country was now to be weighed in the balance and tried in the furnace. When he had finished that terrible march from San Luis Potosi, he found himself without food or even water,-a determined foe before him and the inhospitable desert in his rear. Was there not something strangely alike in the positions of the two chiefs? What solemn thoughts must have weighed upon their minds—what high and stern resolves swelled in their breasts as they stood fronting each other on the field which was so sure to be the grave of the power and even the fame of the vanquished. As an abyss, behind each of them yawned dark disasters, and across it frowned a country unforgiving of defeat. So dire seemed the necessity of victory to Santa Anna, that he would not believe in defeat after it had befallen him, and he claims the victory in a despatch dated only the day before a Council of War in his army, decided unanimously in favor of a precipitate retreat. He had risked everything on this chance, and it was hard to believe he had lost it. An eye-witness says he drew off his forces in perfect order, and but for the admirable sagacity of Taylor in choosing the field of battle, he might have breathed a moment and renewed the struggle. There is something inexpressibly mournful in the circumstances of his retreat--especially if we remember that he could scarcely have finished it, before there came from another quarter tidings not less sad than those that he bore from the field of his defeat. A month after the battle of Buena Vista, the city and fortress of Vera Cruz surrendered.

Two things are worthy to be noted in this place. Heretofore, as often as Gen. Taylor has been placed in a situation involving the necessity of hard fighting, the people at home have with one accord set up a howl of dismay, running distractedly hither and thither, and venting all sorts of sympathetic nonsense,-as if he was a poor child that could not fail to be lost if he strayed out of sight and so must be hunted up at whatever cost of ringing bells and screaming in high places. It is hoped there will be no more of this, but that hereafter, when the peeple of the United States hear that he is on the eve of fighting a battle, they will quietly and decently go about the preparation of their fire-works and flags, for explosion and display, in honor of the next "glorious news." We have now as little right to doubt his pre-eminent ability, as to call in question his decision, his firmness, his cheerful and infectious heroism. And it is safe to suppose, that hereafter he will be more cordially recognized by the Government, as a high military authority, and that opinions will more frequently be asked from him, than movements and positions selected for him, by the War Department. And we say this without the

slightest intention of impeaching the character of the Secretary. It is the inevitable result of the system, and of our want of experience in carrying on distant wars,-a want that it is devoutly hoped we shall always labor under. But it is not free from inconvenience. In peace, the Secretary orders everything, and for want of something else to do, the officers of the army superintend many of those details that in war must be managed by a different class. In action, the officers are expected to do much which is impossible and inappropriate, in the way of providing supplies, munitions and transportation at the proper points,-while the Secretary, from habit and a natural proclivity in elderly gentlemen to give profuse advice, vainly wearies himself with the task of planning, suggesting and scheming, without beginning, middle or end, either to his premises or his conclusions. Hence it may happen that the War Department shall send forth an army provided with nothing in the world—but a plan of campaign. The English Government has always encountered the same difficulty in waging war-the difficulty of defining the powers and duties of the soldiers in command of the army and the civilians presiding over the War Department; and the Duke of Wellington considered it one of the greatest results of the victory of Salamanca, that it emancipated him from the motherly nursing of the Secretaries, and for the first time, gave him the privilege of speaking authoritatively to the Government, of dictating, in place of being dictated to. The same advantage should naturally accrue to Gen. Taylor after the battle of Buena Vista.

The other point noticeable, is that these Mexican battles, have been gained by the Flying Artillery, and the last and most glorious of them especially, is, so to speak, its peculiar work. We appreciate the valor of the troops, and know that they shared in all the labors and perils, as they share in the triumph. But the artillery multiplied Gen. Taylor's force, and he evidently looked to it for victory. No one can read the descriptions of the battle, without seeing that even up to the very last and most desperate charge of the Mexican columns, the safety of our army depended upon the ability of the artillery to maintain its advanced positions, and to keep up the storm of iron hail upon the ranks of the enemy. Yet this arm of the service is of very recent introduction, and when Mr. Poinsett, as Secretary of War, first devised the organization of a body of horse artillery, he was scouted as a visionary by the old officers, and by none more heartily than by Gen. Taylor himself. So sure was Mr. Poinsett of the importance of the innovation, and so sure also that the wisdom of politicians would pronounce it a humbug, that he did not recommend

it to Congress, but, with industrious search, found an old law with an unoccupied corner big enough to hold a beginning of a battery, and by raking and scraping among the odds and ends of unexpended appropriations, he raised money enough to equip Ringgold's corps. He let the old officers have their sneer, saying with a quiet smile, "wait till you have fought a battle, and then I shall be glad to hear from you again." Immediately after the battle of Palo Alto, Gen. Taylor sat down and out of the fullness of his heart wrote to Mr. Poinsett his recantation, acknowledging the tremendous efficiency of the Flying Artillery.

6.-A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. Francis Xavier Martin, late Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, pronounced at the request of the Bar of New-Orleans. By HENRY A. BULLARD, one of the late Colleagues of the deceased, New-Orleans: Printed by J. B. Steel, No. 14 Camp-street. 1847.

THE death of Judge Martin a few months since, made a deep sensation in New-Orleans, and indeed throughout Louisiana. The Bar, which is seldom wanting in a due appreciation of the merit of its members, considered him worthy of a public eulogium, and appointed Judge Bullard, for a long time the associate of the deceased on the Bench, to pay this tribute to his worth.

We have seldom read anything more strikingly appropriate, than this discourse of Judge Bullard on the life and character of his old friend and fellow laborer. There is no fine writing-no extravagant praise, in it; but with an honest faith in the worth of his subject, he has deemed that his best eulogium would be a plain and faithful sketch of his life.

Francois Xavier Martin was born in Marseilles, France, in 1762, of a respectable family and in circumstances to allow him the advantage of an excellent private education. Among the most valuable of his acquisitions was an imperfect knowledge of English. When abont seventeen years old he joined his uncle in Martinique, with the intention of following the business of merchandize. It was not so destined. His uncle soon returned to France, leaving him with the means of carrying on business, but with none of the experience that ensures success. He failed in Martinique, and going to North Carolina, in the hope of recovering something due to him from a business

connection there, he failed in that too, and found himself at the age of twenty, without money, without friends, and without profession, in a foreign country. He had nothing in fact, but a good education, a good conscience and a heart of oak. He taught French in Newbern, and became a printer. Intelligent, simple, modest and wonderfully industrious, he reminds us at this period of his life, of Benjamin Franklin. He soon found himself surrounded with friends, and no longer oppressed with the necessities of the day, his strong and active intellect began to yearn for a proper field of employment. He studied for the Bar, and in a few years became known in North-Carolina as an able and learned Lawyer. He resided in that State till the year 1809. During this time, in addition to the labors of his profession, he had prepared and published three treatises of much practical utility, on the duties of Sheriffs-of Justices of the Peace-and on Executors and Administrators; had, by authority of the Legislature, revised the whole body of the Colonial laws of North-Carolina ; completed and published the first translation into English of Pothier's great work on Obligations, and finally collected and arranged ample materials for the early history of the State, which he afterwards published, in two volumes octavo. What a life of activity! And all these things too, were faithfully done. But Judge Bullard has here furnished us with a moral, too just and forcible, to be withheld from the reader in his own words.

"It was thus that François Xavier Martin, thrown in his youth among strangers, with whose language he was imperfectly acquainted, by unwearied diligence and rigid economy, uniting the study and practice of the law, with the superintendence of a printing press, not only emerged from poverty to an easy competency, but became the associate of the ablest men of his day in North-Carolina, and acquired those stores of knowledge both of the civil and the common law, which prepared him for eminence and usefulness in the new and more extended theatre to which he was soon afterwards called.

"Those who have experienced in themselves that sinking of the heart, that utter solitude of soul, which is produced by being cast in youth, destitute and among strangers, without a profession-far from the endearments of home-without experience without a guide-without a patron-chilled by the cold indifference of the surrounding crowd-even although those among whom he is thrown may be connected with him by the sympathies of a common language and a kindred origin, may form some conception of that firmness of purpose, that energy of character, which enabled the subject of this notice, under circumstances still more discouraging, to triumph over 'the flings and arrows of outrageous fortune.'"

Early in 1809, he was commissioned by President Madison one of the Judges of the Superior Court of the Territory of Mississippi, and in the following year he was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans, Henceforth New-Orleans became

his home. He was the first Attorney General under the State Government, and in February, 1815, was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, which office he held for thirty-one years, when he and his associates were all superseded by the provisions of the New Constitution. He died a few months after leaving the Bench, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

We need not inquire how he discharged the high duties of the judicial office. He had precisely the character to insure him eminence as a Judge,—a strong, active and independent mind, and a training that gave to his natural powers the most complete efficiency. His eulogist has given an interesting sketch of the chaos of codes that prevailed in Louisiana, at the time Judge Martin was placed on the Supreme Bench, and of the important part he acted in reducing this confusion to the admirable system that now distinguishes the code of that State. During this time of the laborious discharge of his official duties, he still found time to prepare for the press a digest of the carly laws of Louisiana; a history of the Colony, brought down to the battle of New-Orleans; the history of North-Carolina before al luded to, and finally, a complete series of the decisions of the Superior and Supreme Courts, from 1809 to 1830, in twenty volumes. It would be hard to find a man who has done more. In 1836, Judge Martin became blind, and for the ten remaining years that with undiminished ability and usefulness, he continued on the Bench, he wrote every thing by the hand of an amanuensis. He retained the high powers of his mind and the fine qualities of his temper to the last, as if nature had remitted the heaviest penalties of age in favor of one who had allowed to his youth neither sensual indulgence, nor idleness nor frivolity. Such men leave a good behind them not to be estimated by the mere value of what they have added to the sum of knowledge. It is especially as a high and cheerful example of victorious struggle with poverty and difficulty, of a noble direction of superior talents to honorable ends, and of a modest dignity in wearing honors not less worthy of imitation than the earnest labor which has won them, it is especially as an example, that such men as Judge Martin, bequeath to their country the greatest and most enduring benefit.

We quote from the last part of Judge Bullard's Discourse, a passage which is in point, and with which we conclude this hasty notice.

"A great majority of the most eminent lawyers in the United States and in England have passed through the same severe ordeal of early poverty. It is a stern but salutary discipline Few professional men, who were born to affluence and nurtured in luxury and ease, have made a distin