degree of confidence, that it was general Muhlenberg, who commanded the American storming party at Yorktown, the honour of which station has been attributed, by the different histories of the American revolution, to another person. It is, however, a well known fact, that he acted a distinguished and brave part at the siege of Yorktown.

After the peace, general Muhlenberg was chosen by his fellow citizens of Pennsylvania, to fill in succession the various stations of vice president of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, member of the house of representatives, and senator of the United States; and afterwards appointed by the president of the United States, supervisor of the excise in Pennsylvania, and finally, collector of the port of Philadelphia, which office he held at the time of his death. In all the above military and political stations, general Muhlenberg acted faithfully to his country and honourably to himself. He was brave in the field, and firm in the cabinet. In private life he was strictly just; in his domestic and social attachments, he was affectionate and sincere; and in his intercourse with his fellow citizens, always amiable and unassuming.

He died on the 1st day of October, 1807, in the sixty-second year of his age, at his seat near Schuylkill, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania.

NELSON, THOMAS, governor of Virginia, was a distinguished patriot in the revolution, and uniformly ardent in his attachment to liberty. He was among the first of that glorious band of patriots, whose exertions dashed and defeated the machinations of British tyranny; and gave to America, freedom and independent empire. At a most important crisis, during our struggle for American liberty, when Virginia appeared to be designated as the theatre of action for the contending armies, he was selected by the unanimous suffrage of the legislature to command the virtuous yeomanry of his country; in which honourable employment he remained to the end of the war. As a soldier, he was indefatigably active, and cooly intrepid. Resolute and undejected in misfortunes, he towered above distress; and struggled with the manifold difficulties, to which his situation exposed him, with constancy and courage.

In the year 1781, when the force of the southern British army was directed to the immediate subjugation of that state, he was called to the helm of government, and took the field, at the head of his countrymen. The commander in chief, and the officers at the siege at Yorktown, witnessed his merit and attachment to civil and religious liberty. He was an intrepid soldier and an able statesman. He died in February,

1789.

OGDEN, MATTHIAS, a brigadier general in the army of the United States, took an early and a decided part in the revolutionary war with Great Britain. He joined the army at Cambridge, and such was his zeal and resolution, that he accompanied Arnold in penetrating through the wilderness to Canada. He was engaged in the attack upon Quebec, and was carried wounded from the place of engagement. On his return from this expedition he was appointed to the command of a regiment, in which station he continued until the conclusion of the war. When peace took place he was honoured with a commission of brigadier general. He died at Elizabeth town, New Jersey, March 31, 1791. He was distinguished for his liberality and philanthrophy.

OLNEY, JEREMIAH, commenced his military career at the earliest period of the defensive revolutionary war, and be came the companion in arms of the immortal Washington, under whose auspicious command (frequently as the chief offcer of the Rhode Island forces) he nobly persevered, through all the trying, changing scenes of the revolution, till a glorious independence emancipated his beloved country, and in "peace, liberty, and safety," ranked her among the nations of the earth. His, heroism at Red Bank, Springfield, Monmouth, Yorktown, and other places where "men's souls" were tried, will be honourably registered by the pen of the faithful historian in the annals of his country, and will embalm his memory to all posterity.

The life of this amiable and highly revered gentleman, was distinguished by the most undeviating honour and integrity, from which no interest could swerve him, no danger appal him. To his innate love and ardent practice of truth and justice, were united a disposition the most social and endearing, a philantrophy the most exalted, and a hospitality the most unostentatious and interesting to the finer feelings of the heart. To every branch of his numerous and respectable family, to all his associates and neighbours, he was ever attentive and affectionate, and to those whom he knew were oppressed with sickness, sorrow and misfortune, he was a liberal, active comforter; a friend indeed! Even his servants he humanely considered his humble friends," and treated them accordingly. Indeed, all who were connected or associated with him, by affinity, friendship, or patronage, will long remember him with the most lively gratitude and regard, mingled with sentiments of the tenderest regret. His many virtues were numerous and exemplary, as he wisely regulated his conduct by his revered monitor, conscience; the incorruptible vicegerent of the most high God. As a citizen, he was public spirited; as a patriot soldier, ardent, judicious and intrepid.

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He was for many years collector of the customs of the port and district of Providence, Rhode Island, and president of the society of Cincinnati of that state. He died the tenth of November, 1812, in the sixty third year of his age.

OTIS, JAMES, a distinguished patriot and statesman, was the son of the honorable James Otis, of Barnstable, Massachusetts, and was graduated at Harvard college, in 1743. After pursuing the study of the law under Mr. Gridley, the first lawyer and civilian of his time, at the age of twenty one he began the practice at Plymouth. In 1761, he distinguished himself by pleading against the writs of assistance, which the officers of the customs had applied for to the judges of the supreme court. His antagonist was Mr. Gridley. He was in this or the following year, chosen a member of the legislature of Massachusetts, in which body the powers of his eloquence, the keenness of his wit, the force of his arguments, and the resources of his intellect, gave him a most commanding influence. When the arbitrary claims of Great Britain were advanced, he warmly engaged in defence of the colonies, and was the first champion of American freedom who had the courage to affix his name to a production that stood forth against the pretensions of the parent state. He was a mem ber of the congress which was held at New York, in 1765, in which year his Rights of the Colonies Vindicated, a pamphlet, occasioned by the stamp act, and which was considered as a masterpiece, both of good writing and of argument, was published in London. For the boldness of his opinions he was threatened with arrest; yet he continued to support the rights of his fellow citizens. He resigned the office of judge advocate in 1767, and renounced all employment under an administration which had encroached upon the liberties of his country. His warm passions sometimes betrayed him into unguarded epithets, that gave his enemies an advantage, without benefit to the cause which lay nearest his heart.Being vilified in the public papers, he in return published some severe strictures on the conduct of the commissioners of the customs, and others of the ministerial party. A short time afterwards, on the evening of the 5th of September 1769, he met Mr. John Robinson, one of the commissioners, in a public room, and an affray followed, in which he was assaulted by a number of ruffians, who left him and a young gentleman, who interposed in his defence, covered with wounds. The wounds were not mortal, but his usefulness was destroyed, for his reason was shaken from its throne, and the great man in ruins lived several years the grief of his friends. In an interval of reason he forgave the men who had done him an irreparable injury, and relinquished the sum

of five thousand pounds sterling, which Mr. Robinson had been, by a civil process, adjudged to pay, on his signing a humble acknowledgment. He lived to see, but not fully to enjoy, the independence of America, an event towards which his efforts had greatly contributed. At length on the twentythird day of May, 1783, as he was leaning on his cane at the door of Mr. Osgood's house in Andover, he was struck by a flash of lightning; his soul was instantly liberated from its shattered tenement, and sent into eternity.

"It is a singular coincidence, that he often expressed a wish for such a fate. He told his sister, Mrs. Warren, after his reason was impaired, "My dear sister. I hope when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning," and this idea he often repeated.

"There is a degree of consolation blended with awe in the manner of his death, and a soothing fitness in the sublime accident which occasioned it. The end of his life was ennobled, when the ruins of a great mind, instead of being undermined by loathsome and obscure disease, were demolished at once by a bright bolt from Heaven.

"His body was taken to Boston, and his funeral was attended with every mark of respect. and exhibited one of the most numerous processions ever seen in the town.

"Mr. Otis was one of the master spirits who began and conducted an opposition, which at first, was only designed to counteract and defeat an arbitrary administration, but which ended in a revolution, emancipated a continent, and established by the example of its effects, a lasting influence on all the governments of the civilized world.

"He espoused the cause of his country, not merely because it was popular, but because he said that its prosperity, freedom and honor, would be all diminished, if the usurpation of the British parliament was successful. His enemies constantly represented him as a demagogue, yet no man was less so. His character was too liberal, proud and honest, to play that part. He led public opinion by the energy which conscious strength, elevated views and quick feelings inspire, and was followed with that deference and reliance which great talents instinctively command. These were the qualifications that made him, for many years, the oracle and guide of the patriotic party.

"As in every case of public or private oppression, he was willing to volunteer in the cause of the suffering, and in many instances where he thought the occasion would justify it, he employed his talents gratuitously, his enemies were forced to acknowledge his liberality.

"He was a man of powerful genius and ardent temper, with wit and humor that never failed: as an orator, he was bold, argumentative, impetuous and commanding, with an eloquence that made his own excitement irresistibly contagious; and as a lawyer, his knowledge and ability placed him at the head of his profession; and as a scholar, he was rich in acquisition and governed by a classic taste; as a statesman and civilian, he was sound and just in his views; as a patriot, he resisted all allurements that might weaken the cause of that country, to which he devoted his life, and for which he sacrificed it.The future historian of the United States, in considering the foundation of American independence, will find that one of the corner stones must be inscribed with the name of JAMES OTIS.

ORR, JOHN, was a worthy and much respected officer of the revolution. He was in the battle of Bennington, under general John Stark, and received a wound in the thigh in the early part of the engagement. The ball entered just above the knee joint, and lodged in the bone, which was much fractured, and large pieces were afterwards extracted. In consequence of this wound the knee joint became stiff, and he was a cripple the remainder of his life. As a man, a magistrate and a christian, but few have been more esteemed, or can be more deeply lamented. He possessed a strong discriminating mind, a sound judgment, and retentive memory, which eminently fitted him to discharge the duties of the several stations which he filled. For many years he represented the town of his residence in the general court, and for seven years in succession, was elected a senator from the seventh senatorial district. After the new division of the state into districts for the choice of senators, December 29, 1803, he was elected senator for district No. 5, the two succeeding years. He was afterwards, for a number of years in succession, the candidate for counsellor of the county of Hillsborough. He was among the oldest magistrates in the county, and had been in commission, as justice of the peace and of the quorum, more than twenty years. He died in Bedford, New-Hampshire, in the year 1823, aged 75 years.

PAINE, THOMAS, author of Common Sense, The Crisis, Rights of Man, &c. &c. was born in England, 1737. His education and early life differed in nothing from that of any other intelligent enterprising young mechanic. As soon as he had acquired a knowledge of his trade, he left his native town, Thetford, in Nottinghamshire, and went to London, with no higher (apparent) ambition, than that of establishing himself in business as a master stay maker. He next went to sea in a British privateer; after that he was an exciseman