Buffalo, I was in company with some of my old conservative friends, such as the late Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, and the late President of the United States, Millard Fillmore. The best illustration of their views is found in the fact that the patriotic ex-President is in actual command of the Home Guard of that beautiful Lake City; and is seldom, or never, absent from their evening drills. I was at Niagara; but not even the roaring of that mighty cataract could drown the cries of the country struggling in the rapids of this gigantic rebellion, and a new and noble regiment was just beginning to be organized there, under the gallant Peter A. Porter, which has now already taken up its march for the Potomac.

Standing, at Saratoga, on the piazza of one of the hotels, with the present worthy Governor of New York, just at the moment when the order for the new draft was first promulgated, he said to me, "The North has not yet put forth a quarter of its strength. It must now put forth its whole strength." And, since the words were uttered, no less than fifty new regiments have been organized in the Empire State, and no less than seventeen of them are already under marching orders for Washington.

At West Point, I had the privilege of passing a portion of several days in company with our ever-honored veteran chieftain, -Winfield Scott; and though I may not quote any words of private conversation, I did not leave him without the undoubting assurance, not only that the warmest wish of his still-glowing heart was that the new levies of six hundred thousand men should be promptly supplied, but that the sober conviction of his judgment was that with these re-enforcements promptly supplied, we could scatter the Confederate army, scare out their infernal guerilla hordes, and finish the war triumphantly at no distant day.

There, too, I met the generous and true-hearted Crittenden. I accompanied him to the camp of the Cadets, and saw the emotion with which he grasped the hand of the young Kentuckians who clustered around him. One of them was a son of that noble preacher and patriot, Robert J. Breckenridge, of Danville; and another, whose name I am ashamed to have forgotten, but

which history will not forget, was a young Kentuckian of only sixteen years of age, who, having been already wounded while serving as a volunteer at the battle of Shiloh, had now come to prepare for future responsibilities by studying the science of war.

All honor from this great assembly on Boston Common to these loyal and patriotic men of the Border States, who have endured so many of the worst hardships and sharpest trials of this terrible struggle, and who have still been found faithful among the faithless!

Nor have I been without some recent opportunity of observing what is going on in a remote part of our own Commonwealth. No sooner had I entered her limits than I was called on to address a war meeting in one of the lovely villages of Berkshire. At Pittsfield, too, I visited the camp of an almost completed regiment. Everywhere the flag was flying, everywhere the drums were beating, everywhere the alarm bell was ringing. And what else what else can we do? What else - what else can we say but "enlist, recruit, gird yourselves for the battle!" For myself, clinging to the hope of adjustment to the last moment; hoping and praying, as I have done, that the policy of man or the good Providence of God might still open a door of escape from this bloody arbitrament of a most unnatural and abhorrent family quarrel; and holding myself ever open to conviction, even now, if any way of reconciliation and restoration should present itself, I can see, as the case now stands, nothing, nothing whatever to be done, but to put forth our whole strength, to summon up all the energy we possess, and to overcome and overwhelm this rebellion by every means in our power.

Boston, I need not say, is alive to the emergency. Though I have been at home little more than four and twenty hours, I have seen enough at every corner of the street, I see enough before me at this moment, to assure me that all will be right with her. New England expects every man to do his duty, and the capital of New England will not be wanting to the call. Let Suffolk and Essex, and Norfolk and Worcester, and Plymouth and Bristol, and Berkshire and old Hampshire emulate each other, as they are now doing, in furnishing their full quota, in anticipation of

any draft, and history will still record of old Massachusetts, that she was second to no other State in defending that Union, which all the world knows she was second to no other State in establishing.

In conclusion, let us all remember, my friends, that it is the Union, and nothing more nor less nor other than the Union, for which we are contending. Let us keep ever in mind those excellent words of Mr. Seward, that it is enough for us now to strain every nerve in putting down the Demon of Rebellion, without stopping to quarrel among ourselves about any lesser demons, whether imaginary or real.

Let us keep ever in mind that noble, and still more recent and emphatic declaration of our patriotic President, that if there be any man who would not save the Union unless he could either destroy or save something besides the Union, no matter what it is, he is not of that man's party.

Let us remember that we are not engaged in a war of the North against the South, but a war of the Nation against those who have risen up to destroy it. Let us keep our eyes and our hearts steadily fixed upon the old flag of our fathers, the same to-day as when it was first lifted in triumph at Saratoga, or first struck down in madness at Sumter. That flag tells our whole story. We must do whatever we do, and whatever is necessary to be done, with the paramount purpose of preserving it, untorn and untarnished, in all its radiance and in all its just significance. We must be true to every tint of its red, white, and blue. Behold it at this moment streaming from every window and watch-tower and cupola of our fair city. It has a star for every State. Let us resolve that there shall still be a State for every star. Let this be our watchword, in speech and in song, and still more in the whole civil and military policy of the A STAR FOR EVERY STATE, AND A STATE FOR EVERY STAR, -and, by the blessing of God, and our own strong arms, we may once more see that flag waving in triumph from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

war,

But let us not forget that the time is short, that what we have to do must be done quickly; and let us make a short, sharp, strenuous effort, and finish the work at whatever immediate sacri

fice of treasure or of blood.

We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to all the world, to bring this terrible struggle to a decisive issue with the least possible delay. "Now or never," was the legend upon one of the banners which just caught my eye. It is now or never with the Union; now or never with the Constitution ; now or never with the wide arch of our ranged Republic. Let us take a lesson of desperate energy from the rebels themselves, yes, or from the Prince of Rebels, as he cries to his apostate host in the immortal epic, " Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen.”

66

IRISH RECRUITS.

A SPEECH MADE AT A MEETING FOR ENLISTING A NEW IRISH REGIMENT AT FANEUIL HALL, SEPTEMBER 9, 1862.

I HAVE come, fellow-citizens, to say a few words to you this evening, not because I have any confidence that I can say any thing worth your hearing, and still less from an idea that any thing would remain to be said after Mr. Everett had spoken, but because I was unwilling to decline any service which the Committee of Arrangements for this occasion have thought me capable of rendering to the cause in which you are assembled.

I need hardly say that I am not here as an Irishman. I may be pardoned for remembering, however, in this presence, that if there be any little Irish blood in my veins, and very little there is, I know, it is of a sort not to be disowned or ashamed of; coming as it does remotely and sluggishly, I confess, but still directly from the same old family fountain with that which coursed along the arteries and kindled at the heart of one who loved his country "not wisely, perhaps, but too well," your own patriot martyr, Emmett.

I wish I had a fuller measure of his fervid eloquence for meeting such a call as this. But with such measure as I have, I am here, as a Bostonian, to unite with the Mayor and our fellowcitizens generally, in expressing the deep sense we all entertain of the noble part which has been taken by so many of our Irish brethren in the unhappy national struggle in which we are engaged, and the hearty sympathy we all feel in the efforts they are making to organize still another Irish regiment.

And now, my friends of the Emerald Isle, I need enter into no consideration of the condition of your adopted land, that land which has so long been the hope and the refuge of the oppressed