*; 
 
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 IN HONOR OF 
 
 WILLI a: 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 WIL 
 
 LJA1\ 
 
 ilRHlti^ I i*u< 
 
 iiiiii 
 

 SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 
 
Colonel ISaaiiam ^rescott. 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE SERVICE. 
 
ORATION 
 
 IN HONOR OF 
 
 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT 
 
 DELIVERED IN BOSTON, 14 OCTOBER, 1895 
 
 BY INVITATION OF THE 
 
 l^mmt Hill Monument association 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM EVERETT 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION 
 
 1896 
 

 Trfff 
 
 r 
 
 'UL 18 1896 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 

 
 I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the 
 Bunker Hill Monument Association, held on the 
 twenty-ninth of July, 1895, — 
 
 The President stated that Colonel William Pres- 
 COTT died on the thirteenth of October, 1795, and that 
 it had been suggested that the Association should hold 
 a Memorial Service to commemorate the Centennial 
 of that event. It was — 
 
 Voted, To hold a Service October 14th, 1895, in commemo- 
 ration of the Life and Public Services of Colonel William 
 Prescott, and that an invitation be extended to Hon. William 
 Everett to deliver an Oration on the occasion. 
 
 It was also voted that a Committee of Arrangements 
 should be appointed by the President, who selected the 
 following named gentlemen : Mr. Henry H. Edes, Dr. 
 Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Dr. J. Collins Warren, 
 the Hon. George S. Hale, Col. Arnold A. Rand, the 
 Rev. Edward G. Porter, and Mr. Henry E. Woods. 
 
 The Commemorative Service was held in Dr. Hale's 
 Church on the evening of Monday, the fourteenth of 
 October. In the pulpit, which was decorated with 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 flags and tropical plants, beside Dr. Everett, sat the 
 Hon. Frederic W. Lincoln, the President of the Asso- 
 ciation ; Charles Francis Adams, LL.D., President of 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society ; Benjamin Ap- 
 THORP Gould, LL.D., President of The Colonial Society 
 of Massachusetts; Mr. Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr., 
 Vice-President of the Essex Institute ; the Hon. Wins- 
 low Warren, President of the Massachusetts Society 
 of the Cincinnati ; the Rev. Dr. Joseph Henry Allen, 
 the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, and Mr. Henry 
 Herbert Edes. 
 
 A large and distinguished audience was in atten- 
 dance, including delegations from many of the patriotic 
 organizations designed to perpetuate the memory of 
 the men who served faithfully and well the American 
 Colonies, Provinces, and States, — as well at the Coun- 
 cil Board as in the field. Prominent among these 
 were the Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames 
 of America, the Warren and Prescott Chapter of the 
 Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Massa- 
 chusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion of the United States. In the unavoid- 
 able absence of the Governor of the Commonwealth, 
 His Honor, Roger Wolcott, the Lieutenant-Governor, 
 was present with a delegation from the Governor's 
 Staff. The Prescott family, with which the Lieuten- 
 ant-Governor is allied by marriage, was largely repre- 
 sented ; and the same may be said of the Federal and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 State Bench and Bar, of the other learned professions, 
 of Science and the Arts, and of Commerce. 
 
 Letters of regret were received from many gentle- 
 men whose public engagements precluded their at- 
 tendance. Some of these letters will be found on 
 subsequent pages. 
 
 The Exercises proceeded in accordance with the 
 Programme printed on pp. 13-15, post 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Form of Invitation 10 
 
 Order of Exercises 13 
 
 Introductory Remarks, by Mr. Henry H. Edes . 17 
 
 Invocation, by Dr. Joseph H. Allen ..... 21 
 
 Oration, by the Hon. William Everett .... 23 
 
 Letters of Regret 61 
 
FORM OF INVITATION =^^ 
 
 WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 Born 20 February, 1726 . . . Died 13 October, 1795. 
 
 ^HE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT ASSOCIA- 
 TION invites you to be present at a Service in 
 commemoration of 
 
 CoL WliUiam ^restott. 
 
 who commanded the American forces in the redoubt 
 at Bunker Hill, to be held in the South Congregational 
 Meeting-House, corner of Exeter and Newbury Streets, 
 Boston, on Monday Evening, 14th instant, at 8 o'clock. 
 
 An Oration will- be delivered by the Honorable 
 William Everett, LL.D. 
 
 In furtherance of the purpose of the Association 
 to make this a patriotic and distinctively American 
 occasion, in the highest and best sense, invitations have 
 been sent to the officers of The Society of the Cincin- 
 nati, The Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 
 
The Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order 
 of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and other 
 associations of a kindred nature. All members of such 
 societies who may be present are respectfully requested 
 to wear their Insignia. 
 
 Upon your acceptance of this invitation a ticket of 
 admission will be sent to you. 
 
 A reply is respectfully requested by or before Thurs- 
 day, loth instant. 
 
 HENRY H. EDES, 
 BENJAMIN A. GOULD, 
 J. COLLINS WARREN, 
 GEORGE S. HALE, 
 ARNOLD A. RAND, 
 EDWARD G. PORTER, 
 HENRY E. WOODS, 
 
 Committee of Arrangements. 
 
 Boston, 5 October, 1895. 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES ^^ 
 
 BUNKER HILL MONUMENT ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Commemotatibe ^erWce 
 
 IN HONOR OF 
 
 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT, 
 
 In the South Congregational Meeiing-Hotise, 
 Boston, 
 
 14 October, 1895. 
 
WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 Born 20 February, 1726 . . . Died 13 October, 1795. 
 
 (2^rlier of Cyerctses* 
 
 PRELUDE BY THE ORCHESTRA. 
 
 ORGAN VOLUNTARY. 
 
 ANTHEM. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 By Mr. Henry H. Edes, 
 
 Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements- 
 
 INVOCATION 
 By The Reverend Joseph H. Allen, D.D. 
 
 BALLAD OF BUNKER HILL. 
 By George Lunt. 
 
 Fast fled morn's shadows gray, 
 And with the breaking day 
 
 Our hearts grew still ; 
 But ere that ruddy beam 
 Tinged Mystic's silent stream, 
 Flashed the red cannon's gleam 
 
 By Bunker Hill. 
 
 Morn saw our rampart crowned, 
 Nor pierced our turf-clad mound 
 
 Their iron storm ; 
 Then ceased that fiery shower ; 
 Gathered the foe his power; 
 Welcome the desperate hour — 
 
 His squadrons form ! 
 
 We from our fort's low crest, 
 Our muskets down at rest, 
 
 Glance in a row; 
 There, not a drum-beat stirred, 
 But " Steady ! "—all we heard — 
 " Keep your fire, wait the word, 
 
 Then, boys, aim low ! " 
 
 They form — brief space they 
 
 grant — 
 Not one rebuff must daunt 
 
 Stout English hearts ; 
 Quick-step their columns tread, 
 Pigott, none nobler led. 
 And Howe is at their head — 
 
 They '11 play their parts. 
 
Away the war-cloud rolled; 
 Prescott, our captain bold, 
 
 True soldier known — 
 He cried — " One more brave 
 
 blow, 
 Once more repel the foe. 
 And England's King shall grow 
 
 Pale on his throne ! " 
 
 Oh, for one volley more ! 
 
 Ah, dear-spent flasks, your store 
 
 Fails at the worst ! 
 See, o'er the bastion's verge 
 Their furious way they urge. 
 And in, like surge on surge. 
 
 Headlong they burst ! 
 
 Through dust and smoke and 
 
 heat. 
 Step by step, we retreat. 
 
 Inch by inch given ; 
 Then, deadliest of the whole, 
 Some random volley's roll 
 Warren's great martyr-soul 
 
 Ushered to Heaven ! 
 
 So Bunker Hill was won. 
 
 And great deeds, that day done, 
 
 World-wide grew known ; 
 When victory was but shame. 
 Defeat, eternal fame, 
 And Time one blazing name 
 
 Gained, all his own ! 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 By The Honorable Frederic W. Lincoln, 
 
 President of the Association. 
 
 ORATION 
 By The Honorable William Everett, LL.D. 
 
 THE LOST CHORD. 
 
 {Sir Arthur Stillivati.) 
 
 Cornet, Organ, and Orchestra. 
 
 BENEDICTION. 
 By The Reverend Charles Babbidge, D.D. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 By henry H. EDES. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — The Charter of the Bunker Hill 
 Monument Association, signed by Governor Eustis on the 
 seventh of June, 1823, declares the purpose of the incor- 
 poration to be " the construction of a monument in Charles- 
 town to perpetuate the memory of the early events of the 
 American Revolution." The Association, however, has always 
 felt that it also had other duties to perform. Accordingly, 
 its Annual Meeting, on the anniversary of the Battle, is 
 usually dignified by an Address of an historical or patriotic 
 character. Upon several great occasions, the foremost orators 
 of their time have been summoned to recount the story of the 
 battle and the men of Bunker Hill. Webster and Everett, 
 Devens and Winthrop have, in turn, held vast audiences spell- 
 bound by their splendid periods ; and to-night, we are to enjoy 
 the privilege of listening to a scholar, and an orator of the 
 first rank, whose attainments in the field of letters have made 
 him known in two continents and have earned for him the 
 right to inscribe his name below that of Mr. Winthrop on 
 that limited roll. 
 
 It is a matter of deep regret to us all that the honored and 
 revered Dr. Charles Babbidge is detained at his home in Pep- 
 perell by the weight of years and bodily infirmities. For 
 sixty-two years he has been the faithful and beloved minister 
 of the church where Colonel Prescott worshipped and where 
 four generations of his descendants have known the ministra- 
 tions of the same saintly pastor. I do not forget that my part 
 
 3 
 
18 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 in the services of this evening should be brief, but I am sure 
 that you would not excuse me if I omitted to read to you a 
 part of a most interesting letter which has been received from 
 Dr. Babbidge : — 
 
 Pepperbll, Oct. 9th, 1 895, 
 
 Dear Mk. Edes, — Each succeeding day makes it more and 
 more evident that I am too old and enfeebled to appear in public 
 again. I shall enter deeply into the spirit of the 14th ; but it can 
 only be " in the spirit." 
 
 The very name of Bunker Hill is, to me, a powerful stimulant. 
 In our Pepperell Celebrations, I was, for many years, " The Stock 
 Orator." In the earlier years of my figuring as the Bunker Hill 
 orator, I had in my audience, fully a score of men who had taken 
 a part in the battle. I had listened to their stories of the details 
 of the battle ; and it is to me a matter of deep regret that I did 
 not put on record many interesting facts that have now passed 
 forever from our reach. 
 
 Let me relate a little incident in which Bunker Hill is a promi- 
 nent feature. As our regiment (the "Old Sixth"), was passing 
 down Broadway, in New York City, at the opening of the rebel- 
 lion, we halted for a moment in the midst of the thousands who 
 filled the streets. At this moment, a gentleman approached me, 
 mistaking me for one who held a much higher rank than that of 
 a Chaplain, and asked me, from where the regiment had come. 
 To simply reply, " from Middlesex County," would have been no 
 reply at all. I therefore, to make the matter clear, answered, 
 "Bunker Hill." Judge of my astonishment when, shortly after 
 the war, I listened to a lecture by George William Curtis, deliv- 
 ered at Nashua, N. H., in which, relating the little incident above 
 narrated, he spoke of asking " a gray -bearded veteran of the regi- 
 ment," where it had come from, and receiving the reply uttered 
 in emphatic tones, " Bunker Hill." 
 
 The joke of the thing consists in his mistaking me, a dapper 
 youth of only fifty-four years, for an old soldier, a regular 
 " vieux moustache." After the lecture I tried to make my way 
 to the lecturer, in order to correct his mistake in regard to my 
 personality, but the crowd of friends who surrounded him, made 
 this impossible. But now ray marching days are all over ; and 
 eighty-nine years have settled the question of my being a 
 veteran. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 19 
 
 I have no apology to make for my prolixity. But there is one 
 consideration that may afford you consolation. You will never 
 again receive a letter from one who, like myself, played, in his 
 childhood, in and out of the Eedoubt on Bunker Hill, while it 
 still remained precisely as it was Avhen Prescott left it, and when 
 Warren moistened it with his blood. 
 
 Most respectfully, yours, 
 
 Charles Babbidge. 
 
 And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, it remains for me to 
 vacate the Chair that it may be taken by a great-grandson 
 of Paul Revere. I present to you, as the presiding officer of 
 the evening, the President of the Bunker Hill Monument 
 Association, the Honorable Frederic W. Lincoln. 
 
IKVOCATIOK. 
 
 By the rev. dr. JOSEPH H. ALLEN. 
 
 OLORD GOD, FATHER ALMIGHTY, who dost bestow 
 upon thy chosen sons wisdom, understanding, and 
 strength, that they may fitly guide, defend, and govern thy 
 people ! 
 
 We praise thee in the honored memory of our fathers, who 
 with strong hands and valiant hearts laid the foundation of 
 those liberties, which by their wise counsels are still protected 
 and maintained ; 
 
 We praise thee in the proud memory, brought to our hearts 
 this day, of those who, though in defeat and pain, yet aided to 
 win for their native land the far-off blessings of liberty and 
 peace ; 
 
 We praise thee in the living memory of those who in our 
 own day, inspired by that high example, restored in our Com- 
 monwealth and Nation the wavering faith in liberty and union, 
 now and forever, one and inseparable ! 
 
 Inspire us also, Lord our God, and build us up, that we 
 may worthily enter upon the goodly heritage which we have 
 received ; giving the service of our lives, and, if need be, the 
 sacrifice of them, for whatsoever things are true, and honest, 
 and just, and of good report. 
 
 In one great faith and hope, in fellowship together as 
 men, as citizens of no mean city, and as sons of the Living 
 God whose service is perfect freedom, we offer this our 
 prayer. Amen. 
 
ORATION. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 In the preparation of the following address, I desire to 
 express my obligations : first, to the History of Groton, by- 
 Caleb Butler ; secondly, to the History of the Siege of Boston, 
 by Hon. Richard Frothingham ; thirdly, to a MS. by Judge 
 Prescott, seen and used by the latter writer, for a copy of 
 which I am indebted to the very great kindness of His Honor 
 Roger Wolcott, and of Linzee Prescott, Esq. ; (since the 
 delivery of the address, I find Mr. Frothingham printed it 
 in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings for 
 1875 ;) fourthly, to Hon. Samuel A. Green, for xery im- 
 portant corrections of errors into which I had inadvertently 
 fallen. The American Archives of Peter Force and other 
 familiar historical works have been consulted. 
 
 W. E. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 "\^ 7E have come to the end of that period of com- 
 * memoration which recalled by solemn services 
 
 the series of events that created and consolidated our 
 existence as a nation. From 1874 to 1889, every 
 year has had its own centennial anniversary. Boston 
 Harbor, Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the long line 
 of ensuing battles, the Declaration of Independence, the 
 formation of the Constitution, the first opening of the 
 North West Territory have in turn received appropriate 
 and grateful notice. And now, as our country's second 
 century is rapidly following her first, one season after 
 another marks the days when our fathers and founders 
 themselves left the stage, and made way for their sons, 
 who are already appearing as historic, nay almost 
 legendary forms to us. I do not recall that any notice 
 was taken in 1886 of the centenary of the death of 
 Nathanael Greene, probably the greatest military 
 genius of the Revolutionary War, second only to 
 Washington in his influence on the great result, yet 
 the very spot of whose burial is forgotten ; nor did I 
 hear that in 1890 Philadelphia offered any special 
 honors at the grave of Franklin. All the more does 
 it seem right that this association should pay a suita- 
 ble tribute to the hero of Bunker Hill, our own citizen 
 
26 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 soldier, the redoubted William Prescott, whose life of 
 glory ended on the thirteenth of October, 1795. It 
 is well to realize, by such commemoration, how com- 
 pletely the days of our own infancy are over, and to 
 draw from it the lesson what we are to do with the 
 legacy of the fathers when a hundred years have rolled 
 by since one of the bravest of them put off mortality 
 when close on threescore and ten. 
 
 It is a mistake to think of our age and its duties 
 as though we had no past, and were entitled to begin 
 the twentieth century as if just rescued from a deluge. 
 We are told that Noah celebrated his deliverance from 
 the ark by a new discovery ; but it further developed 
 a new vice, unknown to the submerged centuries. 
 Neither have we any right, when we commemorate 
 the fathers, to fancy that they have prescribed our 
 absolute pattern, and we have nothing to do but to 
 go on repeating their operations forever. Over the 
 2:rave of Prescott it is right to ask who and what he 
 was in his time; and then what ought we to do as 
 his descendants, who have so lately laid his great 
 grandson and namesake to rest in the ancestral home 
 of Pepperell. 
 
 William Prescott was born in the ancient town of 
 Groton. His family was originally derived from Lan- 
 cashire, where the town of Prescot still exists in the 
 heart of the manufacturing district. The Prescotts 
 were among the earliest settlers of the frontier parts 
 of Middlesex County, Lancaster, Sudbury, Concord, and 
 later of Groton, all exposed to the fiercest incursions 
 of the Indians. The first of the line was a blacksmith 
 by trade, and acquired that honor which always attends 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 27 
 
 his craft, as we are told by Longfellow in a poem that 
 we shall find concerns our hero still more nearly.' He 
 was a born fighter, and often engaged with the savages, 
 at one time defending his house from their inroads 
 with no other aid than his wife's, who loaded musket 
 after musket for him to fire. He had brought with 
 him from England a complete suit of mail, helmet, 
 cuirass and gorget, with which he was wont to clothe 
 himself in any contest with the Indians, and rendered 
 as he thus was impenetrable to the heaviest blows of 
 the tomahawk, was regarded by them as a supernatural 
 being. His son Jonas transferred his father's trade 
 from Lancaster to Groton, and rose to the first emi- 
 nence in that venerable town, being captain in the 
 militia, representative to the General Court, and en- 
 trusted with every other position with which a New 
 England democracy burdens those whom it professes 
 to honor. A Greek city would not improbably have 
 rewarded such services as Jonas Prescott's by exempt- 
 ing him and his descendants forever from the payment 
 of taxes ; but that is a pitch of gratitude to which the 
 Athens of America and her sister boroughs have not 
 yet climbed, as I am sure the Prescotts and Lawrences 
 of Groton are thoroughly aware. 
 
 Of Jonas Prescott's courtship a romantic story is 
 told, how his sweetheart's parents in Sudbury steadily 
 refused his suit, and locked his beloved Mary Loker in 
 a room with a grated window. This harsh treatment 
 did not shake the constancy of the lovers ; but Jonas, 
 who one would suppose would have given a new illus- 
 tration of Love's contempt of locksmiths by filing the 
 bars of the dungeon as only a blacksmith could, pre- 
 
28 COL. WILLIAM PRE SCOTT. 
 
 ferred to stand under the grating, to bide the pelting of 
 a storm, talk to his beloved, and pray for better times. 
 Mary Loker, still defying her parents' authority — no 
 slight matter in the days before Philip's war — was 
 sent by them, in a species of banishment, to what is 
 now Sterling, then as remote and wild as the Adiron- 
 dacks. Thither Jonas tracked her, and they were 
 married in spite of all opposition, but so utterly with- 
 out dowry or inheritance, that Mary's only washtub at 
 first was the shell of a pumpkin. 
 
 From this pair has sprung a large and distinguished 
 progeny, of whom Mary lived to see one hundred and 
 seventy five. Her youngest son was Benjamin Pres- 
 cott, born two hundred years ago. He married the 
 daughter of Thomas Oliver of Cambridge, a member of 
 Governor Joseph Dudley's council, belonging to a 
 family which was of unbroken distinction in the colo- 
 nial and provincial days of Massachusetts, from the 
 arrival of Cotton to the fall of Hutchinson, and far 
 from obscure in later days. Benjamin Prescott was a 
 man of remarkable bodily and mental energy and, like 
 his father, of the first consideration in the town and 
 the province. He was a member of the General Court 
 for many years, a lieutenant-colonel in the militia, a 
 justice in more than one tribunal, and finally was 
 offered, but declined, the arduous post of representative 
 in England of the Colony, which needed some one to 
 plead its cause on boundary and other questions, where 
 Governor Belcher had proved anything but an efiicient 
 leader. 
 
 Benjamin Prescott died in 1738. He had seven 
 children, three of them sons, of whom James the eldest 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 29 
 
 and Oliver the youngest son were both fully worthy 
 of the high position to which their fathers had raised 
 the name, standing out as leaders of men, both civil 
 and military. Dr. Oliver Prescott is not yet forgotten, 
 as one of the earliest members of the Massachusetts 
 Medical Society, whose exertions have placed the phy- 
 sicians of our state in the very highest rank of their 
 noble profession, for courage, science and humanity. 
 
 The sentiment of the American people, which in 
 theory excludes all family considerations in the assign- 
 ment of office, yet really takes a keen delight in study- 
 ing history and biography through genealogy. The 
 English magazines have lately contained several inter- 
 esting articles on some of the great houses of England 
 and Scotland. I commend the Prescotts to our best 
 writers as affording a most noble and interesting theme 
 for their pens. The illustrious scion of the stock whom 
 we especially commemorate to-night was born on the 
 twentieth of February 1726. He removed, while still 
 under age, to a portion of his father's estate situated at 
 a distance from the village of Groton, where he early 
 followed the combative instinct of his race, by joining 
 the military forces of the Colony, no child's play during 
 the wars of the Austrian succession and the seven years. 
 His name appears on a list of soldiers in the expedition 
 to Louisbourg in 1746, and it has been thought that 
 the intimate connection he then formed with Sir Wil- 
 liam Pepperell caused him to suggest the name of 
 Pepperell for Groton West Parish, when it was set off 
 as a separate district in 1753. This is probable 
 enough ; but the reputation of Sir William was such 
 that it was almost inevitable, when two new districts 
 
30 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 were formed from Groton, that one should be named 
 for him and the other for Governor Shirley, the com- 
 mander in chief of his Majesty's American forces. 
 
 There is no doubt also that William Prescott joined 
 the expedition which removed the French colonists 
 from Nova Scotia in 1755 ; an event which forms the 
 theme of Mr. Longfellow's poem of " Evangeline," and 
 had previously offered itself as a subject for romance to 
 Hawthorne. 
 
 It speaks volumes for the genius of our New England 
 poet that his version of this exile, an occurrence that 
 undoubtedly showed many sad and painful features, has 
 been till lately accepted without question among us, as 
 the story of an act of unmitigated oppression by Eng- 
 lish tyrants on the most innocent and virtuous of man- 
 kind. It seems to be supposed by some persons who 
 are of pure English blood, and whose ancestors in 1755 
 had no more notion of being anything but Englishmen 
 than Washington had, that their independent station as 
 Americans and friends of liberty is somehow strength- 
 ened by convicting England of tyranny exercised upon 
 persons of French descent, at a time when the govern- 
 ment of France was the most corrupt and profligate, if 
 not the most despotic in Europe. Such persons have 
 not found out, what indeed Mr. Longfellow does not 
 hint in " Evangeline," that every English army which 
 marched to New France was full of provincials like 
 Prescott, who were as keen to make war on the priest- 
 ridden French as Braddock or Amherst or Loudoun or 
 Wolfe ; that their chaplains. New England ministers of 
 the deepest Puritan dye, looked upon every Nova 
 Scotian as the bond-slave of the Roman Babylon j and 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 31 
 
 that the officer who shut up the men of Grand Pre in 
 the church, and announced their sentence of deporta- 
 tion, was John Winslow of Marshfield, as pure a child 
 of the Mayflower as any in the Plymouth County. 
 
 We are apt to boast of our ancestors' part in the old 
 French war. They shared in many of its skirmishes, 
 sieges and battles in the long seven years from Wash- 
 ington's trip to Venango down to the capture of Mon- 
 treal, and the few occasions like the second siege of 
 Louisbourg, where their help was not asked, were fol- 
 lowed by them with the most sympathetic interest. 
 The cold-blooded refusal of the Pennsylvania assembly 
 to send aid to the Western counties met with no 
 response from the eager sons of Massachusetts. But if 
 we refuse to see our ancestors helping to send Evange- 
 line and Gabriel out of Nova Scotia, we must shut 
 them out of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Oswego 
 and Niagara, the Plains of Abraham and the Morro 
 Castle. 
 
 Poets are scarcely expected to keep to the strict facts 
 of history in choosing striking themes for their verse. 
 I do not know that any one is angry with Mr. Long- 
 fellow for making Priscilla Mullins ride on a snow 
 white steer a year before there had been any cattle 
 brought over to Plymouth ; or Paul Revere complete 
 his ride to Concord, when in point of fact he was cap- 
 tured in Lincoln, and the news was carried on to Con- 
 cord by our hero's kinsman, Samuel Prescott. But I 
 must feel that he went beyond the bounds of legitimate 
 adaptation when he so constructed his tale of the 
 depopulation of Grand Pre as to paint its authors in 
 the darkest colors, and yet suppress the fact that his 
 
32 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 own countrymen were the ones chiefly engaged in see- 
 ing that orders were carried out. 
 
 The accounts which Mr. Longfellow had at his com- 
 mand in 1848 were imperfect. Since then the subject 
 has been studied with a great wealth of original docu- 
 ments, French as well as English, by our own illustri- 
 ous historian, the lamented Francis Parkman.* He has 
 placed it beyond a doubt, from the facts supplied by the 
 French archives, that the Nova Scotians were treated 
 by their English rulers with a kindness which surprised 
 and annoyed the ministers of Lewis the Fifteenth, who 
 were desirous of seeing them so oppressed as to make 
 them revolt from a dominion which was just as law- 
 fully established by treaty as our own over Nebraska 
 or New Mexico. The priestly agents of France were 
 constantly trying to stir up disaffection and prevent 
 their late subjects from accepting peaceably the rule of 
 King George ; a process the French thought utterly 
 iniquitous when applied to their own conquests in 
 Alsace or Lorraine ; the very priest of Grand Pre, 
 whom Longfellow truly pictures as a devoted pastor, 
 stands in history the object of reproach for confining 
 himself to his spiritual duties, instead of turning into 
 an agent of revolt. One tonsured conspirator, whose 
 restless craft was the object of aversion to the high- 
 spirited officers of King Lewis, went indeed beyond 
 the duties of the altar; by his means two thousand 
 Acadians were cajoled into leaving their homes and 
 settling beyond the limits of Nova Scotia, with miser- 
 able provision for their comfort, long before Winslow 
 removed the inhabitants of Grand Pre and Annapolis. 
 
 * See Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I. Chap. VIII. 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 33 
 
 Moreover Mr. Parkman shows clearly that, whatever 
 we may think of the scheme, its execution was not at 
 all conducted with the hurry and cruelty pictured in 
 the poem ; that as far as such a thing might be, Wins- 
 low acted with humanity and consideration to those 
 he was displacing; that the romantic exaltation of 
 Acadians into Arcadians, indulged in by prose writers 
 before and after Longfellow, has but little warrant in 
 their actual lives, passed in a hard, cold, misty land, 
 which their own beneficent native sovereigns affected 
 to think it no hardship to leave. In a word, the entire 
 occurrence, which is no better or worse than a score of 
 others which owe their existence to the fiend of war, all 
 whose children are tainted with his own corruption, has 
 been exaggerated, weakened, distorted, perverted, in 
 order to make out a case against Old England, in 
 which whatever its lights and shades. New England 
 had its full share. 
 
 At the end of William Prescott's service in Canada, 
 he was offered a commission in the royal forces, but 
 declined. A soldier by race and temper, he was not 
 one by profession, any more than thousands of his 
 comrades in the two wars. It was at this time, — the 
 years following the peace of 1763, — that a spirit of 
 oppression, which might tend to alienate New England 
 from Old England, arose in the British government. I 
 believe the Declaration of Independence is not far 
 wrong in charging on the King of Great Britain the 
 wrongs of the colonists. The change in the policy 
 towards America which in twenty years turned the 
 Prescott and Washington of 1753, the Prescott of the 
 Bay of Fundy and the Washington of the Monongahela, 
 
34 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 into the Prescott of Bunker Hill and the "Washington 
 of Dorchester Heights, was simply that an old, expe- 
 rienced, sensible king died, who had trusted his affairs 
 for four years to the boldest and most generous spirit 
 that ever governed a nation, and was succeeded by an 
 obstinate, sullen youth who was determined to be the 
 king that his mother urged him to be, and wished rather 
 to have North govern by a corrupt parliament than 
 Pitt rule through a sympathetic nation. From the very 
 first speech George the Third delivered from the throne, 
 nay, from the hour he knew of his grandfather's death, 
 and ordered the groom who rode with him to assent to 
 a falsehood, down to the day, forty seven years after- 
 wards, when he used the cry of " No Popery " to rein- 
 state a cabinet that had to put a strait jacket on him 
 in three years George the Third is directly, personally, 
 responsible for the alienation of the Colonies and the 
 hostility of Ireland, not, as the fiction of English law 
 says, because he was ill advised, but because his natural 
 temper, which he never tried to tame, drew to him by 
 a fatal magnetism just such advisers as would confirm 
 his congenital faults. 
 
 There were men in possession of his ear who might 
 at least have made an effort to enlighten his stupid- 
 ity and soften his obstinacy. When he asked support 
 in his narrow and harsh suppressions of everything 
 like independence in the colonies or at home, he found 
 not a few counsellors whose brilliant talents, thorough 
 training, and wide knowledge of men, while they in- 
 sured the temporary triumph at least of every cause 
 in which they enlisted, laid upon them all the heavier 
 responsibility of choosing the right, and acting upon 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 35 
 
 higher principles than love of office, and reverence for 
 the King's power. Mansfield, North, Thurlow, Wed- 
 derburn, even Lord George Germain, were men of far 
 more than average talents; some of them were able 
 to rise to the very highest posts purely by their own 
 genius. They were wholly beyond the Weymouths, 
 Suffolks and Hillsboroughs, puppets whom certain 
 American historians have made prominent merely be- 
 cause they happened to be officially at the head of 
 colonial affairs. Yet these men yielded their mighty 
 powers entirely to the King's orders, and devised 
 methods with infernal ingenuity to keep Parliament 
 deluded as to the true condition of America. Every 
 one of them could have supplied every deficiency in 
 the King's intellect if they had thought it for their in- 
 terest, or even felt an inclination to tell the truth. But 
 in every one of them there was a radical want of 
 heart ; there was a want of that principle which guides 
 the soul by a higher wisdom how to choose between 
 two courses where the mere intellect stands perplexed. 
 When I contrast the counsellors who confirmed the 
 King in his obstinate attempt to coerce the Americans 
 with those who would have led him to wiser, milder, 
 and, as I am old-fashioned enough to say, more legal 
 courses, — when I contrast Mansfield with Chatham, 
 Thurlow with Camden, Wedderburn with Fox, North 
 with Burke, and Sackville with Conway, — I seem like 
 one who, in his journey from the low thickets that 
 fringe the gulf at Vera Cruz, rises to the broad plateau 
 that surrounds the walls of Mexico. You are still 
 environed by the luxuriance of tropical nature, — the 
 soil still sustains a gorgeous growth that transcends all 
 
36 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 one sees in less favored lands, — but you have left 
 the dank and sickly jungles whose atmosphere is loaded 
 with insidious poison, and where every noise suggests 
 an envenomed reptile, — and you have ascended to 
 the tempered fervor, the refreshing glow of the exalted 
 plains where every breath is a delight, and the eye 
 slowly climbs to the glittering summits of the tran- 
 scendent peaks that lift it to the very gate of heaven. 
 
 I shall not tell again the story of the sad steps 
 whereby Massachusetts was driven in twelve years 
 from devoted loyalty to armed resistance. Pepperell 
 was in line with her sisters in protest against the 
 tyranny of the ministry, and instructed her represen- 
 tative James Prescott, a brother of William, to oppose 
 a firm front to the proceedings of the royal officials. 
 As soon as the summons to arms went through the 
 Province, the men of Pepperell were in array. A 
 regiment was formed in 1774, of which William Pres- 
 cott was appointed Colonel, and on the morning of the 
 nineteenth of April a messenger rode from Concord to 
 Pepperell, arriving about ten o'clock. Colonel Prescott 
 immediately ordered the Pepperell and Hollis compa- 
 nies to march to Groton, whither he himself rode ahead 
 to arouse the Groton company ; but his own neighbors, 
 though five miles further back, had reached Groton 
 under arms before their brethren of that place were 
 ready to receive them, much to the chagrin of Dr. 
 Oliver Prescott, who did not relish seeing his own men 
 of old Groton outstripped by his brother's from the 
 West district. The Colonel hastened on, with all of 
 his regiment that he could muster, to Concord, and 
 followed hard upon the track of the flying regulars. 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 37 
 
 but did not succeed in overtaking them. He was en- 
 listed, as were most of his men, for eight months, and 
 the venerable Dr. Babbidge certifies that every able 
 bodied man in Pepperell had followed his call. 
 
 On the sixteenth of June a council of war was called 
 in Cambridge by General Artemas Ward, commander 
 in chief of the colonial troops, a noble historical name, 
 perverted in meaning as in spelling by an amiable hu- 
 morist, who one would think might have found a name 
 for his showman without burlesquing the official pre- 
 decessor of Washington. That council ordered a party 
 drawn from the regiments of Prescott, Frye, and 
 Knowlton, to occupy and fortify Bunker Hill, promis- 
 ing them relief in the morning. This council was held 
 in the ancient dwelling to the northwest of Harvard 
 College, which in the next generation had the honor 
 of shielding the birth and infancy of our beloved poet 
 Dr. Holmes. In his childhood he often heard his 
 mother tell of the tumultuous escape of her family 
 from Charlestown under the fire of the next day, and 
 the boy and the man loved the ancient house which 
 was so doubly consecrated by the memories of Bunker 
 Hill. That house, as far as either firmness or conven- 
 ience went, might be standing, and ought to be stand- 
 ing, at this hour. It is said that it was pulled down to 
 satisfy the limited taste of a donor to Harvard College, 
 who fancied the more imposing modern structure that 
 he erected could be seen better if the lowly but vener- 
 able house were away. It was a sacrilege ! The eye 
 of any trained architect could see at once that the 
 quaint and sturdy parsonage grouped in the truest 
 artistic composition with its loftier neighbor ; and for 
 
38 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 its memories and associations, redolent of the most 
 illustrious achievements and brightest names of New- 
 England in war and peace, the Holmes House ought 
 to be standing, though every lawyer in the country 
 were driven to seek the training of his brains in the 
 Temple, and every gymnast the exercise of his muscles 
 on the treadmill — that is, the bicycle. 
 
 From the green before that house the detachment 
 set forth, blessed by the venerable President of Harvard 
 College ; — and like most detachments sent forth under 
 the blessing ol Harvard College, it fought valiantly 
 and got beaten. It went to Charlestown under the 
 command of Colonel Prescott ; under the command of 
 Prescott it remained till the end of the fight ; and if 
 Prescott had had his heart's desire, it would have 
 returned the very next night and retaken the hill, 
 which he had abandoned only for want of proper 
 ordnance and ammunition. 
 
 I do not propose to tell over again the story of 
 Bunker Hill. It has been told repeatedly by one and 
 another careful writer and eloquent speaker ; but by 
 none more clearly, more thoroughly than by our late 
 honored and beloved President, whose statue is just 
 ready for erection ; honored in the court as in the 
 field, that true heir of the patriots of 1776, General — 
 Judge — Devens. 
 
 He told the story on the centennial anniversary of 
 the battle, not merely with the love and fervor of a 
 loyal son of the spot, but with the appreciation of a 
 soldier, as gallant as Warren, as energetic as Put- 
 nam, as experienced as Gridley. When he recounted 
 the various events of the night and day, the redoubt 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 39 
 
 and the parapet, the rail fence and the stone wall, 
 Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill, going through the specific 
 part taken by regiments, by officers, by marksmen, 
 he knew what he was talking about, as no previous 
 historian or orator, Bancroft or Frothingham or Webster 
 could possibly know it. He carried us in detail and 
 yet by system through the entire engagement, from 
 the original fortification under the eye of Gridley at 
 midnight, to the breathless gathering on the Convent 
 hill when twenty four hours had passed since the 
 detachment left the College green. There is not a 
 dart of a bayonet, not a leap of a cannon ball, not a 
 wound or a death that missed his eye. He pointed 
 out, what less instructed students might see, but what 
 from a trained soldier like him became doubly histori- 
 cal, that there was very little command on the day 
 at all, — that citizen soldiers, assembled from various 
 colonies, enlisted in many regiments, habitually taking 
 orders, when they took any, from their own comman- 
 ders, were not yet disciplined to move as one man 
 at the word of their appointed superior ; and that 
 much of the fighting on the seventeenth of June was 
 rather that of concentrated guerillas than of organized 
 troops. General Devens's oration did ample justice 
 to all those veteran officers who gave their energy 
 and their experience to marshal, to organize, to rally 
 the ill-assorted army, — Gridley and Knowlton and 
 Pomeroy and Stark and Putnam. He brought out, 
 as none can help bringing out, the inspiration afforded 
 by the presence of the hero and martyr "Warren. But 
 he distinctly assigned the name of commander of the 
 forces that constructed, that manned, that defended 
 
40 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 the redoubt to the last, to him whose death we this 
 day commemorate, the experienced, the prudent, the 
 fearless Prescott. 
 
 "When General Devens ceased his centennial oration, 
 the eyes of all his vast audience were turned to one 
 of the most remarkable warriors ever produced by any 
 country. There sat on the platform William Sherman, 
 a general whose achievements, equalling in brilliancy 
 and persistency those of any of our own earlier heroes, 
 Greene or Morgan or Scott or Taylor, have set him 
 second to none of the commanders in our civil war, 
 Grant or McClellan or Thomas, and who has impressed 
 himself even more emphatically on his countrymen as 
 a man, — a character unique in its stalwart force, so 
 as to require for itself a place apart from all compari- 
 sons or periods whenever our history is written. On 
 the seventeenth of June 1875, he rose at our President's 
 call, and in a few straightforward, unadorned sentences, 
 expressed what every descendant of the early founders 
 of New England must feel on the soil of Bunker Hill, 
 what every American feels on the battle ground where 
 our independence was established, and then as a soldier 
 pronounced his own independent opinion as to the 
 honors of the battle. He gave all due credit to Warren 
 and to Putnam ; but he said of Prescott that he was 
 the commander, and that he was the only one who 
 exercised the functions of a commander throughout 
 the day. From that sentence, pronounced by such a 
 soldier at such a time, there can be, there ought to be, 
 no appeal. 
 
 Nor did a different view prevail during the life 
 time of Prescott. It was not till long after the death 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 41 
 
 which this day commemorates that any serious attempt 
 was made to reverse the judgment of General Heath, 
 himself of the council of war at Cambridge, or to 
 revive and strengthen the statement of the funeral 
 eulogist of General Israel Putnam, who undoubtedly 
 played a conspicuous part on the higher summit, and 
 to invest him with the glory of command. 
 
 General Putnam has always been a prominent figure 
 in the eyes of his countrymen, for the part he took 
 in the war of the Revolution. There is something 
 about his sturdy, fiery temper, which seems the very 
 type of the Yankee, who could play the three parts of 
 farmer, legislator, and soldier in three days, to the 
 equal and entire satisfaction of his own people. He 
 was certainly prominent on the day of Bunker Hill ; 
 he certainly held at that time the commission of 
 Brigadier General in the extemporized army ; and it 
 is perhaps not very strange that some of his old com- 
 rades, coupling the two things fifty years later, should 
 have made him out to have had the chief command. 
 Yet I cannot avoid saying that those who cherish the 
 fame of General Putnam seem to me to make a mistake 
 in dwelling on his exploits at Bunker Hill or attempt- 
 ing to weave from them an especial crown of laurel. 
 Such orders as he did give, such contributions as he 
 did make, seem to me to have shown more alacrity 
 than judgment ; and if Prescott really were under his 
 orders, he derived very little help and much embarrass- 
 ment from his alleged superior. It is no very grateful 
 duty to have to draw comparison between two men 
 of tried valor and unquestioned patriotism. But the 
 work that gave Bunker Hill the renown it bears ; the 
 
42 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 defence through the long day of the breastwork and 
 the redoubt against reiterated attacks, one and another 
 triumphantly repelled; the final dogged resistance up 
 to the last possible moment ; the steady retreat at 
 length, solely because Putnam and Putnam's superior 
 had failed to furnish the needed ammunition, — this 
 gallant, this glorious, this immortal work was achieved 
 under the eye and by the command of William Prescott, 
 and him alone. 
 
 In a letter written to John Adams, about two months 
 after the battle, responding to a request for a detailed 
 account. Colonel Prescott gives a very concise but very 
 clear statement, with a precision worthy of Julius 
 Caesar, of the eventful day. He speaks of himself as 
 directing the entire movement, and alludes to no other 
 commander. He would have fought if possible more 
 bravely than he did, if he had known that on the 
 heights of Braintree, ten miles away, stood Abigail 
 Adams with her son John Quincy, then eight years old, 
 watching the smoke as it rose from Charlestown, and 
 explaining to her boy what meant those distant fires. 
 
 If there is any glory in that day, if, as at Thermopy- 
 lae, the victor for the moment was the vanquished in 
 the result ; if the shaft on the spot enshrines more 
 memories, and awakens more emotions than the lion 
 of Waterloo or the bridge of Lodi ; if Bunker Hill is 
 as unalloyed a source of exultation as Dorchester or 
 Trenton, as Saratoga or Yorktown, or alloyed by the 
 loss of Warren alone, it is because we had on that day, 
 commanding men unused to military orders, unwilling 
 to do anything for a master, but ready to do all for 
 a leader, one whose prudence, whose keenness, whose 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 43 
 
 daring, whose endurance, and a nameless power to 
 impress himself on his fellows, may rank him with 
 the chiefest paladins of our war, with Allen or Mont- 
 gomery, with Marion or Morgan, a Wayne without his 
 rashness, and an Arnold without his treason. 
 
 Colonel Prescott's service continued till the end of 
 1776 ; his regiment formed part of the Continental 
 army in the Campaign of New York, being posted at 
 a critical point in the defence of the city, and with- 
 drawn with a care which his son informs us received 
 the special commendation of Washington. But after 
 1776 we cease to hear of him in command of a regi- 
 ment, though he appears as a volunteer in the campaign 
 on the upper Hudson. His withdrawing from the field 
 of arms seems to have been hastened by a serious 
 injury, contracted in some of his farming operations at 
 Pepperell. 
 
 In the later years of his life, he was frequently 
 elected to the General Court, and in the insurrection 
 of 1786 was charged with its suppression in Middlesex 
 County, where he appeared at Concord prepared for 
 action. He was one of those characters which entirely 
 apart from any acquired distinction are sure to be 
 favorites in a New England village. Large, athletic, 
 open in his look, generous in his temper, hearty and 
 eager to listen to the call of friendship to an extent 
 that injured his own fortune, he lived to the last loved 
 and honored in his own town not merely for what he 
 had done but for what he was, — a man who could not 
 help charming all who knew him. 
 
 He was early married to Abigail Hale, belonging to 
 a family of whom I dare not say in this presence what 
 
44 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 New England owes to them. It must have struck 
 William Prescott with peculiar horror, when the news 
 came to him during the anxious occupation of New 
 York, that the young adventurer from his gallant com- 
 rade Knowlton's regiment, whom Howe had executed 
 with every circumstance of insult, bore the name and 
 perhaps the blood of his absent wife. She was one of 
 those remarkable New England matrons who loved to 
 exercise their minds over the most tremendous problems 
 of the relations between God and man, a friend and 
 correspondent of Jonathan Edwards ; a victim, too, of 
 that feeble health which for so many generations was 
 the lot of New England's wives and mothers, before 
 they understood that it is better to live for one's dear 
 fathers, brothers, and sons than to die for them by 
 inches, freezing and starving one's self to keep them 
 fed and clothed. Yet neither her Calvinism nor her 
 sickness prevented her ruling her household by love, 
 watching over and guiding her beloved son far into his 
 maturity and surviving her husband eighteen years. 
 
 That son was Judge William Prescott of Salem and 
 afterwards of Boston. Although he has now been dead 
 more than half a century, there have hardly died out 
 of our atmosphere the echoes of that peculiar strain of 
 respect in which his equals always spoke of him. I 
 never saw him in the flesh ; but from the tone in which 
 I have always heard his name mentioned, I seem to 
 realize how an earlier generation must have talked 
 and thought of John Jay. He was offered by General 
 Washington the position of confidential secretary, and, 
 declining it for himself, recommended instead his friend 
 and classmate Col. Tobias Lear, who won, as history 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 45 
 
 abundantly shows, the strongest attachment of our 
 sainted leader. 
 
 Judge Prescott was a member of that remarkable 
 assembly, which has become to our Southern brethren 
 a name of legendary horror, the Hartford Convention. 
 We have his own emphatic testimony, — and a truer 
 man never spoke, — that nothing was farther from the 
 thoughts of that gathering of grave and acute men 
 than a dissolution of the Union, or anything that even 
 looked in that direction. 
 
 In naming him no Boston speaker must ever omit 
 to name his revered wife, who went about our streets 
 on errands of good so constantly, that no one ever 
 thought of her without a benediction, before the days 
 when fussy organizations had squeezed half the heart 
 out of practical charity. 
 
 About thirty six years ago, William Hickling Pres- 
 cott, the son of William and Catherine, the grandson of 
 William and Abigail, followed his ancestors to the 
 grave. If the present generation, enslaved by those 
 it fancies to be more scientific or more philosophical 
 historians, is tiring of the simple and dignified contri- 
 butions of Prescott to history, — if the charm of his 
 social intercourse, always confined to a select few, is 
 now even less than a memory, at least Americans never 
 can afford to forget the matchless example he sets them 
 of devotion to duty for duty's sake. 
 
 Mr. Prescott was born to an independent fortune, 
 which entirely exempted him from all necessity for 
 work ; he was in the centre of interests, domestic and 
 social, which might easily and naturally have occupied 
 his time with the full consent of all who knew him ; 
 
46 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 and an accident in early youth had reduced his sight to 
 a condition which might well be considered to excuse 
 any man from laboring beyond the direst necessity. 
 His disposition was to indolence and self-indulgence, 
 though his natural tastes were far too pure and elevated 
 for that latter word to become one of reproach. But 
 before every thing else he was a Christian ; and a 
 Christian of that type that will not allow any authority 
 but conscience to determine the meaning of the Parable 
 of the Talents. He thought that idleness was a sin, at 
 least for himself, for he was not one to prescribe duties 
 to others. He deliberately laid out for himself a task 
 of historical writing, which might have shaken many a 
 stouter frame and appalled many a hardier spirit. He 
 gathered round him a mass of original material of por- 
 tentous size and cost ; " starving in the midst of 
 plenty," his feeble eyes had to wait till he had trained 
 a secretary to unfold its stores to him ; he listened, he 
 compared, he judged, he noted, at length he wrote ; yet 
 all so purely from a sense of duty, that when his first 
 work was done, he was only induced to publish it by 
 the solicitations of Mr. Sparks, a brother historian, and 
 as staunch a friend as ever lived, for he must have seen 
 that the fascination of Mr. Prescott's work would far 
 eclipse his own. He attained to a fame of which he 
 had never dreamed ; he set the glory of American liter- 
 ature at home and abroad on a height from which it 
 never can descend. Yet not a cloud of vanity or con- 
 ceit ever passed over the spotless mirror of his soul ; 
 for he had performed his work because he thought he 
 ought to, with a courage as ardent, and a determina- 
 tion as firm, as those which had armed his ancestor on 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 47 
 
 Bunker Hill in the teeth of obstacles not more for- 
 midable to the soldier than were those which he encoun- 
 tered to the all but sightless scholar. If we have 
 preached for a century to our young men that love of 
 Right and Country and God could so tame the fiery 
 spirit of Washington as to give him the air of cold 
 dignity, let us tell them that two generations after 
 Washington there passed from earth a worker from 
 whom wealth and indolence and blindness could not 
 withhold the crown of patient and triumphant 
 industry. 
 
 And now, fellow citizens, having paid our tribute to 
 the memory of that great name to whom the thirteenth 
 of October belongs, let us shortly reflect on the lesson 
 which its centennial day brings to us. I need not tell 
 you that a century ago the United States had sunk for 
 the third time into a despondency almost equal to those 
 of 1778 and 1786. Washington had indeed been re- 
 elected, but he had already become the mark of insults 
 and cabals as wretched as those of Lee or Conway. 
 The burst of patriotic enthusiasm which had hailed the 
 new Constitution, recalling even the days of Bunker 
 Hill, had degenerated into its hateful and detestable 
 travesty, the spirit of party ; party, — that supposed 
 necessity of " practical politics," which is really a lum- 
 bering, antiquated and unpractical method of enabling 
 a free people not to do it. 
 
 Distracted by every element of faction at home, our 
 country could hardly see a bright spot in the outside 
 heaven. The Indian tribes, France, Spain, England, 
 were all indicating a clear conviction that the ruin of 
 
48 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 the infant country was a question of time, and that the 
 year 1800 would see the sixteen states broken up and 
 recombined at the will of their enemies. There was 
 everything to discourage and nothing to cheer. 
 
 What our country has done since 1795 is known to 
 the world. Our territories, which then appeared too 
 large for any possible control, have expanded till the 
 continent seems too narrow for our ambition. Our 
 population has spread over them in haughty triumph, 
 developing, as fast as it spreads, the untold treasures of 
 field and forest and mine ; we have trampled the 
 savage tribes beneath our feet, exterminating them like 
 the very wolves and panthers ; cities, outshining the 
 Babylon that saw the death of Alexander, have sprung 
 up on plains and harbors unknown to Columbus, and 
 almost to Washington himself. In this development, 
 we have armed ourselves with scientific and mechanical 
 enginery, utterly unknown to former ages, and much of 
 it of our own invention. The republican principles of 
 government, with which we began our national life, 
 have never for an hour been abandoned, but the Con- 
 stitution and the Union have been maintained through- 
 out our vast land; the hopes which such institutions 
 awaken have attracted from other lands portentous 
 numbers of immigrants ; yet the original stock which 
 elected Washington to the Presidency has contrived to 
 absorb and assimilate all these, giving birth to a 
 nationality singularly individual, yet unmistakably the 
 heir of its original elements. This new people has 
 stood up in the face of its sister nations, exhibiting 
 every quality which is needed for the loftiest and most 
 imperial position, showing a mastery of commerce and 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 49 
 
 diplomacy, and a capacity, if called upon, for the hard- 
 est tasks of war. With all these cares upon us, we 
 have instituted education, in all its branches, from the 
 highest to the lowest ; we have made domestic comfort 
 and luxury the possession of the many and not of the 
 few ; we have asserted ourselves as masters in science 
 and literature, and are eagerly assailing the citadels 
 where are locked the trophies of decorative art ; we 
 have succeeded, after struggles of Titanic proportions, 
 in eradicating the foulest weed that was choking the 
 fairer growth of our soil ; yet the religion which came 
 to us with our very being we have never renounced, 
 and although the bold spirit of a young nation re- 
 fuses to submit to the dogmatism of older and quieter 
 lands, our whole people makes solemn holiday, every 
 year attended with greater manifestations of respect 
 and love, of the day named for the Savior of Mankind, 
 
 If it seems to you that I have stated these points in 
 our national progress somewhat coldly, it is not that 
 my own heart does not swell with pride to recount my 
 country's glories, but because her praises are sounded 
 every day loudly and arrogantly enough by thousands 
 of ardent children, who think patriotism consists in 
 seeing only what is glorious in our country's history 
 and exaggerating it into the bargain ; who adopt the 
 infernal sentiment, originally, I believe, proclaimed by 
 Stephen Decatur, " Our country, may she always be 
 in the right; but, right or wrong, may she always be 
 victorious," subsequently abridged into " Our country, 
 right or wrong"; — a sentiment worthy of one who 
 sacrificed his genius and his laurels to the Moloch of 
 duelling. 
 
50 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 The very love we bear to our country, the very pride 
 we take in her success, the very conviction we enter- 
 tain that there is no crown of national honor not 
 within our reach, should lead us to accept nothing but 
 perfection ; to acknowledge and note her shortcomings 
 with the determination that they shall be corrected, as 
 they can be, and the motto of every true patriot be 
 Caesar's, 
 
 " Think nothing done, while aught remains to do." 
 
 We are not content with merely repeating, even on 
 a grander scale, the same kind of successes that shine 
 in earlier history ; we claim to have done better as well 
 as more than former nations; and in many ways we 
 have done so. Let us then, with sad allegiance to 
 truth, also record that in our dealings with the native 
 tribes we have combined cruelties worthy of Cortez or 
 Pizarro with a refined dishonesty all our own ; that we 
 have allowed party spirit, against which Washington 
 solemnly warned us,* and which Jackson called a 
 monster,! so to dominate our counsels as to threaten 
 the Union itself, and to extirpate slavery only by call- 
 ing to aid its sister fiend of war ; that the iron roads 
 wherewith we have belted the continent have had their 
 tracks laid not so much upon wood or iron as upon 
 the patrimony of orphans and the wages of laborers, 
 their engines fed with fraud for fuel and corruption 
 for water ; that we have alternately flattered and 
 insulted the emigrants who have flocked to our shores, 
 till more than one of our great cities hold a population 
 
 * Farewell Address ; Works, Vol. XII. pp. 225, 226. 
 t Letter to Monroe, in Life, by Parton, II. 361. 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 51 
 
 more menacing to the legacy of our fathers than would 
 be the mobs of Naples and Constantinople. 
 
 These blots on our escutcheon I would not name if I 
 did not feel that the conscience of the nation is already 
 aroused for their removal, and did I not believe that 
 there is already stirring among us a higher public 
 morality, which is not going to be satisfied with such 
 ethics as satisfied Themistocles or Cicero or Walpole or 
 Guizot, or even Hamilton and Jefferson, but is deter- 
 mined to have America clean to her heart's core, the 
 first of nations in gentleness and honesty, as in wealth 
 and power. To this end it behoves every citizen to be 
 at work. 
 
 I propose therefore to take this occasion to warn you 
 of a danger which I believe besets us at this time, — 
 where our country has not advanced as far as she ought 
 in a century, — and where sentiments which ought to 
 be relegated with idolatry and slavery to the rusty 
 museums of barbarism are repeated and cherished as 
 if they were the essence of patriotism. 
 
 In the year that William Prescott died, the whole 
 country was agitated by the discussion of the treaty 
 with Great Britain, just negotiated by John Jay. That 
 treaty put an end at once to a score of questions left 
 unsettled by that of 1783 ; it placed us in possession 
 of our frontier forts ; it extended our commerce ; above 
 all, it gave us peace with England at a time when we 
 were actually overshadowed by the cloud of coming 
 war with France, which burst into a shower of hostili- 
 ties in a year or two. It was true that it left unsettled 
 many points of contention, points that in seventeen 
 years we went to war about and left unsettled after 
 
52 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 nearly three years' fighting ; points that never have 
 been formally settled to this day, but have been worn 
 out by the progress of humanity. But it was assailed 
 as if it had given back the Union to King George, and 
 asked for a British regiment to be quartered in Phila- 
 delphia. The passion of wrath and ignorance and 
 malice that blazed forth in city after city, beginning 
 with Boston, and spread to state after state, sparing 
 not even Washington in its fury, vented itself with 
 peculiar virulence on John Jay, the author of the 
 treaty. Yet if there is a historical fact beyond dispute, 
 it is that John Jay could do no wrong; that his 
 wisdom, his love of country, his Christian virtue never 
 failed or even faltered in a single action of his entire 
 life. In his treaty, so far from betraying or even 
 jeoparding his country's honor, he had risen to a 
 height of patriotic foresight far beyond even wise and 
 good men in his own day, by recognizing and acting on 
 the grand principle that peace is in itself a good thing, 
 that war is in itself a bad thing, and that rumors of 
 wars are worst of all. 
 
 Since then our country has had some wars and many 
 treaties. It has proved, what needed no proof, that 
 the sons of the Pilgrims and the Hollanders, the Scotch- 
 Irish and the Huguenots, can suffer and dare anything 
 that the war god lays upon or before his votaries. We 
 have had every laurel that the victor weaves with 
 bloody hand decking the brow of our soldiers and 
 sailors. Every story and every incident of siege and 
 camp and line and squadron that can make the eyes 
 glow and the lips part and the heart beat has been 
 repeated again and again in our Iliad and Odyssey of 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 53 
 
 battles and wanderings. "We have heard the brays 
 and screams of the spirit-stirring drum, the ear- 
 piercing fife, and those mortal engines whose rude 
 throats counterfeit the thunders of immortal Jove ; 
 we have had our eyes dazzled and our ears stunned 
 with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious 
 war. 
 
 We have enjoyed to the full all its coincident and 
 inevitable wrongs ; the waste, the blunders, the corrup- 
 tions, the jealousies, the intrigues, — the ravaged fields, 
 the blazing villages, the stifling prisons, the deadly 
 camps, the sickly sieges, the desolate homes, the widows 
 and the orphans pining for husbands and fathers ; we 
 have seen the war demon claiming as his prey the very 
 sons who just because they were the bravest of the 
 brave in the field, would have been the truest of the 
 true in the court and the senate ; we have seen our 
 Warrens, our Montgomerys, our Mercers, and our 
 Pulaskis lost to us never to return, and our Arnolds, 
 our Lees, our Gateses, our Conways spared to ruin us 
 by treachery or stupidity. And, at last, when fighting 
 has stopped, and what we call peace has come, because 
 one or both belligerents are exhausted, there have 
 remained the rankling sores, the unsated passions, 
 fiends that it was so easy to raise by one blast of a 
 trumpet, but that will not be laid by a generation of 
 laborious incantation. 
 
 How much we have gained by treaties, by deter- 
 mining that whatever the points of difference with 
 other lands, we will not, must not go to war, I could 
 not tell you in a week. In actual land and treasure 
 we have gained much ; in the very prestige and 
 
64 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 national honor which war is held to establish, we have 
 gained scarcely less by the victories of peace ; but we 
 have gained most of all, every time that we have 
 made a peaceful settlement, however little it satisfied 
 our proud demands, by the very fact that it was peace 
 and not war, that there had been one more conquest 
 over the uncouth and hateful idol of battles, whom the 
 great bard of battles denounced by the lips of the 
 Supreme Father, — 
 
 "Of all the gods that tread the spangled skies 
 Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes! " 
 
 And yet there are men among us now, who after a 
 century from Jay's treaty, talk as the fire-eaters of that 
 day talked. They want war ; they want it for national 
 honor ; they want it that America may show she is 
 not afraid ; that the United States are all ready and 
 eager to copy the older nations of the world, which 
 they are constantly boasting to have surpassed and 
 outstripped, in the old barbaric, classic, mediaeval, 
 expensive, stupid, wicked business of blows and wounds 
 and slaughter, and all the wasteful, hideous horrors of 
 conflict ; that we have no better, no higher means of 
 winning the respect of foreign lands than were known 
 to the endless list of conquerors during four thou- 
 sand, rather let us say forty thousand years of human 
 suffering, from Sesostris to Von Moltke, repeating the 
 same sort of operations with a little more ghastly 
 accuracy in killing. The United States, the land of 
 invention, of progress, of Christian Endeavor, of count- 
 less philanthropic movements, has no better method 
 to offer for the development of youth, than the exten- 
 sion of military drill, as the best means of teaching 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 55 
 
 obedience and order, in case we ever have another 
 war ! 
 
 In case we ever have another war ! Can it be that 
 Americans will coolly start that supposition, not as a 
 horrible remote possibility, a second Chicago conflagra- 
 tion or St. Bartholomew massacre, but as a not unlikely 
 event ? It would seem as if they did, by the way they 
 catch hold of every rumor, invented out of the whole 
 cloth by sensational correspondents, that somebody 
 somewhere is going to do something which the United 
 States would not exactly like ; though in fact it would 
 be none of our business if it were true. 
 
 Such men are very eager to enforce by arms the 
 Monroe doctrine, which declares that the United States 
 cannot consent to have any part of the American 
 continent brought into the system of the European 
 sovereigns. Do we wish by our own act to bring our- 
 selves into that system ? Do we wish to emulate the 
 enormous armies, the colossal squadrons, the Titanic 
 expenditures, the portentous taxation which is fast 
 driving the new born Italy, lately the hope of the 
 world, into bankruptcy, and keeping all the other 
 glorious nations of Europe in one endless state of 
 distrust and jealousy ; endless, that is, until some 
 nation, wiser and more progressive than her sisters, 
 shall begin the process of disarming, and show, what 
 is generally the case, that the highest ideal morality 
 is the purest practical common sense ? 
 
 I appeal to those before me who know what war is. 
 There are not a few here who gave themselves up, 
 when their country called, to the hardships and dangers 
 of a service, as exhausting as the wars of Napoleon or 
 
56 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 Frederic. You know what the word "war" means. 
 The laurels that have been heaped upon you by your 
 fellow citizens have not blinded your eyes or weakened 
 your judgment ; and I know you feel with me that of 
 all things to be deprecated, avoided, abhorred by this 
 country, a foreign war would be the worst ; another 
 civil war we will not even think of. 
 
 0, if half the energy that is displayed in inventing 
 infernal machines to destroy each other were turned 
 to invent new modes of peace and conciliation, what 
 might not be effected ! Such achievements belong to 
 the very highest development of intellect and character. 
 In December, 1861, the action of Commodore Wilkes 
 in taking the Confederate commissioners out of the 
 Trent had almost fanned into a flame the enmity of 
 many persons in England to America. The insolent 
 and flippant statesman who then governed her, while 
 too astute to lead the countries into war, would 
 have been very willing to tease them into it. He 
 addressed a despatch demanding the surrender of the 
 Commissioners in terms that if transmitted to Wash- 
 ington would in all probability have caused its rejection 
 as an insult, with what consequences I hardly dare to 
 imagine. The despatch went for approval to Windsor 
 Castle, and there Prince Albert, with no constitutional 
 authority, but with a wisdom and a humanity above 
 all praise, himself softened the ferocious demand till 
 it became one that America might grant with dignity. 
 He died in a few days, having led his self-suppressing 
 life utterly unknown and misunderstood, nay disliked 
 and laughed at by the nation ; but his last public act 
 had saved his country and ours from war, — had in 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 57 
 
 fact enabled us to save our Union ; and his stainless 
 soul took its premature flight under our Lord's promise 
 that " the peacemakers are blessed, for they shall be 
 called the children of God." 
 
 Do you tell me that such sentiments, whatever their 
 intrinsic value, are out of place in a commemoration 
 of Bunker Hill ? That question has been settled before. 
 It was settled when Mr. Webster was the orator at 
 the completion of our monument. You know it has 
 often been held that the first indications of the Ameri- 
 can revolution were given when Samuel Adams, in his 
 Master's address at Harvard College, asserted the right 
 of the governed to resist their governors in cases of 
 tyranny. This was in 1743. In almost exactly a 
 century, Mr. Webster delivered his memorable oration. 
 He had just risked his popularity with the entire 
 country by concluding the extradition and boundary 
 treaties with England, for which he was equally abused 
 by General Cass and Lord Palmerston. I hold that 
 act of his showed what a mighty advance we had made 
 in a hundred years, — that if the words of Samuel 
 Adams in 1743 paved the way for American Indepen- 
 dence of England, the work of Daniel Webster in 1843 
 paved the way for eternal friendship between the 
 former subject and the former mistress. Such was the 
 view of our centennial orator. Judge Devens, as fear- 
 less a soldier as ever lived, who prayed as follows on 
 the seventeenth of June, 1875 : 
 
 " Peace forever with the great country from which the day 
 we commemorate did so much rudely to dissever us ! If there 
 were in that time, or if there have been since, many things 
 which we could have wished otherwise, we can easily afford to 
 let them pass into oblivion." (^Author^s Edition, p. 50.) 
 
58 COL. WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 
 
 This very fourteenth of October might lead us to 
 pause before we let the blaze of military glory dazzle 
 us out of the contemplation of purer lights. On the 
 fourteenth of October, 1066, William of Normandy slew 
 the noble-hearted Harold, and for a time buried the 
 ancient liberties of England. Their vitality was too 
 strong not to rise again when a century and a half 
 had gone away. But the battle of Hastings fastened 
 upon the island that Norman military aristocracy, 
 whose privileges have been handed down from noble 
 to noble for twenty five generations, and the wisest 
 heads in England are bewildered at the difficulties in 
 the way of their removal. And yet there are Amer- 
 icans who would go back to emulate that feudal con- 
 queror, and create a soldier caste in this land. 
 
 Let such, let all of us, listen to the yet holier and 
 more touching call which the day of Bunker Hill and 
 the name of Prescott give us, to sheathe the sword 
 between rival nations, and exhibit it only as an antique 
 trophy. While William Prescott was directing the 
 shots on Bunker Hill, John Linzee was delivering the 
 broadsides of the " Falcon " against the redoubt. In 
 fifty years the grandson of Prescott and the grand- 
 daughter of Linzee were married, and their posterity 
 is still with us, full of promise. There hung in the 
 library of the historian, there hang now in the library 
 of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the swords 
 that Prescott and Linzee wore on that day, crossed 
 not in strife, but in peaceful symmetry. There may 
 they hang forever, as a symbol that the softening of 
 the rough ages, by the disuse of wars, is not the mere 
 vision of a heathen poet, but indeed the veritable song 
 
ORATION BY WILLIAM EVERETT. 59 
 
 brought down from heaven by the angels ; there may 
 they hang forever, — or rather, if ever evil passions on 
 either side of the ocean seek to drive us into the sin and 
 crime of war, let them be transferred to the Department 
 of State at Washington, where those who conduct the 
 diplomacy of the United States, looking at them upon 
 the wall, and through the window upon the monument 
 of the Father of his country, may feel their spirits chas- 
 tened and their souls raised from the low swamp of bat- 
 tle to the soaring heights of peace. Then let the war 
 god sink into the embrace of all conquering love, and 
 let the genius of peace throw over their limbs the 
 resistless network of the arts, that all the gods of 
 Olympus may come and behold the spectacle of men's 
 claims yielding to their duties, and Moloch prostrated 
 before Jesus. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 [Many letters of regret were received by the Committee of Arrangements 
 A few of these letters are here printed.] 
 
 Department op State, 
 Washington, October 1, 1895, 
 Henry H. Edes, Esq. 
 
 Chairman Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 28 State Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I take pleasure in acknowledging the invi- 
 tation of the Bunker Hill Monument Association to be present 
 on the 14th of October, at a service to be held in Boston in 
 commemoration of Colonel William Prescott, Commander of 
 the American forces in the redoubt at Bunker Hill. 
 
 I highly appreciate the compliment conveyed by the invita- 
 tion of the Association as well as the flattering terms in which 
 you chose to give expression to it. I regret, nevertheless, that 
 I shall be unable to be in Massachusetts on the day named. I 
 remain, Yery truly yours, 
 
 Richard Olney. 
 
 Post Office Department, 
 Office op Postmaster General, 
 Wasuington, D. C, October 3rd, 1895. 
 Henry H. Edes, Esq., Chairman, etc., 
 
 28 State Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have the honor to acknowledge the invi- 
 tation which you so kindly extend to me, in the name of the 
 Bunker Hill Monument Association, to attend its proposed 
 
62 LETTERS. 
 
 commemoration on the 14tli of October of the services of 
 Col. William Prescott, commander of the American forces in 
 the redoubt of Bunker Hill. 
 
 It would give me great pleasure, as an American citizen, 
 to participate in this memorial service, and especially to be 
 privileged to listen to the oration of Dr. Everett. I regret, 
 however, that the pressure of public business will not permit 
 my leaving Washington at that time. 
 
 With most cordial thanks for the invitation, and for the 
 courteous words in which you communicate it, I am, dear sir, 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Wm. L. Wilson. 
 
 United States Courts, 
 Boston, October 7, 1895. 
 
 Dear Sir, — The necessity of being in Washington on the 
 fourteenth makes it impossible for me to accept the courteous 
 invitation of the Bunker Hill Monument Association to attend 
 its services on that day, to my great regret. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 Horace Gray. 
 
 Mr. Henkt H. Edes. 
 
 United States Senate, 
 Worcester, Mass., October 7, 1895. 
 
 Dear Mr. Edes, — I am afraid it will be utterly impossible 
 for me to attend the services in commemoration of Colonel 
 Prescott. It will be a delightful occasion, and I am exceed- 
 ingly tempted by it. But my time is otherwise pledged. 
 I am faithfully yours, 
 
 Geo. F. Hoar. 
 
 Henry H. Edes, Esq. 
 
LETTERS. 63 
 
 Groton, October 10, 1895. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I very much regret my inability to be 
 present at the service to be held Monday evening, the 14th 
 instant, in commemoration of Colonel William Prescott. 
 
 Colonel Prescott was born in Groton, and the inhabitants 
 of the town have never failed to feel an interest when due 
 honors have been paid to his memory. 
 
 Very truly, Geo. S. Boutwell. 
 
 To Henry H. Edes, Esq., Boston. 
 
 Boston, October 7, 1895. 
 Mr. Henry H. Edes, 
 
 28 State Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have received the kind invitation from the 
 Bunker Hill Monument Association, to attend the service in 
 commemoration of Col. William Prescott, on Monday evening, 
 October 14th. 
 
 I am greatly disappointed to say that a prior engagement 
 made for that night, makes it impossible for me to be present. 
 I regret this extremely, as I should very much enjoy hearing 
 the oration of Dr. Everett. 
 
 Yours very truly, Wm. E. Russell. 
 
 Williams College, 
 WiLLiAMSTOWN, Mass., Octobcr 7, 1895. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am in receipt of the invitation of the 
 Bunker Hill Monument Association Committee to be present 
 at the service in commemoration of Colonel William Prescott 
 on Monday evening the 14th inst. 
 
 I am extremely sorry that it will not be possible for me to 
 be present. Please accept my cordial thanks for your invita- 
 tion and my assurance of the pleasure it gives me to know 
 that such a service is to be held. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Franklin Carter. 
 
 Henry H. Edes, Esq. 
 
64 LETTERS. 
 
 Professor Xorton greatly regrets that a positive engage- 
 ment for Monday evening, the 14th inst., deprives him of the 
 pleasure of accepting the invitation, with which he has been 
 honored by the Bunker Hill Monument Association, to be 
 present at the service iu commemoration of Col. William 
 Prescott. 
 
 Cambridge, 7 October, 1895. 
 
 Mr. John Lee Carroll regrets very much that imperative 
 engagements will prevent his acceptance of the cordial invi- 
 tation to attend the service in commemoration of Col. William 
 Prescott, on Monday evening the 14th inst. 
 
 The ^Iasoe, October "th. 
 
 !MlLITABT OeDER OF THE LOTAL LeGIOK OF THE UxiTED StATES 
 
 Commaxdeet-in-Ch IE F. 
 
 Madison, Wisconsin, October 10, 1895. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I regret very much that I cannot accept your 
 kind invitation to the service in commemoration of Colonel 
 William Prescott on the 14th inst., and thank you heartily 
 for thus remembering me. 
 
 T shall be in Washington on that day to attend the Annual 
 session of the Loyal Legion. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Lucius Faiechild. 
 
 To Henrt H. Edes, Esq. 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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