NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

8th December, 1818.

Dr. DAVID HOSACK, one of the Vice Presidents, in the Chair.

RESOLVED, That the thanks of this Society be presented to GuLIAN C. VERPLANCK, Esq. for the Discourse delivered by him the 7th inst. before the Society, aud that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication.

RESOLVED, That ANTHONY BLEECKER, Esq. JOHN BECK, M. D and JAMES STOUGHTON, Esq. be a Committee to wait on Mr. VERPLANCK, and communicate the preceding resolution.

JOHN PINTARD, Rec. Secretary,

ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE.

ON an occasion like this, addressing a society formed for the purpose of exploring and preserving the history of our own country, I know of no theme that can be selected so appropriate and so copious, as the eulogy of those excellent men who have most largely contributed to raise or support our national institutions, and to form or to elevate our national character.

The wide field of research, which the history of this hemisphere opens to us, may indeed present to the philosophical, as well as to the antiquarian inquirer, many objects of more curiosity, and, perhaps, some of greater utility. The observation of the various results in legislation or jurisprudence, in public and individual character, which have been produced in this great school of political experiment by hitherto untried combinations of the moral elements of society-the examination and arrangement of that immense mass of facts which our statistics exhibit-the investigation of the character, the languages, the traditions, the manners, and the superstitions of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country-the collecting and accurately ascertaining the minor facts and minuter details of those great achievements which have rendered the history of our liberties so glorious-all have their use and value. Hence may be drawn the materials which will enable the philosopher to pour new light on the moral and physical nature of man; and it is thus that are preserved those fleeting forms of the past, which may hereafter rise and live again at the powerful bidding of the poet or the painter.

But the habit of looking to our own annals for examples of life, and of rendering due honour to those illustrious dead, the rich fruits of whose labours we are now enjoying, has a more moral, and, I think, a nobler aim. In paying the tribute of admiration to genius, and of gratitude to virtue, we ourselves become wiser and better. Instead of leaving our love of country to rest upon the cold preference of reason, the slowest and most feeble of all motives of action, we thus call up the patriotism of the heart in aid to that of the head. Our love of country is exalted and purified by being mingled with the feelings of gratitude, and reverence for virtue; and our reverence for virtue is warmed and animated, and brought home to our hearts by its union with the pride and the love of our country.

But

In this respect we have not been faithful to our own honour. The short period of our existence as a people has been fruitful in models of public virtue. Other lands may boast of having given birth to men of rarer genius, and of more splendid achievement. Yet how often has that genius been the base flatterer or the willing instrument of oppression; how often has it been low and selfish in its ambition; how often black with crime. the history of our illustrious men is a story of liberty, virtue, and glory. Such, however, has been our culpable negligence of their fame, that little other memorial is to be found of most of them, than what has been incorporated in the public records of their times. All that is instructive in their private biography, all that is individual in their characters, is rapidly fading from memory; and there is danger, lest to the next generation the names of Greene, and Marion, and Wayne-of Otis, Laurens, Rutlege, and Pendleton-of Dickinson, Sherman, Ellsworth, and Hamilton, will be mere names of history, calling up no associations, inculcating no example, kindling no emotion. Their memories will, indeed, be bright and ever during, but they will shine as from afar, like the stars of other systems, whose cheering warmth and useful light are lost in the distance.

It is not my present intention to attempt to supply any part of this deficiency. The collection of facts

either floating in the memories of contemporaries, or buried in the mass of unpublished correspondence and official documents, is an employment for which I have had neither the opportunity nor the leisure. The task which I have assigned to myself is much less laborious, but scarcely less grateful. It is the commemoration of some of those virtuous and enlightened men of Europe, who, long ago, looking with a prophetic eye towards the destinies of this new world, and regarding it as the chosen refuge of freedom and truth, were moved by a holy ambition to become the ministers of the most High, in bestowing upon it the blessings of religion, morals, letters, and liberty.

When we look back upon the earlier European discoveries and conquests in this hemisphere, the mind recoils with horror from the scene of carnage and devastation with which the mighty drama of American history opens. The genius and power of civilized man have scarce ever been displayed to his weaker and untaught brethren, except as ministering to avarice and ferocity; and never were that genius and power put forth in more terrible and guilty superiority, than when the American continent was first laid open to Spanish enterprise and valour. Unrelenting avarice, under the mask of religion, sent forth band after band of ferocious adventurers, to rapine and murder. In the powerful language of Cowper,

The hand that slew, till it could slay no more,
Was glued to the sword-hilt, with Indian gore.

Among these stern and bloody men, there was one of a far different mould. The young Las Casas, whose spirit of adventure had induced him, at the age of nineteen, to accompany Columbus in his second expedition to the West-Indies, was one of those rare compounds

a For the general facts of Las Casas' life, see Robertson's America, passim. Dupin; Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, 16me siecle. Rees' Cyclopedia, article, "Las Casas.' Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique, Paris, 1789; and especially "Apologie de Barthelemy Las Casas, Eveque de Chiappa," par M. Gregoire, in the Memoirs de l'Institut Na tionale," AD. 8.

which nature forms, from time to time, for the ornament and consolation of the human race, blending a restless and unwearied energy of mind with a heart alive to every kind affection, elevated by piety, warm with benevolence, and kindling at wrong. He saw, with grief and indignation, the crimes of his countrymen, and the cry of the oppressed entered deep into his heart. From that hour, like the young Hannibal, but in a purer cause, he vowed himself to one sacred object. Rejecting with scorn, every lure which interest or ambition held out to tempt him from his course, refuting, by the blameless sanctity of his life, all the calumnies which were showered upon him, despising danger, disregarding toil, braving alike the sneer of the world and the frown of power, he laboured with a benevolence which never cooled, and a zeal which knew no remission, for more than seventy years, as the protector of the Indian race. Dangerous as the navigation was at that period, he crossed the Atlantic nine times for this purpose, besides traversing Europe, and penetrating, in all directions, the trackless wilds of the new world. We see him at one time breaking through the restraints of courtly form, while he charged his sovereign to his face with the personal guilt of those atrocious measures which had entailed misery upon a numerous and innocent people whom Providence had placed under his protection, and urging this accusation home to his conscience with an impetuous eloquence which made the crafty and cold-hearted Ferdinand tremble before him. Then again, we find him, armed with that mysterious power which virtuous enthusiasm bestows, mastering a stronger mind than his own, and compelling the lofty and stern Ximenes to partake of his zeal. Then he returns back to his suffering people, and, amidst every form of danger and hardship, administers in person his own admirable plans for their protection, conversion, and instruction.

Finding that the impressions of his animated oratory upon his countrymen and their rulers were constantly effaced, and their effects frustrated by the arts, intrigues, and falsehoods of the interested, he addressed himself, through the press, to the whole Christian world. In