Stories about General Warren,

Mary. How was it known that it had been taken from him, dear mother?

Mrs. M. Some time after, when the war was over, and the British officers and soldiers had gone back to England, one of these soldiers showed this book to an English minister, whose name was Samuel Wilton. This gentleman knew that a book of this kind, found on the body of so eminent a man as Warren, would be highly valued by every American, and that it would be more especially gratifying to his immediate relatives to have such a relic of him; one which showed that when he went forth to fight for his country, his trust was not in his own arm alone, but that he looked up to a higher power for support. Mr. Wilton, therefore, offered the man a great price for it, who very gladly sold it to him. He then sent it to America, and had it put into the hands of a minister of Roxbury, the Rev. Dr. Gordon – with a request that it might be given to his nearest relative. It was accordingly given to his youngest brother, Dr. John Warren, March 15th, 1778. This was about three years after Gen. Warren's death.

Mary. I think it was very kind in that English minister to take so much trouble. Was not the book almost worn out by the man who had it all that time?

Mrs. M. No, it was in very good preservation. I suppose the man took good care of it, thinking he might sometime get a great price for it. It is even now a handsome book, the binding is as nice as ever. The type is so clear, that is, it was so well printed, that it can be read with great ease, although printed so long ago as the year 1559; which was but a little more than an hundred years after the art of printing was discovered: so that it is valuable for its antiquity, as well as from having belonged to a departed hero.

William. Where is it now, mamma?

Mrs. M. Gen. Warren's nephew, the present Dr. John C. Warren, has it. He also has the oration which Gen. Warren delivered on the 5th of March, in the orator's own hand-writing.

William. You have not yet told us, mamma, what became of the body of the general?

Mrs. M. It was buried near where he fell, with many other bodies, both English and American. Some time after, his friends took it up and placed it in a tomb in the Tremont burying-ground, and finally the bones were removed to the family tomb under St. Paul's church.

William. Would not the British let his friends have it to bury at first, dear mother?

Mrs. M. I presume they would, had any of them demanded it in time: but these friends could not ascertain where he was, nor did they know for a certainty of his death, until after he was buried. The youngest brother, of whom I have spoken so often, Dr. John Warren, was at the time of the battle, in full practice, as a physician, in Salem. So soon as he heard there was likely to be an engagement in Charlestown, he armed himself, and set out on foot for that place. He went on as rapidly as he could, he saw the town of Charlestown in flames, and was lighted on his way by its burning glare, but could not ascertain, for some time, if there had yet been any fighting. At last he was informed that there had been a severe engagement. His impatience to be on the spot, and his anxiety to know where his brother Joseph was, became now almost insupportable. He had studied his profession with that brother, and knew his ardent character so well, that he felt confident he would be among the combatants; he felt, too, that no danger, no thought for himself, would keep him back from the hottest of the fray; he was eager to be with him, to share his danger if he could not guard him from it. Notwithstanding his impatience, he could learn nothing certain about him; he determined to penetrate to the field of battle at all risks. As he attempted to pass a sentinel, on his way, he was repulsed by him with the point of a bayonet, which gave him so deep a wound, that he carried the scar from it as long as he lived. Still he pushed on, and at last ascertained that his brother was in the engagement, and that he was either killed or taken prisoner. His character was quite as enthusiastic as that of his brother, and he now earnestly entreated to be allowed to join the army as a volunteer: to avenge his brother's death, or, if he was not killed, to effect his release, was now his most fervent wish. This request was refused. His services were needed elsewhere. The poor fellows who had been wounded in the battle were even now suffering from the want of surgical assistance. Dr. John Warren, although then only twenty-four years of age, had already acted as surgeon at the battle of Lexington. His skill, therefore, as a surgeon, was too well known to allow Congress to accept his services in any other way. With a heart aching at the uncertainty attending a beloved brother's fate, he had to fulfil the duties of the office assigned him. This post, of hospital surgeon, he retained during the rest of the war.

His mother was almost distracted with the suspense in which she was kept respecting her first-born son. Although from the first she had said she was sure he would fall a sacrifice to the cause he had espoused so warmly, yet now she could not believe that such had been his fate. It was three days after the battle, before certain intelligence was obtained of his death. When his mother first realized that she should see him no more, she was entirely overwhelmed with her affliction. He was her eldest son; after the death of her husband, she had looked to him as her principal solace and support. He was all her fondest hopes could wish. Honor, respect and love, had attended him in every step of his career; and now, just as he had attained to all the honors his country could bestow, he was taken away, and she had not even the melancholy satisfaction of embalming his body with her tears. For a time she refused to be comforted; but ere long, that religion which had comforted her in all her former afflictions, exerted its healing power over her wounded spirit, and though she still sorrowed, it was not without hope. The memory of this much loved son was fondly cherished by her to the end of her life. Every anniversary of his death was kept by her as a day of fasting and prayer, and her hospitable house was closed to all but the poor.

His eldest and youngest brothers were present when his body was disinterred. So soon as the youngest brother, Dr. John Warren, saw that it was indeed the body of his respected preceptor and much loved friend and brother, that was thus taken from the recesses of the grave to receive the last tribute of affection, his emotion was so great as to entirely overpower him, he dropped motionless by the side of him he so deeply mourned, and it was some time before consciousness was restored again.

William. How did his brothers know it was his body, mamma? I should think, if it had been buried some time, it would not have been possible for them to have been sure it was his.

Mrs. M. They knew his clothes, for he was buried just as he fell; besides this, he had lost a finger nail and wore an artificial tooth, so that he was identified beyond doubt.

His country also deeply mourned his untimely loss. In the official account of the battle, drawn up by the Massachusetts Congress, it is stated; "Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Joseph Warren, a man whose memory will be endeared to his countrymen, and to the worthy in every part and age of the world, as long as valor shall be esteemed among mankind."

Within a year after his death, it was resolved by Congress that there should be a monument erected to his memory, "as an acknowledgment of his virtues and distinguished services." Congress also resolved, that from that time his eldest son should be educated at the expense of the United States. Two or three years after, it was determined that the three younger children should likewise be supported and educated at the public expense, until the youngest child should be of age.

Mary. Indeed, mamma, did Gen. Warren have four children? I did not know he was married.

Mrs. M. Yes, my dear, he left four orphans. His wife, who was a very excellent, amiable woman, died three years before his death, so that when he was killed, the poor children were left without father or mother.

William. Who took care of them, dear mother?

Mrs. M. Dr. John Warren took them home soon after he himself was married, and they lived with him many years.

Mary. Did the United States support them, as was resolved?

Mrs. M. Yes. Their uncle, Dr. Warren, was just getting into business in Boston, for he left Salem soon after the war commenced; he was at that time not able to do more than support his own family, and unless the board of his brother's children had been paid, he could not have kept them. The eldest son was fitted for, and carried through college, but he died a few years after he came out. The second son, too, died soon after he became of age. The other two children were daughters. The eldest married Gen. Arnold Welles, of whom you have often heard me speak; he was a man beloved and respected by all who knew him. This eldest daughter of Gen. Warren's, was a very beautiful woman, but she has been dead many years. The second daughter, who was also a very handsome woman, was twice married. Her last husband was Judge Newcombe, of Greenfield. She has been dead some years, and has left one son, Warren Newcombe, who is practising law in this State. He is the only immediate descendant of Gen. Warren. I believe, my children, I have now told you all I can about our friend Joseph Warren. Are you not tired of hearing about him?

Mary. Oh, no, dear mother, I am not, I wish you could tell us a great deal more.

William. So do I, mamma. We are much obliged to you for telling us so much. How long did the war last after Gen. Warren was killed?

Mrs. M. It lasted about six years, but peace was not finally concluded until the year 1783; that was eight years after his death. Parley's Geography tells you the time when the fighting ceased, and when a treaty of peace was signed between Great Britain and our country. Do you not recollect it?

William. Yes, mamma, I do now, but I cannot remember dates very well.

Mrs. M. You must soon read larger books about the Revolution, and then you will remember better. There are a great many anecdotes of things which took place during the war, which are quite as interesting as any books of tales you can find. In the Appendix to Dr. Thacher's Journal of the Revolution, there are some very interesting facts related; but you ought to read the whole book so soon as you are old enough to take an interest in it. There are, too, a great many other books you ought to read, to make you acquainted with the many great and good men, who fought and bled in their country's cause. It is not possible to know how much we owe them, and especially how much we owe to Gen. Washington, unless we read books which enter into all the particulars of what was done and suffered by them, and by him through the whole of the war.

ORATION,

DELIVERED IN BOSTON, MARCH 6, 1775, BY DR. JOSEPH WARREN, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENING OF THE FIFTH OF MARCH, 1770; WHEN A NUMBER OF CITIZENS WERE KILLED BY A PARTY OF BRITISH TROOPS, QUARTERED AMONG THEM IN A TIME OF PEACE

MY EVER HONORED FELLOW CITIZENS,

It is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability that I now appear before you; but the sense I have of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with an animating recollection of your indulgence, exhibited upon so many occasions, has induced me, once more, undeserving as I am, to throw myself upon that candor which looks with kindness on the feeblest efforts of an honest mind.

You will not now expect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing strains of eloquence which charmed you when a Lovell, a Church, or a Hancock spake; but you will permit me to say, that with a sincerity, equal to theirs, I mourn over my bleeding country: with them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.

That personal freedom is the natural right of every man; and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths which common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction. And no man, or body of men can, without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of any other man, or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties in which it has been explicitly and freely granted.

If I may be indulged in taking a retrospective view of the first settlement of our country, it will be easy to determine with what degree of justice the late Parliament of Great Britain have assumed the power of giving away that property which the Americans have earned by their labor.

Our fathers having nobly resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, and seeing the European world, at that time, through indolence and cowardice, falling a prey to tyranny, bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt. Approving Heaven beheld the favorite ark dancing upon the waves, and graciously preserved it until the chosen families were brought in safety to these western regions. They found the land swarming with savages, who threatened death with every kind of torture. But savages, and death with torture, were far less terrible than slavery: nothing was so much the object of their abhorrence as a tyrant's power: they knew that it was more safe to dwell with man in his most unpolished state, than in a country where arbitrary power prevails. Even anarchy itself, that bugbear held up by the tools of power, (though truly to be deprecated) is infinitely less dangerous to mankind than arbitrary government. Anarchy can be but of short duration; for when men are at liberty to pursue that course which is most conducive to their own happiness, they will soon come into it, and from the rudest state of nature, order and good government must soon arise. But tyranny, when once established, entails its curses on a nation to the latest period of time; unless some daring genius, inspired by Heaven, shall, unappalled by danger, bravely form and execute the arduous design of restoring liberty and life to his enslaved, murdered country.

The tools of power, in every age, have racked their inventions to justify the few in sporting with the happiness of the many; and, having found their sophistry too weak to hold mankind in bondage, have impiously dared to force religion, the daughter of the king of heaven, to become a prostitute in the service of hell. They taught that princes, honored with the name of Christian, might bid defiance to the founder of their faith, might pillage Pagan countries and deluge them with blood, only because they boasted themselves to be the disciples of that teacher who strictly charged his followers to do to others as they would that others should do unto them.

This country, having been discovered by an English subject, in the year 1620, was (according to the system which the blind superstition of those times supported) deemed the property of the crown of England. Our ancestors, when they resolved to quit their native soil, obtained from king James, a grant of certain lands in North America. This they probably did to silence the cavils of their enemies, for it cannot be doubted, but they despised the pretended right which he claimed thereto. Certain it is, that he might, with equal propriety and justice, have made them a grant of the planet Jupiter. And their subsequent conduct plainly shows that they were too well acquainted with humanity, and the principles of natural equity, to suppose that the grant gave them any right to take possession; they, therefore, entered into a treaty with the natives, and bought from them the lands: nor have I ever yet obtained any information that our ancestors ever pleaded, or that the natives ever regarded the grant from the English crown: the business was transacted by the parties in the same independent manner that it would have been, had neither of them ever known or heard of the island of Great Britain.

Having become the honest proprietors of the soil, they immediately applied themselves to the cultivation of it; and they soon beheld the virgin earth teeming with richest fruits, a grateful recompense for their unwearied toil. The fields began to wave with ripening harvests, and the late barren wilderness was seen to blossom like the rose. The savage natives saw with wonder the delightful change, and quickly formed a scheme to obtain that by fraud or force, which nature meant as the reward of industry alone. But the illustrious emigrants soon convinced the rude invaders, that they were not less ready to take the field for battle than for labor: and the insidious foe was driven from their borders as often as he ventured to disturb them. The crown of England looked with indifference on the contest; our ancestors were left alone to combat with the natives. Nor is there any reason to believe, that it ever was intended by the one party, or expected by the other, that the grantor should defend and maintain the grantees in the peaceable possession of the lands named in the patents. And it appears plainly, from the history of those times, that neither the prince, nor the people of England, thought themselves much interested in the matter. They had not then any idea of a thousandth part of those advantages which they since have, and we are most heartily willing they should continue to reap from us.

But when, at an infinite expense of toil and blood, this widely extended continent had been cultivated and defended: when the hardy adventurers justly expected that they and their descendants should peaceably have enjoyed the harvest of those fields which they had sown, and the fruit of those vineyards which they had planted; this country was then thought worthy the attention of the British ministry; and the only justifiable and only successful means of rendering the Colonies serviceable to Britain were adopted. By an intercourse of friendly offices, the two countries became so united in affection, that they thought not of any distinct or separate interests, they found both countries flourishing and happy. Britain saw her commerce extended, and her wealth increased; her lands raised to an immense value; her fleets riding triumphant on the ocean; the terror of her arms spreading to every quarter of the globe. The Colonist found himself free, and thought himself secure; he dwelt under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, and had none to make him afraid: he knew, indeed, that by purchasing the manufactures of Great Britain, he contributed to its greatness: he knew that all the wealth that his labor produced centered in Great Britain: but that, far from exciting his envy, filled him with the highest pleasure; that thought supported him in all his toils. When the business of the day was past, he solaced himself with the contemplation, or perhaps entertained his listening family with the recital of some great, some glorious transaction which shines conspicuous in the history of Britain: or, perhaps, his elevated fancy led him to foretell, with a kind of enthusiastic confidence, the glory, power, and duration of an empire which should extend from one end of the earth to the other: he saw, or thought he saw, the British nation risen to a pitch of grandeur which cast a veil over the Roman glory, and, ravished with the preview, boasted a race of British kings, whose names should echo through those realms where Cyrus, Alexander, and the Cæsars were unknown; princes for whom millions of grateful subjects redeemed from slavery and Pagan ignorance, should, with thankful tongues, offer up their prayers and praises to that transcendently great and beneficent Being, by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice.

These pleasing connexions might have continued; these delightsome prospects might have been every day extended; and even the reveries of the most warm imagination might have been realized; but unhappily for us, unhappily for Britain, the madness of an avaricious minister of state, has drawn a sable curtain over the charming scene, and in its stead, has brought upon the stage, discord, envy, hatred, and revenge, with civil war close in their rear.

Some demon, in an evil hour, suggested to a short-sighted financier, the hateful project of transferring the whole property of the king's subjects in America, to his subjects in Britain. The claim of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies, can never be supported by such a TRANSFER; for the right of the House of Commons of Great Britain, to originate any tax, or grant money, is altogether derived from their being elected by the people of Great Britain to act for them; and the people of Great Britain cannot confer on their representatives a right to give or grant any thing which they themselves have not a right to give or grant personally. Therefore, it follows, that if the members chosen by the people of Great Britain, to represent them in Parliament, have, by virtue of their being so chosen, any right to give or grant American property, or to lay any tax upon the lands or persons of the Colonists, it is because the lands and people in the Colonies are bona fide, owned by, and justly belonging to the people of Great Britain. But, (as has been before observed,) every man has a right to personal freedom, consequently, a right to enjoy what is acquired by his own labor. And as it is evident that the property in this country has been acquired by our own labor, it is the duty of the people of Great Britain, to produce some compact in which we have explicitly given up to them a right to dispose of our persons or property. Until this is done, every attempt of theirs, or of those whom they have deputed to act for them, to give or grant any part of our property, is directly repugnant to every principle of reason and natural justice. But I may boldly say, that such a compact never existed, no, not even in imagination. Nevertheless, the representatives of a nation, long famed for justice and the exercise of every noble virtue, have been prevailed on to adopt the fatal scheme: and although the dreadful consequences of this wicked policy have already shaken the empire to its centre; yet still it is persisted in. Regardless of the voice of reason, deaf to the prayers and supplications, and unaffected with the flowing tears of suffering millions, the British ministry still hug the darling idol; and every rolling year affords fresh instances of the absurd devotion with which they worship it. Alas! how has the folly, the distraction of the British councils, blasted our swelling hopes, and spread a gloom over this western hemisphere.

The hearts of Britons and Americans, which lately felt the generous glow of mutual confidence and love, now burn with jealousy and rage. Though, but of yesterday, I recollect (deeply affected at the ill boding change) the happy hours that past whilst Britain and America rejoiced in the prosperity and greatness of each other, (Heaven grant those halcyon days may soon return.) But now the Briton too often looks on the American with an envious eye, taught to consider his just plea for the enjoyment of his earnings, as the effect of pride and stubborn opposition to the parent country. Whilst the American beholds the Briton as the ruffian, ready first to take away his property, and next, what is still dearer to every virtuous man, the liberty of his country.

When the measures of administration had disgusted the Colonies to the highest degree, and the people of Great Britain had, by artifice and falsehood, been irritated against America, an army was sent over to enforce submission to certain acts of the British Parliament, which reason scorned to countenance, and which placemen and pensioners were found unable to support.

Martial law and the government of a well regulated city, are so entirely different, that it has always been considered as improper to quarter troops in populous cities: frequent disputes must necessarily arise between the citizen and the soldier, even if no previous animosities subsist. And it is further certain, from a consideration of the nature of mankind, as well as from constant experience, that standing armies always endanger the liberty of the subject. But when the people, on the one part, considered the army as sent to enslave them, and the army, on the other, were taught to look on the people as in a state of rebellion, it was but just to fear the most disagreeable consequences. Our fears, we have seen, were but too well grounded.