course of which, while the arguments and proposals of "the anonymous addresser" were answered with respect, it was intimated that he was "an insidious foe-some emissary, perhaps, from New York, sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent." At the time of making this address, Washington was not acquainted with the anonymous author. He afterwards, in writing to General Armstrong, Feb. 23, 1797, expressed his contidence in the good motives which had dictated the letters, as "just, honorable, and friendly to the country, though the means suggested were certainly liable to much misunderstanding and abuse."* After the war Armstrong held the post of Secretary of Pennsylvania, under Dickenson and Franklin. In 1787, he was elected member of Congress. In 1789, upon his marriage with a sister of Chancellor Livingston, he took up his residence in Dutchess County in the State of New York, where he occupied himself with farming. In 1800, he was elected senator of the United States, and in 1804, was appointed by Jefferson minister to France, an arduous position, which he filled till 1810, during which time he discharged the duties of a separate mission to Spain. When the war of 1812 was declared, he was appointed brigadier-general in the United States army, and commanded the district including the city and harbor of New York. In 1813, he was called by Madison to the Secretaryship of War. The difficulties which he encountered in the management of attempts against Canada, and the destruction of Washington, led to his resignation in 1814. He suffered at the time the odium resulting from these disasters, which threw into the shade his undoubtedly honorable and faithful services. In his retirement at Red Hook, where he passed the subsequent years of his life, he wrote treatises on Gardening and Agriculture, a review of Wilkinson's Memoirs, several biographical notices, and Notices of the War of 1812, the first volume of which was published in 1836, and the second in 1840. In this work he reviews the conduct of the war with a forcible and discriminating pen, sharpened by the official experiences of his own career as secretary. It possesses the interest of an original critical disquisition on a most important period of our history, and its points will continue to furnish the text for prolonged comment. Gen. Armstrong died at his country residence on the Hudson, April 1, 1843, in his eighty-fifth year.t brated Master Lovell; completed his course with the highest honors at Harvard, in 1778: and on taking the degree of Master of Arts, delivered the valedictory oration in Latin, which was much admired for its eloquence and purity of language. Geo. Rr Minot He studied law with Fisher Ames in the office of William Tudor. Soon after commencing practice he was made, in 1781, Clerk of the House of Representatives, under the recently formed constitution; in 1782 he was appointed judge of probate for the county of Suffolk; and in 1800, of the Municipal Court in Boston. In 1783, he married Mary Speakman, of Marlboro'. In 1788, he published the History of the Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786; a work which attracted great attention from its interest, its dispassionate tone, and the elegance and purity of its style; and in 1798, the first volume of a History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, from 1748 to 1765, in continuation of that of Hutchinson. The second volume was printed from his manuscripts shortly after his death, which occurred after a short illness on the second of January, 1802. He was also the author of an oration on the Boston Massacre; of a highly finished and impassioned discourse on the death of Washington; and an address before the Massachusetts Charitable Society. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and edited three of the early volumes of their collections. His history is a well written, laborious, and impartial work. Its author was noted, in addition to his writings, for his fine taste, elegant personal appearance, the amiability and uprightness of his character, and the hospitality of his mansion.* TREATMENT OF THE ACADIANS, 1755. The French force in Nova-Scotia being thus subdued, it only remained to determine the measures which ought to be taken with respect to the inhabitants, who were about seven thousand in number, and whose character and situation were so peculiar, as to distinguish them from almost every other community, that has suffered under the scourge of war. The allegations against them as a people, and which were undoubtedly just against many of them as individuals, were these: That being permitted to hold their lands, after the treaty of Utrecht, by which the Province was ceded to Great-Britain, upon condition of their taking the oath of allegiance, they refused to comply, excepting with this qualification, that they should not be called upon to bear arms in the defence of the Province; which qualification, though acceded to by Gen. Phillips, the British commander, was disapproved of by the king: That from this circumstance they affected the character of neutrals, yet furnished the French and Indians with intelligence, quarters, provisions and assistance in annoying the government of the Province, and three hundred of them were actually found in arms at the taking of fort Beau-sejour: That notwithstanding an offer was made, to such of them as had not been openly in arms, to be allowed to continue in possession of their land, if they would take the oath of allegiance without any qualification, they unanimously refused it. The character of this people was mild, frugal, in * Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 146.. dustrious and pious; and a scrupulous sense of the indissoluble nature of their ancient obligation to their king, was a great cause of their misfortunes. To this we may add an unalterable attachment to their religion, a distrust of the right of the English to the territory which they inhabited, and the indemnity promised them at the surrender of fort Beau-sejour. Notwithstanding which, there could be no apology for such of them as, after they had obtained the advantages of neutrality, violated the conditions on which they were granted, and without which, from the nature of the case, there was no just foundation to expect they would be continued. Such being the circumstances of the French Neutrals, as they were called, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and his Council, aided by the admirals Boscawen and Mostyn, assembled to consider of the necessary measures to be adopted towards them. if the whole were to suffer for the conduct of a part, the natural punishment would have been to have forced them from their country, and left them to go wherever they pleased; but from the situation of the Province of Canada, it was obvious to see that this would have been to recruit it with soldiers, who would immediately have returned in arms upon the British frontiers. It was therefore determined to remove and disperse this whole people among the British Colonies, where they could not unite in any offensive measures, and where they might be naturalized to the government and country. The execution of this unusual and general sentence was allotted chiefly to the New England forces, the commander of which, from the humanity and firmness of his character, was the best qualified to carry it into effect. It was without doubt, as he himself declared, disagreeable to his natural make and temper; and his principles of implicit obedience as a soldier were put to a severe test by this ungrateful kind of duty, which required an ungenerous cunning, and subtle kind of severity, calculated to render the Acadians subservient to the English interests to the latest hour. They were kept entirely ignorant of their destiny until the moment of their captivity, and were overawed or allured to labour at the gathering in of their harvest, which was secretly allotted to the use of their conquerors. The orders from Lieutenant Governor Lawrence to Capt. Murray, who was first on the station, with a plagiarism of the language without the spirit of scripture, directed that if these people behaved amiss, they should be punished at his discretion; and if any attempts were made to destroy or molest the troops, he should take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and in short, life for life, from the nearest neighbour where the mischief should be performed. The convenient moment having arrived, the inhabitants were called into the different ports to hear the king's orders, as they were termed. At Grand Pre, where Col. Winslow had the immediate command, four hundred and eighteen of their best men assembled. These being shut into the church, (for that too had become an arsenal) he placed himself with his officers in the centre, and addressed them thus: The part of duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you who are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert, but to obey such orders as I receive, and therefore, without hesi tation, shall deliver you his Majesty's orders and instructions, namely, "That your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, with all other your effects, saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this his Province." Thus it is peremptorily his Majesty's orders, that the whole French inhabitants of these districts be removed, and I am, through his Majesty's goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your money and household goods, as many as you can without discommoding the vessels you go in. I shall do every thing in my power, that all those goods be secured to you, and that you are not molested in carrying them off: also that whole families shall go in the same vessel; and make this remove, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, as easy as his Majesty's service will admit, and hope, that in whatever part of the world you may fall, you may be faithful subjects, a peaceable and happy people. I must also inform you, that it is his Majesty's pleasure that you remain in security, under the inspection and direction of the troops that I have the honour to command. And he then declared them the King's prisoners. The whole number of persons collected at Grand Pre, finally amounted to 483 men and 337 women, heads of families, and their sons and daughters to 527 of the former, and 576 of the latter, making in the whole 1923 sonis. Their stock was upwards of 5,000 horned cattle, 493 horses, and 12,887 sheep and swine. As some of these wretched inhabitants escaped to the woods, all possible measures were adopted to force them back to captivity. The country was laid waste to prevent their subsistence. In the district of Minas alone, there were destroyed 255 houses, 276 barns, 155 out-houses, 11 mills and 1 church; and the friends of those who refused to come in, were threatened as the victims of their obstinacy. In short, so operative were the terrors that surrounded them, that of twenty-four young men who de serted from a transport, twenty-two were glad to return of themselves, the others being shot by sentinels; and one of their friends who was supposed to have been accessary to their escape, having been carried on shore, to behold the destruction of his house and effects, which were burned in his presence, as a punishment for his temerity, and perfidious aid to his comrades. Being embarked by force of the musquetry, they were dispersed, according to the original plan, among the several British Colonies. One thousand arrived in Massachusetts Bay and became a public expense, owing in a great degree to an unchangeable antipathy to their situation, which prompted them to reject the usual beneficiary but humiliating establishment of paupers for their children. The campaign ended with no small disgust on the part of the New England commander and his troops, on account of distinctions in service made between the regulars and them, to their prejudice; and enlistments being made out of his corps to fill up the standing regiments, which prevented his fulfilling his promise to bring his men back to their towns at the expiration of a year, a promise much relied upon and necessary to be performed for future exertions SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON-WILLIAM DUANE. SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON. SARAH WENTWORTH APTHORPE married, in 1778, Perez Morton.* She was a constant contributor of short poems to the Massachusetts Magazine, and obtained a vaunted reputation in those days under the signature of Philenia, part of which was no doubt due to the vigorous laudatory exertions of her friend and poetical correspondent, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., by whom she was styled the American Sappho. She was also the author of Quabi, or the Virtues of Nature, an Indian Tale in four cantos, published in 1790, and of an octavo volume which appeared in 1823, entitled My Mind and its Thoughts, made up of proverb-like reflections in prose, arranged with great formality, and a number of poems. Her chief production, Ouabi, is a pastoral, the characters of which are Onabi, the chief of an Indian tribe, Azalia an Indian maiden, and Celario a young Englishman. Celario, who has joined the red men, is perplexed by a divided duty between his affections for Azalia and his respect for the noble Ouabi, to whom she is betrothed. Fidelity prevails over passion, when Ouabi, having been taken prisoner by a hostile band, is rescued while singing his death-song by Celario, resigns his mistress to his deliverer, and is soon after slain in battle. The pamphlet of fifty-two pages closes with a few "Lines addressed to the inimitable author of the Poems under the signature of Della Crusca" productions of which Mrs. Morton was an admirer and imitator. BONG FOR THE PUBLIC CELEBRATION OF THE NATIONAL PEACE. Not for the blood-polluted car Wake the triumphant song of fame, Touch'd by a suffering people's claim. Whose genius gives the prosperous year. The electric ray of hope extends, On every wing of commerce flies, And to the earth's green lap descends. Sheds her last glories on the west- Perez Morton was born at Plymouth, November 13, 1751. He was a graduate of Harvard in 1771, was a member of the Committee of Safety in 1775, and an active pablic man during the war. On the eighth of April, 1776, he delivered a funeral oration over the remains of General Warren, which were identified as the British were engaged in burying the dead after the battle, by the barber who had been accustomed to dress his hair, and on their exhumation, on the evacuation of the British troops ten months after, by a false tooth. The oration was an animated, although somewhat too ornate production. At its elose, he commenced the practice of the law. He was Speaker of the State House of Representatives from 1806 to 1811, and Attorney-General from 1510 to 1832. He died at Dorchester, October 14, 1837. It will probably be perceived, that the chorus of the above song is in allusion to Bishop Berkeley's prophecy :-"Westward the course of empire," &c.-Author's Note. Hail Columbia! Columbia blest and free, The amber of the vintage flows. WILLIAM DUANE. 483 WILLIAM DUANE was born in 1760, near Lake Champlain, New York, where his parents, natives of Ireland, had shortly before settled. When he was eleven years old his mother returned to her native country, taking William, her only child, with her. The father had died several years before. Possessed of property, she brought up her son as a person of leisure. At the age of nineteen, by a marriage with a Presbyterian he offended his parent, a Roman Catholic, and was at once dismissed from her home, nor was any reconciliation ever after effected. Forced to provide for the maintenance of his family, he learnt the art of printing, and was engaged in that trade until the year 1784, when he went to India to seek his fortune. He was successful, and in a few years established a newspaper entitled The World. In a dispute which arose between the government and some troops in their employ, the paper sided with the latter. Soon after this the editor was invited by Sir John Shaw, the governor, to breakfast. On his way to accept the invitation, he was seized by sepoys, placed on board a vessel, and carried to England. His valuable property was confiscated. He endeavored to obtain redress from Parliament and the East India Company, but without success. Again forced to provide for a livelihood, he became a parliamentary reporter, and afterwards editor of the General Advertiser, a newspaper which subsequently became the London Times. He sided in politics with the party of Horne Tooke and others. 1795 he came with his family to Philadelphia, where he had passed a few years when a boy. Here he prepared a portion of a work on the French Revolution, and became connected with the Aurora newspaper, recently established by Benjamin Franklin Bache, and after Bache's death of yellow fever in 1798, became editor. Under his vigorous management the journal was known throughout the country as the leading organ of the democratic party. Jefferson attributed his election to the presidency to its exertions. In 1799 the editor was tried with others for seditious riot. They were charged with placing at the doors of a Roman Catholic church printed notices requesting the congregation to meet in the church-yard and sign a petition against the Alien Law. The notices were torn down, replaced and defended, and a disturbance thus created, during which Reynolds, one of the parties accused, drew a pistol against one of the congregation, which was forced from his hand. The parties were acquitted. In On the removal of the seat of government to Washington, the Aurora became a less influential journal, and was gradually superseded by rival publications at the new city. Duane continued in the editorship until 1822, when he sold out and went to South America, as the representativo of the creditors of the republics of that continent. He had sided with the struggles for independence of these communities, and received a vote of thanks from the Congress of Columbia for his exertions, and it was on this account supposed that he would be able to obtain a settlement of the claims in question. He was unable to collect any funds, but made good use of the experiences of his journey, by publishing a pleasant volume of travels, A Visit to Columbia in 1822-23: Phila. 1826. After his return he was appointed Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for the eastern district, and retained the office until his death in 1835. In addition to his newspaper writings and his book of travels, he was the author of A Military Dictionary, 1810, and A Hand-book for Riflemen, 1813. These works on tactics were for some time recognised as the chief authorities on the subject, one in which their author was practically as well as theoretically conversant, having commanded for some time the Philadelphia Legion, a volunteer corps distinguished for superior discipline, and during the war in 1812-14 filled the office of Adjutant-General of the army for the district in which he was resident.* JACOB CAMPBELL WAS a lawyer of Rhode Island, who cultivated poetry and literature in the intervals of his business pursuits. He belonged to a family who, with others from Scotland, settled at Voluntown, in Connecticut, early in the eighteenth century. His father, Archibald, came to East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where Jacob was born in 1760. He was a graduate of the Rhode Island College of 1783, for a time was preceptor of a classical school, and next studied law with General James M. Varnum. On the establishment of peace in 1783, Campbell delivered a public address at East Greenwich, at the announcement of that event. He celebrated the same theme in some verses, which are published in a volume from his pen of Poetical Essays. Updike, in his Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar, speaks of Campbell as "proud-spirited and occasionally dejected;-of a mind sensitive and nervous, he was borne down with fancied suspicions of intended injury and neglect." He died in his twenty-eighth year, March 5, 1788. LIBERTY. Sweet Liberty! descend thou Heaven-born fair, Bright Goddess leave thy native skies once more, By thine assistance we've expell'd thy foes, Lo, see her quit the blissful realms above, To this she listened with attentive ear, With brighter sunshine and serener day- Commerce again now rules the swelling deep, MASON L. WEEMS. WEEMS, the biographer of many heroes, in whose hands the trumpet of fame never sounded an uncertain blast, remains (such, alas! are the distributions of the world) without a biographer. His memory rests in a mythic report of the survivors who sometimes met him on his various journeys, and who have generally some stories to relate of his amiable vagaries. Fame thus has her system of compensations in keeping alive the history of her subjects; and where there is no printed record tradition more than supplies its place. Of Weems, but for the impression of himself stamped on every page of his manifold productions, and these somewhat vague and uncertain reports, we should know but little. How lov'd, how valu'd once avails him not, We learn that he was Rector of Mount Vernon parish, before the Revolution, when the old Mason L Weems_ church at Pohick had for its attendant George Washington. Mr. Lossing tells us*" that a large and increasing family compelled him to abandon preaching for a livelihood, and he became a book agent for Mathew Carey." Duly replenished with a stock of Bibles, or Marshall's Life of Washington, or his own popular productions, he travelled through the South, with a few sermons in his knapsack, equally ready for a stump, a fair, or a pulpit. It would be difficult at this day to procure an exact chronological catalogue of the books which he himself wrote: though the more important ones are still in vogue. Of these his Life of Washington was published immediately after the death of its illustrious subject. The dedication to Mrs. Martha Washington, like the tribute of Humphreys and others, was a birth-day commemoration, being dated February 22, 1800. In the second edition before us, it appears in an octavo pamphlet form of eighty-two pages. This is quite a different production from the book as it was afterwards rewritten, and as it is in circulation at the present day. The topic was one which constantly grew in love and wonder with Weems, and what was at first a somewhat hurried sketch of Washington's public career, with a lively pulpit eulogy of his virtues, became but the nucleus for the marvellous congregation of anecdotes which the encouragement of the public led the author to accumulate, as he ransacked memory, traversed the ground of his hero's exploits, and talked with those who had been familiar with his life; while in this good cause, if recollection and testimony failed, a draft would certainly be honored by the public, if drawn in such a name on invention. We believe that Weems would have accounted it a venial pious fraud to tell any good story to the credit of Washington, which came into his head from any quarter or originated there in any way. Weems went to work in stout heart and faith, a Livy of the cominon people. He first gave the fact and then the moral, and neither of them was dull. His piety was zealous as his patriotism. The wind of his enthusiasm may have been greater than the ballast of his argument, but the ship was somehow gallantly driven along without foundering. It is not literature, it may be granted, and no one will pretend that it is history; but there is a great deal of Weems in it, and unlimited eulogy of George Washington. No voice could be too loud, no powers of expression too vigorous, to sing the praises of the man whose virtues, in one of his quieter passages, he thus sums up: It is hardly exaggeration to say that Washington was pious as Numa; just as Aristides; temperate as Epictetus; patriotic as Regulus; in giving public trusts, impartial as Severus; in victory, modest as Scipio; prudent as Fabius; rapid as Marcellus; undaunted as Hannibal; as Cincinnatus disinterested; to liberty firm as Cato; and respectful of the laws as Socrates. Or, to speak in plainer terms-he was religious without superstition; just without rigour; charitable without profusion; hospitable without making others pay for it; generous but with his own money; rich without covetousness; frugal without meanness; humane without weakness; brave without rashness; successful without vanity; victorious without pride; a lover of his country, but no hater of French or English; a staunch friend of government, but respectful of those who pointed out its defects with decency; true to his word without evasion or perfidy; firm in adversity; moderate in prosperity; glorious and honoured in life; peaceful and happy in death. This early life of Washington, which is dedicated to his widow, is thus curiously summed up with her epitaph, on the principle of the Vicar of Wakefield, who hung a similar mortuary inscription over his mantelpiece, productive of melancholy in the breast of Mrs. Primrose. Here lie interred, all that could die of GEORGE WASHINGTON and MARTHA, his wife. They were lovely in Life, and in Death Heirs of Immortality! Rejoice-For their Virtues, "Honour and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honour lies." After Mrs. Washington's death, when the sermon could no longer profit her, this epitaph was omitted by Weems in his later editions. One of these, the eleventh, in 1811, is the full developed production, which made the reputation of Weems, and added to the fortunes of the publisher, Mathew Carey. It is entitled, The Life of George Washington; with curious anecdotes, equally honourable to himself, and exemplary to his young countrymen. The title-page treats us further to a bit of verse in honor of Washington, |