"Amid Nevada's snows he chewed the cud, and his votaries were hastening to the place that they might bow down the knee before him. The whole penal colonies of England had been let loose, the world had held a general jaildelivery, and the desperadoes of the earth had flocked thither to recruit their fortunes. Such a state of things as this defendant found, when he went there to execute the revenue laws, was never before met with; such confusion and anarchy was there that it seemed as if the genius of Saturnalia had opened there his court. At this period, James Collier was the presiding spirit in San Francisco. The stars and stripes fluttering from the Custom House was the only evidence of law or order to the people, and formed the rallying-point. The Americans loved and honored it as the flag of their country. The citizens of all other nations feared and respected it. Although fiendish conspirators, at one time, attempted to raze the Custom House to its foundations by powder, and this aged man was dragged violently by ruffian hands because he faithfully and with sleepless vigilance was guarding the treasures of his country, yet he performed that service with a fidelity of earlier and better days, even to the bitter end, and no complaint is now alleged against him, except that he claims a compensation to which he is legally entitled. This proceeding, gentlemen, is a part of the history of the times, and, shall I add, one of its darkest pages; for there is no nation of people upon the globe, savage or civilized, who would not have stood up in defence of an officer who had done as he did, taking his life into his own hands and vindicating his country's interests and upholding her laws. But no, he is published as a defaulter-frowned upon as the embezzler of the revenues in his keeping-seized as a felon to be dragged back in chains, if need be, to California. Gentlemen, why was he not carried back, from his own home. and hearth, as a criminal, through the dominions of old Spain, of Mexico, and of semi-barbarous New Grenada, and other foreign states, that he might fall, like the last of the Tribunes, upon the stand where he had rendered the greatest service to his country? That he might be exhibited like a wild beast at a show, where, in the name of the laws and the Constitution, he had upheld the stars and stripes of his country-that his gray hairs might be covered with shame, his good name be stained with falsehood, and the companion of his life and the children God had given him be degraded in their parent and protector. That this most infamous outrage was not consummated was no fault of those by whom it was attempted. What though his fidelity in the execution of his official trusts had defied the criticism of chartered spies and silenced the tongue of the victim hunter; what though he had dared immolation, and declared, in the face of a lawless and ferocious mob, that the public moneys should only be taken by passing over his lifeless body, -what though with unquailing eye and dauntless spirit he had led on his brave men in the earliest and bloodiest battles in the war of 1812,-what though he was venerable with years and enfeebled with the casualties of service, he would have been literally transported beyond the seas for trial, at a season of the year, too, when the strong hearts and buoyant spirits of the young were sinking under the prevailing diseases of the intermediate climate, but for an appeal to that great writ which was wrung from tyrants in the old world and sealed with human blood, that it might serve as a protection against tyrants in the new, the habeas corpus. Nor could even this mighty engine of the citizen's freedom, and the oppressor's dread, have saved him from his persecutors but for such professional aid as no man has had before. This defendant had a brother-the Hon. John A. Collier, not merely one of the same parents born, but who proved himself all that is suggested by that interesting relation. They had started together upon the pathway of existence as little boys, hand-in-hand, the gay companions of life's unclouded morning. The parents who nurtured them had gone to their rewards-they had become aged men, had reared families of their own, and the changeful currents of existence had separated them widely from each other by distance; between them high mountains rose, broad rivers rolled, and hundreds of miles intervened, but neither time nor distance had estranged their young affections, nor weakened the tender ties by which they were united. That brother was an able lawyer. He flew to the aid of the defendant with an alacrity which gold could not have purchased, and stood by him with a sleepless fidelity and an untiring vigilance which no mere professional relation could have endured, and brought into the case an amount of legal learning which, while it vindicated the defendant and confounded his enemies, reflected the highest credit upon his professional character, and served as a memorable illustration of the poetic conceit that all of earth was contaminated by Satan in the fall but domestic love. And to such superhuman exertions is the defendant indebted for his liberty -for the enjoyments of his own home, and for a fair trial before a jury of his country upon the merits of his case. But in the pursuit of this defendant, when all other arguments fail, we are told that his compensation was great, as if that was a sufficient reason for disregarding the law and recovering money from him which is legally and equitably his own. It would seem to be entitled to about the same consideration as would a suggestion from us that the government have already a surplus of some $28,000,000 in the Treasury, which can only serve to corrupt legislation and purchase the easy virtue. of hungry politicians; and neither can have any legitimate bearing on the case. The defendant's compensation, if it had been received at an Atlantic port, would have been large. But, upon the Pacific, at the time when and under the circumstances under which it was earned, it was moderate indeed. Whoever doubts this assertion, let him look at the history of the defendant's hardships, perils, expenses, and persecutions, and then determine whether all the gold of California would be an adequate compensation. But where is that large amount which the defendant received beyond the expenses incident to his office? Go with me to San Francisco, that magic city of the living, and inquire where it is, and they will tell you that a large portion of it is by no means in the defendant's coffers, but they will point to those whom he raised up from sickness and want, and tell you that from his ample means he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and dispensed his charity until he was beloved by all who knew him for the generosity and benevolence of his heart. Go with me, too, gentlemen, to that mighty city of the dead which lies beyond the city of the living; look upon that humble grave, perchance of one who was the son of a neighbor or a brother, who left his happy home to seek his fortune, lured to the land of gold by the adventurous spirit of youth, and his efforts proving unsuccessful, his hopes disap pointed, his means exhausted, his heart was crushed and he sickened and died, far from those who loved him, in the land of strangers. Whose sympathetic breast throbbed with warm pulsations over the lowly dying couch of this fair boy? Who ministered consolation and nourished and sustained him when in his fevered dream he murmured of his distant home? Who smoothed his dying pillow and closed his eyes in death when the light of life had ceased to relume them? And who laid him in the humble tomb with the forms of Christian burial? Had the silent, yet eloquent grave, a voice, it would pronounce the name of James Collier! How many fathers' blessings have been mingled with his name. Oh! how many mothers' prayers have ascended to the throne of the infinite God for blessing upon the head of that kind stranger, who stood by the bedside of her cherished child, in his last sad moments of affliction! Such, gentlemen, is the history of this case-such is James Collier, whose destiny is committed to you. REMARKS AT THE OXFORD ACADEMY JUBILEE. HELD AT OXFORD, CHENANGO COUNTY, N. Y., August 1st and 2d, 1854. [The occasion celebrated by the "Jubilee" was the Sixtieth Anniversary of the founding of the Institution, and the dedication of a new Academic edifice. At the Jubilee Dinner, Hon. Henry W. Rogers, of Buffalo, President of the day, having in some preliminary remarks alluded in pleasant and complimentary terms to Mr. Dickinson, whose wife was a former pupil of the Academy, as, "though not a student in his own right, having high claims as 'tenant by courtesy," and playfully recounted some passages in their early acquaintance and friendship, called upon him to respond to the toast: "The Ladies here educated: the wives and mothers of Senators and Statesmen." Mr. DICKINSON spoke as follows:] WHEREVER the blessings of civilization and Christianity have been extended, a high position in society has been assigned to woman. It is obvious that the wise and beneficent Creator, in the adjustment of human economy, ordained that one portion of the duties of life should be discharged by the male, and another by the female; nor, because her duties are unlike his, is it to be inferred that they are less important, interesting, or dig nified. To man, with his more rugged nature, has been assigned the physical elements, and various duties incident to government; to woman, the empire of the heart and the affections. She has not felled the forest, wrestled at the bar, enacted laws in the legislative hall, nor gravely presided over courts of justice; but she has been charged with the execution of a holier and more interesting trust,-that of standing at the vestibule of human existence, watching the development of |