Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
how much more powerful must the tie be with us, who, if I may be permitted the
expression, are the founders, the creators of our own farms! When I see my table
surrounded with my blooming ospring, all united in the bonds of the strongest
aection, it kindles in my paternal heart a variety of tumultuous sentiments,
which none but a father and a husband in my situation can feel or describe.
Perhaps I may see my wife, my children, often distressed, involuntarily recalling
to their minds the ease and abundance which they enjoyed under the paternal
roof. Perhaps I may see them want that bread which I now leave behind; overtaken
by diseases and penury, rendered more bitter by the recollection of former days of
opulence and plenty. Perhaps I may be assailed on every side by unforeseen
accidents, which I shall not be able to prevent or to alleviate. Can I contemplate
such images without the most unutterable emotions? My fate is determined; but I
have not determined it, you may assure yourself, without having undergone the
most painful conicts of a variety of passions;— interest, love of ease, disappointed
views, and pleasing expectations frustrated;—I shuddered at the review! Would to
God I was master of the stoical tranquillity of that magnanimous sect; oh, that I
were possessed of those sublime lessons which Appollonius of Chalcis gave to the
Emperor Antoninus! I could then with much more propriety guide the helm of my
little bark, which is soon to be freighted with all that I possess most dear on earth,
through this stormy passage to a safe harbour; and when there, become to my
fellow passengers, a surer guide, a brighter example, a pattern more worthy of
imitation, throughout all the new scenes they must pass, and the new career they
must traverse. I have observed notwithstanding, the means hitherto made use of,
to arm the principal nations against our frontiers. Yet they have not, they will not
take up the hatchet against a people who have done them no harm. The passions
necessary to urge these people to war, cannot be roused, they cannot feel the
stings of vengeance, the thirst of which alone can compel them to shed blood: far
superior in their motives of action to the Europeans, who for sixpence per day,
may be engaged to shed that of any people on earth. They know nothing of the
nature of our disputes, they have no ideas of such revolutions as this; a civil
division of a village or tribe, are events which have never been recorded in their
traditions: many of them know very well that they have too long been the dupes
and the victims of both parties; foolishly arming for our sakes, sometimes against
each other, sometimes against our white enemies. They consider us as born on the
same land, and, though they have no reasons to love us, yet they seem carefully to
avoid entering into this quarrel, from whatever motives. I am speaking of those
nations with which I am best acquainted, a few hundreds of the worst kind mixed
with whites, worse than themselves, are now hired by Great Britain, to perpetuate
those dreadful incursions. In my youth I traded with the——, under the conduct of
my uncle, and always traded justly and equitably; some of them remember it to
this day. Happily their village is far removed from the dangerous neighbourhood
of the whites; I sent a man last spring to it, who understands the woods extremely
well, and who speaks their language; he is just returned, after several weeks
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