cussed. Even Samuel Adams, who was remarkable for the inflexibility of his opinions, after hearing Fisher Ames' speech upon the biennial election of members of Congress, got up,- not to oppose, as was expected, but to tell us that he was satisfied with the reasons which had been given by Ames. This conduct, in such a man as Mr. Adams, had a great effect upon the other members of the convention.

Mr. Dawes opposed a resolution directing the manner in which the votes on the amendments are to be given by the people, where the persons voting are to express their opinion by annexing to each number the word Yes, or No, or any other words that may signify his opinion of the proposed amendment. He thought this latitude might lead to difficulty. It would permit a man to read a whole sermon. They had often heard whole sermons read in the Assembly, they might read them in town-meeting, and put them on file, to express their opinion. It was amended. Judge Dawes was a member also of the convention for the adoption of a State constitution in 1780.

Thomas Dawes always exhibited an honest and friendly feeling, which shone forth in his social intercourse, enlivened by classic and literary taste, undiminished by the assumption of measured manner, too often exercised to supply the place of real merit.

GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT was born at Boston, Dec. 22, 1758, and was the youngest of ten children. He entered the Latin School in 1767, where he was a shining scholar. When the important period drew near in which he was to leave school, he was not only required by Master James Lovell to compose his own oration, but he was also enjoined to aid several of his classmates in the same duty. While at Harvard College he devoted himself with great industry and success to classical and historical studies. He graduated in 1778. His most

admired models were Robertson's Charles the Fifth, and the London Annual Register. At his graduation he received the highest honors of the college, without an expression of envy from his classmates; such is the force of superior merit towards the youth who loved every one, and who veiled his talent in the garb of modesty. Mr. Minot entered on the study of law under Judge Tudor, towards whom he had a warm veneration. It was in his office that he enjoyed the advantage of being the fellow-student of Fisher Ames, where his own genius caught fire from the flame which burned so intensely in the imagination of his companion. Fisher Ames was at that time unknown to the world, but Minot never spoke of him without enthusiasm; and he often predicted the splendid reputation which this powerful orator would in coming time attain.

On the adoption of the State constitution, in 1780, Mr. Minot was elected clerk of the House of Representatives. During this period, the causes which led to the insurrection of Daniel Shays were in operation, and he had the opportunity of being familiar with the debates, which were of intense public interest. This insurrection was a primary cause of the adoption of the constitution of the United States. Mr. Minot was appointed secretary of the State Convention of 1788, on the discussion of its adoption. Mr. Minot was married in March, 1783, to Mary Speakman, of Marlboro', the lady of his early love, whose warmth of affection towards him was ardent as that of his towards herself. At this period he was a liberal contributor to the Boston Magazine, and was an editor of three early volumes of the Massachusetts Historical Collections, of which society, the Humane, the Charitable, and the American Academy, he was a devoted member. He was appointed judge of Probate in 1792, which office he honored with impartiality and humanity. He became judge of the Municipal Court from 1800, and wisely sustained its duties until his decease, Jan. 2, 1802. His residence was in Devonshire-street, on the site of the Type and Stereotype Foundery, and no private mansion in Boston was more famous for a free and generous hospitality. He was remarkable for sprightly sallies of wit, radiant benignity, and blandness of manners. In 1795 his address for the Massachusetts Charitable Society, of which he was president, was published. His impassioned eulogy on the character of Washington, pronounced at the request of the town of Boston, was ready for sale on the day after its delivery, and was more rapidly sought than even that by Fisher Ames,

an edition being sold in one day, and two more shortly after being taken up. His intimate friend and pastor, Dr. James Freeman, remarked of this eulogy, that a kindred likeness may be traced in the features of the minds, in Minot's delineations of the character of Washington, so striking as to be obvious to those who best knew them both. Judge Minot had but ten days' notice to prepare the funeral oration, and thus described the emotions of his mind at this time: My only refuge was in an enthusiastic pursuit of my subject, which stimulated what little powers I possessed to their utmost exertion. A candor and mild expectation prevailed through all ranks of people, which encouraged me. A like kind of attentive silence enabled me to deliver myself so as to be heard. I sat down unconscious of the effect, feeling as though the music was at once playing the dirge of Washington's memory and my own reputation. I was soon astonished at my good fortune. All praised me; a whole edition of my eulogy sold in a day; the printers, Manning and Loring, presented me with an additional number of copies, on account of their success; invitations were sent me to dine in respectable companies; my friends are delighted, and, although nearly exhausted by sickness, I am happy. Such was the successful issue of the most unpropitious undertaking that I was ever engaged in."

In 1798, Judge Minot published a Continuation of Hutchinson's History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the second volume in 1803. Our American Sallust is peculiar for veracity, perspicuity and vigor, and was the first purely elegant historian of New England. His History of the Insurrection in Massachusetts, and the Rebellion consequent thereon, published by Manning and Loring, in 1798, is the best record of that perilous period ever prepared.

In the polished oration of George Richards Minot, pronounced at the Old Brick, on the Boston Massacre, in 1782, we find an appeal to the moral sense of this republic, where he remarks:

"Let us not trust to laws. An uncorrupted people can exist without them; a corrupted people cannot long exist with them, or any other human assistance. They are remedies which, at best, always disclose and confess our evils. The body politic once distempered, they may indeed be used as a crutch to support it a while, but they can never heal it. Rome, when her bravery conquered the neighboring nations and united them to her own empire, was free from all danger within, because her armies, being urged on by a love for their country, would

as readily suppress an internal as an external enemy. In those times she made no scruple to throw out her kings who had abused their power. But when her subjects sought not for the advantage of the commonwealth,—when they thronged to the Asiatic wars for the spoils they produced, and preferred prostituting the rights of citizenship upon any barbarian that demanded them, to meeting him in the field for their support, then Rome grew too modest to accept from the hands of a dictator those rights which she ought to have impaled him for daring to invade. No alteration in her laws merely could have effected this. Had she remained virtuous, she might as well have expelled her dictators as her kings. But what laws can save a people who, for the very purpose of enslaving themselves, choose to consider them rather as counsels which they may accept or refuse, than as precepts which they are bound to obey? With such a people they must ever want a sanction, and be contemned. Virtue and long life seem to be as intimately allied in the political as in the moral world. She is the guard which Providence has set at the gate of freedom."

Here we have the peroration of Minot's oration: "America once guarded against herself, what has she to fear? Her natural situation may well inspire her with confidence. Her rocks and her mountains are the chosen temples of liberty. The extent of her climate, and the variety of its produce, throw the means of her greatness into her own hands, and insure her the traffic of the world. Navies shall launch from her forests, and her bosom be found stored with the most precious treasures of nature. May the industry of her people be a still surer pledge of her wealth! The union of her States, too, is founded upon the most durable principles. The similarity of the manners, religion and laws, of their inhabitants, must ever support the measure which their common injuries originated. Her government, while it is restrained from violating the rights of the subject, is not disarmed against the public foe. Could Junius Brutus and his colleagues have beheld her republic erecting itself on the disjointed neck of tyranny, how would they have wreathed a laurel for her temples as eternal as their own memories! America! fairest copy of such great originals! be virtuous, and thy reign shall be as happy as durable, and as durable as the pillars of the world you have enfranchised.”

The character of Judge Minot was thus admirably described by Hon. John Quincy Adams, on the year of his decease:

"Are you an observer of men, and has it been your fortune only

once to behold George Richards Minot? You have remarked the elegance of his person, and the peculiar charm of expression in his countenance. Have you witnessed his deportment? It bore the marks of graceful simplicity, of dignified modesty, of unassuming urbanity. Have you listened to his conversation? It was the voice of harmony; it was the index of a penetrating and accurate mind; it was the echo to a warm and generous heart. Such appeared Mr. Minot on a first and transient acquaintance, from which period to that of the most confidential intimacy, our own knowledge, and the unvaried testimony of indisputable authority, concur in affirming that every trace of pleasing first impression was proportionably deepened, every anticipation of sterling worth abundantly fulfilled. His character, as the citizen of a free country, was not less exemplary. The profoundest historian of antiquity has adduced the life of Agricola as an extraordinary proof that it is possible to be a great and good man, even under the despotism of the worst of princes.

"Minot's example may be alleged as a demonstration equally rare, under a free republic, that, in times of the greatest dissensions, and amidst the most virulent rancor of factions, a man may be great and good, and yet acquire and preserve the esteem and veneration of all. In the bitterness of civil contention he enjoyed the joint applause of minds the most irreconciled to each other. Before the music of his character, the very scorpions dropped from the lash of discord,—the very snakes of faction listened and sunk asleep! Yet did he not purchase this unanimous approbation by the sacrifice of any principle at the shrine of popularity. From that double-tongued candor which fashions its doctrines to its company,- from that cowardice, in the garb of good-nature, which assents to all opinions because it dares support none, from that obsequious egotism, ever ready to bow before the idol of the day, to make man its God, and hold the voice of mortality for the voice of Heaven, he was pure as the crystal streams. Personal invectives and odious imputations against political adversaries he knew to be seldom necessary. He knew that, when unnecessary, whether exhibited in the disgusting deformity of their nakedness, or tricked out in the gorgeous decorations of philosophy,—whether livid with the cadaverous colors of their natural complexion, or flaring with the cosmetic washes of pretended patriotism, they are ever found among the profligate prostitutes of party, and not among the vestal virgins of truth. He disdained to use them; but, as to all great ques