It will be expected of you,
my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the
instructive eye of a tender parent, your improvement should bear some
proportion to your advantages. Nothing is wanting with you but
attention, diligence, and steady application. Nature has not been
deficient.
"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the
still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great
characters are formed. Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an
orator if he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by the tyranny
of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Antony? The habits of a vigorous mind are
formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of
this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not
the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great
virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the
heart, then those qualities, which would otherwise lie dormant, wake
into life and form the character of the hero and statesman. War,
tyranny, and desolation are the scourges of the Almighty, and ought no
doubt to be deprecated. Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eye-witness
of these calamities in your own native land, and, at the same time, to
owe your existence among a people who have made a glorious defense of
their invaded liberties, and who, aided by a generous and powerful ally,
with the blessing of Heaven, will transmit this inheritance to ages yet
unborn.
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