Excerpt from Address to the Citizens of Boston: On the Xviiith of September 1830, the Close of the Second Century From the First Settlement of the City Of all the affections of man, those which connect him with ancestry arc among the most natural and generous. They enlarge the sphere of his interests; multiply his motives to virtue; and give intensity to his sense of duty to generations to come, by the perception of obligation to those which are past. In whatever mode of existence man finds himself, be it savage or civilized, he perceives that he is indebted for the far greater part of his possessions and enjoyments, to events over which he had no control; to individuals, whose names, perhaps, never reached his ear; to sacrifices, in which he never shared; and to sufferings, awakening in his bosom few and very transient sympathies. Cities and empires, not less than individuals, are chiefly indebted for their fortunes to circumstances and influences independent of the labors and wisdom of the passing generation. Is our lot cast in a happy soil, beneath a favored sky, and under the shelter of free institutions? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.