"jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe corrective of abuses, "which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where peaceable remedies are unpro

vided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions "of the majority, the vital principle of Re'publics, from which is no appeal but to force, "the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia-our "best reliance in peace, and for the first mo(6 ments of war, till regulars may relieve them; "( the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; œconomy in the public expence, "that labour may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred "preservation of the public faith; encourage"ment of agriculture, and commerce as its "handmaid; the diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, free"dom of the press, and the freedom of the person, under protection of the habeas

corpus and trial by juries impartially "selected. These principles form the bright "constellation which has gone before us, "and guided our steps through an age of "revolution and reformation. The wisdom of "all our sages, and blood of our heroes, have

been devoted to their attainment: they should "be the creed of our political faith, the text "of civic instruction, the touchstone by which

to try the services of those whom we trust; and, should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten "to retrace our steps, and regain the road "which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

"I repair, then, fellow-citizens to the post you have assigned me. With experience "enough in subordinate offices to have seen the "difficulty of this, the greatest of all, I have "learned to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man, to retire from this station with the reputation and the favour "which bring him into it. Without preten"sions to that high confidence you reposed in 'your first and great revolutionary character, "whose pre-eminent services had entitled him "to the first place in his country's love, and destined for him the fairest page in the "volume of faithful history, I ask so much "confidence only, as may give firmness and "effect to the legal administration of your "affairs. I shall often go wrong through de"fect of judgment: when right, I shall often "be thought wrong by those whose positions "will not command a view of the whole 'ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against the errors of others, "who may condemn what they would not if "seen

seen in all its parts. The approbation im

plied by your suffrage, is a great consolation to me for the past; and my future solicitude "will be to retain the good opinion of those "who have bestowed it in advance; to con"ciliate that of others, by doing them all the "good in my power; and to be instrumental "to the freedom and happiness of all.

"Relying, then, on the patronage of your good-will, I advance with obedience to the "work, ready to retire from it whenever you "become sensible how many better choices it "is in your power to make; and may that in"finite Power which rules the destinies of the

Universe, lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favourable issue for your peace and prosperity."

[* Randall remarks on this speech, Vol. II, p. 633,-" The number of its phrases which have passed into popular axiomswhich are constantly reproduced in political newspapers and addresses, as at the same time the most authoritative and most felicitous expressions of the ideas they embody-is astonishing."]

CHAP. VII.

Return to New-York.-Literary Pursuits.-Magnificent Promises from a great Man.-The Horizon of Life brightens.—I no longer feed on the Vapours of a School, but depart for the City of Washington, with a Heart dancing to the Song of Expectation-I mingle at Philadelphia with the Votaries of Taste; and am elbowed by Poets and Prose-Writers, Critics and Philosophers.-I Proceed to Washington. -Interview with the Secretary of the Treasury. -All my Hopes blasted.-I travel into Virginia, by the Way of Alexandria.-A Quaker opens his Door to receive me, and I exchange with him lasting Knowledge for perishable Coin.

WHEN I had heard the speech of Mr. Jefferson, there was nothing more to detain me among the scattered buildings of the desert. On my return to New-York, I became seriously busied in directing the tastes and cultivating the imaginations of the three sons of Mr. Ludlow. The mother had already polished their manners into elegance, and they never entered the room without respectively making me a low bow, not the shuffling bow of a plough boy, but a bow taught them by a dancing-master, and softened into ease by an intercourse with good company. This

put me upon bowing myself, and I reciprocated bows with them till Ferdinand, who agonized under the slightest invasion of his sensibility, discovered my bow was ironical, and expressed his hope that I would not make a jest of him. But not so the youngest. Edward, who had been just trussed out in pantaloons and boots, would writhe his jolly form, and kick about his legs till both his brothers were speechless with laughter.

Indolence is more painful than labour to a mind that delights in employment; and there was no abatement of my vigour in my literary vocation. The first impression of the Farmer of New Jersey was nearly exhausted; a second edition was in the press; and, animated by its success, Caritat* published my poems in a

*I would place the bust of Caritat among those of the Sosii of Horace, and the Centryphon of Quintillian. He was my only friend at New-York, when the energies of my mind were depressed by the chilling prospects of poverty. His talents were not meanly cultivated by letters; he could tell a good book from a bad one, which few modern Librarians can do. But place aux dames was his maxim, and all the ladies of NewYork declared that the Library of Mr. Caritat was charming. Its shelves could scarcely sustain the weight of Female Frailty, the Posthumous Daughter, and the Cavern of Woe; they required the aid of the carpenter to support the burden of the Cottage-on-the-Moor, the House of Tynian, and the Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne; or they groaned under the multiplied editions of the Devil in Love, More Ghosts, and Rinaldo Rinaldini. Novels were called for by the young and the old; from the tender virgin of thirteen, whose little heart went pit-a-pat at the approach of a beau; to the experienced matron of three score, who could not read without spectacles.