It cannot have escaped observation that one of the principal sources of our wealth has been the lumber trade. We have seen on the revival of the town in the early part of the last century, how intimately the progress of the town was connected with operations in timber. Before the revolution our commerce was sustained almost wholly by the large ships from England which loaded here with masts, spars, and boards for the mother country, and by ship building. The West India business was then comparatively small, employing but few vessels of inferior size. After the revolution our trade had to form new channels, and the employment of our own navigation was to give new activity to all the springs of industry and wealth. We find therefore that the enterprise of the people arose to the emergency, and in a few years our ships were floating on every ocean, becoming the carriers of southern as well as northern produce, and bringing back the money and commodities of other countries. The trade to the West Indies, supported by our lumber, increased vastly, and direct voyages were made in larger vessels than had before been employed, which received in exchange for the growth of our forests and our seas, sugar, molasses and rum, the triple products of the cane. This trade has contributed mainly to the advancement and prosperity of the town, has nourished a hardy race of seamen, and formed a people among the most active and enterprising of any in the United States. The great changes which have taken place in the customs and manners of society since the revolution, must deeply impress the mind of a reflecting observer. These have extended not only to the outward forms of things, but to the habits of thought and to the very principles of character. The moral revolution has been as signal and striking as the political one; it upturned the old land marks of antiquated and hereditary customs and the obedience to mere authority, and established in their stead a more simple and just rule of action; it set up reason and common sense, and a true equality in the place of a factitious and conventional state of society which unrelentingly required a submission to its stern dictates; which made an unnatural distinction in moral power, and elevated the rich knave or fool to the station that humble and despised merit would have better graced.