ous ages, and totally unworthy the heart of a civilized

nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

A

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren.

We have warned them from time to time, of attempts, by their legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.

We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow those usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our seperation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.

We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES; and that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent states, they have

full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

JOHN HANCOCK. (Signed by all the Members present.)

JULY 4; 1776.

Eulogy on the illustrious GEORGE WASHINGTON, pronounced at Milton, 22d February, 1800:-By Charles Pinckney Sumner.

INDUSTRY pauses from her once cheering labours-the solemn dirge takes place of the song of mirth ;-our country is in tears, her WASHINGTON is no more!

This day, she would fondly have numbered sixty-eight years, since propitious Heaven, regardful of her coming trials, had given him to her aid: proud that he had fulfilled his high destination, and still continued her faithful defender, she would not have turned a melancholy thought to the perils through which he had conducted her. The lively cannon would have been but the faint echo to her joy; the festal board, the sparkling glass, and pleasure-beaming eye, would have been but the feeble emblem of national hilarity. Henceforth, the night of his death will be consecrated to sorrow, and shrouded in gloom, congenial with the majesty of her grief. The annual return of this once joyful day, will long be sacred to her most tender, loved sensations; and the smile her countenance may learn to resume, will receive a melting charm from the tear she cannot suppress.

When fame, with swollen eye, first announced this public calamity; we looked, we heard with a melancholy sigh; and because she trembled as she spoke, we induced ourselves to hope that report might prove illusive. But this uncertainty, this painful uncertainty, was too much to endure; the solemn knell, the deep and universal aspect of woe, soon placed beyond the reach of hope, what our boding hearts feared but too true,

Here is a subject, my friends, upon which you all can be eloquent; it becomes the sacred place devoted to its contemplation; it excites the best, and awakens the noblest feelings of Americans: as they prize their country, they cherish the memory of her hero, and love at a respectful, admiring distance, to follow him through the vicissitudes of her fate.

With a mind expanded by the most liberal pursuits, a heart enamoured with the charms of honour, devotion to his country was his first, his ruling passion. From an early military career, he retired with a blooming reputation, to the best well-earned enjoyment of life. With easy dignity, he loses the soldier in the citizen, and graces the arts of peace as well as war. Born for the universe, a province is too small a theatre for the display of his talents; and the situation of our country, soon opened the mightier field of his destiny.

With conscious pride,he gloried in the prosperity of his king and country; but for colonial degradation and subserviency, he had not drawn his ready, his victorious sword. American patience had been put to the intolerable test; the plain of Lexington had drank the blood of its peaceful cultivators; when from that illustrious band of patriots, where first concentrated the wounded sensibilities of our country-is WASHINGTON Commissioned to marshal and direct the rising energies of freedom.

It is a needless, as it would be a painful task, to dwell on facts all know too well; or to resuscitate the feelings that are better at rest. Suffice it to remind you, that yonder hills, almost in sight, first received the American hero to the toils of fame.

Retaining still the vestiges of war, they will lecture succeeding generations, and teach them to guard their native soil from every insidious, selfish friend, or haughty foe their wounded fronts will frown on degeneracy, if every hill in America does not rise like the Heights of Dorchester, to expel invasion from our indignant shores.

In the presence of WASHINGTON, resistance assumed a formidable attitude; confidence looked cheerful; and valour re-nerved the arm, still bleeding from the carnage where WARREN fell. But the too transient duration of patriotic fervour-the genius of our valient thousands,

too unfriendly to the restraints of discipline-the poverty and unpreparedness of the Colonies, to meet the incalculable extent of their object, created anxieties and embarrassments, which very few were permitted to share; which no one perhaps, who does not, like him, combine in his character, the talents and feelings of the statesman, the patriot, and the soldier, can duly appre-ciate.

The hero's mind rose with the magnitude of his task. Opposition and defeat itself, served only to confirm his resolution, and call forth the resources of an exhaustless mind. Independence was declared: and in the blackest hours of disaster, WASHINGTON never despaired of his country. Once, only, (forgive him freemen,) ere his army had become inured to the well directed vollies of discipline, the yielding ranks of his retreating soldiery displayed the frightful impressions of a veteran enemy;-for one painful moment, he thought all was lost; -that Americans were unworthy the freedom for which they too feebly contended; and, shocked to desperation, wished by a fortunate, honourable death, to free himself from the intolerable spectacle of his country enslaved.

When terror spread her darkest clouds over our land; when an unfed, unclothed army marked the ice and the snow with the blood of their retreating footsteps; when the sword of destruction seemed suspended only by a hair; while rumour, with her hundred mouths, if possible, magnified our distresses; and tortured, languishing hope, almost breathed her last:-the brilliant achievement at Princeton, turned aside the current of fate; the accomplished, too sanguine Burgoyne, is overwhelmed in the rising tide of our fortune; the close invested standards of York-Town droop submission to the allied arms; deluded despotism soon gave up the fruitless toils of subjugation; the shattered remnants of baffled invasion are withdrawn, and independence is confirmed.

The patriot army now felt the too scanty, delusive recompense for their heroic toils;-seven years with joyful obedience, had they heard the orders of their chief, thunder along the embattled line: the wounds of injured bravery bled afresh; they recoiled at the idea of dissolution. Then might ambition have seen his time, and smiled; then would have trembled the liberties of America,

had WASHINGTON aspired to any other crown than her happiness. In language ardent as his heroism, tender as his affection, he appeals to their untarnished honour; they revere him as a father:-the appeal was resistless. They saw the conflicting emotions of his breast; those eyes which had long witnessed their toils, which had often smiled at their glory, and wept at their sufferings, with keen anxiety, now pierced their souls; they forgot themselves a pearly tear steals down their cheek; the latent evil spark is quenched; their patriotism reflames; with one heart and voice, they resolve to confide in the justice of the country they had left all to serve, and give the world the illustrious, rare example, of "an army victorious over its enemies, victorious over itself."

His farewell interview with these, his dear-loved companions, can now be faintly imagined:-How he stood, how he looked, when each advanced to take the last friendly impassioned embrace; when with a glass in his hand, and tears glistening in his eyes, he wished to each, his future life might be happy, as his past had been honourable; let those speak who have witnessed, let those attempt to describe who feel themselves equal to the melting scene.

The war-worn veteran, whose feelings have not rusted with his sword, will relate the story to his listening son;-smile to see his warm heart susceptive to the touch of glory-and fondly destine kim for that profession, of which no dalliance in the lap of ease, has obliterated the charms, no reverse of fortune allayed his admiration.

Americans, what a vast weight of your revolution did this man sustain! Taxes were indeed great, were burdensome; but think how often your army was obliged to evade a decisive blow; think of the complicated hardships they endured, (the relation of which might make. you shudder--because the flame of public spirit too soon died away, and the resources of the country had become inaccessible.

What must WASHINGTON have often felt. Every eye in America, in wondering, doubtful Europe, was fixt on him. He was a man of humanity; not a centinel felt a grievance he did not painfully commisserate. He was a man of consummate bravery; and to add to the full measure of his calamity, the country whose fate was