'Possessed of the arts and sciences of Europe, we have enlarged and improved on them till we feel no inferiority in whatever tends to promote the domestic convenience and increase the rational blessings of life. What we do not already know and practise is easily obtained by literary communications; the times are past when knowledge could only be acquired by actual inspection. We need no information from other quarters to improve our political systems, unless it is to teach us what we ought to avoid. 'History affords no instance of a republican form of government more perfect in theory or more successful in practice than our own. A full comparison of advantages and defects would at present be misplaced. It is sufficient to say, that if any improvements in principle or effect should in time be found necessary, it is most probable that they will be better discovered and administered by ourselves than by strangers, however sound and friendly their intentions may be. '2d. Nor do we require an extraneous accession of numbers to contribute to our safety, if ill fortune should again involve us in defensive hostility. The events of our second war assure us that our numbers, skilfulness and courage, are sufficient for our own protection. 3 and 4. What other motives can impel us to desire an increase of population in this mode? Is our produce more than we consume? Commerce carries away the surplus; we need not invite others merely to consume it at home. 'Have we lands that require cultivation? We have millions, and by gradual acquisition shall have many millions more, which will hereafter be covered by our own natural increase. The land does not so much require the people as our own people will in time require the land. A view of the census of 1790, compared with that of 1810, sufficiently shows the progress of natural increase. 'In 1790, the total white, or free population, amounted to 3,231,630, in 1810 to 6,037,539. Thus in twenty years it was almost doubled. What proportion of this increase is to be credited to immigration, we have no materials to calculate. The next census will doubtless show a proportional increase beyond that of 1810, and it is certain that the migration to this country has been very great since the peace. In 1817, the only year of which we have certain data, the number amounted to 22,240. It is believed however, not to have been so great before nor since. But we may justly refer to single states, out of which it is probable the quantity of migration has been in proportion greater than any other, and into which, it is certain, migration has been very small. Connecticut in 1790, contained of free inhabitants 235,182; in 1810, 261,632. From New Jersey, which like Connecticut, has no bodies of profitable vacant land, on which to spread a super abundance of population, there has also been a considerable emigration. Her population of the same character amounted, in 1790, to 172,716: in 1810 to 237,711. 'On comparing the tables, it will be found, that the population of every one of the old states in the union has increased; although from every state considerable bodies of emigrants have removed to cultivate the additional territories acquired towards the west. 'There is no mystery in the principle which produced the result. When a population is so overcharged as to render subsistence difficult, the removal of the excess renews the means of subsistence to those who remain, and revives the tendency to natural in crease. 'From these considerations, it seems to follow, that this country is not required to make any material alteration in its polity, for the purpose of alluring strangers to join it.' ART. VIII.-Letter from Lieutenant General Kellermann, on the battle of Marengo. [Translated from La Bibliotheque Historique, of October, 1818.] SIR-I observe in your third volume an article upon the monument erected at Marseilles, in honour of general Dessaix, by which it appears you share the common misapprehension as to the last circumstance of his life; a misapprehension created and encouraged by that man whose inordinate ambition and envy could more easily brook the glory of the dead, than of the living. It is said that general Dessaix, by the sacrifice of his life, gained the victory at Marengo. God forbid that I should desire to diminish the glory of that illustrious commander and virtuous citizen; but he gathered a sufficient harvest of his own, without having need to deprive others of what was properly theirs. The truth is, he had no share in the decisive movement which restored victory to our banners at Marengo. The French army was composed, in the beginning of that affair, of the corps of generals Lannes and Victor. Weakened in men, ammunitions, and artillery, it was obliged towards noon, to cease fighting, and abandon the field of battle. The battalions, half destroyed, retired across the plain, protected by the younger general Kellerman's brigade of cavalry; and, thanks to the slowness with which the Austrians debouched from the morass of the Bormida, and the false direction taken by their numerous cavalry, these scattered remnants found a refuge behind the corps commanded by Dessaix. The first consul, elated by his success at Montebello, had anticipated a chase rather than a battle, and had detached this corps towards Novi, to cut off the enemy's retreat to Genoa. Dessaix was hastily recalled, he had just taken a position near St. Juliano, when general Kellerman with his brigade of cavalry arrived there, and met the aid-de-camp Savary, who was waiting to tell him the Kellermann's Letter on the Battle of Marengo. 137 battle was to be renewed, and to deliver the first consul's order, that he should support the attack of general Dessaix. Of Kellerman's brigade, there was left but 400 horse, fatigued with eight hours fighting, and repeated charges; and it was with Dessaix' corps of 3 or 4000 infantry, and these 400 horse, they ventured to renew the battle. This handful of combatants moved forward, whilst the Austrian army advanced, as it had a right to expect, to certain victory. The two corps approached; a discharge of artillery was heard, and Dessaix fell, mortally wounded. The forces were too unequal, and this remainder of the French army so imprudently risked, could not sustain the shock; all was confusion; all took to flight. General Kellerman, concealed by vineyards, observed the destruction of our infantry, and the disorder of the enemy, who gave themselves up to an incautious pursuit. At this desperate moment, considering only the danger of his compatriots, he threw his corps, as a forlorn hope, among the Austrians, whom he surprised without cartridges in their muskets, and in the confusion of victory. Six thousand grenadiers were crushed under the horses' feet, or laid down their arms instantly. The mass of the enemy, panic struck, and believing they had to do with an unexpected reinforcement, fled in disorder toward the Bormida, and yielded us a victory they might easily have disputed. The feeble corps of general Kellerman was left alone for some time, between the two armies, and that of the first consul was in such a state of annihilation and confusion, that a sufficient force could not be collected to complete the destruction of the enemy. The Austrian general, however, acknowledged himself vanquished, and the next day proposed a capitulation, which surrendered Italy to us. This is a faithful relation of the decisive circumstance of the battle; numerous witnesses still live who can attest it, and it can be denied by none. Dessaix, therefore, was already dead, and the troops in complete route, when Kellerman precipitated himself into the midst of the enemy, and snatched from them the victory; the praise of which is due to him and the brave men that devoted themselves with him. And if the commander in chief of the French army, to relieve himself from the obligations of gratitude to him that had (unintentionally, it is true) placed the crown of Italy upon his head, dissembled the services thus rendered to him; if he thought it his interest to give the credit to a chief that had fallen; if general Kellerman preserved a modest silence, and contented himself until now, with the good opinion of his fellow soldiers, it becomes his duty to break that silence, and to restore the true knowledge of a memorable exploit, now when it is attempted to form of it the brightest flower in the crown of general Dessaix. I ask not that you should publish this letter; for why recall the ́remembrance of victories, the fruits of which a madman has thrown away? The battle of Marengo is of no more importance to us than 'those of Zama and Pharsalia. But I invite you, to rectify, when occasion shall present, the error you have committed on this subject, and to give to every one the credit which he deserves. I have the honour to be, &c. KELLERMANN, Lieutenant General. ART. IX.-An Anniversary Discourse delivered before the NewYork Historical Society, December 7, 1818; by Gulian C. Verplanck, Esq. WE E cannot more distinctly evince our admiration of this eloquent address than by extracting fully from its pages. And we shall detain our readers only to observe, that nothing has recently appeared more creditable to the present condition of American literature nor more auspicious to its future character. While our learned societies annually receive discourses in such excellent taste, so truly national in sentiment, so rich in the exposition of interesting facts, and so classically chaste in diction, we need not despair of the republic,"-of letters. Mr. Verplanck has adopted a theme not less instructive than flattering to our national pride, in the commemoration of some of those virtuous and enlightened men of Europe, who, long ago, looking with a prophetic eye towards the destinies of this new world, and regarding it as the chosen refuge of freedom and truth were moved by a holy ambition to become the ministers of the most High, in bestowing upon it the blessing of religion, morals, letters and liberty. The first of these, in time, and in merit too, was the good Las Casas, whose fame, slandered, as we believe, by the historian Robertson, who imputes to him the introduction of African slavery into America, is successfully vindicated by a satisfactory exposure of the source of Robertson's error, and by a collection of the testimony of numerous authorities, which prove the immaculate purity of the conduct of Las Casas. Nor should we consider the question remote in interest, because his exertions aimed more immediately at the melioration of the southern continent, for as Mr. V. most justly observes, Whenever the historical inquirer can efface the stains which time or malice has left upon the fame of the wise and good, he effects many of the grandest objects of history. He strips away from vice the apology and consolation which it finds in the frailty of erring virtue. He excites the ingenuous mind to measure its ambition by a more perfect standard of moral and intellectual worth. He gives new strength to the purest and most exalted sentiments of our nature, by enabling us to embody, in some permanent form of active virtue, those magnificent, but undefined ideas of possible excellence, which sometimes float before the mind in its better hours; and then vanish away for ever, before the breath of the world. If "that man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, and whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona," surely he too is to be pitied whose heart swells with no emotion when the mist of falsehood is thus rolled away, and the form of moral greatness stands unveiled before him, in all its majesty, towering far above the highest elevation of selfish ambition; like the pillar of Pompey, rising aloft in solitary grandeur amid the waste and subject plain.' The early colonization of New-England, an extraordinary epoch in the history of colonization, is thus noticed. Never, until that time, had such high principles, and such noble minds, been engaged in the great work of extending the bounds of the civilized world. Most of the founders of new states have been driven abroad by necessity; while in others, the spirit of adventure was kindled sometimes by restless ambition, or political discontent; sometimes by enlightened views of commercial profit, but oftener by wild dreams of sudden wealth. But, in the fathers of New-England, we behold a body of men, who, for the liberty of faith alone, resolutely and deliberately exchanged the delights of home and the comforts of civilized life, for toil and danger, for an ungenial climate and a rugged soil. They were neither desperate adventurers, nor ignorant fanatics; on the contrary, there is every evidence that they universally possessed a much higher degree of mental cultivation, than was common at that period among the English people. Indeed, the austerity of the moral habits of their immediate descendants, and the remarkable freedom of their language from the provincial dialects of England, afford ample evidence of the general character of their ancestors. Nay, even if in the pride of a vain philosophy, we should choose to suspect the praises of this portion of our English ancestry as being but the delusions of national vanity, and to dwell more upon their faults and follies than on their virtues, still it is impossible to refuse some share of admiration to the talents and courage of these voluntary exiles, if we regard them merely as a portion of that party in church and state, which, to borrow the coarse but strong language of Warburton, had out-fought the cavaliers, outprayed the puritans, and outwitted the parliament. The period at which they lived, is very remarkable for having been fertile in every form of irregular greatness, and they partook largely of the character of their times. In every great exertion of genius, in that age, whether in poetry, in eloquence, in moral theological speculation or in active life, there was an incongruous and unaccountable mixture of the gigantic and the childish-of glorious truth and miserable prejudice. Pope's criticism on the poetry of Milton, may serve for a universal description of the talents of that day. Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, |