It has closed; our patriots have fallen; but so
fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we
cannot rationally lament that that end has come, which we know could not
long be deferred.
Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, could have died, at any
time, without leaving an immense void in our American society. They have
been so intimately, and for so long a time blended with the history
of the country, and especially so united, in our thoughts and
recollections, with the events of the revolution [text destroyed] the
death of either would have touched the strings of public sympathy. We
should have felt that one great link connecting us with former times,
was broken; that we had lost something more, as it were, of the presence
of the revolution itself, and of the act of independence, and were
driven on, by another great remove, from the days of our country's early
distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with the future. Like the
mariner, whom the ocean and the winds carry along, till he sees the
stars which have directed his course and lighted his pathless way
descent, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should have felt
that the stream of time had borne us onward till another luminary, whose
light had cheered us and whose guidance we had followed, had sunk away
from our sight.
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