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If the Great Disposer of human destinies bestows on individual superior faculties, and a capacity to render important services to his country, and to the world, it is due to the dignity of man, respectfully to notice the distinctions which the laws of nature have ordained.

Although the world has not conferred on the subject of the following memoir its usual passports to preferment, to power, and to fortune, yet one memorable deed has entitled him to more substantial fame, and durable glory, than the conquest of the world should achieve for its hero. Besides, his equanimity, his fortitude, his cheerful submission to his adverse destinies, might shed a lustre on artificial and venal greatness, and is worthy of all imitation.

For fifty years Hewes has been buried in the depths of obscurity, during which period he has passed his time in the humble, and too unfashionable pursuits of honest industry; lost, as it were, to the knowledge of the world, and to fame. But he has been blessed by Heaven with the capacity to preserve, what millions of the inheritors of wealth, and fame, and preferment, have lost; he has been enabled to preserve his physical and intellectual powers; a capacity for sensual and social enjoyment; and what is more, his integrity of character, without which national independence, and republican liberty are but empty

names.

To revive and perpetuate in the recollection, one among the important events which lead to a new and glorious era in the history of our country, and the world, is the object of the fol. lowing memoir, in the performance of which it is intended to

contribute our mite in discharging the obligation of respect and gratitude, not only to the veteran and venerable Hewes, but to all those who were associated with him, in that desperate, memorable, and unprecedented enterprise.

A

RETROSPECT

OF

THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY,

AND

MEMOIR OF GEORGE R. T. HEWES.

A TOWN in the interior of the state of New-York, about sixty miles west of the Hudson river, in the county of Otsego, is the present residence of George R. T. Hewes, a survivor of the little band of patriots who sixty years ago immersed the three hundred and forty chests of tea in Boston harbour.

The house in which he now resides, stands about one mile in a westerly course from the medicinal waters, usually called Richfield Springs, from the name of the town in which they are situated. From some alteration intended to improve the great travelled road from Albany to Buffalo, the spot on which Hewes seems destined to close his life, is wholly excluded from any open communication with the public highway; and at the termination of a pent way, bounded partly on two sides by rising grounds, covered with a natural growth of forest trees, which, with the surrounding cultivated fields of arable, pasturage, and

meadow grounds, interspersed with clumps of trees, presents a prospect of rural scenery, highly variegated and picturesque.

On my arrival at this sequestered spot, and beholding the venerable remnant of mortality, animated with the vigour, the cheerfulness, and the vivacity of intelligent humanity, my recollections were by an involuntary impulse hurried back to the by-gone days of the revolution. Many prominent events of that interesting period of our history pressed upon my mind. When I contrasted the deathlike silence of his secluded situation with the clattering of an hundred tomahawks, cutting and dashing in splinters the chests which contained the British tea, and contemplated for a moment on the changes which time and events had wrought upon this venerable man, and his seclusion from the usual facilities of social intercourse, I was deeply impressed with a consideration of the mutability of human affairs, and the oblivion to which great achievements may be consigned by the forgetfulness or the ingratitude of the world.

I have particularly referred to the place of his present abode, that among the numerous visitors at the Richfield Springs, above referred to, those whose inquisitive minds may dispose them to attest, by a personal interview, the peculiar characteristics of this extraordinary man, may yet have an opportunity; as

nothing appears from the peculiar condition of his health, nothing but his great age that seems to presage his near approaching dissolution. Calculating on the chances which usually fall to the lot of human life, under circumstances which have marked the progress of his, he may yet far exceed the bounds set to the very few centarians of which we have any knowledge.

On receiving satisfactory evidence that he was one of the volunteers who drowned the tea in Boston harbour in 1773, I conceived it due to his character and fame, as well as to that interesting event, to consign to the monumental record of history the perpetuation of the memory of a man deserving of his country's esteem and applause. My confidence in the propriety of such an effort was increased on learning that his habits and manners had been distinguished for sobriety and industry, and especially when I found that his integrity was reputed to be unimpeachable; as the few incidents relating to the subject of the following memoir must depend for their correctness on the strength of his memory and his veracity. Besides, it is considered that the knowledge of those men who are concerned in transactions which are attended with uncommon circumstances, and lead to important results, must always be interesting to the inquisitive mind.

Although the few sketches of the history of Hewes will rest principally in his own recollection, his familiar