BANNOCKBURN. OBERT BRUCE defeated the English, under Edward II., at the village of Bannockburn, Scotland, on the 24th June, 1314. The battle was a severe one, the English losing about thirty thousand men. This victory decided the fate of Scotland and secured its liberation from English rule. It is the boast of Scotchmen that their country was never conquered by England, the two countries being united by the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English throne, under the title of James I. of England. BANNOCKBURN. ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. COTS, wha hae* wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham+ Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to glorious victory! Now's the day, and now's the hour; Edward, chains and slavery. Wha will be a traitor knave? * Who have. 1 So. A belt of straw and ivy-buds, When in her way she meets them, they Come live with me and be my love. appear Peculiar people death has made them dear. He named his friend, but then his hand she prest, The shepherd swains shall dance and sing, And fondly whispered, "Thou must go to Come live with me and be rest." my love. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.* HE whole scene now lay * The principal persons who are represented as viewing the battle from Copp's Hill are the British generals Burgoyne and Clinton; Major Lionel Lincoln, a young American in the English service; and Job Pray, a half simpleton, who is the attendant of Lincoln, but whose sympathies, unlike those of his master, are with the Americans. the neglected kilns in their front and over the whole landscape, that was in gloomy consonance with the approaching scene. Far on the left, across the waters of the Charles, the American camp had poured forth its thousands to the hills, and the whole population of the country, for many miles inland, had gathered to a point to witness a struggle charged with the fate of their nation. Beacon Hill rose from out the appalling silence of the town of Boston like a pyramid of living faces, with every eye fixed on the fatal point, and men hung along the yards of the shipping or were suspended on cornices, cupolas and steeples in thoughtless security, while every other sense was lost in the absorbing interest of the sight. The vessels of war had hauled deep into the rivers, or, more properly, those narrow arms of the sea which formed the peninsula, and sent their iron missiles with unwearied industry across the low passage which alone opened the means of communication between the self-devoted yeomen on the hill and their distant countrymen. While battalion landed after battalion on the point, cannon-balls from the battery of Copp's and the vessels of war were glancing up the natural glacis that surrounded the redoubt, burying themselves in its earthen parapet or plunging with violence into the deserted sides of the loftier height which lay a few hundred yards in its rear, and the black and smoking bombs appeared to hover above the spot as if paus ing to select the places in which to plant their deadly combustibles. Notwithstanding these appalling preparations and ceaseless annoyances, throughout that long and anxious morning the stout husbandmen on the hill had never ceased their steady efforts to maintain to the uttermost extremity the post they had so daringly assumed. In vain the English exhausted every means to disturb their stubborn foes; the pick, the shovel and the spade continued to perform their offices, and mound rose after mound, amidst the din and danger of the cannonade, steadily and as well as if the fanciful conceits of Job Pray embraced their real objects and the laborers were employed in the peaceful pursuits of their ordinary lives. This firmness, however, was not like the proud front which high training can impart to the most common mind; for, ignorant of the glare of military show, in the simple and rude vestments of their calling, armed with such weapons as they had seized from the hooks above their own mantels, and without even a banner to wave its cheering folds above their heads, they stood sustained only by the righteousness of their cause and those deep moral principles which they had received from their fathers, and which they intended this day should show were to be transmitted untarnished to their children. It was afterward known that they endured their labors and their dangers even in want of that sustenance which is so essential to support animal spirits in moments of calmness and ease; while their enemies on the point, awaiting the arrival of their latest bands, were securely devouring a meal which to hundreds amongst them proved to be their last. The fatal instant now seemed approaching. A general movement was seen among the battalions of the British, who began to spread along the shore under cover of the brow of the hill, the lingering boats having arrived with the rear of their detachments, and officers hurried from regiment to regiment with the final mandates of their chief. At this moment a body of Americans appeared on the crown of Bunker Hill, and, descending swiftly by the road, disappeared in the meadows to the left of their own redoubt. This band was followed by others, who, like themselves, had broken through the dangers of the narrow pass by braving the fire of the shipping, and who also hurried to join their comrades on the low land. The British general determined at once to anticipate the arrival of further reinforcements, and gave forth the long-expected order to prepare for the attack. The Americans had made a show, in the course of that fearful morning, of returning the fire of their enemies by throwing a few shot from their light field-pieces, as if in mockery of the tremendous cannonade which they sustained. But as the moment of severest trial approached, the same awful stillness which had settled upon the deserted streets of Charlestown hovered around the redoubt. On the meadows, to its left, the recently arrived bands hastily threw the rails of two fences into one, and, covering the whole with the mown grass that surrounded them, they posted themselves along the frail defence, which answered no better purpose than to conceal their weakness from their adversaries. Behind this characteristic rampart several bodies of husbandmen from the neighboring provinces of New Hampshire and |