wages of vice, exalts a rapacious head over a servile crowd; but that honest wealth, which, accompanied by freedom and justice, comforts the needy, raises the abject, instructs the ignorant, and fosters the arts. Such are the outlines of a picture which, adorned by classic coloring, might, with the Iliad, have been recommended to his royal pupil by that sage whose mind, acute and profound, was equally skilled in moral, physical, and political science.

to the highest point of prosperity, was but two million; about double our present number. These poor provinces sustained a conflict of thirty years with the most powerful nation in Europe. They opposed the ablest generals, at the head of the best troops of that most warlike age. An awful scene! interrupted, not closed, in April, 1609, by a truce of twelve years. When that expired, another contest ensued of seven and twenty years. At length, on the 24th of October, 1648, almost a century, eightytwo years, from the time they first took up arms, their independence was acknowledged by the treaty of Westphalia.

The first settlement of this State coincided with its natural advantages. While Englishmen came to America, either flying from ecclesiastical intolerance, or pursuing the treasure its savages were supposed to possess; Dutchmen, It is natural here to ask, by what miracle did inspired with the spirit of trade, instead of sit- these feeble provinces resist that mighty emting down on the skirts of the new world, pire? The sufficient, and only sufficient answer, boldly penetrated to the head navigation of the is, by the will of Him who holds in his hand Hudson. They built there a fort, in the year the destinies of mankind. He bade their gloomy 1614, and gave it the name of that august fam-climate produce a persevering people, whose inily, whose talents and labors, in the cabinet and dustry no toil could abate, whose fortitude no the field, secured the liberty of England, as well danger could dismay. He gave them leaders as of Holland, and established the independence sagacious, intrepid, active, unwearied, incorof Europe. ruptible. He, as of old, from the eater brought forth meat, and from the strong, sweetness. He gave them food from a tempestuous ocean, and treasure from the jaws of devouring despotism. But if, with reverence, we seek those causes to which reason may trace events, we shall find the miracle we admire to have been the work of commerce. From the sea they gathered means to defend the land against hostile armies on one side, and against the sea itself on the other: for the singularity of their situation exposed them, alike to be inundated and to be subdued. The sea, which threatened, and still threatens to overwhelm them, gave access to the riches of both the Indias. They pursued, along that perilous road, the persecutors of mankind, and wrested from their grasp the unrighteous plunder of Mexico and Peru. Thus, surrounded by danger, impelled by want, inured to toil, animated by exertion, strengthened by faith, stimulated by hope, and exalted by religion, a few miserable fishermen, scattered on a sterile coast, were converted into a race of heroes. They acquired power in the struggle for existence, and wealth under the weight of taxation.

The Dutch exhibited a new and interesting spectacle. Near half a century had elapsed since, confederated with the other ten provinces of the low countries, they took up arms to oppose the establishment of the inquisition. After a struggle of thirteen years, abandoned by their associates, they had to contend for civil as well as for religious liberty, not only against their bigoted and bloody foe, but against their former friends also; then submitted to his power. They had, for many preceding ages, been free. The supreme authority belonged to the States, who met on their own adjournment, and without whose consent neither laws could be passed, nor taxes raised, nor war declared.* These privileges, which every sovereign had sworn to defend, were respected by Charles V., but formed no obstacle to the ambition of his unfeeling son. Thus the revolutions, if without the violation of language that term can be so applied, of Holland, of England, and of America, bear a striking resemblance to each other. Each was a contest to maintain the liberty already enjoyed, and defend it against usurpation. In England, a powerful nation, surrounded by the sea, dismissed their prince, and placed on his throne, the husband of his daughter. This work was easy and effectual. In America, the inhabitants of a great continent, separated from the invader by the Atlantic ocean, favored at first by the wishes and at last by the arms of other nations, were successful after a short, though severe struggle. But in the case of Holland, seven poor provinces, whose surface (about eight and a half million of acres) does not exceed one of our senatorial districts, whose population, a century after establishing their independence, and when they had reached

Grotius de Anti. Repub. Bat. cap. 5.

+ Busching's Geography, Introd. to the Netherlands, sec. 8. and 5. The Germans divide the degrees into 15 geograph

Such, gentlemen, were our Dutch ancestors, who, immediately after concluding the twelve years' truce, came hither and brought with them their skill, their integrity, their liberty, and their courage. From a sense of justice, that animating soul of commerce, without which it is a dead, and must soon become a corrupt and stinking carcass, they entered into a treaty with the natives; in whom they found patience, fortitude, and a love of liberty like their own. While the seven United Provinces, by their steady perseverance, astonished the nations of the east, our six confederate tribes, by their

ical miles, which gives, in round numbers, about 18,600 acres to the square geographical mile; of which he gives to the Netherlands, 625.

military prowess, subdued those of the west. The first treaty formed between the Dutch and the Maquaas, or Mohawks, has been frequently renewed; and few treaties have been better observed. The excellent discourse* delivered to you last year, leaves me nothing to say of those tribes. Permit me, however, to express the astonishment, in which you will doubtless participate, that men, reputed to be wise and learned, should suppose the people of this State, born, brought up, and situated as they are, can be restrained from commercial pursuits.

The first of these wars was terminated in three years by the treaty of Breda which gave New York to the British crown, the 26th of January, 1667.

After a licentious reign of near two-andtwenty years, the throne of inglorious Charles was mounted by his bigoted brother James who, crowned in 1684, fled to France in 1688. Half a century had elapsed, from the time when Charles the First made his lavish levy of ship money, to the accession of his son James. In the former half of this period the English charHalf a century after Fort Orange was built, acter was degraded by hypocrisy and crime, in Charles II. of England, within three years from the latter by impiety and vice. During the first his restoration, granted this State to his brother, five-and-twenty years, we had no connection the Duke of York; and in that year (1664) it with them. On the contrary, for two years, was conquered by the British arms. England, from 1652 to 1654, there was war between which Elizabeth (after reigning near five-and- Oliver Cromwell and the States General. Durforty years) had left in the possession of peace, ing the last five-and-twenty, we were secured wealth, and glory, passed two-and-twenty more against the contagion of their immorality, by under a conceited pedant, powerful in words, distance, by poverty, and by the simple_manand poor in act. He had neither the courage ners and habits which characterized our Dutch to establish, nor the magnanimity to abandon ancestors. Six years after New York was ceded prerogatives, which, inconsistent with the spirit to Charles the Second, it was retaken by the of his age and country, became every day more Dutch, but restored to England the 9th of Feband more intolerable. Thus the scholastic im-ruary of the next year (1674) by the treaty of becility of a projector prepared the tragic scene Westminster. In little more than fifteen years in which his son was doomed to act and to from that period, an insurrection under Leisler perish. A hideous scene, where the spectators took this city for King William; whose war beheld, with horror and dismay, justice vio- with France (terminated by the treaty of Ryslated, honor polluted, religion degraded, and wick, in 1697) lasted eight years. After a short freedom destroyed. But great crimes were breathing of four years, however, it was renewpalliated, as they were perpetrated, by great ed, in the beginning of the last century, and talents. The infamy of murder and usurpation lasted thirteen years more; till, at length, the was ennobled by the sword of victory. And treaty of Utrecht, on the 11th of April, 1714, the multitude, dazzled by the splendor of suc- followed by the death of Queen Anne in August cess, that adoration which is due to virtue alone, of the same year, and of Louis XIV. on the first was blindly and basely offered at the shrine of of September in the next year, gave to our power. In seventeen years after Charles as-country a more durable repose. For though it cended his father's throne, he was engaged in might have been imagined that our distance civil war. At the close of another seventeen and our insignificance would have secured us, years he was led to the scaffold. During nine a lowly bush, from tempests which tore the years the British sceptre was in the iron grasp tops of lofty trees; yet, bordering as we do on of Cromwell. He made the nations tremble. Canada, so long as France continued in possesBut in less than three years from his decease, sion of that province, every war in which she the son of Charles was restored. Fortunately was engaged with England, laid waste our fronfor our freedom, this witty sensualist, who, if tiers, and, calling forth every effort for their we are to believe one of his profligate compan- defence, exhausted our resources. From this ions, "never said a foolish thing, and never did rapid sketch, gentlemen, it appears that, chila wise one," although he had the sense to per-dren of commerce, we were rocked in the craceive, had not the steadiness to pursue, nor the dle of war, and sucked the principles of liberty address to secure, the advantages of his situa- with our mothers' milk. Accordingly, we find tion. He might have put himself in possession that long before that controversy which rent of absolute power over a nation inured to war, the British empire asunder, in disputes with and naturally brave. He might have held in royal governors attempting to stretch authority his hand the fate of Europe. He might have beyond its just bounds, there was a steady apbeen the rival of Louis the Fourteenth; per-peal, by our fathers, to the principles on which haps his superior. Instead of this, he basely the Belgic and British patriots relied in their became his pensioner, and in that mean condi- opposition to tyranny. tion waged war with the United Netherlands. But a majority of his Parliament, too wise to be deceived, too brave to be intimidated, too honest to be seduced, obliged him to make peace, by withholding the means to make war.

By the Hon. De Witt Clinton.

The revocation of the edict of Nantz, in the year 1685, drove many French protestants to seek an asylum on our shores, and Governor Hunter, in the year 1710, brought with him a number of palatines. Thus our ancestry may be traced to four nations, the Dutch, the British, the French, and the German. It would

have been strange had a people so formed, I war is general slaughter; whose trophies are been tainted with national prejudice. Far from torn bleeding from the skulls of women and it. We are, if I may be allowed to say so, born children, and who gluts his ferocity by the torcosmopolite; and possess, without effort, what ture of helpless prisoners. The civilized man others can with difficulty acquire by much will perceive, also, if history has occupied his travel and great expense. But as no earthly attention, by comparing the laws of ancient and good is pure, so this equal respect and regard modern war, the influence, and, in that influfor strangers diminishes the preference to na-ence, the truth of our holy religion. If it be tives, on occasions where natives ought to be true that one great end of history is to compreferred; and impairs the activity, if not the municate a knowledge of mankind, and, by strength, while it removes the blindness of making man acquainted with his species, facilipatriotic sentiment. In like manner, it may be tate the acquisition of that most important numbered among the advantages of commerce, science, the knowledge of himself; we may be that a liberality which extends to foreign cor- permitted to believe that a faithful narrative respondents, the gentle appellation of friend, of deeds done by our fathers will eminently encourages the growth of general benevolence. merit a studious regard. The comparison which It is at the same time to be lamented, that with will, obtrusively, present itself between the this amiable sentiment is connected, a fondness aboriginal tribes, the various colonists, the emifor the fashions and productions of foreign grants from Europe, and the troops of difcountries which is injurious to the simplicity ferent nations, will display a more perfect picof ancient manners. But, from the combined ture of our species than can easily be delineated operation of these causes, the emigrant from on any other historical canvas. Neither will every nation finds himself here at home. Na- the strong lineaments of character be wanting. tives of the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Apen- Those arduous circumstances which marked our nines, the highlands of Scotland, and the moun- origin, and impeded our growth; those ravages tains of Wales, as well as those who inhabit to which we were exposed, not only until the the banks of the Shannon, the Thames, the treaty of Utrecht, but in the war from 1744 Seine, the Rhine, and the Danube, meeting to 1748, terminated by the treaty of Aix-lahere, see in each other the faces of fellow- Chapelle; in that which began in 1755 and countrymen. It results, from our mixed popu- | ended in 1760 by the conquest of Canada, and lation, that he who wishes to become acquaint-in our war with Great Britain, from April, ed with the various languages and manners of mankind, need not ramble into distant regions. He, also, who would trace up society to its origin, can here behold it in the rudest condition. He can safely shut the volumes of philosophic dreaming, and look into the book of nature which lies open before him. Ethical reasoning may here be raised on the foundation of fact. If it be admitted, as a principle in the natural history of animals, that the state in which a particular species of them is most powerful and abundant, is the best suited to its nature, and therefore its natural state, it may be concluded that the natural state of man is that in which they have the most activity, strength, and May we not be permitted, also, to believe beauty. If this conclusion be just, we need that they are by nature brave? Pardon, genbut open our eyes on our savage brethren to be tlemen, a digression which, though it should convinced, by a comparison of them with civil- conclude nothing, may furnish amusementized man, that in so far as regards our own perhaps reflection. He who visits the nations species, the state of nature and of society are which Tacitus and Caesar have described, will one and the same. The half-naked Indian, who be struck with a resemblance between those now sits shivering on the banks of Niagara, who now inhabit particular districts, and those while he views that stupendous cataract, may who dwelt there so many centuries ago. Notview also the ships, the houses, the clothing withstanding the wars and conquests which and arms of his civilized fellow-creatures, and have laid waste, depopulated, and repeopled hear the thunders of their cannon roar louder Europe; notwithstanding the changes of govthan the torrent. If he compares his feebleernment, and those which have been wrought means and wretched condition with their power by the decline and by the advance of society and wealth, he cannot but be sensible of his and the arts; notwithstanding the differences great inferiority. And much more will civil- of religion, and the difference of manners reized man, who, daring death at the call of duty, sulting from all other circumstances; still the not only spares an unresisting foe, but soothes same distinctive traits of character appear. his distress, relieves his wants, and heals his Similar bodies are animated by similar souls. wounds-much more will he feel superiority We find, also, extending our view a little further over the savage hunter of men, whose rule of | east, and taking in a larger surface of the globe,

|

1775, to November, 1783; above all, the persevering efforts to defend our country, in that long period of near one hundred and seventy years from the first settlement by the Dutch in 1614, to the time when this city was evacuated. by the British in the close of 1783, during which there was little repose (except in a space of thirty years which elapsed between the peace of Utrecht and the war of 1744) brought forth men worthy of respectful imitation, and formed the mass of our citizens to the hardihood of military life; notwithstanding a soil and climate which, teeming with abundance, tempt to the enjoyment of ease and luxury.

that peculiarities in civil establishment and | lection, that bloody field in which Herkimer political organization, corresponding with the fell. There was found the Indian and the white peculiarities of national character, have, from man, born on the banks of the Mohawk, their the earliest ages, distinguished those regions. left hand clenched in each other's hair, the We find that the attempt of tyrants to estab- right grasping, in a gripe of death, the knife lish despotism, in some countries, was frequently plunged in each other's bosom. Thus they lay baffled; while the endeavor of patriots to secure frowning. Africa presents a number of nations, freedom, in others, was equally fruitless. He like those of America, uncivilized. But how who considers the changes wrought by the tide different! I will not say inferior, for they alse of time on the face of our globe, this solid earth have excellence peculiar to themselves. They itself alternately raised above the ocean or are not, indeed, either painters or builders; but plunged beneath its waves, and perceives those nowhere, not even in Italy, is the taste for peculiarities of form and mind, which remain music more universal. unchanged through such a long succession of generations, must be struck with the idea of the simple Indian, who, pressed to sell the possession of his tribe, replied, "We grew out of this ground. In its bosom our fathers repose. What! Shall we call upon their bones? Shall we bid them arise and go with us to a strange land?"

If we believe, with Frederick the Great, that reason and experience are the crutches on which men halt along in the pursuit of truth, it may not be amiss to ask the aid of what is known about the Indian character and history, in order to draw the horoscope of our country. What is the statesman's business? If futurity were known, the simplest which can be imagined. For, as in reading Virgil we find the verse so smooth that every scholar thinks he could easily make as good; so, in glancing his eye along the page of history, an indolent reader figures to himself that he too could be a prince of Orange, a Walsingham, a Richelieu. And so, indeed, he might, by the aid of selfcommand, common prudence, and common sense, could he see into futurity, and penetrate the thoughts of those with whom he is to act. But there lies the difficulty.

We, gentlemen, grew out of this same ground with our Indian predecessors. Have we not some traits to mark our common origin? This question will be answered with more precision, when, after the lapse of centuries, the blood of our progenitors, operating with less force, the changes produced, not only in man, but in other animals, by that unknown cause which exhibits a peculiar race in each particular country, shall be more fully displayed. Let us, however, collect the facts which now present themselves. Among the curiosities of newly-discovered Let us see, then, whether some other characAmerica was the Indian canoe. Its slender and teristic of the aborigines may not open to us a elegant form, its rapid movement, its capacity to view of ourselves, and the perspective of our bear burdens and resist the rage of billows and country. It has already been noticed that the torrents, excited no small degree of admiration Dutch, on their arrival, found the Indian tribes for the skill by which it was constructed. free. They were subject neither to princes nor After the lapse of two centuries, the ships of to nobles. The Mohawks had not, like the America were equally admired in the ports of Romans, naturalized those whom they subdued. great naval powers, for their lightness, their It was a federal nation, a federal government, beauty, the velocity with which they sail, the a people as free as the air they breathed; acute, facility with which they are managed. Nauti- dexterous, eloquent, subtle, brave. They had cal architecture may be considered as one of more of the Grecian than of the Roman charthe most important branches of mechanic acter. The most strongly marked, perhaps, of knowledge. The higher order of mathematic their moral features, was a high sense of perscience has been called into act for its advance- sonal independence. Is it not likely that this ment. And certainly a line of battle ship is may be the character of our children's children? one of the most powerful engines that was ever May we not hope that the liberty to which we framed. In comparison with it, the ancient in- were bred, will be enjoyed and preserved by ventions, for defence or destruction, dwindle them? It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that almost to insignificance. And yet our untu- an extent so vast as that of the United States is tored ship builders have, by the mere force of less favorable to freedom than a more confined genius, excelled their European brethren in this domain, and gives reason to apprehend the difficult, complex art. So great is the differ- establishment of monarchy. Moreover, the ence, that children distinguish, at first sight, anxious patriot may well tremble at the prevathe American ship ascending the Elbe to Ham-lence of faction, at the attempts to prostrate burgh, a city of considerable trade long before law, and at those absurd principles of mob Columbus was born. Again: We find among power, as wildly preached by some as they are our savage tribes the commemoration of events wickedly practised by others. Still there is by painting; rude, indeed, but more distinct ground of hope. Still it is permitted to believe, than in other barbarous nations. May I not that those who pursue despotic power, along remark that an American is at the head of that the beaten path of democracy, and expect to art in England, and that many others, who establish their dominion over the people, by excel in it, drew their first breath on our shores. flattering the populace, will be sorely disapAgain: Let me recall, gentlemen, to your recol-pointed. The soul of this nation cannot be sub

It is among the circumstances which ought not to be overlooked, in this general view of our history, that the practice of law has been strictly modelled on that which prevails in Returning from this digression, I take leave to what we formerly called our mother country; observe that our State will support a population that land of good nature and good sense from of four millions. Already it exceeds nine hundred which we learned the most useful lessons of thousand white inhabitants, although twenty our lives: our liberty, our laws, and our religion. years ago it was but little more than three hun- Wits may scoff at the pedantry of special pleaddred thousand. When, therefore, the salubrity ing, the barbarous phraseology of lawyers, and of our climate, the fertility of our soil, the con- stern severity of judges, who, trampling on the venient situations for manufacturing establish- flowers of eloquence, check babbling, and conments, and our advantageous position for trade, fine the bar within the bounds of strict logic; are considered, there is reason to believe the but those who think, will perceive, that inasperiod not distant when we shall count four much as things are expressed by words, precise million inhabitants: and, certainly, our wealth, expressions can only be effected by words of esif we are blest by a good government, must tablished signification; and since the rule of keep pace with our population. New-York, conduct cannot be applied until the fact be esconnected with her eastern brethren and New-tablished, it is a prerequisite that such precise