Occupations, and made it a business to think and to talk of the event of the battle. Day after day passed, and nothing transpired, save a few vague reports, which served only to increase the perplexity, and thicken the gloom. Every where the anxiety and agitation were extreme. Society experienced a state of excitement beyond the power of the system to bear. The public pulse seemed to be still, and social animation suspended. At this crisis, when the community felt an aching and an awful void for the fate of its absent members, its attention was momentarily attracted by an attempt, in the senate, to thank captain Lawrence for his victory in the Hornet, and was suddenly blasted by the attempt having failed. The cause of this phenomenon it may not be amiss to consider.

A resolution was submitted, June the 15th, by the honourable Mr. Quincy, setting forth the reason of the failure-“ That former resolutions," of thanks, "passed on similar occasions, relative to other officers engaged in a like service, had given great discontent to many of the good people of the commonwealth." That they had given the least discontent to any one of the good people would never have been credited, but for the production of this strange resolution. On what ground so bold an assumption was hazarded we are at a loss to determine. If the public sentiment had been fairly collected from public expressions, it would certainly have appeared the very reverse of discontent. The only "former resolutions, on similar occasions," that we know of, were passed, one in the house, unanimously, and the other in the senate, without a contradictory vote, on the 20th of February--hardly four months previous. One would have thought it no very difficult task to ascertain what public sentiment was in this limited interval. Possibly each branch of the legislature had mistaken it at first, in a particular which had yet, for some time, been familiar with all their constituents. Where then shall we find the people correcting this mistake? Is it in the various branches of the Washington Benevolent Society, at Boston, Charleston, and elsewhere, that, about the same time, passed similar votes of thanks? Or are we to hear the people express their sense that an "approbation of naval exploits is an encouragement to an unjust war," at Boston, on one occasion

when under the direction of three of the gentlemen senators, they were all heartily enjoying a naval dinner? Or, on another, at a naval ball? The people must have mistaken their own sense, or said, on these occasions, what they did not think, or not have understood what they said, or "discontent" at naval exploits, and the expressions of thanks for them, certainly was not their sense.

Did the honourable mover of this resolution mistake the sense of his constituents, when, as a representative of the same people in congress, he voted, on various occasions, for thanks to a naval commander? Or did he forget the remark with which he prefaced his inquiry respecting the Preble medal, "that certainly no class of men more justly deserved the meed of honour than those attached to our gallant little navy?" Or did he fear no "excitement to a continuance of the present unjust war," in giving his support to the bill for augmenting the navy of his country?

Be the war of what character it may, peace is doubtless a blessing; but honourable peace is alone to be desired. A nation is to gain this, solely from respect for their power-not to owe it to compassion for their weakness. A naval exploit is important, as tending to excite this respect, especially to a country that hopes to be commercial. It has thus a natural and obvious connexion with an honourable peace, an event which it tends to accelerate. Not to applaud it, is not to supply incentives to honourable deeds; not to take pride in national renown. Peace, by any means but disgrace, is the wish of the patriot. He cannot wish for peace from disgrace, if without other reason, because no such peace can be permanent. Its terms are too hard to be borne. You may make a solitude, and call it peace; but the solitude can do you no good, and when it comes to be society again, it will most assuredly be war.

Having confined to a preamble merely, the expression of their sense of the virtues of captain Lawrence, civil and military, the senate resolve, ❝ that in a war, like the present, waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates, that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military and naval exploits, which are not immediately connected with the defence of the sea-coast and soil."

According to this, Decatur, conquering the Macedonian, is less an object of approbation, to a moral and religious people, than Decatur diked in for months between the Connecticut mudbanks. Not so thought the "moral and religious" people of Connecticut: when at New London, they presented thanks to the commodore for his capture. The resolve really gives rise to a very curious problem--how far off "the sea-coast and soil" may a naval exploit be performed, not to lose that "immediate connexion with the defence" of both, so necessary to make it the worthy subject of "moral and religious" approbation? Had the Acasta, for instance, struck to the United States, in the Sound, it would have been piety to approve of the victory; but if she had been pursued to the ocean, and there conquered, it would have been quite another thing.

But it does become a moral and religious people to express their approbation of military or naval exploits, in a war which they may think unjustly declared, or prosecuted from improper motives; because those concerned in achieving the exploits have nothing to do with the causes or motives of the war, but have only certain duties to perform, in carrying it on. To pretend that any private opinion of theirs, as to the manner in which the constituted authorities have exercised the power with which they are vested, of declaring war, would justify these commanders in giving up their commissions, is to strike at the root of every establishment, naval or military. Historians therefore concur in reprobating the conduct of the admirals who resigned, and in applauding that of those who retained, their commissions, in the wars of the protector.

Every man, in social society, is bound to consider certain questions at rest, when passed upon by the proper authorities. This is part of that natural liberty which he resigns, to enjoy more securely the rest. It is his side of the contract. The case has been publicly put. A man is regularly under sentence of death. A party in the community think the trial unfair, and the sentence unjust. The sheriff is of this party. He is still bound to execute the man, though convinced of his innocence; for if he may refuse, every member of the commonwealth, who should be appointed in succession to the office, might do the same thing;

and thus the laws of society would lose their sanction, and the community come to an end. Nor can the sheriff be less a subject of moral approbation, for discharging his duty in this extreme case, nor of religious approbation the less, since God, who ordains civil society, must of course will an obligation, which is necessary to its very existence.

This reasoning is undeniably true, as it applies to the relation of every member to society, as a subject. In his relation as sovereign, he may still act from private opinion exclusively, upon every occasion in which he is called upon for an exercise of that sovereignty. The sheriff, in the case put, is at liberty to get the judges impeached; or, when a war has been declared, which an individual is convinced is unjust, he not only may, but is bound to avail himself of every constitutional means in his power, to change the character of his rulers, or the congress, who are answerable to their God and to him, for having committed the interests of their country upon the event of such a war.

Away then with all talk about the approbation of a naval exploit being immoral or irreligious! The people, from Georgia to Maine, have felt it to be right. It is said by that first of legislators, Edmund Burke, that those who would lead, must be content sometimes to follow. Men will not subinit, upon this subject, to have their feelings put to school; but would much rather send their reason to take its lesson from their feelings. It is at all times righteous to die for one's country. The oblation has been deemed by every age acceptable in the sight of Heaven. Wherever life is resigned, the oblation is offered. Who ever imagined that Nelson would have been honoured with a public funeral the less, had he fallen in the attack upon Copenhagen, and not in the battle of Trafalgar? In older time, the Scipios Africani were not less the subjects of admiration to their countrymen, because the Punic wars were to a proverb unjust.

But whether people do concur in the opinion expressed by the senate of Massachusetts, all will agree, that the time taken to introduce this resolution was singularly unpropitious, especially as it exposed the mover to the imputation of attempting to shield the hated unpopularity of the measure under the recent naval defeat.

On the 2d of June, a letter, directed "To the commander of the Chesapeake," was delivered to commodore Bainbridge; Lawrence being absent. This letter was a challenge from captain Broke, of the Shannon. A suggestion has been made, that the writer, by sending it when he did, must have intended to avail himself of every advantage to his fame, from a very liberal challenge, without risking the possibility of any disadvantage to his fate, by precluding an opportunity for the challenge to be accepted. A charge of a nature to put a naval character upon trial for honour, we are unwilling to pass upon, when the individual is absent. Some circumstances, however, are perhaps serious enough to call for attention from that gentleman's friends. This letter bears date, "off Boston, June, 1813." It could not have been delivered before it was dated. The evidence is said to be positive, from the captain of the coaster, to whom it was in fact delivered, that he received it on the 1st of June, at a moment when, visibly from the deck of the Shannon, the Chesapeake had got under weigh; and it was to be sent by the way of Salem, where the coaster belonged. Possibly Broke's reflections were merely, as this letter has been some time preparing, though the Chesapeake appears moving towards me, I will still send it. If coming out to meet me, it at least does 10 arm; if not, it may induce her to

come.

In this letter, the American" commodore" is hinted to have "eluded" them; meaning, forsooth, that commodore Rodgers and captain Smith, in the President and the Congress, eluded captains Broke and Hardy, in the Shannon and Tenedos. In the absence of proof, the presumption is rather, that the inferior eludes a superior force, than the reverse; and the President and Congress are agreed to be superior to the Shannon and Tenedos. But the matter does not rest here. How is it pretended the commodore "eluded?" "By sailing on the first change, after the prevailing easterly winds had obliged us to keep an offing from the coast." The commodore had dropped down the 23d of April, to President road, where he had remained wind-bound six days; and this fact as well known to the British commanders, at the time, as it was to the American. Could Broke expect that he was to remain there, after the first change, and risk being wind-bound another