Here growing Commerce fhall unfold her fail,
Load the rich bark, and woo the inland gale.
Far to the weft, where favage hordes refide,
Smooth Miffifippi rolls his copious tide,
And fair Ohio weds his filver fide.

Hail, happy States! thine is the blifsful feat,
"Where nature's gifts and art's improvements meet.
Thy temp'rate air breathes health; thy fertile foil,
In copious plenty, pays the labourer's toil.

Afk not for mountains of Peruvian ore,

Nor court the duft that shines on Afric's fhore,
The plough explores for thee the richest mine;
Than autumn's fruit, no goodlier ore can fhine.
O'er the wide plain and through the op'ning glade,
Flows the canal obfequious to the spade.
Commerce to wealth and knowledge turns the key,
Floats o'er the land and fails to ev'ry fea.
Thrice happy art! be thy white-fail unfurl'd,
Not to corrupt, but socialize the world.

The mufe prophetic views the coming day,
When federal laws beyond the line fhall fway.
Where Spanish indolence inactive lies,
And ev'ry art and ev'ry virtue dies;
Where pride and avarice their empire hold,
Ignobly great, and poor amid their gold,
Columbia's genius fhall the mind inspire,
And fill each breaft with patriotic fire.
Nor eaft nor western oceans shall confine
The gen'rous flame that dignifies the mind;
O'er all the earth fhall freedom's banner wave,
The tyrant blaft, and liberate the flave.
Plenty and peace shall spread from pole to pole,
Till earth's grand family poffefs one soul.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MASTER AND SLAVE.

OW, villain! what have you to say for

Mafter. NOW this fecond attempt to run away? Is

there any punishment that you do not deferve?

Slave. I well know that nothing I can fay will avail. I fubmit to my fate.

Maft. But are you not a base fellow, a hardened and ungrateful rafcal?

I

Slave. I am a flave. That is answer enough. Maft. I am not content with that answer. thought I difcerned in you fome tokens of a mind fuperior to your condition. I treated you accordingly. You have been comfortably fed and lodged, not overworked, and attended with the most humane care when you were fick. And is this the return?

Slave. Since you condefcend to talk with me, as man to man, I will reply. What have you done, what can you do for me, that will compensate for the liberty which you have taken away?

Maft. I did not take it away. You were a flave when I fairly purchased you.

Slave. Did I give my confent to the purchase? Maft. You had no confent to give. You had already loft the right of difpofing of yourself.

Slave. I had loft the power, but how the right? I was treacherously kidnapped in my own country, when following an honeft occupation. I was put in chains, fold to one of your countrymen, carried by force on board his fhip, brought hither, and expofed to fale like a beaft in the market, where you bought me.

What

ftep in all this progrefs of violence and injuftice can give a right? Was it in the villain who ftole me, in the flave-merchant who tempted him to do fo, or in you who encouraged the flave-merchant to bring his cargo of human cattle to cultivate your lands?

Maft. It is in the order of Providence that one man fhould become fubfervient to another. It ever has been fo, and ever will be. I found the custom, and did not make it.

Slave. You cannot but be fenfible, that the robber who puts a piftol to your breaft may make juft the fame plea. Providence gives him a power over your life and property; it gave my enemies a power over my liberty. But it has alfo given me legs to escape with; and what fhould prevent me from ufing them? Nay, what should restrain me from retaliating the wrongs I have fuffered, if a favourable occafion fhould offer?

Maft. Gratitude; I repeat, gratitude! Have I not endeavored ever fince I poffeffed you to alleviate your misfortunes by kind treatment; and does that confer no obligation? Confider how much worfe your condition might have been under another master.

Slave. You have done nothing for me more than for your working cattle. Are they not well fed and tended? do you work them harder than your flaves? is not the rule of treating both defigned only for your own advantage? You treat both your men and beast flaves better than fome of your neighbours, because you are more prudent and wealthy than they.

Maft. You might add, more humane too.

Slave. Humane! Does it deferve that appellation to keep your fellow-men in forced fubjection, deprived of all exercife of their free will, liable to all the injuries that your own caprice, or the brutality of your overfeers, may heap on them, and devoted, foul and body, only to your pleasure and emolument? Can gratitude take place between creatures in fuch a state, and the tyrant who holds them in it? Look at these limbs; are they not those of a man? Think that I have the fpirit of a man too.

Maft. But it was my intention not

only to make

your life tolerably comfortable at prefent, but to prot vide for you in your old age. W

Slave. Alas! is a life like mine, torn from country friends, and all I held dear, and compelled to toil under the burning fun for a master, worth thinking about for old age? No; the fooner it ends, the fooner I fhall obtain that relief for which my foul pants.

Maft. Is it impoffible, then, to hold you by any ties but thofe of constraint and feverity?

Slave. It is impoffible to make one, who has felt the value of freedom, acquiefce in being a flave.

Maft. Suppofe I were to restore you to your liberty, would you reckon that a favour ?

Slave. The greatest; for although it would only be undoing a wrong, I know too well how few among mankind are capable of facrificing intereft to justice, not to prize the exertion when it is made.

Maft. I do it, then; be free.

Slave. Now I am indeed your fervant, though not your flave. And as the first return I can make for your kindness, I will tell you freely the condition in which you live. You are furrounded with implacable foes. who long for a fafe opportunity to revenge upon you and the other planters all the miferies they have endured. The more generous their natures, the more indignant they feel against that cruel injuftice which has dragged them hither, and doomed them to perpetual fervitude. You can rely on no kindness on your part, to foften the obduracy of their refentment. You have reduced them to the state of brute beafts; and if they have not the ftupidity of beasts of burden, they muft have the ferocity of beasts of prey. Superior force alone can give you fecurity. As foon as that fails you are at the mercy of the mercilefs. Such is the focial bond between master and flave!

་

PART OF MR. O'CONNOR'S SPEECH IN THE IRIH HOUSE OF COMMONS, IN FAVOUR OF THE BILL FOR EMANCIPATING THE ROMAN CATHOLICS, 1795

I

FI were to judge from the dead filence with which my fpeech has been received, I fhould suspect that what I have faid was not very palatable to fome men in this House. But I have not risked connexions, endeared to me by every tie of blood and friendship, to fupport one fet of men in preference to another. I have hazarded too much, by the part I have taken, to allow the breath of calumny to taint the objects I have had in view. Immutable principles, on which the happiness and liberty of my countrymen depend, convey to my mind the only fubftantial boon for which great facrifices should be made.

And I here avow myfelf the zealous and carnest advocate for the most unqualified emancipation of my catholic countrymen ; in the hope and conviction, that the monopoly of the rights and liberties of my country, which has hitherto effectual withstood the efforts of a part of the people, muft yield to the unanimous will, to the decided intereft, and to the general effort of a whole united people. It is from this conviction, and it is for that tranfcendently important object, that, while the noble Lord and the Right Honorable Secretary, are offering to risk their lives and fortunes in support of a fyftem that militates against the liberty of my countrymen, I will risk every thing dear to me on earth.

It is for this great object I have, I fear, more than risked connexions dearer to me than life itself. But he must be a fpiritless man, and this a fpiritlefs nation, not to resent the bafeness of a British Minister, who has raised our hopes in order to feduce a rival to fhare with him the difgrace of this accurfed political crufade, and blast them afterwards, that he may degrade a competitor