Life and Character of Nathaniel Bowditch. 31 



ard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be. What- 

 soever crosses this, is not authority, but a distemper thereof This 

 liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to au- 

 thority."* 



The lawless and flagrant assaults upon property and life which, 

 have occurred in- this country within a few years past, casting 

 upon its fair name a stain of dishonor, grieved him to the heart, 

 and stirred his spirit within him. Conversing with him about 

 one of tlie earliest and most wanton and unprovoked of these out- 

 rages, — I mean the conflagration of a religious house in the vi- 

 cinity of Boston, inhabited solely by women and children, by a 

 ferocious mob at midnight, — he told me that had he been sum- 

 moned, or had an opportunity, he would readily have shouldered 

 his niusket, and marched to the spot, and stood in defence of that 

 edifice to the last drop of his blood. There was nothing, hideed, 

 that stirred his indignation like oppression.! 



Immediately after this outrage, he called on the Catholic bishop 

 in Boston, and put into his hands a sum of money, to buy clothes 

 for the women and children, who had lost every thing in the 

 flames. It is an agreeable circumstance, well worth recording, 

 that as soon as the bishop heard of Dr.-Bowditch's illness, he sent 

 and informed the family, that, to prevent his being disturbed, the 

 bell of the cathedral, which is in the vicinity of his house, should 

 not be rung during his illness, although it was the season of Lent, 

 and religious services were going on almost every day. It is 

 pleasant to see kindness thus reciprocated between divergent 

 sects, and the middle wall of separation broken down by the hu- 

 mane and grateful feelings of a common nature. 



Why is it, that all the youthful talent of this country is rushing 

 madly into political life ? To how many of these aspirants may 

 we apply, with literal truth, the remark of Lord Bacon, in refer- 

 ence to himself, that " they were born and intended for literature, 

 rather than any thing else, and, by a sort of fatality, have been 

 drawn, contrary to the bent of their own genius, into the walks 

 of public life. "I Is it not a great mistake, on their part, to sup- 



* Winthrop's History of New England, II. 229. 



t " The Ursuline Convent," on Mount Benedict, in Charlestown, about two 

 miles from Boston, was burnt on the night of the 11th of August, 1834. 



X Ad literas potius quam ad aliud quicquam natus, et ad res gerendas, nescio quo 

 fato, contra genium suum abreptus. — De Aug. Sci. Lib. 8. CajJ. 3. 



