An oration delivered on the 22d of February, 1813, at Washington Hall in the city of New-York, before the Hamilton Society

AN

ORATION,

DELIVERED ON THE 22d OF FEBRUARY, 1815,

WASHINGTON HALL,

IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK,

BEFORE,

THE HAMILTON SOCIETY,

BY DAVID RAYMOND.

NEW-YORK :

PUBLISHED BY A. T. GOODRICH, NO. 124, BROADWAY.

J. Seymour, printer.

1813.

"HARMONY-HALL, March 2, 1813.
" Resolved, 7 /m£ t/te thanks of the Society be pre
sented to Mr, David Raymond, for his excellent Ora-,
tion, delivered at their request, on the anniversary of
our beloved Washington, and that Messrs. Hunting-
ton, Batlard, and Halsey, be appointed a Committee
to carry this resolution into effect, and to request a copy
for the press."

(Extract from the Minutes.)

JL HOLDEN, Secy.

ORATION,

Sp.

THIS is the evening of Washington's birth-day; a
day dear to every American bosom. May it never
pass by, without a tribute to his memory! We have
this day heard his character depicted with a warmth
of feeling", and a force of language, inferior only to
the virtues and talents on which they dwelt*. To
attempt the same subject, would only be to diminish
your impressions. I have therefore taken a different
course, and shall venture to address you on general
topics.

The objects for which the Hamilton Society was
formed, are not such as we would wish to conceal. — -
They are equally honourable and useful. It was not
estaolished as a political engine. It was intended to
have no direct bearing on the government of our
country. Its objects were, to spread the principles of
Washington and Hamilton among the young men of
our city ; and, by exciting an emulation of their vir
tues, to raise up others who would be worthy to fill
their places. Noble are the objects we have in view !
High is the excellence we have selected for imita
tion ! As bearing on one of those objects, and as
calculated, I would hope, to promote it, I have select-

* Alluding to the Oration delivered in the morning, before
the Washington Society,

;6

ed. for the subject of the present address, vthe pursuits,
character, and fortunes of the States! • --M-I. To treat
the subject as it deserves, would require a volume :
I shall be able, only to take a passing- glance, and
make a few cur «>ry observations.

It was the juaxim of Nouiantia, that her only bul-
Vi'yrk was ii>6- leasts of her citizens. At a time when
, . all .cities -were wailed, she had no walls around her,
etrid never was any city more ably defended. What
was true in Numantia, is true in every country in the
world : there is no effectual defence for any country,
save the breasts of its citizens. But courage in the
day of battle, is only part of the great apparatus of
means necessary to preserve the liberty of a country.
The heads of our statesmen are of as much greater
consequence than the hearts of our soldiers, as the
hand which sets a machine in motion, is of more ac
count than the machine which it moves.

The political virtues and talents which rise to dis
tinction in the effort by which a people breaks its own
chains, and redeems itself from bondage, are the life
and soul of the liberty which such a people procures.
The Greeks, after a long winter of oppression and
slavery, were declared a free people, by the Emperor
Adrian — he made them a present 01 their liberty ; but
the world looked in vain, to see them awake from the
slumber of three centuries to rival their forefathers, to
act over again the pass of Thermopylae, the battle of
Marathon, and the orations of Demosthenes. The
Lycurguses and Solons, who in a successful contest for
liberty, would have reached an ascendant, and acquir
ed an influence, such as might perhaps have enabled
them to revive the constitutions, the laws, and the

manners of other times, remained in obscurity. Had
the American States, like the Greeks, received their
liberty as a voluntary boon ; had they obtained it with
out a struggle, it might have been — not worth receiv
ing. It might have been like a watch in the hand of
a savage, precious indeed, but useless to one who is
unable to wind up its springs. Where would have
been the commanding talents which have formed us a
government, which have decided between jarring in
terests, and appeased factious commotions ; and where
the weight of character, which was the last stake to
play in favour of unpopular but essential measures?
The war which procured us our liberty, made it valu
able to us, by calling forth virtues and talents which
were capable of controlling and directing us when free.

But able and virtuous statesmen are not less neces
sary now, and will not be less necessary hereafter,
than they were at the eventful close of our revolution.
No political contrivance is a perpetual motion ; the
same powers are required to keep it in operation,
which were required to give the first impulse. I can
imagine the Genius of the United States crowning
with his hand those who have deserved well of their
country, but his eye is directed to the rising genera
tion.

The government under which we live is an experi
ment in politics ; and it has been thought a spectacle
interesting to the world, to see how a people perfectly
free would manage their affairs. Li relation to a go
vernment so popular as ours, we may be allowed to
ask, with an anxiety bordering oi< fear, where are
we to look for that vast amount of political talents and
legislative wisdom, of the power of persuasion and the

. 6

authority of character, which will be necessary to its
energetic and beneficial administration?

The public affairs of a popular, are immeasurably
more complicated in their nature aiid difficult in their
management, than those of a despotic, government.
This arises from the different principles on which they
are founded. It is the maxim of the one, that the peo
ple are made for the benefit of the government ; of the
other, that the government is established for the benefit
of the people. In a government like ours, what a bo
dy of civil rights to be preserved, what a variety of
interests, growing out of the commercial enterprise of
a free people, to be watched over and proiect ed !
But what, on the other hand, are civil rights in a despo
tism P Search for them in the code of French con
scriptions. What is the patronage afforded to com
merce ? Ask the modern Attila, who has resolved to
annihilate this Mother of wealth, because she nurses
a spirit of liberty dangerous to tyrants.

In despotic governments, also, the will of the sove
reign is law, and his minister has nothing to do but
obey. In popular governments, the exigencies of the
state are not only to be provided for, but the very sove
reign is to be controlled : and those who have made the
experiment, are best able to tell, how difficult it is " to
rule the wilderness of free minds." In such a go
vernment no man is born a Statesman. However
great his powers may be by nature, those powers
must be enlarged, adorned, and perfected by art. It
has been said of the orator, nascitur Poeta, Orator Jit,
and the remark may be applied to the statesman, who
in fact is only a more accomplished orator.

Political science is a science by itself. It is not
embraced in the studies which fit us tor ordinary pur-

suits. Considered in its broadest sense, it compre
hends history, or the experience of past ag%es, legisla
tion* finance, the causes of internal prosperity, the
mewis of external defence, public law, and foreign
relations. Those who wish to learn what stores of
knowledge are necessary to expand and supply the
mind of the statesman, may satisfy their curiosity by
examining the writings and speeches of Burke and the
Pitts, of Hamilton and Ames. To become master of a
science so extensive, requires time, labour, and study :
it affords scope for the exertions of all the powers of
the most powerful minds.

There is a class of men in England who are states
men by profession, and who devote their lives to po-
Htical studies and public affairs. The profession of
law may be considered as better calculated to form a
statesman than any other profession or business, on ac
count of the studies which belong to it, and the habits
of public speaking to which it accustoms its members;
but the English will not acknowledge that a lawyer,
or that any man who does not make political studies
and pursuits the business of life, is qualified for a
statesman. Erskine, though oi,e of the profoundest
lawyers and greatest forensic orators who ever aston
ished and charmed the world, was never allowed by
the English, as a parliamentary speaker or a statesman,
to hold rank with their professional politicians.

The less complicated nature of public affairs in our
own country, renders such an exclusive devotion to
political studies and pursuits, perhaps unnecessary,
We must admit, however, that be his business or pro
fession what it may, the man who begins his political
labours early in life, starts with the fairest prospects

8

of usefulness and fame. Parliamentary eloquence
differs from that of the bar, and he who has long been
formed to the one, will seldom reach the highest ex
cellence in the other. The man who wishes to excel
in that kind of public speaking, which has most
•weight in deliberative assemblies, should enter the
great school where it is best learned, in the ardour of
youth, and before his habits are formed. The great
orators who have figured in the English parliament,
have begun their political life thus early. We may
all of us remember the charge of Mr. Walpole against
the tirst William Pitt, of being a young man, and the
young orator's reply. The second William Pitt, and
Charles Fox, were but boys when they entered parlia
ment.

The character, also, which is acquired by a long ac
quaintance with the public, is of as much value to the
Statesman, as the talents on which it is founded. The
character of the illustrious Washington, was the great
barrier which resisted the inundation of French prin
ciples and French policy, during his administration.
It is curious to observe, in looking into our history,
how carefully our patriots managed that character,
how anxious they were, never to hazard its influence
\vhere any other stake would answer, and to reserve
it for the dernier resource. So commanding was the
character of Lord Chatham, that his word ran like an
electric shock through the British empire. Such a
character is not the acquisition of a day. It is difficult
to acquire it by going late into public life, or by oc
casionally entering and retiring from it. Seldom is
it acquired but by a long course oi public labours, or
the devotion of a whole life.

But are not political talents dangerous in a repub
lic ? They are apt to be ambitious, and ambition has
made Caesars.

Talents are power, and power may be abused.
Hence it is impossible to look upon great talents, even
in the abstract, without something like terror. We
are ready to say, what would be the consequence,
should the possessor of this mighty mind, like the
strong man of the Scriptures, grasp with an evil hand,
the pillars of the state? But a moment's reflection
\vill teach us, that there is little danger to liberty, from
the talents which are able, and the ambition which as
pires, to serve the public in a civil capacity. Statesmen,
have ever been the friends of liberty. They were
Generals, the leaders of an overgrown military pow
er, who have been its oppressors. It was the States
men of Rome, who preserved her free constitution for
so many centuries ; it was he who conquered at Phar-
salia, that trampled it in the dust.

Ambition, as usually applied to the statesman, is a
word which appears to signify much, but defines no
thing. It is a convenient term of reproach, which im
becility or malice may throw out with impunity, to
sully the lustre of the brightest talents, or vilify the
motives of the purest patriotism. But are not states
men necessary to the prosperity and liberty of a coun
try ? Why then should service in the cabinet be deem
ed less honourable and meritorious, than on the ocean,
or in the field P

The public service, in a civil capacity, ought ever
to be honourable ; it ought to be honourable to seek it —
to press into it, Should the employments of the States
man, on the contrary, ever become disreputable

16

should men of talents and character, endeavour rather
to avoid than to obtain them — mark the event as
an omen that the time is at hand, when our coun
trymen, like the modern Greeks, will point to the mo
numents of former greatness, and say — we once were
free !

But the worst and most dangerous shape in which
great talents can appear in republics, is in the violence
of party struggles ; and those struggles occupy too
much of the time of their Statesmen, and form too
great a part of their political history, to be passed over
in silence. "W here the aspirations of talents and am
bition are left free as air, many will step forward emu
lous of distinction. Opinions pertinaciously adhered
to, and violently opposed, will be the result.

Much speculation has been employed on party spirit
Hamilton and Ames did not think it a subject beneath
them. It is indeed a subject vitally interesting to a
free people. Some have contended, that party spirit
was not only inevitable, but useful in a republic : others,
that it was the destroying angel of free constitutions,
and that its dreadful energies were sufficiently develop
ed, in the little republics of Greece, and the greater re
public of Rome. That difference of opinion in free
governments is inevitable, will not be denied ; and it
is vain to conjecture the consequences of a state of
things which cannot exist. It is peopling Plato's Re
public or Moore's Utopia. The only question can be?
whether we ought to throw a loose reia on the neck
of this wild passion, and leave it to the fury of its own
phrenzied career, or to endeavour to check its fierce
ness and allay its fire ?

It is true, that free discussion and difference of

opinion, render a people vigilant and attentive to their
rights, and raise up a class of men who have perspi
cacity to see, and boldness to repel, any attempt to in
vade them. Like natural fire, if party spirit be watch
ed over and controlled, there can be little doubt of its
utility. But the flame which burns so mildly on the
hearth, may burst forth into a conflagration, and
spreading its sheeted brightness on the darkness of
night, become the beacon of terror. If. we could
confine the strife of party within the limits of fair ar
gument ; if we could lay down laws which it would
not dare to transgress, what is the worst of masters,
might become a useful servant. The contest of par
ties would then resemble, not so much the fights of
gladiators, as the logical disputes of the schools ; and
the champions skilled in all the thrusts and parries of
the forum, would cause neither anxiety nor alarm. —
Other contests have their laws. There are certain
things which it is considered disgraceful to do in war,
and which are therefore never done. Even the rude
and plundering clans, who formerly lived in a state
of constant hostility on the borders of England and
Scotland, had their laws of honour, which, if we may
believe the poet, they faithfully observed :

" His buckler scarce in breadth a span,

No larger fence had he ;
He never counted him a man

Would strike below the knee."

Dueling too has its laws ; but the age of chivalry is
over, and he who shall succeed in framing a code, that
shall be acknowledged by parties, may next attempt
the hopeful task of quieting the motion of the tide.
But though we cannot give laws to party spirit, it

12

is the duty of every friend of his country, to endea
vour to check its violence, and restrain its extrava
gance ; to endeavour to keep it within the fair bounds
of controversial argument. The attack of private
character should be discountenanced ; the slanderer, of
whatever party, should be pointed out to be avoided ;
the exulting delight with which, like the Indian, he
tortures his victim, should have its true name — the ma
lice of a Daemon. The most improbable and wicked
motives should not be ascribed to actions which can
be grounded on any other hypothesis; the opponents,
while they question the soundness of each other's
heads, should have charity for each other's hearts ; nor,
however great the object to be accomplished, should
means of doubtful morality or an intemperate charac
ter ever be resorted to. It is a maxim in private life,
it cannot fail in public — do your duty, and leave the
consequences to God. So thought the patriots of the
old school — such are federal principles. And we,
my young friends, who are soon to take our part,
perhaps a humble, perhaps an important one, in this
all-pervading struggle, let us resolve, by the country
which we love, by the name of Washington, whose
last precepts we revere, that as we would never poison
our enemy's springs, or treacherously assassinate his
person in war; so, in civil contentions, we will use no
other weapon than fair and honourable argument.

If there are any who doubt the dreadful effects of
unrestrained and licentious party spirit, let them read
over again the legacy of Washington ; let them also
cast a glance over the page of history, and pause a
moment on the parties which have torn and distract
ed other countries, in different ages of the world. —

13

Passing over a long list which might well be adduced,
let me point them to the struggles of the Patricians
and Plebeans at Rome, especially to the factions of
the Gracchi ; and in England, to the contests of the Red
Rose and the White, the Parliament and Charles the
1st. These examples, it may be said, are not applica
ble to our situation, and the circumstances of the
times ; but they will all combine to teach us, what cala
mities impend, especially in popular governments,
when parties resolve to accomplish their purposes at all
events, and prudential maxims are disregarded ; when
difference becomes hatred, and opposition turns to
hostility.

These examples will also teach us a lesson of
charity. In all these parties, and on every side,
amidst a great deal of vice and folly, there was also
a great deal of virtue and talent engaged, much
of genuine patriotism exhibited, and instances of
magnanimity and true greatness, which the world will
never cease to admire. How must we lament that
human virtue should be so much exposed to err by its
own generous enthusiasm !

A review of parties will also teach us another les
son ; to dare to think for ourselves, to dare to question
even the measures of our own party ; and if we ti nd
that party going wrong, to stand apart like Abcliel
from the rebelling angels.

It will be asked, perhaps, whether I wish to render
the statesman wavering, and to shake his confluence
in his owu opinion, by representations like these; that
other men think differently, that there is positive proof
on neither side, and that they have as good a claim to
be right as himsejf ? I readily reply, that no man is

14

tit for a Statesman, \vlio has not great decision of cha
racter; bul if he has the milder virtues, and the inte
grity, together with the decision and even enthusiasm
of Hamilton, we need apprehend no danger. The
field of fair argument is open, let him enter it. Far
be it from me to wish that mind unsettled, whose de
terminations, in the words of Foster, take rank with
the great laws of nature. Without such minds and
such decision, there would nothing great or good be
accomplished on earth. The majestic river which
rolls by our city, and bears on its bosom the commerce
of a hundred villages, does not change its bed as eve
ry ingenious speculator can prove would be best. It
rolls on with an irresistible current, and sets human
power at defiance. Thus may it roll! It is use
ful, because its course continues the same from age to
age.

The history of politics in a free country, is the his
tory of the human mind. I do not mean a chronolo
gical table of measures, but the machinery by which
those measures are brought about. There we see ex^
erted all the passions and energies of the soul, all
the enthusiasm of patriotic feeling, all the ingenuity
of contrivance, the exultation of success, and the rage
of disappointment.

In England, whose politics so much resemble our
own, the contemplation of this contest of talents is
the more grand, as the measures of that country con
cern objects and designs of the highest possible mag
nitude. Her navy, her wars, her foreign possessions,
(holding in her hands the destinies of more than fifty
millions of people, besides her own subjects,) her debt
•and her taxes, afford scope for the most extensive

Ie3

views, the greatest difference of opinion, the highest
exertions of intellect, and the boldest flights of elo
quence. But in that country, as in this, there have
been times when politics have called the energies of
the human mind into unusual action. Such was the
time immortalized by the letters of Junius ; such was
the time when Burke opposed the contagion of French
principles; and, in our own country, such was the fa
mous sera of the British treaty. From such a state
of convulsive energy, the political, like the human bo
dy, sinks to relaxation and rest.

Let me now call your attention to the remaining
part of my subject — to some of the most striking fea
tures in the character and fortunes of the statesman,
In attempting to delineate them, I shall have in view,
not a man who may sometimes go into congress, and
whose political career may be considered a deviation*
from his ordinary course, but one who devotes the
whole or the greater part of life to the public. Not a
man who intends to sail with the stream, but one
who resolves to pursue the welfare of his country, right
on, against odds, opposition, and peril. Not a man
of ordinary abilities, or whose greatest effort is his
vote ; but one of such commanding talents, that like a
comet, whatever course he may take, he will shed lus
tre on his path.

Such a man will usually possess no ordinary " mea
sure of passion" in the constitution of his mind.
There have been statesmen of a cold temperament.,
and there may be again, but those wrho have been most
distinguished in popular governments, have possessed
an ardour of mind and a zeal of pursuit, which may
justly be called enthusiasm. They hare entered with

their whole soul into public affairs, and put forth the
utmost of their powers for the accomplishment of their
object, whatever at any particular juncture it might be.
At the same time they viewed that object, not perhaps
like other men, but through a medium which, by show
ing its relations and dependencies, magnified all its di
mensions. Thus seen, it justified, and iu their opin
ion demanded, a perseverance no less than indefatiga
ble, and exertions almost super-human. An ordinary
man might regard them with wonder. He does not
perceive the extreme importance of a particular mea
sure, and he will say perhaps, with a sneer, should
this boasted measure fail to be adopted, for aught that
I can discover, things will go on in their ordinary
course, and the earth continue its diurnal motion.

1 should say of such a man as I am attempting to
describe, on seeing him just entering into public life,
there is one pain which I am sure he will encounter —
the pain of disappointment. He will probably pos*
sess a self-confiding mind, and a full persuasion of the
adequacy of his powers to the accomplishment of his
designs. Mankind, he says, are reasonable beings ;
and I can render the policy of the measures I propose
so demonstrably evident, that they cannot fail to be
adopted. Let him go on! He will find, ere long,
that mankind, though they intend in the main to do
right, are blinded by passion, and misled by ignorance.
Melancthon thought as he does; but he soon found
that " old Adam was too strong for young Melanc
thon." Let him go on ! Were he fully persuaded, at
his setting out, of all the obstacles he has to encoun
ter, and all the chances there are against his final suc
cess, he would probably never make a single gene-

17

rous effort. If we take but a passing glance at the his
tory of politics, we shall not be at a loss for instances
of the greatest talents labouring in a good cause, and
labouring in vain. The history of our own country,
for the last twelve years, would afford them in abun
dance. When Lord Chatham, with the prophetic eye
of a statesman, saw all the evils of the unjust war wa
ged by Great-Britain against her American colonies,
how must he have wondered at the bigoted blindness
of his opponents!

The statesman may also expect to be poor. This
honourable distinction is not confined to Poets ; and
the causes which lead to it in the statesman, are nei
ther remote nor doubtful. It is not in human na
ture to give a divided mind to objects capable of
possessing and filling the whole ; and the man who is
accustomed to contemplate things on a grand scale,
and is labouring to accomplish grand designs, will
feel little interest in ordinary pursuits, and the care of
his private fortune. How shall he, who proposes to
himself the magnificent idea of making a nation hap
py ; who busies his thoughts not with acres, but with
states ; not with a ship, but with navies ; not with a
warehouse, but with cities — leave his grand contempla
tions, forsake the heaven of his own thoughts, and join,
in the crowd, and follow the trifles of those little be
ings, over \\hom he seemed to himself to preside as a
guardian Genius? For such a man to retire from his
public contemplations to the care of his private proper
ty, is like looking for the farm of Alcibiades on the map
of Greece. W e cannot wonder then that Burke, in his
old age, should have needed a pension — that William
Pitt should have died insolvent, — nor that our own

3

18

Hamilton, whose thoughts were his country's, from
his early youth to his grave, should have left a widow
to ask the half-pay, which he had over-generously re^
fused.

Date obolum Belisario, has often come from a man
in the evening of life, whose strength, and whose best
days, were spent in the service of his country ; whose
voice senates have listened to catch, or armies have,
heard and obeyed,

We are apt to consider the affection which some
men have felt for their country, as a strange pheno
menon; and there are instances of individual patriotism
•which almost surpass belief. But the causes of this
affection, as far as they are to be sought for beyond an
innate greatness of soul, are not, I should apprehend,
deeply hidden in our nature. Let the mother seek for
them in the affection which she feels for her child ; let,
the man of business seek for them in the attachment
which he feels to an amount of property, far beyond the
gratification of his wants and wishes. The Statesman
loves his country, because he has watched over it — be
cause he has laboured for it. Those who have taken no
part in public life, who have not thought and laboured
for their country, may thus, in a measure, appreciate
the feelings of such patriots as Washington and Ha
milton, and almost realize how much better they loved
their country, than they loved themselves. William,
JPitt, the late minister of Great-Britain, whose name is
worthy to be enrolled with theirs, seemed to have lost
his own identity in his devolion to the public; even in
the moment of death, he thought not of himself, andi
spent his last breath in exclaiming, " O my country !'*
— " O save my country !" was the dying ejaculation of
Ames.

19

Members of the Hamilton Society ! Possessing as
you do, all the ingenuous ardour of youth, you will re
gard the patriotism which I have just been describing,
only with feelings of the highest admiration. Yon
will perhaps carry back your thoughts to the Repub
lics of other times, among whom children were con
sidered the property of their country, and whose poets
sung,

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

If, while you admire, you should resolve to imitate*
do it without expecting to be rewarded. It is virtue
-which is seldom rewarded, except by the sublimity of
its own feeling. Few great men, like Washington*
have had the full merit of their actions acknowledged
while they were alive. The actions of patriots and
statesmen, like the productions of genius, require time
to test their worth, and establish their character*
Aristides* who was banished, and Socrates, who was
put to death, are but single instances, among thou
sands, of the patriot and philanthropist, who have
been persecuted when living, and almost canonized
when dead. The statesman who devotes his life to
the service of his country, must expect that his motives
will be misrepresented, and his conduct misunder
stood; that his character will labour under the foulest
reproaches, and that his virtues will never be generally
acknowledged, till posterity writes them on his monu
ment.

In ordinary times, the life of the Statesman will not
be in danger ; but there are times when lie must " set
honour in one eye, and death in the other." Such
-was the time when our own Statesmen proclaimed to

20

the world, " we are free and independent;" such was
the time when Hampden withstood the arbitrary mea
sures of Charles the 1st ; and such the time when
Russel fell the martyr of his attachment to the reli
gion and constitution of his country — times which so
often occur in the history of England, that we be
come callous to the suffering's of the great, and have
not a tear to give to every illustrious victim of the
block.

But danger ennobles and exalts human actions. To
despise it, is magnanimity and heroism. Hull, Deca-
tur, Jones, and Bainbridge, who have waved our flag
in triumph on the ocean, and bid the world admire the
symbol of our union and glory, would have been be
held by us as common men, had they not stood in the
fore-front of danger. Hence it is that those who
stood forth to assert their country's rights, in " times
that tried men's souls," are regarded by us as almost a
superior order of beings. The Statesman, who looks
forward to a lasting fame, should not consider the
.hazard of his life a misfortune.

I shall be accused, perhaps, of having taken a de
sultory range, and imagined extreme cases ; but it is
useful to those who expect hereafter to become States
men, (if there are any such who hear me,) to be
taught all the possible dangers of the way, that they
may arm themselves against them, that they may pos
sess, their minds with the magnanimity of the great
Pompey, who said, when embarking on a sea not
more tempestuous, " it is my duty to go — it is not my
duty to live."

But there are pleasures, as well as privations and
sufferings, incident to the life of the Statesman; and

21

some of these are the most sublime which we can sup
pose a human being capable of enjoying. They
arise, not from any selfish considerations — from no
private advantage. These he gives up, when like
Hercules, he starts on his labours. His pleasures
must have a nobler source — the public happiness. He
must find them reflected in the general prosperity. It
is the happy lot of few Statesmen, to see the manifest
effects of their own individual labours. Every breath
stirs the surface of the ocean ; but it must be a tem
pest indeed, which moves the whole of that vast col
lection of waters. But there are peculiar junctures,
there are fortunate opportunities, when the Statesmaa
may feel that he is the author of a benefit which comes
home to the bosoms of the public at large.

Such was the opportunity which the formation of
our present system of government afforded — when
Hamilton stript himself like an Athlete to the com
bat, and stood forth the champion of the New Consti
tution. He wrote, he extemporized, he laboured.-*-
But when the constitution was adopted, when his la
bours were accomplished, those who can measure the
mind of Hamilton, may conceive the rapture he felt,
as he looked forward to the happiness of millions^
which he believed that that constitution would se
cure.

Another such opportunity, was that possessed by
Jay in the formation of the British Treaty, when he
opened all the avenues of commerce to the expecting
enterprise of his countrymen. What must have been
his feelings, as he returned with that treaty in his
hand, forming as it does an sera in our prosperity—
what must have been his feelings, as he looked through

successive years, had he not been met by the curse of
ingratitude on the shore !

But, Washing-ton! What language can describe
him — what mind can rise to the sublimity of his sensa
tions — when, after all his dangers in the field, and his
labours in the cabinet, he finished his administration ;
when he bade his country adieu, and left that country
happy !

To stand at the head of affairs during a defensive,
or justifiable and necessary war, to direct all its ope
rations, and conduct it to a happy termination, may
be considered among the brightest fortunes of the
Statesman. Such was the fortune of Lord Chatham
in the war between England and France, memorable,
by the fall of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. He
had none with whom to divide the glory of success.
Amidst all who surrounded him, he stood pre-eminent
ly great, and his was a greatness which the world may
continue long without witnessing again. In the
words of his eulogist, " France sunk beneath him ;
with one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and
wielded in the other the democracy of England.'*

But what shall we say of the Statesman who pre
cipitates his country into an unnecessary and invasive
war ? Who will envy him his victories, should he
chance to acquire them ? The waste of human hap
piness and comfort, the destruction of the laboured
products of human industry and genius, the burning
of cities, the desolation of a cultivated interior, and
the sacrifice of thousands of human beings, who ne
ver injured him or his country, who never knew him
but by the terror of his name — -without necessity to
cause such evils, and to enjoy victories thus purchased,

23

does not belong to feelings merely human. Such was
the enjoyment which the Enemy of all good experi
enced, when he retired from the garden of Eden,
after having achieved the ruin of mankind.

A country safe from foreign attack, every hand
busy, and every eye lighted with pleasure, rich in ci
ties and the fruits of cultivation — such is the picture
which the benevolent Statesman will ever keep in his
view. It makes no figure on the page of history ; but
history is written to record the miseries, not the hap
piness, of mankind,

But there are occasions when the Statesman may be
more than a patriot — when he may stand forth the
friend and champion of the human race. I cannot
pass over in silence the struggle in favour of oppress
ed humanity, which has been carried pn for a great
length of time in England, against numbers, wealth,
and influence. I refer to the abolition of the Slave
Trade. The great Statesmen of that country, how
ever much they might differ on other subjects, were
united, to a man, on this; and if .active philanthropy
affords the highest of human pleasures — " they have
their reward."

To conquer rival States, has been considered the
summit of human greatness, and those who have
achieved it, have received the praises of poets, and
the honours of nations. They have been called Pa
triots and Heroes ; — but let us ever remember, that to
destroy the happiness of mankind, is but execrable dis
tinction ; and that there is nothing truly great and god
like on earth, but to do good.

FINIS.

. ,

T

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