Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1821-08-14

and the chastity OF matronly virtue, were
violated while the living remnants OF
the field of battle were reserved for the
gibbet, by the fraternal sympathies OF
Brltons throughout your land, the waters
OF the Atlantic Ocean, and those that
wash the shores of either India, were
dyed with the mingled blood of comba-
tants in the cause of North A sYicaH In.
dependence.
In the progress of time, that vial OF
wrath was exhausted. After seven years
of exploits and achievements like these,
performed under the orders Of the British
King; to use the language of the treaty
of peace, " 1t having pleased the Divine
Providence to dispose the hearts of the
most serene and most potent Prince,
George the III, by the Grace of God,
King of Great Britain, France, and Ire
land, Defender of the Faith, Duke Of
Brunswick aud Luneburg, Arch-Trea-
surer and Prince Elector of the Holy
Roman Empire, and so forth-and of the
United States of America to"-what !?
6 To forget all past misunderstanding
and differences that Rave unhappily in
terrupted the good correspondence and
friendship which they mutually wish to
restore what then !-Why, ellis Bri-
fannie Majesty ACKNOWLEDGES the said
United States, viz: New q ampshire,
Massachusetts, Bay, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut,
Newly ork, Ncw-Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia,
to be Free, Sovereign, and Independent
States; that he treats with them as such !;
and for himself, his heirs, and success
sors, relinquishes all claims to the Gov
eminent, proprietary and territorial
rights of the same, and every part there
Of"
Fellow Citizens, I am not without ap-
prehension that some parts of this ex-
tract, cited to the word and to the letter,
from the treaty of peace of 1888, may
have discomposed the serenity Of your
temper. Far be it from me, to DISPOSE
yonr hearts TO levity unbecoming the
hallowed dignity of this day. Bat this
treaty of peace is the dessert appropriate
to the sumptuous banquet Of the Decla-
ration. 1t is the epilogue to that unpa-
ralleled drama, Of which the Declaration
is the prologue. Observe, my country
men and friends, how the rules of unity,
prescribed by the great masters Of the
hctlve stage, were preserved in this
tragedy OF pity and terror in real life.
Here was beginning, a middle, and an
end, OF one mighty action. The begin
ming was the Declaration which we have
read: the middle, was that sanguinary,
calamitous, but glorious war, which calls
for deeper colors, and brighter pencil,
than mine TO pourtray; the end was the
disposal by Divine Providence, that same
Divine Providence upon whose protce-
ton your fathers had so solemnly and so
declared their firm reliance,
OF the heart of the most serene and most
potent prince to acknowledge your In
dependence to the precise extent in
which it had been declared. Here was
no great charter of Runny Mead, yielded
and accepted as grant of royal bounty.
That which the Declaration had assert
ed, which seven years of mercy harrow
ing war had contested, was here, in ex-
press and unequivocal terms, acinozv-
lodged. And how' By the mere dispo.
sal of the heart of the most serene and
most potent prince.
The claratono Independence pro-
nounced the irrevocable decree fpoli-
teal separation, between the United
States and their People on the one part,
and the British King, Government and
Nation on the other. 1t proc laimed the
first principles on which civil govern
ment is founded, and derived from them
the justification before Earth and Heaven,
Of this act of sovereignty but it left the
people of this Union collective and in
dividual without organized Government.
In contemplating this state of things, one
Of the profoundest of British statesmen,
in an ecstacy of astonishment, exclaim-
ed Anarchy is found tolerable !" But
there was no Anarchy. From the day
of the Declaration, the people of the
North American Union and of its con-
stituent States, were associated bodies of
civilized men and christians, in a state
of nature; but not of Anarchy. They
were bound by the laws of God, which
they all, and by the laws of the Gospel,
which they nearly all, acknowledged as
the rules of their conduct. They were
bound by all those tender and endearing
sympathies, the absence of which in the
British Government and Nation towards
them was the primary cause of the dis
tressing conflict into which they had been
precipitated. They were bound by all