I9I2.] BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. 583 



of the home of our society that the first admitted to our ranks was 

 a Pennsylvanian by birth, Benjamin West. He was elected on June 

 lo, 1768. By the generosity of Colonel Joseph Shippen, himself a 

 member of this society, who served under General Forbes in the 

 capture of Fort du Quesne (1758), Andrew Allen, and the kind aid 

 of other friends, West, after studying in this country, was enabled 

 to study in Europe. Before his death, West had the pleasure of 

 knowing that he had gained an international reputation. Another 

 painter who was a fellow member, John Trumbull, a commissioner 

 appointed by Washington to act under Article VII. of Jay's Treaty 

 in the settlement of claims of American citizens against Great 

 Britain, has left to America many a historic canvas. Charles Wilson 

 Peale and Robert Edge Pine were both elected July 21, 1786. Peale 

 was the founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, of 

 which another of our members and a leading citizen of Philadelphia, 

 George Clymer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was 

 chosen in 1805 the first president. Robert Edge Pine, the son of 

 John Pine, an artist of distinction, was born in London, and died 

 in Philadelphia, November 19, 1788. He won the first prize in 

 1760 of £100 ofifered by the society for the encouragement of the 

 arts for the best historical picture presented that year, his " Sur- 

 render of Calais," with life size figures, and two years later gaining 

 another prize with his picture " Canute Reproving his Courtiers," 

 Pine rose into prominence. He painted portraits of John Wilkes, 

 David Garrick and other well-known men of the day in Great 

 Britain, About 1782 or 1783, Pine brought his family over to 

 America. He had letters of introduction to Francis Hopkinson, 

 whose portrait he painted. Hopkinson wrote to Washington intro- 

 ducing Pine and asking the general to sit to the latter for his por- 

 trait. This brought out from Washington the famous " In for a 

 penny, in for a pound " letter. However, Washington sat for Pine, 

 and the resulting portrait was engraved for Irving's " Life of Wash- 

 ington." On July 17, 1835, Thomas Sully, another portrait painter 

 and a Philadelphian, was elected a member. The portrait of Thomas 

 Jefiferson, which belongs to the society, who sat in yonder chair 

 when he drafted the Declaration of Independence, we owe to Sully's 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, LI. 207 K, PRINTED JAN. I7, I9I3. 



