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15 
were in the fore part of the ship, 
P he would actually run to the cabin, 
4 ” give the a coat be had 
g the sea, in 1803, he was appointed President of 
jssex Fire and Marine Insurance Company in Salem, the 
duties of which he continued to discharge till the year 1823. 
During this time he was frequently solicited to accept posts of 
honor and-emolument in various literary institutions, in different 
parts of the country.. Though his salary as President of the In- 
surance Company was small, being only twelve hundred dollars, 
yet the larger offers from a distance could not induce him to 
leave his blessed New England home. ‘Thus in 1806, he was 
chosen to fill the Hollis Professorship of Mathematics at Harvard 
University. In 1818, he received a letter from Mr. Jefferson, 
requesting him to accept the Professorship of Mathematics in the 
new University at Charlottesville, in Virginia. Mr. Jefferson said 
in his letter, “ We are satisfied we can get from no country a 
Professor of higher qualifications than yourself for our mathemat- 
ical department.” And in 1820, on the death of Mr. Ellicott, 
Professor of Mathematics at the United States’ Military Academy 
at West Point, he received a letter from: Mr. Calhoun, then Secre- 
tary of War, desiring him to permit his name to be presented to 
the President to fill the vacant chair. Mr. Calhoun in that letter 
said, ‘“I am anxious to avail myself of the first mathematical 
talents and_acquirements to fill the vacancy.” : 
In the year 1806, Mr. Bowditch published his accurate and 
beautiful chart of the harbors of Salem, Beverly, . Marblehead, and 
Manchester, the survey of which had occupied him durieg the 
summers of the three preceding years. So minutely accurate 
was this chart, that the old pilots said he had found out all ‘their 
professorial secrets, and had put on paper points and bearings 
which they thought were known only to themselves. They 
began | L to fear that their services would no longer be needed, and 
nat their occupation and their bread were gone. 
} On n the establishment of “The Massachusetts Hospital Life 
b Insurance seers in 1823, he was elected to the office of 
Actuary, ybeing considered the person best qualified for this 
| highly : a 10 nsible station, from his habits of accurate calculation 
> and rigid method, and his inflexible integrity. Immediately on 
E 
