The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-28 00:00:00

SENATE.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 29, 1813.—As soon as the journal
was read a Message was announced from the President
of the United States.

The Message having been read--
Mr. Rives rose and addressed the Senate as follows:

"Mr. President,—The general feeling of the Senate
has, I am sure, already anticipated me in what I have
risen to suggest. The awful calamity communicated to
us in the message of the President just read, and which
has made of yesterday, with all its earthly brightness,
one of the darkest and most inauspicious days in our
national calendar, is but too well known to the Senate
in all its dreadful details and heart-rending results.
Surely, Mr. President, never, in the mysterious ordi-
nances of God, has a day on earth been -marked in
its progress by such startling and astounding con-
trasts—opening and advancing with hilarity and
joy, mutual congratulation and patriotic pride,
and closing in scenes of death and disaster, of lamen-
tation and unutterable woe. It was my sad fortune, Mr.
President, to be an eye-witness to these never-to-be-for-
gotten events. If I had language to describe them, the
power of speech would fail me. I have risen in the midst
of the universal sadness and dejection of heart which pre-
vail around me, and under the oyerpoivering weight of
my own feelings, to suggest the propriety of suspending
our ordinary labours and pursuits, in the presence and
under the chastisement of this awful visitation -of Provi-
dence. It has fallen to the lot of my own State to be the
chief mourner on this melancholy occasion. Two of her
distinguished citizens, filling high places in the civil gov-
ernment of the country, have been cut down in the midst
of their days and their usefulness; and another of her sons
a gallant officer of the navy, has been destined to fall, by
disastrous accident, on a deck which, under other cir-
cumstances; he might have illustrated by his valour.
But, in so overwhelming a calamity, which stands al-
most without a parallel in the records of human mis-
fortune; all bear their equal and sympathising share.
Surrounded, as we are, on every hand, by the desolate
wailing of the widow and the helpless cry of the orphan,
none of us can be in a state of mind to discharge, with
intelligence and composure, the duties which belong to us
here. Let us then, Mr. President, bowing in all humility
of spirit beneath this stroke of an all-wise and. mysterious
Providence, discard from our minds, for a season, the cares
and excitements of our daily duties in this hull. Let us
lay to heart the monitory lessons so impressively read to
us in the events of yesterday, that in the midst of life
we are in death.' With this lesson engraven on our
hearts, let us keep constantly in view the eternal as well
as temporal responsibilities under which all the duties of
both public and private life are to be performed. Let
the deep sense of common calamity and mutual affliction
unite us more closely by the ties of brotherhood and
affection. Let us ' put away from us all bitterness and
wrath, and evil speaking ;' and when we come together
again,. under these chastening influences, we shall all
feel, I trust, how much better patriots we are for being
better Christians."

Mr. R. concluded by submitting the following resolu-
tions :

" Resolved, That the Senate is impressed with a pro-
found sense of the awful calamity which yesterday oc-
curred on board of the Princeton, by the explosion of a
gun, involving the loss of many valuable lives, and
among them of the Secretary of State and Secretary of
the Navy.
" Resolved, That the Senate will attend in a body the
obsequies of the deceased members of the Cabinet, and a
Committee of five be 'appointed to make arrangements
withssuch Committee as may be appointed on the part of
the House of Representatives for the funeral.
Resolved, That the Members of the Senate will go
into mourning, by wearing crape on the left arm for
thirty days.
" Resolved, That • a copy of the foregoing 'resolutions
be transmitted to the President of the United States.

" Resolved, That, in consideration of the afflictive
dispensation, the Senate do now adjourn to Monday
next."

The resolutions having been read, a message was re-
ceived from the House of Representatives, announcing
the action of,that body touching this awful' calamity.
The message was read and concurred in..
The resolutions submitted by Mr. Rives were unani-
mously agreed to, and the following Senators were ap-
pointed a Committee of arrangement on the part of the
Senate to act in conjunction with the Committee on the
part of the House of Representatives, viz.—Messrs.
Rives, Archer, King, Woodbury, and Bayard.
The Senate, then, in accordance with its previous
action, adjourned till Monday nett,