that you ought to have taken possession of New Orleans and the Floridas, the instant your treaty was violated. You ought to do it now. Your rights are invaded: confidence in negotiation is vain: there is, therefore, no alter5 native but force. You are exposed to imminent present danger: you have the prospect of great future advantage: you are justified by the clearest principles of right: you are urged by the strongest motives of policy: you are commanded by every sentiment of national dignity. Look 10 at the conduct of America in her infant years. When there was no actual invasion of right, but only a claim to invade, she resisted the claim; she spurned the insult. Did we then hesitate? Did we then wait for foreign alliance? No,-animated with the spirit, warmed with the soul 15 of freedom, we threw our oaths of allegiance in the face of our sovereign, and committed our fortunes, and our fate, to the God of battles. We then were subjects. We had not then attained to the dignity of an independent republic. We then had no rank among the nations of the earth. But 20 we had the spirit which deserved that elevated station. And now that we have gained it, shall we fall from our honor? Sir, I repeat to you, that I wish for peace; real, lasting, honorable peace. To obtain and secure this blessing, let us, by a bold and decisive conduct, convince the powers of 25 Europe, that we are determined to defend our rights; that we will not submit to insult; that we will not bear degradation. This is the conduct which becomes a generous people. This conduct will command the respect of the world. Nay, sir, it may rouse all Europe to a proper 30 sense of their situation. They see, that the balance of power, on which their liberties depend, is, if not destroyed, in extreme danger. They know that the dominion of France has been extended by the sword, over millions, who groan in the servitude of their new masters. These 35 unwilling subjects are ripe for revolt. The empire of the Gauls is not, like that of Rome, secured by political institutions. It may yet be broken. But whatever may be the conduct of others, let us act as becomes ourselves. I cannot believe, with my honorable 40 colleague, that three fourths of America are opposed to vigorous measures. I cannot believe, that they will meanly refuse to pay the sums needful to vindicate their honor, and support their independence. Sir, this is a libel on the people of America. They will disdain submission to the proudest sovereign on earth. They have not lost the spirit of '76. But, sir, if they are so base, as to barter their rights for gold,--if they are so vile, that they will not defend their honor,-they are unworthy of the rank 5 they enjoy, and it is no matter how soon they are parcelled out among better masters. LESSON CCXVIII.-OUR DUTIES TO OUR COUNTRY.-DANIEL WEBSTER. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and generations to come, hold us responsible for this 5 sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal voices; posterity calls out to us, from the bosom of the future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes,-all, all conjure us to act wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain. We can 10 never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing, through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our children. Let us feel deeply how much, of 15 what we are and what we possess, we owe to this liberty, and these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given us a soil which yields bounteously to the hands of industry; the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our heads shed 20 health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture? and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent, and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a 25 free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence 30 and the benefits of this liberty, and these institutions. Let us then acknowledge the blessing; let us feel it deeply and powerfully; let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted. The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us,-a topic to which, I fear, I advert too 5 often, and dwell on too long,-cannot be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can perform their part well, until they understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to 10 swell a light and empty feeling of self-importance; but it is that we may judge justly of our situation, and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our position, and our character among the nations of the earth. 15 It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, 20 by a newly awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been before altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected, fast bound 25 up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upheld them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection which binds the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully 30 discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly 35 upon our path. Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those other stars have now joined the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our 40 beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity. LESSON CCXIX.-ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.-E. [From a Speech before the British Scientific Association.] There seems to be something peculiar in the relation between England and the United States, well calculated to form a basis, as I trust it does and ever will, of kind feelings between both. The relation of colony and 5 mother country, which formerly subsisted between England and the United States, is, of course, not new in the world. From the beginning of history, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, sent out their colonies to relieve a superabundant population, or in the spirit of commercial enterprise 10 or to consolidate their distant conquests; but there can, in the nature of things, be no other example of such a relation as exists between us. Only consider the separate companies of adventurers, some of them actuated by the highest and noblest feelings 15 that can influence the heart and govern the conduct of men, traversing a mighty ocean which bears them all at once froin the mature arts of civilization to the wildest nature,-from the mother country into a savage wilderness, unknown, till then, to the rest of man20 kind. Here they laid the deep and broad foundations of free states, destined, under a multitude of causes, which it is impossible for me here even to glance at, in the maturity of time to grow up into a great family of communities, independent, at least politically, of the mother country; 25 but still, in their common language and kindred blood, forming, with that mother country, one commercial, social, and intellectual community, destined, I believe, as such, to fulfil the highest ends in the order of Providence. Suppose, that a similarity were traced by one of your 30 members, between the geological formations of our two countries. Suppose, that, landing on the coast of America, he should find there the most peculiar strata and the most characteristic fossils of Great Britain, proving, beyond doubt, that, in the primeval ages, our two countries were 35 part and parcel of the same continent; would not this discovery be hailed with pleasure, and this splendid generalization be welcomed, by every man of science, into the circle of his favorite theories? Then I ask you, gentlemen, is it a less interesting fact, 40 that, in crossing this mighty ocean to America, you find there the traces, not of similar strata of coal and gypsum, not like formations of sandstone and granite and graywacke, but the traces of kindred families of rational beings? Is it not a delightful fact, that the foot-prints that you first meet there, are not merely those of the fossil ani5 mals, whose paradoxical existence was terminated in ages into which history strives in vain to penetrate, even to the vestibule, but the footsteps of men, of kindred men, of men descended from your blood and your revered ancestry, and called, with you, hand in hand, to walk together 10 over the great stage of accountable existence, and to engage, with you, in the investigation of all those high and grand problems that are tasking the minds of civilized men, in this age of the world? It seems to me, that, if it be the great object of all 15 science, as Sir John Herschell has said, to expand and elevate the mind; that, among the topics considered this day, there is not one more calculated to expand and elevate the rational mind, than such a connection between two great countries. Why, it is only since 20 the reign of James the Second, and Charles the First, which is but as yesterday, in the long line of British history, that a few adventurers rather stole across the ocean, than navigated it. Two hundred years have passed away; and out of that little insignificant germ of national exist25 ence, millions and millions have grown up, and formed a great and mighty nation, in close connection with your own. And, in whatever light we regard each other, commercial, political, literary, social, or moral, we are destined to exercise an all-powerful influence upon each other,-I 30 believe I may say, without exaggeration, to the end of time. In the world of science, I would rather say, there has never been a separation between us. There are no boundary questions in that pacific realm. The first patron that ever Sir Humphrey Davy had, (if it be not a shame to 35 pronounce the word patron, in connection with such a name,) the first individual who had the honor of helping him into notice was an American citizen; for under the somewhat lofty disguise of "Count Rumford," lies concealed plain Benjamin Thompson," the son of a New 40 England farmer. Dr. Franklin was first led to turn his attention to electricity by experiments exhibited by an itinerant British lecturer, in the large towns of the then British colonies; and he pursued his inquiries in this branch of science with a few articles of apparatus sent out |