A Historical Sketch of Bedford Nh Author:Thomas Savage Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3ADDRESS. This is an occasion of unusual interest to all of us. It is an important epoch, not only in the history of our town corporation, but of the nation, and even of the world, which... more » can scarcely be passed in silence, or regarded indifferently. It is a point of time, when all seem inclined to pause and review, as carefully and as much as it may be done, the events of the past. The end of the present year completes a period of one hundred years, comprising the last half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries; and it may be well said to have been infinitely more eventful than any other equal portion of time since the apostolic age. One hundred years ago, Europe, —enlightened, refined, intellectual Europe, —had scarcely emerged from barbarism. George the Second sat upon the throne of England. The bloody massacre of Culloden had just been enacted; and had released the then new House of Hanover from further fear of the return of the Stuarts. Louis the Fifteenth reigned in France. Pope Benedict, in the eternal city. Elizabeth was Empress of Russia. Philip the Fifth was King of Spain textit{; and Frederick the Great, and Theresa ruled, with despotic sway, in Austria and Germany. The population of Great Britain was not half as large as that of the United States is now. The whole number of British colonial subjects, on this continent, including those upon the adjacent islands, was less than three millions. There was no such nation as the United States ; there were, instead, a few feeble and unimportant English colonies, made up of exiles from the mother country; having fled hither to escape persecutions, the most cruel, vindictive and unnatural. These colonists were still struggling with poverty, and still alarmed by constant incursions of the yet unconquered savage. The Canadas...« less