Note (Back) — LIST OF PLATES. (continued 3)
Reading edition
This puts me in mind of a medal I have had a mind to strike since the late great event[55] you gave me an account of, representing the United States by the figure of an infant Hercules in his cradle, strangling the two serpents; and France by that of Minerva, sitting by as his nurse, with her spear and helmet, and her robe specked with a few "fleurs-de-lis". The extinguishing of two entire armies in one war is what has rarely happened, and it gives a presage of the future force of our growing empire....