spicuous position. He continued in command of the artillery, at Albany, until the Autumn of 1778, when he became attached to Colonel Lamb's regiment, in the New York line. He was made lieutenant-colonel, by brevet, in April, 1778. For the contemplated invasion of Canada, La Fayette selected him as the chief of his artillery; and early in 1781, he accompanied the Marquis into Virginia, to oppose Arnold. General Knox, the commander-in-chief of the artillery, had the highest confidence in his excellence, and invested him with full powers, in the Autumn of 1781, to collect and forward artillery munitions for the siege of Yorktown. In the decisive actions which resulted in the capture of Cornwallis and his army, Colonel Stevens was eminently efficient; and in Trumbull's picture of that event, he is seen mounted, at the head of his regiment. From that time until the close of the war, he was with Colonel Lamb at West Point and vicinity; and when peace came, he commenced mercantile life in the city of New York. He accepted office in the military corps of his adopted State, and rose to the rank of major-general, commanding the division of artillery of the State of New York. In 1800, he superintended the construction of the fortifications on Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York. He held the office of major-general of artillery when another war with England occurred, in 1812, and he was called into the service of the United States, in defence of the city of his adoption. He was senior major-general until the return of peace, in 1815. For many years he was among the most distinguished merchants of the commercial metropolis, and died at the green old age of about seventy-one years, on the 2d of September, 1823.

ISAIAH THOMAS.

PRINTING, "the art preservative of all arts," has been represented, at all

times in its history, by men eminent for their intellectual greatness and extensive social and political influence. Philosophers, statesmen, and theologians, of the highest order of genius, have been fellows of the craft. Eminent among the best was Isaiah Thomas, the historian of the art. He was born in Boston, in 1749, and at six years of age, being the son of a poor widow, he was placed in charge of Zechariah Fowle, a ballad and pamphlet printer, to learn the great art. After an apprenticeship of eleven years, he went to Nova Scotia, where he worked for a Dutch printer, awhile. There, as well as in the other colonies, the Stamp Act was just beginning to create much opposition to the imperial government, and young Thomas, who had been nurtured in the Boston school of politics, took a prominent part against the measure. He was threatened with arrest, but the repeal of the act lulled the storm, and in 1767, he returned to New England. He afterward went to Wilmington, North Carolina, and also to Charleston, in search of employment, but without success. Disappointed and poor he returned to Boston, in 1770, and formed a business partnership with his old master. It continued only three months, when Thomas purchased the printing establishment of Fowle, on credit, worked industriously and well, and in March following he issued the first number of "The Massachusetts Spy a weekly political and commercial Paper; open to all Parties, but influenced by None." It gave the ministerial party a great deal of uneasiness, and vain efforts were made to control or destroy it. When the British held martial

1. Fowle & Thomas had issued a tri-weekly paper with this name the previous year, but it did not continue long. The new weekly paper was printed on a larger sheet than any yet published in Boston. 2. An article against the government, which appeared in the Spy toward the close of 1771, caused Governor Hutchinson to order Thomas before the council, to answer. The bold printer refused ccm

rule in Boston, in 1775, Thomas took his establishment to Worcester, and fourteen days after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, he commenced the publication of the Spy, there. He continued in Worcester after the war, and was blessed with prosperity. He formed a partnership, in 1788, and opened a printing-house and book-store in Boston, under the firm of Thomas and Andrews. They planted similar establishments in other places, to the number of eight; and in 1791, they published a fine folio edition of the Bible. By industry and economy, Thomas amassed a handsome fortune, and was an honored citizen of his adopted town. He was one of the principal founders of the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, and was its president and chief patron. In 1810, he printed and published his History of Printing in America, in two octavo volumes, which has ever been a standard work on the subject. He lived more than twenty years afterward, the Patriarch of the Press. His death occurred at Worcester on the 4th of April, 1831, when he was eighty-two years of age.

RUFUS KING.

ALMOST every young man of talent, at the commencement of the War for

Independence, engaged in the public service, civil or military, and oftentimes in both. Young men of every profession and from every class became soldiers, as volunteers or levies, or took part in the public councils. These were schools of the highest practical importance to those who were to be participants in the founding of the new republican confederation. Among the worthiest and most active of these, was Rufus King, son of an eminent merchant of Scarborough, Maine. He was born in the year 1755, and received a good preparatory education under Samuel Moody, of Byfield. He entered Harvard College, in 1773, and remained there until the students were dispersed when the American army gathered around Boston. Young King resumed classical studies with his old teacher in the Autumn of 1775. He returned to college in 1777, and was graduated with great reputation as a classical scholar and expert orator. He studied law under Judge Parsons, at Newburyport, after having served as aid to General Glover, for a short time, in Sullivan's expedition against the British on Rhode Island, in the Summer of 1778. In 1780, he was admitted to the bar, and his first effort, as a pleader, was as adverse counsel to his eminent lawtutor. It was an effort of great power, and opened at once the high road to proud distinction in his profession. The people appreciated his talent; and in 1784, he was elected to a seat in the legislature of Massachusetts. He was chosen a representative of Massachusetts, in Congress, the same year; and in 1785, he introduced a resolution, in that body, to prohibit slavery in the territories north-west of the Ohio river. In 1787, he was chosen a delegate to the Federal Convention, and there he was one of the most efficient and zealous friends of the constitution framed by that body. In the Massachusetts convention called to consider that instrument, he nobly advocated its high claims to support. He soon afterward made New York city his residence, for there he had married Miss Alsop, daughter of one of the delegates in the first Continental Congress; and there was a wider field for his extraordinary mental powers. He was chosen a member of the State Legislature, in 1789, and in the Summer

pliance; and the attorney-general tried, but in vain, to have him indicted by the grand jury. Such resistance was made to these measures, that the government at length deemed it prudent to cease efforts to silence his seditious voice.

Rujus King

of that year, he and General Schuyler were elected the first senators in Congress, from New York. On the promulgation of the treaty made by Jay, with the British government, in 1794, there was much excitement, and King and Hamilton warmly defended it, in a series of papers signed Camillus, all of which, except the first ten, were written by the former. In the United States Senate, he was one of the most brilliant of its orators, and his influence was everywhere potential.

In the Spring of 1796, President Washington appointed Mr. King minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, where he continued to represent his country with great dignity and ability during the whole of Mr. Adams' administration, and the first two years of Mr. Jefferson's. During his sojourn in London, he successfully adjusted many difficulties between his own government and that of Great Britain, and he possessed the warmest personal esteem of the first men in Europe. After his return home, in 1803, he retired to his farm, on Long Island, and remained in comparative repose until aroused to action by the events immediately preceding the war declared in 1812. While at the court of Great Britain, he had made unwearied efforts to induce that government to abandon its unjust and offensive system of impressing seamen into the naval service, and he took an active part in public affairs during the first year of the war. He was

elected to the United States Senate, for six years, in 1813, and in 1820, he was reelected for the same length of time. Hoping to be useful to his country in the adjustment of some foreign relations, Mr. King accepted the appointment of minister to Great Britain, from Mr. Adams, in 1825, and took up his residence in London. Severe illness during the voyage disabled him for active duties, and after being absent about a year, he returned home. His health gradually failed, and on the 29th of April, 1827, he died at his seat, near Jamaica, Long Island, at the age of seventy-two years.

HENRY LEE.

THE arm of don St Henry Lee, and its commander was one of the most HE right arm of the Southern army, under General Greene, was the legion

useful officers throughout the war. He was born in Virginia, on the 29th of January, 1756. His early education was intrusted to a private tutor under his father's roof, and his collegiate studies were at Princeton, under the guidance of the patriotic Dr. Witherspoon. There he was graduated in 1774; and two years afterward, when only twenty years of age, he was appointed, on the nomination of Patrick Henry, to the command of one of the six companies of cavalry raised by his native State for the Continental service. These were at first under the general command of the accomplished Colonel Theodoric Bland. In 1777, Lee's corps was placed under the immediate command of Washington, and it soon acquired a high character for discipline and bravery. Its leader was promoted to major, with the command of a separate corps of cavalry; and with this legion he performed many daring exploits. In July, 1779, he captured a British fort, at Paulus's Hook (now Jersey City), for which Congress gave him thanks and a gold medal. He was at Tappan when Andrè was tried and condemned, in the Autumn of 1780; and from his corps Washington selected the brave Sergeant Champe to attempt the seizure of Arnold, in New York, so as to punish the really guilty, and let the involuntary spy go free.2

Lee was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, in November, 1780, and early in 1781, he joined the army under Greene, in the Carolinas. In connection with Marion, and other Southern partisans, he performed efficient service for many months, in the region of the Santee and its tributaries. He was active in Greene's famous retreat before Cornwallis, from the Yadkin to the Virginia shores of the Dan, and in the battles at Guilford, Augusta, Ninety-Six. and Eutaw Springs, the services of his legion were of vast importance, for Lee was always in the front of success as well as of danger. Soon after the latter battle, he left the field, returned to Virginia, and married a daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee, of Stratford. He bore to civil life the assurance of his Southern commander, that his services had been greater than those of any one man attached to the army.

Mr. Lee resided with his father-in-law, and in 1786, was elected to a seat in

1. He was a native of Virginia, qualified himself for the practice of medicine, but cast it aside for the duties of a soldier, when the war broke out. He performed many brilliant services with his corps of dragoons, and he was in command of the British and German captives, taken at Saratoga, while on their march to, and residence in Virginia. In 1780, he was elected to a seat in Congress. He was opposed to the Federal Constitution, but acquiesced in the will of the majority, and represented his district in the Federal Congress. He died at New York, in June, 1790, while attending a session of Congress, at the age of forty-eight years.

2. Washington was anxious to save Andre, and made great efforts to secure the person of Arnold. Sergeant Champe went to the British in New York, as a deserter, enlisted in Arnold's corps, and just as his scheme for seizing the traitor and conveying him across the Hudson, on a dark night, was perfected, that corps embarked for Virginia, with Champe. He afterward deserted, and joined Lee's legion in North Carolina.

the Continental Congress, where he served his constituency faithfully until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In 1791, he succeeded Beverly Randolph as governor of Virginia, and held that office three consecutive years. When, in 1794, resistance to excise laws was made in Western Pennsylvania, and the speck of civil war, known as The Whiskey Insurrection, appeared, Washington appointed Governor Lee to the command of the troops sent to quell the rebellion. He performed his duty well, but made many bitter enemies among the contemners of the law. In 1799, he was a member of the Federal Congress, and was chosen by that body to pronounce a funeral oration, on the death of Washington, in the hall of the House of Representatives. He retired to private life, in 1801, and for many years was much annoyed by pecuniary embarrassments. It was while restrained within the limits of Spottsylvania county, by his creditors, in 1809, that he wrote his interesting Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States. He was active in attempts to quell a political mob, in Baltimore, in 1814, and was so severely wounded, that he never recovered. Towards the close of 1817, he went to the West Indies, for his health, but found no sensible relief. On his return the following Spring, he stopped to visit a daughter of General Greene, on Cumberland Island, on the coast of Georgia, and there he expired on the 25th of March, 1818, at the age of sixty-two years.

L

JOHN RUTLEDGE.

IKE Governor Trumbull in New England, John Rutledge was the soul of patriotic activity in South Carolina, during the darkest period of the Revolution, whether in civil authority or as general director of military movements. He was a native of Ireland, and came to America with his father, Doctor John Rutledge, in 1735. After receiving the best education that could be obtained in Charleston, he went to London, and prepared for the profession of the law, at the Temple. In 1761, he returned to Charleston, became an active and highly esteemed member of his profession, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Gadsden, Laurens, and others, in defence of popular rights. He was chosen one of the representatives of his adopted State, in the first Continental Congress, with his brother, Edward, as one of his colleagues. When, in the Spring of 1776, the civil government of South Carolina was revised, and a temporary State Constitution was framed, Rutledge was appointed president of the State, and commander-in-chief of its military. Under his efficient administration, Charleston was prepared for the attack made in June, by Clinton and Parker, and the enemy was repulsed. His patriotism was never doubted, yet, like many others of the aristocracy, he had not entire faith in the wisdom and integrity of the people. When, therefore, in 1778, a permanent constitution for South Carolina was adopted, he refused his assent, because he thought it too democratic. His prejudice yielded, however, and in 1779, he was chosen governor under it, and was invested with temporary dictatorial powers by the legislature. He took the field at the head of the militia, and managed both civil and military affairs with great skill and energy, until after the fall of Charleston, in 1780.2 When Greene, aided by the southern partisan leaders, drove the British from the interior, to

1. This was the most celebrated place for law students in London. The building or buildings were so called, because they formerly belonged to the Knights Templars. They are designated as the Inner and the Middle Temple. The original Temple-hall, or house of the Templars, was erected in 1572; and Temple-bar was built just one hundred years afterward.

2 Charleston was besieged in the Spring of 1780, by a combined land and naval force, under General Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot. It was defended by Lincoln, with a feeble force, for nearly three months. On the 12th of May, 1780, it was surrendered to the British.