112 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



TO MR. STEPHEN TWINING. 



PHILADELPHIA, November 21, 1802. 



THIS is truly a great town, and presents many 



objects worthy the attention of a stranger. If I live to re 

 turn to Connecticut, I will describe them to you. But I 

 have seen one which I cannot refrain from mentioning. 

 Governor McK - is so popular among tavern-haunters 

 that the owners of public-houses are very fond of hoisting 

 up a picture of his Excellency over the doors. Two men in 

 Dock Street, brothers, one a Demo and the other a Fed, 

 being joint-owners of a house, but the Fed possessing 

 rather the most wit, and consciously the superior influ 

 ence, differed concerning a new sign which they thought 

 of putting up. The Demo plead for his Excellency, and 

 the Fed finally consented, but gave the printer private or 

 ders to represent the Republican magistrate in the attitude 

 in which he generally appears at four o'clock p. M. The 

 governor accordingly stands forth, or rather staggers forth, 

 on the sign, a solemn memento to the lovers of brandy and 

 Democracy 



TO MR. G. S. SILLIMAN. 



No. 40 Walnut St., PHILADELPHIA. 

 Nocember 19, 1803. 



MY DEAR BROTHER, The honorable confi 

 dence tendered to me in advance by the Corporation, the 

 hopes of many friends, and the envy of a few ambitious 

 contemporaries, the extent and importance of the sciences 

 I am to teach, and the responsibility for their advantageous 

 introduction into the College and State to which I belong, 

 are motives sufficient to excite my most active and unre- 

 mitted exertions. Since the Chair has been offered to me, 

 I have not therefore considered myself as at liberty to in- 

 even in the common relations and 

 of friendship. My vacations, in 

 Somnibn with the^rejt 6^, the year, have been devoted to 



