ADDRESS 



Gentlemen, 



I consider myself happy, In the class of my 

 fellow citizens that I am this day called upon to address. 

 The character and pursuits of a New-England farmer, have 

 always held an honorable place In my estimation. It was among 

 them, and in their employment, that I spent those years of hap- 

 py childhood, when every thing makes its deepest Impressions. 

 My earliest ideas of property, were derived from their posses- 

 sions. To me houses and farms and cattle were wealth, and 

 their owners nature's nobility. While money and notes, and 

 stocks and merchandise, appeared fleeting and transient — there 

 seemed something in the possession of solid acres, especially 

 when these were compact farms, with their venerable mansions, 

 descending from generation to generation, that elevated the pos- 

 sessor, and gave a dignity and character to his pursuits truly hon- 

 orable and desirable. 



Nor have these been merely the Illusions of youth : they have 

 followed me, and I have cherished them in my riper years. — 

 And I view with gratitude that kind Providence, which cast my 

 youth among that class of society. The labours of the field gave 

 a value to my scanty library, and my few hours of study, of 

 which, under almost any other circumstances I could have had 

 no conception : and memory still loves to " hover o'er'' those in- 

 estimable Sabbaths, when, after six days labour done, we found 

 a day of restf and assembled within these very walls,* to en- 



* My nativs place. 



