Chap XXXII} 1768. March |
April. |
This text is part of:
[141]
At Mount Vernon conversation turned at this
time on the dangers that overhung the country.
‘Whenever my country calls upon me,’ said Washington, ‘I am ready to take my musket on my shoulder.’
‘Courage, Americans;’1 cried one of the famed
New-York ‘Triumvirate’ of Presbyterian lawyers, William Livingston,2 as I believe; ‘Courage, Americans: liberty, religion and sciences, are on the wing to these shores.
The finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons.
The savages of the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idolaters and slaves.
The land we possess is the gift of Heaven to our Fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity.
So legible is this munificent and celestial deed in past events, that we need not be discouraged by the bickerings between us and our parent country.
The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America advance to felicity and glory, with redoubled rapidity and vigor.
The day dawns, in which the foundation of this mighty empire is to be laid, by the establishment of a regular American Constitution.
All that has hitherto been done seems to be little beside ’
1 American Whig, Nov. Parker's New-York Gazette of 11 April, 1768.
2 Theodore Sedgwick's Life of William Livingston, 145. Rev. Dr. Johnson to W. S. Johnson, Stratford, 22 April, 1768. ‘Within this month the wicked Triumvirate of New-York, S. L. and Sc. [William Smith, William Livingston, and John Morin Scott,] have in Parker's paper,’ &c. &c. &c. Manuscript letter of Thomas B. Chandler to,——7 April, 1768. ‘The first Whig was written by Livingston, the second by Smith, the third by——,and the fourth by Smith as far as the thundergust, and then Livingston went on in his high prancing style,’ &c. &c. Unluckily there is no positive mention of the author of Nov. That it was not Smith, appears from the use made of it, after the rupture with England.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.