a certain degree of veneration and awe; nor did these emotions subside on a closer acquaintance; on the contrary, his person and deportment were such as tended to augment them. The hard service he had seen, and the important and laborious offices he had filled, gave a kind of austerity to his countenance, and reserve to his manners; yet he was the kindest husband, the most humane master, and the steadiest friend. The whole range of history does not present to our view a character upon which we can dwell with such entire and unmixed admiration.

The long life of General Washington is unstained by a single blot. He was a man of rare endowments, and such fortunate temperament that every action he performed was equally exempted from the charge of vice or weakness. Whatever he said, or did, or wrote, was stamped with a striking and peculiar propriety. His qualities were so happily blended and so nicely harmonized, that the result was a great and perfect whole. The powers of his mind and the dispositions of his heart were admirably suited to each other. It was the union of the most consummate prudence with the most perfect moderation. His views, though large and liberal, were never extravagant. His virtues, though comprehensive and beneficent, were discriminating, judicious, and practical. Yet his character, though regular and uniform, possessed none of the littleness which sometimes belongs to men of that description. It formed a majestic pile, the effect of which was not impaired, but improved, by order and symmetry. There was nothing in it to dazzle by wildness and surprise by eccentricity. It was of a higher species of moral beauty. It contained every thing great or elevated, but it had no false and tinsel ornament. It was not the model cried up by fashion and circumstance; its excellence was adapted to a true and just moral taste, incapable of change from the varying accidents of manners, opinions, and times.

General Washington is not the idol of a day, but the hero of ages. Placed in circumstances of the most trying difficulty at the commencement of the American contest, he accepted

that situation which was preeminent in danger and responsi bility. His perseverance overcame every obstacle; his moderation conciliated every opposition; his genius supplied every resource; his enlarged view could plan, devise, and improve every branch of civil and military operation. He had the superior courage which can act or forbear to act as true policy dictates, careless of the reproaches of ignorance either in power or out of power. He knew how to conquer by waiting, in spite of obloquy, for the moment of victory; and he merited true praise by despising undeserved censure. In the most arduous moments of the contest, his prudent firmness proved the salvation of the cause which he supported. His conduct was, on all occasions, guided by the most pure disinterestedness. Far superior to low and grovelling motives, he seemed ever to be influenced by that ambition which has justly been called the instinct of great souls. He acted ever as if his country's welfare, and that alone, was the moving spirit. His excellent mind needed not even the stimulus of ambition, or the prospect of fame. Glory was a secondary consideration. He performed great actions; he persevered in a course of laborious utility, with an equanimity that neither sought distinction nor was flattered by it. His reward was in the consciousness of his own rectitude, and the success of his patriotic efforts.

As his elevation to the chief power was the unbiased choice of his countrymen, his exercise of it was agreeable to the purity of its origin. As he had neither solicited nor usurped dominion, he had neither to contend with the opposition of rivals nor the revenge of enemies. As his authority was undisputed, so it required no jealous precautions, no rigorous severity. His government was mild and gentle; it was beneficent and liberal; it was wise and just. His prudent administration consolidated and enlarged the dominion of an infant republic. In voluntarily resigning the magistracy which he had filled with such distinguished honor, he enjoyed the unequalled satisfaction of leaving to the state he had contributed to establish the fruits of his wisdom and the example of his

virtues. It is some consolation amidst the violence of ambition and criminal thirst of power, of which so many instances occur around us, to find a character whom it is honorable to admire and virtuous to imitate. A conqueror for the freedom of his country! a legislator for its security! a magistrate for its happiness! His glories were never sullied by those excesses into which the highest qualities are apt to degenerate. With the greatest virtues, he was exempt from the corresponding vices. He was a man in whom the elements were so mixed, that "Nature might have stood up to all the world and owned him as her work." His fame, bounded by no country, will be confined to no age. The character of General Washington, which his contemporaries reverence and admire, will be transmitted to posterity; and the memory of his virtues, while patriotism and virtue are held sacred among men, will remain undiminished.

CVI.-DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR.

BANCROFT.

[GEORGE BANCROFT was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1800, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1817. In the following year he went to Europe, and remained there about four years, mostly in Germany. For some years after his return, he was employed in the practical duties of a teacher, first in Harvard College, and afterwards as one of the principals of a seminary upon Round Hill, in Northampton. In 1838, he was appointed collector of the port of Boston; and in 1844, he took seat in the cabinet of President Polk, as secretary of the navy; and resigning that post in 1846, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the court of Great Britain, and continued in that station till 1849. Since that date, he has been a resident of the city of New York.

His great work, The History of the United States, has now reached six volumes, the first having been published in 1834. It is a production of marked and peculiar merit, presenting the results of extensive and elaborate research in a condensed form, and showing an uncommon power of analysis and generalization. His style is vivid, animated, and picturesque; full of point and energy; but somewhat abrupt in its transitions, and rather wanting in simplicity and repose. His speculations are often acute and profound, but they occupy more of his pages than the taste of some of his readers approves; and the dispassionate seeker after truth is occasionally merged in the fervid and eloquent advocate.

The following account of the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor is taken from the sixth volume of his History. The revolutionary war, as is well known, grew out of a number of aggressive acts on the part of the mother country, the last of which was an attempt to collect a tax upon tea, which the colonists were resolved to resist, On the 28th day of November, 1773, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston harbor,

with one hundred and fourteen chests of tea. The ship was owned by Mr. Rotch, a Quaker merchant. In a few days after, two more tea ships arrived. They were all put under strict guard by the citizens, acting under the lead of a committee of correspond ence, of which Samuel Adams was the controlling spirit. The people of the neighboring towns were organized in a similar manner, and sustained the spirit of Boston. The purpose of the citizens was to have the tea sent back without being landed; but the collector and comptroller refused to give the ships a clearance unless the teas were landed, and Governor Hutchinson also refused his permit, without which they could not pass the Castle. The ships were also liable to seizure, if the teas were not landed on the twentieth day after their arrival. Various attempts were made by the committee of citizens to have the ships sent back, but without success; many town meetings were held, and the public mind became strongly excited. And this was the state c things on the sixteenth day of December, eighteen days after the arrival of the Dartmouth. The narrative thus proceeds.]

THE morning of Thursday, the sixteenth of December, 1773, dawned upon Boston - a day by far the most momentous in its annals. Beware, little town; count the cost, and know well if you dare defy the wrath of Great Britain, and if you love exile, and poverty, and death, rather than submission. At ten o'clock, the people of Boston, with at least two thousand men from the country, assembled in the Old South. A report was made that Rotch had been refused a clearance from the collector. "Then," said they to him, "protest immediately against the custom house, and apply to the governor for his pass, so that your vessel may this very day proceed on her voyage to London."

The governor had stolen away to his country house at Milton. Bidding Rotch make all haste, the meeting adjourned to three in the afternoon. At that hour Rotch had not returned. It was incidentally voted, as other towns had done, to abstain wholly from the use of tea; and every town was advised to appoint its committee of inspection, to prevent the detested tea from coming within any of them. Then, since the governor might refuse his pass, the momentous question recurred, whether it be the sense and determination of this body to abide by their former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed. On this question, Samuel Adams and Young* addressed the meeting, which was become far the

* Dr. Thomas Young, a physician, and afterwards an army surgeon, was a zealous patriot, and a leading speaker and writer of the time

most numerous ever held in Boston, embracing seven thousand men. There was among them a patriot of fervent feeling; passionately devoted to the liberty of his country; still young, his eye bright, his cheek glowing with hectic fever. He knew that his strength was ebbing. The work of vindicating American freedom must be done soon, or he will be no party to the great achievement. He rises, but it is to restrain; and being truly brave and truly resolved, he speaks the language of moderation. "Shouts and hosannas will not terminate the trials of this day, nor popular resolves, harangues, and acclamations vanquish our foes. We must be grossly ignorant of the value of the prize for which we contend, of the power combined against us, of the inveterate malice and insatiable revenge which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, if we hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest conflicts. Let us consider the issue before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw." Thus spoke the younger Quincy. "Now that the hand is to the plough," said others, "there must be no looking back;" and the whole assembly of seven thousand voted unanimously that the tea should not be landed.

It had been dark for more than an hour. The church in which they met was dimly lighted; when, at a quarter before six, Rotch appeared, and satisfied the people by relating that the governor had refused him a pass, because his ship was not properly cleared. As soon as he had finished his report, Samuel Adams rose and gave the word- "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." On the instant, a shout was heard at the porch; the war whoop resounded; a body of men, forty or fifty in number, disguised as Indians, passed by the door, and encouraged by Samuel Adams, Hancock, and others, repaired to Griffin's Wharf, posted guards to prevent the intrusion of spies, took possession of the three tea ships, and in about three hours, three hundred and forty chests of tea, being the whole quantity that had been imported, were