ties of friendship and consanguinity. The colonies loved the name of Briton, and felt connected with her name and fortunes. Her step-dame cruelty had wounded the hearts of her children, but had not extinguished their affections. The colonists had often entered complaints, and sometimes murmured a threat; but at the same time prayed that all might be well again soon. It was in vain : the divorce was necessary, and has been useful to both nations, and to the world. The mother country had wrong and contradictory impressions of us; they overrated our pecuniary means to pay taxes, and underrated the military talents which we possessed. They called our determination, obstinacy; our just indignation, a factious spirit; opposition was denominated rebellion; and no measure of indulgence could, consistently with the views of the ministry, be productive of any thing but mischief. The pride of the few in England overcame the judgement of the many; and the appeal to arms became inevitable. The colonies found this could not be averted by petitions, entreaties, or reasoning, and prepared, as well as they could, for the worst. That day was full of fate to us; and by the protecting hand of Providence, we were preserved. It should never be forgotton by us. All who live at this time, and have come up since that period, can hardly realize the solemnity and distress of this preparation for the conflict. After the battle of Lexington, all were seeking for means of attack and defence. The lead was stripped from the old fashioned diamond glass windows and melted for bullets; women gave their last flannel wrapper for the use of the artillery in making cartridges; every old firelock, whether of William and Mary or of Queen Anne, or those taken from the French at Louisbourg or Quebeck, was mended up for fight. The pulpits rang with the duties of the christian soldier, and the Bible heroes were emblazoned anew as examples for imitation. The clergy were not only tongue valiant, but many of them joined the train-bands, and were ready to fight the battles of freedom. Matrons not only assisted to gird on the swords of their husbands, but put the weapons of war into the hands of their beardless sons, and urged them to the field of danger. Who could withstand such a spirit? What foe could meet men so sent out? The whole of the existence of the colonies had been preparing them for this sad crisis, as it then seemed to all; but which, in truth, was only the forerunner to national independence and national consequence, in the eyes of those who were first among the nations of the earth. A whole people, as well as individuals, have their hours of despondency; and this was one, indeed, for our own people; but the minds of men, women, and children, were all prepared for the struggle. There was nothing of hasty impulse in their determination, nothing un

thought of, by sire and son; they had compared notes, and settled the course to be pursued in any event. Another hour like this will, perhaps, never again be found in the history of man. The English were, as a nation, totally incapable of understanding the force of this moral pressure upon a people so educated and so oppressed. It was a subject worthy the attention of the philosophers of the mind, and those who wished to analyze the laws by which nations are governed, when oppression acts upon those "who know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain them." This solemn determination which did not vent itself in words, but was ready to show itself by deeds, was entirely misunderstood by those who pretended to examine the tone of feeling, and to try the spirit of the people they were sent to awe to silence and submission. There were a few, indeed, who came to this country, and a few in England, who had never been here, who clearly foresaw all that would happen, for they were well acquainted with the nature, principles, and resources of the people of America.

The battle of Bunker Hill was important in many respects. It was fought on something like a systematick plan. The officers had generally been in battle; many of them were at Louisbourg, which had been taken just thirty years before, even to a day; and others, at a later period, had been with Abercrombie, Amherst, or Wolfe, on the frontiers. Putnam, Prescott, Gridley, Stark, and many of the others, even to the common soldiers, had seen much service. The British were not aware of the manner in which the yeomanry were officered, and thought, or affected to believe, that the show of force was nothing more than a rabble. The battle was commenced as a matter of amusement by the British forces; about one half of those who were led up the hill between three and four o'clock, had crossed from Boston to Charlestown at twelve o'clock, and dined directly in full view of the American redoubt; they were certain that as soon as a movement was made, the Americans would run, and the battle-field would be their own, without danger or bloodshed. The manner in which these troops were met was deadly and tremendous; all the beauty of the pageant was soon over. In this battle, at least fifteen hundred of the flower of the English army were slain in less than two hours, and a greater proportion of their officers than usual. More than three hundred of the corses of the slain were brought to Boston, and buried at the lower part of the common, to hide the amount of their loss. Never was there a more sudden and awful lesson than the British soldiers experienced on this memorable day. The provincials fought until all their ammunition was expended, and they had seen the best and bravest of all his Majesty's troops again and again retiring from the effect

of their fire. There were not too many of the provincials killed for the desired effect of rousing the energies of the people, and giving a solemnity to the occasion; and enough of the British to show the provincials that regular soldiers were neither invulnerable nor invincible. Had the Americans gained a victory, in all probability the ministry would have sent out twice as many soldiers for the next campaign as they did. The ministry were told this was only a smart skirmish, and would not be repeated. The British disguised, as much as possible, the effects of this battle on their numbers, and more so the effect produced on the spirits of their troops. The loss of General Warren made a great impression on the minds of our people in every part of the country. His name, as president of the provincial congress, as chairman of the committee of safety, his fame as a splendid orator, and his acknowledged patriotism and bravery, had fixed him indelibly in the hearts of his countrymen. They honoured others from duty and policy, they followed him from affection. "The blood of the martyrs,” it has been said, "was the seed of the church." From this patriot's blood, we may say, sprang myriads of armed men. The affecting fable of the sacrifice of the Athenian virgins to the sea-born monster, rightly read, is precisely this: that the best and purest of the youthful blood of Athens was spilt to maintain their naval superiority, as their only, or their best defence, in the infancy of their existence. Our fate was similar; our youthful blood was poured out for the country. Long since the events of that memorable day, the story of the fall of Warren has been told to children as matter of example and excitement, and his name and his virtues have come down to posterity with those of Washington. Great occasions produce great men. Necessity is said to instruct her children better in self-defence than other mothers.

For a century and an half the people of this country had been educated in the school of self-defence. These lessons they were often forced to write in characters of blood. They had been so often thrown upon their resources, that they never suffered any feelings of despair to weigh them down. They had known nothing of the pageantry of war, nor its power in advancing one to wealth and honour; but they had been made acquainted with its difficulties and hardships. They had a sufficiency of those native elements which make courage a principle, and something of the experience which makes it a habit.

We have opened upon the revolution; but we cannot, at this moment, indulge in even a glimpse of the heroes of that war; their deeds, and their fame, shall be the burden of some future lecture. It is now the right time, perhaps, to write out the memoirs of that

age, and of these men; for we are not so near the era of the revolution as to catch, and to incorporate the partialities and prejudices which were then abroad, into our opinions upon their merits; nor are we so far from that time, as to require the aid of fiction to fill up our picture. We have been companions, in later times, with many of the actors in those scenes; and from our childhood have heard them recount the circumstances of the revolution, most minutely, again and again. There are, thank heaven, some few of these veterans still lingering among the living; these can, yea, do assist us in giving faithful descriptions of the scenes they witnessed, and correct delineations of the characters they have known. I know that it is impossible for any one writer to do justice to all; but another may finish what one begins, and in the progress of time much may be effected. I shall attempt to sketch some of these characters hereafter, without any other pretensions than that of a sincere lover of my country's talent, wherever, or whenever it may be found. I have breathed the same air, and trod the same soil, in common with them, and that is something towards a fitnesss for my labour. I will illustrate what is difficult to describe. A gentleman from this country, several years since, visited Italy, and became familiarly acquainted with the great Praxiteles of modern times, Canova; he was often at his rooms, and one day, while the great master was giving the last touch to his statue of Washington, the keen sighted physiognomist observed by the countenance of his familiar visitor, that he was making a comparison, in his mind, between this work and an exquisite bust of Napoleon, on the table. The sensitive sculptor exclaimed, but in his own sweet language,—“I have seen the emperor, and have breathed the air of France; but I never crossed the Atlantick—never saw your country—never heard the voice of Washington."

As man is constituted, civil liberty cannot be preserved without military strength; sylvan scenes, and the golden reign of perpetual peace, exist only in the dreams of the amiable theorist; they are not in nature. Military prowess shows the muscular strength and mental energy of a people, and often is a proof of their advancement in arts and sciences; for there is not a particle of human knowledge, but may be of use in a camp or on a battle-field. The higher the science of war is carried by a nation, the more certainty there is of her being at peace. There is an eloquence in cannon which reaches a foe above all the silver-tongued instruments of art. The argument from a full mouthed battery is powerfully convincing. The spirit to defend may degenerate into a passion to conquer. This, by a people of cultivated minds, will be guarded against and prevented; sages and warriors should live together; but the disposition to

quarrel is generally found to be in an inverse ratio with the ability to fight. History is full of proofs to this effect; and ancient and modern fiction furnish a thousand mirrors to reflect this truth. The Lilliputians were constantly preparing their tiny bows and arrows for an attack, and misconstrued courtesy into insult; but the giants of old seldom waged war; and when they did, it was against the gods they fought, sure of the sustaining power of their mother earth.

LECTURE XIV.

For what of thrilling sympathy,

Did e'er in human bosom vie

With that which stirs the soldier's breast,
When, high in godlike worth confest,
Some noble leader gives command,

To combat for his native land?
No; friendship's freely flowing tide,
The soul expanding; filial pride,
That hears with craving, fond desire,
The bearings of a gallant sire;
The yearnings of domestick bliss,—
E'en love itself, will yield to this.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

On the 2d day of July, 1775, Washington arrived at Cambridge, and took command of the American army. He was not at this time much known to the officers of that army; but in addition to his having been selected by the continental Congress, a body which had the confidence of all the people, his personal appearance, his military air, his sage demeanour, his attention to every minutiæ of the camp, and his punctilious regard to religious observances, at once commanded respect and admiration. This soon ripened into that enthusiastick veneration, which had before been rather the creature of the imagination than the belief of the understanding. This adoration, for it came as near it as any thing a mortal could inspire, was never for a moment lessened by accident or reverse of fortune. Washington had the undiminished affections of NewEngland from that hour to the last moment of his existence. The