fl ■ '4 > ■ i ] 1 ? J! ' 1 * " J 1 ■11 iM.l Vf.fT / Y- 1 i w 4> 33 si] 6\fD H Su • : x - llxTS '"^5 * ? j ■^ :■■ ~\ ;, • ;>;Wlt!ru? ty 9335 86 / ELM I He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1780, and annually thereafter till 1794, when he was chosen successor to Hancock, who died in office. In 1797, he retired to private life. The infirmi- ties of age pressed heavily upon him. There is a piteous recollection of these last days in a letter of John Adams to Jefferson, in which he speaks of " Sam Adams, a grief and distress to his family, a weeping, helpless object of compassion for years." Death closed the scene in his eighty-second year, October 2, 1803. In person, Adams was of the average height, muscular and erect, of a Puritan solemnity of manner, which is said to have been assisted in speaking by a defect, a tremulous movement of the head. His character, in its stronger claims, is summed up in the eulogy we have abeady cited from Bancroft. It does ample justice to his services to the Revolutionary cause, which were un- doubtedly great. "Without the cha- racter of Samuel Adams," says John Adams, " the true history of the Ameri- can Revolution can never be written. For fifty years his pen, his tongue, his activity, were constantly exerted for his country without fee or reward." Let such be the epitaph, penned by one entitled to write it, of the patriot, Samuel Adams. We may look to Mr. Bancroft, who, it is understood, has stores of hitherto unemployed material at his service, for a revival, in some measure, of the impression of that charm of eloquence in Adams which once swayed tumul- tuous assemblies, and of which John Adams, conversing with the Cheva- lier de la Luzerne, in 1779, said, " that Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Jay had elo- quence, but it was not so chaste, nor pure, nor nervous as that of Mr. Samuel Adams. He has written, too, some things that would be admired more than anything that has been writ- ten in America in the dispute." Some forty years later, the same eulogist asks the question, " Where are his writings ? Who can collect them? And if col- lected, who will ever read them ?" Alas, they are gone, the speeches at Faneuil, the resolutions and the corre- spondence that were wont to stir the assemblies and set the nation on fire, the quips and cranks, or solemnities, as it may have been, which served their turn with the hard-handed mechanics of Boston, they are gone with the echoes of the greasy palms, where the wit of Yorick went before them: but the spirit of the noble man's work lives in the nation into which it was once breathed. u /2/->^ &/ r JAMES OTIS. James Otis, the herald of the Revo- lution in Massachusetts, "the flame of fire," was born at Great Marshes, in what is now called West Barnstable, February 5, 1725. His family was a very ancient one in the annals of the colony; it traced its American founder to John Otis, one of the first English settlers at Hingham, whose grandson of the same name, born in 1657, removed to Barnstable, and became a noted man in the Provincial councils. He was for thirteen years chief judge of the Common Pleas. His two sons both occupied important positions, at the council and on the bench. One of them was the parent of James Otis, the subject of our sketch. This lineage is worth noting; for it was a peculiarity of the American Revolution, that while it had its great strength in the sym- pathy of the mass of the people, its first impulses and guiding principles originated with men of station, and chiefly of the legal profession. Young Otis was prepared for Har- vard by the Rev. Jonathan Russell, the clergyman of the parish, and in due time received his first degree in 1743. On leaving college, he gave a year and a half to the study of literature before engaging in the study of the law; and so far from regretting this course after- wards, when he had attained distinction at the bar, expressed the wish that he had deferred his legal studies longer. It was a shrewd remark, and we think will hold good of the professions gene- rally. Pupils enter them at so unripe an age that people will not trust them, and the memory of their youth remains with the public as an obstacle to their advancement when they are no longer young. Whereas, as Otis advises, by commencing a little later, they are not only more mature and better informed, but the world is willing to believe them so. Otis had a sound taste in litera- ture, and a fondness for its pursuit even to the extent of preparing treatises on Greek and Latin prosody. He was a great admirer of Homer, and like the educated persons of his day, who had not much contemporary literature worth their perusal, fell back in Eng- lish reading, upon Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, fie thought "a lawyer ought never to be without a volume of natural or public law, or moral philosophy, on his table or in his pocket." He had the advantage, in his legal studies, of one of the acutest legal minds of the province, and a fine classi- cal scholar, Jeremiah Gridley, then in the prime of life. It was one of the 40 JAMES OTTS trophies of the pupil's life, as we shall see, to gain an enviable triumph over his master. After the completion of his studies, he began practice at Ply- mouth, but soon removed to Boston. He married, at the age of thirty, Miss Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of a merchant. There are but few tradi- tions left of these early professional years, but these few are sufficient to exhibit his sense of honor, readiness of wit and a certain eager enthusiasm. Having once cited Domat in an argu- ment before Governor Bernard, that functionary asked who his author was. " He was a very distinguished civilian," was Otis' reply, "and not the less an authority for being unknown to your excellency." The first cause which brought Otis prominently into notice as a popular leader, was his famous argument in February, 1760, on the Writs of Assistance. These, which were in the nature of general warrants, were called for in furtherance of the revenue officers in tracing contraband goods, which now began to be looked after in the course of the attempts of the parent country to regulate trade for the purpose of indi- rect taxation. Chief Justice Sewall, who presided over the court to which the application was made, had doubts of the legality of the proceeding, and the question was ordered to be specially argued. It thus came before the court in Boston, where the merchants de- termined to be h^ard in opposition. Otis, holding the post of Advocate- General, would, as a matter of course, have been on the side of the govern- ment, but at some cost to himself he abandoned the office to oppose the writs. The defence then fell into the hands of his old preceptor, Gridley, the King's Attorney. Oxenbridge Thacher, a Boston lawyer of eminence, was re- tained by the people with Otis. We are indebted to John Adams for an abstract of the argument. He had then just entered the profession, and was keenly alive to everything of note, of the lawyers and of their proceedings passing in the province. Otis argued so ably and poweifully from the first principles of liberty and society, for- tified by sound English precedents, that the judges were compelled to pass the application by. Adams never forgot the impression of that argument. More than half a century afterwards, he re- called the scene vividly before him. After doing justice to the other de- baters, he exclaims: " But Otis was a flame of fire! with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authori- ties, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away everything before him. American independence was then and there born; the seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown, to defend the vigorous youth, the non sine DUs animosus infans. Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against wiits of assistance." Adams also re- membered the sentiment of the occasion, "a moral spectacle more affecting to me than any I have ever since seen upon the stage, to observe a pupil JAMES OTIS. 47 treating his master with all the defer- ence, respect, esteem and affection of a son to a father, and that without the least affectation; while he baffled and confounded all his authorities, confuted all his arguments, and reduced him to silence."1 Daniel Webster, perhaps a calmer judge, says of Otis' argument: "Unquestionably it was a masterly performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism."2 The effect of this noble effort in behalf of his townspeople was to raise at once the vindication of the popular rights to an extraordinary height of favor, while it placed once and forever before the country the open question of British taxation and the means of enforcing it. At the next election, in May, 1761, Otis was chosen, almost unanimously, a member of the Legislature. His excellent biographer, Tudor, whose work ranks with the " Life of Patrick Henry," by Wirt, as a warm, genial picture of early Revolutionary charac- ters and incidents, narrates an amusino- dialogue between a gentleman of Bos- ton, a politician " of great shrewdness and capacity," and Otis, on the eve of the election. "They talk of sending me to the next General Court," said Otis to his friend. " You will never succeed in the General Court." " Not 'Letter to William Tudor, 29th March, 1817. John Adams' Work*, X. 247. Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 88. * Discourse on Adams and Jefferson. Works, I. 121. succeed! and why not, pray ?" " Why, Mr. Otis, you have ten times the learn- ing, and much greater abilities than I have, but you know nothing of human nature." "Indeed, I wish you would give me some lessons." " Be patient, and I will do so with pleasure. In the first place, what meeting do you go to?" "Dr. Sewall's." He was the venerable, devoted Calvinistic pastor of the Old South Church. "Very well; you must stand up in sermon time—you must look devout and deeply attentive. Do you have family prayers ?" " No." " It were well if you did. What does your family con- sist of?" "Why, only four or five commonly, but at this time I have, in addition, one of Dr. Sewall's saints, who is a nurse of my wife." " Ah ! that is the very thing: you must talk religion with her in a serious manner; you must have family prayers at least once while she is in your house. That woman can do you more harm, or more good, than any other person ; she will spread your fame throughout the con- gregation. I can also tell you, by way of example, some of the steps I take. Two or three weeks before an election comes on, I send to the cooper and get all my casks put in order: I say nothing about the number of hoops. I send to the mason, and have some job done to the hearths or the chimneys: I have the carpenter to make some repairs in the roof or the wood-house: I often go down to the ship-yards about eleven o'clock, when they break off to take their drink, and enter into conversation with them. They all vote for me." It would appear, from this pawky con- 48 JAMES OTIS. versation, that the standard of Otis' character was a little above that of the ordinary working-day political con- science or habits of the town; and that, in those good old times of our grand- fathers, electioneering human nature, making a little allowance for difference of manners, was pretty much the same thing that it is found to be in our own- day. Or, as respects Otis, it may have been a round-about way of expressing a little distrust of that fiery and some- what Quixotic temperament which was something aside of the ordinary malle- able material of success in society. His career in the General Court soon brought him in conflict with the authorities. In 1762, a question arose on an appropriation by the Governor and Council, without the previous con- sent of the House. It was a small affair of an increased expenditure in manning the single armed sloop of the Colony, and it was, moreover, for the public defence, but to the quick percep- tion of Otis, a great principle was involved. It was in effect, he said, in his remonstrance, drawn up at the order of the legislative body, " taking from the House their most darlino* privilege, the right of originating all taxes. No necessity," he added, " can be sufficient to justify a house of repre- sentatives, in giving up such a privi- lege; for it would be of little conse- quence to the people, whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain, or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." When this pas- sage was read, a member, Timothy Paine, of Worcester, cried out Treason! Treason! in curious parallel, as has been often noticed, with a scene a few years afterwards in the Virginia legisla- ture, at the delivery of a famous speech by Patrick Henry. Language such as this was not to be stomached by the representatives of Royalty. The Gover- nor sent the remonstrance back witL a request that the obnoxious sentence, which we have cited, should be ex- punged, which was accordingly done. On the adjournment of the legis- lature, Otis published " A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives," with the significant motto: " Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor: Or good though rich, humane and wise tho' great, Jove give but these, we've naught to fear from fate." In keen, pungent expressions, the vivid lightnings of argument, in words in- stinct with genius, he strikes at the root of all government in those rights of man which are to be recognized as the regulators of all legitimate authority and by which kings rule for the good of their subjects. " Though most gov- ernments are de facto arbitrary," he says, "none are de jure arbitrary." "No government," he says, in a vein of broader sarcasm, " has a right to make hobby horses, asses and slaves of the subject; nature having made suf- ficient of the two former, for all the lawful purposes of man, from the harm- less peasant in the field, to the most refined politician in the cabinet, but none of the last, which infallibly proves they are unnecessary." Otis was au JAMES OTIS. 49 admirable master of good Anglo-Saxon rhetoric; he heaps upon the abettors of the expunging resolution a load of humorous indignation. His picture of the race of colonial time-servers, the small provincial votaries of passive obedience, guarding the supremacy of plantation governors by the most rigid tenets of absolutism, must have put that generation to the blush, if indeed the " monopolizers of offices, peculators, informers, and generally the seekers of all kinds," whom he describes, ever blushed at all. With these, he ex- claims with his aptitude for poetical quotation: " The love of country is an empty name, For gold they hunger: but ne'er thirst for fame." Nor are more serious arguments, drawn from Locke and the principles of the Revolution of 1688, neglected. John Adams, ever the eulogist of Otis, and who warms at the recollection of his winged words with an eloquence kin- dred to his own, says of this tract: " How many volumes are concentrated in this little fugitive pamphlet, the production of a few hurried hours, amidst the continual solicitation of a crowd of clients; for his business at the bar at that time was very exten- sive, and of the first importance, and amidst the host of politicians, suggest- ing their plans and schemes, claiming his advice and directions. Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs, issued by Congress in 1774. Look into the .Declaration of Independence in 1776. Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. Look into all the French constitutions of govern- ment, and to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Crisis, and Rights of Man; what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Vindication of the House of Representatives ?" In 1764 Otis published the second of those tracts which remain to guard his brilliant reputation : " The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved." It was read in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts in manuscript. Though it contained a noble series of declarations of the popular rights and of the constitu- tional limitations of the British Govern- ment, expressed in his usual nervous phraseology, some of these positions were thought to be defeated by his contradictory declarations of the supre- macy of Parliament. The apparent contradiction, however, though nar- rowly scrutinized at the time, does not seem to have affected the resolve of the author. The pamphlet was repub- lished in England, and was alluded to by Mansfield in the House of Lords. In reference to some depreciatory re- marks of the work by Lord Littleton, he said: " No man on such a subject is contemptible. Otis is a man of conse- quence among the people. They have chosen him for one of their deputies at the Congress, and general meeting from the respective governments. It was said the man is mad. What then! One madman often makes many." The Congress alluded to in these remarks was that which met at New York in October, 1765, under the pres- sure of the impending operation of the Stamp Act, which had passed Parlia- 50 JAMES OTIS. ment in February, in the language of the Massachusetts Circular, " to consult together on the present circumstances of the Colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the acts of Parlia- ment, for levying duties and taxes on the Colonies; and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal, and humble representation of their condi- tion to his Majesty and to the Parlia- ment, and to implore relief." Dele- gates from nine States assembled at this Stamp Act Congress, as it was called. Otis was at the head of the members from Massachusetts. A De- claration of Rights, the production of John Cruger, of New York, was adopt- ed, and also addresses to the King, and the Houses of Lords and Commons. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and Caesar Rodney of Delaware, who were fellow-members with Otis, afterwards bore witness to his customary ardor and intelligence. The Congress ad- journed after a short session of about a fortnight. In 1766, the Legislature chose Otis for their speaker, but the choice was negatived by the Governor, Bernard, who found in the rejected candidate an unsparing opponent of his harsh, aggressive dictation. The parliament- ary imposition of taxes on paints, glass, tea, etc., in 1767, brought out all the resources of opposition in the Massa- chusetts Legislature. A petition to the king, various letters to English noblemen in authority, and a circular to the colonial houses of assembly, were reported, the composition of which is accredited to Otis and Samuel Adams; the former furnishing the first vigorous draft, the latter smoothing asperities with what John Adams somewhere styles "his oily brush." In Otis' own expression: " I have written them all, and handed them to Sam to quieuvicue them." One of these papers, the circular addressed to the colonies proposing cooperation in their counsels, became the subject of much animosity. After it had been duly forwarded through the countiy, the demand came from Lord Hillsborough, that the resolution of the House, adopting it, should be rescinded, which the House, by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen, declined to do. The debate was signalized by one of Otis' exceed- ingly mannered speeches, violent in its wholesale ridicule of the nobility of England. " Who are these ministers ?" he asked. "The very frippery and fop- pery of France, the mere out sides of monkeys." The next act in the now rapidly developing plot of British aggression, was sending a body of armed men to Boston. Previous to their arrival, when their coming was understood, Otis was looked to as the popular coun- sellor of the crisis. He was chosen moderator of the town meeting, held at Fanueil Hall, which, being found too small for the assembly, the people ad- journed to the Old South Church, where Otis harangued from the pulpit. He advised moderation, but should resistance be necessary, he counselled it to the death. This and other assemblies of the people served only for protesta- tion against the threatened measure which was soon carried into effect. The JAMES OTIS. 51 iiroops made their appearance, and when the General Court met in May, the building was surrounded by armed men. The members offered a parlia- mentary resistance by refusing to act: they met from day to day, and ad- journed, when the Governor removed the court out of the armed precinct to Cambridge. The representatives met in the chapel of Harvard College, where the students came to listen to the debates, when Otis eloquently appealed to them, invoking the classic examples of ancient patriotism, to become the saviours of their country. The House, having the proof in their hands of the misrepresentations of Bernard to the Home Government, requested his recall; which, indeed, had been already determined upon by the ministry. Other letters of Bernard and his advisers also came to light through the hands of the colonial agent in Lon- don. In these the popular leaders were severely commented upon, Otis of course among the rest. The stigma wore upon his sensitive, over-wrought mind, and he determined to resent it publicly. He published, an advertise- ment in the " Boston Gazette," of Sep- tember 4, 1769, in which he arraigned the Commissioners of the Customs by name, Henry Hutton, Charles Paxton, William Burch, and John Robinson, as scandalous maligners, in representing him " as inimical to the rights of the crown, and disaffected to his majesty, to whom I annually swear, and am determined at all events to bear true and faithful allegiance." He, therefore, . having in vain demanded personal satis- faction,. " humbly desires the Lord Com- missioner of his Majesty's Treasury, his principal Secretaries of State, particu- larly my Lord Hillsborough, the Board of Trade, and all others whom it may concern, or who may condescend to read this, to pay no kind of regard to any of the abusive representations of me or of my countiy, that may be trans- mitted by the said Henry, Charles, William, and John, or their confede- rates ; for they are no more worthy of credit, than those of Sir Francis Ber- nard, of Nettleham, Bart., or any of his cabal; which cabal may be well known, from the papers in the House of Com- mons, and at every great office in Eng, land." The next evening after this poster had appeared, Otis entered the British Coffee House, where Robinson, one of the commissioners, was sitting, with a number of army and navy officers. An altercation immediately ensued, when Robinson struck Otis, with a cane. In the confusion, the lights were extinguished, and Otis, without any protector among the friends of Robinson, when the fray, or rather gross assault, came to an end, was taken home wounded and bleed- ing. He was found to have a deep wound on the head, inflicted by a sharp instrument. As several blud- geons and a scabbard were found on the floor, it was not unnaturally thought that he was the victim of a murderous assault. To bring his assail- ant to an acknowledgment, Otis insti- tuted a suit against him, in which he was awarded two thousand pounds damages; but he would not receive it, saying, " it is absolutely impossible that I should take a penny from a man in 52 JAME! this way, after an acknowledgment of his error." He appears after this to have been hardly himself. The noble mind which had wavered in some of its irregular flights, was now quite overthrown, or restored only in lucid intervals. There is something exceedingly touching in the occasional entries of John Adams' Diary of this period, as he meets Otis in society, all the more so for the ap- parent uncertainty of the censure of his aberrations. In January, 1770, there is this entry of a meeting with him at a club of the lawyers of the town, veiy piteous : " Otis is in confusion yet; he loses himself; he rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm; attempted to tell a story, which took up almost all the evening; the story may at any time be told in three minutes, with all the graces it is capable of, but he took an hour. I fear he is not in his perfect mind. The nervous, concise, and pithy were his character till lately; now the verbose, roundabout, and rambling, and long-winded." It is sad to pursue the story. He appeared indeed in the Legislature, but no longer as the beacon orator; his usefulness was over; the House thanked him by vote for his "great and important services, which, as a representative in the General Assem- bly, through a course of years, he has rendered to this town and province; particularly for his undaunted exer- tions in the common cause of the Colonies, from the beginning of the present glorious struggle for the rights of the British Constitution." This was in 1770, on his retirement in ill health. OTIS. He rallied, and was reelected, appeared for a while calmer than ever; but it- was only the prelude to lasting mental alienation, with fitful gleams of his old genius. His mind worked irregularly, throwing out wild coruscations of mingled sense and insanity, but he was seldom violent. In one of his moody hours, he collected and burnt all his letters and papers. His later days were passed with Mr. Osgood, a farmer of Andover. We read—it is pleasant to read—in Mr. Tudor's narrative, that he spent his time, for the most part, in cheerfulness, in kindness, and good- nature, with the family, " delighting them with his wit, his stories and knowledge on every subject." His last appearance in Boston was at the table of John Hancock; when the excite- ment of conviviality, the sight of old faces and the associations of the spot were too powerful for his enfeebled brain. He returned to Andover, and one day pointed out the tree beneath which he wished to be buried. He had even, in some accidental way, men- tioned the manner of his death, when in an interval of his deliiium, he said to his sister: " I hope when God Almighty, in his righteous providence, shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning." It was even so. As he stood within the house of the Osgood farm one day, the twenty-third of May, 1783, in the act of telling a story to the assembled household, waiting in one of the rooms the passing over of a heavy cloud, the bolt came, a flash in a first heavy burst of thunder. He fell instantly, without mark, or change, or convulsion. / Cs&cl z wonder- fully revived when America seconded the call of Chatham, was now to inflict an insupportable wound upon her de- fenders. The seeds of the Revolution must be looked for in the previous war with France. There and then America 1 »ecame acquainted with her own pow- ers, and the strength and weakness of British soldiers and placemen. To no one had the lesson been better taught than to Washington. By no one was it studied with more impartiality. There was no faction in his opposition. The traditions of his family, his friends, the provinces, were all in favor of allegi- ance to the British government. He had nothing in his composition of the disorganizing mind of a mere political agitator, a breeder of discontent. The interests of his large landed estates, and- a revenue dependent upon exports, bound him to the British nation. But there was one principle in his nature stronger in its influence than all these material ties—the love of justice; and -when Patrick Henry rose in the House of Burgesses, with his eloquent assertion of the rights of the colony in the mat ter of taxation, Washington was there in his seat to respond to the sentiment. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 71 To this memorable occasion, on the 29th May, 1765, has been referred the birth of that patriotic fervor in the mind of Washington, welcoming as it was developed a new order of things, which never rested till the liberties of the country were established on the firmest foundations of independence and civil order. "His correspondence," says Irving, writing of this incident, "hitherto had not turned on political or speculative themes; being engrossed by either military or agricultural mat- ters, and evincing little anticipation of the vortex of public duties into which he was about to be drawn. All his previous conduct and writings show a loyal devotion to the crown, with a patriotic attachment to his* country. It is probable that, on the present occa- sion, that latent patriotism received its first electric shock." Be this as it may, he was certainly from the beginning an earnest supporter of the constitutional liberties of his country, and met every fresh aggression of Parliament as it arose, in the most resolute manner. He took part in the local Virginia reso- lutions, and on the meeting of the first Congress, in Philadelphia, went up to that honored body with Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. He was at this time a firm, unyielding maintainer of the rights in controversy, and fully prepared for any issue which might grow out of them; but he was no revolutionist—for it was not in the nature of his mind to consider a demand for justice a provocative to war. Again, in Virginia, after the ad- journment of Congress, in the important Convention at Richmond, he listens to the impetuous eloquence of Patrick Henry. It was this body which set on foot a popular military organization in the colony, and Washington, who had previously given his aid to the independent companies, was a member of the Committee to report the plan. A few days later, he writes to his brother, John Augustine, who was employed in training a company, that he would "very cheerfully accept the honor of commanding it, if occasion require it to be drawn out." The second Continental Congress, of which Washington was also a member, met at Philadelphia in May, 1775, its members gathering to the deliberations with throbbing hearts, the musketry of Lexington ringing in their ears. The overtures of war by the British troops in Massachusetts had gathered a little provincial army about Boston; a national organization was a measure no longer of choice, but of necessity. A Commander-in-Chief was to be ap- pointed, and though the selection was not altogether free from local jealousies, the superior merit of Washington was seconded by the superior patriotism of the Congress, and on the fifteenth of June he was unanimously elected by ballot to the high position. His modesty in accepting the office was as noticeable as his fitness for it. He was not the man to flinch from any duty, because it was hazardous; but it is worth knowing, that we may form a due estimate of his character, that he felt to the quick the full force of the sacrifices of ease and happiness that he was making, and the new difficulties he was inevitably to encounter. He 72 GEORGE WASHINGTON. was so impressed with the probabilities of failure, and so little disposed to vaunt his own powers, that he begged gentlemen in the House to remember, " lest some unlucky event should hap- pen unfavorable to his reputation," that he thought himself, "with the utmost sincerity, unequal to the com- mand he was honored with." With a manly spirit of patriotic independence, worthy the highest eulogy, he declared his intention to keep an exact account of his public expenses, and accept nothing more for his services—a reso- lution which was faithfully kept to the letter. With these disinterested pre- liminaries, he proceeded to Cambridge, and took command of the army on the third of Jul)-. Bunker Hill had been fought, establishing the valor of the native militia, and the leaguer of Boston was already formed, though with inadequate forces. There was ex- cellent individual material in the men, but everything was to be done for their organization and equipment. Above all, there was an absolute want of powder. It was impossible to make an}- serious attempt upon the British in Boston, but the utmost heroism "was shown in cutting off their resources and hemming them in. Humble as were these inefficient means in the present, the prospect of the future was darkened by the short enlistments of the army, which were made only for the year, Congress expecting in that time a favorable answer to their second Petition to the King. The new re- cruits came in slowly, and means were feebly supplied, but Washington, bent on action, determined upon an attack. For this purpose, he took possession of and fortified Dorchester Heights, and prepared to assail the town. The British were making an attempt to dis- lodge him, which was deferred by a storm; and General Howe, having already resolved to evacuate; the city, a few days after, on the 17th of March, ingloriously sailed away with his troops to Halifax. The next dav, Washington entered the town in triumph. Thus ended the first epoch of his Revolution- ary campaigns. There had been little opportunity for brilliant action, but great difficulties had been overcome with a more honorable persistence, and a substantial benefit had been gained. The full extent of the services of Wash- ington became known only to his pos- terity, since it was absolutely necessary at the time to conceal the difficulties under which he labored; but the country saw and felt enough to extol his fame and award him an honest meed of gratitude. A special vote of Congress gave expression to the senti- ment, and a gold medal, bearing the head of Washington, and on the reverse the legend Ilostibas primo fugatis, was ordered by that body to commemorate the event. We must now follow the commander rapidly to another scene of operations, remembering that any detailed notice, however brief, of Washington's mili- tary operations during the war, would expand this biographical sketch into a historical volume. New York was evi- dently to be the next object of attack, and thither Washington gathered his forces, and made every available means of defence on land. By the beginning GEORGE W ASHINGTON. 73 of July, when the Declaration of Inde- pendence was received in camp, Gene- ral Howe had made his appearance in the lower bay from Halifax, where he was speedily joined by his brother, Lord Howe, the admiral, who came bearing ineffectual propositions for re- conciliation. Having occasion to ad- dress the American Commander-in- Chief, he failed to give him his proper title, lest he should recognize his posi- tion, but superscribed his letter, "To George Washington, Esq." This was borne by a messenger asking for Mr. Washington, who was properly re- minded, by the adjutant who met him, that he knew of no such person in the army, and the letter being produced, it was pronounced inadmissible. The messenger accordingly returned, and General Howe, some days after, sent another, who asked for General Wash- ington, and being admitted to his presence, addressed him as Your Excel- lency, offering another letter with vari- ous etceteras appended to the simple name, urging that they meant " every- thing." But Washington was not to be caught by a subterfuge. They may, indeed, said he, mean " every- thing," but they also mean " anything," and he could not receive a letter relat- ing to his public station directed to him as a private person. Set the Brit- ish adjutant was compelled to report the contents of the epistle, which re- lated to the reconciliation; but here again he was checkmated by Washing- ton, who, aware of the nature of Lord Howe's overtures, replied that they were but pardons, and the Americans, who had committed no offence, but 10 stood only upon their rights, could stand in no need of them. Thus ter- minated this interview, a most charac- teristic one, a model for diplomatic action, and even private courtesy, which was highly appreciated by Congress and the country at the time, and which will never be forgotten. Additional reinforcements to the royal troops on Staten Island no"w arrived from England; a landing was made by the well-equipped army on Long Island, and a battle was immi- nent. Washington, who had his head- quarters in New York, made vigilant preparations around the city, and at the works on Long Island, which had been planned and fortified by General Greene. This officer unfortunately falling ill, the command fell to General Putnam, who was particularly charged by Washington with instructions for the defence of the passes by which the enemy might approach. These were neglected, an attack was made from opposite sides, and in spite of much valiant fighting on the part of the va- rious defenders, who contended with fearful odds, the day was most disas- trous to the Americans. The slaughter was great on this 27th of August, and many prisoners, including General Sul- livan and Lord Stirling, were taken. Still the main works at Brooklyn, occu- pied by the American troops, remained, though, exposed as they were to the enemy's fleet, they were no longer ten- able. Washington, whose duties kept him in the city to be ready for its de- fence, as soon as he heard of the engagement, hastened to the spot, but it was too late to turn the fortunes of 74 GEORGE WASHINGTON the day. He was compelled to witness the disaster, tradition tells us, not with- out the deepest emotion. An unknown contemporary versifier of the war, in his simple rhymes, has commemorated the scene: " Brave Washington did say, Alas! good God, Brave men I've lost to-day, They're in their blood. His grief he did express To see them in distress, His tears and hands witness He lov'd his men."' But it was the glory of Washington to save the remnant of the army by a retreat more memorable than the vic- tory of General Clinton. The day after the battle, and the next, were passed without any decisive movements on the part of the British, who were about bringing up their ships, and who, doubtless, as they had good reason, considered their prey secure. On the twenty-ninth, Washington took his measures for the retreat, and so per- fectly were they arranged, that the whole force of nine thousand, with ar- tillery, horses, and the entire equipage of war, were borne off that night, under cover of the fog, to the opposite shore in triumph. It was a most masterly operation, planned and superintended by Washington from the beginning. He did not sleep or rest after the bat- tle till it was executed, and was among the last to cross. After this followed in rapid succes- sion, though with no undue haste, the abandonment of New York, the with- 1 Ballad Literature of the Revolution. Cyclopaedia of tuueric&n Literature, I. 445. drawal of the troops into Westchester, the affair at White Plains, the more serious loss of Fort Washington, and the retreat through the Jerseys. It was the darkest period of the war, the days of which Paine wrote in the memorable expression of the opening number of his " Crisis." " These are the times that try men's souls: the sum- mer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." To infe- riority in numbers, with a host at its heels, the American soldiery added the serious disqualifying conditions of lack of discipline and poverty of equipment. Enlisted for short terms, with all the evils of a voluntary militia unused to service, it was, as Hamilton, who shared the great chieftain's solicitudes, express- ed it, but " the phantom of a military force." The letters of Washington, at this period, and indeed generally throughout the war, are filled with the anxieties of his position, in which he saw his fame perilled with the welfare of his country. The severest suffering for an ingenuous mind is, perhaps, to bear unworthy reproach, to be miscon- ceived by a public for whom eveiy sacrifice is silently borne and endured. This was Washington's lot, for long, weary years of marching and counter- marching between the Hudson and the Chesapeake, husbanding his small, inef- ficient force, retreating to-day, to-mor row advancing, working the "phan- tom " with such success in the face of the enemy as to perplex the movements of experienced generals with consider- GEORGE WASHINGTON. 75 able forces. Nor was the fault altoge- ther at the door of Congress. That body was, indeed, a popular representa- tion, composed, at the outset, of very able men, and always having such included in its numbers; but it was very loosely tied to its constituency. At present, the delegated power of the representative, where not specially con- trolled, is absolute; but in the flimsy texture of the unformed body politic of the old confederacy, there was little cohesion of parts or attention to mu- tual duties. The battles of the Revo- lution were fought with half-disciplined armies at the will of a half-formed administration. Local State jealousies had to be conciliated, and the people could not appreciate the advantage of an arm)', firmly handled, as the instru- ment of its own sovereign authority. The battle had to be fought often and in many parts of the country, according to the immediate necessity and tempo- rary inclination. Much was gained by Washington, but it came slowly and reluctantly, though there were brilliant exceptions in the service. Generally, there was a want of regularity and uniformity. It was somewhat reme- died by the extraordinary powers con- ferred upon Washington at the close of 1770, but the evil was inherent in the necessarily loose political organiza- tion. After the battle of Long Island, there had been little but weariness and disaster, in the movements of Wash- ington, to the end of the year, when, as the forces of Howe were apparently closing in upon him to open the route to PJuladelphia, he turned in veiy despair, and by the brilliant affah at Trenton retarded the motions of the enemy and checked the growing de- spondency of his countrymen. It was well planned and courageously under- taken. Christmas night, of a most inclement, wintry season, when the river was blocked with ice, was chosen to cross the Delaware, and attack the British and Hessians on the opposite side at Trenton. The expedition was led by Washington in person, who anxiously watched the slow process of the transportation on the river, which lasted from sunset till near the dawn— too long for the contemplated surprise by night. A storm of hail and sncw now set in, as the General advanced with his men, reaching the outposts about eight o'clock. A gallant onset was made, in which Lieut. Monroe, afterwards the President, was wounded; Sullivan and the other officers, accord- ing to a previously arranged plan, seconded the movement from another part of the town; the Hessians were disconcerted, and their general, Rahl, slain, when a surrender was made, nearly a thousand prisoners laying down their arms. General Howe, astonished at the event, sent out Cornwallis in pursuit, and he had his game seemingly secure, when Wash- ington, in front of him at Trenton, on the same side of the Delaware, made a bold diversion in an attack on the forces left behind at Princeton. It was, like the previous one, conducted by night, and, like the other, was attended with success, though it cost the life of the gallant Mercer. After these bril- liant actions the little army took up 76 GEORGE WASHINGTON. its quarters at Morristown for the winter. In the spring, General Howe made some serious attempts at breaking up the line of Washington in New Jersey, but he was foiled, and compelled to seek another method of reaching Phila- delphia. The withdrawal of the Brit- ish troops would thus have left a simple course to be pursued on the Delaware, had not the attention of Washington been called in another direction by the advance of Burgoyne from Canada. It was natural to suppose that Howe would act in concert with that officer on the Hudson, nor was Washington relieved from the dilemma till intelli- gence reached him that the British general had embarked his forces, and was actually at the Capes of the Dela- ware. He then took up a position at Germantown for the defence of Phila- delphia. Visiting the city for the pur- pose of conference with Congress, he there found the Marquis de Lafayette, who had just presented himself, as a volunteer in the cause of liberty, to the government. His reception by Con- gress had halted a little on his first arrival, but his disinterestedness had overcome all obstacles, and Washington, who had schooled himself to look upon realities without prejudice, gave the young foreign officer a cordial welcome. He took him to the- camp, and soon gave him an opportunity to bleed in the sacred cause. Howe, meanwhile, the summer hav- ing passed away in these uncertainties, was slowly making his way up the Chesapeake to the Head of Elk, to gain access to Philadelphia from Maryland, and the American army was advanced to meet him. The British troo2)s num- bered about eighteen thousand; the American, perhaps two-thirds of that number. A stand was made by the latter at Chad's Ford, on the east side of the Brandywine, to which Knyphau- sen was opposed on the opposite bank, while Cornwallis, with a large division, took the upper course of the river, and turned the flank of the position. Gene- ral Sullivan was intrusted with this portion of the defence; but time was lost, in the uncertainty of information, in meeting the movement, and when the parties met, Cornwallis had greatly the advantage. A rout ensued, which was saved from utter defeat by the resistance of General Greene, who was placed at an advantageous point. La- fayette was severely wounded in the leg in the course of the conflict. Washington was not dismayed by the disaster; on the contrary, he kept the field, marshalling and manoeuvring through a hostile country, one thousand of his troops, as he informed Congress, actually barefoot. He would have offered battle, but he was without the means to resist effectually the occupa tion of Philadelphia. A part of the enemy's forces were stationed at Ger- mantown, a few miles from the city. Washington, considering them in an exposed situation, planned a surprise. It was well arranged, and at the outset was successful; but, owing to the con- fusion in the heavy fog of the October morning, and loss of strength and time in attacking a strongly defended man- sion at the entrance of the village, what should have been a brilliant victory GEORGE WASHINGTON. 77 was changed into a partial defeat. The action, however, as Mr. Sparks ob- serves, was " not without its good effects. It revived the hopes of the country by proving, that notwithstand- ing the recent successes of the enemy, neither the spirit, resolution and valor of the troops, nor the energy and confi- dence of the commander, had suffered any diminution." It was the remark of the French minister, the Count de Vergennes, on hearing of these transac- tions, " that nothing struck him so much as General Washington's attack- ing and giving battle to General Howe's army; that to bring an army, raised within a year, to this, promised every- thing." Thus closed the campaign of 1777 in Pennsylvania, while Burgoyne was lay- ing down his arms to the northern army at Saratoga. Though it was Washington's lot to endure all the difficulties of the service while Gates was reaping the rewards of victory, the former had his share in the counsels which led to that brilliant event. His letter to Schuyler, of the 22d of July, exhibited a knowledge of the position, and a prescience of the exact result, which show how successfully he would have managed the campaign in person. He notices Burgoyne's first successes, and argues that they " will precipitate his ruin," while he sees his weakness in acting in detachment, exposing his par- ties to great hazard. " Could we," he writes, " be so happy as to cut one of them off, supposing it should not ex- ceed four, five, or six hundred men, it would inspirit the people, and do away much of their present anxiety." Had he written after, instead of before the event, he could not better bave described the influence of Bennington. To Washington, as the directing head of the national army, belongs his full share of the glories of Saratoga; yet the accidental greatness which fell to the vainglorious Gates was made the occasion of assaults upon the Comman- der-in-Chief, which would have crept from their mean concealments into open revolt, had not the conspiracy been strangled in its infancy by the incor- ruptibility of his friends and the virtue of the country. The encampment at Valley Forge succeeded the scenes we have de- scribed. It is a name synonymous with suffering. Half clad, wanting fre- quently the simplest clothing, without shoes or blankets, the army was hutted in the snows and ice of that inclement winter. Yet they had Washington with them urging every means for their welfare, while his " Lady," as his wife was always called in the army, came from Mount Vernon, as was her custom during these winter encampments, to lighten the prevailing despondency. She lived simply with her husband, sharing the humble provisions of the camp, and occupying herself with her needle in preparing garments forvthe naked. Washington, meanwhile, was busy with a Committee of Congress in putting the army on a better foundation. With the return of summer came the evacuation of Philadelphia by the Brit- ish, who were pursuing their route across New Jersey to embark on the waters of New York. Washington with his forces was watching their 78 GEORGE WASHINGTON. movements from above. Shall he at- tack them on their march ? There was a division of opinion among his officers. The equivocal Charles Lee, then un- suspected, was opposed to the step; 1 >ut Washington, with his best advisers, Greene, Lafayette, and Wayne, was in favor of it. He accordingly sent La- fayette forward, when Lee interposed, and claimed the command of the ad- vance. Washington himself moved on with the reserve towards the enemy's position near Monmouth Court House, to take part in the fortunes of the day, the 28th of June. As he was proceed- ing, he was met by the intelligence that Lee was in full retreat, without notice or apparent cause, endangering the order of the rear, and threatening the utmost confusion. Presently he came upon Lee himself, and demanded from him with an emphasis roused by the fiercest indignation—and the anger of Washington when excited was terrific —the cause of the disorder. Lee re- plied angrily, and gave such explana- tion as he could of a superior force, when Washington, doubtless mindful of his previous conduct, answered him with dissatisfaction, and, it is said, on the authority of- Lafayette, ended by calling the retreating general "a damned poltroon."1 It was a great day for the genius of Washington. He made his arrangements on the spot to retrieve the fortunes of the horn*, and so admirable were the dispositions, and so well was he seconded by the bravery of officers and men, even Lee, redeem- ing his character by his valor, that at 1 Dawson's " Battles of the United States," I. 408. the close of that hot and weary day, the Americans having added greatly to the glory of their arms, remained at least equal masters of the field. The next morning it was found that Sir Henry Clinton had withdrawn towards Sandy Hook. The remainder of the season was passed by Washington on the eastern borders of the Hudson, in readiness to cooperate with the French, who had now arrived under D'Estaing, and in watching the British in New York. In December he took up his ■winter quarters at Middlebrook, in New Jersey. The event of the next year in the little army of Washington, was Wayne's gallant storming of Stony Point, on the Hudson, one of the de- fences of the Highlands, which had been recently captured and manned by Sir Henry Clinton. The attack on the night of the 15th July was planned by Washington, and his directions in his in- structions to Wayne, models of careful military precision, were faithfully car- ried out. Henry Lee's spirited attack on Paulus Hook, within sight of New York, followed, to cheer the encamp- ment of Washington, who now busied himself in fortifying West Point. Win- ter again finds the army in quarters in New Jersey, this time at Morristown, when the hardships and severities of Valley Forge were even exceeded in the distressed condition of the troops in that rigorous season. The main incidents of the war are henceforth at the South. The most prominent event in the personal career of Washington, of the year 1780, is certainly the defection of Arnold, with its attendant execution of Major Andre. This unhappy trea GEORGE WASHINGTON. 79 son was every way calculated to enlist his feelings, but he suffered neither hate nor sympathy to divert him from the considerate path of duty. We may not pause over the subsequent events of the war, the renewed exertions of Congress, the severe contests in the South, the meditated movement upon New York the following year, but must hasten to the sequel at Yorktown. The movement of the army of Washington to Virginia was determined by the ex- pected arrival of the French fleet in that quarter from the West Indies. Lafayette was already on the spot, where he had been engaged in the de- fence of the country from the inroads of Arnold and Phillips. Cornwallis had arrived from the South, and unsus- picious of any serious opposition was entrenching himself on York River. It was all that could be desired, and Washington, who had been planning an attack upon New York with Ro- chambeau, now suddenly and secretly directed his forces by a rapid march southward. Extraordinary exertions were made to expedite the troops. The timely arrival.of Colonel John Lawrens, from France, with an instal- ment of the French loan in specie, came to the aid of the liberal efforts of the financier of the Revolution, Robert Morris. Lafayette, with the Virgin- ians, was hedging in the fated Corn- wallis. Washington had just left Phila- delphia, when he heard the joyous news of the arrival of De Grasse in the Chesapeake. He hastened on to the scene of action in advance of the troops, with De Rochambeau gaining time to pause at Mount Vernon, which he had not seen since the opening of the war, and enjoy a day's hurried hospitality with his French officers at the wel- come mansion. Arrived at Williams- burg, Washington urged on the mili- tary movements with the energy of an- ticipated victory. "Hurry on, then, my dear sir," he wrote to General Lin- coln, " with your troops on the wings of speed." To make the last arrange- ments with the French admiral, he visited him in his ship, at the mouth of James' River. Everything was to be done before succor could arrive from the British fleet and troops at New York. The combined French and Ameri- can forces closed in upon Yorktown, which was fortified by redoubts and batteries, and on the first of October, the place was completely invested The first parallel was opened on the sixth. Washington lighted the first gun on the ninth. The storming of two annoying redoubts by French and American parties were set down for the night of the fourteenth. Hamilton, at the head of the latter, gallantly car- ried one of the works at the point of the bayonet without firing a shot. Washington watched the proceeding at imminent hazard. The redoubts gained were fortified and turned against the town. The second parallel was ready to open its fire. Cornwallis vainly at- tempted to escape with his forces across the liver. He received no relief from Sir Henry Clinton, at New York, and on the 17th he proposed a surrender. On the 19th, the terms having been dictated by Washington, the whole British force laid down their arms. It was the virtual termination of the war. 80 GEORGE WASHINGTON. the crowning act of a vast series of military operation planned and per- fected by the geni is of Washington. During the remainder of the war, his efforts and vigilance were not re- laxed ; and he had one opportunity, ever memorable in the annals of politi- cal liberty, of showing his superiority to the common ambition of conquerors. In May, 1782, a letter was addressed to him by Col. Nicola, an officer who had the esteem of the army, stating the inefficiency of the existing administra- tion, and suggesting a mixed form of government, with a King at its head, with no indirect appeal to the ambition of the Commander-in-Chief as the proper recipient of the office. To this, Wash- ington replied with the utmost decision, but without the least affectation of doing anything heroic; he simply puts the idea out of the way as something itterly inadmissible, " painful" and 'disagreeable" to his mind. He re- jects it as a gentleman would an unhandsome suggestion. Much has been said of this matter, and there is reason to believe not unjustifiably, in praise of Washington. "There was unquestionably," says Mr. Sparks, " at this time, and for some time afterwards, a party in the army, neither small in number nor insignificant in character, prepared to second and sustain a measure of this kind, which they con- ceived necessary to strengthen the civil power, draw out the resources of the country, and establish a durable govern- ment." No one felt these evils more keenly than Washington, but he had too much faith in the Republic to despair of a better method of cure. He knew as well as any that he coidd not be king if he would; the anecdote is quite sufficient to prove, where proof was not wanting, that he would not if he could. Another opportunity yet remained to exhibit his control of the temper of the army, and his habitual deference of military to civil government. The occasion arose while he was with the troops at headquarters at Newburg, in the spring of 1783, on the eve of the receipt of the final intelligence of peace. Congress, always dilatory in providing for the army, had shown an unwillingness or incapacity to meet their claims; patient remonstrance had been disregarded; and now a meeting of officers was called, instigated by an appeal of extraordinary vigor, one of the compositions since ascertained to have been written by General John Armstrong, and known as " The New- burg Letters," which threatened serious revolt. It was not the first time that Washington had been called to act in such an emergency. In the withdrawal of the Pennsylvania line from the camp at the beginning of 1781, he had met a similar difficulty, with great prudence and moderation. He now brought these qualities to bear with a quickness and decision proportioned to the crisis. Summoning the officers together, he addressed to them a firm but tender remonstrance, opening his address with a touch of pathos which gained all hearts. Pausing after he had commenced his remarks, to take his spectacles from his pocket, he re- marked that he had "grown grey in their service, and now I am growing GEORGE WASHINGTON. 81 blind." It was the honest heart of Washington, and the disaffected re- sponded to the wisdom and feeling of his address. The news of peace arrived within the month, and the army prepared to separate. In memory of their fra- ternity, the Society of the Cincinnati was founded, consisting of officers of the Revolution and their descendants, with Washington at its head. In the beginning of November, he took leave of the army in an address from head- quarters, with his accustomed warmth and emotion, and on the 25 th, entered New York at the head of a military and civic procession as the British evacuated the city. On the 4th of December, he was escorted to the harbor on his way to Congress, at Annapolis, to resign his command, after a touching scene of farewell with his officers at Fraunces' Tavern, when the great chieftain did not disdain the sensibility of a tear and the kiss of his friends. Arrived at Annapolis, having on the way delivered to the proper officer at Philadelphia his accounts of his expenses during the war, neatly written out by his own hand, on the twenty-third of the month he restored his commission to Congress, with a few remarks of great felicity, in which he commended " the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almight) God; and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy keeping." Mount Vernon again welcomed its restored lord. He reached his home the day before Christmas, and cheerily, doubtless, the smoke on that sacred | 11 holiday ascended from the thankful festivities. A few days after, a letter to Governor Clinton, of New York, his old comrade in arms, records the inner- most feeling of his heart. " The scene," he writes, " is at last closed. I feci myself eased of a load of public care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections of good men and in the practice of the domestic virtues." Did ever conqueror so resign his heart before ? We may not linger, tempting as is the theme, over the simple life on the Potomac, though there is to be studied, no less than in camps and senates, the true nature of the man. Kind, hos- pitable, sympathetic to every worthy appeal, engaged in the care of his estate, sowing, planting, reaping, the youthfulness of his old family circle renewed in the children of young Custis, who had followed his sister to an early grave, he lived in dignified, cheerful retirement. He even revived his old sports of the chase, though he had no longer the veteran Fairfax to cheer him on with his halloo. The old nobleman had lived to listen to the tidings of Yorktown, when he turned himself to the wall and died. Here Fame might be content to close the scene in her record of her favorite child. At the treaty of peace he was fifty-one, and had gloriously consum- mated the duties of two memorable eras in the history of his country, each drawing along its train of ideas—the war with France and the war with Great Britain; a double relief from foreign bondage; the establishment of religious and political independence. 82 GEORGE WASHINGTON. His services to either would well sup- ply enough of incident and eulogy for these pages—but two further eras are yet before him. He is to assist, by his all-powerful voice and example, in guiding the nation he, more than any, had formed, through its perilous crisis —the dangerous period when it was first left to itself—to the calm mainte- nance of civil liberty. It is the youth just freed from the restraint of harsh and iniquitous parentage, putting him- self under the yoke of a new and voluntary submission. This second pupilage, to self-government, resulted in the formation of the Constitution. Many ministered to that noble end, far more worthy of admiration even than the previous wars, but who more anx- i< >usly, more perseveringly, than Wash- ington ? His authority earned the heart and intelligence of the country with it, and most appropriately was he placed at the head of the Convention, in 1787, which gave a government to the scattered States and made America a nation. Once more he was called to listen to the highest demands of his country in his unanimous election to the Presi- dency. With what emotions, with what humble resignation to the voice of duty, with how little fluttering of' vain glory let the modest entry, in his Diary, of the 16th April, 1789, cited by Washington Irving, tell: "About ten o'clock," he writes, " I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life and to domestic felicity; and with a mind op- pressed with more anxious and pain- ful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York with the best disposition to render sen-ice to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations." He must have felt, gravely as he bore his responsibilities, something of exulting emotion as he was borne along to the seat of govern- ment at New York by the hearty plaudits of his countrymen. Yet we never hear, in a single instance, then or afterwards, of his exhibiting any feeling, or manifesting any conduct inconsistent with the simplest decorum of a gentleman. He was eminently friendly and social, but calm, dignified, and reserved, superadding doubtless something, as was fitting, to his natural gravity, in thought of the nation which he represented, but far removed from mock greatness. We have the most authentic means of appreciating Washington at this time, in his private Diary, which has been printed, from the first day of October, 1780, to the 10th day of March, 1790. He had been five months seated in the Presidency, his inaugura- tion having taken place on the 30th April. During a portion of this time he had been prostrated by illness, and death seemed at hand. We may pause to note his reply to his physician, Dr. Bard, who could not but express his fears of his recovery: "Whether to- night or twenty years hence makes no difference; I know that I am in the hands of a good Providence;" the veiy breathing of pious resignation. If aught were needed, news of his mo- ther's death, at Fredericksburg, came to temper the sober joy of his convales- cence. The care of setting the machin- GEORGE WASHINGTON. 83 ery of the new government in motion succeeded, when Congress adjourned, and the Diary introduces us to the New England tour, extending into New Hampshire, to which he devoted this interval of leisure. His roadside observations on this journey show his knowledge of agriculture, of which he was always a fond observer, with many simple traits of character by the way, and one famed historic passage in his account of the reception at Boston, where Governor Hancock, slow in appreciating national etiquette, seemed to hesitate whether more was due to himself or to his Presidential guest. We may learn, too, from the Diary, his conscientious scrutiny, in private, of the processes leading to his public acts, and may venture within his sacred hours of retirement and open those doors which were always closed to the world. On Sundays, he attends church in the morning, while at New York, at St. Pauls, and occupies the afternoons with his private correspondence. On Tuesday his house is open to all comers. There are many anecdotes of his residence here and at Philadelphia, of his mode of living during his two terms of the Presidency. He was an early riser, a habit with him through life, and apportioned his day with the strictest accuracy. Economy he always practised on principle, " for the privi- lege of being independent;" and the story is told of his rebuking his stew- ard for bringing on his table an expen- sive fish before it was in season. His table, however, was well served, and the affairs of his kitchen, like the rest of his establishment, were conducted with exemplary system. The name of his cook, Hercules," Uncle Harkless," is commemorated in the " Recollections " of his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, who also tells us of the decorum preserved in the stables by the veteran, Bishop, who had been the body servant of General Braddock. The test of his " muslin horses " was, that they should not soil a handker- chief of that fabric. Washington was a true Virginian in his fondness for horses. His cream-colored coach, with six shining bays, was long an object of admiration to the people of Philadel- phia. These, and the like anecdotes, are subordinate to the greatness of Washington's public life, but they bring before us the man.1 In 1791, Washington made a Presi- dential tour through the Southern States, similar to his tour to the East, which has also been made public in his printed Diary. He travelled in his carriage along the seaboard through Virginia and the Carolinas to Georgia, when he had the opportunity of tra- versing many scenes of the war, which he had watched with so much anxiety, and which had been hitherto known to him only by report. 1 Ample illustrations of this character are before the public in Mr. Custis' Recollections, with Mr. Lossing's notes; the latter's " Mount Vernon and its Associates ;" the Northern and Southern Tours of Washington, in hia two Diaries, published by Mr. Richardson, at New York, and the late Mr. Richard Rush's review of the Correspon- dence of Washington with his private secretary, Lear. Irving's Life abounds with fine personal traits of charac- ter; Mrs. Kirkland has added much in her excellent 44 Memoirs " from a careful study of the original MSS. in the Department of State ; Paulding's " Life " has some- thing that is not elsewhere, and every student of Wash- ington must acknowledge with pleasure bis obligation in little things, as in great, to Mr. Jared Sparks. 84 GEORGE WASHINGTON. Meanwhile, parties were gradually forming in the government—the conser- vative and the progressive, such as will always arise in huma,n institutions— represented in the administration by the rival statesmen, Hamilton and Jef- ferson ; but Washington honestly recog- nized no guide but the welfare of his country, and the rising waves of faction beat harmlessly beneath his Presi- dential chair. One test question, how- ever, rose in those days into gigantic proportions. The example of America was followed by France with enthusi- asm in the recovery of her liberties, and the hearts of noble-spirited men throughout the world responded to her efforts for freedom. Washington could not but extend his cordial sympathy, when Lafayette sent to him the thril- ling intelligence, and forwarded to his keeping, as a souvenir of rising liberty, the key of the Bastile; yet even then he breathes a prayer for the safety of his friend in "the tremendous tem- pests11 which had " assailed the political ship." In the darker days of the Re- public, stained with blood, which suc- ceeded, he watched with trembling the staggering of the ship. It was in Washington's second administration, to which he had been chosen with no dissentient voice, that French affairs really became a home question. The minister Genet then came to America and prosecuted his insulting attempts to enlist the sympathies of America in the war of his country with England and violate the professed neutrality of the government. A considerable por- tion of the people were so forgetful of themselves and their country as to favor his schemes; but no such sophis- try or delusion could reach the mind of Washington. He stood firm, and the whole country learnt in time to acquiesce in the wisdom of his decision ■ but many a pang was inflicted first on the heart of the President, who was keenly sensitive to popular ingratitude. The contest culminated in the struggle DO over Jay's British Treaty in Congress, and Washington fairly gained a tri- umph in the vote of approval. There were other public events of importance in his two administrations. The West- ern Indian War, and the Pennsylvania Whisky Insurrection, both deeply engaged his attention. His emotion on first hearing the news of St. Clair's defeat, exhibited in the presence of hia private secretary, Tobias Lear, was one of those bursts of passion, brief and rare, in his life, but fearful in their strength. His instructions to that officer, on parting, had been most care- ful. He was about to engage in a war- fare which Washington had learnt to know so well, in the experiences of his early life, and his injunctions were given with proportionate earnestness. " Beware," said he at parting, " of a surprise;" and St. Clair departed with the startling admonition. When Wash- ington heard of the disaster to his troops, the scene of desolation, with all its consequences, came vividly to hia mind with the lurking strength of his own old impressions. " Oh, God ! oh, God !" he exclaimed, " he's worse than a murderer ! How can he answer it to his country! The blood of the slain is upon him—the curse of widows and orphans—the curse of heaven !" This GEORGE WASHINGTON. 85 fervid outbreak was followed, - almost j instantly, by the rebound, which was > truly characteristic of Washington : " I will hear him without prejudice; he shall have justice." Thus, in the very tempest and whirlwind of his rage, in the words of the great dramatist, there was " a temperance to beget a smooth- ness." Washington was always true to the cardinal principle of justice. In like manner with the Pennsylvania insurgents, he was zealous in the main- tenance of authority, but disposed to mercy at the first signs of submis- sion. As the close of his second adminis- tration approached, he turned his thoughts eagerly to Mount Vernon for a few short years of repose; and well had he earned them by his long series of services to his country. He would have been welcomed for a third term, but office had no temptation to divert him from his settled resolution. Yet he parted fondly with the nation, and like a parent, desired to leave some legacy of counsel to his country. Ac- cordingly, he published in September, 1796, in the "Daily Advertiser," in Philadelphia, the paper known as his Farewell Address to the People of the United States. It had long engaged his attention; he had planned it him- self, and, careful of what he felt might be a landmark for ages, had consulted Jay, Madison and Hamilton in its com- position. The spirit and sentiment, the political wisdom and patriotic fer- vor were every whit his own. Open- ing with a few personal remarks in reference to his Presidency, he proceeds enlarging his view to new generations in the future. His first thought is for the preservation of national unity— that the Union should receive " a cor- dial, habitual and immovable attach- ment." The force of language cannot be exceeded with which he urges the importance of this theme by eveiy appeal of sensibility and interest. The' Constitution is then commended, as the guardian of the whole, to the national affection and respect, with a warning intimation of the dangers of party- spirit carried to excess. Equally upon governors and governed does he im- press his views. At home he calls for the diffusion of knowledge, a respect for public credit, avoiding needless debt; and for our intercourse with other nations, strict impartiality. Let us have, says he, " as little political connection with them as possible." This and Union are the main themes of the discourse, which closes with the anticipation of " that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partak- ing, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors and dangers." Thus, once again, Mount Vernon re- ceived her son, destined never long to repose unsolicited by his countiy. France, pursuing her downward course, adopted an aggressive policy towards the nation, which the most conciliating deference could no longer support. A state of quasi war existed, and actual war was imminent. The President looked to Washington to organize the 86 GEORGE WASHINGTON. army and take the command, should it be brought into action, and he accord ingly busied himself in the necessary preparations. It was best, he thought, to be prepared for the worst while looking for the best. Xew negotiations were then opened, but he did not live to witness their pacific results. He was at his home at Mount Vernon, intent on public affairs, and making his rounds in his usual farm occupations, with a vigor and hardihood which had abated little for his years, when, on the 12th December, he suffered some con- siderable exposure from a storm of snow and rain which came on while he was out, and in which he continued his ride. It proved, the next day, that he had taken cold, but he made light of it, and passed his usual evening cheerfully with the family circle. He became worse during the night ■with inflamma- tion of the throat. He was seriously ill. Having sent for his old army sur- geon, Dr. Craik, he was bled by his overseer, and again on the arrival of the physician. All was of no avail, and he calmly prepared to die. "I am not afraid," said he, " to go," while with ever thoughtful courtesy he thanked his friends and attendants for their little attentions. Thus the day wore away, till ten in the night, when his end was fast approaching. He noticed the failing moments, his last act being to place his hand upon his pulse, and calmly expired. It was the fourteenth of December, 1799. His remains were interred in the grave on the bank at Mount Vernon, in front of his residence, and there, in no long time, according to her prediction at the moment of his death, his wife, Martha, whose miniature he always wore on his breast, was laid beside him. She died within three years of her husband, at Mount Vernon, the 22d of May, 1802. We need not follow a mourning pub- lic in their sorrow and lamentations over the grave of Washington, or trace the growing admiration which attends his name throughout the world wher- ever it has been heard. His merits and virtues are now proudly spoken of and dearly reverenced in the land of his ancestors, against which he led the armies of his countrymen. Every day it is felt that he belongs more and more to the world. He enjoys that apotheosis of fame awarded to the great spirits of the earth, who have been chosen by Providence to grand national duties; but more than most of them, his memory is the reward of a life of piety and purity, of simple faith and justice, of unrelaxing duty; great in its acts, greater in the heart, inspiring virtues which dictated them. JOSEPH Nations, like families, have their sor- rows and regrets at the tomb. Their sons, too, fall in youth, in the first blush of promise, in the early noble efforts of performance. As the sun is rising, and men watch its glowing dawn, anticipat- ing the glory of its mid-day career, and the warm effulgence of its parting hon- ors—it is suddenly stricken from the heavens. Such youthful heroes there have been, " the rose and expectancy of the fair state," cut off in their prime, to be wept by poets and mourned by patriots, from the young Marcellus to the gentle Sir Philip Sidney. The family records of history tell of their honor, their courage, their martyr spirit; how their benevolence went hand in hand with valor; how fondly the old looked upon them, how dear they were to their equals. Their story is indeed short; but men read in it all they have lost in the possibilities of life had the tale been longer. We study men's lives backward, to discover the germs of excellence in their youth; may we not also * prophesy of what would have been had opportunity been given ? No augury of excellence could well be based on a surer foundation than the hope which was dashed to the ground with the fall of Warren. The immediate family of this proto- WARREN, martyr of the Revolution is traced to Peter Warren, a mariner, who pur- chased lands in Boston, in 1659. His son, Joseph, settled at Roxbury, where he was succeeded by a son of the same name, eminent as an agriculturist, who was the father of Dr. Warren, of the Revolution. This son, Joseph, the third of the name, the subject of this sketch, was born at Roxbury, June 11, 1741. He was fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death, and as he graduated at Harvard, in 1759, he must then, if he entered the lowest class, have just commenced his studies at that institution. He had been previously instructed in the excellent public school at Roxbury; for the fathers of New England provided well, not only for honored Harvard, but for elementary education through the country. On leaving college, with the reputa- tion of a youth of spirit and adventure, Warren engaged at once in the study of medicine, and on the completion of his course, began the practice of his profession in Boston. His skill is spoken of, in the treatment of the small- pox, and it is certain that he soon ob- tained a considerable professional repu- tation. He manied, in 1764, Miss Elizabeth Hooton, daughter of a phy- sician of Boston, who bore him several 88 JOSEPH WARREN. children, and died before him at the age of twenty-six, in 1773. Professional life, commonly a seda- tive for all active interference with the affairs of the world beyond its own sphere, does not appear to have been at all in the way of Warren's indepen- dence of character. When a British ministry resolved to interfere with the administration of the colonies, by impos- ing new and unheard-of taxes on the com- munity, no one sooner took up the note of warning, or became more resolute in opposition. A letter written by him, in 1766, to his friend, Mr. Edmund Dana, a graduate of his year in college, who was now in England, expresses, in calm, measured terms, thc^ sentiments of intelligent, edu- cated Americans of that period. He writes of the excitement which has ex- tended through the whole continent, and of the danger of oppressing a peo- ple with whom "freedom and equality is the state of nature." He has, evi- dently, looked clearly into the prin- ciples of the controversy. He sees around him a nation which has fairly, in the exile of its fathers, and the hard- ships of the sons, purchased its birth- right of liberty, civil and religious— liberties which it is not at all disposed to relinquish, for it knows well the cost at which they were purchased. Warren stood alongside of Samuel Adams and the most ardent of the pa- triots. His newspaper attack upon Governor Bernard in 1768, in the com- munications signed "A True Patriot," in the " Boston Gazette," is proof alike of his wit and the temper of the times. We also hear about this time of War- ren's participation in the famous North End Club, or Caucus, as it got to be called, which exercised so powerful an influence in the revolutionary move- ments in Bcston. Eliot tells us that he drew up the regulations on the read- justment and enlargement of the Club in 1772, and that nothing of any im- portance was ever carried on without consulting him. He was in fact, by his sagacity and circumspection in business of this confidential nat ure, one of " the secret springs that moved the greu,t wheels" of the inconsiderate, noisy politicians without who hardly felt the guidance. It was in this year that Warren was called on to deliver the second anni- versary discourse commemorative of the fall of the citizens by the fire of the foreign troops, known as the Boston Massacre. This was an undertaking, in presence of the Colonial Court and Council, and the veiy soldiery who were the subjects of comment, which well might be considered the very forlorn hope of political oratory. The duty was twice performed by Warren— in 1772, and again shortly before his fall in 1775. His discourse on the first occasion was argumentative, firm and patriotic. Its composition is certainly highly creditable to his taste and judg- ment. The second, also delivered at the Old South Church, was in the midst of a scene which would make a most effective subject for a painter. The very pulpit stairs and pulpit were occupied by soldiers of the garrison It was doubtful whether he would be permitted to proceed. While he was speaking, a Captain of the Royal JOSEPH WARREN. 89 Welch Fusileers, seated on the stairs, held up to the orator's view several bullets in the palm of his hand, and attempted to banish the audience by the cry of fire. Warren gracefully ex- tinguished the menace, by dropping his handkerchief over the minatory hand.1 A ludicrous account of the day, in the usual travesty of the Royalist news- paper pieces of intelligence, appeared in " Rivington's Gazette," in New York, in which the handkerchief flourishes. Dr. Warren was now fairly enlisted in the public Revolutionary service. In 1772 he was one of the original members of the Committee of Corres- pondence formed at Boston, stimulating the zeal and keeping up prompt com- munication among the towns of Mas- sachusetts. When a convention was held at Suffolk, to check, if possible, the threatened military occupation of Boston Neck, he prepared the address to Governor Gage on the subject. On the dissolution of the General Court by the latter in September, 1774, that body—the popular legislative assembly of Massachusetts—resolved itself into a Provincial Congress, and speedily or- ganized the military service of the State. Militia men were enrolled, and an. Executive Committee of the Con- gress, of thirteen of its members, con- stituted the Committee of Public Safety. Warren was elected a delegate from Boston to the Congress; was chosen its President in the absence of Hancock, at Philadelphia, and put at the head of the Committee of Safety. 1 A. H. Everett's Life of Warren. Sparks' American Biography, 1st Series, X. p. 112. 12 His services in this capacity were most active and efficient. It was by his vigilance that the country was warned, on the eve of the Battle of Lexington, of the advance of the British troops. He was in Boston at the moment, was advised of the movement, dis- patched William Dawes and Paul Revere to sound the alarm and acquaint Samuel Adams and Hancock, who were at Lexington, of their danger, •and arranged the signal-light on the steeple of the North Church. When he left Boston that night, he said to a per- son of whom he was taking leave, "Keep up a brave heart. They have begun it—that either party could do; and we'll end it—that only one can do."1 On the return of the British troops, in their disastrous flight, War- ren was at Cambridge with the Com- mittee of Safety. Leaving this, body with General Heath, he advanced to take part in the running fight, when a curl on the side of his head was carried off by a bullet. The fatal day of Bunker's Hill was now rapidly- approaching. On the twenty-seventh of May, Warren served as a volunteer under Putnam in the skirmishing affair of driving off the cattle from Noddle's Island, in Boston harbor, a small matter in the history of a great campaign, but of some value, for its proof of the bravery of the native troops at the time. On the sixth of June, Warren had the satisfac- tion of superintending an exchange of prisoners, a scene of joy and congratu- lation which restored a number of suf- 1 Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 11. 90 JOSEPH WARREN. fering captives to their homes. On the fourteenth of June, he was appointed by the Provincial Congress a Major- General. It had now become evident that the British officers meditated some aggres- sive movements upon the country out- side of Boston, and the Committee of Safety and Council of War were in consultation to defeat their projects. It was thought advisable to occupy Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights* on opposite eminences over against the town, for the purpose of annoyance and defence, but, by the counsel of Warren, who showed great prudence in the matter, the movement was delayed till the army should be better provided. Its arms and ammunition were ludicrously weak to contend with the thoroughly armed government force of picked regulars. The spirit of the American farmers was indeed high to encounter such odds. In the loose state of the service, and the uncertain command of the approaching engage- ment, each man seems a volunteer on a forlorn hope. Necessity, indeed, needed no law; but these patriots made no pause to question the neces- sity. The British must be kept, if possible, in Boston. That was all they knew of the matter. It was under- stood that on the eighteenth of the month, Gage would take possession of Charlestown, the peninsula to the north of Boston, on which stood Bunker's and Breed's Hill. The latter, nearest to the town, was the scene of the great conflict, though its more inland neigh- bor has carried off the honor of the name. On the fifteenth, the Committee of Safet)' resolved to establish a posi- tion on Bunker Hill. William Pres- cott, the grandfather of the historian, was placed in command of a thousand men, and the next night, that of the sixteenth, marched, as he conceived his instructions, to Breed's Hill. A re- doubt was marked out, and an in- trenchment raised by the extraordinary energy of the band, between midnight and dawn, when the work was first discovered by the British. How well that earthwork and its adjoining fence, matted with hay, were defended through the sultry noon by the body of unrefreshed, night-worn farmers, with what death to the invaders, is matter of history. As the news spread of the actual engagement, as the fires of Copp's Hill and the vessels of war in the harbor sped against the devoted work, as the smoke of burning Charles- town darkened the bright day, one and another came to the aid of the gallant Prescott, who awaited the attack in his redoubt. Stark brought his levies to the defence of the hill; Pomeroy and Warren came alone. The last arrived in the afternoon, shortly before the first assault of Howe and his forces. He had been with the Provincial Congress, of which he was president, the day before, had passed the night in Watertown, and reached Cambridge indisposed in the morning. The news of the British attack shook off his headache; he con- sulted with the Committee of Safety, and hurried to that "gory bed" of honor, the redoubt on Breed's Hill. He was met by Putnam on the field, who requested his oiderj. He had JOSEPH WARREN. 91 none to give, only to ask, "Where he could be most useful." Putnam pointed to the redoubt, with an inti- mation that he would be covered. "I come not," was his reply, "for a place of safety, but where the onset will be most furious." Putnam still pointed to the redoubt, as the main point of attack. Here Prescott ten- dered him the command: his answer again was in the same spirit. " I came as a volunteer, to learn from a soldier of experience." He encountered the full perils of that gallant defence, marked by its fearful anxiety in the failure of the scanty ammunition. He was the last, we are told, in the trenches, and at the very outset of the retreat fell, mortally struck by a ball in the forehead. So ended this gallant life, on the height at Breed's Hill, on that memorable June 17, 1775. The nation had many sighs for War- ren. The men of his time bore witness to his worth and valor in the manliest, sincerest language. By the side of the public Eulogies, we are most touched with the few full, truthful words of Abigail Adams, writing to her husband, at the Congress at Phila- delphia, from the midst of these peril- ous scenes, of which she was almost an eye-witness. " I would not have you be distressed about me," she says, tenderly. "Danger, they say, makes people valiant. Hitherto I have been distressed, but not dismayed. I have felt for my country and her sons. I have bled with them and for them Not all the havoc and devastation they have made, has wounded me like the death of Warren. We want him in the Senate; we want him in his profes- sion ; we want him in the field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior."* "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mon," the line of that noble ode of Horace, urging the youth of Rome to the fierce Parthian war—it was bravely pro- nounced by Warren the night before the battle to a friend who represented to him the dangers of the coming encounter—let it be a motto for his tomb, and live with his memory to inspire all true-hearted Americans, when the country shall again need such offerings. 'Letters of Mrs. Adams, I. 49. Braintree. Jnly 5, HI5, JOHN HANCOCK. John Hancock, the prosperous, bus- tling Boston merchant, and busy patriot of the Revolution, had good Puritan blood in his veins. His grandfather, the Rev. John Hancock, a man of un- usual ability and vigor, the octogena- rian preacher of Lexington, was eminent for his usefulness. His son, also named John, the parent of John Hancock, the subject of this sketch, died in middle age, minister of Braintree. John Hancock was born at the Brain- tree parsonage, January 23,1737. The death of his father, when he was but seven years of age, broke up the family household, and the child was taken to Lexington to his grandfather, then at the venerable age of seventy-three. He had also a most serviceable friend in his uncle, Thomas Hancock, a wealthy Boston merchant, and a man of liberal ideas, gratefully held in remembrance at Harvard, for his endowment of an ori- ental professorship. This relative pro- vided for his education at the Boston Grammar School, and at Harvard, where he graduated in 1754. He was then received in his uncle's counting- house. " And what a school was this ! Four large ships constantly plying between Boston and London, and other business in proportion. He became an example to all the young men of the 92 town. Wholly devoted to business, he was as regular and punctual at his store as the sun in his course."1 Upon the sudden death of his uncle by apoplexy, in 1764, Hancock inherited the business, and a large share of the property The position of a successful, enterprising merchant, in those days, was one of considerable importance, even alongside of the lawyers and mem- bers of the government, who consti- tuted the elite of provincial society. Hancock, too, had the prestige of wealth and the family piety—for there were no persons of more consequence in old New England than the clergy. He started upon life, then, in his twenty- seventh year, when he came into pos- session of his uncle's fortune, with emi- nent advantages. He had been put in the way of a good education, as we have seen, had profited by ten years of prosperous trade, and had enjoyed some opportunities of foreign travel in connection with the business. Mr. Loring, always curious in his researches into the history of old Bostonians, and never more successful than in his in- vestigations into the life of Hancock, tells us of his visiting London with Pownal, at the expiration of his govern- 1 John Adams to William Tudor, Works, X. 259. JOHN HANCOCK. 93 ment of the Colony in 1760, and of his witnessing the funeral of George II., and the crowning of his successor. Incidents like these, though of little import in the lives of many persons, may minister to the consequence of one already bent upon rising in the world. Hancock was looked to to support his uncle's reputation; nor was the ex- pectation disappointed. He was easy and engaging in his manners, liberal in the employment of his wealth, turning his influence to good account; apt and ready to serve the public. He became a Selectman of the town, and, in 1766, was elected, with Cushing and Samuel Adams, to the General Court, where, says Eliot, " he blazed a Whig of the first magnitude." There is a story told of the two Adamses walking, the day of his election to the Legislature, on the Boston Common, opposite the famous Hancock mansion, when the " oily" Samuel remarked to his rela- tive, that the town had done a wise thing to-day; "they had made that young man's fortune their own." The prophecy, adds the narrator, John Adams, " was literally fulfilled." Hancock was now a vigorous leader of the opposition, throwing his vast wealth and influence on the popular side. He was an active member, we are told, x>f that famous North End Club, or assembly of mechanics, ship- wrights and calkers—which is said to have given the political term " caucus " to the language—of . which Samuel Adams was a prominent member. It was at this club of fast-developing democratic politicians that Hancock exclaimed, in the discussion of the best method of expelling the British troops from the city: " Burn Boston, and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it!"* A minute history of the times would show his activity throughout these preliminary scenes of the Revolution, in opposition to the impost on tea, and in other acts of popular resistance. In 1772, at a moment of comparative quiet, we find him appointed by Hutchinson captain of the company of cadets, with the rank of colonel. Hancock had the honor of escorting the new governor, Gage, with great pomp, to the council chamber; but his Excellency soon feU out with his patriotic commander, and the corps was disbanded. At the fourth anni- versary of the Boston Massacre, in 1774, Hancock appeared, with eminent success, as the orator of the day. He was elected to the first Provincial Congress, at Concord, of 1774, and chosen its President. HI health—he was now troubled with those maladies which afflicted him through life—pre- vented his being sent to the Conti- nental Congress of this year at Phila- delphia, but in the following season he was joined to the Massachusetts' dele- gation. The meeting of this body was imme- diately preceded by the battle of Lexington. It was supposed in Bos- ton, by the friends of liberty, that the movement of troops had reference specially to the capture of Hancock and Samuel Adams. They came, indeed, very nigh being taken in that 1 Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 11. 91 JOHN HANCOCK. affair. At the time of the expedition, they were lodged in the house of the Rev. Jonas Clark, the minister of Lex- ington, where, being already thought in danger, they had been protected by a guaid. Word was brought to them at midnight, by Paul Revere, a messen- ger sent by Dr. Warren, that the British troops were on their way. The militia were immediately assem- bled, and means taken for defence on the spot. The hazard of remaining to be captured was, however, thought too great to the cause of freedom, to be encountered by its leaders, Hancock and Adams. By the advice of friends, they were persuaded to retire a few miles distant, to the inner precinct of Woburn, where they found refuge in the house of the widow of a clergy- man. They were accompanied in their flight by a young lady of Boston, Miss Dorothy Quincy, daughter of Edward Quincy, to whom Hancock was then engaged, and whom he married a few months afterwards. Governor Gage presently issues his proclamation, offering pardon to all the rebels, save and except Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the offences of those arch traitors being considered " of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration, than that of condign punishment." This formid- able denunciation, " a mark of distinc- tion," as Eliot observes, which " many men in these States would have given all their wealth, and run any risk of consequences" to obtain, followed Han- cock as a capital introduction to the old Congress at Carpenter's Hall, where, on the resignation of Peyton Randolph, he was chosen its Presi- dent. The choice of a commander-in-chief soon came on, when Hancock is said to have exhibited some reluctance to the appointment of Washington, so hand- somely supported by his colleagues, the Adamses. Indeed, John Adams hints that Hancock had himself an inclina- tion for the post. He had acquired some note as a militia officer, and his personal sacrifices, as the richest man in Boston, had been, as Adams remarks, incom- parably greater than those of Colonel Washington. Adams tells us that when the question was solved by his nomination, the countenance of Hancock experienced " a sudden and striking change," and that his "phy- siognomy was not softened " when the motion was seconded by Samuel Adams. As President of Congress, the broad signature of Hancock is conspicuously displayed on the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The service, for which he was well qualified, of course, gave him distinguished honor at home and abroad. The numerous prints of him published in Europe have generally his title of office attached to them. In 1778, Hancock was appointed by the General Court of Massachusetts, Major-General of the State militia, and in that capacity commanded the second line in the expedition of General Sul- livan, in the operation of the year for the recovery of Newport. Though the attempt failed for want of the expected cooperation of the French fleet, Hancock was not the less eager in his attentions to Admiral D'Estaing and his officers, when they shortly JOHN HANCOCK. 95 after arrived, tempest-tost, in Boston The entertainments, indeed, of Han- cock became proverbial. Though him self worn by the gout, the disease was no obstacle to his encouragement of good living. His habits of expense were also carried out in other things, particularly in his dress. In a day of elegance among gentlemen, he par- ticularly affected splendor. His equip- age, especially on public occasions, was full of state; he rode with six fine horses and servants in livery. His entertainments, election and other, were in proportion; costly and prodigal. He was liberal in his gifts; even munificent to the building and decora- tions of the Brattle street church. In the autumn of 1779, Hancock, impelled by ill health, resigned his seat in Congress, when he was suc- ceeded in the Presidency by Henry Lam'ens, of South Carolina. The same year also saw him sitting a member of the Massachusetts Convention, at Cam- bridge, for the formation of a State Constitution. On the adoption of that instrument, Hancock was chosen Gover- nor, and was annually thereafter elected to the office, with the exception of the term of Governor Bowdoin, in 1786, during the remainder of his life. One of the most important events of Hancock's public career, was his Presi- dency of the Massachusetts State Con- vention, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, which met in Boston in January, 1788. The resolution of this body was watched with much anxiety, for there were many popular elements at work in Massachusetts against the adoption. The Anti-Federal party com- prehending the mass of the people, as distinguished from the wealthy and educated classes, the democracy of the State, was opposed to it. There were also elements of dissent growing out of the disaffection of the recent Shay's rebellion and the separation of the State of Maine then in progress. Han- cock and Samuel Adams, both of ex- traordinary popularity, were looked to in the Convention as the head of the formidable opposition in that body. Five States only as yet had accepted the Constitution—Delaware, Pennsyl- vania, New Jersey, Georgia and Con- nects ut. The votes of New York, Maryland and Virginia, it was thought, would be influenced by the decision of Massachusetts. Madison wrote to Washington from New York, fnl! of doubt and alarm. " A rejection of the new form by that State," replied Washington, " would invigorate the opposition, not only in New York, but in all those which are to follow; at the same time, it would afford materials for the minority, in such as have actually agreed to it, to blow the trumpet of discord more loudly." Three weeks elapsed of the session of the Convention, during which the country was in suspense, before Han- cock, who was suffering from the gout, made his appearance in that body. He then descended as the deus ex macliina to solve the knotty problem, and bring order out of confusion. He came armed with a set of "Conciliatory Resolu- tions," as they were called, embracing the provisions, as the declaration "that all powers not expressly delegated to Congress, are reserved to the several 96 JOHN HANCOCK. States," and the enunciation of the right of trial by jury, afterwards adopted among the Amendments to the Constitution. Hancock introduced the resolutions in a flowing speech; they were referred to a Committee, and saved the Constitution, which was now finally passed by a vote of one hundred and eighty-seven to one hun- dred and sixty-eight—Hancock and Adams voting in the affirmative. This happy turn in the Convention gave Hancock great popularity. In the words of a ballad of the time, in thir- teen verses, the number of the States, to the tune of Yankee Doodle: 14 Then 'Squire Hancock, like a man Who dearly loves the nation, By a concil'atory plan, Prevented much vexation. 14 He made a woundy Fed'ral speech, With sense and elocution ; And then the 'Vention did heseech T' adopt the Constitution. 44 The question being outright put, (Each voter independent,) The Fed'ralists agreed t' adopt, And then propose amendment. '* The other party, seeing then The people were against 'em, Agreed, like honest, faithful men, To mix in peace amongst 'em. Yankee doodle, keep it up 1 Yankee doodle, dandy 1 Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy." To be sure there were some shrug- gings and winkings of the Essex Junto, who were in the secret of this sudden conversion of Hancock to Federalism, but it was understood that he should have the credit of the measure It would appear, from the recent review of the matter by Mr. Theophilus Par- sons, to have been the work of the Federalists among themselves. The original draft of the resolutions was found with Hancock's papers, in the handwriting of Chief Justice Parsons.1 Hancock, who appears, with some rubs, to have retained his popularity to the last, died in office as Governor of Massachusetts, October 8, 1793, in his fifty-seventh year. Let John Adams sum up the career of the thriving, at- tentive merchant, the devoted patriot and prosperous politician, whose popu- larity outlived so many hazards of party: " Mr. Hancock had a delicate constitution. He was very infirm; a great part of his life was passed in acute pain. He inherited from his father, though one of the most amiable and beloved of men, a certain sensibil- ity, a keenness of feeling, or, in more familiar language, a peevishness of tem- per, that sometimes disgusted and af- flicted his friends. Yet it was astonish- ing with what patience, perseverance, and punctuality, he attended to busi- ness to the last. Nor were his talents or attainments inconsiderable. They were far "superior to many who have been much more celebrated. He had a great deal of political sagacity and penetration into men. He was by no means a contemptible scholar or orator. Compared with Washington, Lincoln, or Knox, he was learned."a 1 See an interesting account of this whole affair in the Memoir of Chief Justice Parsons, by his son, Theophilus Parsons, p. 56-76. * Letter to William Tudor, Adams' Works, X. 261. :/>*uiS /- WILLIAM MOULTRIE. Tms distinguished major-general of the Revolution was one of the earliest, as well as ablest supporters of the popu- lar cause, Born, according to some ac- counts, in England, about the year 1730, he was brought to South Caro- lina at an early age, and is first heard of on the page of history in that period of the Seven Years' War, when the co- lony became entangled in that vexatious and formidable contest with the Chero- kees, destined to develop so much of the military talent of her sons. Moultrie, then in early manhood, appeared in arms, especially distinguishing himself in the adventurous closing campaign marked by the bloody field of Etchoee, where Marion, a lieutenant under his command, gained his first brilliant laurels, at the head of a forlorn hope, in charging the well chosen, strongly defended Indian position. "General Marion and myself," says Moultrie, in his " Memoirs of the Revolution in the South," when he has occasion to speak of the subsequent partisan service of that military chieftain, "entered the field of Mars together in an expedition against the Cherokee Indians, under the command of Colonel James Grant, in 1761; when I had the honor to com- mand a light infantry company, in a provincial regiment." Out of that old 13 French war, with its border Indian con- flicts, inuring the body to hardships, and practising wit and intellect in cun- ning military devices, while it imparted confidence, grew the soldiers who were to cope with the trained warriors of the old world. " The best part of courage," says Emerson, somewhere, "is having done the thing before." The truth of the aphorism is abundantly shown in the war of the Revolution, when the old military men brought to the service the skill and resolution of their former valor. So Moultrie, with Laurens, Marion, and others, was ready to unsheathe his sword at the first note of warn- ing from Massachusetts. In that me- morable Provincial Congress of South Carolina, which met, at Charleston, in January, 1775, assembling so much of the worth of the province, that body, whose roll includes so many honorable names—Rutledge, Pinckney, Laurens, Huger, Legare, Gadsden, Middleton, Marion, Lowndes, and a host of others— Colonel William Moultrie was present as a delegate from the parish of St. Helena. In the war measures which ensued, he was chosen colonel of the second regiment of infantry, and em- ployed himself diligently in the collec- tion of ammunition and the erection of 97 98 WILLIAM MOULTRIE. batteries at advantageous points, for the protection of Charleston. Posses- sion was taken of Fort Johnson, on James1 Island, and this advantageous position commanding the harbor on the south, was supported by a neighboring camp and battery. A flag being need- ed for purposes of signals, Moultrie devised one, "the first American flag displayed in South Carolina." The color was blue, adopted from the cloth- ing of the State troops, with a crescent in the dexter corner, taken from a badge worn in their caps by two regi- ments who garrisoned the fort. After this position was secured, the mainte- nance of Sullivan's Island, in front of the town, commanding the seaward approaches to the harbor, was to be looked after. This was partly sepa- rated from the mainland by a cove which it was necessary to keep open from the enemy, and for this purpose a battery was erected by Moultrie at Haddrell's Point, an advantageous posi- tion on the shore commanding the bay. Moultrie himself directed the military party, including " a great many gentle- man volunteers," who, on " a dark and very cold" December night, executed this work in the face of two British vessels in the port. The latter then drew off, but the arrival of others off the bar, kept the defenders in a whole- some state of agitation. All this while Moultrie had the chief military com- mand. In February, Colonel Gadsden, of the first regiment, arrived, and en- tered upon his duties, and on the second of March, Moultrie was ordered to take command of the fort in process of erec- tion on Sullivan's Island. It was being rapidly built by a force of mechanics and negro laborers, in view of a threat- ened naval expedition from New York. The material of which it was con- structed was admirably adapted for purposes of defence, consisting of logs of the palmetto, a wood of a peculiarly spongy character, capable of receiving a shot without a fracture. In April, General Armstrong arrived from the north, followed on the fourth of June by General Charles Lee, who was put in command, and from whom every- thing was expected. One of Lee's first employments, of course, was to visit the harbor defences, which, under the mili- tary officers of the committee of safety had assumed very respectable propor- tions. When he came to Sullivan's Island, where he found Moultrie with his fort well advanced, he, says the latter officer in his " Memoirs," " did not like the post at all, saying that there was no way to retreat, that the garrison would be sacrificed; nay, he called it a 'slaughter pen,' and wished to with- draw the garrison and give up the post, but President Rutledge insisted that it should not be given up." Nor was Moultrie at all anxious to abandon the place. Lee then declared the absolute necessity of a bridge to connect the island with the mainland at Haddrell's Point, a distance of more than a mile. There were not, however, boats enough for the purpose, and an experiment with empty hogsheads and planks failed. Lee in his orders harped upon the bridge, which Moultrie thought he could do very well without, "never imagining that the enemy could force WILLIAM MOULTRIE. 99 him to the necessity of a retreat." He accordingly, armed with the authority of Rutledge, held the position in pre- paration for the coming invasion.' The British forces, indeed, were already in the vicinity. A fleet of some forty or fifty vessels, ships of war and transports, under the command of Sir Peter Parker, bringing seven regiments, with Sir Henry Clinton at their head, arrived off the harbor on the fourth, and were now making preparations for the as- sault. Clinton being disadvantage- ously posted with his troops on the neighboring Long Island, the main attack was left to Sir Peter Parker, who advanced to the work with his formid- able fleet. He had with him his flag- ship, the Bristol, fifty guns, four ships of twenty-eight guns each, one of twenty, another of eighteen, with vari- ous subordinate vessels—a sufficient force it might have been thought, with- out over confidence, to cope with a log fort, manned by unpractised soldiers, unused to any weapon heavier than a rifle. Indeed, it was generally expected by the British, that a discharge or two of a broadside would destroy the fort, and the admiral, besides, had his men practised in entering embrasures—a service they were not called upon to perform. While such was the confi- dence of the foe, there were not want- ing those on shore who doubted of the result. If Moultrie had the least hesi- tation in his breast, he would have found a welcome for his timidity in the counsel of his superior officer, the gal- lant major-general. It may not be, however, that Lee was so much behind the occasion as Moultrie was in advance of it, and a good historian may, very likely, find more to applaud in the one than to condemn in the other. The position of the defenders, indeed, looked desperate enough. On the morning of June 28th, a few days before the Declaration of Inde- pendence by Congress, the enemy, hav- ing been reinforced by another fifty- gun ship, the Experiment, the actual attack commenced from the chief ves- sels of the squadr6n. Moultrie, who was at the east end of the island, visit- ing Thompson's encampment, saw the first signs of the movement, and hastened to his post. To meet the seemingly overwhelming force of the enemy, within easy range to the south, he had four hundred and thirty-five men, all told. The fortification had thirty-one guns, but the supply of powder, the ridiculous defect of the early battles of the war, was short. There were but twenty-eight rounds for twenty-six cannon. The action commenced with a dis- charge of shells, which produced little effect, some falling short, others being buried in the sand. The cannonading then began, the flag-ship and three of the heavier vessels pouring their broad- sides into the fort at a distance of about three hundred and fifty yards. The sailors were doubtless astonished at the inadequate result; the balls hitting the mark, indeed, but sinking, as they struck, harmlessly imbedded in the soft palmetto. On the other hand, the fire they received told with fearful empha- sis. Carefully husbanding his scanty ammunition, Moultrie, coolly smoking his pipe, directed his men, who were 100 WILLIAM MOULTRIE stripped to their work, to single out the flag-ship The Bristol, indeed, suffered wofully. So the day wore on. The sun went down, and the fiery conflict was not yet abated. At nine o'clock, the admiral withdrew his ships from the range, and the day's work was over. Charleston was delivered. In recognition of his defence on Sullivan's Island, Moultrie was made, by Congress, a brigadier general of the regular army. No medal was ordered by that body, but in the Palmetto seal of his own State—a device adopted after his defence—his victory has a lasting commemoration. In the military events in the State which succeeded his great battle, we find him. always at his post, ready to give a good account of him- self according to the occasion and his opportunity. It was a period of gather- ing misfortune, as the strength of the native defenders was wasted in unpro- fitable enterprises. One disaster fol- lowed after another. First came Lee's wasting midsummer march to Florida. succeeded, after an interval of compara- tive repose, by the repetition of the calamity under General Howe, and his still more ruinous defeat at Savannah. General Lincoln then took the field, and attempted unsuccessfully to ope- rate upon the borders of Georgia, plying his soldiers unprofitably in the upper country, while Moultrie was left, with inadequate resources, to defend the open lower road to Charleston. The skill and resources of the latter were taxed in the work to the uttermost. He made a gallant defence of Beaufort against the assault of Colonel Gardner, which delayed the invasion for a time, till the murderous Pi ovost, taking con- fidence from the defeat of General Ashe at Briar Creek, took up his march for the metropolis. Moultrie, in command at the lower military station at Purys- burg, conducted a Parthian retreat, checking the invaders at various points, but unable to cope with the reckless audacity of the superior force, scatter- ing itself, and burning and plundering as it proceeded. Of his thousand mili- tia men, he entered the city with about six hundred. Once within, he held the command, and inspiriting the people by his bravery, took every measure for the defence of the town, while Rut- ledge, at the head of the civil authority, gained time in negotiation, till news arrived of Lincoln's approach, when Provost took his departure, disap- pointed of his expected prize. In the retreat, a position was taken at John^ Island, at the Stono River, which Moul- trie made the object of a concerted attack. The post was gallantly as- sailed, and would have been taken had not the British received reinforce- ments, which turned the fortunes of the day, or had not the command of Moul- trie been delayed by insufficient means of transportation, which prevented his arrival in time for the conflict. Next came the siege of Savannah by the combined forces of the French under D'Estaing, and the Americans under Lincoln, another disastrous affair — Savannah being a fated region for the American arms. This took place in October, 1779. In the ensu- ing February, Sir Henry Clinton re- turned at the head of an invading force, and made good his landing on the WILLIAM MOULTRIE. 101 coast below Charleston. The fleet, this time, passed Fort Moultrie, with mode- rate loss, and the city was invested. Lincoln had the chief command, but to Moultrie, his second, doubtless, fell equal, if not superior care and anxiety, as he stimulated the efforts and wit- nessed the privations and sufferings of his devoted fellow-citizens. On one occasion he narrowly escaped death, as a shot entered his apartment and lodged in the bed from which he had just risen. When provisions were exhausted, and the lines were no longer tenable, and not till then, the capitulation took place. That the town should have held out so long— the siege lasted nearly three months— deserves to be considered a better proof of valor, on the part of the South Carolinians, than many a bril- liant victory gained under circum- stances of less endurance. Moultrie was now a prisoner on parole. In his correspondence, we find abundant proof of the consideration in which he was held in various consulta- tions and military arrangements grow- ing out of the surrender. One of these pages possesses a peculiar personal interest, that in which he replies to the proposition of Lord Charles Montague to quit the service, and leave with him for Jamaica, where, on the score of old friendship, he would put him in posses- sion of a regiment to which he had himself been appointed. Moultrie's answer was such as became the man and his position. A few months after, in June, 1781, he sailed for Philadelphia, where he passed his time on parole till February of the following year, when he was " regularly exchanged," so reads his certificate of discharge, " with a number of other Americans, by com- position, for Lieut.-General Burgoyne, of the British forces, and late a pri- soner of war to the United States of America." Thus liberated, he shortly after returned to South Carolina, where, taking his plantation by the way, he visited the camp of Marion and Greene, and bore an exulting part in the evacuation of Charleston. He found his estate plundered, but his negroes had been true to him, and they now received their honest master with a welcome dear to his heart. Nor did the State forget its brave defender. According to a habit, of which there have been many instances in American history, from the Presidency down ward, Moultrie was, in 1785, chosen Governor of South Carolina, and again in 1794. His later years were occu- pied with the preparation of his memoirs of the " American Revolution, so far as it related to the States of North and South Carolina and Georgia, compiled from the most authentic mate- rials, the author's personal knowledge of the various events, including an Epistolary Correspondence on Public Affairs with Civil and Military Officers, at that period;" a most useful work for the understanding of the inner history of the defence of the South, a reposi- tory of original documents, with brief and simple comments of the writer. It was published in New York, " for the author," in 1802. Three years later, September 27, 1805, Majoi-Gene- ral Moultrie died at Charleston, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. JONATHAN Jonathan Trumbull, the Governor of Connecticut during the Revolution, and friend of Washington, was one of a numerous family which has conferred honor upon the State in more than one department of exertion. His first American ancestor, John Trumbull, came from Cumberland County, Eng- land, to Rowley, Massachusetts, whence his son, bearing the same name, removed to Sufiield, Connecticut. The latter was the father of four sons, who were established in different parts of the State. The eldest, John, who became a clergyman in Watertown, was the father of the author of "M'Fingal." Joseph, the second, settled at Lebanon, where he pursued the career of a pros- perous farmer, and was the father of Jonathan, the subject of our sketch, who came into the world on the twelfth of October, 1710. We hear nothing of the youth till his entrance at Harvard, at the age of thirteen, when he appears modest, earnest, studious, fully prepared to avail himself of the advantages of the place. Beside the classics and mathematics with which he became familiar, he carried away with him when he graduated in 1727, some knowledge of Hebrew. More than all, he was distinguished by his piety. He was a member of a secret society, the 102 TRUMBULL. object of which was the inculcation of religious duty and brotherly affection among its fellows. So strongly was this zeal implanted in him, that he appeared evidently a youth marked out for the church; and, indeed, forthwith commenced his studies for the ministry with the Reverend Solomon Williams, the pastor of Lebanon. He even re- ceived his license, and began to preach in the church at Colchester, and would, without doubt, have continued to the end a zealous, simple-minded "parson of a town," had he not been called by the death of his elder brother to assist his father, who was a trader as well as farmer, in his business operations. The young divine thus became a merchant. The business carried on by Joseph Trumbull, and afterwards profitably ex- tended by his son, consisted of direct importations from the mother country in vessels chartered and laden by them- selves, with the productions of the country. His store was at Lebanon, but his operations were extended in various directions. In his partner- ship operations, after the death of his father, in 1755, he was interested in several branches in his own State, in negotiations with houses in Boston, Nantucket, Halifax, the West Indies; with Bristol, London, and Amsterdam. 23 JONATHAN TRUMBULL. 103 His exports were the products of the country, derived from its agriculture and fisheries, including skins and furs collected by Indians in his employ; shipments of horses and lumber to the West Indies, and oil brought by the bold and hardy American whalers. The result of this commercial activ- ity began in due time to be expressed in the well-furnished homestead—he had married, in 1735, Faith Robinson, the daughter of the faithful minister of Duxbury, and descendant of the eminent pilgrim father whose name she bore, and a growing family was about him— in stores, warehouses, profitable farms, and such pecuniary appendages as bonds and mortgages, raising the whole, in the estimate of his biographer, at the_ close of the French war, in 1763, to the large valuation, for those days, of eighteen thousand pounds. In the meantime, the citizen was keeping pace with the prosperous mer- chant. In 1733, immediately upon his entrance into business, he was sent by his fellow townsmen to the General Assembly, to which he was repeatedly reelected, becoming, in 1739, Speaker of the House. He was chosen, in 1740, an assistant or member of the Council, and continued in the office, without in- terruption, for ten years, filling, mean- while, the stations of Assistant Judge of the County Court, Judge of the County Court of Windham, and Judge of the Probate Court of the same dis- trict. When the war with 'France broke out, in 1739, he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of one of the State militia regiments, and though he took no active part in the field, was dili- gently employed as a commissioner, and in other relations, in furthering the operations of the war, so brilliantly signalized by the .expedition of the Eastern States against Louisbourg. When the conflict was revived in the Seven Years' War, he was again in similar employments, meeting the exi- gencies of trade in his own business, furthering the negotiations of govern- ment, and still pursuing his representa- tive and judicial career under new ap- pointments. He was twice solicited to proceed to London as Colonial agent, but steadily declined the mission, pre- ferring his usual path of home duty. During this and the subsequent period to the breaking out of the Revolution, he was constantly engaged in those public employments of the legislature and the judiciary, always so influential in forming the character of the old New England citizen. Nor was his private culture meanwhile neglected. He was a diligent student, especially of the Scriptures, which he is said to have been able to read in the original He- brew. He interested himself in the cause of education, and made ample provision for his children at Harvard As the war of the Revolution ap- proached, it was to men like Trumbull that the country especially looked for advice and counsel. He was prudent, sagacious, religious, skilled in affairs, and bore the responsibilities of public sta- tion. As a merchant no one understood better the true effect of the commercial restrictions and financial policy, which now began to be pressed with increased rigor upon the colonies by the mother country. As an influential member of 10-i JONATHAN TRUMBULL. the councils of Connecticut during the war with France, he knew the full value of American support to Great Britain, what the colony had encountered and undertaken in her defence, the burdens assumed, and the sacrifices made, and what were claims for remuneration and gratitude. Moreover he was bound in his appointments as Chief Justice in 1768, Deputy Governor from 1766 to 1770, and Governor from the last date by the strongest pledges to his people. This constant official training of Trum- bull is the marked feature of his biog- raphy. A single dark shadow is thrown upon the scene of Trumbull's busy activities in commercial embarrassments in 1766, when heavy losses at sea, and the de- pression of the times, overthrew as it were in a moment the rising fabric of his wealth. " In one season," says his son, the artist, in his " Autobiography," "almost every vessel, and ail the pro- perty which he had upon the ocean, was swept away, and he was a poor man at so late a period of life as left no hope of retrieving his affairs." His foreign credi- tors were well disposed to allow every facility to his honorable conduct, but there was little opportunity at that day, with the Revolution at hand, to repair his shattered fortunes. The disaster does not appear to have shaken the con- fidence in him of his fellow citizens, for, in 1769, we find them conferring upon him the highest honor in their gift, the chief magistracy of the colony. He was then elected Governor, the title by which he is best known to the world, wearing it with honor and in- fluence through the Revolutionary war, till within a short time of his death. In Connecticut, under its more liberal charter, the governor being elected by the people, and a zealous patriot hold- ing the office, it did not become neces- sary, as in the other States, to set adrift a royal functionary opposed to the popular inclinations. There was no Governor Gage, or Tryon, or Dunmore, or Campbell to be met and disposed of, to plot, circumvent, and be defeated, before the ball of the Revolution could get in motion. There were only a few " Tories " to be tarred and feathered, and otherwise looked after, and these were speedily taken in hand by the people, not always in the gentlest or most cour- teous manner. Trumbull was prepared at the outset to aid and assist the good work. He was always essentially a man of business, skilled in affairs, and he turned his attention as naturally to the exigencies of the times as to any new questions which might arise in the course of his ordinary duties or com- mercial enterprise. To his clear per- ception the Revolution was a foregone conclusion, rapidly incorporating itself in substantial existence, and he cheer- fully assisted the growth of the spmted infant born not without the protection of the gods. In his conduct in the assembly on occasion of the protest against the loyalist Governor Fitch on the test question of the Stamp Act in 1765, through all the preliminary scenes, in his official proclamation of a fast in 1774—a Puritan New England state paper, sounding the notes of re- monstrance and revolt—his advocacy of and correspondence with the Conti- JONATHAN TRUMBULL. 105 nental Congress of the same year, we find him the calm, considerate, zealous friend of American liberty. From the first moment of conflict at Lexington to the last of surrender at Yorktown, he was constantly employed in the ser- vice. From his seat at Lebanon went forth many a good word of encourage- ment in days of darkness and peril, and many a better deed of active and material aid. The central position of Connecticut, intermediate between New York and Massachusetts, and reaching on the west to the highways to Canada, gave her a peculiar importance in the struggle, and fortunate was it for the country that she had in her high seat of authority so true a representative of New England faith and steadfastness as Governor Jonathan Ti-umbull. In the interesting narrative of his faithful biographer, Mr. Stuart, we find him constantly busy in the work of recruiting for the service, supplying men and stores, which his trading ope- rations enabled him to effect with the greater facility; counselling with Wash- ington, who always found him a friend in need—and the friend was needed very often; now holding " talks " with deputations of Indian warriors, dis- heartening Tories and malignants, and assuring the spirits of the faithful, at one moment by a rousing proclamation, at another by an equally stimulating fast-day; sending soldiers to war, or receiving them on their return, sick and wounded, in hospitals; in charge of the foundries, in charge of the prisons, something between a commo- dore and an admiralty judge in the waters bordering his State, entertain- 14 ing officers and foreign generals, the nucleus and active centre, the throb- bing heart of a series of military ope- rations, extending far and wide through the northern and eastern departments; while all along, whether the State was to be defended, or the war was to be carried beyond its borders, the good counsel and pious thanksgiving of the venerable sage kept even company with his patriotism. We are to take into account, in this sketch, the advanced period of life at which these labors were carried on— Trumbull being sixty-five at the break- ing out of the war—and the inevitable difficulties of his position. Nothing, however, deterred or disheartened the old man; be it success or defeat, good or evil fortune, his Bible was open before him, and he saw only the path of duty, and the directing hand of Providence. It is the story of an aged patriarch, at whose house arrive all the visitants of human life, chequered joys and griefs,- his family coming to honor- more than one of its members were distinguished in the war—his son Joseph, the commissary general, return- ing home in 1778 to die; two years after called to part with his beloved wife, the companion of nearly half a cen- tury—well might he seek the strength and consolation of the faith in which he had been nurtured, looking to the pro- mises which had supported the hearts of the fathers in Israel. Year after year passes on, day by day marked in his Diary with the details of news and business and pious ejaculation, till one Friday, October 26, 1781, he records the receipt, in the evening, of a hand- 106 JONATHAN TRUMBULL. bill, announcing the surrender of Corn- wallis. " Praised be the Lord of Hosts!" is his addition to the glowing items of intelligence. The war is now over, and the venerable patriarch, now past three score and ten, determines to lay aside the dignity and public care which had been imposed upon him the greater part of his life—he had been fifty-one years the servant of the public—and to make the occasion memorable, delivered a farewell ad- dress to the House of Representatives, a parting legacy to his countrymen, the last of the series of State papers and proclamations bearing the name of the Governor, the man whom his State delighted to honor. The address, worthy to be read by the side of the similar paper of Washington, breathes an exalted piety and patriotism. Its lessons are fraught with experience and enlightened statesmanship. After his retirement, in the year and a half which was left to him of life, Trumbull was partly engaged in public business, but more in the study of divinity and the preparation for the final scene. He wisely interposed an interval of comparative leisure between his public career and the grave. The Bible was more than ever his com- panion, and its grand teachings were enhanced to him by reading them in the original Greek and Hebrew. Death came to him in the midst of these peaceful occupations, from an act of charity. A fever, caught in a visit to a dying man, took violent hold of him, and in a few days he breathed his last, at his home in Lebanon, August 17, 1785. The personal qualities of Trumbull were rarely adapted to serve the'cause in which his life was passed. The participant in three great wars, the experience of Nestor was added to a natural prudence and moderation which were seldom at fault. His sim- plicity of character was the secret of its greatness. He early fixed the prin- ciples of his life, and steadily adhered to them to the end. So honors came to him, and were heaped upon him— the steady, persistent, useful, devout citizen of Lebanon. There was his home, there was his armor, and he appears seldom to have travelled much beyond its rural precinct; but his influ- ence knew no bounds, it was seen and felt in every vein of the public life, in the court, in the camp—we may almost say in the pulpit, for divinity never entirely lost, amidst the cares of busi- ness and of state, her early pupil. Con- necticut may well honor his memory, and in times of doubt and peril, think how her Revolutionary governor, Tram- bull, would have -thought and acted. If it be true that the origin of the term, " Brother Jonathan," familiarly applied to the nation, originated, as is sometimes said, with an expression of General Washington, in an emergency of the public service: " We must con- sult Brother Jonathan on the subject," we may find a happy memorial of his fame in a phrase which bids fair to be more lasting than many a monument of stone or marble. Tb * hru.n. £W * ■ •*« •hs.-'itrt-j cr*i:. * JOHN ADAMS. In the notice on a previous page of the genealogy of the Adams Family, in the sketch of Samuel Adams, we have seen the point of separation of the Braintree and Boston branches in the third generation midway between the American founder and his distin- guished descendants of the Revolution- ary era. John Adams, the grandfather of Samueh removed to Boston; his brother, Joseph, remained at Braintree, becoming the parent of a son, John, who was the father of the future Presi- dent. John Adams, the subject of this paper, was born in the town of Brain- tree, October 19,1735. His father was something more than a respectable, he was a useful citizen of the town; he had been educated at Har- vard; held the offices of deacon and selectman, honoring the one by his piety and discharging the other with fidelity, and according to a habit not unfrequent with small property-holders in New England, eked out the re- sources of his farm by shoe-making. Taking care to transmit the benefit which he had received, he provided that his eldest son, John, should have the advantage of a college education. He was prepared for Harvard by the aid both of the Congregational minister and of the Episcopal reader at Brain- tree, was a good student of his class, which sent many eminent men into the world, and in due time graduated at the age of twenty in 1755. The talent which he displayed in the commence- ment exercises, attracted the notice of a person present, charged with a commis- sion to supply a Latin master for the Grammar School of Worcester. He applied to Adams, who undertook the task, and shortly after set out on the horse sent for him by the town's people, making the sixty miles' journey in a single day. This transfer from the home sphere was highly favorable to his development: he was thrown upon his own resources among strangers, and doubtless the privations and little vexations of his schoolmaster's life, stimulated his independent nature to further exertions. The school appears at first to have been very distasteful to his aspiring mind; but he became reconciled to its duties, and doubtless profited by the discipline which he himself adminis- tered. " I find," says he, after some months' occupation at this drudgery in shaping the crude material of the Wor- cester nurseries, " I find • by repeated observation and experiment in my school, that human nature is more 10T easily wrought upon and governed by promises and encouragement and praise, than by punishment and threatening and blame"—a sentence which should be grafted in the memory of every schoolmaster in the land. The pedagogue is not altogether given over to mending pens, the agree- able alternations of birching and ferul- ing or a-b-c-ing the boys, of which he humorously complains, but finds time to store his mind with good reading, makes acquaintance with the writings of such political philosophers as Gor- don and Bolingbroke, and is ambitious of the society of the place, always con- scious that John Adams should be somebody in the world, and that it is but an act of common justice to himself to take all proper means to secure the position. The house of Colonel James Putnam, an able lawyer of the place, is open to him; thither he frequently resorts, and after awhile, the law secur- ing his attention—he had by this time pretty well argued himself out of the New England orthodoxy, and so given up any thoughts of the pulpit—pro- poses to study the profession with his friend. Mr. Putnam consents, and Mrs. Putnam makes provision in the house for the student, who is also to continue in charge of the urchins at the school. The legal apprenticeship con- tinues two years, during which it is to be regretted that the Diary is silent, when John Adams takes leave of the population of Worcester, little and great, to seek admission to the Colonial bar. He takes up his residence with his father at Braintree, or Quincy, as it is now called, at the old paternal dwell- ing, and one day in October, 1758, goes to Boston to be introduced by Attorney-General Gridley, the father of the bar, to the Superior Court, and is admitted Attorney at Law in his Majesty's Courts of the Province. The attorney relaxes none of his dili- gence in attention to the old law, in the study of laborious volumes, over which the dust has long gathered in legal libraries. Those were the days before Blackstone, when no republican road had been marked out to the secret places of the profession, when the maxim of Coke, the viginti annorwm lucubrationes, was still in vogue, when no Lord Brougham or Beviser of the statutes had risen to prepare the smooth pathway of legal reform. Reading the entries of these grave old studies, bur- dened with the traditions of English centuries, from Bracton and Fleta, Coke and Fortescue, we may ask, "Where be his quiddets now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks ?" Gone with the old wigs and colonial state, and we need sigh no alas! at the reminiscence. We see Adams, in these years of opening manhood, lighted along his daily path by the cheerful, pleasant Diary, the man of the world and of society, emerging from the old formal- ism ; the independent thinker, built on the antiquarian student, as he gathers strength from discussion, and takes the measure of the leaders of that day. He is not backward in entering into con- troversy with, and judging some of them, but he retires at night to be a more rigid censor of himself. There is a sufficient stock of vanity in some of JOHN ADAMS. 109 his revelations, but there is a greater diffidence; and he manages to blend the two into a good working union, dili- gence furnishing the bottom, and vanity being only the spur to his honorable career. There is some vainglory, per- haps, in his writing down, even pri- vately for himself, how he spent his evenings in company with a book at the fireside, while Doctor Gardiner, Billy Belcher, Stephen Cleverly, the Quincys, and other young fellows of the town, are playing cards and drink- ing punch at the tables: but it is not the less true that he is thereby preparing himself to emerge from poverty, receive fees, bear Parson Smith's daughter as his wife to his home, and in good time support the duties of the State. Hav- ing mentioned this marriage, we may here, a little out of date, state that the event occurred in October, 1764; that the lady, the fair Abigail, was the daughter of the Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth, and grand-daughter of Colonel John Quincy, of Mount Wol- laston, of colonial fame; that she was young, and possessed accomplishments in intellect and reading, proportioned to his own, as her published letters testify; and that the union, "the source of all his felicity," continued for fifty- three years, having its only pang in absence and the final separation. We are now to trace Adams' politi- cal career. It began with his offering public resolutions at Braintree, and his maintaining an argument in behalf of the town of Boston, addressed to the Colonial Government in opposition to the Stamp Act. He published, about the same date, several papers in the " Boston Gazette," which were reprinted in London by Thomas Hollis, who gave them the not very fortunate title, " A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," which has probably pre- vented many persons looking at the tract, who would be interested by its review of the principles of the New England settlements, and its vigorous appeal to the people in the existing struggle. Notwithstanding he was looked to as a leader for the popidar party, he had no sympathy with their acts of violence, and when the disturb- ance occurred which resulted in the firing upon the people by the British troops, he independently and humanely, a thing which should always be re- membered in his honor, gave his ser- vices to Preston and the defence. This caused him some unpopularity, but did not hinder his election, immediately after, to the General Court, as the legis- lative body was called-in Massachu- setts. When the news of his election was brought to him, he made his first appearance at Faneuil Hall, and ac- cepted the choice. It was the turning point of his career. On one side lay a profitable legal practice, in a routine dear to the legal mind; on the other a troubled sea of opposition and revolt. A popular nominee has seldom accepted an election with less of satisfaction. " I considered the step," he said, " as a devotion of my family to ruin and my- self to death." Mrs. Adams burst into tears at the event, but approved the choice; the duty was clear, and the rest was piously left to Providence. He was now a resident of Boston, but the constant labors of his profes- no JOHN ADAMS. sion, and the confinement of the city wearing upon Ids health, he resigned his seat in the Legislature, and again made his residence in Braintree, having his office in Boston, His studies, family cares, and the duties of his pro- fession, had thus far, rather than poli- tics, mainly engaged his attention. The time was come, however, when business was at an end, and home, to be enjoyed, must be protected. If all the leaders of opinion did not speak openly of revolt and revolution, there were probably few of them who did not feel that they were drifting; rapidly towards it. In 1774 he was appointed by the General Court one of the Representa- tives to the Congress at Philadelphia; his associates being Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and his troublesome old friend, "Bob," now Robert Treat Paine. They journeyed together in one coach, through Hartford and New Haven to New York. At New York Adams is much taken with McDougall, particularly his open manners. The delegates are received with hospitality, so that Adams complains of not being able to see the objects of interest in the town. What were they at that time \ The college, the churches, printing offices, and booksellers' shops; few in- deed to be compared with the present lions, yet relatively great to the people of that day. Passing on to Princeton, his patriot- ism is refreshed by a conference with President Witherspoon, " as high a son of liberty as any man in America." One of the first persons he is introduced to at Philadelphia is Charles Thomson, the perpetual Secretary of Congress, whom he understands is "the Sam Adams of Philadelphia, the life of the' cause of liberty;" a valuable testimony this, by the way, if he needed such, to the popular estimate of his associate. The business of the Congress at once engages his attention. He has to study " the characters and tempers, the prin- ciples and views of fifty gentlemen, total strangers, and the trade, policy and whole interest of a dozen provinces; to learn and practise reserve in the com- munication of his plans and wishes." The discussions are tedious. "Every man is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man, upon every question, must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities." Yet this Congress held Washington, Jay, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Dickinson, Rich- ard Henry Lee, Rutledge, Gadsden, and other notables, and men learnt to sigh a few years afterwards, when the repre- sentation fell into neglect, at the thought of these early deliberative giants. In fact, all great 'efforts have their weari- ness ; of all things human, there is none great enough to satisfy the wants of the soid. Adams, with the rest, did his good day's work discussing a Declara- tion of Rights, confronting Galloway, the projector of a plan for union with England, debating the non-importation resolutions, consulting with Patrick Henry on the Petition to the King, and when the long morning work is over, dining and feasting with the wealthy citizens of Philadelphia, in admiration at the costly entertainments, and a little surprised that he is not JOHN ADAMS. Ill affected by the unusual libations of Madeira. Returning home to Massachusetts after the short session of this body, he is chosen to the Provincial Congress, already quite busy with revolt, and when this duty is discharged, turns his pen to answer the annoying Tory argu- ments of Massachusettensis, Daniel Leonard, as it afterwards appeared, who was greatly cheering the hearts of the administration men in the colonies by his logical efforts in the " Gazette and Postboy." The replies of Adams, signed Novanglus, covering the old legal and historical issues, twelve in number, accomplished something of a diversion, or as the author afterwards expressed it, " had the effect of an anti- dote to the poison." There were several unpublished in the printer's hands, when the Battle of Lexington "changed the instruments of warfare from the pen to the sword." Three weeks afterwards he was at Philadel- phia at the Second Congress, in 1775. Before his departure from Boston, he had visited the camp at Cambridge, and observed its necessities. Early on the assembling of Congress, he proposed Washington for Commander-in-Chief; " the modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous and brave," as he calls him in a letter to his wife, and has the satisfac- tion of accompanying him a little way out of Philadelphia towards his distant command. Franklin, who had recently bid farewell to England, was also a member of this body. During the first session of this Con- gress, Adams was diligently employed in the preparatory measures which led I to the Declaration of Independence and Confederation of the following year. As the time approached, his activity and boldness were displayed as the full grandeur of the scenes rose to his mind. " Objects," he wrote to William Cush- ing, " of the most stupendous magni- tude, and measures in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now be- fore us." " Yesterday," he writes to his wife, on the third of July, 1776, on the passage of Lee's Resolution of In- dependence, " the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men;" and again the same day, in another let- ter to Mrs. Adams, a remarkable pro- phetic passage—"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deli- verance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bon- fires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore." Adams was on the committee for pre- paring the Declaration, and was active in the debate. In the absence of the present system of executive duties of government, the old Congress was com- pelled to resort to the awkward ex- pedient of boards, in which the honor and efficiency, rather than the toil, were diminished by the division of labor. ADAMS. 112 JOHN , Adams was made chairman of the Board of War, and was much employed in military affairs till his departure from Congress at the close of the next year. In November, 1777, Congress, having become dissatisfied with the manage- ment of Silas Dean, in France, appoint- ed Adams in his place. He set sail in the frigate Boston in the ensuing February, from Boston, accompanied by his son, John Quincy, then a boy of ten. The voyage was diversified by a chase and a storm, and the usual incidents of navigation. Adams, as we learn from his Diary, employed himself in observations of the disci- pline, the care of the men, and other points of naval regulation for which he had an eye from his duties in Congress. After a voyage of some six weeks, escaping the dreaded perils of the British cruisers, he was landed safely at Bordeaux. At Paris he took up his residence under the same roof with Dr. Franklin, and was shortly introduced by him to Vergennes and Maurepas. The domestic diplomacy of the com- missioners was at first sight more formidable than that of the court. They were quite at odds with one ano- ther. Lee with Franklin and Deane, the general mischief-monger of the party. Adams saw the source of the difficulty in the mingling of diplomatic, commercial, and pecuniary transactions, and advised that these duties should be divided. In accordance with his suggestions, Congress made the divi- sion, creating Franklin minister at Paris, and sending Arthur Lee to Madrid. Oddly enough, Adams, the mover of the resolution, was left out .of the programme entirely. Finding nothing to do in the way of govern- ment employ, and indisposed to be an idle observer of the Parisians, though he envies his " venerable colleague," as he calls Franklin, then seventy, his privileges with the ladies, and is rea- dily pleased with the sights about him, he is bent upon returning home, and an opportunity at length offering itself in the departure of the French ambas- sador, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, he sets sail from Lorient, June 17, 1779. The frigate Sensible arrived at Bos- ton on the second of August; within a week he was elected by his towns- people, of Braintree, their delegate to the Convention to frame a Constitution for Massachusetts. The honor and responsibility of much of the work fell into his hands; but before it was com- pleted, he was again summoned to the foreign service of his country, as minis- ter to negotiate with Great Britain. Embarking in the Sensible, the French frigate in which he had returned, he was landed in Gallicia, travelled thence through Spain to Bayonne, a journey of which his Diary gives an interesting ac- count, and arrived at Paris in February, 1780. Obstacles were here thrown in the way of his negotiation with England by the minister, Vergennes, who wished to keep the foreign policy of America under his control in subordination to French interests. The influence which the important aid rendered to America by the French government had given to her councils, occasioned much em- barrassment in the adjustment of the treaty with England. It is a painful JOHN ADAMS. 113 portion of the history of America, this conflict of intrigue and benefits, of love of America and hatred of Eng- land ; of Lafayette and Vergennes, smoothed over by the gratitude of Congress and the compliments of the monarchy, to break out into insidious plotting and open assault under the Revolution. This French imbroglio is henceforth to give John Adams a vast deal of trouble. Vergennes suspects his fidelity to the French anti-Anglican policy, and Adams, with Jay, thinks the Frenchman will sacrifice the inter- ests of America. The negotiations are finally brought to a close by a body of commissioners charged with the work, embracing Adams, Franklin, Jay, Jefferson, and Laurens. In the meantime, Adams is busy in Holland, cultivating the Dutch capitalists, pre- paring the way for a loan and a treaty of alliance. That his country may be put upon a proper footing for these negotiations, he employs his pen in John Luzac's "Leyden Gazette," an organ of much service to America in the Revolution, and takes other means of disseminating correct information. That his articles might have more authority, he sent the communication to be first published in an English journal, that they might be thence'trans- ferred to the Dutch Gazette. He also drew up a series of replies to the inquiries of a gentleman of Holland touching American affairs, which have been often published, and which now appear in the collection of his writings with the title, "Twenty-six letters upon interesting subjects respecting the Re- volution of America." The prospects 15 of a loan were broken up for a time by the war between Holland and En<>- land, in which an alleged alliance with America, which did not exist, was made the pretence of wanton aggres- sion. But Adams, single-handed, per- severed. He was presently reinforced by special authority from home, and had the satisfaction at last, not only of procuring a valuable loan, but of secur- ing the recognition of his country by Holland as an independent power. This treaty of alliance was completed in October, 1782. In the month following the conclu- sion of the negotiations in Holland, Adams, with Jay and Franklin, signed, at Paris, the preliminary articles of peace with England. He shared with Jay his suspicions of Vergennes; and Franklin, being led by their convic- tions, the responsibility was taken of carrying on the negotiation independ- ently of France, and even contrary to the orders of Congress. The definitive treaty was not signed till the. next September. When Adams had put his signature to this important instrument, he immediately set out for England to regain his health, which had been much impaired by his confinement and labors and a recent severe illness. His visit at this time was unofficial. He appears to have enjoyed with his usual zest the sights of the metropolis, in procuring admission to which he found his coun- tryman, Benjamin West, as influential as a prime minister. In the lobby of the House of Lords he had the gratifica- tion of hearing the gentleman usher of the black rod "roar out with a very loud voice, where is Mr. Adams, Lord 114 JOHN ADAMS. Mansfield's friend T The painter, West, remembering the denunciations of Mur- ray against his country in that same House of Lords, said to Adams, " this is one of the finest finishings in the picture of American Independence." His next diplomatic employment was as a commissioner with Franklin and Jefferson, to negotiate treaties of peace with the European nations. These engagements abroad having now assumed something of a permanent cha- racter, he was joined by Mrs. Adams, whom he hastened from the Conti- nent, on her arrival in England, to con- duct to his residence at Auteuil, in the suburb of Paris, in the summer of 1784. In February, 1785, Congress appoints John Adams the first American minister to Great Britain, and in May he is in- stalled in the English capital. Friendly as his reception by the king appears to have been, it was not followed by a fair reciprocity towards America. Peace had indeed been made, and the minister received, but Congress was honored by no British representative calling at her doors. The relations of the two countries were in fact yet of the most unsettled character; questions of commercial intercourse, of a restric- tive nature, were pressed against the Americans; the western posts were re- tained ; on the other hand, the unsettled relations of the States to one another at home, were at variance with a just and dignified foreign policy. After weather- ing for awhile these disheartening con- ditions, Adams, having rendered such services as he could to his country in a new loan negotiation with Holland and conferences with his fellow-commis- sioner, Jefferson, at Paris, tired of the ineffectual struggle with difficulties and against prejudice, at the close of 1787, requested his recall. His time, how- ever, had not been altogether taken up with these foreign affairs. His famous work, the " Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," was produced at this period. It grew out of some remarks by the French philosopher, Turgot, on the Constitutions of the State in which the adoption of English usages was objected to, and preference given to a single authority of the nation or assembly over a balanced system of powers. Adams extended the work to three volumes, in which he brought to bear upon the subject a vast amount of political reading, particularly in refer- ence to the Italian Republics. The effect of this long discussion, like that of its sequel, the Discourses on Davila, is much weakened by its form, for Adams, with much spirit as a writer, is defective in his longer works in manner and method. If his style of writing had been formed in early life, like that of Franklin and Madison, upon the reading of the Spectator instead of the declamations of Bolingbroke, in so far as study can modify the genius of a man, his works would have been better for the training. John Adams loses as much as Franklin gains by his way of putting a thing in his writings. The spring of 1788 restored him again to his native land. It was the period of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and when that instrument went fully into effect in the meeting of the first Congress at New York, he was JOHN ADAMS. 115 found to be chosen Vice-President, re- ceiving the greatest number of votes of the electors next to Washington. He received thirty-four out of sixty-nine, the vote of Washington being unani- mous. He held this office, presiding in the Senate, during both terms of Wash- ington's administration, to which he gave active and often important assist- ance. In 1797, he succeeded to the Presidency by a vote of seventy-one over the sixty-eight of Jefferson. He found the country in imminent danger of a conflict with France. The prin- ciples of an English or French alliance were the tests of the party politics of the times. Jay's Treaty, sanctioning the neutrality policy of Washington, had indeed been adopted by Congress, but after a struggle which left many elements of opposition. The full force of these was directed against the Federal party, of which Adams was now the official representative. He was destined to receive aid, however, from an unexpected quarter. The as- sumptions and aggressions of the French Directory, on the arrival of Marshall and Gerry, as negotiators, developed a new phase of villainy in a contemptuous effort to bribe the Ame- rican Commissioners. This insult at length opened the eyes and roused the spirit of the nation. Adams was for awhile exceedingly popular; addresses were poured in upon him, the country armed, commissioned a navy, Washing- ton was again called into the field, and with Hamilton at his side, arranged means of military defence. Thus far he was with the strong anti-Gallican Federal party. He was thought, how- ever, to fall off from it in some of his measures for reconciliation with France, which, however, by the turn which placed Napoleon in authority, had a successful issue; some of the acts of his administration, as the Alien and Sedi- tion laws, were powerful instruments with an unscrupulous opposition, and he had, moreover, to bear the disaffec- tion of Hamilton. There was little liberality or charity for defects of taste and temper. The embarrassments aris- ing from these things clouded his administration, which closed with a single term, and the obstinate struggle which resulted in the election of Jeffer- son. A private affliction, in the loss of his second son, Charles, came also at this moment, to darken the shades of his retirement. He had no heart to ^witness the inauguration of his suc- cessor, and left Washington abruptly for Quincy. His biographer tells us, as an index of his privacy, that while the year before his letters could be counted by thousands, those of his first year after were scarcely a hundred. Like Jay's protracted age at Bedford, his was a long retirement, but Adams had not in his disposition the quietude of Jay. The restlessness, the activity of pursuit which had driven the poor New Eng- land boy to the thrones of monarchs, and had seated him in the Presidency of the Republic, was not to subside without a murmur. The old statesman enjoyed a vicarious public life in the rapid advancement of his son in the councils of his country to the Presi- dency; the irritations of controversy lent their aid to agitate the torpor of Hfi JOHN ADAMS. political neglect, in the series of letters vindicating his course, which he pub- lished in the "Boston Patriot;" while he occasionally revived for himself and the eye of posterity, past scenes of his history in an Autobiography. In 1818, in his eighty-third year, his wife, his " dearest friend," the gentle and ac- complished, one of the mothers of America, full of the sweetest and grand- est memories of the past, was taken from him. His last public service was in occasional attendance at the Conven- tion of Massachusetts for the formation of a new Constitution, when he was eighty-five. He was not able to say, but he made his wish known, that the new instrument should express perfect religious tolerance. It was the liberal creed of his youth ; it had been grow- ing stronger with his age. Returning to his early friendship, he corresponded with Jefferson. The two venerable fathers of the Republic, Jefferson at the age of eighty-three, John Adams at that of ninety, died together on the birthday of the nation, July 4th, 1826. A few days before his death, the orator of his native town of Quincy, where he lay in his home, called upon Adams for a toast, to be presented at the approach- ing anniversary. " Independence for- ever !" was the reply. As the senti- ment was delivered at the banquet, amidst ringing plaudits, the soul of the dying patriot was passing from earth to eternity. We have brought the long and busy life to a close, from boyhood to four- score and ten. A nation has been born in that time, and one of its founders, after reaching its siimmit of authority, has seen his son at its head. We have the fullest revelations of this man. It was his passion not only to be em- ployed in great events, but to write down the least of himself. We have his books, learned tomes, his official and personal Correspondence, his Reminis- cences, his Diary, his Autobiography, the domestic letters of his wife. He was bent upon declaring himself in eveiy form. What is the impression % Upon the whole, of a man of active conscientious mind, employed from youth in study and thought; diligent in affairs; lacking some of the judicious arts of the writer and statesman, which mi^ht have better set off his fair fame O with the world. The formative period of his life, his early professional train- ing, has a better lesson for the youth of his country than that of Franklin, for it has fewer errata. Egotism is sometimes apparent, but it led him to know as well as proclaim himself. His sensibility may occasionally be taken for vanity, but it is oftener the indica- tion of true feeling. Had he been more cautious, he might have possessed less heart. He had his weaknesses. He was passionate, we are told, but forgiving; serious in manner, but capa- ble of genial relaxation; of a disposition answering to his frame and look, with more of solidity than elevation; some- thing of the sensual, relieved by a touch of humor, about him; nothing of the idealist: a broad, capacious head, capa- ble of assertion and action. C-ZtyTZ-, •.•(■-'"j-'.i^Of ^.•rcartj^au j.-jA. - THOMAS J In his Autobiography, written to- wards the close of his life, the author of the Declaration of Independence, thinking doubtless his new political career a better passport to fame with posterity than any conditions of an- cestry in the old society which he had superseded, while he could not be in- sensible to the worth of a respectable family history, says of the Randolphs, from whom he was descended on the mother's side, "they trace their pedi- gree far back in England and Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the faith and merit he chooses." Whatever value may be set by his biographers upon an ancient lineage, they cannot overlook the fact—most important in its influence upon his future history— that he was introduced by his family relationships at birth into a sphere of life in Virginia, which gave him many social advantages. The leveller of the old aristocracy was by no means a self- made man of the people, struggling up- ward through difficulty and adversity. His father, Peter Jefferson, belonged to a family originally from Wales, which had been among the first settlers of the colony. In 1619, one of the name was seated in the Assembly at Jamestown, the first legislative body of Europeans, it is said, that ever met in the New FFERSON. World. The particular account of the family begins with the grandfather of Thomas Jefferson, who owned some lands in Chesterfield County. His third son, Peter, established himself as a planter on certain lands which he had " patented," or come into possession of by purchase, in Albemarle County, in the vicinity of Carter's Mountain, where the Rivanna makes its way through the Range; and about the time of his settlement married Jane, daughter of Isham Randolph, of Dungeness, in Goochland County, of the eminent old Virginia race, to which allusion has already been made, a stock which has extended its branches through every department of worth and excellence in the State. Isham Randolph was a man of talent and education, as well as noted for the hospitality practised by every gentleman of his wealthy posi- tion. His memory is gratefully pre- served in the correspondence of the naturalists, Collinson and Bartram. The latter was commended to his care in one of his scientific tours, and en- joyed his hearty welcome. His daugh- ter, Jane, we are told, "possessed a most amiable and affectionate disposi- tion, a lively, cheerful temper, and a great fund of humor," qualities which had their influence upon her son's char- 118 THOMAS JEFFERSON. acter. Her marriage to Peter Jefferson took place at the age of nineteen, and the fruit of this union, the third child and first son, was Thomas, the subject of this sketch. lie was born at the new family location at Shadwell, April 2 (old style), 1743 Peter Jefferson, the father, was a model man for a frontier settlement, tall in stature, of extraordinary strength of body, capable of enduring any fatigue in the wilderness, with cor- responding health and vigor of mind. He was educated as a surveyor, and in this capacity engaged in a govern- ment commission to draw the boundary line between Virginia and North Caro- lina. Two years before his death, which occurred suddenly in his fiftieth year, in 1757, he was chosen a member of the House of Burgesses. His son was then only fourteen, but he had already derived many impressions from the instructions and example of his father, and considerable resemblance is traced between them. Mr. Randall, in his biography, notices the inheritance of physical strength, of a certain plain- ness of manners, and honest love of independence, even of a fondness for reading—for the stalwart surveyor was accustomed to solace his leisure with his Spectator and his Shakspeare. The son was early sent to school, and, before his father's death, was instructed in the olements of Greek, and Latin, and French, by Mr. Douglass, a Scottish clergyman. It was his parent's dying wish that he should receive a good classical education; and the seed prov- ed to be sown in a good soil. The les- sons which the youth had already re- ceived, were resumed under the excel lent instruction of the Rev. James Maury, at his residence, and thence, in 1760, the pupil passed to William and Mary College. He was now in his eighteenth year, a tall, thin youth, of a ruddy complexion, his hair inclining to red, an adept in manly and rural sports, a good dancer, something of a musician, full of vivacity. It is worth noticing, that the youth of Jefferson was of a hearty, joyous character. Williamsburg, also, the seat of the college, was then anything but a scho- lastic hermitage for the mortification of youth. In winter, during the session of the court and the sittings of the colonial legislature, it was the focus of provincial fashion 'and gaiety; and between study and dissipation the ardent young Jefferson had before him the old problem of good and evil not always leading to the choice of virtue. It is to the credit of his manly percep- tions and healthy tastes, even then, that while he freely partook of the amusements incidental to his station and time of life, he kept his eye stead- ily on loftier things. " It was my great good fortune," he says in his Autobio- graphy, " and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small, of Scotland, was then professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind." His instructions, communicated not only in college hours, but in familiar personal intimacy, warmed the young student with his first; as it became his constant, THOMAS JEFFERSON. 119 passion for natural science. This happy instructor also gave a course of lec- tures in ethics and rhetoric, which were doubtless equally profitable to his young pupil in the opening of his mind to knowledge. He had also an especial fondness for mathematics, " reading off its processes with the facility of common discourse." He sometimes studied, in his second year, fifteen hours a day, taking exercise in a brisk walk of a mile at evening. Jefferson was only two years at college, but his education was happily continued in his immediate entrance upon the study of the law with George Wythe, the memorable chancellor of Virginia, of after days, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Small, and of whose personal qualities—his temper- ance and suavity, his logic and elo- quence, his disinterested public virtue —he wrote a worthy eulogium. The same learned friend also made him acquainted with Governor Fauquier, then in authority, "the ablest man," says Jefferson, "who ever filled the office." At his courtly table the four met together in familiar and liberal conversation. It was a privilege to the youth of the first importance, bringing him, at the outset, into a sphere of public life which he was destined afterwards, in Europe and America, so greatly to adorn. He passed five yrears in the study of the law at Williamsburg, and, without intermitting his studies, at his home at Shadwell. Nor, diligent as he was, is it to be supposed that his time was altogether spent in study. He yet found leisure, as his early telltale cor- respondence with his friend Page, after- wards Governor of Virginia, shows, to harbor a fond attachment for a fair " Belinda," as he called her, reversing the letters of the name and wiiting them in Greek, or playing upon the word in Latin. The character of the young lady, Miss Rebecca Burwell, of an excellent family, does credit to his attachment, for it was marked by its religious enthusiasm, but nothing came of it beyond a boyish disappointment.1 In 1767 he was introduced to the bar of the General Court of Virginia by his friend Mr. Wythe, and imme- diately entered on a successful career of practice, interrupted only by the Revolution. His memorandum books, which he kept minutely and diligently as Washington himself, show how extensively he was employed in these seven years; while the directions which he gave in later life to young students, exhibit a standard of application, which he had no doubt followed himself, of the utmost proficiency. His " sufficient groundwork " for the study of the law includes a liberal course of mathe- matics, natural philosophy, ethics, rhet- oric, politics, and history. His pur- suit of the science itself ascended to the antique founts of the profes- sion. He was a well-trained, skill- ful lawyer, an adept in the casuis- try of legal questions—more distin- guished, however, for his ability in 1 Mr. John Esten Cooke, of Virginia, author of the eminently judicious biography of Jefferson in Appleton's new Cyclopaedia, has sketched this love affair in a plea- sant paper on the " Early years of Thomas Jefferson." The "Pnge" correspondence is printed in Professor Tucker's Life of Jefferson. 120 THOMAS JEFFERSON. argument than for his power as an advocate. He was throughout life little of an orator, and we shall find him hereafter, in scenes where elo- quence was peculiarly felt, more power- ful in the committee room than in debate. His first entrance on political life was at the age of twenty-six, in 1769, when he was sent to the House of Burgesses from the county of Albe- marle, the entrance on a troublous time in the consideration of national griev- ances, and Ave find him engaged at once in preparing the resolutions and address to the governor's message. The House, in reply to the recent declarations of Parliament, reasserted the American principles of taxation and petition, and other questions in jeopardy, and, in consequence, was promptly dissolved by Lord Botetourt. The members, the next day, George Washington among them, met at the Raleigh tavern, and pledged themselves to a non-importa- tion agreement. The next year, on the conflagration of the house at Shadwell, where he had his home with his mother, he took up his residence at the adjacent "Monti- cello," also on his own paternal grounds, in a portion of the edifice so famous afterwards as the dwelling-place of his maturer years. Unhappily, many of his early papers, his books and those of his father, were burnt in the destruc- tion of his old home. In 1772, on New Year's Day, he took a step farther in domestic life, in marriage with Mrs. Martha Skelton, a widow of twenty- three, of much beauty and many win- ning accomplishments, the daughter of John Wayles, a lawyer of skill and many good qualities, at whose death, the following year, the pair came into possession of a considerable property. In this circumstance, and in the manage- ment of his landed estate, we may trace a certain resemblance in the for- tunes of the occupants of Monticello and Mount Vernon. Political affairs were now again call- ing for legislative attention. The re- newed claim of the British to send persons for state offences to England, brought forward in Rhode Island, awakened a strong feeling of resistance among the Virginia delegates, a portion of whom, including Jefferson, met at the Raleigh Tavern, and drew up reso- lutions creating a Committee of Corre- spondence to watch the proceedings of Parliament, and keep up a communica- tion with the Colonies. Jefferson was appointed to offer the resolutions in the House, but declined in favor of his brother-in-law, Dabney Carr. They were passed, and a committee—all notable men of the Revolution—was appointed, including Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and others, ending with Thomas Jefferson. The Earl of Dunmore then, following the example of his predecessor, dis- solved the House. We may here pause, with Mr. Jeffer- son's latest biographer, to notice the friendship of Jefferson with Carr. It belonged to their school-boy days, and had gained strength during their period of legal study, when they had kept company together in the shades of Monticello, and made nature the com- panion of their thoughts. They had THOMAS JEFFERSON. 121 their favorite rustic seat there beneath an oak, and there, each promised the other he would bury the survivor. The time soon came, a month after the scene at the Raleigh Tavern we have just narrated, when Carr, at the age of thirty, was fatally stricken by fever. The friends now rest together in the spot where their youthful summer days were passed. Carr had been eight years married to Jefferson's sister, and he left her with a family of six children. His brother-in-law took them all to his home. The sons, Peter and Dabney, who rose high in the Virginia judiciary, have an honored place in the Jefferson Correspondence, calling forth many of the statesmen's best letters. The whole family was educated and provided for by him; and here again, in these adopted children, we may recognize a resemblance to Mount Vernon with its young Custises. The new .Legislature met, as usual, the next year, and, roused by the pas- sage of the Boston Port Bill, a few members, says Jefferson, including Henry and himself, resolved to place the Assembly " in the line with Massa- chusetts." The expedient they hit upon was a fast day, which, by the help of some old Puritan precedents, they " cooked up " and placed in the hands of a grave member to lay before the House. It was passed, and the Gover- nor, " as usual," dissolved the Assembly. The. fast was appointed for the first of June, the day on which the obnoxious bill was to take effect, and there was one man in Virginia, at least, who kept it. We may read in the Diary of George Washington, of that date, 16 "Went to church, and fasted all day."1 The dissolved Assembly again met at the Raleigh, and decided upon a Convention, to be elected by the people of the several counties, and held at Williamsburg, so that two bodies had to be chosen, one to assemble in the new House of Burgesses, the other out of the reach of government control. The same members, those of the pre- vious House, were sent for both. Jef- ferson again represented the freeholders of Albemarle. The instructions which the county gave, supposed from his pen, assert the radical doctrine of the inde- pendence of the Colonial Legislatures, as the sole fount of authority in new laws. The Williamsburg Convention met and appointed delegates to the first General Congress. Jefferson was detained from the Assembly by illness, but he forwarded a draught of instruc- tions for the delegates, which was not adopted, but ordered to be printed by the members. It bore the title, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," reached England, was taken up by the opposition, and, with some interpolations from Burke, passed through several editions.* Though in 1 Mrs. Kirkland's Memoirs of Washington, p. 220. 1 The pamphlet took the ground, that the relation be- tween Great Britain and her Colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland after the accession of James, and until the Union, or as Hanover then stood, linked only by the crown. An illustration was also drawn from the Saxon settlement of Britain, " that mother coun- try " never having asserted any claim of authority over her emigrants. The trading and manufacturing repres- sions of England in particular ^ere dwelt upon, with other pertinent topics of reform. The whole was ex- pressed in terse and pointed language. He would remind George III. that " Kings are the servants, not the propri- J 29 THOMAS JEFFERSON. advance of the judgment of the people, who are slow in coming up to the prin- ciples of great reforms, this " View" undoubtedly assisted to form that judgment. But so slow was the pro- gress of opinion at the outset, that, at the moment when this paper was writ- ten, only a few leaders, such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, were capa- ble of appreciating it. A few years afterwards, and it would have been ac- cepted as a truism. The country was not yet ready to receive its virtual Decla- ration of Independence. The people had to be pricked on by further out- rages. Theoretical rebellion they had no eye for; they must feel to be con- vinced. Jefferson's paper was in ad- vance of them, by the boldness of its historical positions, and the plainness of its language to His Majesty—yet its array of grievances must have enlight- ened many minds. The Congress of 1774 met but adopt- ed milder forms of petition, better adapted to the moderation of their. sentiments. Meanwhile committees of safety are organizing in Virginia, and Jefferson heads the list in his county. He is also in the second Virginia Convention at Richmond, listening to Patrick Henry's ardent appeal to the God of Battles—"I repeat it, sir, we must fight!" The Assembly adopted the view so far as preparing means of defence, and that the students of events in Massachusetts began to think meant war. The delegates to the first Con- gress were elected to the second, and etors of the people." *' The whole art of government," he maintains, " consists in the art of being honest," in case Peyton Randolph should be called to preside over the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson was to be his successor at Philadelphia. The House met, Randolph was elected, and Jefferson departed to fill his place, bear- ing with him to Congress the spirited Resolutions of the Assembly, which he had written and driven through, in reply to the conciliatory propositions of Lord North. It was a characteristic introduction, immediately followed up by his appointment on the committee charged to prepare a declaration of the causes of taking up arms, Congress having just chosen Washington Com- mander-in-Chief of a national army. He was associated in this task with John Dickinson, to whose timidity and caution, respected as they were by his fellow members, he deferred in the report, in which, however, a few ring- ing sentences of Jefferson are readily distinguishable, among them the famous watchwords of political struggle—" Our cause is just; our union is perfect." " With hearts," the document proceeds, "fortified with these animating affec- tions, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath gra- ciously bestowed upon us, the arms which we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabated firm- ness and perseverance, employ for. the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves." This was the era of masterly state papers ; and talent in composition was THOMAS JEFFERSON. 123 in demand. The reputation of Jeffer- son in this line had preceded him, in the ability of his "Summary View," presented to the Virginia Convention, and was confirmed by his presence. Nearly a year passed—a year commenc- ing with Lexington and Bunker Hill, and including the military scenes of Washington's command around Boston, before Congress was fully ready to pro- nounce its final Declaration of Inde- pendence. When the time came, Jef- ferson was again a member of that body. The famous Resolutions of In- dependence, in accordance with pre- vious instructions from Virginia, were moved by Richard Henry Lee, on the seventh of June. They were debated in committee of the whole, and pending the deliberations, not to lose time, a special committee was appointed by ballot on the eleventh, to prepare a Declaration of Independence. Jeffer- son had the highest vote, and stood at the head of the committee, with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sher- man, and Robert R. Livingston. The preparation of the instrument was en- trusted to Jefferson. " The committee desired me to do it, it was accordingly done," says his Autobiography. The draft thus prepared, with a few verbal corrections from Franklin and Adams, was submitted to the House on the twenty-eighth. On the second of July, it was taken up in debate, and ear- nestly battled for three days, when on the evening of the last—the ever- memorable fourth of July—it was finally reported, agreed to, and signed by every member except Mr. Dickinson. Some alterations were made, in the original draft—a phrase, here and there, which seemed superfluous, was lopped off; the King of Great Britain was spared some additional severities, and a stirring passage arraigning his Majesty for his complicity in the slave trade then carried on, a " piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers," was entirely exscinded—the denunciation being thought to strike at home as well as abroad. The people of England were also relieved of the censure cast upon them for electing tyrannical Par- liaments. With these omissions, the paper stands substantially as first re- ported by Jefferson. It is intimately related to his previous resolutions and reports in Virginia and Congress, and whatever merit may be attached to it, alike in its spirit and language, belongs to him. Mr. Jefferson was elected to the next session of Congress ; but, pleading the state of his family affairs, and desirous of taking part in the formative mea- sures of government now arising in Virginia, he was permitted to resign. He declined, also, immediately after, an appointment by Congress as fellow- minister to France with Dr. Franklin. In October, he took his seat in the Vir- ginia House of Delegates, and com- menced those efforts of reform with which his name will always be identi- fied in his native State, and which did not end till its social condition was thoroughly revolutionized. His first great blow was the introduction of a bill abolishing entails, which, with one subsequently brought in, cutting off the right of primogeniture, levelled the great landed aristocracy which had 121 THOMAS JEFFERSON. hitherto governed in the country. He was also, about the time of the passage of this act, created one of the committee for the general revision of the laws, his active associates being Edmund Pen- dleton and George Wythe. This vast work was not completed by the com- mittee till June, 1779, an interval of more than two years. Among the one hundred and sixteen new bills reported, perhaps the most important was one, the work of Jefferson, that for Esta- blishing Religious Freedom, which abolished tythes, and left all men free " to profess, and by argument to main- tain, their opinions in matters of reli- gion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." A concurrent act provided for the preservation of the glebe lands to church members. Jefferson was not, therefore, in this instance the originator of the after spoliation of the ecclesiasti- cal property. Of this matter Mr. Ran- dall says: " Whether Mr. Jefferson changed his mind, and kept up with the demands of popular feeling in that particular, we have no means of know- ing. We remember no utterance of his on that subject, after reporting the bills we have described."* Another impor- tant subject fell to his charge in the statutes affecting education. He pro- posed a system of free common school education, planned in the minutest de- tails ; a method of reorganization for William and Mary College, and pro- vision for a free State Library. There was also a bill limiting the death pen- alty- to murder and treason. In his 1 Life of Jefferson, I. 222. account of the reception of this " Ro vision," Mr. Jefferson records: "Some bills were taken out, occasionally, from time to time, and j>assed; but the main body of the work was not entered on by the Legislature until after the gene- ral peace, in 1785, when, by the un- wearied exertions of Mr. Madison, in opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations, and delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by the Legislature, with little alteration." In 1779, Mr. Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia, falling upon a period of administration requiring the military defence of the State, less suited to his talents than the reforming legislation in which he had been recently engaged. Indeed, he modestly confesses this in the few words he devotes to the subject in his Auto- biography, where he says, referring to history for this portion of his career: " From a belief that, under the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring, the public would have more confidence in a military chief, and that the military commander, being invested with the civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude and effect for the defence of the State, I resigned the administra- tion at the end of my second year, and General Nelson was appointed to suc- ceed me." His disposition to the arts of peace, in mitigation of the calamities of war, had been previously shown in his treatment of the Saratoga prisoners of war, who were quartered in his neighborhood, near Charlottesville. He added to the comforts of the men, THOMAS J and entertained the officers at his table, and when it was proposed to remove them to less advantageous quarters, he remonstrated with Governor Henry in their favor. The early part of Jeffer- son's administration was occupied with various duties connected with the war, and it was only at the end, in the inva- sions by Arnold and Phillips, in 1780, that he felt its pressure. When Rich- mond was invaded and plundered, he was obliged to reconnoitre the attack, in his movements about the vicinity, without ability of resistance. The finances and resources of defence of the State were in the most lamentable con- dition, and it remains a question for the historian to conjecture what degree of military energy, in a Governor, would have been effectual to create an army on the spur of the moment, and extort means for its support. The depreda- tions of Arnold continued till the arri- val of Cornwallis, and before his exit from the scene of these operations at Yorktown, an incident occurred which has been sometimes told to Jefferson's disadvantage, though without any ap- parent reason. The famous Colonel Tarleton, celebrated for the rapidity of his movements, was dispatched to secure the members of the Legislature, then assembled- at Charlottesville. Warning was given, and the honorable gentlemen escaped, when it was pro- posed to capture the Governor at his neighboring residence at Monticello. He however, also had intelligence, per- ceiving the approach of the enemy from his mountain height, and sending his wife and children in advance to a place of safety, rode off himself as the 125 troopers approached to Carter's Moun- tain. At this time his term of service as Governor had expired a few days. Happily, the officer who thus visited his house was a gentleman, and his papers, books, and other property, were spared. His estate at Elk Hill, on James River, did not fare so well. Its crops were destroyed, its stock taken, and the slaves driven off to perish, almost to a man, of fever and suffering in the British camp. Losses like these he could bear with equanimity; not so the inquiry which received some countenance from the legislature into his conduct during the invasion. He was grieved that such an implied censure should be even thought of, and prepared himself to meet it in person; but when he pre- sented himself at the next session, con- senting to an election for the express purpose, there was no one to oppose him, and resolutions of respect and con- fidence took the place of the threatened attack. He had another cause of despondence at this time, which no act of the legislature could cure. His wife, to whom he was always tenderly at- tached, was daily growing more feeble in health, and gradually approaching her grave. She died in September, 1782—"torn from him by death," is the expressive language he placed on her simple monument. The illness of his wife had prevented his acceptance of an appointment in Europe, to negotiate terms of peace immediately after the termination of his duties as governor. A similar office was now tendered him—the third prof- fer of the kind by Congress—and, look- 3FFERSON. JEFFERSON. 128 THOMAS . ing upon it as a relief to his distracted mind as well as a duty to the State, he accepted it. Before, however, the pre- parations for his departure were com- plete, arising from the difficulties then existing of crossing the ocean, intelli- gence was received of the progress of the peace negotiations, and the voyage was abandoned. He was then returned to Congress, taking his seat in November, 1783, at Trenton, the day of the adjournment to Annapolis, where one of his first duties, the following month, was as chairman of the Committee which provided the arrangements for the reception of Wash- ington on his resignation of his com- mand. The ceremony took place in public, "the representatives of the sovereignty of the Union" remaining seated and covered while the company in the gallery were standing and un- covered. After Washington's address and delivery of his commission, the President replied in an answer attri- buted to Jefferson.1 Eulogy of Wash- ington always fell happily from his pen. " Having defended the standard of liberty in this new world," was one of its sentences; " having taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppression, you retire from the great theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow-citizens: but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military com- mand; it will continue to animate re- motest ages." Jefferson was accustomed to speak of Washington with eloquence and admiration, suffering no political 1 Randall's Life of Jefferson, I. 392. disagreements to diminish his historic greatness. Probably the best character ever drawn of the Father of his Country, was written by him, in a letter from Monticello, addressed to Dr. Walter Jones, in 1814. The presence of Jefferson in any legislative body was always soon felt, and we accordingly find him in the Congress of 1784, making his mark in the debates on the ratification of the treaty of peace, his suggestions on the establishment of a money unit and a national coinage, which were subse- quently adopted—he gave us the deci- mal system and the denomination of the cent; the cession of the North- western, Territory by Virginia, with his report for its government, proposing names for its new States, and the ex- clusion of slavery after the year 1800: and taking an active part in the ar- rangements for commei'cial treaties with foreign nations. In the last, he was destined to be an actor as well as designer—Congress, on the seventh of May, appointing him to act in Europe with Adams and Franklin, in accom- plishing these negotiations. This time he was enabled to enter upon the scene abroad, which had always invited his imagination by its prospects of new observations in art and science, society and government, and intimacy with learned and distinguished men. A visit to Europe to an ordinary Ameri- can in those days, was like passing from a school to a university; but Jefferson, though he found the means of know- ledge unfailing wherever he went, being no ordinary man but a very extraordi- nary one, carried with him to Europe THOMAS JEFFERSON. 127 more than he coidd receive there. In the science of government he was the instructor of the most learned ; and, in that matter, the relations of the old world and the new were reversed. America, even then, with much to learn before her system was perfected, was the educator of Europe. Jefferson took with him his oldest daughter, Martha—his family consist- ing, since the death of his wife, of three young daughters and the adopted children of his friend, Carr—with whom he reached Paris, by the way of England, in August. There he found Dr. Franklin, with whom he entered on the duties of his mission, and whose friendship he experienced in an introduction to the brilliant philosophi- cal society of the capital. His position, also, at the outset, was much strength- ened with these savans by a small edition which he printed and privately circulated of his " Notes on Virginia." This work had for some time existed in manuscript, having been written in Virginia, in 1781, during a period of confinement, when he was disabled from active exertion in consequence of a fall from his horse, in reply to certain queries which had been addressed to him by the French minister, M. Marbois, who had been instructed by his govern- ment to procure various statistical in- formation in regard to the country. As it had always been a custom of Jeffer- son to note everything that came to his knowledge relating to topics of national welfare, it was an easy task to supply the required answers from his note- books. In this way, the " Notes " were written and communicated to the minister; and, as these queries were of constant recurrence, relating, as they did, to a new state of things which provoked inquiry, the author kept a copy of the replies for his own use and for that of his friends. He would have printed the little work in America, but was deterred by the expense. Finding this could be done at a fourth of the cost in Paris, he now carried the inten- tion out. The volume was carefully distributed—the writer thinking its opinions on the subject of slavery and of the American Constitution might irritate the minds of his countrymen— but a year or two later, a copy, on the death of its owner, got into the hands of a bookseller, who caused it to be hastily translated by the Abbe" Morel- let, into French, and in this state sent it to Jefferson on the eve of publica- tion. He could correct only its worst blunders, and the work being now before the world, he thought it but an act of justice to himself to yield to the request of a London publisher, to issue the original. This is the history of the famous " Notes on Virginia." The book itself, as a valuable original contribu- tion to the knowledge of an interesting portion of the country, at a transition period, has been always treasured. Its observations on natural history, and de- scriptions of scenery, are of value; it has much which would now be called ethnological, particularly in reference to the Indian and the black man; while, in style and treatment, it may be studied as a suggestive index of the mind and tastes of the author. In the summer of 1785, Dr. Frank- lin took his departure homeward, retir- 128 THOMAS JEFFERSON. ing from the embassy he had so long and honorably filled, and Jefferson remained as his successor. He was four years in this position, covering the important opening era of the Revolu- tion, including the assembly of the States General, of all the movements connected with which he was a diligent ol (server and friendly sympathizer with the reformers. His official duties embraced various regulations of trade and commerce, the admission of Ameri- can products into France on favorable terms; a fruitless attempt with Adams at negotiations with England, which left an unfavorable impression of the mother country on his mind, and the consideration of the Barbary question, for which he proposed, as a remedy to the constant aggressions, active naval coercion. His private correspondence, during this residence abroad, is of the most interesting character. It is not merely well written, with the accuracy of a mind accustomed to reflection, but its topics have, for the most part, an historic value. It is in turn political, scientific, philosophical, or moral, as it is addressed to Washington, Jay, Madi- son, with whom he keeps up his ideas on American state developments; John Adams; the astronomer Rittenhouse; the ingenious Francis Hopkinson; his nephew, Peter Carr; or his lady friends, Mrs. Cosway, and Mrs. Bingham. To Carr, he lays down a code of precepts, in which we may read the reflection of his own life. "Give up money, give up fame," he writes, "give up science, gi\ e up the earth itself and all it con- tains, rather than do an immoral act. . . . An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second. ... A strong body makes the mind strong." A tour which he performed in the provinces of France, and which was extended into northern Italy, was made as subservient to his friends as to his own interest. It was his humor on this journey to study the ways and hcibits of the common people, and he took as great delight in rambling through the fields with the peasantry and inspecting their cottages, as in visiting palaces and churches. He advised Lafayette to travel in his path, "and to do it effectually," he wrote, " you must be absolutely incognito; you must ferret the people out of their hovels, as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds, under pretence of resting your- self, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sub- limer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables." The return of Jefferson to the United States in the autumn of 1789, grew out of his desire to restore his daughters—a second one had joined him in Europe, the third died during his absence—to education in America, and to look after his private affairs. A leave of absence was accordingly granted him, with the expectation of a return to the French capital. Before reaching home, he found a letter from President Washington awaiting him, tendering him the office of Secretary of State in the new govern- THOMAS JEFFERSON. 129 ment. The proposition was received with manifest reluctance, but with a candid reference to the will of the Presi- dent. The latter smoothed the way, by representing the duties of the office as less laborious than had been con- ceived, and it was accepted. At the end of March, 1790, he joined the other members of the administration at New York. Then began that separa- tion in politics, which, gradually rising to the dignity of party organization, became known as Federalism and Re- publicanism. At the present day, it is difficult to appreciate the state of Jef- ferson's mind towards Hamilton and other members of the administration; his distrust of their movements, and apparently fixed belief that some mon- archical designs were entertained by them. If there were any offenders in this way, they were Hamilton and Jay; but it is difficult to credit that either of them entertained any serious inten- tions of the kind, however naturally they might distrust theories of self- government. In fact, there were "fears of the brave," if not "follies of the wise," on both sides. Each party had much to learn, which experience in the practical working of the government only could teach. It was easy then to exaggerate trifles, as it is unprofitable now, in the face of broad results, to revive them. There was a practical question also before Congress, which seems to have affected the equani- mity of Jefferson, that namely of the assumption of the State debts. Hamil- ton was the advocate of this measure, which met with serious opposition. Jefferson was inclined to oppose it, as 17 an addition to the financial power of the Secretary of the Treasury; which rose in his eyes as an evil of still greater magnitude when Hamilton's proposi- tion came up of a national bank. This institution, in his distrust of paper money, he considered a fountain of de- moralization. To these causes of sepa- ration in opinion was in no long time added the pregnant controversy of the good or evil, the wisdom or folly of the French Revolution, drawing with it a train of conduct at home, when the neutrality question became the subject of practical discussion. Jefferson is thought. to have lent some support to the annoyances of the time under which Washington suffered, in his patronage of the poet Freneau, who irritated the President by sending him his news- paper filled with attacks on the sup- posed monarchical tendencies of the day. When the insolence, however, of Genet and his advocates reached its height, the case was so clear that Jeffer- son employed himself in his office in the State Department in the most vigor- ous protests and denunciation. What- ever opinions he might entertain of men or measures, on a question of practical conduct, he regarded only the honor and welfare of his country. He retired at the end of 1793, with the friendship and respect of Washington unbroken. The public questions which arose during his secretaryship, which we have alluded to, though the noisiest on the page of history, are perhaps not the most significant of Jefferson's career. His services, in many laborious matters of investigation and negotiation, were constant; with England, in regard to HO THOMAS JEFFERSON. conditions of the treaty of peace; with Spain, in reference to her claims at the South, and the navigation of the Mis- sissippi—a question which he was so happily to bring to a termination in his Presidential administration ; at home, in his efforts for trade and com- merce, exhibited in his various indus- trial reports. The simplicity of his retirement at Monticello has been questioned by those who have been accustomed to look upon the man too exclusively in the light of a politician; but the evi- dence brought forward by his latest biographer, Mr. Randall, shows that the passion, while it lasted, was genu- ine. Jefferson, with all his coolness and external command, had a peculiar sensitiveness. In fact, it is only a super- ficial view of his character which could overlook this element lying beneath. A speculative moralist must feel as well as think, and the world can no more get such reflections on life and conduct —whatever we may think of their ab- solute value—as are thickly sown in his writings, without inner emotion, than fruit can be gathered without the delicate organization of the plant which bears it. Such grapes are not plucked fi'om thorns. In Jefferson's heart there was a fund of sensibility, freely ex- hibited in his private intercourse with his family. He was unwearied in the cares and solicitudes of his daughters, his adopted children, and their alli- ances. In reading the letters which passed between them, the politician is forgotten: we see only the man and the father. Besides these pleasing anx- ieties, he had the responsibilities and resources of several considerable plan- tations; his five thousand acres about Monticello alone, as he managed them with their novel improvements and home manufacturing operations, afford- ing occupation enough for a single mind. He had, too, his books and favorite studies in science and literature. There were, probably, few public men in the country who like him read the Greek dramatists in the original with pleasure. What wonder, then, that he honestly sought retirement from the labors and struggles of political life, becoming every day more embittered by the rising spirit of party? That the retirement was really such, we have the best proof in an incidental remark in one of his letters written in 1802— the recluse was at the time in the Presi- dency—to his daughter Maria, then married to Mr. Eppes. Fancying he saw in her a reluctance to society, he rebukes the feeling, adding, "I can speak from experience on this subject. From 1793tol797,I remained closely at home, saw none but those who came there, and at length became very sen- sible of the ill effect it had upon my own mind, and of its direct and irre- sistible tendency to render me unfit for society and uneasy when necessarily engaged in it. I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an anti-social and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punishes him who gives into it; and it will be a lesson I shall never forget as to myself." But the law of Jef- ferson's mind was activity, and it was no long time before he mingled again in the political arena. His first decided THOMAS JEFFERSON. 131 Bymptom of returning animation is found by his biographer in his subscrip- tion, at the close of 1795, to "Bache's Aurora." He was no longer content with "his solitary Richmond news- paper." After this, there is no more thorough "working politician" in the country than Thomas Jefferson.1 It is not necessary here to trace his influence on every passing event. We may proceed rapidly to his reappear- ance in public life as Vice-President in 1797, on the election of John Adams, soon followed by the storm of party, attendant upon the obnoxious measures of the President in the Alien and Sedition Laws, the rapid disintegration of the Federal party and the rise of the Republicans. Out of the stormy con- flict, Jefferson, at the next election, was elevated to the Presidency. The vote stood seventy-three alike for himself and Burr, and sixty-five and sixty-four respectively for Mr. Adams and Mr. Pinckney. As the Presidency was then given to the one who had the highest vote and the Vice-Presidency to the one next below him, neither being named for the offices, this equality threw the election into the House of Representa- tives. A close contest then ensued between Jefferson and Burr for the Presidency, which was protracted for six days and thirty-six ballotings, when 1 The close of his retirement was marked by an honor which he valued, his election as President of the American Philosophical Society. In his letter of acceptance, always mindful of his practical democracy, he wrote, " I feel no qualification for this distinguished post, but a sincere zeal for all the objects of our institution, and an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind, that it may at length reach the extremes of society, beggars and kings." the former was chosen by ten out of the sixteen votes of the States. His Inaugural Address was an ap- peal for harmony. After a brief sketch in vivid language, of which no one had a better mastery, of the country, whose laws he was appointed to administer— "a rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye"—he proceeded to assuage the agitations of party. " Every difference of opinion," he said, "is not a difference of prim ciple. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans—we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." One of the early measures of Jeffer- son's administration, and the most im- portant of his eight years of office, was the acquisition of Louisiana by pur- chase from France. It was a work upon which he had peculiarly set his heart. From the first moment of hear- ing that the territory was passing from Spain to France, he dropped all politi- cal sympathy for the latter, and saw in her possession of the region only a pregnant source of war and hostility. Not content with the usual channel of diplomacy through the State depart- ment, he wrote himself at once to Mr 132 THOMAS JEFFERSON. Livingston, the minister in France, urging considerations of national policy not so much that the United States should hold the country, as that the European powers should relinquish it. From his own previous discussions with Spain, he understood the topic well, and his zeal was now equal to the occa- sion. An active European nation of the first class in possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, was utterly inadmissible to his sagacious mind; he saw and felt the fact in all its conse- quences. The rapidity of his conclu- sions, his patriotic insight were happily seconded by the necessities of Napoleon at the time, and Louisiana became an integral part of the Republic, with the least expenditure of money and political negotiation. The turn of European events had much to do with it—but had the difficulty been prolonged, the prescience and energy of Jefferson would, there is every reason to believe, have been prepared to cope with the issue. The expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in exploration of the western territory, parallel with this new acqui- sition, was planned by Jefferson, and must be placed to the credit, alike of his love of science and patriotic insight into the future of his country. The brilliant acts of the navy in the Medi- terranean, in conflict with the Barbary powers, came also to swell the triumphs of the administration, and Jefferson, at the next Presidential election, was borne into office, spite of a vigorous opposition, by a vote of one hundred and sixty-two in the electoral college to fourteen given to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. The main events of this second ad- ministration were the trial of Burr for his alleged western conspiracy, in which the President took a deep interest in the prosecution, and the measures adopted against the naval aggressions of England, which culminated in the famous " Embargo," by which the for- eign trade of the country was annihi- lated at a blow, that Great Britain might be reached in her commercial interests. The state of things was pe- culiar. America had been grievously wronged in her unsettled relations with England, and not only assailed, but insulted in the attack on the Chesa- peake and seizure of her men. What was to be done ? The question was not ripe for war. The Embargo was accepted as an alternative, but its im- mediate pressure at home was even greater than war. The disasters of the latter in the injuries inflicted on our commerce, would have been vast; but they would have been casual, and might have been escaped. Not so this self- denying ordinance of the Embargo, which prohibited American vessels from sailing from foreign ports, and all foreign vessels from taking out cargoes: it was a constant force, acting to the destruction of all commerce. It, more- over, directed the course of trade from our own shores to others, whence it might not easily be recalled. All this must have been seen by the Adminis- tration which resorted to the measure as a temporary expedient. It, of course, called down a storm of opposition from the remnants of Federalism in the com- mercial States, which ended in its re- peal early in 1809, after it had been in THOMAS JEFFERSON. 133 operation something more than a year. Immediately after, the Presidency of its author closed with his second term, leaving the country, indeed, in an agi- tated, unsettled state in reference to its foreign policy, but with many elements at home of enduring prosperity and grandeur. The territory of the nation had been enlarged, its resources de- veloped, and its financial system con- ducted with economy and masterly ability; time had been gained for the inevitable coming struggle with Eng- land, and though the navy was not looked to as it should have been, it had more than given a pledge of its future prowess in its achievements in the Mediterranean. He was now sixty-six, nearly the full allotment of human life, but he was destined to yet seventeen years of hono- rable exertion—an interval marked by his popular designation, " the sage of Monticello," in which asperities might die out, and a new generation learn to reverence him as a father of the State. He had been too much of a reformer not to suffer more than most men the obloquy of party, and he died without the true Thomas Jefferson being fully known to the public. In his last days he spoke of the calumny to which he had been subjected with mingled pride and charitable feeling. He had not considered, he said, in words worthy of remembrance, "his enemies as abusing him; they had never known him. They had created an imaginary being clothed with odious attributes, to whom they had given his name; and it was against that creature of their imaginations they had levelled their anathemas."1 We may now penetrate within that home, even, in the intimacy of his domestic correspondence, within that breast, and learn something of the man Thomas Jefferson. His question- ing turn of mind, and, to a certain ex- tent, his unimaginative temperament, led him to certain views, particularly in matters of religion, which were thought at war with the welfare of society. But whatever the extent of his departure, in these things, from the majority of the Christian world, he does not appear, even in his own family, to have influenced the opinion of others. His views are described, by those who have studied them, to resemble those held by the Unitarians. He was not averse, however, on occasion, to the services of the Episcopal Church, which, says Mr. Randall, " he generally at- tended, and when he did so, always carried his prayer-book, and joined in the responses and prayers of the con- gregation." Of the Bible he was a great student, and, we fancy, derived much of his Saxon strength of expres- sion from familiarity with its language. If any subject was dearer to his heart than another, in his latter days, it was the course of education in the organization and government of his favorite University of Virginia. The topic had long been a favorite one, dating as far back with him as his report to the Legislature in 1779. It was revived in some efforts made in his county in 1814, which resulted in the establishment of a college that in 1818 1 Letter from Colonel T. J. Randolph to Henry S. Ran- dall. Randall's Life of Jefferson, III. 544. 134 THOMAS JEFFERSON. gave place to the projected University. Its courses of instruction reflected his tastes, its government was of his con- trivance, he looked abroad for its first professors, and its architectural plans, in which he took great interest, were mainly arranged by him. He was chosen by the Board of Visitors, appointed by the Governor, its Rector, and died holding the office. An in- scription for his monument, which was found among his papers at his death, reads: " Here lies buried, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Free- dom, and Father of the University of Virginia." The time was approaching for its employment, as the old statesman lin- gered with some of the physical infirm- ities, few of the mental inconveniences of advanced life. His fondness for riding blood horses was kept up almost to the last, and he had always his family, his friends, his books—faithful to the end to the sublimities of ^Eschy- lus, the passion of his younger days. He was much more of a classical, even, than of a scientific scholar, we have heard it said by one well qualified to form an opinion; but this was a taste which he did not boast of, and which, happily for his enjoyment of it, his political enemies did not find out. In the decline of life, when debt, growing out of old encumbrances and new expenses on his estates, was pressing upon him,,these resources were unfail- ing and exacted no repayments. His pen, too, ever ready to give wings to his thought, was with him. Even in those last days, preceding the national anniver- sary which marked his death, he wrote with his wonted strength and fervor*: " All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind have not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." This was the last echo of the fire which was wont to inspire senates, which had breathed in the early councils of liberty, which had kept pace with the progress of the na- tion to a third generation. A few days after, at noon of the day which had given the Republic birth, to the music of his own brave words, exactly fifty years after the event; in full conscious- ness of his ebbing moments, with tran- quillity and equanimity, passed from earth the soul of Thomas Jefferson. His old comrade, John Adams, lingered at Braintree a few hours longer, think- ing of his friend in his dying moments, as he uttered his last words: " Thomas Jefferson still survives." They were too late for fact, but they have been accepted for prophecy, and in this spirit they are inscribed as the motto to the latest memorial of him of whom they were spoken. Thus, on the fourth of July, 1826, passed away the two great apostles of American liberty; the voice which, louder, perhaps, than any other, had called for the Declara- tion of Independence, and the hand that penned it. ^,~*?s%. ^^^2^^^^ 73 RICHARD MONTGOMERY. This noble spirited hero, of vivid intellect and ardent susceptibilities, brought military experience and do- mestic virtue to the service of the Revolution; he influenced the cause of liberty by his example, and conse- crated it by his early death. Richard Montgomery was born of a good family at his father's seat, near the town of Raphoe, in the north of Ireland, December 2, 1736. We hear nothing of his early years, but that he received a liberal education, at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the age of eighteen, by his own choice and the wishes of his father, who gave also another son to the profession, entered the army. He was early introduced to America, in the vigorous campaigns devised by William Pitt, on his acces- sion to power, for the subjugation of the French in their colonial possessions across the Atlantic. He was a partici- pant with Wolfe in the brilliant con- quest of Louisburg, in Amherst's expe- dition in 1758, and when that end was gained, served with his regiment in the neighborhood of Lake Champlain. He was then ordered to the West Indies, and had further opportunity of distin- guishing himself in the arduous service against Martmique and the Havana, under Monckton and Albemarle. The treaty of Versailles, in 1763, having closed the active service of the British troops in America, with the ter- mination of the old French war, Mont- gomery, having been landed with his regiment at Nsew York, was at liberty to seek permission to visit Europe. He accordingly returned to Great Britain, where we hear of his intimacy with the liberal members of Parlia- ment, Fox, Burke and Barr6, during the formative struggles of American Independence, implying that his mind was more or less in favor of the claims of the colonies. Something, too, is vaguely said of Government opposition to his promotion by purchase in the army. At any rate, in 1772, we find him selling his commission, and finally relinquishing the service, to settle in New York, where he arrived early in the following year. There he was speedily married to the daughter of the eminent Robert R. Livingston, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Colony, and father of the future Chancellor of the same name. He now retired to rural life, on the banks of the Hudson, at Rhinebeck, where, in the enjoyment of the terri- torial consequence of his influential marriage alliance, he passed his time happily in domestic life, the culture of 185 136 RICHARD M his mind by study and the improve- ments of agriculture. A more agreeable round of occupations for a laurelled warrior at the early age of thirty-six, can hardly be imagined. The old Arcadian colonial simplicity, at these upper waters of the Hudson, so de- lightfully traced in the pictures of Mrs. Grant, and the subsequent sketches of the Marquis de Chastellux, were des- tined, however, to be ruthlessly dis- turbed. Montgomery early took part in the public life of the Revolution as a delegate to the Convention of the Province, held at New York in April, 1775. He was at once called to the field by Congress, on its first organiza- tion of the army, upon giving the com- mand to Washington, creating him a brigadier-general. The neighborhood of Montgomery to General Schuyler, no doubt influenced the appointment; but the established military reputation and eminent service of the soldier of Amherst, needed no local or family re- commendations. It was resolved to attempt the con- quest of Canada by a twofold expedi- tion, penetrating the country by the routes of Lake Champlain and the Kennebec. The latter is known by the formidable difficulties it encoun- tered in the wilderness, triumphantly Suiinounted by the spirit and energy of Arnold, who conducted his resolute force to the walls of Quebec. Mont- gomery's passage to the same spot was marked by prudence, activity, and mili- tary ability of a high order, overcoming many obstacles in the insubordination and even cowardice of his own forces. In consequence of the illness of Gen Schuyler, the advance was early in- trusted to his care. Re entered upon it with promptness. In the capture of St. Johns and other operations in the vicinity, laying open Montreal to his arms, and in his government of the latter place his magnanimity was as evident as his courage. For these gallantly conducted operations, in the autumn of 1775, he was created, by Congress, major-general. There now remained before him the advance upon Quebec. Arnold reached the neighborhood of that city a few days before Montgomery's entrance at Montreal, in the middle of November, made, with his small force, a rather vainglorious summons to surrender, and feeling the poverty of his re- sources, retired from the Heights to wait for reinforcements. In the mean- time, Montgomery, with a calm glance at the prospects of the expedition, weighing all its difficulties, but unde- terred by the gravest of them, was hurrying to his aid. With inadequate means, and with a small force, numbering at the end of his severe journey but three hundred men, he finally, in the beginning of December, joined Arnold's body of five hundred before Quebec. The calcula- tions he had made in advance were confirmed on the spot. But a slight show of investment could be made, and the batteries of gabions filled with snow and ice, from which a few guns were fired, could hardly be expected to resist solid cannon balls. The small American force, exposed to the severi- ties of the bitter Canadian midwinter; were thinned by the smallpox. There RICHARD MONTGOMERY. 137 was also some disaffection in a part of Arnold's command. In the midst of * these disheartening circumstances, a plan of storming operations was deter- mined upon between Arnold and Mont- gomery, which awaited only a favor- able opportunity for its execution. The outer defences of the town were to be attacked on different sides by the several American officers, and a combined assault to be made upon one of its most accessible gates. To Mont- gomery was assigned one of the south- erly approaches to the lower town. The thirtieth of December brought with it the coveted opportunity in a threatening snow-storm. In the night of that day, or rather before the dawn of the next, the forces assembled at their stations. Montgomery led his men, composed of Campbell's New York regiment and a portion of militia from Massachusetts, through a thick snow-storm from Wolfe's Cove, along the side of the cliff beneath Cape Diamond to a point where a fortified block-house stood, protected in front by a stockade. A loaded cannon stood ready charged with grape. It was fired, tradition says, by a drunken sailor, who returned to his post as his comrades fled. However this may be, the dis- charge was fatally effective. Mont- gomery fell, with his aid, Captain Mac- pherson, and the brave Captain Cheese- man of New York. The death of Montgomery, the old companion of Wolfe, falling in an at- tempt to renew his brilliant victory, created an impression through the colonies equalled only by the fate of Warren. Congress, by resolution of January 25, 1776, resolved that a funeral oration in his honor should be delivered, and called Dr. William Smith, the learned and eloquent head of the college at Philadelphia, to pro- nounce the eulogium. A monument also was decreed, which was executed— a graceful work, under the charge of Franklin—in Paris, and placed beneath the portico of St. Paul's Church, in Broadway, New York, where it arrests the eye of the passer by, with its beau- ty of form and appropriate inscription. In 1818, the remains of the gallant leader were brought from Quebec to repose near this sculptured stone.1 1 The tears and eloquence of his country, and its fune- real monument, bear witness to the worth of the man and the hero; but perhaps the most significant tribute of all was paid his memory in the exclamation of Lord North, in Parliament, in a verse of Addison— " Curse on his virtues, they've undone hia country." The remark of Lord North was in reply to the eulogies of Colonel Barre and Burke. " He conquered," said the latter, "two-thirds of Canada in one campaign." Fox "seconded the tribute. It was then that North interposed with his polished remonstrance, admitting indeed, "that he was brave, able, humane, generous; but still he was only a brave, able, humane and generous rebel," adding the line from Cato. Fox then again rose. " He was the less earnest," he said, " to clear him of the imputation, for that all the great assertors of liberty, the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind in all ages, had been called rebels ; they even owed the constitution which en- abled them to sit in that house to a rebellion," closing with a most felicitous quotation from Virgil, an application of that sentence where the chief sees pictured on the walls of the temple at Carthage, in a distant land, the honorable exploits of his brethren fallen at Troy— " Sunt /lie etiam sua praemia laudi, Sunt lacrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tanguot." Fox never appeared nobler than in thus erecting in tho very sanctuary of Parliament this monument to a fallen foe. 18 JOHN JAY. The ancestry of Jay, " the Christian patriot" of the Revolution, carries us back to the history of that fatal perse- cution in France, consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the last quarter of the seventeenth cen- tury, which sent so many brave and good men, the very life blood of their country, wanderers about the world, to taste the hardships of poverty and ex- ile in foreign lands. But it frequently happened, that while France was im- poverished by the forced departure of her choicest spirits, other countries gained strength from their presence, while they themselves, after having been tossed on many seas, found at last the prosperous Lavinian shore. Of those who, under another sun, became founders of families, and we may add founders of the state, none are more worthy of distinction than the Jays of New York. The Huguenot ancestor from whom the family is descended was Pierre or Peter Jay, a prosperous merchant of Bochelle, in France, who. escaped with a portion of his property to England, when the persecution be- came no longer endurable, leaving his son Augustus, then absent on a foreign venture, to provide for his own safety on his return. The son, following the father's example, by the aid of his 188 friends was enabled to sail for Charles- ton, South Carolina, a region which afforded a home to many of the exiles whose descendants have adorned the annals of that State. Driven from South Carolina, however, by ill health, Augustus took refuge in New York, a friendly haven which had in like man- ner sheltered many of his unhappy brethren. The Protestant influences of the place furnished a bond of sym- pathy, while the commercial activity of the city afforded a ready means of liveli- hood to the mercantile adventurer edu- cated in a European seaport. Augus- tus there found employment as super- cargo. In 1692, we hear of his taking passage for Hamburg, in a vessel which was captured by a French privateer and carried into St. Malo, when with other prisoners he was confined in a dungeon in the district, from which he managed" to escape, making his way in safety to Rochelle, to be a second time smuggled out of his native country in a foreign vessel. This time he was taken to Denmark, when his route to America gave him the opportunity of seeing his father in England. His mother was no more, and his younger brother, Isaac, was dead from wounds received fighting for the Protestant hero, Wil- liam, at the Battle of the Boyne. 'c— -Hirr JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES '•».. - " . . ....-1 .W/zrAerr JOHN JAY. 139 A few years after the return of Au- gustus to New York, he married the daughter of Balthazar Bayard, a refu- gee of an earlier set of French exiles, for conscience sake, who had found his way to America from the new home of the family in Holland. This alliance fairly established the adventurer in the city of his choice. And here we may cite the simple narrative of John Jay, in which these events are recorded, as he looks back with -reverential feeling to the American fouuder of his family. "From what has been said," says he, addressing his children, " you will ob- serve with pleasure and with gratitude how kindly and how amply Providence was pleased to provide for the welfare of our ancestor Augustus. The benefi- cent care of Heaven appears to have been evidently and remarkably ex- tended to all those persecuted exiles. Strange as it may seem, I never heard of one of them who asked or received alms; nor have I any reason to suspect, much less to believe, that any of them came to this country in a destitute con- dition." Augustus died at a good old age in 1751, leaving a son Peter, who married a Miss Van Cortlandt, the descendant of a Protestant exile from Bohemia. Having secured a fortune in mercantile life, he purchased the estate at Bye, in Westchester County, still occupied by the family, whither he retired. His eighth child, John, the subject of our notice, was born in the city of New York, December 12, 1745. Piety was a tradition, a habit of daily life in the home of the child, who early exhibited the fruit of the domestic training, ingrafted on his natural quali- ties, in his reserved, studious disposi tion. The mother's influence, in that beautiful rural dwelling, overlooking the blue waters of the Sound, shaded by the favorite locusts of the region, pre- sents a more than pleasing picture, as she reads " the best authors" to her two children, who were deprived of sight by the smallpox, and teaches the future Chief Justice, a grave, intelligent boy, the elements of his Latin gram- mar. At eight, the child was sent to the school of the French clergyman at New Rochelle, where he learnt to speak * French, and endure the usual priva- tions of the old improvident, badly- managed country boai ding-school life. A private tutor subsequently prepared the boy for Columbia, then King's Col- lege, where, in due time, he took his degree with distinguished honor, in 1764, in his nineteenth year, under the presidency of the famous Myles Cooper, of Tory memory. Having chosen the profession of the law, he entered the office of Benjamin Kissam, a leading practitioner in the city, with whom he enjoyed a very pleasing intimacy during his clerkship. In 1768 he was admitted to the bar, and entered at once upon an active and profitable practice. Evidence of his standing may be gathered from the fact that he was chosen secretary of the commission appointed by the king to settle the boundary between New York and New Jersey. In 1774, at the age of twenty-nine, he married Sarah, the daughter of William Livingston, after- wards the first governor of New Jersey, at the establishment of independence. 140 JOHN JAY. It was a stirring year in New York, in the conflict of parties on the eve of the Revolution. Jay promptly chose the part of his country. He was a member of the committee appointed at a meeting of his fellow-citizens, which in May proposed a Congress of Depu- ties from the Colonies in general, and when, out of this and kindred resolu- tions of the different States, the old Continental Congress was summoned at Philadelphia in the following year, John Jay took his seat in that body, it is believed, the youngest member of the House. He lived to survive all his associates. The first business of the Congress was to present the questions at issue with the parent country, and appeal for the redress of grievances. It was the session which produced those ad- mirable state papers, the addresses to the King, the Houses of Parliament, the British Colonies, and the People of Great Britain, which extorted the ad- miration of all soberly thinking Eng- lishmen, and drew down, from his Jove- like eminence, the applause of Chatham in the House of Lords. Jay wrote the Address to the People of Great Britain, a model of calm, just, forcible state- ment, eloquent by its simple truthful- ness and sincerity. He could write with feeling of tyranny, whose blood tingled with the recollection of oppres- sion. He did not forget the family Protestantism in this document, in the picture which he drew of the Roman Catholic allies of the Parliament in Canada. One of the opening sentences of the preamble, apparently very sim- ple, is peculiarly imposing : " In almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in long and bloody wars, as well civil as for- eign, against many and powerful na- tions, against the open assaults of ene- mies and the more dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of your island, your great and glorious ances- tors, maintained their independence, and transmitted the rights of men and the blessings of liberty to you, their posterity." In the second Congress, of the next year, to which he was sent by a con- vention of his State, he prepared the addresses to the People of Canada and of Jamaica and Ireland. During the session of 1776, he was recalled to the service of the New York Convention, of which he was a member, which, in deed, needed his abilities, and it was in this way that his name does not appear among the signatures to the Declaration of Independence. Lie was at the time with the Convention at White Plains; the paper was put in his hands as chairman of a committee, and the strong resolution of approval was from his hand. His State, indeed, required all the energy of her patriotic children. Jay was unwearied in his devotion, coun- selling, personally superintending. mili- tary movements—he was now Col. Jay, of the State militia—and rousing his pen to unwonted energy in stirring appeals to his countrymen. Strong measures of repression, in which he bore an active part, were necessary to control the disaffected. The ambula tory Convention, hunted by the British, posted tlrrough various stations in Westchester to Poughkeepsie. At the JOHN JAY. 141 first invasion, the homestead at Rye was abandoned for the period of the war. Jay's chief service to his State, how- ever, was in the formation of the Con- stitution of 1777, which was drafted by his hands. Its property qualification embodied his favorite maxim, in respect to the suffrage, that "those who own the country ought to govern it," or in other words, that representation should follow taxation; and he would have contended for other provisions, the chief of which, in furtherance of a cause always dear to his heart, was a pro- vision against the continuance of domes- tic slavery, had he not been prevented by absence from the Convention, at the death-bed of his mother, at the final adoption of the instrument. Under its provisions, he received the appointment of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. On opening the first term, at Kingston, be took occasion, in an address to the grand jury, to present an animated view of the progress of the Revolution- ary contest, the success of which he attributed to the blessing of Heaven, while he pointed out some of the pro- visions of the new Constitution, par- ticularly specifying its security for the rights of conscience and private judg- ment. The habitual piety, his reference of all things to sacred duty in this com- position, is no less noticeable than its enlightened patriotism. By a provision of the State Constitu- tion, the judges were not allowed to sit in Congress, unless on a special occa- sion. Mr. Jay had, consequently, vacated his seat in that body. At the end of 1778, however, an opportunity I having arisen in the Vermont question, he was returned to that body, and was immediately, on the resignation of Laurens, chosen its President. To attend the more efficiently to. his national duties, he resigned the post of Chief Justice of the State. In his early attendance upon Con- gress, Mr. Jay had become connected with the negotiations abroad as a member of the secret committee of correspondence. He was now, in 1779, himself chosen to continue in Europe the negotiations then brought about with France, and was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Spain, with the intent to accomplish an alliance with that country. He embarked with hia wife, in October, at a few days' notice, from Philadelphia in the frigate Con- federacy, in company with the French minister, Gerard. Severe injury to the vessel in a gale compelled them to put into Martinique, where they luckily avoided the British cruisers. Resum- ing the voyage in the French frigate Aurora, and again narrowly escaping an English man-of-war, the harbor of- Cadiz was at length made, and Jay commenced the wearisome and unsatis- factory duties of his mission. Spanish diplomacy is always dilatory, and Spain, on this occasion, had no particu- lar motive to be in earnest, so long as the Colonies continued in arms against England. The expected subsidy was slow in coming, or doled out pitifully. Jay required all his resources to meet the drafts drawn upon him for the wants of Congress at home. Had he not been assisted by Franklin, at Paris, ana the French loan, the case would 142 JOHN have been well-nigh hopeless, while Spain was driving her hard bargain for the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, which Congress was weak enough, at last, to send directions to Jay to yield. The clause was in conse- quence actually inserted in the plan of a treaty, with the proviso, however, introduced by Jay, that should the treaty not be concluded before a gene- ral peace, the United States would not be bound to surrender the navigation. The negotiations for peace, however, now intervened, and leaving the pro- tracted, humiliating Spanish transac- tions uncompleted, Jay, in the summer of 1782, joined his fellow-commission- ers at Paris. Of the five appointed by Congress to represent the interest of the different portions of the Confede- racy, namely, Adams, Jay, Franklin, Jefferson and Laurens,, two only were now in Paris—Jay himself and Frank- lin—upon whom the burden of the business fell. Jay, though he had been originally sent abroad by the party in Congress in the French inter- est, had been taught distrust of that nation in his Spanish experiences. He suspected the motives of the French minister, Vergennes, in whose hands the chief influence in the matter had been placed by Congress, and the British agent, Oswald, being at the same time chary of France, a prelimi- nary treaty was signed in November by Jay, Franklin, and Adams, who had now arrived from his successful nego- tiations in Holland. The adjustment of the great European powers which had been engaged in the struggle occu- pied the better portion of the ensuing JAY. year. Jay continued to reside in Paris till the definitive treaty was signed, September 3, 1783. He had proved himself a watchful guardian of the interests of the country, bearing an independent position above all party considerations; he had acted with decision at the moment when responsi- bility was a burden, in the separate negotiation, and the end had crowned the work. His personal moderation was as remarkable as the faithfulness with which hchad discharged his duty to his country. He generously waived the proffered offer of the mission to England, as the first American repre- sentative at the Court of St. James, in favor of Adams, whose long services, he thought, entitled him to this, grati- fication of his wishes, and turned his thoughts from the honors of courts and cabinets to home and retirement. He thought far more of the claims upon his love and attention of his blind brother and sister, in the shades of Westchester, than of the most brilliant prospects of European society. It was a mingled forbearance and single-mind- ed simplicity of character worthy of Washington himself. Indeed, the style of the two men, as exhibited in their public writings and private correspon- dence—the best index of their natures —in a certain fulness, ease and ame- nity, has much in common. The Spanish mission being closed and peace thus happily concluded, after a few months passed in England, chiefly occupied in the care of his health, which had become impaired, Jay returned, full of joy and gratitude, to America, a private citizen, in the JOHN JAY. 143 summer of 1784. He was met by a new demand from Congress for his services as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the delicate and important duties of which he continued to discharge till the old Confederation was supplanted by the present Constitution. As the time for the formation of this new organization approached, Jay, one of its earliest advocates, bent his efforts to its accomplishment. In a letter to General Washington, dated Jan. 7, 1787, he suggests the present division of the powers of government, with a leaning 1*> a stronger consolidation than was adopted, and advises that the acts of the new Convention should be con- sidered conclusive, without fresh agita- • tions and indorsements in the several States, already represented.1 Being engaged in his official duties under the old Congress of New York, he was not a member of the Convention at Phila- delphia, in 1787, which framed the Constitution. In conjunction, however, with Hamilton and Madison, he brought his best powers to the service of the instrument when it was before the pub- lic, encountering the fierce wrangling and discussion which he had antici- pated and deprecated. Five papers of that able exposition, " The Federalist," are from his pen; the second, third, fourth and fifth, on- dangers from foreign force and influence, and the sixty-fourth on the treaty-making power of the Senate, which one of the most important acts of his later life was des- tined to expose to the fiercest discus- sion, when it should be no longer a 1 Jay's Life of Jay, I. 257. theory, but a practical power of the government. He would probably have written more but for a wound he re- ceived at the time in his vindication of the laws in the riot known as Doctors' Mob, in the city of New York. This unhappy affair, one of a class occasion- ally recurring about the world under similar circumstances, grew out of an alleged violation of the^grave, by some medical students connected with the Hospital. Much feeling was excited. The people assailed the building, plun- dered its contents, and buried several bodies which they found there. The physicians were lodged in the jail for safety. Every popular excitement of this kind gains strength by its first successes. The mob was next bent on attacking the jail. The medical men of the city were not safe. The militia were in arms, and good citizens rallied to the protection of life and property. Jay was proceeding with Hamilton in the discharge of this duty in the midst of the excited populace, when he was struck with a stone to the ground. This injury circumscribed his papers for " The Federalist." • On his recovery however, he made amends in an able pamphlet on the Constitution, ad- dressed to the people of New York. When the Federal Government as- sumed its powers in the first Congress, at New York, in March, 1789, Wash- ington cast his eyes upon Jay as among the foremost men in the country for the discharge of the highest office in its gift. Jay, looking back upon his past training and discipline, conscientiously chose the Supreme Court, over which he was appointed Chief Justice. He JAY. served for awhile, however, as Secretary of State, till the arrival of Jefferson from abroad, when, upon the full or- ganization of the court, he entered upon its duties. In 1792, he was put in nomination for Governor of the State, and received the popular vote; though his election was defeated by an infor- mality in the returns, which threw the office again into the hands of Clinton. The greatly embarrassed relations of the country with England, growing out of the unsettled commercial questions, and the war of that power with France, and a system of agitation fomented by the latter nation in America, rendered an adjustment of the growing difficul- ties absolutely necessary. The selec- tion was between England and France. To the mind of many serious politicians of those days, it was the choice of Her- cules, the determination between good and evil, the powers of light and dark- ness. Great Britain was inconsiderate and aggressive, and war seemed immi- nent. At this crisis, at the strong urgency of Washington, Jay accepted the mission to England, with the view of negotiating a satisfactory treaty. He sailed from New York on the 12th May, 1794. On his arrival in England in June, he was received with the cour- tesy which his disposition and conduct, as well as the objects of his embassy incited. The negotiations proceeded prosperously, under the conduct of Lord Grenville, with the favor of the king, and in November the treaty was signed. It made provision for the rights of neu- trals, and the abandonment of the western posts, which secured peace on the seas and the frontiers, while its com- mercial adjustments were mutilated by the restrictive policy then prevailing, and little could be done on the vexed question of impressment. If it was not the best of all possible treaties, it was acknowledged by men of dispas- sionate judgment, wise enough to ad- mit that theoretical right must some- times yield to judicious statesmanship, to be a success under the circumstances. The bitterness with which the instru- ment was received by the French party in America, before and after its final rati- fication by Great Britain, and the treaty making power at home is matter of his- tory. It shared the odium which the delirium of the French Revolution had infused into the minds of its admirers, in respect to all antagonistic influences; real or supposed. The indignation of the disappointed popular party, as they considered themselves, knew no bounds. France was exalted as the " natural ally" of America, and the phrase " British gold," which has since from time to time echoed through our elec- tions, first stole into the mouths of poli ticians. Copies of the treaty were pub licly burnt by the people in New York and Philadelphia; Virginia was ob streperous in indignation, and a demo- cratic society in South Carolina lament- ed the want of a guillotine for its author. The very sanctity and good faith of the Constitution was invaded in Congress, in an attempt to defeat its provisions in the House of Representar tives. Greatly aided by the influence of Washington, and the eloquence of Fisher Ames, it finally became the law of the land. JOHN JAY. 145 On his return from England, Mr. Jay was met at New York by the news of his election as Governor of the State. He accepted the office, and accordingly resigned the high judicial station, which had conferred additional consequence upon his pacific embassy to England. For six years he continued to hold this distinguished position, marking his ad- ministration by a uniform course of duty, firmly and conscientiously per- formed in a patriotic and Christian spirit. The recommendation of a legis- lative provision for the better observ- ance of the Sabbath, is characteristic of his sentiments on an important sub- ject ; while the views which he had long advocated on the subject of negro slavery were carried out in the act of gradual emancipation. In 1801, in his fifty-sixth year, Mr. Jay finally retired from public life, to pass the remainder of his days at the family estate, which had descended to him at Bedford, in Westchester County. His first employment was to build the plain, substantial mansion, still occu- pied in a third generation by his family, after having been honored by the resi- dence of his benevolent son, the late esteemed William Jay. In this rural retreat, then greatly secluded from city cares and influences, he lived for nearly thirty years, em- ploying himself, as Washington em- ployed himself at Mount Vernon, with the innocent and engrossing pursuits of agriculture, the care of his household, correspondence with his friends—they were often the same friends—or occa- sionally reviewing the history of the past, more constantly engaged in the be- 19 nevolent occupations of philanthropy and religion in the present, till, at the advanced term of four score and four, the reward of a righteous life, on the noon of Sunday, the 17th May, 1829, with mind unimpaired, he passed to "the bosom of his Father and his God." The reflections which arise at the close of such a life, are the best tributes humanity can render in its praise. Here was one who passed through many relations, exposed to peculiar temptation and difficulty, not merely without stain, but clothed in a trans- cendent robe of purity. His Christian patriotism shed glory upon a cause which needed such aid and such de- fenders. His grave aspect, reverend in council, covered a heart glowing with the sweet kindnesses and charities of domestic life. We see in his corre- spondence, in a certain undress of the mind, a gentle consideration, a playful humor, and unstudied grace of expres- sion, which he must be little read in the evidences of a kindly nature who will misinterpret. Indeed, the literary abilities of Jay were of a high order. In his state papers we have seen him unsurpassed by his most accomplished associates of the Old Congress. Glanc- ing over the volumes of his life and writings, published by his son, we find other evidences of talent as conclusive. The able analysis of the Farewell Ad- dress of Washington, in reference to the alleged claim of Hamilton to its composition—a claim which he himself would have been the last to bring for- ward—in the letter to his favorite cor- respondent, Judge Peters, is a master- piece of literary skill, blending the 146 JOHN JAY. finer powers of the judicial and the asthetic mind. He proves not only that Washington could have written it, but that it is what he would have written, that its composition was nothing wonderful to him, seeing it was but the expression in words of the acts of his life, in perfect consonance with the Horatian maxim which com- pels language uninvitedly to follow the foregone matter in the mind, and which treats wisdom as the origin and fount of all good writing. The show of con- siderations such as these, evinces a philosophical mind, which might have graced many walks of authorship. Let us add a humble touch of nature to our sketch of a man who should be known by our hearths and firesides, in the daily friendship of life, as well as on his pedestal in history. The foreign minister, at the most brilliant period of his career, when he had recently signed the Treaty of 1783 at Paris, writing from England to his friend, Mr. Benson, in America, thinks—of what ?—of his achievements ? of his re- flected consequence in the glory of his country ? Not a word of it. His thoughts are of an old mare which had been given him by his father, which had been carried off by depredators in the unsettled conflicts about his home, and which he now begs, if alive, may be recovered without regard to price. Have "very good care" taken of her, "by which I mean," he adds, " she should be well fed and live idle." Consoling his friend, Peter Van Schaack, a royalist prisoner on parole in 1778, in the afflictions of life, he writes: " Could we now and then smoke a few pipes together, you would perhaps be in a better humor with many things in the world than, I think, you now are. I suspect your imagina- tion colors high and shades too deep." Jay's habits were simple as to expense, generous as to charities, and all that constituted true comfort and respect- ability of living. It was his maxim, says his son and biographer, that " a wise man has money in his head, but not in his heart." He supplied the clergyman of Rye with funds to keep six poor boys of the place at school, and the fact was not known till after his death. He declined the proffered honor of the Cincinnati, thinking it did not become members of an associa- tion to bestow badges upon them- selves. The devout character of Jay tem- pered all the acts of his life. It was not obtruded upon the world in his public relations; neither was it with- held when the occasion admitted its expression. Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth often spoke; so that in his correspondence we find fre- quent mention of sacred things. He was a devout believer in Evangelical Christianity, and a sincere adherent to the Protestant Episcopal Church. In Paris he was surrounded by an atmos- phere of infidelity, but it could not touch him. The faith of his fathers, which had resisted the infuriated per- secutions of the seventeenth century, was not to be shaken by the shaUow wits of the eighteenth. ^/rt'^i //'A f'-Tn. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. There are few names of more lasting influence, of more permanent regard, in our American history, than that of Hamilton. His fame is blended with the living growth of our commonwealth. While the labors of others survive on the pages of history connected with the past—with the record of wars and struggles, which, while they, perhaps, gain in grandeur by the lapse of time, become every day more strange and foreign to our perceptions; it is his fortune to be associated with a monu- ment of political wisdom, which, often sorely tried and always triumphant, has become the very bond, and, so to speak, guardian genius of the national welfare; that Constitution by which we live and hope to live. How bril- liantly Hamilton shot upon the troubled scene of the Revolution; how suddenly and unhappily was the splendid flame extinguished in meridian brightness! The vicinity of the tropics has sent few sons of its burning soil so to calm and temper the rage of men in northern climes. We must look beyond the isles of the Antilles for the secret of this peculiar growth. The parentage of Alexander Hamil- ton is given by his son and biographer as of mingled Scottish and French ancestiy—Scottish on the father's side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of temperaments may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamil- ton ; Scottish perseverance and integ- rity, French honor and susceptibility tropical fervor. Be that as it may, Alex ander Hamilton first saw the light in the West India island St. Christophers, Jan. 11, 1757. His father was a trader or captain sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose busi- ness brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of quick intel- lect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of limited oppor- tunities of instruction, as we may learn from an exceedingly weU penned epistle addressed thus early to a school-feUow who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, " my ambition is preva- lent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to 147 148 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station . . . . I mean to prepare the way for futurity. ... I shall conclude by say- ing, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded as a boyish rhapsody; but aH boys are not given to such rhapsodies. The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and doubtless practised his pen in compo- sition, for we hear of his writing an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention of the gover- nor. These evidences of talent deter- mined his friends to send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his welfare in' Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influ- ential people of the colony. He studied eagerly, and at the close of a year, pre- sented himself to Doctor Witherspoon, at Piinceton, with a request to be per- mitted to overleap some of the usual collegiate terms according to his quali- fications. As this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College, now Columbia, in New York, with ihe special privileges he desired. In addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of Clossey. Col. Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his earnest re- ligious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his powers. He wrote verses freely—among them doggerel burlesques of the productions of the ministerial writers of the day. The Revolution v,as now fairly get- ting under way, in the opening, tumul- tuous scenes in New York, and strong hands were wanted at the wheel. Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making his decision. The old Continental Con- gress of that year, it will be remem- bered, met in September; it was now July, and New York was in debate as to her choice of delegates. A meeting of citizens was called in the fields, over which the patriot McDougal presided. Hamilton, whose ability had been noted, was urged to address the assem- bly. He complied, with hesitation, but proceeding, gained confidence, and poured forth in glowing rhetoric the story of parliamentary oppression, as he displayed the means of resistance and pictured " the waves of rebellion sparkling with fire, and washing back on the shores of England the wrecks of her power, her wealth and her glory." The speech of the young West Indian was a success. He was now emboldened to enter the field with the dashing young president of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's Gazette to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published a pamphlet in vindi- cation of the measures of Congress, against the attacks of Seabury and ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 149 Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers .and divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the con- stitutional arguments of such young counseUors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstra- tive. Myles Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic, and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party in their restrictive, non- importation measures proposed to dis- pense with the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question too. But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony, was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were drilling-, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for. action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery: -Hamilton was en- gaged in the duty with his comrades, " Hearts of oak" they called them- selves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the harbor; .the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the College and seize its president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from the College steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half-naked, took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from America in his majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor, Try- on, took refuge in the Asia shortly after. Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction from a Brit- ish soldier, and by the aid of the popular leader, McDougal, received from the convention the appointment of captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young captain was engaged not only in the gymnastics of drilling re- cruits, but he was reading, thinking and working out problems in political economy for himself—and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learnt little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation at least of all his knowledge before twenty. " His military books of this period," says his son, " give an interesting exhibition of his train of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general speculations and extracts from the an- cients, chiefly relating to politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic, considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and 150 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. the principles on which depend the value of a circulating medium; and among his papers there remains a care- fully digested outline of a plan for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at this time." * There is the germ in aU this of the Secretary of the Treasury. It was at this time just previous to the occupation of the city by the Brit- ish that Hamilton attracted the notice of General Greene, by whom he was introduced to Washington. The story i& thus told by Irving: "As General Greene one day, on his way to Wash- ington's headquarters, was passing through a field—then on the outskirts of the city, now in the heart of its busiest quarter, and known as 'the Park'—he paused to notice a provin- cial company of artillery, and was struck with its able performances, and with the tact and talent of its com- mander. He was a mere youth, appa- rently about twenty years of age; small in person and stature, but remarkable for his alert and manly bearing. It was Alexander Hamilton. Greene was an able tactician, and quick to appreciate any display of military science; a little conversation sufficed to convince him that the youth before him Jiad a mind of no ordinary grasp and quickness. He invited him to his quarters, and from that time cultivated his friend- ship."2 The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the landing of Howe and his British ' " Life of Hamilton," by John C. Hamilton, L 53. • Irving's " Life of Washington," II. 251-2. troops, followed by the masterly retreat of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent American proceedings in the evacua- tion of the city, the passage from the island to Westchester, and the subse- quent retreat before Cornwallis through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at least required their full share of military determina- tion and endurance. Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains, and on the Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When he entered Morris- town, his original company of a hun- dred was reduced by the accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on the first of March, 1777, leaving the line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his aid. This was the commencement of that half mili- tary, half civil relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with the Father of his Country. Hamilton became, in fact, the right hand man of Washington, not only during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of Washington in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of Hamilton in so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished position. In the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamil- ton, we are told, acquired the title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage were shown in numerous in- stances, particularly in the battle of Monmouth, where Lee exposed bravery I to such violent hazards, an affair out ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 151 of which grew a duel between that officer and Colonel John Laurens, one of Washington's aids, in which Hamil- ton was the second of his friend and associate. Nor was Hamilton's counsel less serviceable in interviews with the French officers, and those frequent ne- gotiations with the different portions of the army, and with Congress, which were among the hardest necessities of Washington's campaigns. In the course of his movements with Wash- ington, Hamilton, in 1780, was at West Point at the moment of the discovery of the treason of Arnold, an affair which, with its attendant circumstances, brought out all the tender sympa- thies, as well as the fortitude of his character. The relation of Hamilton to Wash- ington, as a member of his military family, was suddenly brought to a ter- mination at Head-quarters on the Hud- son in February, 1781. The difference arose in a momentary forgetfulness of temper on the part of Washington. For some purpose of consultation, he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained from keeping the ap- pointment at the instant, for it appears to have been a delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient, and meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily ex- claimed, " Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten* minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." Hamilton firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." "Very weU, sir," said Wash- ington, " if it be your choice," or some- thing to that effect, and the friends separated.1 Washington immediately opened the way for the Secretary's continuance at his post, but, without any feeling of asperity, the overture was declined. Hamilton, however, proffered his services and counsel. With no other man than Washington, indeed, could the subordinate relation have continued so long, and Hamilton had often thought of renouncing it: but he saw in Washington the man for the times, the great representative of a great cause, for which minor considera- tions must be sacrificed. Writing at this moment to Schuyler, he says, " The General is a very honest man; his com- petitors have slender abilities and less integrity. His popularity has often been essential to the safety of America, and is still of great importance to it. These considerations have influenced my past conduct respecting him, and will influence my future. I think it is necessary he should be supported." Hamilton was now desirous to re- sume active service in the line, and after some discussion as to rank, re- ceived the command of a New York battalion of light infantry, which he led right manfully at the siege of York- town. He was anxious to signalize himself at this crowning act of the war by some distinguished exercise of bravery, and when, at an advanced period of the approaches, a redoubt was to be stormed, he eagerly solicited the forlorn hope from Washington. 1 Hamilton's letter to his father-in-law, General Schsy- ler, Feoruary 18, 1Y81, two days after the occurrence. Hamilton's Life of Hamilton, I. 333. 152 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Advancing to the charge with charac- teristic spirit at the point of the bayo- net, exposed to a heavy fire, he strug- gled through the ditch, and surmount- ing the defences, took the work in the most brilliant manner. He gallantly arrested the slaughter at the first moment, and thus placed his humanity upon a level with his bravery. The war being now brought to an end, Hamilton turned his attention to the law, and in a few months' ardent devotion—the devotion of Hamilton was always ardent—at Albany to the study with the aid of his friend, Colo- nel Troup, and the stimulus of his recent marriage, qualified himself tho- roughly for the practice of the profes- sion. He was admitted to the Su- preme Court at its July term, 1782. About the same time, at the solicita- tion of Robert Morris, the financier of Congress, he accepted the appointment of receiver of the continental taxes in the State of New York with the under- standing that his exertions were to be employed in impressing upon the legis- lature the wants and objects of the government. In pursuance of this, he urged resolutions which were unani- mously adopted in July, 1782, recom- mending the call of a convention for the purpose of revising and amending the Articles of Confederation. He was also elected by the legislature of this year a member of Congress. He bore an active part in its debates, and was greatly employed in its important finan- cial measures. On the final departure of the British from New York, in 1783, Hamilton became a resident of the city with his family, and devoted himself assiduous- ly to the practice of his profession. He was constantly, however, looked to as a public man. We find him, in 1784, appealing to the public under the signature of Phocion, in favor of more liberal and enlightened views in regard to the loyalists of the late Revo- lution, and their rights of property. In 1786 he is a member of the State Assembly, and in September of the same year among the delegates of the five States, which, at the instance of Virginia, met at Annapolis to confer on the commercial interests of the country; a too limited representation, indeed, to achieve the objects in view, but the precursor of the great Federal Convention, at Philadelphia, of the following year. We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of government. His practical experience in the army of Washington of the im- perfections of Congress and the defects of the old Confederation, was not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority in government, rule-in legislation, finan- cial measures, taxes, loans and a bank were topics constantly before his mind. In an anonymous letter to Robert Mor- ris, in Congress, in 1779, and with greater particularity in a letter ad- dressed the following year to the Hon. James Duane, a member of Congress from New York, Hamilton reviews the defects of the then existing system of government, and points out the several necessities which were afterwards pro- vided for in the Federal Constitution. The fundamental defect he attributes to a want of power in Congress, notic- ALEXANDER HAMILTON 153 ing particularly the obvious evils of the divided control of the army, and the inadequate modes of provision for its support, resulting in inefficiency and neglect. For the cure of this and other e^ ils, he proposes a General Convention to be gifted with full authority to establish a confederation, which should separate the powers proper to the General Government from those of the States. He proposes the appointment of several " great officers of state," mostly the same with the present heads of departments, and dwells at length on his favorite financial idea of a Na- tional Bank, combining public authority and faith with private credit. Speak- ing of the convention, he was so clearly impressed with the course afterwards pursued, as to suggest the preparation of " the minds of all the States and the people to receive its determinations by sensible and popular writings." The Convention of 1787 gave him, at length, the wished for opportunity to enter upon a full discussion of Jiis plans in a cause and before an audience worthy of his powers. Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in at- tendance ; it was a congregation of notables—Rufus King, Oliver Ells- worth, Roger Sherman, William Liv- ingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson, Luther Mar- tin, James Madison, George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as worthy. Much has been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and of his advocacy of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of government which he supported in a speech of length and eloquence, provided several features, as I 20 the life tenure of the President and senators and the appointment of State officers by the General Government, which, in the interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry used to express it, " was an awful squinting towards monarchy;" but on the other hand, it should be remembered that the Con- vention was a meeting for consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the whole, in which perfect freedom in the interchange of views was desirable; that, in the view of our own day, other members displayed heresies quite as obnoxious and that in the final resolves of the Constitution, Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and became the firm defender of the instru- ment as it was adopted and substan- tially now stands. Remember the age of Hamilton at this time—twenty-nine; a greater pro- digy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army of Wash- ington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the Constitution than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the instrument before the country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned, when in company with Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its explana- tion and defence, in the celebrated series of papers, " The Federalist," originally published in the New York "Daily Advertiser." Hamilton began and closed the work. Of its eighty-five papers much the greater portion, it is believed, were written by him. The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and the j adiciary fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was again the effi 151 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. cient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections, the discussion of which would have marred the unity of " The Federalist," which was thus left a classical commen- tary upon the Constitution. Having been thus instrumental in formino- the Constitution, Hamilton was destined to be one of the most active agents of its powers. When the new government went into operation, under its provisions he was summoned by Washington, to the discharge of one of the most onerous duties of the depart- ment, in his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. He continued in office six years, marking his admin!-tra- tion—for such it was in his province— by his report and measures for the fund- ing of the public debt, the excise reve- nue system, which he was called upon to assert in arms during the insurrection of western Pennsylvania, and the crea- tion of a National Bank. His reports on these subjects, and on manufactures, in which he advocated protection, are amon«" the most important contribu- tions of their kind to our national archives. In allusion to the financial measures of Hamilton, and their suc- cess at the time in the welfare of the country, Daniel Webster, in a speech at New York, half a century after- wards, exclaimed: " He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet." The measures of Hamilton, however, were not adopted without great oppo- sition. Jefferson was their persistent opponent; local interests and State pre tensions arose to thwart the measures of Government, and gave birth to the party feuds of Federalism and its oppo- nents. A growing element of disaffec- tion was added to the political caldron in the relations with England, and the disturbing influences of the principles of the French Revolution. Hamilton bore the brunt of much of this popular opposition, which came to a crisis in the discussions attending the British Treaty of Jay, in 1791, as he defended its pro- visions in the papers signed " Camillus," while it was before the country, and advocated its leading neutrality prin- ciples in "The Letters of Pacificus," published by him the previous year. When France had wearied out all in- dulgence by her aggressions on the high seas, and the treatment of our ministers at Paris, and Washington was again called to the field in anticipation of an expected invasion, he gave the second command to Hamilton, who now em- ployed himself in the organization of the army. On the death of Washing- ton he became commander-in-chief. On the conclusion of a treaty with France, the army was disbanded. In the intervals of these public du- ties Hamilton was actively employed in his profession in the higher courts of the State. The late Chancellor Kent afterwards recalled his "clear, elegant and fiuent style and command- ing manner. He never made any argu- ment in court without displaying hia habit of thinking and resorting at once to some well founded principle of law, ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 155 and drawing his deductions logically from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on established principles. His manners were gentle, affable and kind. He ap- peared to be frank, liberal and cour- teous in all his professional inter- course." The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged—the case of the People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months be- fore his untimely death—is memorable also for his maintenance of the right of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases of libel. The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the Vice-Presidency, and the choice hung for a while sus- pended between him and Jefferson for the Presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had formed an unfavor- able opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When Burr afterwards sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest with a member of his own Re- publican party, in which he relied upon the support of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no secret of his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue, Burr determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to power. He had no ground of personal offence, bringing Hamilton within any justifi- able pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague, and were based upon the report of a person who speci- fied neither time, place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was alleged—evidently a wanton pro- vocation to a murderous duel. Burr demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said, that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an indorse- ment of his character at the cost of the moral character of the indorser. Ham- ilton despised the manoeuvre, but per- ceiving that a meeting was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, con- trary to his better judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the , public affairs of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the fatal snare. The final arrangements were made for a meeting on the twenty-seventh of June. William P. Van Ness was the second of Burr, and Nathaniel Pendle- ton of Hamilton. To give Hamilton time to attend to some business of the court then in session, and to private affairs demanding his attention, the duel was arranged for the eleventh of July. It was to take place at seven in the morning, at Weehawken, the wea- pons pistols, the distance ten paces. The matter, in the meanwhile, was kept perfectly quiet. Hamilton transacted his business, and on the fourth of July dined at the same table with Burr, at the annual festival of the Cincinnati. He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear in mind she had 156 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On the night pre- ceding the appointment, he wrote a paper declaring his intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon his usefulness to his country. The next morning they met: Burr with Van Ness and Matthew L. Davis; Hamilton with Pendleton and Dr. Hosack. The duel was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a woodland scene beneath the cliff opposite the present inhabited portion of the city, at a spot now traversed or closely ap- proached by the river road, but then readily accessible only by water. Hamilton fell, at the first fire, mortally wounded, his pistol-shot striking at random a twig some seven feet above the head of his antagonist. Burr fled, a wanderer over the earth. Hamilton was carried across the river, supported by Pendleton and Dr. Hosack, to the house of his friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was there enabled to take farewell of his family, and receive the last consolations of religion from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1804. The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the com- munity. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his coun- trymen to victory and a place among the nations—Hamilton, the counsellor of Washington, the consummate states- man of the Constitution, the reliance of the State, the hope of the future: visions such as these were contrasted in the popular mind with his wretched fall. We perhaps darken the shades of the picture, for time and proof have added to the greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not for death to ex- hibit the penury of his fame. But the men who knew the heart of Hamilton, who saw in him the bulwark of the State, his contemporaries, wept his fate with no common lamentation. New York gave her public honors to his grave. Gouverneur Morris, with stre- nuous words, delivered the funeral oration by the side of his bier, under the portico of old Trinity; Mason, the pulpit orator of his time, thundered his strong sentences at the crime which had robbed the world of Ha- milton; Fisher Ames lamented with the grief of a patriot, and the affec- tion of a brother, in the shades of Dedham, v I 1 I \< i & OH, the ft b :i i i b ft eo hi ✓ ^ / / I ,/■''/ PAUL JONES. Paul Jjkes, the popular naval hero of the Revolution, the son of John Paul, a gardener in Scotland, was born July 6, 1747, at a cottage on the estate of his father's employer, Mr. Craik at Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean. His parents belonged to a respectable class of the population of the country. The boy, as is wont with Scottish boys, however humble, received the elements of education, but could not have ad- vanced very far with his books, since we find him at the age of twelve apprenticed to the sea. The situat;on of Kirkbean, on the shore of the Sol- way, naturally gave a youth of spirit an inclination to life on the ocean; and he had not far to seek for employment in the trading-port of Whitehaven, in the opposite county of Cumberland. Paul's first adventure—the appendix of Jones was an afterthought of his career—was in the service of Mr. Younger, a merchant in the American trade, who sent his apprentice on a voyage to Virginia, where an elder brother of Paul had profitably estab- lished himself at Fredericksburg. This gave him an early introduction to the country with which the fame of the future soldier of fortune was to be especially identified. The apprenticeship of Paul was of short duration. The failure of his employer threw the youth upon his own resources; but he lost no time in taking care of himself. His studies on shipboard had already qualified him for the higher duties of the mercantile service; the slave-trade, the active pur- suit of those days, offered him an engagement; he sailed for the African coast in the King George, a vessel engaged in this infamous traffic, out of Whitehaven, and in his nineteenth year, was trusted as chief mate of the Two Friends, another vessel of the trade, belonging to Jamaica. Having carried his human cargo to the island, sickening of the pursuit, he sailed as a passenger to Kirkcubright, in his native district. Opportunities are always presenting themselves to the watchful and the initiated. The chief officers of the vessel died of the fever; Paul took the command, and carried the ship in safety to the owners. They put him in command of the brig, the John, on another West India voyage, in the course of which an incident hap- pened which gave him for some time an ill name, and diverted him from his country. He had occasion to punish the carpenter, Mungo Maxwell, for some infraction of duty, by flogging; Maxwell complained to the authorities, 1ST 158 PAUL JONES. at Tobago, without redress, and the whole affair would have been thought of no consequence, had not the com- plainant died shortly after; not indeed of his wounds, but of a West India fever. The report gained ground that Capta in Paul had killed him. In con- sequence of annoyance from this affair, or other difficulties, Paul left Scotland, finally, in 1771, never to return to it, save to carry terror among its popula- tion. He proceeded to London; found employment in the West India trade, and in 1773 settled himself for awhile in Virginia on the estate of his bro- ther, to whom he had now become heir. This was a grand tmming-point of his career, and to signalize it pro- perly, Paul, who was somewhat of a fanciful turn, added the name Jones to his proper appellation, John Paul.1 1 His biographers have offered various conjectures as to the motive of this change. One thinks it was with the intention of founding a new race in a new country, as if there had not been Joneses enough in the world alreadv ; another is of opinion, that as he might be called upon to fight against England, it would be better that his old friends should not know him—which is making Paul, or Jones, of more consequence than he, at that time, really was; another, who thinks that the addition was made a little later, fancies in it a compliment to his friend, Gen. William Jones, of North Carolina; while Cooper, the novelist and naval historian, makes up his mind, after a consideration of all these suppositions, that on the prin- ciple of a dog having an ill name, being worth nothing but to be hung, Paul, in reality, became Jones on account of a distasteful recollection of the haunting odium of that unfortunate ilaxwell affair. If John Paul were not in itself as good a name as any to " fill the trump of fame," we should be inclined to think the conscious hero had chosen the new designation simply with an eye to its Bound. Certainly, whatever may have been the impulse, the name, short, sonorous, emphatic, capable of being heard in the uproar of a tempest, or the crashing of a cannonade, has been a decided popular success. There is much in the naming of heroes; and, indeed, our naval service, from the time of Paul Jones himself, has been particularly fortunate in this respect. There is a stirring On the organization of the infant navy of the United States in 1775, John Paul Jones, as he is henceforth to be called, received the appointment of first ol the first lieutenants in the ser vice, in which, in his station on the flag-ship Alfred, he claimed the honor of being the foremost, on the approach of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Hopkins, to raise the new American flag. This was the old device of a rattlesnake coiled on a yellow ground, with the motto, Don't tread on me, which is yet partially retained in the seal of the war-office. The first service of the new squadron was the attack upon the island of New Providence, in which Jones rendered signal assistance. On the return voy- age, the unsatisfactory encounter with the Glasgow occurred, which afterwards resulted in the dismissal of one of the American officers, and Jones' appoint- ment in his place to the command of the Providence, of twelve guns and seventy men. His exploits in this vessel gained him his first laurels. He now received the rank of Captain, and sailed on various expeditions, transport- ing troops, convoying merchantmen, outsailing British frigates, and greatly harassing the enemy's commercial inte- rests. His success in these enterprises induced Commodore Hopkins to put him in command of the Alfred and other vessels on an expedition to the eastward, which resulted in the capture of various important prizes of transport and other ships, and extensive injury appeal in the very names—Bainbridge, Decatur, terry, Preble, Somers, Lawrence. PAUL JONES 15b to the fisheries at Canso. On his return, he was superseded in the com- mand of the Alfred, his seniority in the service being set aside, a grievance which led to remonstrance on his part, and a correspondence with the Commit- tee of Congress, in the course of which Jones made many valuable suggestions as to the service, and gained the friend- ship of that eminent business man of the old Confederacy, Kobert Morris. There appear to have been several appointments for him in progress when his somewhat unsettled position became i determined by the resolve of Congress ; to send him to France for the purpose , of taking command of a frigate to be provided for him by the Commis- sioners at Paris. By the resolution of June 14, 1777, he was appointed to the Ranger, newly built at Portsmouth, and—a second instance of the kind— had the honor of hoisting for the first time the new flag of the stars and stripes; at least he claimed the dis- tinction, for the bustling vanity of Jones made him punctilious in these accidental matters of personal renown. It took some time to prepare the Ranger for sea, but Jones got off on his adventure in November, made a couple of prizes by the'way, and at the end of a month reached Nantes. Disappointed in obtaining the large vessel which he had expected, and obliged to be con- tented with the Ranger, he employed Lis time in making acquaintance with the French navy at Quiberon Bay, and offering valuable suggestions for the employment of D'Estaing's fleet on the American coast. He soon determined to put to sea on an adventure of spirit. On the tenth of April, 1778, he sailed from Brest on a cruise in British waters. Directing his course to the haunts of his youth, he captured a brigantine off Cape Clear and a London ship in the Irish Channel; planned various bold adventures on the Irish coast, which he was not able to carry out by adverse influences of wind and tide, but well-nigh succeeded in burn- ma; a large fleet of merchantmen in the docks of Whitehaven. In this last adventure, he made a landing at night, and advanced to the capture of the town-batteries, leaving his officers to fire the ships, of which there were about two hundred in the port. His orders were not obeyed, either from insufficient preparations or the relent- ing of his agents, when he himself set fire to one of the largest of the vessels. It was now day, and the people were warned by a deserter from his force, but Jones managed to hold the whole town at bay till he made good his retreat. This daring affair was an im- promptu of Jones' genius, justified in his view by similar depredations of the British on the American coast; but it had an ugly look of ingratitude to the place which had sheltered his youth, and first given him promotion in the world. Nor was this all. He immediately crossed to his native shore of Scotland, with the intention of seizing the Earl of Selkirk, at his seat on the promon- tory of St. Mary's Isle on the Solway, near Kirkcudbright. Landing at the spot, he ascertained that the earl was from home. Disappointed in his ob- ject, he would have returned, when the 160 PAUL JONES. officers in his boat insisted upon a de- mand for the family plate. Jones de- murred, for he had always much of the gentleman about him; but yielded with the proviso that the thing was to be done in the most delicate manner pos- sible. His lieutenant, Simpson, under- took the business, and introduced him- self to Lady Selkirk, who was, con- veniently enough for his purposes, engaged at breakfast. She had at first taken the party for a press-gang, and had offered them refreshments; on be- ing informed of the nature of their visit, their request, backed by the armed crew at the door, was complied wTith. The butler collected the plate, estimated in one account at a hundred pounds, in another at a thousand. Meanwhile, we are told, "Paul Jones strolled under the noble oaks and chest- nuts that adorn St. Mary's Isle, with reflections, which his sudden return among scenes so attractive, where every object was so familiar to him, must have strangely blended with exultation and with pain."* If Jones thought of anything at this time, it was of the un- happy errand on which his men were engaged; for we shall presently find him at the first interval of leisure tak- ing measures to repair the act. For the moment, however, he had more serious work on hand. In his upward voyage along the Irish coast, he had looked inco Belfast Lough, after his majesty's sa>op-of-war Drake, of twenty guns, which he attempted to board in a night attack by a bold manoeuvre, which came within an ace of success. Immediately 1 Macicenzie's Life of Paul Jones, I. 11. after the affair of St. Maiy's, he ran across the channel, and had the fortune to meet the Drake coming out of Car- rickfergus. She was getting to sea to check the exploits of the Ranger, which had now alarmed the whole region. Jon--a desired nothing more than an en- counter. As the ship drew up she hailed the Ranger. Jones gave the re- ply through his sailing-master—"The American continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you. Come on. The sun is little more than an hour high, and it is time to begin!" A broadside eno-ao-ement commenced, and continued at close quarters for an hour, when the Drake surrendered. Her captain and first lieutenant were mortally wounded, her sails and rigging terribly cut up, and hull much shattered. The loss of the Ranger was two killed and six wounded; that of the Drake, forty- two. The Drake had two guns the ad- vantage of her adversary. The action took place on the 24th of April; on the 8th of May, Jones having traversed the channel, carried his prize safely into Brest. His first thought now was to make some amends to Lady Selkirk, and his own reputation for the plundering visit of his lieutenant. He therefore ad dressed to her, the very day of his land- ing, an extraordinary letter—Jones was fond of letter-writing—full of high- sounding phrases, and professions of gallantry and esteem, in the midst of which he failed not to recite the splen did victory of the Ranger. He drew a picture of the terrors inflicted by the British in America; and in respect to that unfortunate plate, expressed his PAUL JONES. 161 intention to purchase it in the sale of the prize, and restore it at his own expense to the family. This, after de- lays and obstacles, he finally accom- plished some years later, when we are told it was all returned as it was taken, the very tea-leaves of the parting break- fast clinging to the tea-pot. The affair of the Ranger, so bril- liantly conducted, the short, energetic cruise in narrow seas, so near the British naval stations, gave Jones a great reputation for gallantry in Paris. The delays and difficulties, however, incidental to the wretched state of the American finances abroad, and the imperfect relations of his country with the French court, were well calculated to cool any enthusiasm excited by his conquest; and a man of less viva- city and perseverance than Jones might have dropped the service. He persevered. His lieutenant, Simpson, after various refractory proceedings, had sailed home in the Ranger, when an arrangement was finally made with Le Ray de Chaumont, the negotiator of the French court, to furnish a joint- ly equipped and officered fleet, of which Jones was to take the command. Five vessels were thus provided, in- cluding the American frigate, Alliance. An old Indiaman, the Duke de Duras, fell to the lot of Jones. In dompli- ment to Dr. Franklin, one of the com- missioners, and especially in gratitude for a hint which he had accidentally lighted upon in an odd number of that philosopher's almanac, to the effect that whoever would have his business well done must do it himself—a suo-o-estion oo by which Jones had greatly profited 21 in giving a final spur to his protracted negotiations—he changed the name of his vessel by permission of the French government, to the Bon Homme Richard. Jones at length set sail, on the four- teenth of August, with his squadron. Landais, an incompetent Frenchman in the American service, was in command of the Alliance. It was altogether a weak, mongrel affair. The Bon Homme Richard was unseaworthy, her arma- ment was defective, and in her motley crew, Englishmen and foreigners out- numbered the Americans. The plan of the cruise was to sail round the British Islands from the westward. At Cape Clear, the commander parted with two of the smaller vessels of the squadron, which now consisted of his own ship, the Alliance, the Pallas, and the Vengeance. The service was, how- ever, far more impaired by the insub- ordination of Landais, who evinced great jealousy of his superior. Seve- ral prizes were taken, one of them by Jones off Cape Wrath, at the extremity of Scotland. Traversing the eastern coast, he arrived with the Pallas and the Vengeance at the Frith of Forth, and entertained the bold idea of attack- ing'the aimed vessels at the station, and put not only Leith, but possibly the capital, Edinburgh itself, under contribution. He would certainly have made the attempt; indeed it was in full progress, when it was defeated by a violent gale of wind. Jones now continued his course southwardly, casting longing eyes upon Hull and Newcastle, when, having been joined by the Alliance, the squadron 162 PAUL JONES. suddenly, off Flamborough Head, fell in with the Baltic fleet, protected by two British cruisers, the Serapis, 44, Captain Pearson, and the Countess of Scarborough, 20, Captain Piercy. Jones at once prepared for action. The combat which ensued between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, is one of the most remarkable in the annals of naval warfare, for the circumstances under which it was fought, the persistence of the contest, and the well matched valor of the commanders. The engagement was by moonlight, on a tranquil sea, within sight of the shore, which was crowded with spectators, who thronged the promontory of Flamborough Head and the piers of Scarborough. After various preliminary manoeuvres on the part of the English commander to shelter the merchantmen, the engage- ment began at half-past seven in the evening with a series of attempts of the Bon Homme Richard to come to close quarters with her antagonist. At the first broadside of Jones' vessel, two of the old eighteen-pounders mounted in her gun-room, burst, with fearful destruction to the men. This accident compelled the closing of the lower ports, and produced a still greater inequality between the com- batants than at the start; for the Serapis was not only a well con- structed, well furnished man-of-war, thoroughly equipped, while the Poor Richard had every disadvantage in these respects, but the absolute weight of metal was, at the outset, greatly in favor of the Englishman. The Richard then passed to windward of the Serapis, receiving hei fire, which did much damage to the rotten hull of the old Indiaman. Jones next attempted a movement to get into position to rake his antagonist from stem to stern, which resulted in a momentary col- lision. There was an effort to board the Serapis, which was repulsed, when Captain Pearson called out, " Has your ship struck ?" and Jones instantly replied, "I have not yet begun to fight." The ships then separating, were brought again to a broadside encounter, when Jones, feeling the superior force of the Serapis, and her better sailing, was fully prepared to take advantage of the next position as the ships fell foid of one another, to grapple with his opponent. He him- self assisted in lashing the jib-stay of the Serapis to the mizzen mast of the Richard. The ships became now closely entangled for their full length on their starboard sides; so near were they together, that the guns of one touched the sides of the other, and in some places where the portholes met, the guns were loaded by passing the ram mers into the opposite vessel. Every discharge in this position was of course most deadly, and told fearfully upon the rotten timbers of the Richard. To add to Jones' embarrassment, he was repeatedly fired upon by Landais, from the Alliance, which always kept her position with the Richard between her and the enemy. This extraordinary circumstance is only to be accounted for by an entire lack of presence of mind in the confusion, or by absolute treachery. The charitable supposition is, that Landais, utterly mworthy of the command, was laboring under PAUL insanity. The Serapis poured in her fire below from a full battery, while the Richard was confined to three guns on deck. She had efficient aid, however, in clearing the deck of the Serapis, from the musketry and hand grenades of her men in the tops. One of these mis- siles reached the lower gun-deck of the Serapis, and there setting fire to a quantity of exposed cartridges, pro- duced a destruction of life, an offset to the fearful loss of the Richard by the bursting of her guns in the opening of the engagement. The injury to the Richard, from the wounds inflicted upon her hull, was at this time so great, that she was pronounced to be sinking, and there was a cry among the men of surrender; not, however, from Jones, who was as much himself at this ex- tremity as ever. Seeing the English prisoners, who had been released below, more than a hundred in number, rush- ing upon deck, where in a moment they might have leaped into the Serapis, and put themselves under their coun- try's flag, he coolly set them to working the pumps, to save the sinking ship. Human courage and resolution have seldom been more severely tried than in the exigencies of this terrible night on board the Richard. Jones continued to ply his feeble cannonade from the deck, levelled at the mainmast of the adversary. Both vessels were on fire, when, at half-past ten, the Serapis struck. Lieut. Dale, subsequently the gallant commodore of the American service, went on board to conduct Cap- tain Pearson and his lieutenant to the presence of Jones. The Englishman, a brave man, was a second time con- ONES. 163 quered by the courtesy of the Ameri- can. He roughly said that it was pain- ful for him to surrender to a man who had fought with a halter round his neck; and the same thing might have been said to General Washington him- self, or any rebel of the Congress. Jones magnanimously replied, " Sir! you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt but your sovereign will reward you in a most ample manner." The loss in this extraordinary en- gagement, which outstrips and exagge- rates the usual vicissitudes of naval service, was of course fearful. The entire loss of the Richard is estimated by Cooper at one hundred and fifty, nearly one-half of all the men she had engaged. Captain Pearson reported at least one hundred and seventeen casu- alties. . The Bon Homme Richard was so riddled by the enemy's fire, and dis- embowelled by the gun-room explo- sion, that she could not be saved from sinking. When the wind freshened, the day after the victory, she became no longer tenable; her living freight was taken from her, and Jones, in the forenoon of the 25th, "with inexpres- sible grief," saw her final plunge into the depths of the ocean. While the engagement of the Richard and Serapis was going on, the Pallas, better officered than the Alliance, cap- tured the other English vessel, the Countess of Scarborough. The two prizes were carried to the Texel, where the squadron enjoyed the un- easy protection of Holland. Jones himself had an unmutilated reception in an enthusiastic greeting on the Ex- 164 PAUL JONES. change at Amsterdam, and a brilliant triumph, illuminated by the smiles of the fair sex, shortly after.in Paris. In October, 1780, he left for America in the Ariel, bearing with him a gift from the king, a gold-mounted sword, with the inscription on the blade : Vindfcati Mart* Ludovicus XVI. Bemunerator Strenuo Vindici—"Louis XVI. the Rewarder to the strong protector of the vindicated sea." The voyage was in- terrupted, at its outset, by a severe storm off the harbor, in which Jones displayed his usual heroism. The ves- sel was refitted, and after a partial action on the high seas with a mys- terious stranger, reached Philadelphia in February, 1781. Jones was warmly greeted in Ame- rica by the Board of Admiralty, by Congress, which gave him permission to accept the Cross of the order of Military Merit, which the French monarch had tendered him, and with which he was now invested at a splendid entertainment by the French minister; but, above all, by a congratulatory letter from Washington, compliment- ing the chevalier the more efficiently in its apparently simple teims. After this, Jones, disappointed of the com- mand of the America and the South Carolina, joined the French squadron on a West India cruise. He was in Philadelphia when peace was made, and, before the-close of the year, re- turned again to France, seeking com- pensation for the prizes which he had captured. The negotiation was slow, but finally put Jones in possession of a handsome sum. On his return to America, in 1787, Congress ordered a gold medal to be struck in honor of his exploits, and gave him a commendatory letter to Louis XVI., in whose service he was now desirous to engage. He left Ame- rica, never to return to it, in November of the same year. When he reached Paris, he was met by a proposition to enter the service of Catherine of Rus- sia, in which he was induced to engage by prospects of rank and glory. On his journey to St. Petersburg, he had a characteristic adventure in his passage from Stockholm to Revel, which he made while the navigation was inter- rupted by ice, traversing the sea, with great hardihood, in an open boat, ex- torting the labors of the boatmen by his threats of violence. He was well received by the Empress, who for- warded him to Potemkin, then in com- mand on the Black Sea, in a war with the Turks. It is not necessary to re- count the movements of a small squad- ron, with a divided command and jealous counsels, presided over by a whimsical, despotic court favorite. Many as were the vexations encoun- tered by Jones in the inefficient re- sources, the shifts and expedients of foreign allies, and the straits of the American Commissioners, they were light compared with the stifling re- straints of Russian tyranny. Jones did much fighting, in his command of the Wolodomer, on the Black Sea against the Pasha, but retired with little glory. Persecution followed at St. Petersburg —there was an assault upon his moral character, which was triumphantly dis proved—various projects flitted through his teeming mind, and his connection PAUL JONES. 165 with the country closed after a resi- dence of fifteen months. It is sad to watch the last years of Paul Jones, not, indeed, of age, but of growing weari- ness and disease, as he renews his broken Russian hopes, and revives the old faded pecuniary claims on the French Court. A gleam of sunshine appears in his aspirations to serve his country—for he still looked across the Atlantic—in the removal of the chains from the American sailors imprisoned at Algiers. His country listened to his cry: he was charged to treat with the Regency for their ransom, but be- fore the commission reached him, he had passed to that land where the weary cease from sighing, and the prisoners are at rest. Here, with Mercy bending over the scene, let the curtain fall. Paul Jones died at Paris, at the age of forty-five, of a dropsical affection, July 18, 1792. On the even- ing of his decease, Gouverneur Morris, the American minister, was with him, assisted in drawing up his will, and departed. A few minutes later, his physician called, when he was found alone, lying on his bed, life extinct. He was buried in Paris; the National Assembly honored his funeral; M. Mar- ron, a Protestant clergyman, sounded the paean of liberated Revolutionary France over his grave. Surely his ashes are worthy to rest in American soil, and the country might worthily bestow on Paul Jones, whose spirit will yet nerve, while war remains to defend the freedom or scourge the folly of nations, many a youthful hero in her cause—a statue and a tomb. The person of Paul Jones is well known by the numerous prints devoted to his brilliant exploits. You will see him, a little active man of medium height, not robust, but vigorous, a keen, black eye, lighting a dark, weather- beaten visage, compact and determined, with a certain melancholy grace.1 He was one of nature's self-made men; that is, nature gave the genius, and he supplied the industry, for he knew how to labor, and must have often exerted himself to secure the attainments which he possessed. He was a good seaman, as well as a most gallant officer; sagacious in the appli- cation of means; vain, indeed, and ex- pensive, but natural and generous; something of a poet in verse, much more in the quickness and vivacity of his imagination, which led him to plan nobly; an accomplished writer; and' for our esteem, as he was found worthy of the long friendship of Franklin, who knew him well, the sage who sought for excellence while he looked with a kindly eye upon human infirmity; we, too, may peruse the virtues of the man and smile upon his frailties. 1 Some of these old representations approach the verge of caricature, as with plumed cap, Jones, enveloped in the smoke of war, more lurid in the smokier mezzotint, his belt girt with pistols, like the mainmast with belaying. pins, brandishing his cutlass, rages amid the prostrate foe on " the dying deck," everywhere the plurvna mortit imago. JOHN STARK. John Staek was of Scottish parent- age, his father, Archibald Stark, being a native of Glasgow, though he came to America with a company of emi- grants from the north of Ireland, where he had been settled from his youth. They were of that vigorous race of Scottish Presbyterians, who established themselves on the Merrimac, then an outpost of the wilderness, and gave the name Londonderry, in honor of the Irish city they had left behind them, to their settlement. At this spot in New Hampshire John Stark was born, August 28, 1728. In his eighth year, his father removed to the site of the present Manchester, whence, in his sixteenth year, we find his son, already developed to a strength and hardihood capable of coping with the savage ten- ants of the forest, making his way in a hunting expedition to one of the dis- tant streams in the northern portion of the State. His adventure on this occa- sion is well worth narrating. The party consisted of himself, his elder brother, and two others. They were proceeding with their hunting, when they became aware of the presence of a band of St. Francis Indians, and prepared to retire. John, while engaged apart from the rest in collecting the traps, was made prisoner. Upon being interrogated as 166 to his companions, he put the Indians upon a false track, by pointing to a dif- ferent direction from the one which they had taken, thus cutting off any hope of protection for himself. The savages were, however, recalled from their boot- less errand, by hearing a gun fired as a signal to Stark, and took their position in consequence on the river where they would intercept the hunters. The party came on, one of them on foot, Stark's elder brother with the third in a canoe. The first was readily captured, when John was directed to hail the others. He did so, advising them to escape. Four of the Indians were about firing into the boat, when Stark arrested two of their muskets. One shot took effect, leaving the elder Stark in the boat to escape alone. John was at first severely beaten by the disappointed savages, but finding the youth serviceable in hunt- ing, they treated him with some degree of confidence. He was taken to St. Francis, on the St. Lawrence, where he derived, in a six weeks' residence, much valuable knowledge of the Indian mode of warfare, when he was ran- somed for one hundred and three dol- lars. His captors put a good price upon his superior worth, according to their estimation, for they released his companion at some forty per cent, less \ J?-^n -zf&vi/X JOHN STARK. 167 He gained this compliment by his skill in hunting and dare-devil valor in resist- ing their oppressions. The money for Stark's ransom was advanced by certain commissioners of Massachusetts, who came to release some of their countrymen, and thus be- came a personal debt, to be repaid by the beneficiary. He accordingly ap- plied himself to hunting on the Andro- scoggin, and we hear of his also being employed in an exploring expedition in what were then the wild and distant regions of the upper waters of the Con- necticut, about the site of the present Haverhill. On the breaking out of the French war, Stark was chosen his lieutenant by the famous Robert Rogers, the New Hampshire partisan soldier who brought his recruits to the service of the British commander at Fort Edward. The story of the service told in the rough notes of a soldier in Rogers' Journal of the War, shows it full of peril, calling for the constant display of heroism and endurance, qualities in which Stark was never deficient. He. signalized himself particularly in a sharp action with the enemy, followed by a well managed retreat, in which his per- sonal strength was fully put to the proof. He was made a captain, and was with the army in its attack upon Ticonde- roga, when Lord Howe fell. After this campaign, the warrior re- turned home on furlough, and married Elizabeth Page, daughter of Captain Page, of Dunbarton. The next season, however, again found him in aims, at the old scene of hostilities, under the command of Amherst. In the cam- paign of 1759, he was engaged in open- ing a road through the wilderness, from Crown Point to Fort Number Four, on the Connecticut. He retired the next year from the service, the war being now, by the conquest of Canada, virtu- ally ended. In the preliminary movements of the succeeding Revolutionary War, Stark, as a member of one of the New Hamp- shire Committees of Safety, exerted his influence in preparing the minds of his countrymen for the coming struggle, and when the actual outbreak occurred at Lexington, it is £aid that within ten minutes of his receiving the news, he was in the saddle summoning volun fceers to rendezvous at the scene of action at Medford. Of the first New Hampshire regiment, there organized, he was unanimously elected Colonel by the suffrage of the men, and his State Provincial Congress confirmed the choice. He was in action with his troops on Breed's Hill, in the battle ol Bunker's Hill, as it is commonly call- ed, where he was in command on the left wing, and by the side of Knowlton, met the onset of the British veterans with the sharp fire of his practised marksmen. As he was moving across the exposed Boston Neck to his station, he coolly refused to hasten his march, saying, that " one fresh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones;" and when the action was at its height, on its being reported to him, falsely, as it afterwards appeared, that his son, of sixteen, who accompanied him, was killed, his reply was worthy of an ancient Spartan: " It is no time to talk of private affairs, while the enemy is STARK. in force in front." No wonder that General Gage, who knew the man in his old campaigns, remarked, at his point of observation in Boston, to some one inquiring if the Americans would fight: " I think they will, if John Stark is with them." The whole number of the killed, wounded, and missing of Stark's regiment on this occasion, was sixty. After the action, he took up his station on Winter Hill, where he remained till the British evacuation of Boston, in March. He then served with the portion of the troops ordered to New York, and was thence sent to General Sullivan's command in Canada, where he bore his part in the unsuc- cessful movements of that general. After the retreat, he was stationed in the neighborhood of Ticonderoga, where, on the Declaration of the Fourth of July being read, the hill which he occupied was named Mount Independence. Stark was next ordered to the army of Washington, on the Delaware, and in the movement upon Trenton, led the advance guard of General Sulli- van's column, distinguishing himself, as usual, by his good conduct in the action. He was also with Washington in the battle of Princeton; after which we find him holding his men together for a new term of enlistment by his personal influence, and forwarding the recruiting service in his native State. While engaged in this last duty, he felt that injustice had been done him in overlooking him in the new prom >tions, and resigned his commission in the army. " An officer," he affirmed, " who would not maintain his rank and assert his rights, was not worthy of serving his country." He retired, however, in no spirit of disaffection to the cause, but professed himself ready to serve his country again on occasion, and, in the mean time, fitted out such of his family as were capable of bearing arms. The occasion to call him into the field arose with the advance of Bur- goyne's army to its intended junction with Howe. Special instructions were given by the British commander to Colonel Baum, a Hessian officer, to proceed through the present State of Vermont, with the several objects of replenishing his stock of provisions, procuring dragoon horses, of which the army stood in need, and generally alarming the country by the prospect of a military movement toward Boston. Bennington, as a grand depot of provi- sions, was a special object of attack. In the meantime, a new force of militia had been raised with extraordinary spirit in New Hampshire, and the most .vigorous measures taken for the de- fence of the country. The first move- ment of troops was assigned to Stark, in whom the highest confidence was placed. He accepted it on condition that the command should be considered a local one, subject only to the authori- ties of his State, which was granted— after which the orders of Schuyler to report himself on the Hudson had no effect to divert him from his course. He took command of the forces gather- ed on the frontier at Bennington, pre- pared for the attack of the enemy, who, on the 11th of August, 1777, began JOHN STARK. 169 their advance from Saratoga. Stark, as soon as he learnt of their approach, set his troops in motion to meet them. At first he dispatched one of his officers, Colonel Gregg, to meet an advanced body of Indians, but learn- ing that a greater force of the enemy was pressing on behind, he himself pushed forward, on the 14th, with all his men, and after a march of but five miles, coming upon Gregg, in retreat, prepared for the attack. The Hessian General, however, declined the battle in this way, and took post at a strong position on high ground at a bend of the Walloomscoick. Stark also with- drew to a better position. The next day, which was rainy, there was some successful skirmishing on the part of the Americans, which intimidated the Indians. Baum, fearing the Americans, sent for reinforcements, and recruits were coming in to Stark. Among them, says Irving, " was a belligerent parson, full of fight, Allen by name, possibly of the bellicose family of the hero of Ticonderoga. ' General,' cried he, ' the people of Berkshire have been often called out to no purpose; if you don't give them a chance to fight now, they will never turn out again.' 'You would not turn out now while it is dark and raining, would you V demand- ed Stark. 'Not just now,' was the reply. * Well, if the Lord should once more give us sunshine, and I don't give you fighting enough,' rejoined the veteran, 'I'll never ask you to turn out again.'" The next day, the six- teenth, the sun shone, and the battle was fought. Stark arranged an attack, sending two detachments to outflank 22 the enemy on either side, and make a united assault on his rear. Another portion made a diversion in front. The action which followed is thus nar- rated by Irving: " At the first sound of firearms, Stark, who had remained with the main body in camp, mounted his horse and gave the word, Forward! He had promised his men the plunder of the British camp. The homely speech made by him when in sight of the enemy, has often been cited. ' Now, my men, there are the red-coats! Before night they must be ours, or Molly Stark will be a widow !' Baum soon found himself assailed on every side, but he defended his works brave- ly. His two pieces of artillery, advan- tageously planted, were very effective, and his troops, if slow in march, were steady in action. For two hours the discharge of firearms was said to have been like the constant rattling of the drum. Stark, in his dispatches, com- pared it to a ' continued clap of thun- der.' It was the hottest fight he had ever seen. He inspired his men with his own impetuosity. They drove the royalist troops upon the Hessians, and pressing after them, stormed the works with irresistible fury." Stark gained the victory two days before Congress passed a resolution censuring his disobedience to Schuy- ler's command. That body, on hearing of his admirable dispositions and bril- liant success at Bennington, were quite willing to take the sturdy old partisan on his own terms. He sent no official information to that assembly of the battle, while he communicated it in glowing words to the State authorities, 170 JOHN STARK. whose citizens he commanded; but Congress reopened the correspondence with him, by sending him a vote of thanks with the coveted promotion of brigadier-general. After this, we find Stark diligently engaged in the various operations of the war under the direction of Wash- ington and Congress to the close. He was mainly employed, with intervals of repose, in the northern and eastern service; at one time in command in Rhode Island, at another at West Point, at another at Saratoga. He was at the battle of Springfield, in New Jersey, and presently sitting as a member of the court-martial on the trial of Andre. In 1781 he was in command of the northern department. He was with Washington at the close of the war, when he employed his influence in allaying those discontents of the army, the grounds of which no one had more sensibly experienced than himself. It is characteristic of a certain democratic independence of character which be- longed to him, that he refused to parti- cipate in the self-imposed honors of the society of the Cincinnati. The hardy veteran, disciplined in the active service of two great wars, through which he passed unwounded, though he had for some time felt the pressure of physical infirmities, in rheumatic attacks, had yet a long career before him. His life was pro- tracted for thirty-nine years after the Revolution. He was destined even to be stirred by the military vicissitudes of a third war. When the French can non, which he had captured at Benning ton, were surrendered by Hull to the British at Detroit, he sighed for his old vigor, that he might take the field again. Death finally came to relieve the honored old man, at the age of ninety-four, at his residence in Man- chester, on the Merrimac, May 8, 1822. His remains were placed in a spot selected by himself in a conspicuous situation on the banks of the river, marked by a granite obelisk on which is simply written, Majoe Gejsteeal Staek. Among the individualities of the Revolution few are more striking than this independent character, the sturdy growth of a strong lineage and hardy nurture of the war and the wilderness. The retrospect of his long life covers three great ages of American existence, the far Colonial era, the Revolutionary conflict, and a good portion of our subsequent history. As the country recedes from his times, already growing very distant in the rapid march of events, the interest in such a man will grow and increase. He will be looked upon as the representative of the faith- ful yeomanry who never faltered under his guidance, but who came at his call, and followed him, as at Bennington, to the cannon's mouth. His very humors or eccentricities will add to his reputa- tion ; for Fame loves a marked charac- ter, and such strong demonstrative traits as constituted the individuality of Stark. GEORGE CLINTON. The first American ancestor of the eminent New York family of the Clin- tons, Charles Clinton, was a native of Ireland, who emigrated to America in the early part of the seventeenth cen- tury. The lineage may be carried farther back to William Clinton, an adherent of Charles I. in the civil wars of England, and an officer in the royal army. When the monarch was de- feated, his supporter took refuge on the Continent; after a while went secretly to Scotland, married, and passed over, for greater security, to the north of Ireland. His son James in vain en- deavored to recover the patrimonial estate in England. He lived in Ire- land, married the daughter of one of Cromwell's officers, and became the father of James, the emigrant to this country, who was born in the County of Longford, in 1690. He had a peril- ous voyage to the new land. The pas- sengers were so badly treated by the captain of the ship which was to carry them to Philadelphia, that many of them died, among others a son and daughter of Mr. Clinton. The survi- vors were glad to effect a landing at Cape Cod, where Clinton and his friends continued till the spring of 1730, when they established themselves in what was then Ulster County, in New York, in a settlement to which the name Little Britain was given, eight miles distant from the Hudson. He cultivated a large farm, occasionally acted as a surveyor of land, was fond of books and study, and speedily be- came recognized in the colony as a man of influence and intelligence. He held several military offices in the provincial service, and was with the royal forces at the capture of Frontenac. He was a man of general accomplishment, a gentleman of the olden time. A few verses, even, are preserved of his com- position. He died in his eighty-third year, in Ulster, in 1773, on the eve of the Revolution, commending the cause of his country to his sons. " Stand," he said, " by the liberties of America." George Clinton, the subject of our present sketch, was born at the family seat, in the County of Ulster, in New York, July 26, 1739. His Christian name was given him out of esteem for the old colonial governor, George Clin- ton, the father of Sir Henry, with whom there was a distant family relationship. He was educated at home, by his father and a learned minister of the Presby- terian Church, a graduate of Aberdeen. While quite a youth, on the breaking out of the old French war, he ran away from home to serve in a privateer, when m 172 GEORGE CLINTON. he encountered many hardships, but was back in time to share with his father and brother, at the age of nine- teen, in the reduction of Frontenac, and assist in capturing one of the French vessels. At the close of the war, he turned his attention to the arts of peace, reading law in the office of William Smith, the eminent lawyer, colonial historian, and loyalist of the Revolution. He was appointed, at the early age of twenty, by the favor of Governor Clinton, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, Clerk of the Peace, and of the Court of Sessions, etc., of Ulster County. In 1764, he was ad- mitted to the bar; the following year he was appointed Surrogate, and in 1768 we find him taking his seat as a member of the Colonial Assembly from his county, and continuing in this rela- tion till its dissolution, at the breaking out of the Revolution. He was chosen in 1775 a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was pre- sent at the preliminary vote which led to the Declaration of Independence, but was called away to military duties in his own State before the signing of the instrument. " Clinton," says Gou- verneur Morris, " attended but little in Congress. He had an aversion to coun- cils, because, to use his own words, the duty of looking out for danger makes men cowards."* He held the State ap- pointment of brigadier-general, and was put in command of the levies raised for the defence of the Highlands, which was soon after specially assigned to liim, 1 Oration in honor of the memory of George Clinton, 1812. and his rank confirmed by the Conti- nental Congress. He was also, in 1776, appointed a deputy to the New York Provincial Congress, which framed the fiist State Constitution. At the first election un- der this instrument, he was chosen both governor and lieutenant-governor. Accepting the higher office, he entered upon its duties in July, 1777, and was continued in it by popular election for eighteen years. It was not long before an opportunity was afforded the new governor to prove his mettle, in a contest with the son of his old friend and early patron, George Clinton. In autumn, the British army in New York, having been reinforced by the arrival of fresh troops from Europe, determined upon a movement against the forts in the Highlands, which would open the river to a cooperation with Burgoyne, who was advancing from the north. An expedition was planned with this object by Sir Henry Clinton, directed especially, as it proved, against Forts Clinton and Montgomery, on the western bank at the centre of the High lands. These forts were well planned and situated for defence, though one of them was unfinished, and both were feebly garrisoned. A heavy iron chain was drawn across the river from Mont- gomery, the upper of the two, to the opposite promontory of Anthony's Nose. A small stream, Poplopen's Kill, ran between the two forts. On the land side they were protected by the cliffs, and the difficulty of the mountain passes. Part of the militia had been withdrawn to other fields of the war, GEORGE CLINTON. 173 and it was very difficult to get the yeo- manry from their farms at the harvest season to serve. Of the militia in the forts a portion was unarmed The main defence rested upon the artillery- men of the veteran, Colonel Lamb. There were but six hundred in all. Gene- ral Putnam, who was intrusted with the defence of the region, was below on the opposite shore at Peekskill. Briga- dier-General Clinton, "the Champion of the Highlands," was discharging his duties as governor at the meeting of the Legislature at Kingston. There were two other forts, on the opposite side of the river, defending the High- lands, one above Fort Constitution over against West Point, the other, Fort Independence, at the southern en- trance above Peekskill. Sir Henry Clinton, who was a good strategist, completely outwitted Put- nam in his advances. He sent a party of troops to Tarrytown, as if for a move- ment on the eastern side, which led Put- nam to suppose that his force at Peeks- kill was the object of attack, while the British general brought his fleet up the river, and reembarked the men who had been landed. A second landing of men was made at Verplanck's Point, a few miles below Peekskill, which confirmed Putnam in the notion that he was to be assailed. He even despatched a de- mand to the opposite forts for succor from their scanty garrisons. The ene- my were in the meanwhile landing on the opposite shore, and pushing upward with their vessels into the jaws of the Highlands. Governor Clinton, already warned of the movements of the fleet, had thrown himself into Fort Montgomery, and was disposing his force for the defence of the approach by the bridge across the kill, while he sought information of any movements in his rear; for his military eye saw at once that his forts were the aim of the enemy. On the morning of the sixth, the British forces, several thousand in all, from picked regiments, were landed at Stony Point. Sir Henry Clinton led them by a rough march to the west of the Dunderberg. Arriving at a convenient point, he sent a part of his force onward to attack Fort Montgomery from the rear at the same moment that he would assail its lower neighbor, Fort Clinton. Gover- nor Clinton, as we have said, was at the upper fort. He was aware of the enemy's approach, and prepared for resolute resistance. Sending out a por- tion of his men to oppose the march with a fieldpiece, he dispatched a mes- senger to Putnam for a reinforcement. The enemy came rapidly along, when they were considerably annoyed by the grape-shot and musketry. The men, however, who opposed* them, were but a handful, and the gallant defenders were compelled to retire to the fort after having spiked their gun. " This," says Clinton, in his dispatch, "was about two o'clock in the afternoon; and the enemy approached the works and began the attack, which continued, with few intervals, till about five o'clock, when an officer appeared with a flag. I ordered Lieutenant Colonel Livingston to meet him without the works, and know his business. Colonel Livingston having demanded his rank and business, he was told by the bearer 17-1 GEORGE CLINTON. of the flag that he was Lieutenant- Colonel Campbell, and that he came to demand the surrender of the fort, to prevent the effusion of blood. Colonel Livingston replied that he had no authority to treat with him, but if they would surrender themselves prisoners of war, they might depend upon being well treated; and if they did not choose to accept of these terms, they might renew the attack as soon as he should return within the fort, he being determined to defend it to the last extremity. As soon as Lieutenant- Colonel Livingston returned, the attack was renewed with great violence; and after as obstinate a resistance as our situation and the weakness of the gar- rison would admit, having defended the works from two o'clock till the dusk of the evening, the enemy, by the superiority of numbers, forced the works on all sides." The reinforce- ment from Putnam was still on the other side of the river. The forcible dispatch of Clinton to Washington, just cited, tells the story of a prolonged * and honorable resist- ance. It was utterly impossible to hold the extended works longer with the slender garrison against the hosts of assailants. When they were final- ly overpowered, many yet managed by their valor to escape. General James Clinton, who was commander at Fort Clinton, driven to surrender at the same time, was wounded, and nar- rowly escaped by descending a preci- pice to the river. The Governor, his brother, was fortunate enough to find a boat to cany him to the other side. Thus ended the gallant defence of the Highland forts. Had Clinton been in command in place of Putnam, the result might have been different. As it was, the loss was happily neutralized by the surrender of Burgoyne, which rendered the conquest ineffectual. The river was, however, open to the incursions of the enemy, who availed themselves of the opportunity to burn and destroy in their progress. Kings- ton, where the legislature had lately been in session, was committed to the flames in sight of Governor Clinton, who had hastened to interpose his little force between the town and the enemy. During the remainder of the war, he was twice in the field to repel attack, in the defence of the Mohawk region against Sir John Johnson and his motley forces, and a like threatened attack from Lake Champlain. The old Colonial controversy of the New Hampshire Grants, was one of the agitated questions of Clinton's adminis- tration, which, after a great deal of controversy and employment of the time of Congress and the State legis- lature, and the minds of some of the best men in the country, was finally settled by the troublesome little Ver- mont becoming a State in 17 91.1 At the termination of the contest with England, Governor Clinton had the satisfaction of entering New York at the side of Washington on the twenty-fifth of November—" Evacua- tion Day." An incident occurred a short time after, which illustrated both the humanity and decision of Clinton. 1 The history of this whole controversy is carefully given in a valuable note by Mr. Street to his biographical sketch of Clinton in his " Council of Revision," etc. GEORGE CLINTON. 175 A British officer had been seized by the Whigs of the city, and was being carried along in a cart to an appointed place, where he was to be tarred and feathered. Clinton, sword in hand, rescued the victim at the risk of his life. In 1784 we find him recommending to the legislature the creation of a Board of Regents of the University, of which he became ex-officio a mem- ber. When the active movements in Mas- sachusetts, consequent upon the popular insurrection known as Shay's Rebellion, drove a portion of the malcontents into New York, where they were rallying at Lebanon for renewal of hostilities, Clinton summoned the militia, and put them to flight. On another occasion, not long after, he took part in the attempted conciliation, and then in the prompt military suppression of the civic disturbance in New York, the Doctors' Mob. The affair at Lebanon was a practical illustration of the defects of govern- ment under the old Confederacy, and had much to do with opening the eyes of the public to the necessity of a fixed legitimate authority in legislation. It immediately preceded the Convention for the formation of the Constitution, and doubtless influenced many sober- minded people in its favor. Governor Clinton was President of the New York Convention which ratified this great instrument in 1788. He was by no means, at the outset, a friend to the measure. Indeed, he took the lead in the State in opposition, as the head of the Anti-Federalists. As the represent- ative of a great commercial State, he was loath to part with the import duties to the General Government. Befoie New York came into the measure, the constitutional number of States, nine, had already signified their agreement. Virginia, the tenth, had signified her agreement on the 25th of June. It became, therefore, a question with New York, when she made her decision a month later, not whether there should be a union of States, but whether she should belong to it or not. On this issue the Governor and the Conven- tion gave their acquiescence, with the understanding that the instrument should be speedily submitted to amendment. The division of parties now brought him a, competitor for the office of governor. Under the old Constitu- tion, the elections were triennial, and Clinton, as we have seen, had served without opposition since the State government went into operation, in 1777. Robert Yates, a judge of the Supreme Court, was set up as his oppo- nent ; a man of character and influence, whose nomination by the Federalists was a concession to their opponents, for Yates had withdrawn from the Convention of the Constitution at Phi ladelphia in furtherance of his advo- cacy of State sovereignty. His per sonal weight, also, brought him many votes, so that he came very near gain- ing the election. At the next election, in 1792, John Jay was set up in oppo- sition, and obtained a numerical ma- jority, when objections were interposed to the informality of the votes of cer- tain counties, which were sustained by 17G GEORGE CLINTON. the referees. These votes being thrown out, Clinton was found to have a ma- jority of one hundred and eight. This was his last term At its close, he issued an address to the electors, plead- ing his thirty years of service to the public in elective offices, and asking for retirement. Before passing from this period of his public duties, we should notice his efforts, in 1789, in behalf of a provision for setting apart lands in the new townships for the pro- motion of literature and the support of common schools, and in 1791, and the following year, for improvement of ag- riculture and Internal Communication by the Northern and Western Inland Lock Navigation Companies—efforts which connect his name with the more successful and eminent labors of his nephew. After a few years' retirement, George Clinton is again brought forward, in 1801, as a candidate for the governor's chair, and elected. The next Presi- dential election carried him into the Vice-Presidency by the side of Jeffer- son, as the representative of the Re- publican party. He was reelected in 1808, with Madison. In 1811, he gave his casting vote, as President of the Senate, against the renewal of the char- ter of the Bank of the United States, asserting, in. a brief, pointed speech, the principles which he had long held is a strict constructionist. He did not survive this Presidential term. He died at Washington, in office, on the 20th April, 1812, in the seventy-third year of his age. His re- mains repose in the Congressional Bury- ing-ground, with an inscription from the pen of De Witt Clinton: " To the memory of George Clinton. He was a soldier and statesman of the Revolu- tion. Eminent in- council and distin- guished in war, he filled with unex- ampled usefulness, purity and ability among many other offices, those of governor of his native State and of Vice-President of the United States. While he lived, his virtue, wisdom and valor were the pride, the ornament and security of his country; and when he died, he left an illustrious example of a well spent life, worthy of all imitation." Such was the public position and elevated character of George Clinton, " a soldier and statesman of the Revo- lution." Eulogy needs no higher terms. * He is spoken of as frank and amiable in private life as he was firm and dig- nified in public. We might look for as much from the old defender of Fort Clinton, a man not to be trifled with, of original force and weight, whose courage and strength were directed to manly, honorable ends. -X FRANCIS MARION. Francis Marion, the partisan gene- ral of South Carolina, was of Huguenot descent, ih.Q first American settlers of the name being Benjamin Marion and Judith Balnet, his wife, who came from France in 1690, and established them- selves in a plantation on one of the tributaries of the Cooper River, near Charleston. Gabriel, the son of Benja- min, married Esther Cordes. These were the parents of Francis Marion. He was born, it would appear, in St. Johns Parish, Berkeley County, pro- bably in 1732. His early life was passed, till his twenty-seventh year, in agricultural pursuits, when we first hear of him in connection with military mat- ters in the period of the old French war. He took the field with Moultrie, and fought gallantly by the side of that officer in the Cherokee country against the savages at the battle of Etchoee. He then returned to his farm, near Eutaw Springs, ripening for the work of the Revolution, which found him at the height of manhood, at the age of forty-three. The people of his district relied upon his understanding, for we find them sending him as their delegate to the Provincial Congress of 1775, when he was appointed captain in the regi- ment of his former superior officer, Colonel Moultrie. His first duty was' 23 to gather a company, which he speedily effected in the eastern region, where he was well known. He was then em- ployed in the neighborhood of Charles- ton ; being engaged in the occupation of Fort Johnson and the command of Dorchester. He was with Moultrie, at Sullivan's Island, during the fierce day of battle which we have already described,1 and particularly distinguished himself in the gallant defence. At the ill-managed attack upon Sa vannah, by the combined forces of D'Estaing and Lincoln, which ended so disastrously for the Americans, Marion was present with his regiment, which did much by its gallantry to redeem the honor, if not the fortunes, of the day. Next came, in the winter of 1780, the siege of Charleston, by Sir Henry Clinton. It was evident from the be- ginning that the city must fall, and it has been a point much discussed whether Lincoln should have attempt- ed to defend it, whether it would not have been better for the cause that he should withdraw his troops, and besiege the British from the open country. This was what afterwards took place when the conquerors were 1 Ante, Life of Moultrie. 177 178 FRANCIS MARION reduced almost to starvation. An accident which happened to Marion has been esteemed a piece of singular good fortune to the cause, in saving him from the surrender. He was in com- mand of the small body of light troops outside of the city, when he was called to aid in the defence. During the first days of the very deliberate investment, he was dining with some friends in the town, when, according to a custom not unusual in those hard-drinking tjmes, the door was locked that no one should avoid his share of the conviviality. Determined to escape the infliction, he threw himself from the window into the street. The fall fractured his ankle and incapacitated him from ser- vice. In obedience to an order of Lincoln, commanding all officers unfit for duty to retire from the city, he left while the country was still open, and took refuge in his native region of St. Johns. His freedom was thus preserved for the service of his country. Now came the incursions of Tarleton and the devastating warfare of Corn- wallis—a policy of savage extermina- tion which would have driven a people with less capability of exertion to des- pair. But it happened, as it has before, that the very means employed to crush, excited the spirit of resistance, and deliverers were raised up for the op- pressed. It was a peculiar species of warfare which was now entered upon, requiring novel resources both for at- tack and defence. A thinly inhabited country was the scene of operations, cut up. in all directions by rivers and their branches, and innumerable swamps. Large bodies of troops could move only with difficulty; it was a service for small parties of cavalry always in movement, making up by rapidity for want of numbers. On the side of the British, Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton, an officer of spirit, whose fiery youth has been vividly handed down to us in the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was the leading representative of this method of war- fare ; harrying the land with his mount- ed troops, and overcoming by his act- ivity and unscrupulousness. Success added terror to his name, as he gained victory after victory, and seemed des- tined to sweep the land of its patriot defenders. He was the right arm of Cornwallis, in his movements in the interior, and began to be deemed invin- cible, when his course was arrested by Morgan, the Virginian, and his resolute companies of native defenders of the State, at the battle of Cowpens. But it was in Marion that the chief spirit of resistance was incorporated. On the arrival of Gates from the north, in command of the southern army, having partially recovered from his lameness, he presented himself before the hero of Saratoga, on his march toward the fatal field of Camden. American com- manders were accustomed to odd sights of dress and equipment in the patriot soldiery who enlisted under their ban- ners, and Gates must have been used to appearances with which the eye of Washington himself was but too fami- liar. The little band of Marion, how- ever, seems to have astonished even their American brethren in arms. As for the well-equipped British, they FRANCIS » always held the ragged American regi- ments in contempt, till they were soundly flogged by them. An intelli- gent looker-on at the camp, Col. Otho Williams, in his narrative of the cam- paign, speaks of Colonel Marion's arri- val, " attended by a very few followers, distinguished by small leather caps, and the wretchedness of their attire; their number did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped. Their appearance was, in fact, so burlesque, that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the regular soldiery was restrained by the officers; and the General himself was glad of an opportunity of detach- ing Colonel Marion, at his own in- stance, towards the interior of South Carolina, with orders to watch the motions of the enemy, and furnish intelligence."1 It was while Marion was engaged on this service, that the battle of Camden was fought; but luckily, he had no share in the misadventure. He was employed, in fact, in quite an inde- pendent career of his own, organizing his own forces and acting at his own discretion. He was at the head of that system of partisan warfare, which, in its development, was to rid the State of the foreign foe. His present command, " Marion's Brigade," was formed from the hardy spirited population of Irish descent, settled between the Santee and the Pedee, in the territory of Williamsburg. They were convinced of the intentions of the British rulers ' Sinuns' Life of Marion, p. 106. MARION. 179 at Charleston to reduce them to politi- cal servitude; they knew their rights, and knowing, dared to maintain them. Their movement was voluntary, as they o-athered their small but resolute force of picked mei., and called Marion to its command. He had already assumed it, and caused the Tories to feel hia new authority when the defeat of Gates took place. It roused him at once to a new effort to redeem the fortunes of war. He was already in the neighborhood of the field, and hear- ing that a British guard was on its way with a considerable body of prisoners, he determined to arrest the party on its march. Two days after the battle, he concerted an attack, and with the loss of but one man, killed and took twenty-two regulars and two Tories prisoners, and retook one hun- dred and fifty continentals of the Mary- land line. He was now a recognized leader in the field, and the British commander-in-chief directed his efforts to his overthrow. " I most sincerely hope," wrote Cornwallis to Tarleton, "that you will get at Mr. Marion." But Mr. Marion was not so easily to be caught. On the appearance of a superior force, under the command of Tarleton, which it would have been vain to resist, the skilful partisan turned his forces in another direction, to the borders of North Carolina, where he overawed the Scotch Tories in that disaffected region. The ruthless con- duct of the British whom he had left • behind, now raised the South Caro- linians to fresh resistance, ^\ hen Marion, ever mindful of his opportunity, re- turned to the State with speed, accom- 180 FRANCIS MARION. plishing sixty miles in one day, and in a bold night attack, defeated a large body of Tories on the Black Mingo. Following this up with some smaller successes of the kind, he again attracted the attention of Tarleton, who issued out of Charleston in force for his cap- ture, and when he was fairly on his heels, wearied out and perplexed by the windings of his foe, gave up the chase, it is said, with the exclamation, " Come, my boys ! let us go back. We will soon find the Game Cock (Marion's brother partisan, Sumter), but as for this damned Swamp-fox, the devil him- self could not catch him." The tide was now turning, as the people felt their strength. King's Mountain, in the autumn of this memo- rable 1780, brought a vast accession of strength to the popular cause, in the proof that the best British troops were not invincible before an aroused yeo- manry ; but there was much yet to be done before the day of final deliverance was secured. It was a slow, weary, harassing policy which was to be pur- sued, of surprises and escapes, of self- denial and endurance, the watchful, unyielding virtue of Marion and his men. They took post in an island fortress of wooded swamp land, at the junction of the Pedee and Lynch's Creek, known as the " camp of Marion," where he recruited his forces, husbanded his strength, and sallied forth on his raids against the foe. This is the spot where the popular admiration of Marion finds its home and centre. " His career as a partisan," says his faithful bio- grapher, the novelist Simms, " in the thickets and swamps of Carolina, is abundantly distinguished by the pictu- resque ; but it was while lie held his camp at Snow's Island that it received its highest .colors of romance. In this snug and impenetrable fortress, he re- minds us very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own. The resem- blance is good in all respects but one. The plea and justification of Marion are complete. His warfare was legitimate." It is in this place the scene is laid of that interview with the British officer, so familiar to the public in popular narratives and pictorial illustration. A flag from the enemy, at the neighboring post of Georgetown, is received with the design of an exchange of prisoners. The officer is admitted blindfold into the encampment, and on the bandage being taken from his eyes, is surprised equally at the diminutive size of the General and the simplicity of his quar- ters. He had expected, it is said, to see some formidable personage of the sons of Anak of the standard military figure, which, as Mr. Simms remarks, averaged, in the opposing generals dur- ing the war, more than two hundred pounds. On the contrary, he saw " a swarthy, smoke-dried little man, with scarcely enough of thread-bare home- spun to cover his nakedness, and in- stead of tall ranks of gay-dressed sol- diers, a handful of sunburnt, yellow legged militiamen; some roasting potatoes, and some asleep, with their black firelocks and powder-horns lying by them on the logs." This is Weeins' FRANCIS MARION. 181 narrative, a little colored with his full brush, but true enough as to cjetail. The "improvement" which he works up from the plain potato presented as a dinner to the officer, is equally sound as a moral, though we will not vouch for the exact expression of the senti- ment. As a specimen of Weems, it is characteristic; but certainly Marion never talked in the fashion of this zealous biographer.1 1 The true spirit of his career has found a sterling ap- preciator in the poet Bryant, whose poem on this subject is a geauine chapter of American history. SONG OF MARION'S MEN. Our band is few, but true and tried, Our leader frank and bold; The British soldier trembles When Marion's name is told. Our fortress is the good green wood, Our tent the cypress-tree ; We know the forest round us, As seamen know the sea. We know its walls of thorny Tines, Its glades of reedy grass, Its safe and silent islands Within the dark morass. Wo to the English soldiery That little dread us near I On them shall light at midnight A strange and sudden fear: When, waking to their tents on fire, They grasp their arms in vain, And they who stand to face us Are beat to earth again; And they who fly in terror deem A mighty host behind, And hear the tramp of thousands Upon the hollow wind. Then sweet the hour that brings release From danger and from toil: We talk the battle over, And share the battle's spoil. The woodland rings with laugh and shout, As if a hunt were up, And woodland flowers are gathered To crown the soldier's cup. With merry songs we mock the wind That in the pine-top grieves, And slumber long and sweetly, On beds of oaken leaves. Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads— The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. "Tis life to guide our fiery barbs Across the moonlight plains; The Briton, however, intrenched at Charleston, and with his double line of forts encompassing the interior, was not all at once driven out. When he was compelled to leave, it was by the slow process of an exhaustion, to which even victory contributed; for every British conquest in that region was as costly as a defeat. Greene came with his Fabian policy, acquired in the school of Wash- ington, to repair the errors of Gates. It was a course with which the policy of Marion was quite in agreement, at- tacking the enemy when they were vul- nerable ; at other moments retreating before them. Both officers knew well how to drain the vitality of the British army. Greene appreciated Marion. " I like your plan," he wrote to him, "of frequently shifting your ground. We must endeavor to keep up a parti- san war." He sent Lieutenant-Colonel Lee to his aid, and together they at- tempted the capture of Georgetown in a night attack, which was but partially successful, in consequence of a loss of time and -the want of artillery. Though not fully carried out, it served as a diversion and alarm in the rear of Cornwallis, who now, after the defeat 'Tis life to feel the night-wind That lifts their tossing manes. A moment in the British camp— A moment—and away Back to the pathless forest, Before the peep of day. Grave men there are by broad Santee, Grave men with hoary hairs, Their hearts are all with Marion, For Marion are their prayers. And lovely ladies greet our band, With kindliest welcoming, With smiles like those of summer, And tears like those of spring. For them we wear these trusty arms, And lay them down no more, Till we have driven the liriton For ever from our shore. 182 FRANCIS MARION. of an important portion of his force under Tarleton, was advancing rapidly through North Carolina at the heels of Greene. Lee was recalled to join his commander, and Marion continued his partisan warfare in South Carolina. He was after a while reinforced by Greene on his return to the State, and assisted that general greatly in the movements, which resulted in imprison- ing the enemy in Charleston. After a brilliant affair with the British, in con- junction with Lee and Sumter, and other adventurers, he hastened to Greene in time for the battle of Eutaw, in which enscao-ement he commanded the right of the South Carolina militia, and gallantly sustained the fierce attack of the enemy. Towards the close of the war, he took his seat in the Legis- lative Assembly, which met at Jackson- borough, as the representative of St. Johns, Berkeley. He was engaged in one or two further conflicts with the enemy, and the struggle which he had so manfully sustained was at an end. He now retired to his plantation, to find it broken up by the incursions of the British. While engaged in its restoration, he was sent as representa- tive of the district to the Senate of the State. It is recorded to his credit that he displayed in this situation a ready magnanimity towards Tory offenders in preserving their lands from confiscation. u It was war then," said he; " it is peace now. God has given us the vic- tory ; let us show our gratitude to hea- ven, which we shall not do by cruelty to man." In the same lofty spirit, he refused to receive any advantage from a bill exempting the soldiers of the militia from prosecution for acts com- mitted in the service. He felt that his conduct needed no shelter. The Legis- lature rewarded him with thanks, and the more substantial appointment of Com- mandant of the Port of Charleston, a no- minal office, with a salary of five hundred pounds, which were cut down to dol- lars. A timely marriage, however, with a wealthy lady of Huguenot descent, Miss Mary Videau, a spinster of fifty, who was attracted by the hero, relieved him of pecuniary anxieties, leaving him an old age of ease in agricultural pur- suits. He still represented his parish in the State Senate, and sat in 1790 in the Convention for forming the Consti- tution. In 1794 he resigned his mili- tary commission given to him by Hut- ledge, and the following year, yielding to a gradual decline, expired on the 27th of February, at the age of sixty-three. Marion was a true, unflinching pa triot—a man of deeds, and not of words; a prudent, sagacious soldier, not sudden or quick in quarrel, but resolute to the end; a good disciplinarian, and beloved by his men, who came at his call. There was no power of coercion, such as restrains the hired soldier, in his little band: it was held together only by the cohesive force of patriotism and attachment to the leader. We hear of no acts of cruelty to stain the glory of his victories, but much of his magnanimity. t a~zn^L^ DANIEL BOONE. Daniel Boone, the pioneer hunter of Kentucky, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in February, 1735. His grandfather was an Eng- lish emigrant, who came to America with his wife from the county of Devonshire, which furnished so much good blood to the New World. He settled in Bucks County, bringing with him, it is said, his family of eleven children. Of these, Squire Boone was the parent of the subject of our sketch. We read of his removing from the district, shortly after his son's birth, to the frontier hardships of Berks, the distance between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, sufficient, in that day, to make a frontiersman of the vouno* o Daniel. The woodland influences were as fresh there then as we can find them thousands of miles away in our own time.' A simple, hardy population lived face to face with nature. The schoolmaster had, indeed, penetrated to the spot with his elements of know- ledge imparted to shock-headed urchins in a rude log-house, but the Mighty Mother without, in wood and fields, and mountains, was the great teacher. The young Boone learnt what was to be taught of reading, writing, and arithmetic from his unnamed preceptor, and an infinite deal more for the pur-1 poses of his life in habits of hardihood, prudence, and skill in the forest sports and occupations. When he was at the age of eighteen, the family removed to the remote north- western corner of North Carolina. His father settled on the banks of the Yad- kin, and the son pursued with him the life of a farmer. The youth now took to himself a wife of the daughters of the land, Rebecca Bryan, destined to share with him many a mishap and triumph of the frontier. It is curious to read of the motives which, it is said, induced Boone to look farther into the wilderness. The habits of North Carolina—it was exactly a hundred years ago—were even then, it seems, getting too luxurious for an unsophisticated lover of freedom, like Boone. We might smile at the picture drawn of this early aristocracy by his biographers, of its signs of wealth which, perhaps, in the luxury of our own day would be accounted little better than poverty, did we not remem- ber that the principle is the same, though the means of its exhibition has relatively changed. Labor, we are told, was ceasing to afford an honor- able support to the white man; slaves were on the increase, and certain Scotch merchants were pompously ruling the 188 184 DAXIEL BOONE. day with their equipage and expense under the patronage of the colonial court. Lawyers, too, began to abound as the country became more prosperous, and more than once in the history of our infant communities, when trade and finance were badly regulated, this gentry became, as in North Carolina at the time of which we are writing, objects of odium. Boone had a great distaste for the profession, though the bent of character which inflamed this dislike of the craft, must have tended to keep him out of the way of it in the first instance. We can hardly think that all this, the Scotchmen and the lawyers included, could very seriously affect the life of a simple farmer and hunter on the Yadkin, if he chose to be quiet. Rather should we look to the unresting mania of the genuine backwoodsman, whose cry is ever on- ward, pushing the ever-receding West before him, through stream and over mountain, to the edge of the Pacific. Boone soon found his way over the present boundaries of North Carolina, to the head waters of the Holston and the Bock Castle of Kentucky, a tribu- tary of the Cumberland. It was at first a mere exploring tour, but it brought him far on the way towards the scene of his future adventurous exploits. In 1769 the call comes in earnest to the backwoodsman from his friend, John Finley, the adventurous trader and pioneer, who told of the wonders of wood and field in the hunting- grounds of the Indians, on the banks of the Kentucky. The two friends had previously explored something of the region together; they now went in quest of a habitation. A month's travel, in the spring of the year brought the little party of six forest rangers, dressed in the hunting shirt and supplied with the usual accoutre- ments of the craft, to a mountain eminence on the Bed River, a stream flowing into the Kentucky, whence, at the close of a day in June, they first saw the far-stretching vale watered by that noble stream. The promised land was before them. The scene lives in description, and is a favorite subject for the painter. It is one of the memorable incidents, the landmarks of American civilization. Boone was then thirty-four, the prime of a hunter's manhood, sinewy, robust, resolute; full of strength of mind and of limb. He needed all these qualities to take pos- session of the hunter's paradise, which lay outspread before him. All splen- did castles in this world worth taking possession of are guarded by infernal dragons of some species or other. The griffins of the fertile, game-flown, game- traversed, blessed hunting-grounds of Kentucky, were savage beasts which Boone and his companions did not mind much, and still more savage Indians, whom they were compelled to respect. These native warriors had indeed no settled habitation there; it was the debatable " middle," " dark and bloody ground," roamed over in hostile collision by the tribes of the South and the North. So much the more formidable was it, perhaps, to the settler, who, whenever he encountered an Indian, would be pretty sure to meet him armed for the fight. DANIEL BOONE. 185 separated from human life. Boone had occasional suspicions of the presence of Indians during this time in his tour- ings about his Robinson Crusoe hut; but nothing of harm came of them. His brother reached him again at the end of July, with fresh supplies and horses, when they continued their ex- plorations together, taking the range of the Cumberland River. They were, however, attracted anew to the Ken- tucky which they resolved to make the scene of a permanent settlement. They consequently returned home, car- rying what peltry they could, with the intention of bringing their families from North Carolina. " Daniel had been absent two years, during which time he had tasted neither bread nor salt, nor seen any other human being than his travelling companions and the Indians who had taken him pri- soner." 1 It was two years before the family arrangements were made for the exodus from North Carolina. Then, having disposed of his farm and property, in September, 1773, the two brothers, with their wives and children, set out on their patriarchal pilgrimage to the land of promise. They carried cloth- ing and provisions on pack horses, and drove a herd of cows and swine to furnish refreshment by the way and stock their future settlement. Thej crossed the dividing ridge into Tennes- see, and were on their way through Powell's Valley, where they were joined by a considerable addition of ' Boone and his party pursued their hunting and explorations through the summer and autumn till December, without meeting with an Indian. Then Boone and Stewart, one of his com- panions, were suddenly captured by a party of the savages on the bank of the Kentucky. After a few days of im- prisonment, they effected their escape by night, and made their way, with difficulty, through the wilderness to the encampment, from which they had wandered. Their four associates were gone, to be seen no more in that quarter. Boone and his friend were left alone. Their ammunition now began to fail, and matters were looking serious, when they were surprised by the arrival of two men, one of whom turned out to be Boone's own brother, Squire, from North Carolina, bringing a welcome supply of powder and ball. It was well that he arrived, for shortly after, while Boone was out hunting with Stewart, the latter was picked off by an Indian, and scalped. The North Carolinian, also, who had accompanied Squire Boone, fell a prey to the perils of the region, and the two brothers were alone—a pair of Crusoes in the wilderness. The winter was passed without inter- ruption in their lodge, where they sup- ported themselves by the chase, and- clothed themselves, with hunter's craft, in the skins of the deer they slew. When spring came, the brothers parted, Squire towards the distant Yadkin in quest of supplies of ammunition, Boone to pursue his hunting alone, and solace himself as best he could in his solitary camp. For three months he was thus 24 1 Life of Boone, by John M. Peck, in Sparks' American Biography. 1S6 DANIEL BOONE. five families and forty men, to the Cumberland Gap, when the rear-guard, in charge of the cattle, was suddenly fallen upon by a party of Indians. Six of the whites fell in this attack; among them, Boone's youngest son, James. This saddening misadventure arrested the movement of the expe- dition, which now retired to the settle- ments on Clinch River, in Virginia. There Boone was summoned in June, 1774, by Governor Dunmore, to tra- verse Kentucky, to relieve a surveying party, which had penetrated the coun- try from the Ohio. He performed this adventurous duty in a journey of sixty- two days, in which he travelled on foot eight hundred miles. Having thus been introduced to the government, his next employment also was of an official character. The Indi- ans northwest of the Ohio, led by the famous Cornstalk, were now showing themselves hostile on the Virginia fron- tier. A considerable force was sent against them, and a battle was fought at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio. Boone was appointed captain, and commanded three contiguous gar- risons on the frontier. The war being ended, he returned to his family on Clinch River. The emigrants who had been arrested in transitu on their route, held themselves in readiness for the remainder of the journey. This was expedited by an arrangement made by Boone with a company formed in North Carolina for purposes of settlement, by which he was employed as their nego- tiator with the Indians, and surveyor of the route which lay between the Hoist on and the valley of the Kentucky. This company had reached this region, or its neighborhood, when they were attacked by a party of Indians, and several killed and wounded. The ex- pedition, however, persevered in its plans, and on'the first of April, 1775, commenced building a fort on the Ken- tucky River, to which the name Boones- borough was given. It was a substan- tial work of hewn logs, with adjacent houses protected by stockades, quite defensible against the Indians. Hav- ing made this preparation, Boone re- turned for his family, and brought them in safety to the spot. His wife and daughters, he claimed,1 were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky River. The Indians did not relish the fort from the beginning. Though they made no onset at once, they were prowl- ing about in the forest, watching their opportunity. In July, 1776, they suc- ceeded in capturing a daughter of Boone, about fourteen years of age, who, with two female companions, ventured one afternoon in a canoe on the river. On the opposite shore they were caught by the Indians, who stealthily came out from the shrubbery on the bank, and turned their boat out of sight of the fort. Their shrieks were heard, but there was no other canoe at hand to overtake them. Boone being away, the pursuit could not be organized till his return in the evening. The next morn- ing by daylight the trail was taken and pursued with difficulty, in consequence of the efforts of the savages at conceal- ment. Thirty miles or more had been travelled, when they were overtaken at a halting-place, and so suddenly DANIEL BOONE. 187 pounced upon that the girls were safely recaptured. The land speculators and their fol- lowers seem to have become somewhat disheartened by this mode of life, leav- ing the camp and defence to Boone and his genuine pioneers. Matters were not mended by the outbreak of the Revo- lutionary War, when that species of savage warfare was put in force by the British on the frontier, which roused the manly indignation of Chatham in the House of Commons. There were several forts and stations in Ken- tucky, but the force of all of them was not large. One hundred effective men, we are told by Boone, defended Boonesborough, Harrodsburgh, and Lo- gan's Fort. Boone was out with a party engaged in procuring salt at the Lower Blue Licks, on Licking River, in January, 1778, when a considerable body of In- dians fell upon him as he was away from the camp, and took him prisoner. He saw at a glance that they were too numerous to resist, and that the best policy for the safety of his unprotected friends at the fort was submission. He was taken, a3 pleasantly as could be expected under the circumstances at that season of the year, by the savages, to the Indian'town of Old CJiillicothe, across the Ohio, and in the following March was conducted to Detroit, where he was treated with kindness by the British commander, Hamilton. This officer would have ransomed him from the Indians, and dismissed him on parole, but the barbarians found their captive far too accomplished a woods- man, and too good a fellow to part I w ith. He was led back to Chillicothe, and adopted by Blackfish, a chief of the Shawnees, in place of a deceased son and warrior. He knew his captors well, fell in with their notions, and bided his time. Initiated into the mysteries of savage- life, Boone ingratiated himself with the fraternity by his habits and obedience. He was allowed to hunt, but each ball and charge of powder was to be ac- counted for in game. He split the balls and saved some of the powder to lay up a stock of ammunition against the time when he should be free. He fol- lowed the Indians in their journeys to the Salt Springs, where he labored for them. One day, finding that they were preparing for a descent upon Boones- borough, he determined to escape and give warning. He had a hundred and sixty miles to travel, but he accom- plished it in five days. He had some jerked venison with him, and shot a turkey on the way. Fortunately, when he reached the Ohio, a canoe was at hand, which carried him across the swollen river to Kentucky. He then soon reached the fort, where he was little expected. He was in fact sup- posed to be safe in British keeping in Canada. His wife had given up look- ing for him, and returned to North Carolina. The warning was now given by Boone, and the fort put in order for the attack, which promised to be a serious one. To effect a diversion, Boone, with a small party, made a foray into the enemy's country, and put a superior number to flight. In September, the foe came, four hundred and forty-four 188 DANIEL BOONE. Indians and a few Canadians, headed by Blackfish and Captain Duquesne; the latter for the British interest. The garrison was but sixty or seventy, but Boone determined not to surrender. He began, like a skilful commander, to gain time by a parley, while he got in the cattle and water for a siege. The British officers then proposed a treaty, which turned out to be an effort to entrap the negotiators, the chief men of the fort. Neither party being armed, the Indians grappled with their antago- nists, but they had men who loved fight to deal with, and the contest was resumed from the fort. A little courage in storming might have carried it, but the besiegers preferred the safer arts of firing the roof and mining, in both of which they were disappointed. In fine, after nine days of this species of warfare, in which they had lost thirty- seven killed, Duquesne and his Indians took their departure. The result, of course, redounded greatly to the valor and Skill of the defence and the ex- cellence of the marksmen within the fort. After this affair was over, Boone visited his .family on the Yadkin. Looking to the settlement of the country in which he had labored, he mustered some twenty thousand dol- lars in paper money, with which to proceed to Richmond, to take out the necessary land warrants, of which he was unhappily robbed by the way. It was not fated that Boone should enjoy much fruit of his explorations. Fasci- nated, however, by the old scene, and undeterred by its toils or perils, he returned to Boonesborough in 1780. An incident which now occurred must have touched the heart of the old frontiersman to the quick While re- turning from the Blue Licks with his brother, that companion of so many lonely privations and difficulties suc- cessfully overcome was killed by Indians lying in ambush, while he himself narrowly escaped their pursuit. In the organization of the country which was now made by Virginia, which, it will be remembered, at that time exercised jurisdiction over the ter- ritory, Major Boone was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel for Lincoln County. The agitation of Indian fighting was kept up with various alarms. T.he history of Kentucky in that period, is the story of deadly encounters and hair-breadth escapes, of ingenious re- sources in waifare with a cunning and unscrupulous foe. One of the Indian acts of aggression was of more than ordinary scope, the attack by Simon Girty and his confederated bands of warriors upon Raddle's Station, just at the present Lexington. It was, how- ever, met by craft equal to his own; and his forces suffered so, that he was obliged to raise the siege. Colonel Boone, with his brother, Samuel, and son, Israel, were at the head of the Boonesborough party, which joined the rest from different parts of the country in pursuit. They w^ere entrapped in an ambuscade, when Boone, fighting valiantly, bore from the field in the retreat the body of his dying son. General Clark, the great military hero of Kentucky, then took the field in an incursion into the Indian country, across the Ohio, and drove the savages belbre DANIEL BOONE. 189 him, burning their towns and desolat- ing the region. This was the last great movement of the war. Peace was declared, and Boone rested for awhile in his pacific hunting and farming pursuits. When Kentucky was admitted as a State, in 1792, Boone's old North Carolina pest, the lawyers, from whom he had mi- grated in his youth, swarmed with the claimants of land titles. His property was assailed; he did his best to defend it by the aid of counsel, but he was stripped, and again turned westward, first resting on a farm in Virginia, at the mouth of the Kanawha. He then made, for those days, a great stretch, to upper Louisiana, where he settled in the country back of St. Louis, in quest of the receding dream of his youth. He had members of his family already there, two sons and a son-in-law. He was received with favor by the Spanish authorities, and appointed com- mandant of the Femme Osage district. Boone had a valuable grant of land from the Spaniards, the title of which, on the delivery of the country to the United Slates, as usual in his affairs of the law, was pronounced defective. He had neglected to take the necessary means to perfect it before the Spanish authorities. He appealed to Kentucky to aid hia memorial to Congress, which listened to his request, and established his title to a thousand arpents of land in the Missouri district, where he had first settled His later years were passed with his family, in comparative ease and com- fort, though sadly invaded by the death of his wife, who was taken from him in 1813, having followed his haz- ardous fortunes through youth, man- hood, and age. After this, death and a grave by her side, were habitually in his thoughts. He prepared a coffin for his burial at a spot above the Missouri, and there his remains were interred. His death took place September 26. 1820. Such was the life of Daniel Boone, the strong pioneer of the wilderness, chequered by many vicissitudes and some sad trials, but proceeding ever straight on to its mark. He was like many others whom we are accustomed to associate with a rough frontier mode of life, eminently simple and moderate in his habits and manners. He was quiet and reserved, fond of the solitude of the forest; averse from the arts and intrigues of civilized man. The fresh air, the open sky, the scented woods, his faithful gun, were all that he asked of the world. His delight was in the company of nature, with nothing poetical or peculiarly reflective about him, but in the simple conscious- ness of strength and manhood. The domestic affections, doubtless, divided with him those emotions. He lived with his family, and often for a long time saw few others. His virtues were allied to his temperance and sobriety. He worshipped truth and honor, and left behind him at his death the ideal of the genuine man of the woods, in love with his employments, an enthu- siast, subduing by his manliness all the rough hardships of the scene in which he was placed. CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. Op that honorable band of South Carolinians, men of birth and fortune, who stood forth at the outset of the Revolution, no one brought more ac- complishments or a better zeal to the cause than Charles Cotesworth Pinck- ney. He was of an old family in the province, dating from an ancestor who came from England toward the end of the seventeenth century. A descend- ant of the latter—the old colonial chief justice, Charles Pinckney, of repute in his day—married his second wife, the daughter of a British officer, and gover- nor of Antigua, and became the father of Charles Cotesworth, who came into the world at Charleston, on the twenty- fifth of February, 1746. Thomas, who also afterwards became greatly distin- guished in the military and civil history of the country, was his younger brother by several years. The father, whose position gave him the best opportunity to value a good education, was deter- mined that his sons should be in the way of possessing whatever advan- tage it might afford. He, according to the custom of the wealthy in the country, sent his sons to England for instruction. So thoroughly indeed was the chief jus- tice impressed with the importance of this foreign education, that he left di- rections in his will that it must be 190 secured at any price before the return home of his children, even if a part of his estate were to be sold to pay the expense. The outlay, whatever it may have been, was not thrown away upon ineffi cient instructors. We read of the pre paratory training of Charles—he was seven years old when he was taken to England—for five years previous to his entering Westminster school, then un- der the charge of Dr. Markham, after- wards Archbishop of York, and of his proceeding thence to Christ Church, Oxford, where no less a person than Cyril Jackson, the sub-preceptor of that virtuous prince who became George IV, was his private tutor. At Oxford, Pinckney had the good fortune, in view of his future profession, of listening to the law lectures of the famous commentator, Blackstone, then employed in the delivery of those famous discourses at the University, which, on their publication, were to create a revolution in the study of the law, smoothing the way to future stu- dents, of the thorny path hitherto trod only in the bewildering pages of Coke and the old crabbed fathers. The first volume of the lectures was not published till 1765. Before he was eighteen, Pinckney had taken copious 0 ^ c c &^^os&-^ ^L^C/ CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. 191 notes of them from the instructor's lips, aud thus armed, proceeded to eat his terms at t the Temple, doubtless, while he added to his knowledge of the law, digesting also much that was to be ■fed upon, by a youth from America, in the society of London. Previous to returning home, in 1761, at the age of twenty-three, he travelled in France and Germany, and, what is well worth noting, enjoyed nine months instruction in the Royal Military Academy of Caen, in Normandy. With these various accomplishments, he was well qualified to make a bril- liant entrance upon provincial society. He began immediately the exercise of his profession, receiving his commission to practise in the beginning of 1770, and such we are told was the regard in which he was held by those in author- ity, that within three years he was appointed by Sir Edgerton Lee (his majesty's attorney-general of the Pro- vince), under a full and formal commis- sion to act as his substitute on circuit in the District and Precinct Courts of Camden, Georgetown, and Cheraws. Such was the legal standing of Pinck- ney, when the first popular assembly met in South Carolina, in July, 1774, at the call of Massachusetts for a General Congress of the colonies. Deputies were sent to this body—Middleton, Gads- den, Lynch, and the two Rutledges, John and Edward—and on their return, the Provincial Congress of South Caro- lina, assembling from the different dis- tricts and parishes the choicest spirits of the colony, the men of wealth and intelligence, met for grave deliberation. Of this body, Charles Pinckney, honor- ably known in his military capacity, through the Revolution, and subsequent- ly in civil life, was chosen President, and on its first organization of military offi- cers, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ap- pears by the side of his brother Thomas, and Francis Marion, in the list of cap- tains under Gadsden and Moultrie, in the two regiments raised by the people. We find him thereafter on duty, receiv- ing the orders of Moultrie in preparing the harbor defences. His company was ordered, with that of Marion and others, to take possession of Fort Johnson, on James' Island, and we hear of his sagacity and vigilance in the recruiting service in North Carolina. His own State being relieved for a while from pressing military anxieties, by the in- jury done the British fleet in the gal- lant defence of Fort Sullivan by Moul- trie, and the consequent withdrawal of the enemy, Pinckney presented himself at head-quarters to General Washing ton, and was with him as his aid at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. In the spring of the following year, he is again with the na- tive defenders of South Carolina, tak- ing part in the ill-starred movement of General Howe, to drive the enemy from Florida, and is subsequently actively engaged in the defence of his State. On the arrival of the British fleet, in March, 1780, he was stationed, with three hundred men, in command of Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. We expect," says Moultrie, in announc- ing to a friend the arrival of the enemy's vessels, " in a day or two, to see some smart firing between them and Fort Moultrie." This time, however, the 192 CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. brilliant action of Fort Sullivan was not to be repeated. Admiral Arbuth- not, favored by wind and tide, sailed 1 >y the fort into the harbor, though not without serious loss from the bombard- ment by Colonel Pinckney. Numbers of the sailors were killed, and one of the vessels driven ashore to be de- stroyed by her men. Fort Moultrie had done its duty; its men were recalled, and Pinckney was with his fellow-citizens aiding in the last de- fence. Colonel Pinckney, with his compan- ions, now experienced the rigors of war in confinement at Haddrell's Point, the site of the fort opposite Sullivan's Island, and in the immediate neighbor- hood of Charleston. Neglected by their country—during thirteen months' captivity, they received but nine days pay, says Pinckney in a petition to Congress, drawn up for his fellow prisoners-.—and oppressed by the enemy, their hardships were extreme. So rig- orous, in- particular, was the confinement of Pinckney, whom every effort was made to withdraw from his allegiance to his native land, that once, when he was allowed to visit Charleston on an express certificate from his physician that his health required the indulgence, he was compelled, at the end of the fourth day, to return to his place of confinement, though his son had died in the city during his visit, and was then lying unburied. Such inhuman- ity, like the imprisonment of Laurens in the Tower of London, was better calculated to strengthen resistance than to overcome it. He was finally ex- changed toward the close of the war, in February, 1782, and, in November of the following year, was honored with the brevet rank of Brigadier Gen- eral. General Pinckney now concentrated his attention upon the practice of his profession, which had become some- what a matter of necessity, his fortunes having suffered—it was never other- wise with the patriots—during the war. It is related, much to his credit, that he adopted a course of great simplicity in his practice of the law, facilitating not only the understanding of his clients, but also the imperfect education of the younger members of the bar. He was liberal and generous, even chivalric, in undertaking the cause of the widow and the fatherless, and pros- pered accordingly, his income reaching the respectable sum, for the time and place, of four thousand guineas. It was, perhaps, offering little temptation to a gentleman so situated, reaping the rewards of study and honorable activity at home, surrounded by friends, but he was doubtless gratified with the com- pliment from Washington, when the tender came of a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, to fill the place of John Rutledge, its presiding judge. The offer was made, in a letter from the President in May, 1791, jointly to him and Edward Rutledge, and de- clined, on modest patriotic grounds, by both. They thought they " could be of more real advantage to the Gene- ral Government, and to their own State government, by remaining in the legis- lature, than they could possibly be by accepting any office under either which fills the public eye with the appearance ; CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. 193 of being lucrative."1 Such was the tenderness of the old—the first—school of politicians, on appearing before the public with the odor of lucre on their hands. Again Washington, in Janu- ary, 1794, though in full recollection of the joint refusal he had received nearly three years before, makes a second application to General Pinckney to become the successor of General Knox as Secretary of War. It was not merely, it should be added, an officer for the department whom the President wanted, but a sufficient member of his cabinet, who would think and act with an honorable devotion to the adminis- tration—a condition which, in Wash- ington's judgment, required a lofty dis- interestedness as well as high order of ability. An appeal like this must have been difficult indeed to resist, and it was only on private grounds, to the " mortification " of the person to whom it was addressed, that refusal was made. Yet once more Washington called upon Pinckney, this time offering the secretaryship of State on the vacancy, in 1795, occasioned by the withdrawal of Edmund Randolph, and again the necessities of his private affairs stood in the way. A fourth time the appeal was made, and at last successfully. In a letter dated Mount Vernon, July, 1796, the last year of his Presidency, Washington calls upon his old friend to accept the position of Minister Plenipotentiary at Paris. The selection of Pinckney, at this time, as the successor of Monroe, who was recalled under an implied Sparks' Washington, X. 165. 25 censure of lack of zeal and earnestness in representing the foreign policy of the administration, involved many points of nice consideration. A man of honor, of independence, to whom country was more than party, was required, and Pinckney, of all others, was that man. He saw the path of duty plainly open before him, hastened to his work, immediately repairing to Philadelphia, and thence set sail for Bordeaux. He arrived in Paris in December, and reported himself to the minister for foreign affairs, by whom he was coldly received, the Directory looking upon his appointment with suspicion, as unfriendly to the interests of the coun- try, while Monroe, who was supposed to represent an ill-defined but powerful influence outside of his government, was dismissed, with special compli- ments and courtesy. It appears to have been the settled policy of France, at this time, to conduct, or attempt to conduct, its negotiations, with America by intrigue. In the irre- gularities of their own revolutionary administration, they found means of agitation which they were disposed to transplant beyond the Atlantic, and which, indeed, were not without sup- porters in America. But all such arts were foreign to the true genius of the government presided over by Wash-' ington. Here there was one legitimate channel for the transaction of diplo- macy, which was ever open for honest ends. The administration was ready to receive any just complaints or to answer any misconceptions. Certainly nothing could be more impartial than the foreign department. It was more ly4 CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. —it was patient to excess. Pinckney was particularly charged to make every explanation of matters which should have needed none to restore the im- paired confidence between the two countries. The Directory, however, was too unreasonable to listen to argument, and the ambassador was denied even a hearing. He was in- formed, that not being accredited as a minister, he was, as a stranger, not entitled to reside in Paris, and this, after he had been received by their minister for Foreign Affairs. Nearly two months were passed by Pinckney in patient submission in the receipt of offensive messages from the office of state, till a positive communication in writing having been made to him, reminding him of the positive law that strangers should quit the territory of the Republic, he took his departure for Holland. The news of these insulting proceedings was well calculated to rouse all thinking people at home. But forbearance, long exercised, was not yet at an end. The old services of France were not forgotten, and every- thing consistent with honor, it was felt, should be tried in the interests of peace. It was resolved by the Govern- ment to send such an embassy to France as should compel a hearing by its obvious fairness. President Adams, accordingly, looking to conciliation, chose from different portions of the country representative men of the highest character to be joined in the legation. The South was already represented in Pinckney; John Mar- shall was united with him from Vir- ginia, and Francis Dana from Massa- chusetts. Their appointment bears date May 31, 1797, and states the object of the mission to be "to dissi- pate umbrages, remove prejudices, rec- tify errors, and adjust all differences by a treaty between the two powers." Dana declining, Elbridge Gerry was substituted in his place. The parties joined one another in Holland, and in October were in Paris together ready to proceed with the negotiation. The Directory was still in power, with no change of principles, though with new agents. This time the outdoor man- agement of foreign affairs was in the hands of the wily Talleyrand. Then began a new system of delays, con- . ducted by his agents, gentlemen of Paris, X, Y and Z, as their names were disguised, in the famous dispatch of ' the ministers, giving an account of the proceedings. There were various inter- views, but the burden of all was alike —a loan from the United States and a gratuity of twelve hundred thousand livres for the members of the Directory. These preliminaries arranged, the nego- tiations might proceed. Both, it is hardly necessary to say, were distaste- ful to such commissioners as Marshall and his associates. A loan would be a violation of neutrality as between England and France, and for the bribe, it was simply an insulting pro- position, to be rejected with scorn. The French negotiators were plainly informed it was inadmissible. "Mil- lions for defence, not a cent for tri- bute," was the sentiment of Pinckney, which rang through America when the proposition was fully understood by the people. Months were passed in CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. 195 these humiliating discussions with Tal- leyrand, without the ministers being presented to the Directory, when they finally took their departure, leaving Gerry for a short time to the sinister attentions of the minister, till he was recalled by the President. Pinckney remained for awhile in the south of France, for the sake of his daughter's health, and in October arrived at New York on his return. He was met by a warm letter of congratulation from Washington, dated Mount Vernon, inviting him to make that hospitable retreat a " halting-place" for himself and his family. He received, also, immediately on his arrival, news of a more permanent relation to his old military chieftain, in his appointment as one of the major-generals in the army being raised in consequence of the threatened conflict with France. Washington, it will be remembered, in accepting the. position of commander- in-chief, reserved the nomination of his chief officers and selected Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox, in the order we have given them. Knox, who had no inclination to waive his old revolution- ary rank, refused to serve under Hamil- ton, whom Washington considered indispensable, in that position, to the cause; and there was fear of similar reluctance on the score of military etiquette from Pinckney. This was not, however, the nature of the man. A few hours after he arrived at the Hudson, he heard of the nominations, with the doubt expressed whether he would accept the inferior rank, when he immediately "applauded the dis- cernment " which had placed Hamilton at the head, sent him word "rejoicing at his appointment, and that he would with pleasure serve under him."* He also proffered the indignant Knox his own second place on the list of major- generals. Pinckney enteied on his duties in the southern department, reconnoitering the seaboard to Florida, the seat of his old campaigning under Howe. The war rumors and preparations passed over without hostilities, but Hamilton did not forget the courtesy of his old friend, as he manifested in his effort to secure his election to the Presidency, when he was placed in 1800 on the Federal ticket with Adams. It was a parting national compliment to his patriotism and love of the Constitution, of which he had been one of the framers in the National Convention, and a valuable supporter in his own State. There, in South Carolina, in the midst of a new generation, livinor in the enjoyment of the blessings which he and his companions in arms and politics had dearly purchased for them, he passed the remainder of a life pro- tracted beyond the usual limits. In the practice of a liberal hospitality on his wealthy estate, of earnest religious culture, in the enjoyment of his books and his philosophical apparatus—there are few more pleasing subjects of con- templation in the chequered lives of the founders of the Republic than the old age of General Pinckney. His- death took place at Charleston, A agust 16th, 1825, in his eightieth year. 1 Letter in Sparks' Washington, XL 551. NATHANAEL GREENE. With the generation that survived the Revolution, which had lived through its perils and tasted the joys and depressions of its fluctuating for- tunes, which had learnt its knowledge of affairs, and to apply its tests of character in the accurate school of experience, there was one guiding light upon which the eye was ever directed, the fidelity and judgment of Washing- ton. Men came to be estimated by his standard; and faithfulness to the country and the State became synony- mous with faithfulness to Washington. We have heard of old men of that era summing up their convictions of par- ticular actors of the time, with the expressive sentence, as a conclusion of the argument, which admitted of no cavil, " Sir, he stood high in the opinion of General Washington." The words have become almost proverbial. To none have they been more fre- quently or more deservedly applied than to the subject of this sketch. Nathanael Greene, the Major-General of the Revolution, was born on the 27th May, 1742, in the State of Rhode .Island, at a spot in Warwick County, near the head waters of the Potowhom- mett, a small stream emptying into Narragausett Bay. The family were among the earliest settlers of the colony, following almost immediately the lead of Roger Williams. In the third generation, we find Nathanael Greene living at the place we have described, proprietor of a forge and a mill, worked by the waters of the river, uniting to these industrial pur- suits, the calling of a Quaker preacher. The duties of this ministry were not likely to be very exacting, compared with the requisitions of the modern pulpit, or at all to interfere with the ordinary business of the week. If we may judge, however, from the home influences of the preacher, they were not inefficiently performed. We find his son, of whom we are about to give an account, trained in sound Biblical precepts, and early disposed to a profitable use of the mental acqui- sitions with which nature had endowed him. The boy's taste for learning and means taken for its attainment, indeed, entitle him to a place among those who have honorably distinguished them- selves in the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. He had some aid from a teacher in his father's house, but more from himself. He acquired something of Latin, and seized upon mathematical studies with eagerness. His prize of a copy of Euclid, pur chased with the pocket-money acquired Johnson, Fry , NATHANAEL GREENE. 197 by the sale of anchors and other little toys of his manufacture, was no com- mon boyish acquisition. It indicated a faculty which would stamp the charac- ter of the man. He studied the book in the intervals of labor in his father's forge. While the iron was heating in the fire, his mind was being tempered to the issues of life. An accidental acquaintance, formed at this time with the learned Dr. Stiles, of Yale College memory, then settled in his ministry at Newport, was of service in the youth's development. The ardent young student had also about this time the good fortune to meet with another old American wor- thy and ardent votary of letters, Lind- ley Murray, of grammatical memory, to whom he paid a visit at New York. Watts' Logic and Locke on the Under- standing, we are told, were the favorite volumes of the young disciple. It must not be supposed with all this, that the youth was acquiring the hab'ts of a pedant. Though he spent every leisure moment with his books, and was bent upon adding to the shelves of the little library, so dear to him as the product of his self-denial, he was a vigorous youth among youths; very fond, indeed, of gaiety, considering his Quaker parentage. A passion for dancing seems to have been as strong in him as his love for learning. Whatever came in this youth's way, furnished material for his mental im- provement. When a lawsuit was en- tailed upon the family, he acquired a respectable knowledge of the profes- sion for the -sake of defending xhe in- vaded property. In the same way, when the war vvith the parent country was impending, and it became evident that the colonists must defend them- selves, he applied himself vigorously to the study of military affairs, turning over the leaves of his favorite Turenne, Caesar, and Plutarch for the purpose. Subsequently, on a visit to Boston, after the arrival of the British troops, he studied their exercises, and smuggled away a military suit with a British de- serter, to teach his Rhode Island com- pany the use of arms. The pursuit was not at all to be reconciled to Quaker tenets. Dancing was offensive enough to the eyes of the fraternity, but gun and sword were unendurable enormities. The young Greene was read out of meeting. We do not find, however, that his youthful spirits were greatly impaired by the excommunication, for he immediately set to work and danced himself into the good graces- of Miss Littlefield, of Block Island, whom he met at the mansion of his relative, Governor Greene. He married this lady in 1774, and took her to his home in Coventry, where he had been estab- lished by his father as the director of a mill. This place became indebted to him for its first public school, and con- scious of his capacity for public service, had returned him in 1770 to the General Assembly. At the date of the battle of Lexing- ton, Greene was about thirty-three years of age, already distinguished in the militia organization of the State, and trained in its public councils. When the general mustering took place, the Assembly, which knew him \9R NATHANAEL GREENE. well, appointed him to the command of the State troops, with the rank of Major General. On the arrival of the commander-in-chief at Cambridge, he exchanged this dignity for the colonial appointment of brigadier-general in the national service. Greene, whose Rhode Island encampment made a favorable impression in the midst of the motley array before Boston, appears at once to have entered into the good graces of Washington, who doubtless saw in him the material for a statesman as well as a soldier. His personal appearance at this time was striking. There was little opportunity for brilliant service in the leaguer at Boston; but a more stirring field was opened on the depar- ture of the British, when Greene was ordered to New York, and took up his position at the important post opposite to the city on Long Island. He had reconnoitered the position, and was busily intent upon protecting its ap- proaches before the landing of the Brit- ish troops, when he was prostrated by a severe attack of fever, which com- pelled him to relinquish the command. It was given temporarily to General Sullivan, and then to Putnam. The outposts were neglected, the enemy ad- vanced in force, there was some gallant fighting, but the day was lost. Major General Greene—he was now promoted to this rank—recovered from his illness in time to take an active part in the American retreat through Westchester. He was in action at Harlem, and would have defended Fort Washington, on the Hudson, to the last; he made what resistance he could to Cornwallis on the opposite shore, and accompanied Washington in the retreat through the Jerseys, and was in important command in the attacks upon Trenton and Princeton. At the Brandy- wine he was stationed with his corps as a reserve, and gallantly preserved the safety of the retreat, opening his col- umns to the fugitives, and maintaining a Parthian fight with the enemy, till he was able to meet them at an advan- tageous position, on fair terms, when his bravery repaired to some extent the for- tunes of the day. The attack upon Ger- mantown followed, when the left wing was intrusted to Greene. Though he was not so early on the spot as Wayne, in consequence of being assigned a less di- rect route, he showed equal gallantry in penetrating to the centre of the village. This boldly-planned adventure, it is well known, was lost by the detention of the troops before Chew's house. when they should have been breaking up the enemy's encampment,, and by the inexplicable panic into which they were somehow thrown in the confusion of the day. Upon Greene again fell, as at the Brandywine, the arduous labors of the retreat. He once more saved the army from defeat. His administrative talents were now called into requisition in the discharge of the duties of the office of Quarter- master General, which he accepted at the entreaty of Washington and the Committee of Congress, with the under- standing that he should not sacrifice by the position his right of command in the army. He accepted the laborious duty with a full sense of its unrewarded services. Washington respected his motives, admired his efficiency, and on NATHANAEL GREENE. 199 his retirement from the office in 1780, uttered a strong expression of approba- tion. A liberal interpretation was put upon his rank, and he was assigned, ac- cording to his wish, a command in the next engagement. It was the battle of Monmouth, when he led the right wing and took a well chosen position, which he sustained with great gal- lantry against the attacks of the enemy. His courage and admirable disposition, with the like bravery of Wayne, sustained the exertions of Washington in retrieving the retreat of Lee in the early part of the day, and converted a defeat into what may be fairly regarded as a victory. His next military command was in the siege operations under General Sul- livan, in cooperation with the French fleet, directed for the recovery of New- port. It was ground with which Greene was perfectly familiar, and he was chosen for the purpose. Positions were taken to the north of the island; the fleet of D'Estaing entered the har- bor, and there was a fair prospect of success, when Lord Llowe, arriving with his fleet off the harbor, the French went out to meet him. The engage- meat was hindered by a prodigious storm, which also greatly disconcerted the land force. D'Estaing, instead of returning victorious to Newport, put in with his troops to refit at Boston. The Americans were balked of their promised assistance, and after lingering on the island to the last, were com- pelled to make good their retreat. Greene again stood at bay, and main- tained the honor of the field in the retiring action. It was Greene's destiny to stand in the way of defeat, and turn the tide of battle. At Springfield, in New Jersey, in June, 1780, with a small force, he withstood the attack of Knyp- hausen with superior numbers. There, says Hamilton, you might behold " the veteran at the head of a veteran army, baffled and almost beaten by a general without an army—aided, or rather em- barrassed, by small fugitive bodies of volunteer militia, the mimicry of sol- diership." The volunteers, however, gave a good account of themselves that day. In September, Greene was called to preside at the head of the board of general officers, summoned for the trial of Major Andre, and shortly after was in command in the vacant place of Arnold at West Point. He had hardly seated himself there when he was sum- moned by Washington, to whom the appointment had been specially in trusted by Congress, to the command of the Southern army, as the successor of Gates, after the disastrous battle of Camden. In his " Instructions," Wash- ington commits the conduct of the war to Greene's prudence and judgment. Both were needed for his coming work. It was an undertaking of delicacy and peril, which would have disheartened a less discreet or persevering commander. The British forces were in posses- sion of both Georgia and South Caro- lina ; the issues of numerous encoun- ters had been in their favor; they had been successful against Frenchmen and Americans united: in three campaigns they had been victorious, and remained masters of the fleld. Savannah had first fallen into their hands; Charleston, 200 NATHANAEL GREENE. once preserved by Rutledge and Moul- trie, had yielded to the overwhelming pressure of Clinton; then came the savage forays of Tarleton, rousing the fiery spirit of Marion and Sumpter, who waited their hour of victory; Gates added' the splendors of his tri- umph at Saratoga to the trophies of the enemy at Camden; Sumpter was driven after the flying major-general. There was but one star visible in the universal darkness, but that witnessed the presence of a host in the heavens. King's Mountain told its tale of the elements of resistance in the hearts and arms of a stalwart, uncorrupted yeo- manry. If there were a hundred such men as fought against Ferguson at that mountain region, why not thousands \ It was a hint to Cornwallis, which he did not disregard; to Greene it was an encouragement, and proof of final suc- cess. He arrived, in the beginning of De- cember, at Charlotte, where Gates had collected his broken forces, a scant body of some two thousand men, more than half of whom were militia, for the most part badly clothed, and destitute of the ordinary provisions and military supplies. His first duty was to take possession of the command, and bring the officer whom he superseded to trial. He found Gates overwhelmed with the added affliction of the loss of his son. But the chivalrous heart of Greene needed not this appeal to soften his conduct. He bore himself with so much courtesy and delicacy, that the heart of the fallen general was sensibly touched, and a warm friendship be- tween the two took the place of the seemingly inevitable enmity. Greene gained no laurels in the field more glo- rious than this noble courtesy of the camp. Greene's survey of his position was anything but encouraging. All was to be done at a disadvantage. It was sorry campaigning with a half-starved, half-naked army, in a disaffected coun- try, swarming with Tories, and cut up in all directions with swamps and creeks. It was, however, the work before him, and he turned to it. Helping himself as best he could, assisted by the ar- rangements which*he had made on his way for recruits from Virginia, and putting his forces in as good military condition as possible, he made a divlsior of his army into two parts. Advancing into South Carolina, he took up a position on the Pedee, while he sent Morgan in a command on a flank move- ment, to the region of the hardy popu- lation which had assembled at King's Mountain. The enemy at Winnsboro was thus placed in an intermediate position between the two divisions. Tarleton was sent by Cornwallis in pursuit of Morgan, and was driving him before him with his usual im- petuosity, when the Virginian made a stand with his gallant force, and de- feated his pushing adversary in the brilliant action of Cowpens. This brought Cornwallis in pursuit of the victor. The war now in fact became a running contest; the combat was turned into an olympian race. Corn- wallis stripped his army of all super- fluities, and was close on the heels of Morgan at the Catawba; but the gallant rifleman was before him, and NATHAxNAEL GREENE. 201 carried off his prisoners in safety. Greene, now leaving his force on the Pedee, under Hugee, with orders to advance to Salisbury, hastened to the camp of Morgan. He made the journey of a hundred and fifty miles with a single aid and a sergeant's guard of dragoons. He was now in front of Cornwallis, with the Catawba between. An attempt was made to defend the river against the passage of the British, who, however, crossed with difficulty and some loss. Greene, now fully de- termined upon a retreat, appointed Guilford Court House as the rendez- vous for the troops, sending Morgan with his force in advance. The next heat of the race was to the Yadkin. It was under a heavy rain, through miry roads, that the march was made by the Americans with the British in pursuit. Boats were in readiness at the river, and they crossed in safety, barely accomplishing the transit as the enemy came up with their rear. The story is told of Greene alighting on this march at Salisbury, worn out with the discomforts of the road. As he entered the inn, he was greeted by the army physician with inquiries as to his welfare. " Fatigued, hungry, alone and penniless," was the reply, which so touched the heart of his landlady, Mrs Elizabeth Steele—the name should not be forgotten—that she brought forth and placed in his hands two small bags of specie. "Take these," she said, "for you will want them, and I can do without them." This, says Irving, " is one of the numberless instances of the devoted patriotism of our women during the Revolution. 26 Their patriotism was apt to be purer and more disinterested than that of the men." * The Americans gained time by their advantage in crossing the river to pur- sue their route in safety to Guilford, where Greene, with the troops of Morgan, was joined by the division under the command of Hugee. A council was called; it was decided that the state of the army did not warrant an engagement, and that the retreat should be continued. It was a mas- terly operation on the part of Greene and his officers, admirably conducted. The interest of this flying march thick- ened to the close; and the last feat, the passage of the Dan into Virginia, was the greatest. The Americans were throughout closely pressed, and gained each step of the way only by discipline and valor. Had the arrangements of Greene been less complete, or the courage and dexterity of his rear-guard failed him, the British general would have made sure of his prey.a Cornwallis now, giving up further pursuit into Virginia, turned to im- prove his conquest in North Carolina. He had a talent for diplomacy, which, before the end of his career, it was destined that he should exercise on . larger fields in Europe and Asia, but among the rude population of South 1 Life of Washington, IV. 252. ' " Cornwallis, upon this occasion," says Hamilton, " imitating Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden, when the celebrated Schulenburg made good his retreat across the Oder, in spite of the utmost efforts of that vigorous and enterprising monarch, might, with propriety, have ex- claimed, This day, at least, Greene has conquered me! The art of retreating is perhaps tl e most difficult in the art of war." 202 Carolina his proclamation produced little effect. To counteract, however, any influence which he might gain over the people, Greene determined to advance again into the country. The movement had the effect of overawing the Tories. Delay was still the object, on the part of the Americans, till the expected reinforcements could arrive. In the meantime Greene pursued a policy of marching and counter- marching vexatious to the enemy. Finding himself at length, however, with sufficient numbers to force the enemy, he resolved to hazard an en- gagement. This was the battle of Guilford Court-house, as it is termed, which was lost to the Americans chiefly by'the failure at the outset of the militia to stand the advance of the veterans. Though the Americans had the advantage in point of numbers, and, as Hamilton remarks, in "superior skill" in the disposition of the forces, it was carried by the better discipline of the trained soldiers. " Victory de- creed the glory of the combat to the Britons ; but Heaven, confirming the hopes of Greene, decreed the advan- tage to the Americans." The same high military authority which we have j ust cited, awards high praise to Greene for his decision in turning to the South instead of to Virginia when Cornwallis, to find provisions and rest for his shat- tered army, was obliged to seek refuge in Wilmi ngton. " This was one of those strokes that denote superior genius, and constitute the sublime of war. 'Twas Seipio leaving Hannibal in Italy, to overcome him at Carthage." Cornwallis took the route abandoned L GREENE. by Greene, and proceeded into Virgi nia. Let Yorktown tell the rest. We must rapidly follow the fortunes of Greene. At first engaging with Lord Rawdon at Hobkirk's Hill, in the neighborhood of Camden, he suffered a defeat. Things again appeared ax the worst, with the prospect of another retreat, when Rawdon abandoned Cam den, and Greene proceeded to invest fort Ninety-Six. After a month's inef- fectual toil at this place, which was gallantly defended, the siege was relin- quished on the approach of Lord Raw- don. Marching and countermarching ensued, disastrous to the British troops in this summer of 1781, when Greene encamped his troops on the High Hills of Santee. Various partisan move ments were, in the meantime, carried on by Sumpter, Lee, and Hampton. Rawdon shortly departed for Europe, leaving Colonel Stuart in command at Orangeburg. Towards the end of August Greene sallied forth to meet him. The British officer had now chosen a position, nearer to Charleston at Eutaw Springs. Thither Greene advanced to the attack. The engage ment was opened by the militia of North and South Carolina, commanded by Marion, Malmedy, and Pickens, who advanced with spirit to the en- counter. This force, not always to be so well relied on, fought upon this occasion with energy, bearing the brunt of the engagement, till their field pieces were dismounted and they had expended seventeen rounds of ammunition. The North Carolina regulars, under Sumner, were then ad vanced, and drew out the full force of NATHANAI NATHANAEL GREENE. 203 the enemy. As the line yielded to this pressure, Greene ordered Williams with his Marylanders, seconded by Campbell's Virginians, to a bayonet charge. It was gallantly delivered, and as the British were yielding, they were pressed by Lee with his legion on the flank. Numerous prisoners were taken, many fled. At the height of the engagement, an unsuccessful effort was made by Colonel Washington, with his cavalry, to dislodge a party of the enemy, under Major Majoribanks, sheltered in a wood. The contest here was unequal; many were slain by the galling fire, and the life of Washington was saved only by his being taken prisoner. The Americans were now in the British camp, a portion of them giving themselves to untimely feasting on the stores of food and liquors they found there; the enemy, in the mean- while, retreating to an adjacent brick house, from which a well-directed fire was levelled at the pursuers. Portions of the British force were now brought up with varying success, ending in the dislodgment of the revellers in the camp, where there was some gallant fighting on the part of Lieut.-Colonel Hampton and the State cavalry of South Carolina. "It was by far the most obstinate fight I ever saw," wrote Greene to Washington. It came near being one of the most brilliant victo- ries. It was in its results, for it cleared the open countiy of any further for- midable movements of British troops. Greene retired to the lulls of the Santee. The British were now mostly con- fined to Charleston and the neighbor- ing island of St. Johns. The prowess of Greene and the native defenders of the region, prevented their again secur- ing a foothold in the interior. It was difficult to say which army was in the greatest straits. The troops of Greene were suffering the want of everything an army should have, and the oc- cupants of Charleston were strait- ened in the siege for want of provi- sions. At last, the day of mutual liberation came, the fourteenth of December, 1782, when Charleston was evacuated by the British, and Greene with Rutledge made their triumphal entry preceded by Wayne with a detachment of the Americans. Spring brought the news of peace. It was a welcome word to the southern army; it would have been more welcome to its commander, had he not deeply involved his fortunes in securities for the payment of the troops. Embai rassments, arising from this cause, em- bittered his last days. Otherwise they were happily spent, chiefly after a visit to Rhode Island, on the estate granted to him by the Legislature of Georgia, on the Savannah River. His old vivacity, love of books and society, and farmer's taste, found agreeable opportunity for their exercise in the life of -a southern. planter. In the midst of these simple enjoyments he one day fell victim to a sun stroke He died at his plantation, June 12 1786. FISHER AMES. Fisher Ames, the eminent orator of Federalism, belonged to one of the old- est of the Massachusetts families, which came near possessing quite a distin- guished man for its first emigrant from the parent land, in the person of Wil- liam Ames, one of the Calvinistic Cam- bridge scholars, of whom there were several representatives in the new world. This divine, who became know as a controversial writer, and the author in particular of a work entitled the "Medulla Theologian," was driven to a residence in the Netherlands. The Frieslanders made him a pro- fessor, and he was at the Synod of Dort. Holland was at that day for such spirits the highway to America, and Ames would have emigrated, had not death interrupted his plans. They were carried out by his widow and children, in 1634. We hear of the grandfather of Fisher Ames as a physician, in Massachusetts. His father, Nathaniel Ames, was also in the same profession. He was known in his town of Dedham as Doctor Ames; perhaps still better as the keeper of a tavern, it being no un- common thing, in the early history of the country, to eke out a defective in- come in a reputable manner by inn- keeping. He had also another hold 20-1 upon popular fame, in the acquaintance which he possessed with astronomy and mathematics, exhibited in the series of Almanacs, or Astronomical Diaries, which he annually sent forth for a pe- riod of nearly forty years. Fisher Ames was born at Dedham, April 9, 1758, and was but six years old at his father's death. The widow was left, with a family of young chil- dren, to her own resources. With the prudence and love of independence of a New England matron, she resolved to continue the tavern. It is also to be recorded to her honor, and as a proof of her instincts or discernment, that she saw from the outset the capa- city of the future leader of men. She set him upon the study of Latin, and procured him the best aid Dedham then afforded in the town school, and occa- sional recitations to the minister of the parish. In his thirteenth year, he was admitted a student at Harvard. His college life was marked by his good conduct, attention to his studies, and a determination of his tastes to oratorical exercises, and a practical sententious style of'composition. In the finer ele- ments of moral character, he made a decided impression. He received his degree at Harvard, in 1774. The choice of a pursuit waa FISHER AMES. 205 next in order, and Ames chose the law. The troubled state of the times, how- ever, and his unsettled means of sup- port, somewhat delayed his entrance upon the profession. He was for a time engaged in that always honorable American resource for a scanty income, country school-keeping, with intervals of leisure which he devoted to miscel- laneous reading, with especial attention to his college classical authors, and good English literature; storing his mind with abundant stock of ethical wisdom, and felicitous illustration, which thus naturally appropriated by a youth of genius, became inwoven with his experience, and entered into the substance of his future oratory. The nutriment afforded to the mind of Ames by his classical reading, gives life and color to many passages of his writings. He was, we are told, fond of Greek and Roman antiquities, of the ancient mythology, and such accessories of the old poets. Virgil was a favo- rite author with him ; he committed to memory many of his choicest passages. The elegance, warmth and modesty of nature, the diffidence and pathos of the Virgilian muse, were peculiarly accept- able to his nature. A man is to be known byT the company of his books as well as by that of his friends. Ames served his regular apprentice- ship to the law in the office of William Tudor, of Boston; was duly admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of the profession at Dedham, in 1781. It was not, however, as a lawyer that he was to be best known to the public. The country had a call for such men, which lifted them out of the narrow limits which < confine the usual employ' ments of a youthful attorney. Great questions of public policy and adminis- tration were to be settled which re- quired the application of the first order of minds. The first appearance of Ames in a public question, marked his saga- city on a point of political economy. The wretched financial condition of the country and its depreciated paper cur- rency, had thrown the ordinary busi- ness of traffic into great confusion. A State Assembly of Massachusetts met to deliberate on the evil. The unwise policy was adopted of regulating prices to suit the money. It of course failed, and the failure was evident at the adjourned meeting of the delegates, to which Ames was sent as a member by his native town. He showed the futility of the interference, and that the self-adjusting powers of the body politic in such cases must be left to cure their own disorders. We next hear of him as a politica essayist, invigorating, by his arguments the powers of government in the sup pression of the domestic insurrection in. the western part of Massachusetts, known as Shay's rebellion. His first composition, signed "Lucius Junius Brutus," appeared in the "Inde- pendent Chronicle," at Boston, in Octo- ber, 1786. When the rebellion was over, in the following year Ames pur- sued the subject in three essays, entitled " Camillus," in the same jour- nal. He reviewed the disorganizing elements at work in the country, and with the skill and sagacity of a forma- tive mind, grasped the conditions of stability and success. 206 It was evident now that Ames was being rapidly drawn into the fascinat- ing and engrossing pursuits of public life ; pursuits which have wrecked the business prospects of many a lawyer. It is not always that the country is better served by the decision. A good lawyer is sometimes not the best politician, or as might be more appro- priately said, statesman. The latter needs a breadth of mind, an enlarged philosophical fund of knowledge, a hearty sympathy seldom bred in the habits of attorneys. On the other hand, these open qualities gain by a founda- tion of business detail and profes- sional skill. Ames had more of the higher qualities. His sphere was pub- lic life, and spite of some ineffectual efforts of the attorney's office, he soon reached it. Public life soon established its para- mount claims upon the man. He was chosen a member of the State Conven- tion which met at Boston in 1788, for the consideration of the Constitution of the United States, agreed upon the previous year, at Philadelphia. There was much discussion of its provisions, and considerable opposition to its adop- tion. Ames was on the Federal side, urging his views with ability and suc- cess. His speech on "Biennial Elec- tions," the present term of the House of Representatives, for which it was then proposed to substitute an annual election, has been preserved. Its ar- guments are closely presented, with an infusion of that conservative political wisdom which marked his future course. He found two things to be provided for, a representation of the AMES. will of the people as immediate as possible, and a due efficiency in the discharge of the duty. "The terra of election," he said, " must be so long, that the representative may understand the interests of the people, and yet so limited, that Iris fidelity may be secured by a dependence upon their approba- tion." He saw and maintained thus early the principle of establishing authority, under appropriate restric- tions indeed, but as a power to protect the whole. In the same year he was chosen a member of the House of Representatives in the State Legisla- ture, distinguishing himself by his ad- vocacy of town schools. He saw in popular education a true safeguard against political delusions, as well as a constant means of individual happiness. The next year brought the election to the first Congress of the United States under the Constitution. The im portance of the occasion was universally felt and acknowledged. Some of the most eminent men whom the country had produced were chosen from the various States. The Massachusetts delegation was rich in talent; but Fisher Ames was its foremost man He was elected from the Boston dis- trict over Samuel Adams. His success was a distinguished triumph of the Federal cause. Ames was at his post at the opening of the Congress in New York. It was the formative period of the government. The entire working of a complex system was to be esta- blished for the first time. The organi- zation of the House, the reception of the President, the adjustment of eti quette, the determination of the future FISHER FISHER AMES. 2u7 Beat of government, a system of reve- nue, a financial policy, the adminis- tration of justice, domestic relations with the Indian tribes, relations with foreign countries—were all topics of discussion, calling up conflicting inte- rests, and requiring wise counsels and moderate resolutions. There was, of course, the usual amount of discussion, and what Ames, in one of his letters at the time to his friend, George Richards Minot, calls "repugnance to principles;" yet he admits, " there is not a deficiency of good sense and political experience; I have never seen an assembly where so little art was used. If they wish to carry a point, it is directly declared and justified." During the whole of this Congress, Mr. Ames took an active part in its leading debates, getting up his speeches industriously, and present- ing the plain business aspects of the case on such questions as duties on imports and tonnage. He was again elected to the next Congress, and to the ten successive Congresses during the Presidential career of Washington. In 1794, he delivered a speech in oppo- sition to the restrictions on English commerce proposed by Madison. It is noticeable for the soundness of its free- trade positions. His chief oratorical effort was in the House of Representatives at Philadel- phia, on the 28th April, 1795, at the close of the debate on making pro- vision for the execution of the British treaty, disposing of various points of controversy touching boundaries, com- merce, neutrality, and other questions between the countries recently negoti- ated by Jay in London His health at this time was enfeebled by a linger- ing decay, which gradually wasted his constitution. He had not been able trand in his hand, and a rope attached to his leg, he plunges into the abyss of the cavern, first shelving for fifteen feet, then on a level for ten more, then ascend- ing gradually some sixteen to the termi- narion, and a more embarrassing locality I for a strategical operation could hardly be devised. The wolf, enthroned at the height, had every advantage of posi- tion, as her antagonist crept onward, obscurely lighted by his torch. Sud- denly the flame is reflected in "the glaring eyeballs of the wolf." She gnashes her teeth with a sullen growl. Hercules, satisfied with the reconnois- sance, twitches the rope, and at the im- minent hazard of his life, is dragged with fearful celerity, torn and lacerated, "his shirt stripped over his head," through the passages of the cavern, to his zealous companions without. Her- cules a second time descends, hk. clothes politely adjusted, his gun loaded with precisely " nine buck shot." The wolf is now enraged, and in the act of spring- ing, when the nine buck shot are dis- charged, and Hercules, the signal being sufficiently distinct, " immediately finds himself drawn out of the cave." But, " having refreshed himself," as we are told, descended the third time; the wolf is very quiet—the torch applied to her nose produces no impression—in fact she is dead. Taking her now by the ears, and kicking the rope, "the people above, with no small exultation, dragged them both out together." This, intimates Colonel Humphreys—who, as Putnam's major, the aid and household companion of Washington, and minis- ter plenipotentiary to Madrid, may be considered as entitled to .an opinion- is the true story of the affair, altogether different from the garbled misrepresen- tation by the Reverend Dr. Peters, in his licentious " History of Connecticut," a clever book by the way, though Hum-. I phreys does pronounce it " a work as re- 230 ISRAEL PUTNAM. plete with falsehood as destitute of genius." How are such stories to be despised in biography? They go far to make up the popular reputation of the hero, and it was as a man of the people that Putnam first appears upon the public scene. On the breaking out of the old French war, as it was termed, at the age of thirty-seven, he drew together a band of his neighbors and reported himself with the Connecticut contin- gent before Crown Point. He appears to have been employed in this service under Major Rogers, the celebrated partisan "Ranger," whose life he is said to have saved in an encounter with a stalwart Frenchman. Putnam conducted himself as a man of re- sources and valor in this mixed species of warfare, in achieving a reputation which brought him, in 1757, the com- mission of a major from the Connecti- cut legislature. It was the year of the memorable massacre of Fort William Henry. Putnam was with the forces whose headquarters were at the neigh- boring Fort Edward, under command of General Webb, and made several vigorous attempts to assist in the sup- port of the beleaguered fortress, but his efforts were not seconded by the com- mander, who ungenerously left the fort a prey to Montcalm and the Indians. These adventures of Putnam displayed his personal courage, in approaching the enemy on Lake George, and subse- quently in command of his Rangers in :escuing a party of his fellow-soldiers jom an Indian ambuscade at Fort Edward. The year 1758 saw Major Putnam again in the field, under the command of Abercrombie, at the scene of his former labors, in the vicinity of Lake George. In the early movements of the campaign Putnam distinguished himself in an ambuscade, by a destruc- tive night attack upon a party of the enemy at Wood Creek. When the main line advanced towards Ticonde- roga, he was, with the lamented Lord Howe, in the front of the centre, when that much-loved officer was slain upon the march. It was at the first meeting, after landing from Lake George, with the advance of the French troops. There was some skirmishing which attracted the attention of the officers. Putnam advanced to the spot, accom- panied, contrary to his dissuasions, by Lord Howe, who fell at the first fire. The party of Putnam, enraged by this disaster, fought with gallantry, and inflicted a heavy loss upon their oppo- nents. The result of this miserably conducted expedition, however, made no amends for the loss of the gallant Howe. Two thousand nien were blun- deringly sacrificed before Ticonderoga, and the threatened siege was aban- doned. The life of Putnam is full of peril- ous encounters incident to border ser- vice against the Indians. In one of these he narrowly avoided capture by the savages on the Hudson, near Fort Miller. He escaped only by shooting the rapids with his boat, a marvellous adventure, which is said to have wakened a superstitious veneration for him in the minds of his Indian assail- ants. Not long afterwards, however, the ISRAEL PUTNAM. 231 barbarians had an opportunity of treat- ing him with less respect. It was in the month of August of this year that he was engaged with a reconnoitering party, in company with the partisan Rogers, near Ticonderoga. They had been employed in watching the move- ments of the enemy, and were on their return to Fort Edward when the atten- tion of the French partisan officer, Molang, who was on the lookout, was attracted to them by a careless shoot- ing-match between Rogers and a fellow British officer. A confused hand-to- hand action ensued in the wood, in the course of which Putnam, his gun miss- ing fire, " while the muzzle was pressed against the breast of a large and well- proportioned savage," was captured and bound to a tree by that formidable personage. The English party now rallying, drove their pursuers back- ward, which brought the unfortunate Putnam to a central position between the two fires. " Human imagination," well says Colonel Humphreys, " can hardly figure to itself a more deplor- able situation." Putnam remained more than an hour deprived of all power save that of hearing and vision, as the musket-balls whizzed by his ears and a ruthless savage aimed his tomahawk repeatedly, with the infer- nal dexterity of a Chinese juggler, within a hair's breath of his person. This amusement was succeeded by the attempt of a French petty officer to put an end to his life by discharging his musket against his breast. It happily missed fire. The action was now brought to an end in favor of the Provincials; but Putnam was carried off in the retreat by his Indian captor. He was now destined to witness one of those scenes, since so well described by Cooper, of the peculiar tortures inflicted by the Indians upon their prisoners in war; but unhappily with less complacent feelings than the reader of the skilful novelist experiences, whose terrors are tempered by the delightful art of the narrator. With Putnam, the spectator and the sufferer were the same. He has been bound on the march with intolerable thongs, he has almost perished under his bur- dens, he has been tomahawked in the face; he is now to be roasted'alive. A dark forest is selected for the sacri- fice ; stripped naked, he is bound to a tree and the inflammable brushwood piled around him. Savage voices sound his death-knell. Fire is applied. when a sudden shower dampens the flame to burst forth again with renewed strength. Though securely fastened, the limbs of the victim are left some liberty to shrink from the accursed heat. He has thought his last thought of home, of wife and children, when the desperate French partisan, Molang, the commander of the savage hordes, hearing of the act, rushes upon the scene and rescues him from his tormentors. Putnam is now restored to the guar- dianship of the Indian chief by whom he had been captured, and from whom he was separated during these hours of agony, when he had fallen into the hands of the baser fellows of the tribe. The party now soon reach Ticonde- roga, where Putnam is delivered to Montcalm, and thence courteously con- ducted by a French officer to Montreal. 232 ISRAEL There he found himself within reach of a benevolent American officer, then a prisoner in the city, Colonel Peter Schuyler, who generously ministered to his necessities, and who was instru- mental in procuring his release from the French commander, when he him- self was exchanged after the capture of Frontenac. Putnam, on his return home, gallantly conducted through the wilderness the sorely tried Mrs. Howe and her children, whose adventures in Indian captivity and among the French, equal the inventive pages of romance. The next year, in Amherst's great campaign, Putnam returned to Montreal under better auspices. He was with that commander in his onward move- ment, with the rank of lieutenant- colonel, and rendered efficient service in the passage down the St. Lawrence, by his bravery and ingenuity. When the fort of Oswegatchie was to be attacked, and two armed vessels were in the way, he proposed to silence the latter by driving wedges to hinder the movement of their rudders, and to cross the abatis of the fortification by an attack fi'om boats, armed with long planks, which were to be let down when the vessels, protected by fascines, were placed alongside of the work. A timely surrender anticipated both of these expedients. The dying Wolfe had conquered Canada at Quebec, mak- ing victory easy elsewhere in the pro- vince. Montreal surrendered to the allied forces without a blow. Putnam, it is recorded, availed himself of the opportunity to look up the Indian chief who had taken him prisoner, and PUTNAM. exchange civilities and hospitalities, now that the tables were turned. We next find Putnam in charge of a Connecticut regiment, in a novel field of warfare, on the coast of Cuba, in Lord Albemarle's attack upon Havana, in 1762. He was in considerable dan- ger in a storm, when the transport in which he was embarked with his men, was wrecked on a reef of the island; a landing was effected by rafts, and a fortified camp established on the shore He was again fortunate in escaping the dangers of a climate so fatal to his countrymen. On his return home, he was engaged in service against the Indians, with the title of colonel. The war being now over, he retired to his farm, which he continued to culti- vate till, he was again called into the field by the stirring summons of Lex- ington. In the preliminary scenes of the war, he fairly represented the feeling of the mass of his countrymen, as it was ex- cited by the successive acts of Par . liamentary aggression. As a soldier of the old French war, he had learnt the weakness of British officers in America and the strength of a hardy, patriotic peasantry. " If," he said,- " it required six years for the combined forces of England and her colonies to conquer such a feeble colony as Canada, it would, at least, take a very long time for England alone to overcome her own widely extended colonies, which were much stronger." Another anecdote is characteristic of the blunt farmer. Being once asked " whether he did not seriously believe that a well-appointed British army of five thousand veterans ISRAEL coidd march through the whole conti- nent of America, he replied, " no doubt, if they behaved civilly, and paid well for everything they wanted; but—if they should attempt it in a hostile manner, though the American men were out of the question, the women, with their ladles and broomsticks, would knock them all on the head before they had got half way through." The news of Lexington—the war message—transmitted from hand to hand till village repeated it to village, the sea to the backwoods, " found the farmer of Pomfret, two days after the conflict, like Cincinnatus, literally at the plough." He unyoked his team, and hastened in his rude dress to the camp. Summoning the forces of Con- necticut, he was placed at their head, with the rank of Major-General, and stood ready at Cambridge for the bloody day of Bunker's Hill. He was in service in May, in the spirited affair checking the British supplies from Noddle's Island, in Boston harbor, and resolutely counselled the occupation of the heights of Charlestown. When the company of Prescott went forth on the night of the sixteenth of June to their gallant work, he was with them, taking no active command, but assisting where opportunity served. He was seen in different parts of the field, but his chief exertions appear to have been expended upon the attempted fortifica- tion of Bunker's Hill, where he met the fugitives in the retreat, and con- ducted " such of them as would obey him," says Bancroft' to the night's encampment at Prospect Hill. 30 PUTNAM. 233 Putnam's was one of the first Congres- sional appointments, ten days before the battle, when the rank of Major General was conferred upon him. He continued to serve at the siege of Bos- ton, and when the theatre of operations was changed by the departure of the British to New York, was placed by Washington, in 1776, in command in that city until his own arrival. He employed himself, during this short period, with several devices for the safety of the harbor. In August, on the landing of Howe, he was, upon the sudden illness of Greene, who had directed the fortifications, and after the arrival of the British, in command at the battle of Long Island, and much censure has been thrown upon him for the neglect of the passes, by which the American left was turned. In the actual combat there appears to have been a divided authority. The abandonment of New York next followed, with the retreat to West- chester and the passage through the Jerseys. Putnam was then, in Janu- ary, 1777, ordered to Philadelphia to make provision for its defence. In May, he was put in command of the post at the Highlands, to secure its defences, and observe, from that central position, the movements of the enemy. In the summer of this year, Sir Henry Clinton, at New York, sent up the river a flag of trace, to claim one Ed- mund Palmer, who had been taken in the American camp, as a lieutenant iu the British service. This drew forth from Putnam a reply which has been often quoted: 234 ISRAEL PUTNAM. u Hbadquabtem, 7 Augutt, 17TT. " EoMr^jD Palmer, an officer in the enemy's ser- vice, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines; he has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, and the flag is ordered to depart immediately. "Isbael Putnam. " P. S.—He has been accordingly executed." In September, a portion of Putnam's command was withdrawn by Washing- ton for the support of the army in Pennsylvania, by a peremptory order which, it is said, put an end to a plan formed by Putnam for a separate at- tack on the enemy at New York. Forts Montgomery and Clinton, at the entrance to the Highlands, fell into the hands of Clinton by a surprise shortly after, but the conquest of this impor- tant position was neutralized by the victory of Gates at Saratoga. The British remained at Fort Montgomery but twenty days. Putnam seems still to have entertained some project in connexion with New York, which led him to withhold troops called for by the imperious necessities of Washing- ton The neglect of these orders brought a pointed letter from Hamil- ton, and an equally significant re- buke from Washington himself.1 In the following spring, Putnam was re- lieved of his command in the High- lands by the appointment of General McDougal to the post, when he was ordered to Connecticut to superintend the raising of the new levies. He was stationed the following winter at 1 November 9, 1777, Sparks' Washington, V. 160-163. Danbury, when the famous descent of the precipice at Horse Neck occurred, one of the latest marvels of Putnam's anecdotical career. While he was on a visit to one of his outposts at Horse Neck, Governor Tryon, of New York, advanced upon the place with a con- siderable body of troops. He planted his own small force on the hill, but was speedily compelled to provide for the safety of his men by a retreat, and for his own by plunging down a formi- dable rocky steep by the roadside. In 1779, he was again in the High- lands, superintending the defences then erected at West Point, one of which, the fort now in ruins, bore his name. In the winter, he visited his family in Connecticut, and as he was returning to the army, at Morristown, was struck with paralysis. His right side was en- feebled, and his active career ceased, though he enjoyed the cheerful, tran- quil pursuits of age. His memory re- mained unimpaired. One of his amuse- ments was to recite to his friend and military companion, Colonel Humph- reys, those events of his varied life, which that officer wrought into the pleas- ing narrative appropriately addressed to the State Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut, and published by their order. The dedication of the work to Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, bears date June 4, 1788, about two years before the decease of the hero of the story. General Putnam died at Brook- line, Connecticut, May 29, 1790, in hia seventy-third year. HENRY LEE. Hectry Lee, the brilliant partisan officer of the Revolution, popularly known from his dashing exploits at the head of his brigade as " Light Horse Harry," and subsequently in connection with the civil history of Virginia, was born in Westmoreland County in that State, January 29, 1756. He was re- lated by birth to the eminent family bearing his name, which lent so many of its sons to the public service of the country, his father, Henry Lee, being the first cousin of Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the Resolution of Inde- pendence in the Provincial Congress. His mother was Mary Bland, daughter of Colonel Bland, of Jordans, in Prince George County, Virginia Lee, who had good reason in after life, when he became an historian, to pride himself among his fellow officers on his education, received his prepara- tory instruction, according to the cus- tom of good families of Virginia in his day, from a private tutor, from whose hands he passed to Princeton College, where, it will be remembered, Madison and the other notable men of the coun- try were diligently taught, and, what is more, patriotically inspired by the zealous President Witherspoon. He received his degree in 1774, three years after Madison, the poet Freneau, and Breckinridge, the author of " Modern Chivalry," left the institution. On his return home, he found his father en- gaged in negotiating a treaty with some Indian tribes on the frontier, on the part of the colony, and was intrusted with the management of his affairs in his absence — a duty of considerable responsibility, which marked him as a youth of promise. Two years later, he received the appointment, at the sug- gestion of Patrick Henry, then engaged in the military defence of the province, of captain in a company of cavalry under the command of Colonel Theo doric Bland, and in the summer of 1777 joined the camp of Washington, in Pennsylvania, on the eve of the battle of Brandy wine. He appears at once to have brought himself into notice by the excellence of his discipline, and his dashing bravery in harassing the out- posts of the enemy and capturing pri- soners. Captain Lee continued with the little army of Washington, and in the winter encampment at Valley Forge, in 1778, elicited the warmest commen- dations of the commander-in-chief for his gallantry in baffling an attack in quarters of a superior force of the enemy. He was also rewarded by Con- gress with an independent command of horse, and the rank of major. xtz> 23G HENRY LEE. The following summer Lee was sta- tioned in the neighborhood of the Hud- son, below the Highlands, and Wash- ington at his headquarters at New Windsor, was planning the attack upon Stony Point. He consulted Lee in his preparations, and directed him to co- operate with Wayne, for whom that 2>llant action was reserved. It was not long, however, before Lee found the opportunity of gaining for himself as enviable a distinction. He had his eye fixed on the British post immediately opposite New York, at Paulus Hook— the site of the present Jersey City— where there was a fort with outhouses, somewhat carelessly guarded by some four or five hundred men. Thinking that it might be captured by the same spirited activity which Wayne and his men had exhibited, he made his arrange- ments, and set out on the afternoon of the 18th of August, moving from the New Bridge, on the Hackensack, along the Bergen road towards the scene of operations. With some defections of his men on the way—partly by separa- tion in consequence of an ignorant or unfaithful guide in the hilly country, partly by withdrawal of a portion of Virginians on a question of rank—he arrived with the remainder of his force at the creek separating the peninsula from the mainland, at the approach of daylight, and after a brief reconnois- sance, ordered the attack. " Not a mo- ment being to spare," says he in his dis- patch to Washington, " I paid no atten- tion to the punctilios of honor or rank, but ordered the troops to advance in their then disposition." The garrison, " taken by surprise, had the first intelli- gence of the assault in the "forlorna plunging into the canal." A firing of musketry ensued from the works, but the movement was not impeded. The fortress was entered and taken posses- sion of before a single piece of artillery could be discharged. Not a single musket was fired by the assailants; their whole dependence was on the bayonet. All that was now to be done was to secure the prisoners and conduct them to the American lines; for holding the fort was impossible, and had been strictly forbidden by Washington. It was no easy work to accomplish, but it was done in spite of the alarm given to the soldiery in New York, and the at- tempts to cut off the rear on the back- ward march. The prisoners, one hun- dred and fifty-eight, were safely carried off, though at one time the Americans were so hardly pressed on their retreat, that, as Lee himself says, " self-preserva- tion strongly dictated putting the pris- soners to death," adding, "British cru- elty fully justified it, notwithstanding which, not a man was wantonly hurt.'' The American loss in this brilliant affair, which pairs off with Stony Point, as Princeton and Trenton kept one another company in the previous year's campaign, was but two killed and three wounded. Washington, in communi- cating Lee's report of the affair to Con- gress, commended his remarkable de- gree of prudence, address, enterprise, and bravery," and Congress, in its re- solves, echoed the eulogy of the com- mander-in-chief. A gold medal in his honor was ordered on the occasion. The next military mention of conse- quence of Lee, we find in Washington's HENRY LEE. 237 order dated Morristown, 30th March, 1780, enjoining him " to take the most expeditious measures for putting the whole corps, both horse and foot, in readiness to march," adding, " if you move, your destination will be South Carolina." It was not, however, till the following year that he was to enter on the southern field. In the meantime, he added to his laurels by his gallant 2onduct in the defence of Springfield, and, in the autumn of this year, 1780, by his conduct of one of those strata- gems of war which he has made memo- rable by his excellent manner of telling the story in his " Memoirs." We allude to his selection and employment of Sergeant Champe, a soldier in his camp in New Jersey, in an attempt to bring off the traitor Arnold from his British friends in New York for con- dign punishment in the American army. Lee did not enter upon the southern field till the appointment of Greene to the command, after the defeat of Gene- ral Gates at Camden. Washington detached him for the service, with his corps—"an excellent one," he wrote, " and the officer at the head of it has great resources of genius." Lee, with the title of Lieutenant Colonel, joined General Greene on the Pedee with his legion—two hundred and eighty, horse and foot—and was at once set in mo- tion to harass the enemy. He was associated, in this work7 with the gal- lant Marion, and the two, hesitating at nothing in the way of adventure, planned a bold night attack upon Georgetown on the seaboard, which was partially successful, in the capture of the British commander, Colonel Campbell, and which failed of entire success, Lee intimates, only through the humanity of himself and his brother officer, who spared the lives of their men in ordering an assault upon the fort after the rest of the place had been occupied The retreat of Greene next followed, with the rapid pursuit of Cornwallis— a chapter in the war of perilous adven ture and no ordinary heroism. Lee; who had joined his superior, had com- mand of the rear-guard, a position, in point of honor, equivalent to the ene- my's van, for it was, of course, the first exposed to attack, and the redoubtable Tarleton was at his heels. The termi- nation of the flight was presently reached in the passage of the Dan. and the army of Greene was saved to letihn for speedy revenge on the track it had left behind. The adventure of Lee, in his adroit surprise and capture of Colonel Pyle and his Royalists, may be taken as a prelude to this new movement. General Greene himself wras now across the border again in North Caro- lina, and reinforced by a considerable body of militia awaited the attack of Cornwallis at a spot near Gudford Court-house. Lee's Legion, in the dis- positions of the day—he had, in the early part of it, met Tarleton's advanced guard with his accustomed energy— was placed on the left flank, and of course had his work to do on that dis- astrous day, when the safety of the army, after the misconduct of the mili- tia, depended upon such tried soldiers as he commanded. When Greene, patient of defeat, by a masterly move- 238 HENRY LEE. ment advanced into South Carolina, Lee was again detached to act with Marion, in concert with whom he cap- tured Forts Watson and Motte. He also captured Granby, aided in the attack on Augusta, and took part with Greene in the attack on Ninety-Six, gallantly leading a storming division. Greene, meanwhile, encamped, during the summer months, on the high hills of Santee, waited his opportunity to engage the remaining forces of the enemy, now commanded by Colonel Stuart, and stationed at no great dis- tance from his position. The parties met in battle at Eutaw Springs; Lee, with his legion—he was in command of the left of the first line—as usual distinguishing himself by his bravery and skill in the various fortunes of that bloody day. Like many of Greene's reverses, it was a victory in the end. In this same month of September, Corn- wallis surrendered at Yorktown, and the great southern struggle approached ii"s end. Lee was sent to the North with a message from Greene to Wash- ington, asking aid of the French navy in the reduction of Charleston, and again took part in the operations on his return. He resigned his command from ill health, before the conclusion of the war, and retired to his family seat at Stratford, soon after being mar- ried to his cousin, the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee. Thenceforth it is mainly in civil rather than in political life that we find him engaged He was appointed a delegate to Congress in 1786, and is in correspondence with Washington, in the continued enjoyment of his fonner intimacy, the friends freely interchang- ing their views on government. It was Lee's mournful privilege to communi- cate in a letter to Mount Vernon the news of General Greene's sudden death near Savannah. " Your friend and second," he wrote, "the patriotic and noble Greene, is no more. Universal grief reigns here. How hard is the fate of the United States to lose such a son in the middle of life!" The intelligence called forth a few words of Washington's resigned philosophy— the expression of a man who put no trust in fortune. "Life and the con- cerns of this world," he wrote, " one would think, are so uncertain, and so full of disappomtments, that nothing is to be counted upon from human actions." In Lee, Washington had one who could sympathize with his views in regard to the new Federal Constitution, which was so vehemently opposed by other statesmen in Virginia. Lee gave it his support, and sat in the State Convention for its adoption. In a let- ter to Washington, in September, 1788, announcing the steps taken for the organization of the new Government in the coming election, he intimated the choice of the country for its first Ex ecutive in words of mingled friendship and anxiety. In 1792 he was elected Governor of Virginia, and, during his term of office, was called upon by Washington to take command of the troops sent to suppress the Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania. lie marched with fif- teen thousand men into the westero counties; but fortunately the difficulty HENRY was adjusted without their active inter- vention. Lee took his seat again in Congress in 1799, the last year of Washington's life. To him was com- mitted the preparation of the resolu- tions in the House of Representatives when that life was closed. They con- tained the memorable expression to which we have already made allusion : " Resolved," is the language of one of them, "that a committee, in conjunction with one from the Senate, be appointed to consider on the most suitable manner of paying honor to the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." In the temporary absence of Lee, the resolutions were moved by Judge Mar- shall.1 To Lee also fell the honorable task of delivering the oration at the funeral procession ordered by Congress. His Eulogy was eloquent and pointed. Repeating the happy tribute in the words, just given, of his resolution, he added, " he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate and sincere, uniform, dignified and commanding, his example was edifying to all around him, as were the effects of that example lasting. .... Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his pre- sence, and virtue always felt his foster- ing hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues." Lee's duties in Congress terminated with the administration of Adams, when he finally retired from public 1 Marshal's Washington, V. 829. office. He lived for a while the life of a country gentleman, in Virginia, but his prospects became clouded as debts pressed heavily upon him, caused, it is said, by his lavish expenditure. He was arrested for debt, and placed on the limits in Spottsylvania County—a sufficiently unpleasant period, doubt- less, but posterity is indebted to it for the pleasing and graphic narrative of his past military experiences, which he wrote in 1809, his " Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States." In 1812 Lee was again before the public in connection with the Balti- more Riots of that year. These, it will be remembered, grew out of an attack upon the office of the "Federal Republi- can," a newspaper which had taken part against the recent declaration of war. Hanson, the editor, was determined to hold his ground and continue the publi- cation of his journal, and Lee, among other distinguished persons, supported his course. Another assault was made upon his premises; shots were fired, and the military interfered, lodging the inmates for safety in the prison. This, in turn, became an object of attack; an entrance was effected by the mob, General Lingan was killed, and Lee, among others, wounded. He never entirely recovered from the injury. A voyage to the West Indies failed in the restoration of his broken health, and he returned to the United States to die. His death occurred on the 25th of March, at the residence of Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of General Greene, at Cumberland Island, Georgia. V ROBERT MORRIS. This liberal merchant and financial stay of the American Revolution, whose self-sacrificing, disinterested patriotism lighted many of the darker hours of the struggle, was not a native of America. His father, Robert Morris, an eminent merchant of Liverpool, left that city of his birth to establish him- self in Maryland, on the eastern shore, where he carried on an important ship- ping trade in tobacco with England. Finding his relations with the colony likely to be permanent, he sent for his son, a boy of thirteen, whom he had left with the family at home. This was Robert Morris, of the Revolu- tion. He was born in Liverpool, January, 1733. On his arrival in America, he was placed with " one Annan," described as at that time the only teacher in Phila- delphia, with whom, it is added, that his progress in learning " does not ap- pear to have been very rapid," a state- ment in imperfect agreement with the accompanying anecdote of the boy's reply to his father, in respect to this instructor, " I have learned, sir, all that he could teach me."1 The youth was early deprived of his 1 Life of Morris. Sanderson's Lives of the Signers, V. 190. 240 fond, solicitous parent, a gentleman held in great repute in the colony for his honorable personal and social qualities. His death was sudden, and occurred in a manner to be long re- membered. When a merchant vessel arrived in the harbor, it was customary for the consignee to give an entertain- ment on board to his friends. Mr. Morris had just discharged this act of hospitality, and was leaving the ship, when he was struck by the wad of the gun fired from the vessel as a parting salute. It inflicted a severe wound in the shoulder, a mortification set in, and death immediately ensued. He was in his fortieth year. At the time of this disaster, young Morris was a clerk in the counting- house of Charles Willing, a well known merchant' of Philadelphia. He was earnest and assiduous, full of business talent, and early established a reputa- tion for ability and integrity. On coming of age, in 1754, he entered into a partnership with Thomas Willing, the son of his employer, which was continued for thirty-nine years. The early manhood of Morris was signalized by the agitations on the subject of trade, which preceded the actual out- break of the Revolution. A merchant carrying on an active and profitable >l ROBERT MORRIS. 241 business with the mother country, may sv'ell have hesitated as to the part he would take in the discussion. Mor- ris, of a frank, manly, generous charac- ter, was with the country from the outset. He gave his counsel and sup- port to the Whig leaders, and proved his fidelity to the cause, by signing the nci-importation agreement of 1765. When war broke out, and the blood of isexington cemented the elements of patriotism, he was prepared for the issue. The announcement of the en- gagement to Morris and his friends, in Philadelphia, was quite a dramatic scene. They were assembled, four days after the event, at the anniversary festival of St. George's Day, an occasion calculated to bring out the strongest English feeling. The topics of the day were, of course, the subject of discus- sion, and under the influence of port and madeira, the reconciliation party were rapidly gaining the ascendant. Suddenly news is received of the British raid at Lexington, and the slaughter of the Americans. It is the handwriting on the wall, number- ing the days of English supremacy. The tables are deserted; the seats over- thrown. Morris and a few friends re- mained, survivors of this wreck of con- viviality, to pledge themselves to the new era. A farewell, we are told, was uttered to their patron saint, no longer good old St. George, whose banquets— may they long survive!—were hence- forth to be held in America under different auspices with new auguries. Then and there Morris dedicated him- self, "his life, his fortune and his sacred honor," as he afterwards had the satis- 31 faction of formally recording, to the cause of his country. The second Congress was at that moment about to meet in Philadelphia. Towards the close of the year, Morris was elected a member of the Pennsyl- vania legislature, and rapidly placed himself alongside of the Adamses, Lees, Livingstones and other eminent patriots of that distinguished body. The affairs of the navy, trade and finance, with which he was perfectly conversant, were immediately put into his hands. He was reelected the next year, and placed his broad, unflinching signature to the Declaration of Independence. Then began a series of financial ser- vices, personal and official, spread over many years, amply acknowledged in the correspondence and annals of the Revolution. In many a strait and peril of our infant armies, in moments of impending desertion or famine, was the brow of Washington smoothed by the magic wonders wrought by the character and genius of Morris. The resources of his integrity and manage- ment—for it was often more a matter of credit than of actual means at his command—supplied money and flour out of penury and barrenness. After the battle of Trenton, Washington was greatly in want of a sum of money in specie for a special purpose. He applied to Morris, then a member of a committee left in charge of affairs at Philadelphia. The financier, who had exhausted his own stock in loans to Congress, was perplexed. Leaving his office in despair, he met a member of the Society of Friends, who opened the conversation, with the not uncom 242 ROBERT MORRIS. mon inquiry as to the news. "The most important news," replied Morris, " is that I require a certain sum in specie, and that you must let me have it." This brought his friend to a state of serious reflection. " Your security," continued Morris, " is to be my note and my honor." " Robert," replied the friend, "thou shalt have it." Again, at the close of the year, when Wash- ington had prolonged the period of enlistment of his troops by the promise of a bounty, to which the military chest was entirely unequal, he sought the aid of Morris. The request reached him late at night; he was up before any one could be found to assist him, in the morning, to forward the desired sum. Two anecdotes are related of Morris, in connection with the southern cam- paigns, which pleasantly illustrate his sagacity. Gates, it is said, consulted him at Philadelphia, on taking the com- mand. " I fear," was the prophetic re- mark of Morris, " you would sink under the complicated perplexities you would have to encounter. I advise you to remain satisfied with the laurels you have earned at Saratoga. I fear they may wither if you accept the com- mand." The saying is well known of the event of this expedition, in the dis- astrous battle of Camden, that Gates there exchanged his • northern laurels for southern cypresses. The other story is of General Greene, who after the termination of his cam- paign, called at the Office of Finance, on Mr. Morris, and relating the story of his difficulties, is reported to have said: " I am not superstitious, Mr. Morris, and yet I cannot help believing that on two separate occasions there was a special interposition of Providence in my favor, and which prevented the disbanding of my army. I had, on more than one occasion, surmounted difficulties which it at first appeared impossible to over- * come; but at length, while seated in my tent, overwhelmed by the gloomy ap- prehensions of a fate which seemed inevitable, I was visited by a gentle- man whom I had occasionally seen about the camp, but who had never particularly attracted my notice. ' You appear, General,' said the visitor, 'to be in much distress; under the impres- sion that it may arise from a want of money, I have ventured to approach you, to tender to you offers for your relief. I have now in my possession thirty thousand pounds, which is at your command, and for which I will take your draft on the financier.' Half astonished, I accepted of his proffered unexpected relief, when he left the camp, and I saw no more of him, until a subsequent occasion, when I was placed in the same painful dilemma. He again at this time called upon me, furnished me with the required funds, and took my drafts, and I never saw him again. 'Why do you smile, Mr. Morris?' he added, as the story was concluded. 'Did, you never suspect who sent this person to you, and em- ployed him to watch your motions?' 'No,' replied the General. 'Did it never occur to you that he was em- ployed by me V ' By you, sir! and did you distrust me V ' My confidence in you,' replied Morris, ' was greater than in almost any human being. I knew ROBERT MORRIS. 243 that your mental resources were such that you could surmount difficulties, and extricate yourself from embarrass- ments under which any other man would sink; but I knew at the same time, that if this money were left at your disposal, you would use it before the time of your greatest and most indispensable necessity arrived; there- fore, being limited in the sum of money appropriated to your army, and sorely pressed myself on every hand, I found it incumbent upon me to provide for its being advanced to you only when it became impossible for you to do with- out it.'"1 An anecdote like this is a forcible illustration of the disadvantages under which the battles of the Revolution were fought. Nothing enhances the triumphant issue of the contest so much as the simple statement of the scantiness of the means with which it was undertaken. When we read of soldiers standing up at Bunker's Hill against the amply equipped regiments of Great Britain, with a supply of pow- der no more than a schoolboy would take in his powder-horn for a day's sporting, and that, as Mr. Bancroft tells us, of those eastern operations, "the Americans, with companies incomplete in number, enlisted chiefly within six weeks, commanded many of them, by officers unfit, ignorant, and untried, gathered from four separate colonies, with no reciprocal subordination but from courtesy and opinion, after collect- : This is given as an authoritative version of the anec- dote, by the writer of an interesting paper of Revolutionary Remir.iscences connected with the life of Robert Morris, in the Whig Review, for July, 1847. ing all the ammunition that could be obtained north of the Delaware, had in the magazine for an army, engaged in a siege and preparing for a fight, no more than twenty-seven half barrels of pow der, with a gift from Connecticut of thirty-six half barrels more,"1 and the more comprehensive statements of Washington of these pauper campaigns, as they may be termed, deficient in everything but men, we may form some estimate of the honor of victory. The details of Morris' administration of the finances are thickly sown in the records of Congress. He was a member of the Committee of Commerce, of the Committee of Finance, and when it became necessary to vest responsible power in a single individual, in place of the cumbrous agency of a board, he was, in 1781, appointed Superintendent of Finance. The letters which he wrote to Congress in acceptance of this arduous station, show at once the matu- rity of his views and the depth of his patriotism. He looked to the esta- blishment of financial credit out of the chaos of bankruptcy, by the simplest means of honesty and good faith. " The whole business of finance," he said, " may be comprised in two short but comprehensive sentences—to raise the public revenues by such modes as may be most easy and most equal to the people, and to expend them in the most frugal, fair, and honest manner." He in- sisted upon the funding of the national debt, that the interest might be promptly paid. But, obvious as the policy of this measure was, it was long before the 1 History of th* United States, VII. 416. 244 ROBERT MORRIS. jealousy or inefficiency of Congress permitted its adoption. In fact, it was only under the Constitution that it was accomplished. Looking to the per- sonal hazards of fortune and character at stake, he wrote : " In accepting the office bestowed on me, I sacrifice much of my interest, my ease, my domestic enjoyments and internal tranquillity. If I know my own heart, I make these sacrifices with a disinterested view to the service of my country. I am ready to go still further; and the United States may command everything I have except my integrity, and the loss of that would effectually disable me from serving them more." These are words to be literally interpreted. One of the first acts of Morris was to call his friend, Gouverneur Morris, to his side, and, with the advice of Hamil- ton, lay before Congress the plan of the Bank of North America, as the most efficient aid to the public and to indi- viduals, in enabling them to anticipate their resources. The bank was char-» tered the last day of the year. Hercu- lean efforts were made by Morris to promote its subscriptions of stock and draw specie to its vaults; he succeeded in establishing its credit, greatly to the relief of the army, in the wretched pecuniary condition of the country. It was the partial realization of one of the most cherished ideas of Morris' career. He had made some similar attempts before, and when afterwards, in 1785, its charter was assailed, he accepted office in the Pennsylvania legislature that he might engage in its defence. Nor was this all In addition to the financial operations of Congress, involving the labor of an entire modern bureau, Moms was charged with the buiden of the Navy Depart- ment. It was, hardly less than its companion of the Treasury, a wearisome work. With what good hope and heart Moms did what could be done, may be read in his efforts to aid and equip the naval hero, Paul Jones, who frequently expressed his gratitude. After the death of that brilliant officer, whose valor would have distinguished any service, the sword presented to him by Louis XVI. was given by the heirs of Jones to Morris, in acknow- ledgment of his services to their rela- tive. In the events of the war which fol- lowed his appointment, Morris proved his insight into military affairs by his urgent advice to Washington, at head- quarters, to substitute for the projected attack upon New York the movement against Cornwallis at Yorktown. The advice might have been given by many; from Morris it came with double force, for, without his aid, the troops could hardly, it was apprehended, be induced to march there. He secured a timely loan from the French minister, which he was enabled to grant only by the opportune arrival of supplies from France, and with this assistance was enabled to speed the soldiers on their way. Morris, it is said, pledged his personal credit to the amount of one million four hundred thousand dollars in equipping and forwarding the troops on this expedition. That he was enabled to do this was owing to the confidence in his financial ability, and the resources of his private business, ROBERT MORRIS. 245 which had been carried on in the partnership during the whole period of the war. Victory, however, did not fill the treasury, or lighten the duties of the Secretary of Finance. Eloquent and incessant were his appeals to the States, by every motive of duty and policy, to furnish their quotas of the national obligations, and pay the duties levied on imports. Again and again he appealed. All appeared ineffectual. Finally, having long borne these pro- fitless burdens, annoyed by State jealousies and State deficiencies, he determined, early in 1783, upon re- signation. Congress would not, how- ever, surrender his services; fresh resolves of aid were passed, and he continued to toil on, till he was at length released in November, 1784. His parting address to the inhabitants of the United States concluded with a plea for Union. " The inhabitants of a little hamlet," he says, "may feel pride in the sense of separate independence. But if there be not one government, which can draw forth and direct the efforts, the combined efforts, of United America, our independence is but a name, our freedom a shadow, and our dignity a dream." Three years later, he sat in the Con- vention which put these doubts to rest by the formation of the Constitution. Upon the adoption of that instrument, he was chosen senator to the first Con- gress, at New York, where he again distinguished himself by his financial counsels. Washington offered him the post of Secretary of the Treasury, which he declined in favor of his friend Hamilton. The commercial operations of Morris were carried on after the war with re- newed activity. He engaged exten- sively in the East India trade; sending, in 1784, the Empress of China from New York to Canton, the first Ameri- can vessel seen at that port. He also first marked out a course to China by which the periodical winds of those eastern seas might be avoided, and sent a vessel which proved the correctness of the theory. It is sad to state, after this recital of laborious, disinterested services ren- dered to the country, that the last years of Robert Morris were passed in deep pecuniary embarrassment, and even aa a prisoner for debt. A gigantic specu- lation which he entered into in the pur- chase of lands in western New York, stripped him of all his property. An annuity of fifteen hundred dollars paid by Gouverneur Morris to Mrs. Robert Morris, a sister of Bishop White, the wife of his youth, in consideration of her relinquishing a right of dower in certain lands, was all that was left to the support of his family. Neither his country nor his Stat e, to whom his own liberality had been so freely extended, ever came forward to discharge their debt of gratitude. The aged financier lingered to his seventy-third year, the survivor of his friend Hamilton, dying May 8, 1806. HENRY LAURENS. This eminent South Carolinian, who ingrafted the loftiest graces of patriot- ism upon the integrity of the mer- cantile character, came of that old Huguenot stock, which sent more than one distinguished representative to the camp and Senate Chamber in the na- tional struggle. His family, driven from France by the self-devoted policy of the state, came to New York, where they tarried for a time before making Charleston their residence. Henry Laurens was born in the latter city in 1724. His education appears to have been well provided for, probably directed mainly to mercantile pursuits, to which he was regularly trained in the house of Thomas Smith, of Charles- ton, and afterwards of a Mr. Crockatt, of London. Returning from the English metropolis, he formed a partnership with Mr. Austin, of Charleston. His mercantile character was of the highest honor and simplest integrity.* Industry was one of his sterling virtues, and with it was united punctuality. He rose early and prepared his corres- pondence, while others were asleep. It is mentioned as proof of his know- ledge of human nature, and we may add that the fact .bears witness also to the honesty of the times and sober methods of conducting affairs, com- pared with the speculative mania of the present day, that on the dissolution of a partnership of twenty-three years, involving large transactions, he was willing to take all outstanding debts as cash, at a discount of only five per cent. Where is the merchant of twenty-three years' standing who would now do the same ? He carried exact dealing to a punctilio, refusing, it is said, to draw bills of exchange, till he had first received an acknowledgment in writing from those on whom he designed to draw, that they were indebted to him.1 There are other anecdotes of his mercantile career, indi- cative of his kindness and generosity. He was an exemplary head of a family, obedient in his Bible instructions to the lessons of his forefathers. Such was Henry Laurens, when, a widower, retired from business with a large estate, -in 1771, he took his sons to England, according to the fashion of the wealthy families of his State, to provide for their education in the Old World. His residence in Great Britain at that time must have brought him into contact with Franklin, while his mer- cantile experience rendered him a sen- 1 Life of Laurens. Delaplaine's Repository- €■ - < /:,. HEXRY LAURENS. 247 sitive observer of the measures in pro- gress by the British ministry for the subjugation of the colonies by the op- pression of their trade and commerce. Clearly foreseeing the current of events, he hastened home to bear his part with his- countrymen in the for- tunes of the struggle. He arrived in Charleston in December, 1774, and was immediately among the foremost counselling for the public safety. When the "delegates to the first Conti- nental Congress of that year in Phila- delphia returned to report the resolves of that body, and the hostilities ait Lex- ington confirmed the necessity of re- sistance, Laurens, as President of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, at its meeting in June, 1775, drew up and signed the simple but eloquent Articles of Association. Laurens was placed by the Congress at the head of its Council of Safety, a body armed with full military control for the public service. In 1776, he was one of the committee charged with preparing a plan of a more permanent State organization. The report of a Constitution was presented by John Rutledge, who was chosen President of the State under this new instrument, which created South Carolina an inde- pendent State. Henry Laurens was at the same time chosen Vice-President, and the'Hon. William Henry Drayton, Chief Justice. The succeeding year, Laurens was sent to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, over which, on the first of November, he was appointed President, as the suc- cessor of John Hancock. It was during his Presidency that the British Com- missioners, the Earl of Carlisle, Sir Henry Clinton, and William Eden. made their overtures of negotiation to Congress. No member of that body was more decided and explicit in his terms of rejection than its President. The courtesies which passed between him and Washington are worthy of note. When one of the factious papers of the Conway cabal was sent anony- mously to Congress, to his care, he sim- ply transmitted it to Washington. He also embraced the opportunity of the victory of Monmouth, in the interval of the sitting of Congress, when no quorum could be assembled, to send to the commander-in-chief his hearty con- gratulations " as the address of an indi- vidual on the success of the American arms." On the retirement of Laurens from the Presidency, in December, 1778, Washington, in a letter, returned the compliment; and again, in the following year, when Laurens was appointed com- missioner to Holland, was foremost in congratulation. Like courtesies also passed between Laurens and Lafayette. After the latter was wounded at the battle of the Brandywine, and was waiting the slow process of recovery, he was carried by Laurens in his car- riage to Bethlehem, a service which was held by the family of the marquis in grateful recollection. The corres- pondence of Laurens with Lafayette, also, on occasion of the French general's departure for Europe, in 1778, is writ- ten with great propriety. The episto- lary habits of the former merchant were admirably fitted to the diplomatic service. 24 a HENRY LAURENS The commission to Holland, with which Laurens was charged, was to negotiate a loan, there or anywhere in Europe. Previous to setting out, he procured from a member of the Com- mittee on ^Foreign Affairs a draft of a treaty—it was nothing more—pro- jected by M. Vanberkel, first pen- sionary of Amsterdam, a friend of the American cause, and William Lee, of Virginia, who was engaged as agent of Congress abroad, though neither of them had authority to negotiate. The paper was received by Laurens as a suggestion for some future possible diplomacy, with little thought of the advantage which was to be taken of it by England. It was thrown by him, as a paper of no authority, into a trunk with other un- valued manuscripts. In his impatience to set out on his mission, he sailed from the Delaware in August, 1780, in a small but fast-sail- ing brigantine, the Mercury, with an insufficient escort. Two frigates were in fact ordered to accompany him to the banks, in addition to a sloop-of-war; but the former were not ready, and Lam'ens had too great experience of affairs under the old Confederacy to trust greatly to their obedience to orders; so, desirous of benefiting by a favorable wind, he sailed with the lat- ter alone. Soon finding that the Mer- cury outsailed her armed consort, he sent the sloop-of-war homeward. He had not, however, proceeded far on his voyage, when, on the third of Septem- ber, a sail was announced in sight, which overtaking his vessel, forced her, by several shots, to surrender. The captor proved to be the British frigate Vestal, of 28 guns, commanded by Captain Keppel. When escape was impossible, all papers of importance were thrown overboard; the draft of the treaty among the last, as of little consequence. The bag which held this luckless document, being only partly filled, was buoyed up by the air, and fished on board their vessel by the cap- tors. The papers were carried to Eng- land, and the Government needing just then a pretext for an attack upon Hol- land, made the so-called treaty pro- ject or paper the ground for active hostilities. In the meantime, Laurens is in the hands of Captain Keppel, who behaved handsomely enough to his prisoner on his way to St. Johns, Newfoundland. Admiral Edwards there received the Ex-President of Congress with equal attention, allowing him the opportunity of toasting General Washington at table ; and, indeed, he appears to have received very general and kind atten- tions from the numerous officers on the station. One of them advised him, or his arrival in London, to take apart- ments at the New Hotel; " then," said he, " we shall know where to find you.' " I smiled and asked," says Laurens in his Narrative, " if there was not a hotel in London called Newgate." "New- gate !" exclaimed two or three of these gallant fellows, "they dare not send you there." " Well, gentlemen, wait a few weeks and you will hear of the hotel where I shall be lodged." The shrewd American merchant knew the paternal government better than its own officers. He had a short run with Captam HENRY LAURENS. 249 Keppel, now in command of the Fairy, being landed in ten days at Darmouth, whence he was driven rapidly towards London in charge of Lieutenant Nor- ris. The officer stopped with his prisoner at Exeter, when Laurens was waited upon by a stranger, who pro- posed that he should go with him to his house, and make his escape to Hol- land or Flanders. But Laurens was too chivalrous to avail himself of the easy opportunity. "I thanked the friendly gentleman," says he in the narrative just cited, "but absolutely declined the proposition. He asked, ' If I was under any parol promise to Mr. Norris V ' No, sir; but the confi- dence that young gentleman has re- posed in me, I think, implies a parol.' ' Why, sir, kings, and princes, in your circumstances, have made escapes.' ' True, sir, but I feel no inclination or desire to escape.' The gentleman was amazed. I thought I saw a prospect before me, and was perfectly tran- quil." On his arrival in London, within grasp of the British ministry, his cords were sensibly tightened. He was sent late at night to a small chamber, up three pair of stairs in Scotland Yard, where, though he was, so ill as to re- quire assistance to get in and out of his carriage, two king's messengers and a subaltern's guard of soldiers kept watch at his doors. An examination followed the next day at Whitehall, before such notables as Lord Hills- borough, Lord Stormont, Lord George Germain, and others. His identity with the person named in the commis- sion of Congress, which he had pre- 32 served, was readily acknowledged, and he was committed to the Tower of London, as he was informed by Lord Stormont, on suspicion of high treason. " I bowed thanks to the gentlemen," says the Narrative, " and thought of the New Hotel which had been recom- mended by my friends in Newfound land." He was then carried, under the charge of a polite officer, accompanied by "two of the illest-looking fellows he had ever seen," in a close hackney- coach through by-streets, for fear of a rescue, to the Tower, where he was intrusted to the Governor. This official, named Gore, with the intention of exposing his prisoner, ordered rooms for him on the parade, in the most con- spicuous part of the citadel; but his philosophical prisoner continued to elude the compliment by training a honeysuckle and grape-vine about his windows, so that he could enjoy the sights without, and not be seen in re- turn. Governor Gore, he tells us, con- ducted him to his apartments at a warder's house. " As I was entering it, I heard some of the people say, 'Poor old gentleman, bowed down with infirmities! He is come to lay his bones here.' My reflection was, ' I shall not leave a bone with you.' I was very sick, but my spirits were good, and my mind foreboding good, from the event of being a prisoner in London." The illness under which Laurens suffered was the gout, and it should be remembered that fifty-six winters had now passed over his head." It was sorry treatment to which 250 English ministers exposed a gentleman of America, known by his virtues in their metropolis, and who had held the highest rank of the civil gov- ernment of the Colonies as President of Congress. " Their lordships' orders were, to confine me a close prisoner; to be locked up every night; to be in the custody of two wardens, who were not to suffer me to be out of their sight one moment, day or night; to allow me no liberty of speaking to any per- son, nor to permit any person to speak to me; to deprive me of the use of pen and ink ; to suffer no letter to be brought to me, nor any to go from me." Will it be believed that this interdict, worthy of the most danger- ous and deadly criminals, was applied to an enfeebled, aged gentleman, by a British ministry, at a date within the memory of persons yet living? Had we not the testimony of a most honor- able witness, the statement would be hardly credible. Nor were the orders a dead letter. A sentinel with fixed bayonet at the door of the barrack kept all intruders off a distance of thirty feet; the two little rooms to which he was confined, made together only about twenty feet square; at first he was not permitted to walk the Tower grounds, and pen and ink were resolutely denied; iron bars were affixed to his windows by a workman in his presence—the object of all this being, apparently, to intimidate, for so well watched an invalid in the Tower could hardly have been expected to escape. He was, moreover, to pay for his support, though it was some time before they would allow him the means of drawing a bill of exchange. When he learnt that he was to pay rent for his rooms and the price of his fare, he said, to his jailer, "Whenever I caught a bird in America, I found a cage and victuals for it." Though he was so ill as to excite the sympathies of the people of the place, no medical attendance was provided. They little appreciated the resolution of their captive. " When the governor had retired from his iron bars"—he himself tells the story—"neither my servant nor baggage being yet arrived, I asked the warder, ' if he could lend me a book for amusement.' He gravely answered, ' Will your honor be pleased to have "Drelincourt Upon Death?"' I quickly turned to his wife, who was passing from making up my bed: ' Pray, madam, can you recommend an honest goldsmith, who will put a new head to my cane; you see this old head is much worn ?' ' Yes, sir, I can.' The people understood me, and nothing more was said about Drelincourt." Notwithstanding the prohibition of pen and ink, Laurens, through a friend ly agency in the Tower, enjoyed the means of communication with the world outside—with his friends and even the "rebel newspapers." This was carried on in pencil-writing. He was also specially allowed to read the newspapers. Various persons, too, came to see him under restrictions; he was allowed to see his son Henry for a half an hour in the presence of special officers. He was even gaining some little extension of his jail limits in his walks about the numerous courts of the Tower, which is a little city in HENRY HENRY LAURENS. 251 itself, when he unluckily fell in with Lord George Gordon, then a state-pri- soner awaiting his trial. This erratic conspirator seems to have simply ad- dressed him—asking him to take a walk in his company, which was de- clined—and this was made the pretext for turning the key entirely upon Mr, Laurens. He was locked in his nar- row apartment for forty-seven days. In February there was some relaxation, and his friend, Mr. Oswald, made an effort with the Secretaries of State for his enlargement, pledging his fortune for his good conduct. The only admis- sion he could obtain, was that if Mr. Laurens would "point out anything for the benefit of Great Britain, in the present dispute with the Colonies, he should be enlarged." To this insulting proposition Laurens replied: "I per- ceive, my dear friend, from the message you have sent me, that if I were a ras- cal, I might presently get out of the Tower—I am not. You have pledged your word and fortune for my integ- rity. I will never dishonor you nor myself. Yes, I could point out, but is this the place ? If I had nothing in view but my own interest or conve- nience, promises and pointings out would be very prompt; but this is not a proper place. I could point out a doctrine, known to every old woman in the kingdom, l A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a ton of vine- gar.' What I formerly predicted came to pass. I can foresee, now, what will come to pass, happen to me what may. I fear no 'possible consequences.' I must have patience and submit to the will of God; I do not change with the times. My conduct has been consistent and shall be so." When Lord George Germain was shown this note by Oswald, he exclaimed: "Rascals! ras- cals !—we want no rascals—honey ! honey! vinegar! they have had too much honey and too little vinegar! they shall have less honey and more vinegar for the future." It was then suggested to him that a simple admission in a few lines to the ministers, expressing sorrow for the past, would release him. " Every man," it was insinuated to him, " has been wrong, at some time or other of his life, and should not be ashamed to acknow- ledge it." But the patriot was equally inexorable: "Sir," was his reply, "I will never subscribe to my own in- famy and the dishonor of my children." Six months of this odious imprison- ment had elapsed, when Laurens was again approached on occasion of his son, Colonel John Laurens', mission to France. Would he not write to his son, and withdraw his influence from the French court ? " My son is of age," was the reply, " and has a will of his own; if I should write to him in the terms you request, it would have no effect; he would only conclude that confinement and persuasion of my old friends had softened me. I know him to be a man of honor; he loves me dearly, and would lay down his life to save mine; but I am sure, he would not sacrifice his honor to save my life, and I applaud him." Overtures of various kinds, not one of which would • he accept at the slightest compromise of honor, were pressed upon him; while fresh indig 252 HENRY LAURENS. niti^s were still practised by the Gov- ernment. He petitioned for pen and ink, to draw a bill to provide for his wants, and he asked to see his son, that he might concert a plan for his education. No notice was taken of the petition. In the meantime, he employed himself in pencilling extracts from Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," drawing parallels and reflections, proving the impolicy, folly and cruelty of the British war with the Colonies. The notes were copied and circulated among members of Parlia- ment. In one of these " pencillings," he* marked out the route Cornwallis was taking. " I had said his lordship has gone into the country to smell the jessamine. He may reach such a spot, and then his lordship will hear: ' Hitherto shalt thou go and no farther.' He will make a second Saratoga busi- ness of it, or may possibly, by a precipi- tate retreat, save himself, a few officers and men." Yorktown vindicated the prisoner's judgment. In October of 1781, when he had been in prison a year, a demand was made upon him for £97 10-9., to pay the wardens for their jailer services ! This excited the laughter as well as the indignation of the old merchant. " It is the most extraordinary attempt," said he, " I ever heard of. 'Tis enough to provoke me to change my lodging." Such was the humor and resolution of the man We are tempted to pursue these anecdotes still further through his interesting narrative of his imprison- ment1—we know of no record of the ' It may be found at length in the first volume of the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society. kind more honorable to the narrator: the only wonder is, that a British ministry could be found capable of inflicting such miserable persecutions, or blind enough to signalize the virtues of a hostile patriot on such a theatre. Edmund Burke, as might have been expected, used all his influence to pro- cure his release, and had almost suc- ceeded in a proposition for an exchange for General Burgoyne, when Lord Hillsborough, of whom Laurens had said, "That fellow—if he and I were in a strange country, without money in our pockets, I should be obliged to maintain him ; he has not understand- ing enough to get his own living," raised the old question of a pardon. He could not be exchanged as a prisoner of war: he must first have a pardon. British officiality was in a dilemma, anxious now to get its pri- soner off its hands, and knowing not how it was to be accomplished. The American Congress was in the mean- while doing little; perhaps there was little which it could accomplish, and it was not always remarkable for its efficiency. On the eve of his libera- tion, Laurens sent them a brief but forcible reminder of their duty in one of his pencilled notes, to be inked over by a friend. "The treaty for ex- change," he says, " is abortive. There has been languor and there is neglect somewhere." The day of deliverance finally came, the last day of the year. It was arranged that he should be liberated on bail, to appear at his trial at the Easter term of the King's Bench. He was taken from the Tower in a sedan HENRY chair to Lincoln's Inn, where he was met by Lord Mansfield, who courteously prevented his rising on his crutches, kindly entreating him to sit. Mr. Oswald and his nephew, Mr. Ander- son, appeared as his bail. When the words of recognizance—" Our sovereign lord the king"—were repeated, the invincible patriot interposed aloud, "Not my sovereign lord." He was taken from the court-room to lodgings in Norfolk street, Strand, and in a few days sought refuge from his maladies at Bath. He was, of course, never brought to trial, but, on the contrary, made an object of special attention in the advancing peace negotiations. When it became evident that a basis could be arranged at Paris, independ- ently of France, Laurens was urged by Lord Shelburne to depart for the con- tinent, to take part in the arrange- ments. He accordingly went over to Holland, and had an interview with John Adams, at Leyden, returning again to London. When it was learnt in America that he was at liberty, he was join- ed by Congress in the peace com- mission with Franklin, Adams, and Jay. Before, however, he was privi- leged to take part in the final negotia- tions at Paris, he was called upon to endure a special affliction, in the loss of his son, whom we have mentioned as sent on a negotiation to France. It was no common grief which awaited him. Colonel John Laurens, who fell on the soil of his native State, one of the latest victims of the war, at the age of twenty-seven, had gained laurels in the field and in diplomacy, which would AURENS. 253 have honored the brows of three score. A brief glance at the incidents of his career, the best tribute to his memory, will exhibit his worth. He early be- came a member of Washington's mili- tary family, where we find him greatly beloved by the commander-in-chief, and on the most intimate terms with Hamil- ton. He showed the most undaunted courage and bravery in various engage- ments of the war, from Brandy wine to Yorktown. He was at Germantown, where he was severely wounded; he was at Monmouth; he fought gallantly in the attack on Savannah, and was one of the brave defenders of Charleston, where he was included in the surrender, and subsequently exchanged. His loan mis- sion to France, in 1781, was a brilliant success. Within six months he report- ed himself to Congress, with an accom- panying treasure, which was of infinite service to the military movements then on foot, resulting in the capitulation of Cornwallis, in which he also bore a part, hastening to the army, entering the British lines at Yorktown among the foremost, and being honored by the ap- pointment of commissioner to superin- tend the surrender. After this, he was with the army in South Carolina, where he was killed on the 27th August, 1782, in an engagement with a foraging party, issuing out of Charleston in the closing days of British occupation. His youth, his manners, his education, his courage, his disinterestedness, spoke in trumpet tones to his countrymen, who mourned no nobler victim of the war, many as were the honored names upon its death roll. He closed the sacred martyrology, which begins with the 254 HENRY LAURENS. kindred virtues of Warren and Mont- gomery. There is a simple entry of a few lines in John Adams' Diary, with which we may resume our narrative. "To-day (Paris, the 20th November, 1782), I received a letter from my excellent friend, Mr. Laurens, 12 Nov., London, in answer to mine of the 6th, agree- ing, as speedily as possible, to join his colleagues, 'Thank God, I had a son who dared to die for his country.'" In such terms the aged patriot, who had. shown his own willingness to meet death, solaced his private afflic- tion. Laurens joined his fellow commis- sioners in Paris at the last moment, in time to interpose a stipulation for the protection of negro and other property, when, on the 30th November, 1782, the preliminary treaty, negotiated on the part of England by his friend Oswald, was signed and sealed. Shortly after this, he returned to South Carolina. His life henceforth was passed on his estate, in agricultural pursuits, to which he persistently restricted himself, not- withstanding repeated proffers of the highest political honors in the gift of the people of his State. His death occurred in his sixty-ninth year, Decem- ber 8, 1792. A singular provision of his will, respecting his interment, was carried out to the letter. " I solemnly enjoin it upon my son, as an indisput- able duty," was the language of that instrument, "that as soon as he con- veniently can after my decease, he cause my body to be wrapped in twelve yards of tow cloth, and burnt until it be entirely consumed; and then col- lecting my bones, deposit them wher- ever he may see proper." The features of Laurens are handed down to us by the pencil of Copley. He appears a gentleman of the old school, of a frank, open countenance, marked by strength and sensibility. Of his mental and moral traits, the acts of his life are the best eulogists. He sacrificed property, ease, health, and freely perilled life in the cause of his countiy. Imprisoned in the Tower, he showed himself worthy of association with the noblest spirits in history, which have borne witness there to the cause of liberty. i ALlJltZ'j CHAPPEL reached Charlotte, in North Carolina, with the remains of his de- feated army, and thence pursued his way to Hillsborough, where, on the 30th of August, he wrote to Washing- ton, subdued in spirit, admitting the obloquy of his situation, and appealing to his generosity to protect him from the cold judgments of the world. Wash- ington, never wanting in magnanimity, approved in his reply of his efforts to reinstate the army, and not long after, when domestic grief, in the death of a son, was added to the calamity of the fallen General, condoled with him in terms so sympathizing, that the heart of his old Virginia companion was touched to the quick. In the beginning of December, Gene- ral Greene having taken the command, Gates left for his home in Virginia, to await the action of the Court of Inquiry ordered by Congress, cheered meanwhile on his way by a friendly reception from the General Assembly of the State, then in session at Richmond. He was finally acquitted by the Court, and re- stored to his rank before the close of war. He then retired to his " Traveller's Rest," in Berkeley County, where he en- joyed the reputation of a hospitable planter; and we find him some seven years later manumitting his slaves, pre- vious to taking up his residence in New York. He resided at what was then the neighborhood of the city, near the present Second Avenue and Twenty- third street. In 1800, he served a sin- gle term in the State legislature. He died in New York, April 10, 1806, closing, at an advanced age, a mixed life of prosperity and adversity, of good and ill, from which greater mag- nanimity a sounder judgment and alle- giance to the principles of Washington might hare extracted a greater felicity, I PHILIP S Major Geiteral Philip Schuyler was a descendant of that respectable race of colonists who came from Hol- land to the first settlement of New York. They were men of many virtues; a pious, industrious, liberty-loving race. The Schuylers held rank with the fore- most of them in their advanced post at Albany. Colonel Peter Schuyler, the grandfather of Philip, rose to be mayor of the city, commander of the northern militia, agent of Indian Affairs, and president of the Provincial Council. He had great influence with the Indians of the Five Nations, and a pro- portionate jealousy of the French, whom he attacked with vigor at the head of Lake Champlain in 1691. He afterward carried with him five Indian chiefs to England, to assist in his repre- sentations of the policy of opposing the French in Canada. His son, John, left several children, of whom Philip was the oldest, and hence at that time the heir to his father's real estate. It is related as characteristic of his magna- nimity, that he waived this right of birth, and generously shared the pro- perty with his brothers and sisters. Philip Schuyler was born at Albany, November 22, 1733. His father, dying while he was quite young, his early education was provided by his mother, 864 CHUYLER. a lady whose force of character ana cultivation were every way equal to the charge. The youth, of an ingenuous disposition, was well trained at home and at a seminary at New Rochelle, in Westchester County, in New York, where he acquired the French language. A severe attack of the gout, which he inherited and which afflicted him greatly in these school-days, did not prevent his acquisition of much solid learning. He was especially fond of the mathematics, and as he grew up, became versed, says Irving, in finance, military engineering and political eco- nomy. He entered the army on the breaking out of the French war, at the age of twenty two, commanding a com- pany of New York levies, under Sir William Johnson, at Fort Edward. Three years after, in 1758, he was with Abercrombie's expedition against Ticon- deroga, attending Lord Howe as chief of the commissariat department, and when that nobleman fell, in conflict with the French, in the advance at Lake George, it became Schuyler's honorable though mournful charge to convey the body of the chieftain to Albany for burial. With this experience in an important department of the army, Colonel Schuy- ler, when the war was closed, continued \ PHILIP SCHUYLER. 265 to be employed in the public service in numerous civil duties. He was appointed by the General Assembly of New York, in 1764, one of the commissioners to arrange the boundary line of that colony with Massachusetts. In 1768, he was elected a member of the General Assembly, and so con- tinued till that body was superseded by the new authorities of the Revo- lutionary era. As the principles of this struggle for popular rights began to be made manifest in the proceedings of the first Continental Congress of 1774, he endeavored, with such asso- ciates as George Clinton and Philip Livingston, to mould the Assembly to the growing patriotic temper of the times. On the third of March, 1774, he moved declaratory resolutions against the obnoxious act of the British Parlia- ment, imposing duties for raising a revenue in America, for extending the jurisdiction of Admiralty courts, and other grievances. But nine members were left in the House of Assembly, of whom seven voted in favor of the reso- lutions, when the opposition rallied, and a sharp contest ensued, supported by Schuyler and George Clinton, which " laid the foundation for those lavish marks of honor and confidence which their countrymen were afterwards so eager to bestow." * In 1775, Schuyler appeared at Phila- delphia, in the Congress of that year, when he was immediately appointed one of the four Major Generals in the 1 James Kent's Anniversary Discourse before the New York Historical Society, 1828. first organization of the Continental army. When Washington set out for the headquarters of the army at Cam- bridge, he was accompanied as far a New York by General Schuyler, who had already gained his confidence by the ability which he had shown in the arrangement of military affairs in Con- gress. " Many things," says Irving, who throughout his History appears always attracted by the generous qualities of Schuyler, " concurred to produce per- fect harmony of operation between these distinguished men. They were nearly of the same age, Schuyler being one year the youngest. Both were men of agricultural as well as military tastes. Both were men of property, living at their ease in little rural para- dises ; Washington on the grove-clad heights of Mount Vernon, Schuyler on the pastoral banks of the upper Hud- son, where he had a noble estate at Saratoga, inherited from an uncle; and the old family mansion, near the city of Albany, half hid among ancestral trees. Yet both were exiling them- selves from these happy abodes, and putting life and fortune at hazard in the service of their country." Arrived at New York, he received orders from the commander-in-chief to take command of all the troops des- tined for the New York Department, and look generally after the military affairs of the province. He was en- joined to "keep a watchful eye" upon Governor Tryon, and Colonel Guy Johnson, the Indian Agent, and to supply the posts on Lake Champlain with provisions and ammunition. A few days later, at the end of June, he 266 PHILIP SCHUYLER. was instructed by Congress to take active measures to secure possession of the frontier, and with the concurrence of the disaffected Canadians, take pos- session of St. John's and Montreal. In accordance with these injunctions, Schuyler proceeded to Ticonderoga, and took command of the New England troops assembled at that station, in the middle of July. In a letter to Wash- ington, he described his arrival. He came upon the landing-place at night about ten o'clock, and found the guard generally in the most profound slum- ber, though he had enjoined the utmost vigilance. "The officers and men are all good-looking people," he wrote, " and decent in their deportment, and I really believe will make good soldiers, as I can get the better of this noncha- lance of theirs." Washington, in reply, confronted him by a quiet but compre- hensive allusion to the difficulties in regulation and discipline he had to overcome at the camp at Cambridge— " a portrait at full length of what you have had in miniature." General Schuyler set at work with great diligence, in his preparations for the invasion of Canada, in collecting the materials for boats, and construct- ing them for the advance of his troops, while his patience was sorely tried by the inefficiency of the authorities below in forwarding the supplies of which his army stood much in need. While waiting positive instructions for the in- vasion, he attended, as Indian Commis- sioner, a conference with the Caugnaw- agas and warriors of the Six Nations at Albany, leaving General Montgomery in command at Ticonderoga. Receiv- ing intelligence of the movements of the enemy, he now hastened forward to that post to proceed with the army. On his arrival, he found that Mont- gomery was already in motion on Lake Champlain, with the design of seizing the important means of defence—the Isle aux Noix, which commands the entrance from Canada. Unhappily, Schuyler, at the time he reached Ticon- deroga, was seized with a serious ill- ness, a bilious fever; but ill as he was, he determined to push on, and in three days' travel in a covered batteau joined Montgomery, and proceeded with him to the place of destination at the island. It was the plan of the campaign to conquer Montreal and join the expedi- tion of Arnold, then *on its way by the Kennebec, before Quebec. General Schuyler at once busied himself with reconnoitering parties, the defence of the lake, and plans for the capture of St. Johns, which was the first post of the enemy in his way. His illness, however, increasing, he was utterly dis- abled from any longer fulfilling these arduous duties, and accordingly was compelled to relinquish the command of the expedition to General Montgomery. He was enabled, however, to render im- portant services in forwarding supplies to the army from the dep6t at Ticon- deroga, whither he was carried. At the end of this year, an interest- ing correspondence was carried on be- tween General Schuyler and Washing- ton, in reference to the state of the army. The New York general was considerably chafed by the embarrass- ments attending his regulation of the New England soldiers under his com PHILIP SCHUYLER. 267 mand, and wrote on several occasions, strongly intimating his disposition to retire from the service. " Nothing," he says, " can surpass the impatience of the troops from the New England colonies to get to their fire- sides..... Habituated to order, I cannot, without the most extreme pain, see that disregard of discipline, confu- sion and inattention, which reign so generally in this quarter, and I am therefore determined to retire." And again, a short time after, he states his conclusion, " that troops from the colony of Connecticut will not bear with a General from another colony. I assure you," he adds, " that I sincerely lament that people of so much public virtue should be actuated by such an unbe- coming jealousy, founded on such a narrow principle—a principle extremely unfriendly to our righteous cause, as it tends to alienate the affections of num- bers in this colony, in spite of the most favorable constructions that prudent men and real Americans amongst us attempt to put upon it. And although I frankly avow that I feel a resentment, yet I shall continue to sacrifice it to a nobler object—the weal of that coun- try in which I have drawn the breath of life, resolved ever to seek with un- wearied assiduity for opportunities to fulfi]l my duty to it." To all which Washington, with exemplary skill and moderation, wrote in expostulatory and assuring terms. "Let me ask you, sir; he says, '' when is the time for brave men to exert themselves in the cause of liberty and their country if this is not? Should any difficulties which they may have to encounter at this important crisis deter them ? God knows there is not a difficulty that you complain of, which I have not in an eminent degree experienced, that 1 am not every day experiencing; but we must bear up against them, and make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish." And on the last occasion—"It was from a full conviction of your zealous attachment to the cause of our country and abilities to serve it, that I have repeatedly pressed your continuance in command; and it is with much con- cern, sir, that I find you have reason to think your holding the place you do, will be of prejudice, and incompatible with its interest. As you are of this opinion, the part you are inclined to take is certainly generous and noble. But will the good consequences you intend be derived from it ? I greatly fear they will not. I shall leave the matter to yourself, in full confidence, that in whatever sphere you move, your exertions for your country's weal will not be wanting." Who could re- sist an appeal like this, so calm and reasonable, and full of knowledge of human nature—of means and. ends? Certainly not the generous heart of Schuyler, moved by the fate of Mont- gomery. A few days after, he receives the congratulations of the commander- in-chief on his change of purpose. "It gives me pleasure to find that you will continue in service, and afford your assistance to relieve your country from the distresses which at present threaten her in the North." * 1 Sparks' Writings of Washington, Ilf 191, 209, 248, 250. 203 PHILIP SCHUYLER. To command men in the field was a light task, with all its responsibilities, to the work of getting them there. To this duty, with all its train of attendant provisions in supplies and equipments, General Schuyler now devoted himself. His central position threw the work upon his hands. He had an extended line, stretching into the Indian country, beset with enemies, to watch over, from the Hudson to the St. Lawrence, while he was to be acquainted with every movement in Canada. Forts were to be garrisoned, men to be raised, and what was more, paid and provisioned, with a defective commissariat and a half supplied treasury. Arms and ammunition, also, were wanting. Like Lafayette and others, Schuyler pledged his own personal credit for the public wants. The service upon which he was engaged was not a brilliant one— it makes no appearance in bulletins and gazettes—but especially at this period of the war it was all in all. To keep an army alive was the great effort, waiting the opportunity for illus- trious deeds. In all the exploits of the region bordering on the Hudson and the lakes and extending into Canada, though other generals might bear the appoint- ment, their success, their very existence, rested upon the exertions of General Schuyler, who, at Albany or Fort George, or along the line, was con- stantly engaged in feeding and recruit- ing their armies. Montgomery fell, and was succeeded by Wooster, Wooster by Lee, Lee by Thomas, Thomas by Sullivan, Sullivan by Gates; but Schuy- ler ever remained constant at his post, serving all alike, stimulating success and repairing disaster. The year 1776 was one of constant labors to him in his attendance upon the forts, negotia- tion with the Indians, repressive me a sures against the Tories, and securing the means of defence generally, and it was rendered a particularly painful period to him by the distrust and oppo- sition of the New England men in Massachusetts, and the New Hamp- shire grants bordering the colonv. The failure of the Canadian expedition was unfairly imputed to him, and he had to bear the obloquy of disappointments entirely beyond his control. He be- came so disheartened, in fact, with the suspicions which followed his labors, that in September of this year, 1776, he actually sent in a resignation of his commission as Major General, and of all his offices and employments, to Con- gress. " It is much to be lamented," he wrote to General Gates, who held a command subordinate to his depart- ment at Ticonderoga, " that calumny is so much cherished in this unhappy country, and that so few of the servants of the public escape the malevolence of a set of insidious miscreants. It has driven me to the necessity of resign- ing." * Congress, however, would not consent to lose so faithful a servant, and he was requested to continue in his command. But an uneasy feeling still prevailed, which soon brought him into collision with Congress itself. A proud, high-spirited man, he was impatient of unworthy censures and imputations, and one or two incidents of this kind galled him severely. There was an 1 Irving's Washington, III. 35 PHILIP SCHUYLER. 269 unpleasant correspondence, growing out of an intercepted letter, in which he was charged by the Commissary General, Joseph Trumbull, with secret- ing or suppressing a commission sent for his brother, Colonel John Trumbull, as Deputy Adjutant General. Schuy- ler deeply resented the charge, calling upon Congress to decide between the utterer of it and himself, by dismissing one of them from the service, that he might be " upon a footing to do what the laws of honor, and a regard to his own reputation, rendered indispensably necessary." Schuyler also addressed a remonstrance to Congress, in February, 1777, on the dismissal, without con- sulting him, of an army physician, in whose appointment he had interested himself. As these complaints received no attention, he reminded Congress that it had failed in what he conceived to be a duty to him. That body, in return, rebuked him for the tone of his epistles. This occurred in March; in April he himself took his seat as a member of Congress, and demanded an investigation of his conduct in the army through the whole of his career. Meanwhile, he held a command at Philadelphia, and was actively em- ployed in the construction of military works on the Delaware, and assisting the commander-in-chief. The report of the committee, which consisted of a member from each State, rendered in his favor, was highly complimentary to his military character and devotion, and drew from him a memorial in re- ply, in explanation of the remarks in his correspondence, so that his former good understanding with the Govern-1 ment seemed to be fully restored. In the conflict of authority with Gates which ensued, the extent of the North- ern Department was defined to include Albany, Ticonderoga, Fort Stanwix, and their dependencies, and its com- mand was assigned anew to Schuyler. This disappointed Gates, who now left Ticonderoga to push his interests with Congress at Philadelphia. General St Clair was placed in charge of his pxt Schuyler now devoted himself with all his energy to the work of prepara- tion for the opening campaign, and particularly to the defence of Ticon- deroga, which needed extraordinary efforts for its support. He had col- lected men and supplies, and was on his way with a considerable force to strengthen the place, when he was met on the way by the intelligence of its surrender by St. Clair. This unfortu- nate event proved, as usual with the disasters of the war in this region, a new injury to the fortunes of "Schuyler, who was in no way responsible for the circumstance. It found him in the midst of difficulties; the enemy was pressing on; there was imminent danger both from the north and west. The remainder of July and half the month of Augnst were passed. in extraordi- nary efforts to collect troops, prepare defences, and meet the advancing army which was making its way from Canada under General Burgoyne. Schuyler had the roads broken up to impede the advance of the enemy, removed pro- visions from the route, dispatched Arnold io the assistance of the endan- gered posts on the Mohawk, and in correspondence with Washington, 270 PHILIP SCHUYLER. whose masterly mind was fully dis- played in the military arrangements no less than in the moral courage with which he sustained the endeavors of the defenders, he stood prepared for the foe. At this movement, on the eve of the engagements of Saratoga, with victory, in a measure, already secured, by his exertions, with Bennington fought and won, he was superseded in his command by Congress, by the ap- pointment of General Gates. The old New England prejudice was still ope- rative against him. The manner in which Schuyler received the officer who came to pluck the laurels from his brow afforded only a new proof of the sterling nobility of his nature. He cheerfully offered him every facility, asking only the privilege of assisting his country in a region where no man had more influence, at this critical moment. After the victory, his cour- tesy to the officers of the captured army, to the Baroness Reidesel, and to Burgoyne, on whom, though he had suffered severe losses in the destruction of his property, by orders of that gene- ral, before his surrender, he bestowed all the resources of his ample hospi- tality, calls forth a distinguished word of praise from his ardent appreciator, Washington Irving. " This," writes he, " was indeed realizing the vaunted courtesy and magnanimity of the age of chivalry/' The following year, Schuyler again received the acquittal of a court sitting in judgment on his conduct of the cam- paign of 1777, " with the highest honor," and Congress approved the verdict. Such were the negative mili- tary rewards of one of the most patri otic and laborious officers of the Revo- lution, who had just organized a great victory for another. The self-sacrific- ing hero gets an acquittal; the medal is struck for the chance comer. In military affairs the tulit alter honores has seldom received a more remarkable exemplification. General Schuyler, a few months after his character had been thus certified, resigned his commission, and withdrew from the army. He by no means, how- ever, abandoned public life. He again took his seat in Congress, as a delegate from New York, where his military experience in committee and other duties was of no little advantage. In 1780 he served on the committee ap- pointed to confer with Washington on the needed reforms in the array—an appointment suggested by the com- mander-in-chief himself, who wrote, " there is no man that can be more use- ful, as a member, than General Schuy- ler," enumerating particularly his " per- fect knowledge of the resources of the country, the activity of his temper, his fruitfulness of expedients, and his sound military sense." After the v.ai was ended, General Schuyler was a member of the New York Senate, and employed in the negotiations of the State boundary line with Massachusetts. In the move- ments for the adoption of the Federal Constitution he was a zealous partici- pant, and was chosen one of the first senators of the United States from New York when that instrument went into operation. He served until 1791, when he was elected a senator of his native PHILIP SCHUYLER. 271 State, and in that capacity particularly interested himself in the establishment of companies for inland lock naviga- gation, and may thus be regarded as one of the fathers of the eminently successful canal policy of the State. In 1797 he introduced to the Senate, and afterwards published in a pam- phlet, a plan for the improvement of the State revenues—a topic on which he was much at home, from his fondness for arithmetical investiga- tions. He was subsequently returned to the United States Senate in 1797 as the successor of Burr. Failing health, however, soon compelled him to seek repose in retirement at his hospitable mansion at Albany, where his last days were visited by domestic affliction in the loss of his wife in 1803, followed the next year by the fatal duel of his eminent son-in-law, a pillar of strength to the household, Alexander Hamilton. General Schuyler survived the event but a few months, dying at Albany the 18th of November, 1804, at the age of seventy-one. Of the character of General Schuy- ler we may safely adopt the judgment of one who knew him well, and whose praise was never lightly bestowed, the late Chancellor Kent, who, in his dis- course before the New York Historical Society of the year 1828, thus spoke of his distinguished merits in the coun- cil and the field. " If the military life of General Schuyler," he said, " was inferior in brillancy to that of some others of his countrymen, none of them ever surpassed him in fidelity, activity, and devotedness to the service. The characteristic of all his measures was utility. They bore the stamp and unerring precision of practical science. There was nothing complicated in his character. It was chaste and severe simplicity; and, take him for all in all, he was one of the wisest and most efficient men, both in military and civil life, that the State or the nation has produced." Of his more purely perso- nal traits, Chancellor Kent added: " His spirits were cheerful, his conver- sation most eminently instructive, his manners gentle and courteous, and his whole deportment tempered with grace and dignity. His faculties seemed to retain their unimpaired vigor and untiring activity; though he had evi- dently lost some of his constitutional ardor of temperament and vehemence of feeling. He was sobered by age, chastened by affliction, broken by dis- ease; and yet nothing could surpass the interest excited by the mild radi ance of the evening of his days." DANIEL MORGAN. An uncertainty hangs over the birth- place of this gallant partisan officer of the Revolution. Indeed, very little is known of his early years. When he became celebrated, he appears to have taken little pleasure in such distant reminiscences, and the track is too ob- scure to be followed by the most zeal- ous biographers. The latest and most authoritative, Mr. James Graham, gives the preference to New Jersey over Pennsylvania, as the State where he first saw the light. He decides that he was born in Hunterdon County, in the former State, in the winter of 1736. His parents, it is ascertained, were of Welch extraction, who landed in America at Philadelphia, and settled upon the Delaware: upon which side of the river they lived at the time of their son's birth is really of little con- sequence, since neither State could claim much from the man. He really belongs to Virginia, where he first ap- peared as a runaway from home, in his seventeenth year, a rude, uncultivated farmer's boy, seeking employment in the labors of the field in what is now Jefferson County. He had work in him, proved it to the satisfaction of his employer, and speedily rose to the re- sponsible post of wagoner—for in those days the settlers west of the Blue Ridge were indebted to the teamsters for their supplies and means of com- munication. It was a service which required strength and courage, and Morgan was fully equal to both de- mands. His frame was of extraordi- nary vigor, and his manly spirit rapidly developed itself in this free, bold, fron- tier life. It was quite to be expected that such a man, on the breaking out of the French hostilities, and the arrival of Braddock, should be called upon for his services in the war. He was ac- cordingly engaged as a teamster, and joined the British forces on their disas- trous expedition against Fort, Du Quesne. At the time of the defeat he was with Colonel Dunbar, who was following the commander with the heavy baggage. His duties, conse- quently, did not call upon him to par- ticipate in the fight, though he had his share of the excessive labors of the campaign. A story is told of his prowess, which, as an indication of his career, may be worth repeating. His immediate officer in command was upon the point of engaging with a notorious pugilist and bully who followed the camp. " Captain," says Morgan, " you must not fight that man. It would be a disgrace for you to be flogged. 1 DANIEL MORGAN. 273 will meet him, and save the honor of the company." So he set to work, and gave the fellow a drubbing. There is a less agreeable anecdote related of his frontier service the fol- lowing year at Fort Chiswell, when he was struck by a British lieutenant, for some real or fancied offence, with the flat of his sword. The Welsh blood of Morgan was up, and he laid the officer, with a blow, at his feet. A drum-head court-martial was summoned for this flagrant violation of military duty, and Morgan was sentenced to re- ceive five hundred lashes. They were inflicted with terrible severity, cutting the flesh to ribbons, and leaving scars and ridges from his shoulders to his waist, which the soldier wore to his dying day. His constitution, however, made it a smaller matter to him than a less infliction would have been to an- other. He would, in subsequent years, especially after he had retaliated in the American army upon his old superiors, tell the story how he counted the lashes as they were administered by the drummer, and how that official negligently miscounted one in the pro- cess. " I did not," said the veteran, " think it worth while to tell him of his mistake, and let it go so." In the military movements of 1757, he was taken into the army—he had hitherto been but a wagoner—and distinguished himself at Fort Edward in repelling a formidable attack of French and Indi- ans. The following year he held an ensign's commission, and met with an adventure which very nearly cost him his life. He was bearing dispatches from one of the western forts to head- 35 quarters at Winchester, accompanied by two soldiers, when he was met in a disadvantageous position by an In- dian ambuscade. The party was fired upon from the rocks above; Morgan's companions were killed, while he him- self received a ball in the back of his neck, which passed through his mouth, carrying away the teeth of his left jaw, and coming through his cheek. Not- withstanding this fearful injury, he still kept his seat on his horse, while an In- dian ran by his side, vainly endeavor- ing to tomahawk him. Urging on his faithful animal, he was borne out of reach of his pursuer to the fort, where good care and his excellent constitu- tion, in six months carried him in safety out of this extraordinary peril. His grandson afterwards recalled his recollections of Morgan's vivid narra- tion of this affair; how he described " the expression of the Indian's face, as he ran, with open mouth and tomahawk in hand, by the side of the horse, ex- pecting every moment to see his victim fall. But when the panting savage found the horse was fast leaving him behind, he threw his tomahawk, with- out effect, and abandoned the pursuit with a yell of disappointment." 1 The next that we hear of Morgan, after this confinement, is generally set down by his biographers as not par- ticularly to his credit. He became much of a hard tavern roysterer, and the prize-fighting hero of the region about the present Berrysville, in Clark County, adjacent to his first Virginia 1 A biographical sketch of General Morgan, by Morgan Neville, quoted in Graham's Life. DANIEL MORGAN. landing-place in Berkeley. It was a coarse time then west of the mountains; a hard-drinking, rough-handed era, and Morgan had little in his education or training to restrain him from the full outbreak of his strong, riotous constitu- tion among his fellows. He drank with them, gambled with them, and fought the bullies of the vicinity. Tra- dition tells of these redoubtable, savage s its at a tavern, the favorite place of assembly, near the Shenandoah, and of the famous encounters of Morgan with a giant family of brothers, who de- scended to the arena from the opposite mountain. The Goliath of this formi- dable fraternity was a certain Bill Davis, the terror of whose name long lingered in the region. He was en- countered by Morgan, and overcome, after a long and fearful contest. Years after, the brigadier of Washington's army pointed to his broken toe as a badge of his fight with Bill Davis. Prize-fighters and champions, how- ever, are not always fighting. They have their intervals of relaxation like other men. In one of these periods of comparative inactivity, Morgan, still a young man, takes to himself a wife of the region, and settles down as a farmer. lie has sown his wild oats, and, re- strained by the sober duties of life and the rewards of his military service in grants of land, the really excellent natural qualities of his mind and tem- per have a chance to develop them- selves. With the exception of a short but active service in the field in Pontiac's and the succeeding Indian war, he lived a quiet rural life, till the outbreak of the Re solution. We read of the good influences of his wife's pious character, and of his growing taste for reading and public affairs. The fighting man, however, lurked unextinguished beneath all this peace- ful exterior; but the rude spirit was now exalted into patriotism. At the first summons of the Revolution, the sword of Morgan leapt from its scab- bard. Obedient to the call of Con- gress, following quick upon the battle of Lexington, he mustered a picked company of Virginia riflemen, men whom none knew better how to choose, and, starting from Winchester, a jour- ney of six hundred miles, to the camp at Cambridge, he accomplished the dis tance in twenty-one days, reporting every man of his company in fighting array to Washington. The story is told how he first met the great com- mander as he was riding out in the dusk of the evening. The General halted to distinguish the approaching company. The Virginia captain of riflemen approached with a military salute: " General—from the right bank of the Potomac." Dismounting hastily, it is said, Washington " took the cap- tain's hand in both of his, and pressed it silently. Then passing down the line, he pressed, in turn, the hand of every soldier—large tears streaming down the noble cheeks as he did so— without a word he then remounted his horse, saluted, and returned to the camp."' There was little for Morgan and his men to do before Boston; but Wash- 1 A sketch of Morgan, by John Esten Cooke, of Vir- ginia, published in the New York Ledgpr, Feb. 25, 18t'o. DANIEL MORGAN. • 27 j ington soon found them employment in the expedition assigned to Arnold to operate with Montgomery's move- ment at Montreal for the reduction of Quebec A route was to be pursued by the Kennebec, across to the head- waters of the Chaudiere, following that stream to the St. Lawrence, whence the descent was easy to Quebec. It proved a journey of extraordinary hardships and difficulty, which could have been endured only by such stout and reso- lute men under such brave officers as were engaged in the expedition. There were in the force which met at the mouth of the Kennebec, in September, 1775, three rifle companies, under Arnold's command, one of which was led by Morgan. To them was as- signed some of the more arduous duties of the service, as the pioneer force, carrying the boats and baggage at the portages. Morgan's powers of com- mand were fully tested in this emer- gency, which proved so severe a trial of the strength and spirits of his men. His conduct is described as judicious throughout. It was by his energy that the boats were transported to the Chaudiere, but he was compelled to abandon them on that stream, in conse- quence of the rapidity of the current. With the boats were lost what was left of clothing and provisions; for great discomfort had already been ex- perienced from the want of food. The party soon began to suffer the ex- tremity of hunger in that desert region at an inhospitable season of the year, for it was now the beginning of Novem- ber. On the fifth of the month, Mor- gan brought his command in advance of the rest, to the St. Lawrence, the termination of this severe journey of six hundred miles. Arrived at Point Levi, it was not an easy matter at once to effect a passage of the river. It was accomplished at night by the favoring darkness between the ships of the English, Morgan's riflemen continuing to take the ad- vance. It was thought by some, Mor- gan among the number, that the attack of the town should take place at once, while the hastily supplied garrison was unprepared; but this golden oppor- tunity, if it existed, was suffered to pass. The town every day was strengthened, and before the expected arrival of Montgomery, it received a powerful reinforcement in Carleton and his men, who had been driven from Montreal. The twofold attack upon the town was finally arranged, but not until the last day of December. The events of that early morning will always constitute a memorable page of American history, for then and there, on the southern side of the city, fell the gallant Mont- gomery, than whom no nobler spirit embarked in the American cause. Ar- nold attacked the works on the side of the town, and prominent in his direct command were Morgan and his men. As they approached the first barrier, a fire of musketry was opened upon them, which brought Arnold to the ground by a severe wound in the leg. His disaster gave the command to Mor- gan, who led his men to the front, fac- ing the discharge of grape from the battery. He was himself the first to mount the barrier, where he was met by a fire, the concussion of which, 276 DANIEL MORGAN. though he escaped without injury, brought him to the ground. He rose at once, and the work was carried. Advancing rapidly, the enemy were driven in, and the whole town might have been taken, in Morgan's opinion, if he had not been overruled to wait for Montgomery. The fall of that offi- cer now enabled the enemy to man their abandoned batteries, and the result was, after the bravest fighting on the part of the Americans, in which an English commanding officer was slain by the unerring rifle of Morgan, that they were surrounded by a superior force, and compelled to surrender. " Such," it was said, " was Morgan's vexation, upon realizing the hopeless- ness of his situation, that he wept like a child. On being summoned by some of the enemy's soldiery to deliver up his sword, he peremptorily refused a compliance, but placing his back against a wall, with the weapon in his hand, he dared any one of their number to come and take it. He persisted in this deter- mination, notwithstanding the threats of the soldiers to shoot him, and the exhortations of his men not to sacrifice his life in useless opposition. At length, perceiving a man near at hand, whom he took, by his dress, to be a clergy- man, he asked him if he was not a priest. Being answered in the affirma- tive, Morgan delivered his sword to the clergyman, observing, " Then I give my sword to you; but not a scoundrel of those cowards shall take it out of my hands."1 A soldier's funeral was awarded to Graham's Morgan, p. 103 Montgomery, and the officers were well treated bv Carleton. Morgan received perhaps more than his share of atten tions, in an effort to divert him from the service of his country. A colonelcy in the British army was offered to him," if he would desert his cause. " I hope, sir," is said to have been his reply to the maker of the proposition, " you wit never again insult me in my present distressed and unfortunate situation, by making me offers which plainly imply that you think me a scoundrel." He remained a prisoner in Quebec, till the whole captured force of officers and men was released on parole, by the clemency of Carleton, when he was sent to New York in a transport vesse] and finally, one moonlight night in Sep tember, 1776, landed on his native Ne\^ Jersey, at Elizabethtown Point. An arrangement was soon made b) which he was exchanged and installed again in the American- army. He was especially charged with recruiting a body of Virginia riflemen, of which he was placed in command. It was an arm of the service for which he had a special aptitude, and which was gladly intrusted to him by Washington. Morgan joined the camp at Morris- town, April, 1777, at the head of about one hundred and eighty men, a picked body of sharp-shooters, trained in fight and hardships. A special rifle corps was formed for him by Washington out of the troops at the camp. They were often in action in the outposts and skirmishing parties, and in the patient, harassing military movements of this season in New Jersey. When Burgoyne threatene.l, and it became DANIEL MORGAN. 277 necessary to strengthen the northern army, Colonel Morgan was ordered by Washington to join the forces of Gates, who received the gallant partisan with the attention due his merit and reputa- tion. Nor was he disappointed of his expectations from the spirit of his com- mand in the events that ensued. Mor- gan was employed in advance, watching the movements of the enemy, and was in action in the close fighting at Beh- mus Heights, rallying his forces, at the outset, to a charge which he led with great gallantry; afterwards bearing the brunt of the hard-fought field in the thickly sown ranks of death. Morgan was also prominent in the decisive second action, when, as usual, he was pushed forward to the advance. It was before the unerring aim of his riflemen, directed by himself, that General Frazer fell. At the beginning and close of the day, he was in the thickest of the fight, skillful in his dispositions and invincible in arms. At a moment when his men were scattered, he was found by General Wilkinson alone with two men summoning his dispersed followers with a turkey-call at his lips. The faithful fellows recognized the sig- nal and started up from unseen quarters to hasten to their chief. The splendid victory of that day is sullied in history by the use to which it was turned, in the efforts of Gates to supplant Washington in the command. The battle was hardly over before Mor- gan was approached by that officer with suggestions of disaffection to the commander-in-chief. The gallant Vir- ginian was the last man to whom the overture should have been addressed. " I will serve," said he, " under no other man but Washington." Morgan returned to the headquarters of the army in Pennsylvania, where he speedily found employment against the enemy, distinguishing himself in the engagement at Chestnut Hill. In the brilliant campaign of the following year, 1778, he was still with the army of Washington, rendering signal ser- vice at various points. To follow all his movements would be to write the history of the war. We must pass over his occupations in the central por- tions of the country, to his retirement to Virginia in ill health, in 1780, from which he was recalled to take com mand in the southern campaign undei Gates, to whom he had now become reconciled. Joining Gates at Hills- borough, in North Carolina, in the autumn, after the retreat from the dis- astrous field at Camden, he was advised there of his promotion by Congress to the rank of brigadier-general. The hero of Saratoga, condemned by the voice of the country for his manage- ment of the campaign, was now super- seded in his command by General Greene, who came at the special solici- tation of Washington, to redeem, if possible, the fortunes of the year. Arriving in North Carolina, he ar- ranged his forces in two divisions for the defence of the country and annoy- ance of the enemy. One of these, embracing various companies of the army and the local militia, destined to occupy an advanced position to the west of the Catawba, and to operate in the rear of the enemy in their movement towards North Carolina, was assigned 27S DANIEL MORGAX. to Morgan. He advanced into the country from Charlotte, and took post in the vicinity of the junction of the Broad River with Pacolet. Lt. Col. Washington, of the South Carolina service, with a regiment of light dra- goons, was under Morgan's command. On the arrival of the latter in the appointed district, he dispatched Col. Washington against a body of loyalists, who were laying waste the neighboring settlements. The enterprise was gal- lantly carried out, and to avenge the defeat and repair its consequences, the formidable Colonel Tarleton was sent by Cornwallis, with a force of twelve hundred men, against Morgan. " If Morgan is anywhere within your reach," was the language of the British General, in issuing his orders, "I should wish you to push him to the utmost." It was arranged that both should act in concert against the force of the Virginian. An easy victory was pro- bably anticipated. If so, calculation had not been made upon the man with whom they had to deal. In the en- gagement which followed, known as the battle of the Cowpens, the whole force of the Americans, which was led >, by some of the most gallant officers of South Carolina, distinguished itself nobly. Tarleton, accustomed to vic- tory, was pushing rapidly on in his usual manner, driving, as he thought, the enemy before him, when, after an early march of five hours, on the morn- ing of the seventeenth of January, 1781, at eight o'clock, he came upon Morgan's force, drawn up under arms, ready for the attack. The American General had chosen a piece of ground, the only natural defence of which was its ridges of earth, with the corresponding depres- sion, sufficient to shelter the reserve, and a growth of pines over its surface. There was no protection on the sides, and near by, in the rear, was the Broad River to cut off the retreat. Morgan drew up his troops on the elevations and in the rear. The first line of North and South Carolina militia was held by General Pickens; Lt. Col. John Eager Howard commanded the second, embracing the Virginia militia, and Col. Washington was posted with the re- serve. In front of all was a body of Georgia and Carolina skirmishers, whose rivalry was profitably employed by Morgan to aid the fortunes of the day. While the British were pre- paring for action, the American com- mander was addressing his men, espe- cially stimulating the pride and raising the courage of the militia. The skir- mishers having done their duty and retired, Tarleton advanced under cover of his artillery, to the line of Pickens' militia, which received him with a steady fire, retreating to shelter accord- ing to orders. The British officer then pushed forward to the second line, where he was met with great spirit. At the same time, a movement of his cavalry was repidsed by the reserve. Tarleton then ordered a general move- ment. There were several fluctuations in the battle retrieved by the military manoeuvres of Morgan, and the gallant bayonet charge of Howard, which de- cided the day. Tarleton escaped with a party of his cavalry to Cornwallis, who received a fugitive instead of taking part in a victory. The British f >rce was su DANIEL MORGAN. 279 perior by about one-third to that of the Americans; they had the advantage of two field-pieces as well as in cavalry and in picked troops, against a body largely composed of militia. " Our loss," says Morgan, in his dispatch to General Greene, " is very inconsiderable, not having more than twelve killed and sixty wounded. The enemy's loss was ten commissioned officers killed, and upwards of one hundred rank and file; two hundred wounded; twenty-nine commissioned officers and more than five hundred privates, prisoners, which fell into our hands, with two field- pieces, two standards, eight hundred muskets, one travelling forge, thirty-five wagons, seventy negroes, and upwards of one hundred dragoon horses, and all their music. They destroyed most of their baggage, which was immense. Such was the inferiority of our num- bers, that our success must be attri- buted to the justice of our cause and . the gallantry of our troops. My wishes would induce me to name every senti- nel in the corps." This brilliant action, following upon the defeat of Camden, was received with admiration through the country. Congress, " impressed with the most lively sentiments of approbation," voted its thanks to officers and men, and a medal of gold, appro- priate^ inscribed, to the commander. Moigan continued in the field, in the rapid retreat to Guilford, an active service of this crowded era, but he was soon obliged to ask leave of absence to recruit his health, now much broken by a painful sciatica. Retirement was a measure of necessity. He consequently withdrew to Virginia, where he re- mained in quiet, profiting by the care of home, till he was summoned to aid in the defence of his State, which had now become the theatre of active hos- tilities. Morgan again succeeded in assembling a force of riflemen, with whom he joined Lafayette. He par- ticipated in the defensive movements, which were terminated by the surren- der at Yorktown, though ill-health prevented his'sharing in the triumph 01 this final catastrophe of his old enemy. After the war, he passed his time at home, engaged in the business of his farm, and the care of a large landed property, of which he had come into possession by grant and purchase. He was once more called into service by Washington, at the head of the Vir- ginia militia, in the suppression of the whisky insurrection in Pennsylvania, when he marched with his command to Pittsburg. When resistance was over, he was judiciously employed iu heal- ing the remaining disaffection. After his return, he was elected to Congress, as a representative from his district, in the federal interest, when he gave his support to the administration of Adams. He retired stricken with illness, before the enl of his term. Though he continued to be afflicted with disease, which would have pre- vented his participation in active ser- vice, he was yet consulted by Wash- ington in his arrangements, in 1799, for meeting the threatened war with France. His last days were given to religion. He was a devout member of the Presbyterian "Church. His death took place at Manchester, Virginia, July 6, 1802, in his sixty-ninth year. ANTHONY WAYNE. The grandfather of this spirited and efficient soldier of the Revolution, bear- ing the same name, emigrated to Ame- rica in 1722. He was English by birth, had made Ireland his residence, where he sided with William, the Protestant Deliverer, fought at the battle of the Boyne, and experienced, as he thought, the not uncommon ingratitude of princes. With this experience of the Old World, he turned to the New. Alighting upon Pennsylvania,- he set- tled as a farmer in Chester County, where his grandson, Anthony, the sub- ject of our sketch, came into the world on the first of January, 1745, " and a better new year's gift," adds his bio- grapher, Headley, " fortune could not have presented to the nation." His father, a farmer, was for many years a representative of the county in the Colonial Assembly. The young Anthony seems to have had some rubs at school. We find his preceptor, his uncle Gilbert, writing to his brother Isaac, the boy's father, of his indifference to his studies, and of his zeal for military amusements. He neglected his books, and set the school topsy-turvy with his redoubts and intrenchments and skirmishing, out of which the boys came with broken heads and black eyes. " He 280 may make a soldier," says the uncon- sciously prophetic teacher, " but one thing I am certain of, that he will never make a scholar. I must be candid with you, brother Isaac," he concludes, " unless Anthony pays more attention to his books, I shall be under the pain- ful necessity of dismissing him from the school." The boy never would have made a good soldier if he had proved insensible to this appeal. He rallied his mental forces, made a fresh attack on the fortified camp of the sciences, and carried it by storm. He was sent to the Philadelphia Academy, which returned him to his rural county, in his eighteenth year, sufficiently qua- lified to open a land surveyor's office. At the close of the old French war, at this time, he was chosen, by a com pany of merchants of Philadelphia, to superintend a colonization scheme which they were putting into effect in some land investments in Nova Scot'a. Benjamin Franklin was one of the speculators, and it is said that Wayne, then at the age of twenty-one, was in- trusted with this duty at the philoso- pher's special recommendation. It is not unlikely; for Franklin was an excel lent judge of character, and quite likely to appreciate Wayne's good qualities. The latter appears to have continued Mtmzo Ch.app.-I 5930 A:+/��C ANTHONY WAYNE. 281 at this distant post till 1767, when the affairs of the country growing unsettled, he returned to Pennsylvania. He then married Miss Penrose, the daughter of a merchant in Philadelphia, and de- voted himself to his farm and survey- ing in Chester County. He succeeded his father as a representative in the Assembly, in 1773, and took an active and patriotic part in the political ques- tions of the day. Wayne, who had upset the discipline of the school by playing at camps and soldiering, was not likely to sit quiet under the trumpet-call of the Revolu- tion. He was one of the first in the field, drilling his men as he had mar- shalled his school-boys, and ready with his volunteer company for service. Congress, in 1776, conferred on him the rank of Colonel, and sent him, with his regiment, to the northern army on the borders of Canada. He there found himself under the command of Sullivan, and was detached to accompany Gene- ral Thompson in what proved an un- fortunate raid into Canada. The latter commander failed in efficiency, his force became entangled, the officers were wounded or taken prisoners, and the honor of conducting a difficult re- treat fell to Wayne. He was also of great service in the further movements, when the American force retired to Ticonderoga, and in the operations of that place under Gates, in 1776. He was left by Gates in command of the fort in the winter, when Congress cre- ated him Brigadier-General. In the spring he joined Washington, and was placed in command of a brigade ready for active service against Howe, in which Washington had been for some time engaged. Wayne took part in the movements between New York and Philadelphia, which preceded the Brit ish General's landing in the Chesa- peake. When the latter event took place, in August, 1777, and the forces of Washington were pushed forward to meet him for the defence of Phila- delphia, Wayne's brigade was stationed at the leading position of Chadd's Ford, on the Brandywine, where the main fighting was expected to take place. The British troops opposite to that spot on the river were, however, left there merely as a diversion, while Sir William Howe sent his chief force, under Cornwallis, to cross the river above, and gain the rear of the Ameri- can army. When Washington first heard of this attempt being in pro- gress, he ordered an attack upon the enemy at Chadd's Ford, but being told that his previous information was an error, arrested this engagement. Pre- sently the news of Cornwallis' ad- vance was confirmed, and an engage- ment took place on the right wing, which resulted in the defeat of the Americans, leaving Wayne to sustain a prolonged attack, and ultimately to retreat from his position. Howe, though he gained Philadel- phia by his victory, failed by his want of activity, as he might have done, to destroy the army of Washington, who succeeded in establishing himself on his retreat at the Schuylkill. Wayne was again advanced to harass the army of Howe in conjunction with General Smallwood, and took post in the ene- my's rear. At first he was so pleased •N<> ANTHONY WAYNE. with his position that he sent messages urging Washington to order an attack in concert with him on the British camp. The enemy, however, were more vigilant than he at first appre- hended, for they attacked his camp at night, and though it was not altogether a surprise, it proved a pretty severe defeat. The loss fell mainly upon his second in command, from an injudicious arrangement of his troops. Wayne, who was sensitive in the affair, de- manded a court-martial, by which his conduct was fully approved. He had soon an opportunity, at Ger- mantown, of vindicating his character, by a brilliant success in his advance upon the British army at that place, in the movement concerted by Washing- ton. As usual, Wayne was placed in the front of the battle. He took the enemy by surprise on the morning of the fourth of October, 1777. A letter written by Wayne, two days after the battle, gives so animated an account of the part borne in it by his command, that it would be injustice to him to tell the story in any other words. The first attack, in which Wayne's division was engaged, was made at the upper end of the town. The picket guard was driven in to a battalion of light infan- try, with which Wayne engaged, when " a heavy and well-directed fire took place on each side. The enemy again gave way, but, being supported by the grenadiers, returned to the charge. Our people," continues Wayne, "re- membering the action of the night of the 20th of September, near the War- ren, pushed on with their bayonets and took ample vengeance for that night's work. Our officers exerted themselves to save many of the poor wretches, who were crying for mercy, but to little purpose; the rage and fuiy of the sol diers were not to be restrained for some time, at least not until great numbers of the enemy fell by their bayonets. The fog, together with the smoke occa- sioned by our cannon and musketry, made it almost as dark as night: our people, mistaking one another for the enemy, frequently exchanged shots be- fore they discovered their error." This is graphically related, and does credit to Wayne's pen. The -sequel of this brilliant success at the onset, was un- happily a retreat. In the confusion arising from the smoke and fog, general orders were impracticable; the victo- rious Americans were disconcerted by an advancing body, actually their own forces, whom they mistook for the enemy; there was a loss both of time and men in an attack upon a well- defended stone mansion, which might have been let alone; in fact, Wayne's troops were disconcerted, and, as Irving briefly sums the matter up, " fled from their own victory." Their commander conducted the retreat with the utmost decorum attainable. " Thus ended," concludes his narrative, " the action of that day, which continued from day- light until near ten o'clock. I had forgot to mention that my roan horse was killed under me, within a few yards of the enemy's front, and my left foot a little bruised by a spent ball, but not so much as to prevent me from walking. My poor horse received one musket-ball in the breast and one in the flank, at the same instant that I ANTHONY WAYNE. 283 had a slight touch on my left hand, which is scarcely worth noticing. Upon the whole, it was a glorious day. Our men are in high spirits, and I am confident we shall give them a total defeat the next action, which is at no great distance." Wayne thus waited his opportunity. In the meantime he was employed in the less glorious, but no less important duty of foraging for the enfeebled army in its winter quarters at Valley Forge. When Philadelphia was evacuated in the following summer, and it became a question whether the march of Sir Henry Clinton towards New York should be met by an actual encounter, Wayne, contrary to the advice of some of his brother officers in the council, foremost of whom was Charles Lee, advised a strong detachment to be sent against the enemy. The resolution of Washington was framed for action, and Lee finally sent forward for what proved the battle of Monmouth, June 28,1778, with positive orders to attack. General Wayne's command, a thousand strong, was again in front of the battle, success- fully engaged with a covering party. The enemy were now advancing to the attack towards Wayne, who stood pre- pared to meet them, when Lee gave orders for the retreat, just as Washing- ton was coming up in full force to sus- tain him. The story of the retrieval of the broken fortunes of the day be- longs to the great commander. It was one of his most heroic days. It is suffi- cient here to state the part acted by Wayne in the transaction. He never appeared to more advantage in his counsel and acts. He had shown great indignation at the abandonment of the engagement by Lee, and now coun- selled Washington as to the best means of resistance. The commander-in-chief assigned him an important command. He held his position with great spirit against repeated attacks of the enemy, in one of which the gallant Colonel Monckton, of the royal grenadiers, was slain, as he was leading his men to the charge. The column was repulsed. These successes enabled Wayne to ad- vance, as the action grew general,.and render effective service by a charge. His men, we are told, mostly without their coats, to prepare themselves fur- ther for their work, advanced with their shirt-sleeves rolled up.1 In Wash- ington's dispatch to the President of Congress, Wayne is especially singled out for commendation. In the service of the next year, Wayne was to be still farther distin- guished by a brilliant military opera- tion on a conspicuous stage. The pos- session of the military posts of the Hudson was naturally to be desired by Clinton. He had nearly two years be- fore captured or stolen away from Put- nam the forts Clinton and Montgomery at the most defensible part of the Highlands, a victory which was neutral- ized by the surrender of Burgoyne. He now gained possession of the oppo- site works of Stony and Verplanck's Points, below the Highlands. Wash- ington, solicitous for the preservation of the river communication, having established his headquarters at New London, and stationed the main body 1 Dawson's Battles of the United States. I. 409 2 Sir ANTHONY WAYNE. of the army at a post in the rear of Ilaverstraw, prevented the further en- ci oachments of Clinton, and determined if possible to dislodge the enemy from the work of Stony Point. He looked to Wayne to carry out the enterprise. This officer was in command of the light infantry at an immediate point in the interior, between Fort Montgomery and Smith's Clove. On the first of July, Washington, in a letter from headquarters, calls his attention to the condition of Stony Point and its de- fences, as a desirable object of attack. A few days later, on the ninth, he renews the subject, with the suggestion of an assault by night, and the next day minutely plans the whole affair, very much as it was afterwards carried out. It was to be undertaken at mid- night, rather than later towards morn- ing—when such attacks are generally made and guarded against—by a rather small number of chosen men, advanc- ing with fixed bayonets and unloaded muskets, wearing "a white feather or cockade, or -ome other visible badge of distinction for the night;" a watch- word should be agreed upon; the ap- proach should be made on the south side, crossing the beach; the guns of the fort, when taken, should be turned against the shipping and Verplanck's Point, and to carry these things into effect, extraordinary means should be taken for secrecy along the march, and to the latest moment. This letter of Washington has been justly admired for its military skill and prescience. It needs only in fact the names of the officers engaged to be inserted, to be a very fair account of the actual event. Stony Point, the object of attack, was a bold, rocky, projecting hill, on the west bank of the Hudson, below the Highlands, some forty miles distant from New York. It was surrounded on its front and two sides by water, and connected with the main land by a marsh, overflowed by the tide. It was defended by a fort on the summit, well supplied with cannon, by additional breastworks and batteries, and a double row of abatis inclosing the promontory. The garrison was composed of about six hundred men, infantry and artillery. It was to take this work, an expe- dition as adventurous as Montgomery's fatal movement at Montreal, that Wayne took up his line of march at noon on the 15th of July, from his station at Sandy Beach, fourteen miles upward from the place, on the river. He moved through the defiles of this rocky, mountainous region, with diffi- culty, bringing his men in the evening, at eight, to a halting-place, within a mile and a half of the fort. The secret of the march was well kept. Not a man left his post, " not a dog," says Irving, " barked, to give the alarm—all the dogs in the neighborhood had been privately destroyed beforehand." The assault was arranged for twelve o'clock. It was twenty minutes later, in conse- quence of the flooded state of the marsh. The advance force of volun- teers moved in two divisions, taking the work on either side, while other troops " amused the enemy in front. Washington's suggestions were fol- lowed to the letter. The men were known to each other in the darkness of the night, by a piece of white paper ANTHONY WAYNE. 285 in their hats. The watchword was, " The Fort is our Own," to be sounded u by the victorious troops with repeated and loud voice as they entered and drove the enemy from their works and guns, and not before. Not a musket was fired; all was done with the bayonet. In the words of Wayne's dispatch, "neither the deep morass, the formidable and double rows of abatis, nor the strong works in front and flank, could damp the ardor of the troops, who, in the face of a most tre- mendous and incessant fire of musketry, and from cannon loaded with grape- shot, forced their way, at the point of the bayonet, through eveiy obstacle, both columns meeting in the centre of the enemy's works nearly at the same instant." Wayne himself, at the head of the right column, was wounded in the head by a musket ball in the advance, after passing the last abatis, and was supported into the works by his aids. " Carry me into the fort," he said, " and let me die at the head of my column." The victory was complete, as the garri- son surrendered, and the enemy's guns were turned against their own vessels of war in the river and their opposite fort. Mr. Lossing, in his " Field Book of the Revolution," has given a fac simile of Wayne's hurried autograph note of the surrender, sent to General Wash- ington. It is dated Stony Point, 16th July, 1779, 2 o'clock, a.m. "Dear Genl.: The fort and garrison, with Col. Johiston, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free. " Yours most sincerely, " Anty. Wayne." The humanity of the conquerors, it should not be forgotten, was as distin- guished as their courage. This was the spirit of Mad Antony, as he was called. It is said that the title was first bestowed upon him by a witless fellow in the camp, and taken up as a lucky hit by the soldiery. At any rate, Wayne became known by it, as he is to this day, over the country. It is in accordance with this character of " Mad Antony," that he is said, when consulted by Washington with reference to the projected attack, to have replied, " General, I'll storm hell, if you will only plan it." Every year of the war furnishes some memorable action for Wayne's bio- graphers. That of 1780 derives its interest rather from its having fur- nished Major Andre with the theme of his celebrated battle of the Cow Chase, than from the success or brilliancy of the exploit. Wayne was ordered by Washington, in the summer, to storm the work on Block House Point, on the Hudson, near Bull's Ferry, opposite the present limits of New York city, and to drive the cattle collected there into the American lines. The movement was important as a diversion of the British force in the harbor. The troops were repulsed at the Block House, but Wayne drove off the cattle— " To drive the kine one summer's morn, The tanner took his way, The calf shall rue that is unborn The jumbling of that day. " And Wayne descending steers shall know, And tauntingly deride, And call to mind, in ev'ry low, The tanning of his hide." 286 ANTHONY WAYNE. The ballad was published in " Riv- insrton's Gazette," for the amusement of Tory officers, but with the laugh, there is some honest respect for Wayne, whose Stony Point adventure could not be forgotten; in the last stanza, for instance, which reads: " And now I've closed my epic strain, 1 tremble as I show it, Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, Should ever catch the poet." The following winter, Wayne was stationed at Morristown, where he had an opportunity to show good judgment and discretion, and bring to bear the weight of his personal character in the management of a body of the soldiery who had grown refractory under the repeated short-comings in the engage- ments of Congress. The summer found him at the head of the Pennsylvania force cooperating with Lafayette in Virginia, when he nearly lost his whole command by one of those accidents of war which the bravest are most exposed to. Corn- wallis was in retreat, it was presumed, in the neighborhood of Jamestown, when Wayne was ordered to attack what was thought to be only the rear- guard. He unexpectedly found him- self in presence of the whole army, when he made a gallant charge, which so impressed the enemy with the idea :>f a larger force that he was enabled to retreat with heavy loss. * Though a disastrous, this was considered a gallant affair on the part of Wayne. Corn- wallis is not long after, heard of at Yorktown. Wayne's next service is in Georgia, under the command of Greene. His force was small, and the difficulties arising from insufficient means, of the most harassing character; but Wayne managed to gain laurels notwithstand- ing. The latter raised supplies," made Whigs out of Tories," and scoured the country of the enemy, with the ex- ception of Savannah. The British commander called the Choctaws and Creeks to his aid. Wayne defeated the former in a hot engagement, and a party of British troops sent to support the latter. The Creeks, however, stole a march upon his camp by night, and were inflicting great slaughter, when Wayne rallied his men and routed the savages with prodigious feats of valor. This was one of the last incidents of the war. On the evacuation of Savan nah Wayne granted liberal terms to the Tory occupants, in accordance with a benevolent and enlightened policy. As a reward for his protection, Georgia made him a valuable grant of land, which proved an unhappy gift, as it drew him into embarrassing pecuniary efforts in its attempted improvements. On his return to Pennsylvania, Wayne received proof of the confi- dence of his fellow-citizens in being sent to the Convention to amend the State Constitution. He now passed his time in rural pursuits, till he waa called by Washington to the command of the force against the western Indians to retrieve the disaster of St. Clair. He took the field in Ohio in the autumn of 1793, and intrenched himself the ensuing season in winter quarters in the interior. He also erected a fort on the site of St. Clair's defeat, which he ANTHONY WAYNE. 287 named Fort Recovery The next sum- mer, of 1794, he took the field in pur- suit, and on the 20th of August attack- ed the large Indian force on the Miami, in the vicinity of the British post and garrison at the foot of the Rapids. The savages had the advantage of a thick wood, encumbered by fallen trees; but Wayne, used to this method of fighting, made an advantageous dispo- sition of his troops and effected a com- plete rout. The victory was followed the next year by a satisfactory treaty with the Indians; while the surrender of the western post, under the terms of Jay's British treaty, gave additional securities of peace.' On his return to the Atlantic, Wayne was hailed, in a triumphal entry into Philadelphia, as a public deliverer. Only those conver- sant with the terrors of Indian warfare can estimate the value of the security he gave to the frontier territory. It was while returning from the sequel to this western service, under an appointment by the Government, as sole commissioner for treating with the Indians and receiving the military posts surrendered by the British, that he was seized with an attack of the gout, while descending Lake Erie from Detroit. He died in a hut at Presqu' Isle in Decem- ber, 1796, and was buried on the shore of the lake. In 1809 his remains were brought by his son to his native State, and interred in Radnor churchyard, in Delaware County. A simple monu- ment of white marble was erected over his remains on the Fourth of July of that year, by the Pennsylvania State Society of the Cincinnati, " the thirty fourth anniversary of the independence of the United States," as the inscription reads, " an event which constitutes the most appropriate eulogium of an Ame- rican soldier and patriot." In person, Wayne was well propor tioned; dark hair and dark eyes adding force to his expression. He was of a lively, vivacious turn, always ready for action. Graydon, the officer and me- moir writer, from his own State, smiles at his eagerness as he pronounces him " somewhat addicted to the vaunting style of Marshal Villars;" " a man," he adds, however, " who, like himself, could fight as well brag." Wayne's valor, indeed, was never wanting: it was often interposed in critical mo- menta, when it was twice valuable. His prudence and skill in disentangling himself from difficulties were the more remarkable in combination with his chivalry. He was constantly in ser- vice, was engaged at various times in the North, the middle States, the South and the West, always in conspi- cuous relations, and always with honor. HENRY KNOX. A Major Geio:ral in the American Revolution, and the friend of Wash- ington, was born in Boston, July 25, 1750, as his name suggests, of Scottish parentage. He was well educated in the school of the town, and at the breaking out of the war, was engaged in Boston as a bookseller; an occupa- tion which, with his previous instruc- tion, is said to have given a flavor of reading and literature to his after years. He had also exhibited an early fond- ness for military pursuits, having, pre- vious to the actual commencement of hostilities, become an officer in a volun- teer company, organized for the_ popu- lar defence. " There is evidence," says one of his biographers, " of his giving uncommon attention to military tactics at this period, especially to the branch of enginery and artillery, in which he afterwards so greatly excelled." These pursuits were well known to the British officials, who looked upon Knox as a man whom it would be of advantage to enlist on the side of au- thority, and upon the " rebels " taking up arms at Lexington, the departure of Knox from Boston was interdicted by Governor Gage. He managed, how- ever, to escape to the American camp, in time for service at Bunker Hill. fie was already married to Miss Lucy 288 Flucker, the daughter of Thomas Flucker, Gage's government secretary, the lady who became afterwards so well known in the old Revolutionary society and circle at Washington. It is said, on this occasion, that she as- sisted her husband's flight from Bos- ton, by sewing his sword in the lining of her mantle to escape detection. The story is told, too, of the lady making the acquaintance of the young book- seller, by visiting his store to purchase his books—not the first instance in which literature has led the way to love.1 Knox was with the first gathering of the army at Cambridge, where he was immediately associated, by a com- mittee of safety, with the veteran Gridley, the chief engineer of the in- fant army, in executing measures for defence. He was in the reconnoitering service, as a volunteer, on the day of Bunker Hill, in communication with the force in the field, and General Ward at his headquarters at Cambridge. We find him subsequently engaged in the engineering work, and closing in upon the British previous to their evacuation of the city. But the important service 1 Headley's Washington and His Generals, II. 101. Lossing's Field Book, I. 516. y/vc HENRY KNOX. 289 which he rendered in supplying the army with ammunition from the bor- ders of Canada, did more than aught else to fix attention upon him as a man of energy and ability in his profession. The camp at Cambridge, it is well known, was greatly wanting in the munitions of war, cannon, and mili- tary stores, and it was one of the first efforts of Washington to supply the deficiency. The success of the early movements against Canada, in the border conquests of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the advantages of Schuyler and Montgomery, pointed out a means of remedying the defect, and accordingly, on the 16th of November, 1775, Washington, by an order at head- quarters, issued special instructions to Knox, who had gained his confidence, to proceed to New York, and after securing such articles of ammunition as were at the disposal of the Pro- vincial Congress at that place, to pro- ceed to Major General Schuyler, and get the remainder from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and St. John's, and " if it should be necessary, from Quebec, if in our hands. The want of them," Wash- ington adds, "is so great, that no trou- ble or expense must be spared to obtain them." A few days after, Washington recommended Knox to the President of Congress, as a fit appointment for the command of the artillery regiment, Gridley, a brave old soldier of the French wars, being now unfit from age for its active duties. Knox executed his commission with exemplary dis- patch. The season was late, and the roads were bad; the region into which he was sent being then, as compared with its appearance in our own day, but little better than a wilderness; but, by the fifteenth of December, he had suc- ceeded in bringing the cannon of Ticon deroga to the head of Lake George, whence he wrote to Washington on the 17th: "It is not easy to conceive the difficulties we had in getting them over the lake, owing to the advanced season of the year and the contraiy winds. Three1 days ago, it was very uncertain whether we could get them over until next spring, but now, please God, they shall go. I have made forty-two ex- ceedingly strong sleds, and have pro- vided eighty yoke of oxen to drag. them as far as Springfield, where I shall get fresh cattle to take them to camp." He finally arrived at headquarters, hav- ing conquered all the wintry difficulties of the way, bringing with him from Fort George eight brass mortars, six iron mortars, two iron howitzers, thir- teen brass cannon, twenty-six iron can- non, twenty-three hundred pounds of lead, and a barrel of flints—an impor- tant accession to the materiel of the army. Knox had earned the commis- sion of Colonel, which had been sent to him in his absence, and had proved the efficiency which had always followed his steps during the war. He was henceforth with Washington, aiding the commander-in-chief by his counsels, present with him in his battles, ever rendering the most efficient service in his particular department. We have seen him charged with the erection of the batteries and defensive works before Boston. Early in 1776, 1 Sparks' Washington, III. 211. 15'JO HENRY KNOX. at the request of the Governor of Rhode Island, he is at Newport advis- ing respecting the works at that place; in July he is at New York with Wash- ington, drawing up a plan for the in- crease and efficiency of the body of artillerists, of which he is placed at the head, with the rank of Brigadier Gene- ral, and thenceforth in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Germantown, and Monmouth, where he especially distin- guished himself with his artillery, in repairing the error of Lee, to the close of the war at Yorktown, where his bat- tery, as usual, was gallantly served. He was, meanwhile, employed in vari- ous counsels and negotiations of the war, calling for skill and judgment; in planning, with Greene and Clinton, the defences of the Hudson; in the council on the state of the army at Valley Forge, in 1778 , a member of the court of officers who composed the court-mar- tial on the trial of Andre—a painful duty to him, from his susceptibility, and a pleasing interview he had with the unfortunate young officer on his Canada expedition, at the beginning of the war; in an embassy to the Governors of the Eastern States, in 1781, to repre- sent the condition of the army and pro- vide means for its improvement; and in other emergencies where prudence and weight of character were required in a negotiator. After the battle of Yorktown, Knox was specially recom- mended by Washington to Congress for promotion. " The resources of his genius," he wrote, " have supplied on this, and many other interesting occa- sions, the defect of means. His distin- guished talents and services, equally important and indefatigable, entitle him to the same marks of the approba- tion of Congress that they may be pleased to grant to the Chief Engineer.' The allusion is to the French officer. General Duportail, the commandant of the corps of engineers, whose promo- tion, in fact, did precede that of Knox. The latter, however, shortly after, re- ceived his rank of Major-Genera!. When a Secretary of War was chosen, in the autumn of 1781, Knox was put in nomination with Greene and Lin- coln. The last obtained the office, but Knox was subsequently his successor. In the meantime, the military opera- tions of the war were over, and Knox bore a conspicuous part in its closing scenes. In the summer of 1782, and the following year, he was in command at West Point, supported Washington in his management of the officers in the celebrated remonstrance and appeal of the Newburgh Addresses, and, on the evacuation of New York by the Brit- ish, came down with his troops from that station, and entered the city at their head. When Washington, on the fourth of December, took that memorable leave of his officers at Fraunce's Tavern, in New York, Knox was the foremost who responded to the invitation to take his hand, and as they met, tears flowing down the cheeks of both, the commander-in-chief kissed his faithful friend, an example which was followed with the other officers. Knox, in his manly frame, had a woman's heart and tenderness. The brother- hood of the Society of the Cincinnati, founded as well with the idea of " cor- dial affection " among the officers of the HENRY KNOX. 291 war, as of patriotism, is said to have originated at the suggestion of General Knox,1 and he became the general sec- retary of that body on its organization. In 1785, Knox was appointed Secretary of War, an occasion which called forth anew the congratulations of Washing- ton. " It gives me pleasure to hear of your appointment," the latter wrote; " without a compliment, I think a better choice could not have been made." We find the two friends, subsequently, cor- responding on the subject of the Con- vention of the Constitution, of which Knox had far too intimate an experi- ence of the necessity not to be an advo- cate. When the labor of the Conven- tion was over, and Knox's duties as Secretary of War under the old Con- federacy were at an end, Washington called him to the same position at the organization of the government under the Constitution. Among those who welcomed the new President to New York, at the time of his inauguration, few hearts, we may be assured, beat warmer than that of his old friend, General Knox. He was with a group of officers who, in the ceremonial of the twenty-third of April, met Washington in a state barge on the bay, and he also bore a conspicuous part in the in- auguration scene. In the society of the city of that time, General Knox and his wife held distinguished posi- tions. She was, we are told, "enor- mously large;" she and her husband were, perhaps, the largest couple in the city; and both were favorites: he, for really brilliant conversation and unfail- ing good humor, and she as a lively and meddlesome, but amiable leader of society, without whose cooperation, it was believed by many besides herself. that nothing could be properly done in the drawing-room or the ball-room, or any place, indeed, where fashionable men and women sought enjoyment.1 General Knox discharged the duties of the office of Secretary of War till the 'end of 1794, when his resignation was finally accepted by Washington. His public life being thus closed, he retired with his family to his residence in the province of Maine, where, by virtue of the descent to his wife of the great Waldo estate, and his own subsequent purchases, he came to possess a region of thirty miles square. An interesting account is given of his home there at Thomaston, and of the adjacent region of the Patent. by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Lian- court, who, while on his travels in this country, visited the General at the place in the autumn of 1796. This amiable French gentleman had become' intimate with the family of Knox in Philadelphia, and had a warm invita- tion to visit his estate in his proposed journey into Maine. Accordingly, meet- ing with the General in Boston, he accompanied him by sea to the mouth of the Penobscot, below which, on the St. George's River, at a place now called Thomastown, Knox's manorial abode was situated. Though nominally the proprietor of a vast region, the General seems in reality to have been at the mercy of large settlements of squatters, ' Thacher's ReTolutionary Annals, p. 327. Griswold's Republican Court, p. 112. 292 HENRY KNOX. who, with their characteristic judgment, had selected the best portions of the land for cultivation. We are told with some naivete, of the owner's moderate and judicious arrangements in recog- nizing these rights of possession, and of the very favorable terms on which he might purchase from some a part of his own possessions; while others bought of him, on easy terms, regu- lated by their ability to hold for noth- ing. Of course it was high time that an estate so peculiarly situated, should enjoy the superintendence of the legal proprietor. A tour with the General along the Penobscot, including a survey of the forest, agricultural and fishing resources of the country, with notices of the Indians and other inhabitants, is an interesting picture of the Province at the close of the last century. There was once again something more than a prospect of the veteran being called into the field—in 1798, in the threatened war with France, when Washington, in his own words, "consented to embark once more on the boundless ocean of respon- sibility and trouble." The foremost of his conditions, was that " the prin- cipal officers of the line and staff shall be such as I can place confidence in." in the appointment of officers, Alex- ander Hamilton, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Knox, were enumerated the three Major Generals of the service. The last, looking to the old prescription of seniority of the former war, reso- lutely demurred to the order assigned by Congress ; and in vain Washington sought to mollify his old friend by representing to him that a new war gave the choice of new men. Knos was inexorable with the Secretary of State, and not even the claims of friend- ship could induce him to forego the punctilio. He would serve as an aide to Washington, in case of invasion, but he would not take the field with his commission dated after those of Hamil- ton and Pinckney. " In so plain a case," he wrote to the Secretary of War, "it is unnecessary to multiply words. The impossibility of my serv- ing under officers so much my juniors must have been known to those who made the arrangement. The principle, that no officer can consent to his own degradation, by serving in an inferior station, is well known and established among military men." During his retirement at the east- ward, General Knox was much of the time at Boston; and the district in which his estate was situated in Maine, being then under the same government with Massachusetts, he filled a seat at the Council board of the State. We frequently hear of him as an active and intelligent participator in public affairs He was at one time talked of for Gover- nor. Sympathies of this kind and the relations of friendship, brought him into intimacy with the Hon. James Sullivan, who, in his "Familiar Let- ters on Public Characters," has left a minute and engaging character of the man. The active career of General Knox was suddenly closed by an accident. He died at the age of fifty-six, at his seat at Thomastown, in Maine, from an inflammation caused by swallowing the bone of a chicken. ^v^v^ /3, :t,y7i/>/u;fa: JOHN BARRY. Commodore John Barry, one of the fathers of the American navy, was a native of Ireland. He was born in the County of Wexford, in the year 1745. His father is spoken of as a highly respectable farmer, under whose roof the son received " the first impres- sions of that ingenuousness, and that high-toned magnanimity which were conspicuous attributes of his character." He exhibited an early inclination for the sea, was placed by his father on board a merchantman, and became a sailor when he was quite a boy, acquir- ing what was thought a good practical education in the intervals of his voy- ages. In his fourteenth or fifteenth year he reached America, and deter- mined to make the country his home. He became acquainted with some of the leading merchants of Philadelphia, and was employed by them in voyages to Europe. He commanded, at one time, the Black Prince, a valuable ship in the London trade, afterwards purchased by Congress as a vessel of war. On the breaking out of the Revolu- tion, his excellent character and sea- manlike qualities recommended him to the national service, and through these advantages, and doubtless with the aid of his mercantile friends, he received an early appointment in the infant navy of the country. He is said, in the account of his life published in the " Port Folio," to have received the com- mand of the brig Lexington, of sixteen guns, the first Continental vessel that sailed from the port of Philadelphia, in February, 1776. This, however, was found by Mr. Cooper, who adopted the statement in the first edition of his " Naval History," to be an error. In a later edition, he states -the fact to be that Barry was preceded by the fleet of Commodore Hopkins, in its famous cruise to New Providence, and that he was second in time out of the Dela- ware. Barry sailed a few weeks after, with a crew of seventy men, and signal- ized his cruise by the capture, off the capes of Virginia, on the 17th of April, of the Edward, an armed tender of the Liverpool. The action, a very close one, lasted nearly an hour; the Lexing- ton having: four of her crew killed and wounded, and her adversary suffering severely. This was the first capture of any vessel of war ever made, says Mr. Cooper, by a regular American cruiser in battle. Of the twenty-four captains in the navy, enumerated in the resolution of Congress of October 10,1776, establish- ing the order of precedence, John Barry has the seventh place, James Nichol 293 2-H JOHN BARRY. son being placed at the head of the list.' He was assigned the command of the Effingham, 28, then building at Philadelphia, one of the vessels which was subsequently removed up the river to escape the British fleet on the occu- pation of Philadelphia. While in this enforced durance, he planned an attack upon the enemy below, which he car- ried out with great boldness and pro- portionate success. Manning four row- boats of the frigates at Burlington, with a force of only twenty-eight men, about the beginning of March, 1778, he pulled down with the tide at night, passed the numerous hostile craft before the city with some danger, and reached Port Penn, where he found a schooner of the enemy, " mounting eight double- fortified four-pounders, and twelve four-pound howitzers, and manned with thirty-three men, together with two ships, transports from Rhode Island, loaded with forage, one mounting six four-pounders, with fourteen hands each." He boarded and carried the schooner, and the whole capitulated. The ladies on board, with their bag- gage, were to be sent to Philadelphia. The arrival of two cruisers compelled Barry to burn his prizes, and escape by land. He had the satisfaction of cheer- ing Washington at head-quarters, at this disheartening period o* the war, with the intelligence of his brave ad- venture, in a letter which he sent to the commander-in-chief. Washington, in bis reply, dated March 12, 1778, con- gratulates him " on the success which has crowned your gallantry and ad- ' Cooper's Naval History, I. 51. dress in the late attack upon the ene- my's ships," adding, " although circum- stances have prevented you from reap- ing the full benefit of your conquest, yet there is ample compensation in the degree of glory which you have ac- quired." J Barry was soon after appointed to the command of the Raleigh, 32, and sailed from Boston on the 25th Septem- ber, with a brig and sloop under con- voy. He had been but a few hours at sea when two strange sail hove in sight, which proved to be his majesty's ships, the Experiment, 50, and Unicorn, 22. They gave chase to the Raleigh, which bent every effort, sailing with the wind northeasterly, for escape, holding her- self, meanwhile, in readiness for action. Her men were at quarters the whole night; the next day was partly hazy, but disclosed the enemy in pursuit; a second night passed, and the following morning again brought the English ships into view. They were now off the coast of Maine, and the Raleigh was in a fair way of outsailing her an- tagonists, when the wind moderated, and the Unicorn, which mounted four- teen guns of a side, came within fight- ing distance of the Raleigh. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the first shots were exchanged. Unhappily, at the second fire Barry's ship lost her fore-topmast and mizzen top-gallant mast, and consequently was at a disadvantage in the subsequent sailing manoeuvres. The Unicorn now avoided the broadside of her antago- nist, engaging at a distance, and when 1 Sparks' Washington, V. 27 x. JOHN BARRY. 295 the Raleigh attempted to board, easily, with her advantages of canvas, baffled the effort. In the meanwhile the Ex- periment was coming up. Bariy, now seeing escape hopeless, called a council of his officers, and determined to run his frigate on the neighboring land. He was pursued, in this attempt, till near midnight, when some respite was given after seven hours' severe fighting. The chase by both vessels was shortly, however, resumed, and his wished for escape among the islands of the coast prevented, the enemy pouring in their fire. The Raleigh now grounded, and the vessels hauled off, when her com- mander attempted a landing on a rocky island called the Wooden Ball, about twenty miles from the mouth of the Penobscot. While he was landing a part of his force, the ship was surren- dered by a petty officer. Barry, with a portion of his crew, escaped, with various hardships, to the main land. The Unicorn was much injured, losing ten men killed; the American killed and wounded were twenty-five.1 The gallantry and address of Barry, in this escape of his crew, preceded by the unequal contest so spiritedly main- tained, were not lost upon the country. Washington received the news with his accustomed equanimity, balancing the loss of the frigate by the heroism of its commander.8 Barry now made several voyages to the West Indies in letter-of-marque ves- sels, and in 1781, having succeeded the unhappy Landais in command of ' Cooper's Naval History, I. 92-4. 9 Sparks' Washington, VI. 90. the Alliance, 32, sailed in February in that vessel on a mission to France, taking out with him Colonel John Laurens. On his return he sailed from Lorient, in company with the Marquis de Lafayette, 40, and having together made some captures of English priva> teers, they parted company, and the Alliance pursued her course alone. On the 28th May she came in sight of two strange vessels, which proved to be the sloop-of-war Atlanta, 16, and the brig Trepassy, 14. They were evi- dently bearing towards her, and the following day, by the aid of their sweeps, came up and took position in the dead calm on the quarters and stern of the Alliance, which, unable to use her sails, " lay almost a log on the water." The American frigate was consequently unable to bring her broad- side to bear, and for more than an hour suffered this disadvantage. The action commenced at noon, and about two o'clock Captain Barry was carried be- low, wounded in the shoulder by a grape-shot. The fire of the two ships was kept up, and victory appeared to be on their side, when the flag of the Alliance was shot away, and the enemy manning the shrouds, gave three cheers. The fight, however, was not yet over. The gallant commodore, though lying wounded in the cockpit, would listen to no suggestions to surrender. " If the ship can't be fought without," he said, " I will be carried on deck." His reso] ve animated the crew anew. The flag was again hoisted, a light breeze came to the rescue, the Alliance gained the use of her guns, and so well were they han- dled that both vessels of the enemy 296 JOHN BARRY. were compelled to surrender. The action terminated at three o'clock. When Captain Edwards of the Atlanta presented his sword to Captain Barry, confined in the cabin of his vessel, he immediately returned it to the British officer, complimenting his bravery, say- ing the king should give him a better ship. The Alliance had, in this engage- ment, eleven killed and twenty-one wounded; her adversaries sustained a joint loss of forty-*one killed and wounded. The Trepassy was sent to England, as a cartel, with the prisoners; the Trepassy was retaken off Boston.1 The Alliance, a favorite ship on account of her excellent sailing quali- ties, was again in request at the close of 1781 to carry the Marquis de Lafayette and Count de Noailles to France. General Duportail and other French officers accompanied them. On his arrival, Barry was in communication with Franklin at Paris, anxious to get some French sailors and be in a position to renew his adventure of the previous cruise, and redeem more Americans from English prisons. It was about this time that Franklin, writing from Paris to Thomas McKean, President of Congress, communicated a message from the ambassador of Venice. " He was charged by the Senate," Franklin wrote, " to express to me their grateful sense of the friend- ly behavior of Captain Barry, com- mander of the Alliance, in rescuing one of the ships of their State from an English privateer, and setting her at 1 Life of Barry, Pert Folio, July, 1813. History, I 124-6 Cooper's liberty; and he requested me to com municate this acknowledgment to Con gress." The next important affair in which Barry was engaged was in 1782, in the West Indies, whither the Alliance was sent to the Havana, in quest of speck The frigate was on her return from thk embassy, in company with the Louzun a ship loaded with supplies, when a superior force of +he enemy came in sight, and a chase ensued. When the Alliance and her companion were ir flight, a French two-decker, a fifty-gun ship, made her appearance, and was signalled by Barry for the engagement. He then brought the Alliance into action with the foremost British vessel, the Sybil, mounting thirty guns, while the others occupied the Frenchman with their manoeuvres. The Sybil, getting the worst of her single encoun- ter, signalled her companions to join her, when Barry withdrew to call the Frenchman to his aid and renew the fight. The latter, however, proved too dull a sailer to come up with her anta- gonists, and the action was left sus- pended. The loss of the Alliance in this affair was three killed and eleven wounded. The commander of the British frigate engaged with the Alli- ance is said afterwards generously to have admitted that he had never seen a ship so ably fought as his oppo- nent, or come so near receiving a drub- bing. This was Barry's last action during the war, which was now ap- proaching its termination. The service of the Revolution was at an end. Its officers had done their work well, ac- cording to their means and opportum JOHN BARRY. 297 ties, and none better than Commodore Barry. His good ship, the Alliance, followed hei- commander into private life. She was sold, with reluctance, in 1785, and was converted into an Indiaman. On the revival of the navy, in 1794, preparatory to the struggle with the Barbaiy powers in the Mediterranean, Captain Barry was named the senior of the six called into service to com- mand the new frigates. The United States, 44, fell to Barry, andG we find him in service on the coast and in the West Indies, protecting the commerce of the country from French depreda- tions, and making various captures of privateers. He held this command till his ship was laid up in ordinary, at the beginning of Mr. Jefferson's administra- tion. A year or two after, at the age of fifty-eight, he died, September 13, 1803, in Philadelphia, of an asthmatic affection, to which he had been long subject. The character of Barry as an efficient officer is stamped by his usefulness to his country. In the early operations of the war of the Revolution, when he was not able to get to sea, he served with the army in New Jersey on shore, and it is recorded by his biographers with just pride, that he patriotically resisted the overtures of General Howe, to gain him over from the American interest. The reply he is said to have given, was, " that he had devoted him- self to the cause of his country, and not the value and command of the whole British fleet could seduce him from it." 38 Of his personal character, we may be assured by a glance at his portrait, as it is handed down -to us by the pencil of Stuart—a countenance of great worth and benevolence. The impression is confirmed by the testimony of his friends. His sound, moral qualities are dwelt upon by the writer in the " Port Folio," as greatly strengthening his skill in command. " He possessed courage without rashness, a constancy of spirit which could not be subdued, a sound and intuitive judgment, a promptitude of decision equal to the most trying emergencies, consummate skill, a generosity of soul which tem- pered the sterner qualities of the hero, and recommended him to the esteem of all—a humanity of feeling which made him no less attentive to the comfort and happiness of those whom the for- tune of war threw into his power, than he had been ambitious to conquer them. Having spent the greater part of a long life upon the ocean, he had seen every possible variety of service; he knew how to sympathize, therefore, with those who were subjected to his command: to this it was owing, that though a rigid disciplinarian, he always conciliated the attachment of his sailors. It is worthy of remark, that no person who has sailed with him, as seaman, officer or passenger, has ever been heard to speak of him but with the most respectful gratitude; and, in re- gard to his seamen especially, with all the extravagance of eulogy. He never found any difficulty in making np a crew, and desertion from his ship was unknown." &%k??:t Fmm r,', jruinuLJicliL. ypcl, indi&^cssessic FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 299 of seventeen, entering the army of the great Frederick as a cadet. He rose, through subordinate degrees, to be first lieutenant, in 1755. Throughout the Seven Years' War which followed, which was also training up, on the other side of the Atlantic, a school of soldiers for the American Revolution, he was in constant service. Attached to the command of Marshal Schwerin, he was with that officer in his invasion of Bohemia, in 1757, and was wounded in the engagement with the Austrian army at the battle of Prague. In the subsequent great battle of that year, at Rosbach, when the combined French and Germans were met by Frederick in person and gallantly defeated, the regi- ment of Steuben was in the van, shar- ing in the honors of that memorable day. In the following year, without sacri- ficing his claims to promotion in his regiment, he entered as adjutant general the free corps of General von Mayr, a bold partisan officer of those days who carried out the designs of Frederick in detached enterprises of great courage and resolution, seizing the supplies of their cities and scouring the country of the enemy. It was in this irregular but effective warfare of a band of volunteers that Steuben, in a year's active campaigning, learnt a lesson of self-reliance, and the ready use of re- sources in the field, which prepared him for his subsequent services in the not altogether dissimilar military ope- rations in America. On the death of the redoubtable Von Mayr, in the beginning of 1759, Steuben returned to the regular army. He was attached as adjutant general to the command of General von Hulsen, and shared with that officer the defeat of Frederick at Kunersdorf. He was wounded in that engagement so disastrous to the Prus- sian arms. There is little known of his movements in the army for the next two years. In 1761 we find him adju- tant of General Knobloch, moving with the force of General Platen in his successful razzia into Poland, his father the engineer of Custrin, facilitating: the return of the expedition by throwing a bridge for their passage over the Wartha, at the junction of which river with the Oder he was stationed. After this he was sent with the army into Pomerania, to the relief of the city of Colberg, then threatened by the Russians, who were in great force in the province. He was at Treptow, in the vicinity, guarding the supplies, when that town was besieged by a large force, and General Knobloch, who was in command, was compelled to surrender. The articles of capitulation were negotiated by Steuben. Becom- ing thus a prisoner of war, he was sent with the other officers to St. Peters- burg, a detention of no long duration, and which proved rather an advantage to the Prussian cause, as the captives were enabled to strengthen the disposi- tion to an alliance with Frederick, which then began to be entertained at the Russian court. The new sovereign, Peter III., it is said, was desirous that Steuben should enter his service; but this he declined in favor of a return to Prussia. It is to the service rendered Frederick, in Russia, by these officers, says Mr. Kapp, " that Steuben prob 300 FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. ably owed his advancement to the rank of captain, and his appointment as aid-de-camp on the personal staff of the king, in whose suite, in 1762, he took part in the celebrated siege of Schweid- nitz, the surrender of which was the brilliant conclusion of the military operations of the Seven Years' War." This struggle being now ended, Steuben received a special mark of the confidence of the great Frederick, in being admitted within that select cir- cle of young officers—Steuben was but thirty at the time of the treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg—to whom the king was pleased to give instructions in the art of war. A still more con- vincing test of that frugal monarch's satisfaction lies in the fact that he con- ferred upon this favorite officer a lay benefice of the religious chapter of Havelsburg, of the annual value of four hundred thalers. Not long after this, for some reason not sufficiently under- stood, Steuben quitted the Prussian service. It is said that he feigned sickness for the purpose of obtaining his discharge, which he had some diffi- culty in procuring. When his release was achieved, he entered into the ser- vice of one of the inferior potentates of Germany, the Prince of Hohenzollern Hechingen, to whom he had been in- troduced at the springs of Wildbad, in Suabia, in whose miniature court he discharged the ceremonial duties of grand marshal for ten years. He ob- tained this favor with the recommen- dation of the Princess of Wurtemberg and the king's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia. The occupation must have been a luxurious one for an old cam- paigner, compared with the hardships of the tented field. There was pro- bably enough rigor in its exactions to suit the spirit of discipline of a soldier accustomed to command ; and a better opportunity there was not, in the wide world, to fight over the battles of old Fritz, in which the chamberlain had been engaged. He might, however, have grown rusty, if he had been con- fined altogether within the palace pre- cincts ; but he was spared this fate by the opportunity which came, in the course of his duties, of accompanying the prince on his travels, which ex- tended through the other courts of Ger- many, and even to France. This pleas- ing mode of life was proof against various tenders of new military employ- ments from the King of Sardinia and the Emperor of Germany, and might have been indefinitely prolonged had not difficulties arisen in the little court in which the baron was imbedded, growing out of a subject which, in a general way, might be the last thought of to disturb the peace of an old cam- paigner, who had lived in the midst of battles from his cradle. This new vex- ation grew out of the subject of reli- gion. Steuben, in accordance with his family traditions, was an earnest Pro- testant, and the religion of Hohenzol- lern Hechingen was Catholic. The priests, in fact, made the little court too hot to hold him, and he prudently re- tired while the storm was yet rising. Continuing to enjoy the respect of the Prince, he withdrew to another friendly haven at Carlsruhe, the court of the Margrave of Baden, who had previ- ously honored him with the cross of FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 301 the order of "Fidelity." He did not, however, continue long in this new re- lation, which, offering him no employ- ment, was relieved by visits to his friends in Germany, and an excursion to the south of France. There are some notices, also, about this time, of his entertaining again the idea of mili- tary service. He even sought an en- gagement with the emperor; but dif- ficulties presenting themselves in the way of the admission, among the offi- cers of the army, of a foreigner, he abandoned the application, and, when overtures were afterwards made to him, refused to entertain them. He appears to have been content with his enjoy- ment of life as a favorite in society and the companion of princes. It was while on his way to reap a new harvest of these attentions in Eng- land, growing out of acquaintances he had formed with gentlemen of that nation, and some members of the nobil- ity, in his travels, that he was arrested by an unexpected application in Paris, which turned his course in quite a dif- ferent direction. It was the year 1777, and the thoughts of the French court were turned to the struggle for indepen- dence going on in the American colo- nies. The government was not quite ready to take part in the conflict, but wished it ail manner of success. It so happened that an acquaintance of Steuben, the Count de St. Germain, held the high post of Minister of War. They had first met, some years before, in Hamburg, when the laurels of the Seven Years' War were yet fresh on the brow of the soldier, and the ac- quaintance had subsequently been renewed at the residence of the Baron von Waldener, in Alsace. The count had not forgotten the merits of the sol- dier brought up in the camp of Fred- erick, and now recognized in him the very man whom he needed for a par- ticular service in America. The French government, as we have intimated, was then indirectly assisting the transat- lantic rebels. Supplies of ammunition were going out, and loans were being made with the connivance, if not the express responsibility, of the authori- ties. It was an object of solicitude to know that the best use was made of them on their arrival. A soldier who had learnt the art of war, the manage- ment of camps, the chill of troops, and the whole economy of a campaign in the school of experience, under the eye of the most energetic soldier of the age, was a godsend in such an emergency. Steuben was such a being, suddenly dropped down in Paris. At the first interview, the Count St. Germain made his proposition dramatically. Opening a map of America, he said to his visiter, " Here is your field of battle. Here is a republic which you must serve. You are the very man she needs at this mo- ment. If you succeed, your fortune is made, and you will acquire more glory than you could hope for in Europe in a great many years to come." The de- tails were unfolded of the contemplated service. America, it was probable, would be supported by France and Spain; but, in the meantime, she needed aid in the formation of her armies, and the effective instiuetion and discipline of her soldiers. Thi- 302 FREDERICK WILLL military service was the forte of such a disciplinarian as his guest. Let him go to the spot, serve the good cause, and reap its honors and rewards. In furtherance of this matter, he was re- ferred to the Spanish minister, the Count de Aranda, and the Prince de Montbarey, one of the officers of the government. The scheme does not appear to have struck Steuben very vividly at the out- set ; America was distant, and the peo- ple there spoke English, an unknown tongue to him; Carlsruhe was near and comfortable, and the courtiers pattered in very familiar German. Why exchange assured ease for an uncertainty in the wilderness ? To some minds the ques- tion would have been conclusive, but the proposition had a certain fascination, notwithstanding the doubts which hedged it in, to a soldier of fortune like Steuben—a man, we should think, always better adapted to camps than courts. He was introduced to M. de Beaumarchais, the versatile author of " Figaro," then managing a great deal of contraband aid to the United States, in a disguised mercantile capacity; and M. de Beaumarchais introduced him to Mr. Silas Deane, the American Com- missioner, and Mr. Deane carried him to Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the head of the commission at Passy. The Baron by this time was in a very dangerous way. A characteristic incident, how- ever, of his interview with Franklin, came very near putting an end to the negotiation. Steaben touched upon the delicate preliminary question of funds. He would need advances. Deane said there would be no diffi- AM YON STEUBEN. culty; but Franklin shrunk at once from the mention of pecuniary respon- sibilities and obligations ; nor, mind- fid of previous embarrassments, would he pledge himself to any contract what- ever. He left no doubt on the mind of his visitor regarding his views on this matter; the Baron thought him not only positive but rude, and resolved at once to abandon the idea, and go back to his friends in the German Principalities. The Count St. Germain opposed his resolution, and endeavored to soften the matter by an invitation to Versailles, where the Spanish ambas- sador was introduced; Beaumarchais tendered a handsome advance, and the Baron, so far yielded as to say he would consider the matter while he was in Germany. Thither he accordingly pro- ceeded, and, as it happened, fell in with the Prince Louis William of Baden, who was in the service of Holland, and w^o encouraged the trip to America. St. Germain was still urgent, and the Baron formed his resolution to adven- ture all his military experience and per- sonal fortunes in the service of the struggling republic. He settled that supply of his purse, the canonry at Havelsburg, upon his nephew, and set ouo for Paris. There he came to an understanding with the ministers, who knew the temper of the American army and people, and adopted the con- clusion to present himself to the army of Washington, as a volunteer, in reli- ance upon his merits, without previous stipulation either as regards rank or compensation. Previous to his depar- ture, he had an interview with the Count de Vergennes, the minister of FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 303 foreign affairs. Finally, armed with letters of introduction from Franklin to Washington, Samuel Adams, Presi- sident Laurens, Robert Morris, and other magnates in America, he sailed from Marseilles on the 26th September, 1777, on board of the twenty-four gun ship " l'Heureux," called for the voyage "le Flamand." Steuben was entered on the ship's books as " Frank." Some secrecy was necessary in the proceed- ing, to guard against British cruisers. The passage was long, and diversified by more than the ordinary perils of a sea voyage. A violent gale in the Mediterranean, another off the coast of Nova Scotia; the vessel twice on fire, with a huge quantity of gunpowder ">n board, among the stores consigned by Beaumarchais to the patriots; and as if these terrors were not sufficient, the passengers were called upon to repress a dangerous mutiny of the crew. After two months tossing on the deep, tne ship entered the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the first of De- cember. The General, for thus it had been suggested in Paris by the French minis- ters that Steuben, to give greater glory to his mission, should call himself, made the most of his landing. It was a pious fraud to assume the title of a general officer, which he had never reached in the Old World, his highest rank being that of captain and aid-de- camp to Frederick; but he undoubtedly thought that he had fully earned »t, and forewarned of the punctilio of the American army on the subject of rank and the jealousy of foreigners, he had no hesitation to serve a good cause, in thus sweeping up his various claims to attention under one compre- hensive generalization. That this was his motive is evidenced by a letter to Alexander Hamilton, when Secretary of the Treasury, some time after the war was ended, when his claims were under adjustment. " No person," sir," he writes, " is better informed than yourself, how difficult it was, at that time, to introduce a foreigner into your army, even without any condition what- ever. If, however, I should be charged with having made use of illicit strata- gems to gain admision into the service of the United States, I am sure the army will acquit me, and, I flatter my- self, so also will the citizens of this republic in general," Mr. Kapp, in his comment on this concession, refers the stratagem to the Baron's assertion, that he had been general in the service of the Margrave of Baden, adding, "there was not a member of Congress that ever heard of a Maroraviate of Baden. The more imposing title of lieutenant general secured to Steuben the right place in the American army. Even Franklin, who lived then in Paris, con- founded Steuben's being aid-de-camp to Frederick II., with the fictitious rank given to him by the French diplomacy. In the United States, from his arrival to the present day, he is usually called a Prussian lieutenant general So much, however, is certain, that if Steuben had been a general in Europe, his position would have been so ele- vated, that he wo aid never have crossed the Atlantic." In addition to this formidable rank, Steuben presented himself to the Ameri 304 FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. can people accompanied by an impos- ing suite. He brought with him as aids several gentlemen, whose names became of more or less distinction in the American service, as Major L'En- fant, who was long afterwards employed in laying out the City of Washington, Captain de Pontiere, who was attached to Pulaski's legion, Major de Romanai, and Major des Epinieres. But the country owes Steuben an especial debt of gratitude for bringing to our shores, as his secretary, a person of singular interest and intelligence, M. Duponceau, then a youth of seventeen. This gentle- man who came to occupy a distin- guished place among the savans of Philadelphia as a philologist and Presi- dent of the American Philosophical Society, had been found by Steuben in the circles of Paris, whither he had lade his way from the provinces, as a literary adventurer. His skill in Eng- lish commended him to the Baron. We are indebted to.his pen for some pleasing pictures of Steuben's early pro- gress in America. The landing; of General Steuben at Portsmouth, as we have intimated, was an affair of ceremony. The commander of the town was duly notified of the arrival in his waters of so distinguished a personage, and proceeded to attend his visitor to the shore, with the honors of a salute and a welcome from the thronging inhabitants. The people were in good spirits just then from the recent surrender of Burgoyne at Sara- toga—doubtless a piece of favorable news as satisfactory as it was unex- pected to the Baron. Steuben im- mediately wrote to Congress and to General Washington, inclosing copies of his letters of introduction from Franklin, tendering his services for the honor of the cause. " My only am- bition," was his language to Congress, "is to serve you as a volunteer, to deserve the confidence of your general- in-chief, and to follow him in all his operations, as I have done during seven campaigns with the King of Prussia." To Washington, his expressions were still more deferential and courtly. " I could say," he wrote, " were it not fo the fear of offending your modesty that your Excellency is the only person under whom, after having served the King of Prussia, I could wish to follow a profession, to the study of which I have wholly devoted myself." Waiting the replies to these epistles, he pro- ceeded to Boston, where he presently fell in with that bountiful host, John Hancock, who prepared a very hand- some equipment for those days, to assist the General in his progress to the seat of the American government, which was then established at York, in Pennsylvania. After a hospitable detention of some weeks in Boston, the Baron, accom- panied by his Secretary, a servant and an agent of Beaumarchais, set out on horseback together on their round- about journey through Connecticut and New York, to the American Congress. Several pleasant anecdotes of the jour- ney have been preserved by Mr. Du ponceau. At that time, the movement of such a party was a matter of finesse. The Tories who swarmed on the route were to be avoided. The travellers had been particularly cautioned against FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 305 a landlord of this description on the border of Massachusetts, and did their best to escape his attentions ; but as it fell out, a snow storm compelled them to seek his shelter. Mine host, as anticipated, was uncivil enough. He was utterly unprovided, save with a most uncomfortable string of nega- tives—" no beds, no bread, no meat, no drink, no milk, no eggs." Remon- strances and supplications were alike in vain. The temper of the soldier of the great Frederick, unaccustomed to such unsatisfactory negotiations, was roused. He thundered—and it was no effort for him on such occasions—a round volley of German oaths, and by way of interpreting them to a foreign ear, called for his pistols. Armed with these, he repeated the interro- gatories in the most pointed man- ner to the affrighted landlord. The answers were this time in the affirm- ative, and the party enjoyed a good supper. In passing through Connecticut, he was struck with the simplicity of man- ners, as the whole party were put to bed on the floor of a single room, with the host's family, men, women and children, spread promiscuously around. As they advanced through Pennsyl- vania, the Baron, animated by the sight of the German population, was particularly gratified at Manheim, by a cheap but humorous engraving at an inn, representing a Prussian knocking down a Frenchman, with the motto, "A Frenchman to a Prussian is no more than a mosquito." It doubtless recalled to him the flight at Rosbach, when he had seen Frederick drive the 39 " Mounseers " before him like chaff from the threshing-floor. In about three weeks, the Baron reached his place of destination, and was in personal communication with Congress. The assumption of " Lieu- tenant General in the King of Prussia's service," which was indorsed in Frank- lin's letter, proved an excellent hit. Congress received him with open arms, appointed a committee to confer with him, and accepted his proffers of service with thanks, while he gene- rously deferred all reward beyond the payment of his expenses, to the final success of the struggle. These pre- liminaries being arranged, he proceeded to the camp of Gen. Washington, which was established in another part of the State, in the vicinity of the Schuylkill, at Valley Forge. The route from York led the Baron through Lancaster, where he was cheered on his way by a ball, which brought out in his honor all the German beauty of the place. The third day, the twenty-third of February, brought him to Valley Forge, Wash- ington himself coming some miles on the road to meet him. It was some- thing to be greeted by Washington and his military family; but, beyond this, the prospect must have appeared disheartening enough, had it not pre- sented an opportunity to the eager faculties of the great disciplinarian to work one of the specious miracles of his art of war. Everything was in confusion. There was privation and suffering on all sides. This winter encampment at Valley Forge was the very culmination of the mismanage- ment of the Revolution. Washington 306 FREDERICK WILLIAM VON STEUBEN. represented its condition in the most alarming terms to Congress. To the eye of an observer, it exhibited the melancholy spectacle of a ludicrously ill fed, ill clothed soldiery. The system of short enlistments and irregularity in the commissariat department, had pro- duced the worst evils of the service. The companies were ill organized; there was waste and loss everywhere; the arms were out of order, and as for the dress, in the Baron's own words— "the men were literally naked, some of them in the fullest extent of the word. The officers who had coats, had them of every color and make. I saw officers, at a grand parade at Valley Forge, mounting guard in a sort of dressing-gown, made of an old blanket or woollen bed-cover." The best face, however, was sometimes put upon the matter, as the excellent Duponceau informs us in an anecdote of an enter- tainment of officers, who were only to be admitted on condition that no one should appear in an entire pair of breeches. There was no exclusiveness, we are told, in the rule. The tatter- demalion guests assembled, clubbing their rations. " We feasted sump- tuously," says the Secretary, now honored with the rank of Captain, " on tough beef-steak and potatoes, with hickory-nuts for our desert. Instead of wine, we had some kind of spirits, with which we made * sala- manders,' that is to say, after filling our glasses, we set the liquor on fire and drank it up, flame and all. Such a set of ragged, and, at the same time, merry fellows, were never brought together. The Baron loved to speak of that dinner, and of his 'sans-culottes,' as he called them." As for the military discipline—in drill and evolutions — according to Steuben's account, no such thing ex isted. There must have been some good raw material, however, judging by the readiness with which, under these discouraging circumstances, it was modelled into form. Washington, to whom the necessities of the army, in this respect, had long been familiar, gave the new comer an opportunity to test his skill by conferring upon him the temporary appointment, subject to the further order of Congress, of In- spector General. The Baron entered upon his work with vigor. He ap- pointed his sub-inspectors of brigades and divisions, and formed a select mili- tary school of one hundred and twenty men from the line, which he trained in person, with practical zeal, taking upon himself the humblest duty of a drill- sergeant. He often took musket in hand to show the manual exercise which he wished to introduce. " We marched together," says he, " wheeled, etc., and in a fortnight my company knew well how to bear arms, had a militaiy air, knew how to march, to form in column, deploy, and execute some little manoeuvres with excellent precision." This was rapid work, and could not have been accomplished without a little of the enthusiasm gene- rated by the prestige of a Prussian general officer. The sight of Frede- rick's lieutenant-general hastening from his bed before daylight to the wintry parade, must have been a truly edify- ing" spectacle. It should be remem- FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 307 bered, also, that the Baron was ignorant of the language of his troops, and that Lis orders, save such as could be com- municated by pantomimic action, had to be transferred through an interpre- ter. The first parade, in fact, was get- ting thrown into confusion from this cause, when a captain of the New York regiment, Benjamin Walker, a young Englishman of education, versed in French, stepped forward and offered his services. The Baron hailed him, in his own expression, as an agent from heaven; made him his aid, retained him in the war as his right-hand man, employed him subsequently in the management of his property, and per- petuated his kindness after death by leaving him one-half of his estate. The stout German's correspondence owes much of its felicity to the pen of his secretary, Walker. It was a sensible act of Steuben to mould his recruits for battles, as the poet instructs us they should be nar- rated, by plunging the men into the midst of the epic action. He had a short time to prepare for the coining campaign, and he made the most of it by sacrificing a portion of " the eternal manual exercise," and leaping at once to the manoeuvres of the field. It was like giving pupils the prompt use of a foreign language in speaking, leaving grammatical niceties for after study; and just as we often see an ill-educated man rattling off a strange tongue with volubility, while a scholar, learned in its elements, stands by in silent mor- tification, so Steuben's soldiers were ready for an evolution when they might have made but a poor show at a drill parade. All this went on under the eye of Washington, and so eflective was the proceeding, that after a cau- tious observation of six weeks, he wrote to Congress that " he should do injustice were he longer silent with regard to the merits of Baron Steuben " He accordingly requested a confirma tion of his appointment as Inspector, with the rank of Major General; to which Congress, on the fifth of May, promptly responded. By a happy coincidence, it was just the season of the arrival of the news in America of the completion of the French alliance, which Steuben had left in Europe in an immature condition. It was hailed in the camp with the utmost rejoicing. Feasts, toasts, and songs were general, and the Baron celebrated a day of jubilee, at the request of Washington, with one of his grand manoeuvres of the entire army, led on this occasion by Lord Stirling and General Lafayette. The affair was crowned by a dinner given by Washington, who, as a first course, presented to the Baron his com- mission, just received from Congress, of major general and inspector general of the army. Another month brought the evacua- tion by the British of the city of Philadelphia, when the camp at Valley Forge was broken up, and the army followed the retreating enemy, who were making their way, led by Clinton, through New Jersey to the city of New York. A council of war was held by Washington, on the 24th of June, near Princeton, at which Steuben assisted, giving his voice, in opposition to the. remonstrances of Lee, in favor of risk 3(18 FREDERICK WILLIAM TON STEUBEN. inlweflfSr*! The COmma,lder-l I* the march which ensued through Stevenwa~forZ; "^ '—■ "^ * ^ ^^""^ at ^ on an impor- ant reconnoitering service, to ascertain the route of the enemy, which he faith- tully accomplished. On the twenty- seventh he reported, from actual obser- vation on the spot, the encampment of the enemy in the neighborhood of Monmouth Courthouse. In the battle of the following day, he commanded on the left wing of the first line, and White Plains, Steuben was, for the time, intrusted by Washington with the command of a division of the army—a taste of authority which he was ill inclined to relinquish when the special service was at an end. However well disposed the commander-in-chief might have been to continue him in the line, it would have been impossible to over- come the protests of the American offi- rendercd good service, while the gene- cers, who, waiting the slow process of ral efficiency of the troops, in the skill promotion, stood upon their dignity with which their dispositions were and rights in such matters. The Baron made, proved the excellence of his I was bent upon having his way, and tactics at Valley Foige. I even talked of resignation, but wisely In the subsequent court-martial of I contented himself with urging upon General Charles Lee, for his apparently Congress at Philadelphia, whither he extraordinary conduct in the retreat at the beginning of the day, and his dis- respeett'ul letter to Washington, the testimony given by Steuben was dis- tasteful to the eccentric major general, who passed some reflections on the Baron in his defence. The old soldier had no disposition to endure Lee's "Epigrams," and sent him on the in- stant a most stringent challenge, by the now proceeded, his plan of the inspector- ship. There was a M. Neuville, a French officer, who set up claims to this service, in consequence of an old appointment under Gates, which, to avoid the evils of a divided authority, he was now com- pelled to relinquish in favor of Steu- ben. The plan of inspection itself was not so readily adjusted; but after a delay of some months, it was finally hands of his secretary, Walker. As settled upon in February, 1779. Steu- Lee had spoken of him as " a distant ben passed that winter in Philadelphia, spectator" of the recent engagement, engaged in the preparation of his prac- Steuben couched his message with tical manual of military drill and tac- retaliatory emphasis—"you will choose tics, entitled "Eegulations for the Order the place, time, and arms; but as I do and Discipline of the Troops of the not like to be a distant or slow spec- United States." He was assisted in its tator, I desire to see you as near and as composition by his secretaries, Walker soon as possible." Lee, who had no and Duponceau, Captain de l'Enfant stomach for such close quarters with and Colonel Fleury, one of his sub-' the infuriated Baron, expostulated inspectors at Valley Forge. The work against any ill intention in his remarks, I embracing the service of infantry in the and the affair ended. | field, was sent to Washington in niaou FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 309 script, and met with his general ap- proval Congress adopted the book, and ordered it to be printed— a matter of no little difficulty and delay, in the slow progress of which the Baron's temper was tried to the uttermost. Pandarus' cake, in Shakspeare, " He that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding," and the rest, was nothing to it. From the very beginning it was vexation. "Seldom," says his biogra- pher, " was a work composed in such a manner as this. Every chapter was first roughly written in German, then translated into bad French, then put in good French by Fleury, translated again into bad English by Duponceau, afterwards written in good English by Captain Walker; and when all this was completed, Steuben did not under- stand a word of it himself, from his ignorance of the English language." The plates presenting the manual exer- cise and plans of manoeuvres, tested the imperfect resources of the arts in Phila- delphia. There was only one copper- plate printer who could be trusted with them, and a single bookbinder was em- ployed to get the whole in covers. The splendid presentation copies, ordered by the author for General Washington and the French minister, could not be finished, for there was not a book of gold leaf to be found in the city where- with to decorate them. The reception of the little volume made some amends for all this vexation. It did good ser- vice during the war, and was retained in use, as a popular manual, long after the war was ended. Steuben passed the two following years in the discharge of his duties as inspector in the various camps of the soldiery, and in the general revision and improvement of the service. He worked hard, as usual, in the actual in- spection of the troops, endearing him- self to the men, as well by his exactions of duty, as his good-natured solicitude for their welfare. At times he winced a little under the general penury of the service, but he had his gala days when his reforms were adopted by Congress, or on such holiday occasions as the re- ception of the French ambassador, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, at headquar- ters at Morristown, when he became the hero of the day, with the parade of his battalions. It was a duty of a less pleasing character, when he was called upon to sit as a member of the board of general officers for the trial of Major Andre. In common with every ingenuous mind, he deplored the fatal necessity which brought that ill- fated person to execution; while for the traitor Arnold he had the most un- qualified contempt. An anecdote of this repugnance is among the happiest stories of the Baron's career. One day when the treason was fresh in his mind, he heard the name Jonathan Arnold at roll-call. Summoning the individual from the ranks, he scanned him from head to foot with satisfaction, and in- vited him, after parade, to his tent. On the arrival of his visitor, he told him in his rough, humorous way, that he was altogether too fine a fellow to bear such an odious name, and advised him to change it. " For what ?" was the reply. "Any you please; take mine, if you can do no better." The suggestion was received as it waa 310 FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN meant, and Jonathan Arnold was henceforth on the roll, Jonathan Steu- ben. After the war, he had the change legalized by an act of the Legislature. Nor was this all. He married and named his first born son after General Steuben, who by that time was in the enjoyment of his Revolutionary estate. The interesting event was, of course, duly communicated to the Baron, who promised the child a farm when he should come of age. Before that period was reached, the Baron was no more; but his heir, Colonel Walker, recognized the obligation, gave a deed of the land, and the beneficiary ended his days in service as a soldier in the war of 1812. General Steuben continued to be employed in his supervision of the army, and was much in consultation with the commander-in-chief regarding its various arrangements, up to the time of the important detachment of General Greene to the South. He was then sent by Washington as a useful addition to the army in that quarter. The relation was an agreeable one to Steuben, who was on terms of intimacy with Greene, and the two proceeded together, with then aids, to the new scene of their duties. Regarding Vir- ginia as the base of his operations in the more southern States, General Greene left Steuben at Richmond, charged with the duty of collecting and forwarding men and munitions for his campaign. The General applied himself to the work with his accus- tomed energy, but with a success hardly equal to his exertions. There were difficulties in his way in the lack of method and preparation in the State. He was anxious to accomplish his work • and join his friend in South Carolina, when the invasion of the country by Arnold detained him on the spot. Nor were his efforts to resist the progress of the traitor more successful. He had but a handful of men to oppose the expedition, and was compelled to hover round the scene while Arnold ravaged and devastated at will in his ascent of James River. The reports of Steuben to Greene and Washington— the Baron knew the value of the pen, and always left behind him memorials for history—present a minute account of these movements, which he was barely able to watch, without the power to resist. The entire force, at the outset, in those early days of Janu- ary—all that he could assemble for the defence of Richmond—did not exceed one hundred and fifty men. These he marched and countermarched in the neighborhood, while the militia gathered from the interior. Arnold, in the meantime, dropped down the river, and established himself at Ports- mouth. It was Steuben's constant effort to call out, in the most efficient manner, the military resources of the State, as well for the aid of General Greene as for its internal defence. In the course of these exertions, he met with difficul ties which sometimes roused his easily excited temper. Then he would stretch his authority at the risk of conflict with the Government and people. An inci- dent of this nature is related of his treatment of a colonel in the militia, who brought him an under-sized youth FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 311 as a substitute, when he was recruiting for General Greene. The Baron was indignant, on his discovery of the boy's tender years and inexperience. " Sir," said he to the colonel, " you must have supposed me to be a rascal." The im- putation being denied, " Then, sir," said he, " I suppose you to be a rascal, an infamous rascal, thus to attempt to cheat your country. Take off this fel- low's spurs, place him in the ranks, and tell General Greene from me, Colonel Gaskins, that I have sent him a man able to serve, instead of an infant whom he would basely have made his substitute! Go, my boy, take the colonel's spurs and his horse to his wife; make my compliments, and say her husband has gone to fight for the freedom of his country, as an honest man should do. By platoons !—to the right, wheel!—forward—march!" The man, we are told, was suffered to escape, and made his complaint to the authorities, but this rough humor had its effect in raising the standard of en- listments. Various detachments were raised and sent off to Greene, but the work proceeded with difficulty. In the meantime, a new actor ap- peared upon the scene in General La- fayette, sent by General Washington with a detachment from the army to operate against Arnold, whom Steuben was planning to capture in Portsmouth, with the expected aid of the French fleet. It so happened, however, that instead of the French, a British squad- ron arrived in the harbor, and Arnold was released from the web drawing around him. A few days after, towards the end of March, General Phillips arrived at Portsmouth with a detach- ment of British troops from New York, and joining his forces with those of Arnold, whom he superseded in the command, took the aggressive in a second incursion along James River Petersburg was the object of attack, but it was not reached by the enemy with- out a serious encounter this time with the militia commanded by Steuben. Cornwallis was, meanwhile, making his way through North Carolina, and a junction of his forces with those of Phil- lips was expected. To meet this con- tingency, Lafayette was again ordered into the field. His presence relieved Steuben of the chief command in Vir- ginia. On the twentieth of May, Corn- wallis reached Petersburg. Steuben, who still continued his re- cruiting, was now bent on joining Greene at the South, and had the lat- ter's consent to the movement. By the end of May he was at the Point of Fork, at the junction of'the Rivanna and Fluvanna, collecting his men with this intention. An incursion of Corn- wallis, however, provided other work for him on the spot. Anticipating the attack, he retired with some haste be- fore the first advances of the enemy, led by Colonel Simcoe, saving a portion of the military stores from capture, and abandoning the remainder. He then passed to Charlotte, rousing the militia of the southern portion of the State, still in uncertainty as to his junction with General Greene, when he was pre- sently ordered to join his forces with those of Lafayette. Cornwallis then retired to the seaboard, and not long after took up his last position at York- 312 FREDERICK WILLIAM VOX STEUBEN. town. His army was invested by the French and American forces in October. The British in Virginia were at last in the toils. Steuben hailed the coming event with prophetic enthusiasm. Writing to General Greene on the 19th of September, a fortnight before the siege commenced, he says : "Everything is preparing for our grand enterprise, and, as far as we have gone, fortune seems to have seconded all our endea- vors. Cornwallis is fortifying himself like a brave general who must fall; but I think he will fall with honor. This, my dear general, is the decisive mo- ment—the happiest time I have spent in America." Washington responded to his call for a command, by assigning him a division. His foreign experience now served him in the novel American operations of the siege.. The first parallel was opened by General Lincoln, on the night of the sixth of October; the second on the night of the eleventh, by the division of Steuben. It was during his guard, that the capitulation was made by Cornwallis. After this, Steuben was variously employed in his duties as Inspector General, to the end of the war, harassed, it is melancholy to read, on his various journeyTs, by absolute pecuniary need. It is the old story of the inefficiency of Congress or of the States, which that body imperfectly represented, in pro- viding for the public welfare. The deficiency pressed heavily upon Steu- ben, from the necessities of his constant journeys. His liberal disposition, too, made generosity indispensable to his welfare. He was compelled to plead his own cause, and state his own claims, fortified by the renewed com- mendations of Washington, in an ear- nest letter to Congress, which drew from that body a resolution to supply his wants. We shall see how he was subsequently rewarded. The war being brought to a close, he was chosen by Washington for one of its last services, being sent on a mission to Canada, to General Haldiman, to demand the de- livery of the frontier posts of the territory ceded to the United States, and take other measures connected with their occupation. The smTender was not conceded at the time, nor till long after, when the matter had become a theme of frequent remonstrance. Returning to head-quarters, he was charged with the disbanding of the posts at Philadelphia, and was. with Washington in November at his entiy into the city of New York, as it was evacuated by the British. The last letter which Washington wrote in his official capacity as commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, was addressed, the morning of his sur- render of his authority to Congress, at Annapolis, to General Steuben. It affectionately began, " My dear Baron," and renewed in the most emphatic terms all the many previous commen- dations of his services. " I wish," was its language, " to make use of this last moment of my public life, to signify, in the strongest terms, my entire appro- bation of your conduct, and to express my sense of the obligations the public is under to you, for your faithful and meritorious services." This remarkable act of justice and kindness was apjjre- FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. 313 ciated by the warm-hearted Baron, who offered this simple tribute in return: " A stranger to the language and cus- toms of the country, I had nothing to offer in my favor, but a little expe- rience and a great good will to serve the United States. If my endeavors have succeeded, I owe it to your Excel- lency's protection, and it is a sufficient reward for me to know that I have been useful in your Excellency's opera- tions, which always tended to the good of the country. After having studied the principles of the military art under Frederick the Great, and put them in practice under Washington, after hav- ing deposited my sword under the same trophies of victory with you, and finally, after having received this last public testimony of your esteem, there remains nothing for me to de- sire" He tendered his own resignation to Congress the spring of the following year, 1784, and was complimented, at the time of its acceptance, by a resolu- tion, voting him a gold-hilted sword in honor of his military merits. A more profitable reward for his many services remained yet to be accomplished, and with other acts of gratitude due our Revolutionary patriots, was long de- ferred. Steuben had to fight another seven years' war, more wearisome to an energetic old soldier than any struggle in the tented field. It is not an agree- able recital, the story of this brave, toil- some old soldier, who had conferred the most distinguished benefits upon the country, being compelled, year after year, to renew his claims upon the unwilling attentiou of the imbecile government 40 of the old Confederation. People, see- ing the old Belisarius cap in hand, in poverty and supplication, began to doubt of his claims at all. The stipu lations he had made on entering the service had not been submitted in writing—it was an honorable under- standing, and had to be proved by the memories of the original committee who had conferred with him. It was not till the new government was in- augurated that the matter was finally adjusted, after an admirable report of Alexander Hamilton, as Secretaiy of the Treasury, by a resolution, falling short even then of Hamilton's recom- mendations, conferring a life annuity of two thousand five hundred dollars, "in full discharge of all claims and demands whatever, of the said Frede- rick William de Steuben against the United States." This act was ap- proved by George Washington, Presi- dent, June 4th, 1790. The several States were less dilatory in their pro- ceedings. Pennsylvania, in 1783, gave Steuben a grant of two thousand acres of land in Westmoreland County; Virgi- nia presented him with fifteen thousand acres in what was then her territory, within the present limits of Ohio; New Jersey offered him a confiscated estate, which he generously declined in favor of its royalist owner; New York gave him the munificent grant of a quarter of a township, sixteen thousand acres, near the present city of Utica—a loca- tion which became, part of the year, his home, and in which he ended hi3 dayrs. All these grants were made before the action of Congress, which happily supplied what was then neces- 3J4 FREDERICK WILLIAM YON STEUBEN. sary to enjoy any one of them, a regu- lar income. The last years of Steuben—he sur- vived the war eleven years—were mostly passed in the city of New York, where the excellent old Revolutionary society gave him a cordial welcome. He was emphatically a personage, a privileged character in " old New York." To be a citizen of high stand- ing was then, of itself, a distinction in the city, but eveiybody knew Baron Steuben. The very mob made way for him to pass, and cheered him at the great doctor's riot, when he was acci- dentally wounded in the head by a stone. He was the president of the German Society, and president of the New York State Society of the Cin- cinnati—an institution to which his foreign ideas and social tastes naturally attracted him. When Washington was inaugurated, Steuben graced the ceremonial by his presence. We read of his residence, soon after the war, in the suburbs of the city, in a country house in the present Jones' Wood, which he called the "Louvre," where he received his old secretaries and friends, if not with wealthy entertain- ments, which were not in his power, certainly with the unbounded hospi- tality of his own hearty nature. He next moved into the city, and migrated from one residence to another—he was unmarried, and could readily shift his home—about some half dozen streets between Trinity and St. Paul's. His last public employment was in 1794, when the unsettled relations with England seemed to render war with that country again a possibility. He was then employed by the State of New York as one of a body of com- missioners to erect fortifications and provide defences about the city of New York, and the northern and western State frontiers. As an intimation of the spirit of the times on the border, it may be mentioned that he was in danger of being captured by the Cana- dian Indians while on his tour" of observation. It was his last journey. He remained during the autumn at his lands in Oneida County, where he meditated erecting a suitable mansion, his home, meanwhile, being a simple frame house, of only two rooms, with a log-house adjoining. He was in good health, and hearty as usual, when he retired the night of the 25th of Novem- ber of this year, 1794, to be struck, before morning, by a paralysis. He remained speechless for three days, expiring on the 28th, at the age of sixty-four. He was buried on a hill- side on his own grounds, near his residence, a spot which he had once pointed out as suitable for a burial place. GILBERT-MOTIER The family of the Marquis de Lafay- ette carries its ancestry far back into the old nobility of France. It boasts a Marshal of the early part of the fifteenth century, who distinguished himself in defence of his country in the war carried on against it by England. In the seven- teenth, it claims that eminent literary personage, Madame de Lafayette, the novelist and memoir writer, the friend of Madame de Sevigne\ and the ad- mired of the Parisian salons, when they were frequented by such celebrities as Lafontaine and Menage. The Marquis de Lafayette, the father of ou~ Ameri- can hero, was a gallant young officer of the armies of Louis XV. He was engaged in the Seven Years1 War waged on the continent between Frede- rick the Great and united France and Austria, and fell, a colonel of the grena- diers, at the battle of Minden, at the age of twenty-four, -a few months be- fore the birth of his illustrious son. That son, Gilbert-Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, was born at Chavaniac, in the ancient province of Auvergne, in the present department of the Haute Loire, in the south of France, Sep- tember 6, 1757. He was brought up by " tender and revered relations," in Auvergne, and at the age of twelve was sent to Paris to the College du DE LAFAYETTE Plessis. His mother and her fathei died immediately after, leaving the youth heir to an immense estate. Proof against its temptations, and the lax society of the metropolis, he was pre- served from surrounding corruptions by his ingenuous disposition, turning a lively temperament to the love of liberty and the family affections. A mere schoolboy, by royal favor he had received a commission in a regiment of musketeers, when he began life, at six teen, by marriage with the daughter of the Duke d'Ayen, of the family of No ailles. The lady was two years younger than himself—a hazardous alliance, under ordinary circumstances, but in this case approved by something more than the usual advantages of a match of policy. The young couple lived to share one another's honors, and strengthen one another in trials of great severity. A place at court was the natural po- sition at that day in France for a young nobleman of Lafayette's station and in- fluence. He was accordingly put for- ward by his new connections for an honorary post in the household of the Count de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII.; but the young man, who seems afready, even from his school-days, to have been agitated by 815 131(1 GILBERT-MOTIER I»E LAFAYETTE. a love of liberty and independence, showed no inclination to the service. The method which he took to relieve himself of its honorable burden was characteristic of the times. Meeting the count at a masquerade, and readily detecting his disguise, he availed him- self of the opportunity to pour into the ear of the prince, under that convenient license, views and opinions which he knew to be unpalatable at court. His stratagem was not thrown away; the count took offence, and, it is said, never forgave the slight. Nothing more, of course, was heard of the situation at court. The next incident in the career of Lafayette, was his seizure by a passion to participate in the struggle for American liberty on this side of the Atlantic, which then, in its early movements, began to attract attention in Europe. Oddly enough, he was in- debted for his first decided impulse in this direction to a brother of the King of England. It was in the summer of 1776, at a dinner at Metz, where La- fayette was stationed as an officer in the French army, that he met the Duke of Gloucester, in whose honor the enter- tainment was given. The royal duke had just received dispatches from Eng- land, announcing the progress of affairs in America. As he detailed the cir- cumstances of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and other incidents, the young officer was caught by the sound, and, pursuing his inquiries, before he left the table began to think of going to America and offering his services in the cause. The idea still clinging to him, he went to Paris full of the reso- lution. It was a project not to be talked of in public, in the existing re- lations between England and France ; nor could he expect to carry it on with- out opposition from his family. As a hint to others, as well as an encourage- ment to himself, he tells us, in a frag- ment of autobiography, he adopted, as a device on his arms, the suggestive monosyllables, Cur non f— Why not t Two of his young friends and relatives, whom he admitted into his confidence, the Count S6gur and Viscount de Noail- les, gave the scheme their approval, but refused to join in it for family consider- ations. The Count de Broglie, a mar- shal in the army, a more mature adviser, at first endeavored to check his ardor, and then gave his acquiescence. He introduced him to Baron de Kalb, who had already visited America, by whom he was carried to the American commis- sioner, Silas Deane. The latter perceived the moral effect of the acquisition to the cause of a brilliant young nobleman, in cheering the spirits of his country- men at home, and leading others to imitate his example abroad; he gave his encouragement, and it was arranged that Lafayette—his family, fortune, and influence, compensating for his extreme youth—should receive from Congress, on his arrival in America, the rank of Major General. Aid was already being secretly sent to the insurgents, as they were called, and Lafayette was to sail in the vessel employed in the service. At this moment the news of the battle of Long Island, and its disastrous sequel of events, came to hand to dash all hopes and interrupt the expected succors. Lafayette, however, was not GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 317 to be tinned from his project. The more need, thought he, so much the more honor. He resolved to purchase a ship at his own expense, and proceed in it, with his companions and supplies, to America. Even the prudence of Franklin could offer nothing in resist- ance to a proposition of this generous character. The measures of Lafayette were accordingly taken to procure the requisite vessel at Bordeaux. In the meantime, to obviate suspicion, and ful- fil an engagement with his friend, the Prince de Poix, he made a brief tour of three weeks to London, where his uncle, the Marquis de Noailles, held the post of French ambassador. The journey was made with no reference to obtaining information of the English plans or resources in their war with the colonies; on the contrary, the chivalrous Lafayette declined to take advantage of opportunities of the kind which lay in his way. He made no secret of his liberal views, and rejoiced at the news of the success at Trenton, and had the honor of an invitation to breakfast, in recognition of his opinions, from Lord Shelburne, a distinguished member of the opposition. He returned hurriedly to the French capital, con- cealed himself at Chaillot, saw only a few friends, and, in a few days, set out for Bordeaux, where he found his ves- sel not quite ready. The court, mean- while, as he became aware, had learnt of his intended departure, and fearing interruption, he sailed to the neighbor- ing Spanish port of Passage. The whole court, the English minister and his family, were loud in their outcries at this discovery. He was recalled by a lettre de cachet from the king, and ac companied the officers to Bordeaux. His family was urgent that he should join them in a tour to Italy. Seeming to consent to this arrangement, he de- clared his intention to proceed to Mar seilles, and was suffered to depart. He had scarcely left the city, however, when he disguised himself as a courier, and hastened, with his companion, an officer named Mauroy, also bent on an American campaign, towards the Span- ish frontier. At Bayonne, Lafayette, to preserve his concealment, rested on straw in a stable. At St. Jean de Luz, a little village on their course, he was recognized by a young girl, the daughter of the keeper of the post- house. A timely sign from him in- duced her to keep silence, and, by her false information, perplex his pursuers in the chase. He reached Passage, and in company with Baron de Kalb, and other officers for the service, was borne safely to sea. The papers of the vessel were taken out for the West Indies, and her cap- tain had some reluctance, on approach- ing the American coast, to turn from his course. Lafayette insisted on his landing him on the mainland by urging his ownership of the vessel, and finally, on learning the secret of the captain's reluctance, in his hesitation to risk an important venture of his own on board, pledged his private fortune to make all losses good. The ship was then steered for the coast of South Carolina, w here, running the gauntlet of the British cruisers, a landing was happily effected at the harbor of Georgetown. Ascend- ing the river in a boat, Lafayette, with 31S GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. some of his officers, alighted in the night near the residence of Major Ben- jamin Huger, where, upon making themselves known, they were received w?th warm-hearted hospitality. Dur- ing the voyage, Lafayette had penned an affectionate epistle to his wife, whom he had left about, a second time, to become a mother; he now added to it a postscript, announcing his arrival, which was just in time to send a mes- sage home by a vessel leaving for France. His epistle is dated June 15, 1777, and records his first impressions. " The manners," says he, " in this part of the world are simple, polite, and worthy in every respect of the country in which the noble name of liberty is constantly repeated." A few days later, at Charleston, in another letter, he repeats his satisfaction with the equality, kindness, love of countiy, which everywhere prevad. All is charming to his eyes. The absence of poverty, the neatness and ease of man- ners of the ladies particularly strike him. It is a political Arcadia, with which the Parisians, in those days, were delighted, but which they found it veiy difficult to imitate. Shortly after, the party left Charleston for the North, travelling on horseback, through North Carolina and Virginia. Arrived at the seat of government, at Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session, Lafayette placed his letters in the hands of Mr. Lovell, of Massa- chusetts, Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Upon waiting on that gentleman the next day, he was informed that such was the crowd of foreign applicants for employment in the army, and such the state of the national finances, that there was little hope of his request being regarded. Upon this, not at all disconcerted, he sat down and addressed a note to Con- gress, in which he claimed the right, after the sacrifices he had made, to serve on two very simple conditions— to be at his own expense, and to engage first as a volunteer. This direct as well as reasonable petition caused immediate attention to his letters. They were read at once, and, on the instant, the following resolution was passed: "Whereas, the Marquis de Lafayette, out of his great zeal to the cause of liberty, in which the United States are engaged, has left his family and con nections, and at his own expense come over to offer his services to the United States, without pension or particular allowance, and is anxious to risk hia life in our cause; resolved, that his ser- vice be accepted, and that, in consider ation of his zeal, his illustrious family and connections, he have the rank of Major General in the army of the United States." This resolution, conferring this high rank on a youth of nine- teen, was adopted July 31, 1777. Washington being expected shortly in the city from the camp, Lafayette awaited his arrival. Their first meet- ing was at a dinner-party, at the close of which Washington, who was favor- ably impressed at the outset with the new guest of the nation, took him aside, complimented him on the ardor he had shown and the sacrifices he had made, and ended by inviting him to make the headquarters of the army his home, and consider himself a member of his family. It was the beginning of a life-long intimacy, a friendship which Washington bequeathed to the Dation. ' If there lived a man," said Edward Everett, in his eulogy of the illustrious Frenchman, " whom Wash- ington loved, it was Lafayette. The proofs of this are not wanting by those who have read the history of the Revo- lution; but the prviate correspondence of these two great men discloses the full extent of the mutual regard and affection which united them. It not only shows that Washington enter- tained the highest opinion of the mili- tary talent, the personal probity, and the general prudence and energy of Lafayette, but that he regarded him with the tenderness of a father; and found in the affection which Lafayette bore to him, in return, one of the greatest comforts and blessings of his own life." " It is a picture," says Washington Irving, " well worthy to be hung up in history—this cordial and enduring alliance of the calm, dig- nified, sedate Washington, mature in years and wisdom, and the young, buoyant, enthusiastic Lafayette."1 In a review of the troops, which took place not long after, at which LafayTette was present, Washington remarked, " We must feel embarrassed to exhibit ourselves before an officer who has just quitted French troops." " It is to learn, and not to teach, that I come hither," was the modest reply. Lafayette was with the army as a volunteer, till the month of September, when he took part in the battle "of Brandywine. He 1 Irving's Washington, III. 146. was in the thickest perils of that en- gagement, in the centre of the com- mand of General Sullivan, which was exposed to the fiercest onset of 'Corn- wallis. Seeing the ranks broken, he dismounted from his horse, and sought to rally the flying troops. While thus engaged, a musket ball passed through his leg, happily without touching the bone. In his excitement, he did not perceive the wound, till his aid called his attention to the blood running from his boot. He then mounted his horse; his wound was bandaged by a surgeon, and he rode to Chester, where he was cared for, and the next day taken to Philadelphia. Thence he passed to Bristol, where he was met by Mr. Henry Laurens, who, happening to go through the place on the adjournment of Con- gress, conveyed him in his carriage to the happy settlement of the Moravians, at Bethlehem, at whose quiet retreat he passed two months, waiting for the healing of his wound. The peacefid influences at Bethlehem, however, did not turn his attention from the thoughts of war. He, on the contrary, employed his leisure in send- ing communications to the French go- vernor at Martinique, urging an attack upon the British islands, under Ameri- can colors, and wrote, beside, to M. de Maurepas, advising an attack on the English factories of the East Indies. The old minister thought the latter a good project, though he declined it as inexpedient. The young soldier, chafing in his con. finement, had but imperfectly recovered from his wound, when he joined the camp, and accompanied General Greene, 320 GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. as a volunteer, into New Jersey. Though gifted with the title of Major General, he, as yet, had no separate command. He was, however, eager for the fight, and with juvenile impetu- osity, sought every opportunity for ac- tion. This was shown in a spirited affair which he conducted while lead- ing a reconnoitering party of Greene's troops in November, to the neighbor- hood of the Delaware, where he was in danger of being cut off; he escaped, however, and had a very pretty conflict with a strong Hessian outpost of the enemy, which he alighted upon, in- flicting serious loss, and taking some twenty prisoners. His exhilaration in this encounter is indicated in his letter to Washington describing the engage- ment " I never saw men," he wrote, " so merry, so spirited, and so desirous to go on to the enemy, whatever force they might have, as that small party in this little fight." General Greene wrote to Washington, " The Marquis is deter- mined to be in the way of danger." In communicating the intelligence to Congress, Washington urged some pro- vision for the military employment of his friend. " I am convinced," he wrote, "he possesses a large share of that military ardor which generally char- acterizes the nobility of his country." Congress upon this seconded the recom- mendation, and he was accordingly given the command of the division, mostly of Virginians, vacated by the removal of General Stephens. The winter quarters of the army that year were at Valley Forge, and there Lafayette shared the councils, and par- took of the anxieties of Washington. He has left us a piteous account of the condition of the unfurnished troops in that inclement season, of their need and their sufferings, and has told us how "he adopted in every respect tlu American dress, habits, and food, wish ing to be more simple, frugal and austere than the Americans them- selves." It was the period, too, of those machinations in Congress, grow ing out of disaffection to Washington, which threatened at the moment greatly to impair the efficiency of the army Gates, flushed with his victory at Sara- toga, was set up at the head of the newly constituted Board of War, and it became the fashion with a certain class to praise him at the expense of the commander-in-chief. In the course of this intrigue, it was attempted to embroil Lafayette, by diverting him from Washington, to the separate com- mand of an expedition, planned in Con- gress, against Canada. The scheme was concocted by Gates and his friends, without consulting the commander-in- chief, who did not hear of it till Lafay- ette was informed of his appointment. A formal letter, asking his advice, was then sent to Washington, who wished the affair success, and encouraged Lafay ette, of whose fidelity he was assured, to undertake it. The conspirators had caught a Tartar in the French marquis, whom they had fancied a showy head for the expedition, with the real au- thority in the hands of their tool, Conway, who was to be second in com mand. A little incident, which oc curred on Lafayette^ arrival at then camp, must have gone far to convince them of this. The scene is thus hap GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 321 pily presented by Lwing: " The General, on his appointment, proceeded to York, where Gates already had his little court of schemers and hangers-on. Lafayette found him at table, presiding with great hilarity, for he was social in his habits, and in the flush of recent suc- cess. The young marquis had a cordial welcome to his board, which, in its buoyant conviviality, contrasted with the sober decencies of the commander- in-chief, in his dreaiy encampment at Valley Forge. Gates, in his excite- ment, was profuse of promises. Every- thing was to be smooth and eas^ for Lafayette. He was to have at least two thousand five hundred fighting men under him. Stark—the veteran Stark —was ready to cooperate with a body of Green Mountain boys. 'Indeed,' cried Gates, chuckling, l General Stark will have burnt the fleet before your arrival.' It was near the end of the repast. The wine had circulated freely, and toasts had been given, according to the custom of the day. The marquis thought it time to show his flag. < One toast,' he observed, ' had been omitted, which he would now propose.' Glasses were filled, and he gave, 'The Com- mander-in-Chief of the American Ar- mies.' The toast was received without cheering."' In addition to this, Lafayette was a good strategist enough to appoint his friend, Baron de Kalb, to the expedi- tion, whose commission, being of an older date, superseded Conway in his command. Having arranged this and other stipulations, the Marquis set out 1 living's Washington, III. 352. 41 on his wintry journey, in February, to the rendezvous at Albany. The pros- pect was not very cheering, if we may judge from his letter, written on the way, to Washington. " I go on slowly," he says, "sometimes drenched with rain, sometimes covered with snow, and not entertaining many handsome thoughts about the projected incursion into Canada. Lake Champlain is too cold to produce one sprig of laurel; and, if I am not starved, I shall be as proud as if I had gained three battles." The prospect was not at all improved at Albany. Men and equipments were alike wanting. In fact, the whole en- terprise, greatly to the mortification of the Marquis, was abandoned. He ex- pressed his fears of the ridicule which might attach to such a fruitless under- taking, frankly to Washington, but the latter chose to see in it at least an hon- orable appointment, and consoled his anxious young friend accordingly. The Marquis returned with De Kalb to Val- ley Forge, where, in the month of May, they had the satisfaction of finding their "winter of discontent" turned into " glorious summer " by the news of the French alliance, which was celebrated at the camp with unusual fervor, in consequence of the presence of Lafay- ette. A few days after this festivity, the Marquis was sent forward with a con- siderable detachment of the army to a position midway between the camp and the British at Philadelphia. He was thus stationed at Barren Hill, on the Schuylkill, when Clinton planned an expedition, in three divisions, to sur- round and capture him; and the plan 322 GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. at one moment premised to be success- ful, when Lafayette, by an adroit move- ment, relieved his force from its perils by a masterly retreat. The British withdrew from Philadelphia not long after, and were intercepted on the march to New York by the battle of Monmouth. The command of the ad- vance, in the movements preceding this engagement, was, on Lee's declining it, given to Lafayette, who yielded it again when that eccentric officer re- pented of his indecision and claimed it. When the armies were brought to- gether, Lafayette bore his part in the affairs of the day in his command of the second line. The next incident of his military career was his employment in Bhode Island, under the command of General Sullivan, where he was en- gaged in important conferences with the French fleet of the Count d'Estaing, and subsequently at Boston, urging his countrymen to action, and, when the opportunity had gone by, reconciling the animosities which grew out of the neglect. At the end of the campaign, considering it to be his duty to offer his services to his country in the war which had broken out between that nation and England, he requested from Congress leave of absence to return to France, which was granted, with thanks and the compliment of decreeing him a sword for his many services. He car- ried, moreover, an extraordinary letter of recommendation addressed by Con- gress to the King of France. On his way to Boston, to sail in the frigate Alliance, he was detained by serious illness at FishkilL The deten- tion, however was alleviated by the care and visits of Washington, and early in January, 1779, he was enabled to embark. After a rousrh vov-age, aggravated by an attempt at mutiny on the part of some British prisoners shipped with the crew, the Alliance entered Brest. In France, an enthusi- astic reception awaited him. After a few days' formal expiation of his pre^ vious neglect of the royal mandates in retirement, he was everywhere received with triumph. He did not, we may be sure, neglect the interests of Ame- rica in this season of favor, but turned his influence to account in promoting her fortunes. He was mainly instru- mental in forwarding the army of Bochambeau, and so great was his eagerness in pushing his applications for men and money, that the venerable Count de Maurepas said that to clothe the army he would willingly unfurnish the Palace of Versailles. The remark had a flavor of prophecy in it unsus- pected by the old minister. The cause of America being thus strengthened by his services abroad, he returned to take part again in its conflicts, after only a few months' ab- sence. He was landed in Boston by a French frigate, in April, and became immediately engaged in adjusting the reception and employment of the new troops from his country. It was while thus occupied with Washington in a journey to meet Bochambeau, that the treason of Arnold occurred; and at the subsequent trial of Andre, Lafayette sat as one of the board of general officers which composed the court. When Ar- nold made his appearance in Virginia, Lafayette was sent to cooperate with GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 323 Steuben and the expected French fleet to check his incursion. The movement, in consequence of the non-arrival of the ships, which had been damaged in an encounter with the British, proved un- successful, but it was renewed with better resources and success on the ap- proach, from the South, of Cornwallis. On this last occasion, to fit out his troops in Maryland, Lafayette raised two thousand guineas on his own credit at Baltimore. He was this time en- abled to offer important protection to Richmond, and shortly after to take part in the movements which hemmed Cornwallis in at Yorktown—an efficient reply to the boast of the British gene- ral shortly before, in a letter to Clin- ton, " the boy cannot escape me." In the operations of the siege, Lafayette commanded the detachment of light infantry in the attack upon the re- doubt, in which Colonel Hamilton so gallantly led the advance. The active operations of the war being now virtually at an end, Lafay- ette, a second time, requested leave of absence, to visit his family in Europe. Congress acceded to his wish, with even more than the previous compli- ments, enjoining the Secretary of State to direct the foreign ministers of the country on the continent of Europe, to confer with him in reference to their movements. His majesty, Louis XVI., was so pleased with his ■ participation in the Virginia campaign, that he raised him to the rank of field-marshal in the French service. On this visit to France he was again active in promoting the interests of America, and was speeding on the equipment of a huge fleet, to be commanded byT the Count d'Estaing carrying a land force, of which he was to take the command, being already at the rendezvous, at Cadiz, when a gene- ral treaty of peace was signed at Paris. The first news of this event was for warded to Congress by General Lafay ette himself, in a letter dated Cadiz February 5, 1783. "I am not without hopes," he wrote, when the French admiral had, at his request, assigned a vessel, The Triumph, to carry the mes- sage, " of giving Congress the first tid- ings of a general peace; and I am happy in the smallest opportunity of doing anything that may prove agree- able to America." He would have brought the news in person, had he not been called to Madrid to render an important service to the American minister at that capital.* The next year, 1784, he came to America for the third time, landing at New York, on the fourth of August. His arrival had been looked for, and Washington, in the spring, had written to him, urging him to bring Madame Lafayette with him. Indeed, the warm- est gallantry of Washington's heart was poured forth in an epistle to the lady herself. "You have youth," he wrote, " and must have a curiosity tc see the country, young, rude, and un cultivated as it is, for the liberties of which your husband has fought, bled, and acquired much glory; where every- body admires, everybody loves him Come, then, let me entreat you, and call my cottage your home; for your own doors do not open to you with 1 Mr. Everett's Eulogy. Orations, I 481 u'L'l GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. more readiiu-ss than mine would. You will see the plain manner in wThich we live, and meet with rustic civility; and you shall taste the simplicity of rural life. It will diversify the scene, and may give you a higher relish for the gaieties of the court when you return to Versailles." Lafayette, notwith- standing this pressing invitation, came alone. But he hastened, immediately upon his arrival, to Mount Vernon, where he enjoyed twelve days of such welcome as it is rarely the lot of man to receive, at the end of which a bril- liant public reception at Baltimore awaited him. Thence his journey was continued to New York, and by the Hudson River to Albany, whence he accompanied the commissioners about to execute a treaty with the Mohawks and Senecas at Fort Schuyler. He was a .favorite with the Indians of western New York, whom he had addressed in council in 1778, when he was engaged in the ill-planned expedi- tion of Gates to Canada. They had a certain sympathy with him, as a repre- sentative of the old French race to which they had been allied. From New York Lafayette journeyed through the New England States, em- barking at Boston, in the French fri- gate Nymphe, for the Chesapeake. He was landed at Yorktown, and visited Williamsburg and Richmond, where the legislature, then richly composed of the elder worthies of the State, gave him a public reception. Washington, also, was there to meet him, and the two friends journeyed together to Mount Vernon. After a week's rest at this hospitable mansion, he was accom- panied by Washington to Annapolis, where these eminent men, who enter' tained so strong a regard for one ano- ther, parted, never to meet again. At Trenton, Lafayette was welcomed by the American Congress, and, after the example of Washington, surrendered his commission to the President of that body. Proceeding thence to New York, he sailed on Christmas day in the Nymphe for France. For the next two years he employed himself in forwarding the interests of the American Confederacy, and in philanthropic efforts connected with his own countiymen. He united with Malesherbes in an attempt to secure the civil rights of Protestants in France, protested against the slave-trade, pur- chasing a plantation in Cayenne to cany out a plan of gradual emancipa- tion, and projected a comprehensive league of the European powers to check the pirates of the Barbary states. These pursuits sufficiently indicate the bent of his mind, which was toward practical reforms in government. In the initial measures of the French Revolution he consequently became a leader. He was a member of the Assembly of Notables, convened in 1787, to provide relief for the ruined finances, when he raised his voice against the use of the lettre-de-cachet, advocated other reforms, and proposed the assembly of the States-General. That body met in 1789, when he took a prominent part in its deliberations, and, on the fall of the Bastile, when the preservation of civil oi'der fell into the hands of the Asseml ly, was created commander-in-chief of the national GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 325 guards of Paris. It is to him that France is indebted for the tricolor, as a badge of freedom. Blue and red, the old colors of the capital, had been adopted by the people as a sign of opposition to the court, when he dex- terously added to them the royal white, prophesying to the people, as he first placed the cockade in his hat, that it would be a badge to go round the world. As a token of the first fi-uits of this newly acquired freedom, he sent to Washington a memorial of the past, which still remains among the treasured relics of Mount Vernon. " Give me leave, my dear General," he wrote, on the 17th March, 1790, "to present you with a picture of the Bastile, just as it looked a few days after I had ordered its demolition, with the main key of the fortress of despot- ism. It is a tribute, which I owe as a son to my adopted father, as an aid-de- camp to my general, as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." At the same time, with a consciousness of the calm, impartial glance of the man whom he was addressing, the protector of liberty, who was not to be deceived by any of its false appearances, he qualifies somewhat his expectations of the new era. " Our Revolution," says he, "is getting on as well as it can with a nation that has attained its liberty at once, and is still liable to mistake licentiousness for freedom." To his glowing enumeration of " abuses and prejudices" destroyed, he adds a reservation in the sentence: "this revo- lution, in which nothing will be want- ing but energy of government, as it was in America." True enough, for there had been danger also at home in the absence of that consolidated sys- tem of law and order, that wisdom of the Constitution, wmich even then Washington and his companions were shaping and cementing. When that letter was written, Lafayette had still in his recollection a scene which he could never forget, a most instructive lesson of the dangers of relaxed autho- rity, the march of the populace to Versailles of the previous fifth of Octo- ber. It had been a day of riot in the city, demanding all the influence of Lafayette, in his position as com- mander of the National Guard, to check disorder. Late in the afternoon he learnt that the mob had proceeded with arms to Versailles, whither he hastened with a detachment to protect the royal family. He reached the palace at ten o'clock, and, though he offered himself as a protector, was received with suspicion. " Here comes Cromwell," was the exclamation, as he entered the court. "Cromwell," was his answer, " would not have come here alone." Desirous of stationing his guard for the night, he asked that all the avenues to the palace should be put under his care. The etiquette of the court forbade this, and he anxious- ly took such measures as he could, leaving the royal troops to provide for the safety of their charge. He did not retire to rest till five in the morn- ing, and was soon ifter summoned by word that the mob had entered the palace and sought the life of the queen. Hastening to the spot, he succeeded in protecting the royal family. The mob, meanwhile, was raging without, and 826 GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. loud in its outcries against the queen. With happy instinct, or by an admir- able knowledge of his countrymen, he proposed to her to appear with him on the balcony accompanied by the dauphin. It was but a scene in dumb show before the tumultuous crowd, but it was successful. Kissing her hand in a silent act of homage, the leader of the people recalled their old feeling of allegiance, and their vague hostility was turned into positive enthusiasm toward the object of their hatred. Cries of Long live the queen! Long live the General! arose from the mob. For that time, at least, Marie Antoi- nette was saved. The part taken by Lafayette in these early scenes of the Revolution, was eminently disinterested. He seconded the proposition in the Assembly, abolishing titles of nobility, and never after, through all the vicissitudes of government and society which he ex- perienced, bore his title of Marquis. He asked no reward for his services, and would receive none. Opposed to all unnecessary delegation of power, he provided that the command of the National Guard, his institution, which had been extended throughout the nation, should be limited to the districts. The direction of the whole would, otherwise, have been conferred upon him. It was his desire that the nation should enjoy the blessings of a Constitutional Government; for this end, he first introduced the Declaration of Rights in the States-General, and labored for the adoption of the Consti- tution. In the great act of ratification ff that instrument in the Federation of the Champ de Mars, one of the most extraordinary pageants ever enacted, next to the king, to whom he swore allegiance, he bore the most con- spicuous part. " Of all the oaths that day taken by the master-spirits of the time," remarks Everett, " his was, per- haps, the only one kept inviolate. It sealed his fidelity to the doubtful for- tunes of the monarch, and in tin onward march of the revolution, des- tined to wade through seas of blood, it raised an inseparable barrier between Lafayette and the remorseless inno- vators who soon appeared on the scene. It decided his own fortunes, and in no inconsiderable degree the fortunes of the Revolution." At war with the Jacobins, a friend to constitutional monarchy, Lafayette was exposed to misapprehension on all sides. It was not a position which could be long sustained in the rapid movement of events. The flight of the king brought out all its difficulties; the people sus- pected him for aiding it; the royal family hated him for arresting it. What wonder then, that, having no passion for power, he sought retire- ment ? Feeling that he had dischaiged his part in his labors for the constitu- tion, he resigned his command of the Guard, and sought the repose of home. Next came war with Austria, de- clared by Louis XVI. himself in April, 1792. Lafayette was appointed one of the three major generals to command on the frontier, and was advancing to the work assigned him—the invasion of Belgium—when his movements were arrested by the machinations of the Jacobins, who opposed his authority GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 327 His own course was at once taken. He denounced this faction in a letter to the Assembly, " their usurpations, dis- organizing maxims and insensate fury," and, to strengthen the impression which his remonstrance had made, appeared himself before that body. It was too late, however, for eloquence or reason to prevail. The constitution, on which he rested all his hopes, wTas a thing of the past. The army itself was no longer faithful. Revolution had swal- lowed up all sober reformation. De- nounced in the Assembly, and knowing well that life was no longer possible for him in France, he resolved on the only course left for him—to leave the country. Accordingly, a few days after the massacre at the Tuileries, of the tenth of August, he rode away from the army with half a dozen com- panions, and crossed the frontier to the enemy's outposts at Rochefort, with the intention of making his way to Holland. Frankly applying for pass- ports, and expecting at least the rights of prisoners of war, they were treated by the Austrian generals with the greatest indignity. They were asked for information which would betray their country, and even called upon to surrender the wealth which, it was supposed, they had brought with them. Nothing could be more unworthy, save the cruelty which followed. Lafayette was carried from Luxembourg to a miserable dungeon at Wesel, in the Prussian territory; thence to Magde- burg, the scene of the imprisonment of the famous Baron Trenck; thence to Neisse, in Silesia; thence to the Austrian dungeon at Olmutz, in Moravia. The brutality shown in these successive acts on the part of Prassia and Austria, is well calculated to enlist our feelings in behalf of the vigorous republicans who were des- tined to administer to them so terrific a rebuke. If magnanimity was too much to ask for, certainly common decency might have been demanded at their hands towards men who had been driven into exile by" support of the monarchy which these cruel tormentors professed to serve. The imprisonment at Olmutz, at all times exceedingly rigid, for a time was so severe as to prove injurious to the health of Lafayette. He was confined alone; the atmosphere of the place was unhealthy; he was not allowed to cross its threshold, nor was he permitted any communication with his family or friends by letter. They were not even to know of his existence. It was some time before they learnt that he was alive. By the aid of Count Lally Tolendal, a French refugee, in London, Dr. Erick Bollmann, a Hanoverian, who had ef- fected the escape of Count Narbonne from Paris, was engaged to visit the continent, to learn something of the fate of Lafayette. He could at first ascertain only that the Prussians had determined to give him up to Austria. The following summer of 1794, he was sent again, and, becoming acquainted with the fact that there were several state prisoners at Olmutz, convinced himself they could be no other than Lafayette and his companions. He contrived, through the surgeon of the post, without exciting the suspicion of 328 GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. that officer, to acquaint Lafayette with his intentions to effect his rescue. So patient was he in his efforts, that he resided six months at Vienna, with a view to carry out his project. There he met a young American, Francis K. Huger, of South Carolina, son of the Major Huger, at whose house, at George- town, Lafayette had first landed in America. A plan for rescuing the pri- soner was arranged between them. It had been ascertained that in conse- quence of his broken health, Lafayette was taken out by an officer into the country for an airing. It was while thus at large that he was to be seized and carried off on horseback before the alarm could be given. They were in hopes to conduct him to the town of Hoff, some twenty-five miles distant, where their carriage would be in wait- ing. The preparations were made with no little skill. As there would be three travellers, in case they succeeded at the outset, and but two horses, one of these was trained to carry two per- sons. The first week of November, 1794, Dr. Bollmann and Mr. Huger were at the inn at Olmutz, on the pre- tence of visiting the surgeon, to whom they represented themselves as travel- lers on their way to England. Wait- ing their opportunity when Lafayette should be taken out, they followed the carriage in which he was conveyed till it was stopped in an open plain, a few miles from the town. The prisoner then alighted, and walked arm in arm with the officer. The two friends now made their attempt at the rescue. Quickly coming up and alighting, a struggle ensued with the officer, with whom Lafayette was already engaged It ended in the deliverance of the latter, who was placed upon a horse, and di- rected by Mr. Huger to proceed to Hoff. Losing the aspirate, the General thought it was a simple injunction to be off. It was necessarily a confused affair altogether, without time for ex- planation or concert, in a region en- tirely unknown to Lafayette, who was unacquainted, except by the precon- certed signal which they had made— raising their hats and wiping their foreheads—with the persons of his de- liverers. To add to the perplexity, the horse intended for Lafayette had bro- ken from his bridle, and got away dur- ing the scuffle. So he was mounted on the animal trained to carry the other two, while they lost time in regaining their steed, and when they attempted to ride him together were both thrown off. Huger then magnanimously bade Bollmann ride on to the assistance of the General, while he made his way on foot. The little party was thus sepa- rated ; Huger to be immediately cap- tured in the neighborhood, Bollmann to proceed to Hoff, waiting in vain, till he was arrested, and Lafayette himself to wander to the frontier, an object of suspicion, till he was in a few days re- claimed by the guard of his prison. All three were then immured in Olmutz, in separate dungeons, ignorant of one another's fate. For six months Boll- mann and Huger were subjected to a most cruel imprisonment, when they obtained their release by the aid of a friendly nobleman, Count Metrowsky. The treatment of Lafayette was equally severe. Stripped of the few comforts GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE 329 which had been allowed him, he was ignominiously chained and maltreated till his health sank under the infliction. To add to his calamities the last horror of mental suffering, his few days of freedom in the outer world had brought him the sad news of the reign of terror in France. But his imagination, left to work upon that material, could not transcend the dread reality. The worst that he could fear, was equalled in the execution which had taken place of his wife's grandmother, her mother and sister, while she herself with her daughters waited the fatal day. Hap- pily the fate of Robespierre came in time for her preservation. By the aid of Washington, who was doing every- thing in his power to procure her hus- band's release, and the American minis- ter at Paris, Mr. Monroe, she was pro- vided with funds, which enabled her, accompanied by her daughters, to travel through Germany to Vienna. There she sought an interview with the Em- peror Francis II., and appealed to him by the services of her husband to the French monarchy, by the recital of the sufferings of her family, and other ten- der considerations, to grant his release. His name was yet too formidable to the court to allow this favor, but per- mission was given to the wife and daughters to share his imprisonment, with the hard condition, however, that if they once entered those walls, they were never to leave them. When her health fails her in the dungeon, and she asks for leave to visit the capital for relief and medical aid, she is re- minded of the cruel stipulation. If she go, she must not return. The wife 42 of his youth had endured too long the agonies of separation in that fear- ful time to risk the privation again. She would not accept the indulgence on those terms, but remained to suffer in the dungeon. Before leaving Paris, by the kindness of some American friends, permission had been procured for the departure of her son, George Washington Lafayette, to America, where a friendly reception awaited him from General Washington, in whose family he became established at Mount Vernon. He reached America in the summer of 1795, and remained with Washington till the first report came of his father's liberation, when he hastened to France, in the autumn of 1797, to meet him. That liberation, long deferred, which had been urged by all the influence of Washington and by the liberal party of the English House of Commons, by Wilberforce and by Fox, was at length granted to a rougher request in the authoritative demand of General Buona- parte, when he dictated terms of peace after his first brilliant successes in com- mand of the army of Italy. Lafayette and his family were thus released in September, 1797, just five years from the date of his falling into the hands of the Austrians, and nearly two years after his wife and daughters had joined him in his imprisonment. The health of Madame Lafayette, though she sur- vived ten years, never recovered from the effects of that captivity. From Olmutz, Lafayette was attended by a military escort to Hamburg, where he was placed under the protection of the American consul, Mr. John Parish. 3:-J0 GILBERT-MOTIER From Hamburg, he passed, in a few days, to the neighboring territory of llolstein, where he was established with, his family in peaceful retirement for nearly two years at the castle of Lemkhulen, in the vicinity of Witt- mold, whence he removed to a residence in Holland. Changes, meanwhile, were going on in Paris, tending to the con- solidated government of Napoleon. Lafayette waited only the establish- ment of order to return. The over- throw of the Directory gave him this opportunity. He hastened to Paris on that event, secured his rights as a citizen, was offered a seat in the senate, but declined it, refusing to sanction the usurpations of Napoleon. He preferred to wait in retirement the hoped-for arrival of the constitutional govern- ment, to which he was pledged, and to which he remained constant to the end. His retreat was at that estate of La- grange, which became so well known to Americans as the seat of an elegant hospitality. It was a portion of the family property of his wife, which, pre- served entire during the Revolution, was now restored to its owners. Situated about forty miles from the metropolis, in the department of Seine- et-Marne, it was distant enough to be out of the vortex of city life, and near enough to share the liberal society of the capital. There from time to time assembled authors, artists, poli- ticians, eminent travellers; always re- ceived with welcome by the genial host and his family. The reader will find a most delightful picture of this liberal scene of enjoyment in the Diary and Letters of the late Lady Morgan, who DE LAFAYETTE. visited the chateau in 1818. In the recollections of cultivated travellers of that day, Lagrange holds a place by the side of Abbotsford. The whole of the period of the nile of Napoleon was thus passed by Lafay- ette in dignified retirement, nor could he be withdrawn from his farm by any desire for preferment on the restora- tion of the Bourbons. When Buona- parte returned from Elba, he was induced, by the prospect of liberal measures, to participate again in public affairs as a representative of the people. Here he acted again, as usual, an inde- pendent part, voting supplies for the defence of the country, but opposing the despotic projects of Napoleon, who, in his extremity after the battle of Waterloo, was bent upon superseding the Chamber by a last effort at dictator- ship. After the abdication which was advised by him took place, Lafayette was employed in an ineffectual nego- tiation to arrest the advance of the allies. On their taking possession of the capital, he retired to Lagrange. After a while, he was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies, where he quietly maintained his ground in favor of liberal measures as oppor- tunity arose. In 1824, this life of unobtrusive attention to his public and private duties was varied by a fourth visit to the United States. An invitation had been given him by Congress, and a national vessel placed by the President, Mr. Monroe, at his disposal. He pre- ferred, however, the ordinary passage in a Havre packet, and reached New York by that means on the fifteenth of GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 331 August. He was accompanied only by his son, George Washington, and his secretary. His journey through the country was everywhere a triumph. He visited the eastern, middle, southern and western States, traversing the land from Maine to Louisiana, from the sea- board to St.' Louis. From the capitol at Washington to the humblest village through which he passed, every one did him honor. It was a national jubilee of hospitality and enthusiasm. The eloquence of Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, greeted him on his introduction to Congress; he took part in a celebration on the field of Yorktown, of his old victory; he visited the tomb of Washington, and knelt in tears by his coffin; at Charleston he saw again the gallant Huger, who had been imprisoned in his cause at Olmutz ; he was hailed by Webster as he participated in the cere- mony of laying the corner-stone of the monument at Bunker Hill. Every- where interesting incidents of the most heart-stirring character arose in his path, as the hero of the Revolution visited the battle-fields where he and his brethren had fought, the homes whose hospitality he had shared with Washington—the man of a new genera- tion, whose fathers had been his illus- trious companions. He saw in their dwellings at Monticello, Montpelier and elsewhere, five Presidents of the Union—John Adams, Jefferson, Madi- son. Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. The history of his progress through the country, minutely related, would pre- sent to the reader all the distinguished men of America of the period, an ex- hibition of its education, arts, industry, agriculture, manufactures, its happiness and prosperity—for all were made, in some way or other, to minister to this reception. "His arrival," says Everett, one of the most intelligent spectators of these scenes, " called out the whole population of the country to welcome him; but not in the stiff uniform of a parade, or the court-dress of a heartless ceremony. Society, in all its shades and gradations, crowded cor- dially around him, all penetrated with one spirit—the spirit of admiration and love. The wealth and luxury of the coast, the teeming abundance of the West; the elegance of the town, the cor- diality of the country; the authorities, municipal, national and State; the living relics of the Revolution, honored in the honor paid to their companion in arms; the scientific and learned bodies, the children at the schools, the associations of active life and of charity; the exiles of Spain, France and of Switzerland; banished kings, patriots of whom Europe was not worthy; and even the African and Indian—every- thing in the country that had life and sense—took a part in this auspicious drama of real life." Nor was the occasion suffered to pass away without a substantial addition to the fortunes of the nation's guest. Congress handsomely appropriated the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, and a grant of twenty-four thousand acres of land, as a testimony to him of the national gratitude. A few mem- bers, strict constructionists, on constitu- tional principles, voted against the bill; but even those were so relenting as to ,ri2 GILBERT-MOTIEB wait upon the General with an explana- tion of their cou rse. Cordially taking one of them by the hand, the old European constitutionalist who had often stickled for limited powers of government, plea- santly said, "I fully appreciate your views. I assure you, if I had been a member, I should have voted with you, not only because I partake of the senti- ments which determined your votes, but also because I think that the American nation has done too much n>r me." * The General was of a cheer- ful disposition, and fond of a joke. It is said he had a ready way of disposing of the thousand^ who were brought up to shake hands with him. " Are you a married man?" he would ask. If the answer was in the affirmative, he would reply with a winning smile, "Happy fellow!" if in the negative, with a sly twinkle, " Lucky dog!" At length, after a year spent in these receptions and festivities, he took leave of the country, with the parting bene- diction of the President at Washing- ton, embarking in a national vessel, the Brandywine, on the Potomac. His last farewell was to the home of Washington. On his return to France, in the au- tumn of 1825, Lafayette carried with him the prestige of his importance in America. He became more prominent in the Chamber of Deputies. He was the available leader of the popular party, as the rule of Charles X. revived the despotic principles of their race. Among the reforms which he advo- cated, were a diminution of nnnisterial 1 Cutter's Life of Lafayette, p. 863. DE LAFAYETTE. patronage, the extension of trial by jury, the abolition of the use of brand- ing in punishment, the separation of Church and State, the promotion of education, the abolition of the slave- trade, the extension of suffrage, and reorganization of the National Guard. A tour to his birth-place, in the sum- mer of 1829, was the occasion of a striking popular manifestation. Where- ever he appeared, crowds and a wel- come attended him; towns were bril- liantly illuminated; there was a great demonstration at Lyons—all significant, not only of the personal regard in which he was held, but of the approach- ing downfall of the government. The next year the course of Charles X., and his minister, Polignac, brought affairs to a crisis. The Three Days of July, of barricades and popular outbreak, ended in the dethronement of the king. Lafayette, who, as in 1789, had been called to the command of the National Guard, and was a prime mover in the revolution, was acknowledged master of the position. An influential popu- lar party would have made him presi- dent of a republic. He preferred to fall in with the views of his brethren in the Chamber of Deputies, and call the Duke of Orleans to the throne, which he designed should be a mon- archy, surrounded by republican insti tutions. The promise was given by Louis Philippe to Lafayette himself, and accepted by him. Was it kept? 1848 has answered the question. The Duke of Orleans was king, but Lafayette was for a time the popular leader. He commanded the National Guard, was consulted by the liberals GILBERT-MOTIER DE LAFAYETTE. 333 in various parts of Europe, and secured to France, so far as he could, the ad- vantage of a popular government. His moderation was particularly shown in protecting the accused ministers of Charles X, during their trial, from the vengeance of the people. As his re- ward from the government for this ser- vice, the office which he held as com- mander-in-chief of the National Guard was proposed to be abolished. He understood the slight, and resigned the command; continuing, however, to hold his seat in the Chamber of Depu- ties. Lafayette survived but a few years the accession of Louis Philippe. One of the last scenes in which he was prominently before the public, was at the funeral of General Lamarque, in 1832, when a popular manifestation was attempted. The people removed his horses from his coach, and would have dragged him in triumph to the HOtel de Ville, but he had no taste for irregular movements of this kind, and quietly managed to get conducted to his home, while the government was calling out all its forces to suppress an insurrection, of which he was supposed to be at the head. He survived this event about two years. Another fune- ral which he attended, of a colleague of- the Chamber of Deputies, was the cause of his death, from the exposure to which he was subjected. He took a cold, which settled on his lungs, and after an illness of more than two months, aggravated by a relapse, died in Paris, May 20, 1834, in his seventy- seventh year. He was buried in a humble, quiet cemetery, in an out-of- the-way part of the city, by the side of his beloved wife. A plain, reclining slab, with a simple inscription, marks his grave. There are few Americans who visit Paris, who do not turn for a few moments from its pomp and gaie ties to visit this unpretending spot. The news of the death of Lafayette was received in the United States with unaffected emotions of sorrow. Signal notice was taken of the event in Con- gress. A committee of twenty-five members of the House of Representa- tives, one from each State, was ap- pointed to confer with a committee of the Senate, to express " the deep sensi- bility of the nation by some token of respect and affection." Resolutions of respect and condolence were passed, and Ex-President John Quincy Adams was requested to deliver a funeral oration before both houses at the next session. The oration was accordingly pro- nounced in the hall of the House of Representatives, the last day of Decem- ber, 1834. The name of Lafayette has long been coupled with that of Washington, and there certainly was much akin in theii temperaments to justify their remark able friendship. Both were men of justice, modesty, untiring usefulness and activity combined with great moderation. We need not carry the parallel further, or seek to estimate the difficulties by which the character of each was tested. We may rest content with the good fortune of our country that Washingior s was the most sue cessful, the most symmetrical life ROGER SHERMAN. Roger Sherman, of whom Connecti- cut is justly proud, as the companion in legal ability and fame of Oliver Ellsworth, one who, in acuteness, force of character and conscientious fidelity, illustrates the foremost virtues of her soil, wras of an old English family, traced to the days of the Tudors. The Shermans of Yaxley, in the County of Suffolk, sent, in 1634, three emigrants to America. Two of them were bro- thers—Samuel, one of the early settlers of Connecticut, and John, the great divine and eminent mathematician, whose praise was in all the churches and at Harvard, and who carried his simple lessons of piety, on the wings of his popular almanac, to the humblest households. Their cousin, Captain John Sherman, as he was called, settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. " He was," says a recent New England his- torian, " a soldier of high courage, and that his education had not been ne- glected, his beautifully legible and clerkly hand, which still perpetuates the records of Watertown in Massa- chusetts, as well as the phraseology of the records themselves, bear ample tes- timony." ' He was the great-grand- father of Roger Sherman. His grand- 1 Hollister's History of Connecticut, II. 439. 8&4 son, William, we are tcld, was a farmer in moderate circumstances. He resided at Newton, Massachusetts, where, on the nineteenth of April, 1721, his son Roger was born. The education of the boy was lim- ited, being confined to the ordinary rudimentary instruction of the country schools of the time ; not so the learning he derived from observation and the exercise of his naturally sagacious in- tellect. He was self-taught, so far as that phrase can be applied in a world where we are all mutually dependent as well for instruction and knowledge as for other things. The contrast, per- haps, between his early education and the intellectual profession in which he gained his reputation, has enhanced the sense of his acquisitions. He died a famous member of the bench, reve- renced for his services to the Constitu- tion. He begun life as an apprentice to a shoemaker, and pursued the trade long enough to be ranked high in the list of worthies who have transcended their calling, and been honored as sons of St. Crispin. The death of his father, in 1741, threw the care of his mother and younger brothers and sisters upon him when he was nineteen, and it is re- corded to his credit that he made libe- ■—-f-»1WM»V ^--T-~^-T7^^ 7 e^r cynuyr r?n^ ROGER SHERMAN. 335 ral provision for their welfare. So far from his narrow education producing a proportionate narrowness of mind, he outstripped his opportunities, and gave his brothers a liberal education, that they might enjoy benefits of which he felt that he stood in need. At the age of twenty-two, the family removed to New Milford, in Connecticut, where his elder brother had preceded him. There the two opened a store together, and the trade of shoemaker was abandoned. He was not loath, in after life, to recall his first occupation. Once when he was placed on a committee of Con- gress to examine some army accounts, he surprised his companions by his accurate tests of a bill for shoes, when he frankly accounted for his proficiency by mentioning his old calling. It is recorded as proof of his studies and acquisitions, that two years after he came to Connecticut, he was ap- pointed a surveyor of land for Litch- field County, in which he resided, a duty to which few shoemakers render themselves equal.1 The law, however, was the profession for which he was destined. The story is told of an inci- dent in his early life, while he was yet a shoemaker, which served to fix his taste and encourage his fondness for legal study. One of his neighbors had a difficulty on hand requiring the in- terposition of a lawyer, and intrusted 1 Astronomical calculations, says his biographer, of so early a date as the year 1748, have been discovered among his papers, made by him for an almanac then pub- lished in New York ; so that it would seem he had some- thing in his composition of his ancestor, the excellent John Sherman, of whom we have spoken, whom Dr. Mather pronounced '' one of the greatest mathematicians that ever lived in this hemisphere of the world." the statement of the case to young Sherman, who w**s about visiting the place where the practitioner resided. To present the matter clearly, Sherman committed the points to paper, and consulted his notes when he came to explain the affair to the lawyer. " Give me the paper," said he, " it will assist me in my petition to the court." The young apprentice blushed at the re- quest, and delivered the manuscript. It was pronounced an able petition as it stood, and the writer being ques- tioned as to his pursuits, was advised, so runs the story, to turn his attention to the law. Some eminent authority in England has pronounced it an essential prerequi- site of success at the bar, that the can- didate for favor should, among other pressures of fortune, have lost his pro- perty, be married, and have a wife and children on his hands for support. The strong mental impulses of Sherman hardly required this stimulus; but it is certainly true that he had his way to make in the world, and that he had a wife and increasing family about him. He married, at the age of twenty-eight, Miss Elizabeth Hartwell, of Stoughton. Five years afterwards, having qualified himself entirely by his private studies, he was admitted an attorney at law. The following year he was made a Jus- tice of the Peace at New Milford, and sent by the people of the place as a re- presentative to the Colonial Assembly In 1759, he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the county. Removing to New Haven in 1761, he was appointed to the same offices in his new county7, at first justice 336 ROGER SHERMAN and town representative, and, in 1765, Judge of the Common Pleas. The following year, he was appointed an assistant, or member of the council, to the upper house in the Legislatm'e, and the same year was appointed Judge of the Superior Court. He enjoyed the two offices for nineteen years, when a law was passed rendering one person incapable of holding both, upon which he resigned the former, and continued judge of the court till 1789, a period of twenty-three years. When he finally resigned the station, it was to take his seat in the first Congress under the Constitution. The duties which he thus discharged were both of a political and judicial character. As representa- tive in the Assembly during the whole period of the French War, be became intimately acquainted with the exer- tions and strength of the colony put forth in the national defence. Who- ever, it has been often remarked, would study the Revolution in its elements, must turn his attention to the previous period. The people of the colonies not only learnt their power, and gained military experience in the field, but the seeds were sown both of aggression on the part of the mother country and re- sistance on the part of her children. The war with France, terminated by the peace of Versailles in 1763, had brought not only an enormous expen- diture to England, but imposed extra- ordinary privations and losses upon the colonists. If Great Britain found rea- son to tax her American possessions, the\' had equal reason for consideration and relief. As member of the council, these questions, which were especially pressed upon Connecticut, were doubt less well and maturely considered by Sherman, whose logical mind power fully seconded his sympathies, as a man of the people, in the constitutional struggle attendant upon the movements in Parliament. The opening of the contest found him well prepared for the issue. He was chosen a delegate to the first Con- tinental Congress of 1774. John Adams, passing through New Haven on his wayr to that body in August, was waited upon by Sherman, and in his Diary re- ports a brief conversation with him. " He is between fifty and sixty, a solid, sensible man. He said he read Mr. Otis' ' Rights,' etc., in 1764, and thought that he had conceded away the rights of America. He thought the reverse of the Declaratory Act was true, namely, that the Parliament of Great Britain had authority to make laws for America in no case whatever "—opin- ions quite up to the Massachusetts standard. Adams afterwards records Sherman as a staunch supporter of in- dependence in Congress. His talents were appreciated in that body, for we find him a member of important com mittees, particularly those appointed to prepare a plan of confederation and the Declaration of Independence. He was also employed as a member of the Board of War and Ordnance, of the Marine Committee, and of the Board of Treasury—thus completing a round of the most responsible duties intrusted to the new government. In a brief letter of reminiscences, dated 1822, Jefferson recalled his impressions of Sherman in these early Congressional ROGER SHERMAN. 337 scenes. " I served with him," he writes, " in the Old Congress in the years 1775 and 1776. He was a very able and logical debater in that body, steady in the principles of the Revolution, al- ways at the post of duty, much em- ployed in the business of committees, and, particularly, was of the committee of Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Livingston, and myself, for preparing the Declaration of Independence. Be- ing much my senior in years, our inter- course was chiefly in the line of our duties. I had a very great respect for him." About the same time, John Adams, on a similar application for biographical aid, expressed his testi- mony in characteristic terms. " The honorable Roger Sherman was one of the most cordial friends which I ever had in my life. Destitute of all lite- rary and scientific education, but such as he acquired by his own exertions, he was one of the most sensible men in the world. The clearest head and the steadiest heart. It is praise enough to say, that the late Chief Justice Ells- worth told me that he had made Mr. Sherman his model in his youth. In- deed, I never knew two men more alike, except that the Chief Justice had the advantage of a liberal education and somewhat more extensive reading. o Mr. Sherman was born in the State of Massachusetts, and was one of the 43 soundest and strongest pillars of the Revolution." These impressions were confirmed by a long course of public service in Congress, under the old Confederation and the new. Sherman was always retained in public life, discharging many official duties in his State as well as at Philadelphia, and the other assemblies of Congress. He was Mayor of New Haven from 1784 to his death. He was engaged with his fellow judge, Richard Law, in revising the statutes of Connecticut, and was a prominent member of the Convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution of the United States, to which he gave equally important support in his State conven tion for its ratification. He not only greatly strengthened the cause in de- bate, but he published a series of arti- cles in its favor. He was now, at the adoption of the Constitution, approaching threescore, with unabated activity and public use- fulness. Elected to Congress, he re- signed the judicial station which he had held for some years by the side of Ellsworth, and interested himself, as usual, in the important debates of the new government. In 1791, he was elected a United States senator, but did not live to complete his term of office. He died at New Haven, July 23, 1793, at the age of seventy-two. FRANCIS HOPKINSON. Nothing is more noticeable, in trac- ing the biographical history of the Revolution, than the diversity of talents and character brought to bear upon the single patriotic work; rude mountain foresters, and lowland farmers by the side of lawyers and statesmen; clergy- men preaching from their pulpits, and shouldering muskets ; judges descend- ing from the royal colonial bench, to enlighten the people under a new dis- pensation ; churchmen and puritans; men of Massachusetts and men of the Old Dominion side .by side; the most varied gifts and accomplishments; major generals who could hardly pen a decent letter, and acute logicians of the bar,, whose nicety of phrase and strength of reasoning awakened the reluctant admiration of Parliament; polished wits even, who graced the rough conflict with the charms and refinements of literary cultivation. The literature, indeed, of the Revolution is remark- able as its military adventures. All things considered, it is a work of singu- lar originality. It dealt with new ideas, and had little assistance from previous modes of expression. The secret is, that there was something in the mind of the writer, and something of real interest before him—in life—to con- vey ; and the thing being provided, the 836 words followed. See Franklin abso- lutely creating a style, universally re- commended for imitation, out of the very abundance and directness of his thoughts. Whence came the invention of Freneau but from the everyday af- fairs of the people which he shaped into verse % or the arguments of Dick- inson, or the yivid words of Jefferson ? What inspired Trumbull to emulate the verses of the author of." Hudibras ?" Clever political essayists sprang up in the press throughout the country. No one of them all did his spiriting of'the pen more gently, or left a record better rewarding the care of posterity than the gentleman of whom we are about to give some account, Francis Hopkin- son. He was born.in Philadelphia, in Sep- tember, 1737. His father, Thomas Hopkinson, a Londoner by birth, a most ingenious man, was educated at Oxford, and came early in life to Phila- delphia, bringing with him his newly married wife, a niece of the Bishop of Worcester. He held an office in the judiciary under the British crown in the colony. His learning and intelli- gence naturally attracted the allegiance of Benjamin Franklin, but three years his senior, and the rising sage had special ground of admiration for him in ra FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 33U his fondness for philosophical pursuits. They were associated together in those electrical experiments, in which Frank- lin availed himself readily of the sug- gestions of his friends. In the organ- ization of the American Philosophical Society, in 1744, Thomas Hopkinson was chosen its first president. He was also connected with the library, college and other liberal institutions of Phila- delphia. He left a family of seven children at his death, of whom Francis, then about the age of fourteen, was the oldest. The mother, a woman, we are told, "of more than common sagacity and penetration," proved an excellent guar- dian of her son, in whose dawning intellect she seems to have taken espe- cial pride. He was early sent to the college in Philadelphia, and was one of its first graduates. He then applied himself to the study of the law, in a course of regular training under the direction of Benjamin Chew, the Attor- ney-General of Pennsylvania, and, judg- ing by his attainments in after life, he made good use of his opportunity. He meanwhile was a diligent reader of literature, and student of art and science, and as early as his seventeenth year cultivated the Muses. In the col- lection of his Poems, there are lines showing his taste and sensibility,—" To the Reverend Mr. William Smith, on hearing his sermon upon the death of Mr. William Thomas Martin," dated in 1754. Topics of an elegiac or religious character, exhibiting the serious dispo- sition of the youth, frequently appear among the occasional verses of these early years. He appears constantly called upon as the local poet of the day, on domestic and public occasions, on wedding days, commencements and the like, to such more momentous topics as " the embarkation of the offi cers of the 35th Regiment on the expe- dition against Louisbourg," and he has the satisfaction in 1758 of-singing their triumph. In 1761, he served as secre- tary in a conference held between the government of Pennsylvania and the chiefs of several Indian nations on the banks of the Lehigh, an occasion which presented to his mind a poetical oppor- tunity, which he did not neglect to avail himself of. His little poem, en- titled The Treaty, "humbly inscribed to the honorable Thomas and Richard Penn, proprietors of the province," does ample justiceto the beneficence of those rulers, and celebrates the eloquence and games of "the swarthy heroes." The following year he chooses " Science " for the subject of a poem, dedicated to the authorities of the college. His muse was not less agreeably stirred by a visit to England in 1765, to his maternal relative, the Bishop of Worcester, at his town and country residences. In some verses, dated Hartlebury Castle, in Worcestershire, 1767, he celebrates the gift to him by the Lord Bishop, of a book which once belonged to the poet Shenstone, an author who was doubtless dear to our pleasing rhymester. Various nymphs, old-fashioned Myrtillas and others, flit through his stanzas, till, in 1768, when he had returned to America, one more transporting than the rest— " Delia, my soul's best treasure, Delia, pride of Borden's Hill"— :U0 FRANCIS nOPKiXSON. permanently engages his affections. In plain prose, he was married in that year to Miss Ann Borden, of Borden- town, in the State of New Jersey. Time now wore on cheerfully enough in his mixed social and domestic enjoyT- ments, till the coming on of the Revo- lution called his pen into exercise in the service of his country. His first publication was a little tract, entitled, " A Pretty Story, written in the year of our Lord, 1774, by Peter Grievous, Esq., A.B.C.D.E." It is an ingenious allegory, in which the King of Great Britain is represented as a nobleman possessing a valuable farm, and many children his subjects. Parliament is his wife, in command of the purse- strings, chosen from time to time by the family. The old gentleman comes into possession of some distant territory, to which the children emi- grate, and set up their little establish- ments, with the colonial legislatures as their wives. In this way, the story is pursued according to a fashion made memorable in English literature by Dr. Arbuthnot, in his " John Bull," through the different measures of re- pression and aggression, the regulation of trade, quartering troops, taxation, etc., to the date of the composition, when the " Pretty Story " closes with an ominous gap: "These harsh and unconstitutional proceedings irritated Jack and the other inhabitants of the new farm to such a degree, that .... ccetera Jesunt."1 Hopkinson kept up the excellent humor of this publication * The " Pretty Story" has been lately published in a very neat little Tolume judiciously edited by Mr. Lossmg, dedicated to the Youth of America. in a brief essay, entitled, " A Prophecy," written in 1776, and "A Political Cate- chism," dated the following year, with other pointed productions of his pen. The " Prophecy," in scriptural phrase- ology, celebrates the wisdom of Frank- lin, and heaps contempt upon the royal- ists. The " Catechism," after defining war and rebellion, tests by a few searching queries, the early British movements to put down the Revolu- tion, ending with some " striking out- lines of the king of England's charac- ter," which are traced in " injustice, obstinacy and folly," a portrait which is contrasted with a very prettily-turned eulogium of Washington. Previously to this publication, the author, whose talents were generally recognized, was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, sitting at Philadelphia, as a representative of New Jersey, and signed his name to the Declaration of Independence. It was about this time that John Adams, always an intelligent observer, on the look out for men and things worthy of notice, fell in with Hopkinson, and happily sent an account of his impres- sions to his wife. " At Mr. Peale's painter's room," he writes, " I met Mr. Francis Hopkinson, late a Mandamus Counsellor of New Jersey, now a mem- ber of the Continental Congress, who, it seems, is a native of Philadelphia; a son of a prothonotary of this countiy, who was a person much respected. The son was liberally educated, and is a painter and a poet. I hive a curi- osity to penetrate a little deeper into ihfi bosom of this curious gentleman. He is one of your pretty, little, curious. FRANCIS HOPKINSON 341 ingenious men. His head is not bigger than a large apple, less than our friend Pemberton's, or Doctor Simon Tuft's. I have not met with anything in natural history more amusing and entertaining than his personal appearance—yet he is genteel and well bred, and is very social."] The residence of Hopkinson after his marriage was at Bordentown, where the incident occurred in 1777, which gave rise to the composition of the bal- lad by which he is better known than by all his other compositions united— the " Battle of the Kegs." It is found in too many popular publications to need reproduction here. One of the most important services which Hopkinson rendered the country by his wit, was in his clear and simple exposition of the chief popular argu- ments on both sides brought forward in the debates on the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Seldom, if ever, has an allegorical production of its class been more fortunate in blending- sound philosophy with humor, than his essay, entitled, "The New Roof." It was intended to convey the spirit of the arguments in the Pennsylvania ratifying Convention; but the oppo- sition throughout the country was so uniform, that what was written for one State, will answer for the rest. It is hardly possible to present in any abstract the contents of this remark- able paper, the wit of which lies as much in its admirable continuity and ingenuity of construction, as in its separate felicities. Indeed we may re- mark in Hopkinson's writings gene rally, a certain union of wit and humor, relying for effect upon the truthful development of the subject rather than brilliant detached points. The 'John Adams' Letters to his Wife. Philadelphia: Aug. 21, 1776 in good sense of his curious essays is commonly as noticeable as their lite- rary skill. Not content with putting his lucu- bration in type, Hopkinson carried out the idea of his essay, as Chairman of the Committee, in planning and direct- ing the arrangement of the grand Federal procession, performed at Phi- ladelphia on the Fourth of July, suc- ceeding the formation of the Constitu- tion, and he moreover took the pains, well worthy the imitation of all who engage in similar labors, of drawing up an account of the ceremony for the press. The account of the affair, pub- lished in his writings, is an historical document of no little interest. Among the devices, rivalling "the Federal ship, Union," which was made out of the barge captured by Paul Jones, from the Serapis, was "The New Roof, or Grand Federal Edifice," a structure thirty-six feet in heigh;, supported by thirteen Corinthian columns, in which Hopkinson saw his allegory brilliantly constructed before his eyes, and con- ducted in the procession on a carriage, drawn by ten white horses. There were no less than eighty-eight divisions of this remarkable spectacle. The trades and mechanics, with the mili- tary, constituted, as usual, by far the larger part, and there was also a notable attendance of public characters. Prominent in the department assigned 9J9 FRANCIS IIOl'KINSOX. to the naval officers, appears the author himself, in his enumeration—"The Hon. Francis Hopkinson, Esq., Judge of the Admiralty, wearing in his hat a gold anchor, pendant on a green ribband, preceded by the register's clerk, carry- ing a green bag filled with rolls of parchment, the word Admiralty, in large letters, on the front of the bag." Judge of Admiralty was an office which he held for many years, and the duties of which he discharged with exemplary fidelity. A record of his decisions, prepared by himself, occu- pies the third volume of his prose writings, including judgments pro- nounced between the years 1779 and 1788. The reports are models of clear- ness and brevity, quite divested of any legal prolixity and obscurity. He was quite too keen a satirist of the bar and the bench in these matters, in his witty essay, entitled, " A Specimen of a Modern Law Suit, or the Conduct of a Court of Justice Displayed; intended as a model for a new book of Modern Reports, in the style of the year 1786," to be tolerant of any absurdities of the kind in his own case. The productionf which we have noticed, were mainly political. The author's pen, however, was not con- fined to these topics, but sported freely over the field of domestic and social life. His wit was freely levejled at the abuses of the day, and though his aiTOWS were sharply pointed, the satire was so healthy, that It was felt without beins: in itself offensive. On one occa- sion, when two gentlemen of Phila- delphia a merchant and a lawyer, were making the town a party to their quarrel in the newspapers, and stirring up duels on all sides, he quietly put an end to the affair by a laughable essay in the "Pennsylvania Packet," in which he proposed an improvement in the art of printing, in " A typographical method of conducting a quarrel." Taking a dispute, originating in a humble whis- per, in pearl, nonpareil or minion, he conducts it through various gradations of type, ever growing louder and more vociferous, till it culminates in five-line pica. The size of the types, he main- tains, in this ingenious paper, should be adapted by the printer to the spirit of his author, " so that a reader may become, in some degree, personally^ ac- quainted with a writer while he is perusing his work. Thus an author of cool and equable spirits might take bourgeois roman for his medium, and would probably never rise higher than great primer; whilst a passionate man, engaged in a warm controversy, might thunder away in French canon." The humor of this paper, the writer himself tells us, " turned the laugh of the town upon the combatants, entirely crushed the whole affair, and laughed the rules of honor out of countenance. The parties forgave each other sooner than they forgave the author." One of Hopkinson's witty effusions, a rigmarole piece of fun addressed to James Wilson, the lawyer, has an amusing anecdote attached to it. It is entitled " A Suit in a High Court of Honor," a burlesque launching all the opprobrious terms of the court at his friend, including an appropriate remon- strance in Latin, setting forth the per- sonal injuries done the writer in the FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 843 detention of a certain copy of the Epistolfje Obscurorum Virorum, the witty book of the Reformation, for the loss of which the libellant is growing thin, and fears that in no long time he will be nothing but skin and bone, not being replenished by the perpetual laughter of that book. By chance, this missive, sent to Mr. Wilson's house, was picked off his mantelpiece, before it was opened by a half-deranged visi- tor, who saw in it an infamous conspi- racy of some sort or other, and found it his duty to present it to the judge of the supreme court the next day in session, when both Wilson and Hop- kinson were present. Fortunately, the eye of the latter lighted upon his non- sense in time to arrest its being read, which he prevented by whispering in the ear of the chief justice, " that it was only a piece of literary sport between Mr. Wilson and himself, and very unfit for the public ear on such an occasion." Hopkinson was something of a re- former, in common with his friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, of scholastic educa- tion, as it was pursued in that day. His paper, entitled " Modern Learning, exemplified by a specimen of a col- legiate examination," in which he makes a salt-box the subject of various Meta- physical, Logical, Natural Philosophy, Mathematical, Anatomical, Surgical, and Chemical queries would do honor to the Scriblerus Papers. These, it should be remembered, were the amuse- ments of a professional life; though there was probably a care expended upon them seldom accorded by pro- fessed authorship. We have seen Hopkinson employed in Congress, where he was intrusted with important committee duties, and in his duties as admiralty judge, where the war threw much business upon the court. In 1790, he was appointed by Washington judge of the district court in Pennsylvania, but he had hardly entered upon the office, when he was suddenly struck down by an attack of apoplexy. He died May 9,1791, in his fifty-third year, after an immediate illness of but two hours. The mental qualities of Hopkinson are more easily enjoyed in his pleasant writings than described. The curious qualities which arrested the attention of John Adams, at an early period, in his study of the man, remain to employ the faculties of his readers. He is an excellent specimen of a wit, clear, pre- cise, admirably finished in style; full of sagacity, and, in the midst of mirth, ever bent upon something profitable. He is the most genial of satirists, one of a hundred instances which might be given to relieve wit of the burden of ill-nature, which it bears in the common apprehension of the world. Person- ally, we are told, he was the most hu- mane and benevolent of men. "No- thing is said to have excited his sensi- bility as soon as an act of inhumanity towards any living creature, and this benevolent feeling he was uniformly solicitous to instil into all his children. He was accustomed to cherish an ac- quaintance with a little mouse, which would come from its hiding-place, and sit by him at his meals, in order to re ceive the crumbs, with which its bold- ness was plentifully rewarded. His 344 FRANCIS E pigeons also became so much attached t<> him, from his constant attention to them, that, when he walked in the yard, they would alight on his person, and contend for a place, crowding upon his head, shoulders, arms, and, indeed, wherever they could rest."* Traits like these are very pleasing in the life of a wit; but we are apt to forget that one cannot be a wit at all without a large share of sympathy; though, it must be admitted, all wits have not the same benevolence. Like the best of the race, however, we may add, Hopkin- son was a learned man, well read in literature, and practised .in the sciences. He was a good musician, and, as we have seen, something of a poet, according to the fashion of his day. His wit is to be twice valued, as a glittering weapon drawn in the ser- vice of the Revolution. " The various causes," said Dr. Rush, "which con- tributed to the establishment of the independence and Federal Government of the United States, will not be fully traced, unless much is ascribed to the irresistible influence of the ridicule which he poured forth from time to time, upon the enemies of those great political events." Nor was ridicule his only instrument. The letter which he addressed, with withering scorn, to Joseph Galloway, in office, in 1778, in Philadelphia, under the British rule, Life of Francis Hopkinson, Delaplaine's Repository. OPKINSON. after his defection from the American Congress, was written as with a pen of iron. In person, Dr. Rush tells us, Hopkin- son was "a little below the common size. His features were small, but ex- tremely animated. His speech was quick, and all his motions seemed to partake of the unceasing activity and versatility of the powers of his mind." Hopkinson left at his decease a widow and five children. His eldest son, Jo seph, continued the reputation of the family in kindred pur-suits, to a third generation. He was eminent as a laAv yer, a judge, a friend to science and to literature. He held the office of Judge of the United States District Court, to which his father was appointed; he was Vice President of the American Philo- sophical Society, and President of the Phdadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts; but he is not least known to the public as the author of the song " Hail Columbia." This popular production was written in 1798, when the country was newly aroused to a vindication of its liber- ties against the aggressions of France. Fortunately, the author preserved the spirit of the day, without any allusion to the occasion or party interests of the time. " It was truly American," as he afterwards said, " and nothing else, and the patriotic feelings of every Ameri- can heart responded to it." Joseph Hopkinson died in 1842, at the age of seventy-two. uy-c^yn^ OLIVER ELLSWORTH. It is the praise of Oliver Ellsworth, eminent in the judiciary annals of his country, in the language of his polished and appreciative biographer, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, that " with no one qual- ity in common with the poet, and par- taking little of the character of the speculative philosopher, he may be placed, if not at the head, certainly among the very first of the men formed for the able discharge of great duties in the most arduous and diversified scenes of active life." * Oliver Ellsworth was born at Wind- sor, Connecticut, April 29, 1745,- of respectable, we are told, but not very wealthy parents, from an English stock which had early emigrated from the mother country. His great-grandfather, Josiah Ellsworth, of Windsor, was admitted a freeman in 1657. Oliver passed his boyhood, " alternately in agricultural labors and in the ele- mentary studies of a liberal educa- tion;" entered Yale College at seven- teen, abandoned it after a short residence, "in consequence of some boyish disgust or irregularity," and moved to Princeton, where he gra- duated, at the age of twenty-one, in 1766. His standing as a student, we 1 Biographical Memoir of Oliver Ellsworth, in the Analectic Magazine for May, 1814. 44 are told in the sketch in the " Analec tic," " was sufficiently respectable ; but he is said to have been much more remarkable for his shrewdness and adroit management in all the little politics of the college, than for any uncommon proficiency in science or literature." After leaving college, he applied himself to the study of the law, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of the profession at Hartford. His sobriety of conduct and devotion to business soon dnnv the attention of his townspeople to- wards him, and he was placed in the responsible situation of State attorney for the district, an office said, at that time, to be of very considerable emolu- ment. He held this position during the Revolutionary war, when it was of course necessary to sustain the cha- racter of a good patriot, and we hear of his even occasionally taking the field in the militia service of the State, " more, however, for the sake of exam- ple than from any particular inclination to military life." He represented his town in the General Assembly, and bore an active part in the local business of the war. In 1777, he was elected to the Conti nental Congress as one of the Connecti- cut delegation, though his presence was 84S \ ELLSWORTH. not required there till the following year. He was, immediately on his arrival, placed on the Committee on Marine Affairs, one of those boards of the old Congress charged with mixed legislative and executive duties and calling for shrewd business abilities and tact in the unsettled, and what was even of greater difficulty, the impoverished condition of the country. He was also appointed a member of the Com- mittee of Appeals, a body for the adjudication of admiralty cases, in which his biographer, Mr. Van Sant- voord, says, "may be traced distinctly the very earliest idea of a federal judi- ciary clothed with appellate powers." Not only in this court, for such it really was, but in other committees, especially of finance, where he seconded the enlightened and patriotic views of Robert Morris, we find him deeply engaged in the every-day toilsome business of government, less known to the public than other spheres of the service, but not less honorable or less worthy the remembrance and grati- tude of posterity. He 'bore a lead- ing part in the discussion of the important questions of taxation, in- volving many delicate relations be- tween the governments of the States and of the Confederacy. On the break- ing up of Congress in Philadelphia, in 1783, by the incursion of a portion of the arruy, he served with Hamilton on the Committee of Conference with the authorities, and shortly after finally retired from the old Congress. On his permanent return to his native State, he was enlisted in its judiciary service as a member of the Supreme Court of Errors, which he soon resigned as incompatible with his seat on the bench of the Superior Court, the comprehensive jurisdiction of which, embracing equity and com- mon law, and an exclusive charge of the more important criminal cases, brought into active use the whole legal armory. His decisions may be read in the "Reports of Kirby and Root." Some of them in the criminal jurisdic- tion of the court are of curious inter- est to the general reader, as a picture of the manners of the olden time. We have now to follow Ellsworth to one of the most important scenes of his public life, the Convention of 1787 for the formation of the Constitution. Connecticut had shown great reluc- tance to enter upon the work, and her delegation carried to it strong local prejudices. Ellsworth, as he had for- merly done in the Old Congress, repre- sented what may be called a State Right policy. He battled resolutely for the equality of State representation in the Senate, rising to eloquence in his appeals. " What he wanted was do- mestic happiness. The national govern- ment could not descend to the local objects on which this depended. It could only embrace objects of a general nature. He turned his eyes, therefore, for the preservation of their rights to the State governments. From that alone he could derive the greatest hap- piness he expected in this life. His happiness depended on their existence as much as a new-born infant on its mother for nourishment."1 Though 1 The Madison Papers, cited by Van Santvoord. OLIYER ELLSWORTH. 347 bearing an important part in the de- bates, Ellsworth's name does not ap- pear among the signatures to the final instrument. He was soon called to the ratifying Convention in Connecticut, one of those separate assemblies to which the debates were adjourned, and whose decision was watched for with quite as much anxiety as the resolves of the parent body. In Connecticut, however, the issue was not doubtful. Ellsworth took the lead in the discus- sion, and presented the advantages of the Union to his State so strongly on the score of interest and self-protection, and in so shrewd a manner, that the Constitution was adopted by a large majority. Ellsworth, as one of the foremost men of his State, was chosen, with the excellent President Johnson, of Colum- bia College, New York, senator to the first Congress. Both were placed on the committee for organizing the ju- diciary, and it is to Ellsworth, doubt- less, that we are greatly indebted, from his peculiar position toward the Con- stitution, for so ably carrying its pro- visions into effect. He stood by the side of Hamilton in his financial mea- sures, and gave a zealous support to the administration in the measures repre- sented by Jay's British Treaty. In 1796, Ellsworth received from Washington the appointment of Chief Justice of the United States, as the successor to Jay. It was an unexpected call to a sphere of duty from which he had been of late withdrawn; but hav- ing accepted it, he soon placed himself in a position, by laborious application, to discharge its duties with fidelity and honor. In the discriminating language of the writer in the "Analectic," al- ready frequently cited, " if there was any station for which he was peculiarly formed by nature, it was that of a judge. His habits of patient and im- partial investigation, his sound and accurate judgment, and his quick per- ception, all conspired to render him every way worthy of the station which he filled, and had his appointment been made somewhat earlier in life, his mind more liberalized and adorned in youth by general learning and elegant litera- ture, and in mature age more concen- trated towards the single object of legal science, he would doubtless have ranked among the most accomplished and able magistrates of any age or nation." We have now to look upon the Chief Justice in a new relation abroad. Following the precedent of his prede- cessor Jay, he is sent abroad on a for- eign negotiation in 1799, as one of the new commission to negotiate a treaty with France. The reader will call to mind the unhappy course of diplomatic negotiations with this court, which, after many vexations, commencing even with the era of the treaty of peace of 1783, and the ministry of Vergennes, drawn through the devious channels of the Revolution, and the agencies of Genet and his successors, had culmi- nated in the unscrupulous and disre- putable demands of the Directory and its crafty agent, Talleyrand. Marshall had turned his back upon the govern ment, at the close of the previous nego- tiation, with proud contempt, and the American public had adopted his manly spirit. War had succeeded, and the 348 OLIVER ELLSWORTH. prospect of creditable intercourse with our old ally seemed far off, when pre- parations for new negotiations were suddenly made by President Adams in the appointment of this new com- mission. Governor William Richard- son Davie, of North Carolina, and Wil- liam Vans Murray, then minister at the Hague, were the associates of Ellsworth. When the appointment was made, the Directory was still in power, and it was only a strong regard for the interests of peace which could have encouraged much hope of negotiation. Indeed, the commissioners were not to enter Paris unless on proper assurances of sincerity and respect. When they arrived at Lisbon, they were met by a change of affairs, in the succession of Bonaparte to the chief power, which materially improved their prospects. He was dis- posed to negotiate. The envoys were even welcomed to Paris. They had a speedy audience of Napoleon—nothing more of threats and demands for money from Talleyrand—Joseph Bonaparte and the Councillors of State, Fleurien and Roederer, were appointed to confer with them, and a treaty, satisfactory upon the whole, was finally concluded in September, 1800. Ellsworth did not return immedi- ately to America. An afflictive disease, aggravated by the gout, forbade the hardships of a winter passage. He in consequence resigned the office of Chief Justice, and directed his steps to Eng- land, where he was received with con- sideration. In the spring he crossed the Atlantic, and sought his home at Windsor. He was again, however, called into judicial life to serve as a member of the Council and Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, the duties of which he performed when he was not prevented by illness, to the close of the session of 1807. The State judiciary system was now remodelled, and Ellsworth appointed Chief Justice of the State. His repeated attacks of ill health, however, forbade his accepting an office, the duties of which he could hardly expect to discharge. He was again taken ill, rallied, when his malady returned and proved fatal. He died at his seat at Windsor, November 26,1807. The portrait of Ellsworth presents a commanding countenance of force and dignity; the eye, of singular penetra tion, is surmounted by a straight mas sive forehead. It indicates the charac- ter of the man; logical, intellectual earnest, sincere : of the old Connecticut type. He was a man of few words, and but little of a writer. Even his judicial opinions are marked among such productions by their brevity. He was patient and laborious, kept close to the matter in hand, and as his judgment was sound, obtained great repute as a lawyer and on the bench. His services as a politician in the old Congress and the new, and as a member of the Federal Convention, were rendered at times, and in a manner to confirm his claim upon the history of his country, in which he holds a high rank as an honest patriot—like Jayr and Marshall, living in an atmosphere above detrac tion \ I RUFUS KING. 'Rutus King, the son of Richard King, a wealthy merchant, was born in 1755, at Scarborough, his father's residence, in the district of Maine. He received an excellent preparatory edu- cation under the direction of Samuel Moody, a teacher of repute of the Byfield Academy, in the town of New- bury, from whose hands he passed to Harvard College, where his studies were interrupted by the opening scenes of the Revolutionary war. The death of his father occurred about the same time. On the reopening of the institu- tion at Cambridge, having pursued his education in the interim with his former preceptor, a rigorous instructor, who, " in many respects, is said to have resembled the celebrated Busby," * he joined its band of students and graduated with honor as a classical scholar and accomplished speaker in 1777. We then find him engaged in the study of the law with Theophilus * Parsons, subsequently the chief justice of Massachusetts, at Newburyport, and the war being still in progress, he took part in the military expedition to Rhode Island, in 1778, conducted by General Sullivan, with the expectation, through the assistance of the French 1 Delaplaine'a Repository, Art. Rufus King. fleet, of freeing Newport from its British occupants. In this affair young King acted as aid to the American general. In 1780 he was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession at Newburyport. In his first case, it is said, he had his instruc- tor, Parsons, as his antagonist. Thence he was sent, in 1784, to the Legislature, or General Court, as it was termed, of Massachusetts. He was chosen a representative to Congress the same year, and continued a member of that body to the formation of the Constitu- tion. No one saw more clearly, or urged more zealously, the wants of a just consolidated government. One of the prominent measures of the old Con- federacy, in its latter days, was the recommendation to the States—it had power to effect nothing more—of a uniform system of imposts for the pub- lic revenue. There was some reluc- tance on the part of Pennsylvania to meet the provisions of the act, growing out of an alleged inequality of the disbursements, in consequence of which the State applied its quota, not to the general treasury but to the public cre- ditors within her own jurisdiction. To remedy this grievance, and bring the tax where it belonged, at the disposal 350 RUFUS of the General Government, Mr. King and Mr. Monroe were sent by Congress to represent the case to the legislatm'e. A day was appointed for the hearing, and Mr. King took especial pains to prepare himself, as was his custom, for the occasion. Perhaps the very extent of his preparation defeated his usual ease and readiness, for, the opening of the case being assigned to him, he grew embarrassed, hesitated, and was compelled to request his coadjutor to take up the discussion. Monroe, ever fluent at a certain level, proceeded with the ordinary aspects of the question, while Mr. King, having freed his mind of the constraint of his elaborate pre- paration, when his companion con- cluded, rose and delivered a finished and eloquent address. We may here remark that it was Mr. King's habit to study the subject of his speeches tho- roughly, making elaborate notes, but reducing the points of his discourse to a few heads, so that he trusted at last to the powers of his own mind on the occasion. His language then had the advantage of a sonorous utterance and impressive manner. He was also a prominent member of the Convention of 1787, which formed the Constitution, of which he was one of the most intelligent advocates, and was one of the committee appointed to prepare and report the final draft of the instrument. When the question of its adoption was brought before his own State, he rendered a no less impor- tant service in the ratifying convention, in which he sat as a member from Newburyport. Mr. King having already formed a KING. strong personal connection with the society of New York, in 1788, made that city his residence. He had, two years before, been married to Mary Alsop, the daughter of a wealthy, patriotic merchant of the place, a mem- ber of the old continental Congress, who had been driven from New York by the British occupation, and had taken refuge with his daughter, his only child, at Middletown, Connecticut. On the withdrawal of the British, he returned to the city, and there, in March, 1786, the daughter, then in her sixteenth year, became the bride of the young New England statesman. John Adams addressed to him a letter of congratulation, from England, on the event, in which, with some other in- stances of the kind, he playfully found a bond of federal union. " I heard some time ago," he wrote, " of your marriage with the daughter of my old friend, Mr. Alsop, as well as of the marriage of Mr. Gerry, and of both with the more pleasure, probably, as a good work of the same kind, for con necting Massachusetts and New York in the bonds of love, was going on here. Last Sunday, under the right reverend sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of St. Asaph, were married Mr. Smith and Miss Adams. It will be unnatural if federal purposes are not answered by these intermarriages." * The Mr. Gerry mentioned in the letter is Mr. Elbridge Gerry, the member of Congress, who about this time was married to a Miss Thompson, of New York. Colonel 1 Griswold's Republican Court, p. 100. jr RUFUS KING. 351 William S. Smith, Secretary of Lega- tion at London at the time of his mar- riage to Miss Adams, was a native of New York, a gentleman well known in the social circles of the city. The features of Mary Alsop, Mrs. King, are preserved on the canvas of Trumbull— an interesting portrait of an animated countenance, graceful and beautiful in the higher elements of goodness. Mr. King's position in the political world was so well understood and ap- preciated at New York, that he was chosen, together with General Schuyler, one of the first United States Senators from the State, under the new Consti- tution. He was at the tune a member of the New York Legislature. He served through his term of office in the Senate, and in 1795 was reelected. Much has been said of his eloquence in this body, particularly of a speech on a personal issue, which was made a strict party test, and excited an interest other- wise disproportionate to the occasion; we allude to the question of the citizenship of Albert Gallatin, and the consequent uncertainty of his claim to a seat in the Senate. Mr. King, of course, took the Federalist side, in opposition to Galla- tin and the rising members of the Re- publican party. This occurred in 1794, the year of Jay's British Treaty, which was emphatically the question of the time. The agitation on this subject can hardly be appreciated at the pre- sent day, involving as it did so much of the old feeling of the war which had just passed, and, what was a great deal more with politicians, so much of the party struggle for power of the fu- ture. In this matter the Federalists were of one mind, and King, by the side of Fisher Ames, and others of his personal friends, stood nobly by the administration of Washington. The popular opposition to the treaty was so great, that when Hamilton and King appeared at a public meeting in New York, to defend its positions, neither were allowed to speak. They conse- quently had recourse to the pen, and became the joint authors of the "Essays on the Treaty," which bore the signa- ture " Camillus." Of these the first ten were the work of Hamilton, while the re- mainder, discussing the commercial and maritime articles, were by Mr. King. His ability exhibited in this affair, together with his many other special qualifications, led to his nomination by Washington as minister to England He was particularly recommended for the post by Hamilton, who, in a letter to the President, thus spoke of his friend : " The importance, to our secu- rity and commerce, of a good under- standing with Great Britain, renders it very important that a man able and not disagreeable to that government, should be there. Mr. King is a remarkably well informed man, a very judicious one, a man of address, a man of fortune and economy, whose situation affords just ground of confidence; a man of unimpeached probity where he is known, a firm friend to the govern- ment, a supporter of the measures of the President; a man who cannot but feel that he has strong pretensions to confidence and trust."* Mr. King's nomination to the mission 1 Sparks' Washington, XI. 128. 352 RUFUS KING. was made to the Senate in May, 1796, and immediately confirmed. His residence abroad, as minister to England, was continued for six years, through the remainder of Washing- ton's administration, the whole of that of John Adams, and two years of the first term of Jefferson. The negotia- tions of the mission at that time chiefly concerned the disputed commercial rights of the two countries, which were involved in various discussions aggra- vated by the belligerent condition of Europe. Of these, the right of search touched most nearly the honor of the country; and, on this question, Mr. King was most earnest and patriotic in his demands. Mr. King had left America in the full faith and. confidence of Federal- ism, then the dominant party, having stood the test of the agitation on the British treaty. He returned to his adopted State, to find a new order of things established. "The popular air was in another direction," to quote the language of his son, " and Mr. King was of too lofty a character to trim his bark to the veering breeze." He had long since abandoned professional life as a lawyer, and now chose a residence in the country, the most dignified re- tirement for a statesman out of office. He became the purchaser of a country seat on Long Island, at Jamaica, in the neighborhood of New York, a spot still in his family, and honored as the residence of his son, Governor John A. King. Thither he removed his family from the city, in 1806, and found pleas- ing occupation in the planting and decoration of his grounds. A picture of his leisure at this time in a graceful sketch written by his son, President Charles King, which we have just cited, may interest the reader. After noticing his care in introducing from New Hampshire the pines and firs which now adorn the grounds, the writer proceeds : " Some acorns planted near the house in 1810 are now large trees. Mr. King indeed planted, as the Romans builded—'for posterity and the immortal gods,' for to his eldest son, now ocupying the residence of his father, he said in putting into the ground an acorn of the red oak: 'If you live to be as old as I am, you will see here a large tree;' and, in fact, a noble, lofty, wide-proportioned red oak now flourishes there, to delight with its wide-branching beauty, its grateful shade, and more grateful associations, not the children only, but the grand- children and great-grandchildren of him who planted the acorn. " Mr. King possessed, in a remarkable degree, all the tastes that fit one for the enjoyment of country life. He had a large and well selected library, particu- larly rich in its books relating to the Americas, and this library remains un- broken. With these true, tried, unwaver- ing and unwearying friends—and such good books are—Mr. King spent much time; varying, however, his studious la- bors with out-door exercise on horseback, to which he was much addicted; and in judgment of the qualities, as well as in the graceful management of a horse, he was rarely excelled. He loved, too, his gun and dog; was rather a keen sportsman and good shot; though often, when the pointer was hot upon RUFUS KING. 353 the game, his master's attention would be diverted byr some rare or beautiful shrub or flower upon which his eye happened to light, and of which—if not the proper season for transplanting it into his border—he would carefully mark the place, and make a memo- randum thereof, so as to be enabled to return at the fitting time and secure his prize. In this way he had collected in his shrubberies all the pretty flower- ing shrubs and plants indigenous to the neighborhood, adding thereto such strangers as he could naturalize; so that, during a visit made to him many years after he began his plantation, by the Abbe Qorrta, then minister from Portugal to this government, but even more distinguished as a man of letters and particularly as a botanist—the learned Abbe said he could almost study the flowers and the trees of the central and eastern portion of the United States in these grounds. Mr. King loved, too, the song of birds —and his taste was rewarded by the number of them which took shelter in this secure and shady plantation, where no guns were ever allowed to be fired, nor trap nor snare to be set. The gar- den and the farm also came in for their share of interest and attention; and nowhere did care judiciously bestowed, and expenditure wisely ordered, pro- duce more sure or gratifying results."1 In this honorable leisure Mr. Kino- passed the few years intervening be- fore the breaking out of the second war with England—not, we maybe assured, an unobservant spectator of Homes of American Statesmen, p. 360-1 45 events, since he had been prominently engaged in his embassy in England in discussing the very elements and sources of the struggle. Though not, we are told, at the outset an advocate of the war, with many other sound patriots, judging the country unpre- pared for the struggle, and opposed as he was by the tenor of his political life to the party in power, yet, like a good citizen, war being once declared, he gave it his earnest support. One of the first incidents of the controversy was an utter depression of the moneyed interests of the country—one of those panics in Wall street which still con- tinue to be experienced at irregular intervals, when credit seems utterly ex- tinct, and the banks on the verge of annihilation. At this crisis, in 1812, Mr. King made his appearance at a general meeting of the citizens of New York, held at the Tontine Coffee House, and gave that advice of forbearance towards the banks, which it has on such occasions since been found expe- dient, even under our present stringent laws, to maintain by relaxed judicial interpretation. At that time, the in- dulgence, in the face of a calamitous war, was still more imperative. In May, 1813, Mr. King again took his seat in the Senate of the United States, and was again reelected by the Legislature of New York, in 1820. His course in the earlier time was dis- tinguished by his support of the ad- ministration in the contest with Great Britain, his speech on the burning of the Capitol at Washington being often spoken of for its eloquence and patriotic fervor. " History," says the late Senator 354 RUFUS KING. Benton, in reference to the part borne by Mr. King in opposition to the dictation of party in those days of peril to his country, " should remember this patri- otic conduct of Mr. King, and record it for the beautiful and instructive les- son which it teaches." * His second term was marked by his advocacy of the prohibition of slavery in the admission of the territory of Mis- souri, as he had more than thirty years before introduced the resolution of 1785, in the old Congress, prohibiting slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio. In 1825, on the termination of his senatorial career, at the age of seventy, he was induced by President John Quincy Adams to accept the mis- sion to England. His health, however, now broken, was still further impaired by the voyage, and after a few months' residence in London, where he was well received by the British cabinet, he was compelled to ask liberty to return. He came back to his seat at Jamaica, where, finding his health becoming feebler, he removed for care and assistance to the city of New York, where he died, on the 29th April, 1827. Besides the public offices we have enumerated, Mr. King was voted for as a candidate for the post of Gover- nor of the State of New York, in 1816, of Vice President of the United States in 1808, and of President in 1816. "Ah, sir!"—said John Ran- dolph, in 1823, after enjoying the hospi- 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View of the American Govern- ment, I 57 talities of his friend at his home at Jamaica, on occasion of the great meet- ing of the North and South, to witness the race between Eclipse and Henry on the Long Island course—" ah, sir! only for that unfortunate vote on the Mis souri question, he would be our man for the Presidency. He is, sir, a genu ine English gentleman of the old school; just the man for these degene rate times."1 Mr. Benton, whom we have already cited, in his " Thirty Years' View," de- votes a pleasing chapter of his genial work to the retirement of Mr. King from the Senate, in which he brings be- fore us the mind and habit of the man. " Like Mr. Macon, and John Taylor, of Carolina," he says, " Mr. King had his individuality of character, manners, and dress, but of different type; they, of plain, country gentlemen; and he, a high model of courtly refinement. He alwayTs appeared in the Senate in full dress; short small clothes, silk stock- ings, and shoes, and was habitally ob- servant of all the courtesies of life. His colleague in the Senate, during the chief time that I saw him there, was Mr. Van Buren: and it was singular to see a great State represented in the Senate at the same time by the chiefs of opposite political parties; Mr. Van Buren was much the younger, and it was delightful to behold the defer- ential regard which he paid to his elder colleague, always returned with marked kindness and respect." 1 Garland's Life of Randolph, II 192. Zu^ C- V JOHN MARSHALL. The life of Marshall presents a pic- ture of thought and action; of quiet domestic virtue, and of public honor; of the arts of war, and of peace; of the two great eras of America, the Revolution and the Constitution; upon which the mind may long feed with profit and pleasure. We shall find him in many relations to the State and the public, but always the same sim- ple, truthful man. The family of Marshall occupied but a humble position among the large landowners of Virginia; nor were they among the earliest settlers of the coun- try. His grandfather, a native of Wales, came to Westmoreland County, about 1730, and married there Eliza- beth Markham, a native of England. His eldest son, Thomas, inherited the Westmoreland farm, of no great value; and on coming of age removed west- ward, to Fauquier County. There, married to Mary Keith, a relative of the wide-spread family of the Ran- dolphs, he established himself on a small farm at Germantown. At this place John Marshall was born, September 24, 1755. He was the eldest of fifteen children, all of whom, we are told, possessed remarkable intellectual abi- lity. They doubtless owed much of it to the superior character of the father, a man of vigorous sense and cultivated mind. The reading of a country gen- tleman, at that time and place, judged by the standard of our own day, would probably not be considered very exten- sive or profound. We have enlarged and refined these matters till the lite- rature of the last century, the books of our forefathers, are thrown quite into the shade. It may be questioned, how ever, whether we have gained much in the education of youth by heaping a score of sciences and languages upon the infant mind; substituting German speculation and a Germanized style for the simpler forms of the old reading, which could be readily understood and safely imitated. We are ourselves old-fashioned enough to prefer seeing Oliver Goldsmith in a boy's hand to Thomas Carlyle, and even much be- rated Alexander Pope to Alfred Ten- nyson ; and this without any disparage- ment of these contemporary worthies. We have been led to this remark by finding the first book of the great judicial mind of Marshall to be Pope's " Essay on Man," which, with some of his "Moral Essays," the boy, at the age of twelve, transcribed under his father's direction. It became the seed of no unimportant poetical cultivation, for Marshall, it appears, little as his 806 356 JOHN MARSHALL. public labors would seem to bear wit- ness of the fact, was something of a votary of the Muses. Such vigorous forest growths, indeed, huge evergreens of a hardy clime, display no gay blossoms on their branches, nor sport with the flowers at their feet; but, deep down in the soil, there will be found some permanent spring of Helicon to water their roots. The late Judge Story, who was fonder of verse than Marshall, in an article written on the Chief Justice while he was yTet alive, speaks with affection of the poetical pursuits of his great exemplar. " The love of poetry," he says, " thus awakened in the boy's warm and vigorous mind, never ceased to exert a commanding influence over it. He became enamored of the classi- cal writers of the old school, and was instructed by their solid sense, and their beautiful imagery. In the enthu- siasm of youth, he often indulged him- self in poetical compositions; and freely gave up those hours of leisure to those delicious dreamings of the muse, which (say what we may) constitute some of the purest sources of pleasure in the gay scenes of life, and some of the sweetest consolations in adversity and affliction, throughout every subsequent period of it." We may attach some importance, also, in Marshall's education, to the mountain scenery of his youth, his father having removed, in his boyhood, from Germantown to a still more west- erly position at Oak Hill, on the de-- clivity of the Blue Ridge. Schools, of course, there were none in such a situ- ation. The youth, indoctrinated, as we have seen, in Pope and Dry den, was sent to Westmoreland, to the care and instruction of a clergyman named Campbell, when he became a fellow pupil with James Monroe, the future Pre- sident. On his return home, he found, according to a custom not un isual in that period among intelligent settlers, his father entertaining a newly arrived parish clergyman in his home. This gentleman, named Thompson, became the youth's instructor. It will be re membered that James Madison derived similar advantages under like circum- stances from the Rev. Mr. Martin. In- deed, the clergyman, in the colonial time, more than any other man, may be said to have educated the mind as well as looked after the morals of the coun- try. In these two years of clerical in- struction in Westmoreland and at home, Marshall acquired some slight knowledge of the Latin language. It was, however, sufficient to form a basis for his vigorous mind to work upon, and he did not, in after life, neglect the opportunity. The clarion call of Lexington now echoed even to the distant recesses of the Blue Ridge, seconded in the human breast by the voice of spring. The young Marshall went forth at the first summons to assemble the militia-men of the region. There was already some organization of the kind which his father had formerly commanded. The son, with the title of lieutenant, found himself at the head of the muster. He related to the rude frontier cultivators the story of Lexington, and taught them a few simple military movements. He then, we are told, joining familiarly with his companions, played that well JOHN MJ known game of quoits which lightened the toils of the Chief Justice half a cen- tury afterwards. It was characteristic of his hardy mountain habits, which strengthened his constitution for a long life, that he walked ten miles to the muster, performed its exercises, engaged in these athletic amusements, and re- turned home on foot by sunset of a May day. The young soldier was soon called into active service. Dunmore, the de- posed Governor, was in force in the southern counties near Norfolk, and it was necessary to dislodge him. Com- panies were raised throughout Virginia. The elder Marshall commanded one of these, in which his son was lieutenant. The flag of the troop, we are told, pre- sented a coiled rattlesnake, with the mottoes, " Don't tread on me!" and " Liberty or Death !" The last words were painted on the breasts of the green hunting-shirts of the company. The men were armed with rifles, toma- hawks, and knives.' A costume, this, somewhat unlike the peaceful toga of the Chief Justice. Marshall was present with this com- pany, and, with the rest of his com- panions, gave a good account of him- self at the battle of Great Bridge, when Fordyce and his men were slain or put to flight, and the region about Norfolk cleared of the forces of Dunmore. This was the State warfare in which Patrick Henry was engaged, though he was not intrusted with this particular command. Immediately after, companies were 1 A Sketch of the Early Days of John Marshall, by Mr. John Esten Cooke, of Richmond, in the New York Cen- tury. RSHALL. 357 formed for the Continental service. Marshall was appointed, July, 1776, First Lieutenant in the 11th Virginia regiment, and in the following May was promoted to a captaincy. His father, Colonel Marshall, was with Washington in the campaign in the Jerseys of 17 7 6. The son joined Wash- ington's army the next year, and en- gaged in the movements for the protec- tion of Philadelphia, which, baffling Howe in New Jersey, were destined to defeat at the Brandywine. Marshall's company was engaged at the outpost at Iron Hill, and on the banks of the river, where it distinguished itself by some gallant skirmishing. The elder Marshall fought nobly with his regi- ment, both father and son reaping theii honors in the adversities of that Sep tember day. The son was also actively engaged in the pursuit of the British and in the subsequent retreat at German- town. He was with the army in its ter- rible winter at Valley Forge, was in the action at Monmouth, was at Stony Point and Paulus Hook; so that few to whom war was not their sole profes- sion, saw more service than Captain Marshall. He had, of course, now be- come intimate with Washington, in participating with him in these hard- ships and deeds of valor, of which his pen afterwards presented so faithful a record. We hear, also, of his acquaint- ance with Hamilton, and of his civic talents in the camp as Counsellor and Judge Advocate. In 1779, the Virginia companies being virtually dissolved by the expiration of the term of service of the men, Marshall returned to his State to wait new opportunities of service 35S JOHN MARSHALL. He now availed himself of the oppor- tunity to apply himself resolutely to study. He attended a course of law lectures by George Wythe, afterwards Chancellor, and a course on natural philosophy by the President, Mr. Madi- son. In the vacation of 1780, he left the college and obtained a license to practise law. The invasion of Arnold, however, called him again into the field. He finally, in 1781, resigned his commission. On the termination of the war he devoted himself to the law, and rapidly advanced in the profession. In 1782, he was elected a member of the State Legislature and of the Executive Council. The next year saw him married to Miss Mary Willis Ambler, daughter of the State Treasurer, a young lady of whom he became enamored in his early military expedition against Dunmore's forces, in a visit to York. At the period of this first engagement, he was an ardent young lover of nineteen, she a fair maiden of fourteen. A tradition of the courtship is preserved, with con- genial sentiment, in the sketch of Mr. Cooke, to which we have already re- ferred. " An attachment was formed at first sight. The young Marshall endeared himself to the whole family, notwithstanding his slouched hat and negligent and awkward dress, by his amiable manners, fine talents, and especially his love for poetry, which he read to them with deep pathos. In proof of the ardor of his character and the tenderness of his attachment, he often said ' that he looked with aston- ishment on the present race of lovers,' so totally unlike what he had been | himself." For nearly half a centmy this lady accompanied her husband in the journey of life, :n a union unhappy only in its termination. Marshall, now in the pursuit of his profession, tooh up his residence at Richmond, though he represented Fauquier and afterwards Henrico County in the legislature ; his attention thus being divided between politics and the law. It was a time of much agitation in the unsettled rela- tions of the States to one another, and to the loose central authority. Mar- shall looked clearly to union; by the side of Madison, he defended a suf ficient central authority. His experi ence in the army must have shown him the weakness of the old confederation in making provision for the common defence; his logical mind must have pointed out to him the legal necessity of a properly defined constitutional govern- ment; and union, moreover, seems to have been with him a matter of instinct and feeling. His own expression should never be forgotten. " I had grown up at a time," he wrote long afterwards to a friend, " when the love of the Union and the resistance to the claims of Great Britain were the inseparable inmates of the same bosom; when patriotism and a strong fellow feeling with our suffering fellow citizens of Boston were' identical; when the maxim—' United we stand, divided we fall'—was the maxim of every ortho- dox American. And I had imbibed these sentiments so thoroughly, that they constituted a part of my being. I carried them with me into the army, where I found myself associated with I brave men, from different States, who JOHN M, were risking life and everything valu- able, in a common cause, believed by all to be most precious, and where I was confirmed in the habit of con- sidering America as my country, and Congress as my government."1 How simple a way of explaining a grand position in politics. There is no claim of sagacity, or forethought, or insight- nothing of the great constitutional lawyer or of the science of govern- ment: it is an answer which any farmer might have given Such was John Marshall! The advantage of personal character in a community in times of political excitement, has seldom been exhibited in a more striking manner than in Marshall's election to the Virginia Con- vention, which sat in 1788, to decide upon the adoption of the Federal Con- stitution. The popular outcry of his district was against the adoption; he was desired to pledge himself against it; he refused, and was elected solely from the regard in which he was held, though his views ran counter to the prejudices of the day. Had there been uo John Marshall at Richmond, there would have been one vote less to diminish the small majority in favor of the Constitution; for the people could readily have found a representative to vote with them, though they could not resist the virtues of Marshall. He was elected by a large vote. Let the poli- tician remember that, after all, there is no political capital like character. The personal influence of Marshall, 1 Letter quoted in Mr. Van Santvoord's Lives of the Chief Justices RSHALL. 359 no less than his weight of argument, must have been of the utmost import- ance in an assembly so closely divided, in which so many angry elements of discussion were intermingled. Ques- tions of policy, questions of interest, experiences of the past, fears of the future, immature creeds of legislation, State pride, and local prejudices, were so many ingredients in the bubbling caldron, so anxiously watched by Washington and his friends for its ris- ing portents. That out of the seething mass a shape of peace and prosperity arose, the fair image of the Constitution was due especially to the two master minds of Madison and Marshall. The popular eloquence and ready ingenuity of Patrick Henry, no mean opponent in debate, and the strength of George Mason, who sat in the Convention at Philadelphia, were on the other side. Marshall replied elaborately to both. His speeches are preserved in the pub- lished Debates, but " we are assured by the highest authority," says Story, " that the printed volume affords but a veiy feeble and faint sketch of the actual debates on that occasion, or of the vigor with which every attack was urged, and every onset repelled, against the Con- stitution. To Henry's earnest expostu- lations, pleading, as he thought for the first principles of liberty, he answered: ' I concur with him in the propriety of the observance of such maxims. They are necessary in any government, but more essential to a democracy than to any other. What are the favorite maxims of democracy? A strict ob servance of justice and public faith, and a steady adherence to virtue. TLtse, 360 JOnN MARSHALL. sir, are the principles of a good govern- ment. No mischief—no misfortune, ought to deter us from a strict observ- ance of justice and public faith. Would to Heaven that these principles had been observed under the present go- vernment! Had this been the case, the friends of liberty would not be so willing now to part with it.'"1 On three great occasions, the debates on the power of taxation, the power over the militia, and the power of the judiciary, Marshall gave free scope to his genius, and argued with a most commanding ability. The resolution of the Convention, by a vote of 89 to 79, brought Virginia, the ninth State, into line with the friends of union, and made the Constitution a living reality. It should be remembered that in Vir- ginia, as well as in Massachusetts, much of the opposition was neutralized and had its apology in the understanding that amendments subsequently adopted by the States, were to modify or inter- pret the instrument. Marshall, now at the head of the most important legal practice in the State, yet found time for awhile to represent his city of Richmond in the State Legislature, till the close of the session, in 1791, when he voluntarily retired. Virginia, however, was not to be the sole claimant upon the services of her son. The patriotism of Washing- ton on her soil, was a guiding and di- recting power which brought into the national service the strongest minds of the Old Dominion. Even Henry, the loudest in opposition amidst the con- 1 Jonathan Elliott's Debates in the several State Con- veutiouA 2d ed.. III. 22:. tending forces of State Rights and Con solidation, as it was termed, yielded to the magic spell The last act of his brilliant public career, was to sustain the Federal Government in its warfare with the destructive agencies of French propagandism. This was now the question of the day. French sympathies had probably no greater stronghold than in Virginia. The poison had crept insidiously into the public mind, which, at the outset, was enlisted on the side of France, by every emotion of gratitude, and that ideal of political liberty and virtue ever rising in the human breast. When the war between France and England broke out, in 1793, it became a practical ques- tion to which side America should ad- here. Washington indeed counselled and commanded neutrality; but neu- trality was considered by the French minister, Genet, who had many sup- porters in his insolent career, as the violation of old engagements, and, in reality, friendship to England. The government brought the matter to an issue by Jay's treaty of 1794, and Mar- shall again stood by the side of his old leader, in support of that mea- sure, which called forth the full strength of the opposition throughout the land. In the meantime the aggressions of France went on, in invasions of our com- mercial rights, and attacks upon our ves- sels at sea. Monroe succeeded Morris at Paris, and after Monroe was sent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; Fauchet suc- ceeded to Genet in America, and Adet to Fauchet. Under all these negotia- tions, with the best temper on the part of JOHN MARSHALL. 361 our diplomatists, the difficulties with the French Republic remained unadjusted and vexations increased. The Directory would not even receive General Pinck- ney. To solve this perplexity, and secure some attention to American rights and honor, the new administra- tion of Adams determined upon a fresh diplomatic movement. Pinckney was reinforced by the appointment of two fellow commissioners, in Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall, in the language of the President's original nomination, "to dissipate umbrages, to remove preju- dices, to rectify errors, and adjust all differences by a treaty between the two powers."1 In October, 1797, the three met in Paris, and began a renewal of negotiations. It is not necessary here to follow the details of this melancholy but instructive episode in our diplo- matic history. Its lesson should not be lost upon our foreign intercourse. The Directory, through the wily Talleyrand, exhausted all the arts of mystery and delay. They showed little disposition to meet fair argument or " rectify errors;" their efforts were rather bent to secure temporary advantages in a loan and handsome bribe—two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was the sum something more than suggested—to their indivi- dual members. They endeavored to bully and browbeat, to excite the fears of the negotiators by representations of foreign dangers and domestic insurrec- tion. They even attempted to disunite Gerry as the representative of the French party in America from his Federal as- sociates, who, finally, having exhausted every method, and suffered every in- dignity, withdrew in disgust. " His- tory," writes Marshall, in his brief review of these transactions, in his " Life of Washington," " will scarcely furnish the example of a nation, not absolutely degraded, which has experi- enced from a foreign power such open contumely and undisguised insult as were on this occasion suffered by the United States, in the persons of their ministers." * Marshall returned to America from this worse than fruitless negotiation, in the summer of 1798, to be received with open arms by his countrymen, who saw not the failure of the negotia- tion, but the proud assertion of the national honor in resistance to the degrading demands of the Directory. It would have been contrary, too, to human nature if the Federalists had not made the most of this confirmation of their worst imaginings of French diplomacy. The proposition of Talley- rand was the legitimate sequel to the paltry triumph of Genet. Marshall now turned his thoughts to the resumption of his practice at the bar, when he was again withdrawn from private life by the solicitations of Washington to permit himself to be« put in nomination for Congress. He was elected, though not without a struggle, and took his seat at the meet- ing, at the close of 1799. His vindica- tion of the action of the Government in the famous Robbins extradition case on the floor of Congress is con- sidered one of his most masterly argu- * American State Papers. Foreign Relations, II. 19. 46 1 Life of Washington, 4to., V. 634. 362 JOHN MARSHALL. ments. He lent an important but candid support to the Administration, declining the Department of War, when it was offered him, but serving for a year in the Department of State, till he was summoned, in the beginning of 1801, to be Chief Justice of the United States. For thirty-four years, till his death, he presided over the Supreme Court, called upon to decide the most important questions of constitutional law, affecting the conflicts of States and the General Government, the supe- riority of the judiciary to the legisla- ture in the final appeal, and whatever of a mixed nature arose in the working of the government. His rulings and charge at the trial of Burr for treason, over which he presided at Richmond, have something more than merely the legal interest of many of his decisions. Involving directly the great questions of the liberty of the subject, in relation to the state, they belong to the history of the country, and its vital existence. The writings of Marshall on the Constitution were separately published after his death, under the supervision of Justice Story. They form a volume worthy to be ranked as a sequel to the "Federalist," embracing adjudications of many of the most important points of law arising under the great instru- ment heralded in that work to the public by Jay, Madison and Hamilton, by one who was the peer of these fathers of the Republic.1 Marshall's judicial career covers the The reader will find an epitome of the more important of Marshall's decisions in that faithful biographical work, "Van Santvoord's Sketches of the Lives and Judicial Services of the Chief Justices." remainder of his life. It was varied in its early years by the publication of his "Life of Washington," a comprehensive work, plainly and sincerely written, with no little research and industry. Marshall saw in the Life of Washing- ton, the history of his country; he therefore, while he presented him as the central figure, hesitated not to introduce a review of current public transactions; he even carried this further by commencing his work with an elaborate view of Colonial History— complete enough in itself to be de- tached, as it has been, from the re- mainder of the narrative. He had access to the original papers of Wash- ington, and though he was far from ex- hausting that extraordinary stock of inestimable materials, drew from them a vast amount of authentic matter. The Life of Washington has since been written by various pens—by Mr. Sparks, Washington Irving, and others—but we believe it is acknowledged by those who are most faithful in original re- searches, that the work of Marshall is truthfulness itself. Surely no one could know Washington better; few could write from so large a personal par- ticipation in his deeds of war and peace. In 1829, Marshall sat with the me- morable men of his State, that brilliant assemblage of political chieftains which met at Richmond for the revision of the Virginia Constitution. He was now beyond the age of three score, approaching the termination of his career. The fine-hearted old man bore up well through the long years which brought sorrow and infirmity to him, as they do to most; the loss of his JOHN MARSHALL. 363 wife touched him deeply; Story found him, one day, shedding tears at the thought of the departed bride of his youth, and stay of his manhood and age ; he had, too, an afflictive disease— yet he presided in court to the last, with unimpaired mental power. At the close of the term, in the spring of 1835, he travelled to Philadelphia for medical relief; the operation to which he submitted was considered successful; but he died shortly after, on the sixth of July. His remains were taken to Richmond, and the funeral services performed by his friend, Bishop Moore. He left a modest, simple inscription for his tomb, written but two days before his death, recording only his parentage, the date of his birth and his marriage, with the name of his wife, and a blank space for the day of his death. In person, Marshall was tall, slender, erect, his eye black, not large but bright, his hair black till age. The simplicity and benevolence of his cha- racter were extraordinary. Anecdotes of the Chief Justice are the delight of the social circles of Virginia, in which he is remembered by many survivors They all point to his genuine, unaf- fected worth, and the kindness of his nature. The story is told of his club at Richmond, and their innocent, boy- ish hilarity in pitching quoits, a game in which Marshall delighted from youth. He was careless of dress, quite rustic in his appearance. An anecdote is re- lated of a fashionable young gentleman, not acquainted with his person, meeting him one day at market, and having occasion to send home a turkey which he had purchased, placing it, without the least hesitation, in the hands of the Chief Justice, who accompanied the youth home with his burden. It was only when the porter pleasantly refused pay for his service that the proprietor of the turkey began to perceive some- thing in the appearance of the old gen- tleman, whom, upon inquiry, he ascer- tained to be—John Marshall. There are other anecdotes of equal simplicity well deserving the pen of some faithful Virginian chronicler. Let the youth of America ponder well the great example of his life, and note how few and simple are the ele- ments of honorable success in the world. Nature had, indeed, given Marshall a capacious mind, of equal power and discrimination ; the rest seems to have been accomplished by a process as spon- taneous as the flowering of the plant from the bud: by the simple exertion of straightforward fidelity and honesty. He goes quietly and modestly through the world, never seeking office—the office always seeking him. No contro- versies or discussions darken his fair fame. His high duty is before him; Washington summons him to it, he would decline it, but goes forward; he had been called to the Supreme Court, and refused, but called a second time, he accepts; and serving longer than the life-time .of a generation, his fame growing out around him noiselessly, like a process of nature, he gathers his robes about him, and lies down to rest at fourscore. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. Godvernettr Morris was one of the most strongly marked men of the Revolutionary era. The representative of an old distinguished family of the province of New York, rich in landed possessions, he inherited also the strength of mind of ancestors eminent for their talents and employment in public affairs. We hear of the Ameri- can founder of the family—an old Cromwellian soldier, thrown out of England in the disorders of his times, to seek his fortunes in the western world. Reaching New York from the West Indies, he becomes the purchaser of a vast estate in Westchester County, bordering on Harlaem River, a manorial grant known two hundred years ago by its present designation, and that of the thriving settlement, which has grown up about it to meet the wants of the teeming city—Morrisania. Lewis Morris, the successor to Richard, the original proprietor, was left an orphan. He was an impetuous youth, wandered to the West Indies, and returned to bear an active part in the colonial administration. He became Chief Justice of New York, and died, Gover- nor of New Jersey. This was the grandfather of Gouverneur Morris. His son, Lewis, was also in public life, took the popular side in the Colonial 864 questions, and discharged the duties of an Admiralty Judge. It was nis brother, Robert Hunter Morris, who was Governor of Pennsylvania, in days when governors were pledged to the maintenance of proprietary rights, with whom Franklin was frequently in con- tact, and of whom the sage gives us an instructive glimpse, in a turn of his Diogenes lantern on a pleasant page of his Autobiography. It is a curious picture of the old family training at Morrisania. " In my journey to Boston this year (1754)," writes Franklin, " I met at New York with our new gover- nor, Mr. Morris, just arrived there from England, with whom I had been before intimately acquainted. He brought a commission to supersede Mr. Hamilton, who, tired with the disputes his pro- prietary instructions subjected him to, had resigned. Mr. Morris asked me if I thought he must expect as uncom- fortable an administration. I said, ' No; you may, on the contrary, have a very comfortable one, if you will only take care not to enter into any dispute with the Assembly.' * My dear friend,' said he, pleasantly, ' how can you advise my avoiding disputes ? You know I love disputing, it is one of my greatest pleasures; however, to show the regard I have for your counsel, I promise you y7/7y\mij GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 365 I will, if possible, avoid them.' He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and therefore generally successful in argu- mentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner; but I think," adds the philosopher, " the practice was not wise, for, in the course of my observa- tion, those disputing, contradicting and confuting people, are generally unfortu- nate in their affairs." The nephew of this disputatious governor—and the fourth son of his elder brother, Lewis—the subject of our sketch, was born at Morrisania, Jan. 31, 1752. His father died in his boyhood, having directed in his will that he should have " the best education that is to be had in England or America." The education which he did get, con- sisted of a knowledge of French, in which he became an adept in after life, acquired in the family of a French teacher at New Rochelle, and a rapid course of instruction in the classics, since we find him a graduate of Columbia, then King's College, at the early age of sixteen. Mr. Sparks tells us that Latin and mathematics were his favorite studies; if so, he must have profited by the course, since we find him also a proficient in English compo- sition. His commencement exercise on " Wit and Beauty," and his subsequent master of arts theme on "Love," though the titles savor of sophomore enthusi- asm, and the applause of the young ladies, were treated with considerable ingenuity. He had, in fact, a decided talent for writing, though, as we shall see, with a vein of grandiloquence which sometimes put sober criticism to defiance. The youth studied law with a man of note in the colony, William Smith, the Chief Justice and author of the History of the Province. While he was yet a student, he attracted attention by his writings against a financial project of the Assembly, and before he was twenty, he was a full fledged Attorney at Law. Early de- velopment, early responsibility, is a trait of our Revolutionary worthies. There are numerous proofs that the old Colonial Society and its provincial agi- tations were not unfavorable to the fostering of ability and character. The habit of forming opinions and maintaining them resolutely was a cha- racteristic of the Morris family. There was ample opportunity in the times for the exercise of this talent, particularly in New York, where noisy opposition to the decrees of the British Parliament, mingled with popular local elements of agitation, was now in settled conflict with the staid laws and order of Brit- ish supremacy. Morris stood alongside of Jay in maintenance of the colonial cause. He was an active promoter of the first Provincial Assemblies, growing out of the simplest democratic commit- tees which organized opposition in New York. His skill in debate was of great value to the local Congress, and when the state of quasi rebellion was rapidly resolving itself into open revolt, in a speech of admirable elo- quence and sound logical texture, he defined and maintained the indepen 3G6 dence of America. It was in a debate in the State Convention, preliminary to the formation of a Constitution. No stronger assurances of the true nature and issue of the impending contest were uttered by any of the leading men of the continent. His picture of the British position in the struggle was prophetic. No better summary of the causes of failure, after the event, can be given by the historian than this decla- ration of Morris in 1776 : " Experience has taught those powers, and wdl teach them more clearly every day, that an American war is tedious, expensive, uncertain, and ruinous. Three thou- sand miles of a boisterous ocean are to be passed over, and the vengeful tem- pests which whirl along our coasts are daily to be encountered in such expe- ditions. At least three months' ex- pense must be incurred before one gun can be fired against an American vd- lage; and three months more before each shattered armament can find an asylum for repose. A hardy, brave people, or else a destructive climate, must be subdued, while the troops, ex- hausted by fatigue, find at every step that desertion and happiness are syno- nymous terms." In conclusion, he pours forth this quick volley of winged sentences : " Now let me earnestly ask, why should we hesitate ? Have you the least hope in treaty? Will you even think of it before certain acts of Parliament are repealed ? Have you heard of any such repeal ? Will you trust these commissioners? Is there any act of Parliament passed to ratify what they shall do ? No, they come from the King. We have no business JR MORRIS. with the King. We did not quarrel with the King. He has officiously made himself a party in the dispute against us. And now he pretends to be the umpire. Trust crocodiles, trust the hungry wolf in your flock, or a rat- tlesnake in your bosom, you may yet be something wise. But trust the King, his ministers, his commissioners, it is madness in the extreme !" There was always a certain grandeur in the mind of Gouverneur Morris. In a letter of this year, 1776, to his mother, writing from the Convention at Fishkill, he says: " What may be the event of the present war, it is not in man to deter- mine. Great revolutions of empire are seldom achieved without much human calamity; but the worst which can happen, is to fall on the last bleak mountain of America, and he who dies there, in defence of the injured rights of mankind, is happier than his con- queror, more beloved by mankind, more applauded by his own heart." The Constitution of New York, which was finally adopted, and which continued to give law to the State till 1821, owed much to the labors of Morris. He now discharged various duties of a semi- civil, semi-military character, in nego- tiations with the officers of the army, in a visit to Schuyler, whom he appre- ciated, and the following year in a pro- tracted winter residence at Washing- ton's camp at Valley Forge, whither he was sent immediately on taking his seat in the Congress at Philadelphia, of which the New York Convention had made him a member. The inti- mate friendship formed with Washing- ton, in the course of these and similar GOUVERNE GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 367 duties with which he was intrusted, was n., as American minister, planning and much consulted in affairs, and was very Sparks' Life of Morris, f. 284. 368 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. handsomely received by Lafayette; so that from these two sources alone, he was well informed of what was passing. lie made up his opinion of events with a prescience characteristic of many of his observations of public affairs; and was equally sagacious in respect to individuals and measures. Of Necker, he sayrs, after a glance at the contrast between his counting-house manner and his embroidered velvet: " If he is really a very great man, I am deceived: if he is not a laborious man, I am also deceived." He disposes of Talleyrand, of whom he saw much, in five words— " sly, cool, cunning, ambitious, ma- licious." On the Fourth of July of this memorable year, 1789, dining with Jefferson with a large party of Ameri- cans, he urges him, in some political conversation after dinner, " to preserve, if possible, some constitutional au- thority to the body of Nobles, as the only means of preserving any liberty for the people." To Lafayette his lan- guage is the same : " I am opposed to the democracy from regard to liberty. I see they are going headlong to de- struction, and would fain stop them if I could." He has witnessed the open- ing of the States General in May at Versailles; a messenger in July brings him in word that the Bastile is taken. "Yesterday," he writes, "it was the fashion at Versailles, not to believe that there were any disturbances at Paris. I presume that this day's trans- actions will induce a conviction that all is not perfectly quiet." A few days later, walking in the Palais Royal, he is grimly visited by the head of the minister, Toulon, on a pike, his body dragged naked on the ^arth. "(rrac'u >us God," he exclaims, " what a people !"' Time passes on, marked by extraordi- nary events. One day, April first of the next year, Mirabeau dies. Morris witnesses his funeral, attended by more than a hundred thousand persons, in solemn silence. He draws his portrait with the pen of a Tacitus: "Vices both degrading and detestable marked this extraordinary being. Completely pros- titute, he sacrificed everything to the whim of the moment—Cupidus alieni, prodigus sui. Venal, shameless and yet greatly virtuous, when pushed by a prevailing impulse, but never truly virtuous, because never under the steady control of reason, nor the firm authority of principle." These studies of French life had been interrupted by a special visit to England on a private agency assigned to him by President Washington, to sound the British ministry as to their disposition to arrange the outstanding grievances between the two nations, which had remained sources of great irritation since the war; grievances which were, in a measure, afterwards adjusted by Jay's treaty. The negotiation was not, however, successful at this time. On the return of Jefferson to America, and his appointment to the Secretaiyship of State at home, Morris received, in 1792, by a somewhat reluctant vote of the Senate, the vacant mission to France. The hesitation in the appoint- ment arose out of his aristocratical ten dencies, as they were called, which might be in the way of his acceptance with the new power. Washington, with the combined sense of duty and GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 360 sense of delicacy which marked his course, cautioned his friend against a certain freedom of speech calculated to excite hostility, in a statement of the allegations of his opponents, " namely, that the promptitude, with which jour lively and brilliant imagination dis- plays itself, allows too little time for deliberation and correction, and is the primary cause of those sallies, which too often offend, and of that ridicule of character, which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided, if it were under the control of more caution and prudence." None of the expected difficulties appear to have risen. 'The position, to be sure, not an easy one during the reign of the King, became still less enjoyable in revolutionary France after his de- thronement. Moreover, the ordinary duties of a minister to the Convention, the regulation of the interests of mer- chants and others, constantly invaded by decrees and attacks on the high seas, were vexatious; and when to these were added the insulting aggres- sions of the French minister at home, compelling the United States to ask for his recall, it was probably little to Morris' regret that his own return should be asked for, without special complaint. His French mission ter- minated with the arrival of his suc- cessor, Monroe, in 1794. He left Paris, travelled about Europe, visiting Swit- zerland, Germany, residing for awhile in England, returning again to the Continent, to interest himself par- ticularly in the liberation of Lafayette, from his imprisonment at Olmutz. He had the satisfaction at last, in 1797, of 47 witnessing the release which was brought about by Napoleon among the triumphs of his Italian campaign. His feelings were also interested in the exiled Duke of Orleans, whom he fur- nished with funds for his American tour, and had the pleasure, on his own return home, of entertaining at Morri- sania. It was with at least equal delight that at the request of a num- ber of citizens of New York, years afterwards, in June, 1814, he celebrated with exulting adjectives, the " deliver- ance of Europe from the yoke of mili- tary despotism," in the exile of Napoleon. " 'Tis done," he exclaims, at the commencement of this discourse, " the long agony is over. The Bour- bons are restored. France reposes in the arms of her legitimate prince. We may now express our attachment to her consistently with the respect we owe to ourselves." Morris, in 1798, returned to America, and took up his residence at Morrisania. Building and the arrangement of his affairs gave him occupation. In 1800, we find him engaged in an important law case before the Court of Errors at Albany, in which he has Hamilton for his antagonist. He is elected by the Legislature the same year to supply a vacancy in the Senate of the United States, where he becomes a staunch pillar of Federalism, retiring at the close of the term in 1803. The next year called him to utter his lamenta- tions at the bier of his friend, Hamilton. He sketched, in few impressive words, the services of that great leader, in- volving a brief view of the progress of Constitutional government, and turning no GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. ro Bishop Moore and his brethren, in Lis grand style bade them proceed: " And now, ye ministers of the ever- lasting God, perform your holy office, and commit these ashes of our departed brother to the bosom of the grave." Returning to Morrisania late in life, at the age of fifty-seven, on Christmas day, in 1809, he was married to Miss Anne Carey Randolph, a member of the Virginian family of that name. A good story is told of the affair. " With- out informing his relatives of his inten- tion, he assembled them apparently for the celebration of the festival, and while they were wondering at the non- appearance of their host, entered with a lady, and the pair were forthwith made man and wife. If all present did not relish the marriage, the}7 did the dinner, and in this odd mode of con- ducting a delicate affair, the wary poli- tician may have shown his skill as well as in the wider field of national diplo- macy. The guests were again sum- moned to the baptism of his child. A mot of one of the party deserves record for its humor. They were in ignorance, before the ceremony, as to the name the infant was to receive. " ' For my part,' said one, near, it may be presumed, in the scale of propinquity, ' I think he had better call his boy after his Rus- sian friend, Kutusoff.'" * The later years of Morris were much occupied with his duties as Chairman of the Erie Canal Commissioners, the great enterprise of his State, which he was among the earliest to advocate. 1 Encyclopaedia of American Literature ; Art. Gouver- neur Morris. The grandeur of his imagination was freely at the service of this vast enter- prise, greater even in his conceptions than in the reality. He was at the head of the commissioners first ap- pointed by the Legislature to examine the route, in 1810, and his report, pre- sented the following year, powerfully agitated the public mind. He was also called upon, from time to time, to de- liver various public orations, of which we may mention, besides the Bourbon address already spoken of, an oration in honor of the memory of George Clin- ton, and an anniversary discourse, in 1812, before the New York Historical Society, of which he was chosen Presi- dent in 1816. His inaugural discourse on this occasion, immediately preceded the sudden illness which resulted in his death. This event took place at Morrisania, November 6th, 1816. In his last moments, he called to mind that in the very room in which he lay expiring, he was born sixty-five years before. He spoke of the beauty of the day without, as he was reminded of the peaceful river scene skirting his fields, and repeated the lines of Gray in " The Elegy." " A beautiful day; yes, but " ' Who to dumb forgetfalness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.' "' The figure of Morris was tall and commanding; his portrait, as painted by Sully, exhibits well formed features in a countenance with pretensions to beauty in age. His person is said to 1 Dr. J. W. Francis. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 371 have resembled that of Washington. When he was in Paris, he stood to Hou- don for his statue of that great leader, which he said was " literally taking the advice of St. Paul, and being all things to all men." One of his limbs, however, must have failed him on this occasion, for some years before, in Philadelphia, he had met with a serious accident, in being thrown from his carriage, which resulted in the amputation of his left leg. He always wore, in consequence, a plain wooden leg, or what is de- scribed as scarcely more than a rough stick properly fitted to the limb. An anecdote is related of his conduct upon this disaster, which exhibits his consti- tutional cheerfulness. A friend came to see him the next day, and urged the ad- vantage the loss would be to him as a check upon dissipation. " My good sir," replied Morris, " you argue the matter so handsomely, and point out so clearly the advantage of being without legs, that I am almost tempted to part with the other." To another friend, who fell into the same vein of remark, he said, " Oh, sir, the loss is much less than you im- agine ; I shall doubtless be a steadier man with one leg than with two." * The acknowledgment by his friend, John Jay, at Bedford, of one of Morris's historical addresses, supplies rather a pungent criticism upon his somewhat exalted style. " It abounds in inte- resting remarks; the diction is elevated throughout, perhaps in some instances beyond the proportion which the topics bear to each other. In landscape, we 1 Sparks' Morris, I. 224. prefer hill and dale to a plain, however ornamented; and in a field of eloquence it is agreeable to behold sublimities sloping down into Attic simplicity. In my opinion, the invention of steamboats is a subject on which it is less difficult to say handsome than sublime things. To me it does not appear probable that the sight of them on Asiatic waters can so powerfully affect the feelings of the Genius of Asia as to impel him to bow with grateful reverence (not gratula- tion) to the inventive spirit of Ame rica ; and that, too, at the very moment when his eye, glancing over the ruins of cities, which for ages had concurred in proclaiming his superiority in the arts, must remind him of his dignity."* By the side of this playful criticism, we may place the earnest eulogy of De Witt Clinton. "Morris' intellec- tual character was distinguished by versatile and great qualities—his collo- quial powers were unrivalled—at the Bar or in the Senate he was preemi- nent—he united wit, logic, pathos, and intelligence, and he wielded the pas- sions and feelings of his audience at pleasure."a Many noble qualities were united in the character of Morris. Truthfulness, firmness in friendship, resolution, can- dor, an instinctive judgment, and, above all, an elevation of mind which set him on a level with the great national cause, of which he became naturally the re- presentative. 1 Life and Correspondence of John Jay, II. 377. 1 Discourse before the Alumni of Columbia College, 1827. ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.. The several distinguished members of the Livingston family whose names are recorded in American history, William Livingston, the governor of New Jersey, Philip Livingston, the signer of the Declaration, Robert R. Livingston, the subject of our present sketch, and the late Edward Livingston, are all descended from a common stock of remote Scottish origin. Mr. Hoi- gate, who furnishes us with the descent in his "American Genealogy," traces the family downward from the worthy Dr. John Livingstone, a divine of note in the days of persecution of the Cove- nanters, who was settled for awhile at Ancram, and afterwards driven for conscience' sake to a refuge in Holland, where he died in 1672. His son, Robert, born at Ancram in 1654, was the first emigrant of the family to America. He came to New York, where he received a liberal welcome. We find him, in 1676, in responsible employment at Albany, under the colonial administration, and in 1686, established by Governor Dongan in possession of the territorial manor of Livingston on the Hudson, acquired by purchase of the Indians. The manor of Clermont, containing about thirteen thousand acres, was separated from this vast estate *by the bequest of this 87a original proprietor to his youngest son. Robert, to reward him, it is said, for his agency in discovering and destroy- ing a plot formed by the Indians for the massacre of the people of the pro- vince. This Robert, the father of Robert R. Livingston, held the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the colony of New York, on the breaking out of the Revolution, when he .was separated from his colleagues of the bench, and sided with the colonists. He was a member of the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, at New York. It was his daughter who became the wife of the gallant Richard Montgomery, and it was doubtless by his influence that this officer was introduced to the Provincial Congress, which met in the spring of 1775, after the battle of Lex- ington. The father-in-law did not live through the year, the last day of which was to bring the brilliant young officer, his companion, to the grave, from the gory cliff of Quebec. The old Pro- vincial Justice, however, left a son who was long to represent him in the councils of the nation, Robert R. Liv- ingston, the subject of our sketch, popularly discriminated from other members of the family by the office he long held, as the Old Chancellor He was born in the city of New 6, Iho?;. ::7zs original fixture, in, ike.possession, of the- J*ubUshers Jobusou I'>, & C? 2aH\xshmi. IZev. W~. ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. 373 York, November 27, 1747. As the story of his life, though an excellent subject for biography, has not yet been written at length, we are without any particular account of his early educa- tion, though we may infer that it was conducted with care, since we find him, in 1764, at seventeen, a graduate of King's — afterwards Columbia — Col- lege, then under the presidency of Myles Cooper, of Revolutionary cele- brity. Young Livingston, who retained a taste for elegant literature through life, was, we may presume, not indif- ferent to these advantages. At the ter- mination of his college education, he studied law with William Smith, the distinguished councillor and justice of the province, and the historian of the colony, and also with his relative, Wil- liam Livingston, of New Jersey. In October, 1773, he was admitted to the bar, and shortly afterwards appointed Recorder of the city of New York. The Revolution found him in this position, so that both father and son now relinquished at the same time im- portant judicial stations, to take part with their fellow patriots in the libera- tion of their country. He was a member of the Provincial Convention, which assembled at New York in 1775, to choose delegates to the second Congress of the colonies at Philadelphia. He appears to have taken a leading part in the debates of that and the following year, when he was placed on the Committee to pre- pare and report a plan of confederation for the colonies. He was also on the committee to prepare the Declaration ! of Independence with Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Sherman, though in con- sequence of being called to New York to the third Provincial Congress, of which he was a member, he had not the good fortune to place his signature to that instrument. He thus lost the opportunity of being enrolled in popu- lar biographies as " one of the signers." He was, however, rendering impor- tant service in the Provincial Congress, in preparation for the defence of the Hudson, which had engaged his atten- tion on his first appearance in Congress at Philadelphia. He was also one of the committee appointed to prepare the first Constitution of the State, in which Jay bore so prominent a part. He in- troduced into this instrument the sec- tion creating the Council of Revision, a body composed of the Governor, Chancellor, and Judges of the Supreme Court, which sat to revise all bills about to be passed into laws by the Legislature, and of which he himself became a prominent member.1 Other duties of a more active though not more responsible character, engaged his attention, as member of the Council of Safety, by which body he was charged with military powers to aid General Schuyler on the northern and west- ern frontiers. When the plan of government, which he had aided in devising in the Provincial Congress, went into effect, under the Constitution, he was created First Chancellor of the State of New York. Notwithstanding 1 The Court existed till it was abolished by the Conven- tion of 1821, and its power lodged solely in the hands oi the Governor, by the Constitution of that year. See Street's History of the Council of Revision. ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. his holding this office, he was twice sent as special delegate to Congress, in which body he was appointed, in 1781, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the duties of which he dis- charged with great ability till 1783. This being considered a virtual aban- donment of his chancellorship, he was then reappointed to that high office. The next year he was again at Philadel- phia, a delegate to Congress. In no public employment, involving important deliberations, does he seem to have been overlooked. He was in the State Commission with Jay and others, relative to the disputed rights of Massachusetts and New York as to western territory, and when two years later, in 1786, the Convention at An- napolis was proposed for the considera- tion of some national regulation of trade and commerce, he was appointed a delegate with Hamilton, Benson, and Duane. He was not, however, present at this meeting, more important in its sequel than for what it accomplished. There Hamilton and Madison met to- gether, and out of their joint delibera- tions with their fellow members, grew the Convention of the succeeding year for the formation of the Constitution. Livingston was not a member of this body, but sat in the State Ratification Convention, where he voted for the adoption. In 1787, Livingston was called upon to deliver the Fourth of July discourse before the New York State Society of the Cincinnati. It is an elegant produc- tion, written with warmth and feelino*, occupied not with the customaiy eulo- gies of the day, but with the considera- tion of the practical working of the Confederation, which gave birth to the Declaration of Independence. It was the season, it' will be remembered, be- fore the meeting of the Federal Con- vention, a dark moment of our political history preceding the second dawn— "another morning risen on mid-day." Disappointment he freely admits in re- spect both to " our internal and Federal Governments: either, to those who are disposed to view only the gloomy side of the picture, will afford sufficient matter for censure, and too much cause for uneasiness. Many despond- ing spirits, misled by these reflections, have ceased to rejoice in independence, and to doubt whether it is to be con- sidered as a blessing." Turning from the constitutional methods of govern- ment in operation in the States, which he finds to lack only proper considera- tion on the part of the people, he turns to the Federal Administration. " No- thing presents itself to my view, but a nerveless council, united by imaginary ties, brooding over ideal decrees, which caprice or fancy is at pleasure to annul or execute. I see trade languish, pub- lic credit expire, and that glory, which is not less necessary to the prosperity of a nation than reputation to indi- viduals, a victim to opprobrium and disgrace. Who will deny that the most serious evils daily flow from the debility of our Federal Constitution? Who but owns that we are at this moment colonies, for every purpose but that of internal taxation, to the nation from which we vainly hoped our sword had freed us ? Who but sees with indigna- tion British ministers daily dictating ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. 375 laws for the destruction of our com- merce ? Who but laments the ruin of that brave, hardy, and generous race of men who are necessary for its support ? Who but feels that we are degraded from the rank we ought to hold among the nations of the earth % Despised by some, maltreated by others, and unable to defend ourselves against the cruel depredations of the most contemptible pirates." The last allusion is to the Barbary Powers. He concludes with an appeal to his fellow patriots, to reject the trammels of party, and unite their efforts in the common cause.1 It was the privilege of Livingston, as Chancellor of the State, to administer the oath to General Washington, on his inauguration in New York, in April, 1789, as President, at the memorable ceremony at the old Federal Hall in Wall street, in the balcony under the portico before the Senate chamber, fronting the large assembly of the people crowded to witness the event of the day. Having previously, as we have seen, been one of the Commissioners to ad- just the Massachusetts controversy, he was appointed, in 1790, on the com- mission to negotiate with Vermont in the great territorial dispute with that improvised little State. The desired concessions were made by New York, and the affair satisfactorily ended. In 1794, we find Livingston declining the post of Minister to France, tendered to him by Washington. Four years later, bis name appears in connection with the 1 Oration before the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of New York, in commemoration of the Four* Day of July. New York : Francis Childs, 1I8I. embryo efforts in the direction of the attempts at steam navigation, after- wards carried out by him successfully in cooperation with the genius of Robert Fulton. An application was made by Livingston to the Legislature, for the grant of an exclusive privilege to navigate the waters of the State by steam. The act was passed in March, 1798, conferring the privilege for twenty years, on condition that within twelve months he should put upon the Hud- son a boat of at least twenty tons' capacity, propelled by steam, which should accomplish four miles an hour, and that he should at no time omit for one year to have such a boat plying be- tween New York and Albany. The bill was introduced into the House by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, then a meml >er of the Assembly, when it was received with derision "as an idle, whimsical project." Livingston's connection with this steamboat enterprise grew out of his relations with John Stevens, of Ho- boken. Stevens had been steadily engaged in these researches nine years, when he became the associate of Chancellor Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt. Brunei, the celebrated en- gineer of the Thames tunnel, was employed by the association; the efforts of the company were, notwith- standing, unsuccessful, and failed to meet the conditions of the legislature; not, says Professor Ren wick, " as we now know, from any error in principle, but from defects in the boat to which it was applied."1 1 Professor Renwick's Life of Fulton, in Sparks' Ameri- can Biography. 376 ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. It is possible that but for Livingston's visit to Paris, and accidental meeting with Fulton in that city, the first triumph of steam navigation on the waters of the Hudson, might have been reserved for John Stevens, who, in con- j unction with his son, Robert L. Stevens, a man of eminent genius in mechanics, was still pursuing the in- vention. We must now turn to Livingston's mission to France. It was one of the first appointments of Jefferson's admin- istration. Livingston had previously been offered the post by Washington, on the recall of Gouverneur Morris, and had declined it. It is a little singular that as Hildreth tells us, the new minister should be regarded with suspicion for his Jacobinism, when the difficulty since the days of Morris had been in finding a representative suf- ficiently democratic for that country. The objection, however, was soon lost sight of, as the business of diplomacy proceeded. It was Livingston's object to secure the possession of New Orleans, the adjoining portions of Louisiana and the Floridas by purchase, for which purpose Monroe was associated with him in the negotiation. But before the arrival of Monroe at Paris, he had made some progress in the affair. The correspondence of Livingston, addressed to Madison, the Secretary of State at this time, is of unusual inte- rest. There is one letter in particular, dated Paris, April 13, 1803, Midnight, some little time before Monroe's arrival, narrating the interview of the day with the Minister of the Treasury, which shows us the machinery of the negotia- tion. Livingston appears to have con- ducted the whole affair with masterly ability; making his national bargain with the skill of a diplomatic chapman haggling over millions. The First Consul has mentioned a sum impa- tiently to his minister. "Well, you have the charge of the Treasurv; let them give you one hundred millions of francs, and pay their own claims and take the country." It was suggested that the nation had no means of raising such a sum. " They can borrow it," said the Consul. In reply, Livingston states to Marbois his agreement with him that the sum was exorbitant, the more so as they only wished the east side of the Mississippi, and the Floridas, Texas then not being dreamt of in the politi- cal philosophy. Marbois talks of sixty millions, and the American claims to the amount of twenty more. The American negotiator finds this still greatly beyond the national means, and urges the possibility of the Americans taking it by force. All this and more is admitted by Marbois with a shrug. " You know the temper of a youthful conqueror; everything he does is rapid as lightning; we have only to speak to him as an opportunity presents itself, perhaps in a crowd, when he can bear no contradiction." The affair went through some additional bargaining of the kind upon the arrival of Monroe, when a treaty was at length concluded April 30th,'on the basis of a payment of sixty millions of francs, and an as- sumption of the debts to the amount of twenty additional millions, making the entire sum paid for the purchase about fifteen millicns of dollars. It • ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. 377 was justly regarded as a diplomatic triumph, and though it depended very much upon the will or conveniences of Napoleon, credit is certainly due in the negotiation to Livingston. Hardly less important than this negotiation was the conference we have alluded to on the steam engine with Fulton Funds were furnished by Liv- ingston, and experiments commenced in France. Their history properly be- longs to the Life of Fulton. We may here, however, state that they were pur- sued with success under this joint ar- rangement, and were fairly tested on the waters of France, when an engine, planned by Fulton, was ordered in Bir- mingham, and further trials adjourned to the Hudson. Livingston now re- newed his steamboat grant from the legislature without difficulty. In 1805, having resigned his mission to France, and received from Napoleon the part- ing gift of a snuff-box, ornamented with a portrait of the First Consul, by Isa- bey, he*travelled for awhile on the con- tinent, and returned to New York about the same time with Fulton. He enjoyed of course the triumph of the first success of the Clermont on his native Hudson. The attempt of the following year to introduce some me- chanical plans of his own into the im- proved vessel, was attended with failure. " It relieved Fulton, however," says Professor Ren wick, "from all further interference, and was decisive as to his superiority over his colleague in me- chanical skill."* Besides his connection with steam 1 Life of Fulton, p. 63. navigation, Livingston had other claims upon public gratitude. He was an earnest partisan of the Fine Arts, an- other ground of sympathy with Fulton, and greatly devoted to Agriculture. He was President of the Academy of Fine Arts in New York, which is indebted to him for a valuable collection of busts and statues. He is said to have obtained also for it a number of prints and paint- ings from Napoleon. His agricultural labors are worthy of special mention. He was corresponding member of the Agricultural Society of the Seine, hon- orary member of the Agricultural So- ciety of Dutchess County, and Presi- dent of the Society in New York for the promotion of Useful Arts. He was especially known in connection with his efforts to introduce the merino sheep into America. The mental activity of Livingston was continued to the last. A few days before his death, he wrote a valuable paper on agriculture, for the American edition of "Brewster's Encyclopedia." His decease took place suddenly, at his home at Clermont, on the Hudson, February 26, 1813, at the age of sixty- three. The person of Livingston was tall and graceful. The ease and courtesy of his manners reflected the genial quali- ties of his mind. He was a pleasing, persuasive speaker—something more a powerful orator. We have noticed the simplicity and elegance of his style. The nation is indebted to him for many public services, which will become more apparent when his long-expected biog- raphy shall be given to the world. 48 JOEL BARLOW. Joel Barlow, the author of "The Columbiad," a political writer of varied accomplishment, a participant in many important affairs at home and abroad, was one of the celebrities of the Revo- lutionary era, when all public men were of interest. If his fame has been somewhat obscured in later years, it is, perhaps, as much owing to the want of an adequate biographical memoir as to the changes in literary fashion which have thrown his writings into the back- ground, for there is enough both in the man and his history which is worthy of attention. He was born at Reading, Fairfield County, Connecticut, in 1755, the -son of a respectable farmer of the place, and the youngest of ten children The father died while the son was yet a boy at school, leaving him barely suf- ficient to pay the expenses of his col- lege education. He was entered at Dartmouth College in his nineteenth year, thence he removed to Yale, where he formed an intimacy with Theodore Dwight, who. was then just entering upon his career of usefulness as tutor in the College, shared with him his patriotic aspirations and fondness for the muse, and graduated with the highest distinction in 1778. During the vacation intervals in this stirring 8T8 time, he would visit the camp and shoulder a musket, as a volunteer, by the side of his brothers in the field. He was present, it is said, and fought bravely in the action at White Plains. His friend Dwight, afterwards the famous President of Yale, it will be remembered, served about this time as chaplain in the army, and penned his song of Columbia, which was so great a favorite with our grandfathers : " Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The Queen of the world and child of the skies I" They were the twin poets of Yale, wonderful versifiers in that day, Dwight already, while in college, planning his somewhat cumbrous " Conquest of Canaan," and Barlow signalizing com- mencement day, when he graduated, by the delivery of a poem entitled " The Prospect of Peace," which, together with a second collegiate effort in verse, on taking his Master's degree, his friend, the excellent and ingenious Elihu H. Smith, of Connecticut, some years afterwards, published in his edi- tion of "American Poems," the first collection of the kind ever made. These college poems by Barlow thus early indicated something of his future tastes and ideas in literature and political morality. 99 JOEL BARLOW. 379 After leaving college, the law next engaged his attention for a short time, when he made a sudden plunge into divinity. " Being urged," says Allen, " to qualify himself for the office of chaplain, he applied himself diligently to the study of .theology, and at the end of six weeks was licensed to preach." It was a brief course of study, certainly, but it was probably sufficient for the army in those days. " As a preacher," says Allen, " he was much respected," perhaps as much for the patriotic songs which he wrote for the soldiers as his sermons. It was, after all, a fine healthy life, this of the camp, when not too much harassed by the enemy, and we may fancy the vivacious young Barlow strolling about within sound of the drum, enjoying the beauties of nature, in the picturesque progress of the detachment, and meditating—as he actually did—the outline of his " Vision of Columbus," in which the glories of his country were to be greatly cele- brated. When the war was ended, and the soldiers had returned to their homes, Barlow came back to Connecticut, abandoned the pulpit, and resumed the study of the law. He made his resi- dence at Hartford, and, having always a passion for literature, turned his taste to account in the publication of a weekly newspaper—" The American Mercury"—which was a means of adding to his income. In 1785, he was admitted to the bar, and, a flavor of theologv still lingering about him after his brief apprenticeship to the science, and being aided, moreover, by his genius for poetry, he was employed by the "General Association" of Con- necticut, in the adaptation of Dr. Watts' version of the Psalms. The task, both of revision and addition, was performed with considerable boldness and unc- tion, due provision being made to set the patriotic effusions of David to good American measures. We have a num- ber of these variations before us in a well thumbed pocket-copy, dark and greasy, bearing witness to the zealous handling of a generation or two of pious New England melodists, with whom the book was a standard version till it was superseded by the devout labors of the venerable President of Yale, Timothy Dwight. Barlow prided himself upon his ele- gance in this adaptation, informing us in his preface that he had made some improvements in this way upon good Dr. Watts—the improved rules of grammar since the day of that old fashioned per- sonage, having made it necessary. His reputation was, consequently, consider- able, especially since he was, in his own words, " employed, directed and sup- ported by so respectable a body as the whole clergy of the State." There is an amusing anecdote, however, on record, which shows that even a sacred poet laureate may be compelled to hear a dissentient voice. The criticism was harmoniously administered in this way. There was a crooked witted personage in Connecticut, Oli- • ver Arnold, a cousin of the infamous Benedict, who had a knack at versi- fying. Barlow, meeting him one day at a bookseller's, at New Haven, requested a specimen of his talent, whereupon the doggerel rhyn ester 380 JOEL BARLOW. sprung upon him the following personal effusion: " You've proved yourself a sinful cretur; You've murdered Watts and spoilt the metre; You've tried the word of God to alter, And for vour Dains deserve a halter." • This, of course, was but an idle jest. Barlow, in truth, performed his work in a careful pains-taking spirit, supplying several versions which Dr. Watts had omitted. One of these, of the one hundred and thirty-eighth Psalm, was much admired in its day. Two years after the first publication of the Psalm Book, in 1787, Barlow gave to the world his " Vision of Colum- bus," which passed through several edi- tions, and was afterwards modified and enlarged into " The Columbiad." The first sketch was more admired by his countrymen than the last. It is less elaborate, and on that account, spite of occasional blemishes, more pleasing. Columbus, in this poem, is repre- sented in prison, lamenting the sorrows of his life, when an angel appears to him, leads him to a mount of vision, and discloses the prospect of the future. The grand natural features of the west- ern continent are outspread before him in a sumptuous panorama; the native inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, with their barbarian splendors, are then in- troduced upon the scene, with a glow- ing tribute to the genius and institu- tions of Manco Capac, who is the sub- ject of a prolonged epic story; Colum- bus is then entertained with a picture of the effects of his discovery upon Europe, and the sight of the progress of settlement on his western shores; the French war is vividly presented t■, his mind with the actions of Wolfe and Abercrombie; the Revolution succeeds, with its thrilling acts and glories of Washington and his companions; the French alliance is warmly celebrated, and the whole is brought to a close with an expanded view of the philo- sophical and material improvements of the race in religion, arts and sciences. It was a well conceived poem, and though belonging to a school out of date, may still be read with pleasure for its life and animation. The public received it with favor. It passed through two editions at Hartford the first year, was republished in England, and a fifth, revised by the author, is before us, dated Paris, 1793. The law appears to have been too ex- acting a profession for the votary of the muses. " His elocution," says Allen, " was embarrassed, and his manners not familiar and conciliating, and his atten- tion was also diverted from it by poeti- cal and literary pursuits." He had a hand, at this time, in conjunction with Humphreys and Trumbull, in the com- position of the " Anarchiad," a satirical poem written for the Hartford and New Haven newspapers, levelled at the state of disruption preceding the esta- blishment of the Federal Constitution; and he also, in 1787, delivered a fourth of July oration at Hartford, in which he urged the adoption of a General Government. These pursuits, though useful to the public in his own time, and interesting to us at the present day, were not calculated to bring any revenue with them. Accordingly, we find Barlow somewhat hastily induced. JOEL BARLOW. 381 as a means of support, to accej)t the agency in England of the Scioto Land Company, which proved to be a frau- dulent affair, though he was ignorant of the deception. The business, how- ever, gave him a footing in Europe, which led him, in his residence at Paris, into an intimate participation in the scenes of the French Revolution. Deeply tinctured with the new politi- cal ideas of the day, he published in London, in 1791, a pamphlet or essay, entitled, "Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe, Resulting from the Necessity and Pro- priety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government." In this he considered the state of Europe under the heads of the Feudal System, the Church, the Military, the Administra- tion of Justice, continuing the work in a second part, taken up with the topics of Revenue and Expenditure. It was his intention to add another part, in- cluding a discussion of* the Means of Subsistence; Literature, Science, and Arts; and War and Peace; but this portion of the work, we believe, was never executed. An attempt to revo- lutionize England, even in a pam- phlet, was a thing not to be looked upon with particular favor. Barlow's publication was attended with dif- ficulty, and shared the reception of the radical works, of which the "Reflec- tions on the French Revolution," and other writings of Burke, were the tri- umphant assailants. Edmund Burke was, in fact, a special object of Barlow's antagonism. In his poem entitled " The Conspiracy of Kings, addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe from An- other Quarter of the World," published in London in 1792, the great English political philosoj)her is an especial mark of attack, as a renegade from his early liberal principles. The " Con- spiracy" is, of course, the combination of European sovereigns against the liberties of France. It is written in a sharp, indignant strain, and its righte- ous anger, it must be admitted, degene- rates, at times, into something very like scolding. Kings were an especial ob- ject of Barlow's aversion. Barlow took an active part in English reform, with his pamphlets and coun sel. He was a member of the London Constitutional Society, and was dele- gated by that body to carry an ad- dress to the National Convention of France, in 1792, when he was rewarded with the honor of French citizenship. After this, England becoming a danger- ous residence for so zealous a reformer, he continued to reside in France, and identified himself, by his literary la- bors, with the progress of the Revolu- tion. In the winter of this year, we find him at Chambery, in Savoy, coope- rating with the members of the Con- vention sent to that country to organ- ize the department of Mont Blanc. His " Letter Addressed to the People of Piedmont on the Advantages of the French Revolution, and the Neces- sity of Adopting its Principles in Italy," written at this time, is one of the best of his prose compositions. The tract is of some interest at the present time, when his dream of a regenerated Italy is again a subject of hope and promise. While at Chamber v, Barlow varied these revolutionarv exertions by **he 382 JOEL BARLOW, composition of his pleasing poem, the best known at this day of all his writ- ings, "The Hasty Pudding." It is a genuine piece of New Englandism, both in its subject and execution. The original dedication to Mrs. Washington gives it a national emphasis. It in- volves, too, the philosophy of the piece, which is to encourage frugality in liv- ing. " Madame," he writes, " a simpli- city in diet, whether it be considered with reference to the happiness of indi- viduals, or the prosperity of a nation, is of more consequence than we are apt to imagine. In recommending so great and necessary a virtue to the rational part of mankind, I wish it were in my power to do it in such a manner.as would be likely to gain their attention." The playful form which he chose was well adapted to the purpose. In a half jocular strain he has sketched with fidelity and no little beauty the growth and development of the Indian corn, from its first germ through the ripened honors of the field, its harvesting, the preparation of the grain, and its final embodiment in the hasty pudding. The whole poem throughout, in three short cantos, has a relish of his home and boyhood in Connecticut: " My father loved thee through his length of days! For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize; From thee what health, what vigor he possess'd, Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest; Thy constellation ruled my natal morn, And all my bones were made of Indian corn." Behold the rejoicing progress of the plant to its glorious maturity : " Slow springs the blade, while oheck'd by chilling rains, Ere yet the sun the seat of Cancer gains; But when his fiercest fires emblaze the land, Then start the juices, then the roots expand; Then, like a column of Corinthian mould, The stalk struts upward and the leaves unfold; The busy branches all the ridges fill, Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill. Here cease to vex them, all your cares are donn: Leave the last labors to the parent sun ; Beneath his genial smiles, the well-drest field. When autumn calls, a plenteous crop shall yield. Now the strong foliage bears the standards high, And shoots the tall top-gallants to the sky ; The suckling ears their silky fringes bend, And pregnant grown, their swelling coats distend; The loaded stalk, while still the burthen grows, O'erhangs the space that runs between the rows; High as a hop-field waves the silent grove, A safe retreat for little thefts of love, When the pledged roasting-ears iuvite the maid To meet her swain beneath the new-forin'd shade; His generous hand unloads the cumbrous hill, And the green spoils her ready basket fill; Small compensation for the two-fold bliss, The promised wedding, and the present kiss." Nor can we omit that second har vesting, the cheerful husking scene : "The days grow short; but though the falling sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong, And yield new subjects to my various song. For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home, The invited neighbors to the hushing come; A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play, Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaus, Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, Assume their seats, the solid mass attack; The dry husks rattle, and the corn-cobs crack ; The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound. And the sweet cider trips in silence round. The laws of husking every wight can tell; And sure no laws he ever keeps so well: For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut ear he smites the luckless swains ; But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, Red as her lips, and taper as her waist, She walks the round, and culls one favored betu, Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. JOEL BARLOW. 383 Various the sports, as are the wits and brains, Of well pleased lasses and contending swains; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, And he that gets the last ear wins the day." Politics and poetry, those unprofit- able pursuits, did not engross the whole attention of Barlow while abroad. He became employed, in 1795, as a private lesral or commercial a^ent to the north of Europe, and the same year was ap- pointed, by Washington, Consul to Algiers, to redeem the captives taken by the Barbary powers, and negotiate a treaty with that offending race. He was successful in this mission, and on his return to Paris, having made some profitable speculations, purchased the hotel of the Count Clermont de Ton- nerre, and lived like a man of wealth. It was during this residence at Paris that he entertained Fulton, assisted him in his inventions, and formed with him a lasting intimacy. In 1805, he returned to the United States, after an absence of seventeen years, purchased an estate, and built a fine house in the District of Columbia, overlooking the Capitol, and gave to his prospect the name Kalorama. He there mingled freely in society, and took an earnest interest in public affairs, devoting his attention more especially to matters of science, education, and political philosophy. Having com- pleted his revision of the " Vision of Columbus," the improved work, "The Columbiad " was brought out in sump- tuous style, in Philadelphia, in quarto, with plates, designed by the English artist, Smirke, and executed by the best London engravers. The subjects for the designs were pointed out by Fulton, who had the costly engravings made at his own expense. The work was en- riched by a portrait of the author, painted by Fulton himself. It was a most pleasing tribute of friendship, as well as a monument of liberality, for the great inventor was by no means wealthy when he undertook this deed. The dedication holds this generous offering in pleasing remembrance. " Take it," writes the author, " to your- self, and let it live as long as it is to live, a monument of our friendship ; you cannot need it as a monument of your fame. Your inventions and dis- coveries in the useful arts, the precision and extension of your views in the physical sciences, and in their applica- tion to the advancement of society and morals, will render it proper that the lines you have selected and written under my portrait, should be transferred to yours. Posterity will vindicate the right, and fix them in their place." The lines thus alluded to are these: " The warrior's name, Tho' pealed and chimed on all the tongues of fame, Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind, Than his who fashions and improves mankind." Of the work itself we have already given the general outline in our notice of the " Vision of Columbus." It pre- sents some of the points of that work with greater care in the scientific and other tributes, and the events of the war. The aspirations of the author are confirmed in the peaceful progress of his country, its early triumphs in arms, arts, and science, he looks for ward, anticipating Tennyson's dream, " The parliament of man, the federation 384: JOEL B of the world," which he sees in the ex- pansion of the American Confedera- tion : i 1 Each land shall, imitate, each nation join The well based brotherhood, the league divine, Extend its empire with the circling sun, And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.'" The whole ends with " a general con- gress from all nations, assembled to establish the political harmony of man- kind." The " Columbiad " is animated in style, fervent in expression, has some good lines, but it lacks the diviner merits of a great poem. It is wanting in simplicity, is disfigured by affected expressions, and is much of it inferior to the author's prose, which is manly and to the point. Some such judgment would appear to have been formed by the public of the work, for though it was once republished in 1809, it has not reached another edition, and is now known only as a literary curi- osity. One of the favorite ideas of Barlow, while at Washington, was a grand scheme of education, to be centred at the capital, and sustained by appropria- tions from Government. He also plan- ned a history of the United States, a work which, if he seriously entered upon, he was prevented from prosecut- ing, by his appointment as minister to France in the administration of Presi- dent Monroe, and under the rule of Napoleon. He was engaged in the duties of his mission, in negotiations ARLOW. growing out of the aggressions of France in the Berlin and Milan decrees, when he was invited to visit the Em peror, who was then on his Russian Expedition, at Wilna. He set off on the journey, was taken ill with an inflam- mation of the lungs, in consequence of exposure to the severity of the weather, and perished as he was returning to- wards Paris, at an inn at Zarnawika, a village near Cracow, in Poland, De- cember 22,1812, at the age of fifty-four. One of his last acts was dictating from his bed a caustic poem on Napoleon, which was copied in diplomatic char- acters, and sent to his wife in Paris. It is entitled, "Advice to a Raven in Rus- sia." He tells that bird of prey, the scavenger of the imperial armies, that it must seek elsewhere for its food than among the dead, covered and concealed amidst the snows of Russia. In his days of health and youth, the author never exceeded the point and vigor of this composition. The character of Barlow is well ex- hibited in his writings. He was inge- nuous, bold, and aspiring, a man of the eighteenth century, somewhat of the Jeffersonian stamp, a diligent student, more quick than profound, rapid in his perceptions, always bent upon activity and usefulness. He was married early in life to the sister of Abraham Bald- win, a well-known Georgia politician. This lady survived him at the mansion which he had built near Washington, nearly six years. / ayy*^ <^y£/<>6i^ y?^ ■ru/mr/ />ii ■■ //■;-.■/. 171 ihf /f/oTO/-'// /'/'thf/'///•//v/-,v 0101 / in JAMES MADISON. James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, was descended from an old family of Virginia planters, which is traced to the first annals of the country, in the records of the great pioneer, Captain John Smith. A branch of the family is distinguished in the history of western settlement be- yond the Alleghanies. The first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia bore the same name with the President, and was related to him. The family seat of the branch of the Madisons, which gave birth to the sub- ject of our sketch, was Montpelier, in Orange County, Virginia. It was the home of his father and grandfather, and became celebrated as his own residence when years and public services brought pilgrims to the spot. His birthplace, however, was some fifty miles distant, on the banks of the Rappahannock, near Port Royal, at the estate belonging to his maternal grandmother, where his mother was then on a visit. Mr. Rives, the latest biographer of Madison, speaks of the ancient seat of hospitality, Montpelier, and "the pic- turesque grandeur of its mountain scenery," enhanced by " the heartiness and cordiality of its possessors. The mother of Mr. Madison, Eleanor Con- way," he continues, " must in her day 49 have added largely to the attractions of the social, as she undoubtedly did in the highest degree, to the happiness, comfort and usefulness of the domestic scene. Nothing is more touching and beautiful in the life of her illustrious son, than the devoted tenderness for his mother, with which her virtues and character inspired him—ever recurring with anxious thoughtfulness, in the midst of his most important occupa- tions, to her delicate health, and after the close of his public labors, person- ally watching over and nursing her old age with such pious care, that her life was protracted to within a few years of the term of his own. His father was, no less, the object of his dutiful and affectionate attachment and respect. The correspondence between them, from the period of young Madison's being sent to Princeton College in 1769, to the installation of the matured and ho- nored statesman in the office of Secre- tary of State in 1801, when the father died, has been carefully preserved, and shows how much they were bound to each other by sentiments of mutual confidence and respect, even more than by ties of natural affection."1 1 History of the Life and Times of James Madison, bj William C Rives, I. 8-9. 885 386 JAMES MADISON. Such influences of the beauties of nature and of domestic life, are favor- able to a happy development of the youthful faculties, and have much to do with the man's future career. The young Madison was a well disposed, teachable youth. He received his edu- cation at a boarding-school kept in the neighboring King and Queen County, by Donald Robertson, a learned Scotch- man, with whom he was placed for a few years, at the age of twelve. Re- turning to his home, he was prepared for college by the clergyman of the parish, the Rev. Thomas Martin, who had his home under the paternal roof. Princeton College, New Jersey, had then risen into distinction by the acqui- sition of a President of great acuteness of mind and fine literary and philo- sophical attainments, John Wither- spoon, who bore a prominent part in the Revolution, and whose name adorns the Declaration of Independence. To Princeton, then, at this time, flocked the youth, who were to be emphatically the men of the new generation. Madi- son was foremost among the number, and by his side were Samuel Stanhope Smith, the future accomplished divine, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the stalwart author of "Modern Chivalry," Philip Freneau, a man of great talent, the verse-maker of the Revolution, who was his classmate, William Bradford, Aaron Bun- and four future governors of States—John Henry, of Maryland, Morgan Lewis, of New York, Aaron Ogden, of New Jersey, and Henry Lee, of Virginia.1 1 We are iudebted to Mr. Rives for this enumeration with the exception of Freneau, whom he has omitted. Madison was an ardent student, stealing hours from sleep for his boohs. and compressing the labors of the four years' College course into three. This devotion enabled him to graduate in 1771, a year earlier than he would otherwise have done; but it cost him an illness which he sought to repair by a continued residence at Princeton, which was not without its advantages in the counsel of Witherspoon, who greatly admired the sagacity and pru- dence of his pupil, and in the oppor- tunity of watching the opening move- ments of the Revolution at New York. Madison left Princeton with a mind imbued with literature, a polished style of composition, and religious convic- tions strengthened by much thought and extensive reading. He now for a while employed his time at home in liberal studies, and assisted in the education of his youngei brothers. His correspondence with his friend, William Bradford, at this time, shows an ardent, ingenuous, open ing manhood, kindling at the evils of the times, the union of poverty and luxury, the prevalence of vice and wickedness, and the defects of the clergy, and especially the persecutions which were then rife in his neighbor- hood, under the church and State legis- lation, directed against some unfortu nate Baptist dissenters. The sentiment of opposition to Brit ish authority, which had sprung up simultaneously from foregone conclu sions in the minds of the intelligent patriots of the country, was now to as- sume form in active services. Madisoi was among the earliest to give exprcs JAMES MADISON. 387 sion to it. He anticipated the famous resolutions of Heniy in 1775, and upon that popular leader's success in the affair of the powder with Dunmore, drew up, in May of that year, an ad- dress of thanks for the Orange County committee. In the first General Con- vention of the State of Virginia, which organized its independence the follow- ing year at Wdliamsburg, Madison was a delegate from his district. He was one of the committee appointed to frame a Constitution, and, under the leadership of George Mason, rendered valuable services to that instrument. He was the author, in particular, of an important amendment of the original draft of the Declaration of Rights, which substituted for the word " tolera- tion," in matters of religion, a full ex- pression of the absolute right to the exercise of freedom. Madison sat with Jefferson in the first Legislative Assem- bly under the Constitution at Wil- liamsburg, but lost his election to the next session by his resistance to the popular custom, inherited from the Anglican colonial times, of treating the electors. His opponents were not so scrupulous, and he was defeated. To make amends for this turn of af- fairs, the legislative body chose him a member of its Council of State. He held this position till he was sent by the Assembly to the National Congress of 1780, at Philadelphia, in which he served till the conclusion of peace. The services rendered by him during this period were rather those of a counsellor and committee man than of a debater. Indeed, a constitutional modesty and diffidence long withheld him from public displays of the kind, and it was only by degrees that he conquered the inability or reluctance. " So extreme," we are told, " was his diffidence, that it was Mr. Jefferson's opinion that if his first public appear- ance had taken place in such an assem- bly as the House of Representatives of the United States, Mr. Madison would never have been able to overcome his aversion to display. But by practice, first in the Executive Council of Vir- ginia, and afterwards in the Old Con- gress, which was likewise a small body, he was gradually habituated to speech- making in public, in which he became so powerful."1 But if we hear little of the oratory of Madison, there is much to be said of his services to the Old Congress. They were those of the statesman con- tinually employed in eking out the resources, sustaining the credit, and adjusting the irregular machinery of an imperfect system of government. After the first glow of patriotism, and the ardor of remonstrance, in the early scenes of the Revolution, there was more of toil than of glory in the later labors of Congress. Its feeble powers, even under the Articles of Confedera- tion, its unsettled authority, the di- vided allegiance of the people of the States, its shifts in the government of the army, its failures in finance, its un- equal foreign diplomacy, all productive of jarring and discord, had, indeed, one compensation. They were well calcu- lated to discipline the statesmen who engaged in them, and enlighten the 1 Biographical Sketch of Madison. Democratic Re- view, March, 1839. 388 JAMES MADISON. public on the necessities and claims of a j ust government. Out of the troubled strife and confusion came forth, with others, Jay, Hamilton, and Madison, and the nation, after being long in pain, brought forth the Constitution. We may refer Madison's chief labors to one or other of these trials which we have enumerated. We find him, for instance, at one time discharging, ;vith consummate ability, what would aow fall to a Secretary of State, namely, the preparation of a paper to be sent to the minister in Spain, enforcing the claim to the free navigation of the Missist. vppi; and when the force of his argument had established his positions to the admiration of all men, he is com- pelled to combat the opposition of his own State, and witness a degrading withdrawal by Congress of the proud instructions he had forwarded to the plenipotentiary at Madrid. At another time, he is engaged in advocating a simple and necessary revenue system of duties, to discharge the obligations of the war and sustain public credit, a measure which is thwarted by State opposition, when his own Virginia falls away from her resolves, but which he returns to, and again works upon till it is brought, with increased authority, before Con- gress, and submitted to the States, ac- companied by a masterly appeal from his pen. And yet the work is not done. It is left as a legacy to the Government to come. During his residence in Philadelphia, Madison formed an unrequited attach- ment for the daughter of General Floyd, a New York delegate, which drew forth from Jefferson a philosophical letter of consolation under his disappointment, which may relieve these rather dry details of political duties. " I sincerely lament," writes Jefferson, who was an acquaintance of the lady, " the misad- venture which has happened, from whatever cause it may have happened. Should it be final, however, the world still presents the same and many other resources of happiness, and you possess many within yourself. Firmness of mind and unintermitting occupation will not long leave you in pain. No event has been more contrary to my expectations, and these were founded on what I thought a good know ledge of the ground. But of all machines, ours is the most complicated and in- explicable." 1 Upon his return to Montpelier from Congress, Madison directed his atten- tion again to the study of the law, which, like Richard Henry Lee, he pur- sued rather with a view to statesman- ship, than with any intention to engage in the ordinary conflicts of the profes- sion. From 1784 to 1786, he was in the State legislature, which he re- entered with the full intention to bring to the service of Virginia and the country the lessons of experience which he had derived from his labors in the Congress. In his own words, " I ac- ceded to the desire of my fellow citizens of the county, that I should be one of its representatives in the Legislature, hoping that I might there best con- tribute to inculcate the critical posture to which the Revolutionary cause was 1 MS. letter cited in Rives' Life of Madiaon, L 523. JAMES MADISON. 389 reduced, and the merit of a leading agency of the State in bringing about a rescue of the Union and the blessings cf liberty staked on it, from an impend- ing catastrophe."1 The most important of his employments in this capacity, relate to the internal improvements of the State and its commercial condition, in which he seconded the plans of Washington; the proposed mode of supporting the clergy by assessment, advocated by Patrick Henry, which he defeated; and the adjustment of the British debts, which he sought to bring about in furtherance of the treaty obli- gation of the General Government. His measures were especially directed to the support of the confederacy, in the regulation of trade and commerce. For this purpose, he drafted the reso- lution of Jan. 21, 1786, appointing Commissioners to assemble at a time and place to be agreed on with the delegates of other States who should accept the invitation, to take into con- sideration the commercial questions at issue. The representatives of five States—New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Delaware and Virginia— assembled, in September, at Annapolis, Maryland, which was chosen for its remoteness from the seat of Congress and the large cities. The attendance was inadequate to the intended object, but the meeting had one memorable re- sult. It brought together Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and by its emphatic recommendation drawn up by Hamilton, enlarging the objects 1 Introduction to the Debates in the Convention. The Madison Papers, II. 693. of the meeting, led directly to the Federal Convention of the ensuing year. Madison urged upon the Vir- ginia Assembly compliance with the • suggestions at Annapolis, and he was himself chosen as one of the delegates to the new body, having among his colleagues from his native State, Wash- ington, Mason and Wythe. Virginia thus stood foremost in the work of the Convention. Madison approached his great work—the great work of his life—with a solemn sense of its im- portance and responsibility. No one knew better than himself the absolute necessity of national union, to be ex- pressed in a system of law comprehend- ing the whole and protecting the several parts. No one worked more faithfully in the Convention, which made a mighty nation out of j airing and discordant States. Madison was so impressed with the future import of the work in which he was engaged, that he added to the labors of debate the Herculean task of preparing, day by day, a report of the proceedings of the Convention, embracing all the speeches and discussions. "The curi- osity I had felt," he says, in a prelimi- nary essay prefixed to this manuscript history, which he left unpublished at his death as a legacy to his country, " during my researches into the history of the most distinguished confederacies, particularly those of antiquity, and the deficiency I found in the means of satisfying it, more especially in what related to the process, the principles, the reasons and the anticipations which prevailed in the formation of them, determined me to preserve, as far as 1 300 JAMES could, an exact account of what might pass in the Convention whilst executing its trust, with the magnitude of which I was duly impressed, as I was by the gratification promised to future curi- osity by an authentic exhibition of the objects, the opinions and the reasonings from which the new system of govern- ment was to receive its peculiar struc- ture and organization. Nor was I unaware of the value of such a contri- bution to the fund of materials for the history of a Constitution, on which would be staked the happiness of a people great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of liberty through- out the world." The pains taken by Madison in the preparation of this work was extrordi- nary. He selected a seat near the chair- man, where nothing that passed would escape him; made abbreviated notes of all that was read and said; not a little, he tells us, aided by practice and familiarity with the style and train of observation and reasoning of the prin- cipal speakers; wrote out these notes when the Convention was not in ses- sion ; in a very few instances being aided by the revisions or supervision of the speakers. So important were these private labors of Madison, that when Congress, in 1819, undertook the publication of the Journal of the Con- vention, Madison was called upon to complete its imperfect official outline. He left the Debates, at his death, care- fully prepared for the press, with direc- tions in his will for their publication. Failing to secure satisfactory arrange- ments with publishers, his widow sub- mitted the affair to President Jackson. MADISON. He brought it before Congress, the pub- lication was provided for by that body, and thirty thousand dollars were ap- propriated to Mrs. Madison for the copyright. The work finally appeared, more than half a century after the dis- cussions which it recorded, in 1840, when the public learnt, for the first time, the full history of the ConvcD tion. The Madison Papers also include another series of Debates in the Con- gress of the Confederation, taken in the years 1782-3, and 1787 ; for, reap- pointed in 1786, Madison was also a member of the old Congress at its final adjournment. The work of the Convention being now completed in the formation of the Constitution, it was next to be sub- mitted to the States. Madison, in con- junction with Jay and Hamilton, paved the way for its adoption in the Papers of the Federalist, originally published in a New York journal. The contribu- tions written by him, in whole or in part, are twenty-nine in number, ex- hibiting, among other points, the utility of the Union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection, the anarchical tendencies of mere confede- racies, the nature of the proposed powers, and the law of their distribu- tion. The paper " Concerning the diffi- culties which the Convention must have experienced in the formation of a pro- per plan," rises into a philosophical com- ment ; and certainly no one could write with more feeling on this theme than Madison. Madison was a member of the Rati- fying Convention in Virginia, where its adoption met with considerable opposi- JAMES MADISOff. 391 tion, headed by Patrick Henry, who looked upon the new government as a sacrifice of State interests. So decided was his antagonism to Madison, as its prominent defender, that he defeated his election as Senator to the first Con- gress. He was, however, chosen by the elec- tors of his district a member of the Bouse of Representatives, in which body he continued to serve for eight years. In the interpretation of the pow- ers of the Constitution, and in regard to the policy of several measures of go- vernment, he differed from the Adminis- tration. He opposed the financial adjustments of Hamilton, and in the course of the French agitations, led the debate in opposition to the British treaty. This period of Congressional life was relieved by the marriage of Madison, in 1794, to a young widow of Phila- delphia, Mrs. Todd, better known by her maiden name, Dolly Payne. This lady was a Virginian by birth, of Quaker parentage. The marriage was a most happy one. The vivacity and amiable disposition of Mrs. Madison have left their gentle recollections alike in the retirement of Montpelier, and the gay salons of Washington. Her femi- nine grace softened the asperities and relieved the burden of political life. After soothing the protracted age of her husband, his feebleness and his languors, she survived many years, to be honored in herself and in his memory. After the close of his Congressional life, Madison retired with his wife to liis books and home pursuits at Montpelier. He was soon, however, to be called forth again into the arena by the agitations of the times. The extraordinary measures of Adams, th Alien and Sedition laws, which grew out of the attacks upon govern- ment in the French excitement, were violently assailed in Virginia. Mr. Madison drafted the famous resolu tions of the Legislature of 1798, con- demning these acts of the Administra- tion, and to extend their influence with the public, issued his Report. On the election of Jefferson to the Presidency, in 1801, Madison became Secretary of State, and discharged the duties of the office till he was called to succeed his friend at the head of the government, in 1809. It was a period of embarrassing foreign diplomacy, of vexed international relations, of pro- tracted discussions of the rights of neu- trals, of restrictions, and. that measure of incipient war, the embargo. . The con test with England, was the chief event of Madison's administrations. He was a man of peace, not of the sword, and needed not the terror and indecorum of the flight from Washington, and the burning of the capitol, to impress upon him its unsatisfactory necessities. Public opinion was divided as to the wisdom of the contest The embarrass- ments of the question have been covered by a flood of glory, but little perhaps was gained besides the victories, which might not have been secured a little later by diplomacy. The Avar, however, established one fact, that America would fight, at whatever cost, in defence of her violated rights, and the lesson may have assisted, and may yet be destined 392 JAMES MADISON. to assist, other deliberations. At any rate, it is to the credit of Madison, that he entered upon the apparently. inevitable hostilities with reluctance, that he maintained the struggle firmly, and brought it to an early close. Montpelier, again, in 1817, gave its friendly welcome to the wearied states- man. With the exception of his par- ticipation as a member of the Conven- tion, at Richmond, of 1829, in the revision of the Constitution of Virginia, he is said never to have left his district for the remainder of his life, which, solaced by the entertainment of books and natural history, the comforts of domestic life, and the attentions of his countrymen to the aged patriot, was protracted at his mountain residence, to the advanced term of eighty-five years—an extraordinary period for a constitution feeble from youth, afflicted with various disorders, and exposed to the pressure of harassing occupation. He died at Montpelier, June 28, 1836, the last survivor of that second noble band of signers, the signers of the Constitution. An interesting article, contributed by Professor George Tucker, of the University of Virginia, of which, after the death of Jefferson, Madison be- came rector, to the "London Penny Encyclopedia," supplies us with a few personal anecdotes of the man. "In person Mr. Madison was below the middle size; though his face was ordi- narily homely, when he smiled it was so pleasing as to be almost handsome. His manner with strangers was re- served, which some regarded as pride, and others as coldness; but, on further acquaintance, these impressions were completely effaced. His temper seemed to be naturally a veiy sweet one, and to have been brought under complete con- trol. When excited, he seldom showed any stronger indication of anger than a slight flush on the cheek. As a hus- band, Mr. Madison was without re- proach. He never had a child. He was an excellent master, and though he might have relieved himself from debt, and secured an easy income, he could never be induced to sell his slaves, ex- cept for their own accommodation, to be with their wives or husbands. The writer has sometimes been struck with the conferences between him and some trusty servant in his sick chamber, the black seeming to identify himself with his master as to plans of management, and giving his opinions as freely, though not offensively, as if conversing with a brother. .... With great powers of argument, he had a fine vein of humor; he abounded in anecdote, told his stories very well, and they had the advantage of being such as were never heard before, except perhaps from him- self. Such were his conversational powers, that to the last his house was one of the most pleasant to visit, and his society the most delightful that can be imagined. Yet more than half his time he suffered boddy pain, and some- times very acute pain." " Purity, modesty, decorum—a mo- deration, temperance, and virtue in everything," said the late Senator Ben- ton, " were the characteristics of Mr. Madison's life and manners." « I * \* WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. W jlliam Bainbridge, a distinguished hero of the early and later service of the American navy in the war of 1812, belonged to a family of English origin, which had long been settled in the province of New Jersey. He was the son of a physician of repute,,and was born at Princeton, May 7, 1774. His father removed about that time to New York, but the education of the son seems to have been provided for by his grandfather, Taylor, in his native State. The youth was of a manly, energetic temper, one of those healthy spirits born for action, whose school is the world, and whose teachers are their fellow men. It is the most natural thing for such a youth to take to the sea; it was, perhaps, in those days, a more natural thing than at present, when so many other new opportunities for active life have been opened by modern enterprise with the growth of the country. The primary school of young Bainbridge, in his introduction to seamanship, was the river service of the Delaware, a. stream, as Cooper has remarked, favorable in common with the Thames, in consequence of its long and intricate navigation, to the produc- tion of practiced seamen. The progress of Bainbridge was rapid, but was not in advance of his spirit and constitution. 50 At eighteen, he was chief mate of a vessel in the Holland trade, and thus early repressed a formidable mutiny on board by his courage and energy. The next year he was made captain of the ship. In the conflict then raging between France and England, when the rights of neutrals were but little respected, the mercantile service could be carried on only by officers of vigor and capacity. Bainbridge had more than one occasion to exhibit his pluck. He, a second time, quelled a mutiny at the risk of his life at Bordeaux, and gave a severe lesson on his way to the West Indies, at the cannon's mouth, to a British privateer, which had the temerity to attack him. He was inferior to his foe in men and guns; but the foe was worsted in the en- counter. Another incident was charac- teristic of the unsettled relations of America in those days with the mother country. The ship of Bainbridge, while on one of his mercantile voyages, was boarded by the Indefatigable, English cruiser, Sir Edward Pellard, com- mander. The British officer, with the lordly spirit of an Agamemnon, claimed the first mate, on the ground of his apparently Scottish designation, though the man was born in Philadelphia. McKinsey, for such was his name, 898 304 WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. armed himself, and Agamemnon, like him of old, was contented to seize an inferior prize from the forecastle. Bain- bridge submitted to superior force, but vowed revenge. The first Englishman he could take would be his own, and he found and took him within a week, from a merchantman. It is not to be wondered at, after these gallant actions, that the govern- ment, then on the lookout for officers for its rising and suddenly developed navy, gave employment to the youthful Bainbridge. His first appointment was to the Retaliation, a vessel which, not long before, had been captured from the French, while employed as a pri- vateer. He had the rank, known to the service at that time, of lieutenant- commandant. While sailing in this vessel in company with other ships of the West India station, he was sepa- rated in a nautical manceuvre from his companions, and thrown under the guns of LTnsurgente, a French frigate, which with her consort, Le Volontier, was far too powerful for him to oppose. He was carried prisoner into Guadaloupe. An incident which happened on the way brings up one of those questions of the inviolability of truth more easily solved, accorded to the practice of war, than in the Court of Conscience. LTnsur- gente, the better sailer of the two French frigates, was in pursuit of the American vessels, when it occurred to the captain of Le Volontier, who was the superior officer, to make inquiry of Bainbridge of the force of his country- men. Thinking, according to the pro- verb, all fair in war, he did not hesi- tate to double the real force of the vessels. The consequence was, that the victorious pursuer was recalled from the chase, and the Americans, by this pious fraud, escaped. The Frenchmen were indignant when they found them- selves balked of their certain prey by the deception; but they had the phi- losophy or the patriotic fervor to ac- quiesce in a lie in behalf of one's country. The sequel of the adventure was the release of all the prisoners by the governor of the island, who was not prepared for extreme hostilities, and the return of Bainbridge to his countiy in possession of the Retaliation. Bainbridge was next placed in com- mand of the Norfolk, one of the vessels which he had saved by his crafty over- estimates. He distinguished himself as usual by his management and address in convoying merchantmen and repress- ing privateers. He was also intrusted with the command of the small squad- ron off the Havana, where he rendered efficient service in the protection of American commerce. In May, 1800, he was appointed Captain in the Navy, wanting but a few days of completing his twenty- sixth year. The promotion was rapid; but Bainbridge had been early on duty, and served a very satisfactory appren- ticeship. His first service with his new rank was a novel one, and proved to be not without its perils and pictur- esque incidents. He was appointed to the frigate George Washington, rated as a 24, and was immediately ordered to the Mediterranean to carry the an uual inglorious tribute of those times to the Dey of Algiers. The best that can be said of the matter is that 3AINBRIDGE. 399 WILLIAM I America at that period shared this dis- graceful subserviency to a faithless and cruel barbaric power, in company with states of the old world, whose senti- ment should have been more powerfully awakened, and that our country was among the first subsequently to break up the disgraceful payment. The George Washington first carried the penant of the new navy into the Medi- terranean." On his arrival at Algiers, Bainbridge had an early proof of Moorish inso- lence and authority. He was politely requested to be the bearer to Constanti- nople, of a propitiatory offer to the Sultan of a cargo of slaves, wild beasts and money, which the Dey had no other way to send. The commander remonstrated, the consul argued; but in vain. The Algerines had too long been permitted to use the logic of force, not to avail themselves of it on such an occasion. The loss of the ship, exposed to the guns of the fort, was threatened, and the usual hostilities to commence. There were precedents enough for com- pliance, and Bainbridge reluctantly yielded to policy, which must some- times, at the expense of feeling, be taken into account by the bravest, among whom he must be ranked. He was even compelled to hoist the Alger- ine flag to get safely out of port, when he threw it aside. The decision of Bainbridge on this occasion has been 1 Cooper notices this in connection with the progress of the fiag about the world: " Thus the United States 44 first carried the pennant of the new marine to Europe, in 1799; the Essex 32, first carried it round the Cape of Good Hope in 1800 and arouud Cape Horn in 1813 ; and this ship, the George Washington 28, first carried it into the classical seas of the old world."—Naval Biography. matter of considerable comment, and various motives have been assigned to relieve him of the naked question so powerfully propounded by the Dey Much of the responsibility is thrown upon the consul, Mr. O'Brien, who had tasted in his own person the sorrows of Algerian captivity, who advised compliance. It was not a pleasant affair to a high-minded officer, by any means, but once in for it, Bainbridge conducted the adventure with his usual spirit. It was not his humor to be de- tained at the Dardanelles, and he had no firman to pass the straits, and no obvious means in the absence of con- sular or other relations at the Porte, to procure it. This expedient savored of the " dash " of a brilliant officer. He saluted the forts, received a prompt re- turn of the compliment, and taking advantage of a favorable wind, broke through the smoke beyond the range of the guns and their portentous stone balls. The affair caused some embar- rassment to the Turkish officer in com- mand m shore. In fact he was in danger of losing his head, as the pen- alty of being outwitted, when Bain- bridge at once interposed, and magnani- mously took the whole responsibility of the action upon himself. As the matter was in the hands of the brother- in-law of the Sultan, the Capudan Pasha, the Lord High Admiral of the Turkish fleet, and as he had contracted a warm friendship for the gallant American captain, it was of course readily adjusted and forgiven. The Pasha, after this, complimented his friend from the forts on his departure in the handsomest manner. 306 The distinguished traveller, Dr. Ed- ward Clarke, was at this time at Con- stantinople, and in one of his delight- ful volumes, has left us a pleasant account of the arrival of Bainbridge. The coming of the vessel, he says, created quite a sensation, not only with the Turks but with the whole diplo- matic corps. The former had no con- ception of an American vessel; they knew not the country; and much time was lost in arranging the preliminaries of etiquette, till it gradually dawned lpon the Sublime Porte that America might be the New World. Receiving a confirmatory answer to this bold con- jecture, Captain Bainbridge was treated with great respect, though the offerings of the Dey, which he had brought with him, failed to conciliate the sovereign authority. The order and discipline of the George Washington were much ad- mired, and its commander was greatly in request at the tables of the different ministers. Dr. Clarke accompanied him on a characteristic excursion— a voyage in his long boat to the Black Sea—for the purpose of hoisting the American flag there for the first time. On their return the Captain gave a singular dinner entertainment. " Upon the four corners were as many decanters, containing fresh water from the four quarters of the globe. The natives of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, sat down together to the same table, and were regaled with flesh, fruit, bread, and other viands; while, of every article, a sample from each quarter of the globe was presented at the same time. The means of accom- plishing this are easily explained, by the frigate's having touched at Algiers, in her passage from America, and being at anchor so near to the shores both of Europe and Asia."1 Bainbridge also visited, by stealth, in company with Clarke, the gardens of the Seraglio and the Harem. Upon his return to Algiers, Bainbridge was too wary to trust himself a second tune under the guns of the Dey, more especially as this unreasonable functionary was disposed to press upon him another embassage to the Sultan. It was not till this request was expressly repudiated that he ventured within the harbor. He would not even then have been secure but for the magical effect of the exhibition of the Capudan Pasha's " firman " of protection, which that dis- tinguished friend had given him as a mark of his esteem. Being thus thwarted in his attempts to make a convenience of the Ameri- cans, the Dey turned his attention to his French subjects, and as a peace- offering to the Porte, ordered them all—men, women and children, the Con- sul included—into slavery. Captain Bainbridge hereupon interposed his influence, and gained a respite of forty- eight hours, with permission for them to leave the country in the meantime. Forbearance of this kind was of but little worth when the means of escape were not at hand; but Bainbridge, though his country was then at issue with France, gallantly made it of avail. He took the whole of them on board his vessel within the brief stipulated period, and landed them safely at the 1 Travels in Greece, Egypt, etc., III. 11. WILLIAM WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. 891 neutral port of Alicant. Napoleon, then First Consul, did not overlook this important service, which he ac- knowledged by a message of thanks and promise of reciprocation. After this, Bainbridge returned home. His course was approved of, and he shortly received, in the spring of 1801, the command of the Essex, of the Mediterranean squadron, Commo- dore Dale, sent to protect American commerce from the cruisers of Tripoli. Making the port of Barcelona on the voyage to the Mediterranean, Bain- bridge was compelled to resent an indignity offered to the Essex, which appears to have grown out of a feeling of jealousy excited in the Spanish officers in the harbor, by the praises lavished on the American vessel. The government made a proper amende, and Bainbridge proceeded with the objects of his expedition. It was not, however, till his next voyage to the MediteiTanean, in 1803, when he was intrusted with the command of the Philadelphia, 44 guns, of Commodore Preble's squadron, that the more stir- ring incidents of this service took place. The first adventure was off Cape de Gatte, on the coast of Spain. The Philadelphia overhauled at night a ship with a brig in company, which turned out to be the Meshoba, a cruiser of the Emperor of Morocco, and her American prize. The captured crew were found under deck in the ship-of- war. Bainbridge arrested the Moorish commander, and made prize of his vessel. He had some difficulty in ex- torting from the old man the proof of a hostile commission from his govern- ment. He more than suspected the character of his expedition, and gave him half an hour to produce his authority to plunder American vessels, or be hung as a pirate. At the end of that time, the Moor, who seems to have worn as many waistcoats as Hamlet's grave-digger, unbuttoned the fifth, and disclosed the looked-for document. The prisoners and their chieftain were all treated with kindness by Bain- bridge, who, when one of the Moors was struck by a corporal, caused the offender to be punished, though he was not first in the wrong. The ship was handed over to Commodore Preble, at Gibraltar, who immediately proceeded to Morocco, and obtained satisfaction of the emperor. The next adventure of Bainbridge was less fortunate. He was cruising off Tripoli in October, 1803, in chase of a strange vessel, when, on the last day of the month, his ship ran upon a reef of rocks. Notwithstanding every effort of seamanship to save her, the sacrifice of nearly every article on board, reserving only a few guns for protection against the gun-boats of the enemy, which were plying around; and finally, when matters got to the worst, the cutting away of the masts, the pre- servation of the Philadelphia in any condition, was felt to be hopeless, and after five hours' exposure to the enemy's fire, the officers having thrown overboard the small arms, floated the magazine and scuttled the ship, sur- rendered to his Tripolitan majesty. Then commenced a wearisome year and a half and more of imprisonment, of 398 WILLIAM BAIXBRIDGE. negotiations and correspondence, and I'fibrts of escape, of sufferings and perils—with -one great crowning inci- dent brought about at the suggestion of Bainbridge himself, communicated in a letter in sympathetic ink to Preble, the destruction in the harbor by the gallant Decatur of the ill-fated Phila- delphia. The imprisonnient to which the officers and men were at first sub- jected, was not, in general, of a very onerous character, at least for a semi- barbarous state. The prisoners were committed to the care of Sidi Moham- med, the Minister of State, who quar- tered the officers in the house of the late American consul, and who appears to have been always ready to mitigate the evils of captivity. They had also a constant friend in the estimable Danish consul, M. Nissen, who, with a benevolent heart, exhausted every means of kindness at his disposal in his services both to officers and men. His aid was at various times of the utmost importance to Bainbridge in his com- munications with Commodore Preble, who, with his squadron, hovered about this unhappy region in the Mediter- ranean, waiting the timely period of interposition. M. Nissen sent books from his library to the officers, and, without difficulty, purchased for them their own, which had been pillaged in the spoil of the Philadelphia. In a touching letter written by Bainbridge, addressed to his wife at Perth Amboy, in New Jersey, a lady of honorable Dutch parentage of St. Eustatia, whom he had married early in life, he ex- presses much anxiety and affliction in his absence from her, and an equal sen- sitiveness, lest his honor as an office] should be at stake in the loss of his ship, while with manly indifference, he declares his imprisonment " quite a supportable state." Mohammedanism itself came to his relief in the charity or infliction of a hospitable state recep- tion by the Bashaw, at the season of the great Turkish observance, the Ramadan. Sidi Mohammed occasion- ally invited them to his country seat, where they enjoyed the most precious luxury to prisoners, the sights and fra- grance, the beauty and fertility of the fruitful countiy in the vicinity of Tripoli. There were interruptions to these benevolent courtesies and enjoy- ments, however, especially after De- catur's exploit in the burning of the Philadelphia, in February, when the rage of the Bashaw was mightily in- creased. The prisoners were taken to the castle, and confined in a cold, damp, grated apartment. This was their abode for more than a year, during their subsequent imprisonment. The castle was near the sea, which appears to have presented continual tempta- tions to escape. From the nature of these attempts, it would appear that the prison was not very rigorously guarded, for we read of marvellous pro- jects worthy the genius of Baron Trenck, of digging subterraneous pas- sages, opening walls, scaling ramparts, and descending to the water by a, rope of seventy feet, when the hopeful alter- native at the end of this adventurous pilgrimage, was drowning in the harbor or the possible capture of a small vessel, to be taken by surprise ! Ob- stacles in the way of such schemes WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. 399 were mercifully interposed till relief came with less embarrassment. There were various outside schemes for the liberation of Bainbridge and his party, for his countiy was not indif- ferent to their fate. One of the most notable of these efforts, was the plan of General Eaton. It was to be carried on by a land expedition in concert with the navy. While consul at Tunis, in former days, Eaton had formed an acquaintance with Sidi Hamet, the rightful ruler of Tripoli, who had been since driven into exile by the usur- pation of his youngest brother, the Bashaw. Sidi Hamet was to be rein- stated and the Americans to be re- lieved. Eaton sought the exile in Egypt, found him with difficulty, and agreed on the terms of the expedition. The two leaders—Eaton was made com- mander-in-chief—collected recruits, and marched for fifty-two days through the desert to Derne, on the Mediterranean. This city was captured by the land and naval forces cooperating, the latter of which were under the command of Captain Hull. The next move in the game, it was supposed, would be the capture of Tripoli itself. That fort had been by no means neglected by the American squadron, under the indefatigable Preble. The prisoners, from their castle windows, had been for some time kept on the alert by the naval movements in the harbor, in which the American flag shone gallantly in the smoke of the conflict. Our naval historian, Cooper, warms with the recital of these scenes. u One day the cheering intelligence spi-ead among the captives, that a numerous force was visible in the offing, but it disappeared in conse- quence of a gale of wind. This was about the first of August, 1804. A day or two later, this force reappeared, a heavy firing followed, and the gentle- men clambered up to the windows, which commanded a partial view of the offing There they saw a flotilla of gunboats, brigs and schooners, gather- ing towards the rocks, where lay a strong division of the Turks, the shot from the batteries and shipping dash- ing the spray about, and a canopy of smoke collecting over the sea. In the background was the Constitution— that glorious frigate !—coming down into the fray, with the men on her top- gallant-yards, gathering in the canvas as coolly as if she were about to anchor. This was a sight to warm a sailor's heart, even within the walls of a prison! Then they got a glimpse of the desperate assault led by Decatur— the position of their windows permit- ting no more—and they were left to imagine what was going on, amid the roar of cannon to leeward. This was the celebrated attack of the third of August; or that with which Preble began his own warfare, and little inter- mission followed for the next six weeks. On the night of the fourth of September, a few guns were fired— a heavy explosion was heard—and this terminated the din of war. It was the catastrophe in which Somers perished. A day or two later, Bain- bridge was taken to see some of the dead of that affair, but he found the bodies so much mutilated, as to render recognition impossible." After these 400 WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. practical demonstrations, with the storm of war thickening around him both by land and sea, the mind of the stubborn Bashaw was prepared for negotiation. The United States frigate Essex, Captain Barron, brought Colonel Lear, Consul-General for the Barbary States, with powers to conclude a treaty. The Constitution, Commodore Rodgers, was also there, with other vessels, and was made the headquarters of the conference. It was thought desirable by the minister, Sidi Moham- med, that Bainbridge should visit the ship for the purpose of aiding the dis- cussion ; but the Bashaw, who had little idea of the virtues of a Regulus, consented to the proceeding with re- luctance. The word of honor was a commodity which did not enter into his calculations of human action, unless as an article to be sold. It was only upon the pledge of the minister's son for his prompt return that he yielded. The usual delays took place; but it was at length arranged that the nego- tiation should be terminated at a grand council, to be presided over by the Bashaw. Captain Bainbridge and the excellent M. Nissen, the Danish consul, were present at the divan. Eight coun- cillors of State, among them Sidi Moham- med, gave their opinions. The assem- bly, after a preliminary vote, appeared equally divided. Sidi Mohammed made his last appeal to his master in favor of the treaty. It was a truly dramatic issue to the interested spec- tator, whose fortune hung suspended in the balance. The minister had scarcely taken his seat, when the Bashaw terminated the suspense, by drawing a signet from his bosom. He pressed it upon the treaty, and de- clared, " It is peace." The captives were now free, and once more uudei the protection of their country's flag. In the records of deliverance from peril and suffering the emotions of gra- titude should never be forgotten. Mr. Nissen, the constant benefactor of the officers, was publicly thanked in a resolution of Congress; while the sail- ors, in a less glorious but more substan- tial way, expended out of the pay due them, seven hundred dollars in the pur- chase of the freedom of their kind keeper, a Neapolitan slave, whom they carried with them to his native land. At the naval station at Syracuse, a court of inquiry was held^ and Bain- bridge honorably acquitted of the loss of the Philadelphia. His country, on his landing in Virginia, in the autumn of 1805, had its welcome for the gallant though unfortunate officers. Bainbridge was appointed to the command of the Navy Yard at New York, but finding the pay of the ser- vice inadequate to the necessities of his family, in consequence of the injury to his fortunes by his imprisonment, he obtained a furlough and took employ- ment again in the merchant-service. He was thus employed for more than two years, when he returned to the navy, was appointed to the Portland station, and afterwards, in the prospect of war with England, to the command of the President. The war-cloud blow- ing over for the time, he again resorted to the merchant-service, and made two voyages, not without interest, to St. Petersburg. In one of them, his ves- WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. 401 ael having been captured in the Baltic and carried into Copenhagen, he met again his old friend, M. Nissen, now at home, who generously procured the release of his ship. While at St. Petersburg, on his second voyage, in 1811, he was attracted by rumors of the impending war with England. It was the depth of winter, and the sea was impassable, but the ardent soul of the officer was fired to overcome all obstacles, and he undertook, and suc- cessfully accomplished the arduous overland journey through Sweden, en- countering the severities of the north- ern climate, fearfully endangered by a fall over a precipice, in which his coach- man was killed. He saved the vessel in which he was a passenger, from wreck on the coast of Jutland, by his seamanship. On his arrival at Washington, Bain- bridge found the country on the eve of war, but not as yet greatly inspirited for the contest. It was even proposed that the vessels should be laid up, or kept at home, to avoid encounter with a superior force. In company with Commodore Stewart, Bainbridge expos- tulated in a letter to the President, pointing out the availabilities of our force. It was a timely and most impor- tant service; a word of good cheer spoken at the crisis of action. The bril- liant events which immediately followed justified the prophecy. Bainbridge was now employed in command of the Charlestown navy yard. War was soon after declared, on the eighteenth of June, 1812, when he received the command of the Constel- lation, from which, on the return of 51 Hull, from the conquest of the Guer- riere, he was transferred to the victo- rious ship, the already famous Consti- tution, Old Ironsides. It was now his opportunity to turn valor and bravery to account, and be quits with the dis- aster which had arrested his brilliant cruise in the Mediterranean. He had, besides his own ship, two vessels under his command, officered by men of note: the frigate Essex, 32, Captain David Porter, and the sloop of war Hornet, 18, Captain James Lawrence. He hoisted his broad pennant on the Con- stitution, 44, the fifteenth of Septem- ber, 1812. His plan of a cruise was with a view to intercept the British trading vessels from the East Indies in the Atlantic this side of the Cape of Good Hope, and he issued his instructions accord- ingly to the Essex, then in the Dela- ware. Bainbridge sailed with the Constitution and the Hornet from Boston, touched at one of the ap- pointed places of rendezvous, an island off Cape St. Roque, and arrived at the Brazilian port of St. Salvador in the middle of December. Having ascer- tained from the American consul at this place the presence there of a British sloop-of-war, the Bonne Citoy- enne, at Captain Lawrence's suggestion, he put matters in train for an equal contest between the two sloops-of-war, removing his own ship from the vici- nity accordingly. The challenge of Lawrence was not accepted by the British commander; but it was in this way that Bainbridge was separated from his consort. The Constitution was now running 402 WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. along the coast of Brazil, the third day from St. Salvador, about ten leagues from the land, when, on the thirtieth of December, in south latitude 13° 6', and west longitude 38°, Bainbridge closed with a strange vessel which he had observed the day before, when he had manoeuvred to meet her, and which proved to be the English frigate Java, of forty-nine guns and upwards of four hundred men, Captain Lambert. It was a fair day with a light wind, and ten minutes past two in the after- noon when the action commenced. It lasted one hour and fifty-five minutes. It was a contest of heavy firing carried on through a series of intricate nautical movements, which brought the ships at the close of the engagement to a point several miles distant from the place where it had commenced. The Java, when she struck her flag, was completely dismantled, coming out of the conflict with not a spar standing. Her loss was sixty killed and one hun- dred and one wounded, according to Bainbridge's report at the time, while his was nine killed and twenty-five wounded. Captain Lambert, of the Java, was mortally wounded. Bain- bridge himself was struck by a musket-ball in the hip at an early moment of the action, and imme- diately after by a small bolt driven into his thigh by a shot which carried away the wheel. Though suffering under these injuries, he did not leave the deck till late at night, an exposure which threatened him for some days after with lockjaw. Cooper, in his "Naval Biography," relates an anecdote connected with the loss of the wheel, though a little vain- glorious perhaps, may preserve the memory of this important incident of the engagement. " Some time after the peace of 1815," he says, aa distin- guished officer of the English navy visited the Constitution, then just fitted anew at Boston, for a Mediterranean cruise. He went through the ship ac- companied by Captain ----, of our service. * Well, what do you think of her?' asked the latter, after the two had gone through the vessel, and reached the quarter-deck again. 'She is one of the finest frigates, if not the very finest frigate, I ever put my foot on board of' returned the Englishman: 'but as I must find some fault, I'll just say that your wheel is one of the clum- siest things I ever saw, and is unworthy of the vessel.' Captain ----laughed, and then explained the appearance of the wheel to the other, as follows: ' When the Constitution took the Java, the former's wheel was shot out of her The Java's wheel was fitted on the Con stitution to steer with, and although we think it as ugly as you do, we keep it as a trophy.'" The day after the engagement, Bain- bridge having previously transferred all the prisoners and their baggage to the Constitution, ordered the Java to be burnt. She was too complete a wreck to be sent to the United States. All the boats of the Java were des- troyed in the fight, and only two be- longing to the Constitution remained. There were several distinguished pas- sengers in the Java, and among them Lieutenant General Hislop, on his way with his staff, as governor, to Bom- WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. 403 bay. They were treated with eminent courtesy, and their plate and property punctiliously protected by Commodore Bainbridge. The heroic crew of Old Ironsides were not forgotten by their commander. In a letter to a friend in the United States, Bainbridge urges on govern- ment a fit reward for the sailors, whose captured ship he had been compelled to destroy. With a sailor's heart, he pictures the anticipations of his men: " One says he will buy him a snug little ship on the highest hill he can find, that he may there, in his old age, view all our sea fights; another, that now he will marry his Poll; another, that he will send his Jack to school, etc. etc." The Constitution, now sadly needing repairs, was compelled to return home, leaving her consort, the Hornet, to reap equal laurels, under the command of the gallant Lawrence, in the action which speedily followed, off the coast of Guiana, with the Peacock. Porter also gained not less distinguished honors in the memorable Pacific cruise of the Essex, the third vessel of Bainbridge's heroic squadron. Bainbridge landed in Boston, the twenty-seventh of February, 1813. A company of infantry turned out to con- duct him to his hotel, and the street through which he passed was huno- with flags and colors, inscribed with the already honored names of the ser- vice—Hull, Jones, Decatur, and his own. Public honors were showered upon Bainbridge and his companions with a liberal hand, by the legislatures of Massachusetts and New York. Con- gress decreed a gold medal. New York paid Bainbridge the compliment of the freedom of the city in a gold box, and requested his portrait for its gallery. He was duly installed an honorary member of the Cincinnati Society at New York and at Philadelphia. But the honorable appreciation in England, handsomely recognized at home in the motto of the medal given by Congress, Patria vie- tisque laudatus, of his generous con- duct after the victory, must have most deeply touched the chivalrous Bain- bridge. The Prince Regent applauded his magnanimity, and the veteran, Ad- miral Jarvis, like Themistocles, con- fessed to a sleepless night at the thought of these laurels of a western Mdtiades.1 Bainbridge was now employed in the direction of the eastern naval stations, including the yard at Charlestown, where he superintended the building of the Independence, seventy-four. It was while on this service that the Chesapeake left the harbor for her dis- astrous engagement with the Shannon. The passages of challenges of this kind 1 Thomas Harris, a surgeon of the navy, to whose ex- cellent Life of Commodore Bainbridge we are mostly indebted for this narrative, narrates this incident from a manuscript biography of Bainbridge, by H. A. S. Dear- born of Boston: " A New York gentleman being in Lon- don, at the time when the news of the capture of the Java by Commodore Bainbridge arrived, and happen- ing next day to be in company with the veteran and distinguished Admiral Jarvis, the veteran remarked that he had passed a sleepless night. It was not occa- sioned, he said, by the loss of his majesty's frigate Java, but by the proud and dignified manner in which the American commander had treated his vanquished enemy. He observed that the deportment of Bainbridge more re- sembled the proud bearing of a Spanish grandee to hia prisoners, during the days of ancient chivalry, than of a young man of a young nation, scarcely yet in the gristle of manhood." 404 WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. was not unfrequent in the service at that time. We have seen Lawrence inviting the British commander to this mode of duello in the port of St. Sal- vador, and Bainbridge himself became so wrought upon by the English exul- tation over the defeat of the Chesa- peake in this way, that he seriously proposed to the Secretary of the Navy to be put in command of the Constella- tion, thirty-six, for the purpose of chal- lenging Admiral Warren and the best thirty-eight gun frigate at his disposal. Government very properly discountenanced this species of bra- vado. Bainbridge was not merely a fight- ing man at sea, but an excellent administrative officer on shore. The service is indebted to him for many valuable regulations. With Decatur and Hull, he prepared a war system of naval signals, to take the place of those which had fallen into the hands of the British in the Chesapeake. He made valuable suggestions for the increased size of new ships, put Boston harbor in a state of defence, and rendered other services, among which must be .ranked of great importance, his origination of the Board of Navy Commissioners, of which he was for three years the president. . The last naval commands of Bain- bridge carried him again to the Medi- terranean. When war was declared against Algiers, in 1815, he was put at the head of a large force ordered on that service. A portion of this great fleet sailed in advance, under Decatur, who, \wth this force, gallantly accom- plished peace before the arrival of Bain bridge. In 1819, Commodore Bainbridge was again in command in the Mediterra- nean. 'He visited, in his flagship Co- lumbus, Gibraltar, Naples, the Barbary capitals, Genoa, and Toulon, exchang- ing national courtesies, promoting na- tional objects, and gratifying his taste with the sight of places of renown, with a sense of enjoyment which must have been greatly enhanced by the thought that the Mediterranean' had once been the scene of his heaviest dis- aster. Upon his return to the United States, he fulfilled the usual duties of an officer in service on shore, interrupted for a short time by a controversy with the Secretary of the Navy, on a claim for extra services. He felt this opposition as a wound to his honor, expressed himself strongly, and was for awhde thrown out of employment. He had, however, a heavier grief to endure this year (1831), in the death of his only son, a young man of scholarship and promise. This loss bore sadly upon his already impaired health—he had long suffered from a cough and neu ralgia—he lingered and grew worse, till an attack of pneumonia ended his life, in his sixtieth year, at Philadelphia, July 28, 1833. The last effort of his wandering intellect carried him to the smoke of battle and the naval encoun ter. He raised himself in bed, called for sword and pistols, and ordered all hands to board the enemy! ALBERT GALLATIN. Tins eminent statesman, who, to the devotion of an ordinary lifetime to the politics of his country, added the graces of literature and science, pur- sued with avidity through a venerable old age, was a native of Geneva, in Switzerland. He was born of a patri- cian family in that republic, January 29th, 1761. His father, Jean de Gal- latin, was a councillor of state. His maternal grandfather, from whom he derived his Christian name, was Albert Rolaz, Seigneur du Rosey, of Pays, in the canton of Vaud. An early ances- tor, Jean de Gallatin, became a citizen of Geneva in 1510, having previously resided on the right bank of the Rhone, in what was then Savoy, but is now a province of France. He was a man of mark. Created a Viscount Palatin by Pope Leo X., the dignity did not interfere with, his embracing the principles of the Reformation. He married a near relative of the wife of the celebrated Huguenot leader, Coligni. Albert Gallatin was left an orphan in his infancy. He enjoyed, however, the maternal care of a lady of distinc- tion, a distant relative and intimate friend of his mother. His education was pursued with diligence, and he gi'aduated with distinction at the uni- versity of Geneva in 1779. He was fortunate in receiving the instructions of the historian Muller, and in having among his fellow-students two youths who became celebrated in after life in pursuits by which he himself was to be widely known; De Lolme, the eulogist of the English Constitution, and Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau and disciple of Bentham. In his later days, Mr. Gallatin recalled the faculty of acquiring languages of the former, which enabled him, after a year's resi- dence in England, to write a book admired by jurists for its depth and solidity and the excellence of its style; while Dumont, he said, was ready at verse-making, without much original genius, but with an excellent know- ledge of his own powers. With these associations, the young Gallatin ac- quired, with a fund of knowledge, a spirit of independence which led him to seek abroad a wider field for its exercise. Declining an offer of military employment from one of the petty sovereigns of Germany, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, whose acquaintance he had made at the University, restrained by no parental control, though against the wishes of his family, he resolved to emigrate to the United States. He bore with him on his way a letter to 406 406 ALBERT GALLATIN. Franklin, at Paris, from the Duke de la Rochefoucauld D'Enville, dated La Rocheguyon, May 22, 1780. " The residence of your grandson, at Geneva," says the writer, " makes me hope that the citizens of that town may have some claim to your kind attention. It is with this hope that I ask it for two young men whom the love of glory and of liberty draws to America. One of them is named Gallatin; he is nine- teen j ears of age, well informed for his age, of an excellent character thus far, with much natural talent." We have no account of any interview between the two; but if they met, it may be pretty certainly concluded that the youth came to the United States with a friendly god-speed, and much good counsel for his future course. Thus, in pursuit of "glory and liberty," he arrived in Boston in July, 1780. He was landed at Cape Ann, where he accidentally met at an inn a party of French people, one of whom had lived with his family in Switzer- land. She was now a refugee from Nova Scotia, driven out with her hus- band by the troubled relations of the times. They were on their way to Maine Gallatin, who had the world before him, welcomed this friendly voice in a strange land, and accompa- nied his new acquaintances to Machias. On his arrival at this place, he found Captain John Allen, commander of the fort, raising a company of volunteers to march for th6 defence of Passamaquod- dy. He enlisted in the service at once. There was no fighting to do, as it turned out, but he had an opportunity of trying his physical, powers in haul- ing a cannon over some difficult roads He appears to have been rewarded b^ the command of the fort; perhaps in consideration of his timely loan of six hundred dollars from his limited purse to the-military necessities of his adopted country. When he returned to Boston and presented his draft for payment, he learnt that there were no funds to meet it—a characteristic introduction of the future Secretary of the Treasury to the financial condition of his adopt- ed country. In his straits he was obliged to sell his government bill for a third of its amount, and it was a highly speculative or very patriotic purchaser, probably, who would take it at that. While at Machias he made the acquaintance of the celebrated navigator, La Perouse, who put into that port on his voyage. There is an anecdote also preserved by Mr. Bartlett, in his interesting notes of conversations with Mr. Gallatin in his later days, of a little geographical tour of inspection, which he made from Boston at this time. Attracted by the natural features of the region visible from the city, he pursued his way with a companion, on foot, to the distant hills. On his journey, he met with that traditionary personage, the inquisitive landlord of former days. Attracted by his guest's foreign pro- nunciation, mine host began: " Just from France, eh! a Frenchman, I sup- pose ?" " No! I am not from France." "You can't be from England, I am sure?" "No." "FromSpain?" "No." " Well, where on earth are you from, then, or what are you?" " I am a Swiss," was the final reply. "Swiss, ALBERT GALLATIN 407 Swiss," exclaimed the landlord; "which of the ten tribes are the Swiss ?" Gallatin now, in 1783, found employ- ment as a teacher of French at Harvard, and the following year, receiving his patrimony from Europe, became the purchaser of a tract of land in western Virginia, on which he meditated form- ing a settlement. It was in this region, while employed as a surveyor, that he first met Washington. The General was visiting the country, with the view of opening a road across the Alle- ghanies. The neighboring settlers and hunters were assembled to offer their advice. Gallatin stood by in the land agent's office, where they were gathered listening to the consultation. It was veiy evident that there was but one available route; yet the General pon- dered and seemed to hesitate. Gallatin, uneasy at his indecision, interrupted him with the exclamation, " It is plain enough. That is the most practicable." Washington, offended by the intrusion, laid down his pen, and cast a stern glance at the young man, but said nothing. Resuming his inquiries, he continued for a few moments, when he ceased, and turned to his interrupter: " You are right, sir." " It was so on all occasions with General Washing- ton," said Gallatin, in recalling the inci- dent. " He was slow in forming an opinion, and never decided until he was right." Before they parted, a con- versation took place, when the Genera] learnt the young emigrant's history, and an intercourse was subsequently kept up, in the course of which Wash- ington offered his young acquaintance the post of his land agent. Gallatin's intended settlement was checked by the unsettled condition of the region, still infested with Indian hostilities, and we find him, a little later, in 1786, the owner of a farm in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, on the borders of Virginia. He established himself at this place, and in the autumn of 1789 was elected a delegate to represent the county in the Conven- tion, to amend the State Constitution. He became, on this his first introduc- tion to political life, an ardent advo cate of the principles of the Republican party. The following year he was sent to the State House of Representa tives, where he distinguished himself by his ability in financial discussions, and continued to be returned till his election to the Senate of the United States of 1794. He was, however, ex- cluded from that body by a strict party vote, on the technical ground of not meeting the requirement of the Consti- tution, in the date of his citizenship. His appointment at so early an age, after brief political service, and the party stand taken in opposition to him, must be considered a distinguished re- cognition of his reputation and abilities at this tifne. The same year he was married to a daughter of Commodore James Nicholson, with whom he re turned to his seat in Pennsylvania. He found the region, on the eve of that popular resistance to the system of taxation or excise duty, put in force by the government, known as the Whisky Insurrection. In common with other members of his party, he was opposed to the measure, though he j was no advocate of violent resistance 408 ALBERT GALLATIN. to the law. He was a leader in the political opposition, and took part in the meetings of the people, while he openly used his influence to assuage the popular excitement and repress all treasonable propositions. It was greatly owing to his exertions, that the insurrection was arrested, and a peaceful accommodation of the matters in dispute brought about. His services in the cause were handsomely acknow- ledged in his election by the people of the county, without distinction of party, to a seat in Congress. The great question before the country at this period, was the reception of the British Treaty, and the neutrality policy of Washington. The agitation was carried on in the House from the beginning of March to the end of April. Gallatin was, throughout, reso- lute and ingenious in opposition. He was one of the leading speakers in favor of the call upon the President for the papers relating to the negotiation— a call which involved the claim of the House to sit in judgment upon the treaty-making power; at least it was so regarded by Washington, who refused the application. Resolutions were then adopted, asserting to some extent the privilege of the House when the ques- tion came up on a resolution to provide by law for carrying the treaty into effect. Gallatin was the last speaker of the opposition The issue was too clear to be met directly, and when it was presented nakedly by Fisher Ames, in his great closing effort of the debate, the pressure was too strong to be resisted even by party. The force of the struggle may be estimated by the slight superiority of victory. The resolution was carried by a majority of only nine. Gallatin remained in Congress for three terms, covering the remainder of Washington's Presidency, and the whole of that of Adams, during which he was the leader of the Republican party in the House. He devoted him- self especially to financial questions, but took part in other important debates. He was the originator of the House Committee of Ways and Means, the business of which was previously in the hands of the Treasury Depart- ment. His published speeches on the foreign Intercourse Bill, on the Bill for Augmenting the Navy Establishment of the United States; his "Sketch of the Finances of the United States;" his " View of the Public Debt, Receipts, and Expenditures of the United States," remain as literary records of his career, a career which excited the admiration and gratitude of Jefferson, who pro- nounced him the bulwark of the oppo- sition in the Lower House, while he himself bore the brunt of Federal authority in the Upper. "Such was the dread of Gallatin's arguments," says his biographer, Mr. William Beach Lawrence, in his able sketch, " that the Federalists adopted a resolution pro hibiting any one from speaking more than twice on any one subject, aimed solely at him, and designed to slacken the fire of his formidable and ever ready batteries of debate—a resolution which he soon, however, made them glad to rescind. ' They even tried to exclude him from the floor of Congress through an amendment to the Consti- ALBERT GALLATIN. 409 tution, so as to require actual native citizenship for eligibility to that body; but though they passed resolutions to that effect, through the legislatures of all the New England States, the ball was arrested in New York and Penn- sylvania, and did not venture the at- tempt of proceeding any further South. Through all this, his opposition was always as fair, manly and patriotic, as it was skillful and eloquent; never degene- rating into factiousness or petulance."* On the accession of Jefferson to the Presidency, in 1801, Gallatin was ap- pointed Secretary of the Treasury, an office in the discharge of which, through both terms of the administration, and the succeeding first term of Madison, a period in all of twelve years, he exer- cised a most important influence in shaping and carrying out the Jeffer- sonian policy. The "economy" of the government, especially in the matter of the public defences, became, on the breaking out of hostilities with Eng- land, a subject of censure; but to Gal- latin may be given the credit of pur- suing a policy of finance, which, carried out in its integrity, must be regarded as the basis of national honor and virtue. He applied himself vigorously to the reduction of the public debt, which was steadily diminished under his administration. His numerous financial reports, setting forth his views, remain lasting monuments of his zeal and ability. Nor was his care limited to finance. The internal improvements of the country, in roads and canals, 1 Albert Gallatin, a Political Portrait.—Democratic Review, June, 1843. 52 found in him an able advocate. He is claimed "to be the sole authoi of the national road, intended as a model, and to show that the Alleghanies interposed no real barrier between the Eastern and Western States; while the credit of the organization of the coast survey on scientific principles, is also in a great degree his." The late Justice Story, writing from Washington, at a point of time mid- way in Gallatin's official career, in 1807, has left a valuable memorial of the man in office. "In the Treasury De- partment," he writes, "I spent a full hour with Gallatin, and having occasion to consult him on business, I had a better opportunity to observe the strength and acuteness of his mind. His coun- tenance is strongly marked, and deep, piercing black eyes convince you at a single glance of his resources. Plain and modest in his demeanor, he gains not your attention by surprise, but in- sensibly warmed by his subject, inte- rests and engages. I was struck by his promptitude, accuracy and distinct- ness. The case was of an individual nature, and yet he appeared as per- fectly well informed, as if it had been the last subject of his thoughts. He is a most industrious and indefatigable man, and by the consent of all parties, of accomplished genius and great ac- quirements. I should think him not less interesting in private life. He car- ries in his face the ingenuousness of an honest heart, attached to domestic studies." One great secret of his success in this department was a golden rule of employ- ment, which he adopted through life, 410 ALBERT G ALL ATI X. " never," as he said, " to let his faculties get rusty, and never to overtask them. It is by following this rule," he re- marked late in life, " that I have pre- served myself as you see to my eighty- eighth year. When I was in the Trea- sury, I labored hard, to be sure, for the first year, but afterwards two hour's a day were sufficient to do the work."1 While holding this secretaryship of the Treasury, Gallatin was sent abroad to negotiate as one of the Commission- ers of the Peace, in 1813, the year suc- ceeding the outbreak of the war with England. It was a duty to which he was inclined, for he was emphatically a man of peace, opposed to the expendi- ture and demoralization of war. He sailed for St. Petersburg, to join John Quincy Adams, then minister to Russia, hopeful of immediate benefits from the interposition of that country. There was some time, however, to be passed in delay and preliminary ar- rangements, during which Gallatin, still remaining abroad, resigned his office of Secretary. The seat of the negotiations, shifted from one place to another, were at length established at Ghent, where Gallatin bore his part with his fellow negotiators in the final adjustment. He returned to the United States, to resume his seat in the Treasury Depart- ment, and, in 1815, was appointed as Minister to France, in which capacity he served till 1823, being also employed meanwhile in special negotiations in Holland and England. While in this office, he assisted Mr. Alexander Bar- 1 Mr. Bartlett's Reminiscences. ing by his advice, in obtaining a loan created by the French Government. Mr. Baring in return proposed his tak- ing a part of the loan, by which, with- out advancing any funds, he would realize a fortune. " I thank you," was Gallatin's reply, "I will not accept your obliging offer, because a man who has had the direction of the finances of his country as long as I have should not die rich."l Returning to the United States, he was again offered a seat in the Cabinet, which he declined; nor would he ac- cept a nomination for Vice-President of the United States by the Republi- can members of Congress. He also declined the Panama mission tendered to him by President Adams. In 1826, he again appeared as representative of the country abroad, as Minister Pleni- potentiary to England, where he re- mained to the close of the next year, actively employed in serviceable nego- tiations respecting the fisheries, the navigation of the Mississippi, the boun dary question, and other matters which had been familiar topics of discussion since his first entrance upon public life. He finally returned to the United States in 1827, when he made his home in New York. He was now sixty-six, a period of life when the labors of most men are closed; but the healthy discipline of Gallatin was to . carry him through a new course of honorable exertion. He was at first employed—his last official duty of a political character—in the preparation Mr. Bartlett's Reminiscences. ALBERT GALLATIN. 411 of the argument to be laid before the King of the Netherlands, one of the umpires in the disputed British boun- dary question. Subsequently he pub- lished, chiefly extracted from his state- ments in this paper, an essay on " The Right of the United States to the Northeastern Boundary claimed by them." He was chosen, in 1730, Presi- dent of the Council of the University of New York, and in the following year took part in a Free Trade Con- vention, held at Philadelphia. He was about the same time chosen President of the National Bank of New York, the position since occupied by his son. In 1842, he was elected First President of the American Ethnological Society, of which he was one of the founders, and in the following year President of the New York Historical Society. The former was a select body of few mem- bers, who mostly held their meetings at his house in Bleecker street. At the latter he became known to a larger concourse of the public. Few who witnessed, in his discharge of these offices, his simple, unaffected, eager interest in all branches of knowledge, will forget the impression. His aspect bore strong marks of age, though his powers of mind were unabated; his ac- cent retained something of his foreign birth. There were few nights too stoi my to keep him away from a regu- lar meeting of the Historical Society. At the council table, he exhibited the vivacity of the youngest member. In the published Transactions of the Eth- nological Society, will be found an elaborate production from his pen on the Semi-Civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America. He also published in the same work an essay of great learning on the Indians of Northwest America and their Vo- cabularies. His observations in these essays on Mexican chronology and In- dian philology, have always been received with great respect. His " Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian possessions in North Ameri- ca," forms the second volume of the " Archseologia Americana," issued by the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. Two pamphlets on " Peace with Mexico," and "War Expenses," .published by him in 1847 and 1848, were largely circulated. They were earnest, prudential expostulations on the cost and folly of war. In such pursuits, the last years of Al- bert Gallatin were passed to the closing day. His death took place in his sum- mer residence at Astoria, on Long Island, opposite the city of New York, on the twelfth of August, 1849. He was in his eighty-ninth year—a long life of honorable activity, of useful culti- vation, of mental independence. STEPHEN DECATUR. The gallant Decatur—the "Bayard of the Seas"—who thrilled the last generation with a series of brilliant exploits, which will live in histoiy, since they were acted on no mean theatre, not only for his country but for civilization and the world, was, as his name imports, of French ancestry. His grandfather, a native of the sea- port La Rochelle, in France, took natu- rally to the Atlantic for a livelihood; entered the navy, became a lieutenant, was ordered to the West Indies, and there having been well-nigh killed by the fever, was driven to leave of ab- sence and a residence at the north. He chose Newport, Rhode Island, recruited, became enamored of a lady of the place, and gave up all thoughts of the French navy for a life of wedlock. But Hymen, being a god requiring various liberal offerings upon his altar tables, the convert must provide the due hecatombs. Taking with him his own son Stephen, born in Newport in 1751, he resorted to Philadelphia on the lookout for nautical employment. There death soon foreclosed the mort- gage upon his life which had been sealed in the West Indies. The son early adopted the sea, dis- tinguished himself in the service of the Revolution by his command of the 412 Royal Louis and the Fair American, married a lady, Miss Pine, of Irish parentage, and begot a family of several children, two of whom, Stephen and James, illustrate our naval history. When Philadelphia was occupied by the British, Mrs. Decatur fled in com- mon with other townspeople. She found refuge at Sinepuxent, on the eastern shore of Maryland, where Ste- phen was born, January 5, 1779. As his father continued to follow the sea, engaging in the merchant service after the war was ended, Stephen was early introduced to that element. At the age of eight, he accompanied his father on one of his voyages. His boyhood was marked by spirit, activity and resolution. Many are .the anecdotes preserved of these early days at Phila- delphia ; of his swimming and skating feats, and readiness of self-defence in plucky encounters. He found on re- turning from a fishing excursion one day, his mother rebuking a tipsy gen- tleman, who had struck his younger brother. The gentleman retorted. Ste- phen reminded him that the lady was his mother, and demanded respect. The drunkard replied with insolence, and aimed a blow at Stephen, who brought his assailant violently to the ground. "Mother," said the youth fl/^^L^^-?-i^9-€ c ty / u^ /■ STEPHEN DECATUR. 413 over his fallen foe, " you need not feel sorry, for he deserved it all." These were the days of Adet and Genet, of French propagandism in America. The Decaturs had French blood in their veins, it is true, but they knew how to appreciate Washington and their countiy. - Boys and men wore their distinctive badges and cockades, the tricolor for France, and the blue for independent America. A noisy dinner to the French ambassador had put unusual spirit into the streets. A mob attempted to pluck the young De- catur's cockade. Stephen, who never looked aside to consequences, on a point of honor, parried with a blow, and a fight took place, in which he would have been sorely worsted, had not some of his father's men come to the rescue.1 The youth had a good education at the Episcoj>al Academy in Philadel- phia, and a year at the Pennsylvania University. His mother thought of him for the Church; the son longed for the sea. A compromise was for a while effected by a clerkship in his fa- ther's shipping-house; but the youth was intent on the service. He studied mathematics, and constructed and rigged models. He was sent by his employers into New Jersey, to superintend getting out the keel-pieces for the frigate Unit- ed States, then on the stocks. When completed he was launched in her, and may then be said, as his biographer, Mackenzie, remarks, " not only to have 1 These anecdotes are told in Mackenzie's Life of Deca- tur—whose narrative we follow throughout—a book of equal diligence and neatness. laid the foundation but assisted at the nativity of that gallant old ship, which in due time we shall see him leading to victory." The aggressions of Algiers and of France upon our commerce, created the American navy—the slow growth of insult and necessity. The elder Deca- tur was commissioned by Adams in 1798, sailed in command of the Dela- ware, and immediately brought in the first prize, Le Croyable, subsequently Bainbridge's Retaliation. The genius of the young Decatur was fired anew; his capacity was observed by his friends, and the problem of his life was solved by Commodore Barron, who, without consulting any member of the family, procured him a midshipman's warrant, which was willingly accepted. Deca- tur joined the United States, Commo- dore Barron, in May, 1798, at the age of twenty. The ship in her • early cruises was employed along the coast and in the West Indies, and made several smaller captures. The service, though not noted by any great adven ture, was sufficient to stamp the charac- ter of Decatur upon the minds of his companions. At the end of the yeai he was made lieutenant. With this rank he sailed in the United States, carrying the French Commissioners, to Europe, served in the Norfolk, on the American station, while his ship was undergoing repairs, and rejoined her, continuing to the close of the war in 1800. In the wholesale reduction of the navy which ensued, Decatur was re- tained. A new opportunity of service soon sprang up. The Bashaw of Tri 41.4 STEPHEN DECATUR. poli, encouraged by the subserviency of the United States to the Barbary powers, declared war in May, 1801, and the choice of submission was no longer left to the tamest of negotiators. In the squadron of Commodore Dale, which was sent to the Mediterranean, Decatur served as first lieutenant under Bainbridge, in the Essex; but the cruise offered no opportunity for bril- liant distinction. The second squadron, of Commodore Morris, of 1803, was impressed with more vigorous inten- tions. Decatur was attached to the New York, but a duelling adventure in which he was concerned at Malta ar- rested his continuance on that service. A brother officer on board his vessel, Midshipman Bainbridge, was insulted at the theatre by a British officer, and promptly knocked down his assailant. A challenge ensued from the English- man, who was a skilful duellist. De- catur was retained as the second of his countryman, who was preserved by his adroit management at the expense of the life of his antagonist. Decatur in- sisted upon four yards' distance instead of the usual ten paces. The English- man was thrown off his practice, and at the second shot fell mortally wound- ed. As he was the Governor's secreta- ry, it became an affair of moment; the American parties were demanded for trial; and to escape the agitation of the affair Decatur returned home as a pas- senger in the Chesapeake. He was soon, however, returned to the Mediter- ranean in command of the brig Argus, joined Preble's squadron at Gibraltar, and was transferred to the Enterprise, of eighteen guns. Now came one of the most gallant actions of the Ameri- can service—the burning of the Phila- delphia in the harbor of Tripoli. It will be remembered that this vessel, under the command of Bainbridge, had been wrecked on a shoal at the entrance of the port, and after a gallant defence captured by the natives, who carried her officers and crew into cap- tivity. The unfortunate ship had been afterwards towed into the harbor, and well manned, with her armament now constituted one of the important defences of the place. To capture or destroy the Philadelphia was the roman- tic dreani of the service. The adven- ture presented itself vividly to the mind of Decatur, on the cruise of the squadron off Tripoli, -in December, 1803, when he captured the ketch Mastico. It was in this vessel, now named the Intrepid, of sixty tons, that he was destined to make the attempt. Receiving direct orders from Preble, he sailed from the station of the squadron at Syracuse, with a picked crew of offi- cers and men, all eager volunteers, seventy-five in number. The ketch was well furnished with combustibles. In a few days she was off Tripoli, when she met with a gale which caused con- siderable detention and annoyance. On the evening of the 16th she Was at the mouth of the harbor, creeping slowly along with a gentle breeze in the partial light of a young moon. The brig Siren, Lieutenant Charles Stewart, accompanied her at a distance, to render assistance in case of need. It was certainly a most delicate service The harbor bristled with forts and de fences: the Phdadelphia, the object of STEPHEN DECATUR. 415 attack, mounted forty guns, ready to be discharged ; a fleet of vessels of war was around to defend her. Skill was required as well as bravery with such hazards. The first advantage was gained by hailing the vessel, through the Italian pilot, Catalano, with a re- quest to be permitted, having lost their anchors, to attach a rope to the frigate for the purpose of riding by her. The rope was promptly attached, even the Turks assisting, and the little Intrepid was hauled towards her gigantic prey. The word was given by Decatur to board. With his officers he was instant- ly on the deck. It was but the work of a few moments to overpower the con- fused and confounded crew by an as- sault. They were cut down and driven into the sea, flames were applied in different parts of the ship, and the only danger now to the invaders was from their own triumph. The Intrepid was loaded with combustibles; but the same good address which had conduct- ed the whole of this enterprise, brought her off in safety. A favorable wind which suddenly sprang up aided escape from the perils that now thickened around her. The Intrepid, with her force quite uninjured, only a single man being wounded, sailed calmly away, witnessing the flame running along the spars and rigging of the co- lossal firework, the splendid illumina- tion of the forts, the harbor, and the Barbaric city, harmlessly surround- ed by the play of the enemy's shot on the water; her crew lis- tening to the salute of the heated guns, and the crowning applause of the explosion of the magazine. Three cheers were sent up—they must have been cheers indeed—by the gallant crew as they retired from the harbor. It was a grand spectacle for Bainbridge, and his fellow prisoners on the shore. To Decatur the destruction of the Phi ladelphia had an especial interest, be- yond the brilliancy of the service. The ship had been built by the merchants of Philadelphia, with an eye to his father, who had been its first comman- der. Congress rewarded Decatur for this exploit with its thanks and a sword; but the thoughtful reader will be more affected by the generous tribute of Nelson, who pronounced it " the most bold- and daring act of the age." 1 Next came the bombardment of Tri- " poli by the squadron under Preble, in July, 1804. There were the flagship Constitution; Stewart's vessel, the Si- ren ; Hull, in command of the Argus; Dent, of the Scourge; Smith, of the Vixen; Somers, of the Nautilus, and Decatur, of the Enterprise. In addi- tion, there were two bomb-vessels and six gunboats, contributed by the King of Naples. The force was hardly equal to the occasion. It brought twenty-eight hea- vy long guns and about twenty lighter, against one hundred and fifteen guns in battery, and nineteen gunboats ; one thousand and sixty persons, all told, against some twenty-five thousand Turks and Arabs.8 Stormy weather again interrupted the threatened move- ments. On the third of August an at< tack was ordered. The gunboats were * 1 Mackenzie's Decatur, 81. 8 Cooper's Naval History, II. 40. 416 STEPHEN DECATUR. set in two divisions; Decatur was put in command of one, Lieutenant Com- manding Somers of the other. In the division of the latter served Lieutenant J:une« Decatur, the brother of Stephen. The attack commenced at two o'clock. Decatur's division, by the speed of his vessels, was able to reach the enemy first; his brother, whose boat was more rapid than the others in his division, joined him. It was Deca- tur's intention to board. He advanced with cannonading and musketry, and, with the vessels of his brother and Trippe, was soon at close quarters. Decatur was foremost in boarding one of the enemy's vessels, followed by Thorn, McDonough, and the rest of the Americans in his crew. The contest was on the deck, a cut and thrust, hand to hand encounter with the infidel. It was soon over. The Turks were rout- ed and slain. Decatur was retiring with his prize, when he was informed of the death of his brother James, who had been trea- cherously shot by the commander of one of the enemy's boats, which he had just captured. Decatur, fired by this new injury, directed his course towards the boat of the Tripolitan officer, within the lines of the enemy, sprang on board with McDonough and his faithful Americans, and engaged at once in sin- gle combat with his powerful antago- nist, who is represented of unusual size. The struggle was of a Homeric character, with the addition of imple- ments of warfare unknown to the Iliad. • Decatur, w'th his cutlass, parried the pike-thrusts of the Turk, with the in- tention of severing the instrument; but the weapon striking the iron, broke. He then defended himself with his arm, and received the pike in the breast. Plucking the weapon with the flesh, he grappled with his opponent and both fell together to the deck in bloody struggle. A Tripolitan would have at this moment sacrificed the life of De- catur, who was uppermost, had not Reuben James, one of his men, a quar- ter-gunner, interposed his own life to meet the blow. The Turk now, with prodigious strength, with one hand held Decatur pinioned, while'with the other he drew his dirk from his sash. But he had to deal with one ready as himself. Decatur, in his turn, becom- ing partially disencumbered, seized the sword hand of the Turk with his left, and with his right drew a pistol ■ from his pocket, fired, and wounded his an- tagonist. The combat was at an end. Decatur had -avenged his brother's death and gained a second victory. It is agreeable to learn that Reuben James, the devoted friend and compan- ion of Decatur, lived with him through future hard fights. He was in the United States in the capture of the Macedonian, and assisted in the Alge- rian war as he had in both engagements of the Tripolitan. He was pensioned by Government. James Decatur died after the engagement, as he was being taken to the Constitution. He was buried in the deep of the Mediterra- nean, from the gangway of the old ship. Other attacks were made on the de- fences, in which Decatur was constant- ly engaged. The bombardment of the forts by the Constitution was formida STEPHEN ble; but the chief incident which now remained was most melancholy to the squadron. The gallant Somers per- ished with the Intrepid, which was sent in as a fire-ship for the destruction of the foe. Nothing precise is known of the cause of her ruin: whether burnt by accident or the fire of the enemy, or exploded, in an act of terrible vengeance, in a moment of ex- tremity, by her commander. An ex- plosion was heard by the expectant fleet outside—a mighty flash seen— that was all. Commodore Preble now yielded the squadron to Commodore Barron, who had arrived in the President. To De- catur, Preble had assigned the Consti- tion, thus linking 'his name to that glo- rious ship. He was soon transferred to the Congress. Peace was concluded with Tripoli, and Decatur, having im- pressed the Bey of Tunis with the importance of peace, carried home with him to America, at the close of 1805, an ambassador from that state. Decatur was honored with many tributes from his friends and the pub- lic on his return; but an apparently slight incident, immediately on his ar- rival, was of at least equal import. This was a visit to the ship in Hamp- ton Roads, by a young lady, Miss Wheeler, the daughter of the mayor of Norfolk, who, in the absence of the captain, noted his attractive Italian miniature in the cabin. In the eve- ning he was her father's guest at a ball. A few years afterwards, in 1806, Deca- tur, having followed up the impression while stationed on the Chesapeake, married the lady. 53 DECATUR. 417 Decatur's next command was of the frigate Chesapeake, after the moment- ous affair with the Shannon, when Bai- ron had been suspended from his com mand by a court-martial. Decatur had expressed himself freely on the con- duct of Barron, and had reluctantly served on the court-martial. It was the beginning of a -difference which cost Decatur his life. Decatur, who had received his cap- taincy after the burning of the Phila delphia, now, at the age of twenty eight, enjoyed his title of Commodore. His parents died within a short time of one another in this year, 1808. In 1810 he took command of the United States, the ship of his youth, and was employed on the American coast ser- vice. The war of 1812^ with England, was now at hand. No spirit in the service, we may be sure, leaped more readdy to avenge the wounded rights of the country than Decatur. He was ordered to join Commodore Rodgers at New York. Within a few hours after the receipt of the news of the declara- tion of war, the squadron was on the ocean in search of the Jamaica fleet. The cruise, however, failed of this ob- ject, though it achieved many useful ends. In October, Commodore Rodg- ers was again afloat with his squadron, including Commodore Decatur's ship, the United States. It was the fortune of Decatur to be separated from his companions, and to give a good account of himself on his return. On Sunday, the 25th of the month, in 29° north latitude and 29° 30' west longitude, in the neighborhood of Madeira, the Unit- ed States fell in with an English first 418 .STEPHEN DECATUR. class frigate, of forty-nine guns and three hundred men, the Macedonian, Captain Carden. An action immedi- ately ensued. The English vessel was to the windward, with a fresh breeze and heavy sea, so that the United States had difficulty in getting near enough to her to make her fire teU as Decatur wished. The- cannonade was, however, dreadfully effective, the guns of the United States being admirably served. The action lasted an hour and a half. The Macedonian lost her miz- zen-mast, fore and main top-masts, and main-yard, and was much injured in the hull. The damage to the United States, writes Decatur, in his official report, " was not such as to render her return into port necessary, and had I not deemed it important that we should see our prize in, should have continued our cruise." The loss on either side was of the Macedonian, thirty-six killed and sixty- eight wounded, mortally except fifteen; of the United States, but five killed and seven wounded, of whom two died. Some disproportion of weight of metal and number of the crew is admitted in favor of the United States; but on the other hand a high character was claimed for the general efficiency of the Macedonian, and when Decatur met the British commander before the war, the latter urged the superiority of the armament of his own ship. There was but little choice between them in size. Honors were now showered in abun- dance upon Decatur. A spirited re- ception took place at Washington, when the captured flags arrived in the height of a ball given to the officers of the navy. Congress voted, for this op- portune victory, thanks and a medal; Virginia did the same, and New York and other States and cities followed suite. Both the victorious and con- quered ships were brought to New York through Hell Gate, when Deca- tur was entertained .at an imposing banquet at the City Hotel, presided over by the mayor, De Witt Clinton The heroism of the men, the " unnamed demigods" in these various victories by Decatur, were remembered at the time and should not now be forgotten; but anecdotes of this kind may be omitted here, since they belong rather to general history than to the particu- lar biography of Decatur. They are important, however, in this light. They show the success of his government on shipboard and the kindling of his ex ample. We may now hasten over the more ordinary incidents of Commodore De- catur's naval service ; if we may so call his spirited preparations for defence against the threatened attack of the enemy's squadron at New London, where his smaller command was hemmed in by the activity of Commo- dore Hardy—the memorable friend of Nelson's dying moments. It was Decatur's impatience of this restraint which gave rise to the celebrated desig- nation of the New England Federal ists. He wrote to the Navy Depart- ment, complaining that the British gained information of his movements, and related the suspicious circumstance that when it was understood in the town that he would attempt to get out, "in the course of the evening two blue STEPHEN DECATUR. 419 lights were burned on both points of the harbor's mouth." l While Decatur was thus imprisoned in the harbor, a conversation on board one of the English frigates was report- ed to him, which seemed to counte- nance a scheme he was very ready to undertake—no less than a double duel between two ships of the enemy's and two of the American side. Challenges of this nature, dangerous precedents for the regular service, indicated a chi- valric excess of spirit and resolution touching on the Quixotic in the war with Great Britain. Individualism was rampant; every gallant officer felt a boast of superiority "like a wound," and acted as if the epaulets on his shoulders clasped the collective honor of the nation. A correspondence was begun by Decatur with Commodore Hardy, offering the United States as a fit combatant with the Endymion, and the Macedonian with the Statira. Every privilege was given for picked crews and perfect equality. Some countenance was given by Commodore Hardy to the proposition, and the American officers harangued their men in anticipation of the coming fight. The prudent Hardy, however, doubt- ing his powers from Government to sanction such a contest, thought a sec- ond time, and put an end to the mat- ter. But Decatur was yet to have his bout with His Majesty's frigate the Endymion. Leaving the United States iu the Thames above New London, in the spring of 1814, he was put in 1 Hildreth's History of the United States, 2d series, III. i&l command of the frigate President, at New York. An attack upon the city by the British seemed imminent. To Decatur was assigned the strengthening of the harbor defences, a duty which he undertook with his usual vigor. The next year found him still in the port, with the British cruisers outside Sandy Hook preventing his departure. He was anxious to get out with his fleet, and traverse the waters of the East Indies, as Porter had spread con- sternation in the Pacific. He deter- mined to run the gauntlet of the cruis- ers, and for a better chance of escape to go to sea alone, in advance of his comrades of the fleet. In the midst of winter, on the fourteenth of January, 1815, taking advantage of a strong gale from the west, which favored his rapid movement while it had driven off the enemy, he sailed down the bay An error of the pilot, however, de- prived him of this golden opportunity. His ship was detained two hours on the bar, and seriously injured before she was extricated. There was but one choice now for her, with the strong westerly wind: she must go forward. Taking her course near the Long Island shore, she continued easterly till think ing a safe distance had been made, the President turned seaward and found herself in the midst of the British fleet. The heavily armed Endymion bore down upon her, the American frigate in vain exciting her once boast- ed sailing prowess, now enfeebled by the injury she had received on the bar. Decatur felt the damaging fire of his antagonist, and endeavored to grapple with her by boarding. He made a i2Q STEPHEN DECATUR. spirited sailor's address to his men, re- minding them of the fatal effects the less of such a ship would have on the hearts of their wives and sweethearts, and the pretty girls of New York ; all were ready for the encounter, when the attempt was disconcerted by a move- ment of the Endymion which rendered it impracticable. It was now a contest of speed, with a running fire. Deca- tur's lieutenants, Babbitt, Hamilton, and Howell fell; he was himself wounded; still he fought on. The Endymion was much injured in her rigging, and at last silenced. The fight had now continued from eleven in the forenoon to nine in the evening, and there was a chance for escape under a cloudy sky; but towards midnight the starlight revealed the pursuing fleet. The well-fought President was beset by the Pomone, which poured in a damaging fire, by the Tenedos and the Majestic. There was but one thing short of suicide to do, and Decatur surrendered. He was taken to Ber- muda, and speedily sent home on parole. He was landed at New London on Washington's birthday, in the midst of the peace celebration—for the war was now definitively ended. The enthusiastic populace drew his carriage through the streets; paying the highest honor to a man of courage, an appreciation of his valor under de- feat. It is said that the proud Decatur shed tears. A Court of Inquiry at New York confirmed the verdict of the popular heart. There was yet another harvest of admiration in store for Decatur. He was destined to close the negotiations with the Barbary powers—negotiations to which his sword had early pointed the way. Two squadrons were fitted out for the Mediterranean immediately after the peace; to Bainbridge was assigned the one, to Decatur the other. Arriving in the Mediterranean in ad- vance of his superior in the service, Decatur, in the Guerriere, with his fleet, on the seventeenth of June, overtook the admiral's ship, the Mashouda, of the Algerine squadron. The admiral, Rais Hammida, was slain by a shot from the Guerriere; and the decks of his vessel, on her surrender, presented a piteous sight of the bloody triumphs of war. After other inferior captures, he reached Algiers on the twenty- eighth, and dictated peace to a nation which he had thoroughly intimidated. The treaty made Algerine tribute from the United States, and slavery of Americans, a thing of the past. It is characteristic of Decatur, that at the last moment of forbearance in the negotiations, splendidly dressed in his full uniform to receive the commis- sioners, wearing on his breast the badge of the Cincinnati,1 he sum- moned his men for a bloody encounter with an Algerine ship of war which came in sight at the moment. Had the commissioners' flag been delayed a very short time longer, history would have had another spirited engagement to record. The treaty was signed. Then came the moral triumph of war— the confounder of injustice, the deliv- erer of the captive. The wasted Ame- 1 This dress of Decatur, says Mackenzie, was the same in which he is represented in the full length portrait, by Sully, in the City Hall, New York. STEPHEN DECATUR. 421 rican prisoners, who had fed on the bitterness of Algerian bondage, were led forth; and as they stood before Decatur, imagination may fondly dwell upon the scene, for no more honorable trophy adorns the page of history. The hero stood forth the crowned champion of civilization. The brightest threads of human life, alas ! are woven with sable. The Uni- ted States ship Epervier, which bore the treaty and the liberated Americans homeward, went down unnoted in the depths of the Atlantic. Decatur repeated his successful nego- tiations at Tunis and Tripoli. His very name was a powerful argument. '■* Why," asked the Bey of Algiers of Noah, the consul, recalling the burning of the Philadelphia, "why do they send wild young men to treat with old powers ?" A convincing demonstration with these barbarians was the sight in their harbors of such English vessels as the Macedonian and Guerriere, bear- ing the American flag. " You told us," said the Algerian prime minister to the British consul, "that the Americans would be swept from the seas in six months by your navy, and now they make war upon us with some of your own vessels which they have taken." Tripoli knew Decatur still better. The liberation of ten Christian slaves at- tended his mediation. Eight of them, a single family of Sicilians, father, mo- ther and children, were taken home by their liberator to Syracuse. Decatur's praises were loudly sounded in the Mediterranean. The King of Naples gave him a royal reception at his villa, on the bay of Naples. At home his name was in equal honor; and again, popular triumphs and festivities were liberally awarded him. He now took up his residence at Washington, and became engaged in the duties of the board of navy com- missioners, of which he was appointed a member. This employment brought him again in a certain relation of opposition to Commodore Barron, who, suspended from the service after the affair of the Chesapeake, had not been again recalled to duty. He had ab- sented himself from the country—was a sore, disappointed man; and felt himself impelled to offer a challenge to Decatur, whose manly, well-intentioned discharge of duty, he chose to consider personal opposition. A correspondence took place, running over several months from the early part of June. Decatur's portion of it is written with his usual direct, manly emphasis. He is evidently impatient of the whole affair, which was not of a nature to interest his mind. To duelling itself, he is even indifferent. " I do not think," he says, " that fighting duels under any circum- stances can raise the reputation of any man, and have long since discovered that it is not even an unerring crite- rion of personal courage." With this opinion, he admits that " the man who makes arms his profession is not at liberty to decline an invitation from any person, who is not so far degraded as to be beneath his notice." In" truth, Decatur had committed himself strongly to the duel. In early life, while junior lieutenant in the United States, at the instigation of his father, he had chal- lenged the mate of an Indiaman who 422 STEPHEN had insulted him in an affair of the recruiting service. Somers had acted as his friend, and he had shot his antago- nist. Again, while on service in the Mediterranean, at Barcelona, he was with difficulty restrained from chal- lenging a Spanish officer who was grossly in wrong, and we have seen his participation in the affair at Malta. Indeed, it was only a few months before that he had acted as the secre- tary of Commodore Perry. We are not the advocates of duelling under any circumstances, but certainly in such a case as this he was not a man to be challenged. A thought of his country, of w the honors she had conferred, of the pedestal upon which she had placed him, should have stayed his hand. George Washington should not have been more unassailable. We have hardly patience to pursue the details of this miserable affair. It was finally arranged that the par- ties should meet at Bladensburg, uear Washington, on the twenty- second of March, 1820. Commodore Bainbridge was the second of De- catur, Captain Jesse D. Elliott of Barron The duel was fought at the appointed place, at eight paces, with pistols. The words one, two, three, were given by Bainbridge; at the instant both fired together; Barron fell wounded in the hip, Decatur mortally struck in the abdomen. "He wished," he said, "that he had fallen in the defence of his country." He was car- DECATUR. ried to his house at Washington, where he died that night. His last thoughts were of his wife, to whom he be- queathed his property. The intelli- gence struck a mingled feeling of pity and indignation into the heart of the country. Sad were the distinguished honors paid to his memory at his burial, at the seat founded by Joel Barlow—the beautiful Kalorama near Washington; honors, alas! maimed in Congress by the manner of his fall. The figure of Decatur is known by many popular engravings to his coun- trymen. A contemporary, in the " Ana- lectic Magazine," thus describes him in 1813: " He is now in the very prime of life, pleasing in his person, of an intelligent and interesting countenance, and an eye in whose mild and brilliant lustre, spirit, enterprise and urbanity are happily blended. His deportment is manly and unassuming, and his man- ners peculiarly gentle and engaging; uniting the polish of a gentleman with the frank simplicity of the sailor." His temper, we are told, was naturally excitable; but, as he advanced in life, was brought under perfect control. He was generous, humane, feeling. He had both the mental and bodily habits of the soldier—the quiet, ardent mind, in the lithe, active, frugally nurtured body. No man had a finer sense of honor, in the better meaning of the word—a contempt and hatred of fraud and perfidy. ' r " "■'fy '•'•■ WILLIAM WIRT The biography of William Wirt, written by Mr. John P. Kennedy, is a warm and honest tribute to a man who united the charms of literary sen- sibility and the graces of character with the pursuits of legal and political life. The union is not uncommon in members of the legal profession, espe- cially with those of the higher grade, where a genial philosophic culture bestows vitality upon otherwise bar- ren principles. A good lawyer is none the worse for a keen participation in literary enjoyments. The refinements of authorship are not to be neglected in the training of the mind, even alongside of the subtilties of the law. It is necessary, too, for a counsellor to know many things besides the mere letter of his text-book. He must study in particular the powers of language, and for this purpose he will find no better instructor outside of his techni- calities than the precision of classic poets and prose writers. He must know the characters and motives of men, a species "of knowledge in which Locke and Fielding are more available than Coke and Littleton. He must, to pursue his own studies with effect, have an interchange of books and in- tervals of repose for the mind. Hence great lawyers have sometimes been greedy devourers of novels, to the surprise of persons on a lower level of mental training. It wdl indeed be found, we think, as a general rule, the more profound the culture, the more catholic the taste; the more of insight for one great occupation, the better dis- position for others. Marshall, Kent and Story, among others, afford no- table examples of the love of letters as a support and relief to the rigid de- mands of the bar and the bench. William Wirt was born at Bladens- burg, Maryland, November 8, 1772. His father, Jacob Wirt, was an emi- grant from Switzerland, who came to America some years before the Revolu- tion, and established himself at the place of his son's birth as a tavern- keeper. William was the youngest of the family. He was but two years old when his father died, and at eight, on the death of his mother, who was by birth a German, was left to the care of an uncle. The influence of his childhood at Bladensburg, then a place of consi- derable activity, appeared upon the whole to have been happy, and the boy's education was well provided for in various schools in Maryland. His childhood embraced the period of the war, and he retained in his juvenile re- collections a vivid impression of the 128 424 WILLIAM WIRT. passage of Lee's legion through his town on its way to join Greene in his southern campaign. The boy was par- ticularly fortunate in being placed at the age of eleven at the grammar school of the Rev. James Hart, a Pres- byterian minister in Montgomery coun- ty. He was four years at this acade- my, the last two an inmate of the family " >f his instructor. There he found a well-stored library, which gave wings to his youthful imagination—a faculty, man and boy, which he had always in prompt exercise. Smollett, Pope and Addison are enumerated among the books which fell in his way—the sound, demonstrative litera- ture of the eighteenth century, so often found as the culture of the American celebrities of the last and previous generation. His first original composi- tion was an essay on the unhappy pe- culiarities of temper of the usher, which was boldly recited as a declamation by one of the scholars, and his first foren- sic effort was in an imitation of the neighboring County Court proceedings, in mock trials in the school-room. Wirt drew up the constitution for this mock court. The school soon after broke up, and Wirt, his patrimony exhausted, seemed thrown upon the world at the age of fifteen, when he was invited to the home of one of his schoolmates, whither a good report of his cleverness had been carried, in the capacity of a family instructor. The head of this house- hold, in Montgomery county, Benjamin Edwards, was a gentleman of educa- tion and a lawyer of repute at the bar and in the Legislature. He became a fast friend of the young preceptor, who came to look upon him as a father He passed nearly two years in his house, under his guidance, months of prepara- tion for me study of the law, to which the life of Wirt was early devoted. We then find him prosecuting his ap- prenticeship to the profession with Mr. Hunt, a son of his former teacher at Montgomery Court House, and short- ly removing into Virginia to complete his preparation and enter upon practice in that State. He was admitted in 1792 at the Culpepper County Court, and took up his residence in that locality. A case, growing out of an assault and battery, gave him the op- portunity of a hearing; he improved the means around him, and worked his way into a respectable county practice. Virginia, from the first, gave Wirt a friendly reception. His early efforts at the bar were received with favor, and he made his way among the magnates of the neighboring counties. With one of these, Dr. George Gilmore of Pen Park, near Charlotteville, he formed a parti- cular intimacy, which was cemented by marriage in May, 1795, with that gen tleman's daughter. He took up his resi dence with his father-in-law, and was thus placed in the centre of an influen- tial circle. He was now at the age of twenty-three, when a man is still a learner. Pen Park was an upper school, a post-graduate course for an earnest mind, rich in books, society and opportunities for generous cultiva- tion. From this vantage ground in the neighborhood of the homes of the Pre- sidents, as they were afterwards to become, Jefferson, Madison and Mon- WILLIAM WIRT. 425 roe, to whom he was introduced, he made his legal circuits with his friends, sharing quite as much, probably, in the festivities as in the labors of the profession. His domestic life too was of the happiest, affording free vent to his generous nature in his mode of life at Rose Hill, a separate seat in the neigh- borhood of Pen Park, where his resi- dence was established on the death of his father-in-law. But this career of youth and enjoyment was to be brought to a sudden termination. The death of his wife, in 1799, separated Wirt from this family connection. He took refuge from his affliction in Richmond, and was put by his friends in the post of clerk of the House of Delegates. He occupied this position for three sessions, when he was chosen by the Legislature chancellor of one of the three districts into which this jurisdic- tion was now divided. It embraced the eastern shore of Virginia and the tide-water counties below Richmond, and required a residence at Williams- burg. The date of this appointment was the end of 1802. It also found him just entered upon a second marriage, with the daughter of Robert Gamble, of Richmond. He discharged the du- ties of the chancellorship for less than a year. It was a laborious position, of more honor than profit; Wirt natur- ally, as a rising lawyer, looked to the emoluments of the bar, and resigned the office. "This honor of being a chancellor," he wrote to his intimate friend, Dabney Carr—a friendship to which we are indebted for many inter- esting letters—" is a very empty thing, stomachically speaking; that is, al- 54 though a man be full of honor, his stomach may be empty; or in other words, honor will not go to market and buy a peck of potatoes." He me- ditated solving the difficulty by a set- tlement in Kentucky, when his friend, Littleton Waller Tazewell, generously offered him a share of his practice, and retained him at Norfolk, in Virginia, His success at the bar was immediate ; he had acquired position by his office, and trained himself in the management of his voice in which at first he had ex- perienced considerable difficulty. It was at this date that he made his first distinct essay as a writer in gene- ral literature, and became known to the public as an author, a rare Ameri- can product in those days. The " Let- ters of the British Spy " were published in the " Argus," at Richmond, in the autumn of 1803. They were a brief series of essays, undertaken, as Wirt tells us in one of his private epistles, to divert his mind during a period of un- easiness and alarm, intended to depict the manners and opinions of Virginians under cover of a device often practised in the literary world. " I adopted the character," says the author, " of a Brit- ish Spy, because I thought that such a title in a republican paper would ex- cite more attention, curiosity and inter- est than any other; and having adopt- ed that character I was bound to sup- port it. I endeavored to forget myself; to fancy myself the character which I had assumed; to imagine how, as a Briton, I should be struck with Rich- mond, its landscapes, its public charac- ters, its manners, together with the political sentiments and moral complex- 4i2G WILLIAM WIRT. ion of the Virginians generally." In addition to these topics, much attention is given to the study of oratory, and several critical portraits are drawn of the leading speakers at the bar. One sketch, the account of James Waddell, has been justly admired, and is better known at this day than any other por- tion of the volume. The description is heightened by an honest enthusiasm. The style of the work was in general excellent; a little diffuse, perhaps, but informed by sound judgment and good feeling. The public received it well, and the sensitive author was himself the severest critic upon it; for Wirt was always bent upon self-examination, and in his correspondence constantly appears repenting of or regretting something or other. " Next to the ex- uberance of verbiage and the want of matter, is the levity, desultoriness, and sometimes commonness, of the thoughts which are expressed. Upon the whole, the work is too timid and too light." Such is his confession to his friend CaiT—a proof quite as much of the acuteness of his mind as of the defects of his work. As Goldsmith says on a somewhat similar occasion, many things may be found fault with, and a hundred reasons given to prove them beauties. An author who ventures before the public should do his best and leave the rest to his audience. He should not retain his wit and imagina- tion as counsel against himself—a course of proceeding in which few law- yers at least will be found to imitate the author of the "British Spy." The bar is not often troubled with such sensibility The success of the " Spy" was a ^ery promising beginning for a young au- thor. It passed through several edi- tions in the course of a few years, and was reprinted in London with an apo- logy for presenting the book to an English audience. " The people of the United States of America," says this preface, " have so very small a claim on the world for any particular 'mark of distinction for honors gained in the field of literature, that it is feared the present demand on the English reader may be considered more as a call on British courtesy and benevolence than one of right and equity." This was in 1810. The language of the British press has somewhat changed since that time; but it was true that America had then offered very little to the world. Washington Irving, it may be mentioned, had published his " Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle," his first produc- tion, only the year before, in a newspa- per in New York. The next literary venture of Wirt, was of a humble character: the contri- bution, with a few friends, of a short series of essays to the " Richmond En- quirer," under the general title of " The Rainbow." A collection of these ap- peared in a thin volume at Richmond, at the close of 1804. They start with a eulogy of the admired productions of Addison, Johnson, Mackenzie and the rest, but they have little if any- thing in common with tlose pleasant papers. They are fair newspaper arti- cles, of a didactic character, with no right to their fanciful name. The re- marks on the rise of Bonaparte on the French Revolution, may be read again, WILLIAM WIRT. 427 and there is a landmark in the history of education in the paper " On the Con- dition of Woman." In the summer of 1806, Wirt re- moved permanently to Richmond. The following year brought to the spot a trial of magnitude, which agitated the whole country. Burr was put upon his trial for treason and misdemeanor. Chief Justice Marshall presided. The defence was conducted by Luther Mar- tin, and Wirt assisted Hay, the district attorney, on the prosecution. Indeed, the main burden of the prosecution fell upon Wirt: he was the principal in the contest. In the preliminary exam- ination, and throughout the protracted proceedings, he was constantly em- ployed in sober argument addressed to the bench, and when the opportunity arose, in the more rhetorical appeal to the jury. His reply to Wickham on the main points of the prosecution, seeking to establish Burr's complicity in the alleged movement, and his seduc- tion of Blennerhasset, has always since its delivery been a popular piece of declamation, and is still echoed by schoolboys and imitated in court-rooms. The main interest of the trial, however, attaches to the calm, impartial decisions of the bench. The rhetoric of Wirt played harmlessly about the Chief Jus- tice, who looked neither to Burr nor his opponents, but to the great consti- tutional principle at stake determining the law of constructive treason. While the trial was going on, Wirt had other thoughts as well on his mind. He was bent upon raising a legion to take the field in the expected war with England, which was deferred for a time by the more pacific policy of the Pre- sident; and this military project fell to the ground. The close of Jefferson's administration was now approaching, and Madison was looked forward to in Virginia as his successor. There was, however, considerable opposition to "the regular nomination," in the at tacks of a committee of which John Randolph was a member. To their " Protest," assailing Madison, Wirt re- plied in three letters, published in the " Richmond Enquirer," signed " One of the People." Mr. Kennedy has pre- sented the main points of the defence, if we should not rather call it the attack; for Wirt, battling for the hon- ored patriot, plies the protestors with a merciless fire of sarcasm and invec- tive. It is curious again to notice the self-denying afterthoughts of the writer. He pronounces his composition loose and coarse, and the style unwor- thy to defend the modesty and worth of Madison. Such admissions attach us to the man. We may think them unnecessary, but we feel that they are candid, and mark the character of a mind free from self-sufficiency, ever striving after greater excellence. Compositions like those just men- tioned, were of necessity thrown off in a heat. It was the case more or less with all Wirt's literary efforts. They were inspired by enthusiasm, and en- thusiasm works rapidly; moreover, they were undertaken and carried out in the midst of the engrossing cares of profess- ional life. Still he had always a fond- ness for literature, and we have yet to record two—the most important memo- rials of his tastes and activity—the " Life 128 WILLIAM WIRT. of Patrick Henry" and the " Old Bache- lor." Though the former had been on his mind for some time—indeed was one of his earliest projects—it was the latest in coming to light. The " Old Bachelor," a new series of essays on topics not dissimilar to those handled in the "British Spy," was com- menced in the "Richmond Enquirer" in 1810. Wirt was the chief writer, assisted by his friends, Dabney Carr, whom he was now aiding in his eleva- tion to the judiciary, Dr. Frank Carr, and other.known and esteemed Vir- ginians. The work reached thirty-three numbers, and has been several times printed in a complete edition. It is a genial production throughout, colored by the heart and enthusiasm of the leading author; reflecting the tastes, habits, the mental cultivation and social progress, the reading and reflections of a generation, which sprang out of the breast of the Old Dominion. As usual where Wirt had the guidance of the topics, there is much in relation to ora- tory and the eloquence of the profes- sions. Female education is again the subject of attention. The glimpses of domestic life in the Old Bachelor's household of nephews, and his niece, Rosalie, are very pleasing. There is one trait of the work noticed by his biographer, Mr. Kennedy, which is not the least interesting as an exhibition of the character of Wirt, his desire to influence the young. During the war-scenes which now ensued, Wirt, declining a commission in the army, was induced, by the threats of invasion, to raise a corps of flying artillery for the defence of Richmond, which fortunately was not called into service. As a diversion from tln:e troubles of the times, and in pursuance of his natural bent, he was engao-ed in writing a comedy, " The Path of Plea- sure," which has neither been acted nor printed. The genius of Wirt was too discursive for successful dramatic com- position. The work, if earnestly pur- sued, would have proved an excellent mental discipline. He was, meanwhile, in active corres pondence with Jefferson and others, in reference to his Life of Henry—a diffi- cult work for him—in the prosecution of which he was almost overpowered by the kind and extent of his labors. When the book appeared at last, in 1817, with the modest title, "Sketches of the Life of Patrick Henry, it was exposed to some criticism for an occa- sional error of fact, and its florid enthu- siasm ; but making every allowance for these defects, which lie on the surface, it must be pronounced a rare and valuable biographic achievement. The style glows with honest feeling. It may be here and there redundant in expression, but it is full of vitality. The same year which gave to the public the " Life of Patrick Henry," saw Wirt advanced by Monroe from the post of United States attorney for the Richmond district, to the office of Attorney General of the LTnited States. On the acceptance of this appointment, he took up his residence in Washington, and entered upon the maturest and most distinctive period of his life, in his twelve years service in this capacity, and in his independent labors in the Supreme Court at the WILLIAM WIRT. 429 seat of government. The record of his decisions as district attorney, covering a vast range of topics, arising in muni- cipal and constitutional law, and the law of nations, bears witness to his method and ability in the discharge of the duties of his office; while the reports of the Supreme Court speak to the profession and the public of his share in the handling of many impor- tant questions, as the case of McCul- loch and the State of Maryland; the Dartmouth College case; the New York steamboat case, Gibbons against Ogden, settling the constitutionality of the exclusive grant of navigating the waters of the state, given to Livingston and Fulton. In 1829, Wirt, on his retirement from the district attorneyship, took up his residence in Baltimore, which con- tinued his home during the few remain- ing years of his life. He continued devoted sedulously as ever to his pro- fession, and found time as of yore for those occasional literary exercises out- side of his calling, which had been the delight of his youth. While at Washington, he pronounced a eulogy on Jefferson and Adams upon their decease. In 1830, he delivered an address before the Literary Societies of Rutgers Col- lege, which has always appeared to us in the very foremost rank of produc- tions of its class. He always loved the young, and on this occasion ad- dressed them with surpassing ear- nestness. He urged the claims of pa- triotism, in the midst of the profligacy of party and the degradation of pop- ularity; of an enlightened ambition based upon the private virtues of self- denial and integrity; of decision of character, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left from the path of honorable duty. The discourse over- flows with the lessons of Wirt's own life, enforced with all the felicity of his accustomed rhetoric. Years bring with them wisdom and honor, and suffering as well. In 1831, Wirt was called upon to mourn the loss of his youngest daughter, at the age of sixteen. It was a sad and most touching affliction, and the feeling heart of the father bowed beneath the stroke. His activity continued, however, to the last. He even accepted the nom- ination of the anti-masonic party for the Presidency, and thought of a pro- vision for his family by a settlement in Florida. It was while in attendance on the Supreme Court at Washington, in the beginning of 1834, that the final messenger came. He took cold, an attack of-erysipelas set in, and in a few days, on the eighteenth of Febru- ary, he was no more. Thus lived William Wirt, one of the most amiable of men. Nothing can be more delightful than the exhi- bition of character in his private correspondence. It is frank, manly, overflowing with innocent, boyish en- thusiasm. It must be a dull percep- tion to which it will not afford pleasure and profit. We admire his professional success, his generous pursuit of litera- ture, all the more for this revelation of his sensitive, playful, earnest nature JOSEPH STORY. Tins world is fortunate in possessing so admirable a narrative of the life of a man whom his country always found worthy of honor and esteem, as that pre- sented to us in the biography of the late Justice Story by his accomplished son. It is a model work in a depart- ment of literature in which success is quite out of proportion to the demand. Few legal biographies, in particular, have been written with the same feli- city. Its fidelity and calm appreciative spirit, with its store of interesting facts, leave subsequent narrators little to do but to glean from its ample pages. There are no concealments in the life of Story, nothing to be supplied, no- thing to be forgotten by posterity; his course was open to the world; his life was of singular honesty and simplicity, and may readily be understood by all. Joseph Story was born at Marble- head, Essex County, Massachusetts, September 18, 1779. His grandfather was a Whig, though he held the office of Registrar in the Court of Admiralty. His father, also of Boston, Dr. Elisha Story, a physician of repute, removed to Marblehead in 1770, bearing with him a handsome circular letter from his brethren of the city, somewhat quaintly worded—"this our brother being about to depart from our healthy metropolis, much more plentifully furnished with practitioners than some of the best of them are with patients, we recommend as a gentlerna.n of abilities and integ- rity in his profession, an assiduous assertor of the rights of his country, and a friend to mankind." There is something in this language characteris- tic of the times. The young physician did not belie the patriotic recommen- dation. He was one of the ardent sons of liberty who threw the tea into Bos- ton harbor; he was by the side of Warren in the trenches on Breed's Hill; he was with Washington as army-surgeon in 1777, in the Jerseys— a man of natural force and readiness, skilled in his profession, of cheerful manners, apt for the affairs of the world. He was a widower when he married Mehitable Pedrich, a young lady or nineteen, whom he introduced to his family of seven children. She became herself the mother of a large family, whose fortunes she sustained with spirit and dignity through the arduous years of the Revolution. Joseph Story, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest child of the marriage. The boy in his early years at Marble- head, profited by all the peculiarities of the place, studying the lough JOSEPH STORY. 431 humors of its seafaring inhabitants, storing his mind with the prolific dis- cussions of the barber's shop, where he was a privileged visitor, listening to wild legends of superstition, fostered by the weird presence of the sea with its mists and breakers; giving vent to the emotion of his solitary walks by the resounding shore thus early in verse; profiting, withal, by such educa- tion in learning as the town afforded. He had an early and happy introduc- tion to good English literature, in the copious storehouse of Dr. Vicesimus Knox's " Elegant Extracts in Prose and Verse," a stock book of the last gene- ration, which he always valued. An incident of his first presentation for examination at Harvard, shows the boy as the boy shows the man. At the age of fifteen, he formed the reso- lution to offer himself for the Freshman class, at the intermediate January vaca- tion. Armed with the necessary Latin and Greek for admission to college, he was informed that he must add to his preparation a knowledge of the exer- cises of the class for the previous six months. The task seemed insurmount- able, but there were yet six weeks of the vacation to make the attempt. His teacher was ill-qualified to offer him the needful aid in Greek; yet the youth, within the time, worked through Sal- lust, the Odes of Horace, two books of Livy, three books of Xenophon's "Ana- basis," and two of the " Iliad," to say nothiug of logic and rhetoric; a very respectable half-year's labor to be ac- complished in a few weeks. At the end of the vacation, he passed the requisite examination, and was matriculated. His college course was to him an era of light and knowledge. Channing was his classmate, and he made friend- ships with youths of talent and virtue, which adorned his future life. He threw off the Calvinism, in which he had been indoctrinated at Marblehead, and adopted the Unitarian tenets and opinions. He also developed his talent for poetry, and paid some attention to the arts. At commencement, in 1798, when he graduated, he delivered a poem on " Reason." Channing was the foremost in college honors, Story was the second. Returning, from what had proved to him a delightful apprenticeship to learning, to his native Marblehead, he entered the law-office of Mr. Samuel Sewall, afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts. It was a severe study, in those days, to be exchanged for the easy company of the Muses; and the youth felt the shock of the introduc- tion to the crabbed science, since miti- gated to the pupil by labors kindred to his own. "I shall never forget the time," he himself writes, " when, having read through ' Blackstone's Commenta- ries,' Mr. Sewall, on his departure for Washington, directed me to read * Coke on Littleton,' as the appropriate sue ceeding study. It was a very large folio, with Hargrave and Butler's notes, which I was required to read also. Soon after his departure, I took it up, and after trying it day after day with very little success, I sat myself down and wept bitterly. My tears dropped upon the book and stained the pages. It was but a momentary irresolution. I went on and on, and began at last to 432 JOSEPH STORY see daylight, ay, and to feel that I could comprehend and reason upon the text and comments. WhenT had completed the reading of this most formidable work, I felt that I breathed a purer air, and that I had acquired a new power. The critical period was passed; I no longer hesitated. I pressed on to the severe study of special pleading, and by repeated perusals of 'Saunders's Reports,' acquired such a decided relish for this branch of my profession, that it became for several years afterwards my favorite pursuit." Such are the triumphs of industry and resolution, conquering the repugnance of nature, and converting toil into power and pleasure. It is a memorable lesson, this narrative of the perseverance of Story, a youth whose natural tastes lay with the belles lettres and the arts, over- coming the temptations of his disposi- tion to bow his neck to the yoke of the law. He was a young man of singular sensibility, a poet in temperament, though he never attained the higher faculty of verse. In 1800, he was called upon by the town to deliver the eulogy on Wash- ington, then recently deceased. It was printed and praised at the time, though condemned as " poor and in bad taste " by the orator's maturer judgment. The next year, on the appointment of Sewall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he removed to Salem, where he entered the office of Samuel Putnam; and, in the summer, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of the profession at that place. The Unitarianism of the young lawyer, and his politics, which inclined to anti-federalism, were against him in the town coteries, but he sur- mounted any social opposition of this nature by his industry and ability, and clients came apace. At this time, we are told, Judge Sewall, then a fede- ralist, strongly opposed to the repub- licanism of young Story, remarked of his former pupil, "It is in vain to attempt to put him down. He will rise, and I defy the whole bar and bench to prevent it." As proof of his attachment to his profession, and his wisdom in pursuing it, he declined the appointment of naval officer of the port of Salem. In his letter declining the gift, he puts forward as his motives, his "reverence for his profession, as em- ploying the noblest faculties of the human mind, and systematizing its boldest operations ;" and his conviction, " that no republican should hold a sinecure." In 1804, he delivered a Fourth of July oration, and published a poem on which he had been for some time en- gaged, entitled the " Power of Solitude." It is a didactic composition in heroic verse of the old sounding school, in the taste of the beginning of the last cen- tury, when the manner of Pope was in use, without his wit and condensation. The public judgment which then com- mended such things afterwards im- proved, and then there was no severer censor of his early production than Justice Story himself. He purchased and destroyed all the copies of the work he could lay hands on, and it now exists only in a few libraries. It is as good, perhaps better than most of the poetry of Timothy Dwight for instance, and might have been the basis of an JOSEPH STORY. 433 equal political reputation, had not the author himself brought it in con- flict with the superior standard of his legal reputation. The poem was neutralized in any injurious effects it might have had on the young advocate's advancement, by his publication, about the same time, of "A Selection of Pleadings in Civil Actions." At the close of the same busy year, he was married to Mary Lynde Oliver, who was taken from him by death the succeeding summer. The loss of his father immediately after- wards was an additional trial, sounding the depths of his nature, and sending him to hard work in his profession for escape from his anguish. He became engaged in cases of importance, and undertook vast labors of study and digesting, aiming even at a supplement, which he partly completed, to Coniyns. The next year, 1805, saw him a member of the Legislature of Massa- chusetts, a leader in debate and an advocate, in the "Salem Register," of Jeffersonian politics. He was not, how- ever, a partisan in any strict sense, though he appeared as a party man. " I was," he says in his autobiography, which he prepared for his son, " at all times a firm believer in the doctrines of General Washington, and an admirer of his conduct, measures and principles during his whole administration, though they were to me matters of history. I read and examined his principles, and have made them, in a great measure, the rule and guide of my life. I was and always have been a lover, devoted lover, of the Constitution of the United States, and a friend to the union of the 55 States. I never wished to bring the government to a mere confederacy of States; but to preserve the power of the General Government given by all the States, in full exercise and sove- reignty, for the protection and preser- vation of all the States." Having served for three sessions in the Legislature, he was, in 1808, elected a member of Congress. His corres- pondence of this and the previous year with his old college chum, Judge Fay, as he travels South, exhibits, as do all his writings where he had the opportu- nity, the refinement of his tastes and his susceptibility to sentiment. At New York, he visits the grave of Ham- ilton in Trinity Church yard, and finds the monument "hardly equal to the character of the man or the opulence of the city." At the City Hall, he is stirred with the youthful appearance and " celerity and acuteness" of Judge Kent. At Philadelphia, he "feasts" on the portraits of the eminent men of the Revolution, at Peele's museum. Some of his letters are signed, Mat- thew Bramble, out of regard for his favorite Smollett. His characters of the politicians and judges are always striking, generous, liberal portraits, freely sketched with a kind, charitable hand. His portrait of Chief Justice Marshall is very happy—" He is of a tall, slender figure, not graceful nor imposing, but erect and steady. His hair is black; his eyes small and twink- ling ; his forehead low; but his features are in general harmonious. His man- ners are plain, yet dignified; and an unaffected modesty diffuses itself through all his actions. In conversa- 434 JOSEPH STORY. tion, he is quite familiar, but is occa- sionally emban-assed by a hesitancy and drawling. I love his laugh—it is too hearty for an intriguer—and his good temper and unwearied patience are equally agreeable on the bench and in the study." Story's congressional career was marked by his independence, in op- posing the continuance of the embargo, which drew down upon him the charge from Jefferson of being a "pseudo- republican." There were others of the party who saw this blow to commence in the same light, and their action was, as Story asserts, the salvation of the republicans, who would not have been able to resist the unpopularity of the measure. He was also in advance of his leader, in his advocacy of an in- crease of the naval department, which was suffered to be on so poor a footing, that at the opening of the war it was seriously thought by the government, that the ships, such as the country had, would be much safer in their harbors than at sea. This was Story's single session in Congress, in 1808-9. He declined be- coming a candidate for reelection, being, in his own words, " satisfied that a continuance in public life was incompatible with complete success at the bar. Besides," he adds, "I cannot disguise that I had lost my relish for political controversy, and I found an entire obedience to party projects re- quired such constant sacrifices of opin- ion and feeling, that my solicitude was greatly increased to withdi'aw from the field, that I might devote myself with singleness of heart to the study of the law, which was at all times the object of my admiration and almost exclusive devotion." It was at this time, in the summer of 1808, that he married Miss Sarah Waldo Wetmore, the daughter of an eminent lawyer of Boston. Strongly as his intention was expressed not to participate in public life, his resolution was overborne at home a year later, when he was elected a mem- ber of the Massachusetts House of Re- presentatives. He was chosen Speaker in 1811, and continued a member of the House till the close of the year, when he received the appointment from President Madison, of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It was accept- ed at no slight pecuniary sacrifice. The annual salary was at that time three thousand five hundred dollars, while his legal practice, admitting of indefinite increase, yielded him from five to six thousand dollars a 3^ear. Henceforth we find him exclusively engaged in his legal duties, or in pur- suits akin to them. His office gave him that opportunity which was so welcome to his nature, of pursuing juridical studies unmingled with the cares of political life, or even the ordi- nary distractions of the bar. Certainly no man better improved an opportunity of the kind, or was in labors more abundant. The bare enumeration of his written decisions and legal writings would fill a respectable catalogue. While stiU engaged in political life he found time to edit patiently and accu- rately three standard works of the pro- fession : " Chitty on Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes," "Abbott on Shipping," and "Lawes on Assumpsit." JOSEPH STORY. 435 He entered upon the judiciary mid- way in life, at the age of thirty-two; nearly thirty-five years of active profes- sional life were before him. In this period the reports of the judgments delivered by him on circuits fill thir- teen volumes, and the reports of the Supreme Court, of which he furnished a full share, supply thirty-five volumes. In addition to these strictly judicial writings, he wrote a series of original works in the nature of commentaries, which hold a high place in the legal libraries of Europe and America. On his introduction to the bench, one of the foremost subjects which engaged the mind of Story was the condition of admiralty laws, to which his attention was particularly called by the maritime and commercial relations of his portion of the country, productive of numerous questions for the circuit and district courts. He approached this great sub- ject with his accustomed zeal and tho- roughness, making himself fully master of the legal literature of the various topics embraced in the study. He was eminently a well-read man; and, what- ever the dryness of the investigation, his reading sat gracefully upon him. His mind seemed to possess a certain solvent power, imparting ease and flu- ency to the most crabbed matters. He early bestowed similar attention upon the then unsettled principles of equity administration, and the growing law of patents. His adjudications of those questions are the trophies of his career. In the early years of his judicial life he was called upon more than once to suffer that severest of earthly sor- rows for one of his temperament, the loss of children. A son who had fallen peculiarly under his can;, in conse- quence of feeble health, a very loving, gentle child, followed his little sister to the tomb. No one could have wept with more sensibility. He found relief, where it is best to be sought, in earn- est, active, honorable occupation— something that would task the mind and prevent its preying upon itself in devouring grief. Simple and old as the lesson is, it is worth more to the world, speaking forth from his biogra- phy, than many of his original legal decisions. The latter, in the nature of things, are likely to be seen but by few ; but we must all, at one time or ano- ther, be called upon to grieve. " I for- bear," he writes to a friend at this sea- son of affliction, " to trouble you with these useless and melancholy details ; I bear the loss as well as I may; I fly to business to stifle my recollections of the past, and I find, what I have al- ways believed, that employment is the only relief, under the severe losses of human life. It has fortunately hap- pened that the session of the Circuit Court has compelled me to more than usual labor. My mind has been occu- pied, and I have been obliged to run away from the indulgence of grief." His very sensitiveness required this relief. He did not turn from sorrow because he felt it little, but from the very depth of the oppression. The comment of his son in his biography is too profitable to be omitted. " Cheer- fulness," he says, " he cultivated as a duty. It was his creed that we should keep our minds serene, bear up against misfortunes, avoid repinings, and look 430 JOSEPH STORY. upon the sunny side of things. Early in life he read in the "Spectator" a series of essays on this subject by Ad- dison, which made a deep impression upon him, and thenceforward he saw it ' writ down in his duty,' to dwell upon the compensations of every dis- appointment, and to preserve, as far as possible, an equable and enjoying spirit. Moments of gloom and de- spondency fall to the lot of all, espe- cially of the sensitive, and ' There is often found In mournful thoughts, and always may be found, A power to virtue friendly.' But such moments and thoughts are for seclusion, nor for society. He was not without his sorrows; but he strove to keep them to himself, so as not to overshadow with them the happiness of others. Even in solitude and medi- tation he studied to banish moroseness and melancholy from his thoughts, not only as being injurious, but unchris- tian. At once cheerful by tempera- ment and by principle, he sought not only to do his duty, but to enjoy doing it, and to accept life as a favor granted and not a penalty imposed. Happy indeed is he 1 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style.' " Returning to Story's professional life, we find him adding to his labors on the bench such services as his parti- cipation in the Massachusetts Conven- tion of 1820, for the revision of the State constitution, where he advocated the permanence of the judicial tenure of office • occasional addresses, as that before the Suffolk Bar, on the history of the common law; a Harvard Phi Beta Kappa oration Dn the literary condition of the age; and several arti- cles on legal topics in the " North Ame- rican Review," including an admirable paper on the life and services of Chief Justice Marshall. In 1827 he prepared and published an edition of the " Laws of the United States." He undertook a still more important duty, making large demands upon his time and at- tention, in his acceptance of the Dane professorship of law at Harvard, a chair expressly founded by the liberal benefactor for his occupancy. His in- augural discourse, in 1829, treated of the value and reviewed the important divisions of legal study. He devoted his court vacations to the school, inak ing, as usual, a pleasure of toil, and imparting the same reconciling spirit to his pupils. "Instead of reading a series of formal and written lectures, his method of teaching was by familiar discourse and conversational commen- tary. He created fictitious cases for the illustration of the subject* under consideration. He twisted the familiar incidents of the day into illustrations of legal principles. His lectures were not bundles of dried fagots, but of bud- ding scions. Like the Chinese juggler, he planted the seed and made it grow before the eyes of his pupils into a tree."' His literary undertakings, all in con- nection with the law, now grew on his hands. He wrote gratuitously for his 1 Life and Letters of Joseph Story, by his son, William W. Story, II. 37. JOSEPH STORY. 437 friend Dr. Lieber's " Cyclopaedia Ame- ricana" a series of important articles on legal topics, ranging through the alphabet from " Common Law" and " Congress of the United States," to " Prize" and " Usury." In 1832 appeared his " Commentaries on the Law of Bailments," and tlie following year the three volumes of his " Commentaries on the Constitution." They were pre- pared in connection with his profes- sional labors at the law school. In the preface of the latter work he states his obligations to the "Federalist," and the " extraordinary judgments " of Marshall, which he looked upon as car- rying out the provisions, of the instru- ment " with a precision and clearness approaching, as near as may be, to ma- thematical demonstration." The work was dedicated to Marshall, who accept- ed it in his quiet language, as " a com- prehensive and accurate commentary on our Constitution, formed in the spirit of the original text,"—words from the Chief Justice emphatic as another man's elaborate eulogy. In 1834 appeared another instalment of his labors at Harvard, in his " Com- mentaries on the Conflict of Laws," a work which, for its powers of analysis and comprehensiveness, its style.and learning, stands at the head of the au- thor's legal productions. Judge Kent, whose wise and candid authority is sufficient on such a point, writes of it, " There is no such book extant in any single branch of the law, so full, and clear, and perfect; and there was no head of the law which stood more in need of such a production, giving us all the principles and reasoning of all the great jurists of Europe on the subject." " I wonder," wrote Chief Justice Mar- shall to him on reading the work, •• how you ever performed so lal orious a task. You certainly love work for its own sake." In 1835, to these learn- ed literary labors was added a collec- tion of his miscellaneous writings, and in the following year a volume of " Commentaries on Equity Jurispru- dence." Some years later appeared his work on " Promissory Notes," the last of the long series. Its publication shortly preceded his death. It was characteristic of his love of labor and the disinterestedness of his character, that when a statue of him was proposed by the merchants of Boston, he replied, " If they wish to do me honor in any way, let it not be by a statue, but by founding in the law school a professor- ship of commercial law." The sugges- tion was adopted, and he was looking forward to these renewed labors after his retirement from the bench, for which he was making preparations, when in September, 1845, he was over- taken by sudden illness, a cold, fol- lowed by stricture and stoppage of the intestinal canal, which in a few days terminated his life. He died on the tenth of that month, at the age of six- ty-six, at his home in Cambridge, and was buried in the neighboring ceme- tery of Mount Auburn, which had always been an object of his affection- ate care. The friendly hands of the wise and good have placed many garlands upon that honored grave. The worth of Story is to be measured by the most liberal eulogy. Disinterested, gener- i"8 JOSEPH STORY. ous, kind, benevolent, in all the actions of life, he brought to the study of the law the graces of his richly endowed nature. Such a man, so susceptible to all the charms and refinements of lite- rature, might have been excused the protracted, severer labors of the profes- sion ; but having once put his hand to the work, Story sought no palliation, made no excuses. He was in harness for half a century, devoting all his ac- tive powers with unwearied assiduity to his arduous calling. His industry was enormous, worthy of the laureate Sou- they, " the most bookful of men," or of a German commentator. He was me- thodical to a degree, economizing odds and ends of time, and seeking relief from one study in another. He ap- pears always to have kept his mind in good humor, soothing the asperities of study by its gentler refinements; not sacrificing law to literature, but, like Blackstone, bringing literature to law Poetry he always loved, and, like Kent and Marshall, with whom he is associ- ated in fame, was wont to unbend his mind in lighter literature. His taste was with the classic worthies of Eng- land—with Milton, Shakspeare, Dry- den, Pope, and the contemporaries of Johnson. Of the moderns his princi- pal favorites were Cowper and Crabbe. He relished novels. We have noticed his early fondness for Smollett; his age was solaced by the genius and humor of Dickens. He had an open eye and sympathetic breast for all that was liberal and useful; from the sober claims of science to the language of art and the stage. His conversational powers were great. Kent calls them unaccountable. They were the growth of his love of know- ledge and the better seeing of the heart. ROBERT FULTON. This distinguished mechanician and original inventor was a genuine pro- duct of the American soil. The genius, indeed, of the men whom America produced in various departments of science in the last century, the Frank- lins, the Rittenhouses, the Kinners- leys, the Whitneys, should be more highly estimated than the parallel attainments of our own day. At present thousands of instructors and thousands of new influences are paving the way to fresh inventions. Common schools and academies furnish the pu- pd with profound elementary know- ledge ; libraries disclose the myriad achievements of the past; special news- papers and magazines carry knowledge to every hamlet; kindred sciences wel- come and assist one another; social or- ganizations encourage new discovery; government offers its prizes; accumu- lated commercial and manufacturing wealth rewards the inventor on the in- stant. How different this splendid triumphal procession from the first ele- ments of science to fame and fortune, from the groping into light of the hea- ven-sown genius in the infant society of America a hundred years ago! It must needs have been a plant of no common hardihood, fully predestined to growth and vitality which could then penetrate the crust of the world in our western wilderness. It has been remarked as a notewor- thy coincidence, that Benjamin West and Robert Fulton came into the world in the same vicinity, in what was, at the time of their birth, a wild and un- cultivated portion of the country, more reroote from the seaboard in means of access and culture, than Arkansas is at present. It is owing to one of these men that the distance has been diminished and that we are enabled to make this truthful comparison. West was born at Springfield, Pa., in 1738. Robert Fulton first saw the light in a township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, then called Little Britain, but now bearing the name of Fulton, in the year 1765. His father, of the same name, was an emigrant from Ireland. He was at one time, we are told, a tailor; but at his son's birth was the occupant of a farm. He died too early to influence the child's education, which was picked up mainly by himself, though we hear of his being at school, and, as is not un- common with boys of genius, of being accounted a dull fellow. This, in such cases, means simply that nature is working in a way of her own, indepen- dent of the schoolmaster. Of the an- ecdotes related of his intercourse with 439 440 ROBERT FULTON. his Quaker schoolmaster, Caleb John- son, there is one of peculiar signifi- cance. " I have," said that zealous instruc- tor, in answer to the inquiries of the boy's mother, " used my best endeavors to fasten his attention upon these stu- lies, but Robert pertinaciously declares his head to be so full of original no- tions that there is no vacant chamber to store away the contents of any dusty books."l The busy brain of the boy in fact teemed with notions. At four- teen he is at home in all the workshops of the place. He contrives for his com- panions a paddle-wheel worked by a crank, for their flat-bottomed fishing- ooat, to relieve the cumbrous poling on the Conestoga. He has got the nick- aame of " Quicksilver Bob" among the workmen at the smithery where the government arms were made in those days of the Revolution, in conse- quence of his ready calculations of balls and distances, and his consumption of that article in his private experiments. He has also a talent for drawing, dis- played in caricaturing the Whig and Tory boys in their fights in the streets of Lancaster. At the age of seventeen, following the track of West, he finds his way to Philadelphia, with the in- tention of supporting himself as a painter, and is so successful in the pur- suit that at the age of twenty-one he is enabled to establish his mother on a farm of eighty-four acres, in the distant Washington County of the State, the consideration for which expressed in the deed is eighty pounds "lawful 1 Reigart's recent Life of Fulton, Philadelphia, 1866—a book which contains numerous anecdotes of these early years. money paid by Robert Fulton, minia- ture painter, of the city of Philadelphia and State aforesaid;"—lawful money, truly, and very creditable not only to the youth's industry and family piety, but to the appreciation of the good people of Philadelphia. It is pleasant to know, from the enthusiastic narra- tive of Mr. Reigart, that for fourteen years, the remainder of her life, "this earthly heritage gave peace and com- fort to the widow's heart," and was afterwards enjoyed by her daughter. Some symptoms of disease, of a distressing pulmonary character, com- ing upon him at this time, and his artistical reputation being somewhat established, he was induced by his friends to visit England, with the ex- pectation of improved health, and aid and counsel in his profession from Ben- jamin West, who had become estab- lished in the favor of the court and patrons of art of that country. The kind Quaker painter received him with friendly hospitality, making him a sharer of his home and artistic resources for several years. At the end "of this genial apprenticeship, or, as we should rather say, fellowship, Fulton pursued his course about England, with the de- sign of studying the masterpieces of art congregated in the rural mansions of the nobility. He was for a time at Powderham Castle, the seat of the Courtenays in Devonshire, engaged in copying the works of the masters on its walls. He seems to have resided in this princely abode under the pro- tection of the steward, a man of conse- quence on such estates. It was while he was in the neighborhood of Exeter ROBERT FULTON. 441 that he made the acquaintance of the Earl of Bridgewater, the famous parent of the canal system in England, By his advice and example and the kin- dred encouragement of Lord Stanhope, with whom he was intimate, it would appear that Fulton was led to adopt the profession of a civil engineer, in which, and not as a painter, he was destined to become so well known to the world. At this time, in 1793, he addressed a letter to Lord Stanhope on the sub- ject of some experiments in the appli- cation of steam to navigation, con- taining the views which he afterwards put in practice on the Hudson, and which if heeded by the noble earl, " the important invention of a successful steamboat," says Professor Renwick, " might have been given to the world ten years earlier than its actual intro- duction." Fulton now took up his residence at Birmingham, then illuminated by the genius of James Watt, to whom he was naturally attracted and with whose labors on the steam-engine he became acquainted. He employed himself par- ticularly in the study of canals, and took out a patent for a double-inclined plane of his invention for measurino- inequalities of height, the principle of which was exhibited in the treatise on the improvement of canal navigation, which he published in London in 1796, with numerous well-executed plates from designs from his own hand. A copy of this work was sent by the au- thor to President Washington, with the intention of bringing its theories into practical use in America. Another I 56 was forwarded with a letter to Gover- nor Mifflin of Pennsylvania, urging, with numerous calculations, the 'intro- duction of a canal system into that State, " as a great national question." Fulton also patented in England a mill for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the British So- ciety for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce, and an honorary medal; also machines for spinning flax, making ropes, and an earth-excavator for dig- ging canals. In 1797 he passed over to Paris, with the design of bringing to the notice of the French Government his invention of the torpedo, a device for the blowing up of enemy's vessels by attaching be- neath the water a copper canister of gunpowder, to be discharged by a gun- lock and clockwork. He found his in- genious countryman, Joel Barlow, in the French capital, a kindred spirit with whom he formed an acquaintance, which, as in the case of West, was inti- mately continued for years under the same roof. Fulton availed himself of this opportunity to study the French and German and Italian languages, and improve his acquaintance with the higher branches of mechanical science Among other employments, he project- ed, it is said, two buildings for the ex- hibition of panoramas, the success of which owed much to his assistance. On the arrival of Chancellor Livingston in France, in 1801, as minister, he found a ready assistant in Fulton to the schemes of steam navigation in which he had been already engaged on the Hudson. Experiments were set on foot in the two following years which re 442 ROBERT FULTON. suited in sufficient success in the move- ment of a boat of considerable size pro- pelled by steam on the Seine, to justify the prosecution of the work in America. An engine of a peculiar construction, planned by Fulton, was ordered in England from Watt and Bolton at Bir- mingham. The preparation of this ma- chinery was in part superintended by Fulton himself. He had not, it would seem, relin- quished his favorite schemes of tor- pedo warfare, and finding little en- couragement or success in his opera- tions at Brest, under the auspices of Napoleon, entered into a negotiation, at the instance of Earl Stanhope, who thought the thing of importance, with the English Government. This how- ever also proved fruitless. The steam- engine was completed and sent to New York in 1806. In December of the same year Fulton arrived in that city, and immediately directed his attention to his favorite projects. He enlisted the Government in his scheme of " tor- pedo warfare," which he brought to the attention of the citizens in a lecture be- fore the magistrates and a few invited persons on Governor's Island, and a notable experiment in the harbor in July, 1807, when an old brig was ex- ploded by one of his heavily charged canisters. A pleasant account of the excitement into which the town was thrown by these experiments may be read in one of the numbers of Washing- ton Irving's " Salmagundi," in which Will Wizard undertakes to give an ac- count of the affair. The pretensions of "the North River Society," which it was alleged was intended to set that river on fire, were a frequent subject of merriment with the young wags of this merry periodical, and Fulton's project seemed to bring the thing to *a head. " The society have, it seems," says the number for July, 1807, "invented a cunning machine, shrewdly yclept a Torpedo; by which the stoutest line- of-battle ship, even a Santissima Trini- dad, may be caught napping and de- composed in a twinkling; a kind of submarine powder magazine to swim under water, like an aquatic mole or water rat, and destroy the enemy in the moments of unsuspicious security." We shall presently see Fulton return- ing to these inventions. In the mean time he was proceeding with the construction of the steamboat, which was to be a greater marvel to the quidnuncs of the town than the torpedo itself. By a privilege already granted by the Legislature of the State, the exclusive right of navigating its waters was reserved to himself and Livingston. To supply funds for the completion of his vessel, he offered one third of this patent right for sale; but no one was found with faith enough in the enterprise to induce him to come forward as the purchaser. The boat was however at last launched on the East River, and, contrary to the public expectation, was actually moved by her machinery to her station on the Hud- son. The Clermont—the boat was thus named from the seat of Chancellor Livingston on the Hudson—was next advertised to sail for Albany; and ac- cordingly took her departure on Mon- day afternoon, September 14, 1807, ROBERT FULTON. 443 from a dock in the upper part of the city on the North River. In thirty-two hours she made her destination, a dis- tance of one hundred and fifty miles. On her return to New York, a few days after, the voyage was made in thirty hours. A passage from the letter of Fulton to his friend Joel Barlow, af- fords an interesting memorial of the occasion. After stating that the voy- age had turned out rather more favor- ably than he had calculated, and re- marking that, with a light breeze against him, he had, solely by the aid of the engine, " overtaken many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor," he adds, " the power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spec- tators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ig- norant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. Having employed much time, money and zeal in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen ; and although the prospect of personal emo- lument has been some inducement to me, I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantage my country will derive from the inven- tion." We find Fulton thus alluding to the navigation of the Mississippi. It was the original intention in the model of the Clermont, which was especially adapted for shallow waters. Indeed, up to this time, as remarked by Profes- sor Renwick, " although the exclusive grant had been sought and obtained from the State of New York, it does not appear that either Fulton or his as- sociate had been fully aware of the vast opening which the navigation of the Hudson presented for the use of steam." The demand for travel soon outran the narrow accommodations of the Cler- mont, now put upon her regular trips upon the river; another vessel was built, larger and of finer appointments; punctuality was established, and the brilliant steamboat service of the Hud- son fairly commenced. After a review of the pretensions of all claimants, the honor appears fairly due to Fulton, of the first practical ap- plication of steam, worthy the mention, to navigation. There had indeed been earlier attempts, both in this country and abroad; but as shown in the con cise yet comprehensive summary of Professor Renwick, they could be of but little importance before James Watt, in 1786, completed the structure of the double-acting condensing engine. After this invention became known, the chief rival claimant is Patrick Mil- ler, of Dalswinton, who does appear to have thought seriously of the thing in 1787, and employed the engineer Sym- ington to complete a model for him in 444 ROBERT FULTON. 1791. " If we may credit the evidence which has been adduced," says Ren- wick, " the experiment was as success- ful as the first attempts of Fulton; but it did not give to the inventor that de- gree of confidence which was necessaiy to induce him to embark his fortune in the enterprise." Symington's subse- quent attempt, in 1801, was but a re- newal of the idea and plan of Miller. Fulton's first letter on the subject, to Earl Stanhope, it will be remembered, was in 1793, and his practical experi- ments in France began in 1802. In the history of inventions, it is not uncom- mon to find in this way claimants start- ing up after the fact is established; men of half ideas and immature efforts; intelligent dreamers, perhaps, but want- ing confidence or ability to put their visions into act. It is emphatically the man who accomplishes, who makes a living reality of the immature project, who is entitled to the credit. The world thus pays a respect to Franklin for his discoveries in electricity, which he would never have gained had he not demonstrated their truth by draw- ing down the lightning from heaven. Potentially, the steamboat of Fulton lay in the steam-engine of Watt. Prac- tically, it did not exist before the Ame- rican inventor directed the Clermont along the waters of the Hudson, "a thing of life." His successive adapta- tions and improvements in the applica- tion of the steam-engine to navigation are freely admitted, even by those who dispute the honor of the first inven- tion. We may here pause with Professor Renwick, the biographer of Fulton, to dwell for a moment upon this period of success, consecrated to felicity in the marriage of the triumphant ijventor with the niece of his friend and partner, Chancellor Livingston. Miss Harriet Livingston was the ornament of the society of which her eminent uncle was the head* " Preeminent," we are told, " in beauty, grace and accomplishments, she speedily attracted the ardent admi- ration of Fulton; and this was returned by an estimate of his talent and genius, amounting almost to enthusiasm. The epoch of their nuptials, the spring of 1808, was that of Fulton's greatest glo- ry. Everything, in fact, appeared to concur in enhancing the advantages of his position. Leaving out of view all questions of romance, his bride was such as the most impartial judgment would have selected; young, lovely, highly educated, intelligent, possessed of what, in those days, was accounted wealth. His long labors in adapting the steam-engine to the purposes of na- vigation, had been followed by com- plete success; and that very success had opened to him, through the exclu- sive grant of the navigation of the Hudson, the prospect of vast riches. Esteemed and honored, even by those who had been most incredulous while his scheme was in embryo, he felt him- self placed on the highest step of the social scale." Then followed what may be called the reaction—the test to which every species of prosperity is in some way exposed. The most ordinary acquis! tion of wealth requires the exercise of new arts and ability to retain it. Much more is the successful inventor tracked ROBERT FULTON. 445 by a new swarm of opponents. The very men, perhaps, who laughed at his folly before his invention was complet- ed may assist in robbing him of its re- sults. Success, too, is sometimes expen- sive. It requires constantly new outlay to meet its own vociferous demands. What with the rapid increase of travel, the consequent enlarged expenditure, the necessary dependence upon stewards, and above all the legal attacks upon his patent, Fulton may have felt with Frankenstein, that his mechanism had given birth and powers to a monster, destined to vex and crush him in its embrace. Instead of reaping the re- wards of the invention, he was entan- gled in a business enterprise of a costly character, beset with legal difficulties. The exclusive navigation of the waters of New York was too wide a privilege to be given by the Legislature of a sin- gle State; so that the discussion of the grant became a grave political ques- tion. This conflict of laws was especially disastrous to Fulton, in the difficulties which arose in New- York and New Jersey in respect to the ferry, at the city, between the opposite shores, from which he expected a considerable reve- nue. Having now seen Fulton place steam- boat navigation on a permament foot- ing, on the Hudson, we may return to his favorite studies of the arts of mili- tary warfare, in the destruction of ene- my's ships afloat. We find him follow- ing up the successful exhibition of the "torpedo" off the Battery, by fresh appeals to Government, seconded by the social influence of his friend, Joel Barlow, who had now established him- self at his seat, Kalorama, at Washing- ton. A work was published by Ful- ton, fully describing his proceedings entitled, " Torpedo-war; or, Submarine Explosions"—with the motto, The Liberty of the Seas will be tlie Happi- ness of the Earth. An appropriation was made by Congress, and new expe- riments ordered at New York, before a board of observation in 1810. Com- modore Rodgers was at the head of the commission. Extraordinary precau tions were taken to defend the vessel, exposed to attack, which had the effect of baffling the inventor's efforts, while they proved the formidable nature of the assailant which they were intended to guard against. Old naval officers are chary of new inventions, and, it was thought by some, hardly showed Fulton's contrivances fair play. The report to the Government was a muti- lated affair, which, if it did not cen- sure, found little to commend. The invention, however, was not lost sight of when a period of actual warfare called such defences into requisition. His devices seem to have had the effect, at least, of infusing a wholesome dread into the minds of British officers, cruising about the waters in the vicin- ity of New York. An incident related of Fulton, about this time, by his earliest biographer, Cadwalader D. Colden, may be narrated as an amusing exhibition of a not uncommon popular absurdity. An un- scrupulous, scientific quack, named Red- heffer, had deluded the Philadelphians into the belief of his discovering a species of perpetual motion. He sue- 446 ROBERT FULTON. ceeded in a thorough mystification, it is said, of some very clever people, whose brains were entangled in his wheels and weights; for there is, at times, no more credulous person than your man of science, who spins a web for his own imprisonment. Ingenious theories were not wanting to account for the prodigious working of the ma- chine. Some recondite speculations, well-fortified with figures, will be found in the old "Port Folio." The appa- ratus was brought to New York, and set up to the admiration of the gaping crowd, who dropped their dol- lar at the door into the pockets of the showman, capacious as their own credulity. Fulton was, at length, in- duced to join the crowd. The machine was in an isolated house in the sub- urbs of the city. Fulton had hardly entered, when his practised ear detected an irregular crank motion. The whole secret was betrayed to him in this whisper. Presently entering into con- versation with the showman, he de- nounced the whole thing as an imposi- tion; the usual amount of virtuous indignation was expended by the exhi- biter; the visitors became excited; Ful- ton was resolute. He proposed an inspection behind the scenes, promising to make good any damage in the pro- cess. A few thin strips of lath were plucked away, apparently used only to steady the machinery, which betrayed a string of catgut, connecting the work with something beyond. Following this clue through an upper room, there was found, at its termination, the secret of the wondrous effect, in " a poor, old man, with an immense beard, and all the appearances of having suffered a long imprisonment, seated on a stool, quite unconscious of what had hap- pened below, with one hand gnawing a crust, and with the other turning a crank."1 The mob demolished the machine, and Redheffer disappeared with his vaporous delusion. In these later years of his life, for unhappily he was now approaching its close, Fulton was mainly employed at New York, in building and equipping, under the supervision of Government, his famous cannon-proof steam-frigate, named after him, the Fulton, and in perfecting his favorite devices of sub- marine sailing vessels, in connection with the torpedo warfare. The steam- frigate was launched in October, 1814, but its projector did not live to witness its completion. He may be said, in- deed, to have been a martyr to the •undertaking. His constitution, not of the strongest, was exposed to a severe test in mid-winter, in January, 1815, in a passage across the Hudson, amidst the ice in an open boat. He was re- turning from the Legislature of New Jersey, at Trenton, whither he had gone to give evidence in the protracted steamboat controversy. He was taken ill on his return home, and before he was fully restored, ventured out to superintend some work on the exposed deck of the Fulton. This brought oi, increased illness, which speedily ter- minated in death, February 24, 1815. Thus perished, at the age of fifty, in the midst of his labors, one of the most ingenious and eminent inventors 1 Coldcn's Life of Fulton, p. 219 ROBERT FULTON. 447 America has produced. Nor was he a mere mechanician distinguished in a single department. His genius took a wide range. He was an excellent writer, and might have acquired fame as a painter had he pursued the pro- fession. He always retained an affec- tion for art, from his early efforts at Philadelphia and first intimacy with West in London. When his friend, Joel Barlow, reproduced his early poem, "The Vision of Columbus" as the "Columbiad," in a costly quarto edi- tion, the beautiful illustrations were planned by Fulton, and executed under his direction; and it is to his pencil that we owe the characteristic portrait of the author prefixed to the work. From his will, we learn that Fulton expended five thousand dollars for the engravings, printing of plates, and let- terpress of the poem. He mentions this for the sake of resigning all pro- perty in the work to the widow of his fiiend, the author. He also in his will provides, in certain contingencies, for the gift of his pictures, of which he had a valuable collection, including West's Ophelia and King Lear, to a proposed National Academy at the seat of Government. The amiable so- cial qualities of Fulton are remembered in New York by many yet living, who were his companions. "He had too much sense," remarks his friend and biographer, Colden, " for the least affec- tation." " He was emphatically," adds his younger associate, Dr. Francis, " a man of the people, ambitious, indeed, but void of all sordid designs; he pur- sued ideas more than money." His home in State street is spoken of as the seat of a genial hospitality. In person, he was tall and slender, but well proportioned. The portrait by West has a certain reserved look of the gentleman, with an air of medita- tion and refinement. His grave is in our midst in New York, in the family tomb of the Livingstons, in the ground of Old Trinity. Adjoining Wall street exchanges millions borne on every sea on the wings of his enterprise. Does she not owe her benefactor a monument ? JAMES MONROE. James Monkoe, the fifth President of the United States, was born in April, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Vir- ginia, on the Potomac, a region remark- able in the history of the country as the birth-place of Washington, Madi- son, and of the distinguished family of the Lees. Monroe's ancestors had been long settled on the spot. The names of his parents were Spence Monroe and Elizabeth Jones; and, to our regret, the scant biographies of the President tell us nothing more of them. Their son was educated at the college of Wil- liam and Mary, which he left to take part in the early struggles of the army of Washington—a cause which in the breasts of Virginians superseded all ordinary occupation. Like Marshall and others, the future civilian began his career in the pursuits of war. He joined the forces of Washington at New York, in time to participate in the courageous retreat .after the battle of Long Island. He was in the action at Harlem Heights, and the subsequent battle of White Plains, and was in the retreat through the Jerseys. He led a company in the van of the battle of Trenton, and was severely wounded, a service in the field which procured him a captaincy. He was with Lord Stirling, acting as his aid in the cam- 44S paigns of 1777 and 1778, and distin- guished himself at the Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. Being thrown out of the regular line of pro- motion by accepting his staff appoint- ment, he was anxious to regain his posi- tion in the line, and for this purpose was sent by Washington to raise a regiment in Virginia. Failing to ac- complish this object he remained in the State and directed his attention to the study of the law, under the direction of Jefferson, then recently elected Go- vernor. He took no further part .with the army at the north, but was active as a volunteer when Virginia became the theatre of the war in the successive invasions of Arnold, Phillips and Corn- wallis. He was specially employed by Governor Jefferson in 1780, to visit the southern army as a military commis- sioner, to report on its conditions and prospects, a duty which he performed to the full satisfaction of the Executive. In 1782 he was elected a member of the Virginia Legislature, and shortly promoted by that body to a seat in its executive council. In June of the next year he was chosen member of Congress and sat in that body at its meeting at Annapolis when Washington resigned his military commission at the close of the war. The immediate pressure of / I JAMES MONROE. 449 the necessary steps for self-defence, which gave a kind of cohesion to the loose authority of the old Congress, being now removed, attention was drawn in the most forcible manner to its defects and weaknesses. A poor in- strument for war, it was utterly inca- pable of managing the responsibilities of peace. In foreign and domestic regu- lations, in the discharge of its obliga- tions, in raising a revenue, in giving uniformity to trade, in every species of judicial determination, it was lamenta- bly inefficient. Monroe, though a young legislator—he was only twenty- four when he entered Congress, and consequently had not the dearly-pur- chased experience of some of the older members who had exhausted eveiy art of labor and ingenuity in holding the disjointed fabric together—jet was sa- gacious enough to see the difficulties of the confederacy, and was judged of sufficient importance in council to ap- ply a remedy. He took part in the prominent discussions, and in 1785 in- troduced a report as chairman of a com- mittee intrusted with certain resolu- tions of Congress regarding the levying of an impost, and a call upon the State legislatures to grant the power of regu- lating commerce. He reported in favor of an alteration of the Articles of Con- federation to meet both objects. The necessity of some provision for these objects led first to the convention at Annapolis, where the initial steps were taken to bring together the convention of 1787, at Philadelphia, which origin- ated the Constitution. Another mark of confidence in the abilities of Monroe was his selection as one of the comniis- 57 sioners to decide upon the controverted boundary between New York and Mas- sachusetts, in 1784. He accepted the appointment, but delays arising in th composition of the board, resigned the office before the case came to a hearing. Indeed it was settled without resort to the court at all. Mr. Monroe also took part in the discussions touching the as- sumptions of Spain in her attempts to close the navigation of the Mississippi to inland American commerce, opposing the concession of a right which at that time began to be resolutely claimed, and was fortunately at no very distant day established by treaty. We shall find his name prominently associated with this important measure. " It was the qualities of judgment and persever- ance which he displayed on that occa- sion," says Senator Benton, " which brought him those calls to diplomacy, in which he was afterwards so much employed with three of the then great- est European powers—France, Spain and Great Britain; and it was in allu- sion to this circumstance that President Jefferson afterwards, when the right of deposit at New Orleans had been vio- lated by Spain, and when a minister was wanted to recover it, said, ' Monroe is the man: the defence of the Missis- sippi belongs to him.' " 1 The feeling excited by the discussion of the negotiation between the North and South in the old Congress, led him to abandon his appointment as commis- sioner in the boundary dispute between New York and Massachusetts.2 1 Benton's Thirty Tears' View, I. 680.- 8 Address on the Life and Character of James Monroe, by John Quincy Adams. 150 JAMES MOXROE. The three years' service of Mr. Mon- roe in Congress closed in 1786. Dur- ing that term he manied Miss Kort- right, a lady of New York, of an old and respectable family of the State, of whose personal merits we may wil- lingly accept the eulogy of President John Quincy Adams. " Of her attrac- tions and accomplishments," says he," it were impossible to speak in terms of exaggeration. She was, for a period little short of half a century, the cher- ished and affectionate partner of her husband's life and fortunes. She ac- companied him in all his journeyings through this world of care, from which, by the dispensations of Providence, she had been removed only a few months before himself. The companion of his youth was the solace of his declining years, and to the close of life enjoyed the testimonial of his affection, that with the external beauty and elegance of deportment, conspicuous to all who were honored with her acquaintance, she united the more precious and en- dearing qualities which mark the ful- filment of all the social duties, and adorn with grace and fill with enjoy- ment the tender relations of domestic life." At the close of this Congress- ional term, Mr. Monroe made his resi- dence at Fredericksburg, with a view to the practice of the law, and was pre- sently, in 1787, returned to the Assem- bly of Virginia. In the following year he was chosen a member of the Con- vention of the State, called to decide upon the acceptance of the Constitu- tion. We have seen the part which he bore in the discussions of the old Con- gress of the Confederacy on his first admission to that body in reference to the increase of its powers. When the new instrument was before the country and under deliberation- in the State Convention, he was opposed to its adoption, holding that certain restric- tions, afterwards embraced in the amendments, should precede its accept- ance. Notwithstanding, however, his opposition to its provisions, he was early appointed to an important office of its creation, that of United States senator, to which he was elected in 1789, on the decease of William Gray- son, one of the first members chosen. He continued in the Senate till 1794, when he was appointed by Washing- ton minister plenipotentiary to France, contemporaneously with Chief Justice Jay to the court of Great Britain. Gouverneur Morris, from his sympathies with royalty and his undisguised de- clarations of his sentiments, had become unpopular with the French court. Moreover, his recall was requested as a compensation to the wounded honor of France in the American rejection of Genet, which was on the point of being consummated, when he was withdrawn. As a measure of reconciliation, Wash- ington chose a successor from the party supposed particularly to favor French ideas, in contradistinction to the admir- ers of England. In the two divisions of the country between France and Great Britain, the Republican party was of the former, the Federalists of the latter. In sending Jay to England and Monroe to France, the President was conciliating the nations to whom they were commissioned, and parties at JAMES MONROE. 451 home. The policy of Washington was neutrality, and he endeavored, as far as was consistent with the public welfare, to treat both sides with strict impar- tiality. There were more popular grounds of leaning to France ; that na- tion had assisted us to the final triumph which gave America independence, and so had the better claim upon our sym- pathies in comparison with an enemy who had not yet learnt to respect a successful rebel. But familiar, sponta- neous France was felt to be more ex- acting than cold and distant England. The continental nation had attempted to play the part of a dictator in Ameri- can affairs, and she had not shown the virtue at home to command respect to her interference abroad. She repre- sented, beside, dangerous political the- ories, while our conservative system ivas essentially based on the authority of English precedents. For all this, it was natural that the administration of Washington should incline to England when a decision was to be made be- tween the two nations. Mr. Monroe arrived in Paris August 2, 1794, and was well received by the National Convention, when he brought himself to the notice of that body. His reception in fact was enthusiastic. It was public, in the Convention, and as the minister delivered his credentials it was decreed " that the flag of the American and French republics should be united together and suspended in the hall of the Convention, in testimo- ny of eternal union and friendship be- tween the two peoples. To evince the impression made on his mind by this act, and the grateful sense of his consti- tuents, Mr. Monroe presented to the Convention the flag of the United States, which he prayed them to accept as a proof of the sensibility with which his country received every act of friend- ship from its ally, and of the pleasure with which it cherished every incident which tended to cement and consolid- ate the union between the two nations."* These congratulations were reciprocat- ed in kind by the transmission of a French flag to the United States by the hands of the new minister, M. Adet, who delivered it to the President at his reception. Words, however, do not always express deeds. The Govern- ment continued not only jealous of any diplomatic movements of the United States in England, but pursued a sys- tem of aggression upon American com- merce and trade, little if anything short of actual hostilities. It was Mr. Mon- roe's duty to negotiate and protest; his efforts were ineffectual to control the agencies at work, and after some- thing more than two years of diploma- cy he received his letters of recall, brought by his successor, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. The mission of Monroe was officially closed on the first of January, 1797, when he took leave of the Executive Directory in an audience specially assigned for the purpose. It was no doubt, the impression of Washington, in appointing a successor to Monroe, that the latter had in some way failed properly to urge the views of his Government. In the language of his cabinet, of which Timothy Pick 1 Marshall's Life of Washington, V. 726. 452 JAMES MONROE. ering was now at the head, " whether this dangerous omission arose from such an attachment to the cause of France as rendered him too little mind- ful of the interests of his own country, or from mistaken views of the latter, or from any other cause, the evil is the same;" they therefore advised his re- call. It may be mentioned that Wash- ington at first thought of sending a minister extraordinary to negotiate by his side ; but this he was unable to do without the action of Congress, and that body was not now in session. On his return to the United States, Mr. Monroe thought fit to meet what he conceived an unfair judgment of his course by the publication of a volume entitled " A View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States, connected with the Mission to the French Republic during the Years 1794-5-6, illustrated 1 >y his Instructions and Correspondence, and other Authentic Documents." The book, from which the author expressly refused to receive any profit, was pub- lished " by and for " Benjamin Frank- lin Bache, at the office of the " Aurora," in Philadelphia. The impression it made upon Washington, now retired from public office to the shades of Mount Vernon, is expressed in a letter dated March, 1798, addressed to John Nicholas. " With respect to Mr. Mon- roe's ' View of the Conduct of the Ex- ecutive of the United States,' " he writes, " I shall say but little, because, as he has called it a l view' thereof, I shall leave it to the tribunal to which he himself has appealed to decide, first, how far a correspondence with one of its agents is entitled to the unqualified term he has employed; secondly, how, if it is not, it is to exhibit a view there- of; thirdly, how far his instructions, and the letters he has received from that Executive, through the constitu- tional organ, and to which he refers, can be made to embrace the great poinU which he and his party are evidently aiming at, namely, to impress upon the public mind that favoritism towards Great Britain has produced a derelic- tion, in the Administration, of good will toward France." Of " the propri- ety of exposing to public view his pri- vate instructions and correspondence with his own government," the censure is still more emphatic. That Washing- ton read the book carefully, is witnessed by his copy of it left in the library at Mount Vernon, copiously annotated by his own hand, with critical marginal comments.1 It is to the credit of Mon- roe, that when the immediate occasion of his remonstrance was over he took the opportunity to express his regard for the character and genius of both Washington and Jay. His eulogist, President John Quincy Adams, does justice to this fair-mindedness. After commending the saying of the great orator, statesman and moralist of anti- quity, when reproached for reconcilia- tion with a bitter antagonist, that he wished his enmities to be transient, and his friendships immortal, he adds, " thus it was that the genial mind of James Monroe, at the zenith of his public honors, and in the retirement of his latest days, cast off, like the suppura- 1 Many of them are given by Mr. Sparks, in Appendix X. to his eleventh volume of Washington's Writinga. JAMES MONROE. 453 tion of a wound, all the feelings of unkindness, and the severities of judg- ment which might have intruded upon his better nature, in the ardor of civd discussion." It would have been a ran- corous nature indeed to carry into the Presidential chair, when Washington was in the grave, the memory of an acerbity obliterated not only by time, but which originally grew out of a policy that had been sanctioned by ex- perience. Immediately after his recall, Mr. Monroe was returned to the Virginia Legislature, and speedily elected Gov- ernor of the State, holding the office for the constitutional term of three years. In the beginning of 1803 he was again called upon by the President to pro- ceed to France as minister extraordinary to take part in the negotiations already commenced by the resident minister, Robert R. Livingston, for the purchase or cession of Louisiana, which in the turn of European fortunes had been yielded by Spain to France. The pro- vince was likely to prove a new instru- ment of power, or plaything in the hands of the successful soldier of fortune who directed the movements of armies at his will. It was something more than a mere speculation that he would turn a portion of his force to the New World. The troops were assembled to embark for his American possessions on the Mississippi, and there was a prospect of far greater difficulties as to the navigation of that river than had ever presented themselves in the feeble diplomacy and scant authority of the former Spanish owners. Livingston warned his government at home of the danger, and advised preparation to meet the emergency, while he ex- erted every nerve to bring his negotia- tion to a successful issue. The ear of the First Consul would probably have proved deaf to all his appeals of argu- ment, his demonstrations of political economy and geography, and his prof- fers of payment, had not the short peace of Amiens been suddenly inter- rupted by symptoms of the renewal of the European struggle. Napoleon wanted his men at home, and wished to put money in his purse. At this opportune moment of affairs, Monroe arrived in Paris in the spring of 1803, in time to share in the lucky negotia- tion already commenced by Livingston, and on the eve of proving successful. When the will of a nation reposes in the breast of one man, the slow pro- gress of diplomacy may sometimes be greatly shortened. Within a month of Monroe's arrival, on the 30th April, the treaty was concluded ceding Louis- iana to the United States. Having al- ready, in our account of the life of Liv- ingston, given some notice of the most important details of the negotiation, it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Suffice it that a more advantageous purchase has seldom if ever been made by any nation; for it was not only an important acquisition in itself, larger than the country had any reason to ex- pect—not only did it include a vast present possession, but it contained within it, to vary the expression of Dr. Johnson, " the potentialities of power beyond the dreams of ambition,'' while for those whose insight did not extend to posterity, an immediate obstacle to 4.-,4 JAMES MONROE. commerce, cause of peril, and even pos- sible danger of dismemberment, was removed. The purchase of Louisiana was the glory of the administration of Jefferson. The statesman who in our day should procure the cession of Lower Canada from England, would not se- cure a parallel advantage. The treaty having thus been promptly negotiated at Paris, Mr. Monroe passed over to London, the successor to Rufus King as minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain. He entered immediately upon his duties, and was busy with the open maritime questions between the two nations, when he was called off by President Jefferson, to proceed to Spain to assist Charles Pinckney, the Ameri- can minister at that court, in the nego- tiations respecting claims for damages and the settlement of the disputed Louisiana boundary question. Though little resulted at the time from the dis- cussions, the diplomatic papers of Mon- roe remain, in the language of Presi- dent Adams, " solid monuments of intellectual power applied to national claims of right, deserving the close and scrutinizing attention of every Ameri- can statesman." Mr. Monroe resumed his duties in London in 1805—a period of growing difficulty for an American minister in Great Britain, bent as that nation was upon the destruction of the rights of neutral nations upon the seas. In this era of embarrassed diplomacy, he gained what admissions could be gained from the reluctant ministry of Pitt and the partial liberality of Fox, when, the ag- gressions of England upon the high yeas pressing heavily upon American commerce, William Pinkney, the emi- nent lawyer of Maryland, of great fame in diplomacy, was sent out in the sum- mer of 1806, as his coadjutor, or joint commissioner in the negotiation. Lords Auckland and Howick were appointed by Fox plenipotentiaries, and a treaty was in the beginning of 1807 conclud- ed, by no means what was desired on the part of America, but, as in the case of Jay, the best which could be ob- tained under the complicated difficul- ties of the times, when Englan'd had her war interests to maintain, and the United States had not the means of en- forcing her positions. The special effort at the outset was to induce Eng- land to waive her pretensions to the impressment of seamen, an abandon- ment of her assumed rights which she was unwilling to make; for this and other defects President Jefferson sent back the treaty for revisal; but Mr. Canning having succeeded to the min- istry, with less favorable dispositions than his predecessor, the negotiation was not resumed. Monroe's next public office was as Go- vernor of Virginia for the second time, in 1810; and towards the close of the following year, he was called by Madi- son to the Secretaryship of State, a position in direct ■ line to the Presi- dency. He continued in this relation to the Government during the remain- der of Madison's two terms, discharg- ing at the close of the contest with Great Britain, the additional duties of the war department. His efficiency in these relations, in which he displayed force and activity, marked him out as the successor to Madison in the Presi- JAMES MONROE. 455 the native countrymen of Lafayette, or sadden with those of Pulaski and Kos- ciusko, it is the gratulation of freedom rescued from oppression, and the mourn- ing of kindred spirits over the martyrs to their country's independence. We have no sympathies, but with the joys and sorrows of patriotism; no attach- ments, but to the cause of liberty and of man." Monroe was raised to the Presidency, in 1819, by a large majority of the electoral votes. His Inaugural, which was well received by the public, intro- duced the topics of a new era; he urged measures for the national defence, and favored the elements of national prosperity in internal improvements and home manufactures. His concilia- tory policy looking to the welfare of the country was evident. He followed up his declarations by an early Presi- dential tour through the Eastern States, of which, says Mr. Hildreth, the histo- rian, "embittered and hot-tempered leaders of parties, who for the last seven years had hardly deigned to speak to eacji other, or even to walk on the same side of the street, met now with smiling faces, vying in extrava- gance of official adoration. The 'era of good feeling' having thus begun, the way was rapidly paved for that com- plete amalgamation of parties, which took place a few years after." * The chief events of Mr. Monroe's first term were the admission of Missis- sippi, Illinois and Alabama as new States into the Union, and the impor- tant cession of Florida by Spain, in dential office* Indeed he had been prominent as a candidate upon his return from his English mission; and his spirited and energetic conduct in furthering the operations of the war in Congress, had greatly added to his hold upon the public. He was the advocate of a national policy, and when funds were needed in the embar- rassed financial condition of the times, pledged his own fortune, not without future embarrasment, for the public welfare. All this was not forgotten. He was now to reap the fruits of a long course of exertion in public life, stretching backward to his early days with Washington at the Declaration of Independence, and the first cam- paign of the Revolutionary war. All questions were at rest, time and the change of events having removed them from the national arena. The struggle over, the powers of the Constitution had in a great measure subsided, as the working of the instrument had been proved and precedents established; there was no longer a French and Eng- lish party to agitate the country. We can hardly, at the present day, estimate the value of emancipation from the latter embarrassment of the days of Washington and the elder Adams. In the words of an eminent statesman, whose experience covered both eras, John Quincy Adams. " We have now, neither in the hearts of personal rivals, nor upon the lips of political adversa- ries, the reproach of a devotion to a French or a British faction. If we rejoice in the triumph of European arms, it is in the victories of the Cross over the Crescent. If we gladden with 1 History of the United States, 2d seriea III. C23. or ~OS- om .rn- yrs We yys ,ch- ind cy> the ich bro- he ice, nal nts lia- of ^ed esi- tes, sto- red ast to on ow Aii- era the >m- ich >e's sis- ew >or- in 456 JAMES MONROE. 1819, completing the work of annexa- tion commenced in the purchase of Louisiana. When the time for reelec- tion came round, so entire was the sub- sidence of party, that President Monroe was again chosen with but one dissent- ing vote, that of New Hampshire, which was given to John Quincy Adams. He continued to pursue a liberal policy of internal improvements within the limits of the Constitution, to forward the military defences on land, and the growth and employment of the navy at sea. The revolutionary movements in the Spanish provinces, in which he took an earnest interest, engaged much of his attention. The close of his administration was marked by the progress of Lafayette through the country, a subject to which he made special allusion in his last annual message. " A more interesting specta- cle," he said, with some reference per- haps to his own recollections, " it is believed was never witnessed, because none could be founded on purer princi- ples, none proceed from higher or more disinterested motives. That the feel- ings of those who had fought and bled with him in a common cause should have been much excited was natural. But the circumstance which was most sensibly felt, and which his presence brought to the mind of all, was the great cause in which we were engaged, and the blessings which we have de- rived from our success in it. The struggle was for independence and liberty, public and personal, and in this we succeeded." President Monroe was a plain writer, not at all given to the graces of rhetoric; had he been at all a man of eloquence, or trained in its liberal art, he could hardly have failed to impress some striking images of his past life in a retrospect of his memora- ble career. But this was not the na- ture or talent of the man. In the sim- plest words, he takes leave of the public; but to those who were ac- quainted with his life, as to himself, they were pregnant with meaning. " I cannot conclude this communication," ends his eighth annual message, " the last of the kind which I shall have to make, without recollecting, with great sensibility and heartfelt gratitude, the many instances of public confidence and the generous support which I have received from my fellow citizens in the various trusts with which I have been honored. Having commenced my ser- vice in early youth, and continued it since with few and short intervals, I have witnessed the great difficulties to which our Union has been exposed, and admired the virtue and courage with which they were surmounted." Mr. Monroe retired from Washing- ton to a temporary residence in Loudon County, where, true to a policy of usefulness which had governed him through life, he discharged the duties of Justice of the Peace. He was also one of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, a body of nine appointed by the Governor every fourth year, who with the Rector have the entire direction of that important State institution. He was also chosen Presi- dent of the Convention which sat to revise the Constitution of Virginia, in the winter of 1829-30; but ill health, and the infirmities of advanced life JAMES MONROE. 457 compelled him to retire from his seat before the adjournment of that body. The death of his wife was now added to his affliction, and his home in Vir- ginia being thus broken up, he removed to New York to dwell with his son-in- law, Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur. His death happened shortly after in this new home, on the Fourth of July, 1831, " the flickering lamp of life holding its lingering flame as if to await the day of the nation's birth and glory."1 He was buried with public honors in the Marble Cemetery, in Second street, where his remains reposed till the sum- mer of T858, when they were removed at the instance of the State of Vir- ginia to the rural cemetery of Holly- wood, on the banks of James River, overlooking the city of Richmond. They again received public honors from New York, and were escorted to their final resting-place by the Seventh Regi- ment of New York State troops, gene- rally known as the National Guard. The time chosen for the new interment was the anniversary of his death, but as that day fell on Sunday, the funeral celebration at Richmond took place on the fifth of July. An address was deliv- ered at the grave by Governor Wise of Virginia, in which, after enumerating the events of the long and honorable public career of the departed, he dwelt upon the circumstances of his burial. " Venerable patriot!" was his language, "he found his rest soon after he retired On the Fourth of July, 1831, 1 John Quincy Adama twenty-seven years ago, he departed, like Jefferson and Adams, on the anni- versary of Independence. His spirit was caught up to heaven, and his ashes were enshrined in the soil of his adopted State, whose daughter he had married; of that grand and prosperous Commonwealth whose motto is ' Excel- sior,' our sister New York, the Empire State of the United States of America. Virginia was the natural mother of Monroe, and New York was his mother- in-law ; Virginia by birth and baptism, New York by marriage and burial. This was well, for he gave to her inva- ders the glaived hand of ' bloody wel- come' at Trenton, and New York gave to him a ' hospitable grave.' Virginia respectfully allowed his ashes to lie long enough to consecrate her sister's soil, and now has dutifully taken them to be ' earth to her earth and ashes to her ashes,' at home in the land of his cradle." In person President Monroe was tall and well formed, of light complexion and blue eyes. His long and accepta- ble public life bears witness to his personal and intellectual qualities. In the words of the sketch of the late Senator Benton just quoted, " his parts were not shining but solid. He lacked genius, but he possessed judgment; and it was the remark of Dean Swift, that genius was not necessary to the con- ducting of the affairs of State; that judgment, diligence, knowledge, good intentions and will' were sufficient. Mr. Monroe was an instance of the soundness of this remark." 58 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. " It is a pleasing moral coincidence," says the writer of the notice of Allston in the " Cyclopaedia of American Lite- rature," "that two of the foremost names in our national literature and art should be associated with that of the great leader in war and peace, of their country." Certainly few of the many who have thus borne the name of George Washington, have worn it with greater honor than Washington Irving and Washington Allston. To- tally unlike the great hero by whose name they were called, in their tastes and pursuits, each possessed one great quality by which the master was best distinguished—a thorough fidelity and integrity in whatever he undertook. Washington Allston was descended from a family of considerable distinc- tion in South Carolina, " being a branch of a family of the baronet rank in the titled commonalty of England." He was born in Charleston, November 5, 1779. It was the custom then, more than at present, to send the youth of the South to the North, where the chief colleges and schools were situated, for education. In accordance with this custom, and to aid in strengthening his constitution, which could ill bear his native climate, Allston passed his schooldays, from the early age of six or I 458 seven, at Newport, under the charge of Mr. Robert Rogers, by whom he was prepared for Harvard College, which he entered at seventeen. Re- fined from his youth, fond of books and learning, we may safely fancy him pursuing every advantage of literary cultivation in that time-honored insti- tution. Mr. Richard H. Dana, jr., the editor of a portion of his writings, has prefixed, in a preface to the work, a brief notice of Allston's career, in which this portion of his life is thus spoken of: " While at school and col- lege, he developed in a marked manner a love of nature, music, poetry, and painting. Endowed with senses capa- ble of the wisest perceptions, and with a mental and moral constitution which tended always, with the certainty of a physical law, to the beautiful, the pure and the sublime, he led what many might call an ideal life. Yet was he far from being a recluse, or from being disposed to an excess of introversion. On the contrary, he was a popular, high-spirited youth, almost passionately fond of society, maintaining an unus- ual number of warm friendships, and unsurpassed by any of the young men of his day in adaptedness to the ele- gances and courtesies of the more refined portions of the moving world. » ^^yL^Ly/^/t^ l<:/ ff'-^zy ^/cy^AC*?' ^yi/. WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 459 Romances of love, knighthood and heroic deeds, tales of banditti and stories of supernatural beings, were his chief delight in his early days. Yet his classical attainments were consider- able, and, as a scholar in the literature of his own language, his reputation was clearly established. He delivered a poem on taking his degree, which was much admired in its day." With his natural tastes and inclina- tions thus developed by a liberal edu- cation, and association with some of the most cultivated intellects of New Eno*- land, he returned to South Carolina with his mind intent on further acqui- sitions in literature and art. The lat- ter already claimed him for her own. His early boyish instincts at the South had led him in this direction. At Newport the taste was developed by such humble means as fell in his way, and at Harvard it was strengthened by acquaintance with the exquisite mi- niature painter, Malbone. He devoted all his leisure hours at college to the composition of figures and landscapes, helping himself to some knowledge of color by a study of whatever pictures came to his view—an old landscape at a friend's house, Pine's portraits in the Boston Museum, and a copy from Van- dyke, by Smybert, of the head of Car- dinal Bentivoglio, in the college library. At Charleston, his "picture manufac- tory," as he says, " still went on." He had a boy's fondness for wild romances, and painted banditti with unction. He also painted a head of St. Peter as he listened to the cock crowing, and another of Judas Iscariot. Deter- mined to pursue painting as a profes- sion, he hastily disposed at a loss of his inherited property, and sailed for Lon- don early in 1801, in company with his friend, the artist Malbone. He at once became a student of the Royal Aca demy, then under the presidency of Benjamin West, to whose mild, benevo- lent nature he was attracted, and whose friendship he always retained. His first drawing from plaster, the Gladiator, says Dunlap," obtained him permission to draw at Somerset House; the third procured him the ticket of an entered student." In the exhibition of the Academy of the very next year, 1802, he had three pictures on the walls— a French Soldier telling a Story, " a comic attempt;" a Rocky Coast, with Banditti, and a Landscape with Horse- men, which he had painted at college. He found a ready purchaser for the French Soldier. Three years were thus passed in London in study, when he went to Paris in company with the art- ist Vanderlyn, and thence, by way of Switzerland, to Italy, where he contin- ued four years—memorable years of his life, of patient philosophical cul- ture. At Rome he formed the acquaint- ance of two men with whose memories his name will always be pleasantly en- twined, in the recollection of a friend- ship of equal worth and honor,: the poet Coleridge, and Washington Irving. A passage of one of his letters, present- ed by Mr. Dunlap, will show what was the nature of his intimacy with the former. " To no other man," he wrote, " do I owe so much intellectually, as to Mr. Coleridge, with whom I became acquainted in Rome, and who has hon- ored me with his friendship for more 460 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. than five and twenty years. He used to call Rome the silent city; but I never could think of it as suoh while with him; for, meet him when and where I would, the fountain of his miiul was never dry, but, iike the far- reaching aqueducts that once supplied this mistress of the world, its living stream seemed specially to flow for every classic ruin over which we wan- dered. And when I recall some of our walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, I am almost tempted to dream that I have once listened to Plato in the groves of the Academy. It was there he taught me this golden rule: never to judge of any work of art by its defects—a rule as wise as benevo- lent ; and one that, while it has spared me much pain, has widened my sphere of pleasure." Of his acquaintance with Washington Irving we have this highly interesting account in a reminiscence of the latter. " I first became acquaint- ed," wrote Mr. Irving, " with Allston at Rome, early in the spring of 1805. He had just arrived from France, I from Sicily and Naples. - I was then not quite twenty-two years of age—he a little older. There was something, to me, inexpressibly engaging in his appearance and manners. I do not think I have ever been more completely captivated on a first acquaintance. He was of a light and graceful form, with large blue eyes and black silken hair, waving and curling round a pale, expressive countenance. Everything about him bespoke the man of intel- lect and refinement. His conversation was copious, animated and highly gra- phic; vanned by a genial sensibility and benevolence, and enlivened at times by a chaste and gentle humor A young man's intimacy took place immediately between us, and we were much together during my brief sojourn at Rome. He was taking a general view of the place before setting him- self down to his professional studies. We visited together some of the finest collections of paintings, and he taught me how to visit them to the most ad- vantage, guiding me always to the masterpieces and passing by the others without notice. ' Never attempt to en- joy every picture in a great collection,' he would say, ' unless you have a year to bestow upon it. You may as -well attempt to enjoy every dish in a Lord Mayor's feast. Both mind and palate get confounded by a great variety and rapid succession, even of delicacies. The mind can only take in a certain number of images and impressions dis- tinctly ; by multiplying the number you weaken each, and render the whole confused and vague. Study the choice pieces in each collection; look upon none else and you will afterwards find them hanging up in your memory. The advice was thoughtful and judi- cious, and has a wider reference than to art. It may be carried into litera- ture with profit, and throughout the whole field of mental and moral culti- vation, wherever a principle of selection may be applied. Nothing can be more genial than the picture of pure delight presented by Irving. The two were most happily adapted to appreciate each other in a remarkable conformity —not the less striking for diversity of faculties, of tastes and inclinations. In WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 461 fact, they were so well pleased with the intimacy thus formed, that Irving conceived the idea, and he was encour- aged in it by his friend, of devoting himself to art and pursuing the study of the profession with him in Rome. This youthful dream was broken; not so the mutual regard and affection on which it was based. The friends Hved to cheer one another along the some- times rugged road of life, to coun- sel and aid each other and share in each other's prosperity and lasting tri- umph. Having completed his period of resi- dence in Rome—not his studies, for they were lifelong—Mr. Allston re- turned to America, and resided two years in Boston, which he now regard- ed as his home, marrying there a sister of Dr. Channing. Thence he returned to England taking with him his wife, and, as an art pupil, Mr. S. F. B. Morse, who, after achieving distinction as an artist, has obscured his early fame by his invention of the telegraph. Mr. Allston resided seven years in London, painting there some of his most admired pictures; the Dead Man revived by touching Elisha's Bones, now in the gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy at Philadelphia; the Mother and Child; Jacob's Dream; the' Angel Uriel in the Sun, for which the direct- ors of the British Gallery presented him with a hundred and fifty guineas as a token of their approbation, having previously given him two hundred guineas as the first prize for the Dead Man Revived. A portion of this period was one of great melancholy, consequent upon the death of his wife, | which occurred early in his residence in London. He had previously him- self been ill, and removed in conse- quence for a time to Clifton, in the neighborhood of Bristol, where he was benefited by Mr. King, a surgeon, the brother-in-law of Miss Edgeworth, and by the friendly attentions of Coleridge and Southey. While at Clifton he wrote the longest of his poems, " The Sylphs of the Seasons," which, with some minor writings, collected into a volume, were published in 1813, both in London and Boston. The merits of these poems are of no common order. The leading produc- tion, the " Sylphs," in which the four seasons necessarily present their claims to attention, is delicate and imagina- tive, blending in sentiment and descrip- tion, some of the finest qualities of the poet and the artist. The poet is led in a dream or vision of the night, from a sable cave of darkness to a castle on a mountain plain, where every season seemed to shed its selectest influence. Entering a fairy hall, he is hailed Lord of the Domain: " And now I paced a bright saloon, That seemed illumined by the moon, So mellow was the light. The walls with jetty darkness teemed, While down them crystal columns streamed, And each a mountain torrent seemed, High-flashing through the night." Grouped round a double throne, four fairy damsels stand, inviting the guest to the new-found sovereignty. One of them is to win his heart and hand. The sister seasons plead their various delights. Spring is prodigal with her maiden delicacies of nature : *G2 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. u Or brooding o'er some forest rill, Fringed with the early daffodil And quivering maiden-hair, When thou hast marked the dusky bed, With leaves and water-rust o'erspread, That seemed an amber light to shed On all was shadowed there." Summer deepens tne shades of the picture with her mantling glories and teeming imaginations: " Each circumstance of sight or sound, Peopling the vacant air around With visionary life: For if amid a thicket stirred Or flitting bat, or humming-bird, Then straight the eager fancy heard The din of fairy strife. '' Now in the passing beetle's hum, The elfin army's goblin drum, To pigmy battle sound ; And now, where dripping dewdrops flash On waving grass, their bucklers clash, And now their quivering lances flash, Wide dealing death around; " Or if the moon's effulgent form The passing clouds of sudden storm In quick succession veil, Vast serpents now their shadows glide, And coursing now the mountain's side, A band of giants huge they stride O'er hill and wood and dale." Autumn then chastens the mind with her sober garments of resignation. She is the priestess of religion and morality: * Yet still may I in hope aspire Thy heart to touch with chaster fire, And purifying love: For I, with vision high and holy, And spell of quickening melancholy, Thy soul from sublunary folly First raised to worlds above." Winter sums up the whole with her awful sublimities: " But still a nobler power I claim,— That power allied to poets' fame, Which laLguage vain has dared to name,— The soul's creative might. " O, thou to me thy heart incline; To me, whose plastic powers combine The harvest of the mind ; To me, whose magic coffers bear The spoils of all the toiling year, That still in mental vision wear A lustre more refined." There is no decision, of course, to be made amidst such rival pretensions, and to avoid the perplexity, by a re- source familiar to authors in such cases, the poet is suddenly waked from his dream and the poem ended. The volume did not include an ear- lier little poem of the author, among the best known of his productions, and certainly one of the noblest, which he had written in America in 1810, and which was afterwards first published by Coleridge in his " Sibylline Leaves," with the introduction—"This poem, written by an American gentleman, a valued and dear friend, I communicate to the reader for its moral, no less than its poetic spirit." It is entitled AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN. All hail I thou noble land, Our fathers' native soil 1 O, stretch thy mighty hand, Gigantic grown by toil, O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore : For thou with magic might, Canst reach to where the light Of Phoebus travels bright The world o'er! The Genius of our clime, From his pine-embattled steep; Shall hail the guest sublime \ While the Tritons of the deep With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 463 Then let the world combine— O'er the main our naval line Like the Milky Way shall shine Bright in fame! Though ages long have passed Since our fathers left their home, Their pilot in the blast, O'er untravelled seas to roam, •Yet lives the blood of England in our veins 1 And shall we not proclaim That blood of honest fame Which no tyranny can tame By its chains ? While the language free and bold Which the Bard of Avon sung, • In which our Milton told How the vault of heaven rung When Satan, blasted, fell with his host; While this, with reverence meet, Ten thousand echoes greet, From rock to rock repeat Round our coast; While the manners, while the arte, That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts,— Between let Ocean roll, Ow joint communion breaking with the sun: Yet still from either beach The voice of blood shall reach, More audible than speech, " We are one." The time passed by Mr. Allston in England included the angry period of hostilities of the " second war" of 1812 ; yet he tells us he was never permitted, by the kindness of his friends, to feel that he was a foreigner. By the Eng- lish artists he " was uniformly treated with openness and liberality." The expression is his own, and he adds a tribute to a patron of art whose virtues have been recently commemorated in the biography of Leslie—to Lord Egre- mont, the purchaser of his painting of Joseph's Dream. On the artist's de- parture from the country he said to him, as he said to Leslie on a similar occasion, " I am sorry for it;—well, if you do not meet with the encourage- ment which you deserve in your own country, we shall all be very glad to see you back again." He had already commenced that great painting of Bel- shazzar's Feast, which he left unfinished at his death. His friend Irving lament- ed his leaving England. He thought it was his appropriate home among his brother artists and the liberal patrons of art who were all his supporters. Allston, however, had made up his mind to return ; he was " honiesick," as he said, so in 1818 he made his resi- dence in Boston. He found there friends no less sym- pathizing than those he had left be- hind, and cultivated minds quite capa- ble of aj>preciating the excellences of his character, the daily beauty of his life and the wisdom of his conversation. He had his studio for a number of years in the city, and painted many pictures which now enrich the dwell- ings of its wealthy families. Among them were the noble " Jeremiah dictat- ing his prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem to Baruch the Scribe," " The Witch of Endor raising the Spirit of Samuel before Saul," and " Spalatro's Vision of the Bloody Hand." In 1830 Mr. Allston married a sister of his friend the poet, Mr. Richard II. Dana, and removed to Cambridgeport, near Boston, a place which was thence- forth his residence. He now employed himself with his pen, preparing a series of lectures on art, which have been published in the posthumous collection of his writings, working meanwhile 4G4 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. with his pencil in his patient fastidious way, more for love than reward. In 1841 he published his prose romance, " Monaldi," which he had kept by him since 1821, when he was stimulated to composition by the interest he took in Mr. Dana's interrupted collection of essays, entitled " The Idle Man." To the few numbers of this work which were issued, Mr. Allston contributed a sketch entitled " The Hypochondriac." Monaldi is a story of Italian life, an exciting, profound analysis of the pas- sions of love and jealousy, developed under peculiar circumstances. The hero, a husband, of a noble nature, entertains suspicions of his innocent wife, feeds the viper in his bosom till he is wrought upon to murder her, and then becomes a maniac. The story would be an ordi- nary one, apart from its philosophical treatment. In this lies its power. It probes the very depths of our nature in its masterly dramatic delineation of the workings of the baleful passion in the soul. The story—it forms a single volume of moderate size—has been twice reprinted, and is now fairly in- cluded in the brief list of American classics of its kind. Previously to this publication, in the year 1839, a collection was made of Mr. Allston's pictures for exhibition in Boston to the number of forty-five. It contained many of his more important, with some minor works, and was well received by the intelligent inhabitants of his adopted city. In attempting to reproduce the impression made by this varied exhibition of an artist so highly and deservedly honored in the higher walk of his art, we cannot do better than present a passage from an epistle written at the time by the painter's most appreciative friend, Mr. Richard H. Dana, to the poet Bryant, at New York. The letter was printed in the "Evening Post." "You may," is the language of the writer, " perhaps, have the impression which I had before coming here, that there must be some- thing of sameness in an exhibition made up of the works of one man. You could not be under a greater mis- take. As much as I was struck with the beauty and grandeur by which, of a sudden, I stood surrounded upon entering the room, I was even then con- scious of a feeling of surprise and de- light at the variety and contrast, not only in the subjects and thoughts and emotions made visible, but in the style also. Are these varied scenes of nature, these beings so differing in character, and presented in such varied aspects, all the product of one mind? is the first question which you ask yourself. Yet you see, when you look again, that the variety is not of many minds, but of one—it is related variety. Here, under the pain and confused sense of returning life, lay the man who, when the bones of the prophet touched him, lived again. And directly opposite sat, with the beautiful and patiently expec- tant Baruch at his feet, the majestic announcer of the coming woes of Jeru- salem, seeing through earthly things as seeing them not, and looking off into the world of spirits and the vision of God. What sees he there? Wait! For the vision is closing, and he is about to speak! And there is Beatrice absorbed in meditation, tc uched gently WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 465 with sadness and stealing so upon your heart, that curiosity is lost in sympa- thy—you forget to ask yourself what her thought? and look in silence till you become the soul of meditation too. And Rosalie, born of music, her face yet tremidous with the last vibrations of those sweet sounds to which her inmost nature had been responding! What shall I say of the spiritual depth of those eyes ? You look into them till you find yourself communing wdth her inmost life, with emotions beautiful, exquisite almost to pain. Indeed, when you recollect yourself, you experience this effect to be true of nearly all these pictures, whether of living beings or of nature. After awhile you do not so much look upon them as commune with them until you recover yourself, and are made aware that you had been lost in them. Herein is the spirit of Art, the creative power—Poetry. And the landscapes—spots in nature, fit dwell- ing places for beings such as these." The years of the creator of all these images of imagination were now near- ing to their close, adding a philosophic age to a manhood of rare performance. Had not Mr. Allston been among the first artists, he would have enjoyed a reputation as one of the first talkers of bis time. His conversational powers were of a high order. Thoughtful, ele- gant, refined, with rare methods of dis- crimination and subtle niceties, enriched by manly experience, and deepened by religious culture, his judgment of men and things was expressed with equal feeling and felicity. He had always as- sociated with the best and wisest, and his pure life had suffered no stain from 59 contact with the world. He had lived much also in the ideal, and nothing so strengthens a man's perceptions of the actual as to come upon it from the shades of retirement. He discoursed to his companions as his friend Cole- ridge might have spoken, or Charles Lamb, or Southey. His familiarity with both art and literature enabled him to translate the emotions of the one into the language of the other, while his memory was stored with a fund of anecdote, constantly refreshed by his habit of analysis. Of his prevailing views of life, the essential honesty and nobility of his nature, an intimation may be had from the maxims which he practised as well as wrote upon the walls of the studio The sentences, though they grew out of his profession, are of a wider scope for a truth in morals is never of a lim ited application. Some are simple aphorisms, assertions of a great truth; others have in them a vein of irony and humorous sarcasm. " If an artist," says he, "love its art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own. This is the test of true love." In consonance with this mag- nanimity is the declaration, "Distinc- tion is the consequence, never the object of a great mind." This shows a shrewd observation, and the trick is worth ex- posing : " The most common disguise of envy is in the praise of what is sub- ordinate." "Reverence," he says, "is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into 4:66 WASHINGTON ALLSTON an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down—of such minds are mannerists in art; in the world tyrants of all sorts." Many of the sentences are levelled against selfishness in one or other of its Protean forms. " No right judgment," says he, " can ever be formed on any subject having a moral or intellectual bearing, without benevolence; for so strong is man's natural self-bias, that, without this restraining principle, he insensibly becomes a competitor in all such cases presented to his mind; and when the comparison is thus made per- sonal, unless the odds be immeasurably against him, his decision will rarely be impartial. In other words, no one can see anything as it really is through the misty spectacles of self-love. We must wish well to another in order to do him justice. Now the virtue in this good- will is not to blind us to his faults, but to our own rival and interposing merits." Again, "In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad. Never, therefore, expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative mag. nanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect." This of fame, as distinguished from reputation, is well said: "Fame does not depend on the will of any man, but reputation may be given or taken away. Fame is the sympathy of kindred intellects, and sympathy is not a subject of willing; while reputation, having its source in the popular voice, is a sentence which may either be altered or suppressed at pleasure. Reputation, being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the envious and the ignorant; but fame, whose very birth is posthu mous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through con- genial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of will." In thoughts and meditations like these, death came to him, a visitor not needed "to open the gate to good fame," for that he had attained already and lived without envy. He died at his house at Cambridge a little past midnight, on the morning of Sunday, the ninth of July, 1843. " He had fin- ished," says his relative, Mr. Dana, in the preface already cited, " a day and week of labor in his studio upon his great picture of Belshazzar's Feast; the fresh paint denoting that the last touches of his pencil were given to that glorious but melancholy monu- ment of the best years of his later life. Having conversed with his retiring family with peculiar solemnity and earnestness upon the obligation and beauty of a pure spiritual life, and on the realities of the world to come, he had seated himself at his nightly em- ployment of reading and writing, which he usually carried into the early hours of the morning. In the silence and solitude of this occupation, in a mo- ment, ' with touch gentle as the morning light' which w as even then approach- ing, his spirit was called away to his proper home." STEPHEN GIRARD. The "mariner and merchant" of Philadelphia, whose conduct offers so many apparent contradictions to the student of character—upon whom and whose acts, living and dead, so much of the public attention has been ex- pended for half a century—was born of humble French parentage, in the environs of Bordeaux, on the 21st of May, 1750. Of the exact condition of the family little is known, beyond the fact that his parent, Pierre Girard, a sea captain, was the father of five chil- dren, of whom Stephen was the eldest, and that his mother's name was La- fargue. It is the case of thousands who have come to America from the old world, leaving, in youth, a home to which they owed but little, forming new associations, and seldom recurring, in the rush of active life, to those early circumstances which the changes of fortune have rendered remote to them as another existence. A childhood of poverty and ignorance is not likely to be much talked of by a man who has happily emerged from it in prosper- ity. Occasionally the pride which apes humility will take advantage of the contrast, to heighten the claim of suc- cessful merit; but there was nothing of this prating vanity about Girard. Experience had taught him the hard- ships and inconveniences of poverty, and he was not the man to dwell upon an unpleasant reminiscence; he had no fancy to disguise the scene, and he would have considered it a waste of time to bestow upon the past, words which might be more profitably expended on the present and the future. He would, indeed, sometimes refer to his early years; but it was not in a spirit of tri- umph so much as of regret that he had been deprived of the advantages of education at that period. At least the feeling was a mixed one. Late in life, at the age of sixty-three, he wrote : " I have the proud satisfaction to know that my conduct, my labor and my economy, have enabled me to do one hundred times more for my relatives than they altogether have ever done for me since the day of my birth. While my brothers were taught at college, I was the only one whose education was neglected. But the love of labor, which has not left me yet, has placed me in the ranks of citizens useful to society." A second marriage by his father, in the childhood of Stephen, seems to have acted unfavorably upon his education. " I was very young," he wrote in 1789, " when my father mar- ried again, and since then, I can say with truth, I have made my way alone, 467 468 STEPHEN GIRARD. with means gained from my nurse, the sea." ' The youth, with the consent of his parents, early chose a nautical life, and in 17<>4, at about the age of fourteen, embarked as a sailor for St. Domingo, and for some nine years was employed in voyaging between Bordeaux and the French West India islands. Before the end of this period he had reached the station of first officer of his vessel —not a lightly earned title ; for in ad- dition to the service he had gone through, we have the further evidence of his attainments, of a regularly granted government license as captain, after due examination by the authori- ties, according to the state regulation at the time. More than this : it was a condition of the privilege to command a vessel, that the applicant, besides a certain nautical training, should have served two years in the national ma- rine, and be of the age of twenty five. Both of the two last conditions were dispensed with in Girard's favor. His first mercantile venture on his own account was at this time, when he got together by his own credit and the aid of his father, some three thousand dollars' worth of goods, which he sailed with to St. Domingo in the be- ginning of 1774. Having disposed of his venture, he invested the sum in the productions of the island, and carried them to New York, where he arrived in July of that year, a circumstance to which he makes allusion in his memor- able will, in giving a certain prefer- : Biography of Stephen Girard, by Henry W. Arey, Philadelphia, 1857. ence to the orphans to be educated in his college to New York, "the first port on the continent of North Ameri- ca at which I arrived." He there met with Mr. Thomas Randall, a merchant of the place, who pre red of assistance to him in his speculations and voyages, which were steadily continued for three years between that city, New Orleans and the West Indies, as mate, and afterwards captain and part owner, a circumstance which he also alludes to in his will, where he mentions New Orleans as " the first port of the conti- nent at which I first traded, in the first instance as first officer and subsequent- ly as master and part owner of a vessel and cargo." In 1777 he made his first appearance at Philadelphia in one of these ven- tures, and, leaving the sea, established himself as a trader in Water street, in a locality where he afterwards became so widely celebrated. He was at this time twenty-seven years of age, well stored with experience, having begun life early, and acquired a practical knowledge of the world, or that por- tion of it with which his dealings for some time lay, in his very boyhood. It is a fact of great importance in the study of his success, for he was thus enabled to start with a stock of use- ful knowledge in advance of those of the same age, and concentrate all his youthful energies upon his one absorb- ing pursuit of gain. The main spring, however, was in his own mind, more than in circumstances. There was a personal defect which may have exerted some influence in forming his character—a film or blind STEPHEN GERARD. 469 ness which came over his right eye, of which he lost the sight while a child. This probably added to the austerity of his nature, spoken of in his early sea service. He was a calm, steady, thinking youth, thrown upon a rough. trading life, where commercial success —implying honesty, sobriety, judg- ment, industry, with a mixture, per- haps, of some baser qualities—was the highest virtue. A youth of tough fibre, mental and physical; of a strong, resolute will; rude, wanting in all the refinements of education, but possess- ing a large share of the manifold capa- cities of a man, gnarled and inveterate in the pursuit of a single object. Most men who attain eminence have some master passion which swallows up the rest. That of Girard was a good, strong, lasting one, growing all the more powerful as he grew older, and lesser vices failed—the desire of accumu- lation. Yet it would be as unphiloso- phical as untrue to confine all his emo- tions to the sole love of money. To play well upon a single string, there must be a general knowledge of the powers of harmony; and to be such a brave miser as Girard became, was to exercise very many of the higher facul- ties of a man. He appears, soon after taking up his residence in Philadelphia, to have fallen in love with a beautiful girl of sixteen, the daughter of a calker, who was in the employ of a gentleman's family in the city as a servant girl. He manied her in 1777, and the union was an un- happy one. He applied for a divorce at one time, but on what grounds we are not informed. Nine years after the marriage, she was admitted an insane patient into the Pennsylvania Hospital, where she lingered till 1815, a period of more than a quarter of a century The hour arrived for her burial. At her husband's request she was interred beneath the lawn in front of the institu- tion, and when the simple grave was ready, he came at the close of the day to the silent funeral. After he had cast a last look at the remains, and the humble service was over, he said to a member of the society of Friends who stood by, " It is very well." That was all; and there is a touch of pathos in the scene, enforced upon our attention when we read of his gift, at this time, of three thousand dollars to the insti tution.1 There were doubtless visions of other things in this man's mind be- sides money, though he may have wan- tonly, resolutely made wreck of them. His powerful nature must have felt something of the sorrow of this scene, the index to nearly forty years which had passed since his marriage with the beautiful girl of sixteen—the story of his more than withered domestic life. There had been one child, a girl, the fruit of this union, born in the hospi- tal ; it was tenderly cared for by the father, but died in infancy. We return from this anticipation of his domestic career, to trace the steps of his financial progress. Its begin- nings were sufficiently humble. Dur- ing the British occupation of the city he removed with his wife to a small farm which he purchased at Mount Biography of Girard, by Stephen Simpson, Philadel phia, 1832, p. 40. 470 STEPHEN GIRARD. Holly, in New Jersey, where he occu- pied himself in petty retailing and tiaffic, supplying the American troops with small tavern luxuries. Girard's claret and pretty wife appear to have been well known to the officers. When the British left the city he returned and engaged in the West India trade with St. Domingo. In 1784 he sailed for Charleston, in a vessel built to his order, and thence on one of his voyages of profit to the Mediterranean, leaving his brother John, who had assisted his operations in St. Domingo, to manage his business in Philadelphia. On his return the partnership was dissolved, it being one of the conditions of Mr. Girard's mind that his will must be imperative, without contest. The next important event of his life is one upon which his biographers will ever delight to dwell: his public spirit and care of the sick in the memorable yellow fever season of 1793. The con- sternation and suffering of the people of the city during that pestilence, have probably never been surpassed by like visitations of calamity. The details, as drawn by the sober pen of Matthew Carey, and not exaggerated in the fic- tion of Brockden Brown, equal the terrible pictures of the great plague of London, alike based on the reality, by the imagination of De Foe. All who could escape fled the city; the rest were left to desolation and death. A committee of citizens who voluntarily offered themselves for the protection and care of the city, of whom Girard was one, took such measures as seemed advisable. The cleansing and reorgan- ization, the full supervision of the pub- lic hospital, which had got to be in an alarming condition, was one of the most imperative duties to be performed, but who would execute it? To this fearful work Stephen Girard and Peter Helm volunteered—an act which at the time excited, in the language of Matthew Carey, " the surprise and satis- faction of the community," as " an ex- traordinary effort of humanity." The value of Girard's services was felt at once. He was through life an emi- nently practical man, looking for tangi- ble results on sober principles of action. Much, indeed, was left out in his phi- losophy ; but within its scope he was supremely efficient. His administra- tive faculty was seen at once in the affairs of the hospital. " Order," says his biographer, " soon reigned where all before was confusion; cleanliness took the place of filth ; attendance and medicines were at hand; supplies and accommodations were provided, and on the very next day he reported the hos- pital as ready to afford every assist- ance." He continued to give it his personal attention for sixty days— ministering to the sick and dying, and using his credit to meet the public wants. A letter which he wrote in September of that year, in the midst of the calamity, to a mercan- tile house in Baltimore, breathes the spirit of exalted philanthropy. " The deplorable situation," he writes, " to which fright and sickness have reduced the inhabitants of our city, demands succor from those who do not fear death, or who at least do not see any risk in the epidemic which now pre- vails here. This will occupy me for STEPHEN GIRARD. 471 some time, and if I have the misfor- tune to succumb, I will have at least the satisfaction to have performed a duty which we all owe to each other."1 The same disinterested services were performed by him on the return of the pestilence in 1797 and' 1798. They were evidences of a certain realism about the man. For ordinary forms of suffering, and a thousand distresses of the mind, he had no sympathy; let them be overcome by work, and ab- sorbed or quenched as his own were in labor; but the epidemic was a thing to be met and dealt with; it was de- stroying the city, the population, the prosperity of the country. Self-protec- tion, no less than humanity, demanded that it should be resisted with all the manly force which could be brought to bear against it. Girard, in addition, knew the disease in the West Indies, and may have been acclimated to it, with consequently less fear than others; but that would not have stood in his way had it been otherwise, for he was not the man to be influenced by fear at any time, where he had a purpose to serve. Besides this, too, he appears to have had a special propensity to phy- sicking and doctoring sick people in an amateur, unprofessional way—and, accustomed to rough work, there was no sensitiveness in his nature to cause him to shrink from the coarse duties of the hospital service. All these things do not detract from his benefi- cence ; on the contrary, they were so many assistances to his performance of of it. 1 Arey's biography, p. 15. His commercial relations now grew apace in voyages to the West Indies" and to the south of Europe, carried on by a fleet of ships which he built and to which he gave the names of a class of French philosophers—Montesquieu Helvetius, Rousseau, and Voltaire, for whom, probably with only a very gen- eral acquaintance with their character and writings, he entertained a certain admiration. His success with these vessels appeared extraordinary. "My ships," he said, " always come into port." It was his habit not to insure them. The secret of their success was that they were remarkably well built, and manned by officers whom few knew how to select so well as himself. His own experience had made him master of all the details of the service, and course of the voyaging. On one occasion, during the war of 1812, one of these ships, the Montesquieu, came to the Delaware from a roundabout and productive voyage to Canton, ig- norant of the hostilities with Great Britain, and was captured at the mouth of the river. Though her owner was obliged to ransom her from her British captors, by the payment of one hun- dred and eighty thousand dollars, which he put down in solid coin, yet the profits of her cargo, it is said, more than compensated this item of loss. To these mercantile operations, he added in 1812 the business of a ban- ker. His entrance on this pursuit grew out of his holding a large amount ot the stock of the old bank of the United States at the time of the expira- tion of its charter in 1811. He pur- chased its building, and the Girard 472 STEPHEN GIRARD. Bank became the successor to the for- mer institution. He gave his personal attention to its affairs, and conducted them to his last days with remarkable ability, selecting, as usual with him, efficient officers and men of integrity. The frauds, of peculation, over issues and the like, since his day so common in our large banking and trading compa- nies, would not have escaped his vigi- lant supervision. There were many of the ordinary grace?1 of the mercantile character, its hospitality and minor forms of liberality, for which he had no taste, and to which he was, perhaps, churlishly opposed; but in the great essentials of duty, integrity and fidelity associated with mental ability, his ex- ample is worthy of all imitation. If diners-out were not gratified at his table, and there was little to please in his conversation, the money of widows and orphans was never imperilled or lost by his neglect of duty. The world has suffered incalculably more from the laxity and indifference of so-called generous but unfaithful merchants, and men placed in positions of trust, than from the lack of sympathy of all the misers who ever pointed the disquisi- tions of the moralists. Not that the last most unamiable vice should receive any encouragement, but that of the two the influence on society of'the lax and unfaithful spendthrift is more injurious than that of the pelf-seeking miser whose useful vocation it may be to tighten the loosened rivets of in- dustry. It is to the credit of Girard that, on various occasions, he took large and liberal views of the public interest. A loan to a vast amount which he made to the Government during the war, though, as it proved, a source of great pecuniary profit to himself, was at the time, in the depressed state of the pub- lic credit, a patriotic act. The resources of his bank, too, were judiciously used on occasions of financial pressure. He took a part in the improvements of the city, and such schemes for the public welfare as the Schuylkill Navigation Company, and was even a liberal ber- efactor to the churches of different de nominations, with whose doctrines he had no sympathy; he looked upon them as means to increase the welfare of the city. His methods of meeting these last appeals to his beneficence were some- what capricious. Several anecdotes are related by his biographer, Mr. Simpson, one of the officers of his bank, and son of his valued cashier. He required to be taken " on a right footing," as he called it; for, exact and methodical as he was, he had, like other men, his ine- qualities of moods and feeling. On two occasions when the applicants for churches were not satisfied with his gift of five hundred dollars, he took the check back in his hand with the remark, that he may have made a mis- take, and destroyed it at once. They got nothing. At another time, he in- creased his gift when the Quaker appli- cant, who understood his humors, put the first check in his pocket without looking at it, saying, "beggars must not be choosers," and refusing to sur- render it on the plea, that " a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush." Nor does it appear that any of his pub- STEPHEN GIRARD. 473 lie gifts savored of ostentation. He was far too independent of public opinion, and confirmed in the strength of his o^ n will, to make any sacrifices to that. He looked always to utility, and gave on a principle of his own. Besides the various important occu- pations we have enumerated, the mer- chant, the trader, the banker, Girard was no inconsiderable farmer and agri- culturist. He possessed a plantation in the neighborhood of the city which he visited almost daily, taking part in its laborious occupation, making hay, and on occasion slaughtering cattle. It was in this way, passing from the counting-house to the bank, from the bank to the hayfield, that he multiplied his resources, and conquered life by his unceasing activfty. He had, too, in ad- dition to the many daily demands upon his attention, an inexhaustible subject of private meditation in* the considera- tion of the disposition he would make of his vast property of millions after his death. He appears to have had this in mind in a conversation with Mr. Simp- son, in 1822, when he was asked for ma- terials for his biography. He appeared not altogether insensible to the compli- ment involved in the request, urged as it was in the name of the public, while he declined with the reply, "I have nothing to tell worth writing about. What should people want to know of me ? My actions must make my life. What I do is enough for people to know; and when I am dead my con- duct will speak for me." * He brought his various meditations ' Simpson's biography, p. 157. cc and resolves as to the disposition of his property into shape in his will, which bears date, February, 1830. In the fol- lowing winter of that year, he was seri ously affected by an accident in the streets. Long blind of one eye, and for some time nearly deprived of the sight of the other, while he was quite deaf, he was thrown down in the street by a carriage, and considerably injured in the head. He had mostly, however, recov- ered from this when he was stricken by a prevailing influenza, and an at- tack of pneumonia terminated his life in his eighty-second year, December 26, 1831. His will was at once a matter of great curiosity in the city and through- out the country. It was expected, from his well known public spirit, that some remarkable disposition would be made of his vast property, which at the time of his death had reached a value of seven and a half millions. Nor was the expectation disappointed. Some two hundred thousand dollars were left, in moderate legacies, to his rela- tives and persons in his employment, one hundred and sixteen thousand dol- lars to various existing Philadelphia institutions of charity, a half-million to the city of Philadelphia, three hundred thousand dollars to the State for a like object of internal improvements, while the main bequest was of two millions, with an important residuary grant, and a large grant of land in the city, to the erection and formation of the college for "poor white male orphans," now called after his name. The directions for the construction of the edifice are most minutely given, occupying several 474 STEPHEN GIRARD. closely printed octavo pages of the in- strument, specifying not only the posi- tion and arrangement, but directing the various appliances of carpenter and mason-work; curiously exhibiting the testator's habit of mind in attention to details—the means of his wealth and source of many of his peculiarities. The history of the will, of the changes of property under it, of the controver- sies and lawsuits to which it gave rise, would fill a narrative long as the life of its maker. One of the most notice- able of the legal questions connected with it was that raised by his heirs, involving the position that one of its provisions was at war with the Chris- tian religion, and consequently nuga- tory, as opposed to the common law and public welfare. The cause was twice argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, first in 1843, and the second time in 1844, before a full Court, when Daniel Webster appeared as one of the counsel for the heirs, and Messrs. Binney and Sargeant, of Phila- delphia, for the city and executors. Justice Story pronounced the decision of the Court establishing the validity of the bequest. The will enjoined " that no eccclesi- astic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any pur- pose or as a visitor within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said College," an injunction which should not be separated in the public mind from the context, which allows a veiy comprehensive course of religious instruction. "In making this restric- tion," he adds, " I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever; but, as there is such a magnitude of sects, and such a diver- sity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the or- phans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excite- ment which clashing doctrines and sec- tarian controversy are so apt to produce; ray desire is, that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars, the purest principles of moral- it}^, so that, on their entrance into active life, they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence towards their fellow creatures, and a love of truth,' sobriety and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." Among other provi sions is a sensible one, introduced, per haps, by a recollection of his observa- tions in Europe, where such separations are maintained, directing "no distinc- tive dress ever to be worn." He knew the force of associations of this kind, and did not wish a stereotyped remem brance of poverty to be printed on the minds of his beneficiaries. In the same love of independence, he dictated, " and, especially, I desire, that by every pro- per means a pure attachment to our republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience as guaran teed by our happy constitutions, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars." Of the many foreigners who have become American citizens, none, perhaps, have appreciated their STEPHEN -GIRARD. 475 privileges or shown more gratitude to the State than Stephen Girard. The city councils of Philadelphia may always take a just pride in the confi- dence he reposed in them, and the trusts he placed in their hands. Fourteen years and six months, from 1833 to 1847, were occupied with the completion of the build- ings of his college, which consist of a main edifice, greatly admired as a fine specimen of Grecian architec- ture, and four out-buildings, two on each side, also of white marble, in a line with the central structure, erected within a walled enclosure of forty-one acres, in the city of Philadelphia. The cost of the whole was nearly two millions of dollars, leaving the institu- tion to be supported out of the residu- ary grants. It sustains -three hundred orphan children, who are admitted between the ages of six and ten, and may remain till the age of eighteen. By a liberal construction, children who have lost their father and whose mo- ther survives are considered within the meaning of the bequest. The govern- ment, besides the supervision of the city councils, is vested in a board of directors, while the immediate direc- tion is in the hands of the president. There are two departments of instruc- tors, the principal and the primary, by whom various branches of a useful sci- entific education are taught, including music and drawing, with the French and Spanish languages. Latin and Greek, though not forbidden, were " not recommended" by the testator, and do not appear in the programme. At a suitable age, between fourteen and eighteen, the pupils are indentured to some proper occupation or trade. Though no clergyman is knowingly admitted within the premises, daily worship and religious instruction on Sundays enter into the course of edu- cation. The Bible is read, hymns are sung, and appropriate discourses by the president, or some layman selected by him, delivered. Girard was in some respects a narrow utilitarian; there were many more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy, and the same thing may be said with truth of most mor- tals; but he had a grand idea of the value of occupation. His provision for the orphans shows an eager solicitude for the welfare of the race in this respect. Work was his religion. It is a doctrine which he carried too far when he associated tit with parsi- mony and his own narrow habits of life; but there is something grand in the onward steps of the poor cabin boy, maimed in sight, rude in his per- son, a stranger in his speech, unhappy in his married life, overcoming the dis- advantages of fortune to pursue his far-sighted, intelligent career as a pros- perous merchant, building up a vast estate—not for his own luxurious en- joyment, but to enrich his adopted city, and bless, by its kindly support, successive generations of the fatherless and dependent. WILLIAM PINKNEY. " Pity it is," exclaims the ingenious and entertaining Colley Cibber in his autobiography, as he attempts to por- tray the excellences of the Shakspearian performer, Betterton, " that the momen- tary beauties flowing from an harmo- nious elocution, cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record; that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them; or at best can faintly glimmer through the mem- ory . or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators !" • The pathetic complaint might with equal propriety be made of the fame of the great advo- cate. The man who was the admiration of the bar, the delight of his contem- poraries, and the despair of the younger members of the profession; who exer- cised an influence over life and property equal to the governor of a state; upon whose words the public hung; who was the champion of their peace and security; the acute logician, the trained orator—what is there commonly left of his fame in the generation succeed- ing his own? Unless he has linked his name with the literature of his pro- fession, or some kindred pursuit; or held political office, or added something accidental and extrinsic to the engross- ing labors of the bar—where is he? 476 There are names hardly known to our sons who were the great men of our fathers' admiration. They are, indeed, always mentioned with honor within the ranks of the profession, where they enjoy a traditional reputation, and their great cases, upon which years of thoughtful labor were expended, are handed about the courts in brief tech- nical formulas—but what do the peo- ple know of the authors of these adjudications ? He was a great lawyer, and that is all. It is fortunate, even for the popular fame of Marshall, that besides rearing the monument of his Constitutional decisions, he served in the army of the Revolution, and wrote the Life of Washington. The reputa- tion of Kent and Story is held by their graceful additions to the literature of their profession. Wirt was an able Attorney General, but he will be bet- ter known as a pleasing author, and through the genial biography of Ken- nedy. Wdliam Pinkney, the eminent law- yer of Maryland, has, perhaps, more than any of those we have mentioned, a strictly professional reputation. We shall find him, indeed, employed in public life, but his claims to notice still centre in that capacity about his legal attainments. He was born at Annapo 8775 WILLIAM PINKNEY. 477 lis, Maryland, March 17, 1764. His father, Jonathan Pinkney, an English- man by birth, is enrolled among the Loyalists of the Revolution. It was characteristic of the independence of the son, that even in boyhood he chose the opposite patriotic side. We are told that he would steal from his home, and mount guard at night with the soldiers at the fort of his native town. His early education was imperfect in consequence -of the trou- bled state of the times. A private teacher, who afterward spoke of his "promising pupil" with regard, gave him some instruction in classical studies, which were interrupted by the forced departure of the preceptor for Europe. An anecdote records the youth's par- ticipation in a debating club of his town. A subject was given out for discussion before a polite assembly of the place. Pinkney retired to a se- cluded spot in the neighborhood for practice and meditation, where, unob- served, he heard his antagonist rehearse his speech for the evening. Thus armed in advance, he made so brilliant a reply, in his apparently extempore effort, that he carried off the honors of the exhibition. We next hear of him at Baltimore, engaged in the study of medicine with a leading practitioner, a pursuit which does not appear to have held him long from the main occupation of his life. Falling in with Samuel Chase, the sub- sequent justice of the Supreme Court, who was struck by the talents of the youth exhibited in a debating society, that distinguished lawyer offered him his aid in the study of his profession. The pupil commenced his preparation under this excellent direction at the age of nineteen, and after a course of three years was called to the bar in 1786. His success appears to have been assured from the start. "His attain- ments in the law of real property," says his eminent biographer, Henry Wheaton, "and the science of special pleading, then the two great founda- tions of legal distinction, were accurate and profound; and he had disciplined his mind by that species of logic, which, if it does not lead to the bril- liant results of inductive philosophy, contributes essentially to invigorate the reasoning faculty, and to enable it to detect those fallacies which are apt to impose upon the understanding in the warmth and hurry of forensic dis- cussion. His style in speaking was marked by an easy flow of natural elo- quence, and a happy choice of Ian guage. His voice was very melodious and seemed a most winning accompani ment to his pure and effective diction. His elocution was calm and placid— the very contrast of that strenuous, vehement and emphatic manner which he subsequently adopted."* The change must have been marked, for Judge Story, writing of his later years, his great period before the Supreme Court, says, " his voice was thick and guttural, rising and falling with little melody and softening of tones, occasionally ab- rupt and harsh in its intonations, and wanting in liquidness and modulation."2 1 Some account of the Life, Writings and Speeches of William Pinkney, by Henry Wheaton, 1826. a Sketch of the character of the Hon. William Pinkney by Joseph Story. 478 WILLIAM PINKNEY. Leaving Annapolis, Pinkney began practice in Harford County, on the Susquehanna, from which district he was sent, in 1788, to the State Conven- tion which ratified the Constitution of the United States; and, in the same year, as representative to the House of Delegates, of which he continued a member from the county till his return to Annapolis in 1792. His speeches on the first session of his attendance in the legislature, in favor of allowing the emancipation of slaves, were character- ized not only by their liberal senti- ments, but by a singular felicity of expression. He was in the mean time married, at Havre de Grace, to Miss Ann Maria Rodgers, the sister of Com- modore Rodgers. For three years from 1792, he was a member of the executive council of Maryland, when he was chosen a dele- gate to the legislature from Ann Arun- del, the county in which Annapolis is situated. Being thus versed in public affairs, and having fully established his reputation at the bar, he was, in 1796, appointed by President Washington a commissioner on the part of the United States under Jay's British Treaty of 1794, to determine the claims of Ame- rican merchants to compensation for losses and damages sustained by acts of the English government. This was the commencement of his diplomatic career abroad. The particular service, involving the consideration of many nice questions of admiralty law, gave employment to Pinkney's best powers. His written opinions, published in an appendix to Mr. Wheaton's account of his life, are pronounced, by that emi- nent jurist, "finished models of judicial eloquence, uniting powerful and com- prehensive argument with a copious, pure and energetic diction." He remained in England till 1804, engaged, besides the duties of the com mission, in the adjustment of an impor- tant claim in chancery of the State of Maryland. His letters, during this pe- riod, exhibit him still a devoted student of his profession. In 1800, he writes, " It is not of small importance to me that I shall go back to the bar cured of every propensity that could divert me from business—-stronger than when I left it—and, I trust, somewhat wiser. In regard to legal knowledge, I shall not be worse than if I had continued; I have been a regular and industrious student for the last ten years, and I believe myself to be a much better law- yer than when I arrived in England." His studies embraced not only the law, but a critical examination of English and classical literature. He became, indeed, quite a proficient in the know- ledge of his own language, and hence not only improved a capacity, which seems to have been natural with him, for elegant diction, but acquired an extraordinary force and compass of expression. He was so sensitive to the worth of education, that he applied himself to the study of the classics under a master while he was minis- ter in England, in consequence of find- ing himself compelled to silence in a dinner table discussion of some topic of ancient literature. With these advantages, on his return to America in 1804, he resumed the practice of the law at Baltimore. In WILLIAM PINKNEY. 479 the following year he was appointed Attorney General of the State of Ma- ryland. In 1806, having shown him- self active in the preparation of a me- morial of the merchants of Baltimore, presented to Congress, he was again sent to England as commissioner, jointly with Monroe, to treat with the Eng- lish government respecting the contin- ued aggressions of that power, in viola- tion of the rights of neutrals. The negotiations, it is well known, met with only partial success and were quite overthrown by the renewed ag- gressions arising out of the conflict with Bonaparte. On the retirement of Monroe in 1807 he was left minister resident in London, in which capacity he remained till he earnestly solicited his recall from Mr. Madison in 1811. The unsatisfactory result of all efforts of American diplomacy made at this period to adjust the relations with England, are matters of history. In addition to these somewhat wearisome toils, the minister felt sensibly the ex- penses of English life and of the education of his children, and was again compelled to look earnestly to the resumption of his professional ca- reer at home. On his arrival in Maryland he was elected a member of the^State Senate, and at the close of the year received the appointment from President Madi- son, of Attorney General of the United States. It was a sphere for which he was admirably suited, and he was not long in fixing the attention of the country upon his eminent ability. His argument in the case of the ship Ex- change, separating the province of di- plomacy from ordinal y judicial cogniz- ance, is especially mentioned by his biographer as " raising him at once in the public estimation, to' the head of the American bar." As might have been expected from his diplomatic ex- periences, which had made him so well acquainted with the British aggressions, he was an earnest advocate and sup- porter of the war of 1812. He de- fended the policy of the Government by his pen, and when his region was invaded, marched at the head of a com- pany of riflemen to Bladensburgh, in its defence, and was wounded in the fight. In 1814 he resigned his post as At- torney General on the introduction of. a bill into the House of Representa- tives, requiring the residence of that officer at the seat of government. An interesting specimen of Pink- ney's forensic eloquence is presented to us in his speech in the case of the ~Ne- reide, before the Supreme Court in 1815. This was an argument to deter^ mine the claim of a Mr. Pinto, a native' and resident merchant of Buenos Ayres, to goods which he had embarked in London in a British armed and com- missioned ship, which was captured by a United States privateer. It present- ed a peculiar apparent conflict of neu- tral rights with warlike relations. Able counsel were engaged on both sides: Emmett and Hoffman for the claimant; Alexander James Dallas and Pinkney for the captors. A passage in the opening of Pinkney's speech is a happy illustration of his neatness of expression. " What," he says, " may be the real value of Mr. Pinto's claim to our sympathy,-it is impossible for*us 4S0 WILLIAM PINKNEY. to be certain that we know; but this much we are sure we know: that what- ever may be its value in fact, in the balance of the law it is lighter than a feather shaken from a linnet's wing— lighter than the down which floats upon the breeze of summer. I throw into the opposite scale the ponderous claim of war—a claim of high concern- ment, not to us only, but to the world; a claim connected with the maritime strength of this maritime State, with public honor and individual enterprise, with all those passions and motives which can be made subservient to na- tional success and glory in the hour of national trial and danger. I throw into the same scale the venerable code of universal law, before which it is the duty of this court, high as it is in dig- nity, and great as are its titles to reve- rence, to bow down with submission. I throw into the same scale a solemn treaty, binding upon the claimant and upon you. In a word, I throw into that scale the rights of belligerent America, and, as embodied with them, the rights of these captors, by whose efforts and at whose cost the naval ex- ertions of the government have been seconded, until our once despised and drooping flag has been made to wave in triumph where neither France nor Spain could venture to show a prow. You may call these rights by what name you please: you may call them iron rights—I care not. It is enough for me that they come before you encir- cled and adorned by the laurels which we have torn from the brow of the naval genius of England; that they come before you recommended, and en- deared, and consecrated by a thousand recollections which it would be base- ness and folly not to cherish, and that they are mingled in fancy and in fact with all the elements of our future greatness." He concludes this protracted speech, which in the portion published occu- pies some sixty octavo pages, with an allusion to the termination of the war, and the future of the American navy. " We are now, thank God, once more at peace. Our belligerent rights may therefore sleep for a season. May their repose be long and profound ! But the time must arrive when the interest and the honor of this great nation will command them to awake, and when it does arrive, I feel undoubting confi- dence that they will rise from their slumbers in the fulness of their strength and majesty, unenfeebled and unim- paired by the judgment of this high court. "The skill and valor of our infant navy, which has illuminated every sea, and dazzled the master states of Eu rope by the splendor of its triumphs has given us a pledge, which I trust will continue to be dear to every Ame- rican heart, and influence the future course of our policy, that the ocean is destined to acknowledge the youthful dominion of the West. I am not like- ly to live to see it, and, therefore, the more do I seize upon the enjoyment presented by the glorious anticipation. That this dominion, when God shall suffer us to wrest it from those who have abused it, will be exercised with such justice and moderation as will put to shame the maritime tyranny of re WILLIAM PINKNEY. 4 31 cent times, and fix upon our power the affections of mankind, it is the duty of us all to hope; but it is equally our duty to hope that we shall not be so inordinately just to others as to be un- ;ust to ourselves." In 1815, Pinkney was chosen a rep- resentative in Congress from the city of Baltimore. An important question, growing out of the commercial conven- tion between the United States and Great Britain, arose in the House soon after his election, in respect to the pro- vince of Congress in specially confirming the terms of a treaty—a similar ques- tion to that which so long occupied the attention of the House in the debate on Jay's treaty. Pinkney on this occasion took the ground previously indicated by the friends of Washington's admi- nistration, that the treaty-making power of the President and Senate being su- preme, no action of Congress was required to confirm its provisions. He did not remain long in Congress, resigning his seat before the expiration of his term, on his appointment, by President Monroe, as minister to Rus- sia, and special envoy to Naples. He proceeded first to Italy, landing at Na- ples in July, 1816, where he set on foot a negotiation of the claims for losses sustained by American merchants by the acts of Murat, and while this was pending took his departure, by way of Rome, the northern cities of Italy, and Vienna, for St. Petersburg, where he continued almost two years. Hav- ing thus secured the relief, in change of occupation and study of the world, which his laborious pursuit of his pro- fession at home rendered necessary to 61 him, and feeling, perhaps, the want of his legal income, he returned to Balti- more in 1818, and resumed his old practice at the bar. He was retained in the Supreme Court in 1819, by the Bank of the United States, in main- taining its claim of exemption from State taxation. His speech occupied three days in the delivery. The ease and eloquence of the exordium have rarely been surpassed. In 1820, Pinkney was elected to the United States Senate by the Legisla- ture of Maryland, and took part in the pending discussion on the admission of Missouri. He spoke at length in op position to the proposed condition of the exclusion of slavery as unconstitu- tional. He continued, meanwhile, his labors in the Supreme Court, and it was while in these double employ- ments of the Senate and the bar, pre- paring new debates, that his health suddenly failed him. He suffered a severe attack of illness in the mid- dle of February, 1820, which in a short time, passed partly in delirium, terminated his life on the twenty-fifth of that month, One of his latest acts of sanity was a conversation with Mr. Wheaton, his biographer, in which he dwelt with an excited imagination upon the scenes and characters of Scott's new novel, the " Pirate." It was the last case which he argued. There must have been something highly impressive in Pinkney's conduct at the bar, to secure the high terms in which, with a full exercise of criticism, he is spoken of by his contemporaries. Story, who speaks of the unpleasing inequality of his elocution, asserts that 1S2 WILLIAM TINKNEY. ' no man could hear him for any length of time, without being led captive by his eloquence." In an analysis of his style, the same judicious authority tells us of his " marvellous felicity" in a " complete mastery of the whole com- pass of the English language," giving to his style " an air of originality, force, copiousness and expressiveness which sti'uck the most careless observer." In this restrained use of language, copious and at the same time neat and exact, he had an advantage over his occasional antagonist in the Supreme Court, Wil- liam Wirt, whose rhetoric was less at the command of his judgment. In all that related to the preparations of ora- tory, Pinkney was an adept, sparing no labor of preparation or art of suc- cess. He studied his native language as it should be studied by eveiy speak- er who would excel as the great mas- ters of eloquence have risen to fame. His speeches in the leading passages were carefully meditated, and even written out beforehand. He even prac- tised declamation in private. Hence, when he came before the public with his full imposing figure^ and resolute front, delivering his exact logic in words of equal purity and force, the effect was fully proportioned to the means. He was an intellectual com- batant whom it was impossible not to respect. To his rivals at the bar his manner is said to have been severe and abrupt, but gracious to the younger members of the profession, so that he gained the admiration of one class while he excited the jealousy of ano- ther. Mr. Kennedy, who makes this observation in his life of Wirt, tells us also of his popularity as a sportsman, his favor as a politician, who had ren- dered good service to party, and of his " munificent ostentations of living." We even hear of his being charged with foppery and affectation. These are often popular exaggerations of a proud mind, which, loftily looking to great objects, sets a proportionate value upon the small. Pinkney always pre- served the dignity of his profession. " He was a great man," wrote Wirt, on his death—" on a set occasion, the greatest, I think, at our bar." " He was desirous of fame," says Story, " of that fame which alone is enduring, the fame which reposes on sound learning, exalted genius, and diligent, nay, inces- sant study." For these things, and as an able, honored representative of the State at home and abroad, his career will reward the most patient investiga- tion. His writings have been dili- gently collected and commented upon by the kindred genius of Wheaton, in whose volumes—for he twice wrote the life—the study may be pursued with profit and delight. I JACOB BROWN. Major General Jacob Brown, the defender of the New York frontier in the war of 1812, like his predecessor, General Greene, of the war of the Re- volution, was of Quaker parentage, a proof that the coolness of temper and resoluteness of mind generated by the principles of the sect, are not unfriend- ly, spite of pacific professions, to mili- tary employments. Your calm, earnest man, when he is once roused by a great cause—an inferior one is not likely to agitate him—and brought into the field, is apt to be a brave and persistent war- rior. General Jacob Brown proved himself a man of this mettle, one upon whom the country could rely in a sea- son of danger and difficulty, who turned a series of disasters into victo- ries, and national depression into exalt- ation. He was born in the Revolutionary era, 1775, in Bucks County, Pennsylva- nia, a few miles below Trenton, on the Delaware. His father, Samuel Brown, fourth in descent from one of the ear- liest English settlers on the Delaware, pursued there the life of a respectable farmer, giving his son such advantages of education as his position at that time afforded, and bringing him up with the Quaker views and habits of the family. " His early education," says the contemporary biographical notice in the "Analectical Magazine," published when he had achieved dis- tinction, " was such as the youth of the sect commonly receive; accurate and useful so far as it went, without aspir- ing to elegant literature, or mere specu- lative science: but his mind was natu- rally too active and inquisitive to rest content with these humble rudiments, and by seizing upon every opportunity of improvement, in the course of his very diversified life, he has gradually acquired a large fund of various and well-digested knowledge." The youth undoubtedly showed some ' preference for learning, over the usual employments of the farm, which might have afforded him occupation, for we hear of his being engaged at eighteen as the teacher of a respectable Quaker school at Crosswicks, in his native State. This, however, he left on be- coming of age, to proceed to Ohio, where he followed the business of a surveyor of the public lands—a calling, even at that comparatively recent pe- riod in the West, not unfavorable to the development of his resources and expe- rience in the field, preparatory to mili- tary service. Indeed, a good general must always have something of the eye of a practical surveyor. From this 4S4 JACOB BROWN. residence at Cincinnati, Brown returned to the seaboard to engage again in the profession of a teacher at New York, where he had charge of the public school of the society of Friends. To this responsible task he devoted him- self for a short time with great energy, acquiring reputation and improving his mind by new studies, and observations of city life. Like many of those who engage in this pursuit, he was led to the study of the law, which he com- menced, and which might have en- grossed the remainder of his life had he not been diverted by a scheme of land speculation on the borders of Lake Ontario, in the vicinity of Sackett's Harbor, in Jefferson County. He re- moved thither in 1799, built the first house in what is now the flourishing town of Brownville, which was called after him, shared in the spirit of enter- prise and speculation which was then directed to the frontier, became a man of consequence in the new district, and acquired wealth as settlers came to purchase his lands. " As the country sontinued to improve," in the words of :he biography already cited, " Brown rose with it in importance and public estimation. He was appointed a county court judge, and became a leading man in all the public business of that part of the country. He now gradually threw off the dress and manners of his sect, and on a change which took place in the organization of the militia, was appointed to the command of a regi- ment ; and not long after, promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In this situation, which gave him military rank without affording him much opportu- nity for acquiring military knowledge, the late war found him, and when the first detachment of the western militia of New York was ordered into the ser- vice of the United States, General Brdwn was designated by Governor Tompkins to the command of a brigade, and intrusted with the general care of the northern frontier. He applied him- self, with his usual diligence and activi- ty, to the discharge of these new and important duties; doubtless, at first, with no further views of military life than the natural and laudable desire of filling the station in which he was placed, for a short term of service, with credit and usefulness." He was in this first campaign called into the field to repel the assault of the British upon Ogdensburg in Oc- tober, 1812. The attack was made by a force of seven hundred and fifty men, who attempted a landing under cover of the fire from the opposite batteries, within easy range, of Prescott. As the enemy approached the shore, they were repulsed by a battery of two guns, and the small arms of the militia, the de- fence being under the direction of Gen- eral Brown. The engagement lasted about an hour, when it ended with the retreat of the British, who, unable to effect a landing, suffered a loss of three killed and four wounded, while the only injury the defenders received was some slight damage done to the budd- ings on the shore.1 The campaign of the following spring opened with the movements of Com- modore Chauncey, with the command 1 Dawson's Battles of the United States, II. 138. JACOB BROWN. 485 of General Dearborn on the upper end of the lake, directed against York. That mutilated and unimproved victory which cost the country the life of one of the most gallant officers of the ser- vice, General Pike, was succeeded by the conquest of Fort George—a consi- derable effort, which left the depot of military supplies and the ship-yards at Sackett's Harbor comparatively unde- fended. The British, who were in strength at Kingston, on the opposite shore of the lake, with a considerable naval force under the command of Sir James Lucas Yeo, and a large body of regulars led by Governor General Sir George Prevost, determined to make an attack upon this place, whither Chaun- cey had transported the stores captured at York. Accordingly, simultaneously almost with the capture of Fort George, the very day after that event, the 28th May, 1813, they appeared with an im- posing squadron of nine vessels, carry- ing a force of at least nine hundred men, mostly veterans. Sir James Yeo and Sir George Prevost were severally in command. To meet them at Sack- ett's Harbor there was a garrison of some eight hundred men, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Backus, of the light dragoons. A party of Albany volunteers was also present, and the militia of the county around came in to the number of five hundred. The command of the whole would naturally have devolved upon Col. Backus; but General Dearborn, who directed the campaign, had, befone leaving for his operations at York, requested General Brown, in case of an invasion, to take charge of the defence. The latter would willingly have left this duty to the regular officer, but being also urged by him he accepted it. Very little was done the first day by Sir George Prevost. Indeed, moved by some irresolute impulse, he appeared to be about to withdraw the squadron, and did thus lose an important advan- tage of position into which his fleet had been brought. The success of his Indian allies, however, in cutting off several boats of an American party making for the fort-at the entrance to the harbor, reassured him, and early the next morning he resumed his appa- rently interrupted purpose. Landing his entire forces, they were at first met by a body of militia stationed by Gen- eral Brown to receive them behind a bank of gravel. The latter, after their first discharge of their muskets, fled be- fore the advancing veterans. General Brown rallied a portion of them, but was compelled in this first instance to retire. The Albany volunteers did good service, however, and the regulars, with the guns of Fort Tompkins, did such execution that they decided the fate of the day and compelled the as- sailants to retreat with a considerable loss of officers and men. The American loss was also severe, and included Lieu- tenant Colonel Backus, of the first regi- ment of Light Dragoons, who fell at the head of his_ troops in the moment of victory. Unhappily, in the early part of the engagement'an alarm from the first successes of the enemy had led to the destruction of the stores and set- ting fire to a ship on the stocks, nearly ready to be launched. The conflagra Lion, however, was checked, on the re 1-0 JACOB BROWN. treat of the enemy. This success esta- blished the military reputation of Gen- eral Brown, and led to his appointment to a commission in the regular 'army, with the same rank which he held in the militia, as brigadier general. He was employed in the movement of the following November, of Wilkinson, in conducting a portion of that general's command down the St. Lawrence in the magnificently planned, but unhappily prosecuted expedition against Montreal. He was familiar with this portion of the river, and performed his part of the work with credit, successfully resisting, with his brigade, at French Creek, the vessels of the enemy sent to oppose the American advance. He was not, how- ever, at the subsequent engagement at Chrystler's Farm. The whole affair was shortly after abandoned by Wilk- inson, and the army went into winter quarters on the border of New York, at French Mills. The campaign of the following year, 1814, was destined to retrieve the dis- asters of the preceding. Brigadier General Brown was created a Major General, and assigned the command on the Niagara frontier, which became the scene of some of the most brilliant engagements of the whole war. It was under General Brown's command, it will be remembered, that General Scott so greatly distinguished himself at Chippewa, and at Niagara or Lundy's Lane. Scott joined General Brown as he was conducting the army from French Mills to Buffalo, where a camp of instruction was formed, which added greatly to the efficiency of the troops in the succeeding engagements with the enemy. Early in July, the army was set in motion, the river crossed to the British territory, Fort Erie taken. and the advance made toward Chip pewa, the scene of the engagement on the fifth. At the outset of this battle, General Brown was in the wood, on the left of the American position, di- recting the movements of General Por- ter, who had been engaged during the day in skirmishing with the British mi- litia and Indians. About four o'clock in the afternoon, he perceived the main body of the enemy to be advancing, and communicating the fact to General Scott, with the remark, " you will have a fight," hastened to bring up the division in .the rear. Before his dispositions were completed, and without the aid of his flanking manoeuvre, the fortune of the day was decided on the plain by the chivalric brigade of Scott. This brilliant success undoubtedly gave vigor to the succeeding severely contested action, at Niagara, on the twenty-fifth. It was the object of Gen- eral Brown, in this expedition, to gain possession of the river, and advance by the aid of Commodore Chauncey's fleet to the conquest of Burlington Heights, at the head of Lake Ontario. Thus far the project was successfully carried out. General Brown, anxious to proceed, pushed his forces forward, expecting to meet the enemy behind the Chippewa, when it was found they had retreated to the lake. The Ame- rican army then advanced to Queens- town, and encamped at that place, while the British general, Riall, rein- forced Fort George, and its companion, Fort Mississaga, and strengthened by JACOB BROWN. 487 additional troops, took position at Fif- teen Mile Creek, about thirteen miles from the American quarters. Upon this the question was discussed of at- tacking Fort George, and a movement was made in that direction, when a retrograde march was resolved upon to draw the enemy from his strong posi- tion. General Brown, consequently, retreated beyond the Chippewa This was his situation on the twenty-fourth. He was followed by the British, but not exactly in the manner he antici- pated. They, meanwhile, had received im- portant reinforcements, brought by Lieutenant General Sir Gordon Drum- mond, from Kingston, on the lake, and were in pursuit of their enemy. Sin- gularly enough, the American com- mander-in-chief was ignorant of the arrival of this new force, and of the march of the army at all. What intel- ligence he had was entirely false. It was received on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, to the purport that the British had crossed from Queenstown to Lewiston, on the American side, with the intention of cutting off the supplies from Buffalo. So General Brown resolved to expedite his in- tended return, and sent Scott rapidly back to effect a diversion by threaten- ing the forts at the mouth of the river. The latter started immediately, and had proceeded only two miles when he came up with the advance of the British army. He was under the im- pression that they were manceuvering to protect the flank movement on the American side; and he also perceived that they were largely reinforced. He had come upon them unexpectedly, retreat was not easy; it appeared the safer course to begin the attack. The enemy was well posted, but Scott's dis positions of his force were well made, and he had more than maintained the fortune of the evening when General Brown arrived on the field with the reserve. Relieving General Scott's bri- gade, he interposed the fresh troops of General Ripley's regiments, and ordered a charge upon the enemy's artillery, which were advantageously posted on a height. The position was gallantly carried by Colonel Miller, when the British, continually reinforced from their rear, attempted to regain the artillery. Both Scott and Brown were severely wounded in repelling these assaults, but the Americans remained in posses- sion of the field; and General Ripley, who was left in command, brought them before morning to the encamp- ment at Chippewa. The next day the army moved to Fort Erie, and intrenched itself strongly at that post. The enemy made his appearance a week after, on the third of August, and opened his first battery on the seventh. On the night of the fourteenth an attack was expected, and the works, which had been well planned, with the aid of Lieutenant David B. Douglas, of the engineer corps, were prepared for the assault. It was made before daylight of the next morning, with great fury, and was met with equal resolution. The enemy were repulsed by the main batteries, but gained possession of one of the bastions, from which they were fatally dislodged by its explosion. They retired from. 488 JACOB BROWN. the assault with great loss. At this time, during the absence of General Brown, in consequence of his wound at Niagara, the defence was directed by General Gaines. On the second of September, the former, having recov- ered sufficiently from his illness, re- sumed the command. The works of the fort were meantime being strengthened, and fresh troops were introduced, while the enemy also received reinforcements. At length, on the seventeenth of September, all the arrangements having been made, a grand sortie was directed against the British position. It was arranged in two divisions, one under General Por- ter, intended to turn the left flank, the other led by General Miller to attack the centre. Both movements were suc- cessful. Under cover of a heavy fog, the assault was made about three in the morning, and " within an hour the objects of the sortie had been fully accomplished—the battery of the ene- my had been captured, and with their armaments had been destroyed; his forces had been greatly reduced by cap- ture, disability, or death; his stores had been diminished; and the assault- ing columns were recalled."1 A few nights after, General Drummond, who led the British forces, broke up the encampment, and retired beyond the Chippewa. The campaign on the Ni- agara ended with the evacuation of Fort Erie in November, when the army went into winter quarters at Buffalo. In the following winter, General Brown was in Washington planning for another campaign, and was calling fresh troops into the field when his movements were arrested by the decla- ration of peace. On the readjustment of the army after this event, he retained his rank, and in 1821 was called to the seat of government as general-in-chief. The same year he was seized by an attack of paralysis, which he survived for seven years, dying at Washington, February 24, 1828, at the age of fifty- two. 1 Dawson's Battles of the United States, II. 363-370, where an interesting account of the siege will be foand from original materials. ^;:->::«$!ass "T^fH'' ■■f. ' tt ' ■* * yy * Ms - . »^1l r V III Li;J A s ^ / > * ■' xl vJ '/ 'i> ap'S'j.ssp & \*s & %a z— **-»<* m* m ( 4/ .XV i a. ! v.. J:f JA - I • f ^ v 4^' •" y g\ /D. v-„ s\ x N Y-'2 • * „v ' X |i ■ y~&. » 1! Wi > ^ -,-". - ->v^-V Vsv W- n( V- ^y^^ *J c-\V> ->| "\ \ V ; ,-'.>. | £g&£ \\; r /SmM fc-