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a place among the ruling powers of the earth. Yet he 

 fell a victim to popular fury, and his death was a foul 

 stain on the republic which he had governed with so much 

 energy and patriotism. 



From that country the ancestor of Mr. De Witt emi- 

 gratedjprobablysome years previous to the period just no- 

 ticed. He was among the early Dutch occupants of the 

 then colony of the New-Netherlands— now our own state 

 of New- York. The family appear to have settled in Uls- 

 ter county, and here, in the town of Wawarsing, on the 

 25th of December 1756, Mr. De Witt was born. His 

 father was Dr. Andrew De Witt, a respectable and in- 

 telligent physician, and his mother a Miss Vernoy, of 

 an emigrant Huguenot family in the same county. 



At this early period in our history, the means of educa- 

 tion were but scantily diffused, yet it is a mistaken idea to 

 suppose that they were altogether deficient. Private in- 

 instruction in many instances supplied the want of public 

 institutions, and the clergy, as in other countries, were 

 efficient agents in preserving and transmitting the living 

 lights of learning. After having received such an Eng- 

 lish education as the means of a scattered agricultural 

 population could afford, he was placed with the minister 

 of the town, and an intimate friend of his father, the late 

 Rev. Dr. Romeyn, of Schenectady, for the purpose of 

 classical instruction. Here he was prepared for college, 

 and in due season entered Queens (now Rutgers') m 

 New- Jersey, under the presidency of the late Rev. Dr. 

 Hardenbergh. 



He was not however destined to complete the pre- 

 scribed course in quiet academic shades. The stirring 

 times of our revolutionary conflict were at hand. Great 

 Britain, not deterred by the determined spirit that mani- 

 fested itself at Lexington and Bunker-Hill, sent army 

 after army to conquer her rebellious colonies, and the 

 contest threatened to be long and bloody. The battle 

 of Long-Island was followed by the evacuation of New- 

 York and the unwilling departure of the American army 



