[163]. Messrs. Dickinson, Humphreys, Morton, Ross and Biddle, together with Mifflin and Franklin, were delegated on the part of Pennsylvania to the first general congress, which met in Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774; and the same gentlemen, with the addition of Messrs. Willing and Wilson, were also delegates from Pennsylvania in the second general congress, which met in the same city on the 10th of May, 1775. Of these “dignified and ever memorable assemblies,” composed of that “illustrious band of patriots whose worth sheds a lustre on the American character,” the great Washington was also a member.
Mr. Dickinson, the writer of the celebrated Farmer’s Letters, was a distinguished lawyer, statesman and scholar. Dr. Ramsay (who published his History of the American[American] Revolution at the close of the year 1789,) remarks, that “the stamp-act, which was to have taken place in 1765, employed the pens and tongues of many of the colonists,” and, that “the duties imposed in 1767, called forth the pen of John Dickinson, who in a series of letters, signed ‘A Pennsylvania Farmer,’ may be said to have sown the seeds of the revolution.”
From the commencement of the momentous controversy between the North-American colonies and the parent state, Mr. Dickinson was an able and strenuous assertor of the rights of the colonists. In the summer of the year 1768, the Rev. Mr. Barton sent him a little artificial fountain or jet-d’eau, called a perpetual fountain, prettily contrived and ornamented. On that occasion, the patriotic feelings of Mr. Dickinson were thus expressed, in an handsome allusion to this engine; feelings, called forth by some sentiments contained in the letter which accompanied this small present,—“I wish” (said he, in his answer to Mr. Barton’s letter, dated the 29th of August,)—“I wish ‘a perpetual fountain’ may water the tree of American liberty—I shall always be ready and willing, with pious hands, to sprinkle its roots; even though, for every drop of the pure element I throw upon them, the free-booters should pour upon me all the foul waters in which they delight to dabble. I have acted from the best of motives, the love of freedom and of my country. If reproaches can influence the weak and malicious, they never can blot from my memory the pleasing consciousness of having endeavoured to do my duty. I am extremely sensible of my own frailties; and yet I think I have so much charity, that I reflect with pleasure, that perhaps these very people who abuse me, may derive some little advantage from those very actions of mine for which they abuse me. May heaven grant this to be the case! It is all the revenge I desire to take of them; and this I think, my good sir, is a Christian revenge.”
Messrs. Allen, Ross, and Biddle, shall be noticed in another place.
Mr. Sellers was a sensible and ingenious country-gentleman, possessed of some skill in mathematical and astronomical science. Messrs. John and Israel Jacobs (whose sister was the second wife of Mr. Rittenhouse) were also well-informed country-gentlemen: the former was speaker of the general assembly of Pennsylvania, and the latter a member of congress, after the revolution. Mr. James Wright was a very respectable representative of the county of Lancaster, before the revolution. The gentlemen named in the committee of the general assembly, to treat with Mr. Rittenhouse for the purchase of an Orrery for the use of the public, were likewise conspicuous for their worth. Of these, Mr. Rhoads was one of the vice-presidents of the American Philosophical Society, and Mr. Morton, a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, before the revolution: both were afterwards members of congress.
[165]. Dr. William Cadogan’s “Dissertation on the Gout and all Chronic Diseases,” &c. made its appearance in America about that time; and the Rev. Mr. Barton, who had long experienced an hereditary gouty affection, then thought favourably of the Doctor’s general theory, although he could not adopt that ingenious theorist’s doctrine, denying the existence of any hereditary diseases.
[166]. Mr. Barton and some others of Mr. Rittenhouse’s friends had repeatedly recommended to him to visit England: the former, particularly, often urged him to it, and for the reasons assigned in the text. That he had, himself, long contemplated that voyage, is apparent from the extract of his letter to Mr. Barton, of the 15th of March 1771, already quoted; and his last mentioned letter to the same gentleman shews, that, nearly a year afterwards, he still had that object steadily in view.
[167]. In a preceding letter, Mr. Barton had sent him some Mathematical Problems, for solution. These had been furnished by a schoolmaster, in Mr. Barton’s neighbourhood; who, although reputed a pretty good mathematician, possessed but a small share of genius or invention, while he had a large portion of confidence in his own abilities. In noticing these problems, Mr. Rittenhouse could not refrain from shewing some little irritation: he thought the communications too trifling, too destitute of originality, or too useless, to merit his attention; and, accordingly, he thus expressed himself on the occasion, in a letter dated Feb. 3, 1772:
“I entreat you not to insist on my measuring heads with any pragmatical schoolmaster, who is heartily welcome, for me, to divert himself with his x. y. z’s, at which he may be very expert, and yet be, as you say, both ignorant and conceited. His first question, however, may be answered by any young algebraist: the second and third are more difficult, and will admit of various answers. The fourth contains four observations, picked out, (and carelessly enough, several of the figures being wrong,) of a set made on the comet of 1682, which I shewed your son William in about half a dozen different books; you will find them in Dr. Halley’s Astronomical Tables. Every thing relating to this comet has long ago been settled by Dr. Halley; so that, to give a complete answer to the question, I need only transcribe from him: but you cannot conceive how much I despise this kind of juggle, where no use is proposed. If your schoolmaster will give me but three good observations (I do not want four) of the comet of 1769, I will accept them with thanks, and soon undertake the laborious task of determining its orbit, which we yet know nothing about.”