Coming to our own country, I find many names for commemoration. No person, in all history, has borne his testimony in phrases of greater pungency or more convincing truth than Benjamin Franklin. "In my opinion," he says, "there never was a good War or a bad Peace"; and he asks, "When will mankind be convinced that all Wars are follies, very expensive, and very mischievous, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Were they to do it even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other." Then again he says: "We make daily great improvements in natural, there is one I wish to see in moral philosophy,--the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats. When will human reason be sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this?"[352] As diplomatist, Franklin strove to limit the evils of War. To him, while Minister at Paris, belongs the honor of those instructions, more glorious for the American name than any battle, where our naval cruisers, among whom was the redoubtable Paul Jones, were directed, in the interest of universal science, to allow a free and undisturbed passage to the returning expedition of Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, who "steered Britain's oak into a world unknown."[353] To him also belongs the honor of introducing into a treaty with Prussia a provision for the abolition of that special scandal, Private War on the Ocean.[354] In similar strain with Franklin, Jefferson says: "Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than Force?... War is an instrument entirely inefficient towards redressing wrong; it multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."[355] And he proceeds to exhibit the waste of War, and the beneficent consequences, if its expenditures could be diverted to purposes of practical utility. [352] Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1783; to Mrs. Mary Hewson, Jan. 27, 1783; to Richard Price, Feb. 6, 1780: Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. X. p. 11; IX. p. 476; VIII. p. 417. [353] Franklin's Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. V. pp. 122-124. Collections of Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV. pp. 79-85. [354] Franklin's Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. II. pp. 485, 486. Lyman's Diplomacy of the United States. Vol. I. pp. 143-148. [355] Letter to Sir John Sinclair, March 23, 1798: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IV. pp. 320, 321. To Franklin especially must thanks be rendered for authoritative words and a precious example. But there are three names, fit successors of Saint-Pierre,--I speak only of those on whose career is the seal of death,--which even more than his deserve affectionate regard. I refer to Noah Worcester, William Ellery Channing, and William Ladd. To dwell on the services of these our virtuous champions would be a grateful task. The occasion allows a passing notice only.