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Tempore post longo marmor aggestaque terra
Suffundet lacrimis oculos cum Britonis ægri;
Lugete (inquiet heu valles, silvæque relictæ ;
Hoc vestrum tumulo clausum plorate poetam,
Vol. V. No. VI.

2 Q

THE BOSTON REVIEW.

FOR

JUNE, 1808.

Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam`' qui maxime laudari merentur.

PLIN.

ART. 13.

The Life of George Washington, commander in chief of the American forces, during the war which established the independence of his country, and first president of the United States. Compiled under the inspection of the honourable Bushrod Washington, from original papers bequeathed to him by his deceased relative, and now in possession of the author. To which is prefixed

an introduction, containing a com

pendious view of the colonies planted by the English on the continent of North merica, from their settlement to the commencement of that war, which terminated in their independence. By John Marshall. Philadelphia, printed and published by C. P. Wayne. Vol. 1, 1804, Vol. II, 1804, Vol. III, 1804,

Vol. IV, 1805, Vol. V, 1807.

[Continued.]

WHEN we look back on what we have written, and recollect that we have only arrived at the commencement of the second volume of this work, we perceive that we have already made an alarming demand

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In the second volume the life of

Washington may be said to com

meuce. All the circumstances of his birth, connexions, education and early habits, are narrated in somewhat less than a page and a half.

This, we confess, excites our surprise and chagrin. We can scarcely think it possible, that tradition has preserved no record of any of the events of the private life of one, who, as it is evident from his early promotion, must have been considered as a youth of extraordinary promise. We regret therefore, that the occupations of Judge Marshall did not permit him to collect any of those anecdotes, which we take

for granted must exist, or that he could not find some American Boswell, who would relieve him of the task, and secure these fading memorials, which, if once suffered to be "Tralost, can never be recalled.

dition," let us remember," is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled." Cicero thought his discovery of the forgotten and neglected tomb of Archimedes, an event interesting and important enough to be introduced into one of the gravest of his philosophical disquisitions; surely therefore no man has a right to think it labour too humble for his talents, to investigate any circumstances, however minute, which may contribute to illus trate the character of Washington. There is scarcely any thing, which would give us greater pleasure than sit down to the examination of a work, which would acquaint us with the private habits of our hero; and notwithstanding any thing which has yet appeared, such a work is still altogether a desideratum. To the English edition is annexed an account of the ancestors of Washington from the herald's office, which, as it supplies one of Judge M.'s deficiencies, and as we presume it is not very common among us, we shall extract; though, indeed, Washington is not a man whose fame can receive any additional lustre from any lineage however splendid.

"Pedigree of Gen. Washington, communicated to the editor by Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King at Arms.

"It is presumed, upon good

We have examined both the quarto and octavo copies of this edition, and believe that it is incomparably the most incorrect book lately issued from the English press. To the American edition we can give the rare praise of being very accurate as well as extremely neat.

grounds, that the late President Washington was descended from a very respectable family of the name, anciently established at Twitfield and Warton, in Lancashire, and afterwards lords of the manor of Sulgrave, in the county of Northamp

ton.

"Sir William Washington of Packington, in Leicestershire, the eldest son and heir of Laurence Washington, of Sulgrave, Esq'r. married Anne, the half sister of George Villiers, duke of Bucking

ham.

"This Sir William had, among other younger brothers, two, named John and Laurence; and the latter appears to have been a student at Oxford, in 1622.

"John and Laurence Washington, brothers, emigrated from the north of England, (according to the tradition in the family of the President) and settled at Bridge's Creek, on the Potomack River, in the county of Westmoreland. John was employed as General against the Indians, in Maryland, and the parish in which he lived was called He was the father of after him.* Laurence Washington, gentleman, who died in 1697, leaving two sons, John and Augustine.

"Augustine died in 1743, at the age of forty-nine, leaving several sons by his two marriages. George, the President, was the eldest by the second wife, Mary Ball, and was born the 11th of February, 1732.”

We have before hinted a wish that our author had given us a disquisition on the causes and grounds

This John had previously resided at South Cave, in the cast riding of the county of York, upon an estate now the property and residence of H B. Barnard, esq. of Cave castle, South (ave, and he emigrated to America about the year 1657. ENGLISH EDITOR.

of the American revolution, and among other reasons because we should have been gratified with seeing on what principles so distinguished a politician as Judge M. would now defend the justice of it. Without pretending to have either thought or read much on the subject, it strikes us, that the plea on which it was usually rested at the time, that England could not justly claim the right of taxation, without allowing us to be represented in her Parlia ment, would not now be thought the most cogent. While we acknowledged ourselves to be subjects of Great Britain, and conceded to her the full right of legislation, it appears to us that we gave up the right of making this plea. Legis lution includes all the powers of civil government, and none more clearly than that of taxation. The right to demand the protection of the civil power, and the obligation to support it are reciprocal and inseparable. As subjects of the British crown indeed, we had the right to representation, whenever the exercise of that right was practicable, but as the exercise of this right in our case was acknowledged to be im ossible, we might lament the circumstance as an evil, but we had no right to complain of it, or any of its necessary consequences as a griev

ance.

Taxation is no tyranny, even without representation, when cir

cumstances are such as to make representation impossible. If this evil was insupportable, as certainly it would ultimately have been, that would have been a sufficient ground to justify a dissolution of our connexion, and a renunciation of all our rights as well as obligations as British subjects. But to acknowledge the general right to legislate, and to deny the application of it in a most essential particular, in our opinion,

included an absurdity; and every act of opposition, therefore, before the Declaration of Independence was an act of rebellion. We shall not, we presume, be misunderstood. We are only questioning, as a mere matter of speculation, the theory on which our resistance was defended. We mean only to say, that there could be no alternative between submission and independence, and that the ground therefore, which was so universally taken in the early stages of the contest, was untenable and inconsistent. With regard to the general principle of the necessity of the revolution, there can be now no division of sentiment. No men can believe more firmly than ourselves, in the propriety and utility of that glorious event, or be more deeply penetrated with reverence and gratitude for the heroes and sages who effected it. That an immense continent should be governed by a power a thousand leagues distant, was too monstrous to be long supported; and the interest of England, quite as much as that of America, demanded the separation. If we were to offer to resume our ancient connexion with her tomorrow, every motive of policy would require her to decline it.

The events of the war are in general narrated with spirit and elegance. Judge Marshall's superiority to the historians which preceded him, consists principally in the greater fullness and exactness of his statements of political transactions. His narrative of the negociations with France and Spain is particularly luminous and interesting, and sufficiently displays the folly of supposing that we are under any obligations of gratitude to either of those nations, for espousing our cause. Friendship," "generosity," "gratitude," &c. do very well

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We think Judge Marshall has also given us a better survey of the ceedings of Congress, than we have before seen, and enabled us to appreciate more fully the difficulties with which Gen. Washington was compelled to struggle. Yet even here we have been disappointed in our hope of finding a more ample account of the parties in Congress, their principles, views, &c. concerning which little correct information has hitherto been presented to the publick. If we mistake not, there is a great deal of curious and interesting information, which the world does not yet possess, respecting the first Congress, with which Judge M. does not furnish us, and which, if not preserved, must in a few years be irretrievably lost. We will indulge the hope, that he will hereafter find leisure to review and perfect his work, and that the task of preparing a new edition will form the dignified amusement of the evening of life.

We will indulge ourselves in extracting the following picture of the spirit displayed by Congress, in the most disastrous period of our history.

The firmness manifested by congress throughout the gloomy and trying period which intervened between the loss of fort Washington, and the battle of Pirnceton, entitles the members of that day to the admiration of the world, and the gratitude of their fellow citizens. Unawed by the dangers which threatened

them, and regardless of personal safety, they did not for an instant admit the idea, that the independence they had declared was to be surrendered, and peace to be purchased by returning to their ancient colonial situation. As the British army advanced through Jersey, and the consequent insecurity of Philadel phia rendered an adjournment of congress from that place to one further removed from the seat of war, a necessary measure of precaution, their exertions seemed to increase with their difficulties. They sought to remove the des pondence which was seizing and paralyzing the public mind, by an address to the states, in which every argument was suggested which could rouse them to vigorous action. They made the most strenuous efforts, too, to animate the militia, and impel them to the field, by the agency of those whose popular cloquence best fitted them for such a ser

vice.

When reassembled at Baltimore, the place to which they had adjourned, their resolutions exhibited no evidences of confusion or dismay; and the most judicious efforts were made, by collecting as soon as possible a respectable military force, to repair the mischief produced by past errors.

Declaring that in the present situation of things the very existence of civil libmilitary powers, to a vigorous direction erty depended on the right execution of

of which, distant numerous, and deliberative bodies, were entirely unequal; · they authorized general Washington to raise sixteen additional regiments, and conferred upon him, for six months, pow ers for the conduct of the war which were almost unlimited.

When reduced to their lowest ebb, towards the close of 1776, while the tide of

fortune was running strongest against them, some few members,distrusting their ability to make a successful resistance, proposed to authorizecommissioners they had deputed to the court of Versailles, to transfer to that country the same menopoly of their trade which Great Brittain had hitherto enjoyed. This propo sition is stated to have been relinquished, because it was believed that conceptions

General Mifflin was on this occasion peculiarly useful. Ramsay.

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