[Rarebooks] FS: Oration to the Militia, 1801

[Greg Powers]

I can offer...

Adams, Daniel.  An Oration, Pronounced at Fitchburg, Oct. 12th, 1801.  By the appointment and at a meeting of the Militia Officers of the Fourth Regiment.  Leominster, Mass., Adams & Wilder, 1802.  8vo, self-wrappers stitched at spine.  16 pp.  Some staining and ink markings to the title-pages, several closed tears and minor loss to corners, worn at spine; the lower blank margin of A4 and A5 trimmed away with no loss of text; a good copy.
 
A very elegant address, focusing mainly on the evils of a standing army and the virtues of a militia, praising the United States for its abundant blessings, and impressing on the officers the need to maintain virtue in the defense of liberty.  After soaring through the oratorical ether, he comes a little closer to earth toward the end of his speech:
 
With pleasure we may remark the progress of order and discipline in the militia of these United States.  One practice however, in opposition to law, painful to observers, and often attended with fatal consequences permit me to notice.  It is the disorderly firing of arms, on days of military duty, at other places than on the field, or without orders from a commanding officer.  Some in this way seek an inhuman gratification of surprising innocence and timidity.  It is base inhumanity!  Others, the honor of their officers; it is, however, but a vapoury honor an officer can receive from the noise and smoke of gun-powder.  This ridiculous habit, to your honor, Gentlemen, and to the praise of those whom you command be it spoken is now gone almost wholly into disuse.  But lo! what sorrowful sounds do we hear—the tidings from a neighboring State, and a Town almost in your vicinity.  A young man, in the bloom of youthful years, suddenly arrested in the gay scenes of mirth, and hurried instantly into the Eternal world!  Full of the idea of doing honor to his commanders, and as if the extent of his respect were to be measured by the report of his gun, he approached the dwelling of an officer, loaded deeply with that sooty grain, which in an instant his firelock rent into pieces, himself pierced thro and thro.  Quick as the flash of powder dies, so his life expired.

 
Adams was also the author of "An oration, sacred to the memory of Gen. George Washington" (Leominster, 1800), "The scholar's arithmetic; or, Federal accountant" (various editions), and "The understanding reader; or, Knowledge before oratory. Being a new selection of lessons, suited to the understandings and the capacities of youth, and designed for their improvement" (Leominster, 1804).

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$75


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