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injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding of blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof."

In his acts, Americans, you have seen the man. In the complicated excellence of character, he stands alone. Let no future Plutarch attempt the iniquity of parallel. Let no soldier of fortune, let no usurping conqueror, let not Alexander or Cæsar, let not Cromwell or Buonaparte, let none among the dead or the living, appear in the same picture with WASHINGTON: or let them appear as the shade to his light.

On this subject, my countrymen, it is for others to speculate, but it is for us to feel. Yet, in proportion to the severity of the stroke, ought to be our thankfulness, that it was not inflicted sooner. Through a long series of years has God preserved our WASHINGTON a public blessing: and now that he has removed him forever, shall we presume to say, What doest thou? Never did the tomb preach more powerfully the dependence of all things on the will of the Most High. The greatest of mortals crumble into dust, the moment He commands, Return, ye children of men WASHINGTON Was but the instrument of a benignant God. He sickens, he dies, that we may learn not to trust in men, nor to make flesh our arm. But though WASHINGTON is dead, Jehovah lives. God of our fathers! be our God, and the God of our children! Thou art our refuge and our hope; the pillar of our strength; the wall of our defence, and our unfading glory!

Americans! this God, who raised up WASHINGTON, and gave you liberty, exacts from you the duty of cherishing it with a zeal according to knowledge. Never sully, by apathy or by outrage, your fair inheritance. Risk not, for one moment, on visionary theories, the solid blessings of your lot. To you, particu

larly, O youth of America! applies the solemn charge. In all the perils of your country, remember WASHINGTON. The freedom of reason and of right, has been handed down to you on the point of the hero's sword. Guard, with veneration, the sacred deposit. The curse of ages will rest upon you, O youth of America! if ever you surrender to foreign ambition, or domestic lawlessness, the precious liberties for which WASHINGTON fought, and your fathers bled.

I cannot part with you, fellow-citizens, without urging the long remembrance of our present assembly. This day we wipe away the reproach of republics, that they know not how to be grateful. In your treatment of living patriots, recall your love and your regret of WASHINGTON. Let not future inconsistency charge this day with hypocrisy. Happy America, if she gives an instance of universal principle in her sorrows for the man "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!"

AN ORATION,

DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH DECEMBER 22, 1802,

AT THE ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST LANDING OF OUR ANCESTORS, AT THAT PLACE :

BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

AMONG the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of christianity, the happiness of the individual is interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other. Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity. spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No; he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact: he was made for his species, by the christian duties of universal charity: he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles, "Existence sees him spurn her bound

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youthful conqueror was restrained by the clemency of the benevolent man: the butchery of the American garrison, at New London, would have justified and seemed to demand an exercise of the rigors of retaliation. This was strongly intimated to colonel Hamilton, but we find, in his report to his commanding officer, in his own words, that, "incapable of imitating examples of barbarity, and forgetting recent provocations, he spared every man who ceased to resist."

Having, soon afterwards, terminated his military career, he returned to New York, and qualified himself to commence practice as a counsellor at law. But the duties and emoluments of his profession were not then permitted to stifle his solicitude to give a correct tone to public opinion, by the propagation of principles worthy of adoption by a people who had just undertaken to govern themselves. He found the minds of men chafed and irritated by the recollection of their recent sufferings and dangers. The city of New York, so long a garrison, presented scenes and incidents, which naturally aggravated these dispositions, and too many were inclined to fan the flame of discord, and mar the enjoyment and advantages of peace, by fomenting the animosities engendered by the collisions of war. To sooth these angry passions; to heal these wounds; to demonstrate the folly and inexpediency of scattering the bitter tares of national prejudice and private rancor among the seeds of public prosperity, were objects worthy of the heart and head of Hamilton. To these he applied himself, and by a luminous pamphlet, assuaged the public resentment against those, whose sentiments had led them to oppose the revolution; and thus preserved from exile many valuable citizens, who have supported the laws and increased the opulence of their

native state.

From this period, he appears to have devoted himself principally to professional occupations, which were multiplied by his increasing celebrity, until he became

period would be soon obliterated from the memory, but for some periodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian. Such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of the bosom. They are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memory of our ancestors, and of the tenderness with which we cherish the rising generation. They introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to the notice and emulation of succeeding times: they are at once testimonials of our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children.

These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity. And what event of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was ever selected for this honorary distinction?

In reverting to the period of their origin, other nations have generally been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers. It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details: an event of which the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to your own age: an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks at the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness to behold, in those eminent characters who were most conspicuous in accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtues you can dwell with honest exultation. The founders of your race are not handed down to you, like the father of the Roman people, as the sucklings of a wolf. You are not descended from a nauseous compound of fanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whose only paradise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God;

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