new markets for agricultural produce has given value to land which had scarce any value before, and greatly increased the value of that which previously yielded a small income. This region, sir, has profited largely in this way, but is destined to derive still greater benefit, — incalculably greater benefit, in time to come, from the growth of manufactures. It is not alone by enriching your meadows, that your noble river contributes to your agricultural prosperity. I do not undervalue its importance in this respect; Heaven forbid! I know from what a magnificent range of country it gathers up, through a hundred tributaries, the prolific seeds of plenty. I know, sir, that in every bundle of broomcorn that is cut in your valley, there are elements of growth from the highlands of Canada, from the green mountains of Vermont, from the white hills of New Hampshire, poured down to form the fertilizing deposit which your glorious Nile annually spreads upon your lowlands. But while this agency will continue to operate to the end of the world, there is another by means of which the Connecticut River will render still greater benefits to your husbandry. Its rapids and falls have already become the seats of important manufacturing establishments, and are destined at no remote period to concentrate an amount of productive industry in this immediate neighborhood, beyond any thing to be found in any other locality. I speak from no bias of interest, Mr. President, when I say that before the last tints of the rose of youth upon the fairest cheek in this assembly shall have softened into the autumnal hue of declining years; before the lad, whom I saw at the end of this table a moment since, shall have a head as gray as mine, there will be a city of fifty thousand inhabitants at the falls of Hadley. I hope that boy will remember what I say, and if some fifty years hence he shall stand where I stand, and make a speech at the anniversary of this society, let him say that he remembers how a poor old hunker of an ex-governor in 1852, had enough of young America in his veins to lift the veil which hides the future, far enough at least to discern the coming fortunes of Holyoke. Sir, as I intimated, I have no interest in the prediction. I should not be a dollar the poorer if the new dam was to follow the old one down stream to-morrow; nor a farthing the richer if by the hand of a higher power, its braces and its abutments were turned into a mass of red sandstone, as firm as that which lies at the basis of Mount Holyoke. But I say that the seventy weeks in the book of Daniel were not surer to be fulfilled, than the prospects of the new city to be realized. It was perhaps begun a little too soon, but the population of the United States will soon overtake it. It must be a long start, which does not soon vanish before the growth of a population of twenty-four millions, which doubles itself in twenty-five years. Such a dam, such a water power I never saw! Sir Walter Scott, in one of his poems, makes the old monk of Melrose say to William of Deloraine, who had come to get the magic book from the tomb of the wizard,— "Warrior, I could say to thee The words that cleft Eildon hills in three, And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone." Him by whom "the What the words were, that cleft Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom in twain, is known only to everlasting mountains were scattered." sir, the words that have bridled the noble river that flows between them with a curb of stone, and have taught it, instead of wasting itself on the points of jagged barren rocks and brawling ledges, to pour through copious floodgates over the untiring wheels of productive industry. These mighty words are Enterprise, Capital, and Mechanical Skill; Enterprise to conceive the plan, Capital to furnish the means, and Engineering Skill to accomplish the work. It is these, and not the fabled powers of necromancy, that have planted themselves below the falls at Hadley; have taught the mighty river to flow backwards from before their gigantic masonry; and thus laid the foundations of a city which will yet with its suburbs spread for miles along the bank, and be felt in the enhanced value of every farm in the county. But I crave your pardon, sir, for the length of my remarks. I end as I began, with the expression of my thanks to the company, now doubly due, for the patience with which you have listened to me; and I beg to offer you, in resuming my seat, my cordial wishes for the health and prosperity of every individual in this assembly. THE DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER.* MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I NEVER rose to address an assembly, when I was so little fit, body or mind, to perform the duty; and I never felt so keenly how inadequate are words to express such an emotion, as manifestly pervades this meeting in common with the whole country. There is but one voice that ever fell upon my ear, which could do justice to such an occasion. That voice, alas! we shall hear no more for ever. No more at the bar will it unfold the deepest mysteries of the law; no more Iwill it speak conviction to admiring senates; no more in this hall, the chosen theatre of his intellectual dominion, will it lift the soul as with a swell of the pealing organ, or stir the blood as with the tones of a clarion, in the inmost chambers of the heart. We are assembled, fellow-citizens, to pour out the fulness of our feelings; not in the vain attempt to do honor to the great man who is taken from us; most assuredly, not with the presumptuous hope on my part to magnify his name and his praise. They are spread throughout the Union. From east to west, and from north to south, (which he knew, as he told you, only that he might embrace them in the arms of a' loving patriotism,) a voice of lamentation has already gone forth, such as has not echoed through the land since the death of him who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. * Remarks made at a public meeting of the citizens of Boston in Fanueil Hall, on the 27th of November, 1852, on occasion of the decease of Daniel Webster, at Marshfield, on the 24th. You have listened, fellow-citizens, to the resolutions which have been submitted to you by Col. Heard. I thank him for offering them. It does honor to him, and to those with whom he acts in politics, and whom I have no doubt he well represents, that he has stepped forward so liberally on this occasion. The resolutions are emphatic, sir, but I feel that they do not say too much. No one will think they overstate the magnitude of our loss. Who that is capable of appreciating a character like that of Daniel Webster, who of us, fellow-citizens, that has known him; that has witnessed the masterly skill with which he would pour the full effulgence of his mind on some contested legal and constitutional principle, till what seemed hard and obscure became as plain as day; who that has seen him, in all the glory of intellectual ascendency, "Ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm" of parliamentary conflict; who that has drunk of the pure fountains of wisdom and thought in the volumes of his writings; who alas, sir, that has seen him "in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power," that has come within the fascination of his benignant smile, has felt the pressure of his hand, and tasted the sweets of his fireside eloquence, will think that the resolutions say too much? No, fellow-citizens, we come together not to do honor to him, but to do justice to ourselves. We obey an impulse from within. Such a feeling cannot be pent up in solitude. We must meet, neighbor with neighbor, citizen with citizen, man with man, to sympathize with each other. If we did not, mute nature would rebuke us. The granite hills of New Hampshire, within whose shadow he drew his first breath, would cry shame; Plymouth rock, which all but moved at his approach; the slumbering echoes of this hall which rang so grandly with his voice; that "silent but majestic orator," which rose in no mean degree at his command on Bunker |