authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person, under the protection of the habeas corpus ; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of our civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION.

Although peace was one of the professed objects of his administration, Jefferson had to conduct the first foreign war of the United States, and must have been very glad that his predecessor had created to his hand that navy, against the cost of which he and his party had clamored. The war in question was one with the Barbaresque State of Tripoli. There was a naval action or two, a bombardment, a land expedition, a pretender set up, and then discarded, and lastly a peace (1805), which left things much as they were, although it was considered more honorable than any concluded for a century by a Christian power with the Barbaresques.

But a more formidable contest was looming in the distance. The wars of the first French empire were at their height. America was the only maritime nation of the civilized world that was beyond the reach of coercion, or of an influence equivalent to coercion, on the part of the two great belligerents. Her trade was enormously increasing, and she was fast becoming the foremost carrier of the world, whilst her production, was increasing in like manner. South Carolina

alone, in 1801, exported 14,304,045 dollars' worth, including 8,000,000 lbs. of cotton. American ships were the natural refuge, not only of almost all the peaceful commerce of Europe, but of all seamen,-including of course, many English-who preferred peace to war, and sought to escape the English press-gang.

As early as 1793 (December 22d) we find Washington, always moderate toward England, complaining of her for having violated American rights "by searching vessels and impressing seamen within our acknowledged jurisdiction,” and even "by entire crews in the West Indies." In the short period of nine months, from July, 1796, to April 13, 1797, Mr. King, the American minister in London, had 271 applications from seamen claiming to be Americans, of whom eighty-six were actually discharged as such, thirty-seven had been detained as British, and no answer had been returned as to the remaining 148. Two nephews of Washington himself were impressed on their return from England. Altogether,

it was reckoned that before the end of the great Continental war, more than 1,000 American-born seamen were serving as pressed men on board English ships.

But the event which brought this question home to the feelings of the whole American people, was the unfortunate affair of the "Leopard" and "Chesapeake." On June 22, 1807, the American frigate "Chesapeake," imperfectly armed and equipped, was standing off to sea from Hampton Roads for a cruise in the Mediterranean. The commander of the British brig "Leopard," under orders from Vice-Admiral Berkeley, Commander-in-Chief of the North American station, to search all American vessels for deserters from certain specified frigates, sent to request leave to search the "Chesapeake" accordingly, offering at the same time equal facilities for searching his own ship. The American Commodore, Barron, replied that he had no knowledge of having any English deserters; that particular instructions had been given not to ship any, and that he could not allow his crew to be mustered by any other officer.

The "Leopard" now engaged the "Chesapeake," which offered but slight resistance. Three men were killed on

board of her, the commodore, a midshipman, eight seamen and marines slightly, and eight severely wounded, whilst no blood was spilt on the "Leopard;" and Commodore Barron struck his flag. The commander of the "Leopard" boarded this too easy prize, took out four men as deserters, and left her. Of the four men thus taken, one was really an Englishman, and was hanged; one was a Marylander born, another from Massachusetts, a third claimed also to be from Maryland: all the three latter were men of color; one had been a slave; two had been pressed from an American brig in the Bay of Biscay, one from an English Guineaman (slaver) off Cape Finisterre. There was thus a complication of outrages in the original impressment of the men, in the second seizure of them, in the insult offered to a vessel of war.

The British government acted promptly and handsomely in the matter. The news reached London on the 26th of July, and on the 2d of August, before any formal demand for redress by the American minister, the government disavowed the right to search ships in the national service of any state for deserters, and promised reparation; Vice-Admiral Berkeley was recalled.

But, meanwhile, the indignation in America was intense. President Jefferson, by a proclamation countersigned by his then Secretary of State and immediate future successor, Mr. Madison, interdicted the American harbors and waters to British armed vessels, dwelling on the fact that "it had been previously ascertained that the seamen demanded were native citizens of the United States;" a point which was again insisted on in Mr. Madison's instructions to Mr. Monroe, then United States minister in London, and afterward President, who in turn, with his formal demand upon the British government for restoration of the men, transmitted documents which, he presumed would satisfy it, "that they were American citizens." Two of the men eventually were restored; one seems to have died.

Ample amends were thus done for this particular outrage. But there can be little doubt that it was one of the chief events which inflamed the minds of the American people against England, and made them ripe for the war which

broke out under Jefferson's successor. Yet it was only one in a chain of complications.

The time had come when the two giant combatants on the European battle-field could no longer abide the goings and comings of neutrals. In May, 1806, an English Order in Council had declared a blockade of all ports and rivers from the Elbe to Brest. In November, 1806, Napoleon retorted by his Berlin decree, blockading all the British Islands and forbidding all intercourse with them. The British government informed the Americans, that if they should submit to this decree, it would retaliate upon them. By fresh Orders in Council, November 11, 1807, it placed in a state of blockade the whole of France, and all her dependent powers. Napoleon's answer was by the Milan decree (17th of December), declaring that every vessel searched or visited against her will by a British cruiser, or proceeding to or returning from England, should be a good prize.

In self-defence, and indeed before even the news of the decree had reached America, Congress laid a general embargo (recommended by Jefferson) on American trade (22d of December). Napoleon met this measure by a more open attack, the Bayonne decree (17th of April, 1808), rendering every American vessel found on the ocean liable to seizure and condemnation. There was no alternative but to continue the embar

go, and to strengthen the navy. Two hundred gun-boats were already deemed requisite, and in his eighth and last annual message (November 8, 1808), Jefferson was able to state that 103 of these were completed. He had recommended the army and militia to be again increased; the manufacture of arms was improving; military stores had been increased; internal manufactures, fostered by the European war, were growing apace. In a word, Jefferson had come in a peace President; he left his country well-nigh ready for war. -J. M. LUDLOW.

THE DEATH OF JEFFERSON AND ADAMS.

The jubilee of America is turned into mourning. Its joy is mingled with sadness; its silver trumpet breathes a mingled strain. Henceforth, while America exists among the nations

of earth, the first emotion on the Fourth of July will be of joy and triumph in the great event which immortalizes the day; the second will be one of chastened and tender recollection of the venerable men, who departed on the morning of the jubilee. This mingled emotion of triumph and sadness has sealed the beauty and sublimity of our great anniversary. In the simple commemoration of a victorious political achievement, there seems not enough to occupy our purest and best feelings. The Fourth of July was before a day of triumph, exultation, and national pride; but the Angel of Death has mingled in the glorious pageant to teach us we are men. Had our venerated fathers left us on any other day, it would have been henceforth a day of mournful recollection. But now the whole nation feels, as with one heart, that since it must sooner or later have been bereaved of its revered fathers, it could not have wished that any other day had been the day of their decease.

Our anniversary festival was before triumphant; it is now triumphant and sacred. It before called out the young and ardent, to join in the public rejoicings; it now also speaks in a touching voice to the retired, to the gray-headed, to the mild and peaceful spirits, to the whole family of sober freemen. It is henceforth, what the dying Adams pronounced it, "a great and a good day." It is full of greatness and full of goodness. It is absolute and complete. The death of the men who declared our independence-their death on the day of the jubilee-was all that was wanting to the Fourth of July. To die on that day, and to die together, was all that was wanting to Jefferson and Adams.-E. EVERETT.