I'd posted this on the NYS-LGH list a couple years ago:
My transcription of Francis Scott Key’s July 4, 1831 oration, with an image of its cover, though I need to check for any errors I might have made:https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7Mt-S77wZKfZmxVVFV0dnZOZkU&usp=sharingThere are memoranda in the file, one dated April 18, 1942 by State Historian Arthur Pound to Dr. Vail noting a county historian sent him the pamphlet, adding “He expects me to send it back, but if it would be any sort of a real acquisition to you, I mean something rare and beautiful in your eyes, perhaps I can persuade him to give it to the State. But perhaps it is just commonplace.”On that Memorandum, there’s a note in pencil “NIL. would like to have it.” and in ink “Dear Arthur, We would very much like to have this, because of its author and because we have the largest collection of Fourth of July orations in captivity. It is certainly ‘rare + beautiful in our eyes!’”There’s a May 27, 1942 Memorandum for Mr. Gavit from Dr. Pound indicating the oration “is presented to the New York State Library by Mr Jesse Merritt, Farmingdale, N.Y.”There are some other libraries that appear to have copies of it:http://www.worldcat.org/title/oration-delivered-by-francis-s-key-esq-in-the-rotundo-of-the-capitol-of-the-u-states-on-the-4th-of-july-1831/oclc/9697713 It also appeared in the Washington National Intelligencer July 15, 1831: 2 cols 1-4.Someone’s written a little about the oration, without including a transcription of it, here: http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/2063The quotes in Key’s oration seem to be primarily from William Cowper’s 1785 “The Task”.Chris Philippo