Virginia Argus

Time has added another year to the political existence of the United States, and has again brought us round to the anniversary of its commemoration.—With what emotions of gratitude and joy, of indignation and resentment, are we called upon to hail the return of this great day.

Contemplating the wide extent of the interior, all is peace and happiness. We behold a nation of more than six millions of freemen enjoying all the felicity that good government, correct habits, industry, enterprise and intelligence can bestow. We behold the rare spectacle of a people and government acting in perfect harmony, wishing and doing well to all mankind, and alone intent on promoting their own happiness by honorable means -But if we cast our eyes on our foreign affairs, how gloomy the contrast!

We behold a nation, whose interest, perhaps whose very existence is interwoven with our prosperity, heaping upon us the most accumulated wrongs, and clapping the climax by an outrage whose atrocity we may feel but cannot adequately express. Cold must that heart be, and altogether unworthy of the breast of any American, that does not rise in resentment against the indescribable turpitude of an act that unites the ferocity of savage with the refined cruelty of civilized despotism -But while we deplore the madness that dictated this inhuman and treacherous outrage, let us rejoice in its effects, It has
produced one burst of indignation throughout the vast extent of America. No voice but that of execration is to be heard. Ordinary disaffection to the government is as still as death; an universal shout of vengeance resounds through the land. Such is the spirit of the people, that did the physical means exist, the blow would instantaneously be struck that would hurl destruction on every British armed vessel on the ocean. The act of war on the part of Britain would be returned without a moment's hesitation. What Americans have once done, they would do again—humble tyrants! Let us rejoice then that we are a united people!—Let us realise our strength, and confide in its exertion in whatever way those who command our confidence may call it to action. Let us stand prepared to sacrifice our lives and our fortunes to maintain that, without which both these are curses, our liberty and honor. Let us assume the attitude of defence and decision, and in defending our rights submit with alacrity to every privation and hazard. Let the whole nation, in one unbroken column, present themselves to the government, ready, as the good of their country requires, to meet our enemies in the field of open combat, to break off all intercourse with them, to refuse admission to the products or in any other mode that shall be deemed advisable, make them sensible that their injustice shall not be suffered to go by with impunity. Gracious God! how awful the spectacle of a great nation composed of virtuous freemen, united on this day, in heaping curses on the heads of those who are by nature and reason our friends, and who but for their crimes would still remain such. Read, Americans, the following noble declaration of your rights, and solemn memorial of your wrongs! Kindle at the thought, that the day may be at hand, when all the virtuous and patriotic feelings, it so successfully roused, may be enlisted against the same power that first excited them. Cherish these feelings, and maintain them at the highest tone until we shall have received redress for past injuries, and a solemn and satisfactory assurance that they shall not be repeated.—N. Y. Int.