SKETCH OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 841 



mittee of Safety, to arrange for casting cannon ; to view a site for 

 the erection of a Continental powder-mill; to conduct experi- 

 ments for rifling cannon and musket balls ; to devise a method 

 of fastening a chain for the protection of the river ; to superin- 

 tend the manufacture of saltpeter, and to locate a magazine for 

 military stores. He was a member of the Committee of Safety 

 in April, its vice-president in August, and its presiding officer in 

 November, 1776. In 1776 he was a member of the Assembly from 

 Philadelphia, and a member of the first Constitutional Conven- 

 tion of Pennsylvania ; a member of the Board of War ; and one 

 of the Council of Safety, which had absolute powers. He was 

 the first State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, from 1777 to 1789, when 

 he declined to serve any longer. He was the first Director of the 

 United States Mint, serving for three years from 1792; and he 

 was called upon on several occasions to serve on commissions for 

 the adjustment of boundaries. In connection with these public 

 employments we find a curious letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. 

 Rittenhouse, written in 1778, protesting against his wasting his 

 abilities on affairs of state. " I am satisfied," he says, " that there 

 is an order of geniuses above that obligation [to conduct govern- 

 ment], and therefore exempt from it. No one can conceive that 

 Nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupa- 

 tions of a crown. It would have been a prodigality for which 

 even the conduct of Providence might have been arraigned, had he 

 been by birth annexed to what was so far below him. ... I doubt 

 not there are in your country many persons equal to the task of 

 conducting government ; but you should consider that the world 

 has but one Rittenhouse, and that it never had one before." 



Mr. Rittenhouse was Professor of Astronomy in the University 

 of Pennsylvania from 1779 till 1782, and was a trustee of the insti- 

 tution, continuing in that office after its reorganization in 1791. 

 He was made one of the secretaries of the American Philosophi- 

 cal Society in 1771 ; became its vice-president in 1786 ; and suc- 

 ceeded Benjamin Franklin as president, on his death in 1790. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sci- 

 ences in 1782, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1795. He received degrees from the College of Philadelphia, 

 William and Mary College, and Princeton College. 



He was tall and slender, quick in gait, had a countenance 

 " indicative of intelligence, complacency, and goodness," and a 

 disposition and manners that secured him friends and kept 

 them. He bore testimony against the slave trade, and sympa- 

 thized with the original motives of the French Revolution to 

 such an extent that he assisted in the organization of the Dem- 

 ocratic Society, and was made its president but this was before 

 the excesses of the Revolution were committed. While he 



