tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare and a Milton upon my imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God I possessed in common with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porteus upon my religion. This is a British influence which I can never shake off. I allow much to the just and honest prejudices growing out of the Revolution. But by whom have they been suppressed, when they ran counter to the interests of my country? By Washington. By whom, would you listen to them, are they most keenly felt? By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, Newgate, and Kilmainham, since the breaking out of the French Revolution; who, in this abused and insulted country, have set up for political teachers, and whose disciples give no other proof of their progress in republicanism, except a blind devotion to the most worthless military despotism that the world ever saw. These are the patriots, who scruple not to brand with the epithet of Tory, the men [looking toward the seat of Col. Stewart] by whose blood your liberties have been cemented. These are they, who hold in such keen remembrance the outrages of the British armies, from which many of them are deserters. Ask these selfstyled patriots where they were during the American war (for they are, for the most part, old enough to have borne arms), and you strike them dumb; their lips are closed in eternal silence. If it were allowable to entertain partialities, every consideration of blood, language, religion, and interest, would incline us toward England: and yet, shall they alone be extended to France and her ruler, whom we are bound to believe a chastening God suffers as the scourge of a guilty world! On all other nations he tramples; he holds them in contempt; England alone he hates; he would, but he cannot, despise her; fear cannot despise; and shall we disparage our ancestors? But the outrages and injuries of England-bred up in the principles of the Revolution-I can never palliate, much less defend them. I well remember flying, with my mother and her new-born child, from Arnold and Philips; and we were driven by Tarleton and other British Pandours from pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country. The impression is indelible on my memory; and yet (like my worthy old neighbor, who added seven buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford, and drew fine sight at his man) I must be content to be called a Tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get rid of one evil (supposing it possible) at the expense of a greater; mutatis mutandis, suppose France in possession of the British naval power -and to her the trident must pass should England be unable to wield it-what would be your condition? What would be the situation of VOL. IV.-22 your seaports, and their seafaring inhabitants? Ask Hamburg, Lubec! Ask Savannah! Shall republicans become the instruments of him who has effaced the title of Attila to the "scourge of God!" Yet, even Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites, in the very countries that he overran; sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod; where grass could never after grow. If perfectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength and spirits exhausted, I could not give utterance to that strong detestation which I feel toward (above all other works of the creation) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Kahn, or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who have ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition! Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the last of these chieftains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become a party to his views, a partner in his wars? MY AN EPISTLE TO A SCHOOL-BOY. [Letters of John Randolph to a Young Relative. 1834.] Y DEAR BOY: After I had gone to bed last night, and lay tumbling and tossing about, uneasy and unable to rest, my thoughts running upon many an anxious subject, among which you were not forgotten, I was relieved by the entrance of a servant, who handed me your letter of the 9th, with some others. But that relief was only temporary. My mind fixed itself on your situation for the remainder of the night, and I have determined to settle you at school at Winchester, unless (of which I have no expectation) I shall find Hampden Sidney very greatly altered for the better. At your time of life, my son, I was even more ineligibly placed than you are, and would have given worlds for quiet seclusion and books. I never had either. You will smile when I tell you that the first map that I almost ever saw was one of Virginia, when I was nearly fifteen; and that I never (until the age of manhood) possessed any treatise on geography, other than an obsolete Gazetteer of Salmon, and my sole atlas were the five maps, if you will honor them with that name, contained in the Gazetteer, each not quite so big as this page, of the three great eastern divisions, and two western ones, of the earth. The best and only Latin dictionary that I ever owned, you now have. I had a small Greek lexicon, bought with my own pocket-money, and many other books, acquired in the same way (from sixteen to twenty years of age), but these were merely books of amusement. I never was with any preceptor, one only excepted (and he left the school after I had been there about two months), who would deserve to be called a Latin or Greek scholar; and I never had any master of modern languages, but an old Frenchman (some gentleman valet, I suppose), who could neither write nor spell. I mention these things, my child, that you may not be disheartened. "Tis true, that I am a very ignorant man, for one who is thought to have received a learned education. You (I hope) will acquire more information, and digest it better. There is an old proverb, "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks." Yours is the time of life to acquire knowledge. Hereafter you must use it; like the young, sturdy laborer, who lays up, whilst he is fresh and vigorous, provision for his declining age. When I asked whether you had received the bank-notes I sent you, I did not mean to inquire how you had laid them out. Don't you see the difference? From your not mentioning that they had come to hand (a careless omission; you should break yourself of this habit), and your cousin informing me that she had not received two packets sent by the same mail, I concluded that the notes were probably lost or embezzled. Hence my inquiry after them. No, my son; whatever cash I send you (unless for some special purpose) is yours: you will spend it as you please, and I have nothing to say to it. That you will not employ it in a manner that you ought to be ashamed of, I have the fullest confidence. To pry into such affairs would not only betray a want of that confidence, and even a suspicion discreditable to us both, but infringe upon your rights and independence. For, although you are not of an age to be your own master, and independent in all your actions, yet you are possessed of rights which it would be tyranny and injustice to withhold, or invade. Indeed, this independence, which is so much vaunted, and which young people think consists in doing what they please, when they grow up to man's estate (with as much justice as the poor negro thinks liberty consists in being supported in idleness, by other people's labor),—this independence is but a name. Place us where you will,-along with our rights there must coexist correlative duties,-and the more exalted the station, the more arduous are these last. Indeed, as the duty is precisely correspondent to the power, it follows that the richer, the wiser, the more powerful a man is, the greater is the obligation upon him to employ his gifts in lessening the sum of human misery; and this employment constitutes happiness, which the weak and wicked vainly imagine to consist in wealth, finery, or sensual gratification. Who so miserable as the bad Emperor of Rome? Who more happy than Trajan and Antoninus? Look at the fretful, peevish, rich man, whose senses are as much jaded by attempting to embrace too much gratification, as the limbs of the poor post-horse are by incessant labor. (See the Gen tlemen and Basket-makers, and, indeed, the whole of Sandford and Merton.) Do not, however, undervalue, on that account, the character of the real gentleman, which is the most respectable amongst men. It consists not of plate, and equipage, and rich living, any more than in the disease which that mode of life engenders; but in truth, courtesy, bravery, generosity, and learning, which last, although not essential to it, yet does very much to adorn and illustrate the character of the true gentleman. Tommy Merton's gentlemen were no gentlemen, except in the acceptation of innkeepers (and the great vulgar, as well as the small), with whom he who rides in a coach-and-six is three times as great a gentleman as he who drives a post-chaise and pair. Lay down this as a principle, that truth is to the other virtues what vital air is to the human system. They cannot exist at all without it; and as the body may live under many diseases, if supplied with pure air for its consumption, so may the character survive many defects, where there is a rigid attachment to truth. All equivocation and subterfuge belong to falsehood, which consists, not in using false words only, but in conveying false impressions, no matter how; and if a person deceive himself, and I, by my silence, suffer him to remain in that error, I am implicated in the deception, unless he be one who has no right to rely upon me for information, and, in that case, 'tis plain, I could not be instrumental in deceiving him. I send you two letters, addressed to myself, whilst at school-of which I now sorely repent me I did not then avail myself (so far, at least, as my very ineligible situation would admit). Will you accept a little of my experience, instead of buying some of your own at a very dear rate? -and so, God bless you, my son. Your affectionate uncle, JOHN RANDOLPH. GEORGETOWN, 15 February, 1806. Robert Treat Paine, Jun. BORN in Taunton, Mass., 1773. His name was changed from THOMAS to that of his father, in 1801. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1811. ADAMS AND LIBERTY. [First Sung at the Anniversary of the Mass. Charitable Fire Society, in 1798.-Works, in Verse and Prose. 1812.] E sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought YE For those rights, which unstained from your sires had descended, May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended: 'Mid the reign of mild peace, May your nation increase, With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece; And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world, Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, Had justly ennobled our nation in story, Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day, But let traitors be told, Who their country have sold, And bartered their God for his image in gold, While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood, May peace, like the dove who returned from the flood, But, though peace is our aim, Yet the boon we disclaim, If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame. 'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms: |