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. 

 November 1!), 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- 

 dulge in recreation, or even in the common relations and 

 most interesting pleasures of friendship. My vacations, in 

 common with the rest of the year, have been devoted to 



