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VOL. XXXIV.
MILL EDGE VILLE, GEORGIA, TUESDAY, JIM 21, 18 5 3.
\ 0, i 5.
0 RIIE« KNOWLES k 0 R )I E,
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Tk melody “Old Folks at Home,” has become
jrpopular. The last number of Zion’s Herald
, r ;aius the following new version, entiled:
TIic Blest ones at Home.
v on the banks of life’s bright river,
Far, far away—
will my heart be turning ever,
Tlieiv'- where the blest ones stay ;
il through this vale of sin and sorrow
Sadly 1 roam,
... longing for the dawn of the morrow
Awl for the blest ones at home.
All without is dark and dreary,
Every where I roam,
n. Brothers, how the heart grows weary,
sighing for the blest ones at home.
:_-h tdl earth’s sunny scenes I wandered
k youth’s gay morn;
:.i. uy precious hours I’ve squandered,
How many mercies scorned;
'inn seeking sin’s delusive pleasure,
Wretched was I.
; now my heart has found a treasure,
There with the blest ones on high.
Ail without is dark, .fee.
Ob-hour there is forever bringing
Memories of love;
Ins when my sighs were changed to singing
Of the blest ones above,
len shall I see my Saviour reigning
On liis white throne ?
Ten will he hushed my heart’s complaining
There with the blest ones at home ?
All till then is dark and dreary,
Every where 1 roam.
0, Brothers, how the heart grows weary,
Longing for the blest ones at home.
From the North Carolina Register.
“Slioero Jones.”
V friend from the South lias furnished us
ii the following grapic and interesting
tclihy a correspondent of the “Natchez,
iss.) Courier.” Its perusal will recall
recollection of a most remarkable man,
1 once filled a prominent place in the
lie eye, but who, for many years past,
'been entirely lost sight of. The friend,
t kindly sends us the sketch, speaking
recent meeting between “ Sliocco” and
self, remarks that, “with no respect for
- character, I rather shrank from meet-
!a -him ; lint notwithstanding all my well-
‘unded. prejudices against the man, such
:x‘ bis knowledge of men and things in
world of fashion and politics—his pow-
■ "t narrative and description—his talent
gracefully embellishing every thing he
'rb '!—the ease with which he passed
in one topic to another, Ac. &c. that I
' perfectly delighted, and almost forgot
'former errors.”
1 be sketch below, is one of the series
- bare appeared in the Courier, over the
he title of “ Pebbles picked up in the path-
V s °i the world, by a traveller on foot
1 we think that we recognize as their au-
,r the Rev. J. H. Ingraham, formerly
t favorably known to the novel-read-
- ' rid, hut now an earnest and devo
-- Missionary:
NO. VIII.
From my Lodgein the Prairie.
. t last left me just after I had forded
Rigbee river, near night-fall, upon the
• m hank. Like an experienced travel-
’ measured the twelve miles which the
• •■-town (Columbus) was distant from me,
l ' ;c half hour of my watch that the sun
l ' vet to measure to sundown. I am no
' H 'r of riding after dark, as my eyes are
" jj °f the best, and .spectacles only be-
•nny vision in a shadowy road. So I
j med for the nearest house, and set oft’ to
';(“ Lie hospitality of its proprietor.
1 be negro of whom I obtained my direc-
U as doubtless very clear and graphic
j j” language, “ You jiss go up dis road,
(">a, 11 come to big hickory, what got
m wid thunder and split open; den
1 - »es to de leff, till you sec a big gate.—
'! ‘ ea ve.s de big gate on the right ; no, on
j-'l ban—and by’m by you comes to
,1! y You crosses dem ar, and take de
ri1 turn to de right, (dis time de right
'.‘"‘hi.) and go through the lane half a
" lien you see de chimneys of de house
by de trees, and den you find it easy
(Smassa! Please, inassa got any bakky
(nor old nigger !” I gave him my last
. j 1,1 Cavendish, with a dime under it,
'' ‘"tb a dime and a quid’s worth of gen-
-’•hearty blessings, I rode off to follow
Sections of my accurate informer.—
C " evening a ir was delicious. Flowers
.mined on the Bigbee’s banks filled
au ' with mingled perfumes. Scores of
i:f (ls of
pie tints, borrowed from the sunset skv ;
and occasionally dimpled into widening
circles, by some silvery scaled fish cleav-
ing it into the air, to fall back again with a
splash into his native element. Tempted
by the beauty of the scene, I let my horse
walked with slacked rein, while I dr ew en
joyment from everthing around me. A
squirrel played bo-peep with me from be
hind a tall sycamore; and once I stopped
to admire the splendor of a glittering scales
ot a gold and green snake that lay fearless
and quiet directly in the road, a superb Ker
ries of concentric bracelets, one within the
other, that the Empress Eugenia might he
proud to wear—if they were harmless !—
An Empress once wore such a one; the hap
less Cleopatra !
►So wliat with my dallying and loitering,
now letting my horse browse at the leaves,
and now drink at a rivulet, I took little note
of “Peter’s” directions; and the sunset
finding me at least three miles beyond the
ford where I had left Peter, and not a sign
of other habitation than a deserted negro
cabin in an old field, I drew rein and began
to look about me. As to being guided by
the marks which had been given me, was
now out of the question ; for the riven oak,
the “old gate,” the “ lane,” and other marks
I was quite innocent of having had vision of.
But a bewildered traveller, with a straight
road before him, cannot go far without
coming out some where. So I drew my
bridle, touched the flank of my astonished
steed sharply with the spur, and away we
went upon a rapid canter along the wood
land road before me. Birds, squirrels, flow
ers, snakes golden skies and purple waters,
I heed not ; 1 kept my eyes in search of a
dwelling, hoping each moment to see
through the gathering twilight, I must have
rode two miles at a very pretty pace, when
I saw a light it was already dark) to the
right. I soon came to lane, into which af
ter passing thro’ a gate at a spring I turn
ed. It conducted me in a few minutes into
the very heart of a village of negro huts ;
and all the dogs, “ Tracy, Blanch and
Sweetheart,” came forth to bark at me.
Several slaves were returning from the
field, and by them I was directed to
“long, low,” whitewashed long mansion, en
closed by a paling, which was the residence
of the planter. It was surrounded by gar
dens, a lawn, and cotton-fields ; and had
that substantial air which belongs to the
plantation homes of thrifty planters in new
countries ; nothing was elegant or expens
ive, hut everything substantial; such as
fine horses, sleek mule, fat negro children,
plenty of turkeys, ducks, geese, liens and
chickens, and pigeou houses.
I alighted at the white gate, a hundred
yards from the gallery of the house, and
one slave eargerly took my horse by the
bit, while another began to remove my sad
dle-bags, before I drew my foot from the
stirrups.
As I walked towards the dwelling, I was
net by a gentleman in a linen round
about and with a cigar in his mouth, who
cordially shook my hand and invited me in
As I have said, the house was built of logs
but with many rooms, and being white
washed, and a piazza running along the
front, it had an appearance of respectability
that a Northerner would never believe
log house could display.
At the tea table, which was profusely
piled with good things, there sat besides a
dignified matron of the old school, her son,
the young host just named,and shortly came
and seated himself, a dark complexioned
thorough-bred looking gentleman, but evi
dently in premature age. lie was present
ed to me as “Mr. J .” He wore a Ion
unshaven, grey and black beard, and hi
hair was streaked, not thinly, with silver
strands. I regarded him with some curi
osity : for his suavity, his intelligence, his
powers of pleasing in conversation, his fin
islied courtesy caused me to set him down
as a man of society, and marvelled to find
such a man in this seclusion; yet tlier
was in his appearance a something that
made me perceive that he was hut the
splendid fragment of what he had been.
After tea he hospitably invited me to go
to “ bis castle,” and led me across a court
in the rear of the mansion to a log cabin of
one room, containing two beds, an euor
mous fire-place, garnished with a row of
long pipes, while tobacco boxes and other
appurtenances of a determined smoker
tverc stuck about in the crevices betwee
he logs. He offered me a pipe three feet
long, and wc commenced smoking, and all
lie'wbile I was puzzling my brain to know
where I had seen this gentleman ; this Air.
.tones. He was full of anecdote ! He knew
y an Burcn, Jackson, both Adams’s, Cal
lioun, Clay, Randolph, and ex eiy man of
note who had figured on the world’s stage
or thirty years past, and bad anecdotes to
•oil of each. He knew the private history
>f everybody who had any private history;
had danced with the belles of two genera
tions, and dined with all the foreign minis
ters of seven administrations, and au fait oi
rli the political and domestic scandal of
■Washington for as many reigns, lie en
tertained me till past the small hours, yet
all the while 1 could not make out who he
At length, at two o’clock in the mor-
I put this question direct:
In the name of all mystery, sir, tell me
which of all the Air. Jones’s of the earth,
which Air. Jones you are 1”
He laughed heartily and said :
“ I know you, my dear friend; I recog
nized you at the first. Wo have dined to
gether in New York years ago. I was
waiting to sec if you would recognize me
I am '•"Air. Jones of Sliocco.” This was
said with a drollery inimitable. “ I have
for some years gone into retirement. I his
is the residence ot my mother, vhcie 1 hav t
a home. Here I shall live till 1 have done
with life’s fitful fever. In this log cabin 1
smoke, I call up the past, I live Saratoga,
Nahauut, Washington over again. From
between the crevices of my cabin, I can
oeep at the great world rolling by and laugh
at it, as I did when I was in it. Take an
other pipe. It is only three o’clock in tae
morning.”
And true enough, my old acquaintance
Sliocco, the world renowned, had turned up
in a log cabin, on the borders of the prai
ries. There he had been living; forgotten
by the world several years, smoking pipes
all night, and dreaming of the world he had
down from, and sleeping all day. He was
he had the habits of a monk, m
ork upon his frame. To crown all, Shoc-
co had become a devout Roman Catholic ;
and receives annually, visits from a priest
to absolve him from all past offences. In
the more absolute obscurity a man could not
live who had formerly been so prominent
before the public eye. There, in his log-
cabin lie still dwells, an anchorite. His
enerable mother is since dead, hut has ef
fectually left him, whom she loved always,
small competence; and with his pipes
ind his rich memories, his penances and
his prayers, his grey locks and his solitude,
he will probably remain until the grave
shall embrace all that was once the witty,
the amusing, the financiering, the diploma
tising, the fascinating, the accomplished
and distinguished “Sliocco Jones.”
Almighty
I Believe.
1 beliere. in God the Father
Maker of heaven and earth F
So says a beautiful child, as with dark,
ioly eyes uplifted, she repeats the Apostles’
Creed.
Oh, what would many a heart-hardened
criminal give, could he hut say with earn
est purpose, “I believe”! But darkness
shrouds soul and spirit. He has lost the
childish faith taught him at his mother’s
knee. He can faintly remember the far-off
home—the calm hour when he thought
every star the presence of an angel. AX T hen
the melody of a bird, the curious folding of
a flower, the argosies of white cloud, mercy-
freighted, sailing in fleets along the blue of
the upper deep, wafted his little thoughts
to that great mystery which, while he felt,
he comprehended not.
I believe!
Can you say it widow, clinging to the
clay-cold form all of you loved on earth ?—
Can you say it, orphan, looking down into
the dark grave % Can you say it, mourner
over the first-born—clasping between sobs,
waxy flowers in the dear dead baby’s hand?
Can you say it, father, gazing in stern an
guisli on the icy form of wliat was to he the
staff and glory of yotu - old age ? Can you
say it, mother, by the couch of your beau
tiful one, on whose brow the halo of wo
manhood paled under the white flag of
death ?
If you can, peace, such as the world giv-
etb no,t is given unto you—visions of an-
els ascending^and descending—and liglit-
lg up the darkness of your “valley of the
shadow,” will come the thought, “ they
wait for me on the other side.” And the
great triumph of belief shall go hand in
hand with the victory over death.
hi. A. D.
The Old Atheist.
Dead ! and of all his wealth not sufficient
to bury him with proper decency. Died
doubting to the last—poor old grey-headed
atheist!
• Years ago his home was a palace. His
daughters were beautiful—his sons stately
and noble. He gloried in his unbelief. “Ilis
eyes stood out with fatness.” It seemed
hard to the poor Christians, and one was
tempted to say, “It is better with the
wicked than with the good.”
But by these wet clods, on which the
rain drips dismally, lies his pine coffin. And
the sexton strikes it with his shovel, and
jests profane the “ garden of God.”
Poor old atheist! One daughter lies
broken hearted in early grave. One in a
foreign land wanders under the weight of his
curse. The youngest son, the “ old man’s
darling,” rots in jail; the other died drunk
en.
All were atheists. Their ships sailed in
safety. Their orchards were never blight
ed. Sickness tainted not their beauty ;
care and disappointment left their hearts
alone.
But to to-day where are they, with the
wealth and glory of prosperity ?
Aye ! it is true.
The mill of God grinds late—But it grinds
to powderP M. A. i>.
was.
ninf
Something Comical.—The following
circumstance happened in one of the towns
Arkansas : A man had been drinking un
til a late hour at night, before he started for
home. All honest folks had long been
bed, and the houses were shut and dark.
The liquor he had taken was too much for
him ; he did not know where to go. He at
last staggered into an empty wagon-shed
and fell upon the ground. ' For a long time
he lay in the unconsciousness of a drunken
sleep', and would have undoubtedly frozen,
(for the snow on the ground showed the
night to be very cold) had not others less
insensible than himself been around him.
This shed was a favorite rendezvous for the
hogs, which rushed out when the new comer
arrived, but soon returned to tlieir beds,
in the utmost kindness, and with the truest
hospitality, they gave their biped compan
ion the middle of the bed, some lying on
either side of him, and others acting the
part of the quilt. Their warmth prevented
him from being injured by the exposure.
Towards morning he awoke ; finding him
self comfortable, and in blissful ignorance
of his whereabouts, lie supposed himself en
joying the accommodations of a tavern, in
company with other gentlemen. He reach
ed out his band, and catching hold of the
stiff bristles of a hog, exclaimed—“Why,
master, when did yon shave lust ?”
gay plumage flitted about in the
my eyes with the
ige, now with the
delighting
M ud or of their plurni
f| f their songs. Ever and anon,
t ear voice of a slave at work in a dis-
‘“j d beyond the river, would reach
•oid add to the varied harmony of the
1 he limpid surface of the river was
1 r aeLed with blue, orange, gold and pur-
verv grey j - —
liis love for solitude, for his cabin was his
castle ; and here he dwelt, though still so
brilliant that not long ago he kept up by
liis fireside a certain venerable bishop till
cockcrowing, forgetful oi repose, listenin
to his fascinating “Reminiscences ot the
o-ay world lie had lived in;” yet he was
now but half of himself, as I formerly knew
him: lor former conviviality had done its
A Little Girl’s Example.—A little girl,
about nine years of age, the daughter of a
minister was visiting in a family where the
father did not pray, but was in the habit of
reading a chapter in the Bible with his fam
ily. At night, when he read the chapter,
the child, not knowing that all was done,
kneeled down as she was in the habit of do
ing. The father saw the child on her knees,
and kneeled himself. The rest of the fami
ly followed, and soon their father prayed
for the first time in his family. That little
girl was the instrument of leading to that
first family prayer.
Petrified AIan.—The Morris (111.) Yeo
man states, that not long since, while some,
men were digging in a coal bank, near the
canal, they exhumed a body of a man in a
perfect state of petrifaction. From the cor
duroy cloth in which the legs were encas
ed, the cords and scams of which are perfect
ly defined, it is supposed to be the body of
one of the Irish laborers engaged in the
construction of the canal. The limbs are
neraly perfect, and are completely trans
formed to stone. *
Au American traveller, returned from
Europe, was asked Iioyv lie liked Rome to
which he replied that Rome was a fine city,
hut that he must acknowledge he thought
the public buildings were very much out of
repair.
A D D B E S S
Before the New York Historical Society, at
METROPOLITAN hall,
BY THE HON. EDWARD EVERETT,
On Wednesday Evening, ■Tunc 1, 1853.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the His
torical Society :—Although I appear before
von at a season at which the various reli
gious, moral, and philanthropic societies
usually hold their annual meetings to dis
cuss the stirring and controverted topics
of the day, I need not say to you that the
proprieties of this occasion require me to
abstain from such subjects ; and to select a
theme falling, to some extent at least, with
in the province of an historical society. I
propose, accordingly, this evening to at
tempt a sketch of the history of the discov
ery and colonization of America and of em
igration to the United States. I can of
course offer you, within the limits of a sin
gle address, but a most superficial view of
so vast a subject ; but I have thought that,
even a sketch of such a subject would sug
gest important trains of reflection to
thoughtful minds. XYords written or spoken
arc ot best but a kind of short hand to he
filled up by the reader or hearer. I shall
be gratified if, after honoring my hasty
sketch with your attention, you shall deem
it worth filling up from your own stores of
knowledge and thought. You will forgive
me if, in the attempt to give a certain com
pleteness to the narrative, I may be led to
glance at a few facts, which, however in
teresting, may seem to you too familiar for
repetition.
In the. last quarter of the fifteenth centu
ry an Italian mariner, a citizen ot the little
Republic, of Genoa, who had hitherto gain
ed a livelihood as a pilot in the commercial
marine of different counties, made his ap
pearance successively at various courts in
the south and west of Europe, soliciting pa
tronage and aid for a bold and novel project
in navigation. The state ot the times was
in some degree favorable to the adventurer.
The Portugues had for half a century been
pushing their discoveries southward upon
the coast of Africa, and they had ventured
into the Atlantic as far as the Azores. Sev
eral conspiring causes, and especially the
invention of the art of printing had produc
ed a general revival of intelligence. Still,
however, the state of things prevailing, in
this respect, was very different from what
we witness in the middle of the nineteenth
century. On the part of the great mass of
mankind there was hut little improvement
over the. darkness of the middle ages. The
new culture centered in the convent, the,
court, and the university places essentially
distrustful of bold novelties.
The idea of reaching the East by a voy
age around the African continent had 1 e-
gun to assume consistency ; hut the vastly
more significant idea that the earth is a
globe, and capable of being circumnaviga
ted, had by no means become incorporated
into tlie general intelligence of the age.—
The Portuguese navigators felt themselves
safe as they crept along the African coast—
venturing each voyage a few leagues furth-
er —doubling a new headland—ascending
some before unexplored river—holding a
palava with some new tribe of the native
races; hut to turn the prows of their ves
sels boldly to the west, to embark upon an
ocean not known in the popular geography
of the day, to have an outer shore, to pass
that bourne from which no traveller had
ever returned, and from which experience
had not taught that any traveller could re
turn, and thus to reach the east by sailing
in a western direction, this was a concep
tion which no human being is known to
have formed before Columbus, and which
he proposed to the Governments of Italy,
of Spain, of Portugal, and England, and
for a long time without success. The state
of science was not such as to enable men to
discriminate between the improbable and
tlie absurd. They looked upon Columbus
as we did thirty years ago upon Captain
Symmes. [Applause.]
' But tlie illustrious adventurer persevered.
Sorrow and disappointment clouded his
spirits, but did not shake his faith nor sub
due his will. His well-instructed imagina
tion had taken firm hold of the idea that
the earth is a sphere. XYliat seemed to the
multitude even of the educated of that day
a doubtful and somewhat mystical theory—
what appeared to the uninformed mass a
a monstrous paradox, contradicted by eve
ry step wc take upon the broad flat earth
which we daily tread beneath our feet—the
great and fruitful earth revealed itself to
the serene intelligence of Columbus as a
practical fact on which lie was willing to
stake all he had—character and life. And
it deserves ever to he borne in mind, as the
most illustrious example ot the connexion of
scientific theory with great pratical results,
that the discovery of America, with all its
momentous consequences to mankind, is
owing to the distinct conception in the
mind of Columbus of this single scientific
proposition—the terraqueous earth is a
sphere. [Applause.]
After years of fruitless and heartsick so
licitation, after offering in effect to this
monarch and to that monarch the gift of a
hemisphere, the great discoverer touches
upon a partial success. He succeeds, not
in enlisting the sympathy of his country
men at Genoa and Venice for a brave broth
er sailor, not in giving a new direction to
the spirit of maratime adventure which had
so long prevailed in Portugal, not in stimu
lating the commercial thrift of Henry VII,
or the pious ambition of the Catholic King.
His sorrowful perseverance touched the
heart of a noble Princess, worthy the throne
which she adorned. The New YY’orld,
which was just escaping the subtle king
craft of Ferdinand, was saved to Spain by
the womanly compassion of Isabella. [Con
tinued applause.]
It is truly melancholy, however, to con
template tlie wretched equipment for which
the most powerful Princess in Christendom
was ready to pledge her jewels. Floating
castles will soon be fitted out to convey the
miserable natives of Africa to the golden
shores of America ; towering galleons will
be dispatched to bring home the guilty trea
sures to Spain ; but three small vessels,
one of which was without a deck, and neith
er of them probably exceeding the capaci-
tv of a pilot boat, and even these impressed
into the public service, composed the exhi
bition fitted out under royal patronage, to
realize that magnificent conception in
which the creative mind of Columbus had
planted the germs of a new work 1 .
No chapter of romance equals the interest
of this expedition. The most fascinating
of the works of fiction which have issued
from the modern press have, to my taste,
no attraction compared with the pages in
which the first voyage of Columbus is de
scribed hv Robertson, and still more by our
own Irving and Prescott, the last too en
joying the advantage over the great Scot
tish historian of possessing the lately dis
covered journals and letters of Columbus
himself. The departure from Palos, where
a few years before he had begged a morsel
of bread and a cup of water for liis way
worn child ; his final farewell to the Old
YVorld at the Canaries ; his entrance upon
the trade-winds, which ther, for the first
time, filled a European sail; the porten
tous variation of the needle, never before
observed ; the fearful course westward and
westward, day after day and night after
night, over tlie unknown ocean ; the muti
nous and ill-appeased; at length when
hope had turned to despair in every heart
but one, tlie tokens of land ; the cloud
banks on the western horizon ; the logs of
drift-wood; the fresh shrub floating with
its leaves and berries ; tlie flocks of land
birds ; the shoals of fish that inhabit shal
low water ; the indescribable smell of the
shore ; the mysterious presentiment that
ever goes before a great event ; and, final
ly, on that ever memorable night of the
12th of October, 179.2, the moving light
seen by the sleepless eye of tlie great dis
coverer himself from the deck of the Santa
Maria, and in the. morning the real un
doubted land, swelling up from the bosom
of the deep, with its plains, and hills, and
forests, and rocks, and streams, and strange
new races of men ; these are incidents in
which the authentic history of the discove
ry of our continent excels the specious
wonders of romance, as much as gold ex
cels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens out
shines that flickering taper. [Applause.]
But it is no part of my purpose to dwell
upon this interesting narrative, or to follow
out this most wonderful of histories, sinking
as it soon did into a tale of sorrow for Co
lumbus himself, and before long ending in
one of the most frightful tradegies in the
annuals of the world. Such seems to he
the law of humanity, that events the most
desirable and achievements the most im
portant should, either in tlieir conception
or progress, be mixed up with disaster,
crimes, and sorrows which it makes the
heart sick to record.
The discovery of America I need hardly
say* produced a vast extension of the terri-
torv of the PoYver under whose auspices
the discovery was made. In contemplat-
this point, we encounter one of the
most terrible mysteides in the history of
our race. “ Extension of territory,” you
are ready' to exclaim, “ how could Spain
acquire an\ r territory' by the fact that a
navigator, sailing under her patronage, had
landed upon one or two islands near the
continent of America, and coasted for
few hundred miles along its shores ? These
shores and islands are not a desert on which
Columbus, like a Robin Crusoe of a higher
order, had landed and taken posession.—
They are occupied and settled, crowded
even with inhabitants, subject to the govern
ment of their native chiefs; and, neither
by inheritance, colonization, nor as yet by-
conquest, has any human being in Europe
a right to rule over them or to possess
square foot of their territory.” Such are
the facts of the case, and such, one would
say, ought to be the law and equity of the
case. But alas for the native chiefs and
native races ! Before he sailed from Spain
Columbus was furnished with a piece of
parchment a foot and a half square, by
Ferdinand and Isabella, creating him their
Viceroy and High Admiral in all the seas
islands, and continents which he should
discover—his heirs forever to enjoy- the
same offices—the Viceroy of the absolute
monarchs of Aragon and Castile.
Thus was America conquered before it
was discovered. By the laYv of nations, as
then understood, (and I fear there is less
change in its doctrines at the present day
than we are ready to think,) a sovereign
right to the territory and government of all
newly-discovered regions inhabited by hea
then tribes was believed to vest in the
Christian prince under whose auspices the
discovery was made, subject to theratifiea
tion of the Pope, as the ultimate disposer
of the kingdoms of the earth. Such was
tlie law of nations, as then understood, in
virtue of which, from the moment Colum
bus, on tlie night of the 12th of October,
1492, caught, from the quarter-deck of the
tlie Santa (Maria, the twinkling beams of a
taper from the shores of San Salvador, all
the territorial and political rights of its sim
ple inhabitants were extinguished forever.
When on the following morning the keel of
his vessel grated upon the much-longed-for
strand, it completed, with more than elec
tric speed, that terrible circuit which con
nected the islands and the continent to the
footstool of the Spanish throne. As lie
landed upon tlie virgin shore, its native in
habitants, if they eouhl have foreseen the
future, would have felt, if I may presume
thus to apply the words, that virtue had
gone out of it forever. With some of them
the. process was sharp and instantaneous ;
with others more gradual hut not less sure;
with some, even after nearly four centuries,
it is still going on; but with all it was an
irrevocable doom. The wild and warlike—
the indolent and semi-civilized—the bloody
Aztec—tlie inoffensive Peruvian—the fierce
Araucanian—all fared alike; a foreign
rule and an iron yoke settled or is settling
down upon their necks forever. [Applause.]
Such was the law of nations of that day,
not enacted, however, by Spain. It was in
reality- the old principle of the right of the
strongest, disguised by- a pretext; a colos
sal iron falsehood gilded over with the thin
foil of a seeming truth. It was the same
principle which prompted the eternal wars
of the Creeks and Romans. Aristotle as
serts, without qualification, that the Creeks
had a perpetual right of war and conquest
against the barbarians; that is, all the rest
of the world; and the pupil of Aristotle
proclaimed this doctrine at the head of the
Macedonian phalanx on the banks of the
Indus. The irruption of the barbarous ra
ces into Europe during the centuries that
preceded and followed Christianity, rested
on as good a principle—rather better, the
pretext only- was varied; although the
Cauls and Cotlis did not probably trouble
themselves much about pretexts. Tltey
adopted rather the simple philosophy- of
the robber chieftain of the Scottish High
lands:
Pent in this fortress of the North,
Thiuk’st thou wo will not sally forth
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
An l from the robber rend his prey ?
When the Mahometan races rose to pow
er, they claimed dominion over all who dis
believed the Koran. Conversion or exter
mination was the alternative which they
offered to the world, and which was an
nounced in letters of fire and blood from
Spain to the Ganges. The States of Chris
tian Europe did but retort the principle and
the practice, when in five successive cm-
-ades, kept up for more than three hundred
/ears, they poured desolation over the west
►f Asia, in order to rescue the sepulchre of
.he Prince of Peace from the possession of
unbelievers. [Applause.]
Such were the principles of the public
aw and the practice under them, as tliey
•xisted when the great discoveries of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries took place.
When the Portuguese began to push their
advantages far to the South on the coast of
Africa, in order to give to those principles
the highest sanction, they procured of Pope
Nicholas the Fifth, in 1454, the grant of a
right of sovereignty over all the heathen
tribes, nations and countries discovered, or
to be discovered by them, from Africa to
India, and the exclusive title thus confer
red was recognised by all the other nations
of Christendom.
On the return of Columbus from liis first
voyage, the King of Spain, not to fall be
hind his neighbors in the strength of his ti
tle, lost no time in obtaining from Pope Al
exander the Sixth, a similar grant of all the
heathen lands discovered by Columbus, or
which might he hereafter discovered in the
YVest. To preclude, as far as possible, all
conflict with Portugal, the famous line of
demarcation was projected from the North
to the South, a hundred leagues west of the
Azores, cutting the earth into two halves,
like an apple, and, as far as the new disco
veries were concerned, giving to the Span
iards all v est of tlie line, and confirming all
east of it to the Portuguese, in virtue of the
grant already mentioned of Pope Nicholas
the Fifth.
I regret that want of time will not allow
me to dwell upon the curious history of this
line of demarcation, for the benefit of all
States having boundary controversies, and
especially our sister republics of Nicara
gua and Costa Rica. It is sufficient to say
that it remained a subject of dispute and
collision for three hundred and sixty-one
years, and was finally settled at the Con
gress of Vienna in 1815.
The territorial extension of Portugal and
Spain which resulted from the discovery of
America was followed by- thejnost extraor
dinary effects upon the commerce, the finan
ces, and the politics generally- of those two
countries, and through them of the world.
The overland trade of the East was aban
doned. The whole of South America, and
a considerable part of North America were,
in the course of the sixteenth century, set
tled by- those Governments, who organized
in their transatlantic possessions a colonial
system of the most rigid and despotic char
acter, reflecting as far as was practicable,
in distant provinces beyond the sea, the
stern features of the mother country. The
precious metals, and a monopoly of the
trade to the East, were the great objects.
Aliens were forbidden to enter the Ameri
can vice rovalties; none but a contraband
trade was carried on by foreigners at the
sea-ports. To prevent this trade, a severe
right of search was instituted along the en
tire extent of the coast. I have recently
had an opportunity, in another place, to ad
vert to the effects of this system upon the
international relations of Europe. Native
subjects could emigrate to these vast colo
nial possessions only with the permission of
the Government. Liberty of speech and
of the press was unknown. Instead of af
fording an asylum to persons dissenting
from the religion of the btate, conformity ot
belief was, if possible, enforced more rigid
ly in the colonies than in the mother coun
try. No relaxation in this respect has ta
ken place in the remaining colonies of Spain
even to the present day-. As for the abori
ginal tribes, after the first work of extermi
nation was over, a remnant was saved from
destruction by being reduced to a state of
predial servitude. The dejected and spi
ritless posterity of the warlike tribes that
offered no mean resistance to Cortez and
Fizarro, are now the hewers of wood and
the drawers of water to Mexico and Peru.
In a word from the extreme southern point
of Patagonia to the northernmost limit of
New Mexico, I am not aware that any thing
hopeful was done for human improvement
by either of the European crowns which
added these vast domains to their territo
ries. [Applause.]
If this- great territorial extension was
fruitless of beneficial consequences to Ame
rica, it was not less so to the mother coun
try-. For Spain it was the commencement
of a period, not of prosperity, hut of decline.
The rapid influx of the precious metals, in
the absence of civil liberty and of just prin
ciples and institutions of intercourse and
industry, was productive of manifold evils;
and from the reign of Philip II, if not of
Charles V, the Spanish Monarchy began to
sink from its haughty position at the head
of the European family. I do not ascribe
this downfall exclusively to the cause men
tioned ; but the possession of the two In
dies, with all their treasures, did nothin
to arrest—accelerated even—the progress
of degeneracy. Active causes of decline
no doubt existed at home, and of these the
Inquisition was the chief.
“ This was the weight that weighed hc-r down.
The spirit of intolerance and persecu
tions, the reproach and scandal of all coun
tries and all churches, Protestant as well as
Catholic, (not excepting the Pilgrim Fa
thers of New England) found an instrument
in the Holy Office, in Spain, in the six
teenth century, such as it never possessed
in any other age or country. It was not
merely Jews and heretics whom it bound to
the stake; it kindled a slow, unquenchable
fire in the heart of Castile and Leon. Th
horrid atr, ies practiced at home and
abroad, not merely in the Netherlands, but
in every- city of tlie mother country, cried
to heaven for vengeance upon Spain ; nor
could she escape it. She entrenched her
self behind the eternal Cordilleras; she
took to herself the wings of the morning and
dwelt in the uttermost parts of tlie sea ; hut
even there the arm of retribution laid hold
of her; and the wrongs of both hemispheres
were avenged in her degeneracy and fall.
[Great applause.]
But let us pass on to the next century,
during which events of the utmost conse
quence followed each other in rapid suc
cession ; and the germs of institutions des
tined to influence the fortunes of Christen
dom were planted by humble men, who lit
tle comprehended their own work. In the
course of the seventeenth century the
Fmich and English took possession of ail
that part of North America which was not
pre-occupied by the Spaniards. The French
entered by the'St. Lawrence ; followed that
noble artery to tlie heart of the continent;
traced tlie great lakes to their parent rivu
lets and weeping fountains ; descended the
(Mississippi. Miracles of lmmble and una
vailing heroism were performed by their
gallant adventurers and pious missionaries
in the depths of onr western wilderness.—
Applause.] The English stretched along
the coast. The geographer would have pro
nounced that the French, in appropriating
to themselves the mighty- basins of the
Mississippi and the St. LaYvrcnce, had got
possession of the better part of the conti
nent. But it was an attempt to compose
the second volume of the “Fortunes of
America,” in advance of the. first. I his it
was ordained should be written at James
town and Plymouth. The French, though
excelling all other nations of the world in
the art of communicating for temporary-
purposes with savage tribes, seem, still more
than the Spaniards, to be destitute of the
august skill required to Fund new States.
I do not -know that there is such a tiling in
the world as a colony-of France growing up
into a prosperous commonwealth. A half a
million of French peasants in Lower Cana
da, tenaciously- adhering to the manners
and customs which their fathers brought
from Normandy two centuries ago, and a
third part of that number of planters of
French descent in Louisiana, arc all that is
left to bear living Yvitness to the amazing
fact that not a century ago France was the
mistress of the better half of North Ameri-
It was on the Atlantic coast, and in the
colonies originally planted or soon acquired
hv England, that the great work of the sev-
enteeth century was performed—slowly-,
toilsomely, effectively. A mighty work
for America and mankind, of which even
we, fond and proud of it as we are, do but
faintly guess the magnitude. [Applause.]
It could hardly be said at the time to pros
per in any-of its parts. It yielded no re
turn to the pecuniary- capital invested.—
The political relations of the colonies from
the first were those of encroachment and
resistance, and even the moral principle, as
far as there was one, on which they were
founded, was not consistently- carried out.
There was conflict with the savages ; war
with the French and Spaniards; jarring and
feuds between neighboring colonies ; per
secution of dissenting individuals and sects;
perpetual discord with the crown and pro
prietaries. Y'et, in the main, and on the
whole,
“The work went hvavc 'y or.."
Things that did not work singly worked to
gether ; or if they did not work together
they worked by- reaction and collision.—
Feeble germs of settlement grew to the con
sistency of powerful colonies; habits of civ
il government rooted themselves in a soil
that was continually stirred by political ag
itation ; the frame of future Republics knit
itself, as it were in embryo, under a monar
chical system of colonial rule ; and in the
middle of the eighteenth century the ap
proach of mighty changes began to be dim
ly forseen by- gifted spirits. A faint streak
of purple light blushed along the eastern
sky. [Applause.]
Two things worth mentioning contribu
ted to the result. One was the absence of
the precious metals. The British colonies
were rich in the want of gold. As the
abundance of gold and silver in Mexico and
Peru contributed, in various ways, to ob
struct tlie prosperity- of the Spanish colo
nies, the want of them acted not less favor
ably here. In the first settlement of a sav
age wilderness the golden attraction is too
powerful for the ordinary routine of life.—
It produces a feverish excitement unfavor
able to the healthy growth and calm ac
tion of the body politic. Although Califor
nia has from the first had the advantage of
being incorporated into a stable political
svstem of which, as sister States, she forms
an integral part, it is quite doubtful wheth
er, looking to her permanent well-being, the
gold is to be a blessing to her. It will has
ten her settlement; but that would at any
rate have advanced with great rapidity.—
One of the most intellectual men in this
country-, the author of one of tlie most ad
mirable works in our language, I mean “Two
Years Before the Mast,” once remarked to
me that “California would be one of the
finest countries in the world to live in if it
were not for the gold.”
The other circumstances which operated
the most favorable manner upon the
Anglo-American colonies was the fact that
they were called into existence less by the
government than the people-that they w r cre
settled not by bodies of colonists, but by in
dividual emigrants. r I he Crown gave char
ters of government and grants of land ; and
a considerable expenditure was made by
some of the companies and proprietors who
received these grants ; but upon the whole,
the United States were settled by individ
ual-—the adventurous, resolute, high spirit
ed, and in many cases persecuted men and
women, who sought a home and a refuge
beyond the sea ; and such was the state of
Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries that it furnished a succession of
victims of a long series of political and reli
gious disaster and persecutions, who found,
one after another, a safe and congenial re
treat in some one of the American colonies.
This noble theme has been treated with
a beauty and a power by one whom I need
not name in this presence, (the Historian of
the United States,) which, without impair
ing their authenticity, have converted the
severe pages of our history into a magnifi
cent Odyssey- of national adventure. I can
but glance at the dates. The first settle
ment, that cf Virginia, was commenced in
the spirit of worldly- enterprise, with no
slight dash, however, of chivalry- and ro
mance on the part of its leader. In the
next generation this colony became the fa
vorite resort of the loyal cavaliers and gen
tlemen who were disgusted by the austerities
of the English Commonwealth or fell tinder
its suspicion. In the mean time, New Eng
land was founded by those who suffered the
penalties of non-conformity. The mighty
change of 1G40 stopped the tide of emigre,
tion to New England, but recruited Vir
ginia with those who were di-affected to
Cromwell.
In 1G24 the Island of Manhattan—of
which you have perhaps heard, [laughter,]
and if not, yon will find its history related
Yvith learning, judgment, and good taste, by
a loyal descendant cf its early settlers,
(Mr. Brodhead)—was purchased of the In
dians for twenty-four dollars, a sum of mon-
ev, by the way, which seems rather low for
twenty-two thousand acres of land, inclu
ding the site of this great metropolis, but
which would, if put out at compound inter
est at sevent per cent in 1G24, not perhaps
fall so very short even of its present value;
though I admit that a dollar fi r one thousand
acres is quite cheap for ch< :ce spots on the
5th avenue. [Laughter.] Maryland next -at
tracted those who adhered to the ancient
faith of the Christian world. New Jersey
and Pennsylvania were mainly settled by-
persecuted' Quakers ; but the latter offered
an asylum to the Germans whom the sword
of Louis XIV drove from the Palatinate.