FIRST SETTLERS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 19 the halls of legislation, the military and naval establishments of our country; and in all these various situations, we can safely hold them up to public view, and with honest pride claim them for our own. I have already alluded to the force of local association; and I would again advert to it in considering the ties which ought to bind us to our native land. Other countries may possess a richer soil and a gentler sky; but where shall we find the rude magnificence of nature so blended with scenes of enchanting beauty, as among our mountains and lakes? Believe me, it is because our country is yet unexplored, that her scenes of beauty and grandeur, her bright waters and swelling hills, her rich pasturage of living green, mingled with fresh flowers, and skirted with deep and shady forests; her fields teeming with life and vegetation; her mountains rising into the dark blue sky, and blending their summits with the purple clouds; her streams rushing from the hill side, and hastening to mingle with the sea, or lingering in the solitude of her valleys, and sparkling in the glorious sunshine; —it is because these are unexplored, that they are unsung. The time is not far distant, when the poet will kindle into rapture, and the painter glow with emotion, in delineating our romantic scenery. But it is our moral associations that must bind us forever to the land of our fathers. It is a land of equal rights; its soil is not polluted by a slave. It is a land of religious freedom; no hierarchy can here exalt its head, no pontiff can hurl his thunders over a trembling and prostrate multitude. It is a land of industry and toil; affording in this a constant pledge of the manly virtues. It is a land of knowledge and progressive improvement. In no part of the world is so liberal a provision made by law for public instruction. It is a land whose inhabitants have already fulfilled the high duties to which they have been called. Other nations have gathered more laurels in the field of blood; other nations have twined more garlands and sung louder praise for their poets and orators and philosophers; but where has romantic courage and adventurous skill been more strikingly exhibited? Where has practical wisdom been better displayed? In the hour of danger, her sons have been foremost in the battle. In every contest for the rights of mankind, her voice has always been raised on the side of freedom. And now that she stands possessed of every thing which civil and political liberty can bestow, she is vigilant and jealous for the preservation of her rights, and is among the first to resist encroachment. But we are connected with the future, as well as with the past. We are but a link in the vast chain of being, which is to bind our remotest descendants with our earliest ancestors; and it is one of the advantages of a celebration like this, that it reminds us of our duties, as well as our privileges. A new century is opening upon us, which none of us will live to complete. Our children are about to take our places. When another century has passed away, the events of this day will be the subject of historical research. Our character and conduct will then be examined. It will be asked, what we did to perpetuate the blessings we received; what exertions we made to enlighten and purify and bless mankind; what measures we devised to secure at once the rights of the people, and the stability and dignity of the government; what zeal we displayed for our religious institutions; what sacrifices we made in the cause of human virtue and human happiness. We are living, even the humblest of us, not for ourselves only; but for society, for posterity, for the human race. Whatever we can do for ourselves, or for them, becomes at once our imperious duty to do. There is no escape from the obligation. There should be no delay in the performance - no hesitation. These questions will be asked. The answer is yet in our own power. SONG OF THE PILGRIMS. WRITTEN FOR THE SECOND CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT DOVER, 1823. BY THOMAS C. UPHAM. THE breeze has swelled the whitening sail, The deep may dash, the winds may blow, From that shore we 'll speed us fast. For we would rather never be, Than dwell where mind cannot be free, Blasts of heaven, onward sweep! O see what wonders meet our eyes! Here at length our feet shall rest, As long as yonder firs shall spread Their green arms o'er the mountain's head; Shall those cliffs and mountains be Now to the King of kings we 'll raise More loud than sounds the swelling breeze, SKETCH OF JOHN LANGDON. BY JACOB B. MOORE. THE circumstances attending the early settlement of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, though generally supposed to be similar, were in some respects widely different. The planters of the old Bay State left their native country, for the sake of enjoying here a degree of freedom in religion, of which they were deprived in the land of their fathers. The settlers of Piscataqua were actuated by a very different purpose. The pursuit of gain was uppermost in their thoughts, and they embarked at once in the fisheries and trade, which they followed with success, until many of the first settlers became men of opulence in the new country. The great importance of the fisheries seems not to have escaped the attention of Captain Smith, the discoverer of New Hampshire; for in his account of New England he thus addresses his countrymen : "Therefore, honorable and worthy countrymen, let not the meanness of the word fish distaste you, for it will afford you as good gold as the mines of Potosi and Guiana, with less hazard and change, and more certainty and facility." A reverend divine, in 1690, was preaching in Portsmouth, on the depravity of the times, and said: "You have forsaken the pious habits of your forefathers, who left the ease and comfort which they possessed in their native land, and came to this howling wilderness, to enjoy, without molestation, the exercise of their pure principles of religion." One of the congregation immediately rose, and interrupted him thus: " Sir, you entirely mistake the matter; our ancestors SKETCH OF JOHN LANGDON. 23 did not come here on account of their religion, but to fish and trade." A better illustration of the pursuits of the early settlers of New Hampshire, perhaps, it would be difficult to give. The people of Portsmouth, wealthy and enterprising as they are, have followed the advice of Captain Smith, and have never suffered "the word fish to distaste them," but have made it indeed a mine of gold" to that ancient and flourishing town. 66 Among the citizens of New Hampshire, educated as merchants, who have risen to public distinction, no one, perhaps, occupied a wider space than JOHN LANGDON of Portsmouth. He was born in 1740, and received his early education in the celebrated grammar school of Major Samuel Hale. The father of young Langdon, who was a thrifty farmer, intended his son should engage in the same occupation; but the latter, looking upon commerce as the grand highway to wealth, set his heart upon becoming a merchant, and accordingly made the necessary preparations to enter a counting-house. One of the most extensive and successful mercantile houses at that time in Portsmouth, was that of Daniel Rindge, a counsellor under the provincial government, and to him young Langdon made application, and was admitted to his counting-house, and soon became thoroughly versed in commercial transactions. After completing his apprenticeship with Rindge, he made several successful and very profitable trading voyages, with the view of ultimately establishing a commercial house of his own, in his native town. But the dark clouds that preceded the Revolution began to skirt the horizon, and his mind was suddenly turned in a new direction. Naturally of a bold and fearless disposition, he entered at once into the feeling of the colonists; and, possessing in a remarkable degree the power to win over multitudes, he became the acknowledged leader of the "sons of liberty" in that little Province, as much so as Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Massachusetts. Langdon was a leader exactly suited to the crisis. He took a conspicuous and active part in the struggle, and soon |