my illness. Governor Bouck was not there. The melancholy death of Mr. Legare caused the President and his party to return with haste. They breakfasted at our table yesterday morning. The President has an amiable face with a very long nose, and appears very well. He is quiet, plain, and unpretending. Robert, the eldest son, looks like the father, but his hair is longer, his nose shorter, and he has much more pretension. John, Jr., the other son, is dark-complexioned-more pert, but has written no poem, as Bob has.

I shall remain here ten days longer, when I shall return to B. Whether I shall be able to visit you now is quite uncertain. I intend to go to Boston during the season-probably not until September or October, and if I go will take you along with me.

It would give me great pleasure to visit Pittsfield, much greater to see you--but I have many, very many demands upon my time.

To-day I am to visit the asylum for the deaf and dumbyesterday I visited the Institution for the Blind. It is very interesting to see how much science and charity have done for these poor stricken beings-the blind read the Bible (in raised letters) as readily as you can. The deaf and dumb write beautifully, and converse with each other with astonishing rapidity. Give my kind regards to inquiring friends, and Mr. and Mrs. Tyler.

I have two invitations to deliver 4th of July orations-one at Whitney's Point, and the other in the State of Indiana. I have to send both my "sincere regrets."

Very affectionately, your father,

D. S. DICKINSON.

MR. DICKINSON TO MRS. DICKINSON.

CORTLANDVILLE, August 29, 1843.

MY DEAR LYDIA-I arrived here to-day, to try a cause in which I was engaged a year or two since. I expect to be detained here a few days, and then shall return to Albany as soon as possible. I think the Court will finally adjourn about the 15th of September, and if you are all getting along well,

I shall think it best to stay until the close. I left Albany Saturday afternoon, came to Utica and staid over night; left at half past three o'clock for Syracuse, and arrived about seven in the morning.

I witnessed a very severe affliction in the family of Judge Hall. Charles Carroll Hall, their son, aged sixteen, died of typhus fever, at Mr. Nash's, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he was at school, on Saturday morning. Mr. Nash, Judge Hall, another son and a daughter travelled in the same train with us from some place between Utica and Syracuse, where they had arrived during the night, with the corpse. They were a stricken and afflicted group. Mr. Nash seemed to feel the affliction as deeply as any one of them. The funeral was attended at Judge H.'s home at five yesterday afternoon, from thence to the Pres byterian Church, which was filled to overflowing. I attended by invitation from the family. I have seldom witnessed a more affecting ceremony. A truly eloquent man, Mr. Adams, preached, and his discourse, particularly the address to the brothers and sisters, was the most eloquent, beautiful and af fecting that I ever heard. This was followed by an address to youth, which I would have given very much if Manco could have heard. Mr. Nash then gave a high eulogium upon the character of Charles, for truth, obedience, and every moral and virtuous trait that could adorn a youth. It was one of the most moving scenes it has recently fallen to my lot to witness.

Mr. Nash and Judge H. both saw Virginia on Saturday and say she was well. Mr. Nash says she is regarded as a most amiable and excellent girl, and a fine scholar. I have very great anxiety for yourself and our dear children. If Manco could have seen and heard the funeral of his late companion, it would have melted his heart.

I have no news to write. I am much engaged here and have no time. My dearest love to Manco, Lydia and little Mary, and beg them all to love and obey you in my absence. Affectionately yours,

D. S. DICKINSON.

MR. DICKINSON TO MESSRS. MCMAHON, GALLIGAN, AND ENDE, COMMITTEE, &c.

ALBANY, September 4, 1843.

GENTLEMEN-Your kind and complimentary note of the 24th

ult. reached me as I was leaving the city, and my answer was necessarily delayed until my return. I trust I need not say to you that I should derive great pleasure from accepting your invitation, and in addressing my friends of the Young Men's Repeal Association; but I have deemed it most becoming, while acting in a judicial capacity, where interests so diversified, and principles so important as those submitted to the court of last resort are discussed and settled, to decline uniting in any popular assemblage. I am therefore constrained by this consideration of public duty to forego that which under other circumstances would afford me high gratification.

There is much, very much, in the past history as well as in the present condition of Ireland, to awaken the painful solicitude of the philanthropist. When we turn our eyes to this isle of the ocean which nature has adorned with her own peculiar beauty and loveliness, and contemplate the condition of a people proverbially brave, generous, and confiding, groaning under the exactions of a haughty and insolent oppressor, the mind is led to inquire, why it is that they are thus degraded and enslaved. They have not by force or fraud, or by stratagem or stealth, violated the code adopted by civilized nations for their government or guide; they have not by fire or sword, or other means of devastation, carried war and rapine into distant lands. Nor have they steeped in poverty nor laden with chains their fellowmen, nor massacred them by the million in the name of humanity. But the very head and front of their offending, hath this extent no more." They have desired to prescribe laws for their own government, to ensure to themselves the rewards of their own industry, to elevate their moral and social condition in the scale of being, and to feed to their own starving children the bread which is snatched from their mouths, to pamper a bloated aristocracy and political priesthood.

It is a subject alike worthy of surprise and admiration, that a people so chivalrous and impulsive, so keenly sensible of the degradation to which they have been subjected, and so prompt to resent an injury, should have manifested so much of patient submission under their accumulated wrongs; and that when goaded beyond endurance they should have wielded the moral instead of the physical elements of controversy, and arraigned their oppressor for a redress of grievances at the bar of the

civilized world instead of the field of sanguinary strife. In this the Irish people have not only furnished convincing proofs of their own exalted purposes, but of their eminent ability for selfgovernment under the most adverse and trying circumstances. In their laudable efforts they will be cheered and sustained by the sympathy and succor of every true friend of liberty throughout the habitable globe; and whether it be sooner or later, this year or a succeeding one, it requires no spirit of prophecy to declare that the voice has already gone forth which will throw back in its glad echoes, a "Repeal of the Union.”

Great Britain may postpone, but she cannot avert it. She may threaten violence and bloodshed, and point to her balls and bayonets and her means of offensive war; but it will end in bluster, for in arms she dare not be the aggressor. She is too well aware that the evil genius of her own government is already causing it to rock on its pedestal; that its subtle but malign influences, which like the fearful plague-spot have so long infused their poison into her life-blood, and chilled pulsation at its fountain, are spreading consternation and alarm among her people; that the spirit of equality is abroad, which, if not destined to triumph speedily, bodes no lasting security to monarchy. She will struggle, to be sure, to the last, to maintain her usurpations, and glory as she does in her own injustice and shame; and why should she not? In national atrocity she has long since passed the Rubicon. In disseminating civilization, she has subjected the inhabitants of Asia to the operation of laws more revolting and ferocious than the code of Juggernaut! And, herself the boasted bulwark of religion, pretending to inculcate the mild and gentle precept of the Prince of Peace, she has marked her pathway with rapine, blood, and desolation!

In her arrogance and pride, she has celebrated in history and song, and perpetuated in poetry and eloquence her prowess as a nation-the success of her fleets and armies and the achievements of her mighty men, the magnificence of her trophies and the splendor of her regalia. But she has not deigned to look into her manufactories and mines; nor taken note of her miserable and suffering poor, in their last sad hour of existence; of the hungry and famished wretches, who, smothering their agony, expire in darkness and in silence, deprived of the consolation of their kind or the tears of human sympathy. Her court gazette

has heralded the gorgeous display at the christening of the royal infant, and boasted of the vast gala-day which its nativity experienced; but it has not told of the thousand beings as bright and as beautiful, as much the objects of paternal solicitude, as precious in the sight of God, who must starve and die, that this profane and impious mummery may be observed, and that the eyes of a deluded people may be dazzled with the imposing mockery of royalty.

All this, however, but serves to fill the cup of her wickedness and accelerate her downfall. Her bloated debt and her arrogant aristocracy are this moment reeling onward to destruction and careening one against the other for support; and when either shall yield, the whole system of baseness and enormity will be scattered to the winds of heaven. England will not always have bayonets for the warm hearts of the sons of Erin; the time is not far distant when she may find employment for her hired soldiery nearer home.

If, then, Irishmen are as true and just to themselves as they are grateful and generous to their friends: if they continue as they have begun, war with their moral energies, and bide their time, I have little doubt that many of us shall yet see our most buoyant hopes in behalf of unfortunate and bleeding Ireland exchanged for a happy fruition.

Be pleased to accept for yourselves and your friends of the Association the kind consideration and regard of your friend and fellow-citizen,

To Messrs. MATTHEW MCMAHON,

D. S. DICKINSON.

THOMAS GALLIGAN, LOUIS ENDE, Committee.

MR. DICKINSON TO V. E. DICKINSON.

ALBANY, September 9, 1843.

MY DEAR VIRGINIA-I was about to visit you to-day or Monday, and take a short trip to Boston or Saratoga and return here on Wednesday, to be present at the sitting of the Canal Board; but I have just received a letter from your uncle requesting me to repair home immediately on account of your dear mother's health. She is much worse again, and I shall