"To-day completes fifty-five years since the glorious battle of Bunker Hill, and five years since the nation's guest assisted at the laying of the corner-stone of the monument which is to commemorate to all future times the events which followed that battle. If it should please God to remove me before this structure is completed, I hope to remember it in my will, and that my sons will live to see it finished. But what I deem of more consequence is to retain for posterity the battle-field, now in the possession of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. The Association is in debt, and a part of the land may pass out of its possession; but I hope, if it do, there will be spirit enough among individuals to purchase it and restore it again; for I would rather the whole work should not be resumed for twenty years, than resume it by parting with the land. I name this to you now, that you may have a distinct intimation of my wishes to keep the land open for our children's children to the end of time."
"Temptation, if successfully resisted, strengthens the character; but it should always be avoided. 'Lead us not into temptation' are words of deep meaning, and should always carry with them corresponding desires of obedience. At a large meeting of merchants and others held ten days ago, it was resolved to make an effort to prevent the licensing of such numbers of soda-shops, retailers of spirits and the like, which have, in my opinion, done more than anything else to debase and ruin the youth of our city. It is a gross perversion of our privileges to waste and destroy ourselves in this way. God has given us a good land and many blessings. We misuse them, and make them minister to our vices. We shall be called to a strict account. Every good citizen owes it to his God and his country to stop, as far as he can, this moral desolation. Let me see you, on your return, an advocate of good order and good morals. * *
"Our old neighbor the sea-serpent was more than usually accommodating the day after we left Portsmouth. He exhibited himself to a great number of people who were at Hampton Beach last Saturday. They had a full view of his snakeship from the shore. He was so civil as to raise his head about four feet, and look into a boat, where were three men, who thought it the wisest way to retreat to their cabin. His length is supposed to be about one hundred feet, his head the size of a ten-gallon cask, and his body, in the largest part, about the size of a barrel. I have never had any more doubt respecting the existence of this animal, since he was seen here eleven years ago, than I have had of the existence of Bonaparte. The evidence was as strong to my mind of the one as of the other. I had never seen either; but I was as well satisfied of the existence of both, as I should have been had I seen both. And yet the idea of the sea-serpent's existence has been scouted and ridiculed."