Star.
London, England, 1820-03-02 00:00:00

than I cawespress. The lifeless, unadorned street in
which a traveller would read his book as he drove
!broil:4h it, will electrify me at every step. I shall
gaze on.the old plastered church-wall (if it he yet
standing), where I used to toil At fives, when I was
a boy. with more pleasure than St.. Peter's at Rome
could bestow. Gentlemen, these sensations are uni-
versal, and they illustrate tlle DiVINE PROVIDENCE
in the economy of the world. Some parts of it are
I covered with never-fading fruits and flowers, whilst
others are stationed where vegetation sickens, and
human life almost goes out. Some are distinguished
by the most inviting advantages, others by the most
discouragingimpediments to comfort ; but the instinc-
tive love of country gives equal lu tre and enjoy-
ment to them all. Without this, inde d, these would
be no such thing as a people, and we shouid be still
roaming about, as in the earliest times, in quest of
new habitations, without any attraction to our own:
but Goo has benevolently ordered it otherwise, and,
however men may be driven to seek their fortunes,
or even their bread, in the most distant Countries,
they still return when they can to their own, and with
a propensity sometimes amounting even to disease.
This useful, this virtuous attachment, for which Scot-
land has ever been proverbially and fondly preemi-
nent, is the foundation-stone of all nations, on which,
by a kind of universal freemasonry, if I may so ex-,
r:ess myself, it builds up individuals into a state, ce-
ments theratogether, and endears them to one another. •
—lt is the true, or rather the only soutce of coil-
rage, or patriotism, and of every public virtue. Our
Officers by sea and land, who have commanded, and
our sailors and soldiers who have obeyed them, in
the storm and fury of so many battles, could only
have stood collected in their stations, or firm at their
guns, and in their ranks, by the fund remembrance
cf their countries, from the sense of what their coun-
trymen exile, ted from them, and the honours that
might attend them on their return. What else
couid have sustained our brave, our immortal
Highlanders, in the squares they lately formed
against cavalry, clothed in steel, and artillery, im•
pelled on them by the swiftest hor.s s'? What but
the sensations which I have in vain endeavoured to
describe ? No doubt, the Duke cf Wellington thought
of Ireland at Waterloo ; and Lord Nelson, when in
sight of the superior fleets of reance and Spain, at
Trafalgar, knowing, from long experience, the hearts
1 of his seamen, sent round to every ship, along with
the signal for battle—" England expects that every
man will do his duty !•' Tu bring this nearer .home
to us, must not Lord Duncan have thought of Scot-
land, when it depended upon the wind whether it
•should bring his defeat or his glory into Yarmouth
or Leith Roads ? He thought, no doubt, of his son,
who sits on my right, and that his fame would place
him its the high ranks of his country.
Gentlemen—l would not have tired you with these
remarks, but that they apply, most forcibly and di-
rectly, to the kind, to the never-to-be-forgotten re-
ception with is hich you are now honouring me.—
How, indeed, can I adequately express my thanks ?
They who knew me in my youth are, for the most
part, fallen into the grave ; and I could have had no
attentions here, except in the few remaining friendly
relationships of blood and kindred, and the notice
taken of all strangers in this hospitable city, but for
that noble principle, illustrated by yourselves to-day,
which consummates the fabric of civil society ; that
bond of union, from similar opinions- between men of
the same country, in what is best to advance its pros-
perity. GOD forbid that we should, therefore, be
cold to those who differ from us, or that we should
suffer political opinions in any manner to disturb
private life, so as to render its intercourses less
pleasant or friendly ! But there is, at the same time,
a sound political principle in the closer union of those
who have long thought and acted with one another,
but which excludes not at all the most unqualified
regard for those of the most opposite sentiments. We
ought to respect men of all opinions, who honestly
entertain them. The more, nevertheless, that this tie
of similar opinions is considered, the more satisfae-
tory it will appear. Many dangerous temptations
surround public men to resist improvements, and to'
support those, against their consciences, who are the
fountains of reward : and it is, therefore, in my opi-
oion, one of the wisest of social combinations, above
all in a free country, to adhere to and favour one
another in proportion as, with just allowance for rea-
sonable differences of opinion, they have adopted and
stood fast by the same system of political govern-
ment. To this sound principle, illustrated, as I have
just remarked, by your friendly consideration, I owe
the honour of this day. Though coming so lately
oat of one of your London packets, in Leith-
roads, scarcely recognizing, when 1 came upon the
deck, either Inchkenh or Arthur's-seat, after more
than halla century's absence, and coming thence to
this New City, not one stone of which stood upon
another when I left Old Edinburgh, which gave me
birth, I yet found myself suddenly in the midst •of
this numerous assembly of honourable, learned, pub-
lic-spirited, honest men, receiving me in a manner
which I cannot but feel to be very far beyond my
merits, thus enjoying much more than any distinc_
tion which the longest residence amongst you could
hive entitled me to expect. There is but one thing
only, for which, GOD knows, I can take any kind of
credit to myself. If 1 had been so unfortunate as to
have looked only to the most probable and shortest
road to eminence—if 1 had thereby attained it at'an
earlier period, and had enjoyed it to this hour with
corresponding wealth, instead of being, as I am, a
mere private man—if this had happened to me, by
a departure from all the principles which, whether.
right or wrong, I was known notoriously to entertain
through a long► life, I might have found here the
cold.distinction of a higher elevation, but could never
hare looktd you, toy countrymen, in the face as I
now do ;—nor would you have given me the occasion
which fills me this moment with so much satisfaction
and delight.
, Gentlemen—When you have done me so mach ho-
nour and kindness, and have taken notice of my past
public life with such partial and flattering approba•
(ion, I think myself bound to say to you shortly
what my opinions are, as they apply to the present
moment, one of the most critical that has ever ex-
isted in this country. It is a period of great and
widely extended suffering, attended, in my opinion,
with much less than a proportional degree of discon-
tent ; and, without now adverting to the causes,
which 1 shall notice presently, I consider that the
only remedy for this dissatisfaction, in• our justly