216 EULOGY 



ditions, boundary surveys, and explorations, for close, searching investigations; 

 which led to important improvements and to cordial support. The great work 

 of the extension of the Capitol found in him a wise advocate and judicious friend. 

 Not afraid of what was new, he yet aimed at nothing for the sake of novelty. 

 In connexion with the decoration of our public buildings, our sculptors and 

 painters found in him a most enlightened appreciator of their works, and one 

 always ready to promote the great cause of their art by legitimate means. 



He had a remarkable power of attaching to himself men of science, literature, 

 and art, and, in return, found in them some of his most intimate and highly- 

 prized companionships. His, friendships were warm, and once formed, were 

 proof against all trials of absence or change of fortune. Many of his ardent 

 attachments reverted to the friends and associates of his parents, and to family 

 relations of even an older date, acquiring in his breast a sacred title by the 

 claims of the past. 



The genial elements of his character naturally expanded most freely in the 

 circle of his family and friends, where he was truly and ever at home. His 

 garden, its fruits and flowers, were his habitual delight ; his farm and its opera- 

 tions seemed to touch by association the springs of his deepest affections. Ho 

 superintended every process with a judgment rarely at fault, and watched all 

 the varied developments of nature with the interest of the amateur or the natur- 

 alist. Whoever had not seen Mr. Pearce in his dwelling, in his garden, or upon 

 his farms, knew him but imperfectly. 



James Alfred Pearce, the colleague, the counsellor, the friend, to whom 

 we must now bid a final adieu, was born in the town of Alexandria, then part 

 of the District of Columbia, December 14, 1805. His parents, who were of 

 Scottish descent, and citizens of Maryland, dying during his childhood, the care 

 of his education devolved upon his maternal grandfather, the late Dr. Dick, of 

 Alexandria, an eminent physician of that day, who will be remembered by the 

 student of American history as having been one of the medical attendants who 

 ministered at the dying bed of Washington. So rapid yet thorough was the 

 progress of the young student in the rudimentary stages of education, that he 

 graduated at Princeton College at the boyish age of seventeen, bearing away 

 from competitors of no ordinary ability, and much subsequent distinction, the 

 highest honors of his class. Having adopted the law as his profession, and 

 permanently settled at Chestertowu, Maryland, the former residence of his 

 parents, he soon received the earnest of future success in the confidence, affec- 

 tion, and support of the community — a community to whose favor he might, 

 indeed, already look forward in virtue of the memory of a meritorious and dis- 

 tinguished ancestry. His first step upon the more public stage which was 

 thenceforth to be the scene of his labors and success was his unsolicited election 

 to the legislature of Maryland, in 1831. From that day, with a single inter- 

 val of two years, his talents and time were devoted to the service of his fellow- 

 citizens in the halls of legislation, his career having led him, by a progression 

 founded on the uncanvassed but ever-increasing confidence and respect of the 

 people, through the House of Representatives to the Senate chamber, in which 

 he was fulfilling the unexpired term of a third election at the period of his 

 death. 



His characteristic qualities and tendencies as a legislator have been already 

 slightly touched upon in this memorial, but whoever recalls the momentous 

 events, the gigantic and often acrimonious struggles for ascendency, the por- 

 tentous and brilliant debates which, from 1S35 to 1861, fixed the public at- 

 tention, and excited the alternate hopes and fears of contending parties ; 

 whoever pictures to himself the majestic forms which then occupied the legis- 

 lative arena, will remember that, through all these events, and measuring him- 

 self in no unequal competition with the foremost men of that earnest time,, 

 our colleague continued to advance steadily in public appreciation, to fill a yet 



