UEPOUT OF THE COUNCIL. 



Since the last report, May 9, 1877, the Academy has lost by 

 death fifteen members, as follows : eight Fellows, George 

 Bemis, George T. Bigelow, Edward H. Clarke, John Lothrop 

 Motley, Charles Pickering, Edmund Quincy, John H. Temple, 

 and John E. Tyler ; two Associate Fellows, Joseph Henry, 

 J. P. Kirtland ; five Foreign Honorary Members, Fries, 

 LeVerrier, Regnault, Thiers, and Count Sclopis. 



GEORGE BEMIS. 



George Bemis was bora at "Watertown, Massachusetts, Octo- 

 ber 13, 1816, and died at Nice, in France, January 5, 1878. He 

 was the son of Seth Bemis, a manufacturer in Watertown, from whom 

 he inherited a good property. He graduated at Harvard College in 

 1835, and at the Dane Law School in 1839, and was admitted to the 

 bar in the same year. " His legal training," it has been said, " was 

 very thorough ; and his learning, acuteuess, diligence, and fidelity 

 gave him very soon a good position at the bar and a profitable prac- 

 tice." He distinguished himself in several criminal cases, — especially 

 as junior counsel, in the year 1850, at the trial of Dr. Webster for the 

 murder of Dr. Parkman. 



Ill-health compelled his withdrawal from practice in the year 1858. 

 After that time, he travelled much in Europe, and pursued with in- 

 terest the study of public and international law. During the War of 

 the Rebellion, he made important contributions to the discussion of 

 some of the principal questions relating to neutral and belligerent 

 rights, and published several pamphlets on these subjects. 



" Mr. Bemis was a man of singular purity and refinement of charac- 

 ter. . . . He was never married ; but was social, friendly, and hospita- 

 ble, affectionate, and sincere." 



He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and of 

 this Academy ; and he left a legacy to each of these societies. To Har- 

 vard College, also, he left the sum of fifty thousand dollars, for the 

 endowment of " a professorship of public or international law in the 

 Dane Law School." 



