PREFACE. SOME apology might be necessary for a portion of the following work, if the numerous friends and admirers of its author had not demanded its publication. They had long desired to possess, in a decent and durable form, some of those brilliant and profound thoughts with which they had often been delighted and instructed. A republication of newspaper essays is not generally entitled to extensive publick patronage, but the writings of Mr. AMES are believed to be among the exceptions to this remark. His ardent and unremitted zeal for the welfare of his country induced him at all times to prefer the interest of that country to his own fame; and that genius, which might have immortalized his name by another direction of its powers, was confined to the humble but, perhaps, more useful office of teaching his fellow citizens, in the perishable journals of the day, the nature of liberty and the danger of its loss. Some of those who had been charmed with his eloquence proposed, in his lifetime, to separate the productions of his pen from the less interesting matter with which they were connected; his delicacy forbade them to proceed; but the deep and spontaneous expression of the publick grief at his death gave new life to the proposal which is now carried into effect. In making a selection from the great mass of his works, the aim has been to furnish a fair specimen of the talents and sentiments of the author, to prefer such pieces as are of the most general nature, to exclude offensive personal allusions, except when the names of persons seem to be inseparable from the subject, and to avoid repetitions. It will be perceived, that the essays and speeches to the 378th page, inclusively, are a republication from newspapers and pamphlets, and that the writings from thence to the end of the volume, are now for the first time published. |