that gave it its name.

This "Bank so wild and rude, two hundred years ago, was first impressed with the step of civilized man.

The influence of local association is strong and universal. There is no one who has not felt it; and if it were possible, it would be useless, to withdraw the mind from its effects. We owe many of our deepest emotions, our highest and most ennobling feelings, to the suggestions of external nature. The place, which has been distinguished by the residence of one whom we love and admire, kindles in our minds a thousand conceptions which we can scarcely analyse or describe. The moral beauty of character and sentiment is insensibly blended with the beauty of natural scenery; memory and fancy, alike excited, pass from one object to another, and form combinations of beauty and grandeur, softened and shaded by time and distance, but having enough of life and freshness to awaken our feelings and hold undisputed dominion of our hearts. Here, then, let us indulge our emotions. On this spot our Forefathers trod. Here their energy and perseverance, their calm self-possession and practical vigor, were first called into action. Here they met and overcame difficulties, which would have overpowered the imagination, or subdued the fortitude of ordinary men. All that we see around us are memorials of their worth. It was their enterprise that opened a path for us over the waters. It was their energy that subdued the forest. They founded our institutions. They communicated to us our love of freedom. They gave us the impulse that made us what we are. It cannot then be

useless to live along the generations that have passed, and endeavour to identify ourselves with those who have gone before us. Who and what were they, who thus fill our imaginations, and as they rise before us, bring to our minds so many recollections of high sentiment, and steady fortitude, and sober enthusiasm? In what school were they formed? and what favorable circumstances impressed upon them that character of enduring energy, which even their present descendants may claim as their best inheritance? The answer to these questions is the subject to which your attention will be directed.

The character of individuals is always influenced, in a greater or less degree, by that of the nation in which they live. Sometimes, indeed, a great genius appears, who seems not to belong either to his age, or country; as a sunny day in winter will sometimes swell the buds and call forth the early flowers, as if it belonged to a milder season, or happier climate. But in general, to form an accurate opinion of the character of an individual, it becomes necessary to estimate that of his nation, at the time in which he lived. Our ancestors were Englishmen; were Merchantadventurers; were Puritans. The elements of their character are therefore to be found in the national character of England, modified in the individuals by the pursuits of commerce, and the profession of an austere but ennobling form of religion.

At the time of the first settlement of this country, the government of England was very nearly an absolute monarchy. Though the form of a Parliament existed, it possess

ed but little power or influence; and its effect upon the public administration was scarcely perceptible. The great mass of the people, indeed, considered monarchy, simple and unmixed, as their established government. But notwithstanding this theoretical despotism, and even frequent instances of practical tyranny, there were, at that time, circumstances in the situation of England that distinguished her favorably from other countries. The long and pacific reign of James the First had increased the wealth of the nation. The numerous gentry, finding no employment in war, and little allurement at court, which was neither splendid nor gay, were scattered through the country, where they at once improved their fortunes and nourished a sense of personal independence. The mere want of excitement was beginning at this time to turn their attention towards Parliament; where they soon proved themselves to be formidable opposers of the crown. It was only two years before the foundation of this colony, that the English House of Commons first asserted their right to freedom of speech. But though England presented externally the same appearance of regal supremacy with the neighbouring states, there were causes even then at work, which were destined to limit and even subdue the royal power.

Among nations, in any degree civilized, resistance to established authority rarely takes place, without being provoked by some unusual acts of oppression. There is a natural love among mankind for the institutions of their fathers; and men become attached even to a despotic government under which they were born, as they learn for the same

reason to love even a barren soil, and an inclement sky. Happily for us, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the oppressive acts of the government were both numerous and unusual. They were sufficient to arouse the attention, without subduing the courage of the people.

The warlike spirit, which had been nurtured by so many ages of civil dissension, still lingered in the hearts of Englishmen. They were still active, brave, and enterprising. The religious persecutions in France and the Low Countries had filled England with little colonies of industrious and intelligent men, who had abandoned every thing for liberty of conscience; and who brought with them and diffused around them their arts and enterprise, their love of liberty and religious zeal. These men were the precursors of the Pyms, Hampdens, and Vanes of the succeeding generation. Their example and influence added much to the spirit of independence that was beginning to pervade the middle orders of the people. The grand struggle against arbitrary power, which was made in the reign of Charles the First, and which brought that ill-fated monarch to the block, can be distinctly traced back through the reigns of James and Elizabeth to the dawnings of the reformation under Henry the Eighth. Like our own revolution, that struggle was not an insulated event, not a sudden explosion of passion or caprice, but a necessary consequence of the progress of human improvement. In 1623, the English character had already received the impulse which has carried it forward against so many opposing obstacles. The human mind was putting forth its energies, exalted by a pure religion,

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and enlarged by new views of truth." It was an age of excitement and adventure. There was in the character of the people a mixture of romantic fancy and practical heroism, that, when excited by the religious controversies of the times, rendered them capable of every thing that was great and daring in action or suffering. Notwithstanding the vices of the government, it was, in 1623, a proud distinction to be an Englishman. It was from this people, that our ancestors The scion was cut from the tree, not indeed at its full maturity covered with leaves and fruit, but at a far more favorable season, when the bark was green, and the buds swelling, and the energies of nature working at the root.

came.

The first settlement at Piscataquack differs from that of the neighbouring colonies of Plymouth and the Massachusetts, in the commercial spirit in which it was undertaken. Winslow, Carver, and Bradford, and those other worthies of the Old Colony, whose names should stand higher on the rolls of fame than the founders of the Grecian Republics, came to this wilderness merely to enjoy liberty of conscience. They were, many of them, men of fortune and letters, who sought in this new world only an asylum for their persecuted church. Our ancestors were of humbler rank; and yet perhaps no less worthy of commemoration. They were generally of the class, denominated in the reign of Elizabeth, Merchant-adventurers; that is, men who traded in foreign countries upon capital furnished them by merchants at home. They were, of course, the most active and intelligent and enterprising of the commercial class. They united in their habits the hardihood and daring spirit of the