are descended, and which for many generations has been the bulwark of the religion we profess;" He exhorted the people " to ascribe righteousness to our Maker when he threatens us with the most severe of all temporal calamities, and to beseech him to avert the tokens of his anger and to remember us with his former loving kindness and tender mercy;" and "that the inhabitants of this state may be the objects of his peculiar favour, that he would take them under his holy protection, and hide them in his pavilion until these dangers be past; that the chastisements with which he may think proper to afflict us may serve to humble us and do us good, and that we may not be like those who are hardened by his corrections, and who in the time of their trouble multiply their transgressions against him."

The policy of the ex-governour of Massachusetts would have elevated the spirits and animated the confidence and cherished the hopes and nerved the courage of his countrymen. If he had called them round their domestic altars, it would have been for thanksgiving and not to fast; he would have called them there not in humiliation that calamity had fallen upon them, but in gratitude that they possessed the pride of freemen and the resolution to maintain their liberties; he would not have begged to hide them from danger, but advancing at the first signal of an enemy, asked of the God of armies "to teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight."

Little effort is necessary to create terror and alarm. Dangers that are unseen may be made to terrify the imagination with illimitable horror. The cry of sauve qui peut once raised, confusion and dismay will overwhelm those who raise it.

The desponding and affrighted tone of this first proclamation of the Massachusetts executive, the deplorable and abasing sentiment with which in an act of religious service, purified from all political design, the whole people of the commonwealth were directed to unite as if they were expecting the dissolution of the globe, and the day of final retribution, had its effect in restraining the generous and gallant and lofty spirit of a high minded and patriotic people, so that aided by other measures of the peace party their majority, which in the contest with governour Gerry scarcely exceeded thirteen hundred voters, amounted at the election of electors in November to 24023.

CHAPTER XI.

Elected vice-president of the United States.......Address of congratu→ lation from his friends in Massachusetts.......National and state policy........Presides in the senate of the United States.......The cabinet....... His opinion of the opposition in Massachusetts....... Sudden death......Funeral.......Proposed bill to continue his salary to his widow.........Lost in the house of representatives.......His monument.......Inscription.

THE loss of the chief magistracy of Massachusetts was amply compensated to the ex-governour by the vice-presidency of the United States. The republican party through the country had beheld with the highest satisfaction the steadiness of his attachment to their principles, the fearlessness with which he had advanced them where they were least popular, and the aid, which his character as a distinguished actor in the war that acquired independence, would give to the contest which in their opinion would secure it.

At a meeting held by the members of congress of that party, on the 8th June 1812, at Washington, he was proposed by nearly an unanimous vote* for the suffrages of the electoral colleges, and on the first Wednesday of December of that year, was elected vice-president of the United States.

It was not possible to have imagined a

* More exactly 74 to 3.

This election was entirely on party grounds throughout the United States, excepting only that Mr. Gerry received one vote

more splendid reward for the aid he had given to the political principles of his party.

To his friends in Massachusetts the nomination was particularly pleasing, and the result of the election was received with great exultation and delight.

They felt the compliment thus paid to their exertions under circumstances calculated greatly to depress them; and the honour reflected on themselves added new zeal to their efforts in support of the national administration. "The republican members of the senate and house of representatives of Massachusetts and other citizens," assembled in Boston, presented to the vice-president elect an address of congratulation, in the most respectful and affectionate terms, in which they thank him for the open avowal of his attachment to the national and state constitutions, while he exercised the office of chief magistracy of the commonwealth, and felicitate themselves on the evidence of the cordiality of their southern fellow citizens, "in selecting a character so fully comprising the essential qualities of a republican, and so adequate to maintaining the great principles of the revolution in their original purity."

The answer of the vice-president acknowledges the kindness of his friends in Massachusetts, and

in New-Hampshire and two votes in Massachusetts, which were withheld from Mr. Madison. One of these was given by his old friend in the revolution, general Heath.

his sensibility to this high proof of the confidence of the country.

Indeed this election seemed to him as an appeal from the decree of the state to the tribunal of the nation, a reversal by their authority of an unjust decision, and the consequent restoration of his character to its former elevation.

Since the peace of 1783, he had reluctantly engaged in public life. Every situation he had oc→ cupied was a sacrifice of his own inclinations to the calls of his country; but in the present honourable distinction he felt the highest sensations of gratified ambition; and cheerfully assumed the duties of a station, which in addition to its inherent dignity, had the cheering appearance of a reward for past labours of patriotism, and a compensation for the consequences of political fidelity.

A statesman, if there be one, who always sails with the breeze of popularity, knows not the keenest delights of his eminent profession. The most exquisite enjoyment of a servant of the peo→ ple is at the moment when they make their acknowledgement for sacrifices submitted to in their service, and recall him to new and greater honours, more generous confidence and more conspicuous station. It is then that the pursuits of civil life have the animation and excitement of military glory. In the cabinet and the field, men are equally exposed to misfortune, but a gallant spirit lightly feels a wound, which is repaid by the consolation and applause of his country.