HOOPER.

WILLIAM HOOPER, a delegate in congress from the state of North Carolina, was born at Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, on the seventeenth of June, 1742.

The family of Hooper, seems to have been originally settled in the neighbourhood of Kelso, an old and considerable town in the south of Scotland; and to have been quite independent in circumstances, and highly respectable in character and connexions. At the village of Edenham, or Edenmouth, about two miles from Kelso, William Hooper, the father of the subject of this memoir, was born in the year 1702; he was graduated at the University of Edinburgh immediately on his coming of age, and soon after emigrated to this country. In Boston, where he fixed his residence, he married the daughter of Mr. John Dennie, an eminent merchant, and by his marriage became connected with several families of high respectability.

He was afterwards elected pastor of Trinity Church in Boston, and enjoyed in a more than ordinary degree, the affection and reverence of a large and respectable congregation. He was distinguished for his manners, which, it is said, were remarkably elegant and accomplished, as well as for a bold and impressive eloquence;

and long after his death, his memory was fondly cherished by a large circle of affectionate friends.

WILLIAM HOOPER, his son, was the eldest of five children. He displayed at a very early age, the marks of considerable talent, but his constitution was extremely delicate from his birth. The first rudiments of knowledge he received entirely from his father, who devoted great attention to his early education, and retained him under his own immediate control until he was seven old. years old. He was then sent to a free grammar school in Boston, at that time under the care of John Lovell, a teacher of more than usual celebrity in his day; and after remaining with him several years, was removed at the age of fifteen to Harvard University. In this institution he remained three years; he devoted himself while there with extreme ardour, and in the vacations which he passed at home, it is said that under the instructions of his father, his application was even more excessive than whilst he was within the college walls. His inclinations seem to have led him rather to the study of elegant literature, an intimate knowledge of the great masters of antiquity, and the cultivation of a refined taste in composition and in public speaking, than to the pursuit of severer and more abstract science. He commenced bachelor of arts in the year 1760, and left college high in rank and reputation among his fellow students.

It was the early intention, as it had been the earnest wish of his father, that Mr. Hooper should select the church as his profession. His own inclinations, however,

led him to prefer the bar, and that appears to have been a scene more appropriate for his talents and acquirements. To this change in his plans his father yielded, and as soon as his collegiate course had terminated, he became a student of law under James Otis, one of the most distinguished members of the bar in the province.

At this period commenced the attempts of the English parliament, against the rights and privileges of their fellow subjects in the American colonies. Mr. Otis took an early and decided stand, by his writings and by his open declarations, against the assumed power of the British government. He was excelled by none in zeal and equalled by few in abilities. The high esteem and respect which Mr. Hooper entertained for his preceptor, naturally produced a coincidence in their political views; and there is little doubt that at this time those principles were implanted in his mind, which subsequent events matured, and the exigencies of his country afterwards called forth into practical usefulness.

When at length Mr. Hooper was called to the bar, he found that the profession in his native province was so well filled, in respect both to numbers and age, that there was scarcely any field for the exercise of youthful industry or talent. He determined, therefore, to try his fortunes in some other part of the country. In North Carolina he had many connexions of considerable wealth and influence, and this circumstance induced him to select that province as the theatre of his early labours.

After a year or two however spent in North Carolina, his father became exceedingly anxious that he should

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return to Boston. His health, naturally delicate, had suffered considerably from the severity with which he applied himself to the study and practice of his profession, as well as from the extreme labour which arose from its active prosecution. The fatigue that attends even at the present time, an extensive country practice is well known; but it is now difficult for us to appreciate the severe duties which devolved on a lawyer of those days. The courts were situated at great distances from each other; the roads were bad, and passed through new countries, scarcely affording the ordinary necessaries, much less the comforts which a traveller may fairly require; and the only mode of travelling was on horseback. Mr. Hooper constantly attended the courts in the western counties of the state, some of them nearly two hundred miles from Wilmington, where he resided. Such fatigue might have impaired the strongest constitution; and it was not surprising that one so delicate as his could not long resist its influence.

Another circumstance may have contributed in some degree to the loss of health, from which Mr. Hooper suffered. The manners of the country were social to a degree bordering on conviviality, and little suited to one brought up under the more rigid discipline of the north. Visitors had already designated Wilmington as the region of kindness. Hospitality was practised to excess; and an immoderate attachment to convivial enjoyment, was a folly of the opulent which spread through the classes of society, until none were exempt. Many inWdeed of the oldest families of the state, now reduced to ch

comparative poverty, have reason to rue the prodigal liberality of their ancestors.

Nor were these the only reasons which induced his father anxiously to urge his return. He regarded his favourite son, on the cultivation of whose talents he had bestowed so much devoted attention, and whose early life had so far rewarded his most ardent wishes, with all the jealous sensibility of parental affection. He forgot that in the rapid increase of professional reputation, and public esteem, he had already received a reward beyond that to which his years had entitled him; and with all the partial judgment of a father, believed that the talents he had improved with so much care were improperly neglected, so long as the highest offices of public confidence were not conferred on him. This was a subject of mortification which he did not affect to conceal. The lessons of wisdom which he had learned, or which at least he inculcated in the performance of his sacred duties, might have taught him that a life rendered useful by the practice of virtue, and brilliant by the exhibition of genius, ought to gratify the desires of a laudable ambition; and that in such a life there was a daily triumph over the display of wealth and the parade of office. But the feelings of nature, or a knowledge of the world were stronger than religious doctrine. Experience had shown him that wealth was universally coveted as the reward, and office as the stamp of superior excellence; and that even the noblest minds might be desirous not only to merit what they obtained, but to obtain what they merited. The modesty or good sense of the son,