PROFESSOR MITCHILL'S REFORMATION OF “MOTHER GOOSE."

[Reminiscences of Samuel Latham Mitchill. 1859.]

WAS repeatedly curious enough to interrogate him as to the question what agency he had had in the modification of the New England Primer, and whether, at his suggestion, the old poetry, "Whales in the sea God's voice obey," had been transformed into the equally sonorous lines, "By Washington great deeds were done." In one of my morning vists to him, at his residence in White Street, about the time that Jeffrey, the celebrated Edinburgh critic, had called upon him, to take the dimensions of a universal philosopher, the learned Doctor was engaged in writing a series of minor poems for the nursery; for his nursery literature, like his knowledge of botanical writers, had scarcely any limitation. "You are acquainted," says he, "with the nursery rhymes commencing Four-and-twenty blackbirds?' They abound with errors," added he, "and the infantile mind is led astray by the acquisition of such verses. I have thus altered them this morning: When the pie was open, the birds they were songless; was not that a pretty dish to set before the Congress?' I thus correct," added the doctor, "the error that might be imbibed in infancy of the musical functions of cooked birds; and while I discard the King of Great Britain, with whom we have nothing to do, I give them some knowledge of our general government, by specifying our Congress." These trifles show how intense was his Americanism. When he declared, in his ingenious effusion on "Freedom and Fredonia,"

"Not Plato in his Phædon

Excels the chief of Fredon,"

6

his democracy and his admiration of the philosopher Jefferson, then President, was complete.

Hannah Flagg Gould.

BORN in Lancaster, Mass., 1789. DIED at Newburyport, Mass., 1865.

A NAME IN THE SAND.

ALONE I walked the ocean strand;

A pearly shell was in my hand:

I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name-the year-the day.

As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast;
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.

And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me:
A wave of dark oblivion's sea

Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been, to be no more,
Of me-my day-the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.

And yet, with Him who counts the sands
And holds the waters in his hands,

I know a lasting record stands

Inscribed against my name,

Of all this mortal part has wrought,

Of all this thinking soul has thought,

And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory or for shame.

IN

Jared Sparks.

BORN in Willington, Conn., 1789. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1866.

INDIAN POLICY IN 1763.

[The Works of Benjamin Franklin. With a Life of the Author. 1836-40.]

the month of December, a tragical occurrence took place in Lancaster County, as revolting to humanity, as it was disgraceful to the country. At the Conestogo manor, resided the remnant of a tribe of Indians, which had dwindled down to twenty persons, men, women, and children. Their chief, a venerable old man, who had assisted at the second treaty held with the Indian tribes by William Penn, more than sixty years before, had from that day lived on terms of friendship with his white neighbors, and he and his people had ever been distinguished for their peaceable and inoffensive behavior. The little village of huts, which they occupied, was surrounded in the night by fifty-seven armed men, who came on horseback from two of the frontier townships, and every individual then present was massacred in cold blood. The old chief was murdered in his bed. It happened, that six persons only were at home, the other fourteen being absent among the surrounding

whites. These Indians were collected by the magistrates of Lancaster, brought to the town, and put into the workhouse as the place of greatest safety.

When the news of this atrocious act came to Philadelphia, the Governor issued a proclamation, calling on all justices, sheriffs, and other public officers civil and military, to make diligent search for the perpetrators of the crime, and cause them to be apprehended and confined in the jails, till they could be tried by the laws. In defiance of this proclamation, fifty of these barbarians, armed as before, marched into the town of Lancaster, broke open the door of the workhouse, and deliberately murdered every Indian it contained; and, strange as it may seem, the magistrates and other inhabitants were mute spectators of this scene. of horror, without attempting to rescue the unhappy victims from their fate. Not one of the murderers was apprehended, the laws and the Governor's authority being alike disregarded.

Such an outrage upon humanity, and so daring a violation of all laws human and divine, could not but kindle the indignation of every benevolent mind, and fill with alarm every friend of social order. To exhibit the transaction in its proper colors before the public, Franklin wrote a Narrative of the late Massacres in Lancaster County; usually called the Paxton Murders, because many of the rioters belonged to a frontier town of that name. After a brief and impressive relation of the facts, he cites. examples from history to show, that even heathens, in the rudest stages of civilization, had never tolerated such crimes as had here been perpetrated in the heart of a Christian community.

Appealing to the inhabitants, he says: "Let us rouse ourselves, for shame, and redeem the honor of our province from the contempt of its neighbors; let all good men join heartily and unanimously in support of the laws, and in strengthening the hands of government; that justice may be done, the wicked punished, and the innocent protected; otherwise we can, as a people, expect no blessing from Heaven; there will be no security for our persons or properties; anarchy and confusion will prevail over all; and violence without judgment dispose of everything." The style of this pamphlet is more vehement and rhetorical, than is common in the author's writings, but it is characterized by the peculiar clearness and vigor which mark all his compositions.

But neither the able exposure of the wickedness of the act, nor the eloquent and passionate appeal to the sensibilities of the people, contained in this performance, could stifle the spirit that was abroad, or check the fury with which it raged. The friendly Indians throughout the province, some of whom had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians, were alarmed at this war of extermination waged against their race. One hundred and forty of them fled for protection to Phila

delphia. For a time they were kept in safety on Province Island, near the city. When the insurgents threatened to march down and put them all to death, the Assembly resolved to repel them by force. The fugitives were taken into the city, and secured in the barracks.

There being no regular militia, Franklin, at the request of the Governor, formed a military Association, as he had done on another occasion in a time of public danger. Nine companies were organized, and nearly a thousand citizens embodied themselves under arms. The insurgents. advanced as far as Germantown, within six miles of Philadelphia, where, hearing of the preparation that had been made to protect the Indians, they thought it prudent to pause. Taking advantage of this crisis, the Governor and Council appointed Franklin and three other gentlemen to go out and meet them, and endeavor to turn them from their purpose. This mission was successful. Finding it impossible to carry their design into execution, they were at last prevailed upon to return peaceably to their homes.

Two persons were deputed by the rioters, before they separated, to be the bearers of their complaints to the Governor and the Assembly. This was done by a memorial to the Governor in behalf of the inhabitants of the frontier settlements. Divers grievances were enumerated, particularly the distresses they suffered from the savages, who had murdered defenceless families, and been guilty in numerous instances of the most barbarous cruelties. Much sophistry was used to extenuate, or rather to defend, the conduct of those, who, driven to desperation, had determined to make an indiscriminate slaughter of the Indians. It was alleged, that the friendship of these Indians was only a pretence; that they harbored traitors among them, who sent intelligence to the war parties and abetted their atrocities; that retaliation was justifiable, the war being against the Indians as a nation, of which every tribe and individual constituted a part.

With such reasoning as this the multitude was satisfied. Religious frenzy suggested another argument. Joshua had been commanded to destroy the heathen. The Indians were heathens; hence there was a divine command to exterminate them. Another memorial, with fifteen hundred signatures, was sent to the Assembly. They were both referred to a committee, but, the Governor declining to support the measures recommended, no further steps were taken.

The character and result of these extraordinary proceedings show, in the first place, that the criminal outrages were approved by a large party in the province; and next, that the government, either from want of intelligence and firmness in the head, or of union in the parts, was too feeble to execute justice and preserve public order. Great credit is due. to the agency of Franklin, in stopping the tide of insurrection and

VOL. V.-13

quieting the commotions. By his personal exertions and influence, as well as by his pen, he labored to strengthen the arm of government, diffuse correct sentiments among the people, and maintain the supremacy of the laws.

THE

MEN OF THE REVOLUTION.

[Remarks on American History. 1837.]

HE acts of the Revolution derive dignity and interest from the character of the actors, and the nature and magnitude of the events. It has been remarked, that in all great political revolutions, men have arisen, possessed of extraordinary endowments, adequate to the exigency of the time. It is true enough, that such revolutions, or any remarkable and continued exertions of human power, must be brought to pass by corresponding qualities in the agents; but whether the occasion makes the men, or men the occasion, may not always be ascertained with exactness. In either case, however, no period has been adorned with examples more illustrious, or more perfectly adapted to the high destiny awaiting them, than that of the American Revolution.

Statesmen were at hand, who, if not skilled in the art of governing empires, were thoroughly imbued with the principles of just government, intimately acquainted with the history of former ages, and, above all, with the condition, sentiments, and feelings of their countrymen. If there were no Richelieus nor Mazarines, no Cecils nor Chathams, in America, there were men, who, like Themistocles, knew how to raise a small state to glory and greatness.

The eloquence and the internal counsels of the Old Congress were never recorded; we know them only in their results; but that assembly, with no other power than that conferred by the suffrage of the people, with no other influence than that of their public virtue and talents, and without precedent to guide their deliberations, unsupported even by the arm of law or of ancient usages-that assembly levied troops, imposed taxes, and for years not only retained the confidence and upheld the civil existence of a distracted country, but carried through a perilous war under its most aggravating burdens of sacrifice and suffering. Can we imagine a situation, in which were required higher moral courage, more intelligence and talent, a deeper insight into human nature and the principles of social and political organizations, or, indeed, any of those qualities which constitute greatness of character in a statesman? See, likewise, that work of wonder, the Confederation, a union of independent states, constructed in the very heart of a desolating war, but with a beauty and