To the Commander-in-Chief, the General Officers, the General Staff and Field Officers of the State of New Jersey.
Gentlemen:
Among all the numerous addresses which have been presented to me, in the present critical situation of our nation, there has been none which has done me more honor, none animated with a more glowing love of our country, or expressive of sentiments more determined and magnanimous. The submission you avow to the civil authority, an indispensable principle in the character of warriors in a free government, at the same moment when you make a solemn proffer of your Lives and Fortunes in the service of your country, is highly honorable to your dispositions as Citizens and Soldiers, and proves you perfectly qualified for the duties of both characters. Officers and Soldiers of New Jersey have as little occasion as they have disposition to boast. Their country has long boasted of their ardent zeal in the cause of freedom and their invincible intrepidity in the day of battle.
Your voice of confidence and satisfaction, of firmness and determination to support the laws and Constitution of the United States, has a charm in it irresistible to the feelings of every American bosom; but, when in the presence of the God of armies, and in firm reliance on his protection, you solemnly pledge your lives and fortunes and sacred honor, you have recorded words which ought to be indelibly imprinted in the memory of every American youth.—With these sentiments in the hearts, and this language in the mouths of Americans in general, the greatest nation may menace at its pleasure, and the degraded and deluded characters may tremble lest they should be condemned to the severest punishment an American can suffer—that of being conveyed in safety within the lines of an invading enemy.
John Adams.
Philadelphia, May 31st, 1798.
A. S. Graham.
New Brunswick, N. J.
WHERE ARE EVANGELINE AND GABRIEL BURIED?
The priests and sextons of old St. Joseph’s, St. Mary’s and Holy Trinity Churches, of Philadelphia, are often called upon by visitors to the city, to point out the grave of Evangeline and her lover, Gabriel, the delightful creatures of Longfellow’s fancy, in relating the expulsion of the Acadians from their happy homes and their dispersion along the coast of the British provinces.
Of course, Gabriel and Evangeline are buried nowhere, as they never existed, save in the imagination of the poet. The poem he calls “A Tale of Acadie,” a “mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest.” Still, it is astonishing that so many who have read the poem have believed in the actuality of the tradition in its relation of chief characters, in its Evangeline and her lover, and have sought their graves at these three Catholic graveyards. St. Joseph’s now has no burial ground attached to the church. It had originally, but after 1759 the dead of the congregation were interred in the ground across the street, and, after 1763, called St. Mary’s Street.