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such tears as genius weeps at the loss of kindred souls." * During its delivery," says another, "all hung with breathless admiration on his words, and, at the end, in that stillness indicative alone of the deepest sorrow, they returned to their homes, with the only consolation that such men as Ames and Otis remained." †

Another occasion on which Mr. Otis displayed the loftiest strains of eloquence, was at the convention in New York in the month of September, 1812. The object of the convention was to determine upon the expediency of defeating the re-election of Mr. Madison, by running De Witt Clinton as the opposing candidate for the Presidency. It was composed of some of the ablest men of the country. After sitting two days, unable to come to any determination, on the third day they were about dissolving without any fixed plan of operation. Rufus King had pronounced the most impassioned invective against Clinton, and was so excited during his address, that his knees trembled under him. Gouverneur Morris doubted much the expediency of the measure, and was seconded in these doubts by Theodore Sedgewick, as well as by Judge Hopkinson. Many of the members were desirous of returning to Philadelphia by the steamboat, at two o'clock, P.M., of the third day. It was approaching the hour, and nothing had been determined, when Mr. Otis arose, apparently much embarrassed, holding his hat in his hand, and seeming as if he was almost sorry he had arisen. Soon he warmed with his subject, his hat fell from his hand, and he poured forth a strain of eloquence that chained all present to their seats, and when, at a late hour, the vote was taken, it was almost unanimously resolved to support Clinton. This effort was unprepared, but only proves how entirely Mr. Otis deserved the reputation he enjoyed of being a great orator.‡

Mr. Otis's connection with the convention which arose out of the internal difficulties produced by the war with Great Britain, and which met at Hartford in the winter of 1814, hardly requires notice here. After the legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut had received the report of the convention, the former deputized Mr. Otis, Mr. Thomas H. Perkins, and Mr. William Sullivan; the latter, Mr. Nathan Terry and Mr. Calvin Goddard, to repair to Washington city, "and make earnest and respectful application to the Government of the United States requesting their consent to some arrangement, whereby the State of Massachusetts, separately, or in concert with neighboring States, may be enabled to assume the defence of their territories against the enemy; and that to this end, a reasonable portion of the taxes collected within the said States, may be paid into the respective treasuries thereof, and appropriated to the payment of the balance due to the said States, and to the future defence of the same; the amount so paid into the treasuries to be credited, and the disbursements so made to be charged to the United States." The commissioners were further required to consult with, and to solicit the assistance and co-operation of the senators and representatives of this Commonwealth in the Congress of

Samuel L. Knapp, LL.D.

+ George Cabot.

This anecdote is recorded by John T. S. Sullivan in a note, at page 350 of his father's "Familiar Letters on Public Characters."

§ The Hartford Convention was composed of some of the ablest men of New England. George Cabot was its president. He was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1752. Before he attained the age of twenty-six, he was a member of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, and distinguished himself in that body, by an opposition to the plan of establishing by law a maximum of prices, and by his strong advocacy for the freedom of commerce. In 1787-8 he was a prominent member of the Federal Convention of Massachusetts, and for many years a Senator in Congress. In 1798, he was appointed Secretary of the Navy, but declined to serve. During the latter portion of his life, he was sometimes in the State legislature and in the executive council. His death occurred at Boston, on the eighteenth of April, 1823.

Mr. Cabot was a self-taught man, and for the distinction he attained he was indebted to his own cultivation of the ex traordinary powers of his mind. In conversation, he was unusually eloquent. Dr. Kirkland, one who had the best opportunities to know him, thus describes his qualities. "His mind was at once comprehensive and discriminating; full, yet accurate. He was sagacious and acute in disentangling involved and difficult subjects; knowing how to separate appearances from realities; to distinguish the probable, the true, the practical. The materials that constituted his intellectual store, lay in his mind in methodical arrangement, ready to be applied to their proper uses, for argument, persua sion, colloquial communication, or the conduct of life." In personal appearance, he is described as a tall man, of courteous and elegant manners, and refined aspect; his complexion was light, his eyes blue.

He was a decided federalist; and the friend of Gore, Ames and Hamilton. He also enjoyed the confidence of Washington. His course in the convention at Hartford, is fully explained in Dwight's history of that body. See Sul livan's Familiar Letters.

the United States. The commissioners arrived at Washington about the middle of February, 1815, at which time the news of the conclusion of the treaty of Ghent was received by the government. This rendered the object of their mission futile, and they returned to their homes. Mr. Otis published a defence of the convention in a series of eloquent and spirited letters, in

1824.

In 1817 Mr. Otis was elected to the United States Senate, where he remained until 1823, discharging with great ability and high patriotism, the most important functions, and always devoted to the interests of his State and country. In the celebrated discussion which arose in the Senate, at the time the Missouri question was before that body, he displayed the greatest power and eloquence. His speech on that occasion is among the few preserved of that extraordinary debate. On leaving Congress, he returned to Boston, and became a candidate for governor of Massachusetts, in opposition to William Eustis, but was defeated in the election. In 1829 he was elected mayor of Boston. This was the last public station he occupied. At the close of his mayoralty, he retired to private life; and on the twenty-eighth of October, 1848, retaining his mental vigor to the last, he died, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

A short time previous to his death, he addressed a spirited and effective letter to the public, advocating the support of General Taylor for the presidency. This was published on the second of October, and was probably the latest work of his pen.

No formal biography of Mr. Otis has yet appeared. The most extended account of his life and services is given by Mr. Loring, in The Hundred Boston Orators; but the greater part of his history is to be found in the occasional productions of his time, and the few manuscript letters of his cotemporaries

EULOGY ON HAMILTON.

Mr. Otis pronounced this eulogy, at the request | heroes which had been spared from thy fatal of the citizens of Boston, on the twenty-sixth of July, 1804:

We are convened, afflicted fellow-citizens, to perform the only duties which our republics acknowledge or fulfil to their illustrious dead; to present to departed excellence an oblation of gratitude and respect: to inscribe its virtues on the urn which contains its ashes, and to consecrate its example by the tears and sympathy of an affectionate people.

Must we, then, realize that Hamilton is no more! Must the sod, not yet cemented on the tomb of Washington, still moist with our tears, be so soon disturbed to admit the beloved companion of Washington, the partner of his dangers, the object of his confidence, the disciple who leaned upon his bosom! Insatiable Death! Will not the heroes and statesmen, whom mad ambition has sent from the crimsoned fields of Europe, suffice to people thy dreary dominions! Thy dismal avenues have been thronged with princely martyrs and illustrious victims. Crowns and sceptres, the spoils of royalty, are among thy recent trophies, and the blood of innocence and valor has flowed in torrents at thy inexorable command. Such have been thy ravages in the old world. And in our infant country how small was the remnant of our revolutionary

grasp! Could not our Warren, our Montgomery, our Mercer, our Greene, our Washington appease thy vengeance for a few short years! Shall none of our early patriots be permitted to behold the perfection of their own work in the stability of our government and the maturity of our institutions! Or hast thou predetermined, dread King of Terrors! to blast the world's best hope, and by depriving us of all the conductors of our glorious revolution, compel us to bury our liberties in their tombs! O Hamilton! great would be the relief of my mind, were I permitted to exchange the arduous duty of attempting to portray the varied excellence of thy character, for the privilege of venting the deep and unavailing sorrow which swells my bosom, at the remembrance of the gentleness of thy nature, of thy splendid talents and placid virtues! But, my respected friends, an indulgence of these feelings would be inconsistent with that deliberate recital of the services and qualities of this great man, which is required by impartial justice and your expectations.

In governments which recognize the distinctions of splendid birth and titles, the details of illustrious lineage and connections become interesting to those who are accustomed to value those advantages. But in the man whose loss we deplore, the interval between manhood and death was so uniformly filled by a display of

the energies of his mighty mind, that the world | the American garrison, at New London, would has scarcely paused to inquire into the story of have justified and seemed to demand an exerhis infant or puerile years. He was a planet, cise of the rigors of retaliation. This was the dawn of which was not perceived; which strongly intimated to Colonel Hamilton, but we rose with full splendor, and emitted a constant find, in his report to his commanding officer. stream of glorious light until the hour of its in his own words, that, "incapable of imitating sudden and portentous eclipse. examples of barbarity, and forgetting recent provocations, he spared every man who ceased to resist."

At the age of eighteen, while cultivating his mind at Columbia College, he was roused from the leisure and delights of scientific groves by the din of war. He entered the American army as an officer of artillery, and at that early period familiarized himself to wield both his sword and his pen in the service of his country. He developed at once the qualities which command precedency, and the modesty which conceals its pretensions. Frank, affable, intelligent and brave, young Hamilton became the favorite of his fellow-soldiers. His intuitive perception and correct judgment rendered him a rapid proficient in military science, and his merit silenced the envy which it excited.

Having, soon afterwards, terminated his mili tary career, he returned to New York, and qualified himself to commence practice as a counsellor at law. But the duties and emoluments of his profession were not then permitted to stifle his solicitude to give a correct tone to public opinion, by the propagation of principles worthy of adoption by a people who had just undertaken to govern themselves. He found the minds of men chafed and irritated by the recollection of their recent sufferings and dan gers. The city of New York, so long a garri son, presented scenes and incidents, which A most honorable distinction now awaited naturally aggravated these dispositions, and too him. He attracted the attention of the com- many were inclined to fan the flame of discord, mander-in-chief, who appointed him an aid, and mar the enjoyment and advantages of and honored him with his confidence and friend-peace, by fomenting the animosities engendered ship. This domestic relation afforded to both by the collisions of war. To soothe these angry frequent means of comparing their opinions passions; to heal these wounds; to demonstrate upon the policy and destinies of our country, the folly and inexpediency of scattering the upon the sources of its future prosperity and bitter tares of national prejudice and private grandeur, upon the imperfection of its existing rancor among the seeds of public prosperity, establishments; and to digest those principles, were objects worthy of the heart and head of which, in happier times, might be interwoven Hamilton. To these he applied himself, and by into a more perfect model of government. a luminous pamphlet, assuaged the public reHence, probably, originated that filial venera-sentment against those whose sentiments had tion for Washington and adherence to his maxims, which were ever conspicuous in the deportment of Hamilton; and hence the exalted esteem and predilection uniformly displayed by the magnanimous patron to the faithful and affectionate pupil.

led them to oppose the Revolution; and thus preserved from exile many valuable citizens, who have supported the laws and increased the opulence of their native State.

From this period he appears to have devoted himself principally to professional occupations, which were multiplied by his increasing celebrity, until he became a member of the convention, which met at Annapolis, merely for the purpose of devising a mode of levying and collecting a general impost. Although the ob

While the disasters of the American army, and the perseverance of the British ministry, presented the gloomy prospect of protracted warfare, young Hamilton appeared to be content in his station, and with the opportunities which he had of fighting by the side, and exe-ject of this convention was thus limited, yet so cuting the orders of his beloved chief. But the investment of the army of Cornwallis suddenly changed the aspect of affairs, and rendered it probable that this campaign, if successful, would be the most brilliant and decisive of any that was likely to occur. It now appeared that his heart had long panted for an occasion to signalize his intrepidity and devotion to the service of his country. He obtained, by earnest entreaties, the command of a detachment destined to storm the works of Yorktown. It is well known with what undaunted courage he pressed on to the assault, with unloaded arms, presented his bosom to the dangers of the bayonet, carried the fort, and thus eminently contributed to decide the fate of the battle and of his country. But even here the impetuosity of the youthful conqueror was restrained by the clemency of the benevolent man: the butchery of

manifold, in his view, were the defects of the old confederation, that a reform, in one particular, would be ineffectual; he, therefore, first suggested the proposal of attempting a radical change in its principles; and the address to the people of the United States, recommending a general convention, with more extensive powers, which was adopted by that assembly, was the work of his pen.*

To the second convention, which framed the constitution, he was also deputed as a delegate from the State of New York.

In that assemblage of the brightest jewels of America, the genius of Hamilton sparkled with pre-eminent lustre. The best of our orators

*This information is derived from a respectable member

of that convention, from the State of New York.-Author of the Eulogy.

were improved by the example of his eloquence. | the Secretary was called upon to elicit the ele The most experienced of our statesmen were ments of a regular system, adequate to the im instructed by the solidity of his sentiments, and mediate exigencies of a new and expensive all were convinced of the utility and extent of establishment, and to an honorable provision his agency in framing the constitution. for the public debt. His arduous duty was not to reform abuses, but to create resources; not to improve upon precedent, but to invent a model. In an ocean of experiment, he had neither chart nor compass but those of his own invention. Yet such was the comprehensive vigor of his mind, that his original projects possessed the hardihood of settled regulations. His sketches were little short of the perfection of finished pictures. In the first session of Congress, he produced a plan for the organization of the Treasury Department, and for the collection of a national revenue; and in the second, a report of a system for funding the national debt. Great objections were urged against the expediency of the principles, assumed by him for the basis of his system; but no doubt remained of their effect. A dormant capital was revived, and with it commerce and agriculture awoke as from the sleep of death. By the enchantment of this "mighty magician," the beauteous fabric of public credit rose in full majesty upon the ruins of the old confederation; and men gazed with astonishment upon a youthful prodigy, who, at the age of thirty-three, having already been the ornament of the camp, the forum and the Senate, was now suddenly transformed into an accomplished financier, and a self-taught adept, not only in the general principles, but the intricate details, of his new department.

When the instrument was presented to the people for their ratification, the obstacles incident to every attempt to combine the interests, views and opinions of the various States, threatened, in some of them, to frustrate the hopes and exertions of its friends. The fears of the timid, the jealousies of the ignorant, the arts of the designing, and the sincere conviction of the superficial, were arrayed into a formidable alliance, in opposition to the system. But the magic pen of Hamilton dissolved this league. Animated by the magnitude of his object, he enriched the daily papers with the researches of a mind teeming with political information. In these rapid essays, written amid the avocations of business, and under the pressure of the occasion, it would be natural to expect, that much would require revision and correction. But in the mind of Hamilton nothing was superficial but resentment of injuries; nothing fugitive, but those transient emotions which sometimes lead virtue astray. These productions of his pen are now considered as a standard commentary upon the nature of our government; and he lived to hear them quoted by his friends and adversaries, as high authority, in the tribunals of justice, and in the legislature of the nation.

to the suspicion of doing wrong. He was suspected and accused. His political adversaries were his judges. Their investigation of his conduct and honorable acquittal added new lustre to his fame, and confirmed the national sentiment, that in his public character he was indeed "a man without fear and without reproach."

To his exertions in this department, we are indebted for many important institutions. Among others, the plan of redeeming the public debt, and of a national bank to facilitate the operations of government, were matured and adopted under his auspices; and so complete were his arrangements, that his successors, though men of undoubted talents, and one of them a political opponent, have found nothing susceptible of material improvement.

When the constitution was adopted, and Washington was called to the presidency by his grateful country, our departed friend was ap- It is not wonderful that such resplendent pointed to the charge of the treasury depart-powers of doing right should have exposed him ment, and of consequence became a confidential member of the administration. In this new sphere of action, he displayed a ductility and extent of genius, a fertility in expedients, a faculty of arrangement, an industry in application to business, and a promptitude in despatch; but beyond all, a purity of public virtue and disinterestedness, which are too mighty for the grasp of my feeble powers of description. Indeed, the public character of Hamilton, and his measures from this period, are so intimately connected with the history of our country, that it is impossible to do justice to one without devoting a volume to the other. The Treasury of the United States, at the time of his entrance upon the duties of his office, was literally a creature of the imagination, and existed only in name, unless folios of unsettled balances, and bundles of reproachful claims were deserving the name of a treasury. Money there was none; and of public credit scarcely a shadow remained. No national system for raising and collecting a revenue had been attempted, and no estimate could be formed, from the experiments of the different States, of the probable result of any project of deriving it from commerce. The national debt was not only unpaid, but its amount was a subject of uncertainty and conjecture. Such was the chaos from which

36

But the obligations of his country, during this period, were not confined to his merit as a financier.

The flame of insurrection was kindled in the western counties of Pennsylvania, and raged with such violence, that large detachments of military force were marched to the scene of the disturbance, and the presence of the great Washington was judged necessary to quell the increasing spirit of revolt. He ordered the Secretary to quit the duties of his department, and attend him on the expedition. His versa

tile powers were immediately and efficaciously explained and enforced by Hamilton in the applied to restore the authority of the laws. character of Pacificus. The attempts to corThe principal burden of the important civil and rupt and intimidate were resisted. The British military arrangements, requisite for this pur-treaty was justified and defended as an honorpose, devolved upon his shoulders. It was able compact with our natural friends, and owing to his humanity, that the leaders of this pregnant with advantages, which have since rebellion escaped exemplary punishment: and been realized and acknowledged by its oppothe successful issue was, in public and unquali- nents. fied terms, ascribed to him by those, whose political relations would not have prompted them to pay the homage of unmerited praise.

By this pacific and vigorous policy, in the whole course of which the genius and activity of Hamilton were conspicuous, time and inforHe was highly instrumental in preserving our mation were afforded to the American nation, peace and neutrality, and saving us from the and correct views were acquired of our situation ruin which has befallen the republics of the old and interests. We beheld the republics of Euworld. Upon this topic, I am desirous of avoid-rope march in procession to the funeral of their ing every intimation which might prove offen- own liberties, by the lurid light of the revolusive to individuals of any party. God forbid tionary torch. The tumult of the passions subthat the sacred sorrow, in which we all unite, sided, the wisdom of the administration was should be disturbed by the mixture of any un-perceived, and America now remains a solitary kindly emotions! I would merely do justice monument in the desolated plains of liberty. to this honored shade, without arraigning the motives of those who disapproved and opposed his measures.

Having remained at the head of the treasury several years, and filled its coffers; having developed the sources of an ample revenue, and tested the advantages of his own system by his own experience; and having expended his prifortune; he found it necessary to retire from public employment, and to devote his attention to the claims of a large and dear family. What brighter instance of disinterested honor has ever been exhibited to an admiring world! That a man, upon whom devolved the task of originating a system of revenue for a nation; of devising the checks in his own department; of providing for the collection of sums, the amount of which was conjectural; that a man, who anticipated the effects of a funding system, yet a secret in his own bosom, and who was thus enabled to have secured a princely fortune, consistently with principles esteemed fair by the world; that such a man, by no means addicted to an expensive or extravagant style of living, should have retired from office destitute of means adequate to the wants of mediocrity, and have resorted to professional labor for the means of decent support, are facts which must instruct and astonish those, who, in countries habituated to corruption and venality, are more attentive to the gains than to the duties of official station. Yet Hamilton was that man. It was a fact, always known to his friends, and it is now evident from his testament, made under a deep presentiment of his approaching fate. Blush, then, ministers and warriors of imperial France, who have deluded your nation by pretensions to a disinterested regard for its liberties and rights. Disgorge the riches extorted from your fellow-citizens, and the spoils amassed from confiscation and blood! Restore to im

The dangers, which menaced our infant government at the commencement of the French revolution, are no longer a subject of contro-vate versy. The principles, professed by the first leaders of that revolution, were so congenial to those of the American people; their pretences of aiming merely at the reformation of abuses were so plausible; the spectacle of a great people struggling to recover their "long lost liberties was so imposing and august; while that of a combination of tyrants to conquer and subjugate, was so revolting; the services, received from one of the belligerent powers, and the injuries inflicted by the other, were so recent in our minds, that the sensibility of the nation was excited to the most exquisite pitch. To this disposition, so favorable to the wishes of France, every appeal was made, which intrigue, corruption, flattery and threats could dictate. At this dangerous and dazzling crisis, there were but few men entirely exempt from the general delirium. Among that few was Hamilton. His penetrating eye discerned, and his prophetic voice foretold, the tendency and consequence of the first revolutionary movements. He was assured, that every people which should espouse the cause of France would pass under her yoke, and that the people of France, like every nation which surrenders its reason to the mercy of demagogues, would be driven by the storms of anarchy upon the shores of despotism. All this he knew was conformable to the invariable law of nature and experience of mankind. From the reach of this desolation he was anxious to save his country, and in the pursuit of his purpose, he breast-poverished nations the price paid by them for ed the assaults of calumny and prejudice. "The torrent roared, and he did buffet it." Appreciating the advantages of a neutral position, he co-operated with Washington, Adams, and the other patriots of that day, in the means best adapted to maintain it. The rights and duties of neutrality, proclaimed by the President, were

the privilege of slavery, and now appropriated to the refinements of luxury and corruption! Approach the tomb of Hamilton, and compare the insignificance of your gorgeous palaces with the awful majesty of this tenement of clay!

We again accompany our friend in the walks of private life, and in the assiduous pursuit of

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