The fine ship _Joseph Whitney_, from Baltimore, Captain S. Howes, was
making for this port on the day of the celebration of the nation's
birth, and among an unusually brilliant array of passengers from
different parts of the country, was the distinguished Senator,
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. The patriotic suggestion of the
captain, to celebrate the day in a manner befitting the great
anniversary, met with a hearty response from the company, among whom
were zealous republicans, democrats and Americans. A committee was
appointed to invite the Senator to make an address, and he consented.

First, the Declaration of Independence was read by Sebastian F.
Streeter, Esq., of Baltimore, when Senator Davis made an address of
singular felicity of diction and impassioned eloquence, and of such a
character as to command the admiration of those who listened to it. He
commenced by happy allusions to the array of beauty and intelligence
that stood before him from all parts of our common country; he then
passed in review the condition of the feeble and separate colonies of
1776, and contrasted with it the country now--the only proper republic
on earth, as it stood before the world in its wonderful progress in
art, and agriculture, and commerce, and all the elements that
constitute a great nation. When thus sailing on the Atlantic, looking
to the coast of the United States, he was reminded of those bold
refugees from the British and French oppression who crosses these
water to found a home in what was then a wilderness. The memory, too,
arose of the many sorrowing hearts and oppressed spirits since born
over these waves to that refuge from political oppression which our
fathers founded as the home of liberty and the asylum of mankind. Her
terrtiory {sic}, which now stretches from ocean to ocean, contains a
vast interior yet unpeopled; and, with a destiny of still further and
continued expansion of area, why should the gate of the temple be now