In 1763, Colonel Dyer went to England as the agent of the Susquehanna Company, to solicit from the Crown a confirmation of their title to the tract purchased of the Indians at Wyoming, and permission to settle a colony there. The application was resisted by Pennsylvania, and was still pending when war broke out between Great Britain and her American Colonies.

In September, 1765, he was appointed one (the first named) of the delegates from Connecticut to the "Stamp Act Congress" at New York-"the first great step towards Independence." A few days after the dissolution of this Congress, Col. Dyer was present at a meeting of the Connecticut Council in Hartford, called by Governor Fitch, Nov. 1st, to administer to him the oath required of all colonial governors, to enforce the Stamp Act. After a long debate, Jonathan Trumbull, refusing to witness a ceremony which he regarded as a surrender of the liberty of the Colonies, withdrew from the Council chamber. Colonel Dyer accompanied or promptly followed him, and with them went a majority—all but fourof the Board of Assistants. "I immediately arose, took my hat, and declared openly and publicly," wrote Col. Dyer to a friend, "that the oath about to be administered was in my opinion directly contrary to the oath the Governor and Council had before taken to maintain the rights and privileges of the people. It was an oath I myself could not take, neither could I be present aiding and assisting therein." At the next election, in May, 1766, the votes of the freemen manifested their approval of the course taken by the withdrawers. Governor Fitch and the four Assistants who remained to administer the Stamp-Act oath were left out of office.

Through the ten years' struggle against the exactions of Great Britain, to the actual outbreak of revolution, Colonel Dyer never wavered in his devotion to the popular cause. When the Connecticut Committee of Correspondence met at New London, July 13, 1774, authorized by the General Assembly to appoint delegates to the Congress at Philadelphia, their first choice fell upon Colonel Dyer, and he unhesitatingly accepted the appointment. He was present at the

opening of the Congress, Sept. 5th, and was a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Colonies, appointed on the 7th of September. He was re-elected to the Congress of 1775, and to each succeeding Congress till 1783, except those of 1776 and 1779.

In the spring of 1775, he was named one of the "Council of Safety," to assist the Governor in the management of all public affairs, when the General Assembly was not in session; and the Journals of this body show that he was continually employed in arduous duties, and in the discharge of important trusts. He had been appointed a judge of the superior court in 1766, and retained his seat on the bench until 1793, becoming Chief Judge in 1789. In 1787, Yale College conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

He appeared as one of the agents for Connecticut, before the Court of Commissioners appointed by Congress to finally determine the controversy with Pennsylvania respecting the Susquehanna lands, at the hearing in Trenton, in November, 1782.

After his resignation of the office of Chief Judge, he retired from public life. He died at Windham, May 13, 1807, ætatis 86.

Connecticut had no delegate in the Colonial Congress who surpassed Col. Dyer in zeal and devotion, in early comprehension of the magnitude of the issue involved in the controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies, or in unflinching determination to accept the issue, at all hazards, sooner than to submit to any infringement of the political rights of freemen. His judgment was sound and discrimi nating, and his integrity was so far beyond question that he retained, through more than half a century of public life, the unbounded confidence of his fellow-citizens. Even John Adams-chary as he was of praise-commended Col. Dyer as "an honest, worthy man," one who " means and judges well"-though, naturally, Mr. Adams thought he spoke in Congress "too frequently and too long." A few brief notes of one of his speeches, when the non-importation resolves were under discussion, in September, 1774, are preserved in

Adams's diary. They do not give the impression of a "longwinded and round-about speaker." "They have now drawn the sword," said Colonel Dyer, "in order to execute their plan of subduing America; and I imagine they will not sheath it, but that next summer will decide the fate of America

We are struggling for the liberties of the West Indies and of the people of Great Britain, as well as our own-and, perhaps, of Europe!"

EDMUND PENDLETON OF VIRGINIA.

BY DAVID H. STROTHER (PORTE CRAYON).

(Centennial Collection.)

Edmund Pendleton was born in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1721. His father dying before the son's birth, left the family in comparative poverty, so that in his earlier years, the boy had little opportunity for schooling, or instruction of any kind. At the age of fourteen he was placed in the office of Benjamin Robinson, clerk of Caroline County, a most efficient training school for a youth looking forward to the profession of the law.

Young Pendleton made the best use of the opportunities thus afforded, applying himself diligently to the business in hand, and at the same time, by working outside of his regular clerical duties, obtained the means of purchasing books, which enabled him to supply, in a measure, his lack of general education.

At the age of twenty-one he was duly licensed to practise law in the courts, and pursued his professional career with flattering success, and increasing reputation until these courts were closed by the coming storm of revolution in 1774. He had been elected to the House of Burgesses in 1752, and continued to serve in that body until it also became extinct.

Pendleton's views on the great question which then agi

tated men's minds have come down to us in his own hand

writing.

"When the dispute with Great Britain began, a redress of grievances, and not a Revolution of Government, was my wish."

The moderation of his views, and the unequalled ability with which he defended them against such assailants as Lee, Jefferson, and Henry, drew around him those of all shades of opinion opposed to the Revolution, and while uninfluenced by their peculiar personal interests, and entirely superior to the prejudices of their caste, he soon became the recognized leader of the cavalier, or conservative party of that period.

Although the conflict of opinion between men of commanding abilities and strong convictions was necessarily sharp, earnest, and exciting, yet the greatness of the occasion, with the sincere and lofty patriotism common to all the leading contestants, prevented these disputes from ever degenerating into personal rancor or unfriendliness. With all the leaders of the Revolutionary party Pendleton ever lived in mutual respect and lifelong friendship, while Jefferson, in his memoirs (vol. i. p. 30), says of him, "taken all in all, he was the ablest man in debate I ever met with."

But when the momentous question was at length decided, and the time for discussion past, pride of opinion readily yielded to a sense of patriotic duty, and his recent opponents in debate paid the highest tribute to his great character by calling him to fill the most arduous and responsible positions in the Revolutionary Government. Thereafter we find him sustaining the cause (now that of his people and his country) with a devotion surpassed by none of those who had from the beginning been most zealous for separation from the Mother Country.

By resolution of the Virginia Convention he was made Chairman of the Committee of Safety, virtually the legisla tive, judicial, and executive head of the Colony, in the crisis of its stormy transition from dependent vassalage to untried freedom. He was elected to the General Congress in 1774, and again in 1775, but was prevented by indisposition from

attending the latter session. He was President of the Convention of December, 1775, and also that of May, 1776, and author of the resolutions which instructed its Representatives in Congress to declare for "Independence."

He was the intimate friend of Washington, who tendered him high judicial and political position in the Federal Government, all of which he modestly but firmly declined. He was President of the Virginia Convention of 1788, which met to deliberate on the new Federal Constitution, and ably advocated its adoption. He was for a quarter of a century the Presiding Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals, and died in that office on the 28th of October, 1803, in the eightythird year of his age.

In person, Edmund Pendleton was eminently handsome, graceful, and prepossessing, with manners so fascinating as to win all who came within their influence, and these natural advantages doubtless served to enhance the value of his high mental and moral qualities. He was twice married, but died childless, leaving his good works and spotless name to the gratitude and admiration of posterity.

HENRY MIDDLETON.

PRESIDENT OF THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

BY CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.

(Centennial Collection.)

Henry Middleton, of South Carolina, was one of three sons of Arthur Middleton, who, in 1719, headed the revolution against the Lords Proprietors. The eldest son, William, went to England to take possession of the family estate of "Crowfield," in Suffolk, and his descendant, Sir George Broke Middleton, admiral in the royal navy, has now in his possession at Shrubland Park, Suffolk, a portrait of Henry Middleton, the subject of this sketch. Thomas Middleton, the