officers of the regulars and minute-men, and the general superintendence of the recruiting service.'* "The origination of committees of correspondence between the legislatures of the different States, which partially led to the first Continental Congress, belongs, as Mr. Jefferson informs us, to Virginia. By her delegates, too, was the resolution for the declaration of independence first moved in the Continental Congress in 1776,‡ and by her own distinguished son was that immortal document drawn. Of her may be said, what, perhaps, can be said of none of the other States, that there was no important theatre of military operations, and after Bunker Hill, no important battle, in which her blood did not freely flow. From the heights of Abram and Boston, in the north, to Charleston and Augusta, in the south, and from Germantown and Yorktown, in the east, to Vincennes and Kaskaskia, in the west, her sons were every where in the field. In 1780, Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Gen. Washington, says: The number ordered from this State into the northern service are about seven thousand. I trust we may count that fifty-five hundred will actually proceed.'|| In a report, made at the first session of the twenty-eighth Congress by the Hon. E. W. Hubard of our own State, it is proved that Virginia furnished sixteen continental regiments, besides Lee's light armed corps, and Bland's regiment of cavalry, and also seven State regiments, and a State navy numbering 1,500 men.§ Mr. Jefferson, in an application to Gen. Washington for a loan of some supplies from Fort Pitt for an expedition which Virginia meditated against Detroit, says: We think the like friendly office performed by us to the States, whenever desired, and almost to the absolute exhaustion of our own magazines, give well founded hopes that we may be accommodated on this occasion. The supplies of military stores which have been furnished by us to Fort Pitt itself, to the northern army, and most of all to the southern, are not altogether unknown to you.'¶ "Again, in speaking of the unarmed condition of the militia, he says: Yet if they (Congress) would repay us the arms we have lent them, we should give the enemy trouble, though abandoned to ourselves.'** In the whole of this great and difficult contest, I believe there is no taint of selfishness, or illiberality, to be found in the conduct of Virginia. Her escutch 9th Hening, Preface. Jeff. vol. i, pp. 4 and 94. Ibid. p. 184. § Rep. p. 94. ¶Jeff. vol. i, p. 199. Ibid. p. 94. p. 210. ** Ibid. eon was borne by her sons through that fiery ordeal unstained by aught save the blood of the battle-field, or the smoke of the fight. Hers, too, was that son of whom it was so justly said, after the scenes of his life were closed, that he had been 'first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.' Is it just to such men that so much of their story should be lost to mankind? These men undoubtedly had a proper regard to fame. Were they not entitled to it? Shall it be lost, from the want of pious care on the part of their descendants to preserve the evidences, and set up the monuments of their title to the love and respect of their race? And how much have we not already lost? The whole story of our State navy is now gone; it is not known even to tradition. And yet I myself once heard Commodore Barron, who was a midshipman in that service, relate some incidents in its career so stirring, and give so many reasons for deploring the loss of its history, as must make me ever regret that my countrymen should have been so insensible to the value of their own story, as neither to have written it themselves, nor even preserved the materials for another to do it for them. The tombs of our revolutionary fathers lie thick around us, but the faithful chisel, or the pious care, is wanting to renew the inscriptions, or remove the rank grass which hides them from the eyes of man, for which alone they were intended. The fame of good and great deeds, even though it be inherited, is of no small value; it opens for us a readier access to the confidence of others, and creates within ourselves a new incitement to virtue. How is such an inheritance to be preserved without the aid of history? "I know that this is the age of material development; never has man dealt so largely or so intimately with matter as now; never has he exerted such powers to control it; never have his physical comforts or material resources been so great. But is there no danger that, in our aspirations after material wealth and power, we shall forget what is more priceless still, moral elevation and grandeur? It is much to improve the country, but more to improve the people. To afford new incitements to honor and virtue by wise and eloquent precept, or by what is still more persuasive, high example; to win as a people the trophies of fame; to store up in the national repositories of thought, ideas which can serve to instruct and delight mankind; these, after all, are the achievements which tell most upon the page of history, and these constitute the only imperishable wealth of a nation. But if we have no history, what can its pages tell of us, or for us? We must learn by the light of others, and live by the examples which they may give us. Without a history of our own, we can expect neither unity nor consistency of national character, we may hope for no system of culture properly our own, we cannot maintain even a just self-respect, nor have we a right to expect from our sons a high ambition or noble aspirations. They may spring up autochthons in the soil, but they must grow as they spring, unaided by our hand, for we refuse even a memorial to the man who may fall in our service. As I understand it, Mr. President, it is to prevent such a want of history, as would, indeed, be a reproach to our people, that your society has been organized, and is laboring; and I now appear before you to call public attention, as far as I am able, to the great value and importance of your pursuits. Let it not be said that, while the whole world is alive to matters of historical interest, we alone should be dead to the importance of our own story, and insensible to the duty we owe to those who have preceded us, and those who will succeed us, to guard and preserve its materials at least. But throwing out of view all consideration of duty, is there nothing attractive in the study of Virginia history itself? Is there nothing in the strange scenes of warfare and adventure, through which the settlements extended from the shores of the Chesapeake to those of the Ohio and Mississippi, to stir the blood, or kindle the glow of sympathetic feeling? Is there no interest in the wild march of the pioneer who led the advance of this line of settlement, finding a friend and a home wherever he might have companionship with nature; whose aspects were as familiar to him in her deepest solitudes, or least accessible retreats, as when she smiled most pleasantly upon the usual abodes of man? "Who would recall, if he could, the lost traditions of that bold spirit, who willingly staked existence itself upon any venture, no matter how desperate or wild, if it promised to gratify his peculiar tastes, and casting all fear behind him, penetrated the very depths of the wilderness, where he could only hold his life upon the double condition of pursuing his game, and eluding the savage by a woodcraft, and a courage superior to his own? Undoubtedly the day will come, when the little that is left of this history, will be sought after with the most eager curiosity, and become a favorite object of antiquarian research. To collect its stray sibylline leaves will yet be a labor of love. Even now, I think, I shall find many to agree with me in the opinion that the institutions and civil deeds of the old fathers of our State, well deserve the study and commemoration of her sons. "These were, indeed, such men as had no need to ask for more than to be fairly known, and who might truly say: After my death I wish no other herald, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.' "You may have observed, Mr. President, that in the course of my brief review of a portion of Virginia history, I have said nothing of the period since the adoption of the present federal constitution. To have done so would have extended this address beyond its proper limits, and involved topics whose discussion might disturb the party feelings of the day. My object has been to develop the moral, and unity of our history, and to present it in such a point of view as should be above and beyond party considerations and influences. For that purpose, I have shown how our ancestors, through succeeding generations, labored for the great end of so adjusting the social and particular interests of man, as to give the largest amount of individual liberty and power, which might be consistent with the necessary protection of a regularly organized society. Indeed, with some, it has been a matter of reproach to Virginia, that in the pursuit of this end, she sacrificed too many of the elements of social strength and wealth. But the fruits of this system are to be found in the individual excellence which it developed, and the number of great men that it produced, during the period of which I have been treating, and through which the State adhered to it most exclusively I think, too, I have shown that during this time, her social achievements were such as would have done honor to any people of the same number and means, in any era, or part of the world. If Lord Bacon was right in saying that the 'plantations of new countries are amongst the primitive and most heroic works of man,' then surely Virginia is entitled to a high place in the order of human achievement. Until the time of the American experiment in government, the efforts of statesmen, and the refinements of their skill, seem to have been wholly directed to the ends of social strength and progress. With that experiment commenced the first great forward movement in favor of individual liberty, and the most successful form of political organization for making that development compatible with social strength and order. Amongst the leaders in this movement, if not at its head, Virginia is entitled to be ranked, and when she takes her appropriate place in the great Pantheon of History, there shall ascend from her altars, not the smoke from the blood of her victims, but the grateful incense of the noblest of human aspirations, those of the soul, after a larger liberty of self-development, and a wider range in the boundless domain of thought. In the great Epos of Humanity we see nation after nation seizing the torch of civilization as it passes to the head of the column to lead the advance in the mighty march of our race. In the struggle for mastery, some faint and some fall by the wayside. Nationalities decay, and the forms of their institutions pass away, but each, ere it leaves the scene, bequeaths its great and characteristic thought as an everlasting possession to man. Beneath the very ashes of their decay lives a fire whose light is as imperishable as truth itself, and which is capable of transmission from generation to generation, so long as the human mind exists to afford the subject to feed the sacred flame. Some leave a new light, and others inspire a higher hope to guide or to animate the march of humanity. When we look thus to the achievements of others, and reckon up the legacies of immortal thought bequeathed by the past to the present, is it extravagant to hope that Virginia, too, may contribute her idea whose type may be found hereafter in some new stage of human progress. It is a pious wish, and for one I dare to indulge it." ART. 9.-APPLICATIONS OF CHEMISTRY. Chemistry applied to dyeing. BY JAMES NAPIER, F. R. S. Illustrated with engravings. Philadelphia, Henry Carey Baird, 1853. Ir cannot be denied that, in mental activity, the present age far exceeds any of its predecessors. It is not because some school of literature has been founded, some fashion has been set in versification, some clique of authors has been formed, that we so characterize this century. There is, on the contrary, a universal agitation of the minds of men, a breaking loose from old restraints. New opinions on all sub |