* Soon after their arrival, Governor John Hancock and the Council gave a public dinner to the commanding general, Viomenil, and his officers, and to the commander of the fleet, Vaudreuil, and his officers.
** The Magnifique, a French seventy-four gun ship, one of the fleet, having been lost in Boston Harbor by accident, Congress, in testimony of their sense of the generosity of the French king, had resolved, more than three months before (September 3), to present the America, a seventy-four gun ship, to the French minister, the Chevalier de Luzerne, for the service of his king.—See Journals of Congress, viii., 343.
*** The following are the inscriptions: North side.—"Sacred to the memory of the illustrious Stephen Hopkins, of Revolutionary fame, attested by his signature to the Declaration of our National Independence. Great in council, from sagacity of mind; magnanimous in sentiment, firm in purpose, and good as great, from benevolence of heart, he stood in the first rank of statesmen and patriots. Self-educated, yet among the most learned of men, his vast treasury of useful knowledge, his great retentive and reflective powers, combined with his social nature, made him the most interesting of companions in private life." West side.—"His name is engraved on the immortal records of the Revolution, and can never die. His titles to that distinction are engraved on this monument, reared by the grateful admiration of his native state in honor of her favorite son." South side.—Born March 7, 1707. Died July 13, 1785." A biography and portrait of this venerated patriot will be found among those of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in another part of this work. The fac-simile of his signature here given is a copy of his autograph in my possession, attached to the commission of Captain Ephraim Wheaton, issued in June, 1761. Mr. Hopkins was then Governor of Rhode Island, and in that capacity signed the instrument. It is attested by Henry Ward, secretary. Mr. Ward was one of the delegates from Rhode Island to the "Stamp Act Congress" in 1765. This signature of Hopkins exhibits the same tremulousness of hand which is seen in that attached to the Declaration of Independence, written fifteen years afterward, and is a proof, if evidence were wanting, that it was not the effect of fear, but "shaking palsy," that makes the patriot's sign-manual to our National Document appear so suspiciously crooked.
Governor Cooke's Monument.—La Fayette's Head-quarters.—Roger Williams's Spring.
elisk erected to the memory of Nicholas Cooke, who was Governor of Rhode Island from 1775 until 1778, and an active and efficient patriot until his death, which occurred before the independence of his country was secured by treaty.
His biography is briefly inscribed upon his monument in the following words:
"Nicholas Cooke, born in Providence, February 3d, 1717; Died September 14th, 1782. Unanimously elected Governor of Rhode Island in 1775, he remained in office during the darkest period of the American Revolution. He merited and won the approbation of his fellow-citizens, and was honored with the friendship and confidence of Washington."