In the morning the bodies of her dead crew were
found tossing about with her cargo of paper-manufacturers' rags,
among the breakers. Her captain and mate were Beverly men, and
their funeral from the meeting-house the next Sabbath was an
event which long left its solemnity hanging over the town.
We were rather a young nation at this time. The History of the
United States could only tell the story of the American
Revolution, of the War of 1812, and of the administration of
about half a dozen presidents.
Our republicanism was fresh and wide-awake. The edge of George
Washington's little hatchet had not yet been worn down to its
latter-day dullness; it flashed keenly on our young eyes and ears
in the reading books, and through Fourth of July speeches. The
Father of his Country had been dead only a little more than a
quarter of a century, and General Lafayette was still alive; he
had, indeed, passed through our town but a few years before, and
had been publicly welcomed under our own elms and lindens.
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