No. I.

THE LITERARY PORT FOLIO Will be published every Thursday, and on this day it will always be punctually delivered to subscribers in Philadelphia and New York, and sent off by mail to subscribers in the country.

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· Public Affairs.

In beginning our editorial labours, all that we have room to say under this head, is a few words upon the manner in which we shall hereafter endeavour to fulfil this part of our duty. We shall not have room for the messages of our Presidents; nor for the reports of future Conventions; nor for the constitutions of benevolent societies; nor for the interminable essays of —; nor even for the reports of Secretaries at War. We shall not even be able, in the small space we can give to this department, to condense all the important items of intelligence; but considering the whole as an open field to us, we shall select such subjects as shall to us seem best-considered in the compound ratio of their usefulness to our readers, and their adaptation to our editorial capacity.

In thus announcing our intention to meddle, when we judge it expedient, with political matters, we think it necessary to guard against alarming two classes of our subscribers: 1st. Those who may think us likely to encroach upon a province peculiarly belonging to themselves. To these we say, that we have no desire to distinguish ourselves in any of the dirty work now doing, and that we are as unlikely to become active politicians as if we were

PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY 7,

judges on the bench. 2d. To those who may fear that our meddling with public affairs may make our paper as dull as the- —or the and thus unfit it for what we have declared to be its object-the information and amusement of ladies as well as gentlemen; of the young as well as of the old-to these we say, that our greatest desire is, to be useful-that is, in the favourite definition of the utilitarians, "to produce the greatest happiness to the greatest number" and so sincere are we in this matter, that we do not hesitate to declare that we would rather receive five thousand more good subscribers to this paper, than to receive fifty thousand votes for Governor of Pennsylvania.

More and more arrivals from the Bay of Mexico, have lessened and lessened our hope of hearing from the HORNET, and we can now hope no longer. "The captain of a light brig who was in the edge of the tempest, represents it as having been the most appalling spectacle that he ever beheld. The sea was wrought into a foam as though a thousand water spouts were bursting over as many whirlpools, while the winds were driving with a fury that mountains only could resist. His own vessel was very light, and although but in the edge of the gale, he was borne almost through the air, he knew not how. The captain thinks that no heavy ship, or ship heavily laden, could have stood that awful tempest." We have heard the opinion of one of our highest naval officers, "that in all probability the gale opened the seams of the Hornet, and she went down like a mass of iron."

The long uncertain fate of the Eperrier, hung for months upon our imagination; but in the loss of this vessel we keenly feel that we have suffered a peculiar evil.

Lieutenant Daniel H. Mackey was a friend of whom we were proud. He was a man upon whom we should have absolutely relied in any difficulty or danger. In uprightness, in delicacy, in manners and in mind, he was a gentleman to whom we know no superior. As an officer he was strictly attentive to his duty, when on board;-and we can testify from personal knowledge, that when on shore he was assiduous in those studies which better qualified him for serving his country. Whatever it was his duty to know, he knew thoroughly -and such is our opinion of his capacity, his prudence, and his knowledge, that we do not hesitate to assert, that could any accident have placed him at one step at the head of our Navy,

he would have done honour to his station.

For the Literary Port Folio. PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. (See the accompanying Plate.) The celebrated treaty under the Elm Tree at Shackamaxon, has received so much attention, and excited so much emotion in various character of an incident in romance. quarters of the world, as to give it strongly the The spectacle was indeed singular in many respects;

1830.

and well calculated to act on the imagination. A band of humble religionists,who, through per secution and evil-speaking, had retained their determination to obey the scriptural mandate, "resist not evil," headed by a courtier of one king, and the cherished personal friend of another, the son of Cromwell's victorious admiral, himself forsaking the attractions of a court, to exercise his religion, and to colonize the desolate wilderness-these men entering a region hitherto distracted by incessantly repeated wars, and in which the only European lodgments were maintained by fortified posts, provided with cannon, and there transacting with the high-minded savage a peaceful purchase of soil, founded on reciprocal services, and only guaranteed by confidence in each other's good faith, a faith retained uninjured for a period of seventy years-such was indeed a remarkable occurrence. Nor was the end less worthy of history than the action or the men. To establish a government, under which entire personal liberty, and in particular, total freedom of conscience, for all denominations, should be sethe people to be governed; to institute the excured, by depositing the power in the hands of perimental trial of a regular, elective, representative republic, freed from the habitual conutterly at variance with the spirit of the age. nexion of church and state, was an undertaking In the reign of the second James, who incurred so much obloquy, and ultimately lost his throne, for the attempts he was believed to be making to re-establish the Catholic religion and Roman domination in the British islands, such an attempt, with the patronage of the monarch himself, might even go far to call in question the reality of his supposed efforts at overruling religious liberty at home. Well might the occurrence excite the attention, in a subsequent age, of the infidel satirist," who declared this "the only treaty never ratified by an oath, and the only one that was never broken."

Nor were the aboriginal parties to the treaty devoid of personal interest. We have not now space to go into a discussion with the talented but prejudiced writer in the North American Review, who has expressed a contrary opinion; but we think any impartial person who will take the pains to examine the necessary documents, will be convinced of the truth of the statement originally made by Heckewelder,, that the Delaware Indians held a high priority among the tribes of this continent, with the exception of the Six Nations, in the capacity of political leaders and of peace-makers. The famous title of Grandfather, uniformly claimed by them down to very recent treaties, and acknowledged by members of other tribes, probably conveyed no very definite powers, according to our ideas. Still, it appears from their own statements, as preserved by the author just mentioned, that they laid aside, by treaty, the character of warriors, to assume that of women, with the distinct understanding that in this there was no degradation, but an honorary charge of peace-making, which could be given to none but a powerful and respected nation. This has been treated, in the review alluded to, as the self-flattering invention of a conquered tribe; and some of our own people have been found willing to back this supposition by appealing to the commands said to have been laid on thein by the Six Nations, at the treaty of Easton, which they are represented to have obeyed, by removing to Wyoming. When we recollect that the Six Nations werd invited to assume and exercise this influence by the whites, at a period when the latter, with their Mohawk allies, vastly outnumbered and nearly surrounded the Delawares, and that the

* Voltaire.

+ Hendrick Aupaunent's Narrative, Mem, Penn. Hist. Soc. vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 76.

latter had been for about 60 years unused to war, and particularly united in bonds of the strictest ainity with these very whites, while the alternative subjected them to compulsion, and to the invasion, from behind, of their ferocious red neighbours, can any one be surprised at the readiness with which the intriguing Mohawks made a merit of assuming the authority, or at the compliance of the unfortunate emigrants? To confirm the idea that the character in which the latter stood was not that of humiliation, but of respect and peaceful authority, we quote the following passage from an Indian writer of another tribe. Hendrick Aupaunent held the rank of Chief among the Mohegans; and, in conceding superiority to the Delawares, must be considered as impartialwaiving, as he does, the claims of his own nation. He was an individual well known to, and confidentially employed by, President Washington; and we have attestations to his character from the late Col. Pickering. His words are as follows*

"The Delawares, whom we call Wenaumeeu, are our Grandfathers, according to the ancient covenant of their and our ancestors, to which we adhere without any deviation in these near 200 years past; to which nation the Five Nations and British, after finding themselves incapable of completing a union of all who has one colour, have committed the whole business. For this nation had the greatest influence with the Southern, Western and Northern nations."

The picture, from the brush of our countryman, West, an engraving of which is before us, presents the peculiar style of attitude and countenance of this unfortunate tribe with such peculiar accuracy, that a gentleman well known as an eminent naturalist, when taken to see the copy now in the Academy of the Fine Arts, declared that he could at any time have recognised the figures as belonging to the Delawares, from their resemblance to those members of the tribe with whom he had sojourned on the Arkansas. He described their air and features as peculiarly noble; and added that they actually preserve to the present day, the style of painting the face as represented in the picture. This, of course, our engraving cannot adequately represent. Aged individuals have stated, that the figure represented as discharging the duties of historian or secretary, and concentrating his attention, as he holds a large fan before his face, is a very good likeness of the celebrated Teedyuscung. Others, and these are by no means few, profess to recognise the likenesses of several of our own ancestors in the patriarchal group towards the right of the picture. The figure holding the sheet of parchment represents, we know not with what correctness, the Secretary, Thomas Story. The others, probably filled up from the painter's acquaintance, bear strong resemblance to the respective families of Shippen, West, Logan, and Morris. Towards the midst of the picture, and near his Indian friend, appears the man

Qui leges et jura dabat, parvaque suorum Et pater et judex idem regnabat in aula.

Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Charlottesville. 4 vols. 8vo.

Of this work we have procured a copy with some difficulty, having neglected to subscribe for it. The agents in Philadelphia received exactly the number subscribed for, and understand that the whole edition has been taken up. The death of a subscriber enabled us to obtain possession of his copy-and Messrs. Littell & Brother request us to state that persons who

Hendrick Aupaunent's Narrative, p. 76.

desire to have the work would do well to send their names to them, as in distributing the copies, something may happen to cause a surplus. Orders will be supplied, in the order in which they are received.

We have not had time to read much of the work, but select two interesting passages, and shall hereafter give further notices of it.

MR. JEFFERSON'S OPINION OF THE CAUSE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

"The King was now become a passive machine in the hands of the National Assembly, and had he been left to himself, he would have willingly acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best for the nation. A wise constitution would have been formed, hereditary in his line, himself placed at its head, with powers so large, as to enable him to do all the good of his station, and so limited, as to restrain him from its abuse. This he would have faithfully administered, and more than this, I do not believe, he ever wished. But he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind, and timid virtue, and of a character, the reverse of his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no Queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked, nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the same space, to advance the principles of their social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say, that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment; nor yet, that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right, and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the King, many thought him wilfully criminal; many, that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of Kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding. In this way no void would have been created, courting the usurpation of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralised the nations of the world, and destroyed, and is yet to destroy, millions and

millions of its inhabitants. There are three epochs in history, signalized by the total extinction of national morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting himself: The next, the successors of the first Caesar: The third, our own age. This was begun by the partition of Poland, followed by that of the treaty of Pilnitz; next the conflagration of Copenhagen; then the enormities

of Bonaparte, partitioning the earth at his will, and devastating it with fire and sword; now the conspiracy of Kings, the successors of Bonaparte, blasphemingly calling themselves the Holy Alliance, and treading in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader; not yet, indeed, usurping the government of other nations, avowedly and in detail, but controlling by their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and reserving, in petto, the order and extent of the usurpations further meditated."

IMPORTANT DINNER AT MR. JEFFERSON'S. "The Aristocracy was cemented by a common principle of preserving the ancient regime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this their polar star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. The features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest Patriots by these dissentions in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I received one day a note from the Marquis de la Fayette, informing me, that he should bring a party of six or eight friends, to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of their welcome. When they arrived, they were La Fayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander la Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading Patriots, of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection, With this view, the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place inadvertently, as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed, and wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference, by summarily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, the course which the principles of the Constitution were taking, and the inevitable result, unless checked by more concord among the Patriots themselves. He observed, that although he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same cause; but that a common opinion must now be formed, or the Aristocracy would carry every thing, and that, whatever they should now agree on, he, at the head of the National force, would maintain. The discussions, began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten o'clock in the evening; during which time, I was a silent witness to a coolness and candour of argument, unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; to a logical reasoning, and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero. The result was, that the King should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature should be composed of a single body only, and that to be chosen by the people. This Concordate decided the fate of the constitution. The Patriots all rallied to the principles thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them, and reduced the Aristocracy to insignificance and impotence.

But duties of exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on count Montmorin the next morning, and explained to him, with truth and candour, how it had happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me, he already knew every thing which had passed, that so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house, on that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation only. I told him, I knew too well the duties I owed to