It is not, for the most part, by those who are contemporaneous with great events, that a proper estimate can be formed of their importance. The wisdom of that Providence which governs the world, has chosen, in the accomplishment of its purposes, to pursue a course altogether different from that which would have been adopted by the wisdom of man; educing from occurrences, apparently so trivial as to be greatly unnoticed by the men among whom they took place, a succession of most interesting and splendid consequences, and confounding human calculation by the momentous light in which those scarcely heeded occurrences come to be regarded by the people of succeeding generations. Among the multitude of illustrations which history furnishes of the truth of this remark, the event concerning which it is proposed to treat in the sequel of this essay, is one of the most interesting and memorable.