And who was Fisher Ames, that his "Speeches" should be gathered and re-published sixty-three years after his death? He was a personage in his time. Let us look upon him in the day of his greatest glory. It was April 28, 1796, at Philadelphia, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, of which Fisher Ames was a member. The House and country were highly excited respecting the terms of the treaty which John Jay had negotiated with the British government. To a large number of the people this treaty was inexpressibly odious; as, indeed, _any_ treaty would have been with a power so abhorred by them as England then was. Some of the conditions of the treaty, we cannot deny, were hard, unwise, unjust; but, in all probability, it was the best that could then have been obtained, and Mr. Jay had only the alternative of accepting the conditions, or plunging his country into war. One great point, at least, the British government had yielded. After the Revolutionary war, the English had retained several western posts, to the great annoyance of settlers, and the indignation of the whole country. These posts were now to be surrendered, provided the treaty was accepted and its conditions fulfilled. President Washington and the Senate had ratified the treaty--with reluctance, it is true; but still they had ratified it; and nothing remained but for the House of Representatives to appropriate the money requisite for carrying the treaty into effect. But here was the difficulty. The treaty was so unpopular that members of Congress shrunk from even seeming to approve it. There had been riotous meetings in all the large cities to denounce it. In New York, Alexander Hamilton, while attempting to address a meeting in support of it, was pelted with stones, and the people then marched to the residence of Mr. Jay, and burned a copy of the treaty before his door. "Blush," said a Democratic editor, "to think that America should degrade herself so much as to enter into any kind of treaty with a power now tottering on the brink of ruin, whose principles are directly contrary to the spirit of Republicanism!" A Virginia newspaper advised that, if the treaty negotiated by "that arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British tyrant, should be ratified," Virginia should secede from the Union. Indeed, the public mind has seldom been excited to such a degree upon any public topic.