Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1812-03-20
From the Connecticut Courans.
DAME EXPERIENCE.

/ DAME EXPERIENCE.
! Experience has been schooling mankind
copstaD,y FOR thousands Of years Some few
vino are docie AID sharp sighted, she gently
/ cads by the hand, Or points them onward with
neg finger; so that they escape the traps and
snares which are laid for their feet in the path
Of life Others, who are forward and pur-
blind, she whips numerically; yet the greater
part of them grow never the wiser either Tor
her lessons Of her iashes.
al history is as it were one great chart
drawn by the hand Of experience on the
| which are distinctly marked down, the nu-
merous eddies, rocks, shoals and quicksands,
/ that are met with in the voyage OF life. We
need but look over this chart, Or map, careful
| ", and we see how some who began the voy-
| sge Of life prosperously, have been dashed
| AGAINST this rock, and others swallowed up in
! that whirlpool; how some have plunged head
long into lAie particular ptial, and others have
| been caught in thtt particular snare.-And
| thus we might profit from the disasters OF
! those who have gone before us, and by shun-
Ming their course, might avoid their ruiD.-
Yet these advantages for the prudent steerage
! Of human life, are lost upon the bulk Of mar
! kind: they refuse to grow wise from the eXpe-
/ licnCc of others, and arc driven headlong by
| their passions into the same tracks which thou
| sands and millions before them had trodden to
! their own destruction.
! And as with individuals, so with nations,
| they don't profit as they might do, by the
! history Of the nations that preceded them,
or are their contemporaries. Ii we cast our
| eyes over the lines and characters which eX-
perience has been marking down, from age
! to age, ever since the beginning OF the world,
we cannot help seeing by what means nations
! have been exalted, ard by what means they
| have fallen; how political freedom has been
acquired, how it has been preserved, and how
| it has been lost. Thus the records OF expe-
| rience are constantly accommodating, and every
generation has a fairer opportunity to grow
wise, than the one that preceded 1T. Ihls Is
! plain in theory, but does not appear In tact /;
at least not to the extent that might have been
reasonably expected. Every age produces a
full crop of knaves and simpletons; the for
! mer being the hammer, and the latter the anvil.
The same political tricks, to dupe the people
and cheat them out of their rights, under CO.
our Of extraordinary zeal for their interests,
have been played of in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, with as much success as
f.; they were thousands of years ago. In vain
the vastly accumulated volume OF experience
lies open In vain the spectres, as it were, OF
fallen republics pass along in solemn process
sion, and point the present generation to the
fatal courses Of their ruin: UNDECIDED they
pass along and their warnings are lost.
Nations, as we'll as individuals, if they ne
elect to acquire wisdom cheaply from the ex-
perience of others, must buy it dear by their
own experience and happy for them if they
do not Get it too late. 1t is commonly said
That bought wit is the best. 1t is so in some
respects more especially as it usually sticks
by one the longest, and wears the best. But
very frequently it is either bought at dearer
rate than the purchaser can afford, or too late
to be of any service. A burnt child will be
the more careful how he gets again into the
fire. but if he be burnt MORALLY, the wit gam
ed by it will do him very little good
Now to apply this to our own country the
people of the United States have enjoyed al
along pretty comfortable sense OF their own
importance. Tbcy have esteemed themselves
to be the most enlightened as well as the ireest
people upon the earth. Certainly they have
had superior privileges, and superior means
| for securing and perpetuating them. They
| have had warnings nnumeraDle from the tate
Of othernations. Where row are all the Tree re-
publics, ancient and modern, of the continent
Of Europe " Death and destruction say, we