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for me; may God enable him to live, that he may perforin the same operations, for the same purposes, when I am worn out and old! I relieve his mother of some trouble, while I have him with me; the odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits, and seems to do the child a great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted that practice; can more pleasure, more dignity be added to that primary occupation? The father thus ploughing with his child, and to feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China, ploughing as an example to his kingdom.

SONG AND INSTINCT.

The pleasure I receive from the warblings of the birds in the spring, is superior to my poor descrip tion, as the continual succession of their tuneful notes, is for ever new to me. I generally rise fron bed about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is neither night nor day; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen unmoved, to the sweet love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? or to the shrill eat birds? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music. The variegated appearances of the dew drops, as they hang to the different objects, must present, even to a clownish imagination, the most voluptuous ideas. The astonishing art which all birds display in the construction of their nests, ill provided as we may suppose them with proper tools, their neatness, their convenience, always inake me ashamed of the slovenliness of our houses; their love to their dame, their incessant careful attention, and the peculiar songs they address to her, while she tediously incubates their eggs, remind me of my duty, could I ever forget it. Their affection to their helpless little ones, is a lively precept; and in short, the whole economy of what we proudly call the brute creation, is admirable in every circumstance; and vain man, though adorned with the additional gift of reason, might learn from the perfection of instinct, how to regulate the follies, and how to temper the errors which this second gift often makes him commit. This is a subject, on which I have often bestowed the most serious thoughts; I have often blushed within myself, and been greatly astonished, when I have compared the unerring path they all follow, all just, all proper, all wise, up to the necessary degree of perfection, with the coarse, the imperfect systems of men, not merely as governors and king, but as masters, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens. But this is a sanctuary in which an ignorant farmer must not presume to enter.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

One anecdote I must relate, the circumstances of which are as true as they are singular. One of my constant walks, when I am at leisure, is in my lowlands, where I have the pleasure of seeing my cattle, horses, and colts, Exuberant grass replenishes all my fields, the best representative of our wealth; in the middle of that track, I have cut a ditch eight feet wide, the banks of which nature adorns every spring with the wild salendine, and other flowering weeds, which, on these luxuriant grounds, shoot up to a great height. Over this ditch I have erected a bridge, capable of bearing a loaded waggon; on each side I carefully Bow every year some grains of hemp, which rise to the height of fifteen feet, so strong and so full of limbs, a3 to resemble young trees: I once ascended one of them four feet above the ground. These produce natural arbours, rendered often still more compact by the assistance of

an annual creeping plant, which we call a vine, that never fails to entwine itself among their branches, and always produces a very desirable shade. From this simple grove I have amused myself an hundred times in observing the great number of humming birds with which our country abounds: the wild blossoms every where attract the attention of these birds, which, like bees, subsist by suction. From this retreat I distinctly watch them in all their va rious attitudes; but their flight is so rapid that you cannot distinguish the motion of their wings. On this little bird, nature has profusely lavished her most splendid colours; the most perfect azure, the most beautiful gold, the most dazzling red, are for ever in contrast, and help to embellish the plumes of his majestic head. The richest pallet of the most luxuriant painter, could never invent any thing to be compared to the variegated tints with which this insect bird is arrayed. Its bill is as long and as sharp as a coarse sewing needle; like the bee, nature has taught it to find out, in the calix of flowers and blossoms, those mellifluous particles that serve it for sufficient food; and yet it seems to leave them untouched, undeprived of anything that our eyes can possibly distinguish. When it feeds, it appears as if immoveable, though continually on the wing; and sometimes, from what motives I know not, it will tear and lacerate flowers into a hundred pieces: for, strange to tell, they are the most irascible of the feathered tribe. Where do passions find room in so diminutive a body? They often fight with the fury of lions, until one of the combatants falls a sacrifice and dies. When fatigued, it has often perched within a few feet of me, and on such favourable opportunities I have surveyed it with the most minute attention. Its little eyes appear like diamonds, reflecting light on every side: most elegantly finished in all parts, it is a miniature work of our great parent; who seems to have formed it the smallest, and at the same time the most beautiful of the winged species.

A JOURNEY WITH FRANKLIN,

In the year 1787 I accompanied the venerable Franklin, at that time Governor of Pennsylvania, on a journey to Lancaster, where he had been invited to lay the corner-stone of a college, which he had founded there for the Germans. In the evening of

the day of the ceremony, we were talking of the dif ferent nations which inhabit the continent, of their aversion to agriculture, &c., when one of the principal inhabitants of the city said to him:

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Governor, where do you think these nations came from? Do you consider them aborigines! Have you heard of the ancient fortifications and tombs which have been recently discovered in the west!"

"Those who inhabit the two Floridas," he replied, "and lower Louisiana, say, that they came from the mountains of Mexico. I should be inclined to believe it. If we may judge of the Esquimaux of the coasts of Labrador (the most savage men known) by the fairness of their complexion, the color of their eyes, and their enormous beards, they are originally from the north of Europe, whence they came at a very remote period. As to the other nations of this continent, it seems difficult to imagine from what stock they can be descended. To assign them an Asiatic and Tartar origin, to assert that they crossed Behring Straits, and spread themselves over this continent, shocks all our notions of probability. How, indeed, can we conceive that men almost

• Translated from St. John's Voyage dans la Haute Pennsyl vanie, ch. il

naked, armed with bows and arrows, could have undertaken a journey of a thousand lengues through thick forests or impenetrable marshes, accompanied by their wives and children, with no means of subsistence, save what they derived from hunting? What could have been the motives of such an emigration If it were the severe cold of their own country, why should they have advanced to Hudeon's Bay and Lower Canada? Why have they not stopped on their way at the beautiful plains on the banks of the Missouri, the Minnesota, the Mississippi, or the Illinois! But it will be said, they did settle there, and those with whom we are acquainted are but the surplus population of these ancient emigra tions. If it were so, we should discover some analogy between their languages: and it is ascertained be yond a doubt, that the languages of the Nadouassees and Padoukas no more resemble the Chippewa, the Mohawk, or the Abenaki, than they do the jargon of Kamschatka.

"On the other hand," he continued, "how can we suppose them to be the aborigines of a region like this, which produces scarcely any fruits or plants on which the primitive man could have subsisted until he had learned to make a bow and arrow, harpoon a fish, and kindle a fire? How could these first families have resisted the inclemency of the seasons, the stings of insects, the attacks of carnivorous animals? The warm climates, therefore, and those that abound in natural fruits, must have been the cradle of the human race; it was from the bosom of these favored regions that the exuberant portion of the early communities gradually spread over the rest of the world. Whence came the nations which inhabit this continent, those we meet with in New Zealand, New Holland, and the islands of the Pacific? Why have the people of the old world been civilized for thousands of ages, while those of the new still remain plunged in ignorance and barbarism? Has this hemisphere more recently emerged from the bosom of the waters? These questions, and a thousand others we might ask, will ever be to us, frail beings, like a vast desert where the wandering eye sees not the smallest bush on which it may repose.

"This planet is very old," he continued. “Like the works of Homer and Hesiod, who can say through how many editions it has passed in the immensity of ages The rent continents, the straits, the gulfs, the islands, the shallows of the ocean, are but vast fragments on which, as on the planks of some wrecked vessel, the men of former generations who escaped these commotions, have produced new po pulations. Time, so precious to us, the creatures of a moment, is nothing to nature. Who can tell us when the earth will again experience these fatal catastrophes, to which, it appears to me, to be as much exposed in its annual revolutions, as are the vessels which cross the seas to be dashed in pieces on a sunken rock! The near approach or contact of one of those globes whose elliptical and mys terious courses are perhaps the agents of our destinies, some variation in its annual or diurnal rotation, in the inclination of its axis or the equilibrium of the seas, might change its climate, and render it long

uninhabitable.

"As to your third question," continued the gover. nor, “I will give you some reflections which occurred to me on reading the papers lately presented to our philosophical society by Generals Varnum and ParBons, and Captains John Hart and Serjeant, in relation to the entrenched camps and other indications of an ancient population, of whom tradition has transmitted no account to our indigenous popula tion. In travelling through the parts of this state

beyond the Alleghanics, we often find on the high ground near the rivers remains of parapets and ditches covered with lofty trees. Almost the whole of the peninsula of Muskingum is occupied by a vast fortified camp. It is composed of three square inclosures; the central one, which is the largest, has a communication with the former bed of the river, whose waters appear to have retreated nearly three hundred feet. These inclosures are formed by ditches and parapets of earth, in which no cut stones or brick have been found. The centre is occupied by conical elevations of different diameters and heights. Each of these inclosures appears to have had a cemetery. As a proof of the high antiquity of these works, we are assured, as an undisputed fact, that the bones are converted into calcareous matter, and that the vegetable soil with which these fortifications are covered, and which has been formed merely by the falling off of the leaves and of the fragments of trees, is almost as thick as in the places around about them. Two other camps have been likewise discovered in the neighbourhood of Lexing ton. The area of the first is six acres, that of the second, three. The fragments of earthenware which have been found in digging are of a composition unknown to our Indians.

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"On Paint Creek, a branch of the Scioto, there has been found a series of these fortified inclosures, extending as far as the Ohio, and even south of that river. Similar works have been discovered in the two Miamis, at a distance of more than twenty miles, and likewise on Big Grave Creek. last are only a series of elevated redoubts on the banks of these rivers at unequal distances apart. Those which have been found on Big Black Creek. and at Byo Pierre, in the neighborhood of the Mississippi, appear to have been embankments intended to protect the inhabitants from the inundations of the river.

"At a distance of five hundred leagues from the sea, on the eastern shore of Lake Peppin (which is only an extension of the Mississippi), Carver found considerable remains of entrenchments made, like the former, of earth, and covered with high woods. The barrows lately discovered in Kentucky and elsewhere, are cones of different diameters and heights; they are covered with a thick layer of earth, and resemble, although smaller, those which are still seen in Asia and some parts of Europe. The first row of bodies lies upon flat stones, with which the whole of the bottom is paved: these are covered over with new layers, serving as beds for other bodies placed like the former, and so on to the top. As in the fortifications on the Muskingum, we meet with no signs of mortar, and no traces of the hammer. The new state of Tennessee is full of these tombs, and several caves have also been discovered there in which bones have been found.

"In the neighborhood of several Cherokee villages, in Keowe, Steccoe, Sinica, &c., there have been found terraces, pyramids, or artificial hills, of great height, whose origin was unknown to the inhabitants whom the Cherokees drove out at the time of their invasion, nearly two centuries ago. The same artificial heights, the same proofs of the residence and power of ancient nations, are also found in the two Floridas, on the banks of the Oakmulgee, at Taensa, on the Alabama, &c.

"At what period, by what people, were these works constructed! What degree of civilization had this people reached? Were they acquainted with the use of iron! What has become of them? Can we conceive that nations sufficiently powerful to have raised such considerable fortifications, and who buried their dead with such religious care, can

THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA.

have been destroyed and replaced by the ignorant and barbarous hordes we see about us at the present day? Could the calamities occasioned by a long state of war have effaced the last traces of their

civilization and brought them back to the primitive

condition of hunters? Are our Indians the descendants of that ancient people?

"Such are the doubts and conjectures which arise in our minds on contemplating the traces of the pas sage and existence of the nations which inhabited the regions of the west; traces which are not suf ficient to guide us in the vagueness of the past. Although neither arms nor instruments of iron have yet been discovered, how can we conceive that they could dig such deep ditches, or raise such large masses of earth, without the aid of that metal! This ancient people must have had chiefs, and been subject to laws; for without the bonds of subordination, how could they have collected and kept together so great a number of workmen They must have been acquainted with agriculture, since the pro luets of the chase would never have sufficed to support them.

The extent of these camps also proves that the number of the troops destined to i defend these works, and that of the families to which, in moments of danger, they afforded an asylum, was immense. The cemeteries prove that they sojourned there a long time. This people must therefore have been much further advanced in civilization than our Indians,

"When the population of the United States shall have spread over every part of that vast and beautiful region, our posterity, aided by new discoveries, may then perhaps form more satisfactory conjectures. What a field for reflection! A new continent, which, at some unknown period, appears to have been inhabited by agricultural and warlike nations! Were it not for my advanced age, I would myself cross the mountains to examine those old military works. Perhaps a careful and minute inspection would give rise to conjectures which now elude all the combinations of the mind."

THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. THE first record of this institution is as follows:

The minutes of me, Joseph Breintuall, Secretary to the Directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia, with such of the minutes of the same directors as they order me to make, begun on the 8th day of November, 1731. By virtue of the deed or instrument of the said company, dated the first day of July last.

The said instrument being completed by fifty subscriptions, I subscribed my name to the following summons or notice which Benjamin Franklin sent by a messenger, viz:

"To Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Hopkinson, William Parsons, Philip Syng, jun., Thomas Godfrey, Anthony Nicholas, Thomas Cadwalader, Jolin Jones, jun., Robert Grace, and Isaac Penington. Gentlemen,-The subscription to the library being completed, you the directors appointed in the instrument, are desired to meet this evening at 5 o'clock, at the house of Nicholas Scull, to take bond of the treasurer for the faithful performance of his trust, and to consider of and appoint a proper time for the payment of the money subscribed, and other matters relating to the said library.

Philad., 8th Nov., 1781."

Jos. BREINTNALL, Sec'y.

William Coleman was at this meeting elected treasurer, and signed a bond with sureties for the full performance of his duties. The price of VOL. 1.-12

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177

shares was fixed at forty shillings each, and ten were at once disposed of, but some difficulty was experienced in collecting the amounts. At a meeting on the 29th of March, 1732, it was determined to proceed to the purchase of books, and Thomas Godfrey having reported that James Logan had expressed a willingness to give advice as to their selection, it was ordered that Thomas Godfrey wait on Mr. Logan, “ a gentleman of universal learning and the best judge of books in these parts," and accept his offer.

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The list was made out and intrusted to Thomas Hopkinson, who was about sailing for England, with a draft on London in his favor of £45 ster ling. Charles Brockden (the uncle of Brockden Brown) having executed the original constitution without charge, was presented with a share in the association. Breintnall was excused from the payment of annual dues for six years in consideration of his services as secretary; Syng, two years, for engraving the seal of the company, and Franklin two years, for printing notices to delinquent subscribers.

The books arrived in October, 1732, with the addition of a donation of "Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy" and "Philip Miller's Gardener's Dictionary," from Peter Collinson. They were deposited in "Robert Grace's chamber, at his house in Jones Alley:" Louis Timothee, the occupant of the house, was appointed librarian, and the collection opened on Wednesdays from 2 to 3 P.M. and on Saturdays from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. to subscribers, who were to be allowed to take books out, while "any civil gentleman" was to be permitted to examine the books on the premises. Both privileges were extended to Mr. Logan, though not a member of the Company.

In December, 1732, Dr. Franklin prepared and printed a catalogue without charge. On the 22d of February, 1733, the full number of subscribers originally contemplated, was filled up by the addition of the fiftieth, Joseph Growden. The first American donor was William Rawle, who presented, on the 12th of March, 1733, a set of the works of Edmund Spenser, in six volumes. On the fifteenth of May following, an address was drawn up and presented to Thomas Penn, the son of William, proprietor of the colony, soliciting his aid, which was responded to by the gift of several articles, and in 1737, by the promise of a lot of ground for a building. In May, 1738, Penn presented an air-pump, accompanied by a complimentary letter, which commences

'Gentlemen,-It always gives me pleasure when I think of the Library Company of Philadelphia, as they were the first that encouraged knowledge and learning in the province of Pennsylvania."

The praise is not ill deserved, as, at the time of its foundation, there was not even a good bookstore accessible nearer than Boston.

In 1738, the institution received a donation of £58 6s. 8d. from Dr. Walter Sydserfe, of Antigua.

On the 7th of April, 1740, the number of meinbers having in the neanwhile increased to seventy-four, the library was removed "to the upper room of the westerninost office of the State House," by permission of the Assembly.

In 1762, the lot of ground promised in 1787 by the Penn family, was conveyed to the institution,

It was situated in Chestnut, near Ninth street, and for several years yielded a sinall revenue.

Franklin at various times served in the direction, which also includes the names of Charles Thomson, John Dickinson, Francis Hopkinson, and others of high reputation. In 1767, "a woman's hand, taken from an Egyptian mummy, in good preservation," from Benjamin West, was brought home by the librarian, Francis Hopkinson, for the museum. This collection received for some time donations of similar curious trifles, which were until recently exhibited in the rooms. In 1768 the price of a share was raised to £10, and on the thirteenth of March, the Union Library Company united with the institution, the books and library house in Third Street, in which they had been deposited, being included in the transfer. In 1771 the Association Library Company and the Amicable Company were also incorporated with the institution. The collections thus acquired seem to have been of small value.

In 1773 the books were removed to the second floor of Carpenters' Hall, which was rented for the purpose, and the library was for the first time opened daily, from two to seven P.M. The librarian's salary was fixed at £60. Large additions were made to the cabinet of coins about the same time.

On the assemblage of Congress, in 1774, the free use of its library was tendered to its members. The war retarded the progress of the company. In 1777 the room was occupied as a hospital. In the same year the company received a handsome bequest of books by the will of James Logan.

In 1784 the Library Company united with the American Philosophical Society in a petition for lots of ground on the state-house square, on which to erect buildings for their separate accommodation, which were to correspond in appearance, and face on Fifth and Sixth Strects. No action was taken on the petition, but the Philosophical Society finally succeeded in obtaining a grant on Fifth Street, the locality proposed for the Library Company. Subsequent endeavors, in which Dr. Franklin, as President of the Philosophical Society, took a prominent part, were made to unite the two institutions under the same roof, but without success.

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The building, from the design of Dr. William Thornton, who received a share as his compensation, was completed, and the books removed and arranged by the close of the year 1790. library was then opened daily from one o'clock to sunset, and the librarian's salary fixed at £100. Willian Bingham, a wealthy and liberal citizen, having heard that the directors intended to place a statue of Franklin on a niche in the front of the building, volunteered to present such a work to the institution. A bust and full length drawing of the original were sent to Italy for the guidance of the artist by whom the statue, which still graces the niche, was executed. During the construction of the edifice, a number of apprentices engaged on the work were allowed by their masters to give an amount of labor equivalent to the purchase money of a share, and thus constitute themselves members, an incident creditable to all concerned.

In January, 1791, the free use of the library was tendered to the President and Congress of the United States, and in the following year an addition made to the building, for the accominodation of the Loganian library, a collection of which we have already given an account.*

In the same year, the manuscripts of John Fitch, relating to the steam-engine, were deposited in the library, with a condition that they should remain unopened until the year 1823.

In 1788 a portion of the collections of Pierre du Simitière was purchased, on his decease. John Adams, writing from Philadelphia, August 14, 1776, says

There is a gentleman here of French extraction, whose name is Du Simitière, a painter by profession, whose designs are very ingenious, and his drawings well executed. He has been applied to for his advice. I waited on him yesterday, and eaw his sketches. For the medal he proposes, Liberty, with her spear and pileus, leaning on General Washing. ton. The British fleet in Boston harbor with all their sterns towards the town, the American troops marching in. For the seal, he proposes, The arms of the several nations from whence America has been peopled, as English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, Ger man, &c., each in a shield. On one side of them, Liberty with her pileus, on the other a rifler in his uniforin, with his rifle gun in one hand, and his

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Ante, p. 18.

tomahawk in the other. This dress and these troops with this kind of armor being peculiar to America, unless the dress was known to the Romans. Dr. Franklin showed me yesterday a book, containing an account of the dresses of all the Roman soldiers, one of which appeared exactly like it. This M. du Simitière is a very curious man. He has begun a collection of materials for a history of this revolution. He begins with the first advices of the tea ships He cuts out of the newspapers every scrap of intelligence, and every piece of speculation, and pastes it upon clean paper, arranging them under the head of that State to which they belong, and intends to bind them up in volumes. He has a list of every speculation and pamphlet concerning independence, and another of those concerning forms of government.

These scraps and pamphlets form a valuable, though by no means complete, collection of the fugitive literature of the period.

| 1851, he was succeeded by his son Lloyd P. Sinith, Esq., under whose care an additional volume to the catalogue, published in two volumes 8vo., in 1835, has been prepared, which will render still more accessible to the public, the rare pamphlets and fugitive literature relating to the history of the country, scattered through the collection.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

THE name of Washington may be introduced in a collection of American literature, rather to grace it than do honor to him. In any strict sense of the word, Washington was not a literary man; he never exercised his mind in composition on any of those topics abstracted from common life, or its affairs, which demanded either art or invention. He prepared no book of elaborate industry.— Yet he was always scrupulously attentive to the claims of literature; elegant and punctilious in the acknowledgment of compliments from authors and learned institutions; and had formed a style

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A collection of "Thirteen portraits of American legislators, patriots, and soldiers, who distinguished themselves in rendering their country independent, viz. General Washington, Gen. Baron de Steuben, Silas Deane, Gen. Reed, Gov. Morris, Gen. Gates, John Jay, W. H. Drayton, Henry Laurens, Charles Thoinson, S. Huntingdon, J. Dickenson, Gen. Arnold. Drawn from the life by Du Simitière, painter and member of the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and engraved by Mr. B. Reading," was published in London in 1783. The engravings are good, and that of Washington (a profile) is quite different from any others in circulation.

In 1793, the price of shares was changed to their present value, $40.

In 1799, a valuable collection of manuscripts relating to the history of Ireland, and including the original Correspondence of Jaines I. with the Privy Council of that country, from 1603 to 1615 inclusive, was presented by William Cox, and in 1804 the institution was still further enriched by the bequest of one thousand pounds from John Bleakly, and of a very valuable collection of rare and curious books, including many richly illus trated voluines, from the Rev. Samuel Preston, a friend of Benjamin West, to whose suggestion the library is indebted for the gift.

Another bequest was received in 1828, by the will of Willian Mackenzie, of five hundred rare and valuable volumes.*

The library now numbers 65,000 volumes. It has, until recently, been for several years under the care of John Jay Smith, as librarian, a gentleman to whom the public are indebted for the publication of a large and valuable collection of fac-similes of manuscript documents and specimens of early and revolutionary newspaper and other curiosities.t On Mr. Smith's resignation, in

Notes for a History of the Library Company of Philadelphia, by J. Jay Smith.

+ Mr. Smith was for many years the editor of Waldie's Circulating Library. He is the author of

A Summer's Jannt across the Water. By J. Jay Smith, Philadelphia, 2 vols. 12mo, 1846.

Michaux's Sylva of North American Treca. Edited, with notes, by J. Jay Smith. 8 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1851.

which is so peculiar that it may be recognised by its own ear-mark. He was for nearly the whole of his life actively employed, a considerable part of the time in the field, where the pen was oftener in his hand than the sword. Though he produced no compositions which may be dignified with the title of "works," the collection of his "writings," in the selection of Mr. Sparks, fills twelve large octavo volumes. As embraced in the folio series of Mr. Force, the number will be greatly increased. In the chronicle of American literature, if it were only for their historical material, some mention of these papers would be necessary. In 1754, Washington appeared as an author in the publication at Williamsburg, Virginia, and in London, of his Journal of his proceeding "to and from the French of the Ohio," a brief tract, which he hastily wrote from the rough minutes taken on his expedition.

The Letters of Washington early attracted attention, and several publications of them were made in 1777, in 1795 and '6, in the perusal of which the reader should be on his guard to note the authenticity, a number of these compositions being spurious. Washington's respect for his character led him to prepare a careful list of the fabrications, which he transmitted in a letter to Timothy Pickering, then Secretary of State. The publication by Mr. Sparks of Washington's writings, a selection from the correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, was coin

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