Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Part 14

From "Essays, Literary, Moral," etc.

=_101._= THE LIFE OF EDWARD DRINKER, A CENTENARIAN.

He saw and heard more of those events which are measured by time, than have ever been seen or heard since the age of the patriarchs; he saw the same spot of earth which at one period of his life was covered with wood and bushes, and the receptacle of beasts and birds of prey, afterwards become the seat of a city not only the first in wealth and arts in the new, but rivalling, in both, many of the first cities in the old world.

He saw regular streets where he once pursued a hare; he saw churches rising upon mora.s.ses, where he had often heard the croaking of frogs; he saw wharves and warehouses where he had often seen Indian savages draw fish from the river for their daily subsistence; and he saw s.h.i.+ps of every size and use in those streams where he had often seen nothing but Indian canoes.... He saw the first treaty ratified between the newly confederated powers of America and the ancient monarchy of France, with all the formalities of parchment and seals, on the same spot, probably, where he once saw William Penn ratify his first and last treaty with the Indians, without the formality of pen, ink, or paper.... He saw the beginning and end of the empire of Great Britain in Pennsylvania. He had been the subject of seven successive crowned heads, and afterwards became a willing citizen of a republic; for he embraced the liberties and independence of America in his withered arms, and triumphed in the last years of his life in the salvation of his country.

[Footnote 27: A native of Pennsylvania, eminent as a writer, and especially as a teacher and pract.i.tioner of medicine.]

=_John Marshall, 1755-1835._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From the "History of the American Colonies."

=_102._= THE CONQUEST OF CANADA.

During these transactions, General Amherst was taking measures for the annihilation of the remnant of French power in Canada. He determined to employ the immense force under his command for the accomplishment of this object, and made arrangements during the winter to bring the armies from Quebec, Lake Champlain, and Lake Ontario, to act against Montreal.

The junction of these armies presenting before Montreal a force not to be resisted, the Governor offered to capitulate. In the month of September, Montreal, and all other places within the government of Canada, then remaining in the possession of France, were surrendered to his Britannic majesty. The troops were to be transported to France, and the Canadians to be protected in their property, and the full enjoyment of their religion.

That colossal power which France had been long erecting in America, with vast labor and expense; which had been the motive for one of the most extensive and desolating wars of modern times, was thus entirely overthrown. The causes of this interesting event are to be found in the superior wealth and population of the colonies of England, and in her immense naval strength; an advantage, in distant war, not to be counterbalanced by the numbers, the discipline, the courage, and the military talents, which may be combined in the armies of an inferior maritime power.

The joy diffused throughout the British dominions by this splendid conquest, was mingled with a proud sense of superiority, which did not estimate with exact justice the relative means employed by the belligerents. In no part of those dominions was this joy felt in a higher degree, or with more reason, than in America. In that region, the wars between France and England had a.s.sumed a form, happily unknown to other parts of the civilized world. Not confined as in Europe to men in arms--women and children were its common victims. It had been carried by the savage to the fire-side of the peaceful peasant, where the tomahawk and the scalping-knife were applied indiscriminately to every age, and to either s.e.x. The hope was now fondly indulged that these scenes, at least in the northern and middle colonies, were closed forever.

=_John Armstrong,[28] 1759-1843._=

From the Life of General Wayne.

=_103._= STORMING OF STONY POINT.

Wayne, believing that few things were impracticable to discipline and valor, after a careful reconnoissance, adopted the project, and hastened to give it execution. Beginning his march on the 15th from Sandy Beach, he at eight o'clock in the evening took a position within a mile and a half of his object. By the organization given to the attack, the regiments of Febiger and Meigs, with Hull's detachment, formed the column of the right; and the regiment of Butler and Murfey's detachment, that of the left. A party of twenty men furnished with axes for pioneer duty, and followed by a sustaining corps of one hundred and fifty men with unloaded arms, preceded each column, while a small detachment was a.s.signed to purposes merely of demonstration.

At half after eleven o'clock, the hour fixed on for the a.s.sault, the columns were in motion; but from delays made inevitable by the nature of the ground, it was twenty minutes after twelve before this commenced, when neither the mora.s.s, now overflowed by the tide, nor the formidable and double row of _abattis_, nor the high and strong works on the summit of the hill, could for a moment damp the ardor or stop the career of the a.s.sailants, who, in the face of an incessant fire of musketry and a shower of sh.e.l.ls and grape-shot, forced their way through every obstacle, and with so much concert of movement, that both columns entered the fort and reached its centre, nearly at the same moment. Nor was the conduct of the victors less conspicuous for humanity than for valor. Not a man of the garrison was injured after the surrender; and during the conflict of battle, all were spared who ceased to make resistance.

The entire American loss in this enterprise, so formidable in prospect, did not exceed one hundred men. The pioneer parties, necessarily the most exposed, suffered most. Of the twenty men led by Lieutenant Gibbons of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment, seventeen were killed or wounded.

Wayne's own escape on this occasion was of the hair-breadth kind. Struck on the head by a musket-ball, he fell; but immediately rising on one knee, he exclaimed, "March on, carry me into the fort; for should the wound be mortal, I will die at the head of the column." The enemy's loss in killed and captured amounted to six hundred and seven men. This affair, the most brilliant of the war, covered the commanding general with laurels.

[Footnote 28: An officer of the revolutionary army, and a conspicuous actor in the War of 1812; has written chiefly on military affairs.]

=_Charles Caldwell,[29] 1772-1853._=

From his "Autobiography."

=_104._= A LECTURE OF DR. RUSH.

At length, however, though the cla.s.s of the winter, all told, amounted to less than a hundred, a sufficient number had arrived to induce the professors to commence their lectures; and the introductory of Dr. Rush was a performance of deep and touching interest, and never, I think, to be forgotten (while his memory endures), by any one who listened to it, and was susceptible of the impression it was calculated to make. It consisted in a well-written and graphical description of the terrible sweep of the late pestilence; the wild dismay and temporary desolation it had produced; the scenes of family and individual suffering and woe he had witnessed during its ravages; the mental dejection, approaching despair, which he himself had experienced, on account of the entire failure of his original mode of practice in it, and the loss of his earliest patients (some of them personal friends); the joy he felt on the discovery of a successful mode of treating it; the benefactions which he had afterwards the happiness to confer; and the gratulations with which, after the success of his practice had become known, he was often received in sick and afflicted families. The discourse, though highly colored, and marked by not a few figures of fancy and bursts of feeling, was, notwithstanding, sufficiently fraught, with substantial matter to render it no less instructive than it was fascinating.

[Footnote 29: A native of North Carolina; prominent as a physician and controversialist.]

=_Thomas H. Benton, 1783-1858._= (Manual, p. 487.)

From the "Thirty Years' View of the United States Senate."

=_105._= THE CHARACTER OF MACON.[30]

He was above the pursuit of wealth, but also above dependence and idleness, and, like an old Roman of the elder Cato's time, worked in the fields at the head of his slaves in the intervals of public duty, and did not cease this labor until advancing age rendered him unable to stand the hot sun of summer.... I think it was the summer of 1817,--that was the last time (he told me) he tried it, and found the sun too hot for him,--then sixty years of age, a senator, and the refuser of all office. How often I think of him, when I see at Was.h.i.+ngton robustious men going through a scene of supplication, tribulation, and degradation, to obtain office, which the salvation of the soul does not impose upon the vilest sinner! His fields, his flocks, and his herds, yielded an ample supply of domestic productions. A small crop of tobacco--three hogsheads when the season was good, two when bad--purchased the exotics which comfort and necessity required, and which the farm did not produce. He was not rich, but rich enough to dispense hospitality and charity, to receive all guests in his house, from the president to the day laborer--no other t.i.tle being necessary to enter his house but that of an honest man;... and above all, he was rich enough to pay as he went, and never to owe a dollar to any man.

... He always wore the same dress,--that is to say, a suit of the same material, cut, and color, superfine navy-blue,--the whole suit from the same piece, and in the fas.h.i.+on of the time of the Revolution, and always replaced by a new one before it showed age. He was neat in his person, always wore fine linen, a fine cambric stock, a fine fur hat with a brim to it, fair top-boots--the boot outside of the pantaloons, on the principle that leather was stronger than cloth.

... He was an habitual reader and student of the Bible, a pious and religious man, and of the "_Baptist persuasion_," as he was accustomed to express it.

[Footnote 30: Nathaniel Macon, United States Senator from North Carolina.]

=_Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, 1803-1845._= (Manual, pp. 490, 505.)

From the Life of Commodore Decatur.

=_106._= RECAPTURE, AND BURNING OF THE FRIGATE "PHILADELPHIA," AT TRIPOLI.

When all were safely a.s.sembled on the deck of the Intrepid, (for so admirably had the service been executed that not a man was missing, and only one slightly wounded,) Decatur gave the order to cut the fasts and shove off. The necessity for prompt obedience and exertion was urgent.

The flames had now gained the lower rigging, and ascended to the tops; they darted furiously from the ports, flas.h.i.+ng from the quarter gallery round the mizzen of the Intrepid, as her stern dropped clear of the s.h.i.+p. To estimate the perils of their position, it should be borne in mind, that the fire had been communicated by these fearless men to the near neighborhood of both magazines of the Philadelphia. The Intrepid herself was a fire s.h.i.+p, having been supplied with combustibles, a ma.s.s of which, ready to be converted into the means of destroying other vessels of the enemy, if the opportunity should offer, lay in barrels on her quarter deck, covered only with a tarpaulin.

With destruction thus encompa.s.sing them within and without, Decatur and his brave followers were unmoved. Calmly they put forth the necessary exertion, breasted the Intrepid off with spars, and pressing on their sweeps, caused her slowly to withdraw from the vicinity of the burning ma.s.s. A gentle breeze from the land came auspiciously at the same moment, and wafted the Intrepid beyond the reach of the flames, bearing with it, however, a shower of burning embers, fraught with danger to a vessel laden with combustibles, had not discipline, order, and calm self-possession, been at hand for her protection. Soon this peril was also left behind, and Decatur and his followers were at a sufficient distance to contemplate securely the spectacle which the Philadelphia presented. Hull, spars, and rigging, were now enveloped in flames. As the metal of her guns became heated, they were discharged in succession from both sides, serving as a brilliant salvo in honor of the victor, and not harmless for the Tripolitans, as her starboard battery was fired directly into the town.

The town itself, the castles, the minarets of the mosques, and the s.h.i.+pping in the harbor, were all brought into distinct view by the splendor of the conflagration. It served also to reveal to the enemy the cause of their disaster, in the little Intrepid, as she slowly withdrew from the harbor. The shot of the s.h.i.+pping and castles fell thickly around her, throwing up columns of spray, which the brilliant light converted into a new ornament of the scene. Only one shot took effect, and that pa.s.sed through her top-gallant sail. Three hearty American cheers were now given in mingled triumph and derision. Soon after, the boats of the Siren joined company, and a.s.sisted in towing the Intrepid out of the harbor. The cables of the Philadelphia having burned off, she drifted on the rocks near the westward entrance of the harbor; and then the whole spectacle, so full of moral sublimity, considering the means by which it had been effected, and of material grandeur, had its appropriate termination in the final catastrophe of her explosion.

Nor were the little band of heroes on board the Intrepid the only exulting spectators of the scene. Lieutenant Stewart and his companions on board the Siren, watching with intense interest, beheld in the conflagration a pledge of Decatur's success; and Captain Bainbridge, with his fellow-captives in the dungeons of Tripoli, saw in it a motive of national exultation, and an earnest that a spirit was at work to hasten the day of their liberation.

=_I.F.H. Claiborne,[31] About 1804-._=

From "Life and Times of General Samuel Dale."

=_107._= TEc.u.mSEH'S SPEECH TO THE CREEK INDIANS.