us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie.

Sir, an attempt has been made to alarm the committee by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity. Ah! sir, "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade and lose its liberties?

THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BUNKER HILL1

DANIEL WEBSTER

(1825)

VENERABLE men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder in the strife for your country.

Behold how altered! The same heavens are, indeed,

1 Taken from an address delivered at the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill Monument, 1825.

over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown.

The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace.

The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, · have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee.

Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness ere you slumber in the grave forever.

He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and, in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!

But alas! you are not all here! Time and the

3

4

6

sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott,' Putnam,2 Stark, Brooks, Read,5 Pomeroy, Bridge! Our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like

and the sky, on which you closed your eyes, was cloudless.

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty and our govern

1 William Prescott (1726-1795). The historian Bancroft says that in the Battle of Bunker Hill "no one appeared to have any command save Colonel Prescott."

2 Israel Putnam (1718-1790), the ranking officer at Bunker Hill. 3 John Stark (1728-1822), the hero of Bennington.

4 John Brooks (1752-1825) was not actually in the battle of Bunker Hill, but helped fortify Breed's Hill just before the battle. He was elected governor of the State.

5 Probably General Joseph Reed (1741-1785), then lieutenantcolonel in the Massachusetts Militia. Bancroft, in his writings, confounded Charles Read, who went over to the British during the war, with General Joseph Reed. Several of each name fought in the Revolutionary War.

Seth Pomeroy (1706-1777) fought as a private at Bunker Hill, although an experienced soldier who held the rank of colonel. 7 From the fifth book of Milton's "Paradise Lost."

ment are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented to us, as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of Solon and Alfred, and other founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defense and preservation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling, that these twenty-four States are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!

THE PASSING OF THE INDIAN 1

CHARLES SPRAGUE

(1825)

CHARLES SPRAGUE (1791-1875), poet, was born at Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated in the public schools. He entered the banking business, but found time for literary work.

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover woed his dusky mate.

Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were here; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around.

1 From a Fourth of July oration, Boston, 1825.