In consequence of the adoption of our present system of government, and the virtuous manner in which it has been administered, by a WASHINGTON and an ADAMS, we are this day in the enjoyment of peace, while war devastates Europe!  We can now sit down beneath the shadow of the olive, while her cities blaze, her streams run purple with blood, and her fields glitter, a forest of bayonets!—­The citizens of America can this day throng the temples of freedom, and renew their oaths of fealty to Independence; while Holland, our once sister republic, is erased from the catalogue of nations; while Venice is destroyed, Italy ravaged, and Switzerland, the once happy, the once united, the once flourishing Switzerland lies bleeding at every pore!

No ambitious foe dares now invade our country.  No standing army now endangers our liberty.—­Our commerce, though subject in some degree to the depredations of the belligerent powers, is extended from pole to pole; and our navy, though just emerging from nonexistence, shall soon vouch for the safety of our merchantmen, and bear the thunder of freedom around the ball!

Fair Science too, holds her gentle empire amongst us, and almost innumerable altars are raised to her divinity, from Brunswick to Florida.  Yale, Providence and Harvard now grace our land; and DARTMOUTH, towering majestic above the groves, which encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the registers of fame!—­Oxford and Cambridge, those oriental stars of literature, shall now be lost, while the bright sun of American science displays his broad circumference in uneclipsed radiance.

Pleasing, indeed, were it here to dilate on the future grandeur of America; but we forbear; and pause, for a moment, to drop the tear of affection over the graves of our departed warriors.  Their names should be mentioned on every anniversary of Independence, that the youth, of each successive generation, may learn not to value life, when held in competition with their country’s safety.

WOOSTER, MONTGOMERY, and MERCER, fell bravely in battle, and their ashes are now entombed on the fields that witnessed their valor.  Let their exertions in our country’s cause be remembered, while Liberty has an advocate, or gratitude has place in the human heart.

GREENE, the immortal hero of the Carolinas, has since gone down to the grave, loaded with honors, and high in the estimation of his countrymen.  The corageous PUTNAM has long slept with his fathers; and SULLIVAN and CILLEY, New-Hampshire’s veteran sons, are no more numbered with the living!

With hearts penetrated by unutterable grief, we are at length constrained to ask, where is our WASHINGTON? where the hero, who led us to victory—­where the man, who gave us freedom?  Where is he, who headed our feeble army, when destruction threatened us, who came upon our enemies like the storms of winter; and scattered them like leaves before the Borean blast?  Where, O my country! is thy political saviour? where, O humanity! thy favorite son?