Recollections of a Lifetime, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856)

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LETTER XXVI.

My Situation under my new Master--Discontent--Humiliating Discoveries--Desire to quit Trade and go to College--Undertake to Reeducate myself--A Long Struggle--Partial Success--Infidelity--The World without a God--Existence, Nature, Life, all contradictions, without Revealed Religion--Return after long Wanderings.

My dear C******

I have received your kind letter, giving your adhesion to what I have done, though counseling me to be less discursive in my narrative hereafter. Taking this in good part, and promising amendment, I proceed in my story.

I was, then, eighteen years of age, installed in a dry-goods store at Hartford, under a respectable and reasonable master. I had been sufficiently educated for my station. My parents had now removed from Ridgefield to Berlin, a distance of but eleven miles from my present residence, so that I had easy and frequent communication with them. My uncle, Chauncey Goodrich, then a Senator of the United States, lived in an almost contiguous street, and while in the city, always treated me with the kindness, and consideration which my relation to him naturally dictated. In general, then, my situation was eligible enough; and yet I was unhappy.

The truth is, I had now been able to sit in judgment upon myself--to review my acquirements, to

analyze my capacities, to estimate my character--to compare myself with, others, and see a little into the future. The decision was painful to the ambition which lurked within me. I had all along, unconsciously, cherished a vague idea of some sort of eminence, and this unhappily had nothing to do with selling goods or making money. I had lived in the midst of relations, friends, and alliances, all of which had cultivated in me trains of thought alien to my present employment. My connections were respectable: some of them eminent, but none of them rich; all had acquired their positions without wealth, and I think it was rather their habit to speak of it as a very secondary affair. Brought up under such influences, how could I give my heart to trade? It was clear, indeed, that I had missed my vocation.

Full of this conviction, I besought my parents to allow me to quit the store, and attempt to make my way through college.* Whether for good or ill, I

know not, but they decided against the change, and certainly on substantial grounds. Their circumstances did not permit them to offer me any considerable aid, and without it they feared that I should meet with insuperable difficulties. I returned to the store, disheartened at first, but after a time my courage revived, and I resolved to re-educate myself. I borrowed some Latin books, and with the aid of George Sheldon, I passed through the Latin Grammar, and penetrated a little way into Virgil. This was done at night, for during the day I was fully occupied.

At the same time, I began--with such light and strength as I possessed--to train my mind--to discipline my thoughts, then as untamed as the birds of the wilderness. I sought to think--to think steadily, to acquire the power of forcing my understanding up to a point, and make it stand there and do its work. I attempted to gain the habit of speaking methodically, logically, and with accumulating power, directed to a particular object. I did all this as well by study as practice. I read Locke on the Understanding and Watts on the Mind. I attempted composition, and aided myself by Blair's Rhetoric.

This was a task, for not only was my time chiefly occupied by my daily duties, but it was a contest

against habit--it was myself against myself--and in this I was almost unaided and alone. I believe few have this experience, for most persons have progressive, methodical education. Their advance up the steep ascent of knowledge is gradual, measured step by step; and this process is performed in youth, and with the assistance of instructors, and all so gently, as to pass by without the consciousness of any great or painful effort, even by the subject of it. A person who has acquired an education, in the usual way--under the steady training of teachers, from childhood to the period of graduation--does not appreciate in his feelings the amount of labor heaped up in this protracted struggle. If we consider, however, the momentum at last accumulated in the simple act of reading, for instance--the eye with electric celerity compassing every letter in a line, and the mind as quickly seizing upon every thought, mastering it, and passing on, the soul meanwhile giving to each conception its due feeling and emotion--we shall have a measure by which we may form some estimate of the magnitude of that structure in the mind, called education. It was a work of this sort, with the habits acquired in its formation, that I was to undo and do over again. It was my fortune to find that I had gone wrong, and must retrace my steps. I was to tear to pieces the labor, the practices, the associations of years, and at the same time I was to reconstruct the broken and shattered fragments

into a new and symmetrical edifice. I was to lay aside the slip-shod practice of satisfying myself with impressions, feelings, guesses; in short, of dodging mental labor by jumping at conclusions. I was to teach myself the art, and to train myself to the habit, of accumulating materials; of assorting them according to their several kinds; of weighing them in a just and scrutinizing balance; of rearranging them on principles of logic, and finally, of deducing from them a safe and reliable judgment. I was, indeed, to learn the greatest of all arts, that of reasoning, of discovering the truth, and I was to do this alone, and in the face of difficulties, partly founded in my mental constitution, and partly also in my training.

I did not at first comprehend the extent of my undertaking. By degrees I began to appreciate it: I saw and felt, at last, that it was an enormous task, and even after I had resolved upon it, again and again, my courage gave out, and I ceased my efforts in despair. Still, I returned to the work by spasms. I found, for instance, that my geography was all wrong: Asia stood up edgewise, in my imagination, just as I had seen it on an old smoky map in Lieutenant Smith's study: Africa was in the southeast corner of creation, and Europe was somewhere in the northeast. In fact, my map of the world was very Chinese in its projection. I knew better, but still I had thus conceived it, and

the obstinate bump of locality insisted upon presenting its outlines to my mind, according to this arrangement. I had similar jumbles of conception and habit, as to other things. This would not do: so I relearned the elements of geography; I revised my history, my chronology, my natural history--in all of which I had caught casual glimpses of knowledge. Finding my memory bad for dates, I made a list of chronological eras, from the Creation down, and riveted them by repetition, in my memory. What I read, I read earnestly. I determined to pass no word without ascertaining its meaning, and I persevered in this, doggedly, for five and twenty years.

Now, after all these my efforts, I only skimmed the surface of knowledge: I did not even reach the depths of a thorough college education. In some degree, I cleared up the wilderness of my mind; in some degree methodized my habits of thought; in some degree made myself the master of my faculties and my knowledge. I learned to think more clearly, to speak more logically, and to write more methodically--within the range of my acquisitions. Still, I only reached the precincts of what may be called education, in a just sense of the term. In after years, when I have been called upon to write upon a particular subject, I have generally been first obliged to sit down and study it, or at least to refresh my mind by reviewing it.

With this inadequate preparation, however, I rash-

ly began to form my own opinions--the most daring action of the mind. I ventured to question dogmas--moral, political, and religious. I passed through the several stages of curiosity, doubt, infidelity, as many others have done before me. I resolved to take nothing upon trust; I must examine and decide for myself. Beginning with things familiar and secular, I came at last to things remote, doctrinal, theological. I approached the sacred edifice of religion, and in a moment of presumption, tumbled it into a heap of ruins! And then? Ah, how impossible to paint the dark, drear horizon of the mind when it has put out the light of faith: extinguished even the star of hope! The world from that moment became to me a fearful enigma: all its harmony was gone: existence was a nightmare, heaven a fathomless abyss, earth an incomprehensible mystery. And Man, of all the creatures upon earth, was the most mysterious--above all things, and yet below all things. The bird had organs adapted to its wants--feet for the land and wings for the air. The fishes had fins suited to their element; the quadrupeds were all provided with the means of securing happiness according to their several tastes and faculties. Wherever there was a want, the means of satisfying it were bestowed. Every thing was consistent with itself. Nothing was made in vain: in the whole range of nature, there was no absurdity, no contradiction, no mistake. Every thing attained its end, every thing fulfilled its design save Man

alone! He had wants for which there was no provision: he had hunger and thirst of the soul, yet there was nothing to feed the one, or quench the other! He had the gift of hope, but was hopeless; the faculty of faith; with nothing on which faith could set its foot. He had anticipation--a looking forward into the future--wafting him thither like a trade-wind, and breathing of the tropic air of immortality. He yearned for something higher than earth, but was without wings to fly, or an object amid the prevailing waters--the universal deluge of doubt--upon which he could find repose! The dove of hope was sent forth, but came back with no olive-branch of peace, no promise of a shore to this bleak sea of nothingness! The veriest insect, the worm, the reptile, each and all, had every thing needful to perfect its being. Man alone seemed created to live in doubt, and to perish in disappointment. The inferior things of earth were perfect; the conscious lord of creation was a stupendous blunder! Thus seemed the universe; thus seemed man, without God--without religion.

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream--
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung, blind and black'ning, in the moonless air.

               * * * * *

The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies:  they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage:  they raked up,
And shivering, scraped with their cold, skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame,
Which was a mockery:  then they lifted up
Their eyes, as it grew brighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw and shriek'd and died--
E'en of their mutual hideousness, they died!"

Such is the fearful, overwhelming picture of the Earth, if you pluck the sun from the heavens: bring back that glorious orb, and all its light and harmony and beauty are restored. In this, the Natural world is but an image of the Moral World.

This Earth without a Sun to give it light,
Would roll a wintry planet robed in night.
All that we see of beauty--trees and flowers--
All that we hear of music in their bowers,
Live on the bounty of that Orb above--
Nature's exhaustless source of life and love.
And Man, if not illumed of Heaven's light,
Renew'd each morn, and stealing through the night,
Dark as a planet exiled from the sun,
His savage course of crime and shame would run.
As blushing flowers with spreading odors rise--
As balmy zephyrs steal from southern skies--
As rills unchain'd with gladdening murmurs play--
As birds return and pour the rapturous lay--
As nature rises from its wintry night--
All at the bidding of the Source of Light--
So every virtue blooming in the soul,
Is warm'd to life by Heaven's kind control!

Indeed, take religion from man, and you dethrone God from the sky: you banish the light from the soul, yon convert its highest faculties into elements of fear, terror, and despair. Love, that seems to breathe of heaven, to lift us on its wing toward a better and happier and holier clime, sinks into lust; affection into selfishness; friendship into an illusive dream. In this view, man is only a superior sort of beast, to live, despair, and perish. Bring back religion, and the light returns to the mind: under its influences, the warm pulses of affection and friendship and piety and poetry once more beat in the bosom: the winter of desolation gives way to the spring-tide of hope. Man is no longer a beast, existence no longer a riddle, creation no more a contradiction. Nature, before a stupendous lie, is now a glorious truth!

To this conclusion I came at last, though, after a long and painful struggle. God was as much revealed to man as the earth, the sky, the sun: that was now settled in my mind, but it was not enough. What was our relation to Him? What was human destiny? What meant this inward faith that makes of the Creator an object of worship, of love, of hope, of confidence? What means the heart of prayer in every human breast? Is it only an instinct, telling us to pray, and then leaving us to perish? Is that the way of God? Does He tell us to hope, that He may cheat us of his promises? Has God made man

to bear through life the burden of doubt, and to carry it with him to the grave? Is there, in short, no revelation for man beyond the simple fact that there is a God--told us by our common sense, by our instinct, by the voice of nature and of creation? In these things His work is complete; in that it is evidently imperfect. Man has in him desires, wants, anticipations, exigencies, which are not satisfied by this mere light of nature. Without a further revelation, he is like the bird, made to fly, yet without wings; like the fish, formed to swim, yet without fins. He is an anomaly in the universe: the only thing that walks erect in God's image, is the only thing that God has made in vain, and worse than in vain! There is, then, another revelation, for we must not charge the Omnipotent with incompetence, the Omniscient with ignorance, the Omnipresent with forgetfulness. We must not, in his greatest work, discover a negation of all his perfections, conspicuous in all other things. What, then, is this revelation? It was given to Adam face to face, by the Almighty; it has since descended in various ways, and at different eras, upon mankind; it has existed, and still exists, in all nations, though it may be seen by many races as through a glass darkly. But the whole force of God's highest revelations to man, is accumulated in the Bible, and especially in the Gospel--the life, character, and redemption of Christ. The unenlightened may be led by duller light: this is adapted to civil-

ized nations. Those may find their hunger and thirst of soul appeased by what nature yields; but the instructed man needs the full effulgence of such a revelation as this.

And thus, after many wanderings, like one long lost in the wilderness--like one wearied and worn with struggling in a marsh, I came back to the conviction of my fathers--that the Bible is the revealed will of God; as much adapted to us, as necessary for us, as the light to the eye, the air to the lungs; as indispensable to the life of the soul, as food and drink to the body, in which the soul is enshrined.

This work was not performed at once, or by one continuous effort; it was a long internal struggle, coming upon me in spasms--sometimes by day and sometimes by night. Often it subsided into settled doubt or desponding apathy; often it returned like a tempest to agitate and overwhelm me. It was, indeed, prolonged through several years, and even after I had seemed to come to the dry land, like the ark amid the subsiding deluge, difficulties and doubts sometimes haunted me. I was, in fact, not yet a believer. Infidelity is a long, dark voyage, and offers no secure haven of rest or repose. I have been acquainted with several professed deists and atheists--some of the very first order of mind--yet I have never found one who was not, in fact, afloat on a sea of uncertainty, tossed with doubt and racked with anxiety.

My stumbling-blocks, at this period, were chiefly

of that class called metaphysical, yet they were to me real, earnest, operative. The existence of evil in a world made and governed by God; the free agency of man, deriving from the Almighty his being and his breath; the moral responsibility of creatures, dependent for all things upon the Creator; the seeming predestination flowing from Omnipotence, with the consciousness of liberty of thought and action planted in every bosom: these and other rocks in this voyage of the immortal mind--strewn with the wrecks of millions--were still anxious mysteries to me. And then, that dreadful incompatibility upon which audacious human reason drives us--that every thing must have a beginning, and yet just as certainly, that all things spring from the Eternal! What a stunning blow, leveled at the pride of logic, is this? How is the mind humbled, admitting as it must, that all we see and know of time and eternity, is but the vibration of a pendulum, whose spring is hidden from our sight! Long, often and anxiously, did I return to these questions, thundering--sometimes almost in frenzy--at the sullen, silent, impenetrable door, which holds their solution from the view, I learned at last that I was only doing what had been done by thousands before--that I was attempting what the wisest and strongest had given up in despair. I saw that the mind was bounded in its powers as well as the body; that as the latter could not defy the laws of gravitation, so the-former could not rend the curtain

that God had hung between the creature and the Creator. I bowed at last; I ceased to agonize upon things beyond my reach. I turned to my actual duties; I cultivated the gifts of nature and Providence vouchsafed to me; I cherished the lights and not the shadows of existence. And once more I was upon the land! I was again at home; I had indeed wandered, yet not perhaps unprofitably, for I had learned to find peace and contentment in what God had bestowed upon me, without seeking that forbidden fruit of knowledge, of which He has said, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die."

During the dark and cloudy period which I have just sketched, George Sheldon was my constant companion. I had made other acquaintances, and had other friends, but he was first, if not in my affections, at least in my confidence. He had a far more commanding intellect, more knowledge, more depth of reflection, more range of thought and experience, than myself. I consulted him in my studies; I submitted my progress to his examination; I showed him my compositions, and invited his criticisms.

Some persons seem to write with a certain maturity of thought and expression, almost upon their first attempts; others only attain the art of composition by long and patient labor. As for myself, I came to what I possess by reiterated trials. I do not know, of a decent thing--not even a letter--that I wrote before I was twenty. How my monitorial guide did

laugh at some of my first attempts at composition, and especially at my tilts and tournaments upon Parnassus!

As I have said, we were unlike, and in nothing so much as in our mental constitution. His taste was mature, mine crude and fantastic; his mind was logical, mine irregular and discursive; his was circumspect, modest, prudent--mine daring, rash, audacious. In our discussions, he constantly said to me, "Stick to the point!" In regard to my writings, he often remarked, "You have more illustrations than ideas." In an argument, he would observe, "Stop a moment: do you know what we are talking about ?" When we approached some metaphysical gulf, he would say, "Come, come, I have looked over there, and I can assure you there is nothing to be gained by it."

Above and beyond all this, my friend aided me in the more serious business of settling my religious opinions. He had thought long and profoundly upon the agitating questions which I have mentioned, and in considering them I had the benefit of his clear intelligence and just judgment. That I escaped shipwreck, was doubtless owing in some degree to him: I certainly reached the shore sooner than I could have done alone.

The importance of such counsel, at this period, can not be estimated without considering that I had been brought up under the impression that an infidel--nay, a doubter, a questioner, even--was a monster,

who challenged not only the reprobation of man, but the instant wrath of God. The preaching I heard, the tone of society around me, confirmed this feeling. I dared not ask advice, especially of the devout, for I dreaded to confess myself that fearful thing--an unbeliever! At that time I slept in an upper room of a large block of brick buildings, without another human being in them, and never have I known the nights so black, so long, so dismal, as during the periods when I awoke from sleep, and in the solitude of my chamber, wrestled with the tormenting questions already alluded to, which came like Inquisitors, to put me upon the rack of anxiety and doubt. The, friendly sympathy and judicious guidance of ray sturdy and steadfast friend, saved me, perhaps, from despair.

I have since this period often thought, with a feeling of self-reproach, of the moral and mental obliquity involved in infidelity, especially on the part of one brought up as I had been. What is infidelity--here in a Christian land? An assumption that God has left to the world no authenticated testimony of his Will. Revelation is a fable: religion a bugbear. What, then, is the condition of man? History--recent, reliable, unmistakable--has given the answer. He who runs may and must read. During the first French Revolution, the government abolished religion, and the people sanctioned the decree. Let us draw nigh and contemplate the spectacle of a

nation without a God, without a faith--without hope, and without fear. Look at Paris, at that period--the world's metropolis of art, taste, fashion, and refinement, rejoicing in its deliverance from the nightmare of religion! Look, and you will see that marriage was a farce, and that truth had sunk into contempt. The streets were filled with indecency, and the saloons were no better than garnished brothels. Death was divested of its solemnity, and the grave of its sanctity. Even kindred could not spare time from their levities and debaucheries to bury their deceased relatives. And why should they? They had gone to their eternal sleep, and it was illogical to care for the manes of those who had ceased to be. Nothingness--annihilation of the soul--left no sympathy for its worn-out and cast-off vestment, the body. There was no hereafter, no heaven, no elevating hope, no salutary fear. There was no reality but the present. No hymn of praise, no prayer, no rising incense, lifted the soul above this dreadful revelry. Man was left to cherish his baser propensities, without a wish or a thought, which could drag him out of the miry clay and the horrible pit!

This spectacle is as revolting to the moral taste of man, as is a mass of filth--reeking with corruption--to his senses. And yet this is the condition to which infidelity inevitably tends. It is religion alone--revealed religion--which saves the world from this state of degradation. Paris has written that fact in

fire and in blood. Is this religion, then, a lie? Is revelation, which thus works mail's redemption here on earth--to say nothing of the future--a fraud? What then is God--the infidel's God? A being who made man to live and die and perish, only as an ingenious and gifted brute! He is not the author of that religion which ennobles man, exalts his faculties, his tastes, his aspirations, and constantly seeks to make him but little lower than the angels. He is not the God of good, but of Evil--not the Author of Light, but of Darkness--not the King of Heaven, but of Hell. This is the infidel's God.

Where, in Nature, is this fearful thing written? Not in the sun or the sky or the seasons, for these tell us that God is good. Not in the human heart, for this feels that God is true. Not in the eye that loves beauty, nor the ear that loves music. Every sense whispers that God is Love. It is indeed a dreadful obliquity, which leads the mind to refuse to see God in the Bible Revelation, and to refuse to accept Christianity as his gospel of good and glorious tidings to man.

LETTER XXVII.

Hartford forty years ago--The Hartford Wits--Hartford at the present time--The Declaration of War in 1812--Baltimore Riots--Fading in New England--Embargo--Non-intercourse, &c.--Democratic Doctrine that Opposition is Treason.

My dear C******

The city of Hartford, ever noted for its fine situation, in one of the fertile and beautiful vales of the Connecticut, is now distinguished for its wealth--the fruit of extraordinary sagacity and enterprise on the part of its inhabitants--as well as for its interesting institutions--literary, charitable, and philanthropic. It presented, however, a different aspect at the time of which I am speaking. It had, indeed, formerly enjoyed some reputation as a sort of literary focus--it being the residence of Trumbull, the author of McFingal, of Hopkins, the bludgeon satirist, author of the "Hypocrite's Hope," of Theodore Dwight, and some others, known in their day as the "Hartford Wits." This distinction was well deserved, for it is rare indeed that three satirical poets, of so much vigor, are found working together. It is especially rare to find them, as in this instance, united in an amicable as well as a literary brotherhood.

In my time Hopkins was dead; Trumbull had left off poetry for a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, and Dwight was devoted to the Connecticut

Mirror--a newspaper distinguished all over the country for its vigilant and spicy vindication of federalism. His New-Year's verses were always looked for with eagerness, for they usually contained a review of events, with dashes at the times, in which the doings of democracy were painted in the unsparing colors of Hudibrastic ridicule. Many passages of these are now worthy of being read, as well on account of their illustration of the spirit of the time, as their keen and cutting satire.

On the whole, however, Hartford was then a small commercial town, of four thousand inhabitants, dealing in lumber, and smelling of molasses and Old Jamaica--for it had still some trade with the West Indies. Though the semi-capital of the State--the yearly sessions of the legislature being held there and at New Haven, alternately--it was strongly impressed with a plodding, mercantile, and mechanical character. There was a high tone of general intelligence and social respectability about the place, but it had not a single institution, a single monument, that marked it as even a provincial metropolis of taste, in literature, art, or refinement. The leading men were thrifty mechanics, with a few merchants, and many shopkeepers, society of course taking its hue from these dominant classes. There were lawyers, judges, and public functionaries--men of mark--but their spirit did not govern the town. There were a few dainty patricians, who held themselves aloof, secure of

that amiable worship which in all ages is rendered to rank. But where are they now? The answer would be a lesson and a warning to those who build their claims to homage on pretense. Such was the state of things, at the time I arrived in this city.

Some time after, a new era began to dawn, the light of which is still visible in the very air and aspect of the place. Let me give you a few measures of this striking progress. In 1810, the population of Hartford was three thousand nine hundred and fifty-five: in 1856, it is probably about twenty thousand. The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, Trinity College, the Retreat for the Insane, the Wadsworth Atheneum--all excellent institutions--have been founded since my arrival in the town. The churches--then four in number--have increased to twenty-five, and by their towering and tasteful spires, give the place, as you approach it, the aspect of a Holy City. Every, creed and shade of creed is represented, from Puritan orthodoxy up and down, to Roman Catholic, Second Advent, and Synagogue worshipers. There were three weekly journals, five and forty years ago; now there are two dailies, eight weeklies, and two monthlies. The manufacture of books, machines, carpets, pianos, hardware, hats, rifles, pistols--all established within forty years--now employ a capital of five millions of dollars. Colt's pistol-factory, with its accessories, is a marvelous example of ingenious art and liberal enterprise. The aggregate Bank Capital

is about six millions. The various Insurance Companies spread their protection against fire, far and wide--reaching into almost every State in the Union. Is not this progress?

I could find gratifying themes in pursuing this general train of events, especially as the prosperity of Hartford marks the general progress of society in Connecticut. But chronological propriety impels me, for the present, in a different direction. Leaving the humble path of autobiographical gossip, I must now, hackneyed as the subject may seem, take you within the wide and sweeping vortex of national history. Here, indeed, my own story leads, and here you are bound to follow. I must tell you of the war of 1812, for in this I was a soldier, and took my turn in the tented field! And besides--though we have plenty of histories on the subject, we have, so far as I know, very few pictures of the living and moving panorama. of town and village life, during those three years of national anxiety and humiliation.

About midsummer in the year 1812, the news came that Congress, with the sanction of the President, had declared war* against Great Britain.

Sagacious men, no doubt, had foreseen this, but it came upon the mass of the people here, at the North, like a thunderbolt. I remember perfectly well the dark and boding cloud that gathered over the public mind upon the reception of the news, and this was deepened into anxiety and alarm by the tragic story of the Baltimore riot, which speedily followed. The doctrine had been announced, as well in Congress as elsewhere, by the democratic leaders, that when war was declared, opposition must cease--a doctrine which is more fit for the liveried slaves of despotism than a free people--but which democracy has since maintained to the bitter end. I invite your particular attention to this historical fact, for here is the key not only to the slanders heaped up against New England at the time, for her opposition to the war, but to the pertinacity with which they have since been urged. Even to this day, the "Hartford Convention," "Connecticut Blue Lights," &c., are the grizzly monsters with which the nursing fathers and mothers of democracy frighten their children into obedience--just before the elections!

It is well to remember another fact--as explaining not only events which followed the declaration of war, but some others in our history. Jefferson democracy, from the beginning, made hatred of England its chief stock in trade. This feeling, from a

variety of causes, is indigenous to the masses of our people. It is greatly increased, as well in amount as in vehemence, by the large foreign element in our population, it being a curious fact that emigrants and refugees of all nations, come hither with an active dislike of England. Democracy at the beginning, and democracy still, avails itself of this sentiment--native as well as foreign. The main cause of the overthrow of the federalists, was, that they had to bear the burden of alleged friendship to England.

The war party perfectly well understood, and of course used, this hostility to England; and the British government, as if to make the conflict inevitable, added to the inherent fuel of popular prejudice, the flame of indignation arising from repeated insult and injury. In this state of things, the foreign population, already very numerous, exercised a powerful influence, not only in bringing on and sustaining the war, but in imparting something of their own violence to the discussions of the time. It is notorious that at this period, a large number of foreigners, with feelings lacerated by exile, and all turned into channels of hostility to Great Britain,* held influential positions, either as members of Con-

gress or editors of papers, and these--co-operating with the democrats--infused into the war partisanship, a spirit of intolerance and rancor, perhaps without example in our history. It was not surprising, therefore, that riot and bloodshed should come at the beginning, or that inveterate prejudice should be perpetuated to the end.

In the city of Baltimore there was a paper called the Federal Republican, edited by a highly respectable and talented young gentleman, named Alexander Hanson. In announcing the declaration of war, this journal also announced, in terms moderate but firm, a determination to continue to speak with the same freedom as before. This was heresy, which democratic papacy deemed worthy of fire and fagot. The decree had gone forth that independence was conspiracy, and opposition was treason. The mob at Baltimore, largely composed of foreigners, in the spirit of their leaders, deemed the conduct of the editor of the Republican worthy of instant punishment. Two days after his offense--that is, on the evening of the 22d of June--an initiated rabble, headed by a French apothecary, proceeded to his printing-office, demolished the building, and laid the

whole establishment in ruins. Hanson, fortunately, was in the country, and his partner, though pursued, and hunted from house to house, finally escaped. The magistrates offered no opposition, and the mob, thus encouraged by tolerance and success, proceeded to wreak their patriotic vengeance in various directions, and upon a variety of objects. A suggestive specimen of their fury was manifested in burning down the house of a free negro, who had spoken in friendly terms of the British nation!

The Federal Republican was temporarily re-established at Georgetown, in, the District of Columbia: after a time, however, it was removed to Baltimore,--Hanson and his friends deeming it their duty to vindicate the independence of the press, thus violently assailed. They expected a struggle, and prepared for it. They applied to the authorities for protection, but the mayor refused to interfere, and left town, doubtless for the purpose of permitting the mob to have its way. As evening approached, they gathered around the printing-office, and began the attack. Hanson was attended by Gen. Henry Lee and Gen. Lingan, both revolutionary officers, and some twenty other friends. These received the attack, the doors and windows being first strongly barricaded. Nothing, however, could resist the assailants: they burst in, and were fired upon by the defenders, one man being killed, and several wounded. The authorities now interfered, and upon an express stipulation of

protection, Hanson and his party surrendered and were conducted to prison. On their way, they were crowded upon, insulted, and threatened by the rabble. The promise of the authorities was not kept: the prison was left unguarded, the licensed mob broke in. In the confusion which followed, six or seven of the prisoners escaped: two were saved by the humanity and presence of mind of a prisoner confined for crime, and who diverted the pursuit by some ingenious fiction. The fate of the rest was horrible indeed. They were thrown down the steps of the jail, where they lay in a bleeding and mangled heap for three hours, being tortured by kicks, penknives stuck into their flesh, and hot candle-grease dropped into their eyes. This revelry was embellished with cries of "Jefferson! Jefferson!" "Madison! Madison!" and other democratic watchwords.

General Lingan expired amid these tortures; General Lee survived, but was made a cripple for life. Hanson was sent out of the city, concealed in a hay cart. One poor fellow was tarred and feathered, and carted through the city; when he fell back as if dead, the feathers were set on fire to revive him. Having committed various other similar outrages, the mob at last ceased its labors. The city authorities examined the case, and laid the blame at the door of the contumacious editor, while a Baltimore jury, without hesitation, acquitted the rioters!

The leaders of the war party, as well in their pa-

pers as in their speech, took the side of the rioters, and put the responsibility upon their victims. The example thus set and thus countenanced, was followed in various places, and especially at Norfolk and Buffalo. A spirit of menace spread over the whole country, and even at Hartford there was a ferment among the advocates of the war, which threatened to break out into open violence, against those who dared to condemn it. This rose to such a point that the authorities deemed it necessary to exercise vigilance and be prepared to meet any such contingency.

Such was the first chapter in the war of 1812; and it is, I repeat, important to be remembered, for it exhibits at once the principle and the practice of the dominant party in relation to that contest. It assumed then, as I have already stated, and it has ever maintained since, that opposition was treason. On this principle it is that democracy and its disciples have since written, the history of New England at this period, and upon this have consigned her to unmitigated reproach. But partisan history is not a final judgment: truth and justice survive, and already this high court of appeal is, if I mistake not, rendering a very different verdict.

If thus the first news of the coming conflict caused a general gloom in the public mind at the North, reflection only served to deepen it. The remembrances of the war of the Revolution had not wholly passed away.

Connecticut had especially suffered by the inroads of the enemy: her towns and villages--New Haven, Danbury, Norwalk, Fairfield, New London, and others--having experienced all the horrors of massacre, conflagration, and violence. It was natural that an event which suggested a renewal of the conflict, and with the same proud and powerful enemy, should have struck deep into the hearts of the people. And besides, two-thirds of the inhabitants throughout New England, were politically opposed to the Administration which now conducted the affairs of the country, and this opposition was rendered intense by a conviction that, for a considerable period, the course of the government had been ruinous, if not hostile, to the interests of this section of the country. They were still federalists, and of the Washington type. They were for the good old way in politics, religion, and morals. They had, as I have before stated, a special dread of democracy, which had originated with Jefferson, ,and which--catching something of the spirit of the French Revolution, and being violently propagated in the United States by foreigners, drunk with the fanaticism of that day--was deemed by the sober people of the North as tainted with, infidelity and licentiousness, threatening alike to the peace of society and the stability of our institutions.

This party, thus formed, had triumphed in the country at large, and now for twelve years had administered the government. During that period, a

series of acts--the Embargo, Non-importation,* &c.--had been adopted, which seemed like blows aimed at New England, where the interests of the people were specially involved in commerce. In every point of view, these were deemed as having proved disastrous; not a single national object, professed to be aimed at,

bad been attained by these measures. The sincerity of the government was, indeed, deeply questioned, for there seemed to be evidences that in professing one thing, it really sought to attain others. Despite the long indictment set forth in the Declaration of War against Great Britain, it was extensively be-

lieved that this measure had its true origin in an intrigue for the presidency.* The people did not believe the war necessary: they did not feel that it was declared for patriotic purposes. Above all, they held that the country was in no state of preparation for such a struggle; and they doubted the fitness and capacity of the administration to carry it on with vigor and success.

These were the views of the mass of the people in New England. Nor were they alone. Many of the leaders of the democratic party were adverse to this measure; Mr. Madison, the President, believed it to be rash, and was only persuaded into it by the imperious exigency of following the war-cry of young and vaulting democracy, in order to secure his second election. Gallatin yielded to it, from a feeling of party necessity. Randolph openly and strenuously opposed it from the beginning to the end. Stephen Rowe Bradley, sixteen years a senator from Vermont, and the ablest democratic member of the Senate from New England, earnestly counseled

Madison against it.* Fifteen democratic members of Congress voted against the Declaration of War. There was, in fact, a large body of reflecting democrats in the country who did not approve of the war, though the vehemence of those who supported it kept them in silence, or perhaps forced them to acquiescence. While such was the fact as to many leading democrats, the federalists, with one voice, united in its condemnation.

If such were the objections of New England to the war, there were others of equal force to the proposed method of carrying it on. The plan of the government was to invade Canada, conquer it, and hold it as a pledge of peace. In New England, there were objections of principle, founded as well in the Constitution, as in policy and morals, against aggressive war, especially for avowed purposes of conquest. And besides, they held that the ocean, and not the land, was the true theater upon which we were best qualified to cope with the enemy.

These, I repeat, were the views of New England, by which I mean the people of New England--not of a few politicians and party leaders, but of the great body of the citizens--that is, the entire federal party, constituting a large majority of the voters. It is a well-known characteristic of this part of our country, that all classes read, reflect, and form opinions. These

give direction to politicians, not politicians to them. It is important to keep this in view; it is indispensable to the formation of a just judgment upon questions--which immediately ensued, and which are matters of dispute to the present day. It will be seen that even the Hartford Convention originated with the people, and was a measure of necessity, dictated by the state of public feeling and opinion, arising from the condition of the country at large, and New England in particular.

I thus present this picture of the actual state of things at the commencement of the war, not to arraign either party as wholly wrong, or to vindicate either as wholly right. It was an era of high party excitement, and in the shock, all were doubtless forced into false positions. Yet, making due allowance for these natural and pardonable obliquities, on one side and the other, and instructed by subsequent events as recorded by history, I do not hesitate to say that these opinions of the New England people had a serious and just foundation. Opposition to the war was, therefore, not only their right, but, with these convictions, it was their duty. To have submitted to the doctrine that opposition is treason, would have made them unworthy of the name and privileges of freemen. That their opposition was, on the .whole, as moderate in spirit and wise in form, as it was just in principle, is also my firm conviction.

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I, p. 451

LETTER XXVIII.

Specks of War in the Atmosphere--The First Year--Operations on the Land and on the Sea--The Wickedness of the Federalists--The Second Year--The Connecticut Militia--Decatur driven into the Thames--Connecticut in trouble--I become a Soldier--My First and Last Campaign.

My dear C******

I am not about to write the "History of the War of 1812"--though that has not yet been done. We have abundance of books under that title, but a sober and just account, rising above the party fire and smoke of that day, and above the sinister influences of this, is yet to be written.* It is, however, a task I shall not undertake--either in these pages or elsewhere. I am writing my own recollections, and it is only as these afford glimpses of the period alluded to, that I shall notice it.

I pass over a variety of things, still in my memory: the gradual deepening of the gloom that spread over society as the events of the war drew on; the bankruptcies of merchants; the suspension of specie payments by the banks; the difficulty of getting money; the gradual withering of the resources of the people; the scarcity of a multitude of articles, alike

of luxury, convenience, and necessity; the stagnation of trade; the impoverishment and depression of the laboring classes; the crushing of the hopes and prospects of the young, about entering upon the theater of active and independent life: in short, that general sense of anxiety, poverty, and disappointment--which clouded nearly every brow and nearly every heart. I pass over those hells of drinking, deception, and degradation, called recruiting rendezvous. I pass over the scream of fife and tuck of drum--daily exhibited in the streets by a miserable set of young men, for the most part seduced into the army, either by artifice or liquor. I pass over the patriotic pulsations of the democracy, and the lowering disgust of federalism, as the glorious army of patriots--sometimes ten or a dozen men--led by a puffy sergeant, choking with martial ardor or a close-fitting stock, passed through our city on their way to the Conquest of Canada. I pass by Col. C......--a sample of a large part of the new army officers of that period--a raw river boatman, suddenly converted into a colonel, and strutting, with his martial cloak around him, like a new-fledged Shanghai cock. I pass by the arrival in our town of Dearborn--"Major-general Dearborn--commander-in-chief of the American army"--a great man, and causing a great sensation, then--but "Granny Dearborn" a very short time after.

Leaving these and similar incidents entirely out of view, and taking a long leap to the close of the year

--what saith the record? General Hull had surrendered in August--less than sixty days after the declaration of war--to the British at Detroit, giving up his whole army of two thousand men, with all our forts, garrisons, and territories in that quarter. This, the direct result of mismanagement on the part of the Administration, as well in planning the campaign as in giving an important command to an imbecile officer--was the substance of the first year's operations against Canada. We just caught a Tartar--that is, the Tartar took us and our territory, instead of our taking him! General Dearborn had indeed three armies afoot--some ten thousand men, stretching along the Canada line, from Plattsburg to Michigan; and there was some fighting, but nothing effectual was done. Never was a country in a situation more humiliating than ours--a great nation, having boasted of overrunning Canada in two months--seeing its own armies beaten, baffled, and retiring ingloriously into winter quarters, before an enemy which we had covered with epithets of ridicule and contempt!

The federalists were very wicked people, and putting finger to nose, as they met the democrats, they said--"We told you so!" Now, "I told you so!" is not only a very provoking, but, in general, a very mean argument. The federalists were very wrong indeed--positively unchristian. Charity tells us to comfort the unfortunate, and to pour balm into the wounded heart. The federalists did no such thing.

Oh, how the Connecticut Mirror, in the hands of Theodore Dwight, did cast its arrows, right and left, at the war and its authors! Poor "Jim Madison:" poor "Granny Dearborn!" It was indeed very, very provoking, very improper.

While thus failure and disgrace attended our operations upon the land, light broke in upon us from the ocean. On the 19th of August, three days after Hull's surrender, another Hull--the gallant Commodore--met the Guerriere, and it was ours. Again the wicked federalists said--"We told you so! that's our thunder." This was true enough. The federalists had built up the navy: Jefferson and his party had opposed it. The federalists had urged that--if we must go to war--the strength of the country should be put into ships, and that we should meet the enemy upon the sea. "Not so"--said democracy--"we will take Canada!" It was very provoking of Commodore Hull to capture the Guerriere, for it gave aid and comfort to the enemy--these blackhearted federalists! However, other commanders followed Hull's example. On the 18th of October, Capt. Jones, in the Wasp, took the British sloop-of-war Frolic; and on the 25th of the same month, the fierce and fiery Decatur, in the frigate United States, captured the British frigate Macedonian. In December, Bainbridge conquered the Java, after a fearful conflict. "Hurra for the navy; we told you so!" said the black-hearted federalists.

Such was the first year of the war: the campaign of 1813 opened upon a wider and more varied field. Among its incidents upon the land, were the disastrous operations of Winchester, at Frenchtown--which clothed all Kentucky in mourning for its gallant sons, fallen in battle; our capture of York, in Canada, costing the life of the lamented Pike; Harrison's effective resistance at the siege of Fort Meigs; the battle of the Thames, and the death of the great Indian chief, Tecumseh--important events, leading finally to the recovery of Detroit. To these were added the retirement of General Dearborn--the President insisting he was sick, while the general, not taking or not relishing the joke, insisted that he was never better in his life; the succession of Wilkinson as Commander-in-chief--soon, however, to be superseded and tried by court-martial for his blunders and failures; the magnificent attempt to take Montreal, and its equally magnificent abortion; and finally, late in the year, the bloody and desolating ravages by the British, of Buffalo, Black Rock, Lewiston, &c., &c., in revenge for our burning the Canadian village of Newark, by which we turned four hundred helpless people out of doors in midwinter. Thus the year, which had presented some brilliant instances of courage and conduct, closed in general disappointment and humiliation, so far as our land operations were concerned. "We told you so!" said the wicked federalists, and many a democratic ear tingled at the gibe.

Yet light again--with some sad and disheartening shadows--came from the sea. On the 21st of February, Captain Lawrence took the Peacock, but on the 4th of June following, gave up his life on the deck of the Chesapeake--captured by the Shannon--bequeathing, however, to his country the glorious motto, worthy of all great occasions--"Don't give up the ship!" On the 14th of August the American Argus quailed to the British Pelican; in September, the British Boxer became the prize of the American Enterprise. A greater triumph was at hand. On the 10th of this month, Perry met the enemy on Lake Erie, and "they were ours!" It was indeed a glorious victory; the entire British fleet--two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop---falling into our hands.

"We told you so: that's our thunder!" said the exultant but provoking federalists. "It is our thunder, too!" said the democrats. "Hurra for the navy!" said both parties. "Here's to Hull and Decatur and Jones and Biddle and Bainbridge, and all the rest!" said everybody. There was one point of union at last, and so it was to the end of the war. The little navy had conquered democratic prejudice, and fought itself into national favor. It was indeed a glorious thing--saving the honor of the country, tarnished by imbecility and disaster upon 'the land, and teaching a wise lesson as to the true policy to be pursued, in case of future conflict with any European enemy: let us meet them upon the sea!

I must not omit an episode of the war at this period, in which I was concerned. On the first of June, 1818, Commodore Decatur, in the United States, attended by the Macedonian and the sloop-of-war Hornet, having passed from New York through the Sound, attempted to get out to sea by way of Montauk Point. Here they were met by the British fleet, under Commodore Hardy, and driven into the Thames at New London. The enemy's force was soon increased by the arrival, of other ships of war, and these, anchoring off Gull Island so as to block up the port, seemed to threaten a speedy attack. Great panic immediately ensued, as well at New London as along the borders of the Sound. The specie of the banks in that city was removed to Norwich, and the women and children dispersed themselves among the interior towns and villages. No adequate means of defense existed along the line of the New England coast--seven hundred miles in extent. The regular troops had nearly all been marched off to invade Canada. The general government had, furthermore, called upon the New England States to place a portion of the militia at their disposal for this object. This had been refused on several grounds: one was, that the Constitution provided only three contingencies, in which the militia could be lawfully placed under the command of the President, and these were, to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, and execute the laws. Neither of these emergencies existed in the

present case. Another ground of refusal was, that the coasts, being left defenceless, the retaining of the militia was a measure dictated by every consideration of prudence. Still another objection was, that the general government had so organized and distributed the national forces, as to make the militia fail under the command of the army officers--a principle always resisted by the country, in every period of its national history. On the whole, the government scheme, in respect to the militia, was regarded, and very justly, as analogous to the systems of conscription in the military despotisms of Europe, and--if once tolerated and passed into practice--as alike hostile to our principles and threatening to our liberties. The fear of seeing our freedom fall before some ambitious military leader, had prevailed in the convention which framed our Constitution, and it was this which had induced that far-seeing body to circumscribe the power of the President, in regard to the militia, within the clear and narrow limits already mentioned. Prudence and patriotism alike dictated, in the present instance, that this great bulwark of liberty should be maintained.

These, fortunately for the country, were the views of the New England States at this period, and upon these they acted. There was then and has been since, much clamor by the war party against their conduct in this instance, but every lover of his country should render homage to the wisdom and patriotism of those

leaders who guided the councils of New England, at this crisis. The question was then settled, and doubtless settled forever, that by no artifice can the system of conscription, giving unlimited command over the militia to the President, be consummated. The rule of the Constitution, in this respect, has been confirmed, as not only a principle in theory, but as a rule of practice.

I remember the discussions on this subject which took place at the North, during this period. Besides the objections already mentioned against placing the militia at the disposal of the President--and besides the general hostility of the people to sending their sons forth for the avowed purpose of conquest--there was another motive, and a very active one, tending in the same direction. The new army officers, with some honorable exceptions, were held in very light esteem, as well personally as professionally. Almost without exception, the appointments were bestowed upon partisans of the President. Many of the officers were notoriously unfit for the places given to them.*

Dearborn especially was well known in New England, and was regarded as wholly incompetent to the responsible command devolved upon him. Hull's surrender, Dearborn's failures, and Wilkinson's abortions, justified and increased this general want of confidence in the new army appointments. Even if other objections had not existed, the people would have revolted at the idea of sending their sons to perish ingloriously along the Canadian borders, under the direction of incompetent commanders, appointed on merely partisan principles.

But now a new state of things had arisen in Connecticut: our own territory was threatened. For this, the State government had made wise preparation, and on their part there was no hesitation.* It was midsummer--a period when the husbandmen could

ill afford to leave their farms: so orders were sent by Governor Smith* to dispatch at once the companies of militia from the larger towns to the defense of New London, and the neighboring country. At that time I belonged to an artillery company, and this was among those ordered to the coast. I received a summons at four o'clock in the afternoon, to be ready to march the next day at sunrise. I went at once to consult

my uncle--who, by the way, was at that time not only mayor of the city, but Lieutenant-governor of the State. He had a short time before promised to make me one of his aids, and perhaps thought I should expect him now to fulfill his engagement. He soon set that matter at rest.

"You must of course go," said he. "We old federalists can not shelter our nephews, when there is a question of defending our own territory."

"Ought I not to consult my parents?" said I.

"I will go down and see them to-morrow," he replied.

"Certainly then I shall go: I wish to go: my only feeling is that my mother may have some anxiety."

"I will see her to-morrow: you may be at ease on that subject. Be ready to march at sunrise, according to your orders. I will come and see you before you start."

The next morning, while it was yet dark, he came, gave me letters of introduction to Judge Brainard, father of the poet, Judge Perkins, and General Williams. He also supplied me with ten dollars, a welcome addition to my light purse. After a little advice,, he said--"I have only one thing to add--if you come to a fight, don't run away till the rest do. Good-by!"

The next morning--June 7, 1813--about sunrise, the whole company, nearly sixty in number, mounted in wagons, departed. At sunset, we were on the heights, two miles back of New London. No provision had been made for us, and so we went supper-less to bed, in a large empty barn. I scarcely closed my eyes, partly because it was my first experiment in sleeping on the floor, and partly because of the terrific snoring of a fellow-soldier, by the name of C...., who chanced to be at my side. Never have I heard such a succession of choking, suffocating, strangling sounds as issued from his throat. I expected that he would die, and indeed once or twice I thought he was dead. Strange to say, he got up the next morning in excellent condition, and seemed, indeed, to feel better for the exercise. This man became quite a character before the campaign was over: he got the title of Æolus, and as he could not be tolerated in the barracks, he was provided with a tent, at a good distance, where he blew his blast without restraint. I need only add, that, at the close of the campaign, he was the fattest man in the company.

I was glad to see the daylight. The weather was fine, and as the sun came up, we saw the British fleet--some half dozen large ships of war--lying off the mouth of the Thames. They seemed very near at hand, and for the first time I realized my situation--that of a soldier, who was likely soon to be engaged in battle. I said nothing of my emotions: indeed,

words were unnecessary. I watched the countenances of my companions as they first caught a view of the black and portentous squadron, and I read in almost every bosom a reflection of my own feelings. We were, however, not all sentimentalists. There were among ns, as doubtless in all such companies, a supply of witty, reckless Gallios, who gave a cheerful turn to our thoughts. We soon dispersed among the inhabitants, scattered over the neighboring hills and valleys, for breakfast. Like hungry wolves, we fell upon the lean larders, and left famine behind. Of course every one offered to pay, but not one person would accept a farthing: we were, indeed, received as protectors and deliverers. It was something, after all, to be soldiers! With our stomachs fortified, and our consciousness flattered, we came cheerfully together.

At ten o'clock, we were mustered, and began our march, all in our best trim: cocked hats, long-tailed blue coats, with red facings, white pantaloons, and shining cutlasses at our sides. Our glittering cannon moved along with the solemnity of elephants; It was, in fact, a fine company--all young men, and many from the best families in Hartford. Our captain, Johnson, was an eminent lawyer, of martial appearance, and great taste for military affairs. He afterward rose to the rank of general. Mosely, the first-lieutenant, was sis feet four inches high--a young lawyer, nephew of Oliver Wolcott--and of high social

and professional standing. Screamed the fife, rolled the drum--as we entered New London! The streets presented some confusion, for still the people were removing back into the country, as an attack was daily expected. A few military companies were also gathering into the town. We were, however, not wholly overlooked: women put their heads out of the windows, and smiled their gratitude as we passed along. Men stopped, and surveyed us with evident signs of approbation. Louder screamed our fife, deeper rolled our drum, and the glorious music echoed and re-echoed--bounded and rebounded--from the reverberating walls of the streets. It was a glorious thing to belong to such a company! At last we came to a halt in one of the public squares. Then there was racing and chasing of aid-de-camps, in buff and feathers, for four mortal hours, during which our martial pride wilted a little in the broiling sun. At four o'clock in the afternoon, we were transported across the Thames, to the village of Groton, and took up our quarters in a large house, on the bank of the river, vacated for our use. Two immense kettles--the one filled with junks of salt beef and the other with unwashed potatoes--were swung upon the kitchen trammels, and at six o'clock in the evening we were permitted each to fish out his dinner from the seething mass. That was my first soldier's supper; and after all, it was a welcome and relishing meal.