SKETCH OF SAMUEL LATHAM MIT CHILL. 693 



work which, was afterward printed in the Medical Repository. As 

 a member of the Legislature, he supported, in the face of ridicule 

 and opposition, the act of 1798 giving Livingston and Fulton the 

 exclusive right to navigate the waters of New York by steam. 

 He performed, with Fulton, in August, 1807, the first voyage in a 

 steamboat. He was again chosen to the Assembly in 1797 as one 

 of the representatives from the city and county of New York for 

 a term of service which he marked as distinguished by his intro- 

 duction of a motion relative to the sixth commandment, requiring 

 citizens to -labor on the six days as well as to refrain from labor 

 on the seventh day. In 1801 he was elected to the national House 

 of Representatives, as member from the district consisting of the 

 counties of Kings and Richmond and the city and county of New 

 York. He was appointed to the Senate in 1804, to fill the vacancy 

 caused by the resignation of John Armstrong, and after the ex- 

 piration of his term there, in 1809, served in the House again till 

 1813. A bright picture of his life in Washington is given in the 

 letters written by him to his wife during his term of service, a 

 selection from which was published in Harper's Magazine in 1879. 

 They are full of the life of the politics and the society of the 

 capital, and the telling of the incidents is made more attractive 

 by the writer's always lively humor. 



The lines of Dr. MitchilFs work in Congress are indicated by 

 various notes in his letters and in the record which he has left of 

 Memorable Events and Occurrences in his life. During his first 

 term he was a member of committees of the House on Commerce 

 and Manufactures, .the Naturalization Laws, the protection of 

 American seamen and commerce against the Tripolitan corsairs, 

 Naval Affairs, memorials concerning perpetual motion, Patent 

 Rights, the Mint, and French spoliations. He labored in the 

 Senate for the adoption of improved quarantine laws, " and was 

 strenuous," says Dr. Francis, " to lessen the duty on the importa- 

 tion of rags, in order to render the manufacture of paper cheaper, 

 the better to aid the diffusion of knowledge by printing." In 

 December, 1811, he brought up for adoption by the House of 

 Representatives a report favorable to the "nascent nations" of 

 Spanish America, and " full of good wishes toward them in their 

 exertions to become free and independent." In connection with 

 the War of 1812 he acted as a commissioner under the Navy 

 Department in constructing a floating battery or heavy vessel 

 of war, to defend the sea-coast and harbors of the United States ; 

 and in 1814 he was found laboring jointly with his patriotic 

 neighbors, " with mattock and shovel, in the trenches for several 

 days, to erect fortifications against the enemy." 



National and social matters did not absorb Dr. MitchilFs atten- 

 tion in Washington to the exclusion of his interest in scientific 



