safety-valves. As of a steam-boat, you may estimate his powers and operations with scientific nicety. With a given force applied in a given manner, he will move in a certain direction, and to a specified distance. If this great engine be built and managed according to approved rules, they think it will work well and uniformly, whatever be the character of its materials, and whatever the object to which it is applied. These men must learn a different philosophy from this. They must discover that physical deductions will not apply to the government of men. They must be told that the great secret of preserving a nation in its primitive worth and freedom is universal moral education, and the oft-impressed conviction that their duty is their interest. When sobriety and justice are no more, knowledge and power are but the elements of a speedier destruction. Some would indulge the opinion that each individual in the nation may be wasteful and wicked, and yet the whole people, in their national aspect, continue great, glorious, and successful. But the character of the ingredients is the character of the mass: what our citizens are in the taverns, or at their firesides, such are they at the polls, and such their representatives in our legislative halls.

Commend us to the spirit of the Past -the chivalric and thoughtful spirit, that prompted to wise counsels and valorous deeds-when worth was not guaged by the standards of wealth or fashion, and a nation's greatness was not computed by the arithmetic of numbers, nor her glory measured by the geometry of space. We do not mean that there ever was a period in which, or a people with whom, this spirit was universally present and operative among men. Nor do we even mean that the time ever existed, when there was more collective wisdom than now, or more of that generous and expansive feeling, which is the glory and perfection of our nature. On the contrary, we believe there is, in the average, more of purity, and uprightness, and high humanity in the world at present, than there has ever been before. We prefer, then, no particular past age to the present But what we mean by the spirit of the Past, is that spirit which may be seen here and there through the world's history, bursting upon us in splendid developments-sometimes pervading a whole nation-sometimes actuating a

particular class of men-and sometimes shining forth with noble beauty in the life of a single individual. This spirit was often mingled with baser ingredients; but we can regard it in the aggregate, and correcting one quality by another, may draw from all its displays lessons of thoughtful and inspiring wisdom. Could we extract the essence of this spirit, and infuse it into the thoughts of our rulers and the character of our people, we should behold an immediate and amazing change. Sectional interests would no longer embroil the harmony, and mutual jealousies menace the existence, of the Union. No longer would an improvident and cowardly legislation surrender the property of the Future to the senseless clamors of the Present, or individual ambition sacrifice to self the welfare of millions. Our public men, moreover, aspirants to influence or to fame, might at length be found reflecting and acting upon the truth, that "honesty is the surest policy," and that the real patriot is able, like the sun, to look beyond the opposing clouds to the sure brightness that awaits him.

He who is in a hurry to be renowned or powerful, may learn from history that dishonesty is always detected, and that no man ever went through life with his character unread. It is of no avail to wrap himself around with veil upon veil of deception, and draw over his selfish projects the mantle of public zeal. One may outwit individuals," says Rochefoucault," but it is impossible to outwit the world." To this it might be added, that if the great public, cotemporary, is foolish enough to lend its opinions upon trust, posterity is wiser. And who that is not utterly depraved and utterly inhuman, can read the verdicts which history records upon so many buried traitors, whose treachery was undiscovered till their death, then desire the same inglorious renown-that all posterity should say above his grave, "this man in life was popular and powerful, of exalted station and celebrated name-but he was a hypocrite, and a villain-a traitor to himself, a traitor to his country, a traitor to his God?" The incendiary, whose grovelling thirst for fame, applied the torch to the temple of Diana, did attain to a species of immortality-to be "damned to everlasting fame." He, however, only destroyed the monument of pride, and the dwelling of imposture, ornamented from the spoils of conquered nations, and cemented with tears and

blood. But he who, through wounded pride, or overweening ambition, shall have fired the structure of this Union, will have attained an unquestioned preeminence in guilt over all the villains, obscure or splendid, of whom history holds any record, except Iscariot Judas. The treason of Cæsar was treason against Rome, but it was only taking in his own hands a power, which were as well placed there as elsewhere-for Rome was no longer Roman. But he who is a traitor to us, is a traitor to the world, and the curses of a race, baffled by him of their most cherished hopes, shall howl after him to the end of time.

It is not that the dissolution of this confederacy would extinguish freedom, and involve the world in the darkness of barbarism and barbarous misrule. To think that we are necessary to the preservation of knowledge and freedom among men, were a vanity equally criminal and foolish. The Ruler of nations will accomplish his plans of benevolent wisdom, though we should be stricken from existence. England,* should she weather the gale now sweeping over her sea-worn hulk, would still rear aloft the flag that has streamed to the breeze though so many centuries of breathless contention. And were she, too, if we may change the figure, to sink like a falling star from her glorious sphere, some other luminary would soon shine forth, from among the rolling years, as fair and as radiant as she. Yet the extinction of libertyin England-still more, the entire breaking up of the American Union-might with reason hang the world in mourning: for the happy consummation of light and freedom, which has so long been looked for by the hopeful and the pure, would be deferred for many a weary age. The eyes of those, who have gazed-intensely, anxiously, with a half fear of recognizing their joy-on the westward star of empire, would revert sadly to their own darkened hemisphere, and the conviction would press

heavily on the hearts of men, that the race is too hopelessly depraved to be entrusted with the rights, the duties, and the blessings of self-government.

We have not advanced far enough in the political algebra of treason to estimate the losses and the gains, or to institute an equation between union and disunion. To us, indeed, the disunion side in the odious problem appears an utter blanknay, rather a dark negation by whatever is uncertain, confused and fearful, in place of all that could be wished for and enjoyed. But from such calculations we turn away with horror. Nor are we sufficiently versed in the science of governmental chances to compute the certainties, or the probabilities, or the possibilities, of our future dissolution. We leave the hateful puzzle to cooler heads and stronger nerves than ours. Yet there is, at least, a possibility-"tua pace, patria, dicam"-of such a disaster, and even the remote contingency ought to fill us with fear, and inspire us with the wise precaution, of which fear is the parent. And among all precautions the surest is, that we guard ourselves against the increas ing spirit of innovation-the love of change-change in itself consideredchange for itself alone-eternal, unreasoning, unmeaning change. The fact that our government was the child of change and cradled in the whirlwind of a stormy revolution, has gone far to persuade us that change is in itself beneficial. But change, unless a decided blessing, is always a most decided curse. Its natural tendency is to weakness and decay. Human nature is so strongly inclined to go astray, that it is far safer to rely on the power of habit to keep it in a path approximate to the parallel of rectitude, than to give it unlimited freedom to go right or wrong, in the vain hope of its tendency to perfection. When old abuses have been corrected, the delight experienced in the happiness of the change, soon urges the spirit of legitimate and rational improvement into the frenzy of

a destructive ultraism. Then the restlessness of some, and the designing wickedness of others, hurry forward the work of the (so-called) reformation, to the utter abolition of all that is sacred in its own nature, and venerable by time, and endeared by habit. The eyes of bigoted and headlong zeal are closed against all the experience of the past, and it lays its hands in reckless fury on the structure of government and the altars of religion.

Unable to see any thing but the evil in the existing state of things, it cries, "down with it! down with it! destroy! destroy!" When standing in its way, the judiciary is but a remnant of a barbarous age; public debts are no mortgage upon private honor; governmental charters are a mere nullity; and legislative contracts but an empty form. In this transitive state, this state of dizzv revolution, when the mind of a whole country is on fire, the crude visions of theorists are taken as the oracles of truth, and measures are adopted less from the deliberations of reason, than from the wish or the necessity of doing something. But we in this country are in imminent danger not only of divesting ourselves of the worthless exuvia which had gathered over the surface of society and grown inveterate by the neglect of centuries, but also of tearing away many of those integuments which are needful for the beauty and protection of the body-politic, and even of laying bare the vital

organs.

There are many things, in which we are getting to be entirely too modern. The old-fashioned duties of industry and sobriety, economy and contentment, are becoming somewhat too musty in our catalogue of virtues. These virtues, having in them nothing of the spirit of the nineteenth century," and being of discovery far prior to that of steam, or even of gunpowder, are pushed sadly into the back-ground by later inventions. The obligations to strict justice, and undeviating honesty, and the propriety of every man's attending to his own business, and remaining in that station for which he is best fitted-obligations which have been recognized ever since the flood

-are growing rather obsolete among us. Judging by the portentous progress made among them by the "march of mind,” during the few last years, the more deeply indoctrinated among the Democrats par excellence, may soon be expected to advocate a total abolition of the statutebook and the "lex scripta," and in their place, the substitution of a variable and voluntary" lex non scripta," as the sole rule for the conduct of the individual man-videlicit his whim, his interest, or his impulse. The claims of antiquity to respectful attention, and of universal belief to religious veneration, are losing greatly of their strength among our omniscient sages. Yet, according to our modes of thinking, these sober virtues and this reverential awe at the voice of a buried world, are absolutely essential to the lasting prosperity of a nation. We do not mean that we are to tread with scrupulous precision in the footsteps of our fathers, and suffer an unreasoning reverence for " hoary eld" to shackle our free limbs with their childish prejudices, and plunge us into all their absurdities of belief and enormities of action. But the condensed experience of ages, and the gathered warnings of a race, whose lessons have been conned but too deeply in the school of affliction, should sink into our hearts with the weight of prophecy. The fact that every government, of whatever description, and however prosperous for a time, has at last gone down into the grave of nations, ought to chasten our confidence with an awful fear. We, if we are prudent, can draw blessings from their sorrows, and wisdom from their folly, strength from their weakness, and firmness from their fall. But the same tide which swallowed them in its whirlpools or dashed them on its ragged rocks, is bearing us onward with resistless force. If we awake not in time, and watch the buoys and lighthouses set up by History along the wreck-strewn shore, we shall not even dream of danger, till the roar of the breakers shall thunder in our ears, and the mariners shall spring in horror from their thoughtless repose, and the ship of state "founder and go down in darkness."*

THE Scene of the following sketch, which may be one of a series, is laid not only in one of the most remarkable countries in the world-for its singular and unexplored scenery-but in a wild and solitary part of it, where all the forms of life are found in a condition much nearer to the savage than the civilized. The reader must remember that he is to be taken to the extreme frontier of Texas, nearest to Mexico and the Indians amid a mongrel population of Whites, Mexicans and savages, living in a state of perpetual feuds, in which the knife and rifle are the sole arbitrators-in short, where all the stable elements and organization of society which afford protection in the decorous observances and staid proprieties of civilized life, are totally wanting. Strong men and unregulated passions exhibit their worst and best extremes in this atmosphere of license. History scarcely affords an analogy to the fierceness of the Guerilla warfare constantly raging between the three races-yet fragments of them all, under one pretence and another, amalgamated in the society of San Antonio. The Mexicans, who were greatly in the majority, were, most of them refugees from the other side of the Rio Grande, for political or criminal offences. The Indians were wretched fragments of once powerful tribes, which had been cut to pieces in their contests with the other two parties and now cowered between them begging protection of both, and patiently biding their time for secret revenge upon either. The Whites were hardy and reckless men of every stamp, to whom the excitement of adventure-of complicated and incessant peril, had become a necessary moral aliment. This morbid passion certainly found abundant gratification here, for with the constant liability of attack from without they were forever surrounded within the town by natural foes, the most faithless and malignant. When it is remembered, besides, that they only numbered fifteen in all, and attempted to domineer with a high hand over as many hundreds of the other two races at home, and, in addition, to defend a line of several hundred miles of frontier against the invasion of preda

tory bands from beyond the Rio Grande, or from the mountains of the Indian country; and, furthermore, were compelled to guard against, and baffle the treachery of spies lurking around their very doors-it may well be conjectured they had their hands full. Of course, to effect all this a very thorough organization was necessary, and a troop of Rangers, numbering generally about ten men, grew out of this necessity. It is the period of my first connection with these gay and daring fellows at which I design to open my note book of daily incidents. A few words, in general explanation of the circumstances of my arrival in San Antonio.

The par

Determined to make myself familiar with all the phases of life in this curious country, I had traversed the greater portion of it alone. But at that time (the latter part of February, '39) the journey to San Antonio was too perilous to be undertaken singly; so that happening to meet with an old acquaintance from my native State who was, like myself, anxious to make the trip, I joined him, and we undertook it together. He was a Brassos Planter, and owned, of course, a number of slaves. One of these, in the effort to make his escape to Mexico, had succeeded in reaching the neighborhood of San Antonio, when he was arrested by the vigilant Rangers, thrown into chains, and his owner advertised of the fact by a special messenger. ticular object of my friend Taney, was to recover this boy. Escaping to Mexico is a favorite scheme of the slaves of Texas, and numbers of them annually attempt, and some few effect it. They have the impression that their condition is very greatly bettered by the change. deed, the more spirited of them acquire, by contact with the whites, habits of thought and action, which elevate them to decided superiority over the average Mexican population; and if they can succeed in reaching that country, they are generally more than a match for the imbecile natives. Several notorious instances of these runaways acquiring in a short time position and rank, added to the fact that the Mexican population of

In

Texas had always exhibited a warm sympathy for them, and never failed to assist them in getting off by every means in their power, contributed of late to greatly increase the frequency of these attempts, and, in the same ratio, the vigilance of the planters and Rangers to counteract them. The San Antonio route was the only practicable one across the desert plains to the Rio Grande, so that such refugees were all compelled to pass through it. In a word, it is the gate of that frontier. After a journey full of fatigue and danger, we were approaching it on the night of the 25th; news that the Indians were down and ravaging the country, had compelled us to travel after dark, with a view to lessening the probabilities of meeting with them.

It was a very clear night, brilliant as only Texan moonlight can be, and I felt strongly impressed by the majestic breadth of the plain upon which we had lately emerged from the broken and wooded ground, and which lay sheeted in the vast circumference of a becalmed and silvery ocean around us. These primeval solitudes-with all the grandeur on, and solemn silence that they wore when first God said, "Let there be Light!" and that shining negation burst upon Old Chaos, revealing all forms in its annihilation—are wonderfully imposing. With the high arch above me, its glittering fret-work niched with "golden candlesticks," and resting upon this broad level base, which reflected their bold radiance in misty softness-I felt as if we crept with our slow pace along the plumb-line of the universe, under the full gaze of the infinite Host of Heaven, with their cold keen eyes searchingly upon us. The awe one feels upon these sky-bounded prairies is positively oppressive. If you do not realize eternity and God's being and omnipresence in such a scene, then were you born without a soul, or else it has died within you. After a ride of several hours, during which neither of us spoke, we observed the monotonous profile of the horizon before us, broken by several objects. As we approached, they gradually crept up from the darkness and we could distinguish the square outline of Mexican houses-very soon we were amongst them-clustered irregularly along the bank of the San Antonio River, the gleam and ripple of which now struck upon our senses. These houses were square stone pens, thatched with bulrushes, and,

as we passed them, looked desolate and dark enough, for it was very late. To some distance, above and below the ford, they were dotted along without any appearance of regularity, while on the opposite side, the confusion of black angular masses defined against the sky, indicated the location of the main town. The river, which leaps forth with a sudden birth from a cave a few miles above, rushes roaring clamorously over the wide rocky bed which constitutes the ford. It seemed, as it really is, a hazardous experiment to cross it during the night; but, however, our venturesome impatience was more fortunate than skillful in effecting a passage. The bank is by no means steep, and we found ourselves in a few paces from the water, amidst the low stone and thatched houses, in a narrow street of the suburbs: this, after a while, led us into a broader one, in which the houses on either side grew gradually from mere huts to the dignity of one, two, and three stories of massive stone.

One of these, standing somewhat singular and taller than the rest, my friend paused before, and announced that according to the topographical description of our where-abouts, with which he had been furnished, this must be the house of the merchant, who had cashed the reward offered for the apprehension of the boy and held him in charge. There was a light glimmering through the doorchinks and key-hole: we dismounted and thumped lustily and long for admittance; at last a man in his shirt-sleeves thrust his head cautiously through the half-opened door, and demanded who we were. The night was very cold, and Taney had some difficulty, for the chattering of his teeth, in making himself understood. He succeeded finally in satisfying the cautious merchant, and the door was thrown open. When our eyes had recovered from the broad dazzle of a large fire, we saw that there were a number of men sleeping on cots and buffalo robes, along the whole length of an extended and narrow room; near the head of each man lay a Mexican saddle, gleaming with silver mounting, and a gaudy colored "serapé," or Mexican blanket, thrown either over it or the person of the sleeper. But the object which at once arrested my gaze, was the figure of the Negro Boy curled up upon the hearth, and as he rose to a sitting posture from his sleep, the clank and glitter