Before considering the familiar injunction, _In time of Peace prepare for War_, I hope I shall not seem to descend from the proper sphere of this discussion, if I refer to the parade of _barbarous mottoes_, and of _emblems from beasts_, as another impediment to the proper appreciation of these Preparations. These mottoes and emblems, prompting to War, are obtruded on the very ensigns of power and honor, and, careless of their discreditable import, men learn to regard them with patriotic pride. In the armorial bearings of nations and individuals, beasts and birds of prey are the exemplars of True Grandeur. The lion appears on the flag of England; the leopard on the flag of Scotland; a double-headed eagle spreads its wings on the imperial standard of Austria, and again on that of Russia; while a single-headed eagle was adopted on the Napoleonic seal, and thus far the same single-headed bird is enough for Prussia. The pennons of knights, after exhausting the known kingdom of Nature, were disfigured by imaginary and impossible monsters, griffins, hippogriffs, unicorns, all intended to represent the exaggeration of brute force. The people of Massachusetts unconsciously adopt this early standard. The escutcheon used as the seal of the State has an unfortunate combination, to which I refer briefly by way of example. On that part in the language of heraldry termed the _shield_ stands an Indian with a bow in his hand,--certainly no agreeable memento, except to those who find honor in the disgraceful wars where our fathers robbed and murdered King Philip of Pokanoket, and his tribe, rightful possessors of the soil. The _crest_ is a raised arm _holding a drawn sabre in a threatening attitude_,--being precisely the emblem once borne on the flag of Algiers. The _scroll_, or legend, is the latter of two favorite verses, in modern Latin, which are not traced to any origin more remote than Algernon Sidney, by whom they were inscribed in an album at Copenhagen:- "Manus hæc inimica tyrannnis _Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem_."[89]