[151]. Thomas Minshull, Esq. a respectable member of the house, from York county.
[152]. The Hon. John Penn.—This worthy gentleman, a grandson of the celebrated William Penn, was lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania, under the chief proprietaries of the province, from October 1763, to May 1771; and again, from August 1773, until the revolution.
[153]. The proprietary’s and governor’s council, consisting of James Hamilton, William Allen, Joseph Turner, William Logan, Richard Peters (D. D.), Lynford Lardner, Benjamin Chew, Thomas Cadwallader, Richard Penn, James Tilghman, Andrew Allen, and Edward Shippen, jun. Esquires. Joseph Shippen, jun. Esquire, officiated many years as provincial secretary and clerk of the council.
[154]. Matthias Slough, Esq. who served several years with reputation as a representative in the assembly, from the county of Lancaster.
[155]. On the 4th of Feb. 1770, he mentioned to Mr. Barton his then contemplated removal into that city, in these terms—“Dr. Smith, to whom I am indebted for many kindnesses, is very urgent to have me come to Philadelphia to reside, which it is probable I may do shortly: but I am not yet determined. If I live to write again, you shall know more of my mind; in the mean time, I shall be glad to have your opinion of the matter.”
[156]. Since writing the above the author has ascertained, that towards the close of April, 1770, the orrery was purchased for the college of New-Jersey. On the 23d of that month, Dr. Witherspoon, then the president of that college, accompanied by some gentlemen, went to Norriton for that purpose, and it appears that the orrery was then nearly finished.
[157]. The following extract of a letter from Dr. Smith to Mr. Barton, written the day after Mr. Rittenhouse’s on the same subject, will further explain the embarrassing circumstances that attended this transaction, and the delicate situation in which Mr. Rittenhouse, particularly, was placed.
“I never,” said the Doctor, “met with greater mortification, than to find Mr. Rittenhouse had, in my absence, made a sort of agreement to let his Orrery go to the Jersey College. I had constantly told him, that if the Assembly did not take it, I would take it for our College, and would have paid the full sum, should I have begged the money. I thought I could depend, as much as on any thing under the sun, that after Mr. Rittenhouse knew my intentions about it, he would not have listened to any proposal for disposing of it, without advising me, and giving our College the first opportunity to purchase. I think Mr. Rittenhouse was never so little himself, as to suffer himself to be taken off his guard on this occasion. This province is willing to honour him, as her own: and believe me, many of his friends wondered at the newspaper article; and regretted that he should think so little of his noble invention, as to consent to let it go to a village; unless he had first found, on trial, that his friends in this city had not spirit to take it: For if he would wish to be known by this work—and introduced to the best business and commissions for instruments, from all parts of the continent,—his Orrery being placed in our College, where so many strangers would have an opportunity of seeing it, was the sure way to be serviceable to Himself.
“You will think, by all this, that I am offended with him, and that our friendship may hereby be interrupted: Far from it—I went to see him, the day the newspaper announced the affair. I soon found that I had little occasion to say any thing: he was convinced, before I saw him, that he had gone too far. But still, as no time was fixed for delivering the Orrery, I was glad to find he had concluded that it should not be delivered till next winter; against which time, he said, he could have a second one made, if this one staid with him for his hands to work by. As I love Mr. Rittenhouse, and would not give a man of such delicate feelings a moment’s uneasiness, I agreed to wave the honour of having the first Orrery, and to take the second.”
In fact, the Orrery was not at that time finished; for Mr. Rittenhouse then informed Dr. Smith, that he was under the necessity of waiting for brass from England, to enable him to complete it. “The result (continued the Doctor) will be, I think, that he will keep his Orrery till towards winter; and should they not then receive it, in the Jersies, they will take it at New-York.”