HEYWARD. As mathematicians, in demonstrating a general truth, employ a particular diagram, the life of Thomas Heyward may be selected to illustrate the purity of design, the self-devotion, and the enlightened forecast, of the patriots who achieved the independence of the United States of America. MR. THOMAS HEYWARD, the eldest son of colonel Daniel Heyward, of St. Luke's parish, in the province of South Carolina, was born in the year of our Lord 1746. His father, one of the wealthiest planters in the province, had acquired the greater part of his estate by his sagacity and industry. Though the maker of his own fortune, he did not think that money was every thing; and determined to bestow on his son a more valuable inheritance than the land and slaves which were to descend to him. His wisdom found its reward. By a good education, his son was enabled to render important services to his country, and prepared for that station in the congress of the United States, which has connected the name of Heyward with one of the most memorable acts, not only in the history of the United States, but in that of human nature. Unenlightened by culture, the mind of young Heyward might have been directed to unworthy pursuits, and his wealth have ensnared, if not destroyed, his early virtue. He might have thought himself too rich to act a decided part in so momentous a controversy, and the fear of losing his inheritance, would thus have deprived his country of his valuable exertions, and have excluded him from the honours of patriotism. Nothing but an enlightened feeling, superior to ordinary calculation, could have induced him to brave the hazards of a revolution. No portion of the country had more to adventure than the southern section, and no limb of the union was more severely lacerated. Amid the devastations of estates, the labours, the contumely, the dangers, the imprisonment, and the exile, to which all the patriots were exposed, few encountered more privations and positive evils, than Thomas Heyward. At an early age, young Heyward was placed at the best school in the province. The ancient languages were then diligently taught in the schools; and he acquired such a knowledge of Latin, as en abled him to read the Roman historians and poets, and to imbibe their lessons of liberty. From school he was removed to the office of Mr. Parsons, a lawyer celebrated for his learning and dexterity. In the pages of Blackstone he learned to reverence the English constitution, and especially its more valuable feature, the popular or representative branch. That all supplies to the crown must proceed from the people themselves, through their representatives, was a maxim of the English law which could hardly have escaped his attention, in his early reading. The sacredness of property in the estimation of the common law, was impressed upon him in every page. This principle, he found, was the parent of a voluminous code, and an intricate science. It apologized for the endless reports of cases, and relieved them of their tediousness. From his professional studies, he thus became necessarily familiar with those principles by which the colonial questions were afterwards to be settled. After the usual term of study, he was, according to the course of education then prevalent, sent to England to be entered in one of the Inns of Court. It does not appear that he placed himself in a lawyer's office, to while away the period between youth and manhood, before he took possession of his estate. His expectations from his father might have furnished him with a plea for indolence or indifference, or only called forth a decent attention to his studies; but he valued his fortune only as it enabled him to strengthen and enlarge his mind, and to qualify himself for public pursuits. In the Temple, he therefore pursued his studies with the zeal which characterised their commencement, and emulated the diligence of those, who could look only to a profession for advancement. In England he found also an additional motive for exertion. If it was not there that he first learned the distinction between an Englishman and a colonist, it was there that he was most painfully wounded by it. Pride is a striking feature in the English character. Glorying in their country, they think they have a right to be proud, and they do not merely yield to the sentiment but cherish it as ennobling. Now, however becoming this may appear to its votaries, it is seen in a less amiable light by its objects, and its victims. In the colonies, the people cherished the idea that they were of the English race, and endeavoured to associate themselves with the military, the civil, and the literary, glory of England. The colonists read Shakspeare and Milton with the feelings of Englishmen. It was their ambition "That Chatham's language was their mother tongue, |