EXTRACT from a speech delivered in the Legislature of Virginia, in favor of permitting the British refugees, or those who had joined the English party in the war of independence, to return to the United States.

1. WE have, Mr. Chairman, an extensive country without population. What can be a more obvious policy, than that this country ought to be peopled? People form the strength and constitute the wealth of a nation. I want to see our vast forests filled up, by some process a little more speedy than the ordinary course of nature. I wish to see these states rapidly ascending to that rank, which their natural advantages authorize them to hold among the nations of the earth. Cast your eyes over this extensive country. Observe the *salubrity of your climate; the variety and fertility of your soil; and see that soil intersected in every quarter, by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of heaven were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the way to wealth.

2. Sir, you are destined, at some period or other, to become a great agricultural and commercial people: the only question is, whether you choose to reach this point by slow +gradations, and at some distant period, lingering on through a long and sickly minority, subjected meanwhile to the machinations, insults, and oppression of enemies, foreign and domestic, without sufficient strength to resist and chastise them; or whether you choose rather to rush at once, as it were, to the full enjoyment of those high destinies, and be able to cope, single-handed, with the proudest toppressor of the world.

3. If you prefer the latter course, as I trust you do, encourage emigration; encourage the husbandmen, the mechanics, the merchants of the old world to come and settle in the land of promise. Make it the home of the skillful, the fortunate, and the happy, as well as the asylum of the distressed. Fill up the measure of your population as speedily as you can, by the means which Heaven has placed in your

power; and I venture to prophesy there are now those living, who will see this favored land among the most powerful on earth; able to take care of herself, without resorting to that policy so dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid. Yes, they will see her great in arts and in arms; her golden harvests waving over fields of immeasurable extent; her commerce penetrating the most distant seas; and her cannon silencing the vain boast of those who now proudly affect to rule the waves.

4. Instead of refusing permission to the refugees to return, it is your true policy to encourage emigration to this country, by every means in your power. Sir, you must have men. You can not get along without them. Those heavy forests of timber, under which your lands are groaning, must be cleared away. Those vast riches which cover the face of your soil, as well as those which lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and gathered only by the skill and enterprise of men. Your timber must be worked up into ships, to transport the productions of the soil, and find the best markets for them abroad. Your great want is the want of men; and these you must have, and will have speedily, if you are wise.

5. Do you ask, how you are to get them? Open your doors, sir, and they will come. The population of the old. world is full to overflowing. That population is ground, too, by the oppressions of the governments under which they live. They are already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your coasts with a wishful and longing eye. They see here, a land blessed with natural and political advantages, which are not equaled by those of any other country on earth; a land, on which a gracious Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance; a land, over which peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where content and plenty lie down at every door.

6. They see something still more attractive than this. They see a land in which Liberty has taken up her abode; that Liberty whom they had considered a fabled goddess, existing only in the fancies of the poets. They see her here, a real divinity; her altars rising on every hand, throughout these happy states; her glories chanted by three millions of tongues; and the whole region smiling under her blessed

influence. Let but this celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the old world, tell them to come and bid them welcome; and you will see them pouring in from the north, from the south, from the east, and from the west. Your wilderness will be cleared and settled; your deserts will smile; your ranks will be filled; and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of any adversary.

7. But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Britain, and particularly to the return of the British refugees. Sir, I feel no objection to the return of those deluded people. They have, to be sure, mistaken their own interests. most wonderfully, and most woefully have they suffered the punishment due to their offenses. But the relations which we bear to them and to their native country, are now changed. Their king has acknowledged our independence. The quarrel is over. Peace has returned, and found us a free people.

8. Let us have the magnanimity to lay aside our antipathies and prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light. They are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will be serviceable in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us with necessaries during the infant state of our manufactures. Even if they be inimical to us, in point of feeling and principle, I can see no objection, in a political view, to making them tributary to our advantage. And as I have no prejudices to prevent my making use of them, so I have no fear of any mischief they can do us. Afraid of them! What, sir, shall we, who have laid the proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps?

CXVI.-ANTONY OVER CESAR'S DEAD BODY.
FROM SHAKSPEARE.

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft +inter-red with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar! The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it were a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men;)
Come I to speak on Cæsar's funeral,

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general +coffers fill:
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see, that on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.

Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spake,
But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause;

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art filed to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin, there, with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might

Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men:
I will not do them wrong. I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.

But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar; I found it in his closet, 't is his will;

Let but the Commons hear this +testament,

(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,) And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills, +Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

Unto their issue.

One of the people. We'll hear the will: read it.
All. The will, the will; we will hear Cæsar's will.

Ant. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it; It is not meet you know how Cæsar lov'd you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; And being men, hearing the will of Cæsar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; For if you should, O, what would come of it!

People. Read the will; we will hear it, Antony; You shall read us the will, Cæsar's will.

Ant. Will you be patient? Will you wait awhile? I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it.

I fear I wrong the honorable men,

Whose daggers have stabb'd Cæsar. I do fear it.

One of the people. They were traitors: honorable men? The will! The testament!

All.

Ant

You will compel me then to read the will.
Then make a ring about the corpse of Cæsar,
And let me show you him that made the will.
[He comes down from the pulpit.]

If

you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii ;

Look! in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through!
See, what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;

And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it.

This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For, when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him; then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Great Cæsar fell.

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen !

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,