which it received, in its course, from the more timid members.

After the adjournment of the house of burgesses, he returned to the congress, which was still sitting at Philadelphia. It was generally expected that Mr. Hancock, who had succeeded him as President, would have resigned the chair on his return. Mr. Randolph, however, took his seat as a member, and entered readily into all the momentous proceedings of that body. But he was not destined to witness the independence of the country he had loved and served so faithfully. A stroke of apoplexy deprived him of life on the twenty first of October 1775, at the age of fifty two years. He had accepted an invitation to dine with other company near Philadelphia. He fell from his seat, and immediately expired. His corpse was taken to Virginia for interment.

Peyton Randolph was, indeed, a most excellent man, and no one was ever more beloved and respected by his friends. In manner, he was, perhaps, somewhat cold and reserved towards strangers, but of the sweetest affability when ripened into acquaintance; of attic pleasantry in conversation, and always good humoured and conciliatory. He was liberal in his expences, but so strictly correct also, that he never found himself involved in pecuniary embarrassment. His heart was always open to the amiable sensibilities of our nature; and he performed as many good acts as could have been done with his fortune, without injuriously impairing his means of continuing them.

As a lawyer, he was well read, and possessed a strong and logical mind. His opinions were highly regarded. They presented always a learned and sound view of the subject, but generally, too, betraying an unwillingness to go into its thorough developement. For, being heavy and inert in body, he was rather too indolent and careless for business, which occasioned him to have a smaller portion of it than his abilities would have otherwise commanded. Indeed, after his appointment as attorney general, he did not seem to court, nor scarcely to welcome business. It ought, however, to be said of him to his honour, that in the discharge of that office he considered himself equally charged with the rights of the colony as with those of the crown and that in criminal prosecutions, exaggerating nothing, he aimed only to arrive at a candid and just state of the transaction, believing it more a duty to save an innocent, than to convict a guilty, man.

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As a politician he was firm in his principles, and steady in his opposition to foreign usurpation; but, with the other older members of the assembly, generally yielding the lead to the younger; contenting himself with tempering their ex

treme ardour, and so far moderating their pace, as to prevent their going too much in advance of public sentiment. He presided in the house of burgesses, and subsequently, in the general congress. with uncommon dignity; and, although not eloquent, yet when he spoke, his matter was so substantial, that no man commanded more attention. This, joined with the universal knowledge of his worth, gave him a weight in the assembly of Virginia, which few ever attained.

He left no issue, and his fortune was bequeathed to his widow, and his nephew, the late Edmund Randolph.

REED, JOSEPH. President of the state of Pennsylvania, born in the state of New-Jersey, the 27th of August, A. D. 1741. In the year 1757, at the early age of sixteen, he graduated with considerable honour, at Princeton college. Having studied the law with Richard Stockton, Esquire, an eminent counsellor of that place, he visited England and pursued his studies in the temple, until the disturbances which first broke out in the colonies on the passage of the stamp act. On his return to his native country, he commenced the practice of the law, and bore a distinguished part in the political commotions of the day. Having married the daughter of Dennis De Berdt, an eminent merchant of London, and before the American revolution, agent for the province of Massachusetts, he soon after returned to America and practised the law with eminent success in the city of Philadelphia. Finding that reconciliation with the mother country was not to be accomplished without the sacrifice of honour as well as liberty, he became one of the most zealous advocates of independence. In 1774, he was appointed one of the committee of correspondence of Philadelphia, and afterwards president of the convention, and, subsequently, member of the continental congress. On the formation of the army he resigned a lucrative practice, which he was enjoying at Philadelphia, and repaired to the camp at Cambridge, where he was appointed aid-de-camp and secretary to General Washington; and although merely acting as a volunteer, he displayed in this campaign, on many occasions, the greatest courage and military ability. At the opening of the campaign in 1776, on the promotion of General Gates, he was advanced, at the special recommendation of General Washington, to the post of adjutant-general, and bore an active part in this campaign, his local knowledge of the country being eminently useful in the affair at Trenton, and at the battle of Princeton: in the course of these events, and the constant follower of his fortunes, lie enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the commander in chief. At the end of the year he resigned the office of adjutant-general, and was immediately appointed a general officer, with a

view to the command of cavalry; but owing to the difficulty of raising troops, and the very detached parties in which they were employed, he was prevented from acting in that station. He still attended the army, and from the entrance of the British army into Pennsylvania, till the close of the campaign in 1777, he was seldom absent. He was engaged at the battle of Germantown, and at White Marsh assisted general Potter in drawing up the militia. In 1778, he was appointed a member of Congress, and signed the articles of confederation. About this time the British commissioners, governor Johnstone, lord Carlisle, and Mr. Eden, invested with power to treat of peace, arrived in America. and governor Johnstone, the principal of them, addressed private letters to Henry Laurens, Joseph Reed, Francis Dana, and Robert Morris, offering them many advantages in case they would lend themselves to his views. Private information was communicated from governor Johnstone to general Reed, that in case he would exert his abilities to promote a reconciliation, ten thousand pounds sterling, and the most valuable office in the colonies, were at his disposal; to which Mr. Reed made this memorable reply: "that he was not worth purchasing; but that, such as he was, the king of Great Britain was not rich enough to do it." These transactions caused a resolution in congress, by which they refused to hold any further communication with that commissioner. Governor Johnstone, on his return to England, denied, in parliament, ever having made such offers; in consequence of which general Reed published a pamphlet in which the whole transaction was clearly and satisfactorily proved, and which was extensively circulated, both in England and America.

In 1778, he was unanimously elected president of the supreme executive council of the state of Pennsylvania, to which office he was elected annually, with equal unanimity, for the constitutional period of three years. About this time there existed violent parties in the state, and several serious commotions occurred, particularly a large armed insurrection in the city of Philadelphia, which he suppressed, and rescued a number of distinguished citizens from the most imminent danger of their lives at the risk of his own, for which he received a vote of thanks from the legislature of the state.

At the time of the defection of the Pennsylvania line, governor Reed exerted himself strenuously to bring back the revolters, in which he ultimately succeeded. Amidst the most difficult and trying scenes, his administration exhibited the most disinterested zeal and firmness of decision. In the civil part of his character, his knowledge of the law was very useful in a new and unsettled government; so that, although he

found in it no small weakness and confusion, he left it at the expiration of his term of office, in as much tranquillity and energy as could be expected from the time and circumstances of the war. In the year 1781, on the expiration of his term of office, he returned to the duties of his profession.

General Reed was very fortunate in his military career, for, although he was in almost every engagement in the northern and eastern section of the union, during the war, he never was wounded; he had three horses killed under him, one at the battle of Brandywine, one in the skirmish at White Marsh, and one at the battle of Monmouth. During the whole of the war he enjoyed the confidence and friendship of generals Washington, Greene, Wayne, Steuben, la Fayette, and many others of the most distinguished characters of the revolution, with whom he was in habits of the most confidential intercourse and correspondence. The friendship that existed between general Reed and general Greene, is particularly mentioned by the biographer of general Greene. "Among the many inestimable friends who attached themselves to him, during his military carcer, there was no one whom general Greene prized more, or more justly, than the late governor Reed, of Pennsylvania. It was before this gentleman had immortalized himself by his celebrated reply to the agent of corruption, that these two distinguished patriots had begun to feel for each other, the sympathies of congenial souls. Mr. Reed had accompanied general Washington to Boston, when he first took command of the American army; where he became acquainted with Greene, and, as was almost invariably the case with those who became acquainted with him, and had hearts to acknowledge his worth, a friendship ensued which lasted with their lives." Had the life of general Reed been sufficiently prolonged, he would have discharged, in a manner worthy of the subject, the debt of national gratitude to which the efforts of the biographer of general Greene have been successfully dedicated, who had in his possession the outlines of a sketch of the life of general Greene by this friend.

In the year 1784, he again visited England for the sake of his health, but his voyage was attended with but little effect as in the following year he fell a victim to a disease, most probably brought on by the fatigue and exposure to which he was constantly subjected. In private life, he was accomplished in his manners, pure in his morals, fervent and faithful in his attachments.

On the 5th of March, 1785, in the 43d year of his age, too soon for his country and his friends, he departed a life, active, useful, and glorious. His remains were interred in the

Presbyterian ground, in Arch street, in the city of Philadel phia attended by the president and executive council, and the speaker and the general assembly of the state.

REVERE. PAUL, was an active and influential patriot at the commencement of the revolution, associating with a number of mechanics who watched with a vigilant eye every move of the British, and promptly communicated intelligence to the proper authority. In the evening preceding the 19th of April, 1775, Colonel Revere was one of the first who discovered that a British detachment was ordered on an expedition into the country, and with the utmost despatch repaired to Lexington, spreading the alarm among the militia, and giving notice to Messrs. Hancock and Adams, who were then at the house of the clergyman in that town, that they might escape the impending danger. Colonel Revere was afterwards appointed to command a regiment of artillery in the militia, and was on the unfortunate Penobscot expedition in the summer of 1779. He was through life, esteemed for unimpeachable integrity, attachment to correct political principles, and as a useful citizen. He died in Boston, 1818, in his eighty fourth year.

RUSH, BENJAMIN, was born the 24th of December, 1745, on his father's estate, about twelve miles from the city of Philadelphia. His ancestors followed William Penn from England to Pennsylvania, in the year 1683. His father died while he was yet young. At the age of nine years he was placed under the care of his maternal uncle, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Finley, an excellent scholar, whose talents and learning afterwards elevated him to the presidency of Princeton college. At this school young Rush remained five years. At the age of fourteen, after completing his course of classical studies, he was removed to the college at Princeton, then under the superintendence of President Davis. At college young Rush became distinguished for his talents, his uncommon progress in his studies, and especially for his eloquence in public speaking.

In the year 1760, at the early age of fifteen, young Rush received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The next succeeding six years were devoted to the study of medicine, under Dr. John Redman, at that time an eminent practitioner in the city of Philadelphia. Having, with great fidelity, completed his course of medical studies under Dr. Redman, he embarked for Europe, and passed two years at the university of Edinburg, attending the lectures of those celebrated professors, Dr. Munro, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Cullen, and Dr. Black.

In the spring of 1768, he received the degree of Doctor of