Virginia Free Press

AN EXCELLENT SENTIMENT

The late anniversary of our Declaration of Independence has been fruitful in excellent sentiments, both political, moral, temperate, and jocose. Among the best is one by Speaker Winthrop, of Massachusetts, which he delivered at Bridgewater, and prefaced thus:

No Massachusetts man, he said, could fail to feel a peculiar pride as he cast his eye over the great Declaration, which had made this day immortal, at finding at the head of the roll, and written in that noble hand which seemed to have been destined for that precise distinction, the name of JOHN HANCOCK-one of the proscribed Massachusetts rebels, whom the British General expressly excepted from his proclamation of pardon in 1775.

Now, it was owing to the act of BENJAMIN HARRISON, of Virginia, the father of William Henry, that Massachusetts enjoyed its pre-eminence on the roll of Independence. It was related that, when the Continental Congress were about to choose a President, Benjamin Harrison resigned his pretensions, and took John Hancock by the hand, placed him in the chair, exclaiming, We will show Mother Britain how much we care for her, by taking a Massachusetts man who is unjustly proscribed.

…Mr. Winthrop then proposed the following sentiment:

The Whigs of Massachusetts -They will do towards William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, what his father did towards their own JOHN HANCOCK, and 'show the tories how much we care for them by taking as our President a man whom they have so unjustly proscribed'