This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

1.103]
3
To the honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled.
Abraham R. Ellery, and Eleazer W. Ripley, in behalf of the trustees of Hancock College, situated in the county of Hancock, and state of Mississippi, respectfully represent:
That the legislature of said state, at their last session, incorporated the said College; and your memorialists, in pursuance of a vote of the trustees, pray for it an endowment of two townships of land, to be located in said state, of six miles square each.
Here, perhaps, on ordinary occasions, the memorial ought to stop; but as the subject is important to the country situated on the Gulf of Mexico, it is hoped that it will not be deemed obtrusive, to unfold the causes and motives which have created this establishment.
Congress are aware, that the population of this section of the union is heterogeneous in its character; France, Spain, and England, have possessed, alternately, the several portions of the country; and it, at length, has passed into the hands of the American government, and become identified with the American nation. Each of these political vicissitudes, has left its traces upon the inhabitants of the same country, and implanted all the national varieties of the people from whom they were descended. Hence, in language, manners, habits, and institutions, there are no common standards, but all are marked with a general diversity. In this state of things, it is important for the national covernment, by a system judicious and conciliatory, to reclaim the elements of society from the chaos which surrounds them; to amalgamate them into a combination with the American character; to impart to the rising generation, the principles of morals on which our social institutions repose, and to afford them the rays of intelligence, which can alone appreciate their worth. How is this to be accomplished, in a region where public opinion is divided bv a difference in language and manners? Where the sentiment of society is formed by no common institutions; and where the affections of a whole community are directed to no one object; as pre-eminent in science, and consecrated in morals? It is admitted, that the task is difficult; but, consequently, the more glorious will be its achievement. The path, too, is beset with fatigue, anxiety, and sometimes despondence; but it will ultimately lead to the happiness and weliare o: a portion of the republic, which will operate, at some period, most powerfully by the influence of its example, its opulence, and commerce.
In the view of your memorialists, the most important step to lie taken to accomplish objects of such importance, is the endowment of a literary institution on the borders of the (Inif'of Mexico; removed