Here growing commerce shall unfold her sail,
Load the rich bark, and woo the inland gale.
Far to the west, where savage hordes reside,
Smooth Missisippi rools his copious tide,
And fair Ohio weds his silver side.

Hail, happy States! thine is the blissful seat,
Where nature's gifts and art's improvements meet.
Thy temp'rate air breathes health; thy fertile soil,
In copious plenty pays the labourer's toil.

Ask not for mountains of Peruvian ore,

Nor court the dust that shines on Afric's shore.
The plough explores for thee the richest mine;
Than autumn's fruit, no goodlier ore can shine.
O'er the wide plain and through the op'ning glade,
Flows the canal obsequious to the spade.
Commerce to wealth and knowledge turns the key,
Floats o'er the land and sails to ev'ry sea.
Thrice happy art! be thy white sail unfurl'd,
Not to corrupt, but socialize the world.

The muse prophetic views the coming day,
When federal laws beyond the line shall sway,
Where Spanish indolence inactive lies,
And ev'ry art and ev'ry virtue dies;
Where pride and avarice their empire hold,
Ignobly great, and poor amid their gold,
Columbia's genius shall the mind inspire,
And fill each breast with patriotic fire.
Nor east nor western oceans shall confine
The gen'rous flame that dignifies the mind;
O'er all the earth shall freedom's banner wave,
The tyrant blast, and liberate the slave.

Plenty and peace shall spread from pole to pole,
Till earth's grand family possess one soul.

DIALOGUE

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MASTER AND SLAVE.

Master.

OW, villian! what have you to say for this second attempt to run away? Is

NO

there any punishment that you do not deserve? Slave. I well know that nothing I can say will avail. I submit to my fate.

Mast. But are you not a base fellow, a hardened and ungrateful rascal?

That is answer enough.

I

Slave. I am a slave. Mast. I am not content with that answer. thought I discerned in you some tokens of a mind superiour to your condition. I treated you accordingly. You have been comfortably fed and lodged, not overworked, and attended with the most humane care when you were sick. And is this the return?

Slave. Since you condescend to talk with me, as man to man, I will reply. What have you done, what can you do for me, that will compensate for the liberty which you have taken away?

Mast. I did not take it away. You were a slave when I fairly purchased you.

Slave. Did I give my consent to the purchase ?
Mast. You had no consent to give.

ready lost the right of disposing of yourself.

You had al

Slave. I had lost the power, but how the right? I was treacherously kidnapped in my own country, when following an honest occupation. I was put in chains, sold to one of your countrymen, carried by force on board his ship, brought hither, and exposed to sale like a beast in the market, where you bought me. What step in all this progress of violence and injustice can give a right? Was it in the villain who stole me, in the slave-merchant who tempted him to do so, or in you who encouraged the slave-merchant to bring his targo of human cattle to cultivate your lands?

Mast.

Mast. It is in the order of Providence that one man should become subservient to another. It ever has been so, and ever will be. I found the custom, and did not make it.

Slave. You cannot but be sensible, that the robber who puts a pistol to your breast may make just the same plea. Providence gives him a power over your life and property; it gave my enemies a power over my liberty. But it has also given me legs to escape with; and what should prevent me from using them? Nay, what should restrain me from retaliating the wrongs I have suffered, if a favourable occasion should offer?

Mast. Gratitude! I repeat, gratitude! Have I not endeavoured ever since I possessed you to alleviate your misfortunes by kind treatment; and does that confer no obligation? Consider how much worse your condition might have been under another master. Slave. You have done nothing for me more than for your working cattle. Are they not well fed and tended? do you work them harder than your slaves? is not the rule of treating both designed only for your own advantage? You treat both your men and beast slaves better than some of your neighbours, because you are more prudent and wealthy than they.

Mast. You might add, more humane too.

Slave. Humane! does it deserve that appellation to keep your fellow-men in forced subjection, deprived of all exercise of their free will, liable to all the injuries that your own caprice, or the brutality of your overseers, may heap on them, and devoted, soul and body, only to your pleasure and emolument ? Can gratitude take place between creatures in such a state, and the tyrant who holds them in it? Look at these limbs; are they not those of a man? Think that I have the spirit of a man too.

Mast. But it was my intention not only to make your life tolerably comfortable at present, but to provide for you in your old

age.
W

Slave.

Slave. Alas! is a life like mine, torn from country, friends, and all I held dear, and compelled to toil under the burning sun for a master, worth thinking about for old age? No; the sooner it ends, the sooner I shall obtain that relief for which my soul pants.

Mast. Is it impossible, then, to hold you by any ties but those of constraint and severity?

Slave. It is impossible to make one, who has felt the value of freedom, acquiesce in being a slave.

Mast. Suppose I were to restore you to your liberty, would you reckon that a favour?

Slave. The greatest; for although it would only be undoing a wrong, I know too well how few among mankind are capable of sacrificing interest to justice, not to prize the exertion when it is made.

Mast. I do it, then; be free.

Slave. Now I am indeed your servant, though not your slave. And as the first return I can make for your kindness, I will tell you freely the condition in which you live. You are surrounded with implacable foes, who long for a safe opportunity to revenge upon you and the other planters all the miseries they have endured. The more generous their natures, the more indignant they feel against that cruel injustice which has dragged them hither, and doomed them to perpetual servitude. You can rely on no kindness on your part, to soften the obduracy of their resentment. You' have reduced them to the state of brute beasts; and if they have not the stupidity of beasts of burden, they must have the ferocity of beasts of prey. Superiour force alone can give you security. As soon as that fails, you are at the mercy of the merciless. Such is the social bond between master and slave!

PART

PART OF MR. O'CONNOR'S SPEECH IN THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, IN FAVOUR OF THE BILL FOR EMANCIPATING THE ROMAN CATH

I

OLICS, 1795.

F I were to judge from the dead silence with which my speech has been received, I should suspect that what I have said was not very palatable to some men in this House. But I have not risked connexions, endeared to me by every tie of blood and friendship, to support one set of men in preference to another. I have hazarded too much by the part I have taken, to allow the breath of calumny to taint the objects I have had in view. Immutable principles, on which the happiness and liberty of my countrymen depends, convey to my mind the only substantial boon for which great sacrifices should be made.

And I here avow myself the zealous and earnest advocate for the most unqualified emancipation of my catholic countrymen; in the hope and conviction, that the monopoly of the rights and liberties of my country, which has hitherto effectually withstood the efforts of a part of the people, must yield to the unanimous will, to the decided interest, and to the general effort of a whole united people. It is from this conviction, and it is for that transcendently important object, that, while the noble Lord and the Right Honorable Secretary, are offering to risk their lives and fortunes in support of a system that militates against the liberty of my countrymen, I will risk every thing dear to me on earth. It is for this great object I have, I fear, more than risked connexions dearer to me than life itself. But he must be a spiritless man, and this a spiritless nation, not to resent the baseness of a British Minister, who has raised our hopes in order to seduce a rival to share with him the disgrace of this accursed political crusade, and blast them afterwards, that he may degrade a competitor,

to