tances so remote from those of his children that I have almost been deprived of the satisfaction of a personal acquaintance with them, and particularly with yourself. These are the circumstances which occasion the lapse of time since the publication of the enclosed discourses before my offering of copies of them to you. Wordly Wisdom was Doctor Franklin's God. An immense disproportion, if not the whole, of his virtues was concentrated in Prudence. His Justice was Prudence. His Fortitude was Prudence. His Temperance, what he had of it, was Prudence. His Philosophy was essentially that of Epicurus, perhaps in its least exceptionable form. The quaint sayings of Poor Richard's Almanac contain his whole system of morals. There is a question among the Classical Commentators upon Juvenal whether one of his celebrated lines should be read ΟΙ Nullum Numen abest si sit Prudentia, Nullum Numen adest ni sit Prudentia. There is a moral Philosophy of a higher order than that of Dr. Franklin. In the conclusion of the Preliminaries of Peace with Great Britain in November, 1782, Doctor Franklin concurred with his colleagues by signing the Treaty without previous communication of its contents to the Count de Vergennes. To have separated from his colleagues would have been imprudent; yet, if the withholding of the information from the French Government had been a breach of good faith, a man, to whom Prudence did not embrace the whole duty of man, would have refused to sign and abided by the consequences. Franklin signed with his colleagues, but his Prudence gave Vergennes to understand that the withholding of the contents of the Treaty had not been with his approbation. Nor did he suffer his friends in Congress to be ignorant of his private opinions, and hence the effort in Congress to pass a vote of censure upon their Commissioners, and the petulant letter of their Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The victorious reply of the Commissioners to that letter Dr. Franklin also signed. In the official Correspondence to the last he concurs with his colleagues. But he, like another of our most eminent Statesmen, had a language official, and a language confidential. If the vote of censure had passed in Congress, it would have been ostensibly as hard upon him as upon the rest, but his Prudence would have secured the means of turning it to his own account with Vergennes. Dr. Franklin's Life was a practical exemplification of the first of these readings. It was prosperous throughout a long Career. The virtue of Prudence carried him through more than four score years of successful achievements, and has left him a name among the most splendid of his Age and Country. It was in him united with a quick percep tion and a powerful activity of judgment. But he lived for this world, as if there was no other; and of the motive to acOf your father, I think it never was tion, traceable to the possibilities of a said that he had a language official and future state, he knew little or nothing. a language confidential. His Prudence 4 Sir: JUDGE JAY TO MR. ADAMS BEDFORD, 27th Octг., 1832. It is not without hesitation that I do myself the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your interesting letter of the 20th inst., and of the pamphlets accompanying it, lest I should seem. unnecessarily to trespass upon your time. and patience; and yet I am unwilling by my silence to afford you reason to think that your polite attentions to myself, and your expressions of regard for my Father, have failed to produce their proper impression. The pamphlets contain many excellent and useful sentiments, and the oration especially is admirably adapted to the present crisis. It recalled to my mind an expression of Genl Washington's in a letter to my Father: "The Monster -State Sovereignty." In a former letter you alluded to the friendship of Mr. Adams for my Father. I can bear witness that it was sincerely reciprocated. He seems always to have felt and cherished his obligations to Mr. Adams for the manly and generous support he gave him in 82, and in his old age still spoke of it with warmth and gratitude. This amusing trifle, signed by men whom we are taught to revere as grave and reverend seniors, is in the possession of Charles Bruff, of Brooklyn, to whom we are indebted for its reproduction. Mr. Jefferson, then our Minister to France, had been a short time before called by a private letter of Mr. Adams, then our Minister at London, to consult upon the terms of treaties with Portugal and Algiers. This letter was carried by Mr. Smith, then Adams' Secretary of Legation, and later the husband of his only daughter. Jefferson returned with him to London, where they met Richard Peters, well known in revolutionary history as Secretary to the Board of War, later as Judge of the U. S. Court in Pennsylvania, and celebrated for his dry wit and humor. It seems that these convivial spirits had engaged to dine with Mr. Adams on the evening of Saturday, the 25th of March, but were led astray by the attractions of Dolly's chop-house, long famous for its good cheer. There, at half-past two o'clock on Sunday morning, the rhyme, of which we give a facsimile, was written. It is supposed to be in the hand-writing of Col. Smith, but to have been dictated by Mr. Peters. It is addressed to "His Excellency John Adams, &c., &c., &c., corner Brooks Street, Grosvenor Square." It is amusing to read in the diary of John Adams that he dined with Richard Peters and a distinguished company at the table of the Bishop of St. Asaph's that same Sunday evening. The names of Jefferson and Smith do not appear in the list of the guests. We notice The reader may draw his own conclusions. their absence without comment. EDITOR EARLY PROPOSAL TO ANNEX THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI State of Georgia, Frontier of the Creek Nation, 1st March, 1787. May it please your Excellency, Having waited thus far in expectation of permission to join the Spanish troops in South America, and having expressed to your Excellency an ardent inclina tion to obtain the mere honor of serving in any Spanish regiment as a volunteer; which requisitions as they were not complied with in due time, I beg leave to decline the acceptance of any rank or degree in the service of his Catholic Majesty. The annals of history must have informed your Excellency, that many nations have had abundant reason to deplore the impolicy of those whom they had invested with the powers of government, in slighting the proffered services of men (however young like myself) whose bent, study and inclination naturally led to tactical pursuits and to war, and who afterwards arrived to the highest pinnacle of eminence and glory; at the woful experience of such countries and States as had rejected those early overtures of service in their armies. Not to talk of the Achaian league, or the Athenian, Spartan or Theban story, modern history is replete with such proofs; and your Excellency cannot but recollect (however in-applicable perhaps the instances may hereafter prove to a young and insignificant soldier of fortune,) what France had suffered from a rejected Eugene; and that Saxe whose services had been refused by an English court, had afterwards fertilized blood and carcasses of the slaughtered the plains of the Netherlands with the Britons. But to the point. Being a soldier of fortune, as I profess, and having studied from my infancy the science of arms, practical war is now my pursuit, as a profession most congenial with my prin ciples and disposition; and thousands of Americans (officers in the late war) pant for an opportunity to serve this country. The banks of the Ohio and Mississippi, are actually alive with the first American characters of this stamp, and called upon from thence by my heroic brethren of the army, honor, virtue and the bias of an ancient intercourse, and former habits incline me to assist them. From the Natches to the Kaskaskies, from Pittsburg to St. Mary's river, they are prepared to pour forth with the greatest ease 50,000 veterans in arms in defence of their commercial rights, throughout the navigable rivers of the southern parts of this empire. The grain is actually germinating, sown by the pride, avarice, and folly of a certain extern power, which the pure air of liberty working at the root, and the laws of nature, superior to the narrow policy of any foreign court, must finally and very speedily raise into a host of myrmidons, the children of Eacus; the sons of the earth; irresistible in this land, at least by any force that may obstruct their pretensions or assail them. The important drama, may it please your Excellency, is now approaching; a new drama, in which the tragedians of the west are to appear in the military buskin and I am invited to act as a character of some consequence among them. Time will tell how decisively my part shall be performed. Of this I am sure, that I shall exhibit to my utmost the part of a soldier. A very inconsiderable time must inevitably call forth to trial, the mighty energy of the Ohio and Mississippi; and incidents and events are gradually teeming into birth, which will shortly open a spacious field for a daring spirit to explore. May it please your Excellency, the States of Georgia, Franklin, and Ken tucky, confederated; the counties of Bourbon, &c., on the Natches; the settlements on Cumberland, Kaskaskies, and the Wabash, and the government of Pittsburg, Westmoreland, &c., abound with the seeds of war; nor will any obstruction from New Orleans to the Balise, impede the overwhelming inundation preparing to pour down along the waters of the Mississippi, into the Bay of Mexico. The torrent will be irresistible; the crop is actually in the ground; harvest is ready for the hook, and the hook for the harvest, the reaper has introduced his sickle, combustibles are laid into a pile, nay, the very brand is already applied, and the fire only requires to be fanned. The permission of Congress will not be solicited on this occasion. In Congress this people are not represented. I am now on my way to the western waters, where people too long confined to unnatural boundaries, are ready to float with the current of the Mississippi into the sea, and with irresistible irruption and impetuosity to burst over every artificial barrier and mound which may obstruct their free passage into the ocean. The Americans are amphibious animals. They cannot be confined to the land alone. Tillage and commerce are their elements. Both, or neither will they enjoy. Both they will have or perish. I have the honor to remain, with the utmost deference, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant, JOHN SULLIVAN, Late Captain 4th regiment American light dragoons. P. S. In the alternative of peace or war, I shall ever entertain the highest respect for your Excellency, and should be happy in the continuance of a candid correspondence. In this case, inclose my address to Major Thomas Washington of Georgia, who is acquainted with my routes. To his Excellency [Don Diego Gardoqui], the Spanish Minister at New York. The New York Packet, Friday, August 17, 1787. MULI IN NOTES METAL OBJECTS FROM INDIAN TUGEORGIA. Reprinted from the Smithsonian Report for 1877, is an interesting article, by Professor Charles Rau, entitled Observations on a gold ornament from a mound in Florida. His estimate of the age and origin of this relic appears entirely correct. As we well know, objects of European manufacture are not infrequently found in the grave-mounds of this region, once known by the general name of Florida, but they usually appertain to secondary interments upon the crests and along the slopes of tumuli, or are obtained from Indian graves of comparatively recent date. Occasionally occur instances where such relics evidently belonged to and formed a part of the original sepulture which the heap of earth, rock, or shell was designed to perpetuate. To an example of this sort do I refer on page 131 of my Antiquities of the Southern Indians. That the custom of mound-building was observed even within the historic period is capable of easy demonstration. Last winter while opening a shellmound on the Colonel's Island, lying near the mouth of Midway river, on the Georgia coast, I found in the heart of the structure and intermingled with the bones of several skeletons, a Portugese coin, bearing the date 1732 - the year prior to the settlement of the colony under Oglethorpe. It is in good preservation, presents the image and superscription of Joannes V, and was manifestly associated with the primal inhumation. About three years ago, from a small grave-mound near the Savannah river, in Columbia County in this State, was taken a gold coin interred with the deceased in whose honor this earth-pile had been erected. It is a piece of Cob money. Aside from the particular interest it possesses in the eye of the American Archæologist, because of its association with the primitive customs of the peoples, once cormorant here, who perpetuated, even after contact with Europeans, their habit of interring with the dead articles of use and ornament, it is of no inconsiderable value to the numismatologist. Both these coins lie before me as I write. Cherokee graves in Upper Georgia, and the burial places of the Creeks in the middle portions of the State, often yield an abundant supply of European beads, silver ornaments, and trinkets of foreign manufacture. But I have wandered from the object I had in view when I took up my pen. It was to call attention to a gold ornament, of primitive manufacture, which was obtained from an Indian grave in Duke's Creek Valley, one of the tributaries of Nacoochee valley in Cherokee, Georgia. It is a little less than an inch |