[Pamphlets. American history]

40
adopted, (1789) to the present day! Of France and
Frenchmen I never wish to speak but with respect and
tenderness. For revolutionary services we owe them a
debt of gratitude not soon to be repaid. Among the human agencies by which our liberties were established,
the French alliance holds no second place; as- Lafayette
held no second place in the heart of Washington. But
so often as I take up a volume of the history of their
revolution, of the works, for instance, of Thiers or Lamartine, works by no means intended to paint in dark
colors the men or deeds which they describe, I rise from
the perusal with overwhelming sadness. After sickening
over the horrors of that dreadful period,-the butchery,
I do not say, of kings and queens, —but of grey-haired
men, of women, of priests; the atrocities of the human
tigers who pr'yed on the life-blood of France, and dared
to invoke the sacred name of republican liberty as the
cover of their abominations, I am fain to turn for relief
to the pages of our own revolutionary history; to gather
renewed hope for constitutional freedom from the writings of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay; new lessons of true
patriotism from the story of Warren, of Putnam, and
Prescott; new faith in humanity (for that is what we
most want) from the spotless career of Washington. I
make the transition with feelings like those which one
experiences, when, after wandering for hours through
the dark, dripping, narrow passages of a dismal mine,deafened with the clank of enginery and the roar of subterranean waters, oppressed with the grave-like heaviness and chill of the air, choked with sulphurous vapors,