allegiance, and married an American wife. At this period of his life, it does not appear that any ambitious views agitated his bosom. Like those around him, he enjoyed, in contentment, peace, liberty and happiness.

His talents, however, could not be concealed. His neighbours marked them, and in the year '89, or '90, he was sent by his fellow-citizens to the convention that formed a new constitution for the state of Pennsylvania. It would appear, from his modesty and silence in this body, that a public station had been little in his thoughts; else he would have courted distinction by a more active participation: of its duties. But neither in the records of that body, or co-temporaneous recollection, are any traces to be found of a discharge of more than the ordinary duties of a member. His advice may have enlightened its deliberations, but if so, it was imparted in privacy and silence, and ministered to swell the fame of some less unostentatious legisla

tor.

In the next, and for several succeeding years, he occupied a seat in the legislature of Pennsylvania. The period was troubled with the storms of party; and no man, not even himself, had escaped its rage. He entered the legislature, the predestined victim of an intolerant majority. It was impiously sworn, that if he dared to disturb the views of the dominant faction, he should be humbled; and such was the barbarous fury of the times, that one member, no less distinguished for his federalism than his private immoralities and pu gilistic powers, doomed him to an early vengeance.

He took his seat, apparently regardless of the hostility that surrounded him. His principles were not the offspring of a temporising or a timid policy. The path of duty lay plainly exposed to his view;

and his purpose was to pursue it. Without, there. fore, making any unnecessary and ostentatious professions of his faith, or invidious reflections upon the professions of others, he delivered his opinions with a simplicity and candor that disarm, ed hostility; while the strength of his arguments, and the variety and appositeness of his information insensibly and irresistibly produced a general conviction, An empty treasury, and a dilapidated state of the finances, required research and labor. He applied himself to their illucidation, with a vi gor that soon dissipated the chaos in which a de. faulting officer had involved them. Political attachment had united him to this officer. But with a virtue, not unworthy of the Roman school, he impeached, and ejected him from office. For this, there were those who called him crucl; but friendship had no claims on him that were not founded in virtue.

After this bright display of integrity and talent, his enemies united with his friends to raise him to the senate of the United States; exhibiting in this act, a rare, and almost an unprecedented triumph of principle over prejudice. Here he found himself in the strong holds of federalism. That body, at that time concealed in darkness, had asserted a daring irresponsibility to public opinion. Gallatin, impressed with the power of truth and reason, did not abandon himself to an inglorious ease. Here too, however unpromising the state of affairs, he did his duty, and in the short time, during which he was a member, carried dismay into the ranks of his opponents. He did not shake the leaders of party, but he shook those honest easy souls, whọ had hitherto upheld their power; and he surprised no less his friends than his enemies by actually carrying some important points. It was this alarm that dictated his exclusion from the body. It was

!

pretended that he was not qualified to hold a seat; a majority declared the pretence valid; and he was excluded.

These unworthy measures of his opponents only served, by rendering his talents more conspicuous, to increase his popularity: and he was, at the ensuing election chosen a member of the house of representatives of the United States. He here found a field for the display of all his powers; and he displayed them in a manner that placed their depth and variety beyond the reach of question. He opposed the adoption of the British treaty and upheld the memorable call for papers: he opposed the alien and sedition bills; he supported the enquiry into the conduct of Mr. Adams, in the case of Jonathan Robbins; he opposed the prodigal expenditures of the government; and above all, he opposed the rash measures that pointed to war. On these several occasions, he was generally unsuccessful in frustrating the measures proposed by the administration. The most sanguine mind could not flatter itself with this triumph. But, what was of infinitely greater consequence, he succeeded in awakening the public mind, în illuminating it, and in eventually accomplishing the great revolution atchieved in public opinion. His speeches on the above great constitutional questions were read by the nation. In diction they were perspicuous and easy of apprehension, in style temperate and exempt from all personal allusion, in argument profound, in fact various and instructive. Attacked with fury by violent partisans, eager to crush him, he, on no occasion, suffered the calmness of his judgment and his respect for the body he addressed to be disturb. ed by the fiery abullitions of the Daytons, the Harpers, and the Sedgwicks of the day. He did not content himself with opposing the leading mea.

sures of the administration; like a good citizen he gave a helping hand even to his enemies. No man in congress so well understood the principles of finance, and no one was better acquainted with the national resources and wants in all their details. He assisted the formation of correct plans, and exposed errors whose effects might have been no less injurious to the reputation of the administration than it was to the welfare of his country. To him we are indebted for the existing system for the sale of public lands. Secretary Hamilton proposed opening the land office on low terms. It is believed his idea was to sell the public lands at 25 cents an acre. The effect of this plan would have been the immediate monopoly of the public lands by a few leviathan speculators, and a scene of speculation more extensive, and of course more injurious, than all the pre-existing sources of speculation taken together. Gallatin arrested this portentous evil by obtaining the sanction of congress to the present plan; under which the minimum price of land is fixed at two dollars an acre. By comparing the present state of things, with that which would have existed under the system of Mr. Hamilton, had it prevailed, we may form an incompetent idea of the evils that have been averted; and by estimating the gain derived from the sale of lands for two dollars, instead of twenty-five cents, we shall perceive the extent of the national advantage, when we recollect that the unlocated territory of the United States is computed at five hundred millions of acres.

These are the talents, and these the services which recommended and justified the elevation of Gallatin.

With the public career of General Dearborn, we do not profess to be intimately acquainted. We know, however, that he was a warm and efficient

advocate of the revolution; that during the whole of its vicissitudes, he was actively engaged in the councils or the armies of the country; and that he invariably sustained the character of a brave and able officer. For several years previous to the presidency of Mr. Jefferson, he was a member of the House of Representatives; in which he took a distinguished lead in all the military arrangements. He has been without intermission, the decided whig, the firm republican, and the strenuous adversary of all invasions of liberty. Possessed of a spirit, that disdains to yield to circumstances, he never waveri ed in his political faith, even in the days of the greatest infatuation. But his manliness was tempered with a moderation that, while it asserted its own rights, left undisturbed the rights of others. Quick in his perceptions, and prompt in his deci sions, he had been long considered as the man of business, and, of consequence, so far eminently qualified for the discharge of duties not admitting of delay.

The appointment of the head of the Navy Department produced considerable difficulty. It was successively offered to three citizens, respected for their talents, whose declension evinced the disinterestedness of their patriotism. Robert Smith was, at length, named.

This citizen had distinguished himself by his talents as a lawyer and a legislator. In the city of Baltimore, the seat of great commerce and wealth, he had early gained an equal eminence with any member of the bar, and had by the reputation of talent and integrity, raised himself above the frowns of fortune. Notwithstanding, however, the laborious duties of his profession, he had, for several years, accepted a seat in the legislature of Maryland. During the greater part of this period, he was in the minority, and although the period was