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DELIVERED BEFORE THI
NEW ENGLAND  SOCIETY
OF PHILADELPHIA;
SEMIANNUAL MEETING,
IN MAY, 1824.
/•

BY HENRY BOND, M. D,
          PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST AND BY THE DIRECTION OF THE
             SOCIETY.
              1824. 
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ADDRESS.
    Being called to address an assemblage of those,
who are natives of the same region, educated in simi-
lar principles and institutions, and here associated un-
der a  name, that reminds us of whatever was dear and
joyous in our childhood and youth, I feel that nothing
would be appropriate to the present occasion, which
should be foreign to New England",.the  place of our
nativity,  and where rest the ashes of our fathers for
many generations.
   Why do we feel a stronger throb or a warmer glow
in our bosoms at the  enunciation of the name of New
England?  Can we assign no better  reason than that
filial reverence and attachment, which often blinds one
to a parent's imperfections; or that instinctive feeling,
which binds men to whatever may have been the place
of their nativity, or the scenes of their childhood?  Is
it because the Creator has adorned  it with so many
scenes of beauty and sublimity, to which the ingenuity
of man has added so many of the conveniencies and
so much of the elegance of civilized life?  These cir-
cumstances alone would give her no preeminence over
much of the civilized world.  She might even possess 
4
 such advantages, but yet connected with circumstances
 of a character, that would make us ashamed to own we
 were her sons.  But there are reasons why we may
 both love her and boast of her, were her climate as in-
 clement as Labrador, and her scenery as dreary as the
 plains of Africa.  It is of those men, who have been
 styled  the fathers of New England, and whom we
 claim as our  ancestors, that we  may boast;  and that
 man, who can read their history,  and not feel an emo-
 tion of pride and delight, that he is their  descendant,
 must be base  and degenerate.  He, who would blush
 to own  as his ancestors those apostles of liberty with-
 out  licentiousness,  and religion  without priestcraft,
 would be ashamed to claim Cato or Aristides for a fa-
 ther, or the Apostles for brethren.   The  veneration,
 the respect and  pride, which those  men  ought to in-
 spire in us, are not founded on wealth or heraldick ti-
 tles, but upon their principles, their habits, and the
 institutions, which they established and transmitted to
 their posterity.
  The grand object of the first settlers of New England
 was  the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and
 no founders of a colony ever understood better the
 means necessary for securing that object  to them-
 selves and their posterity.   They knew that ignorance
 and licentiousness had ever been the bane of free insti-
 tutions,  and they sought by all the means in their pow-
 er to exclude them  from their community.  They not
 only saw that intelligence is the life of liberty, but that
morality is necessary to its health; that without the one
liberty would not exist, and  without the other its ex-
istence would  be sickly and transient.  How far thev 
5
were successful in conceiving and adopting their mea-
sures, let the world learn in the moral, intellectual, and
political condition of their descendants.
  New England has often been charged with bigotry
and intolerance, on account of the strictness of her re-
ligious discipline.   But, even if we overlook the great
difference in the ideas of toleration of the present day,
and those which prevailed two centuries ago, the poli-
cy which they pursued may be excused, if not justified.
The first settlers were republicans in  religion  and po-
litics; and the enjoyment of their sentiments was  the
chief inducement for them to make the sacrifices, and
to encounter the  hardships, privations and dangers, ne-
cessarily presented in establishing such a colony.  They
assumed and  acted on the incontrovertible  principle,
that the majority of the people have  a right to rule;
and it was their wish that their colony  might be the
home and  refuge  of people of congenial sentiments.
And as they neither compelled nor desired any to join
them, who would  not concur in the government, which
they had freely chosen and adopted, and who would
not consent to have the majority rule, no door of com-
plaint was left open.   To those who  should complain
of their policy, they might say,' A wide continent lies
before you. There  are other colonies more monarchical
in their politics and less puritanical in their morals and
religion—go to them; or do as we have done, open
the forest for  yourselves.  Our government and reli-
gion are those of our choice, not imposed upon  us by
royal despots or lordly prelates.  We have  planted
ourselves—we govern  ourselves—we have hitherto
protected  ourselves, and we  impose  no burden s on 
6
 others, which we have not voluntarily assumed '  Had
 not the puritans adopted the  policy, which they did
 pursue, aud which has often been branded with odious
 epithets,  they would have been thronged with  emi-
 grants of the same idle,  dissolute  habits which popu-
 lated some of the southern colonies,—cargoes of con-
 victs from the London prisons might have been thrown
 upon them; the church of England established by law
 to  the  exclusion of others, as  was done in Virginia;
 and in a short time they would  have found themselves
 subjected  to  all  the  grievances for which, they'had
 abandoned their  native land, and  for which they had
 encountered such incredible dangers and  hardships.
 Their colony would no longer have beeu the refuge of
 the devout inflexible republicans of England. It would
 have ceased to be " the land of steady habits." Their
 colleges and schools, those  lights  which had  already
been kindled, and which now shine thick as stars in the
milky-way, would have  dwindled into non-existence,
or become as  devoid of general  illuminative influence,
as were most of those of the other colonies.
  The  literary institutions of New England are  her
pride.   Well may she boast of the great and continu-
ally increasing facilities,  which she presents  for the
acquisition of a liberal  education.  Her colleges are
monuments of the liberal spirit and enlightened policy,
which characterised the pilgrims; and the affection and
liberality with which they have to  this hour been fos-
tered, show that the descendants have not,  in  this re-
spect, acted unworthily of such  progenitors.
  But what chiefly distinguishes the land of the  pil-
grims is  her elementary schools, scattered  through 
7
every valley and upon every mountain.  Who has ever
known a child there so  poor, or  in a situation so se-
cluded, that instruction might not be obtained within a
distance, that would  hardly fatigue a child from  the
cradle? Go to the tops of the Green Mountains, or into
the valleys among the White Hills; go into the remot-
est settlements in the forests of Maine, or among the
poor fishermen, who have perched their habitations on
the  barren rocks and islands  on  her sea-coast, and
where will you  find  the child,  that can  not point to
what he will call our district school-house? The sys-
tem, which gives education  such a universal diffusion,
greatly distinguishes  New  England  from the rest of
the world.   For except where her sons have gone and
propagated the principles,  upon  which it is founded,
it is almost unknown  even  in the  United States.   In
these schools the wealthy and indigent are placed up-
on equality;  and the  only things  in  them which will
give distinction,  are moral excellence and intellectual
power and cultivation.   To these may be traced  that
spirit  of  enterprise,  which has so long characterized
the sons of the pilgrims.*  Those institutions and that

   • The number of district schools,  (with nearly an  equal number of school
houses) in New England, supported at the public expense, is not less than
eight thousand, and probably amounts at this time to nearly ten thousand.  It
is calculated that there are also every winter not less than tenor twelve hun-
dred schools for vocal sacred music. There are likewise several hundred public
and private grammar schools and academies, many of which havebeen liberally
endowed by legislative grants or by private munificence. Besides two  or
three collegiate institutions  in an  incipient state,  with pretty liberal en-
dowments, there are eight colleges and universities, in which there are about
twelve hundred under-gradtudes.  Medical schools are attached to several  of
these institutions, at which about three hundred medical students, besides
some academical under-graduates, attend lectures annually. Besides the
theological departments in several of the colleges, and two or more theolo- 
8
intelligence and enterprise have not sprung up sudden-
ly under the magic influence of some Alfred or Augus-
tus, who could command the whole  resources of  the
nation.   They originated in  the  genius or good sense
of those men who founded New England,  and  from
whom is derived that spirit,  which has nurtured those
plants of  freedom and intelligence into  their present
luxuriant growth.
   To every son of NeW England who loves his native
land, it  would be delightful to examine and exhibit the
influence she has exercised in advancing a  few feeble
colonies to a mighty empire—to observe what she has
contributed,  whether  in  literature,  arts,  or  arms,  to
adorn America with that crown  which now encircles
her brow.  But neither my time nor the occasion allow
me even to glance over a field so extensive.  Let me,
therefore, call your attention to the question,  Where
did the •American revolution originate?


gical schools recently organized, there is the  Theological Seminary at An-
dover, which surpasses every other monument of private liberality in the
United States.  One gentleman has expended upon it about two hundred
thousand dollars; another has bestowed not less than seventy Jive thousand
dollars; and another thirty-five thousand dollars; from one family it has re-
ceived not less than forty thousand dollars, besides some princely donations
from other individuals.
  In Boston, a thousand dollars or  more for every thousand inhabitants, are
annually expended in public schools.  There  are few country towns or vil-
lages, where there is not  a Social Library. These are not peculiar to New
England, but they are no  where else so common. The number is not known,
but it undoubtedly amounts to several hundred. Besides these, the libraries
in the colleges and academies contain above seventy-five thousand volumes.
In the foregoing are not included the Athenaeums in some of the large
towns, the Historical and Antiquarian Societies, and the American and Con-
necticut Academies,  whose libraries contain above thirty thousand volumes.
New England, with a population of about seventeen hundred thousand,
may challenge the world  to produce a parallel. 
9
   J attempt its solution, not with the view either to ex-
 cite or indulge sectional prejudices,, not to strike a fee-
 ble note of discord in our happy Union, but to do jus-
 tice to our ancestors;  and if we shrink from the task as
 invidious, if we sit in timid silence, while we  see their
 glory despoiled of its  chief effulgence, we are unworthy
 of our Bunker-hill fathers, we  never inhaled a breath
 of the bold spirit of Fanueil-Hall, and  their glory has
 become our shame.
   An attempt  has recently been made by an eloquent
 and fascinating writer to convince the world, that Ame-
 rican independence originated  in the " ancient  domi-
 nion,"—that Patrick  Henry "gave the  first impulse to
 the ball  of the revolution,"—that a fire was kindled by
 him in Virginia, which spread until it extended over
 the whole colonies.   Perhaps it will appear in the se-
 quel, that these high pretensions are both unsubstantial
 and unjust.
  It must have been evident to every man of  political
 foresight, who watched  tmTrapid adva ices of  the Bri-
 tish North  American colonies in every thing which
 fitted them to become an independent nation, and who
 especially observed the hardihood, the  enterprise and
 bold republicanism of  New England,  that they were
 not destined to be forever the colonies of Great  Britain.
 It was impossible to effect such  a revolution, unless the
people had been prepared for it; for the colonies were
 not to dissolve their allegiance to the mother  country
as easily as  the ripe  fruit drops  from its  branch.  It
was to be accomplished by an effort of every  noble
power  with which God  has endowed  human  nature.
It is not difficult for a  leader, possessing eloquence and 
10
 popularity, to induce his followers to embark in a re
 volution; but unless they be sufficiently intelligent to
 comprehend, and sufficiently interested to feel, the im-
 portance of the cause in which they engage; if it be
 one upon which they have never ruminated, nor even
 cast their eyes, until it was presented to them by their
 leader for  immediate espousal,  their  enterprise will
 prove to be only a gust of popular phrensy, and pro-
 bably terminate in their shame and degradation.
   New England had been, from its first settlement,
 preparing for the revolution, and  the character of the
 settlers and all their policy and institutions pointed  to
 such an event.
   It has been erroneously stated  by judge Marshall.
 that the congregation, which went to Leyden With the
 Rev. Mr. Robinson, and  which  afterwards  founded
 the Plymouth  colony,  were of that  rigid  class  of
 separatists  called Brownists.   But this is so far from
 being correct, that the Brownists, whose chief seat was
 Amsterdam, would hardly hold communion with them;
 and Bay lie, who was no friend  to either party of the
 puritans, asserts that Mr. Robinson was the principal
 overthrower of the Brownists, and the author of Inde-
pendency.  The Independents who settled New En
 gland, and who were sometimes called Semiseparatists,
 to distinguish them from the Brownists, dissented from
 the church  of England, not on account of a difference
 of opinion as to faith and the sacraments; for they be-
lieved the doctrinal articles of that church, and  of the
 other reformed churches, to be agreeable to the holy
 scriptures.  Their dissension from the church of En-
 gland was therefore grounded on matters purely eccle- 
11
 siastical. They desired the church to be purified from
 all those inventions,  which had been brought  into it
 since the days of the apostles, and restored entirely to
 scripture purity.   The whole object and tendency of
 the inventions, of which they complained, obviously
 were to aggrandize the clergy, and to deprive the laity,
 as they  were contemptuously called, of those rights,
 which God had given them as men  and as christians.
   With the Independents in their ecclesiastical inqui-
 ries, the first question was, what do the scriptures teach
 on this point? for their grand first principle was, that the
 inspired scriptures  only  contain the  true  religion.
 The next question was, what does reason teach?  for
 they maintained it as the right of human nature, as  the
 basis of the reformation, and indeed of all sincere reli-
 gion, that every man has a right of judging for himself,
 of trying doctrines by  the scriptures, and of worship-
 ping according to  his apprehension of the  meaning of
 them.   They also maintained the right to choose their
 own ecclesiastical  officers, and  that, when ordained,
 they have no lordly,  arbitrary,  nor imposing power;
 but can only rule and minister, with the consent of the
 brethren, who ought  not in contempt to be called the
 laity, but to be treated as men and brethren in Christ,
 and not as slaves and minors.   That no churches nor
 officers whatever have any power over any other church
 or officers, to control or impose upon them;  but that all
 are equal in their rights and privileges,  and ought to
 be independent in the exercise and enjoyment of them.*
   No people ever loved or revered their clergy more
than the  pilgrims; but it was as the pastors of their
flocks.   For that love and that reverence subsisted no
* See Prince's New England Chronology, Part II. Sect. 1. 
13
 longer than they sustained a character consistent with
 the holy office.  A hierarchy was their utter aversion,
 not only as anti-republican, but as unscriptural, and
 contrary to the spirit of the gospel.  Those who know
 any thing of their history must know, that these liberal
 principles did not spring from an impatience of moral
 restraints.  They were  derived  from a careful and
 conscientious examination of their duties, rights and
 privileges, both civil and religious; and they manifest-
 ed a noble freedom of thinking in  religious  matters,
 which was astonishing in an age of such low and uni-
 versal bigotry  as then prevailed in the English nation.
  It was impossible for men who, in ecclesiastical af-
 fairs, were capable of soaring so far above the  mass of
 bigotry with whicll they were surrounded, to feel or
reason like slaves about their civil rights.  New En-
gland being thus peopled by men who understood and
appreciated their rights, and being left a long time to
self-government,  had  acquired a love  of freedom and
independence,  which England was never after able to
extinguish.  Whenever the exercise of arbitrary power
became  intolerable to  the  puritans and  republicans;
when, in the language of the author of  Waverley, En-
gland was driving from her bosom her  dearest friends,
as the drunkard flings  treasures from his lap, they fled
to New England,  the refuge of the oppressed and the
 abode of freemen.  Thus^her population came to  be
 composed of the resolute supporters of  civil liberty and
 popular rights—of those men, to whom the English, as
 Hume says, owe the whole freedom of their constitu-
 tion.  Her clergy were Oxford and Cambridge scho-
 lars, who, from a regard for religious liberty and pure 
13
consciences,  would rather retire into  a wilderness,
preaching and labouring with their hands to obtain  a
coarse and scanty subsistence, than retain easy livings
in the church of England by conforming to  what they
believed to be inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel.
   In  all the contests between the king and parliament
about prerogatives and privileges, New England inva-
riably favoured the latter. She was always consistent
in her republicanism.  She did not shout one day.
vive le roi, and the next, vive la republique, and the
third, vive Vempereur.  Being  puritanical in her re-
ligion and republican  in her.politics, all her affections
were  engaged in favour of the popular party in En-
gland in the time of the commonwealth.  When Charles
II. was restored, it was announced in  New England
with none of the demonstrations of a joyful  event; and
in their address to the king  professing  their loyalty  to
the crown, they sacrificed no opinion concerning their
rights, and justified their whole conduct. When James
II. demanded  the surrender of the  charters of New
England, and a writ  was about  to be  issued to take
them  away or to cancel them, the people  refused  to
give them up.  The  decision throughout Massachu-
setts  was, i It is better to die by  the hand  of  another
than our own; we will not, by surrendering our char-
ter, acknowledge the  right to demand it.'
   No colonies  were ever more prompt  than the New
Englanders, in  cooperating with the mother  country,
eitner by expending  their treasures, or by  encounter-
ing dangers and hardships  in the most perilous war-
fare,  so long as their rights  were respected.   This  is
abundantly manifested by the alacrity with which she 
14
 cooperated with  England in  her wars with France.
 Of their rights and liberties they were ever more jea-
 lous, than of their treasures or blood.  When the for-
 mer were threatened or invaded, either in principle or
 practice, such a spirit was immediately evinced as we
 might expect in a people, in  whose veins flowed  the
 warmest, truest republican blood of the most  republi-
 can days of Old England.
   About 17^0 a contest arose between the house of re-
 presentatives of Massachusetts and  the governor  re-
 specting his  salary.  He had instructions from the
 crown to require  a salary  to be permanently fixed
 for the governor of the colony.  The  house took the
 ground, that a compliance  with the requisition would
 render that officer independent of the legislature. The
 people maintained the contest  on this question for ten
years, in opposition to three governors in succession.
Notwithstanding every means was taken to subdue the
people—sometimes by changing the  seat of the legis-
lature, at others by stopping the pay of the members;
 sometimes by dissolving that body hastily, in order to
 make, way for  a new election,  at others by refusing to
 dissolve or prorogue it, when there was no business to
 occupy it—they persevered and triumphed. They did
not contend a moment about the amount of the salary,
but concerning the principle, whether they should, by
complying with this requisition, render a royal gover-
nor independent.   Judge Marshall  says,  this contest
 " shows in genuine colours the character of the people
 engaged in it.   It is," says he, " an early and honour-
 able display of the same persevering temper in the de-
 fence of principles believed to be right, of the same un- 
15
conquerable spirit of liberty, which at a later day, on
a more important occasion, tore the then British colo-
nies on this continent from a country,  to which until
then they had been strongly attached."
  These circumstances show that New England, from
her very  inception, contained  the elements of freedom
and independence, and was prepared to assert them, as
soon as she should acquire strength to maintain them.
England  very early, even ages before the days of Pa-
trick Henry, manifested a jealousy of her independent
spirit,  and was ever suspicious of the  least indication
of a wavering allegiance.
  Virginia, for whom Mr. Wirt claims the honour of
having originated the revolution, was, until that period,
in almost every respect the reverse of New England.
She was planted and supported by the Virginia Com-
pany, and in her infancy was  governed in a very arbi-
trary manner.  The whole legislative and executive
powers were vested in a governor and council appoint-
ed  by the crown, who were  empowered, without the
intervention of the  representatives of the people,  to
make laws  and execute them—to levy taxes and en-
force the payment  of them—to transport colonists to
England, to be tried and punished there for crimes
committed in Virginia.  Added to all this, the crown
exacted the monopoly of  their staple  article, tobacco.
This system the Virginians endured without resistance
for  many years, until governor Harvey was sent over,
who conducted in so tyrannical a manner, that oppres-
sion at length aroused them.   But even then it does
not appear that they found fault with the principles or
arbitrary form of their government, but  with its bad
administration. 
                         10

   The voice of New England was, (Let us govern
 ourselves, while we remain faithful in our allegiance
 to the crown, and contravene neither the laws nor con-
 stitution of England.  We ask  no protection—state
 the  sum you demand, and  you shall have it, but we
 will raise it in our own way.   We  will not be taxed
 contrary to the constitution of England.
   The assembly of Virginia not only disavowed  a pe-
 tition sent in their name, praying for the restoration of
 their ancient patents,  and corporate government, but
 sent an address to the king, expressing their high sense
 of his bounty and favour towards them, and earnestly
 desiring to continue under his  immediate protection;    •
 that is, to be governed by crown officers.
   I have already indicated the spirit, which pervaded
 the ecclesiastical affairs of New England.  The peo-
 ple were as much opposed to having their consciences
 lorded over by a hierarchy, as to holding their persons
 and property at the will of a despot.  In  Virginia the
 church of England was established by law, and provi-
 sion made for the clergy by the crown, and no others
 were allowed to preach publicly or privately.   Why
 is the strict discipline of New England so frequently
 made a theme of reproach,  and almost never  a word
 said of the intolerance of Virginia, where  no religion
 was tolerated except thcchurch of England, where the
clergy must be ordained by a bishop in England, in-
ducted into office by a royal governor, and remain in-
 dependent of the people?
  The New England pilgrims were characterized by
their scrupulous regard to the religion, which they be-
lieved to be revealed in the sacred scriptures; by their 
17
careful attention to the education of the rising genera-
tion, both as to their learning and morals; by their
sober industrious habits; by their persevering temper
and  enterprising spirit,  and by a sagacity which  her
enemies, whether savage or civilized, seldom or never
found asleep.  On the other hand, observe what a cha-
racter the historian of Virginia gives of the emigrants
who flocked thither after the first permanent settlement
in 1609.  " A great part of the new company," says
Stith, " consisted of unruly sparks, packed off by their
friends to avoid  worse destinies at home.  And the rest
were chiefly made up of  poor gentlemen, broken trades-
men, rakes and libertines, footmen and such others as
were much fitter to spoil and ruin a commonwealth,
than to help to raise or maintain one.  This lewd com-
pany, therefore, were led  by their seditious captains
into  many mischiefs  and extravagancies.  They as-
sumed to themselves the power of disposing of the go-
vernment, and conferred it  on one, sometimes on ano-
ther. To-day the old commission must rule, to-morrow
the new, and  next day  neither;  so that all," says this
historian, " was anarchy and confusion."   Not many
years after this,  the crown  directed the Virginia com-
pany to transport to their colony cargoes of convicts—
those idle and profligate persons, with which the En-
glish prisons  were  in  those days  crowded.   It  was
about the same  time, and probably in consequence of
the dissolute character  and idle habits of the people,
that negro slavery—the bane and  disgrace of our re-
public__was first introduced into that colony and into
English America.
   As New England was the asylum of republicans and
                         3 
                        18

puritans, and of all who became obnoxious to the crown
by advocating popular rights and civil liberty; so Vir-
ginia was the favourite  colony of the arbitrary and li-
centious Charleses and Jameses; and during the com-
monwealth became the asylum of the cavaliers and all
the advocates of prelacy and  despotic power.   Emi-
grants of such  different characters and  principles, be-
ing distributed and embodied  into separate communi-
ties  according to those differences,  would  necessarily
exhibit, in a striking manner, the peculiarities of the
party to which they belonged in the  mother country.
Accordingly, until the revolution, Virginia was always
the royal colony, supporting the  king in opposition to
parliament;  maintaining regal prerogatives in opposi-
tion  to parliamentary privileges;  and advocating " the
divine right of kings" against  the natural and unalien-
able  rights of human nature.   But the  New Engend-
ers were complained of as inflexible turbulent republi-
cans, always contending for their  liberties and privi-
leges, and watching with a lynx-eyed jealousy for any
encroachment on their rights.   In  supporting or op-
posing a principle  affecting their rights, they disputed
every inch of ground, and never waited to feel oppres-
sion  or injustice,  before they sounded  the  alarm; and
they were so persevering in their temper and so saga-
cious in their policy, that they were almost  always vic-
torious in their contests with  arbitrary power.   After
acquiring sufficient physical strength, what would such
a people require, besides an invasion of their rights, to
induce them to throw off their allegiance?
   But Mr. Wirt  says, as I  have before noticed, that
the  resolutions, which Mr. Henry introduced into jfche 
19
 house of burgesses of Virgiuia immediately after the pas-
 sage of the Stamp Act, and the speech which he made on
 that occasion, kindled a spirit of resistance, which spread
 throughout the colonies—that  with his match he com-
 municated the first spark to the train of American cou-
 rage.  Mr. Henry may have communicated, then for
 the first time, such a spirit to Virginia; and it may have
 required  " the greatest orator that ever lived" to en-
 kindle such a flame there;  but it was a fire, which had
 been burning uninterruptedly in  New  England for
 more than a century.   So far back as 1660, the Gene-
 ral Court of Massachusetts passed resolutions, in which
 they  asserted the right to exercise  all power both le-
 gislative and executive, provided they did not contra-
 vene the laws and constitution of England.   Again iu
 1692, Massachusetts  explicitly denied  the  right of
 parliament to tax the colonies without their consent.
   By recurring to Mr. Wirt's book, where he attributes
 such  a wonderful efficiency to those resolutions and
 that speech, it will  be seen, that Virginia was at that
 time  governed by a body of aristocrats, many of them
 descended from the cavaliers of Charles I. and II., de-
 voted to the interest of the crown,  and inheriting  the
 arbitrary  principles of their ancestors.   The resolu-
 tions,  which did pass the house of burgesses, were
 thought by Mr. Henry to be too timid and suppliant.
 The additional resolutions, introduced by him, were a
 part of them rejected; and those, which were  adopted,
 passed by a majority of only one, notwithstanding they
were  supported by such superhuman eloquence as that
gentleman is represented to have possessed;  and the
very next  day the house ordered the resolutions to be 
so
expunged from their records, and they would have for-
ever remained in *' the tomb of the Capulets,"  had not
their author taken better care of them,  than  he or his
cotemporaries have done of his eloquent speeches.  The
best evidences of his eloquence on this  occasion are
unhappily wanting, as he failed to carry his audience
into his measures; and as his speeches were not thought
by his cotemporaries to be worthy of preservation.  And
yet, marvellous to tell! his panegyrical biographer, so in-
tent upon glorifying every thing pertaining to the " An-
cient dominion,"  assures us seriously,  that this affair,
which contains more  for shame than for boasting of the
independent  revolutionary spirit of Virginia, gave the
first impulse to the  ball of the American revolution!
All this credit of having originated the revolution, ap-
pears lo be claimed  upon the fortuitous circumstance,
that the assembly  of Virginia being in session at the
time the intelligence of the passage of the Stamp Act
was received, gave her a little priority in the time of
publishing  her resolutions.   But what was there  in
these resolutions for which  the New Englanders had
not been contending  for a century?
  As soon as it was known that such an act was in con-
templation, Massachusetts employed an agent  in Lon-
don, who was directed to use his utmost endeavours to
prevent the passage of the stamp act, or any other, levy-
ing taxes or  impositions on the American provinces.
A historian of that period says, that in 1764, the  year
before the passage of the Virginia resolutions,  and be-
fore the passage of the stamp act, " the New England-
ers, who retained the  inflexibility of republicans and
the opposition of sectaries, determined at once to strjjke 
                        21

at the root and deny the principle without any com-
promise."  At the same time that Massachusetts took
that decisive course for herself,  she opened a corres-
pondence with the other colonies, requesting a concur-
rence in her opposition.  If the revolution originated
in Virginia, why did not she, instead of that state, sum-
mon the first continental congress?  Why did not the
British  ministry send general Gage with  his fleet and
army to Virginia, and strike at the root of revolutiona-
ry principles?  Why did not the ministry and parlia-
mentary orators sometimes  condescend to notice Vir-
ginia, if she were the leader of the rebels? Why were
they directing the thunders of their eloquence and of
their cannon almost exclusively against New England?
If the fire of the revolution  were  first lighted by Pa-
trick  Henry, why was not he excepted in the pardon
offered  to the rebels, instead of Adams and Hancock?
A single sentence from an English historian is a deci-
sive answer to  all these  queries.  " The  New En-
glanders,"  says  he,  " were the first to  take  hostile
steps, as they had been in all other measures of oppo-
sition, against Great Britain."
   In the days of the most absolute monarchs of En-
gland, Hume says, " the precious spark of liberty had
been  kindled, and was preserved  by the puritans alone;
and it  was to  this  sect,"  which planted New En-
gland,  " that the English owe the whole freedom of
their constitution."   This precious spark our pilgrim
ancestors brought with them, and guarded it with a ves-
tal's care.  It was a fire, that burned brighter by every
attempt  to quench it; and in the  last  attempt,  which
Great Britain  made for its extinction, it burst forth 
22
 with a broad flame, it spread throughout the continent,
 and became as  inextinguisable, by any means in her
 power,  as a volcano.  The  result of her attempt to
 crush the  republicanism of New England, or, in the
 language of British orators of that period, " to dragoon
 the Bostonians into  a sense of duty," shows that the
 sons of the pilgrims  were not less prompt and resolute
 in maintaining their rights by force, than they had been
 bold and tenacious in asserting them in argument.
   The revolution had neither its origin, nor its " first
 impulse," in any set of resolutions, nor in the elo-
 quence of any individual, much less in a single speech.
 The germ of the fair tree of liberty, of whose precious
 fruits we now all partake, was brought to America by
 the New England pilgrims, who thought no sacrifices
 too dear to  secure the enjoyment of it.   There were
 many puritans  among the  settlers of other  colonies,
 but they  were chiefly Presbyterians, who, in their ec-
 clesiastical and civil policy, were less liberal and less
 inclined  to  democratic republicanism, than the Inde-
pendents.   All  emigrants of this  class went to New
 England; and as  they were  neither enticed nor com-
 pelled to go thither by a proprietary lord, nor company
 of speculators, but went  to enjoy the delights of liber-
 ty, they  could not view the violations of so dear an ob-
 ject with indifference; and hence arose those frequent
 disputes, that constant action and reaction, between
 the people and the mother country.   These controver-
 sies naturally  tended to evolve those principles  and
 habits, which after several generations terminated in
 the declaration, that" they were and of right ought to
 be free and  independent  states."   To these controver- 
S3
sies, therefore, I would attribute, not exclusively, but
more than to any thing else, the origin of the American
Revolution.  And as New England has led the way
in our progress to freedom and  independence, so we
trust she will  be the  last place on the western conti-
nent, where will be heard or seen the lash of despotism
or the  chains of slavery.