Yet all this Washington meditated; and all this he would have done. Why then should it be forgotten? The frigid character of history would have been animated to enthusiasm: her conceptions would have been illuminated; and instead of epitaphs, and monumental entablatures of greatness, she would have been kindled with blazonry, eloquence, and song; and who would have been so fastidious as to condemn it? Washington would have been inspiration not only to the poet, but to the historian, the architect and sculptor. And shall less be done for him, because he did more than this? Shall he be remembered only in school-boy narratives and passionless records, because he did not perish! because, instead of being left the heirs of bondage, Americans are free? Washington did more than all this: and deserves infinitely more of his countrymen than if he had unfurled his banner to the tempest, and perished upon the summit of the Alleghanies. He saved a nation by a sacrifice more glorious than martyrdom. A martyr dies but once, but Washington, the soldier and the man, suffered a death in every disaster and humiliation of his countrymen. Where then is their gratitude? It is true that his name is a continued subject of pompous, indiscriminate declamation-but is any of it all worthy of him? There is also a national jubilee; but is it a hallowed day? how is it sanctified? Not as a day of religious celebration, in which the whole population of the country should be assembled, and be made to feel the emancipation that was wrought for them; but as a day of riot, clamour, and unmeaning parade. He is the subject of painting; but in what manner? Not with his countenance illuminated as in the coun cil or the field. He is now and then mentioned-but with the dull, monotonous repetition of set phrases: in poems, he is sung as the great and good; but why is he not sung as the only great man? the only one of his race who has vindicated his origin; and in the image of the Omnipotent, has foreborne to act like the veriest slave to ambition. August and terrible without crime; and awful even in mildness. He, too, is the subject of histories: but of histories where the statesman and the philosophor forget they were men in the delineation of men in histories where Americans are given to Americans with as little of his life and character as are the representations of the pencil. Why does not history assert her supremacy-give life as it is, character in its warmth; not the austere and forbidding narrative of deeds. Men must be made to feel as well as think; great men are to be made by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is not generated by thought, but by feeling. Histories, then, whatever is the practice, should be so given, as to awaken emotion; to stir the feeling, or the influence of the examples it records is never felt, can never be productive of energy or utility. But this is the age of barren philosophy-passionless elocution, apathy and coldness, which nothing can disturb or animate: and with which the firm feelings of the heart have nothing to do. But fashionable as it is to dwell on wonders with an immoveable countenance; to contemplate the stupendous elevations, the interminable rivers of America, and the mighty era of her revolution, as matters of course the man who does not feel a lifting of his spirit, a more sublime conception of the human character, when the name of Washington is pronounced, though it be in a history, deserves no resting place in the country he has emancipated; he should be banished from her atmosphere, to where the breathings of liberty have never been felt upon the wind, where all is calm and motionless. America was not made for stoicks. She has nursed and reared too many great men; men who want no pyramids to perpetuate their deeds; men who cannot be forgotten after they are once understood; whose memories should be consecrated to the holiest feelings of the heart; not in useless statuary, but in the affections; whose images should be in the mind, and found only by the family altar, the fireside, and in the habitations of those, whom they protected. As yet Americans want a national-almost a natural feeling on the subject. They either ask too much or too little; they make all their patriots demigods in their national anniversary, and forget them all the rest of the year. But another spirit is already awakening; the genius of the country is disturbed; it will one day come forth, and then, Americans will speak of their revolutionary men, as they are spoken of, sometimes, in Europe: as the natural productions of a great empire, whose march is to be as calm and irresistible as fate; whose destiny, revealed at its birth, is to be mighty without bloodshed, and without convulsion. Though all this be generally seen in Europe, years may pass away before it be acknowledged; and a still longer time before it be admitted by Great Britain. She has not yet forgotten that from her breast was drawn the spirit which made her youngest born so terrible in its childhood. Recollections of mutual injury provoke mutual injustice; but it will not always be so. The lioness will forget that her whelp was plucked from her in its birth; and the torn mane of the young lion will not always bear testimony to his sufferings in the struggle. The ligaments that were rent asunder by the revolution may never unite-ought never to unite: but their sensibility will be deadened, and the remembrance of the agony pass away. Mutual justice will then be done. America will bear testimony to the home of her fathers; and Great Britain will look with admiration upon the heroick aspect of her youngest born. America will be the first to oppose all who would disturb the venerable majesty of her parent; while that parent will see her age renewed, her chivalry awakened, her genius rekindled, and the stupendous resurrection of British greatness in the western world. It will no longer be pretended on the one hand that the country of mountains and waters could exhibit only the degeneracy of creation; that she has produced no great captains; no legislators; no philosophers; nor, on the other hand, will it be maintained, that all her generals were soldiers; all her legislators statesmen ; all her writers Bacons or Newtonsbut the few that she had will be plucked from oblivion, and distinguished from the multitude. Less will be asked by America, and more will be granted by Great Britain, till both unite in admiration for the truly great of both countries. May that hour speedily arrive! But it must be the work of another and a nobler age, when men shall no longer be ashamed to feel, nor afraid to speak. CHAPTER XVI. Interesting remarks on the State of the Army-Defeat of Arnold on the Lakes-State of preparations at Ticonderoga-Advantages gained by the British in the Campaign-Heroick determination of Washington-His retreat through the Jerseys. Desperate situation of American affairs-Capture of General Lee-Issue of the Campaign-Measures of Congress-Brilliant affair at Trenton: at Princeton-Their effects on the Publick mind-Skirmishing-Treatment of Prisoners. HAVING in the preceeding chapter followed Washington through a succession of retreats, evacuations, and disasters, from the defeat at Long Island, when at the head of nearly twenty-five thousand men -to his arrival at Newark, after the loss of Forts Washington and Lee, when his army was reduced to about three thousand five hundred, and constantly diminishing, it may be proper to show how the spirits of the people were affected by the operations of their army in other quarters; whether they were supported by counteracting triumphs, or disheartened by further and accumulated defeats and disgraces. In the course of the preceding detail, innumerable circumstances, shewing the disorder and weakness prevailing in the American army, have been arranged and exhibited. The laxity of discipline, the trivial punishments inflicted for the most alarming and destructive crimes, such as disobedience, fraud, sleeping on the watch, collectively establish the fact, that the soldiery, so far from being in a state of subjection, was nearly independent of all order and laws. Their VOL. I. 68 |