THOMAS WELSH, M. D. MARCH 5, 1783. ON THE BOSTON MASSACRE. THOMAS WELSH was born at Charlestown, June 1, 1754, and married Mary Kent, of that town. He was an army-surgeon at Lexington and Bunker Hill. He was in attendance at the latter battle, principally at a house under the western side of the hill, in company with Lieut. Col. Brickett, a physician, who came off with the first of the wounded, and of whom Gen. Warren obtained his arms for the battle. Dr. Welsh was afterwards near Winter Hill, by which route the troops who went to Cambridge retreated. Dr. Welsh and Samuel Blodgett assisted in arresting the retreat of the New Hampshire troops. On the morning of the Battle of Lexington, Dr. Warren, at about ten o'clock, rode on horseback through Charlestown, says Frothingham. He had received, by express, intelligence of the events of the morning, and told the citizens of Charlestown that the news of the firing was correct. Among others, he met Dr. Welsh, who said, "Well, they are gone out." "Yes," replied the doctor, "and we will be up with them before night." Dr. Welsh, who was on Prospect Hill when the British were passing from Lexington, saw Col. Pickering's regiment on the top of Winter Hill, near the front of Mr. Adams' house, the enemy being very near in Charlestown road. Washington wrote of this period: "If the retreat had not been as precipitate as it was from Lexington,—and God knows it could not well have been more so, the ministerial troops must have surrendered, or been totally cut off; for they had not arrived in Charlestown (under cover of their ships) half an hour, before a powerful body of men from Marblehead and Salem were at their heels, and must, if they had happened to be up one hour sooner, inevitably have intercepted their retreat from Charlestown." Dr. Welsh was surgeon at Castle Island, 1799. He was the hospital physician at Rainsford's Island for many years; was member of the Boston Board of Health, and vice-president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, in 1814; was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Welsh was a decided Whig of the Revolution, an amiable, social, and estimable citizen, and died at Boston, February, 1831. The patriotic Dr. Welsh, the last of the orators at the Old Brick, on the eventful Boston Massacre, thus remarks in the peroration: "When we consider our own prosperous condition, and view the state of that nation of which we were once a part, we even weep over our enemy, when we reflect that she was once great; that her navies rode formidable upon the ocean; that her commerce was extended to every harbor of the globe; that her name was revered wherever it was known; that the wealth of nations was deposited in her island; and that America was her friend. But, by means of standing armies, an immense continent is separated from her kingdom. Near eight full years have now rolled away since America has been cast off from the bosom and embraces of her pretended parent, and has set up her own name among the empires. The assertions of so young a country were at first beheld with dubious expectation; and the world were ready to stamp the name of rashness, or enterprise, according to the event. But a manly and fortunate beginning soon insured the most generous assistance. The renowned and the ancient Gauls came early to the combat, -wise in council, mighty in battle! Then with new fury raged the storm of war! The seas were crimsoned with the richest blood of nations! America's chosen legions waded to freedom through rivers dyed with the mingled blood of her enemies and her citizens, through fields of carnage, and the gates of death! - "At length, independence is ours!—the halcyon day appears! Lo! from the east I see the harbinger, and from the train 't is peace herself, and, as attendants, all the gentle arts of life. Commerce displays her snow-white navies, fraught with the wealth of kingdoms; Plenty, from her copious horn, pours forth her richest gifts. Heaven commands! The east and the west give up, and the north keeps not back. All nations meet, and beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and resolve to learn war no more. Henceforth shall the American wilderness blossom as the rose, and every man shall sit under his fig-tree, and none shall make him afraid." JOHN WARREN, M. D. JULY 4, 1783. ON THE NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. THE last public act in the career of James Otis, that presiding genius of our colonial Revolution, occurred at a town-meeting of the inhabitants of Boston, March 5, 1783, at Faneuil Hall, when he officiated as moderator; and it was voted to substitute the celebration of the Declaration of Independence for that of the Boston Massacre, after Dr. Thomas Welsh had pronounced the annual oration on the latter occasion. Otis was struck out of existence by a flash of lightning, at Andover, in Massachusetts, on the 23d day of May succeeding. Who can tell but what this time-honored festival of liberty originated in his penetrative mind? It may be said of Otis that his political career was as a poem that lights warm hearts with living flame. How cheering was it to witness the eagle-eyed, round-faced, plump, short-necked, and smooth-skinned Otis, as he has been described by an enemy, at the head of the assembly in old Faneuil Hall on this glorious occasion! William Cooper, the town-clerk, made the following motion: "Whereas, the annual celebration of the Boston Massacre, on the 5th of March, 1770, by the institution of a public oration, has been found to be of eminent advantage to the cause of virtue and patriotism among her citizens; and whereas, the immediate motives which induced the commemoration of that day do now no longer exist in their primitive force, while the benefits resulting from the institution may and ought ever to be preserved, by exchanging that anniversary for another, the foundation of which will last so long as time endures;—it is therefore resolved, that the celebration of the 5th of March from henceforth shall cease, and that instead thereof, the anniversary of the Fourth Day of July, 1776,— a day ever memorable in the annals of this country for the Declaration of Independence,― shall be constantly celebrated by the delivery of a public oration, in such place as the town shall determine to be most convenient for the purpose, in which the orator shall consider the feelings, manners and principles, which led to this great national event, as well as the important and happy effects, whether general or domestic, which have already, and will forever continue, to flow from this auspicious epoch." At a town-meeting on May of that date, Hon. Samuel Adams mod erator, the resolve was accepted, and a committee consisting of Perez Morton, William Tudor, Thomas Dawes, Joseph Barrell, and Charles Jarvis, were chosen to consider this matter at large, and report at the adjournment. At a town-meeting, July 4th inst., Hon. James Sullivan moderator, the committee announced that they had unanimously made choice of Dr. John Warren to deliver an oration on the 4th of July inst., who had accordingly accepted that service. They also voted that, as Faneuil Hall not being capacious enough to receive the inhabitants that may attend upon that occasion, it should be delivered at Dr. Cooper's church, as soon as the General Court is ended; and that leave be requested of the committee of said church for the use of that building. According to Edes' Boston Gazette, that mirror of patriotism, the joy of the day was announced by the ringing of bells and discharge of cannon. At eleven o'clock, His Honor the Lieutenant-governor, Thomas Cushing,- His Excellency, John Hancock, being absent by reason of sickness, the Hon. Council, the Senate and Representatives, escorted by the brigade train of artillery, commanded by Maj. Davis, repaired to the church in Brattle-street, where the Rev. Dr. Cooper, after a polite and elegant address to the auditory, returned thanks to Almighty God for his goodness to these American States, and the glory and success with which he had crowned their exertions; then an anthem was sung suitable to the occasion, and the solemnity was concluded by a most ingenious and elegant oration, delivered by Dr. John Warren, at the request of the town. They were conducted back to the Senatechamber, where an agreeable entertainment was provided. At two o'clock, the brigade train, and the regiment of militia, commanded by Col. Webb, paraded in State-street, where the former saluted with thirteen discharges from the field-pieces, and the militia with thirteen feu-de-joies, in honor of the occasion. The officers of the militia dined together at the Bunch of Grapes and the brigade train at the Exchange taverns. Thirteen patriotic toasts were drunk by each corps, and the same number, which were given in the Senate-chamber, appear in the Gazette, one of which was, "May the spirit of union prevail in our country." On the next day the selectmen of the town, consisting of John Scollay, Harbottle Dorr, Thomas Greenough, Ezekiel Price, Capt. William Mackay, Tuthill Hubbard, Esq., David Jeffries, Esq., requested a copy of the oration for the press. Here we have the modest reply of the author: GENTLEMEN,- On condition that the honesty of my intentions, and the warmth of my feelings, on the important event which was the subject of this oration, may be admitted to atone for the imperfection of the performance, I deliver a copy for the press. "I am, with the greatest respect, "Your obedient servant, "JOHN WARREN." This was a brilliant production, breathing patriotic ardor and fraternal warmth, of which we present a specimen: "Transported from a distant clime less friendly to its nurture, you have planted here the stately tree of Liberty, and lived to see it flourish. But whilst you pluck the fruit from the bending branches, remember that its roots were watered with your blood! Remember the price at which you purchased it, nor barter liberty for gold. Go, search the vaults where lay enshrined the relics of your martyred fellow-citizens, and from their dust receive a lesson on the value of your freedom! When virtue fails, when luxury and corruption shall undermine the pillars of the State, and threaten a total loss of liberty and patriotism,— then solemnly repair to those sacred repositories of the dead, and, if you can, return and sport away your rights. When you forget the value of your freedom, read over the history that recounts the wounds from which your country bled,- peruse the picture which brings back to your imaginations, in the lively colors of undisguised truth, the wild, distracted feelings of your hearts! But if your happy lot has been not to have felt the pangs of convulsive separation from friend or kindred, learn them of those that have." The noble remark of John Adams, the apostle of liberty, in allusion to this great natal day, should be printed in capitals in every newspaper of our vast republic, on every anniversary of that event: "The 4th day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore." The attention of the Bostonians was involuntarily directed to the |