Such were not the men, who have raised this country to its present enviable place among the nations of the earth. There was not a wonderful genius among them all; but they were able men, and such as feared God, men of truth, hating covetousness. This point was secured in the first settlement of New England by the strict and puritanical principles, which our forefathers brought over with them from the parent country; and also by the idea they were continually holding up to one another of establishing here a Christian commonwealth. It is also true of the leaders of the Revolution, throughout the country, that they were remarkable alike for their public and private virtues, and owed their elevation, in most cases, to this circumstance, and I may add, their power and consequence afterwards. The war broke out, and a time of difficulty and sacrifice began; the pecuniary resources of the nation were drained to the last drop, continual levies of men to recruit the army operated all over the country with the effect of a military conscription, and meanwhile the enthusiasm which marked the opening scenes of the struggle, was rapidly subsiding. In this state of things, if there had been the slightest pretext for believing that the leading men were false to their pledges, had but the shadow of a suspicion passed across the singleness and purity of their intentions, the new and ill constituted government would not have lived for an hour. We often speak of the virtue and intelligence of the people, as the great security of our liberties; and in quiet times, and under a well established government, they are perhaps a great and sufficient security. But in the shock of a great political revolution the legal restraints and natural landmarks of authority are broken up; and the mind is pained at the bare contemplation of the possible consequences, if at this crisis in our country's destiny the supreme command had devolved on a Cromwell, instead of a Washington.