fleece, And feels but small the weight, so Hector bore That rock enormous towards the lofty gates, Strong-framed, with double valves, of panels thick, Compact and firm ; two irons bars within Transverse secured them, fastened by a bolt. 348 LYMAN BEECHER. [1788- He near them took his stand, with legs astride, That not in vain that weapon should be thrown; Then smote them in the midst with all his strength, And broke both hinges. Thundering on, the stone, With force o'erwhelrning, fell within the wall. Loud rang the yielding gates, asunder riven, Nor could the bars retain them ; flew the planks In splintered fragments, scattered every way. Into the pass illustrious Hector leaped ; Gloomy as night, with aspect stern and dread! Arrayed in brazen panoply, he shone Terrific; in his hands two javelins keen! And surely no one could have checked him then, Except the gods, when through those gates he sprang! His eyes, tremendous, flashed with living fire ; And, turning to his host, he called them all To pass the barrier. They that call obeyed. Some clambered o'er the wall, while others through The portals poured ; and, terror-struck, the Greeks Fled to their hollow ships. Confusion dire, And uproar wild and horrible ensued. JLyman BORN in New Haven, Conn., 1775. DIED in Brooklyn, N. T., 1863. THE NEW ENGLAND FATHERS. [Works. 1852-3.] doctrines of our fathers have been represented as gloomy, super- -*- stitious, severe, irrational, and of a licentious tendency. But when other systems shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality as pure, a patriotism as disinterested, and a state of society as happy, as have prevailed where their doctrines have been most prevalent, it may be in season to seek an answer to this objection. The same doctrines have been charged with inspiring a spirit of dogmatism, and religious domination. But, in the struggles of man with despotic power for civil liberty, the doctrines of our fathers have been found usually, if not always, on the side of liberty, as their opposites have been usually found in the ranks of arbitrary power. The persecutions instituted by our fathers have been the occasion of ceaseless obloquy upon their fair fame. And truly it was a fault of no ordinary magnitude, that sometimes they did persecute. But let him -1820] LYMAN BEECHER. 349 whose ancestors were not ten times more guilty cast the first stone, and the ashes of our fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the fault of the age, from which they had not wholly escaped ; but it will be easy to show that no class of men had, at that time, approximated so nearly to just apprehensions of religious liberty, and that it is to them that the world is now indebted for the more just and definite views which pre- vail. More exclamation and invective have been called forth by the few instances of persecution by the fathers of New England, than by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all the fires which lighted the realm of old England for centuries, and drove into exile thousands of her most valuable subjects. The superstition and bigotry of our fathers are themes on which some of their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition, if not from bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But, when we look abroad, and behold the condition of the world compared with the condition of New England, we may justly exclaim, "Would to God that the ancestors of all the nations had been not only almost, but altogether, such bigots as our fathers were ! " Their strictness in the family, and in. church and state, has been com- plained of, as too rigid. But they were laying the foundations of a nation, and applying a moral power whose impulse should extend through ages ; and who, that beholds the rapid and appalling moral relaxation of the present day, can believe that they put the system in motion with too much vigor? In proportion as their discipline had been less strict, our present condition had been more alarming, and our future prospects more desperate. Our fathers have been ridiculed as an uncouth and uncourtly genera- tion. And it must be admitted that they were not as expert in the graces of dress, and the etiquette of the drawing-room, as some of their descendants. But neither could these have felled the trees, nor guided the plough, nor spread the sail, which they did ; nor braved the dangers of Indian warfare; nor displayed the wisdom in counsel which our fathers displayed ; and, had none stepped upon the Plymouth rock but such effeminate critics as these, the poor natives never would have mourned their wilderness lost, but would have brushed them from the land as they would brush the puny insect from their faces ; the Pequods would have slept in safety that night which was their last, and no intrepid Mason had hung upon their rear, and driven into exile the panic-struck fugitives. 350 LYMAN BEECHER. [1788- THE AWAKENING. [Autobiography of Lyman Beecher. Edited by Charles Beecher. 1864.] was the day of the infidelity of the Tom Paine school. Boys that dressed flax in the barn, as I used to, read Tom Paine and be- lieved him ; I read, and fought him all the way. Never had any pro- pensity to infidelity. But most of the class before me were infidels, and called each other Yoltaire, Kousseau, D'Alembert, etc., etc. They thought the Faculty were afraid of free discussion. But when they handed Dr. Dwight a list of subjects for class disputation, to their surprise he selected this: "Is the Bible the word of God? " and told them to do their best. He heard all they had to say, answered them, and there was an end He preached incessantly for six months on the subject, and all infidelity skulked and hid its head. He elaborated his theological system in a series of forenoon sermons in the chapel ; the afternoon discourses were practical. The original design of Yale College was to found a divinity school. To a mind appreciative like mine, his preaching was a continual course of education and a con- tinual feast. He was copious and polished in style, though disciplined and logical. There was a pith and power of doctrine there that has not been since surpassed, if equalled. I took notes of all his discourses, con- densing and forming skeletons. He was of noble form, with a noble head and body, and had one of the sweetest smiles that ever you saw. He always met me with a smile. Oh, how I loved him ! I loved him as my own soul, and he loved me as a son. And once at Litchfield I told him that all I had I owed to him. "Then," said he, "I have done a great and soul-satisfying work. I consider myself amply re- warded." He was universally revered and loved. I never knew but one student undertake to frustrate his wishes. It was not, however, before the middle of my Junior year that I was really awakened. It is curious, but when I entered college I had a sort of purpose to be a preacher. I was naturally fitted to be a lawyer. But, though I had heard the first at the bar Pierpont Edwards and David Daggett the little quirks, and turns, and janglings disgusted me. My purpose was as fully made up "I'll preach" as afterward. Yet I had only a traditionary knowledge; alive without the law; sense of sin all outward ; ignorant as a beast of the state of my heart, and its voluntary spiritual state toward God. One day, as we were sitting at home, mother looked out of the window, and saw a drunkard passing. "Poor man," said she, "I hope he'll re- ceive all his punishment in this life. He was under conviction once, and -1820] LTMAN BEECHER. 35 ^ thought lie had religion; but he's nothing but a poor drunkard now." There was no perceptible effect from these words, only, after she left the room, I felt a sudden impulse to pray. It was but a breath across the surface of my soul. I was not in the habit of prayer. I rose to pray, and had not spoken five words before I was under as deep conviction as ever I was in my life. The sinking of the shaft was instantaneous. I understood the law and my heart as well as I do now, or shall in the day of judgment, I believe. The commandment came, sin revived, and I died, quick as a flash of lightning. "Well," I thought, "it's all over with me. I'm gone. There's no hope for such a sinner." Despair followed the inward revelation of what I had read, but never felt. I had never had any feeling of love to God, and all my affections were selfish and worldly. After a while that entireness of despair (for I was sure I was lost, as I deserved) lessened so that I could pray without weeping ; and then I be- gan to hope I was growing good. Then my motives in praying came up before me, and I saw there was no true love in them. I then tried reformation, but seemed no better. God let down light into the dark places, and showed me there was no change of character. I turned away from this self-righteousness, and turned in, and laid hold of my heart like a giant to bring it round so as to pray aright, but could not. Couldn't make a right prayer with a wrong heart. Worked away at that till I gave up. Then Election tormented me. I fell into a dark, sullen, unfeeling state that finally affected my health. I can see now that if I had had the instruction I give to inquirers, I should have come out bright in a few days. Mine was what I should now call a hopeful, promising case. Old Dr. Hopkins had just such an awakening, and was tormented a great while. The fact is, the law and doctrines, without any explanation, is a cruel way to get souls into the kingdom. It entails great suffering, especially on thinking minds. During all this struggle I had no guidance but the sermons of Dr. D wight. When I heard him preach on " The harvest is past, the sum- mer is ended, and we are not saved," a whole avalanche rolled down on my mind. I went home weeping every step. One reason I was so long in the dark was, I was under law, was stumbling in the doctrines, and had no views of Christ. They gave me other books to read besides the Bible a thing I have done practising long since. For cases like mine, Brainerd's Life is a most undesirable thing. It gave me a tinge for years. So Edwards on the Affections a most overwhelming thing, and to common minds the most entangling. The impressions left by such books were not spiritual, but a state of permanent hypochondria the horrors of a mind without guidance, motive, or ability to do anything. They are a bad generation of books, on the whole. Divine sovereignty 352 LYMAN BEECHER. [1788- does the whole in spite of them. I was converted in spite of such books. I wish I could give you my clinical theology. I have used my evan- gelical philosophy all my lifetime, and relieved people without number out of the sloughs of high Calvinism. It was many months that I suffered ; and, finally, the light did not come in a sudden blaze, but by degrees. I began to see more into the doctrines of the Bible. Election and decrees were less a stumbling- block. I came in by that door. THE YOUNG DIVINE'S FIRST HOME. [From the Same.] SOON" after our marriage we were riding together from Sag Harbor. With great good-nature we were reconnoitring to find if there were any faults in each other which might be the occasion of trouble. I told her I did not know as I had any faults unless one : that I was passion- ate, quick, and quick over ; but if she answered quick we might have trouble. Her face overspread with a glow of emotion, and tears flowed ; and that single thing prevented the realization of the evil forever. If she saw I was touched, she never said a word she appreciated the thing ; she entered into my character entirely. I scarcely ever saw her agitated to tears. Once, soon after we had moved into our new house, the two pigs did something that vexed me ; I got angry and thrashed them. She came to the door and interposed. The fire hadn't got out. I said quickly, u Go along in!" She started, but hadn't more than time to turn before I was at her side, and threw my arms round her neck and kissed her, and told her I was sorry. Then she wept. In the spring of 1800 I bought a house and five acres of ground for $800. It was a two-story framed house, shingled instead of clapboarded on the sides, the gable end to the street. I laid new pitch-pine floors, had a new fireplace made, and finished the back rooms and chambers, also a small bedroom below. There was not a store in town, and all our purchases were made in New York by a small schooner that ran once a week. We had no car- pets; there was not a carpet from end to end of the town. All had sanded floors, some of them worn through. Your mother introduced the first carpet. Uncle Lot gave me some money, and I had an itch to spend it. Went to a vendue, and bought a bale of cotton. She spun it, and had it woven ; then she laid it down, sized it, and painted it in oils, -1820] JOHN HENRT HOB ART. 353 with a border all around it, and bunches of roses and other flowers over the centre. She sent to New York for her colors, and ground and mixed them herself. The carpet was nailed down on the garret floor, and she used to go up there and paint. She also took some common woodeq. chairs and painted them, and cut out figures of gilt paper, and glued them on and varnished them. They were really quite pretty. Old Deacon Tallmadge came to see me. He stopped at the parlor door, and seemed afraid to come in. " Walk in, deacon, walk in," said I. "Why, I can't," said he, "'thout steppin' on't." Then, after surveying it a while in admiration, " D'ye think ye oan have all that, and heaven, Perhaps he thought we were getting too splendid, and feared we should make an idol of our fine things. Well, we got nestled down in our new house, Grandmother Foote, Eoxana, Mary, and I. Aunt Euth, our good nurse, took tea with us the first evening; and when we sat dowij at our own table for the first time, I felt strong emotion, very much like crying. Soon after our first child was born. I shall never forget my feelings when Grandma Foote put her in my arms. " Thou little immortal I " was all I could say. BORN in Philadelphia, Penn., 1775. DIED at Auburn, N. Y., 1830. AMERICA AND ENGLAND. [From a Discourse delivered in Trinity Church, New York, October, 1825.] IT is in our civil and religious institutions that we may, without the imputation of vain-glory, boast the pre-eminence. Actual observa- tion will compel every traveller through those nations of the continent that now submissively yield to the yoke of despotic power, mild and benevolent as in some instances is its administration, to feel, however reluctant, the full force of the remark, which he may have thought evil discontent alone had raised, " that the labor and independence and free- dom and happiness of the many are sacrificed to the ambition and power and luxury of the few." Let us never withhold the acknowledgment, that from the first of European nations, drawing our origin, we have also derived our admir- able principles of civil freedom. Rejecting indeed the feudal character- VOL. iv. 23 354 JOHN HENRY HOB ART. [1788- istics of her polity, the monarchical and aristocratic features of her constitution, we broadly and fearlessly recognize the great truth, that though, in its general powers and in its sanctions government is "or- dained of God," in the particular form of its administration, "it is the ordinance of man ; " and that, in this sense, the people only are the source of that political power which, when exercised according to the legitimate forms of the constitution which they have established, cannot "be resisted but under the penalty of resisting the " ordinance of God." Still, though in these respects our governments differ from that of Eng- land, let us gratefully remember, that from her we have derived not only many of her unrivalled maxims of jurisprudence those which protect the freedom of the subject and secure the trial by jury but those great principles which constitute the superiority of the modern republics above the ancient democracies. These are, the principle of representation ; the division of the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ; the check on the exercise of the power of legislation, by its distribution among three branches ; the independence of the judiciary on all influence, except that of the constitution and the laws ; and its accountability, and that of the executive, to the people in the persons of their representa- tives ; and thus what constitutes the characteristic blessing of a free people, a government of laws securing to all the enjoyment of life, of liberty, and of property. But even in this, next to our own the freest of nations, it is impossible not to form a melancholy contrast between the power, the splendor, and the wealth of those to whom the structure of society and the aristocratic nature of the government assign peculiar privileges of rank and of political consequence, and the dependent and often abject condition of the lower orders, without drawing the conclusion that the one is the unavoidable result of the other. Advantages confessedly there may be in privileged orders, as consti- tuting an hereditary and permanent source of political knowledge and talent, and of refinement and elevation of character, of feeling, and of manners. In this view no men can be more imposing or more interesting than the high-minded noblemen and gentlemen of England. But in this imperfect world, we cannot enjoy at the same time all possible advan- tages. And those which result from the hereditary elevation of one small class of society, must produce in all the noble qualities which dis- tinguish independent freemen, a corresponding depression of the great mass of the community. Can we for a moment hesitate which state of society to prefer? No. It is the glorious characteristic of our admirable polity, that the power, the property, and the happiness which in the old nations of the world are confined to the few, are distributed among the many; that the liveliness and content which pervade the humblest -1820] PHILANDER CHASE. 355 classes among us, are not the mere result of that buoyancy of animal spirits which nature seems to have kindly infused into our frame, and which man shares with the beast that sports in the field or courses over the plain but a sober sentiment of independence, nurtured by the con- sciousness that in natural rights and original political power all are equal BORN in Cornish, N. H., 1775. DIED at Peoria, 111., 1852. A STRANGE SCENE. [Bishop Chase's Reminiscences. Second Edition. 1848.] TTTHILE we lived '/down the coast," two persons, a gentleman and a * V lady, of genteel appearance, used to pass in their phaeton back and forth often to town. It was Mr. X and the widow of his de- ceased brother. Their object was amusement and pleasure, by attending public balls, the theatre and gaming tables. They had purchased a plantation some few miles below the city, hired an overseer, and left it to its own productiveness. In the course of the summer, the writer and his wife were sent for to visit this family in sickness. The mother of Mr. X was suffering from the effects of a long-protracted fever, evidently much neglected by her son and daughter-in-law, who were too much taken up with the amusements of the town to stay at their retired home, and minister to the necessities of their venerable, sick, and apparently dying mother. In ordering the means of relief to this aged and very worthy woman, a female slave of uncommon comeliness of person and tenderness of man- ner was observed. There were also two little girls, the children of the widow, who hung round the sick-bed of their suffering grandmother the eldest about twelve years of age, and of attracting sweetness. The lady, old Mrs. X , recovered from her bed of sickness, and the pain- ful neglects of her pleasure seeking son and daughter were forgotten and banished from her charitable heart. Nearly a year after this, the writer was sitting in his study in the city, in Dauphin Street. It was late at night, and all was silent as if gone to rest. A gentle rap was heard at the door of the study which communi- cated with the street. On opening it he discovered a person, poorly clad in a blanket great-coat, standing by the side of a mule attached to a cart, all covered with mud, as if the roads had been very bad after a long rain. 356 PHILANDER CHASE. [178&- The first word uttered was mingled with sobs, and evidently from a female breast, no stranger to grief. " Who are you, and what do you wish, in calling here with your cart at this time of the night? " The poor creature could scarce make her words understood, while she stated that she was the servant of Mr. X , and that she had seen the writer when her mistress was sick that she had come to town with the corpse of her dear young mistress, which was now in the cart, and which she begged the writer to receive into his house and to bury in the morning that her old mistress had been left alone, and her granddaughter, her dear, little young mistress, had died in her arms that she was now too ill to come so far up to town that, being left by her son and daughter, she had no other way but this of getting the corpse buried, and no one to send but her that if the writer would allow her to carry in her dead young mis- tress, she would be very thankful, and then if he would bury her in the morning, she would return to the plantation, where she knew her old mistress would be waiting, and would take no rest nor victuals till she came home. Here the sympathetic heart of the poor slave, having re- strained its pent-up feelings till her errand was done and her petition finished, now allowed her the luxury of bursting into a flood of refresh- ing tears. Tt need not be stated what was said and done in answer to all this. The lifeless corpse of that innocent young person was received into the study of the writer, and the night was spent in deep reflection. On the morrow the whole school and many pious neighbors joined in a procession to the grave. In going thither, and while the earth was throwing in and covering from our sight the remains of this sweet creature, the writer looked around for her mother and her uncle, but they were not there : the world's pleasures had unfitted them for a scene like this. No one but a poor slave negress wept over the untimely tomb of one who, if cherished by Christian and not worldly-minded parents, might have lived to be a blessing to her family and friends. AN INCIDENT AT GAMBIER. [From the Same.'] IH. was the head carpenter on Gambier hill, and often was he with the writer in consultation on the ways and means of proceeding with the buildings. On entering the college service, he had agreed, as all the rest had agreed, to refrain from the use of spirituous liquors. The writer thought him friendly to this measure, and as he was a "Baptist -1820] PHILANDER CHASE. 357 messenger," that lie would second the views of the Bishop in promoting temperance. But in this there was sad disappointment. What with the love of liquor, the fondness of being the head of a party to maintain the "unalienable rights of the oppressed people," and the desire of humbling the Bishop, the promise made when he came on the hill was laid aside, and a combination with the hands was formed, and their grievances were made known by petition. Mr. H. was the "scribe," and the first to sub- scribe ; and a majority of the rest, to the number of nineteen, chief men of the company, "men of renown," followed his example. . * This petition was sent to the writer, when in his log cabin all alone. He read it, and was considering its unhappy consequences, when a voice struck his ear from behind him. " Mr. H. wants an answer," said the little boy who waited on the hands. " Tell Mr. H. please get the hands together under the shady trees near the timber, and I will come and talk with them about the matter." And now, gentle reader, what dost thou think were the feelings of the writer, as this little messenger ran swiftly away, to carry tidings that the Bishop was coming to speak with them ? Remember, the Bishop then "stood alone." The great temperance reform had then hardly commenced its movements among individuals. Till the writer had begun it the year before, he had never heard of its existence, and there was no example before him of carrying on a set of public buildings without the use of liquor. Yet he was determined to keep to his purpose ; and what could be done? To refuse them their request, would evidently be followed by a general strike, and where and when could other hands be obtained ? Not from the immediate neigh- borhood, whence the most of these came ; and that others from the state in general could be induced, under such circumstances, to come, was equally hopeless, for many had predicted the very thing which had now taken place, and would regard it as an evidence of the folly, and as a proof of the mental weakness, of the projector; of the madness of all his schemes of founding colleges in the woods, by the means of temperance. Such reflections as these tended to despair. Yet, " somehow or other," "there was a ray of hope left. Who knows but God may help in this time of need ! It is He, after all, who can assuage the raging of the sea, "and the madness of the people." But how ths could now be effected without giving up the whiskey law, the writer had no conception. He went on with a heavy, but a prayerful spirit. As he approached the place where the hands were seated, there were signs of great unanimity significant nods and bold looks ; none spoke, and the suppressed, yet half -uttered laugh indicated their expected speedy triumph. The writer now took his seat on a piece of elevated timber, with a view to say something, yet found himself unable to utter a word, and for 358 JOHN BLAIR LINN. [1788- a considerable period there was nothing said ; and when he did begin to say a word or two, it was not in language of reproach of their conduct, nor in any attempt to display his own oratory. Something different was now required. Their affections were to be won, their minds enlightened, and their wills persuaded. In short, he saw it was necessary to speak to them as members of the human family, and make them friends to him- self, to their own selves, and to the true interests of the institution. To this end, he told them his own history, and in so doing, gained their sympathy, and enlisted their affections in his behalf. Many of them were in tears, and all arose and went to work without a drop of whiskey. 'Blair linn* BOBN in Shippensburg, Perm., 1777. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1804. IN PRAISE OF LAURELLED WOMEN. [The Powers of Genius. A Poem in Three Parts. Revised Edition. 1802.] BY Fancy crowned, to every bosom known, Amid those scenes which Truth and Nature own, See Burney move, witli her creative wand, And bind our passions with her silken band ! Draw Evelina from her native shade, In artless innocence and love arrayed ! Bid us to follow all her devious way, To own and feel the impulse of her sway. While Nature howls, and Mirth's gay whispers die, Her eye on fire her soul in ecstacy ! See bolder Rad cliff e take her boundless flight, Clothed in the robes of Terror and of Night! O'er wilds, o'er mountains, her high course extends, Through darkened woods, and through banditti's dens! At length she lights within some ruined tower, While from the turret tolls the midnight hour! A thousand phantoms follow at her call, And groaifs ascend along the mouldering wall! Dim shadows flutter o'er the sleeping vale, And ghostly music comes upon the gale! A light appears some hollow voice is near Chill terror starts and every pulse is fear! To man not only has kind Nature given Genius, which rolls her piercing eye on Heaven, Enchantinsr woman bears an equal claim, To her unfold the golden doors of Fame. -1820] HENRY CLAY. 359 This truth, those names which we have past declare, Whom Fiction wafts transported through the air. . . . * How sweet and musically flows that lay, Which now in murmurs softly dies away ; Colonna bending o'er her husband's bier, Breathes those sad numbers hallowed with her tear. With active zeal, with honest thirst of fame, Hear Dacier vindicate her Homer's name. Hear Montague repel light Voltaire's rage, Who like a butcher mangled Shakespeare's page. Hear from the bosom of the pious Rowe The tender strain and warm devotion flow. In Wollstonecraft's strong lines behold confest The fatal errors of the female breast. Behold enforced in More's instructive page, Lessons of virtue for this careless age. Hear Seward weeping over Andrews grave ; And call for Cook the spirit of the wave. To Smith's romances fairy scenes belong And Pity loves her elegiac song. Carter both Science and Invention own And Genius welcomes from her watchful throne. On Barbauld's verse the circling muses smile, And hail her brightest songstress of the British isle. BORN in "The Slashes," Hanover Co., Va., 1777. DIED at Washington, D. C., 1852. FOR THE HUMANE TREATMENT OF CAPTIVE INDIANS. [Speech on the Seminole War. 1819. The Life and Speeches of Henry Clay. 1843.] SIE, I have said that you have no right to practise, under color of retaliation, enormities on the Indians. I will advance in support of this position, as applicable to the origin of all law, the principle, that whatever has been the custom, from the commencement of a subject, whatever has been the uniform usage, coeval and coexistent with the subject to which it relates, becomes its fixed law. Such is the foundation of all common law ; and such, I believe, is the principal foundation of all public or international law. If, then, it can be shown that from the first settlement of the colonies, on this part of the American continent, to the present time, we have constantly abstained from retaliating upon the Indians the excesses practised by them towards us, we are morally 3(50 HENRY CLAY. [1788- bound by this invariable usage, and cannot lawfully change it without the most cogent reasons. So far as my knowledge extends, from the first settlement at Plymouth or at Jamestown, it has not been our prac- tice to destroy Indian captives, combatants or non-combatants. I know of but one deviation from the code which regulates the warfare between civilized communities, and that was the destruction of Indian towns, which was supposed to be authorized upon the ground that we could not bring the war to a termination but by destroying the means which nourished it. With this single exception, the other principles of the laws of civilized nations are extended to them, and are thus made law in regard to them. When did this humane custom, by which, in considera- tion of their ignorance, and our enlightened condition, the rigors of war were mitigated, begin ? At a time when we were weak, and they com- paratively strong ; when they were the lords of the soil, and we were seeking, from the vices, from the corruptions, from the religious intol- erance, and from the oppressions of Europe, to gain an asylum among them. And when is .it proposed to change this custom, to substitute for it the bloody maxims of barbarous ages, and to interpolate the Indian public law with revolting cruelties? At a time when the situation of the two parties is totally changed when we are powerful and they are weak at a time when, to use a figure drawn from their own sublime eloquence, the poor children of the forest have been driven by the great wave which has flowed in from the Atlantic ocean almost to the base of the Rocky mountains, and, overwhelming them in its terrible progress, has left no other remains of hundreds of tribes, now extinct, than those which indicate the remote existence of their former companion, the mammoth of the new world ! Yes, sir, it is at this auspicious period of our country, when we hold a proud and lofty station among the first nations of the world, that we are called upon to sanction a departure from the established laws and usages which have regulated our Indian hostilities. And does the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts ex- pect, in this august body, this enlightened assembly of Christians and Americans, by glowing appeals to our passions, to make us forget our principles, our religion, our clemency, and our humanity? Why is it that we have not practised 'towards the Indian tribes the right of retalia- tion, now for the first time asserted in regard to them ? It is because it is a principle proclaimed by reason, and enforced by every respectable writer on the law of nations, that retaliation is only justifiable as calcu- lated to produce effect in the war. Vengeance is a new motive for resort- ing to it. If retaliation will produce no effect on the enemy, we are bound to abstain from it by every consideration of humanity and of justice. Will it then produce effect on the Indian tribes? No; they care not about the execution of those of their warriors who are taken -1820] HENRY CLAY. captive. They are considered as disgraced by the very circumstance of their captivity, and it is often mercy to the unhappy captive to deprive him of his existence. The poet evinced a profound knowledge of the Indian character, when he put into the mouth of a son of a distinguished chief, about to be led to the stake and tortured by his victorious enemy, the words : "Begin, ye tormentors! your threats are in vain: The son of Alknomook will never complain." Eetaliation of Indian excesses, not producing then any effect in pre- venting their repetition, is condemned by both reason and the principles upon which alone, in any case, it can be justified THE GRECIAN STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. [Speech on the Greek Revolution. 1824. From the Same.] SUKELY, sir, we need no long or learned lectures about the nature of government, and the influence of property or ranks on society. We may content ourselves with studying the true character of our own people; and with knowing that the interests are confided to us of a nation capable of doing and suffering all things for its liberty. Such a nation, if its rulers be faithful, must be invincible. I well remember an observation made to me by the most illustrious female of the age, if not of her sex. All history showed, she said, that a nation was never con- quered. No, sir, no united nation, that resolves to be free, can be con- quered. And has it come to this? Are we so humbled, so low, so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece ; that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties ? If gentlemen are afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we unite in an humble petition, addressed to their majesties, beseeching them, that of their gracious condescension, they would allow us to express our feel- ings and our sympathies. How shall it run? "We, the representatives of ike free people of the United States of America, humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, and supplicate that, of your imperial and royal clemency " I cannot go through the disgusting re- cital ; my lips have not yet learned to pronounce the sycophantic lan- guage of a degraded slave ! Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war tliat ever stained earth or shocked high 362 HENRY CLAY. [1788- heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stim- ulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils? If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly, whilst all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince, that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings ; that in this remote quarter of the world, there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection, and every modern tie. Sir, attempts have been made to alarm the committee, by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean ; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradi- cate our humanity. Ah! sir, " what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul," or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade, and lose its liberties ? But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see this measure adopted. It will give to her but little support, and that purely of a moral kind. It is principally for America, for the credit and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that I hope to see it pass. Mr. Chairman, what appearance on the page of history would a record like this exhibit? "In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and Saviour, 1824, while all European Christendom beheld, with cold and unfeeling indifference, the unexampled wrongs and inex- pressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Con- gress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest deposi- tory of human hope and human freedom, the representatives of a gallant nation, containing a million of freemen ready to fly to arms, while the people of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feel- ing, and the whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, was rising, and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking high heaven to spare and succor Greece, and to invigorate her arms in her glorious cause, whilst temples and senate-houses were alike resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy; in the year of our Lord and Saviour, that Saviour of Greece and of us ; a proposition was offered in the American Congress to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with a kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies and it was rejected ! " Go home, if you can ; go home, if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down; meet, if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own -1820] HENRY CLAY. 3(53 sentiments ; that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove you from your purpose ; that the spectres of cimiters, and crowns, and cres- cents, gleamed before you and alarmed you ; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national inde- pendence, and by humanity. I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of the committee. But, for myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolu- tion the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation. A GRAPHIC POLITICAL CONTRAST. [Speech in Defence of the American System. 1832. From the Same.] I STAND here as the humble but zealous advocate, not of the interests of one State, or seven States only, but of the whole Union. And never before have I felt, more intensely, the overpowering weight of that share of responsibility which belongs to me in these deliberations. Never be- fore have I had more occasion than I now have, to lament my want of those intellectual powers, the possession of which might enable me to unfold to this senate and to illustrate to this people great truths, inti- mately connected with the lasting welfare of my country. I should, in- deed, sink overwhelmed and subdued beneath the appalling magnitude of the task which lies before me, if I did not feel myself sustained and fortified by a thorough consciousness of the justness of the cause which I have espoused, and by a persuasion, I hope not presumptuous, that it has the approbation of that Providence who has so often smiled upon these United States. Eight years ago, it was my painful duty to present to the other house of Congress an unexaggerated picture of the general distress pervading the whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We all know that the people were then oppressed, and borne down by an enormous load of debt ; that the value of property was at the lowest point of depression ; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were everywhere made of real estate ; that stop laws, and relief laws, and paper money were adopted, to save the people from impending destruction ; that a defi- cit in the public revenue existed, which compelled government to seize upon, and divert from its legitimate object, the appropriations to the sinking fund, to redeem the national debt ; and that our commerce and navigation were threatened with a complete paralysis. In short, sir, if I 364 HENRY CLAY. [1788- were to select any term of seven years since the adoption of the present constitution which exhibited a scene of the most wide-spread dismay and desolation, it would be exactly that term of seven years which immedi- ately preceded the establishment of the tariff of 1824. I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an im- perfect sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended, the arts nourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity, contentment, and happiness. And if we descend into particulars, we have the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt ; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree ; a ready though not extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry ; in- numerable flocks and herds browsing and gambolling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities ex- panded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing ; our tonnage, foreign and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steam- boats ; the currency sound and abundant ; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing, embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824. THE ATTITUDE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. [First Speech on the Compromise Tariff Bill. 1833. From the Same.] SOUTH CAKOLrNTA must perceive the embarrassments of her situa- tion. She must be desirous it is unnatural to suppose that she is not to remain in the Union. What ! a State whose heroes in its gallant ancestry fought so many glorious battles along with those of the other States of this Union a State with which this confederacy is linked by bonds of such a powerful character ! I have sometimes fancied what would be her condition if she goes out of this Union ; if her five hundred thousand people should at once be thrown upon their own resources. She is out of the Union, What is the consequence ? She is an independent -1820] HENRY CLAY. 355 power. What then does she do ? She must have armies and fleets, and an expensive government ; have foreign missions ; she must raise taxes ; enact this very tariff, which has driven her out of the Union, in order to enable her to raise money, and to sustain the\ attitude of an inde- pendent power. If she should have no force, no navy to protect her, she would be exposed to piratical incursions. Their neighbor, St. Do- mingo, might pour down a horde of pirates on her borders, and desolate her plantations. She must have her embassies ; therefore must she have a revenue. And, let me tell you, there is another consequence, an inevitable one; she has a certain description of persons recognized as property south of the Potomac, and west of the Mississippi, which would be no longer recognized as such, except within their own limits. This species of property would sink to one-half of its present value, for it is Louisiana and the south-western States which are her great market. , . . If there be any who want civil war, who want to see the blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt, I am not one of them. I wish to see war of no kind ; but, above all, I do not desire to see a civil war. When war begins, whether civil or foreign, no human sight is competent to foresee when, or how, or where it is to terminate. But when a civil war shall be lighted up in the bosom of our own happy land, and armies are marching, and commanders are winning their victories, and fleets are in motion on our coast, tell me, if you can, tell me, if any human being can tell, its duration. God alone knows where such a war would end. In what a state will our institutions be left? In what state our liberties? I want no war ; above all, no war at home. Sir, I repeat, that I think South Carolina has been rash, intemperate, and greatly in the wrong ; but I do not want to disgrace her, nor any other member of this Union. No : I do not desire to see the lustre of one single star dimmed of that glorious confederacy which constitutes our po- litical sun ; still less do I wish to see it blotted out, and its light obliterated forever. Has not the State of South Carolina been one of the members of this Union in "days that tried men's souls? " Have not her ancestors fought alongside our ancestors ? Have we not, conjointly, won together many a glorious battle ? If we had to go into a civil war with such a State, how would it terminate? Whenever it should have terminated, what would be her condition ? If she should ever return to the Union, what would be the condition of her feelings and affections ? what the state of the heart of her people? She has been with us before, when her ancestors mingled in the throng of battle, and as I hope our posterity will mingle with hers, for ages and centuries to come, in the united de- fence of liberty, and for the honor and glory of the Union ; 1 do not wish to see her degraded or defaced as a member of this confederacy. 366 HENRY CLAY. [1788- In conclusion, allow me to entreat and implore each individual mem- ber of this body to bring into the consideration of this measure, which I have had the honor of proposing, the same love of country which, if I know myself, has actuated me, and the same desire of restoring harmony to the Union, which has prompted this effort. If we can forget for a moment but that would be asking too much of human nature if we could suffer, for one moment, party feelings and party causes and, as I stand here before my God, I declare I have looked beyond those consid- erations, and regarded only the vast interests of this united people I should hope, that under such feelings, and with such dispositions, we may advantageously proceed to the consideration of this bill, and heal, before they are yet bleeding, the wounds of our distracted country. VINDICATION OF HIS POLICY AND AMBITION. [Second Speech on the Compromise Tariff Bill. 1833. From the Same.] are some who*say, let the tariff go down ; let our manufactures - be prostrated, if such be the pleasure, at another session, of those to whose hands the government of this country is confided; let bankruptcy and ruin be spread over the land ; and let resistance to the laws, at all hazards, be subdued. Sir, they take counsel from their passions. They anticipate a terrible reaction from the downfall of the tariff, which would ultimately re-establish it upon a firmer basis than ever. But it is these very agitations, these mutual irritations between brethren of the same family, it is the individual distress and general ruin that would neces- sarily follow the overthrow of the tariff, that ought, if possible, to be prevented. Besides, are we certain of this reaction? Have we not been disappointed in it as to other measures heretofore? But suppose, after a long and embittered struggle, it should come, in what relative condition would it find the parts of this confederacy? In what state our ruined manufactures ? When they should be laid low, who, amidst the fragments of the general wreck, scattered over the face of the land, would have courage to engage in fresh enterprises, under a new pledge of the violated faith of the government? If we adjourn, without pass- ing this bill, having intrusted the executive with vast powers to main- tain the laws, should he be able by the next session to put down all opposition to them, will he not, as a necessary consequence of success, have more power than ever to put down the tariff also? Has he not said that the South is oppressed, and its burdens ought to be relieved ? And will he not feel himself bound, after he shall have triumphed, if -1820] HENRY CLAY. triumph he may in a civil war, to appease the discontents of the South by a modification of the tariff, in conformity with its wishes and de- mands? No, sir ; no, sir; let us save the country from the most dreadful of all calamities, and let us save its industry, too, from threatened de- struction. Statesmen should regulate their conduct and adapt their measures to the exigencies of the times in which they live. They can- not, indeed, transcend the limits of the constitutional rule; but with respect to those systems of policy which fall within its scope, they should arrange them according to the interests, the wants, and the prejudices of the people. Two great dangers threaten the public safety. The true patriot will not stop to inquire how they have been brought about, but will fly to the deliverance of his country. The difference between the friends and the foes of the compromise, under consideration, is, that they would, in the enforcing act, send forth alone a flaming sword. We would send out that also, but along with it the olive branch, as a messenger of peace. They cry out, the law ! the law ! the law ! Power ! power ! power ! We, too, rev- erence the law, and bow to the supremacy of its obligation ; but we are in favor of the law executed in mildness, and of power tempered with mercy. They, as we think, would hazard a civil commotion, beginning in South Carolina and extending, God only knows where. While we would vindicate the federal government, we are for peace, if possible, union, and liberty. We want no war, above all, no civil war, no family strife. We want to see no sacked cities, no desolated fields, no smoking ruins, no streams of American blood shed by American arms ! I have been accused of ambition in presenting this measure. Ambi- tion ! inordinate ambition ! If I had thought of myself only, I should have never brought it forward. I know well the perils to which I expose myself ; the risk of alienating faithful and valued friends, with but little prospect of making new ones, if any new ones could compensate for the loss of those whom we have long tried and loved ; and the honest mis- conceptions both of friends and foes. Ambition! If I had listened to its soft and seducing whispers; if I had yielded myself to the dictates of a cold, calculating, and prudential policy, I would have stood still and unmoved. I might even have silently gazed on the raging storm, en- joyed its loudest thunders, and left those who are charged with the care of the vessel of state, to conduct it as they could. I have been hereto- fore often unjustly accused of ambition. Low, grovelling souls, who are utterly incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties of pure patriotism beings, who, forever keeping their own selfish aims in view, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on their aggrandizement judge me by the venal rule which they prescribe to themselves. I have given to the winds those false accusations, as I con- sign that which now impeaches my motives. I have no desire for office, 368 HENRY CLAY. [1788- not even the highest. The most exalted is but a prison, in which the incarcerated incumbent daily receives his cold, heartless visitants, marks his weary hours, and is cut off from the practical enjoyment of all the blessings of genuine freedom. I am no candidate for any office in the gift of the people of these States, united or separated; I never wish, never expect to be. Pass this bill, tranquillize the country, restore con- fidence and affection in the Union, and I am willing to go home to Ash- land, and renounce public service forever. I should there find, in its groves, under its shades, on its lawns, amidst my flocks and herds, in the bosom of my family, sincerity and truth, attachment, and fidelity, and gratitude, which I have not always found in the walks of public life. Yes, I have ambition; but it is the ambition of being the humble instru- ment, in the hands of Providence, to reconcile a divided people ; once more to revive concord and harmony in a distracted land the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle of a free, united, pros- perous, and fraternal people! HIS POSITION" WITH RESPECT TO SLAVERY AND ABOLITION. [From a Letter to Jacob Gribson. The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay. 1856.] I REGARD the existence of slavery as an evil. I regret it, and wish that there was not one slave in the United States. But it is an evil which, while it affects the States only, or principally, where it abounds, each State within which it is situated is the exclusive judge of what is best to be done with it, and no other State has a right to interfere in it. Kentucky has no right to interfere with the slavery of Virginia, and Ohio has no right to interfere with it in either. The jurisdiction of each State, where slavery exists, is among the reserved rights of the States. Congress possesses no power or authority to abolish it. Congress is invested with no power relating to it, ex- cept that which assumes its legitimate and continued existence. As to slavery, with the exception of the conservative, representative, and taxing powers of Congress, the States are as much beyond the control of Congress as if they were independent nations, unconnected by any con- federative constitution. Although I believe slavery to be an evil, I regard it as a far less evil than would arise out of an immediate emancipation of the slaves of the United States, and their remaining here mixed up in our communities. In such a contingency, I believe that a bloody civil war would ensue, which would terminate only by the extinction of the black race. -4820] HENRY CLAY. 359 It results, from these opinions which I entertain, that I consider the movements of the Abolitionists as altogether unauthorized and most un- fortunate. I believe them productive of no good whatever, but attended with positive mischief to both the white and the black races. Of all the modes of separating the free blacks from the rest of the population of the United States, in my opinion, that of colonizing them in Africa is best. They are there in the abode of their ancestors, in a climate con- genial to their constitutions, and with boundless territorial scope before them. For these and other reasons I think Africa far preferable to Oregon. An emigrant can be sent to Africa much cheaper than he can be to Oregon. He would then be not only in the home of his forefathers, but he might render great service to the natives of Africa, by introducing among them the arts of civilization and the religion of Christ. He would, moreover, be secure forever against the progress of the white man, which he would be far from being in Oregon. I have regretted extremely the agitation of abolition in the free States. It has done no good, but harm. It will do no good. The great body of Abolitionists, like the great mass of every party, I have no doubt, is honest, sincere, and humane. Their leaders deceive them, and will en- deavor to profit by them. They will seek to ride into public office, and to snatch public honor, upon the delusions which they propagate. Abolition is a delusion which cannot last. It is impossible it should endure. What is it? In pursuit of a principle a great principle, if you please, it undertakes to tread down and trample in the dust all opposing principles, however sacred. It sets up the right of the people of one State to dictate to the people of other States. It arrays State against State. To make the black man free, it would virtually enslave the white man. With a single idea some of its partisans rush on blindly, regardless of all consequences. They have dared even to threaten our glorious Union with dissolution. And suppose that unhallowed object achieved, would it emancipate the slaves? What is their next step ? Is it to light up a war between the dissevered parts of the Union, and through blood, devastation, and conflagration, to march forward to eman- cipation? Are they at all sure that through such diabolical means they would be able finally to arrive at their object? No, my friend, let each State, and the people of each State, take care of their own interests, leaving other States, and the people of other States, to take care of theirs. We have enough to do in our respective and legitimate spheres of action enough for the exercise of all the charities and sympathies of our nature. But what is ultimately to become of slavery? asks the impatient Abolitionist. I cannot tell him with any certainty. I have no doubt that the merciful Providence, which permitted its introduction into our VOL. iv. 24 370 HENRY CLAY. [1788- country against the wishes of our ancestors, will, according to His own good pleasure and time, provide for its mitigation or termination. In the mean time, we have had much to encourage us. Our Kevolu- tion led to the cessation of the African slave trade with the United States. It altogether ceased in 1808. Many States emancipated their slaves, not by the perilous process of an immediate liberation, but by the gradual and cautious proceeding of a slow and regulated emancipa- tion, liberating the offspring at mature age, and leaving the parents in slavery ; thus making preparation for the proper use of the liberty which their children were to enjoy. Everywhere a spirit of humanity was, more and more, infusing itself into the laws for the regulation of the treatment of slaves, until it was checked, in some places, by the agitation of Abolition. Some States, where the proportion of slaves was not very great in comparison with the whites, were beginning seriously to think about the practicability of a gradual emancipation within their limits, but they, too, have been checked by the intemperate zeal of Abolition- ists. The feasibility of African colonization has been demonstrated, and the Society, with its limited means, has been quietly prosecuting its noble object. By some of the means indicated, and others hidden from our view, by an all-wise Providence, we may cherish the hope that, if violent Aboli- tionists will cease stirring up strife and agitating the passions, we may ultimately alleviate the evils, if not eradicate the existence of slavery in our land. The generation that established our independence achieved a great and glorious work. Succeeding generations have accomplished much in advancing the growth, the power, and the greatness of this nation. We must leave some things to posterity, and among others the task of making adequate provision for the institution of slavery. In spite of slavery, our arms triumphed in the revolutionary struggle. And it is not too much to assert that, if Abolition had developed itself then, as it since has done, we should have failed. We should have been unable to form the Confederation, or subsequently to have adopted the present Constitution. In spite of slavery, we were successful in the second war with Great Britain. And in neither war, it is a gratifying historical fact, was the enemy able, by all his arts of seduction, to with- draw many slaves from their fidelity. In spite of slavery, we have moved onward in our march to power and greatness, augmenting our population, in a period only co-extensive with that of rny own life, from two and a half to seventeen millions. If our country is now writhing under the agony of extreme pecuniary distress and embarrassment, it has not been produced by slavery, at least not by black slavery. It has been brought about, I think, by the exer- -1820] JOHN SHAW. else of arbitrary power, but not that which the master exerts over his black slave. Let us cease to agitate a topic which divides, distracts, and inflames the community ; which tends to array man against man, State against State, and section against section, and which threatens the greatest of all possible calamities which could befall this people, the dissolution of the Union of these States. Let us, in place of discord and dissension, culti- vate peace, harmony, and good-will among the people and the States of this Confederacy. And let us recollect that we have other duties far higher duties to perform toward our country, toward posterity, and toward the world, than even the extirpation of African slavery, however much its original introduction among us is to be deplored. BORN in Annapolis, Md., 1778. DIED on a voyage to the Bahamas, 1809. SONG. [Poems by the late Dr. John Shaw. 1810.] WHO has robbed the ocean cave, To tinge thy lips with coral hue? Who from India's distant wave For thee those pearly treasures drew? Who, from yonder orient sky, Stole the morning of thine eye? Thousand charms, thy form to deck, From sea, and earth, and air are torn; Roses bloom upon thy cheek, On thy breath their fragrance borne. Guard thy bosom from the day, Lest thy snows should melt away. But one charm remains behind, Which mute earth can ne'er impart; Nor in ocean wilt thou find, Nor in the circling air, a heart. Fairest ! wouldst thou perfect be, Take, oh take that heart from me. 372 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- Cfttlliam BORN in Charlestown, Mass., 1778. DIED there, 1841. PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN. {Originally Contributed to The New England Galaxy. 1824-1826.] FROM JONATHAN DUNWELL OF NEW YORK, TO MR. HERMANN KRAUFF. SIR, Agreeably to my promise, I now relate to you all the particulars of the lost man and child which I have been able to collect. It is entirely owing to the humane interest you seemed to take in the report, that I have pursued the inquiry to the following result. You may remember that business called me to Boston in the summer of 1820. I sailed in the packet to Providence, and, when I arrived there, I learned that every seat in the stage was engaged. I was thus obliged either to wait a few hours, or accept a seat with the driver, who civilly offered me that accommodation. Accordingly I took my seat by his side, and soon found him intelligent and communicative. When we had travelled about ten miles, the horses suddenly threw their ears on their necks, as flat as a hare's. Said the driver, " Have you a surtout with you?" "No," said I, "why do you ask?" "You will want one soon," said he. "Do you observe the ears of all the horses? " "Yes, and was just about to ask the reason." "They see the storm breeder, and we shall see him soon." At this moment there was not a cloud visible in the firmament. Soon after a small speck appeared in the road. " There," said my companion, " comes the storm breeder ; he always leaves a Scotch mist behind him. By many a wet jacket do I remember him. I suppose the poor fellow suffers much himself, much more than is known to the world." Presently a man with a child beside him, with a large black horse, and a weather-beaten chair, once built for a chaise body, passed in great haste, apparently at the rate of twelve miles an hour. He seemed to grasp the reins of his horse with firmness, and appeared to anticipate his speed. He seemed dejected, and looked anxiously at the passengers, particularly at the stage-driver and myself. In a moment after he passed us, the horses' ears were up, and bent them- selves forward so that they nearly met. " Who is that man," said I, " he seems in great trouble." "Nobody knows who he is, but his person and the child are familiar to me. I have met them more than a hundred times, and have been so often asked the way to Boston by that man, even when he was travelling directly from that town, that of late I have refused any communication with him ; and that is the reason he gave me such a fixed -1 820] WILLIA M A USTIN. 3 7- 3 look." "But does lie never stop anywhere? " "I have never known him to stop anywhere longer than to inquire the way to Boston ; and, let him be where he may, he will tell you he cannot stay a moment, for he must reach Boston that night." We were now ascending a high hill in Walpole; and as we had a fair view of the heavens I was rather disposed to jeer the driver for thinking of his surtout, as not a cloud as big as a marble could be discerned. "Do you look," said he, "in the direction whence the man came, that is the place to look ; the storm never meets him, it follows him." We presently approached another hill, and when at the height, the driver pointed out in an eastern direction a little black speck about as big as a hat. "There," said he, " is the seed storm ; we may possibly reach Policy's before it reaches us, but the wanderer and his child will go to Providence through rain, thunder and lightning." And now the horses, as though taught by instinct, hastened with increased speed. The little black cloud came on rolling over the turnpike, and doubled and trebled itself in all directions. The appearance of this cloud attracted the notice of all the passengers ; for, after it had spread itself to a great bulk, it suddenly became more limited in circumference, grew more compact, dark and consolidated. And now the successive flashes of chain lightning caused the whole cloud to appear like a sort of irregular net- work, and displayed a thousand fantastic images. The driver bespoke my attention to a remarkable con- figuration in the cloud : he said every flash of lightning near its centre discovered to him distinctly the form of a man sitting in an open car- riage drawn by a black horse. But in truth, I saw no such thing. The man's fancy was doubtless at fault. It is a very common thing for the imagination to paint for the senses, both in the visible and invisible world. In the mean time the distant thunder gave notice of a shower at hand ; and just as we reached Policy's tavern the rain poured down in torrents. It was soon over, the cloud passing in the direction of the turnpike towards Providence. In a few moments after, a respectable looking man in a chaise stopped at the door. The man and child in the chair having excited some little sympathy among the passengers, the gentleman was asked if he had observed them. He said he had met them ; that the man seemed bewildered, and inquired the way to Boston; that he was driving at great speed, as though he expected to oustrip the tempest; that the moment he had passed him, a thunder-clap broke dis- tinctly over the man's head, and seemed to envelope both man and child, horse and carriage. "I stopped," said the gentleman, "supposing the lightning had struck him, but the horse only seemed to loom up and in- crease his speed, and as well as I could judge he travelled just as fast as the thunder cloud." While this man was speaking, a peddler with a cart of tin merchandise came up, all dripping ; and, on being questioned, he 374 WILLIAM A U8TIN. [1788- said he had met that man and carriage, within a fortnight, in four differ- ent States ; that at each time he had inquired the way to Boston, and that a thunder shower like the present had each time deluged him, his wagon and his wares, setting his tin pots, etc., afloat, so that he had determined to get marine insurance done for the future. But that which excited his surprise most was the strange conduct of his horse, for that, long before he could distinguish the man in the chair, his own horse stood still in the road and flung back his ears. "In short," said the peddler, "I wish never to see that man and horse again ; they do not look to me as if they belonged to this world." This is all that I could learn at that time ; and the occurrence soon after would have become with me like one of those things which had never happened, had I not, as I stood recently on the door-step of Bennett's hotel in Hartford, heard a man say, " There goes Peter Rugg and his child ! he looks wet and weary, and farther from Boston than ever." I was satisfied it was the same man that I had seen more than three years before ; for whoever has once seen Peter Rugg can never after be de- ceived as to his identity. " Peter Rugg ! " said I, " and who is Peter Rugg ? " " That," said the stranger, " is more than any one can tell exactly. He is a famous traveller, held in light esteem by all innholders, for he never stops to eat, drink, or sleep. I wonder why the government does not employ him to carry the mail." "Ay," said a by-stand er, "that is a thought bright only on one side ; how long would it take in that case to send a letter to Boston ? for Peter has already, to my knowledge, been more than twenty years travelling to that place." "But," said I, "does the man never stop anywhere, does he never converse with any one ? I saw the same man more than three years since, near Providence, and I heard a strange story about him. Pray, sir, give me some account of this man." "Sir," said the stranger, "those who know the most respect- ing that man say the least. I have heard it asserted that heaven some- times sets a mark on a man, either for a judgment or a trial. Under which Peter Rugg now labors I cannot say ; therefore I am rather inclined to pity than to judge." "You speak like a humane man," said I, "and if you have known him so long, I pray you will give me some account of him. Has his appearance much altered in that time ? " " Why, yes, he looks as though he never ate, drank, or slept ; and his child looks older than himself, and he looks like time broke off from eternity and anxious to gain a resting-place." " And how does his horse look ? " said I. "As for his horse, he looks fatter and gayer, and shows more animation and courage than he did twenty years ago. The last time Rugg spoke to me he inquired how far it was to Boston. I told him just one hundred miles. 'Why,' said he, 'how can you deceive me so? It is cruel to de- ceive a traveller. I have lost my way ; pray direct me the nearest way -1820] WIL LI AM A USTIN; 3-5 to Boston.' I repeated it was one hundred miles. ' How can you say so? ' said he, 'I was told last evening it was but fifty, and I have trav- elled all night/ 'But,' said I, 'you are now travelling from Boston. You must turn back.' 'Alas,' said he, ' it is all turn back ! Boston shifts with the wind, and plays all around the compass. One man tells me it is to the East, another to the West ; and the guide-posts too, they all point the wrong way.' 'But will you not stop and rest,' said I, 'you seem wet and weary.' 'Yes,' said he, 'it has been foul weather since I left home.' 'Stop then, and refresh yourself.' ' I must not stop, I must reach home to-night if possible, though I think you must be mistaken in the distance to Boston.' He then gave the reins to his horse, which he restrained with difficulty, and disappeared in a moment. A few days afterwards I met the man a little this side of Claremont, winding around the hills in Unity, at the rate, I believe, of twelve miles an hour." "Is Peter Rugg his real name, or has he accidentally gained that name? " "I know not, but presume he will not deny his name ; you can ask him, for see, he has turned his horse and is passing this way." In a moment, a dark-colored, high-spirited horse approached, and would have passed without stopping, but I had resolved to speak to Peter Rugg, or whoever the man might be. Accordingly I stepped into the street, and as the horse approached, I made a feint of stopping him. The man immediately reined in his horse. "Sir," said I, "may I be so bold as to inquire if you are not Mr. Rugg? for I think I have seen you before." "My name is Peter Rugg," said he, " I have unfortunately lost my way ; I am wet and weary, and will take it kindly of you to direct me to Boston." " You live in Boston, do you, and in what street? " " In Mid- dle Street." "When did you leave Boston?" "I cannot tell precisely ; it seems a considerable time." " But how did you and your child become so wet? it has not rained here to-day." " It has just rained a heavy shower up the river. But I shall not reach Boston to night if I tarry. Would you advise me to take the old road, or the turnpike? " " Why, the old road is one hundred and seventeen miles, and the turnpike is ninety-seven." "How can you say so? you impose on me; it is wrong to trifle with a traveller; you know it is but forty miles from Newbury- port to Boston." "But this is not Newburyport ; this is Hartford." "Do not deceive me, sir. Is not this town Newburyport, and the river that P have been following, the Merrimac? " " No, sir, this is Hartford, and the river, the Connecticut." He wrung his hands and looked incredulous. " Have the rivers, too, changed their courses, as the cities have changed places? But see, the clouds are gathering in the south, and we shall have a rainy night. Ah, that fatal oath ! " He would tarry no longer, his impatient horse leaped off, his hind flanks rising like wings, he seemed to devour all before him, and to scorn all behind. 376 WILLIAM A USTIN. [1788- I had now, as I thought, discovered a clew to the history of Peter Eugg, and I determined, the next time my business called me to Boston, to make a further inquiry. Soon after, I was enabled to collect the fol- lowing particulars from Mrs. Croft, an aged lady in Middle Street, who has resided in Boston during the last twenty years. Her narration is this : The last summer a person, just at twilight, stopped at the door of the late Mrs. Eugg. Mrs. Croft, on coming to the door, perceived a stranger, with a child by his side, in an old, weather-beaten carriage, with a black horse. The stranger asked for Mrs. Eugg, and was informed that Mrs. Eugg had died at a good old age, more than twenty years before that time. The stranger replied, "How can you deceive me so? do ask Mrs. Eugg to step to the door." "Sir, I assure you Mrs. Eugg has not lived here these nineteen years ; no one lives here but myself, and my name is Betsey Croft" The stranger paused, and looked up and down the street, and said, "Though the painting is rather faded, this looks like my house." " Yes," said the child, " that is the stone before the door that I used to sit on to eat my bread and milk." "But," said the stranger, "it seems to be on the wrong side of the street. Indeed, everything here seems to be misplaced. The streets are all changed, the people are all changed, the town seems changed, and what is strangest of all, Catharine Eugg has deserted her husband and child. Pray," said the stranger, "has John Foy come home from sea? he went a long voyage he is my kinsman. If I could see him, he could give me some account of Mrs. Eugg." "Sir," said Mrs. Croft, "I never heard of John Foy. Where did he live?" "Just above here, in Orange Tree Lane." "There is no such place in this neighborhood." "What do you tell me! Are the streets gone? Orange Tree Lane is at the head of Hanover Street, near Pemberton's hill." "There is no such lane now." "Madam! you cannot be serious. But you doubtless know my brother, William Eugg. He lives in Eoyal Exchange Lane, near King Street." "I know of no such lane; and I am sure there is no such street as King Street in this town." " No such street as King Street ? Why, woman ! you mock me. You may as well tell me there is no King George. However, madam, you see I am wet and weary. I must find a resting-place. I will go to Hart's tavern near the market." " Which market, sir ? for you seem perplexed ; we have sev- eral markets." "You know there is but one market near the town dock." "Oh, the old market. But no such man as Hart has kept there these twenty years." Here the stranger seemed disconcerted, and muttered to himself quite audibly, " Strange mistake. How much this looks like the town of Bos- ton. It certainly has a great resemblance to it ; but I perceive my mis- take now. Some other Mrs. Eugg, some other Middle Street." Then said he, " Madam, can you direct me to Boston? " " Why this is Boston, -1820] WILLIAM AUSTIN. 377 the city of Boston. I know of no other Boston." " City of Boston it may be, but it is not the Boston where I live. I recollect now, I came over a bridge instead of a ferry. Pray what bridge is that I just came over?" "It is Charles Eiver Bridge." "I perceive my mistake, there is a ferry between Boston and Charlestown, there is no bridge. Ah, I perceive my mistake. If I was in Boston, my horse would carry me directly to my own door. But my horse shows by his impatience that he is in a strance place. Absurd, that I should have mistaken this place for the old town of Boston ! It is a much finer city than the town of Boston. It has been built long since Boston. I fancy Boston must lie at a dis- tance from this city, as the good woman seems ignorant of it." At these words his horse began to chafe, and strike the pavement with his forefeet; the stranger seemed a little bewildered, and said, "No home to- night," and giving the reins to his horse passed up the street, and I saw no more of him. It was evident that the generation to which Peter Rugg belonged had passed away. This was all the account of Peter Rugg I could obtain from Mrs. Croft ; but she directed me to an elderly man, Mr. James Felt, who lived near her, and who had kept a record of the principal occurrences for the last fifty years. At my request she sent for him ; and, after I had related to him the object of my inquiry, Mr. Felt told me he had known Rugg in his youth ; that his disappearance had caused some surprise ; but as it sometimes happens that men run away, sometimes to be rid of others, and sometimes to be rid of themselves ; and as Rugg took his child with him, and his own horse and chair; and as it did not appear that any creditors made a stir, the occurrence soon mingled itself in the stream of oblivion ; and Rugg and his child, horse and chair, were soon forgotten. "It is true," said Mr. Felt, "sundry stories grew out of Rugg's affair, whether true or false I cannot tell ; but stranger things have happened in my day, without even a newspaper notice." " Sir," said I, " Peter Rugg is now living. I have lately seen Peter Rugg and his child, horse and chair ; therefore I pray you to relate to me all you know or ever heard of him." "Why, my friend," said James Felt, "that Peter Rugg is now a living man I will not deny ; but that you have seen Peter Rugg and his child is impossible, if you mean a small child, for Jenny Rugg if living must be at least let me see Boston massacre, 1770 Jenny Rugg was about ten years old. Why, sir, Jenny Rugg if living must be more than sixty years of age. That Peter Rugg is living is highly probable, as he was only ten years older than myself ; and I was only eighty last March, and I am as likely to live twenty years longer as any man." Here I per- ceived that Mr. Felt was in his dotage, and I despaired of gaining any intelligence from him on which I could depend. 378 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- I took my leave of Mrs. Croft, and proceeded to my lodgings at the Maryborough Hotel If Peter Rugg, thought I, has been travelling since the Boston mas- sacre, there is no reason why he should not travel to the end of time. If the present generation know little of him, the next will know less, and Peter and his child will have no hold on this world. In the course of the evening, I related my adventure in Middle Street. " Ha," said one of the company, smiling, " do you really think you have seen Peter Rugg ? I have heard my grandfather speak of him as though he seriously believed his own story." " Sir," said I, "pray let us compare your grandfather's story of Mr. Rugg with my own." "Peter Rugg, sir, if my grandfather was worthy of credit, once lived in Middle Street in this city. He was a man in comfortable circumstances, had a wife and one daughter, and was generally esteemed for his sober life and manners. But unhappily his temper at times was altogether ungovernable, and then his language was terrible. In these fits of passion, if a door stood in his way he would never do less than kick a panel through. He would some- times throw his heels over his head, and come down on his feet, uttering oaths in a circle ; and thus in a rage, he was the first who performed a somerset, and did what others have since learned to do for merriment and money. Once Rugg was seen to bite a tenpenny nail in halves. In those days everybody, both men and boys, wore wigs ; and Peter at these moments of violent passion would become so profane that his wig would rise up from his head. Some said it was on account of his terrible lan- guage ; others accounted for it in a more philosophical way, and said it was caused by the expansion of his scalp, as violent passion we know will swell the veins and expand the head. While these fits were on him, Rugg had no respect for heaven or earth. Except this infirmity, all agreed that Rugg was a good sort of a man ; for when his fits were over, nobody was so ready to commend a placid temper as Peter. " It was late in autumn, one morning, that Rugg in his own chair, with a fine large bay horse, took his daughter and proceeded to Concord. On his return, a violent storm overtook him. At dark, he stopped in Menot- omy (now West Cambridge), at the door of a Mr. Cutter, a friend of his, who urged him to tarry over-night. On Rugg's declining to stop, Mr. Cutter urged him vehemently. ' Why, Mr. Rugg,' said Cutter, ' the storm is over- whelming you ; the night is exceeding dark ; your little daughter will perish ; you are in an open chair and the tempest is increasing.' * Let the storm increase," 1 said Rugg, with a fearful oath, ' I will see home to-night, in spite of the last tempest! or may I never see home.' 1 At these words he gave his whip to his high-spirited horse, and disappeared in a moment. But Peter Rugg did not reach home that night, nor the next; nor, when he became a missing man, could he ever be traced beyond Mr. Cutter's in -1820J WILLIAM A USTIN. 379 Menotomy. For a long time after, on every dark and stormy night, the wife of Peter Rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip, and the fleet tread of a horse, and the rattling of a carriage, passing her door. The neighbors, too, heard the same noises, and some said they knew it was Rugg's horse ; the tread on the pavement was perfectly familiar to them. This occurred so repeatedly, that at length the neighbors watched with lan- terns, and saw the real Peter Rugg, with his own horse and chair, and child sitting beside him, pass directly before his own door, his head turning towards his house, and himself making every effort to stop his horse, but in vain. The next day, the friends of Mrs. Rugg exerted themselves to find her husband and child. They inquired at every public house and stable in town ; but it did not appear that Rugg made any stay in Bos- ton. No one, after Rugg had passed his own door, could give any account of him ; though it was asserted by some that the clatter of Rugg's horse and carriage over the pavements shook the houses on both sides of the street. And this is credible, if indeed Rugg's horse and carriage did pass on that night. For at this day, in many of the streets, a loaded truck or team in passing will shake the houses like an earthquake. However, Rugg's neighbors never afterwards watched again ; some of them treated it all as a delusion, and thought no more of it. Others, of a different opinion, shook their heads and said nothing. Thus Rugg, and his child, horse and chair, were soon forgotten ; and probably many in the neigh- borhood never heard a word on the subject. " There was indeed a rumor, that Rugg afterwards was seen in Con- necticut, between Suffield and Hartford, passing through the country like a streak of chalk. This gave occasion to Rugg's friends to make further inquiry. But the more they inquired, the more they were baffled. If they heard of Rugg one day in Connecticut, the next day they heard of him winding around the hills in New Hampshire ; and soon after, a man in a chair, with a small child, exactly answering the description of Peter Rugg, would be seen in Rhode Island, inquiring the way to Boston. "But that which chiefly gave a color of mystery to the story of Peter Rugg, was the affair at Charlestown bridge. The toll-gatherer asserted that sometimes, on the darkest and most stormy nights, when no object could be discerned, about the time Rugg was missing, a horse and wheel carriage, with a noise equal to a troop, would at midnight, in utter con- tempt of the rates of toll, pass over the bridge. This occurred so fre- quently that the toll-gatherer resolved to attempt a discovery. Soon after, at the usual time, apparently the same horse and carriage approached the bridge from Charlestown square. The toll-gatherer, prepared, took his stand as near the middle of the bridge as he dared, with a large three- legged stool in his hand. As the appearance passed, he threw the stool at the horse, but heard nothing except the noise of the stool skipping 380 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- across the bridge. The toll-gatherer on the next day asserted that the stool went directly through the body of the horse, and he persisted in that belief ever after. Whether Rugg, or whoever the person was, ever passed the bridge again, the toll-gatherer would never tell ; and when questioned seemed anxious to waive the subject. And thus Peter Rugg and his child, horse and carriage, remain a mystery to this day." This, sir, is all that I could learn of Peter Rugg in Boston. FURTHER ACCOUNT OF PETER RUGG, BY JONATHAN DUNWELL. I have now the pleasure to inform you that I have not only, since that time, seen Mr. Rugg, but have sitten by the side of him, and conversed with him in his own chair. In the autumn of 1825, 1 attended the races at Richmond in Virginia ; as two new horses of great promise were run, the race-ground was never better attended, nor was expectation ever more deeply excited. The partisans of Dart and Lightning, the two race-horses, were equally anxious, and equally dubious of the result. To an indifferent spectator it was impossible to perceive any difference. They were equally beau- tiful to behold, alike in color and height, and, as they stood side by side, they measured from heel to forefeet within half an inch of each other. The eyes of each were full, prominent and resolute, and when at times they regarded each other, they assumed a lofty demeanor, seemed to shorten their necks, project their eyes, and rest their bodies equally on their four hoofs. They certainly discovered signs of intelligence, and displayed a courtesy to each other, unusual even with statesmen. It was now nearly twelve o'clock, the hour of expectation, doubt and anxiety. The riders mounted their horses ; and so trim, light and airy they sat on the animals, they seemed a part of them. The spectators, many deep, in a solid column, had taken their places ; and as many thousand breathing statues were there as spectators. All eyes were turned to Dart and Lightning and their riders. There was nothing to disturb this calm except a busy woodpecker on a neighboring tree. The signal was given, and Dart and Lightning answered with ready intelligence. At first they proceed at a slow trot, then they quicken into a canter and then to a gallop. Presently they sweep the plain ; both horses lay themselves flat to the ground, their riders bending forward and resting their chins between their horses' ears. Had not the ground been perfectly level, had there been any undulation, the least rise and fall, the spectator would have lost sight of both horses and riders. But while these horses, side by side, thus appeared, flying without wings, flat as a hare, and neither gained on the other, all eyes were diverted to a new spectacle. Directly -1820] WILLIAM A USTIN. 3 g ^ in the rear of Dart and Lightning, a majestic black horse of unusual size, drawing an old weather-beaten chair, strode over the plain; and although he appeared to make no effort, for he maintained a steady trot, before Dart and Lightning approached the goal, the black horse and chair had overtaken the racers, who, on perceiving this new competitor pass them, threw back their ears and suddenly stopped in their course. Thus neither Dart nor Lightning carried away the purse. The spec- tators now were exceedingly curious to learn whence came the black horse and chair. With many it was the opinion that nobody was in the vehicle. Indeed this began to be the prevalent opinion, for those at a short distance, so fleet was the black horse, could not easily discern who, if anybody, was in the carriage. But both the riders, whom the black horse passed very nearly, agreed in this particular, that a sad-looking man with a little girl was in the chair. When they stated this I was satisfied it was Peter Rugg. But, what caused no little surprise, John Spring, one of the riders, he who rode Lightning, asserted that no earthly horse, without breaking his trot, could in a carriage outstrip his race-horse ; and he persisted with some passion that it was not a horse, he was sure it was not a horse, but a large black ox. " What a great black ox can do," said John, " I cannot pretend to say ; but no race-horse, not even Flying Childers, could out- trot Lightning in a fair race." This opinion of John Spring excited no little merriment, for it was clear to every one that it was a powerful black horse that had interrupted the race ; but John Spring, jealous of Lightning's reputation as a horse, would rather have it thought that any other beast, even an ox, had been the victor. However, the horse-laugh at John Spring's expense was soon suppressed; for as soon as Dart and Lightning began to breathe more freely, it was observed that both of them walked deliberately to the track of the race-ground, and putting their heads to the earth, suddenly raised them and began to snort. John Spring said " These horses have dis- covered something strange ; they suspect foul play. Let me go and talk with Lightning." He went to Lightning and took hold of his mane, and Lightning put his nose to the ground and smelt of the earth without touching it, and then reared his head very high and snorted so loudly that the sound echoed from the next hill. Dart did the same. John Spring stooped down to examine the spot. In a second he raised himself up, and the countenance of the man was changed ; his strength failed him, and he sidled against Lightning. When he recovered he exclaimed " It was an ox ! I told you it was an ox. No real horse could beat Lightning." And now, on a close inspection of the black horse's tracks in the path, it was evident to every one that the forefeet were cloven. Notwithstanding these appearances, to me it was evident that the strange horse was in reality a horse. Yet when the people left the race-ground, I presume S82 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- one-half would have testified that a large black ox had distanced two of the fleetest coursers that ever trod the Virginia tart So uncertain are all things called historical facts. While I was proceeding to my lodgings, pondering on the events of the day, a stranger rode up to me and accosted me thus, " I think your name is Dun well, sir ? " " Yes, sir," I replied. "Did I not see you a year or two since in Boston, at the Marlborough Hotel?" "Very likely, sir, for I was there." "And you heard a story about one Peter Eugg?" " I recollect it all/' said I. "The account you heard in Boston must be true, for here he was to-day. The man has found his way to Virginia, and for aught that appears, has been to Cape Horn. I have seen him before to-day, but never saw him travel with such fearful velocity. Pray, sir, where does Peter Kugg spend his winters ? for I have seen him only in summer, and always in foul weather except at this time." I replied, " No one knows where Peter Kugg spends his winters ; or where he eats, drinks or lodges. He seems to have an indistinct idea of day and night, time and space, storm and sunshine. His only object is Boston. It appears to me that Rugg's horse has some control of the chair; and that Rugg himself is in some sort under the control of his horse." I then inquired of the stranger where he first saw the man and horse. " Why, sir," said he, "in the summer of 1824 I travelled to the North for my health, and soon after I saw you at the Marlborough Hotel, I returned homeward to Virginia, and, if my memory is correct, I saw this man and horse in every State between here and Massachusetts. Sometimes he would meet me, but oftener overtake me. He never spoke but once, and that once was in Delaware. On his approach he checked his horse with some difficulty. A more beautiful horse I never saw : his hide was as fair and rotund and glossy as the skin of a Congo beauty. When Rugg's horse approached mine, he reined in his neck, bent his ears forward until they met, and looked my horse full in the face. My horse immediately withered into half a horse; his hide curled up like a piece of burnt leather; spell-bound, he was fixed to the earth as though a nail had been driven through each hoof. * Sir,' said Rugg, ' perhaps you are travelling to Boston, and, if so, I should be happy to accompany you, for I have lost my way, and I must reach home to-night. See how sleepy this little girl looks ; poor thing, she is the picture of patience.' 'Sir,' said I, 'it is impossible for you to reach home to-night, for you are in Concord in the County of Sussex, in the State of Delaware.' 'What do you mean,' said he, 'by State of Delaware? If I was in Concord, that is only twenty miles from Boston, and my horse Lightfoot could carry me to Charles- town ferry in less than two hours. You mistake, sir ; you are a stranger here ; this town is nothing like Concord. I am well acquainted with Concord. I went to Concord when I left Boston.' 'But,' said I, ' you are -1820] WILLIAM AUSTIN. in Concord in the State of Delaware.' 'What do you mean by State?' said Rugg. 'Why one of the United States.' 'States,' said he in a low voice, 'the man is a wag, and would persuade me that I am in Holland.' Then raising his voice, he said, ' you seem, sir, to be a gentleman, and I entreat you to mislead me not ; tell me quickly, for pity's sake, the right road to Boston, for you see my horse will swallow his bits, for he has eaten nothing since I left Concord.' 'Sir,' said I, 'this town is Concord, Concord in Delaware, not Concord in Massachusetts ; and you are now five hundred miles from Boston.' Rugg looked at me for a moment, more in sorrow than resentment, and then repeated, ' five hundred miles ! unhappy man! who would have thought he had been deranged! But nothing is so deceitful as appearances, in this world. Five hundred miles! this beats Connecticut River.' What he meant by Connecticut River, I know not. His horse broke away, and he disappeared in a moment." I explained to the stranger the meaning of Rugg's expression, "Con- necticut River," and the incident at Hartford, as I stood on the door-stone of Mr. Bennett's excellent hotel. We both agreed that the man we had seen that day was the true Peter Rugg. Soon after, I saw Rugg again, at the toll-gate on the turnpike between Alexandria and Middleburgh. While I was paying the toll, I observed to the toll-gatherer that the effects of the drought were more severe in his vicinity than farther south. "Yes," said he, "the drought is exces- sive ; but if I had not heard yesterday by a traveller, that the man with the black horse was seen in Kentucky a day or two since, I should be sure of a shower in a few minutes." I looked all around the horizon, and could not discern a cloud that could hold a pint of water. "Look, sir," said the toll-gatherer, "you perceive to the eastward, just rising that hill a small black cloud not bigger than a blackberry, and while I am speaking it is doubling and trebling itself, and rolling up the turn- pike steadily, as if its sole design was to deluge some object" " True," said I, " I do perceive it ; but what connection is there between a thunder- cloud and a man and horse?" "More than you imagine, or I can tell you ; but stop a moment, sir, I may need your assistance. I know that cloud, I have seen it several times before, and can testify to its identity. You will soon see a man and black horse under it." While he was yet speaking, true enough, we began to hear the distant thunder, and soon the chain-lightning performed all the figures of a country dance. About a mile distant, we saw the man and black horse under the cloud ; but, before he arrived at the toll-gate, the thunder-cloud had spent itself, and not even a sprinkle fell near us. As the man, whom I instantly knew to be Rugg, attempted to pass, the toll-gatherer swung the gate across the road, seized Rugg's horse by the reins, and demanded two dollars. 384 WILLIAM A U8TIN. [1788- Feeling some regard for Rugg, I interfered, and began to question the toll-gatherer, and requested him not to be wroth with the man. He re- plied that he had just cause, for the man had run his toll ten times, and moreover that the horse had discharged a cannon-ball at him to the great danger of his life ; that the man had always before approached so rapidly that he was too quick for the rusty hinges of the toll-gate ; but that now he would have full satisfaction. Rugg looked wistfully at me, and said, "I entreat you, sir, to delay me not. I have found at length the direct road to Boston, and shall not reach home to-night if you detain me : you. see I am dripping wet, and ought to change my clothes." The toll- gatherer then demanded why he had run his toll so many times. " Toll ! " said Rugg, " why do you demand toll? There is no toll to pay on the King's highway." "King's highway ! do you not perceive that this is a turnpike ? " " Turnpike ! there are no turnpikes in Massachusetts." " That may be, but we have several in Virginia." "Virginia! do you pretend that I am in Virginia? " Rugg then appealed to me, and asked how far it was to Boston. Said I, " Mr. Rugg, I perceive you are bewildered, and am sorry to see you so far from home; you are indeed in Virginia." "You know me then, sir, it seems, and you say I am in Virginia. Give me leave to tell you, sir, that you are the most impudent man alive, for I was never forty miles from Boston, and I never saw a Virginian in my life. This beats Dela- ware I " "Your toll, sir, your toll ! " "I will not pay you a penny," said Rugg, " you are both of you highway robbers ; there are no turnpikes in this country. Take toll on the King's highway ! Robbers take toll on the King's highway." Then in a low tone he said, "Here is evidently a conspiracy against me ; alas ! I shall never see Boston ! The highways refuse me a passage, the rivers change their courses, and there is no faith in the compass." But Rugg's horse had no idea of stopping more than one minute, for in the midst of this altercation, the horse, whose nose was resting on the upper bar of the turnpike gate, seized it between his teeth, lifted it gently off its staples, and trotted off with it. The toll- gatherer, confounded, strained his eyes after his gate. "Let him go," said I, "the horse will soon drop your gate, and you will get it again." I then questioned the toll-gatherer respecting his knowledge of this man, and he related the following particulars: "The first time," said he, "that man ever passed this toll-gate was in the year 1806, at the moment of the great eclipse. I thought the horse was frightened at the sudden darkness, and concluded he had run away with the man. But within a few days after, the same man and horse repassed with equal speed, with- out the least respect to the toll-gate or to me, except by a vacant stare. Some few years afterward, during the late war, I saw the same man ap- proaching again, and I resolved to check his career. Accordingly I -1820] WILLIAM AUSTIN. 335 stepped into the middle of the road, and stretched wide both my arms, and cried, ' stop, sir, on your peril ! ' At this, the man said, ' Now, Light- foot, confound the robber ! ' At the same time he gave the whip liberally to the flank of his horse, who bounded off with such force that it ap- peared to me two such horses, give them a place to stand, would check the diurnal motion of the earth. An ammunition wagon which had just passed on to Baltimore, had dropped an eighteen-pounder in the road. This unlucky ball lay in the way of the horse's heels, and the beast, with the sagacity of a demon, clinched it with one of his heels and hurled it behind him. I feel dizzy in relating the fact, but so nearly did the ball pass my head that the wind thereof blew off my hat, and the ball bedded itself in that gate-post, as you may see if you will cast your eyes that way. I have permitted it to remain there in memory of the occurrence,, as the people of Boston, I am told, preserve the eighteen pounder which is now to be seen half -bedded in Brattle Street Church." I then took leave of the toll-gatherer, and promised him if I saw or heard of his gate, I would send him notice. A strong inclination had possessed me to arrest Rugg, and search his pockets, thinking great discoveries might be made in the examination; but what I saw and heard that day convinced me that no human force could detain Peter Rugg against his consent. I therefore determined if I ever saw Rugg again to treat him in the gentlest manner. In pursuing my way to New York, I entered on the turnpike in Trenton ; and when I arrived at New Brunswick I perceived the road was newty Macadamized. The small stones had just been laid thereon. As I passed this piece of road, I observed, at regular distances of about eight feet, the stones entirely displaced from spots as large as the circum- ference of a half-bushel measure. This singular appearance induced me to inquire the cause of it at the turnpike gate. " Sir," said the toll- gatherer, "I wonder not at the question, but I am unable to give you a satisfactory answer. Indeed, sir, I believe I am bewitched, and that the turnpike is under a spell of enchantment ; for what appeared to me last night cannot be a real transaction, otherwise a turnpike gate is a useless thing." "I do not believe in witchcraft or enchantment," said I, " and if you will relate circumstantially what happened last night, I will endeavor to accoun/t for it by natural means." "You may recollect the night was uncommonly dark. Well, sir, just after I had closed the gate for the night, down the turnpike, as far as my eye could reach, I beheld what at first appeared to me, two armies engaged. The report of the musketry, and the flashes of their firelocks were incessant and continuous. As this strange spectacle approached me with the fury of a tornado, the noise increased, and the appearance rolled on in one compact body over the surface of the ground. The most splendid fireworks rose out of the VOL. iv. 25 386 WILLIAM AUSTIN: eartli and encircled this moving spectacle. The divers tints of the rainbow, the most brilliant dyes that the sun lays on the lap of spring, could not display a more beautiful, radiant and dazzling picture. In the midst of this luminous configuration sat a man, distinctly to be seen, in a miser- able-looking chair drawn by a black horse. The turnpike gate, ought by the laws of nature, and the ]aws of the State, to have made a wreck of the whole, and have dissolved the enchantment; but no, the horse without an effort passed over the gate, and drew the man and chair horizontally after him without touching the bar. This was what I call enchantment what think you, sir?" " My friend," said I, "you have grossly magnified a natural occurrence. The man was Peter Kugg on his way to Boston. It is true, his horse travelled with unequalled speed, but as he reared high his forefeet, he could not help displacing the small stones on which he trod, which flying in all directions struck each other and resounded and scintillated. The top bar of your gate is not more than two feet from the ground, and Kugg's horse at every vault could easily lift the carriage over that gate." This satisfied Mr. McDoubt, who is a worthy man late from the Highlands, and I was pleased at this, as other- wise he might have added to the calendar of his superstitions. Having thus disenchanted matters, I pursued my journey homeward to New York. Little did I expect to hear anything further from Mr. Rugg, for he was now more than twelve hours in advance of me. I could hear nothing of him on my way to Elizabethtown. I therefore concluded that during the night he had turned off and pursued a westerly direction. But just before I arrived at Powles's Hook, I observed a considerable collection of passengers in the ferry-boat all standing motionless and steadily look- ing at the same object. One of the ferrymen, Mr. Hardy, who well knew me, observing my approach, delayed a minute in order to afford me a passage, and coming up, said, " Mr. Dunwell, we have got a curiosity on board that would puzzle Dr. Mitchill." " Some strange fish, I suppose, has found its way into the Hudson." "No," said he, "it is a man who looks as if he had lain hid in the ark, and had just now ventured out. He has a little girl with him, the counterpart of himself, and the finest horse you ever saw, harnessed to the queerest looking carriage that ever was made." "Ah, Mr. Hardy," said I, "you have indeed hooked a prize; no one before you could ever detain Peter Rugg long enough to examine him." "Do you know the man?" said Mr. Hardy. "No, nobody knows him, but everybody has seen him. Detain him as long as possible, de- lay the boat under any pretence, cut the gear of the horse do anything to detain him." As I entered the ferry-boat, I was struck at the spectacle before me. There indeed, sat Peter Rugg and Jenny Rugg in the chair, and there stood the black horse, all as quiet as lambs, surrounded by more than fifty men and women, who seemed to have lost all senses but -1820] WILLIAM AUSTIN. one. Not a motion, not a breath, not a rustle. They were all eye. Eugg appeared to them as one not of this world; and they appeared to Eugg as a strange generation. No one spoke, nor was I disposed to dis- turb the calm, satisfied to reconnoitre Eugg in a state of rest. Presently Eugg observed in a low voice addressed to no one, "A new contrivance, horses instead of oars. Boston folks are full of notions." It was plain that Eugg was of Dutch extraction. He had on three pairs of small-clothes, called in former days of simplicity, breeches, not much the worse for wear ; but time had proved the fabric and shrunk each more than the other, so that they discovered at the knees their dif- ferent qualities and colors. His several waistcoats, the flaps of all which rested on his knees, gave him an appearance rather corpulent. His capacious drab coat would supply the stuff for half-a-dozen modern ones. The sleeves were like meal-bags in the cuffs you might nurse a child to sleep. His hat, probably once black, now of a tan color, was neither round nor cocked, but much in shape like the one President Monroe wore on his late tour. This dress gave the rotund face of Eugg an antiquated dignity. The man, though deeply sunburnt, did not ap- pear to be more than thirty years of age. He had lost his sad and anxious look, was quite composed, and seemed happy. The chair in which Eugg sat was very capacious, evidently made for service and cal- culated to last for ages. The timber would supply material for three modern carriages. This chair, like a Nantucket coach, would answer for everything that ever went on wheels. The horse, too, was an object of curiosity his majestic height, his glossy mane and tail, gave him a commanding appearance, and his large open nostrils indicated inexhaust- ible wind. It was apparent that the hoofs of his forefeet had been split, probably on some newly Macadamized road, and were now growing to- gether again, so that John Spring was not altogether in the wrong. How long this dumb scene would have continued, I cannot tell. Eugg discovered no sign of impatience. But Eugg's horse, having been quiet more than five minutes, had no idea of standing idle; he began to whinny, and a moment after, with his right forefoot, he started a plank. Said Eugg, " My horse is impatient, he sees the North end. You must be quick, or he will be ungovernable." At these words the horse raised his left forefoot, and when he laid it down every inch of the ferry-boat trembled. Two men immediately seized Eugg's horse by the nostrils. The horse nodded and both of them were in the Hudson. While we were fishing up the men the animal was perfectly quiet. " Fret not the horse," said Eugg, " and he will do no harm. He is only anxious like myself to arrive at yonder beautiful shore. He sees the North Church, and smells his own stable." "Sir," said I to Eugg, practising a little de- ception, "pray tell me, for I am a stranger here, what river is this, and 383 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- wliat city is that opposite? for you seem to be an inhabitant of it." "This river, sir, is called Mystic River, and this is Winnisimet ferry, we have retained the Indian names, and that town is Boston. You must, indeed, be a stranger in these parts, not to know that yonder town is Boston, the capital of the New England provinces." "Pray, sir, how long have you been absent from Boston? " " Why, that I cannot exactly tell. I lately went with this little girl of mine to Concord to see my friends, and, I am ashamed to tell you, in returning lost the way and have been travelling ever since. No one would direct me right. It is cruel to mislead a traveller. My horse, Lightfoot, has boxed the compass, and it seems to me has boxed it back again. But, sir, you perceive my horse is uneasy. Lightfoot, as yet, has given only a hint and a nod. I cannot be answerable for his heels." At these words Lightfoot raised his long tail and snapped it as you would a whip-lash. The Hudson reverberated with the sound. Instantly the six horses began to move the boat. The Hudson was a sea of glass, without a ripple. The horses from a smart trot soon pressed into a gallop ; water now ran over the gunwale, and the ferry-boat was soon buried in an ocean of foam and the noise of the spray was like the roaring of many waters. When we arrived at New York, you might see the beautiful white wake of the boat across the Hudson. Though Rugg refused to pay toll at turnpikes, when Mr. Hardy reached his hand for the ferriage, Rugg readily put his hand into one of his many pockets, and took out a piece of silver which he handed to Hardy. *" What is this? " said Mr. Hardy. "It is thirty shillings," said Rugg. "It might have once been thirty shillings, old tenor," said Mr. Hardy, " but it is not at present." " The money is good English coin," said Rugg, " my grandfather brought a bag of them from England, and he had them hot from the mint." Hearing this, I approached near to Rugg and asked permission to see the coin. It was a half-crown coined by the English Parliament, dated in the year 1649. On one side " The Common- ivealfh of England" and St. George's cross encircled with a wreath of laurel. On the other, " God with us" and a harp and St. George's cross iinited. I winked to Mr. Hardy and pronounced it good, current money ; and said loudly, I would not permit the gentleman to be imposed on, for I would exchange the money myself. On this, Rugg spoke, " Please to give me your name, sir." "My name is Dunwell, sir," I replied. "Mr. Dunwell," said Rugg, "you are the only honest man I have seen since I left Boston. As you are a stranger here, my house is your home ; dame Rugg will be happy to see her husband's friend. Step into my chair, sir, there is room enough ; move a little, Jenny, for the gentleman, and we will be in Middle Street in a minute." Accordingly I took a seat by Peter Rugg. "Were you never in Boston before? " said Rugg. " No," said I. " Well, you will now see the queen of New England, a town -1820] WILLIAM A USTIN. 339 second only to /Philadelphia in all North America." "You forget New York," said I. "Poh, New York is nothing. Though I never was there, I am told you might put all New York in our Mill Pond. No, sir, New York I assure you is but a sorry affair, no more to be compared to Boston than a wigwam to a palace." As Rugg's horse turned into Pearl Street, I looked Rugg as fully in the face as good-manners would allow, and said, " Sir, if this is Boston, I acknowledge New York is not worthy to be one of its suburbs." Before we had proceeded far, Rugg's countenance changed, he began to twitter under the ears, his eyes trembled in their sockets, he was evidently be- wildered. "What is the matter, Mr. Rugg? you seem disturbed." " This surpasses all human comprehension. If you know, sir, where we are, I beseech you to tell me." "If this place," I replied, "is not Boston, it must be New York." " No, sir, it is not Boston ; nor can it be New York. How could I be in New York which is nearly two hundred miles from Boston?" By this time we had passed into Broadway, and then Rugg, in truth, discovered a chaotic mind. " There is no such place as this in North America, this is all the effect of enchantment; this is a grand delusion, nothing real ; here is seemingly a great city, magnificent houses, shops and goods, men and women innumerable, and as busy as in real life, all sprung up in one night from the wilderness. Or what is more prob- able, some tremendous convulsion of nature has thrown London or Am- sterdam on the shores of New England. Or possibly I may be dreaming, though the night seems rather long, but before now I have sailed in one night to Amsterdam, bought goods of Yandogger, and returned to Boston before morning." At this moment a hue-and-cry was heard, "Stop the madmen, they will endanger the lives of thousands ! " In vain hundreds attempted to stop Rugg's horse ; Lightfoot interfered with nothing, his course was straight as a shooting star. But on my part, fearful that be- fore night I should find myself behind the Alleghanies, I addressed Mr. Rugg in a tone of entreaty, and requested him to restrain the horse and permit me to alight. " My friend," said he, " we shall be in Boston before dark, and dame Rugg will be most exceeding glad to see us." " Mr. Rugg," said I, "you must excuse me. Pray look to the west, and see that thunder-cloud swelling with rage as if in pursuit of us." "Ah," said Rugg. "it is all in vain to attempt to escape. I know that cloud, it is collecting new wrath to spend on my head." Then checking his horse lie permitted me to descend, saying, "Farewell, Mr. D unwell. I shall be happy to see you in Boston. I live in Middle Street." '- ; v . < . ; ARRIVAL OF MR. PETER RUGG IN BOSTON". It is uncertain in what direction Mr. Rugg pursued his course, after he 390 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- disappeared in Broadway ; but one thing is sufficiently known to every- body, that, in the course of two months after he was seen in New York, he found his way most opportunely to Boston. It seems that the estate of Peter Rugg had recently escheated to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for want of heirs, and the legislature had ordered the Solicitor-General to advertise and sell it at public auction. Happening to be in Boston at the time, and observing his advertisement, I felt a kindly curiosity to see the spot where Rugg once lived. Taking the advertisement in my hand I wandered a little way down Middle Street, and, without asking a question of any one, when I came to a certain spot I said to myself, " This is Rugg's estate, I will proceed no further ; this must be the the spot, it is a counterpart of Peter Rugg.'* The premises, indeed, looked as if they had accomplished a sad prophecy. Fronting on Middle Street, they extended in the rear to Ann Street, and embraced about half an acre of land. It was not uncommon in former times to have half an acre for a hoiise lot ; for an acre of land then, in. many parts of Boston, was not more valuable than a foot in some places at present. The old mansion-house had become powder-post, and been blown away. One other building, uninhabited, stood ominous, courting dilapidation. The street had been so much raised that the bed-chamber had descended to the kitchen and was level with the street. The house seemed conscious of its fate, and as though tired of standing there the front was fast retreating from the rear, and waiting the next south wind to project itself into the street. If the most wary animals had sought a place of refuge, here they would have rendezvoused. Here under the ridge-pole the crow could have perched in security, and in the recesses below you might have caught the fox and weasel asleep. "The hand of destiny," said I, "has pressed heavily on this spot; still heavier on the former owners. Strange that so large a lot of land as this should want an heir! Yet Peter Rugg at this day might pass his own door-stone and ask, ' Who once lived there ? ' ' ; The auctioneer, appointed by the Solicitor to sell this estate, was a man of eloquence, as many of the auctioneers of Boston are. The occasion seemed to warrant, and his duty urged him to make a display. He ad- dressed his audience as follows : " The estate, gentlemen, which we offer you this day, was once the property of a family now extinct. It has escheated to the Commonwealth for want of heirs. Lest any one of you should be deterred from bidding on so large an estate as this, for fear of a disputed title, I am authorized by the Solicitor-General to proclaim that the purchaser shall have the best of all titles, a warranty deed from the Commonwealth. I state this, gentlemen, because I know there is an idle rumor in this vicinity, that one Peter Rugg, the original owner of this estate, is still living. This rumor, gentlemen, has no foundation in -1820] WILLIAM A USTIN. 3 9 i the nature of things. It originated, about two years since, from the in- credible story of one Jonathan Dunwell of New York. Mrs. Croft, indeed, whose husband I see present, and whose mouth waters for this estate, has countenanced this fiction. But, gentlemen, was it ever known that any estate, especially an estate of this value, lay unclaimed for nearly half a century, if any heir ever so remote was existing ? For, gentlemen, all agree that old Peter Rugg, if living, would be at least one hundred years of age. It is said that he and his daughter with a horse and chaise were missed more than half a century ago ; and because they never re- turned home, forsooth, they must be now living, and will, some day, come and claim this great estate. Such logic, gentlemen, never led to a good investment. Let not this idle story cross the noble purpose of consign- ing these ruins to the genius of architecture. If such a contingency could check the spirit of enterprise,. farewell to all mercantile excitement. Your surplus money, instead of refreshing your sleep with the golden dreams of new sources of speculation, would turn to the nightmare. A man's money, if not employed, serves only to disturb his rest. Look, then, to the prospect before you. Here is half an acre of land, more than twenty thousand square feet, a corner lot with wonderful capabili- ties ; none of your contracted lots of forty feet by fifty, where in dog- days you can breathe only through your scuttles. On the contrary, an architect cannot contemplate this extensive lot without rapture, for here is room enough for his genius to shame the temple of Solomon. Then the prospect, how commanding! To the east, so near the Atlantic, that Neptune freighted with the select treasures of the whole earth can knock at your door with his trident. From the west all the produce of the river of Paradise, the Connecticut, will soon, by the blessings of steam railways and canals, pass under your windows ; and thus, on this spot, Neptune shall marry Ceres, and Pomona from Roxbury and Flora from Cambridge shall dance at the wedding. " Gentlemen of science, men of taste, ye of the Literary Emporium, for I perceive many of you present, to you this is holy ground. If the spot over which in times past a hero left only the print of a footstep is now sacred, of what price is the birthplace of one who all the world knows was born in Middle Street, directly opposite this lot ; and who, if his birthplace was not well known, would now be claimed by more than seven cities. To you, then, the value of these premises must be inesti- mable. For, ere long, there will arise, in front view of the edifice to be erected here, a monument, the wonder and veneration of the world. A column shall spring to the clouds, and on that column will be engraven one word that will convey all that is wise in intellect, useful in science, good in morals, prudent in counsel, and benevolent in principle; a name, when living, the patron of the poor, the delight of the cottage, and the 392 WILLIAM AUSTIN. [1788- admiration of kings; now dead, worth the whole seven wise men of Greece. Need I tell you his name ? He fixed the thunder and guided the lightning! " Men of the North End ! Need I appeal to jour patriotism, in order to enhance the value of this lot ? The earth affords no such scenery as this. There, around that corner, lived James Otis ; here, Samuel Adams there, Joseph Warren and around that other corner, Josiah Quincy. Here was the birthplace of Freedom ; here, Liberty was born, nursed, and grew to manhood. Here, man was new-created. Here is the nursery of American Independence I am too modest here commenced the eman- cipation of the world. A thousand generations hence, millions of men will cross the Atlantic just to look at the North End of Boston. Your fathers, what do I say ? yourselves, yes, this moment I behold several attending this auction who lent a hand to rock the cradle of Inde- pendence. "Men of speculation! Ye who are deaf to everything except the sound of money, you, I know, will give me both of your ears when I tell you the city of Boston must have a piece of this estate in order to widen Ann Street. Do you hear me ? do you all hear me ? I say the city must have a large piece of this land in order to widen Ann Street. "What a chance ! The city scorns to take a man's land for nothing. If they seize your property, they are generous beyond the dreams of avarice. The only oppression is, you are in danger of being smothered under a load of wealth. Witness the old lady who lately died of a broken heart, when the Mayor paid her for a piece of her kitchen-garden. All the faculty agreed that the sight of the treasure, which the Mayor incau- tiously paid her in dazzling dollars warm from the mint, sped joyfully all the blood of her body into her heart, and rent it in raptures. There- fore let him who purchases this estate fear his good fortune, and not Peter Kugg. Bid then liberally, and do not let the name of Eugg damp your ardor. How much will you give per foot for this estate ? " Thus spoke the auctioneer, and gracefully waved his ivory hammer. From fifty to seventy-five cents per foot were offered in a few moments. It labored from seventy -five to ninety. At length one dollar was offered. The auctioneer seemed satisfied, and, looking at his watch, said he would knock off the estate in five minutes, if no one offered more. There was a deep silence during this short period. While the hammer was sus- pended, a strange rumbling noise was heard which arrested the attention of every one. Presently it was like the sound of many shipwrights driving home the bolts of a seventy-four. As the sound approached nearer, some exclaimed, "The buildings in the new market are falling." Others said, " No, it is an earthquake, we can perceive the earth joggle." Others said, "Not so, the sound proceeds from Hanover Street, and -1820] WILLIAM A UST1N. 393 approaches nearer." This proved true, for presently Peter Rugg was in the midst of us. "Alas, Jenny," said Peter, "I am ruined; our house has been burnt, and here are all our neighbors around the ruins. Heaven grant that your mother dame Rugg is safe." " They don't look like our neighbors," said Jenny, " but sure enough our house is burnf, and nothing left but the door-stone and an old cedar post do ask where mother is." In the mean time more than a thousand men had surrounded Rugg and his horse and chair; yet neither Rugg personally, nor his horse and carriage, attracted more attention than the auctioneer. The confident look and searching eyes of Rugg, to every one present, carried more con- viction that the estate was his, than could any parchment or paper with signature and seal. The impression which the auctioneer had just made on the company was effaced in a moment : and although the latter words of the auctioneer were, "Fear not Peter Rugg," the moment he met the eye of Rugg his occupation was gone, his arm fell down to his hip, his late lively hammer hung heavy in his hand, and the auction was for- gotten. The black horse, too, gave his evidence. He knew his journey was ended, for he stretched himself into a horse and a half, rested his cheek-bone over the cedar post, and whinnied thrice, causing, his har- ness to tremble from headstall to crupper. Rugg then stood upright in his chair, and asked with some authority, " Who has demolished my house in my absence? for I see no signs of a conflagration. I demand to know by what accident this has happened, and wherefore this collection of strange people has assembled before my doorstep. I thought I knew every man in Boston, but you appear to me a new generation. Yet I am familiar with many of the countenances here present, and I can call some of you by name ; but in truth I do not recollect that, before this moment, I ever saw any one of you. There, I am certain, is a Winslow, and here a Sargent ; there stands a Sewall, and next to him a Dudley. Will none of you speak to me ? Or is this all a delusion ? I see, indeed, many forms of men, and no want of eyes, but of motion, speech and hear- ing you seem to be destitute. Strange ! will no one inform me who has demolished my house? " Then spake a voice from the crowd, but from whom it came I could not discover : " There is nothing strange here but yourself, Mr. Rugg. Time, which destroys and renews all things, has dilapidated your house, and placed us here. You have suffered many years under an illusion. The tempest which you profanely defied at Menotomy has at length subsided ; but you will never see home, for your house and wife and neighbors have all disappeared. Your estate, indeed, remains, but no home. You were cut off from the last age, and you never can be fitted to the present. Your home is gone, and you can never have another home in this world." 394 CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE. [1788- Clement Clati&e BORN in New York, N Y., 1779. DIED at Newport, R. I., 1863. A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. [Poems by Clement C. Moore, LL.D. 1844.] 5rriWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house -*- Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there ; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And Mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap; When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them byname; "Now, Dasher ! now, Dancer ! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch ! to the top of the wall ! Now dash away ! dash away ! dash away all ! " As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of sach little hoof As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; -1820] JOHN FANNING WATSON. 395 He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself ; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread ; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose ; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.'* fanning BORN in Batsto, Burlington Co., N. J., 1779. DIED at Germantown, Penn., 1860. OLD NEW YORK. [Annals and Occurrences of New York City and State. 1846.] Dutch kept five festivals, of peculiar notoriety, in the year: say Kerstydt (Christmas); Nwuw jar (New Year), a great day of cake; Paas (the Passover) ; Pinxter (i. e. Whitsuntide) ; and San Claas (i. e. Saint Nicholas, or Christ-kinkle day). The negroes on Long Island, on some of those days, came in great crowds to Brooklyn and held their field frolics. The observance of New Year's day (Nieuw jar) is an occasion of much good feeling and hospitality, come down to the present generation from their Dutch forefathers. No other city in the Union ever aims at the like general interchange of visits. Cakes, wines, and punch abound in every house ; and from morning till night houses are open to receive the calls of acquaintances, and to pass the mutual salutations of a " Happy New Year," etc. It was the general practice of families in middle-life to spin and make much of their domestic wear at home. Short-gowns and petticoats were the general in-door dresses. Young women who dressed gay to go abroad to visit, or to church, never failed to take off that dress and put on their home-made as soon as they got home; even on Sunday evenings when they expected company, or even their beaux, it was their best recom- mendation to seem thus frugal and ready for any domestic avocation. The boys and young men of a family always changed their dress for a 396 JOHN FANNING WATSON. [1788- common dress in the same way. There was no custom of offering drink to their guests ; when punch was offered, it was in great bowls. Dutch dances were very common ; the supper on such occasions was a pot of chocolate and bread. The Rev. Dr. Laidlie, who arrived in 1764, did much to preach them into disuse ; he was very exact in his piety, and was the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church who was called to preach in the English language. The negroes used to dance in the markets, where they used tomtoms, horns, etc., for music. They used often to sell negro slaves at the coffee-house. All marriages had to be published beforehand, three weeks at the churches, or else, to avoid that, they had to purchase a license of the governor: a seemingly singular surveillance for a great military chief! We may presume he cared little for the fact beyond his fee. At the New Year and Christmas festivals, it was the custom to go out to the ice on Beekman's and such-like swamps to shoot at turkeys ; every one paid a price for his shot, as at a mark, and if he hit it so as to draw blood, it was his for a New Year or Christmas dinner. A fine subject this for Dr. Laidlie's preaching and reformation ! At funerals the Dutch gave hot wine in winter ; and in summer they gave wine-sangaree. I have noticed a singular custom among Dutch families; a father gives a bundle of goose-quills to a son, telling him to give one to each of his male posterity. I saw one in the possession of Mr. James Bogert, which had a scroll appended, saying, " This quill given by Petrus Byvanck to James Bogert, in 1789, was a present, in 1689, from his grandfather from Holland." .... Many aged persons have spoken to me of the former delightful practice of families sitting out on their "stoopes" in the shades of the evening, and there saluting the passing friends, or talking across the narrow streets with neighbors. It was one of the grand links of union in the Knicker- bocker social compact. It endeared and made social neighbors ; made intercourse on easy terms; it was only to say, "Come, sit down." It helped the young to easy introductions, and made courtships of readier attainment. I give some facts to illustrate the above remarks, deduced from the family of B , with which I am personally acquainted. It shows primitive Dutch manners. His grandfather died at the age of sixty three, in 1782, holding the office of alderman eleven years, and once chosen mayor and declined. Such a man, in easy circumstances in life, following the true Dutch ton, had all his family to breakfast, all the year round, at daylight. Before the breakfast he universally smoked his pipe. His family always dined at twelve exactly. At that time the kettle was invariably set on the fire for tea, of Bohea, which was always as punctually furnished at three o'clock. Then the old people went abroad on purpose to visit relatives, changing the families each night in succession, -1820] JOHN FANNING WATSON. 39 f over and over again, all the year round. The regale at every such house was expected, as matter of course, to be chocolate supper and soft waffles. Afterwards, when green tea came in as a new luxury, loaf-sugar also came with it ; this was broken in large lumps and laid severally by each cup, and was nibbled or bitten as needed ! The family before referred to actually continued the practice till as late as seventeen years ago, with a steady determination in the patriarch to resist the modern innovation of dissolved sugar while he lived. .... The cleanliness of Dutch housewifery was always extreme; everything had to submit to scrubbing and scouring; dirt in no form could be en- dured by them ; and dear as water was in the city, where it was generally sold, still it was in perpetual requisition. It was their honest pride to see a well-furnished dresser, showing copper and pewter in shining splendor, as if for ornament rather than for use. In all this they widely differed from the Germans, a people with whom they have been errone- ously and often confounded. Eoost fowls and ducks are not more dif- ferent. As water draws one it repels the other. . V . , About the year 1793-4, there was an extravagant, impolitic affection for France, and hostility to everything British, in our country generally. It required all the prudence of Washington and his cabinet, to stem the torrent of passion which flowed in favor of France, to the prejudice of our neutrality. Now the event is passed, we may thus soberly speak of its character. It may be remembered with what joy the people ran to the wharves at the report of cannon, to see arrivals of the Frenchmen's prizes we were so pleased to see the British union down ! When French mariners or officers were met in the street, they would be saluted by the boys with " Vive la Republique" The streets, too, at night resounded with French national airs, sung by ourselves such as " Allans, enfants de la patrie" " Dansons le Carmagnole" etc. Many, too, put on the national cockade of red, blue, and white. Liberty -poles, surmounted with red liberty-caps, were often set up. We remember the French frigate E Ambuscade, as making her stay in New York harbor, and at night the officers and men in launches would go up and down the harbor, with bands of music, singing the national airs. At the same time, the Boston frigate (British) lay off the Hook, and sent in her challenge for the E Am- buscade to come out and fight her. It was accepted; and many citizens went oat in pilot-boats, and saw the action and drawn battle. i ' It was a time when the people seemed maddened by impulse of feeling such as we hope never to see aroused again for any foreigners. They were fine feelings to insure the success of a war actually begun, but bad affections for any nation whose interests lay in peace and neutrality. Washington bravely submitted to become unpopular, to allay and repress this dangerous foreign attachment. About this time, almost every vessel ggg JOHN FANNING WATSON. [1788- arriving brought fugitives from the infuriated negroes in Cape Francois, Port-au-Prince, etc. ; or from the sharp axe of the guillotine of France, dripping night and day with the blood of Frenchmen, shed in the name of liberty and the sacred rights of man. The city thronged with French people of all shades from the French colonies, and from old France, giving it the appearance of one great hotel or place of refuge for strangers hastily collected from a raging tempest. The characteristic old-school simplicity of the citizens, in manners, habits of dress, and modes of thinking and speaking on the subjects of civil rights and forms of gov- ernment, by the square and rule of reason and argument, began to be broken in upon by the new enthusiasm of la mode Frangaise. French boarding-houses, marked Pension Franqaise, multiplied in every street. The French West Indians, as well as many of ourselves, wore the panta- loons with feet to them, let into the shoes. Their ladies dressed gen- erally en chemise a loose, flowing exterior, which strikingly aided to expose their superior figures and forms. Such chemise dresses our young ladies soon learned to adopt and follow. They made then no mis- takes in imagining the real symmetry of our belles. It was wonderful how little these French people mixed in our society. They formed but few alliances with us; and finally disappeared, like birds of passage, going we knew not where. While they remained, they gave an air of French to everything. They introduced us to the use of their confectioneries and bon-bons jewelry and trinkets dancing and music. In music they excelled. Their boarding-houses daily and nightly resounded with the violin and clarionet, and, from their example, we adopted cotillions, and laid aside all former British modes of dancing. The Frenchmen were great promenaders, being much abroad in the street as walkers, and much in the country as shooters they shot and ate all manner of birds, practically thinking that all depended upon the cook- ing. They were great shots upon the wing indeed, they taught us so to shoot with their double-barrelled guns, expensively finished. These were new to us, and we adopted them. Before then, we were more of fishers than shooters, or sought our bird-game on the water. From them we first began to cultivate the study of French, and the use of the piano many of them serving as our instructors. From them we learned to adopt gold watches and gilded-framed looking-glasses and pictures. They always dressed with great freshness and cleanliness ; but their house- keeping was with proverbial neglect and slovenliness. They had no aim at nice floors, burnished furniture, or cleanly kitchens. They had no love to clean water, but on their persons ; and from that cause they first introduced us to the use and support of public baths. They taught us also to much change our table diet to use soups, salads, sweet-oil, tomatoes, ragouts, fricassees, and perfumes. They had bread bakers for -1820] JOHN FANNING WATSON. 399 "French bread" of their own, leavened in their own peculiar way, and French restaurants to furnish ready-cooked dishes for their dinners. From them we learned the use of mattresses and high bedsteads, the love of musical entertainments and orchestra singing. In a word, they inoc- ulated us with Frenchified tastes and affections ., Formerly there were no side-boards, and when they were first intro- duced after the Revolution they were much smaller and less expensive than now. Formerly they had couches of worsted damask, and only in very affluent families, in lieu of what we now call sofas or lounges. Plain people used settees and settles, the latter had a bed concealed in the seat, and by folding the top of it outwards to the front, it exposed the bed and widened the place for the bed to be spread upon it. This, homely as it might now be regarded, was a common sitting-room ap- pendage, and was a proof of more attention to comfort than display. It had, as well as the settee, a very high back of plain boards, and the whole was of white pine, generally unpainted and whitened well with unsparing scrubbing. Such was in the poet's eyes when pleading for his sofa, "But restless was the seat, the back erect Distressed the weary loins that felt no ease." They were a very common article in very good houses, and were gen- erally the proper property of the oldest members of the family, unless occasionally used to stretch the weary length of tired boys. They were placed before the fireplaces in the winter to keep the back guarded from wind and cold. Formerly there were no Windsor chairs; and fancy chairs are still more modern. Their chairs of the genteelest kind were of mahogany or red walnut (once a great substitute for mahogany in all kinds of furniture, tables, etc.), or else they were of rush-bottoms, and made of maple posts and slats, with high backs and perpendicular. In- stead of Japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea-boards and round tea-tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the centre, stood upright like an expanded fan or palm-leaf, in the corner. An- other corner was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A con- spicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch- bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage, for wine drink- ing was then much less in vogue. China teacups and saucers were about half their present size; and china tea-pots and coffee-pots, with silver nozzles, were a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known, and all who showed a silver surface had the massive metal too. This occurred in the wealthy families in little coffee- and tea- pots; and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy was above vulgar 400 JOHN FANNING WATSON. [1788- entertainment. Where we now use earthen-ware, they then used delft- ware imported from England ; and instead of queen's ware (then unknown) pewter platters and porringers, made to shine along a " dresser," were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchers. Gilded looking-glasses and picture-frames of golden glare were unknown; and both, much smaller than now, were used. Small pictures painted on glass, with black mouldings for frames, with a scanty touch of gold-leaf in the corners, were the adornment of a parlor. The looking-glasses, in two plates if large, had either glass frames fig- ured with flowers engraved thereon, or were of scalloped mahogany or of Dutch wood scalloped painted white or black, with here and there some touches of gold. Every householder in that day deemed it essential to his convenience and comfort to have an ample chest of drawers in his parlor or sitting-room, in which the linen and clothes of the family were always of ready access. It was no sin to rummage them before company. These drawers were sometimes nearly as high as the ceiling. At other times they had a writing-desk about the centre, with a falling-lid to write upon when let down. A great high clock-case, reaching to the ceiling, occupied another corner ; and a fourth corner was appropriated to the chimney -place. They then had no carpets on their floors, and no paper on their walls. The silver-sand on the floor was drawn into a variety of fanciful figures and twirls with the sweeping-brush, and much skill and even pride was displayed therein in the devices and arrangement. They had then no argand or other lamps in parlors, but dip candles, in brass or copper candlesticks, were usually good enough for common use; and those who occasionally used mould candles, made them at home in little tin frames, casting four to six candles in each. A glass lantern with square sides furnished the entry lights in the houses of the affluent. Bedsteads then were made, if fine, of carved mahogany, of slender dimen- sions ; but for common purposes, or for the families of good tradesmen, they were of poplar, and always painted green. It was a matter of uni- versal concern to have them low enough to answer the purpose of repose for sick or dying persons a provision so necessary for such possible events, now so little regarded by the modern practice of ascending to a bed by steps, like clambering up to a hay-mow. A lady, giving me the reminiscences of her early life, thus speaks of things as they were before the war of Independence : Marble mantels and folding-doors were not then known ; and well enough we enjoyed ourselves without sofas, carpets, or girandoles. A white floor sprinkled with clean white sand, large tables and heavy high-back chairs of walnut or mahogany, decorated a parlor genteelly enough for anybody. Some- times a carpet, not, however, covering the whole floor, was seen upon the dining-room. This was a show-parlor up stairs, not used but upon gala -1820] JOHN FANNING WATSON. 401 occasions, and then not to dine in. Pewter plates and dishes were in general use. China on dinner- tables was a great rarity. Plate, more or less, was seen in most families of easy circumstances, not indeed in all the various shapes that have since been invented, but in massive silver waiters, bowls, tankards, cans, etc. Grlass tumblers were scarcely seen. Punch, the most common beverage, was drunk by the company, from one large bowl of silver or china; and beer from a tankard of silver. The use of stoves was not known in primitive times, neither in families nor in churches. Their fireplaces were as large again as the present, with much plainer mantel-pieces. In lieu of marble plates round the sides and top of the fireplaces, it was adorned with china Dutch -tile, pictured with sundry scripture pieces. Dr. Franklin first invented the " open stove," called also " the Franklin stove," after which, as fuel became scarce, the better economy of the " ten-plate stove " was adopted. The most splendid looking carriage ever exhibited among us was that used as befitting the character of that chief of men, General Washington, while acting as President of the United States. It was very large, so as to make four horses, at least, an almost necessary appendage. It was occasionally drawn by six horses, Virginia bays. It was cream-colored, globular in its shape, ornamented with cupids supporting festoons, and wreaths of flowers, emblematically arranged along the panel-work ; the whole neatly covered with best coach -glass. It was of English con- struction. . - . ' . < . Mr. A. B., aged seventy-five, told me that he never saw any carpets on floors, before the Revolution ; when first introduced they only covered the floors outside of the chairs around the room ; he knew of persons afraid to step on them when they first saw them on floors ; some dignified families always had some carpets, but then they got them through mer- chants as a special importation for themselves. Floors silver-sanded in figures, etc., were the universal practice. The walls of houses were not papered, but universally whitewashed. Mahogany was but very seldom used, and, when seen, was mostly in a desk or "tea-table." The general furniture was made of "billstead," another name for maple. The first stoves he remembered came into use in his time, and were all open inside in one oblong square ; having no baking-oven thereto, as was afterwards invented in the " ten-plate stoves." He thinks coaches were very rare ; can't think there were more than four or five of them ; men were deemed rich to have kept even a chaise. The governor had one coach ; Walton had another ; Golden, the lieutenant- governor, had a coach, which was burnt before his window by the mob ; Mrs. Alexander had a coach, and Robert Murray, a Friend, had another, which he called his " leathern conveniency," to avoid the scandal of pride and vainglory. VOL. iv. 26 402 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. [1788- Eembraniit $eale, BORN in Bucks Co., Perm., 1778. DIED in Philadelphia, Penn., 1860. MUSIC. [Portfolio of an Artist. 1839.] MUSIC, in her sovereign power, Measured by a master hand, Fills with jay the lover's bower, Animates the patriot band Music, voice of nature ! still Lead me captive to thy will. Inspiration of the soul ! Spirit of the painter's art! Eloquence whose strains control Boundless mind or bursting heart, Music, voice of nature ! still Lead me captive to thy will. BORN in Pleasant Valley, Dutchess Co., N. Y., 1779. DIED at Hyde Park, Dutchess Co. N. Y.,1860. A POINT OF ETIQUETTE. [KoningsmarTce. 1823.] THE Heer, at this time, was sorely environed with certain weighty cares of state, that perplexed him exceedingly, and added not a little to the irritability of his temper. He was engaged, tooth and nail, in a controversy about boundaries, with his neighbor William Penn, who, it is well known, was a most redoubtable adversary in matters of paper war. Two brooks, about half a mile apart from each other, and having nothing to distinguish them, caused great disputes, with respect to the boundary line between the territories of Coaquanock and Elsing- burgh. Trespasses, on either side, occasioned mutual complaints, and though the Heer Piper fell into a passion and swore, the other kept his temper and the possession of the territory in dispute besides. In order to settle this affair, it was proposed to send an envoy to Elsingburgh, on -1820] JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. 403 the part of those of Coaquanock, and accordingly he made his appear- ance, about this time, al this renowned capital. Shadrach Moneypenny, as he was called, for excellencies and honor- ables did not fly about like hailstones at that time, as now, was a tall, upright, skin-and-bone figure, clothed from head to foot in a suit of drab- colored broadcloth ; a large hat, the brim of which was turned up be- hind, and without any appendage that approached to finery, except a very small pair of silver buckles to his high -quartered shoes. Yet, with all this plainness, there was a certain sly air of extreme care in the ad- justment of his garments, in accordance with the most prim simplicity, that shrewdly indicated friend Shadrach thought quite as much of his appearance as others, who dressed more gaudily to the eye. - . When Shadracb Moneypenny appeared before the council of New Swedeland, the first offence he gave was omitting either to make a bow, or pull off his hat, to the great annoyance of Governor Piper ; who was as great a stickler for ceremony as the Emperor of China, or the secre- tary of state, in a republic, where all are equal. The Heer fidgeted, first one way, then another, made divers wry faces, and had not Shadrach been a privileged person, on the score of his plenipotential functions, would have committed him to the custody of Lob Dotterel, to be dealt with contrary to law. In the mean time, Shadrach stood bolt-upright, with his hands crossed before him, his nose elevated towards the ceiling, and his eyes shut. At length he snuffled out " Friend Piper, the spirit moveth me to say unto thee, I am come from Coaquanock to commune on the subject of the dis- putes among our people and thine, about certain boundaries between our patent and the pretended rights of thy master." "Friend Piper pretended rights," repeated the Heer, muttering in- dignantly to himself. " But hark ye, Mr. Shadrach Mesheck and the d 1, before we proceed to business, you must be pleased to under- stand that no man comes into the presence of the representative of the great Gustavus, the bulwark of the Protestant religion, without pulling off his hat." "Friend Piper," replied Shadrach, standing in precisely the position we have described "Friend Piper, swear not at all. Yerily I do not pull off my hat to any one, much less to the representative of the rnan that calleth himself the great Gustavus, whom I conceive a wicked man of blood, one who propagateth religion with the sword of man instead of the word of Jehovah." " Verfiucht und verdamt!" exclaimed the Heer in mortal dudgeon: "the great Gustavus, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, a man of blood! Der teufel hole dich ! I swear, you shall put off your hat, or depart, without holding conference with us, with a flea in thine ear." 404 JAMES KIRKE PAULDINQ. [1788- " Swear not at all," replied Shadrach, "friend Piper. Again I say to thee, I will not pull off my hat ; and, if necessary, I will depart with a flea in mine ear, as thou art pleased to express thyself, rather than give up the tenets of our faith." " Du galgen schivenkel" quoth the Heer; "does thy religion lay in thy hat, that thou refusest to put it off? But whether it does or not, I swear " Swear not at all," cried the self -poised Shadrach. " 'Sblood ! but I will swear, and so shall Ludwig Yarlett," cried the Heer ; whereupon Ludwig hoisted the gates of his eloquence, and poured forth such a torrent of expletives, that, had not Shadrach been immova- ble as his hat, he had been utterly demolished. That invincible civil warrior, however, neither opened his eyes, nor altered his position, during all the hot fire of Counsellor Yarlett, but remained motionless, except the twirling of his thumbs. " Friend Piper, is it thy pleasure to hear what I have got to say ? The spirit moveth me " "The spirit may move thee to the d 1," cried Peter, "or the flesh shall do it, if you don't pull off your hat, du ans dem land gejacter Jcerl." "Verily, I understand not thy jargon, friend Peter," rejoined Shad- rach ; " neither will I go to him thou speakest of, at thine or any other man's bidding. Wilt thou hear the proposals of friend William Penn, or wilt thou not ? " " No, may I eat of the teufeTs braden if I hear another word from that ugly mouth of thine, till you pull off your hat," exclaimed the choleric Heer, starting from his seat. "Thou mayest eat what thou pleasest, friend Piper," rejoined the other; "and for my ugly mouth, since it offends thee, I will depart to whence I came." So saying, he leisurely turned himself round, and was proceeding on his way, when the Heer Piper, to whose choler the dry eloquence of Shadrach added fresh fuel, cried out, "Stop ! " in a voice of thunder. The machinery of Shadrach, which had been put in motion for his de- parture, stopped, accordingly, and he remained, standing in most rigid perpendicularity, with his back to the Heer, and his head turned over his shoulder, so as to meet his eye. "I am stopped, friend Piper," quoth he. The Heer Piper hereupon directed Lob Dotterel, who was in attendance, as part of the puissance of the Governor of Elsingburgh, forthwith to procure him a hammer and a tenpenny nail, an order which that excellent and attentive officer obeyed with his usual alacrity. " Art thou going to build thee an house, friend Piper, that thou callest for nails and hammers ? " asked Shadrach. -1820] JAMES KIRKE PA ULDING. 405 " You shall see presently," answered the Heer. " Since your religion consists in wearing your hat, I shall take care you stick fast to the faith, by nailing it to your head, with this tenpenny naiL" " Thou mayest do as thou pleasest, friend Piper," replied Shadrach, unmoved by the threat. " We have endured worse than this, in the old world, and are ready for sufferance in the new. Even now, in yon east- ern settlements, our brethren are expelled from the poor refuges they have sought, and chased, like beasts, from the haunts of the new-settled places, as if their blood was the blood of wolves, their hands the claws of tigers, and their feet the feet of the murderer. Our faith grew up in stripes, imprisonment, and sufferings, and behold, I am ready ; smite I am ready. The savage, who hath no God, endures the tortures of fire without shrinking, and shall not I dare to suffer, whom he sustains? Smite I am ready." The Heer was now in the predicament of certain passionate people, who threaten what, when it comes to the point, they shrink from inflict- ing. Besides that the law of nations made the persons of envoys sacred, he could not bring himself to commit violence upon one whose principles of non-resistance were so inflexible. By way of coming off, therefore, with a good grace, he and Ludwig Yarlett fell into a great passion, and saluted Shadrach Moneypenny with a duet of expletives, which that worthy plenipotentiary bore, for some time, with his usual stoical indif- ference. "Art thou ready, friend Piper?" exclaimed he, taking advantage of the two singers being out of breath. "Begone, and der teufel hole dich, and das tonner wetter schlage dich kreutzeveis in den boden" cried the Heer. "I go, verily;" and the good Shadrach marched leisurely out of the council-chamber, with his hands crossed over his breast, his eyes turned upwards, neither looking to the right nor to the left. Coming to the place where he had left his horse, he untied him from the branch of an apple-tree, mounted by the aid of a friendly rock, and seated him- self in the saddle, whereupon he smote him in the side with his un- armed heel, and the horse, taking the hint, trotted off for the territory of Coaquanock. Thus was the negotiation between the powers of Elsingburgh and Coaquanock wrecked on a point of etiquette, like that between Eng- land and China, which happened in later times. The obstinacy of Shadrach, in not pulling off his hat to the Heer, and that of my Lord Amherst, in refusing to prostrate himself ever so many times before the elder brother of the moon, were both, in all probability, followed by con- sequences that affected millions of human beings, or will affect them at some future period. This proves the vast importance of etiquette, and 406 JAMES RIRKE PAULDING. [1788- we liope our worthy statesmen at the capital will persevere in their praise- worthy attempts to make certain people, who don't know the importance of these matters, sensible of the absolute necessity of precedence being rigidly observed, in going into dining-rooms, and sitting down to dinner. A STRANGE BIRD IN NIEUW-AMSTERDAM. [The Book of St. Nicholas. 1827.] ~TN the year of the building of the city (which in Latin is called Anno -*- Urba Conditur) fifty-five, to wit, the year of our Lord 1678, there ap- peared a phenomenon in the street of Nieuw- Amsterdam called Garden Street. This was a youthful stranger, dressed in the outlandish garb of the English beyond the Yarsche river, towards the east, where those interlopers have grievously trespassed on the territories of their high mightinesses, the states-general. Now, be it known that this was the first stranger from foreign parts that ever showed himself in the streets of Nieuw- Amsterdam, which had never been before invaded in like man- ner. Whereat the good people were strangely perplexed and confounded, seeing they could by no means divine his business. The good yffrouws did gaze at him as he passed along by their stoops, and the idle boys fol lowed him wheresoever he went, shouting and hallooing, to the great disturbance of the peaceable and orderly citizens, of whom it was once said that the barking of a cur disturbed the whole city. But the stranger took not the least heed of the boys or their halloo- ings, but passed straight onward, looking neither to the right nor the left, which circumstance seemed exceedingly perplexing to the good yffrouws, seeing it savored of having no curiosity to see or be seen, which to them appeared altogether out of nature. The stranger pro- ceeded in a sort of rigmarole way, seeming little to care whither he went, all along by the Stadt Huys, the East and West Docks, the Bendeel or Battery, the Eondeels, and I can't tell where else. All the while he seemed to take no notice of anything, which everybody thought strange, since he appeared as if he had no other business than to see the city. In the course of his marvellous peregrinations, he at length came to- the great building, which, being the only house of public resort, was called, by way of eminence, the City Tavern. Here he stopped all of a sudden, so abruptly, that little Brom, son of Alderman Botherwick, who- was close at his heels, did run right upon his hinder parts, and almost knocked him down, before he could stop himself. Whereupon the stranger turned round and gave him a look, whether of menace or good- -1820] JAMES KIRKE PAULDINO. will was long after disputed by divers people tliat saw him. Be this as it may, the stranger, on seeing the tavern, nodded his head, and went straight up the steps into the bar-room, where he courteously saluted the landlord, good Mynheer Swighauser, by pulling off his hat, saying, at the same time, nothing; which mynheer thought rather mighty par- ticular. He asked the interloping stranger what he would please to have ; for he was a polite man enough, except to losel beggars and that sort of vermin. The stranger hereupon said nothing, but addressed Mynheer Swighauser in a figurative style, which all landlords comprehend. He pulled out a purse, and showed him the money, at the sight of which mynheer made him a reverend bow, and ushered him into the Half Moon, so called from being ornamented with a gallant picture of the vessel of that name, in which good Master Hendrick Hudson did first adventure to the discovery of the Manhadoes. It was the best room in the house, and always reserved by Mynheer Swighauser for guests that carried full purses. Having so done, mynheer courteously asked the stranger what he would please to have for dinner, it being now past eleven o'clock, and the dinner-hour nigh. Whereat the stranger looked hard at him, and said not a word. Mynheer thereupon raised his voice so loud, that he frightened divers tame pigeons, sitting on their coop in the yard, who rose into the air out of sight, and, it is affirmed, never returned again. The stranger answered not a word, as before. " Wat donder is dat?" exclaimed myn- heer ; " a man with such a full purse might venture to call for his dinner, I think." However, when Mynheer Swighauser and his family sat down to their dinner at twelve o'clock, the stranger, without any ceremony, sat down with them, taking the chair from time immemorial appropriated to myn- heer's youngest child, who was thereat so mortally offended, that she set up a great cry, and refused to eat any dinner. Yffrouw Swighauser looked hard and angry at the stranger, who continued to eat as if it were his last, saying nothing all the while, and paying no more heed to the little child than he did to the hallooings of the boys or mynheer's courteous interrogatories. When he had finished, he took up his hat, and went forth on a pere- grination, from which he did not return until it was nigh dusk. Mynheer was in tribulation lest he should lose the price of his dinner, but the yffrouw said she did not care if she never saw such a dumb noddy again. The stranger ate a huge supper in silence, smoked his pipe, and went to bed at eight o'clock, at which hour mynheer always shut up the front of his house, leaving the back door open to the roistering younkers, who came there to carouse every night and play at all-fours. Soon after the stranger retired, there was heard a great noise in his room, which so ex- 408 JAMES KIRKE PAULDINO. [1788- cited the curiosity of Yffrouw Swighauser that she took a landlady's liberty and went and listened at the door. It proved only the stranger playing a concert with Morpheus, on the nasal trumpet, whereupon the yffrouw went away, exclaiming, " The splutterkin ! He makes noise enough in his sleep, if he can't when he is awake." That night the good city of Nieuw- Amsterdam was impestered with divers strange noises, grievous mishaps, and unaccountable appearances. The noises were such as those who heard them could not describe, and, for that reason, I hope the courteous reader will excuse me if I say nothing more about them ; the mishaps were of certain mysterious broken heads, black eyes, and sore bruises received, as was affirmed, from unknown assailants ; and the mysterious appearances consisted in lights moving about, at midnight, in the Ladies' Valley, since called Maiden Lane, which might have passed for lightning-bugs, only people that saw them said they were as big as jack-a-lanterns. Besides these, there were seen divers stars shooting about in the sky, and an old yffrouw, being called out after midnight on a special occasion, did certify that she saw two stars fighting with each other, and making the sparks fly at every blow. Other strange things happened on that memorable night, which alarmed the good citizens and excited the vigilance of the magistrates. The next night, matters were still worse. The lights in the Ladies' Valley were larger and more numerous ; the noises waxed more alarming and unaccountable ; and the stranger, while he continued to act and say nothing all day, snored louder than ever. At length Yffrouw Swighauser, being thereunto, as I suspect, instigated by a stomachful feeling, on account of the stranger's having got possession of her favorite's seat, and set her a-crying, did prevail by divers means, of which, thank Heaven, I have little experience, being a bachelor, to have her husband go and make a complaint against the stranger, as having some diabolical agency in these matters. " Wat donner meen je, wife?" quoth mynheer; "what have I to say against the man? He is a very civil, good sort of a body, and never makes any disturbance except in his sleep." " Ay, there it is," replied yffrouw. " I never heard such a snore in all my life. Why, it's no more like yours than the grunt of a pig is to the roar of a lion. It's unnatural." Mynheer did not like this comparison, and answered and said, " By St. Johannes de Dooper ! whoever says I snore like a pig is no better than a goose." The yffrouw had a point to gain, or Mynheer Swighauser would have repented this rejoinder. " My duck-a-deary," said she, "who- ever says you don't snore like a fiddle has no more ear for music than a mole I mean a squeaking fiddle," quoth she, aside. Without further prosecuting this dialogue, let it suffice to say that the -1820] JA MES KIRKE PA ULDING. 499 yffrouw at length wrought upon mynheer to present the stranger unto Alderman Schlepevalcker as a mysterious person, who came from no- body knew where, for nobody knew what ; and, for aught he knew to the contrary, was at the bottom of all the disturbances that had beset the good people of Nieuw- Amsterdam for the last two nights. Accord- ingly, the honest man went on his way to the Stadt Huys, where the excellent magistrate was taking his turn in presiding over the peace of the city of Nieuw- Amsterdam, and told all he knew, together with much more besides. During this communication, the worthy alderman exclaimed, from time to time, "Indeedad / " " Onbegrypelyk ! " " Goeden Hemel ! " " Is het mogelyk!" " Vuur envlammenf" and finally dismissed Mynheer Swig- hauser, desiring him to watch the stranger, and come next day with the result of his observations. After which he went home to consult his pillow, which he considered worth all the law books in the world. The honest publican returned to the City Tavern, where he found supper all ready; and the stranger, sitting down as usual in the old place, ate a hearty meal without uttering one word. The yffrouw was out of all patience with him, seeing she never before had a guest in the house four-and-twenty hours without knowing all about him. The upshot of the interview with the worthy magistrate being disclosed to the yffrouw, it was agreed in secret to set old Quashee, the black hostler, to watch the stranger ; though the yffrouw told her husband he might as well set a wooden image to do it, for Quashee was the most notorious sleepy-head in all Nieuw- Amsterdam, not excepting himself. . "Well, well," quoth mynheer, "men weet niet hoe een koe een haas vangan lean ; " which means, " There is no saying that a cow won't catch a hare," and so the matter was settled. When the stranger retired to his room after supper, the old negro was accordingly stationed outside the door, with strict injunctions to keep himself awake, on pain of losing his New Year present, and being shut up in a stable all New Year's day. But it is recorded of Quashee that the flesh was too strong for the spirit, though he had a noggin of genuine Holland to comfort him, and that he fell into a profound nap, which lasted till after sunrise next day, when he was found sitting bolt-upright on a three-legged stool, with his little black stump of a pipe declining from the dexter corner of his mouth. Mynheer was exceeding wroth, and did accommodate old Quashee with such a hearty cuff on the side of his head that he fell from the stool, and did incontinently roll down the stairs and so into the kitchen, where he was arrested by the great Dutch andirons. "Een vervlockte jonge" exclaimed Mynheer Swighauser, "men iveet niet, hoe een dubbeltje rollen Jean " in English, " There is no saying which way a sixpence will roll." 4 1 JAMES KIRKE PA ULDING [1788- At breakfast, the stranger was for the first time missing from his meals, and this excited no small wonder in the family, which was mar- vellously aggravated, when, after knocking some time and receiving no answer, the door was opened, and the stranger found wanting. "Is het mogelyk!" exclaimed the yffrouw, and " Wat blixenf" cried mynheer. But their exclamations were speedily arrested by the arrival of the reverend schout, Master Roelif, as he was commonly called, who summoned them both forthwith to the Stadt Huys, at the command of his worship Alderman Schlepevalker. " Ben je bedonnered? r cried myn- heer; "what can his worship want of my wife now?" "Never mind,'* replied the good yffrouw, " het is goed visschen in troebel water" and so they followed Master Roelif to the Stadt Huys, according to the behest of Alderman Schlepevalker, as aforesaid. When they arrived there, whom should they see, in the middle of a great crowd in the hall of justice, but that " vervlocte hond" the stranger, as the yffrouw was wont to call him, when he would not answer her questions. The stranger was standing with his hands tied behind him, and ap- parently unconscious or indifferent to what was going forward around him. It appears he had been detected very early in the morning in a remote part of the King's Farm, as it was afterwards called, but which was then a great forest full of rabbits and other game, standing over the dead body of a man, whose name and person were equally unknown, no one recollecting ever to have seen him before. On being interrogated on the subject, he had not only declined answering, but affected to take not the least heed of what they said to him. Under these suspicious cir- cumstances he was brought before the magistrate, charged with the murder of the unknown person, whose body was also produced in proof of the fact. No marks of violence were found on the body, but all agreed that the man was dead, and that there must have been some cause for his death. The vulgar are ever prone to suspicions, and, albeit, are so fond of seeing a man hanged that they care little to inquire whether he is guilty or not. The worthy alderman, after ordering Master Roelif to call the people to order, proceeded to interrogate the prisoner as followeth: "What is thy name? " The stranger took not the least notice of him. "What is thy name, ben je bedonneredf " repeated the worthy magistrate, in a loud voice, and somewhat of a violent gesture of impatience. The stranger looked him in the face and nodded his head. " Wat donner is datf" cried the magistrate. The stranger nodded as before. " Wat donner meen je?" Another nod. The worthy magistrate began,*as it were, to wax wroth, and demanded of the prisoner whence he came ; but he had relapsed into his usual indifference, and paid not the least attention, as before. Where- upon the angry alderman committed him for trial, on the day but one -1820J JA MES KIUKE PA ULDING. \\ following, as the witnesses were all on the spot, and the prisoner contu- macious. In the interim, the body of the dead man had been examined by the only two doctors of Nieuw- Amsterdam, Mynheer Van Dosum and Mynheer Vandercureum, who, being rival practitioners, of course dif- fered entirely on the matter. Mynheer Yan Dosum decided that the unknown died by the hand of man, and Mynheer Yandercureum, by the hand of his Maker. When the cause came to be tried, the stranger, as before, replied to all questions, either by taking not the least notice, or nodding his head. The worthy magistrate hereupon was sorely puzzled, whether this ought to be construed into pleading guilty or not pleading at all. In the former case his course was quite clear; in the latter, he did not exactly know which way to steer his doubts. But fortunately having no lawyers to confound him, he finally decided, after consulting the ceiling of the court-room, that, as it was so easy for a man to say not guilty, the omission or refusal to say it was tantamount to a confession of guilt. Accordingly he condemned the prisoner to be hanged, in spite of the declaration of Doctor Yandercureum that the murdered man died of apoplexy. The prisoner received the sentence, and was conducted to prison with- out saying a word in his defence, and without discovering the least emotion on the occasion. He merely looked wistfully, first on the worthy magistrate, then on his bonds, and then at Master Roelif, who, according to the custom of such losel varlets in office, rudely pushed him out of the court and dragged him to prison. On the fourteenth day after his condemnation, it being considered that sufficient time had been allowed him to repent of his sins, the poor stranger was brought forth to execution. He was accompanied by the good dominie, who had prepared his last dying speech and confession, and certified that he died a repentant sinner. His face was pale and sad, and his whole appearance bespoke weakness and suffering. He still persisted in his obstinate silence, and seemed unconscious of what was going forward ; whether from indifference or despair, it was impossible to decide. When placed on a coffin in the cart, and driven under the gallows, he seemed for a moment to be aware of his situation, and the bitter tears coursed one by one down his pallid cheeks. But he remained silent as before ; and when the rope was tied round his neck, only looked wistfully with a sort of innocent wonder in the face of the executioner. All being now ready, and the gaping crowd on the tiptoe of expecta- tion, the dominie sang a devout hymn, and, shaking hands for the last time with the poor stranger, descended from the cart. The bell tolled the signal for launching him into the illimitable ocean of eternity, when, all at once, its dismal moanings were, as it were, hushed into silence by 412 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. [1788- the piercing shrieks of a female which, seemed approaching from a distance. Anon a voice was heard crying out, " Stop, stop, for the love of Heaven stop ; he is innocent ! " The crowd opened, and a woman of good appearance, seemingly about forty-five years old, rushed forward, and throwing herself at the feet of the worthy alderman, whose duty it was to preside at the execution and maintain due order among the crowd, cried out aloud, " Spare him, he is my son he is innocent!" " Ben je bedonnered f " cried the magistrate, " he is een verdoemde schurlc, and has confessed his crime by not denying it." "He cannot confess or deny it lie was born deaf and dumb!" " Goeden HemeU" exclaimed Alderman Schlepevalcker ; "that accounts for his not pleading guilty or not guilty. But art thou sure of it, good woman? " "Sure of it ! Did not I give him birth, and did I not watch like one hanging over the death-bed of an only child, year after year, to catch some token that he could hear what I said ? Did I not try and try, day after day, month after month, year after year, to teach him only to name the name of mother? and when at last I lost all hope that I should ever hear the sound of his voice, did I not still bless Heaven that I was not childless, though my son could not call me mother?" "Het is jammer!" exclaimed the worthy magistrate, wiping his eyes. "But still a dumb man may kill another, for all this. What have you to say against that ? " At this moment the poor speechless youth recognized his mother, and uttering a strange inarticulate scream, burst away from the executioner, leaped from the cart, and throwing himself on her bosom, sobbed as if his heart was breaking. The mother pressed him to her heart in silent agony, and the absence of words only added to the deep pathos of the meeting. Alderman Schlepevalcker was sorely puzzled as well as affected on this occasion, and after wiping his eyes, addressed the weeping mother. "How came thy son hither?" "He is accustomed to ramble about the country, sometimes all day, alone ; and one day having strayed farther than usual, lost his way, and being unable to ask any information, wan- dered we knew not whither, until a neighbor told us a rumor of a poor youth, who was about to be executed at Nieuw- Amsterdam for refusing to answer questions. I thought it might be my son, and came in time, I hope, to save him." "Why did not thy husband come with thee? " "He is dead." " And thy father ?" "He died when I was a child." "And thy other relatives?" "I have none but him," pointing to the dumb youth. "Het is jammer! but how will he get rid of the charge of this foul mur- der?" "I will question him," said the mother, who now made various signs, which were replied to by the youth in the same way. "What does he say?" asked the worthy magistrate. "He says that he went -1820] JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. 413 forth, early in the morning of the day he was found standing over the dead body, as soon as the gate was opened to admit the country people, where he saw the dead man lying under a tree, and was seized while thus occupied. He knows nothing more." " Oribegrypelik ! how can you understand all this?" "Oh, sir, I have been used to study every look and action of his life since he was a child, and can comprehend his inmost thoughts." " Ooeden Hemel! is all this true? but he must go back to prison, while I wait on the governor to solicit his pardon. Wilt thou accompany him?" "Oh yes but no. I will go with thee to the governor. He will not deny the petition of a mother for the life of her only child." Accordingly the magistrate called on Doctor Yander Cureum on his way, proceeded to the governor's house, accompanied by the mother of the youth, who repeated what he had told her by signs. The doctor also again certified, in the most positive manner, that the supposed murdered man had died of apoplexy, brought on, as he supposed, by excessive drinking ; and the good governor, moved by the benevolence of his heart, did thereupon grant the poor youth an unconditional pardon. He was rewarded by the tears, the thanks, and the blessings of the now happy mother. " Where dost thou abide? " asked the governor. " If it is at a distance, I will send some one to protect thee." "My home is beyond the fresh water river." " Wat Uikslager ! Thou belongest to the Splutterkins, who but no matter, thou shalt have protection in thy journey home." The governor being somewhat of a conscientious man, instead of swearing by the lightning, did piously asseverate by the tinman. The young man was forthwith released, to the unutterable joy of the mother, and the infinite content of the Yffrouw Swighauser, who, now that she knew the cause of his silence, forgave him with all her heart. The next day the mother and son departed towards home, accompanied by an escort provided by the good governor, the commander of which carried a stout defiance to the Yankees ; and the last words of that up- right and excellent magistrate, Alderman Schlepevalcker, as he looked kindly at the youth, were, " Het is jammer it is a pity." CATALINA'S ESCAPE. [The Dutchman's Fireside. 1831.] HHHE next day Catalina, unconscious of the danger that hovered around -- her, took a fancy to stroll to the little rocky dell we have hereto- 414 JAMES KIEKE PA ULDING. [1788- fore described as a favorite resort of Sybrandt, where he was once accus- tomed to retire to conjure up spectres of misery and mortification. In happier times they had been used to visit it together, and it was associated in the mind of Catalina with many hours of innocent happi- ness. She wished to see it once more before she left the country ; led by that attractive sympathy which forever draws the heart towards scenes of past enjoyment. The morning was one of the favorite progeny of autumn. The indications of the storm the night before had passed away, and were succeeded by a still, clear, hazy sky, a pure elastic air, that never fails to waken pleasant feelings in the heart where they are not asleep forever. As she passed onward the blue-bird chirped his plaintive notes of farewell ere he went to seek the summer in some more genial climate ; the grasshoppers, awakened from the torpor of the chilly night, were sporting and chirping as gay as ever, forgetful of the past, and happily careless of the future ; the grass under her feet began to show a pale and sickly yellowness, and every instant some portion of the party-colored robes of the woods fell whispering to the ground, again to mingle with the dust which first gave it life and maturity. All was calm, and beauti- ful, and touching. It was beauty smiling in the consciousness of being still lovely, yet sighing in the certainty that youth is past ; that she has already gained the summit hill of life, is now descending into the vale, and though the prospect is still fair to look upon, it is every day con- tracting into a single point, beyond which there is nothing but eternity. The white columns of smoke ascended straight upwards, uncurled by a breath of wind, and presenting to the contemplative mind images of rural happiness here, of pure and spiritual bliss hereafter. But the feelings of Catalina were not in a state to enjoy the touching beauties of the scene, or the associations it naturally inspired. She passed onwards in painful musings until she came to the little quiet solitude, and, seating herself, soon became buried in the labyrinth of her own perplexities and sorrows. The residence of Mr. Dennis Vancour was on a little rising ground, which overlooked the extensive meadows spreading along the river, and commanded from its porch a view of the mansion-house. Sybrandt saw Catalina depart ; and the course she pursued, as well as the whispering consciousness of his own heart, told him whither she was going. He turned pale and trembled when he called to mind the circumstances of the preceding night ; and taking an opposite direction, he hastened to the little glen, determined to hide himself and watch over her safety. He arrived at the spot before her, and concealing himself in the hollow of an immense oak that nodded on the brink of the high precipice, waited what might follow. In a few moments Catalina made her appearance, and seated herself, as we have before described, in a recess among the rocks -1820] JAMES KIRKE PATTLDING. 415 and trees, just where the bubbling basin at the foot of the cascade laved at her feet against the mossy stones. There was something touching and sorrowful in her attitude and look as she leaned on her hand, and watched the foaming torrent tumbling down the precipice. Now is the time to tell her all, thought Sybrandt, and he forgot his great purpose in coming thither for a moment. Another moment brought it back to his remembrance. Here he remained quiet for somewhat more than half an hour, when he fancied he saw a pair of eyes glaring behind the thick evergreens that skirted the rear of the high rocky precipice. He shrunk closer in his covert, and in another moment saw a head cautiously pro- truded beyond the bushes. It was that of Captain Pipe. He saw him look cautiously round in every direction ; he saw him lay himself down and crawl on his belly, dragging his gun after him towards the edge of the precipice, that he might gain a full view of his victim below, and he followed him noiselessly, creeping like a shadow rather than a sub- stance. At length the Indian raised himself on his knees, cocked his unerring musket, and carried it to his cheek. In an instant it was snatched from his grasp, and in another instant the Indian had grappled it again. It went off in the struggle and Catalina looking up, saw a sight that recalled all her tenderness and all her fears. Almost on the verge of the precipice stood Sybrandt and the active, powerful Indian, struggling for life, each almost bursting their sinews to force the other off the brink. Now one, now the other seemed to have the advantage ; now the back of one and anon of the other was towards her ; and then both seemed to be quivering on the verge of eternity. In vain she attempted to cry out her voice was lost in the agony of her fears ; in vain she attempted to climb the steep her limbs refused their office. Still the deadly struggle continued, and she saw their quick pantings from the depth below. The gun had been thrown away in the contest, and now they wrestled limb to limb, heart to heart. More than once the Indian attempted to draw his knife, but Sybrandt gave him such full employment for both his hands, that he as often failed in his purpose. But the vigor of the youth was now waning fast, for he had of late become weakened by watching and anxiety. The Indian felt the trembling of his limbs, and heard with savage delight the increased quickness of his breathing. He redoubled his exertions ; he grasped him tight in his arms, lifted him off his feet, and hurried him towards the verge of the rock. Sybrandt made a desperate effort ; he placed one foot on the rock, and with a quick motion of the other tripped up the heels of the Indian. Both fell, with their heads from the precipice, and their feet actually projecting over its edge. Sybrandt was uppermost, but this was rather a disadvantage, for the Indian was enabled by violent exertions to edge himself on by degrees, until both were poised on the 416 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. [1783- extremest verge, and hovered on the very brink, being determined to perish with him rather than fail in his purpose. Another moment and all had been over, when fortunately Sybrandt perceived a little ever- green growing out of the rock within his reach. He seized hold of it, and it sustained his grasp. With one hand he held it fast, with the other he suddenly pushed the Indian from under him, and he slipped over the precipice, still grasping the legs of the young man, who now clung to the shrub with both hands, making efforts to shake the Indian from his hold. But for some moments his exertions were vain, and only served to exhaust his remaining strength. Feeling himself gradually relaxing his hold, and every instant growing fainter and fainter, he gathered himself to a last effort. He extricated one of his legs from the grasp of the Indian, and dashed his foot in his face with such convulsive violence, that he loosed his hold, and fell among the pointed rocks which projected out of the pool below. Catalina heard the splashing of his body in the water, and not knowing who it was that had fallen, became insensible. Sybrandt raised himself slowly and with difficulty, and descended as fast as possible towards her. She waked in his arms, and by degrees came to a comprehension of all that had passed. " Again ! " at length said she, looking up tenderly, " again ! yet you thanked God I was going away." " Cannot you comprehend the reason now, dearest Catalina ? and will you not listen to what you refused to hear yesterday ? " She cast a shuddering glance at the pool. " I thought I heard a groan Perhaps the poor creature yet lives, and may be saved." " Let him perish ! " said the youth, indignantly. " O, if you only knew the days and nights of anxious misery he has occasioned me ! " " And me, yet I pity him." " And wish he were alive? " "If I were sure if I could be made quite sure neither of us could possibly ever see him again. Gro, cousin, and see if he is yet alive, but take care ! " Sybrandt went and dragged the body from the pool. It was dread- fully mangled and apparently lifeless. Catalina shuddered as she cast one look at it. " Let us go home," said she. " Will you not listen to my explanation now? You are going away from me to-morrow, and we may never meet again." " No, dearest Sybrandt. I now see it all. You knew this wretched being had not left the country." " I did ; at least I suspected so from various circumstances." "And you were every night on the watch, guarding me me who was accusing you of spending them in gaming, riot, and seduction yes, -1820] JAMES RIRKE PAULDING. seduction for such was the story I heard. O, blessed Heaven ! what short-sighted creatures we are ! " And she raised her tearful eye to his, as if to ask forgiveness. " Was it not so ? " " I confess it was." " But why did you not tell me you suspected the Indian was still lurking about the neighborhood ? " " What ! and poison all your moments of returning ease and happiness ! No : I thought I could guard you from the danger, without making you wretched by knowing it." "And left me to endure suspicions a thousand times more painful." " Kecollect, dear Catalina, I could not anticipate your suspicions." " True ; and your apprehensions for my safety prompted that ungal- lant wish," said she, smiling languidly, " * Thank God you are going.' " " What else could have prompted it, dear love? And yet, much as I feared for you, I did not know half the danger. He then related to her the incidents of the preceding night She turned deadly pale, and remained silent for a few moments. " I recollect I stood at the window more than four or five minutes, wondering what was the matter with the dogs. Once twice thrice : it is a heavy debt, and how can I repay it ? " " By never doubting me again, till I deceive you." " That can never be ! " exclaimed she fervently. " And will you, can you love me, and trust me with your happiness, dearest Catalina?" " I can I will," said she, solemnly ; " and here before the body of that dead wretch, who has expiated his intended crimes at your hands ; in the presence of that good Being who has preserved me from his vengeance ; by the life and all the hopes here and hereafter of the life you have three times, perhaps thrice three times, preserved, I promise to be yours, and to devote myself to your happiness whenever you shall ask it of me. I give myself to you by this kiss, such as no one man ever before received from me, and no other ever will .again. I give myself away forever ! " And she kissed his forehead with her balmy lips. " Blessed, forever blessed, be this day, and this hour ! " cried Sybrandt, as he folded her in his arms. " I cannot thank you, dearest, but I am blessed ! " and he leaned his head on her shoulder, overpowered by the varying emotions and exertions of the past and present. " You are hurt ! " screamed Catalina. " 'Tis only happiness I am faint with joy ; " and again he leaned his head on her panting bosom. A dreadful shriek from Catalina roused him, and he saw the ghastly Indian close upon him, covered with blood, with his arm raised, and grasping his knife. Before he could take a step to defend himself the blow was given. The knife entered his bosom, VOL. iv. 27 418 JAMES KIEKE PA ULDINO. [1788- and he staggered backwards, but did not fall. In a moment Sybrandt rallied himself, and evading a second blow, closed with the now ex- hausted and dying wretch, whom he dashed to the ground with furious indignation. The agony of death came upon him, but did not quench his ruling passion of revenge. With convulsive agony he repeatedly buried his knife up to the hilt in the earth, and his last breath expired in a blow. THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL. DRINK ! drink ! to whom shall we drink ? To a friend or a mistress ? Come, let me think 1 To those who are absent, or those who are here ? To the dead that we loved, or the living still dear ? Alas ! when I look, I find none of the last ! The present is barren, let's drink to the past ! Come ! here's to the girl with a voice sweet and low, The eye all of fire and the bosom of snow, Who erewhile, in the days of my youth that are fled, Once slept on my bosom, and pillowed my head ! Would you know where to find such a delicate prize ? Go seek in yon church-yard, for there she lies. And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth, With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth, Who travelled with me in the sunshine of life, And stood by my side in its peace and its strife ! Would you know where to seek for a blessing so rare ? Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there. And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine, With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine, Who came but to see the first act of the play, Grew tired of the scene, and then both went away. Would you know where this brace of bright cherubs have hied ? Go seek them in heaven, for there they abide. A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair, Who watched o'er my childhood with tenderest care, God bless them, and keep them, and may they look down, On the head of their son, without tear, sigh, or frown! Would you know whom I drink to ? go seek 'mid the dead, You will find both their names on the stone at their head. And here's but, alas ! the good wine is no more, The bottle is emptied of all its bright store ; -1820] FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. Like those we have toasted, its spirit is fled, And nothing is left of the light that it shed. Then, a bumper of tears, boys! the banquet here ends. "With a health to our dead, since we've no living friends. f rancis ^cott BORN in Frederick Co., Md., 1779. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1843. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. [Written after the bombardment of Fort McHenry, 1814. Text slightly revised by comparison with the Fac-simile of a copy made by the Author in 1840.] OSAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we haiPd at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of the fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming 1 And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O ! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ? On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses ? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream ; 'Tis the star-spangled banner ; O long may it wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more ? Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto " In God is our trust : " And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 420 JOSEPH TINKER BUCKINGHAM. [1788- Cinfier BOBN in Windhain, Conn., 1779. DIED in Cambridge, Mass., 1861. AN EDITOR OF THE LAST CENTURY. [Specimens of Newspaper Literature. 1850.] I HA YE a vivid recollection of Dennie's personal appearance, in 1796, when I began my apprenticeship in the printing-office of David Car- lisle. In person, he was rather below than above the middling height, and was of a slender frame. He was particularly attentive to his dress, which, when he appeared in the street, on a pleasant day, approached the highest notch of the fashion. I remember, one delightful morning in May, he came into the office, dressed in a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings, and shoes, or pumps, fastened with -silver buckles, which covered at least half the foot from the instep to the toe. His small-clothes were tied at the knees, with ribbon of the same color, in double bows, the ends reaching down to the ankles. He had just emerged from the barber's shop. His hair, in front, was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled, or craped, and powdered ; the ear-locks had undergone the same process ; behind, his natural hair was augmented by the addition of a large queue (called, vulgarly, the false tail), which, enrolled in some yards of black ribbon, reached half-way down his back. Thus accommodated, the Lay Preacher stands before my mind's eye, as life-like and sprightly as if it were but yesterday that I saw the reality. Among his familiar acquaintance, and in the company of literary men, Dennie must have been a delightful and fascinating companion. In the printing-office, his conversation with the apprentices was pleasant and instructive. His deportment towards them was marked with great urbanity and gentleness. Being the youngest apprentice, in vulgar phrase, the printer's devil, it was my lot to call upon him for copy, and carry the proof to him. Thus, for seven or eight months, my inter- course with him was almost daily, and was as familiar as propriety would sanction between an editor and an apprentice. I never saw him other- wise than in good-humor. Dennie wrote with great rapidity, and generally postponed his task till he was called upon for copy. It was frequently necessary to go to his office, and it was not uncommon to find him in bed at a late hour in the morning. His copy was often given out in small portions, a para- graph or two at a time ; sometimes it was written in the printing-office, while the compositor was waiting to put it in type. One of the best of -1820] JOSEPH STORY. 421 liis Lay sermons was written at the village tavern, directly opposite to the office, in a chamber where he and his friends were amusing them- selves with cards. It was delivered to me by piecemeal, at four or five different times. If he happened to be engaged in a game, when I applied for copy, he would ask some one to " play his hand, for him, while he could give the devil his due." When I called for the closing paragraph of the sermon, he said, " Call again in five minutes." " No," said Tyler " I'll write the improvement for you." He accordingly wrote a con- cluding paragraph, and Dennie never saw it till it was in print BORN in Marblehead, Mass., 1779. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1845. THE LAWYER. [Inaugural Discourse at Harvard, 1829. Miscellaneous Writings. 1835.] M THE perfect lawyer, like the perfect orator, must accomplish himself J- for his duties by familiarity with every study. It may be truly said that to him nothing, that concerns human nature or human art, is indifferent or useless. He should search the human heart, and explore to their sources the passions, and appetites, and feelings of mankind. He should watch the motions of the dark and malignant passions, as they silently approach the chambers of the soul in its first slumbers. He should catch the first warm rays of sympathy and benevolence, as they play around the character, and are reflected back from its varying lines. He should learn to detect the cunning arts of the hypocrite, who pours into the credulous and unwary ear his leperous distilment. He should for this purpose make the master-spirits of all ages pay contribution to bis labors. He should walk abroad through nature, and elevate his thoughts, and warm his virtues, by a contemplation of her beauty, and magnificence, and harmony. He should examine well the precepts of religion, as the only solid basis of civil society ; and gather from them, not only his duty, but his hopes ; not merely his consolations, but his discipline and his glory. He should unlock all the treasures of history for illustration, and instruction, and admonition. He will thus see man as he has been, and thereby best know what he is. He will thus be taught to distrust theory, and cling to practical good ; to rely more upon experience than reasoning ; more upon institutions than laws ; more upon checks to vice than upon motives to virtue. He will become more indul- 422 JOSEPH 8TORT. [1788- gent to human errors ; more scrupulous in means, as well as in ends ; more wise, more candid, more forgiving, more disinterested. If the melan- choly infirmities of his race shall make him trust men less, he may yet learn to love man more. Nor should he stop here. He must drink in the lessons and the spirit of philosophy. I do not mean that philosophy described by Milton, as "A perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns ; " but that philosophy, which is conversant with men's business and interests, with the policy and the welfare of nations ; that philosophy which dwells not in vain imaginations and Platonic dreams, but which stoops to life r and enlarges the boundaries of human happiness ; that philosophy which sits by us in the closet, cheers us by the fireside, walks with us in the fields and highways, kneels with us at the altars, and lights up the en- during flame of patriotism. A PICTURE OF SLAVE-DEALING DAYS. [Charge to the Grand Jury at Portland, 1820. From the Same.] AT length the ship arrives at her destined port, and the unhappy Africans, who have survived the voyage, are prepared for sale. Some are consigned to brokers, who sell them for the ships at private sale. With this view, they are examined by the planters, who want them for their farms ; and in the selection of them, friends and relations are parted without any hesitation ; and when they part with mutual em- braces, they are severed by a lash. Others are sold at public auction, and become the property of the highest bidder. Others are sold by what is denominated a "scramble." In this case the main and quarter decks of the ship are darkened by sails hung over them at a convenient height. The slaves are then brought out of the hold and made to stand in the darkened area. The purchasers, who are furnished with long ropes, rush at a given signal within the awning, and endeavor to encircle as many of them as they can. Nothing can exceed the terror which the wretched Africans exhibit on these occasions. A universal shriek is immediately heard all is consternation and dismay the men tremble the women cling together in each other's arms some of them faint away, and others are known to expire. About twenty thousand, or one-fifth part of those who are annually imported, die during the " seasoning," which seasoning is said to expire, when the two first years of the servitude are completed ; so that of the -1820] JOSEPH STORY. 423 whole number about one-half perish within two years from their first captivity. I forbear to trace the subsequent scenes of their miserable lives, worn out in toils, from which they can receive no profit, and op- pressed with wrongs, from which they can hope for no relief. Let it be considered, that this wretchedness does not arise from the awful visitations of Providence, in the shape of plagues, famines, or earthquakes, the natural scourges of mankind ; but it is inflicted by man on man, from the accursed love of gold. May we not justly dread the displeasure of that Almighty Being, who is the common Father of us all, if we do not by all means within our power endeavor to suppress such infamous cruelties ? If we cannot, like the good Samaritan, bind up the wounds and soothe the miseries of the friendless Africans, let us not, like the Levite, pass with sullen indifference on the other side. What sight can be more acceptable in the eyes of Heaven than that of good men struggling in the cause of oppressed humanity? What conso- lation can be more sweet in a dying hour, than the recollection, that at least one human being may have been saved from sacrifice by our vigilance in enforcing the laws ? . . . In vain shall we expend our wealth in missions abroad for the promo- tion of Christianity ; in vain shall we rear at home magnificent temples to the service of the Most High. If we tolerate this traffic, our charity is but a name, and our religion little more than a faint and delusive shadow THE TASK OF AMERICAN STATESMEN. [Lecture on the Science of Government. 1834. From the Same.] WE have chosen for ourselves the most complicated frame of repub- lican government which was ever offered to the world. We have endeavored to reconcile the apparent anomaly of distinct sovereignties, each independent of the other in its own operations, and yet each in full action within the same territory. The national government, within the scope of its delegated powers, is beyond all doubt supreme and uncon- trollable ; and the state governments are equally so, within the scope of their exclusive powers. But there is a vast variety of cases, in which the powers of each are concurrent with those of the other; and it is almost impossible to ascertain with precision where the lines of separa- tion between them begin and end. No rulers on earth are called to a more difficult and delicate task than our own, in attempting to define and limit them. If any collision shall happen, it can scarcely be at a single point only. It will touch, or it will trench upon jealousies, interests, 424 JOSEPH STORY. [178&- prejudices, and political arrangements, infinitely ramified throughout the whole extent of the Union. The adjustments, therefore, to be made from time to time, to avoid such collisions, and to carry on the general system of movements, require a degree of forecast, caution, skill, and patient investigation, which nothing but long habits of reflection, and the most mature experience, can supply. In the interpretation of constitutional questions alone, a vast field is open for discussion and argument. The text, indeed, is singularly brief and expressive. But that very brevity becomes of itself a source of obscurity ; and that very expressiveness, while it gives prominence to the leading objects, leaves an ample space of debatable ground, upon which the champions of all opinions may contend, with alternate victory and defeat. Nay, the very habits of free inquiry, to which all our insti- tutions conduct us, if they do not urge us, at least incite us, to a perpet- ual renewal of the contest. So that many minds are unwilling to admit anything to be settled; and the text remains with them a doubtful oracle, speaking with a double meaning, and open to glosses of the most contradictory character. How much sobriety of judgment, solid learning, historical research, and political sagacity are required for such critical inquiries ! Party leaders may, indeed, despatch the matter in a few short and pointed sentences, in popular appeals to the passions and preju- dices of the day, or in harangues, in which eloquence may exhaust itself in studied alarms, or in bold denunciations. But statesmen will ap- proach it with a reverent regard. They will meditate upon consequences with a slow and hesitating assent. They will weigh well their own responsibility, when they decide for all posterity. They will feel that a wound inflicted upon the constitution, if it does not bring on an imme- diate gangrene, may yet introduce a lingering disease, which will weaken its vital organs, and ultimately destroy them. THE WOMAN'S MIND. [From his Autobiography as published in the Life and Letters of Joseph Story, edited by his Son, W. W. Story. 1851.] r I ^HERE is one circumstance connected with my studies at the Marble- -*. head Academy, which has probably given a turn to my thoughts, which you may easily trace. Girls as well as boys went to the same school at the same hours, and were arranged on opposite sides of a large hall on their appropriate forms. In the simplicity of those days, it was not thought necessary to separate the sexes in their studies. Generally, -1820] JOSEPH STORY. 425 we studied the same books, and as we recited our lessons in the presence of each other there was a mutual pride to do our best, and to gain an honest portion of flattery or of praise. I was early struck with the flexibility, activity, and power of the female mind. Girls of the same age were on an average of numbers quite our equals in their studies and acquirements, and had much greater quickness of perception and delicacy of feeling than the boys. Kemaining thus at school with them until I was about fifteen years old, I could not be mistaken as to their powers ; and I then imbibed the opinion, which I have never since changed, that their talents are generally equal to those of men, though there are shades of difference in the character of their minds resulting from several causes. My impression is, that the principal difference in intellectual power, which is marked in after days, results not so much from their original inferiority of mind, as from the fact that education stops with females almost at the time it effectively begins with men ; and that neither their habits nor pursuits in life enable them afterwards to cultivate science or literature with much diligence or success. They have no professions which constantly require and constantly encourage them to master new sources of knowledge. THE STORY OF AN INDIAN BRAVE. [From a Letter to Mrs. Story in the Life and Letters.] r MHE Chiefs stood up, and each in turn made a short speech to the -* President, which was in like manner interpreted. Their gestures and actions were very strong and marked, their language emphatic, and though badly interpreted, there was now and then a flash of native eloquence, or beautiful figures which surprised us. Nothing could ex- ceed the masculine cast of their forms, or the bold, decisive character of their movements. They appeared under no embarrassment or fear, and some of them spoke with the air of monarchs. I was particularly im- pressed by one young man of a fine countenance, of whom I heard a very striking story. He observed, in his speech, that his father was a great warrior, and that he was dead, and that he in turn hoped to be a great warrior. His father was like the old grass dried up and withered, but from the roots he hoped would spring up a new crop. He said this with great modesty and firmness. The story respecting him is this : A young female Indian had been taken by some hostile tribe, and was condemned to death, and tied to a stake to be burned. He heard of it, prepared two swift and excellent horses, tied them to a tree at a short distance, and suddenly, at the very moment the fire was putting to the pile, he 426 JOSEPH STORY. [1788- broke forth, rushed to the stake, untied the female, and carried her off in triumph to the place where the horses were tied, put her on one of them, and rode thirty or forty miles with her, then directed her the way to her own tribe, and gave her the horse on which she rode. The assembly were astonished at his boldness, and so struck with it, that they were unable to gather courage to interfere when he rescued the victim. They looked on in astonishment, and thought that he might be some one sent by the Great Spirit, and not a mere mortal. He therefore was not over- taken in his journey, and now lives to enjoy the gratitude and admiration of the whole tribe. B ADVICE TO A YOUNG LAWYER. ;E brief, be pointed ; let your matter stand Lucid in order, solid, and at hand ; Spend not your words on trifles, but condense ; Strike with the mass of thought, not drops of sense; Press to the close with vigor, once begun, And leave, (how hard the task !) leave off, when done. Who draws a labored length of reasoning out, Puts straws in line, for winds to whirl about ; Who drawls a tedious tale of learning o'er, Counts but the sands on ocean's boundless shore. Victory in law is gained, as battles fought, Not by the numbers, but the forces brought. What boots success in skirmish or in fray, If rout and ruin following close the day ? What worth a hundred posts maintained with skill, If these all held, the foe is victor still ? He, who would win his cause, with power must frame Points of support, and look with steady aim; Attack the weak, defend the strong with art, Strike but few blows, but strike them to the heart; All scattered fires but end in smoke and noise, The scorn of men, the idle play of boys. Keep, then, this first great precept ever near, Short be your speech, your matter strong and clear, Earnest your manner, warm and rich your style, Severe in taste, yet full of grace the while ; So may you reach the loftiest heights of fame, And leave, when life is past, a deathless name. 1831. -1820] WASHINGTON ALLSTOJf. 427 BORN in Georgetown, S. C., 1779. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1843. THE PICTURE OF SATAN AND HIS THRALL. [Monaldi: A Tale. Written about 1822. Published in 1841.] A FTER waiting some time for my conductor's return, and finding -X little worth looking at besides the Lanfranc, I turned to leave the chapel by the way I had entered ; but, taking a wrong door, I came into a dark passage, leading, as I supposed, to an inner court. This being my first visit to a convent, a natural curiosity tempted me to proceed, when, instead of a court, I found myself in a large apartment The light (which descended from above) was so powerful, that for nearly a minute I could distinguish nothing, and I rested on a form attached to the wainscoting. I then put up my hand to shade my eyes, when the fearful vision is even now before me I seemed to be standing before an abyss in space, boundless and black. In the midst of this permeable pitch stood a colossal mass of gold, in shape like an altar, and girdled about by a huge serpent, gorgeous and terrible ; his body flecked with diamonds, and his head, an enormous carbuncle, floated like a meteor on the air above. Such was the Throne. But no words can describe the gigantic Being that sat thereon the grace, the majesty, its transcendent form ; and yet I shuddered as I looked, for its superhuman countenance seemed, as it were, to radiate falsehood ; every feature was in contradic- tion the eye, the mouth, even to the nostril whilst the expression of the whole was of that unnatural softness which can only be conceived of malignant blandishment. It was the appalling beauty of the King of Hell. The frightful discord vibrated through my whole frame, and I turned for relief to the figure below ; for at his feet, knelt one who ap- peared to belong to our race of earth. But I had turned from the first, only to witness in this second object its withering fascination. It was a man apparently in the prime of life, but pale and emaciated, as if pre- maturely wasted by his unholy devotion, yet still devoted with out- stretched hands, and eyes upraised to their idol, fixed with a vehemence that seemed almost to start them from their sockets. The agony of his eye, contrasting with the prostrate, reckless worship of his attitude, but too well told his tale : I beheld the mortal conflict between the con- science and the will the visible struggle of a soul in the toils of sin. I could look no longer. As I turned, the prior was standing before me. " Yes," said he, as if replying to my thoughts, " it is indeed terrific. Had you beheld it un- moved, you had been the first that ever did so. 428 WASHINGTON ALLRTON. [1788- " There is a tremendous reality in the picture that comes home to every man's imagination : even the dullest feel it, as if it had the power of calling up that faculty in minds never before conscious of it." ON THE STUDY OF FORM IN THE WORKS OF RAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO. [Lectures on Art, and Poems, by Washington Allston. Edited by R. H. Dana, Jr. 1850.] rriHERE is no school from which something may not be learned. But JL chiefly to the Italian should the student be directed, who would en- large his views on the present subject, and especially to the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo ; in whose highest efforts we have, so to speak, certain revelations of Nature which could only have been made by her privileged seers. And we refer to them more particularly, as to the two great sovereigns of the two distinct empires of Truth, the Actual and the Imaginative; in which their claims are acknowledged by that within us, of which we know nothing but that it must respond to all things true. We refer to them, also, as important examples in their mode of study ; in which it is evident that, whatever the source of in- struction, it was never considered as a law of servitude, but rather as the means of giving visible shape to their own conceptions. From the celebrated antique fragment, called the Torso, Michael Angelo is said to have constructed his forms. If this be true, and we have no reason to doubt it, it could nevertheless have been to him little more than a hint. But that is enough to a man of genius, who stands in need, no less than others, of a point to start from. There was some- thing in this fragment which he seems to have felt, as if of a kindred nature to the unembodied creatures in his own mind ; and he pondered over it until he mastered the spell of its author. He then turned to his own, to the germs of life that still awaited birth, to knit their joints, to attach the tendons, to mould the muscles, finally, to sway the limbs by a mighty will. Then emerged into being that gigantic race of the Sis- tina, giants in mind no less than in body, that appear to have descended as from another planet. His Prophets and Sybils seem to carry in their persons the commanding evidence of their mission. They neither look nor move like beings to be affected by the ordinary concerns of life ; but as if they could only be moved by the vast of human events, the fall of empires, the extinction of nations; as if the awful secrets of the future had overwhelmed in them all present sympathies. As we have stood before these lofty apparitions of the painter's mind, it has -1820] WASHINGTON ALL8TON. 429 seemed to us impossible that the most vulgar spectator could have re- mained there irreverent. With many critics it seems to have been doubted whether much that we now admire in Raphael would ever have been but for his great con- temporary. Be this as it may, it is a fact of history, that, after seeing the works of Michael Angelo, both his form and his style assumed a breadth and grandeur which they possessed not before. And yet these great artists had little, if anything, in common ; a sufficient proof that an original mind may owe, and even freely acknowledge, its impetus to another without any self-sacrifice. As Michael Angelo adopted from others only what accorded with his own peculiar genius, so did Raphael ; and, wherever collected, the materials of both could not but enter their respective minds as their natural aliment. The genius of Michael Angelo was essentially Imaginative. It seems rarely to have been excited by the objects with which we are daily familiar ; and when he did treat them, it was rather as things past, as they appear to us through the atmosphere of the hallowing memory. We have a striking instance of this in his statue of Lorenzo de' Medici ; where, retaining of the original only enough to mark the individual, and investing the rest with an air of grandeur that should accord with his actions, he has left to his country, not a mere effigy of the person, but an embodiment of the mind ; a portrait for posterity, in which the unborn might recognize Lorenzo the Magnificent. But the mind of Raphael was an ever-flowing fountain of human sympathies ; and in all that concerns man, in his vast varieties and com- plicated relations, from the highest forms of majesty to the humblest condition of humanity, even to the maimed and misshapen, he may well be called a master. His Apostles, his philosophers, and most ordinary subordinates, are all to us as living beings ; nor do we feel any doubt that they all had mothers, and brothers, and kindred. In the assemblage of the Apostles (already referred to) at the Death of Ananias, we look upon men whom the effusion of the Spirit has equally sublimated above every unholy thought ; a common power seems to have invested them all with a preternatural majesty. Yet not an iota of the individual is lost in any one ; the gentle bearing and amenity of John still follow him in his office of almoner ; nor in Peter does the deep repose of the erect attitude of the Apostle, as he deals the death-stroke to the offender by a simple bend of his finger, subdue the energetic, sanguine temperament of the Disciple. If any man may be said to have reigned over the hearts of his fellows, it was Raphael Sanzio. Not that he knew better what was in the hearts and minds of men than many others, but that he better understood their relations to the external. In this the greatest names in Art fall before 430 WASHINGTON ALL8TON. [1788- him ; in this he has no rival ; and, however derived, or in whatever de- gree improved by study, in him it seems to have risen to intuition. We know not how he touches and enthralls us ; as if he had wrought with the simplicity of Nature, we see no effort ; and we yield as to a living influence, sure, yet inscrutable. It is not to be supposed that these two celebrated Artists were at all times successful. Like other men, they had their moments of weakness, when they fell into manner, and gave us diagrams, instead of life. Per- haps no one, however, had fewer lapses of this nature than Eaphael ; and yet they are to be found in some of his best works. We shall notice now only one instance, the figure of St. Catherine in the admirable picture of the Madonna di Sisto ; in which we see an evident rescript from the Antique, with all the received lines of beauty, as laid down by the analyst, apparently faultless, yet without a single inflection which the mind can recognize as allied to our sympathies ; and we turn from it coldly, as from the work of an artificer, not of an Artist. But not so can we turn from the intense life, that seems almost to breathe upon us from the celestial group of the Virgin and her Child, and from the Angels below : in these we have the evidence of the divine afflatus, of inspired Art. In the works of Michael Angelo it were easy to point out numerous examples of a similar failure, though from a different cause ; not from mechanically following the Antique, but rather from erecting into a model the exaggerated shadow of his own practice ; from repeating lines and masses that might have impressed us with grandeur but for the utter absence of the informing soul. And that such is the character or rather want of character of many of the figures in his Last Judgment cannot be gainsaid by his warmest admirers, among whom there is no one more sincere than the present writer. But the failures of great men are our most profitable lessons, provided only, that we have hearts and heads to respond to their success. In conclusion. We have now arrived at what appears to us the turn- ing-point, that, by a natural reflux, must carry us back to our original position ; in other words, it seems to us clear, that the result of the argu- ment is that which was anticipated in our main proposition; namely, that no given number of Standard Forms can with certainty apply to the Human Being ; that all Rules therefore, thence derived, can only be considered as Expedient Fictions, and consequently subject to be overruled by the Artist,-; in whose mind alone is the ultimate Rule ; and, finally, that without an intimate acquaintance with Nature, in all its varieties of the moral, intellectual, and physical, the highest powers are wanting in their necessary condition of action, and are therefore incapable of supply- ing the Rule. -1820] WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 431 APHORISMS WRITTEN ON THE WALLS OF HIS STUDIO. [From the Same.] IF an artist love his art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own. This is the test of a true love. Nor is this genuine love compatible with a craving for distinction ; where the latter predominates, it is sure to betray itself before contem- porary excellence, either by silence, or (as a bribe to the conscience) by a modicum of praise. The enthusiasm of a mind so influenced is confined to itself. Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind. The love of gain never made a painter ; but it has marred many. The most common disguise of envy is in the praise of what is sub- ordinate. Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home. In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad. Never, therefore, expect justice from a vain man ; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect A witch's skiff cannot more easily sail in the teeth of the wind than the human eye lie against fact ; but the truth will oftener quiver through lips with a lie upon them. There is an essential meanness in the wish to get the better of any one. The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself. Some men make their ignorance the measure of excellence ; these are, of course, very fastidious critics ; for, knowing little, they can find but little to like. Popular excellence in one age is but the mechanism of what was good in the preceding ; in art, the technic. An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been reflected from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual form ; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed. Nor is this to be wondered at; for all 432 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. [1788- truth demands a response, and few people care to think, yet they must have something to supply the place of thought. Every mind would appear original, if every man had the power of projecting his own into the mind of others. All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or the monstrous. For no man knows himself as an original ; he can only believe it on the report of others to whom he is made known, as he is by the projecting power before spoken of. There is one thing which no man, however generously disposed, can give, but which every one, however poor, is bound to pay. This is Praise. He cannot give it, because it is not his own, since what is de- pendent for its very existence on something in another can never become to him a possession ; nor can he justly withhold it, when the presence of merit claims it as a consequence. POEMS. [From the Same.] AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN. ALL hail ! thou noble land, Our Fathers' native soil! Oh, stretch thy mighty hand, Gigantic grown by toil, O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore 1 For thou with magic might Canst reach to where the light Of Phoebus travels bright The world o'er! The Genius of our clime, From his pine-embattled steep, Shall hail the guest sublime ; While the Tritons of the deep With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim. Then let the world combine, O'er the main our naval line Like the milky-way shall shine Bright in fame ! Though ages long have past Since our Fathers left their home. -1820J WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 433 Their pilot in the blast, O'er untravelled seas to roam, Yet lives the blood of England in our veins! And shall we not proclaim That blood of honest fame Which no tyranny can tame By its chains ? While the language free and bold Which the bard of Avon sung, In which our Milton told How the vault of heaven rung When Satan, blasted, fell with his host"; While this, with reverence meet, Ten thousand echoes greet, From rock to rock repeat Round our coast; While the manners, while the arts, That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts, Between let Ocean roll, Our joint communion breaking with the Sun: Yet still from either beach 4 The voice of blood shall reach, More audible than speech, " We are One." Written in 1810. OK THE LATE S. T. COLERIDGE. AND thou art gone, most loved, most honored friend J No, nevermore thy gentle voice shall blend With air of Earth its pure ideal tones, Binding in one, as with harmonious zones, The heart and intellect. And I no more Shall with thee gaze on that unfathomed deep, The Human Soul, as when, pushed off ^he shore, Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep, Itself the while so bright ! For oft we seemed As on some starless sea, all dark above, All dark below, yet, onward as we drove, To plough up light that ever round us streamed. But he who mourns is not as one bereft Of all he loved : thy living Truths are left. VOL. rv. 28 434 NINIAN PINKNET. [1788- IMMORTALITY. TO think for aye ; to breathe immortal breath ; And know nor hope, nor fear, of ending death ; To see the myriad worlds that round us roll Wax old and perish, while the steadfast soul Stands fresh and moveless in her sphere of thought; O God, omnipotent! who in me wrought This conscious world, whose ever-growing orb, When the dead Past shall all in time absorb, Will be but as begun, O, of thine own, Give of jthe holy light that veils thy throne, That darkness be not mine, to take my place, Beyond the reach of light, a blot in space ! So may this wondrous Life, from sin made free, Reflect thy love for aye, and to thy glory be. BIRTH uncertain. Sailed from Baltimore for Liverpool, 1807. DIED in Baltimore, Md., 1835. A FfiTE CHAMPfiTRE AT MONTREUIL. [Trawls through the South of France, etc. 109.] being pressed for time, the beauty of a scene at some little dis- tance from the road-side tempted me to enter into a by -lane, and take a nearer view of it. A village church, embosomed in a chestnut wood, just rose above the trees on the top of a hill ; the setting sun was on its casements, and the foliage of the wood was burnished by the golden reflection. The distant hum of the village green was just audible ; but not so the French horn, which echoed in full melody through the groves. Having rode about half a mile through a narrow sequestered lane, which strongly reminded me of the half -green and half-trodden by-roada in Warwickshire, I came*to the bottom of the hill, on the brow and sum- mit of which the village and church were situated. I now saw whence the sound of the horn proceeded. On the left of the road was an ancient chateau situated in a park, or very extensive meadow, and ornamented as well by some venerable trees, as by a circular fence of flowering shrubs, guarded on the outside by a paling on a raised mound. The park or meadow having been newly mown, had an air at once ornamented and natural. A party of ladies were collected under a patch of trees situated in the middle of the lawn. I stopped at the gate to look at -1820] NINIAN PINKNET. 435 them, thinking myself unperceived ; but in the same moment the gate was opened to me by a gentleman and two ladies, who were walking the round. An explanation was now necessary, and was accordingly given. The gentleman informed me upon his part, that the chateau belonged to Mons. St. Quentin, a member of the French Senate, and a Judge of the District ; that he had a party of friends with him upon the occasion of his lady's birthday, and that they were about to begin dancing; that Mons. St. Quentin would highly congratulate himself on my accidental arrival. One of the ladies, having previously apologized and left us, had seemingly explained to Mons. St. Quentin the main circumstance belong, ing to me ; for he now appeared, and repeated the invitation in his own person. The ladies added their kind importunities. I dismounted, gave my horse to a servant in waiting, and joined this happy and elegant party, for such it really was. I had now, for the first time, an opportunity of forming an opinion of French beauty, the assemblage of ladies being very numerous, and all of them most elegantly dressed. Travelling, and the imitative arts, have given a most surprising uniformity to all the fashions of dress and orna- ment: and, whatever may be said to the contrary, there is a very slight difference between the scenes of a French and English polite assembly. If anything, however, be distinguishable, it is more in degree than in substance. The French fashions, as I saw them here, differed in no other point from what I had seen in London, but in degree. The ladies were certainly more exposed about the necks, and their hair was dressed with more fancy ; but the form was in almost everything the same. The most elegant novelty was a hat, which doubled up like a fan, so that the ladies carried it in their hands. There were more colored than white muslins ; a variety which had a pretty effect amongst the trees and flowers. The same observation applies to the gentlemen. Their dresses were made as in England ; but the pattern of the cloth, or some append- age to it, was different. One gentleman, habited in a grass-colored silk coat, had very much the appearance of Beau Mordecaiin the farce: the ladies, however, seemed to admire him, and in some conversation with liim I found him, in despite of his coat, a very well-informed man. There were likewise three or four fancy dresses ; a Dian, a wood-nymph, and a sweet girl playing upon a lute, habited according to a picture of Calypso by David. On the whole, there was certainly more fancy, more taste, and more elegance, than in an English party of the same descrip- tion : though there were not so many handsome women as would have been the proportion of such an assembly in England. A table was spread handsomely and substantially under a very large and lofty marquee. The outside was very prettily painted for the occa- sion Yenus commemorating her birth from the ocean. The French 436 TIMOTHY FLINT. [1788- manage these things infinitely better than any other nation in the world. It was necessary, however, for the justice of the compliment, that the Yenus should be a likeness of Madame St. Quentin, who was neither very young nor very handsome. The painter, however, got out of the scrape very well. ^Benjamin PUBLISHED " Urania, or The True Use of Poesy," in 1814. PRAYER. TT1ATHER of light and life ! Thou good supreme I -^ Thou art the guardian of my every hour : Thy praise shall be my everlasting theme: To thee I dedicate my every power. Help me to love thee with a seraph's flame, And to adore thee with a cherub's fire: Let my rapt soul in notes sublime acclaim, And ever to sublimer notes aspire. flint, BORN in North Reading, Mass., 1780. DIED in Salem, Mass., 1840. THE ESCAPE OF BERRIAN AND MARTHA. [Francis Berrian, or the Mexican Patriot. 1826.] AS soon as the twilight disappeared, I stole out to the little stable, where my horse was penned every night. I saddled him unobserved, and carried out my holster of pistols. I then returned, took my supper as usual, and despatched Arci from the cabin, complaining that I was ill, and wished to retire early to rest. The moment she was gone, I was out and mounted, and riding under the covert of the trees and shrubs to the entrance of the valley. Fortunately, it was a night peculiarly favorable to my purpose. It was sultry and thick with smoky mist. Fleecy pillars of clouds were spread over the sky, that emitted frequent and brilliant flashes of lightning. I was stationed under a thick shade, -1820] TIMOTHY FLINT. 437 that entirely concealed both me and my horse, and yet so near the pass, that, when the sentinel moved, I could see his whole figure by the light- ning, and even its gleams upon his tomahawk. I waited in this position until nearly midnight, when I saw the sentinel move off in the direction of the village. Shortly after I heard the trample of two horses, rapidly approaching the pass. The lightning still gleamed in the distance, and my heart palpitated so loudly, that other sounds became indistinct to my ear. It was only a moment before I saw, by the lightning, the gigantic and terrible figure of Menko, and a female figure, apparently bound fast to her horse, and seemingly struggling to disengage herself, and to speak. He had the bridle of her horse in his hand, and both horses disappeared beyond the cabin of the pass. My blood boiled, and the glow at my heart seemed to endow me with gigantic prowess. It occurred to me, that it was prudent to follow them at such a distance, as neither to be seen nor heard. Accordingly I waited until I supposed they were half a mile in advance of me. I then followed them, not meaning to over- take them, until both they and myself were beyond the apprehension of any interference from any of the inmates of the valley. I continued to ride on behind them, sometimes so near, that, by the diminishing flashes of lightning, I could barely distinguish their figures in the obscurity, and then falling back, through fear of being myself observed, until I judged that we were ten miles from the valley. I there came upon a prairie, a level table plain, a little distance from the commencement of which I had learned, by previous information, that the roads parted, the one leading in the direction of Santa Fe, and the other towards the country of the Apaches. Here I put my horse to his full speed, and soon was near enough to be heard by Menko. He stopped, and though the moon, struggling through clouds, threw an uncertain light upon objects, I ob- served him fasten his own horse, and that which he led, to a small tree. I did the same thing. We both dismounted and cautiously approached each other in the darkness. At the distance of ten paces, he uttered a sharp and fierce cry of interrogation in Comanche and Spanish, asking who I was and what I wanted ? I had studied my reply, and I made it in Comanche. "Leave your prisoner and be off." I had scarcely pro- nounced the words, before I received the shot of his carbine through my clothes, slightly grazing my shoulder, and in an instant his tomahawk whistled past my head. I made an unavailing shot in return with my yager. Before I could disengage my pistols from the holster, we were struggling together in deadly grasp, each aiming to despatch the other with the dirk. I had once been the champion of the ring, but he lifted me from the ground, and threw me to the earth. Though under him, I had the command of his arms and held them fast. I comprehended that he was so much my superior in strength, that unless I availed my- 438 TIMOTHY FLINT. [1788- self of superior coolness and dexterity, he would be sure to destroy me. His was the struggling of an infuriated demon, and my policy was to entangle his arms, and parry his efforts to draw his dirk, until he should exhaust himself in putting forth his brute strength. I received severe bruises, and felt his horrid teeth fixed in my arms and elsewhere, but I still held to the defensive, and let him struggle on. He somehow con- trived to disengage his dirk from his bosom, and gave me a cut in the arm ; but I had soon the satisfaction to discover that his strength was sinking in exhaustion, and that his efforts were growing more feeble. I availed myself of a momentary slackening of his hold of me, and sum- moning my yet unwasted powers, I threw him off me, and was upper- most in my turn. In a moment he received my dirk in his bosom. He uttered the yell of a fury, and disengaged himself from me, as though I had been but an infant. He made a deadly thrust, which, had I not parried, would have been mortal. As it was, I was severely wounded in the arm by which I warded off the thrust. This was his expiring effort. He fell with a convulsive sob, and was still. I was covered with blood, both his and my own. I felt it trickling from my wounds, but equally felt that they were not mortal. I ran to the captive, who sat on her horse at a little distance from the combat. A handkerchief was so passed over her face, that she was only able to utter the hoarse and scarcely audible sounds of distress. I tore away the handkerchief, unbound her pinioned arms, cut away the rope by which she was bound to the horse, and made myself known to her. Her terror and the agony of her situation took from her for some moments the power of reply. I placed her gently on the grass, and made all the efforts that the case admitted, to calm her terrors and her agitation ; and I made her comprehend the danger of pursuit from the valley, and that no time was to be lost. Her first words were scarcely articulate thanks to the Virgin for her deliverance, and her next were inquiries if I had received wounds in the affray. I answered that I was slightly wounded, but begged her to think of nothing but escape ; and, as soon as she was able, to mount her horse and fly toward Santa Fe. To be in preparation for this flight, I took the horse of the savage that I had slain, and brought him to mine. The horse was literally loaded with the money of the ransom, and with bars of bullion. I apportioned this among the three horses, and encouraged the young lady to mount her horse again. She uttered earnest and vehement exclamations, indicating mingled terror and thankfulness, and promised to exert her best strength to fly. To mount and be off was but the work of a moment, and I felt no com- punction to leave the wretch that I had slain, to the burial of the carrion vultures. -1820] HENRY J. FINN. 439 fftm, BORN in Sydney, Cape Breton, about 1785. PERISHED in the burning of the steamboat Lexington, Long Island Sound, 1840. THE FROG CATCHER. [American Comic Annual. 1831.] ONCE upon a time, there lived in a town in Vermont, a little whipper- snapper of a fellow, named Timothy Drew. Timmy was not more than five feet one, in his thick-soled boots. When standing by the side of his tall neighbors, he appeared like a dwarf among giants. Tall people are too apt to look down on those of less dimensions. Thus did the long-legged Yankees hector poor Timmy for not being a greater man. But, what our hero wanted in bulk, he made up in spirit. This is generally the case with small men. As for Timmy, he was " all pluck and gristle ! " No steel-trap was smarter ! How such a little one grew on the Green Mountains, was always a mystery. Whether he was actually raised there, is, indeed, uncertain. Some say he was of Canadian descent, and was brought to the States by a Vermont peddler, who took him in barter for wooden cucumber-seeds. But Timmy was above following the cart. He disliked trade as too precarious a calling, and preferred a mechanic art. Though small, Timmy always knew which side of his bread had butter on it. Let it not be sup- posed that Timothy Drew always put up with coarse jibes at his size. On necessary occasions he was " chock-full of fight." To be sure, he could not strike higher than the abdomen of his associates ; but his blows were so rapid that he beat out the daylights of a ten-footer, before one could say "Jack Robinson." A threat from Timmy was enough. How many belligerents have been quelled by this expressive admonition ; " If you say that 'ere again, I'll knock you into the middle of next week ! " This occurred in Timmy's younger days. Age cooled his transports, and taught him to endure. He thought it beneath the dignity of an old man to quarrel with idle striplings. Timmy Drew was a natural shoemaker. No man could hammer out a piece of sole-leather with such expedition. He used his knee for a lap- stone, and by dint of thumping, it became as hard and stiff as an iron hinge. Timmy's shop was situated near the foot of a pleasant valley on the edge of a pond, above which thousands of water-lilies lifted their snowy heads. In the spring it was a fashionable watering-place for bull- frogs, who gathered there from all parts, to spend the warm season. Many of these were of extraordinary size, and they drew near his shop,. 440 HENRY J. FINN. [1788- raised their heads, and swelled out their throats like bladders, until the welkin rung with their music. Timm j, engaged at his work, beat time for them with his hammer, and the hours passed away as pleasantly as the day is long. Timmy Drew was not one of those shoemakers that eternally stick to their bench like a ball of wax. It was always his rule to carry his work to the dwellings of his customers, to make sure of the fit. On his way home, he usually stopped at the tavern to inquire the news, and take a drop of something to drink. Here it was that the wags fastened upon him with their jokes, and often made him feel as uncomfortable as a short-tailed horse in fly -time. Still Timmy loved to sit in the bar, and talk with the company, which generally consisted of jolly peddlers, re- cruiting from the fatigues of the last cruise. With such society much was to be learned, and Timmy listened with intense curiosity to their long-spun tales of the wonderful and wild. There is no person that can describe an incredible fact with greater plausibility than a Yankee peddler. His difficult profession teaches him to preserve an iron gravity in expa- tiating on his wares, which in few cases can be said to recommend them- selves. Thus, narratives, sufficient to embarrass the speech of any other relater, carry with them conviction, when soberly received from such a respectable source. ... It would be impossible to repeat all the jokes played off on the poor shoemaker. The standing jest, however, was on his diminutive stature, which never was more conspicuous than in their company, for most of them were as tall as bean-poles. On this sub- ject Timmy once gave them a memorable retort. Half a dozen of the party were sitting by the fire, when our hero entered the room. He sat down, but they affected to overlook him. This goaded Timmy, and he preserved a moody silence. Presently one of them spoke: "I wonder what has become of little Timmy Drew? I hav'n't seen that are fellow for a week. By gosh! the frogs must have chawed him up." "If he was sitting here before your eyes, you wouldn't see him," said another, " he's so darnation small." Timmy began to grow uneasy. " I snaggers," said another, "no more you wouldn't; for he isn't knee-high to a toad. I called t'other day at his shop to get my new boots ; but I couldn't see nobody in the place. Then I heard something scratching in a corner, like a rat. I went to take up a boot, and I heard Timmy sing out, 1 Halloo!' 'Where the dickens are you ?' said I. ' Here,' said Timmy, L in this 'ere boot ; ' and, I snaggers, there he was, sure enough, in the bottom of the boot, rasping off a peg ! " A general roar of laughter brought Timmy on his legs. His dander was raised. " You boast of your bulk," said he, straining up to his full height, and looking con- temptuously around; "why, I am like a fourpenny-bit among six cents worth the whole of ye ! " -18201 HENRY J. FINN. 441 I shall now describe a melancholy joke, which they played off on the unfortunate shoemaker ; I say melancholy, for so it proved to him. A fashionable tailor in a neighboring village came out with a flaming ad- vertisement, which was pasted up in the bar-room of the tavern, and excited general attention. He purported to have for sale a splendid assortment of coats, pantaloons, and waistcoats, of all colors and fash- ions ; also, a great variety of trimmings, such as tape, thread, buckram, frogs, button-moulds, and all the endless small articles that make up a tailor's stock. The next time Timmy made his appearance, they pointed out to him the advertisement. They especially called his attention to the article of "frogs" and reminded him of the great quantity to be caught in Lily Pond. "Why, Timmy," said they, " if you would give up shoemaking, and take to frog-catching, you would make your 'tarnal fortune ! " " Yes, Timmy," said another, "you might bag a thousand in a half a day, and folks say they will bring a dollar a hundred." " Two for a cent apiece, they brought in New York, when I was there last," said a cross-eyed fellow, tipping the wink. " There's frogs enough in Lily Pond," said Timmy ; " but it's darnation hard work to catch 'em. I swaggers, I chased one nearly half a day before I took him he jumped like a grasshopper. I wanted him for bait. They're plaguey slippery fellows." " Never mind, Timmy, take a fish-net, and scoop 'em up. You must have 'em alive, and fresh. A lot at this time would fetch a great price." "I'll tell you what, Timmy," said one of them, taking him aside, " I'll go you shares. Say nothing about it to nobody. To-morrow night I'll come and help you catch 'em, and we'll divide the gain." Timmy was in raptures. As Timmy walked home that night, one of those lucky thoughts came into his head, which are always the offspring of solitude and reflection. Thought he, " These 'ere frogs in a manner belong to me, since my shop stands nearest the pond. Why should I make two bites at a cherry, and divide profits with Jo Gawky ? By gravy ! I'll get up early to-morrow morning, catch the frogs, and be off with them to the tailor's before sun- rise, and so keep all the money myself." Timmy was awake with the lark. Never before was there such a stir amongst the frogs of Lily Pond. But they were taken by surprise. With infinite difficulty he filled his bag, and departed on his journey. Mr. Buckram, the tailor, was an elderly gentleman, very nervous and very peevish. He was extremely nice in his dress, and prided himself on keeping his shop as neat as wax-work. In his manner he was grave and abrupt, and in countenance severe. I can see him now, handling his shears with all the solemnity of a magistrate, with spectacles on nose, and prodigious ruffles puffing from his bosom. He was thus engaged one pleasant spring morning, when a short, stub- 442 HENRY J. FINN. [178- bed fellow, with a bag on his shoulder, entered the shop. The old gentleman was absorbed in his employment, and did not notice his visitor. But his inattention was ascribed by Timmy to deafness, and he approached and applied his mouth to the tailor's ear, exclaiming "I say, mister! do you want any frogs to-day? " The old gentleman dropped his shears, and sprung back in astonishment and alarm. " Do you want any frogs this morning ? " shouted Timmy, at the top of his voice. " No ! " said the tailor, eying him over his spectacles, as if doubting whether he was a fool or a madman. " I have got a fine lot here," rejoined Timmy, shaking his bag. " They are jest from the pond, and as lively as kit- tens." "Don't bellow in my ears," said the old man pettishly, "I am not deaf. Tell me what you want, and begone ! " "I want to sell you these 'ere frogs, old gentleman. You shall have them at a bargain. Only one dollar a hundred. I won't take a cent less. Do you want them ? " The old man now got a glance at the frogs, and was sensible it was an attempt at imposition. He trembled with passion. "E"o!" exclaimed he, "get out of my shop, you rascal!" "I say you do want 'em," said Timmy, bristling up. " I know you want 'em ; but you're playing offish like, to beat down the price. I won't take a mill less. Will you have them, or not, old man?" "Scoundrel!" shouted the enraged tailor, "get out of my shop this minute ! " Puzzled, mortified, and angry, Timmy slowly turned on his heel, and withdrew. "He won't buy them," thought he, "for what they are worth, and as for taking nothing for them, I won't. And yet I don't want to lug them back again ; but if I ever plague myself by catching frogs again, may I be buttered ! Curse the old curmudgeon ! I'll try him once more" and he again entered the shop. "I say, Mr. Buckram, are you willing to give me anything for these 'ere frogs?" The old man was now goaded past endurance. Stamping with rage, he seized his great shears to beat out the speaker's brains. " Well, then," said Timmy, bitterly, "take 'em among ye for nothing," at the same time emptying the contents of his bag on the floor and marching out. Imagine the scene that followed ! One hundred live bull-frogs emptied upon the floor of a tailor's shop ! It was a subject for the pencil of Cruikshanks. Some jumped this way and some that way, some under the bench and some upon it, some into the fireplace and some behind the door. Every nook and corner of the shop was occupied in an instant. Such a spectacle was never seen before. The old man was nearly dis- tracted. He rent his hair, and stamped in a paroxysm of rage. Then seizing a broom, he made vain endeavors to sweep them out at the door. But they were as contrary as hogs, and when he swept one way, they jumped another. He tried to catch them with his hands, but they were -1820] HENRY J. FINN. 443 as slippery as eels, and passed through his fingers. It was enough to exhaust the patience of Job. The neighbors, seeing Mr. Buckram sweep- ing frogs out of his shop, gathered around in amazement, to inquire if they were about to be beset with the plagues of Egypt. But old Buckram was in such a passion that he could not answer a word, and they were afraid to venture within the reach of his broom. It is astonishing what talk the incident made in the village. Not even the far-famed frogs of Windham excited more. Thus were the golden visions of the frog-catcher resolved into thin air. How many speculators have been equally disappointed ! After this affair Timothy Drew could never endure the sight of a bull- frog. Whether he discovered the joke that had been played upon him, is uncertain. He was unwilling to converse on the subject. His irrita- bility when it was mentioned only provoked inquiry. People were con- tinually vexing him with questions. " Well, Timmy, how goes the frog market?" "How do you sell frogs?" Even the children would call after him as he passed " There goes the frog-catcher I " Some mis- chievous person went so far as to disfigure his sign, so that it read SHOES MENDED, AND FROGS CAUGHT, BY T. DREW. THE CURSE OF THE COMPETENT : OR, THE LAY OF THE LAST GENIUS. [Preserved in J. T. Buckingham's " Personal Memoirs." 1852.] MY spirit hath been seared, as though the lightning's scathe had rent, In the swiftness of its wrath, through the midnight firmament, The darkly deepening clouds ; and the shadows dim and murky Of destiny are on me, for my dinner's naught but turkey. The chords upon my silent lute no soft vibrations know, Save where the meanings of despair out-breathings of my woe Tell of the cold and selfish world. In melancholy mood, The soul of genius chills with only -fourteen cords of wood. The dreams of the deserted float around my curtained hours, And young imaginings are as the thorns bereft of flowers ; 444 EGBERT YOUNG HATNE. [1788- A wretched outcast from mankind, my strength of heart has sank Beneath the evils of ten thousand dollars in the bank. This life to me a desert is, and kindness, as the stream That singly drops upon the waste where burning breezes teem ; A banished, blasted plant, I droop, to which no freshness lends Its healing balm, for Heaven knows, I've but a dozen friends. And Sorrow round my brow has wreathed its coronal of thorns; No dewy pearl of Pleasure my sad sunken eyes adorns; Calamity has clothed my thoughts, I feel a bliss no more, Alas! my wardrobe now would only stock a clothing store. The joyousness of Memory from me for aye hath fled ; It dwells within the dreary habitation of the dead; I breathe my midnight melodies in languor and by stealth, For Fate inflicts upon my frame the luxury of health. Envy, Neglect, and Scorn have been my hard inheritance ; And a baneful curse clings to me, like the stain on innocence ; My moments are as faded leaves, or roses in their blight I'm asked but once a day to dine to parties every night. Would that I were a silver ray upon the moonlit air, Or but one gleam that's glorified by each Peruvian's prayer! My tortured spirit turns from earth, to ease its bitter loathing; My hatred is on all things here, because I want for nothing. JSobejt gomtg BORN in St. Paul's Parish, Colleton District, S. C., 1791. DIED at Ashville, N. C., 1839. THE SOUTH CAROLINA DOCTRINE. [Speech in the Delate with Webster, on Foot's Resolution. U. S. Senate, 21 Jan., 1830.] T ITTLE did I expect to be called upon to meet such an argument as -" was yesterday urged by the gentleman from Massachusetts. Sir, I question no man's opinions ; I impeach no man's motives ; I charged no party, or State, or section of country with hostility to any other, but ventured, as I thought, in a becoming spirit, to put forth my own senti- ments in relation to a great national question of public policy. Such was my course. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Benton), it is true, had charged upon the Eastern States an early and continued hostility toward the West, and referred to a number of historical facts and docu- -1820] ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE. 445 ments in support of that charge. Now, sir, how have these different arguments been met? The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England ; and instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as the author of those charges, and losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the phials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to assail the institutions and policy of the South, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the State which I have the honor to represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience, of acknowledged talents and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, declining the contest offered from the West, and making war upon the unoffending South, I must believe, I am bound to believe, he has some object in view which he has not ventured to disclose. Mr. President, why is this ? Has the gentleman discovered in former con- troversies with the gentleman from Missouri, that he is overmatched by that senator ? And does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman's distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of " new alliances to be formed," at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered coalition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to "sear the eyeballs " of the gentleman, and will not down at his bidding? Are dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the East from the contest it has provoked with the West, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from Missouri. The South shall not be forced into a conflict not its own. The gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gal- lant West needs no aid from the South to repel any attack which may be made upon them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from Massa- chusetts controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, if he can and if he win the victory, let him wear the honors ; I shall not deprive him of his laurels. .... Sir, any one acquainted with the history of parties in this country will recognize in the points now in dispute between the Senator from Massachusetts and myself the very grounds which have, from the be- ginning, divided the two great parties in this country, and which (call these parties by what names you will, and amalgamate them as you may) will divide them forever. The true distinction between those parties is laid down in a celebrated manifesto issued by the convention of the Federalists of Massachusetts, assembled in Boston, in February, 1824, on the occasion of organizing a party opposition to the re-election of 44(5 ROBERT Youjsra HAYNE. [1788- Governor Eustis. The gentleman will recognize this as " the canonical book of political scripture ; " and it instructs us that, when the American colonies redeemed themselves from British bondage, and became so many independent nations, they proposed to form a National Union (not a Federal Union, sir, but a NATIONAL UNION). Those who were in favor of a union of the States in this form became known by the name of Federalists ; those who wanted no union of the States, or disliked the proposed form of union, became known by the name of Anti-Federalists. By means which need not be enumerated, the Anti-Federalists became (after the expiration of twelve years) our national rulers, and for a period of six- teen years, until the close of Mr. Madison's administration in 1817, con- tinued to exercise the exclusive direction of our public affairs. Here, sir, is the true history of the origin, rise, and progress of the party of National Republicans, who date back to the very origin of the Govern- ment, and who then, as now, chose to consider the Constitution as having created not a Federal, but a National, Union ; who regarded " consolida- tion " as no evil, and wbo doubtless consider it "a consummation to be wished " to build up a great " central government," " one and indivisible." Sir, there have existed, in every age and every country, two distinct orders of -men the lovers of freedom and the devoted advocates of power. The same great leading principles, modified only by the peculiarities of manners, habits, and institutions, divided parties in the ancient repub- lics, animated the Whigs and Tories of Great Britain, distinguished in our own times the Liberals and Ultras of France, and may be traced even in the bloody struggles of unhappy Spain. Sir, when the gallant Eiego, who devoted himself and all that he possessed to the liberties of his country, was dragged to the scaffold, followed by the tears and lamentations of every lover of freedom throughout the world, he perished amid the deafening cries of "Long live the absolute king! " The people whom I represent, Mr. President, are the descendants of those who brought with them to this country, as the most precious of their posses- sions, " an ardent love of liberty ; " and while that shall be preserved, they will always be found manfully struggling against the consolidation of the Government as the worst of evils. . . .,.. Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of the Union? Those who would confine the Federal Government strictly within the limits prescribed by the Constitution ; who would preserve to the States and the people all powers not expressly delegated ; who would make this a Federal and not a National Union, and who, administering the Govern- ment in a spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing, and not a curse. And who are its enemies ? Those who are in favor of consolida- tion; who are constantly stealing power from the States, and adding strength to the Federal Government ; who, assuming an unwarrantable -1820] ROBERT YOUNG EAYNE. 4-4 j jurisdiction over the States and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and capital of the country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I consider those as the worst enemies of the Union, who sacrifice the equal rights which belong to every member of the confederacy to combinations of interested majorities for personal or political objects. But the gentleman apprehends no evil from the dependence of the States on the Federal Government ; he can see no danger of corruption from the influence of money or patronage. Sir, I know that it is supposed to be a wise saying that " patronage is a source of weakness; " and in sup- port of that maxim it has been said that " every ten appointments make a hundred enemies." But I am rather inclined to think, with the elo- quent and sagacious orator now reposing on his laurels on the banks of the Koanoke, that "the power of conferring favors creates a crowd of dependents ; " he gave a forcible illustration of the truth of the remark, when he told us of the effect of holding up the savory morsel to the eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered around his door. It mattered not whether the gift was bestowed on " Towzer " or " Sweetlips," " Tray," "Blanche," or " Sweetheart;" while held in suspense, they were all gov- erned by a nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, the expectation of the favors of to-morrow kept up the subjection of to-day. The Senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing what he is pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea that a State has any constitutional remedy by the exercise of its sovereign authority, against "a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of the Con- stitution." He calls it "an idle" or "a ridiculous notion," or something to that effect, and added, that it would make the Union a "mere rope of sand." Now, sir, as the gentleman has not condescended to enter into any examination of the question, and has been satisfied with throwing the weight of his authority into the scale, I do not deem it necessary to do more than to throw into the opposite scale the authority on which South Carolina relies ; and there, for the present, I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy. The South Carolina doctrine, that is to say, the doctrine contained in an exposition reported by a committee of the Legislature in December, 1828, and published by their authority, is the good old Republican doctrine of '98 the doctrine of the celebrated "Virginia Resolutions" of tha,t year, and of "Madison's Report" of '99. It will be recollected that the Legislature of Virginia, in December, '98, took into consideration the alien and sedition laws, then considered by all Republicans as a gross violation of the Constitution of the United States, and on that day passed, among others, the following resolu- tion : " The General Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from 448 ROBERT YOUNG EATNE. [1788- the compact to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that com- pact ; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted- by the said compact, the States who are the parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them." In addition to the above resolution, the General Assembly of Virginia " appealed to the other States, in the confidence that they would concur with that commonwealth, that the acts aforesaid (the alien and sedition laws) are unconstitutional, and that the necessary and proper measures would be taken by each for co-operating with Virginia in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." . . . Sir, at that day the whole country was divided on this very question. It formed the line of demarcation between the Federal and Eepublican parties ; and the great political revolution which then took place turned upon the very questions involved in these resolutions. That question was decided by the people, and by that decision the Constitution was, in the emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, "saved at its last gasp." I should suppose, sir, it would require more self-respect than any gentle- man here would be willing to assume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such high sources. Besting on authority like this, I will ask, gen- tlemen, whether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union, when, under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and. sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no further than to petition, re- monstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which she believes to be wholly unconstitutional and utterly destructive of her interests. Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step further than Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to go, in relation to the present subject of our present complaints not a step further than the statesmen from New England were disposed to go under similar circumstances ; no further than the Senator from Massachusetts himself once considered as within "the limits of a constitutional opposition." The doctrine that it is the right of a State to judge of the violations of the Constitution on the part of the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that "they looked only to the State Legislature, which was competent to devise relief against the un- constitutional acts of the General Government. That your power (say -1820] ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE. 449 they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organization of the confederacy." .... Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is the Eepublican doctrine of '98, that it w'as promulgated by the fathers of the faith, that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times, that it constituted the very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned, that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitution at its last gasp, and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt when they believed themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the Federal Government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its power, it seems to me to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the Federal Gov- ernment, in all, or any, of its departments, is to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and the States are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for themselves when the barriers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically "a government without limitation of powers." The States are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. I have but one word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. The measures of the Federal Government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in ir- retrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is, is not the 'chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the contest a principle which, substituting the discretion of Congress for the limita- tions of the Constitution, brings the States and the people to the feet of the Federal Government, and leaves them nothing they can call their own. Sir, if the measures of the Federal Government were less oppres- sive, we should still strive against this usurpation. The South is act- ing on a principle she has always held sacred resistance to unauthor- o IT Jr / ized taxation. These, sir, are the principles which induced the immortal Hampden to resist the payment of a tax of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined his fortune ? No ! but the payment of half of twenty shillings, on the principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave. Sir, if acting on these high motives if animated by that ardent love of liberty which has always been the most prominent trait in the Southern character, we would be hurried beyond the bounds VOL. iv. 29 450 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- of a cold and calculating prudence ; who is there, with one noble and generous sentiment in his bosom, who would not be disposed, in the language of Burke, to exclaim, "You must pardon something to the spirit of liberty?" Daniel BOEN in Salisbury, N. H., 1782. DIED at Marshfield, Mass., 1852. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. [From the brief Autobiography written for Mrs. Lee, 1829. The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster. Edited by Fletcher Webster. 1856.] THE XEW HAMPSHIKE SCHOOL-BOY. I DO not remember when or by whom I was taught to read ; because I cannot and never could recollect a time when I could not read the Bible. I suppose I was taught by my mother, or by my elder sisters. My father seemed to have no higher object in the world, than to educate his children, to the full extent of his very limited ability. No means were within his reach, generally speaking, but the small town schools. These were kept by teachers, sufficiently indifferent, in the several neighborhoods of the township, each a small part of the year. To these I was sent, with the other children. When the school was in our neighborhood, it was easy to attend; when it removed to a more distant district I followed it, still living at home. While yet quite young, and in winter, I was sent daily two and a half or three miles to the school. When it removed still further, my father sometimes boarded me out, in a neighboring family, so that I could still be in the school. A good deal of this was an extra care, more than had been bestowed on my elder brothers, and originating in a con- viction of the slenderness and frailty of my constitution, which was thought not likely ever to allow me to pursue robust occupation. In these schools, nothing was taught but reading and writing ; and, as to these, the first I generally could perform better than the teacher, and the last a good master could hardly instruct me in; writing was so laborious, irksome, and repulsive an occupation to me always. My masters used to tell me, that they feared, after all, my fingers were destined for the plough-tail I must do myself the justice to say that, in those boyish days, there were two things I did dearly love, viz. : reading and playing ; passions ', ' -1820] DANIEL WEBSTEE. 45 ]_ winch did not cease to struggle, when boyhood was over, (have they yet, altogether ?) and in regard to which neither the cita mors nor the victoria Iceta could be said of either. At a very early day, owing I believe mainly to the exertions of Mr. Thompson, the lawyer, the clergyman, and my father, a very small cir- culating library had been bought. These institutions, I believe, about that time received an impulse, among other causes, from the efforts of Dr. Belknap, our New Hampshire historian. I obtained some of these books, and read them. I remember the " Spectator " among them ; and I remember, too, that I turned over the leaves of Addison's criticism on Chevy Chase, for the sake of reading connectedly the song, the verses of which he quotes from time to time as subjects of remark. It was, as Dr. Johnson said in another case, that the poet was read and the critic was neglected. I could not understand why it was necessary that the author of the "Spectator" should take such great pains to prove that Chevy Chase was a good story ; that was the last thing I doubted. I was fond of poetry. By far the greater part of Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns I could repeat memoriter, at ten or twelve years of age. I am sure that no other sacred poetry will ever appear to me so affecting and devout. I remember that my father brought home from some of the lower towns Pope's " Essay on Man," published in a sort of pamphlet I took it, and very soon could repeat it, from beginning to end. We had so few books that to read them once or twice was nothing. We thought they were all to be got by heart. I have thought of this frequently since, when that sagacious admonition of one of the ancients (was it Pliny ?) has been quoted, legere multum non multa. . . AT THE ACADEMY. It so happened, that within the few months during which I was at the Exeter Academy, Mr. Thacher, now judge of the Municipal Court of Boston, and Mr. Emery, the distinguished counsellor at Portland, were my instructors. I am proud to call them both masters. I believe I made tolerable progress in most branches which I attended to, while in this school ; but there was one thing I could not do. I could not make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. The kind and excellent Buckininster sought, especially, to persuade me to perform the exercise of declamation, like other boys ; but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse, in my own room, over and over again ; yet when the day came, when the school collected to hear declamations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes 452 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed, and entreated, most winningly, that I would venture ; but I could never command sufficient resolution. When the occasion was over, I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification. In February, 1797, my father carried me to the Eev. Samuel Wood's, in Boscawen, and placed me under the tuition of that most benevolent and excellent man. It was but half-a-dozen miles from our own house. On the way to Mr. Wood's, my father first intimated to me his intention of sending me to college. The very idea thrilled my whole frame. He said he then lived but for his children, and if I would do all I could for myself, he would do what he could for me. I remember that I was quite overcome, and my head grew dizzy. The thing appeared to me so high, and the expense and sacrifice it was to cost my father, so great, I could only press his hands and shed tears. Excellent, excellent parent ! I cannot think of him, even now, without turning child again. Mr. Wood put me upon Yirgil and Tally ; and I conceived a pleasure in the study of them, especially the latter, which rendered application no longer a task. With what vehemence did I denounce Cataline! With what earnestness struggle for Milo ! In the spring I began the Greek grammar, and at midsummer Mr. Wood said to me : "I expected to keep you till next year, but I am tired of you, and I shall put you into college next month." And so he did, but it was a mere breaking in ; I was, indeed, miserably prepared, both in Latin and Greek ; but Mr. Wood accomplished his promise, and I entered Dartmouth College, as a Freshman, August, 1797. At Boscawen, I had found another circulating library, and had read many of its volumes. I remember especially that I found "Don Quixote," in the common translation, and in an edition, as I think, of three or four duodecimo volumes. I began to read it, and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes till I had finished it ; nor did I lay it down for five minutes ; so great was the power of that extraor- dinary book on my imagination. . . ';' THE PAKTIFG OF THE WAYS. In March, 1805, I was admitted to practice in the Suffolk Court of Common Pleas. The practice then was for the patron to go into court, introduce the pupil to the judges, make a short speech, commending his diligence, etc., and move for his admission to the bar. I had the honor to be so introduced by Mr. Gore. I remember every word of his speech. It contained a prediction, which I firmly resolved, quantum in me fuerit, should not go entirely unfulfilled. In January preceding my admission, I was the subject of a great honor. The clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hillsborough -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 453 resigned his place. My father was one of the judges of the court, and I was appointed to the vacant clerkship. This was equal to a Presidential election. The office had an income of fifteen hundred dollars a year. It seemed to me very great, and indeed it was so, rebus consideratis. The obtaining of this office had been a darling object with my father. Its possession would make the family easy, and he hastened to send me tidings that the prize was won. I certainly considered it a great prize, myself, and was ready to abandon my profession for it ; not that I did not love my profession ; and not that I did not hate the clerkship, and all clerkships ; but simply from a desire to reach that high point of ter- restrial bliss, at which I might feel that there was a competency for our family, myself included. I had felt the res angustce till my very bones ached. But Mr. Gore peremptorily shut me out from this opening para- dise. When I went to him, with my letter in my hand, to communicate the good news, he said it was civil in their Honors of the Bench, and that I must write them a respectful letter; that they intended it as a mark of confidence in me, and of respect, probably, for my father, and that I was bound to make civil acknowledgments. This was a shower- bath of ice- water. I was thinking of nothing but of rushing to the immediate enjoyment of the proffered office ; but he was talking of civil acknowledgment and decorous declension. Finding my spirits, and face too, I suppose, falling, he found out the cause, and went on to speak, in a serious tone, against the policy and propriety of taking such an office. To be sure, his reasons were good, but I was slow to be convinced. He said, I was nearly through my professional preparation, that I should soon be at the bar, and he saw not why I might not hope to make my way as well as others ; that this office was in the first place precarious, it depended on the will of others ; and other times and other men might soon arise, and my office be given to somebody else. And in the second place, if permanent, it was a stationary place ; that a clerk once, I was probably nothing better than a clerk, ever ; and, in short, that he had taken me for one who was not to sit with his pen behind his ear. " Go on," said he, " and finish your studies ; you are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty ; live on no man's favor ; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence ; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to your friends, and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear." I need hardly say that I acquiesced in this good advice ; though cer- tainly it cost me a pang. Here was present comfort, competency, and I may even say riches, as I then viewed things, all ready to be enjoyed, and I was called upon to reject them for the uncertain and distant pros- pect of professional success. Bat I did resist the temptation ; I did hold on to the hope which the law set before me. 454 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- PORTRAIT OF A GREAT LAWYER. [In a Diary kept by Webster while a student at law in Boston, 1804. From the Same.] rpHEOPHILUS PAKSONS, Esq. is now about fifty-five years old ; JL of rather large stature and inclining a little to corpulency. His hair is brown and his complexion not light. His face is not marked by any- striking feature, if we except his eyes. His forehead is low and his eye- brows prominent. He wears a blue coat and breeches ; worsted hose, a brown wig, with a cocked hat. He has a penetrating eye of an indescriba- ble color. When, couched under a jutting eyebrow, it directs its beams into the face of a witness, he feels as if it looked into the inmost recesses of his soul. When Parsons intends to make a learned observation, his eyebrow sinks ; when a smart one, for he is, and wishes to be thought, a wit, it rises. The characteristic endowments of his mind are strength and shrewdness. Strength, which enables him to support his cause; shrewdness, by which he is always ready to retort the sallies of his adversary. His manner is steady, forcible, and perfectly perspicuous. He does not address the jury as a mechanical body to be put in motion by mechanical means. He appeals to them as men, and as having minds capable of receiving the ideas in his own. Of course, he never harangues. He is never stinted to say just so much on a point, and no more. He knows by the juror's countenance, when he is convinced ; and therefore never disgusts him by arguing that of which he is already sensible and which he knows it impossible more fully to impress. A mind thus strong, direct, prompt, and vigorous is cultivated by habits of the most intense application. A great scholar in everything, in his profession he is peculiarly great. He is not content with shining on occasions ; he will shine everywhere. As no cause is too great, none is too small for him. He knows the great benefit of understanding small circumstances. "Tis not enough for him that he has learned the leading points in a cause ; he will know everything. His argument is, therefore, always consistent with itself ; and its course so luminous that you are ready to wonder why any one should hesitate to follow him. Facts which are uncertain, he with so much art connects with others well proved, that you cannot get rid of the former, without disregarding the latter. He has no fondness for public life, and is satisfied with standing where he is, at the head of his profession. -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 455 M JEFFERSON AT EIGHTY-ONE. [Dictated by Webster, after a visit to Monticello, 1824. From the Same.] R JEFFERSON is now between eighty-one and eighty-two, above six feet high, of an ample, long frame, rather thin and spare. His head, which is not peculiar in its shape, is set rather forward on his sho alders ; and his neck being long, there is, when he is walking or con- versing, an habitual protrusion of it. It is still well covered with hair, which having been once red, and now turning gray, is of an indistinct sandy color. His eyes are small, very light, and now neither brilliant nor striking. His chin is rather long, but not pointed. His nose small, regular in its outline, and the nostrils a little elevated. His mouth is well formed and still filled with teeth ; it is strongly compressed, bearing an expression of contentment and benevolence. His complexion, formerly light and freckled, now bears the marks of age and cutaneous affection. His limbs are uncommonly long; his hands and feet very large, and his wrists of an extraordinary size. His walk is not precise and military, but easy and swinging. He stoops a little, not so much from age as from natural formation. When sitting, he appears short, partly from a rather lounging habit of sitting, and partly from the disproportionate length of his limbs. His dress, when in the house, is a gray surtout coat, kerseymere stuff waistcoat, with an under one faced with some material of a dingy red. His pantaloons are very long and loose, and of the same color as his coat. His stockings are woollen either white or gray ; and the shoes of the kind that bear his name. His whole dress is very much neglected, but not slovenly. He wears a common round hat. His dress, when on horseback, is a gray straight-bodied coat and a spencer of the same material, both fastened with large pearl buttons. When we first saw him, he was riding ; and, in addition to the above articles of apparel, wore round his throat a knit white woollen tippet, in the place of a cravat, and black velvet gaiters under his pantaloons. His general appearance indicates an extraordinary degree of health, vivacity and spirit. His sight is still good, for he needs glasses only in the evening. His hearing is generally good, but a number of voices in animated con- versation confuses it. Mr. Jefferson rises in the morning as soon as he can 'see the hands of his clock, which is directly opposite his bed, and examines his thermom- eter immediately, as he keeps a regular meteorological diary. He employs himself chiefly in writing till breakfast, which is at nine. From that time, till dinner, he is in his library, excepting that in fair weather he rides on 456 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- horseback from seven to fourteen miles. Dines at four, returns to the drawing-room at six, when coffee is brought in, and passes the evening till nine in conversation. His habit of retiring at that hour is so strong, that it has become essential to his health and comfort. His diet is sim- ple, but he seems restrained only by his taste. His breakfast is tea and coffee, bread always fresh from the oven, of which he does not seem afraid, with sometimes a slight acompaniment of cold meat. He enjoys his dinner, well, taking with his meat a large proportion of vegetables. He has a strong preference for the wines of the continent, of which he has many sorts of excellent quality, having been more than commonly successful in his mode of importing and preserving them. Among others, we found the following, which are very rare in this country, and appar- ently not at all injured by transportation : L'Ednau, Muscat, Samian, and Blanchette de Limoux. Dinner is served in half Virginian, half French style, in good taste and abundance. No wine is put on the table till the cloth is removed. In conversation, Mr. Jefferson is easy and natural, and apparently not ambitious ; it is not loud, as challenging general attention, but usually addressed to the person next him. The topics, when not selected to suit the character and feelings of his auditor, are those subjects with which his mind seems particularly occupied; and these, at present, may be said to be science and letters, and especially the University of Virginia, whicb is coming into existence almost entirely from his exertions, and will rise, it is to be hoped, to usefulness and credit under his continued care. When we were with him, his favorite subjects were Greek and Anglo-Saxon, historical recollections of the times and events of the Bevolution, and of his residence in France from 1783-4 to 1789. LINES ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON CHARLES. [Written in 1825. From the Same.] ~JVT~Y son, thou wast my heart's delight, ***- Thy morn of life was gay and cheery; That morn has rushed to sudden night, Thy father's house is sad and dreary. * I held thee on my knee, my son! And kissed thee laughing, kissed thee weeping; But ah ! thy little day is done, Thou'rt with thy angel sister sleeping. -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 457 The staff, on which my years should lean, Is broken, ere those years come o'er me ; My funeral rites thou shouldst have seen, But thou art in the tomb before me. Thou rear'st to me no filial stone, No parent's grave with tears beholdest; Thou art my ancestor, my son ! And stand'st in Heaven's account the oldest. On earth my lot was soonest cast, Thy generation after mine, Thou hast thy predecessor past; Earlier eternity is thine. I should have set before thine eyes The road to Heaven, and showed it clear; But thou untaught springs't to the skies, And leav'st thy teacher lingering here. Sweet Seraph, I would learn of thee, And hasten to partake thy bliss ! And oh ! to thy world welcome me, As first I welcomed thee to this. Dear Angel, thou art safe in heaven; No prayers for thee need more be made; Oh ! let thy prayers for those be given Who oft have blessed thy infant head. My Father ! I beheld thee born, And led thy tottering steps with care; Before me risen to Heaven's bright morn,' My son ! My father ! guide me there. THE SHAFT AT BUNKER HILL. [Fr&m, an Address on the Laying of the Corner- Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 17 June, 1825.] WE know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces conld still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known ';o 458 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad then the earth itself can carry information of the events we com- memorate where it has not already gone ; and that no structure, which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors ; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the Kevolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured benefit which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Eevolution was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national power are still strong. We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of depend- ence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 459 APOSTROPHE TO THE VETERANS OF 1775. [From the Same.] "TTENERABLE MEN ! you have come down to us from a former V generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death ; all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have pre- sented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoy- ance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remem- brance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accom- plished. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like "another morn, Risen on mid-noon;" and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 460 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- . ' IMAGINARY SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS. [Discourse on the Lives and Services of Adams and Jefferson. 1826.] IT was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these. We know his opinions, and we know his character. He would commence with his accustomed directness and earnestness. "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague, near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone in- dependence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up, the war ? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust ? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defence of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him. " The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 45} maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowl- edge that her whole conduct towards us has been a course of injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as the result of fortune ; the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, why then, sir, do we not as soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory ? " If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies ; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry them- selves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these Colonies, and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army ; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit ; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls ; proclaim it there ; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon ; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support. "Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die ; die colonists ; die slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If -it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country. " But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this Dec- laration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood ; but it 462 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of sub- jection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence, now, and INDEPENDENCE FOKEVEK." T MUKDER WILL OUT. [Argument on the Trial of J. F. Knapp, for the Murder of Joseph White. 1830. J HE deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circum- stances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apart- ment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half -lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise ; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion r from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work ; and he plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard ! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! It is accomplished. .1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 453 The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe ! Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper ; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circum- stance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself ; or rather it feels an irresistible im- pulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty pos- session, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion^ it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. 464 DANIEL WEBSTER [1788- HAMILTON, THE FINANCIER. [From the Speech at a Public Dinner in New York, 10 March, 1831.] T TE was made Secretary of the Treasury ; and how he fulfilled the -d- duties of such a place, at such a time, the whole country perceived with delight and the whole world saw with admiration. He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprang upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton. REPLY TO MR. HAYNE'S STRICTURES ON NEW ENGLAND. [From the Second Speech on Foot's Resolution. U. S. Senate, 26 January, 1830.] THE GAGE ACCEPTED. IT was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself, in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body. Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of abso- lute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion ; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that 'calls for an answer, I will give him an answer ; and I tell him, that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable mem- ber might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 465 and say to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which other- wise, probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation ; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper ; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows to give ; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources. . SOUTH CAKOLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS. The gentleman has no fault to find with these recently promulgated South Carolina opinions. And certainly he need have none ; for his own sentiments, as now advanced, and advanced on reflection, as far as I have been able to comprehend them, go the full length of all these opinions. I propose, sir, to say something on these, and to consider how far they are just and constitutional. Before doing that, however, let me observe that the eulogium pronounced by the honorable gentleman on the char- acter of the State of South Carolina, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions, Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears, does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suf- ferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, VOL. iv. 30 466 DANIEL WEBSTER [1788- instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to ex- hibit a Carolina name so bright, as to produce envy in my bosom ? No, sir, increased gratification and delight, rather. I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past ; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massa- chusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Eevolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union, by which alone its exist- ence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. . ' \ ' . - . -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. LIBERTY AND UNION INSEPARABLE. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, ex- citing, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last iime the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or pol- luted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto,mo such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, " Liberty first and Union afterwards ; " but every- where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, atd in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- separable ! PEACEABLE SECESSION AN IMPOSSIBILITY. [Speech on the Aspect of the Slavery Question. U. S. Senate, 7 March, 1850.] ME. PKESIDENT, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word " secession," espe- 468 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- cially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion ! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface ! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing ? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable seces- sion is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off ? No, sir ! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce ; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character. Peaceable secession ! Peaceable secession ! The concurrent agree- ment of all the members of this great republic to separate ! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result ? Where is the line to be drawn ? What States are to secede ? What is to remain American ? What am I to be ? An American no longer ? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress ? Heaven for- bid ! Where is the flag of the republic to remain ? Where is the eagle still to tower ? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground ? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there will be, a Southern Confed- eracy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that the idea has been -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 4(J9 entertained, that, after the dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confed- eracy might be formed. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest nights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side and the free States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too strongly, perhaps, but there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical world, and I hold the idea of a separa- tion of these States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long the strength of America will be in the Valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two, and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government ? Pray, sir, let me say to the peo- ple of this country, that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this pop- ulation can be severed, by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri ? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave States ? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida ? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. ' I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government ! to dismember this glori- ous country ! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people ! No, sir ! no, sir ! There will be no secession ! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession. 470 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- SELECTIONS FROM WEBSTER'S CORRESPONDENCE. [The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster. Edited by Fletcher Webster. 1856.] TO JOHN RANDOLPH, IN REJOINDER TO A CHALLENGE. SIR, For having declined to comply with your demand yesterday in the House, for an explanation of words of a general nature, used in debate, you now " demand of me that satisfaction which your insulted feelings require," and refer me to your friend, Mr. , I presume, as he is the bearer of your note, for such arrangements as are usual. This demand for explanation, you, in my judgment, as a matter of right, were not entitled to make on me ; nor were the temper and style of your own reply to my objection to the sugar tax of a character to induce me to accord it as a matter of courtesy. Neither can I, under the circumstances of the case, recognize in you a right to call me to the field to answer what you may please to consider an insult to your feelings. It is unnecessary for me to state other and obvious considerations growing out of this case. It is enough that I do not feel myself bound at all times and under any circumstances, to accept from any man, who shall choose to risk his own life, an invitation of this sort ; although I shall be always prepared to repel in a suitable manner the aggression of any man who may presume upon such a refusal. Your obedient servant, DANIEL WEBSTER. WASHINGTON, early in 1816. TO GEORGE TICKNOR, AFTER READING A LIFE OF BYRON. IHAYE read Tom Moore's first volume of Byron's Life. Whatever human imagination shall hereafter picture of a human being, I shall believe it all within the bounds of credibility. Byron's case shows that fact sometimes runs by all fancy, as a steam-boat passes a scow at anchor. I have tried hard to find something in him to like, besides his genius and his wit ; but there was no other likeable quality about him. He was an incarnation of demonism. He is the only man in English history, for a hundred years, that has boasted of infidelity and of every practical vice, not included in what may be termed, what his biographer does term, meanness. Lord Bolingbroke, in his most extravagant youthful sallies, and the wicked Lord Littleton, were saints to him. All Moore can say is, that each of his vices had some virtue or some prudence near -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. it, which in some sort checked it. Well, if that were not so in all, who could 'scape hanging? The biographer, indeed, says his moral conduct must not be judged of by the ordinary standard ! And that is true, if a favorable decision is looked for. Many excellent reasons are given for his being a bad husband ; the sum of which is, that he was a very bad man. I confess I was rejoiced then, and am rejoiced now, that he was driven out of England by public scorn ; because his vices were not in his passions, but in his principles. He denied all religion and all virtue from the house-top. Dr. Johnson says, there is merit in maintaining good principles, though the preacher is seduced into violations of them. This is true. Good theory is something. But a theory of living, and of dying too, made up of the elements of hatred to religion, contempt of morals, and defiance of the opinion of all the decent part of the public, when before has a man of letters avowed it ? If Milton were alive to recast certain prominent characters in his great Epic, he could embellish them with new traits, without violating probability. Walter Scott's letter toward the end of the book, is much too charitable. WASHINGTON, 8 April, 1833. TO MES. PAIGE, ON THE JOY A^D GLORY OF THE MORN. TTTHETHEK it be a favor or an annoyance, you owe this letter to V V my habit of early rising. .... This city has a " pleasant seat." It is high, the James River runs below it, and when I went out an hour ago, nothing was heard but the roar of the falls. The air is tranquil, and its temperature mild. It is morning and a morning sweet and fresh, and delightful. Every- body knows the morning, in its metaphorical sense, applied to so many objects, and on so many occasions. The health, strength, and beauty of early years, lead us to call that period the "morning of life." Of a lovely young woman, we say, she is ''bright as the morning," and no one doubts why Lucifer is called " son of the morning." But the morn- ing itself, few people, inhabitants of cities, know anything about. Among all our good people of Boston, not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once a year. They know nothing of the morning. Their idea of it is, that it is that part of the day which comes along after a cup of coffee and a beefsteak, or a piece of toast. With them, morning is not a new issuing of light ; a new bursting forth of the sun ; a new waking up of all that has life, from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth ; it is only a part of the domestic day, belonging to breakfast, to reading the newspapers, answering notes. 472 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- sending the children to school, and giving orders for dinner. The first faint streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, till at length the " glorious sun is seen, regent of the day," this they never enjoy, for this they never see. Beautiful descriptions of the "morning" abound in all languages, but they are the strongest perhaps in those of the East, where the sun is so often an object of worship. King David speaks of taking to himself "the wings of the morning." This is highly poetical and beautiful. The "wings of the morning" are the beams of the rising sun. Eays of light are wings. It is thus said that the Sun of righteousness shall arise "with healing in his wings; " a rising sun, which shall scatter light and health, and joy throughout the universe. Milton has fine descrip- tions of morning, but not so many as Shakespeare, from whose writings pages of the most beautiful images, all founded on the glory of the morning, might be filled. I never thought that Adam had much advantage of us, from having seen the world while it was new. The manifestations of the power of God, like His mercies, are "new every morning," and "fresh every evening." We see as fine risings of the sun as ever Adam saw, and its risings are as much a miracle now as they were in his day, and I think a good deal more, because it is now a part of the miracle that for thou- sands and thousands of years he has come to his appointed time, without the variation of a millionth part of a second. Adam could not tell how this might be ! I know the morning ; I am acquainted with it, and I love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily new creation, breaking forth, and calling all that have life, and breath, and being, to new adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude. .RICHMOND, VA., 5 A.M., 29 April, 1847. TO THE EEV. ME. FUENESS, EXPLAINING HIS ATTITUDE IK EEGAED TO THE SLAVEEY QUESTION. "TpEOM my earliest youth, I have regarded slavery as a great moral J- and political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equality of mankind, founded only in superior power ; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker. All pretence of defending it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned. I have even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against, not for, its subjection and oppression. In a religious point of view, -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 473 I have ever regarded it, and ever spoken of it, not as subject to any express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teaching of Jesus Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, justice, and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affectionate ; it does not seek another's, and not its own ; it does not let the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act of oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of thinking among men, and such is the influence of what has been long established, that even minds, religious and tenderly consci- entious, such as would be shocked by any single act of oppression, in any single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not always moved by the reflection that slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights. But now, my dear sir, what can be done by me, who act only a part in political life, and who have no power over the subject of slavery, as it exists in the States of the Union ? I do what I can to restrain it ; to prevent its spread and diffusion. But I cannot disregard the oracles which instruct me not to do evil that good may come. I cannot co- operate in breaking up social and political systems, on the warmth, rather than the strength, of a hope that, in such convulsions, the cause of emancipation may be promoted. And even if the end would justify the means, I confess I do not see the relevancy of such means to such an end. I confess, my dear sir, that in my judgment confusion, conflict, embittered controversy, violence, bloodshed, and civil war, would only rivet the chains of slavery the more strongly. In my opinion, it is the mild influences of Christianity, the softening and melting power of the Sun of righteousness, and not the storms and tempests of heated controversy, that are, in the course of those events which an all-wise Providence overrules, to dissolve the iron fetters by which man is made the slave of man. The effect of moral causes, though sure, is slow. In two thousand years, the doctrines and the miracles of Jesus Christ have converted but a very small part of the human race ; and among Christian nations, even, many gross and ob- vious errors, like that of the lawfulness of slavery, have still held their ground. But what are two thousand years in the great work of the progress of the regeneration and redemption of mankind? If we see that the course is onward and forward, as it certainly is, in regard to the final abolition of human slavery ; while we give to it our fervent prayers, and aid it by all the justifiable influences which we can exercise, it seems to me, we must leave both the progress and the result in His hands who 474 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- sees the end from the beginning, and in whose sight a thousand years are but as a single day. WASHINGTON, 15 February, 1850. TO MRS. PAIGE, IK PRAISE OF AK INIMITABLE DISH. DE AE MES. PAIGE, I sit down to write a letter, partly diplomatic and partly historical. The subject is Tripe, T. E. L P. E. Your husband remembers Mrs. Hayman, who was Mrs. Blake's cook. Ex- celling others in all else, she excelled herself in a dish of tripe. I do not know that her general genius exceeded that of Monica McCarty ; but in this production she was more exact, more artistical ; she gave to the article, not only a certain gout, which gratified the most fastidious, but an expression also, an air of haut ton, as it lay presented on the table, that assured one that he saw before him something from the hand of a master. Tradition, it is said, occasionally hands down the practical arts with more precision and fidelity than they can be transmitted by books, from generation to generation; and I have thought it likely that your Lydia may have caught the tact of preparing this inimitable dish. I entertain this opinion on two grounds : first, because I have been acquainted with very respectable efforts of hers, in that line ; second, because she knows Mr. Paige's admirable connoisseurship, and can determine, by her quick eye, when the dish comes down from the table, whether the contents have met his approbation. For these reasons, and others, upon which it is not necessary for the undersigned to enlarge, he is desirous of obtaining Lydia's receipt for a dish of tripe, for the dinner-table. Mrs. Hayman's is before my eyes. Unscathed by the frying-pan, it was white as snow ; it was disposed in squares, or in parallelograms, of the size of a small sheet of ladies' note paper; it was tender as jelly; beside it stood the tureen of melted butter, a dish of mealy potatoes, and the vinegar cruet. Can this spectacle be exhibited in the Yine Cottage, on Louisiana Avenue, in the City of Washington? Yours truly, always, DAN'L WEBSTER. P. S. Tripe; the Etymon is the Greek word Tptneiv, to "turn, to wind," from its involutions, not the same as "Tripod," which means " having three feet ; " nor the same as trip, which is from the Latin, " tripudiare," to strike the feet upon the ground; sometimes to stumble sometimes to go nimbly ; to " trip it on the light fantastic toe." WASHINGTON, 29 December, 1850. -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. 475 TO PRESIDENT FILLMORE, FROM THE BROAD ACRES OF MARSHFIELD. HAVING- despatched Mr. Benjamin late last evening, I rose quite early this morning and went out upon the sea. ^ The day has been delicious, and the sea-air seems to give me new life and strength. I ate more dinner on board the boat (cold salted beef and bread) than I have eaten any day since I left Capon Springs. Fishing for cod, haddock, and halibut is a common and coarse amusement, which the connoisseurs in angling reject. I like it, however, as it gives me occupation while we are out for the benefit of the air and the ocean. I caught thirty codfish to-day, weighing from eight to twelve pounds each, and as the boatmen were also fortunate we brought home a fare which astonished our neigh- bors. They represented fish as very scarce at this season, as they retire in hot weather into deep water. I told them that I thought I should know where to look for fish. I never saw Marshfield look so well as it does now ; the crops are heavy, the lawns and pastures perfectly green, and the trees remarkably bright and glossy. There are several hundred thousands of trees here, which I have raised myself from the seeds ; they are all arranged in avenues, copses, groves, long rows by the roads and fences, and some of them make beautiful and impenetrable thickets on hills which were mere sand-hills when I came here. The herds and flocks are in fine order. Llamas from Peru feed in the -pastures with the sheep. "We have a little fresh-water lake, which is frequented not only by the ordinary ducks and geese, but by beautiful Canada geese or wild geese, which breed in re- tired places, but will always join their kindred in their emigrations, spring and fall, unless their wings are kept cropped. We have also China geese, India geese, and in short, the same birds from almost every quarter of the world. As to the poultry-yard, there is no end to the varieties which my man has collected. I do not keep the run of half the names and breeds. The situation of this place is rather peculiar. Back of us, inland, rises a large forest, in which one may hide himself, and find as odorous an atmosphere as among the pines of Maine. In front of us, a mile dis- tant, is the sea, every mast visible over the beach bank, and all vessels visible, hulls as well as masts, from the chambers of the house. A drive of one mile and a half, almost entirely over my own farm, brings us to what is called Duxbury beach, a breadth of clean, white, hard sand, seven miles long, which forms at low water a favorite ride or drive in hot weather. These, my dear sir, are all trifles, and of course without much interest to any one but myself ; but, I confess, that to me Marshfield is a charm- ing place ; perhaps one reason is that so many things about it which now 476 DANIEL WEBSTER. [1788- appear handsome, are the result of my own attention. I sometimes try to read here, but can never get on, from a desire to be out-of-doors. In truth, I read nothing but my correspondence, and such official papers as it is my duty to peruse. MABSHFIELD, 23 July, 1851. TO JOHK TAYLOR, TO ESCHEW POLITICS AND SPEED THE PLOUGH. JOHN TAYLOR, Go ahead. The heart of the winter is broken, and before the 1st day of April all your land may be ploughed. Buy the oxen of Captain Marston, if you think the price fair. Pay for the hay. I send you a check for one hundred and sixty dollars, for these two objects. Put the great oxen in a condition to be turned out to be fattened. You have a good horse team, and I think, in addition to this, four oxen and a pair of four-year old steers will do your work. If you think so, then dispose of the Stevens oxen, or unyoke them and send them to the pasture, for beef. I know not when I shall see you, but I hope before planting. If you need anything, such as guano, for instance, write to Joseph Breck, Esq., Boston, and he will send it to you. What- ever ground you sow or plant, see that it is in good condition. We want no pennyroyal crops. " A little farm well tilled," is to a farmer the next best thing to "A little wife well willed." Cultivate your garden. Be sure to produce sufficient quantities of useful vegetables. A man may half support his family from a good garden. Take care to keep my mother's garden in the best order, even if it cost you the wages of a man to take care of it. I have sent you many garden seeds. Distribute them among your neighbors ; send them to the stores in the village, that everybody may have a part of them without cost. I am glad that you have chosen Mr. Pike representative. He is a true man ; but there are in New Hampshire many persons, who call them- selves Whigs, who are no Whigs at all, and no better than disunionists. Any man, who hesitates in granting and securing to every part of the country, its just and constitutional rights, is an enemy to the whole country. John Taylor ! if one of your boys should say that he honors his father and mother, and loves his brothers and sisters, but still insists that one of them shall be driven out of the family, what can you say of -1820] DANIEL WEBSTER. him but this, that there is no real family love in him ? You and I are farmers, we never talk politics ; our talk is of oxen ; but remember this ; that any man who attempts to excite one part of this country against another, is just as wicked as he would be who should attempt to get up a quarrel between John Taylor and his neighbor old Mr. John Sanborn, or his other neighbor Captain Burleigh. There are some animals that live best in the fire ; and there are some men, who delight in heat, smoke, combustion, and even general conflagration. They do not follow the things which make for peace. They enjoy only controversy, contention, and strife. Have no communion with such persons, either as neigh- bors or politicians. You have no more right to say that slavery ought not to exist in Virginia, than a Virginian has to say, that slavery ought to exist in New Hampshire. This is a question left to every State, to decide for itself, and if we mean to keep the States together, we must leave to every State this power of deciding for itself. I think I never wrote you a word before upon politics. I shall not do it again. I only say love your country, and your whole country, and when men attempt to persuade you to get into a quarrel with the laws of other States, tell them, " that you mean to mind your own business," and advise them to mind theirs. John Taylor ! you are a free man ; you possess good principles, you have a large family to rear and provide for by your labor. Be thankful to the government, which does not oppress you, which does not bear you down by excessive taxation ; but which holds out to you and to yours the hope of all the blessings which liberty, industry, and security may give. John Taylor ! thank God, morning and evening, that you were born in such a country. John Taylor ! never write me another word upon politics. Give my kindest remembrance to your wife and children ; and when you look from your eastern windows upon the graves of my family, re- member that he, who is the author of this letter, must soon follow them to another world. DAN'L WEBSTER. WASHINGTON, 17 March, 1852. 473 JOBN CALDWELL CALHOUN. [1788- Cal^own. BOBN in Abbeville District, S. C., 1782. DIED in Washington, 1850. STATE SOVEREIGNTY EXPOUNDED BY ITS GREATEST CHAMPION. [From the Letter to Gov. Hamilton, written at Fort Hill, S. C., 28 August, 1832.] CITIZENS DIRECTLY ANSWERABLE TO THEIR RESPECTIVE STATES. I WILL next proceed to state some of the results which, necessarily follow from the facts which have been established. The first, and, in reference to the subject of this communication, the most important, is, that there is no direct and immediate connection be- tween the individual citizens of a State and the General Government. The relation between them is through the State. The Union is a union of States as communities, and not a union of individuals. As members of a State, her citizens were originally subject to no control but that of the State, and could be subject to no other, except by the act of the State itself. The Constitution was, accordingly, submitted to the States for their separate ratification ; and it was only by the ratification of the State that its citizens became subject to the control of the General Government The ratification of any other, or all the other States, without its own, could create no connection between them and the General Government, nor impose on them the slightest obligation. Without the ratification of their own State, they would stand in the same relation to the General Government as do the citizens or subjects of any foreign state ; and we find the citizens of North Carolina and Khode Island actually bearing that relation to the Government for some time after it went into opera- tion ; these States having, in the first instance, declined to ratify. Nor had the act of any individual the least influence in subjecting him to the control of the General Government, except as it might influence the rati- fication of the Constitution by his own State. Whether subject to its control or not, depended wholly on the act of the State. His dissent had not the least weight against the assent of the State, nor his assent against its dissent. It follows, as a necessary consequence, that the act of ratifi- cation bound the State as a community, as is expressly declared in the article of the Constitution above quoted, and not the citizens of the State as individuals; the latter being bound through their State, and in consequence of the ratification of the former. Another, and a highly important consequence, as it regards the subject under investigation, follows with equal certainty ; that, on a question whether a particular power exercised by the General Government be granted by the Constitu- -1820] JOHN" CALDWELL CALHOUN. 479 tion, it belongs to tlie State as a member of the Union, in her sovereign capacity in convention, to determine definitively, as far as her citizens are concerned, the extent of the obligation which she contracted ; and if, in her opinion, the act exercising the power be unconstitutional, to de- clare it null and void, which declaration would be obligatory on her citizens. In coming to this conclusion, it may be proper to remark, to prevent misrepresentation, that I do not claim for a State the right to abrogate an act of the General Government. It is the Constitution that annuls an unconstitutional act. Such an act is of itself void and of no effect. What I claim is, the right of the State, as far as its citizens are concerned, to de- clare the extent of the obligation, and that such declaration is binding on them a right, when limited to its citizens, flowing directly from the relation of the State to the General Government on the one side, and its citizens on the other, as already explained, and resting on the most plain and solid reasons. THE EIGHT OF NULLIFICATION. I have now, I trust, conclusively shown that a State has a right, in her sovereign capacity, in convention, to declare an unconstitutional act of Congress to be null and void, and that such declarations would be obli- gatory on her citizens, as highly so as the Constitution itself, and conclusive against the General Government, which would have no right to enforce its construction of its powers against that of the State. I next propose to consider the practical effect of the exercise of this high and important right which, as the great conservative principle of our system, is known under the various names of nullification, interposi- tion, and State veto in reference to its operation viewed under different aspects : nullification, as declaring null an unconstitutional act of the General Government, as far as the State is concerned ; interposition, as throwing the shield of protection between the citizens of a State and the encroachments of the Government ; and veto, as arresting or inhibit- ing its unauthorized acts within the limits of the State. I have already shown that the declaration of nullification would be obligatory on the citizens of the State ; as much so, in fact, as its dec- laration ratifying the Constitution, resting, as it does, on the same basis. It would to them be the highest possible evidence that the power con- tested was not granted, and, of course, that the act of the General Gov- ernment was unconstitutional. They would be bound, in all the relations of life, private and political, to respect and obey it ; and, when called upon as jurymen, to render their verdict accordingly, or as judges, to pronounce judgment in conformity with it. The right of jury trial is secured by the Constitution (thanks to the jealous spirit of liberty, doubly 480 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. [1788- secured and fortified) ; and, with this inestimable right inestimable, not only as an essential portion of the judicial tribunals of the country, but infinitely more so, considered as a popular, and still more, a local repre- sentation, in that department of the Government which, without it, would be the farthest removed from the control of the people, and a fit instru- ment to sap the foundation of the system with, I repeat, this inestimable right, it would be impossible for the General Government, within the limits of the State, to execute, legally, the act nullified, or any other passed with a view to enforce it; while, on the other hand, the State would be able to enforce, legally and peaceably, its declaration of nullifica- tion. Sustained by its courts and juries, it would calmly and quietly, but successfully, meet every effort of the General Government to enforce its claim of power. The result would be inevitable. Before the judicial tribunals of the country, the State must prevail, unless, indeed, jury trial could be eluded by the refinement of the Court, or by some other device ; which, however, guarded as it is by the ramparts of the Constitution, would, I hold, be impossible. The attempt to elude, should it be made, would itself be unconstitutional ; and, in turn, would be annulled by the sovereign voice of the State. Nor would the right of appeal to the Supreme Court, under the judiciary act, avail the General Government. If taken, it would but end in a new trial, and that in another verdict against the Government ; but whether it may be taken, would be optional with the State. The Court itself has decided that a copy of the record is requisite to review a judgment of a State court, and, if necessary, the State would take the precaution to prevent, by proper enactments, any means of obtaining a copy. But if obtained, what would it avail against the execution of the penal enactments of the State, intended to enforce the declaration of nullification? The judgment of the State court would be pronounced and executed before the possibility of a reversal, and executed, too, without responsibility incurred by any one. Beaten before the courts, the General Government would be com- pelled to abandon its unconstitutional pretensions, or resort to force ; a resort, the difficulty (I was about to say, the impossibility) of which would very soon fully manifest itself, should folly or madness ever make the attempt. . . HOW NULLIFICATION DIFFERS FROM SECESSION, First, they are wholly dissimilar in their nature. One has reference to the parties themselves, and the other to their agents. Secession is a with- drawal from the Union ; a separation from partners, and, as far as depends on the member withdrawing, a dissolution of the partnership. It pre- supposes an association ; a union of several States or individuals for a -1820] JOHN GALDWELL CALHOTTN. common object Wherever these exist, secession may ; and where they do not, it cannot. Nullification, on the contrary, presupposes the relation of principal and agent: the one granting a power to be executed, the other, appointed by him with authority to execute it ; and is simply a declaration on the part of the principal, made in due form, that an act of the agent transcending his power is null and void. It is a right belonging ex- clusively to the relation between principal and agent, to be found where- ever it exists, and in all its forms, between several, or an association of principals, and their joint agents, as well as between a single principal and his agent. The difference in their object is no less striking than in their nature. The object of secession is to free the withdrawing member from the obligation of the association or union, and is applicable to cases where the object of the association or union has failed, either by an abuse of power on the part of its members, or other causes. Its direct and immediate object, as it concerns the withdrawing member, is the dissolution of the association or union, as far as it is concerned. On the contrary, the object of nullification is to confine the agent within the limits of his powers, by arresting his acts transcending them, not with the view of destroy- ing the delegated or trust power, but to preserve it, by compelling the agent to fulfil the object for vihich the agency or trust was created; and is applicable only to cases where the trust or delegated powers are transcended on the part of the agent. Without the power of secession, an association or union, formed for the common good of all the members, might prove ruinous to some, by the abuse of power on the part of the others ; and without nulli- fication the agent might, under color of construction, assume a power never intended to be delegated, or to convert those delegated to objects never intended to be comprehended in the trust, to the ruin of the principal, or, in case of a joint agency, to the ruin of some of the principals. Each has, thus, its appropriate object, but objects in their nature very dissimilar ; so much so, that, in case of an association or union, where the powers are delegated to be executed by an agent, the abuse of power, on the part of the agent, to the injury of one or more of the members, would not justify secession on their part. The rightful remedy in that case would be nullification. There would be neither right nor pretext to secede : not right, because secession is applicable only to the acts of the members of the association or union, and not to the act of the agent; nor pretext, because there is another, and equally efficient remedy, short of the dissolution of the association or union, which can only be justified by necessity. Nullification may, indeed, be succeeded by secession. In the case stated, should the other members undertake to grant the power nullified, and should the nature of the power be such as to defeat the object of the association or union, at least as far as the member nullifying is con- VOL. iv. 31 432 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. [1788- cerned, it would then become an abuse of power on the part of the prin- cipals, and thus present a case where secession would apply; but in no other could it be justified, except it be for a failure of the association or union to effect the object for which it was created, independent of any abuse of power. -. . ,. There are many who acknowledge the right of a State to secede, but deny its right to nullify; and yet, it seems impossible to admit the one without admitting the other. They both presuppose the same structure of the Government, that it is a Union of the States, as forming political communities, the same right on the part of the States, as members of the Union, to determine for their citizens the extent of the powers dele- gated and those reserved, and, of course, to decide whether the Consti- tution has or has not been violated. HOW AN EQUILIBRIUM OF THE SYSTEM MAY BE MAINTAINED. The General Government has the right, in the first instance, of con- struing its own powers, which, if final and conclusive, as is supposed by many, would have placed the reserved powers at the mercy of the delegated, and thus destroy the equilibrium of the system. Against this, a State has the right of nullification. This right, on the part of the State, if not counterpoised, might tend too strongly to weaken the Gen- eral Government and derange the system. To correct this, the amending or repairing power is strengthened. The former cannot be made too strong if the latter be proportionably so. The increase of the latter is, in effect, the decrease of the former. Give to a majority of the States the right of amendment, and the arresting power, on the part of the State, would, in fact, be annulled. The amending power and the powers of the Government would, in that case, be, in reality, in the same hands. The same majority that controlled the one would the other, and the power arrested, as not granted, would be immediately restored in the shape of a grant. This modification of the right of self-government, on the pa,rt of the States is, in fact, the pivot of a system. By shifting its position as the preponderance is on the one side or the other, or, to drop the simile, by increasing or diminishing the energy of the repairing power, effected by diminishing or increasing the number of States necessary to amend the Constitution, the equilibrium between the reserved and the delegated rights may be preserved or destroyed at pleasure. .* . The right of a State originally to complete self-government is a funda- mental principle in our system, in virtue of which the grant of power re- quired the consent of all the States, while to withhold power the dissent of a single State was sufficient. It is true, that this original and absolute power of self-government has been modified by the Constitution, as -1820] JOHN GALDWELL CALHOUN. 433 already stated, so that three-fourths of the States may now grant power ; and, consequently, it requires more than one-fourth to withhold. The boundary between the reserved and the delegated powers marks the limits of the Union. The States are united to the extent of the latter, and separated beyond that limit. It is then clear that it was not in- tended that the States should be more united than the will of one-fourth of them, or rather, one more than a fourth, would permit. It is worthy of remark, that it was proposed in the Convention to increase the con- federative power, as it may be called, by vesting two-thirds of the States with the right of amendment, so as to require more than a third, instead of a fourth, to withhold power. The proposition was rejected, and three- fourths unanimously adopted. It is, then, more hostile to the nature and genius of our system to assume powers not delegated, than to resume those that are ; and less hostile that a State, sustained by one-fourth of her co-States, should prevent the exercise of power really intended to be granted, than that the General Government should assume the exercise of powers not intended to be delegated. In the latter case, the usurpation of power would be against the fundamental principle of our system the original right of the States to self-government ; while in the former, if it be usurpation at all, it would be, if so bold an expression may be used, a usurpation in the spirit of the Constitution itself the spirit ordaining that the utmost extent of our Union should be limited by the will of any number of States exceeding a fourth, and that most wisely. THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT AN INFERIOR AND NATURALLY REBELLIOUS POWER. In a country having so great a diversity of geographical and political interest, with so vast a territory, to be filled in a short time with almost countless millions a country of which the parts will equal empires a union more intimate than that ordained in the Constitution, and so -inti- mate, of course, that it might be permanently hostile to the feelings of more than a fourth of the States, instead of strengthening, would have exposed the system to certain destruction. There is a deep and profound philosophy which he who best knows our nature will the most highly appreciate that would make the intensity of the Union, if I may so ex- press myself, inversely to the extent of territory and the population of a country, and the diversity of its interests, geographical and political and would hold in deeper dread the assumption of reserved rights by the agent appointed to execute the delegated, than the resumption of the delegated by the authority which granted the powers and ordained the agent to administer them. There appears, indeed, to be a great and pre- vailing principle that tends to place the delegated power in opposition 484 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. [1783- to the delegating the created to the creating power reaching far beyond man and his works, up to the universal source of all power. The earliest pages of Sacred History record the rebellion of the archangels against the high authority of Heaven itself and in ancient mythology, the war of the Titans against Jupiter, which, according to its narrative, menaced the universe with destruction. This all-pervading principle is at work in our system the created warring against the creating power ; and unless the Government be bolted and chained down with links of adamant by the hand of the States which created it, the creature will usurp the place of the creator, and universal political idolatry overspread the land. If the views presented be correct, it follows that, on the interposition of a State in favor of the reserved rights, it would be the duty of the General Government to abandon the contested power, or to apply to the States themselves, the source of all political authority, for the power, in one of the two modes prescribed in the Constitution. If the case be a simple one, embracing a single power, and that in its nature easily ad- justed, the more ready and appropriate mode would be an amendment in the ordinary form, on a proposition of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, to be ratified by three-fourths of the States ; bat, on the con- trary, should the derangement of the system be great, embracing many points difficult to adjust, the States ought to be convened in a general Convention the most august of all assemblies representing the united sovereignty of the confederated States, and having power and authority to correct every error, and to repair every dilapidation or injury, whether caused by time or accident, or the conflicting movements of the bodies which compose the system. With institutions every way so fortunate, possessed of means so well calculated to prevent disorders, and so ad- mirable to correct them when they cannot be prevented, he who would prescribe for our political disease disunion on the one side, or coercion of a State in the assertion of its rights on the other, would deserve, and will receive, the execrations of this and all future generations. PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. [Speech on the Slavery Question. U. S. Senate, 14 March, 1850.] I HA YE, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effect- ive measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so- -1820] JOHN GALDWELL CALHOUN. 485 great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest question that can ever come under your consideration How can the Union be preserved ? To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is indispensa- ble to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered. Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce, with any certainty, by what measure it can be saved ; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce, in the case of some dangerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge of the nature and character of the cause which produced it. The first question, then, presented for consideration, in the investigation I propose to make, in order to obtain such knowledge, is What is it that has endangered the Union ? To this question there can be but one answer, that the immediate