late to ask: Can you put the dearest interests of society at risk without guilt, and without remorse? There is no mistake in this case; there can be none experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent or uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness; it exclaims that, while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh in the Western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

XX.-NOMINAL WAR.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

BUT, sir, I shall be told, perhaps, that there is only a nominal war between Spain and those belligerents—that there is nothing else a war of name; and that Spain is unable any longer to wag a finger, to use a familiar phrase, or anything but her tongue in the contest. If that be the

condition of Spain, by what arguments can king-craft and friest-craft be prevailed on to remove this nominal claim, which will, like some others, keep cold until the chapter of accidents may realize it? Did Philip the Second ever recognize the independence of the Dutch, when that independence was more firmly established than his own? No, sir, Spain is made of sterner stuff. Truce after truce was patched up without any such recognition-and they were the United Provinces, and so remained till France gave them the coup de grace by the true fraternal hug. What, sir, was the con dition of the war between England and France a little while ago--one not having a ship at sea, except a few frigates, which she employed in burning our ships in a friendly way, so as to induce us to join in making a diversion in aid of her crusade against Moscow-from which I hope we shall take warning; for that attempt was not only plausible, but

promised success-was quite practicable, compared to the crusade to which I have alluded--and England had not a man, at the time I speak of, after the battle of Jena, in arms on her side, on the continent of Europe-not one man; and there they stood, a complete non-conductor interposed between them, except the United States, who received the blows of both!

But, though that war was for a long time little else but a suspension of arms, from the inability of each to attack on the other's element-was it nominal-was it war like a peace, or even peace like a war, as was said of Amiens? Oh, no-old England had nailed the colors to the mast; she had determined to go down rather than give up the ship; she wisely saw no safety for her in what might be called a peace; and it was a glorious determination; and it is that spirit—it is not thews, muscle-it is not brawn, it is that spirit which gives life to every nation-that spirit which carries a man, however feeble, through conflicts with giants, compared to him in point of strength, honorably, triumphantly. Sir, I consider the late conflict between England and France England against the congregated continent of Europe - 10 say nothing of any other make-weights in the scale-confident against a world in arms-as far surpassing in sublimity of example, the tenaciousness of purpose of Rome during the second Punic war, as that surpassed any of our famous Indian wars and expeditions. It is a lesson of the constancy of the human mind, which ought never to be thrown away.

XXI. THE DIFFICULT STEP.

JOHN RANDOLPH.

SIR, I never could speak or quarrel by the book-by the card, as Touchstone tells us, was the fashion in his day. I have no gift at this special pleading-at the retort courteous and the countercheck quarrelsome, till things get to the point, where nothing is left for it but to back out or fight. We are asked, sir, by this new executive government of ours-not in the very words, but it is a great deal like itof the son of Climene to give some token, some proof, that they possess legitimate claims to the confidence of the people

DEATH OF J. Q. ADAMS.

37

which they have modestly confessed they do not possess in the same degree as their predecessors. I will answer them in the words of the father of that son, "You ask definite pledges-I give definite pledges tremblingly." But, sir, the phaeton is at the door, ambition burns to mount. Whether the Mississippi, like the Po, is to suffer a metamorphosis, not in its poplars-whether the blacks shall be turned into whites, or the whites into blacks, the slaves into masters, or the masters into slaves, or the murdered and their murderers to change color, like the mulberry-trees, belongs to men of greater sagacity than I am, to foretell. I am content to act the part of Cassandra, to lift up my voice, whether it be heeded, or heard only to be disregarded, until too late--I will cry out obsta principiis. Yes, sir, in this case, as in many others the first step is all the difficulty-that taken, then they may take for their motto-" there is no retreat." I tell these gentlemen there is no retreat—it is cut off-there is no retreat, even as tedious and painful as that conducted by Xenophon. There is no Anabasis for us-and if there was, where is our Xenophon? I do not feel lightly on this occasion-far otherwise-but the heaviest heart often vents itself in light expressions. There is a mirth of sadness, as well as tears of joy. If I could talk lightly on this sad subject, I would remind gentlemen of the reply given by a wiseacre, who was sent to search the vaults of the Parliament House at the time of the gunpowder plot, and who had searched and reported that they had found fifty barrels of powder concealed under the fagots and other fuel--that he had removed twenty-five, and hoped that the other twenty-five would do no harm. The step you are about to take is the match of that powder-whether it be twenty-five or fifty barrels is quite immaterial—it is enough to blow-not the first of the Stuarts--but the last of another dynasty-sky-high--skyhigh.

XXII-DEATH OF J. Q. ADAMS.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

THE Thirtieth Congress assembles in this conjuncture, and the debates are solemn, earnest and bewildering. Steam and lightning, which have become docile messengers, make

the American people listeners to this high debate, and anxiety and interest, intense and universal, absorb them all. Suddenly the council is dissolved. Silence is in the capitol, and sorrow has thrown its pall over the land. What new event is this? Has some Cromwell closed the legislative chambers? or has some Cæsar, returning from his distant conquests, passed the Rubicon, seized the purple, and fallen in the Senate beneath the swords of self-appointed executioners of his country's vengeance? No! Nothing of all this. What means, then, this abrupt and fearful silence? looked-for calamity has quelled the debates of the Senate, and calmed the excitement of the people? An old man, whose tongue once indeed was eloquent, but now through age had well nigh lost its cunning, has fallen into the swoon of death. He was not an actor in the drama of conquest-nor had his feeble voice yet mingled in the lofty argument—

"A gray haired sire, whose eye intent

Was on the visioned future bent."

What un

-In the very act of rising to debate he fell into the arms of conscript fathers of the republic. A long lethargy supervened and oppressed his senses. Nature rallied the wasting powers, on the verge of the grave, for a very brief space. But it was long enough for him. The re-kindled eye showed that the re-collected mind was clear, calm and vigorous. His weeping family, and his sorrowing compeers were there. He surveyed the scene, and knew at once its fatal import. He had left no duty unperformed; he had no wish unsatisfied; no ambition unattained; no regret, no sorrow, no fear, no remorse. He could not shake off the dews of death that gathered on his brow. He could not pierce the thick shades that rose up before him. But he knew that eternity lay close by the shores of time. He knew that his Redeemner lived. Eloquence, even in that hour, inspired him with his ancient sublimity of utterance. THIS," said the dying man, THIS IS THE END OF EARTH. He paused for a moment, and then added, "I AM CONTENT." Angels might well draw aside the curtains of the skies to look down on such a scene—a scene that approximated even to that scene of un approachable sublimity, not to be recalled without reverence, when in mortal agony, ONE who spake as never man spake, said, "IT IS FINISHED

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DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

39

XXIII-DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

HE was an emperor. But he saw around him a mother brothers and sisters, not ennobled; whose humble state reminded him and the world, that he was born a plebeian; and he had no heir to wait for the imperial crown. He scourged the earth again, and again fortune smiled on him even in his wild extravagance. He bestowed kingdoms and principalities upon his kindred-put away the devoted wife of his youthful days, and another, a daughter of Hapsburgh's imperial house, joyfully accepted his proud alliance Offspring gladdened his anxious sight; a diadem was placed on its infant brow, and it received the homage of princes, even in its cradle. Now he was indeed a monarch-a legitimate monarch—a monarch by divine appointment-the first of an endless succession of monarchs. But there were other monarchs who held sway in the earth. He was not content, he would reign with his kindred alone. He gathered new and greater armies, from his own land-from subjugated lands. He called forth the young and brave—one from every household-from the Pyrenees to the Zuyder-Zee-from Jura to the ocean. He marshalled them into long and majestic columns, and went forth to seize that universal dominion, which seemed almost within his grasp. But ambition had tempted fortune too far. The nations of the earth resisted, repelled, pursued, surrounded him. The pageant was ended. The crown fell from his presumptuous head. The wife who had wedded him in his pride forsook him when the hour of fear came upon him. His child was ravished from his sight. His kinsmen were degraded to their first estate, and he was no longer emperor, uor consul, nor general, nor even a citizen, but an exile and a prisoner, on a lonely island, in the midst of the wild Atlantic. Discontent attended him here. The wayward man fretted out a few long years of his yet unbroken manhood, looking off at the earliest dawn and in evening's latest twilight, toward that distant world that had only just eluded his grasp. His heart corroded. Death came, not unlooked for, though it came even then unwelcome. He was stretched on his bed within the fort which constituted his prison. A few fast and faithful friends stood around, with the guards who rejoiced that the hour of relief from long and