home-blow to our oppressors. Such were the troops who, fired by Gates in the northern woods, almost decided the fate of nations. Such were the troops who, under the great and amiable Lincoln, sustained a siege in circumstances that rank him and them with the captains and soldiers of antiquity. Such, we trust, are the troops who, inferior in number, though headed indeed by the gallant and judicious Morgan, lately vanquished a chosen veteran band long dedicated to Mars and disciplined in blood. And such, we doubt not, are the troops who beat the British legions from the Jerseys, and have ever since preserved their country, under the conduct of that superior man who combines in quality the unshaken constancy of Cato, the triumphant delay of Fabius, and upon proper occasions the enterprising spirit of Hannibal.

resents any violence offered it, as an attack | from the nature of things. On the one hand upon his life-hence it is that, in free states, as behold an inspired yeomanry, all sinew and such, there is no such thing as a perpetual soul, having stepped out and defended their standing army. For the whole body of the ancient altars, their wives and children, returnpeople, ever ready, flock to the general stand-ing in peace to till those fields which their own ard upon emergency, and so preclude the use arms have rescued. Such are the troops of of that infernal engine. I say infernal engine, every free people.* Such were the troops who, for the tongue "labors, and is at a loss to ex-led on by the patriot Warren, gave the first press," the hideous and frightful consequences that flow wherever the powers of hell have procured its introduction. Turkey and Algiers are the delight of its vengeance. Denmark, once over-swarmed with the brave inhabitants of the north, has suffered depopulation, poverty and the heaviest bondage from the quartering troops amongst their peasants in time of peace: if it can be called peace, when robbery, conflagration and murder are let loose upon the sons of men. Indeed, it is said that no nation ever kept up an army in time of peace that did not lose its liberties. I believe it. Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, and Greece in general were all overturned by that tremendous power: and the same power has been long operating with other causes to humble the crest of Britain. Let us hear a passage from Davenant; "If (says he, speaking of standing armies) they who believed this eagle in the air frighted all motions towards liberty; if they who heretofore thought armies in times of peace and our freedom inconsistent; if the same men should throw off a whig principle so fundamental, and thus come to clothe themselves with the detested garments of the tories, and if all that has been here discoursed on should happen, then will the constitution of this country be utterly subverted."* It would exceed the limits of the present occasion to expatiate upon all the instances wherein the liberties of Britain have in fact suffered according to the views of Davenant. Suffice it to say that a standing army has been, long since, virtually engrafted a limb upon her constitution, has frequently overawed her parliament, sometimes her elections,† and has carried distraction and massacre into different parts of her empire.

That standing mercenary troops must sooner or later entail servitude and misery upon their employers, is an eternal truth that appears

For the whole passage, which was too lengthy for our purpose, vid. the works of Dr. Davenant, corrected by Whitworth, vol. ii. p. 333.-Edition 1771.

+ The election of the Scotch Peers in the year 1735, and the misconduct of Blackerby and others, at the election of the Westminster members in the year 1741, are instances well known.-Vid. Burgh's Politic Disq. 2d vol. p. 444 and 473.

The affair of Capt. Porteus at Edinburgh (vid. London Magazine for 1737, in a variety of pages) and of Capt. Preston, at Boston, are of themselves sufficient examples.

May the name of Washington continue steeled, as it ever has been, to the dark slanderous arrow that flies in secret. As it ever has been! for who have offered to eclipse his glory, but have afterward sunk away diminished, and "shorn of their own beams."

Justice to other characters forbids our stopping to gaze at this constellation of heroes, and would fain draw forth an eulogium upon all who have gathered true laurels from the fields of America.

"Thousands-the tribute of our praise

Demand; but who can count the stars of heaven?
Who speak their influence on this lower world."
Thomson.

Whither has our gratitude borne us? let us behold a contrast-the army of an absolute prince- a profession distinct from the citizen and in a different interest—a haughty phalanx, whose object of warfare is pay, and who, the battle over, and if perchance they conquer, return to slaughter the sons of peace. This is a hard saying. But does not all history press forward to assert its justice? do not the præ

"That the yeomanry are the bulwark of a free people " -was, if memory serves, in a celebrated extempore speech of the honorable Samuel Adams, made in the year 1773. The steadiness of that great republican to his political creed, evinces that sentiments grounded upon just data will not easily bend to a partial interest, or accommodate to the changes of popular opinion.

The provocations of that night must be numbered among the master-springs which gave the first motion to a vast machinery, a noble and comprehensive system of national independence. "The independence of America," says the writer, under the signature of Common Sense, "should have been considered as dating its era from the first musket that was fired against her." Be it so! but Massachusetts may certainly date many of its blessings from the Boston massacre-a dark hour in itself, but from which a marvellous light has arisen. From that night revolution became inevitable, and the occasion commenced of the present most beau

the original contract, and of mankind, in the early ages, passing from a state of nature to immediate civilization. But what eye could penetrate through gothic night and barbarous fable to that remote period. Such an eye, perhaps, was present, when the Deity conceived the universe and fixed his compass upon the great deep. t

torian bands of tottering Rome now crowd | were, from the intricate * though all-wise Divinity upon the affrighted memory? do not the em- which presided upon that night. Strike that night bodied guards from Petersburg and Constantino- out of time, and we quench the first ardor of a ple stalk horrid the tools of revolution and mur-resentment which has been ever since increasder? to come nearer home for an example, doing, and now accelerates the fall of tyranny. we not see the darkened spring of 1770, like the moon in a thick atmosphere, rising in blood and ushered in by the figure of Britain plunging her poignard in the young bosom of America? Oh, our bleeding country! was it for this our hoary sires sought thee through all the elements, * and having found thee sheltering away from the western wave, disconsolate, cheered thy sad face, and decked thee out like the garden of God? Time was when we could all affirm to this gloomy question-when we were ready to cry out that our fathers had done a vain thing. -I mean upon that unnatural night which we now commemorate; when the fire of Brutus was on many a heart-when the strain of Grac-tiful form of government. We often read of chus was on many a tongue. "Wretch that I am, whither shall I retreat? whither shall I turn me? to the capitol? the capitol swims in my brother's blood. To my family? there must I see a wretched, a mournful and afflicted mother? "+-Misery loves to brood over its own woes and so peculiar were the woes of that night, so expressive the pictures of despair, so various the face of death,‡ that not all the grand tragedies which have been since acted, can crowd from our minds that era of the human passions, that preface to the general conflict that now rages. May we never forget to offer a sacrifice to the manes of our brethren who bled so early at the foot of liberty. Hitherto we have nobly avenged their fall: but as ages cannot expunge the debt, their melancholy ghosts still rise at a stated season, and will forever wander in the night of this noted anniversary. Let us then be frequent pilgrims at their tombs-there let us profit of all our feelings; and, while the senses are "struck deep with woe," give wing to the imagination. Hark! even now in the hollow wind I hear the voice of the departed. O ye, who listen to wisdom and aspire to immortality, as ye have avenged our blood, thrice blessed! as ye still war against the mighty hunters of the earth, your names are recorded in heaven!

Such are the suggestions of fancy: and having given them their due scope; having described the memorable fifth of March as a season of disaster, it would be an impiety not to consider it in its other relation. For the rising honors of these states are distant issues, as it

-elementa per omnia quærunt.—Juv.

+ Guthrie's Cicero de Oratore.

"Plurima mortis imago."

And yet the people of Massachusetts have reduced to practice the wonderful theory. A numerous people have convened in a state of nature, and, like our ideas of the patriarchs, have deputed a few fathers of the land to draw for them a glorious covenant. It has been drawn. The people have signed it with rapture, and have, thereby, bartered, among themselves, an easy degree of obedience for the highest possible civil happiness. To render that covenant eternal, patriotism and political virtue must forever blaze-must blaze at the present day with superlative lustre ; being watched, from different motives, by the eyes of all mankind. Nor must that patriotism be contracted to a single commonwealth. A combination of the states is requisite to support them individually. "Unite or die" is our indispensable motto. Every step from it is a step nearer to the region of death. This idea was never more occasional than at the present

* "The ways of heaven are dark and intricate."

Addison's Cato. Not that we can believe, with some theoretical writers, that individuals met together in a large plain, entered into

an original contract, etc.

But though society had not its formal beginning from any convention of individuals, etc. And this is what we mean by the original contract of society; which though perhaps, in no instance it has been formally expressed, at the first institution of a state, yet, etc.—

1st Blackstone's Com. p. 47, vid, the whole passage.

1782,

BY GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT. Quid tantum insano juvat indulgere dolori ? -non hæc sine numine divum.

Eveniunt

Virg. Æn. 2d, 776.

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum ;
Et documenta damus, qua sinus origine nati.
Ovid Metam. Lib. 1, 414.

crisis-a crisis pregnant with fate and ready to | ORATION DELIVERED AT BOSTON, MARCH 5, burst with calamity. I allude to that languor which, like a low hung cloud, overshadows a great part of the thirteen states. That the young, enterprising America, who stepped out in the cause of human kind, and no other arm daring, lopped the branches of wide despotic empire-that the same America should now suffer a few insolent bands to ravage her borders with impunity-that her now tardy hand should suspend the finishing stroke of resentment, and leave to her generous allies a labor which her own vigor ought to effect; this must disturb those, illustrious, who fell in her infant exertions; this must stab the peace of the dead, however it may affect the hearts of the living. Oh could I bear a part among the means of awakening virtue-oh could I call strength to these feeble lungs and borrow that note which shook the throne of Julius! vain wish! if the silent suggestions of truth-if the secret whispers of reason are not sufficientthe efforts of human eloquence might be futile, her loudest bolt might roll unheeded!

This is not intended to inspire gloom; but only to persuade to those exertions which are necessary to life and independence. Let justice then be done to our country—let justice be done to our great leader; and, the only means under heaven of our salvation, let his army be replenished. That grand duty over, we will once more adopt an enthusiasm sublime in itself but still more so as coming from the lips of a first patriot-the chief magistrate of this commonwealth." I have, said he, a most animating confidence that the present noble struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously for America." Aspiring to such a confidence,

I see the expressive leaves of fate thrown wide;
Of future times I see the mighty tide.
And borne triumphant on its buoyant wave,
A god-like number of the great and brave.
The bright, wide ranks of martyrs-here they rise-
Heroes and patriots move before my eyes:
These crown'd with olive, those with laurel come,
Like the first fathers of immortal Rome.
Fly time! oh lash thy fiery steeds away--
Roll rapid wheels and bring the smiling day,*
When these blest states, another promis'd land,
Chosen out and foster'd by the Almighty hand,
Supreme shall rise- -their crowded shores shall be
The fix'd abodes of empire and of liberty.

Sun gallop down the western skies,
Gang soon to bed and quickly rise;
O lash your steeds, post time away,
And haste about the bleezing day.

Allan Ramsay.

Fathers, friends, and fellow citizens—When I consider the important occasion from which this anniversary derives its origin, and the respectable characters that have exerted themselves to perpetuate its history, I confess there is an unusual security in my feelings: since no mistaken effort of mine can injure an institution founded on so memorable an event, and supported by names so justly claiming the applause of posterity.

While I rely, then, upon that honesty of intention, which is itself the best apology for its errors, permit me to employ the present hour, which your united voices have annually made sacred to the commemoration of our country's wrongs, in recapitulating the most injurious of her sufferings, among which that on the tragical fifth of March is by no means the least, and in recounting the blessings which have followed from measures as really disgraceful to those who adopted them, as they were intentionally destructive to those against whom they were levelled.

A nation falling from those great principles of justice and virtue which had made her respectable; subverting the boasted improvements of her arts to the savage purposes of revenge; with venality and corruption entrenched on her cabinet, affords a spectacle too serious for the amusement of the beholder. He turns for relief to the annals of those people whose masculine virtues have obstinately, will he not say wisely, resisted the refinement of a civilized world. But from the misfortunes of such a nation, much is to be learned. As she is hurried onwards by the vortex of that immeasurable gulf, in which empires sink to rise no more, let her serve us as a signal to avoid the first impulse of its resistless tide.

To trace Great Britain through the whole progress of her ambition in this country, would be to step back to a very early period; for, long before she avowed her system of colonial slavery in the stamp-act, the liberties of our ancestors had endured the most alarming innovation from her throne. Without cause, and without notice, she had invalidated their charters; laid impositions upon their trade;

attempted a most dangerous influence over | cause, armed an extensive world in support of their internal government, by endeavoring to make it independent of the people ;-and all this with the same confidence, as though her policy and foresight, and not her persecutions, had settled them on this side the Atlantic.

necessity, is tyrannical,” and if tyranny justifies | ment * upon the best mankind have hitherto

resistance, to have remained inactive, under these injuries, had been a kind of political stoicism, equally inconsistent with the laws of nature and society. On such principles arose the memorable declaration of July, 1776.—A declaration which at once gave life and freedom to a nation; dissolved a monopoly unnatural as unjust; and extended the embraces of our country to the universe.—A declaration which heaven has since ratified by the successful event of her arms. For, when we consider the number of her victories; the disadvantages under which they were obtained; the chain of important consequences which depended upon the very moment of their decision, who but must acknowledge, after allowing to our military actors every thing heroism can claim, that there appeared peculiar marks of more than human assistance? the surrender of entire armies to a power which they affected to look upon rather as an object of their chains than of their swords, was a degree of glory of which no enemy that ever passed the Roman yoke afforded to that republic. Hapless Britain ! for even those whom you injure must pity you, how has fortune added acrimony to her fickleness, in choosing for a scene of your disgrace, that climate where, in a late war, she so loudly vaunted the invincibility of your arms !

admired. The quick return of all delegated power to the people, from which it is made to spring, and the check which each part of the government has upon the excesses of the other, seem to warrant us in placing on it all the confidence human laws can deserve. But,

Let us not trust laws: an uncorrupted people can exist without them; a corrupted people cannot long exist with them, or any other human assistance. They are remedies which at best always disclose and confess our evils. The body politic, once distempered, they may indeed be used as a crutch to support it a while, but they can never heal it. Rome, when her bravery conquered the neighboring nations, and united them to her own empire, was free from all danger within, because her armies, being urged on by a love for their country, would as readily suppress an internal as an external enemy. In those times she made no scruple to throw out her kings who had abused their power. But when her subjects fought not for the advantage of the commonwealth; when they thronged to the Asiatic wars for the spoils they produced, and preferred prostituting the rights of citizenship upon any barbarian that demanded them, to meeting him in the field for their support, then Rome grew too modest to accept from the hands of a dictator those rights, which she ought to have impaled him for daring to invade. No alteration in her laws merely, could have effected this. Had she remained virtuous she might as well have expelled her dictators as her kings. But what laws can save a people who, for the very purpose of enslaving themselves, choose to consider them rather as councils which they may accept or refuse, than as precepts which they are bound to obey? † with such a people they Among the advantages which have risen must ever want a sanction and be contemned. from these great events to the people of Massa-‡ Virtue and long life seem to be as intichusetts, that of securing their lives, their mately allied in the political as in the moral liberties, and property, the great object of all world: she is the guard which providence has civil government, by a constitution of their own set at the gate of freedom. framing, is not to be accounted the least. Dismembered from a government, which had long stood by the exactest balance of its powers, even against the corruption of its ministers, they found themselves accustomed to principles, which age had stamped with authority, and patriots sealed with their blood. The cause of their separation had taught them the avenues through which despotism insinuates itself into the community, and pointed out the means of excluding it. Under these circumstances they produced a system which, we trust, experience will evince to be an improve

America once unfettered, nobly relied upon the uprightness of her cause and the bravery of her sons. But, as though the virtues of one crown were to apologize for the merciless cruelty of another, a monarch, equally wise in council as brilliant and powerful in arms, met her in alliance which must ever enliven her gratitude; exalt the honor of France, and we trust too, promote the interests of both.

True it is, when the nature and principles of a government are pure, we have a right to suppose it at the farthest possible distance from falling.

* Is it not so in the equality of representation and mode of election?

Sylla ever had, would be apt to imagine this general disposition of the people wiped away the guilt of enslaving them from any hand that effected it. If in any case, 'tis in this that we may apply the maxim volenti non fit injuria.

† A conscience more scrupulous, than it is probable

Virtue, in a republic, is a most single thing, it is a love for the republic; it is a sensation, and not a consequence of acquired knowledge: a sensation that may be felt by the meanest as well as by the highest person in the state." Spirit of Laws, Book 5th, chap. ad.