truths too important not to be valued; that the people of Louisiana are
sincerely attached to the Union; that their city can be defended; that
the western States make its defence their peculiar concern; that the
militia are brave; that their deadly aim countervails the manoeuvring
skill of their enemy; that we have officers of natural genius now
starting forward from the mass; and that, putting together all our
conflicts, we can beat the British, by sea and by land, with equal
numbers. All this being now proved, I am glad of the pacification of
Ghent, and shall still be more so, if, by a reasonable arrangement
against impressment, they will make it truly a treaty of peace, and not
a mere truce, as we must all consider it, until the principle of the
war is settled. Nor, among the incidents of the war, will we forget your
services. After the disasters produced by the treason or the cowardice,
or both, of Hull, and the follies of some others, your capture of York
and Fort George first turned the tide of success in our favor; and the
subsequent campaigns sufficiently wiped away the disgraces of the
first. If it were justifiable to look to your own happiness only, your
resolution to retire from all public business could not but be approved.
But you are too young to ask a discharge as yet, and the public counsels
too much needing the wisdom of our ablest citizens, to relinquish their
claim on you. And surely none needs your aid more than your own State.
Oh, Massachusetts! how have I lamented the degradation of your apostacy!
Massachusetts, with whom I went with pride in 1776, whose vote was
my vote on every public question, and whose principles were then the
standard of whatever was free or fearless. But then she was under the
counsels of the two Adamses; while Strong, her present leader, was
promoting petitions for submission to British power and British
usurpation. While under her present counsels, she must be contented to
be nothing; as having a vote, indeed, to be counted, but not respected.
But should the State once more buckle on her republican harness, we
shall receive her again as a sister, and recollect her wanderings among
the crimes only of the parricide party, which would have basely sold
what their fathers so bravely won from the same enemy. Let us look
forward, then, to the act of repentance, which, by dismissing her
venal traitors, shall be the signal of return to the bosom and to the
principles of her brethren;