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AN 
 
 ORATION. 
 
 DEtlTERED BEFORE THE 
 
 WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY 
 
 AT CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 JULY 4, 18U. 
 
 By RICHARD 11. DANA. Esq 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 PRIXTED BY HILLIARD AN'D METCALF. 
 
 1.8M. 
 
r .- C r 
 
 .cns , 
 
 M a meeting of the Standing Committee of the TVnsHngton Be' 
 nevolent Society at Cambridge : 
 
 Voted — That Messrs. Proctor Peirce, EliabW. Metoalf, 
 and John Trowbridge, be a committee to wait on Richard H. 
 Dana, Esq. to express the thanks of the Society for his patriotic 
 Oration, delivered before them, and to request a copy thereof for 
 the press. 
 
 Attest, WILLIAM HILLIARD, Secr'y. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 The day wliicli we have met to celebrate, "vvc 
 once vainly imagined, was to work an universal 
 change in the condition and character of man ; 
 that it was to spread its light over the nations 
 which we supposed were sitting in the gloom of 
 slavery, ignorance and crime ; and that tliey were to 
 come forth the renovated beings of freedom, wis- 
 dom and virtue. In vision, the very face of na- 
 ture was changing; every weak thing was waxing 
 strong, and every dry thing green. The world, 
 with its swamps and deserts, was shooting forth 
 in all the beauty and freshness of Eden ; and man 
 walking in the midst, sinless and free as Adam. 
 But, alas ! all that our fevered imaginations pic- 
 tured out was but a dream. The physical and 
 moral world have undergone no change — notwith- 
 standing the American Revolution, Arabia still 
 has its deserts, and mankind their sins. Human 
 natm*e has not yet reached that stage of perfecti- 
 bility in which laws are but useless entangle- 
 ments, and the power of government but a cum- 
 brous restraint upon virtue. Cunning and vio- 
 lence are not yet eradicated ; the simple are still 
 defrauded, and the weak oppressed ; tlie prodigal 
 is neighbour to the frugal, the idle to the indus- 
 trious, the factious to the peaceable. 
 
The rise, the piogress, and v.ould 1 could sav 
 the fall of tliis doctrine of equality, perfectibility, 
 and absolute liberty in man, is well worlhy a few 
 moments consideration. The untimely clieck it 
 has put upon the irapiovements and growing pow- 
 er of this new country—its fatal connexion with a 
 like system in Eui'ope ; and the tremendous force 
 with Avliicli, so far as it extended, it swept away 
 all that was wortliy the pride of tlie old world, 
 give the subject a strong, though melancholy in- 
 terest, in the heart of every man whose under- 
 standing it has not bewildered ; or whose good- 
 ness it has not corrupted. 
 
 This vagary of tlie ])rain, that the virtue of 
 man was such as to render political restraint, al- 
 most or wholly useless— that his errors and his 
 crimes were attributalde to the oppression of old 
 established governments — that fixed government 
 and tyranny were the same — that distinctions in 
 honors, wealth and rank were alike an insult to 
 the understanding, and an unauthorized assump- 
 tion over the person of man — that the sceptre 
 should be broken in pieces, the ribbon torn from 
 the breast, and the very land marks of property 
 trodden down, began to be inculcated at the close 
 of our revolutionary war — a war imbittered by the 
 remembrance of ill repaid loyalty, and fond con- 
 nexions rudely torn asunder — a w ar which arous- 
 ed every feeling of offended pride, and put a keen 
 edge on the resentment which will stir Avithin the 
 bosom of every high-minded man, Avhen scoffed at 
 and insulted. Not a war in which armies are 
 sent abroad, while the majority of the nation lose 
 the remembrance of it in the occupation of busi- 
 ness, or pursuits of pleasure ; but a war which 
 
kept the spirits in alarm with the gleam of distant 
 fires, and stories of approaching desolation — a war 
 whicli broke in upon family repose, and carried 
 its terrors and death to our peaceful firesides. 
 This scene of confusion, of liorrors and gloom at 
 last began to break awaj. Tlie heavy clouds 
 which had hung over us, black as night, were 
 moving to distant regions. The shout of triumph 
 and joy of a whole nation ascended as the bright 
 sun of our Independence burst out upon them. 
 
 Do but consider what a varied mass of foil}', 
 as well as wisdom, of vice as well as virtue, this 
 state of things was quickening into an untried 
 and violent action. It sent its warming influence 
 through the land, and the rank weeds shot up, lux- 
 uriant and towering as the oak. The common 
 business of life was broken in upon — every man 
 became a politician- — the plough was left in the 
 furrow, the work shop was shut, and the spider 
 spun his web undisturbed over the books of the 
 scholar. Ignorance, with her simple system of 
 wide spreading destruction, was preparing to 
 move forward on her labours ; and Learning, vain 
 of her acquirements, and most confident, where 
 most inexperienced ; with her brain bewildered 
 with ill arranged conceits, was hastening after, 
 ready to deck the homliness of this working-day 
 world in all the ornaments of her own fantastic 
 imagination. The rose was to spread its leaves 
 where the sea-weed swings to the tide of ocean — 
 the orange was to ripen at the poles ; and palaces 
 of ice were to brighten in the sun of the tropics. 
 The learned theorist Avas looking forward, with 
 complacent expectancy, to the momentous period 
 when the work of gigantic destruction should 
 
commence ; when the proud and stable fabrics 
 of European constitutions, sacred with tlie hoar of 
 ages, revered as the defences of nations, beloved 
 as the guardians of the good ; under whose shel- 
 tering dominion the literature, the science, the 
 arts, the midtiplied and various improvements, 
 the charities and quiet of domestic life, and the 
 religion of our Saviour, which threw a charm over 
 all, had grown up and flourished, Avhen these fab- 
 rics should be crumbled into dust, and all they 
 had fostered and protected, should be laid bare 
 and shivering to the elements. The mighty e- 
 ruption of the political world, sweeping in its 
 headlong descent, the land-marks of property, the 
 humble home, the palace, the castle and the 
 very temple of our God ; was gazed upon with a 
 serenity as great as is the silent lapse of waters, 
 spreading health, and freshness, and beauty in 
 their course. Yain of their own mad systems, 
 they heeded not the pain, the poverty , and heavy 
 sorrows which awaited the human race. The dis- 
 solution of governments, dear to a people, as well 
 from their intrinsic merit, as from long rooted 
 prejudices, was looked upon with the curious, un- 
 moved intentness of the chemist in an analyzing 
 process ; and the theorists of the time, thought 
 only upon the proud moment when their grand 
 experiment should begin. In anticipation, they 
 set about clearing away the holy ground, loaded 
 with the mighty fragments. The people who lin- 
 gered amidst the ruins, dear to them from the re- 
 collection of all the comforts and blessings they 
 had enjoyed beneath the edifice, when it stood 
 entire ami towering in its strength, were driven 
 aside by these vain and bustling projectors, to 
 
make way for the fragile structures of their own 
 feehle hands, tricked out in all tlie finery and 
 smartness of then* tasteless calling and gilding. 
 Happily for our country, notions so absurd, 
 hopes so delusive, and desires so criminal, did not 
 I attain to their full growth, vigor and popularity, 
 in the early and critical period of the old confed- 
 eration. They were the darling offspring of a set 
 of men, of whom the world then knew little, and 
 cared less. Though their countenances had an 
 incongruous expression of distraction, idiocy, cun- 
 ning, malignity and ferocity; yet so clumsily 
 were they put together, with such an unmanage- 
 able cumbersomeness of limb, such a ludicrous 
 disproportion of the whole bloated frame, that ev* 
 ery one who looked upon them thought that such 
 sickly deformities would soon be thrown out, an 
 offensive mass before the common sun. But, 
 alas, how short-sighted is man! These bantlings, 
 nourished and dandled by their sires, soon ex- 
 panded to an unwieldy bulk. In an unlucky mo- 
 ment they attracted the observation, and by a 
 strange fatuity of taste and judgment, they speed- 
 ily grew into the favor and adoption of a certain 
 great man, who has an instinctive yearning for ev- 
 ery thing prodigious — a man who has cared and 
 thought more about the mammoth, than about a 
 fellow-being ; for the very philosophical reason 
 that he is a great deal the bigger of the two. Half 
 ashamed of this unaccountable attachment, and 
 unable to subdue it, because unused to self con- 
 ti'ol, he set about the daring project of making 
 them as fascinating to otliers, as they were to 
 himself. Busy as a milliner, he began decking 
 out their diseased and livid nakedness, in all the 
 
8 
 
 finery of diamonds and ribbons ; and in raptnres 
 at his success, be brought thein forward in either 
 hand, the objects of disgust to every delicate eye, 
 to attract the stupid gaze of the ignorant, and 
 awaken the unhallowed joy of the wicked. 
 
 But it was not the labour of a single day wliich 
 could allure men from long established princi- 
 ples, to those novel in their kind ; though formed 
 to flatter the vanity, confirm the pride, and excite 
 and indulge the licentious passions of our nature. 
 But the season fruitful in projects was approach- 
 ing. A new constitution was to be formed ; and 
 the opinion of the wisest, that an alteration in our 
 ill-jointed government was necessary, gave an in- 
 direct sanction to schemes, however undigested 
 in their parts, or faulty in their groundwork. The 
 mighty labour of throwing off an old and powerful 
 government, under which we had lived from our 
 political birth, was just accomplished. With 
 spirits elevated to intoxication at our new born 
 freedom, with hearts confident from success, we 
 were called to the solemn work of self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
 How vain and transitory the thought, that 
 when the storm of war liad passed over us, we 
 should sit in the still sunshine of our homes, that 
 our labours would be finished, and the Sabbath of 
 rest come ! The mightiest of human efibrts was 
 before us. How lightly did we esteem its im- 
 portance ! How ignorant were we of its difficul- 
 ties ! The structure of a constitution which should 
 govern by one set of general rules, beings as di- 
 versified in their characters as their faces, and 
 with pursuits as various as both, which sliould 
 put the poor man beyond the haughty dominion 
 
9 
 
 of the wealthy, and gaard the acquisitions of the 
 rich, against the avarice and vulgar envy of the 
 low, whicli should direct the energies of the 
 country, to protect it from foreign violence, and 
 internal discord, yet leave the liberties of the in- 
 dividual secure ; wliich, in fine, should prevent 
 man from returning to the ignorance and barbar- 
 ity of a savage, hold him from the wilds of the 
 forest, expand his mind, cultivate his taste, awaken 
 the kinder feelings of the heart, make him the 
 creature of the refined, social state, spreading 
 blessings about liim only to be blessed again — 
 and all this to be so framed, as to withstand the 
 insidious attempts of those wlio sliould be called 
 to guard it, and the assaults of those panting for 
 rule ; a structure too, resting not on the virtues 
 alone, but on the exact balance of our very vices, 
 for its duration ; the high pride of the great, set 
 in opposition to the levelling system of the poor ; 
 the selfish calculating calmness of the avaricious, 
 to the impetuosity of the rash and ambitious. 
 Such was the work to be accomplished, so intri- 
 cate in its parts, so momentous in its completion, 
 to millions of the human race ! 
 
 We have called ourselves the wisest, and freest 
 of people. The thoughtless presumption with 
 Avhich the most ignorant preached lectures on 
 governments, declaimed against all under which 
 the world had so long lived, and gravely proposed 
 legislating for the whole human race, might in- 
 duce others to call us the vainest of people. 
 Constitution-mongers came forth, thick and clam- 
 orous as reptiles after a rain. It was a time when 
 every man felt the safety of a whole people rest- 
 ing on the labours of his own mighty mind. At 
 
10 
 
 the corner of every street, plans of government 
 were broiiglit forward, and discussed, with all the 
 vehemence that pride of opinion coiUd give them, 
 and with an earnestness as great, as if the failure 
 of their adoption would lay prostrate the poAver 
 and glory of the nation. 
 
 This vanity was as harmless in its nature, as 
 it was amusing. But there was cause for gloomy 
 apprehension, when there were found amongst 
 the leading statesmen of our country, men cursed 
 with that paltry ambition, whicli would raise it- 
 self to power upon the vices, the follies, and 
 prejudices of tlie bad and the ignorant ; wlio, not 
 endowed with that elevation of mind which prides 
 itself in moral greatness, could oppose the labors 
 of those heroes who were struggling to save a 
 nation from itself ; to give it a government which 
 should strengthen its weakness, subdue its preju- 
 dices, confirm its wavering, and raise it to renown 
 and poAver amongst the nations of the earth. 
 There Avas good cause for dread, Avhen sucli men, 
 cold and selfish of heart, Avent forth to preach to 
 a people made vain by success, Avitli ears greedy 
 for praise, Avith hearts filled Avith hate toAvards 
 the constitution and character of a great, free and 
 monil nation : to preach to them the doctrine, 
 tiiat hberty Avas in danger from the usurpation of 
 rulers, not from the excesses of the midtitude ; 
 that hiAvs were to su!»juj»*ate tlie lionest poor, not 
 to curb the AveaUhy and proud ; that accumula- 
 tion of property Avas an assumption of Av hat nature 
 intended in common for man ; that the exactions 
 of justice Avcre an outrage upon human nature ; 
 ami the formalities of her courts, but the mockery 
 and refinement of oppi'ession : tliat tliose Ave had 
 
n 
 
 been wont to call the friends of sober, chastised 
 liberty, and well braced government, were the 
 supporters of tyrants, and friends of monarchy ; 
 and, that under a state of absolute, unadulterated 
 freedom, man would surely attain to the perfec- 
 tion of human nature. With this system, which 
 gave the lie to every man's conscience, whicli 
 would turn his unbiassed observation from the 
 mingled state of good and ill in life, to gaze with 
 bewildering enthusiasm upon the gaudy, hollow, 
 fleeting show of liberty, equality, and perfectibility, 
 which these political magicians were playing be- 
 fore their eyes — with this system, which would 
 mingle in one indiscriminate mass, the opposite 
 qualities of vice and virtue, which would wrap 
 about the leprosy of falsehood with the garments 
 of truth, and taint then* purity with its contagious 
 loathsomeness, did they attempt to allure the bet- 
 ter part of society to tlie worship of the profane 
 deities they had set up. This doctrine, rotten at 
 its heart, and in all its members, was spread 
 through the country, that its authors might be 
 elevated to the rule of the nation which tliey had 
 deluded and disgraced. 
 
 Fortunately for our country, tliose who led the 
 people through the troubles of the revolution, as 
 yet retained the love and confidence they h:«d so 
 hardly won. Through their labour and influence 
 the broad foundation of our constitution was hiid. 
 and the fabrick rose in its fair ])roportions, the 
 beauty and defence of the nation. When tliey 
 had entered it, and looked over the land ; the 
 ruins of the war yet stood out distinct in the 
 prospect. On our western frontier, its desolating 
 course was marked with all tlie multiplied horrors 
 
IS 
 
 with which savage ferocity coukl crowd the scene. 
 When the means were sought to repair the waste 
 of the war which had passed over us, and to repel 
 that wliich still threatened us, it was found that 
 while a heavy debt weighed down the nation, its 
 credit was gone. 
 
 Tlie attempts of the Federal party to remove 
 these evils, to adjust all disputes with foreign 
 powers, to raise the country from poverty, and the 
 decay of character, to opulence and dignity, were 
 assailed with all the vulgar abuse of the low, and 
 malignant persecution of the high. The antipa- 
 thies and jealousies of the people were alarmed ; 
 they were told that our lenders were following the 
 doAv nward course of the old tottering governments 
 of Europe ; President Wasliington was accused of 
 aping the monarch, of introducing the absurd and 
 corrupting forms of courts, into the midst of plain, 
 pure republicanism. His ministers were branded 
 ai'istocrats, and in the poor Secretary of the treas- 
 ury and Ids wife, jolted and squeezed in a lum- 
 bering stage coach, on their way to the seat 
 of government, were seen the future Lord 
 and Lady Hamilton. Men starving in the ser- 
 vice of the public, were gravely charged with 
 attempting to adorn their beggary with the in- 
 signia of office, and coats-of-arms of nobility. 
 The petty army raised for the border war, was 
 viewed with suspicion, as the instrument of their 
 extravagant ambition ; the assumption of the debt, 
 as attaching the aristocracy of wealth to the gov- 
 ernment ; and the navy, as a useless show, op- 
 pressing the honest yeomanry, whilst it adminis'- 
 tered to the vanity of their leaders. 
 
i3 
 
 Whilst the administration, heedless of these 
 clamors, pursued with undeyiating firmness the 
 plans they had laid out for the good of their coun- 
 ti*y, the Spirit of Faction, malignant from disap- 
 pointment, was abroad in the land. He looked 
 over the soil where once stood the forest, cold, 
 gloomy and desolate ; how changed was the 
 scene ! Tlie corn waved in the valley ; the grass 
 was on the sunny hill. He turned, baffled in his 
 evil hopes, from this spot of quiet industry and 
 joy ; but on every side he beheld beauties which 
 moved his hate. Cities sent forth the sounds 
 of labor and gaiety — he saw them the abodes 
 of polished life, domestic comforts, and exalted 
 virtues. Sick of a prosperity, not the product of 
 his own wild schemes, he sent his eve over the 
 ocean, thinking there to dwell with a feeling of 
 strange delight on the solitude of nature ; but 
 even there, the enterprise and industry of man 
 met his view. The sail was spread to the winds, 
 and voices were heard coming over the waters. 
 As he stood on the shore, loathing a scene so full 
 of life and joy, the shouts of Kindred Spirits in a 
 distant clime broke upon hio ear. He raised his 
 drooping head — his shrunken form expanded — 
 his eye beamed full and bright ; for he felt that 
 the time was drawing nigh, when those who had 
 spread here the goodly prospect before him, would 
 fall, the victims of his wiles — when this nation 
 would soon be his — a nation which they had rais- 
 ed to wealth, to power and to glory. 
 
 The doctrine which gleamed faint and dubious 
 over this country, broke hot and blasting upon 
 the kingdom of France, and every green thing 
 lay curled and withered in its scorching light. 
 
14 
 
 The Revolution had commenced — not a revolution 
 in which one king is deposed, and another exalt- 
 ed — not one in which the form of government, 
 alone is changed ; but one, having for its object 
 tlie total subversion of the moral principles of 
 man, and the long established order of the social 
 state. All distinctions necessary to the quiet of 
 society, Avere to l)e done away — tlie links in pri- 
 vate life broken asunder. The father was to fore- 
 go all peculiar fondness for the child, for the 
 false, aflected feeling of a general love of tlie spe- 
 cies. All filial reverence and awe were to be 
 eradicated from the heart, as a principle destruc- 
 tive of the grand doctrine of equality and freedom 
 in man. The deep toned lludings were to be 
 stilled ; the gentle affections, which had twined 
 themselves about the heart, and quickened and 
 softened it with their balmy influences, were to 
 be rudely torn off; and it was to be left to chill 
 and harden in its loneliness. Old governments 
 were to be overturned ; those long rooted preju- 
 dices which strengthen a constitution, not by com- 
 pulsive laws, but by fast and w^onted attachments, 
 were to be broken up ; an universal democracy 
 was to enlighten an alyect and gloomy world w ith 
 its blissful reign, and man, and woman too, Avere 
 to be held together by the only bond worthy of 
 improved reason, the great and general bond of 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Though this doctrine was written in blood, 
 its ministers marked by a brutal fei'ocity from 
 which the good man recoiled, and by a vulgar in- 
 solence which the proud man could not brook, yet 
 it found in this country, distinguished for sober 
 understanding, general information, and humanity, 
 
15 
 
 its blindest and warmest supporters. Yes, it was 
 this revolution which awakened to redoubled vig- 
 or of action the leading* opponents of the Wash- 
 ington administration — which gave them for blind 
 and zealous followers all those characters hanging 
 loose on society- — all tlie restless, unprincipled, and 
 ambitious, and many honest of heiu't, but of wild 
 and heated imaginations. 
 
 Notwithstanding the strength of this opposi- 
 tion to his general administration, and the frenzi- 
 ed hostility to his impartial, neutral conduct to- 
 ward the powers of Europe — notwithstanding the 
 cry that we were bound in honour and griititude 
 to put on our armour in this holy war of the Great 
 Republic against the despots of Europe ; such was 
 the old and deep affection — such the self-subduing 
 awe which the people felt for Washington, that 
 the leaders of the opposition, found it well to pre- 
 serve the show of respect for the man they hated 
 and envied. This respect was, indeed, but out- 
 ward. Wltile they trembled under " the solemn 
 aspect, and the high born eye," which made vice 
 and hypocrisy feel their littleness ; under the cov- 
 er of the press, and in their self-constituted fra- 
 ternities, their hatred of the man and of the course 
 he pursued, was vented in the grossest falsehoods 
 and lowest abuse. 
 
 Tlie melancholy truth was now fully develop- 
 ed, that the visionary schemes, so early projected 
 in our country, were fast growing into favoi* ; and 
 the hope that the sober blessings of our constitu- 
 tion would put such dreams to flight, fell to the 
 ground. It was evident that the French revolu- 
 tion had invigorated and multiplied our tlieorists 
 and thcii* disciples— -that it was corrupting the 
 
16 
 
 morals, and weakening tlie religious sense of tlie 
 people ; and that, sliould its doctrine be generally 
 diffused, while they were thus enthusiastic in its 
 cause, it would infect them with all its cruelty, 
 and darken the country with all its horrors. Noth- 
 ing but the influence which Washington still had 
 over the people, staid them from laying violent 
 hands on the constitution. That influence con- 
 tinued till the eflervescence of the French revolu- 
 tion had subsided, and left a party of tlie intelli- 
 gent and thoughtful, with power to hold in check 
 the violent and unprincipled. 
 
 In vain shall we turn over the records of an- 
 cient times, to read the story of such a Man. In 
 vain shall we send the eye abroad, for where now 
 lives, and moves, a Washington ? Europe is full 
 of giant minds, but in what individual can we find 
 a combination of his greatness and virtues ? He 
 was the sublimest image of moral greatness, that 
 the world ever looked upon. In his presence, 
 common men felt awed, and seemed to breath a 
 holier atmosphere. His firm, expansive mind 
 looked over the country fretted and tossed by the 
 petty and angry passions of men ; but his heart 
 was calm and sinless. Amidst the flattery and 
 threats, the wiles and violence tliat surrounded 
 him, he stood 
 
 " Unshaken, unseduced, tmterrified. 
 Nor njmber, nor example with him wrought 
 To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind." 
 
 With a frame stifle ned with age and the toils 
 of war, and a mind worn with anxiety, and a lieart 
 made sad with the follies of his country ; he at 
 last withdrew to that spot of quiet and domestic 
 joys on which his eye had e\ev reposed, beaming 
 with kind emotions and fond remembrances. Fron 
 
17 
 
 its shades, lie looked out upon the world ; but the 
 crimes which were fast crowding, and the heavy 
 sufferings that awaited it, overshadowed the sun- 
 shine of his breast, and filled his prophetic soul 
 with images of gloom. But the kind Parent of 
 ns all, closed the eyes of the good man in death, 
 and laid him asleep in the stillness of the tomb, 
 with his Fathers. The voice of violence awakes 
 not the dead ! The tumult of war breaks not in 
 on the silence of the grave ! 
 
 At his death there seemed a pause in nature. 
 Every one who loved and honored him, can re- 
 member with what a solemn, thrilling feeling the 
 story of the death of the Father of his country, 
 moved him when it was told. 
 
 Where stands the monument of a nation's 
 gratitude to its Protector ? Where shall the stran- 
 ger read the tale of his mighty deeds ? Does the 
 morning sun gild its top with his brightness ? Does 
 he shed his softer light over it at his going down ? 
 No marble speaks of his vtorks. Envy forbade 
 it. The fear that the people should remember 
 his virtues — that the story of his life should teach 
 a lesson to after times ; has left no stone to cover 
 a nation's Glory. Amidst the shades of liis 
 once happy home, is his humble grave ; but the 
 God of nature has scattered his beauties around 
 it ; he has clothed it in green, and watered it with 
 his own dews from heaven. 
 
 We must turn from this solemn scene, to the 
 world again — to a world, how changed ! He who 
 had kept the bad in awe, and checked the follies 
 of the presumptuous, was no longer in the midst 
 of us. The period had come to put in practice 
 the systems of our wijldest theorists, our most ar- 
 
18 
 
 dent lovers of Frencli liberty and French revolu- 
 tions. 
 
 I was about going* over a short history of these 
 authors of ftiir professions, but of evil works ; di- 
 recting your attention to the effects of all tlieir la- 
 bours — tlie sliame, the hardships, the declining 
 virtue of this once proud and happy people — their 
 honesty, impaired by a long course of exaction — - 
 exaction, enforced by laws subversive of their lib- 
 erties — I was about shewing you, your sons and 
 daughters taken from the wliolesome labours of 
 the field, and kintUy domestic cares ; to draw out 
 heartless, joyless lives, in the corrupting crowd of 
 a Factory — I was about turning your observation 
 to a war of defeat and barbarity on our inland bor- 
 ders ' — and then asking you to look back, to the 
 once busy, enlivening scenery along the shores of 
 our ocean — then, to ponder with iije in sadness 
 over cities, tenantless and grass-grown — to call 
 to mind tlie noise, the crowd, the hurry, which 
 once lilled them — and then walk their deserted 
 stiHicts, where the sound of tlie footstep strikes 
 distinctly on the ear ; while we seem in the midst 
 of the sepidchres of a nation passed away — the 
 tombs of departed thousands about us. I had in- 
 tended, further, to have unfolded tlie influence 
 which France, under all her changes of govern- 
 ment, has exercised over this people and its rulers 
 - — to have traced to this influence the calamities 
 which have befallen us — to have told you of the 
 ruin with which the world was tbreatened by her 
 lawless, aspiring and wasteful tyrant. But the 
 time is far spent, and 1 would not exhaust your 
 wejij'ietl spirits with a scene so dreary and com- 
 
19 
 
 fortless, nor sliiit out from your tired vision that 
 light which first shone pale and flickering in the 
 North ; but ^\ hich has risen, and spread, and awa- 
 kened nations from torpor and darkness. Let us 
 rejoice, for the chains of captive nations are brok- 
 en asunder, and milUons are returning home from 
 bondage ! Let us be glad, for Peace lias visited 
 them ! 
 
 But to every moral, and religious man, there 
 is a deeper joy, even than this. After all the suf- 
 ferings of human nature under the matchless cru- 
 elties and horrors of the French revolution, wliat 
 nation will hasten to break up long established 
 orders, and forms of government, and set the 
 weakness and vices of our nature, free from con- 
 trol ? Licentiousness will no longer be called lib- 
 erty ; nor well-balanced liberty, slavery. The im- 
 morality and atlieism of the turbulent revolution, 
 and of the settled despotism following it, will no 
 longer corrupt the hearts, and bewilder the brains 
 of men. Their effects upon the nation wbo taught 
 them, and upon tlie world, will be read by after 
 ages, and remembered with the multitude of their 
 other extravagances and crimes, only to be hated 
 and avoided. Old fashioned principles which 
 some of the learned had put aAvay through a love 
 of novelty, or of an exercise of their ingenuity, or 
 above all, tlie pride of leading a new scliool — prin- 
 ciples wliich tlie half-informed sneered at to shew 
 their independence of mind— -tbese, long neglect- 
 ed and despised, will return with all the attrac- 
 tions of freshness and newness, to govern the con- 
 duct, and bless tlie lives of men. 
 
 It has often been the case, that doctrines erro 
 
30 
 
 neons in themselves, have gained the attachment 
 of the Avorld from something amiable and interest- 
 ing in their teachers — Not so with the teachers 
 of the French revolution — There was no alluring 
 splendor in their crimes, no amiable weakness in 
 their follies — every thing in, and about them, was 
 perverted — their pride was insolence — their cour- 
 age, ferocity — their patriotism, vanity. They are 
 remembered only as a terror, and an oftence to 
 nations. Thanks to a merciful Providence, their 
 course is run ! All they passed over lies bare as 
 the desert, and broken with tlie graves of millions. 
 But the last of their race is ended. He was 
 crushed in the ruins of the throne he had set up. 
 Did a people mourn over him who had led them 
 to glory ? AYas a city hung in black for him who 
 had fdled it w ith the spoils of nations ? No, wheik 
 he fell from power, the curses of his own, were 
 hea\^ on him. Did he who had overturned 
 tlirones from their deep foundations — who light- 
 ed the twilight of the North with the blaze of cit- 
 ies, and made its frozen regions shake with his 
 thunders — did he die from home, and in battle ? 
 He left his shattered forces to perish, and return- 
 ed, beaten and a fugitive, to a falling kingdom. 
 But an avenging power pursued him in his flight. 
 Em'ope with her Monarchs moved on to his de- 
 struction ; nor staid till it was done. Did he per- 
 ish by the sword ? He lives — this man, mighty in 
 war, this terror of the human race, lives, the ob- 
 ject of a mercy he had never felt, the abject pen- 
 sioner of the king he Avronged. Had he fallen in 
 the conflict; or had severe justice cut him off"; 
 sympathy for his death, might have magnified the 
 
31 
 
 energies of his evil mind, and gilded over the foul 
 corruption of his heart. It is better he should 
 live ; for now, the Hero, is no more. The Dia- 
 dem this royal thief had stolen, is wrested from 
 him — ^the imperial robes in which he wrapped 
 about his vanity, are stripped off — ^the spear and 
 shield, loosened from his grasp ; and he who was, 
 yesterday, the terror of the world, stands, to day, 
 its mockery and contempt. With his vain pomp 
 and power, have vanished the brilliant pageants 
 which shrunk from the touch of sober reality — 
 Unrestrained liberty, equality, and perfectibility, 
 which floated in gorgeous dies and fantastic forms 
 before the eye of the visionary, liave faded away, 
 like the clouds which hang over the setting sun. 
 Gone, too, is that despotism which silenced the 
 voice of gladness — veiled the cheerful face in sor- 
 row — chilled every warm and virtuous feeling of 
 tlie heart, and weighed it down with present suf- 
 ferings, and the fear of countless ills to come. The 
 dream of a world in bondage has past away — ^the 
 hope of the conqueror is cut off — the old man 
 shall go down to the grave in peace ; for days of 
 blessings are in store for his children. From the 
 motionless and silent gloom, Avhich, but yesterday, 
 shrouded the world, has shone out a cheering, 
 quickening light — sounds of thankfulness and joy 
 fill the earth, and over the poverty and desolation 
 which covered it, nature is again pouring out her 
 plenty, and spreading wide her beauties. 
 
 May we have a heart to share in the general 
 joy ! May the past sufferings of the world be a 
 wholesome lesson to us ! MaJ^ the scliemes of 
 rlie enthusiastic and the artful be laid aside ! May 
 
§3 
 
 we return to tlie good way in which we once 
 walked, and he hlessed, as we once were hlessed ! 
 Then sliall our day he long and glorious ; and 
 when it shall have closed ahout us ; the stranger 
 shall visit our land — shall read our departed 
 greatness in our ruins — shall look with veneration 
 npon the hroken fabrics of our poAver — the mon- 
 uments of the statesmen, the heroes and hards that 
 adorned and protected us. 
 
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