scorned, it seems weak and lonely. But what matters it; ere the account be closed, principles will stand for something, and conscience, in all human affairs, will have the last word.

This, gentlemen, is what we would say to you in the name of all who with us, and better than ourselves, defend your cause in Europe. Your words have cheered us; may ours in turn cheer you! You have yet to cross many a dark valley. More than once the impossibility of success will be demonstrated to you; more than once, in the face of some military check or political difficulty, the cry will be raised that all is lost. What matters it to you? Strengthen your cause daily by daily making it more just, and fear not; there is a God above.

"We love to contemplate in hope the noble future which seems to stretch itself before you. The day you emerge at last from the anguish of civil war-and you will surely come out freed from the odious institution which corrupted your public manners and degraded your domestic as well as your foreign policy-that day your whole country, South as well as North, and the South perhaps more fully than the North, will enter upon a wholly new prosperity. European emigration will hasten toward your ports, and will learn the road to those whom until now it has feared to approach. Cultivation, now abandoned, will renew its yield. Liberty-for these are her miracles -will revivify by her touch the soil which slavery had rendered barren.

"Then there will be born unto you a greatness nobler and more stable than the old, for in this greatness there will be no sacrifice of justice."

CHAPTER V.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

BERKELEY; MCSPARRAN; MRS. GRANT; BURNABY; ROGERS; BURKE ; DOUGLASS; HENRY; EDDIS; ANBURY; SMYTHE.

“THERE* are more imposing monuments in the venerable precincts of Oxford, recalling the genius which hallows our ancestral literature, but at "the tomb of Berkeley we linger with affectionate reverence, as we associate the gifts of his mind and the graces of his spirit with his disinterested and memorable visit to our country.

In 1725, Berkeley published his proposals in explanation of this long-cherished purpose; at the same time he offered to resign his livings, and to consecrate the remainder of his days to this Christian undertaking. So magnetic were his appeal and example, that three of his brother fellows at Oxford decided to unite with him in the expedition. Many eminent and wealthy persons were induced to contribute their influence and money to the cause. But he did not trust wholly to such means. Having ascertained the worth of a portion of the St. Christopher's lands, ceded by France to Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and about to be disposed of for public advantage, he undertook to realize from them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug

*From the author's "Essays, Biographical and Critical."

gested that a certain amount of these funds should be devoted to his college. Availing himself of the friendly intervention of a Venetian gentleman whom he had known in Italy, he submitted the plan to George I., who directed Sir Robert Walpole to carry it through Parliament. He obtained a charter for erecting a college, by name St. Paul's, in Bermuda, with a president and nine fellows, to maintain and educate Indian scholars, at the rate of ten pounds a year, George Berkeley to be the first president, and his companions from Trinity College the fellows.' His commission was voted May 11th, 1726. To.the promised amount of twenty thousand pounds, to be derived from the land sale, many sums were added from individual donation. The letters of Berkeley to his friends, at this period, are filled with the discussion of his scheme; it absorbed his time, taxed his ingenuity, filled his heart, and drew forth the warm sympathy and earnest coöperation of his many admirers, though regret at the prospect of losing his society constantly finds expression. Swift, in a note to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, says: 'I do humbly entreat your excellency either to use such persuasions as will keep one of the first men of the kingdom for learning and genius at home, or assist him by your credit to compass his romantic design.' 'I have obtained reports,' says one of his own letters, from the Bishop of London, the board of trade and plantations, and the attorney and solicitor-general;' 'yesterday the charter passed the privy seal;' 'the lord chancellor is not a busier man than myself;' and elsewhere, 'I have had more opposition from the governors and traders to America than from any one else; but, God be praised, there is an end of all their narrow and mercantile views and endeavors, as well as of the jealousies and suspicions of others, some of whom were very great men, who apprehended this college may produce an independency in America, or at least lessen her dependency on England.'

Freneau's ballad of the 'Indian Boy,' who ran back to the woods from the halls of learning, was written subsequently, or it might have discouraged Berkeley in his idea of

the capacity of the American savages for education; but more positive obstacles thwarted his generous aims. The king died before affixing his seal to the charter, which delayed the whole proceedings. Walpole, efficient as he was as a financier and a servant of the house of Brunswick, was a thorough utilitarian, and too practical and worldly wise to share in the disinterested enthusiasm of Berkeley. In his answer to Bishop Gibson, whose diocese included the West Indies, when he applied for the funds so long withheld, he says: 'If you put the question to me as a minister, I must assure, you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you ask me as a friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to return to Europe.' To the project, thus rendered unattainable, Berkeley had devoted seven years of his life, and the greater part of his fortune. The amount realized by the sale of confiscated lands was about ninety thousand pounds, of which eighty thousand were devoted to the marriage portion of the princess royal, about to espouse the Prince of Orange; and the remainder, through the influence of Oglethorpe, was secured to pay for the transportation of emigrants to his Georgia colony. Berkeley's scheme was more deliberate and well-considered than is commonly believed. Horace Walpole calls it 'uncertain and amusing;' but a writer of deeper sympathies declares it 'too grand and pure for the powers that were.' His nature craved the united opportunities of usefulness and of self-culture. He felt the obligation to devote himself to benevolent enterprise, and at the same time earnestly desired both the leisure and the retirement needful for the pursuit of abstract studies. The prospect he contemplated promised to realize all these objects. He possessed a heart to feel the infinite wants, intellectual and religious, of the new continent, and had the imagination to conceive the grand destinies awaiting its growth. Those who fancy that his views were limited to the plan of a doubtful missionary experiment, do great injus

tice to the broad and elevated hopes he cherished. He knew that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and uncivilized, and the varied moral exigencies of a new country, would insure ample scope for the exercise of all his erudition and his talents. He felt that his mind would be a kingdom wherever his lot was cast; and he was inspired by a noble interest in the progress of America, and a faith in the new field there open for the advancement of truth, as is evident from the celebrated verses in which these feelings found expression :

'The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime

Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

'In happy climes, when from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true;

'In happy climes, the seat of innocence,

Where nature guides and virtue rules;

Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of schools;

'Then shall we see again the golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts;

'Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall end the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.'

In August, 1728, Berkeley married a daughter of the Honorable John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Com