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Declining therefore a differtation on the princi- ples of civil polity, you will indulge me in flightly fketching on thofe events, which have originated, nurtured, and raifed to its prefent grandeur the empire of Columbia.
As no nation on the globe can rival us in the rapidity of our growth, fince the conclulion of the revolutionary war — fo none, perhaps, ever endured greater hardfhips, and difltrefles, than the people of this country, previous to that period.
We behold a feeble band of colonifbs, engaged in the arduous undertaking of a new fettlement, in the wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being mutilated, and the enjoyment of their religious fentiments denied them, in the land that gave them birth, they fled their coun- try, they braved the dangers of the then almofl unnavigated ocean, and fought, on the other lide the globe, an afylum from the iron grafp of tyranny, and the more intolerable fcourge of eccleliaftical perfecution. But gloomy, indeed, was their profpe6l, when arrived on this lide the Atlantic. Scattered, in detachments, along a coaft immenfely extenlive, at a remove of more than three thoufand miles from their friends on the eaftern continent, they were expofed to all thofe evils, and endured all those difficulties, to which human nature feems liable. Deftitute of convenient habitations, the inclemencies of the feafons attacked them, the midnight beafts of prey prowled terribly around them, and the more portentous yell of favage fury inceffantly affailed them ! But the fame undiminifhed confidence in Almighty God, which prompted the firft fet- tlers of this country to forfake the unfriendly climes of Europe, ftill fupported them, under all
their
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