“As the dead patriot's honored relics passed, And tears of sorrow stood in every eye." The militia of the town and the country added to the imposing effect of the scene. The judges of the Supreme Judicial Court had, to this period, worn immense wigs and broad bands above robes of scarlet English cloth, faced with black velvet, in winter, and black silk gowns, in summer. On this occasion they appeared in the latter, with their broad, flowing wigs; the barristers, also, were in black gowns and club wigs. There is a tradition in the family, that on the night after the funeral of Hancock, the tomb, located in the Granary, was forcibly entered, and the right hand of Hancock was severed from the arm, and taken away. This rumor is probably unfounded, as when, in the year 1841, the remains were gathered, together with the relics of his only son, and carefully deposited in a new coffin, no missing hand was observed. Peace to the manes of our American Trajan! May his grave, like his fame, bloom forever! No monument has ever been erected to the memory of John Hancock; and in the New York Merchant's Magazine of December, 1840, is a brief memoir of Hancock, written by George Mountfort, Esq., a native of Boston, in which it is proposed that a statue of John Hancock should be erected in the building of the Merchant's Exchange, on Wall-street, remarking: "Let an American sculptor breathe into chiselled marble the soul, and invest it with the form, of him who should be the merchant's pride and boast; and let it stand the presiding genius of a temple reared and consecrated to the commercial interests of our great city." How much more seemly is it that the sons of the Old Bay State erect an exquisite marble statue to the memory of this most eminent patriot and munificent Bostonian, either over his unhonored remains in the Granary, or in the near view of that to Bowditch, at Mount Auburn, the sacred forest of monuments! Thy political reputation, Hancock, says Benjamin Austin, will ever be revered by the republicans of America! Thou wilt live, illustrious spirit, in the hearts of thy countrymen; and while liberty and the rights of thy country are duly estimated, thy name will be held in grateful remembrance. The proscription of George the Third is a "MAUSOLEUM" to thy memory, which will survive a ponderous monument of marble! As Boston was at this time garrisoned by the British regulars, and the patriotic inhabitants were in the country, a meeting was assembled in the meeting-house at Watertown, at ten A. M., March 5, 1776, and after choosing the Hon. Benjamin Austin moderator, and after a fervent prayer by Rev. Dr. Cooper, the Rev. Peter Thacher delivered an oration, which was received with universal approbation, it being the anniversary of Preston's Massacre, says the New England Chronicle, effected "by a band of ruffians sent hither by George, the brutal tyrant of Britain, in order to execute his infernal plans for enslaving a free people." The oration was published by Benjamin Edes, at Watertown. Boston being occupied by the royalists at this day, there was no lantern exhibition, or other transparencies, which had previously occurred at the inn of Mrs. Mary Clapham, an antique, spacious, two-story brick house located on the site of the present Merchant's Bank. Many British officers boarded with Mrs. Clapham, who had several beautiful daughters, one of whom eloped with one of the officers, and is said to have become his wife. In the patriotic performance before us, it is remarked: " Englishmen have been wont to boast of the excellence of their constitution,to boast that it contained whatever was excellent in every form of government hitherto by the wit of man devised. In their king, whose power was limited, they have asserted that they enjoyed the advantages of monarchy, without fear of its evils; while their House of Commons, chosen by the suffrages of the people, and dependent upon them, represented a republic, their House of Peers, forming a balance of power between the king and the people, gave them the benefit of an aristocracy. In theory, the British constitution is, on many accounts, excellent; but when we observe it reduced to practice, when we observe the British government, as it has been for a long course of years administered, we must be convinced that its boasted advantages are not real. The management of the public revenue, the appointment of civil and military officers, are vested in the king. Improving the advantages which these powers give him, he hath found means to corrupt the other branches of the legislature. Britons please themselves with the thought of being free. Their tyrant suffers them to enjoy the shadow, whilst he himself grasps the substance, of power. Impossible would it have been for the kings of England to have acquired such an exorbitant power, had they not a standingarmy under their command. With the officers of this army, they have bribed men to sacrifice the rights of their country. Having artfully got their arms out of the hands of the people, with their mercenary forces they have awed them into submission. When they have appeared at any time disposed to assert their freedom, these troops have been ready to obey the mandates of their sovereign, to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren. Having found the efficacy of this method to quell the spirit of liberty in the people of Great Britain, the righteous administration of the righteous King George the Third determined to try the experiment upon the people of America. To fright us into submission to their unjustifiable claims, they sent a military force to the town of Boston. This day leads us to reflect upon the fatal effects of the measure. By their intercourse with the troops, made up in general of the most abandoned of men, the morals of our youth were corrupted; the temples and the day of our God were scandalously profaned; we experienced the most provoking insults; and at length saw the streets of Boston strewed with the corpses of five of its inhabitants, murdered in cool blood by the British mercenaries." This pathetic allusion herewith to the death of Warren should ever appear in the record of the times: "This day, upon which the gloomy scene was first opened, calls upon us to mourn for the heroes who have already died on the bed of honor, fighting for God and their country. Especially does it lead us to recollect the name and the virtues of Gen. Warren; the kind, the humane, the benevolent friend, in the private walks of life, the inflexible patriot, the undaunted commander, in his public sphere, deserves to be recollected with gratitude and esteem! This audience, acquainted in the most intimate manner with his numberless virtues, must feel his loss, and bemoan their beloved, their intrusted fellow-citizen. Ah! my countrymen, what tender, what excruciating sensations, rush at once upon our burdened minds, when we recall his loved idea. When we reflect upon the manner of his death, when we fancy that we see his savage enemies exulting o'er his corpse, beautiful even in death, when we remember that, destitute of the rites of sepulture, he was cast into the ground, without the distinction due to his rank and merit, we cannot restrain the starting tear- we cannot repress the bursting sigh! We mourn thine exit, illustrious shade! with undissembled grief; we venerate thine exalted character; we will erect a monument to thy memory in each of our grateful breasts, and to the latest ages will teach our tender infants to lisp the name of Warren with veneration and applause!” Rev. Peter Thacher was born at Milton, March 21, 1752. He was a son of Oxenbridge Thacher, who published a tract, in 1764, entitled "The Sentiments of a British American, occasioned by the Act to lay certain Duties on the British Colonies," wherein he remarks: "Trade is a nice and delicate lady; she must be courted and won by soft and fair addresses; she will not bear the rude hand of a ravisher. Penalties increased, heavy taxes laid on, the checks and oppressions of violence removed, these things must drive her from her pleasant Our tracts were of no avail with Parliament, and the Stamp Act was passed in the next year. John Adams writes of Thacher, that "From 1758 to 1765 I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston, and recollect not one in which he did not invite me home to spend evenings with him, when he made me converse with him as well as I could on all subjects of religion, mythology, cosmogony, metaphysics, Locke, Clarke, Leibnitz, Bolingbroke, Berkley, the preëstablished harmony of the universe, the nature of matter and of spirit, and the eternal establishment of coincidences between their operations, fate, foreknowledge absolute, and we reasoned on such unfathomable subjects, as high as Milton's gentry in pandemonium; and we understood them as well as they did, and no better. But his favorite subject was politics, and the impending threatening system of parliamentary taxation, and universal government over the colonies. On this subject he was so anxious and agitated, that I have no doubt it occasioned his premature death." Young Peter entered the Boston Latin School in 1763, graduated at Harvard College in 1769, and was a school-teacher at Chelsea soon after that date. From his childhood he had devoted himself to the ministry of religion; and his whole mind, as it expanded, had formed itself to this work. The father of Rev. Aaron Green, formerly of Malden, being intimate with him, invited him to pass the Sabbath with him, playfully remarking, "You had better bring a couple of sermons with you, for perhaps we shall make you preach." Accordingly, it came about that he officiated at the morning service. His youthful and engaging mien, his silvery voice and golden eloquence, so charmed the disturbed elements of this divided church, that, during the intermission, it was decided, by acclamation, that he was the man to heal the dissensions, and he became their pastor in 1770. During his residence in that town, he took an active part in the measure which effected the Revolution; and wrote, at the request of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, a Narrative of the Battle of Bunker Hill, dated June 25, 1775, published in the journals of the Provincial Congress, of which he was a member, and said to be the best statement of that battle ever prepared. Dr. Thacher drafted, also, the spirited resolves and revolutionary instructions recorded on the Malden records of 1775. He was a delegate to the Massachusetts Convention of 1780, and strenuously contended against establishing the office of Governor of the State; and, when the matter was decided contrary to his wishes, he still objected to the title of "His Excellency," which was given to the chief magistrate; - but when the constitution was adopted, he gave it his decided support. He was often a chaplain of the State Legislature. On the 8th of October, 1770, Mr. Thacher married the widow Elizabeth Pool, and had ten children, of whom were Rev. Thomas Cushing, minister of Lynn, and Hon. Peter Oxenbridge, judge of the Boston Municipal Court. When Mr. Thacher was invited to the Brattle-street Church, the |