n patriotism animates
philosophy, and all the arts and sciences are put under a state of
requisition, when the attention of a whole scientific people is
bent to multiplying the means and instruments of destruction and
when philosophy rises in a mass to drive on the wedge of war. A
black powder has changed the military art, and in a great degree
the manners of mankind. Why may not the same science which
produced it, produce another powder which, inflamed under a
certain compression, might impell the air, so as to shake down the
strongest towers and scatter destruction.

But you are going to a country where science is turned to better
uses. Your change of place will give room for the matchless
activity of your genius; and you will take a sublime pleasure in
bestowing on Britain the benefit of your future discoveries. As
matter changes its form but not a particle is ever lost, so the
principles of virtuous minds are equally imperishable; and your
change of situation may even render truth more operative,
knowledge more productive, and in the event, liberty itself more
universal. Wafted by the winds or tossed by the waves, the seed
that is here thrown out as dead, there shoots up and flourishes.
It is probable that emigration to America from the first
settlement downward, has not only served the cause of general
liberty, but will eventually and circuitously serve it even in
Britain. What mighty events have arisen from that germ which might
once have been supposed to be lost forever in the woods of
America, but thrown upon the bosom of Nature, the breath of God
revived it, and the world hath gathered its fruits. Even Ireland
has contributed her share to the liberties of America; and while
purblind statesmen were happy to get rid of the stubborn
Presbyterians of the North, they little thought that they were
serving a good cause in another quarter.--Yes! the Volunteers of
Ireland still live--they live across the Atlantic. Let this idea
animate us in our sufferings, and may the pure principles and
genuine lustre of the British Constitution reflected from their
Coast, penetrate into ourselves and our dungeons.

Farewell--great and good man! Great by your mental powers, by your
multiplied literary labours, but still great