The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity

towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress, without interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views it in the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleas

ing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influences of good laws under a free government-the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

BY J. R. DRAKE.

WHEN Freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes,
The milky baldrick of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy eagle form, To hear the tempest trumping loud, And see the lightning-lances driven,

When strides the warrior of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven; Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,

To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,

And bid its blendings shine afar,

Like rainbows in the cloud of war,
The harbinger of victory.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly
The sign of hope and triumph high.
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy meteor glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
And when the cannon's mouthings loud,
Heave, in wild wreaths, the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
There, shall thy victor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink below
Each gallant arm, that strikes beneath
That awful messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave.
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back,
Before the broadside's reeling rack.
The dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile, to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's only home!
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner waving o'er us!

THE BIBLE.

BY R. W. EMERSON.

OUT from the heart of Nature rolled

The burthens of the Bible old.

The Litanies of Nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,
The Canticles of Love and Woe.