JUDGE MILLS DELIVERING ORATION IN MUSIC HA' L

Address by Judge Noah Da\ is.

On taking- the chair, Hon. Noah Davis delivered the following introductory address :

" Fellow Citizens : For this great honor, 1 give you my cordial thanks. It is a good thing in the midst of our party strifes to turn back for a while to the struggles, sufferings and triumphs of the Revolution, out of which our liberties, our principles, and our government: sprung.

This day is the 1 13th anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his armv to Washington and the army he commanded. That was the closing military event of the war of the Revolution. It was no mere triumph of the Sword. Great as it was in that aspect, it was far greater as the potent triumph on the battlefield, -- of the Rights of Man, -- that the world had ever seen. It vindicated the Declaration of Independence and established its principles by the final arbitrament of war. Had the reverse been the result ; had Washington been compelled to surrender bis sword and army into the hand of Cornwallis, wliat tongue or pen can paint the probable eonsecpieuces of such a disaster? No! the Almighty Ruler of human events was not willing to

" Shut the gates of mercy on mankind."

His providences were the might of our triumph ; His will, the mercy of mankind. Do you ask for proof ? Contrast for a moment with our own, the status after more than a hundred years of the still remaining Provinces of the British Crown, in the estimation of the civilized world. With territory almost boundless in extent, with inexhaustible resources of natural wealth in forest, mine, and vast expanse of fertile soil ; with ocean, lakes and navigable streams illimitable; with the armed forces and unequalled military power of the Mother Country to defend them against