ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

No. X.

SEPTEMBER, 1836.

ARTICLE I.

GENERAL LAMAR'S ADDRESS TO THE ARMY

OF TEXAS.

THIS is an address to the soldiers of Texas, by M. B. Lamar, on occasion of taking the command as Major General.

Of the nature of the contest between the Texians and Mexicans there are different opinions. Some regard it as rebellion; others, as resistance to intolerable tyranny. The latter is what the Texians claim it to be. But the events appealed to for the purpose of exciting the sympathies of the people of the United States, have occurred since the contest began. They are not the causes of the contest, but an incidental part of it The atrocities of Santa Anna chill the blood; but it was not these which first led the Texians to take up arms. The first beginnings of the strife cease to be longer regarded; and it seems to derive its character in public estimation, not from its origin, but from the acts of the combatants. All this, however, does not affect our present purpose; which is briefly to notice the address of General Lamar.

1

The address begins:

*SOLDIERS OF TEXAS-On assuming the glorious responsibility of !ling you to the field of battle, I am deeply impressed with gratte for the trust confided, and feel most vividly, that to command an army of heroes in the cause freedom, is the highest of all privies, and to conduct it to victory is the most enduring and exalted 1.Dur."

No jurisconsult, or moralist, attempts to justify either war, or the use of force by civil government, except as acts purely defensive, and demanded by an imperious, inevitable, though Ist deplorable necessity. But what would be thought of a geral assuming the command of an army to quell a rebelagainst a just and good government, who should say:— →llow Soldiers, I feel most vividly that to command an army of heroes in the cause of government, is the highest of all privileges." Mark the language;—it is not, I feel most vividly, th necessity of sustaining the law, and appreciate the importance of the service, imposed on me, in guiding you to the discharge of a duty so dreadful, and yet so imperious, but I vivid ly feel that it is the highest of all PRIVILEGES.

Or to take another case, the same in principle, what would you think of the sheriff, who on placing himself at the head of his deputies to proceed to the execution of a number of crimin als, should say, I feel, most vividly, that to conduct you, my brave deputies, in the cause of criminal justice, is the highest of all privileges?

The magnitude of the interests at stake in these supposed cases, may not perhaps be so great, as in the actual case in question, but that does not alter the nature of the service to be performed. It may be different in degree, but it is not, in character. If it be privilege in the one case, it is privilege in the other.

"And to conduct it, (the army of heroes) to victory, says the General, is the most enduring and exalted honour."

Observe, it is the victory which makes the glory. Did then those who fell at Thermopyla acquire less glory than those who conquered at Marathon? Were those who retreated from Bunker covered with a fainter lustre than those who cap

tured at Yorktown? Is the name of Hale, who, executed as a spy, lamented that he had but one life to lay down for his country, associated with less honourable recollections than the name of Arnold, who lived to fight for, and also to betray, his country? To hazard life, fortune, and every thing which man holds dear, for the sake of accomplishing great and good results, is glorious indeed, and equally so, whether we accomplish them or not. Think you that those who laid down their lives to establish the Christian religion, acquired a glory less enduring and exalted, than he who conquered the world? Whose is the glory that shall shine like the stars for ever and ever? This glory, independent of motive, independent of virtue is a phantom. Reason and Religion rebuke it, and ere the dominion of peace shall be established, it will down at their bidding.

The address continues :—

"The enemy who so recently retired, terrified, from our borders, are about to countermarch upon us with reinforcements formidable in count, but feeble in spirit and puissance. They come for the hellish purpose of desolating the loveliest of a thousand lands, and staining our luxuriant fields with the blood of the cultivators.

"Confident of numbers, they hope to gain by overwhelming force, that which they cannot achieve by valour. They boast that they will retrieve the late inglorious defeat of their aims, or perish in the attempt; that they will drive us beyond the Sabine, or give us a grave this side. You, soldiers, know the futility of their vain-glorious boastings, as well as the ferocious character of their warfare.

"Their cruelty and perfidy were sufficiently exemplified in their horrid massacres at Bexar, and La Bahia, whilst their shameful route and discomfiture at the San Jacinto, stand as a perpetual monument of their unexampled pusillanimity and dastardly conduct. Audacious Monsters! That they have the willingness to murder is apparent-their ability to conquer they never have shown. Their numbers can avail them nothing; and their threats of extermination, instead of intimidating, only invigorate the nerves of the bold and free. Let them come. Their return is hailed with joy by every manly voice in Texas."

Observe, "they come for the hellish purpose of desolating the loveliest of a thousand lands, and staining our luxuriant fields with the blood of the cultivators," and yet, "let them come, their return is hailed with joy by every manly voice in Texas." But we soon see why it is hailed with joy. It af

fords to the commander of heroes an opportunity of exercising

his high privilege.

"Another opportunity is afforded to vindicate our rights and avenge our wrongs. The greater the force, the richer the harvest."

The more there are in number, the more we shall have the high privilege of killing. This is what is meant by commanding an army of heroes in the cause of freedom.

Though every blade of grass on the banks of the Bravo, bristle into a bayonet, it shall not save them."

Bravo! Bravo! General! this is in the very highest style of heroism.

"The very glance of a freeman's eye, is a blazing shield of Perseus to the monsters of tyranny."

Equally classical and heroic.

They have to fly, or fall before the wrath of an injured people, nerved in the cause of Liberty and Vengeance."

What a conjunction of names! Liberty and Vengeance! What more fiend-like! Nerved in the cause of Liberty and VENGEANCE!

Here we have the cause of the Texians declared by the Major General of their army to be, not the cause of Liberty alone, for that would not suffice, but also the cause of Vengeance. Is this the cause which hundreds of our young men, (a noble set, fine fellows they are said to be,) are marching to Texas to sustain! Language like this is enough to thrill the nerves of a Christian man with horrour. 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." For a frail mortal to undertake the office of dealing out vengeance upon his fellow beings, how audacious the assumption!

A certain editor undertakes to forestall public opinion in regard to this address by prefacing its insertion into his paper with the following remarks:

"The address of M. B. Lamar to the Texian troops, upon his taking command, as Major General, is well calculated to infuse into them a spirit of zeal and patriotism. Such addresses should not be judged of by the cold eye of criticism-but looked at in the light only for which they are intended, [for what light are they in

tended?]-and thus regarded, we do not think that the late Texian Secretary at War could adopt a more felicitous manner and style, than he has in his different communications to the Texians."

We suppose that the editor means by "looking at them in the light for which they are intended," regarding them with reference to the object which the writer had in view. If that object was to infuse into the army, a love of their country, a zeal to labour and suffer in her cause, and that from patriotic motives, we are not so happy as to agree with him in opinion. For such a purpose, we think the late Texian Secretary at War might have adopted a style and manner much more felicitous. But to arouse the malignant passions, to stir up whatever there is of the tiger in the human breast, for such an object, we know not how the style and manner could have been improved. To hail the return of the enemy with joy, to count the riches of the harvest of human lives, to speak of being nerved in the cause of Liberty and Vengeance, is, for such a purpose, perfectly felicitous.

"Soldiers!-your country calls you to her defence. Your homes, your firesides-the scenes of your former joys, and future anticipations; all the endearments of domestic happiness, and all the hopes of future competence and peace, summon you to the field."

"Your country calls you to her defence." Poor fellows!The greater part of them have no country. They have forsaken their country, and one to enter as adventurers in this cause of "liberty and vengeance." The whole Texian army amounts to only about three thousand men. How many of them are adventurers from the United States, any one can judge who has read the accounts in the public journals, for some months past, of volunteers raised and equipped in these United States, and marching for Texas. A single correspondent of a New-Orleans paper, writes June 30th :—

"We sent down in the Transport, on Sunday last, one hundred and fifty volunteers from Ohio; to-morrow two hundred and twenty hunters of Kentucky, (a noble set,) will leave to join the army. Colonel Felix Houston crossed above, and has gone down with a fine regiment of Tennesseans."