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You will soon receive several instructions from the General Court which have passed in Senate. One of them is to use your endeavors to obtain an ordinance of Congress, that for the future their Secretary be elected annually.

Another, that no gentleman be appointed to offices of high trust while he is a member of that body.

Mr Lowell acquainted me with federal politics. Mr Sullivan is exceeding ill, his life despaired of.

We have added Mr Parsons to the Agency, and it appears to me necessary that we add another.

My respects to the President, your colleagues, and other friends

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I congratulate you on your appointment, it has given much pleasure to your Republican friends in this quarter.

Allow me to call to your recollection young Prevost who was Secretary to Munroe and is now in Paris. I have thought that he might be useful to you in the same character, as he writes and speaks the French language with great accuracy and facility and possesses other advantages from his knowledge of country and of characters.

Present me respectfully to Mrs G, and be assured of my very great attachment and esteem

Hon Mr Gerry

A. Burr.

NOTES

THE PAST AND THE PRESENT-Rev. G. R. Van de Water, the first graduate of Cornell University ever invited to preach a baccalaureate sermon in Sage Chapel (June 15), touching upon the topics suggested by his text, said: "Joy and happiness prove themselves perpetual by the way they impress themselves on the mind, while tribulation and sorrow are seen to be temporal in the fact that all memory of them fades away when they are past. We seem in fishing up the things of the past to drop out of our drag-net all the sand, the sea-weed and the drift-wood, and retain only the tinted shells, with brilliant exteriors, smooth lining of pearl, and when held to the ear sounding the soft murmurings of a receding and unwritten music, angelic and sublime. One effect of all this is good. Another effect is dangerous, and needs to be guarded against. If it serve to make us forget the unpleasant things of the past, well. If in any estimate it cause us to paint the past in brighter colors than it deserves, then croak over the present and despair of the future,

Fanciful retrospection is a good thing for sentiment. It is a very bad thing for fact. Solomon rebukes the people for saying 'former days were better,' and tells them in this ye inquire not wisely.' To inquire wisely in the matter of estimate between past times and present ones, we must take epochs. The movement of society is not like the current of a rapid river running unceasingly in one direction, but rather like the swing of the mighty ocean with the rising of the tide. One wave comes in, breaks, rolls back. A single

Fix your eye

glance shows no progress. for a half-hour on one point, and you see with all that flux and reflux of the waves, a steady advance.

"Never times better than these, never opportunities for greatness in everything good more abundant than now. This is an age of unceasing progress in the arts, in the sciences, in the moral and religious culture of the races. The golden fruits of a ripening civilization are waving upon a thousand fields. Our time is distinguished above all its predecessors for the increase of liberty, for the security of chartered rights, for a greater amount, present and prospective, of intelligence, industry, peace, order and prosperity. The Brotherhood of Men and the Fatherhood of God are two articles of a common faith, which reveals the unique features of the times. Art, science, commerce, philosophy and religion are working together to bring men to realize that God hath made of one blood all races of the earth, and that the highest law of life is that they love one another."

BURGOYNE'S ORDERLY BOOK-Among the many invaluable Revolutionary documents which are preserved at Washington's Headquarters in Newburgh, few possess greater attractions for the student of American history than the Orderly Book of Gen. Burgoyne, from the time he entered the State at the north, till his surrender to the American troops, under Gen. Gates, at Saratoga, on October 16, 1777. The book contains the terms of surrender as agreed between the two generals. On the last page of

the book may be found the following interesting account of incidents connected with Burgoyne's personal surrender. We give it below, with its original orthography, capital letters, etc.

"When Genl. Burgoyne arrived at Bemises Heights he was received by Genl. Gates at the Head of the Continental Army, which was drawn up upon that occasion. Genl. Gates advanced to receive him, told him he was glad to see him"-Genl. Burgoyne replyed, "I am not glad to see you,-it is my Fortune, Sir, but not my Fault." Genl. Schuylers Carriage was sent for to receive and conduct Genl. Redsall, his wife and five Children to Albany-Genl. Burgoyne and the rest of the Staff-officers were escorted on Horseback-They all dined at Genl. Schuyler's. At Table Genl. Gates drank the King of Great Britain's Health. Genl. Burgoyne in return thanked him, and in the next Glass drank, the "Continental Congress." Genl. Burgoyne observed to Genl. Gates, he admired the Number, Dress, and Discipline of his Army: but above all the Decorum and Regularity was observed: said, your Funds of Men are inexhaustible; like the Hydra's Head, when cut off, seven more sprung up in its stead. When Genl. Burgoyne arrived ip Albany, the Boys gathering 'round cryed out- make Elbow Room there' -the Rejaycing word."- Newburgh Daily Journal.

ANDRE'S PRISON AT TAPPAN-[III. 743, V. 57]-To be sold at Private Sale, that noted house and lot where Casparus Mabie formerly lived, at Tappan, two miles from the North River, and twentyfour from Hobuck Ferry: It is a convenient stone building, four rooms on a

floor. There is likewise on said place a good barn, garden, and sundry other conveniences. Whoever inclines to purchase may apply to Mrs. Elizabeth Herring, on the premises, Mr. Cornelius C. Roosevelt, at New York, or to Doctor G. Stones, in Morris County.-N. Y. Gazette, Feb. 26, 1776.

AND HISTORY

W. K.

Presi

LITERATURE dent McCosh, at Princeton College, said in his baccalaureate sermon of June 15, 1884: "Literature should fall down before its king. Speech is the gift of God. We are not to regard blessings we enjoy as less a gift from on high because they come from second causes. Literature, in all its forms, is a divine endowment. God has made a revelation of his will in the highest forms of literature. No. one wrote purer history than Moses. Deeper themes are discussed in the Book of Job and in a grander manner than in the tragedies of Eschylus. We have no lyrics like those by David. I shrink from comparing any other literature with the discourse of our Lord. Paul had a style much like his character, abrupt, living, piercing like a sword, and yet lifting us to Heaven in its sublimity. Our literature owes much to Athens and Rome, but much also to Jerusalem. The Bible has given the world new ideas,

such as are not found elsewhere in the province of letters. Grand and tender ideas have been thrown into the thought of men by religion. Superb themes for poetry and eloquence have been furnished. It is thus that high enjoyment is attained and the mind refined. Literature, like every other work of man, is under the law of God."

QUERIES

olutionary War," after giving a most indignant account of the plundering of the Public Libraries in New York by the British troops, says, "To do justice even to rebels, let it be here mentioned, that though they were in full possession of New York for nearly seven months, and had in it at times above 40,000 men, neither of those libraries were ever meddled with (the telescope which General Washington took excepted.)" Vol. II. p. 137.

THE FIRST ENGLISH TAVERN-KEEPER "History of New York during the RevIN THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK-What was his name? "On Saturday last departed this life Mrs. Elizabeth Cockran, in the 92nd year of her age. Her Father was the first Englishman who ever kept a Tavern in this Province after it was conquered from the Dutch. She was the wife of Capt. Cockran, and supported the character of a good Christian." I take the above from Gaine's New York Gazette and Mercury of Nov. 27, 1780. Can any of your readers give us his name? Perhaps some member of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society may be able to do it.

WESTCHESTER

I suppose Washington heard of the telescope, and sent a request for it, and obtained it through Berrien and Wilmot from the Provincial Convention.

Where is this telescope, and does it not belong to Columbia College now? or did Washington practically consider it a capture?

OPTIC

EDITOR OF MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY-In looking through Drake's Dictionary of American Biography, I notice there are two Livingstons mentioned as signers to the Declaration of Independence, Robert R. and Philip; as Philip Livingston's signature is attached to the Document, why was Robert R. Livingston's omitted?

THE TELESCOPE OF WASHINGTON, TAKEN FROM KINGS COLLEGE-Where is it? In the "Journals of the Provincial Congress, Provincial Convention and Committee of Safety of New York," vol. I. p. 561, under date of August 8th 1776 -the Convention then sitting at Harlem -appears the following: "A letter from John Berrien and Henry Wilmot, Esqrs., dated and received yesterday, was read and filed. They therein mention that they had by application to the Reverend Mr. Inglis [then Rector of Trinity Church and a Trustee of Kings College] obtained the telescope belonging to the college for the use of His AMSTERDAM, NEW YORK, July 12, 1884 Excellency General Washington, and delivered it to his aid-de-camp, whom the General had sent to receive it; that Mr. Inglis readily consented to the delivery of it, and the General had been. anxious to obtain it." Judge Thomas Jones in his striking and interesting

JOHN ROWE

[Robert R. Livingston had the honor of being chosen one of a committee of five to draft the

Declaration of Independence; but owing to absence, he was prevented from signing the document, having been summoned to New York to attend the Provincial Congress, of which he was a member.-EDITOR.]

REPLIES

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THE LEADEN PLATE (xi. 360)-What evidence has Mr. Lambing that De Celeron's (not Oloron) plate deposited at the "Indian God Rock" (No. 2 on Mr. Marshall's map) was found by a boatman named Andrew Shall in 1832?

Rupp, Albach and others say that this Historical Sketch of Venango County, plate was found. Rev. Dr. Eaton, in his 1876, says (p. 5), "This plate was not permitted to remain long in its little bed,

as it was stolen by the Indians, and taken to the State of New York, that the 'devilish writing,' as they called it, might be interpreted."

Dr. Wm. H. Eyle, in his History of Penn-Venango County (p. 1122), gives Dr. Eaton's second statement: "This

term was afterward transferred to the plate was stolen from Joncaice by the

State and its inhabitants."

MELROSE, Mass.

E. H. G.

BLUE HEN'S CHICKENS [xii. 89]During the Revolutionary War, a company or regiment from Delaware, under an officer named Caldwell, became known as "game-cocks" from their valor and the fact that their commander was noted for his fondness for cock-fighting. Caldwell had a theory that a genuine gamecock must descend from a blue hen, and hence the men of his command were

Senecas the following year, and brought to Colonel Johnson to be read, who made good use of it to exasperate them against the French."

Mr. Marshall (Mag. Am. His., ii. 129, et seq.) shows conclusively that this stolen plate had not been buried, or dug up or used, but that, as the Cayuga Sachem stated, "the Senecas got it by some artifice from Jean Coevr."

Now Mr. Marshall, a writer of such careful research that it is not safe to dispute his statements without evidence, says in his article (ii. 141) of the French

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