It is the clear and calm sunshine of a mind illuminated by piety and
virtue. It crowns all other good dispositions, and comprehends the
general effect which they ought to produce on the heart.
...
A chearful temper irradiates the progress of life, and dispels the
evils of sublunary nature.]

CHAPTER IV.

Still may the soaring eagle's quenchless eye,
Watch o'er our favour'd country, brave and free,
Where the bright stars and stripes in honour wave,
The sacred emblems of our liberty.

[M. W. Beck: "The Ballot-Box" (song). Here quoted from _The United
States magazine and Democratic review_, Volume 5, 1839. Last
verse:

Let your eagle's quenchless eye,
Fixed, unerring, sleepless, bright,
Watch, when danger hovers nigh,
From his lofty mountain height;
While the stripes and stars shall wave
O'er this treasure, pure and free,
The land's Palladium, it shall save
The home and shrine of liberty.]

Many disagreeable circumstances now combined to disturb the happy
tranquillity of the American government. "A war had for some time
existed between France and England. America had endeavoured to maintain
a neutrality, and peacefully to continue a commerce with both nations.
Jealousies, however, arose between the contending powers with respect to
the conduct of America, and events occurred calculated to injure her
commerce and disturb her peace.

[_Interesting Events_: Second War:

The remote causes of the second War with Great Britain appear to
have arisen from the war existing between that power and France.
America endeavored to maintain a strict neutrality, and peaceably
to continue a commerce with them. Jealousies, however, arose between
the contending powers, with respect to the conduct of America, and
events occurred, calculated to injure her commerce, and to disturb
her peace.]

"Decrees were first issued by the French government preventing the
American flag from trading with the enemy; these were followed by the
British orders in council, no less extensive than the former in design,
and equally repugnant to the laws of nations. In addition to these
circumstances, a cause of irritation existed sometime between the United
States and Great Britain. This was the right of search claimed by Great
Britain as one of her prerogatives. To take her native subjects,
wherever found, for her navy, and to search American