purchase a morning's meal, than the Paper rags with which their country had rewarded their services;-yet their souls stood erect in the dignity of freedom, spurning the meanness of lawless violence, conscious of the rectitude of the cause in which they suffered, and resolved to do nothing incompatible with the great principles of right and justice, on which their country's claim to freedom and independence was founded.

The patriot of future times, will love to pause and linger on the spot, where, for the first and only time, the chivalry of America grounded their arms,—not to a foreign foe, nor to a domestic conquerer, but the peace and glory of that country which their valor had redeemed, and which their magnanimity alone could preserve. He will behold them, voluntarily abandoning a profession their achievements had ennobled, returning to pursuits their habits had rendered. irksome, and vainly striving to repair the fortunes their patriotism had dissipated, by toilsome industry and slow accumulation. Perhaps he will observe some natural tears coursing down their manly cheeks, as the war worn veterans turn from their comrades in toil and glory, and, with more than a poet's feeling, bid farewell, a "long farewell" to all the

"Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war."

When the tempest-beaten mariner has outrode the long storm at sea; when the clouds disperse from the heavens. and the sun breaks forth on his fiery track, giving promise of a glorious morrow, and a calm and prosperous voyage; then he trims anew his shattered sails, refits his gallant ship, and, calculating his distances, and setting his course, sings the merry song of home, and dreams of his little ones, safe by the far fireside, where no tempests beat, and no dashing waves drive the vessel awreck.

But, after the long storm of war and revolution had ended, and the gallant heroes of America beheld their ship of state

riding proudly on a tranquil sea, the sun of peace shining gloriously around her, and the winds of prosperity filling her sails, alas, there was no song of home heard upon her deck; her tempest beaten mariners could dream of no peaceful firesides, unswept by the gale; the same terrible storm that had driven their barque on the troubled sea of revolution, had too often visited their defenceless dwellings with desolation, and driven their families, unprotected upon the world, to seek a scanty subsistence, as chance or charity might offer. Such, are some of the perils, sufferings and sacrifices which our forefathers encountered in laying the foundations of that national liberty, which, though it left them poor indeed, was destined to cover their posterity, to the latest generation, with benefits and glories surpassing the comprehension of the finite mind. Enough will it be for their immortal renown, that an impartial world shall record of them, that in their adversity they knew no despair, in their prosperity no elevation; that, having redeemed a nation by their valor, they blessed mankind by their example, having shaken a world by their arms, they adorned it with their virtues, and filled it with tears by their death.

To these high and ennobling qualities in the character of our revolutionary heroes, may be attributed the singular success which crowned their struggle for independence, in distinction from those thousand bloody efforts, which, in other times and other nations, have begun in ambition and and ended in tyranny. Mistaken, however, is the man, who supposes that the acknowledgement of the independence of the colonies, by the King of Great Britain, was the consummation of that system of rational civil liberty, which has been so long the wonder and the blessing of the trans-atlantic world;-that, on the bursting forth of the sun of peace in this western hemisphere, the native tree of liberty sprang up spontaneously in the soil, and matured and bore fruit, like those germinating plants of spring, that shoot, and blossom and cast their seed, in a single season.

The convulsive throe of the nation had cast off the fetters of a foreign power, had dissolved the connection between the old and the new world, and had given to the conquerors the undisputed possession of thirteen independent states. But it had done more. It had severed the connection between the past and the future; it had dissolved the relations between former opinions and those that were to come, between ancient institutions and modern, between old governments and new. It had given to the patriots of the revolution the possession, as it were, of a new province in the moral world; it had cast upon them the responsibility of cultivating and improving an unexplored territory in the political hemisphere. Into this wilderness domain, without a chart or a guide, worn down by a long war, pinched by poverty, oppressed by the jeers of surrounding nations, and threatened with the invasions of savage foes, they were about to enter, for the first time,-to clear away the rubbish of prejudice, to open the virgin soil to the seeds of virtue, to mark the first lines of social order, to clear away the channels of religious freedom, to erect new forms of government, and to build new bulwarks of national liberty.Here they were to commence the establishment of that empire of freedom, which, throughout all the past, had found no prototype-throughout all the future was to widen and strengthen, till the whole earth was covered with its benefits.

We are told by the historian, that the great discoverer, who first conceived the idea of a new world beyond the western wave,—who toiled for near fifteen years in traveling from court to court, to dispel the prejudices, to enlighten the ignorance, and to excite the enterprise of stupid princes and their more stupid subjects,-who, at last, embarked with his little convoy, and, after a painful and protracted voyage, arrived in sight of the object of all his hopes, and refreshed his senses with the spicy gales and green groves of his own

"hesperian isles," we are told that even he, who had given a new empire to Castile and Leon, a new world to civilized man, found the difficulties attending the settlement of his discovered realm so great, that he scarcely planted on it a single flourishing colony, that he left not on it a single enduring memorial, and that he died, far away from its shores, poor and unfriended in his native land.

The pages of history also inform us, that the little but gallant band of pilgrim fathers, who, driven from their homes by the fires of persecution, embarked from the port of Leyden in the good ship May-Flower,-who, after months of buffeting in the northern seas, at last reached their longsought asylum, on the rocky coast of Plymouth;—we are told that even they, the fathers and pioneers of New England's greatness, found the difficulties of subduing the wil derness so numerous, the cold of the winter so severe, and the inroads of the savages so fatal, that nearly their whole number perished, with hunger, or disease or violence, before a comfortable settlement was effected, or any of the joys of that country, whose blessings they were unfolding, began to be realized.

Not unlike to the history of their misfortunes, was the lot of many of the political adventurers, who embarked their destiny in the struggle for American independence. Of their number, some perished on the battle field, some died of disease, some were carried away captive into foreign lands; and when at last, the long war was ended, and the remaining few were cheered with the sound and sight of that liberty which had been so long the idol of their dreams and the object of their toil, alas! they found they had reached only the shadow of their hopes, they had arrived only at the vestibule of the temple of freedom.

Their country was indeed disenthralled, but her treasury was exhausted, her credit was impaired, her soil was impoverished, her commerce blasted, her entire energies palsied

or destroyed by the blighting hand of war. The bands of the confederation were breaking loose, the clashing States were rushing madly apart, the arm of the General Government was becoming daily more feeble, the empire of the laws was giving way, the elements of society seemed tending back to their original discord and anarchy.

Ah! who can tell how many a noble heart fainted in view of all these appalling obstacles! Who can tell how many a war-worn veteran sunk hopeless into the grave, ere the soil he had labored to redeem, brought forth its plenteous harvest of peace and prosperity!

Yet, thanks to Heaven, there were brave spirits remaining, whose unconquered patriotism triumphed over every obstacle,-whose resistless genius penetrated and subdued the political wilderness, and made the desert bud and blossom as the rose. They planted in the virgin earth the living seeds of national greatness; they upreared on the free soil, the vast frame-work of the Government; they struck out the golden links of that mighty chain, that was to bind together the States of the Union; they planted those thousand institutions of social and religious liberty, which still continue to adorn and bless the nation, and among which, none is more grand, permanent and consistently beautiful than the present constitution of the United States.

It was not to be expected, however, that the establishment, even in this western hemisphere, of a new and resplendent system of popular government, would long be inoperative on the rest of the nations. The wheel of revolution, which began to turn on this side of the Atlantic, though for a while it moved on with regularity, and was arrested when the public good required it, could not long be controlled.Crossing the broad ocean, it re-commenced its rotations among the monarchies of Europe, with a fearful and gigantic power. Impelled by the passions and prejudices of nations, just aroused to a sense of their wrongs and a con