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 EVERETT'S ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 PK^mi0ii$il 
 
 ♦ 
 
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AN 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH 
 
 DECEMBER 22, 1824. 
 
 By EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 / 
 
 4 
 
 CUMMINGS, MILLIARD k CO. 134 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 1825. 
 
F1p8 
 ■ ^95 
 
 district of iHnissnichusctts : to toit 
 
 Be it remembered, That on the thutecntli day of January in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eig'ht hundred and twenty -five, and in 
 tlie forty-ninth year of tlie Independence of the United States of America, 
 CuMMiNGS, HiLLiAKD k. Co. of the said District, have deposited in this 
 office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietoi-s, in 
 the words following, to wit : 
 
 " An Oration delivered at Plymouth December 22, 1824. By Edward 
 Everett." 
 
 In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, 
 " An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of 
 Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, 
 during tlie times therein mentioned ;" and also to an act, entitled " An 
 act, supplementary to an act, entitled an act for the encouragement of 
 learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the au- 
 thors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ; 
 and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, 
 and etching historical and other prints." n wic; 
 
 Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 I. R. Butts, Printer. 
 Press of the North American Review. 
 
 I 
 
 1^0 
 
 ?/ 
 
Plymouth^ December 23, 1824. 
 Professor Edward Everett, 
 
 Sir, — In obedience to a vote of the Trustees of the Pilgrim So- 
 ciety, I have the honor to make the subjoined communication. 
 
 " At a meeting of the Trustees of the Pilgrim Society, holden in 
 Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1824, 
 
 " Voted, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Professor Ed- 
 ward Everett, for his interesting and eloquent Discourse delivered this 
 day ; and that a copy be requested for publication." 
 I am, with due sentiments of respect and regard, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 SAMUEL DAVIS, 
 
 Corresponding Secretary, 
 
A few passages in the following Discourse 
 were, on account of its length, omitted in the 
 delivery. 
 
There are occasions on which the employ- 
 ment, best calculated to be pleasing, becomes a 
 source of anxiety ; and the most flattering trust 
 grows into a burthen. Amidst all the proud 
 and grateful feelings, which the return of this 
 anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every 
 child of New England, a deep solicitude op- 
 presses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to 
 the men, to the day, and to the events, which 
 we are met to commemorate. In this solici- 
 tude, no personal sentiment mingles. I should 
 be unworthy to address you, on this occasion, 
 could I, from the selfish desire of winning your 
 applause, devote one of the moments of this 
 consecrated day to any cold speculations, how- 
 ever ingenious or original. Gladly would I give 
 utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, 
 1 
 
6 
 
 could I be so happy in doing it, as to excite or 
 strengthen the feelings, which belong to the 
 time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to 
 you those sentiments, which a hundred times 
 have been uttered and welcomed on this anni- 
 versary ; sentiments, whose truth does not 
 change in the change of circumstances, whose 
 power does not wear out with time. It is not 
 by pompous epithets or lively antithesis, that the 
 exploits of the pilgrims are to be set forth by 
 their children. We can only do this worthily, 
 by repeating the plain tale of their suffer- 
 ings, by dwelling on the circumstances under 
 which their memorable enterprise was execu- 
 ted, and by cherishing and uttering that spirit, 
 which led them across the Ocean, and guided 
 them to the spot where we stand. — We need 
 no voice of artificial rhetoric to celebrate their 
 names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of 
 nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the 
 fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. 
 On the bare and wintry fields around us, their 
 exploits are written in characters, which will 
 last, and tell their tale to posterity, when brass 
 and marble have crumbled into dust. 
 
The occasion which has called us together 
 is certainly one, to which no parallel exists 
 in the history of the world. Other countries, 
 and our own also, have their national festivals. 
 They commemorate the birthdays of their illus- 
 trious children ; they celebrate the foundation 
 of important institutions : momentous events, 
 victories, reformations, revolutions awaken, on 
 their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic 
 feelings of posterity. But we commemorate 
 the birthday of all New England ; the founda- 
 tion, not of one institution, but of all the insti- 
 tutions, the settlements, the establishments, the 
 communities, the societies, the improvements, 
 comprehended within our broad and happy 
 borders. 
 
 Were it only as an act of rare adventure ; 
 were it a trait in foreign, or ancient history; we 
 should fix upon the achievement of our fathers, 
 as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals of 
 the world. Were we attracted to it, by no 
 other principle than that sympathy we feel, in 
 all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing 
 — it must gain — in the contrast, with whatever 
 history or tradition has preserved to us of the 
 wanderings and settlements of the tribes of 
 
8 
 
 man. A continent for the first time, effectually 
 explored ; a vast ocean traversed by men, vio- 
 men, and children, voluntarily exiling them- 
 selves from the fairest regions of the old world; 
 and a great nation grown up, in the space of 
 two centuries, on the foundations so perilously 
 laid, by this pious band : — point me to the re- 
 cord, to the tradition, nay to the fiction of any 
 thing, that can enter into competition with it. — 
 It is the language not of exaggeration, but of 
 truth and soberness to say, that there is nothing 
 in the accounts of Phenician, of Grecian, or of 
 Roman Colonization, that can stand in the com- 
 parison. 
 
 What new importance then does not the 
 achievement acquire to our minds, when we 
 consider that it was the deed of our fathers ; 
 that this grand undertaking was accomplished 
 on the spot where we dwell ; that the mighty 
 region they explored is our native land ; that 
 the unrivalled enterprise they displayed, is not 
 merely a fact proposed to our admiration, but is 
 the source of our being ; that their cruel hard- 
 ships are the spring of our prosperity ; their 
 amazing sufferings the seed, from which our 
 happiness has sprung ; that their weary banish- 
 
ment gave us a home ; that to their separation 
 from every thing which is dear and pleasant in 
 life, we owe all the comforts, the blessings, the 
 privileges, which make our lot the envy of man- 
 kind. 
 
 These are the well known titles of our ances- 
 tors to our gratitude and veneration. 
 
 But there seems to me this peculiarity in the 
 nature of their enterprise, that its grand and 
 beneficent consequences are, with the lapse of 
 time, constantly unfolding themselves, in an ex- 
 tent, and to a magnitude, which, till they are 
 witnessed, are beyond the reach of the most 
 sanguine promise. In the frail condition of 
 human affairs, we have generally nothing left 
 us to commemorate, but heroic acts of valor, 
 which have resulted in no permanent effect ; 
 great characters, that have struggled nobly, but 
 in vain, against the disastrous combinations of 
 the age ; brilliant triumphs of truth and justice, 
 rendered unproductive, by the complication of 
 opposite events, and by the stern resistance of 
 that system of destiny, of which even the inde- 
 pendence of our wills seems an obedient mem- 
 ber. — At best, it is a great blessing, when we 
 can point to some bright unclouded character ; 
 or some prosperous and well ordered institu- 
 
10 
 
 lion ; fortunate in rise and progress ; grand and 
 glorious at maturity ; majestic, peaceful, and 
 seasonable in decay, and piously lamented when 
 no more ; and it is to the few spectacles of this 
 kind in human history, that our minds so con- 
 stantly and fondly revert from the chequered 
 scene of intermediate and troubled times and 
 conditions. 
 
 But it is the peculiar character of the enter- 
 prise of our pilgrim forefathers — successful in- 
 deed in its outset — that it has been more and 
 more successful, at every subsequent point in the 
 line of time. — Accomplishing all they projected ; 
 what they projected was the least part of what 
 has been accomplished. Forming a design, in 
 itself grand, bold, and even appalling, for the 
 sacrifices it required, and the risks it involved ; 
 the fulfilment of that design is the least thing, 
 which, in the steady progress of events, has 
 flowed from their counsels and their eflbrts. — 
 Did they propose to themselves a refuge beyond 
 the sea, from the religious and political tyranny 
 of Europe ? They achieved not that alone, but 
 they have opened a wide asylum to all the vic- 
 tims of tyranny throughout the world. We 
 ourselves have seen the statesmen, the generals, 
 
11 
 
 the kings of the elder world, flying for protec- 
 tion to the shadow of our institutions. Did 
 they wish only to escape to a remote corner, 
 where the arm of oppression could not reach 
 them ? They founded a great realm, an imperial 
 patrimony of liberty, the first effectual counter- 
 poise in the scale of human right. Did they 
 look for a retired spot, inoffensive for its obscu- 
 rity and safe in its remoteness, where the little 
 church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of 
 conscience ? Behold the mighty regions over 
 which in peaceful conquest — victoria sine clade 
 — they have borne the banners of the cross. — 
 Did they seek, beneath the protection of trading 
 charters, to prosecute a frugal commerce in 
 reimbursement of the expenses of their humble 
 establishment ? The fleets and navies of their 
 descendants are on the farthest ocean ; and the 
 wealth of the Indies is now wafted with every 
 tide to the coasts, where with hook and line 
 they painfully gathered up their little adven- 
 tures. — In short, did they, in their brightest and 
 most sanguine moments, contemplate a thrifty, 
 loyal, and prosperous colony — portioned off, 
 like a younger son of the imperial household, 
 to an humble, a dutiful distance ? Behold the 
 
 
12 
 
 spectacle of an independent and powerful Re- 
 public, founded on the shores where some of 
 those are but lately deceased, who saw the first- 
 born of the pilgrims. 
 
 And shall we stop here ? Is the tale now 
 told ; is the contrast now complete ; are our 
 destinies all fulfilled ; have we reached the me- 
 ridian ; are we declining ; are we stationary ? 
 My friends, I tell you, we have but begun ; we 
 are in the very morning of our days ; our num- 
 bers are but an unit ; our national resources 
 but a pittance ; our hopeful achievements in the 
 political, the social, and the intellectual nature, 
 are but the rudiments of what the children of 
 the Pilgrims must yet attain. If there is any 
 thing certain in the principles of human and 
 social progress ; if there is any thing clear in 
 the deductions from past history ; if there is 
 any, the least, reliance to be placed on the con- 
 clusions of reason, in regard to the nature of 
 man, the existing spectacle of our country's 
 growth, magnificent as it is, does not suggest 
 even an idea of what it must be. I dare adven- 
 ture the prediction, that he who shall stand 
 where I stand, two centuries hence, and look 
 back on our present condition from a distance, 
 
IS 
 
 equal to that from which we contemplate the 
 first settlement of the Pilgrims, will sketch a 
 contrast far more astonishing ; and will speak 
 of our times as the day of small things, in 
 stronger and juster language, than any in which 
 we can depict the poverty and wants of our 
 fathers. 
 
 But we ought to consecrate this day, not to 
 the promise, nor even the present blessings of 
 our condition, except so far as these are con- 
 nected with the memory of the Pilgrims. The 
 twenty second of December belongs to them ; 
 and we ought, in consistency, to direct our 
 thoughts to the circumstances, under which 
 their most astonishing enterprise was achieved. 
 I shall hope to have contributed my mite to- 
 wards our happy celebration, if I can succeed 
 in pointing out a few of those circumstances of 
 the first emigration to our country, and particu- 
 larly of the first emigration to New England,* 
 from which, under a kind Providence, has flow- 
 ed not only the immediate success of the under- 
 taking, but the astonishing train of consequences 
 auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, and 
 truth. 
 
 * See Note A. 
 2 
 
14 
 
 I. Our forefathers regarded, with natural ter- 
 ror, the passage of the mighty deep. Navigation, 
 notwithstanding the great advances wliich it had 
 made in the sixteenth century, was yet, com- 
 paratively speaking, in its infancy. The very 
 fact, that voyages of great length and hazard 
 were successfully attempted in small vessels, a 
 fact which, on first view, might seem to show a 
 high degree of perfection in the art, in reality 
 proves that it was as yet but imperfectly under- 
 stood. That the great Columbus should put to 
 sea, for the discovery of a new passage across 
 the Western Ocean to India, with two out of 
 three vessels unprovided icith decks, may indeed 
 be considered the effect, not of ignorance of 
 the art of navigation, but of bitter necessity.* 
 But that Sir Francis Drake, near a hundred 
 years afterwards, the first naval commander who 
 ever sailed round the earth, enjoying the advan- 
 tage of the royal patronage, and aided by the 
 fruits of no little personal experience, should 
 have embarked on his voyage of circumnaviga- 
 tion, with five vessels, of which the largest was of 
 one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen tons,! 
 
 * See Note B. 
 
 t Biographia Brittanica, HI. 1732. 
 
15 
 
 must needs be regarded as proof, that the art of 
 navigation, in the generation preceding our an- 
 cestors, had not reached that point, where the 
 skilful adaptation of means to ends supersedes 
 the necessity of extraordinary intrepidity, aided 
 by not less extraordinary good fortune. It was 
 therefore the first obstacle, which presented 
 itself to the project of the pilgrims, that it was 
 to be carried into execution, across the ocean, 
 which separates our continent from the rest of 
 the world.* Notwithstanding, however, this cir- 
 cumstance, and the natural effect it must have 
 had on their minds, there is no doubt that it is 
 one of those features in our natural situation, to 
 which America is indebted, not merely for the 
 immediate success of the enterprise of settle- 
 ment, but for much of its subsequent growth 
 and prosperity, 
 
 I do not now allude to the obvious considera- 
 tion, that the remoteness of the country, to be 
 settled, led to a more thorough preparation for 
 the enterprise, both as respects the tempers of 
 those who embarked in it, and the provisions 
 made for carrying it on ; though this view will 
 not be lost on those, who reflect on the nature 
 
 * See Note C. 
 
16 
 
 of man, by which difficult enterprises (so they 
 be not desperate) are more likely to succeed, 
 than those which seem much easier. Nor do 
 I allude to the effect of our distance from 
 Europe, in preventing the hasty abandonment 
 of the colony, under the pressure of the first 
 difficulties ; although the want of frequent and 
 convenient reconveyance was doubtless a con- 
 siderable security to the early settlements, and 
 placed our fathers, in some degree, in the situa- 
 tion of the followers of Cortez, after he had 
 intrepidly burned the vessels, which conveyed 
 them to the Mexican coasts. 
 
 The view, which I would now take of the re- 
 moteness of America from Europe, is connected 
 with the higher principles of national fortune 
 and progress. 
 
 The rest of the world, though nominally di- 
 vided into three continents, in reality consists of 
 but one. Europe, Asia, and Africa are separated 
 by no natural barriers, which it has not been easy 
 in every age for an ambitious invader to pass ; 
 and apart from this first consequence of the juxta- 
 position of their various regions, a communica- 
 tion of principle and feeling, of policy and pas- 
 sion, may be propagated, at all times, even to 
 
17 
 
 their remote and seemingly inaccessible coiiimu- 
 nities. The consequence has been, on the whole, 
 highly unfavorable to social progress. The ex- 
 tent of country inhabited or rather infested by 
 barbarous tribes, has generally far outweighed 
 the civilized portions ; and more than once, in the 
 history of the world, refinement, learning, arts, 
 laws, and religion, with the wealth and pros- 
 perity they have created, have been utterly swept 
 away, and the hands, as it were, moved back, 
 on the dial plate of time, in consequence of the 
 irruption of savage hordes into civilized regions. 
 Were the early annals of the East as amply 
 preserved as those of the Roman empire, they 
 would probably present us with accounts of 
 revolutions, on the Nile and the Euphrates, 
 as disastrous as those, by which the civilized 
 world was shaken, in the first centuries of the 
 Christian era. — Till an ocean interposes its 
 mighty barrier, no citadel of freedom or truth 
 has been long maintained. The magnificent 
 temples of Egypt were demohshed in the sixth 
 century before our Saviour, by the hordes, which 
 Cambyses had collected from the steppes of 
 Central Asia. The vineyards of Burgundy 
 were wasted in the third century of our era, by 
 
18 
 
 roving savages from beyond the Caucasus. In 
 the eleventh century, Gengis Khan and his 
 Tartars swept Europe and Asia from the Baltic 
 to the China Sea. And Ionia and Attica, the 
 gardens of Greece, are still, under the eyes of the 
 leading Christian powers of Europe, beset by re- 
 morseless barbarians from the Altai Mountains. 
 
 Nor is it the barbarians alone, who have been 
 tempted by this facility of communication, to 
 a career of boundless plunder. The Alexan- 
 ders and the Caesars, the Charlemagnes and 
 the Napoleons, the founders of great empires 
 and authors of schemes of universal monarchy, 
 have been enabled, by the same circumstance, 
 to turn the annals of mankind into a tale of 
 war and misery. When we descend to the 
 scrutiny of single events, we find that the na- 
 tions, who have most frequently and most im- 
 mediately suffered, have been those most easily 
 approached and overrun ; — and that those who 
 have longest or most uniformly maintained their 
 independence, have done it by virtue of lofty 
 mountains, wide rivers, or the surrounding sea. 
 
 In this state of things, the three united conti- 
 nents of the old world do not contain a single 
 spot, where any grand scheme of human im- 
 
19 
 
 provement couM be attempted, with a prospect 
 of fair experiment and full success, because 
 there is no spot safe from foreign interference ; 
 and no member of the general system so insig- 
 nificant, that his motions are not watched with 
 jealousy by all the rest. The welfare and pro- 
 gress of man in the most favored region, in- 
 stead of proceeding in a free and natural course, 
 dependent on the organization and condition 
 of that region alone, can only reach the point, 
 which may be practicable in the general result 
 of an immensely complicated system, made up 
 of a thousand jarring members. 
 
 Our country accordingly opened, at the time 
 of its settlement, and still opens, a new the- 
 atre of human development. — Notwithstand- 
 ing the prodigious extent of commercial inter- 
 course, and the wide grasp of naval power 
 among modern states, and their partial effect 
 in bringing us into the political system of Eu- 
 rope, it need not be urged, that we are essen- 
 tially strangers to it ; — placed at a distance, 
 which retards, and for every injurious purpose, 
 neutralizes all peaceful communication, and de- 
 fies all hostile approach. To this it was owing 
 that so little was here felt of the convulsions of 
 
20 
 
 the civil wars, which followed in England so 
 soon after the expulsion of our fathers. To this, 
 in a more general view, we are indebted for many 
 of our peculiarities as a nation, for our steady 
 colonial growth, our establishment of indepen- 
 dence, our escape amidst the political storms 
 which, during the last thirty years, have shaken 
 the empires of the earth. — To this we shall still 
 be indebted, and more and more indebted, with 
 the progress of our country, for the originality 
 and stability of our national character. Hither- 
 to the political effects of our seclusion, behind 
 the mighty veil of waters, have been the most 
 important. Now, that our political foundations 
 are firmly laid ; that the work of settlement, of 
 colonization, of independence, and of union is 
 all done, and happily done, we shall reap, in 
 other forms, the salutary fruits of our remote- 
 ness from the centres of foreign opinion and 
 feeling. 
 
 I say not this in direct disparagement of 
 foreign states ; their institutions are doubtless as 
 good, in many cases, as the condition of things 
 now admits ; or when at the worst, could not 
 be remedied by any one body, nor by any one 
 generation of men ; and the evil which requires 
 
2t 
 
 for its remedy the accord of successive genera- 
 tions, at the same time that it may generally be 
 called desperate, ought to bring no direct re- 
 proach upon the men of any one period. 
 
 But without disparaging foreign institutions, 
 we may be allowed to prefer our own ; to assert 
 their excellence, to seek to build them up on 
 their original foundations, on their true princi- 
 ples, and in their unmingled purity. That great 
 word of Independence, which, if first uttered in 
 1776, was most auspiciously anticipated in 1620, 
 comprehends much more than a mere absence 
 of foreign jurisdiction. I could almost say, that 
 if it rested there, it would scarcely be worth as- 
 serting. In every noble, in every true accepta- 
 tion, it implies not merely an American govern- 
 ment, but an American character, an American 
 pride. To the formation of these, nothing will 
 more powerfully contribute than our geographi- 
 cal distance from other parts of the world. The 
 unhealthy air of Europe is purified in crossing 
 the waves of the Atlantic. The roaring of its 
 mighty billows is not terrible, — it does but echo 
 the voices of our national feeling and power. 
 
 In these views there is nothing unsocial ; 
 nothing hostile to a friendly and improving con- 
 3 
 
22 
 
 nexion of distant regions with each other, or 
 to the profitable interchange of the commodities, 
 which a bountiful Providence has variously scat- 
 tered over the earth. For these and all other 
 desirable ends, the perfection, to which the 
 art of navigation is brought, affords abundant 
 means of conquering the obstacles of distance. 
 It is idle, in reference to these ends, to speak 
 
 of our remoteness from the rest of the world, 
 
 • 
 while our commerce is exploring the farthest 
 
 regions of the earth ; while, in exchange for 
 the products or efforts of our industry, the 
 flocks on the western declivity of the Peruvian 
 Andes are supplying us with wool ; the north- 
 eastern coasts of Japan furnishing, us with oil ; 
 and the central provinces of China, with tea. 
 At this moment, the reward of American skill 
 is paid by the Chieftains of inner Tartary, 
 wrapped up in the furs, which, in our voyages 
 of circumnavigation, we have collected on the 
 North Western Coast of our Continent. The 
 interest on American capital is paid by the 
 haughty viziers of Anatolia, whose opium is cul- 
 tivated and gathered for our merchants. The 
 wages of American labor are paid by the 
 princes of Hindostan, whose plantations of in- 
 
23 
 
 digo depend on us for a portion of their market. 
 While kings and ministers, by intrigue and 
 bloodshed, are contesting the possession of a 
 few square miles of territory, our commerce has 
 silently extended its jurisdiction from island to 
 island, from sea to sea, from continent to con- 
 tinent, till it holds the globe in its grasp. 
 
 But while no one can doubt the mutual ad- 
 vantages of a judiciously conducted commerce, 
 or be insensible of the good, which has re- 
 sulted to the cause of humanity, from the cul- 
 tivation of a peaceful and friendly intercourse 
 with other climes, it is yet beyond question, 
 that the true principle of American policy, to 
 which the whole spirit of our institutions, not 
 less than the geographical features of the coun- 
 try, invites us, is separation from Europe. 
 Next to union at home, which ought to be 
 called not so much the essential condition of 
 our national existence, as our existence itself, 
 separation from all other countries, in policy, 
 spirit, and character, is the great principle, by 
 which we are to prosper. It is toward this 
 that our efforts, public and private, ought to 
 strain ; and we shall rise or decline in strength, 
 improvement, and worth, as we observe or de- 
 
24 
 
 sert this principle. This is the voice of nature, 
 which did not in vain disjoin our continent 
 from the old world ; nor reserve it beyond the 
 ocean for fifty centuries, only that it might 
 become a common receptacle for the exploded 
 principles, the degenerate examples, and the 
 remediless corruptions of other states. This 
 is the voice of our history, which traces every 
 thing excellent in our character and prosper- 
 ous in our fortunes, to dissent, nonconformity, 
 departure, resistance, and revolution. This 
 is taught us by the marked peculiarity, the 
 wonderful novelty which, whether we will it 
 or not, displays itself in our whole physical, 
 political, and social existence. 
 
 And it is a matter of sincere congratulation, 
 that, under the healthy operation of natural 
 causes, very partially accelerated by legislation, 
 the current of our pursuits and industry, with- 
 out deserting its former channels, is throwing 
 a broad and swelling branch into the interior. 
 Foreign commerce, the natural employment of 
 an enterprising people, whose population is 
 accumulated on the seacoast, and whose neu- 
 tral services are called for by a world in 
 arms, is daily reverting to a condition of more 
 
25 
 
 equal participation among the various maritime 
 states, and is in consequence becoming less 
 productive to any one. While America re- 
 mains, and will always remain, among the 
 foremost commercial and naval states, an am- 
 ple portion of our resources has already taken 
 a new direction. We profited of the dissen- 
 sions of Europe, which threw her trade into 
 our hands ; and we amassed a capital, as her 
 carriers, before we could otherwise have one 
 of our own. We are now profiting of the 
 pacification of Europe, in the application to 
 our own soil, our own mineral and vegetable 
 products, our water course and water falls, 
 and our general internal resources, of a part 
 of the capital thus accumulated. 
 
 This circumstance is, in a general view, most 
 gratifying ; inasmuch as it creates a new bond 
 of mutual dependence, in the variety of our 
 natural gifts, and in the mutual benefits ren- 
 dered each other by the several sectional in- 
 terests of the country. The progress is likely 
 to be permanent and sure, because it has been 
 mainly brought about in the natural order of 
 things, and with little legislative interference. 
 Within a few years what a happy change has 
 
26 
 
 taken place ! The substantial clothing of our 
 industrious classes is now the growth of the 
 American soil, and the texture of the American 
 loom ; the music of the water wheel is heard on 
 the banks of our thousand rural streams ; and 
 enterprise and skill, with wealth, refinement, 
 and prosperity in their train, having studded 
 the seashore with populous cities, are making 
 their great " progress" of improvement through 
 the interior, and sowing towns and villages, as 
 it were broadcast, through the country. 
 
 II. If our remote position be so important 
 among the circumstances, which favored the 
 enterprise of our fathers, and have favored 
 the growth of their settlements, scarcely less 
 so was the point of time at which those set- 
 tlements were commenced. 
 
 When we cast our eyes over the annals 
 of our race, we find them to be filled with 
 a tale of various fortunes ; the rise and fall 
 of nations ; — periods of light and darkness ; — 
 of great illumination, and of utter obscurity ; — 
 and of all intermediate degrees of intelligence, 
 cultivation, and liberty. But in the seeming 
 confusion of the narrative, our attention is 
 
27 
 
 arrested by three more conspicuous eras at 
 unequal distances in the lapse of ages. 
 
 In Egypt we still behold, on the banks of 
 the Nile, the monuments of a polished a,ge ; 
 —a period, no doubt, of high cultivation, and 
 of great promise. Beneath the influence of 
 causes, which are lost in the depth of an- 
 tiquity, but which are doubtless connected 
 with the debasing superstitions and despotism 
 of the age, this period passed away, and left 
 scarce a trace of its existence, beyond the stu- 
 pendous and mysterious structures, — the tem- 
 ples, the obelisks, and the pyramids, — which 
 yet bear witness to an age of great power 
 and cultivated art, and mock the curiosity of 
 mankind by the records inscrutably carved on 
 their surfaces. 
 
 Passing over an interval of one thousand 
 years, we reach the second epoch of light 
 and promise. With the progress of freedom 
 in Greece, the progress of the mind kept pace ; 
 and an age both of achievement and of hope 
 succeeded, of which the indirect influence is 
 still felt in the world. But the greater part 
 of mankind were too barbarous to improve 
 by the example of this favored corner ; and 
 
28 
 
 though the influence of its arts, letters, and 
 civilization was wonderfully extensive and du- 
 rable, — though it seemed to revive at the court 
 of the Roman Csesars, and still later, at that 
 of the Arabian Caliphs, yet not resting on 
 those popular institutions and popular princi- 
 ples, which can alone be permanent because 
 alone natural, it slowly died away, and Eu- 
 rope and the world relapsed into barbarity. 
 
 The third great era of our race is the close 
 of the fifteenth century. The use of the mari- 
 ner's compass and the invention of the art 
 of printing, had furnished the modern world, 
 with two engines of improvement and civiliza- 
 tion, either of which was far more efficacious 
 than all united, known to antiquity. The re- 
 formation also, about this time, disengaged 
 Christianity, itself one of the most powerful 
 instruments of civilization, from those abuses, 
 which had hitherto nearly destroyed its bene- 
 ficent influence on temporal affairs ; and at 
 this most chosen moment in the annals of 
 the world, America was discovered. 
 
 It would not be difficult, by pursuing this 
 analysis, to show that the very period, when the 
 settlement of our coasts began, was peculiarly 
 
29 
 
 auspicious to the foundation of a new and hope- 
 ful system. 
 
 Religious reformation was the original prin- 
 ciple, which enkindled the zeal of our pilgrim 
 fathers ; as it has been so often acknow- 
 ledged to be the master principle of the great- 
 est movements in the modern world.* The 
 religions of Greece and Rome were portions 
 of the political systems of these countries. 
 The Scipios, the Crassuses, and Julius Csesar 
 himself, were high priests. It was, doubt- 
 less, owing in part to this example, tliat at 
 an early period after the first introduction of 
 Christianity, the heads of the church so en- 
 tirely mistook the spirit of this religion, that, 
 in imitation of the splendid idolatry, which 
 was passing away, they aimed at a new 
 combination of church and state, which re- 
 ceived but too much countenance from the 
 policy of Constantino. t This abuse, with 
 ever multiplying and aggravated calamitous 
 consequences, endured, without any effectual 
 check, till the first blow was aimed at the 
 supremacy of the papal power, by Philip the 
 Fair of France, in the fourteenth century, 
 
 >* See Note D. t Sec Note E. 
 
 4 
 
30 
 
 who laid the foundation of the liberties of the 
 Gallican church, of which the Constitution 
 may be called the Catholic Reformation.* 
 
 After an interval of two hundred years, this 
 example was followed and improved upon by 
 the Princes in Germany, that espoused the 
 protestant reformation of Luther, and in a 
 still more decisive manner by Henry the Eighth 
 in England ; at which period we may accord- 
 ingly date the second great step in the march 
 of religious liberty.! 
 
 Much more, however, was yet to be effected 
 toward the dissolution of the unnatural bond 
 between Church and State. Hitherto a domes- 
 tic was substituted for a foreign yoke, and 
 the rights of private conscience had, perhaps, 
 gained but little in the exchange. In the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, and among 
 the exiles, whom the frantic tyranny of Queen 
 Mary had driven to the free cities on the 
 Rhine, the ever memorable communion of Pu- 
 ritans arose. On their return to England, in 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they strenuously 
 opposed themselves to the erection and pecu- 
 liarities of the English national church. 
 
 * See Note F. f See Note G. 
 
31 
 
 Nearly as we have now reached, both in 
 simplicity of principle and point of time, to 
 our pilgrim forefathers, there is one more puri- 
 fying process to go through, one more gene- 
 ration to pass away. The major part of the 
 Puritans themselves, while they rejected some 
 of the forms, and disliked the organization of 
 the English church, adhered in substance to 
 the Constitution of the Genevan church, and 
 their descendants were willing, a century later, to 
 accept of an establishment by law in Scotland. 
 
 It remained, therefore, to shake off the last 
 badge of subjection, and in the person of Ro- 
 bert Brown, an individual himself of no very 
 commendable qualities, the last step was taken 
 in the progress of reform, by asserting the 
 independence of each single church. The 
 personal character of Brown was such as to 
 throw no little discouragement on the cause ; 
 nor did it acquire firmness till espoused by 
 Robinson, who may be called the father of 
 the Independent churches. His own at Ley- 
 den was the chief of these, and fidelity to their 
 principles was the motive of their departure 
 from Holland, and the occasion of their set- 
 tlement at Plymouth.* 
 
 * See Note H. 
 
32 
 
 But all may not be disposed to join us, in 
 so exact a specification of the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, as the period, when 
 religious reform had reached its last perfection, 
 and consequently, as the era most favorable 
 to the establishment of a new and free state. 
 None, however, on a larger view of the sub- 
 ject, will be unwilling to allow that this was 
 the great age of general improvement. It was 
 the age, when the discoveries of the Spanish, 
 Portuguese, and English navigators had begun 
 to exert a stimulating influence on the world 
 at large, and the old continent and the new, 
 like the magnetic poles, commenced those 
 momentous processes of attraction and repul- 
 sion, from which so much of the activity of 
 both has since proceeded. It was the period 
 when the circulation of knowledge had be- 
 come general ; and books in all languages were 
 in the hands of a very large class in every 
 country. The history of Europe, in all its 
 states, shows the extent and vehemence of 
 the consequent fermentation. With their new 
 engines of improvement and new principles of 
 right, the communities of men rushed forward 
 in the course of reform ; some with firmness 
 
33 
 
 and vigor, proportioned to the greatness of 
 the object in view, most with tumult and des- 
 peration, proportioned to the duration and mag- 
 nitude of their injuries, and none with entire 
 success. The most that was effected, in the 
 most fortunate states, was a compromise be- 
 tween the new claims and the old abuses. 
 Absolute kings stipulated to be no longer 
 absolute ; and free men preferred what they 
 called petitions of right. In this way, and 
 after infinite struggles, a tolerable foundation 
 for considerable practical liberty was laid on 
 two principles, in the abstract entirely false ; 
 that of acquiescence on the part of the sove- 
 reign, and prescription in favor of the people. 
 So firmly established are these principles, by 
 consent of the statesmen of the freest country 
 in Europe, as the best and only foundation of 
 civil rights, that so late as the last years of 
 the eighteenth century, a work of ingenuity 
 seldom, of eloquence never, surpassed, was 
 written by Mr Burke, to prove, that the peo- 
 ple of England have not a right to appoint 
 and to remove their rulers ; and that if they 
 ever had the right, they deliberately renounced 
 it at what is called the glorious revolution 
 
34 
 
 of 1G88, for themselves and their posterity 
 forever.* 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that the meliora- 
 tions, which have taken place in Europe within 
 the last two centuries, rest on no sound prin- 
 ciple, and are but the effect of alteratives 
 on the fatal malady of age, with which her 
 states are sick at heart. It is true that the 
 popular element, such is its sovereign healing 
 power, which, even on the poor footing of a 
 compromise, has been introduced into a portion 
 of their political constitutions, has operated 
 some of the beneficent effects of the fabled 
 transfusion of youthful blood into aged veins. 
 But the principles of prescription and acqui- 
 escence unfortunately run as much in favor 
 of abuses and corruptions as of privileges. On 
 the received footing, the acknowledged vices 
 and evils of their institutions are as sacred 
 as the best rights, and the door to any con- 
 sistent and rational improvement is effectually 
 closed ; because the more degenerate, the more 
 antiquated, the more hostile to the spirit and 
 character of the age, the institution that needs 
 reform may be, the more ancient it will also 
 
 * See Note I. 
 
35 
 
 commonly be found, and in consequence, the 
 more strongly fortified by prescription. 
 
 While, therefore, the work of social renova- 
 tion is entirely hopeless in Europe, we cannot 
 but regard it as the plain interposition of Provi- 
 dence, that, at the critical point of time, when 
 the most powerful springs of improvement were 
 in operation, a chosen company of pilgrims, who 
 were actuated by these springs of improvement, 
 in all their strength, who had purchased the 
 privilege of dissent at the high price of banish- 
 ment from the civilized world, and who, with the 
 dust of their feet, had shaken off the antiquated 
 abuses and false principles, which had been ac- 
 cumulating for thousands of years, came over to 
 these distant, unoccupied shores. I know not 
 that the work of thorough reform could be safely 
 trusted to any other hands. I can credit their 
 disinterestedness, when they maintain the equal- 
 ity of ranks ; for no rich forfeitures of attainted 
 lords await them in the wilderness. I need not 
 question the sincerity with which they assert the 
 rights of conscience ; for the plundered treasures 
 of an ancient hierarchy are not to seal their doc- 
 trine. They rested the edifice of their civil and 
 religious liberties on a foundation as pure and 
 
36 
 
 iniiocent as the snows around them. Blessed 
 be the spot, the only one earth, where such a 
 foundation was ever laid. Blessed be the spot, 
 the only one on earth, where man has attempted 
 to establish the good, without beginning with 
 the sad, the odious, the too suspicious task of 
 pulling down the bad. 
 
 III. Under these favorable auspices, the Pil- 
 grims landed on the coast of New England. 
 They found it a region of moderate fertility, 
 offering an unsubdued wilderness to the hand 
 of labor, with a climate temperate indeed, but 
 compared with that which they had left, verging 
 somewhat near to either extreme ; and a soil 
 which promised neither gold nor diamonds, nor 
 any thing but what should be gained from it by 
 patient industry. This was but a poor reality 
 for that dream of oriental luxury, with which 
 America had filled the imaginations of men. 
 The visions of Indian wealth, of mines of silver 
 and gold, and fisheries of pearl, with which the 
 Spanish adventurers in Mexico and Peru had 
 astonished the ears of Europe, were but poorly 
 fulfilled on the bleak, rocky, and sterile plains 
 of New England. No doubt, in the beginning 
 
37 
 
 of the settlement, these circumstances operated 
 unfavorably on the growth of the colony. In 
 the nature of things, it is mostly adventurers, 
 who incline to leave their homes and native 
 land, and risk the uncertainty of another hemi- 
 sphere ; and a climate and soil like ours furnish- 
 ed but little attraction to the adventuring class. 
 Captain Smith, in his zeal to promote the 
 growth of New England, is at no little pains to 
 show that the want of mineral treasures was 
 amply compensated by the abundant fishery of 
 the coast ; and having sketched in strong colors 
 the prosperity and wealth of the states of Hol- 
 land, he adds, " Divers, I know, may allege 
 many other assistances, but this is the chiefest 
 mine, and the sea the source of those silver 
 streams of their virtue, which hath made them 
 now the very miracle of industry, the only pat- 
 tern of perfection for these aflairs ; and the 
 benefit of fishing is that prhnimi mobile that 
 turns all their spheres to this height of plenty, 
 strength, honor and exceeding great admira- 
 tion."* 
 
 While we smile at this overwrought panegy- 
 ric on the primitive resource of our fathers, we 
 
 ^ Smith's Gcnerall Historic,. &c. Vol. IT. p. 185. Richmond Edit. 
 
38 
 
 cannot but do justice to the principle, on which 
 it rests. It is doubtless to the untempting quali- 
 ties of our climate and soil, and the conditions 
 of industry and frugality, on which alone the 
 prosperity of the colony could be secured, that 
 we are to look for a full share of the final suc- 
 cess, that crowned the enterprise. 
 
 To this it is to be ascribed that the country 
 itself was not preoccupied by a crowded popu- 
 lation of savages, like the West India Islands, 
 like Mexico and Peru, who, placed upon a soil 
 yielding almost spontaneously a superabundance 
 of food, had multiplied into populous empires, 
 and made a progress in the arts, which served 
 no other purpose, than to give strength and per- 
 manence to some of the most frightful systems of 
 despotism, that ever afflicted humanity ; systems 
 uniting all that is most horrible in depraved 
 civilization and wild barbarity. The problem 
 indeed is hard to be solved, in what way and by 
 what steps a continent, possessed by savage 
 tribes, is to be lawfully occupied and colonized 
 by civilized man.* But this question was di- 
 vested of much of its practical difficulty by the 
 scantiness of the native population, which our 
 
 * See Note K. 
 
39 
 
 fathers found in New England, and the migra- 
 tory life to which the necessity of the chace re- 
 duced them. It is owing to this, that the annals 
 of New England exhibit no scenes like those 
 which were acted in Hispaniola, in Mexico, and 
 Peru ; no tragedies like those of Anacoana, of 
 Guatimozin, and of Atahualpa ; no statesman 
 like Bovadilla ; no heroes like Pizarro and 
 Cortes ; 
 
 " No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle." 
 
 The qualities of our climate and soil enter 
 largely in other ways into that natural basis, on 
 which our prosperity and our freedom have been 
 reared. It is these which distinguish the smiling 
 aspect of our busy, thriving villages from the 
 lucrative desolation of the sugar islands, and 
 all the wide spread, undescribed, indescribable 
 miseries of the colonial system of modern Eu- 
 rope, as it has existed beyond the barrier of 
 these mighty oceans, in the unvisited, unpro- 
 tected, and unavenged recesses of either India. 
 We have had abundant reason to be contented 
 with this austere sky, this hard unyielding soil. 
 Poor as it is, it has left us no cause to sigh for 
 the luxuries of the tropics, nor to covet the mines 
 of the southern regions of our hemisphere. Our 
 
40 
 
 rough and hardly subdued hill sides and barren 
 plains have produced us that, which neither 
 ores, nor spices, nor sweets could purchase, — 
 which would not spring in the richest gardens 
 of the despotic East. The compact numbers 
 and the strength, the general intelligence and 
 the civilization which, since the world began, 
 were never exhibited beneath the sultry line, 
 have been the precious product of this iron 
 bound coast.* The rocks and the sands, which 
 would yield us neither the cane nor the coffee 
 tree, have yielded us, not only an abundance 
 and a growth in resources, rarely consistent with 
 the treacherous profusion of the tropical colo- 
 nies, but the habits, the manners, the institu- 
 tions, the industrious population, the schools 
 and the churches, beyond all the wealth of all 
 the Indies. 
 
 " Man is the nobler growth our soil supplies, 
 And souls are ripened in our northern skies." 
 
 Describe to me a country, rich in veins of the 
 precious metals, that is traversed by good roads. 
 Inform me of the convenience of bridges, where 
 the rivers roll over golden sands. Tell me of a 
 thrifty, prosperous village of freemen, in the 
 
 * See Note L, 
 
41 
 
 miserable districts where every clod of the earth 
 is kneaded up for diamonds, beneath the lash 
 of the task master. No, never ! while the con- 
 stitution, not of states, but of human nature, re- 
 mains the same ; never, while the laws, not of 
 civil society, but of God are unrepealed, will 
 there be a hardy, virtuous, independent yeo- 
 manry in regions where two acres of untilled 
 banana will feed a hundred men.* It is idle to 
 call that food, which can never feed a free, intel- 
 ligent, industrious population. It is not food. 
 It is dust ; it is chaff; it is ashes ; — there is no 
 nourishment in it, if it be not carefully sown, 
 and painfully reaped, by laborious freemen, on 
 their own fee-simple acres. 
 
 IV. Nor ought we omit to say, that if our 
 fathers found, in the nature of the region to 
 which they emigrated, the most favorable spot 
 for the growth of a free and happy state, they 
 themselves sprang from the land, the best 
 adapted to furnish the habits and principles 
 essential to the great undertaking. In an age 
 that speculates, and speculates to important 
 purpose, on the races of fossil animals, of which 
 
 * See Note M, 
 
42 
 
 no living specimen has existed since the deluge, 
 and which compares, with curious criticism, the 
 dialects of languages which ceased to be spoken 
 a thousand years ago, it cannot be called idle to 
 inquire which of the different countries of mo- 
 dern Europe possesses the qualities, that best 
 adapt it to become the parent nation of a new 
 and free state. I know not in fact, what more 
 momentous question in human affairs could be 
 asked, than that which regards the most hope- 
 ful lineage of a collective empire. But without 
 engaging in so extensive a discussion, I may 
 presume that there is not one who hears me, 
 that does not feel it a matter of congratulation 
 and joy, that our fathers were Englishmen. 
 
 No character is perfect among nations, more 
 than among men, nor is the office of the pane- 
 gyrist more respectable towards the one than 
 the other. But it must needs be conceded, that 
 after our own country, England is the most 
 favored abode of liberty ; or rather, that besides 
 our own, it is the only land where liberty can 
 be said to exist ; the only land where the voice 
 of the sovereign is not stronger than the voice 
 of the law. We can scarce revolve with pa- 
 tience the idea, that we might have been a Spa- 
 
43 
 
 nish colony, a Portuguese colony, or a Dutch 
 colony ; we can scarcely compare with coolness 
 the inheritance of those institutions, which were 
 transmitted to us by our fathers, with that which 
 we must have received from almost any other 
 country ; absolute government, military despot- 
 ism, privileged orders, and the holy inquisi- 
 tion.* What would have been the condition 
 of this flourishing and happy land, were these 
 the institutions, on which its settlement had been 
 founded ? There are, unfortunately, too many 
 materials for answering this question, in the 
 history of the Spanish and Portuguese settle- 
 ments on the American continent, from the 
 first moment of unrelenting waste and desola- 
 tion, to the distractions and conflicts, of which 
 we ourselves are the witnesses. What hope 
 can there be for the colonies of nations, which 
 possess themselves no spring of improvement ; 
 and tolerate none in the regions over which they 
 rule ; whose administration sets no bright ex- 
 amples of political independence ; whose lan- 
 guages send out no reviving lessons of sound 
 and practical science, afraid of nothing that is 
 true^of manly literature, of free speculation ; but 
 
 * See Note N. 
 
44 
 
 repeat, with every ship that crosses the Atlantic, 
 the same debasing voice of despotism, credu- 
 lity, superstition, and slavery. 
 
 Let us here bring our general conceptions 
 down to an example. The country called Bra- 
 zil, and till lately subject to the kingdom of 
 Portugal, (a kingdom more nearly of the size 
 of Tennessee than of any other of the United 
 States ;) — the country of Brazil, stretching from 
 the mouth of the Oyapoco, in the fourth de- 
 gree of north latitude, to the Banda Oriental 
 in the thirty third degree of south, and from 
 Peru to the Atlantic Ocean,* is, by computation, 
 one tenth part more extensive than the entire 
 territory of the United States. Our whole vast 
 possessions, from the most southern point of 
 Florida to the northeastern extremity of Maine, 
 and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, — 
 possessions which the Surveyor's chain has 
 never marked out, over which tribes of Indians 
 yet roam undisturbed, whose numbers, whose 
 race, whose very names are unknown, — tracts 
 unexplored, in which the wild hunter, half 
 savage, half outlaw, has not yet startled the 
 beaver, on the still and solitary banks of his 
 
 * See Note O. 
 
45 
 
 hereditary stream, — I say this mighty territory is 
 one tenth smaller than Brazil. And now name 
 to me a book in the Portuguese language, 
 where a Brazilian could read so much as the 
 elements of liberty. Name to me a law in 
 the Portuguese code, to protect his property 
 from confiscation and himself from the rack 
 or the stake, whenever the minister shall give 
 the nod. Name me an institution in the whole 
 Portuguese system, in the remotest degree 
 favorable to the progress and happiness of 
 man. — And yet it is from this despised cor- 
 ner of Europe, that all the seed must come, 
 to sow this mighty land. It is from this de- 
 based source that all the influences have gone 
 forth, which have for three centuries actually 
 decided, and for centuries more must deci- 
 sively influence the destinies of these all but 
 boundless territories.* 
 
 What citizen of our republic is not grate- 
 ful in the contrast which our history presents ? 
 — Who does not feel, what reflecting Ame- 
 rican does not acknowledge, the incalculable 
 advantages derived to this land, out of the 
 
 * See Note P. 
 
 6 
 
46 
 
 deep fountains of civil, intellectual, and moral 
 trutji, from w hid) we have drawn in England ? — 
 What American does not feel proud that he 
 is descended from the countrymen of Bacon, 
 of Newton, and of Locke ? — Who does not 
 know, that while every pulse of civil liberty 
 in the heart of the British empire beat warm 
 and full in the bosom of our fathers ; the so- 
 briety, the firmness, and the dignity with which 
 the cause of fvee principles struggled into ex- 
 istence here, constantly found encouragement 
 and countenance from the sons of liberty there ? 
 — Who does not remember that when the pil- 
 grims went over the sea, the prayers of the 
 faithful British confessors, in all the quarters 
 of their dispersion, went over with them, while 
 their aching eyes were strained, till the star 
 of hope should go up in the western skies ? — 
 And who will ever forget that in that eventful 
 struggle, which severed this mighty empire 
 from the British crown, there was not heard, 
 throujrhout our continent in arms, a voice 
 which spoke louder for the rights of America, 
 than thcit of Burke or of Chatham, within the 
 walls of the British parliament, and at the foot 
 of the British throne ? — No, for myself, I can 
 
47 
 
 truly say, that after my native land, I feel a 
 tenderness and a reverence for that of my 
 fathers. The pride I take in my own country 
 makes me respect tliat from which we are 
 sprung. In touching the soil of England, I 
 seem to return like a descendant to the old 
 family seat ; — to come back to the abode of an 
 aged, the tomb of a departed parent. I acknow- 
 ledge this great consanguinity of nations. The 
 sound of my native language beyond the sea, is 
 a music to my ear, beyond the richest strains of 
 Tuscan softness, or Castillian majesty. — I am 
 not yet in a land of strangers, while surrounded 
 by the manners, the habits, the forms, in 
 which I have been brought up. I wander de- 
 lighted through a thousand scenes, which the 
 historians, the poets have made familiar to 
 us, — of which the names are interwoven with 
 our earliest associations. I tread with reve- 
 rence the spots, where I can retrace the foot- 
 steps of our suffering fathers ; the pleasant 
 land of their birth has a claim on my heart. 
 It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, 
 rich in the memories of the great and good ; 
 the martyrs of liberty, the exiled heralds of 
 truth ; and richer as the parent of this land 
 of promise in the west. 
 
48 
 
 [ am not, — I need not say I am not, — the 
 panegyrist of England. I am not dazzled by 
 her riches, nor awed by her power. The 
 sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, stars, 
 garters, and blue ribbons seem to me poor 
 things for great men to contend for. Nor 
 is my admiration awakened by her armies, 
 mustered for the battles of Europe ; her navies, 
 overshadowing the ocean ; nor her empire 
 grasping the farthest east. It is these, and 
 the price of guilt and blood by which they 
 are maintained, which are the cause why no 
 friend of liberty can salute her with undivi- 
 ded affections. But it is the refuge of free 
 principles, though often persecuted ; the school 
 of religious liberty, the more precious for 
 the struggles to which it has been called ; 
 the tombs of those who have reflected honor 
 on all who speak the English tongue ; it 
 is the birthplace of our fathers, the home 
 of the pilgrims ; it is these which I love and 
 venerate in England. I should feel ashamed 
 of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did 
 I not also feel it for a land like this. In 
 an American it would seem to me degene- 
 rate and ungrateful, to hang with passion 
 
49 
 
 upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and 
 follow without emotion the nearer and plainer 
 footsteps of Shakspeare and Milton ; and I 
 should think him cold in his love for his 
 native land, who felt no melting in his heart 
 for that other native land, which holds the 
 ashes of his forefathers. 
 
 V. But it was not enough that our fathers 
 were of England : the masters of Ireland, and 
 the lords of Hindostan are of England too. 
 But our fathers were Englishmen, aggrieved, 
 persecuted, and banished. It is a princi- 
 ple, amply borne out by the history of the 
 great and powerful nations of the earth, and 
 by that of none more than the country of 
 which we speak, that the best fruits and 
 choicest action of the commendable qualities 
 of the national character, are to be found on 
 the side of the oppressed few, and not of 
 the triumphant many. As in private cha- 
 racter, adversity is often requisite to give a 
 proper direction and temper to strong quali- 
 ties ; so the noblest traits of national cha- 
 racter, even under the freest and most in- 
 dependent of hereditary governments, are com- 
 
50 
 
 tnonly to be sought in the ranks of a pro- 
 testing minority, or of a dissenting sect. Never 
 was this truth more clearly illustrated than 
 in the settlement of New England. 
 
 Could a common calculation of policy have 
 dictated the terms of that settlement, no doubt 
 our foundations would have been laid beneath 
 the royal smile. Convoys and navies would 
 have been solicited to waft our fathers to the 
 coast ; armies, to defend the infant communi- 
 ties ; and the flattering patronage of princes 
 and lords, to espouse their interests in the coun- 
 cils of the mother country. Happy, that our 
 fathers enjoyed no such patronage ; happy, that 
 they fell into no such protecting hands; happy, 
 that our foundations were silently and deeply 
 cast in quiet insignificance, beneath a charter of 
 banishment, persecution, and contempt ; so that 
 when the royal arm was at length outstretched 
 against us, instead of a submissive child, tied 
 down by former graces, it found a youthful 
 giant in the land, born amidst hardships, and 
 nourished on the rocks, indebted for no favors, 
 and owing no duty. From the dark portals 
 of the star chamber, and in the stern text of the 
 acts of uniformity, the pilgrims received a com- 
 
51 
 
 mission, more efficient, than any that ever bore 
 the royal seal. Tlieir banishment to Holland 
 was fortunate ; the decline of their little com- 
 pany in the strange land was fortunate ; the 
 difficulties which they experienced in getting 
 the royal consent to banish themselves to this 
 wilderness were fortunate ; all the tears and 
 heart breakings of that ever memorable parting 
 at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on 
 the rising destinies of New England. All this 
 purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough 
 touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncer- 
 tain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, sol- 
 emn, self-denying expedition, and required of 
 those who engaged in it, to be so too. They 
 cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness 
 over the cause, and if this sometimes deep- 
 ened into melancholy and bitterness, can we 
 find no apology for such a human weakness ? 
 
 It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters, 
 which the little band of pilgrims encountered. 
 Sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unre- 
 lenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an 
 unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon 
 obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into 
 one vessel ; one hundred persons, besides the 
 
52 
 
 ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and 
 sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the 
 long, cold, and weary autumnal passage ; of the 
 landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal 
 season ; where they are deserted before long by 
 the ship, which had brought them, and which 
 seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow 
 men, a prey to the elements and to want, and 
 fearfully ignorant of the numbers, the power, 
 and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled 
 the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they 
 had ventured. But all this wrought together 
 for good. These trials of wandering and exile 
 of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness and the 
 savage foe were the final assurance of success.* 
 It was these that put far away from our fathers' 
 cause, all patrician softness, all hereditary claims 
 to preeminence. No effeminate nobility crowd- 
 ed into the dark and austere ranks of the pil- 
 grims. No Carr nor Villiers would lead on the 
 ill provided band of despised Puritans. No 
 well endowed clergy were on the alert, to quit 
 their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hie- 
 rarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving 
 governors were anxious to be sent over to our 
 
 * See IVotP Q 
 
53 
 
 cheerless El Dorados of ice and of snow. No, 
 they could not say they had encouraged, patron- 
 ised, or helped the pilgrims ; their own cares, 
 their own labors, their own councils, their own 
 blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all, 
 sealed all. They could not afterwards fairly 
 pretend to reap where they had not strewn ; and 
 as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric 
 with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely 
 tolerated, it did not fall when the favor, which 
 had always been withholden, was changed into 
 wrath; when the arm, which had never sup- 
 ported, was raised to destroy. 
 
 Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, ad- 
 venturous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn 
 hope, freighted with the prospects of a future 
 state, and bound across the unknown sea. I 
 behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, 
 the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise 
 and set, and weeks and months pass, and win- 
 ter surprises them on the deep, but brings 
 them not the sight of the wished for shore. I 
 see them now scantily supplied with provisions, 
 crowded almost to suffocation in their illstored 
 prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous 
 route ; — and now driven in fury before the 
 7 
 
54 
 
 rasping tempest, on the high and giddy waves. 
 The awful voice of the storm howls through 
 the rigging. The laboring masts seem strain- 
 ing from their base ; — the dismal sound of the 
 pumps is heard ; — the ship leaps, as it were, 
 madly, from billow to billow ; — the ocean 
 breaks, and settles with engulphing floods over 
 the floating deck, and beats with deadening, 
 shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. — 
 I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing 
 their all but desperate undertaking, and landed 
 at last, after a five months passage, on the ice 
 clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary from 
 the voyage, — poorly armed, scantily provisioned, 
 depending on the charity of their ship-master 
 for a draught of beer on board, drinking 
 nothing but water on shore, — without shelter, — 
 without means, — surrounded by hostile tribes. 
 Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, 
 on any principle of human probability, what 
 shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. 
 — Tell me, man of military science, in how ma- 
 ny months were they all swept ofl" by the thirty 
 savage tribes, enumerated within the early lim- 
 its of New England ? Tell me, politician, how 
 long did this shadow of a colony, on which 
 
55 
 
 your conventions and treaties had not smiled, 
 languish on the distant coast ? Student of his- 
 tory, compare for me the baffled projects, the de- 
 serted settlements, the abandoned adventures of 
 other times, and find the parallel of this. Was 
 it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless 
 heads of women and children ; was it hard la- 
 bor and spare meals ; — was it disease, — was it 
 the tomahawk, — was it the deep malady of a 
 blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken 
 heart, aching in its last moments, at the recol- 
 lection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ; 
 was it some, or all of these united, that hurried 
 this forsaken company to their melancholy fate ? 
 — And is it possible that neither of these 
 causes, that not all combined, were able to blast 
 this bud of hope ? — Is it possible, that from a 
 beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so 
 much of admiration as of pity, there has gone 
 forth a progress so steady, a growth so won- 
 derful, an expansion so ample, a reality so 
 important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so 
 glorious ? 
 
 Such, in a very inadequate statement, are 
 some of the circumstances under which the set- 
 
56 
 
 tlement of our country began. The historian 
 of Massachusetts, after having given a brief no- 
 tice of Carver, of Bradford, of WinsloAV, of 
 Brewster, of Standish, and others, adds, " These 
 were the founders of the colony of Plymouth. 
 The settlement of this colony occasioned the 
 settlement of Massachusetts Bay ; which was 
 the source of all the other colonies of New Eng- 
 land. Virginia was in a dying state, and seem- 
 ed to revive and flourish from the example of 
 New England. I am not preserving from obli- 
 vion," continues he, " the names of heroes whose 
 chief merit is the overthrow of cities, of pro- 
 vinces, and empires ; but the names of the foun- 
 ders of a flourishing town and colony, if not of 
 the whole British empire in America."* This 
 was the judicious reflection of Hutchinson sixty 
 years ago, when the greatest tribute to be paid 
 to the Fathers of Plymouth was, that they took 
 the lead in colonizing the British possessions in 
 America. What then ought to be our emotions, 
 as we meet on this anniversary, upon the spot, 
 where the first successful foundations of the 
 great American republic were laid ? 
 
 * Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. U. Appendix, 
 pag-e 463. 
 
57 
 
 Within a short period, an incident has oc- 
 curred, which of itself connects, in the most gra- 
 tifying association, the early settlement of New 
 England with the present growth and prosperity 
 of our wide extended republic. Within the past 
 year, the sovereign hand of this great confede- 
 racy of nations has been extended for the re- 
 storation and security of the harbor, where, on 
 the day we celebrate, the germ of the future 
 growth of America was comprehended within one 
 weather beaten vessel, tossing upon the tide, on 
 board of which, in the words of Hutchinson, the 
 fathers of New England, by a solemn instrument, 
 '^ formed themselves into a proper democracy." 
 Two centuries only have elapsed, and we behold 
 a great American representation convened, from 
 twenty four independent and flourishing repub- 
 lics, taking under their patronage the local inte- 
 rests of the spot where our fathers landed, and 
 providing in the same act of appropriation, for 
 the removal of obstacles in the Mississippi and 
 the repair of Plymouth beach. I know not in 
 what words a more beautiful commentary could 
 be written, on our early infancy or our happy 
 growth. There were members of the national 
 Congress which made that appropriation, I will 
 
58 
 
 Jiot say from distant states, but from different 
 climates ; from regions which the sun in the 
 heavens does not reach in the same hour that 
 he rises on us. Happy community of protec- 
 tion ! Glorious expansion of brotherhood ! Bless- 
 ed fulfilment of that first timorous hope, that 
 warmed the bosoms of our fathers ! 
 
 Nor is it even our mighty territory, to which 
 the influence of the principles and example of 
 the fathers of New England is confined. While 
 I utter the words, a constitution of republican 
 government, closely imitated from ours, is going 
 into operation in the states of the Mexican 
 confederation, a region more extensive than all 
 our territories east of the Mississippi.* Farther 
 south, the provinces of central America, the re- 
 public of Guatimala, a country equal in magni- 
 tude to our Atlantic states, has sent its envoys 
 to solicit an union with us. Will posterity be- 
 lieve that such an offer was made and refused, 
 in the age that saw England and Spain rushing 
 into war, for the possession of a few uninhabited 
 islets on the coast of Patagonia ? Pass the isth- 
 mus of Darien, and we behold the sister repub- 
 
 * See Note R. 
 
59 
 
 lie of Colombia, a realm two thirds as large as 
 Europe, ratifying her first solemn treaty of amity 
 and commerce with the United States ; w^hile still 
 onward to the south, in the valleys of the Chi- 
 lian Andes, and on the banks of the La Plata, 
 in states not less vast than those already named, 
 constitutions of republican government are in 
 prosperous operation, founded on our principles, 
 and modelled on our forms. When our com- 
 missioners visited those countries in 1817, they 
 found the books most universally read among 
 the people, were the constitutions of the United 
 States, and of the several states, translated into 
 the language of the country ; while the public 
 journals were filled with extracts from the cele- 
 brated " Defence" of these constitutions, written 
 by that venerable descendant of the Pilgrims, 
 who still lives to witness the prosperous opera- 
 tion of the governments, which he did so much 
 to establish.* 
 
 I do not fear that we shall be accused of ex- 
 travagance in the enthusiasm we feel at a train 
 of events of such astonishing magnitude, novel- 
 ty, and consequence, connected by association « 
 
 • f?ce Note S. 
 
60 
 
 so intimate, with the day we now hail ; with the 
 events we now celebrate ; with the pilgrim fa- 
 thers of New Englcind. Victims of persecution! 
 how wide an empire acknowledges the sway of 
 your principles ! Apostles of liberty ! what mil- 
 lions attest the authenticity of your mission ! 
 Meek champions of truth, no stain of private 
 interest or of innocent blood is on the spotless 
 garments of your renown ! The great continents 
 of America have become, at length, the theatre 
 of your achievements ; the Atlantic and the Pa- 
 cific, the highways of communication, on which 
 your principles, your institutions, your example 
 are borne. From the oldest abodes of civiliza- 
 tion, the venerable plains of Greece, to the 
 scarcely explored range of the Cordilleras, the 
 impulse you gave at length is felt. While other 
 regions revere you as the leaders of this great 
 march of humanity, we are met on this joyful 
 day, to offer to your memories our tribute of 
 filial affection. The sons and daughters of the 
 Pilgrims, we have assembled on the spot where 
 you, our suflfering fathers, set foot on this happy 
 shore. Happy indeed, it has been for us. O that 
 you could have enjoyed those blessings, which 
 you prepared for your children. Could our com- 
 
61 
 
 fortable homes have shielded you from the wintry 
 air ; could our abundant harvests have supplied 
 you in time of famine ; could the broad shield 
 of our beloved country have sheltered you from 
 the visitations of arbitrary power ! We come in 
 our prosperity to remember your trials ; and 
 here on the spot where New England began to 
 be, we come to learn of our pilgrim fathers a 
 deep and lasting lesson of virtue, enterprise, 
 patience, zeal, and faith ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note A. Page 13. 
 
 The object of this Discourse is of course more immediately confined to 
 New England, as the part of the country most directly afl'ected by 
 the settlement of Plymouth. Some of the topics, however, apply 
 equally to all parts of America ; others to all the English Colonies 
 on this Continent. It was not thought necessary to interrupt the 
 train of remark, in each single case, to modify it in reference to this 
 qualification. New England alone is generally mentioned, and the 
 more or less extensive application of each separate topic of observa- 
 tion is left to be made by the intelligent. 
 
 Note B. Page 14. 
 
 It is stated by Peter Martyr, the first writer on the discovery of 
 America, that two of the vessels of Columbus were without decks. 
 " Ex regio fisco destinata sunt tria Navigia ; unum onerarium cave- 
 atum, alia duo levia mercatoria nne caveis, quee ab Hispanis cara- 
 velae vocantur." (De rebus Oceancis, p. 2.) Peter Martyr,* who had 
 lived and served long, as soldier and ambassador, in Spain, cannot be 
 supposed to have been ignorant of the sense, in which the word Ca:avel 
 was used by the Spaniards. At the same time, it must be allowed to be a 
 circumstance almost incredible, that an expedition, like that of Columbus, 
 should be fitted out, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks. 
 In Bossi's Vita di Cristofero Colombo, published at Milan in 1818, is an 
 able annotation on the subject of the Caravels. It is there asserted, on 
 the credit of an Italian Marine Dictionary, (published at Milan in 1813, in 
 three vols. 4to. and bearing a high character,) that the word " Caravella 
 is known in the Mediterranean, as indicating the larger Turkish ships of 
 war, with a high poop ; but that in Portugal it denotes a vessel of from 
 120 to 140 tons." Du Cange in his Glossary expresses the opinion, that 
 it is a word of Italian origin, an opinion, which de Bossi condemns, re- 
 garding it rather as Turkish or Arabic, and probably introduced into the 
 
 * He must be carefully distinguished from Peter Martyr, the -Reformer, 
 who taught for some time in England, and who flourished near a half 
 century after the historian The name of Peter Martyr is in either case 
 the Christian name only, and to avoid the confusion, it might be expe- 
 dient to use their family names. That of the reformer was Vermigli, 
 that of the historian dAnghiera. An account of the former is given in 
 Tiraboschi, VII. 327 ; of the latter, in the same author, VIII. 3$6. 
 
64 
 
 European languages by the Moors. These authors, however, are appa- 
 rently both in an error. The true origin of the term is, no doubt, given 
 iu Ferrarii origines lingua; Italira;, as follows; " Caravela navigii minoris 
 genus : Sarabus ; Gritce KapaSiov." The primitive meaning of the Latin 
 Carubus and the Greek KapdSiov is Crab, a word, in fact, derived from 
 them. In cither language, the word was used to signify a vessel or a boat. 
 The word Kapd6iov has descended to the modern Greeks, who use KapdSi 
 for a vessel, iu general ; and Isidore, a late Ijatin writer, in his Origines, 
 lib. xix. c. 1, defines a Carabus to be a "small skilTmade of osiers, which, 
 covered with raw leather, forma a sort of boat." There seems, therefore, 
 mucii reason to respect the authority of llie historian fir.vt quoted, who 
 describes the Caravel of the Spaniards as a light open vessel. This mi- 
 nuteness of criticism will, I hope, be pardoned on a sulyect so closely 
 connected with the discovery of America. 
 
 Having in the beginning of ihis note called Peter Martyr d'Anghierathe 
 first writer, who commemorates Columbus, (and so he is generally reputed,) 
 it should be observed, that he is entitled to this credit of precedence, by a 
 very slight priority. The dedication of his Decades bears date Prid Calend. 
 October, or September 30, 1516. In November of the same year, was pub- 
 lished a Polygiott Psalter, at Genoa, containing the Psalms in Hebrew, 
 Greek, Arabic, and Chaldee, in whicli, in the form of a note on Psalm xix, 
 5. Tlieir line is gone out llirovgli all the earth, and their words to the end of 
 the tvorld, is given an account of Columbus and his discoveries, filling seven 
 octavo pages, as copied in a work of de Murr. This is doubtless the first 
 account of Columbus, for P. Martyr d'Anghiera introduces him simply as 
 " Ligur vir." The editor of this Psalter and author of the note in ques- 
 tion, was Guistiuiani, a bishop, and as he speaks of Columbus as a native 
 of Genoa, at a period so early, and mentions the bequest made by Colum- 
 bus of the tenth part of his estates to the city of Genoa, his authority is 
 of great weight in settling the contested points of the place of the birth 
 of Columbus, and the authenticity of his will. Since the appearance, 
 however, of the important and curious work entitled Codice diplomatic© 
 Colombo- Americano ossia raccolta di ducunienti originali e inediti, spet- 
 tanti a Christofero Colombo, alia scoperta e alio governo dell' America, 
 Genoa, 1823, these questions may be considered as put at rest. 
 
 This last very curious work, which has not yet attracted a due degree 
 of notice from the public, though containing more official details relative 
 to Columbus than all the other works hitherto published relative to Ame- 
 rica, was printed by order of the magistrates of Genoa. An account of 
 the English translation of it maybe found in the North American Review 
 for April last, page 415. Two manuscripts, copies of the giants, patents, 
 &ic. of the Spanish government to Columbus (from one of whirli the work 
 is now at length printed) were made by order of Columbus himself, and 
 sent to his friend Oderigo, in Genoa. In 1670, the descendant of Oderigo 
 presented the two manuscripts to the magistracy at Genoa. During the 
 French Kevolution one of the manuscripts was taken to Paris, and has 
 not yet been restored to Genoa. The other was supposed to be lost, till 
 on the death of Count Micheloni Cambiasi, a Senator of Genoa, it was 
 advertised for sale among his books, but immediately claimed as public 
 property. It has since been deposited in a monument erected for the 
 })urp<)se, and from it the work in question is printed. 
 
 Whether the two manuscri])ts thus mentioned be the only ones in exist- 
 ence may admit of doubt. Wlicu I was in Florence in IS18, a small folio 
 manuscript was brought to me, written on parchment, apparently two or 
 three centuries old, in binding once very rich, but now worn, containing 
 
65 
 
 a series of documents in Latin and Spanish, mostly the latter, with the 
 following title on the first blank page, " Treslado de las Bullas del Papa 
 Alexandro VI, de la Concession de las Indias y los titulos, privilegios, y 
 cedulas reales, que se dieron a Christoval Colon." — I was led by this title 
 to purchase the work ; but, deterred by the abundant use of abbreviations 
 and a limited acquaintance with the language, I made no attempt for 
 several years to read it. My attention having been turned again to it, by 
 the publication of the work at Genoa, and having had an oiiportunity, 
 by the kindness of a friend, of seeing a copy of it, the only one perhaps 
 in this part of the country, I was surprised to find my manuscript, as far 
 as it goes, nearly identical in its contents with that of Genoa, supposed 
 to be one of the only two in existence. My manuscript consists of about 
 eii^ldy closely written folio pages, which coincide precisely with the text 
 of the first thirty sevcji documents, contained in two hundred and forty 
 pages of the Genoese volume. A few more documents, wanting in my 
 manuscript, are found in the Genoese work ; and a second Bull of Alex- 
 ander VI, in Latin, is contained in the former, and is wanting in the 
 latter. 
 
 In the last of the documents, contained in the Genoese volume, and 
 wanting in my manuscript, we read as follows ; 
 
 " Los originates destos privillegios y cartas y cedulas y otras muchas 
 cartas de sus Ahezas e otras escripturas, tocantes al Senor Almirante, 
 estan en el monastcrio de Sancta Maria de las Cuevas de Sevilla. 
 
 " Otrosy esta, en el dicho Monasterio un libro traslado de los privi- 
 legios e cartas susodichos, semejante que esto. 
 
 " Otro traslado levo este ano de M. D IL y tiene Alonso Sanchez de 
 Carvajal a las Yndias, escripto en papel e abtorizado. 
 " Otro traslado en pergamino tal como este." 
 
 Mention is here accordingly made of four copies of these documents, 
 three on parchment and one on paper. Two of them were sent by Co- 
 lumbus himself to Genoa. Whether that procured by me at Florence be 
 a third ; whether it be that supposed to be at Paris ; or, what is more 
 probable perhaps, another copy, there are at present no m-cans of decid- 
 ing. I hope to have in my power, on some other occasion, to describe it 
 more accurately, particularly in those respects, in which it differs from 
 the Genoese volume. 
 
 Note C. Page 15. 
 
 It is probable that the great extent, to which the business of fishing on 
 the banks of Newfoundland and the New England coasts was early car- 
 ried, was one chief cause of the familiarity of men with the idea of the 
 passage across the Atlantic, and consequently of the readiness of our 
 forefathers to undertake it. It appears, that as early as 1578, there were 
 employed in this fishery, of Spaniards 100 sail, besides 20 or 30 in the 
 whale fishery on the same coasts ; of Portuguese 50 ; of French 150 ; of 
 English from 30 to 50. (Hakluyl, Vol. III. p. 132, cited in the JVorth Ame- 
 rican Revieiv for July, 1824, p. 140.) Captain Smith remarks, that ac- 
 cording to " Whitbourne's discovery of Newfoundland," the banks and 
 coasts in that region were visited by 250 sail of English fishermen annu- 
 allv. (Vol. II. p. 246, Richmond Edition.) So important was this work of 
 Whitbourne esteemed for the encouragement of the British fisheries that, 
 by an order in Council, dated 12th of April, 1622, it was ordered to be 
 distributed to every parish in the kingdom. (Ancient Right of the English 
 Nation to the American Fisheries, &.c. London, 1764.) The last cited 
 valuable treatise contains (page 50) an important statement of the amount 
 
66 
 
 of the French fishery in 1745, " made in that year, at the desire of the 
 Governor of the Massachusetts province, by Mr Thomas Kilby." By this 
 account, it appears that " 564 ships in all, and 27,500 men were yearly 
 employed from France on the banks of Newfoundland." The extent of 
 the British fisheries, in this quarter, on an average of three years ending 
 1773, may be seen in Lord Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of 
 the American States, 6th Ed. p. 64. From one ol the documents in the 
 work entitled, " The Fisheries and the Mississippi," by the present Sec- 
 retary of State, It appears that before 1810, there were annually employed 
 from the United States 1282 vessels in the Bank, Bay, and Labrador 
 fisheries, navigated by 10,459 men. — See also Seybert's Statistics, p. 333. 
 
 Note D. Page 29. 
 
 " From the commencement of the religious war in Germany to the 
 peace of Westphalia, scarce any thing great or memorable occurred in 
 the European political world, with which the reformation was not essen- 
 tially connected. Every event in the history of the world in this interval, 
 if not directly occasioned, was nearly influenced by this religious revolu- 
 tion, and every state, great or small, remotely or directly experienced its 
 influence." Sc/«//er'« Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Krieges. I. 1. 
 
 Note E. Page 29. 
 
 The close connexion of the religious and political system of Rome is 
 sufficiently shown by the authority of Cicero. — He begins the Oration 
 pro domo sua, in these words, cum multa divinitus, Pontifices, a majori- 
 bus nostris inventa afque instituta sunt ; tum nihil praeclarius quam quod 
 eosdem et religionibus deorum immortalium et summse Reipublica? praeesse 
 voluerunt; ut aniplissimi et clarissimi cives rempublicam bene gerendo 
 religiones sapienter interpretando conservarcnt. Whence is it that a prin- 
 ciple should be commended by so wise a statesman as Cicero, and in 
 point of experience have been found so salutary in Rome, which has 
 been uniformly productive of evil in modern states and condemned by 
 the soundest politicians .' — The cause of the apparent anomaly is no 
 doubt to be found in the organization of the church as a separate insti- 
 tution, having its own principles of growth and decline ; and the organi- 
 zation of the clergy as a body having its own interest. — Such a body, 
 when entrusted with power in the state, will be apt to exercise it under 
 the influence of the esprit du corps for its own advancement. In Rome, 
 the public religion rested upon no other sanction than any other part of 
 the public system and the ministers of religion, not belonging to a sep- 
 arate consecrated body, were not liable to be influenced by any other 
 than reasons of state in the administration of their religious functions. 
 Although such a state of things might seem unfriendly to religious influ- 
 ence, it produced not that efiect on the Romans, who may be character- 
 ized, during the Republic, as a religious people. — 
 
 A list of the Pontifices Maximi may be found at the close of the 
 learned treatise of Bosii de pontifict maximo RomeE veteris. It contains 
 the most familiar names in the civil history of Rome. After the fall of 
 the Republic, the Emperors regularly assumed the title of Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus, as is shown in another treatise of the same author, Bosii de Pon- 
 tificatu maximo imperii Romani exercitatio. What is somewhat singular 
 is, that this title of High Priest, originating in the ancient Roman pagan- 
 ism, should have been retained by the Christian emperors down to Gra- 
 tian. It was afterwards adopted by the Popes, a circumstance which 
 appears to have escaped Middleton in his letter from Rome. 
 
67 
 
 The oft quoted exclamation of Dante, shows at how early a period the 
 principle of the reformation had suggested itself to the independent 
 thinkers. 
 
 Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu niadre, 
 
 Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote, 
 
 Che da te prese il primo ricco padre. 
 
 Note F. Page 30. 
 
 The treatment which Pope Boniface VIII received from Philip the fair 
 in the fourteenth century, was as much more audacious than any thing in 
 the recent history of the Papal see, as the power of Boniface was great- 
 er than that of Pius VII. Philip not only returned the most con- 
 temptuous answers to the Pope's letters, but sent William de Nogaret, 
 (justly called by Mosheim, the most intrepid and inveterate enemy of the 
 Pope before Luther) into Italy to excite a sedition, to seize the person of 
 Boniface and bring him in chains to Lyons. This he so far effected as 
 to get possession of the Pope, whom he loaded with indignities, and even 
 struck on the head with an iron gauntlet. Though rescued by the citi- 
 zens of Anagni, from the hands of de Nogaret, he died soon after " of the 
 rage and anguish into which these insults threw him." It is useful to re- 
 cal these traits of history, to enable us to judge more impartially of con- 
 temporary events. 
 
 Note G. Page 30. 
 
 The progress of religious reform, to which I have alluded, concerns 
 only the connexion of church and state. As this connexion was more 
 intimate in the Catholic church, than in any other, that church was so far 
 the most corrupt. And as this connexion was unquestionably as preju- 
 dicial to the church, as to the state, the catholics have really as much 
 reason to rejoice in the reformation as the protestants. There can be but 
 little doubt, in the mind of any one who reads the history of the middle 
 ages, that the interests of no communion of Christians have been more 
 advanced by the reformation, than of that which regards the Pope as its 
 head. 
 
 In like manner, in speaking of the reform carried on in England by the 
 dissenters and puritans, no other reference is had than to the political 
 question of the union of church and state. This union, as existing in 
 England, I consider a great political abuse. As to the doctrinal points 
 agitated between the catholics and protestants ; the church of England 
 and dissenters ; however important they may have been at different times 
 thought, so long as they rested within the limits of speculative theology, 
 their settlement, one way or the other, could have had but little effect on 
 the condition of states. 
 
 Note H. Page 31. 
 
 Bishop Burnet has discriminated the Presbyterians and Independents, 
 in the following manner. " The main difference between these was, that 
 the Presbyterians seemed reconcilable to the church ; for they loved 
 episcopal ordination and a liturgy, and upon some amendments seemed 
 disposed to come into the church ; and they liked the civil government 
 and limited monarchy. But as the independents were for a common- 
 wealth in the state, so they put all the power in the church in the people, 
 and thought that their choice was an ordination : nor did they approve of 
 set forms of worship." History of his own Times. II. 406. 
 
68 
 
 This character, it must be remembered, was given of the Indepeu 
 dents, after the times of the commonwealth in England. At the period 
 of the first emigrations to New England, there is no reason for accusing 
 the independents of disaffection to the civil government. 
 
 In 1619, Mr. Robinson jiublished, at Leyden, " Apologia pro exulibus An- 
 glis (jui Brownistx vidgo appellantur." Mosheim conjectures that the 
 name of Imhpendenls may have grown out of a word in tlic following sen- 
 tence, in which the leading principle of their religious peculiarities is ex- 
 pressed, " Coptum quemlibet particularem esse totam, intcgram, et perfect- 
 am ecclesiam ex suis partibus constantem, immediate et independenter 
 (quoad alias ecclesias) sub ipso Christo." Jipologia, Cap. V.}). 22. Cited 
 in Moshthn, V. 388. 
 
 Note I. Page 34. 
 
 A considerable, and the most elaborate part of Burke's Reflections on 
 the Revolution in France, is occupied in refuting the assertion of Dr 
 Price, that by the Revolution in 1688, the English people acquired " the 
 right to choose their own governors, to cashier them for misconduct, and 
 to frame a government for themselves." It is certainly too much to say, 
 in unlimited terms, that the English Constitution, as fixed at the Revolu- 
 tion, gives a right of choosing or removing the king. On the other hand, 
 it is equally certain that both at, after, and before the Revolution, Parlia- 
 ment claimed and exercised the right of choosing and deposing the king 
 and limiting the succession. Burke expresses himself thus : " So far is it 
 from being true that we acquired a right, by the Revolution, to elect our 
 kings, that if we had possessed it before, the English nation did, at that 
 time, most solemnly renounce and abdicate it for themselves, and for all 
 theur posterity forever. These gentlemen [Dr Price and his part\'] may 
 value themselves as much as they please on their whig principles ; but I 
 never desire to be thought a better whig than Lord Somers," &.c. 
 
 Lord Somers is thus particularly appealed to by Mr Burke, in support 
 of his construction of the Constitution, because the declaration of right 
 was drawn by him. But it is somewhat remarkable that Burke should 
 have insisted so much on this authority, for Lord Somers printed a work 
 in 1710, of which the title sufficiently shows the object : — " A brief history 
 of the succession of the Crown of England ; wherein facts collected from 
 the best authorities are opposed to the novel assertors of indefeasible 
 hereditary right." After having in this work, gone through with a mas- 
 terly deduction of the history of the Englisli crown from the esta- 
 blishment of it, Lord Somers sums up, as follows : " I shall leave every 
 man to make his own observations on this historical deduction. But this 
 one observation I believe all men must make from it ; that it hath been 
 the constant opinion of all ages, that the Parliament of England had an 
 unquestionable power to limit, restrain, and qualify the succession as they 
 pleased, and that in all ages they have put their power in practice ; and 
 that the historian* had reason for saying, that seldom or never the third 
 heir in a right descent enjoyed the crown of England !" 
 
 Note K. Page 38. 
 
 The settlements made by civilized Europeans on the coasts of America 
 and of other countries occupied by savages, have evidently proceeded on 
 the assumption of peculiar principles of national or rather social law. 
 
 * ' Daniel, fol. 5. in vita H. I.' 
 
69 
 
 Ifiot oaly the arbitrary kings of Spain and Portugal, but the constitutional 
 king of England, claimed a right of occupying, possessing, and granting 
 to individuals or companies, all newly discovered heathen lands; nor was 
 it admitted that the natives had any right to the soil, in the same sense 
 that citizens of one country acknowledge each other's rights, and the go- 
 vernments of friendly nations the rights of each other's subjects. There 
 does not seem to be any principle ol natural law, by which savage tribes 
 can claim full right to the whole of the widest region, which they wander 
 over in the chase, and to the perpetual exclusion of civilized settlers. If 
 then savage nations have not a full right, what right have they ; and to 
 how much territory have they any right .'' These are questions not yet well 
 settled. — What is the ground and extent of the obligation, which a civil- 
 ized community is under, by inalienable resei-vations of land and by libe- 
 ral appropriations of money, to introduce the arts of civilized life among 
 border tribes of a different race and language, w ith whom no intermixture 
 of blood can take place without degeneracy .' — As modes of diffusing civili- 
 zation most widely, is the choice well established between the increase of a 
 civilized population and civilizing a barbarous one.'' These questions pre- 
 sent themselves in their most delicate form, in the present controversy in 
 the state of Georgia, and it may be doubted whether they are fully solved 
 on the gent-ral notions of humanity usually applied to them, however 
 Strong and natural the prepossession felt at a distance in favor of a weaker 
 party. 
 
 Note L. Page 40. 
 
 As it is now generally admitted that a temperate climate is essential to 
 the attainment of the highe^-t degrees of civilization, (Heeren's Ideen Th. 
 V. Allgemeiiie Vorerinnerungen^ there is more reason than ever to depart 
 from the ancient phraseology of Zones, in the use of which we almost 
 unconsciously connect the idea of certain degrees of heat or cold with 
 certain parallels of latitude. The remarks in the text, relative to tropical 
 regions, must of coiu-se be confined to tropical climates. Our own conti- 
 nents present the most striking instances of the change of climate ; and 
 of uatui al productions, state of civilization, and social character, as affect- 
 ed by climate ; in travelling, on the same parallel, from the coasts to the 
 sujnmits of the mountains. 
 
 The Atlas of Humboldt contains a curious comparative view of the dif- 
 ferent altitude of the limit of perpetual congelation in different latitudes. 
 And his Essay on Isothermal lines, as well as various parts of his large 
 works, furnish the most instructive illustrations of the same subject. See 
 particularly his Relation Historique, Tom II p. 350. 
 
 Note M. Page 41. 
 
 "I doubt if there be another plant upon the face of the earth, which, 
 on a small space of soil, produces a quantity of nutritious substance so 
 considerable as the banana. Eight or nine months after the sucker is 
 planted, the banana tree begins to develope its cluster, and the fruit may 
 be gatheied the tenth or eleventh month. When the stalk is cut, there is 
 constantly found among the numerous shoots, which have sprung from 
 the roots, a sprout (pimpollu) which with two thirds the height of the pa- 
 rent plant, bears fruh three months later. It is thus that a plantation of 
 banana, which is called in the Spanish colonies a Platnnar, perpetuates 
 itself without any other care than that of cutting the stalks, whose fruit 
 has ripened, and digging the earth slightly about the roots once or twice 
 
70 
 
 a year. A spot of ground of one hundred square metres (about cue tentii 
 more than so many square yards) in surface, is suflicient to contain at 
 least from thirty to forty banana plants. This spot of ground, reckoning 
 the weight of tl-.c cluster only at from about thirty five to forty five pounds, 
 would yield nearly four thousand five hundred weight of food. What a 
 difference between this product and that of the cereal gramina, in the 
 most fertile parts of Europe. Wheat, supposing it sown and not planted, 
 in the Chinese way, and calculating on the basis of a tenfold increase, 
 does not produce, on a himdred square metres, more than about thirty- 
 three pounds weight of grain. In France the legal acre of 54,995 square 
 feet, is sown broadcast in very good land, with about l&> pounds of 
 grain, on medium and poor land witli from 2(X) to 220 pounds ; and the 
 produce varies from 1()00 to 2500 pounds the acre. The potato, ac- 
 cording to M. Tessier yields in Europe, on one Imndred square metres of 
 land well manured, about one hundred pounds of the root ; or from four 
 to six thousand pounds on the acre of France. The product of the 
 banana is consequently to that of wheat as 133 to 1 ; and to that of 
 potatoes as 44 to 1." 
 
 " In an eminently fertile country, a legal French acre cultivated with 
 banana of the larger kind {Plalano Jirton) would feed more than fifty 
 persons for a year ; while in Europe the same acre, on the principle of an 
 eight fold increase, would yield but about twelve hundred pounds of 
 wheat, a quantity not equal to the support for a year of two persons." — 
 Humboldt Essai Polilique sur le Ronaumt de la .tVouvelle Espagne. Tom. 
 III. 28, 35. 
 
 Note N. Page 43. 
 
 It need not be said, that the remarks, which are made in the text, rela- 
 tive to the colonial establishments of different nations on the Americaa 
 soil, can be intended to convey no disrespectful insinuation toward the 
 free states now rising upon those colonial foundations. — The very magni- 
 tude of the abuses of the ancient system is among the causes of the con- 
 vulsive eflbrts, which have been made, in our days, against those abases; 
 and the Patriots, who, under infinite discouragements, have effected thus 
 far the political regeneration of those vast regions, are entitled to the 
 greater praise for the difficulties incident to their enterprise. But that they 
 are under no obligation to principles and examples derived from the 
 mother country ; that the institutions established in the Spanish and Por- 
 tuguese colonies, instead of serving as a school of freedom — like the 
 colonial institutions in the North American colonies — were of a nature 
 to retard the growth of independence, cannot be doubted. — Even in es- 
 tablishing a form of free government, the leaders of the revolution in 
 Colombia, have been obliged to express their regret that the state of the 
 country and of its population did not allow them to prefer the Federative 
 System of the United States to the less perfect Central System, which 
 they have adopted. — See the opinions of Bolivar and M. de Salazar as 
 quoted in the North American Review for Jan. 1825. p. 79. 
 
 Note 0. Page 44. 
 
 Few questions in Geography have been the subject of more important 
 controversies than the limits of Brazil. It is not a little astonishing to 
 see states like Spaiu and Portugal, which had respectively by the dis- 
 covery of America and the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, made the 
 acquisition of new territory larger than Europe, contesting with bit- 
 terness a few square leagues of morass on the banks of the Amazon and 
 
71 
 
 its tributaries. — The facts, on which the controversies aHuded to turned, 
 are principally these. Pope Nicholas V, in 1454, granted to Alfonso 
 King of Portugal, in full sovereignty, all the countries, which he should 
 discover from Cape Non in Africa to India."* About the time of this 
 grant the navigators of Portugal discovered the Cape de Verde Islands, 
 and the Azores. In 1486, the Portuguese navigator Diaz discovered the 
 Cape of Good Hope. In 1492 Columbus discovered America ; and 
 controversies immediately arose between the Courts of Spain and Por- 
 tugal, relative to the interference of their several discoveries. To settle 
 this controversy the Spanish Court procured of Pope Alexander VI, 
 (himself a Spaniard,) the famous bull bearing date May 1493, in which 
 he gives to the king of Spain, in full sovereignty, " All the islands and 
 continents which are or may be found, (Onines insulas et terras firmas 
 inventas et inveniendas, detectas et detegendas,) to the south and west of 
 a meridian line drawn one hundred leagues south of the southernmost of 
 the Azores or Cape de Verde Islands. — This is the famous " line of de- 
 marcation;" for though, (contrary to the popular representation) nothing 
 is said, in this bull, of the right of the Portuguese to all discoveries east 
 of the line, yet the former Papal grant to Portugal, already mentioned, 
 had given to that kingdom the sovereignty over its discoveries in the 
 east. The Portuguese having shortly after acquired Brazil, by the dis- 
 coveries of Pinzon, who had been of the company of Columbus on his 
 first voyage, it was perceived that it lay to the westward of the line of 
 demarcation, and of course was subject to the Spanish claim. By the 
 treaty of Tordesillas, in 1494, these conflicting rights were compromised, 
 and the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal agreed to run the line three 
 hundred and seventy leagues west of that prescribed by the Pope's bull. 
 This memorable line, by which the territory of three fourth parts of the 
 globe was divided, was to be run by skilful geographers, within ten 
 months. Herrera (Decad. 111. lib. VI.) describes, in a manner ap- 
 proaching the ludicrous, the array of maps, charts, globes, and instru- 
 ments, which the geographers brought to this discussion ; and Humboldt 
 justly remarks in reference to these and other kindred contests, (Relation 
 Historique, Tom. II. p 441,) that the interests of science alone have been 
 served by them. While the question was keenly agitated between the 
 Portuguese and Spanish geographers, the former striving to run the line 
 as far west and the latter as far east as possible, the discovery and 
 occupation of the Moluccas by the Portuguese, completely inverted the 
 policy of both parties. These valuable islands were perceived to be 
 nearly opposite the Cape de Verdes, on the other side of the globe ; and 
 the farther to the west of the Cape de Verdes the line of demarcation was 
 run, so much more of the Moluccas and other neighboring islands 
 would fall within the Spanish hemisphere. The Portuguese geographers 
 now contended that the line of demarcation should be counted 370 
 leagues from a line running through the isle of Salis, the easternmost of 
 the Cape de Verdes, while the Spaniards counted the 370 leagues from 
 a line running through St Antonio, which was ninety leagues more to 
 the west, and was the most western of the group ; — each party being 
 anxious to lose in Brazil, that it might gain in the Spice islands. — The 
 controversy was protracted for many years, till in 1-580, it was, for a time, 
 settled by the union of the two crowns of Spain and Portugal. (De 
 JLaet, Novus Orbis, p. 541.) 
 
 * See the original document in the great Corps Diplomatique. Tom. 
 III. p. 200. 
 
72 
 
 After their separation in 1640, the contest was revived. But the Spice 
 islands having been wrested from the Portuguese by the Dutch, the con- 
 troversy between the Portuguese and the Spaniards was now reduced to 
 the limits of Brazil. The parties accordingly again changed sides ; the 
 Portuguese geographers, at the conferences held at Puente de Caya in 
 1682, maintained that tlic 370 leagues must be counted from the most 
 western point of St Antonio, while the Spaniards insisted on the centre 
 of the isle St Nicholas. Two or three commissions, at great expense, 
 were sent out, in the course of the last century, to settle tlie possession 
 of tlie uninhabited swamps on the banks of the Tuamini ; — the region 
 which was constituted debateable ground by the uncertainty of the point, 
 through which the meridian line should be run. — (Humboldt Relation 
 Historiquc, Tom. II. p. 442.) 
 
 In the first volume of M. Martens' supplement to the Recueil des Traiies, 
 p. 372, the treaty of Tordesillas is contained, and in no previous col- 
 lection of treaties. The limit of the Oyapok, Oyapoco, or lapoc, was 
 finally settled by the 107th Article of the Act of the Congress of Vienna ; 
 and by a sepai-ate convention therein provided for, between Portugal and 
 France. 
 
 Note P. Page 45. 
 
 A more than ordinary identity of interest and character was effected 
 between Portugal and Brazil ; and this vast region was even called by the 
 name of Portugal. " On the banks of the Rio Negro,'' says Humboldt, 
 in the chapter cited in the last note, " the neighboring country beyond 
 the Amazon is called, in the language of the Spanish Missions, neither 
 Brazil nor the Capitania general of Grand Pari, but Portugal. The cop- 
 per colored Indians and the Mulattos, which I have seen ascending from 
 Barcelos to the Spanisli fort San Carlos, are Portuguese. This denomina- 
 tion prevails among the people even to the coasts of Cumana. A favor- 
 ite anecdote relates, how the imagination of one of the commandants in 
 the expedition oi Solano to settle the limits, in 1754, was struck, by hear- 
 ing the inhabitants of these regions called Portuguese. The old soldier, 
 as ignorant as brave, was provoked at having been sent to the banks of 
 the Orenoque by sea : " If" said he, " as I hear, this vast province of Spa- 
 nish Guyana reaches all the way to Portugal, (a los Portugeses,) why did 
 the king make us sail from Cadiz. I should have preferred travelling a 
 little farther by land." — " These expressions of nOive ignorance," adds 
 Humboldt, " remind one of a strange opinion of Lorenzana the distin- 
 guished archbishop of Mexico. This prelate, a person of great histori- 
 cal research, observes in his edition of the letters of Cortes, published so 
 late as 1770, that the possessions of the king of Spain in New California 
 and New Mexico, border by land on Siberia .'" 
 
 These anecdotes alone may serve as an index to the colonial systems 
 of Spain and Portugal, whose archbishops and commissioners for set- 
 tling limits supposed, in the middle of the last century, that Brazil was 
 bounded by Portugal and New Mexico by Siberia. 
 
 Note Q. Page 52. 
 
 The sentiment in the text is very strongly illustrated by the statements 
 contained in Pringle's account of the present state of " the English set- 
 tlers at the Cape of Good Hope." From that work, it appears that 
 ninety thousand persons besieged Earl Bathurst's office, with applications 
 to embark in the government expedition, to found the colony in question. 
 The calamitous consequences are detailed in the work alluded to. 
 
73 
 
 Note R. Page 58. 
 
 The constitution of the Mexican confederacy was adopted by the gen 
 eral constituent Congress Oct. 4. 1824, and may be found translated in 
 the National Journal for Dec. 10 and 11th. 
 
 The Mexican confederacy consists of the following states and territo- 
 ries ; the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila y Tejas, Durango, Gua- 
 najuato, Mexico, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon, Oajaca, Puebla de los Ange- 
 les, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Sonara y Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas (.'') 
 Vera Cruz, lalisco, Yucatan, and Zacatecas ; the territories of upper and 
 lower California, Colinia, and Santa Fe of "^ ew Mexico. The character 
 of Tlaxcala is to be fixed by a constitutional law. 
 
 It will be observed that the division into states and territories does not 
 precisely correspond with the old division into intendencies. 
 
 Note S. Page 59. 
 
 " The following are a few of the subjects of the political essays of the 
 Censor (a periodical paper published at Buenos Ayres) in 1817: an ex- 
 planation of the Constitution of the United States, and highly praised — 
 The Lancastrian System of Education — on the causes of the prosperity 
 of the United States — Milton's essay on the liberty of the press — A re- 
 view of the work of the late President Adams, on the American Consti- 
 tution, and a recommendation of checks and balances, continued through 
 several numbers and abounding with much useful information for the 
 people — brief notice of the life of James Monroe, president of the Uni- 
 ted States — examination of the federative system — on the trial by Jury — 
 on popular elections — on the effect of enlightened productions on the 
 condition of mankind — an analysis of the several state constitutions of 
 the Union, Sic. 
 
 " There are in circulation, Spanish translations of many of our best 
 revolutionary writings. The most common are two miscellaneous vol- 
 umes, one, containing Paine's common sense and rights of man, and de- 
 claration of Independence, several of our constitutions, and General 
 Washington's farewell address. The other is an abridged history of the 
 United States down to the year 1810, with a good explanation of the 
 nature of our political institutions, accompanied with a translation of Mr 
 Jefferson's inaugural speech, and other state papers. I believe these 
 have been read by nearly all who can read, and have produced a most 
 extravagant admiration of the United States, at the same time, accom- 
 panied with something like despair." — Breckenridge's South America, 
 Vol. II. pp. 213, 214.