thronging about the old man, and guarding with their manly limbs. the hoary head of their parent. They were all murdered; and in a moment of time this valiant race was blotted from the book of living men!

The vengeance which the French took of the Swiss, for their determined opposition to the invasion of their country, was decisive and terrible. The history of Europe can afford no parallel of such cruelty. To dark ages, and the most barbarous nations of the East, we must turn in vain. The soldiers, dispersed over the country, carried fire and sword and robbery into the most tranquil and hidden valleys of Switzerland. From the depth of sweet retreats echoed the shrieks of murdered men, stabbed in their humble dwellings, under the shadow of the high mountains, in the midst of those scenes of nature which make solemn and pure the secret thought of man, and appal him with the majesty of God. The flying peasants saw, in the midst of the night, their cottages, their implements of husbandry, and the hopes of the future year, expiring in one cruel conflagration.

The Swiss was a simple peasant; the French are a mighty people, combined for the regeneration of Europe. O, Europe! what dost thou owe to this mighty people?-dead bodies, ruinous heaps, broken hearts, endless confusion, and unutterable woe! By this mighty people the Swiss have lost their country; that country which they loved so well, that, if they heard but the simple song of their childhood, tears fell down every manly face, and the hearts of intrepid soldiers sobbed with grief!

UNLAWFUL MILITARY COMBINATIONS. — J. McLean.

AN obedience to the laws is the first duty of every citizen. It lies at the foundation of our noble political structure; and when this great principle shall be departed from, with the public sanction, the moral influence of our government must terminate. If there be any one line of policy in which all political parties it is that we should keep aloof from the agitations of other

agree,

governments; that we shall not intermingle our national concerns with theirs; and much more, that our citizens shall abstain from acts which lead the subjects of other governments to violence and bloodshed.

zens.

A government is justly held responsible for the acts of its citiAnd if this government be unable or unwilling to restrain our citizens from acts of hostility against a friendly power, such power may hold this nation answerable declare war against it. Every citizen is, therefore, bound by the regard he has for his country, by his reverence for its laws, and by the calamitous consequences of war, to exert his influence in suppressing the unlawful enterprises of our citizens against any foreign and friendly power.

History affords no example of a nation or people that uniformly took part in the internal commotions of other governments which did not bring ruin upon themselves. These pregnant examples should guard us against a similar policy, which must lead to a similar result. A war with a powerful nation, with whom we have the most extensive relations, commercial and social, would inflict upon our country the greatest calamity. It would dry up the sources of its prosperity, and deluge it in blood.

The great principles of our republican institutions cannot be propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, and not physical. If we desire the political regeneration of oppressed nations, we must show them the simplicity, the grandeur and the freedom, of our own government. We must recommend it to the intelligence and virtue of other nations by its elevated and enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and the protection it affords to all its citizens, and the liberty they enjoy. And if, in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high bequests of our fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall do more to liberalize other governments, and emancipate their subjects, than could be accomplished by millions of bayonets. This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. It addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgment of men. No physical force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are unseen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces

of kings and emperors. We should cherish this power, as essential to the preservation of our government, and as the most efficient means of ameliorating the political condition of our race. And this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism.

I invoke, therefore, in behalf of the tribunals of justice, the moral power of society. I ask it to aid them in suppressing a combination of deluded or abandoned citizens, which imminently threatens the peace and prosperity of the country. And I have no fears that, when public attention shall be roused on this deeply important subject, when the laws are understood and the duties of the government, and when the danger is seen and properly appreciated, there will be an expression so potent, from an enlightened and patriotic people, as to suppress all combinations in violation of the laws, and which threaten the peace of the country.

AMBIGUITY OF SPEECH. R. Choate.

SIR, I have been exceedingly struck, while listening to gentlemen, with the fact that while the ends and objects at which they aim are all so pacific, their speeches are strewn and sown thick, broad-cast, with so much of the food and nourishment of war. Their ends and objects are peace a treaty of peace; but their means and their topics wear a certain incongruous grimness of aspect. The "bloom is on the rye; "but, as you go near, you see bayonet-points sparkling beneath, and are fired upon by a thousand men in ambush! The end they aim at is peace; but the means of attaining it are an offensive and absurd threat. Their ends and their objects are peace; yet how full have they stuffed the speeches we have been hearing with every single topic the best calculated to blow up the passions of kindred races to the feverheat of battle!

I declare, sir, that while listening to senators whose sincerity and patriotism I cannot doubt, and to this conflict of topics and objects with which they half bewilder me, I was forcibly reminded

of that consummate oration in the streets of Rome, by one who came to bury Cæsar, not to praise him." He did not wish to stir up anybody to mutiny and rage! O, no! He would not have a finger lifted against the murderers of his and the people's friendnot he! He feared he wronged them; yet who has not admired the exquisite address and the irresistible effect with which he returns again and again to "sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths," and put a tongue in each, to the familiar mantle, first worn on the evening of the day his great friend overcame the Nervii, now pierced by the cursed steel of Cassius, of the envious Casca, of the well-beloved Brutus,to his legacy of drachmas, arbors and orchards, to the people of Rome, whose friend, whose benefactor, he shows to them, all marred by traitors, - till the mob break away from his words of more than fire, with:

"We will be revenged! -Revenge! About!

Seek-burn-fire-kill-slay !-let not a traitor live!"

Antony was insincere. Senators are wholly sincere. Yet the contrast between their pacific professions and that revelry of belligerent topics and sentiments which rings and flashes in their speeches here half suggests a doubt to me, sometimes, whether they or I perfectly know what they mean or what they desire. They promise to show you a garden, and you look up to see nothing but a wall" with dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms!" They propose to teach you how peace is to be preserved; and they do it so exquisitely that you go away half inclined to issue letters of marque and reprisal to-morrow morning.

The proposition is peace; but the audience rises and goes off with a sort of bewildered and unpleasing sensation, that if there were a thousand men in all America as well disposed as the orator, peace might be preserved; but that, as the case stands, it is just about hopeless! I ascribe it altogether to their anxious and tender concern for peace, that senators have not a word to say about the good she does, but only about the dangers she is in. They have the love of compassion, not the love of desire. Not a word about the countless blessings she scatters from her golden urn; but only

"the pity of it, Iago! the pity of it!" to think how soon the dissonant clangor of a thousand brazen throats may chase that bloom from her cheek,

"And Death's pale flag be quick advanced there.”

Sir, no one here can say one thing and mean another; yet much may be meant, and nothing directly said. "The dial spoke not, but pointed full upon the stroke of murder.”

WARS OF KINDRED RACES. W. Gaston.

THERE is something in the character of a war made upon the people of a country to force them to abandon a government which they cherish, and to become the subjects or associates of their invaders, which necessarily involves calamities beyond those incident to ordinary wars. Among us some remain who remember the horrors of the invasion of the Revolution; and "others of us have hung with reverence on the lips of narrative old age, as it related the interesting tale." Such a war is not a contest between those only who seek for renown in military achievements, or the more humble mercenaries "whose business 'tis to die." It breaks in upon all the charities of domestic life, and interrupts all the pursuits of industry. The peasant quits his plough, and the mechanic is hurried from his shop, to commence, without apprenticeship, the exercise of the trade of death. The irregularity of the resistance which is opposed to the invader, its occasional obstinacy and occasional intermission, provoking every bad passion of his soldiery, is the excuse for plunder, lust, and cruelty. These atrocities exasperate the sufferers to revenge; and every weapon which anger can supply, and every device which ingenious hatred can conceive, is used to inflict vengeance on the detested foe.

As there is no anger so deadly as the anger of a friend, there is no war so ferocious as that which is waged between men of the same blood, and formerly connected by the closest ties of affection. The pen of the historian confesses its inability to describe, the fervid