No More Learning

,
October 3d, 1800, and died at Washington, D. C. , January
17th, 1891. But it was not merely the stretch of his years that
identified him with this century. In some respects he represented
his time as no other of its men. He came into touch with many
widely differing elements which made up its life and character. He
spent most of his life in cities, but never lost the sense for country
sights and sounds which central Massachusetts gave him in Worces-
ter, his birthplace, and in Northampton, where he taught school.
The home into which he was born offered him from his infancy a
rich possession. His father was a Unitarian clergyman who wrote a
Life of Washington) that was received with favor; thus things con-
cerning God and country were his patrimony. Not without signifi-
cance was a word of his mother which he recalled in his latest years,
“My son, I do not wish you to become a rich man, but I would have
you be an affluent man; ad fluo, always a little more coming in than
going out. ”
To the advantages of his boyhood home and of Harvard College,
to which he went as a lad of thirteen, the eager young student
added the opportunity, then uncommon, of a systematic course of
study in German, and won the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at
Göttingen in 1820. He had in a marked degree the characteristics of
his countrymen, versatility and adaptability. Giving up an early pur-
pose of fitting himself for the pulpit, he taught in Harvard, and
helped to found a school of an advanced type at Northampton.
Meantime he published a volume of verse, and found out that the
passionate love of poetry which lasted through his life was not
creative. At Northampton he published in 1828 a translation in two
volumes of Heeren's History of the Political System of Europe,' and
also edited two editions of a Latin Reader; but the duties of a
schoolmaster's life were early thrown aside, and he could not be
persuaded to resume them later when the headship of an important
educational institution was offered to him. Together with the one
great pursuit of his life, to which he remained true for sixty years,
he delighted in the activities of a politician, the duties of a states-
man, and the occupations of a man of affairs and of the world.


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GEORGE BANCROFT.


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1433
Bancroft received a large but insufficient vote as the Democratic
candidate for the Governorship of Massachusetts, and for a time he
held the office of Collector of the port of Boston. As Secretary of
the Navy in the Cabinet of Polk, he rendered to his country two
distinct services of great value: he founded the Naval School at
Annapolis, and by his prompt orders to the American commander in
the Pacific waters he secured the acquisition of California for the
United States. The special abilities he displayed in the Cabinet were
such, so Polk thought, as to lead to his appointment as Minister to
England in 1846. He was a diplomat of no mean order. President
Johnson appointed him Minister to Germany in 1867, and Grant
retained him at that post until 1874, as long as Bancroft desired it.
During his stay there he concluded just naturalization treaties with
Germany, and in a masterly way won from the Emperor, William I. ,
as arbitrator, judgment in favor of the United States's claim over
that of Great Britain in the Northwestern boundary dispute.
Always holding fast his one cherished object,--that of worthily
writing the history of the United States, -- Bancroft did not deny him-
self the pleasure of roaming in other fields. He wrote frequently on
current topics, on literary, historical, and political subjects. His eulo-
gies of Jackson and of Lincoln, pronounced before Congress, entitle
him to the rank of an orator. He was very fond of studies in meta-
physics, and Trendelenburg, the eminent German philosopher, said of
him, “Bancroft knows Kant through and through. ”
His home — whether in Boston, or in New York where he spent
the middle portion of his life, or in Washington his abode for the last
sixteen years, or during his residence abroad — was the scene of the
occupations and delights which the highest culture craves. He was
gladly welcomed to the inner circle of the finest minds of Germany,
and the tribute of the German men of learning was unfeigned and
universal when he quitted the country in 1874. Many of the best
men of England and of France were among his warm friends. At
his table were gathered from time to time some of the world's great-
est thinkers, men of science, soldiers, statesmen and men of affairs.
Fond as he was of social joys, it was his daily pleasure to mount his
horse and alone, or with a single companion, to ride where nature in
her shy or in her exuberant mood inspired. One day, after he was
eighty years old, he rode on his young, blooded Kentucky horse along
the Virginia bank of the Potomac for more than thirty-six miles. He
could be seen every day among the perfect roses of his garden at
“Roseclyffe,” his Newport summer-home, often full of thought, at
other times in wellnigh boisterous glee, always giving unstinted care
and expense to the queen of flowers. The books in which he kept
the record of the rose garden were almost as elaborate as those in


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1434
GEORGE BANCROFT
son.
which were entered the facts and fancies out of which his History
grew. His home life was charming. By a careful use of opportuni-
ties and of his means he became an “affluent” man. He was twice
married: both times a new source of refined domestic happiness long
blessed his home, and new means for enlarged comfort and hospi-
tality were added to his own. Two sons, children of his first wife,
survived him.
Some of Bancroft's characteristics were not unlike those of Jeffer-
A constant tendency to idealize called up in him at times a
feeling verging on impatience with the facts or the men that stood
in the way of a theory or the accomplishment of a personal desire.
He had a keen perception of an underlying or a final truth and pro-
fessed warm love for it, whether in the large range of history or in
the nexus of current politics: any one taking a different point of
view at times was led to think that his facts, as he stated them, lay
crosswise, and might therefore find the perspective out of drawing,
but could not rightly impugn his good faith.
Although a genuine lover of his race and a believer in Democracy,
he was not always ready to put implicit trust in the individual as
being capable of exercising a wise judgment and the power of true
self-direction. For man he avowed a perfect respect; among men
his bearing showed now and then a trace of condescension.
In con-
troversies over disputed points of history - and he had many such -
he meant to be fair and to anticipate the final verdict of truth, but
overwhelming evidence was necessary to convince him that his judg-
ment, formed after painstaking research, could be wrong.
His ample
love of justice, however, is proved by his passionate appreciation of
the character of Washington, by his unswerving devotion to the con-
ception of our national unity, both in its historical development and
at the moment when it was imperiled by civil war, and by his
hatred of slavery and of false financial policies. He took pleasure in
giving generously, but always judiciously and without ostentation.
On one occasion he, with a few of his friends, paid off the debt from
the house of an eminent scholar; on another, he helped to rebuild
for a great thinker the home which had been burned. At Harvard,
more than fifty years after his graduation, he founded a traveling
scholarship and named it in honor of the president of his college
days.
As to the manner of his work, Bancroft laid large plans and gave
to the details of their execution unwearied zeal. The scope of the
(History of the United States) as he planned it was admirable. In
carrying it out he was persistent in acquiring materials, sparing no
pains in his research at home and abroad, and no cost in securing
original papers or exact copies and transcripts from the archives of


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1435
England and France, Spain and Holland and Germany, from public
libraries and from individuals; he fished in all waters and drew fish
of all sorts into his net. He took great pains, and the secretaries
whom he employed to aid him in his work were instructed likewise
to take great pains, not only to enter facts in the reference books in
their chronological order, but to make all possible cross-references to
related facts. The books of his library, which was large and rich in
treasures, he used as tools, and many of them were filled with cross
references. In the fly-leaves of the books he read he made note with
a word and the cited page of what the printed pages contained of
interest to him or of value in his work.
His mind was one of quick perceptions within a wide range, and
always alert to grasp an idea in its manifold relations. It is remark-
able, therefore, that he was very laborious in his method of work.
He often struggled long with a thought for intellectual mastery. In
giving it expression, his habit was to dictate rapidly and with enthu-
siasm and at great length, but he usually selected the final form
after repeated efforts. His first draft of a chapter was revised again
and again and condensed. One of his early volumes in its first man-
uscript form was eight times as long as when finally published. He
had another striking habit, that of writing by topics rather than in
strict chronological order, so that a chapter which was to find its
place late in the volume was often completed before one which was
to precede it. Partly by nature and perhaps partly by this prac-
tice, he had the power to carry on simultaneously several trains of
thought. When preparing one of his public orations, it was remarked
by one of his household that after an evening spent over a trifling
game of bezique, the next morning found him well advanced beyond
the point where the work had been seemingly laid down. He had
the faculty of buoying a thought, knowing just where to take it up
after an interruption and deftly splicing it in continuous line, some-
times after a long interval. When about to begin the preparation of
the argument which was to sustain triumphantly the claim of the
United States in the boundary question, he wrote from Berlin for
copies of documents filed in the office of the Navy Department, which
he remembered were there five-and-twenty years before.
The History of the United States from the Discovery of America
to the Inauguration of Washington' is treated by Bancroft in three
The first, Colonial History from 1492 to 1748, occupies more
than one fourth of his pages. The second part, the American Revo-
lution, 1748 to 1782, claims more than one half of the entire work,
and is divided into four epochs:-- the first, 1748-1763, is entitled
(The Overthrow of the European Colonial System'; the second,
1763-1774, “How Great Britain Estranged America'; the third, 1774-
parts.


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1436
GEORGE BANCROFT
1776, America Declares Itself Independent'; the fourth, 1776-1782,
“The Independence of America is Acknowledged. The last part, ,
The History of the Formation of the Constitution,' 1782-1789, though
published as a separate work, is essentially a continuation of the
History proper, of which it forms in bulk rather more than one
tenth.
If his services as a historian are to be judged by any one portion
of his work rather than by another, the history of the formation of
the Constitution affords the best test. In that the preceding work
comes to fruition; the time of its writing, after the Civil War and
the consequent settling of the one vexing question by the abolition
of sectionalism, and when he was in the fullness of the experience of
his own ripe years, was most opportune. Bancroft was equal to his
opportunity. He does not teach us that the Constitution is the result
of superhuman wisdom, nor on the other hand does he admit, as
John Adams asserted, that however excellent, the Constitution was
wrung «from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people. ” He does
not fail to point out the critical nature of the four years prior to the
meeting of the Federal Convention; but he discerns that whatever
occasions, whether transitory or for the time of “steady and com-
manding influence,” may help or hinder the formation of the now
perfect union, its true cause was “an indwelling necessity” in the
people to form above the States a common constitution for the
whole. ”
Recognizing the fact that the primary cause for the true union
was remote in origin and deep and persistent, Bancroft gives a ret-
rospect of the steps toward union from the founding of the colonies
to the close of the war for independence. Thenceforward, sugges-
tions as to method or form of amending the Articles of Confeder-
ation, whether made by individuals, or State Legislatures, or by
Congress, were in his view helps indeed to promote the movement;
but they were first of all so many proofs that despite all the contrary
wayward surface indications, the strong current was flowing inde-
pendently toward the just and perfect union. Having acknowledged
this fundamental fact of the critical years between Yorktown and the
Constitution, the historian is free to give just and discriminating
praise to all who shared at that time in redeeming the political hope
of mankind, to give due but not exclusive honor to Washington and
Thomas Paine, to Madison and Hamilton and their co-worthies.
The many attempts, isolated or systematic, during the period
from 1781-1786, to reform the Articles of Confederation, were happily
futile; but they were essential in the training of the people in the
consciousness of the nature of the work for which they are responsi-
ble. The balances must come slowly to a poise. Not merely union


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1437
ous.
strong and for a time effective, was needed, but union of a certain
and unprecedented sort: one in which the true pledge of permanency
for a continental republic was to be found in the federative principle,
by which the highest activities of nation and of State were condi-
tioned each by the welfare of the other. The people rightly felt,
too, that a Congress of one house would be inadequate and danger-
They waited in the midst of risks for the proper hour, and
then, not reluctantly but resolutely, adopted the Constitution as a
promising experiment in government.
Bancroft's treatment of the evolution of the second great organic
act of this time — the Northwestern ordinance — is no less just and
true to the facts. For two generations men had snatched at the
laurels due to the creator of that matchless piece of legislation; to
award them now to Jefferson, now to Nathan Dane, now to Rufus
King, now to Manasseh Cutler. Bancroft calmly and clearly show's
how the great law grew with the kindly aid and watchful care of
these men and of others.
The deliberations of the Federal Constitution are adequately
recorded; and he gives fair relative recognition to the work and
words of individuals, and the actions of State delegations in making
the great adjustments between nation and States, between large and
small and slave and free States. From his account we infer that the
New Jersey plan was intended by its authors only for temporary use
in securing equality for the States in one essential part of the gov-
ernment, while the men from Connecticut receive credit for the com-
promise which reconciled nationality with true State rights. Further
to be noticed are the results of the exhaustive study which Bancroft
gave to the matter of paper money, and to the meaning of the clause
prohibiting the States from impairing the obligation of contracts. He
devotes nearly one hundred pages to “The People of the States in
Judgment on the Constitution,' and rightly; for it is the final act of
the separate States, and by it their individual wills are merged in
the will of the people, which is one, though still politically dis-
tributed and active within State lines. His summary of the main
principles of the Constitution is excellent; and he concludes with a
worthy sketch of the organization of the first Congress under the
Constitution, and of the inauguration of Washington as President.
In this last portion of the History,' while all of his merits as a
historian are not conspicuous, neither are some of his chief defects.
Here the tendency to philosophize, to marshal stately sentences, and
to be discursive, is not so marked.
The first volume of Bancroft's History of the United States)
was published in 1834, when the democratic spirit was finding its first
full expression under Jackson, and when John Marshall was finishing


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1438
GEORGE BANCROFT
his mighty task of revealing to the people of the United States the
strength that lay in their organic law. As he put forth volume after
volume at irregular intervals for fifty years, he in a measure con-
tinued this work of bringing to the exultant consciousness of the
people the value of their possession of a continent of liberty and the
realization of their responsibility. In the course of another gener-
ation, portions of this History of the United States) may begin to
grow antiquated, though the most brilliant of contemporary journal-
ists quite recently placed it among the ten books indispensable to
every American; but time cannot take away Bancroft's good part in
producing influences, which, however they may vary in form and
force, will last throughout the nation's life
Cuenitent
Cenk
THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA
From History of the United States)
T"
He period of success in planting Virginia had arrived; yet not
till changes in European politics and society had molded
the forms of colonization. The Reformation had broken
the harmony of religious opinion; and differences in the Church
began to constitute the basis of political parties. After the East
Indies had been reached by doubling the southern promontory of
Africa, the great commerce of the world was carried upon the
ocean. The art of printing had been perfected and diffused; and
the press spread intelligence and multiplied the facilities of in-
struction. The feudal institutions, which had been reared in the
middle ages, were already undermined by the current of time
and events, and, swaying from their base, threatened to fall.
Productive industry had built up the fortunes and extended the
influence of the active classes; while habits of indolence and
expense had impaired the estates and diminished the power of the
nobility. These changes produced corresponding results in the
institutions which were to rise in America.
A revolution had equally occurred in the purposes for which
voyages were undertaken. The hope of Columbus, as he sailed


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1439
to the west, had been the discovery of a new passage to the East
Indies. The passion for gold next became the prevailing motive.
Then the islands and countries near the equator were made the
tropical gardens of the Europeans. At last, the higher design
was matured: to plant permanent Christian colonies; to establish
for the oppressed and the enterprising places of refuge and abode;
to found states in a temperate clime, with all the elements of
independent existence.
In the imperfect condition of industry, a redundant population
had existed in England even before the peace with Spain, which
threw out of employment the gallant men who had served under
Elizabeth by sea and land, and left them no option but to en-
gage as mercenaries in the quarrels of strangers, or incur the
hazards of seeking a New World. ” The minds of many persons
of intelligence and rank were directed to Virginia. The brave
and ingenious Gosnold, who had himself witnessed the fertility
of the western soil, long solicited the concurrence of his friends
for the establishment of a colony, and at last prevailed with
Edward Maria Wingfield, a merchant of the west of England,
Robert Hunt, a clergyman of fortitude and modest worth, and
John Smith, an adventurer of rarest qualities, to risk their lives
and hopes of fortune in an expedition. For more than a year
this little company revolved the project of a plantation. At the
same time Sir Ferdinando Gorges was gathering information of
the native Americans, whom he had received from Waymouth,
and whose descriptions of the country, joined to the favorable
views which he had already imbibed, filled him with the strong-
est desire of becoming a proprietary of domains beyond the
Atlantic. Gorges was a man of wealth, rank and influence; he
readily persuaded Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of Eng-
land, to share his intentions. Nor had the assigns of Raleigh
become indifferent to "western planting”; which the most dis-
tinguished of them all, “industrious Hakluyt,” the historian of
maritime enterprise, still promoted by his personal exertions, his
weight of character, and his invincible zeal. Possessed of what-
ever information could be derived from foreign sources and a cor-
respondence with eminent navigators of his times, and anxiously
watching the progress of Englishmen in the West, his extensive
knowledge made him a counselor in every colonial enterprise.
The King of England, too timid to be active, yet too vain to
be indifferent, favored the design of enlarging his dominions.


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1440
GEORGE BANCROFT
He had attempted in Scotland the introduction of the arts of life
among the Highlanders and the Western Isles, by the establish-
ment of colonies; and the Scottish plantations which he founded
in the northern counties of Ireland contributed to the affluence
and the security of that island. When, therefore, a company of
men of business and men of rank, formed by the experience of
Gosnold, the enthusiasm of Smith, the perseverance of Hakluyt,
the influence of Popham and Gorges, applied to James I. for
leave “to deduce a colony into Virginia,” the monarch, on the
tenth of April, 1606, readily set his seal to an ample patent.
The first colonial charter, under which the English were
planted in America, deserves careful consideration.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.
MEN AND GOVERNMENT IN EARLY MASSACHUSETTS
From History of the United States)
TH
HESE better auspices, and the invitations of Winthrop, won
new emigrants from Europe. During the long summer
voyage of the two hundred passengers who freighted the
Griffin, three sermons a day beguiled their weariness. Among
them was Haynes, a man of very large estate, and larger affec-
tions; of a “heavenly” mind, and a spotless life; of rare sagacity,
and accurate but unassuming judgment; by nature tolerant, ever
a friend to freedom, ever conciliating peace; an able legislator;
dear to the people by his benevolent virtues and his disinterested
conduct. Then also came the most revered spiritual teachers of
two commonwealths: the acute and subtle Cotton, the son of a
Puritan lawyer; eminent in Cambridge as a scholar; quick in the
nice perception of distinctions, and pliant in dialects; in manner
persuasive rather than commanding; skilled in the fathers and
the schoolmen, but finding all their wisdom compactly stored in
Calvin; deeply devout by nature as well as habit from child-
hood; hating heresy and still precipitately eager to prevent evil
actions by suppressing ill opinions, yet verging toward a progress
in truth and in religious freedom; an avowed enemy to democ-
racy, which he feared as the blind despotism of animal instincts
in the multitude, yet opposing hereditary power in all its forms;
desiring a government of moral opinion, according to the laws of
universal equity, and claiming “the ultimate resolution for the


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1441
whole body of the people: ” and Hooker, of vast endowments, a
strong will and an energetic mind; ingenuous in his temper, and
open in his professions; trained to benevolence by the discipline of
affliction; versed in tolerance by his refuge in Holland; choleric,
yet gentle in his affections; firm in his faith, yet readily yielding
to the power of reason; the peer of the reformers, without their
harshness; the devoted apostle to the humble and the poor, severe
toward the proud, mild in his soothings of a wounded spirit,
glowing with the raptures of devotion, and kindling with the
messages of redeeming love; his eye, voice, gesture, and whole
frame animate with the living vigor of heart-felt religion; public-
spirited and lavishly charitable; and, “though persecutions and
banishments had awaited him as one wave follows another,” ever
serenely blessed with “a glorious peace of soul”; fixed in his
trust in Providence, and in his adhesion to that cause of advan-
cing civilization, which he cherished always, even while it remained
to him a mystery. This was he whom, for his abilities and
services, his contemporaries placed in the first rank of men;
praising him as the one rich pearl, with which Europe more
than repaid America for the treasures from her coast. ” The
people to whom Hooker ministered had preceded him; as he
landed they crowded about him with their welcome. “Now I
live,” exclaimed he, as with open arms he embraced them, now
I live if ye stand fast in the Lord. ”
Thus recruited, the little band in Massachusetts grew more
jealous of its liberties. «The prophets in exile see the true forms
of the house. " By a common impulse, the freemen of the towns
chose deputies to consider in advance the duties of the general
court. The charter plainly gave legislative power to the whole
body of the freemen; if it allowed representatives, thought Win-
throp, it was only by inference; and, as the whole people could
not always assemble, the chief power, it was argued, lay neces-
sarily with the assistants.
Far different was the reasoning of the people. To check the
democratic tendency, Cotton, on the election day, preached to
the assembled freemen against rotation in office. The right of
an honest magistrate to his place was like that of a proprietor to
his freehold. But the electors, now between three and four
hundred in number, were bent on exercising their absolute
power,” and, reversing the decision of the pulpit, chose a new
governor and deputy. The mode of taking the votes was at the
III-91


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1442
GEORGE BANCROFT
same time reformed; and, instead of the erection of hands, the
ballot-box was introduced. Thus the people established a refor-
mation of such things as they judged to be amiss in the govern-
ment. ”
It was further decreed that the whole body of the freemen
should be convened only for the election of the magistrates: to
these, with deputies to be chosen by the several towns, the
powers of legislation and appointment were henceforward in-
trusted. The trading corporation was unconsciously become a
representative democracy.
The law against arbitrary taxation followed. None but the
immediate representatives of the people might dispose of lands
or raise money. Thus early did Massachusetts echo the voice of
Virginia, like deep calling unto deep. The state was filled with
the hum of village politicians; “the freemen of every town in
the Bay were busy in inquiring into their liberties and privi-
leges. With the exception of the principle of universal suffrage,
now so happily established, the representative democracy was as
perfect two centuries ago as it is to-day. Even the magistrates,
who acted as judges, held their office by the annual popular
choice. “Elections cannot be safe there long," said the lawyer
Lechford. The same prediction has been made these two hun-
dred years. The public mind, ever in perpetual agitation, is still
easily shaken, even by slight and transient impulses; but, after
all vibrations, it follows the laws of the moral world, and safely
recovers its balance.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.
KING PHILIP'S WAR
From History of the United States)
T"
hus was Philip hurried into “his rebellion”; and he is reported
to have wept as he heard that a white man's blood had been
shed. He had kept his men about him in arms, and had
welcomed every stranger; and yet, against his judgment and his
will, he was involved in war. For what prospect had he of suc-
cess ?
The English were united; the Indians had no alliance:
the English made a common cause; half the Indians were allies
of the English, or were quiet spectators of the fight: the English
had guns enough; but few of the Indians were well armed, and


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1443
they could get no new supplies: the English had towns for their
shelter and safe retreat; the miserable wigwams of the natives
were defenseless: the English had sure supplies of food; the
Indians might easily lose their precarious stores. Frenzy prompted
their rising. They rose without hope, and they fought without
mercy. For them as a nation, there was no to-morrow.
The minds of the English were appalled by the horrors of the
impending conflict, and superstition indulged in its wild inventions.
At the time of the eclipse of the moon, you might have seen the
figure of an Indian scalp imprinted on the centre of its disk.
The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared in the sky. The
sighing of the wind was like the whistling of bullets. Some heard
invisible troops of horses gallop through the air, while others
found the prophecy of calamities in the howling of the wolves.
At the very beginning of danger the colonists exerted their
wonted energy. Volunteers from Massachusetts joined the troops
from Plymouth; and, within a week from the commencement of
hostilities, the insulated Pokanokets were driven from Mount
Hope, and in less than a month Philip was a fugitive among the
Nipmucks, the interior tribes of Massachusetts. The little army
of the colonists then entered the territory of the Narragansetts,
and from the reluctant tribe extorted a treaty of neutrality, with
a promise to deliver up every hostile Indian. Victory seemed
promptly assured. But it was only the commencement of horrors.
Canonchet, the chief sachem of the Narragansetts, was the son of
Miantonomoh; and could he forget his father's wrongs ? Desola-
tion extended along the whole frontier. Banished from his patri-
mony, where the pilgrims found a friend, and from his cabin,
which had sheltered the exiles, Philip, with his warriors, spread
through the country, awakening their brethren to a warfare of
extermination.
The war, on the part of the Indians, was one of ambuscades
and surprises. They never once met the English in open field;
but always, even if eightfold in numbers, fled timorously before
infantry. They were secret as beasts of prey, skillful marksmen,
and in part provided with firearms, fleet of foot, conversant with
all the paths of the forest, patient of fatigue, and mad with a
passion for rapine, vengeance, and destruction, retreating into
swamps for their fastnesses, or hiding in the greenwood thickets,
where the leaves muffled the eyes of the pursuer. By the rapid-
ity of their descent, they seemed omnipresent among the scattered


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1444
GEORGE BANCROFT
villages, which they ravished like a passing storm; and for a full
year they kept all New England in a state of terror and excite-
ment. The exploring party was waylaid and cut off, and the
mangled carcasses and disjointed limbs of the dead were hung
upon the trees.
The laborer in the field, the reapers as they
sallied forth to the harvest, men as they went to mill, the shep-
herd's boy among the sheep, were shot down by skulking foes,
whose approach was invisible. Who can tell the heavy hours of
woman? The mother, if left alone in the house, feared the
tomahawk for herself and children; on the sudden attack, the
husband would fly with one child, the wife with another, and,
perhaps, one only escape; the village cavalcade, making its way
to meeting on Sunday in files on horseback, the farmer holding
the bridle in one hand and a child in the other, his wife seated
on a pillion behind him, it may be with a child in her lap, as
was the fashion in those days, could not proceed safely; but, at
the moment when least expected, bullets would whizz among
them, sent from an unseen enemy by the wayside. The forest
that protected the ambush of the Indians secured their retreat.
Copyrighted by D.
Appleton and Company, New York.
THE NEW NETHERLAND
From History of the United States )
D'
URING the absence of Stuyvesant from Manhattan, the war-
riors of the neighboring Algonkin tribes, never reposing
confidence in the Dutch, made a desperate assault on the
colony. In sixty-four canoes they appeared before the town, and
ravaged the adjacent country.
The return of the expedition
restored confidence. The captives were ransomed, and industry
repaired its losses. The Dutch seemed to have firmly established
their power, and promised themselves happier years. New
Netherland consoled them for the loss of Brazil. They exulted
in the possession of an admirable territory, that needed no
embankments against the ocean. They were proud of its vast
extent, — from New England to Maryland, from the sea to the
Great River of Canada, and the remote Northwestern wilderness,
They sounded with exultation the channel of the deep stream,
which was no longer shared with the Swedes; they counted
with delight its many lovely runs of water, on which the beavers


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1445
built their villages; and the great travelers who had visited
every continent, as they ascended the Delaware, declared it one
of the noblest rivers in the world, with banks more inviting than
the lands on the Amazon.
Meantime, the country near the Hudson gained by increasing
emigration. Manhattan was already the chosen abode of mer-
chants; and the policy of the government invited them by its
good-will. If Stuyvesant sometimes displayed the rash despotism
of a soldier, he was sure to be reproved by his employers. Did
he change the rate of duties arbitrarily, the directors, sensitive
to commercial honor, charged him "to keep every contract
inviolate. ” Did he tamper with the currency by raising the
nominal value of foreign coin, the measure was rebuked as dis-
honest. Did he attempt to fix the price of labor by arbitrary
rules, this also was condemned as unwise and impracticable.
Did he interfere with the merchants by inspecting their accounts,
the deed was censured as without precedent “in Christendom”;
and he was ordered to “treat the merchants with kindness, lest
they return, and the country be depopulated. ” Did his zeal for
Calvinism lead him to persecute Lutherans, he was chid for his
bigotry. Did his hatred of "the abominable sect of Quakers”
imprison and afterward exile the blameless Bowne, “let every
peaceful citizen," wrote the directors, “enjoy freedom of con-
science; this maxim has made our city the asylum for fugitives
from every land; tread in its steps, and you shall be blessed. ”
Private worship was therefore allowed to every religion.
Opinion, if not yet enfranchised, was already tolerated. The
people of Palestine, from the destruction of their temple an out-
cast and a wandering race, were allured by the traffic and the
condition of the New World; and not the Saxon and Celtic
races only, the children of the bondmen that broke from slavery
in Egypt, the posterity of those who had wandered in Arabia,
and worshiped near Calvary, found a home, liberty, and a burial
place on the island of Manhattan.
The emigrants from Holland were themselves of the most
various lineage; for Holland had long been the gathering-place
of the unfortunate. Could we trace the descent of the emigrants
from the Low Countries to New Netherland, we should be
carried not only to the banks of the Rhine and the borders of
the German Sea, but to the Protestants who escaped from
France after the massacre of Bartholomew's Eve, and to those


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1446
GEORGE BANCROFT
earlier inquirers who were swayed by the voice of Huss in the
heart of Bohemia. New York was always a city of the world.
Its settlers were relics of the first fruits of the Reformation,
chosen from the Belgic provinces and England, from France and
Bohemia, from Germany and Switzerland, from Piedmont and
the Italian Alps.
The religious sects, which, in the middle ages, had been fos-
tered by the municipal liberties of the south of France, were
the harbingers of modern freedom, and had therefore been sac-
rificed to the inexorable feudalism of the north. After a bloody
conflict, the plebeian reformers, crushed by the merciless leaders
of the military aristocracy, escaped to the highlands that divide
France and Italy. Preserving the discipline of a benevolent,
ascetic morality, with the simplicity of a spiritual worship,
“When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
it was found, on the progress of the Reformation, that they had
by three centuries anticipated Luther and Calvin. The hurricane
of persecution, which was to have swept Protestantism from the
earth, did not spare their seclusion; mothers with infants were
rolled down the rocks, and the bones of martyrs scattered on the
Alpine mountains, The city of Amsterdam offered the fugitive
Waldenses a free passage to America, and a welcome was pre-
pared in New Netherland for the few who were willing to emi-
grate.
The persecuted of every creed and every clime were invited
to the colony When the Protestant churches in Rochelle were
razed, the Calvinists of that city were gladly admitted; and the
French Protestants came in such numbers that the public docu-
ments were sometimes issued in French as well as in Dutch and
English. Troops of orphans were shipped for the milder destinies
of the New World; a free passage was offered to mechanics; for
“population was known to be the bulwark of every State. ” The
government of New Netherland had formed just ideas of the fit
materials for building a commonwealth; they desired farmers
and laborers, foreigners and exiles, men inured to toil and
penury. ” The colony increased; children swarmed in every vil-
lage; the advent of the year and the month of May were wel-
comed with noisy frolics; new modes of activity were devised;
lumber was shipped to France; the whale pursued off the coast;
the vine, the mulberry, planted; flocks of sheep as well as cattle


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1447
(
were multiplied; and tile, so long imported from Holland, began
to be manufactured near Fort Orange. New Amsterdam could,
in a few years, boast of stately buildings, and almost vied with
Boston. “This happily situated province,” said its inhabitants,
may become the granary of our fatherland; should our Nether-
lands be wasted by grievous wars, it will offer our countrymen
a safe retreat; by God's blessing, we shall in a few years become
a mighty people. ”
Thus did various nations of the Caucasian race assist in colo-
nizing our central states.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.
FRANKLIN
From History of the United States)
F
RANKLIN looked quietly and deeply into the secrets of nature.
His clear understanding was never perverted by passion, nor
corrupted by the pride of theory. The son of a rigid Cal-
vinist, the grandson of a tolerant Quaker, he had from boyhood
been familiar not only with theological subtilities, but with a
catholic respect for freedom of mind. Skeptical of tradition as
the basis of faith, he respected reason rather than authority; and,
after a momentary lapse into fatalism, he gained with increasing
years an increasing trust in the overruling providence of God.
Adhering to none of all the religions in the colonies, he yet
devoutly, though without form, adhered to religion. But though
famous as a disputant, and having a natural aptitude for meta-
physics, he obeyed the tendency of his age, and sought by obser-
vation to win an insight into the mysteries of being. The best
observers praise his method most. He so sincerely loved truth,
that in his pursuit of her she met him half-way. Without preju-
dice and without bias, he discerned intuitively the identity of the
laws of nature with those of which humanity is conscious; so that
his mind was like a mirror, in which the universe, as it reflected
itself, revealed her laws. His morality, repudiating ascetic severi-
ties and the system which enjoins them, was indulgent to appe-
tites of which he abhorred the sway; but his affections were of a
calm intensity: in all his career, the love of man held the mas-
tery over personal interest. He had not the imagination which
inspires the bard or kindles the orator; but an exquisite propriety,


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1448
GEORGE BANCROFT
parsimonious of ornament, gave ease, correctness, and graceful
simplicity even to his most careless writings. In life, also, his
tastes were delicate. Indifferent to the pleasures of the table, he
relished the delights of music and harmony, of which he enlarged
the instruments. His blandness of temper, his modesty, the
benignity of his manners, made him the favorite of intelligent
society; and, with healthy cheerfulness, he derived pleasure from
books, from philosophy, from conversation, — now administering
consolation to the sorrower, now indulging in light-hearted
gayety. In his intercourse, the universality of his perceptions
bore, perhaps, the character of humor; but, while he clearly dis-
cerned the contrast between the grandeur of the universe and the
feebleness of man, a serene benevolence saved him from contempt
of his race or disgust at its toils. To superficial observers, he
might have seemed as an alien from speculative truth, limiting
himself to the world of the senses; and yet, in study, and among
men, his mind always sought to discover and apply the general
principles by which nature and affairs are controlled, - now dedu-
cing from the theory of caloric improvements in fireplaces and
lanterns, and now advancing human freedom by firm inductions
from the inalienable rights of man. Never professing enthusiasm,
never making a parade of sentiment, his practical wisdom was
sometimes mistaken for the offspring of selfish prudence; yet his
hope was steadfast, like that hope which rests on the Rock of
Ages, and his conduct was as unerring as though the light that
led him was a light from heaven. He never anticipated action
by theories of self-sacrificing virtue; and yet, in the moments of
intense activity, he from the abodes of ideal truth brought down
and applied to the affairs of life the principles of goodness, as
unostentatiously as became the man who with a kite and hempen
string drew lightning from the skies. He separated himself so
little from his age that he has been called the representative of
materialism; and yet, when he thought on religion, his mind
passed beyond reliance on sects to faith in God; when he wrote
on politics, he founded freedom on principles that know no
change; when he turned an observing eye on nature, he passed
from the effect to the cause, from individual appearances to
universal laws; when he reflected on history, his philosophic
mind found gladness and repose in the clear anticipation of the
progress of humanity.


## p. 1449 (#247) ###########################################

GEORGE BANCROFT
1449
WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
From History of the United States)
Bº
UT, in the meantime, Wolfe applied himself intently to recon-
noitring the north shore above Quebec. Nature had given
him good eyes, as well as a warmth of temper to follow
first impressions. He himself discovered the cove which now
bears his name, where the bending promontories almost form a
basin, with a very narrow margin, over which the hill rises pre-
cipitously. He saw the path that wound up the steep, though so
narrow that two men could hardly march in it abreast; and he
knew, by the number of tents which he counted on the summit,
that the Canadian post which guarded it could not exceed a hun-
dred. Here he resolved to land his army by surprise. To mis-
lead the enemy, his troops were kept far above the town; while
Saunders, as if an attack was intended at Beauport, set Cook,
the great mariner, with others, to sound the water and plant
buoys along that shore.
The day and night of the twelfth were employed in prepara-
tions. The autumn evening was bright; and the general, under
the clear starlight, visited his stations, to make his final inspec-
tion and utter his last words of encouragement. As he passed
from ship to ship, he spoke to those in the boat with him of the
poet Gray, and the 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard. “I,”
said he, “would prefer being the author of that poem to the
glory of beating the French to-morrow; and, while the oars
struck the river as it rippled in the silence of the night air under
the flowing tide, he repeated :-
« The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour -
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. ”
Every officer knew his appointed duty, when, at one o'clock
in the morning of the thirteenth of September, Wolfe, Monck-
ton, and Murray, and about half the forces, set off in boats, and,
using neither sail nor oars, glided down with the tide. In three
quarters of an hour the ships followed; and, though the night
had become dark, aided by the rapid current, they reached the
cove just in time to cover the landing. Wolfe and the troops


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1450
GEORGE BANCROFT
with him leaped on shore; the light infantry, who found them-
selves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path,
clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and
boughs of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the
precipitous declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket
which guarded the height; the rest ascended safely by the path-
way. A battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Col-
onel Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English
had already gained one of the roads to Quebec; and, advancing
in front of the forest, Wolfe stood at daybreak with his invinci-
ble battalions on the Plains of Abraham, the battle-field of the
Celtic and Saxon races.
"It can be but a small party, come to burn a few houses and
retire,” said Montcalm, in amazement as the news reached him
in his intrenchments the other side of the St. Charles; but, obtain-
ing better information, “Then,” he cried, “they have at last got
to the weak side of this miserable garrison; we must give battle
and crush them before mid-day. ” And, before ten, the two
armies, equal in numbers, each being composed of less than five
thousand men, were ranged in presence of one another for bat-
tle. The English, not easily accessible from intervening shallow
ravines and rail fences, were all regulars, perfect in discipline,
terrible in their fearless enthusiasm, thrilling with pride at their
morning's success, commanded by a man whom they obeyed
with confidence and love. The doomed and devoted Montcalm
had what Wolfe had called but “five weak French battalions,”
of less than two thousand men, “mingled with disorderly peas-
antry,” formed on commanding ground. The French had three
little pieces of artillery; the English, one or two. The two
armies cannonaded each other for nearly an hour; when Mont-
calm, having summoned De Bougainville to his aid, and dis-
patched messenger after messenger for De Vaudreuil, who had
fifteen hundred men at the camp, to come up before he should
be driven from the ground, endeavored to flank the British and
crowd them down the high bank of the river. Wolfe counter-
acted the movement by detaching Townshend with Amherst's
regiment, and afterward a part of the Royal Americans, who
formed on the left with a double front.
Waiting no longer for more troops, Montcalm led the French
army impetuously to the attack. The ill-disciplined companies
broke by their precipitation and the unevenness of the ground;


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1451
and fired by platoons, without unity.
Their adversaries, espe-
cially the Forty-third and the Forty-seventh, where Monckton
stood, of which three men out of four were Americans, received
the shock with calmness; and after having, at Wolfe's command,
reserved their fire till their enemy was within forty yards, their
line began a regular, rapid, and exact discharge of musketry.
Montcalm was present everywhere, braving danger, wounded, but
cheering by his example. The second in command, De Senne-
zergues, an associate in glory at Ticonderoga, was killed. The
brave but untried Canadians, flinching from a hot fire in the
open field, began to waver; and, so soon as Wolfe, placing him-
self at the head of the Twenty-eighth and the Louisburg grena-
diers, charged with bayonets, they everywhere gave way. Of
the English officers, Carleton was wounded; Barré, who fought
near Wolfe, received in the head a ball which made him blind of
one eye, and ultimately of both. Wolfe, also, as he led the
charge, was wounded in the wrist; but still pressing forward, he
received a second ball; and having decided the day, was struck
a third time, and mortally, in the breast. "Support me,” he
cried to an officer near him; “let not my brave fellows see me
drop. ” He was carried to the rear, and they brought him water
to quench his thirst. “They run! they run! ” spoke the officer
on whom he leaned. “Who run ? ” asked Wolfe, as his life was
fast ebbing. «The French,” replied the officer, "give way every-
where. ” “What,” cried the expiring hero, “do they run already?
Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton; bid him march Webb’s regi-
ment with all speed to Charles River to cut off the fugitives. ”
Four days before, he had looked forward to early death with dis-
may. “Now, God be praised, I die happy. ” These were his
words as his spirit escaped in the blaze of his glory. Night,
silence, the rushing tide, veteran discipline, the sure inspiration
of genius, had been his allies; his battle-field, high over the ocean
river, was the grandest theatre for illustrious deeds; his victory,
one of the most momentous in the annals of mankind, gave to
the English tongue and the institutions of the Germanic race
the unexplored and seemingly infinite West and South. He
crowded into a few hours actions that would have given lustre
to length of life; and, filling his day with greatness, completed
it before its noon.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.


## p. 1452 (#250) ###########################################

1452
GEORGE BANCROFT
LEXINGTON
From "History of the United States)
AY
D
came in all the beauty of an early spring. The trees
were budding; the grass growing rankly a full month
before its time; the bluebird and the robin gladdening
the genial season, and calling forth the beams of the sun which
on that morning shone with the warmth of summer; but distress
and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town.
There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young;
the grassy field was red with the innocent blood of their breth-
ren slain,” crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.
Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a
quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green. These are
the village heroes, who were more than of noble blood, proving
by their spirit that they were of a race divine. They gave their
lives in testimony to the rights of mankind, bequeathing to their
country an assurance of success in the mighty struggle which
they began. Their names are held in grateful remembrance, and
the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply
their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled their
duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their
action was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time.
The light that led them on was combined of rays from the
whole history of the race; from the traditions of the Hebrews in
the gray of the world's morning; from the heroes and sages of
republican Greece and Rome; from the example of Him who
died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the religious
creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this
truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the
dark flood of the Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans
transmitted out of their forests to the councils of Saxon Eng-
land; from the burning faith and courage of Martin Luther;
from trust in the inevitable universality of God's sovereignty
as taught by Paul of Tarsus and Augustine, through Calvin and
the divines of New England; from the avenging fierceness of
the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins of the throne;
from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the earliest
emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and
the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England;


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1453
from the liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eight-
eenth century; from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the
reality and the rightfulness of human freedom. All the centuries
bowed themselves from the recesses of the past to cheer in their
sacrifice the lowly men who proved themselves worthy of their
forerunners, and whose children rise up and call them blessed.
Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice
of a prophet, exclaimed: "Oh, what a glorious morning is this! ”
for he saw his country's independence hastening on, and, like
Columbus in the tempest, knew that the storm did but bear him
the more swiftly toward the undiscovered world.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.
WASHINGTON
.
· From History of the United States)
THE
HEN, on the fifteenth of June, it was voted to appoint a gen-
eral. Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, nominated George
Washington; and as he had been brought forward “at the
particular request of the people of New England,” he was elected
by ballot unanimously.
Washington was then forty-three years of age. In stature he
a little exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy and well-propor-
tioned; his chest broad; his figure stately, blending dignity of
presence with ease. His robust constitution had been tried and
invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, the habit of occu-
pation out of doors, and rigid temperance; so that few equaled
him in strength of arm, or power of endurance, or noble horse-
manship. His complexion was florid; his hair dark brown; his
head in its shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils seemed
formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger. His
eyebrows were rayed and finely arched.
His dark-blue eyes,
which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an
earnestness that was almost pensiveness. His forehead was some-
times marked with thought, but never with inquietude; his coun-
tenance was mild and pleasing and full of benignity.
At eleven years old left an orphan to the care of an excellent
but unlettered mother, he grew up without learning. Of arith-
metic and geometry he acquired just knowledge enough to be
able to practice measuring land; but all his instruction at school


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1454
GEORGE BANCROFT
taught him not so much as the orthography or rules of grammar
of his own tongue. His culture was altogether his own work,
and he was in the strictest sense a self-made man; yet from his
early life he never seemed uneducated. At sixteen, he went into
the wilderness as a surveyor, and for three years continued the
pursuit, where the forests trained him, in meditative solitude, to
freedom and largeness of mind; and nature revealed to him her
obedience to serene and silent laws. In his intervals from toil,
he seemed always to be attracted to the best men, and to be
cherished by them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar,
already aged, became his fast friend. He read little, but with
close attention. Whatever he took in hand he applied himself
to with care; and his papers, which have been preserved, show
how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing cor-
rectly; always expressing himself with clearness and directness,
often with felicity of language and grace.
When the frontiers on the west became disturbed, he at nine-
teen was commissioned an adjutant-general with the rank of
major. At twenty-one, he went as the envoy of Virginia to the
council of Indian chiefs on the Ohio, and to the French officers
near Lake Erie. Fame waited upon him from his youth; and no
one of his colony was so much spoken of. He conducted the
first military expedition from Virginia that crossed the Allegha-
nies. Braddock selected him as an aid, and he was the only man
who came out of the disastrous defeat near the Monongahela,
with increased reputation, which extended to England. The next
year, when he was but four-and-twenty, “the great esteem” in
which he was held in Virginia, and his real merit,” led the
lieutenant-governor of Maryland to request that he might be
"commissioned and appointed second in command” of the army
designed to march to the Ohio; and Shirley, the commander-in-
chief, heard the proposal with great satisfaction and pleasure,”
for he knew no provincial officer upon the continent to whom
he would so readily give that rank as to Washington. ”
In 1758
he acted under Forbes as a brigadier, and but for him that gen-
eral would never have crossed the mountains.
Courage was so natural to him that it was hardly spoken of
to his praise; no one ever at any moment of his life discovered
in him the least shrinking in danger; and he had a hardihood
of daring which escaped notice, because it was so enveloped by
superior calmness and wisdom.


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1455
His address was most easy and agreeable; his step firm and
graceful; his air neither grave nor familiar. He was as cheerful
as he was spirited, frank and communicative in the society of
friends, fond of the fox-chase and the dance, often sportive in
his letters, and liked a hearty laugh. "His smile,” writes Chas-
tellux, “was always the smile of benevolence. ” This joyousness
of disposition remained to the last, though the vastness of his
responsibilities was soon to take from him the right of displaying
the impulsive qualities of his nature, and the weight which he was
to bear up was to overlay and repress his gayety and openness.
His hand was liberal; giving quietly and without observation,
as though he was ashamed of nothing but being discovered in
doing good. He was kindly and compassionate, and of lively
sensibility to the sorrows of others; so that, if his country had
only needed a victim for its relief, he would have willingly
offered himself as a sacrifice. But while he was prodigal of
himself, he was considerate for others; ever parsimonious of the
blood of his countrymen.
He was prudent in the management of his private affairs,
purchased rich lands from the Mohawk valley to the flats of the
Kanawha, and improved his fortune by the correctness of his
judgment; but, as a public man, he knew no other aim than the
good of his country, and in the hour of his country's poverty he
refused personal emolument for his service.
His faculties were so well balanced and combined that his
constitution, free from excess, was tempered evenly with all the
elements of activity, and his mind resembled a well-ordered com-
monwealth; his passions, which had the intensest vigor, owned
allegiance to reason; and with all the fiery quickness of his spirit,
his impetuous and massive will was held in check by consummate
judgment. He had in his composition a calm, which gave him
in moments of highest excitement the power of self-control, and
enabled him to excel in patience, even when he had most cause
for disgust. Washington was offered a command when there was
little to bring out the unorganized resources of the continent but
his own influence, and authority was connected with the people
by the most frail, most attenuated, scarcely discernible threads;
yet, vehement as was his nature, impassioned as was his courage.
he so retained his ardor that he never failed continuously to
exert the attractive power of that influence, and never exerted it
so sharply as to break its force.


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1456
GEORGE BANCROFT
In secrecy he was unsurpassed; but his secrecy had the char-
acter of prudent reserve, not of cunning or concealment. His
great natural power of vigilance had been developed by his life
in the wilderness.
His understanding was lucid, and his judgment accurate; so
that his conduct never betrayed hurry or confusion. No detail
was too minute for his personal inquiry and continued super-
vision; and at the same time he comprehended events in their
widest aspects and relations. He never seemed above the object
that engaged his attention, and he was always equal, without an
effort, to the solution of the highest questions, even when there
existed no precedents to guide his decision. In the perfection of
the reflective powers, which he used habitually, he had no peer.
In this
way
he never drew to himself admiration for the
possession of any one quality in excess, never made in council
any one suggestion that was sublime but impracticable, never in
action took to himself the praise or the blame of undertakings
astonishing in conception, but beyond his means of execution.
It was the most wonderful accomplishment of this man that,
placed upon the largest theatre of events, at the head of the
greatest revolution in human affairs, he never failed to observe
all that was possible, and at the same time to bound his aspira-
tions by that which was possible.
A slight tinge in his character, perceptible only to the close
observer, revealed the region from which he sprung, and he
might be described as the best specimen of manhood as developed
in the South; but his qualities were so faultlessly proportioned
that his whole country rather claimed him as its choicest repre-
sentative, the most complete expression of all its attainments and
aspirations. He studied his country and conformed to it. His
countrymen felt that he was the best type of America, and
rejoiced in it, and were proud of it. They lived in his life, and
made his success and his praise their own.
Profoundly impressed with confidence in God's providence,
and exemplary in his respect for the forms of public worship, no
philosopher of the eighteenth century was more firm in the sup-
port of freedom of religious opinion, none more remote from
bigotry; but belief in God, and trust in his overruling power,
formed the essence of his character. Divine wisdom not only
illumines the spirit, it inspires the will. Washington was a man
of action, and not of theory or words; his creed appears in his


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GEORGE BANCROFT
1457
life, not in his professions, which burst from him very rarely,
and only at those great moments of crisis in the fortunes of his
country, when earth and heaven seemed actually to meet, and
his emotions became too intense for suppression; but his whole
being was one continued act of faith in the eternal, intelligent,
moral order of the universe. Integrity was so completely the
law of his nature, that a planet would sooner have shot from its
sphere than he have departed from his uprightness, which was
so constant that it often seemed to be almost impersonal. «His
integrity was the most pure, his justice the most inflexible I
have ever known,” writes Jefferson; no motives of interest or
consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his
decision. ”
They say of Giotto that he introduced goodness into the art
of painting; Washington carried it with him to the camp and the
Cabinet, and established a new criterion of human greatness.
The purity of his will confirmed his fortitude: and as he never
faltered in his faith in virtue, he stood fast by that which he
knew to be just; free from illusions; never dejected by the appre-
hension of the difficulties and perils that went before him, and
drawing the promise of success from the justice of his cause.
Hence he was persevering, leaving nothing unfinished; devoid of
all taint of obstinacy in his firmness; seeking and gladly receiv-
ing advice, but immovable in his devotedness to right.
Of a retiring modesty and habitual reserve,” his ambition
was no more than the consciousness of his power, and was sub-
ordinate to his sense of duty; he took the foremost place, for he
knew from inborn magnanimity that it belonged to him, and he
dared not withhold the service required of him; so that, with all
his humility, he was by necessity the first, though never for him-
self or for private ends. He loved fame, the approval of coming
generations, the good opinion of his fellow-men of his own time,
and he desired to make his conduct coincide with his wishes;
but not fear of censure, not the prospect of applause could tempt
him to swerve from rectitude, and the praise which he coveted
was the sympathy of that moral sentiment which exists in every
human breast, and goes forth only to the welcome of virtue.
There have been soldiers who have achieved mightier victories
in the field, and made conquests more nearly corresponding to
the boundlessness of selfish ambition; statesmen who have been
connected with more startling upheavals of society: but it is the
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1458
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
greatness of Washington that in public trusts he used power
solely for the public good; that he was the life and moderator
and stay of the most momentous revolution in human affairs; its
moving impulse and its restraining power.
This also is the praise of Washington: that never in the tide
of time has any man lived who had in so great a degree the
almost divine faculty to command the confidence of his fellow-
men and rule the willing. Wherever he became known, in his
family, his neighborhood, his county, his native State, the con-
tinent, the camp, civil life, among the common people, in foreign
courts, throughout the civilized world, and even among the sav-
ages, he, beyond all other men, had the confidence of his kind.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
(1798-1846) (1796–1874)
were
mean,
**F THE writers who have won esteem by telling the pathetic
stories of their country's people, the names of John and
Michael Banim are ranked among the Irish Gael not lower
than that of Sir Walter Scott among the British Gael. The works of
the Banim brothers continued the same sad and fascinating story of
the “mere Irish ” which Maria Edgeworth and Lady Morgan had laid
to the hearts of English readers in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century days.