Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/76

man. But he is by no means indifferent to great principles involved, and has shown, too, the firmness with which he can assert them, regardless of all consequences. As a philosopher, he commands, and justly, the admiration and respect of the whole world. What a crowd of thoughts must this occasion bring to the old man's mind! He first visited this city, a friendless printer's boy, without an acquaintance or a dollar; and now he is one of the great and trusted sons of the commonwealth. His first visit to London, where Sir William Keith let him go, at the age of eighteen, without the promised letters of recommendation, and where, by the exercise of his craft, he sustained himself, a poor and unknown American youth; his subsequent visit as the agent of Pennsylvania; his scientific renown, to which he had fairly, and unaided, fought his way, attested by the doctorate conferred upon him both in Edinburgh and Oxford; his examination at the bar of the House of Commons, on the repeal of the Stamp Act; and, above all, that memorable period in 1783, when, as one of the representatives of the United States, he signed the definitive treaty of peace which placed his country among the independent nations! And, in this hall, he must experience strange and mingled emotions. It was here that, on the fourth of July, 1776, when all looked dark enough, and his country had no ally but our Father in heaven, he put his name to a document which, renouncing allegiance to the British crown, perilled all he had, even life itself, upon the unknown issue; and now, in this same place, he has come to assist in the foundation of a government which, eleven years ago, he solemnly declared had a right to be free and independent. He is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of the members of this body; he has passed through more strange vicissitudes than any of his present associates, and as he nears the grave, this must be, for him, a proud and deeply interesting moment.