IT is a magnificent spectacle to behold a great people annually crouding their tem­ples to consecrate the anniversary of their sovereignty. On this occasion the heart of every true American beats high with a just and noble pride. He still hears the illus­trious Fathers of his Country appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their conduct, declare that the United States "ARE AND OF RIGHT OUGHT TO BE, FREE AND INDEPENDENT." The black catalogue of injury, abuse, contempt and crime, which exhausted forbearance and drove us to resistance, rushes on his mind. He passes in review those great men who [Page 4] then burst upon the world, and who, en­dowed with every virtue and every talent which could fit them for the arduous task in which they engaged, appeared to be ex­pressly commissioned by Heaven to rule the storm of revolution. It was then indeed that human nature, which for eighteen cen­turies had appeared nearly to have lost those qualities which alone ennoble it, emerged at once from its degradation, and recover­ed the lustre with which it shone in the hap­piest days of antiquity.

ON the islands of the Adriatic, the moun­tains of Biscay, and the rocks of Uri, the spirit of Liberty had indeed successfully sought a refuge, but driven at last, from all that could delight her on earth, she had al­ready flapped her wings on the glaciers of Switzerland, and was taking her flight to­wards Heaven—The American people rose—they burst their fetters—they hurled them at their oppressors—they shouted they were FREE—The sound broke across the Atlan­lic—it shook the fog-wrapt island of Britain, [Page 5] and re-echoed along the Alps. The as­cending spirit heard it—she recognized in it the voice of her elect, and holding her course westward, she rejoicing saw her in­cense rise from a thousand altars. Her presence assured our triumph. Painful however was the struggle, and terrible the conflict which obtained that triumph—our harbours filled with hostile fleets—our fields ravaged—our cities wrapt in flames—a nu­merous, veteran and unprincipled enemy let loose upon us—our army thinned by bat­tles—wasted by sickness—disgusted by treachery and desertion—a prey to every species of privation and reduced to the last misery next despair—Even then, how­ever, this little army shewed themselves worthy the holy cause for which they con­tended. Driven from Long-Island—from the heights of Harlem—from White Plains pursued from post to post even to beyond the Delaware—they would often turn upon their insulting foe—and mingling their blood with the melting lava of the cannon's mouth, foretel them of Tronton, German­town and Monmouth.

[Page 6] BUT it was not in the ardent conflicts of the field only that our countrymen fell; it was not the ordinary chances of war alone, which they had to encounter. Happy in­deed, and thrice happy were WARREN, MONT­COMERY and MERCER; happy those other gallant spirits who fell with glory in the heat of battle distinguished by their country, and covered with her applause. Every soul, sensible to honor, envies rather than com­passionates their fate. It was in the dun­geons of our inhuman invaders; it was in their loathsome and pestiferous prison-ships, that the wretchedness of our countrymen still makes the heart bleed. It was there that hunger and thirst, and disease, and all contumely cold-hearted cruelty could be­stow, sharpened every pang of death. Mis­ery there wrung every fibre that could feel before she gave the blow of grace which sent the sufferer to eternity. It is said that poison was employed. No—there was no such mercy there—There nothing was em­ployed which could blunt the susceptibility to anguish, or which by hastening death [Page 7] could rob its agonies of a single pang. On board one only of these prison-ships above eleven thousand of our brave countrymen are said to have perished. She was called the Jersey. Her wreck still remains, and at low ebb presents to the world its accursed and blighted fragments. Twice in twenty four hours the winds of Heaven sigh through it, and repeat the groans of our expiring countrymen, and twice the ocean hides in her bosom those deadly and polluted ruins, which all her waters cannot purify. Every rain that descends washes from the unconse­crated bank the bones of those intrepid suf­ferers. They lie naked on the shore accus­ing the neglect of their countrymen. How long shall gratitude and even piety deny them burial. They ought to be collected in one vast ossery, which shall stand a mon­ument to future ages of the two extremes of the human character; of that depravity which, trampling on the rights of misfor­tune, perpetrated cold and calculating mur­der on a wretched and defenceless prisoner, and that virtue which animated this prison­er [Page 8] to die a willing martyr for his country. Or rather, were it possible, there ought there to be raised a Colossal Column, whose base sinking to bell, should let the murderers read their infamy inscribed on it, and whose capital of Corinthian laurel assending to Heaven should show the fainted Patriots that they have triumphed.

DEEP and dreadful as the colouring of this picture may appear, it is but a faint and imperfect sketch of the original. You must remember a thousand unutterable ca­lamities, a thousand instances of domestic as well as national anxiety and distress, which mock description. You ought to remem­ber them, you ought to hand them down in tradition to your posterity, that they may know the awful price their fathers paid for freedom.

IT would be well however amidst these bitter recollections, to suppress if possible the muttered curse of indignation; to pass in silence over the name of that nation which [Page 9] was our enemy; and if the effort is not above human magnanimity, to hold her, without antipathy, "as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends." Of all the passions which vex the human breast there is none perhaps which dupes stupidity or excites malevolence like nation­al antipathy. It hangs with a dark malig­nity about the heart, and gives a tone to all its emotions. It violates not only the evan­gelical precepts which enjoins the forgive­ness of injuries, but disregarding the max­ims of justice and even of common sense, it denies to virtue its excellence, it takes from crime its guilt, and disturbs society by a fu­rious denunciation of vengeance without being able to assign its provocation. To a man under the influence of this unhappy malady, the manners of the unconscious for­eigner, his gestures, his language, his food, and even the fashion of his coat are sources of uneasiness. But this is not all: He, who has once justified himself in his hatred to a part of the human race, has surmount­ed the first great barrier to crime, benevo­lence. [Page 10] When Amilcar took Hannibal at only nine years old to the altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to the Romans, he violated the most sacred duties of the Fa­ther and the Man. He ought to have fill­ed the heart of his son with benevolence for the promotion of his felicity, and that of his fellow-men. Was there not malignity enough in the human breast without exact­ing a guarantee for its hatred; or was it to be feared that Hannibal would too easily have forgiven his enemies unless forbid by the awful religion of an oath? National an­tipathy has been the low and ignoble poli­cy employed by some governments to se­cure support in the wild wars of their am­bition, but it is a policy which deeply affronts the people with whom it is employed, a policy which I trust the just and noble spir­it of every AMERICAN will spurn—What—must we be led to believe that the rest of mankind are fools and villains before we can have a good opinion of our own wis­dom and virtue; or must we be worked into an idea that they are all cowards before [Page 11] we dare to place a confidence in our own courage. No—let us have the generosity, the magnanimity, the justice, to give to all nations their due; let us dwell on those qual­ities which exalt rather than those which disgrace them, and let us found our glory on our own worth and not on their defects.

THE two great objects which divide the industry of the world are agriculture and commerce. Statesmen and moralists have calculated the effects which each of these has on the manners and opinions of man­kind. They have been generally inclined to believe that commerce corrupts and makes mankind venal. Among the adver­saries, however, of extensive commercial intercourse, will often be found men too deeply impressed with the charms of a coun­try life, or those who have received disgust from the anxieties and disappointments of trade. They reflect that Carthage was the most commercial nation of antiquity, and there so little regard was paid to the prin­ciples of integrity, that Punic faith became [Page 12] proverbial throughout the world. From a­mong the nations of modern times, they chuse out Hamburg. This city, which in a high and pompous stile calls herself free and imperial, is purely commercial. Confined within her ramparts, she holds no inter­course with nature, and it is scarcely known by some of her inhabitants, whether the vegetables they eat are not manufactured like the cloaths they wear. They have no fashions, no manners, and scarce a language of their own. They never think of their God unless it be to effect an insurance against his dispensations. People of all nations and tongues resort there; and when the citizens of this mighty republic assemble on their Exchange, which to them is the Camp of Mars, they form a motley group of dif­ferent from and complexion, of differ­ent manners and religion, of different ac­cents and dress from all the different quar­ters of the world, united and alike alone in their object, that of making money. There many a battle is fought, kings dethroned and nations conquered for half per cent, [Page 13] Money is their great good; every thing is bought and sold, hospitality herself is set upon the tariff, and they will almost give you the price current of an oath. Talk to a Hamburgher, who probably was first a Dutchman, a Ragusan, a Genoese, or an Eng­lishman, about the love of country and he will think you mad—he has no country. Talk to him about liberty and he will praise it, because he thinks you mean a free trade. He troubles himself no further with the po­litical changes in the world than they af­fect the markets, and if he has a preference for one country above another it is that where the best speculation is to be made.—Such is the sombre pencil with which com­merce is pourtrayed. Agriculture is touch­ed with brighter colours. It is remember­ed that in the early days of Rome every thing virtuous and honourable was found among the rural tribes—The cultivation of the soil gives health and vigor to the body, and purity and tranquillity to the mind. The human form attains in the labors of the field its utmost development. The full [Page 14] chest, the muscular and brawny arm and the toil-strung sinew are the reward of the hus­bandman. He preserves with nature all his relations. He every where converses with his God. He every where contem­plates order, economy and peace, and his soul is filled with a delightful harmony. The seasons return with unerring regulari­ty; nothing is in vain; every thing pro­gresses towards some end for which it has been designed by the eternal wisdom, and every thing attains this end, without inter­ference and without confusion; amidst the low but transporting music of the spheres. The cultivator of the soil is indeed a Patri­ot. The habits formed in his youth never desert his age. The very trees and rocks among which he has grown up are objects of his affection. He loves the soil which has rewarded his labours, and he finds mu­sic in the echo of his native hills. Even the fidelity of the honest Swiss was not proof to that touching air^* which brought to his remembrance the charms of his rural [Page 15] home. Strongly however as agriculture and commerce may appear to be here con­trasted: they are not naturally enemies, nor even rivals; they are friends and ought to unite for the attainment of a great and com­mon object. In this country above all oth­ers do they require the mutual aid of each other. Agriculture supplies Commerce with the articles of her exports, and with a ready market for her returns. Commerce, in her turn, incites the husbandman to labor beyend his wants, by administering to his enjoyments.—Make Commerce the only honorable pursuit; the farmer would de­sert his plough, and leave the most delight­ful country in the world to become again a howling wilderness—Destroy Commerce, the farmer would transform himself into a winder of silk or a knitter of lace, or, what alas is more probable, he would be actua­ted by no nobler incentive than his coarse appetites, he would feel the last ray of civil­ization expire within him, and he would revert to all the horrors of savage life. Is it not then astonishing that any man should [Page 16] wish for the destruction either of agricul­ture or commerce, since the first is necessa­ry to life, and the second to make life ami­able. It is the spirit of party alone which can be guilty of such madness. But of what is not the spirit of party guilty? It assails the fairest virtue—it overturns the statues of heroes—it ransacks nature for a poison, and by the midnight taper consults with science how to apply it. A thorough party-man forgets even himself, he is deaf to the sug­gestions of self-love—he is absorbed in the sole desire of oppressing his opponents, and if ever a ray of pleasure crosses his dark and sullen soul it is when he has succeeded in inflicting some misery upon them. In his blind excess he neither loves himself, his par­ty, or his country; but he hates religiously every one who differs from his opinions, when, perhaps these opinions were as light­ly embraced as they are malignantly defend­ed. He often in fact has no more faith in these opinions than the man he would sacri­fice for not adopting them. He can de­cree to Aristides the ostracism and to Socrates [Page 17] the deadly hemlock, and the next day ad­vocate the just politics of the one and the pure morality of the other. This party, than has indeed no principle to rest upon, he is hung up like a pendulum and in eternal oscilation as stupidity or design may set him in motion, the rapidity of his vibrations are inversely as his length. Beware how you indulge this terrible spirit of party. There is no security in the triumph it may obtain, for you to day; to-morrow the very instru­ments of that triumph may be turned upon you with affrightful execution. The same irregularity, which at one moment brought the loyal and virtuous Stafford to the scaf­fold, was found a fit instrument the next for the execution of the popular and illustri­ous Sydney: the same guillotine severed the neck of Danton, which had fallen on that of Louis, and Marius returned from the ru­ins of Carthage to glut himself with venge­ance on those who had driven him thither.

REVOLTING however as this barbarous spirit may appear, it generally chuses its▪ [Page 18] dwelling in the fairest portions of the world, and although in its excess it appears the im­placable and mortal enemy to liberty, yet is it nearly allied to that genius of faction which has often proved her strong but un­tractable friend. This last indeed appears to be the thunder, which, while it shakes, refreshes and purifies the political atmos­phere. Wherever it has been complete­ly silenced every foul and noxious vapor has arisen which could extinguish life, or fully its charms. You may have the silence of death, you may have the patient despair of slavery; but violence will never obtain for you a free and animated tranquillity. Ire­land will indeed be quiet when every tree is turned into a gallows, and France, had the energy of Robertspierre continued a little longer would have lost the last virtue that could rebel. All history is indeed full of the factions of free States. These, howev­er, like the mountains oak appeared to ga­ther vigor from the storms that shook them. Athens in one year, under the death-like tranquillity of a tyrant, lost more strength, [Page 19] more riches, more elegance, more glory than amidst the bosterous agitations of all her parties or even the conflicts of civil war. But these were not the beggarly and servile conflicts between a red rose and a white one, not whether a weak and inglorious bigot, or a wanton and abandoned debauchee should be king; they were not those temporary bursts of misery which now and then agitate the wretched inhabitants of Constantinople, and which an execution will allay without exhibiting any evidence of its justice. They sprung from that unbroken spirit, that wild and unfettered boldness, that restless, that uncontroulable, that sublime love of Li­berty which sometimes indeed mistakes its means but never loses fight of its object; which while it seems to endanger often se­cures that object, and which burns with un­diminished force while one generous senti­ment lingers in the human breast to support it. I would rather, exclaimed a noble Pal­atin^‡ in the Polish diet, I would rather [Page 20] have danger with liberty than safety with servitude. It is indeed better to be tossed by the rudest storm that ever vexed the po­litical ocean than to be motionless in port, and like a Genoese galley-slave have Liber­ty only on your chains. But is the human race then doomed to the melancholy alterna­tive of servitude or eternal insurrection. Must they be forever buffeted from despo­tism to anarchy, and from anarchy to despot­ism? If from these evils there is a refuge, it is not in the energy of government only, nor in the tame and worn-down spirit of the people—It is in the diffusion of knowledge, the indulgence of political opinion and the cultivation of the social virtues. You may give to government sufficient power to quell an insurrection, you ought to give it; but there are but two causes of insurrection; op­pression and delusion. Will the energy of government redress the first? It is but a sanction to it. Will it cure the last? There is no avenue by which violence can arrive at the understanding. It may well be doubt­ed if among the fifty thousand Moors, the [Page 21] fierce Zealot^§ who conquered Grenada caused to be baptized at the point of the bayonet, there was a single convert to the Catholic faith. It is the light of knowledge alone which can dissipate error; it is that alone which can give a people worth and re­spectability in the eyes of their rulers, and at the same time teach them the necessity of supporting a righteous government. Igno­rance, by eternally brooding over imagina­ry griefs, often produces real ones. That acquaintance, which every one has the leis­ure to acquire, with the springs of human action and the leading events which have taken place in the world, must show the most timid how terrible that security is which absolute power affords, and convince the most adventurous and hardy of the tremend­ous attributes of that freedom which exists in tempests and convulsions. Charondas, of all the legislators of antiquity, has alone the glory of having known the true source of republican happiness. He established FREE-SCHOOLS.

[Page 22] MUTUAL moderation between those of different political sentiments is essential to social harmony. It was said with truth, some thousand years ago, that it is not the opinions of men, but their quarrels about these opinions, which disturb the world. We have seen among religious sects, the a­stonishing effects of toleration. From the conquest of Britain by the Romans, to the settlement of this state by its illustrious Founder, that balm to religious dissention appeared, like the lazerpitium of Egypt, to have left the world, or to have been consid­ered as a worthless weed. It was then that the fiercest passions of the human breast, clad themselves in celestial armour, and re­tiring into the impenetrable recesses of con­science, harrassed the world with inexora­ble and cruel warfare. It was then that mankind, in contending for the altar, for­got the GOD, and destroyed in the name of religion, every thing that was dear to hu­manity. But when toleration returned, all sects and persuasions, happy in the security obtained for themselves, ceased to molest [Page 23] others; and piety confiding vengeance to him, who has said it is mine, once more kneeled to the divinity.

IF such is the power of toleration over bigotry and superstition, which are uncon­troulable by any earthly wisdom, whose flights are above the sublimest reason, and leave the understanding wearied and con­founded whenever it attempts to pursue them; what have we not a right to expect from political moderation? Politics have no forbidding mysteries; they do not strain themselves to be co-extensive with faith, which, expanded by the ardours of zeal, of­ten stretches beyond the utmost confines of possibility; they never leave the earth un­less when hoisted for a moment from their sphere, by the gas of visionaries. Here ev­ery thing may safely be brought to the test of reason, and here truth, when pursued with sincerity and moderation, will not be pursued in vain. Every absurdity and ex­travagance necessarily contain the seeds of their own mortality, and unless they re­ceive [Page 24] a forced and artificial existence from persecution, they will die a speedy and tran­quil death. It is a powerful truth, that no doctrine hostile to social order, can long prevail among a calm and enlightened peo­ple. Government has the safe keeping of the public repose, but it has no right to in­terfere with the consciences or reasonings of the governed. An interference of this kind is indeed as fruitless as it is unjust. How weak was I, exclaimed the Imperial bigot^‖ in his convent in Estre Madura, to have en­deavoured by violence to reduce Europe to one faith, when I am unable to make even two watches move alike.

THE next political heresy after intole­rance, which merits the reprobation of ev­ery good citizen, is deception. Every Gov­ernment which derives its support immedi­ately from the people, ought to walk in the light. It ought to be able to meet every investigation, with a serene front; and with that confidence which conscious integrity inspires. [Page 25] A people the least enlightened can­not long be deceived, their good sense will ultimately detect every intrigue, and they will be terrible to those who may have abus­ed their credulity. Darkly barbarous in­deed must be that nation which it is neces­sary to cheat into happiness, and unrighte­ous and unprincipled must be that government which will descend to fraud for any purpose. The false notions of the people are sometimes however called honest preju­dices, and the deceptions of government are hallowed with the name of pious frauds. But every man of feeling must weep over that honesty which is the mere result of de­lusion, and every man of virtue must execrate that piety which couples itself with a fraud.—In America, "however, where the right of sovereignty resides indisputably in the body of the people, and where ALL are equal by law and by birth ^†," if you expect purity in the stream, you must keep the source free from pollution. If there is not virtue in the people, it cannot reasonably be presum­ed [Page 26] to exist in those who are chosen by, and from the people. There is no magic in an election, which will make a sage of an idiot, or transform a rogue into an honest man. Neither is candor and confidence to be ex­pected in return for violence and jealousy. Every passion constantly tends to reproduce itself in its object: Even the divine com­mand to return good for evil, having had to encounter the strongest propensities of the human heart, has obtained but a partial obedience. If you desire then moderation and confidence from your rulers, you must treat them with moderation and confidence. Do you ask what duty imposes on you the obligation of leading the way. It may be answered, that if ever the delightful compe­tition of being and doing good takes place, it must begin somewhere, and you must have a better opinion of the virtue of others than you have of your own if you expect they will begin it.

THE politician may amuse you with a fa­vourite system, he may tell you of the excel­lence [Page 27] of this or that form of government, he may paint to you the magic there is in a balance of three powers; but every nation will be free or enslaved, happy or miserable, not by the parchments or prescriptions of the magistrate, but by the manners and cha­racter of the people. Should the Grand Signior, by his Firman, establish through­out his dominions a Constitution exactly similar to that of the United States, would Syria, Palestine and Egypt rise from their ruins, or degenerated Greece rekindle the holy fires of her freedom. No—Slavery would there still hug her chains; the Arab would still watch for plunder behind the fallen towers of Palmyra, and the barbarous inhabitant of Romelia would step heedlessly over the fragments of the Areopagus and the prostrate columns of the Parthenion. The balance of three powers has been exalted a­bove the influence of religion. But where shall we find its excellence. Shall we look to the governments of ancient times? They have perished? Shall we search for it in England? Did it exist there in the absolute [Page 28] despotism of the Tudors? Did it flourish in the murder and exile of the Stuarts? Is it to be found in the venality of the house of Han­over? Prerogative, indeed, has dropt the sceptre, but corruption pours invisibly her aerial acid on the heart, and stifles there ev­ery noble passion. Patriotism herself has be­come a mercenary, and the honest English­man of the present day, like Isaac, the tyrant of Cyprus, is well contented with his chains if they are but of silver. It is a kind of quackery in politics to prescribe one and the same constitution, as a sovereign reme­dy to the evils of all nations. The excel­lence of a government does not consist in either concentrating or dividing its powers, nor in an hereditary or elective executive, but in being adapted to the peculiar man­ners and circumstances of the nation, where it is instituted. Superlatively happy, how­ever, is that nation, where the people are sufficiently temperate and enlightened, to submit to a government of their own choice; for although monarchy may be best for some countries, yet those countries are for that [Page 29] very reason more miserable than where a re­public is best. Every man in the United States, who wishes for monarchy, must have either the vanity to think himself more vir­tuous than his fellow-citizens, or the con­sciousness that he is not sufficiently virtuous to discharge his duties voluntarily. That man is no less a revolutionist, who would rear a throne on the ruins of a republic than he who would establish popular dominion on the destruction of royal power.

IT was a maxim of the great De Witt, that no nation however weak ought ever to relinquish a single point, the justice of which is obvious. That nation indeed, which dares not to be just to herself, will never be just to others. Such a nation has no business with sovereignty. It is extravagant and ridicul­ous for a people to boast of independence, when they are afraid to make peace with one power least they should provoke anoth­er. It must be humiliating to every man of spirit, and distressing to every man of prin­ciple, tamely to submit to the abuses of a [Page 30] haughty nation, and even to court her fa­vour by wantonly defying her rival. Base and pusillanimous is it to play the hero where there is no danger, and the coward where there is. This is a mode of conduct which may answer the narrow and selfish views of a few little, headstrong political bargain-makers, but it can never gratify the just pride of a great people.

PERHAPS the expectations of many would be here disappointed was the war which now rages in Europe to be passed over in silence. In that war we behold something to admire but much to condemn. It makes the warri­ors' pulse beat quick and high. Military skill has there attained its perfection; Hanni­bal and Fabius—Turenne and Conde, Marl­borough and Villars, with all their diversity of excellencies every where find equals. Yet the skill of the General does not surpass the courage of the Soldier. Across the rage of battles, in the deadly breach, over the smoak­ing ashes of cities, and the convulsive mem­bers of the slain, he seeks for glory. In the [Page 31] onset prompt—impetuous—terrible as the glowing thunder-bolt; in defence, firm, and calm, and immoveable as a rock of adamant—a magnanimity—a fortitude—an intre­pidity every where prevail—Victory has lost her insolence, defeat her disgrace, and death his terrors. But we must turn from the splen­dor of this scene, where virtue appears at once to weep and to rejoice, where destruc­tion herself rises on her pedestal with a high and imposing majesty, and where human na­ture indemnifies herself for the calamities she suffers by ennobling the hand which in­flicts them—we must turn from this scene to the cold crimes of politics.

ON either side we behold the atrocity of the end aggravated by the atrocity of the means, and the charms of profession harsh­ly contrasted with affrightful realities. Uni­versal domination has entered the lifts against universal monopoly—while liberty and the rights of man have found themselves among the auxiliries of tyranny, and religion and the love of order have been pressed into the [Page 32] service of sacriledge and confusion:—LIBER­TY—has the demolished the Bastile merely to take her sullen seat among the ruins, and to hurl them at affrighted humanity; and the rights of man do they consist in the ex­pedition of a trial or the dispatch of an exe­cution—do they hang upon the lamp-post or stream beneath the guillotine—are they to be found in provincial Holland—in dis­tressed Liguria—in divided Venice, or on the desolated mountains of Helvetia.

ON the other side, does RELIGION leave her holy places to trample upon every thing ven­erable in years, amiable innocence, or re­spectable in virtue. Does she execute mili­tary law on the catholics of Ireland; does she hang the Jews at Milan; does she man­gle, and tear, and devour, the wretched pro­testants at Naples. Does the love of order fill the world with ruin, discord and murder? Does it open the sluices upon the peasants of Belgium? Does it fire the kelp-thatched hovels of the fishermen on the coasts of Nor­mandy? Does it excite treachery, sedition [Page 33] and mutiny on board the fleets of Holland? Does it wake the furies of civil war on the confines of Almorica, and pay the Vendean and Chouan Brigand for the extinction of the hu­man race. Does religion, does the love of or­der bring single and double knotted devo­tion from the wilds of Muscovy to fix her pol­luted altars on the plains of Italy. Do they—but here the full heart must have vent—do they double the most southern promontory of Africa to go and overthrow the throne of an independent monarch of Asia. The blood of Saib was as pure that of the Bourbons—as noble as that of the Brunswicks. Unhappy monarch, was it not enough for him to be­hold his territories dismembered and devas­tated—his subjects slaughtered and enslaved—but were his throne, his family and his life devoted to destruction. He defended his power with a spirit which shewed he deserv­ed it. His death was worthy of a king. He fell gored in front by many a wound, and the mangled bodies of his faithful subjects raised over him a glorious mausoleum. Let the pretended champions of religion, of or­der, [Page 34] and of ancient institutions tell of the plunder each assassin shared from the profan­ed regalia of this murdered monarch; let the first and most celebrated minister in Eu­rope insult his fallen fortunes, in cold and contemptuous irony, with the title of Citizen Tippoo; yet the wrongs of Citizen Tippoo shall be remembered, when the subverters of his power, the destroyers of his life, and the calumniators of his fame shall be crushed with execration or forgotten in oblivion. Let us take care how we bestow applause from the prevailing passion of the moment. Gedzar ^* Pacha and Suwarrow were the heroes of the last year, but the first has already become again the butcher of Acre, and the last the sacker of Ismael and the bloodsucker of Warsaw.

SHOULD we be involved in the present European contest, if we are just we shall have nothing to repent—if we are united we shall have nothing to fear. UNION is the heart thro' which must circulate those streams of [Page 35] life, of health, of joy, which shall animate ev­ery member, which shall heal every disease, and which shall give a zest to every blessing. United you may set securely like a mighty giant on your mountains, and bending a stern regard upon the ocean dare the coming of the proudest foe; the little topical erup­tion of a County or a State shall yield to the hale vigor of the whole; and every part re­ciprocating those good offices, which a di­versity of soil and climate give them the high privilege of rendering acceptable—you shall exhibit a spectacle which shall awe and delight the universe. Policy, genius, nature herself invites to union. She has bound us together by a chain of mountains which no human strength can break—she has interlac­ed us by a hundred majestic streams, which pass and repass the boundaries of States; which parting nearly from the same sources flow in a hundred different directions, disre­garding the little prejudices of the districts they fertalize; and now approaching, now receding from each other, they wind in a thousand mazes and weave a knot which no [Page 36] intrigue can loosen, which no sword can se­ver. Who will not rise superior to local pre­possessions—who will not feel himself the citizen of a common country, the child of a common parent; and who is he, wherev­er may be his abode, whether on this or the other side of the Chesapeak, whether on the banks of the Missisippi, or the borders of the Atlantic, who, while he exults in the name of an American will not regard as his brother every one who has a title to that proud distinction.

BE UNITED, was the last injunction which trembled from the lips of our departed WASHINGTON. At the name of Wash­ington, does not a melancholy pleasure sad­den and delight your souls. The Fourth of July shall never pass but HE on it shall be remembered. He has filled the world with his and our glory. The Tartar and the A­rub converse about him in their tents. His form already stands in bronze and marble among the worthies of ancient and modern times. The fidelity of history has already [Page 37] taken care of the immortality of his fame. His example shall animate posterity, and should faction tear, or invasion approach our country, his spirit shall descend from the divinity and inspire tranquillity and cou­rage. Death has not terminated his useful­ness, he has not yet ceased to do good, and even now he holds from his tomb a torch which cheers and enlightens the world. He loved truth, let us love it; let us seek it with a sincere and single heart. It will re­ward the search. It is great, immutable and eternal. The fugitive falshoods of the mo­ment shall perish; party and passion may write their names upon the plaster, but this shall one day moulder, and truth remain forever inscribed upon the marble. But mistake not for truth that consistency which constitutes the mock virtue of the present day. Is the pursuit of this preposterous virtue the commission of one fault often makes a thousand others necessary. The unfortunate man who has committed it must not allow that he has erred, he must not take council of conscience, he must not [Page 38] claim sanctuary in the charity of his kindred men; but he must have the spirit to adopt a system which shall vindicate the infallibil­ity of his head, though at the sacrifice of ev­ery amiable quality of his heart; and im­pelled by the power of consistency he must press onward, though, like the Leming, he mark his course through life by a right-line of destruction. But truth, though it never changes, never errs—it shines with a mild and equal lustre—it breaks through the clouds of ignorance and barbarity—it dis­pels the emanations of vice and folly, and like the sun diffusing light and joy, it goes on forever rejoicing in its course.