Sebastian, and recently at Pensacola, and rejoice that you have an opportunity of avenging the brutal injuries inflicted by men who dishonor the human race. Louisianians! Your general rejoices to witness the spirit. that animates you, not only for you honor, but your safety. Commanding men who know their rights, and are determined to defend them, he salutes you as brethren in arms, and has now a new motive to exert all his faculties to the utmost in your defence. Continue with the energy you have begun, and he promises you not only safety, but victory over an insolent foe, who has insulted you by an affected doubt of your attachment to the constitution of your country. Your enemy is near; his sails already cover the lakes. But the brave are united; and if he find us contending among ourselves, it will be for the prize of valor, and fame, its noblest reward. SPEECH OF AN INDIAN PRISONER. You have taken me prisoner, with all my warriors. I am much grieved; for I expected, if I did not defeat you, to hold out much longer, and give you more trouble before I surrendered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but your last general understood Indian fighting. I determined to rush on you, and fight you face to face. I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in winter. saw my My warriors fell around me; it began to look dismal. I evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk. His heart is dead, and no longer beats quick in his bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white men; they will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture, and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black Hawk is an Indian. He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, against white men who came, year after year, to cheat them, and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men: They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their 1 114 PROSE DECLAMATIONS homes. They smile in the face of the poor Indian, to cheat him; they shake him by the hand, to gain his confidence, to make him drunk, and to deceive him. We told them to let us alone, and keep away from us; but they followed on, and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us, like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We called a great council, and built a large fire. The spirit of our fathers arose and spoke to us to avenge our wrongs or die. We set up the war-whoop, and dug up the tomahawk; our knives were ready, and the heart of Black Hawk swelled high in his bosom, when he led his warriors to battle. He is satisfied. He will go to the world of spirits contented. He has done his duty. His father will meet him there, and commend him. Black Hawk is a true Indian, and disdains to cry like a woman. He feels for his wife, his children, and his friends. But he does not care for himself. He cares for the nation and the Indians. They will suffer. He laments their fate. Farewell, my nation! Black Hawk tried to save you, and avenge your wrongs. He drank the blood of some of the whites. He has been taken prisoner, and his plans are stopped. He can do no more! He is near his end. His sun is setting, and he will rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk! ALPIN'S LAMENT. J. MACPHERSON. My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in the hall, unstrung! Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the plain; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy word, in battle as lightning in the field; thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind has sunk to repose. Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode ! great before! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar. Morar! thou art low indeed. Thou hast no mother to mourn thee; no maid with her tears of love. Dead is she that brought thee forth. Fallen is the daughter of Morglan. Who on his staff is this? who is this whose head is white with age? whose eyes are red with tears? who quakes at every step? It is thy father, O Morar! the father of no son but thee. Weep, thou father of Morar! weep; but thy son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead; low their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice; no more awake at thy call. When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake? Farewell, thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in the field! but the field shall see thee no more; nor the dark wood be lighted with the splendor of thy steel. Thou hast left no son. The song shall preserve thy name. Future times shall hear of thee; they shall hear of the fallen Morar! IN BEHALF OF STARVING IRELAND. S. S. PRENTISS. FELLOW-CITIZENS:-It is no ordinary cause which has brought together this vast assemblage on the present occasion. We have met, not to prepare ourselves for political contests, nor to celebrate the achievements of those gallant men who have planted our victorious standards in the heart of an enemy's country. We have assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the west, but to answer the cry of want and suffering which comes from the east. The Old World stretches out her arms to the New. The starving parent supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies upon other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in the story and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the state of Louisiana, while its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos. Into this fair region God 116 PROSE DECLAMATIONS has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers who fulfil his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strangling grasp; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets for a moment the gloomy history of the past. We have assembled, fellow-citizens, to express our sincere sympathy for the sufferings of our brethren, and to unite in efforts for their alleviation. This is one of those cases in which we may, without impiety, assume, as it were, the function of Providence. Who knows but what one of the very objects of this great calamity is to test the benevolence and worthiness of us upon whom unlimited abundance has been showered. In the name, then, of common humanity, I invoke your aid in behalf of starving Ireland. Give generously and freely. Recollect that in so doing you are exercising one of the most God-like qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has permitted us to exercise equally with himself that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benevolence. Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of the poor children of Ireland; and I know you will give, according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you not grudgingly, but with an open hand, for the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, "Is not strained; It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven THE FALL OF SWITZERLAND. S. SMITH. AMIDST all the enormities of the French revolution, no one circumstance, perhaps, has excited such general sympathy and indignation as the fall of Switzerland. With the name of Switzerland have been connected, from our earliest years, all the worthy feelings of the heart, and all the exquisite beauties animated her solemn rocks and glens; the climbing step of freedom had scanned the summit of the mountains; the unwearied hand of labor had drawn from the barren rock sustenance for man; the peasant, with his plough, and his sword, and his book, was at once a tiller of the earth, a soldier, and a Christian. Happiness never was more complete; imagination could not paint a more enviable lot upon earth, or could the earth afford it. For six hundred years they had remained firm as their native mountains, amidst all the convulsions of Europe; for two hundred years they had hardly drawn the sword, or never drawn it but to conquer. Into these hallowed retreats, in the midst of a solemn truce, in spite of the strict neutrality observed by the Swiss, and the solemn and repeated promises of their own government, burst the common enemies of mankind, hot from the carnage, and reeking with the blood of other nations. They came to no new work of horror; they had murdered other innocents, and pillaged other temples, and wasted other lands. They could dye the silvered hair of the aged man with his own blood; they could curse the tears of women, and dash down the tender child as it lifted its meek eyes for mercy. In the midst of such horrid scenes as these, many actions of heroic valor characterized the last days of Switzerland; and she died with her face ever turned to the enemy, slowly yielding, and fiercely struggling to the last. At Oberland, an old peasant was observed in arms, fighting amidst his three children, and his seven grandchildren; they sustained the combat with inconceivable bravery, calling upon each other by name, tenderly; the children thronging about the old man, and guarding with their manly limbs the hoary head of their parent. They were all murdered; and in a moment of time, this valiant race was blotted from the book of living men! The vengeance which the French took of the Swiss, for their determined opposition to the invasion of their country, was decisive and terrible. The history of Europe can afford no parallel of such cruelty. To dark ages, and the most barbarous nations of the East, we must turn in vain. The soldiers dispersed over the country, carried fire, and sword, and robbery, into the most tranquil and hidden valleys of Switzerland. From the depth of sweet retreats, echoed the shrieks of murdered men, stabbed in their humble dwellings, under the shadow of the high mountains, in the midst of those scenes of nature which make solemn and pure the secret thought of man, and appal him with the majesty of God. The flying peasant saw, in the midst of the night, |