I cannot take leave of you without offering and inviting congratulations on the distinguished harmony which has pervaded every department of our venerable institution. It has been a complete fulfilment of the reciprocal pledges passed at the commencement of the course, "that you should be treated as gentlemen, and that you would so demean yourselves." How far this desirable end has been promoted by the peculiar character and structure of the society of this place, you are capable of deciding. We must have been unwise, not to avail ourselves of the aids afforded by the moral influence of a circle of gentlemen and ladies, intelligent, refined, polite and hospitable, zealous for the honor and order of the college and the happiness of its professors and students. It is this ever present influence that has enabled us to dispense with the rigor of discipline, elsewhere so necessary. It is this which enables William and Mary College to preserve its distinctive characteristics. In any other situation they would soon disappear. The city and the college have grown together. They are moulded on each other. Each is a part of each. Each is necessary to the other. You might learn as much, or more, elsewhere; but where else would you leave behind, from what other place would you carry with you so much of those kindly affections, the cultivation of which is not the least important part of education? On these we have determined to stake the usefulness, the permanency, and the prosperity of our institution, and in these we find a reward for our labors, which nothing can take away. For the Southern Literary Messenger. LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, By a young Scotchman, now no more. _Boston, 1832_.