diate hostilities, and doubting its eventual | advantage, the old man unharnessed one of the horses from the team, and ordering him to be immediately saddled, started at noon of the 16th of June for the camp. By riding all the night, and twice obtaining a fresh horse upon the road, he reached the scene of action at two o'clock in the afternoon. The troops of the enemy were then landing from Boston. The heights in every direction were covered with spectators. The balls of the ships of war were sweeping the neck of land over which 5 he must pass to reach Bunker's hill. Alighting from his horse, and remarking to his attendant that he was "too valuable an animal to be shot," he went over the narrow pass on foot, and safely reached =the intrenchment. As he appeared in sight, a shout of welcome went up from the troops. Putnam, seizing him by the hand, exclaimed, "You here, Pomeroy? God! I believe a cannon would wake you up, if you slept in the grave!" Refusing the repeated proffers of the general command, though urgently solicited, the old warrior advanced into the trench and took charge of the Connecticut troops. With a gun of his own manufacture, which he had carried thirty years before at the siege of Louisburg, he directed the fire of his men during those two hours of terrible struggle for the birth of American liberties. Towards Pitcairn there existed in the hearts of the colonial troops a deadly hatred. Observing him at the head of a column, which, once repulsed, were now again returning to the attack, he pointed him out to the men who stood at his side, and in a moment Pitcairn fell mortally wounded.

The details of the battle of Bunker Hill are too well known to be repeated here. During the last attack, Gen. Pomeroy's gun was indented by a musket ball, so that he could no longer discharge it. The old man then passed up and down the trench, encouraging his men, loading their muskets, removing the wounded, and directing the last scattering fire, until he perceived that the intrenchments above him had been gained by the British. His nen beginning to retreat too hastily, he s said to have cried out, "Don't run, boys! Don't run! Fight them with the

breech of your muskets, as I do! It shan't be said of Seth Pomeroy, that he was shot in the back!"

At the time of the appointment of Washington as General-in-chief of the colonial troops, Pomeroy received the appointment of Brigadier General. His health, however, had suffered too much from his recent exertions, and he could not with consistency take charge of the arduous duties its acceptance would involve. Declining entering longer into the labors of active service, he retired to his farm, from whence he viewed with unabated interest the progress of the war of our Independence. Notwithstanding his advanced years, the military ardor of his youth had not diminished, and in 1777, at the request of Gen. Washington, though against the earnest remonstrances of his physician and family, he again accepted command. A few weeks, however, had elapsed only after his arrival at his post at Peekskill, before he was again attacked with serious illness. After lingering a few days, his disease overcame his system. He died at Peekskill on the 15th of February, 1777, and was buried there with military honors.

In personal appearance, during the early part of his military life, Pomeroy had few superiors. He was full six feet tall, spare in person, but erect, well built, and of great agility and muscular strength. Without unusual quickness of apprehension, he possessed, what was far better, a sound judgment, which, always coming to its conclusions carefully, was rarely in error. To this he added a firmness of decision, which could not be shaken, and which was undoubtedly the great element of his success in life. He was remarkable for a strict regard to principle, which he oftentimes carried to sternness. His courage, fearless in so many instances that it became proverbial, sprang rather from this absolute adherence to principle, than from indifference to danger. Indeed, it would appear from his journal, that he possessed a sensibility actively alive to every approach of danger, which often led him to exaggerate its importance. He said to his son Lemuel, at a time when he showed some reluctance to go alone through the woods, which

than a modest and faithful discharge of its ordinary duties. But this was the best possible preparation for success in the future. Accordingly, after having studied for a considerable period the business of a legislator, the laws, and the condition of the people of the State, he brought before the Assembly a subject for legislative action of very great importance. He proposed the repeal of the laws then generally known under the name of the Summary Bank Process. And it was in the speech, by which he advocated his motion for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the expediency of abolishing these laws, that he first gave to the community "assurance of a man." Indeed, it was not without considerable surprise that the Assembly beheld the young country member, who had rarely given out any other sound in their midst than his simple yea or nay, and the loins of whose mind had always seemed no better girded than those of his person, rise to make a motion likely from its great importance to encounter the determined opposition of the ablest speakers of the house. Nor was their surprise diminished as he proceeded-his somewhat sluggish countenance gradually becoming illumined by the fires of eloquence, and his heavily moulded frame set in lively action by the new spirit which had taken possession of it-to support his position by a masterly exposition of the effects of the existing law, and by an accumulation of well considered arguments in favor of a different system.

The laws then standing upon the statute book of Rhode Island gave to the banks peculiar privileges over individuals in the collection of debts, by authorizing either of the clerks of the court of common pleas or of the supreme judicial court to issue, previously to judgment, a writ of execu tion, attaching the real estate and other property of the delinquent debtor, to the full amount of the debt and the cost of prosecution. This execution was returnable at the next ensuing term of the court, when a trial of the merits of the case might, indeed, be had, though without the right of an appeal, or even the indulgence of a continuance. The ordinary process of law, on the other hand, allowed individuals to bring their actions only in the

rt of common pleas, and at no time

short of twenty days before its sitting; prohibited them from attaching the property of the defendant, except in case his body could not be found; permitted the continuance of the action from term to term, and an appeal on judgment when at last obtained, so that years might elapse before the plaintiff could take out his execution, not even then to levy it on the real estate of the debtor, but to go with it in quest of his goods and chattels.

The arguments employed by the member from Tiverton, in endeavoring to effect the repeal of this process, were, in substance, that it gave to the demands of the banks in courts of law absolute precedence over all others, and thereby rendered debts due to these privileged institutions more valuable than those due to individuals; that it wrested from private credit its proper security, and undermined the foundations of commercial confidence; that it diminished the value of property, by making it liable to a forced and sudden sale; and that it might be easily used as an instrument of individual oppression for the purposes of speculation.

This speech was followed by the appointment of a committee of inquiry, of which Mr. Durfee was made the chairman; by a report in favor of the repeal of the process; and finally by its actual abrogation. The measure was carried through the Assembly with the approbation of a considerable majority, in the face of the opposition of such influential men and able speakers as were then Elisha R. Potter, Nathan F. Dixon and Nathaniel Searle.

The reputation acquired by Mr. Durfee in his efforts to effect a repeal of the Bank Process, caused him to be selected by the republican party in the autumn of 1820, as their candidate for the office of representative in the lower house of Congress; and his election encountered no opposition. He accordingly entered into the public service at Washington at the commencement of the second administration of President Monroe. This was a period when the affairs of the national government were conducted with a great degree of practical sagacity; with a scrupulous regard for constitutional principles; with strict economy in the expenditure of the public rev- ¦ enues; and a patriotic devotion to the great common interests of the country

The new member from Rhode Island brought no incongruous element into the House, though the character of his talents naturally allied him with the members of the highest statesmanship. Then only thirty years of age, he did not assume, by any means, a prominent position. He was, however, a member of the committee on manufactures, and during the course of his Congressional career, twice addressed the House on subjects of great importance. On the first of these occasions he was called up by John Randolph, who, bringing all things and all persons within the compass of his discursive discourse, did not fail, in the debate on the Apportionment Bill, turning round, to point at the member from Rhode Island as sitting there with all the patience of Job of old, while the House was about to decide a question of vital interest to his particular constituents. This bill, providing for a new apportionment of federal representatives for the several States, according to the census taken the preceding year, was certainly one which specially concerned the people of Rhode Island; for on the adoption of any of the high numbers proposed as the ratio of representation, that State, in losing one of her representatives, would have lost the half of her delegation. In the course of the protracted discussion of this measure, a great number of motions were made, some proposing as high a number for the ratio as 75,000, while Mr. Randolph desired to fill the blank in the bill with 30,000, giving it as his opinion that it was expedient" to have as great a number of representatives as would keep on this side of a mob." This last number was the lowest limit fixed by the Constitution, which provided that "the number of representatives should not exceed one for every thirty thousand;" and the actual ratio had never been higher than 35,000. But as the

Mr. Durfee advocated a low number for the ratio. But, while he stated the fact that the establishment of the ratio of 42,000, in accordance with the motion then before the House, would operate very unfairly upon his immediate constituents, leaving them the large fraction of 4,138, and would also render it possible for the representatives of a few large States to destroy, by combination, the proper influence of the very small ones; he nevertheless founded his argument, in opposition to the measure, not on its effects upon particular States, but on its bearing upon the whole country. and upon the several branches of the general government. As, under the first census, the ratio had been 33,000, which had remained unchanged under the second. and had been augmented by only 2,000 under the third, he was opposed to so great a departure from the established policy, as, in general, a bad precedent. If, as was urged by the advocates of the measure, the performance of business would be facilitated by having a small house of representatives, he saw no advantage to be gained, in so popular a form of government, by a great increase either in the rapidity or the amount of legislation. Referring to the condition and character of the population of the country at that period, he showed that, as it was becoming less homogeneous, by the addition of the rising commercial and manufacturing classes to the class of the agriculturists, and that. consequently, its leading interests were becoming more and more diversified; this heterogeneous population would need to be represented by a greater, instead of a relatively smaller number of agents. The population, too, was not only increasing. but it had spread itself over double the extent of territory formerly occupied, and a sparse population could not so well be represented by a few individuals as a dense one. As, finally, it was to be foreseen that, in consequence of the extension of the federal Constitution over a more num