With a strength of character and a reach of intellect, unknown in any other race of absolute savages, the Indian united many traits, some of them honourable and some degrading to humanity, which made him formidable in his enmity, faithless in his friendship, and at all times a dangerous neighbour: cruel, implacable, treacherous, yet not without a few of the better qualities of the heart and the head; a being of contrasts, violent in his passions, hasty in his anger, fixed in his revenge, yet cool in counsel, seldom betraying his plighted honour, hospitable, sometimes generous. A few names have stood out among them, which, with the culture of civilization, might have been shining stars on the lists of recorded fame. Philip, Pondiac, Sassacus, if the genius of another Homer were to embalm their memory, might rival the Hectors and Agamemnons of heroic renown, scarcely less savage, not less sagacious or brave.

Indian eloquence, if it did not flow with the richness of Nestor's wisdom, or burn with Achilles' fire, spoke in the deep strong tones of nature, and resounded from the chords of truth. The answer of the Iroquois chief to the French, who wished to purchase his lands, and push him farther into the wilderness, Voltaire has pronounced superior to any sayings of the great men commemorated by Plutarch. "We were born on this spot; our fathers were buried here. Shall we say to the bones of our fathers, arise, and go with us into a strange land?"

But more has been said of their figurative language, than seems to be justified by modern experience. Writers of fiction have distorted the Indian character, and given us anything but originals. Their fancy has produced sentimental Indians, a kind of beings that never existed in reality; and Indians clothing their ideas in the gorgeous imagery of external nature, which they had neither the refinement to conceive, nor words to express. In truth, when we have lighted the pipe of concord, kindled or extinguished a council fire, buried the bloody hatchet, sat down under the tree of peace with its spreading branches, and brightened the chain of friendship, we have nearly exhausted their flowers of rhetoric. But the imagery prompted by internal emotion, and not by the visible world, the eloquence of condensed thought and pointed expression, the eloquence of a diction extremely limited in its forms, but nervous and direct, the eloquence of truth unadorned and of justice undisguised, these are often found in Indian speeches, and constitute their chief characteristic.

It should, moreover, be said for the Indians, that, like the Carthaginians, their history has been written by their enemies. The tales of their wrongs and their achievements may have been told by the warrior-chiefs to stimulate the courage, and perpetuate the revenge of their children, but they were traces in the sand; they perished in a day, and their memory is gone.

Such are the outlines of our colonial history, which constitute its unity, and make it a topic worthy to be illustrated by the labours of industry and talent. The details, if less imposing, are copious and varied. The progress of society deve

loping itself in new modes, at first in isolated communities scattered along the sea-coast, and then gradually approximating each other, extending to the interior, subduing the forests with a magic almost rivalling the lyre of Orpheus, and encountering everywhere the ferocity of uncivilized man; the plans of social government necessarily suggested by such a state of things, and their operations in the advancing stages of improvement and change; the fantastic codes of laws, and corresponding habitudes, that sprang from the reveries of our Puritan fathers; the admirable systems which followed them, conceived by men tutored only in the school of freedom and necessity, exceeding in political wisdom and security of rights the boasted schemes of ancient lawgivers; the wild and disorganizing frenzies of religious fanaticism; the misguided severities of religious intolerance; the strange aberrations of the human mind, and abuses of power, in abetting the criminal folly of witchcraft; the struggles, that were ever going on, between the Governors and the Assemblies, the former urging the demands of prerogative, the latter maintaining the claims of liberty; the sources of growing wealth; the influence of knowledge widely diffused, of religion unshackled by the trammels of power; the manners and habits of the people at different times and in different places, taking their hue from such a combination of causes; these, and a thousand other features deeply interesting and full of variety, belong to the portraiture of colonial history, giving symmetry to its parts, and completeness to the whole.

The Revolutionary period, like the Colonial, has hitherto been but imperfectly elucidated, and perhaps for the same reason. The voluminous materials, printed and unprinted, widely scattered in this country and in Europe, some obvious and well known, many unexplored, have been formidable obstacles to the execution of such an undertaking. No Rymers have yet appeared among us, who were willing to spend a life in gathering up and embodying these memorials; and, till public encouragement shall prompt and aid such a design, till the national representatives shall have leisure to pause for a moment from their weighty cares in adjusting the wheels of state, and emulate the munificent patriotism of other governments, by adopting measures to collect and preserve the perishing records of the wisdom and valour of their fathers; till this shall be done, the historian of the Revolution must labour under disadvantages, which his zeal will hardly stimulate him to encounter, nor his genius enable him to surmount.

The subject itself is one of the best that ever employed the pen of the writer, whether considered in the object at stake, the series of acts by which it was accomplished, or its consequences. It properly includes a compass of twenty years, extending from the close of the French war in America to the general peace at Paris. The best history in existence, though left unfinished, that of the Peloponnesian war, by Thucydides, embraces exactly the same space of time, and is not dissimilar in the details of its events. The revolutionary

period, thus defined, is rounded with epic exactness, having a beginning, a middle, and an end; a time for causes to operate, for the stir of action, and for the final results.

The machinery in motion is on the broadest scale of grandeur. We see the new world, young in age, but resolute in youth, lifting up the arm of defiance against the haughtiest power of the old; fleets and armies, on one side, crossing the ocean in daring attitude and confiding strength; on the other, men rallying round the banner of union, and fighting on their natal soil for freedom, rights, existence; the long struggle and successful issue; hope confirmed, justice triumphant. The passions are likewise here at work, in all the changing scenes of politics and war, in the deliberations of the senate, the popular mind, and the martial excitements of the field. We have eloquence and deep thought in counsel, alertness and bravery in action, self-sacrifice, fortitude, and patient suffering of hardships through toil and danger to the last. If we search for the habiliments of dignity with which to clothe a historical subject, or the looser drapery of ornament with which to embellish a narrative, where shall we find them thronging more thickly, or in happier contrasts, than during this period?

The causes of the revolution, so fertile a theme of speculation, are less definite than have been imagined. The whole series of colonial events was a continued and accumulating cause. The spirit was kindled in England; it went with Robinson's congregation to Holland; it landed with them at Plymouth; it was the basis of the first constitution of these sage and self-taught legislators; it never left them nor their descendants. It extended to the other colonies, where it met with a kindred impulse, was nourished in every breast, and became rooted in the feelings of the whole people.

The revolution was a change of forms, but not of substance; the breaking of a tie, but not the creation of a principle; the establishment of an independent nation, but not the origin of its intrinsic political capacities. The foundations of society, although unsettled for the moment, were not essentially disturbed; its pillars were shaken, but never overthrown. The convulsions of war subsided, and the people found themselves, in their local relations and customs, their immediate privileges and enjoyments, just where they had been at the beginning. The new forms transferred the supreme authority from the King and Parliament of Great Britain to the hands of the people. This was a gain, but not a renovation; a security against future encroachments, but not an exemption from any old duty, nor an imposition of any new one, farther than that of being at the trouble to govern themselves.

Hence the latent cause of what has been called a revolution was the fact, that the political spirit and habits in America had waxed into a shape so different from those in England, that it was no longer convenient to regulate them by the same forms. In other words, the people had grown to be kings, and chose to exercise their sovereign prerogatives in their own way. Time alone would have effected the end, probably without so violent

an explosion, had it not been hastened by particular events, which may be denominated the proximate

causes.

These took their rise at the close of the French war, twelve years before the actual contest began. Relieved from future apprehensions of the French power on the frontiers, the colonists now had leisure to think of themselves, of their political affairs, their numbers, their united strength. At this juncture, the most inauspicious possible for the object in view, the precious device of taxing the colonies was resorted to by the British ministry, which, indeed, had been for some time a secret scheme in the cabinet, and had been recommended by the same sagacious governor of Virginia, who found the people in such a republican way of acting, that he could not manage them to his purpose.

The fruit of this policy was the Stamp Act, which has been considered a primary cause; and it was so, in the same sense that a torch is the cause of a conflagration, kindling the flame, but not creating the combustible materials. Effects then became causes, and the triumphant opposition to this tax was the case of its being renewed on tea and other articles, not so much, it was avowed, for the amount of revenue it would yield, as to vindicate the principle, that Parliament had a right to tax the colonies. The people resisted the act, and destroyed the tea, to show that they likewise had a principle, for which they felt an equal concern.

By these experiments on their patience, and these struggles to oppose them, their confidence was increased, as the tree gains strength at its root, by the repeated blasts of the tempests against its branches. From this time a mixture of causes was at work; the pride of power, the disgrace of defeat, the arrogance of office, on the one hand; a sense of wrong, indignant feeling, an enthusiasm for liberty on the other. These were secondary, having slight connection with the first springs of the Revolution, or the pervading force by which it was kept up, although important filaments in the network of history.

The acts of the Revolution derive dignity and interest from the character of the actors, and the nature and magnitude of the events. It has been remarked, that in all great political revolutions, men have arisen, possessed of extraordinary endowments, adequate to the exigency of the time. It is true enough, that such revolutions, or any remarkable and continued exertions of human power, must be brought to pass by corresponding qualities in the agents; but whether the occasion makes the men, or men the occasion, may not always be ascertained with exactness. In either case, however, no period has been adorned with examples more illustrious, or more perfectly adapted to the high destiny awaiting them, than that of the American Revolution.

Statesmen were at hand, who, if not skilled in the art of governing empires, were thoroughly imbued with the principles of just government, intitimately acquainted with the history of former ages, and, above all, with the condition, sentiments, feelings of their countrymen. If there were no Riche

lieus nor Mazarines, no Cecils nor Chathams, in America, there were men, who, like Themistocles, knew how to raise a small state to glory and great

ness.

The eloquence and the internal counsels of the Old Congress were never recorded; we know them only in their results; but that assembly, with no other power than that conferred by the suffrage of the people, with no other influence than that of their public virtue and talents, and without precedent to guide their deliberations, unsupported even by the arm of law or of ancient usages-that assembly levied troops, imposed taxes, and for years not only retained the confidence and upheld the civil existence of a distracted country, but carried through a perilous war under its most aggravating burdens of sacrifice and suffering. Can we imagine a situation, in which were required higher moral courage, more intelligence and talent, a deeper insight into human nature and the principles of social and political organizations, or, indeed, any of those qualities which constitute greatness of character in a statesman? See, likewise, that work of wonder, the Confederation, a union of independent states, constructed in the very heart of a desolating war, but with a beauty and strength, imperfect as it was, of which the ancient leagues of the Amphictyons, the Achæans, the Lycians, and the modern confederacies of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, afford neither exemplar nor parallel.

In their foreign affairs these same statesmen showed no less sagacity and skill, taking their stand boldly in the rank of nations, maintaining it there, competing with the tactics of practised diplomacy, and extorting from the powers of the old world not only the homage of respect, but the proffers of friendship.

The military events of the Revolution, which necessarily occupy so much of its history, are not less honourable to the actors, nor less fruitful in the evidences they afford of large design and ability of character. But these we need not recount. They live in the memory of all; we have heard them from the lips of those who saw and suffered; they are inscribed on imperishable monuments; the very hills and plains around us tell of achievements which can never die; and the day will come, when the traveller, who has gazed and pondered at Marathon and Waterloo, will linger on the mount where Prescott fought and Warren fell, and sayHere is the field where man has struggled in his most daring conflict; here is the field where liberty poured out her noblest blood, and won her brightest and most enduring laurels.

Happy was it for America, happy for the world, that a great name, a guardian genius, presided over her destinies in war, combining more than the virtues of the Roman Fabius and the Theban Epaminondas, and compared with whom, the conquerors of the world, the Alexanders and Cæsars, are but pageants crimsoned with blood and decked with the trophies of slaughter, objects equally of the wonder and the execration of mankind. The

hero of America was the conqueror only of his country's foes, and the hearts of his countrymen. To the one he was a terror, and in the other he gained an ascendency, supreme, unrivalled, the tribute of admiring gratitude, the reward of a nation's love.

The American armies, compared with the embattled legions of the old world, were small in numbers, but the soul of a whole people centred in the bosom of these more than Spartan bands, and vibrated quickly and keenly with every incident that befell them, whether in their feats of valour, or the acuteness of their sufferings. The country itself was one wide battle-field, in which not merely the life-blood, but the dearest interests, the sustaining hopes, of every individual, were at stake. It was not a war of pride and ambition between monarchs, in which an island or a province might be the award of success; it was a contest for personal liberty and civil rights, coming down in its principles to the very sanctuary of home and the fireside, and determining for every man the measure of responsibility he should hold over his own condition, possessions, and happiness. The spectacle was grand and new, and may well be cited as the most glowing page in the annals of progressive man.

The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can nowhere be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than in this revolutionary period of America; and especially by us, who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, enjoy its shade, and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit, or gain, that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an undivided feeling; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole country.

Union was the arch on which

they raised the strong tower of a nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied, that would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar its beauty; the tongue mute, that would dishonour their names, by calculating the value of that which they deemed without price.

They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's memory; an example portentous to the aims of tyranny in every land; an example that will console in all ages the drooping aspirations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every day convinces us, that a written charter may become powerless. Ignorance may misinterpret it; ambition may assail and faction destroy its vital parts; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which lives; in this are our safety and our hope; the spirit of our fathers; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of our hearts; while it incites us to think as they have thought, and do as they have done, the honour and the praise will be ours, to have preserved unimpaired the rich inheritance, which they so nobly achieved.

JOHN NEAL was born in Portland, about the year 1794. His parents were Quakers, but his father died while he was an infant, and his mother, though she put him in drab, could by no means instil into him the peaceable notions of which that colour is the sign, as appeared when he disturbed the silence of a meeting in which there had been no moving of a better spirit, by knocking down a young broad-rim who had insulted him. This was when he was about ten years of age. It was a bad beginning for a disciple of George Fox; and he was probably "turned out of meeting" at once, for he has been combating something or other ever since. At school he is said to have been most remarkable for his ingenious and daring evasions of the master's authority; he did not "take much to the learning of books;" but in a dry goods shop, in which he was placed at twelve, he did better, and soon became master of the eloquence, arts, and mysteries of bargaining. He continued to be a salesman or accountant five or six years, in Portland and Portsmouth, and was then a teacher of penmanship and drawing in the principal eastern villages, and at twenty went to Boston, and soon after to New York, in which cities he was a clerk, shopkeeper, and speculator in general, until, having acquired considerable money, he proceeded to Baltimore, where he commenced more extensive operations, with John Pierpont, who had been educated for the bar, and in consequence of ill-health had given up his profession for the more active one of a merchant. They established a wholesale store in Charleston, and two of the same kind in Baltimore, where they also had a shop for retailing. They did a great business, until their failure, which occurred in a reasonable time; and then Pierpont studied divinity and wrote the Airs of Palestine, and Neal studied law, and wrote such books and did such other things as will be hereinafter mentioned.

At the time of the bursting of his commercial bubbles, Mr. Neal was but twenty-three years of age. He had not saved a cent, and

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was out of business. He had energy and a genius for any thing or every thing, and he must do something, or starve. After a short deliberation he determined, as has been intimated, to be a lawyer, but the rules of court, whatever might be his knowledge, required the devotion of years to the study of the books; and how was he to live meanwhile? He would turn author! he had scarcely any education, was ignorant even of the first principles of English grammar, and had never written a line for the press except his advertisements; but nevertheless he determined to be a scholar and critic, and do what no other person was then able to do in this country, gain a living by literature.

He made his first appearance as an author in a review of the works of Byron, in The Portico. It gained him much reputation, and he was immediately engaged as a regular contributor to that then popular magazine. Within a month or two he became editor of the Baltimore Telegraph, for which he wrote largely every day upon whatever was attracting attention. In 1817 he published his first book, Keep Cool, a Novel, written in Hot Weather, which he himself has described characteristically as "a foolish, fiery thing, with a good deal of nature and originality, and much more nonsense and flummery in it." About the same time he prepared an index to Niles' Weekly Register, which made over two hundred and fifty very closely printed imperial octavo pages, and is spoken of by Mr. Niles as "probably the most laborious work of the kind that ever appeared in any country." In 1818 he published The Battle of Niagara, Goldau the Maniac Harper, and Other Poems, by "Jehu O'Cataract,' "* and Otho, a Tragedy, and in the following year he assisted Dr. Watkins in writing the History of the American Revolution, which is com

*This name was given to him by the members of a club of which he was then a member, and was characteristic of his impetuous and stormful temperament. In the second edition of his poems, in which they were much improved, he substituted John Neal for it, on the title-page.