Part 1 (2/2)

The idea of reducing this strong fortress was conceived by Williainative adventurer, and adopted by Governor shi+rley, the h not the wisest ruler, that ever presided over Massachusetts His influence at its utmost stretch carried the islature: the other New England provinces consented to lend their assistance; and the next point was to select a coentlemen of the country, none of whom had the least particle of scientific soldiershi+p, although soular warfare of the frontiers In the absence of the usual qualifications for uided by other motives, and fell upon Colonel Pepperell, who, as a landed proprietor in three provinces, and popular with all classes of people, reatest number of recruits to his banner When this doubtful speculation was proposed to the prudent ht advice from the celebrated Whitefield, then an itinerant preacher in the country, and an object of vast antipathy to many of the settled h dark as those of the Oracle of Delphos, inti that the blood of the slain would be laid to Colonel Pepperell's charge, in case of failure, and that the envy of the living would persecute hiird on his arislature had been laid under an oath of secrecy while their deliberations should continue; this precaution, however, was nullified by the pious perjury of a country member of the lower house, who, in the perfors, broke into a fervent and involuntary petition for the success of the enterprise against Louisburg We of the present generation, whose hearts have never been heated and aamated by one universal passion, and who are, perhaps, less excitable in the mass than our fathers, cannot easily conceive the enthusiasm hich the people seized upon the project A desire to prove in the eyes of England the courage of her provinces; the real necessity for the destruction of this Dunkirk of Ae; a remnant of the old Puritan detestation of Papist idolatry; a strong hereditary hatred of the French, who, for half a hundred years, had shed the blood of the English settlers in concert with the savages; the natural proneness of the New-Englanders to engage in teh doubtful and hazardous, such were soether a host, co nearly all the effective force of the country The officers were grave deacons, justices of the peace, and other sinitaries; and in the ranks were many war business, husbands weary of their wives, and bachelors disconsolate for want of theinations in this direction, and increased the resees of the first crusaders A part of the peculiarities of the affairthe ht and breezy day of March; and about twenty s seaward before the wind, airy forerunners of the fleet of privateers and transports that spread their sails to the sunshi+ne in the harbor The tide is at its height; and the gunwale of a barge alternately rises above the wharf, and then sinks fro on the waves in readiness to convey the general and his suite on board the shi+rley galley In the background, the dark wooden dwellings of the town have poured forth their inhabitants; and this way rolls an earnest throng, with the great uard of honor, selected fro rustics in their Sunday clothes; next appear six figures who demand our eneral, a well-proportioned e just visible upon him; he views the fleet in which lie is about to eer expression than a calht of his own merchandise to Europe A scarlet British uniform, made of the best of broadcloth, because imported by hie buff waistcoat, near the pommel of his sword, we see the square protuberance of a small Bible, which certainly may benefit his pious soul, and, perchance, entlerave attention, in silk, gold, and velvet, and with a pair of spectacles thrust above his forehead, is Governor shi+rley The quick rasp on one of the general's bright er, keeping ti characteristic

His mind is calculated to fill up the wild conceptions of other enuities; and he seeks, as it were, to cli pebble-stones, one upon another He is now ieneral's recollection the volu in the depth of n within twelve hours after the arrival of the troops On the left, for contrast with the unruffled deportety vehehan: with one hand he has seized the general's arm; and he points the other to the sails of the vessel fluttering in the breeze, while the fire of his inward enthusiash his dark complexion, and flashes in tips of flalected and scarcely decent attire, and distinguished by the abstracted fervor of his h the crowd, and attempts to lay hold of Pepperell's skirt He has spent years in wild and shadowy studies, and has searched the crucible of the alcheold, and wasted the life allotted him, in a weary effort to render it immortal The din of warlike preparation has broken in upon his solitude; and he comes forth with a fancy of his half-e,--by which the army is to be transported into the heart of the hostile fortress with the celerity of ic But who is this, of the mild and venerable countenance shaded by locks of a hallohiteness, looking like Peace with its gentle thoughts in the ns? It is the minister of an inland parish, who, after , advised by the elders of the church and the wife of his bosom, has taken his staff, and journeyed toard The benevolent old eneral's attention to a er fro the city without bloodshed of friend or enemy We start as we turn from this picture of Christian love to the dark enthusiast close beside him,--a preacher of the new sect, in every wrinkled line of whose visage we can read the storion for their outlet Woe to the wretch that shall seek oes to hen the carved altars and idolatrous ies in the Popish churches; and over his head he rears a banner, which, as the wind unfolds it, displays the iven by Whitefield,--Christo Duce,--in letters red as blood But the tide is now ebbing; and the general overnor, and enters the boat: it bounds swiftly over the waves, the holy banner fluttering in the bows: a huzza from the fleet comes riotously to the shore; and the people thunder hack their many-voiced reply

When the expedition sailed, the projectors could not reasonably rely on assistance frothened by a squadron of British shi+ps-of-the-lice and frigates, under Commodore Warren; and this circuh the active business, and all the dangers of the siege, fell to the share of the provincials If we had any confidence that it could be done with half so much pleasure to the reader as to ourself, ould present, a whole gallery of pictures from these rich and fresh historic scenes Never, certainly, since ed his instinctive appetite for war, did a queerer and less eable host sit down before a hostile city The officers, drawn from the same

class of citizens with the rank and file, had neither the power to institute an awful discipline, nor enough of the trained soldier's spirit to atte valor, when occasion offered, there was no lack, nor of a readiness to encounter severe fatigue; but, with few inter day of frolic and disorder Conscious that no military virtues of their own deserved the prosperous result which followed, they insisted that Heaven had fought as manifestly on their side as ever on that of Israel in the battles of the Old Testament We, however, if we consider the events of after-years, and confine our view to a period short of the Revolution, ranted to our fathers as a blessing or as a judg men who had left their paternal firesides, sound in constitution, and pure in morals, if they returned at all, returned with ruined health, and with minds so broken up by the interval of riot, that they never after could resuood citizenshi+p A lust for lory was also awakened in the country; and France and England gratified it with enough of slaughter; the for to recover what she had lost, the latter to coun There was a brief season of repose, and then a fiercer contest, raging almost from end to end of North America Some went forth, and met the red men of the wilderness; and when years had rolled, and the settler came in peace where they had co the fallen boughs and withered leaves of many autumns Others were foremost in the battles of the Canadas, till, in the day that saw the downfall of the French dohts of Abrahah all this troubled time, the flower of the youth were cut down by the sword, or died of physical diseases, or became unprofitable citizens by lass, a shrewd Scotch physician of the last century, who died before war had gathered in half its harvest, co damsels, capable and well inclined to serve the state as wives and mothers, were compelled to lead lives of barren celibacy by the consequences of the successful siege of Louisburg But ill not sadden ourselves with these doleful thoughts, e are to witness the triumphal entry of the victors into the surrendered town

The thundering of drurows th of the western wall of Louisburg stretches out before the eye, forty feet in height, and far overtopped by a rock built citadel In yonder breach the broken ti earth prove the effect of the provincial cannon

The drawbridge is down over the wide eneral and British commodore are received by the French authorities beneath the dark and lofty portal arch Through the loom of this deep avenue there is a vista of the h peaked houses, in the fashi+on of old France; the view is terminated by the centre square of the city, in the midst of which rises a stone cross; and shavenat its foot A confused sobbing and half-stifled shrieks are heard, as the tu arht which falls through the arche perceive that a fewit the freedom of one acquainted with peril, and accustomed to command; nor, amid hopes of ht that posterity will re those renowned in arms Sir Peter Warren, who receives with hilish sea those who have won it for hi forward to the portal, sword in hand, cos, with a huge frill sticking forth froe this is that famous worthy of Plymouth County, ent to the ith two plain shi+rts and a ruffled one, and is now about to solicit the post of governor in Louisburg In close vicinity stands Vaughan, worn doith toil and exposure, the effect of which has fallen upon hiroup is filled up by several British officers, who fold their arms, and look with scornful merriar an i thron over the uneven ground

In the nearer ranks we redients that coable-fanatics, each of whorasps his weapon with a fist of iron, at sight of the te on their cross-crowned spires Others exalances through the gateway, anxious to select a spot, whither the good woeously transported So their diseased limbs forward in weariness and pain, have e of health or life for what share of fleeting gloryfour thousand s of the general host coh on an honest countenance They roll onward riotously, flourishi+ng theirtheir heavy heels into an instinctive dance, and roaring out soland Psalmody, or those harsh old warlike stanzas which tell the story of ”Lovell's Fight” Thus they pour along, till the battered town and the rabble of its conquerors, and the shouts, the drurow dim, and die away from Fancy's eye and ear

The arms of Great Britain were not crowned by athat unprosperous war; and, in adjusting the ter was an equivalent for lish, with very pardonable vanity, attributed the conquest chiefly to the valor of the naval force On the continent of Europe, our fathers reater justice, and Voltaire has ranked this enterprise of the husband the n of Louis XV The ostensible leaders did not fail of reward shi+rley, originally a lawyer, was coular army, and rose to the supreme military command in America Warren, also, received honors and professional rank, and arrogated to hiathered at Louisburg

Pepperell was placed at the head of a royal regiuished by the title of baronet Vaughan alone, who had been soul of the deed from its adventurous conception till the triuer and every hardshi+p had exhibited a rare union of ardor and perseverance,--Vaughan was entirely neglected, and died in London, whither he had gone to reat era of his life, Sir Williauish himself either as a warrior or a statesman He spent the rerandee, and laid down his aristocratic head a the humbler ashes of his fathers, just before the coland and America

THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN

Thomas Green Fessenden was the eldest of nine children of the Rev

Thomas Fessenden He was born on the 22d of April, 1771, at Walpole, in New Ha and talent, was long settled in the ministry On the maternal side, likewise, he was of clerical extraction; his mother, whose piety and a the daughter of the Rev Samuel Kendal of New Salem The early education of Thomas Green was chiefly at the common school of his native place, under the tuition of students froress, that he becae of sixteen

He spent most of his youthful days, however, in bodily labor upon the far to the support of a nuriculture which he then obtained was long afterwards applied to the service of the public Opportunities for cultivating his mind were afforded him, not only in his father's library, but by the e bookstore

He had passed the age of twenty-one when his inclination for mental pursuits detere His father being able to give but little assistance, his chief resources at, college consisted in his wages as teacher of a village school during the vacations At ti class in psalmody

From his childhood upward, Mr Fessenden had shown syly s; but his first effort in verse, as he hie The thelish composition, whether prose or rhyht and feeling, the cold pedantry, the mimicry of classic models, coood taste to disapprove of these vapid and spiritless performances, and resolved to strike out a new course for hih with their custoe and threadbare sentiment, he electrified the ”_Jonathan's Courtshi+p_” There has never, to this day, been produced by any of our countryht the rare art of sketching fa into verse the very spirit of society as it existed around him; and he had imbued each line with a peculiar yet perfectly natural and horet, that, instead of beco his strength on temporary and evanescent topics, he had not continued to be a rural poet A volu various aspects of life aain a permanent place in American literature The effort in question h the newspapers of the day, reappeared on the other side of the Atlantic, and arlish critics; nor has it yet lost its popularity

New editions may be found every year at the ballad-stalls; and I saw last summer, on the veteran author's table, a broadside copy of his ht in the street

Mr Fessenden passed through college with a fair reputation for scholarshi+p, and took his degree in 1796 It had been his father's wish that he should imitate the exa himself to the ministry He, however, preferred the law, and commenced the study of that profession at Rutland, in Vermont, with Nathaniel Chipman, then the most eminent practitioner in the State

After his admission to the bar, Mr Chipman received him into partnershi+p But Mr Fessenden was ill qualified to succeed in the profession of law, by his simplicity of character, and his utter inability to acquire an ordinary share of shrewdness and worldly wisdom

Moreover, the success of ”_Jonathan's Courtshi+p_,” and other poetical effusions, had turned his thoughts from law to literature, and had procured him the acquaintance of several literary luminaries of those days; none of whose naeneration, save that of Joseph Dennie, once esteemed the finest writer in America His intercourse with these people te for newspapers and periodicals A taste for scientific pursuits still further diverted hied him in an affair which influenced the coht forward a newly invented hydraulicwater to a greater height than had hitherto been considered possible A company of mechanics and others became interested in this ent for the purpose of obtaining a patent in London He was, likewise, a ed to hasten his departure, in consequence of a report that certain persons had acquired the secret of the invention, and were deter a patent Scarcely ti the efficacy of the machine by a few hasty experie immediately, Mr Fessenden arrived in London on the 4th of July, 1801, and waited on Mr King, then our entlehly exaave an opinion unfavorable to its merits; and the question was soon settled by a letter fro hies of the ether deceptive In short, Mr Fessenden had been lured from his profession and country by as empty a bubble as that of the perpetual y, that, laying hold of as really valuable in Langdon's contrivance; he constructed thewater froreat depths, by means of what he termed the ”renovated pressure of the at this invention to Mr Nicholson and other eenuity, and thought that, in soht be useful But the expenses of a patent in England, the difficulty of obtaining patronage for such a project, and the uncertainty of the result, were obstacles too weighty to be overcome Mr Fessenden threw aside the scheme, and, after a twoto return home, when a new and characteristic adventure arrested hi in the Strand, from a person whom he had never before seen, but who introduced hi likewise an American His business was of a nature well calculated to excite Mr Fessenden's interest He produced thecorn A patent had already been obtained; and a company, with the lord-mayor of London at its head, was associated for the construction ofto his own story, had disposed of one-fourth part of his patent for five hundred pounds, and illing to accommodate his countryer's character and the accuracy of his statements, Mr Fessenden became a purchaser of the share that was offered him; on what terms is not stated, but probably such as to involve his whole property in the adventure The result was disastrous The lord-mayor soon withdrew his countenance from the project It ultimately appeared that Mr Fessenden was the only real purchaser of any part of the patent; and, as the original patentee shortly afterwards quitted the concern, the fore the business as he best could With a perseverance not less characteristic than his credulity, he associated himself with four partners, and undertook to superintend the construction of one of these patent-mills upon the Thanes But his associates, ere men of no respectability, thwarted his plans; and after much toil of body, as well as distress of mind, he found himself utterly ruined, friendless and penniless, in the midst of London No other event could have been anticipated, when aa set of crafty adventurers

Being now in the situation in which many a literary itive poems, and betook himself to the pen as his most natural resource A subject was offered him, in which no other poet would have found a theme for the Muse

It seemed to be his fatality to form connections with schemers of all sorts; and he had becolas Perkins, the patentee of the fareat vogue for the cure of infla the superfluous electricity Perkinism, as the doctrine ofscientificthe people but was violently opposed by the regular corps of physicians and surgeons Mr Fessenden, as ht be expected, was a believer in the efficacy of the tractors, and, at the request of Perkins, consented to make them the subject of a poem in Hudibrastic verse, the satire of which was to be levelled against their opponents

”Terrible Tractoration” was the result It professes to be a poetical petition froentleman who has been ruined by the success of the e of Physicians for relief and redress The wits of the poor doctor have been soenuity, he contrives to heap ridicule on his ainst Perkinism The poem is in four cantos, the first of which is the best, and the most characteristic of the author It is occupied with Dr Caustic's description of hisall sorts of possible and impossible projects; every one of which, however, has a ridiculous plausibility The inexhaustible variety in which they flow forth proves the author's invention unrivalled in its way It shohat had been the nature of Mr Fessenden'shis residence in London, continually brooding over the miracles of mechanism and science, his enthusias of the first conception of this poe a solitary day's ramble in the outskirts of London; and the character of Dr Caustic so strongly impressed itself on his h the crowded streets, he burst into frequent fits of laughter

The truth is, that, in the sketch of this wild projector, Mr Fessenden had caricatured sohed so heartily, it was at the perception of the resemblance