Whether she mends upon it or not, I must rejoice at it, though upon different principles." It is a singular coincidence to this remark, that the editor, while writing in the book-store of Drake the antiquarian, had his attention directed to a passage in Boswell's Johnson, which Mr. Drake held in his hand at the moment, where Johnson, in conversing with Miss Seward, says, April 15th, 1778, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American." Miss Seward, looking at him with mild and steady astonishment, said, "Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those we have injured." We find in the London Political Register for 1780 the following severe remarks on the character of Mr. Lovell, because of his republican course: "In the pockets of Warren, the rebel commander, killed at Bunker Hill, were found letters from James Lovell, a rebel spy, stating the number and disposition of the troops in Boston, with a variety of other information. The spy, instead of being sentenced to the gallows and executed, was only taken up and detained in custody; and when our army was at New York, he was discharged, at the request of some of the rebel chiefs. The deputy commissary of prisoners saw him safely on board the cartel ship, and laid in for him the best provisions the place could supply. Lovell, instead of being grateful for this, the instant he landed in the rebel territory, wrote the commissary a most abusive letter; and, by this infamous behavior, having arrived at the summit of villany, was, in the opinion of the rebels of Massachusetts, deemed a fit person to represent them in Congress; accordingly, as soon as he set his foot in Boston, he was chosen one of their delegates to Congress. The rebel spies and prisoners taken by our troops have been always treated with a lenity nearly akin to folly; the rebels never imputed it to our humanity, but to our timidity and dread of them." The Political Register quotes a passage from an intercepted letter of Mr. Lovell, dated Philadelphia, Nov. 20, 1780, addressed to Mr. Gerry, in which he said: "Is it not time to pay a visit to Massachusetts? Does my wife look as if she wanted a toothless, grayheaded, sciatic husband near her? I am more benefit to her at a distance than in conjunction, as the almanac has it." In 1784 Mr. Lovell was appointed receiver of Continental taxes, and during the confederacy of 1788 and '89 he was the collector for the port of Boston. He was the naval officer of Boston from 1790 until his decease, at Windham, Maine, July 14, 1814. Mr. Lovell published several tracts. In 1760 he delivered an oration in Latin, to the memory of the venerable Henry Flint, who was fifty-five years a tutor of Harvard College. In 1808, Propagation of Truth, or Tyranny Anatomized; Sketches of Man as He is, connected with the Past and Present Mode of Education; A Letter to the President of the United States, supposed by the writer to be fitted specially for the Age and Courage of the Young Federal Republicans of Boston, and also to be calculated generally to promote the comfort of all gray-headed as well as green-headed free citizens everywhere: dated, July 4, 1805. DR. BENJAMIN CHURCH. MARCH 5, 1773. ON THE BOSTON MASSACRE. DR. BENJAMIN CHURCH was a son of Deacon Benjamin Church, of Mather Byles' church, in Boston; and was born at Newport, R. I., Aug. 24, 1734. He entered the Latin school in 1745, and graduated at Harvard College in 1754. He was a student in the London Medical College, and walked the hospitals, daily visiting all the wards. He married Miss Hannah Hill, of Ross, in Herefordshire, a sister of his early friend, a young student in London. He returned to Boston, and had Benjamin, who married a lady of London, and became a surgeon in the British army; James Miller, born 1759; Sarah, born 1761, who married Benjamin Weld, a tory refugee; Hannah, born 1764, who married William Kirkly, a merchant of London, and had sixteen children. It is to a descendant of this branch that the editor is indebted for information. Dr. Church was the surgeon who examined the body of Crispus Attucks, killed by the British soldiers in the massacre of 1770; and his deposition is printed in the narrative of the town. He was the first Grand Master of the Rising Sun Lodge, instituted in 1772. Dr. Church pronounced the oration on the massacre, at the Old South; and so vast was the throng of people to hear it, that the orator, and John Hancock, the moderator of this adjourned town-meeting, were obliged to be taken in at a window. It was received "with universal applause,' and directly after its delivery the people unanimously requested a copy for the press. Dr. Eliot says of it, that "it is certainly one of the very best of the Boston orations." He had genius and taste, and was an excellent writer in poetry and prose, consisting mostly of essays of a witty and philological nature, which are scattered in newspapers and publications almost obsolete. On the evening after the delivery of this oration, the lantern exhibition appeared from Mrs. Clapham's balcony, in King-street; and in one of the chamber windows was inscribed the following impassioned effusion: "Canst thou, spectator, view this crimsoned scene, And shall the first adorn the fatal tree, While, pampered and caressed, the last goes free? Your names shall stink till time shall be no more! We cannot restrain the desire to present the peroration of the oration so much applauded: "By Heaven, they die! Thus nature spoke, and the swollen heart leaped to execute the dreadful purpose. Dire was the interval of rage, - fierce was the conflict of the soul. In that important hour, did not the stalking ghosts of our stern forefathers point us to bloody deeds of vengeance? Did not the consideration of our expiring liberties impel us to remorseless havoc? But, hark! the guardian God of New England issues his awful mandate, Peace, be still! Hushed was the bursting war; the lowering tempest frowned its rage away. Confidence in that God, beneath that blessed confidence released whose wing we shelter all our cares, the dastard, the cowering prey; with haughty scorn we refused to become their executioners, and nobly gave them to the wrath of Heaven. But words can poorly paint the horrid scene. Defenceless, prostrate, bleeding countrymen, the piercing, agonizing groans, the mingled moan of weeping relatives and friends, these best can speak, to rouse the luke-warm into noble zeal,-to fire the zealous into manly rage against the foul oppression of quartering troops in populous cities in times of peace." There is but one sentence in this admired production that could be construed in the least degree to indicate the fear that this vigorous mind would ever forsake the cause of injured humanity, wherein he says, "The constitution of England I revere to a degree of idolatry." This, however, is directly qualified, for he continues, "but my attachment is to the common weal. The magistrate will ever command my respect by the integrity and wisdom of his administrations." Dr. Church was a Boston representative, a member of the Provincial Congress in 1774, and physician-general to the patriot army in that year. About the year 1768, Dr. Church erected an elegant mansion at Raynham, on the side of Nippahonsit pond, "allured, perhaps," says Dr. Allen, "by the pleasures of fishing." Probably it was thus that he created a pecuniary embarrassment, which led to his defection from the cause of his country. A letter written in cipher, to his brother in Boston, was intrusted by him to a young woman, with whom he was said to be living in crime. The mysterious letter was found upon her; but, the doctor having opportunity to speak to her, it was only by the force of threats that the name of the writer was extorted from her. It was for some time difficult to find any person capable of deciphering Dr. Church's letter, but at length it was effected by Rev. Dr. Samuel West, of New Bedford. When Washington charged him with his baseness, he never attempted to vindicate himself. Washington stated, in a letter to Hancock, dated Cambridge, Oct. 5, 1775: "I have now a painful, though a necessary duty to perform, respecting Dr. Church, director-general of the hospital. About a week ago, Mr. Secretary Ward, of Providence, sent up to me one Wainwood, an inhabitant of Newport, with a letter directed to Major Cane, in Boston, in characters; which, he said, had been left with Wainwood some time ago, by a woman who was kept by Dr. Church. She had before pressed Wainwood to take her to Capt. Wallace, at Newport, Mr. Dudley the collector, or George Rowe, which he declined. She then gave him a letter, with a strict charge to deliver it to either of those gentlemen. He, suspecting some improper correspondence, kept the letter, and after some time opened it; but, not being able to read it, laid it up, where it remained until he received an obscure letter from the woman, expressing an anxiety after the original letter. He then communicated the whole matter to Mr. Ward, who sent him up with the papers to me. I immediately secured the woman; but for a long time she was proof against every threat and persuasion to discover the author. However, at length she was brought to a confession, and named Dr. Church. I then immediately secured him, and all his papers. Upon his first examination, he readily acknowledged the letter; said it was designed for his brother Fleming, and when deciphered would be found to contain nothing criminal. He acknowledged his never having communicated the correspondence to any person here, but the girl, and made many protestations of the purity of his intentions. Having found a person capable of deciphering the letter, I, in the mean time, had all his papers searched, but found nothing criminal among them. But it appeared, on inquiry, that a confidant had been among the papers before my messenger arrived." We select this passage from Dr. Church's intercepted letter: "For the sake of the miserable convulsed empire, repeal the acts, or Britain is undone. This advice is the result of warm affection to my king and the realm. Remember, I never deceived you." He was convicted by court-martial, Oct. 3, 1775, of which Washington was president, "of holding a criminal correspondence with the enemy." He was imprisoned at Cambridge. On Oct. 27, he was called to the bar of the House of Representatives, and examined. His defence before the house, printed in the Historical Collections, was a specimen of brilliant talents and great ingenuity. That the letter was designed for his brother, but, not being sent, he had communicated no |