their duties, exist, on the part of the officers and their men. On the other, almost everything is yet to be acquired. We have, however, the consolation that our country abounds with the richest materials, and that in no instance, when engaged in action, have our arms been tarnished.

An honorable peace is attainable only by an efficient war. My plan would be, to call out the ample resources of the country, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war with the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach the enemy, at sea or on land, and negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or at Halifax. We are told that England is a proud and lofty nation, which, disdaining to wait for danger, meets it half way. Haughty as she is, we once triumphed over her; and, if we do not listen to the counsels of timidity and despair, we shall again prevail. In such a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned with success; but, if we fail, let us fail like men, lash ourselves to our gallant tars, and expire together in one common struggle, fighting for FREE TRADE AND SEAMEN'S RIGHTS!

FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1776. —R. H. Lee.

THE time will certainly come when the fated separation between the mother country and these colonies must take place, whether you will or no; for so it is decreed by the very nature of things, - by the progressive increase of our population, the fertility of our soil, the extent of our territory, the industry of our countrymen, and the immensity of the ocean which separates the two countries. And, if this be true, as it is most true, who does not see that the sooner it takes place, the better; that it would be the height of folly, not to seize the present occasion, when British injustice has filled all hearts with indignation, inspired all minds. with courage, united all opinions in one, and put arms in every hand? And how long must we traverse three thousand miles of a stormy sea, to solicit of arrogant and insolent men either counsels or commands to regulate our domestic affairs? From what we

have already achieved, it is easy to presume what we shall hereafter accomplish. Experience is the source of sage counsels, and liberty is the mother of great men. Have you not seen the enemy driven from Lexington by citizens armed and assembled in one day? Already their most celebrated generals have yielded in Boston to the skill of ours. Already their seamen, repulsed from our coasts, wander over the ocean, the sport of tempests, and the prey of famine. Let us hail the favorable omen, and fight, not for the sake of knowing on what terms we are to be the slaves of England, but to secure to ourselves a free existence, to found a just and independent government.

Why do we longer delay, why still deliberate? Let this most happy day give birth to the American republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to reëstablish the reign of peace and of the laws. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us; she demands of us a living example of freedom, that may contrast, by the felicity of the citizens, with the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous plant which first sprang up and grew in England, but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade all the unfortunate of the human race. This is the end presaged by so many omens: -by our first victories; by the present ardor and union; by the flight of Howe, and the pestilence which broke out among Dunmore's people; by the very winds which baffled the enemy's fleets and transports, and that terrible tempest which engulfed seven hundred vessels upon the coast of Newfoundland. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators will be placed, by posterity, at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been, and will be, forever dear to virtuous men and good citizens!

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. — M. Van Buren.

In all the attributes of a great, happy and flourishing people, we stand without a parallel in the world. Abroad, we enjoy the respect, and, with scarcely an exception, the friendship of every nation; at home, while our government quietly, but efficiently, performs the sole legitimate end of political institutions, in doing the greatest good to the greatest number, we present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere to be found.

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How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy! All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us, if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess. Position and climate, and the bounteous resources that nature has scattered with so liberal a hand,. the diffused intelligence and elevated character of our people, will avail us nothing, if we fail sacredly to uphold those political institutions that were wisely and deliberately formed with reference to every circumstance that could preserve, or might endanger, the blessings we enjoy. The thoughtful framers of our constitution legislated for our country as they found it. Looking upon it with the eyes of statesmen and of patriots, they saw all the sources of rapid and wonderful prosperity; but they saw, also, that various habits, opinions and institutions, peculiar to the various portions of so vast a region, were deeply fixed. Distinct sovereignties were in actual existence, whose cordial union was essential to the welfare and happiness of all. Between many of them there was, at least to some extent, a real diversity of interests, liable to be exaggerated through sinister designs; they differed in size, in population, in wealth, and in actual and prospective resources and power; they varied in the character of their industry and staple productions; and in some existed domestic institutions, which, unwisely disturbed, might endanger the harmony of the whole. Most carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the foundations of the new government laid upon principles of reciprocal concession and equi

table compromise. The jealousies which the smaller states might entertain of the power of the rest were allayed by a rule of representation confessedly unequal at the time, and designed forever to remain so. A natural fear that the broad scope of general legislation might bear upon and unwisely control particular interests, was counteracted by limits strictly drawn around the action of the federal authority; and to the people and the states was left unimpaired their sovereign power over the innumerable subjects embraced in the internal government of a just republic, excepting such only as necessarily appertain to the concerns of the whole confederacy, or its intercourse, as a united community, with the other nations of the world.

FROM AN ADDRESS AT BLOODY BROOK.-E. Everett.

GATHERED in this temple not made with hands, to unroll the venerable record of our fathers' history, let our first thoughts ascend to Him whose heavens are spread out as a glorious canopy above our heads! As our eyes look up to the everlasting hills which rise before us, let us remember that in the dark and eventful days we commemorate the hand that lifted their eternal pillars to the clouds was the sole stay and support of our afflicted sires. While we contemplate the lovely scene around us, once covered with the gloomy forest and the tangled swamps, through which the victims of this day pursued their unsuspecting path to the field of slaughter, let us bow in gratitude to Him beneath whose paternal care a little one has become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. Assembled under the shadow of this venerable tree, let us bear a thankful recollection that at the period when its sturdy limbs which now spread over us, hung with nature's rich and verdant tapestry, were all folded up within the narrow compass of their seminal germ, the thousand settlements of our beloved country, teeming with the life, energy and power of prosperous millions, were struggling with unimagined hardships for a doubtful existence, in a score of feeble plantations scattered through

the hostile wilderness. Alas! it was not alone the genial showers, and the gentle dews, and the native richness of the soil, which nourished the growth of this stately tree. The sod from which it sprung was moistened with the blood of brave men who fell for their country, and the ashes of peaceful dwellings are mingled with the consecrated earth. In like manner, it is not alone the wisdom and the courage, the piety and the virtue, of our fathers, — not alone the prudence with which they laid the foundations of the state, to which we are indebted for its happy growth and all-pervading prosperity. No, we ought never to forget, we ought this day especially to remember, that it was in their sacrifices and trials, their heart-rending sorrows, their ever-renewed tribulations, their wanderings, their conflicts, their wants and their woes, that the corner-stone of our privileges and blessings was laid.

As I stand on this hallowed spot, my mind filled with the traditions of that disastrous day, surrounded by these enduring natural memorials, impressed with the touching ceremonies we have just witnessed, the affecting incidents of the bloody scene crowd upon my imagination. This compact and prosperous village disappears, and a few scattered log-cabins are seen, in the bosom of the primeval forest, clustering for protection around the rude blockhouse in the centre. A corn-field or two has been rescued from the all-surrounding wilderness, and here and there the yellow husks are heard to rustle in the breeze, that comes loaded with the mournful sighs of the melancholy pine-woods. Beyond, the interminable forest spreads in every direction, the covert of the wolf, of the rattle-snake, of the savage; and between its gloomy copses what is now a fertile and cultivated meadow stretches out a dreary expanse of unreclaimed morass. I look, I listen. All is still, solemnly, frightfully still. No voice of human activity or enjoyment breaks the dreary silence of nature, or mingles with the dirge of the woods and water-courses. All seems peaceful and still;and yet there is a strange heaviness in the fall of the leaves in the wood that skirts the road; there is an unnatural flitting in those shadows; there is a plashing sound in the waters of that brook, which makes the flesh creep with horror. Hark! it is the click of