pro was neither sent to any of those seminaries in which per education could only be obtained, nor to acquire knowledge in the study of a profession. At the age of eighteen. years, when his father died, he had merely received two or three years' instruction at a country school, where he rapidly acquired the little knowledge it could confer. By the death of his father, in 1759, young Penn became his own guardian, and the sole manager of his patrimony, which was competent, but not large. If he had possessed any of those evil principles which so often spring from a neglected education, they would now have become manifest. Among all the snares and dangers which beset the path of the young and inexperienced, none are more efficacious, none more certain in their ruinous effects, than premature freedom of action, the loss of paternal direction, and the free posses-sion of pecuniary means for administering to the violence of the passions, and maintaining the excitement of evil propensities. But the mind of Mr. Penn was cast in the mould of virtue; and if exclusion from the world had contracted his knowledge of men and things, it had also the beneficial effect of keeping him beyond the influence of pernicious examples. At that period books were scarce, and the small collection of his father was without value; but young Penn, animated by an ardent desire to improve his understanding, availed himself of his vicinity to Edmund Pendleton, who was a relative of the family. This extraordinary man, and accomplished lawyer, was one of the most distinguished statesmen of Virginia. He was appointed a member of the first congress in 1774, but in 1775, declined a re-election on account of the state of his health. He was, for many years, one of the judges of the court of appeals of Virginia, with Blair and Wythe, and was its president at the time of his death. In 1787 he was appointed president of the convention of Virginia, which met to consider the constitution of the United States, and all the weight of his talents and character aided its adoption. After the federal government was organized, he was, in 1789, appointed by Washington, district judge for Virginia, but he declined the office. In 1798, when the difficulties between the United States and France approached almost to a rupture, the venerable patriarch, as he is properly termed by Mr. Adams, published a pamphlet protesting against a war with a sister republic. He died at Richmond, on the twenty-sixth of October, 1803, in the eighty-third year of his age. In affording this brief sketch of the services of Edmund Pendleton, we have been guided by the recollection, that sickness, alone, prevented him from holding a more conspicuous station in these pages. The only library within the reach of young Penn, was that which belonged to his accomplished relative, and he was freely and liberally gratified with the use of it. Profiting with unremitting industry, by this solitary advantage, he soon conceived the arduous idea of adopting the profession of the law. This project in a youth whose early days had been absolutely destitute of instruction, whose subsequent education had been so contracted, and whose existing advantages were restricted to the use of a library, with no other guide to his studies than his natural good sense, portrayed the character of a mind at once formed for triumph, and destined to elevate its possessor. "There be some sports are painful; but their labour and the laborum dulce lenimen of Mr. Penn, in the progress of his studies, was the anticipation of future fame, and the prospect of celebrity which was opened to his view through the long vista of the law. When he attained the age of twenty-one years, he enjoyed the reward of his unceasing application in his favourite pursuit, by obtaining a license to become a practitioner of law. Possessing great genius and industry, he soon became eminent for his eloquence and skill, and suddenly began to reap the fruits of his professional labours and merit. To great fluency he added promptitude of mind; and, in appropriate cases, never failed to employ the pathetic with equal force and propriety. He has been frequently known to draw tears from a court and jury, while his own were suffused by the sympathy of his sensations. This is not the parade of panegyric, but a fact to which distinguished living witnesses can bear testimony. His nearest relatives having removed to the province of North Carolina, Mr. Penn followed their example in the year 1774; and translated himself to new events, and to the study of new laws, with so much ease and celerity, that he immediately became as professionally eminent in that province as he had been in Virginia. It could not be expected that the comprehensive mind of Mr. Penn was inattentive to the progress of the political storm, which, after the most gloomy portents, now threatened to burst over the country. Although the particulars of his early individual opposition are unknown, it is obvious, from his subsequent appointments, that he maintained a conspicuous character as the opponent of tyranny and oppression; and that his conduct, during the tumultuous scenes which preceded the revolution, excited the attention and VOL. V.-U admiration of his fellow-citizens. He was not, however, elected a delegate to the first congress; but, on the resignation of Mr. Casewell, he was appointed, on the eighth of September, 1775, to supply the vacancy, and took his seat, as the representative of North Carolina, on the twelfth of the following October. In the subsequent year he inscribed his name upon a record of wrongs and rights, and a monument of political wisdom and personal devotion, which secured to it a never-dying reputation. He was successively re-elected. to congress in the years 1777, 1778, and 1779, and performed the duties of his station with promptitude and fidelity. Present, with few intermissions during this long period, at the post of duty, he was extensively engaged in the current business of the house, and zealously performed his portion of service, as a member of many important and secondary committees. In the year 1780, a heavy gloom overspread the face of American affairs, from the total ruin and dispersion of the army under general Gates, at the battle of Camden. Nothing now prevented lord Cornwallis from proceeding on his long-projected expedition into North Carolina, but the want of supplies for the army, which were on their way from Charleston. In the mean time, emissaries were sent into that state, with instructions to the friends of the British government to take arms, and seize the most violent of their persecutors, with all the magazines and stores for the use of the Americans, under an assurance that the British army would march, without loss of time, to their support. The severe measures adopted by the enemy, in relation to the estates and persons of those who remained faithful to the American cause, had now caused an adherent to independence to be considered, in that portion of the country, as one who courted exile, poverty, and ruin. But, although many yielded to temptation or to fear, and broke through all the ties which bound them to their country, a great variety of illustrious sacrifices were made at the shrine of liberty. At length, lord Cornwallis, on the eighth of September, began his march from Camden, proceeding through the settlement of Waxhaws to Charlottetown, in the western part of North Carolina. When general Gates was defeated, and the enemy advanced into her territory, North Carolina, stunned by the blow, and almost defenceless, turned her eyes towards Mr. Penn, and invested him with powers, almost dictatorial. Authorized to seize or impress supplies, to reanimate resistance, and surrounded by discouraged friends, hopeless well-wishers, or inveterate focs, he had a task to perform, not less arduous than delicate, and not less distressing than indispensable. But nature had formed him for the effort: indefatigable, cheerful, extremely conciliating in hist manners, firm in his political principles, and invigorated by an inextinguishable ardour, he passed through the crisis with honour to himself, and satisfaction to the state; having rendered services essential for the prosecution of the war where its pressure was most severe, and contributing materially towards the establishment of that independence, to the declaration of which he had affixed his signature. The incursion of lord Cornwallis was short and disastrous. The speedy reduction of the whole province was confidently expected, but, as an English historian remarks, to confound human wisdom, and set at naught the arrogance and presumption of man, unexpected incidents daily arise in the affairs of human life, which, conducted by an invisible hand, derange the best concerted schemes, as was exemplified in the event of the present expedition. The defeat of major Ferguson, who had advanced by another rout into North |