for their recovery, the Governor proceeded under a promise to wait for him at the house of the first white inhabitant on his road. He stopped at the house of a Mr. Grinder, who, not being at home, his wife, alarmed at the symptoms of derangement she discovered, gave him up the house, and retired to rest herself in an out-house; the Governor's and Neely's servants lodging in another. About 3 o'clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens, whose valor and intelligence would have been now employed in avenging the wrongs of his country, and in emulating by land the splendid deeds which have honored her arms on the ocean. It lost, too, to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative now offered them of his sufferings and successes in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom and happiness.

To this melancholy close of the life of one whom posterity will declare not to have lived in vain, I have only to add that all the facts I have stated, are either known to myself, or communicated by his family or others, for whose truth I have no hesitation to make myself responsible; and I conclude with tendering you the assurances of my respect and consideration.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.

1. Circumstances relating to General Kosciusko previously to his joining the American Army. Kosciusko was born in the Grand Duchy of Silliciania in the year 1752. His family was noble, and his patrimony considerable; circumstances which he justly appreciated, for as belonging to himself they were never matters of boasting, and rarely subjects of notice, and as the property of others only regarded as advantages when accompanied by good sense and good morals. The workings of his mind on the subject of civil liberty were early and vigorous; before he was twenty the vassalage of his

serfs filled him with abhorrence, and the first act of his manhood was to break their fetters.

In the domestic quarrel between the king and the dissidents in 1761, he was too young to take a part, but the partition of Poland in 1772 (of which this quarrel was one of the pretences), engaged him in the defence of his country, and soon made him sensible of the value of military education, which he afterwards sought in the schools of Paris. It was there and while prosecuting this object, that he first became acquainted with the name of America, and the nature of the war in which the British colonies were then engaged with the mother country. In the summer of 1776 he embarked for this country, and in October of that year was appointed by Congress a Colonel of Engineers.

2. Services of the General during the war. In the spring of 1777 he joined the northern army, and in July following the writer of this notice left him on Lake Champlain engaged in strengthening our works at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. The unfortunate character of the early part of this campaign is sufficiently known. In the retreat of the American army Kosciusko was distinguished for activity and courage, and upon him devolved the choice of camps and posts and everything connected with fortifications. The last frontier taken by the army while commanded by Gen. Schuyler was on an island in the Hudson near the mouth of the Mohawk river, and within a few miles of Albany. Here Gates, who had superseded Schuyler, found the army on the day of August. Public feeling and opinion were strikingly affected by the arrival of this officer, who gave it a full and lasting impression by ordering the army to advance upon the enemy. The state of things at that moment are well and faithfully expressed by that distinguished officer, Col. Udney Hay, in a letter to a friend. "Fortune," says he, "as if tired of persecuting us, had began to change, and Burgoyne had suffered materially on both his flanks. But these things were not of our doing; the main army, as it was called, was hunted from post to pillar, and dared not to measure its strength with the enemy; much was wanting to reinspire it with confidence in itself, with that self-respect with

out which an army is but a flock of sheep, a proof of which is found in the fact, that we have thanked in general orders a detachment double the force of that of the enemy, for having dared to return their fire. From this miserable state of despondency and terror, Gates' arrival raised us, as if by magic. We began to hope and then to act. Our first step was to Stillwater, and we are now on the heights called Bhemus', looking the enemy boldly in the face. Kosciusko has selected this ground, and has covered its weak point (its right) with redoubts from the hill to the river." In front of this camp thus fortified two battles were fought, which eventuated in the retreat of the enemy and his surrender at Saratoga!

The value of Colonel Kosciusko's services during this campaign, and that of 1778, will be found in the following extract from a letter of General Gates written in the spring of 1780:

"My dear friend: After parting with you at Yorktown, I got safely to my own fireside, and without inconvenience of any kind, excepting sometimes cold toes and cold fingers. Of this sort of punishment, however, I am, it seems, to have no more, as I am destined by the Congress to command in the South. In entering on this new and (as Lee says) most difficult theatre of the war, my first thoughts have been turned to the selections of an Engineer, an Adjutant-General and a Quarter-Master-General, Kosciusko, Hay and yourself, if I can prevail upon you all, are to fill these offices, and will fill them well. The excellent qualities of the Pole, which no one knows better than yourself, are now acknowledged at head-quarters, and may induce others to prevent his joining us. But his promise once given, we are sure

of him."

The of Gates, for which the preceding extract had prepared us, was given and accepted, and though no time was lost by Kosciusko, his arrival was not early enough to enable him to give his assistance to his old friend and General. But to Greene (his successor) he rendered the most important services to the last moment of the war, and which were such as drew from that officer the most lively, ardent, repeated acknowledgments, which induced Congress, in October, 1783, to bestow upon him the

brevet of Brigadier General, and to pass a vote declaratory of their high sense of his faithful and meritorious conduct.

The war having ended, he now contemplated returning to Poland, and was determined in this measure by a letter from Prince Joseph Poniatowski, nephew of the king and generalissimo of the army. It was, however, ten years after this period (1783) before Kosciusko drew the sword on the frontiers of Cracovia.

3. Conduct of Kosciusko in France. When Bonaparte created the Duchy of Warsaw and bestowed it on the King of Saxony, great pains were taken to induce Kosciusko to lend himself to the frontier and support of that policy. Having withstood both the smiles and the frowns of the minister of police, a last attempt was made through the General's countrywoman and friend, the Princess Sassiche. The argument she used was founded on the condition of Poland, which, she said, no change could make worse, and that of the General which even a small change might make better. "But on this head I have a carte blanche, Princess," swered the General (taking her hand and leading her to her car•riage), “it is the first time in my life I have wished to shorten your visit; but you shall not make me think less respectfully of you than I now do."

When these attempts had failed, a manifesto in the name of Kosciusko, dated at Warsaw and addressed to the Poles, was fabricated and published at Paris. When he complained of this abuse of his name, &c., the minister of Police advised him to go to Fontainbleau.

ANECDOTES OF DOCTOR FRANKLIN.*

OUR revolutionary process, as is well known, commenced by petitions, memorials, remonstrances, &c., from the old Congress.

MONTICELLO, December 4, 1818. DEAR SIR,-Yours of November 8th has been some time received; but it is in my power to give little satisfaction as to its inquiries. Dr. Franklin had many political enemies, as every character must which, with decision enough to have

These were followed by a non-importation agreement, as a pacific instrument of coercion. While that was before us, and sundry exceptions, as of arms, ammunition, &c., were moved from different quarters of the house, I was sitting by Dr. Franklin and observed to him that I thought we should except books; that we ought not to exclude science, even coming from an enemy. He thought so too, and I proposed the exception, which was agreed to. Soon after it occurred that medicine should be

opinions, has energy and talent to give them effect on the feelings of the adversary opinion. These enmities were chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts: in the former they were merely of the proprietary party; in the latter they did not commence till the revolution, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities, which spreading by little and little, became at length of some extent. Dr. Lee was his principal calumniator, a man of much malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts with the British government, to infuse it into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the Doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary transaction, never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That he would have waived the formal recognition of our Independence I never heard on any authority worthy notice. As to the fisheries, England was urgent to retain them exclusively, France neutral; and I believe that had they been ultimately made a sine quâ non, our commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted) would have relinquished them rather than have broken off the treaty. To Mr. Adams' perseverance alone on that point I have always understood we were indebted for their reservation. As to the charge of subservience to France, besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before named, two years of my own service with him at Paris, daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential conversations, convince me it had not a shadow of foundation. He possessed the confidence of that government in the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said that they were more under his influence than he under theirs. The fact is that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short so moderate and attentive to their difficulties as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency, I saw was only that reasonable disposition, which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces of course mutual influence, and this was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of France.

I state a few anecdotes of Dr. Franklin, within my own knowledge, too much in detail for the scale of Delaplaine's work, but which may find a cadre in some of the more particular views you contemplate. My health is in a great measure restored, and our family joins with me in affectionate recollections and assurances of respect.