the present deliberations. The motion was carried by acclamation, and a committee appointed to conduct him to the chair.

Mr. Gerry then hardly recovered from a disease from which even fatal consequences had been apprehended, was at the house of a friend a short distance from the assembly, without having had any notice of the meeting, or the most distant idea of being called to preside. He readily accepted the invitation, and walked with the committee by the usual avenue to the gothic hall of the state-house. Nothing indicative of a convention was visible. Scarcely a solitary passenger crossed his path. As ignorant of the location assigned him, as the assembly was of his approach, he was conducted across the hall, when the folding doors were thrown open, and he found himself not only in the presence of several thousands of his fellow citizens, but in the place appointed for their moderator, and actually presiding in their councils.

Surprise could not be more complete either to him or them. Bowing in acknowledgment for the plaudits, which seemed to shake the very skies, and allowed him a moment to recover his self-possession, he addressed the assembly in the following animated sentence.

I had not anticipated that at my time of life, there could have been a scene like the present, but I yield to the call that is made on me, as I

hold it to be the duty of every citizen, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country.

This sentiment, indicative of the governing principle of his life, is the epitaph recorded on his monument, and was then reechoed by an approving multitude, who felt that the virtue of the revolution was resuscitated at a crisis, which called for a similar exercise of its energy and zeal.

CHAPTER X.

Elected governour of Massachusetts..........Conciliatory temper of the administration........Degree of doctor of laws conferred on him by Harvard College....... Inauguration of president Kirkland.......Reelected governour of Massachusetts.. Policy of the administration changed........Speech to the legislature........Measures of the republican party........Their character considered........Doctrine of libel........Correspondence with judge Parker...........Message to the legislature on the same subject.........Message on the resources of the state........ Complies with the requisition of the government of the United States for a detachmeut of militia........Is superseded as governour of Massachusetts.

FROM this long period of repose, Mr. Gerry was unexpectedly awakened by a call on him again to become a candidate for the office of governour of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

A nomination had usually been made during the sitting of the legislature, and the first suggestion of an intention of again presenting his name to the public, was communicated to him by a committee of gentlemen, who reported that he had been, with great unanimity, selected by the republican party. At the earnest solicitation of his political friends, but in his own language, "at the sacrifice of domestic and family interests, and with great personal inconvenience," he assented to the request. A canvass now commenced, which exceeded in its violence whatever had before occurred of a

similar character. If in its progress the subject of this memoir was assailed with every vituperative epithet, and presented to the public in the most odious points of view, it does not diminish the pain of the recollection, that his rival, the then incumbent of the chair, was treated with equal asperity.

Governour Gore had been elected the chief executive magistrate of the state, by the strength of the federal party, and held his claim to their confidence and respect by a cordial cooperation in all the essential measures of their policy. So far he was the legitimate object of attack by those, who differed from him in the principles of government, and in their views of the political system; but there was an honesty of heart, a courtesy of manners, and a generosity of feeling in this distinguished civilian, which ought to have protected him from the arrows of malevolence and slander.

The misty medium of party prejudice magnifies the errors of public men, while it as often gives them a factitious importance, which disappears with the returning light of intelligence and reason. Mr. Gore lived through the period of storm and turbulence, and it has been said of him with equal truth and elegance, that "his was a pure spirit, high and looking upward. His taste was refined, his sensibility acute, his feelings manly, generous, independent. He had the most elevated ideas of

public and private duty, and his conduct was always in perfect conformity with his principles. In times of excitement he was calm and just; in times of corruption pure."

The election terminated in favour of Mr. Gerry, who entered on the duties of his office on the second day of June 1810.

It has been the misfortune of the United States that dissensions among their citizens, on the correct course of their own national policy, had such relation to their connexion with foreign powers, as to involve the separate parties in the imputation of attachments or antipathies wholly independent of any motive of patriotism. It was eminently so at this period. The conduct of the belligerents sacrificed to their own advantage the rights and interests of the United States whenever they presented obstacles to the great objects of their controversy, while the folly of a war with both at the same time, and the inconveniences and evils resulting from the necessary movements of diplomacy to prevent it, constantly gave fuel to the flames of that party zeal, which is the inseparable concomitant of liberty. From the period of Mr. Jefferson's election to the presidency, in March 1801, the government of the United States, in all its departments had been decidedly in the hands of the democratic party, and their strength had so rapidly and steadily increased, that the check, which opposition exerts on public measures, had