After many days' further debate, the House voted the money by a considerable majority; a large number of Democrats voting with the administration. Fisher Ames was not so near his death as he supposed, for he lived twelve years after the delivery of this speech, so slow was the progress of his disease. He outlived Washington and Hamilton, and delivered eloquent addresses in commemoration of both.
The great misfortune of his life was that very ill-health to which he alluded in his speech. This tinged his mind with gloom, and caused him to anticipate the future of his country with morbid apprehension. When Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he thought the ruin of his country was sure, and spoke of the "chains" which Jefferson had forged for the people. When Hamilton died, in 1804, he declared that his "soul stiffened with despair," and he compared the fallen statesman to "Hercules treacherously slain in the midst of his unfinished labors, leaving the world over-run with monsters." He was one of the most honest and patriotic of men; but he had little faith in the truths upon which the Constitution of his country was founded.
He died at his birthplace, Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 4th of July, 1808, in the fifty-first year of his age. His father had been the physician of that place for many years—a man of great skill in his profession, and gifted with a vigorous mind. Doctor Ames died when his son was only six years of age, and it cost the boy a severe and long struggle to work his way through college to the profession of the law, and to public life. If he had had a body equal to his mind, he would have been one of the greatest men New England ever produced.
THE PINCKNEYS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
In the political writings of Washington's day, we frequently meet with the name of Pinckney; and, as there were several persons of that name in public life, readers of history are often at a loss to distinguish between them. This confusion is the more troublesome, because they were all of the same family and State, and their career also had a strong family likeness.
The founder of this family in America was Thomas Pinckney, who emigrated to South Carolina in the year 1692. He possessed a large fortune, and built in Charleston a stately mansion, which is still standing, unless it was demolished during the late war. A curious anecdote is related of this original Pinckney, which is about all that is now known of him. Standing at the window of his house one day, with his wife at his side, he noticed a stream of passengers walking up the street, who had just landed from a vessel that day arrived from the West Indies. As they walked along the street, he noticed particularly a handsome man who was very gayly dressed; and turning to his wife he said:
"That handsome West Indian will marry some poor fellow's widow, break her heart, and ruin her children."
Strange to relate, the widow whom this handsome West Indian married was no other than Mrs. Pinckney herself; for Thomas Pinckney soon after died, and his widow married the West Indian. He did not break her heart, since she lived to marry a third husband, but he was an extravagant fellow, and wasted part of her children's inheritance. Thomas Pinckney, then, is to be distinguished from others of the name as the founder of the family in America.