consecrate our labors, in the cause of our native land. When we engage in that solemn study, the history of our race; when we survey the progress of man, from his cradle in the East, to these limits of his wandering; when we behold him forever flying westward from civil and religious thraldom, over mountains and seas, seeking rest and finding none, but still pursuing the flying bow of promise, to the glittering hills which it spans in Hesperian climes, we cannot but exclaim, with Bishop Berkeley, the generous prelate of England, who bestowed his benefactions, as well as blessings, on our Country; men. "Westward the course of Empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; In that high romance, if romance it be, in which the great minds of antiquity sketched the fortunes of the ages to come, they pictured to themselves a favored region beyond the ocean; a land of equal laws and happy The primitive poets beheld it, in the Islands of the Blest; the Doric bards fancied it, in the Hyperborean regions; the Sage of the Academy placed it in the lost Atlantis; and even the sterner spirit of Seneca could discern a fairer abode of humanity, in distant regions then unknown. We look back upon these uninspired predictions, and almost recoil from the obligation they imply. By us must these bright dreams be realized, by us must be fulfilled these high visions, which burst in trying hours upon the longing hearts of the champions of truth. There are no more continents or worlds to be revealed; Atlantis hath arisen from the ocean; the furthest Thule is reached; there are no more retreats beyond the sea, no more discoveries, no more hopes. Here, then, a mighty work is to be performed, or never, by the race of mortals. The man, who looks with tenderness on the sufferings of good men in other times; the descendant of the Pilgrims, who cherishes the memory of his fathers; the patriot, who feels an honest glow at the majesty of the system of which he is a member; the scholar, who beholds, with rapture, the long-sealed book of truth opened for all to read without prejudice; these are they, by whom these auspices are to be accomplished. Yes, brethren, it is by the intellect of the country, that the mighty mass is to be inspired; that its parts are to communicate and sympathize with each other, its natural progress to be adorned with becoming refinements, its strong sense uttered, its principles asserted, its feelings interpreted to its own children, to other regions, and to after ages. Meantime, the years are rapidly passing away and gathering importance in their course. With the present year, [1824,] will be completed the half century from that most important era in human history,—the commencement of our Revolutionary War. The jubilee of our national existence is at hand. The space of time, that has elapsed, since that momentous date, has laid down in the dust, which the blood of many of them had already hallowed, most of the great men to whom, under Providence, we owe our national existence and privileges. A few still survive among us, to reap the rich fruits of their labors and sufferings; and ONE* has yielded himself to the united voice of a people, and returned, in his age, to receive the gratitude of the nation, to whom he devoted his youth. It is recorded, on the pages of American history, that when this friend of our country applied to our commissioners, at Paris, in 1776, for a passage in the first ship they should despatch to America, they were obliged to answer him, (so low and abject was then our dear native land,) that they possessed not the means, nor the credit, sufficient for providing a single vessel, in all the ports of France. "Then," exclaimed the youthful hero, "I will provide my own ;" and it is a literal fact, that, when all America was too poor, to offer him so * General Lafayette was present, at the delivery of this Address. much as a passage to her shores, he left, in his tender youth, the bosom of home, of happiness, of wealth, of rank, to plunge in the dust and blood of our inauspicious struggle ! Welcome, friend of our fathers, to our shores! Happy are our eyes, that behold those venerable features! Enjoy a triumph, such as never conqueror nor monarch enjoyed, the assurance, that, throughout America, there is not a bosom, which does not beat with joy and gratitude, at the sound of your name! You have already met and saluted, or will soon meet, the few that remain, of the ardent patriots, prudent counsellors, and brave warriors, with whom you were associated, in achieving our liberty. But you have looked round, in vain, for the faces of many, who would have lived years of pleasure on a day like this, with their old companion in arms and brother in peril. Lincoln, and Greene, and Knox, and Hamilton, are gone; the heroes of Saratoga and Yorktown have fallen, before the enemy that conquers all. Above all, the first of heroes and of men, the friend of your youth, the more than friend of his Country, rests in the bosom of the soil he redeemed. On the banks of his Potomac, he lies in glory and in peace. You will revisit the hospitable shades of Mount Vernon, but him, whom you venerated as we did, you will not meet at its door. His voice of consolation, which reached you in the dungeons of Olmutz, cannot now break its silence, to bid you welcome to his own roof. But the grateful children of America will bid you welcome, in his name. Welcome! thrice welcome to our shores! and whithersoever, throughout the limits of the continent, your course shall take you, the ear that hears you shall bless you, the eye that sees you shall give witness to you, and every tongue exclaim, with heartfelt joy, Welcome! welcome, La Fayette! FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.* AMIDST all the proud and grateful feelings, which the return of this anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every child of New England, a deep solicitude oppresses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to the men and to the events, which we are met to commemorate. This solicitude, I would hope, is no mere personal feeling. I should be unworthy to address you, on this occasion, could I, from the selfish desire of winning your applause, devote the moments of this consecrated day to any cold speculations, however ingenious or original. Gladly would I give utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, could I be so happy in doing it, as to excite or strengthen the feelings, which belong to the time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to you those sentiments, which have been so often uttered and welcomed on this anniversary; sentiments, whose truth does not change in the change of circumstances; whose power does not wear out with time. It is not by pompous epithets or lively antitheses, that the exploits of the Pilgrims are to be set forth by their children. We can only do this worthily, by repeating the plain tale of their sufferings, by dwelling on the circumstances, under which their memorable enterprise was executed, and by catching that spirit, which led them across the ocean, and guided them to the spot where we stand. We need no voice of artificial rhetoric, to celebrate their names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of Nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. On the bare and wintry fields around us, their exploits are written, in characters, which will last, and tell their tale to posterity, when brass and marble have crumbled into dust. * Oration delivered at Plymouth, December, 22, 1824. The occasion, which has called us together, is certainly one, to which no parallel exists, in the history of the world. Other countries have their national festivals. They commemorate the birthdays of their illustrious children; they celebrate the foundation of important institutions. Momentous events, victories, reformations, revolutions, awaken, on their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic feelings of posterity. But we commemorate the birthday of all New England; the foundation, not of one institution, but of all the institutions, the settlements, the communities, the societies, the improvements, comprehended within our broad and favored borders. Were it only as an act of rare adventure; were it a trait in foreign, or ancient history; we should fix upon the achievement of our fathers, as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals of the world. Were we attracted to it, by no other principle, than that sympathy we feel, in all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing, it must gain, in the contrast, with whatever history or tradition has preserved to us of the wanderings and settlements of the tribes of man. A continent, for the first time, effectually explored; a vast ocean, traversed by men, women, and children, voluntarily exiling themselves from the fairest portions of the Old World; and a great nation grown up, in the space of two centuries, on the foundations, so perilously laid, by this pious band :-point me to the record, to the tradition, nay, to the fiction, of any thing, that can enter into competition with it. It is the language, not of exaggeration, but of truth and soberness, to say, that there is nothing, in the accounts of Phoenician, of Grecian, or of Roman colonization, that can stand in the comparison. What new importance, then, does not the achievement acquire for us, when we consider, that it was the deed of our fathers; that this grand undertaking was accomplished on the spot where we dwell; that the mighty region, they explored, is our native land; that the unrivalled enterprise, they displayed, is not merely |