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THE GROTON MASSACRE IN 1781.

A SPEECH DELIVERED AT GROTON, CONNECTICUT, SEPT. 6, 1853.

I AM greatly honored and obliged, fellow-citizens, by this friendly and flattering reception. I thank you for this cordial greeting. Most heartily do I wish that I were in a better state of preparation for doing justice either to the occasion or to myself. Circumstances beyond my control, however, rendered it extremely uncertain, until the very last moment, whether I should be able to be with you at all; and I have come at last upon the express understanding and condition, that I was not to be responsible for any thing in the nature of a formal or ceremonious address. But I cannot decline to attempt some response to the call which has just been made upon me. I cannot omit such an opportunity of expressing the high gratification I have enjoyed in being present on this occasion, in witnessing these interesting ceremonies, in meeting my distinguished friend Judge Wayne, and His Excellency the Governor of Connecticut, and yourself, Mr. President, with all of whom I have had so many pleasant associations at Washington, and in forming so many new and valued acquaintances among the people of New London.

Mr. President, I am almost ashamed to confess it, but it is the first time in my life that I have ever paid a visit to New London, or ever stood upon these consecrated heights. It is, indeed, almost the first time in my life, that I have ever passed a day or a night within the limits of the State of Connecticut. Let me assure you, however, that I have not come here with the feelings of a stranger. I have not forgotten by whom the Connecticut Colony was originally led out and planted. I have not forgotten by whom its charter was obtained from Charles the Second. I

have not forgotten what names are to be found on the roll of its earliest chief magistrates for a period, father and son together, of more than a quarter of a century. Still less have I forgotten by whom the good old town of New London was founded, or whence came the name of this ancient village of Groton.

For myself, my friends, I am a Massachusetts man, a native Bostonian, born within a biscuit's throw of that old Milk-street corner, which will be always distinguished as the birthplace of the illustrious Franklin. All my personal interests, and all my present associations, are connected with that noble old sister Commonwealth of yours, and with its proud and prosperous capital. God bless them! But I cannot but remember on this occasion, that, if the blood in my veins were subjected to a chemical analysis, by far the largest part of it, on the paternal side at least, would be found to be Connecticut blood, -New-London blood. No wonder that it glows and kindles and courses with something more than its wonted fervor, as I find myself inhaling for the first time this ancestral air, and treading for the first time this almost natal soil.

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For nearly a hundred and fifty years, New London was the residence of those from whom I am lineally descended. Here my own honored father was born, about the year 1760, and here he passed the happy years of his childhood and his boyhood, having left here to enter college soon after the death of his father, and only a few years before the very event which you are this day assembled to commemorate. Had he been a few years older and remained here a few years longer, he might have fallen a victim to the British bayonets, and his name and race been altogether cut off. Or, haply, he might have fallen a victim to the hardly less powerful or less piercing shafts of some one of the mothers or grandmothers of the fair daughters whom I see around me; and the birthplace of his children might thus have been the same with his own. But here, at any rate, are still some of my esteemed relatives and kinsfolk, occupying the old places, and some of them keeping alive the old name, where it was originally introduced more than two centuries ago. Nor can I be mistaken in the idea, that the very heights on which we are gathered, and the township in which they are included, derived their name from

that ancient Manor of Groton, which was granted to the Winthrops in the time of Henry the Eighth, and which continued to be their residence until they came over to America in 1630. Was I not justified, then, in the remark that I had not come here with the feelings of a stranger? and may I not be pardoned for adding, that I cannot help feeling a little at home even among places and persons that I have never in my life seen before?

But I pray your forgiveness, my friends, for even alluding to these passages of personal and family history. I must not, I will not dwell on them an instant longer. The day, the occasion, belong to other names and other themes; and I turn, for a few moments, to the event which you have met together to commemorate, without another word of preface.

And, certainly, I know of few events in the whole history of our revolutionary struggle more worthy of commemoration, or which present to our contemplation incidents of a more striking and impressive character. The sixth day of September, 1781! What New-Londoner, what New-Englander, what American, can ever forget the occurrence which has rendered that date so memorable! Its details, I am sure, are familiar as household words to you all, even before your memories have been refreshed by the address of the eloquent and distinguished gentleman who is to follow me.

The British fleet entering your beautiful harbor at early dawn; the alarm and consternation of the inhabitants; the removal of the aged and infirm; the flight of the timid; the rallying of the brave; the noble exclamation of your heroic Ledyard, as he bade a last farewell to his friends before crossing the ferry to take command of the fort, "If I must lose, to-day, honor or life, you who know me can tell which it will be;" the landing of the British regiments, with their gorgeous uniforms and glittering bayonets; the repeated summons to surrender; the final response, anticipating, almost in terms, the reply of the gallant and lamented Taylor at Buena Vista,-"We shall not surrender, let the consequences be what they may;" the desperate conflict on these heights; the treacherous and cold-blooded massacre of Ledyard and his little band, after they had ceased all resistance against such overwhelming odds; the wanton cruelty to the wounded;

the deliberate burning of New London, with all its circumstances of cowardly brutality; all, all are impressed upon your minds. and hearts with a distinctness and a vividness which no language can increase, and which no length of time can ever efface.

One of the accomplished daughters of New London, let me add, has recently embodied them all —not forgetting the angelic ministrations of her own sex to the wounded and the dying-in a History, which is as creditable to her own pen, as it is to the people whose fortunes she has described.

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That was, indeed, my friends, a sad day for New London and its vicinity, a sad day for New England, and for all the confederated Colonies. And yet, after all, it was a proud day, and one which, I think, you would hardly be willing to spare from the historic pages of our country. The monument before us is, indeed, no monument of triumph. It tells of victims, not of victors. But it tells of those who have nobly dared and nobly died in defence of American liberty. And what can any man desire more or better as the epitaph either of himself or of those with whom he is connected? It is a monument like that at Thermopyla of old, and it well might have borne the very same inscription.

"Go, stranger," was the well-remembered inscription on the stone erected to commemorate the Leonidas of ancient Sparta, "Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedemonians that we have obeyed their laws, and that we lie here."

It was more in keeping with the good old Puritan character of Connecticut to borrow examples and analogies from Holy Writ, and to liken her heroes to the heroes of the ancient people of God; and most apposite and appropriate is the verse from the sacred volume which you have quoted upon yonder tablet : —

"Zebulon and Naphthali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field."

But had you thought fit to borrow of the jewels of the heathen, not less appropriate or less just, certainly, would have been the inscription, "Go, stranger, and tell the American people, that we have defended their liberties, and that we lie here."

Nor, fellow-citizens, did your Leonidas and his little band lie here and die here in vain. Fidelity to duty, fidelity to principle, fidelity to freedom, are never displayed in vain. They may

be overborne and overwhelmed for the moment.

They may

subject those who exhibit them to the loss of place, of fortune, of friends, or of life. But the example, the example, will remain; and somewhere or other, somehow or other, at some time or other, early or late, its influence will be felt, and its power will be asserted and recognized. And I need hardly tell you, that the event which you this day commemorate-disastrous as it was to New London and its vicinity, and distressing as it was to the whole country-did not have to wait long for the manifestation of its influence upon the great cause of American Liberty.

That was, indeed, a dark day, the 6th of September, 1781,there is hardly a darker to be found in all our revolutionary calendar. But its darkness was the immediate precursor of the dawn. In just six weeks from that date, the great crowning victory of Independence was achieved at Yorktown; and it is matter of historical record, that the massacre on this spot was among the strongest incitements which stirred the blood and nerved the arms of our troops to strike that final and decisive blow. It is matter of tradition, that New London and Groton were among the watchwords at Yorktown.

When the chivalrous Lafayette, to whom Washington gave absolute command in storming one of the redoubts, was about proceeding to the attack, he is said to have ordered his party "to remember New London." What a consolation, what a compensation, would it not have been to Ledyard and his fellow-victims, could they have been permitted to hear that order, and to witness its results; could they have seen the arms of America finally victorious, and the stars and stripes lifted at last in triumph to the sky, to float evermore over a great and glorious Republic!

Let me not fail to add, however, that, while the American armies at Yorktown "remembered New London," they remembered humanity and mercy also. They carried the redoubt in triumph; but Hamilton and Laurens, who were Lafayette's lieutenants in storming it, were incapable of cruelty even in the way of retaliation. To their eternal glory be it spoken, they brought off all their prisoners unharmed; and when questioned how this was, they replied, "We could not, we could not, when they begged and cried on their knees for their lives." Incapable of imitating

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