I^ivethtfe:B«o/^- fer He founding of it Coftege- in, thit .Colony" ' Y^LE«¥MH¥lEl^Snr¥« GIVEN IN MEMORY OF Daniel Butler, Yale 1835 BY HIS SON Henry H. Butler, Yale 1866 I6! 1 1 ADDEESSES AND SPEECHES. ADDRESSES AND SPEECHES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS, From 1878 to 1886: BT ROBERT C. WINTHROP. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1886. Copyright, 1886, By Robest C. Winthkop. Univeksitt Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambbidge. TO MY ONLY GRANDSON, ROBERT MASON WINTHROP, SFfjts Volume IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. PEEEATOEY NOTE. This is the Fourth of a series of volumes which have appeared at long intervals under the same name and bearing the common title of " Addresses and Speeches." It need hardly be said that it will be the last. In a friendly notice of one of the previous volumes, an anonymous writer, many years ago, spoke pleasantly of it as "an unconscious Autobiography." The present volume contains quite as much as either of its prede cessors of the sort of material to which such a designa tion might perhaps not unjustly be applied. It certainly furnishes a somewhat substantial idea of my way of life during the years which it covers. But it has a far higher value as supplying occasional notices of the lives of others, and of important.public events in which others have been the actors. The Orations, prepared by the order of Congress, on the Centennial Commemoration of the Surrender at Yorktown, and on the Completion of the National Monu ment to Washington ; the Addresses at the Unveiling of the Statue of Colonel Prescott on Bunker Hill, at the Centennial Anniversary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and at the Celebration of the Hun dredth Birthday of Daniel Webster ; the Memoir of Vill PREFATORY NOTE. Henry Clay ; the Tributes to Dr. Barnas Sears and to General Grant; and the briefer Notices of Mignet and Count Adolphe de Circourt, to name no others, — have a general interest, and I should have been un willing to spare them from my collected works. Miscellaneous Papers, mainly of an Historical charac ter, make up the residue of the volume, and may at least serve to recall the official relations which I have so long sustained to Institutions and Societies, from many of which age has now constrained me to withdraw. The four volumes together, — in which the earliest title bears date 12 March, 1835, and the latest 22 Febru ary, 1886, — contain an abundant record of my sayings and doings during more than fifty years. Yet I should be sorry to have my two separate volumes of the " Life and Letters of John Winthrop " (1588 to 1649) forgotten. They contain the account of a career and character to which later generations of his family can furnish no parallel, — nil simile aut secundum. The Heliotype facing the titlepage of this volume is from the portrait in the Speaker's Gallery of the Capitol at Washington, painted by Huntington, and most kindly presented to Congress by Citizens of Massachusetts, as described on page 354. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 90 Marlborough Street, Boston, 12 May, 1886. CONTENTS. THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. PAGE Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 14, 1878 1 PEABOBY EDUCATION FUND. Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, at New York, October 2, 1878 11 WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 14, 1873 13 WILLIAM G. BROOKS AND CALEB CUSHING. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 9, 1879 18 JACOB BIGELOW AND GEORGE S. HILLARD. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 13, 1879 23 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. — JOHN ADAMS DIX. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May 8, 1879 30 MASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY. Introductory Address on their Seventieth Anniversary, May 26, 1879 . 36 HENRY CLAY. Memoir Prepared at the Request of the New England Historic Genea logical Society, August, 1879 38 NOTE. Welcome to Henry Clay in Boston, October 23, 1833 71 X CONTENTS. first salem church. — ancient grave- yards. — funeral of governor winthrop in 1649. Page Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, September 11, 1879 72 SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. DEATH OF GENERAL RICHARD TAYLOR. Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Peabody Edu cation Fund, October 1, 1879 87 BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION. Address on Withdrawing from the Presidency after Twenty-five Years of Service, October 8, 1879 93 NOTE. Extract from the Annual Report of the Boston Provident Association, October, 1879 97 LEXINGTON AND YORKTOWN. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 13, 1879 104 NOTE. Memorial to Congress in Aid of the Proposed Monument at York- town 109 ERASTUS B. BIGELOW AND WILLIAM IVES BUDINGTON. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December 11, 1879 Ill ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. Tribute to the Memory of Count Adolphe de Circourt, at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 8, 1880 . . . 116 RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. Remarks at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 12, 1880 125 JAMES LENOX. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 11, 1880 128 CONTENTS. XI WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. PAOE Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April, 1880 131 WASHINGTON MONUMENT. Memorial Relative to the Completion of the Washington Monument, April 29, 1880 134 JOHN WYCLIFFE. Introductory Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Bible Society, May 24, 1880 146 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. Address at the Old South Meeting-House, May 26, 1880 149 CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. — DEATH OF DR. BARNAS SEARS. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, September 9, 1880 161 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON. Speech at Faneuil Hall, September 16, 1880 166 CENTENNIAL OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 11, 1880 171 THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. Speech on its Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary, Novem ber 18, 1880 175 WYCLIFFE AND OTHER COMMEMORATIONS. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. December 9, 1880 181 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan uary 13, 1881 184 XU CONTENTS. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BARON VISCONTI. PAGE A Letter to the President of the American Antiquarian Society, Boston, January 24, 1881 199 THE SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. Address at a Meeting of the Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, Washington, February 2, 1881 . 206 PUBLIC LATIN AND ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS. Speech at the. Dedication of the New Schoolhouse, February 22, 1881 223 JOHN C. GRAY AND GEORGE B. EMERSON. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 10, 1881 227 CHARLES HUDSON, HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, AND JOHN G. PALFREY. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May 12, 1881 233 THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. Introductory Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Bible Society, May 23, 1881 240 PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. A Communication to the Massachusetts Historical Society, June 9,1881 243 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. Oration Delivered on Bunker Hill, June 17, 1881 253 PRESIDENT GARFIELD AND DEAN STANLEY. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, September 8, 1881 278 THE PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE. A Communication to the Massachusetts Historical Society, Septem ber 8, 1881 287 MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. Speech at the Opening of their New Hall, September 13, 1881 . . . 292 CONTENTS. xiii PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. — GEORGE W. EIGGS. PAGE Introductory Remarks at the Annual Meeting.of the Peabody Trustees at New York, October 5, 1881 294 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. Oration delivered at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 1881 .... 296 NOTE. Invitation and Answer 350 WELCOME TO THE FRENCH GUESTS. Address at Bunker Hill, November 2, 1881 361 REV. DR. NEWELL AND HON. JOHN AMORY LOWELL. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 10, 1881 363 THE CENTURY BOX OF THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY. Speech at Faneuil Hall, December 22, 1881 369 RICHARD H. DANA AND DELANO A. GODDARD. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society January 12, 1882 371 WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. Speech at the Banquet of the Marshfield Club, January 18, 1882 . . 375 ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 9, 1882 381 THE CHARLESTON (s. C.) PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 9, 1882 384 NOTE. Resolution of the City Council of Charleston, November 14, 1882 . . 388 GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December 14, 1882 389 XIV CONTENTS. the boston children's hospital. Page Address at the Dedication of the New Hospital Building, December 26, 1882 399 GEORGE W. GREENE. NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 8, 1883 402 PAUL A. CHADBOURNE AND NATHANIEL THAYER. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 8, 1883 411 JOHN RICHARD GREEN. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 12, 1883 414 THE BIBLE, AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. Introductory Address at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Bible Society, May 27, 1883 420 EDOUARD DE LABOULAYE. Tribute at Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June 14, 1883 425 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. Address at the Annual Meeting of the Bunker Hill Monument Asso ciation, June 17, 1883 . 431 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, New York, October 3, 1883 442 MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. STATUE OF HARVARD. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, October 11, 1883 455 THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. — GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 8, 1883 461 MARTIN LUTHER. Introductory Address at the Commemoration of his Birthday, Novem ber 10, 1883 467 CONTENTS. XV EDUCATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. — OXFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Page Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December 13, 1883 471 INTERESTING GIFTS. HENRI MARTIN. GEORGE DEXTER. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 10, 1884 ' 476 MORE INTERESTING GIFTS. — ELIZA SUSAN QUINCY. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 14, 1884 483 NOTABLE DEATHS. FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. Address at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 10, 1884 487 CORRECTIONS OF " THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THURLOW WEED." Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June 12, 1884 497 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees at New York, October 1, 1884 509 SACKVILLE MANUSCRIPTS. STEPHEN SALISBURY. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, October 9, 1884 512 WATTS'S PORTRAITS AT NEW YORK. MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. Communicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society, January 8,1885 518 THE COMPLETION OF THE NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. Oration by Order of Congress, February 21, 1885 523 JOHN C. PHILLIPS AND ADMIRAL PREBLE. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March 12, 1885 555 SOME NEW HISTORICAL WORKS. Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 9, 1885 558 XVI CONTENTS. REPLY TO TRIBUTES. PAGE On Withdrawing from the Presidency of the Massachusetts Historical Society, after Thirty Years of Service, April 9, 1885 560 PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. — TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT. Address at the Annual Meeting of the Peabody Trustees, at New York, October 7, 1885 566 THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS AND THE MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, November 12, 1885 578 FRANCIS E. PARKER. Remarks at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 11, 1886 586 CRAYON OF DANIEL WEBSTER. Remarks at a Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February 11, 1886 588 WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, 1886. Speech at a Festival of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, February 22, 1886 519 APPENDIX, LETTERS, Etc. I. Welcome to Guests from the West 597 II. Presidential Election of 1880 . 598 III. Winthrop Church Jubilee 599 IV. Washington Monument Dedication 600 V. Portrait of Whittier ... 602 VI. Withdrawal from the Presidency of the Bunker Hill Monument Association 603 VII. Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Concord 605 Vni. American Huguenot Society 606 IX. The Lyman Fountain 608 X. Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Church at Cambridge, Massachusetts ..... 609 INDEX 613 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. REMARKS AT A MEETING OE THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTOKICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 14, 1878. Another Serial Number of our Proceedings is on our table this morning. It forms the conclusion of a new volume, which, thanks to the unwearied devotion of our Secretary, will soon be forthcoming. There is nothing more interesting in this number, — nor, indeed, in any of the Serials or Volumes which have preceded it, I think, — than the " Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts," containing the record of his conversation with George III., in July, 1774, im mediately on the arrival of Hutchinson in England, after he was superseded in the Government of Massachusetts by General Gage. We are indebted for this valuable paper to our Honorary Member, the historian Bancroft, from whom it came to Mr. Frothingham ; and the paper is verified by the signature of Edward Everett, under whose direction — while he was our Minister at London — the copy was made by his Secretary of Legation, Mr. Francis R. Rives, in 1843. The dialogue between the King and Hutchinson is most characteristic of them both, and gives a very agreeable impres sion of the personal amiability of His Majesty, as well as of the discretion and good temper of Hutchinson. The Governor's house in Boston had been torn down in 1765, and many of his precious historical papers destroyed, or trampled in the mud, by as ruthless a mob as that which destroj-ed Lord Mansfield's library in London, in 1780. And now his letters to Whately had been seized unceremoniously, to say the least, and sent over l 2 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. to the patriots here in Boston, to convict him, justly or unjustly, of being the prime mover and instigator of all the oppressive measures against which they were about to take up arms. Yet no word of bitterness seems to have escaped him in this conver sation with the King, and he tells the story as dispassionately as if he were a mere witness. This dialogue, certainly, adds to the impression of general fairness and moderation which characterizes the third volume of Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, dealing with the same period ; and leaves us little disposition, in this connection, to say any thing harsh about the author. Even in regard to the Letters, he accuses no one ; but, when the King puts the question, " Could you ever find, Mr. Hutchinson, how those letters came to New England?" he simply replies, "Doctor Franklin, may it please your Majesty, has made a public declaration that he sent them, and the Speaker [Mr. Cushing] has acknowledged to me that he received them." In further response to the King's inquiry, Hutchinson gives the names of the six persons to whom alone these letters (as he says) were to have been confiden tially shown. They were " Mr. Bowdoin, Mr. Pitts, Doctor Winthrop, Doctor Chauncy, Doctor Cooper, and the Speaker himself." Franklin's injunctions, however, allowed them also to be seen " by the other gentlemen of the Committee of Correspondence," of whom the Speaker was one, and John Adams, James Otis, and Samuel Adams, I believe, among the others. The affair, as we all know, took a direction and assumed pro portions entirely beyond the contemplation or intention of any of those concerned in it. It is plain from the whole history of the proceeding, that the original exhibition of the letters to Franklin and others in London was only to convince them, by ocular proof, that Hutchinson was the instigator of the oppres sive measures of the Ministry. Franklin thought it important that the patriots in Boston should have similar proof, but was at first disposed to send copies only. When he was allowed by the person from whom he received them to send the originals, it was with strict injunctions of confidence, and with the under standing that the letters should " not be printed ; that no copies THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 3 should be taken of them ; that they should be shown only to a few of the leading people of the Government; and that they should be carefully returned." They had been exhibited for influencing public men and public measures in London ; and he thought it fair that they should be used in the same way on this side of the Atlantic. " They were not," he says, " of the nature of private letters between friends. They were written by pub lic officers to persons in public stations, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures."1 The publication of the letters seems clearly not to have been in the original contemplation of Franklin or any one else, and was, perhaps, not in conformity with the intentions of the gen tlemen to whose examination they were at first restricted. But the news of their having been transmitted soon leaked out ; and, as the Speaker told Hutchinson, and Hutchinson told the King, " the people abroad compelled their publication, or would not be satisfied without it." As we review the whole story of the transaction at this day, in cool blood, we can hardly understand how it occurred ; and there are those on the other side of the ocean, if not on our own side, who fail to perceive how it could have been justified, as it was, by so many of our calmest, wisest, and most conscientious patriots. For, certainly, the men who were intrusted with the letters were second to none in Massachusetts for integrity and principle. Chauncy and Cooper, as we all know, were Doctors of Divinity, who would hardly _ have been invited to take part in an unworthy act. Doctor Winthrop — very remotely con nected with myself, and of whom I may therefore speak without delicacy — was the foremost man of science at Harvard Univer sity, a member, too, of the Royal Society, and a gentleman of the highest character. And Bowdoin, who stands first on the list, would have been singled out among all the patriots of that period as a man of the greatest moderation, of inflexible prin ciple, and of the nicest sense of honor. Yet Bowdoin, in a letter to Franklin of Sept. 6, 1774, calls the sending of the 1 Sparks's Franklin, vol. iv. p. 435. 4 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. letters " that most meritorious act ; " and I am not aware of any other view of the affair having been expressed, at the time it occurred, by him, or by any other of our Revolutionary Fathers. Franklin himself did not condescend to notice the insolence of Wedderburn before the Privy Council, but he told Dr. Priestley, who breakfasted with him the next morning, that " he had never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience ; for that if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted, as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." 1 John Adams has stated that " he was one of the first persons to whom Mr. Cushing communicated the great bundle of let ters," and that he was " permitted to carry them with him upon a circuit of our Judicial Court, and to communicate them to the chosen few." "They excited," he adds, "no surprise, excepting at the miracle of their acquisition." It must be kept in mind, however, that it was a period of great commotion, when the Stamp Act and the Revenue Acts, and the bringing over of British troops, followed by the " Bos ton Massacre," and other similar events, had already roused the Colonies, and our own Colony especially, to a pitch of indig nation and resentment closely bordering on resistance and rebellion ; and when, too, all the ordinarj' safeguards as to correspondence between England and America were disregarded or defied on both sides. Not a few of the letters between the Colonies and the mother country crossed the ocean at that time without signatures, lest they should be seized in transitu, and their writers betrayed. I hold one such in my hand at this moment, addressed to Bowdoin anonymously, and dealing with some of the considerations arising out of this very transaction. I forbear from reading it, as it was communicated by me, and printed in our Proceedings, in December, 1864. Franklin, in vindicating himself for this proceeding, says, among other things: "The writers, too, had taken the same liberty with the letters of others, transmitting hither those of 1 Sparks, iv. 452. THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 5 Rosne and Auchmuty in confirmation of their own calumnies against the Americans ; copies of some of mine, too, had been returned here by officers of Government. Why, then, should theirs be exempt from the same treatment ? " In another place, he adds : " I am told that Administration is possessed of most of my letters sent or received on public affairs for some years past ; copies of them having been obtained from the files of the several assemblies, or as they passed through the post-office." Mr. Vaughan, then in London, in a letter quoted by Sparks, says that Hutchinson himself, "before the arrival of Dr. Frank lin's packet in Boston, sent over one of Dr. Franklin's own ' private ' letters to England ; expressing some little coyness, indeed, upon the occasion, but desiring secrecy, lest he should be prevented from procuring more useful intelligence from the same source." All such acts may be classed among what Mr. Burke so well called " irregular things done in the confusion of mighty troubles;" not to be drawn into precedents or justified upon principles, but to find such apology as they may in the excitements and exigencies which provoked them. As to these Hutchinson Letters, " the miracle of their acqui sition," as John Adams called it, has been a subject of specula tion from that day to this ; and is one of the questions — like the " authorship of Junius," or the " Man in the Iron Mask," or the Dauphin of France, or the destroyers of the Tea in our own harbor — which is found "still beginning, never ending," and which remains as full of mystery and perplexity as at the first. As long ago as 1850, I had some correspondence with Mr. Bancroft on the subject, and found that his historical re searches had resulted in a clearer conviction of the course of this affair than I had obtained from any other source. More recently, within the last year or two only, my attention was again called to the subject ; and at my request Mr. Bancroft sent me a minute of the views which he had long entertained in regard to it. I have thought it due both to Mr. Bancroft and to History that this minute should go upon our records ; and the "Dialogue between the King and Hutchinson," just printed in our Proceedings, seems to afford the appropriate occasion for presenting it. It is as follows : — THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. Whence came the Papers sent by Franklin to Gushing in his Letter of December 2, 1772 ? The Commission of Revenue for America was instituted by George GrenviUe. John Temple, who was connected with the family of Lord Temple and GrenviUe, returned to Boston under their auspices as Sur veyor-General of the Customs in America. He was a politician, devoted to the Grenvilles ; praised George GrenviUe in the Boston newspapers, pointed out his claims to be considered a liberal statesman, and was at variance with his colleagues and with Bernard and Hutchinson. Of the latter he understood the character perfectly well, and never hesitated to express the ill opinion he had formed of him. Hutchinson sought the support of all parties in England ; wrote papers to Richard Jackson to be submitted to General Conway, and they were submitted to General Conway. Hutchinson wished to counteract with George GrenviUe the influence of Temple, and for that purpose used Thomas Whately. This Whately, with whom he had formed some close connection, was Grenville's secretary of the treasury ; and, after GrenviUe went out of office, remained his correspondent, partisan, political agent, and purveyor of news and gos sip. His brother William Whately was a banker in London. The letters written by Hutchinson to Thomas Whately were written for the purpose of being used as means of ingratiating himself with GrenviUe, and were so used. In a letter to GrenviUe of Dec. 3, 1769, Whately reports information received from Hutchinson, whom he describes as " the same gentleman one of whose letters I lately sent you." (GrenviUe Papers, vol. iv. p. 486.) The next preceding letters of Hutchinson to T. Whately were of 28 August and 20 October, of which the latter is among those forwarded to Boston. In Almon's " Biographical, Literary, and Political Anecdotes of Sev eral of the Most Eminent Persons of the Present Age, never before printed," — a book very full and accurate in every thing relating to Lord Temple, — it is narrated (vol. ii. p. 105) that Mr. Whately com municated the letters of Hutchinson, which were afterwards sent to America, "to Mr. GrenviUe, who showed them to Lord Temple, and they were seen by other gentlemen." I believe implicitly this state ment in Almon. John Temple went again to England in the last half of 1769, when Franklin was already there as agent of several States, among them of Massachusetts. George GrenviUe died Nov. 13, 1770. Secretary Whately died in June, 1772. THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 7 After the death of GrenviUe and Whately, these letters, in the autumn of 1772, came into the possession of a gentleman whom Hutchinson (vol. iii. p. 416, note) describes as a member of Parliament, and by him they were shown to Franklin. In October, 1772 (see William Whately's statement, Dec. 9, 1773, in Almon, vol. iii.), Temple examined some files of the papers of Thomas Whately which had passed into the hands of William Whately, his executor; but it is asserted, and not denied by any one, that the papers which were sent to America had at no time been in the custody of that executor. This WUliam Whately finally owned to be true. The member of Parliament who had shown the letters to Franklin having obtained the consent of their unnamed proprietor or custodian, Franklin, on the 2d of December, transmitted them to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, to be used for public purposes under certain limitations. In the summer of 1773, they were printed in Boston ; and the people of the province found in them proofs of a conspiracy against their rights and liberties, and petitioned for the removal of Hutchinson. People in England inquired how Franklin could have come into possession of the papers. A person signing himself " A Member of Parliament," on Nov. 25, 1773, published in the " Public Advertiser " that, " if it would answer any public purpose, the gentleman who really procured those letters would not hesitate to declare himself." I have no doubt that the person signing him self " A Member of Parliament " was really a member of Parliament, and that the offer was a sincere one. We know from Governor Hutchinson's History, vol. iii. p. 418, that the ministry was in possession of informa tion received from a person intrusted with the secret ; and " Governor Hutchinson himself, upon information given him, thought it prudent to discourage any further inquiry which would increase the number or ma levolence of his avowed enemies." The suppression of the whole truth was thus the choice of Lord North's ministry, to which the Grenvillians soon afterwards attached themselves, and of Hutchinson himself. Of the duel which took place between John Temple and Whately, on the after noon of Dec. 11, 1773, John Temple sent a full report to Lord Temple, and Lord Temple showed so much connection with him as to make a re ply, though a very short one. (GrenviUe Papers, vol. iv. p. 396, note.) On Jan. 30, 1774, Franklin was turned out of office, and John Temple was in like manner dismissed from all his employments, which had pro duced him. a thousand pounds a year. On the change of ministry, which brought into power the younger Pitt, whose mother was the sister of Lord Temple and George GrenviUe, John Temple was selected to be the 8 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. British consul-general in the United States, and he held the place for many years. The year after he was made, consul-general, he inherited an old Baronetcy. From all this I think it appears beyond a doubt that the Hutchinson letters referred to were written to produce an effect on George GrenviUe ; that they were sent by Thomas Whately to George GrenviUe ; that they were shown by George GrenviUe to Lord Temple, and that at Grenville's death they remained among his papers. The custody of the letters under any hypothesis belonged to the executor of GrenviUe or to the executor of T. Whately. It came to be agreed by all that the letters were never in the hands of the executor of T. Whately. There remains, then, no other place in which to search for them except the papers left by Gren viUe. John Temple, as I believe from his own repeated assertions, fer reted out the matter, and formed the plan of sending them to be read in Boston. But the communication of the papers was made to Franklin by a member of Parliament. For this the consent of the executor or execu tors of George GrenviUe must have been gained. Perhaps Lord Temple was Grenville's executor : I know not ; but whoever was charged with the custody of the papers would hardly have suffered them to be used without Lord Temple's consent. I submit this paper " without recourse," as the bankers' phrase is, but with entire concurrence. I have always hoped that among the Bowdoin or Temple Papers, which have come to me by inheritance, I might find a clew to the solution of the mystery. But the secret seems to have been scrupulously kept. There is abundant evidence of Mr. Temple's intimate relations with the English Temples, to whom Mr. Bancroft has referred. In one of his letters to his father-in-law, Governor Bowdoin, dated Dec. 4, 1771, which announces his appointment to the office of Surveyor-General of the Customs in England, he says : " My Lord Temple has acted the part of a real father to me, my Lord Chatham that of an able, kind adviser ; and should either of them ever have ministerial power again, I doubt not I should experience the influence of it." The Lord Temple to whom this letter, as well as Mr. Ban croft's memorandum, refers, died in 1779 ; but his successor in the Earldom, who was the son of George GrenviUe, and who afterwards became the Marquis of Buckingham, kept up the same relations with Mr. Temple ; and I have heretofore com- THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 9 municated to our volume of Proceedings for 1866-1867 several letters of his which substantiate Mr. Bancroft's views in this respect. Indeed, Mr. Bancroft's statement is substantially in accord with the result of all my own investigations and inferences. I fully believe that Mr. Temple's knowledge of the letters and their whereabouts was owing to his connections with the Eng lish Temples, and that the insinuation which Whately seemed to sanction by his silence, and which gave occasion to the duel, was wholly unfounded ; that he communicated the contents of the letters and their whereabouts to Franklin, and may have been enabled to show them to him for his information as the agent of Massachusetts, but that Franklin took, as he avowed, the whole responsibility of obtaining possession of them tlirough some member of Parliament, and of transmitting them to Speaker Cushing, under the restrictions which were violated. This has • always seemed to me the substantial explanation of any seeming inconsistencies or contradictions in the language of those who knew the secret, and who were resolved not to betray it. The letters of Hutchinson were sent over by Dr. Franklin at the beginning of December, 1772 : but it was not until Jan. 29, 1774, that the famous arraignment of Franklin took place before the Privy Council. Many things had happened in the mean time. The tidings of the destruction of the Tea, in Boston Harbor, had reached the Ministry a few days before ; and perhaps may have inflamed Mr. Wedderburn to indulge in a strain of denunciation which his friends tried in vain to suppress. Thereupon, as we know, both Dr. Franklin and Mr. Temple were removed from their respective offices in England ; and Governor Hutchinson, who was soon afterwards in London, and who must have known all about it, says, in the third volume of his History of Massa chusetts (p. 418), as follows: — " The removal of Dr. Franklin from office seems to have been occasioned by his public acknowledgment that he laid hands on them [the letters] , and sent them to his constituents ; and that of Mr. Temple, by information given to the ministry, by a per son intrusted with the secret, that he was privy to the plan of procuring and sending them over." That was plainly the 10 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. understanding of the Ministry, and the cause of the removal, whether it were precisely true or not. But I leave the sub ject without further comment, — my only purpose being to communicate Mr. Bancroft's Paper as an interesting item for our records, in connection with the remarkable " Dialogue of George III. and Governor Hutchinson." Before concluding these remarks, however, I turn for a mo ment to another passage of our history, in which Franklin is again the principal figure. We were reminded last week, by an excellent leader in the " Boston Daily Advertiser," that the 6th of February, 1878, — Wednesday of last week, — was the One Hundredth Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States. Accordingly, at the request of the Mayor, flags were seen flying on all our public buildings. It was, certainly, a most important and memorable event, and one which had no small influence in securing the Independence for which the Colonies were then struggling. France has taken the year of its occurrence for another great Exposition of her Arts and Industry in Paris. I wish the year could be signalized on our side by a worthy statue of Lafayette in one of our public squares, and by the completion of the American subscription for the foundation and pedestal of that colossal figure of " Liberty enlightening the World," which Frenchmen are preparing to send over as a beacon-light for the Harbor of New York. Meantime, as I have said, we cannot forget that Franklin was as conspicuous in the negotiation of the French Treaty as he was in the matter of the Hutchinson Letters.1 1 A momentary interest has been reawakened in the subject of the foregoing paper by the publication of Governor Hutchinson's Diary and Letters (1884). The volume is a notable addition to the materials of our revolutionary history. But it throws no new light on what John Adams called, at the time, "the miraculous acquisition of the Letters.'' Governor Hutchinson had gone over the whole ground with great moderation and discretion in the third volume of his History of Mas sachusetts. The annotator of his Diary would have been wise in following his example, instead of indulging in so many bitter though harmless personalities. Bancroft, certainly, can well afford to leave his share of them, albeit the lion's share, entirely unnoticed, as he has done, and, as we hope, he will continue to do. PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES, AT NEW YORK, OCTOBER 2, 1878. Gentlemen op the Board of Trustees op the Peabody Education Fund : It has but seldom happened, since the organization of this Trust, in February, 1867, that we have been spared from the pain of taking note, at our successive Annual Meetings, of the death of some one of our associates. We may well be grateful to God that, in so exceptional a year as that through which we are passing, and at a season when the Southern portion of our country is suffering from so severe and fatal an epidemic, — awakening all our sympathies, and happily receiving all our succors, — we are permitted to meet to-day with our own number unbroken. There is no vacancy to be filled in our little Board of Sixteen, though allare not present. General Grant has not yet returned from his European tour. Our Secretary, also, Mr. George Peabody Russell, still remains abroad. And, greatly to our regret, General Henry R. Jackson, of Georgia, has found himself unable to be with us on this occasion. But we have a quorum in attendance, and we are all happy to welcome to our councils our latest elected associate, the President of the United States.1 In breaking away from his official cares and duties at Washington, to lend his presence, and 1 President Hayes. 12 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. the prestige of his exalted position, to our Annual Meeting, he has signally manifested his appreciation of our work, his sympa thy with Southern wants, and his sense of the pre-eminent im portance of Common School Education to the best interests of the whole country over which he presides. But let me not omit to congratulate you, — and to congratu late myself especially, as one upon whom a more than common responsibility, in the direction of this Trust, was devolved by Mr. Peabody, — that our General Agent, Dr. Sears, is with us again in health and strength, with unabated courage and confi dence in his work, and with a Report which gives abundant proof of the zeal and the success with which his onerous duties for another year have been discharged. I did not, of course, include him among the sixteen of which the Board is composed, as he is not a Trustee ; and as I felt sure, moreover, that you would all agree with me that no mere added unit, nor any figures of arithmetic whatever, could adequately represent his value to this Trust. His Report, I rejoice to say, will afford us renewed assurance that, notwithstanding the serious shrinking of our income, — of which our faithful Treasurer, Mr. Wetmore, will give an account, — the cause of Free Public Schools at the South has made most encouraging progress during the past year ; and that though we can do nothing, as a Board, toward relieving the physical sufferings of our Southern brethren, while the plague is raging around their dwellings, we can do, and have done, and are doing, not a little to promote that intellectual and moral improvement which must sustain them in every trial, and be the basis of their future prosperity and welfare. WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. REMARKS AT A MEETING OE THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 14, 1878. During a journey of three weeks, Gentlemen, since our last meeting, I was in the way of seeing a few things which are not unworthy of being noticed in our Proceedings. At Stockbridge, in our own State, my attention was attracted to a Monument which had been somewhat recently set up on the site of the old burying-place of the Stockbridge Indians, origi nally known as the Housatonic Tribe. This tribe was Christian ized by the efforts of John Sergeant1 and the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, about one hundred and thirty years ago. After the Revolution, when it is said to have numbered about four hun dred, it migrated to Western New York, and from there to Green Bay, in Wisconsin, and from there to Kansas, where the remnant of it is still to be found near Fort Leavenworth. Nothing could be more appropriate than the design of this Monument, — a pile of rough rock for its base, surmounted by a shaft of unhewn, weather-stained stone, with the simple inscription: — 1 An interesting account of "The Aborigines of the Housatonic Valley" ap peared in " The Magazine of American History " (New York, December, 1878), soon after these remarks were made, and " the spot where stood the little church in the Wilderness, in which John Sergeant preached to the Stockbridge Indians, in 1739," has been marked by a Bell-Tower, erected at the expense of the Field family. 14 WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. THE ANCIENT BURIAL PLACE 07 THE STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS 1734 THE FRIENDS OF OUR FATHERS. 1877. I wish the designs and inscriptions of some of our other monuments were as successful. In Stockbridge, too, I saw an admirable portrait, by Gilbert Stuart, of the first Theodore Sedgwick, one of our most eminent Massachusetts statesmen, — a member both of the Continental and Federal Congress, Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States in 1799, the year of Washington's death, and Judge of our Supreme Court for eleven years, to his own death in 1813.1 As a work of art, it seemed to me worthy of being placed by the side of Stuart's noble portraits of Fisher Ames and Samuel Dexter. I cannot help hoping that at some future, and not too far distant day, there may be a public and permanent Portrait Gallery of the Worthies of Massachusetts. There ought to be a National Portrait Gallery at Washington, like that at Kensing ton, in England. But that is beyond our sphere. A State Portrait Gallery might well be undertaken by our own Society one of these days, and our own Gallery would form the nucleus around which it could be gathered. I may allude to one other object pf interest. In company with my valued friend, Governor Fish, I visited the Beverly-Robinson house, as it is called, on the Hudson, where Benedict Arnold had his headquarters at the time of his treason. I found that our honored associate, Dean Stanley, who seems to have left nothing unexplored, had been there just before me. It was there that Washington was to have breakfasted on the morning next but one, I believe, after that on which Andre" was cap tured. The breakfast waited on the table, but Washington did not arrive, and Arnold had fled. 1 The portrait was at the house of Bev. Dr. Parker, who married a grand daughter of Sedgwick. WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. 15 On the wooden mantel-piece of one of the chambers of this old house, one may see cut roughly, in large letters, the name, " George Wallis, VI Mass"8 Reg* " ; and there is a certificate from our own Adjutant-General's Office that there was a Lieu tenant of that name, then in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, on duty there at the time of the treason. I am not aware that he made his mark anywhere except, on this chimney-piece, and he thus owes his celebrity more to his penknife than to his sword ; but the name of a Massachusetts officer, if it be nothing but a name, is worth preserving in such a connection. I could not fail to be reminded, by the associations of the place, of the striking story I had more than once heard my father tell, of what he witnessed at this precise time. He was just graduating at Harvard, with the Class of 1780, and, owing to the delicacy of his health, had been ordered to make a tour on horseback, with a servant to accompany him. He had ridden along through our own State, and had crossed over into New York. He had breakfasted at the Fishkill Inn, — or, it may have been, the inn at Fishkill Landing, — and was just ready to mount his horse again, when a party of officers rode up and alighted, and sat down to the same table from which he had risen. They were Washington and'his Staff. After a brief interval my father rode on, and, in the course of the day, met a negro soldier coming through the woods. " What news, Sambo ? " said my father. " Great news ! " ex claimed the negro. "General Arnold, he gone off!" "Why, if you' dare to tell such a story, you will be hung on the next tree." " My Captain, he close behind, and he will tell you it is true." And the Captain and his company soon appeared, and confirmed the tidings. Of course, all was confusion along the line of the Hudson. But my father always spoke of the calm composure of Washington that morning, and wondered whether it were possible that he could have had any intimation of what had occurred. He was still, however, to be informed of the startling tidings of Arnold's treason and Andrews capture. Let me turn, now, to one or two of the recently received treasures on our own table : — 16 WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. We have here a sumptuous volume, entitled " Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition, by John Ericsson." It comes to us from the author, the eminent mechanician and inventor, now in his seventy-sixth year, if I mistake not, to whom our country owed the "Monitor" in 1862, with all its marvellous exploits. His greatest celebrity, before that time, had resulted from his hot-air or caloric engine, applied to propelling a ship bearing his own name, in 1852-53. I happened to be in Washington in February, 1853, passing a week with my friend John P. Kennedy, then the Secretary of the Navy. Washington Irving was Mr. Kennedy's only other guest. Ericsson had brought his ship round to Washington for exhibition to the Navy Department, and we had a grand frolic on the occasion. President Fillmore, who was just going out of office, and General Franklin Pierce, who was just coming in, were of the party ; and I remember that Fillmore and Pierce and Irving and Kennedy and myself stood on the drum of the engine with Ericsson, and were swayed up and down together by the force of the hot air. We all had a vivid sense, approaching the ludicrous, of the ups and downs which other engines or instrumentalities than Ericsson's had already produced, and which were more enduring even than some of his. A Swede by birth, Ericsson has been identified from his youth with American science, and our country may fairly claim him among its own distinguished inventors. Only in last evening's " Transcript" I find the following record of his continued enter prise in the line in which he has been so renowned : " Captain Ericsson's new torpedo-boat 'Destroyer,' which cost $50,000, and was invented and constructed to sink the stoutest ironclad, successfully made its first trial trip up the Hudson yesterday, — speed, twenty-two knots." But I hasten to welcome a work of our own : — The first volume of the Sewall Diary is on our table this morning, and we owe a grateful acknowledgment to the com mittee by whom it has been so carefully and laboriously edited. Whatever other estimation may be made of the value of the Diary, there are two views in which it will be warmly welcomed WAYSIDE ANECDOTES. 17 and highly appreciated : first and foremost, as giving a most vivid impression of the social condition of our Colony during the period which it covers, — unveiling, as nothing else could have done, the way of life in Massachusetts for more than half a cen tury. If that way of life was less interesting and eventful than might have been imagined, we at least see exactly what it was, and can judge of its daily course almost as if we had been eye witnesses. And, secondly, we have here a perfect picture of one of the leading men of that period, — his daily and hourly acts, his occupations, habits, self-communings, and social intercourse, — with all the quaintnesses and queernesses of expression and description which characterized him, and with all the noble at tributes which led him to acknowledge his own faults as well as to censure those of others. For such a picture, of so long a period, and of one of the men who made it notable, we cannot be too thankful. WILLIAM G. BROOKS AND CALEB CUSHING. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 9, 1879. Otjr New Year's meeting, Gentlemen, comes round to us again, to-day, under many circumstances of satisfaction and prosperity, but not without clouds. We have had a long ex emption from any serious casualties. But we are called on this morning to take note of the recent deaths of two of our Resident Members and of one of our American Honorary Members. I cannot fail to make the earliest mention of the loss which comes nearest to us, and to allude first to the death of our esteemed and respected friend and associate, William Gray Brooks, Esq., a gentleman to whom we were all warmly at tached, and whose companionship and hearty co-operation in our work have been so highly valued by us all. Indeed, I may say that we have had but few more attentive or more useful mem bers during the seventeen or eighteen years since he was elected. No one, certainly, has taken a warmer interest in our welfare, or rendered us more substantial services. As repeatedly a mem ber of our Standing Committee, and occasionally its Chairman, and especially as a leading member of the Committee to which our building was intrusted during the process of its reconstruc tion, Mr. Brooks was ever most diligent and devoted. I know not how we should have gone through with that protracted and often perplexing process, without his practical wisdom and his faithful and untiring supervision. WILLIAM G. BROOKS. 19 Always prompt and punctual at our meetings, as long as his health permitted him to attend them, he took also an intelligent and eager interest in our Historical Proceedings, and, from time to time, made important communications on genealogical or his torical topics. Tracing back his ancestry to the famous minister of Old Boston and of New Boston, — John Cotton, — and im mediately connected with families which have given so many eminent men both to the ministry and to the magistracy of New England, his mind was naturally turned to inquiries and inves tigations which might aid in the just commemoration of these local worthies, and our records bear frequent evidence of his success. We have all missed his genial presence at our meetings during the last year, and have hoped sincerely that his quiet retirement, at the old home of his wife's family, in North Andover, might restore him to activity and usefulness in our service. But the infirmities of advancing years had taken too fast hold upon him, and he died on the evening of Monday last, the 6th instant, in the seventy-third year of his age. No man could have been more ripe for his change. Having given one son to his country, during the late Civil War, he had given four sons to the Ministry of the Gospel, — three of whom happily survive him, — while his own life had been that of an earnest and exemplary believer in Christ. His funeral takes place at Trinity Church, in this city, at two o'clock this afternoon ; and many of us will take the opportunity to show our respect to the memory of so good a friend and so excellent a man. In turning to announce the death of the Hon. Caleb Cushing, I may not forget that he, too, was counted among the lineal or collateral relations of our celebrated Boston minister, John Cot ton; and that it was by the hand of our lamented associate, Mr. Brooks, that he presented to our archives, a few years ago, a manuscript volume, illustrating the Cotton Family, which had been elaborately prepared at his instance, and at his expense, by his friend, the late Mr. Somerby. The volume is on our table this morning, and will henceforth be associated with the mem- 20 CALEB CUSHING. ory of two of our number, whose deaths have been so nearly co incident. Of Mr. Cushing's career it will be difficult for me to speak satisfactorily within the narrow compass of remark which befits such an occasion as the present. He had held so many public offices, and labored in so many diversified fields, that nothing brief or summary could do him any sort of justice. A graduate of Harvard University, with high rank, at the early age of seventeen, in a class which included not a few celebrities among the living as well as among the dead, he was allowed but six or seven years in the study and practice of the law, before being called to enter the Legislature of Massachusetts as a Rep resentative from Newburyport. The very next year, 1826, saw him a Senator of our Commonwealth, at twenty-six j'ears of age. From that time to this he has been a public character, — often in high official station, and hardly ever without some direct or indirect relation to public affairs. As a Representative in Congress for four terms ; as the first Mayor of Newburyport, after it became a city ; as one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts for at least a year ; as Attorney-General of the United States for four years; as Commissioner to the Celestial Empire, in which capacity he signed the first treaty between the United States and the Em peror of China; as one of the Counsel of the United States at the great Geneva Arbitration ; as Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain ; and as again and again a member of our State Legislature, — a position to which he seemed never reluctant to return in the in tervals of other employments, — in these and other ways he has certainly gone through as great a variety of responsible and conspicuous public service as has ever, I think, fallen to the lot of a Massachusetts man. But not even this enumeration comprises all the labors and services, official and unofficial, which he undertook and dis charged. He had an early passion for military studies and pur suits ; and on the breaking out of our war with Mexico, in 1846, he found at last an opportunity to gratify this passion and turn these studies to account. He commanded a regiment of volun teers, and equipped it largely at his own expense. I remember re- CALEB CUSHING. 21 ceiving a letter from him at that time, — while I was in Congress myself, and when I had happily succeeded in carrying through an appropriation for compensating his services in China, — in which, after thanking me warmly for my efforts in his behalf, he added : " The money will come quite seasonably, as my regiment is making a great gap of upwards of $5,000 in my peculium." He served in Mexico to the end of the war, and came home with the rank of Brigadier-General. It is well known that he offered to undertake the raising of another regiment for the defence of the Union in 1861. That offer, however, being rejected by Governor Andrew, he betook himself, not long afterwards, to Washington, where he found ample occupation in the civil service of the country, in connec tion with more than one of the Departments of Government. I have said enough to give a vivid impression of the many- sided and marvellous capacity for work, which was the pre-emi nent characteristic of Mr. Cushing. He was, indeed, a man of wonderful versatility, of prodigious intellectual and physical en durance and energy, with no taste for recreation, no willingness for rest, and one who seemed to find a positive luxury in every fresh field of labor which was opened to him. I cannot forget that of the twelve members of the House of Representatives of the United States from Massachusetts, when I first entered Congress, in December, 1840, the death of Mr. Cushing leaves me the only survivor. There were John Quincy Adams, Levi Lincoln, Leverett Saltonstall, George N. Briggs, of Berkshire, and John Reed, of Yarmouth, with others hardly less notable. Webster and John Davis were in the Senate. A more distinguished delegation, neither Massachusetts nor any other State has ever sent to Washington, before or since. I was thus associated with Mr. Cushing, at Washington, as a colleague and friend, for several successive years, and was in the way of observing closely his peculiar qualities as a debater and a statesman. Differing from him far more frequently than I could agree with him, and by no means prejudiced in his favor, I was all the more trustworthy witness to his varied ability, his vast acquirements, his unwearied application, and his force and skill as a writer and speaker. Nor would I forget his many 22 CALEB CUSHING. amiable traits of character, which prevented differences of opin ion from sundering the ties of social intercourse. He knew how to abandon a policy, or quit a party, without quarelling with those whom he left behind. And so I can speak of him, and remember him to-day, as a friend. Mr. Cushing was elected a member of this Society in 1859. He had written in his youth a History of Newburyport, a vol ume or two of Reminiscences of Spain, and an elaborate Review of the Influences of the Three Days' Revolution in France. But, in later years, he was too busy, and too often absent from home, to take any part in our historical work, or even to attend our meetings. His name was added to our roll as the name of one who had himself become Historical, and who had played a dis tinguished part for half a century in the affairs of our Common wealth and Country — as an eminent scholar, a powerful writer, an accomplished diplomatist and jurist. Dying on the verge of his seventy-ninth year, he leaves the records of a crowded life to be studied by some future biographer. Of the Rev. Dr. Leonard Woods, the Honorary Member to whose recent death I referred, I need say little, as our Cor responding Secretary, Dr. Deane, who has been associated with him in his latest and most notable publications, will furnish an ampler and worthier notice of him than any which I could offer. His services to the higher education, as President of Bowdoin College for so many years, are known to us all. A constitu tional indecision and self-distrust may have stood in the way of his being recognized among the most eminent divines and schol ars of New England ; but the brillianc3r of his mind, the large ness of his accomplishments, and the purity of his character, will secure him an enviable remembrance in the hearts of all who knew him. JACOB BIGELOW AND GEORGE S. HILLARD. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 13, 1879. Since our last meeting, Gentlemen, we have lost two notable names from the roll of our Resident Members. I do not pur pose to dwell upon them at much length this morning. Both of them have been already dealt with extensively elsewhere ; and if, according to our usage, we shall provide for the preparation of Memoirs for some future volume of our Proceedings, they will not fail of the ample commemoration which they merit. Yet my personal associations, both with Dr. Bigelow and with Mr. Hillard, were such that I could hardly be excused, by others or by myself, were I to confine myself to a bare announcement of their deaths. I had the privilege of calling Dr. Bigelow my friend, as well as my physician, as long ago as 1831 ; while my relations to Hillard, as a schoolmate and as a classmate, date back at least nine years farther. In officiating as a pall-bearer at their suc cessive funerals, I could not but reflect how few of such almost lifelong friendships remained to me. They were widely different men in age, in profession, and in habits of life. Yet in one respect they had a common lot. Serious infirmities clouded the closing years of both their lives. With the venerable Dr. Bige low, the infirmities were only those of extreme old age. It could hardly have been expected that, at nearly ninety-two years, he should retain unimpaired the physical and intellectual powers 24 , JACOB BIGELOW. which had so long ago made him one of the shining lights of medical science in this community. But Hillard was struck down at sixty-five, and during the five remaining years of his life was in a great degree secluded from the social circle and from literary labor. Had they died ten years earlier than they did; their loss would have been the subject of just and general sorrow. But that opportunitas mortis, upon which Tacitus so strikingly congratulates Agricola, was not vouchsafed to either of them ; and none of their friends can help feeling that there was cause for gratitude when at last they were gently released from disabilities and infirmities which were altogether beyond remedy. Of Dr. Bigelow as a physician it is not for me to speak with authority ; nor is this the place for a consideration of his profes sional standing. Yet I may be allowed to. express the opinion, for whatever it is worth, that on Boston's long roll of eminent physicians, from its earliest settlement to this day, not one would be regarded, by those who have a right to pronounce, as wiser, more accomplished, or more devoted than Jacob Bigelow. And certainly I may be permitted to bear my grateful testimony to the kindness, the fidelity, and the skill which I have experienced at his hands personally, or which I have witnessed under my own roof, in his attendance on the sick. But he was far more than a physician ; and his medical prac tice, long-continued and unwearied as it was, forms but a small part of his claim to the grateful remembrances of his fellow-men. As one of the early contributors to American Botany, in his ex cellent account of the plants of Boston and its environs ; as the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, and the author of those valuable little volumes in which he condensed his lectures on the Useful Arts ; as the distinguished President, for so many years, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the frequent contributor of interesting and instructive papers to their Proceedings and Transactions ; as pre-eminently associated with the establishment and development of that beautiful rural cemetery in which he at last reposes, — the very first of its kind in our whole country ; as the author of more than one address, — indeed, of a whole volume of addresses and essays, — in which JACOB BIGELOW. 25 he gave new impressions as to the nature and treatment of dis eases, and pointed out the self-limited character of some of them ; as the author, too, of a little volume of anonymous verses,1 in which he gave vent to the wit and humor of which he had so rich a store, — in all these ways he was a man to be remembered, far beyond the sphere of hospitals or the sides of sick-beds. Few more instructive or delightful companions were to be found in the social circle or at the occasional club; while his practical wisdom was always at the service of the public for any object of art or science or literature, or for any work of com memoration. I cannot fail to remember how much assistance I had from him while I was chairman of the committee for pro curing the statue of Franklin, now in front of the City Hall, and how eagerly and critically he watched every step in its execu tion by Richard Greenough. His vigilance and shrewdness and common-sense had a strong Franklin flavor. Not only was the project of Mount Auburn originally proposed by him, as he states in the preamble to his address on the " Burial of the Dead," but the gate, the chapel, the tower, and even the iron fence, were designed by him ; while the huge granite sphinx — symbolizing, perhaps, something more than he ever uttered — was ordered, executed, and paid for by him. He was an artist himself of a certain sort ; and his own parlors were adorned with admirable reductions of several of the most celebrated structures of antiquity, at least one of which was carefully wrought and moulded by his own hands. It was not given to him to rival, in the full possession of his faculties, to the last, his friend and contemporary, Richard Henry Dana, — the patriarch of the New England Literature of the present century, — whose funeral has been so recently attended ; but we may not forget that, at our June meeting in 1870, Dr. Bigelow was present, in his eighty- third year, to give an account of the visit to San Francisco, from which he had just returned over the Pacific Railroad ; and " a graphic account," our records say, it was. I saw him last on his ninetieth birthday, two years ago, in company with our lamented associate, Edmund Quincy, who we had hoped might have lived long enough to write memoirs of us 1 " Eolopoesis." 26 GEORGE S. HILLARD. both. Blind and bed-ridden, yet bright, cheerful and resigned, neither his wit nor his philosophy had deserted him ; and it was a privilege to sit at his side, and catch some of the latest gleams of a flame which had burned so long and so benignantly. He died on the 10th of January last ; and one of our Vice-Presidents, Dr. Ellis, delivered an admirable address on his career and char acter, at his funeral, in King's Chapel, on the 14th. With the life of my friend George Stillman Hillard, I was more familiar in its earlier and its later periods than during that middle term in which he did, perhaps, his best work, and earned his most lasting reputation. We were together as boys for two years at the Boston Public Latin School. We were together again as classmates for four years at Harvard College. I was thus an immediate witness to his distinguished scholarship during this whole period of six successive years, when he received the first honors of our class at both institutions. We entered to gether upon the study of the law. But he was at the Law School at Cambridge, or engaged in teaching at Northampton, — where he afterward married a daughter of the late Judge Howe, — while I was in Webster's office in Boston ; and, though our friendship was unimpaired, many years elapsed before we were in the way of renewing the associations of our early days. Indeed, I look back on a long interval during which we were widely separated in pursuits, in surroundings, and in place. I had a welcome glimpse of him in Europe, in 1847, while he was gathering rich fruits of observation for the most important liter ary work of his life. But it was only a glimpse ; and it was not until my public service at Washington was closed that we were brought gradually back into the intimacy which results from common opinions and frequent personal intercourse. Hillard, I need not say to any one who knew him, had his full share of what Milton called " the last infirmity of noble minds." He had a strong and an eager ambition. He had an ambition for public life. He had an ambition to shine at the bar. And in both relations he proved himself abundantly qualified for far more than was ever committed to him. At one time he served the City ably, as a member, and afterward as President, of the GEORGE S. HILLARD. 27 Common Council. At another time he served the State with distinction as a Senator of Massachusetts. Later still he was a valuable member of the Constitutional Convention of 1853. And, still later, he mingled largely in the party controversies arising out of the civil war, and wrote an admirable Life of General McClellan, to whom he was warmly attached. Mean time he devotedly pursued his profession as a lawyer ; held the high office of District Attorney of the United States for a year or two ; and more recently was Dean of the Faculty of Law in the Boston University. I was walking with him a few years ago, talking of old times and of his present occupation, wheu he left a strong and sad impression on my mind, that the lec tures he was delivering two or three times a week, at this Bos ton Law School, were weighing heavily upon him, and might prove too severe a strain upon so sensitive a nature. Hardly a week, certainly not a month, had passed away, before I learned that the blow had fallen ; and he was soon a confirmed invalid, to the sorrow of us all. It is no disparagement of the success of his labors in other vo cations, to say that Literature was the field in which he achieved his most durable fame. It is somewhere said that " the style is the man ;" and Hillard's style was certainly a clear index to his own mind and character. He had a singular facility and felicity of composition, whatever might be the topic to which his pen was turned. From his earliest youth, he cultivated and displayed these graces and charms of style. His themes and forensics at College ; his contributions to the " Harvard Register," as a member of our little Polyglot Club ; his Bachelor's and Master's orations at Commencement, — all had the same sweetness and delicacy of strain and language which were so familiar in his later productions. One could detect an article of Hillard's in a newspaper or a magazine, were he at ever so much pains to con ceal the authorship. He never sought to cover up common ideas by novelties of diction, nor to gain credit for profoundness at the cost of clearness. His stjde was as lucid and transparent as it was refined and elegant. If force was occasionally sacrificed to phraseology and form, and if his golden sentences sometimes overlaid the thoughts they aimed to illustrate, still the force was 28 GEORGE S. HILLARD. not wanting; the thoughts were there, and they were pure, ele vated, and eminently characteristic thoughts. He was not an unwilling disciple of Chesterfield's maxim, that we must sac rifice something to the Graces. He was an effective and elo quent speaker, as well as a ready and brilliant writer ; and his Eulogy on Webster, and his other occasional orations, produced a strong impression. Yet his edition of " The Faerie Queene," his selections from Landor's " Imaginary Conversations," his translation of Guizot's "Essay on Washington," his "Life of the Heroic Navigator, John Smith," and, still more, his "Six Months in Italy," have secured him an enviable place in literary history, and have made not a few of his friends feel how much more he might have accomplished, had he been willing and able to devote himself exclusively to literature. We are all, however, more ready tojudge of other people's lives than of our own, and we ma.y be as much mistaken as to our friends as we often are as to ourselves. It is enough that his life was well filled up with strenuous and useful labors, until they were arrested, as he said, by the hand of God. I must not forget the admirable series of Class Readers which he prepared with so much taste and dis crimination, and which ought to have an enduring place in our schools. Not long before the shock came, he had completed a privately printed Memoir of a late eminent lawyer and statesman, — Jer emiah Mason, — and a few of the first chapters of the Life and Letters of his distinguished friend, Mr. Ticknor. And after his right hand had lost its cunning, and he could no longer command his own pen, he dictated not a few brilliant articles for the pub lic journals, and prepared, in our service, an excellent Memoir of his venerated relative, our late President, Mr. Savage. Hap pily, too, he was able to attend the festive meeting of his Class on the fiftieth anniversary of their Commencement, in June last,1 when I was privileged to read for him a little address of wel come and farewell, which he had dictated for the occasion, and in which he said, with a hopefulness by no means habitual, " Old age hath still its toil, and some work of noble note may still be done by you." But his own work was rapidly approaching its i 1878. GEORGE S. HILLARD. 29 close. A few months more of quiet rural life — not without the consolations of religion and the solace of kind neighbors and friends, and in the never-failing companionship of good books — terminated his earthly course. He died on the 20th of January,1 having been a valued mem ber of this Society for thirty-six years, and leaving a memory which will be warmly and affectionately cherished by troops of friends. i 1879. SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES :- JOHN ADAMS DIX. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MAY 8, 1879. In resuming the chair to-day, Gentlemen, I am reminded that I owe the Society both apologies and acknowledgments : apologies for my absence from the last two meetings, and ac knowledgments for my re-election to the Presidency. I am sure, however, that I need not take up much time on these topics. It is enough to say that I was at St. Augustine on the day of the March meeting, and had only reached Washington, on my return, at the date of the Annual Meeting, last month, my detention having been the result of circumstances beyond my own control. Meantime, no formal phrases can be needed to assure you of my grateful sense of the honor of presiding over you once more. Another Annual Meeting will find me — if, in the Providence of God, it finds me here at all — at the close of a service, as your President, of a full quarter of a century. I will not anticipate that day; but it behooves the Society, and certainly it becomes me, to bear in mind that such a service can hardly be much longer protracted. I can, perhaps, do nothing better this morning than to recall a few incidents of my Southern tour, which have relation to his torical pursuits and to those engaged in them in other parts of the country. I lost no opportunity of acquainting myself with the condition of our sister societies in the States through which I passed. I did not fall in with the Historical Society of Flor- SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. 31 ida, and am not sure where it is established. But I picked up at St. Augustine an excellent little work, entitled " The Span iards in Florida," by George R. Fairbanks, who is styled on the titlepage Vice-President of the Florida Historical Society, and who is, or has recently been, Professor of History in the Uni versity of the South, in Tennessee. The Preface, dated in 1868, expresses the author's hope to publish at no distant day a more complete History of Florida, and perhaps he has already done so. Meantime, I present this little volume to our Library. My first visit of this sort was to the rooms of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah. They have a noble hall, bearing the name of the late William B. Hodgson, formerly known per sonally to some of us, and distinguished as an Oriental linguist and scholar. The hall was erected to his memory by his widow and her sister, Miss Telfair, both since dead, and was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies during our Centennial year, on occasion of the thirty-seventh Anniversary of the Society. The pamphlet in my hand contains a fine photograph of the interior of the hall, together with the Address of my valued friend General Henry R. Jackson, the accomplished President of the Society. The portraits and the library — in which I was glad to recognize a full set of our own publications — are admirably arranged and cared for, and the whole establishment affords ev idence of a lively interest in historical researches. During the last year, a new volume of Collections has been published, con taining an elaborate account of what are called " The Dead Towns of Georgia," — Old and New Ebenezer, Frederica, Sun- bury, and others, — in which there are many allusions to Ogle thorpe and Whitefield, and to our own New England General, Nathanael Greene. I could not help calling attention to the fact that no name or date had ever yet been inscribed on the granite monument to General Greene, which has long stood in one of the principal squares of Savannah ; and it may be hoped that such an inscription, if only the name, may not be indefinitely postponed.1 Of the South Carolina Society I can speak with less satisfac tion. Their library seems to have been sadly scattered during the late War, and all that is left of it occupies a small space in the 1 An inscription has since been added. 32 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. old Charleston Library. The Secretary, Mr. Kennedy Bryan, intimated that it would give them pleasure to receive any part of our publications which we could spare, and I trust that the suggestion will not long be without response. The Society has something more than a name to live ; and since my return home I have received from Professor F. A. Porcher, who has succeeded the late noble-hearted Petigru, as President, a copy of his val uable Memoir of General Christopher Gadsden, — one of the Patriots of the days of Washington, — "the magnanimous, un wavering, faultless lover of his country," as Bancroft calls him, — published by the Society during the past year. The library of the Old Virginia Historical Society, of which our friend Mr. Grigsby is President, is no longer where I saw it last (1859), in the State House at Richmond, but has been stored away in another part of the city, awaiting ampler accom modations, which are confidently anticipated at no distant day. It is in contemplation, I learned, to erect a building under the auspices, and perhaps at the cost, of the State of Virginia, in which the new Southern Historical Society — including in its organization all the late Confederate States — and the old State Society of Virginia shall have rooms under a common roof. This Southern Historical Society, which for the present has its principal office in the Capitol at Richmond, is making notable progress in the work to which it is specially devoted. It has already completed six annual volumes, published in monthly serials, and at least four serial parts of a seventh volume, — all containing materials for the history of the late war, from South ern sources. I know not how many of these volumes are already in our Library. I take pleasure in presenting the four later serials, as I procured them last month. The whole ought cer tainly to form part of that collection relating to the Civil War, which we have owed, and are daily owing, to the thoughtful liberality of our associate, Mr. Amos A. Lawrence. It may be important hereafter, to a just illustration of our own Union sol diers, that we should know precisely what is said and written and printed by those, and of those, to whom we were so unhap pily opposed. We can have nothing but respect for such a de sign to do justice to those who fought against us so bravely; SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. 33 but we may well be interested in seeing that no injustice to our own dead or living heroes shall be inadvertently done. Coming farther North, I made a point of visiting the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society at Baltimore ; the Penns3rlvania Historical Society at Philadelphia ; and the New York Histori cal Society in the city of New York. I was most glad to find them all in evident prosperity, with ample accommodations for their libraries and picture-galleries and works of art, and ac tively engaged in preparing papers and volumes for the press. The fire-proof chamber of the Pennsylvania Society, with its carefully arranged volumes of precious manuscripts, is specially worthy of commendation. The New York Society has recently printed no less than four new volumes, — two of them containing an account of the days of the Revolution, from the Diary of a Loyalist, Thomas Jones, a copy of which is on our table this morning, and which may prove hardly less interesting and in structive than our own Sewall Diary, of which we may soon expect to see a second volume. And thus, as, by your favor, the President of this old Mother Society, the Alpha of the whole Union, I have paid a visit to each of the six societies which I have named, and have in all cases assured their officers of the interest we take in their wel fare, and of our earnest desire, by communication and exchanges, to co-operate with them in illustrating the history of our com mon country. If good Dr. Jeremy Belknap and his associates — whose earliest proceedings are before us to-day, in the beautiful volume just prepared by Dr. Deane — could have foreseen the palmy condition of our own Society at this hour, and the multi tude of kindred associations which have sprung up under the influence of its example, he and they would be amply rewarded for the labors to which this volume of our earliest Proceedings bears such signal testimony. Let me not fail to refer, in this connection, to the auspicious establishment of a new Historical Society in the State of Ken tucky, which has recently held its first Annual Meeting at Frankfort, with the Governor of the State as its President, by whose favor a fire-proof room in the Capitol has been secured for its archives. The Proceedings of the Society, on this Anni- 3 34 JOHN ADAMS DIX. versary occasion, as published in the " Kentucky Yeoman " of February 15th, afford ample evidence of the deep interest which has already been excited in its prosperity and progress, and I am sure we shall all be glad to welcome it to our fraternity, and to extend to it every encouragement in our power. I must not omit to mention, before concluding these some what desultory remarks, that in company with Mr. Frederic De Peyster, the worthy President of the New York Historical Soci ety, I attended the funeral, on the 24th ult., of our Honorary Member, General Dix. It took place at Trinity Church, New York, of which his son, Dr. Morgan Dix, is the rector, and of which he had long been a vestryman or warden. Few more impressive ceremonials have been witnessed on our side of the Atlantic, — attended, as it was, by a throng of the most distin guished men of that great commercial metropolis. General Dix, I need not say, was eminently worthy of all the honors which were paid to his memory. Born in 1798, during the Presidency of John Adams, whose name he bore, and while Washington was still living, his life covered almost the whole period of our Constitutional history ; and from his boyhood, I had almost said, he had been something more than a witness of the progress of that history. He was hardly more than fourteen years of age when he first entered on the military service of the country, and he soon afterward became an aide-de-camp of Gen eral Brown during our war with Great Britain. Since that time he has held numerous offices of the highest responsibility, both State and National, including those of Governor of New York, Senator of the United States, Secretary of the Treasury, Min ister to France, and Major-General of the Army of the Union during the late War. Through the whole of this long life, of more than fourscore years, he was a singularly useful man, willing and able to serve his fellow-citizens, and to serve his Commonwealth and Country, in any post for which his services might be demanded. His well-remembered order while a member of Mr. Buchanan's Cab inet, — "If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," — will secure him a page in history when JOHN ADAMS DIX. 35 all his other services and sayings are forgotten, and richly enti tled him to request that the flag of his country should be, as it was, his only pall. I was a near neighbor of his, while we were serving in differ ent branches of Congress, and I saw much of him more recently in Paris, while he was Minister to France. I am thus able to bear witness to his personal amiability and his many accom plishments. Our own Society was indebted to him in 1862 for a gift of some interesting Memorials of the War, while he was in command at Baltimore. He sent us also the little volume containing his excellent translation of the " Dies Irse," while he was at Old Point Comfort, or Fortress Monroe, in Virginia, in 1863. He said of it strikingly, in the preface : " It is the fruit of leisure moments gained from the hard service of the camp, on Rebel soil, but within Union entrenchments. If, in the ages of paganism, the strings of the Lesbian lyre might be, not unworthily, swept by hands inured to arms, ... a soldier in a Christian age may not less worthily find relief from the asperities of war, in themes more congenial with the higher dispensations which he is, by the providence of God, permitted to share." The termination of a life of such valuable and varied service could not occur without calling forth, as it has done, every manifestation of local and national respect and gratitude, in which our own Society, of which he has been an Honorary Member for nearly twenty years, may well have united.1 1 An admirable Biography of General Dix, in two volumes, by his son, Dr. Morgan Dix, has appeared while these pages are in the press. MASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS ON THEIR SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY, MAY 26, 18T9. I AM sincerely sensible, Ladies and Gentlemen, of the honor of presiding, for another year, over this venerable Society. In stituted as it was, in July, 1809, it is on the verge of com pleting seventy full years of existence. It is thus but five years younger than the great British and Foreign Society, which we all gratefully recognize as the parent and pre-emi nent Bible Society of the world. Meantime, it is six or seven years older than the great American Bible Society, to which we are proud to serve as an auxiliary. Our own sphere of operations is, indeed, a narrow one, when compared with the world-wide range of these grand national institutions. But we rejoice in being privileged to co-operate with them both, in carrying the Sacred Scriptures to every household and every hearthstone which they may not yet have reached, and in thus testifying our deep personal sense of their priceless value to every human heart. Threescore years and ten, as the Psalmist has said, may be taken as the term of individual life ; and few persons reach that term, as I have the best reason for remembering, without the consciousness of some abatement of natural strength. But the life and vigor of an Association have happily no such limit. Indeed, we may well feel, and we all do feel, to-day, that our Society is still in its prime ; and that, though its temporary offi cers and agents may droop or disappear, its own age can only MASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY. 37 be counted and measured by the perpetuity of its object. The Word of our God endureth forever ; and certainly, as long as the earth and the world shall continue as they now are, this Society, and societies like this, must go on, and will go on, generation after generation, in the glorious work to which they are devoted and consecrated. The prophecy and the promise are with them : " They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." In congratulating you, therefore, as I heartily do, that we have safely and successful^ arrived at our Seventieth Anniver sary, I cannot but feel that even seventy times seventy years will be counted hereafter as but a day in our history, in view of that immeasurable future which, as we are all persuaded, is to witness the spreading triumphs of " the Truth as it is in Jesus." Let me only detain you longer while I present to you the distinguished clergyman1 who has kindly come to us from a distance, to address the Society on this noteworthy Anniversary. 1 The Bev. Dr. Alexander B. Jack, of Hazelton, Pennsylvania. HENRY CLAY. MEMOIR PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, AUGUST, 1879. To almost any eye which surveys dispassionately the field of our National History, during the last sixty or seventy years, the stately figure of Henry Clay will come at once and promi nently into view. No American eye will ever overlook it. No American pen will ever attempt to dwarf or disparage it. All that Webster was to the North, all that Calhoun was to the South, Clay was to the Great West, — perhaps more thaii all. Neither of these three remarkable men ever commanded the votes of the whole country, or grasped the coveted prize of the Presidency. But together — sometimes in opposition, sometimes in conjunction, and almost always in rivalry — they exercised an influence on public affairs far greater than that of any other three men of their times. They did not leave their peers. Thus far they have had no successors of equal individuality, prominence, and power. Their last signal public efforts were made, side by side, in the Senate of the United States, in support of what were called the Compromises of 1850. Before two years more had elapsed, they were all three in their graves. Had their lives been pro longed, in health and strength, for another decade, the Civil War might haply have been averted. Calhoun's doctrines of nullification and secession may have pointed and even led the way to that war, but he had far too much of that " wisdom which dwelleth with prudence " to have prompted or sanctioned HENRY CLAY. 39 it ; while the giant arms of Webster and Clay would have held it in check as long as they lived. No other statesmen of that period had the prestige and the power to repress and arrest the strife of sections and of tongues which gradually brought on the struggle of arms, even had they desired to do so. The part, if i not the art, of those who came after them, in all quarters of the land, seems rather to have been, consciously or unconsciously, to provoke and precipitate that terrible conflict between the North and the South, which was destined, by the good provi dence of God, to decide the question whether the American Union was strong enough to outlast the overthrow of African Slavery, and to maintain itself against all comers, domestic or foreign. All the world now rejoices in that decision, though all the world may not have sympathized with the spirit in which it was prosecuted, or in the precise steps by which it was reached. Henry Clay, certainly, would never have recognized such a conflict, in advance, as "irrepressible," nor ever have relaxed his efforts to preserve the Union without the effusion of frater nal blood. In yielding to the call for a memoir of this great statesman as a contribution to the present volume,1 1 am well aware how utterly impracticable it will be to condense into a few pages any adequate notice of so long and varied a life. The most that can be attempted, or certainly the most that can be accom plished, is a cursory sketch of a grand career, with such per sonal reminiscences as may be recalled by one who was in the way of witnessing, personally, no inconsiderable part, at least, of its later stages. It may serve as an index, if nothing more, for those who are disposed to study his character and life more mi nutely hereafter. Mr. Clay, fortunately or unfortunately, was not of a nature to take any particular pains to keep the record of his own words or thoughts or acts, and he may thus fare less well with posterity than many of his inferiors. But his Life and Speeches have been worked up by others in at least two separate forms of two volumes each, and his Private Correspond ence has been collected in still another volume ; while the De bates and Journals and Annals of Congress, and the pages of 1 Memorial Biographies, Vol. I. p. 357. 40 HENRY CLAY. almost every biographical dictionary, contain ample reports and details of his sayings and doings. Born in Hanover County, Virginia, in a neighborhood called "the Slashes," on the 12th of April, 1777, — less than a year after the Declaration of American Independence, — he would seem to have imbibed with his mother's milk the bold, inde pendent spirit which pervaded the Colonies at that critical pe riod. Bereaved of his father when only four years of age, he was left to pick up such crumbs of education as could be found on the earthen floor of a log school-house, under the tuition of a master of intemperate habits. The only tradition of his early childhood presents him on a bare-backed pony, with a rope- halter instead of a bridle, riding fearlessly and sometimes furi ously, to a neighboring mill, to replenish his mother's meal-bag as often as it was empty. And thus young Harry became fa mous for twenty miles the country round about, as "the Mill Boy of the Slashes," — a nickname which served his supporters a good turn afterwards, in more than one presidential campaign. We trace him next to Richmond, keeping accounts in a retail variety shop. But not long afterwards we find him employed as a copyist for the Clerk of the Courts and the Attorney-Gen eral of the State, and as an occasional amanuensis for the illus trious Virginian Chancellor, George Wythe. In these relations he must have acquired the singularly neat and almost feminine hand, which may be seen alike in his earlier and later auto graphs. He was never one of those statists, of whom Shake speare tells, us, who " held it a baseness to write fair." In these relations, too, he undoubtedly became imbued with that love of legal study on which he entered seriously at nineteen years of age, and which he prosecuted so successfully as to obtain a license to practise law before he was twenty-one. Above all, in these relations he acquired the friendship and confidence of George Wythe, who was not only one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a distinguished member of the Virginia Convention which ratified the Federal Constitu tion, of which he was an earnest advocate and supporter, but who signalized his love of human freedom by emancipating all his negroes before his own death, and making provision for HENRY CLAY. 41 their subsistence. The influence of such a friendship and such an example could hardly fail to manifest itself in the future life of any one who enjoyed it. It was better than an education. Young Clay, however, was not destined to remain long within the immediate reach of that influence, as, some years be fore the death of the great Chancellor, he had removed from Richmond and entered on a new scene of life. His mother, who had been married again after a widowhood of ten years, had changed her residence to Kentucky, then a new common wealth, just separated from Virginia, whither her son, who was devotedly attached to her, soon followed, and opened a law of fice in Lexington. Thenceforward he was to be known as the Great Kentuckian. Thenceforward the gallant young State, with whose earliest fortunes he had thus identified himself, was to have no more brilliant orator, no more distinguished states man, no more beloved and devoted citizen, than Henry Clay. Entering her Legislature, as the representative of Fayette County, in 1803, at twenty-six years of age, he so commended himself to the favor and confidence of his fellow-members, that, before three years had elapsed, he was chosen by them to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States ; and, if the tradi tion be correct, he actually took his seat in that exalted body before he had quite attained the age of thirty, prescribed by the Constitution of the United States. While welcoming Mr. Clay to Boston, as Chairman of a Young Men's Committee, in the autumn of 1833, I found that he was indisposed to have this early breach of Constitutional requirements alluded to, or inquired into with too much par ticularity. " I think, my young friend," said he, " we may as well omit any reference to my supposed juvenile indiscretions." He was then of an age to pride himself more on his ardent de votion to the Constitution, than on any precocious personal popularity, or any premature political advancement. This first term of service at Washington was a brief one, end ing with the existing session. But it did not expire until he had made his mark on the national calendar as an earnest and powerful advocate of internal improvements. During the fol lowing year he had returned to the Legislature of Kentucky, 42 HENRY CLAY. and was chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State. But in 1809 he was again sent to Washington, to fill another vacancy in the United States Senate, where he served with distinction for two years. And now, in 1811, he enters the field of a still more conspicuous and responsible service, having been elected Speaker of the House of Represen tatives of the United States, almost by acclamation, on the very first day of his taking his seat as a member of that body. Mr. Clay was six times elected Speaker of the House, and held that lofty position longer than any one in the history of our country, before or since. No abler or more commanding presiding officer has ever sat in a Speaker's Chair on either side of the Atlantic. Prompt, dignified, resolute, fearless, he had a combination of intellectual and physical qualities which made him a natural ruler over men. There was a magnetism in his voice and manner which attracted the willing attention, acquies cence., and even obedience, of those over whom he presided. He was no painstaking student of Parliamentary Law, but found the rules of his governance more frequently in his own instinctive sense of what was practicable and proper, than in Hatsell's Precedents or in Jefferson's Manual. He was, in some sense, a law unto himself, and could he have bent himself to compose or compile a Code of Procedure for the House over which he presided, its Rules and Orders might have escaped the chaotic confusion from which so many vain efforts have been made of late years to extricate them. He betrayed to me one of the characteristic secrets of his success, more than thirty years afterwards, when I had the honor of occupying the same Chair. " I have attentively ob served your course as Speaker," said he to me one day, most kindly, " and I have heartily approved it. But let me give you one hint from the experience of the oldest survivor of your pre decessors. Decide — decide promptly — and never give your rea sons for the decision. The House will sustain your decisions, but there will always be men to cavil and quarrel about your reasons." Mr. Clay's terms of the Speakership, beginning in 1811 and ending in 1825, were more than once interrupted by other and HENRY CLAY. 43 not less important public avocations. He resigned the Chair in January, 1814, on his appointment, by President Madison, as one of the Five Commissioners to Ghent, to negotiate the treaty which resulted in the peace between Great Britain and the United States in 1815.1 John Quincy Adams, Albert Gal latin, Jonathan Russell, and the elder James A. Bayard, were his colleagues in that memorable negotiation. No one has ever questioned the great importance of Mr. Clay's services on that Commission. He had been the leader of the War Party on the floor of Congress, and had been more instrumental than any other man in bringing about the Declaration of War. His duties as Speaker never prevented him from taking an active part in the debates when the House was in Committee of the Whole, and his voice at that period was as commanding on the floor as it was in the Chair. So ardent and strenuous was he in demanding that the rights of his country on the ocean should be vindicated, and the wrongs of her sailors and her trade redressed, even by an appeal to arms, and so much confidence did he inspire in his own readiness, courage, and capacity to take any part which might be assigned to him in the conduct of the war which he advocated, that President Madison is well understood to have contemplated, at one moment, offering him the command of the American Army. Clay had many of the attributes of a great soldier, and might perchance have won as distinguished a name in the field as he did in the forum. But the higher and nobler offices of peace were happily reserved for him, and he for them. Re-elected to the Speakership, on his return from Ghent, he resigned it again in 1820, owing to the pressure of his private affairs ; but he retained his seat as a member of the House, and took a leading part, from time to time, in the great Missouri Compromise debate of that period. Indeed, to him, more than to any other man, has always been ascribed the passage of that memorable measure, — one of the landmarks of American History, — which limited Slavery by the latitude of 36° 30'. Mr. Benton, in his " Thirty Years' View," says : " Mr. Clay 1 The Treaty of Peace was signed at Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814, but the news did not reach the United States till the 11th of February, 1815. 44 HENRY CLAY. has been often complimented as the author of the Compromise of 1820, in spite of his repeated declaration to the contrary ; but he is the undisputed author of the final settlement of the Missouri Controversy in the actual admission of the State." That was the first great controversy which threatened to bring about the establishment of geographical parties, so emphatically deprecated by Washington in his Farewell Address, — parties divided by a Slavery and Antislavery line, and "squinting," if not looking directly, towards a dissolution of the Union, or an attempt to dissolve it by civil war. It is, however, a most striking fact in our subsequent political history, that the Com promise thus effected, and which was so vehemently opposed and denounced by the great mass of the Northern people and their Representatives at the moment, came at last, in the process of time and chance and change, to be counted as one of the special securities and safeguards of the Free States against the unlimited extension of Slavery, and that its mad repeal was the subject of even more indignant and violent agitation and remonstrance by the North, in 1854, than its original adoption had been in 1820. Few persons who knew Mr. Clay will hesitate to say that it never would have been repealed, had he survived, in health and strength, to take part in the contro versies of that day. Douglas would not have dared to propose it in his presence. And no one can fail to perceive and admit that the immediate result of that repeal was precisely what its passage was designed to prevent, — the formation of geographi cal parties, with a fatal inclination, as it proved, towards civil war. It was during the last days of the debate on this Missouri Bill, in 1821, that Mr Clay was wrought up to such a pitch of impatience and impetuosity, that, having been twice thwarted by the technical ruling of his successor in the Chair,1 he was heard vociferating, in tones that none but he could command : "Then I move to suspend all the rules of the House. Away with them ! Is it to be endured that we shall be trammelled in our action by mere forms and technicalities at a moment like this, when the peace, and perhaps the existence, of the Union 1 John W. Taylor, of New York. HENRY CLAY. 45 is at stake ? " It was well said, by one of his best friends, that he carried his point literally by storm. Mr. Clay was once more elected Speaker in 1823, and held the Chair during the whole of the Eighteenth Congress. At its close, in 1825, he was called to enter on a new field of service, as Secretary of State to President John Quincy Adams. His appointment to that office, and his ready acceptance of it, gave occasion to a barefaced charge of " bargain and corrup tion," which occupied no small space, for several years, among the partisan criminations and clamors of the period. No one in these days would give a second sober thought to such a charge. The characters of the two men, as now universally recognized, are a sufficient refutation of the scandal ; while the more recent examples of trading and " dickering " in public offices, both State and National, have left this stale allegation against Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams — even if it had not been long ago ex ploded as false and groundless — altogether too small and in significant a matter to be recalled, except in the way of renewed warning that the brightest names may for the moment be maliciously tarnished. " Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny." It may not be without interest, however, to recall what Mr. Adams himself said on the subject, in reply to a complimentary address, or letter, at the close of his administration in 1829. "Upon Mr. Cla3%" said he, "the foulest slanders have been showered. Long known and appreciated, — as successively a member of both branches of your National Legislature, as the unrivalled Speaker, and, at the same time, most efficient leader of debates in both of them, as an able and successful negotiator for your interests in war and in peace with foreign powers, and as a powerful candidate for the highest of your trusts, — the De partment of State itself was a station which, by its bestowal could confer neither profit nor honor upon him, but upon which he has shed unfading honor by the manner in which he has dis charged its duties. Prejudice and passion have charged him with obtaining that office by bargain and corruption. Before you, my fellow-citizens, in the presence of. our country and of Heaven, I pronounce that charge totally unfounded. This 46 HENRY CLAY. tribute of justice is due from me to him, and I seize with pleas ure the opportunity, offered me by your letter, of discharging the obligation. " As to my motives for tendering to him the Department of State when I did, let that man who questions them come for ward. Let him look around among statesmen and legislators of this nation and of this day. Let him then select and name the man whom — by his pre-eminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liberties of man kind, by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and domestic — a President of the United States, intent only upon the honor and welfare of his country, ought to have pre ferred to Henry Clay. Let him name the man, and then judge you, my fellow-citizens, of my motives." In immediate connection with this grand testimony and trib ute by Mr. Adams, it maj- be well to recall, also, what Mr. Clay himself said to his own fellow-citizens and friends at Lexington, in 1842: "I defy my enemies to point out any act or instance of my life in which I have sought the attainment of office by dishonorable or unworthy means. Did I display inordinate ambition when, under the administration of Mr. Madison, I de clined a foreign mission of the first grade, and an executive de partment, both of which he successively and kindly tendered to me? or when, under that of his successor, Mr. Monroe, I was first importuned (as no one knows better than that sterling old patriot, Jonathan Robbins, now threatened, as the papers tell us, with expulsion from an office which was never filled with more honesty and uprightness, because he declines to be a ser vile instrument) to accept a secretarj-ship, and was afterwards offered a carte blanche of all the foreign missions? At the epoch of the election of 1825, I believe no one doubted at Washington that, if I had felt it my duty to vote for General Jackson, he would have invited me to take charge of a depart ment. And such, undoubtedly, Mr. Crawford would have done if he had been elected." This is a most important piece of autobiography, and sup plies facts in Mr. Clay's career which might not have been HENRY CLAY. 47 obtained from any other source than his own confessions and assertions. And now it may well be questioned whether the foreign relations of our country have ever been under the control of more accomplished and capable men than when John Quincy Adams was President, with Henry Clay as his Secretary of State. Mr. Adams, we need not sa3'', was thoroughly versed in diplomacy, having been our Minister at several Courts succes sively, including Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London, before he was Secretary of State for eight years under President Monroe. Mr. Clay, meantime, as we have already seen, had been associ ated with him at Ghent, and had exhibited the highest sagacity and ability in the discussion and direction of our policy towards other countries, South American and European, as a member of Congress. Together they combined the largest experience, and the greatest vigilance, energy, and skill. The treaties negotia ted by Mr. Clay, during his term of four years, are believed to have exceeded in number all that had been negotiated by other Secretaries during the previous thirty-five years of our Constitu tional historj7. The period was one of peculiar interest, in view of the great political changes which were taking place in our own American hemisphere. Brazil, in 1825, was finally severed from Portu guese dominion, and Buenos Ayres, Colombia, Mexico, Chili, Central America, and Peru were just assuming their positions as independent nations. The colonial connection between America and Europe was thus in process of complete dissolu tion. The Panama Congress was in immediate prospect, and Mr. Clay's instructions and letters on that subject are among the most interesting and notable State Papers in our archives. As a representative in Congress, in 1818, 1820, and 1822, he had, indeed, taken the lead in urging upon our Government the immediate recognition of the new South American States, then struggling bravely to establish and maintain their indepen dence, and in assuring them of the warm sympathy of our own Republic. He was earlier than George Canning himself in " calling them into being." Richard Rush, in writing to him from London, in 1825, where he was then our Minister, justly 48 HENRY CLAY. criticises the arrogant self-laudation of Mr. Canning on this sub ject, — which Earl Grey had only ridiculed as a " frivolous and empty boast," — and says: "If Earl Grey had been better in formed he would have said that it was you who did most to call them into being. . . . The South Americans owe to you, more than to any other man in either hemisphere, their indepen dence, — you having led the way to our acknowledgment of it. This is truth, — this is history. Without our acknowledgment of it, England would not have taken the step to this day." Mr. Clay was thus ready and resolved, on assuming the portfo lio of Secretary of State, to enter into treaties with these new republics at the earliest moment, and Mr. Adams was no less resolved and ready for such a step. Retiring from public service at the close of Mr. Adams's administration in 1829, Mr. Clay now returned to his Kentucky home and to his lawyer's office at Lexington. His health, how ever, had of late been by no means satisfactory. Indeed, as early as April, 1828, Mr. Adams is found saying, in his recently published Diary, or Memoirs : " Mr. Clay told me that the state of his health was such that he should be compelled to resign his office. It was becoming impossible for him to discharge its duties, and he could not consent to hold an office without dis charging its duties. . . . His weakness was constantly increasing. His disorder is a general decay of the vital powers, a paralytic torpidity and numbness, which began at the lower extremity of his left limb, and from the foot has gradually risen up the leg, and now approaches the hip. . . . Governor Barbour and Mr. Southard spoke of the condition of Mr. Clay's health, and Mr. Southard said he doubted whether he would live a month longer." It is not surprising, therefore, to find him opening his first speech in the Senate of the United States, after his return to Washington, in January, 1832, by saying : "Iain getting old. I feel but too sensibly and unaffectedly the effects of approach ing age." But he had then hardly reached his fifty-fifth year. Great efforts were still before him, and he was soon involved in some of the most momentous and exciting controversies of his life. His speeches on " The American System," on the distri bution of the proceeds of the Public Lands, on the rechartering HENRY CLAY. 49 of the United States Bank, on the removal of the Government Deposits from that Bank, on the Sub-Treasury Scheme, and on other important measures of public policy, domestic and foreign, followed each other at no long intervals, between 1832 and 1842, showing no diminished power or flagging energies, and now fill ing a whole volume of his collected works. But, early in this period, he signalized himself especially as the proposer and advocate of what is known historically as the Compromise Tariff of 1833, when he brought his marvellous parliamentary skill and practical tact once more to the rescue of the peace of the country, and the prevention of civil war. It was the period of South Carolina Nullification ; and although Webster's immortal reply to Hayne, and General Jackson's grand Union Proclamation, had left no doubt on which side the weight of argument and the preponderance of power were to be found, South Carolina was neither convinced nor intimidated, and there was serious reason for apprehending that she and some of her sister Southern States were willing and eager to plunge the nation into a rash and wanton conflict of arms. Whatever differences of opinion there may have been at the time, or may be still, as to the expediency of Mr. Clay's interposition, or as to the precise measure by which it was accomplished, history will never fail to bear witness to the patriotism, the skill, and the unsurpassed power with which he devised and carried through his conciliatory policy in that emergency. In 1833, as in 1820, he was the Great Pacificator of the country. To him,' certainly, more directly than to any other' one man, the country was thus a second time indebted for the preservation of its domestic peace. During the last two years of this decade, between the lamented death of President Harrison and the spring of 1842, Mr. Clay was incessantly engaged, in the Senate, in combating the course of President Tyler, who, as he maintained, had betrayed the party by which he was chosen Vice-President, and had taken advantage of an accidental succession to the Executive Chair to thwart and veto the very measures which he was virtually pledged to sanction. No one can recall those years without regretting the arbitrary and imperious spirit which Mr. Clay 4 50 HENRY CLAY. occasionally exhibited at that period, nor yet without admitting and admiring the masterly manner in which he led his party in Congress, from step to step, and from daj' to day. If his indig nation sometimes got the better of his discretion, there are those who think that it found ample apology in the circumstances of the case. But he became weary at last of so much ineffectual strife, and, on the 31st of March, 1842, he withdrew from the Senate, as he thought and said, " finally and for ever." In his Valedictory Address to the Senate, delivered on that day, which was quite a field-day, and certainly a most dramatic as well as historical occasion, he used the following apologetic language: " That my nature is warm, my temper ardent, my disposition, especially in relation to the public service, enthusiastic, I am fully ready to own ; and those who suppose that I have been assuming the dictatorship have only mistaken for arrogance or assumption that fervent ardor and devotion which is natural to my constitution, and which I may have displayed with too little regard to cold, calculating, and cautious prudence, in sustaining and zealousby supporting the measures of policy which I have presented and proposed." His frank and chivalrous bearing overcame his opponents, — he had no enemies to be overcome, — and both Congress and the whole country felt deeply that a great and almost irreparable void had been created in the National Councils. There was a general willingness, at the instant, that he should have a temporary rest and relaxation after such con tinuous and exhausting labors ; but a growing and widening sentiment was soon manifested, in every quarter, that so much experience, ability, and patriotism could not be altogether spared from the public service. And now, at last, Mr. Clay seemed to be in a fair way to receive that national recognition and promotion of which he had been so long ambitious, and which he so eminently deserved. He had, indeed, received the electoral votes of Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri, with four votes from the Electoral College of New York, as long ago as the Presidential Election of 1824; and again, in 1832, six States had cast their electoral votes for him, — forty-nine votes in all. But now, in 1844, he was formally nominated as the candidate of the great Whig Party of the HENRY CLAY. 51 United States, and with a Democratic candidate opposed to him, whose name was hardly remembered out of his own neighbor hood, and who had little or nothing of personal weight or pres tige in the nation at large. The result of the election afforded the first example, so often reproduced in later years, of the advantage enjoyed by a candidate who has said little, done little, and made few enemies, over one who has been constantly in the public eye, never shrinking from responsibility, and never fail ing to take a decided part in every controversy. Indeed, no more serious discouragement to great abilities and great services, as qualifications and recommendations for high office, was ever experienced, than in the preference given to Mr. Polk over Mr. Clay in 1844. The country has never recovered from the pernicious influence of that example. Nor were the immediate practical consequences of the result less mischievous. The Mexican War, to name nothing else, was among the first fruits of Mr. Clay's defeat ; and not a few of those who opposed him, on antislavery or free-soil grounds, saw too late what might have been prevented by his election. The excellent Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, was the candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket with Mr. Clay. An extract from his letter to Mr. Clay, dated from New York, the morning after the election, Nov. 9, 1844, will afford a vivid and just idea of the impression produced by the result, as well as of the manner in which it was accomplished : — Mr dear Sir, — I address you this morning with very different feel ings from my expectations a few weeks ago. The alliance of the foreign vote, and that most impracticable of all organizations, the Abolitionists, have defeated the strongest national vote ever given to a Presidential candidate. The Whigs in this city and State have struggled most nobly- All classes of American citizens have ardently, cordially, aud with the freest sacrifices, contended for your just claims to patriotic confidence ; and could you this morning behold the depression of spirits and sinking of hearts that pervade the community, I am sure that you would feel : " Well, in very truth, my defeat has been the occasion of a more precious tribute and vindication than even the majority of numbers." The Abolitionists were inimically obstinate, and seemed resolved to dis tinguish their importance, right or wrong. The combination of adverse 52 HENRY CLAY. circumstances has often struck me in the progress of the canvass. At the South I was denounced as an Abolitionist, rank and uncompromising. Here, the Abolitionists have been rancorous in their hostility. A short time since, William Jay (of illustrious name) assailed me, in his Anti- slavery prints, by a harsh, unchristian, and intolerant article, in the form of a letter addressed to me, but sent to the winds. Its object was, no doubt, to drive the party together, and it had, I suppose, some influence that way, although it was too bitter and irrational to accomplish much. And then the foreign vote was tremendous. More than three thousand, it is confidently said, have been naturalized in this city alone, since the first of October. It is an alarming fact, that this foreign vote has decided the great questions of American policy, and counteracted a nation's gratitude. But, my dear Sir, leaving this painful subject, let us look away to brighter and better prospects, and surer hopes, in the promises and con solations of the Gospel of our Saviour. . . . I remain, with sincere esteem and best wishes, Your friend, Theodore Frelinghuysen. John Quincy Adams, too, writing to Mr. Clay from Washing ton on the following 4th of January, says as follows : — I have yet to acknowledge the receipt of a very kind and friendly letter from you, written shortly before the unexpected and inauspicious issue of the recent Presidential election. It has been, on many accounts, painful to me ; but on none more, or so much, as on the dark shade which it has cast upon our prospects of futurity. I had hoped that, under your guidance, the country would have recovered from the downward tendency into which it has been sinking. But the glaring frauds by which the election was consummated afford a sad presentiment of what must be expected hereafter. We must hope that a merciful Providence will yet preside over the destinies of our country, and avert the calamities with which she is threatened. Mr. Clay remained in contented retirement for four or five years after this defeat, but, in 1849 he suffered himself to be once more elected to the Senate of the United States, and took his seat in that body again, as a member of the Thirty-first Con gress. That brave old soldier and sterling patriot, Zachary Taylor, had just then been inaugurated as President ; and the HENRY CLAY. 53 great controversies connected with the admission of California as a State, the organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, and the Fugitive Slave Law, were close at hand- Mr. Clay was now on the verge of the seventy-third year of his age, and might have been pardoned for assuming the role of an adviser and counsellor, rather than that of a leader in debate. But it was not in his nature to spare himself, or to play a second part. He could not see a difficulty without making an attempt to solve it, and he always preferred to propose measures of his own, rather than to fall in to the support of what had been devised and concerted by others.1 There were those among the public men of that day who believed, and there are some who still believe, that if he had looked with more favor on the policy of General Taylor, and had found it consistent with his own con victions to lend his powerful and pre-eminent influence to the support of that policy, the country might have, been carried through the crisis which was upon it with less agitation and less turbulence, and that fewer questions might have remained to excite and exasperate the contending sections of the Union. But no one will question the earnest patriotism which governed his course., or fail to appreciate the ability, energy, and eloquence which he displayed in this last great controversy of his life. The old fire was once more kindled in his veins ; and, looking back to the days when he had saved the peace of the country — in 1820, and again in 1833 — by masterly measures of compromise, he did not doubt for a moment that it was reserved for him still again to invoke successfully a spirit of conciliation and concord, and to arrange a scheme of adjustment which should not only avert the dangers of civil war at the moment, but leave all vexed questions in a safe and settled state for the future. The bill which he prepared for this purpose, and which em braced, under a single enacting-clause, the admission of California as a State, with Territorial organizations for New Mexico and 1 Clay's spirit, In this respect, recalls the dialogue of Brutus and Cassius in Shakespeare's Julius Csesar, in regard to the great Roman Orator : — Brulus. But what of Cicero ? Cassius. Oh, name him not ; let us not break with him, For he will never follow anything That other men begin. 54 HENRY CLAY. Utah, without any Wilmot Proviso or restriction as to Slavery, together with an arrangement of the disputed boundaries of Texas, — and which, from the variety and multiplicity of its pro visions, was derisively known as the Omnibus, — failed of its passage in the form in which it was originally presented. It was taken to pieces, bit by bit, in the Senate, until nothing but Utah remained of it. But the scattered fragments were gathered up separately in both branches, and were finally enacted. With them, or immediately after them, the Fugitive Slave Bill also — but not in the form or with the provisions which he had proposed — became a law. Not one of the great leaders of parties in the Senate voted on that bill. Calhoun was dead. Webster was in the State Department. The names of Cass, Benton, Douglas, Dickinson, and Seward are absent from the roll. Mr. Clay himself did not remain in Washington to take part in the passage of this measure, or to witness the successive steps by which his own measures were finally adopted. He had overtaxed his strength in battling for them in the aggregate, during the winter, spring, and midsummer heats of that memorable session ; and, as soon as the fate of his original bill was sealed, he resorted to Newport to repair his exhausted energies ; not, however, until he had made a speech which will be noticed presently. He returned before the close of the session, and was again in his seat during the following session. Meantime he had made a visit to Havana and to New Orleans, in hope of shaking off his cough and re- invigorating his system. But he soon found himself disabled for taking further active part in the duties of the Senate, and sent in his resignation to take effect on the 6th of September, 1852. When that day arrived, he had been in his grave for more than two months, having died in Washington, on the previous 29th of June, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Mr. Clay, as we have seen, was associated distinctly and prominently, in his early political life, with the Democratic party of Jefferson and Madison ; and even after the administration of President Monroe had ushered in what was called " the era of good feeling," and the old party lines were somewhat effaced, he would still have counted himself nothing but a Democrat. HENRY CLAY. 55 But new issues and new interests were developed by the war with England, and he soon became identified with the advocacy of a Protective Tariff, Internal Improvements, and the general policy which was designated by him as " The American System," and of which he was the acknowledged author and father. He was thus gradually alienated from many of his Democratic asso ciates, or they from him ; while he at once assumed a foremost place among those who, after bearing the name of National Re publicans for a few years, became known to the country and the world as Whigs. Mr. Clay was, indeed, emphatically the leader of what is now spoken of historically as the Old Whig Party of the United States. Even Webster, with all the surpassing power which he brought to its support, could hardly at any time have con tested the leadership with him, even had he been disposed to do so. Webster was, indeed, its local, New England, head and pride. But take the country through, — North, South, East, and West, — Clay was acknowledged and recognized as its chief. He was its candidate for the Presidency while it was yet in embryo, in 1832, and again, after it was fully fledged, in 1844. And though he failed of the nomination in 1839 and 1848, he was still the most influential member of the party by which General Harrison and General Taylor were elected Presidents of the United States. The witches might have whispered to Clay as they did to Banquo, " Thou shalt make Presidents, though thou be none." Certainly, if the Old Whig Party is to have any individual impersonation in history, it must find it in Henry Clay of Kentucky ; and by him, and his general principles and policy, it may well consent to be judged. And what was this Whig Party which he led so gallantly, before disappointed ambition and inconsiderate philanthropy and headlong fanaticism and secret Know-nothing Lodges and corrupt coalitions at one end of the Union, conspired with mad and monstrous schemes in the interests of African Slavery at the other end, — Kansas, Nebraska, and the rest, — to draw off so many of its members into new ranks, and doom it to a lingering death ? What was the party of which Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were so long the shining lights, and of which Abraham 56 HENRY CLAY. Lincoln, to name no other name, was long one of the lesser lu minaries? It was a Constitutional Union Party, which regarded the Union of the States, and the Federal Constitution as the only formal condition and bond of that Union, as things to be rever enced and maintained at all hazards. It was a Law and Order Party, which tolerated no revolutionary or riotous processes of reform. It was a Party of principle and purity, which consented to no corruption or traffic as a means of securing office or success. It was a Conservative Party, and yet a Party of Progress, which looked to the elevation of American labor and the advancement of our national welfare, by a discriminating adjustment and an equitable collection of duties on imports, by an honest currency, by a liberal administration of the public lands, and by needful appropriations, from time to time, for the improvement of rivers and harbors. It was a Party of Peace, — domestic peace and foreign peace, — opposed to every lawless scheme of encroach ment or aggrandizement, at home or abroad, and studiously avoiding whatever might occasion internal commotion or exter nal conflict. It was, above all things, a National Party, extend ing over the whole country, and systematically renouncing and repudiating all merely sectional organizations or issues. Such a party could, of course, have no common creed or plafr- form on the subject of African Slavery, as that was a subject then everywhere acknowledged to be utterly beyond the pale of Constitutional legislation, and of which the regulation and the very existence were wholly within the reserved rights of the separate States. This was most signally affirmed, even as late as 1861, — after Mr. Lincoln had been elected President by the Republican Party, — by solemn resolutions of a great majority of Congress, and even by the preliminary adoption of a proposed amendment to the Constitution, to give fresh emphasis and stronger enforcement to the original guaranties of that instru ment. The abolition of Slavery, as we all know, could never have been legitimately accomplished by the nation, except as it actually was at last accomplished, — under the powers derived from the exigencies of war. But war, and especially civil war, was the evil of all others which Mr. Clay and the Whig Party were most earnest in deprecating, and most zealous in striving to avert. HENRY CLAY. 57 Mr. Clay, however, though a Southern man, was, as he said openly, in the Senate and elsewhere, "no friend to Slavery." He recognized its wrongs from his earliest maturity, and ren dered himself obnoxious to popular indignation in Kentucky, by vainly urging the adoption of a gradual-emancipation clause in her first State Constitution, in 1798, — a provision which he is well understood to have counselled anew on the revision of her Constitution, as late as 1849-50. He gave noble utterance to his feelings on this subject, in 1827, in a speech at the Annual Meeting of the American Colonization Society, of which he was so long the President, when he said: "If I could be instrumen tal in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could onty be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State which gave me birth, or that not- less-beloved State whicli kindly adopted me as her son, — I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy, for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." And when at last, in 1839, he felt constrained to take a stand in the Senate against the course of the Abolitionists of that pe riod, he clearly manifested that the dangers to the Union, and the perils of civil war, were the considerations which inspired and controlled his course. "Sir," said he, "I am not in the habit of speaking lightly of the possibility of dissolving this happy Union. The Senate knows that I have deprecated allu sions, on ordinary occasions, to that direful event. The country will testify that, if there be anything in the history of my public career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity of my ardent devotion to its lasting preservation. But we should be false in our allegiance to it, if we did not discriminate between the imaginary and real dangers by which it may be assailed. Abolition should no longer be regarded as an imaginary danger. The Abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aim, of uniting the inhabitants of the Free States, as one man, against the inhabitants of the Slave States. Union on the one side will beget union on the other. And this process of reciprocal con solidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, 58 HENRY CLAY. embittered passions, and implacable animosities which ever de graded or deformed human nature. A virtual dissolution of the Union will have taken place, whilst the forms of its ex istence remain. The most valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds, which now happily unite us, will have been extinguished forever. One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. I will not attempt to describe scenes which now happily lie concealed from our view. Abolitionists themselves would shrink back in dismay and horror at the contemplation of desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized man." Such were the prophetic fears and forebodings of as brave a statesman as ever breathed, in view of the attempt to array sectional parties against each other on the single question of Slavery ; and the history of the last fifteen or twenty years has shown that they were by no means groundless fears or exagger ated forebodings. They were such as might well have weighed heavily on the heart of so ardent a patriot as Henry Clay, and they furnish an ample explanation of his untiring efforts in the cause of conciliation and compromise. Nothing could be more unjust than to stigmatize him as a Pro-Slavery man, or the Whig Party as a Pro-Slavery party. There is not a shadow of truth in the charge that either that party, or its great leader, ever prostrated themselves before what was called the Slave Power. Individual members of the party, at the South or at the North, may have said or done things to give color to such a charge ; but from its earliest organization, down even to those last discouraging campaigns in 1852 and 1856 and 1860, when Clay and Webster were dying or dead, and when Winfield Scott and Millard Fillmore and John Bell and Edward Everett were successively its candidates for the Presidency or the Vice-Pres idency, no such allegation against the Whig Party would have been just or true. It was the Constitution, the Union, and Peace as the best hope of both, which inspired their policy and actuated their course. HENRY CLAY. 59 Among the Whigs in the Free States there were men as earnest and as sincere in their hatred of Slavery, and in their hopes for its ultimate extinction, as au37 of those who made louder professions and who hastened to unite themselves with distinc tive Anti-Slavery parties; and even among its members in the Southern States there were not a few, like Mr. Clay himself, who would eagerly have joined in any measures looking towards gradual emancipation, which should not have involved the vio lation of the Constitution, the dissolution of the Union, and civil war. Mr. Clay's personal love of human freedom was recognized by William Ellery Channing — one of whose impressive sermons I took him to hear, at the old Federal Street Church, in 1833 — when he addressed to him his letter against the Annexation of Texas. It was recognized, too, by Joseph John Gurney, when he addressed to him his letters on Emancipation in the West Indies. He himself gave signal testimony to it, as we have seen, in relation to the Constitution of Kentucky, and in his devotion to that cause of Colonization, which Abraham Lincoln himself, while President of the United States, advocated and urged upon Congress and upon his Cabinet, almost to the lamented end of his life. Nor should it be forgotten, in such a sketch as this, that, when the late William Lkryd Garrison was imprisoned in Baltimore, Henry Clay is understood to have made an immediate though unsuccessful effort to stand bail for his release. Mr. Clay was a person of singularly fascinating address and magnetic qualities, attracting admirers and friends on every side. As he sometimes sauntered across the Senate Chamber, taking a pinch of snuff out of one friend's box, or offering his own box to another, he was a picture of affability and nonchalance. He had the genial, jaunty air of Lord Palmerston, whose peer he would have been as a Cabinet Minister or in Parliament, had he chanced to have been born an Englishman or an Irishman, instead of an American. Like Palmerston, he could sometimes be "lofty and sour," and sometimes even rude toward those who opposed him. He was so to Josiah Quincy, in 1813, as Edmund Quincy reminded us in his admirable Biography of his father. He was so toward Albert Gallatin, in 1832, as Henry Adams has more recently reminded us in his excellent Life of 60 HENRY CLAY. that eminent statesman. He was so to Rufus Choate, in 1841, in my own hearing, in the Senate Chamber. But he was never slow in explanation and apology, and cherished no malice or resentment towards any one. In his valedictory to the Senate, to which allusion has already been made, he nobly said: " I may have often inadvertently or unintentionally made use of lan guage that has been offensive, and susceptible of injurious in terpretation, towards my brother Senators. If there be any here who retain wounded feelings of injury or dissatisfaction, pro duced on such occasions, I beg to assure them that I now offer the amplest apology for any departure on my part from the established rules of parliamentary decorum and courtesy." He had the Western — or, it might as well be called, the English — taste for the turf. John Randolph dared to allude to him as a "blackleg," in contrast to the "puritan" Adams, in connection with the charge of bargain and corruption. A duel was the consequence, whicli Mr. Clay, as well as his friends, always regretted, though neither party was injured. Those were the days when English and American celebrities alike — Canning and Castlereagh and Wellington, as well as Hamilton and Clay and Decatur — unhappily yielded to what was called the Code of Honor. His favorite recreation for many years was a game of whist, to which, at one period of his life, he was passionately addicted, — not for the stakes, if there were any, but for the mere distraction and excitement of the game. There is a tradition that while he was on a visit to Boston, in 1816, lodging at the old Exchange Coffee House in Congress Street, a servant rushed into the parlor, in which he was at the whist-table with a few gentlemen of the old school, and an nounced that the hotel was on fire. " Oh, there will be time enough, I think" cried Mr. Clay, "to finish our game;" and finish it they did before the hotel was burned to the ground. A similar tradition was current in Washington at a later period, that while Mr. Clay was Speaker, he and his friends had passed a whole night at cards, and were still going on with their games when the hour was close at hand for the opening of the morning session of Congress. " Wait a few minutes, Gentlemen," said Mr. Clay, " and I will wash my face and hands, and run down to HENRY CLAY. 61 the House and call John W. Taylor to the chair; and then I will come back, and we will have another rubber." True or false, these stories have a characteristic flavor. Mr. Clay was a whole- souled man, who put his heart into whatever he set about. Whether it were a rubber of whist, or a canvass for the Presi dency, or a compromise of contending sections, he was totus in Mis. But, long before his death, I remember his saying that he had reduced his allowance of whist to a few hours on one evening of a week, when General Scott, and Bodisco, the hospitable Russian Minister, and perhaps Archer of Virginia, helped him to dispel the oppressive anxieties of the day. He was one of the most frank and direct of men, — never concealing his opinions, nor ever shifting his course to catch a momentary breeze. He scorned to seek popularity or pre ferment by the non-committalism of which there was a great example in his day. Still less would he imitate those Alpine climbers, who reach great heights only by following zigzag paths. A little more discreet silence, a little more "masterly inactivity," or a little more zigzag, would have carried him into the Execu tive Chair more than once. But he contented himself with the noble declaration, "I had rather be right than be President," and persisted in pursuing as straight a path as that Pontick Sea, whose " compulsive course," as Shakespeare says, — " Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontick and the Hellespont." No one requires to be told that Mr. Clay was a great orator. There was no art in his eloquence. He was as natural and as grand as Patrick Henry or Daniel O' Conn ell. His prepared speeches were generally his least successful efforts. His works will not be consulted, like Webster's, for profound Constitu tional arguments or convincing logic, nor yet for brilliant meta phors or illustrations. He was eminently a man of action, and might be taken as an example of the old definition of eloquence, by its greatest ancient master, — "action, action, action." There was a wonderful .energy in all his utterances, when they came from the impulse of the moment. He had a large heart, a dauntless courage, quick perceptions, a commanding stature, 62 HENRY CLAY. a lofty and chivalrous bearing, an almost incomparable voice ; and when called out by some immediate exigency, or stirred by some immediate emotion, or stung by some personal imputation, no orator of our land or of our age was more impressive or more powerful. He was not a man of much study or of great accomplishments or of general reading. The only book I ever heard him speak of with special admiration was Carlyle's Cromwell. He was in raptures with that, and was reading it from day to da3r during the stress of the Compromise conten tions of 1850 ; and he seemed to be whetting his courage upon its pages for the warfare in which he was so strenuously en gaged. He found in it the record of a WiU not more iron than his own, and recognized indomitable elements of character of which he could not have failed to be conscious. With a rich and ready command of language of his own, he was an infre quent quoter of other men's words or thoughts, and certainly no accumulator of elegant extracts for the adornment of his speeches. Indeed, he was proverbial for blundering over even the most familiar quotations from Shakespeare. The late George Evans of Maine, one of the ablest Senators ever sent to Washington by a State which may boast of a Peleg Sprague and a William Pitt Fessenden, or, indeed, by any other State in the Union, used to tell more than one amusing story of Mr. Clay's efforts in this line. " What is it," said Clay to him one day, "that Shakespeare says about a rose smelling as sweet? Write me down those lines, and be sure you get them exactly right, and let them be in a large, legible hand." And so Mr. Evans, having verified his memory, at Clay's request, by a resort to the Congressional Library, and having laid the lines in plain, bold letters on Mr. Clay's desk, — " What's in a name 1 That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet," — awaited the result. As the great statesman approached that part of his speech in which he was to apply them, there was an evident embarrassment. He fumbled over his notes for a while, then grasped the little copy with a convulsive effort, and at last ejaculated in despair: "A rose wiU smell the same; call it what HENRY CLAY. 63 you will." On another occasion he had fortified himself by re calling the exclamation of Hamlet, " Let the galled jade wince ; " — but it was only after saying " unhung " and " unstrung " that, on the third attempt, and by the prompting of a friend, he made the Senate Chamber ring with the true words, "our withers are un wrung." I have heard Mr. Clay often, in the forum and at the bar, in the Senate Chamber and in the Supreme Court Room, as well as before larger or smaller popular assemblies ; but I recall two occasions, widely different in character and widely distant from each other in date, which have left on my mind the deepest im pression of that off-hand, natural, impulsive eloquence in which he was without a rival while he lived. One of those occasions, to which I have alluded already, was as long ago as 1833, just after the passage of his Tariff Compro mise, and when he had visited Boston under somewhat peculiar circumstances. I was brought into daily association with him as Chairman of the Young Men's Committee of Reception, and the first speech I ever made, after leaving college, was to wel come him to our city.1 He had steadfastly refused to make any formal speeches himself, and it was only a night or two before his departure that his lips were unsealed. The young men of Boston had offered him a pair of silver pitchers as a token of their admiration, and it was mj' privilege to present them to him. We had the drawing-rooms of the Tremont House for the occasion, and there were assembled in them many of our most distinguished citizens. Webster was there, among others ; but the illness of his wife, or some other cause, compelled him to retire before the ceremonies had commenced. Some things had occurred, moreover, which were confidentially communi cated to me, to excite Mr. Clay's feelings, and to make him eager for the opportunity of giving expression to emotions which had been long pent up. There were no reporters, and only fifty or sixty hearers, all told. The rooms were not spacious. He had not a note for reference, nor had he con templated anything but the briefest and most formal acknowl edgment of the gift. But, whatever had kindled it, " the fire 1 See Note at the end of this Memoir. 64 HENRY CLAY. burned, and he spoke with his mouth." No lava from a long- closed crater could have rushed in a more impetuous torrent, and he recalled to me at once John Adams's description of James Otis, as " a flame of fire." If walls ever had ears, ac cording to the old proverb, those old ceilings of the Tremont House drawing-rooms would have been vocal and vibrating to the present hour with the utterances of that night. He described the considerations and circumstances under which he had introduced the Compromise Bill. He alluded emphati cally to the opposition it had encountered in some New Eng land quarters. He depicted the dangers of civil war which it had averted. He dwelt on the union of the country as the best hope of freedom throughout the world. After the lapse of forty-six years, I dare not attempt to recall the pre cise words or thoughts which were addressed to me on that occasion. But the tones still ring in my ears, and I can only bear witness to an impressiveness of speech never exceeded, if ever equalled, within an experience of nearly half a century, during which I have listened to man3r of the greatest orators on both sides of the Atlantic, including Brougham and Peel, the late Lord Derb3r and Macaulay, Guizot, Thiers, and Glad stone. The second occasion on which Mr. Clay's eloquence made so deep and lasting an impression on me, was as late as the first of August, 1850, when I had the honor of being a member of the Senate with him. The Compromise Bill, which he had introduced, and for which he had battled so bravely for so many months, had been finally defeated in the Senate the day before, and a simple bill for the admission of California as a State was now under consideration. Wearied with work, ex hausted by the heat, depressed by the failure of his cherished measure and by the apprehensions of danger for the country, Mr. Clay was just going to Newport for rest and recreation. But some expressions of a threatening character caught his ear, and on the instant he took the floor. Of this speech we fortunately have a running report in the " Congressional Globe," and the following extracts will give some faint idea of its char acter : — HENRY CLAY. 65 "I wish only to say a few words. We have presented to the country a measure of peace, a measure of tranquillity, — one which would have harmonized, in my opinion, all the discordant feelings which prevail. That measure has met with a fate, not altogether unexpected, I admit, on my part, but one which, as it respects the country at large, I deplore ex tremely. For myself, personally, I have no cause of complaint. The majority of the Committee to which I belonged have done their duty, their whole duty, faithfully and perseveringly. If the measure has been defeated, it has been defeated by the extremists on the other side of the chamber and on this. I shall not proceed to inquire into the meas ure of responsibility which I incurred. All I mean to say upon that subject is, that we stand free and liberated from any responsibility of consequences. . . . " Now, Mr. President, I stand here in my place, meaning to be un- awed by any threats, whether they come from individuals or from States. I should deplore as much as any man, living or dead, that arms should be raised against the authority of the Union, either by individuals or by States. But, after all that has occurred, if any one State, or a portion of the people of any State, choose to place themselves in military array against the Government of the Union, I am for trying the strength of the Government. [Applause in the galleries, immediately suppressed by the Chair.] I am for ascertaining whether we have got a Government or not, — practical, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority, and of up holding the powers and interests which belong to a Government. Nor, Sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any such course by intima tions of the spilling of blood. If blood is to be spilt, by whose fault is it to be spilt ? Upon the supposition, I maintain it will be by the fault of those who choose to raise the standard of disunion, and endeavor to pros trate this Government ; and, Sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the general authority, and for the main tenance of the powers of this Union. [Applause in the galleries.'] " The Presiding Officer. Order ! " Mr. Clay. Sir, I have done all, I am willing to do all, that is in the power of one man to do, to accommodate the differences of the country. I have not been attached to any given form of settling our troubles and of restoring contentment to the Union. I was willing to take the meas ures united. I am willing now to pass them separate and distinct. . . . But whether passed or not, I repeat the sentiment, — if resistance is at tempted to any authority of the country, by any State, or any people of 5 66 HENRY CLAY. any State, I will raise my voice, my heart, my arm, in support of the common authority of the General Government. Nor am I apprehensive of this idea, that blood is to be shed. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that it never will be shed. But if it is shed, who will be charge able with the effusion of human blood ? Those who attempt to prostrate the general authority, to raise the standard of disunion, and to destroy this Union by force. God knows I deprecate such an attempt. But if it occurs, I will be among the last who will give up the effort to maintain the Union in its entire, full, and vigorous authority. " Sir, these threats are not so alarming and so dangerous as gentlemen in their imagination may suppose. We have had an event of the kind in our history. When Washington was our President — now sixty years ago — the standard of insurrection was raised in the western part of Pennsylvania. The army of the United States moved forward for the purpose of subduing it. . . . But the insurgents then — as disunionists and traitors always will — fled from the approach of the flag of the Union, supported by the authority of the Union, and countenanced by the Father of the Union.'' Mr. Clay rarely, if ever, produced a stronger impression, at once of his power and of his patriotism, than in the entirely im promptu speech of which these extracts give but the feeblest idea. They are sufficient, however, to show what side he would have taken in any rebellion against the Union, whenever it should have occurred, and to give ample warrant for the ex pression of a conviction, that, had he lived, in health and strength, until 1861, and had the Whig Party survived and been in possession of the Government, the Rebellion which then occurred, if it had not been altogether repressed and ar rested, would have been crushed under his lead, as surely as it was crushed by the party which was then in power, — even though the abolition of Slavery had been, as it proved to be at last, one of the necessities of the war. Indeed, it may safely be said, henceforth, that the party in power, whichever and whatever it may be, will put down any rebellion which may arise in our land, from whatever cause or quarter, and will maintain the Government committed to its care, until, in the providence of God, that Government shall have been doomed to destruction. The Union never has depended, HENRY CLAY. 67 and never will depend, on the ascendancy of any particular party. Washington, and the old Federal Party, as Mr. Clay said, put to flight the insurrectionists of Pennsylvania in 1794. Madison, and the old Democratic Party, would have effectively suppressed any rising in New England, in 1814, had the "Five Striped Flag " been anything but a myth. The old Democratic Party again, under President Andrew Jackson, in 1832, would have enforced and made good his memorable sentiment, — " The Union, it must be preserved," — had not Nullification been peaceably extinguished. The old Whig Party, with General Taylor or with Fillmore in the Executive Chair, and with Webster at the helm, would have been as sufficient for any rebellion at the North, — if the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law had in volved the necessity of employing military force in other parts of the country besides Boston, — as President Lincoln and the Republican Party happily proved themselves to be for the Great Rebellion at the South which it became their province to overcome. In other words, the people of the United States can be trusted to maintain, uphold, and defend their own institu tions and their own Governmemt, and will rally to their sup port in overwhelming masses, without distinction of party, as they did in 1861. It is an injustice to the people to claim the preservation of the Union at any time as a party triumph ; and such a claim tends only to throw doubt, at home and abroad, on its preservation hereafter. Such, certainly, was the spirit of Henry Clay's noble defiance of parties and of sections, of individuals and of States, in 1850. It was in fresh remembrance of the two speeches of Mr. Clay which have thus been recalled, — the first and one of the last which I heard from his own lips, — that I used the following language in an address to the Alumni of Harvard University, in 1852, just after his death, which I may borrow in summing up this cursory account of him as an orator, and which will at least show that my judgment has not been newly formed : — " I deem it to be no disparagement to any one, among the living or the dead, to express the opinion that, for immediate power over a delib erative or a popular audience, no man in our Republic, since the Republic has had a name or a being, has ever surpassed the great statesman of the 68 HENRY CLAY. West, over whom the grave is just closing. His words will not be re ferred to in future years, like those of some of his contemporaries, for profound expositions of permanent principles, or for luminous and logical commentaries upon the Constitution or the Laws. But for the deep im pressiveness and almost irresistible fascination of his immediate appeals, for prompt, powerful, persuasive, commanding, soul-stirring eloquence, upon whatever theme was uppermost in his large, liberal, and patriotic heart, he has had no superior, and hardly an equal, in our country's his tory. Owing nothing to the schools, nothing to art or education, he has furnished a noble illustration of what may be accomplished by the fire of real genius, by the force of an indomitable will, by the energy of a con stant and courageous soul, uttering itself through the medium of a voice whose trumpet tones will be among the cherished memories of all who ever heard it, and which God never gave to be the organ of anything less than a master-mind." 1 Any notice of Mr. Clay's personal qualities and character would be incomplete without some reference to his religious re lations. He was an out-speaking man on this, as on all other subjects ; and his own words and acts will afford the truest in dication of his faith and feelings. His language in the Senate of the United States, in 1832, — when a joint resolution to call upon the President of the United States to appoint a National Fast, on account of the Asiatic Cholera, which had extended its ravages to our own Continent, had met with opposition, — may well be recalled first in this connection. " I am a member,'' said he, " of no religious sect, and I am not a pro fessor of religion. I regret that I am not. I wish that I was, and trust that I shall be. I have, and always have had, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages, and its observances. Among these, that which is proposed in this resolu tion has always commanded the respect of the good and the devout, and I hope it will obtain the concurrence of the Senate." On the 29th of November, 1844, in the volume of his private correspondence, published some years after his death, we find the following expressions in a letter to a clergyman, who had written to offer him his sympathy on his defeat as the candidate for the Presidency : — 1 Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches, Vol. II., p. 27. HENRY CLAY. 69 " I am greatly obliged by the desire you manifest that I should seek, in the resources of religion, consolation for all the vexations and disap pointments of life. I hope you will continue your prayers for me, since I trust I am not altogether unworthy of them. I have long been con vinced of the paramount importance of the Christian religion. I have, for many years, fervently sought its blessings. I shall persevere in seek ing them, and I hope, ultimately, to attain a firm faith and confidence in its promises. There is nothing for which I feel so anxious. May God, in his infinite mercy, grant what I so ardently desire." Two years and a half after the date of this letter, on the 22d of June, 1847, the Parish Register of Christ Church, Lexington, Kentucky, has the following record : " Henry Clay, of Ashland, was baptized." And the Episcopal Register of the Diocese of Kentucky adds : " He was confirmed by the Rt. Rev. B. B. Smith, D.D., in the Chapel of Morrison College, Lexington, on Sunday, the 18th of July, 1847, and became a communicant." The baptism of Mr. Clay, at so late a period of his life, is sufficiently explained by the fact that his father was a Baptist clergyman, who died when he was but four years of age; and that thus, belonging to a religious denomination which rejected infant baptism, and bereaved of the parent who would have cared for its administration in later years, his attention had not been awakened to the subject. The Bishop of Kentucky, by whom he was confirmed, — the Right Reverend Benjamin Bosworth Smith, D.D., — is still liv ing, in his eighty-sixth year, the Presiding Bishop of the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. He was long a neighbor, and always an intimate friend of Mr. Clay, and I have recently had some in teresting anecdotes of the great Kentuckian from the lips of this venerated prelate. He remembers well when Mr. Clay first expressed to him his desire to become a member of the Church, and to be admitted to its ordinances. In relation to his baptism, he remembers that immersion was offered to him, as conformable to the usages of his father's denomination, and not inconsistent with those of the Episcopal Church ; but Mr. Clay replied at once that he had no disposition whatever to stand upon forms, or to deviate in any way from the customs of the Church which 70 HENRY CLAY. he was about to join, and that he preferred to submit himself implicitly to the Bishop's discretion. How far the death of his dear son, Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., at the battle of Buena Vista, a few months before, may have induced Mr. Clay no longer to defer fulfilling the desire he had expressed so many years previously, can be known only to the Searcher of all hearts. But from 1847 he was a communicant of the Episcopal Church, and a frequent worshipper at the Rev. Dr. Butler's Church in Washington, where Webster of Massa chusetts, and Berrien of Georgia, and Badger of North Carolina, and Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, — to name no others, — were to be found at the Communion Table together from time to time. Dr. Butler attended Mr. Clay in his last illness, and published an interesting and impressive account of his partaking of the Lord's Supper a short time before his death. And thus this great American Statesman left an example of faith as well as of patriotism, more precious than all the services he ever rendered, or all the honors he ever enjoyed or coveted. In days like these, when so many influences are in the way of diverting both young and old from religious associations and ordinances, as well as from a just discharge of their political ob ligations, such an example of love of country and of belief in Christianity may well be commended to consideration. I can close this imperfect sketch with nothing more appropri ate than the concluding passage of a Eulogy on Mr. Clay, by his eloquent and admirable colleague in the Senate for some years, afterward the Attorney-General of the United States, John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky, — a kindred spirit, of less ambition, but of hardly inferior power : — " Glorious as his life was, there was nothing that became him like the leaving of it. I saw him frequently during the slow and lingering disease which terminated his life. He was conscious of his approaching end, and prepared to meet it with all the resignation and fortitude of a Christian hero. He was all patience, meekness, and gentleness ; these shone round him like a mild, celestial light, breaking upon him from another world : — " ' And, to add greater honors to his age Than man could give, he died fearing God.' " NOTE. [An extract from the Boston Courier, Wednesday, October 23, 1833.] After welcoming Mr. Clay to Boston in behalf of the Young Men, the Chairman, R. C. Winthrop, Esq., proceeded nearly as follows : " Had you come to us, Sir, clothed with the authority of that high office which it was the fond wish and earnest effort of your fellow- citizens here to bestow upon you, you would have been received with more elaborate ceremonials and a more splendid pageant. But permit me to doubt whether the hearts of the people would have beat higher at your approach than now. Elevated office, Sir, cannot indeed diminish, but it can add nothing to the respect and gratitude which your distin guished public services have been calculated to inspire. The Young Men of Boston have carefully marked your course as long as they have been permitted to be intelligent spectators of human events ; they have traced it back, in the history of the times, to the day when you also were counted among the young men of the country ; and everywhere in your brilliant efforts for the welfare of your fellow-citizens at home, and in your bold and generous policy towards your fellow-men, struggling for freedom, abroad — they have found multiplied sources of national pride as well as of personal respect. " Sir, I am, on this occasion, the organ of no political party. I should violate my duty, did I dwell upon any topic which might interrupt the harmony of our welcome. But can we live in the metropolis of that portion of the country which has been one of the great and successful trial-grounds of the system of domestic industry, and forget who was the author of that system ? The noise of the waterfall and the hum of the spindle are almost audible where we stand, and we cannot but remem ber who gave the earliest effective impetus to their motion. Welcome, Sir, to scenes of prosperity which you have done so much to promote. Welcome to the respect and friendship of a free, intelligent, and grateful people." FIRST SALEM CHURCH .-ANCIENT GRAVE-YARDS.- FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP IN 1649. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1879. Otxr summer vacation is over, Gentlemen, and we resume our regular Monthly Meetings to-day. We have observed pleasant accounts that our First Vice-President, Mr. Adams, had cele brated his golden wedding in the same old home at Quincy, in which his illustrious father and grandfather before him had cel ebrated theirs in successive generations. We have observed, too, that our accomplished associate, Dr. Holmes, had safely passed over into the ranks of the Septuagenarians, where so many of us had preceded him ; and we were all in cordial sympathy with the congratulations and tributes which were showered upon him. We have also received the welcome assurance that our valued Ex-Treasurer, the Historian of Bunker Hill, Richard Frothing- ham, has been gradually recovering his health and strength at Pigeon Cove. Meantime our Resident Roll remains unbroken, and our Recording Secretary has laid on the table this morning a fresh list of our Hundred Members, without an asterisk, and with no vacancy to be filled, together with a new Serial Number of our Proceedings. In all this we find ample cause for satis faction and gratitude. I was recently reminded — in turning over the pages of the First Volume of the early Proceedings of this Society, so carefully edited by our untiring Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Deane — that, at the January Meeting of 1830, a committee was appointed FIRST SALEM CHURCH. 73 to address the City Authorities on the subject of a Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston. At the August Meet ing of the same year, our Standing Committee was empowered " to adopt or concur in such measures as it might be proper for this Society to engage in, relative to the approaching Centennial Celebration." Now the two hundred and fiftieth Anniversary of the Settle ment of Boston will occur on the 17th of September next year, and our City Authorities have already taken some preliminary steps in regard to its commemoration. It may not be thought premature, therefore, that our Council should be authorized to hold any consultation with the City Authorities on the subject which may hereafter be found desirable. Our Salem friends have set us a good example in this respect, — as, indeed, our Plymouth friends always have done. At Salem, in addition to the well-remembered and most appropriate cele bration, last September, of Endicott's arrival, there has recently been a Church commemoration of hardly inferior interest. How far the claim can be sustained, that the organization of the Salem Church was the first Protestant Church organization in Amer ica, — in view of the Church at Plymouth, and the Churches at Jamestown, — must depend on technical terms, or limitations of terms, which have but little substantial importance or interest. But leaving to others all discussion on that point, I am disposed to dwell for a few moments on a matter of history to which this Church commemoration has called attention. A question has been raised as to the influence which the or ganization of this First Salem Church, in 1629, may have had in inducing the transfer of the Government and the coming over of the Massachusetts Company in 1630. It has even been sug gested, in some quarters, that the organization of this Church may have given the impulse to Governor Winthrop and his associates to make the great movement which secured us an independent Massachusetts on this side of the Atlantic. Now if this be so, Salem should have the credit of it ; or rather the First Salem Church, organized under the auspices of Endicott, and under the immediate pastoral care of the Rev. Francis Hig- ginson and the Rev. Samuel Skelton, should have the credit and 74 FIRST SALEM CHURCH. the glory of it. I should be one of the last to withhold anything from them, and I can honestly say that I turned to the investi gation of the subject with something more than a willingness to find some verification of the idea. It would be a pleasant thing to ascertain and establish the fact, that the Massachusetts leaders were either impelled or quickened in their purpose of leaving their homes and native land, and entering on a wilder ness life here, by knowing in advance that here they would find an independent Church established, and would be free to worship God under ordinances and forms already arranged and organized. But dates are the test of historical truth ; and it will be seen, I think, by a comparison of dates, that no knowledge of this most interesting occurrence in the annals of the Plantation at Salem could by any possibility have reached the Massachusetts Company in London, until after their policy and plans had been maturely considered and adopted. The Congregational Church at Salem was organized on the 6th, or according to new style, the 16th, of August, 1629. But Governor Matthew Cradock's original propositions to the Mas sachusetts Company in London, " to transfer the Government," were made on the 28th of July, or, by new style, on the 7th of August, of the same year, — just nine days earlier. On that same 28th of July — or 7th of August, new style — John Winthrop and Emanuel Downing were at Sempringham, in Lincolnshire, on a previously arranged visit to Isaac Johnson and the Lady Arbella, to hold consultation in regard to the pro posed transfer of the Government and of themselves to New England. On the 12th — or 22d, new style — of the same month, Win throp was at Bury St. Edmonds, to hold another consultation on the subject ; and there he received the notable letter of Robert Ryece, the old Suffolk Antiquary, apologizing for not meeting him, and earnestly dissuading him from his design of coming over to a wilderness. On the 21st — or, as we should count it, the 31st — of the same month, John Winthrop, the son, then in his twenty-fourth year, having just arrived in London from a long Oriental tour, FIRST SALEM CHURCH. 75 writes the celebrated letter to his father, acknowledging having received and read " The Conclusions for New England," dedi cating himself to "the service of God and the Company therein," and declaring that " he shall call that his Country, where he may most glorify God, and enjoy the presence of his dearest friends." On the 26th of the same August — or the 5th of September as we should now say — the famous Cambridge Agreement was signed by Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, Isaac John son, John Winthrop, and eight others, which virtually settled the whole question; and only two days afterward, 28th of August, — or 7th of September, new style, — 1629, the Massachusetts Company solemnly voted to remove the Charter and the whole Government to New England. These dates, of themselves, would seem to be sufficiently con clusive. They carry back the public proposal " to transfer the Government " to a day nine days earlier than the organization of the Salem Church, and prove that the proposal was adopted only nineteen days after that organization had taken place. Nobody, I presume, would dream that, in those days of long and infrequent voyages, any communication between the Salem Plantation and the Massachusetts Government in London could have been made in less than twice, or even three times, that number of days. But there is ample evidence of a still earlier purpose — on the part of Governor Winthrop, certainly — to come over to New England. The original draft of his Considerations, or Conclu sions, is. indorsed, " For New England, May, 1629 ; " and his letters to his wife, of May 15 and June 22, 1629, clearly fore shadow the course which he afterward decided to adopt. These were at least three months in advance of the Salem Church, and before even the arrival at Salem of Higginson and Skelton, by whom that Church was founded. Winthrop was not, indeed, elected Governor of Massachusetts, in place of Matthew Cradock, until the 20th (30th) October, 1629. On the 9th (19th) of that month we find him writing to his eldest son and to his wife, and alluding to news which had then just been received from New England. This news, 76 FIRST SALEM CHURCH. according to the late Dr. Alexander Young, in his careful " Chronicles of Massachusetts," was Higginson's account of his voyage and safe arrival, dated 24th July, which was " undoubt edly sent home on the return of the Talbot and Lion's Whelp, which arrived in England before Sept. 19 ; " while " The Relation" of Higginson — which makes a very indirect refer ence, if any at all, to the Church at Salem — was " probably sent by the Four Sisters and Mayflower," which only reached England just before November 20th ; — so long were the voyages in those days, and so infrequent the communications. There is a brief letter from Margaret Winthrop to her husband, the Governor, not dated, but evidently written about the middle of November, 1629, telling him that she had just received a letter from her son John, which brought " good Nuse from Nue E." This good news from New England was undoubtedly, as Dr. Young implies, Higginson's "Relation," with its general account of the religious, as well as personal and social, satisfactions at Salem, which the saintly Margaret would have been sure to welcome and rejoice over with her whole heart. The result of this comparison of dates excludes all idea that the organization of the Church at Salem, interesting and im portant as it was in itself, was in the way of influencing the transfer of the Charter Government, or the coming over of the Massachusetts Company. That great movement resulted plainly from two principal considerations : one of them, that there was thought to be no longer any security for the enjoy ment of either civil or religious freedom in Old England ; and the other, that there could be no assured prosperity and per manence for the Plantation in New England, except from the transfer of the whole Government, and the going over bodily of the principal members of the Massachusetts Company, as the Cambridge agreement specifies, "to inhabit and continue there." These were the considerations and conclusions discussed and pondered upon in Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and Essex counties of Old England, during the whole spring and summer of 1629; and finally approved and adopted by the Massachusetts Com pany at their Court in London, on the 28th of August — or, as we should say, on the 7th of September — of that year. ANCIENT GRAVE-YARDS. 77 It may be interesting for us all to remember to-day, that last Sunday was the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of that great decision of the Massachusetts Company ; and that last Friday, two days before, was the two hundred and fiftieth anni versary of that memorable Agreement at Cambridge, which was the very hinge and pivot of the movement. I ventured to say, in a brief speech at Old Cambridge, in 1874, that if it were still possible to ascertain in what hall or chamber of the ancient Uni versity the conference was held and that Agreement signed, " it would be a sacred spot for every American visitor, and one which might well be marked by some simple memorial tablet." 1 But no clue to that labyrinth has ever been found. Let me only add, before quitting this topic, that the known existence of a colony at Plymouth, and of a church organized, or at least continued, there, may well be supposed to have encouraged the Massachusetts Fathers in their great emigration; and I do not forget John Cotton's parting charge to Winthrop and his associates at Southampton, " that they should take ad vice of them at Plymouth." The Pilgrim Church at Plymouth must alwa3"s be remembered first in the grateful hearts of the sons and daughters of New England. But there is another subject, Gentlemen, to which I desire to call your attention this morning, and which is of more imme diate and pressing concern. You will all have observed the discussions which have recently taken place at the City Hall, in regard to the Grave-yard imme diately under our windows. Proposals have been made for closing it to all future interments. Proposals have also been made for opening a pathway across it, to accommodate those who would pass more directly and easily from Tremont Street to Court Square. And while no proposition has yet been formally offered for doing away with the burial-place altogether, obliterating the ancient graves and tombstones, and leaving the little square open for the erection of buildings of any sort, yet no one can observe the progress of events without feeling, or at least fearing, that this may be the ultimate view of some of those 1 Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches, Vol. III. pp. 319-323. 78 ANCIENT GRAVE- YARDS. who have interested themselves most prominently in the various proposals which have already been actually offered. Indeed, in the Report of the Board of Health of this city, in 1877, we find the following passage : "We believe the time has alreadj' arrived when the cemeteries within the city proper should be closed against further burials, not only as a sanitary measure, but with the view of eventually removing the remains of the bodies which have been buried therein to some more suitable locality in the suburbs." Then follows an estimate of the value of the lands in the Chapel and Granary grounds, — the value of the lot beneath our windows being set down at $300,000. And then the Report proceeds to say : " If they could be sold at this valuation, or be taken by the city for public use, — say, for the ex tension of the City Hall or a Court House, — the amount would purchase a larger tract of land in some outlying district or neighboring town, &c. . . . Sooner or later (it may not be in this or the next generation) the remains of those buried in these cemeteries will be removed, and the ground will be used for other purposes." Such were the conclusions and positive assertions of the Board of Health in 1877, — not, as it will be perceived, on any mere sanitary considerations, but in the line of pecuniary speculation and municipal convenience. Now I need not say that our Society has a twofold interest in this subject. In the first place, as the owners of this building, in which almost all our funds are invested, we cannot fail to perceive that any shutting out of our light and air on our long south western or southern side would be of the most serious detri ment to our estate, and would involve losses which we are quite unable to bear. On this point, however, it is not for me to enlarge. It will be for our Finance Committees, from time to time, to see to it that no encroachment is made on our rights, and no injury done to our property. But, in the second place, we are peculiarly bound, as an Historical Society, to watch over the ancient historical sites of our city, and to make seasonable remonstrance against the unnecessary destruction of its old landmarks. We seem to have been stationed here as the special guardians of this old ANCIENT GRAVE-YARDS. 79 grave-yard. We all know that there is no spot within the limits of Boston more peculiarly associated with the earliest origin and settlement of the town, two hundred and forty-nine years ago, than the square of which what is now called King's Chapel Burial Ground is a part, and which is mainl3r included between School Street and Court Street, and between Tremont and Washington Streets. This is emphatically set forth by our lamented friend, Dr. N. B. Shurtleff, in his " To pographical and Historical Description of Boston," of which the second edition was published as late as 1871, — a few years after he had left the Mayoralty, and only a few years before his own death. He begins his fifty-sixth chapter as follows : " Historically considered, there is no part of the peninsular por tion of Boston that is so rich with antiquarian associations as the large quadrangle which has Court Street for its northerly boundary, Washington Street for its easterly, School Street for its southerly, and Tremont Street for its westerly." There was- an old tradition, — which may or may not have had some foundation, — that Isaac Johnson, the excellent husband of the charming Lady Arbella, had chosen this for his lot. There is, however, no reason for thinking that such a choice, if made, was ever confirmed. Both he and his wife died too early tq have had any distinct relations to Boston. They neither lived here nor were buried here. The earliest authenticated inter ment in this grave-yard is, I believe, that of Governor John Winthrop, in 1649. I have no doubt whatever that Margaret Winthrop, the wife who followed him to New England in 1631, had been buried here in 1647, and that the Governor's remains were laid by the side of hers. Many others, too, may have been buried here, and probably were, before either of them. Dr. Shurtleff cites an original order of the town in 1 642, that " The constables shall, with all convenient speed, take care for fencing in the burying-place." This was the first, and for many years the only, burying-place in Boston, and must, there fore, have had many tenants before the death of Governor Win throp. But there is no stone or record, I believe, so old as the date on the tablet which covers the place of his burial. His must have been a most notable burial at the time, and 80 FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP. the exact place of his interment could not have been mistaken or forgotten, even if it were not marked at the moment. Governor Winthrop died at his residence, in Washington Street, opposite the foot of School Street, on what may be called the Old South Lot, on the 26th of March, — or, as we should now style it, the 5th of April, — 1649. His house was burned up for firewood by the British soldiers, while they were using the Old South Church for their cavalry horses, in 1775. In the parlor of that house, immediately on Winthrop's death, a consultation was held, by the principal persons of the town, as to the ordering of the funeral, " it being the desire of all that in that solemnity it may appear of what precious account and desert he hath been, and how blessed his memorial." These were the words used by John Wilson and John Cotton, the ministers, and Governor Bellingham and John Clark, in the letter which they at once despatched b3' Nahawton, a trusty and swift Indian messenger, to the Governor's eldest son, at Pequod, informing him that the funeral would take place on the 3d of the next month, — which would be, according to new style, the 13th of April, — and desiring his presence on the occasion. That 13th of April, 1649, must have witnessed a memorable gathering on the spot which these windows of ours now look out upon. It requires no stretch of imagination to depict the scene when the old Father of the town and colony, who had brought over the Charter of Massachusetts, as the first full Gov ernor, nineteen years before, and who had held the office of Governor, with the exception of four or five years, during the whole period, was borne at last, as Governor, to his grave. Dudley, then deputy-governor, Endicott, Bellingham, and Brad street must certainly have been there. John Cotton, John Wilson, Thomas Shepard, and the revered John Eliot, among the clergy, could not fail to have been present ; and the latter may have been attended by a group of the Indians, to whom he was the apostle, and whom Winthrop had uniformly befriended during his life. There is an old family record of one of the Pequod sagamores coming to Boston at the time, and exclaim ing, " He is alive ! he is alive ! " on seeing the Governor's por- FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP. 81 trait in the parlor. Increase Nowell, the old secretary, and John Clark were doubtless there, with Winthrop the younger, from Connecticut. Possibly Bradford, or some of the Pilgrims, may have come from Plymouth, and may have given Morton his account of the " great solemnity and honor " of the occasion. The artillery officers — probably what is now known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, whose charter had been signed by Winthrop in 1638 — are recorded as having been present, and as having taken the responsibility of using a barrel and a half of the colony powder, without leave, for fune ral salutes ; for which the colony indemnified them at the next meeting of the General Court, as we find by the following record : — "Whereas the Surveyor General, on some encouragements, lent one barrel & a half of the country's store of powder to the Artillery Officers of Boston, conditionally, if the General Court did not allow it to them as a gift to spend it at the funeral of our late honored Governor, they should repay it, the powder being spent on the occasion above said, — the Court doth think meet that the powder so delivered should never be required again, and thankfully acknowledge Boston's great, worthy, due love, and respects to the late honoured Governor, which they manifested in solemnizing his funeral, whom we accounted worthy of all honor." 1 There were no religious services or sermons at funerals at that period of our colonial history. Indeed, Dr. Shurtleff states, — incredible as it may seem, — that the first prayer at a funeral in Boston was as late as 1766, and the first , uneral ser mon as late as 1783 ! 3 John Cotton preached a sermon on Winthrop, on a special fast held by the church during his ill ness, of which we have a few extracts only. But funeral ser mons of old, as nowadays, were preached on the Sunday after 1 An ancient family-record says : — " When old Gov* Winthrop was buried, ye Regiments of Souldiers in ye severall Counties marcht to Boston to wait upon his hearse. So much was he lov'd & hon'red by every one in y« Country, & so greatly Lamented, yt y? people voluntarily came long journeys to attend upon his hearse with mournfull obsequies, elegies, &c. Every Souldier having black ribbons fastened upon yr musquets, pikes, &c." 2 The singular mistake of Dr. Shurtleff was reserved for explanation and cor rection to another occasion. See Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1879. 6 82 FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP. the interment. No religious exercises were needed, however, to make the occasion a solemn one. Hutchinson, who had ac cess to all the contemporary records, speaks of " the general grief through the colony ; " and it is easy to picture to our selves the authorities and the people of the town and the neigh borhood assembling at the Governor's house, and following the corpse, borne by loving hands, — for there were no hearses, properly so called, in those days, — to the tomb or grave, which it is now proposed in some quarters to desecrate and do away. In the same tomb or grave, by a striking coincidence, were afterward buried the Governor's eldest son, John Winthrop, then Governor of Connecticut, in 1676, and his two sons, Fitz-John Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut, in 1707, and Wait-Still Winthrop, Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, in 1717. It was on this last burial that old Cotton Mather wrote the extraordinary and extravagant Latin epitaph, containing the line, " Palatium est hic locus, non tumulus." I have alluded to this Winthrop tomb first, because it came first in order of date. But there are other tombs in this old grave-yard, of not inferior interest : that of " the famous rever end and learned pastors of the First Church of Christ," includ ing John Cotton and John Davenport; that of the Boston Winslows, including Mar3T Chilton, the wife of one of them, who was said to have been the first to leap ashore from the pil grim "Mayflower" at Plymouth Rock; that of Governor Lev- erett ; that of Major Thomas Savage, one of the most gallant commanders in King Philip's War; those of Captain Roger Clap, of Deacon William Paddy — " blessed William Paddy," as Mr. Savage was so fond of calling him ; of Thomas Brattle, the eminent merchant ; and of Colonel Thomas Dawes, the lead ing mechanic of his time, — all men famous in their day and generation. There are many other names, as I hardly need to say, to be found on these old tombstones, and worthy to be recalled in this connection: Brinleys and Bromfields, Bulfinches and Coolidges, Brimmers and Apthorps, Pittses and Lindalls, Joneses and Melvilles, Phillipses and Salisburys, Sewalls and Storers ; not forgetting the name of Oliver Wendell, in behalf FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP. 83 of whose tomb so admirable a letter has been published from his distinguished descendant and namesake, our associate, the poet Holmes ; nor yet forgetting that a second Winthrop tomb contains the dust of the eminent philosopher and patriot, Pro fessor John Winthrop, a leading mind of Harvard University for forty years, the friend of Franklin and the correspondent of John Adams. Let me add that I have felt the more impelled to speak particularly of these Winthrop tombs, because, during the de bate in the Common Council, it was observed that " if any of Governor Winthrop's descendants were about," it seemed rather singular that they did not come forward three years ago, and remonstrate against anything of this kind. But I may be pardoned for saying that, in my humble judgment, this is by no means a mere question for the descendants of anybody. Its interest reaches far beyond any personal sentiment or family pride. It is, indeed, hardly too much to say of it, that it is very much such a question as it would be in Florence or Pisa, if it were proposed to infringe upon the Campo Santo of either of them ; or, as it would be in London, if plans were offered for cutting off a piece of Westminster Abbey to open a path way or widen a street. This time-honored Grave-yard goes back in history a hundred years behind the Old South or Faneuil Hall, and is, as I have said, the most historical and sacred spot within our limits. I care very little personally whether any further interments shall be allowed in the old tombs, though I had always relied on having a resting-place in the sepulchre of n^ ancestors, where my father and mother were also buried. I am quite willing, however, to forego such a privilege, -and to be remitted in due time to my lot at Mt. Auburn. But the Grave-yard itself should be kept and cared for as the very apple of the city's eye. It should be made an ornament to the city, and not left as an eyesore. It should be preserved, as by a solemn conse cration, for all generations. It might well be adorned and in scribed, so as to attract the observation of our children and of strangers,1 and might even claim some recognition on a Dec- 1 Through the agency of the late Mayor, Dr. Samuel A. Green, bronze tablets 84 FUNERAL OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP. oration Day, or on the Anniversary of the Settlement of Boston. At all events, it should be preserved as long as Boston has an anniversary to celebrate, or a name to live in the annals of our land. One might almost be tempted to adopt, in the way of remonstrance and warning against any alienation or obliteration of such a " God's Acre," the familiar lines on the tomb of Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon : — " Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here : Blest be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones." The First Fathers of New England, who sleep in these graves, were compatriots and contemporaries of Shakespeare ; and though they built no lofty rhymes or immortal dramas, they founded a City and a Commonwealth, which will hardly be disposed to bring upon themselves the reproach of having allowed such graves to be desecrated. I have not thought it important or desirable that our Society should interpose any objection to the closing of these tombs against further interments. That proposal may well be decided upon with sole reference to sanitary considerations. Perhaps,. too, the idea of secularizing and selling, or using the ground for other purposes, may be abandoned, for the present at least, without any action of ours ; but I hope that our Council may henceforth have standing instructions to remonstrate and pro test seasonably, should any such vandalism be seriously under taken, now or hereafter. I should be quite willing to include the old Granary Bury- ing-ground in the same instruction, where the remains of so many of the Huguenots, and so many of the patriots and gov ernors of the Revolutionary period repose : Peter Faneuil, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Bowdoin, James Sullivan, and Christopher Gore, — our first two presidents, — Dr. Jeremy Belknap, — our founder, — Governor Sumner, the victims of the Boston Massacre, the father and mother of Franklin, with at least one of our earlier governors, Richard Bellingham. have now (1883) been placed on the gateways of this and all our other city grave yards, inscribed with the names of the distinguished persons buried in them. BENJAMIN ROBERT WINTHROP. 85 Both these little squares belong to history. Both should be preserved inviolate, and reverently cared for. Both might well be the subject of legislative protection.1 Both should be made to serve for the health and beauty of our city, while they per petuate the remembrance of those who have done honor to it in succeeding generations. But the Grave-yard immediately under these windows, the old, original burying-place of the founders of the city, seems peculiarly and primarily to appeal to the guardianship of this Society ; and I have therefore con fined myself mainly to the considerations which pertained to it. I will say no more about either of them on this occasion. Before closing these introductory remarks, however, I must not omit to allude briefly to the death of our late Corresponding Member, Benjamin Robert Winthrop, Esq., of New York, whose name has been on our rolls for the last twenty years. Mr. Winthrop, on his father's side, was a lineal descendant of the old first Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts ; while, on his mother's side, he was a lineal descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New Netherlands. He was born in the city of New York, on the 18th of June, 1804, and entered early into mercantile pursuits, being associated, in the banking- house of the well-remembered Jacob Barker, with Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, for whom he had the most affectionate regard, and with whom he was on terms of great intimacy till Halleck's death. Mr. Winthrop was a man of large means and of a liberal spirit, of great intelligence and the highest integrity. He took a per sonal and active interest in not a few of the most important re ligious and charitable institutions in the city of his birth. He was for a long time the vice-president of the New York Histor ical Society, and always manifested an earnest concern for its prosperity and welfare ; but for the last ten years he has re sided in Paris, with his family, making only occasional visits, for business purposes, to his native land. I saw him in New York about the end of last April, and he gave me some hope of being 1 An Act of the Legislature, for this purpose, has since been obtained, through the intervention of Judge Hoar and Mr. H. Cabot Lodge. 86 THE WASHINGTON CHAIR. here at our May meeting; but his health was already en feebled, and he was only able to cross the ocean and reach London, on his way to Paris, before the final summons came. He died there, on the 26th of July last, in the 76th year of his age, and was buried in the old Stuyvesant church-yard of, St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery, at New York, on the 20th of August. An admirable tribute to his memory, from the pen of his friend, Dr. George H. Moore, of the Lenox Library, one of our valued Corresponding Members, appeared in " Harper's Weekly," of September 6, with a speaking likeness of him. Our Society owes to Mr. Winthrop's kindness the large Washington chair, in which we all remember the venerable President Quincy as sitting at more than one of our meetings, not long before his death. There is a fine wood-cut of this chair, furnished by Mr. Winthrop, at his own cost, for our first pub lished volume of Proceedings, which will soon be permanently numbered Volume Third. With it, there is au interesting letter from him, giving an account not only of the chair, but of the house from one of the timbers of which it was made ; and of the old Stuyvesant Bowenr, at the end of which the house stood, when Washington took his first oath as President of the United States, administered by John Jay, and returned to it as his residence. It happened that I was walking through Franklin Square with my cousin, about the year 1854 or 1855, when he ex claimed : " There they are, demolishing the old Walter Frank lin house, where Washington, after he was inaugurated, lived as first President of the United States." "Pra3r, save some of the pieces," I replied, "for historical memorials." During the following year (1856) this noble chair for our Society, with one exactly like it for the New York Historical Society, and with two smaller ones for me and himself, were forthcoming from the oak beam which he had fortunately rescued from the materials of that interesting mansion. I hope that our Cabinet-keeper will now brighten up the little inscription plate on the chair, so that it may always be associa ted with the name of its giver, whose memory could hardly be more agreeably perpetuated in our Library. SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. -DEATH OF GENERAL RICHARD TAYLOR. ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OP THE TRUSTEES OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND, OCTOBER 1, 1879. Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund : We may well congratulate ourselves on having secured a quo rum for business this morning. President Hayes, as he re cently wrote me, had inadvertently made engagements which would not allow him to be with us. General Grant, whom we should gladly have welcomed on his return from his memorable tour, has only reached San Francisco. Governor Aiken, of South Carolina, has been kept at home by domestic affliction. Mr. Riggs is unable to leave Washington, by reason of ill health and engrossing occupation. And General Jackson, of Georgia, while on his way to join us, has been called back to Atlanta, by important professional business in the courts. Meantime, however, Mr. George Peabody Russell has happily arrived from England in season to resume his place as Secretary of the Board, and he will unite with us in offering our grateful acknowledgments to Colonel Lyman, who has served us so obligingly, for two years past, as Secretary pro tern. You will pardon me, I am sure, for detaining you for a few moments longer from the satisfaction of listening to the Annual Report of our General Agent. His own welcome presence, in unabated health and strength, affords the best assurance that our work is not in the way of being slighted. I rejoice to know 88 SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. that you will find ample evidence, in his Report, that the Trust committed to our charge has been faithfully and successfully administered for another year, and has furnished renewed cause for the most grateful remembrance of its illustrious founder. I will not anticipate the encouraging statements of Dr. Sears as to the interest which has been manifested, in so many of the Southern States, in the policy we have recently adopted of de voting the larger part of the income of our Fund to the promo tion of Normal Schools, and to the establishment of scholarships in connection with them. Indeed, the great want of trained teachers has at last been felt and recognized in all the States within the sphere of our operations, and there is an evident eagerness to unite with us in supplying that want. Having employed our means mainly, during the twelve years since our organization, in the more general interest of common- school education, and having thus accomplished our primary purpose, in awakening the attention of the Southern States to that subject, and in exhibiting model schools, in many of their cities and towns, as examples and incentives, we may well feel safe, as Dr. Sears suggests, in leaving that part of our work in the hands of the people to whom it is a matter of such imme diate and vital concern. If, in the course of our second twelve years, we shall have met with equal success in making provi sion for raising the standard of common-school education, by the professional training of teachers, and by planting Normal schools and colleges for this purpose, wherever they are wanted, the closing years of our Trust may, perhaps, find some new field open for those who may then be in the way of carrying on the work committed to this Board. Meantime, however, it cannot fail to be a subject of deep concern with us all, that so considerable a shrinkage of our in come has resulted from the reduction of interest on our United States Government Bonds, and from the changes, which have been enforced on our Treasurer, in many of our State securities. Had the just and confident expectations of Mr. Peabody in re gard to our Mississippi Bonds been fulfilled, and had our other trust-funds continued to give us the same returns which they yielded when we received them from his hands, we could read- SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. 89 ily employ a part of our income, to the greatest advantage at this moment, in a more direct attempt to provide for the season able instruction of those masses of children, and particularly of colored children, who are growing up to be voters, without the slightest preparation for an intelligent exercise of the great franchise of freemen. There is nothing in the immediate condition and prospects of our country which calls more emphatically for consideration and action, than this state of things in so many of the Southern States. Nor is it by any means a concern of the Southern States only. It is a National necessity, of the highest exigency, that something should be done, without delay, to qualify, for its intelligent discharge, those on whom the elective franchise, for better or worse, has been bestowed by one of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Our free institutions rest upon intelligence and virtue, and can survive almost any thing except ignorance, and the vice, corruption, and violence which are so generally the results of ignorance. But glad as we might be to occupy this special field, if our funds were rendered adequate by any public or private endow ment, we are compelled to leave it to others, and we can only invoke for it the serious consideration of the authorities and of the people, both of the States and of the Nation. In view of a necessity so pressing and imperative, one can find something more and better than poetry in that fervid ex clamation of Wordsworth, which Matthew Arnold has somewhat strangely made the subject of ridicule : — " Oh for the coming of that glorious time, When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth And best protection, this Imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation, on her part, to teach Them who are born to serve her and obey ; Binding herself by statute to secure, For all the children whom her soil maintains, The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religious truth ! " Attention was called to this subject by our General Agent two years ago, and he has given renewed expression, in the 90 DEATH OF GENERAL RICHARD TAYLOR. present Report, to the views which he entertains in relation to it. If the Board shall concur in those views, — as I cannot doubt they will, and as I most heartily do myself, — this meeting will hardly be allowed to pass away without some formal expression on the subject, which may be communicated to the Government at Washington. We all regret the necessary absence, on this occasion, of our associate member, the President of the United States, whose advice and counsel on such a matter, if he felt at liberty to give them, would be of the highest interest and im portance ; but we can have no doubt of his hearty concurrence in any Constitutional measures for promoting the great cause of universal education. And now, Gentlemen, I may not omit to remind 3rou of the loss which our little Board has sustained since our last Annual Meeting. It is reserved for but few men to be the subject of a warmer personal regard than was enjoyed, in the hearts of us all, by General Richard Taylor. Some of us had known him, more or less, as a very young man, when — having been prepared for college, partly in Edinburgh, aud partly in Lancaster, Massachu setts, and having finished his course at Yale — he had joined his gallant and noble-hearted father as an aide-de-camp in the Mexican War, and afterwards as an assistant private secretary in the Executive Mansion at Washington. As the son of a President of the United States, he had an early experience of the temptations and flatteries which proverbially surround those who are associated with the bestowment of office and patronage ; but the lamented death of his father, while only in the second year of his Presidential term, threw him back on his own re sources, leaving him to the management of the large estate to which he then succeeded. Not long after this event he entered into political life, and served for four 3-ears as a member of the Senate of Louisiana. Of his later career, it is enough for me to say here that, during the Civil War, having espoused the side of the State and section to which he belonged, he displa3red con spicuous energy and courage, as Colonel, Brigadier-General, and Lieutenant-General of the Confederate Army ; and that, when the war was ended, he submitted to its results, in the loss DEATH OF GENERAL RICHARD TAYLOR. 91 of position and of property, as bravely as he had borne its burdens and perils. Elected a member of this Board in February, 1871, as the successor of the late Mr. Bradford of New Orleans, he entered heartily into our work, took an active part in many of our dis cussions, and was often the life of our little social circle. His latest service here, just before our adjournment in October last, was to introduce a graceful tribute of gratitude to the North, for the sympathy and succor which had been extended to the South during the prevalence of the yellow- fever. General Taylor was a man of many accomplishments, of ele gant address, of great intellectual quickness, a favorite alike in courtly circles abroad and in popular circles at home, full of in formation and anecdote, and ready both with tongue and pen in describing his adventures and experiences. If anything of per sonal or sectional bitterness has been found in the somewhat sensational volume which he published just before his death, it will be forgiven and forgotten to-day, in view of the sad and sudden termination of a life of such varied fortune, and which promised so much usefulness in the future. He died in this city, after only a few weeks of serious illness, at the home of his devoted friend Mr. Barlow, — which had be come almost a second home to him, — on the 12th of April last, in the fifty-third year of his age, and several of our number had the melancholy privilege of acting as pall-bearers at his funeral. Before concluding these introductory remarks, I may take occasion to present to the Board the gold medal which was awarded to us at the great Paris Exposition of 1877, and which was sent to me, a few months since, by the Hon. Richard McCor mick, the American Commissioner-General to that Exposition. It is for the Board to decide what disposition shall be made of this medal, and of the diploma which accompanied it. The honor for all we have accomplished belongs to Dr. Sears ; but I believe I shall have his hearty concurrence in suggesting that these trophies of his untiring efforts should be deposited in the fire proof cabinet at Peabody, the birthplace of our founder, where the portrait of Queen Victoria, presented to him by herself, the 92 DEATH OF GENERAL RICHARD TAYLOR. gold medal given to him by the Congress of the United States, and the gold box which accompanied his admission to the Freedom of the City of London, together with other precious memorials, were arranged with so much care, during his life time, and at his own request. BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION. ADDRESS ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE PRESIDENCY AFTER TWENTY- FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE, OCTOBER 8, 1879. I AM greatly honored and obliged, my friends, by the abun dant compliments paid me in the Annual Report which has just been read, as well as by the Resolution which immediately fol lowed it, and I pray you all to accept my most grateful acknowledgments. I took occasion, many months ago, to signify to the Managers that I must positively decline another re-election as President of this Association. Indeed, your Executive Committee will bear me witness that I have repeatedly tendered my resignation in former years, and have continued to hold the office so long, only in deference to their earnest appeals. But a service of twenty-five years is now completed, and has fairly entitled me to a release. While, therefore, I shall retain my membership as long as I live, and shall take pleasure in contributing to your treasury, as heretofore, and in rendering you any other aid in my power, I have come here this afternoon only to preside once more at your Annual Meeting, and to welcome to the chair whomsoever you shall have chosen as my successor. But, before inviting you to proceed to an election, I may be pardoned for a few parting words. I have already been called on, since our working-season began last October, to review the history and operations of this Association at some length, and to refer to some of those with whom I was connected in its original foundation. As your Executive Committee have 94 BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION. thought fit to incorporate that Statement1 into their Annual Re port, and thus to give it a permanent place in our records, I need not repeat what it contained. I should be wanting, how ever, in justice both to the dead and the living, if I did not avail myself of this opportunity to make some personal allusions which found no place in that paper. I need hardly say that of those whom I have been accus tomed to meet here, from month to month, during so long a period, I miss not a few. The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Peabody — pre-eminently the founder of the institution — and the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, its earliest President, have long been beyond the reach of our acknowledgments. But I am glad to remem ber that the Rev. Dr. Blagden, who immediately preceded me in the chair for a single year, is still among us, and it gives me peculiar satisfaction to welcome his presence on this occasion, as well as that of our senior Vice-President, Dr. Lothrop. Meantime, of our General Agents, on whom the chief burden of our work has fallen, Mr. Frederick R. Woodward, Mr. Calvin Whiting, and the Rev. John Turner Sargent have passed away. I recall them all with gratitude. But we may not forget that Dr. William R. Lawrence was the original General Agent, in 1851, and is entitled to a grateful mention for a year of volun tary and most valuable service. Nor must I omit to express oui deep indebtedness to our venerable friend Captain Goodwin, who was chosen in 1859, and to his faithful Assistant, Miss Nesbitt, who entered even earlier into our service, as well as to Mr. Edward Frothingham, our present General Agent. I can only bear testimony to the fidelity and devotion of their labors, and thank them, personally and officially, for the untiring efforts they have made to give success to our work. But I cannot forget that when I yielded, at the outset, to Dr. Peabody's request, that I would take charge of the Institution in which he was so greatly interested to the end of his life, he promised me that I should always have the aid of his friend, and my friend, Mr. Francis E. Parker ; and that promise has been fulfilled to the letter. He has been the chairman of our Executive Committee since our very first organization, and no 1 See Note at the end of this Address. BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION. 95 one has rendered us more efficient service during the whole period. He withdraws with me now from the duties he has so long and faithfully discharged, and I am glad that the Annual Report, which had been in great part prepared by himself before his departure for Europe, was not suffered to pass from its final revision without the insertion, by another hand, of a just recognition of his devotion to the great cause in which we are engaged. We have had man3r trying times, my friends, in the prose cution of our work during a quarter of a century past, — times of pecuniary embarrassment, when we hardly knew how, from week to week, to obtain the means of meeting our expendi tures ; time of civil war, when special interpositions were often demanded for the relief of some of those whom the incidents of that unhappy conflict had brought within our reach ; times of public calamity, when great conflagrations had deprived hun dreds of our fellow-citizens of their homes and clothing ; times of catastrophe on the ocean, too, bringing throngs of ship wrecked mariners to be the subjects of our solicitude and suc cor. These, however, were exceptional cases, while the regular operations of the Association, in providing for the poor always at our own doors, have been quite sufficient to occupy our Officers and Visitors. To those Visitors — some of whom, like our veteran, octogenarian Visitor, Mr. Samuel Condon, have been in our service almost from the very beginning — we are indebted for the main success of our efforts, and their general fidelity and vigilance cannot be too highly commended. Our best thanks are due to them all. And now, my friends, I rejoice to reflect that, during the long period of my official connection with this Association, we have gained new measures of the public confidence and support from year to year ; that our invested funds have been steadily increased by liberal donations and bequests ; and that, by the favor of the City, at our original entreaty, we have secured a commodious and permanent home for ourselves, and for other kindred societies, in this noble Charity Bureau. Nothing remains for those who shall succeed to the management of our affairs but to hold fast to the policy which has been so 96 BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION. thoroughly tried and tested ; enlisting a larger corps of Visitors, if they can anyhow find them ; securing, if possible, a greater number of annual subscribers ; and cheerfully co-operating with all who may be engaged in the same philanthropic work with themselves. For myself, I can honestly say, in taking leave of you as Presi dent, that in no office which I have ever been privileged to bold have I enjoyed a more heartfelt satisfaction, or been conscious of more usefulness to my fellow-men ; and the last relations in which I would willingly be forgotten hereafter are those which I have so long sustained, here and elsewhere, to the Poor of my native City. NOTE. EXTRACT FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOSTON PROVIDENT ASSOCIATION, OCTOBER, 1879. During the early part of the present year our Society was called upon to unite in the organization of a new Society, under the name of the Associated Charities of Boston, and a conference was held between the Committee of that Society and the Managers of our own Association on the subject. At that conference our President, Mr. Winthrop, made a careful statement of the origin and operations of this Association, with the view of showing that the precise objects of the new Society were originally contemplated by the founders of the Boston Provident Association, and that they had been pursued and prosecuted, during its whole existence of twenty-eight years, to the extent of its ability and means. The new Society has since been organized, and our Officers have cheerfully co-operated with it in every way in their power, consistent with their own work. Our best wishes are with all who are engaged in the great cause of charitable relief in our City. But for the purpose of preserving and perpetuating the record of our history, as given by one who has been associated with it from the beginning, and as approved and adopted by our Managers, we here insert THE STATEMENT OF MR. WINTHROP. I received, Gentlemen, some weeks ago, from my friend the Hon. Martin Brimmer, one of the Vice-Presidents of our Society, and one of its most constant and liberal supporters, a copy, in .print, of the Pro posed Form of Constitution of a new charitable organization, with the request that it should be brought before the Managers of this Associa tion at their earliest meeting. 7 98 NOTE. Mr. Brimmer's note very kindly invited my consideration of the plan, and expressed an earnest wish for the concurrence of our Association in the measure proposed. In bringing it to the attention of the Board, at this first meeting since the note of Mr. Brimmer was received, I feel bound to offer a few sug gestions on the subject. The interests and welfare of the poor are paramount to all other considerations, and if there be a good hope that the charitable work of our City can be more successfully carried on by such a new organiza tion, there is not one of us, I am sure, who would willingly discour age it, even by the expression of a doubt. We are all ready to give our God-speed to every effort for improving the management of our pauper system ; and this particular scheme comes to us with the appro bation and indorsement of so many excellent men and women, that we cannot fail to recognize it as entitled to the highest and most respectful attention. But I cannot help feeling that we owe something to our own Associa tion, and to the enlightened views of those, both of the dead and of the living, by whom it was founded. Before this new organization shall have been adopted and put in operation, I desire at least to do justice to the memories of some of the wise and benevolent men with whom I had the privilege of being associated in the original establishment of this institution. ¦ Indeed, the repeated aud careful reading of this Proposed Form of Constitution has carried me irresistibly back nearly twenty-seven years to a meeting held on the 29th of December, 1851, in the vestry of Park Street Church, over which I had the honor to preside, when the late Rev. Dr. Ephraim Peabody, of King's Chapel, submitted the draft of the Constitution and By-Laws of this Association, which were adopted ; and when the late Hon. Samuel A. Eliot was elected our first President, and Dr. (now Bishop) Huntington, Dr. Blagden, Dr. Charles Mason, aDd others, Vice-Presidents. The Proceedings of that meeting are still extant in a little printed pamphlet ; and I think there is no one who could candidly compare this proposed printed Form of Constitution with those Proceedings, and with the Reports of our Association by which they have been followed, without admitting that they cover the same identical ground, without a perceptible difference of addition or subtraction. There is, indeed, a variation from our old machinery, in the creation, by the new Constitution, of a large Board of Supervisors, in which our Asso ciation is invited to have a representative ; but, sp far as the provisions of the new Constitution pertain to the practical relief of the poor, I have not been able to discover a single point which is not substan- NOTE. 99 tially and almost literally contemplated and provided for by our own Constitution and By-Laws. The personal visits, the careful investigation, the complete registration of every applicant, the co-operation with all other charitable societies or agencies, the discouragement of street-beggars, the detection and exposure of impostors, the full relief of the worthy and deserving poor wherever their wants are made known, — these were the very provisions which Dr. Peabody and Mr. Eliot, with our excellent associate, the Hon. Francis E. Parker, and others, arranged and advocated as the primary and fun damental principles of our institution, and they have been adhered to and acted on from that time to this. Our books, open to all, will show what we have done in the way of registration. Our Reports, from year to year, will show what has been done by our Visitors. And this very building, erected upon our original proposal and petition to the City Government, designed for the common occupation of all charitable agencies, and actually occupied by most of the principal ones, will show how earnestly we have aimed at co-operation. Indeed, this building itself might well have been inscribed " The Associated Charities of Boston." That was its object, and for that it has been arranged and occupied. I am not disposed to boast of what we have accomplished. But hav ing been President of the Association for twenty-four years out of the twenty-seven of its existence ; having watched over its operations with vigilance, attending every meeting of the Managers, when absence from the country or from home did not render it impossible ; having examined all its Reports, and written not a few of them myself, — I cannot omit this opportunity to bear witness to the fidelity of our Executive Commit tees, and of our successive General Agents, during all this period, and to the untiring labors of many of our visitors. Our field is a wide one, and we may not always have filled it. Our pecuniary means have often been insufficient. I have known more than one year when our expenditures have far exceeded our annual income, and when we have gone on spending, — in the faith, which was never in vain, that the liberality of our fellow-citizens would still come to our aid. And it did come to our aid. For myself, therefore, I frankly avow that I see no necessity for a new Association, which is only to add another to the already too numerous agencies for the poor, and that I see nothing valuable in the Proposed Form of Constitution which has not been anticipated and provided for by the Constitution which Dr. Peabody and Mr. Eliot so carefully drafted for this Association, and which met the cordial approbation and support 100 NOTE. of such philanthropists as Theodore Parker, and John T. Sargent, and Moses Grant, and Albert Fearing, and good Dr. Wells, and Father Cleveland, and Dr. Andrew Bigelow, as long as they lived. I could have hoped that the very signers of this proposal might rather have united with us for a more efficient prosecution of our work. I need not say how heartily they would be welcomed, and how gladly I should see one of them occupying the place which I must soon vacate. This is certainly my last year of service, when a quarter of a century, since I entered on the presidency at the urgent request of my friend Dr. Peabody, will have been completed. Under new auspices and officers, perhaps, our old society might be rendered more effective, and any improvements in its system might be easily engrafted upon it. A more complete registration may be accom plished. A larger corps of Visitors may be enlisted. A more perfect co-operation may be secured. New methods of relief may be devised, and our system, if it be found wise, may be stretched over the recently annexed parts of our City. But with vested funds already sufficient to defray all its incidental expenses, and with the experience of more than a quarter of a century in the practical care of the poor of Boston, this old Provident Association certainly presents a nucleus, if nothing more, around which could be gathered all the best results of later wisdom in providing for the administration of charity iu our City. It was recog nized and imitated long ago in England,1 as well as in other parts of our own country, as furnishing a model for such institutions, and it has enjoyed the confidence and support of our own community. Its work cannot be ignored or disparaged without injustice to hundreds of faithful Visitors, to whose services I take pleasure in bearing witness. Not less than two hundred and fifty thousand personal visits to the poor have been made under the direction of this Society since its original or ganization, while more than four hundred thousand dollars have passed through our treasury for charitable relief. Nor can this work cease to be prosecuted, whatever new organizations may enter upon the field which we have so long been privileged to occupy. We can only repeat our regrets that, instead of multiplying societies, at the risk of distracting the efforts of charitable people, and of dividing the contributions which have never been more than sufficient, the excellent proposers of this new Association would not co-operate with this old Society, and help to carry it forward to larger success in the noble cause to which it was consecrated by so many wise and good men. 1 See article from MacMillan's Magazine, by James Bryce, M. P., in Littell'a Living Age, Jan. 27, 1872. NOTE. 101 Let me not however presume to judge for others. The ladies and gentlemen whose names are affixed to this paper are eminently capable of a wise and just decision, and we can receive that decision with nothing but acquiescence and respect. They will have our cordial good wishes in whatever they may undertake. The interests of the poor, as I began by saying, are paramount to all other considerations, and must be implicitly regarded. We pretend to no monopoly in the ministration to the needy. Many other societies, besides our own, have been long in existence, and have rendered invaluable service in the cause. We gratefully acknowl edge their co-operation and devotion. But before the new organization shall have adopted and promulgated its Constitution, I have felt it incumbent on me, as the organ of this Asso ciation, and as one who has been connected with it from its smallest be ginnings, to put on record this tribute of justice to its founders, as having been the original reformers of our Boston charitable system, on the same precise principles which are now advanced for our consideration and concurrence, as if they were something new. I trust we shall offer no obstacles or opposition to such a movement from such a source, while we reserve for further deliberation the question of taking part in so multitu dinous a Board of Supervisors. We have to regret — and it is a subject of profound regret — that, in accordance with the purpose expressed in the foregoing Statement, Mr. Winthrop declines a re-election as President of our Association. For twenty-five years he has been the head of it, not in name only but in fact. Though not our first President, he was elected to that office early in the history of our Society, and during the life of its founder, the Rev. Ephraim Peabody, D.D. He brought to us not only - the respect due to eminent national services, and an honored name, but the power of organization and skill in administration which were natural to his character, and had been matured by experience of weighty and con spicuous public affairs. His constant and punctual presence at our meet ings has added both despatch and dignity to the transaction of our business. His name has brought to us the most important of the legacies which we have received; and it is within bounds to say that, for the generous endowment of our Association, including the large reversionary interest in Mr. Eastburn's estate, we are as much indebted to him as if it had been his direct gift. It is to his influence and exertion, more than to any one cause, that the public owes the ample and commodious build ing which, as a general Bureau of Charity, now shelters many of the principal Associations of Boston. As the first Chairman of the Overseers 102 NOTE. of the Poor, under the new organization, he did more than any other person to shape that important charity, and to bring it into harmony with our own. In the history of Mr. Winthrop's life other places and other duties have attracted more attention, and will hereafter, perhaps, be considered as having called into exercise rarer and more brilliant qualities. These will have their record in the history of the Country and of the State. But the future historian of Boston can never pass by the important ser vices which Mr. Winthrop has rendered to its charities. After a careful observation of so many years, it is with feeling as well as with honest respect that we record our sense of them. It is a satisfaction to know that the warm and heartfelt expressions of this Report will find -their place among our archives. The Rev. Dr. S. K. Lothrop, Senior Vice-President, was then called to the chair, and addressed Mr. "Winthrop as follows : REMARKS OF DR. LOTHROP. I desire to say, Sir, that we cannot let you depart without a single word in response to your farewell remarks. For myself I wish to say — and I am certain I may say it in behalf of us who are here present, and in the name and behalf of all the members and friends of the Boston Provident Association — that, while we cherish a high respect for the gentleman whom we have just chosen to be your successor, and are con fident that he will bring to the office an ability and fidelity that will ensure success, we cannot forbear to express our deep personal regret at the resig nation which we have felt constrained to accept. We admit, Sir, that after twenty-five years of such faithful, untiring, and efficient service as you have rendered to us in this office, you had a perfect right to ask to be re lieved ; yet it is none the less painful to have you leave us. You allude very properly, to the fidelity of several prominent officers who have for many years been associated with you on the Board of Managers ; but you do not say, neither can we, bow much that fidelity drew its inspiration from your example and influence. Certain it is that we, your associates here to-day, owe you much, — that this Association, that the poor of this City, for whose comfort and relief it aims to provide, owe you much for your twenty-five years of signal fidelity in this office. Your career in it has been distinctly marked by an honorable quality that I have always observed and admired in you. I have had the happiness to know you and to be pretty intimate with you for more than fifty years, ever since NOTE. 103 we were in college together in 1824 and 1825 ; and, looking back upon these years, I think I may say that, wherever and whenever you have assumed any office, you have not permitted yourself to shirk its duties or perform them in a pro forma or perfunctory manner, but have discharged them diligently, punctually, faithfully, with spirit and earnestness, in the very best way in which they could be discharged. This I think was characteristic of you even as President of a college club ; and it has been characteristic of you in every office, however humble or exalted, you have since held. Certain it is that the Records of our Association, and the walls of this room, bear ample testimony to the fact that this has been your characteristic in the office you this day resign. And what could be said more to your honor ? You have filled a large place in public and private life in this City ; you have held distinguished political positions in the councils of the State and of the Nation ; as a statesman, scholar, orator, historian, and a thoroughly Christian gentle man, you have a national, nay, an almost world-wide reputation ; yet you have come down here to this little room month after month, with singular punctuality, for twenty-five years, to preside over this institution and promote its usefulness, to give the energy of your wisdom and your influence to the various and the best ways to assist, relieve, and comfort the poor of the City of Boston. I am sure that, speaking for all others as well as myself, I may thank you for the good you have done here ; and if it be true, as has been said, that " it is what a man does for others, not what others do for him, which gives him immortality," you may be sure your name will long be held in honored remembrance. And now we bid you, as you have bidden us, farewell. You will carry with you our affectionate respect, our deep gratitude, and our best wishes, in all that concerns your prosperity, welfare, and happiness. The Resolutions adopted at the meeting of the Board of Managers were then read and unanimously approved, and placed on record as follows : — Resolved, That the Managers have received with deep regret the decli nation of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop to a re-election as President of the Association : That, by his constant, earnest, and most faithful attendance to the duties of his office and the best interests of the Association, he has con tributed more largely than any other person to the success of the Asso ciation in its efforts to relieve the sufferings of the poor of his native City : That, in behalf of the Poor, for whose welfare he has devoted a full quarter of a century as President of this Association, we desire to express and to record our heartfelt thanks and gratitude. LEXINGTON AND YORKTOWN. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 13, 1879. We enter upon a new experiment to-day, Gentlemen. I can recall no afternoon meeting of this Society during the full forty years of my membership, — except at some private house in town or country, for social or commemorative purposes. Morn ing meetings, for a long period of years at twelve o'clock, and more recently at eleven, have certainly been the rule of the Society during its nearly ninety years of existence. They have never been largely attended. It has been a rare thing to find much more than one third of our hundred in attendance, since our number was increased from sixty to one hundred, and we have sometimes found it difficult to secure even a quorum for elections. Our work, as you know, is, and was intended to be, mainly one of publication, and the meetings in old times were very much matters of routine. The proceedings of our first forty- three years, with all the notes and memoirs by which they have been so carefully illustrated, have already been comprised in a single volume of but little more than five hundred pages ; and the proceedings of the succeeding twenty years will find ample space in a second similar volume. But, for the last quarter of a century, the proceedings have been more substantial, and have already occupied fourteen volumes, since my succession to the Presidency in 1855. LEXINGTON AND TORKTOWN. 105 We desire to give a still greater interest and variety to these meetings, and to secure a larger attendance at them from month to month. For this purpose an hour of meeting has been adopted which will interfere less with mercantile and profes sional engagements, while it will not have the disadvantage of an evening meeting for those residing at any considerable dis tance from the city. But, after all, Gentlemen, there must be the willing mind, the earnest purpose, — not without some sense of obligation, as for the discharge of a duty, — or no hour, new or old, will accom plish the object. Our Society has been divided, alphabetically, into three sections, and from the members of these sections in succession, — one of them being specially in order at each meet ing, — communications are called for. Making allowance for our summer vacation, each section is in the wa3r of being specially called on only three times in a year. The Monthly Notices state the particular sections which are in order from meeting to ineet- • ing, and, if gentlemen would bear in mind when the turns of the section in which they are included come round, it might well happen that they would find it in their power to make some communication, formal or informal, of historical interest. But, at all events, it is hoped that a larger attendance may result from this change of hour, and that we may occasionally welcome to our meetings some, if not all, of those who have heretofore been prevented from attending by their engagements in the earlier part of the day. I have now the pleasure of presenting to the Library, in behalf of its author, Professor George W. Ranck, a copy of an Historical Address at the Centennial Celebration of the Settle ment of Lexington, Kentucky, on the 2d of April last. Last evening there was a memorable meeting at our own Lexington, Massachusetts, when a portrait of Lord Percy — the commander of the British troops in the expedition which resulted in the shedding of the first blood of the American Revolution — was presented to the town by the Rev. E. G. Porter, in behalf of the present Duke of Northumberland, together with copies of many letters from the Lord Percy of 1775, illustrative of 106 LEXINGTON AND YORKTOWN. that period of our history. It is interesting to recall, in this connection, the fact mentioned by Professor Ranck at the begin ning of his excellent account of the Lexington of Kentucky : — " During one of those daring expeditions," says he, " which the hunters of Kentucky loved so much to make, a party of them found this fertile region ; and upon the evening of the 5th of June, 1775, they camped upon a spot which afterwards became the home of William McConnell. Delighted with the virgin charms surrounding them, they resolved to make the site of our city their place of settlement, and then and there named it Lexington, in honor of that glorious field where the Rebels of Massachusetts had died but a few weeks before, resisting the encroachments of their King. Here, fellow- citizens, in the heart of a Virginia wilderness, and by Ken tucky pioneers, was erected the first monument ever raised on this continent, to the first dead of the American Revolution." Four years afterward, the first permanent settlement of this Western Lexington was made. In 1792 it became the first cap ital of the new State of Kentucky, and not many years after ward it became the home of Henry Clay, whose name is enough to give celebrity to that whole neighborhood. I may add that, under the auspices of Professor Ranck, with the co-operation of the Governor and principal citizens of Ken tucky, a new State Historical Society has been organized at Frankfort, the present capital of the State, which will soon be holding its second annual meeting ; and I hope that our Libra rian may be authorized and instructed to send as many of our volumes as can be spared to their infant library, as an earnest of our best wishes for that sister society of the West. Let me turn for a moment, before inviting communications from others, from Kentucky to her old parent State, — Vir ginia. In a recent letter from our Honorary Member, Mr. Grigsby, the President of the Virginia Historical Society, he says : — " You may have seen in the papers that a Centennial Cele bration of the Surrender at York in 1781 is in contemplation. If you will turn to the Journal of the old Congress jrou will LEXINGTON AND YORKTOWN. 107 find that a Commemorative Monument was voted by that body to mark the spot of that conclusive victory. There is a plenty of time for the erection of the work before the 19th of October, 1881. Why may not Massachusetts, through her great His toric Institution, remind Congress of its pledged faith, and ask for an appropriation to redeem it ? Should success crown the effort, then might it be said that the time had arrived when Lexington and Eutaw would hail one another, and Bunker Hill and Yorktown embrace each other. It is by such offices that States, as well as individuals, are bound by the cords of friendship and affection." This most welcome suggestion, however, had already been anticipated. The Mayor of our city (Hon. S. C. Cobb), four years ago, at the suggestion of the historian Bancroft, took the lead in getting up a petition of the City of Boston to Congress, to this effect ; and more recently the subject has been urged in at least one of our Boston newspapers. The resolve of the old Congress, in 1781, was as follows : — " Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled will cause to be erected, at York in Virginia, a marble column, adorned with emblems of the alliance between the United States and his most Christian Majesty ; and inscribed with a succinct narrative of the surrender of Earl Cornwallis to his Excellency General Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the combined forces of America and France ; to his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau, commanding the auxiliary troops of his most Christian Majesty in America, and his Excellency the Count de Grasse, commanding in chief the naval army of France in the Chesapeake." We may well say, with Bancroft, that " a shadow will be thrown over the coming Centennial at Yorktown, if, when we meet on that spot, their word shall not yet have been hon ored, ... if the public faith be not redeemed by fulfilling the promise of our fathers." If it be now too late to hope for the completion of a suitable monument at Yorktown, in season to be dedicated on the 19th of October, 1881, — it is not too late for Congress to make the appropriations, and appoint a Com- 108 LEXINGTON AND YORKTOWN. mission for procuring the design and making arrangements to lay the corner-stone on that anniversary. That corner-stone should be laid by representative men from all parts of the Union. I venture to propose that the Council of this Society be in structed to prepare, sign, and transmit a Memorial to Congress, in aid of that monument.1 1 For this Memorial, as prepared and signed, see Note on next page. NOTE. MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS IN AID OP THE PROPOSED MONUMENT AT YORKTOWN. To the Honorable the Senate and House or Representatives op the United States in Congress assembled. The undersigned, composing the Council of the Massachusetts Histori cal Society, and by the order and in behalf of said Society, respectfully represent, — That on the 29th of October, 1781, the Old Congress of the United States passed the following Resolution : — " Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled will cause to be erected at York in Virginia a marble column, adorned with em blems of the alliance between the United States and his most Christian Majesty, and inscribed with a succinct narrative of the surrender of Earl Cornwallis to his Excellency General Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the combined forces of America and France, to his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau, commanding the auxiliary troops of his most Christian Majesty in America, and his Excellency the Count de Grasse, commanding-in-chief the naval army of France in the Chesapeake." That, on the 6th of November thereafter, the Congress adopted the following Resolution : — " Resolved, That the Secretary of Foreign Affairs be directed to pre pare a sketch of emblems of the alliance between his most Christian Majesty and the United States, proper to be inscribed on the marble column to be erected in the town of York, under the resolution of the 29th of October last." That these Resolutions have not yet been executed, or, certainly, the column has not been erected. That less than two years remain before 110 NOTE. the one-hundredth anniversary of the great crowning victory at York- town will become the subject of commemoration ; and that, while it may already be too late for the completion of such a monument in sea son for that centennial celebration, there is still ample time for mak ing provision for the laying of the corner-stone on the 19 th of October, 1881. The Massachusetts Historical Society earnestly desire that this pledge of the old Congress should be fulfilled, and that Yorktown may no longer be without a monument of the victory which brought to a triumphant con clusion the war for American Independence, commenced at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. They therefore pray your honorable bodies to make a suitable appro priation for this long-deferred monument, to appoint a commission for procuring the design aud executing the work, and to cause all necessary arrangements to be made for the laying of the corner-stone at Yorktown, Virginia, on the day of the centennial commemoration. For the Massachusetts Historical Society, — Robert C. Winthrop, President. Charles Francis Adams, Vice-President. George E. Ellis, Vice-President. George Dexter, Recording Secretary. Charles Deane, Corresponding Secretary. Charles C. Smith, Treasurer. Samuel A. Green, Librarian. William S- Appleton, Cabinet-keeper. Winslow Warren, Charles W. Tuttle, T ., f Executive Committee Leverett Saltonstall, \ .,. „ ., ' [ of the Council. Justin Winsor, d. a. goddard, ERASTUS B. BIGELOW AND WILLIAM IVES BUDINGTON. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, DECEMBER 11, 1879. When our Recording Secretary made up the roll of living Resident Members, for the last volume but one of our Proceed ings, — less than two years ago, — the name of Bigelow repre sented on that roll three of our limited number — distantly, if at all, related to each other, and of widely different pursuits, but all alike of eminent distinction in this community. One of them was an accomplished Jurist, who had been for some years the Chief-Justice of our Supreme Judicial Court. An other of them was a wise, learned, and venerable physician, who had worthily presided for seventeen years over the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The third was a brilliant inventor, whose marvellous looms had given him a deserved celebrity at home and abroad ; and who, in building up his own fortune, had founded and developed a prosperous manufacturing town in our State of Massachusetts. Since that roll was made up, they have all followed each other to the grave, at different ages, but in too quick succession ; and the name is already lost, for a time at least, from our list of living Resident Associates. The Hon. Erastus B. Bigelow, the last of the three, died most suddenly at his winter home in this city, on Saturday last, the 6th instant, to the great sorrow of us all. 112 ERASTUS B. BIGELOW. I am conscious that I can add nothing to the excellent Dotices of his career and character which have appeared in more than one public journal. But our own records must not be left without some tribute to so eminent a citizen and so valued a member of our Society. He was born in West Boylston, in this Commonwealth, in April, 1814 ; and he had thus not yet completed the sixty-sixth year of his age. He enjoyed but few advantages or opportu nities of education, his mind having busied itself from early boyhood in observing and improving the machinery which he tended in his father's mill. It will be for some competent biographer hereafter to follow him in his ingenious contrivances, at fourteen years of age, for making suspender-webbing and piping-cord and coach-lace, and to trace him along, step by step, to his triumphant invention of the power-loom for Brussels and tapestry carpets. Such an evolution is fit to be followed and recorded. It is enough for me to say, on this occasion, that he long ago earned for his name no second place among the great inventors of labor-saving machinery in New England, — with Thomas Blanchard and Uriah A. Boyden and George H. Cor liss of Rhode Island, and others who are familiar to you all. Indeed, at the moment of his death he was, to American mechanical science, what William Morris Hunt so lately was to the Fine Arts of our country ; and we are thus called to lament in a single season, and within a few months of each other, the premature loss of our foremost artist and of our great est inventor. Fortunately, they both lived long enough to leave behind them enduring illustrations of their genius, in works of signal utility and beauty, which will perpetuate their own mem ory, while they contribute to the welfare and happiness of their fellow-men. Mr. Bigelow was not an inventor only. He has entitled him self to be remembered as a clear and powerful thinker and writer on the difficult questions of revenue and trade. His large volume, published in 1862, on " The Tariff Question, con sidered in regard to the Policy of England and the Interests of the United States," with his briefer essay on the same subject, published only two years ago, may be counted among the most ERASTUS B. BIGELOW. 113 notable and valuable contributions to the discussion of the Pro tective System which have emanated from either side of the Atlantic, and may be classed with the kindred writings of Fran cis Bowen and the late Nathan Appleton. They exhibit the same powers of analysis, combination, and comparison, which characterized his mechanical successes. His mind seemed capa ble of intense concentration of thought, and he could bring it to bear upon any subject, material or intellectual, which came within the range of his observation and study, with something of lens-like precision and directness. He marshalled his statis tical tables with the same skill with which he had applied the bands and levers of his magic loom, and illustrated his argu ments by facts and figures as distinct and exact as the patterns he had taught that loom to weave. It is hardly surprising that the strain and tension to which his brain had been so often subjected should have made him the subject of sudden prostration. He sought relief, many years ago, by fixing his summer residence amid the invigorating and exquisite scenery of North Conway ; but not even the grand rocks and mountains by which he was surrounded gave him greater delight, I think, than his own ingenious arrangement of the little hydraulic rain, which carried up the water from a dis tant meadow, not only to his own house and barn, but to the wayside fountain which he had prepared for the refreshment of man and beast. Mr. Bigelow was elected a member of this Society in April, 1864, and we ma3* not forget that he served us assiduously as one of the Committee, with our lamented friends William G. Brooks and Robert M. Mason, to whose devoted supervision we are so much indebted for the successful reconstruction of this building. He took a particular and personal interest in the arrangement and adornment of this Dowse Library, in which we are assembled, and generously claimed the privilege of selecting and presenting to us the carpet now beneath our feet. He was, not unnaturally, willing and glad to be associated in the hall of an Historical Society with one of the fabrics of his own greatest invention. In 1869 he presented to our Library six large volumes, entitled 8 114 REV. WILLIAM IVES BUDINGTON, D.D. " Inventions of Erastus Brigham Bigelow, Patented in England from 1837 to 1868," in which were brought together the printed specifications of no less than eighteen patents granted to him in England. Two or three years later, in presenting to our Library a copy of Lossing's " American Centenary," containing a history of the progress of the United States for a hundred years, he gave us some interesting details of the rise and progress of the town of Clinton, and of the part he had taken in founding and building it up, dwelling with special delight on the large number of hands for whom he had secured remunerative employment. He promised, at our request, to prepare this account deliberately, and in greater detail, at some future day, for publication in our Proceedings. That account has now, unhappily, been lost to us ; but the Town itself will always sufficiently tell the story of his invention and enterprise, and will sacredly guard the mem ory of one so closely associated with it iii life, and I may add in death, — since, agreeably to his own desire, his remains have already found their resting-place in the cemetery at Clinton. The name of the Rev. William Ives Budington, D.D., was added to our Corresponding list in February, 1871 ; but he had long before been one of our active Resident Members, having been elected in January, 1848, and only losing his mem bership by removal from the State, in 1854. During this period he published a " History of the First Congregational Church of Charlestown," — a valuable contribution to our town and church histories, and abounding in evidences of careful research into early New England records. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1815, and a graduate of Yale College in 1834, he completed his theological preparations at Andover, was ordained in 1840, and for the fourteen follow ing years was pastor of the church at Charlestown, whose his tory he wrote. He was a man of generous culture and close study, of great sincerity and earnestness of character, devoted to his profession, and preaching the Gospel by his life and exam ple, not less than by the words of his mouth. If, as has been said, he was an intense believer in Congregationalism, as the REV. WILLIAM IVES BUDINGTON, D.D. 115 best mode of disseminating Christianity in these latter days, — as it certainly was the best and only mode of planting and propagating it here in old Puritan times, — he had no intolerance or indifference toward other denominations. Sectarianism, with him, was a means and not an end ; and no man rejoiced more than he did in the spread of the Gospel of Christ by other churches as well as by his own. Removing to Brooklyn, New York, in 1854, he continued to preach with fervor and efficacy as pastor of the Clinton Ave nue Congregational Church, until a sad malady touched his very lips, and, after a year or two of suffering, closed them forever. Having known him personally man3r years before, in this Society and elsewhere, I was in the way of meeting him repeat edly last summer, while he was under medical treatment in this city, and was a witness of the patience and resignation with which he bore his great affliction. It was almost a relief to his friends, as it certainly must have been to himself, when, having happily been permitted to return to his home in Brooklyn for a few weeks, he breathed his last on the 29th of November, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF COUNT ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT, AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 8, 1880. Count Adolphb de Circourt was elected a foreign Honor ary Member of this Society on the 8th of November, 1860. He died on the 17th of last November (1879), at La Celle St. Cloud, not far from Paris, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. I owed my personal acquaintance* with him to the historian Prescott, who kindly gave me a note of introduction to him on my first visit to Europe, in 1847. From that time until his death I had enjoyed the privilege of his friendship and correspond ence ; not many months passing away during that long period without our exchanging letters. By a striking coincidence our last letters to each other were written on the same day, and that day was just three days before his death, and only one day before he was struck by the sudden shock which rendered him unconscious, and under which he gradually sunk. His closing words to me, and perhaps his last written words to any one, were : " My health is scarcely better, yet I begin tolerably the winter season. Faithfully and gratefully yours, A. Circourt." You will indulge me, Gentlemen, I am sure, if I dwell for a few moments on the character and accomplishments of one whom I had known so long, and whom I valued so highly. His name was placed on our rolls at the concurrent suggestion of the late Mr. Ticknor and myself. Mr. Ticknor had known him, and corresponded with him, ten years before I had, and had learned, ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. 117 with Prescott and Bancroft, to appreciate his great abilities and acquirements. In Ticknor's " Life of Prescott " will be found a tribute to Circourt, while he was yet a young man, such as hardly any other man, since "the admirable Crichton," has ever received. It is quoted from the " History of the Revolution of 1848," by the poet-president of the French Republic of that year, Lamartine. " This person," says Lamartine, in vindicating his appointment of him to a foreign mission, "little known as yet out of the aristocratic world, a man of literature and learning, is M. de Circourt. He had been emplo3red in diplomacy under the Res toration. The Revolution of July (1830) had thrown him into retirement and opposition, being more inclined to legitimacy than democracy. He had profited of these 3-ears of seclusion to devote himself to studies which would have absorbed many men's lives, but which were only the diversions of his own life. Languages, races, geography, histo^r, philosophy, travels, consti tutions, religions of peoples, from the infancy of the world down to our own day, from Thibet even to the Alps, — he had incorpo rated them all into his mind, had reflected upon them all, had retained them all. One might question him on the universality of facts and ideas which make up the world, without his being obliged, in order to give an answer, to consult any other volumes than his own memory, — a vast extent, surface, and depth of infor mation, of which no one ever knew the bottom or the limits, — a living world-chart of human knowledge; a man all head, and whose head was at the height of all truths ; impartial meantime, indifferent as to systems, as a being who was only intelligence, and who held to human nature only by observation and curiosity. " M. de Circourt had married a young Russian girl, of an aristocratic family and of a European spirit. Through her he had relations to all which was eminent in the literaiy or Court circles of Germany and of the North. He had resided at Berlin, and had ties with the statesmen of Prussia. The King of Prussia, a literary and liberal sovereign, had honored him with some degree of intimacy at his Court. M. de Circourt, without being a Republican at heart, was sufficiently impressed by the grand horizon which a French Republic, springing up from the 118 ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. progressive and paeific genius of a new France, could open to the human mind, to salute and to serve that Republic. He compre hended with Lamartine that Liberty had need of Peace, and that Peace must be found at Berlin and London." Such was the portrait of Count Circourt in a history pub lished thirty years ago ; and such were the impressions of his capacity and character under which Lamartine, during his " three months of power," made him the envoy of the French Republic to the Prussian Court. There is authority for think ing that he would gladly have sent him as Minister to Wash ington ; but the jealousy of the French Liberals at that period would not allow their new Republic to be represented in our old Republic b3T one who had been so recently and so intimately associated with the ancien re'gime. It was even whispered that our own Minister at Paris discouraged the appointment. Cir court had, indeed, been a perfect stranger to all the preparations of the Revolution of 1 848, and had uttered no words in praise of it after it was accomplished. But he had lived for twenty years on a footing of personal friendship with Lamartine, and had entire faith in the goodness of his intentions, and in the purity and patriotism of his motives ; and he was unwilling to refuse to serve him, and to serve his country, in any way in his power. More especially would he not decline to co-operate with him for the preservation of peace, and for the cultivation of friendly relations, between Prussia and France. He was not, as we have seen, wholly a stranger to diplomacy. As a very young man, nearly twenty years before, he had been employed in the administrative service of his country, in the home department and in the foreign department successively. He was associated with the Counts Bois-le-Comte, Flavigny, and Louis de Viel-Castel in the department of foreign affairs, under the ministry of Prince Polignac, when the Revolution of 1830 overthrew Charles X. ; and Ticknor said of him at Dresden, in 1836 : " To the honor of his personal consistenc3r, he refuses still to wear the tri-colored cockade." He was a Legitimist in principle, I think, to the end of his life. But there was nothing narrow or illiberal in his political views, or in the expression of them. He had the largest respect ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. 119 for every form of good government, and especially for our own Republic, as administered in its earlier days. It was plain, how ever, that he had not pliancy enough for continued success in political life, amid all the changes of system and dynasty of which for so many years France was the theatre. Nor did he covet office. Returning from Berlin at the close of Lamartine's brief though brilliant Presidency, he betook himself anew to those varied pursuits in which he had been previously absorbed, and was never again in public service. Circourt was not yet fifty years old when he won the tribute from Lamartine, who had known him from his youth. Thirty j'ears more of life awaited him, and he was never weary of reading, investigation, and studj'. Perhaps the ver3r variety and multiplicity of his studies and acquirements, and the intense eagerness of his mind to know and master everything, disabled him, or rather indisposed him, for grappling with any single theme, or attempting any one great literary work. Thierry, the historian of the Norman Conquest, once said to Ticknor: " If Circourt would but choose some obscure portion of history, between A. d. 500 and 1600, and write upon it, he would leave us all behind." So said more than one of those who knew him best. But he could not be persuaded to limit or circumscribe the freedom of his pursuits in literature. His pen was, indeed, never idle in correspondence, in criticism, and in reviews of the writings of others. He was a frequent contributor to " La Biblioth^que Universelle" of Geneva, to "Les Nouvelles An nates des Voyages," to " La Revue Britannique," " L'Opinione Publique," and other well-known periodicals of Paris and of the Continent ; and the range of his writings was hardly less exten sive and varied than that of his reading. I have a little col lection, in several volumes, of a part of his productions, as he sent them to me from time to time, and there are here not a few others which he has sent directly to our Library.1 They embrace such subjects as the Young Prince Waldemar's Travels in India ; the Life of Frederic William IV. of Prussia ; the Russians on the Amoor ; the Empire of the Czars ; Travels in Africa ; the 1 Since this was written, my collection, by the favor of Count Albert de Cir court, has been extended to twelve volumes. 120 ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. King of Dahomey ; the Archaeology of Tunis ; the Primitive Aryans ; A Visit to the Field of the Battle of Hastings ; Can terbury; St. Paul's Cathedral ; Westminster Abbey ; Macaulay's Histor3r of England ; the History of the Restoration, by Viel- Castel ; Victor Cousin's French Society, and Illustrious Women of the Seventeenth Century ; the Life and Works of Madame Swetchine; the History of the Swiss Confederation; Cino da Pistoja ; and Italy's Latest Poet, Manzoni. But there are many other titles of his notices and reviews which have a nearer interest for ourselves, and which give him a more special claim to a grateful remembrance on this side of the Atlantic. Nothing gratified Prescott more than Circourt's review of his " Ferdinand and Isabella," and no other, as Tick nor said, " could be compared to it in amplitude and elaborate ness." He had personally known Albert Gallatin, too, and he exhibited the warmest interest — inspired by the subject, not less than by the author — in reviewing his Sj'nopsis of our Indian Tribes, contained in the " Archseologia " of the Ameri can Antiquarian Society. Bancroft's " History of the United States," Ticknor's " Spanish Literature," Kirk's " Charles the Bold," George P. Marsh's "Man and Nature," "The Life and Letters of John Winthrop," and at least one of Parkman's admirable volumes, were successively the subjects of his able and discriminating pen. The last labor which he performed on any American topic was his translation into French of Bancroft's volume on " The Alliance of France and the United States in 1778." In con nection with that translation, and with the valuable original documents which Mr. Bancroft placed at his disposal for the purpose, making up a work of three octavo volumes, he pub lished an original Historical Sketch of the American Revolution from his own point of view, which, having been translated for us into English, anonymously, by an accomplished lady, forms a part of one of our recent volumes of Proceedings. Circourt delighted to gratify his friends in Europe and in America, and to associate his own name with theirs, by review ing their works. Yet he never suffered personal friendships or partialities to pervert or warp his judgment, or to prevent a ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. 121 frank, independent utterance of his own opinions. He was a man of transparent sincerity, true always to his own convic tions, and as just as he was amiable and accomplished. Pres cott, writing to him in 1856, in reply to his remarks on " Philip the Second," says : " What gave me no less pleasure than your general commendation, was the list of errata which accompanied it ; not that I was happy to find I had made so many blunders, but that I possessed a friend who had the candor and sagacity to point them out. I am filled with astonishment when I reflect on the variety, the minuteness, and the accuracy of your knowl edge. With this subject, thrown up \>y chance before you, you seem to be as familiar as if it had been your spicialiti" His reviews were no mere perfunctory notices, interspersed with sample passages and salient citations. They were honest and thorough treatments of the volumes in hand, often supply ing facts which had been overlooked or omitted, and sometimes showing that he was more familiar with the subject than the author himself. Circourt was not less remarkable for his private correspond ence than for his published essays and reviews, and his cor respondents included man3' eminent men of all countries. He was a particular friend and favorite for many years of Pasquier, the illustrious Chancellor of France, who had known Franklin when he was our Minister at Paris, and who died in 1862, in the full possession of his faculties, at ninety-five years of age. In the Life of the Chancellor by his late secretary, M. Louis Favre, published in 1870, a large number of his letters to Cir court will be found ; and they are introduced by an account of him derived from the impressions of the venerable Chancellor, as well as from the personal knowledge of the author. It is not less striking than the tribute of Lamartine, in 1848. " M. de Circourt," says Favre, " speaks all languages, knows all literatures and all histories. Scarce a volume is published — I do not say in France, but in the world — without his reading it; and, what is more extraordinary, when he has read it he knows it by heart. I have seen him often, on the same eve ning, discussing with Englishmen the articles contained in the journals and reviews of England ; passing to the publications 122 ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. of Germany, to discuss them with Germans ; then talking of Italy with Italians, and of America with citizens of that great country ; himself, meantime, mistaken successively for an Eng lishman, a German, an Italian, an American ; and, finally, exciting the admiration and astonishment of all, by the univer sality of his knowledge." Count Circourt was born in the vicinity of Nancy, about the beginning of the present century. His father had been in the military service of France, and had shared in all the perils and sufferings of the Emigration, before he married and established himself in Lorraine. But both father and mother died while he, their eldest son, was still a boy. Educated partly at Bes- angon and partly ki Paris, his natural relations were to the religion of his native country, and he never renounced them. But he had not the slightest tinge of intolerance or bigotry. He distinguished and loved what is best in all churches. Pere Hyacinthe and Dean Stanley were among his most esteemed friends, and he often expressed the warmest sympathy with their views. No one had a deeper faith in an overruling Provi dence, in the goodness and justice of God, and in the truth of Christianity. He was called to a great sorrow in the terrible accident which befell his wife, and which terminated her life after a few years of suffering. That "young Russian girl," as La martine had styled her in 1848, Anastasia de Klustine, had become, as the Countess de Circourt, one of the most remark able women in French society. In her little salon, in the Rue de Saussaj^es, were to be seen all who were most distinguished in the literature and the statesmanship of Paris and of the Con tinent. She spoke at least as many languages as her husband. Not a few of her charming letters are found in the Life of Cavour, who was among her most confidential friends. A kind note of introduction from her secured me an interview with the great Italian Minister, at one of the most critical periods of his career. " No one," he said to me, " with a note from Madame de Circourt must pass through Turin without my seeing him, however engrossed I may be in public affairs." But I may not dwell longer on such reminiscences. She died ADOLPHE DE CIRCOURT. 123 many years ago, and Circourt's home was left desolate. They had no children. He has left two younger brothers, at least one of whom, Count Albert, is well known as an author and in public station ; * and his name has been confounded with that of our deceased member in some of the newspaper accounts of the death. I know not what may have been left by my lamented friend, in the way of letters or memoirs. His little chateau at La Celle St. Cloud, was occupied by the Prussians during the siege of Paris, and he returned to find many things destroyed and everything in confusion. It is to be hoped that some more adequate notice of so remarkable a man — biography or auto biography — may not be wanting to literary history hereafter.2 Circourt had never visited America. He had been a great traveller in other parts of the world, but he shrank from the long ocean voyage. Most of his American friends had preceded him to the grave. One of them, our late estimable fellow- citizen, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of whom he had seen much in Europe, and for whom he had a warm regard, passed away from us just as the tidings of his death reached us from Europe. I have felt it all the more incumbent on me not to omit pa3'ing this little tribute to his memory. If Bancroft had been here, and with us on this occasion, he might have done it more fully and more worthily, but not with a deeper sense of its justice than my own. Neither of us can fail to feel sincerely how great a loss we have sustained in the death of a friend and correspondent so amiable and obliging, so entertaining and instructive, and of so vast a range of information and accom plishment. It hardly remains for either of us to lose another like him. 1 A former officer in the French Navy ; at one time a confidential Secretary of the Count de Chambord ; and author of I'Histoire des Moresques, in three volumes. 2 See Note at the end of this Tribute. NOTE. A vert interesting little volume reached me from Paris during the following year (1881). It is entitled, " Le Comte de Circourt, son Temps, ses Ecrits; Madame de Circourt,- son Salon, ses Correspond- ances ; Notice Biographique offerte a leurs amis par Le Colonel Huber-Saladin.'' It is full of delightful details of the lives and accom plishments of these remarkable persons, by one wbo had known them intimately, and who was known himself to the Military Service and to the Diplomacy of France. It was written, as a labor of love, in his eightieth year, and he died soon after its publication. It was the subject of a striking article in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1881, by the accomplished editor of that Eeview, Henry Keeve, Esq., C. B., which con tained a notable correspondence between M. de Circourt and Macaulay, testifying the warm regard and high estimation for Circourt of the elo quent English essayist and historian. I may add that a visit to the Count Albert de Circourt, in 1882, at La Celle St. Cloud, the former home of his lamented brother, gave me an opportunity of seeing the numerous still unpublished manuscripts which my friend Count Adolphe had left behind him, on many interest ing subjects, some of them reaching almost to the dimensions of a volume, and proving that his published miscellanies afford but an imperfect illustration of the wealth of his information and accomplishments, and of the untiring zeal with which he pursued his literary labors. It may be hoped that some of these elaborate writings may still see the light. RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. REMARKS AT A MEETING OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 12, 1880. You would hardly excuse me, Gentlemen, were I to proceed further in the ordinary routine of business this afternoon without some brief allusion to the vacancy on our resident roll which has occurred since our last meeting. If, in the good providence of God, our late excellent friend and fellow- worker, Richard Frothingham, had died when he was seem- ingby at the very brink of the grave, just a year ago, we should have all deeply deplored his loss. But his serious infirmities during the year which has intervened, and his consequent inability to take any further active part in our proceedings, have prepared us for the final announcement. He died, as you know, on the evening of the 29th ultimo, and our Society was represented at his funeral by Mr. Adams and myself, as pall -bearers, as well as by others of our number, on Monday, the 2nd instant. The eulogy delivered on that occasion by the pastor of the Universalist church to which he belonged, and the numerous tributes which appeared at the time in the public journals, have left little or nothing to be added by others ; yet we owe to his memory here to-day, as a Society, some expression of our high appreciation of his long and faithful service, as our Treasurer for thirty 3-ears, and of his devoted and distinguished labors in that great cause of History in which we are associated. He took peculiar pleasure and pride in his relations to this Society. 126 RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. His latest interest was in our monthly meetings, and he made an effort to be with us — and was with us, as you all remem ber — even within a few weeks of his death, and when it was too visible to every one but himself that the end could not be far off. It would have been a grief to him to imagine that he would not be the subject of an affectionate mention here after he had passed away. As a Massachusetts Historical Society we must ever hold in special esteem those who make the most valuable contri butions to the history of our own Commonwealth ; and cer tainly no one of our number has done more than he has done to illustrate that particular period of Massachusetts history in which the greatest interest and the greatest pride are taken by us all. He seemed never weary of pursuing his investigations in regard to the earliest incidents of our Revolutionary struggle, — the Boston Massacre, the destruction of the Tea, the fights at Lexington and Concord, the battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. The volume embracing all these topics — which he first published in 1849, and which has since passed through many successive editions — can never fail to be regarded as a work of great value. It supplies the most care fully collected details, from the most authentic sources, of scenes whose interest and importance can hardly be exaggerated. He was emphatically, and in every sense, the Historian of Bun ker Hill. He had its whole story by heart. From the first gathering of the little band at Cambridge, on the evening of the 16th of June, 1775, to the final retreat from the redoubt, on the afternoon of the 17th, he had studied every inch of the ground, every step of the troops, every incident and every accident of the battle. All the movements of Prescott, the heroic commander in the action, and of Stark and Knowlton and Pomeroy and Putnam, who co-operated at the breastworks and rail-fences, had been diligently traced by him, as well as the precise spot on which the great volunteer martyr, Warren, having refused Pres- cott's offer of the command, fell, sword in hand, at the close of the struggle. An admirable Life of Warren, published by him in 1865, was RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. 127 the natural sequel of this volume, and exhibited the same care ful and conscientious research. Meantime both of these works were but the preparation and prelude for his " Rise of the Republic of the United States," of which the first edition was published in 1872, and which he justly regarded as the crowning labor of his life. It is not, perhaps, a volume to attract the general reader ; but the student of political history will always resort to it in tracing the gradual development of the idea of National Union on the American continent, and will find in it a collation of the utterances and efforts in this direction, not only of our own James Otis and Joseph Warren, and Samuel Adams and John Adams, but of the great advocates of liberty and union in all parts of the country, from its earliest colonial existence. It is not too much to add that the three volumes to which I have thus briefly referred will ever be regarded as standard authorities on the subjects with which they deal, and must alwa3rs associate the name of our lamented friend with some of the most important events in Massachusetts and American his- fany. Our second Vice-President, Dr. Ellis, who is himself an authority on these subjects, has justly said that we find in them " plain, strong, direct statements of authentic facts, and most instructive elucidations and comments." I have said nothing of his early History of Charlestown ; noth ing of his labors as a journalist; nothing of his services in public life, as Mayor of Charlestown and as a member of the Legis lature of the Commonwealth ; nothing of his relations to politi cal parties, in which he steadfastly followed his own convictions as a Democrat, even when they doomed him to act with unpopu lar and hopeless minorities. All this may safely be left for some formal memoir at a later day. Nor need I dwell on his private character and virtues. They were familiar to us all. Honest as the day, amiable and modest, public-spirited and patriotic, his memory will be cherished by all who knew him, as we did, with unfeigned respect and affection. JAMES LENOX. REMARKS AT A MEETING OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 11, 1880. Since our last monthly meeting, Gentlemen, two of the small remaining number of Honorary and Corresponding Members of this Society, elected before the amendment of our Charter in 1857, and whose names have a separate place in our printed lists, have died : Hon. Samuel Greene Arnold, of Rhode Island, and James Lenox, Esq., of New York. They were chosen, within a month or two of each other, in 1855, and their names had thus been for nearly twenty-five years on our rolls. Mr. Arnold had twice been Lieutenant-Governor, and, for a short time, one of the United States Senators, of Rhode Island. He had volunteered as an aide-de-camp to Governor Sprague, and had taken the field in command of a battery of artillery, in 1861. He will be specially remembered by us as the author of a valuable History of his native State, and as, for some years, the President of the Rhode Island Historical Society. He died in the fifty-ninth year of his age, highly respected and greatly regretted. In the death of Mr. Lenox, in his eightieth year, the city of New York has lost one of her largest benefactors, as well as one of her most estimable and excellent citizens. Inheriting an ample fortune, and having never married, he was able to indulge without stint his early taste for books and for the fine arts, while he was at the same time a liberal con- JAMES LENOX. 129 tributor to still better things. The noble library and charming pictures and marbles, which he had collected from time to time, at home and abroad, were long the treasures of his own dwelling-house. I cannot forget how often I was privileged to see them there, and how great a privilege I felt it to be. Those wonderful editions of the Bible, which he prized himself above all other books ; those rare maps and manu scripts connected with the earliest history of our own continent and country; that unique autograph of Washington, — the original of the Farewell Address, as it went to the printer in September, 1796 ; the grand portraits of Wasliington by Stuart and Peale ; the admirable bust and portrait of Dr. Chalmers, for whom he had a special reverence, and with whose religious views he had the warmest sympathy, — these and a hundred other things, almost equally choice, made up a collec tion such as could be found in no other private mansion in our land, and such as made a visit to him in New York a memory for a lifetime, as well as a joy for the moment. Meantime, he was spending not a little time and money in preparing and publishing sumptuous volumes in connection with these treasures, — a History of the Editions of King James's Bible ; S3rllacius, with the Letters of Columbus ; the Farewell Address of Washington, with all its original additions and erasures ; and many other smaller works. But within the last ten years of his life, all this costly accu mulation of books and manuscripts and works of art had been transferred to a spacious marble building, erected at his own expense, on the margin of the Central Park of New York, and dedicated by him to public use. There, under the charge of two of our accomplished Corresponding Members, Dr. George H. Moore and Dr. S. Austin Allibone, these pre cious things are now displayed freely to the public eye. It is worth a special journey from Boston to New York, if it were only to see the various publications of John Eliot, with all the manifold editions of his Indian Bible, so worthily arranged within large glass cases, as a memorial of his philanthropy and apostleship. I may not dwell longer on the character or career of Mr. 9 130 JAMES LENOX. Lenox. As he was long a Vice-President of the American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, he will doubtless be noticed more in detail in their Semi-Annual Report next month. But this brief sketch of his life would be without its crowning fea ture, if I did not recall the Protestant Temple which he was largely instrumental in having built in Turin, at the earliest mo ment when such an edifice was tolerated in Italy, and the noble " Presb3rterian Hospital," to which he was the largest contribu tor, not far from the Lenox Library, in New York. Religion, charity, literature, history, and the fine arts were alike the sub jects of his generous endowment. His example is not the less valuable in these da3rs, in that Religion and the Bible stood always first in his regard. He died on the 17th of February last, at the age of seventy- nine years and six months. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNINO. REMARKS AT A MEETING OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, APRIL, 1880. We cannot be unmindful, Gentlemen, as an Historical Society, that a commemoration is to be observed to-morrow at Newport, Rhode Island, of the centennial anniversary of the birth of William Ellery Channing. Though not a native of Massa chusetts, he was, for the largest part of his life, identified with our own State and City, and his memory is revered by us all, as one of whom it is justly said that " his life, writings, and in fluence were consecrated to the service of humanity in the largest sense." There are some of us — not a few, perhaps — who recall the delight with which we read some of his great Essays at the moment of their publication, or listened occasionally to his impressive discourses from his own lips. I cannot forget that in 1833 I was privileged to take the great statesman, Henry Clay, to the old Federal-Street church, to hear Channing deliver one of his grand sermons on Death and Immortality. No two men in our country at that day had more marked elements for contrast than Channing and Clay. But they had been drawn toward each other by a common celebrity, and Channing, as it will be remembered, addressed at least one of his elaborate public letters, on subjects of national interest, to the great statesman of the West. In one respect certainly, they were alike. Both of them were gifted with voices of wonderful quality, which gave a peculiar charm to whatever they uttered. 132 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. Clay's voice had at times the clash of a trumpet, while Chan- ning's had the music aud melody of a harp ; but both were of that sympathetic, vibratory tone which touched and thrilled their hearers. I can recall none like either of them, and I shall hardly hear their like again. They were incomparable, for their respective spheres. I have found among my letters one from Dr. Channing, addressed to me while I was in Congress, and written less than a year before his death, which I have thought might fitly find a place in our Proceedings. Everything from his pen is interest ing, but this letter is peculiarly characteristic, both of the man and of the time at which it was written. It will speak for itself, without any comments of mine, and will show how little his great mind could have anticipated the condition of our country when the one hundredth anniversary of his birth should have arrived : — Boston, Dec. 30, 1841. Mt dear Sir, — Your well-known kindness encourages me to make a request. I will thank you to send me the public documents which relate to slavery and the slave-trade. In the newspapers I get them in frag ments, and they are easily lost. I wait solicitously for the action of Congress on the case of the Creole. England, I doubt not, will hold the high ground she has taken. An Eng lishman lately said to me, " I would sooner give up Canada than give up a slave," and he spoke, I trust, the sentiment of the nation. How painful and humbling that our country, boasting of its attachment to freedom, should come in conflict with another, because the latter declares that who ever touches her soil is free. A friend iu Paris, speaking of our pecu niary deficiencies and sins, writes me, " We (Americans) are ashamed of our country, and exposed to daily mortifications, on account of the disre pute into which everything American has fallen throughout all classes of Europeans." I fear that we are to plunge into deeper infamy, are to array ourselves against the principles of justice and humanity which other nations have adopted, — are to throw ourselves in the way of the advan cing civilization and Christianity of our age. The free States have been so accustomed to succumb to the arrogance of the South on the subject of slavery that I cannot but fear. The " New York Courier " announces that the question of aunexing Texas may be brought forward during the session ; and though this would be perhaps a more fatal measure than a WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 133 dissolution of the Union, it is possible that the North may submit to it. Can no compromise or arrangement be made by which the subject of slavery may be taken out of Congress, or detached from national politics ? The free States, I think, should give every pledge that they will not exert the power of the general or state governments for the purpose of abolishing or acting on slavery in the slave States, any more than in foreign countries ; and, on the other hand, they should insist on being released from all obligation to give support to slavery. Let them leave the subject wholly to the action of the slave States, interfering neither to uphold or destroy. I beg you to excuse the length of this letter. The subject is so interesting, that when I touch it I cannot easily leave it. Very truly yours, William E. Channing. Robert C. Winthrop, Esq., M. C, Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON MONUMENT. MEMORIAL RELATIVE TO THE COMPLETION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, APRIL 29, 1880. to the honorable the senate and house of representatives of the United States in Congress Assembled : The undersigned respectfully represent that, at a meeting of the Washington Monument Association held in this city on the 1st of April, they were appointed a committee " to take charge of the interests of the monument before Congress ; " that, in accordance with this appointment, they have called upon Col onel Casey, the engineer in charge of the work, for a condensed statement of the precise existing condition of the monument, and of the plans and purposes of the commissioners to whom the supervision of its construction has been consigned ; and that they now respectfully ask leave to submit the statement of Colonel Casey to the consideration of Congress, and to express their earnest hope that it may lead to such definitive action as will insure the earty completion of this long deferred tribute to the Father of his Country. Thirty-two years have now nearby expired since the corner stone of this monument was laid, with solemn rites and impos ing ceremonies, in presence of the President of the United States, and of the Senators and Representatives of that period. The original certificates, given to the thousands of early sub scribers to the work, bore the names of John Quincy Adams, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 135 Pierce, George M. Dallas, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, all " earnestly recommending the project to the favor of their fellow countrymen." The names of Chief Justice Marshall and of James Madison had been previously associated with the enterprise, as the successive presidents of our association. Under the influence and encouragement of these great names, the work proceeded auspiciously for seven or eight years. Costly stones were presented by not a few towns and cities and States, and by associations of every sort throughout the country, to take their place in the interior of the structure, where their inscriptions could be read by all who should ascend the steps intended to lead to its summit. Many similar stones were soon welcomed as offerings from foreign lands. Meantime nearly $250,000, in round numbers, were contributed by the people of the United States, of all ages, and from all quarters of the Union, and the shaft of the monu ment was built up to a height of more than a hundred and fifty feet before the work was suspended, for want of further contri butions, in 1856. The financial embarrassments from which the business and people of the country were suffering about that time, and the great national convulsions which soon followed, furnish an ample explanation of the cessation of all efforts to advance this work for many years. But with the happy return of domestic peace and prosperity, and the renewed assurance of the perpetuity of our Federal Union, the desire became general, here and in all parts of our land, that the monument to Washington should no longer remain unfinished, and the measures which have since been adopted to this end are famil iar to Congress and the country. They are succinctly but sufficiently set forth in the statement of Colonel Casey. That statement warrants the assertion that all reasonable, or even unreasonable, doubts as to the security of the foundation have now been removed ; and there is abundant testimony from the highest scientific sources, that, by a most ingenious and skilful process, which has been carried on by the authority of Congress, the base of the monument has been rendered capable of sustaining as great a weight as it has ever been proposed to place upon it ; and that the shaft, when carried up 1C6 WASHINGTON MONUMENT. to its contemplated height, will be able to withstand the force of a wind of double the velocity of any which could reasonably be the subject of calculation or conjecture. The undersigned are not unmindful that strong efforts have been made of late to throw discredit on the design of the monu ment, and that various plans have been presented for changing the character of the structure. Nor has the Association which the undersigned have the honor to represent ever been unwill ing that such modifications of the design should be made as should be found necessary for the absolute security of the work. With this view, they gave formal expression a 3'ear ago to their acquiescence in the general plans of the accomplished American artist, Mr. Story, who had kindly given his attention to the subject ; but now that the strengthening of the founda tion has been successfully and triumphantly accomplished by a signal application of skill and science, they cannot forbear from making a respectful but urgent appeal to Congress to give their final sanction to the prosecution and completion of the work without more delay, according to the plans recommended by the commissioners appointed by Congress, with the President of the United States at their head, and by the engineer under their direction. Any other course, they are convinced, would be likely to postpone the completion of the monument for another generation, to involve the whole subject in continued perplexity, and to necessitate vastly larger appropriations in the end than have now been asked for. The main element of the original design of this monument was an obelisk. The pantheon proposed for encircling its base was long ago abandoned. The simple obelisk is all that is contemplated. It has been objected in some quarters that the ancient obe lisks were all monoliths — massive single stones, cut whole from the quarry. But our country has been proud to give examples of both political and material structures which owe their strength to union ; and this monument to Washington will not be the less significant or stately from embodying the idea of our national motto, " E pluribus unum." When the well-known monument on Bunker Hill was origi- WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 137 nally projected, more than half a century ago, an obelisk of this composite character, constructed of separate blocks of hewn granite, was agreed upon by the most distinguished artists and architects of that day. The late eminent sculptor, Horatio Greenough, furnished the design, and it was approved by Gilbert Stuart, Washington Allston, and Loammi Baldwin. Daniel Webster., Joseph Story, and Edward Everett united at the time in pronouncing it the most effective design for a mon ument of that momentous battle. It was finished accordingly, and has stood, and still stands, proudly on that consecrated spot ; and few persons, if any, are found at this day to wish that it had assumed any other form. And this monument to Washington, when completed according to the present plans, of much more than twice the height of the Bunker Hill obe lisk, and of pure white marble, will silence all criticism and cavil. Doubtless, something more original and more ornate might have been conceived at the outset, or might now be designed ; but there are abundant fields for the exhibition of advanced art in other parts of the country, if not here. This monument and its design will date back to the time of its inception, and will make no pretensions to illustrate the arts of 1880. It was not undertaken to illustrate the fine arts of any period, but to commemorate the foremost man of all the ages. Indeed, it will date back in its form and its proportions to a remote anti quity. It is a most interesting fact, communicated to us in the letters, hereto appended,1 of our accomplished American min ister at Rome, the Hon. George P. Marsh, as the result of his own researches, that the proportions of this monument as now designed, are precisely those of all the best known ancient obe lisks. The height of those monuments is ascertained by him to have been uniformly and almost precisely ten times the dimen sion of the base ; and this proportion has now been decided on for our own monument to Washington, the measurement of the base being fifty-five feet, and the projected elevation five hundred and fifty feet. But without dwelling further on the subject of the design, 1 See Note at the end of this Paper. 138 WASHINGTON MONUMENT. it seems to the undersigned sufficient respectfully to suggest, that the question before Congress at this moment is not whether the original plans might not have been improved to advantage, but whether this long delayed work shall be fin ished within any reasonable period and at any estimable cost, or be left still longer as a subject for competition among designers and contractors, — an eye-sore at the capital, a vexa tion to Congress, and a reproach to the country. By the adoption of the recommendations of the commissioners and the engineer, the work may be completed within the next four years. .The machine^ for the elevation of the stones has been most ingeniously contrived, and is now almost in readiness for action ; and by the appropriation at once of the sum now asked for, the marble for the whole structure may be contracted for and secured from a single quarry, and the danger avoided of having marble of different shades and qualities, which might seriously impair the effect of the obelisk. The monument would thus be completed with an assurance of that harmony of color which is essential to its beauty. The undersigned have a deep feeling that the time has arrived for finishing this great work according to the general design of those by whom it was undertaken, and they have the fullest confidence that such a course will commend itself to the approbation of the whole country. While the structure would make no appeal to a close and critical inspection as a mere work of art, it would give a crowning finish to the grand public buildings of the capital, would add a unique feature to the surrounding landscape, and would attract the admiring' gnze of the most distant observers in the wide range over which it would be visible. It would be eminently a monu ment for the appreciation of the many, if not of the few, and would thus verify the designation, originally given to it, of " The People's Monument to their most illustrious Benefac tor." A simple, sublime shaft, on a commanding bank of the Poto mac and within view of Mount Vernon, resting on the very spot selected by Washington himself for a monument of the American Revolution, and rising nearer to the skies than any WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 139 known monument on earth, will be no unworthy memorial, or inappropriate emblem, of his own exalted character and pre eminent services. It will certainly need no elaborate sculpture or ornamentation to impress upon all who shall behold it, from generation to generation, a becoming sense of the grandeur of his career and of the undying veneration and gratitude of the people of the United States. With these views, and in behalf of the National Monument Association, the undersigned respectfully and earnestly pray that the appropriation asked for by the commissioners may now be made, that this long-delayed tribute to the Father of his County may at length be taken out of the field of doubt and controversy, and that the imperative word may be pronounced by Congress, " Let it be finished." Robert C. Winthrop, J. M. Toner, James G. Berret, Horatio King, Jno. B. Blake, Danl. B. Clarke, Committee of the National Monument Association. NOTE. United States Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C, March 31, 1879. Dear Sir, — I inclose, as possibly of interest, extracts from a letter I have just received from Hon. George P. Marsh, our minister at Rome. These extracts refer to the Washington Monument question. Mr. Marsh is among the most learned and accomplished of those in any coun try who have given the subject of architecture and monumental art attention. Very truly yours, Geo. F. Edmunds. Gen. T. L. Casey, Corps of Engineers. EXTRACTS. Rome, February 9, 1879. Dear Mr. Edmunds, — By a letter from the sculptor Mead to Mrs. Marsh, I understand that the main feature of the Washington Monu ment is to be an obelisk of great height, surmounted by a colossal statue, and with bas-reliefs at a suitable height from the base. I believe I have not only seen but sketched every existing genuine — that is, Egyptian — obelisk ; for no other can fairly be said to be genuine. The obelisk is not an arbitrary structure which every one is free to erect with such form and proportions as suit his taste and convenience, but its objects, form, and proportions were fixed by the usage of thousands of years ; they sat isfy every cultivated eye, and I hold it an esthetical crime to depart from them. In its objects the obelisk is monumental, its inscriptions having refer ence to and indicating what or whom it commemorates. I do not think bas-reliefs too great a departure from the primitive character of the NOTE. 141 inscriptions, because we can come no nearer an alphabet answering the purpose. The most important point is the form and proportions of the structure, as to which the modern builder of obelisks transgresses greatly. The Egyptian obelisks do not, indeed, all conform with mathematical exact ness to their own normal proportions, but (probably from defects in the stone) frequently vary somewhat from them. When truly fashioned, however, they are more pleasing to the eye than when deviating from the regular shape. The obelisk consists, — First, of a naked shaft, with or without inscrip tion, the height of which is ten times the width of its base, so that if the base of the shaft is fifty feet square, then the height of the shaft must be five hundred feet. For optical reasons (which cannot be considered in the Washington Monument, it being too late) the faces of the shaft are slightly convex. The dimensions of the shaft are reduced as it rises, and in this point the ancient obelisks vary more than any other, the top of the shaft vary ing from two-thirds to three-quarters of the linear measurement of the base. Hence, if the base of the shaft (I do not mean of the pedestal or plinth, if there is one) is fifty feet square, its summit may be anywhere between thirty-three and one-third and thirty-seven and one-half feet square. The obelisks much reduced are the most graceful, but in this case the great height will of itself reduce the apparent measurement, so that perhaps thirty-five would not be too much. But the shaft has al ready gone up so far as to have settled those questions of form irrevocably. Second, of a pyramidion or apex, the form and proportions of which are constant. The base of the pyramidion is of exactly the same dimen sions as the summit of the shaft, and unites with it directly without any break (except, of course, one angle), and with no ledge, moulding, or other disfigurement. The height of the pyramidion is equal to the length of a side of the base of the shaft, and therefore greater than the side of its own base. There are cases where the hieroglyphics run up one or more faces of the pyramidion, but in general these faces are perfectly plain. The Egyptians often covered the whole pyramidion with a closely fitted gilt bronze cap, the effect of which must have been magnificent. It has been said that it was sometimes surmounted by a gilt star, but I doubt this, for the casing of the pyramidion would of itself have much the same effect. The notion of spitting a statue on the sharp point of the pyramidion is 142 note. supremely absurd. Not less so is the substitution of a low-hipped roof for an acute pyramidion, or the making of a window in the face of the pyramidion or of the shaft, both which atrocities were committed in the Bunker Hill Monument. There will no doubt be people who will be foolish enough to insist on a peep-hole somewhere ; and if they must be gratified the window should be of the exact form and size of one of the stones, and provided with a close-fitting shutter colored exactly like the stone, so that when shut it would be nearly or quite imperceptible from below. Hon. Geo. F. Edmunds. Yours truly, Geo. P. Marsh. Washington, D. C, May 12, 1879. My dear General, — I have received from Mr. Marsh a letter on the subject of the monument, a copy of which I herewith forward to you, thinking it may interest you. Yours truly, George F. Edmunds. Gen. T. L. Casey, Corps of Engineers, Washington, D. C. Home, AprU 25, 1879. Dear Mr. Edmunds, — I am much obliged to you for yours of April 8, with General Casey's letter and the two Congressional documents. I am agreeably surprised to learn from General Casey's interesting letter that the normal proportions have been so nearly observed hitherto in the construction of the obelisk. In fact, it being difficult to obtain such vast masses of granite rock, even in the quarries of Syene, entirely free from flaws, the Egyptians were very often obliged to depart more or less from the proportions most satisfactory to the eye, and the "Washington obelisk conforms so nearly to those proportions, except in two points, that it is hardly subject to criticism. These points are, the batter, which is more rapid than in any obelisk known to me, and the pyramidion. Per haps the designer adopted the proportions from considerations of stability, as a summit considerably less than the base would give greater security, and when the dimensions are all so great, differences of proportion are less appreciable. As to the form and proportion of the pyramidion, the existing obelisks are more uniform than in the measurements of the shaft, and I think that, NOTE. 143 not merely on the ground of precedent but on that of taste, it would be by all means advisable to give to the pyramidion of the Washington obe lisk a height of not less than fifty feet. In any case, if the height of the pyramidion is not greater than the side of its base, the summit will have a truncated shape quite out of harmony with the soaring character of the structure. I infer from General Casey's drawings, accompanying Mr. Corcoran's letter, that the plan of a sort of temple-like excrescence from the base — - a highly objectionable feature — is abandoned. It is curious that we do not know precisely what the Egyptian form of the base was. Some au thorities state it was a die of larger dimensions than the shaft, and with sides battering at the same rate as the shaft, but I do not find satisfactory evidence that this was by any means universal, though it would certainly be an appropriate and* harmonious form. Of course any desirable base can be constructed around the shaft. There are obelisks the surface of which indicates that they were stuccoed ; and this suggests that if the shaft of the Washington obelisk shall, from time or difference of material, be found parti-colored, surface uniformity of tone may be obtained by the same process. We have no knowledge of any Egyptian obelisk much exceeding one hundred feet in height, though some ancient writers speak of such monu ments of considerably greater dimensions. The extreme difficulty of ob taining monoliths exceeding one hundred feet renders it probable that the measurements of the authorities referred to were mere vague estimates rather than ascertained dimensions. Yours truly, Geo. P. Marsh. Brookline, Mass., August 1, 1878. Mr dear Sir, — Your favor of the 20th ultimo reached me yesterday. I thank you for sending me the copy of Mr. Story's letter, which I have read with great interest. I am only a second vice-president of the Mon ument Association, and am not included in the commission for completing the work. I had no part or lot in the original design of the monument. John Quincy Adams had been relied upon to deliver the oration at the laying of the corner-stone. On his death, in 1848, I was called on, as Speaker of the House, to take his place, and I have occasionally, since then, been instrumental in raising funds for the prosecution of the struc ture. As an original question, I might have desired a different design ; 144 NOTE. and I had no small part in inducing the building committee, many years ago, to omit the pantheon at the base, and to confine the design to a sim ple obelisk. After that was arranged, and when the monument had reached so considerable a height, I was very averse to changing ihe plan. A whole generation of men, wcmtn, and children had contributed, in larger or smaller sums, to this particular monument ; and States, cities, and foreign nations had sent stones for its completion. To tear it all down, with a view to improve the design, was abhorrent to me. Story called to see me when he was in Boston, and I told him that so far as I was concerned, my first wish was to finish the monument as a simple obelisk ; but that, if a change was unavoidable, owing to any insecurity of the foundations, his idea of turning it into an ornamental Lombard tower was the best plan I had seen suggested. His letter in creases my appreciation of his design, though I am afraid that it would involve an amount of money and time which would postpone the comple tion for another generation. As it is, I understand the whole question to be settled, and that the commissioners are now going on to strengthen the foundations and carry up the obelisk to four hundred and eighty-five feet. I heartily hope that this is so, and that on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birthday of Washington, in 1882, less than four years hence, we may see and celebrate the accomplishment of this long- deferred work. If I live to that day, I will come on and hear you deliver the oration. I am aware that what is called " advanced art " looks with scorn on anything so simple and bald as an obelisk, more especially when it is made up of a thousand pieces, instead of being a monolith shaft. Yet the Bunker Hill Monument, of which the design was furnished by one of our earliest and best artists, Horatio Greenough, is one of these composite obelisks, and Webster was proud to apostrophize it as " the true orator of the day," when he was pronouncing his own incomparable oration. I recall other obelisks, at home and abroad, which tell their story most impressively ; and when I look around to see what " advanced art " has done for us and done for itself in the myriad soldiers' monuments which have been recently erected, I fall back on the simple shaft, as at least not inferior to any one of them in effect, and as free from anything tinsel or tawdry. A grand Arch, which I believe you once proposed, would be a noble monument of our Union, and might well be the subject of independent consideration in season for the centennial of the organization of the gov ernment in 1889. I have repeatedly urged such an arch as commemora tive of our Constitutional Union, in Boston. But it would have still NOTE. 145 greater propriety in Washington. I cannot help hoping, however, that it will be erected with new stones, and without any disturbance of the Washington obelisk. Pardon me for so long a letter and for so frank an expression of my views. I have heard nothing on the subject of late from the commis sioners, or any of the Association, but have taken it for granted that the whole matter was decided. If, however, it is to be reopened, I shall be very glad to see Mr. Story's designs, and to consult with you agreeably to your friendly invitation. Believe me, dear Mr. Morrill, respectfully and truly, Robert C. Winthrop. Hon. Justin S. Morrill, United States Senator. 10 JOHN WYCLIFFE. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MASSACHU SETTS BIBLE SOCIETY, MAT 24, 1880. We come, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the celebration of our seventy-first anniversary in fewer numbers than we could have desired, and in fewer numbers, I may add, than we had a right to expect, in view of the Cause, and of him who is to plead it. But we come, notwithstanding, with renewed gratitude to God for all that we have been privileged to do in the past, and with renewed hope and resolution to accomplish still more in the future. The report of our Trustees, which has just been read by our faithful Recording Secretary, Rev. Mr. Butler, has sufficiently informed you of the details and of the extent of our operations during the year which is now closed ; and I should in vain at tempt to add anything either important or interesting to what is contained in that report. Yet I cannot refrain from a few introductory words this afternoon. We are passing through a year which is likely to become notable in history for the great number of centennial or semi centennial anniversaries of which it will have witnessed the celebration. Institutions of almost every description have held, or are preparing to hold, commemorative festivals of this sort during the present year. The Boston Natural History Society has recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is to celebrate its hundredth anniversary on the day after to-morrow. The State of Massa- JOHN WYCLIFFE. 147 chusetts will hardly forget that her Constitution of Government was adopted just a hundred years ago. The landing of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, with the charter of the Colony, just two hundred and fifty years ago, is to be commemorated at Salem next month. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Boston is to be the subject of a sumptuous celebration in September. The First Church in Dorchester, and the old First Church of Boston, are to observe their two hundred and fiftieth anniversaries, also, in June and October respectively. I know not how many more of such occasions may be in contemplation for this blessed year of our Lord, 1880. Meantime I cannot forget that there is another commem oration which belongs to this year, — not here, particularly, not to our own city, or commonwealth, or country, exclusively, for it is world-wide in its character, — and which has peculiar claims on the remembrance and attention of Societies like this. Reaching back for its subject, not merely for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or for two hundred and fifty years, but to a period when there was no America on the map of the world, and no Columbus or Sebastian Cabot to discover an America, — it yet challenges an American recognition, and an American sympathy, no less than it appeals to the hearts of Protestant Christians, certainly, in every land on which the sun shines. You will have anticipated me, I am sure, as referring to the fact, that to the year 1380 is assigned the completion of the first translation of the whole Bible into the English language ; and that this is thus the 500th year, — the semi-millennial, — of that grand work of John Wycliffe. To him the glory be longs of having been the first to give the whole Bible to the English people in their own tongue, without note or comment. He did the work heroically, in the face of threats, denuncia tions, and excommunications, which, — inasmuch as a fortu nate stroke of paralysis, a few years after it was finished, had saved him from absolute martyrdom, — found their ultimate satisfaction in committing his bones to the flames, and casting their ashes into the sea. We have had better translations of the Sacred Scriptures 148 JOHN WYCLIFFE. since his day. We have had revisions and commentaries ol all sorts, with the latest results of scientific discoveries, of philological criticism, and of archaeological researches. We welcome them all. Certainly, we are not afraid of any of them. Moses will still stand as the grandest of historians and law-givers. David will still be the sweet Psalmist of Christen dom, as well as of Israel. Isaiah will still startle and thrill and convince us by the surpassing majesty, as well as by the mar vellous minuteness, of his sublime prophecies. And Jesus Christ, as portrayed in the Gospel, will be the same, "yester day, to-day, and forever." Critics and commentators will help us and not hurt us. No weapon formed against the Word of God will prosper. But whatever may have been done, or may still be done, for the Bible, that old first translation and its heroic author can never fail to be remembered with gratitude and veneration ; and I should be sorry to have this occasion pass away without this brief but distinct recognition of his claim to no second share in the manifold anniversary honors of the year 1880. And now, without trespassing longer on your attention, I hasten to present to you the Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie, who has kindly consented to deliver our annual discourse. CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. ADDRESS AT THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, MAY 26, 1880. We are here, Ladies and Gentlemen, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The committee of arrangements, whose organ I have the honor to be, have selected for our public exercises this ven erable meeting-house, in which not a few of those who founded our institution, a hundred years ago, were accustomed to as semble for the worship of God ; and in which many more of them had often met, on most memorable occasions, to take counsel for the defence of American Liberty. It is the meeting house, too, in which the governors and legislatures of our Com monwealth, for a long succession of years, and until a somewhat recent period, have listened to their annual Election Sermon, on this very day of the year, — the last Wednesday of May. Hav ing been providentially spared from the flames of the great Bos ton fire of 1872, of the arrest of whose ravages in this direction it stands as a landmark and a monument, — I had almost said as a brand from the burning, — it has mainly owed its continued preservation to the pious and patriotic efforts of the ladies of our city and vicinity ; and to them and their associates of our own sex we offer our grateful acknowledgments for the privi lege of being here to-day. But, my friends, this Old South Meeting-house has an associa tion for us, as an Academy of Arts and Sciences, nearer and dearer than any of those to which I have alluded. It was here} 150 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMEEICAN ACADEMY. on this spot, in the old church edifice of this parish, that, with a punctuality and a despatch which seemed to prefigure, as it certainly characterized, his whole career, our great forerunner in the field of American Arts and Sciences, and I might add of American Liberty also, was baptized. Brought over here in a blanket from the home of his father and mother just across the street, on the very day of his birth, — Sunday, the 6th of Jan uary, old style, or, as we now count it, the 17th of January, 1706, — that infant child of a humble tallow-chandler received from the lips of the pastor of this Old South Church, not with out the blessing of God invoked and vouchsafed — "non sine Diis animosus infans" — the name of Benjamin Franklin. Where, where else, so appropriately could American Art and Science repair for the celebration of their own birth, their own small beginnings, their own infant lispings, as to the cradle and the christening font of our great Bostonian ? If, indeed, my friends, we had a second day to spare for our celebration, it might well be occupied in an excursion to the birthplace and early home of another Massachusetts Benjamin, — Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, the great benefactor of this Acad emy and the founder of the Royal Institution in London, — such an excursion as Tyndall took pains to make a few years ago under the escort of Rumford's biographer, Dr. Ellis, in token of his reverence for the memory of the great American philosopher of light and heat. But we must content ourselves with a single day and a single birthplace. We may not, however, forget that while the history of Amer ican Arts and Sciences may fairly begin with our Boston-born printer's apprentice, that history must turn to another City and another State for the opening pages of its earliest chapter. Old as we are, we cannot claim the distinction of being the oldest of American Scientific Associations, and we are rejoiced to recog nize, and to welcome among our guests to-day, a distinguished delegation from our elder sister, the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, which was founded by Franklin not a great many years after he had run away, as a lad of seventeen, from his apprenticeship and indentures here, and had estab lished himself in the City of Brotherly Love. CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 151 That noble City has a heritage of historic glory which may well be the admiration, if not the envy, of all other American cities. Not only was it the scene of the first Continental Con gress, of the immortal Declaration of Independence, and of the formation of the Constitution of the United States, but it was the birthplace, also, of the first American public subscription library ; of the first volunteer fire-engine company ; of the first volunteer militia regiment, of which Franklin was the colonel ; of the first American agricultural society; of the first American Bible society ; and, I believe I may safely add, of the earliest anti-slavery society in our land. But it is as the acknowledged birthplace of the first American philosophical society that we hail it especially on this occasion, and welcome the delegates from that City and from that Society with an exceptional em phasis and fervor. We welcome, indeed, most heartily to this occasion every one of the delegates who have honored us by their presence from other cities and States, and from other institutions, American and foreign ; from Washington, from New York and New Hampshire, from Connecticut and Iowa and California, from Italy and France and Russia, from Belgium and Holland and Denmark and Germany and Sweden, from the Dominion of Canada and from old England, and from wheresoever else be neath the sun they may have come to our festival ; and we shall hope for an opportunity of expressing our acknowledgments to them all at a later hour of the day, if not now. But they will all pardon us, I am sure, for confining our first individual recog nition, here and now, to the parent American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. That Society originated in a time of colonial peace and quiet ness. Our Academy had its origin while the War of Indepen dence was still in progress, while the principles of republican equality were on every tongue and in every heart, and when our honored founders would have been foremost in protesting against anything which looked like a recognition of hereditary rights or claims to consideration. Yet I cannot forget, not merely that the distinction of presiding on this occasion has been assigned to the oldest living descendant of our first Presi- 152 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. dent, James Bowdoin, but that it was to have been my privi lege and pleasure, in a few moments, to present to you the oldest living descendant of him, who, more than any other one man, is to be remembered this day as the founder of our Acad emy, the illustrious John Adams. Having succeeded Covernor Bowdoin as president of the Academy, and having himself been succeeded, after no very long interval, by his hardly less illus trious son, John Quincy Adams, the chair which they both filled is now occupied and adorned by a third scion of the same distinguished stock. Primo et secundo avulsis, non deficit alter aureus ; or, if I may borrow a line from the translation of the iEneid, by his Excellency Governor Long, whose necessary absence we all regret, I may say, — " The flrst torn off, There lacks not still another branch of gold." Having been our Minister at London during a very critical period, and our commissioner at Geneva at the great arbitration, the Academy were proud to place at their head one so de servedly distinguished at home and abroad ; and we relied upon him especially to-day to crown a faithful service of many years by pronouncing our centennial oration. But, my friends, I have a great disappointment to announce to you at this moment, and one to which it requires all the philosophy which may have been accumulated by this Academy in a whole century, individually or collectively, to be easily reconciled. Our excellent President, no longer on the sunny side of threescore years and ten, and with whose infirmities in this respect I have a right to feel a special sympathy, has found himself, within the last twenty-four hours only, so oppressed by the heat of the weather, by the responsibilities of this occasion, and by positive ill health, as to be absolutely unable to be with ¦ us. The loss is as irreparable as it was unexpected. It would be quite impossible for any one at a day's notice to prepare a worthy address for such an occasion as this. Our story would have been told by him amply, aptly, admirably. You would have had the detailed account of our original organization as an Academy, and of the excellent men who were foremost in its early proceedings. He would have done full justice to every CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 153 one of them, except, perhaps to his own venerated grandfather and father; and our grateful memories would have been sure to supply in that respect whatever his modesty might have omitted. All our other eminent presidents would have received their mer ited tribute at his hands. For, indeed, there has been a noble succession of admirable men in our chair, — Bowdoin and the Adamses ; Holxoke, the eminent physician and surgeon, who was permitted to round out a full century of life ; Nathaniel Bowditch, known as a young man upon all the seas by his " Navigator," and afterward known to science throughout all lands by his translation of the " Me"canique Celeste " of La Place ; good Dr. James Jackson, whom old Thomas Fuller might have had in mind and taken as a pattern in his portrait of the beloved phy sician ; John Pickering, with his vocabularies and lexicons and orthography of the Indian languages _of North America, — one of the chief founders of American Comparative Philology ; Jacob Bigelow, with his manifold and marvellous acquire ments, his sterling common sense, his quick wit and abounding humor, and his consummate medical wisdom ; and, lastly, our great botanist, Asa Gray, of whom I dare not say, in his living presence — which we all welcome — what all of us know and appreciate without its being said by any one, — whose recent Lectures at Yale College, on " Natural Science and Religion," would alone be enough to secure for him the respect and grati tude of every Christian reader. But it is not for me to attempt to do justice to these and other eminent presidents and fellows of our Academy by such undigested utterances. Their names, however, even if it be nothing but their names, must not, and shall not, be lost to our centennial commemoration. Meantime, if we are deprived to-day of any protracted dis course upon the great objects of our Association, or upon the success with which those objects have been prosecuted during the hundred years which are now completed, we may at least point with satisfaction and pride to our published record. The elaborate and stately volumes of our Proceedings and Memoirs, which have succeeded each other to the number of nearly one for every three years of our existence, have furnished, and still 151 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. furnish, abundant materials for all who may be inclined to pass a candid and deliberate judgment on our sayings and doings for a century. To them we confidently appeal. And let it not be forgotten that the lack of pecuniary means, and not any lack of good will or good work or good matter, has prevented more fre quent and more regular publications. With an adequate publi cation fund, such as we are now striving, — and by no means without success, — to establish, as a centennial tribute to the cause of science and art, no worthy laborer in that cause will longer be deprived of an opportunity to give the result of his researches to the world, and every successive year will have its regular and rightful volume. , It is not prudent, however, for us to boast ourselves of to-morrow, while this centennial fund is but little more than half made up ; and, even as to the past, we may well remember the warning of the wise man of Sacred Writ: "Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips." The first President of our Academy, Governor Bowdoin, whose words I have an hereditary right to borrow and appro priate, — though I should hardly care to inherit a responsibility for some of his peculiar astronomical theories and speculations, — when he pronounced his inaugural discourse in 1780, looked forward distinctly to this very day and hour and occasion, and attempted to anticipate what would be said of the Academy by some American historian, some American Livy or Thucydides, as he said, at the close of a century. Let me read from his ad dress, as printed at the time, and from the very copy which has come down to me as an heirloom, a few sentences as he delivered them on the 8th of November, 1780. After acknowledging most gratefully the influence of the Philadelphia Society and the par amount and pre-eminent influence of Harvard University, the mother of us all, in everything which pertained to the advance ment of education and learning, and of the arts and sciences, he proceeds thus : — " ' Rapt into future times,' and anticipating the history of our country, methinks I read in the admired pages of some Amer ican Livy or Thucydides to the following effect : " A century is now elapsed since the commencement of Amer- CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 155 ican Independency. What led to it, and the remarkable events of the war which preceded and followed it, have been already related in the course of this history. " It was not to be expected that our ancestors, involved as they were in a civil war, could give any attention to literature and the sciences ; but, superior to their distresses, and animated by the generous principles which liberty and independency in spire, they instituted the excellent society called ' The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.' " This society formed itself on the plan of the philosophical societies in Europe, adopting such rules and principles of con duct as were best suited to answer the end of its institution. Among others they laid it down as a fundamental principle, that as true physics must be founded on experiments, so all their in- quiries should, as far as possible, be carried on and directed by them. This method was strongly recommended by Sir Francis Bacon, ' a genius born to embrace the whole compass of science, and justly styled the first great reformer of philosophy.' It was adopted by succeeding philosophers, and peculiarly by the im mortal Newton, whose system of philosophy, founded on the laws of nature, will for that reason be as durable as nature itself. " Taking these great characters for their guide, and influenced by their illustrious example, they proceeded on fact and obser vation, and did not admit of any reasonings or deductions but such as clearly resulted from them. This has been the uniform practice of the Society ; whose members from time to time, hav ing been chosen from men of every country, from every class and profession, — without any other distinction than was dictated by the dignity of their characters, by their morality, good sense and professional abilities, — we find in the printed transactions of the society the best compositions on every subject within the line of their department. We find in those transactions new facts, new observations and discoveries ; or old ones placed in a new light, and new deductions made from them. " They have particularly attended to such subjects as re spected the growth, population, and improvement of their coun try : in which they have so happily succeeded that we now see 156 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. agriculture, manufactures, navigation, and commerce in a high degree of cultivation ; and all of them making swift advances in improvement as population increases. In short, they have, agreeably to the declared end of their institution, ' cultivated every art and science which might tend to advance the interest and honor of their country, the dignity and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.' " All these were the words of our first President, a hundred years ago. This was his " prophetic history," which he trusted would be realized by fact and be recorded by some future American Livy or Thucydides. But what would he have said, had it been vouchsafed to him really to penetrate that veil of the future which he contem plated, and to foresee even ever so small a part of that which has actually occurred, and been practically accomplished, in the arts and sciences to which this Academy has been dedicated? How would he and his fellow-founders of our institution have exulted, could they have known something of the stupendous discoveries, in the heavens above and in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth, which were to mark the century now ended so peculiarly as their own century! What words could have measured their amazement at the wonderful instruments which are dow piercing the skies, and at the marvellous engines which are now tramping and thundering over land and sea, scooping out canals like that of Suez, or, it may be, of Darien or Nicaragua, as they go ; or tunnelling moun tains, like Mont Cenis or St. Gothard, or, it may be, Mont Blanc itself, to which our own little Hoosac is but a molehill ! What would they have said, could they have caught the click of an ocean, or even of a land, telegraph ; or listened to some words of their own bottled up for a century, and coming out, fresh and articulate, from the lips of a telephone or phonograph ! What delight they would have enjoyed could they have witnessed the working even of any of the myriad of lesser and simpler inven tions and implements of practical art, which are ministering to the daily and hourly convenience and comfort of common life ! And what ecstasy would have mingled with their bewilderment, as they reflected that, by building up their little local Academy, CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 157 they might claim some humble part in fostering and furthering the great scientific movement which had pervaded the world, and might thus themselves be entitled to some humble share in the glory ! What satisfaction they would have enjoyed in knowing, too, that our foreign honorary membership would be so highly ap preciated by the select few on whom it has been conferred, and in seeing upon our roll such names as Helmholtz and Kirchhoff, as Sir William Thomson and Sir Joseph Hooker, as Owen and Max Muller and Darwin, as Carlyle and Mignet and Dean Stanley, and Gladstone and Ruskin and Tennyson, standing side by side with those of our own Peirce and Gray, and Rogers and Emerson, and Longfellow and Whittier, and Holmes and Bancroft, and Hopkins and Woolsey, and Dana and Porter! Could the founders of this Academy even now look down from the skies, as we may hope they may be permitted to look down to-day, upon our own little State of Massachusetts and our own little city of Boston, with what rapture would they be hold, encircling this Academy as their original nucleus, their primal nebula, if I may so speak, — a Natural History Society, with its manifold and growing collections and cabinets ; a Technological Institute, with its admirable curriculum of scien tific education ; a splendid Museum of the Fine Arts ; an Ob servatory, with its comet-seekers and transit instruments, and with its noble refractor; the Lawrence Scientific School; the Chemical Laboratory of Professor Cooke ; the Garden and Her barium of our great botanist, Dr. Gray ; the magnificent Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology, where an accomplished son is so nobly carrying on the cherished work of his ever-honored and lamented father, and, close at its side, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology ; and all our thriving associations of History and Literature and Music, of Horticulture and Agri culture ; and, better than all, the hosts of busy and devoted stu dents in these and other institutions, who are engaged, day by day and night by night, in searching out the mysteries of Na ture, and extorting from her so many of the secrets which have been hid from all human eyes and all human conceptions from the foundation of the world ! 158 CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. They would be convinced that there was, indeed, such a pro cess as evolution, though I think they would be content, as some of their descendants still are, to call it by the good old- fashioned name of development. They would certainly concur in the idea that their little Academy had furnished, or fallen upon, a plentiful supply of protoplasm, though I have great faith that they would cling tenaciously to the simpler and more eu phonious word — germ. At all events, they would be heard ex claiming with one accord, in the sublime words with which our first President concluded his inaugural discourse a hundred years ago, " Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Al mighty, in wisdom hast thou made them all ! " And with these words I, too, must be allowed to close this attempt — from which I would so gladly have been excused — to fill a gap which was not dreamed of until a late hour of yes terday, and to deliver a centennial oration at less than twenty- four hours' notice. If I have thus exhibited my reverence for the memory of our first President, and my loyalty to the Acad emy in its hour of need, and if I have rendered the lamented absence of my honored friend, Mr. Adams, less painful to him self as well as to you, I shall be more than rewarded for the effort. I should be sorry, however, to be involved in such an emergency again, at least before the expiration of another full hundred years ! NOTE. At the close of the exercises in the church the members of the Acad emy and their guests proceeded to their rooms at the Athenasum building, where a collation was served, after which there were speeches by repre sentatives of other societies. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop presided, and in calling the company to order spoke as follows : — Brothers of the Academy, Delegates from Kindred Associations at Home and Abroad, and Invited Guests — The committee of arrangements have assigned to me the delicate and difficult task of conducting these closing ceremonies of our centennial fes tival. I am deeply conscious how rash it was in me — albeit not often accused of rashness — to accept such a responsibility. But repentance, as always, comes too late, and I know well that, after all which has oc curred this morning, I can rely on your indulgence for any shortcomings in the discharge of a duty which might well have been laid on younger shoulders. Let me not speak of ceremonies, however. The ceremonies and formal utterances of this occasion are happily over, and nothing remains for us but the brief and spontaneous interchange of such expres sions of mutual congratulation and good-fellowship as belong to the after piece of such a commemoration. We look for no long or elaborate speeches from any one ; and certainly you will expect none from me, after the strain to which I have been so unexpectedly subjected at the Old South. The most that I can do. now is to welcome again to our centen nial festival the guests and delegates who have honored us by their presence ; and I now once more, in the name of the committee of arrange ments, and in behalf of the whole Academy, bid them, one and all, heartily welcome to our board. 160 NOTE. Nor must I fail to express, in a single word, our grateful acknowledg ments to all the kindred associations in foreign lands, and in other parts of our own land near and remote, which have sent us their greetings and congratulations, either by delegates or by formal responses to our invita tion. "Welcome to all who are present, and thanks to all who have remembered us ! Success and gratitude and honor to the votaries of Art and Science throughout the world ! CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS. — SIR WALTER RALEIGH. — DEATH OF DR. BARNAS SEARS. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1880. Soon after we had adjourned in June last for our summer vacation, an interesting and valuable addition to our Library was received from our foreign Corresponding Member, W. Noel Sainsbury, Esq., of-Her Majesty's Public Record Office in London, to which I take pleasure in calling your attention this afternoon. It is a very large volume, entitled " Calendar of State Papers, Colonial series, America and West Indies, 1661 — 1668. " The last volume of this important series, which Mr. Sainsbury also presented to our Library, ended with the year 1660. The present volume continues the Calendar to the close of 1668, and contains no less than 1,911 abstracts of colonial documents for those eight years. Not a few of the documents relate to Massachusetts and to other parts of New England. Many more of them relate to the other co-existing colonies on the American Continent. Mr. Sainsbury has shown himself a most careful and diligent laborer in the preparation of these Calendars, and has earned a grateful acknowledgment from all students of early American history. Edited and pub lished by him, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, with the sanction of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, and printed sumptuously at the cost of the British Government, this Calendar cannot fail to renew our impressions of the recent liberality of that Government n 162 CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS. in opening its historical treasures to the public, and putting them in a form for general and convenient consultation. Such calendars inform us not only what is to be found in those ven erable British archives, but what is not to be found there, and thus save a world of pains in searching for things which have no existence or no record. There has not yet been time for any of us to examine this large volume with sufficient care for ascertaining what new materials it may afford for Massa chusetts or American history; but our friend Mr. Deane will doubtless soon take it in hand, and nothing will elude his vigi lant and experienced eye. Meantime, there is an elaborate preface, of eighty-three pages, by Mr. Sainsbury himself, which calls attention to many interesting items, and presents a valuable historical summary of the contents of the volume. You will all unite, I am sure, in authorizing me to return something more than a mere for mal acknowledgment of this gift, and to assure our obliging and accomplished Corresponding Member of our grateful appre ciation of his work. Another present to our Library, more recently received, calls for special notice. It is a History of the United States, from the earliest period to the present day, in the French language, and in two volumes, printed by Didier & Co., publishers to the French Academy. It is sent to us by the author, M. Frederick Nolte, of Paris. It will remain on our table for the present, and may form an interesting subject of examination. Mean time, the thanks of the Society will be duly returned for so acceptable a gift. It will not be forgotten that at our last meeting I called attention to a subscription which had been commenced for a proposed American Memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh, to be placed in the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, under the auspices, and by the invitation, of Canon Farrar, the dis tinguished rector of that old historic church. The paper when sent to me contained already five subscriptions of £20 each by American gentlemen, headed by my friend, Russell Sturgis, Esq., of the house of Baring Brothers & Co. At my suggestion our Society added another £20 to the SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 163 subscription, and I was requested to invite the co-operation of other American Historical Societies, and of individuals who might take an interest in such a Memorial. Dnring this summer season, other Historical Societies, like our own, have been in a state of suspended animation, and their members have been scattered at the sea-coast or in the mountains. There has thus been no opportunity of appealing to many of them. I am happy to say, however, that the Pennsylvania Society and the American Antiquarian Society have added £20 each ; the Virginia Society and the North Carolina Society have also united with us. In all, there have been about £210 subscribed. We require as much more, at the least, for the completion of the work. It would be safer to fix the sum required at £500. I have some promises outstanding, from other Societies, which I trust will be fulfilled, and we can afford to wait another month before pronouncing on the success or failure of the plan. I shall be glad of the assistance of any who may take an interest in its success. We have lost since our last adjournment one of our most dis tinguished American Honorary Members. The Rev. Barnas Sears, D.D., died at Saratoga Springs, New York, on the 6th of July last. He was originally elected a Corresponding Member of this Society in 1869, and was afterward transferred to our Honorary roll. He was born in Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, on the 19th of November, 1802, and was thus in the 78th year of his age. But until a very recent period he had exhibited none of the infirmities of advancing years, and as lately as our October meeting in 1878, less than two years ago, he was with us here in full enjoyment of health and vigor, and gave us a brief but most interesting account of his acquaintance with Humboldt, and the great Hebraist, Ges enius, and the eminent Professors Bock and Herman, while pursuing his studies in Berlin and at the Universities of Halle and Leipsic in 1834 and 1835. He had previously, in 1825, been graduated at Brown University, and had then pursued his theological studies at the Newton Baptist Seminary in our own State. 164 DEATH OF DR. BARNAS SEARS. Dr. Sears commenced his career, as a clergyman, as pastor of the First Baptist Church at Hartford, Connecticut, but after two years became a professor in the institution now known as Madison University, at Hamilton, New York. He left that position for the pursuit of his studies in Germany, and on his return became a professor, and not long afterward, the president, of the Newton Theological Seminary. In 1848, he succeeded the late Horace Mann as Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, an office which he filled wilh signal ability for six or seven years. In 1855, he was called to succeed the eminent Dr. Francis Wayland as president of Brown University, and continued to hold that office until 1867. That was the year in which George Peabody estab lished his great Trust for Southern Education, and when the Trustees were so fortunate as to secure the services of Dr. Sears, as their General Agent. As Chairman of the Board, I have been in the most intimate communication and corre spondence with him during the more than twelve years last past, and have been a witness to his indefatigable and most successful labors in that field. I reserve any detailed refer ence to those labors for the annual meeting of the Trustees in February next.1 It is enough for me here to express my deep sense of the fidelity and value of his services, in the cause to which he had thus devoted the remainder of his life. He removed his residence at once to Staunton, Virginia, where he could be in more immediate communication with the people whose schools he was henceforth to superintend, and where he won the confidence, respect, and affection of all with whom he was brought into connection or counsel. His death has called out the warmest expressions of regret and sorrow in all parts of the South. Dr. Sears had published not a few interesting and valuable volumes. A German Grammar of Nohden's was his earliest publication. It was followed, in 1844, by a treatise, giving an account of the mode of teaching Latin in the Prussian schools. Soon afterward came a collection of Martin Luther's Essays in German, with notes of his own. An admirable Life of Luther, which has been translated into many foreign languages, 1 See page 206 of this volume. DEATH OF DR. BARNAS SEARS. 16c was published by him in 1850. He was afterward associ ated with the late President Felton in publishing a volume of Essays on Ancient Literature and Art, in defence of the Classics. His improved edition of Roget's Thesaurus in 1854 is, perhaps, more familiar to us all than any of his other works. His very last effort was in preparing a Semi-Cen- tennial Address for the American Institute of Instruction at their late meeting at Saratoga Springs. He was taken ill a few weeks before the meeting was to be held, and was recom mended to try the effect of the Springs for his relief. But he reached there only to die. The Address, however, containing his views of " Educational Progress in the United States during the Last Fifty Years," had been completed before he left home, and was read to the assembled Institute, on the day after his death, by our excellent Vice-President, Dr. George E. Ellis. Dr. Ellis, at my request, had most kindly been a constant visitor to Dr. Sears, during his stay at Sara toga, and rendered services of the greatest value to him and his family. He learned to appreciate, as I had long done, the noble character and rich accomplishments of Dr. Sears, and to sympathize with me in his loss. The remains of Dr. Sears were brought to Brookline, and, after interesting services at the Baptist church, were buried in the family tomb of his wife on the 9th of July. We have all observed the accounts of the sad disaster which has recently befallen a very eminent German historian, Theodor Mommsen, whose whole library and precious manu scripts were destroyed by fire. The sympathies of the literary world have been strongly excited in his behalf, and proposals of many kinds have been made in Europe for his relief. He is understood to have declined any pecuniary contribution, and it is added that the insurance on his library will replace it, so far as it is possible to replace it. I have thought that we might well show our sense of his affliction by placing his name on our Honorary roll, and by accompanying the di ploma with any volumes of our publications which might possibly have an interest for him.1 1 This was done. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON. SPEECH AT FANEUIL HALL, SEPTEMBER 16, 1880. I heartily wish I had language, fellow-citizens, for any ad equate acknowledgment of the kind and complimentary words of the Mayor, and for the flattering manner in which you have re sponded to them. I can only assure you that I am most deeply grateful for such a demonstration of consideration and regard. I have come, Mr. Mayor, agreeably to your summons and my promise, to unite with you in the congratulations of this anni versary. But I am not quite sure in what capacity I am called to appear here. Your City Council have done me the honor to include me among their distinguished guests, and I thank them heartily for so agreeable a compliment. But I am unwilling to forget, or to have it forgotten by others, that I can claim a place here as my birthright — the birthright of a native Bostonian. Perhaps, too, I might be pardoned for asserting some peculiar inherited interest in the historical event which we are about to celebrate. Yet in neither of these relations, nor indeed in any other relation, do I propose to detain you many minutes. The time has been, when such a scene as this, when such a reception as you have given me, when such an audience as I see before me and around me, assembled in this grand old hall of the heroes and patriots of Independence, would have stirred and kindled me to no mere brief or formal utterances, and when I should THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON. 167 eagerly have clutched at the opportunity to be heard at length. But that time is past. I am unfeignedly conscious that ora tions and long speeches are for younger lips than mine, and I willingly renounce them for the future. And there is still another reason why I may fairly excuse my self from attempting any elaborate effort on this occasion. It is that I have already had a part in one of these same historical jubilees of Boston. Fifty years ago, when the two hundredth anniversary of our City was celebrated, I was something more than a witness of the festival. I was then a young officer of volunteers, and at the same time an active member of the An cient and Honorable Artillery Company, which did the escort duty for the city government on that day, as it is to do it again to-morrow. It happened, as I well remember, that I was ap pointed the " grand guide of the right " for that parade ; and it seems but yesterday that I was engaged in aligning the battalion, in front of the State House, to receive the authorities of the State and City, before marching with them, between the long rows of school children, — of whom my friend Mr. Evarts may have been one, and possibly the Mayor another, — to hear, as I did hear, the noble oration of the elder Quincy, and the charming poem of Charles Sprague, at the Old South. And then came the dinner at the Exchange Coffee House, where I was privileged to sit down with Otis and Quincy, and the Appletons and Law rences, and Governor Lincoln and Judge Story, and Leverett Saltonstall and Everett and Webster, and so many more of the illustrious men who were the pride and glory of the Common wealth in those days. Certainly, my friends, to have played ever so humble a part in one such jubilee festival is enough for a lifetime, and I may v/ell leave it to other and younger men to be heard on this occasion. For myself, I am here, my friends, only to recognize, as the law phrase is, and to be recognized, as one of the old Puritan stock, in lineal descent from the foremost of the founders of Massachusetts and of Boston, whose Statue is to be unveiled and inaugurated to-morrow. To him belong all the honors which may attach to the name which he first rendered familiar and famous in the American hemisphere. And, in view of the 168 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF tribute which the city is now paying to his memory, I may be excused for recalling the fact that, three or four years only after his arrival with the Charter of Massachusetts, when he had been called on, somewhat invidiously, to present a statement of his public receipts and expenditures to the little colonial leg islature, he concluded the statement with a humble request in these words, — that " as it stands upon the record that, upon the discharge of my office, I was called to accompt, so this dec laration may be recorded also ; lest hereafter, when I shall be forgotten, some blemish may lie upon my posterity, when there shall be nothing to clear it." Two centuries and a half have now passed away, and it is safe to say that he is not forgotten 3^et, nor altogether in the way of being forgotten ; while, if any blemish rests on his posterity, they alone must bear it, as they are ready to bear it, for themselves. But the grand celebration of to-morrow, I need not say, has a far wider range, and a far more comprehensive reference, than to any individual man or to any single period of our history. It is to commemorate Boston, as planted, indeed, in 1630, but as taking root, and springing up, and spreading forth its leaves and branches, and bearing fruit abundantly, for a full quarter of a thousand years, — leaves for the healing of the nations, branches for a shelter and refuge for the oppressed, and fruit for the nourishment of Freedom everywhere. It is to commemorate all the great events, and all the great men, of its whole continuous and consistent history, from those small beginnings when, as Cotton Mather tells us, it was once contemptuously called " Lost-Town," owing to its sad and mean circumstances, until it became not only the chief town of New England, as it still is, but the metropolis of all English America, as it was before the Revolution. From that period the growth of the country, and the rise and progress of other cities, North and South, East and West, and, above all, the development and expansion of our imperial sister, New York, to whom we all do willing homage,, have reduced its relative rank in all the material elements which make up the importance and grandeur of a great metropolis. But there is enough left this day for us to contemplate with gratitude and THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON. 169 pride. It has been from the first a city set on a hill, — yes, on three hills. It has never been hid. It never can be hid. The hills on which it was built — and which gave it the designation Trimontaine, which was changed for Boston on the 17th of Sep tember, 1630 — have, indeed, been levelled and swept into the sea, and we who knew them, and played on them as boys, now look for them in vain. But Boston remains, with a character all its own, with a history which can never be obliterated, and with a future, as we all hope and believe, not less prosperous or less glorious than its past. Oh, if those who laid its strong and deep foundations two centuries and a half ago, could look down upon it to-day and see to what greatness it has grown, what a fame it has acquired at home and abroad, what wide-spread influences it has exerted in every good cause over this whole continent, and how they themselves are now honored and revered, they would be more than rewarded for all their toils and tears and sacrifices and sufferings, and would fully realize that, by God's blessing, they had achieved a work worthy to be commemorated throughout all generations. But "Not unto us, — Not unto us," would be their cry, "but unto God's name give the praise ! " The Statue, which is to be unveiled to-morrow, has in one hand the charter of Massa chusetts, and in the other the Word of God, — copied carefully from the old family Bible, which the Governor himself brought over with the charter, and which is now a precious possession of my own. Divine and human laws are thus presented together, — faith and freedom, religion and liberty, — a liberty, as Winthrop defined it, " to do that only which is good, just, and honest." So may it ever be ! Let me hasten to a conclusion, by expressing the hope and trust and earnest prayer of one who, having witnessed and par ticipated in two of these jubilees, can only contemplate a third with the eye of faith, — that, as half-centuries and whole centuries shall roll away in the long future, our beloved city may still and ever preserve its ancient character for honor and public spirit ; may still maintain its old renown for devotion to Union, Liberty and Law ; may still be famed for its institutions of religion, 170 THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON. education and charity ; and, above all, ma}r still be upheld and blessed, ruled over and overruled, by the God of our fathers and our God ! In the familiar words of the chosen motto of our city seal, — as borrowed from the invocation of the wisest of kings and of men, at the dedication of the Temple at Jerusalem, — Sicut Patribus. sit Deus nobis. CENTENNIAL OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. REMARKS AT A MEETING OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 11, 1880. I was sorry, Gentlemen, to be absent from the last monthly meeting of our Society ; but I have abundant assurance, both from the records which have just been read and from other sources, that the Society lost nothing by my ab sence, — thanks to the kindness and never-failing readiness of our Vice-President, Dr. Ellis. My detention for more than three weeks at New York de prived me of the enjoyment of more than one interesting occa sion, both here and elsewhere. Governor Long had been good enough to include me, as the President of this Society, among those specially invited to the Council Chamber on the 25th ultimo, to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the or ganization of our State Government, under the Constitution of 1780 ; and our brethren of the New England Historic Genea logical Society had done us a similar honor. Of that Constitution, John Adams, pre-eminently, and James Bowdoin, and Samuel Adams were the f ram ers ; and the Con vention which ratified and adopted it, over which Bowdoin pre sided, included Hancock and Lowell and Cabot and Gorham and Sullivan and Cushing and Caleb Strong and all the other great names of the Massachusetts of that day, embodying as much of patriotism and of political experience arid wisdom as any assembly ever gathered on New England or American soil. 172 CENTENNIAL OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. Bowdoin, writing soon afterward to John Adams, who had gone Ambassador to France, said of its work : " The era of the new government commenced accidentally on the anniversary of the demise of his late Majesty, George II. Some good people think this circumstance a happy omen, indicating a perpetual end to regal government in these States." George II. had died on the 25th of October, just twenty years before ; but the dates of the deaths and births of kings and queens were not soon forgotten in those old colony times, and the death of George II. had been particularly impressed upon the memories of all Harvard gradu ates by its having given occasion to the famous volume, — " Pietas et Gratulatio," — to which more than one of the emi nent men of our Constitutional era had contributed. At all events, the omen has not proved fallacious. As the President of this Society, moreover, as well as in other capacities, I had urgent invitations to be present at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, or, as it has somewhere been odiously entitled, the sesqui-centennial, of the settlement of Baltimore, the celebration of which lasted four or five days. One of these days, the 12th of October, was occupied by the Maryland Historical Society with an address and a banquet. The venerable philanthropist, Peter Cooper, of New York, who has some peculiar ties to the Monumental City, as Baltimore is called, and who, in his 89th year, was one of the princi pal guests of the occasion, told me that, in all his long expe rience, he had never witnessed so successful and so splendid a celebration in any part of the world.1 If we could all, in all quarters of our country, be as zealous in maintaining the purity and integrity of our institutions as we have been of late in glorifying their establishment and celebrating their founders, we should not require the omen of the death of kings to assure us of the perpetuation of free government. It may be hoped and expected that our library will receive, at no distant day, a full account of this great historical commemora tion in Baltimore. But, more than any of the public occasions to which I have thus alluded, I should have enjoyed the quiet observance, to 1 Peter Cooper died, full of years and honors, April 4, 1883. OLDEST EX-MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 173 which I was kindly invited, of the 97th birthday of good old Artemas Hale, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, with whom I served in Congress from 1845 to 1849, and for whom the high est regard and respect are everywhere entertained. He had completed ninety-seven years on the 20th of October last, and was able to entertain company at dinner. You will all, I am sure, unite heartily with me in hoping that he may be permitted to finish a century of life, and to exhibit, like Dr. Holyoke, of Salem, in 1828, the remarkable vitality and vigor which he now enjoys, and which is so rare at such an age.1 Mr. Hale has been spoken of, in the newspapers, as the old est living ex-member of Congress, and, in one sense of that phrase, he probably is. He is, so far as we know, the oldest man now living who has ever served in the House of Represen tatives of the United States. But there is another sense to the description which has been given of him. There are many men living in all parts of the country who were in Congress long be fore he was, and who are thus older than he in their relations to the National Legislature. I had supposed, for a long time, that my venerable friend, the late Hon. Peleg Sprague, who died during my absence, on the 12th ultimo, in his 88th year, was the senior ex-member of Con gress in this latter sense. He was known to this generation only by his long and eminent services as judge of our United States District Court. But he had been not less distinguished in another generation as a representative and as a senator in Congress from the State of Maine for ten years, beginning in 1825 and ending in 1835. He had thus entered Congress fifty- five years ago. But our accomplished Honorary Member, Mr. Grigsby, has called my attention to the fact that his friend, the Hon. Mark Alexander, now in his 89th year, was a representative in Con gress from Mecklenburg County, Virginia, where he still resides in the full enjoyment of all his faculties, from 1819 to 1833 ; and, still further, that the Hon. John A. Cuthbert, originally of Georgia, and now a practising lawyer in Florida, was in the same Congress with Mark Alexander in 1819, — sixty-one years ago. ' He died before he had quite rounded out the century. 174 OLDEST EX-MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. These gentlemen are believed, in default of further discov eries, to be the oldest living ex-members of Congress, though not the oldest men living who have been members. Among these last, I may add, Massachusetts may count more than one. Besides Artemas Hale, there is Joseph Grinnell, who represented the New Bedford District from 1843 to 1851, and whom I met last month at New York, in full health and ac tivity, in his 92d year. Nor can I forget our Associate, Charles Hudson, the historian of Lexington, whose pen is still active in his 86th year, and who was in Congress with me from 1841 to 1849. In conclusion, I may once more illustrate the distinction — obvious enough without illustration, but which is often of late confounded in common parlance or in newspaper paragraphs — by saying that I am myself an older ex-member of Congress than any of those three venerable Massachusetts friends, though they are considerably older men than I am. THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. SPEECH ON ITS TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY, NOVEMBER 18, 1880. It is no little relief to me, Ladies and Gentlemen, to remember that, in promising to be with you here on this occasion, it was expressly stipulated that I should be held responsible for only a brief address. There are those around me to whom this church must be peculiarly and justly precious, as being their own church and the church of their fathers and mothers, and of all who are most dear to them. But I can speak under the inspiration of no such associations, as I look back on my own long and unintermitted relations to Old Trinity, and to New Trinity, from infancy to old age, — relations never more valued than at this hour. Nor can I forget how recently I have returned from a protracted session of the Triennial Convention of the general Church to which I belong, — where I was freshly impressed with the value of its organization, the charms of its liturgy, the safe anchorage of its creeds, and the broad range of its views and efforts. And yet, my friends, in face of all these associations, and in full remembrance of all my religious professions and ties, I can honestly say that there is no connection in which I am more glad, or more proud, to recognize my famity name distinctly inscribed, than on yonder beautiful window of this First Boston Church. That old covenant of 1630, of which John Winthrop was the first signer, is one under which any man might well 176 THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. be willing to live and to die. For myself, certainly, I could desire to have lived and died under no better and no other covenant. And as to the old Governor himself, I venture to say for him, in this sixth generation, that he would have preferred that his name should be perpetuated there, rather than on a dozen statues in the city, or the State, or the national Capitol. Let my name, he would have said, be remembered, if at all, not so much for founding towns or commonwealths or confedera tions, as for bringing the gospel into the wilderness, and helping to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. All else, with him, was subordinate to that. And certainly nothing could have been more simple, more solemn, or more comprehensive than this covenant for those who wished to associate themselves together in a Christian Church. A recital of all the thirty-nine articles would have added nothing to its force or its felicity. I might have said thirty-eight arti cles, — as our American Church omitted one of the articles, at the same time that it so wisely struck out from the Prayer-book the Commination Service and the Athanasian Creed. If such a cove nant were drawn up, and subscribed and entered into heartily here to-day, for the first time, or in any part of the world at any time, by a company of sincere and earnest believers, it could not and would not fail to commend itself to the respect and confi dence and sympathy of all good people, let them belong to whatever denominational church they might. But, let me hasten to say, there were peculiar circumstances under which this little covenant was adopted two centuries and a half ago, which give it a significance, an impressiveness, and even a pathos, which can hardly be exaggerated, and which must never be forgotten, — least of all here on this occasion. Let me recall for an instant the historical facts, — even at the risk of repeating what has been said, or of anticipating what may be said, by others. Most happily the account of the signing of this covenant, in 1630, is preserved in all its details, as fully and clearly as the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, or of the credentials of the latest missionary bishop at New York last month. Those two original letters of Edward Winslow and Samuel Fuller to Governor Bradford, contained in Brad- THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. 177 ford's Letter Book, — providentially rescued, eighty years ago, from a grocery shop in Halifax, — as well as in his " History of the Pilgrims," — not less providentially discovered, twenty-five years ago, in the Bishop of London's library, — tell the whole story. The men who signed this covenant on the 30th of July, 1630, after a long and perilous voyage across the Atlantic, had reached the shores of New England about six weeks before. They had left homes and altars, friends and — many of them — their families, behind them, and had come to seek that civil and religious freedom which had been denied them in Old England. Meantime, affliction and suffering had already befallen them. They were not, indeed, like the Pilgrims at Plymouth, involved at the outset in all the rigors of a bleak New England winter. The Pilgrims landed in December, on the shortest day of the year. The Massachusetts colony, by a striking contrast, landed in June, on the very longest. But they were still without fixed habitations ; many of them encamped at Charlestown in tents and booths. It was too late to begin planting, with any confi dence of a crop on an untried soil, and they were still without sufficient supplies of food to secure them from famine in the winter. Fears and sorrows, were, indeed, so multiplying upon them and around them that they began to feel as if the Lord's hand was against them. Many were sick ; many were dead. Gov ernor Winthrop's son Henry had been drowned soon after his arrival. The Lady Arbella was pining at Salem from the results of fatigue and exposure, under which she was soon to sink into an' unmarked grave, — to be followed, alas, within a single month of her own death, by her noble husband, Isaac Johnson, who " tried to live without her, liked it not, and died." But he was with her at Salem on the 25th of July, 1630, and there he had received from Governor Winthrop, who was at Charlestown, with the Assistants and the Massachusetts Com pany, a letter recounting their anxieties and afflictions, and de siring that all at Salem and Charlestown, and everywhere else in the colony, might hasten to humble themselves before God, seek ing Him in his ordinances, and beseeching him to withdraw His 12 178 THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. hand of correction from them, and to direct and establish them in His ways. Out of this letter of the Governor's to Isaac Johnson, read publicly after their Sabbath-evening exercises at Salem, and made the subject of loving consultation by Winslow and Fuller of the Pilgrim Fathers, as well as by the Salem Church, which they were visiting, came the appointment of the following Friday (July 30) as a day of humiliation and prayer, and for the entering into this covenant with the Lord, to walk in all their ways according to the rules of the gospel. There was no Boston yet. But the day was to be solemnized at Salem and at Plymouth, at Dorchester and at Watertown, as well as by the Massachusetts Company at Charlestown. It was a most memorable day in our history. All that there was of Massachusetts, all that there was of New England, was down on its knees, on that 30th of July, before God. Church and State, ministers and governors, — the whole Colony, — was assem bled before the Lord, acknowledging him as their only refuge in tribulation, and dedicating themselves to his service. We can almost hear them, in their little log meeting-houses, or in the larger hall at Charlestown, or under the branches of the great trees around them, rehearsing or singing some of the verses of that marvellous 107th Psalm, which seemed composed for them as much as for the children of Israel : " They went astray in the wilderness and found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them. So they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation." That was the day, my friends, and those the circumstances, on which and under which yonder little covenant was proposed, prepared, and signed by the four representative men whose names you have emblazoned on your window. I have but little doubt that Governor Winthrop framed that covenant. It is entirely in keeping with the discourse which he wrote and delivered on board the Arbella during his long voyage. Nor is it, let me add, in any degree out of keeping with his farewell letter to his brethren of the Church of Eng land. There is not a word in it of alienation or separation or THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. 179 non-conformity, or of what some good people call schism. I do not altogether believe that on that thirtieth day of July the Gover nor had any very distinct idea, in his own mind, as to what it was all to lead, or what was to be the permanent organization of re ligious worship in the colony he was founding. There was too much trouble, too much affliction, too much distress of all sorts, for any deliberate decision on such a point. It might have quickened him to such a decision if he had learned, as possibly he may have learned, that the latest letters from London at that moment brought tidings that Laud — the great foe of Puritanism — was in high favor at Court, wielding all the authority of Primate, and that five ministers of the English Church had just been summoned before the High Commission, of whom his friend John Cotton was one. But it was enough for him, and for those with him, that they needed, and must have, the comforts and consolations of religious association and religious worship, and that the covenanted mercies of God must be invoked by humiliation and prayer. Meantime, beyond all doubt, whatever they may have in tended or designed, that day, that service, that covenant, settled the question that Congregationalism was to be the prevailing order, and for a long time the only order, in early New England. Nor, let me add, have I ever doubted for a moment that Con gregationalism was the best and the only mode of planting and propagating Christianity, in this part of the country, in those old Puritan times. But I said enough about that at Plymouth Rock, ten years ago, and I have nothing to add or to alter. Governor Winthrop was unquestionably a man wbo cared more for faith than for forms, more for religion than for ritual, more for prayer than for prayer-books, and who held Christi anity to be above all churches. And, in that regard, there is at least one of his descendants who does not reverence his memory the less, and who humbly strives to cultivate his spirit. While I can make no pretence to the lofty title of a Puritan myself, I may at least be permitted — when so many disparagements are cast upon that title in other quarters — to avow my earnest admiration for the many grand qualities which the Puritans displayed, here and elsewhere, in spite of all their faults, and 180 THE FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON. for the glorious results they achieved for civil and religious freedom, both in New England and in Old England. " It was to this sect," says the historian Hume, " that the English owe the whole freedom of their Constitution." " The Puritans ," writes Hallam, " were the depositaries of the sacred fire of liberty." " The genius of Puritan England," says his latest and best biographer, "was John Milton." That is glory enough for them in Old England. And if we desire to understand what Puritanism has accom plished for New England, we have only to look for ourselves, and see what New England is. Not to any single, massive, ma terial structure, with its hallowed crypt and splendid choir, its vaulted arches and long-drawn aisles and magnificent dome, but to countless institutions everywhere, for religion, education and charity, and to an intelligent, industrious and free people, living and multiplying in the enjoyment of them all, we point proudly to-day, in presence of this old First Church Covenant, and in loving remembrance of those who signed it, and say, " If you seek a monument of the Puritans, look around you ! " WYCLIFFE AND OTHER COMMEMORATIONS. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, DECEMBER 9, 1880. Otjr meeting this afternoon, Gentlemen, will have lost the attendance of more than one of those whose presence we may generally count upon, by reason of the Complimentary Concert at the Music Hall, which I should have been so glad to attend myself. Few things are more memorable in the recent history of Boston than the improvement which has been witnessed in musical entertainments and musical education. And to no one are we so much indebted for this improvement as to Mr. John S. D wight, as a tribute to whom this afternoon's concert has been arranged, and who has devoted his time, his pen, and his rare accomplishments, for so many years past, to inspiring a just and discriminating taste for the art which ministers so greatly to the rational enjoyment and refined culture of a community. I am glad of an opportunity, in these few words, to give his name a place on our records as one eminently entitled to the grateful consideration, not only of those who take pleasure in good music, but of all who are interested in the advancement of whatever promotes the happiness and welfare of the people. As I was one of the Committee of Fifty by whom this testimonial concert was offered to Mr. Dwight, I may be pardoned for expressing my special disappointment at being prevented by my duties here from attending it. Since our last monthly meeting more than one commemoration has taken place, of an historical character, which may well be 182 WYCLIFFE AND OTHER COMMEMORATIONS. the subject of at least a passing allusion this afternoon, so that it may not fail of recognition in our records. The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the covenant and organization of the First Boston Church, on the 18th ultimo, was an occasion of singular interest. Nothing could have been more impressive or more successful. The full account of it, with the Historical Discourses of the Rev. Dr. Rufus Ellis, and with the History of the Church by his son, cannot fail to form a volume of great attraction and value. The commemoration of the organization of the Watertown Church on that same 30th July, 1630, which was the result of a com mon and concerted religious movement, took place ten days afterwards, and furnished additional materials for the true understanding of what may be called the origines sacrce of the Massachusetts Colony. Some questions have been suggested by these occasions which may form a subject of historical inquiry, at a future day; but I dare not attempt to deal with them myself, at present, if at all. I must not omit to refer, also, to the great Wycliffe Com memoration on the 2d instant, at New York, where the Amer ican Bible Society celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the first translation of the whole Bible into the English language, by John Wycliffe, and where our corresponding member, the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, delivered one of his masterly orations. The heroic life and devoted labors of Wycliffe are worthy of commemoration by the whole Protestant world. We of New England and of America owe our homage to his memory, though there was no New England and no America known to him. Dr. Storrs well said, in concluding his eloquent discourse, that " it is on the work accomplished by Wycliffe and those who fol- owed that our liberties have been builded." The grandest mon ument in the world is that of Luther at Worms. I travelled many miles out of my way to see it, five or six years ago, and was richly rewarded. Tyndale, too, has a Memorial Chapel at Antwerp, to which I was privileged to make a humble contribu tion some years since. But I can conceive of a group on a single base, in the Central Park at New York, if not in one of our own WYCLIFFE AND OTHER COMMEMORATIONS. 183 squares, which should include Wycliffe and Tyndale and Cover- dale and Luther, and perhaps others, and bear witness that our own land is not unmindful of its indebtedness to those noble men, who shrank from no labors or perils in giving the Bible to the common people. Our country owes a monument somewhere to Columbus, Cabot, and Vespucius, who might well be combined on a single pedestal, and portray the Discovery of America. But next to that would well come a grand group of the translators of the Bible, in which Wycliffe should have no second place. Before concluding these introductory remarks, I desire to lay on the table, with a word of explanation, a copy of a little memoir of Henry Clay, which I prepared, at least a year ago, at the request of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. That Society is about publishing a memorial volume of some of their early Honorary Members, and they did me the honor to ask me to contribute some reminiscences of Mr. Clay. Mr. Adams, Mr. Deane, and others of our members, have also prepared memoirs for the same volume. My own contribution has been in type for many months, and I have a few separate copies for my own use; but I have not felt at liberty to use them until the volume should be forthcoming, as I understand it now is. I had almost forgotten that Mr. Clay was an Honorary Member of this Society also. He was elected in 1836, three years before I was a member, and he died in 1852, three years before I became President, and while John Quincy Adams and Josiah Quincy, and others who had been associated with him in public life, were among our immediate members. I need not say that he was no Historian. But we have been accustomed to put on our honorary list, occasionally, those who make history as well as those who write it, — sometimes to add a laurel to their name, and sometimes to decorate our own roll. Mr. Clay was eminently an historical personage, and I shall be glad if this little sketch shall do something to illustrate his career and character. THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A PAPER READ BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 13. 1881. In some introductory remarks at our last monthly meeting, I observed that one or two interesting questions of an historical character had been suggested by the recent celebrations of the First Boston and Watertown Churches. I cannot pretend to answer those questions satisfactorily for others, or even for myself. But I have been unwilling to let them be altogether forgotten, without offering some aids to their solution. It has more than once been asked how it happened, or could have happened, that the Massachusetts Company, having ad dressed an affectionate farewell to their brethren of the Church of England, at the very last moment before they embarked for America, in which they spoke of themselves " as those who esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother . . . ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation we have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts," should, immediately on their arrival, have practically ignored, or certainly disused, all the forms and ceremonies of that Church, and should have proceeded to institute a church or churches of their own. It has sometimes, indeed, been inquired of me personally, how it was to be explained that Governor Winthrop, who had not only signed that farewell letter officially, and, as I think, THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 185 written it himself, but had long been the patron of the little church at Groton, and presented to its living, should have made no reference to the Church of England on coming here, but should have united without delay in the organization of a church of an entirely different form of worship and of a wholly independent character. Now let me say that few things are more to be regretted than the entire loss of Governor Winthrop's letters to his friends in England at this early period of Massachusetts history. We have, most fortunately, his letters to his wife and to his eldest son, who remained in England for a year and a half longer, These, however, were letters of affection and private business, and they deal but little with matters of public concern, either religious or civil. But in his very first letter to his wife, dated at Charlestown on the 16th of July, 1630, he says to her : " The larger discourse of all things thou shalt receive from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last ships." Again, in his letter to his son, from Charlestown, 23d July, he says : "For the course of our voyage, and other occurrents, you shall under stand them by a journal, which I send with my letters to your uncle D." And, in a subsequent part of the same long letter, he adds : " Take order that a copy of my Relation, &c, be sent to Sir Nath. Barnard is ton, and my excuse for not writing to him and Sir Wm. Springe, with my salutations to them both." Still again, in his letter to his son, from Charlestown, August 14, he says: " For our condition here, and our voyage hither, I wrote to you about a fortnight since, by Mr. Revel, but more fully in a journal and Relation, which I sent to your uncle Downing." Once more, in a letter to his son, of Sept. 9, 1630, he says: "I have written to your mother, and to your uncle Downing at large, of all things here, to which I must refer you, in regard of my much business and little leisure here." And, lastly, in a letter to his son, of March 28, 1631, he says : " I have written to your uncle D. concerning all our business, fearing you should be come away." I might give other reasons for thinking that Emanuel Down ing — a lawyer of the Inner Temple in London, who had mar- 186 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ried Governor Winthrop's sister, and who did not follow him to Massachusetts for seven or eight years after the transfer of the Government to New England — was the person to whom Winthrop communicated everything concerning the early course of proceedings in the colony. As late as March, 1636, I find Downing writing to the Governor : " I heartily thank you for your large information of the state of the Plantation. I was the other day with Secretary Coke, who told me that there hath not been a word of your Plantation at Council Board these many months past." I have said all this to justify the expression of an opinion, that much of the inner policy of Governor Winthrop and the Massachusetts Company, at this early period, has been lost to our history by the disappearance of these letters to Downing. So convinced was I of the truth of this impression, that, many years ago, during one of my visits to England, I made diligent efforts to discover whether any of Downing's papers, between 1629 and his coming over to New England in 1638, were still in existence, — but without success. Could these "large dis courses," and Journals and Relations of Governor Winthrop, sent to Downing, be found, I have little doubt that some of the problems of our early political and ecclesiastical history might be solved. These relations and journals, indeed, would exactly supply the deficiencies and fill up the " large blanks," so often noted and regretted in the Governor's History of this early period, as we now have it in print, and which reach, with few exceptions, from the 17th of June to the beginning of December, 1630.1 He had no leisure for copying into his diary what he had written to Downing. But, in default of such authentic materials, I venture to proceed with such conjectures as I have formed, from the facts which are known to us, in regard to the question which I have stated as the subject of this paper. There can be no doubt that Governor Winthrop, up to the time of his embarking on board the "Arbella," — though never what would be called a High-Churchman, — was warmly 1 See Savage's Winthrop, between these dates. THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 187 attached to the Church of England, and was a communicant at the little parish church of Groton, of which he was the owner of the living, and to which he presented the Rev. William Leigh as late as 1626. There is a letter to him from the Rev. Henry Sands, a previous pastor of Groton, of earlier but uncer tain date,1 which shows that he was much relied on in church affairs, and was consulted about the livings of Stoke Vicarage and Nayland, among others, and which entreated his endeavors, " in the affection which I know you bear to the Church of God, to look into it and help." There is, also, a little autograph volume of his still extant, in my own possession, in which all the sermons which he heard on Sundays and on Prayer-days, during a large part of 1627 and 1628, are carefully noted, with the names of the preachers, the texts of their discourses, and the various heads and argu ments carefully and copiously written out. Any one disposed for such an inquiry might obtain from this manuscript volume a good idea of the style of preaching in a quiet English parish at that period. I may add that now and then we find pleasant evidence that the Governor did not forget the great days of the Church Calendar. In a letter of his to his wife, dated 19 December, 1623, when he was on his law circuit, and found that he was not likely to be at home at the approaching Christmas, he says : " I feare it wilbe towards the ende of next weeke before I shall returne ; yet I pray thee let provisio be made, and all q* poore feasted, though I be from home, so I shalbe the lesse missed." 2 It may not be forgotten, too, that the Governor begins the journal, now commonly known as his "History of New Eng land," on "Easter Monday, March 29" (1630), while his fleet was still " riding at the Cowes ; " and that he thus associated the outset of the Massachusetts emigration — not without pur pose, as I think — with the great Church festival of the Res urrection. It is thus sufficiently clear that Winthrop, up to the last moment of his leaving England, was a member of ' Life and Letters of John Winthrop, vol. i. p. 169. 2 lb. vol. i. p. 403* 188 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. the English Church. How, then, did he so soon become — as he certainly did become — an American Congregationalist ? The first suggestion which occurs to me, in connection with this question, is that the English Church at that day was simply the Church of England ; without a recognized preten sion to any catholic or universal character. It was a State Church, whose forms and ceremonies were at the will of kings, and parliaments, and convocations summoned by the sovereign. It was a local, national Church, which during the previous century only had separated itself from the Church of Rome, and which had hardly yet acquired that fixed and settled con dition, to the common mind, which would have led those who were leaving England as their home to feel that they neces sarily, or even naturally, carried any obligations to that Church with them. They might love it ever so sincerely, but they were leaving it for a land where it had no existence, and their farewell letter was literally a letter " taking leave " of it. In one of his " Answers to Objections," in the paper enti tled "Reasons to be considered for justifying the Undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England," Winthrop says, indeed : " Since Christ's time the Church is to be considered as universal without distinction of countries." But that phrase included the Church of Rome, and "all other churches of Europe," and had no particular reference to the Church of England. In the same paper he had previously said : " What can be a better work, and more honorable and worthy a Chris tian, than to help raise and support a particular Church while it is in the infancy ? " and in his " Conclusions " he distinctly asserts his conviction that " the service of raising and uphold ing a particular Church is to be preferred before the bettering of some part of a Church already established." He adds, most significantly : " The members of that Church may be of more use to their mother Church here, than many of those whom she shall still keep in her own bosom." It will be seen, too, by a letter of the Governor's (printed in his Life and Letters, vol. i. p. 354, and dated Oct. 27, 1629) that he had invited a special meeting of ministers on the 9th of November, in London, to consult in regard to Church THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 189 matters, saying that " we want hitherto able and sufficient ministers to join with us in the work," and adding : " The reasons whereof we find to be the conscience of the obligation by which they stand bound unto this Church for the service in which most of them are employed at present." " The conscience of the obligation " was, of course, only a matter for ministers in orders. If, however, we could learn what was said and done at that meeting, and how far those who attended it advised that, by going to New England, ministers and people would be relieved and released from any obligations by which they seemed bound to the English Church, we should be wiser than we are now. But it is plain, from the words of the invitation, that such a release for ministers was the subject to be considered. In Winthrop's letter to Dr. Gager, also, inviting him to come over as physician to the Company, he expressly speaks of "the work we are in hand with " as "the establishing a Church in New England." (Life and Letters, vol. i. p. 355.) It would seem, from these expressions, that the Governor contemplated the establishment of a particular Church, dis tinct from the mother Church of England, though by no means necessarily or naturally in any opposition to it. How could it fail to be distinct, three thousand miles away from it ; and those three thousand equal to ten times three thou sand, in difficulty of communication, as compared with the present day ! An attempt to stretch any practical Episcopal authority across the Atlantic, at that day, would not only have been futile in itself, but would have involved the New England churches in endless embarrassment and confusion. Confirmations, Consecrations, Orderings of Priests and Dea cons, and everything else dependent on Bishops, must have been postponed indefinitely. Should the Puritans have gone along without any religious services — " forsaking the assem bling of themselves together" for the worship of God — until such matters could be arranged and provided for, even had they been ever so willing for them ? Such a suggestion is its own best answer. It is enough to say that there was a physical impossibility in any substantial subordination on 190 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. one side, or any substantial supervision on the other. Opposuit natura. The Virginia colonists had, indeed, instituted a little Church on the English model as early as 1607, with the services of the Prayer Book; and the historian Bancroft tells us that "the Church of England was confirmed as the Church of Virginia " in 1619. But the early experiences of that colony in its Episcopal relations — so far as any account of them is to be found — are hardly at variance with the views I have suggested. Some idea of their difficulties may be formed from the letter of Governor Argall to the Virginia Company, in 1617, requesting Sir Dudley Digges to obtain from the Arch bishop a permit for Mr. Wickham, who was not in orders, to ad minister the Holy Communion, as the Rev. Alexander Whittaker had been drowned, and as there was np other person.1 The Archbishop's reply is not given ; nor have I been able to turn to any other indication of Episcopal authority being invited or exercised in those early days of the Virginia Colony. The earliest paper in the Virginia volume of " Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church " is : The Instructions to Sir William Berkeley, in 1650 (from whom is not stated — probably from the Virginia Company), — " to be careful Almighty God be duly and daily served according to the form of religion established in the Church of England." 2 After 1650 there is no other paper in that volume bearing an earlier date than 1679. Other evidences of Episcopal supervision in the Virginia Colonial Church at that day may perhaps be discovered. Otherwise, its history would seem to confirm the idea that distance and infrequency of communication rendered such supervision impracticable, even where it was desired and solicited.3 It is plain that there 1 Neil's Virginia Company of London, p. 113. 2 The accomplished editor of the volume (Bishop Perry of Iowa) says, in his Notes, that similar instructions were given to Sir Francis Wyat in 1621, and renewed on each subsequent appointment. 3 Bishop Meade's "Article I.," in his "Old Churches and Families of Vir ginia," is instructive on this point. He mentions that other prayers besides those in the Prayer Book were freely used there, and that there was an utter want of Episcopal supervision. He represents it as an attempt to carry on a Church without a Bishop. THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 191 was a necessity for much independent action, alike in civil and in religious affairs, both in Virginia and in New England. Winthrop's idea of the Church, in the expression which I have quoted, must plainly have been conformable to that grand definition of it in one of the closing prayers of the Episcopal Communion Service : " The mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people." Indeed, there are at least five other phrases or designations in the English Prayer Book, with which the Governor must have been familiar, which obviously mean the same thing, and must be interpreted consistently with each other : " The Holy Catholick Church," in the Apostles' Creed; "One Catholick and Apostolick Church," in the Nicene Creed ; " The Holy Church throughout all the World " in the " Te Deum ; " " The Catholick Church,"1 in the Prayer for all Conditions of Men; and " Thy Holy Church Universal," in the Litany. There may be others, but they were all probably taken from the ancient Uses and Liturgies ; and few persons, I imagine, at that day, would have limited the application of either of them exclusively to the Church of England. Nor would any one, I think, so limit them at this day. Nor did such a Church depend for its existence or its continu ance on any particular forms or ceremonies. Indeed, the very preface of the English Prayer Book, as originally pub lished at the Restoration of Charles II. , contains words which are full of significance on this subject: "The particular forms of Divine Worship, and the rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and alterable, and so acknowledged ; it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein, as to those that are in place of authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient." These very words were incorporated into the preface of our American Prayer Book in 1789, and were relied on as the justi- 1 This is changed, in the American Prayer Book, into " Thy Holy Church Universal." 192 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. fication of the changes which were adopted for the Episcopal Church in the United States. That preface, indeed, begins by the distinct assertion that " it is a most invaluable part of that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, that in his worship different forms and usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire." There will be no allegation that the Puritans did not keep entire the " substance of the Faith." In the English preface "Of Ceremonies" it is also said, in conclusion: "And in these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but to our own people only; for we think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of God's honor and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition ; and that they should put away other things, which from time to time they perceive to be most abused, as in men's ordinances it often chanceth diversely in divers countries." Such expressions as these, though thirty years later than the coining of the Massachusetts Colony, may not unreason ably be cited in illustration of the views of some, at least, of the English churchmen at an earlier period. They are plainly the very views which were held and acted on in New England. And this is distinctly set forth and main tained in "The Planter's Plea," — a tract generally ascribed to the Rev. John White, an eminent Puritan minister, known to historj'- as " the Patriarch of Dorchester " (England), and published in London in 1630, in " manifestation of the causes moving such as have lately undertaken a Plantation in New England: — for the satisfaction of those that question the lawful- nesse of the Action." This tract might well be reprinted in some volume of our own Collections, as an original, contempo raneous exposition of the motives and intentions of the Massa chusetts colonists, both in their civil and religious relations. And this brings me to a word or two about the Prayer Book. My friend Dr. George E. Ellis, one of our Vice-Presi dents, was substantially correct in what he said, at the First Church Commemoration, in regard to the absence of any THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 193 copies of the old English Prayer Book from the early inven tories of the New England colonists, and to the fact that none of them were to be found at this day in any of our His torical or Antiquarian Libraries. It is true that I have two of them, which undoubtedly belonged to Governor Winthrop or his immediate family. One of them, however, is bound up with the old Family Bible of the Governor's father ; and the other is bound up with a Greek Testament, and is the very one which was nibbled by the mice, and which gave the Governor occasion to revive an old superstition, which may be traced as far back as the days of Cicero.1 But these are exceptional cases and hardly inconsistent with Dr. Ellis's statement. There are, however, two considerations which may serve to explain the rarity of the Prayer Book in New England at any early period. In the first place, it may be doubted whether the Prayer Book was a very common book, even in Old England, at the time the Massachusetts Colony came over here. During the reign of Charles I., even up to the year 1642, — twelve years after Winthrop's arrival, — it is ascertained that there were printed in all thirty-six editions of the Prayer Book, but of these twenty-two were printed in folio and quarto, and were evidently for the use of churches, cathedrals, universities, and those who officiated in them. Twelve more of the editions were in octavo, — not the compact and portable size which would seem to have been suited to general, popular use : while only two edi tions remain of the smaller and cheaper and more convenient sort, which would be adapted to the common people. I may add that the smaller Prayer Book of those early days — if I may judge by the two copies in my own possession — was by no means easily used, or attractive as a manual. Some pages of it seem to be only a sort of index or directory of the Service. Thus, the Collects are all given in close sequence, but with only numerical references to the Epistles and Gospels. It may safely be inferred, I think, that the Prayer Book could not have been commonly found in the homes of the great body of the population at that day, — even of those who could read ; 1 De Divinatione, lib. ii. 13 194 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. and that the larger number listened to it in their churches, and perhaps had some of the octavo editions in their pews or seats, rather than possessed it as a treasure of their own. And, indeed, if I have read aright the Bibliographer's Manual of Lowndes, as corrected and enlarged by Bohn, these old edi tions of the Prayer Book are almost as rare at this day in Old England as in New England. They are found in a few great libraries of universities or churches, and of course in the British Museum, and are occasionally sold at large prices. But the great mass of copies seems to have disappeared. But, in the second place, it must not be forgotten that in 1644-45 the use of the Prayer Book in public and private was forbidden by law, and all copies of it were ordered to be delivered up, and heavy penalties imposed upon all offenders.1 It is quite supposable, to say the least, that the Massachusetts Puritans, who were so entirely in sympathy with the Com monwealth party in England, may have given up or got rid of their Prayer Books also, at this time, if there were any here ; and this might account for there being few or none .left to the present day. This may have been the time when Governor Winthrop gave one of his copies to the library of Harvard Col lege, as having no use for it himself. There was no Harvard College Library for him to give it to much before this date. I must not forget to allude to an important fact in connection with the general subject of this inquiry. It is well remembered that John and Samuel Browne, who had gone out to the Salem Plantation with high recommendations from the Governor and Company in London, and one or both of whom were designated to be of Endicott's Council, in 1629, were sent back to England by him for disturbing the peace of the Plantation, and of the little Cburch there, by attempting to introduce the forms and prayers of the Episcopal Church. They must have brought their Prayer Books with them, and they probably carried them back again. Their case, as we know, was brought before the Massachusetts Company in London, and was referred to a 1 History of the Book of Common Prayer (p. 67), by Rev. Clement M. Butler, D. D., to whom, also, I am indebted for the statements about the early editions of the English Prayer Book. THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 195 committee for consideration. It happened that Governor Win throp was on that committee, and he may have learned by that investigation that the Salem Plantation was not disposed for any Prayer Book service. The Puritans at Salem and the Pilgrims at Plymouth were of one mind on that matter, and they concurred in establishing Congregational forms. But while there is no report on the records from the committee to whom the case of the Brownes was referred, yet a letter of some sharpness and severity was addressed to Mr. Skelton and Mr. Higginson, the Salem ministers, and another letter to Endi- cott himself, which clearly indicate, or certainly imply, I think, that the Massachusetts Governor and Company in London, just before they transferred the Chief Government to New Eng land, were by no means inclined to sanction or approve any positive proscription of the English Church or Church service at Salem. After their arrival here, too, a similar spirit was repeatedly manifested. There was at least a reverent caution in almost all their religious movements. Thus Roger Williams, we all remember, "refused to join with the congregation at Boston," in 1630-31, "because," as Winthrop expressly states, " they would not make a public declaration of their repentance for having communion with the churches of England while they lived there." And when, on the 27th of August, 1630 (old style), John Wilson was chosen teacher, and Mr. Nowell, an elder, and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall, deacons, of the First Boston Church, Governor Winthrop says in his journal: " We used im position of hands, but with this protestation by all, that it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry he received in England." And still again, when the First Church Covenant was about to be formed, scruples were distinctly expressed and enjoined, as shown by the letters of Winslow and Fuller relating to it, about the election of church officers. " Not then intend ing rashly to proceed to the choice of officers," — this was their language. 196 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. It is true that George Phillips, the pastor of the Watertown Church, and a signer of the farewell letter, took a different view at first. He had privately told Dr. Samuel Fuller of Ply mouth, — so writes Dr. Fuller to Governor Bradford, — "that if they will have him stand minister by that calling which he received from the prelates in England, he will leave them." But our late President, Mr. Savage, in direct allusion to this statement, says emphatically : " This was not the spirit of the first settlers of Massachusetts, until they had lived some years in the wilderness ; " " and I imagine (he adds) Phillips was over come, by the persuasion of friends, to postpone the scruple he had communicated to the Plimouth Colonist." 1 Nothing could be further from my purpose than to draw into doubt the immediate and hearty adoption of Congregational forms of worship by the founders of Massachusetts, as an histori cal fact ; or to question Governor Winthrop's full share in their adoption. The only question is, in what spirit, and under what circumstances, they were adopted. And I have only desired to show that, at the outset, the churches of Massachusetts were organized in no hostile opposition to the Church of England, and in no spirit inconsistent with the affectionate farewell which was addressed by the Governor and Company to their brethren of that Church. Everything in the character of that paper, and of the men who signed it, assures me that it was no politic mani festo, to conceal or cover purposes and plans already formed, but an honest, affectionate expression of sincere feeling on leav ing England. On their arrival here, they conformed at once to the condition of the colony and the exigencies of religion. In doing so, they renounced no previous convictions or relations. But Christianity was to them above all churches, and the wor ship of God above all forms or ceremonies. Having adhered to the Church of England, as the best mode of worshipping God, while there, they united in Congregational worship, as the best, and, as I think, the only mode, in which that worship could, under the circumstances, have been arranged and conducted here. As time went on, and as Laud and Wren and other bishops 1 Savage's Winthrop, edition 1853, p. 16, foot-note. THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 197 pursued their persecuting policy towards all Non-conformists, a different spirit could hardly fail to be developed. But of that I have nothing to say in this connection. This paper has been prepared somewhat cursorily, and I may find cause for additions or modifications hereafter. In the mean time I conclude it now, by presenting a letter from Henry Jacie, the minister at Assington, near Groton, to John Winthrop, Jr., in 1630-31. A number of Jacie' s letters have been printed among the " Winthrop Papers," and an ac count of him given in foot-notes.1 But this letter has never been printed, and may well have a place in our Proceedings. Rev. Henry Jacie to John Winthrop, Jr. Deare S?, — How much am I endebted to you for yo' great paines & love, wc? hath endeared you yet more unto me : If I sha heare it turnea to yoT hurt any way, I must needs sympathize w* you. One or 2 Questions came not to my mind, wc.h I would entreat by you to be resolvd in, viz'. Seing such a copany of Christians have fore in tended such a one to be their minister, & he to accept it, Whether in their fast they desire Gods directing in y? choise (when they have no other fit to be chosen) or its only for Gods blessing his paines, etc. Also, Whether they use imposition of hands, or by whom, & when. And whether any imposition on the Elder, & by whom, or on the Deacon. Now, Sf , since yof going to York, I have found H. Kingsburies L' (w*? I could not light on), the bookes he desired me to procure him were these 3. 1. A Treatise of Faith. (I suppose The Doctrine of faith by Mr. Jo. Rogers would be as useful for him, & about the same price.) 2. Perkins Principles. 3. The Sweet Posie for Gods S'.8 (2a a peece, y". 1 ab? 8d). He writ I would pay for them. We shal be further indebted to you if you can procure y? Map, y *: Pattents Copie, y ' Model of Charity (also what Oath is taken), Mr. Higgisons Lr, & the Petition to our Min isters for praying for them, made at their going, w0!1 is in print. W°.h of these you can best, w* yof Lr, give to Mr. Overton, Stationer in Popes head Alley, my good friend, & receive money of him for them, or for writing (giving him this note,) that he may send them by York Carrier either, to y? now L. Maiors, or to Mr. John Penrose, Attorney, for me. But I pray you resolve me those ques. now, (for I suppose you ar not gone fro York.) Remeber my kind respect & love to Mr. Downing, Mr. Rob Gurdon w* Mrs. Gurdon & Mr. Edward Gurdon, and to Mr. Huison 1 Vol. i. 3d ser., and vol. vi. 4th ser., p. 452. 198 THE PURITANS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. at London Stone, if you see him, (fro whom I have had L™ though I have not seen him.) Also in Essex & Suffolk. I am now posted : The good Lord be w* you. Yorf in him. Hen: Jacie. I pray you Mr. Overton repay to this my friend what he hath laid out for me, & I shal see y' you be repaid, either as formerly, or by my bro. Thomas Jacie, Servant to Mr. Elwis in Drury lane, a litle beyond Qu* Street. And direct yof L? etc. for me, to be left w* the Lord Maior of York, for so is Mr. Hodshon now. I rec? yof Lf & Copasses etc. remf me kindly to Mr. Peck. Yor? H. Jacie. This note to Mr. Overton is sealed on the margin of the letter, which is addressed, " To the Worshu John Winthrop, Esq. in York." There is no date to the letter, but it was plainly written to the younger Winthrop, before he came over to join his father in New England in 1631. It alludes to the elder Winthrop's dis course on board the " Arbella," under the title of " The Model of Charity," and to the Farewell Letter to the Church of Eng land, under the title of " The Petition to our Ministers for pray ing for them, made at their going, which is in print." But it is mainly interesting as showing the eagerness of the Puritan min isters in England to ascertain the forms and modes adopted by the churches on this side of the ocean. There is unfortunately no answer extant. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BARON VISCONTI. A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, BOSTON, JANUARY 24, 1881. Dear Sie, — It gives me pleasure to tell you all I know about my old Italian friend, Visconti. My first acquaintance with him was in 1860, when I took with me, to Rome, a letter of introduction to him from the late Count Adolphe de Circourt. His title then, as I learned from the card he left upon me, was " II Gran-Commendatore Visconti, Commissario delle Anti- chita, Presidente del Collegio Filologico del Universita Ro- mana." He was much engaged, in the service and under the patronage of the Pope, Pius IX., in the investigation of the antiquities of Rome. I remember his taking me to the Library of the Vatican, which was much less accessible at that period than it has been of later years. I obtained his leave for the late Rev. Dr. N. L. Frothingham to accompany me, and we enjoyed the visit not a little. All the private cabinets were opened for us, and we saw more curious things than I can recount or re member. I recall a copy of Henry VIII.'s Defence of the Faith, with his own autograph, presented by himself to Leo X. The love-letters of Henry and Anne Boleyn were also exhibited to us. ' We afterwards went through the Sculpture Galleries of the Vatican, where Visconti pointed out everything best worth seeing. The next day he sent me one of the most interesting Latin Inscriptions, copied, as I understood, by his own hand. 200 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BARON VISCONTI. On another day he drove with me along the Appian Way, and we alighted to examine many of the most celebrated tombs. Nothing could have been kinder than his efforts to enlighten me in regard to the localities and monuments of Rome, with which he had a marvellous familiarity. I was with him again in Rome, in February, 1868, and on one of his visits he brought with him a splendid gold snuff-box, with an inscription in diamonds, just presented to him by the Pope, in recognition of his discovery of the ancient Roman Quai, where great masses of beautiful blocks of marble, from Asia and Africa, intended for new buildings, had been buried up, un opened, for so many centuries. I met him, by appointment, a few days afterwards, at this famous Marmoretum, where he showed me everything, with interesting explanations. Once more I was with him in Rome in 1875. He was then the Baron Visconti, warmly attached to the Pope, and with no likings for those whom he charged with intruding on his terri tories, and despoiling him of Temporal Dominion. He paid me a farewell visit on the 16th of March of that year. He was then infirm and pathetic, but full of courtesy and kindness. I have not been surprised to hear of his death. Vapereau's invaluable " Dictionnaire des Contemporains " (4 Ed., 1870), speaks of him as follows : — Visconti (Pierre-Hercule) , an Italian Archaeologist, born at Rome about 1800, the nephew of the Architect, who died in 1853, and grand- nephew of Ennius Quirinus Visconti. He is the author of a great number of Works and Notices inserted in " Les Meinoires de 1' Academie Pontificale d' Archeologie," and in the " Giornale Arcadico." He suc ceeded, in 1856, Luigi Canina in the functions of Commissary of Anti quities : afterwards became Professor of Archaeology at the Academy of France ; Correspondent of the Academy des Beaux Arts, and a Com mander of the Legion of Honor. M. Visconti has been decorated with more than twenty-five foreign Orders. Since 1853 he has directed the important excavations of Ostia, and those of the Catacombs of St. Alex ander, on the Via Nomentana. Before closing this letter, I have recalled a letter of his written to me after I had left Rome in 1868. I send you a translation PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BARON VISCONTI. 201 by an expert in Italian.1 You will see that it speaks of his elec tion as a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and he seems to have duly appreciated the honor. The letter deals mainly with some grand collections of antiquities which he hoped we might have purchased for our Peabody Museum at Cambridge. I had sent him one of our Reports. I hope to be able to send you, for the Antiquarian Society, the Inscription he so kindly copied for me. But I am unwilling to delay this long-promised account of Visconti until the origi nal paper shall have been returned to me by the friend who has it for translation and annotations. You shall have it whenever it comes. Meantime, accept with indulgence my little contribution to your Memoirs, and believe me, Dear Mr. Salisbury, With great regard, your friend and servt., Robert C. Winthrop. Hon. Stephen Salisbury, LL.D. P. S. — The Inscription has reached me, but without the trans lation and notes for which I had hoped. And so I send it with an off-hand version of my own, as literal as I could well make it. You could have made a better one, I am sure. There are difficulties in the Latin, as it stands, which I can not wholly solve. The lines were evidently composed as alter nate hexameters and pentameters. But I cannot help believing that there were mistakes in transcribing, or in filling up the gaps. Haeret must certainly belong at the end of line 3d, instead of at the beginning of the 4th line. That will make the scanning of both lines possible. I was at first disposed to think that Magni, in the 6th line, should have been Magno ; but it has since occurred to me that it may well have been intended to designate Sextus, — as he undoubtedly was, — as of the family of Pompeius Magnus, the Great Triumvir ; and I have so trans lated it. Spenrans, in the 8th line, is of course a stone-cutter's blunder for Sperans; and the stone-cutter may have made other 1 See Note. 202 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BARON VISCONTI. blunders. An s might have belonged at the end of the 13th line, turning dolore into an accusative plural, instead of an abla tive singular. And certainly, in the last line of all, cum must have originally been cur. The final letter of this little word has been supplied, and an m may easily have crept into the place of an r. But I hasten to send you the Inscription,1 just as Visconti sent it to me. His attention must have been wholly turned to the last two lines, with their foregleams of immortality. He did not speak of it as a sample of classical Latin, or as a model of ele gant versification ; but only as a striking and touching instance of that yearning for a future state, to whicli some of the ancient inscriptions bear witness. He assigned no precise date for it, but ascribed it to a period not far from the birth of Christ. There were several Pompeys of the name of Sextus, and sons of Sextus, about that time, — three or four of them in lineal suc cession. They were of the elder branch of the family, which, according to classical usage, may be the meaning of maxima domus in the 6th line. It can hardly be supposed that these words were intended to signify " the biggest house ! " I do not find, however, that the surname of Justus was worn by either Sextus, or that either of them was designated by the official title of Praeco. But I forbear from any further attempts to explain matters in which I do not profess to be an adept. Perhaps the Inscription may be found in print already somewhere. It is certainly an interesting one, and you can use it in any way you please. R. C. W. 1 See Note on next page. NOTE. [Inscription.] HIC . SOROR . ET . FRATER . VIVenfaS . damnA . PARENTIS AETATE . IN . PRIMA . SAEVd . RapinA . tulil POMPEIA . HIS . TVMVLI8 . comes . aNTEIi . funems HAERET . ET . PVER . IMMITES . QVETO . rapuere . DEI sex . pompeivs . sexti . praeco . Agnomine . IVSTVS qvem . tenvit . magni . maxima . honore . domvs INFELIX . GENITOR . gemina . iam . prole . relicivs (sic) a . natis . spenrans . qvi . VEderit . tumuloe, AMISSVM . AVXILIVM . FVNCTAE . POSi . funera . NATAE FVNDITVS . VT . TRAHERENT . INVIDA . fata . lARBM QVANTA . IACET . PROBITAS . PIETAS . QVAM . VERA . SepiiLTA . EST MENTE . SENES . AEVO . SED . PERIERE . brevl QVIS . NON . FLERE . MEOS . CASVS . POSSITQ . DOLORE CUr . dVRARE . QVEAM . BIS . DATVS . ECCE . ROGIS SI . SVNT . DI . MANES . IAM . NATI . NVMEN . HABETIS PER . VOS . CVW . VOTI . NON . VENIT . HOra . MEI [ Translation.'] Here (are) sister and brother — losses of a living parent : In earliest youth a cruel rapine took them : Pompeia came first to these mounds — companion of death The boy remains — whom the merciless Gods have torn away: Sextus Pompeius (son of) Sextus, a herald, by surname Justus Whom the eldest family of the Great (Pompey) included in honor (Is the) unhappy father — now by twin offspring left, From children hoping one who should have given him burial, A lost assistance after the death of the departed daughter, That the envious fates might wholly sweep away his household : How great probity lies here — what true piety is here buried I In mind old — hut they perished at a brief age : Who could help mourning my misfortunes with grief ? Why am I able to survive, — lo! twice given to these funeral piles — If there be deified souls — now, children, you have divine power, Through you, why comes not the hour of my longing ? 204 NOTE. LETTER FROM BARON VISCONTI. [Translation.] Rome, July 6, 1868. Sir and Dear Friend, — I have waited, that the announced diploma of my admission to membership in the Antiquarian Society of America might reach me, in order to thank you at the same time for your letter and for so valuable a distinction, which I am glad and proud to owe to your esteem and your affection. The little volume, that I received with your letter above mentioned, has furnished me useful information as to your constant care for your country's benefit in the line of the arts and antiquities. If an opportunity presents itself to me of procuring any of the monuments which you indicate, I will make the acquisition, and will forward them in the manner suggested to me, esteeming myself happy in contributing with you to the endowment of America with monuments that will make illustrious her history with new demonstrations, or with ancient works of art which will reveal her culture and power; towards which object, it is always to be borne in mind, that money, even in vast sums, is always well spent by a people, when they can obtain with it things that will secure national glory and national advantage. The mon uments, celebrated for a century in all the world, of the Villa Albani ; those destined to a still greater celebrity, collected by Prince Torlonia by purchase and by the excavations of Porto, as by many other happy cir cumstances, would be those that would serve for America. The country which will have the one or the other collection (what would it be for the country that should unite both !) would be the first for museums, finding a comparison alone in that of the Vatican. It is true that the Collection Albani may amount to 15 millions of francs, and I be lieve that the other, of Torlonia, may be valued more than double (from 30 to 35 millions) ; but when one thinks of the sums which have been lavished and are still squandered in arms and war, may we not be per mitted to hope that a better judgment will invest a part of those capital sums in adorning life, not in destroying it, — in those studies and arts which render peace and security more beautiful, not in those which extinguish and expel them. How many precious institutions one will then see founded and made perpetual ! Our classical researches are nourished upon these generous conceptions. I am sure that being able to make them prevail in America, — where the NOTE. 205 means abound to hope for everything, and where sumptuous legacies have sought to found the great supports of letters, — you will sustain principles so in harmony with your own conceptions, and you will do it with that energy which accompanies your intent. Believe me penetrated with true esteem and true friendship, Yours from the heart, Visconti. M. Robert C. Winthrop. THE SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS BY DR. BARNAS SEARS ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND, WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 2, 1881. We meet to-day, Gentlemen, in accordance with the motion made by Mr. Evarts, and adopted by the Board, when we were last here, appointing this first Wednesday of February for our next Annual Meeting. The year which has elapsed, since that vote was passed, has been marked by an event of the deepest moment to our Trust, — an event which has been known and lamented by us all for many months, but which, as we meet again here for the first time since it occurred, comes home to us with all the force of a fresh sorrow. Our devoted and excellent General Agent, Dr. Barnas Sears, died at Saratoga Springs on the 6th day of July last. When he parted from us, towards the close of the previous February, he seemed unusually strong and vigorous ; and, though then in the seventy-eighth year of his age, he gave us every hope, and had every hope himself, of being able to carry along the great work which we had committed to him, with unabated energy and effi ciency. It happened, however, that we had laid upon him, at the last moment, a heavy burden of responsibility. The subject of continuing our Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, or of removing it to Atlanta, Georgia, after consider ation and discussion by the Board, had been referred to the Executive Committee and Dr. Sears jointly, with full power to act. The Executive Committee, after much consultation, in- DR. BARNAS SEARS. 207 structed Dr. Sears to proceed with the settlement of the question at once, on the terms which had been agreed upon between them. He accordingly went to Atlanta early in March, where he was met by President Stearns of the Nashville University ; and they entered without delay upon a careful survey of the whole matter, in connection with the Governor and the educa tional authorities of Georgia, including Dr. Orr, the accomplished School Commissioner of the State. But Dr. Sears had caught a severe cold on his journey, and was confined to his chamber for several days, under the hospitable roof of Governor Colquitt. He persevered, notwithstanding, in attending to the settlement of the question, which involved him in many complications and much anxiety ; and, after a considerable dela}^, returned to his home at Staunton in an enfeebled and suffering condition. Writing to me on the 20th of April he says : " I took a cold in Georgia, which has not wholly left me yet, or you would have heard from me before this time." Writing to me again on the 7th of May he says : " My illness, which has been laryngitis, has been somewhat protracted, but I now hope I have ' got around Point Judith,' as the Bostonians used to say." This hope, however, was of short duration, and his recovery soon became a subject of serious concern to his family and to himself. By the advice of his physician he was taken to Sara toga Springs about the middle of June ; but neither the waters nor the climate produced any favorable change. His system was exhausted, and the end of his long and valuable life was at hand. My friend Dr. George E. Ellis, of Boston, was happily in the way of ministering greatly to his comfort during the clos ing weeks of his illness. His last hours were painless, and he sank peacefully to his rest. His remains were at once removed to Brookline, Massachu setts, to be laid in the tomb of his wife's family, and our Board was represented at the funeral by Colonel Lyman and myself. As this bereavement, Gentlemen, will deprive us of the cus tomary Annual Report, from the only one able and authorized to make it, I shall offer no apology, as Chairman of the Board, for occupying a part of the time which we have generally been 208 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS so glad to spend in listening to Dr. Sears's account of what he had accomplished from year to year, by a cursory review of the services he had rendered, as our General Agent, to the great cause intrusted to us by Mr. Peabody. It is due to his memory, and due to ourselves, that his signal success in organizing and conducting this cause should be understood and appreciated by all whom it concerns, or who are interested in the subject. My own relations to our Trust go back to the month of Octo ber, 1866, when Mr. Peabod}^ took me into his confidence, and communicated to me privately, and only for consultation, his noble purpose to devote millions of his money to providing the means of education for the children of those Southern and Southwestern States which had suffered during the Civil War, — " without other distinction than their needs and the oppor tunities of usefulness to them." I have already given some of the details of that impressive interview, in a former Address to the Trustees.1 It was not, however, until the following February that his purpose was promulgated, and our Board formally organized. After this organization, which took place here in Washington, on the 8th of February, 1867, we adjourned to meet in New York about the middle of March. The time of that meeting had nearly arrived, and we were all still at a loss in regard to the best mode of proceeding to execute the charge which we had accepted, when I casually met Dr. Sears at the old Wednesday Evening Club in Boston. Strangely enough I had not even thought of him in this connection previously ; but I came at once to the conclusion that I had found the man who was to solve all the perplexities in which we were involved, and which weighed upon myself peculiarly, as the one whom Mr. Peabody had designated and relied upon to arrange the primary action of the Board. Entering immediately into private conference with him, giving him my own views and listening to his, I begged him to furnish me in writing, at the earliest moment, with the results of his best reflection and judgment on the whole matter. He was then the President of Brown University, and was obliged to return to Providence early the next morning; 1 Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches, Vol. III. pp. 471-473. BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 209 but before he left Boston he called at my door, said that he had passed a sleepless night in pondering over what I had told him, — of which he had known nothing before, — and promised that I should hear from him that very day. The next mail from Provi dence brought me accordingly the following letter, dated on the day after I had first met him : — Providence, March 14, 1867. My dear Sir, — At your request, I give you such thoughts as have occurred to my mind, in the brief time that has intervened since I saw you, on the subject of the use that it is expedient to make of the Fund which Mr. Peabody has placed at your disposal. 1. Too much importance cannot be attached to the policy and meas ures that shall be adopted. Besides the care that can be bestowed on the subject by the Trustees, who, it is supposed, can give but a limited amount of time to it, I think, with you, that it is desirable to have an executive officer, a superintendent, who can comprehend the whole sub ject, and work whatever machinery is necessary with unity of design and with effectiveness. 2. As to plans and methods, much is to be created. We have noth ing exactly like what is to be undertaken. There are no examples before you. There has been no experience directly in this line of actioD. Much must come by time and by actual trial. Principles may be laid down, but there must be room for variation in details. 3. There are two general methods to be considered : the one is that of originating and carrying on a system of schools ; the other is that of disbursing funds in aid of others who shall have the schools in charge. The former method would require an extensive system of agencies Work will not go on well without an ever-present and active superintend ence aud vigilance, to prevent and correct abuses arising from negligence or selfishness. The latter is simpler, easier, and is attended with fewer risks. Now if time shall show that the two methods must be, to some extent, combined, it would seem to be safer and more convenient to begin with the second, as the transition to the first could be made, without trouble and to any extent, whenever it should appear expedient. Any change in the other direction would be more difficult, as the first method commits one largely for the future. 4. I should think it might be as well to begin with a single agent, whose first business it should be to furnish aid where it is most needed, in strengthening and resuscitating schools, and, perhaps, aiding others to 14 210 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS open new ones. For a time, he might find judicious and active friends of education, who in different localities would gladly render him the aid he shall need. Thus he would soon, as he proceeds, learn not only what kind and amount of help is needed, but he would come to know the men who could best render it. If it be necessary to have local agents, this would perhaps be the best way of introducing them. 5. Of course, effective schools, that shall be permanent, is the great desid eratum. This is not only the best thing for the young, but they furnish to the people at large the strongest argument in favor of popular educa tion. Let good schools, springing up on the soil, growing out of the wants of the people, and meeting those wants, be sprinkled all over the South as examples, and be made the nuclei for others, and let them be established and controlled, as far as possible, by the people themselves, and they will in time grow into State systems. Beside direct aid in the support of such schools, which would, no doubt, be the first work to be done, there are various indirect ways of reaching the same end. Normal Schools, especially for training female teachers for the primary schools ; higher education given in the form of scholarships to a limited number of young men, who should obligate themselves to teach for as long a period, at least, as that during which they received aid, or to refund the money ; encouragement to Teachers' Associations (County or State Associations) by giving them fifty or a hundred dollars to pay for the lecturers at their meetings ; aid to the editors or publishers of jour nals of .education for the benefit of teachers, — these might be some of the indirect methods to be used. 6. I will state a little more particularly here some of the objections to the first plan mentioned in No. 3. There will not only be a great amount of supervision and direction of the work on the hands of the Trus tees and their agents ; but many official reports from all the schools, whose forms must be prescribed, which must be examined, collated, and possibly printed, as is now done by Boards of Education. All this for midable official procedure, by a body of men in some sense foreign to the different States, will only serve as a barrier, keeping the schools from the public sympathies. The ownership of lots and buildings by the Trustees will tend to make the people indifferent or jealous. The ulti mate transfer of such property to the towns and cities will be an awkward business to transact. The permanent care of a large number of houses, their security, proper occupancy, and repairs, will be trouble some. Property jointly held by the towns and the Trustees would occa sion still more trouble. At the utmost, I should think, one or two or three Normal-school buildings might be owned by the Trustees. Even BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 211 these it might be better to induce the people to build, and then carry on the schools for them for a longer or shorter time, either wholly or in part. Places for other schools, especially primary schools, could be obtained without building or purchasing them, certainly for the present. But on these and other similar points, experience would soon be the best teacher. These are first thoughts, which, for that reason, may have but little value. Very respectfully and sincerely, Your ob't serv't, B. Sears. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. These " first thoughts," as I am sure you will agree with me, are not a little interesting and remarkable. They show that Dr. Sears grasped at once the full measure of the work in which we were about to engage, and marked out, almost by improvisa tion, the course which it would be wise for us to adopt, — and which we actually did adopt. There was not a dream on his part or on my own, at this moment, of his withdrawing from the distinguished University over which he presided, and entering into our service as the General Agent of our Trust. But this letter, thus hastily written, has indeed proved to be a perfect chart of our course, as the writer of it has proved to have been a perfect pilot. Five days after it was written, only four after it was received, the Board met at New York to arrange a system of proceeding. Before leaving home I had succeeded in extorting a promise from Dr. Sears that, if we found ourselves in real need of his advice and counsel, he would come on at our call. He came on accordingly at the click of a telegraph, united freely in our deliberations, volunteered to take charge of the voluminous mass of letters and papers which had already been sent to us from all parts of the country, and returned to Providence — but without giving us any assurance, or much encouragement, that he could accept the General Agency, to which, in the mean time we had unanimously elected him. It was not until the 9th of April that, after much anxious deliberation, he signified to me his decision, and sent me his letter of acceptance, dated on the 30th of March, but held back still longer, owing to some misgivings of his own. From that 212 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS time until his death, a term of more than thirteen years, he was the devoted servant of Southern Education under the Peabody Trust, — removing his residence to Virginia, and giving his whole time, thought, and invaluable experience to that single object. And it may safely be said that he accomplished, before his death, precisely what he had indicated, in that original letter, as the wise policy for us to pursue. But before proceeding further on the subject, I desire to make public, and place on our records, another not less interesting or remarkable letter of his, written to me a year later, a few weeks after the well-remembered meeting of the Board at Richmond, Virginia. I had been obliged to go to Europe with my family, and this letter was received by me at Rome, where our noble Founder, Mr. Peabody, was with me, sitting to Story for the admirable statue now on the London Exchange. It presents a most striking picture of the condition of things at the South during the first year of Dr. Sears's work there ; exhibits the cordial reception which he had met with from our Southern brethren ; and displays the hope, confidence, and enthusiasm with which he had entered on his labors. I had the satisfaction of reading it to Mr. Peabody, and not even the honors which he was receiving at that moment from the Pope himself gave him half as much pleasure. Our late associate, Admiral Farragut, was there with us also, and was not less gratified by so encoura ging a communication. This letter will help to preserve the history of our Trust, when we shall all have followed Dr. Sears and Mr. Peabody and the great Admiral, and so many more of our earlier and later associates, to our account, and when others may desire to pass judgment on what has been under taken and accomplished. Staunton, Va., Feb. 8, 1868. My dear Sir, — Your letter, so full of kindness and interest in our great enterprise, was duly received, and gave me a new impulse and in creased my desire for our complete success. My Report, which, at my request, was ordered to be printed, for our private use only, will show you that the South receives us with open arms. The good feeling and co-operation of the very best part of the popu lation exceed all expectation. It would seem as if the people were look- BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 213 ing directly upon the beaming countenance of our venerable friend, and were carried away with gratitude and admiration. This cordiality does not expend itself in complimentary speeches, but shows itself practically, and in a most substantial way. Our advice is most eagerly sought, and our suggestions most readily accepted. In the many interviews I have had with men who have come to pro pose a different plan, and to suggest a different mode of action, there is scarcely an instance in which they have not said in the end, " Well, your plan is the best." It is hardly an exaggeration to say, it meets with uni versal approbation. There have been those who have regarded our Fund in the light of a mere charity to the poor, for their temporary relief, and have pleaded for an equal distribution to all poor children. Others have asked that we should go into poor neighborhoods, and support schools. I have shown them that there are about 2,000,000 children in the ten States that lie within our province ; that about two-thirds of them, or 1,333,333, are now poor ; and that $400,000 a year would give them only 30 cents apiece. The lowest rates of tuition in good primary schools in the South are $2 a month, or $20 per year, or ten months. Now take half the number of poor children, 666,666, and half the cost of tuition, or $10 per year, and still the annual expense would be $6,000,000. On their plan we should, even with $400,000 a year, edu cate only 33,333 of the two millions. On our plan we educate nearly eight times as many children, aud nearly six times as many poor children, with the same money. By giving $1,000 for 700 children (the cities and towns paying at least three-fourths of the expense) we pay less than $1.50 for each pupil, and educate 266,666 instead of 33,333. Besides, dealing as we do with pub lic authorities, we have all the schools under regular and careful super vision, without one dollar of expense. All the teachers are examined ; all the houses are provided ; all failures from sickness, incapacity, want of discipline, want of repairs, or breaks from any other cause, are speedily remedied. How could we provide for these things where there is no school system, no school authorities ? We now have all the machinery of the State, the city, the village, for school matters, at our service, and they are the persons who see that the people raise their part of the money. The Mayor and Council, even in small places with only 200 children, have generally done the work for me with the people. How valuable to us are these school organizations ! and by working through them, we give them support and vigor. 214 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS No one has been able to resist these views. Of course, there are cases in which our plan must be flexible, where peculiar circumstances must have their influence. But even here, it is rather the form than the spirit of the system that needs to be modified. I am unspeakably happy to be able to say that this system, good as it is in theory, is even better in practice. I beg you to assure our venerated and honored friend, Mr. Peabody, of this fact. I think he would be pleased with the working of the sys tem. Besides all this, the establishing of model schools has a great influence on other places. It is surprising how much more people are influenced by example than by abstract reasoning. There is already apparent a healthful rivalry among the towns of Georgia, where I have done most. Other towns in that, and in the adjoining States, are beginning to ask me to come and do the same thing for them. The people desire to draw emigrants to help them build up their broken fortunes, and they begin to know the influence of schools in attracting the best kind of population. All these matters were discussed at- the meeting of the Trustees after the reading of my Eeport ; with what result, others can say better than myself. I give you these details because they will enable you, better than anything else, to understand the present posture of things, and to present the matter in a clearer light to Mr. Peabody, whom I am unwilling to trouble with such particulars. I have met with many of your friends, some of whom you would remember ; and some, from their transient acquaintance, you would not. Mr. P. Dickinson, of Knoxville, by far the richest man in the place, and alluded to for his great hospitality in my Report, says he belongs to the latter class, but wished me to remember him to you. So, you see, I enjoy the benefit of your friends in a great many indirect ways, as well as those well known to yourself and so highly prized by me. I am just on the eve of a long tour, for which so much preparation has been made by correspondence that I expect to dispatch a great amount of business. When I commenced that correspondence, a mist hung over the whole subject. But the fog is lifting, and a general plan of action is already agreed on and heartily assented to. Much, very much, by way of preparation, is accomplished in all the ten States. The patient way has proved to be the best way. No general loses by taking a little time to survey the ground and plan his battle. I am experiencing the benefit of this every day. I have succeeded in getting all the agencies which we must use prepared to work with me. I am satisfied that the movement is carrying with it all the public BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 215 authorities. Not every one sees the value of that as you and I do. What can an individual do if he is not backed up by the public ? Influ ential public men are just now worth more than the single-handed labors of a dozen sub-agents. This will be my policy, — to get public coad jutors all over the country. And now, my dear sir, after this long commentary on my Report, permit me to say, I had no proper view, though I thought I had, of the loss we sustain in your absence. Others, who feel it as I do, will express their regrets, and their ardent desire for your speedy return. We are not sufficiently out of the harbor to do without a pilot. Our Trustees are all excellent men, but none can fill your place. They all feel that. You are our head, and we need your counsel and guidance more than we can express. If my Report and my Address before the Virginia Convention do not accompany this letter, they will soon follow. They are both in the hands of the printer. My first work on leaving home will be with Governor Graham and Governor Aiken. Mr. Rives was taken ill the night before our meeting, and has not yet recovered. Mr. Macalester, who was also detained by sickness, is better. I received a letter from him the other day. We have not yet seen Mr. Bradford. I expect to find him in New Orleans. I think he has returned, or is about returning, from Europe. I have almost a New England winter in my new Virginia home. It is a beautiful country and fine climate here, and my health is better than it was before my removal. Travelling agrees with me well. Please read my letter addressed to Mr. Peabody, and present it, or withhold it, at your discretion. Make any suggestion to me freely that occurs to you on reading my letters or papers, or on hearing from any of the Trustees, and indicate any wishes of Mr. Peabody to me, that I may act accordingly. With the sincerest respect and affection, Your friend and servant, B. Sears. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. Such were the results of a single year of wise, zealous, and untiring effort on the part of Dr. Sears. The beginning was, indeed, more than half the battle, and all that has followed has been only the natural sequence of so auspicious a commence ment. I may not pursue, in further detail, a story which has been so amply and admirably told in his own Annual Reports. Printed as these have been, from year to year, they make up a 216 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS complete record of our operations from the first, and will per petuate the evidence of his own ability and fidelity, while they portray the successive stages of as remarkable and beneficent a Trust as can be found in the annals of our country or of our race. I pass, then, to some occasional acts or personal traits of our lamented friend, in immediate connection with our work, as revealed in the private letters which I so frequently received from him. Dr. Sears, I need hardly say, cherished the deepest reverence for the memory of our illustrious Founder. He counted it a great privilege to have known him personally ; to have learned his views from his own lips ; and to have secured, as he certainly did, so large a measure of his regard and confidence. " Over my table," — said he in a letter to me, written just after he had completed the review of all that had been accomplished in the decennial period which ended in 1877, — " over my table hangs the large photograph of the good George Peabody. I often ask myself, Would he smile upon me if he were present to see me and my work? " Mr. Peabody, as I well know, warmly reciprocated Dr. Sears's esteem, and highly appreciated his devotion to this Trust, as long as he lived. It will not be forgotten that, in his letter to us, dated 29 June, 1869, communicating his gift of a second million of dollars to our Fund, he used the following language : " I must not omit to congratulate you, and all who have at heart the best interests of this educational enterprise, upon your ob taining the highly valuable services of Dr. Sears as your General Agent, — services valuable not merely in the organization of schools and of a system of public education, but in the good effect which his conciliatory and sympathizing course has had, wherever he has met or become associated with the communities of the South, in social or business relations." It was in grateful remembrance of the " conciliatory and sym pathizing course " of Dr. Sears, which was so justly recognized in that letter, and which he pursued to the end of his career, that, in the few off-hand remarks which I was unexpectedly BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 217 called on to make at his funeral, in Brookline, I said of him, that " coming into the agency of this Trust so soon after the close of the War, — when feelings between the different parts of the country were still embittered, and when, at the South, there was great, and not unnatural, jealousy of anything that should seem like interference with Southern institutions, — he had so con ducted his delicate and difficult work as to overcome every prejudice, and win the confidence and affection of all with whom he was called on to act." And I added on that occasion, what I may repeat here, that " I did not believe there was another man in the country who could have conducted our Trust with so much ability, devotion, and success." Nor was our lamented friend without a deep sense of grati tude to the members of this Board for the confidence they had ever reposed in him, and the kindness they had uniformly ex hibited towards him. I had written to him, a year or two ago, to congratulate him on the success of some recent policy of his, and to thank him for his unwearied efforts, at so advanced an age, to render this Trust a blessing to the South, and an honor to the whole country. Here is an extract from his reply, dated 24 May, 1879 : — " I wish I could honestly take to myself the credit your partiality gives me. Many things have wonderfully conspired to give us a gratifying measure of success. 1. The Fund, and the lofty and pure character of the Donor. 2. The large and liberal views of the Trustees. 3. The wise, systematic, and unvarying course pursued, which has given the peo ple confidence in the body of men who have the management of the Fund. To this add the character aud stauding of the Trustees. 4. The generous confidence reposed in me as their Agent, never embarrassing me or thwarting my plans, but aiding and supporting me in every way, and indorsing me before the public Yours and Mr. Peabody's confidence in me is well known. Every man has aided me in his peculiar way. You know what Governor Clifford did. The Treasurer (Mr. Wetmore) has given me, in his off-hand way, many invaluable suggestions in respect to my accounts. All the Trustees at Washington helped me with Congress. Mr. Stuart has done for me in Virginia what Mr. Rives did. Governors Graham aud Aiken, notwithstanding some divergence of opinion on one point, always gave me a hearty support in their own States. You know 218 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS all about Bishops Mcllvaine and Whipple, and Judge Watson. The good opinion and friendly co-operation of all these men were largely due to your influence, supported by that of Governor Clifford. A Massachu setts man, fully indorsed by two such representatives, had every advan tage. 5. A good Providence gave us a favorable time, — a remarkable crisis which might not occur again in centuries, imperatively demanding public schools, and aid and counsel in their introduction. When I look at the whole concatenation of causes of our success, I cannot help saying, as did the early Crusaders under St. Bernard's eloquence, ' God wills it.' But I sat down to write about Texas, and I have run into one of Cook's Prologues." He then proceeded to give an account of his success in Texas, in inducing the governor and legislature to estab lish two normal schools, one with an annual appropria tion of $14,000, and one for colored teachers, with $6,000 a year, — adding, " If nothing adverse occurs, we shall do grandly." In later letters, during the last year or two, he did not fail to express how greatly he was gratified by the Bills of Sena tors Hoar and Burnside ; by the report of Mr. Stuart, Mr. Evarts, and Chief Justice Waite, on schools for the colored population of the South ; and by the repeated and emphatic appeals of our associate, President Hayes, for aid to the cause of Southern Education. He could not but feel that the munificent movement of Mr. Peabody, which it had been his own privilege to organize and carry into execution, had given the impulse and the example to measures of supreme and vital importance to the security of our republican institu tions ; and he was grateful to all by whom those measures were sustained. More than once he had been invited to leave our work, permanently or temporarily, for recreation or for a more lucra tive position. Large offers had been held out to him, and he might have commanded his own terms. But his heart was in this Southern Trust, and had been from the first moment at which it was confidentially communicated to him. In a letter to me, dated 23 December, 1878, he says : — BY dr: BARNAS SEARS. 219 "Not long since, I received an appointment from the Committee of the Evangelical Alliance, to attend their meeting in Basle next September, they paying the ocean passage both ways. You can easily imagine how I should enjoy such a trip and such a meeting. But nothing could induce me to leave my work, even for a month or two. My duty, and with it my pleasure, is to be just where I am. I of course respectfully declined the invitation. I think I never told you that, several years ago, a commit tee, or rather a member of it, wrote to me inquiring whether I would accept an appointment with a salary of $10,000. I replied that I could not leave a work such as mine, or sever a connection formed under such peculiar and almost sacred circumstances." If it may be fairly said that "the man had found his place" when Dr. Sears was so providentially called into our service in 1867, it may not less emphatically be added that " the place had found its man," — the man who, as we look back at this hour along the whole interval, seems almost to have owed his appointment to a higher than human selection. The blessing of Heaven has certainly rested on his labors from the beginning to the end. We may well thank God that we have enjoyed Dr. Sears's inestimable services for thirteen successive years, and that during this period he has accomplished, with our counsel and co-operation, the first and most important part of the plan which he originally marked out for us. We have laid founda tions which cannot be removed. The Common-School System has been recognized and adopted in every one of the States contemplated by Mr. Peabody's endowment. Good School Laws have been enacted in all the Southern States, and good Common Schools may now be found "sprinkled,' as he said, over those States, as examples and models. Dr. Sears happily lived long enough to see and be satisfied with the fruit of his labors, and to perceive that we might now safely turn to the second feature of his original plan, — the en dowment or encouragement of Normal Schools for the training of teachers, the establishment of Scholarships, and the pro motion of Teachers' Institutes. He had, indeed made no little progress in arranging and carrying out this new line of policy himself. 220 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS In a letter to me, dated 23 October, 1877, in speaking of the interest which had been awakened in Texas in the cause of edu cation, and of the great satisfaction whicli his visit there had afforded him, he says : — " The truth is, the light is coming in steadily, and cannot be shut out. I am reminded of what Luther said to Melancthon : ' While you and I are drinking our beer, the Gospel is spreading among the people.' " In a letter to me, dated 28 April, 1879, after speaking of the Normal Schools in North Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia, and Tennessee, and of the movements for their establishment in Florida, Georgia, and Texas, he says : — - " On the whole, it now looks as if we should carry out our new plan, the improvement of teachers, as successfully as we did our first, the establishment of schools. We must not expect to accomplish this in a day, but we may expect to see the work done in a few years, if we steadily make this our chief aim. " As this is the first year of our new experiment, you will pardon me for giving you the details. We still hold on to our old system, so as to make the transition gradual, and to avoid all appearance of a violent change." And now, Gentlemen, though, in view of all which he has fully accomplished, we can certainly spare him at this moment better than we ever could have spared him before, yet his loss to us, and to the cause in which we are associated, is a severe one, and we come with sad hearts to supply the vacancy which his death has created. But it must be supplied without delay; for I may say, for myself, that the burden of care and corre spondence, which has been devolved upon me, as Chairman of the Board, during the seven months which have elapsed since he was taken away, has been greater than I should be able or willing to bear longer. With the always obliging and efficient aid of his daughter, Mrs. Fultz, who had so long been his sec retary, and with the kind co-operation of our associate, Mr. Stuart, I have done what I could to prevent our work from suffering any serious detriment or delay. But it has seemed BY DR. BARNAS SEARS. 221 to me sometimes as if the whole weight of the Southern Schools had been precipitated on my own shoulders. I have certainly learned, by such an experience, how heavy must have been the burden so long borne by Dr. Sears. -His place must be filled, so "far as such a place can ever be filled, before this Annual Meeting is over. In his modest appreciation of his own merits and qualifi cations, he had no misgivings as to our being able to select and secure a suitable and sufficient successor. In a letter to me, dated as long ago as Sept. 15, 1877, in reply to some fore bodings of my own as to the future, he said : " I have been singularly fortunate in my successors in my lifetime. At Madi son University, N. Y., at Newton Theological Institution, and at Brown University, I have been succeeded by Presidents Dodge, Hovey, and Robinson, all of them my pupils, and all distinguished men. As Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, I was followed by Boutwell, White, and now by Dickinson, — all prospering." He was hopeful, and more than hopeful, that here, too, the right man would readily be found ; and even remarked : " How soon are our places filled by others, and we forgotten except by a few ! " But he did not conclude that letter without recalling the words of encouragement addressed to him by Mr. Peabody, when they parted for the last time : " Your name will be remembered in connection with mine." And so it will be. It is not too much for me to say, and I am sure you will all agree with me, that whenever and wherever the name of George Peabody shall be remembered and honored as the munificent founder of this great Trust for Southern Educa tion, — the earliest signal manifestation of a spirit of recon ciliation towards those from whom we had been so unhappily alienated, — the name of Dr. Barnas Sears will be recalled and honored also, as the original organizer, and devoted administrator of the Trust, for the first thirteen years of its existence, — the years which have determined its policy, and insured its success. I will not detain you by any protracted account of Dr. Sears in other relations. Born in Massachusetts ; a graduate of 222 SERVICES RENDERED TO SOUTHERN SCHOOLS. Brown University, of which he was afterwards President; a student for several years in Germany, where he was brought into association with Alexander von Humboldt, and many of the learned professors of Berlin and Halle and Leipsic ; the pastor of a Baptist church, and afterwards the head of an important Theological Seminary; the successor of Horace Mann as Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachu setts; the author of an admirable Life of Luther, and of several other interesting and valuable volumes, — he brought to our General Agency rare and varied accomplishments, the largest experience in the work of education, and a character which commanded the respect and reverence of all who knew him. His latest literary labor was in preparing an Address which he hoped to have delivered at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the American Institute of Instruction, at Saratoga Springs. The Address was finished, and contained a most interesting review of the progress of education during the last half-century. He died the very day before it was to be delivered ; and it was read most impressively before the Institute, bjr Dr. Ellis, agree ably to his own request, while his body was on its way to the burial. In all the fifty years which his Address reviewed, it may be doubted whether any one has done more for American Education than himself. PUBLIC LATIN AND ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS. SPEECH AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW SCHOOLHOUSE, FEBRUARY 22,1881. Most willingly, my friends, would I have been excused from the call which has now been made on me, even at the cost of all the kind compliments by which that call has been preceded and accompanied. And yet I could not quite find it in my heart to be wholly wanting to such an occasion. On this day of all other days, — associated, as it is, and will forever be, with the grandest character in American history, or in any other merely human history, — I am most glad to find myself among those to whom that character should always be held up as their best model, and by whom it should never cease to be revered and venerated. But I am not here to talk about Washington. Nor do I pro pose to say anything about Governor Winthrop, to whom so many just and welcome allusions have been made in connection with my own name. Indeed, you will bear me witness, Mr. Chairman, that in accepting your repeated and flattering invita tions, I promised to say only a few words ; and I trust that I shall not too greatly exceed the measure of mj' promise. There are, I know, older graduates of the Boston Latin School than myself around me, — Mr. Emerson, to Whom you have given so marked and cordial a reception, Mr. Dillaway, so long the head master of the school, and my friend, Dr. Lothrop, to name no others. But they will all agree with me, and you will agree 224 PUBLIC LATIN AND ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS. with them, that any one who is obliged to turn back nearly threescore years to find his name on the old catalogue, need make no apology for being brief, on this or any other occasion. I am here, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, only to manifest my earnest and undying interest in these great public schools of Boston ; to renew the assurance of my gratitude as a citizen, for all that they have done for our city, for our Commonwealth, and for our whole country ; to testify afresh my own personal grati tude for all that one of them did for me, under good Master Gould, so many, many years ago ; and to offer to them both, to their pupils and to their masters, my warmest felicitations on the completion of the noble edifice which they are henceforth privileged to occupy. The dedication of a massive and magnificent schoolhouse like this, — destined, as we hope and trust, not only to outlast all, however young, who are gathered here to-day, but to be the re sort of our children and our children's children in a far distant future — is an occasion, I need not say, of most impressive and most suggestive interest. A well-remembered English poet of the last century,1 in one of his celebrated odes, looked back from a distance on the old towers of Eton, to prefigure and portray some of the varieties of personal experience — prosperous or adverse, joyous or sad — which awaited the young pupils of that famous seminary. And a most dismal and doleful picture he presented of not a few of the little victims, as he styled them, with countless ministers of fate lying in ambush around them, eager to seize and rack and rend them. No such picture of an American school, or of any other school, would be accepted in our day and generation. It is for us, certainly, as we gather beneath these new towers of our own, to contemplate brighter and more cheering visions of the future. It is for us, to-day, to look forward to a long procession of the children of our beloved city, streaming forth year by year from these noble halls, — not exempt, indeed, from the trials and casualties of our common lot, or from any of the ills that flesh is heir to, but pressing onward hopefully and bravely, in ever-increasing throngs, to fight the great battle of i Gray. PUBLIC LATIN AND ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS. 225 life, to win happiness and honor for themselves, and to add new strength and new security to those free institutions which can rest safely only on education and intelligence. I echo the impressive words just uttered by the good master of the Latin School: May that fear of God which is the begin ning of wisdom, and that love of God which casteth out all fear, take possession of their hearts ; and may his blessing be on all their worthy efforts, both as boys and as men ! But let them never forget that, under God, they are to be the masters of their own fate, and of their own future. It will not be in their stars, — no, nor in their schoolhouses, however humble or however grand, — but in themselves, if they are underlings, or if they shall grow up to the stature of the noblest patriotism and public usefulness. There can be no real failure for those who are true to themselves. The old Latin School — to which I may be pardoned for one more special allusion, as a former pupil — is now taking posses sion of its fifth local habitation. We can trace it along from its first rude tenement of mud walls and thatched roof, as the Mayor has just described it, to another, and another, and still another, more substantial and commodious structure, until, at last, this grand consummation has been reached. The fifth act opens in triumph, and the old school enters to-day, hand in hand with its accomplished younger sister, upon a far more spacious and splendid theatre. Need I say, need any one tell them, that larger expectations will rightfully be cherished of those who are to enjoy these larger opportunities and advan tages ? May we not reasonably call on every Boston boy, who enters these wide-spread gates and shining archways, not to allow all the improvements to be confined to the mere material structure, the mere outward shell; but to see to it that the char acter of the schools shall take on something of the proportions, something of the beauty and grandeur, of the building which the City has so sumptuously provided for them ; and, still more, to see to it that his own individual character shall not be want ing towards making up the precious mosaic of an institution worthy of such a home and such a history. I might almost venture to conceive that some one of the 15 226 PUBLIC LATIN AND ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLS. young scholars around us at this moment — and more than one — might catch an inspiration from this very scene, and from all its rich associations and utterances ; and, recalling that exquisite stanza of Holmes's " Chambered Nautilus," with all its marvel lous transmutations and transmigrations, might say to himself, as he retires from these impressive ceremonies : — " Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Ilet each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, — Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! " Such lines might almost claim a place among the illuminated legends on these walls. Certainly their sentiment might well be impressed on every young heart which is beating high with the exultations of this hour. I can add nothing to them. TRIBUTE TO JOHN C. GRAY AND GEORGE B. EMERSON. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 10, 1881. We are called on this afternoon, Gentlemen, to take notice of the very recent deaths of two of our most venerable Resi dent Members, so that they may be appropriately entered on our records. The Hon. John Chipman Gray, LL.D., died at his winter home in this city on the morning of the 3d instant, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, near to his summer resi dence at Cambridge, on the afternoon of the 5th. He was chosen a member of this Society in 1841, and his name stood fourth on our roll in the order of seniority of election. He was one of our vice-presidents for three years, and until a recent period was a frequent attendant at our meetings, taking an active part in our proceedings. Some of us can recall an inter esting meeting at his own house in 1859, when communications were received from Edward Everett and Emory Washburn and Judge Warren and Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, and others who have long since passed away. Born at Salem in 1793, Mr. Gray had completed his eighty- seventh year on the 26th of December last, and had entirely withdrawn of late from public meetings of any sort. Yet his mind was clear and vigorous to the end, and he was spared from any serious physical infirmity until within a few weeks of his death. One of the younger sons of William Gray, once lieuten- 228 JOHN C. GRAY. ant-governor of the Commonwealth, and whose name was so long associated with the highest integrity and the widest and most successful commercial enterprise, he enjoyed the best edu cation which New England then afforded. He was a graduate of Harvard College in 1811, while still in his seventeenth year, in the class with Edward Everett, of whom, as he told us on the occasion of Mr. Everett's death, in 1865, he was the chum for two years, and an intimate friend for sixty years. As a young man, he travelled extensively in Europe, studied law, and was admitted to the bar; but he never entered seriously on the prac tice of his profession. His circumstances did not require him to do so, and clients rarely seek those who can do without fees. But he was soon drawn into public service, was a member of the Common Council for several years as early as 1824, and after ward served the State as a representative of Boston, as a senator of Suffolk, and as a member of the executive council, succes sively, during a long term of years. Mr. Gray devoted himself with zeal and energy to whatever service he undertook, and held it a matter of conscientious obli gation to study and to master the questions on which he was called to give a vote. As one of his associates for a few years in the Legislature of Massachusetts, I can bear personal tes timony to the peculiar confidence which was reposed in the soundness of his judgment, in the extent and exactness of his information, and in his scrupulous impartiality and integrity, by men of all parties, Avho were around him. He was a man of sin gularly quick perceptions, seeing at a glance the drift of a meas ure or a motion, and read}r to pronounce upon it while others were deliberating or. doubting. The absence of mind which he sometimes exhibited, or seemed to exhibit, was anything but an indication of his intellectual abilities. He was both quick- sighted and far-sighted ; and few men went deeper than he did into any subject which he studied. He was proverbial, at one time, for getting all that was worth knowing out of a new book while he was cutting the leaves, or sometimes by looking between the leaves without cutting them at all. Mr. Gray had no fancy for display, and less faculty for it, per haps, than many of his contemporaries ; but he was a man of JOHN C. GRAY. 229 generous culture, a great reader, a close thinker, a good debater, and a clear and able writer. A little volume which he pub lished in 1856 contains his principal productions. It includes an essay on Dante, giving evidence of his Italian studies, first printed in 1819 ; an essay on Demosthenes, proving that he had not forgotten or abandoned his Greek, in 1826 ; and an essay on College Education, in 1851. These were all contributed to the " North American Review." But the larger part of his volume is made up of addresses or essays on agriculture or horticulture, on forest-trees and fruit-trees, and on the climate of New Eng land. These were the subjects which continued to interest and occupy him long after his love of ancient or modern literature had grown colder with advancing age. The study of an unfa miliar tongue — Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, or, perhaps, Sanskrit — would still attract him. But agriculture and horticulture were his favorite pursuits, and he pursued them practically as well as theoretically. His relations to the old Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, both as one of the trustees and as its president, were as valuable as they were long-contin ued ; and his greenhouses were lovingly cared for, almost to the last day of his life. He was eminently a just man, — true to his neighbor and to his God, — doing much, while he lived, for those in less favored circumstances than himself, and not forgetting, in the final dis position of his fortune, some of those great institutions of edu cation and charity which he had helped to encourage and maintain in previous years. Mr. Gray was early married to a daughter of the late Samuel P. Gardner, Esq., a former member of this Society. They had no children, and, happily for him, her death preceded his own by less than two years. I pass to the name of George Barrell Emerson, LL.D., who died at Chestnut Hill on Friday last, the 4th instant, and whose funeral was largely attended at King's Chapel on the 7th. Mr. Emerson was elected a member of this Society at our annual meeting in 1863, and never failed to manifest a warm interest in being with us, until the infirmities of age disabled him. He 230 GEORGE B. EMERSON. delivered, as you will remember, one of our course of Lowell Lectures in the winter of 1868-69. And no one will have for gotten his last appearance among us, at the January meeting of 1879, when he came to pay a brief tribute to the memory of his friend and classmate, Caleb Cushing, with whom he had been intimately associated at Harvard University. Mr. Emerson was born in the town of Wells, Old York, in what is now the State of Maine, on the 12th of September, 1797, and was thus in bis eighty-fourth year when he died. Brought up on his father's farm, his attention, as a child, seems to have fastened itself on the growth and structure of the weeds and plants around him, and he thus formed habits of observing the processes of nature, which laid the foundation of the botanical studies by which he was distinguished in later life. After acquiring the rudiments of education at Dummer Academy in Byfield, he entered Harvard College in 1813, and was graduated, with a class which included Bancroft and Cushing and other eminent scholars, in 1817. From Cambridge he was called at once to be the master of a school at Lancaster, where he enjoyed the friendly and paternal supervision of the late excellent Dr. Nathaniel Thayer. After two years at Lan caster he was appointed tutor of mathematics, under President Kirkland, at Harvard. In 1821 he was summoned to the place of principal of the English Classical School then newly estab lished in Boston, and now known as the. Boston High School ; and, after a service of another term of two years in that capa city, he accepted the call of many of our best citizens to take charge of a new School for Young Ladies. He had now found a sphere to which he was peculiarly adapted, and in his rela tions to which he ever felt a just pride. This school he con ducted with signal success, giving a new impulse to female education, and winning the respect and affection of all who were committed to his care. And when at last, after a long term of service, he was induced to resign the place and seek relaxation by a visit to Europe, he was able to say that he had been engaged in the work of teaching for more than forty years. This is eulogy enough for any man. What limit can be ascribed to the influence for good of a faithful and accom- GEORGE B. EMERSON. 231 plished teacher, such as he eminently was, during so protracted a period ? But his efforts had not been confined to the special schools with which he was immediately connected. He had been strongly impressed with the low condition of the common schools of New England generally, and had been largely concerned both in the organization of our State Board of Education, and in the establishment of Normal schools in Massachusetts. The Memo rial to our Legislature, drafted by him as president of the Amer ican Institute of Instruction, prepared the way for both of these invaluable measures. The first Normal School in our country was soon afterward opened at Lexington by the united efforts of Mr. Emerson, Horace Mann, Edmund Dwight, and a few oth ers like them. Meanwhile Mr. Emerson was one of the found ers of the Boston Natural History Society, and its president in 1837. To him was assigned, in connection with Professor Dewey, the preparation of a report on the trees and shrubs of Massachusetts, to supplement the geological survey of Dr. Hitch cock; and this report, which was highly valued and widely cir culated at the time of its original publication by the State, was thoroughly revised and published by himself, as lately as 1875, in two sumptuous volumes, richly illustrated. By this work, not inferior in elegance or intrinsic worth to any work of the kind which has come from the American press, Mr. Emerson's name will be as prominently and permanently associated with the natural history of his native Commonwealth, as it must ever be with her institutions of education. Our friend was a frequent contributor to magazines and jour nals, and some of the most interesting of these contributions were collected and published by himself about three years ago. A most entertaining and instructive little volume it is, under the title of " Reminiscences of an Old Teacher." With that work, full of charming illustrations of his Christian character, his labors ended ; and the little remnant of his life was passed quietly in the country, either at his own seaside villa at Winthrop, or at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Judge Lowell, at Chestnut Hill. 232 GEORGE B. EMERSON. And thus our two venerable friends and associates have passed away from us together at a good old age, leaving pleasant mem ories for all who knew them, and with nothing to be regretted in their lives or in their deaths. I am instructed by the Council to submit the customary Resolution : — Resolved, That this Society have observed with deep sensi bility the recent departure from this life of our two venerable Associates, the Hon. John C. Gray and Dr. George B. Emer son, and that the President be instructed to appoint two of our number to prepare Memoirs of them respectively, for some future volume of the Proceedings. CHARLES HUDSON, HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, AND JOHN G. PALFREY. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MAY 12, 1881. An absence from home of only three weeks, just ended, has been marked for me, Gentlemen, by the loss of several distin guished and valued friends, at least two of whom were con nected, in different relations, with this Society. I had been at Washington less than a week, when I was summoned as far back as Philadelphia, to serve as pall-bearer at the funeral of the revered and lamented Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton. Returning to Washington from that service, I was met by a telegram announcing the death of an Honorary Member, who was endeared to more than one of us by long friendship and frequent correspondence, — the Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D., of Virginia. A day or two only had elapsed before the newspapers informed me that the venerable Dr. John Gorham Palfrey had passed away at Cambridge. The papers of a very few days later apprised me that the excellent Charles Hudson had also been released from the burdens of the flesh. Much more time would have been required than the few hours I have had at my command since I reached home on Tuesday evening, for preparing any adequate notices of such names ; but I should not be forgiven for not dwelling for a moment on those which have had a place on our rolls. 234 CHARLES HUDSON. Mr. Hudson was chosen a Resident Member of this Society in June, 1859, and during the twenty-one years of his mem bership had rendered valuable service to the cause in which we are associated. As a local historian, few of his contem poraries, if any, have done more. His history of the towns of Marlborough, his native place ; of Westminster, where he long resided ; and still more of the far-famed Lexington, where he lived still later, and where he died, — make up a most interesting and important contribution to the illustration of our Commonwealth. But long before he entered on this field of labor he had played a conspicuous part in the service both of the State and nation. My earliest association with him was in the Legislature of Massachusetts, more than forty years ago, where he did more, I think, than any other member of either branch in the organization of our then infant railroad system. Our former Associate, the late Nathan Hale, with whom he actively co-operated, could alone, as it seems to me, be named as having rendered equal service. In 1841 he was transferred to the House of Representatives of the United States, where, for eight years, he exhibited the same practical sagacity and ability in the legislation of Congress. It will not be forgotten that as lately as January, 1880, when he had already entered the eighty-fifth year of his age, Mr. Hudson made an interesting communication, now printed in the last volume of our Proceedings, on "The Character of Major John Pitcairn, the British Officer who opened the Drama of the American Revolution, on the 19th of April, 1775." In presenting to the Society that communication, which he had intrusted to my care and discretion, I spoke of my venerable friend as " one of the ablest and honestest men whom Massachusetts ever had in her service." What I said of him living, I repeat now that he is dead. He was a man of the strongest practical common-sense, of untiring industry, of great ability, and of the sternest integrity in public as well as in private life, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to bear witness to his varied services, and to express the deep respect I have always entertained for his exemplary character and his eminent usefulness to his fellow-men and his country. HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. 235 It would have gratified him to know that his paper on Pit cairn had attracted favorable attention from the descendants of that officer in England, and that diligent investigation had been made, though thus far without success, to verify the suggestion that Pitcairn was buried at Westminster Abbey. I was just proposing to communicate with Mr. Hudson on that point when I heard of his death. Of the remarkable qualities and accomplishments of our deceased Honorary Member, Mr. Grigsby, of Virginia, I hardly dare to speak, with the little preparation which it has been in my power to make in the single day since my return home. I trust that our friend Dr. Deane, who knew him as well and valued him as highly as I did, will now or hereafter supply all my deficiencies, and place him on our records as he de serves to be placed. Indeed, he has placed himself there with no mistakable impress. No one of our Honorary Mem bers, on either side of the Atlantic, has ever exhibited so warm a personal interest in our Proceedings, or has so often favored us with interesting letters, which have been gladly printed in our successive serials or volumes. A Virginian of the Virginians : president of their His torical Society, and chancellor of their oldest college ; bound to the Old Dominion by every tie of blood and of affection ; proud of her history, with which he was so familiar ; proud of her great men, with so many of whom he had been per sonally associated in public as well as in private life ; sym pathizing deeply in all her political views and with all her recent trials and reverses, — he was yet never blind to the great men and great deeds of New England, never indifferent to our own Massachusetts history in particular. On the con trary, he was always eager to cultivate the regard and friend ship of our scholars and public men. No work from our press seemed to escape his attention. There was no poem of Long fellow or Whittier or Holmes or Lowell, no history of Prescott or Bancroft or Palfrey or Motley or Frothingham or Parkman, which he did not read with lively interest and discuss with discrimination and candor. 236 HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. In the little visit which he made us ten years ago, he formed personal friendships with not a few of those whom he had known only by their works, and they were a constant source of pleasure and pride to him. For myself, I look back on more than twenty years of familiar and friendly correspondence with him, — interrupted by the war, but renewed with the earliest return of peace, — which was full of entertainment and instruction, and which I shall miss greatly as the years roll on, and as the habit and the art of letter-writing is more and more lost in telegraphic and telephonic and postal-card communication. There is hardly anything more interesting in all our seven teen volumes of Proceedings than his letter to me of March 30, 1866, beginning " Five years and fourteen days have elapsed since I received a letter from you," — giving a vivid description of some of his personal experiences during the Civil War, asking whether it was true that one whom he " so much esteemed and honored as President Felton was no more," — adding, "Is Mr. Deane living?" — and abounding in the kindest allusions to those from whom the war had so sadly separated him. I may not forget to mention that Horace Binney, of Phila delphia, though thirty years older than Mr. Grigsby, was a special correspondent of his, and that the last letter which Mr. Binney wrote before his death, at ninety-four, was to our lamented friend. Mr. Grigsby, from an early period of his life, suffered se verely from imperfect hearing, an infirmity which grew upon him year by year, until knowledge at one entrance seemed quite shut out. But he bore it patiently and heroically, and his books and his pen were an unfailing source of consolation and satisfaction. Educated for several years at Yale, and admitted to the bar at Norfolk, with ever}' acquisition to fit him for a distinguished career in the law and in public life, he was constrained to abandon it all, and confine himself to his family, his friends, and his library. As a very young man, however, hardly twenty-one, he had a seat in the great Constitutional Convention of Virginia, in HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. 237 1829-30, and was associated with all the conspicuous men of that period. Meantime, he was studying the characters and careers of the great Virginians of earlier periods, not a few of whom were still living. His Discourse on the Virginia Con vention of 1776, extended in print to a volume of more than two hundred pages, with its elaborate notes and appendix, is indeed as perfect a summary of the history of some of the great men of his native State — Jefferson and Madison and Patrick Henry and George Mason, and others — as can easily be found ; while his Discourses on the men with whom he was associated in the Convention of 1830, and on Littleton W. Tazewell, the senator and governor and eminent lawyer of Virginia, are worthy supplements to that which had preceded them. Many other publications, both in prose and verse, have manifested the fertility of his mind and the extent of his cul ture and research, while his letters alone would have occupied more than the leisure of any common man. Meantime he was devoted to agricultural pursuits, plant ing and hoeing and ditching with his own hands, and prouder of his dike, his " Julius Caesar Bridge," and his crops, than of any other of his productions. His very last letter to me, dated not long before his illness, concludes by saying: "My employments for the past two weeks have been the reading of Justin, Suetonius, Tom Moore's Diary, and the building of a rail zigzag fence, nearly a mile long, to keep my neighbors' cattle off my premises." In a previous paragraph he said that he had just promised an invalid friend, who was anxious on the subject, to call soon and read to him " the admirable sermon of Paley on the Recognition of Friends in Another World." That may, perchance, have been his last neighborly office before he was called to the verification and enjoyment, as we trust, of those Christian hopes and anticipations in which he ever delighted. But I forbear from any further attempt to do justice, in this off-hand, extempore manner, to one of whom I would gladly have spoken with more deliberation and with greater fulness. He had promised to meet me and stand by my side at York- town next October, and I shall sorely miss his friendly coun- 238 JOHN G. PALFEEY. sel and assistance for that occasion, should I be spared to take part in it. The son of a Presbyterian clergyman, he was to the last warmly attached to the faith and forms of the Church in which he was brought up. While tolerant towards all, " The West minster Confession " and " The Shorter Catechism " were his cherished manuals of religion and theology. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, on the 22d of November, 1806, he died at his man sion, Edgehill, Charlotte County, on the 28th of April last, in his seventy-fifth year, leaving a son and a daughter as the support of their widowed mother. The Society will pardon me, I am sure, for a very few ad ditional words. It is not our usage to take notice of the deaths of those who are not of our immediate number. But it will be remembered that Dr. John Gorham Palfrey would have been our senior member, at the time of his death, had he not resigned his membership, to the regret of us all, some years ago. Elected first in 1825, and continuing with us thirteen years, re-elected in 1842, and continuing with us twelve years more, — twenty-five years in all, — he delivered, in 1846, our Semi-Centennial Oration, and he has in other ways been identified with our history as a Society. In view of all this, and far more in view of the fact that he is everywhere recog nized as pre-eminently the Historian of New England, I have thought it due to him, and due to ourselves, that his receDt death, at so venerable an age, while enjoying our warmest respect and regard, should not be unmarked in our Proceedings to-day. I have, therefore, prepared Resolutions, embracing Dr. Palfrey, as well as Mr. Grigsby and Mr. Hudson, which I now offer with the sanction of the Council : — Resolved, That, in the death of the Hon. Charles Hudson, this Society has lost a highly esteemed and respected associate, who had rendered important services to the Commonwealth and the Country, in former years, as a member of our State and national Legislatures, and who had since made many val uable contributions to our local history ; and that the Presi- JOHN G. PALFREY. 239 dent appoint one of our members to prepare the customary Memoir for some future volume of our Proceedings. Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society offer their sincere sympathy to the Historical Society of Virginia, on the death of their distinguished and accomplished President, the Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D., whom we had long counted it a privilege to include among our own Honorary Members, and for whom we entertained the highest regard and respect ; and that the Secretary communicate a copy of this Resolution to our sister-society of Virginia. Resolved, That this Society cannot omit to place upon our records an expression of our deep sense of the eminent interest and value of the historical labors of Dr. John Gorham Palfrey, the author of the admirable " History of New England," who for many j^ears, at two successive periods, was an active and honored member of our Society, and whose varied and dis tinguished career has been closed, at a venerable age, since our last monthly meeting. THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MASSA CHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY, MAY 23, 1881. It was only yesterday, my friends, — owing to absence from the city, and other accidental causes, — that I learned that this seventy-second Anniversary Meeting of the Massachu setts Bible Society was to be held here this evening. I am most glad to find myself in this goodly House of Congrega tional Worship, which I have never visited without something of peculiar interest and edification ; and I offer the best thanks of the Society, of which I am here as president, to your excel lent pastor, Dr. Webb, for the use of it. Happily, — in view of the short notice I have had, — the duties which devolve on me on this occasion required but little preparation, and I shall proceed to their formal discharge, after a very few introductory words, which, I am sure you will all agree with me, have not unnaturally suggested themselves to me this evening. By a striking coincidence, I received yesterday, simul taneously with the notice of this meeting, one of the large presentation-copies of the Revised New Testament, kindly sent to me, from the American Committee of Revision, by Dr. Schaff, the accomplished and devoted president of that Com mittee. I take pleasure in acknowledging it publicly on this occasion, and in offering my hearty congratulations to the Committee on the termination of their arduous labors. And I may well congratulate this Society, also, and this whole con gregation, and all the millions of people on both sides of the THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 241 Atlantic, to whom the Word of God is dear, on the comple tion of this most interesting and important work. I have had, of course, no sufficient opportunity for examining and considering the specific changes which have been made in the translation of the sacred volume. Nor would it become me to undertake to pass judgment on what has been done by so distinguished and learned a company of English and American scholars, even if I had enjoyed the fullest opportunity of reviewing their work. Their labors are entitled to be judged by their peers, if, indeed, their peers can anywhere be found ; and we who pretend to no profound Biblical scholarship, or critical ac quaintance with the editions and languages and texts and ancient manuscripts and codices, which such a revision has compelled them to pore over and study, may well accept the result with gratitude and with confidence. We all know that the onerous and responsible task has been undertaken and performed diligently, lovingly, conscientiously, scrupulously, reverently, — an the fear of God, and not in any fear of men. We know that some of the most gifted minds of almost every different theological school and denomination have co-operated in the result. We know that the men who have been engaged in it have prized the old Bible of their homes and churches as highly and as tenderly as any of us can have done ; and that they would have shrunk, as earnestly as any of us could have shrunk, from every uncalled-for change or modification of the substance or the language of the en deared, version of our fathers. But, for myself, I rejoice to be equally assured, that they have not shrunk from any alterations or omissions which they found to be demanded by a conscientious and scrupulous fidelity to the original. We can afford anything better than to have a jot or a tittle added to the Word of God, or a jot or a tittle taken away from that Word, by any human inter polation, interpretation, or omission. The solemn and well- remembered warning with which St. John concluded his wonderful book of Revelation may justly be construed as covering and including the whole Gospel. 16 242 THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. We may well rejoice, as a Society and as individuals, at the fresli and eager interest which the preparation and pub lication of this work have already awakened in all quarters — kindling new zeal in the searching of the Scriptures, by the careful comparison of the new version with the old. And whatever may be the ultimate judgment upon its merits, and whether or not it shall take the place of the old Bible of King James, in our churches, in our homes, or in our hearts, we must all feel that it will prove a most welcome and valuable aux iliary in the study of the Gospel. Meantime, it cannot fail to be an unspeakable satisfaction and comfort to every devout believer in Christ, that, after ten years of assiduous labor and study, this accomplished and learned company of revisers have found so few substantial errors in the old version of 1611, and have made so few verbal alterations in the text that is so dear to us all ; and that we are thus once more confirmed in our cherished convictions of the authenticity and truth of the Holy Scriptures, and that in them we have indeed " the words of eternal life." The Bible itself is its own best witness. Its very existence, after so many ages, its miraculous composition by those in spired men, and its marvellous preservation from all the acci dents of time and chance, bespeak nothing less than the hand of God. No evolution produced that volume ; and no revolution, of thought or act or human will, can ever prevail against it. Revisions and new versions may improve, or may impair, the letter ; but they can never change its essential character. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, through which he brought life and immortality to light, like its Divine Author, is " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. " It is now my privilege to call upon the Rev. Dr. Payne, President of the Wesleyan University at Delaware, in Ohio, who has kindly consented to deliver our Annual Discourse. PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. A COMMUNICATION TO THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 9, 1881. I promised, Gentlemen, at our last meeting, to give some account, this afternoon, of the portrait of the celebrated John Hampden, which is now in the Executive Mansion at Washing ton. I first saw that portrait in January, 1861, when I accom panied Mr. Everett, Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, and others, to the capital, to bear a memorial from ten or twelve thousand of the citizens of Boston on subjects connected with the then impend ing Civil War. Mr. Buchanan was President at that time, and, when we were admitted to his library for a conference, I recog nized the portrait hanging over one of the doors. It had no inscription of any sort on the frame or elsewhere, and Mr. Buchanan was too much engrossed with the gravest public affairs to give more than a passing assent to my remark on the great interest of the picture. I then knew little or nothing of its history. Nine or ten years afterward, when the Trustees of the Pea body Education Fund were dining with President Grant, I rec ognized the portrait again ; and on making some allusion to it at the dinner-table, I found that nothing was remembered about it by others, and that there might even be danger of its being put out of sight as an unknown head, neither ornamental nor appropriate to the Executive Mansion. I took the earliest occa sion, therefore, to hunt up the record, and to communicate the result to those who would be sure to take an interest in 244 PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. it. The name of John Hampden was thereupon affixed to the frame. Seven or eight years later, when the Presidential Mansion had passed into other occupancy, I had reason to fear, on revisiting Washington, that the simple name, John Hampden, had not secured for the portrait the full consideration which it merited ; and a somewhat more detailed inscription was substituted by the kind intervention of Mrs. Hayes. Yet even now there may be a serious doubt whether the interest and value of the por trait are appreciated by those who look at it, and I promised President Garfield last month, or the month before the last, when I was again at Washington, that I would put its history into a shape in which it could be no longer in danger of being forgotten or misunderstood. With this view I have turned to the Journal of the United States Senate, Aug. 14, 1856, as printed in the "Congressional Globe," where the late Hon. James A. Pearce, of Maryland, then chairman of the Congressional Library Committee on the part of the Senate, introduced the matter as follows : — Mr. Pearce. — Mr. President, I have received a letter from the late Minister of the United States at the Court of London, enclosing a letter to him from Mr. John Macgregor, who is well known as a great statist, and as Secretary of the Board of Trade of England. This gentleman desires to present to Congress a portrait of John Hampden, the great champion of civil liberty. I ask that the letter may be read; after which I shall submit a resolution to the Senate. The Secretary read the letter, as follows : — Athenaeum Club, 19 March, 1856. Mr Dear Sir, — You having been so kind as to forward the por trait of the patriot Hampden, to be presented from me to the Congress of the United States, I think it proper for me to say something of the facts, as far as I have ascertained them, as to its authenticity. It was formerly in the possession of Sir Eichard Ellis, of Buckingham shire. His family, in the male line, became extinct, and it, with several portraits, passed into the possession of collateral heirs ; and one of those, almost fifteen years ago, on repairing and altering his house, gave the old portraits to a decorator and gilder, of the name of Westby, to sell. Westby was at the same time employed by me in decorating and gilding PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. 245 my house in which I lived, in Lowndes Square, and in which our mutual friend, Lady Talbot de Malahide, now resides. From Westby I bought Sir John 1 Lely's portrait of Lord William Russell, and this portrait of Hampden, attributed to Vandyck, in his earliest and more finished man ner. Houbraken engraved from it his portrait of Hampden for his large historical collection. I send you this engraved portrait. Houbraken was a somewhat harsh engraver, and took liberties with the costumes, though he generally preserved the likeness. In this engraving it will be observed that every feature, the moustache, and hair are strikingly cor rect, the coloring making the only difference. There is an ivory bust- very like, taken from it, at the seat of the Earl of Buckinghamshire. There was a fine marble bust, from the painting, at Stowe, before the magnificent collection of the Duke was sold in lots, a few years ago. That bust had on the pedestal the following inscription : — John Hampden. — With great courage and consummate abilities he began a noble opposition to an arbitrary Court, in defence of the liberties of his country ; supported them in Parliament, and died for them in the field. It is known that at an early period Hampden, disgusted with the des potism of the King and the Church, contemplated settling in America. He, his cousin Cromwell, and several others, had actually embarked, in the Thames, and were prevented from departing by Charles I. It would appear, by the following extract from the History of New England, by Jedediah Morse, D.D., and the Rev. Elijah Parish, that Hampden had previously been in America, when about twenty-eight years of age : — In the spring of 1623 Massasoit fell sick, and sent intelligence of it to the Gov ernor, who immediately sent Mr. Winslow and Mr. John Hamden (the same man who afterwards distinguished himself by his opposition to the arbitrary and unjust demands of Charles I.) to pay him a visit. They carried with them presents, and some cordials for his relief. Their visit and presents were very consolatory to the venerable chief, and were the means of his recovery. In return for their kindness he informed them of a, dangerous conspiracy among the neighboring Indians, the object of which was the total extinction of the English. By means of this timely discovery, and the consequent spirited exertions of the Governor, whose wise plans were executed by the brave Captain Standish, the colony was once more saved from destruction. These circumstances not only associate the name of Hampden with America, but with the origin and rise of her political, civil, and religious liberties. It was these historical facts, and the honest interest which I take in your magnificent country, that suggested to me presenting the portrait of the great patriot to your national Congress. 1 Probably a mistake in copying, for Sir Peter Lely. 246 PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. Wishing, with all sincerity, your safe arrival and happy meeting with your friends, and assuring you that I shall, through life, retain the warmest recollection of the happy and instructive times I have had the pleasure of enjoying your society, Believe me faithfully yours, J. Macgregor. The Hon. James Buchanan, &c, &c, &c. Mr. Pearce. — Mr. President : It will be perceived by the Senate from Mr. Macgregor's letter, that the portrait which he now offers us is attributed to the pencil of Vandyck, the greatest portrait-painter known, after Titian. Vandyck died in England, in the year 1641, after having painted the portraits of many of the illustrious men of that period. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose, therefore, especially when the pecu liar style of the portrait is observed, that it is really his work. If it be not, however, it can be ascribed to no source less distinguished than Sir Peter Lely, who went to England in 1641, and succeeded Vandyck in reputation and in business. Whether it be the one or the other, the por trait is of value, and special value, from the great fame and reputation of either the one or the other artist, and to no other can it be attributed. Sir Peter Lely painted in the style of Vandyck. It is possible, therefore, it may be his work, and not that of Vandyck. But, as I cannot discover the cypher which it was the custom of Sir Peter to put on all his portraits, I conclude, as Mr. Macgregor states, that this picture is by Vandyck. It has all the ease and grace of his style ; the figure has his favorite attitude, and the picture is every way worthy of him. Be that as it may, it is valuable as the work of a great artist. It is still more valu able on account of the great historical interest which attaches to the name of John Hampden, the purest of all the patriots and champions of free dom in England, who offered up his life in defence of popular rights against royal and despotic prerogative. It derives a further interest from the incidents mentioned by Morse, and quoted in Mr. Macgregor's letter, which connect Hampden with an important event in the early his tory of one of the States of our Union. I suppose that, taking into con sideration all these things, — the reputation of the artist, the value of the portrait itself as a work of art, the historical interest of the personage whom it represents, and, I will add, the character of Mr. Macgregor himself as a distinguished statist, a man of high reputation generally, and, what naturally enough touches us still more, a very liberal friend of our country, — there will be no hesitation in accepting it, with a proper appre ciation of the gift. PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. 247 The Committee on the Library think the President's house is the most appropriate place in which to put this portrait. I ask leave to introduce a joint resolution for that purpose. Leave was granted, by unanimous consent, to introduce the joint reso lution (S. No. 40) accepting the portrait of John Hampden, presented to Congress by John Macgregor, and it was read twice by its title, aud con sidered as in Committee of the Whole. It is : — Resolved, frc, That the portrait of John Hampden, presented to Congress by John Macgregor, be accepted, and the Joint Committee on the Library be directed to cause the same to be properly framed, and placed in the Executive Mansion. The joint resolution was reported to the Senate without amendment, ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, read the third time, and passed. On the 10th of January, 1857, the foregoing Resolution from the Senate was reported to the United States House of Rep resentatives, by Governor Aiken of South Carolina, from the Library Committee of the House to which it had been referred, and was passed accordingly. In the eleventh volume of the " United States Statutes at Large," at page 253, will be found the Joint Resolution of Congress, as passed by both branches, and as approved by President Franklin Pierce, as follows : — A Resolution accepting the portrait of John Hampden, presented Conaress bv John Macareaor. Congress by John Macgregor. to Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Portrait of John Hampden, presented to Congress by John Macgregor, be accepted ; and the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress be and they are hereby directed to cause the same to be properly framed and placed in the Executive Mansion. Approved, January 13, 1857. I trust that the order for it to be "properly framed" did not involve the discarding of any antique frame which came with the picture, which might have afforded another clew to its his tory, and which no tawdry modern gilding could replace. I fear it must have been so, however, as it hardly seems credible 248 PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. that it should have been sent over from England, as a present to the United States, without any frame. But it is too late to inquire into this part of the subject. There are, however, several points in the letter of Mr. Mac gregor which it is important to notice. 1. We all know that the whole story of the patriot Hamp den's having been in America in 1623 has been long ago ex ploded. It is true that Edward Winslow, in his " Relation," or " Good Newes from New England," speaks of " having one Master John Hamden, a gentleman of London, who then win tered with us, and desired much to see the country, for my con sort, and Hobbamock for our guide." And it is true that Dr. Jedediah Morse and the Rev. Elijah Parish, and many other writers, have taken it for granted that this was the famous patriot. Even our reverend founder, Dr. Belknap, accepted and sanctioned this idea, in his Biography of Bradford. But the subject was conclusively disposed of, I think, by our late associate, Dr. Alexander Young, in a foot-note to the passage from the " Good Newes," as published in his " Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers:" That foot-note is as follows : — " It was conjectured by Belknap, 'American Biography,' vol. ii. p. 229, and has since been repeatedly asserted as a fact by other writers, that this person was the celebrated English patriot of the same name. But this is highly improbable. Hampden, who was born in 1594, and mar ried in 1619, was a member of the Parliament which assembled in Janu ary, 1621, and was dissolved by James in 1 622, under circumstances and in a juncture of affairs which rendered it certain that a new Parliament must soon be called. It is not at all likely that a person in Hampden's circumstances, a man of family, wealth, aud consideration, would, merely for the sake of gratifying his curiosity, have left England at this critical period, on a long voyage to another hemisphere, and run the risk of not being at home at the issuing of the writs for a new Parliament. For the passage to America was at that time precarious ; the vessels were few, and the voyage a long one ; so that a person who undertook it could not reasonably calculate upon getting back in much less than a year. Winslow's companion, whoever he was, must have come in the ' Charity ' which brought Weston's colony, unless we adopt the improbable suppo sition that this ' gentleman of London ' embarked in one of the fishing- PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. 249 vessels that visited the Grand Bank, and took his chance of getting to Plymouth as he could. Now the ' Charity ' left London the last of April, 1622, and arrived at Plymouth the last of June. The visit to Massasoit took place in March, 1 623 ; and after this no vessel sailed for England till the ' Ann,' September 10, in which Winslow went home. Of course this ' gentleman of London ' must have been absent at least eighteen months, which it is altogether improbable that Hampden would have done, running the risk of not being at home to stand for the next Parlia ment, to which he undoubtedly expected to be returned ; as we know he actually was. " Besides, had this companion of Winslow been the great English patriot, the silence of the early Plymouth writers on the point is unac countable. On publishing his ' Good Newes from New England ' imme diately on his arrival in London, in 1624, one object of which was to recommend the new colony, how gladly would Winslow have appealed for the correctness of his statements to this member of Parliament, who had passed more than a year in their Plantation. How natural too would it have been for him to have mentioned the fact in his ' Briefe Narration,' published in 1646, only three years after the death of the illustrious pa triot. Bradford, also, whose sympathies were all with the popular party in England, in writing an elaborate history of the colony, would not have failed to record the long residence among them of one who, at the time he wrote, had become so distinguished as the leader of that party in the House of Commons. That his lost History contained no such passage we may be certain ; for had it been there, it must have been quoted either by Prince or Morton, who make so free use of it, both of whom too mention this visit to Massasoit, and who would not have omitted a circumstance so honorable to the colony. " Again, Winslow's companion was i a gentleman of London.' Now although John Hampden happened to be born in London, when his father was in Parliament in 1594, he was properly of Buckinghamshire. Wins low, who was himself of Worcestershire, if he knew who Hampden was, would not have called him ' a gentleman of London ; ' and we cannot suppose that this English gentleman would have spent so many months in the colony without making himself known to its two leading men, Winslow and Bradford." Since this note was written and published by Dr. Young, in 1841, the " lost History " of Bradford, to which it refers, has been found, and has verified his belief " that it contained no such passage." Meantime, Lord Nugent's " Memorials of 250 PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. Hampden " make no reference to any such early visit to New England. 2. Mr. Macgregor's letter makes allusion to the often-repeated story of Hampden and Cromwell and others having actually embarked for America at one time, and being arrested on the Thames in their flight, by order of Charles I. On this subject, also, the same foot-note of Dr. Young's is sufficiently explicit. It proceeds as follows : — " Equally unfounded is the statement that has gained so wide a cur rency and become incorporated with the history of those times, and is repeated in Lord Nugent's Life of Hampden, that John Hampden, in company with Cromwell, Pym, and Hazelrig, had actually embarked for America on board a fleet in the Thames, in 1638, but were detained by an order from the Privy Council. Miss Aikin, in her ' Memoirs of Charles I.' chap, xiii., was the first to detect and expose this error of the historians." That John Hampden was warmly interested in the establish ment of the Massachusetts Colony, in 1630, has recently been proved by the correspondence which he had with Sir John Eliot, on the subject of Governor Winthrop's " Conclusions for New England," found among Sir John Eliot's papers at Port Eliot, and sent to us by the late John Forster and the late Earl of St. Germans.1 But the romantic tradition of Charles I. preventing, by an arbitrary arrest, the departure of those who were to cost him his crown and his head, has long been discarded, except as a subject for poetry or fiction. There is, however, enough in the life and death of Hampden to make his portrait pre-eminently welcome and appropriate for the Executive Mansion or the National Gallery of our country. As one of the great champions of English liberty, the brave re- sister of ship-money, whose death on the battle-field recalls that of our own Warren, and whose life and character recall those of our own Washington, he has a special claim to the ad miration and homage of all who are enjoying the freedom for which he toiled and bled. 3. But the more important item of Mr. Macgregor's letter is 1 See Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, for July, 1865. PORTRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. 251 that relating to the portrait itself, and to the manner in which it came into his own possession. The statements that it came from an ancient mansion in Buckinghamshire, which was Hamp den's county ; that Houbraken engraved from it his historical portrait of Hampden ; that a fine marble bust was taken from it for the old Duke of Buckingham at Stowe, and an ivory bust for the Earl of Buckinghamshire, — speak for themselves. That it was attributed to Vandyck, and in his earliest and most fin ished manner, is also added, while Senator Pearce suggests a question whether it were the work of Vandyck or Sir Peter Lely. All this might fairly furnish a subject for investigation, inspection, and examination by artists and connoisseurs. Mean time, it must not be forgotten that Lord Nugent, in the preface to his Life of Hampden, published in 1832, speaks of the por trait belonging to Lord St. Germans, at Port Eliot, and which was given by Hampden's son Richard to the son of Sir John Eliot, "as, in his opinion, the only original of John Hampden in existence." Of this latter portrait there is a beautiful en graving in the first volume of Lord Nugent's Life, which I have compared with the Houbraken print, of which I have a copy ; and it seems to me that there is sufficient likeness be tween them to show that, they were of the same person, and difference enough to show that they were engravings of differ ent original paintings. The Macgregor portrait may have been quietly on the walls of the old Buckinghamshire mansion in 1832, and may not have been known to Lord Nugent. It is a bold thing for any one to assume that there is but one original portrait of so illustrious a man, who was in the way of being painted by Vandyck and Sir Peter Lely and Oliver and Walker and Cooper, and other eminent artists of his day. I have heard this very portrait at Washington called one of the only two originals of Hampden ; but it would not surprise me if a third and a fourth, and per haps more, should be found in some of the private galleries of England. The career and character of Mr. Macgregor give interest to the portrait, and authenticity to his statements in regard to it. He was a Scotchman by birth, but had spent many years in Can- 252 POETRAIT OF JOHN HAMPDEN. ada in commercial pursuits. He was a voluminous author on statistical and commercial topics, and particularly interested in all that related to America. He published, among other works, " A Sketch of British America," in 1828 ; " Commercial and Financial Legislation of Europe and America," in 1841 ; " Com mercial Statistics of all Nations," in five volumes, 1844-50 ; " Progress of America, from the Discovery by Columbus to 1846," in two volumes, 1847 ; " Holland and the Dutch Colo nies," and " Germany and her Resources," both in 1848 ; and a " History of the British Empire, from the Accession of James I.," in two volumes, 1852. He was for some time a secretary of the Board of Trade, and a member of Parliament for Glas gow in 1847. He died 23 April, 1857, a few months after this portrait was acknowledged by Congress. I sincerely hope that the acknowledgment may have reached England before it was too late. I will only add that such a portrait, from such a source, and of such an original, deserves every care and every honor which can be paid to it ; and that it might well have such a place in the Executive Mansion, or in some National Gallery, as would bring it more within the reach of public observation and admiration. THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. AN ORATION DELIVERED ON BUNKER HILL, JUNE 17, 1881. Fellow-Citizens : — I cannot assume the position which belongs to me to-day, as President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and enter on the discharge of the duties which devolve upon me in that capacity, without first giving expression to my deep sense of the honor of an office which has been held heretofore by so many distinguished men. Fifty-eight years have now elapsed since this Association received its Charter of Incorporation from the Legislature of Massachusetts. During that period its Presidency has been held, successively, by the gallant Revolutionary patriot, John Brooks ; by the illustrious defender of the Constitution of the United States, Daniel Webster ; by the grand old Boston mer chant and philanthropist, Thomas Handasyd Perkins ; by that sterling statesman and admirable Governor, Levi Lincoln ; by that eminent and learned jurist and Judge, William Prescott ; by. the amiable physician, Dr. Abner Phelps ; by the accom plished and independent editor, Joseph T. Buckingham ; by the worthy and faithful historian of the Association, George Washington Warren ; and, lastly, by the devoted and excellent Historian of the battle itself, and of everything relating to that battle, — including " The Siege of Boston," " The Life of Warren," and " The Rise of the Republic," — our lamented friend, whose name I cannot pronounce without a 254 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF fresh sense of his loss to us and to the history of his country, — Richard Frothingham. If, my friends, at the termination of the brief service on which I can look back, and the certainly not longer service to which I may look forward, my own name shall not be thought unworthy of such associations, I shall count it to have been among the crowning distinctions of a life now drawing to its close. One, only, of my predecessors is left among the living, — Mr. Warren, — whose term of service, as I may not forget, equals those of all the others put together, and whose presence is thus welcomed with peculiar interest on this occasion. One, only, of those predecessors was present as a witness and as an actor, at the conflict which our monument commemorates, — John Brooks, of Medford, — remembered well by some of us as a model governor of Massachusetts, but in 1775 a young Major in Colonel Frye's regiment : who aided the heroic Pres cott in the construction of the redoubt ; who was his chosen companion in that midnight stroll upon the shore, to make sure that the British sentinels had taken no alarm and were still crying " All's well ; " and who only left this hill, at last, to bear a message, on foot, from Prescott to General Ward at Cam bridge, — across that Neck of fire, on which the veteran Pome- roy, while willingly exposing his own life, would not risk the life of a borrowed horse, amid the ceaseless storm of shot and shell which was sweeping over it from floating batteries and from fixed batteries, from the Lively and the Falcon and the Glasgow and the Somerset and the Cerberus, — a message, not asking to be relieved by. other troops, for Prescott scorned the idea that the men who had raised the works had not the best right, and were not the best able, to defend them, but a message imploring those reinforcements and supplies, of men, of ammunition, and of food, which had been promised the night before, but most of which never came, or came too late. That was the perilous service performed by our first presiding officer. That was the ordeal to which he was subjected. I may well congratulate myself that no such crucial test of courage has been transmitted as an heirloom of this Chair, or is prescribed as an indispensable qualification of those who occupy it. COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 255 For those who have succeeded Governor Brooks, it has been privilege and pride enough to assist in the erection and preser vation of this noble shaft ; in commemorating from year to year the patriotism and heroism of the men who fought this first great battle of the American Revolution ; and in illustrating the principles and motives which inspired and actuated them. This duty — I need hardly say — has been discharged faithfully and fully in the past, and but little remains to be done by any one hereafter. The inspiration and influence which have already proceeded from these silent blocks of granite, since they were first hewn out from yonder Quincy quarries, — as they were slowly piled up, through a period of eighteen years, to the height of two hundred and twenty-one feet, and as they have since stood in their majestic unity and grandeur, — can never be over-estimated. The words which have been uttered at its base and around it, from the first magnificent address of Daniel Webster, the orator alike of the corner-stone and of the capstone, down to the present hour, have been second to no other inspiration or influence, since those of the battle itself, in animating and impelling the sons to emulate the glory of their fathers, and to be ever ready and ever resolved to jeopard their lives, on the high places of the field, in defence of Union and Liberty. For indeed, my friends, this stately obelisk is no mere mute memorial of the past, but a living, speaking pledge for the future, — that those free institutions for which the first great struggle was made here, at the very point of the bayonet, shall here and always find glad and gallant defenders, whenever and where- ever those institutions shall be assailed. It is not a structure, thanks to those who designed and built it, capable of being desecrated or perverted — as, alas ! the Old South has been and the Old State House still is — to purposes of gain or traffic. It occupies ground on which no speculation would ever dare to encroach, or even to cast a rapacious or a covetous eye. Its simple, massive masonry may defy any less unimaginable convulsion than such as has recently overwhelmed the poor island of Chios. Not a monolith, not of any mythological or mythical origin, there will be no temptation for archseolo- 256 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF gists to dislocate it from its rightful surroundings, and bear it away to strange and uncongenial climes. Here on the very spot where Prescott fought and Warren fell, it will stand and tell its wondrous story of the birth of American liberty, in plain, distinct, unmistakable characters, to the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands who shall visit it or gaze upon it, for as many centuries as the equivocal hieroglyphics of the obelisk of Alexandria, now so marvellously translated to the Central Park at New York, have told the story of Egyptian despots or dynasties. How different a story ! What gratitude to God and man should swell our hearts at this hour, as such a contrast is even suggested, — as we turn from the contemplation of Pharaohs and Ptolemies to that of our august and only Washington, and from the darkness of Paganism to the glorious light of Christian ity ! Formal doxologies may disappear from Revised New Testaments, — as they ought to disappear if not found in the original text of the Sacred Volume, — but they will never fail to be breathed up to the skies from millions of pious and patriotic hearts, from generation to generation, for the blessings of civil and religious freedom, until those blessings shall cease to be enjoyed and appreciated ! And now, Fellow-citizens, in hailing the return of a day, which can hardly be counted of inferior interest- or importance to any day in the whole illuminated calendar of the American Revolution, and in welcoming you all, as it is my official province to do, to its renewed observance on these consecrated heights, I have no purpose of entering upon any detailed historical discourse. The 17th of June, 1775, as its successive anniversaries come round from year to year, will never be overlooked, nor ever fail to awaken fresh emotions of gratitude and joy in every American breast. But the more formal and stately commemorations of the day may well succeed each other at considerable intervals. Our magnificent Centennial celebration, with all its brilliant incidents and utterances, is still too fresh in our remembrance, and in the remembrance of the whole country, to bear any early repetition. Nor would COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 257 we forget, if we could forget, that other centennial celebrations are now rightfully in order. The year '75 belonged peculiarly to Massachusetts, — to Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. The whole nation recognized our claim. From the East and the West, from the North and the South alike, — to yonder plains of the first blood, and to this hill of the first battle, — the people were seen flocking in numbers which could not be counted. Citizens and soldiers of almost every variety of military or civil association, representative organizations and representative men, mayors of cities, governors of States, senators and Cabinet officers, the President of the United States to one of them, and the Vice- President to both, came gladly, at the call of Massachusetts, to unite with her in her sumptuous and splendid ceremonials. Six years only have since elapsed, during which we have rejoiced to see other States, and other cities and towns, in New York and New Jersey, in Vermont and Pennsylvania, in North Carolina and South Carolina, and I know not where besides, holding high holidays on the hundredth anniversaries of events which have illustrated their own annals. Another great year of our Lord and of Liberty has at length arrived, and is already far advanced ; and the attention of the whole country is now justly turned to that momentous Southern campaign of 1781, which began with the great battle of the Cowpens, — just celebrated so worthily, — and which ended with the surrender of the British army, to the allied forces of America and France, at Yorktown. I need not say that all our hearts ought to be, and are, with our brethren of the South, as they are so eagerly preparing to celebrate the great events which have occurred on their own soil. We should shrink from anything which might even seem like competition, by renewing a general and costly celebration here. Rather let our sympathies be freely offered, and our contributions be liberally remitted, to them ; and let us show how heartily we unite with them in their just pride and exultation, that the soil of the Old Dominion was privileged to be the scene of the crowning victory of American Independence. And may the blended associations and memories of Yorktown and Bunker Hill 17 258 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF supply the reciprocal warp and woof, for weaving afresh any ties of mutual respect and mutual affection which may have been unstrung or loosened by the storm of civil war, and which may still remain snarled and tangled, and for renewing those cords of brotherhood, and those bonds of Union, which shall be as imperishable as the glories of our common fathers ! I have said, Fellow-citizens, that I did not come here to-day to deliver any elaborate or exhaustive historical discourse. In deed where could I turn, — even if it were expected or desired by any one that I should describe in detail the struggle which has made this hill so historic and so hallowed, — where could I turn for any materials which have not already become hackneyed and threadbare, and which are not as familiar as household words to those who surround me ? No battle of its size, or of any size, the world over, from Marathon to Waterloo, or earlier or later, on either side of the ocean, has been more thoroughly investigated, and more minutely depicted, than that which took place here one hundred and six years ago to-day. Of all its antecedents and inducing causes, — the Stamp Act, the Writs of Assistance, the British Regiments, the Boston Massa cre, the Tea Tax, the Tea Party, the Boston Port Bill, Lexing ton, Concord, — of which one of them all has a single fact, a single tradition, a single illustration, eluded the research of our historians and antiquarians, our orators and poets? And as to the conflict itself, — to which they all pointed and led, like so many guide-posts or railway tracks to a common and predestined terminus, — what could be added to the brilliant chapters of Bancroft, the thrilling sketch of Washington Irving, the careful illustrations of Lossing, the elaborate and faithful narrative of Frothingham, and the earlier and most valuable History by Dr. George E. Ellis, who made even Frothingham his debtor ? Meantime as I am but too conscious, the rhetoric, as well as the record, has been drawn upon to the last dreg. Not only have Webster and Everett, again and again, condensed and crystallized all the great scenes and incidents and emotions of the day in those consummate phrases and periods of theirs, which defy all rivalry, and supply the most inspiring and wholesome COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 259 declamation for all our schools, — but the whole story was told again, with signal felicity and skill, in all the fulness of its impressive details, by the Orator of the Centennial, General Devens, whose presence is always so welcome in his native Charlestown. No one, I think, with such histories and field-books and hand-books at command, and who has not wholly neglected such sources of information, can come up to these consecrated heights, to this Mons Sacer of New England, on this day or on any day, without finding the whole scene unrolling itself before his eye like some grand stereoscopic panorama. He recalls the sudden gathering of the three selected Massachusetts regi ments, — with the little Connecticut fatigue-party under the intrepid Knowlton, — in front of General Ward's headquarters at Cambridge, on the evening of the 16th of June. He sees Prescott taking command, agreeably to the order of the Commander-in-chief. He hears, as through a telephone, the solemn and fervent prayer of President Langdon, before they moved from the Common. He takes up the silent march with them, just as the clock strikes nine, and follows close by the side of those two sergeants, bearing dark lanterns, behind Prescott leading the way. He halts with them after crossing to this peninsula, as they approach the scene of their destina tion, and shares their perplexing uncertainties as to the true place for their proposed intrenchments. He is here with them at last, on this very spot, with nothing brighter than starlight, thank Heaven ! when they first arrived, to betray them to the British in Boston, and with only a little " remnant of a waning moon " afterwards. He hears and sees the first spades and pickaxes struck into the now sacred sod, just as the Boston clocks strike twelve, — giving their ominous warning that the night is far spent, that the day is at hand, that four hours at most remain before the darkness shall be gone, when they and their works must be exposed to the view and the assault of the enemy. But he sees a thousand strong arms, every one with a patriot's will behind it, steadily and vigorously improving every instant of those hours ; and the dawning of that bright midsummer St. Botolph's day finds him standing with Prescott, 260 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF within an almost finished redoubt of six or seven feet in height, inclosing a space of eight rods square, and swarming with the Sons of Liberty. But, alas, the panorama is but half unrolled. Crimson folds, not altogether the reflections of a blazing, fiery sunshine, begin to show themselves, as the vision of our imaginary visitor pro ceeds. He witnesses the amazement and consternation of the British sentinels on ship and shore, as they rouse themselves and rub their eyes to descry the rebel intrenchments which have sprung up like a prodigy. He hears the angry and furious can nonade which bursts forth at once from the dogs of war anchored in the stream. He walks the parapet with Prescott, to give confidence and courage to his soldiers, as they see, for the first time, one of their number, shot down and dying at their side. He perceives the hurried preparations in Boston ; he sees the dragoons galloping with orders from the Province House to the camp on the Common ; he hears the rattle of the artillery wagons along the pavements. The big barges for transportation come at length in sight, with the glittering brass six-pounders in their bows, and crowded from stem to stern with grenadiers and light-infantry and marines in their gay scarlet uniforms. He sees them landing at yonder Morton's Point, and coolly refreshing themselves on the grass for an encounter with our half-starved and almost wholly exhausted raw militia. The first onset, with its grand and triumphant repulse; the second onset, while . Charlestown is now blazing, and amid every circumstance and complication of horror, but with its even grander and still more triumphant repulse, — these pass rapidly before his exulting eye. An interval now occurs. "Will they come on again?" is heard on the Ameri can side. " It would be downright butchery for us," is heard from some of the British soldiers on the other side. And, cer tainly, the pluck of old Mother England was never more signally displayed on our soil, on any other soil beneath the sun, than when General Sir William Howe, as brave in the field as he was sometimes irresolute and unskilful in strategy, with Brigadier Pi- got as his lieutenant, and with Sir Henry Clinton as a volunteer, led up what remained of grenadiers and light-infantry — their COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 261 knapsacks stripped from their backs, and relying wholly on their bayonets — to that third terrific onslaught, which comes at last to sear the very eyeballs of any actual, or even imaginary, beholder. But there was pluck at the top of the hill as well as at the bottom, or on the way up, — bone of the same bone, flesh of the same flesh, blood of the same blood, — the valor of Old England, inflamed and electrified by the spirit of Liberty in the heart, mind, and muscle of New England. Prescott with his little band is seen standing undaunted at bay ; displaying, still and ever, — as Ebenezer Bancroft, of Tyngs- borough, a captain in Bridge's regiment, who fought bravely and was wounded at his side, bore special witness that he had dis played through the hottest of the fight, — a coolness and self-pos session that would do honor to the greatest hero of any age. But, alas, their ammunition is exhausted, and the British have overheard that it is. The very last artillery cartridge has already been broken up and distributed to the sharpshooters, and there are but fifty bayonets for the whole remaining band, — hardly a hundred and fifty of them left. The grenadiers and marines are already seen scaling the ramparts. The brave but rash Major Pitcairn, who had given the first fatal order to fire at Lexington, and who was now the first to enter here, falls mortally wounded. But hundreds of his men are close behind him, and bayonets and clubbed muskets are now making a chaotic scene of carnage and havoc which beggars all imagina tion. The redoubt can no longer be held against such desper ate odds, and the voice of its wise as well as fearless commander is at length heard, giving the word to retire. The battle, indeed, still rages at earthworks and at rail- fences, — almost a separate engagement, — where Stark and Pomeroy and Knowlton have been doing such gallant service from the beginning ; and where Putnam, who had advised and accompanied the original movement, and had displayed every attribute of his heroic nature in promoting its successful prose cution, in almost every stage of its progress, is seen still striving to make a last stand on the neighboring hill-top, and to cover the retreat of his brave comrades from the redoubt. But all this is auxiliary and incidental, as it all is vain. It is one and 262 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF the same battle, in its inception and in its close. The day is decided, the conflict ended ; and Prescott, among the very last to quit the intrenchments, having resolved never to be taken alive, and parrying the thrusts of British bayonets by dint of his trusty blade, comes out, with garments scorched and pierced, but himself providentially unscathed ; and he may now be seen, on the final fold of our imaginary panorama, at the headquarters of General Ward, at Cambridge, — from which he started the evening before, — to report that he had executed his orders, had made the best fight in his power, and had yielded at last only to superior force. Such, Fellow-citizens and Friends, are the faint outlines of a picture which passes rapidly along before any tolerably in structed eye, as it looks out on these surroundings, — impress ing itself on retina and lens as vividly and distinctly as Boston's Centennial pageant last autumn, or Harvard's Greek Play last month, was impressed on every eye which witnessed either of them. Such a picture is enough for this occasion. These Charlestown Heights, — of which it might almost have been said, as Virgil said of the afterwards famous Alban Mount, " Turn neque nomen erat, nee honos, aut gloria Monti, " which then had neither glory nor honor, nor even distinct and well-defined names, Bunker Hill, and its dependent slope, Breed, — were lost to us on that day. The consequences of the battle, and even the confused details of it, developed them selves slowly. It took time for an immediate defeat to put on the aspect and wear the glories of a triumph. I doubt not that some of the old Mandamus Councillors in Boston went to their beds that night, thinking what a fine conspicuous site this would be for setting up a monument of solemn warning, for all time to come, of the disasters which were sure to fall on the heads of Rebels against British rule ! Even by our own New England patriots the result, we are told, was regarded at first not without disappointment and even indignation ; and some of the contemporary American accounts, private and offi cial, are said to have been rather in the tone of apology, or COLONEL WILUAM PRESCOTT. 263 even of censure, than of exultation. Nobody for years, adds Frothingham, came forward to claim the honor of having di rected this battle. No wonder that a cloud of uncertainty so long rested on the exact course and conduct of this eventful action. Every one was wholly occupied in making history ; there was no leisure for writing history. It was a sudden movement. It was a secret movement. It was designed only to get the start of the British by an advance of our line of intrenchments. No one imagined that it would involve a battle, and no ade- - quate provision was made for such an unexpected contingency. The very order for its execution, — the order of Ward to Pres cott, — the only order from any one, or to any one, relating to it, was, without doubt, designedly withheld from the order- book of the Commander-in-chief at Cambridge. It certainly has never been found. Meantime, one incident of the conflict had overwhelmed the whole people with grief. The death of Warren, the President of the Provincial Congress, the Chairman of the Committee of Safety, the only chief executive magistrate which Massachusetts then had, and who, only three days before, had been chosen one of the major-generals of her forces, — in the bloom of his man hood, "the expectancy and rose of the fair State," beloved and trusted by all, — could not, and did not, fail to create a sorrow and a shock which absorbed all hearts. The fall of glorious John Hampden at Chalgrove Field is the only parallel in his tory to that of Joseph Warren at Bunker Hill. That thrilling lament, — almost recalling the wail of David over Absalom, — to which Webster gave utterance here in 1825, making the whole air around him vibrate and tremble to the pathos of his transcendent tones, and leaving hardly an unmoved heart or an unmoistened eye in his whole vast audience, was but a faint echo of the deep distress into which that event had plunged all New England fifty years before. But though one of Warren's proudest distinctions will ever be that he came to this hill as a volunteer, before he had received any military commission, and that he nobly declined to assume any author ity, — when Putnam proposed to take his orders at the rail- 264 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF fence, and again when Prescott offered him the command at the redoubt, — his name was long associated, both at home and abroad, with the chief leadership of an action to which he had come with a musket on his shoulder, though he may have exchanged it for a sword before he fell. Everything, indeed, was in doubt and confusion at that moment. Even Warren's death was not known for a certainty at Cambridge for several days after it occurred ; and as late as the 19th the vote of the Provincial Congress, providing for the choice of his successor, spoke of him as of one " supposed to be killed." All our military affairs were in a state of transition, reorganization, and complete change. The war was to be no longer a local or provincial war. The Continental Congress at Philadelphia had already adopted it as a war of the United Colonies; and, on the very day on which Warren fell, they had drawn up and ratified a commission, as general and com mander-in-chief of all such forces as are, or shall be, raised for the maintenance and preservation of American liberty, for George Washington, of Virginia. Congress had heard nothing about Bunker Hill when this providential appointment was made. Lexington and Concord, of which the tidings had reached them some weeks before, had been enough to ripen their counsels and settle their policy. And now the public mind in this quarter was too much engrossed with the advent of Washington to Cambridge, and the great results which were to be expected, to busy itself much with the details of what was considered a mere foregone defeat. It was only when Washington himself, hearing at New York or Trenton, on his way to Cambridge, of what had occurred here, had expressed his renewed and confirmed conviction that the liberties of America were now safe ; it was only when Franklin, hearing of it in France, wrote to his friends in Lon don, " Americans will fight, England has lost her colonies forever ; " it was only when Gage had written to Lord Dart mouth that " the rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be. . . . The number of killed and wounded is greater than our forces can afford to lose. . • . The conquest of this country is not easy. ... I think COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 265 it my duty to let your Lordship know the true situation of affairs ; " it was, certainly, only when from all the American Colonies there had come voices of congratulation and good cheer, recognizing the momentous character of the battle, the bravery with which it had been fought, and the conclusive evi dence it had afforded that the undisciplined yeomanry of the county were not afraid to confront the veteran armies of Old England at the point of the bayonet in defence of their rights and liberties, — it was only then that its true importance began to be attached to the battle of Bunker Hill, as the first regular battle of the American Revolution, and the most eventful in its consequences, — especially in those far-reaching moral influ ences which were to be felt, and which were felt, to the very end of the war. A much longer time was to elapse before the record of that day was to be summed up, as it has recently been, by the latest and highest authority on the " Battles of the Revo lution," as " the record of a battle which in less than two hours destroyed a town, laid fifteen hundred men upon the battle-field, equalized the relations of veterans and mil itia, aroused three millions of people to a definite struggle for National Independence, and fairly inaugurated the war for its accomplishment." a Let me not omit, however, to add, that no more impressive, or more generous, or more just and welcome tribute has ever been paid to the men and the deeds we are commemorating to day, than that which may be found in the " Memoirs of the Southern Campaign of the Revolution," where an incidental allusion to Bunker Hill concludes with these emphatic words : " The military annals of the world rarely furnish an achieve ment which equals the firmness and courage displayed on that proud day by the gallant band of Americans ; and it certainly stands first in the brilliant events of our war. When future generations shall inquire where are the men who gained the highest prize of glory in the arduous contest which ushered in our nation's birth, upon Pbescott and his companions in arms will the eye of history beam." i " Battles of the American Revolution." By Colonel Henry B. Carrington, U. S. A. 266 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF These are the words written and published seventy years ago by Henry Lee, of Virginia, the gallant commander of the famous Cavalry Legion, known familiarly as " Light-Horse Harry," and the father of one, whose purity of character and brilliancy of accomplishments compelled each one of us who knew him to exclaim, as the late war for the Union went on, " Talis quurn sis, utinam noster esses! "1 Would we could call so grand a leader ours ! Frothingham has told us truly, that no one, for years, came forward to claim the honor of having directed this battle. And there was at least one man — of whom Everett well said, " The modesty of this sterling patriot was equal to his heroism" — who never, to the end of his life, made any boastful claim for himself ; who was contented with stating the facts of that eventful day in reply to the inquiries of John Adams, and in repeated conversations with his own son, and who then awaited the judgment of history, — letting all considerations of personal fame and personal glory go, in the proud consciousness of having done his duty. And now, Fellow-citizens, we are gathered here to-day to pay a long-postponed debt, to fulfil a long-neglected obligation. We have come to sanction and ratify the award of history, as we find it in the pages of Ellis and Irving and Frothingham and Bancroft, to mention no others, by accepting this splendid gift from a goodly company of our fellow-citizens, of whose names Dr. Ellis, I believe, — to whose inspiration we primarily owe it, — is the sole depositary ; and by placing the statue of Colonel William Prescott in the very front of our noble monu ment, thus recognizing him in his true relation to the grand action which it commemorates, and of which he was nothing less than the commander. We do so in full remembrance of those memorable words of Webster, which have almost the sol emnity and the weight of a judicial decision : " In truth, if there was any commander-in-chief in the field, it was Prescott. From the first breaking of the ground to the retreat, he acted the most important part ; and if it were proper to give the bat- 1 Conference of Agesilaus and his enemy Pharnabazus. Plutarch's Life of Agesilaus. COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 267 tie a name, from any distinguished agent in it, it should be called Prescott's Battle." Our celebration to-day has this sole and simple end ; and it becomes me therefore, my friends, to devote the little remnant of my address to a brief notice of the career and character of the man we are assembled to honor. Descended from a good Puritan stock, which had emigrated from Lancashire in Old England, and established a home in New England as early as 1640, he was born in Groton, in the good old county of Middlesex, on the 20th of February, 1726. Of his bojrhood and common-school education there are no details. But soon after arriving at manhood we find him occu pying a tract of land, a few miles beyond the present limits of Groton, a part of which may have been included in a grant from the town to his father, Hon. Benjamin Prescott, for valua ble services, but a part of which is said to have been purchased of the Indians, — then numerous in that region, — and which his great-grandson still holds by the original Indian title. Here he was more or less instrumental, with the patriot clergy man of the parish, Joseph Emerson, who had served as a chap lain under Sir William Pepperell, in having that part of Groton set off into a separate district, and named Pepperell, in honor of the conqueror of Louisburg. Meantime the soldierly spirit which belonged to his nature, and which had been called into exercise by the proximity of the savages, had led him, as early as October, 1746, — when the approach of a formidable French fleet had created a consterna tion in New England, — to enlist in the company of Captain William Lawrence, and march for the defence of Boston. A few years later he takes the office of lieutenant in the local militia, and, in 1755, proceeds with his regiment to Nova Scotia. Serving there under General Winslow, his gallantry attracted special attention, and he was urged by the General to accept a commission in the regular army. Declining this offer he returned home to receive the promotion to a captaincy. A happy marriage soon followed, and he remained for nearly twenty years as a farmer and good citizen at his Pepperell 268 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF home, — as Addison said of some one of the heroes of his " Campaign," — " In hours of peace content to be unknown, And only in the field of battle shown." But the controversies with the mother country were by no means unobserved by him. The bill for shutting up the port of Boston, with the view of starving the people into submission and compliance, signed by the King on the 31st of March, and which went into operation on the 1st of June, 1774, stirred the feelings and called forth the succors of the whole continent. Letters of sympathy and supplies of provisions poured in upon our Boston Committee of Correspondence, in answer to their appeal, from every quarter. The earliest letter but two, in order of date, was signed William Peescott, dated Pepperell, 4th of July, by order of the committee of that always patriotic town, — sending at once forty bushels of grain, promising further assistance with provisions and with men, and invoking them " to stand firm in the common cause." The cause of Boston was then the cause of all. But the untiring research of the historian Bancroft brought to light for the first time, some years ago, a still more important and memorable letter from Prescott, in behalf of his fellow- farmers and townspeople, addressed, in the following August, to the men of Boston, which breathes the full spirit of Lexing ton and Concord and Bunker Hill conjoined, not without a strong foretaste of the still distant 4th of July. " Be not dismayed nor disheartened," it says, " in this great day of trials. We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort, and relief ; knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider that we are all embarked in one bottom, and must sink or swim together. We think if we submit to those regulations, all is gone. Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and transmit them to their posterity. Their children have waded through seas of difficulty, to leave us free and happy in the enjoyment of Eng lish privileges. Now, if we should give them up, can our COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 269 children rise up and call us blessed ? Is not a glorious death in defence of our liberties better than a short, infamous life, and our memory to be had in detestation to the latest posterity? Let us all be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberties where with Christ has made us free ; and may he of his infinite mercy grant us deliverance out of all- our troubles." No braver, nobler words than these of Prescott are found in all the records of that momentous period. And now, the time having fully come for testing these pledges of readiness for the last resort of an oppressed people, — and the voices of Joseph Hawley and Patrick Henry having been dis tinctly heard, responding to each other from Massachusetts to Virginia, " We must fight," — Prescott is seen in command of a regiment of minute-men. At the first alarm that blood had been shed at Lexington, and that fighting was still going on at Concord, on the 19th of April, he rallies that regiment without an instant's delay, and leads them at once to the scene. Arriving too late to join in the pursuit of Lord Percy and his flying regulars, he proceeds to Cambridge, and there awaits events, till, on the following 16th of June, he receives the order from General Ward, — the commander-in-chief of the Massachu setts forces, with whom he had been in constant communication and consultation, — to conduct the secret expedition which resulted in the battle of Bunker Hill. All that remains of his career, after that battle was over, may be summarily despatched. He had originally enlisted for eight months, hoping and believing that troops would not be needed for a longer period ; but he continued in the service until the close of 1776, when Boston had been freed from the enemy, when Independence had been declared, and when the war had been transferred to other parts of the country. Nor did he leave it then, until he had commanded the garrison on Gover nor's Island in the harbor of New York, and had attracted the notice and commendation of Washington by the good order in which he brought off his regiment, when the American army was compelled to retire from the city. He was then more than fifty years old, and physical infirmities incapacitated him for the saddle. But in the Autumn of 1777 he once more appears, as 270 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF a volunteer at the battle which ended in the surrender of Burgoyne; and Trumbull, the artist, — who unconsciously, and to his own often expressed regret, did him such injustice in his fancy sketch of the battle on this hill, — has made ample amends in his picture of Burgoyne's Surrender, now in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, by giving him a place, musket in hand, in the principal group, next to the gallant Morgan of the Virginia Riflemen ; whose statue, by a striking coincidence, has just been unveiled at the Cowpens, at the Centennial cel ebration of that great South Carolina battle of which Morgan was the hero, as Prescott was the hero of this. No two men are more worthy to stand side by side in our National Historic gallery than William Prescott and Daniel Morgan.1 Honor, joint honor, to the memories of them both, in all time to come, from every tongue and every heart throughout our land ! Again Prescott withdraws to his farm at Pepperell, where he constantly exhibits a vigilant interest and exercises a whole some influence in the affairs of the town and of the State, serv ing his fellow-citizens as a magistrate and a selectman, coming down to Boston in three several years as their Representative in the State Legislature ; and once more buckling on his sword, it is said, during Shays's Rebellion in 1787, to defend the courts of justice at Concord. A man of strong mind, determined will, benevolent as he was brave, liberal even beyond his means, of courteous manners, the pride of his neighborhood, delighting to show kindness and hospitality to his old fellow-soldiers, he died at length on the 13th of October, 1795, on the verge of threescore years and ten, and was buried with military honors. He left a name, I need not say, not only to be honored in its own right, as long as Bunker Hill shall be a watchword of hero ism and patriotism in our land, but to be borne, as it has been, with eminent distinction by his only son, the learned and admir able judge and jurist, and by his accomplished and distinguished grandson, beloved by all who knew him, whose Ferdinand and Isabella and Conquests of Mexico and Peru and History of Philip II. were the earliest triumphs in American histori cal literature, and were achieved under infirmities and trials 1 Note A, at the end. COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 271 that would have daunted any heart, which had not inherited a full measure of the bravery we are here to commemorate. Nor may I wholly omit to recognize the interest added to this occasion by the presence of a venerable lady, — his only surviving grandchild, who — apart from those personal gifts and graces to which I .should not be pardoned for alluding — brings to the memories of this hour another illustrious name in American history, the name of Dexter, — associated, in one generation, with high national service in the Senate and in the Cabinet, and, in two generations, with eminent legal learning, ability, and eloquence. But I must not dwell longer on any personal topics, however attractive, and must hasten to a conclusion of this address. I have said, Fellow-citizens, that we were here, to-day, to fulfil a long-postponed obligation, to pay a long-deferred debt. But let me not be thought for a moment to imply that there is anything really lost, anything really to be regretted, as we now unveil this noble statue, and hail it henceforth, for all years to come, as the frontispiece and figure-head of this con secrated ground. The lapse of time may have evinced a want of quick appreciation on the part of others, but it has taken away nothing from the merits or the just renown of Prescott. On the contrary, it has given an additional and most impressive significance to this memorial, — far more than a compensation for any delay in its erection. I would by no means undervalue or disparage the sponta neous tributes which so often, of late, have immediately fol lowed the deaths of distinguished men, here and elsewhere, and which are fast adorning so many of the public squares and parks of our country — at Washington, at New York, and in Boston, as well as in other of our great cities — with the bronze or marble forms of those who have been lost to our civil or military service. Such manifestations are possible in our day and generation, when wealth is so abundant, and when art is so prolific. They would have been all but impossible for us a century, or even half a century, ago. They do honor to the 272 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF men who are the subjects of them. They do honor to the natural and irrepressible emotions which prompt them. Like the decorations of the Soldiers' Graves, or the dedication of the Soldiers' Homes, they challenge and receive the sympathies of all our hearts. They are, however, the manifestations of the moment, and bespeak but the impulses of the hour. But when it was my privilege, just a quarter of a century ago, to inaugurate and give the word for unveiling the first bronze statue which had ever been erected in the open air within the limits of Boston, and when I reflected that nearly seventy years had then elapsed since the death, and more than a hundred and fifty years since the birth, of Benjamin Frank lin, whom that statue so admirably portrayed; when, more recently, the statue of Samuel Adams was unveiled at the old North End of our city, nearly eighty years after his death, and almost a hundred and fifty years after his birth ; and when, later still, two hundred and ninety-two years after his birth, and two hundred and thirty-one years after his death, the statue of John Winthrop was seen standing in yonder Scollay Square, with the charter of Massachusetts in his hand, looking out upon the great city, of more than three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, which he had founded, — I could not help feeling that an accumulated interest, an enhanced and augmented glory, would gather around those memorials for every year which had been allowed to pass since they were so richly deserved; and that the judgment of posterity had at last confirmed and rati fied the award, which history had long ago pronounced, upon the merits of those whom they represented. And so again, emphatically, here, to-day, in inaugurating this splendid statue of William Prescott, — eighty-six years after he was laid in his humble grave, a hundred and fifty-five years after his birth, and a hundred and six years after he stood where we now stand, in command of this momentous battle, — we may all well feel that the tribute has not come a day too late for his permanent fame and glory. We may even rejoice that no partial or premature commemoration of him had anticipated the hour when not only the wealth of our community and the advancement of American art should suffice for an adequate COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. 273 and durable presentment of his heroic form, but when the solid judgment of posterity should have sanctioned and con firmed the opinions of our best historians, founded on the most careful comparison of the most distinct contemporary records. We recognize in such results that History is indeed the great corrector, the grand decider, the irreversible umpire, the magic touchstone, of truth. An august " Posthumous Tribunal," like that of the ancient Egyptians, seems to rise before us, open to every appeal, subject to no statute of limitations, — to which the prejudices of the moment, or the passions of the multitude, are but as the light dust of the balance, — and pronouncing its solemn and final decisions, upon the careers and characters of all whom it summons to the bar of its impartial and search ing scrutiny ! Nor can there be, my friends, any higher incentive to honest, earnest, patriotic effort, whether in the field or in the forum, than such evidences and such assurances, that whatever mis apprehensions or neglects may occur at the moment, and though offices and honors, portraits and statues, may be withheld or postponed, the record will not be lost, truth will not perish, nor posterity fail to do that justice, which the jealousy, or the ignorance, or, it may be only, the inability, of contemporaries may have left undone. It is a most interesting part of the story of this day, that when Prescott proceeded to the headquarters of his commander- in-chief, General Ward, at Cambridge, and reported the results of the expedition which he had been ordered to conduct, and had conducted, he added, perhaps rashly, but with characteristic courage and confidence, that if he could only have three fresh regiments, with sufficient equipments and ammunition, he would return and retake the hill. I know not whether he was ever on this spot again, from that hour to the present. But he is here at last ! Thanks to the generosity of our public- spirited fellow-citizens, and thanks, still more, to the consum mate skill of a most accomplished American artist, — second to no living sculptor of the world, who has given his whole heart, as well as the exquisite cunning of his hand, to the work, — he is here at last, " in his habit as he lived ! " 18 274 THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF And now, before I proceed with any poor words of my own, let the Statue speak for itself, and display the noble form which has too long been concealed from your impatient sight ! [ The statue was here unveiled.] The genius of Story presents him to us now, in the light banyan coat and broad-brimmed hat, which he is known to have thrown on, during the intense heat of the day and of the battle, in exchange for the more stately and cumbrous uniform in which he had marched from Cambridge the night before, and which may be seen dropped beneath his feet. His eagle gaze is riveted with intense energy on the close-approaching foe. With his left hand he is hushing and holding back the impetuous soldiers under his command, to await his word. With his right hand he is just ready to lift the sword which is to be their signal for action. The marked and well-remembered features, which he transmitted to his son and grandson, and which may be recognized on at least one of his living descendants, have ena bled the artist to supply, amply and admirably, the want of any original portrait of himself. Nothing more powerful and Hving has been seen on this hill since he was here before. And that very sword, which so long adorned the library- walls of his grand son, the historian, and which is now one of the treasures of the Massachusetts Historical Society, — one of those " Crossed Swords " whose romantic story has so often been told in verse and in prose, 1 — that same sword, which, tradition tells us, he waved where he now stands, when, seeing at length " the buttons on the coats," or, it may have been, "the whites of the eyes," of the advancing enemy in their original onslaught, he first gave the word " Fire ! " — that same sword I am priv ileged to hold up at this moment to your view ; if, indeed, I shall be able to hold it, while it seems ready to leap from its scabbard and to fly from my hand, to salute and welcome its brave old master and wearer ! No blade which ever came from the forges of Damascus, Toledo, or Genoa was ever witness to greater personal perils, or was ever wielded by a bolder arm. Prescott stands alone here now. But our little Museum — to be reconstructed, I trust, at no distant day, of enduring mate- 1 Note B, at the end. COLONEL WILUAM PRESCOTT. 275 rials and adequate dimensions — already contains a marble statue of the glorious Warren. The great first martyr of the Revolu tion, and the heroic commander of this earliest Revolutionary battle, are now both in place. Around them, on other parts of the hill, in other years, some of the gallant leaders who rushed to their aid from other States, or from other parts of our own State, will, it is hoped, be seen, — Pomeroy and Stark and Reed and Knowlton, with Putnam at the head of them all. They will all be welcome, whenever they may come. Primarily a Massachusetts battle, it was peculiarly, also, a New England battle ; and all New England might well be represented on these Heights. But the pre-eminent honors of this occasion are paid, as they are due, — and long, long overdue, — to our grand Massachusetts, Middlesex, farmer and patriot. He has returned, — not with three fresh regiments only, as he proposed, but with the acclamations of every soldier and every citizen within the sound of what is being said, or within any knowledge of what is being done, here to-day. He has retaken Bunker Hill, — and, with it, the hearts of all who are gathered on it at this hour, or who shall be gathered upon it, generation after generation, in aU the untold centuries of the future ! NOTE A. Daniel Morgan, the hero of the Cowpens, was early in the Conti nental camp during the siege of Boston. The following most interesting account of his arrival at Cambridge is taken from the speech of Judge Christian, of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, at the recent unveiling of Morgan's statue at the Cowpens : — " As soon as the Revolutionary War broke out, living then at Winches ter in the State of Virginia, he raised a company of hardy mountaineers, containing ninety-six men, called the Morgan Rifles. Their uniform was a hunting-shirt, on the breast of which were stitched — in letters by their wives, mothers, and sweethearts — the words, ' Liberty or Death ! ' He marched with this company six hundred miles to Boston, where Washington was then in command of the Continental forces. Arriving near Boston late in the evening, his company were resting under the shade, after their long march, when Morgan saw Washington riding out alone. He had been with Washington at Braddock's defeat, and recog nized him at once. He drew up his men into line as Washington approached, and Morgan saluting him, said : ' General, I come six hundred miles, from the right bank of the Potomac, and bring to you these gallant men, every one of whom knows how to shoot a rifle, and every one of whom knows how to die for liberty ; for you see, sir, that each man bears his banner upon his breast — " Liberty or Death ! " ' " History records that the great Washington, leaping upon the ground from his horse, went down the line and shook hands with every man pf Morgan's riflemen, and, the tears streaming down his face, remounted his horse and rode off without saying a word." NOTE B. " The Crossed Swords," which were hung for many years in the library of the historian Prescott, " in token of international friendship and family alliance," are now arranged over the doors of the Massachu setts Historical Society's Library, on a tablet, with inscriptions which tell their story. They had previously appeared in literature in Thackeray's great novel " The Virginians," the introduction to which is as follows : — " On the library-wall of one of the most famous writers of America there hang two crossed swords, which his relatives wore in the great war of Independence. The one sword was gallantly drawn in the service of the king ; the other was the weapon of a brave and honored republican soldier. The possessor of the harmless trophy has earned for himself a name alike honored in his ancestor's country and his own, where genius such as his has always a peaceful welcome. The ensuing history reminds me of yonder swords in the historian's study at Boston. In the Revolu tionary War, the subjects of this story, natives of America, and children of the Old Dominion, found themselves engaged on different sides in the quarrel, coming together peaceably at its conclusion, as brethren should, their love never having materially diminished, however angrily the con test divided them. The Colonel in scarlet, and the General in blue and buif, hang side by side in the wainscoted parlor of the Warringtons, in England." The Swords were afterwards the subject of some charming lines by Rev. Dr. N. L. Frothingham, read by himself at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1859. PRESIDENT GARFIELD AND DEAN STANLEY. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1881. The three months which have intervened, Gentlemen, since we adjourned, on the 9th of June, for our midsummer vacation, have been notable in many ways, and in some ways most sadly and deplorably notable. The murderous assault made upon the President of the United States on the 2d of July last, with all its terrible suffering for him, and with all its anxieties and deep sorrow for the people, — I might say of the world, — has cast a gloom over the whole period, almost like a prolonged eclipse. There is no one of us, I am sure, or of this whole com munity, who has not felt the keenest commiseration for him and his family, and who has not sincerely prayed for his early relief and his entire restoration to health and usefulness. And, as this is our first meeting since the event occurred, — and, more es pecially, as some hours of this very day have been set apart, by a proclamation from the governors of our own and other States, for solemn prayer for the President's recovery, — the Council have agreed with me that it is fit for us to give some expres sion of our abhorrence of the act, of our- sympathy with the illustrious sufferer, and of our admiration of the patience and fortitude with which the long agony has been borne. I am, accordingly, authorized to present the following Resolu tions, as the first business of this meeting : — PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 279 Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society, in meeting for the first time since the great crime of the 2d of July was committed at Washington, are unwilling that their records should be without some allusion to the atrocity and wickedness of an assault which has so deeply afflicted our country, and which has left so foul a blot on the pages of American History. Resolved, That we offer to President Garfield the assurance of our un feigned grief, as a Society and as individuals, for the protracted and pain ful sufferings which he has been doomed to endure at the hands of an assassin, and which he has borne with a resignation and a bravery which have commanded respect and admiration at home and abroad. Resolved, That these Resolutions be respectfully communicated to Mrs. Garfield, with an expression of our heartfelt sympathy with herself and the President, and of our earnest hopes and prayers that he may still be spared to his family and his country. These Resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the Pres ident then continued as follows : — I turn now from our great National sorrow to events which have affected us more particularly as a Society. Six deaths have occurred since we last met, which call for a longer or shorter notice. We have lost three of our Resident Mem bers, and three of our Foreign Honorary or Corresponding Members. Mr. Charles Wesley Tuttle, who was born in Maine, Nov. 1, 1829, died, most unexpectedly to us all, on the 18th of July last, at his residence in this city. There are others of our num ber, who knew him more intimately than I did, who will bear testimony to his character and accomplishments. But I can not forbear from expressing briefly my own sense of his devo tion to the work in which we are engaged. I knew him first while I was — as, I believe, I still am — one of the Visiting Committee of the Astronomical Observatory at Cambridge. He was there as one of the corps of observers, and distinguished himself by the discovery of a telescopic comet, in 1853, which I believe bears his name. In the following year he was at tached to the United States Expedition for determining the dif ference of longitude between Cambridge in New England and Greenwich in Old England. In this relation he made several 280 CHARLES W. TUTTLE AND SETH AMES. contributions to the " Astronomical Journal" and to the "An nals of the Harvard Observatory." Finding, however, that he had taxed his eyes too severely, he was compelled to abandon his scientific pursuits ; and, after a year or more at the Dane Law School, he was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 1856, and entered at once on the successful prac tice of his profession. He soon began to evince an eager inter est in New England history, and contributed many historical articles to the Register of the New England Historic Genealog ical Society, of which he was long an active member. Our own Proceedings bear abundant evidence of the earnest ness with which he entered into our labors, after he became a member of this Society in 1873. He was rarely absent from our monthly meetings, and was a frequent contributor of inter esting and valuable matter to our volumes. At the time of his death he was engaged in preparing a Memoir of his friend, the late Hon. Caleb Cushing, and other biographical works, which it may be hoped will not be lost. He was a man of great in telligence and energy, valued by us all as an associate and friend ; and his death, at only fifty-one years of age, is a serious loss to the working corps of our Society. The Hon. Seth Ames, a son of the great orator and states man, Fisher Ames, died at Longwood, Brookline, on the 15th of August last. A graduate of Harvard in 1825, he at once de voted himself to the law; practised largely at the Middlesex Bar ; was at one time City Solicitor of Lowell ; then one of the first Judges, and afterward Chief Justice, of the Superior Court ; and, in 1869, one of the Judges of the Supreme Judi cial Court of Massachusetts. This last office he resigned, on account of infirmities, in January last, having held it for twelve years. He was a laborious and upright Judge, in whom every one had confidence. The Life and Writings of his eminent father were prepared and published by him, in 1854, in two vol umes. He was chosen a Resident Member of this Society in 1864 ; but his official duties did not allow of any frequent at tendance at our meetings. It will be for some one of our num ber associated with him in college, or in his legal and judicial SAMUEL F. HAVEN AND J. WINTER JONES. 281 career, to do justice, now or hereafter, to a character respected by us all. Born in 1805, he died in his seventy-sixth year. Dr. Samuel F. Haven, the faithful and devoted librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, died at Worcester, at sev enty-five years of age, on the fifth instant. He has been one of our Resident Members for more than twenty years ; and his presence at our meetings, whenever he was able to attend them, has been peculiarly welcome. He has always brought an atmos phere of antiquarianism and research with him, and has often done valuable work in connection with early Massachusetts history. I will not attempt to add to the just tributes which have been already paid to him by the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, but will confine myself to this brief statement of his death, with an expression of the sincere esteem and respect which we all entertained for him. By a striking coincidence, an ocean telegram announced to us, this very morning, the death of John Winter Jones, F.S.A., known to many of us personally, and to the literary world in general, as formerly for many years the keeper of the British Museum, and who succeeded the celebrated Pauizzi as the li brarian of that noble institution in 1866. Born early in this century, he was obliged to retire from all active duties several years ago ; but he had made his mark as an able and accom plished librarian, and as the editor of several rare works repub lished by the Hakluyt Society, as well as by numerous original contributions to biographical and historical literature. He had many qualities and characteristics in common with our friend Dr. Haven, and their lives and labors were devoted to the same objects. Dr. Jones was elected a Corresponding Member of this Society in 1867. From our foreign honorary roll we have lost John Hill Bur ton, D.C.L., a Scotch advocate and historian of high distinction. He was the author of a work on " Political and Social Econ omy," of an " Introduction to the Works of Jeremy Bentham," 282 JOHN HILL BURTON AND DEAN STANLEY. of "Narrations from Criminal Trials in Scotland," of the " Life and Correspondence of David Hume," of " The Book-Hunter," and of some lighter volumes. But his reputation will mainly rest on his " History of Scotland, from Agricola's Invasion to the Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection," in eight volumes, which has been called the best account of Scotland ever written, and one of the completest histories of any country. On the publication of that work he was appointed by the Queen His toriographer Royal for Scotland. He has lately published a "History of the Reign of Queen Anne," in three volumes, which is also highly spoken of. He was born at Aberdeen, Aug. 22, 1809, and died at sev enty-two years of age. His name had been but recently placed on our roll. The most distinguished name, which alas ! is henceforth to be lost to our living honorary roll, is that of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, who died at the deanery of Westminster, on the 19th of July last. Few names have occupied a larger space than his for a quarter of a century past in the world of letters or of religion. Few names, I think, will be associated in the future, as well as in the hearts of thousands of those now living, with more of that which is honest, pure, lovely, and of good report. Of his career as a minister of the Church of England, this is hardly the place to speak ; and, if it were, I am hardly the person to speak. We all know that he was not so wedded to forms or creeds or dogmas, as many of the stricter Churchmen of his own country or of ours. Meantime he held to them all with more tenacity than was altogether agreeable to the views of other Christian communions of both countries. And thus he was the subject through life, and his name has been the subject since his death, — on both sides of the Atlantic, and on all sides of sectarian theology, — of occasional disparagement and invidious remark. No name will suffer from such strictures in the long run. For myself, as an American Churchman, in the broadest sense of that term, and as one who had enjoyed some measure of his friendship for many years, and who reveres his memory, DEAN STANLEY. 283 I am content that his religious character should rest, where it may rest so safely in all time to come, on the words uttered in the Upper House of Convocation, on the day of his death, by the excellent primate of all England. " It is but right, " said the Archbishop of Canterbury, " that I should notice that in my estimation there has been a great loss to this, our na tional Church. The Church of England has comprehended within its members, ever since the Reformation, persons of great variety of opinion ; and the school of thought with which the Dean of Westminster was most associated has, in my estimation, had a most important part to play in the history of our national Church. There are, in a great community like ours, a vast number of persons who are not members ..of our own or of any other church, and there are persons whose temptations are altogether in the direction of scepticism ; and my own impression is that the works of the late Dean of Westminster have confirmed in the Christian faith a vast num ber of such persons. ... I cannot," he adds, "fail to express my conviction, that the historical element, which pervades his writings, has had a great effect in giving life to the belief of many who look on the whole history of the Bible with a some what sceptical eye, and who, if they had not had such guidance, would have been apt to wander altogether from the belief of the Divine lessons which the sacred volume contains." No one need add anything to such an expression from such a source, and no one can take away anything from its authority or its force. In turning over recently a little collection of the miscella neous pamphlets which the good Dean has sent me from time to time, I found that the very first, in the order in which I had caused them to be arranged and bound, was his sermon on " Christian Fraternity," delivered in Westminster Abbey on the 30th of November, 1874. I like to associate his name with that phrase. He was peculiarly an apostle of Christian frater nity, — of that brotherly love which has so happily supplanted the odium theologicum of former times. And in that relation his name will grow brighter and brighter as the Christian day advances. 284 DEAN STANLEY. As a Churchman, at once liberal and loyal, no narrowness or bigotry has ever blinded him to what was best in other Chris tian denominations. He has delighted to pay brilliant tributes to Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, and the Wesleys, and to visit the tombs of Jonathan Edwards and William Ellery Channing. Meantime the chivalry with which " he threw the shield of his high rank and stainless reputation, " as Canon Farrar so well said, over any who were oppressed or persecuted for opinion's sake, — even at the risk of being held responsible for views from which he entirely dissented, — fur nishes an element of his character and a clue to his sometimes perplexing course, that will always redound to his honor. But it is in his relations to biography and history that he is to be remembered by this Society. His charming Life of his noble old master at Rugby, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and, more recently, of his own father and mother ; his delightful volumes on the Eastern Church and the Jewish Church and the Scotch Church ; his vivid sketches of Sinai and Palestine ; his Me morials of Canterbury Cathedral, and of the glorious Abbey of which he was so long the guardian genius, — I had almost said the guardian angel, — all those works have at once earned for their author the admiration and gratitude of all English- speaking people, and have entitled him to be counted among the most valuable contributors, not only to the history of reli gion and the illustration of the Bible, but to English history, — so long our own history. And if to all these productions be added the unceasing stream of thought, discussion, commentary, criticism, essay of every sort, — which flowed from his pen into the pages of so many magazines and reviews, or flowed from his lips in the pulpit, almost to the last hour of his life, — it would be difficult, I think, to name the man, on either side of the Atlantic, who has contributed more than Dean Stanley has done to the whole- somest public opinion of his period. How can I fail to allude, before concluding this imperfect notice, to the regard which he so uniformly exhibited for our own land, — ever seeking and ever finding opportunities of personal kindness to Americans in England, and doing more DEAN STANLEY. 285 than the most skilful diplomacy could do in strengthening the ties of friendship and good-will between the two nations ? In the latest audible words which fell from his dying lips he is reported to have said: "I have labored amidst many frailties and much weakness to make this institution [Westminster Abbey] more and more the great centre of religious and national life in a truly liberal spirit." But, in the adminis tration of that grand Abbey, the national life of England was not alone considered. When it was opened by him, with the authority of the Queen, for the repose of the remains of George Peabody until their removal to Danvers, and again for the funeral of Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio, and when his pulpit was repeatedlj'- occupied at his special request on a Fourth of July, and on other days, by more than one of our American clergy men, it was seen that his liberal spirit had no local or terri torial limitations. He delighted to the very last, as I have abundant reason to remember, in welcoming Americans to the Abbey, and in pointing out whatever would be most interesting to them, opening to them the far-famed Jerusalem Chamber, and receiving them gladly under his own roof. Nor can any of us forget the eager interest he manifested, during his recent tour in this country, in visiting Plymouth Rock, in attending the 250th anniversary of Salem, and in coming more than once to these historical rooms. The post script to the last letter which I received from him, dated April 16, took pains to say : " Mr. Lowell is very popular, and pre sides this year at the Literary Fund." In that letter, however, he gave some indication of failing health, when he said : " I have stood the hard winter very well. Now that the iron hand of frost, snow, and east wind is withdrawn, I am a little relaxed." His tour in America had served to dispel, in some degree, the depression produced by the death of his devoted and charming wife. It happened that I was with him in Paris when she was first taken seriously ill. I recall a most interesting visit which I made with him to the famous Conciergerie, as a diversion from his cares, where we were admitted to the apartments from which Marie Antoinette was led out to execution, and where Robespierre was at last imprisoned before his own 286 DEAN STANLEY. execution. I recall the proof he incidentally gave me of his marvellous memory and readiness, when, chancing to allude to the celebrated Memoirs of St. Simon, he seized a pen on my table, and dashed off, in a hand more than usually legible for him, three or four pages of detailed references to passages in that extraordinary work, of at least twenty volumes, which were especially worth reading. But the anxieties and agonies of the protracted and lingering illness of Lady Augusta, in Paris and in London, with its fatal issue, prepared the way for his own too early departure. He was only in his sixty-sixth year when he died, having been born in 1815. He was the son of the late Bishop of Norwich, who was of the family of the Lords Stanley of Alder- ley, who descended from a common ancestor with the more famous Stanleys, Earls of Derby. His wife was a sister of the late Earl of Elgin, who was well known on this side of the Atlantic as governor-general of Canada, and of Sir Frederick Bruce, the British Minister, who died suddenly in Boston in 1867. The Dean had been an Honorary Member of this Society for thirteen years. THE PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE. A COMMUNICATION TO THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1881. At our last meeting, Gentlemen, I gave some account of the portrait of John Hampden, now in the Executive Mansion at Washington. I desire to allude this afternoon to the not less interesting portrait of Lafayette, in the Hall of the House of Representatives of the United States. I had long been familiar with this portrait while a member of Congress, and particularly while it hung so near me during my Speakership of the House, more than thirty years ago. On looking at it again carefully, in April, 1880, while I was in Washington, I observed with concern that it was in great danger of being seriously injured by neglect, the surface of it being already blistered and cracked. The House was in session at the time, and I was sitting, by the invitation of the Speaker, in the immediate neighborhood of General Garfield, — now the President of the United' States, in whose sufferings we have all felt so deep a sympathy. I ventured to call the attention of General Garfield to the state of the picture ; and he rose at once and asked and obtained the unanimous consent of the House to introduce a resolution for placing it in charge of the Library Committee for repair. This was done, and the portrait has now, I trust, been put into a safe condition for posterity. Meantime, however, I found that the history of the portrait was but imperfectly known ; and more than one erroneous statement was made during the brief debate to which I Hstened 288 THE PORTRAIT OP LAFAYETTE. on General Garfield's resolution. I accordingly resorted to the Congress Library to verify my remembrances of its history, and, in the course of my investigations, I discovered more than I had ever known before. It seems that this noble, full-length portrait of Lafayette was not only painted by the celebrated French artist, Ary Scheffer, as I well knew, but that it was presented by him to the House of Representatives of the United States. As it was presented to a single branch of Congress, it was never acknowledged or recognized as a gift to the Country, and no record of its reception is to be found anywhere except in the Journal of the House. There, under date of Thursday, Dec. 23, 1824, the following entries may be read : — Journal of the House of Representatives, Thursday, Dec. 23, 1824. The Speaker laid before the House the following communication, viz. : — Pakis, Oct. 17, 1824. Sir, — I send by the ship Cadmus, Captain Francis Allyn (who has kindly promised to take it on to Washington), a full-length portrait of General Lafayette,1 painted by me, which I pray you to do me the honor to accept for the Hall of the House of Representatives, over which you preside. As the friend and admirer of General Lafayette, and of American liberty, I feel happy to have it in my power to express in this way my grateful feelings for the national honors which the free people of the United States are, at this moment, bestowing on the friend and compan ion-in-arms of your illustrious Washington, on the man who has been so gloriously received by you as the " Nation's Guest." Accept, sir, with the above testimony of my sentiments for your coun try and for my venerable friend, the sincere assurance of my profound respect. A. Scheffer. To the Hon. the Speaker of the House of Representatives, U. S., Washington. The said letter was read and laid upon the table. 1 The Speaker mentioned to the House that the portrait had not been received by him at this time. THE PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE. 289 House Journal, Thursday, Jan. 20, 1825. On motion of Mr. Van Rensselaer, it was Ordered, That the Speaker answer the letter of Mr. Scheffer, of Paris, and make to him suitable acknowledgments for the fine portrait of Gen eral Lafayette, which he has presented to the House of Representatives. Ordered, That the Speaker direct where the portrait of General Lafayette be suspended. The Speaker at that time was the illustrious Henry Clay, of Kentucky, afterwards Secretary of State and Senator. He undoubtedly made an appropriate answer to the letter of the eminent French artist, but there is no copy of it extant. An excellent engraving of the portrait was executed in Paris at the time, which is still occasionally to be found. I have a copy myself, which has peculiar value for me as having been brought over to my mother by Lafayette's own hand, when he came as the nation's guest in 1824. But the portrait itself is one of great value, and one whose history should not be lost sight of hereafter. Before parting from the name of Lafayette, — everything about whom is interesting, in connection with the approaching Yorktown Centennial, — I desire to mention that my friend Mr. Dexter, our Recording Secretary, has kindly called my attention to a bust of him, presented to Congress in 1828, by M. David, — then a member of the Institute of France, a profes sor of the School of Painting at Paris, and a member of the Legion of Honor, — executed by himself. The gift was communicated by the following letter to the President of the United States, which was transmitted to Con gress, with the bust, by President John Quincy Adams, on the 29th of January, 1829 : — Paris, Sept. 11, 1828. To the President. I have executed a bust of Lafayette. I could have wished to have raised a statue to him ; not for his benefit, for he does not require it, but for ourselves, who feel so ardently the desire to express the love and admiration with which he inspires us. 19 290 THE PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE. The whole youth of France envy both the youth and the old age of him whose resemblance I send you. They envy that glory which was acquired on your American soil, by the side of the immortal Washington, in defence of your inestimable rights. They envy that glory which was acquired on the soil of France, in the midst of the troubles of Paris and Versailles, in those councils where it required more courage to contend in argument than is necessary to com bat in arms. They envy that glory which crowns a head white with age, but still glowing with the fires of liberty and patriotism. It is in the name of this youth of France, anxious to imitate whatever is generous and great, that I present to you the work on which I have bestowed much time and labor. I could have wished it had been more worthy of the subject, more worthy of the place I desire it should occupy. Yes, sir, I could wish that the bust of our brave General, of our illustrious Deputy, might be set up in the Hall of Congress, near the monument erected to Washington, — the son by the side of the father ; or rather, that the two brothers in arms, the two companions in victory, the two men of order and of law, should not be more separated in our admiration than they were in their wishes and in their perils. Lafayette is one of the ties that connect the two worlds. A few months since he revisited your land, consecrated by justice and equality, and you restored him to us honored by your hospitality and your homage. In my turn I restore him to you, or rather I only restore to you his image : for he himself must remain with us, in order to recall frequently to the national councils those eternal principles on which the independ ence of nations reposes, and the hopes of mankind are built. I am with profound respect, Mr. President, Your very humble and obedient servant, David, Member of the French Institute and Professor of the School of Painting ; Member of the Legion of Honor. This bust was accepted by Congress, soon afterwards, and placed among the treasures of the Capitol. The name of the artist, by whom it was executed and presented, was Pierre Jean David. He was known as David d' Angers, having been born at Angers, in France, and is thus THE PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE. 291 distinguished from the great painter of Napoleon, Jacques Louis David, who died in 1825, of whom he had been a pupil, and whose niece he married. He had himself produced a statue of the great Prince of Conde", which gave him a high reputation, and he was thereupon employed by the French Government in adorning the Pantheon with sculptures. He executed, also, a bust of Washington, which is believed to be at the Capitol, with that of Lafayette. He died in 1856. MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THEIR NEW HALL, SEPTEMBER 13, 1881. I thank you, Mr. President, for your friendly words, and you, Fellow-citizens, for these cordial greetings. I am here, however, to make no extended address. I have come only as a minute- man, and I hope that all that I have to say may be included in very little more than a minute. I could not altogether resist the urgent and complimentary calls of the officers of this Association that I would be here in my place to-day, on this auspicious opening of this noble hall, as the senior honorary member of the Association. I could not re sist so agreeable and flattering an invitation, to come and mingle my humble God-speed with those of his Excellency the Governor, and his Honor the Mayor of the City. Indeed, Mr. President, the Mechanics of Boston and Massa chusetts have the right to command the sympathies and sup port on this occasion, and on every occasion, not merely of those whom they have distinguished by placing their names on their honorary roll, but of this whole community. More than all others, they have built up and adorned this beloved city of ours. From the days of our great Bostonian, Benjamin Frank lin, — whose statue, as I cannot forget, they made me the hon ored instrument of unveiling some quarter of a century ago, — certainly from the days of Paul Revere, down to these days of his worthy and excellent grandson, my friend, Mr. Lincoln, they have been true to themselves, true to their callings, true to the MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION. 293 City and the Commonwealth, and true to the whole Country, in all its earlier and in all its later trials. And now that they have erected for themselves a new and stately building, and have arranged in it a grand exhibition of mechanic art and industry, it would be a discredit to our community if that exhibition should fail to attract the attention and admiration of all who may be within its reach. But, indeed, whatever may be its success, nothing but honor can result to those by whom it has been so admirably planned and organized. For myself, I feel prouder than ever to-day to have my name on the roll of so valuable and venerable an association, and I offer to its officers and members my heartfelt thanks for this and many other compliments which they have paid me during a long life, with my sincere and earnest wishes for their long-con tinued prosperity and success in every worthy undertaking. Charity, we all know, is a leading element in their institution. They may well look forward to the future with hope and with faith. May a kind Providence direct and bless all their efforts ! Let us trust, my friends, that in this spacious and sumptuous building, which is now about to be opened, they will find a per manent home, which shall not only witness the centennial of the Association itself, fifteen or sixteen years hence, but which shall have a centennial of its own, and be consecrated by the memo ries of all the good men who are now rejoicing so justly in its completion. PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. - GEORGE W. RIGGS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE PEABODY TRUSTEES, AT NEW YORK, OCTOBER 5, 1881. We have reverted once more, Gentlemen, to our old ap pointed time and place of meeting, the first Wednesday of October, and the City of New York. But, in doing so, we have left only an interval of eight months since we were last together at Washington. It was thought, however, that our new General Agent, elected just before our adjournment in February, would have found opportunity during this period to take a careful survey of the work committed to him, and might by this time be not only ready but desirous, as I think he will prove to be, to submit to the judgment of the Board the views which he may have formed of our past and of our future policy. With the death of Dr. Sears a new chapter of our history is opened, of which our proceedings at this meeting will occupy the first page. And with the view of more distinctly marking our new departure, the Board authorized me to have a second volume of our proceedings made up from the stereotype plates of our Annual Reports. This has been done, and copies of the volume are here for delivery to the Trustees. An engraved portrait of Dr. Sears will be found in it, in immediate connec tion with the announcement of his death, agreeably to the order of the Board, and an index has been appended, covering the former volume as well as the present. Two heliotypes GEORGE W. RIGGS. 295 have also been introduced : one of them reproducing the origi nal group of the Trustees, with Mr. Peabody at their head, taken in this city in 1867 ; the other giving the group taken at the White Sulphur Springs in 1876. A comparison of the two pictures forcibly recalls the changes which have occurred in our Httle circle between the two dates. But even of those included in the second group, only five years ago, we have lost four, including Dr. Sears. One of the four has died, to our great sorrow, within the last two months, and his death is now to be formally announced. Mr. George W. Riggs was one of the original Trustees, selected by Mr. Peabody himself, as the son of one of his oldest and most trusted friends, -who had succeeded to his father's place in Mr. Peabody's confidence and warm regard. We all know what Mr. Riggs was, — a man of great intelli gence and many accomplishments, but modest and reserved, making no pretensions to anything except fidelity and devotion to his business. His skill and experience as a banker have been invaluable to us in the management of our Trust Funds from the first organization of the Board. As a member of our Finance Committee, and of our Auditing Committees from year to year, he has rendered most important services, and he has always rendered them so willingly and kindly as to double our obligations to him. Indeed, he was a man of singularly amiable disposition, who did not fail to endear himself to all with whom he was brought into association. He died at Washington on the 24th of August last, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. The Board, I am sure, will desire to have an appropriate minute on our records, as a tribute to his memory, and I ven ture to name Governor Fish, Governor Aiken, and Mr. Wet more, to report it at their convenience. THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. ORATION DELIVERED AT YORKTOWN, VIRGINIA, OCTOBER 19, 1881. Mr. President, and Fellow-citizens of the United States : — I AM profoundly sensible of the honor of being called to take so distinguished a part in this great Commemoration, and most deeply grateful to those who have thought me worthy of such an honor. But it was no affectation when, in accepting the invitation of the Joint Committee of Congress, I replied that I was sincerely conscious of my own insufficiency for so high a service. And if I felt, as I could not fail to feel, a painful sense of inadequacy at that moment, when the service was still a great way off, how much more must I be oppressed and over whelmed by it now, in the immediate presence of the occasion ! As I look back to the men with whom I have been associated in my own Commonwealth, — Choate, Everett, Webster, to name no others, — I may well feel that I am here only by the accident of survival. But I cannot forget that I stand on the soil of Virginia, — a State which, of all others in our Union, has never needed to borrow an orator for any occasion, however important or exact ing. Her George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, her James Madison and John Marshall, were destined, it is true, to ren der themselves immortal by their pens, rather than by their tongues. The pens which drafted the Virginia Bill of Rights, the Declaration of American Independence, and so much of the THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 297 text, the history, the vindication, and the true construction of the American Constitution, need fear comparison with none which have ever been the implements of human thought and language. But from her peerless Patrick Henry, through the long succession of statesmen and patriots who have illustrated her annals, down to the recent day of her Rives, her McDowell, and her Grigsby, — all of whom I have been privileged to count among my personal friends, — Virginia has had orators enough for every emergency, at the Capitol or at home. She has them still. And yet I hazard nothing in saying that the foremost of them all would have agreed with me, at this hour, that the theme and the theatre are above the reach of the highest art; and would be heard exclaiming with me, in the words of a great Roman Poet, JJnde ingenium par materioz ? — " Whence, whence, shall come a faculty equal to the subject?" For myself, I turn humbly and reverently to the only Source from which such inspiration can be invoked ! Certainly, Fellow-citizens, had I felt at Hberty to regard the invitation as any mere personal compliment, — supremely as I should have prized it, — I might have hesitated about accept ing it much longer than I did hesitate. But when I reflected on it as at least including a compliment to the old Common wealth of which I am a loyal son ; when I reflected that my performance of such a service might help, in ever so slight a degree, to bring back Virginia and Massachusetts, even for a day — Would that it might be forever! — into those old rela tions of mutual amity and good-nature and affection which ex isted in the days of our Fathers, and without which there could have been no surrender here at Yorktown to be commem orated, — no Union, no Independence, no Constitution, — I could not find it in my heart for an instant to decline the call. Never, never could I shrink from any service, however arduous, or however perilous to my own reputation, which might haply add a single new link, or even strengthen and brighten an old link, in that chain of love, which it has been the prayer of my life might bind together in peace and good-will, in all time to come, not only New England and the Old Dominion, but the whole North- and the whole South, for the best welfare of our 298 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF common Country, and for the best interests of Liberty through out the world ! Not the less, however, have I come here to-day in faint hope of being able to meet the expectations and demands of the occasion. For, indeed, there are occasions which no man can fully meet, either to the satisfaction of others or of himself, — occasions which seem to scorn and defy all utterance of human lips, whose complicated emotions and incidents cannot be compressed within the little compass of a discourse, whose far- reaching relations and world-wide influences refuse to be nar rowed and condensed into any formal sentences or paragraphs or pages, — occasions when the booming cannon, the rolling drum, the swelling trumpet, the cheers of multitudes, and the solemn Te Deums of churches and cathedrals, afford the only adequate expression of the feelings, which their mere contem plation, even at the end of a century, cannot fail to kindle. Yet, if it be not in me, — at an age which might fairly have exempted me altogether from such an effort, — to do full jus tice to the grand assembly and the grander topics before me, it certainly is in me, my friends, to breathe out from a full heart the congratulations which belong to this hour ^ to recall briefly some of the momentous incidents we are here to com memorate ; to sketch rapidly some of the great scenes which gave such imperishable glory to yonder Bay and River, and their historic banks ; to name with honor a few, at least, of the illustrious men connected with those scenes ; and, above all and before all, to give some feeble voice to the gratitude which must swell and fill and overflow every American breast to-day, towards that generous and gallant nation across the sea — repre sented here at this moment by so many distinguished sons, of so many endeared and illustrious names — which helped us so signally and so decisively, at the most critical point of our struggle, in vindicating our rights and liberties, and in achiev ing our National Independence. Yes, it is mine — and somewhat peculiarly mine, perhaps, notwithstanding the presence of the official representatives of my native State — to bear the greetings of Plymouth Rock to Jamestown, of Bunker Hill to Yorktown, of Boston — recovered THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 299 from the British forces in '76 — to Mount Vernon, the home in life and death of her illustrious Deliverer ; and- there is no office, within the gift of Congresses, Presidents, or People, which I could discharge more cordially and fervently. And may I not hope, as one who is proud to feel coursing in his veins the Huguenot blood of a Massachusetts patriot who enjoyed the most affectionate relations with the young Lafay ette, when he first led the way to our assistance ; as one, too, who has personally felt the warm pressure of his own hand, and received a benediction from his own lips, under a father and a mother's roof, nearly threescore years ago, when he was the guest of the nation ; and, let me add, as an old presiding officer in that Representative Chamber at the Capitol, where, side by side with that of Washington, — its only fit companion- piece, — the admirable full-length portrait of the Marquis, the work and the gift of his friend Ary Scheffer, was so long a daily and hourly feast for my eyes and inspiration for my efforts, — may I not hope that I shall not be regarded as a wholly unfit or inappropriate organ of that profound sense of obligation and indebtedness to Lafayette, to Rochambeau, to De Grasse, and to France, which is felt and cherished by us all at this hour ? For, indeed, Fellow-citizens, our earliest and our latest acknowledgments are due this day to France, for the inesti mable services which gave us the crowning victory of the 19th of October, 1781. It matters not for us to speculate now, whether American Independence might not have been ulti mately achieved without her aid. It matters not for us to calculate or conjecture how soon, or when, or under what cir cumstances, that grand result might have been accomplished. We all know that, God willing, such a consummation was as certain in the end as to-morrow's sunrise, and that no earthly potentates or powers, single or conjoined, could have carried us back into a permanent condition of colonial dependence and subjugation. From the first blood shed at Lexington and Con cord, from the first battle at Bunker Hill, Great Britain had lost her American Colonies, and their established and recog nized independence was only a question of time. Even the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, the only Ameri- 300 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OP can battle included by Sir Edward Creasy in his " Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," of which he says that " no military event can be said to have exercised a more important influence on the future fortunes of mankind," — and of which the late Lord Stanhope had said that this surrender " had not merely changed the relation of England and the feelings of Europe towards these insurgent colonies, but had modified, for all times to come, the connection between every Colony and every parent State," — even this most memorable surrender gave only a new assurance of a foregone conclusion, only has tened the march of events to a predestined issue. That march for us was to be ever onward until the goal was reached. How ever slow or difficult it might prove to be, at one time or at another time, the motto and the spirit of John Hampden were in the minds and hearts and wills of all our American patriots, Nulla vestigia retrorsum, — " No footsteps backward." Nor need we be too curious to inquire, to-day, into any special inducements which France may have had' to intervene thus nobly in our behalf, or into any special influences under which her King and Court and People resolved at last to undertake the intervention. We may not forget, indeed, tbat our own Franklin, the great Bostonian, had long been one of the American Commissioners in Paris, and that the fame of his genius, the skill and adroitness of his negotiations, and the mag netism of his personal character and presence, were no secondary or subordinate elements in the results which were accomplished. As was well said of him by a French historian : " His virtues and his renown negotiated for him ; and, before the second year of his mission had expired, no one conceived it possible to refuse fleets and an army to the compatriots of Franklin." The Treaty of Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance were both emi nently Franklin's work, and both were signed by him as early as the 6th of February, 1778. His name and his services are thus never to be omitted or overlooked in connection with the great debt which we owe to France, and which we so gratefully com memorate on this occasion. But signal as his services were, Franklin cannot be named as standing first in this connection. Nearly two years before THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 301 his treaties were negotiated and signed, a step had been taken by another than Franklin, which led, directly and indirectly, to all that followed. The young Lafayette, then but nine teen years of age, a captain of the French dragoons, stationed at Metz, — at a dinner given by the commandant of the garrison to the Duke of Gloucester, a brother of George III. — happened to hear the tidings of our Declaration of Independence, which had reached the Duke that very morning from London. It formed the subject of animated and excited conversation, in which the enthusiastic young soldier took part. And before he had left the table, an inextinguishable spark had been struck and kindled in his breast, and his whole heart was on fire in the cause of American liberty. Regardless of the remonstrances of his friends, of the Ministry, and of the King himself, in spite of every discouragement aud obstacle, he soon tears himself away from a young and lovely wife, leaps on board a vessel which he had provided for himself, braves the perils of a voyage across the Atlantic, then swarming with cruisers, reaches Philadelphia by way of Charleston, South Carolina, and so wins at once the regard and confidence of the Continental Congress, — by his avowed desire to risk his life in our service, at his own expense, without pay or allowance of any sort, — that on the 31st of July, 1777, before he was yet quite twenty years of age, he was commissioned a major- general of the army of the United States. It is hardly too much to say that from that dinner at Metz, and that 31st day of July in Philadelphia, may be dated the train of influences and events which culminated, four years afterwards, in the surrender of Cornwallis to the Allied Forces of America and France. Presented to our great Virginian commander-in-chief, a few days only after his commission was voted by Congress, an intimacy, a friendship, an affection, grew up between them almost at sight, which might well-nigh recall the classical loves of Achilles and Patroclus, or of JEneas and Achates. Invited to become a member of his military family, and treated with the tenderness of a son, Lafayette is hence forth to be not only the beloved and trusted associate of Washington, but a living tie between his native and his 302 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF almost adopted country. Returning to France in January, 1779, after eighteen months of brave and valuable service here, — during which he had been wounded at Brandywine, had exhibited signal gallantry and skill while an indignant witness of Charles Lee's disgraceful, if not treacherous, mis conduct at Monmouth, and had received the thanks of Congress for important services in Rhode Island, — he was now in the way of appealing personally to the French Ministry to send an army and a fleet to our assistance. He did appeal; and the zeal and force of his arguments at length prevailed. Beau marchais had already done something for us in the way of money; and the amiable and well-meaning Count D'Estaing, at one time a prote'ge' of Voltaire, had, indeed, already made efforts in our behalf, with twelve ships of the line and three frigates. Poor Marie Antoinette must not be forgotten, as having prompted and procured that assistance. D'Estaing, however, owing in part to the want of wise counsel and co-operation, had accomplished little or nothing for us, and had left our shores to die at last by the guillotine. But now, by the advice and persuasion of Lafayette, the army of Rocham- beau, and afterwards the powerful fleet of the Count de Grasse, are to be sent over to join us; and the young Marquis — to whom alone the decision of the King was first communicated, as a state secret — hastens back with eager joy to announce the glad tidings to Washington, and to arrange with him for the reception and employment of the auxiliary forces. Accordingly, on the 10th of July, 1780, a squadron of ten ships of war, under the unfortunate Admiral de Ternay, brings Rochambeau with six thousand French troops into the harbor of Newport, with instructions " to act under Washington and live with the Americans as their brethren ; " and the American officers are forthwith desired by Washington, in general orders, "to wear white and black cockades as a symbol of affection for their Allies." Nearly a full year, however, was to elapse, before the rich fruits of that alliance were to be developed, — a year of the greatest discouragement and gloom for the American cause. The gallant but vainglorious Gates, whose head had been THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 303 turned by his success at Saratoga, had now failed disastrously at Camden ; and Cornwallis, elated by having vanquished the conqueror of Burgoyne, was instituting a campaign of terror in the Carolinas, with Tarleton and the young Lord Rawdon as the ministers of his rigorous severities, and was counting confidently on the speedy reduction of all the Southern Col onies. Our siege of Savannah had failed to recover it from the British. Charleston, too, had been forced to capitulate to Clinton. Not the steady conduct and courage of Lincoln ; not the resolute endurance and heroism of Greene, the great commander of the Southern Department ; not the skilful strat egy of Lafayette himself in foiling Cornwallis at so many turns and leading him into countless perplexities and pitfalls; not all the chivalry of Sumter and Marion and Pickens ; not the noble and generous example of his own Virginia, exposing and almost sacrificing herself for the relief and rescue of her Southern sisters; not even our well-won victories at King's Mountain under Campbell and Shelby, and at the Cowpens under the glorious Morgan, — could keep Washington from being disheartened and despondent in looking for any early termination of the cares and responsibilities which weighed upon him so heavily. The war, on our side, seemed languishing. The sinews of war were slowly and insufficiently supplied. All the untiring energy and practical wisdom and patriotic self-sacrifice of Robert Morris, the great Financier of the Revolution, without whom the campaign of 1781 could not have been carried along, hardly sufficed to keep our soldiers in food and clothing. Discontents were gathering and growing in the Army, and even its entire dissolution began to be seriously apprehended. A provision that all enlistments should be made to the end of the war, and entitling all officers, who should continue in service to that time, to half-pay for life, did much, for the moment, to reanimate the recruiting system and give new spirits and confidence to the officers. But it was soon found that, in many of the States, enlistments could only be effected for short terms ; while the half-pay for life was rendered odious to the people, and, before the war was over, had become the 304 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF subject of a commutation, which to this hour has been but partially fulfilled, and which calls loudly, even amid these Centennial rejoicings, for equitable consideration and adjust ment. The Confederation which was to unite the strength, wealth, and wisdom of all the Colonies " in a perpetual Union," which had been signed by so many of them three years before, and which now, on the 1st of March, 1781, has just received the tardy signature of the last of them, is but miserably ful filling its promise. Arsenals and magazines, field-equipage and means of transportation, and, above all, both men and money, are lamentably wanting for any vigorous offensive campaign. " Scarce any one of the States, " says Bancroft, "had as yet sent an eighth part of its quota into the field," and there was no power in the Confederate Congress to enforce its requisitions. In vain did the young Alexander Hamilton, at only twenty-three years of age, with a precocity which has no parallel but that of the younger Pitt, pour out lessons of political and financial wisdom from the camp, in which he is soon to display such conspicuous valor, arraigning the Cdn- federation as " neither fit for war nor peace." In vain had Washington written to George Mason, not long before, " Unless there be a material change both in our civil and military policy, it will be useless to contend much longer ; " following that letter with another, as late as the 9th of April, 1781, to Colonel John Laurens, who had gone on a special mission to Paris, in which he gave this most explicit warning : "If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our affairs, it will avail us nothing should she at tempt it hereafter. We are at this hour suspended in. the balance. . . . We cannot transport the provisions from the States in which they are assessed to the army, because we cannot pay the teamsters, who will no longer work for certi ficates. Our troops are approaching fast to nakedness, and we have nothing to clothe them with. Our hospitals are without medicine, and our sick without meat, except such as well men eat. All our public works are at a stand, and the artificers disbanding. In a word, we are at the end of our tether, and now or never our deliverance must come." THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 305 God's holy name be praised, deliverance was to come, and did come, now ! Any material change in our civil policy was, indeed, to await the action of civil rulers ; but Washington, himself and alone, could happiby control our military policy. And he did control it. Within forty days from the date of that emphatic letter to Laurens, — on the 18th of May, 1781, — Rochambeau, with the Marquis de Chastellux, leaves Newport for Wethers- field, in Connecticut, to hold a conference with Washington at his call. On the 6th of July, the union of the French troops with the American army is completely accomplished at Phillips- burg, ten miles only from the most advanced post of the British in New York, — the two armies united making an effective force of at least ten thousand men. On the 8th, Washington has a review in honor of the French troops, Rochambeau having reviewed the American troops on the 7th. On the 19th of August the united armies commence their march from Phillipsburg, and reach Philadelphia on the 3d of Sep tember, where, Congress being in session, the French army, as we are told in the journal of the gallant Count William de Deux-Ponts, "paid it the honors which the King had ordered us to pay." And in that journal, so curiously rescued from a Paris bookstall on one of the quays, in 1867, 1 the Count most humorously adds : " The thirteen members of Congress took off their thirteen hats at each salute of the flags and of the officers; and that is all I have seen that was respectful or remarkable." Well, that was surely enough. What more could they have done ? Virginia herself, even in her earlier — I will not presume to say her better — days of the strictest con struction, could not have desired or conceived a more significant and signal homage to the doctrine of States' Rights, than those thirteen hats so ludicrously lifted together at the successive salutes of each French officer and each French flag ! Thus far the destination of the Allied Armies was a secret even to themselves. Certainly, Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief at New York, was carefully kept in igno rance of Washington's plans, and was even made to believe 1 By Dr. Samuel A. Green, of Boston. 20 306 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF that on himself the double bolt was to fall. He was, indeed, so sorely outwitted and perplexed that he is found, at one moment, sending urgent orders to Cornwallis for large detach ments of his Southern army ; at another moment, promising to send substantial reinforcements to him ; and at last making up his mind, too late, to join Cornwallis in person, with as little delay as possible. Meantime, in the hope of creating a diversion, he despatches the infamous Arnold — whose treason had shocked the moral sense of mankind less than a year before, of whom Washington is at this moment writing that "the world is disappointed at not seeing him in gibbets," and who had just been recalled from an expedition in this very region, where he had burned and pillaged whatever he could lay his hands on, or set his torch to, along yonder James River — to prosecute his nefarious exploits at the North, and strike a parricidal blow upon his native State. Poor New London and the heroic Ledyard are now to pay the penalty of with standing the audacious traitor, by the burning of their town and the brutal massacre of the garrison and its commander. But no diversion or interruption of Washington's plans could be effected in that way, or in any other way ; and at length those plans are divulged and executed under circumstances which give assurance of success, and which cannot be recalled, even at this late day, without an irrepressible thrill of delight and gratitude. " Felix ille dies, f elix et dicitur annus, Felices, qui talem annum videre, diemque ! " ' Leaving Philadelphia, with the army, on the 5th of Septem ber, Washington meets an express near Chester, announcing the arrival, in Chesapeake Bay, of the Count de Grasse, with a fleet of twenty-eight ships of the line, and with three thousand five hundred additional French troops, under the command of the Marquis de St. Simon, who had already been landed at Jamestown, with orders to join the Marquis de Lafayette. " The joy," says the Count William de Deux-Ponts in his precious journal, " the joy which this welcome news produces among all the troops, and which penetrates General Washing- 1 " Ciria," attributed to Virgil. THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 307 ton and the Count de Rochambeau, is more easy to feel than to express." But, in a foot-note to that passage, he does express and describe it, in terms which cannot be spared and could not be surpassed, and which add a new and charming illustration of the emotional side of Washington's nature. " I have been equally surprised and touched," says the gallant Deux-Ponts, " at the true and pure joy of General Washington. Of a natu ral coldness and of a serious and noble approach, which in him is only true dignity, and which adorn so well the chief of a whole nation, his features, his physiognomy, his deportment, all were changed in an instant. He put aside his character as arbiter of North America, and contented himself for a moment with that of a citizen, happy at the good fortune of his country. A child, whose every wish had been gratified, would not have experienced a sensation more lively ; and I believe I am doing honor to the feelings of this rare man, in endeavoring to express all their ardor." Thanks to God, thanks to France, from all our hearts at this hour, for "this true and pure joy" which lightened the heart, and at once dispelled the anxieties, of our incomparable leader. It may be true that Washington seldom smiled after he had ac cepted the command of our Revolutionary army, but it is clear that on the 5th of September he not only smiled, but played the boy. The arrival of that magnificent French fleet, with so con siderable a reinforcement of French troops, gave him a relief and a rapture which no natural reserve or official dignity could restrain or conceal, and of which he gave an impulsive manifes tation by swinging his own chapeau in welcoming Rochambeau at the wharf. In Washington's exuberant joy we have a meas ure, which nothing else could supply, of the value and impor tance of the timely succors which awakened it. Thanks, thanks to France, and thanks to God, for vouchsafing to Wash ington at last that happy day, which his matchless fortitude and patriotism so richly deserved, and which, after so many trials and discouragements, he so greatly needed. " All now went merry," with him, "' as a marriage bell." Under the immediate influence of this joy, — which he had re turned for a few hours to Philadelphia to communicate in per- 308 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF son to Congress, where all the thirteen hats must have come off again with three times thirteen cheers, and while the allied armies are hurrying southward, — he makes a hasty trip with Colonel Humphreys to his beloved Mt. Vernon and his more beloved wife, — his first visit home since he left it for Cam bridge in '75. Rochambeau, with his suite, joins him thereon the 10th, and Chastellux and his aids on the 11th ; and there, with Mrs. Washington, he dispenses, for two days, "a princely hospitality " to his foreign guests. But the 13th finds them all on their way to rejoin the army at Williamsburg, where they arrive on the 15th, " to the great joy of the troops and the peo ple," and where they dine with the Marquis de St. Simon. On the 18th, Washington and Rochambeau, with Knox and Chas tellux and Du Portail, and with two of Washington's aids, — Col onel Cobb, of Massachusetts, and Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., of Connecticut, — embark on the "Princess Charlotte" for a visit to the French fleet ; and early the next morning they are greeted with " the grand sight of thirty-two ships of the line," — for De Barras from Newport had joined De Grasse, with his four ships, magnanimously waiving his own seniority in rank, — " in Lynn Haven Bay, just under the point of Cape Henry." They go on board the Admiral's ship, — the famous Ville de Paris, of one hundred and four guns, — for a visit of ceremony and consultation, and, at their departure, the Count de Grasse mans the yards of the whole fleet and fires salutes from all the ships. A few days more are spent at Williams burg on their return, where they find General Lincoln already arrived with a part of the troops from the North, having hurried them, as Washington besought him, " on the wings of speed ; " and where the word is soon given, " On, on to York and Gloucester! " Washington takes his share of the exposure of this march, and the night of the 28th of September finds him, with all his military family, sleeping in an open field, within two miles of Yorktown, without any other covering, as the journal of one of his aids states, " than the canopy of the heavens, and the small spreading branches of a tree," which, the writer predicts, " will probably be rendered venerable from this circumstance for a THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 309 length of time to come." Yes, venerable, or certainly memo rable, forever, if it were known to be in existence. You will all agree with me, my friends, that if that tree, which over shadowed Washington sleeping in the open air on his way to Yorktown were standing to-day, — if it had escaped the neces sities and casualties of the siege, and were not cut down for the abattis of a redoubt, or for camp-fires and cooking-fires, long ago, — if it could anyhow be found and identified in yonder Beech Wood, or Locust Grove, or Carter's Grove, • — no Wel lington Beech, or Napoleon Willow, no Milton or even Shaks peare Mulberry, no oak of William the Conqueror at Windsor, or of Henri IV. at Fontainebleau, nor even those historic trees which gave refuge to the fugitive Charles II. , or furnished a hiding-place for the Charter which he granted to Connecticut on his Restoration, would be so precious and so hallowed in all American eyes and hearts to the latest generation.1 Everything now hurries, almost with the rush of a Niagara cataract, to the grand fall of Arbitrary Power in America. Lord Cornwallis had taken post here at Yorktown as early as the 4th of August, after being foiled so often by " that boj'," as he called Lafayette, whose Virginia campaign of four months was the most effective preparation for all that was to follow, and who, with singular foresight, perceived at once that his lordship was now fairly entrapped, and wrote to Washington, as early as the 21st of August, that "the British army must be forced to surrender." Day by day, night by night, that predic tion presses forward to its fulfilment. The 1st of October finds our engineers reconnoitring the position and works of the enemy. The 2d witnesses the gallantry of the Duke de Lauzun and his legion, in driving back Tarleton, whose raids had so long been the terror of Virginia and the Carolinas. On the 6th, the Allied Armies broke ground for their first parallel, and pro ceeded to mount their batteries on the 7th and 8th. On the 9th, two batteries were opened, — Washington himself applying the torch to the first gun ; and on the 10th, three or four more were in play, — " silencing the enemy's works, and making," says the little diary of Colonel Cobb, " most noble music." 1 Washington Irving says it was a Mulberry. 310 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF On the 11th, the indefatigable Baron Steuben was breaking the ground for our second parallel, within less than four hundred yards of the enemy, which was finished the next morning, and more batteries were mounted on the 13th and 14th. But the great achievement of the siege still awaits its accom plishment. Two formidable British advanced redoubts are blocking the way to any further approach, and they must be stormed. The allied troops divide the danger and the glory between them, and emulate each other in the assault. One of these redoubts is assigned to the French grenadiers and chas seurs, under the general command of the Baron de Viomesnil. The other is assigned to the American Light infantry, under the general command of Lafayette. But the detail of special leaders to conduct the two assaults remains to be arranged. Viomesnil readily designates, as the leader of the French storm ing party, the brave Count William, who, though he came off from his victory wounded, counts it " the happiest day of his life " A question arises as to the American party, which is soon solved by the impetuous but just demand of our young Alexander Hamilton to lead it. And lead it he did, with an intrepidity, a heroism, and a dash, unsurpassed in the whole history of the war. The French troops had the largest redoubt to assail, and were obliged to pause a little for the regular sappers and miners to sweep away the abattis. But Hamilton rushed on to the front of his redoubt with his right wing, led by Colonel Gimat and seconded by Major Nicholas Fish, heedless of all impediments, overleaping palisades and abattis and scaling the parapets, while the chivalrous John Laurens was taking the garrison in reverse. Both redoubts were soon captured ; and these bril liant actions virtually sealed the fate of Cornwallis. "A small and precipitate sortie," as Washington calls it, was made by the British on the following evening, resulting in nothing ; and the next day a vain attempt to evacuate their works, and to escape by crossing over to Gloucester, was defeated by a violent and, for us, most providential storm of rain and wind, — of which the elements favored us with a Centennial reminiscence last night. Meantime, not less than a hundred pieces of our heavy ordnance were in continual operation, and " the whole penin- THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 311 sula trembled under the incessant thunderings of our infernal machines." Would that no machines more truly " infernal " had brought disgrace on any part of our land in these latter days! But these brought victory at that day. A suspension of hostilities, to arrange terms of capitulation, was proposed by Cornwallis on the 17th; the 18th was occupied at Moore's House in settling those terms ; and on the 19th, the articles were signed by which the garrisons of York and Gloucester, together with all the officers and seamen of the British ships in the Chesapeake, " surrender themselves Prisoners of War to the Combined Forces of America and France." And now, Fellow-Citizens, there follows a scene than which nothing more unique and picturesque has ever been witnessed on this continent, or anywhere else beneath the sun. Art has essayed in vain to depict it. Trumbull — whose brother, not he himself, was an eye-witness of it as one of Washington's Aids — has done his best with it ; and his picture in the Rotunda of the Capitol is full of interest and value, giving the portraits of the officers present, as carefully taken by himself from the originals. John Francis Renault, too — assistant secretary of the Count de Grasse, and an engineer of the French Forces — has left us a contemporaneous engraved sketch of it, which has quite as many elements of fancy as of truth. In this engraving all the officers are on, foot, while Trumbull has rightly put most of them on horseback. Meantime, Renault not only gives Cornwallis surrendering his sword in person, though we all know that he did not leave his quarters on that occasion, but looks forward a fuU century and exhibits in the background the Column which ought to have been here long ago, but of which the corner-stone was laid only yesterday ! Standing here, however, on the very spot, to-day, with the records of history in our hands, — as summed up in the brilliant volumes of Bancroft and Irving, or scattered through the writ ings of Sparks, or spread in detail over the " Field Book " of Lossing, or on the more recent pages of Carrington's " Battles of the Revolution " and Austin Stevens's American Historical Magazine, not forgetting the precious journals aud diaries of Thacher and Trumbull and Cobb, of Deux-Ponts and the 312 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF Abbe" Robin, and of Washington himself, nor that of the hum bler Anspach Sergeant in the " Life of Steuben," — we require no aid of art, or even of imagination, to call back, in all its varied and most impressive details, a scene, which as we dip our brush to paint it now, at the end of a hundred years, seems almost like a tale of Fairy-land. We see the grand French Army drawn up for upwards of a mile in battle array, ten full regiments, including a Legion of cavalry with a Corps of Royal Engineers, — Bourbonnais and Soissonais, Royal Deux-Ponts, Saintonge and Dillon, who have come from Newport, — with the Touraine, the Auxonne, the Agenais, and the Gatinais, soon to win back the name of the Royal Auvergne, who had just landed from the fleet. They are all in their unsoiled uniforms of snowy white, with their distinguishing collars and lappels of yellow, and violet, and crimson, and green, and pink, with the Fleurs de Lis proudly emblazoned on their white silk regimental standards, with glit tering stars and badges on their officers' breasts, and with dazzling gold and silver laced liveries on their private servants, — the timbrel, with its associations and tones of triumph, then " a delightful novelty," lending unaccustomed brilliancy to the music of their bands ! Opposite, and face to face, to that splendid line, we see our own war-worn American Army, — the regulars, if we had anything which could be called regulars, in front, clad in the dear old Continental uniform, still " in passable condition ; " a New York brigade ; a Maryland brigade ; the Pennsylvania Line; the light companies made up from New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts ; a Rhode Island and New Jersey, battalion with two companies from Delaware; the Canadian Volunteers; a park of Artillery, with sappers and miners ; and with a large mass of patriotic Virginia militia, collected and commanded by the admirable Governor Nelson. Not quite all the Colonies, perhaps, were represented in force, as they had been at Germantown, but hardly any of them were without some representation, individual if not collective, — many of them in simple, homespun, every-day wear, many of their dresses bearing witness to the long, hard service they THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 313 had seen, — coats out at the elbow, shoes out at the toe, and in some cases no coats, no shoes, at all. But the Stars and Stripes, which had been raised first at Saratoga, floated proudly above their heads, and no color-blindness on that day mistook their tints, misinterpreted their teachings, or failed to recognize the union they betokened and the glory they foreshadowed ! Between these two lines of the Allied Forces, so strikingly and strangely contrasted, the British Army, in their rich scarlet coats, freshly distributed from supplies which must otherwise have been delivered up as spoils to the victors, and with their Anspach, and Hessian, and " Von Bose " auxiliaries in blue, are now seen filing, — their muskets at shoulder, " their colors cased, " and their drums beating " a British or German march, " — passing on to the field assigned them for giving up their standards and grounding their arms, and then filing back again to their quarters. There is a tradition that their bands played an old English air, " The World is turning upside down," as they well might have done, and that the American fifes and drums struck up Yankee Doodle. But all such traditions are untrustworthy, and no such incidents are needed to give the most vivid effect and lifelike reaHty to that imposing picture of a hundred years ago. We would not, if we could, my friends, recall at this hour anything which should even seem like casting reproach or indignity upon the armies or the rulers of old Mother England at that day, or at any day. She did what any other nation would have done, our own not excepted, to hold fast her possessions, and to avert so serious a disruption of her Empire. And if she did it unwisely, unjustly, tyrannically, as so many of her great statesmen at the time declared, and as so many of her later historians and ministers have admitted, we may well remember that the principles and methods of free govern ment were but little understood by Kings or Cabinets of that age. How unjust to carry back and apply the opinions and principles of a later to a former century ! Who doubts that good old George III. spoke from his conscience as well as from his heart, when he said so touchingly to John Adams, on 314 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF receiving him as the first American Minister at the Court of St. James, " I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed my people"? We are here to revive no animosities resulting from the War of the Revolution, or from any other war, remote or recent ; — rather to bury and drown them all, deeper than ever plummet sounded. For all that is grand and glorious in the career and example of Great Britain, cer tainly, we can entertain nothing but respect and admiration ; while I hazard little in saying, that for the continued Hfe and welfare of her illustrious sovereign, whom neither Anne nor Elizabeth will outshine in history, the American heart beats as warmly this day as if no Yorktown had ever occurred, and no Independence had ever separated us from her imperial dominion. And we are ready to say, and do say, " God save the Queen," as sincerely and earnestly as she herself and her ministers and her people have said, " God save the President," in those recent hours of his agony ! There is a tradition that when shouts of triumph were beginning to resound, as the scene which I have 60 feebly portrayed went on, Washington himself restrained and re buked them, exclaiming, " Let posterity cheer for us ! " The phrase does not altogether sound to me like his. But my late accomplished friend, Lord Stanhope, in his valuable history of that period, bears testimony to a similar incident. " Yet Washington," he says, " with his usual lofty spirit, had no desire to aggravate the anguish and humiliation of honorable foes. On the contrary, he bade all spectators keep aloof from the ceremony, and suppressed all public signs of exultation." And let us not fail to remember that England paid us the compliment of sending over the bravest and best of her sol diers and officers, to this and every other field of the American War. Howe, and Burgoyne, and Clinton, and CornwaUis were all foemen worthy of any steel. It certainly would not have detracted from the permanent fame of CornwaUis, — it would have added to it rather, — could he have summoned up nerve enough to march manfully at the head of his troops, and surrender his sword to Washington in person. Yielding THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 315 at last to superior force, — for the Allied Army was double his own, — and without a cloud upon his courage, there was nothing for him to shrink from in such an act. But unstrung, as he evidently was, by the wear and tear of a long suspense, and by the disappointing and vexatious delays of Sir Henry Clinton, — whose promised reinforcements reached the Chesa peake four or five days too late, — the plea of ill-health was readily accepted. We may well leave it to Horace Walpole to call him "a renegade," — as he does, — for having obeyed his Sovereign by coming over to conquer America, after being one of a very few members in the House of Lords to enter a protest against some of the arbitrary acts or declarations which gave occasion to the war. We may leave it to Walpole, too, to tell the story of his having vowed, before he came, that " he would never pile up his arms like Burgoyne." The remembrance of such a vow, if he ever made it, would naturally have embarrassed and confused him at Yorktown, — more especially if he recalled the vow while dating his original proposal to surrender — as he did — on the very anniversary of Burgoyne's surrender! But no malicious gossip of Straw berry Hill must prevent our recognition of Lord Cornwallis as a brave and .accomplished officer, the very ablest of all the British Generals in the American War, destined to the Gov ernorship of Bengal a few years afterwards, and later to the Governor-Generalship of all India, where he was not only to receive the jewelled sword of Tippoo Saib, after the great victory at Seringapatam, but was to win the higher honor of being called "the first honest and incorruptible governor India ever saw, after whose example hardly any governor has dared to contemplate corruption. Other governors," it is added, " were conquerors, so was he ; but his victories in the field, and they were brilliant, are dim beside his victory over corruption." Nor is it a much less enviable distinction for him, that, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, while it was the scene of a rebellion, he pacified the Irish by conciliatory and moderate measures. We should all rejoice, I am sure, if a similar tribute should be won, as it seems so likely to be, by the present Lord Lieutenant, under the lead of the eloquent and accomplished Gladstone. 316 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF There were other British officers here destined to great dis tinction. Among them was Lieutenant-Colonel Abercromby, who led the little sortie on the night before the Capitulation was tendered, who had commanded a regiment during the whole War, who succeeded Cornwallis as Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India, and died, as Sir Robert Abercromby, the oldest General in the service, in 1827. Among them, too, was the young Lord Rawdon, who had been conspicuous at Bunker Hill, when hardly of age, and who had played a distinguished part at Camden. He was here only as an enforced spectator, however, — having been brought to the Chesapeake as a prisoner of war by De Grasse, who had captured him a few weeks before on board a Charleston packet. He went home at last to be Earl of Moira and Marquis of Hast ings, and, like Cornwallis, Governor-General of India. His name may well be recalled, as adding another to the remark able number of notabilities of all countries, who were more or less associated with Yorktown. And, indeed, but for the delays of Sir Henry Clinton, the young Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., then a midshipman in the British fleet here, might, perchance, have added something even of Royal dignity to the scene. But I must not forget the second in command on this field, who led up the British forces to the formal surrender, bringing the sword of Cornwallis in his hand, — the gallant and genial Brigadier Charles O'Hara ; a man of singular elegance and per sonal beauty ; a strict and thorough disciplinarian ; the special friend of that General Conway, afterwards Field-Marshal Con way, whose efforts against the Stamp Act, and to put an end to the War, secured him not only the respect of all America, but even a portrait in Faneuil Hall, — whichj alas, the British soldiers destroyed or carried away at the evacuation of Boston. O'Hara went home to be wounded at the siege of Toulon in 1792, and to die ten years later as Governor of Gibraltar. It was of him that it is said in " Cyril Thornton," — a favorite novel half a century ago, — by an author who knew him well, " His appearance was of that striking cast, which, once seen, is not easily forgotten. General O'Hara was the most perfect THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 317 specimen I ever saw of the soldier and courtier of the last age. Notwithstanding the strictness of discipline which he scrupu lously enforced, no officer could be more universally popular. The honors of the table were done by his staff, and the General was in nothing distinguished from those around him, except by being undoubtedly the gayest and most agreeable person in the company." It may not be less interesting to recall the fact, that he was on the point of being married, in 1795, to Miss Mary Berry, — Horace Walpole's Miss Berry, — so celebrated in the social history of London, who lived to be ninety, and who, forty-eight years after the engagement was broken, re opened the packet of letters which had passed between them, and left a touching record, which is in her published Memoirs, of " the disappointed hopes and blighted affections that had deepened the natural vein of sadness in her character." What ever misunderstandings or mistakes may have broken off the match, to the great sorrow of them both, it is certainly nowhere suggested that the lady thought any the worse of her lover, because he had been the dignified and graceful bearer of Corn- wallis's sword to Washington. This gay, agreeable person dined here with Washington at head-quarters, on the very day of the Surrender ; and Col. Trumbull makes special note in his Diary that " he was very social and easy." But I turn at once from anything sentimental or romantic to others of the real, substantial actors of the day. And there could surely be nothing more real, or more substantial, than the American General now deputed by Washington to receive the sword from O'Hara's hand, and to conduct him and the British host to the field for laying down their arms, — - the sturdy, stal wart Benjamin Lincoln, of Massachusetts, the senior Ameri can Major-General on the ground, nearly fifty years of age and of a plump and portly figure, who had conducted the Northern Army to this place, had occupied the right of the line at Wormeley's Creek, during the siege, and who is now instructed to mete out to the surrendering forces the same precise measure of consideration and honor which Clinton and Cornwallis had meted out to him, at his recent capitulation of Charleston. A few months afterwards he was elected by Congress the first 318 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF Secretary of War of the United States, and had the privilege, in that capacity, of presenting to Washington the two British Yorktown standards assigned to him by Congress, and of re ceiving from Washington, in reply, a most affectionate acknowl edgment of " particular obligations for able and friendly counsel in the Cabinet and vigor in the field." Lincoln deserved it all for patriotic and persevering service during the whole Revolu tion. Nor will Massachusetts ever forget the invaluable aid which he rendered to Governor Bowdoin in the suppression of Shays' Rebellion in 1786-87. And here, too, from Massachusetts, — for I will finish the roll of my own State before passing to others, — was Henry Knox, Brigadier-General in command of the American Artil lery, which he had organized, and conducted from the siege of Boston to that of Yorktown, as stanch and as responsive as any one of the very field-pieces, whether six or twelve or eighteen or twenty-four pounders, which he tended and trained up in the way they should go, as his own children, — who, as Chastellux bears witness, " seldom left the batteries, inces santly directing the artillery, and often himself pointing the mortars ; " whose energy and activity, in providing heavy can non for this siege, led Washington to say of him, in the report to Congress which secured his promotion to a Major-General ship, that " the resources of his genius supplied the deficit of means." He, also, was afterwards Secretary of War of the United States, succeeding Lincoln in 1785, and serving in the cabinet of Washington until his resignation in 1794. And here, under Knox, as a Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, was the brave and devoted Ebenezer Stevens, like Knox a Bos ton boy, a son of Liberty, one of the Tea-party ; whose services, here and elsewhere, were of the highest value, in connection with those of Colonel Lamb of New York, and Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington of Virginia, and Major Bauman ; who lived to super intend the fortifications on Governor's Island, in New York Harbor in 1800 ; and, having fixed his residence in that city, to command the Artillery of the State in the War of 1812. James Thacher, of old Plymouth, was here, as a surgeon, — under Washington's favorite surgeon, James Craik, of Virginia, THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 319 — the author of an interesting " Military Journal " of the Rev olution, and among whose papers I have seen a rough sketch of the Surrender. Colonel Joseph Vose was here, sometime at the head of the first Massachusetts Continental Infantry, but now in Lafayette's corps. And David Cobb was here, in the envi able capacity of an Aid to Washington, who kept a little Diary on the field, from which I have already quoted ; who lived to hold both military and judicial office in Massachusetts, and who will always be associated with that brave saying of his, during Shays' Rebellion, — "I will sit as a Judge or die as a General." Colonel Timothy Pickering was here also, who from his first bold resistance to the British Troops at the Salem draw bridge in '75, before Bunker Hill or even Concord and Lexing ton, down to the end of the War, did memorable military service ; who was with Washington in his famous retreat across the Jerseys, and was Adjutant-General at Brandywine and German town. He was here as Quarter-Master General of the American Army, and was afterwards Secretary of War and Secretary of State in Washington's Cabinet. But let me hasten to the representatives of other States. New Hampshire was represented here by Henry Dearborn, a brave and devoted officer, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, afterwards Secretary of War to Jefferson and Commander-in- Chief of the army, but here as Assistant Quarter-Master General to Pickering; and by Nicholas Gilman, afterwards a member of the Continental Congress, at Philadelphia, and for many years a Representative and Senator in Congress under the Con stitution, but who now, as Deputy Adjutant-General, received from Lord Cornwallis, to whom he was sent for the purpose by Washington, the return of exactly 7,050 men surrendered. But New Hampshire may claim the distinction of having sent to this field its most distinguished victim, the lamented young Alexander Scammell, who, though a native of Massachu setts, and a graduate of Harvard, was here in immediate com mand of New Hampshire troops ; who, surprised while out with a reconnoitring party, in an early stage of the siege, was mor tally and basely wounded by his captors ; and of whose death on the 6th of September, it is said by Henry Lee of Virginia, in 320 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF his " Memoirs of the War " : " This was the severest blow ex perienced by the allied army, throughout the siege ; not an offi cer in our army surpassed in personal worth and professional ability this experienced soldier." Connecticut was represented here by Lieutenant-Colonel Ebenezer Huntington and Major John Palsgrave Wyllis, and especially by Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., a Secretary and Aide-de-Camp of Washington, and the son of the great Revolu tionary War Governor, Jonathan Trumbull, — and by Colonel David Humphreys, another and most valued member of Washington's military family, to whose care the captured standards of the surrendering Army were consigned, who received a sword from Congress in acknowledgment of his fidelity and ability, and to whom Washington presented the epaulettes worn by himself throughout the war, — now among the treasures of the Massachusetts Historical Society, — afterwards a minister to Portugal and to Spain ; one of the earliest importers of merino sheep ; a miscellaneous and some what prolific poet ; and who commanded the Militia of Con necticut in the War of 1812. Rhode Island was represented here by Colonel Jeremiah Olney at the head of one of her regiments, and b}' his distant relative, the gallant Captain Stephen Olney, who was the first to mount the parapet and form his company in Hamilton's redoubt on the 14th. New Jersey was represented here by Elias Dayton, Francis Barber, and Matthias Ogden, at the head of her regiments of Continental infantry, as well as by Colonel Aaron Ogden, after wards United States Senator and Governor of the State. Pennsylvania was represented here by General Peter Muhlenberg, — a relative of the first Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, — who had thrown off his gown as a Lutheran preacher, in '76, in Virginia, " to organ ize out of his several congregations one of the most perfect battalions in the army ; " by Adjutant-General Edward Hand and Colonel Walter Stewart ; by Bro'dhead, and Moylan, and the two Butlers, at the head of her regiments, and Parr at the head of her Rifle Battalion ; by Arthur St. Clair, born in Scotland, THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 321 grandson of an Earl of Rosslyn, who had been with Amherst at Louisburgh, and with Wolfe at Quebec, who is here as a volun teer in Washington's military family, afterwards to be President of the Continental Congress ; and, pre-eminently, by An thony Wayne, the hero of Stony Point, " Mad Anthony " as he was sometimes called, here in command of the Pennsylvania line, • and who died, in 1796, as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army. Maryland was represented here by General Mordecai Gist, by Adams and Woolford and Moore and Roxburgh, in com mand of her regiments and battalions, and more especially by Colonel Tench Tilghman, a favorite Aid of Washington, who was deputed by him to bear the tidings of the surrender to Congress. New York was represented here by James Clinton, a brother of Vice-President George Clinton, — whose statue is now in the rotunda of the Capitol, — and the father of the eminent De Witt Clinton ; who, himself, having served as a Captain in the old French War, and as a colonel under the lamented Mont gomery in 1775, was now, as Major-General, in command of New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island troops, with Van Schaiek, and Van Dyck, and Van Cortlandt as his Colonels. But New York had other representatives on this field, lower in grade, but one of them, at least, second to none of her soldiers or citizens, either in immediate estimation or in future emi nence. Alexander Hamilton was here, I need hardly re peat, commanding a battalion of Lafayette's light infantry, and who by his heroism at the redoubt, as we have seen, had been one of the most conspicuous contributors to the result of which he was now a witness. Destined to so early and brilliant a ca reer in the Convention which framed the Constitution, as one of the principal writers of the " Federalist," and as the organ izer of our financial system in the Cabinet of Washington, he is a bright particular star, with no lessening ray, on the field of Yorktown, never to be lost sight of in the history of our coun try. Nor must his friend and fellow officer of the Hght infan try battalion, — Major Nicholas Fish, — fail to be mentioned, who shared with him the perils of the storming party, who 21 322 the hundredth anniversary of lived a pure, patriotic, and useful life, and who gave the name of Hamilton to a son, whose recent discharge of the duties of Secretary of State has added fresh distinction to the name. I cannot pass from the name of Hamilton without recalling at once that heroic representative of South Carolina who was here with him, and who was hardly second in interest — to every American eye, certainly — to any other figure on* this field: — the young John Laurens, often called " the Bayard of the American Revolution," — son of Henry Laurens, once President of the Continental Congress, but at this moment a prisoner in the Tower of London, of which, by a striking coin cidence, Lord Cornwallis was the titular Constable. After hav ing served on the staff of Washington, — who " loved him as a son," and who said of him that " he had not a fault that he could discover, unless it was an intrepidity bordering on rash ness," — he had now just returned from a confidential and suc cessful mission to France, for which he had received the thanks of Congress. He was with Hamilton in storming the redoubt, and had the signal distinction of being one of the two commis sioners, with the Vicomte de Noailles, the brother-in-law of Lafayette, to arrange the terms of the surrender, at Moore's House, with Colonel Dundas and Colonel Ross of the British Army. His untimely death, at only twenty-eight years of age, within a year afterwards, in a petty skirmish in South Carolina, while serving under General Greene, produced a shock through out the whole country. Roland, at Roncesvalles, just a thou sand years before, did not leave a more fragrant and enduring memory. It has been well said of him, that " of all the youth ful soldiers of the Revolution, there is not one upon whose story the recollections of his contemporaries have more fondly dwelt." There was no one of his period for whom the highest honors of our land might have been more safely predicted ; no one in whose ear it might have been more confidently whis pered a hundred years ago to-day : " Si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris ! " His father nobly said, on hearing of his death, just after his own release from the Tower, " I thank God I had a son who dared to die for his country." the surrender of lord cornwallis. 323 The soldiers of South Carolina, at the moment of this siege, had enough to do at home in defence of their own firesides and families, — of which the Battle Flag of their gallant William Washington, borne by him at the Cowpens and at Eutaw, and ordered by the Governor of the State to be brought here by the old Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, is a touching and precious reminder. But one such representative of the State on this field as John Laurens, is enough to secure her a proud and distinguished place in the memories of this anniversary. Nor was the Canada of that day without a worthy repre sentative here in the person of Colonel Moses Hazen, who had been wounded under Wolfe on the heights of Quebec, who rendered valuable service to the end of our war, and was promoted to be a Brigadier-General of our army, but was here in command of a regiment of Canadians, recruited by himself, sometimes called " Congress's Own " and sometimes "Hazen's Own." And now, Fellow-Citizens, let me by no means proceed further without naming, with every degree of emphasis and dis tinction, that sterling soldier and thorough disciplinarian, who had been an aide-de-camp of Frederick the Great, and served at the celebrated siege of Schweidnitz in Prussia, but who joined the American Army in 1777, and drilled, and disciplined, and fairly reorganized it, so untiringly and so effectively, at Valley Forge, — Major-General Baron von Steuben. He was here in command of the combined division of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania troops, and as Inspector-General of the Army of the United States. It feU to his lot to receive the first overture of capitulation while on his tour of duty in the trenches, and he resolutely refused to leave those trenches till the British flag was struck. The very last letter which Washington wrote as Commander-in-Chief, dated on the very day of his resignation at Annapolis, was a letter of compliment and gratitude to Steuben ; and to no one did Washington or the American Army owe more than they owed to him. All honor to the memory of the brave old German soldier from every heart and lip here gathered, and a cordial welcome to the 324 the hundredth anniversary of representatives of his family who have accepted the invitation of the United States to assist at this Commemoration ! And in the same connection may be justly named Brigadier- General Chevalier Du Port ail, who commanded the engineers on this field, and who, on Washington's special recommenda tion, was promoted by Congress, for his services at the siege, to be a Major-General of the United States Army. These, I believe, were the only two distinguished foreign officers, — apart entirely from Lafayette and the French auxil iary officers — who were present at Yorktown. Pulaski had fallen two years before, at Savannah ; De Kalb a year before, at Camden ; while Kosciusko was still at the south with Gen eral Greene, where he succeeded the lamented Laurens ; — all three of them brave, heroic men, whose names can never be omitted from the roll of honor of the American Revolution. Such, Fellow-Citizens, were the principal officers from other States, and other parts of the country and of the world, who were gathered on this Virginia field, in immediate asso ciation with the American Line. Opposite to them, in that splendid French Line, stood the gallant strangers who had been so generously sent to our aid. Here, at the head of them, was the veteran Count de Rochambeau, now in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and in the thirty-ninth year of his military service, who had long been known and noted for his bravery in the wars of the Continent. Cool, prudent, reserved, conciliatory, no one could have been more perfectly suited to the delicate duties which devolved upon him in co-operating with an army of a different land and language, and no one could have discharged those duties more faithfully. Perhaps his very ignorance of the English tongue was a positive safeguard and advantage for him : it certainly saved him from hearing or saying any rash or foolish things. Washington bore witness, in the letter bidding him farewell, to the high sense he entertained of the invaluable services he had rendered "by the constant attention he had paid to the interest of the American cause, by the exact order and discipline of the corps under his command, and by the surrender of lord cornwallis. 325 his readiness at all times to give facility to every measure to which the force of the combined armies was competent." Congress presented to him two of the captured cannon, with suitable inscriptions and devices, — which long adorned the family chateau in the VendSme, — in testimony of the illus trious part he had played here.1 His name on the still-delayed Column — one of only three names in the originally prescribed inscription — will soon be engraved where all the world can read it. Returning home at the close of our war, he received the highest honors from his sovereign ; was Governor success ively of Picardy and Alsace ; commanded 'the French Army of the North ; and in 1791 was made a Marshal of France. Narrowly escaping the guillotine of Robespierre, he lived to receive the cordon of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon, and died in 1807, at eighty-two years of age. We welcome the presence of his representative, the Marquis de Rochambeau, at this festival, and of Madame la Marquise, here happily at my side, and offer them the cordial recognition which is due to their name and rank. Here, in equal rank aud honor with Rochambeau, stood the Count de Grasse, in the fifty-eighth year of his age ; who was associated with our War for Independence hardly more than a month, but who during that momentous month did enough to secure our lasting respect and gratitude ; whose services, as Lieutenant-General and Admiral of the Naval Army and Fleet of France, in yonder bay, were second in importance to none in the whole siege ; to whom Washington did not hesitate to write, the very day after the event: "The surrender of York, from which so great glory and advantage are derived to the Allies, and the honor of which belongs to your Excellency." The sympathies of all his companions here were deeply stirred, when, losing his famous flagship and a large part of his fleet on his way home, he reached England as a prisoner of Admiral Rodney, to be released only after our Treaty of Peace was signed ; and, though he had vindicated his conduct before a court-martial demanded by himself, to die in retirement after a few years, without having regained 1 See page 326 THE hundredth anniversary of the favor of a sovereign who could pardon anything and everything but defeat. Honor this day to the memory of the brave Count de Grasse, whose name, as Washington wrote to Rochambeau on bearing of his death, " will be long deserv edly dear to this country ! " Here, second in command of the French Line, was that worthy and excellent General, the Baron de Viomesnil, who brought a gallant brother, the Viscount, with him, and who himself returned home " to be killed before the last rampart of Constitutional Royalty," on the 10th of August, 1792, Here, in hardly •inferior rank, was Major-General the Marquis de Chastellux; genial, brilliant, accomplished, the Journal of whose tour in America — indifferently translated and scan dalously annotated by an English adventurer — is full of the liveliest interest ; who returned home to be one of the immortal Forty of the French Academy, welcomed by a discourse of Buffon, on Taste ; and, better still, to receive one of the very few humorous and playful letters which Washington ever wrote, — bantering him "on his catching that terrible con tagion, domestic felicity," which, alas ! he only lived to enjoy for six years. Washington had before written to him, soon after his return home : " I can truly say, that never in my Hfe have I parted with a man to whom my soul clave more sin cerely than it did to you." The Admiral Count de Barras was here, — the senior naval officer of France at the siege, but who generously waived his seniority ; who was privileged, however, to sign the Articles of Capitulation for himself and the Count de Grasse ; who was fortunate enough to escape any share in the defeat by Rodney ; who reached home in season to be promoted, and then to die before the outbreak of a Revolution in which his nephew, of the same name, was famous as a Jacobin and regicide, and afterwards as the head of the Directory. The magnificent Duke de Lauzun was here, conspicuous by his tall hussar cap and plume, — afterwards Duke de Biron, — a gay Lothario in the salon, but dauntless in the field, who, at the head of his legion, put Tarleton himself to flight; but who re turned home to be, in 1793, one of the victims of the guillotine. the surrender of lord cornwallis. 327 Two of the Laval-Montmorencvs were here : the Marquis, at the head of the Bourbonnais regiment ; and his young son, the Viscount Matthieu, afterwards the Duke de Mont morency, — an intimate friend of Madame de Stael, long a resident at Coppet, and who was eminently distinguished, in later years, for his accomplishments and his philanthropy. The young Count Axel de Fersen was here, — a Swedish nobleman, an Aid to Rochambeau, " the Adonis of the camp ; " who returned to France to become a suitor of Madame de Stael and a favorite of Marie Antoinette ; — to whose zeal in aiding the flight of the King and Queen, with ".a glass-coach and a new berline," himself on the box, Carlyle devotes an early and humorous chapter of his " French Revolution," — and who was killed at last by a mob in Stockholm, in 1810, on an unfounded charge of having been privy to the murder of a popular prince. The brave young Marquis de la Rouerie was here, under the modest title of Colonel Armand, who, after good service in our cause for three or four years, had sailed for France in Feb ruary, 1781, but had returned in September in season to be at the siege, and was a volunteer at the capture of one of the re doubts. Before the war. was over he was made a Brigadier General on the special recommendation of Washington. He went home at last to be a prisoner in the Bastille, and to die, of fever or of poison, in a forest to which he had fled from Danton and Robespierre. The Marquis de St. Simon, we know, was here, in command of the whole splendid corps, just landed from the fleet : called by Rochambeau " one of the bravest men that lived ; " wounded while commanding in the French trenches, but who insisted on being carried to the assault at the head of his troops ; who, after our war was ended, entered the service of Spain, and, after various fortunes, died a Captain-General of that Kingdom. But a second Marquis de St. Simon was here also, of still greater historic notoriety, — a young soldier of twenty-one, who had. been a pupil of D'Alembert ; who lived to be the pro poser to the Viceroy of Mexico of a canal to unite the Atlantic 328 the hundredth anniversary of and the Pacific ; and to be the author of a scheme for the fun damental reconstruction of society ; — the founder of St. Simon- ianism, with Comte for a time as one of his disciples, and whose published works fill not less than twenty volumes. And here was the Count Matthieu Dumas, another of Rochambeau's aids, who bore a conspicuous part at one of the redoubts, and was one of the first to enter it, who returned home to be a member of the Assembly and a peer of France ; whose last military service was with Napoleon at Waterloo, and who, in 1830, gave active assistance to Lafayette in placing Louis Philippe on the throne, — dying at eighty-four years of age. Count Charles de Lameth was here, too, as an Adjutant General, and was severely wounded at the storming of the re doubts ; who afterwards served iu the French army of the North till the memorable 10th of August, 1792 ; who shared for a time the cruel imprisonment of Lafayette at Olmutz, became a Deputy at the Restoration, and was living as late as 1832. But how can I attempt to portray the numerous, I had almost said the numberless, French officers of high name and family who were gathered on this field a hundred years ago, and who went home to so many strange fortunes, and not a few of them to such sad fates ? It would require no small share of the gen ius which old Homer displayed in his wonderful catalogue of the ships and forces which came to the siege of Troy, when Pope translates him as demanding of the Muses " A thousand tongues, A throat of brass, and adamantine lungs. Time certainly Would fail me were I to give more than the names of General de Choisy and the Marquis de Rostaing ; of the Marquis and Count de Deux-Ponts ; of the Counts de Cus- tine and de Charlus, d'Audichamp and de Dillon, de l'Estrade, de St. Maime, and d'Olonne; of the Viscounts de Noailles and de Pondeux; of Admiral Destouches and Commodore the Count de Bougainville ; of General Desandrouins and Colonel the Viscount d'Aboville ; of Colonels de Querenet and Gimat, and Major Galvan ; of M. de Menonville and the Marquis de the surrender of lord cornwallis. 329 Vauban ; of M. de Beville and M. Blanchard ; of Chevalier de la Vallette, M. de Bressolles, and M. de Broglie ; of Chevalier, afterwards the Baron, Durand, a General of the French Army at the Restoration ; of M. de Montesquieu, son of the author of " L'Esprit des Lois ; " of M. de Mirabeau, brother of the match less orator ; of M. de Berthier, afterwards one of Napoleon's Chiefs of Staff, a Marshal of France, and Prince of Wagram. I must have omitted many who ought to be named in this enu meration ; but enough have certainly been given to show what a cloud of witnesses and actors were here, whose names have since been celebrated in the annals of their own country, and which deserve a grateful mention in ours to-day. That famous " Field of the Cloth of Gold," two centuries and a half before, when Francis I. and Henry VIII. met, in the valley of Ardres, to arrange an ominous family alliance, had hardly a more impos ing representation of the nobles and notables of either land. And now all the officers I have mentioned, and many more, French and American, are assembled, with the troops to which they are attached, on this hallowed spot, to be met, and welcomed, and fraternized with, by at least thirty-five hundred Virginian Militia-men, — some of them under the command of the brave and excellent General Weedon, some of them under Generals Edward Stevens and Robert Lawson, some of them under Colonel Gibson and Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington of the Artillery, with St. George Tucker, afterwards distinguished as an editor of Blackstone and as a Judge, serving here as a Major ; but all recognizing, as their Commander-in-Chief, the patriotic and noble-hearted Thomas Nelson, then Governor of the State. A finer or firmer spirit did not breathe than that of Thomas Nelson, Junior, as he was then called, — who had served in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Inde pendence ; who had been one of the largest contributors to the relief of Boston during her sufferings from the Port Bill; who had commanded the State forces of Virginia from 1777 ; who had pledged his personal credit to raise a loan in 1780, and had advanced money from his own pocket to pay two Virginia reg iments sent to the South for the support of General Greene ; 330 THE hundredth anniversary of who now, as the Allied Armies approached Yorktown, had been active and untiring, beyond all other men, in preparing supplies of every sort to support and sustain them ; and who pointed the first gun at his own dwelling-house in the town, supposing it to be occupied by Cornwallis or some of his offi cers, and offered a reward of five guineas for every sheU which should be fired into it. Still another gallant Virginian was present at the siege, — no other than Henry Lee, — "Light Horse Harry," as he is called, — who describes the scene as an eye-witness in his " Memoirs of the War ; " but he, with his le gion, was attached to General Greene's army further South, and here, perhaps, only accidentally and as a spectator. Thomas Nelson, I repeat, was peculiarly and pre-eminently the Repre sentative of local Virginia on the day we commemorate; and his name must ever have a proud and leading place among the most precious memories which cluster around his native Yorktown. I said of local Virginia, — for there was another representa tive of the Old Dominion here, greater than Nelson, greater than any other who could be named, present or absent, living or dead. I do not forget that, while America gave Washington to the world, Virginia gave him to America, and that it is her unshared privilege to recognize and claim, as her son, him whom the whole Country acknowledges and reveres as its Father ! Behold him here at the head of the American Line, presiding, with modest but majestic dignity, over this whole splendid scene of the Surrender I He is now in his*fiftieth year, and has gone through anxieties and trials enough of late to have filled out the full measure of three score and ten. That winter at Valley Forge, those cabals of Conway, that mutiny in Pennsyl vania and New Jersey, the defection of Charles Lee, the treason of Benedict Arnold, — with all the distressing responsibilities in which it involved him, — the insufficiency of his supplies of men, money, food, and clothing, must have left deep traces on his countenance as well as in his heart. But he is the same in comparable man as when, at only twenty-one, he was sent as a the surrender of lord cornwallis. 331 Commissioner from Governor Dinwiddie to demand of the French forces their authority for invading the King's domin ions, or, as when, at twenty-three, he was the only mounted officer who escaped the French bullets at Braddock's defeat. And here he stands foremost, among their Dukes and Mar quises and Counts and Barons, receiving the surrender of the standards under which he had then fought against France, as a British colonial officer ! From the siege of Boston, where he obtained his first tri umph, to this crowning siege of Yorktown, — more than six long years, — he has been one and the same : bearing, beyond all others, the burden and heat of our struggle for indepen dence ; advising, directing, commanding ; enduring depriva tions and even injustices without a murmur, and witnessing the successes of others without jealousy, — while no such signal victory had yet been vouchsafed to his own immediate forces as could have satisfied a heart ambitious only for himself. But his ambition was only for his Country, and he stands here at last, with representatives of all the States around him, and with representatives of almost all the great Nations of the world as witnesses, to receive, on the Soil of his own native and beloved Virginia, the surpassing reward of his fortitude and patriotism. He has many great functions still to fulfil, — in presiding over the Convention to frame the Constitution, and in giving prac tical interpretation and construction to that Constitution, by eight years of the first Presidency. But, with this event, the first glorious chapter of his career is closed, and he will soon be found at Annapolis in the sublime attitude of voluntarily re signing to Congress the plenary commission he had received from them, and retiring to private life. Virginians ! you hold his dust as the most precious posses sion of your soil, and would not let it go even to the massive mausoleum prepared for it beneath the Capitol at Washington, which no other dust can ever fill. Oh, let his memory, his principles, his example, be ever as sacredly and jealously guarded in your hearts ! No second Washington will ever be yours, or ever be ours. Of no one but him could it have been justly said : — 332 THE hundredth anniversary of All discord ceases at his name, — All ranks contend to swell'his fame.1 The highest and most coveted title which any man can reach, — not in our own land only, or in our own age only, but in all lands and in all ages, — will still and ever be, that " he ap proached nearest to Washington ; " and in every exigency which may arise, the test questions of patriotism will be, "What would Washington have said?" " What would Wash ington have done?" The eloquent Lamartine exclaimed, as he so fearlessly confronted the Red Flag of Communism, thirty- three years ago, in Paris : " The Want of France is a Washing ton." Our own country knows how to sympathize with such a want. " While the Coliseum stands Rome shall stand," was the familiar proverb of antiquity. We associate the durability of our free institutions with no material structure. Columns and obelisks, statues and monuments, consecrated halls and stately capitols, may crumble and disappear ; the little St. John's Church iu Virginia, where Patrick Henry exclaimed, " Give me Liberty or give me Death," the old State House in Boston, where James Otis " breathed into this nation the breath of life," — the Old South, Faneuil Hall, Carpenter's Hall and the Hall of Independence at Philadelphia, one after another, may be sacrificed to the improvement of a thoroughfare, or fall before the inexorable elements ; — but when the character and example of Washington shall have lost their hold upon the hearts of the people, when his precepts shall be discarded and his principles disowned and rejected, we may then begin to fear, if not to despair, for the perpetuity of our Union and of our Freedom. We were all Virginians once, when the Pilgrim Fathers signed their little Compact in the cabin of the May flower, and spoke of Plymouth and Massachusetts as " these northern parts of Virginia." We will all be Virginians again, in revering the Father of his Country, in recognizing him as worthy to be first forever in all American hearts, and in thank ing God, that, after so many delays and discouragements and trials, he was privileged to find on his native soil, a hundred years ago to-day, the scene of his most memorable triumph. 1 " Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit Ordinibus." — Claud. the surrender of lord cornwallis. 333 And here, close at the side of Washington, behold the only other figure which remains to be specially designated on the field I have attempted to depict ! He stands proudly in the American line, in which he had so long and gallantly served ; but he stands as a representative of more than one land, — as a living link between two : — The beloved Lafayette ! He must have felt at that moment, — he certainly had a right to feel, — that his fondest day-dream had been verified, his most ardent anticipations fulfilled. To the immediate consummation which he was now witnessing his own compatriots had contributed the indispensable element of success, and for their co-operation he had lent the whole strength of his influence and his entrea ties, and had led the way, at every cost and sacrifice, by his personal example. He had foreseen the result many months before, and thanked Washington in one of his letters, " for the most beautiful prospect which I may ever behold." A long and eventful career is still before him ; for he is but twenty- four years old, — his twenty-fourth birthday having occurred during the progress of the siege. He hastens home to give the name of Virginia to the daughter born after his return. He is destined to command armies on his native soil. He is destined to be the subject of cruel imprisonment, and to excite the sympa thies of the civilized world. He is to be the arbiter of dynas ties, and lead up "a citizen king "to the throne of France. He is to revisit in triumph the land he has aided, to be received with more than regal honors, and to return home to die at last with the respect and affection of all good men. But nowhere will he stand more proudly than here, on this field of York- town, by the side of his revered Washington, exulting in the legitimate fruits of his own untiring efforts. To no scene of his life did he recur with more enthusiasm ; to no place did he come, during his last visit to our country, with more eagerness and even ecstasy. I have seen his own private letter to his friend, President Monroe, written at Yorktown on the 20th of October, 1824, when, in company with the Governor of Vir ginia, and Chief Justice Marshall, and Colonel Huger of South Carolina, — one of the two only surviving field officers of his American Light Infantry, — he had spent the forty-third Anni- 334 THE hundredth anniversary of versary of the Surrender on this spot, and had been the sub ject of that brilliant ceremonial reception. It was from the lips of James Madison, not many years afterwards, and but a few years before his death, under his own roof at Moutpelier, that I learned to think and speak of Lafayette, not merely as an ar dent lover of liberty, a bosom friend of Washington, and a brave and disinterested volunteer for American Independence, — leading the way, as a pioneer, for France to follow, — but as a man of eminent practical ability, and as great, in all true senses of that term, as he was chivalrous and generous and good. Honor to his memory this day from every American heart and tongue, and a cordial welcome to M. Bureaux de Pusy, M. de Corcelle, and to all others of his relatives who have accepted the invitation of our Government, and whose presence on this occasion is hailed with such pecuHar satisfac tion and delight ! Said I not justly, Fellow-Citizens, at the outset of this Address, that our earliest and our latest acknowledgments to day are due to France, for the joyous consummation which we are assembled to commemorate ? Said I not justly, that — whatever confidence we may feel now, or whatever assurance there was then, that the ultimate result of the American strug gle, whether aided or unaided, could have been nothing less than Independence — our immediate success in the arduous conflict was owing, under God, to the assistance of that gene rous and gallant nation? Never, never, can the fact be forgotten in the history of American Hberty, nor ever can the obliga tions which were thus incurred be lost from our most grateful recollections. Nor do I think that France herself has a page in all her annals which she would be less willing to obliterate, — least of all in these recent days, when new ties of sympathy have been created between us as the two great sister Republics of the world. Certainly, if Lafayette himself could have looked forward from this field of Yorktown and foreseen that, when this Centennial Anniversary should be celebrated by the Amer ican people, his own beloved country would be represented here by the relatives of Rochambeau, and by his own descendants, — coming over as citizens of a French Republic, — he would THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 335 have felt that all his heroic efforts and sacrifices had not been made for the Hberty of America only. But he did foresee it, as through a glass darkly, it is true, for many years, but with a clearer and more confident eye before he died. Even at the moment of the Surrender, he wrote, — " Humanity has gained its suit : Liberty will never more be without an asylum." But at Bunker Hill, in 1825, during his triumphal tour, as the guest of the nation, he gave emphatic expression to his faith, as well as his hope, when, after toasting " The resistance to oppression which has already enfranchised the American Hemisphere," he added, " The next half-century's Jubilee- Toast shall be, To enfranchised Europe ! " We do not forget that it was from a Bourbon Monarch we received this aid. We do not forget of what dynasty the vigi lant and far-sighted Vergennes, and the accomplished but some what wavering Necker, were Ministers, — together with the aged Maurepas, over whose death-bed the tidings of this Sur render " threw a halo." We do not forget that it was in the very uppermost ranks of French society that an enthusiasm for our contest for freedom first caught and kindled. We do not forget that it was from the highest nobility of France that so many of her brave soldiers came over to help us, and went home, alas ! to reap such a harvest of horrors for themselves. We would not breathe a word or thought to-day in disparage ment of those who were the immediate instruments of our suc cess on this field. The sad fate of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and of so many of the gay young officers who were gathered here around Washington and Rochambeau, a century ago, cannot be recalled by Americans without emotion, as they reflect that, by the very act of helping us to the establishment of republican institutions, they were preparing the way for dethronement, exile, or death on the scaffold, for themselves. But it is to France that our acknowledgments are due, — to France, then an Absolute Monarchy, afterwards an Empire, then a Constitutional Monarchy, again an Empire, — but always France: Toujours la France! She has many glories to boast of in her history, glories in art and science, glories in lit erature and philosophy, glories in peace and war, brilliant 336 THE HUNDREDTH anniversary of statesmen and orators and authors, heroic soldiers and captains and conquerors on land and on sea ; and even in the later pages of that history, amid all her recent reverses, the endurance and fortitude of her marvellously mercurial people — rising superior to what seemed a crushing downfall — have won the admira tion and sympathy of the world. When I witnessed personally, by a happy chance, the removal of the last scaffolding from that superb column in the Place Vend6me, restored in all its original beauty as a priceless monument of history, I could not but feel that the glories of France were safe. When we all witnessed, from afar, the magic promptness with which, at the call of her late admirable President, Thiers, and almost as at the touch of Midas, those millions of gold came pouring into the public coffers to provide for the immediate payment of her ransom from Germany, we all could not fail to feel, that she had a reserved power to reinstate herself, as she has done, among the foremost nations of the world. Yet as her children, and her children's children for a thousand years, and till time shall be no more, shall review her varied and most impressive annals, since Gaul was conquered by Julius Caesar, down through the days of Clovis and Charlemagne, through all her dynasties, — Merovingian, Carlovingian, and Capetian, Valois, Bourbon, Bonaparte, or Orleans, — their eyes will still rest, and still be riveted with just pride, on the brief but eventful story of this 19th of October, 1781. And as they read that story, her classical scholars will recall the account which the great Roman historian, Livy, has left us, of the splendid ceremonial at the celebration of the Isthmian games, when Titus Quinc- tius, the Roman Proconsul and General, having subdued Philip of Macedon, and given freedom and independence to Greece, from lip to lip the saying ran, and resounded over Corinth, — in words which might almost have been written prophetically, as well as historically, — " That there is a nation in the world, which, at its own expense, with its own la bor, AND AT ITS OWN RISK, WAGED WAR FOR THE LIB ERTY OF OTHERS : AND THIS NOT MERELY FOR CONTIGUOUS STATES, OR FOR NEAR NEIGHBORS, OR FOR COUNTRIES THAT MADE PART OF THE SAME CONTINENT; BUT THAT THEY THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 337 EVEN CROSSED THE SEAS FOR THE PURPOSE, SO THAT NO UNLAWFUL POWER SHOULD SUBSIST ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE EARTH, BUT THAT JUSTICE, RIGHT, AND LAW SHOULD EVERYWHERE HAVE SOVEREIGN SWAY I"1 More than twenty centuries divide the two records. Twenty centuries more may hardly include their like again. The two interventions, take them for all in all, — their incidents, their objects, their results, — may, perchance, stand unique forever on the respective pages of ancient and modern history. Our own Republic, certainly, with the farewell warning of Wash ington in memory against all entangling alliances, and with its jealous adherence to the Monroe doctrine, is neither in the way of reciprocating such aid nor of ever invoking it again. Not the less gracefully and fervently, however, may we acknowl edge and celebrate the noble act of France, and offer to her, as we do this day, in the name of our whole Country, and in the name of American Liberty, a renewed assurance of the gratitude which is so justly her due, and which no lapse of time can ever extinguish in our hearts. Our commemorative Col umn has lingered, indeed, with almost all the other monuments and statues ordered by our Government in those days of narrow resources and inadequate art. All the more significantly and imposingly it will now rise, — not in mere fulfilment of the res olution of the old Continental Congress, but by the solemn de cree of fifty millions of living people, with all the accumulated arrears of gratitude of intervening generations. " Major, quo serior, gloria, ubi invidia secessit."2 It will stand like some stately century plant, whose blossoms attract the gaze and ad miration of observers all the more strongly and surely, because they have taken a hundred years for their development ! Welcome, welcome, then, to the Representatives of France, — of her President, of her Army, and Navy and all her Depart ments, — His Excellency M. Outrey, Colonel Lichtenstein, Gen- 1 " Esse aliquam in terris gentem, quae sua impensa, suo labore ac periculo, bella gerat pro libertate aliorum : nee hoc finitimis, aut propinquae vicinitatis hominibus, aut terris Continent! junctis prsestet : maria trajiciat ; ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, potentissima sint." Livy, lib. XXXIII. 2 Seneca to Lucilius, Letter LXXIX. 22 338 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF eral Boulanger, Captain de CuverviUe, and the others, who have come, at the invitation of our Government, to witness some of the results of what Frenchmen did for us, and helped us to do for our selves, so long ago ; and may peace and good will be perpetual between the land of Lafayette and the land of Washington ! With the event which we are commemorating, the War of the American Revolution was practically closed. A year and a half still remained for General Greene to display his vigi lance and valor at the South, and for General Heath and others to control and administer our posts at the North, while our Commissioners in Paris were exhausting all the arts of diplomacy in arranging the formal Treaty of Independence and Peace with Great Britain. Not until the 18th of April, 1783, was Washington able to issue his memorable Order for the Cessation of Hostilities, — a day which, as he said in that order, — referring to the first blood at Lexington and Concord, — " completes the eighth year of the war." But the real con summation had been accomplished on this field. The first blow for independence dates from Massachusetts. The Dec laration of Independence dates from Philadelphia. But the crowning and clinching victory is forever associated with Vir ginia, and throws unfading lustre upon these surrounding shores and plains. And thus, by a striking coincidence, the final, triumphal scene of our great revolutionary drama was reserved for the very same shores and surroundings on which the earliest American colonization was attempted, and at last successfully accomplished, under the inspiration of Sir Walter Raleigh, a century and a half before. Jamestown and York- town ! How much of the most impressive history of our country is condensed in the names of those two neighboring Virginia localities, — at this day, indeed, but Httle more than names, but always to have a place in the same fond remem brance with Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill ! And now, Fellow-Countrymen, as we look back at that his tory at this hour, and see at what a great price our fathers purchased for us the freedom we are so richly enjoying, — at THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 339 what a cost of toil and treasure and blood these Republican institutions of ours have been founded and built up, — can there fail to come home to each one of our hearts a deeper sense of our responsibility, as a people and as individuals, for upholding, advancing, and transmitting them unimpaired to our posterity? The century which has rolled away since the scene we commemorate needs no review on this occasion. It has made its mark upon our land, and written its own history on all our memories. The immense increase of our population, the vast expansion of our territory, the countless productions of our industrj'-, the measureless mass of our crops, the magical re duction of our debt, the marvellous prosperity of our people, be yond that of all other nations of the earth, — all these are things not to boast of, as if they were of our own accomplishment, but to recognize and thank God for with all our hearts. Nor can we of this generation stand here to-day, on this Virginia soil, beneath this October sun, without an irrepressible thrill of exultation and thanksgiving, that we are here as brothers, from the St. John's to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, — all conflicts long over, and all causes for conflicts at an end, — fifty millions of people, all free and equal, and all recognizing one Country, one Constitution, one Flag, to be cherished in every heart, to be defended by every hand ! But it is of our future, not of the past, or even of the pres ent, that I would speak, in the brief remnant of this Address. It is not what we have been, or what we have done, or even what we are, that weighs on our thoughts at this hour, even to the point of oppressiveness ; but what, what are we to be ? What is to be the character of a second century of independ ence for America? What are to be its issues for ourselves? What are to be its influences on mankind at large? And what can we do, all powerless as we are to pierce the clouds which rest upon the future, or to penetrate the councils of an over ruling Providence, — what can we do to secure these glorious institutions of ours from decline and fall, that other generations may enjoy what we now enjoy, and that our liberty may indeed be " a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest," — a "Liberty enlightening the world " ? 340 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF We cannot, if we would, conceal from others or from our selves, that all has not gone well with us of late, and that there has been, and still is, in many minds, an anxious, if not a fear ful, looking forward to what is to come. I do not forget that other lands have not been exempt from simultaneous and even similar troubles with our own, and that a contagion of crime and tumult seems to have been sweeping over both hemi spheres alike. We need not, certainly, make too much of our own discreditable deadlocks at Washington or at Albany, while the Prime Minister of England is heard lamenting that " the greatest and noblest of all representative assemblies in the world is in some degree disabled, in some degree dishonored by the abuse of rules intended for the defence of liberty." But these have not been the worst signs of our times. It was strik ingly said, by a great moral and x-eligious writer of old England in the last century, in relation to his own land, that " between the period of national honor and complete degeneracy there is usually an interval of national vanity, during which examples of virtue are recounted and admired without being imitated." Oh, let us beware lest we should be approaching such an inter val in our own history ! No one will deny that there is enough of recounting and extolling the great examples of virtue and valor and patriotism which have been left us by our fathers. Voices of admiration and eulogy resound throughout the land. Statues and monuments and obelisks are rising at every corner. There can hardly be too many of them. But vice and crime, peculation and embezzlement, bribery, corruption, profligacy, and even assassination, alas ! stalk our streets and stare up at such memorials unrebuked and unabashed. And are there not symptoms of malarias, in some of our high places, more pest ilent than any that ever emanated from Potomac or even Pon tine marshes, infecting our whole civil service, and tainting the very life-blood of the nation? Let me not exaggerate our dangers, or dash the full joy of this occasion, by suggesting too strongly that there may be poi son in our cup. But I must be pardoned, as one of a past gen eration, for dealing with old-fashioned counsels in old-fashioned phrases. Profound dissertations on the nature of government, THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 341 metaphysical speculations on the true theory of civil liberty, scientific dissections of the machinery of our own political sys tem, — even were I capable of them, — would be as inappro priate as they would be worthless. Our reliance for the preser vation of Republican liberty can only be on the commonplace principles, and common-sense maxims, which lie within the comprehension of the children in our schools, or of the simplest and least cultured man or woman who wields a hammer or who plies a needle. The fear of the Lord must still and ever be the beginning of our wisdom, and obedience to His commandments the rule of our lives. Crime must not go unpunished, and vice must be stigmatized and rebuked as vice. Human life must be held sacred, and lawless violence and bloodshed cease to be regarded as a redress or remedy for anything. It is not by assassinating Emperors or Presidents that the welfare of mankind or the lib erty of the people is to be promoted. Such acts ought to be as execrable in the sight of man as they are in the sight of God. The only one-man power this country has had to tremble at, is the power of some wretched miscreant, seeking spoils but find ing none, with a pistol in his hand, to neutralize and nullify the votes of millions, and put a beloved President to torture and to death. The rights of the humblest, as well as of the highest, must be respected and enforced. Labor, in all its departments, must be justly remunerated and elevated, and the true dignity of labor recognized. The poor must be wisely visited and lib erally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime. The great duties of individual citizenship must be conscientiously discharged. Peace, order, and the good old virtues of honesty, charity, tem perance, and industry, must be cultivated and reverenced. The purity of private life must be cherished and guarded, and lux ury and extravagance discouraged. Polygamy must cease to pollute our land. Profligate literature must be scorned and left unpurchased. Public opinion must be refined, purified, strengthened, and rendered prevailing and imperative, by the best thoughts and best words which the press, the platform, and the pulpit can pour forth. The pen and the tongue alike must 342 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF be exercised under a sense of moral responsibility. In a word, the less of government we have by formal laws and statutes, the more we need, and the more we must have, of individual self- government. For, my friends, there must be government of some sort, and it must be exercised and enforced. Cities and towns must make provision for all that relates to cities and towns. States, which still and always have duties, which still and always have rights, must provide for all that justly relates to States. And the general government of the Union must exercise its para mount authority over everything of domestic or foreign interest which comes within the sphere of its constitutional control. Civil service must be reformed. Elections and appointments, as Burke said, must be made " as to a sacred function and not as to a pitiful job." The elective franchise must be everywhere protected. Public credit must be maintained in city, state, and nation, at every sacrifice. Neither a gold nor a silver currency, nor both conjoined, — neither mono-metalisms nor bi-metalisms, — can form any substitute for the honesty and good faith which are the basis of an enduring public credit. Our independent judicial system, with all the rights and duties of the jury-box, must be respected and upheld. The army and the navy must be adequately maintained for the defence of our coasts and commerce and boundaries, and the militia not neglected for do mestic exigencies ; .but Peace, at home and abroad, must still and ever be the aim and end of all our preparations for war. Above all, the Union, — the Union, " in any event," as Wash ington said, — must be preserved ! But let me add at once that, with a view to all these ends, and as the indispensable means of promoting and securing them all, Universal Education, without distinction of race, must be encouraged, aided, and enforced. The elective franchise can never be taken away from any of those to whom it has once been granted, but we can and must make education co-extensive with the elective franchise ; and it must be done without delay, as a measure of self-defence, and with the general co-operation of the authorities and of the people of the whole country. One half of our country, during the last ten or fifteen years, has THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 343 been opened for the first time to the introduction and establish ment of free common schools, and there is not wealth enough at present in that region to provide for this great necessity. " Two millions of children without the means of instruction," was the estimate of the late Dr. Sears, in 1879. Every year brings another instalment of brutal ignorance to the poUs, to be the subject of cajolement, deception, corruption, or intimida tion. Here, here, is our greatest danger for the future. The words of our late lamented President, in his Inaugural, come to us to-day with redoubled emphasis from that unclosed grave on the Lake : " All the constitutional power of the Nation and of the States, and all the volunteer forces of the People, should be summoned to meet this danger by the saving influence of universal education." No drought or flood or conflagration, no succession of droughts or floods or conflagrations, can be so dis astrous to our material wealth, as this periodical influx, these annual inundations, of ignorance, to our moral and political welfare. Every year, every day, of delay, increases the diffi culty of meeting the danger. Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the Elective Franchise, alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free ! I know whereof I speak ; and have certainly given time enough, and thought enough, to the subject, for fourteen years past, in my relations to a great Southern Trust, to learn, at least, what that Trust has done, what it can do, and what it cannot do. It has been, thus far, as a voice crying in the wil derness, — calling on the people of the South to undertake the great work for themselves, and preparing the way for its suc cessful prosecution. It may be looked back upon, one of these days, if not now, as the little leaven which has leavened the whole lump. But the whole lump must be kneaded and moulded and worked over, with unceasing activity and energy, by every town, vfllage, and district, for itself, or there will be 344 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF no sufficient bread for the hungry and famished masses. And there must be aids and appropriations and endowments, by Cities and States, and by the Nation at large, through its public lands, if in no other way, and to an amount, compared with which the gift of George Peabody — munificent as it was for an individual benefactor — is but as the small dust of the balance. It is itself one of the great rights of a free people, to be edu cated and trained up from childhood to that ability to govern themselves which is the largest element in republican self- government, and without which all self-government must be a failure and a farce, here and everywhere ! It is indeed prima rily a right of our children, and they are not able to enforce and vindicate it for themselves. But let us beware of subjecting ourselves to the ineffable reproach of robbing the children of their bread, and casting it before dogs, by wasting untold mil lions on corrupt or extravagant projects, and starving our com mon schools. The whole field of the Union is now open to education, and the whole field of the Union must be occupied. Free Governments must stand or fall with Free Schools. These and these alone can supply the firm foundation ; and that foundation must, at this very moment, be extended and strengthened,. and rendered immovable and indestructible, like that of the gigantic obelisk at Washington, if the boasted fabric of liberty, for which this victory cleared the ground, is not to/ settle and totter and crumble ! Tell me not that I am indulging in truisms. I know they are truisms; but they are better — a thousand-fold better — than Nihilisms or Communisms or Fenianisms, or any of the other isms which are making such headway in supplanting them. No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, no glit tering abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom, — not even science, with all its marvellous inventions and discoveries, — can help us much in sustaining this Republic. Still less can any Godless theories of Creation, or any infidel attempts to rule out the Redeemer from his rightful Supremacy in our hearts, afford us any hope of security. That way lies despair ! Commonplace truths, old familiar teachings, the Ten Com- THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 345 mandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Farewell Address of Washington, honesty, virtue, patriotism, universal education, are what the world most needs in these days, and our own part of the world as much as any other part. Without these we are lost. With these, and with the blessing of God, which is sure to follow them, a second century of our Republic may be confi dently looked forward to ; and those who shall gather on this field, a hundred years hence, shall then exult, as we are now exulting, in the continued enjoyment of the free institutions bequeathed to us by our fathers, and in honoring the memories of those who have sustained them ! It is a matter of record, Fellow-Citizens, that on the day after the Surrender here had taken place, Washington issued his General Order congratulating the Army on the glorious event. That order concluded as follows : " Divine service is to be performed to-morrow in the several brigades and divisions. The Commander-in-Chief recommends that the troops not on duty should universally attend, with the seriousness of deport ment and gratitude of heart which the recognition of such reit erated and astonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us." Accordingly, on Sunday, the 21st of October, the various divisions were drawn up in the field to offer " to the Lord of Hosts, the God of Battles," says the journalist Thacher, "their grateful homage for the preservation of our lives through the dangers of the siege, and for the important event with which Divine Providence has seen fit to crown our efforts." The joyful tidings reached Philadelphia by the hand of Col onel Tilghman, at midnight of the 23d, and the next morning were formally communicated to Congress, when resolutions were passed, on motion of Mr. Randolph of Virginia, of which the very first was as follows : " Resolved, That Congress will at two o'clock this day go in procession to the Dutch Lutheran Church and return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the Allied Arms of the United States and France with success, by the surrender of the whole British Army under the command of the Earl of Cornwallis." Two days only intervened when, on the 26th, a Solemn Proclamation was issued by Congress, acknowledging " the 346 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF influence of Divine Providence in raising up for us a powerful Ally;" and praying God "to protect and prosper that illus trious Ally, and to favor our united exertions for the speedy establishment of a safe, honorable, and lasting peace." In France the tidings were received with a similar recogni tion of the Divine Aid; and orders were sent out at once by the King for a solemn Te Deum of thanksgiving by his troops in America. The King himself wrote a special letter to Ro chambeau, signed by his own hand, and dated at Versailles, 26th of November, 1781, concluding with these impressive words : " In calling these events to the mind, and acknowl edging how much the abilities of General Washington, your talents, those of the general officers employed under the orders of you both, and the valor of the troops, have rendered this campaign glorious, my chief design is to inspire the hearts of all as well as mine with the deepest gratitude towards the Author of all prosperity ; and in the intention of addressing my supplication to Him for the continuation of His divine pro tection, I have written to the Archbishops and Bishops of my Kingdom to cause Te Deum to be sung in the churches of their Dioceses ; and I address this letter to inform you that I desire it may be likewise sung in the town or camp where you may be with the corps of troops the command of which has been intrusted to you, and that you would give orders that the ceremony be performed with all the public rejoicings used in similar cases, in which I beg of God to keep you in His holy protection." All France, as well as all America, was thus ringing and re sounding with the praise of God for our great deliverance. " Not unto us, not unto us," was the emotion and the utter ance of the whole American people, and of all who sympathized with the American people at that day ; and " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the praise," must still be the emotion and the utterance of us all, as we contemplate the com pleted century of Republican Hberty which that day ushered in. Commemorative columns and splendid ceremonials are fit trib utes of gratitude to the mortal or immortal men of our own land and of other lands who were the instruments of achieving THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 347 our independence. But " Glory to God in the Highest " must swell up from every true heart and lip at this hour for what Washington well called "the reiterated and astonishing inter positions " which not only carried us through the Revolution tri umphantly, but which, during the century which has succeeded it, have overruled so wonderfully, to our permanent welfare, events which to human eyes seemed fatal to our prosperity and peace ! The great French historian and statesman, Guizot, has reminded us, in that popular history of his own land to which he devoted the last labors of his life, that in 1776, before the Declaration of Independence, " the Virginians had adopted, at the close of their proclamations, the proudly significant phrase, ' God save the Liberties of America ! ' " Let that Vir ginia phrase be the fervent phrase of us all in all time to come ; and let the legend we have stamped upon our coin, and in serted in the very eagle's beak, be indelibly impressed on every patriotic heart, — "In God we trust." Fellow-Citizens of the United States, — Citizens of the old Thirteen of the Revolution, and Citizens of the new Twenty- five, whose stars are now glittering wilh no inferior lustre in our glorious galaxy, — yes, and Citizens of the still other States which I dare not attempt to number, but which are destined at no distant period to be evolved from our imperial Texas and Territories, — I hail you all as brothers to-day, and call upon you all, as you advance in successive generations, to stand fast in the faith of the Fathers, and to uphold and maintain un impaired the matchless institutions which are now ours ! "You are the advanced guard of the human race ; you have the fu ture of the world," said Madame de Stael to a distinguished American, recalling with pride what France had done for us at Yorktown. Let us lift ourselves to a full sense of such a re sponsibility for the progress of Freedom, in other lands as well as in our own. It is not ours to intervene for the redress of grievances, or for the establishment of Independence, elsewhere, as France did here, with fleets and armies. But we can, and must, intervene — and we are intervening, daily and hourly, for better or worse — by the influence and the force of our ex- 348 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF ample. Next, certainly, to promoting the greatest good of the greatest number at home, the supreme mission of our Country is to hold up before the eyes of all mankind a practical, well- regulated, successful system of Free, Constitutional Govern ment, purely administered and loyally supported, — giving as surance, and furnishing proof, that true Liberty is not incom patible with the maintenance of Order, with obedience to Law, and with a lofty standard of political and social Virtue. Every failure here, every degree of failure here, through insubordina tion or discoid, through demoralization, corruption, or crime, throws back the cause of freedom everywhere, and presents our country as a warning, instead of as an encouragement, to the liberal tendencies of other governments and other lands. We cannot escape from the responsibility of this great Inter vention of American Example ; and it involves nothing less than the hope, or the despair, of the Ages ! Let us strive, then, to aid and advance the Liberty of the world, in the only legiti mate way in our power, by patriotic fidelity and devotion in upholding, illustrating, and adorning our own Free Institutions. " Spartam nactus es : Hanc exorna ! " There is no limit to our prosperity and welfare, if we are true to those institutions. We have nothing now to fear except from ourselves. There is no boundary line for separating us, without cordons of custom houses, and garrisons of standing armies, which would change the whole character of those institutions. We are One by the configuration of nature and by the strong impress of art, — in extricably intertwined by the lay of our land, the run of our rivers, the chain of our lakes, and the iron net-work of our crossing and recrossing and ever multiplying and still advanc ing tracks of trade and travel. We are One by the memories of our fathers. We are One by the hopes of our children. We are One by a Constitution and a Union which have not only survived the shock of Foreign and of Civil War, but have stood the abeyance of almost all administration, while the whole peo ple were waiting breathless, in alternate hope and fear, for the issues of an execrable crime. We are One — bound together afresh — by the electric chords of sympathy and sorrow, vibrat ing and thrilling, day by day of the livelong summer, through THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. 349 every one of our hearts, for our basely wounded and bravely suffering President, — bringing us all down on our knees to gether in common supplications for his life, and involving us all at last in a common flood of grief at his death ! I cannot forget that as I left President Garfield, after a friendly visit at the Executive Mansion last May, his parting words to me were, " Yes, I shall be with you at Yorktown." We all miss him and mourn him here to-day ; and not only the rulers and people of all nations have united with us in paying homage to his memory, but Nature herself, I had almost said, has seemed to sympathize in our sorrow, — giving us ashes for beauty, and parched and leaden leaves on all our forests, instead of their wonted autumn glories of crimson and gold ! But I dare not linger, amid festive scenes like these, on that great affliction, which has added, indeed, " another hallowed name to the his torical inheritance of our Republic," but which has thrown a pall of deepest tragedy upon the falling curtain of our first cen tury. Oh, let not its influences be lost upon us for the century to come, but let this very field, consecrated heretofore by a great surrender of foreign foes, be hereafter associated, also, with the nobler surrender to each other of all our old sectional animosities and prejudices ; and let us be One, henceforth and always, in mutual regard, conciliation, and affection ! " Go on, hand in hand, O States, never to be disunited ! Be the praise and the heroic song of all posterity ! Join your in vincible might to do worthy and godlike deeds ! And then — " But I will not add, as John Milton added, in closing his inimi table appeal on Reformation in England, two centuries and a half ago — " A cleaving curse be his inheritance to all genera tions who seeks to break your Union ! " No imprecations or anathemas shall escape my lips on this auspicious day. Let me rather invoke, as I devoutly and fervently do, the choicest and richest blessings of Heaven on those who shall do most, in all time to come, to preserve our beloved Country in unity, peace, and CONCORD ! NOTE. INVITATION AND ANSWER. Washington, D. C, Dec. 16, 1880. Sik, — Provision has been made by an Act of Congress for a Centen nial Celebration of the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, the ceremonies to take place on the 19th of October, 1881. The national importance of the great event which closed the War for American Inde pendence calls for a tribute to the devotion of our fathers, and the im posing civil fabric which they reared, from one of their accomplished sons ; and we respectfully invite you to deliver the Oration on that occa sion, and assure you that the two Houses of Congress whom we represent, and in whose halls you have performed a brilliant and honorable service, will consider your acceptance of this invitation a distinguished favor to themselves and to the country. With sentiments of the highest respect, Your obedient servants, Geo. B. Loeing, Francis Keenan, JohnGoooe, [Committee on _, __ _ ( Oration and Poem. E. H. Rollins, H. B. Anthony, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Boston, Mass. Boston, Mass., 22 December, 1880. The Honorable George B. Loeing, Feancis Keenan, John G-oode, E. H. Rollins, H. B. Anthony, Committee of U. S. Congress. Gentlemen, — Your obliging communication of the 1 6th inst. reached me a few days ago. I ara deeply conscious of my own insufficiency for meeting so great an occasion as you propose to me. But such an invita tion, for such a service and from such a source, cannot be declined. NOTE. 351 Coming from the Capitol, and communicated by a Committee of the two Houses of Congress, it has the force of a command, and I dare not disobey it. I shall therefore hold myself at the disposition of the Committee of Arrangements on the 19 th of October next, at Yorktown, Virginia, — God willing. Believe me, Gentlemen, with a grateful acknowledgment of the com plimentary terms of your letter, Very faithfully and respectfully, Your obedient servant, Robert C. Winthrop. TRIBUTE FROM CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS. Boston, January 30, 1882. The Honorable Robert C. Winthrop: — Mt deae Sie, — The Paper, of which I enclose a copy, will give you sufficient information of an enterprise in which your neighbors and friends take a warm interest ; and I am authorized on their behalf to ask your consent to the execution of the plan, and that you will select the artist, and arrange with him for giving the necessary sittings, at your earliest convenience. I remain, with great respect, Your obedient servant, Samuel C. Cobb. Boston, January, 1882. The undersigned, recognizing the important service rendered to the country by the Honorable Robeet C. Wintheop in his admi rable Oration upon the occasion of the National Centennial Celebra tion, at Yorktown, Virginia, in October last, and desiring to manifest their great respect and personal regard for an honored citizen of Massachusetts, hereby contribute the sums set against their respective names for the purpose of procuring a Portrait of Mr. Winthrop to be placed in the Capitol, at Washington, the scene of his early political distinction. 352 NOTE. John D. Long. E. R. Hoar. Samuel C. Cobb. W. Amory. William Perkins. W. G. Russell. H. W. Paine. Franklin Haven. William Gaston. Robert R. Bishop. Robert D. Smith. John L. Gardner. Otis Norcross. Charles Merriam. Leverett Saltonstall. George Gardner. Phillips Brooks. William B. Rogers. Samuel A. Green. James L. Little. George C. Richardson. J. Ingersoll Bowditch. John L. Bremer. George 0. Shattuck. Lemuel Shaw. John J. Clarke. Winslow Warren. Henry L. Pierce. Benj. S. Rotch. Theodore Lyman. Samuel Johnson. George P. Upham. George D. Howe. James. S. Amory. Thomas Lamb. Samuel G. Snelling. Augustus T. Perkins. Benjamin C. White. Robert M. Cushing. Alexander H. Rice. H. P. Kidder. F. H. Peabody. O. W. Peabody. F. E. Parker. A. P. Martin. Fred. H. Bradlee. S. Bartlett. James Freeman Clarke. Frederic W. Lincoln. William Minot. Wm. Endicott, Jr. Peleg W. Chandler. Frederick O. Prince. S. K. Lothrop. F. M. Weld. Ezra Farnsworth. Samuel B. Rindge. S. Parkman Dexter. Charles H. Dalton. Nathaniel J. Bradlee. Amos A. Lawrence. Charles Faulkner. S. D. Warren. Jacob C. Rogers. Wm. C. Rogers. John Cummings. A. O. Bigelow. Augustus Lowell. Samuel R. Payson. Charles H. Parker. George E. Ellis. Robert Codman. Henry C. Weston. Charles Deane. George Lewis. F. Gordon Dexter. Richard Olney. Charles U. Cotting. Francis W. Palfrey. Henry Whitman. C. F. Adams, Jr. Charles C. Smith. Thomas Talbot. J. Edwards. J. L. Stackpole. Robert Treat Paine, Jr. J. B. Thomas. Mahlon D. Spaulding. William W. Greenough. J. Putnam Bradlee. R.M. Morse, Jr. Francis A. Peters. Joseph A. Laforme. Marshall P. Wilder. Charles W. Eliot. Nathaniel Thayer. H. H. Hunnewell. James Guild. Abbott Lawrence. Charles Francis Adams. Henry Lee. D. R. Whitney. Wm. S. Appleton. George Dexter. J. Q. Adams. Alpheus Hardy. Arthur T. Lyman. Wm. R. Robeson. George R. Minot. S. W. Marston. N. Thayer, Jr. William Parsons. W. W. Clapp. James C. Davis. John C. Phillips. Isaac Thatcher. C. P. Hemenway. T. Quincy Browne. Thomas E. Proctor. Edward Bangs. J. W. Balch. F. L. Higginson. C. A. Whittier. Arthur W. Blake. George B. Chase. W. D. Pickman. Henry A. Whitney. E. Pierson Beebe. Nathaniel W. Curtis. Roger Wolcott. John T. Coolidge. Josiah Wheelwright. Thos. G. Frothingham. T. G. Appleton. 0. W. Holmes. Edmund H. Bennett. Samuel L. Crocker. John C. Ropes. John C. Gray. Charles P. Curtis. James H. Beat A. S. Wheeler. Frederick L. Ames. H. Stockton. Wm. S. Dexter. Charles D. Homans. Robert H. Stevenson. NOTE. 353 John F. Anderson. Henry B. Rogers. S. Endicott Peabody. G. W. Blagden. David P. Kimball. Charles F. Choate. Alexander Agassiz. Henry W. Longfellow. Wm. C. Endicott. Thomas Motley. Arthur Dexter. Francis Parkman. R. W. Hooper. Charles R. Codman. Henry Winthrop Sargent. Charles L. Pierson. Nathaniel Walker. Theodore Chase. George M. Barnard. C. H. Joy. Timothy T. Sawyer. W. Powell Mason. Ellis Ames. Edward Lawrence. T. H. Perkins. Stephen Salisbury. Chandler Robbins. Joshua M. Sears. E. D. Peters. George Peabody. Boston, February 3, 1882. The Honorable Samuel C. Cobb : — Mt dear Sie, — The Paper which accompanied your kind note of the 30th ultimo calls for the most grateful acknowledgments. I am deeply sensible to so unexpected a tribute from those whose good opinion and friendly regard must ever be precious to me. Such an array of eminent names, of all professions and parties, recog nizing my late oration at Yorktown, as " an important service ren dered to the country," lends a value to the Paper altogether beyond the personal distinction which it proposes for me, and I would willingly have had the tribute end with that expression. Yet I know not how to decline the invitation to allow my portrait to take its place, under such agreeable auspices, in the line of Speakers at Washington, according to the arrangement recently made for one of the corridors of the Capitol. No art, indeed, can obliterate the traces of the more than thirty years which have elapsed since it was my privilege, as a young man, to occupy the Chair of the House of Representatives of the United States. But I may well be content that this early honor should be associated with my effort, as an old man, to illustrate the crowning triumph of our Revolutionary struggle, by the generous aid of France, on the occasion which has called forth so distinguished a compliment from my fellow-citizens and friends. Accept for them all, and for yourself, dear Sir, my sincere thanks, and believe me, with great regard, Very faithfully yours, Robert C. Winthrop. 23 354 NOTE. PRESENTATION OE PORTRAIT OF EX-SPEAKER WINTHROP.1 House of Representatives of the United States Washington, June 28, 1882. Mr. Morse. Mr. Speaker, no more agreeable duty could be imposed upon any Representative of the city of Boston. If Mr. Winthrop had no other claim to the grateful recognition of the people of the Common wealth of Massachusetts, it would suffice that, in obedience to the request of the national Congress, he delivered on the historic plains of York- town, in commemoration of the crowning triumph of our Revolutionary struggle, that noble oration which has rendered an important public ser vice in strengthening the bonds of friendship with our ancient allies, the French people. It was frank in its acknowledgment of the debt of grat itude we owe France for her timely succor, which enabled us to bring to a speedy close a bloody war, while at the same time it told, with all the dignity of the historian, added to the charm of the gifted speaker, the true story of the nation's renown. Our allies at Yorktown were the mil itary and naval forces of an absolute king. At our centennial celebra tion of the victory were the honored representatives of a powerful French Republic. Could a more cogent commentary be made of the growth of free ideas in one hundred years ? Mr. Winthrop sat in Congress from Boston from 1840 to 1850, and during the Thirtieth Congress was selected by the representatives of the people to be their Speaker. In my judgment there is no more exalted position than that of the pre siding officer of the people's House, who is the free choice of those who come every two years from the ranks of the citizens, and who must of necessity voice their will. It is, as we all know, as potential as it is exalted. Where can be found — The general debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic and the wisdom and the wit, in greater perfection than here ? How enduring the honor, then, of him who has so exercised his great office as to win the general ap plause ! 1 From the Congressional Record. NOTE. 355 In the traditions of this House Mr. Winthrop is known for his schol arship, his clear perception and luminous statement, his strict integ rity, his devoted and broad patriotism, and his unfailing and gentle courtesy. The name of Winthrop is historic. It musters, as with the blast of a trumpet, the grand array of Massachusetts heroes. By the solemn re solve of that ancient Commonwealth, stands in our national Statuary Hall, as a memorial for all time, the statue of John Winthrop, the first governor of the colony, the ancestor of him whom we honor to-day. He was of — The Pilgrim hands who crossed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone In his wide temple of the wilderness. Of the nineteen years he was in the colony, from 1630, he was for twelve years governor, and his only reproof was for " overmuch lenity." In 1642 he gave aid and comfort to one La Tour, a Roman Catholic; and when sharply criticised therefor he responded : If there were not other sins which God may have a controversy with us for, I should little fear any harm from this. But in 1642 began, under Winthrop, in Massachusetts, the public- school system which has been, and will continue to be, a blessing beyond all price to the American people. Robert C. Winthrop took up the proud heritage of an ancestry so re nowned for noble deeds, and after a life well spent in the public service, hands it down to posterity, not only untarnished, but with added glory. Could a career be more fortunate ? It is the portrait of this man, in obedience to the wishes of his neigh bors and fellow-citizens, men eminent in every profession and of all parties, I have the honor this day to commit to the reverent care of the House of Representatives, asking that it may take its place in the line of Speakers in the corridor of this Hall. The inscription on the picture indicates that it is the desire of the donors to recognize Mr. Winthrop as a former Speaker of this House, and I feel honored to be privileged by the good people of the old Com monwealth to present through you, Mr. Speaker, and to my country this portrait of Robert C. Winthrop, — a man known to us, and who will be remembered by those who are to follow us, as the historian, the states man, the ex-Senator and ex-Speaker ; a gentleman who filled every position he ever held with such character and ability, whose utterances 356 NOTE. have become historical, that Massachusetts proudly boasts of him as one of her worthiest sons. Mr. Rannet. Mr. Speaker, I rise, sir, for the purpose of joining my esteemed colleague [Mr. Morse] in the presentation of this portrait) and in the discharge of a grateful duty which has been assigned to .us in common by the donors. The famous poet, Lord Byron, probably in one of his cynical moods, once wrote : What is the end of Fame ? ' Tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper ; Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor ; For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their " midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust. However this may have been, sir, with others, the friends of Mr. Win throp desire that it may not be thus with him. We have here, before his " original is dust," a picture, the gift of his admiring friends, whose action has been prompted and inspired by their " great respect and personal regard " for him ; one which has been painted of him in his advanced age, but while still in the full vigor and plentitude of his pow ers ; the work of a master's hand, true to the original and worthy of the artist. It is presented as a tribute by eminent citizens of Massachu setts, of all professions and parties. Allusion has been made by my associate to the ancestry of Mr. Win throp. But what is more and better than that in this country, he has won a name and fame which are peculiarly and all his own ; and he may well be addressed, with a just pride, in the lines of Dryden : O true descendant of a patriot line, Vouchsafe this picture of thyself to see. It is not intended, sir, to displace the one which now hangs upon the wall in the corridors of this Hall. That represents him, or is supposed to represent him, as he was when Speaker of this House, and serves exclusively as a memorial of that event and honor. This one compre hends that and much more, as will be seen by the inscription which is to be found upon the tablet of the same : Robert C. Winthrop, Speaker, 1847 - '49 ; Senator, 1850 - '1. Presented by citizens of Massachusetts After his Centennial Oration by appointment of Congress, At Yorktown, Virginia, 19th October, 1881. NOTE. 357 Independently of all other associations, any one who shall in the future view this figure as it stands out, as if alive, upon this piece of canvas, will be impressed with and see only the incomparable Win throp, the man of seventy-two years of age and over, with eyes undimmed, without any traces of decay, the orator, as he appeared when he stood at Yorktown and spoke on that memorable occasion, which will itself form a part of the history of this country. In his felicitous letter written in reply to the invitation given him solic iting his assent to what was proposed to be done, Mr. Winthrop has him self embodied the idea of the portrait. He wrote : Yet I know not how to decline the invitation to allow my portrait to take its place, under such agreeable auspices, in the line of Speakers at Washington. No art, indeed, can obliterate the traces of the more than thirty years which have elapsed since It was my privilege, as a young man, to occupy the chair of the House of Representatives of the United States. But I may well be content that this early honor should be associated with my effort, as an old man, to illustrate the crowning triumph of our Revolutionary struggle, by the generous aid of France, on the occasion which has called forth so distinguished a compliment from my fellow-citizens and friends. Mr. Speaker, this tribute is being paid to the living and not to the name of one who is dead. I have not indulged, I shall not indulge, in any eulogy, as Mr. Winthrop needs none and would desire none at my hands, or at the hands of any one else on this occasion. Nothing which could be said would add any new lustre to his name. Yet I beg leave to remind the House that he is the last one surviving of that illustrious quaternion of orators and statesmen, Webster, Everett, Choate, and Winthrop, who have done and said so much of good for the State of Massachusetts and their country. I might with equal propriety and truth say of him what I once heard him say of Everett while alive : " He needs no commendations here. His spotless character, his unrivalled accomplishments, his matchless eloquence, his ardent patriotism, are too familiar to us to require an allusion. But it is not here alone that he is known ; it is not here alone that he is appreciated." The events of Mr. Winthrop's career as member of this House, as Speaker thereof, as Senator in Congress, have passed into history. It is now some thirty years since he retired from active public life, but his ser vices since then, in other fields of labor, have always been conspicuous, and perhaps none the less useful. This is not the time to recount, or to dwell upon them. What his friends have contemplated, and what is now proposed is that 358 NOTE. this small tribute of respect and personal regard shall be completed upon this the scene of his earlier triumphs and honors, in what they and we believe to be a fitting recognition of the eminent services rendered by Mr. Winthrop to his country, as indicated, and to the end that this portrait may remain here as a perpetual memorial thereof. [Great applause.] Mr. Tucker. I do not think it necessary, Mr. Speaker, to detain the House by any extended remarks, after what has been so appropriately said by the two Representatives from Massachusetts [Mr. Morse and Mr. RannetJ. A third of a century has passed away since Mr. Winthrop presided in the House of Representatives. He was Speaker at a memorable period in our history, when the war with Mexico was closing and the agitation of the Union consequent upon the acquisition of a vast 'domain was begun. I was a " looker-on in Vienna " at that period. I can well re member the grace, the dignity, and the justice that distinguished Mr. Speaker Winthrop as the presiding officer of this House. He was too much of a patriot to be an extreme partisan in the chair, and so true a gentleman as never to fail in that impartial courtesy to the members of the House which commanded the confidence and esteem of men of all parties and from every section of the country. After a brief career in the Senate of the United States Mr. Winthrop has been in a large degree withdrawn from the public service. But he was fitly chosen to speak what patriotism would suggest at the centen nial anniversary of our assured independence by the surrender of the British Army at Yorktown. In that splendid contribution to our centennial memories Mr. Win throp has won the universal admiration of the people of the country, and has well merited that testimonial of the high esteem of his fellow-citizens of Massachusetts which has been tendered to this House by its Represen tatives to-day. As one of the Representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on whose sacred soil the crowning victory of the Revolution was won, and which was so nobly illustrated in the oration of Mr. WiD- throp, I beg leave to ask the immediate consideration and adoption by this House of the resolution which I now send to the desk. The Clerk read as follows : Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to inform the Hon. John D. Long, E. R. Hoar, and Samuel C. Cobb, a committee of citizens of Massachusetts, of the satis faction with which this House has received their present of the portrait of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Speaker of the Thirtieth Congress, and to assure them it shall be placed and preserved among those of the other distinguished men who in times past have presided over the House of Representatives. NOTE. 359 Mr. Stephens. Mr. Speaker, I second, and most heartily second, the resolution offered by the, gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker]. Mr. Winthrop has long been my personal and intimate friend. When I en tered Congress in December, 1843, 1 found him one of the distinguished leaders of the Whig Party in this House. His most prominent asso ciates were Daniel D. Barnard, of New York, Samuel Vinton, of Ohio, Joseph R. IngersoU, of Pennsylvania, Garrett Davis and John White, of Kentucky, and some others whom I need not now mention. Winthrop was the central figure of them all. In parliamentary tactics he had no superior on the floor, not excepting George C. Dromgoole, of Virginia, the Democratic leader of the House at that time. Besides this, he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen and scholarly legislators I ever met during that Congress, the Twenty-eighth, the first that I was a member of. The agitation was great in the coun try upon the annexation of Texas, and her admission as a State into the Union. Strong and unyielding opposition to this measure was manifest ed upon the part of most of the Northern Whigs, Mr. Winthrop standing prominent among the leaders of this opposition. After an exciting con test and acrimonious debate the measure was carried. Unusual excite ment upon that subject prevailed in Massachusetts, as well as with the Whigs in the North generally. Threats of disunion were made. It was in this state of affairs that Mr. Winthrop had the boldness and manliness, on the 4th of July, 1845, I think it was, to give a toast expressing senti ments not agreeable to a majority of his hearers, but which sent a thrill tlirough the heart of the entire country and produced the conviction that he was a patriot of the highest order. The sentiment was to this effect (I quote from memory) : " Our country, however bounded, with whatever limits, is to be cherished in all our hearts, and defended by all our arms." This toast was what made him Speaker. When the next Congress assembled, in December, 1847, they had a Whig majority ; and the Southern Whigs, from Georgia, Vir ginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Ken tucky, appreciating the noble sentiment, rallied in solid phalanx in sup port of this distinguished son of Massachusetts for the Speakership of the House, which secured his triumphant election over the venerable and able Vinton, of Ohio, who had a strong and large following, as we say in mod ern times, in the Western States. The Southern Whigs sustained him zealously, not because they liked Mr. Vinton less, but Mr. Winthrop more. Mr. Winthrop was elected ; and, as stated by the gentleman from Virginia, he made a most accomplished Speaker, always impartial, always courteous, always respectful and urbane, discharging the duties of the 360 note. Chair with amenity and ability rarely equalled. He still lives to enjoy the otium cum dignitate which is becoming the scholar, the patriot and statesman, and by the discharge of the high trusts confided to him, connec ted with the Peabody fund, he is adding new lustre to his ancestral name, his State, and his country. I heartily indorse the resolution of the gentleman from Virginia upon the reception of this presentation from gentlemen of Massachusetts. [Applause.] The question being taken on the resolution of Mr. Tucker, it was agreed to unanimously. WELCOME TO THE FRENCH GUESTS. ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL, NOVEMBER 2, 1881. Your Excellency, M. Outrey; Representatives op France, of her President, and her Army and Navy; of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and De Grasse : — I had the honor of addressing you, not many days ago, at Yorktown, and of offering to you the grateful acknowledgments of our whole people for the inestimable services rendered to our infant republic, a hundred years ago, by your generous and gallant nation, in securing the triumphant issue of the last battle for American Independence. It is now my privilege, as president of the Bunker Hill Mon ument Association, whose members, with those of the hon orable Order of Cincinnati, are around me, to welcome you to the scene of the first battle of our Revolutionary struggle, on the 17th of June, 1775. This battle was wholly a New Eng land battle. No Declaration of Independence had yet been proclaimed by the Continental Congress. No Washington had yet appeared at the head of our armies. No Lafayette had crossed the seas in our cause. No France had yet dreamed of intervening for our aid. But here on this spot were some of the small but most memorable beginnings of that long war for independence, which, with the assistance of France, was at last so gloriously crowned by the surrender at Yorktown. " In all my travels through this country," said Lafayette in 1825, " I have made Bunker Hill my Polar star." And in his 362 WELCOME TO THE FRENCH GUESTS. reply to an address of welcome here, he did not hesitate to speak of this battle as having given " the signal for the emancipation of mankind." Here is the massive Monument of which, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, he himself assisted in laying the corner-stone. Here was the first redoubt thrown hastily up in the cause of American liberty. Here is the statue of the noble Colonel Prescott, under whom" these heights were so hero ically defended as long as defence was possible. And here, at a short distance from where we stand, is the spot where War ren, the first great martyr of our Revolution, fell. We cannot but remember this day how greatly it was owing to France that his blood was not shed in vain. I welcome you all most respectfully and most cordially to these consecrated scenes, and beg you to bear home with you to our sister Republic, to her President, her Ministers, and all her Departments, the assurance that Bunker Hill and Yorktown are one and alike in the most grateful recollection of Rochambeau and De Grasse, of the beloved Lafayette, and of France, the chere patrie of them and of yourselves. Tell them that every American heart beats warmly at this hour for the prosperity and welfare of our ancient and renowned ally, and that every American tongue responds to the cry, "Vive la France ! " REV, DR. NEWELL AND HON. JOHN AMORY LOWELL. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOVEMBER 10,1881. I AM sincerely sorry, Gentlemen, that my first duty, this afternoon, is to announce the deaths of two of our Resident Members. Both of them have been associated with us for more than a quarter of a century. Their names stood next to each other on our roll, — the fifteenth and sixteenth, in the order of election, among those living when the roll was made up. Both of them had held somewhat peculiar relations to their common Alma Mater, — our University at Cambridge. Both of them had long passed the allotted age of human life, — one of them dying in his 78th, and the other in his 83d year. Yet in many ways their characters aud careers were strongly in contrast. The Rev. William Newell, D. D. who died at Cambridge on the 28th ultimo, having taken his degree in 1824, as the second scholar in his class, entered at once on the study of divinity, and was soon made the pastor of the First Parish in Cambridge. His church was for a long time almost like a chapel of the college, and was particularly associated with the exercises of Commencement and other public days. Dr. Newell held this pastorate quietly and faithfully for thirty-eight consecutive years, breathing always the academic atmosphere, and exercis ing a wholesome influence upon the moral and religious welfare of the community around him, but rarely, if ever, stepping out 364 HON. JOHN AMORT LOWELL. of his own parochial sphere, or associating himself with any other duty. He was an amiable, accomplished, and excellent man, whose health was hardly equal to any strenuous effort, but who has always enjoyed the respect and regard of those who knew him, and especially of those to whom he ministered so long. Mr. John Amory Lowell, who died in this city on the 31st ultimo, inherited a full measure of the eager, ardent, inquir ing temperament of his father, the late Hon. John Lowell, known to some of us as late as 1840. He was graduated at Harvard in the class of 1815, when he could hardly have been more than seventeen years old. His life was largely devoted to active business pursuits connected with the cotton manufacture. But he was a man of general culture and large literary acquire ments. He had been much abroad, was a good modern liuguist, and spoke French, particularly, with great perfection. He had his father's taste for botany, made it a special study, and was elected an honorary member of the Linnsean Society of London. For forty years he was one of the Corporation of Harvard Col lege, and no one exercised a more powerful influence than he did in giving direction to the government of the University. He kept himself thoroughly informed on all subjects of local and of national interest, was an earnest and patriotic American, and was never at a loss to give a reason for the faith that was in him, whether with his tongue or his pen. He was long at the head of our Boston Athenaeum. He was a valued Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a highly esteemed asso ciate of our own Society. But perhaps his greatest service to our community was in his efficient and skilful management of the great trust committed to him by his cousin, the late John Lowell, Jr., the founder of the Lowell Lectures. His wise and liberal course in the direction of those lectures has secured for them a success which has made them one of the most important as well as most interesting institutions of popular education in New Eng land. We have special cause, as a Society, for remembering him gratefully in this connection. It was by his obliging co- THE TOMB OP LAFAYETTE. 365 operation with Dr. George E. Ellis, now our Vice-President, that the course of Historical Lectures by members of our So ciety, in 1869, was arranged and carried through, which added a considerable and much-needed amount to our treasury. The health of Mr. Lowell had been more than once seriously impaired of late years, but he has died before his hold on the community, as one of our most intelligent and valuable citizens, was broken ; and the respect of all to whom he was known accompanied him to the grave. I am instructed by the Council to submit the following Resolution : — Resolved, That we have heard with sorrow the announcement of the deaths, since our last meeting, of our venerable and respected associates, the Rev. William Newell, D.D., and the Hon. John Amory Lowell, LL.D., and that the President be requested to appoint two of our num ber to prepare Memoirs of them for our Proceedings. The Resolution was unanimously adopted. The President continued : — I have had, Gentlemen, of late, not a few reminders of the oblivion into which even matters comparatively recent are prone to pass. Some weeks ago I observed among the proceedings of a sister society an account of the tomb of Lafayette in Paris, and of a print of the monument, as of some newly discovered thing. It recalled to me that at our January meeting in 1862 I gave a description of the tomb, which I had then recently visited, and presented a print of it, which was for a long time on our mantel-piece in this room. In the volume of our Pro ceedings, 1860-62, at page 348, will be found the inscription on the tomb, carefully copied from the print. I have visited the tomb at least once, and I believe twice, during subsequent visits to Paris. Again, there has recently been an earnest interest manifested in many quarters in regard to securing, if possible, the memor able Bradford manuscript from the Bishop of London's library at Fulham. But it seems to have been overlooked that as long 366 THE BRADFORD MANUSCRIPT. ago as 1859-60, an effort of this kind was made at the request of this Society. The manuscript had then been somewhat re cently discovered, copied, edited by Mr. Deane, and printed in our Collections. The Prince of Wales was about visiting our country, and there was even a hope expressed that he might be permitted to bring over this long-lost treasure, and thus to add a signal interest to its restoration. Being then in England, I held consultation with more than one of those in authority on this subject. My late friend, the Venerable Archdeacon Sin clair, was particularly obliging in ascertaining for me what could be done. But the result of the whole matter at that time was the announcement, that nothing less than an Act of Parlia ment could authorize the Bishop of London to part with anything in his official library, — which was national, and not private or even Church property. Nor, for one, could I help sympathizing with the jealous and scrupulous concern which was expressed about establishing a precedent for giving up a manu script volume which had so long been a part of that library. We ourselves gave up the Hutchinson Papers most reluctantly, and only in deference to the demand of the State. There are other manuscripts in our archives which may cost us concern hereafter. But I allude to the subject now only to recall the fact that the original intervention for the recovery of this precious old manuscript History of the Pilgrim Fathers dates back more than twenty years. Still again, a week or ten days after the late Yorktown com memoration, the letter of Washington to Baron Steuben, writ ten on the day of Washington's resignation at Annapolis, found its way into many newspapers as an original publication of altogether new matter. That letter was printed, nearly fifty years ago, in its due order of date, in Dr. Sparks's Writings of Washington, and I had referred to it specially in my oration at least a week before it was brought out as being hitherto unheard of ! May I not be pardoned for alluding to a forgetful statement concerning myself, in a widely circulated New York paper, in connection with a complimentary notice of my late discourse at Yorktown ? It was, that the late Mr. Sumner addressed an open YORKTOWN. 367 letter to me, severely commenting on my course in regard to the Mexican War, in 1846, and that with that letter our personal relations ended for ever. It is enough for me to say, that the alienation of Mr. Sumner and myself originated, in no open letter, — although he afterward published one, — but in private personal letters and anonymous newspaper, articles ; and that, although our non-intercourse was of long duration, we ex changed visits and invitations and the ordinary courtesies of society, during the last ten or fifteen years of his life ; that I paid a tribute to his memory in this hall on the day after his death, and, by appointment of the City Government, acted as one of the pall-bearers at his funeral. I am unwilling that an oblivion of these facts should leave room for the idea that any resentments, whether of my own or of his, — if either of us had them, — did not come to a timely end. Let me proceed to say a few words about Yorktown, in order to correct some erroneous impressions which have obtained currency in many quarters. The celebration was, in my judg ment, and entirely apart from any service which I was myself called on to render, a most gratifying and successful one. There were certainly discomforts to be endured there, as well as satisfactions to be enjoyed. Yorktown is, we all know, in a desolate region, with a small and poor population, able to do nothing for itself. The appropriations for the commemoration, both by Congress and by the States, were entirely insufficient, and the commissioners without any experience. Indeed, ex perience in such a matter comes only with the occasion, and cannot be turned to immediate account. But under all circum stances, everything was arranged and conducted as well as could reasonably have been anticipated. There was a large and brilliant throng, both on the day of laying the corner-stone of the monument, and on that of the exercises of the 19th. The review by President Arthur of nearly ten thousand troops from so many different States, under General Hancock, was most impressive ; while the naval spectacle in the river, with the illuminations and fireworks and the salute of the British flag, will be forgotten by no one who was fortunate enough to witness them. Meantime, everything was fitly done to recog- 368 YORKTOWN. nize and celebrate the great services rendered us by France and her illustrious sons, and by the Baron Steuben. It has been suggested that I was a sufferer, and it is true that I found difficulty for a day or two in procuring rations. But it was altogether the result of accidental and local circum stances, for which no just reproach rests on anybody. Above all, no just reproach rests on Virginia or Virginians, from whom I received, both at Richmond and at Yorktown, every possible respect and attention, and for whose Governor and citizens I brought home renewed feelings of regard. It was worth all the discomforts to which I was exposed, to have been privileged to occupy for three or four days, as I did, the old Nelson House, — a mansion hardly less historic than the Hancock House, of which we all regret the loss in these centennial days. I must not omit to mention my special indebtedness to Gov ernor Long, who kindly invited me to go to Yorktown with him, as a guest of the Commonwealth. His arrangements for going and returning compelled me to forego this privilege, but I was not the less grateful for the invitation, and for his other attentions at Yorktown. But let me repeat emphatically that every degree of courtesy was shown me by the Joint Commis sion of Congress, and by all the Virginians whom I had the pleasure of meeting, and that I regret sincerely that any acci dental deficiencies of food — to which I have never alluded except as a matter of amusement — should have become the subject of serious and even sectional controversy. Before closing these cursory remarks, I desire to state that the Marquis de Rochambeau accompanied me to these rooms on the 3d instant, and inscribed his name on our register. He has long been one of our Corresponding Members, under the name of Count Achille de Rochambeau. His change of title will be made on our next printed roll. THE CENTURY BOX OF THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY. SPEECH AT FANEUIL HALL, DECEMBER 22, 1881. I am greatly honored, Mr. Commander, in being called on to take ever so humble a part in your proceedings this evening ; and I thank you all, Ladies and Gentlemen, fbr so friendly and flattering a reception. I could not withstand the temptation to be present at this interesting ceremony ; not only as one of the oldest honorary members of the corps, who marched in your ranks more than fifty years ago, and wielded a spontoon as your first lieutenant soon afterwards, but as the rightful representa tive of the old Puritan Governor, by whom your charter was signed in 1638. I have come here, however, in accordance with the obliging invitation of your committee, only as a wit ness of the occasion, and with no purpose of attempting any formal address. There is something of more than ordinary solemnity in the idea that we are about to seal up a box, of varied historical and literary contents, to be handed down to our successors and opened by them a hundred years hence. I dare not follow his Honor, the Mayor, in conjecturing what may be the condition of our country or the world at that distant period. There is but one thing certain in regard to that opening ; and that is, that no one of us can by any possibility be present at it. The youngest and the oldest of us are on a common footing in that regard. Not one of those now living will answer to the roll- 24 370 THE CENTURY BOX. call on that day. Not one of us can be summoned as a witness to that transaction. And who can tell, who shall venture to predict, in what place or presence, under what circumstances, and with what surroundings, that opening shall be made? The most that we can do is to pass down the box to pos terity with all our best hopes and wishes and prayers. Let us all unite in the hope that our city, our commonwealth, our whole country, may be found at that day in the enjoyment of unalloyed prosperity and peace, still holding up the electric light of Liberty to all the nations of the earth ! Let us hope that old Faneuil Hall may still be standing here, though I would fain believe without the stalls and markets which so seri ously endanger its security ; and that the great principles which have given it such a glory in the past may still be cherished and reverenced by all who are privileged to enter it ! Let us hope that this venerable corps, which, with its stated rotation in office, its strict subordination to civil authority, and its annual religious exercises and sermon, combines and illustrates so many of the best elements of the Puritan character, so many of the peculiar characteristics of the noble Pilgrim Fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock two hundred and sixty-one years ago yesterday, may still retain its efficient organization and high repute, and may be ready to unite, then as now, in up holding law and order at home, and in defending union and lib erty against all assailants, domestic or foreign ! And may we not even hope, too, — if anything so unimportant be worthy of a thought on this occasion, — that some of the old familiar and historic names of our city and commonwealth may then be not entirely forgotten, but may still be borne upon your roll by worthy descendants of those who have adorned that roll in former generations ? These, my friends, are some of the hopes and wishes and prayers which come to my mind, to my heart, to my lips, invol untarily, as I look on this box which we are just about to part with forever, and which is only to be seen again by those who shall succeed to our place a century hence. And I feel sure, in concluding my remarks with such hopes and prayers, that you will all unite with me in a fervent Amen. RICHARD H. DANA AND DELANO A. GODDARD. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 12, 1882. In meeting here once more, Gentlemen, at the opening of another year, we may find cause for congratulation in the recent appointment of one of our number, Chief Justice Gray, to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and in the election of another of our number, Dr. Green, to the Mayoralty of Boston. We may well take satisfaction, also, in recognizing on our table the "Annals of King's Chapel," by our associate, Mr. Foote ; the " History of the First Church," by Mr. Arthur B. Ellis, with an extended and valuable intro duction by our first Vice-President ; and the fourth volume of " The Memorial History of Boston," which has thus been so admirably completed by our Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Winsor. But the new year opens for us as the old year went out for us ; and our first meeting, like our last, must begin with notes of sorrow. If we were accustomed to look beyond our own little historical circle, the deaths of such men as Judge Putnam, Mr. Healy, the veteran city solicitor, and Dr. John Cotton Smith, long the assistant minister of our Trinity Church, — to name no others, — might well claim a respectful notice on our records, as they have followed each other in such close and sad succession since we met last. But we have more than enough losses of our own to recount. 372 RICHARD H. DANA. The death of the Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., takes from our roll of Honorary and Corresponding Members a name of no com mon significance. Pastor of the Central Church of New Haven for more than forty years, and a professor of the Divinity School of Yale College till his death, he has enjoyed a wide celebrity for half a century past as a preacher and a writer. His historical discourses, on the completion of two centuries from the establishment of the First Church in New Haven, his select writings and Life of Richard Baxter, his discussions of Slavery, and his countless contributions to theological and literary peri odicals, are well known to the world of religion and letters. Strong, independent, bold, and sometimes severe, he has been one of the peculiar champions of Congregationalism, and has often been spoken of as, in some sort, the impersonation of New England Puritanism. He died on the 24th of December, in his seventy-ninth year, having been a Corresponding Mem ber of our Society for forty-three years, with but one name among the living above his own at the last revision of our earliest roll. But there are bereavements to be announced this afternoon which come nearer home to us as a Society and as individuals. A recent telegram from Rome has informed us that our friend and associate, the Hon. Richard H. Dana, died in that city on the 6th instant. The event did not, perhaps, take some of us wholly by surprise, as the health of Mr. Dana has more than once of late years been a subject of anxiety to his friends. He left us, however, in 1879, with the confident hope that a change of climate might reinvigorate his system, and might enable him to complete the work on International Law which was to be the crowning labor of his life. And a brief return to Boston, soon after the death of his venerable father, the poet, encouraged us all in the idea that his residence abroad was proving salutary, and that we might welcome him home at no very distant period, with his health restored and his work accomplished. A kind letter which I received from him as he was leaving Paris for Italy many months ago, afforded gratifying confirmation of that idea. But it has been ordered otherwise ; and it only remains for us to bear testimony to his abilities and virtues. RICHARD H. DANA. 373 Mr. Dana established a claim to be counted among the most successful and popular of American authors in his earliest maturity. Taking bravely to the sea for the benefit of his eyesight, before he had finished his course at Harvard, where he was graduated in 1837, he made a voyage as a common sailor which has become historic, — returning, as he did, to publish an account of his experiences in a little volume under the well-remembered title of "Two Years Before the Mast," which fascinated all readers, young and old, and which holds its place as a standard work on both sides of the Atlantic. The celebrity of this early venture clung to him to the last, in spite of any efforts of his own to escape from it or to eclipse it. But his life was thenceforth to be devoted to the Law, with only occasional excursions into other fields, whether of literature or public service. There are those of our number, and some of them now present, who were witnesses and associates with him in the Courts ; and I may fitly leave it, as I do, to them, to do justice to his eminent legal attainments and to his ability and eloquence at the bar. To others, also, I may well leave any allusions to his distinguished career as a politician and a statesman. But I cannot conclude this brief announcement without an expression of a deep sense of the loss we have sustained in his death. A man of the highest character and culture, of brilliant talents and large accomplishments, of earnest religious faith and life, of genial disposition, whom we all delighted to meet as a companion and friend, of only sixty-six years of age, and with every promise and prospect of continued usefulness and honor) he has been taken away too soon for all but himself, and we all partake of the sorrow which has fallen so sadly on his family in a foreign land. Too soon for all but himself. How well may I repeat those words in relation to still another bereavement and one still nearer home, which I am pained to be called on to announce. Few of our little number have ever won more upon the esteem and affection of their associates, or have rendered more obliging and valuable service to this Society, than Mr. Delano A. God- dard, during the seven years of his membership. His sudden 374 DELANO A. GODDARD. death shocked and saddened us all yesterday. Amiable, intel ligent, accomplished, he had entered heartily into our work, had served us repeatedly as a member of our Executive Committee, and at his death was the chairman of that committee. As the editor of a leading daily journal, his time for us and for other pursuits was not at his own command. But all that could be spared from his faithful and devoted editorial labors — which I know not how are to be so well performed by others — he delighted to spend in our service, and in this very room. I often met him here, — the last time but little more than a week ago, — and never without a renewed sense of the variety of his information, of the candor of his judgment, of the kindness of his heart, and of that singular modesty which sometimes threat ened to conceal his sterling abilities. I will not attempt to speak of his numerous contributions to the Proceedings and Collections of our own and other kindred societies, or of the interesting chapters which he prepared for the noble " Memorial History of Boston." Others will do this better than myself. It is enough for me to add that he was one of those whom this Society could least spare, one who always recognized and fulfilled the obligations of membership, and lost no opportunity in his power of working with us and for us ; and one whose early death at only a few months more than fifty years of age is at once a personal and a public loss. We owe to his memory a more than common debt, and there are those around me who cannot fail to unite in paying it. WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. SPEECH AT THE BANQUET OF THE MARSHFIELD CLUB, JANUARY 18, 1882. I WOULD most gladly have been exempted, Mr. President, from this call, even at the cost of all the compliments by which it has been accompanied. I heartily wish that I were in a better con dition for making any adequate response. I am conscious that such occasions belong to younger men ; and I thought that I had made an unalterable resolution, after Yorktown, that I would render myself responsible for no more public addresses. And I can honestly say that no other occasion than this would have brought me out to-night. But I could not find it in my heart to excuse myself from dining here, albeit for the first time, with the Marshfield Club, at their most kind invitation, in honor of the centennial birthday of one with whom I had so many per sonal and so many public and so many proud associations for a quarter of a century, and who by his life and death and burial, has made Marshfield a name and a place never to be forgotten in the annals of our country or of the world. How could I ever forget those delightful days which I spent there with him forty years ago, more or less ! His matchless form rises to my eye at this moment, as he welcomed the British minister and myself at his door on a midsummer morning, clad in his favorite rustic suit, with the broad-brimmed white hat overshadowing that Olympian brow, — just as he may be seen in one of the most characteristic of his familiar portraits. He was a subject for Rembrandt on that morning, and Rembrandt never had a subject more worthy of his magic brush. 376 WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. I remember well how proudly he treated us to fish of his own catching, to game of his own shooting, to beef or mutton of his own raising, and to vegetables of every sort from his own gardens, with nothing on his table from any other source except the delicious Black Hamburgs which grand old Colonel Perkins, his lifelong and devoted friend, had just sent him from his green-house at Brookline. But his own presence and his own conversation were the choicest luxuries we enjoyed. He was not always gracious in society, and at other people's tables on ceremonious occasions he was sometimes reserved and moody. But he was the very prince of hosts at his own board ; on that occasion, certainly, his rich reminiscences and sparkling anecdotes "Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." And then I remember his taking us out to see the results of an experiment he was trying on the different fertilizers for his fields, pointing us to four carefully measured and exactly equal areas of Indian corn, one of them served with guano, one with kelp, one with fish from his own shores, and one with the common manure from his own barns ; but he was as conservative in his agriculture as he was in his politics, and unhesitatingly gave the palm to the old-fashioned article. On that day he was eminently and exclusively the farmer of Marshfield, discoursing on soils and climates, on English farming and Scotch farming, as if they had been the sole study of his life, and careful for nothing but his crops and his cattle. And now, my friends, how shall I go on to speak of him more generally, or how can I hope to say anything about him which has not again and again been better said by others ? Webster has long ago been the subject of as glowing and as exhaustive tributes as can be found in the English language. Nobody but he himself could surpass the tributes which his career has called forth from a hundred pens and lips. We have become accustomed of late to great public manifestations at the death of our illustrious men. But Webster's death thirty years ago, gave occasion to lamentations throughout the land, which no one then living and now living will have forgotten. Every press, every platform, almost every pulpit, poured forth strains of the most impressive WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. 377 eulogy. Living and dead he has been the theme of the most eloquent orators, of the most faithful and loving biographers, of the most accomplished essayists of our land. Everett and Choate and Hillard, as you have said, and President Felton of Harvard, and President Woods of Bowdoin, and, more recently, Mr. Evarts, — to name no others, — have found in him the inspiration of some of their most celebrated efforts. I thank you for remind ing the company that I united with Mr. Evarts, four or five years ago, in a sincere and earnest attempt to say of him what ever was truest and best, at the unveiling of that grand, heroic statue in Central Park, presented to the city of New York so munificently by one whom we are all glad to see present on this occasion. There is nothing which I desire to alter in that tribute, and there is but little for me to add.1 And after all, Mr. President, what are all the fine things which have ever been said of him, or which ever can be said of him, to-night or a hundred years hence, compared with the splen did record which he has left of himself as an advocate in the courts, as a debater in the senate, as an orator before the people ? We do not search out for what was said about Pericles or Demosthenes or Cicero or Burke. It is enough for us to read their orations. There are those indeed, who may justly desire to be measured by the momentary opinions which others have formed and expressed about them. There are not a few who may well be content to live on the applauses and praises which their ef forts have called forth from immediate hearers and admirers. They will enjoy at least a reflected and traditional fame. But Webster will always stand safest and strongest on his own show ing. His fame will be independent of praise or dispraise from other men's lips. He can be measured to his full altitude, as a thinker, a writer, a speaker, only by the standard of his own im mortal productions. That masterly style, that pure Saxon Eng lish, that clear and cogent statement, that close and clinching logic, that power of going down to the depths and up to the heights of any great argument, letting the immaterial or inciden tal look out for itself, those vivid descriptions, those magnificent metaphors, those thrilling appeals, — not introduced as mere 1 Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches, Vol. III. p. 436. 378 WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. ornaments wrought out in advance and stored up for an oppor tunity of display, but sparkling and blazing out in the very heat of an effort, like gems uncovering themselves in the working of a mine, — these are some of the characteristics which will secure for Webster a fame altogether his own, and will make his works a model and a study long after most of those who have praised him, or who have censured him, shall be forgotten. What if those six noble volumes of his were obliterated from the roll of American literature and American eloquence ! What if those great speeches, recently issued in a single compendious volume, had no existence ! What if those consummate defences of the Constitution and the Union had never been uttered, and their instruction and inspiration had been lost to us during the fearful ordeal to which that Constitution and that Union have since been subjected ! Are we quite sure that we should have had the Constitution, as it was, and the Union, as it is, to be fought for, if the birth we are commemorating had never oc curred, — if that bright Northen Star had never gleamed above the hills of New Hampshire ? Let it be, if you please, that its light was not always serene and steady. Let it be that mist and clouds sometimes gathered over its disk, and hid its guid ing rays from many a wistful eye. Say even, if you will, that to some eyes it seemed once to be shooting madly from its sphere. Make every deduction which his bitterest enemies have ever made for any alleged deviation from the course which had been marked out for it by others, or which it seemed to have marked out for itself, in its path across the sky. Still, still, there is radiance and glory enough left, as we contemplate its whole golden track, to make us feel and acknowledge that it had no fellow in our firmament. We did not all and always agree with Mr. Webster. I cer tainly did not, for one. It seems but yesterday that, coming out of church of a Sunday morning at Washington, where for many months he had sat in my own pew, — and a more humble and devout worshipper I have never seen, — and when he had kindly informed me that letters from Boston announced that I should be in the Senate as his successor the next day, — as I was, — I told him of my regret that I could not vote altogether WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. 379 as he might have voted, and avowed my purpose to support in the Senate the policy I had advocated in the House. I am not quite sure that the Marshfield Club would have welcomed me as a guest about that time. But I rejoice to remember that no admiration or affection for him — and I was conscious of the magnetism of both — overcame the strength of my own conscientious convictions. But did I1 imagine that his great mind had no convictions of its own, and that a poor miserable seeking for the presidency was the only motive which actuated him ? Never for a moment. Did I sympathize with all or any of the violent denunciations which were poured out against him in so many quarters for his course in 1850 ? Never for an instant. I deplored them all, and did what I could to avert them. But charitable construc tion was an unknown element in the party politics of that period, and not on one side only, but on all sides. The fugitive slave law — which I am always more than willing to remember that, in the shape in which it was forced upon us, I voted against, and which Webster and Clay would gladly have had modified before its passage — had maddened the whole country. Then was fulfilled for Webster, if for nobody else, the saying of Milton in the Agonistes : — " Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed, And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds ; On both her wings — one black, the other white — Bears greatest names in her wild, aery flight." Let us rejoice, my friends, that on the white wing only, on this centennial birthday, his name is now cleaving the clouds. It is not necessary that we should consider him to have been infalli ble or immaculate. He would have rebuked his best friend for such an assumption. No man is infallible. No man is immacu late. But his faults and failings, such as they were, have often been grossly exaggerated at home and abroad, and I am glad of an opportunity of saying so, as a close witness of a large part of his career. Meantime, no nobler testimony can be found in our language, or in any language, than that which he has borne, as often as he could find an occasion, or could make an occasion, in life or at death, to the great truths of the Bible, to the great 380 WEBSTER CENTENNIAL. teachings of the Gospel, to religious instruction as a vital part of all true education, and to religious faith as the basis of all true morality. Webster had great associates in the Senate. I will not call them competitors or rivals, — Clay, Calhoun, — I need not even name them, for their names are fresh in all your memories. Much less would I venture to institute any comparison between them and him. In some respects, indeed, he was incomparable. He was a man of his own type ; as individual and unique, intellectually and physically, as the great Napoleon, or as our own Franklin ; cast in a mould of which there has been no other impression in our part of the land, and of whom it might almost be said, as Byron said of Sheridan, that nature broke the die in moulding one such man. His name has been written on the mountains, where it belongs, — on one of the grandest moun tains of his native State. There it will endure, and find fit companionship with the Adamses and Jeffersons and Madisons, and with Washington in the clear upper sky, above them all. And until those mountains shall depart and those hills be re moved, his name will be accepted and recognized as the very synonyme of the most powerful American mind, as well as of the most impressive American presence, of the age in which he lived and acted. All honor to that name ! ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. FEBRUARY 9,1882. We had all devoutly hoped, I need not say, Gentlemen, that the cloud which has so often overshadowed our meetings of late had passed over, at least for a time. But it follows us still. Had not our late venerable friend, Professor Theophilus Par sons, withdrawn from our Society, on account of his infirmities, a few years ago, we should be called on to-day to bear testimony to his abilities and accomplishments, and to the value of his co operation with us during a membership of twenty years. As it is, we cannot forget him. And the still more recent death of Dr. Bellows, of New York, — whose labors at the head of the Sanitary Commission during the war have entitled him to a most grateful remembrance, quite beyond the sphere of his long and devoted pastorate, — has touched many of us not less than if he had been one of our immediate number. But our own Resident roll has not escaped from another sad loss. A few days only had elapsed after our last monthly meeting, and the tributes we had just paid to our lamented asso ciates, Mr. Goddard and Mr. Dana, were still fresh in the public journals, when tidings reached us from Worcester that the late Governor Bullock had been struck by a sudden illness which had proved fatal. We owe a kind word to his memory, though, on my own part, it shall be a brief one. 382 ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. A graduate of Amherst College, and afterward of our Har vard Law School, with large natural gifts, and with not a little various acquirement, he entered early on a career of usefulness and distinction. As Mayor of the city in which he resided, as a member successively of both branches of our State Legislature, and Speaker of one of them, and finally as Governor of Massa chusetts for three years, after the retirement of Governor An drew, he rendered conspicuous and valuable service to his native Commonwealth. Of later years, his taste for public employment seemed to have been satiated. It may be that some foreshadowings of the shock which has now so suddenly prostrated him had warned him of the danger of encountering longer the responsibilities and excitements of political life. At all events he avoided them, declining all candidacies, and even refusing, as is well known, the highest diplomatic appointment abroad. Such a withdrawal, by a man of public spirit, of independent circumstances, and of eminently patriotic impulses, as he cer tainly was, could plainly have resulted from no caprice, fastidi ousness, or apathy, but must have been dictated by considera tions of which he alone was conscious, and of which he was the only rightful judge. Meantime he travelled extensively in foreign lands. He delivered occasional addresses at the call of his Alma Mater and of others, and he was always recognized as one of our most ac complished and impressive orators. His address before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and his eulogy on President Lincoln, at Worcester, iu 1865, were especially notable. His more recent effort at New York, at the unveiling of a statue of the great statesman whose name he was proud to bear, was forcible and brilliant. And the paper which he prepared and read for the Annual Report of the American Antiquarian Society last year, on the Centennial Anniversary of the Constitution of Massachusetts, was exhaustive and admirable. At our own meetings, during the six or seven years of his membership, his attendance was less frequent than we could have wished ; for there was a frankness and cordiality in his dis- ALEXANDER HAMILTON BULLOCK. 383 position and manners which made him a peculiarly attractive and welcome associate. Many of us will miss him as a valued personal friend, and none of us can fail to lament his death as a public loss. Born on the 1st of March, 1816, he had not quite completed his sixty-sixth year. THE CHARLESTON (S. C.) PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 9, 1882. We have too often, Gentlemen, of late, been called on to open our meetings with allusions to the dead. Let us be thank ful that to-day we may think only of the living. Our hearty sympathies and best wishes have been drawn to Cambridge dur ing the last fortnight, where we would gladly have offered our felicitations to our illustrious associate, Longfellow, on his sev enty-fifth birthday, which was commemorated on the 27th of February. We all rejoice in his improving health. And now we may well present our cordial congratulations to our venera ble colleague, Dr. Paige, the Historian of the Town of Cam bridge, whose eightieth birthday was so appropriately celebrated last evening. We welcome him here this afternoon. Nor could we have failed, had he been present, to hail with the highest respect our excellent associate and friend, the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, of Worcester, whose eighty-fourth birthday also occurred yesterday, and who presides over the American Antiquarian Society with unabated vigor and distinguished usefulness. But I pass to other topics. At one of our meetings last year I called attention to the portrait of John Hampden, now in the Executive Mansion at Washington, and gave some account of its history. At a subsequent meeting I described the portrait of Lafayette, which has hung in the hall of the House of Representatives THE CHARLESTON PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. 385 of the United States since it was painted and presented by Ary Scheffer, nearly sixty years ago. I wish to say a few words this afternoon about another por trait, not less historical. When I was visiting Charleston, South Carolina, a few years ago, on my way from Florida, I saw in the Charleston City Hall a full-length portrait of Washing ton, and learned on inquiry that it was an original portrait by Trumbull. It was in a deplorable condition, and seemed almost beyond the hope of restoration. After some conference and correspondence with the Mayor at that time, and afterward with his successor, Mr. Courtenay, the portrait was sent to Boston and committed to my care, for such treatment as should be thought prudent by the experts in such cases. After much consultation with General Charles G. Loring, the Curator of our Museum of Fine Arts, it was given into the hands of Messrs. Doll & Richards, who found it necessary to send it to New York for restoration. It has at last been returned to Boston, in as perfect a condition as possible, and may be seen at our Museum of Fine Arts. As the City Hall of Charleston is undergoing repairs, I have been requested to keep the portrait here for some months. It is a portrait of great interest, and well worth visiting. The restoration has been accomplished with great skill, and the face fortunately required nothing but cleaning. It bears date, 1791, three years before Stuart painted his earliest portrait of Washington, and thus represents Washington as a younger man than when he sat to Stuart. Trumbull, having been one of his aides-de-camp, was familiar with his form and features. An ac count of the portrait is found in the " Reminiscences of Charles ton," by a former Honorary Member of this Society, Charles Fraser, of that city, who was himself an artist, and who says of it as follows : — " The picture was painted from life, and represents General Washington in his military garb, as commander-in-chief, and, as such, is an invaluable portrait. It bears date, 1791. It gives me pleasure to be able to record, as being now, perhaps, its only repository, certain contemporary testimony of the resemblance it bore to its illustrious subject. A gentleman from Charleston, 25 386 THE CHARLESTON PORTRAIT OP WASHINGTON. who was in Philadelphia while the portrait was in progress, told me that Colonel Trumbull, anxious for its success, requested him to call often and see it, which he did, and he assured me that the likeness was excellent ; and this was afterward con firmed to me by one who was then our Representative in Con gress, and who, as well as the other gentleman, had frequent opportunities of seeing General Washington. A venerable lady, the relict of a Revolutionary officer, told me that she also could fully verify, from her own individual knowledge, all that these gentlemen had said of the likeness. After this period, age and increasing cares altered the General's appearance, besides the use of false teeth ; so that when Mr. Stuart painted him in 1794, in his presidential suit of black velvet, and with powdered hair, he looked like a different person." It is certainly a great satisfaction to me to have been in strumental in saving this portrait for posterity, and in restor ing it to the city of Charleston in so much of its original beauty. I may add that a description of this portrait, with a somewhat unsuccessful heliotype, has been included in the vol ume of Miss E. B. Johnson, containing an exhaustive account of all the original portraits of Washington, not omitting that of which I was fortunate enough to secure a copy for our gallery, through the kindness of Lord Albemarle and the liberality of Mr. Alexander Duncan, in 1874. One word, Gentlemen, before we part this afternoon. The newspapers have already announced that I am proposing to pass the coming summer abroad. And though the newspapers are not always correct in their statements in regard to others or to myself, I am bound to say that in this case they have rightly divulged my purpose. I can say honestly, however, that I am not going to Europe again for my own pleasure, or upon any impulse of my own. When I last returned home, nearly seven years ago, I earnestly hoped and firmly believed that I had crossed the Atlantic for the last time ; and it is with real reluctance that I have yielded to domestic circumstances, which have rendered another voyage desirable and even im perative. I am to embark at an early day, and this is the last meeting which I shall be in the way of attending before next THE CHARLESTON PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. 387 October or November. It would afford me the greatest satis faction to know that I might then return to these rooms to take my seat only as your senior Resident Member, leaving the Chair, which I have so long occupied by your favor, to some younger and worthier member. But, at all events, I trust by the blessing of a good Providence to be with you again during the next winter, and to contribute in every way in my power to the honor and welfare of a Society to which I have owed so many of the most cherished distinctions and privileges of my life. If, during my absence, I can be of any service to the Society, or to any of its members, in the prosecution of historical in quiries, it will give me the greatest pleasure to do so, and I beg that I may be called on without ceremony or reserve. In the mean time I offer to each one of you a cordial and affectionate good-by.1 1 The Rev. Dr. Lothrop, in reply, assured Mr. Winthrop that he would be accompanied across the ocean with the profound respect and affection of all his fellow-members, and their best wishes for a pleasant vacation and a safe return. NOTE. RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF CHARLESTON, NOVEMBER 14, 1882. " Whereas our distinguished fellow-countryman, Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, while on a visit to this City in 1880, and enjoying its relics of our olden time, became greatly interested in the preservation of our Trumbull's Washington, and wisely suggested its repair and restora tion, and to further this end offered his most valuable services of supervi sion and care of this work ; and Whereas, through his kind offices the work of restoration has now been finally completed, and this valued picture of our City, now in its old power and life, again adorns our walls : — Be it, therefore, " Resolved, That the City Council of Charleston gratefully acknowl edge and appreciate the valuable aid and kind personal service of Governor Winthrop in the successful accompUshment of the work of restoration of our great painting of Trumbull's Washington." GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, DECEMBER 14, 1882. I heartily wish, Gentlemen, that I could command any ade quate phrases at this moment for expressing how glad I am, and how grateful to a kind Providence, in finding myself once more at home, and once more in this long-accustomed seat, with so many familiar and friendly surroundings. I have, indeed, seen much and enjoyed much since I left you last March, — wonders of nature and of art, splendid cities, glorious mountains, and illustrious men of more than one land. Yet I can honestly say that, on my own account only, I would willingly have fore gone all such experiences, and that no return could have been too early for my personal satisfaction. An absence of eight full months, I need not say, has made a considerable rent in the little remnant of life which I can reasonably count upon. It has certainly cut the continuity of any historical pursuits in which I was engaged or interested, and left it not altogether easy for me to gather up the scattered or broken threads even for so informal an occasion as this. But I will not appeal to your indulgence, as I know it will be granted without being asked for. Meantime, I rejoice to know that there has been no break in the well-being of our old Society. It has been a great pleasure to me to learn, from month to month, of its undiminished pros perity, and of its new volumes and serials ; and I desire at once to return my thanks, and your thanks, also, to our worthy Vice- 390 GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. President, Dr. Ellis, for his faithful and felicitous occupancy of the chair. We have lost, indeed, from our roll of Resident, or of Cor responding and Honorary, Members, more than one of those most loved and most honored by us all. I need not name them. They are fresh in all our hearts and on all our lips, and the choicest tributes have already been paid to their memories bj7 those whose praises they would most have prized, and who have hardly left one appropriate or affectionate word to be added by others. Nothing, certainly, could have been more exhaustive or more exquisite than the notices of Emerson and Longfellow, by some of their associates here. They have been read with appreciation and admiration abroad, as well as at home, as I have had the best opportunity of knowing. And hardly less impressive or less touching were the tributes paid here and elsewhere to the life and character of good Dr. Chandler Robbins, so long one of our most devoted and effec tive workers, and one whom no disabilities or infirmities could keep away from our meetings to the last. As I look back upon our Society, through more than a quarter of a century, to the days when I succeeded Mr. Savage as President, the forms of George Livermore and Richard Frothingham and Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and Chandler Robbins — all now gone — rise at once to my view, in company with at most two or three others still spared to us, and whose modesty I will not wound by naming them, as the little band to whose efforts we are most indebted for whatever prosperity we have since enjoyed. But I will not dwell longer on anything sad or retrospective this afternoon. Let me rather turn at once to welcome the new associates who have succeeded to so many vacant chairs since I went away ; and let me express the confident hope that they may fulfil all the promises which led to their selection, and add new vigor to the ranks of our working members. Those ranks have long needed recruiting. We can part, if in the providence of God it must be so, with our philosophers and poets and ora tors, sacred or secular, much as we may deplore their loss, and much as we may miss the prestige which their names have given to our rolls, and the delight of their occasional participation in GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. 391 our proceedings ; but the practical work of our Society must always have those who are able and willing to perform it. Those we can never spare. Nor ought we ever to be unmindful of so great a need, in filling the places of those who pass away. Turning abruptly now from this merely introductory matter, I hasten to refer briefly to one or two incidents of my tour, which are not without historical interest. And first, I desire to express the special satisfaction I took in procuring, at the re quest of Mr. Deane and Mr. Winsor, a perfect reproduction by photography of the old map in the National Library of France, commonly known as the Map of Sebastian Cabot, and which bears the date of 1544. A recent writer on " The English in America," Mr. J. A. Doyle, a Fellow of All-Souls, Oxford, of whose volume I procured a copy just as I was leaving London, in his notice of Sebastian Cabot, says that " he published maps and documents," but that they are now " unhappily lost." In his appendix, however, he refers distinctly to this map as attrib uted to Cabot, while he raises the question whether the inscrip tions could possibly have been written by him. I do not pro pose to discuss this question. The first copy of the map was presented here last month, or the month before the last, in pieces, or, as the French style them, in separate cliches, and there is a copy here to-day made up and mounted. It has been referred to a committee of experts, and it will be for them to pro nounce upon any disputed or doubtful points. Meantime, I al lude to the subject now only for the purpose of putting on our records an acknowledgment of the kind reception I met with at the BibliothSque Nationale, from M. Leopold Delisle, a mem ber of the Institute, and the Administrator General of the Li brary ; from M. ThieVy, the Custodian of the Prints, to whose department the old map belongs ; and from M. Letort, to whom Mr. Deane had sent me a letter. All these gentlemen mani fested a cordial interest in the work. As a part of the arrange ment, two copies of the mounted photograph were retained by the Library, agreeably to the rules in all such cases ; and thus it is pleasant to know that, through our intervention, there will henceforth be some assurance, that if any accident should hap- 392 GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. pen to the precious original, a perfect copy will be in the way of preservation on both sides of the Atlantic. I must not fail, in this connection, to mention the name of M. Sauvanaud, the skilful photographer, who took the greatest pains with the work, and who counted the result as a signal triumph of his art. One of the copies reserved for the Biblioth&que Nationale, as I understood from M. Sauvanaud, was to be exhibited at some public Exposition in Paris, as a sample of his most successful photography. I turn, secondly, to an interesting incident in connection with the memory of the famous Sir Walter Raleigh. You have not forgotten, I am sure, the leading part taken by this Society in obtaining the necessary funds for a stained-glass window, commemorative of Sir Walter, in old St. Margaret's, Westmin ster, where his remains, except the head, said to have been kept by his wife till her death, were buried. More than half the cost of that window came from historical societies and students of history in this country, in immediate response to our appeal, and was remitted to England under my own hand as your President. The rest of the contribution came also from Americans abroad or at home ; and the window, a very large and magnificent one, was thus received and recognized as an American tribute to the great promoter of American colonization. It happened, by a most fortunate arrangement, and without any previous knowledge or anticipation on my own part, that the unveiling of this window had been fixed for one of the days included in my brief visit to London ; and it has already been mentioned here, I believe, that I was privileged to witness the unveiling, and to hear the brilliant discourse of Canon Farrar, the Rector of St. Margaret's, on Sunday, the 14th of May last. Our associate member, the American Minister, Mr. Lowell, was present also, and had written these four lines of poetry which were inscribed on the glass : — " The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came ; Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew, This Window we inscribe with Raleigh's name." GLEANINGS OP A FOREIGN TOUR. 393 This inscription, with a photograph of the window, will be found in the printed copy of Canon Farrar's sermon, of which I sent a copy to our Library many weeks ago. But this was not my only or most noteworthy association with the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh during my recent tour. On my return to London from the Continent in October last, when I had called to see our accomplished Corresponding Member, Mr. Henry Stevens, to make inquiries on another subject, he at once referred to a communication of mine to this Society in September, 1873, in which I had given the speech of Raleigh on the scaffold, as I had found it in an old commonplace book of Governor Winthrop's father ; and he added that he had recently discovered, among the manuscript papers of the old astronomer and philosopher, Thomas Hariot, or Harriote, who was a confidential friend of Sir Walter, and had once resided in his family, a little writing which he be lieved to be the very Brief, or "Note of Remembrance," re ferred to in the reported speech, and which Raleigh must have held in his hand on the scaffold. Mr. Stevens begged me to accompany him to the British Museum, where the papers of Hariot are carefully preserved, to see this Brief. The day for our visit was fixed to suit my convenience, with out any reference to dates. We were readily admitted to the Manuscript Department of the Museum, and the " Note of Remembrance " was soon forthcoming. It is on a little slip of Hariot's paper, "somewhat crumpled and soiled," and plainly in his own handwriting. Mr. Stevens is engaged in writing a Life of Hariot, of which I have seen a preparatory proof-sheet as far along as the 138th page. In it he, of course, includes an ac count of this " precious little waif," as he calls it, and gives most cogent, if not positively conclusive, reasons for believing that Hariot was with Raleigh in the Gate House on the night before his execution, and took down these notes from Sir Walter's own lips to aid him in recalling what he most wished to say before he died. The Brief conforms so nearly to the report of the speech, as we have it, as to give strong confirma tion to this idea ; and I could not help feeling that I was looking on the very paper which poor Sir Walter had held in 394 GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. his hand at the last moment before he laid his head so bravely on the block. Before we had completed our examination we discovered that, by a striking and wholly accidental coinci dence, the date of our visit to the Museum — 28th October — was the precise anniversary date of that last night, after the trial and before the execution, during which the Notes are believed to have been dictated and prepared, — the night of Oct. 28, 1618. I think we shall all hope that the Life of Hariot may not much longer be delayed. He was certainly one of the most remarkable men of his age. Hallam, in his " Introduction to the Literature of Europe," speaks of him as having made " the last great discovery in the pure science of algebra," and gives countenance to the charge that the famous Descartes had borrowed much from him without acknowledgment. It will not be forgotten that in 1585 he was sent out to Virginia, with Sir Richard GrenviUe, by Raleigh himself, and that his account of that enterprise, dedicated to Sir Walter, is among the most precious things in De Bry's Voyages. But his inti mate relations with Raleigh when he was writing the " History of the World," as a prisoner in the Tower, and while he was preparing for death at the Gate House, are worthy of more attention than they have yet received. Meantime, I may add that Mr. Stevens is diligently engaged with his son in preparing the great collection of Franklin Papers, which has been purchased by the United States, and some of which I examined with deep interest. I turn lastly, Gentlemen, to one more gleaning of my recent tour, which has a more peculiarly New England and Massa chusetts interest, and which I shall deal with very briefly. I have here a certified copy, from Her Majesty's Public Record Office in London, of a letter dated "Boston, Massachusetts, May 22, 1634," addressed " To his honorable friend Sir Na thaniel Riche, Knight, at Warwick House in Holborne, Lon don," and signed, " John Winthrop." It comes from the Kimbolton Papers belonging to the Duke of Manchester, who has recently deposited them for safe keeping in the Public GLEANINGS OP A FOREIGN TOUR. 395 Record Office. It was procured for me most kindly by Mr. B. H. Beedham, of Ashfield House, near Kimbolton, who is known to some of us by more than one interesting antiquarian publication, and who is at this moment preparing for the press an account of the Clergy of Essex County, England, in 1603, from these same Kimbolton Papers. Mr. Beedham obtained the obliging permission of the Duke of Manchester to have this letter copied for me, to be printed at my discretion. It presents a picture of the condition of things here two hundred and forty-eight years ago, just four years after the arrival of the Governor and Company with the Massachusetts Charter. I am not sure that there is anything altogether new in it, but that can be better decided when it has been published in our Proceedings, and when our experts have had an opportunity to examine it deliberately. It is, at any rate, a contempora neous account of our small beginnings from the most authen tic source. Sir Nathaniel Rich, to whom the letter is addressed, was undoubtedly a near relative, perhaps a brother, of Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick of that day, and, like the Earl, he took an eager and active interest in American colonization. Two months after the date of the letter, in July, 1634, we find the following entry in Winthrop's " History of New Eng land : " " Mr. Winthrop, the late Governour, received a letter from the Earl of Warwick, wherein he congratulated the pros perity of our Plantations, and encouraged our proceedings, and offered his help to further us." The Earl had undoubt edly just read Winthrop's letter to his relative. Sir Nathaniel was a zealous Puritan, and was said to have had great influ ence over the young Sir Harry Vane, when he came over here in 1635, and became Governor of Massachusetts at twenty-four years of age. He died about two years after this letter was addressed to him, owing, as Matthew Cradock " feared," when he announced the death to Winthrop in a letter from London, to the immoderate use of an " Antimoniall Cupp," one of the " Universal Medicines " of that day. I have observed within a day or two that a manuscript Life of Sir Nathaniel Rich has been presented to the New England 396 GLEANINGS OP A FOREIGN TOUR. Historic Genealogical Society by its author, Mr. G. D. Scull, to whom we have heretofore been indebted for his interesting "Memoir and Letters" of the young Captain Evelyn, of the " King's Own " Regiment at Bunker Hill. But the letter of Governor Winthrop shall now tell its own story, and with it I will conclude all that I have to communi cate at this meeting : — Kimbolton Papers. m 421. WORTHTE SB/. That you are pleased amonge yr many & weighty imployments to spende so many searious thoughts & good wishes upon us, & the worke of the Lorde in or hands, I must needs acknowledge it amonge other the speciall favo™ of God towards us, & an undoubted testimony of yor sin cere love towards us : wcl1 makes me the more carefull to satisfie yor desire of being truely informed of or estate (this beinge the first safe menes of conveyance since I received yo™ in October last) : you may please therefore to understand that first, for the number of or people, we never took any surveigh of them, nor doe we intend it, except inforced throughe urgent occasio (Davids example stickes somewhat wth us) but I esteeme them to be in all about 4000 : soules & upwarde : in good healthe (for the most pte) & well provided of all necessaryes : so as (throughe the Lords speciall providence) there hath not died above 2 : or 3 : growne psons, & about so many children, all the last yeare, it being verye rare to heare of any sicke of agues or other diseases, nor have I knowne of any quartan ague amonge us since I came into the countrye ; For our subsistence heere, the menes hetherto hath bene the yearly accesse of new comers, who have supplied all or wants for cattle & the fruits of or labours as boorde, pale, smithes work &c: if this should faile then have we other meanes wch may supple us, as fishe, viz, codd, basse & herringe, for wch no place in the world exceeds us, if we can compasse salt at a reasonable rate ; or grounds likewise are apt for hempe & flaxe & rape seeds & all sorts of roots pumpins & other fruits, wch for tast & wholesoenesse far exceede the same in Eng- lande, or grapes allso (wherewth the countrye abounds) afforde a good harde wine. Our ploughes goe on w'h good successe, we are like to have 20 : at worke next yeare : or lands are aptest for rye & oats. Our winters are sharpe & longe, I may reckon 4 : monthes for storering of cattle, but we find no difference whither they be housed or goe abroad : GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. 397 or sumers are somewhat more fervent in heat then in England. Our civill goverm' is mixt : the freemen choose the magistrats everye yeare (& for the present they have chosen Thos Dudly Esqr Governor) & at 4 : Courts in the yeare 3 : out of eache towne (there being 8 in all) doe assist the magistrats in making of lawes, imposing taxes, & dispos* of lands : our Juries are chosen by the freemen of everye towne, our churches are governed by Pastors, Teachers Ruling Elders & Deacons, yet the power lies in the wholl Congregatio, & not in the Presbitrye further then for order & precedencye. For the natives, they are neere all ded of the Small Poxe, so as the Lord hath cleared or title to what we possesse. I shall now acquaint you wtb a sad accident w011 lately fell out between o* neyghbo™ of Plimouthe & some of the Lorde Saye his servants at Pascot They of P1" having engrossed all the cheif places of trade in N : E : viz Kenebeck, Penobscott, Narigancet & Conecticott, have erected tradinge houses in all of them The Lords pinace goeing wth 3 : men & a boy to trade at Kenebeck were forbidden, & psisting in their purposs 2 : of the magistrats of PI : viz : Jo : Alden & Jo : How- lande & about 9 : more, came up to them in their pinace & sent 3 : men in a canoe to cutt the cables of the Pas : pinace (her master one Hockin having given them provoking speeches) & stood in their owne pinace wth their peeces charged & ready to shoote : after they had cutt one cable, Hockin came up, & asked them if they ment to caste awaye his vessell &c. & sware w'^all that he would kill him that should come to cutt the other : Whereupon (the canoe being driven away w,h the strength of the streame), they tooke out him that steered her & putt in another & sent them again to cutt the other cable, woh while one was doeing (for it was cutt) Hockin shott one of them in the canoe dead, upon woh one of the PI : men out of their pinace shott at Hockin & killed him upon the place, whereupon another of Hockins company cominge up upon the decke one of the PI : men asked Howland if he should kill him allso, but he forbade him saying he feard there had been too many killed allreadye : the pinace beinge then driven on shore & in danger the PI : men saved her, & putt one of their owne men into her to carrye her homewards toward Pasc. Upon the report of this we were muche greived, that suche an occasio should be offered to or enemyes to reproache or professio : & that suche an injury e should be offered to those honbIe pso .. who for love of us & for furtherance of or begings here had so farre e[ngaged] themselves wa us, so as we wrote to them to knowe the truethe of the matter & whither they would advowe it : thejy] wrote to us againe relatinge the matter in effecte as I have expressed, w'h justification of the facte &c yet declaringe their sorrowe, that it had hapned so sadlye, otherwise then 398 GLEANINGS OF A FOREIGN TOUR. they intended : but they did not doubt but their Grant would beare them out ; upon this we refuse to holde corfiunio wth them till they give better satisfactio, & havinge the sd Alden before us, at a gen Court, we tooke securitye of him for his forthcoming & wrote to them what & where fore we had doone it: & upon theire answeare, that themselves would doe justice in the cause we remitted him to them, as havinge no juris- dictio in it to trye it or selves. All that we ayme at is that they may come to see their sinne & repente of it. Woh if they shall doe, I would intreat you to intercede w'h the Lords for them, that the injurye & dis courtesy may be passed by, upon suche satisfactio as they can make. I can thinke of nothinge more at psent to acquaint you w01 ; so desiringe the continuance of yor care & prayers for us, as we wish & rejoyce in the success of yor like undertakings to the Southward, I take leave & rest Yo'.8 ever to be comanded in the Lord Jo : Winthkop. Boston Massachts N : E : May 22. 1634. heere are 6 : shipps lately arrived wtb passengers & cattle, most of them came in 6 : weekes space, we have setled a plantatio 20 : miles to the northwd, neere Merrimacke. M1. Parker is to be minister there. (Address.) To his honorble friend S* Nathan1 Riche Knight at Warwick Howse in Holborne London THE BOSTON CHILDKEN'S HOSPITAL. ADDEESS AT THE DEDICATION OE THE NEW HOSPITAL BUILDING, DECEMBER 26, 1882. Ladies and Gentlemen, — In the absence of Mr. Nathan iel Thayer, the President and foremost benefactor of this Insti tution, whose illness is so deeply lamented by us all, it has become my privilege and my duty to preside over the proceed ings of this occasion. Those proceedings must necessarily be brief, and I shall detain you with but few introductory words. Thirteen years have now elapsed since, at the earnest appeal of our excellent friend, the late Dr. Chandler Robbins, whose portrait we have placed, with that of Mr. Thayer, in our Mana gers' room, this Children's Hospital was originally organized and incorporated. As one of its Managers from the beginning, and for some years past its Vice-President, I recall at this hour not a few of those who have been associated with us in our work, and who would have rejoiced not less than we do in the grand consum mation which we are permitted to witness. I cannot fail to mention the late Albert Fearing, the largest contributor to our permanent fund, George H. Kuhn, and Nathaniel H. Emmons, Chief Justice Bigelow, the Hon. E. R. Mudge, and the Rev. Dr. Manning. Their names must not be lost to our history, or to our own grateful remembrance. Meantime there are those around me to whom our hearty acknowledgments are due for the success which has attended this Institution during its whole existence, and which has been 400 THE BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. crowned at last by the erection of this spacious and commodi ous edifice. I should be conscious of a great omission if I did not name particularly Dr. Francis H. Brown, our untiring Secretary, and Mr. Charles Faulkner, of the Building Com mittee, with Mr. Isaac Thacher and Mr. John C. Phillips, who have devoted so much time and thought and personal super vision to the work. Nor can I forget our Treasurer, Mr. Wetherell ; and I trust that no one else will forget his readi ness to receive and acknowledge any contributions to our cause. But I should be guilty of a still less pardonable omission, were I not to refer to the invaluable assistance which has been rendered to us, from first to last, by the Ladies' Aid Associa tion, so many of whom we are glad to see present on this occa sion, and by other ladies who have generously co-operated with them, both in supplying the various wants of the Hospital here tofore, and in providing the furniture of so many of these wards and apartments now. We cannot be too grateful for all that they have done. We are not assembled, however, to recognize any merely human agencies in the work which has at length been accom plished. Everything of that sort may well be left to our annual reports, or to other appropriate opportunities. We are here for higher acknowledgments. The Managers have been unwilling that this new and noble building should be taken into posses sion, and opened for the uses for which it has been designed, until our thanks have been reverently offered to the Giver of all Good, who has so prospered our efforts in the past, and until His blessing has been fervently invoked for the future. The little cots around us will soon be occupied by the suffer ing children, who are to be brought here an hour or two hence, under the charge of the devoted Sister Theresa, and her associ ates of St. Margaret's, superintended by our faithful volunteer Medical Staff. We will not run the risk of disturbing or delay ing their removal, from the narrow quarters in which they have thus far been cared for and nursed, by any protracted services of our own. They will bring their own blessings with them ; blessings for us as well as for themselves. THE BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 401 For, indeed, my friends, if there be any one variety or quality of charity or mercy which fulfils, beyond all other varieties, that exquisite idea of Shakespeare, as " twice-blessed, — blessing him that gives and him that takes," — it can be no other than such a provision as this for the sick, suffering, helpless little children of the poor, for whom our Hospital has been erected, and to whom it is now to be consecrated. Let us hope that the same liberality and beneficence which have enabled us to build it will afford ample means for sustaining it from year to year, and that an Institution which has already ministered to the relief of hardly less than two thousand poor, sick, suffering little ones, may rely confidently on the generous support and sympathy of our community in all time to come. But we shall count in vain on the help of man without the blessing of God. We all remember where it is written, " Ex cept the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." Let me, then, no longer delay to call upon the Rev. Dr. Blagden to read for us from the Holy Scriptures, after which the Rev. Dr. Lothrop will offer prayer and praise. 26 GEORGE W. GREENE. -NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE. ADDEESS AT A MEETING OP THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. FEBRUARY 8, 1883. Mt first duty this afternoon, Gentlemen, is to announce, for formal entry on our records, the death of a valued Correspond ing Member, Professor George Washington Greene, LL.D., whose name has been on our roll for only five days less than twenty years. He died at his home in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the 2d instant, having been born on the 8th of April, 1811, and having thus nearly completed the seventy- second year of his age. He was a man, as you all know, of extensive and varied ac complishments. His protracted residence abroad, — from 1827 to 1847, — during eight years of which he was United States Consul at Rome, — had rendered the languages and literature of other lands, and especially of Italy, almost as familiar to him as those of his own land. Immediately after his return from Europe, in 1847, he was made Professor of Modern Languages in Brown University, which he had left, as an undergraduate, twenty years before, on account of ill health. After five years of successful service in that sphere, he spent thirteen or four teen years in New York, as a teacher and a student of history. " A Short History of Rhode Island," and an " Historical Re view of the American Revolution" were among the fruits of this period. GEORGE W. GREENE. — NOTES BT THE WAYSIDE. 403 But his principal work, and that by which his name will be longest remembered hereafter, was an elaborate and valuable biography of his illustrious grandfather, — General Nathanael Greene, — in three large volumes, published successively be tween 1867 and 1871. The dedication of that work to Long fellow, in a brilliant letter recounting their early associations in Naples, is one among many illustrations of the intimate friend ship and warm attachment which existed between them. As long as Longfellow lived, Greene was one of his favorite guests, often an inmate of his family circle, and, after "infirmities had begun to press heavily upon him, the subject of a touching tenderness. One can easily imagine that the loss of such a friend as Longfellow had been to him, even though wife and children and a venerable mother were still left, may have quickened the approach of an end which has long been antici pated by those who were in the way of observing his condition. He will be respectfully remembered by us all. And now, before calling on the Section from which communi cations are first in order to-day, I will venture to occupy a short time with a few jottings of recent joumeyings, which, while containing but little that is new, may serve to put on our records some facts of more or less historical interest. I did not omit the opportunity, during my late tour, to visit some of the places in England which are specially associated with our earliest colonial history. Before going to London, in April last, I found my way first to that little circle in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, not far from Lincolnshire, on which good Joseph Hunter, the antiquarian, of whom Dr. Deane has writ ten a memoir for us, so fitly inscribed the legend, "Maximse gentis incunabula," and of which the little market town of Bawtry is the centre. From Bawtry I drove a mile or two to Austerfield, and visited the church in which, according to the old parish records, still preserved, William Bradford was bap tized on the nineteenth day of March, 1589. The church, a very small one, is in decent condition, and is still used to some extent for public worship. A woodcut of it is in the " Cen tury" for January. But I was sorry to observe that the old 404 NOTES BY THE WATSIDE. font from which Bradford was christened, and which is said to have been used at one time as a horse-trough on a neighboring farm, is lying in a corner unmounted ; while a modern substi tute, of smaller dimensions and ordinary quality, has usurped its place. The surroundings of the church, too, and the access to it, are any thing but what they should be. Very ill-looking buildings obstruct the view of it from the road, and the door is approached by a lane which suggests only the way to a barn. I could not help thinking that our numerous Pilgrim societies in all parts of* the country might well unite in an effort to render this ancient edifice, associated with the infancy of one of the chief of the Pilgrim Fathers, — their historian, and so long their governor, — more sightly and more accessible. I doubt not that our friend Lord Houghton, who is lord of the manor, would readily give his assent, if nothing more, to any plan for at least clearing away the rubbish which disfigures the view, and for giving something of dignity to the outlook of a building which New Englanders must always regard with so much interest. The old font, now that it has been rescued from ignoble and profane uses, should certainly have a pedestal and an inscription, and, if not restored to its original uses, should no longer be left on the floor, in an untidy corner. From Austerfield we drove along a few miles to Scrooby, and saw the only fragments which remain of that " Manor of the Bishops " in which Elder Brewster lived, and in which the members of the church of which the sainted Robinson was pastor, and which fled first to Leyden and thence to Plymouth Rock, "ordinarily met on the Lord's Day." A few bits of carved timber in a barn are about all that can pretend to have belonged to that famous manor, formerly a palace of the arch bishops of York, in which Cardinal Wolsey once found refuge, and which Henry VIII. selected for a resting-place during one of his royal progresses. But one or two stately trees suggested a possibility that they might have been witnesses of the devo tions of Brewster and Robinson ; and under their shade we rested our horses and refreshed ourselves at midday. Some simple memorial, — a shaft, if not a schoolhouse or a chapel, — erected by the sons and daughters of New England, — as I NOTES BT THE WAYSIDE. 405 ventured to say on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing at Plymouth, — might well mark a spot on which our Pilgrim Fathers ordinarily met for the worship of God before they fled to Holland, and which no New Englander should cross the ocean without visiting. Coming down from those old abodes of Bradford and Brew ster, I stopped for a day or two at Cambridge, where, some where within the shadows of Emmanuel or St. John's or Trinity, on the 29th of August, 1629, Saltonstall and Dud ley and Isaac Johnson and John Winthrop and eight others adopted and signed that memorable Agreement which led to the successful plantation of Massachusetts ; and from there, by a natural sequence, crossed over to Groton, and visited the place where Governor Winthrop dwelt, before he proceeded to execute that Cambridge Agreement, and came over to America. The outlines of the cellar of his house may still be traced. The venerable mulberry-tree, the only survivor of his garden, is still propped up, and bears an occasional berry. And the little Groton church, I am happy to say, has of late been admirably cared for. The stucco or plaster has been scraped off from the outer walls, and the original rubble of which it was built un covered ; the old family tomb, in which the father and mother of the Governor were buried, has been thoroughly restored ; the brass which had marked the burial-place of his grandfather has found fit exhibition in the chancel ; and more than one memo rial window completes the story of those who were lords of the manor and patrons of the living from the Reformation in Old England until its legitimate fruit in the settlement of New England. But before completing this little circuit through the places peculiarly associated with our Pilgrim and Puritan history, I could not omit a brief stop at Boston, in Lincolnshire, where, with Canon Blenkin, the genial and obliging vicar, I spent an hour in the beautiful church of St. Botolph and in the little chapel of John Cotton. I can add nothing in regard to that church and chapel to what you all have seen or heard. But there was one small brass, somewhat recently placed on the inner walls of the church, which attracted my attention, and of which 406 NOTES BT THE WATSIDE. the verger was good enough to give me a copy or rubbing. It interested me both on account of the man whom it commem- rated and on account of the striking and touching character of the inscription. The man was the late Henry Hallam, the dis tinguished historian, a former Honorary Member of this Society, a friend of Everett and Ticknor, and whom I also had the privilege of knowing personally on my first visit to England. I shall not soon, if ever, forget the charming breakfast which I enjoyed at his own table on May Day, 1847, — nearly thirty-six years ago, — in company with the Lyells, the Milmans, Dr. Joseph Hunter, and others. Of that party I am the only sur vivor, as I am of not a few other English entertainments of that period. But the inscription, of which I obtained the copy, purports to come from Hallam's daughter. It sets forth his claim to the remembrance of others, and her own affection for him, in brief and terse Latin, to which no translation can do entire justice. It is as follows : — AD MEMORIAM HENBICI HALLAM HISTORICI QUI PRIMUS INTER RERTJM ANGLICARUM SCRIPTORE8 HANC SIBI LEGEM IMPOSUIT UT TAMQUAM JUDEX IN TRIBUNALI SEDENS SINE PARTIUM STUDIO VERUM RECTUMQUE DECERNERET. PATREM OPTIMUM ATAVIS ORTUM BOSTONIENSIBUS CUJU8 MAGNUM APUD OMNES NOMEN IPSA DOMI ET IN SINU FOVET HOC MUE INSIGNIRI VOLUIT FILIA. "TO THE MEMORY OF HENRY HALLAM, HISTORIAN, WHO FIRST AMONG WRITERS ON ENGLISH AFFAIRS IMPOSED THIS LAW UPON HIMSELF, THAT, AS A JUDGE SEATED UPON A TRIBUNAL, WITHOUT REGARD TO PARTIES, HE WOULD DECIDE WHAT WAS TRUE AND RIGHT. HIS DAUGHTER HAS DESIRED TO COMMEMORATE BY THIS BRASS THE BEST OF FATHERS, SPRUNG FROM BOSTON ANCESTORS, WHOSE NAME, GREAT AMONG ALL, SHE CHERISHES FONDLY AT HOME AND IN HER OWN BOSOM." NOTES BT THE WATSIDE. 407 The fact that Hallam's ancestors were of Boston, Lincoln shire, may be new to others, as it certainly was to myself. His daughter was known as Mrs. Colonel Cator. If I may trespass for a few moments longer on the time which might be better occupied by others, I will venture to cross the Channel, and allude to one or two pleasant experi ences in France. It is a matter of interest, both historical and artistic, to make note of any portraits of Washington which have not before been described, or perhaps known to exist. During my late absence, I passed two delightful days with our Honorary Member, the Marquis de Rochambeau, at his chateau, near Vendolne. In one of his salons I found many relics of the old Marquis, or Count, as he then was, of Yorktown memory. The sword which he wore in America, his badge as an honorary member of the Cincinnati, his baton as a Marshal of France, with all his orders and decorations, were arranged in a glass case for preservation and display ; while a large number of family por traits, including of course one of himself, were hung upon the walls. On pedestals, in the corners or at the sides, there were two beautifully wrought miniature cannon, inscribed as having been presented to the widow of the old Marquis by Louis XVIII., to take the place of the two British cannon which Washington had presented to Rochambeau after our victory at Yorktown, and which had been seized, and probably recast, during the French Revolution.1 But upon being shown to my chamber, I found that the room in which the old Marquis slept had been assigned to me, with the original state-bed and much of the antique furniture. On the table reposed the manuscript memoirs of the Marquis, just as he had left them, and just as large portions, if not the whole of them, have been published, beginning as follows : " Manuscript Memoirs, political and mil itary, of Marshal de Rochambeau, written with his own hand." They were of course written in French, but the following trans lation of the first paragraph will serve to show the noble spirit which dictated them : — 1 See Notes at the end of this Address. 408 NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE. " Truth should be the basis of history. I am to write only that which I have seen or known as certain. There will be found some gaps in the pictures I have drawn of the four grand wars in which I have had a part in the course of my life. I preferred to be silent rather than hazard any thing against that first principle of truth and of fidelity, from which no one should ever depart who writes for posterity." Meantime, between the windows there was a large portrait which could not be mistaken. It was one of Peale's original portraits of Washington, which Washington himself had pre sented to Rochambeau. It was not a full-length portrait, like that in the possession of Lord Albemarle, of which we have a copy in our gallery, but was, I think, substantially the same picture down to the knees, — a large square or three-quarters portrait, in military costume, and with a cannon and other mil itary emblems in the background. It was in perfect preserva tion, and is worthy of being included among the most notable of the numberless portraits of the Father of his Country. Next to the portraits of Washington, those of Lafayette may well be a subject of interest, in connection with our Revolu tionary history. The full-length portrait of him by Ary Scheffer, taken just before his memorable visit to this country in 1824, is familiar to us. More than one of these admirable portraits by Scheffer may be seen on the walls of the Lafayette family in France, and a duplicate original is in the Representatives' Chamber, at Washington, presented by Scheffer himself. Then we have in our own gallery the portrait of him, as a young officer, painted for Mr. Jefferson at the time of his first coming over here to take part in our Revolutionary struggle. But there is another sketch of him as a very young man, portraying him as he stood at the head of the American troops, during that Virginia campaign which he conducted so skilfully in 1781, before Washington came to his aid, and before the Siege of Yorktown was commenced. In this sketch, he has a map in his hand, inscribed " Map of Virginia," betokening the peculiar interest and pride which he took in that campaign. It is an aquarelle, or water-color, and belonged to Madame de Lafayette, by whom it was bequeathed to her daughter, Madame de Latour Maubourg, and is now in Turin, in the NOTES BT THE WATSIDE. 409 possession of her granddaughter, Madame la Baronne de Perron Saint Martin. It has always been prized in the family, as the one most resembling the young hero at the time of the Virginia campaign. A carefully taken photograph, improved by India ink, from the original, was kindly given me by Madame de Corcelle, a granddaughter of Lafayette,1 while I was passing some delight ful days with her and M. de Corcelle, a former French Ambas sador at Rome, at Beau-fosse, in Normandy. This little sketch might well be heliotyped for our volumes, as furnishing an illustration of Lafayette in his earliest matu rity, which is not only interesting in itself, but which may be valuable to the sculptor who shall be selected hereafter to pre pare a statue of him for some one of our public squares. I may not forget, in this connection, a most agreeable visit to La Grange, — the old residence of Lafayette in France, — where the Count de Lasteyrie, his grandson, now a senator of France, with his family, took pains to gratify my disposition to see whatever was associated with the life and memory of the good Marquis. There was his library, just as he left it, and, close at hand, the little room in which he read and wrote. There were his farm books, in which, like Washington, he made care ful entries of agricultural operations and accounts, almost to the last day of his life. And in the hall there were two small can non which had been presented to him by the city of Paris, in August, 1830, and which had been rendered doubly interesting by their recent rescue from the Prussian soldiery through the heroism of the Countess de Lasteyrie. But I may not dwell longer on these visits, or upon others in France and in England, — visits to Chantilly and Hatfield House, the splendid seats of the Due d' Aumale and of the Marquis of Salisbury, with their magnificent parks and ave nues, and with all their marvellous treasures of art and litera ture. I confine myself to those which had some peculiarly American association or interest, worthy of mention in our historical records. 1 See Note ii. on next page. NOTES. I. Inscription on the Miniature Cannon at the Chateau de Rochambeau. " Donne par Louis XVIII. a la Mar^chale de Rochambeau en rem- placement des deux pieces de Canon que les Etats Unis d'Amerique avaient envoyees au Mardchal en reconnaissance de ses glorieux services." II. Account of the Sketch of the Young Lafayette in Virginia. " L'aquarelle ou la gouache dont la photographic est offerte par Mm.e de Corcelle a M. Robert C. Winthrop a toujours £te regardee dans la famille de La Fayette comme l'un des portraits les plus ressemblants du Ge"ndral a l'6poque de la campagne de Virginie. " L'original appartenait a Madame de La Fayette. II a 6t6 league" par elle a sa fille, Mm.e de Latour Maubourg, et est aujourd'hui a Turin dans la possession de sa petite fille, Madame la Baronne de Perron Saint Martin. "BEAurossi;, le 21 Sept., 1882." PAUL A. CHADBOURNE AND NATHANIEL THAYER. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 8, 1883. We can hardly claim, Gentlemen, any primary or principal part in the loss which has been sustained by our Commonwealth and country, since our last meeting, in the death of the Hon. Paul A. Chadbourne. Elected one of our Resident Members as recently as June, 1880, his name has been on our roll for less than three years ; and I believe that we have only once enjoyed the satisfaction of welcoming him personally at our meetings. But we are not the less sensible, on that account, how impor tant a life has been prematurely closed, and how varied and val uable have been his services to his fellow-men. With no early advantages of family, fortune, or education, he had earned a reputation for ability, energy, and learning, which cannot soon be forgotten. To have been selected as the successor of the accomplished and venerable Mark Hopkins, as President of Williams College, would alone have been a distinction of no common character. But his service in that sphere, for nearly ten years, was only one of his many kindred services in the cause of education, sci ence, and religion. His name is associated also with Madison University in Wisconsin, with Bowdoin College in his native State of Maine, and with the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, of which he was the President at his death. The honorary degrees both of Doctor of Laws and of Doctor of Divin- 412 PAUL A. CHADBOURNE AND NATHANIEL THATER. ity had been conferred upon him by these or other institutions, while a service of two or three years in our State Senate had entitled him to the secular prefix by which he is designated on our roll. He died in New York, after a short illness, on the 23rd of February last, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, leaving a deep sense of an unfinished career, from which much valuable fruit might still have been confidently expected. But death has come nearer home to us, Gentlemen, in the departure of our Associate Member, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, who died yesterday morning, at his residence in this city, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. The son of one of the most distinguished Congregational clergymen of Massachusetts, and the younger brother and heir of one of the most eminent and successful bankers of our city, Mr. Thayer had long ago established his own individual title to be counted among the great financiers and benefactors of Boston. For many years a member of the corporation of Harvard University, he was the founder of one of its most spacious and costly halls, which will bear down his name, with those of his father and brother, to a grateful posterity, and which is only one of his numerous benefactions to that institution. A close and constant friend of the late beloved Louis Agassiz, he nobly volunteered to assume the whole expense of his most interesting and important scientific expedition to Brazil. More recently, in connection with our late valued associate, Dr. Chandler Robbins, he was one of the foremost founders and supporters of that Children's Hospital which has at length ob tained a permanent home, and of which he was the President when he died. But these constitute but a small part of his contributions to the public welfare and to personal want ; and I should be in dan ger of doing injustice to his memory by any attempt, on this occasion, to recall and enumerate the varied objects of his bounty. The details of such a career must be left for the formal memoir for which it is our custom to provide. NATHANIEL THATER. 413 Meantime his personal life and character have been known to us all, and we can all bear witness to the virtues and excel lences which we have witnessed. Shut off for many months from the occupations of business and from the intercourse of friends by serious and exhausting illness, he bore his infirmities and sufferings with a brave and patient spirit, and awaited that change which he and all around him had long anticipated, but which came at last so suddenly, with a Christian's hope and faith in a blessed hereafter. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, APRIL 12, 1883. I have been reminded, Gentlemen, and it may be interesting for us all to remember to-day, that this is the fiftieth anniversary of our original occupation of this building as a Society. At the Annual Meeting in April, 1833, the Treasurer, who was then our late President, Hon. James Savage, reported that, between the 6th of November and the 11th of April, he had received from subscriptions the full sum of $ 5,000, "to assist in obtaining the secure and convenient situation in which the Society now is assembled." These words of Mr. Savage, " in which the Society now is assembled," leave no doubt that the Annual Meeting of 1833 was held, and held for the first time, in this building. The Annual Meeting of that year, under the By-laws as then existing, fell on the 25th of April, thirteen days later in the month than it has come under our present rules this year, but that can hardly change the anniversary character of this occasion. The list of subscribers, as reported by Mr. Savage at that meeting, is printed in the earliest volume of our Proceedings. It contains the names of no less than sixty-four of the principal citizens of Boston and its vicinity, who united in contributing sums from $10 up to 1300 in making up the amount required for the purchase of a small part of this building, of which we now own the whole, though still subject to a considerable mortgage. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 415 Of those subscribers many more than half were not members of the Society ; for our Society was then limited by its charter to sixty resident members in all. Not one of the subscribers is now living. Nor, indeed, is there a single member of the So ciety of that day now left. The present senior member of the Society, by date of election, — as I have the best reason for re membering, — was chosen in 1839, six years later. Judge Davis was then, in 1833, the President ; Mr. Savage the Treasurer ; the Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell the Corresponding Secretary, having just succeeded the Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes in that office ; while Dr. Gamaliel Bradford had succeeded Dr. Lowell as Recording Secretary ; and Joseph Willard had become Libra rian, in place of James Bowdoin, who had recently died. Those were our days of small things. Seventeen Members only were present at that Annual Meeting, fifty years ago, and that was an exceptionally large attendance for the period. A stated assessment of $2 per annum on each member, and an occasional extra assessment of $1.50, were the principal resources of our treasury, in connection with the sales of our published volumes of Collections. But I will not dwell longer on these anniversary reminiscen ces. I have said enough to justify me in congratulating you on the improved condition in which we find ourselves to-day, and in giving expression to our hearty acknowledgments to God and man for the prosperity in which we enter upon another year, — the fifty-first since we began to occupy this building, the ninety-second since our Society was originally founded. We have special cause for satisfaction and gratitude on this occasion, in a birthday-gift, if I may so style it, which I shall presently announce. Before doing so, however, I must, not fail to notice briefly the death of one of our most distinguished foreign Corresponding Members. The London " Punch," which is hardly more notable for its telling, though sometimes truculent, jests upon the Uving, than for its occasional poetic tributes to the distinguished dead, de votes a conspicuous corner, in its number for March 17, to the following brief but comprehensive and just impromptu : — 416 john richard green. "John Richard Green, Author of ' A Short History of the English People,' Died at Mentone, March 8, 1883, at the age of 45. "Enough for one brief life, the toil, the glory, So to have told our stirring English story That ears of Englishmen most gladly listen, That eyes of EngUsh youth will glow and glisten. Tet all must grieve, gay stripling or grave sage, Robbed by o'er-hasty Death of many a noble page." You will all agree with me, Gentlemen, that not Englishmen only have gladly listened to that stirring English story, and that not Englishmen only will grieve for the early death of its ac complished author. Nowhere have his volumes been more highly appreciated than in our own land. English history, as far as he told it, almost to the very end of his four volumes, is, after all, only the introduction to our own history ; and no Eng lish historian has been more generally accurate, just, and re spectful in his treatment of the American colonies than he has been. I had some most agreeable personal experience of his eagerness to correct any mistakes he had made in his work, when it was originally published in a single volume. A note to me dated July 11, 1875, — which I shall preserve with the au tographs of Hallam and Macaulay, — speaks of his being at the very moment engaged in revising his work for a library edition, and welcomes every suggestion of mistake. " It will be," he says, " a reprint, but with large additions and (I am sorry to have to confess it) the correction of a great many very careless blunders." Not many English historians, or American ones either, have been so honorably ready to confess or correct their blunders, and his example in this respect is as wholesome as it is rare. But he had larger claims on the respect and admiration of all who are interested in historical studies. He was a faith ful, conscientious, dispassionate student, — working on hope fully and unweariedly under the greatest discouragements of failing health, — who combined a marvellous fondness and fac ulty for research with a singular luminousness and felicity of diction and description, and who rendered history readable, JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 417 attractive, and popular, without sacrificing truth either to prej udice or to the picturesque. In this respect he may almost be said to have created a new era in historical literature. He cer tainly has furnished a model which it is to be hoped will find many followers at home and abroad. For some years a resident fellow of Oxford, and afterward a parish priest of the English church, he had acquired the warm regard and confidence of such men as the late lamented Arch bishop Tait, who made him for a time his Librarian at Lambeth, and of the admirable Dean Stanley, who spoke to me of him once with the warmest personal interest and affection. Mean time, he dedicates his volumes to his " two dear friends, Edward Augustus Freeman and William Stubbs," whom he was proud to recognize as "his masters in the study of English history." With such masters he could not fail in whatever pertained to the most diligent and devoted investigation. He had recently published a very careful and compact little account of what he entitled " The Making of England," and he has left in the hands of the publishers an almost completed sequel to that vol ume, under the proposed title of the " Conquest of England." What treasures might we not have hoped for, had his life been spared ! He was elected a Corresponding Member of this Society in November, 1876, and his letter of acceptance was announced at our Annual Meeting in 1877. We shall all sympathize with our English friends in their grief at his early death, counting it one of the greatest losses which the historical literature of the English language could have sustained. I turn lastly to the more welcome privilege of informing the Society of a substantial contribution to our funds. I can tell its story in no way so appropriate as by reading the following letter which reached me a few days ago : — Boston, March 23, 1883. Hon. Robert C. Winthkop, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dear Sir, — You know how my dear husband, the late Richard Frothingham, to the very last, valued his connection with the Massachu- 27 418 RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. setts Historical Society, and how many of its members were his old and dear friends. To his memory, and to aid the Society in extending its honorable work, I give the Massachusetts Historical Society the enclosed certificates of Stock, and also the plates of my husband's historical works : " Siege of Boston," " Life and times of Joseph Warren," and " Rise of the Republic." With great respect, Vrtlena Frothingham. The certificate of stock enclosed in this letter covers a round sum of $3,000 at the least ; while the plates, besides being inter esting memorials of our late valued associate, may be of consid erable pecuniary aid to us from time to time. But the gift will be valued by us all, far above any moneyed equivalent, from its associations with one whom we all esteemed and respected so highly, and whose name has so many titles to our affectionate remembrance. As one of our most devoted and loyal members, and our faithful Treasurer for thirty years, and still more as one who will always be looked to as an authority on some of the most interesting and important scenes in our State and country, he has secured for himself an enviable place on our records and in our hearts. In turning over, within a few days past, some letters from Washington Irving, in connection with the recent commemoration of his centennial birthday, I found him writing to me in 1853, while he was engaged on his own admirable " Life of Washington " : "I have heretofore consulted Froth- ingham's ' History of the Siege of Boston,' about which you speak. It merits the character you gave it, as being the best thing written about the Bunker Hill period." Thirty years have passed away, but I remember, as if it were yesterday, how greatly gratified our friend was, when I read Irviug's letter to him at the time. Nothing need be added to such praise from such a source. Let me only submit the following Resolution, under the authority and instruction of the Council : — Resolved, That the best thanks of the Massachusetts Historical Soci ety be presented to Mrs. Richard Frothingham for her generous gift of three thousand dollars to our funds, together with the stereotype plates of RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. 419 the " Siege of Boston," the " Life and Times of Joseph Warren," and the " Rise of the Republic ; " and that the Treasurer be instructed to enter and keep the account of this gift as " The Richard Frothingham Fund," and so to employ the interest of said fund, by accumulation for a time or other wise, under the direction and at the discretion of the Council, as to them shall seem best for the welfare of the Society, and for doing honor to the memory of an associate so highly valued and regretted by us all. THE BIBLE, AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS AT THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY, MAY 27, 1883. We have come here this evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, to celebrate the seventy-fourth anniversary of the Massachusetts Bible Society, one of the oldest societies of its kind in our coun try, and only five years younger than the great British and For eign Bible Society in London. Our religious exercises having been concluded, it devolves upon me, in conformitjr with our usage, to offer a few introductory remarks before calling upon the Secretary for his annual report, after which our anniversary discourse will be delivered by the eminent rector of the Church in which we are privileged to assemble. I may be pardoned, perhaps, in rising for this purpose, for not forgetting that it has happened to me, during a long life, to preside at many meetings, on many public occasions, here and elsewhere, — in more than One hall of legislation, and over more than one association connected with history, with literature, with education, with science, with philanthropy, with religion. But I cannot come again to this chair, which I have been per mitted to occupy at our successive anniversaries for some years past, without feeling afresh that whatever of interest, whatever of usefulness, whatever of distinction and honor may attach to other positions of the sort, it is here, as the President of this Society, that I am brought into the most direct re lation with all that is highest, most sacred, and most enduring. THE BIBLE AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. 421 Other objects of associated effort, however worthy and valua ble, are comparatively temporary in their nature and limited in their range. But so long as this earth shall be the abode of intelligent human beings, and until time shall be no more, the work in which we are engaged must go on, and will go on tri umphantly. Individual officers and managers and members, generation after generation, will pass away and be forgotten ; but our work will not pass away, nor pause for an instant, until all be fulfilled. Every day enlarges the field of such a labor. Every month adds new millions to the number of those to whom the Bible is to be carried, and to many of whom it is to be carried as a new book. Every year opens new high-ways for it to reach the very ends of the earth. And the very ends of the earth will be reached, and the Gospel be carried to every creature. Who doubts that the Word of God is to have free course and be glorified in all time to come, as in all time past ? Yes, to have a hundredfold freer course, and to be a hundredfold more glorified, than in any time past ? For one, I should sooner doubt tomorrow's sunrise, or the succession of harvest-time to the glorious summer months which are at last opening upon us. Who of us does not feel assured that the volume, for whose un ceasing publication and circulation we are organized to take part in providing, is destined still and ever to be counted as the Book of Books ; the choicest of all possessions to those who have it, the most needed by those who have it not ; the book which has inspired, and is inspiring, and will never fail to inspire, what ever is worthiest and most exalted in human thought, word, and act ; affording at once the wisest counsels for the present, and the surest and only hopes and promises for the future ! The bravest and most hopeful among us are, I know, some times disposed to despondency, and almost to despair, as they witness such floods of lawlessness and infidelity swelling and sweeping over our own and other lands, and dashing down so many of the old landmarks of morality and religion. But we may all take comfort and courage in thinking of the great and glorious things which the Bible has already done for mankind since the opening of the Christian era, and which can never be lost. From what other source has all true civilization, directly 422 THE BIBLE, AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. or indirectly, emanated ? What other influence has so elevated humanity, so lifted the poor and humble, so freed the oppressed, so enlightened the ignorant, so inculcated peace and good will among the nations, so proclaimed the brotherhood of man under a common Father, so restrained and rebuked vice and crime, and brought the indispensable sanction of future responsibility and future judgment to the support of earthly laws and human govern ment ? From what other pages than those of the Bible have all the grand philanthropies of modern times derived their incentives and examples ? What can legislation do but confess that all its laborious statutes are little more than the detailed application to existing society of the laws first promulgated on Sinai, and of the two great Commandments into which those laws were con densed and crystallized by Him who died for us on Calvary? And even Science, after all the marvellous discoveries it has of late accomplished, and all the signal triumphs it is daily achieving, — now soaring to the skies, questioning each partic ular star and comet and remotest nebula, and analyzing the very tints and texture of the sun itself ; now sounding the depths of the sea and spreading out its countless contents, animate and inanimate, to be the subject of an Exposition for princes to in augurate and the world to admire ; now exploring and search ing the caves and caverns of the earth, and laying bare to our insatiate gaze the long-buried treasures of Ilion or Assos, or the hardly less interesting outcomes of mounds and shell-heaps in our own land ; and now suspending in mid air, over the broad current which had so long separated the two great sister cities of our continent, that stupendous bridge over which travel and traffic may pass and repass unimpeded from hour to hour, and look down upon the tall ships sailing freely beneath them, — even Science, I say, in all the just pride of these and a hundred other successes, has never found, and never can find, any other fixed and steadfast point of departure, or any other sure and final resting place to fall back upon, save in that sublime announce ment, in the very first verse of the Bible, — " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." In this connection I cannot but recall the fact that it was my privilege, just a year ago, in this very month of May, while in THE BIBLE, AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. 423 London, to represent our American Academy of Arts and Sci ences, at the public funeral of one who has been held as the greatest philosopher and naturalist of our day and generation. It was solemnized at Westminster Abbey, and his remains were laid at the side of those of Sir John Herschel and Sir Isaac New ton. The highest peers of the realm were among the pall-bear ers, and all who were most distinguished in church and state, in art and literature, in science and theology, were gathered around his grave. The Burial Service of the English Liturgy was read or chanted, and, as a part of it, the wonderful chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, in which the great Apostle, as with a pencil of electric fire, draws that glowing distinction and con trast which no material science can ever overlook or confound, and which shines and sparkles on the pages of Holy Writ like the milky way across the heavens above us : " There are celes tial bodies and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Never before, it seemed to me, had those old familiar texts sounded so new, so full of meaning, so convincing, so sublime, as when read in presence of all that was mortal of one whose masterly researches and deductions and theories, — however modestly, conscientiously and reverently conducted and pursued, as we owe it to him to remember that they always were, — had probably done more to disturb the faith of the Christian world than any utterances since that glorious Epistle was written by Saint Paul. And certainly, my friends, that solemn tribute to the genius and virtues of Darwin, by the highest authorities of the English Church as well as of the English Nation, was a most memorable and impressive attestation, from which we trust there may be no appeal, that no discoveries of modern science, and no theory or doctrines of evolution, even if universally accepted and adopted, are ever to be counted incompatible with a firm and unwavering belief in one God, as the Creator of heaven and earth, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, who brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. 424 THE BIBLE, AND THE FUNERAL OF DARWIN. I do not forget, in conclusion, that this Massachusetts Bible Society — like the great American Bible Society at New York, of which we are an auxiliary, and like the still greater British and Foreign Society in London, the record of whose brilliant celebration of its seventy-ninth anniversary has just reached us — with an account of nearly a hundred millions of copies, in nearly two hundred and fifty languages, already distributed — is in no sense a doctrinal or sectarian association. Our dealings, as a Society, are with the book, and not with any particular interpretations of the book. The Bible, pure and simple ; the Bible, without note or comment ; this is all we are concerned with. Questions of inspiration and interpretation, of creeds and doctrines, we leave to the Churches. Our single aim has been, and is, to do our share in co-operating with those on both sides of the Atlantic, who have been so long and so successfully en gaged in publishing the Holy Scriptures in every language, and sending them to every land. Founded in 1809, the original Constitution of this Society, written and reported by our great Massachusetts Chief Justice of the olden time, Theophilus Parsons, embraced in its terms every denomination of Christians within the State. The re vered Channing was one of its first executive committee, and the eloquent young Buckminster its first recording secretary ; while its officers, and managers, and members, from that day to this, have included, and still include Congregationalisls, Bap tists, Methodists, Unitarians, Universalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians alike. God be thanked that it has been so ! God grant that it may never be otherwise ! Let us all hope and trust that it may never cease to be among the peculiar glories of the Sacred Scriptures, that all who profess and call them selves Christians shall be seen rallying around them together, in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. In such a united support the cause of the Bible will be secure; and in the secur ity and advancement of that cause are forever involved the best hopes of humanity, in our own land and throughout the world. It only remains for me to call upon our devoted Secretary, the Rev. Mr. Butler, for his Annual Report, after which our Annual Discourse will be delivered by the Rev. Dr. Courteney. EDOUARD DE LABOULAYE. TRIBUTE AT MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 14, 1883. The month which has elapsed, Gentlemen, since we last met has been fruitful of historical and biographical publications, in which, though not the immediate productions of our own Soci ety, we gladly recognize the labors of more than one of our members. I may mention the vigorous Biography of Webster, by Mr. Cabot Lodge, and the masterly Memoir of Thomas Morton of Merry Mount, with his "New English Canaan," by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., published so beautifully by the Prince Society. This very morning, too, I received at Brookline, by favor of Mr. Winsor, some of the first pages of " The Narrative and Critical History of America," which prom ise the early appearance of that elaborate work, in which so many of our number are associated as fellow-laborers. Since our last monthly meeting, the death of our distin guished foreign Honorarj^ Member, Laboulate, has been announced by ocean telegram, and subsequently by formal communication from his family addressed to this Society. It occurred on the 25th of May last. He was born in Paris on the 18th of January, 1811, and he had thus entered on the seventy-third year of his age. Of humble parentage, and fol lowing for some years the mechanical profession of a type founder, his mind was early turned to questions of law and of liberty, and he suddenly appeared as the author of an elaborate 426 EDOUARD DE LABOULATE. History of Landed Property in Europe, from the time of Con stantine to the present day. This work was published in 1839, when he was but twenty-eight years of age, and while he was still engaged in a mechanical calling. It was followed in 1842 by a Memoir of Savigny, the eminent Prussian jurist, and in 1843 by a volume of Researches into the Civil and Political Condition of Woman from the days of ancient Rome. Two years afterwards he published an Essay on the Criminal Law of Rome, in special regard to the responsibility of Magistrates. More than one of these works received the crowning recogni tion of the Institute of France, and in 1845 he was chosen a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles ' Lettres, on whose roll his name stood second in seniority at the time of his death. From this period his reputation was established both in literature and in law ; and in 1849 he was elected Professor of Comparative Legislation in the College of France. His atten tion was now soon turned to our own country. In 1854 he published an Essay on the Life and Teachings of Channing, as an introduction to his translation of Channing's Moral and Social Writings ; and in the next year he published a transla tion of Channing's writings on Slavery, with a Study of his own on Slavery in the United States. In 1855, also appeared the first of three volumes of his " Political History of the United States from 1620 to 1783," the third volume of which was printed in 1866. In 1866-67 he published a translation of the Memoirs and Correspondence of Franklin, together with Franklin's Essays on Moral and Political Economy. Meantime he had become deeply interested in the rise and progress of the Southern Rebellion, and was an earnest advo cate of the Union cause. In 1862 he published a formal ex position of his views of the causes of our Civil War, under the title of " The United States and France." His little volume, too, of " Paris in America," published soon afterwards, under a partly fictitious name, attracted great attention on both sides of the ocean, ran through many editions in Paris, and was translated and printed at New York. Laboulaye was thus everywhere known as foremost in France EDOUARD DE LABOULAYE. 427 among the friends of our country and its Union, at the period of our great struggle. And he continued to manifest his warm interest in our institutions and welfare to the last, — omitting no opportunity, in his lectures at the College of France, of which he was the director at his death, to do justice to our earlier and our later history, and to hold up our example to the study and imitation of French Republicans. Accordingly, in 1878, when the Grand Exposition was held at the Trocadero in Paris, to commemorate the Centennial of the Treaty of Alliance between our two countries, he became President of the Franco-American Commission for presenting to the United States the gigantic statue of " Liberty enlighten ing the World," which is now awaiting the preparation of its pedestal on Bedloe's Island in the harbor of New York. I have here a formal diploma or certificate, setting forth the proposed gift of this wonderful statue, kindly given me, while I was lately in Paris, by the accomplished designer and sculptor of the work, M. Bartholdi. It reads substantially as follows: — "The Colossal Statue of Liberty will be finished in 1883, and is to be erected on a monumental base on Bedloe's Island in the splendid harbor of New York. It will illustrate the fraternity of our two nations, as formerly, a hundred years ago, in the cause of American Independence. "It has received the support and contributions of 181 French towns or cities through their municipal councils, of 40 ' Conseils Generaux,' of 10 Chambers of Commerce of the most important Cities, and of 100,000 subscribers. The people of the United States will comprehend the senti ment which has inspired this grand manifestation." It bears the facsimile signatures of the Commission, with that of Laboulaye as President. And here is an autograph note of Laboulaye himself, written from Versailles, where he resided in the summer, apologizing for n6t coming to Paris, to unite with Bartholdi the sculptor, and with M. Henri Martin the historian, — also a member of the Commision, and one of our warmest friends, — in accom panying me, as they most kindly did, to see the statue. The note has some interesting allusions to himself and to our coun try, and I give it in a free translation : — 428 EDOUARD DE LABOULATE. Versailles, 10 October, 1882. Dear M. Winthrop, — I regret extremely not to be able to join in doing you the honors of the statue of Liberty. But I feel heavily the weight of threescore and ten, and am suffering from une maladie de cwur, which confines me to my apartments, to my great sorrow. I received and read with great pleasure your Yorktown Discourse, and was partic ularly impressed with your remarks about free schools, — a question of great interest for us in France, for we are making doubtful progress at this moment. We rely on the omnipotence of the State, but understand nothing of self-government or self-help. We have great need of being Americanized on this point. I have read repeatedly your excellent Biography of John Winthrop, and have intended to make an abridgment of it in a small volume for purposes of education in France. But infirmities have come upon me, and I am no longer capable of continuous labor, at least for the present. I thank you heartily for the engraved portrait, which I shall preserve preciously. In exchange I can send you only a very old photograph of myself, taken seventeen years ago, when my hair was still black. This picture, which is now but half like me, has at least the interest of repre senting me at the time I was defending your Union cause against the secession of the South. Accept, dear Sir, all my acknowledgments, and believe me always, I pray you, one of your devoted friends. Ed. Laboulaye. P. S. Men of my age have been brought up with the portrait of Lafayette which you possess at Washington. Those who never saw the General know him only by the engraving of this portrait ; but, for myself, I saw him many times, and can bear witness to its perfect fidelity to the original. Of M. Laboulaye's relations to the public affairs and political parties of his own country, I need say little here. He was re peatedly unsuccessful as a candidate for the National Assembly, but was elected in 1871, became Chairman of the Committee on the Higher Education, and in 1875 was the Secretary and Re porter of the Grand Committee of Thirty on the Republican Constitution of France. He was always a Republican ; though not without some of those conservative views which subjected EDOUARD DE LABOULATE. 429 him to the suspicion of thorough-going radicals, and which cost him somewhat of the popularity which he coveted and at one time enjoyed. He was a Senator at his death, as well as the Director of the College of France. M. Laboulaye was elected an Honorary Member of this Society in December, 1863, and his name has thus been on our rolls for nearly twenty years. We should all be unwilling to have it disappear without some words of well-merited eulogy. His memory, indeed, cannot fail to be long and warmly cherished by Americans, not merely as an eminent historian and publicist, but as one of the most intelligent and earnest sympa thizers with our country in its maintenance of free institutions and in its great struggle for the preservation of the Union. I will detain you, Gentlemen, but a moment more before calling for communications from others. I have here a letter from the United States Consul at Dresden, Mr. Jos. T. Mason, announcing the discovery there, in private hands, of an original portrait of Franklin, by the celebrated French artist, Duplessis. He states that it may be purchased for 6,000 marks, which would be about 81,500. From the photograph which accom panies the communication, I should not doubt its being an original Duplessis, and a very fine one, in perfect preservation. He sends a similar communication to the Pennsylvania Histor ical Society, and to the Corcoran Gallery, at Washington. Our own Society has no means applicable to such a purchase, and we have already in Boston, at our Public Library, two very fine original portraits of Franklin, — one by Duplessis, the gift of the late Mr. Edward Brooks; and the other by Greuze, I think, given by Franklin himself to Mr. Oswald, who signed the Preliminary Treaty of Peace in 1782, and presented to the Library by the late Mr. Gardner Brewer. We have, also, in our Boston Athenaeum, what purports to be an original portrait of FrankUn by Greuze. There is, too, an original crayon of Franklin by Greuze, in the family of the late Mr. James Lawrence. But this portrait at Dresden is a highly interesting one, and the communication of our Consul may well find a place in our 430 EDOUARD DE LABOULATE. records. It would be a most desirable acquisition for the State Department at Washington, where there is a gallery of our American diplomatists, and would form a fit frontispiece for the great Stevens Collection of Franklin Papers, which has recently been purchased by the Government. CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT ASSOCIATION, JUNE IT, 1883. Gentlemen op the Bunker Hill Monument Association, — Sixty years have now been completed since this Association was incorporated. Our Charter bears date June 7, 1823. Forty- eight years had then already elapsed since the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought ; and we thus meet to-day in commemoration of the one hundred and eighth anniversary of that ever memorable conflict. Our meeting, however, is primarily, if not altogether, a busi ness meeting, for the election of officers, and for hearing the annual reports of our treasurer and our directors. You will not, therefore, I am sure, expect from me anything in the nature of a formal address. Yet I might seem wanting to such an occasion, if not to you and to myself, were I not to follow the uniform example of those who have preceded me in this chair, and to offer you, in a few off-hand remarks, my cordial greeting on the return of so hallowed an anniversary, and my warm congratulations on the continued prosperity and success of the objects for which this Association was organized. It was, indeed, originally proposed, and was even made the subject of a solemn resolution at our Annual Meeting in 1824, that there should be " an Address annually delivered before the Association on the 17th of June, to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill." But it is plain that this resolution did not con- 432 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. template your President as the perpetual orator of the day, since it expressly provided also, that " a citizen should be chosen at each Annual Meeting to make such address at the next Annual Meeting." I am not aware that this old, original Resolution has ever been regularly rescinded, but we all know that it has been allowed to lapse into disuse by common consent ; and we have all been more than content with occasional addresses, in particu lar years, and iu view of special circumstances, — such as the completion of the Monument; the seventy-fifth, and, more especially, the one-hundredth anniversary of the battle ; the unveiling of the marble statue of General Joseph Warren, and, more recently, of the admirable bronze statue of Colonel William Prescott. At all events, Gentlemen, no citizen was chosen at the last Annual Meeting to deliver an Address at this meeting ; and no rightful expectations can thus be disappointed if we confine ourselves mainly, this morning, to the quiet transaction of the business which may come before us. Other exceptional occa sions will present themselves from time to time, in future years as they have done in years past, when we or our successors will be seen eagerly assembling again on yonder famous heights, and when eloquent voices will be heard telling again the never-tiring story of the first great battle of the American Revolution. Another quarter of a century from its date will soon have elapsed. Another half -century anniversary will not be slow in rolling on. And far later still, but not less surely, a grand Second Centennial of Bunker Hill will stir the blood of millions yet un born, and be celebrated not here only, but throughout the length and breadth of what we hope and trust and believe will still, by the blessing of God, be a free, prosperous, united and glorious country. What orator will be adequate to that occasion! What lips, what language, will be commensurate to the theme which that day will present to the contemplation of the world, if we and those who come after us shall only be true to our selves, to our country, and to our God, — seeing and pursuing those things which belong unto our peace, before they are hidden from our eyes I CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. 433 Meantime, other well-deserved statues will be found leaping from the quarries or the foundries, at the magic touch of accomplished artists like Story and Greenough and Ball, to take their places at the side of Warren or of Prescott ; and a substan tial and spacious Granite Lodge for the safe-keeping and exhibi tion of the relics of the Battle, and of the memorials of those by whom it was fought, and of those by whom it has been worthily illustrated, — in which, perhaps, these Annual Meetings may hereafter be held, — will be seen, it is hoped, at no distant day, offering itself for dedication. That is the first necessity of our condition. It would be a noble work for some public benefac tor to provide for, and make his own, in default of our inade quate resources. But contributions for such a purpose can hardly fail to be forthcoming whenever called for, and I cannot but hope that another Annual Meeting will not occur without plans and estimates having been obtained, and the serious con sideration of the work at least fairly entered upon. In these and other similar occurrences, ample, if not annual, opportunities will be found for keeping alive the memory of the 17th of June, 1775, should that memory ever again seem to be in danger, as it did sixty years ago, of losing its rightful hold on the American heart. But it never again will be in any such danger. The events and associations of that day have been already embalmed in as noble and as imperishable eloquence as our own country or any other country on earth has ever produced. They have certainly inspired more than one oration, never surpassed in the whole compass of English literature. History and biography, too, have dealt with them elaborately and brilliantly. And yonder massive and stately Monument, which was the original design and work of this Association, and is still and ever its most sacred trust, — albeit unadorned by anything of advanced art, and perhaps all the more on that account, — will stand proof against oblivion and against the elements, braving the winds and storms and even time itself, and telling the tale of Prescott and Warren and Putnam and their gallant comrades, century after century, for a thousand years. Thither the Tribes will go up in all time to come. Troops and throngs of our children and our children's 28 434 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. children, through countless generations, will be seen gathering on that consecrated Hill, on some of those special occasions as they succeed each other in the near or in the distant future, gazing with delight, as they advance, at that lifelike statue of the heroic Commander of the day, — who seems to have re turned and retaken the redoubt, as he said he could, — and recalling, as they go on and stand face to face with that colossal shaft, those thrilling words of Webster : " The powerful speaker stands motionless before us. Its future auditories will be the successive generations of men, as they rise up before it and gather around it. Its speech will be of patriotism and courage, of civil and religious liberty ; of free government; of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind ; and of the immortal memory of those who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives for their country ! " The battle of Bunker Hill, for itself and on its own account, will need no more orations, no other orator. Its commemora tions and celebrations will always serve to make a welcome holiday ; and they may always be relied upon, in any hour of peril, to rouse the slumbering patriotism of the people, and to re kindle the watch-fires of liberty. But its own remembrance will rest safely forever on the massive Obelisk which this Association has erected, and on the matchless utterances to which that Obelisk has more than once given the occasion and the inspiration. Let me not fail to add, Gentlemen, that, for the present year, there is a peculiar fitness in our omitting any special celebration of this or of any other battle. We have just gone through with the hundredth anniversaries of the battles of the Revolution, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown. We have exhausted the whole series. There are no more centennials of war to be celebrated. The grander Centennial of Peace has at length arrived, and is now in order. The struggle for American Independence, be gun here in Massachusetts in 1775, came to a triumphant end just a hundred years ago ; and the year 1783 stands out on the calendar of American history, illuminated from month to month, and almost from day to day, from its opening to its close, with all that can awaken the gratitude and rejoice the hearts of Christian patriots. CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. 435 On the 20th of January of that year the preliminary Treaty of Peace and Independence, which had been signed provision ally on the previous 30th of November, took full effect. On the 13th of February the King's Speech, announcing that treaty to the Parliament of Great Britain, arrived in America, and filled every bosom with joy. Early in March the official copy of that Preliminary Treaty was welcomed by Congress. Mean time our Army at Newburgh, which had grown somewhat im patient and restless under long and manifold deprivations and hardships, gave occasion to that memorable scene, on the 15th of March, when Washington recalled them to a sense of patri otic submission and duty by as impressive and touching an . appeal as ever fell from human lips. On the 11th of April Congress ordered a cessation of hostilities, which Washington proclaimed to the Army on the 19th, a day, as he said in that proclamation, — referring to Lexington and Concord, — which completed the eighth year of the war. Then followed, early in June, the noble circular letter of Washington to the gov ernors of all the States, — a legacy hardly second in interest, ability, and importance to his Farewell Address to the Nation, on withdrawing from the Presidency, thirteen years afterwards. The order of the Cincinnati now springs into existence, at the headquarters of the brave old Baron Steuben, — known since as the Verplanck Manor, near Fishkill, — to be the subject of suspicion, controversy, and even calumny for a few years, but to outlive them all, and to remain to this day as an honorable historical memorial of the gallant officers who led the Army of Independence. During all this time the Definitive Treaty of Peace and Independence is making steady progress in Paris ; and on the 3d day of September, at the British Minister's apartments in the Hotel de York, that immortal treaty is fin ally signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and the Minister of Great Britain, David Hartley. Accordingly, on the 18th of October, Congress issues a Proclamation for the Army of the Revolution to be disbanded on the 3d of Novem ber ; and on the 2d, the day before, Washington promulgates his farewell orders to the soldiers with whom he has so long been associated. On the 25th of November the British Army 436 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. evacuates New York. In that once more open city, on the 4th of December, at Fraunce's Tavern, Washington takes that af fectionate and affecting leave of his brothers in arms, and they all of him. And then, at last, on the 23d of December, is wit nessed, at Annapolis, the sublime closing scene of the Amer ican Revolution, — to which history presents no parallel, — when our consummate and incomparable Patriot and Hero resigns his commission as Commander-in-Chief of our Armies, and gives back the sword which had achieved our Independ ence to the Congress from which he had received it in 1775. Such is the succession of events which throw a halo of glory around that blessed year of our Lord of which this year, 1883, is the Centennial, encircling and gilding it, almost from its dawn to the ver}' last week of its close, with a radiance all its own, without a tinge of the crimson stains of carnage or conflict ! Such a year will fitly find its Centennial Commemoration in the national observances which have been arranged, I believe, for the 3d of September at Newburgh, the final headquarters of the American Army ; and, not less fitly, in the grand Ex position to be opened on the same day in our own city, where the Revolution began. We may well postpone Bunker Hill, and all other battles, to other years, and lend all our aid and support and sympathy to this Boston Exposition, which not a few of our own number have united in organizing, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and to which the leading nations of the world are at this mo ment preparing to contribute the choicest products of their art and industry. Let me hasten now to pass from these general remarks to matters of more direct and practical interest. It became my duty and privilege, while I was in Europe last summer, to communicate officially to the Marquis de Rocham beau and to M. Edmond de Lafayette the notice of their elec tion, at your last Annual Meeting, as honorary members of this Association. I hold in my hands their several letters of acknowledgment and acceptance. CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. 437 The Marquis de Rochambeau writes from his old ancestral Chateau de Rochambeau, near VendOme, where, before my re turn home, I had the pleasure of passing some delightful days with him and his family, and of seeing the fine portrait of the gallant commander of our French allies at Yorktown, and many other most interesting memorials and relics of his bril liant military career. The letter is dated August 9, 1882, and in it he says : — " I was greatly flattered by the distinction conferred upon me by the Bunker Hill Monument Association in naming me one of its honorary members. I shall always remember our visit to this famous Monument in your beautiful city of Boston, and the sympathetic welcome which you gave us there. "The laurels which the Americans gathered in 1775 were the most precious for your fathers, as the pledges of hope which God sent them from Heaven. At a later day the Sovereign Dispenser of Victory appeared manifestly in their behalf, and the Sun of Liberty began to break away from the clouds, and to shine upon the States of the Union." The letter of M. Edmond de Lafayette, bearing the same date but written from his residence in Paris, is as follows: — Mr. President : Will you excuse me for having so long delayed to answer you ? But I have been engrossed by my political duties and by the sessions of the Senate. I am deeply touched by the news you have announced. I cannot but be honored and flattered to be named an Hon orary Member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, — to succeed my brother Oscar, — and to see the name of Lafayette figuring still among so many well-known names which I have learned to love and respect, and which recall the glorious epoch of the first struggles for Independence in your country. It is with lively emotion that I accept the Diploma which you kindly offer me. I pray you to receive the expression of my thanks, and to communicate to your colleagues my sentiments of profound gratitude. Accept the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Edmond de Lafayette, Senator of the Haute Loire. Mons. Robert C. Winthrop. 438 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. Acceptances were also received from Major-General Winfield Scott Hancock of the United States Army, and from General Joseph Hawley, United States Senator of Connecticut, which will be duly preserved on our files. Our last Annual Report, as you will all remember, included an account of the reception of all the French guests at Bunker Hill on the 2d of November, 1881, on their return from the great centennial celebration at Yorktown. I took pleasure in transmitting a copy of this report to each one of the guests, with the lithographic fac-similes of their autograph signatures on our visitors' book, and I received from them all the most cordial expressions of acknowledgment. Not a few of them called on me personally in Paris, and were full of grateful recollections of Yorktown and Bunker Hill. And now, Gentlemen, we are called on to remember, at this anniversary meeting, those of our Directors who have died during the past year. Indeed, we could not forget them if we would. Though happily there are but two names lost to our living roll since it was last made up, yet those two, I need hardly remind you, are the names of men who had not only rendered devoted services to our Association, but who had in every way entitled themselves to our warm regard and respect. The Hon. Otis Nokceoss died on the 5th of September, in the seventy-first year of his age. He had been one of our Directors for fifteen years, during six of which he was a mem ber of the Standing Committee. No one of the Board was more attentive, more vigilant, or more practically useful. He brought to our service the sterling qualities which marked his whole character and career. He was a man of great intelli gence, of remarkable firmness, and of the highest integrity, never weary, in well-doing, and one whose counsel and co-oper ation, in all the concerns not only of this Association but of the community in which he lived, were as highly valued as they were cheerfully and generously afforded. I knew him in timately in the days of the Civil War, when I was engaged, as chairman of the Overseers of the Poor, in the reorganization of that Board, of which he was the Treasurer; and I can thus CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. 439 bear personal testimony to his wisdom, his diligence, and his unswerving fidelity. But this was only one of the relations which he sustained for so many years to the charitable Institu tions of our city. He was indeed more or less prominently as sociated with almost all of them. Meantime, as Chairman of the Board of Aldermen, as Mayor of Boston for at least one year, and as a member of the Executive Council of the State, his name was honorably associated with important political offices and affairs, and it will not soon be forgotten as that of an honest man, a valuable citizen, and a good and faithful public servant. Of the Hon. George Washington Warren, who died in this city on the 13th day of May last, in the seventieth year of his age, the records of our Association will preserve a dis tinguished memory, as long as the Association itself shall con tinue to exist. Its Secretary for eight years, from 1839 to 1847, — its President for twenty-eight years, from 1847 to 1875, — his services in various capacities, and as one of our Directors from 1836, cover a period of forty-seven years. His Annual Addresses, as President, which have always been included in the printed proceedings of the Association, con tain the details of all the important or interesting occurrences connected with the Monument from year to year, together with appropriate notices of our deceased officers and members, and with many more general historical references to the con flict which the Monument commemorates. But he had evi dently contemplated, during the whole period, the more substantial effort with which his name will be always iden tified, and in 1877 he produced and published an elaborate History of the Association and of its work, as the crowning labor of his long and zealous services in its behalf. Born, as he tells us in the preface to that stately volume, at the foot of Bunker Hill, where he resided for a large part of his life, and having received from his father, as a boy of only eleven years old, one of the engraved diplomas of membership of that day, — "in a gilt frame," as he is careful to mention, — he seems to have imbibed at once a passionate enthusiasm 440 CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. for everything relating to the Battle, to the Monument, and to all their associations and surroundings, and to have gath ered and treasured up with unwearied absiduity whatever might possibly contribute to their illustration. Little or noth ing of importance, certainly, in regard to the men who pro jected and built the Monument, or who have been in any way connected with this Association during the half-century which it covers, can have been omitted from so comprehensive a volume. It is itself a monument of singular diligence and devotion. A graduate of Harvard University in 1830, a member of our State Legislature, a Mayor of the City of Charlestown before its annexation to Boston, a faithful Judge of the Mu nicipal Court to the end of his life, associated prominently of late with the old First Church of Boston, and always a public- spirited and patriotic citizen of his Commonwealth and Coun try, in peace and in war, — Judge Warren has left an enduring record in many conspicuous spheres of official service, as well as in the annals of this Association. I leave it to you, Gentlemen, to originate any action in re gard to these bereavements which may be customary or appro priate, and I turn for a moment, before concluding these somewhat desultory remarks, from the dead to the living. I alluded, at the outset, to the fact that sixty years have now passed away since this Association was incorporated. Of the original Board of Directors in 1823, not one is now living. I doubt if there are many original members of the Association left, though there are some of us here present, who, as boys or as young men, witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the Monument in 1825, and heard parts, if not the whole, of Webster's immortal oration. But I cannot forget that first, in the order of seniority, on our roll of living Directors, and at the head of our Vice-Presidents, stands the name of a vener able printer, book-seller, and publisher, of our city, the im print of whose firm — Crocker & Brewster — has been the guaranty of a good book for more years than I can count, who has been always held, and is still held, in the highest CENTENNIAL OF PEACE. 441 regard and respect by our whole community, and who, hav ing been elected a Director iu 1833, has this day, in the eighty- seventh year of his age, completed a half-century of faithful service. I call upon you all to rise and unite with me in offer ing our thanks and congratulations to our valued associate and excellent fellow-citizen and friend, Uriel Crocker, and in expressing the earnest hope that he may long be spared in health and strength, not only to this Association, but to the community in which he has been so conspicuous an example of that industry, integrity, public spirit, and patriotism which have characterized and distinguished the mechanics of Boston from the days of their illustrious leader, Paul Revere. And now, Gentlemen, having finished these sincere though imperfect tributes to the living and the dead, it only remains for me to call upon my friend, the Hon. Frederic W. Lincoln, another of our Vice-Presidents, who has most kindly and efficiently conducted the affairs of the Standing Committee for several years past, to make report of their proceedings and doings since our last Annual Meeting. PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 3, 1883. I need hardly say, Gentlemen, how deeply I regretted being prevented from returning from Europe in season to be present at our last Annual Meeting. But the printed Proceedings of the Board, with the detailed Report of our General Agent, soon gave me the welcome assurance that nothing was lost by my absence. I could not but remark, however, in examining those Pro ceedings, that only ten of the Trustees were in attendance on that occasion ; and, as nine members are necessary for a quo rum when our Board is full, I was impressed anew with the danger we are in, from year to year, of finding ourselves with out a sufficient number for the transaction of business. I vent ured, some years ago, to suggest the expediency of fixing a slightly reduced quorum. The suggestion did not meet the acceptance of the Board, and I am not disposed to press it again. But I trust we shall all bear the danger in mind, and be willing to make some personal sacrifices to avert it. The absence of any of our Southern associates is always to be par ticularly regretted, as our work so immediately concerns their own part of the country, and as on them we must rely for the most authentic assurances of the success or failure of the trust committed to us. I am glad to perceive that all, from South and North, are here to-day. PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. 443 More than half of the time contemplated by Mr. Peabody for the continuance of our Trust has now expired ; and our work has thus far run along so smoothly and satisfactorily that it may almost seem able to go on of itself, without any other direction or supervision than those of our General Agent. But he himself will agree with me, I am sure, that the careful atten tion and consideration of the Trustees is still called for ; that questions of serious importance may arise unexpectedly at these Annual Meetings ; and that the influence of what is said and done here, by those whose names and characters are known throughout the land, is of no small moment in strengthening our hold on the confidence of the States for whose benefit the Trust is administered. With the death of Dr. Sears, and the election of his suc cessor in 1881, we had reached and recognized a turning-point in our policy and proceedings. All our efforts and all our income, during the previous period, had been devoted to the direct establishment and encouragement of Free Common Schools in the various Southern States to which our Fund was limited. Through the wise and efficient exertions of Dr. Sears, we had succeeded even beyond our expectation in awakening an intelligent and earnest interest in education in almost all those States; and had helped them by appropriations to the extent of our means, and by appeals and addresses more effec tive than any mere money, both in the adoption of well-consid ered and efficient State and municipal laws and regulations for carrying on a system of free public instruction, and also in establishing in many places model schools, as examples. Every where, we had met the most cheerful and eager co-operation. But here we were met also by the ascertainment of a great want which our own work had developed, and without the supply of which all further efforts would have been compara tively fruitless. That want was the want of accomplished and capable teachers; and it could be supplied only by Normal Schools or Colleges, in which suitable persons might be ade quately trained to the work of teaching. To that all-important object our means are now mainly directed. We have taken under our especial patronage, for 444 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. this purpose, the University of Nashville, Tennessee, at which not less than a hundred Normal Scholarships have been estab lished, which are distributed among the various Southern States ; and where, at the joint expense of the State of Ten nessee and of our own Fund, the specific education of teachers has been carried on for several years past, under the supervision of the Rev. Dr. Eben S. Stearns, a teacher of long experi ence and great accomplishment, who had been selected and appointed by Dr. Sears for this most responsible position. We have also sanctioned the employment of a considerable sum annually, from the income of our Fund, for the holding of Teachers' Institutes in many convenient places, at which lect ures and addresses are delivered, and other exercises conducted in the cause of Normal instruction. Much has been accomplished in this line of our work; and we have every inducement to persevere in it, and to make it the principal aim and end of our efforts and expenditures for the future. Meantime, our devoted General Agent, like his predecessor, exercises a vigilant supervision and control over all that is done, and is never weary in going from State to State, and from city to city, — and, if need be, from village to village, — lending advice and counsel to municipal authorities and boards of education, and delivering addresses to State Legis latures or at Teachers' Institutes wherever and whenever he can be of service to the great cause of which he is our accred ited apostle. But while we may all be well content with what has thus been accomplished by Mr. Peabody's Trust during the more than sixteen years since it was established, we cannot be blind to its utter inadequacy to the full work of Southern educa tion. Indeed, all that has been done hitherto has only served to reveal to us more distinctly the vastness of the field which remains to be occupied. The statistics of illiteracy, — of per sons over ten years of age who can neither read nor write, but who are, or are to be, voters, — as taken from the last census, give a fearful prospect for our country, and call for the most earnest efforts of all who have our republican institutions at heart. I dare not face the figures, or ask you to face them, by PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. 445 setting them down as I find them in the latest statistical tables. South and North, East and West, they are ominous of unspeak able danger in the future. When we contemplate such masses of children growing up to wield the elective franchise, not merely without the capacity of writing or reading their own votes, but without a particle of that early discipline and subor dination to authority which is an essential element of school education, the very idea of successful self-government seems almost hopeless. But throughout the South, especially, a denser cloud hangs over the cause of that education which is indispensable to the maintenance of free institutions, gathering additional blackness with every year's rapid increase of population, and which no little Trust like ours can do much to lift or lighten. We rejoice at the recent establishment of a special auxiliary Fund, devoted to this object, by a munificent philanthropist of Connecticut ; and our hearty sympathies and best wishes are with the Slater Trustees — among whom we are most glad to recognize several of our own associates — in their efforts in this behalf. And we ourselves have done what we could, and all that we could, from the beginning, in encouraging and aiding schools for the colored race as well as for the white. But we cannot but be sensible that the work is altogether beyond the reach or competency of any mere private benefactions or endowments. In despair of being able to grapple successfully with so great an exigency, we have already laid the matter before the Gen eral Government of the country, and have appealed to Congress in a memorial, drafted by our distinguished associate from Vir ginia, and sanctioned and signed by the Chief Justice of the United States and Mr. Evarts. This memorial has been fol lowed by one of great force and emphasis from our General Agent. I trust that these memorials will be presented again on the assembling of a new Congress, and that they will be pressed upon the consideration and action of the Government as long as the evil shall remain without ample provision for its remedy. National aid is the only adequate provision for this crying necessity of our institutions, and the nation may reasonably 446 PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. and rightfully be invoked and expected to supply the means of educating that great mass of utterly illiterate and undisciplined voters to whom it has itself so suddenly committed the equal exercise of the elective franchise. As I have said elsewhere, " Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half com pleted, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole republic, the dignity of the elective franchise, alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free." A great work evidently remains to be done. The nation alone can do it. And it is false to its own highest obligations and responsibilities in leaving it undone. It is a question of self-defence. Armies and navies are not more essential to our physical defence from foreign or domestic foes than Common Schools and the education of our children to the safety of our free institutions, and to the maintenance of intelligent self- government. And now, Gentlemen, I turn from this vast field, — whieh it rightfully belongs to the Nation to occupy, and for which we can do little or nothing except to commend it to the most ear nest consideration of Congress, — and come once more to our own peculiar work. I am satisfied that we have made the most and the best of our means thus far, and done all that it was in our power to do under the trust committed to us. Yet we can not but remember how much further our operations might have been advanced and extended, and how much further they could be advanced and extended at this moment, if all the bonds which have so long been lying dead in our treasury were hon estly paid, or if the interest of those bonds were provided for and added to our income. It would be lamentable indeed, if this noble Education Trust should be permanently deprived of a large part of its just resources, and seriously crippled in its beneficent work, through the wilful default of any of the very States for whose sons and PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. 447 daughters that Trust was created. If any securities might be regarded as sacred and. beyond the reach of the most unscrupu lous repudiation or re-adjustment, it would seem to be the bonds which were dedicated by a munificent benefactor to the children of the Southern States in the hour of their greatest destitution. For myself, I have an abiding faith, which no per sistent denials have yet shaken or can shake, that the States in default will at last be awakened to a sense of justice. Their own credit and honor, the interests not only of their own chil dren, but of all the children of their sister Southern States, can not fail to appeal to them effectively in some hour of sober second thought and of recovered and reassured prosperity. Our Fund was consecrated by Mr. Peabody to the education of the young in the States which had been desolated by the war. It was the very earliest manifestation of sympathy with their distress and their needs. All those States have a common interest in the whole Fund ; and they have all a common interest in making that Fund whole, if any rightful part of it is still deficient. It is for them all to consider whether any intercession, influence, or pres sure can hereafter be brought to bear upon any misguided sisters, who may be virtually usurping an altogether undue and disproportionate share of Mr. Peabody's endowment by refus ing or failing to provide for their just debts to the Fund which he gave for the benefit of them all. They certainly might call on us to consider how much longer any part of our restricted income could justly be employed for the benefit of delinquent States. We of the North have no part or lot in this Trust, except as gratified agents or witnesses of its successful administration and its beneficent results. But I venture to think that we are all alike bound, as Trustees, after so long a delay and forbearance, to keep up a continual and persistent claim that our Fund shall be made whole, and that the rightful expectations of the illus trious benefactor of the South may not be defeated nor the Southern children deprived of any part of the bounty which he bestowed on them. A time will come — thirteen or fourteen years hence — when our Board, as it shall then be composed, will be at liberty to 448 PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. close this Trust, and to distribute not less than two-thirds of the Fund, as it shall then stand, among educational and literary institutions in the States to whose benefit the income is now appointed to be used. It is not for me to anticipate having any personal part or concern in that distribution. Very few of those who took part in the original organization of this Board can look forward to witnessing its dissolution. But I will not despair that, before that day arrives, any States now in default will have been aroused to a sense of what their own interest and honor demand ; will have nobly redeemed their liabilities to this common Fund for Southern children ; and. will thus have placed themselves in a condition not only to rejoice with their sisters of the South over the work which has been accom plished, but to assert a reasonable and just claim to be consid ered in the distribution then to be made. The repudiation of an honest debt, under any circumstances, is a step from which a State having any care for its character will shrink. But when such repudiation involves an immediate wrong to the best interests of her own children, and endangers the future endowment of her own educational institutions, it is an almost inconceivable act. I recall the emphatic words addressed by the excellent Judge William L. Sharkey to Mr. Peabody and myself, when we were arranging together some of the details of this Trust, at Washington, in 1867. " Those Mississippi bonds of yours," said he, " are as good as gold. They are a just debt of my State, and I know all about them. They cannot be provided for now, while the State is in such confusion and embarrassment ; but they will be paid in full as soon as we recover from the depression of the war. They must be paid. Mississippi cannot afford to leave them unpaid." These were the words of one of her own most distinguished and favorite sons. And upon his words I rest my faith, as Mr. Peabody confidently rested his. I will make no further reference, Gentlemen, to our claims upon Mississippi. Indeed, I ought to apologize for any allusion to them, after the admirable and exhaustive appeal made to her own Legislature by our associate, Judge Manning, which was so fitly included in our last Annual Proceedings. Meantime, how- PEABODT EDUCATION FUND. 449 ever, I cannot pass from the subject of the unpaid Bonds, which create so greatly regretted a deficiency in our means of useful ness, without alluding to another State which is also in default to our Treasury. At your last meeting, indeed, it was expressly " Voted, That the President of the Board is requested to draft a memorial to the Legislature of Florida, praying that provision be made for the payment of what may be due on the Bonds of Florida donated by Mr. Peabody to this Board, and that the presenta tion of the memorial be intrusted to General Jackson." Amid the numerous avocations which followed my return from Europe after so considerable an absence, many weeks elapsed before I had examined attentively the printed Proceed ings of that meeting and discovered that such a duty had been assigned to me. It was then already too late to hope that any thing could be accomplished, or even wisely attempted, during that season. But I have brought with me here to-day the draft of such a memorial, to be signed by our Secretary as well as by myself ; and I include it in these introductory remarks, in order that it may be entered at once on our records, and render the story of the Florida bonds familiar both to ourselves and to all who are interested in the condition of our Fund. The memorial is as follows : — The Memorial of the Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund respectfully represents, — That on the 7th day of February, 1867, the late George Peabody gave to said Trustees the sum of One Million of Dollars, the income to be applied " for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and Southwestern States of our Union ; " and, in addition to this gift, placed in the hands of said Trustees bonds of the State of Mississippi, amounting, with interest, to about eleven hundred thousand dollars, to be employed for the same beneficent purpose : — That on the 29th day of June, 1869, Mr. Peabody gave a Second Million of Dollars to be employed by them in the same noble work ; and, simultaneously with this second gift, placed in the hands of the Trustees Florida bonds, amounting, with overdue interest, to about three hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars. 29 450 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. In the letter to the Trustees, announcing his second gift, Mr. Pea body speaks of the Florida bonds as follows : — "I give to you Florida six per cent bonds, which, with overdue coupons, amount to about three hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars. " These bonds, like the Mississippi Bonds in my first gift, must before many years be paid. "The Territory of Florida obtained the money on these bonds in Europe at about par, and loaned it to the Union Bank as capital. " The Territory received for some time a high rate of interest, but, after the bank suspended, paid the bondholders nothing, but referred them to the Union Bank, saying, ' Obtain what you can from the Union Bank, and it will then be time enough to come to us.' Large amounts of these bonds were purchased by planters at about fifty per cent, and used to pay mortgages held by the Union Bank, until there was nothing more left to be paid ; and the small amount of these bonds now outstanding (not exceeding, I believe, two millions of the original bonds) must, I think, before long, induce Florida, as an act of justice long delayed, to make provision for their payment." Nearly seventeen years have now elapsed since Mr. Peabody originally established this great Southern Education Trust, and more than fourteen years since these Florida bonds were added to his munificent endowment. During all this period, the Trustees have gone on with the work in trusted to them, applying the income of the Trust Fund to the promotion and support of education in those portions of the country " which suffered from the destructive ravages, and the not less disastrous consequences, of civil war ; " and not forgetting Mr. Peabody's express declaration of purpose, " that the benefits should be distributed among the entire popu lation, without other distinction than their needs and the opportunities of usefulness to them." In this distribution, Florida has not been neglected. From the earli est organization of our Trust, her schools have partaken of Mr. Pea body's bounty, and the reports of her Superintendents of Schools have borne repeated and most grateful testimony to the great value of the aid received from our Fund from year to year. More than seventy thousand dollars have been appropriated from the Peabody Education Fund to the support of the Florida schools since 1868. Nearly three thousand dollars have been allowed them during the year now closed. Meantime, her bonds remain unpaid, and no provision has ever been made for their interest. peabody education fund. 451 The Trustees respectfully call the attention of your Honorable Bodies to this state of things, and earnestly hope that now that the immediate effects of the late Civil War are at an end, and when Florida, with the other Southern States, is becoming prosperous and wealthy, the bonds which were given by Mr. Peabody for so sacred a purpose may be paid, or rendered productive, without further delay. The cause of Southern schools calls for every dollar which can be commanded in its behalf. The income of our Fund would be nearly or quite doubled, if Florida and Mississippi could be moved to provide for the bonds which were made a part of that Fund. In denying or delay ing such a provision, they deprive the schools of their sister Southern States of no small portion of the support and encouragement which Mr. Peabody designed for them all alike. The Fund was consecrated by Mr. Peabody to the education of the children of all the Southern and Southwestern States. It is in their name, as well as in justice to the memory of our illustrious Founder, that we present this Memorial. I hasten, Gentlemen, to turn to a more agreeable topic. I have here to communicate to you a memorial to ourselves, — furnishing a most gratifying and welcome testimony to the esti mation in which the operations of this Board and the efforts of our devoted General Agent are held, and coming, too, from a source quite beyond the range of our efforts and operations thus far. It is a .memorial from Louisville, Kentucky, praying that we would henceforth include the State of Kentucky in the field of our work ; and, particularly, that we would authorize our General Agent to address the Legislature of Kentucky next winter, and " to lay before that body the result of his reflection and experience on this great subject." The memorial was sent to me by my valued friend, Bishop Dudley, whose name stands first among the signers, and is followed by the names of judges and chancellors, pastors and professors, physicians, lawyers, merchants, and citizens, including the Mayor of Louisville. Such a request from such a source is a tribute to the value of the services of this Board which cannot be too highly appre ciated. Nor can any of us hesitate, I think, to accede to such a request to the full extent of our authority. I know not that there is anything express or implied in Mr. Peabody's Letter 452 peabody education fund. of Trust which should prevent us from including the State of Kentucky in the sphere of our operations, giving her a share in our scholarships at Nashville, and contributing in special cases to the encouragement of her schools. But, certainly, there can be nothing but satisfaction to us all in authorizing and instructing our General Agent to lend to that State all the personal aid in his power, by addresses to her Legisla ture, and by advice and counsel to her municipal authorities, wherever desired ; and I hope that a resolution may be intro> duced and adopted before our meeting is over, with a view to the most favorable action in our power upon this Louisville memorial. It will quicken our interest in this course to know that Ken tucky has recently stricken from her statutes an unwise as well as odious discrimination between races in the disbursement of her own school fund. Such a discrimination, I need hardly say, — if adopted or persisted in, anywhere, — would be seriously prejudicial to the work in which we are engaged. It would obviously be in direct contravention of that noble condition of Mr. Peabody's Letter of Trust, that the benefits of his bounty should be distributed " among the entire population, without other distinction than their needs and the opportunities of use fulness to them." It might thus even raise a question whether our appropriations could be continued in States which should adopt such a discrimination. Meantime, you will be glad to learn that Dr. Curry, in anticipation of any action on this memorial, has already, within the very last fortnight, delivered a powerful Address, on the needs of Southern Schools, at a meeting of " The Inter- State Educational Convention," at Louisville, which I hope may be included in the Appendix to our Proceedings at this Meeting, as a part of the' work of our General Agent during the past year. I may not bring these introductory remarks to a close, Gen tlemen, without referring to the loss which our Board has sus tained, since the last Annual Meeting, by the death of our associate, General Joseph K. Barnes. peabody education fund. 453 He died at his residence in Washington on the fifth day of April last, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, having been born in Philadelphia on the 21st of July, 1817. A graduate at the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, he was commissioned as an Assistant- Surgeon in the United States Army in 1840. After varied and valuable services in Florida, in Mexico, in Texas, and at West Point, he received the appointment of Surgeon, with the rank of Major, in August, 1856. In 1863, he was appointed Colonel and Medical Inspector-General ; and, in 1864, he became Sur geon-General of the United States Army, with the rank of Brigadier-General. In 1865, he received the commission of Major-General by brevet for faithful and meritorious services during the war ; and in 1882, after forty-three years of continuous service, he was placed upon the retired list by the operation of law. General Barnes's name was honorably associated with the establishment of the Army Medical Museum, with the Surgeon- General's Library, and with the compilation and publication of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War;" and his ser vices to the medical world were recognized in France, Belgium, Germany, and Russia by diplomas of distinguished societies and academies. He did not spare himself in his care for the wounded on the field of battle or for the sick in the hospitals ; and, in his later spheres of service, he displayed great administrative ability. His own health gave way at last, under his assiduous and anx ious attendance on President Garfield ; and when death had ended those protracted sufferings he found himself a confirmed invalid. Another year and a half terminated his life. His death was announced to the Army in general orders by the Adjutant-General, and to the Medical Department of the Army by his successor in the Surgeon-General's office ; and he was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, at Georgetown, D. C, with the military honors befitting his rank. General Barnes was elected a member of this Board in July, 1873, and had thus been associated with us for nearly ten years. He had rarely failed to attend our meetings after he became a 454 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. member of the Board ; and his amiable and obliging disposition and genial presence will be missed from our little circle. I leave it to others to propose the tribute of regard and respect to which his memory is entitled on our records, and to initiate measures for electing a new Trustee in his place. MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. STATUE OF HARVARD. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 11, 1883. A succession of engagements and absences from home, Gentlemen, has deprived me of all opportunity of preparing any formal communication for this meeting, and I must be pardoned for the most cursory introduction of some facts, papers, and volumes which might merit more deliberate atten tion. One word, in the first place, on longevity. The public attention seems often called of late to the great age which has been attained by individuals more or less distinguished. A dinner was given on the 22d of September to Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, the worthy President of the Historic, Genealogical Society, in honor of his eighty-fifth birthday, and the eighty- third birthday of Bancroft, the Historian, was fitly remem bered on the 3d of this month. Meantime, Daniel Simpson, the veteran drummer, — whose beat was familiar to me almost from my earliest childhood, during the last war with England, and which I have followed in many marches of later years, — was the subject of complimentary visits on the 29th of September, — his ninety-third birthday. But I have just returned from the Triennial Convention of the Episcopal Church, where a portion of the opening services was read by the presiding Bishop, Benjamin B. Smith, D.D., who had been able to go on from New York to Philadelphia, to take part in this Convention, in his eighty-ninth year.1 1 Bishop Smith died May 31, 1884. 456 MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. All these are well-authenticated cases of advanced age combined with activity and vigor. But when I was at Lenox last month I drove over to Lebanon, and saw, at the Shaker settlement, a venerable woman, bearing the name of "Sister Polly," who. walked to the door with very little aid, who purported to have reached her one hundred and seventh year, and who looked as if she might last many years more. The Shaker records are said to contain ample evidence of her having been brought there by her parents when she was five or six years old, more than a hundred years ago. I could not altogether credit it, but those who have seen the Westminster Abbey gravestone on which it is recorded that Thomas Parr lived to the age of one hundred and fifty-two, will not easily be staggered by a woman claiming to be only one hundred and seven. I may mention that during my recent absence in Pennsyl vania I attended service at the old church at Radnor, called St. David's, which was built one hundred and seventy years ago, and on which Longfellow wrote some of his charming lines. In the churchyard I saw the little monument to Anthony Wayne, — "Mad Anthony," as he was called, — the hero of Stony Point, on the Hudson, in 1779, who was present at Yorktown, who served in the Pennsylvania Convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States, and who died as commander-in-chief of the United States army, in 1796. His grandfather Anthony, who commanded a squadron of dragoons under William of Orange, at the battle of the Boyne, and who came over to Pennsylvania in 1722, was also buried in the same old Welsh village churchyard, in 1736. I pass now to one or two interesting papers, which have been communicated to me for the Society's archives. Here is a letter from Joseph P. Smith, Esq. , of Philadelphia, which will tell its own story : — No. 233 South Fourth Street, Philadelphia, June 21, 1883. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Boston, Mass. Dear Sir, — The enclosed letter of Hon. Daniel Webster, written in 1828, to Robert Lewis (the nephew, and for many years the private sec retary of General Washington), relative to the medals sent by General MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. 457 Lafayette to the former general, was presented to me some time since by the only surviving daughter of Mr. Lewis. As I have understood that these medals are now in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which you are the honored President, I thought that this letter might prove interesting to them, and beg leave, therefore, to tender it for their acceptance, to be deposited among the archives of the Society. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Joseph P. Smith. The letter from Mr. Webster is as follows : — Washington, April 9, 1828. Sir, — You have done me a great favor, which I beg leave grate fully to acknowledge, by your letter of the 7th instant, respecting the medals which belonged to General Washington. So authentic an account of them, by a connection of the family and a gentleman of your reputation and character, will render the cabinet an interesting object to all who venerate the memory of your illustrious relation. Praying you to accept the assurances of my regard, I am, very truly, your obliged, humble servant, Daniel Webster. Robert Lewis, Esq., Erederieksburg, Va. This letter is signed by Mr. Webster, and franked by him as a United States Senator, but is written by another hand. It has a heavy black seal, and bears date soon after the death of his first wife. It may well take its place in our Cabinet in connection with the Washington Medals to which it relates, and which were given to us by the late Mr. Peter Harvey. Here, next, is the f aire part announcing the death of our late Honorary Member, M. Edouard Rene" Lefdbre de Laboulaye, sent to us by his family, of whom an account is given in the paper, which gives also all the offices and titles of M. Laboulaye, including his honorary membership of our Society. The death of Laboulaye was noticed at our June meeting, and this paper has since been duly acknowledged. I have now a little paragraph from a Paris correspondent of the London " Times," dated some months ago, and sent to me by our Corresponding Member, Mr. Henry T. Parker, 458 MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. containing an interesting statement which may be new to us all : — " M. Doniol has been reading, in instalments, before the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, a paper on French' intervention in the American War of Independence, according to which the Comte de Broglie, the present duke's ancestor, aspired to the command of the American forces, and to eventual presidency or kingship of the States. His agent, Kalb, had at last to assure him that the scheme was im practicable, and would be glaringly unjust to Washington. It would be curious to speculate on the difference it might have made, both to American and French history, had the Broglies, originally of Italian extraction, become American citizens or potentates.'' And now I have a communication from our associate, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, on the subject of a Catalogue of Papers relating to our Country in the Archives of France, by Mr. B. F. Stevens, of London. If there be no objection, this letter may be safely referred to the Council for any action they may think wise. I come next to an interesting volume, which was given to me to place in our Library, while at Philadelphia a few days ago, by our Corresponding Member, Dr. Alfred Langdon- Elwyn, " The Autobiography of Charles Biddle, Vice-Presi dent of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, 1745-1821." It has, in the appendix, some notable letters in regard to the duel between Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Before concluding these desultory remarks, I may not omit to say a word of the two new volumes of the " History of the Civil War," by our Honorary Member, the Comte de Paris. They are the fifth and sixth in the French edition, and con tain the history of the war for the whole year 1863, embracing Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Oak Hill, Gettysburg, and other memorable conflicts. My own copy was a personal gift from the distinguished author ; but the complete History, either in French or English, will doubtless find a place in our Library, and the two volumes now published will not fail to add greatly to the reputation of the writer. They exhibit most careful research, and abound in picturesque details and felicitous narrative. STATUE OF HARVARD. 459 Some remarks having intervened on the proposed statue of Harvard, Mr. Win throp said as follows : — I am by no means disposed to prolong this discussion, or to suggest any opposition to what has been proposed in honor of John Harvard. Yet to my own mind there is a question behind all the points which have been mooted, and that is, how far encouragement should be given to the fabrication of statues of persons long dead, of whom there is no likeness, and of whose appearance there is no record or remembrance. It is easy enough, perhaps, in such cases to decide on mat ters of costume. No great mistake, certainly, could be made in giving John Harvard the collegiate or the clerical dress of the early Puritan period. But as to his features, his limbs, his stature, his expression, there is absolutely nothing to guide us. It must be altogether a fancy sketch, " a counterfeit presentment," — to use Shakspeare 's phrase, — and in more senses of the word than one. I confess it seems to me that such attempts to make por trait statues of those of whom there are not only no portraits, but no records or recollections, are of very doubtful desira bleness. Such a course tends to the confusing and confound ing of historical truth, and leaves posterity unable to decide what is authentic and what is mere invention. The young Harvard has every claim to a statue ; but it is a part of his history, and characteristic, if I may so speak, of his retiring disposition and quiet life, that there is no description or pic ture of him left. It seems to me of very questionable expe diency to get up a fictitious likeness of him and make up a figure according to our ideas of the man. I know that such things have been done both in marble and on canvas ; sometimes honestly, and sometimes for purposes of imposture. There is a fine statue of Roger Williams at the Capitol in Washington, which is very interesting as a work of art. It looks like a young John Bunyan. But there is not a particle of authority for any part of it. It might be a little awkward, to say the least, if one of these days a likeness or verbal description of Roger Williams should be discovered, and it should prove to be totally different from the portrait 460 STATUE OF HARVARD. statue which had been set up for bim in the gallery of the nation ! It may seem hard that there should be no portraits or statues of those benefactors or illustrious men who may have died long ago without leaving any likeness. But there are other sorts of commemoration. There are tablets, monuments, memorial windows, halls, and chapels. In this very case and for this precise corridor, what could be better, or more effec tive, than a Muse of History, of classic model, holding in her hand a tablet inscribed with the name of John Harvard, set ting forth his munificent bequest, distinctly stating that no authentic likeness of his form or features has been found, but adding that the whole University would forever portray the liberality and elevation of his young heart, and challenge for his memory the undying gratitude of posterity? Something of this kind would seem to me a thousand-fold better than attempting to conjure up a likeness, and thus to give a new example of a sort of mythical portrait statues. In regard to the precise amount of Harvard's bequest, I may recall the fact, that among the " Addenda " at the end of the second volume of Savage's Winthrop, in a list of the various donations to the Colony, the Governor says as follows : " Mr. Harvard gave to the college about £800." This would seem to remove all doubt, if there were any. THE EXPANSION OF EN GLAND. - GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 8, 1883. The month which has elapsed, Gentlemen, since our last meeting, has been specially marked by the grand Centennial Celebration at Newburgh, New York, commemorating the closing events of the American Revolution. The card of invitation, which I was compelled to decline, specified on its face four principal events : " Washington refusing the Crown, May 22, 1782;" "Washington's Reply to the Newburgh Letters, March 15, 1783 ; " " Washington's Proclamation of Peace to the Army, April 18, 1783 ; " " Army disbanded by Order of Congress, Oct. 18, 1783." This latter date was adopted for the celebration. The Army, as a matter of fact, was not disbanded until the 3d of November ; but the Order of Congress, for its disbandment on that day, bears date the 18th of October, which might fairly, therefore, be taken for the commemoration. Brilliant ora tions were delivered by Senator Bayard, of Delaware, and by our Honorary Member, Mr. Evarts, of New York ; and New burgh was the scene of imposing displays on the land and on the river, military and naval, by order of the National Govern ment. And there ends, as we may all be glad, the seemingly endless series of the Centennials of the Revolution. During this same month several historical publications have been sent to me, or have been brought to my notice, on 462 THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. which I will say but a word or two. I will not put the mod esty of my friend, our Librarian, to the blush, by any detailed reference to bis new volume, " Groton during the Indian Wars." But so careful and valuable a contribution to the local history of our State may well be the subject of grateful acknowledgment. A more comprehensive volume has come to me under the title of a " History of the American People," by Arthur Gilman, M.A. The volume has been rendered attractive by its mechanical execution, as well as by its copious illus trations ; and the cursory reading of some of its pages made me regret that I had not leisure, at present, for going through with them all deliberately. The special points set forth in its preface, as those on which exceptional pains have been bestowed, are full of interest, and will richly reward the study of the reader. I wish I felt more at liberty to allude to a third volume, not yet published, but of which I have had the privilege of a private view, under the title of " New England Episodes," by our associate, C. F. Adams, Jr. I do not feel competent to pronounce upon it critically. But I have read the largest half of its 455 pages with great admiration, and intend to read the rest without delay, if the author will kindly indulge me with a little more time. It seems to me to be a very valuable contribution to New England history, — not free, certainly, from strictures on men and on measures with which we may not all agree, — but abounding in evidences of care ful research, discriminating judgment, pungent criticism, and powerful narrative. I cannot doubt that it will at no very distant day find its way to the public eye, and afford as much pleasure to others as it has to myself. I will allude to but one other volume, and I owe special obligations to my friend, our Corresponding Secretary, for calling my attention to it. It is, " The Expansion of Eng land," in two courses of lectures, by our Honorary Member, John Robert Seeley, Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, England, the well-known author of " Ecce Homo." Of the two courses of lectures I have had THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 463 .time as yet to read only one. But that has been enough to impress me with the broad and masterly character of Pro fessor Seeley's treatment of history, and of the specific inter est and value of these lectures. The lecture on the " Old Colonial System," followed immediately by that on the " Effect of the New World on the Old," will be found very instructive and suggestive reading for Americans as well as Englishmen. • " The United States," says he, " have solved a problem substantially similar to that which our old colonial system could not solve, by showing how a State may throw off a constant stream of emigration, how from a fringe of settle ment on the Atlantic a whole continent as far as the Pacific may be peopled, and yet the doubt never arise whether those remote settlements will not soon claim their independence, or whether they will bear to be taxed for the benefit of the whole." " Perhaps," he says, " it is not till the time of the Spanish Armada (1588) that the New World begins in any percepti ble degree to react upon the Old. But from this time forward European affairs begin to be controlled by two great causes at once, namely, the Reformation and the New World ; and of these the Reformation acts with diminishing force, and the New World has more and more influence." But the most striking part of these lectures relates to the mode of teaching history, of studying history, and of writing history. " I am often told," he says, in conclusion of the whole matter, " by those who, like myself, study the question how history should be taught, ' Oh, you must before all things make it interesting.' ... By interesting they mean romantic, poetical, surprising. I do not try to make history interesting in this sense, because I have found that it cannot be done without adulterating history and mixing it with falsehood. . . . And therefore, when I meet a person who does not find history interesting, it does not occur to me to alter history, — I try to alter him." The volume is certainly well worth the most careful perusal. But I turn to graver topics. 464 GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. While at New York, a week or ten days ago, I heard with deep regret, as I am sure you all did, of the death of the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, who was elected a Resident Member of this Society in December, 1877, and whose name within the last year or two, owing to his removal from the State, had been transferred to our Corresponding roll. Born in Saugus, Massachusetts, on the 13th of June, 1821, he had only reached his sixty-third year, and his physical vigor seemed to give promise of many more years of usefulness and honor. He was a man of great intelligence, accomplishments, and ability. No one rendered more valuable services to the Navy and to the whole Country, during the late civil war, than he did, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had been previously employed by the Government in connection with an attempt to provision Fort Sumter. The attempt failed ; but President Lincoln, who had known all the circumstances of the case, wrote to him at once, not only exonerating him from all responsibility for the failure, but adding these unqualified words : " For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character, you would to-day be the man, of all my acquaint ances, whom I would select." This letter of May 1, 1861, will be found printed in our volume of Proceedings for 1878. Not long after it was written, Mr. Fox was appointed by President Lincoln Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and con tinued in that office until the close of the war. Educated as a midshipman, and having been in the naval service for nine teen years, he brought experience as well as energy to the department, and co-operated most efficiently with President Lincoln, with Secretary Welles, with Admiral Farragut, and others, in all that was done. I recall with interest my drive with Secretary Welles, Cap tain Fox, and Governor Clifford, at the funeral of Farragut at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when Captain Fox was full of striking reminiscences of the Admiral and of the scenes in which he had been the leader, as we followed his remains to the grave. I recall, too, the emphatic testimony which Farragut had frequently borne, in casual conversations with myself, to the valuable services of Fox. Nor can I forget GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. 465 the privilege which I enjoyed at Washington, two or three years ago, in being among his invited guests at a brilliant banquet which he gave on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue of Farragut at the Capitol, when the members of the Cabinet and all our naval celebrities were gathered around him, and when all seemed glad of the opportunity of uniting their homage for the memory of our grand Admiral with their tokens of respect for one who had been so prominently associated with him during the war. Captain Fox was never, I think, quite satisfied that justice had been accorded either to himself or to the Navy for what they had done during the war. We all remember the earnest protest which he made in a public letter against the omission of any recognition of our naval heroes in the groups on the bas-reliefs of the monument on Boston Common. A printed copy of his protest, if I mistake not, will be found, inscribed by himself, in a copy of the memorial of that monument, de posited iu our own Library. He felt deeply and justly that the figures of Admiral Davis and other Massachusetts Naval Officers, if not of himself, might well have found a place on those bas-reliefs, instead of some of those who had been arbi trarily selected for this distinction. The last services of Captain Fox, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, were in bearing to the Emperor of Russia, in 1866, the congratulations of our Government on the Emperor's escape from assassination. A richly illustrated volume, pub lished on his return, contains a brilliant account of his mission, and of the honors which were paid to Admiral Farragut and himself by the Imperial Court of Russia. Since his retirement from the service of the country, Cap tain Fox has been mainly employed in connection with some of our manufacturing establishments at Lowell. The ill- health of his wife — a daughter of the late Mr. Justice Woodbury — had compelled him to pass much of his time at Nassau and in Washington. But wherever he was, his mind was actively engaged in matters of science and history. As a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, he wrote an elaborate paper on the " Carroll County Kearsarge Mountain " 30 466 GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. of New Hampshire. More recently be had contributed to the Report of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1880, a most instructive and exhaustive " Attempt," as it is styled, " to solve the Problem of the first Landing-place of Columbus in the New World," published only during the very last year. He was a man of earnest convictions, of the highest integ rity, and of untiring investigation and labor ; and his loss, at so early an age, cannot fail to be sincerely deplored by us all. I would gladly conclude these introductory remarks here. But the journals of this morning inform us, I am sorry to say, that our Resident roll has sustained a loss which claims an expression of our regret. Mr. Williams Latham, of Bridge- water, died on Tuesday last, at the age, as it is stated, of eighty years and two days. We had hardly thought him so old a man, as he came in and went out among us so firmly and punctually, — even, I think, to our very last meeting. He was elected a Resident Member of our Society in May, 1859, and had thus been associated with us for nearly a quarter of a century, and he had won our warm regard and respect. His contributions to local history had been considerable ; but I must leave all notice of his life and character to others. MARTIN LUTHER. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS AT THE COMMEMORATION OF HIS BIRTHDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1883. We are here, ladies and gentlemen, on this tenth day of November, in the year of our Lord 1883, under the auspices of the old Massachusetts Historical Society, to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the birthday of one of the greatest figures of modern history, — I might almost have said the very greatest. Certainly, my friends, it may well be doubted whether, since the birth of that blessed Saviour, from whose nativity the years of our Christian calendar take their date, — as if there were no time worthy of being calculated or counted until Christ brought life and immortality to light, — it may well be doubted, I say, whether, since the incarnation of our Lord and the miraculous ministry of his great apostles, any one man has exerted so pervading and so powerful an influence on the condition and welfare of the human race as that son of a humble miner, who drew his first breath in the little German village of Eisleben four hundred years ago to-day. The late eminent philosopher and diplomatist, Baron von Bunsen, spoke for all Germany in pronouncing Luther em phatically and unqualifiedly " the greatest hero of Christen dom since the apostles." England might have been heard, two centuries and a half earlier, through the voice of John Milton, — no mean judge of human greatness, — speaking of. 468 MARTIN LUTHER. him as one " whom God made choice of, before others, to be of highest eminence and power in reforming the Church." And, within a few months past, the historian Froude has said : " Had there been no Luther, • the English, American, and German peoples would be thinking differently, would be acting differently, and would be altogether different men and women from what they are at this moment." We do not forget, and Froude did not forget, that when Luther was born our Western Hemisphere was an unknown and undiscovered region of the earth. There was no America, North, South, or Central, on the map of the world at that day. Columbus and Vespucius, indeed, were already mature men, and Sebastian Cabot was six or seven years old. But nine years were still to elapse before Columbus landed at San Sal vador or Samana, and five more years before John Cabot and his son Sebastian discovered the North American continent ; while two more years still remained before Americus Vespucius reached South America, and afforded the pretext for giving his name to the whole New World. That whole New World for another full century was with out civilized Christian occupation. Not, indeed, till sixty-one years after Luther's death was the earliest English settlement at Jamestown ; not till seventy-four years after his death was the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth ; not till eighty-four years after his death was the founding of Boston and Massa chusetts. Even St. Augustine, the first permanent Christian settlement in what is now our country, dates from 1565, while Luther died in 1546. And yet, as I need not say, in the face of all these facts and figures, we are here to-day to recognize Martin Luther as, beyond all other men, the instrument of God in giving the impulse, by thought, word, and act, to that world-wide movement which resulted not merely in the refor mation of Europe, but in all that we Americans now enjoy, and all that we rejoice in being. Pilgrim and Puritan, Cava lier and Roundhead, Huguenot and Quaker, yes, and Roman Catholic also, consciously or unconsciously, all alike felt that impulse, and American colonization and the American Revo lution were among its results. MARTIN LUTHER. 469 The venerable Emperor William, at the recent unveiling of the great Germania statue, opened a speech, as remarkable for condensed and comprehensive brevity and felicity as that of Abraham Lincoln at Gettsyburg, with these words : " When Providence desires to signify its will with regard to mighty events upon the earth, it selects the time, countries, and in struments to accomplish its purpose." Those words belonged pre-eminently to the great Luther monument at Worms, the grandest monument in Europe, and which appeals to the admi ration and sympathy of all who behold it, of whatever nation or tongue. No local or limited celebrity, certainly, is sufficient for Luther, or commensurate with his fame. Not as a wonderful German, though he was the most wonderful of all Germans ; not as the antagonist of Leo X. or of Charles V. ; not as nailing theses to a church-door, or burning a Papal bull at Wittenberg ; not as braving an imperial diet at Worms ; not even, only, as translating the Holy Scriptures at the Wartburg, and opening the Bible to all who had eyes to read it, — though that is glory enough for any man, — not for all or any of these char acteristic incidents in his career, do we come to commemorate his birthday. Still less do we come to indorse all his pe culiarities of doctrine or all his violences of diction. No sectarian, or even merely Protestant, views enter into this commemoration. But we come as students of history, and in just recognition of historical truth, to hail the advent, and do grateful homage to the memory, and listen to the inspiring story, of a mighty instrument of God in awakening and rousing and reforming the world for all time and for all places beneath the sun, — a man of indomitable courage and of unwavering faith in Christ, who kindled a flame of spiritual liberty never to be extin guished, but which is to burn brighter and brighter until the perfect day. But it is not for me, my friends, to dwell on these topics. I am here only, as president of this Society, to present to you the chosen orator of the occasion ; and I can do so in no more just or felicitous terms than those of my friend, Dr. 470 MARTIN LUTHER. George E. Ellis, who, in originally proposing this commemo ration, said as follows : " Happily, we have one with us who was for many years our associate in this Society, and a pro fessor in the University, a German scholar, profoundly versed in the literature, the philosophy, the history, science, art, and broadest culture of the birth-land of Luther ; and who is gifted with especial talents, with breadth of thought and compass of view, for a brilliant rehearsal of his career, and of his place in the world's history and in the higher development of humanity." I have now the privilege of calling on the Rev. Dr. Frederic Heney Hedge. EDUCATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. OXFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, DECEMBER 13, 1883. I WAS congratulating you, Gentlemen, at our last meeting, that with the great celebration at Newburgh the series of Revolutionary Centennials had come to an end. But I reck oned without my host. Only a day or two later an invitation came for the Society as well as myself to attend the ceremo nies on the one hundredth anniversary of the evacuation of New York. As that anniversary came upon Sunday, the cele bration was held on the 26th of November, and seems to have been the occasion of as brilliant and imposing a spectacle as the unfortunate weather would allow. I returned to the Committee a grateful acknowledgment of the invitation with which we were favored, and I now present the letter to be placed on our files. Meeting our associate and friend, Mr. Robert Bennett Forbes, casually in a horse-car a few days ago, he mentioned that he had applied to our Librarian for the loan of the model, given by himself to our Cabinet some years ago, of the "Midas," — the first American steamer which passed the Cape of Good Hope, — for the purpose of illustrating a lecture which he is to deliver to-morrow evening at the Institute of Technology. I found yesterday that Dr. Green had already taken the responsibility of complying with the request of Mr. Forbes, and I am sure we shall all sanction 472 EDUCATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. the loan. Our friend, Mr. Forbes, in his seventy-ninth year, is still a leading authority on all matters relating to ships and navigation, whether by wind or steam. He reminded me that forty years ago he was laughed at by old salts for predicting that propellers, at no distant day, would alto gether supersede side-wheels in steamers, as they have done. His earnest advocacy of iron carriages for cannon, though at first derided, has also everywhere prevailed. I may be allowed to recall his great service in carrying corn to Ireland, in the famine there of 1847, in command of the " James town ; " and I may be pardoned for not forgetting that it was my privilege, as a member of Congress, to be mainly instrumental in securing for him the use of that United States vessel for his philanthropic purpose. His lecture is on " The Rig of Ships, and matters relating to them ; " and he invites the members of our Society to come and hear him. I have received, from different sources, two copies of an in teresting pamphlet entitled " Education in South Carolina prior to and during the Revolution." One of the copies I am glad to deposit in our Library. Perhaps there is a copy here already ; but Dr. Green knows what to do with a duplicate, or even a triplicate. It is a paper read before the Historical Society of South Carolina, last August, by General Edward McCrady, Jr., and published by the Society. It was called forth by some passages in the " History of the People of the United States," by John Bach McMaster. This History, as we all know, is not a Massachusetts work. It comes from New York or Princeton ; and we have certainly no share in the responsibility for its alleged misstatements in regard to education in South Carolina a hundred years ago. The author of the paper, however, would seem almost to make the controversy a matter between South Carolina and Massa chusetts, and occasionally indulges in the strain which partakes of the old sectional spirit, which we heartily hope has almost passed away. In the comparison which he institutes between South Carolina and Massachusetts, he speaks more than once of Massachusetts being " settled in 1607," and of " the Colony of Massachusetts, established about 1607." He has been EDUCATION IN SOOTH CAROLINA. 473 misled by the date of the Jamestown Colony. Plymouth and Massachusetts, as we all remember, were not settled until 1620 and 1630. But the paper is one of much interest, and presents a val uable record of the schools and the libraries and the lit erary culture of South Carolina at that early period of her history. It unquestionably exhibits a very different picture from that of Mr. McMaster's History. It abounds, too, in welcome reminiscences of the great men of Carolina — the Rutledges and Pinckneys and Middletons and Gadsdens and Laurepses — of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods. We readily concur in the passage quoted from Dr. Ramsay's History of South Carolina in 1808, in which he says, " With the exception of Virginia, no State in the Union has obtained a greater or even an equal proportion of national honors." And we accept Dr. Ramsay's reason : " This was in some degree the consequence of the attention paid by the ear lier settlers of Carolina to the liberal education of their children." Let me not conclude this brief allusion to General McCrady's paper, without referring to the interest of the appendix, which contains a letter from Dr. Gabriel E. Manigault, President of the Carolina Art Association, giving a list of the London artists who were employed to paint portraits during the last century by South Carolinians who were in England for educational or other purposes. This list contains two portraits by Allan Ramsay, one by Zoffany, one by Sir Joshua Reynolds, three by Benjamin West, one by Romney, one by Gainsborough, seven by Copley, and two by Gilbert Stuart while he was in London. The letter of Dr. Manigault states the subjects of these portraits, and tells what has become of them. It is a valuable contribution to art history, and might help our associate Mr. Augustus Perkins in completing the catalogue of Copley's portraits. Finally, I take pleasure in laying on the table, agreeably to the request accompanying it, a prospectus of a new Historical Society, called " The Oxford Historical Society," just instituted at Oxford University, and founded on the 474 OXFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY. principles suggested by our late Corresponding Member, the lamented John Richard Green. The prospectus gives a large view, extending over many pages, of the wealth of material awaiting publication by this Society. Early Oxford, from 912 to 1216 ; Mediaeval Oxford, from 1216 to 1485 ; Oxford under the Tudors, from 1485 to 1603 ; Oxford under the early Stuarts and during the Commonwealth, from 1603 to 1660 ; Oxford under the later Stuarts, from 1661 to the death of Queen Anne, 1714 ; the Georgian Oxford, from 1714 to 1830 ; and the modern Oxford, from 1830, — make up together a wide field of research and labor which cannot fail to bring forth most interesting and valuable fruits. The Society contemplates no mere academic or local history. The prospectus truly says that " in Oxford there is probably more concentration of historical interest, and that of no insig nificant kind, than in any spot of similar size in the British Isles." But I leave the prospectus to speak for itself, with its appended invitation to membership by an annual payment of one guinea. I observe the names of Froude and Freeman and S. R. Gardiner, with that of Matthew Arnold also, on the list of the Council. And there is another name on the list, marked with a printer's dagger to indicate " assent not yet obtained," which has a special interest for us this afternoon, — the name of one of our foreign Corresponding Members, who is present with us and whom we are glad to recognize, — Professor Bryce, the author of " The Holy Roman Empire," and now a member of Parliament. At a later stage of our Proceedings I hope we may hear as well as see him. Meantime, I turn for a moment to a more serious communication. Since I came to these rooms this afternoon, I have learned that another of our venerable associates has suddenly passed away, and I am called on to announce the death of the Rev. William S. Bartlet, A.M., of Chelsea, whom we have so long been accustomed to see, day by day, in the quiet enjoyment of our Library. He has been well known as a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was successively the rector of churches in New York, Rhode WILLIAM S. BARTLET. 475 Island, and Massachusetts, and Registrar of the Diocese of the latter State. His principal contribution to history was a Memoir of the Rev. Jacob Bailey, published under the title of " The Frontier Missionary," in 1853, — a work which received high commendations at the time. He has also con tributed historical papers to several periodicals, and to the Memorial of the late Bishop Burgess of Maine. Born at Newburyport, April 8, 1809, he has died in his seventy- fifth year. INTERESTING GIFTS. -HENRI MARTIN. GEORGE DEXTER. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 10, 1884. The New Year opens for us, Gentlemen, not altogether with out clouds, but with renewed cause for gratitude to God for the general prosperity we have enjoyed. Ninety years are now completed since our Act of Incorporation was accepted ; ninety-three years since our Society was formally organized ; and ninety-four years since those first nebulous meetings of the original five founders, who, having added five more to their number, proceeded to institute the first Historical Society in the United States. It will be time enough, when our Centennial shall arrive, six years hence, to review the rise and progress of our own Society and of the numberless kindred associations, in all parts of our country, which have sprung up under our example. Nor will I detain you, this afternoon, with any detailed ac count of what has been accomplished by us during the past year. Such an account belongs peculiarly to our Annual Meeting in April, and may well be reserved for that occasion. Meantime, one or two New Year's gifts for the Society have reached me within a few days, under circumstances and with associations of more than common interest, to which I will first call your attention. It may perhaps be remembered that, just as our last meeting was coming to its close, on the 12th of December, I alluded to INTERESTING GIFTS. 477 a letter which I had received from the Rev. Edwin M. Stone, formerly of Beverly, Massachusetts, and the historian of that town, but more recently of Providence, Rhode Island. The letter was written by an amanuensis, and stated that he was very ill, but that he desired to present to this Society, in recog nition of courtesies received from it, a copy of his new volume, just published, entitled. " Our French Allies." The volume reached me only yesterday, accompanied by a copy for myself. It is an elaborate work, of more than six hundred pages, with a great number of interesting portraits and illustrations, giving a detailed account of the French officers and soldiers who came over to our assistance in our struggle for independence, and of many of the American officers and soldiers who were associated with them during the last years of the War of the Revolution, and more particularly of the Rhode Island officers. It concludes with an account of the great commemoration at Yorktown three years ago. The volume is an interesting and valuable contribution to the history of the French Alliance, and we should all have been glad to return our grateful acknowledgments to the author for so acceptable an addition to our Library. But the illness from which he was suffering proved to be fatal, and Mr. Stone died at Providence on the 15th of December, three days only after our meeting, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a native of Massachusetts, a worthy and excellent man, and an earnest worker in the field of American history. I have a melancholy satisfaction in fulfilling his request by laying on the table this last and most cherished work of his life. Another gift to our Society has reached me within a few days past, which has many interesting and touching associa tions. It comes from William Minot, Esq., the son of our late Resident Member of the same name, and the grandson of one of our most eminent founders, George Richards Minot. I can describe the gift in no language so appropriate as that of the letter which accompanied it. 39 Court Street, Jan. 2, 1884. Dear Mr. Winthrop, — Soon after the passage of our State Bill of Rights in 1783, an African female slave, by the name of Mumbet, was 478 INTERESTING GIFTS. emancipated in Sheffield by process of law, brought to a final judgment in her favor by Mr. Theodore Sedgwick. Mumbet subsequently entered Mr. Sedgwick's service as his children's nurse, and died in his home in Stockbridge, greatly respected and beloved by his family. She was in the habit of wearing a necklace of gold beads, and just before her death she gave this necklace to Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick, the youngest daughter of Judge Sedgwick. Miss Sedgwick valued it highly, and had the beads formed into a bracelet as more convenient for her own wear. At her death she gave the bracelet to her niece, my wife, who in turn left it to my daughter, lately deceased. There can be no doubt of its genuineness, and it is a curious and interesting relic as having belonged to the first slave ever emancipated by process of law in Massachusetts, if not in the United States. By an accident, some of the beads were lost. To preserve those remaining, I have had them reunited, whence the smallness of the bracelet as it now is. As a relic, valuable for its associations, it marks so striking an epoch in our social and political progress, that I thought it might be worthy of a place in the Cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society. If you agree with me, will you be so kind as to request the Society to become the custodian of it ? Very sincerely yours, Wm. Minot. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. This little relic thus comes to our Cabinet, associated not only with the memories of Theodore Sedgwick, the old Speaker and Senator in Congress and a Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and of his daughter, Miss Catherine Sedgwick, the accomplished authoress, and of other members of their family more recently and sadly deceased, but with the humble African servant, greatly respected and beloved by that family, who is believed to have been the very first subject of emanci pation under the Massachusetts Bill of Rights in 1783. I am sure you will all desire to offer a grateful acknowledg ment to Mr. Minot, and I venture to offer the following Resolution : — Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be returned to William Minot, Esq., for the very interesting relic which he has presented for our Cabinet, and that we shall gladly give it a place among our most precious memorials. HENRI MARTIN. 479 I turn now, Gentlemen, to still more serious topics. The death of M. Henri Martin, on the 14th of December last, takes another distinguished name from our Foreign Honorary Roll. He has followed his contemporary and friend, M. de Laboulaye, after a brief interval. M. Martin was well known, on both sides of the Atlantic, as the author of an elaborate and voluminous History of France, from, the most remote period almost to the present day. Its last chapter includes the accession of M. Gambetta to the chief place in the French Ministry, less than three years ago. This work, as originally published, secured for its author the great Gobert Prize, " for the most eloquent page or chapter of French history," from the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles- Lettres and the Institute of France. Many portions of the work have been translated into English by Miss Mary L. Booth and others, and have been published in our own city, — the last three volumes, with copious and costly illustrations, by Estes & Lauriat. M. Martin was a member of the Institute and a Senator of France. Like Laboulaye, he was an ardent Republican, and evinced a deep interest in the success of the Union cause during our late civil war. He was a member of the Commission for presenting to the United States the gigantic statue of " Liberty enlightening the World," and most kindly accompanied M. Bartholdi in conducting me to see that marvellous work when I was in Paris in October, 1882. I had met him many years before at the table of our associate, Mr. Charles C. Perkins, who will bear witness with me to his great interest in our country and its institutions. An excellent portrait of M. Martin will be found in the January number of the New York " Century," in connection with an interesting article on " The Forty Immortals," of whom he was one. " Henri Martin," says that article, " stands next to Mignet. This good man has rehabilitated the Druids, erected an altar to Joan of Arc, and shown the Revolution to be the triumph of the equality-loving Celt over the Frank and his feudal system." " Henri Martin," the article goes on to say, " is in his seventy-third year. He has a tall, strong- 480 HENRI MARTIN. boned, loose-made stooping figure, and a serious face which easily lights up into smiles and expresses pleasure — mental or moral — in blushing cheeks. His inner man lives in the most transparent of glass houses. Though a well of erudition, he keeps the freshness of childhood. It delights him to oblige. His conversation, when he is set talking on a subject in which he is at home, is an instructive and delightful essay. . . . Though tolerant of every belief, or unbelief, he groans when he sees materialist articles in the scientific columns of the Republican papers. His grandchildren are nourished with works of Unitarian piety. One of his two children — a daugh ter — was the delight of his eyes and pride of his heart. She grew up in beauty, and cultivated, uuder Ary Scheffer, a genius for painting. On the day on which she had achieved an artistic triumph and was engaged to be married, she died. Henri Martin clings to the old belief in the soul's immortality." The writer was mistaken in speaking of him as "standing next " to Mignet on the rolls of the Academy. Mignet's elec tion dates from 1836, while Martin succeeded Thiers in 1878. But I can add nothing to a sketch so vivid, written while he was }ret living, and evidently by one who knew him well. Another year had been added to his life before it ended. He was but nine months younger than myself, having been born on the 20th of February, 1810. I recall the emphatic eager ness with which he took off his hat and saluted me, on learning that I was his senior. The journals have stated that a public funeral was proposed for him by the Government of France, but that it was found that he had expressly prohibited such a ceremonial by his will, and had requested that the amount which it would have cost should be given to the poor. He was elected an Honorary Member of this Society in October, 1878, the year of the centennial anniversary of that French alliance which resulted in Yorktown and the Treaty of Peace and Independence. GEORGE DEXTER. 481 We can notice, Gentlemen, without emotion, the loss from our Foreign Honorary Roll of the name, however distinguished, of one who has died at a good old age, having finished his labors and won his laurels, and for whom little remained but the infirmities of advancing years ; but the loss of which we are specially reminded to-day, comes home to all our hearts, and cannot be announced without sincere sorrow. Mr. Geobge Dexter was elected a Resident Member of this Society in October, 1877. His close relations with one of our oldest and most valuable associates and officers, who has the warm sympathies of us all, had already prepared him for entering at once and heartily into our service, and, at the Annual Meeting immediately following his admission as a member, he was installed as our Recording Secretary. It has happened to me during my long service in this chair — I hardly dare remember how long it has been — to be associated with many Recording Secretaries, — the excellent Chandler Robbins, the devoted Charles Deane, the genial and delightful Edmund Quincy, — not .to name the occasional Secretaries pro tern, who have so obligingly taken the place in emergencies occasioned by absence or ill-health. I have owed them all many kind attentions and much valuable assist ance. But it is no disparagement to either of them for me to say, that we had found in Mr. Dexter a man singularly and eminently adapted to our work, and that, during the few years in which he has been spared to our service, he has more than fulfilled our highest expectations, and has shown himself a model secretary for all who may follow him. His labors, I need not say, have been by no means confined to the keeping of our records or the printing of our Proceed ings. He has been one of the most constant contributors to those Proceedings, and has never been weary in bringing forth from our own archives, or from other sources at his command, interesting and valuable papers, which he has rendered more interesting and more valuable by his careful explanations and annotations. Tutor Sever's Argument ; Governor Pownall ; the Letters of Dr. Andrew Eliot ; the Journals of Thomas Wallcut and Charles Turner ; the First Voyage under Sir 31 482 GEORGE DEXTER. Humphrey Gilbert's Patent ; Governor Hutchinson's Letters from the Public Record Office ; the Old Record-Book of the Suffolk Bar ; Dr. Belknap's Journal of a Visit to the Oneida Indians ; Henry Wheaton's Letters ; a Letter to Wheaton from Erasmus Rask on the Northmen ; the Letters of Colum bus and Vespucius, — such are the varied subjects of his suc cessive communications. The two last-named of them called into play his exceptional accomplishments as a modern linguist, which were often turned to valuable account in our service. When we remember that he was only associated with us for five or six years, and that a considerable part of this period was doomed to be spent in foreign lands or in a remote region of his own land, we may well feel that he had made the very most of his time in contributing to the volumes of which he was, also, the principal Editor. Amiable, intelligent, accomplished, a graduate of Harvard University, of which he was for a time a tutor, and a pupil of her Law School, an earnest member of the church with which he was associated, his tastes, studies, and acquirements gave promise of rich fruit in years to come ; and nothing seemed wanting but health to insure for him a distinguished place in historical pursuits and literature. But, alas ! he early mani fested pulmonary weakness, and has fallen a victim to con sumption while still in the prime of life. He left us for Santa Barbara, California, last autumn, and died there, to the great sorrow of us all, on the 18th of December. There are some of his contemporaries and classmates who may desire to pay tributes to his memory, and I leave it to them to do ampler justice to his character. MORE INTERESTING GIFTS- ELIZA SUSAN QUINCY. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 14, 1884. I shall spare you, Gentlemen, and spare myself, from any formal introductory remarks this afternoon, and pass at once to the presentation of several gifts to our Society which have recently reached me. The Mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, — the Hon. William A. Courtenay, — has sent me for our Library a copy of his private edition of the " Porter Memorial," of which only a hundred copies were printed. It contains the admi rable tribute of my friend, Judge George S. Bryan, of the United States Circuit Court, and of many others of the dis tinguished citizens of Charleston, to the memory of William Denison Porter, a jurist, orator, and scholar, of South Caro lina, of the highest distinction, who died in his seventy-third year, on the 5th of January, 1883. His family were of Mas sachusetts origin, one of them having served in some of our earliest Revolutionary battles. Here, in the second place, is a photograph of Henry Clay. one of our late Honorary Members, taken from a portrait of him at the age of sixty-five, by Willard, and sent to us by Mr. J. K. Porter of this city, to whom the portrait belongs. But Mr. Porter has sent us a much more interesting and his torical photograph of Mr. Clay, in his forty-fourth year, taken from an old and rare engraving, in which he is represented 484 MORE INTERESTING GIFTS. holding in his hands the famous Resolutions for the recogni tion of the independence of the South American Provinces in 1821. This photograph gives a vivid idea of Clay as a young man, while he was Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, and exhibits on the table the same ele gant silver inkstand into which I so often dipped my own pen a quarter of a century afterwards, and which is still on the Speaker's desk at Washington. Here, in the next place, is a reminder of the Indian tribes in our far West, to whom so much injustice was shown in former years, and from one of the most meritorious of whom, as good Bishop Whipple writes me in great distress, a scheme of taking away their lands, and robbing them of their homes by a forced purchase, is at this moment being arranged and executed at Washington. This, however, does not come from the Indians to whom Bishop Whipple has so devotedly minis tered, but is an autograph of the great warrior " Sitting Bull," who not long ago was giving our Government so much trouble. The words to which he has subscribed his name, and which were taken from his own lips, recognize the law of the Great Spirit, and would have gratified good old John Eliot. It has been sent to us by Mr. Finotti, formerly the Italian Consul in this city, and now settled at Yankton, Dakota Territory. Another autograph is next in order, and comes to us from a remoter region. It is a letter from no less a personage than the King of Shun, dated at his " Grand Palace " in Bangkok, and with his own signature, " Chulaloukorn, R. S." It is sent to us by General John A. Halderman, our United States Minister to Siam, who expresses the hope " that it may be found worthy of a framed space on our walls." It is the king's answer to an invitation from General Halderman to attend the opening of the late Foreign Exhibition in Boston, and is as follows : — R «/45 Grand Palace, Bangkok, May 8, 1883. Sir, — I have received with pleasure your note inviting me, in the name of the Boston Foreign Exhibition, to be present at the opening of their grand exhibition. Although I am not at present able to leave Siam, and so regret that ELIZA SUSAN QUINCY. 485 I cannot accept this cordial invitation from a great friendly nation, I highly appreciate the good will which inspired the invitation, and heartily thank your Excellency and those you represent. With the assurance of my kindest regards, To His Excellency, CHULALOUKORN,. R. S. General John A. Halderman, U. S. Minister to Siam, &c, &c, &c. A more substantial and valuable gift comes next. It comes from Mr. William Minot, from whom we received the inter esting bracelet of gold beads at our last meeting. It is a small portrait of Washington Irving, taken by- Jarvis in 1808, and of which the costume and hands were painted by Wash ington Allston as late as 1835, at the request of his friend, William Sanford Rogers, a former purser of the United States Navy, a friend of all our old commodores, — Bainbridge, Hull, Morris, and the rest, — and who, at bis death, endowed a school which bears his name, in Newport, his native place. It repre sents Irving at twenty-five years of age, in the very year in which he published his " Knickerbocker," and is very much like one of the engraved portraits of him at the same age. I am sure that you will all desire that grateful acknowledg ments of these various gifts should be made by our Cabinet- keeper, and it will be so ordered. But still another gift will presently be announced by one of our associates, and I cannot forbear from saying a few words as to the source from which it primarily comes. I hazard little, Gentlemen, in saying that, had it been con formable to the usages of our Society to admit ladies to our Resident Membership, our first attention this afternoon would have been called to some notice of the venerable Eliza Susan Quincy, who died at her residence in Quincy, on the 17th of January, in her eighty-fifth year. She was a remarkable person, full of historical reminiscences and of exact historical information. She had helped her excellent father, — so long our senior member, — by her pen and by her pencil, in all his literary labors. His charming Memoirfof his own father, — the illustrious Josiah Quincy, Jr., of the Revolutionary period, — his elaborate " History of Harvard College," and his " Muni- 486 ELIZA SUSAN QUINCY. cipal History of Boston," owed not a little, as is well known, to her discriminating care and judgment. She helped others of her family, too, in their various biographical and literary productions ; and the recent volume of " Reminiscences " of the late Josiah Quincy abounds in passages from her careful diary. Our own Society, as well as its individual members, have had frequent reminders of her thoughtful consideration and regard ; and her contributions to our Proceedings and archives have been numerous and valuable. Our Cabinet, too, is indebted to her for the splendid gorget of Washington, worn by him as a British colonial officer, which has a fit place at the side of the epaulets worn by him during the Revolutionary War. I do not propose to dwell upon her character and accom plishments ; but I was unwilling that another gift from her should be presented to us by her nephew until I had made this brief mention of her death, and of the respect and warm regard in which she was held by us all. NOTABLE DEATHS. - FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, APRIL 10, 1884. We come to our Annual Meeting once more, Gentlemen, under circumstances of satisfaction and prosperity which may well make us grateful for the past and trustful for the future. But I leave all the details of our condition for the Annual Reports of our Council and Treasurer, which will presently be submitted to you. It can hardly fail to have been observed that, by a striking coincidence, two of our leading sister societies have succes sively been bereaved of their Presidents within a few weeks past. John William Wallace, Esq., the late President of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and the Hon. Augustus Schell, the President of the New York Historical Society, were accomplished and distinguished men, who had rendered valuable service in their respective spheres and whose charac ters entitled them to every consideration. Our records may well contain this passing tribute of respect to their memories and of sympathy with our sister societies. But we need not look beyond our own rolls for those entitled to a special mention to-day. The name of the eminent French historian, Mignet, has stood at the head of our Foreign Honorary Roll for several years past, and must not be suffered to disappear in silence. He was elected an Honorary Member of our Society on the 488 FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. 12th of April, 1860. The ocean telegram announces that he died in Paris on the 24th of March, in his eighty-eighth year, having been born at Aix, in Provence, on the 8th of May, 1796. Educated to the bar, he practised the law but a short time, and soon turned his attention to literature and history. Estab lishing himself in Paris in 1822, he commenced his career there as a journalist, and was engaged for ten years or more in con tributing to some of the leading liberal newspapers. He was especially associated with his life-long friend, Thiers, in found ing and conducting the " National," and with him was one of the signers of the famous protest against the Polignac decrees, which led to the downfall of Charles X. Before this, how ever, he had secured for himself a widespread celebrity as the author of a brilliant history of the great French Revolu tion of 1789. It was published as early as. 1824, went through many editions, and was translated into many languages. I recall it in its English version as one of the historical works which interested me most deeply more than half a century ago. After the Revolution of 1830, and the accession of Louis Philippe, Mignet was made a Councillor of State and Director of the Archives in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the Revolution of 1848 terminated all his official relations, and left him free to devote himself exclusively to his favorite his torical and literary pursuits. He had become a member of the French Academy in 1836, and was the senior member, by date of election, at the time of his death. But even four years earlier, in 1832, he was one of the members of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences — one of the five Academies of the Institute — on its reorganization, and was soon made the Perpetual Secretary, as it is called, of that Academy, — an office which he held for more than forty years, having resigned it only a year or two before his death. Meantime he was preparing and publishing many interesting and valuable volumes of historical documents and of biogra phy, — among them, " Negotiations relating to the Spanish Succession," a charming Life of Marie Stuart, and an elabo rate account of the Abdication of Charles V., and of his residence and death at the Monastery of Saint-Just. Other FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. 489 volumes, on the subject of the Rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I., and on Philip II. and Antonio Perez, have since followed ; while our Corresponding Associate, M. Vapereau, in his invaluable " Dictionnaire des Contemporains," is authority for an impression that Mignet had been occupied for more than thirty years on "a History of the Reformation, and had collected hundreds of volumes of manuscript correspondence on that subject. But it was as Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences that Mignet obtained his most enviable distinction and performed his most conspicuous service. In that capacity it became his duty, or at least his privilege, to pronounce an Mloge on some one of his deceased associates at the Annual Meetings ; and these meetings, in no small degree owing to the brilliancy of his discourses, came to be counted among the events of Paris. Of these discourses, published in successive volumes, under the title of " Notices et Portraits Historiques et Litteraires," I have at least three volumes, besides ten or twelve of his subsequent productions of the same sort in the separate pamphlets published by the Insti tute, all presented to me by himself. It happened that on my first visit to Europe, thirty-seven years ago, our historian, Prescott, gave me a note of introduction to our late Honorary Member, Count Adolphe de Circourt, who took me to the Annual Meeting of this Academy on the 5th of June, 1847, where I bad the good fortune to hear Mignet deliver one of these discourses, and where I had the still better fortune to make his personal acquaintance. From that time to this I have never been in Paris without meeting him ; and there is at least one of the letters which he occasionally wrote to me which I should be unwilling to lose from my file of vouchers. I will not read it now, but may perhaps venture to append it to the report of these remarks in our Proceedings.1 1 Institut Imperial de France : — Academe des Sciences Morales et Politiques, Paris, le 24 Juin, 1867. Monsieur, — L'Aeadenne a recu la seconde et fort interessante partie de l'ou- vrage que vous avez publie sur votre illustre ancetre John Winthrop, gouverneur perpe'tue' de la Colonie de Massachusetts, dont il a ete' justement appele' le pere, et 490 FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. Thirteen years after I had first* met him, and listened with so much delight to one of his discourses, I was privileged to hear a second. This last, on the 26th of May, 1860, was in many ways a memorable occasion. It was during the Second Empire, and at a moment when Napoleon III., by act or threat, bad rendered himself particularly obnoxious to men of Mignet's independent and liberal spirit. The old hall of the Institute is not a large one, — accommodating hardly more than four or five hundred persons, galleries and all. It was crowded on that day by the most notable literary characters of France, with not a few distinguished ladies. Guizot and Thiers, Lamartine, Victor Cousin and Villemain, Remusat, Barthe'lenry St. Hilaire, and Chevalier, and I know not who all, were in their seats as members. In the corners of the hall, where they had been from the foundation of the Insti tute, were the old statues of Bossuet and Fe'nelon, Descartes, and Sully. Soldiers of the line, with their bayonets, stood in the aisles ; gens-d'armes, on foot and mounted, were around the palace ; ushers in costume conducted us to our seats, and the principal officers of the Academy were in their embroidered coats. All this was according to usages long ago established, and observed to this day. The President of the occasion, the Director of the Academy for that day, M. Louis Reybaud, opened the exercises, as I well remember, with a brief address, assigning the prizes of the last year, and announcing the subjects of competition for the next year. And then M. Mignet, in his uniform, came forward to the Secretary's desk, and proceeded to pronounce an Moge on M. le Comte Portalis, a distinguished statesman qui, par ses services comme par ses vertus, a merite" que son nom fut place" dans le souvenir de son pays, a cote du grand nom de Washington. L'Acade'mie m'a charge' de vous transmettre ses remerciraents que j'aurais du vous addresser depuis quelque temps a Boston, et que je vous fais parvenir un peu tardivement a Londres, ou j'ai appris, par M. de Circourt, que vous deviez arriver le 23 Juin. Cette seconde partie de Ia vie et des lettres de John Win throp a e"te" placee, par l'ordre de l'Academie, dans la bibliotbeque de l'lnstitut, a c6te de la premiere partie qu'elle complete si heureusement. Agreez, Monsieur, la nouvelle assurance de ma haute consideration. Mignet. Monsieur Robert 0. Winthrop. FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. 491 and member of the Academy, who had died two years before, at eighty years of age, after a life of varied and important political and literary service. Nothing could have been more interesting or impressive than this discourse, or more felicitous in composition and delivery. Though never rising from his chair, and using his manuscript from beginning to end, he held his audience in rapt attention for au hour and a half ; and every one would gladly have heard him for an hour and a half longer. There was a charm of voice and manner, a beauty of diction, a dis tinctness of articulation, and a force of utterance in Mignet, which could hardly be excelled or exceeded. He recalled to me our lamented Everett, who has had no superior, if any equal, in occasional oratory in our own land, if in any other. Mignet was a person of singular personal elegance and beauty, sometimes even designated familiarly as " le beau Mignet ; " and his whole air and aspect while engaged in the delivery of one of these discourses were of the most attractive and fasci nating sort. Some of these discourses in themselves were works of art, — biographical cameos, exquisitely cut and set in jewels of history and literature. One might well apply to more than one of them the words which he used in regard to the Biographical Essays of Macaulay, in his Eloge on that " Prince of Essayists," — "Cette serie variee de belles Etudes historiques et litteVaires dans lesquelles il a seme tant d'inge'nieux apercus, porte" des jugements si delicats et si fermes, r^pandu des theories saines et hautes, ou l'imagina- tion se montre souvent, l'esprit ne manque jamais, la pensee delate et le talent abonde. D'un ordre eleve" et d'une execution originate, ces etudes, qui ont fait appeler M. Macaulay dans son pays, par une ex pression inusitee dans le notre, le Prince des Essayistes, scrat des mor- ceaux rares de litterature et d'histoire." His subject on this occasion gave him a wide scope. He would almost seem to have selected it with a purpose. The life and career of Count Portalis and his father covered the period of both Empires and of the intervening reigns and revolutions. Mignet was familiar with them all, and found not a few striking parallelisms between the scenes he was 492 FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. describing and the events which were going on around him at the moment of his discourse. But it was enough for him to recount the past, and leave the application to be made by his hearers. He knew how to make happy hits, and even, sometimes, severe strictures, without any resort to personality or any sacrifice of dignity. All the more telling were his indirect allusions to the existing condition and the actual government of his country. No one of them failed to be understood and appreciated. It was not a little amusing to watch the countenances of some of the Imperialists present during the more salient and suggestive passages of the dis course. There was even a rumor in the air that he had given offence in the highest quarters, and that the Academy might suffer from the Emperor's displeasure. But while Mignet was not of a complexion to be overawed or intimi dated by any such apprehensions, he was careful to observe all the proprieties of his position, and to leave nothing posi tive or palpable for Imperial censure. It was altogether a masterly effort, and one which gave me the strongest impres sion of his ability as a writer and of his consummate art as an orator. It has happened to me, in repeated visits to France, to find myself in the way of hearing not a few of her great modern orators. I have heard Guizot and Thiers, Jules Favre and Rouher, in the Tribune; Dupin aine", at the bar; Coquerel, Bersier, and P&re Hyacinthe in the pulpit ; and, quite re cently, M. Renan, at the Institute : and I have brought away a very high idea of French eloquence. I might have derived a still more exalted impression of it, could I have heard some one of the great efforts of Berrj'er in the Halls of Justice ; or the splendid speech with which Lamartine confronted and drove back the red flag of the Commune at the Hotel de Ville in 1848 ; or the superb eulogy of the great Bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, on General LamoriciSre, which Mignet himself once told me was hardly inferior to anything of Bossuet. But as it is, I look back on the two discourses which I was privileged to hear from the lips of Mignet as models par eminence, in diction and delivery, of the kind of FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. 493 oratory which belonged to the occasions which called them forth ; and the remembrance of them has often given me the inspiration and the example for efforts in the same line. He did not confine himself to his own compatriots in be stowing the honors of these anniversary tributes. Brougham and Macaulay of England shared them, in their turn, with Ancillon and Savigny of Germany, and with Sismondi and Rossi of Geneva or Italy, as well as with Talleyrand and De Tocqueville and De Broglie and Victor Cousin of his own land. Nor, certainly, may I forget that among his portraits and historical notices will be found an eloquent discourse on our own Edward Livingston, the author of the Louisiana Code, and the writer of the grand Proclamation against Nullifica tion, issued in 1830 by President Jackson, to whom he was then Secretary of State. Still less can I fail to recall the admirable little " Life of Franklin," which Mignet prepared and published under the auspices and by order of the Insti tute, as one of a series of tracts for the instruction of the people, when France had established a republican government in 1848. These two productions alone would have entitled his name to a welcome and honored place on our rolls and in our respect. One of the last utterances of Mignet was his brief but brilliant address, in association with Jules Simon and Leon Say, at the inauguration of the statue of his beloved friend Thiers, at St Germain-en-laye. This was as lately as the 19th of September, 1880, after he had entered on his eighty-fifth year, when he paid a touching and exquisite tribute to one whom he spoke of as for more than forty years his confrere in the Academy, and for more than sixty years his intimate, confidential friend. Two years later still, in May, 1882, I visited him at his apartments in the Rue D'Aumale, and found him genial and cordial as ever, with his pen in his hand and a pile of manuscript on his table, evidently engaged in historical composition, and promising, by the lumen juventce purpureum still lingering on his charming countenance, to live and labor for many years to come. 494 FRANCOIS A. MIGNET. My last glimpse of him was at the Institute, a few days later still, when he was enjoying with the youngest the sparkling wit and eloquence of Cherbuliez and Renan, and witnessing a scene which furnished a striking illustration of the widely contrasted varieties of accomplishment and achievement which are included in the charmed circle of that famous body, while the brilliant philologist and critic Renan was welcoming the captivating romance-writer Cherbuliez to the chair which had lately been vacated, among the Forty Immortals, by a grave and dignified jurist and minister of state, — Dufaure. There I left Mignet for the last time, and there I leave him now ; assured that there he will be longest remembered, and that there he would most desire to be remembered. Among all those forty, and the many times other forty, with whom he was associated during so protracted a membership, no other one certainly will have deserved or secured a more endeared and cherished memory. I must detain you, Gentlemen, a few minutes longer. From our Corresponding Roll, since our last meeting, we have lost Dr. Alfred Langdon-Elwyn, who died at Philadel phia on the 15th ult0 in his eighty-first year. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 9th of July, 1804, and was a grandson of the eminent John Langdon, a former gov ernor of New Hampshire, who in 1789 was the first presiding officer of the Senate of the United States, when Congress as sembled for the inauguration of Washington as President. Dr. Langdon-Elwyn was of the class of 1823 at Harvard College, and was graduated a Doctor of Medicine at the Uni versity of Pennsylvania in 18bl. Residing abroad for several years, and attending the medical lectures and hospitals in Paris and elsewhere, he brought home many anecdotes of the famous doctors whom he had known and studied with. But he did not engage seriously in the practice of his profession, devoting himself rather to natural history and practical phi lanthropy. Fixing his home in Philadelphia, he became a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Natural Sciences, a fellow of the American Philosophical Society, and a member, ALFRED LANGDON-ELWYN. 495 and at one time a Vice-President of the Pennsylvania His torical Society. He had a taste and a talent, also, for Botany and Agriculture, had a fine farm, tilled his own fields, and was, for a longer or shorter time, President of the old Phila delphia . Agricultural Society, — one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, in our country. At the same time he was promi nent and active in many worthy associations of a moral and benevolent character, and was President of the Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Blind, of the School for Feeble-minded Children, and of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Our own Society, of which he was chosen a Corresponding Member in 1880,. has reason to remember him as having con tributed a collection of interesting autograph papers to our archives, and as having published a handsome volume of the letters of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and others, to his grandfather, John Langdon, of which he sent a copy to our Library. A privately printed religious poem of his — which never went, I believe, beyond the circle of his friends — gave a vivid impression of his faith and piety. He was a man of some eccentricities, but full of intelligence, amiability, and hospitality. Webster and Ticknor and Jeremiah Mason were familiar guests in his mother's old home at Portsmouth ; and his family had many friends in our own city, among whom I may count those nearest and dearest to me, as well as myself. I must not conclude these introductory remarks without presenting to our Library, in the name of its author, Daniel Goodwin, Jr., Esq., of Chicago, a very interesting and valu able memoir of " The Dearborns," — a commemorative dis course delivered before the Chicago Historical Society, on the eightieth anniversary of the occupation of Fort Dearborn and the first settlement of Chicago, in December last. It gives an excellent account of the career and character of General Henry Dearborn and of his son General Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, both of whom were long conspicuous in the history of our Country and our Commonwealth ; and it 496 "THE DEARBORNS." is illustrated by portraits of them both. The father was a gallant officer of the Revolution from Bunker Hill to York- town, and afterwards Secretary of War and Commander-in- Chief of the United States Army. The son was Collector of the Customs in this city, a Member of Congress from Norfolk, first President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and prominently associated with the erection of the Bunker Hill Monument and the establishment of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. Our thanks are due, and will be returned with the sanction of the Society, to Mr. Goodwin, for so just and admirable a tribute to these patriotic and public-spirited men, so long known and honored in our own community. COEEECTIONS OF "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THURLOW WEED." REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 12, 1884. During my absence from home, Gentlemen, for three or four weeks of April and May, I had some experiences not unworthy of mention here for a place in our records. At Washington, I was fortunate enough to witness the unveiling of a fine statue of Chief Justice Marshall, by our Correspond ing Member, Mr. William W. Story. Seated in a chair care fully copied from the one so long occupied by him in the Supreme Court of the United States, he is represented in the act of delivering one of his great opinions. The statue has a prominent place on the west front of the Capitol, and cannot fail to renew and perpetuate an impression of the inestimable services of Marshall in giving a sound construction to the Constitution in the earliest stages of its existence. It will always have an additional interest, too, as the work of the accomplished son of one who was so long and lovingly asso ciated with the great Chief Justice on the Supreme Bench. Marshall, we may well remember, was an Honorary Member of this Society, — having been chosen in 1809, a few years after he had published bis voluminous and invaluable " Life of Washington." At Philadelphia, by special invitation of Mr. Brinton Coxe, the recently elected President, I visited the new hall of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and found it most commodi- 32 498 AUTOBIOGRAPHY ous and attractive. It has at least one signal advantage over our own rooms in being on the ground floor, and as thus involving no high climbing over iron stairways. If we shall ever have as large an endowment as our Philadelphia friends have had, we may be privileged to occupy the lower stories of our own building. But I fear that such a consummation will not be reached — however devoutly it may be wished — until some of those who find the ascent most difficult shall have gone higher, and be out of the way of enjoying the improvement. At New York, our Corresponding Members, Dr. Moore and Dr. Allibone, were most kind in receiving me at the Lenox Library, where, among other new and notable acquisitions, I saw a large volume of autograph papers and original instru ments connected with the poet Milton, and some important additions to the De Bry collection of Mr. Lenox, making it the most complete in the world, and, as a whole, altogether unique. But, notwithstanding these and other enjoyments, I was sincerely sorry to have missed our last meeting, and espe cially sorry to have lost the opportunity of hearing the com munication of Mr. Lawrence in regard to his relations with the early history of Kansas and with the celebrated John Brown. I trust that this communication will soon be printed in full among the Proceedings of that meeting. There are few things more important to the ultimate truth of history than the seasonable correction of popular errors by those who have personal and positive knowledge that they are errors. Mr. Lawrence has himself, by his generous contributions to our Library, made us in some sort the custodians and guar dians of whatever relates to the late Civil War and to the exciting events which preceded it. There is probably nowhere else so complete a collection as that which he has given us, from time to time, of the books and pamphlets which have been published in such profusion in regard to that period. But we all know how many of those publications have been of a sensational, or, it may be, of a partisan or sectional character ; OF THURLOW WEED. 499 and I think we shall all agree that misrepresentations and mistakes in the accounts of that period, whether relating to military or civil proceedings, should be exposed and corrected by those who discover them, before it is too late. Biographies and autobiographies, diaries, memoirs, reminis cences, and recollections, succeed each other with marvellous rapidity in these days, and form a most attractive reading for us all. But so many errors find their way into this class of productions, by carelessness or prejudice or malice, that they can by no means be accepted as history. There is a good story of Mr. Jefferson, who was very systematic in cataloguing and classifying his library, and who, on receiving a copy of Wirt's " Life of Patrick Henry," said that he had been greatly per plexed in deciding where to place the volume, but had finally arranged it under the head of Fiction. A terser expression on a kindred topic fell from the lips of Mr. Calhoun, while I was in the way of hearing him in the Senate, when he said, " Mr. President, I have long ago made up my mind that a Diary is evidence against no one but the writer of it." If we could be sure that these memoirs and recollections would be republished with annotations and corrections, even at the end of a hundred years, as Wraxall's have just been, they might be suffered to pass unnoticed now. But no such revision can be safely counted upon, and corrections must be made now or never. Following the good example of Mr. Lawrence, I propose to make one or two this afternoon. I have been examining with interest the Autobiography of the late Thurlow Weed, as recently published. It purports to have been commenced by him at Santa Cruz, on the" 15th of February, 1845. But the second chapter is dated " New York, 1st January, 1869," — twenty-four years later, — when Mr. Weed was in his seventy-second year ; and it states that the work had been suspended till then. Meantime the little preface by bis respected and excellent daughter, by whom the volume was prepared for publication after her father's death, speaks of the Autobiography as " written at various periods, and frequently in detached fragments." All this will amply 500 AUTOBIOGRAPHY account for any inaccuracies which may be found in the vol ume, and will completely disarm every disposition to criticise it unkindly. My attention has been particularly called to the early part of the sixty-sixth chapter, at page 634, where a very imperfect and incorrect account is given of an unofficial mission to Europe which was offered to several gentlemen of various parts of the country by Secretary Seward and President Lincoln in October, 1861. The language of the Autobiography is as follows : — " Late in October, 1861, it was deemed important by the Administra tion that some gentlemen of intelligence and experience, possessing a good knowledge of all the circumstances which preceded and occasioned the Rebellion, should be sent abroad to disabuse the public mind, espe cially in England and France, where numerous and active agents of secession and rebellion had long been at work in quarters too ready to accept versions unfavorable to the North. Simultaneously I arrived at Washington (says Mr. Weed), and was informed by the Secretary of State that the late Edward Everett of Boston, and Archbishop Hughes of New York, J. P. Kennedy of Baltimore, and Bishop McBvaine of Ohio, had been invited to accept this mission, but that he was embar rassed by the declension of Messrs. Everett and Kennedy. Mr. Everett (he continues), having formerly been our Minister at the Court of St. James, did not feel at liberty to accept an unofficial position ; Mr. Kennedy did not feel able to abandon his business and go abroad with out compensation. The four gentlemen thus selected were informed by the Secretary of State that their actual expenses only would be paid. The Secretary then asked me to suggest two suitable persons to supply these vacancies. I named Mr. Winthrop of Boston, and Mr. Ewing of Ohio. He thought well of both, and said he would immediately suggest their names to the President and Cabinet. Archbishop Hughes, Bishop Mcllvaine, and Secretary Chase were to dine that day with Secretary Seward. I told him that I would drop in after his guests had left in the evening. I called at nine o'clock, and found the Archbishop, who had been informed that I was expected, waiting for me. And now I learned, greatly to my surprise and regret, that the Archbishop had declined. Of the four gentlemen designated, Bishop Mcllvaine alone had accepted. The Secretary, after I came in, resumed the conversation, and renewedly urged the Archbishop to accept ; but he persisted in his OP THURLOW WEED. 501 declination, repeating, as I inferred, the reasons previously given for declining." Mr. Weed then proceeds to give an account of his own con versation with the Archbishop and Mr. Seward, and to state the circumstances under which he himself accompanied the Archbishop on this mission on the 6th of November, 1861. Of this part of the narrative I have nothing to say, and do not question its accuracy. I wish only to correct the errors in the previous passages. Now, as a matter of fact, there were five gentlemen, not four, originally selected by Mr. Seward and President Lincoln for this unofficial mission, and it happened to me to be one of the five. On the 19th of October, 1861, 1 received a letter from the Secretary of State (still extant), dated the 17th, requesting me to come on to Washington to confer with him " upon a mat ter of public concern." I left home accordingly on the 22d, and reported to the Secretary at Washington on the morning of the 24th. The public funeral of my friend and former col league in Congress, Colonel Baker, who had been killed at Ball's Bluff a few days before, — which I attended, meeting the President and Cabinet there, — prevented me from having any formal conference with Mr. Seward during the day ; but I dined with him and his family in the evening, and he then unfolded the object of his summons. I here copy, from notes taken at the time, the communication made to me at his dinner-table on that evening : — " After we had been at table a short time, Governor Seward said that as all his family were members of the State department, and knew how to observe confidence, he would tell me at once for what he had invited me to Washington. He said that though his despatches from abroad indicated that the opinion of foreign nations was more favorable to the North than it had been at first, yet it was considered highly important that every proper step should be taken to increase the good feeling of Europe towards the cause of the Union, and to counter act the influences which might be produced by Southern agents and commissioners. With this view, it was the earnest wish of the Presi dent, and of himself and Mr. Chase (Secretary of the Treasury), that a few gentlemen who were known abroad should make a visit to Eng- 502 AUTOBIOGRAPHY land and France at an early day, and mingle with the leading men in London and Paris. For this purpose he had invited Mr. Everett and myself of Boston, Archbishop Hughes pf New York, Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio, and Mr. J. P. Kennedy of Baltimore, to come on to Washing ton for a confidential consultation. Bishop Mcllvaine and Mr. Ken nedy (he said) had dined with him sociably the day before, and, after a full understanding of the matter, had agreed to go. Archbishop Hughes, he added, was to be with him this evening ; but from Mr. Everett he had not yet heard, — he being absent from home and the invitation not having reached him. He then said that it must necessarily be an un official proceeding on our part, — a kind of volunteer service in the field of diplomacy ; but he added that the expenses of our trip would be defrayed, and every facility given us for speaking with authority. He urged me strongly to go. I told him that nothing would give me more satisfaction than to render any service to the cause of the Union at home or abroad, and that I felt highly complimented in being in cluded in such a proposal, — adding, however, that my obligations to my family, under the peculiar circumstances in which it was placed by a recent domestic bereavement, threw a doubt on my ability to leave home just now. But I promised to give the subject my best considera tion, and to go if I could. " We had hardly finished dinner when Archbishop Hughes was an nounced, and we all went up to the drawing-room, where Mr. Seward repeated to him all that he had previously said to me. " The next day (Friday) I called first on the President. Mr. Seward and Archbishop Hughes met me by appointment in the anteroom, and we went in together to the President's library. The President alluded at once to the subject of our being called to Washington, and seemed earnestly desirous that we should give him an affirmative answer." I forbear from any account of our conversation with Presi dent Lincoln, in which he displayed some of his characteristic qualities of wit as well as wisdom, as it would interrupt the current of this explanation ; but I recall it as full of entertain ment. On the following morning I spent an hour with Mr. Seward at the State Department. It was closed to all but foreign ministers ; but I was at once admitted to a conference, and the Secretary placed in my hand a long and interesting despatch, just received from England, which had given him, as it certainly gave me, a more hopeful impression that there OF THURLOW WEED. 503 would be no interference, on the part of Great Britain, with our prosecution of the War for the Union. I then spent a few minutes with the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, who urged me strongly to comply with Mr. Seward's request and go abroad. Meantime my friend Mr. Kennedy had written to me to come down and pass Sunday with him, that we might consult together in regard to this unofficial mission ; and I left Wash ington in the afternoon for his cottage at EUicott's Mills. I found that we entirely agreed in our views of the matter, — both of us having many doubts as to the wisdom of the pro ceeding, in view of the danger of interference with our accred ited ministers abroad, and both foreseeing some embarrassments in our going at once to Europe, but both of us resolved to make any personal sacrifices in our power to comply with the wishes of Mr. Seward and the President. To say nothing of myself, Mr. Kennedy had then virtually accepted the appointment, as Mr. Seward had told me, and fully contemplated going abroad at an early day. I may add that Archbishop Hughes had already more than implied, in his conference with the Presi dent, Mr. Seward, and myself, that he was both disposed and ready to go, as he soon afterwards did go. And now as to Mr. Everett. It happened that he was absent from home, and was thus out of the way of receiving the summons to Washington for several days after the occur rences I have stated. But nothing' could be less correct than the statement of Mr. Weed that he had embarrassed the Gov ernment by "his declension " of the mission. Returning to Boston a few days afterwards, and there receiving Mr. Seward's request for a conference, Mr. Everett proceeded to Washington without delay, and there wrote to me on the 3d of November as follows : — My dear Mr. Winthrop, — I have yours of the 30th. I was very sorry not to see you before I left home. I have had one short conver sation with Mr. S. since I came here, and have not been able to possess myself fully of his views on the application he has made to us. I shall probably see him again to-day or to-morrow. Kennedy has written to me that he will come down to-morrow. . . . 504 AUTOBIOGRAPHY I am very doubtful whether I shall be able to accede, to Seward's proposal. I have appointments to speak in great number, from which I could not well disengage myself without assigning the cause, which he does not wish done. I do not care to cross the Atlantic in December, and I could not earlier ; and the health of my eldest son is such as makes me very unwilling to leave him. . . . I shall not stay here beyond Friday, and I fear that I may be called home sooner to my son. Ever sincerely yours, Edward Everett. And now I will read a letter from Mr. Kennedy, which explains the whole matter both as to himself and Mr. Everett, and, I may add, as to myself also. Baltimore, Madison St., Nov. 10, 1861. My dear Winthrop, — 1 went to Washington on Monday last, and there met Everett. Seward having gone to New York, I returned home the same evening, promising Everett to come back on Thursday, that we might have an interview together with the Secretary. . . . I returned to Washington on Thursday, knowing that I was not to meet Mr. Everett, who had written to me the sad cause that hastened him home. My object was to make definite arrangements with the Secretary for my departure by the " Persia " on the 20th, and to leave here next Thursday. I saw him that morning and again the next morning. He told me that the last despatches from England and France had announced a most satisfactory and significant change of opinion in both countries, and that now everything began to authorize the hope of a decided policy of non-intervention throughout Europe. This led me to suggest to him the question whether this change did not make it desirable to postpone, at least for the present, the purpose con templated in our mission. I said that it struck me as a matter of some moment that the government should not appear too sensitive to the opinion of those who were hostile to us, when it had such assurances as he had received of the determination of the Ministry in England and France to forbid any interference with the blockade, etc. He replied that the Cabinet had been in conference on the subject since the receipt of the despatch, and although they did not attach as much importance to the service proposed as before, they still thought it would be well for us to go. He himself, however, concurred with me in thinking that it might be better to wait until we heard something of the reception of OP THURLOW WEED. 505 Mason and Slidell, and more especially of the impression which might be made by the President's Message, which would be likely to bring the questions touching the war, and our views of what was due to us from foreign governments, to a definite point for their consideration. I assured him that I would much rather wait for some future emergency which might render our services useful, than go to England now with a conviction that we should have very little to do in the line of duty he required. He said he was gratified that I took this view of the subject, and that he would assume upon himself, notwithstanding the decision of the Cabinet, to postpone for the present the purpose of urging our departure. He added he would write to me hereafter on the matter, and if events should require an early resumption of the scheme, he would let me know. And so we parted. This leaves me, very much to my content, the hope of a quiet domestication at home for the winter. . . Yours ever, J. P. K. These letters from Mr. Everett and Mr. Kennedy, of which the originals are in my hands, and from which I have omitted nothing which related to the subject, prove clearly that Mr. Weed was greatly mistaken in his account of the matter. They show that Mr. Everett had not declined the service on the ground that, " having formerly been our Minister at the Court of St. James, he did not feel at liberty to accept an unofficial position," or on any other ground ; and that if there was any embarrassment at Washington occasioned by him, it was simply owing to his having "been absent from home and not receiving Mr. Seward's request for a conference until many days after it had reached the rest of us. These letters prove also that he went to Washington as soon as he had received the summons on his return home, and had an interview with the Secretary on the subject, and that he was to have had a second consultation with him and Mr. Kennedy the next day, but was suddenly called back to Boston by the death of his eldest son. I may add, from my own personal knowledge at the time, that Mr. Everett held the subject of going abroad under deliberation for many weeks, and even months, after wards, and was ready to go at any moment when he could see his way clear to rendering any service to the Government. 506 AUTOBIOGRAPHY Meantime Mr. Kennedy's letter abundantly shows that so far from having declined, on the ground that he did " not feel able to abandon his business and go abroad without compensa tion," he had accepted the appointment at once, and that he went a second time, and even a third time, to Washington " to make definite arrangements with the Secretary for his depart ure by the ' Persia ' on the 20th of November." His letter amply explains the circumstances and views which led to the abandonment of this arrangement, and to the postponement, with the full concurrence of Mr. Seward, of the plan for any of us going. I have not the slightest idea that Mr. Weed had any pur pose to do injustice to any of the parties concerned in this matter, or that he knowingly misrepresented the facts of the case. It is plain that he was ignorant of those facts at the time, and made up his account from his own impressions long afterwards. Indeed, he was quite out of the way of knowing anything about the relations to the matter of Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Everett, or myself. Neither of us met him at Washing ton ; and if we had met him, the strictest confidence had been enjoined upon us by the Secretary, and we could not have communicated with him or any one else on the subject. But, as a matter of fact, he had left Washington, according to his own account, long before Mr. Everett arrived there, and had sailed for England, with Archbishop Hughes, four days before the date of my letter from Mr. Kennedy. His account of the matter clearly shows, that he was too much absorbed in his own relations with Archbishop Hughes and with his own preparations for embarking, to make any inquiries as to what others were proposing to do, or to get any accurate informa tion as to what actually occurred. I should be the last person to speak unkindly of him or of his Autobiography. My rela tions to him during the later years of his life were of the most friendly character, and I had formed a warm personal regard for him. His work is one of great interest, and exhibits a career of marvellous activity and ability. But as I am the only survivor of the five persons originally selected for this unofficial mission, I am unwilling that friends whose memories OP THURLOW WEED. 507 are so dear to me as those of Mr. Everett and Mr. Kennedy, should suffer by so inaccurate an account of their course, how ever unintentional or accidental the mistake may have been. In a cursory examination of the second of the Weed volumes, subsequently published, and entitled a " Memoir of Thurlow Weed," I have observed another allusion to myself which requires a slight correction. It will be found on page 363, and is as follows : — " In 1852 Mr. Weed was apprised of those benevolent purposes which Mr. Peabody afterwards so nobly carried into effect. They dis cussed together his first great project for relieving the poor of London. When Mr. Peabody visited this country, in 1866, he communicated to Mr. Weed his then immature scheme for the education and elevation of the Southern poor. He urged Mr. Weed to act as trustee ; but this honor was declined in favor of Robert C. Winthrop." Now I am well aware that Mr. Peabody had a warm per sonal regard for Mr. Weed, and it is not impossible or improb able that he gave bim some early intimation of his idea of making a provision for the education of the children in the States which had been desolated by the War for the Union. But when Mr. Peabody returned from England, and came out to Brookline, by appointment, on the 3d of October, 1866, — immediately after his arrival, — and spent some daj's with me in confidential consultation, four months before this great Southern benefaction was divulged, he gave me expressly to understand that no human being had been made acquainted with this particular purpose of his, and placed the whole mat ter unreservedly in my hands, as being altogether undecided upon. I may add that in all our repeated conferences about the members of the board to which the trust should be com mitted, — the ultimate selection of whom he left mainly to myself, — no New York names were ever mentioned except those of Governor Fish, Mr. Evarts, and Mr. Wetmore ; and those were at once agreed upon. Mr. Weed, in a published letter to the editor of the New York " Commercial Advertiser," — soon after the death of Mr. Peabody, in November, 1869, — stated this matter somewhat 508 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THURLOW WEED. differently: "I was much with Mr. Peabody," he says, "in 1861, while he was maturing his first great contribution to the poor of London. When he arrived here, in 1866, be commu nicated his then immature programme for the education and elevation of the Southern poor, and consulted with me in rela tion to suitable men for trustees. And it may be proper to say here, that the beneficent plan finally adopted was the suggestion of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop." This state ment, in Mr. Weed's own words, may be left to speak for itself. The language of his recent biography is less con sistent with an account of this memorable transaction, which I had occasion to give to my fellow trustees at their annual meeting in 1877, in describing " the origin and progress of the Peabody Education Trust." x In that account I find nothing to modify. 1 Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches, Vol. III. pp. 471-6. NOTE. While this volume is passing through the press, I find renewed occasion for noting mistakes like those to which the foregoing Paper relates. In the first volume of " Twenty Years of Congress," at page 72 and in some subsequent pages, Mr. Blaine has been led, by incorrect accounts of events and scenes of which he had no personal knowledge, into several errors in regard to my election as Speaker in 1847, and my failure to be re-elected in 1849. He has kindly inserted a Note on page 678 of his second volume correcting one of these errors, and I must leave others to some future opportunity. PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. REMARKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES AT NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1884. I shall detain you, Gentlemen, but a few minutes from the Reports of our Treasurer and General Agent, which are the main subjects of concern at these Annual Meetings. Indeed, the uncertainty, almost to the last moment, whether I should be able to be with you to-day, owing to the state of my health, would be a sufficient apology for my omitting any formal address, if any apology were needed. We miss our venerable associate, Bishop Whipple, this morning, both personally and officially ; but we have no fear that such a work as we are engaged in will be deprived of the blessing of God, though the Bishop is not here to invoke it as usual. He wrote to me on the 4th of August as follows : " Mrs. Whipple and myself have been much broken by sickness and sorrow. A friend has offered to give us a passage from New York to Liverpool and back. I believe I shall try to go, and sail from New York on September 20. Is there any very especial business at our Peabody meeting which Would prevent my going ? I am an old-fashioned man in my ideas of Trusts." I could not hesitate a moment to advise him to go, and to assure him that you would all unite with me in excusing his absence, and in wishing him a pleasant excursion and a safe return. 510 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. Our Treasurer, Mr. Wetmore, wrote me also on the 8th of September, from Newport, that he was not strong enough to come on to New York and return there again, as he would be obliged to do, and that his Report and vouchers would be handed to me, as they have been, by his clerk, Mr. J. L. Thompson. Mr. Stuart of Virginia, too, writes me on the 29th ult., that he " is so debilitated by the present extraordinary spell of hot and dry weather that he is unable to encounter the fatigue of the journey from Staunton to New York ; and that for the first time during the twelve years of his connection with the Pea body Board, he is obliged to ask to be excused from attending its Annual Meeting." With these exceptions, all our members are present, making four more than are necessary for a Quorum. I was earnestly in hopes, until the adjournment of Congress in July, that I might be privileged to congratulate you, at this meeting, on the success of our repeated appeals in behalf of Government Aid for the education of the colored children of the Southern States. The Bill which passed the Senate, known as the Blair Bill, — though not exactly what we had asked for, or altogether what we could perhaps have desired in some of its details, — gave welcome encouragement that something would at last be accomplished for this greatest of all our national needs and obligations. I trust that we shall continue to press the subject on the attention of Congress at every Session, by the presentation again and again of the admirable Memorial of our Board, which first awakened an interest in this vital ques tion ; and that another Session, after the burly-burly of politics has subsided, may find more leisure and more willing ness for a favorable action upon it, on the part of the Repre sentatives of the People. I was not without hopes, also, Gentlemen, that some favor able responses might have been received ere this from the delinquent States which have so long delayed to recognize their indebtedness to our Trust Fund. Perhaps we may hear some report on the subject, at a later stage of our proceedings, from our associate, General Jackson, to whom the Memorial to the PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 511 Legislature of Florida was specially committed at our last meeting. I will not enter again upon this vexatious question to-day, but I may mention, in passing from the topic, that an interesting letter, from a gentleman of intelligence and influence in Mis sissippi, reached me a few months ago, suggesting that the bonds of that State in our possession should be specifically set apart for the Mississippi schools, and expressing a confidence that such a course might even now secure a payment of the interest upon them. I replied that this idea had been consid ered and discussed by the Trustees heretofore, but had not thus far met their approval. Meantime our devoted General Agent will assure us, — in his excellent Report which I have had the privilege of reading, — not merely that our own special work is going along satis factorily and successfully to the full extent which our income will allow, but that the moral influence of our efforts, and the personal aid which he has been able to supply, by advice, counsel, and appeal, are accomplishing results far beyond the measure of our pecuniary resources. Let me only add that I have just received from Dr. Stearns an encouraging account of our great Normal College at Nash ville, over which he presides, and I will read that letter to the Board after we have listened to the Annual Report of Dr. Curry. Our new associate, Ex-Governor Poeter of Tennes see, whom we are all glad to welcome here to-day, will then be able to answer any inquiries about that Institution to which Dr. Stearns's letter may give occasion. SACKVILLE MANUSCRIPTS. - STEPHEN SALISBURY. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 9, 1884. I TRUST, Gentlemen, that none of us are sorry that the time has arrived for resuming our regular meetings. It may even be hoped that the unaccustomed interval of three months will have given us all a fresh appetite for these historical confer ences. There was something, certainly, of special good fortune in our having made that interval as long as it has been. The second Thursday of September, which we had included, almost for the first time, in our summer vacation, proved to be one of the most oppressive days of the season, ending in a startling storm of thunder and lightning, and giving us occasion for congratulation that there was no meeting here to call us away from our homes. I recall it the more vividly, as our worthy Vice-President, Dr. Ellis, had kindly driven out to see me at Brookline, where I had been confined by ill-health for many weeks, and we did not fail to remember the day. I may add that we agreed in thinking that it would be wise for the Soci ety to make our vacation hereafter three months, instead of two months, as it generally has been in former years. During the interval which has elapsed since our June meet ing, I have received several contributions to our Library or archives, which may be worthy of notice and acknowledg ment. Our Corresponding Member, Mr. Henry Tuke Parker, has sent me a new and interesting Report of the British His torical Manuscripts Commission, giving an account of a large SACKVILLE MANUSCRIPTS. 513 collection of papers belonging to Mrs. Stopford Sackville, of Drayton House, Northamptonshire, most of which relate to our Revolutionary period, and throw some additional, if not entirely new, light on the views and conduct of the English Ministry and of the British Generals connected with that period. It is amusing, to say the least, at this day, to find Eden, afterwards Sir William Eden, in a letter to Lord George Germain, written in behalf of Lord North, saying that " a worthy General [Gage] with parts inferior to his situation, and a corrupt Admiral [Howe ?] without any shadow of ca pacity, have jointly contributed to increase the strength and numbers of the armed rebels in a very great degree, and to render the avowal of rebellion general over the whole Ameri can continent." Nor is it less edifying to find Admiral Sir George Rodney telling Lord George, in 1780, that " he must not expect an end of the American War until he can find a general of active spirit, who hates the Americans from prin ciple." There are also, in this report, some new letters of Count Rumford, the value of which may have been already ascertained by his biographer, Dr. Ellis, to whom I communi cated the report without delay, and who will deposit it in our Library after he has sufficiently examined it. Mr. William T. R. Marvin has sent me the original auto graph manuscript of a college exercise of Daniel Webster, dated 15 December, 1800, on the question, " Would it be advantageous to the United States to extend their Territo ries ? " It was given to Mr. Marvin's father, who was long the confidential printer of Mr. Webster, and the publisher of the original edition of Webster's works, — as I had the best reasons for knowing, — by Webster himself, who called it his "first article on constitutional law." I have an indistinct impression that a copy of this little paper was received, and perhaps printed, by our Society some years ago. But even if it were so, the autograph original is worthy of a place in our archives ; and I present it accordingly in the name of Mr. Marvin. Our accomplished Corresponding Member, Dr. George H. Moore, of New York, has sent me various little items of anti- 33 514 SACKVILLE MANUSCRIPTS. quarian and historical interest from what he calls his " ancient memoranda," some of which, if not all, he thinks may have escaped the notice of our local antiquarians. Here, first, is a list of the persons who kept carriages in Boston in 1768. The caption is in French, as follows : — " Noms des personnes qui tiennent carosse a Boston, 1768 : — Gov. Bernard. John Rowe. Andrew Oliver. John Hancock. Pitts. Dr. Gardner. Commiss. Hubbard. William Vassal. Deacon Philips. Capt. Erving. Thomas Hutchinson. Dr. Clarke. James Bontineau. Dr. Bnlfinch. John Apthorp. Dr. Lloyd. Widow Apthorp. Widow Green. Ebenezer Pemberton. Widow Storer. James Bowdoin. Mr. Flucker." Twenty-two in all. Here, next, is " a notice of an early attempt to provide for medical education in Massachusetts, showing that such a provision was a desideratum in Harvard College at the date mentioned." Dr. Moore says : — " ' A Projection for Erecting a Bank of Credit in Boston, New Eng land, Founded on Land Security, in 1714,' shows that the famous Land Bank Company, in their original project for starting the company, very shrewdly threw out, as an inducement to promote subscriptions, several benevolent propositions well calculated to stimulate the interest of the public-spirited friends of education. One of them was the following: ' Two Hundred Pounds per annum to be paid to the Treasurer of Har vard College in Cambridge for the Uses following : Viz. Twenty Pounds per annum for a Mathematical Professor residing there, &c. . . . Forty Pounds per annum for the Encouragement of Three Graduates Residing there until they take their Master's Degree, &c. . . . One Hundred Pounds per annum for the support of Six Ministers' Sons to be equally divided among them, &c. . . . Forty pounds per annum to a Professor of Physick and Anatomy, Residing there, provided he read a Lecture once a Month on that subject.'" STEPHEN SALISBURY. 515 Lastly, Dr. Moore adds a postscript to his communication as follows : — "With reference to Dr. Peabody's admirable vindication of Judge Pickering's memory, Mr. Jefferson's own reference to him seems to have been forgotten, though it may have been the source of Mr. Ran dall's inspiration and Mr. Morse's last utterance. Jefferson's words are : ' In the impeachment of Judge Pickering, of New Hampshire, a habitual and maniac drunkard, no defence was made. Had there been, the party vote of more than one third of the Senate would have acquitted him.' " It only remains for me, Gentlemen, to announce officially, for the record of our Proceedings, the death of a venerable associate, which none of us individually can have failed to notice at the time it occurred. The Hon. Stephen Salisbury died at his home in Wor cester on the 24th of August last, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. He was elected a Resident Member of this Society in March, 1858, and had thus been one of our little number for more than a quarter of a century. He was a frequent attendant at our monthly meetings, in years past, not withstanding the forty miles of travel — I should rather say the eighty miles of travel, coming and going — which such an attendance involved ; and he was always ready to co-operate with us in whatever might promote our welfare. But I need not say that he will be longest remembered in connection with associations and institutions in his native place. Born in Worcester, he never yielded to the attractions or distractions of larger places of residence. Throughout his protracted life he remained faithful to Worcester, doing all in his power, by the ample wealth which he had inherited and by his personal influence and enterprise, to build up that which was a little town of two thousand four hundred inhabitants at his birth, in 1798, to the importance which it now enjoys as a city of sixty or seventy thousand people, taking rank as the second city of Massachusetts in population, business, and wealth. As President of the old Worcester Bank for nearly forty years, and as President of the Worcester County Insti- 516 STEPHEN SALISBURY. tution for Savings for more than five-and-twenty years, and still more as one of the largest benefactors and most active friends of the admirable Free Institute of Industrial Science, his name will long be gratefully remembered in the heart of the Commonwealth. But it was as President of the American Antiquarian Soci ety, founded at Worcester by Isaiah Thomas in 1812, that he became known and respected far beyond any mere local range. He had held the chair of that distinguished institution for thirty years, and had spared nothing in the way of personal effort or pecuniary gift to promote its prosperity and honor. The Annual Meetings of the society at Worcester were occasions not easily to be forgotten by those who were privileged to partake of his generous hospitality and friendly entertainment. It is among my personal regrets, now that he is gone, — as I almost annually wrote him while he lived, — that I was so rarely able to enjoy those attractive gatherings. Another such meeting is just at hand, when he will be sorely missed, and which will doubtless furnish the occasion for tributes to his memory, additional to those so justly paid at his funeral. Mr. Salisbury was a man of liberal education and varied acquirements, and his contributions to the Transactions of the Society over which he presided were numerous and interesting. Prepared for college at the old Leicester Academy, he was graduated at Harvard University in the notable class of 1817, which included among its members, George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, George B. Emerson, Samuel A. Eliot, Judge Charles H. Warren, Joseph Coolidge, Samuel E. Sewall, President Alva Woods, and Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, — and of which I may be pardoned for remembering that Francis William Winthrop took the very first honors, only to die of consumption, two years afterwards, at nineteen years of age. Mr. Salisbury was a warm and liberal friend of his Alma Mater, which con ferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1875, and of which he was an Overseer for twelve years. He was also, for several years, a Representative for the town, and a Sena tor for the County, of Worcester, successively, in our State Legislature. STEPHEN SALISBURY. 517 I must not omit to mention that Mr. Salisbury was long associated with me as one of the few original Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, and rendered faithful and valuable service as its Treasurer for fourteen or fifteen years. As lately as the 20th of June last, — only two months before his death, — he came down from Worcester, on a hot day, in his eighty-sixth year, to attend a visitation of that Museum. The physical weak ness which he exhibited on that occasion fully prepared me for the fatal result which followed so soon afterwards. But he was unwilling to deny himself that last view of an institution in which he had been so deeply interested from its first organi zation, and which he once told me was, in his judgment, the most satisfactory and successfully administered institution with which he had ever been associated. WATTS'S PORTRAITS AT NEW YORK. MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. COMMUNICATED TO THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 8, 1885. During the late visit to New York, which, much to my regret, cost me the satisfaction of being present at our last meeting, I spent an hour at the Metropolitan Museum in Central Park, in looking at the interesting pictures of the em inent English artist, George Frederic Watts, which have been brought over from London for exhibition. I do not pretend to be a judge of his allegorical and mythical pictures, of which there are many in most glowing and gorgeous coloring. But I cannot forbear from advising every one to pay a visit to the portraits ; and I should hope that our Museum of Art might obtain them for exhibition in Boston, and save us all the trouble of a journey to New York. The portraits are certainly of a very high order, and are of the most distinguished men of the time, — such as Cardinal Manning and the late Lord Lawrence, Tennyson and Browning, Carlyle and Stuart Mill, the Duke of Argyll and the Marquis of Salisbury, Swinburne and Burne Jones, not forgetting our own Motley, as a young man of twenty-five.. Watts's great portrait of Gladstone, which I had the good fortune to see in London, was regarded as too pre cious to be exposed to the perils of an ocean voyage. I recall, too, his marvellous portrait of Dean Milman which I saw at the Deanery of St. Paul's twent}^ years ago, but which is not at New York. But the portraits which are there are full of WATTS'S PORTBAITS AT NEW YORK. 519 interest, both from their subjects and as works of art ; and I should be sorry to think that they would not find their way to Boston for exhibition. Since my return home I have received an appeal from the Art Committee of the Union League Club of New York, on the subject of the present tariff on all foreign works of art. It was accompanied by a petition to Congress that the duties might be restored to their old rate, or abolished altogether ; and I was requested to obtain authority for signing it in behalf of this Society. But while I sympathize generally in the views of this petition, I can hardly regard it as a matter for our consideration or action, and I do not propose to make it an exception to my rule by signing it personally. But I lay the papers on the table for the signatures of any members who may be disposed to examine or sign such a petition. Many months ago, there was kindly sent to me a copy of an article in the "New York Independent," written by our ac complished Corresponding Member, Dr. Benson J. Lossing, on the subject of celebrating the fourth centennial of the dis covery of America. The date of that discovery by Columbus is given by Mr. Lossing as the 12th of October, 1492. There are thus somewhat more than seven years to elapse before the fourth centennial will occur. But it seems that consulta tions have already been held, both in Spain and in our own land, as to the mode and as to the place in which that supreme historical event shall be commemorated. The article of Mr. Lossing gives an interesting account of the views which have already been expressed by King Alfonso and some of his ministers, by the Duke of Veragua, who represents the family of Columbus, and by Emilio Castelar, the eminent orator and republican statesman of Spain. They all think that the cele bration should be in Spain. Mr. Lossing, on the other hand, claims that New York, as " the acknowledged commercial me tropolis of the New World," is the most appropriate place for a grand international celebration ; and I heartily concur with him. ¦ But a celebration at New. York, however grand, is not all that is due to Columbus from America. His memory, with 520 MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. that of his great compeers, has been too long neglected in our large cities. No adequate memorial of the discoverer of the New World is to be found anywhere on this continent. In a lecture delivered before this Society on my return from Eu rope, in 1869, I ventured to call attention to this omission, as follows : — " A noble monument to Columbus, recently finished, sur mounted by a striking statue of him, and adorned by a series of bas-reliefs illustrating the strange, eventful history of his life, — from which, I need hardly say, the discovery of America was not wholly omitted, — greeted us at the gates of Genoa, with the simple inscription in Italian, ' To Christopher Co lumbus, from his Country ; ' and as I gazed upon it with admi ration, I could not help feeling that it was not there alone that a monument and a statue were due to his memory, but that upon the shores of our own hemisphere, too, there ought to be some worthy memorial of the Discoverer of the New World." More recently, in the Centennial Oration which I delivered at the call of the Mayor and City Council of Boston, on the 4th of July, 1876, I used the following language : " From the hour when Columbus and his compeers discovered our continent, its ultimate political destiny was fixed. At the very gateway of the Pantheon of American liberty and Ameri can independence might well be seen a triple monument, — like that to the old inventors of printing at Frankfort, — includ ing Columbus and Americus Vespucius and Cabot. They were the pioneers in the march to independence. They were the precursors in the only progress of freedom which was to have no backward steps. Liberty had struggled long and bravely in other ages and in other lands. It had made glorious mani festations of its power and promise in Athens and in Rome, in the mediaeval republics of Italy, on the plains of Germany, along the dykes of Holland, among the icy fastnesses of Swit zerland, and, more securely and hopefully still, in the sea-girt isle of Old England. But it was the glory of those heroic old navigators to reveal a standing-place for it at last, where its lever could find a secure fulcrum and rest safely until it had moved the world ! " MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. 521 For the execution of such a triple monument, including the statues of Columbus, Americus Vespucius, and Sebastian Ca bot, not one of our accomplished artists, at ^home or abroad, would find the seven intervening years too long a time. Por traits of all three of the great discoverers are to be found in the galleries abroad, or copies of them in our own galleries. I believe that the original of Sebastian Cabot was destroyed by some accident ; but there is a careful copy of it on our own stairway, and another in the gallery of the Historical Society of New York. Copley Square would be a most eligible place for such a monument, if it is not previously appropriated ; and its surroundings, including the new Public Library and the Museum of Art, would be in excellent keeping with it. I cannot but wish that the Museum of Art, with our own Society and the American Antiquarian Society, would take this memorial seriously and seasonably in hand ; and I cannot doubt that contributions to cover the cost could be obtained from time to time before the money is needed. But I content myself with renewing the suggestion, in the hope that it may attract the interest of others before it is too late. Before concluding these introductory remarks, I present to the Library, in behalf of Miss Mary Fraser Curtis, a pamphlet which came to her from her grandfather, the late Hon. Daniel Sargent. It contains the well-remembered correspondence between the late John Quincy Adams and several citizens of Massachusetts of the old Federal party, of which Mr. Sargent was one, concerning the charge of a design to dissolve the Union, alleged to have existed in this State. There is a copy of this pamphlet in our Library already ; and the contents of it are included, with much additional and illustrative matter, in the volume entitled " New England Federalism," published by Mr. Henry Adams in 1877. But this copy has an interest and a value as containing the autograph signatures of all the gentlemen who signed the paper, — Harrison Gray Otis, Israel Thorndike, Thomas H. Perkins, William Prescott, Daniel Sargent, John Lowell, William Sullivan, Charles Jackson, Warren Dutton, 522 MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. Benjamin Pickman, Henry Cabot, son of George Cabot, Charles C. Parsons, son of Theophilus Parsons, and Franklin Dexter, son of Samuel Dexter. Thirteen more notable autograph sig natures could hardly be found together anywhere, and the pamphlet may well find a place among the specialties of our collection. In turning over the leaves of this pamphlet, in which it had probably been used as a mark, I found a little remembrancer of a later day, — one of the votes of the old Whig party in 1836, with the electors of President headed by Nathaniel Sils- bee, with Edward Everett for Governor, and with a list of no less than seventy-four candidates for the General Court of Massachusetts. My own name stands third on the list, and I think there are only three or four others living of the whole seventy-four. This old vote may well accompany the pam phlet in which I found it. THE COMPLETION OF THE NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. ORATION BY ORDER OF CONGRESS, FEB. 21, 1885. JOINT RESOLUTION OF CONGRESS. Appboved Mat 13, 1884. " Whereas the shaft of the Washington Monument is approaching completion, and it is proper that it should be dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, calculated to perpetuate the fame of the illustrious man who was ' first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country men : ' — therefore, " Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a commission to consist of five Senators appointed .by the President of the Senate, eight Repre sentatives appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, three members of the Washington Monument Society, and the United States Engineer in charge of the work, be, and the same is hereby, created, with full powers to make arrangements for, — " First. The dedication of the monument to the name and memory of George Washington, by the President of the United States, with appro priate ceremonies. " Second. A procession from the monument to the Capitol, escorted by regular and volunteer corps, the Washington Monument Society, representatives of cities, States, and organizations which have con tributed blocks of stone, and such bodies of citizens as may desire to appear. " Third. An Oration in the hall of the House of Representatives on the twenty-second day of February, anno Domini eighteen hundred and eighty-five, by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, who delivered the oration 524 MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. at the laying of the corner-stone of the monument in eighteen hundred and forty-eight, with music by the Marine Band. " Fourth. Salutes of one hundred guns from the navy yard, the artil lery headquarters, and such men-of-war as can be anchored in the Potomac." Note. — On being informed of the passage of the foregoing Resolu tion, Mr. Winthrop wrote to Senator Sherman of Ohio, Chairman of the Monument Commission, and to Senator Morrill of Vermont, one of its leading members, to express, not merely his deep sense of the honor conferred upon him, but also his great doubt whether he ought not respectfully to decline it. He had regarded his Centennial Oration at Yorktown, in 1881, as the closing effort of the series of historical ad dresses which he had been privileged to pronounce at different periods, and he hesitated to risk impairing the success of the present celebration by subjecting it to the contingencies of failing health and strength to which a man far advanced in his seventy-sixth year would necessarily be liable. Senators Sherman and Morrill, however, both replied that the interest of the occasion would be greatly enhanced if the orator whose name was associated with the inception of the monument should officiate at its completion, and strongly urged Mr. Winthrop to accept the ap pointment, which he eventually did, though not without misgivings which have been unhappily justified. Two months only before the appointed time, and after he had sub stantially prepared what he proposed to say, Mr. Winthrop fell danger ously ill of pneumonia, his recovery from which was too slow to admit of the delivery of his oration in person. Under these circumstances, and at the joint request of the Monument Commission and of Mr. Winthrop, it was most kindly and effectively read for him by the Hon. John Davis Long, late Governor of Massachusetts, and now a member of the United Stales House of Representatives. R. C. W., Jr. Boston, February 28, 1885. ORATION. President Arthur, — Senators and Eepbesentatives of the United States : — By a joint Resolution of Congress, you have called upon me to address you in this Hall to-day, on the completion of yonder colossal monument to the Father of his Country. Nothing less imperative could have brought me before you for such an effort. Nearly seven and thirty years have passed away since it was my privilege to perform a similar service at the laying of the corner-stone of that monument. In the prime of manhood, and in the pride of official station, it was not difficult for me to speak to assembled thousands, in the open air, without notes, under the scorching rays of a midsummer sun. But what was easy for me then is impossible for me now. I am here to-day, as I need not tell you, in far other condition for the service you have assigned me, — changed, changed in almost everj'thing, except an inextinguishable love for my Country and its Union, and an undying reverence for the memory of Washington. On these alone I rest for inspiration, assured that, with your indul gence, and the blessing of God which I devoutly invoke, they will be sufficient to sustain me in serving as a medium for keeping up the continuity between the hearts and hands which laid the foundation of this gigantic structure, and those younger hearts and hands which have at last brought forth the capstone with shoutings. It is for this you have summoned me. It is for this alone I have obeyed your call.' 526 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION Meantime, I cannot wholly forget that the venerable Ex- President, John Quincy Adams, — at whose death-bed, in my official chamber beneath this roof, I was a privileged watcher thirty-seven years ago this very day, — had been originally designated to pronounce the Corner-stone Oration, as one who had received his first commission, in the long and brilliant career at home and abroad which awaited him, from the hands of Washington himself. In that enviable distinction I certainly have no share : but I may be pardoned for remembering that, in calling upon me to supply the place of Mr. Adams, it was borne in mind that I had but lately taken the oath as Speaker at his hands and from his lips, and that thus, as was suggested at the time, the electric chain, though lengthened by a single link, was still unbroken. Let me hope that the magnetism of that chain may not even yet be entirely exhausted, and that I may still catch something of its vivifying and quickening power, while I attempt to bring to the memory of Washington the remnants of a voice which is failing, and of a vigor which, I am conscious, is ebbing away! It is now, Mr. President, Senators, and Representatives, more than half a century since a voluntary Association of patriotic citizens initiated the project of erecting a National Monument to Washington in the city which bears his name. More than a whole century ago, indeed, — in that great year of our Lord which witnessed the Treaty of Peace and Independence, 1783, — Con gress had ordered an equestrian statue of him to be executed, " to testify the love, admiration, and gratitude of his country men ; " and again, immediately after his death, in 1799, Congress had solemnly voted a marble monument to him at the Capital, " so designed as to commemorate the great events of bis military and political life." But our beloved country, while yet in its infancy, and, I may add, in its indigency, with no experience in matters of art, and heavily weighed down by the great debt of the Revolutionary War, knew better how to vote monuments than how to build them, or, still more', how to pay for them. Yorktown monuments and Washington monuments, and the statues of I know not how many heroes of our struggle for OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 527 Independence, made a fine show on paper in our early Tecords, and were creditable to those who ordered them ; but their practical execution seems to have been indefinitely postponed. The Washington Monument Association, instituted in 1833, resolved that no such postponement should longer be endured, and proceeded to organize themselves for the work which has at length been completed. They had for their first President the great Chief Justice, John Marshall, the personal friend and chosen biographer of Washington, whose impressive image you have so recenthy and so worthily unveiled on yonder Western Terrace. They had for their second President the not less illustrious James Madison, the father of the Constitution of which Marshall was the interpreter, and whose statue might well have no inferior place on the same Terrace. Among the other officers and managers of that Association, I cannot forget the names of William W. Seaton, whose memory is deservedly cherished by all who knew him ; of that grand old soldier and patriot, Winfield Scott; of Generals Archibald Henderson and Nathan Towson ; of Walter Jones, and Peter Force, and Philip Fendall ; together with that of its indefatigable General Agent, honest old Elisha Whittlesey. To that Association our earliest and most grateful acknowledgments are due on this occasion. But of those whom I have named, and of many others whom I might name, so long among the honored and familiar figures of this metropolis, not one is left to be the subject of our con gratulations. Meanwhile we all rejoice to welcome the presence of one of their contemporaries and friends, whose munificent endowments for Art, Education, Religion, and Charity entitle him to so enviable a place on the roll of American philanthro pists, — the venerable William W. Corcoran, now, and for many years past, our senior Vice-President. Nearly fifteen years, however, elapsed before the plans or the funds of this Association were in a state of sufficient forward ness to warrant them even in fixing a day for laying the first foundation-stone of the contemplated structure. That day ar rived at last, — the 4th of July, 1848. And a great day it was in this capital of the nation. There had been no day like it here before, and there have been but few, if any, days like it 528 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION here since. If any one desires a description of it, he will find a most exact and vivid one in the columns of the old National Intelligencer, — doubtless from the pen of that prince of editors, the accomplished Joseph Gales. I recall, among the varied features of the long procession, Freemasons of every order, with their richest regalia, including the precious gavel and apron of Washington himself ; Firemen, with their old-fashioned engines ; Odd Fellows from a thousand Lodges ; Temperance Societies, and other Associations, innumerable ; the children of the Schools, long ago grown to mature manhood ; the military escort of regulars, marines, and volunteer militia from all parts of the eountiy, commanded by Generals Quitman and Cadwalader and Colonel May, then crowned with laurels won in Mexico, which long ago were laid upon their graves. I recall, too, the masses of the people, of all classes and sexes and ages and colors, gazing from the windows, or thronging the sidewalks, or grouped in countless thousands upon the Monument grounds. But I look around in vain for any of the principal witnesses of that im posing ceremonial; — the venerable widows of Alexander Ham ilton and James Madison ; President Polk and his Cabinet, as then constituted, — Buchanan, Marcy, John Y. Mason, Walker, Cave Johnson, and Clifford ; Vice-President Dallas ; George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of the great Chief; not forgetting Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, both then members of the House of Representatives, and for whom the liveliest imagination could hardly have pictured what the future had in store for them. Of that whole body there are now but a handful of survivors, and probably not more than two or three of them present here to-day, — not one in either branch of Congress, nor one, as I believe, in any department of the national service. To those of us who took part in the laying of that first stone, or who witnessed the ceremonies of the august occasion, and who have followed the slow ascent of the stupendous pile, some times with hope and sometimes with despair, its successful com pletion is, I need not say, an unspeakable relief, as well as a heart-felt delight and joy. I hazard little in saying that there are some here to-day, — unwearied workers in the cause, like OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 529 my friends Horatio King and Dr. Toner, — to name no others, — to whose parting hour a special pang would have been added, had they died without the sight which now greets their longing eyes on yonder plain. I dare not venture on any detailed description of the long intervening agony between the laying of the first stone and the lifting of the last. It would fill a volume, and will be sure hereafter to furnish material for an elaborate monograph, whose author will literally find "sermons in stones," — for almost every stone has its story, if not its sermon. Every year of the first decade, certainly, had its eventful and noteworthy expe riences. The early enthusiasm which elicited contributions, to the amount of more than a quarter of a million of dollars, from men, women, and children in all parts of the land, and which carried up the shaft more than a hundred and fifty feet almost at a bound; the presentation and formal reception of massive blocks of marble, granite, porphyry, or freestone, from every State in the Union and from so many foreign nations, — begin ning, according to the catalogue, with a stone from Bunker Hill, and ending with one from the Emperor of Brazil ; the annual assemblies at its base on each succeeding Fourth of July, with speeches by distinguished visitors ; the sudden illness and sad death of that sterling patriot, President Zachary Taylor, after an exposure to the midday heat at the gathering in 1850, when the well-remembered Senator Foote of Mississippi had indulged in too exuberant an address ; — these were among its beginnings. The end was still a whole generation distant. Later on came the long, long disheartening pause when — partly owing to the financial embarrassments of the times, partly owing to the political contentions and convulsions of the country, and partly owing to unhappy dissensions in the Asso ciation itself — any further contributions failed to be forth coming, all interest in the Monument seemed to flag and die away, and all work on it was suspended and practically aban doned. A deplorable civil war soon followed, and all efforts to renew popular interest in its completion were palsied. How shall I depict the sorry spectacle which those first one hundred and fifty-six feet, in their seemingly hopeless, helpless 34 530 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION condition, with that dismal derrick still standing as in mockery upon their summit, presented to the eye of every comer to the Capital for nearly a quarter of a century! No wonder the unsightly pile became the subject of pity or derision. No won der there were periodical panics about the securitj' of its foun dation, and a chronic condemnation of the original design. No wonder that suggestions for tearing it all down began to be entertained in many minds, and were advocated by many pens and tongues. That truncated shaft, with its untidy surround ings, looked only like an insult to the memory of Washington. It symbolized nothing but an ungrateful country, not destined — as, God be thanked, it still was — to growth, and grandeur, and imperishable glory, but doomed to premature decay, to discord, strife, and ultimate disunion. Its very presence was calculated to discourage many hearts from other things as well as from itself. It was an abomination of desolation standing where it ought not. All that followed of confusion and con tention in our country's history seemed foreshadowed and prefigured in that humiliating spectacle, and one could almost read on its sides in letters of blood, " Divided ! Weighed in the balance ! Found wanting ! " And well might that crude and undigested mass have stood so forever, or until the hand of man or the operation of the elements should have crushed and crumbled it into dust, if our Union had then perished. An unfinished, fragmentary, crum bling monument to Washington would have been a fit emblem of a divided and ruined Country. Washington himself would not have had it finished. He would- have desired no tribute, however imposing, from either half of a disunited Republic. He would have turned with abhorrence from being thought the Father of anything less than One Country, with One Constitu tion and One Destiny. And how cheering and how inspiring the reflection, how grand and glorious the fact, that no sooner were our unhappy contentions at an end, no sooner were Union and Liberty, one and inseparable, once more and, as we trust and believe, forever reasserted and reassured, than this monument to Washington gave signs of fresh life, began to attract new interest and new OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 531 effort, and soon was seen rising again slowly but steadily toward the skies, — stone after stone, course upon course, piled up in peace, with foundations extended to the full demand of the enormous weight to be placed upon them, until we can now hail it as complete ! Henceforth and forever it shall be lovingly associated, not only with the memory of him in whose honor it has been erected, but with an era of assured peace, unity, and concord, which would have been dearer to bis heart than the costliest personal memorial which the toil and treasure of his countrymen could have constructed. The Union is itself the all-sufficient and the only sufficient monument to Washington. The Union was nearest and dearest to his great heart. " The Union in any event," were the most emphatic words of his immortal Farewell Address. Nothing less than the Union would ever have been accepted or recognized by him as a monument commensurate with his services and his fame. Nothing less ought ever to be accepted or recognized as such by us, or by those who shall rise up, generation after generation, to do homage to his memory! For the grand consummation which we celebrate to-day, we are indebted primarily to the National Government, under the successive Presidents of the past nine years, with the concur rent action of the two branches of Congress, prompted by Committees so often under the lead of the veteran Senator Morrill of Vermont. The wise decision and emphatic resolution of Congress, on the 2d of August, 1876, — inspired by the Centennial Celebration of American Independence, moved by Senator Sherman of Ohio, and adopted, as it auspiciously hap pened, on the hundredth anniversary of the formal signing of the great Declaration, — that the monument should no longer be left unfinished, with the appointment of a Joint Commission to direct and supervise its completion, settled the whole matter. To that Joint Commission, consisting of the President of the United States for the time being, the Senior Vice-President of the Monument Association, the Chief of Engineers of the United States Army, with the architects of the Capitol and the Treasury, the congratulations and thanks of us all may well be tendered. 532 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION But I think they will all cordially agree with me that the main credit and honor of what has been accomplished belongs pecu liarly and pre-eminently to the distinguished officer of engineers who has been their devoted and untiring agent from the outset. The marvellous work of extending and strengthening the foun dations of a structure already weighing, as it did, not less than thirty-two thousand tons, — sixty-four million pounds, — an operation which has won the admiration of engineers all over the world, and which will always associate this monument with a signal triumph of scientific skill, — was executed upon his responsibility and under his personal supervision. His, too, have been the ingenious and effective arrangements by which the enormous, shaft has been carried up, course after course, until it has reached its destined height of five hundred and fifty- five feet, as we see it at this hour. To Colonel Thomas Lin coln Casey, whose name is associated in three generations with valued military service to his country, the successful completion of the monument is due. But he would not have us forget his accomplished assistant, Captain George W. Davis, and neither of them would have us fail to remember Superintendent McLaughlin and the hard-handed and honest-hearted mechanics who have labored so long under their direction. Finis coronat opus. The completion crowns the work. To day that work speaks for itself, and needs no other orator. Mute and lifeless as it seems, it has a living and audible voice for all who behold it, and no one can misinterpret its language. Nor will anyone, I think, longer cavil about its design. That design, let me add, originally prepared by the Washington architect, Robert Mills of South Carolina, and adopted long before I had any relations to this Association, was commended to public favor by such illustrious names as Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Hemy Clay, and Daniel Webster. A colonnade encircling its base, and intended as a sort of Pantheon, was soon discarded from the plan. Its main feature, from the first, was an obelisk, after the example of that which had then been recently agreed upon for Bunker Hill. And so it stands to-day, a simple, sublime, obelisk, of pure white marble, its proportions, in spite of its immense height, OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 533 conforming exactly to those of the most celebrated obelisks of antiquity, as my accomplished and lamented friend, our late Min ister to Italy, George P. Marsh, so happily pointed out to us. It is not, indeed, as were those ancient obelisks, a monolith, — a sin gle stone cut whole from the quarry ; that would have been obvi ously impossible for anything so colossal. Nor could we have been expected to attempt the impossible in deference to Egyp tian methods of construction. We might almost as well be called on to adopt as the emblems of American Progress the bronze crabs which were found at the base of Cleopatra's Needle ! America is certainly at liberty to present new models in art as well as in government, or to improve upon old ones ; and, as I ventured to suggest some years ago, our monument to Washington will be all the more significant and symbolic in embodying, at it does, the idea of our cherished National motto, E pluribus Unum. That compact, consolidated structure, with its countless blocks, inside and outside, held firmly in position by their own weight and pressure, will ever be an instructive type of the National strength and grandeur which can only be secured by the union of " many in one." Had the Fine Arts, indeed, made such advances in our country forty years ago as we are now proud to recognize, it is not im probable that a different design might have been adopted ; yet I am by no means sure it would have been a more effective and appropriate one. There will always be ample opportunity for the display of decorative art in our land. The streets and squares of this city and of all our great cities are wide open for the statues and architectural memorials of our distinguished statesmen and soldiers, and such monuments are everywhere welcomed and honored. But is not — I ask in all sincerity — is not the acknowledged pre-eminence of the Father of his Country, first without a second, more fitly and adequately represented by that soaring shaft, rising high above trees and spires and domes and all the smoke and stir of earth,- — as he ever rose above sectional prejudices, and party politics, and personal interests, — overtopping and dominating all its sur roundings, gleaming and glistening out at every vista as far as human sight can reach, arresting and riveting the eye at every 534 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION turn, while it shoots triumphantly to the skies? Does not — does not, I repeat, that Colossal Unit remind all who gaze at it, more forcibly than any arch or statue could do, that there is one name in American history above all other names, one char acter more exalted than all other characters, one example to be studied and reverenced beyond all other examples, one bright particular star in the clear upper sky of our firmament, whose guiding light and peerless lustre are for all men and for all ages, never to be lost sight of, never to be unheeded ? Of that name, of that character, of that example, of that glorious guiding light, our Obelisk, standing on the very spot selected by Washington himself for a monument to the American Revolution, and on the site which marks our National meridian, will be a unique memorial and symbol forever. For, O my friends, let us not longer forget, or even seem to forget, that we are here to commemorate, not the Monument but the Man. That stupendous pile has not been reared for any vain purpose of challenging admiration for itself. It is not I need not say it is not, as a specimen of advanced art, for it makes no pretension to that; it is not as a signal illustration of engineering skill and science, though that may confidently be claimed for it ; it is not, certainly it is not, as the tallest existing structure in the world, for we do not measure the greatness of men by the height of their monuments, and we know that this distinction may be done away with, here or elsewhere, in future years ; but it is as a Memorial of the pre eminent figure in modern or in ancient history, the world over, that it appeals to our eyes and hearts, — as a Memorial of the man who has left the loftiest example of public and private vir tues, and whose exalted character challenges the admiration and the homage of mankind. It is this example, and this character, — it is the Man, and not the Monument, — that we are here to commemorate ! Assembled in these Legislative Halls of the Nation, as near to the anniversary of his birth as a due respect for the Day of our Lord will allow, to signalize the long-delayed accomplish ment of so vast a work, it is upon him in whose honor it has OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 535 been upreared, and upon the incomparable and inestimable services he has rendered to his country and to the. world, that our thoughts should be concentred at this hour. Yet what can I say, what can any man say, of Washington, which has not already been rendered as familiar as household words, not merely to those who hear me, but to all readers of history and all lovers of Liberty throughout the world ? How could I hope to glean anything from a field long ago so carefully and lovingly reaped by such men as John Marshall and Jared Sparks, by Guizot and Edward Everett and Washington Irving, as well as by our eminent living historian, the venerable George Bancroft, happily here with us to-day ? Others, many others, whom I dare not attempt to name or number, have vied with each other in describing a career, of whose minutest details no American is ever weary, and whose variety and interest can never be exhausted. Every stage and step of that career, every scene of that great and glorious life, from the hour of his birth, one hundred and fifty-three years ago, — "about ten in the morning of ye 11th day of February, 1731-2," as recorded in his mother's Bible, — in that primitive Virginia farmhouse in the county of Westmoreland, of which the remains of the "great brick chimney of the kitchen" have been identified only within a few years past, — every scene, I say, of that grand and glorious life, from that ever memorable hour of bis nativity, has been traced and illus trated by the most accomplished and brilliant pens and tongues of our land. His childhood, under the loving charge of that venerated mother, who delighted to say that " George had always been a good son," who happily lived, not only to see him safely restored to her after the exposures and perils of the Revolu tionary struggle, but to see him, in her eighty-second year, unanimously elected to be the President in peace of the country of which he had been the Saviour in war ; his primary educa tion in that "old- field schoolhouse," with Hobby, the sexton of the parish, for his first master : his early and romantic ad ventures as a land-surveyor ; his narrow escape from being a midshipman in the British Navy, at fourteen years of age, for 536 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION which, it has been said, a warrant had been obtained and his luggage actually put on board a man-of-war anchored in the river just below Mount Vernon ; his still narrower and hair breadth escapes from Indian arrows and from French bullets, and his survival — the only mounted officer not killed — at the defeat of Braddock, of whom he was an aide-de-camp ; together with that most remarkable prediction of the Virginia pastor, Samuel Davies, afterward President of Princeton College, point ing him out — in a sermon, in 1755, on his return, at the age of twenty-three, from the disastrous field of the Monongahela — as " that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country ; " — who has forgotten, who can ever forget, these most impressive incidents of that opening career by which he was indeed so providentially pre served, prepared, and trained up for the eventful and illustrious future which awaited him ? Still less can any American forget his taking his seat, soon afterward, in the Virginia House of Burgesses, — with the striking tribute to his modesty which he won from the Speaker, — and his subsequent election to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, where on the 15th of June, 1775, at the instance of John Adams and on the motion of Thomas Johnson, after ward Governor of Maryland, he was unanimously appointed " General and Commander-in-Chief of such Forces as are, or shall be, raised for the maintenance and preservation of Ameri can Liberty." Nor can any of us require to be reminded of the heroic fortitude, the unswerving constancy, and the unsparing self-devotion, with which he conducted, through seven or eight years, that protracted contest, with all its toils and trials, its vexations and vicissitudes, from the successful Siege of Boston, his first great triumph, followed by those masterly movements on the Delaware which no less celebrated a soldier than Fred erick the Great declared " the most brilliant achievements of any recorded in the annals of military action," — and so along, — through all the successes and reverses and sufferings and trials of Monmouth and Brandywine and Germantown and Valley Forge, — to the Siege of Yorktown, in 1781, where, with OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 537 the aid of our generous and gallant allies, under the lead of Rochambeau, and De Grasse, and Lafayette, he won at last that crowning victory on the soil of his beloved Virginia. Nor need I recall to you the still nobler triumphs witnessed during all this period, — triumphs in which no one but he had any share, — triumphs over himself: not merely in his mag nanimous appreciation of the exploits of his subordinates, even when unjustly and maliciously contrasted with disappointments and alleged inaction of his own, but in repelling the machina tions of discontented and mutinous officers at Newburgh, in spurning overtures to invest him with dictatorial and even Kingly power, and in finally surrendering his sword and com mission so simply, so sublimely, to the Congress from which he had received them. Or, turning sharply from this summary and familiar sketch of his military career, — of which, take it for all in all, its long duration, its slender means, its vast theatre, its glorious aims and ends and results, there is no parallel in history, — turning sharply from all this, need I recall him, in this presence, pre siding with paramount influence and authority over the Con vention which framed the Constitution of the United States, and then, with such consummate discretion, dignity, and wisdom, over the original administration of that Constitution, when the principles and precedents of our great Federal system of Government were moulded, formed, and established ? It was well said by John Milton, in one of his powerful Defences of the People of England, " War has made many great, whom Peace makes small." But of Washington we may say, as Milton said of Cromwell, that while War made him great, Peace made him greater ; or rather that both War and Peace alike gave opportunity for the display of those incomparable innate qualities, which no mere circumstances could create or destroy. But his sword was not quite yet ready to rest quietly in its scabbard. Need I recall him, once more, after his retirement from a second term of the Chief Magistracy, accepting a sub ordinate position under his successor in the Presidency, as Lieutenant-General of the American armies, in view of an 538 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION impending foreign war, which, thank God, was so happily averted ? Nor can anyone who hears me require to be reminded of that last scene of all, when, in his eight-and-sixtieth year, having been overtaken by a fatal shower of sleet and snow, in the midst of those agricultural pursuits in which he so much delighted, at Mount Vernon, he laid himself calmly down to die, — "not afraid to go," as he whispered to his physician, — and left his whole country in tears such as had never flowed before. "Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace ! " Eighty-five years ago to-morrow — his sixty-eighth birthday — was solemnly assigned by Congress for a general manifesta tion of that overwhelming national sorrow, and for the com memoration, by eulogies, addresses, sermons, and religious rites, of the great life which had thus been closed. But long before that anniversary arrived, and one day only after the sad tidings had reached the seat of Government in Philadel phia, President John Adams, in reply to a message of the House of Representatives, had anticipated all panegyrics by a declaration, as true to-day as it was then, that he was " the most illustrious and beloved personage which this country ever produced ; " while Henry Lee, of Virginia, through the lips of John Marshall, had summed up and condensed all that was felt, and all that could be or ever can be said, in those imperishable words which will go ringing down the cen turies, in every clime, in every tongue, till time shall be no more, — " First iii War, First in Peace, and First in the hearts of his Countrymen ! " But there are other imperishable words which will resound through the ages, — words of his own, not less memorable than 'his acts, — some of them in private letters, some of them in official correspondence, some of them in inaugural addresses, and some of them, I need not say, in that .immortal Farewell Address which an eminent English historian has pronounced " unequalled by any composition of uninspired wisdom," and which ought to be learned by heart by the children of our OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 539 schools, like the Laws of the Twelve Tables in the schools of ancient Rome, and never forgotten when those children grow up to the privileges and responsibilities of manhood. It was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, from whom the idea of our monument has been borrowed, — I should rather say, evolved, — to cover their obelisks with hieroglyphical inscrip tions, some of which have to this day perplexed and baffled all efforts to decipher them. Neither Champollion, nor the later Lepsius, nor any of the most skilful Egyptologists, have suc ceeded in giving an altogether satisfactory reading of the legends on Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle. And those legends, at their best, — engraved, as they were, on the granite or porphyry, with the letters enamelled with gold, and boasted of as illuminating the world with their rays, — tell us little except the dates and doings of some despotic Pharaoh, whom we would willingly have seen drowned in the ocean of oblivion, as one of them so deservedly was in the depths of the ' Red Sea. Several of the inscriptions on Cleopatra's Needle, as it so strangely greets us in the fashionable promenade of our commercial capital, inform us, in magniloquent terms, of Thothmes III., who lived in the age preceding that in which Moses was born, styling him a " Child of the Sun," " Lord of the two Worlds," " Endowed and endowing with power, life, and stability." Other inscriptions designate him, or Rameses II., — the great oppressor of the Israelites, — as the " Chastiser of Foreign Nations," " The Conqueror," " The Strong Bull ! " Our Washington Needle, while it has all of the severe sim plicity, and far more than all of the massive grandeur, which were the characteristics of Egyptian architecture, bears no inscriptions whatever, and none are likely ever to be carved on it. Around its base bas-reliefs in bronze may possibly one day be placed, illustrative of some of the great events of Wash ington's life ; while on the terrace beneath may, perhaps, be- arranged emblematic figures of Justice and Patriotism, of Peace, Liberty, and Union. All this, however, may well be left for future years, or even for future generations. Each succeeding generation, indeed, will take its own pride in doing whatever may be wisely done in adorning the surroundings of this 540 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION majestic pile, and in thus testifying its own homage to the memory of the Father of his Country. Yet to the mind's eye of an American Patriot those marble faces will never seem vacant, — never seem void or voiceless. No mj'stic figures or hieroglyphical signs will, indeed, be descried on them. No such vainglorious words as " Conqueror," or " Chastiser of Foreign Nations," nor any such haughty assumption or heathen ascription as " Child of the Sun," will be deciphered on them. But ever and anon, as he gazes, there will come flashing forth in letters of living light some of the great words, and grand precepts, and noble lessons of principle and duty, which are the matchless bequest of Washington to his country and to mankind. Can we not all read there already, as if graven by some invisible finger, or inscribed with some sympathetic ink, — which it requires no learning of scholars, no lore of Egypt, nothing but love of our own land, to draw out and make legible, — those masterly words of his Letter to the Governors of the States, in " 1783: — " There are four things which, I humbly conceive, are essen tial to the well-being — I may even venture to say, to the existence- — of the United States as an independent Power: First, an indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal head ; Second, a sacred regard to Public Justice ; Third, the adoption of a proper Peace Establishment ; and Fourth, the prev alence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the People of the United States which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community. These are the Pillars on which the glorious fabric of our Independency and National character must be supported." Can we not read, again, on another of those seemingly vacant sides, that familiar passage in his Farewell Address, — a jewel of thought and phraseology, often imitated, but never matched, ¦ — " The name of American, which belongs to you in your National capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 541 more than any appellation derived from local discriminations ? " and, not far below it, his memorable warning against Party Spirit, — "A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume ? " Still again, terser legends from the same prolific source salute our eager gaze: "Cherish Public Credit;" — "Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations ; cultivate peace and harmony with all;" — "Promote, as an object of primary im portance, institutions for the general diffusion of Knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." And, above all, — a thousand-fold more precious than all the rest, — there will come streaming down from time to time, to many an eager and longing eye, from the very point where its tiny aluminium apex reaches nearest to the skies, — and shin ing forth with a radiance which no vision of Constantine, no Labarum for his legions, could ever have eclipsed, — some of those solemnly reiterated declarations and counsels, which might almost be called the Confession and Creed of Washington, and which can never be forgotten by any Christian Patriot : — " When I contemplate the interposition of Providence, as it was visibly manifest in guiding us through the Revolution, in preparing us for the reception of the General Government, and in conciliating the good-will of the people of America toward one another after its adoption, I feel myself oppressed and almost overwhelmed with a sense of Divine munificence. I feel that nothing is due to my personal agency in all those wonderful and complicated events, except what can be attrib uted to an honest zeal for the good of my country." — "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore an Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character oi an Independent Nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential Agency." — " Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain 542 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and of citizens." And thus on all those seemingly blank and empty sides will be read, from time to time, in his own unequalled language, the grand precepts and principles of Peace, Justice, Education, Morality, and Religion, which he strove to inculcate, while, encircling and illuminating them all, and enveloping the whole monument, from corner-stone to cap-stone, will be hailed with rapture by every patriotic eye, aud be echoed by every patriotic heart, " The Union, the Union in any event ! " But what are all the noble words which Washington wrote or uttered, what are all the incidents of bis birth and death, what are all the details of his marvellous career from its com mencement to its close, in comparison with his own exalted character as a man ! Rarely was Webster more impressive than when, on the completion of the monument at Bunker Hill, in describing what our Country had accomplished for the welfare of mankind, he gave utterance, with his characteristic terseness, and in his inimitable tones, to the simple assertion, " America has furnished to the world the character of Wash ington ! " And well did he add that, " if our American insti tutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind." The character of Washington ! Who can delineate it worthily? Who can describe that priceless gift of America to the world, in terms which may do it any sort of justice, or afford any degree of satisfaction to his hearers or to himself? Modest, disinterested, generous, just, — of clean hands and a pure heart, — self-denying and self-sacrificing, seeking nothing for himself, declining all remuneration beyond the reimburse ment of his outlays, scrupulous to a farthing in keeping his accounts, of spotless integrity, scorning gifts, charitable to the needy, forgiving injuries and injustices, brave, fearless, heroic, with a prudence ever governing his impulses, and a wisdom ever guiding his valor, — true to his friends, true to his whole country, true to himself, — fearing God, believing in Christ, no OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 543 stranger to private devotion or public worship, or to the holiest offices of the Church to which he belonged, but ever gratefully recognizing a Divine aid and direction in all that he attempted, and in all that he accomplished, — what epithet, what attribute, could be added to that consummate character to commend it as an example above all other characters in merely human history ! From first to last, he never solicited, or sought, an office, military or civil. Every office stood candidate for him, and was ennobled by his acceptance of it. Honors clustered around him as if by the force of " first intention." Responsibilities heaped themselves on his shoulders as if by the law of gravita tion. They could rest safely nowhere else, and they found him ever ready to bear them all, ever equal to discbarge them all. To what is called personal magnetism he could have had little pretension. A vein of dignified reserve, which Houdon and Stuart have rightly made his peculiar characteristic, in marble and on canvas, repressed all familiarities with him. His mag netism was that of merit, superior, surpassing merit, — the merit of spotless integrity, of recognized ability, and of un wearied willingness to spend and be spent in the service of his country. That was sufficient to attract irresistibly to his sup port, not only the great mass of the people, but the wisest and best of his contemporaries in all quarters of the Union ; and from them he selected, with signal discrimination, such advisers and counsellors, in war and in peace, as have never surrounded any other American leader. No jealousj'' of their abilities and accomplishments ever ruffled his breast, and with them he achieved our Independence, organized our Constitutional Gov ernment, and stamped his name indelibly on the age in which he lived as the Age of Washington ! Well did Chief Justice Marshall, in that admirable Preface to the biography of his revered and illustrious friend, sum up with judicial precision the services he was about to describe in detail. Well and truly did he say, " As if the chosen instru ment of Heaven, selected for the purpose of effecting the great designs of Providence respecting this our Western Hemisphere, it was the peculiar lot of this distinguished man, at every epoch when the destinies of his country seemed dependent on the 544 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION measures adopted, to be called by the united voice of his fellow- citizens to those high stations on which the success of those measures principally depended." And not less justly has Bancroft said, when describing Wash ington's first inauguration as President: "But for him the Country could not have achieved its Independence ; but for him it could not have formed its Union ; and now but for him it could not set the Federal Government in successful motion." I do not forget that there have been other men, in other days, in other lands, and in our own land, who have been called to command larger armies, to preside over more distracted coun cils, to administer more extended governments, and to grapple with as complicated and critical affairs. Gratitude and honor wait ever on their persons and their names ! But we do not estimate Miltiades at Marathon, or Pausanias at Platsea, or Themistocles at Salamis, or Epaminondas at Mantinea or Leuc- tra, or Leonidas at Thermopylae, by the number of the forces which they led on land or on sea. Nor do we gauge the glory of Columbus by the size of the little fleet with which he ven tured so heroically upon the perils of a mighty unknown deep. There are some circumstances which cannot occur twice ; some occasions of which there can be no repetition; some names which will always assert their individual pre-eminence, and will admit of no rivalry or comparison. The glory of Columbus can never be eclipsed, never approached, till our New World shall require a fresh discovery ; and the glory of Washington will remain unique and peerless until American Independence shall require to be again achieved, or the foundations of Constitutional Liberty to be laid anew. Think not that I am claiming an immaculate perfection for any mortal man. One Being only has ever walked this earth of ours without sin. Washington had his infirmities and his passions, like the rest of us ; and he would have been more or less than human had he never been overcome by them. There were young officers around him, in camp and elsewhere, not unlikely to have thrown temptations in his path. There were treacherous men, also, — downright traitors, some of them, — whose words in council, or conduct in battle, or secret plottings OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 545 behind bis back, aroused his righteous indignation, and gave occasion for memorable bursts of anger. Now and then, too, there was a disaster, like that of St. Clair's expedition against the Indians in 1791, the first tidings of which stirred the very depths of his soul, and betrayed him into a momentary outbreak of mingled grief and rage, which only proved how violent were the emotions he was so generally able to control. While, however, not even the polluted breath of slander has left a shadow upon the purity of his life, or a doubt of his eminent power of self-command, he made no boast of virtue or of valor, and no amount of flattery ever led him to be otherwise than distrustful of his own ability and merits. As early as 1757, when only twenty-five years of age, he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie : " That I have foibles, and perhaps many of them, I shall not deny ; I should esteem myself, as the world also would, vain and empty were I to arrogate perfection." On accepting the command of the Army of the Revolution, in 1775, he said to Congress : " I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with." And, in 1777, when informed that anony mous accusations against him had been sent, to Laurens, then President of Congress, he wrote privately to beg that the paper might at once be submitted to the body to which it was addressed, adding those frank and noble words : " Why should I be exempt from censure, — the unfailing lot of an elevated station? Merit and talents which I cannot pretend to rival have ever been subject to it. My heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best which circumstances would permit ; yet I may have been very often mistaken in my judg ment of the means, and may, in many instances, deserve the imputation of error." And when, at last, be was contemplating a final retirement from the Presidency, and, in one of the drafts of his Farewell Address, had written that he withdrew "with a pure heart and undefiled hands," or words to that effect, he suppressed the passage and all other similar expres sions, lest, as he suggested, he should seem to claim for himself a measure of perfection which all the world now unites in 35 546 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION according to him. For I hazard little in asserting that all the world does now accord to Washington a tribute, which has the indorsement of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that, " of all men that have ever lived, he was the greatest of good men, and the best of great men." Or, let me borrow the same idea from a renowned English poet, who gave his young life and brilliant genius to the cause of Liberty in modern Greece. " Where," wrote Byron, — " Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the great, Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state ! Yes, One — the first, the last, the best, The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate — Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make men blush there was but One ! " To what other name have such tributes ever been paid by great and good men, abroad as well as at home? You have not forgotten the language of Lord Erskine, in his inscription of one of his productions to Washington himself: "You are the only being for whom I have an awful reverence ! " You have not forgotten the language of Charles James Fox, in the House of Commons : " Illustrious Man, before whom -all bor rowed greatness sinks into insignificance." You have not forgotten the language of Lord Brougham, twice uttered, at long intervals, and with a purpose, as Brougham himself once told me, to impress and enforce those emphatic words as his fixed and final judgment : " Until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in Wisdom and Virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington ! " Nor can I fail to welcome the crowning tribute, perhaps, from our mother land, — reaching me, as it has, at the last moment of revising what I had prepared for this occasion, — in a published letter from Gladstone, her great Prime Minister, who, after saying, in casual conversation, that Washington was " the purest figure in history," writes deliberately, " If, among OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 547 all the pedestals supplied by history for public characters of extraordinary nobility and purity, I saw one higher than all the rest, and if I were required, at a moment's notice, to name the fittest occupant for it, I think my choice, at any time during the last forty-five years, would have lighted, and it would now light, upon Washington ! " But if any one would get a full impression of the affection and veneration in which Washington was held by his contem poraries, let him turn, almost at random, to the letters which were addressed to him, or which were written about him, by the eminent men, military or civil, American or European, who were privileged to correspond with him, or who, ever so casually, found occasion to allude to his career and character. And let him by no means forget, as he reads them, that those letters were written a hundred years ago, when language was more measured, if not more sincere, than now, and before the in discriminate use of the superlative, and the exaggerations and adulations of flatterers and parasites, sending great and small alike down to posterity as patterns of every virtue under Heaven, had tended to render such tributes as suspicious as they often are worthless. What, for instance, said plain-speaking old Benjamin Frank lin ? " My fine crab-tree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of Liberty," — these are the words of his Will, in 1789, — "I give to my friend and the friend of mankind, George Washington. If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it." "Happy, happy America," wrote Gouverneur Morris from Paris, in 1793, when the French Revolution was making such terrific progress, — " happy, happy America, governed by reason, by law, by the man whom she loves, whom she almost adores ! It is the pride of my life to consider that man as my friend, and I hope long to be honored with that title." " I have always admired," wrote to him Count Herzburg, from Berlin, where he had presided for thirty years over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under Frederick the Great, — "I have always admired your great virtues and qualities, your disinterested patriotism, your unshaken courage and simplicity 548 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION of manners, — qualifications by which you surpass men even the most celebrated of antiquity." " I am sorry," wrote Patrick Henry, then Governor of Vir ginia, in allusion to the accusations of one of the notorious faction of 1777, — "I am sorry there should be one man who counts himself my friend, who is not yours." Thomas Jefferson, who, we all know, sometimes differed from him, took pains, at a later period of his life, to say of him in a record for posterity : " His integrity was most pure ; his justice the most inflexible I have ever known ; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man." And when it was once suggested to him, not long before his own death, that the fame of Washington might lessen with the lapse of years, Jefferson, looking up to the skjr, and in a tone which betrayed deep emotion, is said to have replied : " Washington's fame will go on increasing until the brightest constellation in yonder heavens is called by his name ! " " If I could now present myself," wrote Edmund Randolph, who had made injurious imputations on Washington after his retirement from the Cabinet in 1795, — " If I could now present myself before your venerated uncle," he wrote most touchingly to Judge Bushrod Washington in 1810, " it would be my pride to confess my contrition, that I suffered my irritation, let the cause be what it might, to use some of those expressions respecting him, which, at this moment of indifference to the world, I wish to recall, as being inconsistent with my sub sequent conviction. My life will, I hope, be sufficiently ex tended for the recording of my sincere opinion of his virtues and merit, in a style which is not the resuft of a mind merely debilitated by misfortune, but of that Christian Philosophy on which alone I depend for inward tranquillity." And far more touching and more telling still is the fact, that even Thomas Conway, the leader of that despicable cabal at Valley Forge, but who lived to redeem his name in other lands, if not in our own, — when believing himself to be mortally wounded in a duel, in 1778, and "just able," as he said, "to OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 549 hold the pen for a few minutes," — employed those few min utes in writing to Washington to express " his sincere grief for having done, written, or said anything disagreeable " to him, adding these memorable words : " You are, in my eyes, the great and good man. May you long enjoy the love, ven eration, and esteem of these States, whose liberties you have asserted by your virtue ! " From his illustrious friend, Alexander Hamilton, I need not cite a word. His whole life bore testimony, more impressive than words, to an admiration and affection for his great chief, which could not be exceeded, and which no momentary mis understandings could shake. But listen once more, and only once more, to Lafayette, writing to Washington from Cadiz in 1783, when the glad tidings of the Treaty of Peace had just reached him: "Were you but such a man as Julius Csesar, or the King of Prussia, I should almost be sorry for you at the end of the great tragedy where you are acting such a part. But, with my dear General, I rejoice at the blessings of a Peace in which our noble ends have been secured. ... As for you, who truly can say you have done all this, what must your virtuous aud good heart feel in the happy moment when the Revolution you have made is now firmly established ! " Rightly and truly did Lafayette say that his beloved General was of another spirit and of a different mould from Csesar and Frederick. Wash ington had little, or nothing, in common with the great military heroes of his own or any other age, — conquering for the sake of conquest, — "wading through slaughter to a throne," — and overrunning the world, at a countless cost of blood and treasure, to gratify their own ambition, or to realize some mad dream of universal empire. No ancient Plutarch has furnished any just parallel for him in this respect. No modern Plutarch will find one. In all history, ancient and modern alike, he stands, in this respect, as individual and unique as yonder majestic Needle. In his Eulogy on Washington before the Legislature of Massachusetts, the eloquent Fisher Ames, my earliest prede cessor in Congress from the Boston district, said, eighty-five 550 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION years ago, that, in contemplating bis career and character, " Mankind perceived some change in their ideas of greatness. . . . The splendor of power, and even the name of Conqueror, had grown dim in their eyes. . . . They knew and felt that the world's wealth, and its empire too, would be a bribe far beneath his acceptance." Yes, they all saw that he bore ever in his mind and in his heart, as he said at Philadelphia on his way to Cambridge, in 1775, that "as the Sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties were firmly estab lished." And they saw him lay down his sword at the earliest moment, and retire to the pursuits of peace, only returning again to public service at the unanimous call of his country, to preside for a limited period over a free Constitutional Republic, and then eagerly resuming the rank of an American Citizen. That was the example which changed the ideas of mankind as to what constituted real greatness. And that example was exhibited for all nations and for all ages, never to be forgotten or overlooked, by him who was born, one hundred and fifty-three years ago to-morrow, in that primitive little Virginia farm-house ! I am myself a New-Englander by birth, a son of Massachu setts, bound by the strongest ties of affection and of blood to honor and venerate the earlier and the later Worthies of the old Puritan Commonwealth, jealous of their fair fame, and ever ready to assert and vindicate their just renown. But 1 turn reverently to the Old Dominion to-day, and salute her as the mother of the pre-eminent and incomparable American, the Father of his Country, and the foremost figure in all merely human history. In the words of our own poet, Lowell, " Virginia gave us this imperial man, Cast in the massive mould Of those high-statured ages old Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran ; She gave us this unblemished gentleman : What shall we give her back but love and praise ? " Virginia has had other noble sons, whom I will not name, but whom I do not forget. When I remember how many they OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 551 are, and how great they have been, and how much our country has owed them, I may well exclaim, '•Felix prole vir&m." But, as I think of her Washington, — of our Washington, let me rather say, — I am almost ready to add, " Laeta Detim partu ! " A celebrated philosopher of antiquity, who was nearly con temporary with Christ, but who could have known nothing of what was going on in Judaea, and who, alas ! did not always "reck his own rede," — wrote thus to a younger friend, as a precept for a worthy life : " Some good man must be singled out and kept ever before our eyes, that we may bve as if he were looking on, and do everything as if he could see it." Let me borrow the spirit, if not the exact letter, of that precept, and address it to the young men of ¦ my Country : Keep ever in your mind, and before your mind's eye, the loftiest standard of character. You have it, I need not say, supremely and unapproachably, in Him who spake as never man spake, and lived as never man lived, and who died for the sins of the world. That character stands apart and alone. But of merely mortal men the monument we have dedicated to-day points out the one for all Americans to study, to imitate, and, as far as may be, to emulate. Keep his example and his character ever before your eyes and in your hearts. Live and act as if he were seeing and judging your personal conduct and your public career. Strive to approximate that lofty standard, and measure your integrity and your patriotism by your near ness to it, or your departure from it. The prime meridian of universal longitude, on sea or land, may be at Greenwich, or at Paris, or where you will. But the prime meridian of pure, disinterested patriotic, exalted human character will be marked forever by yonder Washington obelisk ! Yes, to the young men of America, under God, it remains, as they rise up from generation to generation, to shape the destinies of their Country's future, — and woe unto them if, regardless of the great example which is set before them, they prove unfaithful to the tremendous responsibilities which rest upon them ! 552 ORATION ON THE COMPLETION Yet let me not seem, even for a moment, to throw off upon the children the rightful share of those responsibilities which belongs to their fathers. Upon us, upon us, it devolves to provide that the advancing generations shall be able to com prehend, and equal to meet, the demands which are thus before them. It is ours — -it is yours especially, Senators and Rep resentatives — to supply them with the means of that Universal Education which is the crying want of our land, and without which any intelligent and successful Free Government is im possible. We are just entering on a new Olympiad of our national history, — the twenty-fifth Olympiad since Washington first entered on the administration of our Constitutional Govern ment. The will of the People has already designated under whom the first century of that Government is to be closed, and the best hopes and wishes of every patriot will be with him in the great responsibilities on which he is about to enter. No distinction of party or of section prevents our all feeling alike that our Country, by whomsoever governed, is still and always our Country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be upheld and defended by all our hands ! Most happy would it be if the 30th of April, on which the first Inauguration of Washington took place in 1789, could henceforth be the date of all future inaugurations, — as it might be by a slight amendment of the Constitution, — giving, as it would, a much needed extension to the short sessions of Congress, and letting the second century of our Constitutional History begin where the first century practically began. But let the date be what it may, the inspiration of the Centennial Anniversary of that first great Inauguration must not be lost upon us. Would that any words of mine could help us all, old and young, to resolve that the principles and character and example of Washington, as he came forward to take the oaths of office on that day, shall once more be recog nized and reverenced as the model for all who succeed him, and that his disinterested purity and patriotism shall be the supreme test and standard of American statesmanship ! That standard can never be taken away from us. The most elaborate OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 553 and durable monuments may perish. But neither the forces of nature, nor any fiendish crime of man, can ever mar or mutilate a great example of public or private virtue. Our matchless Obelisk stands proudly before us to-day, and we hail it with the exultations of a united and glorious Nation. It may, or may not, be proof against the cavils of critics, but nothing of human construction is proof against the casualties of time. The storms of winter must blow and beat upon it. The action of the elements must soil and discolor it. The lightnings of Heaven may scar and blacken it. An earthquake may shake its foundations. Some mighty tornado, or resistless cyclone, may rend its massive blocks asunder and hurl huge fragments to the ground. But the character which it com memorates and illustrates is secure. It will remain unchanged and unchangeable in all its consummate purity and splendor, and will more and more command the homage of succeeding ages in all regions of the Earth. God be praised, that character is ours forever! NOTES. Page 529. — In the first edition of this Oration, the height of the unfinished obelisk, before its completion was taken in hand by Congress, was given as one Hundred and seventy-four feet, in conformity with a circular issued by the Monument Association in 1876. This calculation, however, must have included the foundation then existing, as Colonel Casey now estimates the actual height of the shaft, at that time, to have been one hundred and fifty-six feet. Its present height is five hundred and fifty-five feet five inches, not including a foundation of thirty-six feet ten inches. Pages 535-6. — The story of Washington's being on the point of entering the English navy as a midshipman rests primarily on Weems, who was for many years rector of the parish of Mount Vernon, and was in the way of hearing much about Washington, who attended his church. Sparks and Washington Irving accept and repeat Weems's account of the matter. Bancroft, however, discards it, and thinks there was only a plan to find employment for Washington on a merchant- vessel sailing between Virginia and England. Page 546. — The article on Washington in the Encyclopaedia Britan nica, here alluded to, was contributed by Edward Everett, at the request of his friend Lord Macaulay. Page 551. — " Aliquis vir bonus nobis eligendus est, ac semper ante oculos habendus, ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus, et omnia tanquam illo vidente faciamus." — Seneca Epistola ad Lucilium XI. Page 552. — This change of Inauguration Day was accordingly moved, as an Amendment to the Constitution, in the Senate of the United States, 15 March, 1886, by Senator Ingalls, of Kansas. JOHN C. PHILLIPS AND ADMIRAL PREBLE. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MARCH 12, 1885. I WAS in doubt, Gentlemen, until almost the last moment, whether I could be here this afternoon. Our long iron stair way presents a formidable impediment to my still feeble limbs. The March winds and snows were even a more serious con sideration to one not yet entirely free from aches and ails. But when I remembered that illness had already kept me away from this chair for three or four months, and that haply I should be in the way of occupying it, as your President, only once more after to-day, I could not resist the impulse, even at some risk, to make my appearance. I come, however, without any formal introductory Paper, and must trust to my friend Dr. Ellis — to whom we are already so much indebted, and to whom I owe a special acknowledg ment for making my place good, if not more than good, for so many months — to supplement anything that I may be able to say, either as to the living or the dead. The dead, alas ! claim our first notice this afternoon, as too often heretofore. Since our last Monthly meeting we have lost two notable names from our Resident roll, — that of John C. Phillips and that of George Henry Preble. The death of Mr. Phillips at the early age of forty-six is a subject for real sorrow in our community. With our own Society be had been associated but a few years. A lineal descendant of the Rev. George Phillips, the famous Puritan minister of Watertown, in 1630, — the companion and friend of Governor Winthrop, who came over with Winthrop and the Charter, and catechised and preached on board the " Arbella " 556 JOHN C. PHILLIPS AND ADMIRAL PREBLE. on the voyage, — be could not fail to take an interest in the earliest history of Massachusetts. I remember bis showing me, with pride, an original autograph sermon of that distinguished ancestor and excellent man, when I was visiting him in his beautiful library some years ago. I believe be had other Phillips manuscripts, which we may hope will not be wholly lost to our Collections hereafter. His later lineage, too, was of a kind to make him observant of whatever contributed to the honor and welfare of our Com monwealth. His family name is associated, as we know, with some of our most celebrated academies and institutions. An- dover and Exeter owe their famous schools to the bounty and beneficence of the Phillipses. The Observatory of Harvard University was principally endowed by one of the same name and blood. The statues which adorn our squares are, many of them, from a Phillips Fund. He himself had given the generous sum of twenty-five thousand dollars to the Phillips Academy at Andover at its centennial celebration in 1878, and an equal amount to the Phillips Academy at Exeter on a similar occasion. And it is within my own knowledge that he had supplied most important and liberal aid, pecuniary and personal, to other institutions, at moments of special need. I was associated with him as one of the Trustees of the Pea body Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, of which he has been the Treasurer for several years past, and to which he has rendered valuable service. I was associated with him, also, in the management of the new Children's Hospital, of whose board he was the Vice-President at his death, and of which he had been a most efficient and liberal supporter. A graduate of Harvard in the class of 1858, there are those here who can bear witness to his character as a student, as well as to his worth as a man, far better than nryself ; but I cannot but feel that our community has sustained a great loss in his early death, for which I desire to record my personal sorrow. Of Admiral Preble, Dr. Ellis has a peculiar right to speak, as he was one of his parishioners in Charlestown for many JOHN C. PHILLIPS AND ADMIRAL PREBLE. 557 years, and always an intimate friend. He was an officer in our Navy for half a century, and had seen much service in peace and in war. He did not wholly escape the injustices which resulted from suspicions and jealousies during our late civil struggle ; but he was vindicated by a Court of Inquiry, or Court-martial, and no shadow rests on his long and honorable record. Meantime bis contributions to History have been nu merous and important. His " Flag of the United States and other National Flags," in a volume of eight hundred octavo pages, with many illus trations, is a work of the highest interest, full of patriotic incident, and exhibiting great research. His more recent " Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation," in nearly five hundred octavo pages, has also much valuable matter, which can hardly be found any where else in so convenient and condensed a form. In send ing me a copy of this volume last summer, he spoke of having been forced, by the impatience of the publishers, to issue it without the opportunity of correcting and completing it as he desired. But it is a highly creditable volume, and exhibits great interest in the subject as well as a thorough acquaintance with all its details. I forbear from dwelling longer on his works or his career, in the assurance that they will be dealt with more worthily by others. I cannot fail to remember, however, that on one of his last visits to me at Brookline last autumn, when I was already somewhat of an invalid, he left with me for examina tion a magnificently bound volume, which proved to contain my orations at Bunker Hill and at Yorktown in 1881, which he had been at the personal cost and labor of illustrating sumptuously with portraits and engravings of the men and the scenes to which the orations referred, and which can hardly be surpassed by any volume of the same kind. He regarded it as one of the gems of his large and valuable library. I could not but regret that the state of my health precluded my attendance at the funeral of friends for whom I had so warm an esteem and regard as Admiral Preble and Mr. Phillips ; but our Society was fitly represented at both. SOME NEW HISTORICAL WORKS. REMARKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, APRIL 9, 1885. We have come once more, Gentlemen, to our Annual Meet ing, — the ninety-fourth since the Society was founded. But, agreeably to our usage, we will proceed with the ordinary busi ness of a monthly meeting, and leave the Annual Reports and the election of officers to come last. Before calling, however, for communications from others, I may mention several historical works which have reached me since our last meeting, and which are likely to attract some well- deserved attention. First, there is a new volume of Dr. Brinton's " Library of Aboriginal American Literature." It is the fifth volume of the series, and is entitled " The Lenape" and their Legends; " with the complete text and symbols of the " Walam Olum, or Red Score of the Lenape"," and with a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticity. Dr. Brinton is a professor of Ethnology and Archaeology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Phila delphia, and he has recently delivered a course of our Lowell lectures. His new volume contains much of interesting and instructive matter about the Algonquin languages and tribes. A second work, of much greater general interest, is the " History of the Huguenot Emigration to America," in two volumes, by the Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D., of New York. Dr. Charles Baird is a brother of Dr. Henry Baird, whose name is on our Corresponding Roll, and who has written an able and elaborate account of the Huguenots in France. The present work is full of interesting details of not a few of our American SOME NEW HISTORICAL WORKS. 559 families whose ancestors came over on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in South Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. The settlement at Oxford, in Massachusetts, is noticed quite at length ; and there is a print of the monument in memory of the settlers there, which was dedicated as lately as October last. A third and still more notable work is " The Narrative and Critical History of America," of which two noble volumes, the third and fourth, have appeared within a week or two past. I dare not attempt to speak of volumes so varied in contents and so rich in illustration. The third is especially remarkable, and contains papers of the highest value ; many of them of particular interest to New Englanders, and from pens which give authority to everything they write. Our own Society is represented most honorably in its chapters, and, above all, in the general. direction of the work, as well as in important contributions to it, by our accomplished Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Winsor, whose " Memorial History of Boston," and now this " Narrative and Critical History of America," entitle him to the gratitude of all laborers in the historical field. Meantime we must not forget the fruits of labor still nearer home. Our Secretary and the PubHshing Committee furnish us to-day with a new volume of Proceedings, bringing down our record to the last meeting but one, and furnishing fresh evi dence of the devotion of our faithful Secretary, to whom and the Publishing Committee our thanks are most justly due. But I pause here, Gentlemen, until the course of our pro ceedings this afternoon shall have presented an occasion for a few parting words of grateful acknowledgment to you all. REPLY TO TRIBUTES ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AFTER THTRTY YEARS OF SERVICE. APRIL 9, 1885. Yotr have quite overcome me, Mr. President and Gentle men, by the tributes which have just been paid me. I can find no words for any adequate acknowledgment of them. It could not be without emotion that I came here this morning to take the chair for the last time, after a service of thirty years as your President. But I dare not trust myself to attempt an expression of the feelings which the occasion has awakened. I can only offer my sincere thanks to the Execu tive Committee, and the Nominating Committee, and to your self, Mr. President, for the kind and complimentary terms in which you have spoken of me, and of which I shall ever cherish a most grateful remembrance. I look back, over nearly forty-six years, to the time when I first became a member of this Society, and find not one left of those with whom I was then so proud to be associated. Among them were the fathers or the grandfathers of not a few of those whom I am happy to recognize around me at this moment, — John Quincy Adams and Josiah Quincy, Lev- erett Saltonstall and Samuel Hoar, Edward Everett and Nathan Hale, Judge White and Dr. Alexander Young, — not forgetting my own honored father, who was then our President. Even of those who were members when I entered upon the Presidency thirty years ago, only ten, as you have said, or twelve at the most, are still among the living. I look in vain REPLY TO TRIBUTES. 561 for that remarkable group of historians and men of letters by whom I have been so often surrounded in former years, — Prescott and Sparks and Everett and Ticknor and Motley and Longfellow and Hillard and Emerson. Many of our most efficient workers of those days are gone too, — George Livermore and Chandler Robbins and Dr. Shurtleff and Richard Frothingham, — to whom I have owed not a little of the satisfaction and success of my administration, and to whose memory I gladly pay this passing homage. But I will not dwell longer on the past. We have Holmes and Parkman here with us, — and Dr. Peabody and Charles Francis Adams Jr., and Cabot Lodge — to name no others; while with Dr. Ellis and Dr. Deane and Mr. Smith and Mr. Winsor and Dr. Green in immediate charge of our Proceed ings, and with a devoted Secretary to record them, our Society can lose nothing of its character or its usefulness. It will close its first century, and enter on its second century, as you have reminded us, six years hence, with no diminished claims, I am assured, to the confidence and grateful recognition of all who take an interest in Historical pursuits ; while it can never lose its prestige as the oldest Historical Society in our country. Let me only say, in conclusion, that I rejoice that, in taking leave of the Presidency, I am by no means taking leave of the Society. Not only will my name retain its place, as long as a kind Providence shall still spare my life, at the head of your roll, as the senior member in the order of election, but I hope to be no rare or infrequent attendant at your meetings, and occasionally to avail myself of the privilege of the Third Sec tion in making a communication for our Proceedings. I can say no more. 36 TRIBUTES: FROM THE REPORT OF THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE. The Committee did not consider the name of the gentleman who has so long held the position of President of the Society, in connection with that office, as it was understood that Mr. Winthrop's decision to retire was final. Had the Committee not been fully satisfied on this point, it is unnecessary to say that his name only would have been thought of. Sixth in the line of honored men who have occupied that office he has for more than forty-five years, or nearly one half the period of its existence, been an active member, and for thirty years its President. Instead of the small and indifferent attendance which formerly marked the meetings of the Society, its membership being only sixty, it now, uuder its new charter, consists of one hundred, and the average attendance is treble what it was. New life has been infused into it ; and never has Mr. Winthrop occupied the chair without contributing to its proceedings in teresting and valuable material from the rich stores of his memory, from his varied correspondence with distinguished scholars at home or abroad, or from abundant treasures gathered during his visits to Europe. His letters during these visits have frequently proved fertile in subjects of value and deep interest, much of which enriches the volumes of the Society's Proceedings. In his absence the Society has always felt the loss of his cheering presence, and has greeted him warmly on his return ; but never until his recovery from his recent dangerous illness was the welcome given him so expressive of the esteem and affection in which he is held by its members. During the thirty years of Mr. Winthrop's Presidency the Society's publications have trebled in bulk and in value. It has become sole owner of this building, has raised it two stories and made it fire-proof, and in one year more it expects to pay off the remainder of the debt (over $60,000) incurred in its purchase and improvement. To his thoughtful suggestion is directly owing George Peabody's gen erous gift of twenty thousand dollars. The Dowse Library and fund for TRIBUTES. 563 its equipment are also a most memorable feature in the Society's history during his Presidency. To his devoted effort and untiring zeal more than to any other cause, or to all causes combined, is owing the growth of the Society in usefulness and in reputation. During the thirty years of his Presidency it may truly be said that Mr. Winthrop has ever carried the Society with him both at home and abroad ; and it is needless to add that nowhere has it failed to be adequately represented. Your Committee, therefore, does not consider that it would be fitting or proper that so long and distinguished a term of service, to which so much is owed, should come to an end unmarked. Various means of com memorating it have been thought of. But among these, none has so much commended itself to the judgment of your Committee as a sugges tion from some of the more active members, that a full-length portrait of Mr. Winthrop should be obtained, — the gift of individuals, but to which all members of the Society would be at liberty to contribute, — and should be placed in the rooms of the Society with a suitable inscription. FROM THE REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. The past year, however, will be most memorable to the Society, because it closes the official labors of the distinguished gentleman who for thirty years has presided over its meetings and guided its proceedings. This is not the time — may that time be still far distant! — to speak adequately of his eminent services in this honorable position ; but it would be affectation in the Council to omit all reference to what is re membered with deep regret by everybody present to-day, — that this will be the last time that he will occupy, as President, the chair which he has filled with such ability, dignity, courtesy, and patience. The thirty years which have elapsed since his first election form a most momentous period in the history of our country and of the world ; crowded with more great events than any age since that French Revolution in the midst of which the Society was organized. The remarkable growth in the prosperity and usefulness of the Society since that memorable annual meeting in 1855 when Mr. Winthrop succeeded to the place so long filled by the venerable historian and antiquary Mr. Savage, may be seen by examining the volume of Proceedings which begins with it, and was the first one ever printed by us, and comparing our resources and conditiou to-day with what they were then ; and it is the universal testimony, in public and 564 TRIBUTES. private, of those who have held office during this time, and have the means of knowing, that this growth is in a great degree due to the devoted atten tion of the President to the administration of the Society's affairs, and his untiring efforts in every way to further its interests. While feeling most deeply the loss which his retirement inflicts upon us, we can be thankful to the gracious Providence which has spared him, through the dangers of the past winter, to watch that prosperity of which he has been to so great an extent the creator, to receive constant proofs of our grati tude, and to still aid us by his advice aud suggestions. FROM THE ADDRESS OF DR. GEORGE E. ELLIS, ON TAKING THE CHAIR AS PRESIDENT. Rather would I sum together the auspicious and the fruitful incidents and events which during the last thirty years have so invigorated and en riched the life and activity of this Society. Soon after Mr. Winthrop acceded to the chair, a change in our charter extended the limit of our membership from sixty to one hundred, and another change empowered us to hold an increased amount of property. This building, also, thor oughly reconstructed for convenience and security, has nearly come under our sole ownership, with a valuable rental for a part of it from the county. The acquisitionof this rich and unique Dowse Library, with its furnishings and its fund, was gratefully welcomed by us, as well it might be. Our largest pecuniary endowment has come to us from George Peabody ; and that we owe, hardly indirectly, to Mr. Winthrop, to and for whom, after good advice and counsel in the direction of his vast munificence, Mr. Peabody paid this personal tribute, under the guise of a donation to us. Had not Mr. Winthrop been our President, Mr. Peabody had not been our benefactor. Again, there came to the light, almost from oblivion, in Connecticut, a quarter of a century ago, a large mass of papers of the Winthrop family, for nearly six generations, and of nearly two hundred years' accretion, beginning with those of our first Governor's grandfather in England. Many of these papers are of the highest value, and most of them have a curious interest. Beside Winthrop Papers ear lier scattered through all our Collections, this treasure-trove has already since furnished, without by any means being exhausted, the contents of four of our solid volumes. The publication of the Proceedings of our monthly meetings was first prompted by Mr. Winthrop, involving much TRIBUTES. 565 labor for our faithful workers. The twenty-first volume in that series is distributed among us to-day. Seventeen volumes of our Collections, and one of a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute, have been added to our Publications. Many other generous funds, a large increase of the treasures on our shelves and in our Cabinet, and a general renewal, re freshing and vitalizing, of all the interests and operations of the Society, have signalized the period of Mr. Winthrop's Presidency. . . . I have held, and may have ventured to express, the conviction that in the near or distant future the term of Mr. Winthrop's Presidency may be referred to as a golden period in the records of this Society, for its full harmony, its healthful prosperity, and for the good work accomplished. Henceforward, more and more, it should be a prime object for those in its limited membership, to reinforce it by inviting to it men, young or mature, with acquisitions and trained intelligence, with congenial tastes, and what ever the profession or task-work which engages them, with a degree of leisure to be spent in these rooms and with these materials. FROM THE PREFACE OE VOLUME I., SECOND SERIES, OE THE PROCEEDINGS, BY REV. EDWARD J. YOUNG, SECRETARY. Since the last meeting which is reported in this book, the honored President of the Society has reiterated his desire to be released from further official duty. Having filled the office which he has held for thirty years with pre-eminent ability and fidelity, the members are deeply sensible of the serious loss which they have sustained by his withdrawal, and of their great indebtedness to him. For a whole generation he has contributed, in no small degree, to give the Society its position at home, and to secure for it respect and honor abroad ; and every volume of its Proceedings during his long term of service bears witness to his devotion to its interests. This is not the place to speak at length with reference to an event which is second to none that has occurred in the history of the Society ; but it is a satisfaction to know that, though we are no longer to have Mr. Winthrop for our President, he will still remain with us as a member, and that we may entertain the hope that a long time will elapse before his name shall cease to adorn our Resident roll. " Sic hahites terras ! sic te desideret sether Sic ad pacta tibi sidera tardus eas ! " PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST.— TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT. ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE PEABODY TRUSTEES, AT NEW YORK, OCTOBEE 7, 1885. We come to our Annual Meeting this morning, Gentlemen, under circumstances of more than common concern. The recent deaths of two of our associates, the tendered resignation of a third, and the impending retirement from our work of one who has conducted it for more than four years past so ably and so successfully, and who we had hoped would have been with us to the end, concur in rendering this meeting as important as it is impressive. I may well be grateful to a kind Providence, after the serious illness of the last winter, for having spared me to take part in our proceedings at so critical a juncture. Let me not speak of it, however, or think of it, as critical. There can be nothing critical to the cause in which we are en gaged. Whoever may die, whoever may resign, whoever may be summoned from our service to other spheres of usefulness and honor, I have entire confidence that our work will go on without let or hindrance, and will continue to exert its beneficent and quickening influences more and more on those for whose welfare it was designed. Meantime, we may all be satisfied with what has already been accomplished and is now secure. During the more than eighteen years which have elapsed since the organization of this Trust, it has been instrumental — under the successive direction and de voted care of Dr. Sears and Dr. Curry, and in connection with other agencies of a similar character, which I do not forget or undervalue — in bringing about a change in the disposition and PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. 567 condition of the Southern States, so far as Free Common Schools are concerned, which could hardly have been hoped for at so early a period, and which promises, at no distant day, to render those States, in all that relates to the education of their children, independent of our efforts, and of all other efforts, except their own. If only that National Aid, for which we have so earnestly pleaded, could be afforded now, at this propitious moment, when the fields are " white already to harvest," and if the efforts of associations and individuals could be kept up for ten or twelve years more, we might feel that our Founder had been prophetic in fixing the limit of thirty years — from 1867 — as the time when his Fund might be distributed in permanent endowments, and when Southern schools and scholarships and teachers might safely be left to take care of themselves. The people of the South, certainly, have now become thoroughly awake to the obligation and to the vital necessity of providing education for their children ; and they are making strenuous efforts to extend and multiply and improve their Common Schools. They need only, for their complete success, such a temporary but immediate increase of pecuniary means as National Aid alone can supply. "I undertake to say," is the language of one of the most intelligent and devoted Missionaries of Southern Education (the Rev. Dr. Mayo), in an appeal for such Aid, as the one thing needful and essential for the immediate exigency, — "I under take to say that no other people in human history has made an effort so remarkable, all circumstances considered, as the people of the South during the last fifteen years in what they have already done for the schooling of their children. In many of their cities the public schools will compare favorably with those of other parts of the country. Their reviving colleges and acade mies are mainly in the hands of able and devoted teachers. Their schools for girls are improving, and there is a great deal of interest in the higher education of women. Their teachers, as a body, are doing more good work for less pay than any class of their profession in our country, and not unfrequently are making sacrifices that amount to absolute heroism in their de votion to their work. I have just come from the State of South 568 PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. Carolina, where I have seen the largest audience-rooms in a score of her principal towns and cities crowded with their best people to listen to addresses on public education. And generally, there is no topic of public speech or private conversation that now seems more generally interesting and even electric through great portions of these States than this. Last year the Southern States paid no less than $17,000,000 for the education of their children and youth of both races ; probably five or six millions for the schooling of people who were held as property twenty -five years ago." Towards the hopeful and encouraging change in the educa tional prospects of the South, presented to us in this picture, the noble Trust committed to us by Mr. Peabody has contributed in no subordinate or inferior degree. First in order of time, it has been second, certainly, to no other instrumentality in its influence upon all that has been accomplished. Had our resources been more ample, had they not been gradually diminished by the lowering of interest on the funds given us by our Founder, and had his just and confident expectations been fulfilled in regard to the bonds of Mississippi and of Florida which were included in his endowment, the fruits of our labors would have been doubled. It might have been hoped that something of State pride, if not of gratitude to Mr. Peabody, or of care for the children of the South, would have prompted both these States — as soon as they were able — to make provision for the interest, if not for the prin cipal, of their equitable obligations to this munificent Southern Trust. It will not be a pleasant record in the history of either of them, should they be finally found wanting to so important a work. But with such means as have been at our command, we have done our best to advance the cause which was committed to our care ; and we can have nothing but satisfaction with the results which have been accomplished, — nothing but satisfaction for the past, nothing but confidence for the future. Before passing from the brief allusion which I have thus made to the two delinquent States, let me say a more precise word about Florida, lest I should do her injustice. Our valued asso ciate, General Jackson, to whom our Memorial to the Legisla ture of Florida had been committed two years ago, made a PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. .569 Report at our last meeting, which will be found in the last printed record of our Proceedings. There had then been no session of the Florida Legislature at which the Memorial could have been presented ; but he had corresponded, or had conferred directly, with at least one of the leading officials of that State, and had obtained some interesting information on the subject. His Report was calculated to throw doubt upon the fit course for us to pursue, and distinctly avowed some change of opinion on his own part. That Report was quietly accepted by this Board, and nothing more was said or done, or proposed to be done, in regard to the Florida bonds. The whole matter seemed thus to be abandoned for the moment, if not altogether. One of the obstacles in the way of proceeding further which the investigations of General Jackson had developed, was an ex press provision in the Constitution of Florida that no such bonds should be issued ; and this had been construed into a prohibition of paying or recognizing any such bonds already outstanding. Now it happened that a new Constitutional Convention was in session at Tallahassee during this last summer, which possibly — I do not say, or think, probably — might have been induced to modify in our favor so odious a retroactive provision. Our vigi lant associate, Judge Manning, kindly wrote me word of the sitting of this convention as soon as he heard of it ; but I was then at a long distance from home, for the health of one of my family, and was without any of the papers necessary for dealing with the subject intelligently. Had not General Jackson already gone to Mexico, as the Minister of the United States, I should have written at once to him to beg his renewed attention to our Memorial. But soon after my return home, when the necessary papers were once more within my reach, I learned that the Florida Convention had finished its work and had adjourned without day. Let me add, that the action, or non-action, of the Board at their last meeting left me in some doubt whether the matter could have been wisely or usefully pursued, even if General Jackson had been in the way of attending to it ; and a recent letter from him confirms me in that doubt. The practical question, however, remains to be decided, — whether, in continued default of any payment or recognition of 570 PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. her bonds given to this Trust by Mr. Peabody, and so emphati cally pronounced by him to be justly due, we shall go on, as we have done, making annual appropriations for Florida, and assign ing her a full share of the Nashville Scholarships ; or whether we shall do with her as we have done with Mississippi, and with hold from both alike any further participation in the proceeds of a fund to which both of them are debtors and defaulters. Undoubtedly the Report of General Jackson furnishes ground for some discrimination between the two States. The bonds of Florida in our possession have never, like those of Mississippi, been declared valid by the highest tribunals of the State. They were issued when she was a Territory, and, as is alleged, with out the direct sanction of Congress. And there are other facts relating to them, as stated in General Jackson's Report, which may be worthy of consideration in deciding the question between us and Florida. Meantime, however, these bonds are in our hands as a substantive part of Mr. Peabody's Trust Fund ; and after the lapse of so many years, we may well come to some more definite conclusion as to what shall be done in regard to them. Florida, I rejoice to say, is now in a prosperous condition, amply able to discharge all her legal or equitable obligations. She is able, also, to make abundant provision for her own Common Schools, and is doing so on a large, liberal, and most creditable scale. She no longer needs our aid, as she did at the outset of our operations, while our means for assisting the cause of education in her sister Southern States have become more and more inadequate to the demand. It is in this view, only, that the question is one of immediate practical importance. What ever can be justly and wisely withheld from Florida, as from Mississippi, will be so much added to our resources for helping the cause of education in the other States within our sphere of action. Our duty to the children of those other Southern States must guide and govern our course. I come next, Gentlemen, to a brief presentation of the actual condition and operations of the Trust committed to us, with a view to your consideration of the best course to be adopted in the exigency which is before us. PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. 571 The primary and principal work of this Board for some years past has been that which has been delegated to our General Agent, wbo, by personal visits to the various States, by appeals and addresses to their Legislatures or municipal authorities, and by advice and counsel, — given orally or by correspondence to their school superintendents, — has continually and- most effec tively enforced the importance of extending and improving the school systems of the South, and has afforded such practical information and explanation as were essential for that purpose. Under his encouragement, and direction too, — aided by ap propriations from our income, — Normal Institutes have been arranged and conducted from time to time at various convenient points in the South, which have been most inspiring, instructive, and valuable. Our payments for these Teachers' Institutes were more than thirteen thousand dollars last year, and more than twelve thousand dollars during the year now closed. Nothing could have been more successful and effective than the labors of Dr. Curry in this line ; and the Report which he will presently read to us will give us all renewed confidence in the course which he has so devotedly and untiringly pursued. Meantime, we have an institution, somewhat less directly dependent on his care, which has become one of the most prominent features of our work. I mean the Normal College, or University, at Nashville, to which we now appropriate — directly and indirectly — more than a full half of our annual income, and in which we provide for no less than one hundred and fourteen scholarships, distributed among the Southern States, and designed to train teachers for them all. This insti tution, which is supported by this Board in conjunction with the State of Tennessee, and all the scholarships in which are pro vided for and paid for from our own funds, was originally taken in charge by us under the advice and direction of Dr. Sears, who selected and appointed, by our authority, its superintend ent, or president, and who always looked to it as one of the best hopes and assurances of Southern school education. About the time of Dr. Sears's death, as we had sad cause for knowing, there were embarrassments and controversies in regard to the location and condition of this institution ; and for several years our rela- 572 PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. tions to it were somewhat confused and precarious. But I think we may now consider all doubts and difficulties as ended, and may regard the institution as substantially under our governance. If the State of Tennessee shall take a just pride in its prosperity and welfare, and shall continue to unite with us liberally and harmoniously in its support, it will be — as indeed it already is — one of the most prominent and important institutions of edu cation in the Southern States, and may become the most permanent monument of Mr. Peabody's munificence. I have taken some pains to inquire into its condition ; and I am satisfied that it is doing a most valuable work, and doing it well. The diploma of the College is regarded as a passport to the best positions as teachers ; and a large proportion of its graduates are believed to fulfil the pledges which they give on entering it by devoting themselves for a time, if not perma nently, to the practical task of teaching. The Scholarships are greatly in demand, and an increase of their number is earnestly called for in many quarters. But a letter, or report, from Chancellor Stearns — which I invited him to send me, and which I shall read at a later stage of our proceedings — will furnish more direct and authentic information on these and other points, and I forbear from detaining you with any further details. I have presented to you, Gentlemen, this summary sketch of the existing state of our affairs, in order that a readier and more intelligent consideration may be given to the question which must presently and so unexpectedly come before you. That question is, whether we shall attempt at once, before this meeting comes to an end, to select and elect a new General Agent, or whether we may come to the conclusion that our Trust, for the present at least, can be conducted without such an officer. Could Dr. Curry have remained with us, no such ques tion would have been raised or entertained for an instant. We should all have rejoiced to retain him in our service ; and his loss will be a great one for the Trust, and for myself, officially and personally. Whenever he leaves us and wherever he goes, he will take with him the grateful regard and cordial good wishes of us all. But to my mind there is no such thing as supplying his place satisfactorily at such short notice. Nor am I by any PEABODY EDUCATION TRUST. 573 means sure that it could be supplied at the longest notice. He has exhibited from first to last those exceptional qualifications for his duties, which good Dr. Sears, long before his own death, told me in confidence that he so eminently possessed, and for some of which we might long look in vain elsewhere. Most happily, however, for this emergency, he has so arranged and organized our work, and so mapped out all its details for at least a year to come, and everything has become so systematized and simplified under his auspices, that we may not need the full measure of service which has thus far been required, and the salary which he has so richly earned may serve for a time to in crease our restricted resources for general educational purposes. The machinery which he has constructed and set in motion will, I am assured, carry our work along in its accustomed grooves with no danger of its running off the track or stopping short of its destined terminus. While Dr. Curry has thus made it hard for us to part with him, he has made it easier for us to do without him. In my own best judgment, the correspondence of the Board may safely be left for the present to our worthy Secretary, Dr. Green, under the supervision of the Chairman and Executive Committee, with authority for him to sign checks and certificates in place of any General Agent. But I will not further anticipate the discussion and decision of the Trustees on so important a subject. I turn, Gentlemen, without further preamble, to the signal bereavements which we have sustained since our last Annual Meeting, and which claim our attention to-day not merely in view of the vacancies which are presently to be filled, but in justice to the memories of the valued associates whom we have lost. Mr. Samuel Wetmore died at his residence in this city on the 27th of March last. He was one of the original members of our Board, and had been its Treasurer from the organization of our Trust in 1867, having been selected and nominated for that responsible office by Mr. Peabody himself. Born and educated in Middletown, Connecticut, he had entered early into mercan tile life, had spent many years in China, and had been associated, 574 TRIBDTE TO SAMUEL WETMORE. as partner or as principal, in large commercial enterprises in the East Indies and in South America. Mr. Peabody had known him intimately as a merchant of the highest integrity, and as a man of the best disposition and character. We shall all agree, Gentlemen, that our Fund could not have been entrusted to a more exact, faithful, and devoted Treasurer. Giving no bonds and receiving no salary or commissions, he took pride in watching over the noble endowment which had been made by his illustrious friend for the welfare of the chil dren of the Southern States. His vigilance could not have been exceeded. His particularities often amused us, and when we were pressed for time, came near, perhaps, to rendering us impa tient ; but they always inspired the confidence that everything could be safely left to so conscientious and untiring a devotion. That confidence, I need not add, was fully justified. In the early part of his administration of our finances, his duties were sometimes onerous and perplexing ; and to the last they occasionally involved more responsibility than was quite agreeable to so sensitive and scrupulous a temperament. But he persisted steadfastly through a term of nearly eighteen years ; and our last Annual Meeting was, I believe, the very first at which he failed to be present, and to render his Report, and explain his accounts in person. His health had been visibly and seriously impaired for several years, and he had then met with a painful accident at Newport, which incapacitated him for coming on to be with us. We missed him on that occasion, and we miss him to-day. His obliging disposition and invariable kindness of heart made him a most agreeable companion, and added not a little to the social enjoyments of our meetings. He died in the seventy-third year of bis age, esteemed and respected by all who knew him. Of the death of General Grant, which occurred — as all the world took instant notice — at Mount McGregor in this State, on the 23d of July last, I hardly know how to speak. For, in deed, almost everything worth saying has already been said, of his death and of his life, of his whole career and character, until the language of eulogy is exhausted. No death in our day and TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT. 575 generation has called forth more full, just, and admirable tributes, by type and tongue, in the newspapers, in the pulpits, and in public assemblies, in all parts of our own country, and in not a few parts of other countries. The varied fortunes and striking contrasts of his early life, — at West Point, in Mexico, in Ore gon, and at St. Louis, until he fell out of all public sight or thought at Galena ; his instantaneous reappearance at the call of his country, and his rapid rise from grade to grade until he had fought his way up to the very highest military rank ; his unerring instinct ; his unflinching courage ; his iron will ; his unyielding tenacity of plan and purpose ; his vast powers of combination, and the sleepless energy with which he pushed through to its end whatever he attempted ; his singular reticence, flowering out at last into so many felicitous utterances in writ ing and by word of mouth ; his self-control, his modesty, his magnanimity, and the Christian resignation and heroic fortitude with which he bore the calamities and terrible sufferings of his last months on earth, — all, all have been the themes of touching description and brilliant illustration at home and abroad. I could, add nothing, certainly, — even were it fit for me to at tempt it on such an occasion as this, — to the unqualified praise which his career as a Soldier has elicited from both sides of the momentous struggle in which he was a leader. It is glory enough for him that he was the chosen instrument of his government, and of God, in bringing that struggle to a close by the blessed restoration of Union and Peace to our land. The name of Monk is not more inseparably identified with the restoration of the monarchy to Old England than that of Grant with the restoration of Union to our American Republic. No other honors which have been paid, or which can be paid, to his memory can ever equal the universal recognition of that fact and its acceptance for the records of history. Successive elections to the Presidency during what remained of his life ; the splen did receptions which he met with from the rulers and people of the Old World during his memorable foreign tour ; the grand national funeral at his death ; the costly and countless monu ments which are proposed in his honor, at Riverdale and else where, have no significance to be compared for a moment with 576 TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT. the simple record that, under his lead, the American Union was saved. That grand funeral pageant itself, on the 8th of August last, owed its main impressiveness to the evidence it afforded — in all its incidents, and by all who took part in it or witnessed it — that a restored National Union, a renewed brotherhood among the people, and a renewed sisterhood among the States, was felt to have been accomplished through him who was thus followed to his grave by troops of friends, — so many of whom had been his foes, — and that all parties and sections of the country were alike ready to attest their glad and grateful con sciousness of that glorious result. But it is for us, Gentlemen, to remember General Grant, more peculiarly, in his relations to the work in which we have so long been associated with him. Like his friend Mr. Wetmore, he was one of the original members of our Board ; and though so many years have since elapsed, it seems but yesterday that I was privileged to call upon him at his headquarters in Washing ton, while he was Commander-in-chief of the army, to invite him confidentially, at the request and in the name of our Founder, to be one of the Trustees. He accepted the invitation without a moment's hesitation, and with evident emotions of pleasure. The next morning found him with us at the formal organi zation of this Board. Those of the original members who are still left, and they are but few, will recall him, as I do, in his undress uniform, with nothing but the stars on his shoulder- straps to indicate his rank, kneeling by the side of Mr. Pea body and Governor Aiken in a little room at Willard's, while good Bishop Mcllvaine invoked the blessing of Heaven on the work we were assembled to inaugurate. A few months afterwards, he was with us at New York for nearly a week, at the meeting at which our organization was completed, our plans matured, and our first General Agent, Dr. Sears, appointed. The brilliant entertainment which Mr. Peabody gave to the Trustees on that occasion, in special honor of General and Mrs. Grant, will not be forgotten by any one who was present at it. From that time onward he attended our meetings as often as it was in his power, — at Richmond, at Baltimore, at New York, at Boston, and at Washington, where, TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT. 577 as President of the United States, in 1870, he gave a banquet to the Trustees at the Executive Mansion. Meeting him casually in one of the corridors of this hotel, just before his departure for Europe, I said to him, in bidding him " Good-by," " Don't forget our Peabody meetings, Gen eral, on your return." And his reply was emphatic, " They are among the last things I shall ever forget, Mr. Winthrop ; and I shall always be with you when I can." He was with us, accord ingly, on several successive occasions after his return home, in cluding our very last meeting ; when, though already a suffering invalid, he spent a large part of two days in consultation with the Board, and evinced a warm, personal, intelligent interest in all our proceedings. He had set a special value on Mr. Peabody's munificent endowment, as the first practical mani festation, on a grand scale, of that spirit of conciliation and magnanimity which he himself had displaj-ed so signally in the very flush of victory He felt deeply, too, that the educa tion of the children of all classes and races was vital to the pros perity and welfare not only of the Southern States, but of the whole country ; and he united with us in invoking the aid of the Government. The death of General Grant leaves us with but four of the sixteen original members of this Board. It is pleasant for us to remember that two of our departed associates — in addition to our Founder, Mr. Peabody — have received at their death the supreme honors of Westminster Abbey, — Bishop Mcllvaine in 1873, and now General Grant. But it is even more pleasant for us to look back on all whom we have lost as having enjoyed the esteem and respect of their fellow-countrymen, and as having entitled themselves to our own grateful and affectionate remem brance. We have filled the vacancies in sad succession, as we are bound to do now ; but the places of not a few of them will long be vacant still in the hearts of those who have been asso ciated with them in a Trust so dear to us all. 37 THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS AND THE MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 12, 1885. I have a little communication which may not be wholly without interest, and which will at least serve to fill up a few spare minutes this afternoon. It deals with a Massachusetts Town and with a late distinguished citizen of Boston ; and if it has more about myself than I could wish, I am sure the Society will pardon me. It is an. episode in the history of the National Monument to Washington, which has been recently completed and dedicated. About the 1st of July, 1885, I received, at Richfield Springs, N. Y., — where I was passing a few weeks for the benefit of my wife's health, as well as my own, — the following letter : Gkeat Barringtow, Mass., June 29, 1885. Hon. R. C. Winthrop : Dear Sir, — I send you by express to-day a tin box of money con tributed in this town for the Washington Monument. It was overlooked by my predecessor in office of Town Clerk, and was only recently handed to me. Noticing your name on the box as one of the sub-committee, I take the liberty to send it to you. Very respectfully, C. J. Burget, Town Clerk. The box was accordingly forwarded to Boston ; and on my return to my summer residence at Brookline, on the 27th of July, I found it awaiting my examination. THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS. 579 It has recalled some interesting facts which I proceed to mention before they are lost to my memory. It happened that my venerable friend the late Thomas Han- dasyde Perkins had been particularly impressed with the Ora tion which I delivered on the laying of the corner-stone of the National Monument to Washington, on the 4th of July, 1848. He had known Washington personally, had spent a day with him at Mount Vernon, and had conceived and cherished the most exalted sense of his character and services and principles. The Oration had revived all his early enthusiasm in regard to Washington's pre-eminence, and it seemed that he could not read it or hear it too often. He even had it read aloud to him and to his family circle, on more than one Sunday evening, by his son-in-law the late William H. Gardiner, as Mr. Gardiner himself told me ; and be afterwards published, at his own ex pense, for distribution and' sale, a cheaper edition of it than that published by the Monument Association at Washington, in order to secure it a wider circulation. More than four years afterwards I received from him the following note : — Boston — say Brookline, Thursday, a. m. Dear Sir, — When at Washington, I visited the Monument, the foun dation of which you aided in laying. It was at a standstill, to my great chagrin. I determined, therefore, on my return, to endeavor to raise enough to induce the gentlemen who have charge of the business to re commence the work. The Government, it is thought, will not let the work be suspended for want of funds. I want to consult you respecting the matter, and if you are in the vicinity will thank you to call. I have already written to Mr. Bates,1 who I have no doubt will give his thousand dollars, and induce other Americans abroad to do something. I think a considerable sum can be raised before Congress rises. I will head the list with $1,000. William Appleton will do the same, as will many others. I passed some days at Washington very pleasantly, and saw Mr. Fillmore, who was very gracious. Your friend, T. H. Perkins. 1 Joshua Bates, the eminent banker, the founder of the Boston Public Library. 580 THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS This note was written by " the Colonel," as he was always called, and received by me on the 23d of December, 1852. He was then in his eighty-eighth year, and he died less than two years later. I did not fail to call at once on my venerable friend, and I found him full of enthusiastic interest in the subject of his note. After some consultation it was agreed by us that a meeting of gentlemen should be held at his own house without delay, to devise a plan for carrying out the purposes which he had so much at heart. Meantime he begged me to draft an appeal to the people of Massachusetts for contributions to the Monu ment, to be signed by the gentlemen who should assemble at his call. I accordingly prepared the following paper: — To the People of Massachusetts : The undersigned take the liberty to appeal to you in behalf bf an ob ject which cannot fail to be deeply interesting to every true American heart. On the 4th day of July, 1848, the corner-stone of a Monument to George Washington was laid, with imposing ceremonies, in the city which bears his name. It was designed to be a national monument to the acknowledged Father of his Country. It was projected under the auspices of an Association of which John Marshall and James Madison had been successively presidents. A considerable sum of money had al ready been raised, and it was confidently believed that when the structure was once fairly commenced, and before the sum in hand should have been expended, there would be a sufficient interest excited in the object to insure an ample contribution for its completion. More than four years have now elapsed, and the Monument has reached a height of a hundred and twenty-six feet from the ground. Four hun dred feet remain to be built up in order to complete the original design, and the resources of the Association are wellnigh exhausted. Occasional contributions continue to come in from various parts of the country, but not to an amount or with a regularity to give assurance that the work can be prosecuted afresh at the opening of the ensuing season. The idea will not be entertained for an instant that in this day of our national prosperity and pride a Monument to Washington can be suffered to remain unfinished for want of funds. An intelligent and grateful people will never permit this well-merited tribute to one whose AND THE MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. 581 memory will ever stand first in all their hearts to be left permanently incomplete. But in order that the means for finishing it may be seasonably procured there is need of some concerted and systematic action. There must be a commencement somewhere of an earnest effort to acquaint the whole com munity with the character and condition of the work, and to give direction to the interest which such an object cannot fail to create ; and there must be an example, in some quarter of the country, of a general and generous contribution among all classes, ages, and sexes of the people. Where can such an effort be so appropriately made, where can such an example be so fitly exhibited, as in Massachusetts ? It was here that the great Revolution of Independence began. It was here that the first re sistance to oppression was manifested. It was here that the first blood was shed. It was here, upon our own Massachusetts soil, that Washing ton first drew his sword in defence of American liberty. It was here that his first triumph was achieved, in expelling the enemy from Boston, and in restoring our metropolis to a condition of civil freedom, which has never since been interrupted. And nowhere have the benefits and bless ings of the Federal Constitution, over whose formation Washington presided, and which afterwards he so wisely and nobly administered, been more signally enjoyed and illustrated than in our own ancient and beloved Commonwealth. Let Massachusetts lead the way, then, in the completion of this Na tional Monument to Washington. Let every man, woman, and child within her limits seize the opportunity of testifying their gratitude for his unequalled services, their reverence for his pure and spotless charac ter, their adherence to his lofty principles and patriotic policy, and their affection for a memory which will be hallowed in all ages and in all lands. It cannot be doubted that other States will be incited by our example to do their share, also, in a work which was designed to be accomplished by the united efforts of the whole American people. The meeting was held and organized, with Thomas H. Per kins as Chairman, his grandson, T. H. Perkins, Jr., as Secretary, and Ignatius Sargent as Treasurer. The appeal was dated " Boston, Feb. 1, 1853," and was sent forth to the people of Massachusetts with the following signa tures : — 582 THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS Thomas H. Perkins. Abbott Lawrence. Robert C. Winthrop. Richard Frothingham, Jr. Samuel Walker. Benjamin Sea ver. William Appleton. S. D. Bradford. Isaac P. Davis. Charles W. Upham. John E. Thayer. Jonathan Preston. John T. Heard. Nathan Appleton. George S. Boutwell. Edward Everett. John H. Clifford. Elisha Huntington. C. H. Warren. George Bliss. Nathan Hale. Joseph Grinneil. Francis Peabody. Jonas Chickering. Ignatius Sargent. T. H. Perkins, Jr., Secy. Of these twenty-six signers only three, I believe, are still living. Before the meeting adjourned a sub-committee was appointed to carry out the plans of Colonel Perkins ; and by this commit tee a great number of subscription books were prepared, with the appeal to the people as an introduction, which were sent to official persons and leading individuals in all the cities and towns of Massachusetts. Tin boxes were also prepared and distributed for receiving the contributions of the people. This is one of them. Upon these tin boxes the following short appeal was pasted, in large type : — THE NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON IS STILL UNFINISHED. Let every son and daughter of Massachusetts cast in their mite for its completion. Let those who cannot afford dollars give dimes, or even half-dimes. Let no one refuse to contribute something to the commemo ration of the Father of His Country. Thomas H. Perkins, Abbott Lawrence, Robert C. Winthrop, Richard Frothingham, Jr., Samuel Walker. Sub-Committee. %3T Boxes are prepared for every town. Which shall be filled first ? AND THE MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. 583 The good old Colonel, in his eighty-eighth year, devoted no little time and labor to the preparation of these tin boxes. I wrote the inscription, or label, for them at his request ; but be had it printed, and pasted it on many, if not on all, of them with his own band. He made it his work for many months to prepare and distribute them, sometimes carrying them in person to hotels and halls and offices where they could be fastened to the walls and attract public attention. I know not which of them was "filled first," — if any of them were ever filled. But this Great Barrington box comes back to me last, after the Mon ument has been completed, at the end of thirty-seven years after the corner-stone was laid, to recall circumstances which I had almost forgotten. It has not yet been opened ; but the rattling of the contents gives promise of a good many coppers, if not dimes and quarters. I dare not hope that it contains many gold pieces ; but I shall pass it over to the Treasurer of the Monu ment Association just as it has come to me, with this history of the transaction. A considerable sum was remitted to the treasurer from time to time, as the result of Colonel Perkins's efforts. A sum of at least five thousand dollars was, I believe, credited to him on the books of the Association at one time, and I think that not less than twice that amount was contributed on the appeal which he originated. But he died in his ninetieth year, only a little more than a year after he took the matter seriously in hand, and others entered into his labors.1 In replying to a complimentary toast, at a dinner of the Mas sachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, in October, 1854, I took occasion to allude to this labor of love of my venerable friend, who bad died a few months before, in the following terms : — " You have alluded, in the sentiment which called me up, to the hum ble service which I rendered some years ago, as the organ of the repre sentatives of the Union, at the laying of the corner-stone of the National Monument to Washington. I cannot but remember that the latest efforts, in this quarter of the country, to raise funds for the completion of that i Born Dec. 15, 1764; died Jan. 11, 1854. 584 THOMAS HANDASYDE PERKINS monument were made by one whose long and honorable life has been brought to a close within the past twelve months. I cannot forget the earnest and affectionate interest with which that noble-hearted old Ameri can gentleman devoted the last days, and I had almost said the last hours, of his life to arranging the details and the machinery for an appeal to the people of Massachusetts in behalf of that still unfinished structure. He had seen Washington in his boyhood, and had felt the inspiration of his majestic presence ; he had known him in his manhood, and had spent a day with him, by particular invitation, at Mount Vernon, — a day never to be forgotten in any man's life ; his whole heart seemed to be imbued with the warmest admiration and affection for his character and services ; and it seemed as if he could not go down to his grave in peace until he had done something to aid in perpetuating the memory of his virtues and his valor. I need not say that I allude to the late Hon. Thomas Handa- syde Perkins. He, too, was a Boston boy, and one of the noblest speci mens of humanity to which our city has ever given birth ; leading the way for half a century in every generous enterprise, and setting one of the earliest examples of those munificent charities which have given our city a name and a praise throughout the earth. He was one of your own honor ary members, Mr. President, and I have felt that I could do nothing more appropriate to this occasion, — the first public festive occasion in Faneuil Hall which has occurred since his death, — and nothing more agreeable to the feelings of this Association, or to my own, than to propose to you, as I now do, ' The Memory of Thomas Handasyde Perkins.' " Such is the story which the Great Barrington box has recalled to me. I cannot conclude without a suggestion which I shall commu nicate for the consideration of those who have the Monument in charge, and who are about to affix tablets on the inside walls, commemorative of the progress and completion of the great work. In the subscription books prepared by Colonel Perkins for circulation throughout Massachusetts, one of which I reserved for myself at the time, and which I have here, there was in serted a printed copy of the rules which bad then been adopted by the Board of Managers of the Monument Association. One of those rules is as follows : — " Four marble panels are to be inserted in the Monument. One panel is for the names of those who contribute $1,000; one for the names of AND THE MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. 585 those who contribute $500 ; a third for the names of those who contribute $200 ; and the fourth for the names of those who contribute $100." Now it may not be practicable to comply with this rule at this late day, even if it were expedient to do so. Private con tributions failed to accomplish the work, and it would hardly be possible to ascertain, after so many years, by whom contri butions of these various amounts were made. But the history which I have narrated and the records of the Association estab lish the fact that Thomas Handasyde Perkins contributed $1,000 in 1852, besides being instrumental in securing large contribu tions from others. Is it not due to his memory that his name should have a place on one of the tablets to be affixed to the inside walls of the Monument? I have brought with me the Great Barrington box, so strangely returned after a full third of a century, and I submit it for in spection, still unopened, as a curious relic of a past generation, and of the loving care and zeal of Colonel Perkins. Possibly there may be other boxes of the same sort in other places, which the mention of this one and the good example of the town clerk of Great Barrington may lead to being discovered and sent to their destination. I am sorry to say, however, that I have an indistinct recollection of having heard long ago that some of them bad been stolen and rifled. FRANCIS E. PARKER. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 11, 1886. I AM unwilling, Mr. President, that the name of Francis E. Parker should pass from our rolls without a few words from one who, though much his senior, had known him so long and valued him so highly as I have done. Of his abilities as a lawyer, his fidelity as a trustee, his accomplishments as a scholar, his wit and his wisdom in social or in practical life, I can say nothing which has not been said already in the admirable tributes which have been paid to his memory in the public journals. But it was my good fortune to have him as an associate and assistant for nearly thirty years in the management of some of the great charities of our city. He was with me at the original organization of the Boston Provident Association, as long ago as 1851, under the auspices of the late excellent Dr. Ephraim Peabody and the late Hon. Samuel A. Eliot ; and during the whole five and twenty years of my presidency of that institu tion he was the chairman of its executive committee, and was unceasing in his devotion, in season and out of season, to the cause of the poor of Boston. I may recall the fact, as a striking illustration of his dis interested liberality, that when the treasury of that institution was exhausted, during an exceptionally severe winter, many years ago, I received a confidential note from him, inclosing four or five hundred dollars, which he claimed the privilege of adding to our resources, with the injunction "that it should not FRANCIS E. PARKER. 587 be known to any one but myself by whom the money was con tributed. I observed his confidence sacredly as long as he lived, but I can have no compunction about betraying it now that be is gone. Within a very few weeks past, I had another note from him, — the last, alas! I can ever receive, — reminding me of our united efforts in securing the erection of the Charity Bureau in Chardon Street, in which almost all the relief societies of our city are concentrated for mutual reference and associated action. He spoke of it as my own original design, as it was ; but no one has done more valuable work within the walls of that noble building than our lamented friend. To this Provident Association, it now appears, he has be queathed a third part of his property after deducting his pri vate legacies to relatives and friends. Familiar as he has been with its whole history, and practically acquainted with all its principles and methods of dealing with the poor, such a bequest from such a source is at once a tribute and a testimony, and cannot fail to inspire fresh confidence in the institution, while it adds largely to its means of usefulness. There ought to be a portrait of Mr. Parker on its walls, if nowhere else, and I trust there will be. Mr. Parker was associated with me also as one of the Over seers of the Poor of Boston from 1864 to 1867, when the organization and operations of that board were the subject of a complete and most salutary reform. As President of the board I was specially indebted to him for aid and counsel, and I can bear personal testimony to the signal ability and practical wisdom which he displayed during all our proceedings. Let me only say, in conclusion, that in speaking exclusively, as I have done, of Mr. Parker's devoted labors in the cause of our charitable institutions, I feel that I have paid him the most enviable tribute which could be offered to his memory, and that which he himself would most have valued. Wit and wis dom, abilities and accomplishments, private virtues and public services, may secure a wider popular fame ; but a life-long care for the condition of the poor and needy at our doors may look for a record above all earthly renown. CRAYON OF DANIEL WEBSTER. REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 11, 1886. I present to the Society this afternoon a large framed photograph of Daniel Webster, and ask for it a place in our gallery. It is taken from an original crayon which has been hanging on nry own walls for forty years, and of which I desire that the history should not be forgotten. It happened that during the early years of my association with Mr. Webster in Congress, and after I had been called on to defend him from an unjust charge of some sort, I asked him to sit for a portrait for me. He readily assented to my request, and promised to be at the service of any artist I might employ. Many months, perhaps a year or two, had passed away, when, fortunately, a jroung artist from Maine brought me a letter of introduction, and expressed an eager wish to have an opportu nity of taking a head of Webster. I told him at once that Webster had long ago promised to sit for me, and that I would endeavor to secure him the opportunity which he desired on condition that I should pay for the work, and that the product should be mine. Just about the same time I learned that Healy, the well- known portrait-painter, had come over from France with a commission from Louis Philippe to take likenesses of General Jackson, Mr. .Clay, Mr. Calhoun, General Cass, and Mr. Web ster, for the Royal Gallery at Versailles, and that Webster was to sit to him, for the King, the very next day. I forthwith CRAYON OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 589 called on Mr. Webster, reminded him of his promise, and pro posed that my young crayonist should come with Healy, avail himself of the second best light, and take a head for me while Healy was taking one for the Versailles gallery. " All right," said Webster, " let him come on. The more the better ; there will be fewer sittings hereafter." And so one day in the winter or spring of 1846, just forty years ago, Webster was seen in one of the old committee rooms of Congress, down in the very crypts of the Capitol, with Healy intently engaged in painting him with oils, while my young friend hovered around him, pencil and tablet in hand, catching the best lights he could find, and working out, day by day, the large crayon of which this is the photo graph. I went down into the committee room from my place in the House of Representatives, on several successive days, to see how the work was going along : and on at least one occa sion I found Webster quietly dozing. " Well, Mr. Webster," I exclaimed, " art is long, and life is short." He roused himself instantly with a hearty laugh, and made some reply better worth remembering than any remark of my own, but which is too indistinct in my memory for me to attempt to recall it. The double operation to which he had subjected himself lasted about a week ; and then Webster shook himself free from us all. Healy's portrait is on the walls of the Versailles gallery, and the crayon on my own. Before my young friend entered on his work, I asked him whether he had ever seen Mr. Webster in action. " Never but once," said he ; " but that once I shall never forget. It was when Webster delivered his grand oration on the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1843; and when, standing at the foot of the monument, he rolled up those wondrous eyes of his and took in the whole shaft, from corner-stone to cap-stone, with the simple exclamation, ' The powerful speaker stands motionless before us.' That," said my young friend, "is the look I shall try to give him." And that is the look he did give him, and give him most impressively. I remember well the emotions excited and ex pressed by the most intimate friends of Mr. Webster at 590 CRAYON OP DANIEL WEBSTER. Washington as they gazed at the crayon when it' was finished. The late Edward Curtis, of New York, — devoted to him as no other man ever was, — our own John Davis and Mrs. John Davis, good Joseph Grinnell and his wife, of New Bedford, and Mr. and Mrs. John P. Kennedy of Baltimore, were among those whom I recall as most enthusiastic in their admiration of the head. On my return home I yielded to the request of many friends and allowed it to be lithographed. Of that lithograph some copies must remain ; but I have only been able to trace one. The photograph, though somewhat reduced in size, is more effective than the lithograph ever was, and hardly less im pressive than the original crayon. It only remains for me to say that the young artist of 1846, by whom the head was taken, is now one of the most distin guished painters in our country, — Eastman Johnson, who has long had a studio in New York, and who has far more than " fulfilled the promise of his spring," great as that promise was. He took several other crayons in Washington at the same time, — among others, a small one of myself, and a large and admirable one of Mrs. President Madison, which came into Mr. Webster's possession, as the gift of the artist, and which I have seen on the walls of his Marshfield residence. I may add that my crayon has been photographed at the earnest instigation of my accomplished and valued friend Dr. Francis Wharton, now the counsellor of the Secretary of State on International Law, and that at his request I pre sented a copy for one of the rooms of the Department of State at Washington, which, by a casual coincidence, arrived and was hung there on Webster's birthday, the 18th of January last. WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, 1886. SPEECH AT A FESTIVAL OF THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY, FEBRUARY 22, 1886. I thank you, I thank you all, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, for these cordial greetings. But I am altogether overwhelmed by such unexpected manifestations of regard and welcome, and can command no words of adequate acknowledgment. I have come in upon you at a late stage of your celebration, — not exactly " a day after the Fair," but at least an hour after the feast, — having been uncertain to the last moment whether I could come at all. But I could not find it in my heart to resist the temptation of your most kind summons, twice or thrice re peated and enforced by your gallant Chairman, Major Merrill. I am here, however, to attempt no formal address. My day for after-dinner speeches, and indeed, for speeches of all sorts, is over. Henceforth I claim the privilege of being a listener. I desire now only to return my hearty thanks to this venerable Corps for the compliments they have paid me on so many occa sions, in years past as well as to-day, and especially for their obliging offer to take me under their escort to Washington last year, to the dedication of the grand National Monument of the Father of his Country. Had I been spared from the prolonged and critical illness which then prostrated me, and been able to proceed to the Capital of the Nation under the escort of this oldest military 592 Washington's birthday, 1886. organization in our land, and to deliver personally the Oration which I had prepared under the order of Congress, — it would have been one of the proudest experiences of my life. But as our noble friend General Grant said, in the preface to his admir able Memoirs, — in words which have come down from a remote antiquity, but which no time can weaken and no repetition render trite, — " Man proposes, but God disposes." And, certainly, I have nothing but gratitude to God and man for all the satisfac tions and successes of that memorable occasion. In the con templation of that finished Monument, that unique and majestic Obelisk, all personal disappointments are forgotten. I cannot but remember in this presence, Gentlemen, that it is now Two Hundred and Forty' Eight years since the charter of this Company was signed by my venerated ancestor, Governor John Winthrop. In two years more you will be celebrating your Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary. During the long period of your existence at least four of the lineal descendants of the old Governor have been commanders of the Corps ; and I may be pardoned for not forgetting that there might have been, more than once, a fifth commander of the same name and lineage, — but I forbear from betraying the almost Masonic Secrets of the Association by intimating who that fifth might have been. It is enough for me to remember that I bore one of your spontoons, of the old John Rogers pattern, as your first lieutenant, more than fifty years ago, and that for more than a fifth part of the whole existence of the Corps my name has been on your rolls as a member. With your leave it will con tinue there as long as I live. You tell me, Sir, that I can claim to be the Father of the Ancients by seniority of membership. I thought that distinction belonged to my venerable friend Colonel Wilder, whom I hoped to meet here this afternoon, and for whose health and welfare all our hearts are beating in unison at this moment. I would gladly have yielded to him all the honors you have so kindly bestowed on me. But this day and this hour belong neither to him nor to myself. They are sacred to the memory of the Father of his Country. No other memory would have called me from home in my present condition of health. Yet what can I say of Washington's birthday, 1886. 593 Geoege Washington which has not been said by a hundred tongues already ? What can I add to the tributes I have paid to his memory myself, either in connection with the corner-stone or the cap-stone of that majestic Monument ? Take it for all in all, his is the grandest merely human name on the long roll of the ages ! His character is a model for all mankind. His prin ciples and his example, if only faithfully and lovingly followed by us and our descendants, whether in military or civil, in public or in private life, will render our beloved Countrjr safe for a thousand generations ! Our Country, our whole Country, united and free, is the only adequate Monument to Washington. Oh, let it ever be cherished in all our hearts, and defended, if need be, by all our hands I 38 APPENDIX APPENDIX. WELCOME TO GUESTS FROM THE WEST. Brookline (Boston), 12 June, 1879. My dear Sir, — I am greatly obliged and honored by the invitation of the Commercial Club for Saturday next. It would have given me real pleasure to unite with them in welcoming their friends from Chicago ; and I had hoped to have been with you until a late day. But I am now compelled to excuse myself, and can only offer you my best thanks and the assurance of my sincere regrets. I rejoice in every occasion which brings together representative asso ciations or representative men from the West and the East, the South and the North, to take counsel with each other, and to draw closer the ties of national brotherhood. The best interests of Commerce, and of American Labor in all its departments, imperatively demand at this moment the cessation of sec tional animosities and the renewed recognition of " One Country, One Constitution, One Destiny." There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism. May this sentiment prevail at your board, and find an echo in the breasts of our whole people. Believe me, dear sir, very truly your friend and servant, Robert C. Winthrop. Hon. John W. Candler, President of the Commercial Club. 598 appendix. II. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1880. Brookline, Mass., 30 September, 1880. Dear Sir, — I am sorry to see by this morning's "Post" that my name was placed at the head of the list of Vice-Presidents at the Demo cratic meeting last night. I am duly sensible of the compliment, but it was without my consent. Let me add, however, in justice to the com mittee, that a printed invitation was addressed to me ; but, owiug to its being left at my house in town, it reached me too late for a reply. For many years past I have been altogether an independent voter. During this period I have repeatedly supported Democratic candidates, and I am quite likely to do so again. But I have sometimes voted for the Republican ticket ; and I prefer to remain, for the rest of my life, unconnected with any party organization. Indeed, I had no purpose of entering at all into the political discussions of the approaching election, but to reserve the privilege of voting accord ing to my own immediate convictions, when the election day should arrive. And this I shall still do. But I have nothing to conceal, and this occasion obliges me to say frankly, that I am opposed to-day, as I always have been, to any con certed array of solid Norths against solid Souths. These sectional antag onisms and contentions are worthy of all reprobation ; and never more so than when fomented and kept alive, on the one side or on the other, for the purpose of prolonging party power. They brought on the war ; and they still interfere with the best fruits of peace. The condition of the freedmen themselves — their prospects of educa tion, and their secure enjoyment of all the privileges of citizenship — would, in my judgment, be far more hopeful, if the pressure of a solid North were taken off from the Southern States, and if they could cease to feel, whether reasonably or unreasonably, that they were under the dominion of conquerors. This is the great consideration which weighs on my own mind, in view of the coming election, and which will control my vote. It is not a question of candidates or persons. It is not a question of parties or platforms. It is not a question whether the decision of the Electoral Commission, four years ago, was just or unjust. Nor is it, with me, any appendix. 599 question as to the administration of President Hayes, which has been so generally acceptable. But my vote will be influenced solely by the desire to help in breaking up the intense sectionalism which has so long pre vailed in our land. I long to see the Southern people once more divided into parties, as they were when I was in public life, — not by caste, or color, or sympathy with a lost cause, but according to their honest judg ment of what is best for the whole country. But the North must concur, and even lead the way, in this patriotic obliteration of sectional prejudices, or it will fail to be accomplished. Let me only add, that I am not one of those who foresee dangers to our institutions, or to the general prosperity of the country, in the success of the Democratic party. Nor, in view of the great uncertainties of the result, does it seem wise to create a panic in advance by exaggerated partisan predictions. In my opinion, there has never been a moment, since the war ended, when it would have been safer to intrust the Govern ment to such a man as General Hancock, with the assurance that it would be administered upon principles as broad as the Constitution and as com prehensive as the Union. Yours respectfully, Robert C. Winthrop. To the Editok of the " Boston Post." III. WINTHROP CHURCH JUBILEE. Boston, 7 January, 1883. Dear Sir, — I thank you sincerely for your kind note of the 3d instant, and for your repeated invitation to the semi-centennial of the Winthrop Church. The jubilee of a church of Christ bearing the name of a revered ancestor, and which for fifty years has maintained substantially the faith which he brought with him from old England and the. forms which he adopted on coming over to found a commonwealth in the wilderness, can not fail to attract my warm interest and sympathy. 600 appendix. Nor can I forget that at Charlestown, where he fixed his earliest abode after his arrival, and where your Winthrop Church was gathered half a century ago, he first associated himself with Congregational worship two centuries before. He had been, as you know, an Episcopalian in his na tive land, and had taken leave of the Church of England, as he and his associates said in their farewell letter, " with much sadness and many tears," and with the acknowledgment " that such hope and faith as they had obtained in the common salvation they had received in her bosom/' But on his arrival here, in 1630, he and the other fathers of Massachu setts conformed at once to the circumstances of the little Colony and to the example of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and united in Congregational worship as the best, and, as I think, the only mode in which the public worship of God could have been arranged and conducted here. Governor Winthrop was a Congregationalist from that time to the end of his life, and few things would have gratified him more than to know that the " Old South " would so long mark his home in Boston, and that a kindred church, bearing his own name, would be associated with his earlier and briefer residence in Charlestown. It would afford me great pleasure to be present at the commemoration to which you so kindly invite me, but advancing years and many engage ments compel me to deny myself. Let me only thank you again for your complimentary note, and offer you, as I heartily do, my best wishes for the success of the occasion, and for the continued prosperity of the Winthrop Church of Charlestown. Believe me, dear sir, respectfully and sincerely yours, Robert C. Winthrop. Rev. Alex. S. Twombly, Pastor. IV. WASHINGTON MONUMENT DEDICATION. Brookline, Mass., 24 June, 1884. Hon. John Sherman, Chairman, etc. : My dear Sir, — Your favor of the 19th instant, addressed to me at Boston, has reached me at my summer home, and I have not found it easy to reply. It brings me face to face with an appointment which I hardly know how either to accept or to decline. appendix. 601 I am most highly honored by the resolution of Congress, naming me as the Orator on the completion of the Monument to Washington, and I thank you sincerely for the friendly and flattering terms in which you have communicated the resolution. Nothing would afford me greater gratification, in these closing years of my life, than to perform the distinguished service thus assigned to me, and I wish I could feel emboldened to accept the appointment without reserve. But I cannot be wholly unmindful of the disabilities and uncer tainties of advanced age. Should life and health be spared me, I shall not fail to be with you on the 22d of February next, to unite in the congratulations of the hour and to do homage to the memory of the Father of his Country. Nor can I decline to give some expression to the remembrances and emotions awak ened by the completion of a monument, of which I was privileged to speak at length at the laying of its corner-stone so many years ago. But I dare not render myself responsible for a long, elaborate oration. The effort would exceed my strength, and in all sincerity, but with great re luctance, I must beg your Commission to excuse me from the attempt. A brief commemorative address is the most that I can promise. Meantime the Commission must feel at perfect liberty to leave me altogether out of their programme, and to make such arrangements as may seem to them most likely to secure the success of the occasion. I desire them only to understand, that if, within the limitations which my age enjoins, I can lend any assistance or interest to the proposed ceremo nial, I shall take pride and pleasure in placing myself at their disposal. Believe me, dear Senator Sherman, with great respect and regard, Your friend and servant, Robert C. Winthrop. ¦J 90 Marlborough Street, Boston, 13 February, 1885. Hon. John Sherman, 'Chairman, etc. .- Dear Senator Sherman, — It is with deep regret that I find myself compelled to abandon all further hope of being at the Dedication of the Washington Monument on the 21st instant. I have been looking forward to the possibility of being able to run on at the last moment, and to pro nounce a few sentences of my oration before handing it to Governor Long, who has so kindly consented to read it. But my recovery from danger ous illness has been slower than I anticipated, and my physician concurs 602 APPENDIX. with my family in forbidding me from any attempt to leave home at present. I need not assure the Commissioners how great a disappointment it is to me to be deprived of the privilege of being present on this most interest ing occasion. I am sure of their sympathy without asking for it. Please present my respectful apologies to your associates, and believe me, With great regard, very faithfully yours, Robert C. Winthrop. P. S. — This is the first letter I have attempted to write with my own pen since my illness. V. PORTRAIT OF WHITTIER. Brookline, Mass., 16 October, 1884. My dear Sir, — I must no longer delay a grateful acknowledgment of your kind invitation for the 24th instant. It would afford me sincere pleasure to be present at your Friends' School and to witness the presen tation of the portrait of Whittier. Placed, as you propose to place it, between the busts of John Bright and Elizabeth Fry, it will have a com panionship as enviable as it will be appropriate. Eloquence, poetry, and philanthropy will form an inspiring group for your scholars to have ever before their eyes, and may lead them to emulate what they admire. Such a tribute to Whittier is eminently deserved. His'exquisite verses are among the treasures of American literature. They breathe a spirit of purity and piety which must wake an echo in the heart of every Christian, by whatever name he may be called. Many of them, too, are full of patriotic fire, and will warm the hearts and kindle the courage of young and old in time to come, as they have done in the past. I rejoice that he is still with us, to know how admiringly and affection ately he is regarded, not only by " Friends," but by all to whom his brilliant genius and spotless character are known. Regretting my in- APPENDIX. 603 ability to be with you on the interesting occasion to which you so kindly invite me, and with every good wish for the success of your School, I remain, dear sir, Very faithfully yours, Robert C. Winthrop. A. Jones, Esq., Providence. VI. WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT ASSOCIATION. Brookline, 5 June, 1885. Hon. Frederic W. Lincoln, Vice-President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and Chairman of the Standing Committee: My dear Sir, — I am sorry to find that an imperative engagement on the 17th inst. will prevent me from presiding at the Annual Meeting of the Monument Association. I shall thus be deprived of the opportu nity of taking personal leave of the Association as their President, — agreeably to the decision to decline a re-election which I announced at our last Anniversary Meeting. I had relied on the pleasure of welcom ing my successor1 to the chair ; and I could not have omitted such an occasion to offer to the members my grateful acknowledgment of the honors I have received at their hands for so many years past. Pray let me assure them all, through you, of my deep sense of their kindness, and of my unabated sympathy in all their patriotic objects and efforts. The Association will, I am sure, be gratified to learn that the " Five Hundred Dollars " voted by them, almost unanimously, at the close of our last meeting, as a contribution from Bunker Hill to the Fund for the Pedestal of the Statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," has not only been paid, but paid without withdrawing a dollar from our own treasury. Some doubts having been expressed as to the policy, and even as to the power, of appropriating money to any purpose not immediately connected with the objects for which we were incorporated, ten of our number subscribed fifty dollars each, at once to honor the vote of the Association and to further the preparations for the Great Statue so gen- 1 General Charles Devens, LL. D. 604 appendix. erously presented to our country by the people of France. I enclose the original subscription paper as evidence of the transaction, and in explana tion of its meaning. I cannot conclude, my dear Mr. Lincoln, without thanking you per sonally for the constant assistance you have afforded me in discharging the duties of the office from which I now respectfully withdraw. You have richly earned the gratitude of the whole Association for your un wearied devotion to its interests for so many years. Accept the assur ance of my own gratitude, and believe me, with great regard, Yours sincerely, Robert C. Winthrop. NOTE. At the Annual Meeting of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, 17 June, 1885, the foregoing letter was read by Mr. Lincoln, with the following remarks: — The voluntary retirement of the President of this Association from the position which for a number of years he has so honorably filled, gives to this occasion an unusual interest. No one in the past has more ably discharged all the requirements of that position than Mr. Winthrop. His public career and private accomplishments seemed to have made him the representative man to stand at the head of an organization like ours, historical and patriotic in its character. During his presidency several of the most important events in our annals have taken place; and we cannot fail to acknowledge the grace and eloquence with which he has adorned every occasion. In this period, not only our own body has had the benefit of his services, but the nation at large claimed them on its two most important great national celebrations. His glowing thoughts and well-turned periods thrilled the country as he rehearsed the story and influence of the last great battle of the Revolution ; while the name of Washington appeared to be still more illustrious as the eloquent orator analyzed the character and recounted the heroic deeds of the Father of his Country. Our President now withdraws from an active participation in our affairs, but not to the ranks ; and to give an emphasis and direction to our sense of his merits, the Standing Committee recommend that but one appendix. 605 name on this anniversary shall be added to the list of our Honorary Members, — and that the name of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. The list is a small one. May he long survive to stand upon its roll ! Mr. Winthrop was thereupon elected an Honorary Member of the Association, and the following resolution, on motion of Hon. Amos A. Lawrence, was unanimously adopted : — Resolved, On the retirement of our President, Mr. Winthrop, we desire to place on record the expression of our thanks for the assistance which he has rendered in all our proceedings; of our respect for his character, and our admiration of the whole course of his useful and hon orable life. VII. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF CONCORD. Brookline, Mass., 21 August, 1885. Gentlemen, — I am honored by your communication of the 1st instant, inviting me to attend the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anni versary of the incorporation of Concord, as a guest of the town, on the twelfth of September next. It would afford me peculiar pleasure to be with you on that occasion. It was my good fortune to be one of the in vited guests on the two hundredth anniversary celebration on the twelfth of September, 1835. I was then one of the representatives of Boston in the legislature of Massachusetts, but I came to Concord as an aid-de-camp of Lieutenant Governor Armstrong, who had become the acting governor of the State, by the election of Governor Davis to the Senate of the United States. It was a most agreeable and notable occasion, and one which I recall at the end of fifty years, and as, perhaps, the only survivor of the guests of that celebration, with no little interest. The admirable oration, by one who afterwards obtained so signal a celebrity as the late lamented Ralph Waldo Emerson, would alone have made the occasion memorable to every one who was present. The prayer of the aged and venerated Dr. Ezra Ripley — whose hospitality I had enjoyed at his own home some years before, in co-npany with my endeared classmate and chum, Charles Cbauncy Emerson — was not less impressive. 606 appendix. I would gladly renew my association with the scenes and memories of that day, but I am constrained to resist the temptation, and I must reluctantly decline your invitation. Concord has a world-wide fame. Her earliest annals abound in charm ing incidents, of at least one of which, in 1638, my own ancestor was a prominent figure. Her maturer history includes, with that of Lexington, the first blood of the Revolution. Her later years have been illustrated by the Roman integrity of Samuel Hoar and the eminent abilities and services of his sons, as well as by the brilliant genius of Hawthorne and Emerson. No town in our Commonwealth, or on our whole continent, has stronger claims to a distinguished and grateful remembrance. Believe me, gentlemen, with sincere thanks for your invitation and best wishes for the occasion, Respectfully and truly, your obedient servant, Robert C. Winthrop. Hon. George M. Brooks and others, Committee. VIII. AMERICAN HUGUENOT SOCIETY. Brookline, Mass. 15 October, 1885. The Hon. John Jat, President, etc. .- My dear Sir, — The 22d is approaching, and I must not longer postpone an answer to your kind invitation in behalf of the Huguenot Society of America. I wish I could make it an affirmative answer, and thus look forward to being with you at so interesting a celebration. Let me not speak of it, however, as a celebration. The day is long past when the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes can be the subject of anything but condemnation in any part of the Christian world. We may commemorate but we cannot celebrate it, and its 200th anniversary can excite no emo tions but those of sorrow and reprobation. Yet you and I, my dear sir, with the ten thousands of other Americans in all quarters of the United States who are proud of their Huguenot appendix. 607 blood, may well look back complacently on a course of events which brought over our progenitors, whether paternal or maternal, to these American shores. For myself, certainly, I cannot fail to rejoice that Pierre Baudouin was forced to fly from La Rochelle in 1685, that two years afterwards he arrived safely in New England, and that sons and grandsons and great-grandsons have perpetuated his family name in the high places of Massachusetts, and have affixed it to a noble institution of learning in Maine. As one of his lineal descendants, I would not revoke the Revocation which has had such a result. In the merciful providence of God, the bigotry and cruelty of Louis XIV. and his Ministers were overruled for great good the world over. Vast numbers of worthy Frenchmen were, indeed, the victims of persecution and massacre. But those who escaped the Dragonnades carried arts and excellences of all kinds into many other lands, and not a few of the most distinguished patriots of our own Revolutionary era trace back their lin eage to those French refugees. French blood, mingling with that of Old England, in American veins, has wrought wonders for our prosperity and our freedom. How could we have spared from our historic roll the Laurenses and Marions, the Boudinots and Bayards and Bowdoins, John Jay of New York, and Peter Faneuil of the Cradle of Liberty ! In no spirit of hostility to France, then, do we recall the 22d of Octo ber, 1685, but rather in a spirit of love for the land from which, in spite of the intolerance of its Grand Monarque, we have derived, in later days, so much that has been vital to our welfare and honor. I am glad that an American Huguenot Society has been organized under your auspices, and I thank you for including me on your roll of Vice-Presidents. Accept my best wishes for the Society and for yourself, with my regrets that I cannot offer them in person. Believe me, dear Mr. Jay, Very faithfully your friend and servant, Robert C. Winthrop. 608 appendix. IX. THE LYMAN FOUNTAIN. REMARKS AT THE DEDICATION OP A FOUNTAIN IN MEMORY OF THEODORE LYMAN, OCTOBER 24, 1885. Yotr have taken me, Mr. Mayor,1 entirely by surprise. I came here without a dream of being recognized, and with no purpose of venturing at all upon this platform. Yet I cannot be insensible to your kind and com plimentary notice of my presence, nor fail to respond to your call in a few off-hand words. I am glad, indeed, of such an opportunity to bear testimony to the ster ling qualities of a friend whom I so much valued as the late Theodore Lyman. He was somewhat my senior, but I knew him intimately for many years, and the longer I knew him the more I respected him. I recall him as a young Aide-de- Camp of Governor John Brooks, of rev olutionary renown. I recall him as the Captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. I recall him as the Commander of the Boston Brigade. I recall him as one of the early Mayors of our City. I was associated with him for several years as a vestryman of old Trinity Church. Everywhere, he was earnest, faithful, devoted. He was a model Soldier, an admirable Magistrate, a sincere Christian, a Gentleman of singular elegance, and a Citizen of great public spirit. His History of the Diplomacy of the United States will preserve his name in our libraries, and his large endowments and benefactions have identified it with more than one of our public Institutions of Education and Charity. I rejoice that it is now freshly inscribed, — under the auspices of the City over which you worthily preside, — where all who drink at this Fountain, or who gaze with admiration on its sparkling spray, will be reminded of so exemplary and excellent a man. 1 Hon. Hugh O'Brien, Mayor of Boston. APPENDIX. 609 X. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST CHURCH AT CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. Boston, 5 February, 1886. Gentlemen, — Accept my sincere thanks for your obliging invitation. Most gladly would I represent my venerated ancestor, as has been sug gested to me, in celebrating the anniversary of a church at whose organi zation he assisted two hundred and fifty years ago. It would have delighted the old Governor's heart to know that the flock which the excellent Shepard gathered and fed so devotedly, almost in a wilderness, should increase and multiply, century after century, until no single fold would hold them. I do not forget that the great Thomas Hooker preceded Shepard. Both were of that Emmanuel College in old England out of which came so much of the best Puritanism of New England. Your church was or ganized in a memorable year of the Massachusetts colony. The First Church in Cambridge and Harvard College date alike from 1636, and they have gone along side by side, in prosperity and honor, to the present day. Harvard has given not a few pastors to your church; and your church or churches, from Thomas Shepard to the well-remembered and highly valued Dr. Abiel Holmes, and their numerous successors, have furnished devoted friends and supporters to the College. May the time never come when Religion and Education shall cease to be thus harmoniously associated in raising up sons who shall be worthy of their fathers ! Regretting that I cannot be with you on this interesting occasion, I remain, Very faithfully yours, Robert C. Winthrop. The Rev. Edward H. Hall, the Rev. Alexander McKenzie, Dr. J. T. 6. Nichols, and others, Committee. 39 INDEX. INDEX. A. Abercrombie, Lieutenant-Colonel, 316. Adams, John, 2, 4, 171. Adams, John Quincy, 152, 621, 526. One of the five commissioners to Ghent in 1815, 43. His tribute to Henry Clay, 45, 46. His mention of Clay's failing health and temporary retirement from public life, 48. Let ter to Clay on the latter's defeat for the Presidency, 52. Adams, Samuel, 2, 171, 272. Alexander, Hon. Mark, 173. American Academy of Arts and Sci ences, address at the Old South Meet- ing-House on the occasion of its one hundredth anniversary, 149-158. Ad dress of welcome to its guests at the collation in the Athenaeum building, 159, 160. American Huguenot Society, letter to, 606, 607. American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 150, 151. Ames, Hon. Seth, remarks on his death, 280. Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com pany, speech at the sealing of its Century Box, 369, 370. Speech at a festival of, on Washington's Birth day, 591-593. Arnold, Benedict, 306. Visit to his headquarters at the Beverly-Robinson house on the Hudson, 14. Arnold, Hon. Samuel Greene, mention of his death, 128. Associated Charities of Boston, the organization of the society, 97-101. B. Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard, mention of his death, 372. Baltimore, celebrates its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 172. Bancroft, George, the historian, 1, 107, 455, 644. His views in regard to the " Hutchinson letters," 6-8. Barnes, Gen. Joseph K., tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Peabody Fund trustees, 452-454. Bartlet, Rev. William S., 474. Bates, Joshua, 679 and note. Belknap, Dr. Jeremy, 33. Bell, John, 68. Benton, Thomas, his " Thirty Years View," quoted, 43. Bigelow, Hon. Erastus B., remarks on his death, 111-114. Bigelow, Dr. Jacob, 153. Remarks on his death, 23-26, 111. Blagden, Rev. Dr., 94, 98. Blaine's " Twenty Years of Congress,'' 608, Note. Boston, speech at Faneuil Hall on its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 166-170. Speech on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniver sary of the Pirst Church, with account of the drawing up of its old covenant, 175-180. Speech at the dedication of its new schoolhouse for the Public Latin and English High Schools, 223- 226. Boston Provident Association, address on withdrawing from its presidency after a term of twenty -five years, 93-96. Extract from its Annual Report of 1879, 97-103. Its organization, 98. Bowdoin, Gov. James, 152, 171, 172. Extracts from his inaugural address in 1780 before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 154-156. Bradford, William, 365, 366. Visit to the place where he was christened, 403. Brewster, Elder, visit to his old dwell ing place at Scrooby, 404. 614 INDEX. Broglie, Count de, 458. Brooks, Gov. John, his service at the Battle of Bunker Hill, 254. Brooks, William G., remarks on his death, 18, 19. Brougham, Lord, quoted, 546. Budington, Rev. William Ives, mention of his death, 114, 115. Bullock, Gov. Alexander Hamilton, trib ute to, 381-383. Bunker Hill Monument Association, illustrious names included in its list of presidents, 253. Address on un veiling its statue of Col. William Prescott, 253. Address of welcome to the French guests, 361, 362. Address at annual meeting on the Centennial of Peace, 431-436. Its contribution to the Bartholdi statue fund, 603. Letter of withdrawal from its presi dency, with remarks and resolutions of the Society, 603-605. Burgoyne, General, his surrender at Saratoga, 299, 300. Burton, John Hill, mention of his death, 281, 282. Butler, Rev. Dr. Clement M., 70, 194 n. C. Cabot, Sebastian, 391. Calhoun, John C, 38, 499. Cambridge, letter in reference to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its First Church, 609. Canning, George, 47. Canterbury, Archbishop of, his estimate of Dean Stanley and his services to the church, 283. Carrington, Col. Henry B., his "Battles of the Revolution," 265. Chadbourne, Paul A., mention of his death, 411. Channing, William Ellery, letter of, and reference to the proposed celebration at Newport of his birthday, 131-133. Chastellux, Marquis de, 326. Christian, Judge, extract from speech at the unveiling of Daniel Morgan's statue, 276. Chulaloukorn, R. S., King of Siam, 484. Cincinnati, The Order of the, 435. Circourt, Count Adolphe de, tribute to the memory of, before the Historical Society, 116-123. Lamartine's esti mate of, 117. His literary labors and productions, 119-122, 124. Circourt, Count Albert de, 123. Circourt, Countess Anastasia de, 122. Clay, Henry, 183, 289. Memoir of, 38- 70. His tenure of office as Speaker of the House of Representatives, 42, 43, 45. A strong advocate of the Mis souri Compromise Bill, 43, 44. Secre tary of State under Adams, and the latter's tribute to his talents and public spirit, 45-47. Compelled by failing health to retire temporarily from public life, 48. Returns to pub lic life, and advocates the Compromise Tariff Bill of 1833, 49. The Presi dential candidate of the Whigs, 50. Letters from friends on his defeat, 51, 52. His position on the slavery ques tion, 57, 58. His fascinating address and magnetic qualities, 59, 60. Anec dotes of, 60, 61. His religious relations, 68-70. Remarks at his reception in Boston in 1833, 71. • Cobb, David, 319. Columbus, Christopher, appropriateness of an American monument and inter national celebration in his honor, 619- 521. Concord, letter on its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 605. Conway, Thomas, quoted, 548. Cooper, Peter, 172 and note. Cornwallis, Lord, 314, 315. Oration on the one hundredth anniversary of his surrender at Yorktown, 296-349. Cotton, John, 19. Cradock, Matthew, Governor of the Massachusetts Company, 74. Creasy, Sir Edward, quoted, 300. Crittenden, John J., his eulogy of Clay quoted, 70. Crocker, Hon. Uriel, 441. Curry, Dr., retires from the general agency of the Peabody Fund, 572. Cushing, Hon. Caleb, remarks on his death, 19-22. D. Dana, Richard H., the patriarch of New England literature, 25. Dana, Richard H, Jr., tribute to his memory, 372, 373. Darwin, Charles, mention of his funeral services, 423. David, Pierre Jean, his letter of gift to Congress with the bust of Lafayette, 289, 290. Davis, John, U. S. Senator from Massa chusetts, 21. Dearborn, Henry, 319. Deux-Ponts, Count William de, extracts from the journal of, 305, 306, 307. Dexter, George, 481, 482. INDEX. 615 Dix, General John Adams, remarks on his death, 34, 35. Downing, Emanuel, 74, 186. Dudley, Thomas, 75. Dumas, Count Matthieu, 328. Dwight, John S., 181. E. Edwards, Jonathan, 13. Eliot, Hon. Samuel A., first President of the Boston Provident Association, 94, 98, 586. Ellis, Dr. Geo. E., Vice-President of the Historical Society, 26. Extract from his Address on accepting the presi dency, 564, 565. English Prayer Book, The, consideration of the comparative absence of copies among- the early Massachusetts Colon ists, 192-194. Ericsson-, John, inventor of the " Moni tor," 16. Erskine, Lord, quoted, 546. Emerson, George Barrell, tribute to his memory, 229-232. Evans, George, 62. Everett, Edward, 1, 58, 228. Letter from, in reference to a proposed mis sion to England, 503. Fairbanks, George R., mention of his book, " The Spaniards in Florida," 31. Farrar, Canon, 284. Fersen, Count Axel de, 327. Fillmore, Millard, 58. Forbes, Robert Bennett, 471. Fox, Charles James, quoted, 546. Fox, Hon. Gustavus Vasa, mention of his death, 464-466. France, our national debt of gratitude to, 299, 334-338. Reception there of the news of the Fall of Yorktown, 346. Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 25, 272, 300, 547. Instrumental in the publication of the " Hutchinson Letters " in New England 2-4, 7, 9. Prominent in the negotiations for the Treaty of Alliance of 1778 between France and the United States, 10. His baptism at the Old South Meeting House, 150. Quoted in reference to the battle of Bunker Hill, 264. Portraits of, 429, 430. Fraser, Charles, quoted in reference to the Charleston portrait of Washing ton, 385. Frelinghuysen, Theodore, letter to Henry Clay on his defeat for the Presidency, 51. Frothingham, Richard, 1, 418. Re marks in reference to his death, 125- 127. Fuller, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 196. G. Gage, General, Governor of Massachu setts, 1. Quoted in reference to the Battle of Bunker Hill, 264. Gallatin, Albert, 53. Garfield, James A., 287, 349. Resolu tions adopted by the Historical So ciety in regard to his last illness, 278, 279. Garrison, William Lloyd, 59. Georgia Historical Society, mention of its work, 31. Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., quoted, 546. Goddard, Delano A., mention of his death, 373, 374. Goodwin, Daniel, his memoir of " The Dearborns," 495. Granary Burying-ground, tombs of his toric interest within its grounds, 84. Grant, Gen. U. S., tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Peabody Fund Trustees, 574-577. Grasse, Count de, 325. Gray, Asa, 153. Gray, Hon. John Chipman, tribute to his memory, 227-229. Green, John Richard, tribute to his memory, 415—417. Green, Dr. Samuel A., his efforts for the preservation of places of historic in terest in Boston, 83 n. Greene, General Nathanael, 81. Greene, George Washington, mention of his death, 402. Greenough, Richard, 25. GrenviUe, Lord George, institutes the Commission of Revenue for America in the time of Hutchinson, 6. Grigsby, Hugh Blair, President of the Virginia Historical Society, tribute to his memory before the Massachu setts Historical Society, with resolu tions 235-238, 239. Grinnell, Hon. Joseph, 174. Gurney, Joseph John, 69. H. Hale, Artemas, 173. Hallam, Henry, the historian, 406. 616 INDEX. Hamilton, Alexander, at the Siege of Yorktown, 310, 321. Hampden, John, 203, 300. Interesting facts in regard to his portrait now in the Executive Mansion at Washing ton, 243-252. Theory of his supposed visit to America, 245, 247-250. Hariot, John, 393, 391. Harvard, John, the statue of at Cam bridge, 459, 460. Haven, Dr. Samuel F . mention of, his death, 281. Henry, Patrick, quoted, 548. Herzburg, Count, quoted, 547. Higginson, Rev. Francis, 73. Hillard, George Stillman, remarks on his death, 26-29. Hoar, Judge, 85 n. Hodgson, William B., 31. Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, quotation from his " Chambered Nautilus," 226. Holyoke, Dr., 153, 173. Huber-Saladin, Colonel, 124. Hudson, Hon. Charles, 174. Tribute to his memory; 233-235. Humphreys, David, 320. Hunt, William Morris, 112. Hutchinson, Thomas, Governor of Mas sachusetts, " Extracts from the Jour nal of," as published by the Historical Society, 1. The acquisition of the "Hutchinson Letters" and their sub sequent publication in New England considered, 1-10. I. Irving, Washington, 309n., 485. Jacie, Rev. Henry, letter to John Win throp, junior, 197, 198. Jackson, Dr. James, 153. Jackson, General Henry R., President of the Georgia Historical Society, 31. Jefferson, Thomas, 499, 548. Johnson, Eastman, 590. Johnson, Isaac, 74, 79, 177. Johnson, Lady Arbella, 74, 79, 177. Jones, Dr. John Winter, mention of his death, 281. K. Kennedy, J. P., Letter from, in regard to a proposed mission to England, 504. Kentucky Historical Society, The, 33. King's Chapel Burying-ground, Re marks on its proposed destruction, 77- 85. Tombs of special interest within its limits, 82-83. Knox, Brigadier-General Henry, 318. Laboulaye, Edouard de, tribute to his memory, 425-429. His interest in our War of the Rebellion, and later efforts in the matter of the Bartholdi statue, 426, 427. Lafayette, Edmond de, letter of accept ance as honorary member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, 437. Lafayette, General, 10, 299, 333, 361. Interesting facts in relation to his por trait in the House of Representatives at Washington, 287-289. Mention of his bust as presented to Congress by M. David, 289-291. His early en thusiasm and efforts for the cause of American liberty, 301, 302. Portraits of, 408-410. Extract from letter to Washington, 549. Lamartine, Alphonse, his tribute to Count Adolphe de Circourt, 117. Lameth, Count Charles de, 328. Langdon, Elwyn, Dr. Alfred, 494, 495. Laurens, Colonel John, 322. Extract from Washington's letter to, in France, 304. Lauzun, Duke de, 326. Lawrence, Amos A., 32. Lee, Henry, quoted in regard to the Battle of Bunker Hill, 266. Lenox, James, remarks on his death, 128-130. Lexington (Kentucky), remarks on its early settlement and Centennial Cele bration, 105, 106. Lincoln, Abraham, 65, 56, 59. Lincoln, Major General Benjamin, 317. Lodge, Henry Cabot, 85 n. Long, Hon. John D, 524. Lothrop, Dr. S. K, 94. His Remarks before the Boston Provident Associa tion on the resignation of its Presi dent, 102, 103. Lowell, Hon. James Russell, 285, 392. Lowell, Hon. John Amory, mention of his death, 364, 865. Luther, Martin, remarks on the four hundredth anniversary of his birth day, 467-470. Lyman, Hon. Theodore, remarks at the dedication of a fountain in memory of, 608. INDEX. 617 M. Macgregor, John, his gift of the por trait of John Hampden to Congress, 244-247. Brief mention of his life and literary productions, 252. Marsh, Hon. George P., extracts from letters relative to the design proposed for the Washington monument, 140- 143. Marshall, Chief Justice, 497, 643. Martin, Henri, tribute to, 479. Maryland Historical Society, 33. Massachusetts, one hundredth anniver sary of the adoption of its Constitu tion of Government, 147. Remarks relative thereto, 171-174. Massachusetts Bible Society. Introduc tory address at its seventieth anniver sary, 36, 37. Remarks at its annual meeting, with mention of John Wy cliffe, 146-148. Introductory remarks at its annual meeting in reference to the Revised New Testament, 240-242. Address of congratulation on the enduring nature of its work, with mention of the funeral of Darwin, 420-424. Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic As sociation, 436. Address at the open ing of their new building, 292, 293. Massachusetts Company, consideration of its transfer in 1630 of the Charter and Government to New England, 73-77. , Massachusetts Historical Society, re marks at a meeting of, Feb. 14, 1878, in regard to the " Hutchinson Let ters," 1-10. " Wayside Anecdotes " related at a meeting of, Nov. 14, 1878, 13-17. Fiftieth anniversary of its oc cupancy of its present building, with notice of gift from Mrs. Frothingham, 414-419. Interesting gifts to, 476-478, 483-485, 512-515. New historical works of interest to, 568, 559. Re marks on withdrawing from its Presi dency, with tributes from the society and members, 560-565. Portrait of Webster presented to, with brief sketch of its history, 588-590. Mayo, Rev. Dr., quoted in regard to Southern schools, 567. McCrady, General Edward, his "Edu cation in South Carolina " considered, 472, 473. Mcllvaine, Bishop, 285, 500, 502, 577. Meade, Bishop, 190 n. Mignet, Francois A. Tribute to his memory, 487-494. Letter from, quoted, 489 n. Minot, William, letter accompanying gift to Historical Society of Mumbet's necklace, quoted, 477. Missouri Compromise, The, one of the special safeguards of the Free States against the unlimited extension of Slavery, 44. Mommsen, Theodor, destruction of his library and manuscripts by fire, 165. Moore, Dr. George H., 613, 614. Morgan, Daniel, the hero of the Cow pens, 270, 276, 303. Morris, Gouverneur, quoted, 547. Morse, Dr. Jedediah, 245. Mount Auburn, Dr. Jacob Bigelow's efforts in behalf of, 25. Mumbet, first Blave emancipated by law in Massachusetts, 478. N. Nelson, Thomas, 329. Nesbit, Miss, 94. Newburgh, its Centennial Celebration, 461. Newell, Rev. Dr. William, mention of his death, 363. New York Historical Society, The, 33. Norcross, Hon. Otis, mention of his death, 438. O. O'Hara, Brigadier Charles, 316, 317. Old South Meeting-House, as an object of historic interest, 149, 150. Old Virginia Historical Society, The, 32. Otis, James, 2. Oxford Historical Society, 473. Palfrey, Dr. John Gorham, mention of his death, 238, 239. Parker, Hon. Francis E., 94. Tribute to his memory, 686, 587. Parsons, Prof. Theophilus, 381. Peabody Education Fund, Address at the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, Oct. 2, 1878, 11, 12. Address at a meeting of the Trustees on the work of the Board in regard to Southern schools, 87-90. Award of Gold Medal in 1877 by the Paris Exposition, 91. The formal organization of its Board of Trustees, 208. Dr. Sears's sugges tions as to its application, 209-211. 618 INDEX. His appointment as its General Agent and his service to the cause, 211-222. Consideration of its past success and the difficulties to be overcome in the future, 442-452. The desirability of national aid, 445, 510. The Nashville Normal College as one of its benefici aries, 571, 672. Peabody, George, Donor of the Peabody Education Fund, 208, 212, 216, 221, 285, 562. Peabody, Rev. Dr. Ephraim, founder of the Boston Provident Association, 94, 98, 586. Pearce, Hon. James A., on the accept ance by Congress of the Hampden portrait, 244-247. Pennsylvania Historical Society, The, 33, 497. Perkins, Thomas Handasyde, tribute to his memory with reference to his ef forts for the Washington monument, 578-585. Philadelphia, its heritage of historic glory, 151. Phillips, John O, 555. Phillips, Rev. George, early pastor at Watertown, 196, 555. Pickering, John, 153. Pickering, Timothy, 319. Porcher, Prof. F. A., President of the South Carolina Historical Society, 32. Preble, Admiral George Henry, 556. Prescott, Col. William, Oration delivered at the unveiling of his statue on Bunker Hill, 253-275. Outline of his defence of Bunker Hill, 259-262. Brief sketch of his life, 267-270. "The Crossed Swords," 277. Prescott, William H., 121. Priestley, Dr. Joseph, 4. Puritans, The, Paper on their relation to the Church of England 184-198. Q. Quincy, Edmund, 25. Quincy, Eliza Susan, 485. E. Ranck, Prof. George W. Historical Ad dress at the Centennial Celebration of Lexington, Ky., 106. Randolph, John, 60. Rawdon, Lord, 316. Riggs, George W., mention of, before the Peabody Fund Trustees, 295. Rochambeau, Count de, 324, 407, 410. Rochambeau, Marquis de, letter of, 437. Rouerie, Marquis de la, 327. Rush, Richard, 47, Russell, Jonathan, 43. Ryece, Robert, 74, Sackville Manuscripts, The, mentioned and cited, 513. Sainsbury, W. Noe'l, 161, 162. St. Simon, Marquis de, 327. Salem Church, its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 73. The influ ence of its early organization on the transfer of the Government and com ing over of the Massachusetts Com pany in 1630, 73-77. Salisbury, Hon. Stephen, tribute to his memory, 515-517. Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 75. Scammel, Alexander, 319. Scheffer, Ary, 299. His letter with the portrait of Lafayette and the resolu tions of Congress thereon, 288, 289. Scott, Winfield, 58. Sears, Rev. Dr. Barnas, 12, 88, 91, 294. Tribute to the memory of, before the Historical Society, 163-165. Tribute to his memory before the Trustees of the Peabody Fund showing his ser vices to the cause of Southern Schools, 206-222. The immediate cause of his death, 206, 207. His preliminary sug gestions for the application of the Peabody Fund, 209-211. His final acceptance of the General Agency of the Fund, 211. Letters showing the success of his first efforts and his en thusiasm for the work, 212-215, 217, 218. His unyielding devotion to the cause, 218, 219. Brief sketch of his life and work in other relations, 221, 222. Sedgwick, Theodore, 14. Seeley, John Robert, his lectures on "The Expansion of England" 462, 463. Sergeant, John, preaches to the Indians at Stockbridge, Mass., 13 and note. Sewall Diary, mention of, 16. Sharkey, Judge Wm. L., quoted, 448. Shurtleff, Dr. N. B., his " Topographical and Historical Description of Boston," quoted, 79. Simpson, Daniel, 455. " Sitting Bull," 484. Skelton, Rev. Samuel, 73. Smith, Rt. Rev. Benj. Bosworth, 455. His reminiscences of Henry Clay, 69. INDEX. 619 South Carolina Historical Society, The, 31. Southern Historical Society, The, 32. Sprague, Hon. Peleg, 173. Stanhope, Lord, quoted, 300, 314. Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Dean of West minster, tribute to the memory of, 282-286. His eager interest in Amer ica and Americans, 284, 285. Steuben, Baron von, 323, 366. Stockbridge, Mass., its monument on the site of the burying-place of the old Housatonic tribe of Indians, 13. Stone, Rev. Edwin M. 477. Storrs, Dr. Richard S. 182. Sumner, Charles, 366. Taylor, General Richard, mention of his death, 90, 91. Taylor, President Zachary, 52. Temple, John, Surveyor-General of Customs in America at the time of Hutchinson, and his connection with the " Hutchinson Letters," 6-8. Ternay, Admiral de, 302. Thackeray, Wm. Makepeace, his men tion of " The Crossed Swords," 277. Thayer, Nathaniel, remarks on his death, 412, 413. Thompson, Benjamin (Count Rumford), 150. Tuttle, Charles Wesley, remarks on his death, 279, 280. Tyler, President, 49. V. Virginia, the early Church organization of its Colonists, 190. Visconti, Baron, Recollections of, with translation of letter and Latin inscrip tion, 199-205. W. Warren, Hon. George Washington, men tion of his death, 439. Warren, Joseph, his death at Bunker Hill and its immediate effect on the country at large, 263. Statue in honor of, 275. Washington Chair, The, 86. Washington, George, 329-332, 408, 435, 436. His reception of the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 264. His des pondency during the winter of 1780- 81 at the condition of the Continental Army, 302-304. The Charleston por trait of, with incidents relating thereto, 384-388. Oration at the dedication of the Washington Monument, 534-553. Washington Monument, memorial to Congress relative to its completion, 134-139. Extracts from letters in ref erence to its proposed design, 140-143. Resolution of Congress in regard to the ceremonies at its dedication, 623, 524. Oration delivered at the dedica tion, 525-553. Brief history of its construction, 525-534, 554. The ef forts of Thomas Handasyde Perkins and others for contributions to its building fund, 578-585. Letters in regard to its dedication, 600-602. Watts, George Frederic, 518. Wayne, Anthony, 321, 456. Webster, Daniel, 21, 38, 49, 54, 65, 66, 255, 434, 613, 542. His tribute to Colonel William Prescott, 266. Trib ute to his memory before the Marsh field Club on its Centennial Celebra tion of his birthday, 375-380. Letter relative to the Washington medals, 457. Crayon portrait of, with brief sketch of its history, 688-590. Weed, Thurlow, corrections of the Auto biography of, 499-508. Wetmore, Samuel, 573. Whately, Thomas, 1, 6. Whig Party, The Old, its character and purpose, 55, 66. White, Rev. John, "the Patriarch of Dorchester " (England), 192. Whittier, John G., tribute to, 602. Wilder, Hon. Marshall P. 455. Williams, Roger, 195. Statue of, at Washington, 459. Winthrop, Benjamin Robert, remarks on his death, 85, 86. Winthrop, John, Governor of Massachu setts, 74, 75, 179, 272. His burial and tomb in the King's Chapel Burying- ground, 79-82. Statue in his memory unveiled on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Boston, 167. His relations to the Church of England, with extracts from his letters and papers still ex tant, 184-198, 600. Copy of letter still preserved amongst the Kimbolton Papers, 394-398. Winthrop, Hon. Robert C, invitation from Congress to deliver oration at Yorktown on the Centennial Celebra tion of the Surrender of Cornwallis. 350, 351. Tribute from Citizens of 620 INDEX. Massachusetts, and placing of his portrait at Washington amongst those of the Speakers of the House of Representatives, with resolutions of Congress relating thereto, 351-360. Resolutions of the City Council of Charleston in recognition of his efforts in behalf of the Washington portrait, 388. Offered an unofficial mission to England during our Civil War, 500, 601, 502. Appointed by Congress to deliver the Oration at the dedication of the Washington monument, 624. Remarks on withdrawing from the presidency of the Historical Society, with tributes from the Society and members, 560-665. Letters 597-609. Woods, Rev. Dr. Leonard, President of Bowdoin College, remarks on his death, 23. Wycliffe, John, mention of before the Massachusetts Bible Society, 146-148. Remarks before the Historical Society relative to the Commemoration at New York in his honor, 182. Wythe, George, the Virginian Chancel lor, 40. Yorktown, 367. Mention of its pro posed Centennial Celebration, together with a suggestion as to the desirability of a monument commemorative of the Surrender of Cornwallis, 106-108. Memorial of the Massachusetts His torical Society to Congress in aid of the proposed monument, 109, 110. Oration delivered at the One Hun dredth Anniversary of the Surrender of Cornwallis, 296-349. Incidents of the siege and final surrender, with mention of officers engaged, 309-330. Young, Dr. Alexander, his theory in regard to John Hampden's supposed visit to America, 248-250. University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. YALE UNIVERSITY a39002 00it336930b