continued to sink gradually to the moment of his death.

In 1799, he was appointed by president Adams envoy to France. This honour he declined, on account of his advanced age and increasing debility. He lived but a short time after this testimony of respect, in which his talents and patriotism were held, for he died at Red-hill, Charlotte county, June 6, 1799./

Thus lived, and thus died, the celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia; a man who justly deserves to be ranked among the highest ornaments, and noblest benefactors of his country. Had his lot been cast in the republics of Greece or Rome, his name would have been enrolled by some immortal pen among the expellers of tyrants and the champions of liberty: the proudest monuments of national gratitude would have risen to his honour, and handed down his memory to future generations.

HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, a distinguished statesman, and first secretary of the treasury of the United States, was born at St. Croix in the year 1757. At the age of sixteen he accompanied his mother to New-York, and entered a student of Columbia college, in which he continued about three years. It was here his intellect first gave presages of his future eminence. The contest with Great-Britain having grown serious and alarming, it called forth the ablest writers of the day on both sides of the question. At the age of only seventeen he became an advocate of the colonies, young as he was; yet such were the wisdom and compass of his views, and the manly vigour and maturity of his style, that his productions were attributed to the pen of Mr. Jay, who was then in the meridian of his illustrious life. On the breaking out of the revolution, he

could no longer repose in college shades while his country was in danger; he accordingly, when in his nineteenth year, entered the American army with the rank of captain of artillery, and in that capacity distinguished himself on several occasions.

It was not long before his higher qualities attracted the notice of Washington, who, in 1777, selected him as an aid with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. From this period till 1781, Washington and Hamilton were inseparable companions both in the cabinet and the field. Never was an aid more perfectly the friend and confidant of his commander, nor a general more ably subserved by an aid. They shared together the dangers and hardships of that trying period, with a firmness and fortitude that were never surpassed, and by their bravery and united wisdom, were instrumental beyond all others in conducting the arms of their country to victory and glo

Hamilton served as first aid to Washington in the battle of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. At the siege of Yorktown, he led at his own request the American detachment that carried by assault one of the enemy's outworks, on which occasion his valour was daring and chivalrous.

Soon

after the capture of Cornwallis he sheathed his sword, and having a family depending for its subsistence on his personal exertions, at the age of twenty-five, applied himself to the study of the law.

In 1782, he was elected a member of congress from the state of New-York, and was distinguished as a leader in all the most important measures of the session.

He was several times chairman of those committees to which was confided the high and difficult trust of reporting on such subjects as were deemed most vitally interesting to the nation. The reports prepared on these occasions are remarkable for that eloquence, energy, and luminous wisdom,

which characterize so strongly all the subsequent productions of his pen.

Having ably acquitted himself of his duty to his country, he again resumed the practice of the law, in which profession he soon rose to distinction.

In the year 1784, he published in favour of the loyalists two celebrated pamphlets under the signature of Phocion-which must always be regarded as master pieces of analysis and profound investigation.

In 1787, he was a member of the general convention which met at Philadelphia, whose deliberations resulted in the federal constitution.

The conjuncture was awfully portentous, and threatening. The issue of the late war, in its relation to the permanent welfare of the country, had become problematical: and the only alternatives presented were the institution of a more steady and vigorous form of government, or a speedy dissolution of the confederation of the states. Over either event, serious evils were thought to impend. The responsibilities imposed on the convention were weighty and solemn. Colonel Hamilton, whose spirit delighted in difficulties, now took a prompt and splendid lead in all such measures as policy appeared to direct. His pen as well as his tongue became an organ of wisdom, and an instrument of eloquence, which excited the admiration and applause of his cotemporaries, and will transmit his fame with unfading lustre to the latest posterity.

After the publication of the constitution, he, conjointly with Mr. Madison and Mr. Jay, commenced the Federalist, a work which is justly ranked with the foremost productions in political literature. Besides being the most enlightened, profound, and practicable disquisition on the principles of a federal representative government that has ever appeared, it is a luminous and elegant commentary on the republican establishments of our own coun

try. It was published in the years 1787 and 1788, in a series of essays, addressed to the citizens of New-York, and had a powerful influence both in that and other states, in procuring the adoption of the federal constitution. The style is as perspicuous, cloquent, and forcible, as the matter is pertinent, and the arguments convincing-and have all the richness, elegance, and ease of the Spectator. He wrote the whole of the work, except Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, which are from the pen of Mr. Jay; Nos. 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, and 37, to 58, inclusive, and 62, 63, and 64, from that of Mr. Madison.

He was a member of the state convention of New-York, which met in 1788, to deliberate on the adoption of the federal constitution. For a time the issue of it was doubtful. It was then the triumph of his talents and patriotism showed most conspicuous, and by the force of his eloquence as well as his pen, in the papers signed Publius, he contributed much to its adoption.

On the organization of the federal government, in the summer of 1788, Washington placed him at the head of the treasury. Here he had to contend with almost insurmountable difficulties. But the mind of Hamilton was not formed to be intimidated or vanquished. It rose in greatness in proportion to the difficulties it had to encounter. He proved himself capable not only of arranging, combining, and maturing, but of creating the means necessary for the attainment of the weightiest purpose. He perceived, as by intuition, the true character and resources of the country, and devised with equal facility the best plan of converting them into a basis of national revenue. From the most humble and depressed condition, he raised public credit to an elevation altogether unprecedented in the history of the country, and acquired for himself, both at home and abroad, the reputation of the greatest financier of the age.

His official reports to congress, besides ranking high as literary productions, are among the most able and instructive papers on political economy that have ever appeared. Those of his reports which are most highly esteemed are, two on the subject of a provision for the support of public credit, on the establishment of a national bank, and one on the subject of manufactures; all of which have been acknowledged to be chef d'œuvres in political literature, and justly entitle him to the title of the founder of public credit in the United States. It is said, such was the confidence of Washington in his wisdom and judgment, patriotism and integrity, that he rarely ventured on any high executive act without his concurrence.

In the year 1793, an attempt was made by the minister of France to involve the United States as a party in the war between that republic and GreatBritain. Washington immediately declared the course of policy which he intended to pursue, by issuing his proclamation of neutrality. Mr. Hamil

ton was known to have advised the measure: he afterwards published in defence of it the essays of Pacificus, which were highly influential in reconciling it to public approbation. In these essays, though some of them may in point of style and elegance be inferior to those of the Federalist, yet they exhibit all that perspicuity of arrangement, and strength of argument, for which all his writings are distinguished.

Finding his salary insufficient for the support of a large family, in 1795 he resigned the office of secretary of the treasury, and returned once more to private life.

Yet there was one public measure which he felt himself bound to vindicate, because it had been entered into in part from his own advice. This was the treaty of amity and commerce negotiated with Great-Britain, through the ministry of Mr. Jay. In a series of papers written with his usual ability,